Understanding Why Trump Won

As former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says in this most recent PragerU video, it took a shift in the political landscape over many decades for the voters in the U.S. to realize that all of the globalization of our economy was not working for them.

NAFTA, the Paris Accords, and efforts to address the perceived threats of climate change, all demonstrated that a Americans were getting the "short end of the stick". Globalization had taken advantage of our prosperity, and left us in a condition that was forcing us to be dependent on an ever growing federal bureaucracy of food stamps, and unemployment subsistence which created a climate of frustration and angst. 

He also describes how the globalization process, which began during the Bill Clinton administration, created two types of workers; the Anywheres and the Somewheres. So, those who had gone to colleges - especially the Ivy League type - through their network of family and club associates got jobs in large international corporations. Those who didn't fell into the category of worker who found themselves subject to limiting conditions; federal regulations on their businesses, industry leaving the country to cheaper labor abroad, etc.

I believe, however, there are of factors which also had equal impact on the outcome of the 2016 election, which Harper didn't address in his five minute video presentation. While former Prime Minister Harper, from an economic standpoint is spot on with his points, he is being a typical politician by not mentioning other key issues which play into this scenario that contributed to Trump's win against Clinton.

We had seen our politicians repeatedly tell us one thing, then do either nothing, or another thing, ie: immigration reform, to cite the major issue now coming to a head. The citizenry slowly became savvy to this. Coupled with the history of the opposition candidate - Hillary Clinton - the events which occurred during her tenure as Secretary of State (Benghazi), and the revelations during the presidential campaign by Wikileaks and her email server scandal, the voters were finally fed up. Liking what Trump was saying as an outsider of the Washington, D.C. elite, many held their nose while voting for him against their ideological loyalty.

Harper correctly then boils it down to the point that it is the reality of nations, not the concept of global organizations, the voting pubic awoke to realizing was negatively impacting their ability to live prosperously. Trump recognized this. Harper also deserves credit in saying we must maintain a balanced view of trade, market economics, globalization, and immigration while keeping the consumers the priority of our policies regarding those issues.

Now, after two years of the federal investigation producing not one actual bit of evidence proving that Trump's campaign was acting in any way with Russia, or Vladimir Putin, to "fix" the election - in fact there has been a mountain of evidence that the investigation against Trump was fake and initiated by the Clinton campaign and the DNC - combined with the results Pres. Trump has produced for the working men and women of the nation, it has become obvious that their instincts were correct.

Yet, the attitude of the left is one of a toddler, throwing a temper tantrum, to falsely accuse and disrupt the president's agenda at every turn. And now, Clinton is once again, reportedly still entertaining the notion that she might yet run a third time in 2020. If I give her any positive remarks, it would have to be that she is so power hungry and driven to be in control, she will not let go!

Everyone Is Smart... Except Trump!

It takes a special talent, obviously something which I don't have, to take the obvious and make it both tongue in cheek, while being funny and "in your face", all at the same time. 

Rabbi Dov Fischer does. His article titled "Everyone is Smart... Except Trump" spells out why the Media (D) is treating him the way they are and are throwing everything they can behind the liberal/socialists to make him as ineffective as they possibly can.

Although long, this piece provides the reader with insight that we who understand this man have already figured out, but the "talking heads" are too dense to figure out.

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It really is quite simple.  Everyone is smart except Donald J. Trump.  That’s why they all are billionaires and all got elected President.  Only Trump does not know what he is doing.  Only Trump does not know how to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.  Anderson Cooper knows how to stand up to Putin.  The whole crowd at MSNBC does.  All the journalists do.

They could not stand up to Matt Lauer at NBC.  They could not stand up to Charlie Rose at CBS.  They could not stand up to Mark Halperin at NBC.  Nor up to Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic, nor Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, nor Michael Oreskes at NPR, at the New York Times, or at the Associated Press.  But — oh, wow! — can they ever stand up to Putin!  Only Trump is incapable of negotiating with the Russian tyrant.

Remember the four years when Anderson Cooper was President of the United States?  And before that — when the entire Washington Post editorial staff jointly were elected to be President?  Remember?  Neither do I!

