WHEN DID JUSTICE DIE?

Once upon a time in America, justice was blind to whom stood before her judgment and she aggressively protected the rule of law's equality. From the wrongdoing of a homeless perpetrator to illegality done by public figures, the law was respected and upheld by apolitical prosecutors seeking justice for victims while equally deterring those thinking of committing  similar crimes. 

Rightly or wrongly, Americans today have the perception that Lady Justice is peeking behind her blind as she refuses to prosecute the politician, and rich powerful figures while instead, seeking to target only the hard working middle class offender. From prosecutorial discretion to political persecution our justice system has become a shadow of its original foundation of faith by Americans; that there is equal protection under the law.

Upholding the rule of law requires not just prosecutions of those that violate the law, but prosecutors must make egalitarian examples especially when it comes to public figures and those leading our government's policies. The perception that one will be held accountable and serve jail time, is an important tool of deterrence, but it is also a necessary nurturance to morality in governance.

When illegal activities and unethical scandals are ignored or result in watered down punishment, it not only sends the message of hypocrisy but stamps the approval to the rich and powerful that they are untouchable which leads to furthering corruption.     

Americans are more than frustrated by a convergence  of current realities besetting the nation. The worse level of trust exists over our government's honesty, uprightness and representation of our needs in three centuries and three decades of our founding. In fact, the growing consensus is that Congress works for special interest monies only and by that, acts against the average American's needs.

We are losing our self governing system to career politicians who are corrupted by corporate monies and cowed by a liberal media pretending to report truth. The federal entrenched elitist government bureaucratic power continues to grow while simultaneously America's citizens fear and distrust in their government grows.

Where the law was once viewed as the pluralistic equalizer, between the governed and the governor, today the unconscionable volume of laws and regulations is a virtual pillory around the neck of hapless citizens. 

Meanwhile the lawlessness of our own government (Benghazi, IRS, Fast and Furious, DHS, NSA spying) is ignored, politicized and treated as minor missteps by those pretending to oath allegiance to our Constitution.

If Congress was serious about uncovering wrongdoing and investigating the truth over the multiple breaches of law by the government, then a special prosecutor would have been authorized long ago to investigate a warm trail of evidence. Instead, they allowed the trail to freeze over.

The people went to the polls in 2014 seeking to stop the fanatical actions of one party (Democrats) leading the country into debt, danger and ruin, only to find the other party (GOP) content to do nothing. 

The leadership of our country is so perverse and the representative rational is so contaminated with political expediency, there is a paralysis of decency, honor and trust in our government.   

Apparently it is no longer about the probity of our laws and the integrity of our Constitution, but rather it is all about politics, it is all about winning elections, it is all about 2016, it is all about political strategy while corruption marches onward without so much as a speed bump in its way.

The new normal of debauchery by government officials has replaced the respectability of public service and has the potential to dissuade the moral minded and incorruptible candidates from seeking office. Worse would be the return of a cynical public no longer seeking honorable office holders for their fight against lawless leadership.

The world outside your door might be a jungle of liars and thieves but they do not have the power to hurt or corrupt you, instead you have the power to set the example of righteousness and show that world fearlessness in the face of their false dominion.     

We Americans must be willing to confront, not bow, antagonize, not appease, vocalize, not stammer, expect, not forgive, demand, not ask, that our representative hold tightly in their hearts and minds our Constitution. The document that relies solely on the citizens preservation, acknowledgement and passionate possession.

Thomas Paine words  "These are the times that try men's souls" is as ripe today as it was then, for today is the time that tries all, of our American souls. 

LOUD AND CLEAR OR BACKGROUND STATIC?

Given that speeches are political hot air feasts intended to buoy public opinion on upcoming policy campaigns, they are meaningless without action, yet it is important to make voters feel that Washington is listening. 

It is also an opportunity for both political parties to present a buffet of policy ideas and receive feedback from the public, thereby getting a sense on what policy priorities are more or less popular. Obama's scorecard has already flunked, but the GOP, in its early grades don't seem to be acing any tests so far.  

