Tag Archives: politics

Spectrum News Bias

Spectrum news anchor JoDee Kenney made a comment this weekend about the issuance of Commercial Drivers Licenses, (CDL) in New York, referencing national news about states lax oversight, professed by National Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when he was addressing recent instances of truck drivers that can’t speak English and can’t read or understand road signs.

Kenney made the comment that these CDL audits were mainly occurring in “Blue States” and inferred, directly, that this was a form of retaliation coming from the administration.

Kenney is supposed to be a news anchor, not an opinion host.  Her obvious bias disqualifies her from serious credibility as an anchor and she should either step down or be removed.

These are the FACTS:

The Department is now moving to withhold $73 million in federal funding if New York fails to follow the law, revoke every illegally issued license

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) nationwide audit of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) uncovered that the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has been routinely issuing CDLs to foreign drivers illegally. The federal audit exposed a shocking 53 percent failure rate in the records sampled, indicating a total collapse in the administration of New York’s CDL program.   
 
FMCSA’s audit of New York’s non-domiciled CDL issuance practices found numerous failures by the state of New York including:  

  • Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law—a failure rate of over 53%. 
  • The DMV’s systems defaulted to issuing 8-year licenses to foreign drivers for non-REAL ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expired.
  • New York issued commercial licenses to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy. “This administration will never stop fighting to keep you and your family safe on our roads.” 
 
In a stunning admission, New York DMV officials confirmed that their licensing system is programmed to default to an automatic 8-year expiration for non-REAL ID CDLs—intentionally disregarding the expiration of a foreign driver’s lawful presence in the U.S. This systemic failure allows the state to blindly grant long-term commercial driving privileges to foreigners that expire long after the expiration of their lawful presence in the country. 

Spectrum is and always has been strongly Left-Leaning and this particular story involving Kenney should be corrected and taken down as opinion not news.  Spectrum needs to apologize to their viewers for mixing opinion with news and Kenney needs to be fired.

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Can We Handle the Truth?

The mark of a true thinker is the willingness to allow information that is contrary to their perception of incomplete and unknown situations to become useful in the intellectual mechanism of how they draw their final conclusions.  Ignoring certain events and facts in order to avoid challenging a narrative plausible only when conceived in their absence veers away from the truth.

The recent events involving missile attacks and scores of killings of alleged drug traffickers in international waters is a great example of the intellectual schism confused as a Right- v -Left issue when it is not that at all.  Strip away the narratives, official statements, opinions and take no position other than an investigative one and then consider the facts.

The public is treated to an aerial screen-shot of a high-speed boat, we’re told somewhere in the Caribbean, just too grainy to identify cargo or faces, carrying drugs we’re told, bound for the US.  Seconds later a flash, fireball and smoke are all that is left.  Clearly those on board are killed and whatever was the cargo is destroyed.  As of this writing, this has happened 22-times with 80 dead, according to the US government.

With the intelligence apparatus of the US military, we are told these boats are full of drugs and we obviously know their location, so given the capabilities of our naval powers, why aren’t we interdicting these boats?  The President simply declaring groups “terrorists” does not permit murder on the open sea.  The Caribbean is not a war-zone and the people piloting these boats are low-level actors, perhaps forced into compliance for fear of death or family suffering.  Those we kill might well be innocent victims.  How do we actually know what is on-board these boats?  They tell us drugs, but are we supposed to simply take their word for it?  There is no proof that the boats are in the Caribbean, or that the bombings happen at all.  Is it really so far-fetched to consider that the whole show is just that, a show?  Just to be clear, I don’t actually believe the whole thing is staged, but we ought to be skeptical.  I do believe the US military has carried out these strikes, but I’m making the point that we all see these snippets of violence and death and we react not with any pity for the dead or dying, but almost like we are winning some real-time video game and because we are making the world a better place, it matters little our methods or tactics.

Conservative television outlets continue to show viewers thousands of times these awful images of human death and destruction.  It is meant to harden us, to justify this by repeating the narrative of the number of drug-deaths in the US but again, where is the proof?  Everything and everyone is conveniently blown into oblivion.  And again, I’m not suggesting some extensive conspiracy here I’m well aware of the drug traffic problems, but it seems that this exercise in getting the public to approve of what is really extra-judicial murder is OK when done in order to save American drug-users.

