Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Nation of Laws?

Every country in south and Central America has either a US embassy or a consulate.  Asylum seekers from those places could LAWFULLY make their applications BEORE willfully endangering their children in long, arduous treks to ILLEGALLY invade our country.  In an honest debate about this issue, we need to ask, WHY?

Unfortunately, the answer is that past practices have applied a “Catch & Release” policy that allowed these illegal aliens to stay in this country awaiting hearings. Quite predictably, almost none of these “Catch & Release” folks ever show for the hearing and simply disappear into our country. This is why the Constitutional concept of Due Process is being actively debated so to change that standard to not be applicable to illegal aliens.

There are 7 countries in Central America and 12 in South America.  With the exception of one, (Brazil), the predominate language is Spanish and the cultures, while not identical, are certainly closer in kind to one another than they are to US cultural norms.  Why are these asylum seekers not considering refuge in any one of these other countries?  They would be closer to home, share the same language, assimilate easier, and spare themselves and their children the dangers of long, difficult travel.  In an honest debate about this issue, we need to ask, WHY?

It would appear that the 19 countries most geographically and culturally appropriate to provide asylum and immigration are unwilling to do so. Why does that become the problem for the USA, the country furthest from the problem?

And finally, why aren’t the citizens of countries that are apparently falling apart, taking action?  What about a citizens revolt and take back their country instead of running away? The USA has stood up to every world threat in modern times. When the British attempted to put its thumb on the colonies, our forefathers didn’t seek asylum, we went to war in order to defend our country, fighting and dying in the process.

 

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Bobby

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One year ago today, my son was nearly killed when a car pulled out in front of him while he was riding his motorcycle. Unconscious and suffering from severe, multiple injuries, Bob would remain in a coma for almost 3 weeks and would degrade so significantly while in a level 2 trauma center that he would need to be emergency air-lifted to a level 1 center in order to receive advanced lung treatments.

In the midst of this, the lead surgeon dealing with Bob’s multiple broken bones, closed head trauma and internal injuries took me aside after performing half a dozen surgeries on Bob within 10 days and told me that I had best prepare my ex-wife for the reality that Bob was likely not going to make it. His lungs had been so badly damaged that his ability to uptake oxygen had been compromised badly and the reality of severe brain damage was ever-present.  The surgeon thought that Bob would never regain consciousness and told me that after a few days to allow my ex-wife to come to terms with the reality of the situation, they would take him off the machines keeping him alive.

My daughter flew in to be with her brother. Six months pregnant with her first child, I worried about what this was going to do to her.  The airport was almost an hour away, and as I waited for my daughter to arrive, my ex-wife called me, frantic that Bob had taken a turn for the worse.  As I drove back to the hospital with my daughter, I was struggling with so many things, my daughter, my son, my ex-wife, how can this be happening?  Would my son be gone before we got back to his bedside?  It was a day I could barely handle.

On Sunday, my ex-wife, my daughter and I went to church. Bob was still in a coma and we were all fogged in with our own emotions, struggling to put one foot in front of the other, but as I left that service and went into the parking lot, the air seemed cleaner, the sun not as hot, and the day clearer.  It was a turning point.

Bob’s struggles were far from over, but he survived and he worked at recovering for those long, long weeks in the hospital and then in the rehabilitation center, enduring tremendous pain in order to coax his limbs to bend and work once again. He had to relearn walking, getting out of bed, getting into and out of a car, transferring from a wheel chair etc. all had to be done while enduring the tremendous pain of healing bones.

God Almighty intervened and saved my son from certain death.  Thankfully, the one-year anniversary falls on a Sunday and I thanked God, in his sanctuary, for giving us back what we feared we had lost.  I love you Bob.  I can only imagine what plans the Lord has for you.

Bob8

 

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The Wall

The Wall represents today’s single most divisive topic in America.  No longer synonymous with one of the greatest record albums of all times, The Wall today trades in yesterdays Pink Floyd for tomorrows Donald Trump.

Clearly a corner stone, (wall-reference), of Trump’s successful presidential campaign, building The Wall was a promise certain that loudly and clearly resonated with the Trump faithful. Why would a secure border insult, anger or alienate anyone, regardless of his or her feelings about Trump?  The only explanation I can conceive is that those opposed to a wall must be advocates of an open-border.  Why else would you oppose something that by definition defines and outlines the country?  Ronald Reagan said, “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”

Even the pope got involved with our Wall business stating that building a southern US border wall was “not Christian.”  That is hilarious when you see what surrounds the place where the Pope lives, The Vatican.