The Seedier Media never have negotiated life and death, not corporate life and death, and not human life and death.  They think they know how to negotiate, but they do not know how.  They go to a college, are told by peers that they are smart, get some good grades, proceed to a graduate degree in journalism, and get hired as analysts.  Now they are experts, ready to take on Putin and the Iranian Ayatollahs at age 30.

That is not the road to expertise in tough dealing.  The alternate road is that, along the way, maybe you get forced into some street fights.  Sometimes the other guy wins, and sometimes you beat the intestines out of him.  Then you deal with grown-ups as you mature, and you learn that people can be nasty, often after they smile and speak softly.  You get cheated a few times, played.  And you learn.  Maybe you become an attorney litigating multi-million-dollar case matters.  Say what you will about attorneys, but those years — not the years in law school, not the years drafting legal memoranda, but the years of meeting face-to-face and confronting opposing counsel — those years can teach a great deal.  They can teach how to transition from sweet, gentle, diplomatic negotiating to tough negotiating. At some point, with enough tough-nosed experience, you figure out Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” yourself.

Trump’s voters get him because not only is he we, but we are he.  We were not snowflaked-for-life by effete professors who themselves never had negotiated tough life-or-death serious deals.  Instead we live in the real world, and we know how that works.  Not based on social science theories, not based on “conceptual negotiating models”, but based on the people we have met over life and always will hate.  That worst boss we ever had.  The coworker who tried to sabotage us.  We know the sons of bums whom we survived, the dastardly types who are out there, and we learned from those experiences how to deal with them.  We won’t have John Kerry soothe us by having James Taylor sing “You’ve Got a Friend” carols.

The Bushes got us into all kinds of messes.  The first one killed the economic miracle that Reagan had fashioned.  The second one screwed up the Middle East, where Iraq and Iran beautifully were engaged in killing each other for years, and he got us mired into the middle of the muddle.  Clinton was too busy with Monica Lewinsky to protect us from Osama bin Laden when we had him in our sights. Hillary gave us Benghazi and more  And Obama and Kerry gave us the Iran Deal, ISIS run amok, America in retreat.  All to the daily praise of a media who now attack Trump every minute of every day.

So let us understand a few things:

Negotiating with NATO

NATO is our friend.  They also rip off America.  They have been ripping us off forever.  We saved their butts — before there even was a NATO — in World War I.  They messed up, and 116,456 Americans had to die to save their butts.

Then they messed up again for the next two decades because West Europeans are effete and so obsessed with their class manners, and their rules of savoir faire, and their socialist welfare states, and their early retirements that they did not have the character to stand up to Hitler in the 1930s [over].  Peace in our time.  So they messed up, and we had to save their butts again.  And another 405,399 Americans died for them during World War II.  And then we had to rebuild them!  And we had to station our boys in Germany and all over their blood-stained continent.   So, hey, we love those guys.  We love NATO.

And yet they still rip us off.  We pay 4% of our gigantic gross domestic product to protect them, and they will not pay a lousy 2% of their GDP towards their own defense!  Is there a culture more penny-pinching-cheap-and-stingy than the fine constituents of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?  These cheap base bornprigs will not pay their fare.  They are too cheap.  They expect America to send boys to die for them in one world war, then another — hundreds of thousands — and then to pay for their NATO defense even a century later.  And then they have the temerity to cheat us further in trade!

Long before Trump, they set up tariffs against us for so many things.  If the average American knew how badly Europe has been ripping us off for decades with their tariffs, no one in this country would buy anything European again.  We would say, as a matter of self-respect and personal pride, “I no longer will buy anything but American, no matter what it costs.”

Every American President has complained about the cheating and imbalance — the NATO penny-pinching-cheapness, the tariff and trade imbalances.  In more recent years, the various Bushes complained about it.  Even Obama complained about it.  But they all did it so gently, so diplomatically.  They would deliver the sermon, just as the pastor predictably tells the church-goers on Sunday morning that he is against sin, and the Europeans would sit quietly and nod their heads — nodding from sleeping, not from agreeing — and then they would go back out and sin some more.  Another four years of America being suckered and snookered.  All they had to do was give Obama a Nobel Peace Prize his ninth month in office and let Kerry ride his bike around Paris.

