Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Dead Souls

Posted on by

Throne, Altar, Liberty

The Canadian Red Ensign

The Canadian Red Ensign

Friday, February 14, 2025

Dead Souls

The second of February is the fortieth day after Christmas and therefore the day on which the Church commemorates the Presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This commemoration is popularly known as Candlemas from the tradition of blessing candles in Church on this day.  There is an ancient folk tradition that says that if it is a clear day on Candlemas it will be a long winter.  A tradition derived from this one says that a hibernating animal – which depends on where you live – will temporarily awaken on Candlemas to predict the remaining length of winter by whether or not he sees his shadow.  In North America, the hibernating animal is the groundhog or woodchuck.

This year Candlemas fell on a Sunday.  On most Sunday evenings a friend comes over to watch movies and the obvious choice was “Groundhog Day” the 1993 film by Harold Ramis in which Bill Murray plays a weatherman who goes to Punxsutawney, the small community in Pennsylvania where Groundhog Day is a much bigger deal than elsewhere, and becomes trapped in a personal time loop that forces him to relive the day over and over again.  The way in which Phil, Murray’s character who shares a name with the famous groundhog, responds to this dilemma evolves over the course of the movie.  At one point, fairly early in the plot, his response is gross self-indulgence since there are no consequences due to the slate constantly being wiped clean.  In this phase, the character of Rita portrayed by Andie MacDowell, watching him engage in reckless gluttony in the local diner, quotes Sir Walter Scott to him:

The wretch, concentered all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust, from whence he’s sprung

Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

In the movie, Phil’s response is to laugh and make a joke about having misheard Walter Scott as Willard Scott.  Watching the movie with my friend, my response was to point out that Rita had misapplied the lines she quoted.  The lines are from Canto VI of the Lay of the Last Minstrel and refer not to a hedonist but to the person lacking patriotism.  The first part of the Canto goes:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

After this comes the lines quoted in the movie.


Clearly Sir Walter Scott shared the opinion of Scottish-American, neo-Thomist philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre that patriotism is a virtue as well he ought for that opinion is correct.  Note, however, that the correctness of the opinion depends on the definition of patriotism.  Nationalism, which is frequently confused with patriotism, is not a virtue.  It is not the opposite of a virtue, a vice, either, but this is only because it does not belong to the same general category, the habits of behaviour that make up character, of which virtue and vice are the good and bad subcategories.  Nationalism is an ideology.  An ideology is a formulaic substitute for a living tradition of thought (see the title essay in Michael Oakeshott’s Rationalism in Politics And Other Essays).  Shortcuts of this type are always bad. 

In a recent column Brian Lilley spoke of “national pride” and criticized those who have only recently started to display national pride as Canadians in response to Donald the Orange.   While Lilley’s argument is related to my main topic in this essay, I bring it up here to make the point that “national pride” is not a good way of describing the patriotism that is a virtue.  To be fair, Lilley did not equate patriotism with “national pride” but this is because the word patriotism does not appear in his column.  Pride appears four times and the adjective proud appears nine times.  While it is easy to see why Lilley would use these terms, since much of the column is appropriately critical of the attacks on Canada and her history, identity, and traditions that have been coming from the current Liberal government for the duration of the near-decade they have been in power, pride is not the right word.  It is the name of a vice, indeed, the very worst of the Seven Deadly Sins, rather than a virtue.

Fortunately, we do not have to look far and wide to find the right term.  Patriotism, correctly defined, is neither the ideology of nationalism that values one’s country for its perceived superiority to all others requiring that all others be insulted and subjugated nor the deadly sin of pride as directed towards one’s country, but simply love of one’s country. 

Love of one’s country is indeed a virtue.  Whereas pride is the worst of all sins, love is the highest of all virtues. Of course, the love that is the highest of all virtues is a specific kind of love.  The Seven Heavenly Virtues include the Four Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude and the Three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love.  The Cardinal Virtues are habits that anyone can cultivate and so make up the best moral character that man can attain in his natural or unregenerate state.  While faith, hope, and love in a more general sense can be similarly cultivated, the Faith, Hope, and Love that make up the essence of Christian character must be imparted by the grace of God although the Christian is also expected to cultivate them.  Love is the greatest of the three as St. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 13:13, and therefore as Henry Drummond called it, “the greatest thing in the world”.  It incorporates the other two since they are built upon each other.  Natural loves are lesser than Christian Love or Charity, but they are still virtuous insomuch as they resemble, albeit imperfectly, the Theological Virtue.  Patriotism, the love of country, is such a love.  Edmund Burke famously described how it develops “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle … of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love of our country and to mankind.”  The “little platoons” include one’s family and local community and is Burke had wanted to belabour the point he could have said that the first principle is love of one’s family, which develops into love of one’s local community, and then outward.

