There is an interesting proposal in California where legislators are moving to punishing any companies who work with the federal government in the construction of the wall pledged by President Donald Trump between the United States and Mexico. The bill would force pension funds to divest from participating companies. It is a bill that would significantly raise the level of conflict between the Trump Administration and certain states. The Trump Administration is already moving to withdraw grants from cities and states barring assistance to federal immigration officials. To now have states retaliate against companies for simply contracting with the federal government would push the already bad situation to Def Con 1 over federal/state conflict. There is no way that the federal government could sit ideally by as states retaliated against federal contractors.
Assembly Bill 946 would require the California Public Employee Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System to liquidate investments in any company involved with the wall’s construction within a year. It would also require the pension-fund management to report a list of those companies to the Legislature. With assets of f $312 billion and $202 billion, respectively, these are the countries two largest pension funds and could hit some companies hard.
The proposal is being introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco and Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, and Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella.
Notably, these funds have been down recently and such restrictions imposed by politicians could drive down value for the pension funds. This money belongs ultimately to the workers who entrust the assets with an understanding that the funds will be maintained and maximized. If politicians can create lists of barred investments, the pension funds will become extensions of politics rather than funds geared toward the protection of value for employees. More importantly, the move would likely trigger demands for broader denial of federal funds to California.
And let’s address the loss of field workers.
We are creating a serf society here in the US, and especially in CA and AZ. We vote for higher wages and benefits, but when it comes time to pick our crops, mow our lawns, or watch our children, we hire illegal aliens, who benefit from none of that. They get paid less. They get exposed to more pesticides and herbicides, and the accompanying illnesses.
We are creating a serf society, with encouraging illegal aliens to do our dirty jobs, just as our country used to use and abuse slave labor long ago. And the reasons given to perpetuate slavery were eerily the same. They used the exact same reasoning – who would pick our cotton? Why, you couldn’t get an American to do slave work! And so the abhorrent practice continued long after we knew better.
There are plenty of agricultural industries around the world who get by without 2nd class illegal aliens working the fields. Somehow, they get by. If all illegal immigration stopped, then our agricultural industry would adapt, just the same as it did when the slaves were freed. And, just maybe, hiring workers at fair wages, instead of serf labor, there might be more pressure to do away with pesticides and herbicides, to make working conditions safer in the fields. As it stands, people don’t seem to really care about the high cancer rates, fungal infections, school drop out rates, and all sorts of other issues with field hands because they are the serf class of illegal aliens.
Putting a firm stop to illegal aliens means that workers are legal, entitled to the same benefits, and no longer taken advantage of.
Karen – most companies in Arizona use e-Verify. So, to be employed, they have to have a valid SS number. They are getting that somewhere.
Identity theft is one of the most common crimes by illegal aliens. They are either working under the table, for cash, or they’ve stolen an identity to get a SSN to get a job.
Many of the illegal alien stolen SS #’s in Wisconsin come from deceased Chicagoans. I have run SS #’s for Mexican illegals and they come back to deceased, Chicago Pollacks. But those dead Pollacks still vote..twice and election!
This is a fight that we have got to win.
It’s impossible to completely remove all illegal immigration. But we can make illegal immigration and visa overstay hard, while legal immigration easier. Every single person murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member who has been deported 5 times, only to stroll past our open border, adds a layer of grief to their destroyed families: their murderer was never supposed to be there, and if we had secured our border, their loved one would still be safe.
Why would Deep Blue state, CA, fight so hard against efforts to prevent illegal immigration? Illegal immigration contributes to crime in the state, ranging from identity theft, driving without insurance, hit and run, to human sex trafficking (such as from infamous Tenencingo), drug cartels, drug and gun running, and gangs (MS-13.) You are to recall that the infamous Los Zetas cartel recently cooked alive hundreds of men, women, and children, in makeshift ovens, in villages close to our border. Nearly 50% of all federal crimes take place close to the border:
“Not surprisingly, most of the offenses were immigration related. In fact, 38.6% of all federal cases (23,744) filed last year involved immigration, the DOJ report confirms. Nearly 22% (13,383) were drug related, 19.7% (12,123) were violent crimes and 10.2% (6,300) involved white-collar offenses that include a full range of frauds committed by business and government professionals. This is hardly earth-shattering news in fact, the nation’s southern border region has for years been known for its high crime rate compared to the rest of the country.” And illegal immigrants accounted for about 75% of federal drug sentences in 2014.
So it is factually supported that illegal immigration has significantly increased the crime in the Southern border region.
So, why would CA fight so hard against curtailing illegal immigration? Why do they fight efforts to purge the voter roles from fraud, including illegal immigrants?
