History is Revealing!

Voters to G.O.P.: We're Just Not That Into Immigrants

7/29/2015 - Ann Coulter Townhall.com

For years, Republican candidates have been assured by their political consultants that amnesty is a runaway hit with the public. Then they always come in for a zinger of a surprise when the American people are finally able to express themselves on the subject. (Sometimes it seems as if political consultants are in the game only to make money.)

Washington has tried to sneak through three amnesties in the last decade -- in 2006, 2007 and 2013. Each time, amnesty had the full support of the media, the White House, leaders of both political parties, big campaign donors and lobbyists.

And every time, as soon as the public got wind of what was happening, the politicians scattered like roaches and the loudest amnesty proponent in the room would suddenly be demanding "border security first!" Couldn't Republicans spare themselves the embarrassment of having to say they "learned their lesson" by learning the same lesson of the last 17 guys to push amnesty?

The McCain-Kennedy amnesty passed the Senate in 2006, instantly inspiring an outpouring of voter anger so virulent that it shut down the congressional switchboards. Despite enormous opposition from voters, lame-duck President Bush cockily told reporters, "I'll see you at the bill signing" -- the first step to ushering in a Democratic Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

By contrast, House Majority Leader John Boehner told a group of Republicans that he had "promised the president today that I wouldn't say anything bad about this piece of s--- bill." Weeks later, the chief sponsor of the POS bill, Sen. John McCain, voted for a fence with no hint of amnesty.

A year later, when he was running for president, immigration was the issue dominating the primaries. McCain told voters, "My friends, I learned a lesson." What he had allegedly learned was: "We must secure the border first. We need to do these other things, but the American people want something done about the border."

McCain even cut macho campaign commercials of him walking by the southern border, saying, "Build the dang fence!" Too little, too late. McCain lost the dang election. Bush's loss was equally monumental: He lost Congress by pushing amnesty.

Contrary to liberals' claim that they had finally won the hearts and minds of the people in opposing the Iraq War, leading to the Democrats' 2006 sweep of Congress, a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken about a month into Bush's incessant yammering about amnesty showed that more Americans approved of Bush's handling of the Iraq War than approved of his handling of immigration. In nearly every poll on Bush's handling of immigration that year, about 60 percent of the public disapproved and only 25 percent approved.

After Bush's party was wiped out in the midterm elections, the Democratic-controlled Congress seemed certain to pass amnesty. Bush still wanted it. So did the Democrats. So did the media. So did the donors.

But there was one teensy problem: The public still hated the idea. You know how people always say "you can't beat something with nothing." When it comes to amnesty, "nothing" outpolls "something" every time.

In early June of 2007, a Rasmussen poll found that support for "no bill" beat support for the Senate immigration bill by 5-to-3. By the end of the week, "no bill" was winning 2-to-1, with 53 percent against amnesty and only 26 percent for it. Public opposition was so vociferous, the Senate didn't even vote on the 2007 amnesty.

Then, a few years later, erstwhile tea party darling Sen. Marco Rubio burst on the scene deciding he was going to be the one to enact amnesty! Teaming up with everybody's favorite senator, Chuck Schumer, Rubio spent a full year zealously pushing amnesty, which entailed his telling huge, whopping lies about it.

He blanketed the airwaves, convinced Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to support the bill, toured all the Sunday morning talk shows. It worked! The Senate passed Rubio's amnesty bill. It was Rubio's only accomplishment in Washington. But then, unfortunately for him, the public found out about it and, once again, an amnesty bill died. (When will these so-called "voters" stop with their infernal meddling?)

The next thing we knew, Rubio was swearing to attendees at the March 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference that what "I've learned is you can't even have a conversation" about "immigration reform" until "future illegal immigration will be controlled," calling it "the single biggest lesson of the last two years." A few months later, he told The Wall Street Journal that he wouldn't vote for his own bill if it came up again.

One-time GOP star, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, was suckered into supporting the Schumer-Rubio amnesty by a mere 20-minute conversation with Schumer. Not content to support the intensely hated amnesty bill, Christie also signed a bill granting illegal aliens in-state tuition.

