Mexico Will Pay for the Wall

mexico-wallWe know that a big wall on the U.S.-Mexican border will solve all our immigration problems. The plan to have Mexico pay for it is simple and obvious: Hire Mexican contractors to build it, then don’t pay them. The Advocate-in-Chief for this strategy has a long history of operating in that manner.

Read about it from 1990.

From 2016 here and here.

No… No, It’s Not the Fracking

OklahomaOklahoma began last Labor Day weekend by tying the record set in 2011 for its strongest earthquake: 5.6 magnitude, centered fifty miles west of Tulsa. The state has recorded thousands of earthquakes during the past few years. In 2009 Oklahoma suffered nine quakes over 3.0, the strength than can be felt. In 2015, there were 907. So far this year, 400. The state’s official position is that the upsurge has nothing to do with the hydraulic fracturing – “fracking” – that has increased exponentially over that period.

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News From My Alma Mater

deady_0The University of Oregon has many prominent alums: Steve Prefontaine, Ann Curry, Phil Knight, Ken Kesey, and me. A driving force behind the founding of the University of Oregon in 1876 was Matthew Deady. He served as the university’s president for its first twenty years. The first building at the U of O was named in his honor and is still in use today. Deady’s other accomplishments include serving as president of the convention to draft Oregon’s first constitution and he was named Oregon’s first district court judge after statehood. Deady also was a staunch defender of slavery and a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. Oops.

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Labor Day Update

So-called “Right-to-Work” laws and the vilification of unions by conservatives are having their intended effect. The declining percentage of workers belonging to unions has resulted in lower wages, not just for union members, but for non-union workers as well.

“…private-sector union decline since the late 1970s has contributed to substantial wage losses among workers who do not belong to a union. This is especially true for men. And most hurt by the decades-long decline in the nation’s labor movement are those nonunion men who did not complete college, or go beyond high school—groups with the largest erosion of union membership over the last few decades.”

A study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, reports that non-union wages would be five percent higher if union participation had remained at 1979 levels. The percentage is higher for those lacking college educations; even higher for those without high-school diplomas.

happy-labor-day-beach

Back to the Seventies

In this Internet age, it’s quick and easy to find “21 Celebs And Their Pick For President.” Finding the original point of sale of a firearm is a manual process. The National Rifle Association and their cowering minions in legislatures are protecting our freedoms by making it as slow and difficult as possible to track a gun used in the commission of a crime.

From the Los Angeles Times.