The-Asterisk

A view of Kennett Square, Pa. “Mexicans are leaving, and that’s bad news for everyone,” an employer said. Credit Craig Warga/Bloomberg, via Getty Images A recent New York Times article about how immigrants are leaving small town America underscores the ripple effect of any immigration policy changes. The author continually uses the word "immigrant" to describe the individuals who are abandoning these rural towns. I can only assume that he is referring to undocumented aliens and not green card-holding guest workers. I actually feel sorry for these people, I truly do. The United States has done a gigantic head fake to these Mexicans and Central Americans. Since Reagan's 1986 amnesty program legalized approximately 3 million illegal immigrants, the US policy has been "talk loudly and carry a small stick". For two decades, the border remained porous and enforcement of labor and hiring laws was lax to non-existent. The past decade has seen increased enforcem...

I used to like Steele and Ungar . I really did. Michael Steel e, the former Republican LT Governor of the People's Republic of Maryland and former RNC Chairman would go toe-to-toe with Rick Ungar , former writer and producer and senior political contributor to Forbes.com . Their back and forth on issues was entertaining. Rick would take the liberal side but not as a mouth-breathing, obnoxious goody two-shoes and Michael would take the moderate conservative side. It was Point-Counterpoint all over again. Their guests ran the gamut and each one of them would probe from their own perspective. It worked and I liked it. That all changed with Donald Trump. Yes, that seems to be a theme these days, but with Steele and Ungar, it has ruined the chemistry. Rick has not changed his point of view but his constant putting down of the President (I wouldn't call it bashing of the MSNBC-sort of bashing) wears thin soon enough. Michael, however, has totally been turned. He came out as...

What about both? Technology-wise, the future is bright as the sun. Socially and morally, not so much. Friends, this is it. This is what the world is and what it is becoming. Those of us who are north of 60 years of age do not matter any more. Period. The liberal basis of our nation is just waiting us out. It may take another 20 years but soon enough, we will all be dead or incapacitated. The left ALWAYS plays the long game. The right ALWAYS plays the short game (see: Rand Paul and all of the Republicans who are bailing out of office this year.) The nation is changing. We have our retirement and out medical benefits so the left want us to just STFU. They (the left and their younger cohort) will own it soon enough. Sure, there will always be some conservative folks, but by and large, what we know as "normal" is now abnormal. Guns, sex, morality, child raising, everything is changed and it probably won't go back. Trump's election mashed the brake on the liberal avalan...

" President Trump announces steel and aluminum tariffs " the headlines scream. " Trade War Imminent " Right now, China is pushing back on Trump like a scorned child. "Oh, yeah, well I can do THIS, see?" China has always fought dirty and has gotten away with it for so long. How can one fight this? They are kind of like the Mafia aren't they? Everyone just lives with it. Russia poisons a former spy in England, gets rebuked by the international diplomatic community and then pushes back by expelling Western diplomats as if the Russians are the aggrieved party. Ballsy, eh? Concerning China and North Korea, I wonder who is teaching who? They hack our industries, they hack our defense complex, they steal our shit and then build an almost exact replica. Same with the damned Russians. They want to splash in the same pool with the civilized world all the while they are pissing in the water and breaking into your locker while you are basking in the su...

" Stare decisis ". That is all we hear from liberals when they question Supreme Court nominees. " Will you adhere to stare decisis? " is their prime litmus test for anyone destined for the high court. Stare decisis is defined as "the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent." In other words, when your favored opinion has been previously decided by appeal, it should remain supreme and unchallenged. Liberals realize that many of the decisions on which their entire way of governing is based comes down to sometimes dodgy interpretation of the law by like-minded justices decades ago. Losing the bedrock decisions, due to a second look or non-adherence to stare decisis causes all subsequent laws and decisions to become suspect and ungrounded. For them, this just cannot happen. In 2010, Arizona passed a law, S.B. 1070 which gave local law enforcement additional powers to enforce national immigration law (since the Feds,...

I have never thought much about the nuts and bolts of trade. I have conflated "free" trade with "fair" trade. Recent "events" have caused me to realize that free trade is anything goes. Kind of like free love. As with free love, there are usually regrets (by at least one party). Fair trade means what it says, a fair way of doing business. One country adds a 2.5% tariff on imported vehicles and their trading partner puts a 20% or a 50% tariff (tax) on the vehicles they import from their partner. Is that fair? The US freely allows this to happen to themselves. I am not sure if it is guilt or what, but we certainly have been taken advantage of. I can see Trump's point. We (the US) do not put much of a tariff on anything (check this out: https://hts.usitc.gov/current ) There are 99 chapters to this document and if you take the time to look, you can see that it is extremely rare for an import tariff to exceed 5% let alone 10%.Th...

Stipulation : There are somewhere between 12 and 20 million people living in the United States in an undocumented status. Truth : Unless these "unauthorized immigrants" (UIs) commit crimes or become a problem, they will most likely not be deported. An exception to this truth is if a legitimate United States business gets raided by ICE, the undocumented employees will probably be shifted into the "problem" category. Further Truth : All of these UIs who are working are providing a legitimate service for their employers. We think that many of them are just fruit and vegetable pickers or working in a processing plant chopping chickens but there are a lot of UIs in the construction industry and also in the hospitality and maintenance sectors. These are not glamorous jobs but someone has to do them. Unassailable Fact : Citizenship is the elephant in the room. Democrats want all UIs to be made citizens on the supposition that they would all naturally align with the...