But just before announcing his run for the presidency this year, Christie claimed that he, too, had "learned" more about the issue. He now claims he considers a path to citizenship "extreme" and accused Hillary Clinton of "pandering" by supporting a path to citizenship.

I'd say Christie had to eat his own words on immigration, but that would be a cheap shot.

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee denounced a bill to require verification of citizenship before registering to vote or applying for public benefits, saying it "inflames those who are racist and bigots." (Voters LOVE being called bigots!)

He made the weird claim that companies like Toyota or Nestle might refuse to invest in Arkansas if the bill became law, by sending the message that, "If you don't look like us, talk like us and speak like us, we don't want you." It might also send the message that we don't want foreigners voting in our elections or collecting public services meant for Americans.

But whenever he runs for president, Huckabee becomes a born-again Minuteman! His current presidential website denounces "the Washington establishment" for trying to "reward illegal immigrants with amnesty and citizenship," adding, "Without a secure border, nothing matters."

Instead of having to keep apologizing for their positions on immigration, maybe Republicans should stop listening to political consultants who are paid by business lobbyists to dump millions of poverty-stricken, low-wage workers on the country.

Out of nowhere, non-politician Donald Trump has shot to the top of the polls by denouncing America's widely unpopular immigration policies. All those high-priced campaign consultants are standing around scratching their heads.

Americans can see they're being forced to subsidize people who are being brought in only to outvote them, provide cheap labor and change our culture. All the donor money in the world isn't going to help you, Republicans, if the voters hate you.

Demand For Rule of Law is Not Racism or Hate

On Immigration, I am A Dissident For the Right

1/25/2016 - Arthur Schaper

I have profound respect for Jeff Jacoby. He is a beacon of right in a very liberal Massachusetts. Republicans are gaining ground in the Bay State, in some part due to Jacoby’s writings. He hipped me to a strong local contender named Ryan Fattman of Sutton, and now the middle of the state is going tea party read (with a center-left Republican Governor). When I read his dissident statement on immigration, I found a great deal of his argument still missing: “One of those ideals has always been the encouragement of immigration as an engine of American progress and prosperity.”

Yes, when done legally. Yes again, when there is no lavish welfare state inducing new arrivals to live off of other people’s taxpayer dollars. Yes a third time, when immigrants relinquish their former nationality and embrace their new American status.

These issues were not open for debate one hundred years ago. Men and women all over the world came to this country not just to take part, but become a part of the American Dream. Ramesh Ponnru of National Review indicated that his parents came in the early 60s. Sign on the dotted line, get a passport, and you are on your own. Similar standards in the 1800s required that immigrants would not become a burden on society, including pregnant single mothers. Such strictures would be politically incorrect today.

Immigration enforcement was definitely not a divisive issue for Republicans even as recently as 1980. Primary opponents Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush were trying to portray themselves as more compassionate on the issue. That was then. This is now. What has happened since one hundred, even fifty years ago? Free market economic Milton Friedman articulated the problem best: “You can have free immigration to work, but not to welfare.”

From FDR to President Obama, the federal government has expanded the welfare state and its entitlement mentality to catastrophic proportions. Obama governs like a reckless gringo caudillo, with no regard for our nation’s laws, deciding which immigration statutes to enforce. Worst of all, migrants today do not assimilate. I spoke with high ranking officials in the California Republican Party, and they bristled at that word “assimilation.” If migrants seeking asylum or a new life do not like that word, then why come in the first place?

Coupled with aggravated entitlements, the federal government has refused its one simple nation responsibility: secure the border. Pro-amnesty proponents forget that a conservative Republican—Ronald Reagan—signed off on amnesty, with a law from Congress (take notes on your phone and pen, Obama!). The condition? A secure border.