So Trump did what any effective negotiator would do: he took note of past approaches to NATO and their failures, and correctly determined that the only way to get these penny-pinching-cheap baseborn prigs to pay their freight would be to bulldoze right into their faces, stare them right in their glazed eyes with cameras rolling, and tell them point-blank the equivalent of: “You are the cheapest penny-pinching, miserly, stingy, tightwadded skinflints ever.  And it is going to stop on my watch.  Whatever it takes from my end, you selfish, curmudgeonly cheap prigs, you are going to pay your fair share.  I am not being diplomatic.  I am being All-Business: either you start to pay or, wow, are you in for some surprises!  And you know what you read in the Fake News: I am crazy!  I am out of control!  So, lemme see.  I know: We will go to trade war!  How do you like that?  Maybe we even will pull all our troops out of Europe.  Hmmm.  Yeah, maybe.  Why not?  Sounds good.  Well, let’s see.”

So Trump stuffed it into their quiche-and-schnitzel ingesting faces.  And he convinced them — thanks to America’s Seedier Media who are the real secret to the “Legend That is Trump” — that he just might be crazy enough to go to trade war and to pull American boys home.  They knew that Clinton and Bush x 2 and Kerry and Hillary and Nobel Laureate Obama never would do it.  But they also know that Trump just might.  And if they think they are going to find comfort and moderating in his new advisers, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, alongside him…. Nuh-uh.

So CNN and the Washington Post and all the Seedier Media attacked Trump for days: "He is destroying the alliance!  He attacks our friends!"

Baloney.  Obama was the one whom the Left Echo Chamber… Chamber… Chamber never called out for attacking our friends — Israel, Britain, so many others — while cozying up to Hugo Chavez, bowing to dictators, and dancing the tango for Raul Castro.  Trump is just the opposite: He knows who the friends are, and he wants to maintain and strengthen those friendships.  It is no different from a parent telling a 35-year-old son: “I have been supporting you for thirty-five years.  I put you through college by signing four years and $100,000 PLUS in Loans.  You graduated college fifteen years ago.  For fifteen years I have been asking you nicely to look for a job and to start contributing.  Instead, you sit home all day playing video games, texting your friends on a smartphone I pay for, and picking little fuzz balls out of your navel.  So, look, I love you.  You are my flesh and blood.  But if you are not employed and earning a paycheck — and contributing to the cost of this household — in six months, we are throwing you out of the house.”  That boy is NATO.  Trump is Dad.  And all of us have been signing for the PLUS Loans. [Emphasis mine.]

Negotiating with Putin

Putin is a bad guy.  A really bad guy.  He is better than Lenin.  Better than Stalin, Khrushchev, Kosygin, Brezhnev, Pol Pot, Mao.  But he is a really bad guy.

Here’s the thing: Putin is a dictator.  He answers to no one.  He does whatever he wants.  If there arises an opponent, that guy dies.  Maybe the opponent gets poked with a poisoned umbrella.   Maybe he gets shot on the street.  Maybe the opponent is forced to watch Susan Rice interviews telling the world that Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video, seen by nine derelicts in Berkeley, and that Bowe Berghdal served with honor and distinction.  But, one way or another, the opponent dies.

Trump knows this about Putin. And here is what that means:

If you insult Putin in public, like by telling the news media just before or after meeting with him that he is the Butcher of Crimea, and he messed with our elections, and is an overall jerk — then you will get nothing behind closed doors from Putin.  Putin will decide “To heck with you, and to heck with the relationship we just forged.”  Putin will get even, will take intense personal revenge, even if it is bad for Russia — even if it is bad for Putin.  Because there are no institutional reins on him.