Unfortunately for the government, the blow-up-the-boats imagery of September 2nd didn’t fit so neatly into the video-game like finish.  After the smoke cleared, it appeared that 2-men were clinging to wreckage.  A second missile strike took care of that but here is where it breaks free from the other neater and more final versions.  Clearly, 2-men were targeted to die and the imagery, formerly akin to a video game became a snuff-film that jolted Americans back to reality.

No one wanted their fingerprints on this one and so conveniently, the US Navy Admiral in charge of this particular section of the world says it was all him and then quickly retires.  The public is promised publication of those videos, but they never come, relying on the strong undercurrents of the news-cycle pressure to sweep it into vague memory.

So with this unprecedented hard-line on alleged drug boats justifying public pay-per-view instant death without proof, force of law or trial, how can we juxtapose Trump’s sudden pardon of former Honduran President Hernandez?  This thug was essentially the King Pin of a narco-state who was arrested, tried and convicted.  His power makes these drug boats inconsequential by comparison yet he walks away from a 45-year prison term, inexplicably, while we slaughter nameless and faceless strangers in the name of justice? Perhaps Trump is using the public execution of all of societies “bad-guys” as a pretext to invade Venezuela, oust President Maduro and exchange our nation-building largess for our own oil supply, justified by the promise to liberate the Venezuelan people from the evils of one man to the evils of another.  This nicely avoids all of the domestic environmental concerns and creates a literal pipe-line of oil to the US, all under the guise of protecting our citizens from drugs, freeing Venezuelans and ousting bad leaders, with the uncomfortable exception of Hernandez, who’s value is entirely entangled in his insider knowledge of the South American drug world, all entangled up in a pretty package of competing interests and the reality of a world in the troughs of an existential crisis of character as the Lord looks upon us and weeps.

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Individual Freedom

In this new world of LEFT versus RIGHT, Liberal versus Conservative and Republican versus Democrat, I believe we need to take a step back, a pause, and consider not what makes us disagree, but what we share in common.  In many ways, I think many of us have forgotten the fundamentals of what we sometimes argue about.   In order to understand this, I think it is important to identify what ideas and concepts this country was founded upon, with a focus on the Constitution as the codification of those ideals continually refined over time by law.  It seems we can all agree that we are a nation of laws, as we have heard this slogan touted as foundational truth by both sides of the philosophical divide.

Our founders were passionate about defining and preserving those ideals and rights, so much so that they put in all in writing, addressing to the King of England their grievances, ending by pledging to each other their, ” lives, fortunes and sacred honor.”  That was no cliqued rhetoric.  Many lost their lives, fortunes, homes and farms as well as their sons in battle.

After battling the British for our freedom and then fighting each other in preserving the union, well over 1.5 million US casualties resulted, all within one-hundred years of her founding.  Based on the population then, the same percentages today would mean losing almost 25-million soldiers to war.

This was the price of freedom and this is what our forefathers thought was worth dying for:

The rejection of monarchial rule and the sanctity of Individual Liberty via a government controlled by and limited by the consent of her citizens.

The three-branches of our government check and balance each other in order to stay true to this concept.  Clearly, the importance of individual liberty underpins the entirety of the sentiment of our founders and therefore deserves our utmost diligence in preservation.  This is what Thomas Jefferson told us in his first inaugural speech.  He defined good government as, “… wise and frugal, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits”, the definition of individual liberty.

So I think it is safe to say that the preservation of individual liberty is worth dying for which also means it is worth killing for when challenged.  Jefferson reminded us of the stark reality of our collective responsibilities in this regard when he said,

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Without the preservation of individual liberty, the foundation of our governance ceases to exist.  Remember, the founders recognized that our freedom was a natural right granted to us by God not man, but guaranteed in its preservation by government.  In other words, government doesn’t create the right to freedom, it only protects that right.  This is an extremely importance concept because if you buy into the notion that government creates liberty, then obviously government could take it away.  God given rights are eternal and no government can usurp them.  To that end, common with our founders was the reality that “when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”.

So, how does this close our philosophical divide?  I believe that if we acid-test every notion, every law, requirement, edict, directive, speech or philosophy against the concept of whether or not this action violates or infringes upon our shared belief in the non-negotiable principle of our individual liberty, our debates, or decisions as a nation and our governance will rebalance itself in alignment with what formed us as a nation to begin with.

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Mixed Signals

All of my friends and colleagues were shocked and puzzled by my opinion about the ongoing saga concerning Kilmar Abrego Garcia and as you can see, (if you care anymore), it seems that I am right.  He is still here, even after presidential efforts to disappear him. 