It has been heartwarming to see Canadians display their love of country over the last month or so in response to the repeated threats of Anschluss coming from America’s Fuhrer.  While not all of these displays have been in good taste they do all demonstrate that Captain Airhead’s efforts to kill Canadian patriotism by endlessly apologizing for past events that need no apologies, cancelling Canada’s founders and historical leaders such as Sir John A. Macdonald, and other such nonsense have failed.  This resurgence in Canadian public patriotism ought, therefore, to be welcomed by the “conservatives” who rightly despise Captain Airhead.  Oddly, however, it has not been so welcomed by many of them. 

In part this is due to the fact that Captain Airhead, the Liberals, the NDP, and their media supporters who were all on the “cancel Canada” bandwagon until yesterday are now wrapping themselves in the flag and these do deserve to be called out for this.  The right way to do so, however, is to say something to the effect of “you are rather late to the party, but thanks for showing up.”  To Brian Lilley’s credit, that is the gist of what he says in the column alluded to earlier.  Many other “conservatives”, however, have responded quite differently.  In his 2006 book, In Defence of Hypocrisy: Picking Sides in the War on Virtue, Jeremy Lott pointed out the difference between Jesus’ condemnation of hypocrisy and Modern condemnation of hypocrisy.  In condemning the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Jesus did not condemn them for the high moral standards they taught, but for falling short of those standards by sinning.  Moderns, however, when they condemn hypocrisy, condemn the moral standards rather than the sin.  The response of many “conservatives” to the newly discovered Canadian patriotism of progressives resembles this in that they seem to be criticizing the progressives more for their expression of patriotism today than for their lack of it yesterday.  One even quoted Samuel Johnson’s “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”  I refer him to the comments of James Boswell, whose record of the remark is the reason we are familiar with it today, as to what it means.  Dr. Johnson was not impugning love of country, but a kind of pseudo-patriotism which interestingly enough was associated with the founding of America.

It can hardly be a coincidence that these same “conservatives” have been rather less than patriotic in their response to the threats from south of the border.  The founder of one “conservative” independent online media company first responded to these threats by saying they should be treated as a joke and a funny one at that. Then, when Donald the Orange said last weekend that it was no joke,  she flip-flopped and criticized Captain Airhead for having initially done exactly that and said the Anschluss threat was a joke.  In between she conducted and published an interview with an immigrant from America who twelve years ago proved herself to be exactly the kind of immigrant we don’t need when she published a book proposing the merger of our country with her country of birth. 

The general response to these threats in this organization’s commentary has been to treat the American dictator as a reasonable man, with legitimate grievances, who can be negotiated with and to propose an economic merger between the two countries that falls short of a political merger.  Ironically, their website is promoting a children’s book they just published on the life of Sir John A. Macdonald intended to counter the negative propaganda about the Father of Confederation that progressives have been spewing based on their skewed narrative about the Indian Residential Schools.  The book was a good and patriotic response to this blood libel of our country.  Sir John must be spinning in his grave, however, at the thought that the defence of his memory could be merged with the idea of an economic union with the United States.  Sir John spent his entire career as Prime Minister promoting internal east-west trade within the Dominion and fighting the siren call of north-south trade because he knew that this was the greatest threat to the success of the Confederation Project.

Free trade is a good idea from an economic perspective, but each of the “free trade” agreements we have signed with the United States has been a terrible idea from a political perspective.  The kind of economic union these “conservatives” are promoting would be worse than all of the other “free trade” agreements, since the United State is currently led by a lawless megalomaniac, who respects neither the limits placed on his powers by his country’s constitution nor the agreements he has signed and cannot be trusted to keep his own word – the “free trade” agreement he is currently, and deceitfully, claiming is so “unfair” to his country is the one he himself negotiated – and who looks at tariffs and economic measures in general as weapons to accomplish what his predecessors accomplished by bullets and bombs.  By his predecessors I do not mean previous American presidents, but Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin.  I recognized that this was what we were dealing with the moment he made his first “51st state” remark and was confirmed in this when he doubled down on this talk after Captain Airhead announced his intention to resign.  No Canadian patriot could fail to recognize it today after he has continued to escalate his lies and rhetoric and threats for the last month.   Yes, the Left’s endless likeness of everyone they don’t like to Hitler has desensitized us to these comparisons, but let us not be like the villagers in Aesop’s story about the boy who cried wolf.  This time the wolf is real. The sort of things the Left objects to in Donald the Orange, his immigration policies, his termination of the racist, anti-white, policy of DEI, do not warrant a comparison with Hitler, but his threatening us with Anschluss, his demand for Lebensraum from Denmark, his intent to take back his “Danzig Corridor” from Panama, his finding his Sudetenland in Gaza, most certainly do, as does the insane personality cult his followers have developed into.