But if you go in public and tell everyone that Putin is a nice guy (y’know, just like Kim Jong Un) and that Putin intensely maintains that he did not mess with elections — not sweet little Putey Wutey (even though he obviously did) — then you next can maintain the momentum established beforehand in the private room.  You can proceed to remind Putin what you told him privately: that this garbage has to stop —or else.  That if he messes in Syria, we will do “X.”  If he messes with our Iran boycott, we will do “Y.”  We will generate so much oil from hydraulic fracturing and from ANWR and from all our sources that we will glut the market — if not tomorrow, then a year from now.  We will send even more lethal offensive military weapons to Ukraine.  We can restore the promised shield to Eastern Europe that Obama withdrew.  And even if we cannot mess with Russian elections (because they have no elections), they do have computers — and, so help us, we will mess with their technology in a way they cannot imagine.  Trump knows from his advisers what we can do.  If he sweet-talks Putin in public — just Putin on the Ritz<— then everything that Trump has told Putin privately can be reinforced with action, and he even can wedge concessions because, against that background, Putin knows that no one will believe that he made any concessions.  Everyone is set to believe that Putin is getting whatever he wants, that Trump understands nothing.  So, in that setting, Putin can make concessions and still save face.

That is why Trump talks about him that way.  And that is the only possible way to do it when negotiating with a tyrant who has no checks and balances on him.  If you embarrass the tyrant publicly, then the tyrant never will make concessions because he will fear that people will say he was intimidated and backed down.  And that he never will do.  Meanwhile, Trump has expelled 60 Russians from America, reversed Obama policy and sent lethal weapons to Ukraine, and is pressing Germany severely on its pipeline project with Russia.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, Donald Trump is over seventy years old.  He has made many mistakes in his life.  He still makes some  He is human.  But Trump likewise has spent three score and a dozen years learning.  He has seen some of his businesses go bankrupt, and he has learned from those experiences to be a billionaire and not let it happen again.  No doubt that he has been fooled, outsmarted in years past.  And he has learned from life.

He is a tough and smart negotiator.  He sizes up his opponent, and he knows that the approach that works best for one is not the same as for another.  It does not matter what he says publicly about his negotiating opponent.  What matters is what results months later.

In his first eighteen months in Washington, this man has turned around the American economy, brought us near full employment, reduced the welfare and food stamp lines, wiped out ISIS in Raqqa, moved America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, successfully has launched massive deregulation of the economy, has opened oil exploration in ANWR, is rebuilding the military massively, has walked out of the useless Paris Climate Accords that were negotiated by America’s amateurs who always get snookered, canned the disastrous Iran Deal, exited the bogus United Nations Human Rights Council.  He has Canada and Mexico convinced he will walk out of NAFTA if they do not pony up, and he has the Europeans convinced he will walk out of NATO if they don’t stop being the cheap and lazy parasitic penny-pinchers they are.  He has slashed income taxes, expanded legal protections for college students falsely accused of crimes, has taken real steps to protect religious freedoms and liberties promised in the First Amendment, boldly has taken on the lyme-disease-quality of a legislative mess that he inherited from Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama on immigration, and has appointed a steady line of remarkably brilliant conservative federal judges to sit on the district courts, the circuit appellate courts, and the Supreme Court.

What has Anderson Cooper achieved during that period? [His mother's reputation?] Jim Acosta or the editorial staffs of the New York Times and Washington Post?  They have not even found the courage and strength to stand up to the coworkers and celebrities within their orbits who abuse sexually or psychologically or emotionally.  They have no accomplishments to compare to his.  Just their effete opinions, all echoing each other, all echoing, echoing, echoing.  They gave us eight years of Nobel Peace Laureate Obama negotiating with the ISIS JV team, calming the rise of the oceans, and healing the planet.

We will take Trump negotiating with Putin any day.

Differences Between Democrat and Republican Economic Policy

Sometimes lessons learned from history can be very beneficial, while teaching us practical lessons in economic policy.

Dick Morris, the personal advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton in Arkansas and Washington, D.C. during his two terms in office, has posted an interesting historical video on the difference of how economic policy of the two parties - Democrat and Republican presidents has resulted in very different responses by our nation's investors and the broader consumer of the country.

