My wife (Peggy) and I were discussing the success of Jeremy Lin who is a sensational basketball player with the New York Knicks.

We are sickened to read and to hear racist comments against Asians from the liberal media. Look at ESPN, Saturday Night Live, and FOX Sports who used terms and jeers such as “chink in armor”, “slanted eyes”, and questioned his “manhood”. We also doubt these comments would ever be made against other minorities without reprise. This is blatant racism.  Sadly, none of the major networks or cable news channels reported on these racial slurs in the last two weeks.   We have yet to hear any “civil” rights leader come out denouncing these racist comments.

Asian Americans in the US and Orange County are the fastest growing population group. Many own their businesses and earned advanced degrees.  Asian Americans excel academically even when affirmative action discriminates against them. Asian Americans do not rely on handouts or entitlements. Perseverance, self-reliance, hard-work, and family are values within the Asian American culture.

Since the 1960s, the Democratic Party portrayed themselves as a party for the minorities and the ones fighting against racism; however, they are the ones who continue the ridicule and cause the divide.  They pit one group against another. From the recent media blitz, it is apparent that racial slurs against Asians are acceptable and perpetuated from the liberals themselves.

President Abraham Lincoln, a REPUBLICAN, stated that slavery was morally wrong because the blacks have no hope for the future. Martin Luther King, Jr, who is a REPUBLICAN, denounced racism with his peaceful civil rights movement. One of the tenets of the Conservative movement within the Republican Party is the celebration of the worth and dignity of every man and woman, regardless of race, color, creed, or religion. The Conservative movement holds dear the exercise of freedom’s most essential element-personal responsibility. This is reflected in our underlying actions and speech in both private and public arenas.

These public comments by the liberals and the liberal media clearly show the underlying bigotry within their ideology. Although they publically embrace everyone, liberals underhandedly support policies which do not provide a hand up, but a hand out which keeps many from having an opportunity in America. A hand out may be good for the short term; however, it destroys the keys within the human soul (self-worth and dignity). Yes, people like to “earn” a part of the American dream once given an opportunity to use their talents. Americans have always taken the path towards equality and fairness. It has always brought our Country towards great prosperity by welcoming everyone, which has made America exceptional.

In celebrating the success of Jeremy Lin, we should all be proud of a second-generation Taiwanese American, a Harvard graduate, and a rising star in the NBA. The future of America is not fighting among us, but in creating a deeper appreciation of our wealth of talent from all ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs. By fostering a culture away from stereotypes, ethnic & class warfare, and jealousy, America can once again be the “shiny city upon the hill”.

This is our challenge to the liberals and liberal media.

Governor Chris Christie just announced flags will be flown at half-staff to honor Whitney Houston as an iconic figure in New Jersey’s storied history. Could such a decision represent an attempt to placate a powerful constituency or another example of the decline and fall of a culture?

The warning about the death of our cultural institutions has been made by such scholars as Larry Arnn, Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Murray, Thomas Sowell and Mark Steyn in eloquent and urgent tones. They argue that we are on a deliberate course to cultural and intellectual oblivion because of liberalism’s mandated political correctness.

How else can we understand the rise of gangsta’ rappers Biggie Smalls, FiftyCent, Snoop Dogg and MIA and fall of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart or to explain the substitution by high school superintendents of Beloved or Jazz by Toni Morrison or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou for Hamlet or Macbeth?

President Obama recognized Barbara Cook, Neil Diamond and Sonny Rollins in 2011, Merle Haggard, Paul McCartney and Oprah Winfrey in 2010 and Mel Brooks, Grace Bumbry and Robert DeNiro in 2009 for their contributions to the enrichment of the cultural life of our nation and the world! How do we explain the choices honored at the Kennedy Center as National Treasures or in Oslo as Nobel Laureates in literature?

Are liberalism and secularism threats to the recognition of what is great from what is dross? Are we held hostage to a national, perhaps even global refusal to make judgments? Is this deliberate blindness critical for our continued greatness and survival?

The Founding Fathers said we must be treated as equals in the eyes of the law, not in the eyes of the national citizenry. When flags are flown at half-staff by order of a state governor to honor not a fallen national hero but a songstress cum drug addict, is our culture not so different from that of Rome in the final days before its fall? While Houston’s powerful rendition of the national anthem in 1991 will always remain the gold standard, public sympathy and admiration do not merit public honor by government decree.