Canadian conservatives ought to be leading the renaissance of Canadian patriotism, and yes, Brian Lilley, you are right that it should not have taken something like Trump’s threats to bring that renaissance about.  Liberals have always been the party of Americanization in Canada.  Sadly, today’s conservatives are mostly neoconservatives.  David Warren once said that a conservative is a Tory who has lost his religion and a neoconservative is a conservative who has lost his memory.  On the authority of Sir Walter Scott I deduce from the disgusting anti-patriotism I have seen recently that many have lost their souls as well. — Gerry T. Neal

AM

tt

That New Book

Posted on by

Humility and Hubris

Posted on by

Throne, Altar, Liberty

The Canadian Red Ensign

The Canadian Red Ensign

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Humility and Hubris

Canada is a Commonwealth Realm, a country within the British Commonwealth of Nations which governs herself through her own Parliament but which shares a reigning monarch with the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms.  Progressives, especially of the woke, “anti-colonial”, “anti-imperial” type, don’t like this and periodically call for us to “severe our ties to the monarchy.”  This expression demonstrates just how little they understand our country.  We don’t have “ties” to the monarchy as if it were something external that can be lopped off.  It is integral to our constitution and for that matter to our history.

When our current king was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 6 May, 2023 he was greeted by a young lad of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal who welcomed him “in the name of the King of kings.”  To this, His Majesty replied “In His name and after His example I come not to be served but to serve.”  This was an addition to the coronation service requested by His Majesty himself although it expresses the attitude of humility appropriate to the tradition of the king coming to Church to be crowned by priestly representatives of the King of kings.

What a contrast between this attitude of humility on the part of the man and appropriate to the office he fills with the insufferable arrogance that has been characteristic of his Canadian prime minister for the last decade.  Thankfully, that prime minister will soon be history.  On Epiphany he announced his upcoming resignation, to take effect after the Liberal Party has chosen its new leader which is set to take place on 9 March.  Unfortunately, the joy of hearing that he is finally stepping down, nine years after he should have resigned, has been dampened by the noise coming from south of the border.  For as big as the contrast between His Majesty’s appropriate Christian humility and the vainglory of his rotten Canadian prime minister may be there is an even bigger contrast between that humility and the hubris of the festering anal sore who is set to be sworn in again as American president on 20 January.

Yes, that last sentence expresses a rather different character evaluation of Donald the Orange than the one I have been expressing for the last eight years.  As recently as last 5 of November, Guy Fawkes Day and the day of the American presidential election, after declining to endorse either candidate on the grounds that it was an election in another country and for an office, president of a republic, of which I don’t approve, I did say that “If someone were to ask me which of the two candidates I like better as an individual person and which of the two has, in my opinion, the better ideas and policies, my answer to both questions would be Donald the Orange.”  I can no longer say this, although my opinion of Kamala Harris has in no way improved.  One’s insight into another person’s character gets a lot clearer when he is holding a gun to one’s country’s head and screaming “Anschluss!”  Whether he is joking or serious, literal or non-literal, is entirely immaterial. Since he is holding a gun to another country’s head and screaming “Lebensraum” and demanding from yet a third the return of his “Danzig Corridor” he has clearly gone stark raving mad.

Enough, however, about the wounded head, now healed of the revived Roman Empire to our south who has been given a “mouth speaking great things and blasphemies” whose followers all wear a sign of allegiance on their foreheads. I do not wish to write an essay all about him because he thinks everything everywhere should always be about him and I have no desire to indulge him on that.  Rather this essay is about Canada’s small-c conservatives and how the behaviour of some of them over the past week has made me abundantly glad that in my 1 January essay this year I distinguished my own Toryism, not only from big-C Conservative partisanship but from small-c conservatism as well. 

John Casey, writing in the 17 March, 2007 issue of The Spectator, in an article entitled “The Revival of Tory Philosophy” recounted a conversation that had taken place between Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher in the Conservative Philosophy Group, which Hugh Fraser, Casey, the late Sir Roger Scruton and others had founded back in the 1970s.  The meeting was just before the Falklands War and in it Edward Norman had given a presentation on the “Christian argument for nuclear weapons.”  In the discussion that followed according to Casey “Mrs. Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values.”  Then this exchange took place:

Powell: ‘No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.’ Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): ‘Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.’ ‘No, Prime  minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.’ Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism. 