I was, I must admit, surprised that Dick Morris mentioned Pres. Trump's cutting taxes in the video, but never pointed out that it was Pres. Reagan who, in our more recent past, was the first to stimulate true economic growth by cutting taxes in the '80s. 

However, there are many other factors which Pres. Trump is implementing which Pres. Reagan did not. Substantial and significant policy implementations, which the Media (D) refuses to tell the public who watches their stations, will, and are already, having incredible results which the left are finding difficult to refute.

I must also admit that their are both pros and cons to the policy of implementing tax cuts, as this History Chanel video points out clearly. The con which I find disturbing, since Pres. Trump is also engaging in, is deficit spending which has increased out national debt to almost $22 trillion today! While Pres. Obama took it from $14 trillion when he took office, (scroll down to Barrack Obama on this link.), it remains to be seen just how much more Pres. Trump will end up increasing it to at the point when he leaves office. The hope, or expectation, as I understand it, is that increased employment will ultimately result in increased revenue and thus, decreased national debt; if that revenue increase is applied to the debt. Don't hold your breath!

What We Aren't Being Told About the Impact of Marijuana Use

As my e-friend stated in sharing this article with me, "Best article I have ever seen on the links between Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence." I was pleased to see that someone with credentials is providing significant data about the connections we are only now beginning to learn regarding marijuana use more recently.

As a high school student in the late '60s amidst the "cultural revolution" of that period, and an older brother who influence me to experiment with drugs at that point in my life, I can personally testify to the validity of what this author speaks to in this article. He is spot on. Naturally, he started me out on marijuana and it started out as very occasionally. Over the last few years of school, he introduced me at parties to more serious stuff. It was after I'd graduated from high school that I personally had to come to terms with my gradual increased and more frequent use of more dangerous drugs. 

Fortunately for me, it proved to be the best decision I ever made in impacting my life's future, and I've never touched anything since then. Unfortunately for my brother, it ultimately was his undoing. He was killed by a gang member as a peripheral outcome of his long-term use during his attempt to rehabilitate himself from his addiction to "Crack".

During my teaching career I used to have a couple weeks lessons in the '80s that would speak to these issues, but it seems that the pro-marijuana faction has successfully managed to get it removed from public schools over time. It went away in the '90s or early 2000s.

I urge anyone reading this article to share it with others who may find it informative and, who knows, might result in saving someone's life in the long run.

Speaker Pelosi's Implementing Her Plan Early

It's becoming obvious that the projections of various political pundits who, in the past, predicted that Texas was the next target of the leftist/socialists to turn the state blue, were correct. I say this because the message I just received provides pretty clear indications from this recently elected Congressman Chip Roy. I urge you to take the time to read it carefully. (See below)

I'm NOT sharing it because I am asking you to donate to his need - that's your personal choice - but to provide you with an understanding that our politics are becoming more and more vitriolic and divisive. I believe it is because the Democrats see the current president's accomplishments as extremely threatening to their future existence. Liberals understand all too well that, if they can gain the upper hand in the Electoral College by the next presidential campaign season, they'll win.

Remember, the more informed about what's really going on we are, the more aware we will be about making the best decision for our own, and our children's, future. We can not afford to let the liberals get the upper hand in their ideological war on this nation and its promise of "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