Perhaps we need to reassess the admonition in Matthew 5:39 and again in Luke 6:29 to turn the other cheek. Perhaps we would be better advised to follow Van T. Barfoot, a Choctaw who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism in WWII.

Charles Krauthammer noted with great prescience several years ago that decline is a choice. We must, therefore, eschew the instruction of the New Testament and choose not to decline. If we don’t defend the values and principles which are at the heart of our greatness, we may one day lower the flags to honor the death of our own country.

Today’s main feature column over on FlashReport is by Jon Coupal, making the case for the Stop Special Interest Money Now initiative, which California voters will face this November. It is by far the most important measure that will be on the ballot, one that could finally put voters back in control of Sacramento.

STOP SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY

Jon Coupal, President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Unless one is wearing Brown colored glasses, it is easy to see that California is a mess. We rank second in unemployment and millions of Californians have fled the state since the millennium — most as economic refugees seeking to carve out a better life for themselves where taxes are lower and job opportunities are better.

Most taxpayers see as their biggest obstacle to an improved life those elected officials who work against their interests, while bowing and scraping before those who provide millions of dollars in campaign cash. What it comes down to is that the Sacramento politicians are making war against regular folks, while assisting narrow, well-heeled, special interests to prosper.

What happens when an average Californian travels to Sacramento and requests an office meeting with a state representative? Those few ordinary citizens who attempt this pilgrimage are in for a rude awakening. First, you’re lucky if you get a meeting. If you do, it will most certainly be with a junior staffer just barely old enough to vote. Not so for those lobbyists whose firm or organization contributed thousands of dollars to the politician’s most recent campaign fundraiser. Those who provide campaign cash expect access to “their” lawmaker at a moment’s notice and they demand “correct” votes on the legislation they care about. And no, this is not a partisan issue; representatives from both political parties are more than willing – and some are eager — to take contributions from powerful special interests.

In 2010, corporations, business groups and labor organizations gave $89 million dollars to the Sacramento politicians. Unions weighed in with $25 million in direct contributions, while major corporations ponied up $48 million.

Saying these payouts were made to advance good government would not pass the “laugh” test. Look at these examples. PG&E donated $561,000 playing in 70 percent of state legislative races. BNS Rail infused another $400,000 into 94 percent of legislative races, while AT&T was good for $760,000 to 99 percent of races. These records demonstrate that the goal of these firms is to buy influence with whoever is elected.

For the unions and corporations these expenditures are a great deal, even if for average taxpayers it is not. A few hundred thousand dollars invested in politicians can provide big payouts in return. Of bills passed by the Legislature, 60 percent are written by lobbyists and attorneys for special interests.

This corruption of the legislative process is nothing new, but with our state’s failing economy and high taxes, it can no longer be ignored. This fall, California voters will have the opportunity to strike a major blow against the system of influence peddling that currently dominates Sacramento.

A just qualified initiative, Stop Special Interest Money Now, will appear on the November ballot. It will accomplish three things that will diminish the control of special interests over elected officials. First, it will prohibit corporations and unions from contributing directly to the campaigns of political candidates. Second, it will bar contributions to officials by those contracting with, or seeking to contract with government – no more “pay to play.” Finally, it will stop labor unions from taking money, to be used for political activity, directly from workers’ paychecks without their explicit permission.

While there may be no foolproof way to totally prevent special interests from trying to manipulate the system for their benefit, the passage of Stop Special Interest Money Now will go a long way toward leveling the playing field so that the concerns of average Californians are given the same consideration as those of big corporations and unions in the deliberations of government.

This declaration addresses a hidden danger with Obamacare (PPACA and ACA) and HHS.

President Obama’s decision on Catholic charities makes Romney’s big gaffe look trival.

Here is a very insightful declaration by Peggy Noonan from the WSJ.

Here is Noonan’s best line: “There was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him.”

From the Declaration by Noonan, here is the crux of the problem.

The president signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools—will be required by law, for the first time ever, to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures. If they do not, they will face ruinous fines in the millions of dollars. Or they can always go out of business.