Because illegal immigrants tend to vote Democratic. It is not until they have been in the country for a generation or two that the trend leans to other parties. Politicians may believe that they can insulate themselves from the resulting high crimes, sending their children to public schools, away from the 18 year old violent criminal illegal aliens who may have ties to cartels and/or gangs, registered as freshmen in our public schools, away from the too high numbers of poor English speaking students that drag down test scores, and funding, for their schools, away from crime in their guarded, gated communities, where suddenly guarded walls make perfect sense, with job security and lush benefits packages funded by taxpayer, unaffected by the job losses or wage depression caused by illegal immigration, and accompanied by armed guards whenever necessary. They are insulated from the consequences. So it may just be all about the votes. They are willing to sacrifice the lives of the very people they were voted in to represent, to get votes.
Why does any rational person believe that forcing all immigrants to go through the legal immigration system, and keeping immigration at levels that our benefits, infrastructure, water resources, and environment can all comfortably absorb, would be wrong?
I believe that any politician found fighting efforts to curtail illegal immigration should be forced to live in a house close to the border, and their kids attend those schools, for a year. Kind of like those sentences for slum lords. Let them experience what they have inflicted upon others, to give them some perspective and clarity.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/10155/9-things-you-need-know-about-illegal-immigration-aaron-bandler
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3948140/Former-mayor-arrested-massacre-Mexican-state-Coahuila.html
The money Trump is spending on the wall would be far better being spent on projects that actually benefit us. The wall, especially in CA will affect our food prices as crops will rot in the fields. But then, there are ways over, under, and around the wall. A truly stupid waste of money.
The money Trump is spending on the wall would be far better being spent on projects that actually benefit us. The wall, especially in CA will affect our food prices as crops will rot in the fields. B
The ‘crops rotting in the field’ is a nonsense meme used as political propaganda, and if you did anything but recite talking points, you’d know that. They’ll only rot in the field if it isn’t worth it for growers to recruit available casual labor to pick them. If they wish to do that, they’ll have to either raise wages, automate harvesting to the extent feasible, or switch crops. (And, while we’re at it, the share of atypical household budget which go toward the differential in price between California produce and Chilean produce is tiny).
The wall actually benefits the community by improving law enforcement and allowing the government to regulate immigration in the national interest. It does disrupt the Democratic Party vote farming operation, which is why you fancy it’s a problem.
Bettykath – would you be willing to live in one of those homes close to the border, which gets broken into on a daily basis, experience far higher crime than the rest of the country, and close to the gun runners, drug runners, and sex traffickers forcing girls from Tenencingo to prostitute themselves in the hidden underbelly of modern day slavery in our own country? Put your kids in schools with high rates of antibiotic resistant TB brought in by illegal immigrants, and 18 year old gang member illegal aliens registered as freshmen in our high schools? Would you be wiling to put your money where your mouth is, and experience what it actually means to have no closed border between us and the cartels, and what that means to the citizens this affects? It’s very easy to have high ideals from afar, as the little people shoulder the consequences. But would you be willing to shoulder the yoke yourself?
Bettykath – would you be willing to live
She never argues a point in good faith, so asking this question is a waste of time.
Bettykath is a kamikaze. She crashes into a thread and destroys herself in doing so.
Most if not all posters here are intimately familiar with Liberal Democratic Progressive hypocrisy. (I happily point out the same for the other party; Bush and Cheney should be convicted of high treason IMO, and I’d prefer both major parties be banned permanently or for at least a half C.).
Try this one on for size: When a pro abortionist defends government funds to “Planned Parenthood” (an oxymoron; they are more about abortion and anti-parenthood than parenthood), they must inevitably and inexorably pull out the “it’s a safe and legal medical procedure.” IOW, the fact that it’s legal ipso facto supports their claim to tax dollars to purchase it.
Conversely, in our case herein, CA decides to financially punish persons doing something 100% legal. Woe to those contractors (positively, absolutely, some of them are Mexican-American owned and operated) who legally choose to feed, clothe, and shelter their families by building a much needed wall for our security.
Hey Dems, why do you not scream for Israel to tear down its 40′ wall running through the middle of Palestine?
And Re. the environment: much has been written and documented of the destruction to the desert environment directly caused by illegal immigration, and further, destruction to the general environment by the influx of illegals throughout the US.
It’s interesting that a Christian baker can not practice his religion by refusing a contract for homosexual nuptials, but the urine hole State of CA feels so self righteous in inflicting financial pain on innocents wanting to make a living.