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Not only do all nations have a right to sovereignty, the governments of those nations have the obligation to preserve and protect that sovereignty by defining their nation with sure and secure borders. To do otherwise is to fail citizens in the most fundamental way: in protecting their safety.

Advocates for open-borders, sanctuary cities, amnesty for illegal aliens and those opposed to border walls are not only completely contradictory to the rule-of-law, but are encouraging anarchy and sedition. Ala carte legal compliance is no law at all and anarchists committing acts of sedition are enemies of this nation.

“Doors have locks, citizens have guns, and countries have borders.” Tomi Lahren

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Culture Clash

New York City mayor, Bill DeBlasio, declared today that penalties for publicly smoking marijuana will be reduced to getting a ticket as opposed to being arrested.  The mayor estimates that this will lower arrests by approximately 10,000 annually.  DeBlasio states that the primary reason for this change in procedure is the fact that 85% of those caught smoking marijuana are either black or hispanic.  Somehow, DeBlasio has surmised that this disparity in numbers is defacto discrimination.

If this is true, then the National Basketball Association, (NBA), which is 87% black, also has a discrimination problem.

Of course, the truth is that blacks have proven to be disproportionally better at basketball than whites. Apparently, they also like their marijuana disproportionally more.

Neither of these statements are racist, they are true. There are many things found disproportionate when comparing blacks to whites; incarceration rates, out-of-wedlock births, income, education, cannot all be explained by simply playing the same old race card over and over again.  The over-privileged, over-educated, spoiled rotten crowd produces their share of failures, just as the under-privileged, poverty stricken have encouraging success stories, so lets stop with the easy blanket statement of the blame game on race.

We don’t have a race problem in the USA, what we truly have is a clash of cultures that find within them people of all kinds and colors.  Black or white, you can embrace a culture that centers around, honors and protects family, demands respect, personal responsibility, values education and achievement.  Black or white, when attempting to interact with a counter-culture that trivializes familial importance, respects nothing while disrespecting others, fails to take responsibility, rejects education and distains achievement, not surprisingly, these groups will not blend.  These cultures are diametrically opposed.

The ultimate irony that produces the under-tone of anger, is that those embracing the values of perseverance, hard work, success and achievement, are, because of their success, forced to pay for the poor choices of a culture that has figured out how to game the system, fails to contribute, and drains social services.

Governments all over the country are caving to the pot crowd with an eye, not towards the public interest and the public’s health, but as another funding fountain to sustain and perpetuate the insatiable appetite government at all levels has for spending, expanding, and interfering with our lives.

Pot smoking saps initiative, something already in short supply if you haven’t noticed. By making money off the backs of pot smokers in the form of taxes, fees and penalties, government is giving tacit approval to a serious vice and in doing so is trading their honor, their supposed wisdom and their leadership for access to funds that further their purposes, pot smokers be damned.

No mayor DeBlasio and all other government officials that fein enlightenment regarding the legalization of pot, this will not help, you know it, and you are dishonorable and disingenuous scoundrels. Our real problem is the clash of very different color-blind cultures.

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3rd period, hoping for OT

What an unsettling sensation to realize that a roof replacement and a 30-year mortgage will outlive me. New golf clubs or a tennis racquet bought today, are likely never to be purchased again.  Such are the thoughts of a 65-year-old man shortly after his birthday, pondering the reality that no matter how you look at it, if life is equated to a hockey game, I’m well into the third period.

As unsettling as this is, I’m grateful to God-Almighty for allowing me the good fortune to still be active, athletic and alive.

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Wrong Headed

The Press & Sun-Bulletin, (P&SB) “Editorial Board”, (2 old white guys employed by Gannett), panned the recent decision to end so-called “net-neutrality”, on the shaky intellectual argument that everyone is entitled to everything the internet has to offer, delivered to all users as fast as possible.

Really?

Let’s explore how that same logic might work in the world of print journalism.

I have two daily newspapers delivered to my home, the P&SB and the Wall Street Journal, (WSJ.) I read the P&SB in the time it takes me to consume a small bowl of fruit every morning.  The WSJ takes me the rest of the day to peruse.  The P&SB costs me 50% more than my subscription to the journal.  Three things keep me subscribed to the P&SB; 1. Nostalgia, 2. Scanning the obituaries,  and 3. Learning of local news 48 hours after it happens.