In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can’t be Catholic anymore.

There was no reason to make this ruling—none. Except ideology.

The conscience clause, which keeps the church itself from having to bow to such decisions, has always been assumed to cover the church’s institutions.

Now the church is fighting back. Priests in an estimated 70% of parishes last Sunday came forward to read strongly worded protests from the church’s bishops. The ruling asks the church to abandon Catholic principles and beliefs; it is an abridgment of the First Amendment; it is not acceptable. They say they will not bow to it. They should never bow to it, not only because they are Catholic and cannot be told to take actions that deny their faith, but because they are citizens of the United States.

If they stay strong and fight, they will win. This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration’s decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition.

The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don’t want that. They will unite against that.

The smallest part of this story is political. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008 they made up 27% of the electorate, about 35 million people. Mr. Obama carried the Catholic vote, 54% to 45%. They helped him win.

They won’t this year. And guess where a lot of Catholics live? In the battleground states.

Meryl Streep is without question and actress of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talent who was recently recognized as one of our national treasures. Her portrayal is so uncannily believable we are persuaded Streep is Margaret Thatcher. She is truly a phenomenon, convincing us what we see is actual reality, not virtual reality. That the famed Weinsteins have used the greatest living actress to humiliate Baroness Thatcher is both disgraceful and unforgivable. Moreover, they have also disgraced America in the eyes of the world. To laud them for this churlish deed would be absurd, if not criminal.

Margaret Thatcher is Britain’s only female Prime Minister, the woman whose determination salvaged her nation’s economy, restored its pride and ended the Cold War with her political soul mate, Ronald Reagan. President Reagan has been the leading target of the venomous attacks of Hollywood’s liberals. Prime Minister Thatcher is the latest name to be added to the list of conservative leaders and intellectuals they have sullied and defamed, including our Founding Fathers as well as Jesus Christ and God.

The woman who made the knaves and devils of the world cower in fear is depicted as an addled, demented old lady who lives in memories and in conversations with her hallucinated dead husband. The film begins and ends with this remarkable woman depicted in this senile, quasi-psychotic state at the very moment she is about to be honored by her grateful country.

We are permitted to witness the measure of Margaret Thatcher’s true stature only in a few brief clips that depict the memories of an elderly deranged woman imagining her past life. To add insult to injury, the movie ends with Thatcher leaving a soapy teacup in her sink as she departs for the ceremony where she will be honored as one of Great Britain’s three greatest statesmen. The irony and outrage are simply stunning.

Anyone with the slightest sensitivity seeing this film experiences a physical pain watching a world leader being degraded and treated with contempt. It is particularly painful in light of Thatcher’s declining health due to multiple mini strokes. Despite these physical insults, she has retained her grace and charm. The most recent photograph taken during the Christmas holiday shows her as elegantly dressed and coiffed as her silver screen Doppelganger.

Hollywood’s relentless attack on those who disagree with the orthodox views of its liberal elite has struck a raw nerve this time. Although Meryl Streep may well win an Oscar for her surreal performance, it is a pity her vast talent couldn’t have been used to render unto Prime Minister Thatcher the esteem and respect the Iron Lady is truly due. The world owes her a great debt of gratitude. The brothers Weinstein chose ingratitude.

Shame on Bob and Harvey Weinstein for their perfidy. Shame on Hollywood for its need to celebrate their invidious, spiteful calumny. It is a work of character assassination for which they should be taken to the woodshed.

R. Claire Friend, MD
January 22, 2012

Shell Games with Tax Dollars

By Keith Curry, Lincoln Club Member and Director of the Concordia Center for Public Policy

The recent controversy regarding Orange County’s attempt to protect its revenues from a midnight raid by the state legislature is an instructive and cautionary tale about the dysfunction in Sacramento and threat to local control and fiscal stability.

Our story begins back with the Orange County bankruptcy of 1994. By 1996, the county had devised a financing strategy to pay back its investment pool participants that involved the issuance of bonds. Since the county was no longer considered a strong credit, it was required to specifically pledge a portion of its Vehicle License Fees (VLF) as a designated security source for the bonds. $54 million in VLF revenues was used for the bonds.