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Nancy Pelosi's campaign arm just launched a "significant" ad buy against me and several others for standing for border security. It's still January - just months after an election - and the national Democrats are already running desperate campaign ads again because they're so out of touch on keeping Americans safe.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Democrats would hold American national security and sovereignty hostage for 35 days in a government shut down. Never did I think that we would see adults throw temper tantrums over $5.7 billion in necessary spending to build the border wall out of more than $1 trillion in overall spending.  The dangers from not securing the border are clear. Drugs are flowing across our borders, into our neighborhoods and homes. Americans and migrants alike are dying. Migrants are being abducted and forced into slavery. Little girls are being sold into the sex trade. Yet the Democrats are more interested in trying to make President Trump look bad than securing the border. It's that simple. And we need your help to fight back.  Would you consider an urgent donation of $25, $50, $100 or more right away to help us stand against this new national Democrat ad onslaught? Help Us Secure Our Borders: $25 >> Help Us Keep Texas Red: Donate $50 >> Help Us Stop Pelosi-Backed Ads: Donate $100 >> Help Us Fight for Our Principles: Donate Other Amount >> In 2014, former President Obama himself said there is an "actual humanitarian crisis on the border." But the Democrats completely stonewalled any deal or negotiations for 35 days to fund the border wall. One of the main things I hate about Washington is that politics consistently gets in the way of policy. Nancy Pelosi and national Democrats are trying to invade Texas -- and they have their eyes set on us as one of the main targets. They know we're fighting to secure the border and keep Texas families safe. Just as I promised you I would during the campaign last year. I did not go to Washington to keep playing the games that have resulted in $22 trillion in debt and the lack of ability to do even our basic duties. I am in Congress to fight for YOU and our shared conservative principles. And now we are paying the price. Despite Texas rejecting the last Pelosi-backed candidate just months ago, radical liberal groups funded by Hollywood and New York billionaires are already spending money again to defeat us. I am devoting all of my time in Congress to fighting for you and keeping my promises. Meanwhile, the false ads and money pouring into Texas against us stand unchallenged. Will you please help me push back against these attacks? As reported by the Texas Tribune, liberal donors and leaders have us "in their crosshairs as they begin the 2020 election cycle looking to build on their gains here in November." They know our district is the gateway to turning Texas blue. Help us stop this attack. Help us defend our borders. Help us continue to keep my promises and defend liberty. Sorry to reach out under these conditions, but timing is important. Your contribution will help us send them a message NOW that we won't be intimidated into supporting liberal policies. For Liberty,  U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (TX-21)

The Cycle of Cultures

This post will be quite long because it has a lot of content regarding the topic, but those who understand what's at stake will take the time to wade through it. This topic's article is copied from a publication called The American.

First, the story in our local news which touches on some very critical issues affecting our lives today. Second, since at the end of this story a request for feedback is made, I have posted my sentiments following. And, for the sake of length, I shall leave the copy attributed to Mr. Driscoll of the TNT the regular width on the page.

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Legal Procedures Questioned (excerpt from TNT by Matt Driscoll 1/17/2019) 

       Last week at this time, in the TNT as attentive readers might recall, Bonilla Gomez was an undocumented immigrant facing the very real prospect of being deported to Guatemala, a country he left more than a decade ago. He had been locked up at the Northwest Detention Center since late October when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials pounced on him in the parking lot of his children’s dentist office. Being forced to leave the United States would mean relocating his family to a country his wife and children had never known, or worse, separating them.

Thankfully — at least for those sympathetic to Bonilla Gomez’s story, and his family’s supporters — those fears never materialized. While immigration cases across the country have been put on hold because of the government shutdown, cases continue to be heard inside the NWDC, and late last week a judge presiding over Bonilla Gomez’s case ruled in the family’s favor.

Bonilla Gomez will be allowed to stay in the United States as a lawful permanent resident, the judge decided.

Soon, a green card will provide the security Bonilla Gomez has not known in this country, serving as documented proof of his right to be here.

The judge’s decision — which Bonilla Gomez’s attorney shared with The News Tribune with his client’s permission — means no more fear, no more uncertainty and no more hiding.

“This opportunity was the best that I could have hoped for in my life,” Bonilla Gomez said. “I can come out from under the shadow where I had been living as an undocumented person. I can now give my children, my family a better life. … We can see things differently now.”

Officials with ICE couldn’t be immediately reached for comment, likely a result of the ongoing government shutdown.

When I spoke to her last week, Maria Bonilla, Leobel’s wife, said the possibility of her husband’s deportation wasn’t something she was allowing herself to think about. The stakes were too high, the emotions too raw, she said.

Still, it had clearly crossed her mind. The couple has five children — three from a previous relationship Maria had with a man who drowned in 2010, and twins, 3-year-old Joshua and Samantha, who were born prematurely and deal with developmental issues.