Madison was on the final leg of her business trip to Kuala Lumpur. She had flown the LAX-DCA route many times since she took her job with Cisco. Fortunately, all of those Business Class flights had allowed her to rack up enough frequent flyer points to upgrade to First Class for her latest run to the Far East. As she reclined waaaaay back in her “passenger pod” on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, her mind drifted away from the feature movie she was watching on the seat monitor, to her departure from her flat in the leafy Adams-Morgan section of Washington DC. She had summoned her Uber ride from the app on her iPhone. She is a Verizon Wireless customer and loves the ubiquitous 4G data coverage in the DC metropolitan area, even when she is riding underground on the Metro. Her data plan is big enough that she really doesn’t worry about going over the monthly limit, even if she does stream quite a few movies and series episodes during her commute and her downtime. On the way to the airp...

 This is the week when the Washington Post released an article alleging that Roy Moore, U.S. senatorial candidate for the State of Alabama, had sexual contact with an underage female when he was a 32 year old assistant district attorney in rural Alabama. As can be expected, he has detractors and supporters with both sides "standing by their man". The fact that this bombshell was released just a month before a crucial election, which could decide the balance of power in Washington, plays heavily in which side one takes in the controversy. I look at this episode from a different angle. I listened to Sean Hannity's radio show interview with the Judge on November 10, 2017. Listening to the almost 16 minute interview, I came away from it with the opinion that there is some there, there. He waffled when asked directly about the allegations but finished up the conversation by vehemently denying the charges. I am not sure he expected Sean to come after him like a prosecutor...

In my late high school days (1970-1972), Chicago was my favorite group. In fact, Chicago was one of the first live concerts I attended. Though I had very little disposable income, I had all of their albums. Chicago V was a knock-it-out-of-the-park release and my friends and I wore the grooves out of that record. One of my favorite tracks from that album was Dialogue (Part I and II) with Terry Kath and Peter Cetera singing the parts of the revolutionary and the slacker student, respectively. I listened to it again today, 45 years later, and it is still relevant. Chicago was a very politically aware group (check out their early lyrics) but they were never in your face with their -isms. As I reflect on the song, I can see where the reflexive opinion would be that Kath represents the righteous Antifa left and Cetera, the trust-funded college student. What has changed since the song was written is that the college students have, by and large, shifted totally to the left and whi...

I just read Peggy Noonan’s opinion piece from Saturday's Wall Street Journal , “ Will Virginia Teach Trump Fans a Lesson?” As a lifelong Virginian, a conservative and a resident of a congressional district which was recently redrawn to remove me from a “safe” Republican district and to place me in an undeniably Democrat district, I live at Ground Zero of our current political crisis. I readily admit that I voted for Donald Trump. As with many Trump voters, my vote was as much a vote for what the President ostensibly stood for as it was a repudiation of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as well as the radical policies her party represented.     You can go down the list of issues which matter politically and there is no choice which isn’t diametrically opposed to the other. To wit: pro abortion vs no abortion, multi-lateral trade deals vs no trade deals, wide open borders vs build a wall, sanctuary cities vs deportation, “Global Warming is going to drown everyone” vs “...

Much is being said about this "take a knee" thing. Here is my take. Every single one of these NFL players are employees. As employees, there is set of standards which are expected to be upheld. For the NFL players, there is also a written contract. For most employees, it is a tacit, universally understood set of rules on what can and cannot go on at work. Yes, these guys have every right to not support the United States or to talk $%&! about it, but when they suit up and walk into the stadium, they are on someone else's time and need to adhere to the standards of conduct given to them. If a high school football coach cannot pray with his team because the School Board says so (BTW, he is an employee but it is his right as an American to pray), then if the owners say "no kneeling" the players should consent. IMHO, the National Anthem is not even needed at sporting events. I have never understood the reason it is played, but it is and that brings us to wh...

Since conservatives (not Republicans) are against unfettered immigration for two major reasons, let’s address both in a comprehensive “Immigrant” bill, not a comprehensive “Immigration” bill. Here are the two reasons: Item 1 – Conservatives do not want the massive number of legal and illegal immigrants to vote as a block and to vote for the Democrats. There, I said it. It is true. Item 2 – Conservatives do not want massive numbers of immigrants to change our American society and way of life. Well, that one is pretty much out of the bag, but it is a valid goal. To fix this we can have a three part package: All illegal immigrants can sign up for a pink card if they can show that they have a job. Signing up for a pink card is a provisional registration. Having one: Admits that they came here illegally Attests that they will not commit felonies or other major crimes and that swift deportation will occur after their conviction and sentencing ...

You have to hand it to the Democrats... they get stuff done. It doesn't matter how little a particular Senator, Member of Congress, Delegate, Councilperson or Dog Catcher cares for a bill, if the Party wants it, there is always consent. The bill gets passed. Sure there are sometimes a few lone holdouts, but these folks have gotten permission to vote that way. As long as a bill gets passed, that is all that matters. Republicans? Not so much. They hem and they haw. They worry about whether support for legislation meets with their own personal values and whether they might get some hassle from important donors back home. If a vote comes down to a single Republican, you can never hang your hat on the fact that he/she will "take one for the team" and vote for passage. It just isn't done. Maybe it helps them sleep at night, but it certainly doesn't endear them to their constituency or to the party. Democrats are the BIG PICTURE party who worries about small group...

President Richard Nixon’s team tried plugging leaks with the infamous "Plumbers". That didn't work out so well. So in the spirit of learning from past mistakes, here is my recommendation to President Trump to stop the incessant leaking to the press from within the White House. When he returns from his first overseas trip, round up every WH staffer from top to bottom for a mandatory meeting. Once everyone is present, the President walks in. He thanks them for coming and thanks them for working so hard on "the people's agenda" since he became president. While speaking, have assistants start passing our sealed envelopes to all attendees. Ask that the envelopes be left sealed. While the envelopes are being distributed, he continues, "I am not hear to ask for your loyalty. It is implied by the job you are in. You should be loyal to the trust you have been given. Most of you have security clearances and you ALL know that in any job...