We still don’t have one, and with the rising terrorist threats as well as rampant criminality along the border and in major cities, a guarded border is not just a political talking point, but an unequivocal necessity. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said it best: “Nations are the spice of life.” Yet nations cannot exist without borders, without telling demarcations. As Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan declared: “We want to make sure that those who deserve to get in, get in.” Yes, a Democrat said that. I also stand with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal: “Immigration without assimilation is invasion.” I would also add, where there is no law, the people perish (that statement comes from Chanell Temple of We the People Rising).

Jacoby speaks of well of immigration, but he proceeds from a faulty foundation, ignoring the present political and legal realities. Too much government in our private lives hands out other people’s money, not enough government secures our borders, and a rising mass of people refuse to adapt to and adopt to the American way.

Jacoby should come to the Golden state, and see how illegal, unfettered immigration is tarnishing this once glowing paradise. In California, the margins of legality are blurring for the worse because of immigration. Not only have I written—nay, exposed—the illegal actions of the rogue Huntington Park, CA City council for appointing two illegal aliens to city councils, but We the People Rising have started targeting other cities and elected officials who welcome refugees who cannot be screened.

In Cudahy, CA, once a peaceful working class community, the  majority of the city council declared their one square mile municipality a “sanctuary city.” Sanctuary city policies have done anything but provide sanctuary. Ask the parents of Kathryn Steinle.

Two weeks ago, I attended Cudahy’s raucous city council meetings. The rampant lawlessness has invaded even the council chambers, where the majority does not honor contracts, has moved close down city hall for three days out of the week, then cancels city council meetings and suppress public participation. Locals have blasted their corruption relentless, and when We the People Rising arrived, the city council was overwhelmed, repeatedly called out on their corruption and malfeasance. Watch this video to see the corrupt Cudahy Chris Garcia flee, followed by the sheepish mayor Cristian Markovich.

The Southeast Los Angeles corridor is turning into a coven of crime and corruption, where illegals live in the shadows, and elected officials engage in shady activities, without the legal populace fighting to stop it. These corrupt officials buy support by refusing to enforce or ally with federal officials, and then they rob the store.

How much longer will this last? Not any more for We the People. 

I take further exception to Jacoby’s comment “Just a few election cycles ago, immigrant-bashing and seal-the-border nativism was limited to a relatively narrow sliver of the political right.” The vast majority of Americans support LEGAL immigration, Mr. Jacoby. Demanding the rule of law, a secure border, and proper assimilation is not nativism. 

Americans’ demand for the rule of law is not racism or hate, despite the desperate pleading of pro-illegal alien activists like the lady in this video who tried to shout me down in Huntington Park, CA. Illegal immigration is breeding lawlessness throughout. Contrary to Jacoby’s assertion, I am not surprised that the Vocal (right!) Majority demands an abrupt stop to illegal immigration.

Failed Cultural Assimilation Leads to National Chaos

Germany Dealing With Pains Of Failed Integration

1/13/2016 - Rachel Marsden Townhall.com

PARIS -- Western Europe's mindless and zombie-like prioritizing of humanitarianism over self-preservation is beginning to have alarming consequences.

More than 500 women filed police complaints after a New Year's Eve celebration in Cologne, Germany, with about 40 percent of the women alleging sexual assault. Of the 32 suspects identified by police, 22 are asylum seekers, mostly North African or Arabic, according to the German Interior Ministry.

More than a million asylum seekers, primarily from the Middle East and North Africa, arrived in Germany last year. For a country small enough that you can drive across it in about six hours, this is tantamount to cultural and demographic revolution.

The argument often heard is, "What are a few million newcomers to a country of more than 80 million people?" Well, there are bound to be problems when some of the newcomers to the henhouse are wolves.

How do you even begin to integrate people who have a different cultural perspective on women? Never mind that integration services teaching the new arrivals basic language skills and civics are completely overwhelmed. It's an immense challenge to change the mindset of a person whose established values are disruptive to society in his new country.

In the wake of the New Year's Eve attacks, the popularity of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party actually increased by 2 percentage points, according to one poll, and the number of Germans supporting a limit on immigration fell from 72 percent in December to 61 percent.