Lastly, about this transplanting of Latin “culture” to the US. 97.5% of my Latin-American friend’s co-workers are of Latin descent, a few likely illegal. I’ll call my friend X. A thousand times X’s Latin co-workers start a sentence with, “In MY country…,” said with deep longing and affection for the place they happily and willingly departed. Earth to immigrant: if your former country is so grand and great, please immediately jump in your car and return to pick up where you left off. The point is they desire to transplant their former culture here rather than the inverse, which would make the present people living here feel better about this arrangement.
I just started Pat Buchanan’s stupendous 2008 book, “The Unnecessary War.” IMO this immigration issue is just another problem we inherited due to Churchill’s and Woodrow Wilson’s blunders: Churchill for lying when he guaranteed to defend Poland from Hitler (he and England could not fulfill this promise), and Wilson for wrongly declaring it is the USA’s personal responsibility to spread democracy around the globe, which philosophy directly caused the deaths of between 50-100 million humans, and which philosophy we now use to foment war throughout the globe, directly contradicting G. Washington’s advice that “all foreign entanglements are temporary”.
If you’re looking for a job and want to get rich as a paid professional protester working for Soros, you can do it by recruiting other people and then building your own “pyramid scheme”…..and get your ‘paychecks’ signed by Soros himself. They encourage you to quit your job, move home with your parents, and join them. This is how the Left builds its anti-Trump “movement.” This ain’t exactly ‘grass roots rising’, people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op1yqcIdhbE
Where is the investigation into Soros, et al?
Desperate, You are the William Safire of this blog.
The underfunded, mismanaged, CA pension system is imploding, and this horsesh!t is just one of many examples why.
That sort of thing contra every other stupid thing the state government in California has its hand it persuades you that Samuel Francis’ notion of ‘anarcho-tyranny’ was perspicacious.
Major Californian cities have declared bankruptcy from pension plan collapse and overspending. It would have been considered unheard of a decade ago for a single major city to collapse, but not it’s become more common.
They have provisions in federal bankruptcy laws for municipalities to file because it isn’t unheard of. (IIRC, there were about 800 such bankruptcies during the Depression). There have been 17 filings in the last decade. There were about 33 filings in the 19 years prior.
Karen, Some haughty Cali Dems will be in prison when the house of cards falls and the state goes bankrupt. Tech industry is keeping Cali afloat. A downturn in tech and the feces hits the fan.
Just encourage CA to secede and go on their own. Then we can build a wall around it and they can fend for themselves. They can accept all the immigrants that they want and all the Hollywood big mouths can drain their bank accounts to support them. Since they are so worried about these people, let’s see how concerned they become when their own bank accounts are at risk.
It’s a proposal by a few extremists. Not much if anything will come of it. Each side has their extremists. Think Sarah Palin. The Right seems to be well off the beam these days; look who is in the White House, a blithering idiot who makes the most rabid right wing nut seem reasonable. That might have been the strategy all along. The boys and girls in the GOP think tanks surely realized that DDT being reasonable, in their minds and for their purposes, would be the third part of the equation and being an idiot, as has been graphically clear for some time now, could only serve to place them in a reasonable light as moderates and having firmer hands on the tiller. DDT is somewhat of a President who is not really GOP. The bad he does he carries on his own shoulders and the good can be usurped by the GOP. By distancing himself from the GOP and reality in general, DDT has set the stage to let the right wing nuts off the blame hook.
I think “Sarah Palin” and I think “Patriot”.
There is another wall controversy.
The Tohono O’odham Nation, a federally recognized tribe with a reservation that spans 75 miles of the US-Mexico border, announced that it does not support the wall and criticized the White House for signing an executive order without consulting the tribe.
The Tohono O’odham tribe, which has roughly 28,000 members and controls 2.8m acres of a reservation in south-western Arizona, has long struggled with the militarized international border that was drawn through the middle of its traditional lands.
The O’odham people historically inhabited lands that stretched south to Sonora, Mexico, and just north of Phoenix, Arizona, and there are tribe members who still live in Mexico. The tribe today has the second largest Native American land base in the country, and indigenous people say the US Border Patrol has for decades significantly disrupted tribal communities and their day-to-day life.
The dope & crime:
The Tohono O’odham reservation consists largely of mountains and desert — inhospitable terrain that is difficult to patrol, much to the delight of drug smugglers. Though the reservation’s size accounts for less than four percent of the total length of U.S.-Mexico border, between five and 10 percent of all marijuana produced in Mexico is transported through Tohono O’odham territory. The U.S. government has designated the reservation as a “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area,” with the amount of narcotics seized on the territory drastically increasing over the last 15 years. In 2008, roughly 201,000 pounds of marijuana was seized on the res; in 2009, marijuana seizures rose to 319,000 pounds.
