700K Foreign Nationals Overstayed Visas to the U.S. in 2017

More than 700,000 foreign nationals who were supposed to leave the U.S. in recent months overstayed their visas, the Department of Homeland Security said in a report released Tuesday.

Overall, an estimated 40 percent of the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally stayed past their visas.

Overstays have exceeded those entering illegally every year since 2007, and there have been half a million more overstays than illegal entries since 2007.

We have visited Canada every other year for the past decade. Canadian immigration always asks our purpose for entering but there are no arm bands or tracking device given to us. They really do not know where we are. It is the same way in the United States.

A study by the Center for Migration Studies divides the 2014 illegal population into two groups: those who enter with a valid temporary visa, but subsequently “overstay” and establish residence in the U.S. without authorization and those who “enter without inspection” (EWI) through the southern border without proper immigration documents.

Research published in June by the Cato Institute found both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. This data totally contradicts Donald Trump. His language is enthusiastically endorsed by his followers.

Is a border wall really a solution to illegal immigration?

Intrusive Government Regulations

California issues over 130 different licenses for a variety of jobs. Those licenses are required by law to perform those functions. The licensing does not actually confirm competency.

Did you know that home improvement sales persons are required to be licensed?

My daughter has a license required for estheticians and her new career, making appointments at a car dealership, she is not a sales person, also required a license. The Department of Consumer Affairs issues or at least monitors all those 130 licenses. Their licensing does not include licenses for those in the legal profession (i.e. lawyers, legal document assistants, and notaries).

Yes, you need to be licensed to set up appointments at a car dealership. Her cost to do that was $55.00 for fingerprinting and $50 at the DMV. No test was required.

How about a cemetery broker or a cemetery sales person? You need a license.

Electronic and appliance repair also requires a license.

There is a State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind. That provides “licensed Guide Dog Instructors and Schools.” “Instructors must have knowledge of the special needs of persons who are blind or visually impaired and be able to teach them, be able to train guide dogs such that blind or visually impaired persons would be safe under various traffic conditions, or be employed by a guide dog school certified by the International Guide Dog Federation or successor entity.”

Then there is the California State Athletic Commission whose mission is posted on-line. “The California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) regulates professional and amateur boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts throughout the State by licensing all participants and supervising the events. “The Commission is dedicated to the health, safety and welfare of the participants in regulated competitive sporting events, through ethical and professional service. California is the premier model for the safety and fairness of regulated sporting events.”

Of course there are legitimate reasons for licensing such as the practice of law and medicine. But do court reporters need to be certified?

The licensed contractor who added a room to my house did not pour a flat floor. I discovered that fact when I sold the house. That was a contractor who was on the bank’s approved list for home improvement loan contractors. So what value was his license?

I view these licensing regulations as an effort to limit private enterprise and an intrusion of government.

Minorities are Unwelcome in the United States

Beware! If you are not a White European you are not welcome in the United States. DO NOT believe what is written on the Statue of Liberty if you are not part of that group.

The behavior of the United States today should be a warning to those who are not White Anglo Saxons about their treatment and opportunities if they migrate to this country.

More than our mistreatment of African Americans (Blacks) who were held as slaves until the Civil War that ended on May 13, 1865. Other Non-White people have been treated with disrespect, hated and jailed because they are viewed enemies of America. Look at America’s history as a guide. The following events are examples of the treatment of Non-White in the United States. There are many more.

I wish it wasn’t so.

From 1778 to 1871, the United States government entered into more than 500 treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in some way or outright broken by the US government, while at least one treaty was violated or broken by Native American tribes.

One of the worst and most disgusting things happened in the 1829 decision by the Supreme Court in Johnson v. M’Intosh. The court ruled that the U.S. Government could sell Native American land to non-Native people out from under the tribes. Believe it or not, they were actually trying to do just that. Under President Andrew Jackson Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, Creek and Seminole people were forced from their lands required to march to Oklahoma. Thousands died in that march.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. Those Chinese were needed to build the transcontinental railroad but by the 1880s the job was done.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor all people of Japanese descent, even though they were born and raised in the United States were put into internment camps for the duration of World War 2. Many Americans don’t like calling them concentration camps but that is what they were.

The Mexican Repatriation was a mass deportation of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans from the United States between 1929 and 1936. Estimates of how many were repatriated range from 400,000 to 2,000,000. An estimated sixty percent of those deported were birthright citizens of the United States.^[2]:330 Because the forced movement was based on race, and ignored citizenship, the process arguably meets modern legal definitions of ethnic cleansing.

In 1955 Mexican immigrants were caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history. As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign with a racist name, which was designed to root out undocumented Mexicans from American society. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.

MS St. Louis was a German ocean liner. In 1939, she set off on a voyage in which her captain, Gustav Schröder, tried to find homes for over 900 Jewish refugees from Germany. Due to countries’ immigration policies based on domestic political realities, rather than humanitarian grounds, they were denied entry to Cuba, the United States, and Canada. The refugees were finally accepted in various European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and France. Historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them died in death camps during World War II.

Words To Live By

On this fourth of July:

“ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU – ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY”

Who said those words?