Meanwhile, Germans who are frustrated with immigration policy and have taken to the streets in protest are being dismissed by police as hooligans, with more than 200 of them arrested during a demonstration in Leipzig. With Merkel, the purported defender of German conservatism, spearheading this cultural disintegration, frustrations are boiling over.

These days, it seems as if anyone who speaks up against mass immigration is automatically dismissed as a racist or nativist, but this is an oversimplification that hinders an open and honest discussion of how immigration should be handled worldwide.

If the United Nations can lecture member states about the need to alleviate global suffering, then it should be able to offer recommendations for doing so in a way that allows people living in developed nations to maintain their cultural coherence.

And yes, there is a solution.

Guess which country took in more than a quarter-million refugees during the first half of 2015, according to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. No, not the United States. It's Russia, which took in more than 300,000 asylum seekers. Imagine that: The nation often maligned as being unfriendly to migrants actually has been a beacon of humanitarianism.

But when I was in Moscow recently, I didn't feel the same sense of insecurity and demographic fragmentation that I often feel in Paris. Not in the least. It turns out that most of the migrants that Russia took in last year were Ukrainian. With Ukraine similar to Russia with regard to culture and language, the transition for Ukrainian refugees is a relatively seamless one. That clearly isn't the case for Syrian refugees in Germany.

Both refugee and local populations are best off when they mesh. It helps alleviate the burden of integration. Yes, there may still be local, provincial prejudices toward refugees, but that's not exactly uncommon. Heck, there are prejudices between classes of people of the exact same origin. People are tribal by nature and will always cast a suspicious eye towards an outsider. But the pains of integration can be minimized through better matching of refugees with new environments.

The solution is a matchmaking service between migrants and host countries. Instead of world leaders trying to outdo one another by seeing who can accept the most refugees, there should be far more emphasis on ensuring that it's a good fit for everyone involved. Being a humanitarian hero doesn't have to result in the unraveling of a functional society.

 

Recent Interesting Group Listing Post

Greetings CCII Supporters & Friends,

Okay Gang, our last message listed the lies and deceits found in the SOTU address. In the interest of not showing favorites, let’s take a walk to the opposite side of the isle. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has released his New Year’s resolutions for 2016; including advancing a conservative agenda and building on the success that he claims he has had since he was elected Speaker in October. Ryan promises he will promote 1) Conservative Agenda, 2) Unity, 3) Decentralized Power, 4) Transparency and Regular Order, 5) Culture Change, 6) Next-Generation Platform and 7) Building on Progress. However, in his first few months as Speaker, and his history before that, Ryan has moved away from every single one of these promises.

That suggests it’s highly unlikely Ryan will ever, as Speaker because of his record actually do anything productive. His $1.6 Trillion Omnibus Bill a 2,009 page spending bill alone broke most of these promises. Despite Ryan’s defensive claims as noted in the supportive establishment Republican media, he refuses to do interviews with any supposed actual conservatives i.e. Fox News, Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh to defend himself or his omnibus spending bill, considered an absolute disaster by most citizen taxpayers.  It funded nearly every single progressive objective of Obama’s efforts to fundamentally transform America.

Ryan abandoned efforts to promote a ‘conservative agenda’ years ago. Ryan has been a major advocate in the Republican Party for amnesty for illegal aliens and wide open borders with massively increased immigration to America. Ryan, of course, built a fence to secure his residence in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, but in his omnibus spending bill, he didn’t provide funding for a fence on the U.S. border with Mexico; a fence that has been provided for in federal law for years but has yet to be built.

 Ryan also promised during a recent Fox News interview that he wouldn’t support any cuts to Muslim migration to America. That came after the House Freedom Caucus, failed to obtain any commitment from him on Muslim migration before backing him for Speaker. That’s not to mention his close relationship with Illinois Representative Luis Gutierrez, the progressive left’s Chicago champion for illegal aliens.

 Ryan was one of the chief promoters and architect of the Obamatrade plan. He helped shove the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) fast-track legislation through the House, which aims to guarantee passage for the 5,544 page Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) globalist trade deal. Ryan also was instrumental in the inclusion of migrant movement provisions into the TPA plan.

