Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 1-10-19 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, January 10, 2019 Editorial & Opinions
Serving “The World’s Fruit Basket” since 1891
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
A big-time sporting event is the best kind of reality programming
Jon Earnest — Editor / Sports Juanita Adame — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
Miss Piggy
Were you aware that there are now rough- ly 22 million people who are working for the government? Thats about double the number of Americans employed in manufacturing. This seems to be an excellent bit of informa- tion for one to have when they are faced with the upcoming tax season. How troubling is it to know there are about half of us working in a constructive endeavor as there are in our success-impeding bureaucracy?
My journalism background orig- inated in sports, and continues in Reedley along with my editor duties covering the city. But sports never has really left me when it comes to my entertainment preferences.
Movies, theater, music, televi- sion? I’ve followed them, some more closely than others. But for all the people who get a kick out of reality TV, there’s honestly nothing more stark, honest and often dramatic than a high-stakes sporting event. Also, sports usually will deliver with precision to the adage of “truth is stranger than fiction.” Or the old re- liable: “you can’t make this stuff up.”
That was never more on point than in last Sunday’s National Foot- ball League playoff game. My life- long team of choice, the tradition- filled but often woebegone Chicago Bears, rose from the ashes of five miserable losing seasons and two coaching failures to win the NFC North Division championship and make the playoffs. Buoyed by a new, offensive-minded coach — along with the whirlwind acquisition of a game-changing star linebacker that turned the team’s defense into a true
power — the Bears had become a bonafide power that some people thought even had a chance to make the Super Bowl.
But there were doubts. One ma- jor one was a kicker who had the annoying habit of booting field goal attempts and even relatively sim- ple extra points into the goalposts (called uprights in the sport) as if a giant magnet had a pull on the foot- ball. This happened an incredible four times in one game this season.
It’s not a knock on the kicker. The best of pros miss, including one former Minnesota Viking who golf- shanked a final-play “chip shot” kick that not only didn’t win a 2015 play- off game, it ended the team’s season. There’s always the risk of a player failing in the clutch.
So I had no problem expecting the worst when the team’s season came down to a 43-yard attempt on a cold-yet-relatively calm eve- ning in the “Windy City.” The kick cleared diving defenders and sailed toward the goalposts and apparent victory. But the ball drifted left, and continue to drift until it struck the left upright, heading straight down
and bouncing on the crossbar back toward the field of play. No good. Game and season over.
Six kicks off an
upright, this one
now known as the
notorious “double
doink” kick. Truly,
“you can’t make this stuff up.” Pre- dictably, social media erupted prob- ably as loud as the bloviating Golden Globes entertainment awards show that followed the game.
Even with the subsequent video and comments revealing that the kick was partially blocked — I had to laugh at the irony. Not to mention the confirmation that there is no better reality show than a sporting event played by those at the highest level. It’s why the Olympics, championship finals and major tournaments are so popular. You just never know what to expect.
Thankfully, there are certainties in sports, like the dominance of Ala- bama in college football. Right?
Fred Hall
Add the burden of supporting — yes, you are their sole means of support because the government produces nothing — that many people to the huge number of people who receive welfare benefits — some of whom are not even citizens of this country and you real- ize the extent of the problem. Donald Trump and his administra- tion, by creating a stronger economy, has managed to reduce the overwhelming numbers created under Barack Obama but it still is a huge capital outlay. We must begin to stem the steady slide of America into a welfare state.
I know it’s difficult to do when one is forced to pay so much money to support our government, but perhaps one can find some solace in the fact that Trump was successful in lowering taxes on the private sector as one of his first acts in office. Democrats—as a whole, politically—just seem to want ever more taxes to support their continued ”giveaway” programs. They continue to push free health care for everyone including illegals, free college tuition and a guaranteed income for life. We can’t afford it, but they don’t give a damn! Once again you will be expected to step up and span the void. Bailing out the public sector pension plans will be your next “hit.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has proposed a tax of 70 percent on the “wealthy” and Brad Sherman of California has already filed articles of impeachment against the president for fir- ing someone he should have fired immediately and was completely entitled to do. The surest cure for that sort of thinking would be for we voters to stop electing ignorant people. It doesn’t require a lot of deep thinking to realize what a 70 percent tax rate would do to this economy and our jobs which support the entire mess that is government. This overwhelming envy of the successful is detrimental.
Does anyone truly believe that people who are truly wealthy with access to accountants and lawyers will voluntarily, subservi- ently sit idly by and allow a bunch of bureaucrats to seize their money for some idiotic scheme which is designed only to keep bureaucrats in office?
The greatest problem with any welfare state is predictably this — anything which is acquired too easily is often taken too lightly or for granted. The hard work required by one citizen in providing a benefit — it’s actually a freebie because it certainly isn’t an entitlement — often elicits only a shrug by the recipient. There should be no doubt why California, along with New York and Massachusetts, has become the very epitome of welfare states. Here in California we’re now talking about providing healthcare for anyone in the world who can get here!