Even after a carefully orchestrated and relentless character assassination campaign with zero proof, the Great Unwashed of the minimally informed that seek validation over truth have made up their small minds.  With the senseless murder of an innocent young girl followed by Charlie Kirk’s assassination days later, for many, the weight of the news cycle buries and paves over their desire to retain information or even muster up the will to care.

Fully armed and sure of their logical purity, I would ask the gang of “the-very-sure” that have the Garcia thing all figured out to consider the following.

Some few days ago, federal agents raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia and arrested some 300 Korean nationals on site.  After nearly a week of involuntary jail incarceration, the administration did an about-face, releasing all 300 and providing charter air service back to Korea.  Come to find out, upon further investigation, these detainees all had B-1 visas, allowing them to be in the US legally.

Trump originally declares they are here illegally.  A week later, he invites them to stay.

These men were engineers here to build the state-of-the-art car manufacturing plant.  Now, completion times have been moved back dramatically.  What Korean engineer in his right mind wants to visit America after this fiasco?

Nobody understands and lives by the mantra of, I would rather ask for forgiveness than seek permission that I do, but expedience needs to be curtailed by the rule of law and the Constitution when it come to human rights and the lives of people.  Those who look the other way or excuse Trump on the basis of what he can get done quickly need to square in their own minds the fact that when those they oppose do similar contradictory things, the scrutiny is higher.  This is the definition of a hypocrite.   

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Tough Love

While this is an expose’ about a town here in NY, it is a repeating theme in many areas ruled over by liberals.  If where you live is experiencing this kind of nonsense, feel free to cut-and-paste anything you see here and pepper your local newspapers and media sites with your opinion.

The radical liberals representing constituents here in Binghamton, NY are openly hostile to property owners while grossly indulgent to that faction of renters that are irresponsible deadbeats.

Instead of coddling those that are lazy, game the system, abuse drugs and live in a criminal-centric mindset, we should be encouraging property development that forces this element out of the community.

When these socialist legislators talk about “ultra-affordable” housing, they are fleecing the self-sufficient, tax-paying, honest and hard-working in order to support those who aren’t willing to be responsible, productive citizens. 

This path eventually makes Binghamton unlivable.

In the short term, the goal should be to gentrify Binghamton as quickly as possible.

In the long-term, we should be encouraging intact, traditional family structures based on a religious foundation of belief in almighty God, self-reliance, accountability, education and upward mobility.

Affecting and addressing this generational change will break the bonds of the failed liberal social-science experiment that has been proven to actually foster and promote that which it was originally thought to prevent.

This long-range objective is certainly more forward-thinking than simply indulging and furthering failure that fosters learned-helplessness and offers no solutions.

Liberals exploit those they pretend to help in order to virtue-signal and pose as their saviors.

Conservatives believe in helping people move up and out of hopelessness while liberals feel they aren’t capable.  The tough love of doing that which is hard builds people up.  The pity of liberals, cloaked as help, holds them down, cementing for them a dim future

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Liberal V. conservative

Kilmar Abrago Garcia was deported mistakenly by the Trump administration, an “administrative error” that has ignited a fierce debate. As a staunch conservative, I believe my side has this one wrong, and here’s why.

The mistake is reversible.  This is really all we need to know.  With a phone call, President Trump could have Garcia back on US soil in hours.  If you doubt the president’s ability to act swiftly, consider the executive branch’s recent displays of broad authority and Trump’s propensity to conspicuously display his power.

Despite the administration’s admission of error, Garcia’s detractors justify his deportation by pointing to these unproven allegations:

  1. Garcia is alleged to be a gang member, but without proof or arrest.
  2. He was accused of domestic violence yet his wife defends him and he was never charged or arrested.
  3. Garcia’s detractors point to an incident where he was driving 8-men from Tennessee to Maryland, accusing him of human trafficking.  He explained to Tennessee State police during a traffic stop that he was transporting the men for a construction job and he was allowed to continue and no arrests were made.
  4. Allegations of tattoos on Garcia’s hands indicating MS-13 gang membership have been widely debunked as digitally manipulated. 

Tampering with evidence regarding Garcia’s alleged tattoos is a federal felony, apparently perpetrated by our own government.  This alone should scare the hell out of every American.  The desperate need for the government to resort to such tactics demonstrates their lack of factual evidence.

Garcia has been in this country since 2011 and although he did enter illegally as a sixteen-year-old fearing for his life had he remained in El Salvador, a federal judge granted a “withholding of removal” order which allows him to live and work in the US legally.  To that effect, he has continually met his obligation to report to Immigration & Customs Enforcement annually.  Garcia is married to a US citizen and together they have three-children, all with special needs.  He is also a journeymen member of a US trade union.