In 2004, the state, in a desperate effort to appear to balance its own budget, enacted a funding swap that took VLF revenues from counties and exchanged them with property tax revenues that would have otherwise gone to schools. Under the requirements of Proposition 98, the state was required to backfill the funds lost to school districts so they did not suffer due to the fund swap. However, because Orange County’s funds were uniquely pledged to service the bankruptcy debt, the state was required to “carve-out” $54 million and not swap it with property tax. Using debt encumbrances to protect local revenues is a time-honored strategy, as we saw with the rush to the market with many redevelopment financings last year.

By 2004, the county’s credit was much improved, the bankruptcy debt was refinanced at a substantial savings and the VLF pledge was removed. Since property taxes were rising and VLF was declining, the state did nothing to try to impose the VLF/property tax shift on the excluded funds, now down to about $48 million annually. In fact, compared to other counties, Orange County forfeited approximately $25 million per year as what had been a protection for the county, turned into a windfall for the state.

But as we see, things can change. Flash forward to this past summer, as the legislature once again fails to enact an honest budget. In what can only be characterized as an attempt to specifically penalize Orange County by reallocating funds from the county to the state, language is amended into a bill to take the un-swapped $48 million from Orange County on June 27, passed on June 28 and on June 30 it is signed by the Governor.

The architects of this taking likely thought all were doing was redirecting $48 million of county funds to the state. A bi-partisan effort to address the impacts of the VLF taking was introduced and passed in the Assembly 60-3; however the state Senate, where the taking idea originated, failed to consider the bill.

In their haste however, they failed to realize that now the county was eligible to redirect property tax going to school districts and the state was obligated to backfill this amount. Furthermore, because property taxes had grown while the VLF was declining, the county was eligible under the formula used for every other county to receive not $48 million but $73.5 million.

Accordingly, the county, under guidance from its attorneys, did what any responsible public agency would do and implemented the law as it applied to all other counties and withheld property tax that would otherwise have gone to schools, triggering the state’s legal responsibility to backfill the loss.

The state, as only the legislature can do, actually made its own budget situation worse by its attempt to raid Orange County.

What are the lessons of this slow moving train wreck of a budget process? First and foremost, the state needs to get out of the funding loop with local government. The People, in numerous constitutional amendments and ballot measures have tried to protect local property, sales and gas tax revenues. Even with the passage of Proposition 22 last year, the legislature was not dissuaded from redirecting redevelopment funds. The state needs to live within the means of its own revenues.

We are currently seeing a shift of correctional responsibility to counties under the guise of “realignment”. Watch as the money soon dries up and counties are left with a growing prisoner population and no resources to pay for them. Several so called “reform” plans are being floated, but at their core, they involve shifting state responsibilities to local government and local funding to the state or school districts. I predict a massive shell game in the next budget cycle.

Secondly, we must have legislative reform to bring accountability, transparency and procedural fairness to the legislature. We must end the midnight “gut and amend” budget raids. There is a reason the legislature polls with a single digit approval rating and it’s because of the pervasive special interest dominance of both chambers. In an effort to protect their campaign contributors, they have utterly failed to control state spending. I have a hard time seeing the Governor being successful in persuading Californians they need to pay more taxes without first reforming the mess in the legislature.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Concordia University, its Board of Regents or the Directors of the Center for Public Policy. Keith Curry can be reached at keith.curry@cui.edu.

One thing I continue to marvel at is how I rarely hear any type of moral argument from fellow conservatives who are strident critics of illegal immigration, in particular the moral argument that an entire group of people is living in the shadows and being exploited while Americans, including these critics, receive tangible benefits from such exploitation. Those strident voices that so strongly advocate deportation, whether directly through force of law, or indirectly through employer sanctions that would cause self-deportation, always seem to reserve most of the blame for the illegal immigrants, but don’t have the same animus for the federal government or the employers who hire them. Even more, I never hear complaints about the businesses these shrill voices frequent that are able to offer the lower prices they enjoy because of illegal labor. These voices argue that illegal immigrants are getting public benefits they shouldn’t receive, which makes them a net drain on the economy, but again, they don’t bother to acknowledge the savings gained from lower labor costs.