Americans were not thrilled with either Obama's speech or the GOP rebuttal.

Obama has been deaf to public opinion since 2010, so few expected him to recognize that his Party and policies have nose-dived with independent voters, the same voters the Democrats rely on to make their minority "Kool-aid" policies seem mainstream. Indeed his administration has been marked with arrogant recalcitrant obstinacy that has diminished Democrat power.   

Yet the GOP response to Obama's SOTU speech was underwhelming and disappointing for its lack of inspiration and red meat, leaving conservatives and libertarians feeling wary about the lean, low fat agenda the opposition's menu contains.

Senator Ernst is not to blame, she is just a new member of an old party asked to deliver a speech that has been cooked up by high ranking members of the GOP in the back rooms of Washington's political kitchen.

The policy speech was troublesome for its bland banquet offerings and perhaps more importantly, worrisome because of the absence of sharp knifed proteins left off the table. Especially when a starving public expected and deserved full course satiation at a post game celebration feast.  

The first complaint is that the GOP agenda isn't bold, isn't innovative and somewhat mirrors the left. The left loves (especially Obama) to talk about job creation. The Keystone pipeline isn't going to make a dent in the number of jobs needed to re-energize the economy number one and number two, trade barriers are not the reasons entrepreneurial opportunities and business expansion is shrinking in America. 

Big government, class action lawsuits, high taxation, Obamacare, crony capitalism, myriads of regulations and laws that stifle growth have all have contributed to America's lackluster economy. 

Government need only to get out of the way by downsizing itself and repealing its unconstitutional presence in the marketplace allowing the free enterprise to grow. It is basic conservative policy to remove the mixed market governors from the economic engine that has served our nation well in the past and indeed created the Middle Class. 

Instead of touting un-tethered private enterprise as the curative, they spoke like Democrats by extolling what they (government) can do to fix the economy. They missed the opportunity to state emphatically the Ronald Reagan adage that resonated with Americans of all politically party persuasion: get government off our backs and out of our lives.    

Second complaint, was the hackneyed idea of simplifying the tax code. How many times have we heard that in the past? Today, we have an IRS agency that has been allowed to violate the law, punish political foes, destroy and or cover-up evidence, misuse public funding and to date, no-one has been held accountable, fired or prosecuted. 

Americans never trusted the IRS from its inception, but now more than ever the people want justice and the abolishment of the IRS. Calling for the closing of loopholes in the post Lois Lerner targeting age is beyond lame, it reflects a business as usual corrupt cluelessness over the public's discontentment.

Lastly the complete absence of bared teeth and pitchfork rhetoric we heard on the campaign trail in 2014 by the GOP over Obama's king George the third's impersonation in the White House. GOP Senators and Representatives seeking election assured voters that Obama's unilateral unconstitutional immigration plans would be met with legislative roadblocks that would take away his "phone and pen" by all means necessary. 

In the GOP response speech we instead heard this: "We will work to correct executive overreach."

Work to correct? Does that sound like a strong push back or a wet noodle chastisement? You work to correct mistakes, you don't work to correct defiance. You work to correct problems, you don't work to correct lawlessness. You work to correct mishandling, you don't work to correct a complete undermining of our Constitution and its clear separation of powers.

The GOP speech did not instill confidence in the public that we are being heard "loud and clear" instead it made most voters believe we are still a static background noise to Beltway buddies.  

The GOP seems to want to play nice with the administration until 2016 when it herds us to the table where Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Mitt Romney wearing hair nets try to slop the same over-processed goop of small appetizers-teasers on our plates calling it gourmet opposition catering.

Most know it to be however, the same old political pablum we were spoon fed as children, albeit now we are not naive political knickers-wearing "Gruber-ites" that can be swooned by empty words that produce imperceptible change in the way Washington operates.  