 Ryan played an enormous part at the last minute, to bail out GOP Republican establishment efforts to spend more taxpayer money. He supported the so-called ‘CR-Omnibus’ in 2014, a bill albeit Republicans promised just the opposite including the party chairman Reince Priebus, ended up funding Obama’s 2014 executive amnesty for illegal alien adults (DAPA) and his 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood (DACA) executive amnesty for illegal alien children.

 So it’s Ryan this and Ryan that and he is Speaker of the House, a supposed advocate for the nation’s citizens, a supposed Republican supporting conservative principles. The lies, deceits and untruth from the Republican Party abounds. The recent Republican circus in South Carolina, as displayed by participants in the 3-ring extravaganza (A debate?) is nothing but public show time hula- ba-loo with one promise after another. Details at this link

 Remember the political battles over the 2007 amnesty bill (S1348, S1639)? The same politicians including a couple of new Senators fabricated behind closed doors the 2013 amnesty bill (S744). Their determined efforts to re-write our Constitution immigration laws has taken a back seat during the current election cycle but just wait a few months and Congress Committee action will take the lead again. This battle of Constitution survival never ends; never has and never will as long as we continue to elect self-centered, bought and paid for, selfish-minded politicians.  Details at this link  

 Okay, what we need is a dedicated modern day Paul Revere, a bold and brazen General George Washington, a simple minded Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams. Even another silver tongue Thomas Jefferson will do.

 These periodic messages are prepared and sent for education and enlightenment; not for any other reason. It takes time to read and study; that is what it is all about. This link will take another nine minutes of your valuable time, but extremely well worth it.  

 Best Regards, Jim Flohr VC CCII

Immigration - Refugee Resettlement = Culture Chaos

The Clash of Cultures

1/12/2016 - D.W. Wilber Townhall.com

The reports coming out of European and Scandinavian countries indicate that sexual assaults against women by Muslim men have become nearly epidemic in some cities, with European women regularly being attacked by military age Middle Eastern males who left their homelands and sought refuge, and were welcomed in by the governments of these nations. Yet until the most recent attacks occurring in the German city of Cologne, one might never have even know it was happening, since any news media coverage of this problem has been lacking both in Europe and here in the United States.

But why have marauding hordes of Muslim men been indiscriminately attacking young European women, many of whom have been savagely beaten, sexually assaulted, and brutally raped? The answer is really very simple, though the politically correct politicians don’t want to acknowledge it. Basically it comes down to a clash of cultures and religions.

When you have uneducated young Muslim men who are unsophisticated and unfamiliar with western ways, and who are adherents to religious teachings that tell them from the time they are a small boy that infidel women are theirs for the taking, one is going to experience problems such as what’s been happening on the streets of the European Continent.

Factor in the raging hormones that most young men naturally experience but are taught by western society to control, but that in the Muslim religion and culture are unnaturally suppressed, and adding in the visual stimuli they are exposed to in western culture, and sexual assaults will surely result.

This is by no means any sort of justification or excuse for what’s been occurring, but simply an explanation as to why inviting tens of thousands more of these young men into western nations is inherently a bad idea.

These young Muslim men are also very aware of the sentiments held against them by Western society that was always present, but that has been developing even more in recent years. And resentment and anger on the part of the refugees is developing in return. With little prospects for gainful employment in most cases, it’s almost like waving a red flag at a raging bull.

In addition to the San Bernardino terrorist attacks and other acts of terrorism committed over the years here in the United States, in recent months there have been a number of cases of young Muslim who men have been arrested and charged with terrorism-related crimes.

Muslims were taken in as refugees by this country and offered the opportunity for hope and success that America offers to all legal immigrants. But unfortunately some have refused to become a part of our culture and society. They have chosen instead to revert back to the savagery they lived under in their former homelands.

It’s obvious that the assimilation into western society by many of these Middle Eastern men has not been a rousing success. In most cases coming from countries ruled by brutally oppressive regimes, these refugees have little if any understanding of the democratic institutions and processes that govern most European nations and the United States. The way of life in the areas the refugees come from often-times means taking what one wants by brute force.

