Tag Archives: taxpayer

Just another brick in the wall

Wall for Mexico

While watching Ted Cruz doing a presser in Arizona at the border of the United States and Mexico, I just shook my head. That is my current reaction to anyone or anything mentioning the border. When two former Mexican presidents thought they would share their foul mouthed expression over Mexico paying for a wall I laughed. Dolia Estevez wrote about the most corrupt people in Mexico and you bet politicians were named, so much for being the beacon of light and truth that they believe they are when speaking of public policies.

I think I have finally come up with the best idea for the border wall. Well I don’t want to steal credit for the idea, my mother in law Lillian actually thought of this, and it’s a brilliant. What makes it even better is that Lillian herself was a legal immigrant to the United States and a naturalized citizen. She came up with the idea while talking with her son, my husband, about our local baseball team.

Years ago when our local baseball team, the Padres, were building their new stadium, they gave fans the option of sponsoring a brick that would make up the construction of the ball park. You could gift them or have a heartfelt saying put on it, whatever you wanted, within reason of course. I even bought one for my husband who has been huge fan. It is cool every opening day of the baseball season when we go look for the brick and sort of touch it, a kind of blessing for a great season.

When Donald Trump wanted Mexico to pay for the wall I thought that was an inspired idea but this one is even better because it won’t cost the America taxpayer anything. We could sell the bricks making up the wall to US citizens. And each family member who has lost a loved one to murder, rape, etc could add the name the of their dead loved one, like Kate’s folks could put her name on a brick and we could use these to build the wall. By the way, all the names would be facing the Mexican side. This will be a constant reminder of the costs of illegal immigration has on our country to those who would encourage the behavior.

And maybe seeing this giant wall with names of lost loved ones, lost hope, lives stopped, families changed forever, just maybe that would snap DC and Mexico out of their fog and give them a daily reminder of the true cost of illegal immigration to our nation.

H/T Mum

Move Over Sopranos a New “Family” Rocks California

Don Corleone

 

With the arrest of yet another California elected Senator Leland Yee, the California political elite seem to be the new stars of an episode of The Sopranos. First we have Senator Rod Wright convicted of 8 counts of voter fraud and perjury who by the way is still drawing his salary off the CA taxpayer and next we have Senator Ron Calderon who has been indicted federally on charges ranging from mail fraud, wire fraud, honest services fraud, bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering to aiding in the filing of false tax returns. He too is on “paid leave of absence’ from his day job as a California Senator. If anyone thought of  Senator Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg as a leader they can put that thought away now; all roads lead back to his leadership style which is kind of like that of Don Corleone.

Holding up the rear in California Senate Democrats who have fallen from grace is now Senator Kevin de Leon who is being investigated along with Calderon by the FBI on what the FBI called a “large scale healthcare fraud” case involving a person in Long Beach who was running a spinal surgery hospital named Michael Drobot. Coincidently again, Don Steinberg used to work for the firm that is representing Drobot in the corruption case against him upon which  Eric Weirich deputy commissioner  of the California Department  of Insurance called, “”the largest insurance fraud” in California history.

You can read the affidavit used on the Calderon case as it reads like a who’s who of the California Senate elite. It all gets really messy implicating Calderon’s brother who used to serve in the California Senate also ,as it alleges that the Calderon brothers  had setup a phony 501c4 called Californians for Diversity, (where was the IRS on this one), to have a fund for retirement. Their bribes were being transferred into the 501c4 account.

Each of these guys “serves” a very specific part of Californian as Yee “serves” San Francisco, Calderon and de Leon “serve” parts of Los Angeles. Rod Wright “serves” Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach. And coincidently Steinberg “serves” the very spot of all corruption itself, Sacramento. It figures right? And what role does Steinberg play in all of this? Are his hands clean? I am not sure as he crops up numerous times in the affidavit against Calderon. He is either the dumbest person on the planet, not knowing what was happening, although that seems unlikely, or he had some role in all of this. I have to believe that whether covertly or overtly Steinberg is being looked at very hard these days as he has proven to be delinquent in providing leadership for the California Senate.

I am always amazed at how different the political world is from real life. If Steinberg worked in the real world he would have lost his job and pension by now for at the least turning a blind eye to the corruption happening on his watch with his subordinates. Remember in the movie The Godfather when Michael is talking to Kay about his father he says, “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.” Too true.