Let me be clear I am not advocating for government benefits for illegal immigrants, because if someone is working here illegally then they have no right to benefits solely intended for citizens. Yet what is incredibly disingenuous is the fact that employers who hire adult illegal immigrants pay them exploitative wages, and by virtue of that fact, don’t pay them enough to be self-sufficient (which they obviously don’t care about). The employer benefits because they get to pay an exploitative wage, and Americans benefit through the lower prices when they patronize those businesses, but then Americans suffer because illegal immigrants drive down wages and take advantage of public benefits that are costly to the taxpayer. It seems the real losers here are the American people, but the illegal immigrants turn out to be losers as well despite receiving government benefits. They must risk life and limb to get here, with many being cheated and some dying on the journey. When they get here they are exploited with low wages, and live in the shadows under constant threat of crime and possible deportation. Obviously there is a payoff, as their situation is better than where they came from, but it must be terribly stressful as an illegal immigrant in America. Employers, in effect, are the only ones who win in this game, and everyone else involved is a loser.

The anti-illegal immigrant voices are correct in that illegal immigration is unfair to Americans, but they don’t seem to offer any productive solutions, as deportation in any form is simply not realistic from an economic perspective. The American economy has become dependent on this labor, and deporting 12+ million people will only cause massive economic upheaval, and would also be immoral since these people have few good options where they come from, particularly those who have been here for years with families. They have been attracted to America since there has been great demand for their labor, and the federal government has looked the other way since the Bracero guest worker program was ended in 1964 at the behest of unions and big agribusiness. So it is no secret to illegal immigrants that as long as they can make it into the United States their labor will be welcomed by big companies and small, and there is a small enough chance of deportation if they don’t commit any crimes. Yes, there are immigration raids from time to time, but it is also no secret these raids are solely conducted to give the illusion that the federal government is enforcing immigration law when we all know that it isn’t.

To get to the point, I believe that conservatives should be united in seeking to end illegal immigration if for no reason other than the moral one. Regardless of our feelings on immigration and who is to blame, we have a moral duty to end the trafficking of human beings at the border and the subsequent exploitation of these people by American employers. We are seeing increased violence at the border due to drug cartels, who are also getting involved in the illegal immigrant smuggling business. This should outrage conservatives, and just as we (Republicans) were outraged at the slave trade 150 years ago, we should mobilize to end the illegal trade of humans at our border who simply want to escape desperate living conditions in search of a better life. The uproar from a contingent of vocal conservatives over them receiving public benefits should place a far second in terms of our priorities. Our first priority should be to end human trafficking at the border, and to end exploitation of humans who live in the shadows in this great nation. This is precisely why the Lincoln Club/Hispanic 100 immigration policy is critical to solving this problem, and I call on all conservatives who tend to see this problem solely as an invasion by foreign workers to join us and think out of the box for once, looking towards a compassionate solution that is humane, respectful, and actually ends the flow of illegals into this country, placing all workers on a level playing field, whether native or foreign born.

Here is a link to the WSJ’s article from Jeb Bush. “Capitalism and the Right to Rise”.

Capitalism and the Right to Rise

In freedom lies the risk of failure. But in statism lies the certainty of stagnation.

By JEB BUSH

Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: “The right to rise.”

Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn’t seem like something we should have to protect.

But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And we need to let people enjoy the fruits of good decisions, even good luck.

That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this. Freedom of speech, for example, means that we put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.

But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles of growth and loss, of trial and error, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself.

Increasingly, we have let our elected officials abridge our own economic freedoms through the annual passage of thousands of laws and their associated regulations. We see human tragedy and we demand a regulation to prevent it. We see a criminal fraud and we demand more laws. We see an industry dying and we demand it be saved. Each time, we demand “Do something . . . anything.”

Woe to the elected leader who fails to deliver a multipoint plan for economic success, driven by specific government action. “Trust in the dynamism of the market” is not a phrase in today’s political lexicon.

Have we lost faith in the free-market system of entrepreneurial capitalism? Are we no longer willing to place our trust in the creative chaos unleashed by millions of people pursuing their own best economic interests?

The right to rise does not require a libertarian utopia to exist. Rather, it requires fewer, simpler and more outcome-oriented rules. Rules for which an honest cost-benefit analysis is done before their imposition. Rules that sunset so they can be eliminated or adjusted as conditions change. Rules that have disputes resolved faster and less expensively through arbitration than litigation.