As has been suggested by a number of people, myself included, a far better response to the surge of refugees from Syria would have been for NATO and the other Middle Eastern nations to create safe haven zones closer to the homeland where most of these refugees come from. It just makes sense to keep them close to the land, climate, and customs they’re familiar with.

With the leadership of the United States, accomplishing this would be a relatively easy task. The lands currently controlled by ISIS would be relinquished fairly quickly by ISIS if a determined and concerted military effort were put forth by the U.S. and its allies in the region.

ISIS for the most part would cease to exist and likely blend back into the populace, or hold out in smaller strongholds, but wielding little influence on the communities they once held sway over. Eventually, even these would be reduced to ashes if the U.S. led coalition chose to do so. Much of the area formerly held by ISIS could then be repopulated by the refugees currently seeking shelter, who themselves are now in fact terrorizing Europe right now.

It’s a very simple solution, but one knows that governments, particularly our own, never look for the simple solution.

United States A Nation in Total Transformation

 

Census 2015 Shows Increasing Cultural Division and Political Polarization

1/12/2016 - Michael Barone Townhall.com

The Census Bureau has delivered its annual Christmas gift to demographic junkies: its estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for mid-2015.

They show where the nation has been growing since the April 2010 Census headcount, a period that follows the end of the 2007-2009 recession and includes three-fourths of the Obama presidency. They show what states Americans have been moving in and out of, and what states have attracted the most immigrants.

They're worth looking at, because the cold precision of the numbers provides clues to the warm impulses of human hearts, where people choose to pursue dreams or escape nightmares.

During this five-year period the nation's population increased from 308.8 million to 321.4 million, which sounds like a lot -- we're the third-most-populous nation in the world -- but in fact is slightly lower in percentage terms than any such period since the 1930s.

Growth was highly uneven. The biggest percentage growth rates were in fracking-rich North Dakota (13 percent), the gentrifying District of Columbia (12 percent) and the much bigger states of Texas (9 percent), Colorado, Utah and Florida (8 percent). The big percentage gainers of the 2000-2010 decade, Nevada and Arizona, gained at lesser rates this decade, as did Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.

Altogether 45 percent of the nation's population growth occurred in the three Sun Belt states: Texas, California and Florida. But it was from quite different sources. In Texas and Florida, there was more net migration from other states -- domestic inflow -- than immigration. This was true also of the fast-growing North Carolina, South Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and Washington.

Political analysts in the last decade predicted that heavy immigration would make these states more Democratic. But in this decade it looks like any such movement will depend more on domestic migrants, who seem Democratic-leaning in some states (Washington and North Carolina) but not others (Texas, Florida, South Carolina and Arizona).

In any case, as the Pew Research Center has documented, there has been no net immigration from Mexico since 2008; incomers have been matched by those who "self-deport." That finds confirmation in the 2015 estimates, which show immigration numbers in 2010-2015 sharply lower than in 2000-2008 in states that have had heavy Mexican inflows: California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Illinois.

Immigration in this decade has exceeded the national rate in only 12 states and D.C., with the highest rates in Florida and the Northeast (D.C., New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and Virginia).

In these states and in California and Washington, immigrants seem to be increasingly Asians, many with high skill levels, rather than Latinos, almost all relatively low-skill. Those of us who have urged revising immigration law to favor high-skill newcomers are apparently seeing something like that result produced by market forces under current law.

The high-immigration states plus Illinois have had the nation's highest rates of domestic outflow, reflecting high tax rates, heavy regulation and high housing prices. In effect, they're trading Americans for immigrants, the political result of which is a tendency to make these states even more heavily Democratic.

This is apparent when you group states by political tendency. The 23 Republican states have grown 5.1 percent in 2010-2015, the 11 target states 4.2 percent and the 16 Democratic states plus D.C. 3.2 percent. (I classify Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin as target states. You can probably guess which of the others are Republican and Democratic.)