Guided by the wisdom and logic of the P&SB “Editorial Board”, (2 old white guys employed by Gannett,) either the P&SB should slash it’s price by about 75%, or the WSJ should degrade its superior content and superb writing staff in order to match the low level of quality and content provided by the P&SB.

Whether it be providing internet service or newspapers, all businesses incur expenses, are motivated by profitability, and struggle naturally in a competitive business environment that ultimately requires of them the tailoring of products to a marketplace of consumers picking and choosing what they use based on their needs, their ability and their willingness to pay the price.

Similarly, consumers have choices in internet providers. Consumers who demand high speeds can pay for the service, just like all other consumers of all other types of goods and services make decisions based on quality, price and affordability.  The end of an over-reaching regulatory behemoth in government agency oversight might just result in a multi-tiered pricing structure where those consumers of digital goods who may not need wide bandwidth might enjoy a pricing discount for a slower speed.

There is larger life lesson here. If you live in the hood, have kids you can’t afford, enjoy subsidized housing, Medicaid, an EBT card and a bike instead of a car, it is with 99% probability that poor choices on your part landed you there.  That means Weis and not Wegmans, Dollar General and not Bon-Ton, Boscovs and not Brooks Brothers and finally, perhaps the public library computer terminal and not an imagined entitlement to high-speed internet.

If on the other hand, you had a good family upbringing, valued your education, stayed out of trouble, had respect for authority, a strong belief in God, self-respect, and a solid work ethic, then those conditions likely provided you the freedom to choose Wegman’s over Weis, Bon-Ton over Dollar General, Brooks Brothers over Boscov’s and computing power in the speed you can afford and need.

While true that we were all, “created equal,” there is no Constitutional or moral expectation that we necessarily stay that way. We all are defined by the choice we make, the willingness we have to work for what we want, and the desire to be responsible for our own outcomes.  Somewhere along the way, many lost the concept of personal responsibility and self-motivation, replaced instead by learned helplessness, courtesy of a liberal philosophy that devalued the family, removed shame from bad behavior, and encouraged heightened self-esteem in those who should actually be ashamed of their actions.

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BGM

Build it and they will come might make for a good baseball movie and fantasy story telling, but it won’t magically make the Binghamton Regional Airport into a field of dreams.  The departure of IBM and with it, all of the ancillary businesses it supported left the Binghamton region wanting for business travelers making regular trips during the week.  Couple that with technology providing video-conferencing and real-time document sharing and costly routine business travel became largely unnecessary.

Our region, like many smaller markets throughout the US, was wooed into over-building our airports because ample federal funding had always been available to do so.  The Airport Improvement Program was to airports what the Interstate Highway system was to roadways in the later half of the 20th century.  Through that program, billions of dollars are spent every year, averaging about $5.5 million per airport.  And of course the allure was and is, free money, and if you build it they might come, and my personal favorite, if we don’t take it some other region will and we’ll be the worse for it.  Because these federal handouts were so indiscriminate, regions like Binghamton, that were shrinking markets, kept on spending thinking; what’s the downside of taking more and more federal dollars?

Fast-forward to today and this is the reality.

Not counting Binghamton, there are four commercial passenger airports within a one-hour drive, Elmira, Ithaca, Syracuse and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.  Two offer international travel. Binghamton is not one of them.  Three of the airports are directly adjacent to interstate highways.  The Binghamton airport is 8 miles up a two-lane road.  Drawing a 25-mile radius around each of the five airports, Binghamton has the smallest population from which to draw. Syracuse has six carriers with 53 daily flights.  Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has four carriers offering 18 daily flights. Ithaca and Elmira both have three carriers and offer eight daily flights. Binghamton has a single carrier offering three fights a day, all to Detroit.

 

The same brilliant minds thinking that bringing water and sewer lines up airport road would increase airport use, now are contemplating spending thousands of dollars for a consultant to tell us what the airlines have already studied and concluded; the Binghamton market for commercial air service is insufficient to support profitability.

 

Our airport ought to lower its gate fees, landing fees, and all fees imposed on airlines, to be just a bit less than the lowest cost competitor airport within this group. Fuel costs should also be lowered to beat all of those other airports as well.  Helping carriers to lower their costs just might encourage them to offer more services here.

 

It is painfully hard to ignore the irony of the reality that the only way to fly out of Binghamton, a shrinking rust-belt region trying desperately to become a college town, is to end up in another failing region of economic despair, Detroit.

