Politically Correct Deflections

By William L. Garvin

Having been born in a less confusing time, my birth certificate simply listed “Father” and “Mother.”  In its search for equality and all things created equal, political correctness now dictates change from the traditional to “Parent #1” and “Parent #2.”  Our courts have yet to decide how the order of listing will be determined, i.e., who comes in first and who comes in second.  I smell a Supreme Court case in the offing!

The same conundrum surfaces with marriage certificates.  My mom and dad were identified as “Husband” and “Wife.”  Now we have the devolution to “Spouse #1” and “Spouse #2.”  Dad would have liked to be #1 but in his heart, he knew he was #2.  Mom, being traditional, knew she was #1 but would have been more than happy to wear the #2 appellation.  Probably it’s a pile of “Number Two” to all but a pc few.

This foolishness matters only to those who prefer symbols over substance.  There is however a dangerous element to the pc police when it comes to serious issues.  For example, look at the current controversy over the term “anchor babies.”  The pc police (bullies) have now determined, by the power invested in them (?), that the term is offensive and even “vulgar” according to the Democrat National Committee chairwoman.  Erstwhile political pundits and presidential hopefuls of all stripes have bloviated that the matter is already settled and that the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers “birthright citizenship” on anyone born in the United States.  The purpose of the vitriolic pc attack is to stifle debate and reasonable discourse about important subjects.  Just as anthropomorphic climate change is not “settled science” (which is why global warming advocates continually fudge their “science”!) so must the competing views on whether or not the 14^th amendment confers “jus soli” or automatic citizenship at birth to anyone born on U.S. soil be directly adjudicated.

For context, the Pew Hispanic Center puts the estimate of babies gaining birthright citizenship at 340,000 per year.  There are countries that openly run birth-tourism industries on the internet.  Earlier this year, federal agents broke up over twenty locations in Southern California where Chinese women on fraudulent visas paid up to $80,000 so their babies would be born U.S. citizens. The estimates are that 4.5 million children under 18 are living with at least one undocumented immigrant in the U.S. 

Now name another industrialized nation (besides the U.S. and Canada) that grants birthright citizenship.  If you named one, you are wrong.  In fact, only 33 countries on this earth have such a policy.  Australia and New Zealand?  Nope.  Sweden, Finland or Norway?  Nope.  France, Germany, England, Ireland, or Italy?  No.  Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Spain, Portugal, or Switzerland…all no and on and on.  Why is that?

The heart of the debate centers on the first sentence of Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment:  “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  History shows this was an amendment designed to protect the rights of native-born freed slaves in the years following the Civil War.  Senator Howard Jacob clarified the intent in 1866:  “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”  Native-Americans were also specifically excluded from citizenship at this time.

Talking heads ignore “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and proceed to cite the United States v. Wong Kim Ark decision of SCOTUS in 1898.  Of course, Wong was the child of legal resident aliens.  “The Supreme Court has never ruled directly on the question of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens,” according to University of Texas law professor Lino A. Graglia.  “The court recognized that even a rule based on soil and physical presence could not rationally be applied to grant birthright citizenship to persons whose presence in a country was not only without the government’s consent but in violation of the law.”

Section 5 of the 14^th Amendment:  “The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”  In 1993, Senator Harry Reid introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act to end birthright citizenship.  Today, H.R. 140, the Birthright Citizenship Act, addresses the same issue.  For once, Congress needs to do its job, pass the legislation, and fast track the constitutionality issue to the Supreme Court.  It is absurd to believe the Constitution ever intended to award citizenship on the basis of whose mom was best at playing hide and seek with the Border Patrol.  Stop the madness.         

    

Below the Radar

By William L. Garvin

“This is a good deal for the United States.  North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program.  South Korea and our other allies will be better protected.  The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.”           President Bill Clinton, October, 1994

There seem to be a number of stories escaping notice these days.  It’s understandable.  The “piranha press,” fueled by their partisan blood lust is swarming in a full-on feeding frenzy.  As usual, the media is solely focusing on a Republican.  It must be difficult for them to defend a Fox News anchorwoman given their one-sided track record.  Historically, they stand by in mute impotence when conservative women are assailed in the vilest of terms.  Now they are ranting and railing against a perceived slur of words.   Would that they had shown such moral outrage about Clinton Oval Office imbroglios or the Kennedy-caused death at Chappaquiddick.

Here in California, State Senator Leland Yee recently plead guilty to accepting bribes, extorting money and offering to smuggle weapons for the New Jersey Mafia.  He copped a plea to racketeering in exchange for the other charges being dropped.  Hopefully he will receive the full twenty years in the federal pen solely for his hypocrisy.  Lee was one of the most ardent anti-gun zealots in the California Senate!  But that’s okay; he’s a Democrat.

On the Hillary front, it’s helpful to recall that General David Petraeus was found guilty of keeping several personal notebooks that contained classified information at his home and making them available to his paramour/biographer.  Nothing was destroyed.  Hillary kept everything on her private server and has already admitted destroying thousands upon thousands of emails.  Many more emails are on a thumb drive in the hands of her attorney.  There’s no indication her attorney has never received a security clearance.  The FBI is finally investigating this matter but Hillary says it is not a criminal investigation.  Note to Hill:  the FBI does nothing but criminal investigations!