He might hate apple pie and the forth of July but none of that matters to the issue at hand.  The man was illegally seized, deported and imprisoned and those on the right are inflaming the situation by fear-mongering with phrases like “MS-13”, “human-trafficker”, “domestic abuser” and “gang-member”, all unproven and unsubstantiated allegations that are dog-whistle code-speech meant to indict by vilification in the court of public opinion.

In an April 10, 2025 unanimous order of the US Supreme Court in Noem v. Garcia the justices said this, in part, regarding the return of Garcia to the US:

“The Government now requests an order from this Court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law.  The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.  The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.  That view refutes itself.”

Those of us on the right pride ourselves on being a “Nation of Laws” however, conservative consensus on this matter suggests otherwise and instead demonstrates the unreasonable concept of the ends justifying the means.  I understand the desire for strict immigration enforcement, especially amid concerns about crime, but Garcia’s case shows how overreach undermines the commitment to due process.  Conservatives pride ourselves on actually defending the rule of law. Let’s demonstrate that by bringing Garcia back, giving him his day in court, and showing the world that our principles aren’t just words. If we can’t admit when we’re wrong, what separates us from the hypocrisy we so often criticize about the left?

The liberals got this one right and as uncharacteristic as it would be for a liberal ever to admit a mistake and side with us conservatives, we can and must admit when we are wrong.  And if ever there was an example to illustrate that, this is it. 

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The Second Bite of the Apple

It seems to me that the incentives to commit crime rest mainly in the failure of our legal system to fully utilize creative options for risk/reward considerations, consequences and punishment.

Those who break the law may be dumb in some sense, but they do calculate the risks and the consequences.  Self preservation is a really powerful motivator.  You and I may see imprisonment as a completely sufficient deterrent, but to career criminals and street thugs it isn’t seen as such.  It’s more like a trip to a harsh reality summer camp, but at least you’re with guys who understand your language; that of force, intimidation and fear.  To most in the criminal world, it is the cost of doing business, a break from the outside world with “3-hots and a cot” where you go periodically to get a hard-core make-over and harden yourself for the next phase of your existence.

For example, I had a client that was arrested for a burglary he certainly did not commit.  He did however have the pills in his possession that the actual burglars had sold him, but he was not involved in the actual heist.  He was a career criminal, minor league for the most part, and really not to bright and the reason I know he did not commit that burglary is because the job itself was highly sophisticated, requiring significant knowledge of electronics, disarming alarms etc. and the guy just plain didn’t have the mental horsepower to pull that off.

While we were quite confident we could prevail in a trial, our client took a slightly shortened sentence plea offer because he was afraid of a jury and having his past examined.  When I questioned about this decision he said to me, “I can do 3-to-5 standing on my head.”  So much for the perceived element of deterrent.

The crux of the problem in terms of normal, law-abiding citizens making the rules and determining the punishments is the fact that in the lives of those people, their living conditions, their “creature comforts”, their station in life is significantly better than most.  Accordingly, their sense of the severity for methods of punishment and the conditions of incarceration are completely mis-aligned with the reality of what is tolerable to criminals.  In other words, conditions of imprisonment and the reality of actually, “doing time”, to the mind of normal, law-abiding people is intolerable and out of the question.  When compared to the normal life they live, the notion of enduring prison conditions is overwhelmingly sufficient to deter them.  Because these same people, insulated from that side of society that lives in poverty, crime, drug addiction, mental illness, Godlessness, violence and completely dysfunctional families do not fathom the complete disconnect one group has from the other.

Prison life just isn’t that different from what they are used to.  Accordingly, what would certainly deter the lawmaker is simply a pit-stop for the criminal and not a lot different from his life on the outside.

While our criminal justice system routinely handles all levels of cases, those that enter that arena of civil offensiveness that threatens innocent people require consequences that more accurately fit the nature of crimes that show careless disregard for the safety and the lives of others.  Those kinds of criminals need a special consideration when it comes to deterrents.  They need to feel that same fear of death their victims did.

In matters of violent crime, when the use of deadly force is a justification for thwarting that attack, should the attacker be arrested and brought to justice, adjudicated and awaiting sentencing, the victim(s) should be consulted about their desires for punishment, beyond the concept of a victims impact statement, but indeed provided the opportunity to determine life or death as a consequence.