Republican states gained 2.3 million newcomers, split evenly between immigration and domestic inflow. Target states gained 2.0 million, two-thirds from immigration and one-third from domestic inflow. In contrast, the Democratic states lost 1.8 from domestic outflow but gained 2.8 million immigrants -- more than half the national immigration total.

Overall, population increase and mobility are both down from the previous decade; people tend to hunker down in straitened economic times. Annual immigration numbers remained about the same in 2010-2015 as 2000-2008, but for those earlier years they probably understate the flow of illegal immigrants, which seems to have been much larger then than recently.

But the tendency is continuing for Americans and immigrants to seek out others of their own kind, and for people of differing cultural values and political views to choose to live in different states and communities. All of which suggests that today's political polarization is not going away any time soon.

A Simple Solution to a National Calamity

It's Not Too Late to Save America

1/6/2016 - Ken Connor Townhall.com

As has always been the case for Americans, the New Year is a time for setting new goals, seeking restoration and renewal, shedding harmful habits, and resolving to do better in the future. For individuals this often means cleaning up the diet, cleaning up the finances, refocusing on relationships, prioritizing physical fitness, and addressing personal shortcomings or flaws that might be impeding one's happiness or success in life. Interestingly, the same kinds of resolutions that millions of Americans across the country made last weekend are applicable to the country as a whole. Here are some resolutions that our nation would do well to adopt for 2016:

Live within our means.

America's national debt is closing in on $20 trillion, compromising the solvency of the current generation and setting our children and grandchildren up for bankruptcy. And contrary to what many of our elected officials and armchair economists seem to believe, we cannot spend our way into prosperity. We must resolve to cut spending at all levels of government, just as our citizens must take renewed responsibility for living within their means. Additionally, as our nation moves forward into the future, we must be responsible stewards of our national economic resources and seek opportunities to invest wisely in for future.

Reinvigorate our national defenses.

At no time in recent memory has America been so beset with adversaries who wish us harm. The Middle East is on fire and ISIS has made clear its intent to bring its brutal jihad to western lands. Russia has begun reasserting its influence in key areas, Iran's regional hegemony is strengthening, China is proving an untrustworthy global partner, and North Korea remains a volatile force in the Far East. History teaches that weakness invites aggression, and after eight years of feckless leadership America's international reputation has suffered, our security has been compromised, and our allies have been made vulnerable. We must make our military a priority again, engage our enemies when national security warrants it, and renew our commitment to Roosevelt's famous "Walk softly, but carry a big stick" doctrine of international leadership.

Revitalize our economy.

Bernie Sanders' rhetorical appeals to socialism may have its charms, but history demonstrates that nations who embrace a collectivist philosophy of economics do not thrive. America's economic engine has recovered a bit since the catastrophe of 2008, but we're a long way from realizing our full potential and this has everything to do with the stifling policies embraced by our leaders. We must eliminate the layers and layers of bureaucratic red tape that stifle innovation; reduce taxes in order to incentivize productivity and investment, and craft economic policy based on sound economic principles instead of liberal dogma that distorts reality.

Cultivate character.

There was a time when America proudly embraced her mantle as a shining city on a hill, proclaiming to the world that she was an exceptional nation. In order for us to be successful in our pursuit of renewed greatness, security, and stability, we must first reclaim our moral and ethical heritage: Virtues such as hard work, deferred gratification, self discipline, honesty and integrity; trustworthiness; and personal and corporate accountability.

As discouraging as things appear to be in so many ways, we can turn the ship of state around if only we possess the collective resolve to do what's necessary. If, however, we treat our national goals like so many New Year's resolutions – long on ambition, grand in rhetoric but forgotten by Valentine's Day – there is little to prevent us from continuing down our current path of decline and increasing irrelevance in the world.

Will The U. S. Follow California in 2016?

Can California Be Saved?

10/22/2015 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

Crime is back up in California. Los Angeles reported a 20.6 percent increase in violent crimes over the first half of 2015 and nearly an 11 percent increase in property crimes.