In the meantime, Hillary refuses to say whether or not she would approve the Keystone pipeline even though her State Department gave it the go ahead.  She flippantly quipped that if it was still an issue when she was president, then they would know her answer.  That is vaguely reminiscent of having to “pass the bill so we know what’s in it.”  Maybe that lack of specifics and haughty demeanor is why Bernie Sanders is now in a statistical tie with her in New Hampshire.  The inevitable one is not looking quite so invincible these days.  In contrast, Bernie is drawing huge crowds and wowing them.  Unfortunately, a dozen of the “Black Lives Matter” crowd decided to disrupt his latest offering in Seattle and refused to let him speak.  The BLM previously booed Democrat Martin O’Malley for the cardinal sin of saying “all lives matter.”  They have also threatened to disrupt the Republican convention.  So far, the only person they’ve avoided is Hillary Clinton.  Is that why she only speaks to small, handpicked groups of devotees?

Hillary has also refused to disclose her position on the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.  Maybe that’s why the National Nurses United labor union recently endorsed Bernie.  The NNU is 185,000 strong and is ninety percent female.  One could guess that economic issues are more important to them than gender issues.  The AFL-CIO has yet to endorse a candidate but we know it won’t be a conservative!

Hillary did release her tax records and they show that the Clinton’s made an adjusted gross income of $141 million since 2007.  No wonder she travels in a private jet and hasn’t driven for twenty years.  They did claim 10.8% or $15 million for charitable contributions.  Of course, they firmly believe that “charity begins at home” and $14.9 million went to their very own Clinton Family Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.  They may not draw a salary but they certainly draw a lavish lifestyle.  Critics claim the foundations are merely a “slush fund” for the Clintons.  Do you think any of this will come up when CNN finally holds a Democrat presidential debate in October?

Apropos to nothing but balancing media concerns, did you know that lions kill 70 humans each year?  Tigers take out about 100; cape buffalos account for another 200; and elephants usually trample about 500 per annum.  Crocodiles vary from 1,500-2,500 kills each year but hippos highlight the human hit list at 3,000.  It’s a jungle out there and nearly as dangerous as Chicago or Baltimore!  

      

Not Found in the News

By William L. Garvin

“The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child.  The mother doesn’t learn to love, but learns to kill to solve her own problems.  Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”  Mother Teresa

Now that the Democrats have successfully avoided the effort to defund the barbaric practices of Planned Parenthood, it might be wise to see how they are bought and paid for.  After all, this is the party that continually screams about “crony capitalism” and “big money” polluting the political process.  According to the Federal Elections Commission, in the 2014 election campaign, Planned Parenthood contributed $404,907 to Democrat House candidates on the federal level.  They doled out a measly $2,823 to Republicans.  In the Senate, they dumped $181,188 into Democrat coffers and ZERO into Republicans.  No wonder year after year after year Democrats vote to give over $500 million of taxpayer money to PP because “other people’s money” can be funneled back into their own pockets.

It was a blessing in disguise for PP to have Cecil the Lion foolishly killed for sport by an American hunter.  In less than a day, mainstream media gave Cecil more coverage than PP’s sale of baby body parts had received in over two weeks!  Also curiously absent from media scrutiny was Boko Haram slitting the throats of sixteen Christians on the shores of Lake Chad.  A Google search listed 296,000 hits for the latest slaughter by Islamic extremists but 26 MILLION for the martyred lion.  If you use that as a guide, Christian lives don’t matter and baby lives don’t matter.  Those are pathetic media priorities.

Also not-newsworthy, some time back Dan Price of Gravity Payments received a great deal of publicity by deciding that all of his employees should receive $70,000 as an annual salary.  Since then, there isn’t much news about his company downfall and him living in his garage and renting out his house to make ends meet.  Economic reality is brutal when ill advised actions occur in the real world.  Some employees resented that newbies got larger raises than those who had been around awhile and demonstrated their worth and loyalty.  Clients and good employees left.  One said he was being paid the same as those who were “just clocking in and out…It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.”  That’s socialism for you in a nutshell.

Speaking of socialism, apparently Debbie Wassermann-Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, needs to do some brushing up.  When asked by Chris Mathews (surprisingly!) to explain the difference between socialism and Democrats, she was tongue-tied.  Four days later on “Meet the Press,” she still didn’t have a coherent answer.  Is it because she doesn’t know?  Is it because she doesn’t want to alienate socialist voters?  Or is it because there is really no difference between socialists and today’s progressive Democrats?  Certainly with increasing regulatory intrusion into the workings of private businesses and government’s increasing control over large swathes of the economy, a case could be made for the latter.  President Obama’s latest battle in his war against coal certainly adds fuel to that fire.  One could only hope that he would be as successful in his efforts to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as he is in his efforts to “degrade and destroy” the coal industry!

Another harbinger of things to come is proposed by the California legislature in Assembly Bill 69.  Democrat leaders hope to “confront the hostile environment” that workers face every day by being “stratified in their careers.”  Therefore, it is henceforth verboten to use such oppressive terms as “”supervisor, manager, overseer, team leader, leader, producer, director, controller, chair, boss, captain, head person, head honcho, authority, chief, chairperson, chairman, partner, inspector or any other term that may create a perception of inequity…”  Guidelines provided suggest more appropriate terms would include “buddy, comrade, crony, compatriot, chum, confidante, friend, mate, or colleague.”  Given that state law has already removed “husband” and “wife” and replaced them with “spouse,” it’s to be expected.  You can also expect that soon your chum will not be allowed to evaluate your performance.  Your colleague will not be allowed to direct your activities.  Your compatriot will not be allowed to determine your salary.  Your buddy will not be allowed to terminate your services.  Yes, comrade, it is indeed becoming a brave new world…but that’s not news!