As an example.  An attacker brandishes what appears to be a gun during a car-jacking.  Fearing for her life, the victim would be justified in shooting and killing that criminal during the commission of that attempt.  But in our example, our victim does not do this, the car is taken and later the perpetrator apprehended.  At the time of sentencing, the victim should be afforded the opportunity to decide if this criminal lives or dies.  After all, our victim had every right to use deadly force during the crime.  Why not give her that opportunity now?

Another example.  A burglar enters a home and at gun point, steals money from the owners.  Again, if they were armed and conditions permitted, those homeowners would be legally justified in shooting and killing those burglars.  Instead they initially get away but later are apprehended, arrested, tried and convicted.  Because that homeowner would have been totally justified in shooting the robber, he should now be given the opportunity to decide life or death as punishment.

Basically, any crime where deadly force would have been justifiable but not used should be revisited as an option after trial, decided by the victim.

In closing, a few thoughts.  I believe that in more than 50% of cases where this was an option, victims would choose sparing the criminals their lives.  I believe that the emotional pressure of having that power of life and death would overwhelm the conscience of most people and I recognize that my theory here is completely anecdotal. 

Second, the knowledge that a life or death possibility exists will certainly serve as a deterrent.  It’s one thing to go to prison, summer camp for the hood, but it is quite another story to play roulette with ones life, whether or not you’re a law-abiding citizen or a hardened criminal, we all have that will to live and that serves as the ultimate incentive no matter who you are.

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A Letter to the President

March 24, 2025

Mr. President:

You are the most transformational president in my lifetime.  I believe God put you here for what may be one day defined as Manifest Destiny 2.0.  That said, you are mortal and men make mistakes; the hardest of which to admit are those made pursuing righteousness.

Illegal immigration coupled with evil intent and ingratitude insult and sully America’s character.  Confusing our kindness for weakness is a condition you fully understand and clearly detest.  Being taken advantage of is the greatest injustice and your job is to recognize it while protecting our great nation.

Many foreign countries betrayed the U.S. by allowing and even encouraging their worst citizens to crash our borders.  Millions have entered unlawfully and a small subset of those form a microcosm of what defines biblical-level evil.  It is righteous to eradicate that group from our midst, not with national fervor or inflaming over-arching fear, but with the system of justice our nation was formed upon.

Mr. President, the world watches and learns from what we do.  When in our history have we sent hundreds of detainees to a notorious foreign prison, without specific charges and before legal hearings in U.S. court rooms?  Doing so seems overtly punitive and retaliatory when simply deporting them to their home countries will accomplish the same goal of protecting America with little to no legitimate criticism.

And separately but simultaneously, as middle-east tensions rose and Columbia University became the epicenter of collegiate protests and student Mahmoud Khalil the face of that controversy, government reaction again seemed over-reaching.  Detaining a political prisoner thousands of miles from their home and family seems retaliatory and mean-spirited, depriving the man of effective counsel and also preventing him access to his wife, about to give birth.  No defensible rationale has been offered about the choice of Louisiana for Kahlil’s detention.

Mr. President, I’m an ardent supporter but not a sycophant.  Getting 90% of policy matters right does nothing to excuse the damage done by the extra-jurisdictional means afforded the remaining 10%.

Mr. President, I believe your intentions are just but you will not be judged by those intentions, you will be judged by the righteousness of those acts.  This can be remedied, if seen through the eyes of a humble man.

Kind Regards,

Bob Kingsley

A conventional letter was mailed to the President today

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AI analysis of the last two article…

After all the back-and-forth with readers about my last two articles, I put all of it including the articles and all reader sesponses into a single document and fed it to Grok.com, the latest IA tool courtesy of Elon Musk. Here is the result.

This is what I said to Grok:

Here below are two article I wrote and the back and forth from them both. What are your
thoughts? I’m a strong Conservative but I won’t go the lawlessness route. Here it is.