Last year, cash-strapped California taxpayers voted for Proposition 47, which so far has let thousands of convicted criminals go free from prison and back onto the streets. Now the state may have to relearn what lawbreakers often do when let out of jail early.

The state may be entering the fifth year of a catastrophic drought, but California has not started building any of the new reservoirs that were planned but long ago canceled under the unfinished California Water Project. Water may remain scarce, but legislators -- many of whom have their daily water needs met by the ancient reservoirs and canals that their grandparents built -- don't seem overly bothered. They prefer to designate transgender restrooms, ban plastic bags at grocery stores, and prohibit pet dogs from chasing bears and bobcats.

Never has a region been so naturally rich but so poorly run by its latest generation of custodians.

California endures some of the highest gasoline taxes, sales taxes and income taxes in the nation. Yet its roads and public schools rate near the very bottom of U.S. rankings.

Traffic accidents in California increased by 13 percent over a three-year period -- the result of terrible roads and worse drivers. Almost half of all accidents in Los Angeles are hit-and-runs where the drivers leave the scene.

California has lots of petroleum and natural gas. It used to be a pacesetter in building nuclear and hydroelectric plants. Yet because of inept governance, the state's electricity and gasoline prices are among the highest in the nation.

Why is California choosing the path of Detroit -- growing government that it cannot pay for, shorting the middle classes, hiking taxes but providing shoddy services and infrastructure in return, and obsessing over minor bumper-sticker issues while ignoring existential crises?

The cause is political. California is a one-party state, without any serious audit of authorities in power.

The California State Assembly currently includes 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans. The California State Senate has 26 Democrats and 14 Republicans.

All of the state's executive officers are Democrats. Both of its U.S. senators are Bay-area progressives. California's House delegation is overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. The party in power can do as it pleases without being held accountable at the polls.

But what turned a once bipartisan and purple state bright blue?

A perfect storm of events.

Higher taxes and increased regulations have driven out lots of small-business owners. In the last few years, hundreds of thousands of disgruntled middle-of-the-road voters voted with their feet and left for no-tax Nevada, Texas or Florida.

The state devolved into a pyramid of the coastal wealthy and interior poor -- the dual constituencies of the new progressive movement.

A third of America's welfare recipients reside in California. Nearly a quarter of Californians live below the poverty line.

Yet nowhere in America are there more billionaires. California's long, thin coastal corridor has become a tony La-La land unto itself. Some of the highest housing prices in the nation and richest communities are clustered along the Pacific coastline, from the wine country and Silicon Valley to Malibu and Hollywood, dotted by marquee coastal universities and zillionaire tech corporations.

Meanwhile, poorer people in the interior, in places such as Madera and Delano -- far from Stanford, Google, Pacific Heights and Santa Monica -- require ever more public services. The very rich don't mind paying the necessary higher taxes, while the strapped, shrinking middle class suffers or flees.

Demography also explains the new true-blue California. It is one of the youngest states, with a median age of 35. Voters tend to be more liberal before they reach 40 -- and must take on increasing responsibilities, often for people other than just themselves.

California hosts more undocumented immigrants than any other state. Its percentages of minority and foreign-born residents are among the highest in the country. (One of four California residents was not born in the United States.) As with the young, immigrant groups are likewise traditional liberal constituencies, at least in the early generations.

Good money in California along the affluent coast, for the most part, is not made the old-fashion way -- in mining, timber, ranching, farming and construction. Instead, California specializes in high-tech, social media, the Internet, government employment, academia, lawyering and acting.

Profits usually involve programming, investing, financing, hedging, talking, dealing, suing, instructing and regulating. The money is better, the physical work less grubby, and utopia seems attainable in a way impossible when growing lettuce, mining granite, drilling gas wells, producing two-by-fours, building dams or shipping steel.

Could California change? Only when voters of all persuasions decide to return to the old give-and-take politics that keeps politicians honest. Or when water taps in the suburbs go dry.

Or perhaps when the state's growing poor populations connect their exorbitant gas, power and housing costs with an elite agenda of rich coastal liberals, who do not seem to care about the people working hard to glimpse what the elites take for granted.