The increasingly militarized nature of border reservations like that of the Tohono O’odham has fundamentally changed life in those communities: They are no longer peaceful or safe places to live, and not a single resident is unaffected by the realities and spillover effects of the drug trade. Homes are regularly broken into by smugglers and their affiliates. Residents are routinely searched by law enforcement, their movements restricted on their own land. Those who assist independent drug smugglers who are not attached to major cartels are at risk of being attacked by members of dominant drug cartels who want to eliminate competition and retain their near monopoly on the business.
Jerry – they are also running people thru the reservation. The article missed the 100 miles gun battle between two cars going thru the reservation after one set of coyotes had stolen the human cargo of the other coyotes. The tribe seems to unofficial condon this illegal behavior and seems to be getting a cut. They do own a very nice casino now that is doing a fair amount of business.
Many years ago I was out on the reservation working on a murder investigation. It was a very nasty murder where a social worker had been dragged to death behind a pick-up. Couldn’t get anyone to talk to me.
Oh my gosh, Paul, that’s awful. Did they catch the killer?
Karen – the FBI, which handles felonies on the rez, did nothing. The best I could figure out was there were at least two people and where they left the body.
They are no longer peaceful or safe places to live, and not a single resident is unaffected by the realities and spillover effects of the drug trade. Homes are regularly broken into by smugglers and their affiliates.
The Tohono O’odham Nation, a federally recognized tribe with a reservation that spans 75 miles of the US-Mexico border, announced that it does not support the wall and criticized the White House for signing an executive order without consulting the tribe.
What, crooked political bosses on the Rez have been bought off by certain parties? Say it ain’t so…
Half of Romney’s family lives in Mexico too.
Oh? Which of Mr. Romney’s children, grandchildren, siblings, or shirt-tails resides in Mexico?
I think the wall should be built with donated money, and the labor performed by convicts. The costs born by the federal gov would be largely limited to engineering and supervision of the unpaid prison labor.
What? And deprive Trump’s buddies from lucrative no-bid contracts? Ain’t gonna happen.
The CBP started taking BIDS four days ago. Over 700 companies have applied to bid.Over a quarter are small American contracting business. There are more Veteran, Minority and Women owned American businesses than foreign national companies.. 100 of them are companies owned by foreign nationals, mainly Mexican. These number were reported by CNBC, but they admit the numbers are changing all of the time. These numbers were reported on March 16. The deadline is March 22.
But of course, I’m nothing more than a racist, bigoted, homophobe with fascist tendencies. So what do I know.
What, Mr. de Drain, partisan Democrat, is talking out his ass while his pants are on fire? Say it ain’t so.
I’m just taking the word of Trump that he admires and want to be like Andrew Jackson. See Washington Post article earlier this month.
Wonder if Trump will allow any Russian subcontractors?
Manafort is making calls
Dave T – if the Mexican are bidding, then shirley the Russians can bid. 🙂
Nope Don, they are too busy working on Clinton Foundation projects.
Home Depot subcontracted out my tile installation for my kitchen to a local tile company who in turned subcontracted the job to 2 Russian guys.
So anything is possible. Lol.
I would think that CA state pensioners could file a class action suit for breach of fiduciary duty if the fund managers divest of valuable stock simply to make a political statement.
For the reasons just specified by Darren, particularly the fact that privately held companies would not be affected at all, this kind of legislation is not likely to make much practical difference. I think the wall is a stupid idea. But this legislative proposal is piling stupidity on top of stupidity.
As noted by Wonderer, CA pension plans are grossly underfunded. This is CA’s ticking time bomb. No one has the courage to confront the problem now, so they just keep kicking the can down the road. One of these days, the kicking of the can is going to cause a giant explosion. I’d much rather see them do something meaningful like tackling the unfunded pensions.
Don de Drain – CA is doing something meaningful, they are building the train to nowhere that nobody needs.
California is being very foolish… and I notice that Jerry, who is in DC, has pulled back from his earlier stances of how we would stand up and go our own way… Makes me laugh.
BART has just announced that they will not, after all, become a sanctuary transit….. they’d prefer not to lose the 55 billion in Federal funds. And so it goes.
What is a “sanctuary transit?” In DC we have homeless people who sleep in the subway and ride the rails all day during freezing weather. Do illegals sleep on the CA trains?
It may be more spin than anything else, but I am assuming BART wanted to give the impression they would not allow ICE to be on their trains. The whole thing is insane. ICE and the Feds are fighting back on the request from the Chief Justice that courts be sanctuaries….