In Guatemala or Mexico, she feared, her young children wouldn’t have access to the medical care they depend on. Maria’s older children, meanwhile, likely wouldn’t be able to pursue their dreams. Her 16-year-old daughter, Guadalupe, is looking forward to college and dreams of studying medicine, or perhaps the law.

Admittedly, as a columnist and outside observer, the likelihood of Bonilla Gomez’s deportation crossed my mind as well.

That’s because his attorney, Diego Aranda Teixeira, explained the case he would need to make on behalf of Bonilla Gomez. He said it would involve demonstrating the “exceptional and extremely unusual” hardship the family would endure if Bonilla Gomez was removed from the country and convincing the judge of his client’s “good moral character.”

The first part, at least, seemed straightforward. Given the size and needs of Bonilla Gomez’s family, removing him from the country and potentially forcing his wife and children to follow appeared to have a decent chance of meeting the high threshold of the court.

The second part was complicated — which is why I was drawn to Bonilla Gomez’s story.

Bonilla Gomez is a family man and a hardworking breadwinner. He’s also a flawed human being, like most of us. He has a history of alcohol abuse that has led to two DUIs and a dismissed domestic violence charge marring his record.

Would an immigration judge — even when presented with Bonilla Gomez’s contrition, the acknowledgment of his alcohol problem and evidence of the steps he’s taken to get and stay sober, which date back more than a year — be convinced he was a good candidate to stay?

Would readers be able to appreciate the humanity of Bonilla Gomez’s story, aware of the incredibly high standards we require of others to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities we often take for granted.

The chances seemed precarious at best, and at worst, hopeless.

Then, last Friday arrived, and with it the news I can now say I wasn’t expecting. Rarely have I been so pleased to be wrong.

I asked Aranda Teixeira if the judge’s decision represented a win not just for his client but for society?

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation, noting that his client will have to avoid a long list of serious criminal offenses to take advantage of his second chance, and one mistake could see it all taken away.

More importantly, the attorney said that while people often search for model citizens, “nuclear scientists or geniuses” to make the case for what immigration adds to this country, there’s potentially just as much weight in what a story like Bonilla Gomez’s can teach us.

“There’s a value in regret, and there’s a value in turning one’s life around, because that’s facing obstacles and then proving one’s self,” Aranda Teixeira said. “In this case, we have a family that now gets to stay together.”

Yes, we do. And while arguments will undoubtedly be made to the contrary, it’s hard for me to see how that’s a bad thing.

As to what that family does next, Bonilla Gomez, who sobbed tears of relief when the judge’s decision was rendered, was once again succinct.

“Our family can now live our American dream,” he said.

The editor of the American would like the opinions of the readership on the legality of this action.  

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I have mixed feelings & reactions to the article about Bonilla Gomez's story. I'm a bit conflicted between my sense of compassion - I grew up in a family who sponsored a Mexican family from Tijuana - and my sense of right and wrong; the upholding of law and order and justice.

Those on the left will focus on the compassion of the judge's decision. It aligns with their ideology regarding immigration. I say this because it's obvious to me that liberals - as my personal experience taught me during my teaching career - are very skilled at persuading those less grounded in their principles and values to side, or align, with their ways of viewing how society should be structured and operate.This is their means by which they bring more civic participants into the electoral process; whether legally, or illegally through voter fraud, as many circumstances have revealed in past elections. As for punishment of the commission of crimes, their compassion dominates their sense of justice and the rule of law. One does not want to offend those in your ranks who help grow your voter base. The bigger the bureaucracy, the more efficient and effective everything will be is their perspective on how to improve society.

Those who identify with the conservative ideology will focus on how they developed their principles and values of personal liberty and independence, respect of law and order to maintain civility, entrepreneurship, giving as their abilities allow, maneuvering and overcoming hardships despite the obstacle encountered, and a disgust for double standards, etc. which holds that those who disregard the law and ultimately use the "system of social services" without having contributed to it, are frustrated that their productive contribution to society's social net is being abused and ruined for those in society who've honestly and through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times. Conservatives see the experience which teaches the principles and values of self-reliance - the "school of hard knocks", or hardships along the journey of life - being eroded away by programs which make it easier to develop dependency on the growing bureaucracy of the left.