So we will wait and watch what the GOP will do or not do in the coming months, hoping that they dial in to our strong voter signal because so far, we are holding our spoons ready to either gag and swallow or toss that slop back on their obtuse noggins.

P.S.  Advice to GOP politicians, wear a raincoat to your town hall meetings because Americans don't want to be taken to the cleaners again.

WITH SIX YOU GET BURRITOS

Doris Day's last film in 1968 was "With Six You Get Eggroll". It was a romantic comedy about the difficulty of blending families when widowers (or divorced) couples re-marry. When the children and relatives line up against a step-mother and step-father there is no pleasing either side and compromise short of calling off the romance is impossible.

At the end of the movie, all ultimately learn to not just accept the union but to soften their hearts and support the marriage. The disharmony that has been brewing over immigration is far less likely to have a fair and harmonious outcome. In fact the wedding is off! Americans are as hot as tamales and the Washington reform talk leaves a bitter sour cream  taste in their mouths.  

There are six basic voices in the immigration debacle facing  our nation and its future. These are the Democrats, the Republicans, the Corporations, the farmers and small businesses, the minority liberal voters and the majority voters. Their positions on the immigration issues is as follows; 

1)The progressive Democrats are seeking wholesale amnesty for illegal aliens expecting to sign up loyal voters for the future.

2)Meanwhile some members of the Republican Party worry that if they are not included in the citizenship give-away, they will lose all future elections. They have proposed a slow walk to amnesty for illegal aliens.

3)Corporations and high tech firms are not interested in amnesty but rather changing the H1B immigration laws. The claim is that American universities are not graduating high tech students with math and science degrees in sufficient numbers to fill the vacancies in their industries. Therefore they must import workers from countries such as India and China in order to fill their worker shortage.

4)Small businesses and farmers on the other hand are looking for cheap unskilled labor and are lobbying for guest worker programs. They want the law prohibiting them from hiring illegal aliens softened or removed.

5)Liberal voters don't like borders and are pushing for a dismantling of most all of our immigrations laws.

6)The majority of voters want our immigration laws enforced, the borders secured and illegal aliens deported. Americans want lawful immigrants that assimilate and swear allegiance to our country.   

In order to resolve any problem, one must first correctly identify the source and cause of the problem. In the case of our immigration and border problem, there are two indisputable causes; lack of security and lack of deportation.

The reason lack of security and deportation are separate, is that, even if we were to build a wall around America rivaling the wall of China, not all illegal aliens enter the country via crossing the border. Many illegal aliens have been granted visas, and then they fail to leave once their legal right to remain in the country has elapsed. 

Some states (California) give illegal aliens sanctuary while other states (Arizona) have been sued for trying to assist the federal government immigration duty to enforce the law.

The bottom line; border patrol and capture, deportation enforcement and criminal prosecution of those hiring or abetting illegal aliens has been undermined by federal and state authorities.

The next question to be rightly asked therefore is, how does changing the law or granting amnesty fix our broken immigration system? Americans know that they answer is simple; it doesn't. Laws not enforced are meaningless. And we have granted amnesty before and it only worsens the problem. 

There are three main false assertions being used as arguments for the need to grant amnesty and change immigration laws. 

The first argument being expressed is that there are too many to deport.  The contention being if you estimate that there are upwards of 11 million illegal aliens then it is logistically impossible to deport them all. Also, in deporting that many illegal aliens because of the misuse of the "Anchor Baby" determination of citizen by being born in America, then you would be breaking up families.

The second argument being used is that business and industry cannot fill both high end and low end tech jobs by hiring American citizens. 

The third argument is that America's immigration laws are archaic and discriminatory.

Well let's take the last argument first about discrimination that is argued by multicultural liberal groups that want to make America an open border turn style for every human in the world regardless of their pedigree and loyalty. 