Right now BART is looking into referring to itself as a “safe space”. I don’t even know what to say anymore, frankly. AND we just had a pretty devastating winter, roads and bridges out all over. Sinkholes, etc. No way we can make it wihtout Federal funds. Jerry just asked The Donald for the 4th Federal Emergency declaration. A large number of our counties (I thnk around 50 of 57) are under Fed Emerg status.
TIN – I think the theory was that BART would be ICE free for illegals.
Well, I suppose the illegals Shouldn’t be delayed by ICE while commuting to jobs in the San Franscico Bay Area that unemployed citizens “don’t want.” 😉
TIN – they are probably working on the train to nowhere.
San Francisco – for me it is all or none with CA. They cannot patchwork it to get certain projects done. Cut the whole state off at the knees.
California is proof postiive that some states should be spelled with a small ‘s’ and controlled by the federal government completely while others with a large “S” remain true Constitutional States.
Recall when New Jersey said they wouldn’t allow their 95% federally funded National Guard to be activated. There was no discussion back in those days. But all their public works and educational funds suddenly had difficulties being paid out. Worked like a charm.
I don’t believe you.
Ha. Ha. The power of the pen.
Well lets look at it from a business point of view.
California’s border with Mexico is 137 miles of a total US/Mexico border length of 1,989. If I was a general contractor the punishment / reward metric is still well within my favor. I’d say go ahead and play your little game politicians, If your pension fund sells my stock, someone else will buy it. It’s not as if the fundamentals of my company would change and the market cap would be right back to where it was in a matter of days.
Stock price is not anywhere near the benefit of receiving a multi-million dollar or more contract. And if these companies are privately held, they wouldn’t be in the pension funds to begin with.
Darren – get Halliburtan to bid the contract. CA already spit in their eye.
I live and pay taxes in California, and would love to see Federal Legislation that required pension funds to manage those funds in a fiscally responsible manner. No political acts or grandstanding. Just maximize returns for beneficiaries of the funds and taxpayers who pay into the funds. And those funds may have hundreds of billions of $$ in assets, but they’re still hundreds of billions of $$ under-funded.
Would that be too much to ask?
Historically speaking, social justice funds usually underperform the market. I am curious if this violates the commerce clause.
I am beginning to wonder where some of these politicians’ allegiance is. it is becoming less to the American Citizen every year.
A similar stupidity was exercised by a city here in my state. They enacted an ordinance requiring as a condition of receiving a business license that the entity would not invest in companies that produce components for nukes. Yep, makes you wonder how many light bulbs the city was forced to remove since they are manufactured by Westinghouse. The city is so anti-business it comes as no surprise that most new businesses are started in neighboring towns.
You can’t kum ba ya an economy into prosperity.
I am beginning to wonder where some of these politicians’ allegiance is. it is becoming less to the American Citizen every year.
Here, you indubitably have conjoined ethnic particularists and generic Democratic pols for whom illegal immigration is crucial input in their vote farm. Neither are loyal to the country or to the rest of us. The problem we face in this country is that one of our major political parties is a criminal organization.
IIRC, that was Amherst, Mass, ca. 1984. They discovered nearly every manufacturer of lightbulbs was also a military contractor. A man named Andre Ryerson wrote an article for The New Republic on the controversy. IIRC, he, a woman named Mrs. Goshko, and one other person were the only members of the Amherst Town Meeting who spoke against the silly posturing exercise.
Trump is going to have to pull the plug on federal funds to CA. It is time to play hardball.
Excellent plan. 🤓
We have seen the State of Washington and the State of Hawaii sue the federal government over the immigration policy or EO. I had suggested a Counterclaim by the Federal Government against each of those states for exercising Powers which they do not have. The right to limit the entry of foreigners into the United States is a Federal Power. A state sitting on a border such as the Pacific Ocean does not have that Power. States and those who argue for the so called “rights” of foreigners will bander the phrase States’ Rights. In the South in days of old when the federal government sent agents in to Alabama to stop the Klan (which included the Sheriff) from lynching a human the Southerns would holler: STATESRIGHTS! One word with an exlclamation point yelled.
Here we do not have a state lawsuit which would be slowed down by a Counterclaim as in the OE cases. So, it is time for the Federal Government to immediately enjoin the State of California from implementing a law such as that reported to be in the works by the two Mexican Americans and the Chinese American.
Jack Ruby – it is certainly an interesting defense. 😉
Agreed. I would like to see California LEAVE the United States. They are NOT Americans!
Elise – I would like to see CA slide into the Pacific Ocean which would make my property in Yuma almost beach property.