Therefore, while I understand the personal impacts Bonilla's circumstance would generate, which no one would wish on anyone, and I would hope that Bonilla would become a legal citizen through the established process, the judge's decision to confer legality despite his flagrant disregard for respecting our laws by living a life "in the shadows", reveals that our legal system no longer adheres to a conservative view of upholding the nation's principles and values we once maintained. Such a shift is causing greater and greater divisions among among us because civility and decency are being gradually eroded away over generations. It seems societies inevitably cycle through periods of greatness, then eventually tear themselves apart and collapse. (Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the United Kingdom; to name the more well known examples.)

Exactly what the end result will be is uncertain. Yet, many ignore the lessons which history has demonstrated to everyone in past similar circumstances. If we ignore them much longer, we may well be doomed to repeat it ourselves.

What is the Virtue in Passivism?

To answer that question... There is none!

With the passing of a Virginia Senate bill that repeals an old law prohibiting bringing weapons to church, the press now appears to be taking on the roll of our spiritual advisors.

As the article in The Virginia-Pilot's opening sentence tells us, the bill has "...sparked an emotional debate over whether packing heat in a house of worship constitutes a snub to the Almighty." Apparently we are now, by exercising our right to defend our lives, offending, or going against God's command to be passive! 

In my opinion, this kind of subtle and insidious way of thinking is nothing more than an attempt by the leftists to brainwash those who don't have the education, or skill, to exercise logic and critical thinking about a subject. Instead, they tend to go along with whatever the popular trend is today. 

Of course, the press uses an unquestionable source to bolster the liberal meme that we Christians should take on the same attitude that our Lord Jesus Christ took when he was sentenced by Pontius Pilot to the cross. Typical of too many preachers or ministers of churches today, an out of context and misused verse from the Bible is used to justify this position.

"Psalm 46 said, 'God is our refuge and strength,'" Sen. Lionell Spruill Sr., D, said as he argued against the measure Thursday. "Now we are saying with this bill, we no longer trust in God."

I hear the echoing of liberal passivism when using this selective verse.

Then, in the third & fourth paragraphs, explains why the old bill was in place, but apparently in an effort to be balanced, cites the phrase which reveals a "loophole".

Yet further on in this unbelievably insane article, more statements are made which belie logic and ignore the very Christian value that life is sacred by inferring that if worshipers are at their best, then a person who, for whatever motive they may have, will somehow also be their best.

Sen. Chap Petersen, D, struck a similar note: "When I walk into a house of worship, it humbles me. You need to act and be your best, and that means putting down your firearm."

This, to me, is proof of just how much many of our houses of worship today have become liberalized. They're no more safe than the public schools which have become "gun safe zones."

There have been many conversations online in various forums and 2nd amendment organization sites that have discussed this issue for many years about how to best handle the rising threat of massacres occurring more and more in the recent years and how to protect congregants using extremely carefully thought through points which take into account all potential factors that would be involved.

Fortunately, but sadly at the end of the whole article, the reporter discloses what was shared by another Virginia Senator about this issue.

Sen. Charles "Bill" Carrico, R, sided with Black. After the vote took place and the Senate turned to other business, Carrico turned to his Bible to try to bolster his argument. Before the Senate gaveled out for the day, he rose to share what he'd found.

"'Blessed be the lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.' That was from the Old Testament," he said. "In the New Testament, ... 'When a strong man fully armed guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.' Those places of worship where I tithe, where I give offerings, are that palace. And it's my obligation and our right to defend it."

Amen brother! For those wishing to read the entire article, here's the link. P.S. It strikes me as rather odd that in our modern society, we have evolved into a mindset which, with the advent of mass communication and media, we seem to willingly accept our government's involvement in deciding for the collective, the critical decision of life and death, rather than leaving them up to the individual, all under the premise of 'protection'.