One needs to ask these open border advocates if they leave the door wide open in their own apartment or house. Do they allow anyone off the street to waltz in and raid their refrigerator, sleep on their sheets and then claim squatters rights to half the property?  Or wipe out their families health by a contagious illness? We know the answer, and we know the radical idiocy of their open border ideas. Fail!

The second argument touted by business pushing the need to import our high skilled work force is equally illegitimate. The argument by corporations that our education system doesn't produce enough high tech workers does need to be solved. So why would they not actively recruit the freshman on college campuses to get their degrees in those disciplines rather than abandoning American youth for foreign nationals? Why do they support progressive policies and unions that have destroyed America's education? Fail!  

The second argument made by small businesses that Americans will not apply and work at unskilled labor jobs is equally illegitimate. Supply and demand exists not just in consumerism but also in the labor market. The better the compensation and benefits the more attractive the jobs. If your business operating plan relies on cheap labor, low wages and no benefits and you are finding it hard to hire workers then you should either fold as a business or raise those wages to attract workers. Expecting the government to grant you slave laborers is an affront to free markets. Fail!

Finally the logistical impossibility of deportation argument that pretends a manhunt brigade is needed to do the job along with the compassionate argument against breaking up families needs debunking.

If one makes this specious  argument then the logical question becomes; why do we have any laws at all. In fact, since we can't stop criminal activity on our streets so why not argue for the abolishment of all criminal laws, release all prisoners and disband our police force? 

When does our criminal justice department decide not to prosecute criminal conduct because the perpetrator is a single mother or single father with children to raise and support? Sending a single parent to prison for life certainly breaks up the family and leaves children in some cases, wards of the state. We don't as a society suggest that as long as you are a breadwinning single parent you have amnesty from prosecution, do we? Fail again!

Along with E-Verify we should be requiring hospitals, social services police officers, landlords, employers and any other individuals to report illegal aliens or face stiff fines and possible criminal charges in the quest for deportation tracking. We could create a self-deportation campaign (2-3 years) where a public service message tells people to report themselves to authorities and have their deportment transportation costs paid. The benefit being that before that 3 year period expires they would not be placed on a permanent list banning them from future entry. Once the grace period is over then people would be warned that they would be deported with prejudice, meaning they would lose the opportunity to ever come back to America's front door.

The truth is that America has the right to sovereignty just as individuals have the right to deny trespass on their properties. We have the right and the obligation to keep citizens safe from seditious cultures, pandemic illnesses, criminal importation and proportioned absorption per our economic situation.

No other country in the world is the haven for the world, and no other country in the world can offer the exceptional opportunities that American citizenship grants to those lawfully seeking to become a loyal assimilated new American immigrant. 

The talk of amnesty by the left, the Democrat Party and the sell-outs in the Republican party are not just wrong, they are cynically immoral for choosing illegal aliens over law abiding legal immigrants.

The big and small business lobbyists are wrong because they are seeking to solve America's high and low skilled labor market shortage by quick government fix rather than to invest in our American workforce. 

The only group that holds the moral high ground is in fact the majority of Americans. The majority that wants our borders made secure. The majority that wants the government to do its job and deport illegal trespassers. The majority that is against amnesty. The majority that wants the rule of law to not be politicized by Washington bureaucrats. The majority that wants legal immigrants to be honored and respected and not feeling foolish that it would have been cheaper and easier to ignore our immigration laws. 

Americans heard Obama say that the 2014 election was about his policies. Americans voted and spoke to those policies. The results were not fuzzy and or hard to discern. From his foreign policy, domestic regulations and amnesty open border dreams, Americans said NO, NO, NO and enough, enough and enough. 

The American people know the difference between an eggroll, a burrito and Gruber-ville crap sandwich when it come to comprehensive immigration reform.     

It is time for the newly elected Congress of 2014  to represent the majority voice when they take office in 2015. It is time for our representatives to represent citizens not special interests. It is time they adhere to their constitutional oaths and stop acting as though the immigration issue is complicated, it isn't. The only reason it has become convoluted is because of political expediency, by both political parties.