 

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Cesspool

A recent news story reported that the cost to incarcerate each prisoner in NY State is over $69,000.00 annually. Taxpayer dollars spent on prisoners should never exceed the poverty rate because no inmate should be living better than the poorest amongst us.  That rate is currently just over $12,000.00 per year.

 

 

Governor Cuomo tells us that the 2019 NYS budget gap is about $4 billion dollars.

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Here is a solution. End the economic development boondoggle commonly known as the Hunger Games which is nothing more than a corrupt vote-getting scheme using taxpayer dollars and you immediately see a $1.5 billion savings.  Couple that common-sense idea with reducing prison costs to never exceed the federal poverty level and we see an additional $2.8 billion saved.

This erases the budget gap while deterring crime and ending the charade of economic development in the form of feathering the Governor’s own re-election nest.

Former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara was right when he characterized NYS as a “pay to play culture of corruption.” With more than 30 former NYS elected officials either accused, indicted, resigned, found guilty or incarcerated due to ethical misdeeds.  NYS government is not a swamp, but a cesspool.

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Boy Bashing

 

Gender eradicating radical feminists are in full assault mode trying to erase “maleness” from men.

To them, masculinity is a sexually transmitted disease.

Because they know better than to attack the few real men left in this world, they instead bully little boys into growing up as ball-less buffoons, easily led, once force-fed a testosterone-free diet.

The mission of the new order Cow-Class is to socially castrate males. Keep discouraging men from being masculine fathers and that is what we will get.

Social media content creators manipulated and co-opted big business, through advertising campaigns, into propagandizing this mass emasculation. Consider insurance companies Liberty Mutual and AllState.

A Liberty Mutual TV ad celebrates young men’s inability to change a tire into a pitch for insurance that does this for them. Changing a tire used to be a rite of passage for young men learning to drive.

In the Liberty ad, the clearly expressed message is that the boy is being raised by a single mom, (no wedding rings and no dad in the picture,) while the primary message is that the boy is completely helpless.  During the entire 30-second spot, the boy looks around sheepishly, nervously glancing about and holding onto his arm with his opposite hand, while never opening his mouth, speechless in the shadow of his all-powerful Mommy doing all the talking.  Pathetic.

Our poor boys are cowed into silence, empowering women by the contact-high of scratched off testosterone found beneath their nails as the claw there way towards the feminization of American men.

Allstate ratchets it up a notch, demonstrating progress in the successful de-nutting goal. In this TV ad, the husband is shown peering into the refrigerator.  His passive-aggressive wife then denigrates and embarrasses her husband as she simultaneously pokes him in the ribs and chides him for not going to the gym enough to suit her.

Just imagine the outrage if the roles were reversed.

And finally, the 108 year-old tradition of Boy Scouting dropped the word BOY from their title, ending more than a century of proud leadership in effectively turning boys into men, precisely what the Cow-Class dreads most; independent, strong, clear-thinking men.

Men and everything that maleness stands for are under constant criticism today. The Cow-Class agenda is driven by a combination of misandrous ideology and self-loathing, stemming mainly from their own sexual insecurity and unhappiness in begrudgingly assimilating into a gender role asymmetrical with happiness and contentment.

Driven by these internal conflicts, they attack maleness because it exposes their own fragility when compared against real men’s natural self-assuredness. These tortured caricatures of women inwardly crave the possession of masculinity for themselves, while simultaneously abhorring it when packaged in men.  Unsuccessful in harnessing the power of masculinity, they instead attack genuine men because they can’t seem to establish that level of satisfaction for themselves.

The famed father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud figured this all out 100 years ago and brilliantly reduced his findings to two words:

Penis Envy.

 

 

 

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Murder in the UK

Little Alfie Evans, an English toddler just shy of his second birthday was murdered a few days ago by the British government. Any questions about the quality of care and the dignity of life under a state run system of universal health care should be clearly answered by watching the British version that murdered this baby and trampled this poor family into submission.  Alfie’s parents were worn down, threatening with arrest, and finally striped of their parental rights as they fought to save their son’s life as he suffered with a rare neurological disease.

Eager to demonstrate state power above and beyond that of life and death, the British government defiantly pissed in the eye of God Himself through the proxy of the Pope, by preventing this child from being transferred to the Vatican for care not available in Britain.  Pope Francis himself intervened, even granting Alfie citizenship in order to exercise authority over the rule of British law, to no avail.

The British government pulled the plug on Alfie rather than allow his family the right to try and save him. Those responsible for sending Alfie on his final journey might ponder their own fate when their time comes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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