In Washington, D.C., rules are going in the opposite direction. They are exploding in reach and complexity. They are created under a cloud of uncertainty, and years after their passage nobody really knows how they will work.

We either can go down the road we are on, a road where the individual is allowed to succeed only so much before being punished with ruinous taxation, where commerce ignores government action at its own peril, and where the state decides how a massive share of the economy’s resources should be spent.

Or we can return to the road we once knew and which has served us well: a road where individuals acting freely and with little restraint are able to pursue fortune and prosperity as they see fit, a road where the government’s role is not to shape the marketplace but to help prepare its citizens to prosper from it.

In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

Mr. Bush, a Republican, was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007.

In my defense of the Lincoln Club immigration policy, I noted that my personal priority in committee deliberations was point two, which is the proposal of a guest worker program. However, from discussions with a couple of key conservative leaders, I now agree there was great wisdom in the committee emphasizing point one, which is to secure the border first.  Americans rightly feel burned by the federal government, particularly in its failure to secure the border as promised in the 1986 amnesty, while providing citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.  It was supposed to be a two-pronged approach, but when the key security prong was simply ignored, it only created the problem we have now with 12+ million illegal immigrants currently estimated to be in the United States.  We essentially became a stronger magnet for illegal immigrants because there has been little to no enforcement of immigration laws, with a current administration that only antagonizes states seeking their own solutions to secure their own borders. Though most crossing the border simply came here for a better life, I’m sure many expected there might be a future amnesty. So in my view, it would be a no-brainer to come here illegally if once you get here there is plenty of work, and there could be the possibility of eventual citizenship if one kept their nose clean and worked hard.

The message I received was that the future guest worker program and the provision of legal status for illegal immigrants already here with no offer of citizenship had promise, but first the federal government would have to earn lost trust by locking down the borders through a physical fence, technology, and more boots on the ground that would assure us the border is being secured.  Then, and only then, would we be able to move forward with point two of the proposal, after a short period of time. Employers hiring illegals would be given a grace period to discontinue hiring illegal workers in preparation for the policy that begins the legal status transition for existing illegal workers, and once this process begins, employers would be subject to harsh penalties for hiring illegal immigrants (understandably). After this transition process ends, then the guest worker program would be put into effect soon thereafter to provide foreign guest workers in the event the supply of workers in the United States exceeds market demand. Thus, there would be no further legitimate reason to continue to hire illegal workers. So the leaders I talked with were very open to that model.

Now it could be argued, as I have in the past, that enhancing deterrents at the border might be a heavy-handed approach if the expectation is that a functioning guest worker program would virtually eliminate a heavy flow of illegal immigrants (which has now been mitigated by way of a bad economy over the past three years). So we would implement point one of the policy, only to have far more resources deployed than is necessary once point two is implemented. This may be the case, but when you look at the hole the federal government has dug itself into in terms of lost trust, then implementing visible and tangible deterrents over a period of time would generate the necessary good will that would allow the federal government in concert with individual states to craft specific solutions that would register current illegal immigrants and put the guest worker program into place.

Another key point to note, again, is that our policy is in no way involved in the notion of citizenship. If illegal workers that gain legal work status wish to apply for citizenship, they will be given no special privileges. They would have to gain access to the existing legal system for naturalization, and they would go to the back of the line as everyone must who seeks American citizenship. This would only be fair, as there should be no reward for people that have crossed our border illegally, even though in this program we are extending them grace for practical, moral, and humanitarian purposes as well. The leaders I talked with are in concert with this sentiment, because there would be no reward concomitant with legal status.

Finally, I want to point out that the ideas presented here are my own, and are not a part of our proposed immigration policy, even though they are certainly reflective of the policy. My intent was solely to express what I’m hearing from conservative leadership, and I just wanted to respond to my discussions with them in order to continue the discussion of our policy. As the discussion continues, I will post more moving forward. I invite any and all honest and reasoned comments.

Great news from the Secretary of State last night: Stop Special Interest Money Now initiative WILL be on the Nov. 2012 ballot.

Now the fun begins to take back CA!

Read the news: SacBee / OC Register / AP

Read the initiative itself here: http://stopspecialinterestmoney.org/