Most Americans know three of them by heart. Scant phrases which, though spoken in the most ritualistic and formal of settings, commonly define an age, and a speaker. “With malice toward none” Lincoln said in his second inaugural address, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nothing to fear but fear itself” in his first. John F. Kennedy, whose centenary is celebrated this month, uttered the third such phrase at his only inauguration and it is, in popular memory, recalled the most simply: “Ask not.” Of course, that is not the whole of the quotation, or the whole story, which is told here…

The seventeen most inspiring words in 20th century American history were spoken by John F. Kennedy, around mid-day, on January 20, 1961, in Washington, D.C. The occasion was his Presidential Inauguration, and came as he was concluding his Inaugural Address. Kennedy, the first President born in the 20th century, and 27 years younger than his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had just declared that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans – “born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage” – and pledged to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Then he spoke the seventeen words –

And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

Those words, when first heard over a half-century ago, were positively electrifying. No president had ever challenged citizens, in peacetime, to sacrifice or commit to a larger vision. With that single sentence, Kennedy inspired people to new possibilities. He raised their expectations of themselves, and of their nation. In response, some joined the Peace Corps, others the Green Berets; thousands flocked to Washington to be part of the “New Frontier.” Students, thinking ahead to government service, went to law school or into programs with social benefit. All across the country, Kennedy’s words changed lives. “It was a special time,” a Senator remembered years later. “Lord, I’ve never had such a feeling before or since then. It was marvelous; without living it, you can’t express it. It gave the country a lift; it gave the world a lift. People cried in the dusty streets of Africa when he died.” All because of, really, seventeen simple words of inspiration.

My favorite words: “Give me liberty or give me death” and “Don’t tread on me” are my reasons for being an American.

Has Donald Trump or the previous recent presidents lived up to the JFK challenge? Sadly the answer is NO!

Is the American Democracy Doomed?

Democracy is under threat globally, a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit warns.

Top 10 most democratic countries in the world:

1 Norway
2 Iceland
3 Sweden
4 New Zealand
5 Denmark
=6 Canada
=6 Ireland
8 Australia
=9 Switzerland
=9 Finland

The United States remained in the ‘flawed democracy’ threshold, to which it dropped in 2016 after a serious decline in public trust, the Economist said.

Link to map showing the level of democracy of all countries in the world.

https://www.indy100.com/article/democracy-index-economist-intelligence-unit-map-data-report-norway-democratic-united-states-8191501

Half of Americans think the United States is in “real danger of becoming a nondemocratic, authoritarian country.” A majority, 55 percent, see democracy as “weak” – and 68 percent believe it is “getting weaker.” Eight in 10 Americans say they are either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the condition of democracy here. I am one of those people.

These are among the sobering results of a major bipartisan poll published Tuesday that was commissioned by the George W. Bush Institute, the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center and Freedom House, which tracks the vitality of democracies around the world. The three groups have partnered to create the Democracy Project, with the goal of monitoring the health of the American system.

“We hope this work can be a step toward restoring faith in democracy and democratic institutions,” Bush said in a statement.

The concern about the condition of democracy inside the United States transcends the tribal divide between Republicans and Democrats, with majorities across races, genders, age groups, levels of education and income brackets expressing fear.

Sadly I see current president as the person who could bring an end to this republic. His constant attacks on the media (the press), the courts, and the Republican Party’s willingness to support everything that Trump says and does should be a signal that our nation is in jeopardy.

Are Americans really willing to accept a dictatorship? If the GOP retains control of the congress after the November election I expect even more attacks on the constitution and the laws that have governed this nation since 1789.

I will not live under a dictatorship. Happily there are still some nations that do honor democratic principals.

Trump wants to be Treated as North Koreans Treats Kim Jong Un

Trump says he wants the US to treat him like North Korea treats Kim Jong Un

Donald Trump’s admiration of dictators is frightening. It appears he too dreams of being such a dictator or perhaps king with absolute power.

Posted by Alex Lockie of Business Insider and appearing on AOL.COM on Friday June 15,2018. The Los Angeles Times posted a similar article on Saturday June 16, 2018. You can’t make this stuff up. Time magazine’s cover of Trump as king of the United States really does appear to be the thinking of Trump. Just two days ago Trump said that the press is America’s enemy. Grading media loyalty would be a first step to deterring any media outlet that dares to write anything that counters the Trump narrative. Erdogan and Putin do not permit any disloyal media. Sadly too many Americans are not standing up for American democracy and the constitution.

President Donald Trump returned from his Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with an apparent new respect for the dictator’s control over his people.

“He is the strong head,” Trump said of Kim during a surprise appearance on Fox News. “Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

Trump later told a reporter he was being sarcastic.

“I’m kidding. You don’t understand sarcasm,” he said.

Trump’s comment on Fox followed other musings during the Singapore trip while watching a bit of North Korean television.

North Korea’s news anchor, Ri Chun Hee, delivers propaganda on behalf of Kim’s regime. North Korean news, which is entirely state-run, solely consists of statements that shine a positive light on Kim and the country. As Trump watched, according to The Washington Post, he remarked about her praise of Kim and suggested she could work for Fox News.

North Korea’s news doesn’t just give its citizens state-approved information. It also tells them how to they’re expected to think about that news, too. Any deviation from the state-approved script can land a North Korean citizen in a political prison camp, where the treatment is reportedly on par with Nazi German death camps.

In the US, Fox News is routinely criticized for its coverage of Trump. Fox News has gotten greater access to Trump than any other news outlet throughout his campaign and presidency.

Under Trump, a senior advisor to the State Department started monitoring the social media feeds of career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to grade their loyalty to Trump.

Memorial Day: 150 years of honoring the America’s fallen military

Memorial Day flag display at Pepperdine College in Malibu, California

In 1866, Henry Welles of Waterloo, New York, suggested that the town’s shops should close May 5 to commemorate the soldiers who had died during the Civil War. Two years later in Waterloo, Gen. John Logan issued a declaration that Decoration Day should be observed nationwide. The declaration said that May 30 would be designated as a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers.

In 1882, the name of the holiday was changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day. After World War I, the holiday was expanded to remember soldiers from all American Wars.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon made Memorial Day a national holiday to be celebrated on the last Monday in May.