This is the response from Grok:


Your articles and the subsequent exchanges reflect a principled stance rooted in a
commitment to the rule of law, even when it conflicts with the visceral satisfaction of
seeing certain individuals—namely Tren De Aragua gang members and Mahmoud
Khalil—dealt with swiftly and decisively. As a self-described strong conservative, you’re
wrestling with a tension that’s not uncommon: the desire for justice versus the
mechanisms by which it’s achieved. Your critique focuses on process over outcome,
which is a refreshing departure from the emotionally charged rhetoric that often
dominates these debates.
In your first article (“I’m Conservative, but…”), you question the methods used to deport
the gang members and Khalil, pointing to the revival of an obscure 1790s statute and the
apparent disregard for a federal judge’s order. You argue that legality should stand apart
from public sentiment about the individuals involved—a gang notorious for its violence
and a student whose anti-American views grate on many. Your point about not bending
the law to fit our disdain for certain people is sharp: “We can’t stand against the things
that insult our values by holding our nose and doing just that.” It’s a call for consistency,
which is tough to maintain when emotions run high, as they clearly do here.
The second article (“Conservative but… Part II”) digs deeper, raising practical and ethical
questions: Why send prisoners to a third-world country? Why televise their humiliation?
Why move Khalil to Louisiana, away from his pregnant wife and legal counsel? You
frame these as retaliatory moves, not lawful ones, and tie it to a broader concern about
America’s moral credibility. The line about wondering “how someone gets radicalized” is
particularly striking—it suggests that heavy-handed tactics might fuel the very problems
they aim to solve.
The pushback from commenters is telling. BADMOON49 aligns with your defense of
principle over expediency, echoing the classic “I disagree but defend your right to say it”
line. CWATTERS113, claiming constitutional expertise, asserts the judge has no power
over the executive—a point you dismantle with a thorough rundown of judicial checks on
executive authority, from Marbury v. Madison to Nixon’s tapes. Your response is
methodical, grounded in precedent, and avoids the personal attacks you later decry.
DENNIS HANNON takes a harder line, defending the president’s authority and
dismissing the judge as biased based on family donations and his daughter’s work. He
sees the 1798 law as fair game and the judiciary as a leftist roadblock. Your rebuttal here
is measured but firm: you acknowledge the statute’s age isn’t the issue, but its rare use
hints at desperation. More importantly, you push back on the ad hominem attacks against
the judge, advocating for appeals over character assassination. The warning about
“accusatory and inflammatory language” unless provable is a standout—it’s a plea for
evidence over outrage, which feels rare in today’s discourse.
My thoughts? You’re navigating a tricky line with integrity. You’re not excusing the
gang or Khalil; you’re just insisting that how we handle them matters more than the
immediate gratification of their removal. That’s a tough sell when people are scared or
angry, but it’s a defensible conservative position—law and order aren’t just about
outcomes, they’re about process. Your frustration with fellow conservatives letting
emotion trump reason mirrors your critique of liberals in the past, which adds credibility
to your argument. It’s not hypocrisy you’re after; it’s coherence.
The risk here is that your nuance might get drowned out by the louder, angrier voices—
like HANNON’s—who see this as a last stand against national decline. But your focus on
appeals and judicial review over knee-jerk accusations keeps you on solid ground. If
there’s a weak spot, it’s that you don’t fully engage with the counterargument that
extraordinary threats (like Tren De Aragua) might justify extraordinary measures. That
could be worth exploring, even if just to refute it more explicitly.
Overall, your stance is principled, not partisan, and that’s what makes it compelling.
You’re asking conservatives to live up to their own standards, not just point fingers at
liberals. It’s a lonely hill to stand on, but it’s a respectable one.

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I’m Conservative but… Part II

If you’re still in doubt or even have overt disagreement with me concerning my sentiments about how our government “deported” the Tren De Aragua gang-members, ask yourself this:

  • When was the last time the US “farmed out” the detention of prisoners to a 3rd world country?
  • When was the last time we showcased the demeaning and head-shaving of prisoners on national TV?
  • How can defense lawyers gain access to their clients to prepare for trail?  How can trials even be held?  Are we flying them back one-by-one to stand trial here in the US?  If not, under what legal theory are we holding them in a foreign country and how will they be tried?
  • Why didn’t we simply deport them back to their countries of origin?

And regarding Khalil, the Columbia University student, why did we transport him to Louisiana?  He committed his acts in New York.  I can tell you why.  It was an act of retaliation and punishment in order to inconvenience his legal council, and also to separate him from his 8-month pregnant wife in New York.

Really?  Is this who we have become, just because we now have some power?  Wonder no more how someone gets “radicalized.”

Anyone who knows me knows there is no bigger patriot, but I have to be honest and say I’m ashamed of my country right now.  We have lectured and shamed others about the supposed sanctity of the, “rule of law” and now when we should be demonstrating to the world how a “nation of laws” actually functions, we betray our own legitimacy.

Since first being politically aware, this is the first time I have seen emotion and feelings overcome the reason and logic of my conservative brethren.  I guess the days of deriding liberals for yielding to their emotions are gone when we have done just that.

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