By becoming a welfare state, we have become the ultimate magnet which draws far too many immigrants who have little in- terest in becoming American citizens. Their main criteria is the “milk and honey” being extracted from patriotic workers who be- lieve in what this country stands for and who are being extorted for this politically motivated undertaking. Take a look at several members of this newly elected Congress who have no interest
in American culture. Instead, they showed up for work wear- ing the costumes of their native country. It looked more like the United Nations or the barroom scene from the Star Wars movie. Who are you going to respect; some foreign nation and their cul- ture or the American people who elected you? At least act as if you are one of us.
The uncontrolled flow of immigration must be stemmed — im- mediately, and by any means necessary. The entire screening pro- cess must be refined and greatest attention to those who contribute and are not be a burden to society — assimilate! Show us you want to be an American. Walls have worked everywhere they’ve been tried in the past. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
We’ve entered an era in America which glows brightly with promise for all of its citizens, but is on the cusp of being threat- ened by the growing hatred and rage which is being fanned by our media. No rational act or accomplishment was ever recorded while being perpetrated in the guidance of anger. Frankly, I don’t under- stand how members of our media and professional politicians can be so irrationally steeped in hatred for one man. Give credit where credit is due. This man — Donald Trump — has accomplished more during a two-year period than the last several presidents, and he has done so while dragging a litany of haters along with him kick- ing and screaming. That’s no small accomplishment!
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Does anyone reading this want to make a
guess which state employs the greatest num-
ber of bureaucrats? That would be California with almost a million — 883,404 to be exact. Reasonably, one would expect that would represent a thoroughly solid block of almost a million Democrat voters and about a million souls with whom we are taxed for their generally large salaries. Government workers, as a general rule, are compensated well above the average private sector worker.
Jon Earnest
This was the most important political address of 2018
By Harold Pease
Guest columnist
The United States is quickly becoming divided into the globalists and the patriots. They are at total war against each other. Since they are ideological- ly incomparable only one side can win. In time all will support one side or the other side. Readers already are, whether they are fully aware of what they support or not.
The globalists, often called the establishment or the deep state, prefer world-wide open borders, the eventual transfer of all political power to interna- tional levels, and eventual- ly world government. Na- tional sovereignty is their enemy. The patriots pre- fer freedom from exces- sive government, indepen- dence from any governing entity other than Congress, patriotism, and today, the Constitution as written. The choice is uncannily similar to the choice given Ameri- cans in 1776.
The globalists, deeply imbedded in our parties and establishment me- dias, hated the following address and consequently minimized coverage of it in their print outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post, and net- work medias. If followed it would shut down their New World Order and world governance aspirations. It would spell a different for- eign policy than practiced since World War II but far more in harmony with that of the Founding Fathers.
Chances are very good that readers missed impor- tant parts of what Presi- dent Donald Trump told the United Nations on Sept. 25. It could be summarized in 12 words from it. “We reject
Other Opinions
the ideology of globalism and accept the doctrine of patriotism.” Adding, “Amer- ica is governed by Ameri- cans.” Directed squarely at the globalists in the room, he effectively said, “We will keep our sovereignty and expect other nations to keep theirs as well.”
He told them. “We are standing up for America and for the American peo- ple. And we are also stand- ing up for the world. That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination. I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and tradi- tions.” Then amazingly, in total contrast with every president since World War II, “The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sov- ereignty in return.”
Trump rejected one in- ternational organization in particular, created by the globalists to undermine our sovereignty, “The United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. AsfarasAmericais concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal juris- diction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fair- ness, and due process.” He then added what most pa- triots wanted their govern- ment to say to the United Nations since its inception. “We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccount- able, global bureaucracy.”
Trump encouraged
other nations to protect their sovereignty as well, “Around the world, respon- sible nations must defend against threats to sover- eignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coer- cion and domination.”
Imagine what the glo- balists in the room thought. The United States had been the lead founder and funder. Moreover, David Rockefeller donated the property to house the in- fant world government organization that since increasingly absorbs con- trol over all nations of the earth. The United States is the principle reason the United Nations exists. All presidents have supported it. No president has spoken this way. Ronald Reagan alone opposed its growing power over the sovereignty of nations. He reduced US funding for it from 33 per- cent to 25 percent. Patriots cheered the Reagan move but now want more, which Trump seems ready to give. Most want removal from the organization altogether.
Trump turned to ille- gal immigration and hu- man trafficking as threats to sovereignty also. “The United States is also work- ing with partners in Latin America to confront threats to sovereignty from uncon- trolled migration. Toler- ance for human struggling and human smuggling and trafficking is not humane. It’s a horrible thing that’s going on, at levels that no- body has ever seen before. It’s very, very cruel.”
He addressed why the United States refused to participate in the new UN Global Compact on Migra- tion. “We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in ac-
cordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same — which we are do- ing. That is one reason the United States will not par- ticipate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Mi- gration should not be gov- erned by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.”
Finally he spoke of the foundation of freedom as being national sovereignty, which must be preserved . “To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the founda- tions that make it all possi- ble. Sovereign and indepen- dent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sover- eignty and our cherished independence above all.”
Trump ended with “So together, let us choose a fu- ture of patriotism, prosper- ity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign.”
The UN, the heart of world government and glo- balism, never had an ad- dress delivered like this; certainly the most impor- tant address of 2018.
Harold Pease is a syn- dicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedi- cated his career to studying the writings of the Found- ing Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for more than 30 years at Taft College in Kern County.