I very much doubt that many of the small-c conservatives in Canada today would have understood Enoch Powell’s point any more than Margaret Thatcher did although Toryism is the traditional Right of Canada as well as the UK.  One’s country is a concrete good for which a patriot fights regardless of what he may think of the people in government at the moment and what their ideology may happen to be.  Of course many, probably most, on the Right today, would call themselves nationalists rather than patriots and would probably not understand this difference either.  Here it is as explained by American paleoconservative/paleolibertarian Joe Sobran in a column from 16 October, 2001:

This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital.

G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a “lack of patriotism.” He explained: “He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.”

In the same way, many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be “the greatest country on earth” in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the 2nd-greatest, or the 19th-greatest, or, heaven forbid, “a 3rd-rate power,” it would be virtually worthless.

This is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being “the greatest family on earth” (whatever that might mean) or for being “better” than other families. You don’t feel threatened when other people love their families the same way. On the contrary, you respect their love, and you take comfort in knowing they respect yours. You don’t feel your family is enhanced by feuding with other families.

While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it’s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.

Joe Sobran, sadly, passed away far too early in 2010 and so did not live to see the “Make America Great Again” movement.  The paragraphs quoted above, however, are a good indication of what he would have thought of it, especially in its current revised version.  In 2016, the movement used nationalist rhetoric but when it spoke of putting “America First” it sounded like it was echoing what those words meant to Sobran’s friends, Sam Francis and Pat Buchanan.  Neither man took it to mean that the United States should be telling the rest of the world “we’re the best, we’re the strongest, so all the rest of you have to do what we say,” quite the contrary.  Buchanan campaigned for American president three times on a platform of doing the opposite of that.  In 1999 he published a book entitled A Republic not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s Destiny.  In 2016, American neoconservatives, the most vehement supporters of American imperialism, shunned the MAGA movement because it sounded to them like Buchananism.  It was thought by many that MAGA had taken its playbook from Sam Francis, who predeceased Sobran in 2005 and his “Middle American Radicals” strategy.  The MAGA of 2024-5, however, is clearly the nationalism Sobran wrote against, taken to the nth degree, in both rhetoric and reality.  Note that the neoconservatives who shunned it in 2016 are flocking to it today.  Compare the Ben Shapiro of 2016 to the Ben Shapiro of today, for example.

John Lukacs, the Hungarian born historian who fled the Nazi and then Communist occupations of his home country and immigrated to the United States was another who understood the difference between nationalism and patriotism.  He was a man of the Right, but was very skeptical about the American conservative movement which popped up after World War II in a country that had always considered itself to be founded on liberalism.  Lukacs, like his friend Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, another refugee from Europe whom he succeeded as history professor at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia when Kuehnelt-Leddihn returned to Austria after the war, he was a Roman Catholic royalist, the continental equivalent of a Tory, and always referred to himself as a reactionary.  I learned to self-apply this favourite epithet of the Left from his example.  In his Democracy & Populism: Fear and Hatred (2005) which I reviewed here, he predicted that a new type of Right was on the ascendency, but warned that it might be an unpalatable sort of Right that blended populism, the demagogic exploitation of dissatisfaction with elites with nationalism rather than traditionalism with patriotism.

The MAGA movement in the United States is, of course, a blend of populism and nationalism.  It is at its best when playing the role of the “agin man”, that is, someone identified by what he is “agin” (against).  It opposes globalism, uncontrolled and illegal immigration, the soft-on-crime policies that are wreaking havoc in places like New York and California, and to the whole combination of racial, sexual, gender and other identity politics that is woke ideology.  MAGA did not invent the opposition to these things, however, and one does not have to be either a populist or a nationalist to oppose them.  The term “woke” in its political sense had not yet become a household word when Joe Sobran died, but he opposed everything the term denotes and we have already seen his opinion of nationalism.  John Lukacs’s mini-book “Immigration and Migration: A Historical Perspective” which can be read in .pdf on the American Immigration Control Foundation’s website here was originally published in 1986, decades before MAGA, the embodiment of the populist nationalism or nationalist populism he foresaw in 2005 and saw unappealing, arrived on the scene.

All of these things that MAGA opposes, the Liberal Party under its present leadership has embraced, taken to their most absurd extremes, and made into its own platform.  This was not in response to MAGA, since Captain Airhead was promoting these things from the moment he became Grit leader, which was a couple of years before he became prime minister the year before that in which Donald the Orange defeated Hilary Clinton.  He did, however, take his cues from the man who was president of the United States at the time, Barack Obama.  Liberal prime ministers in Canada have always taken their cues from the United States.  The Liberal Party has always been the party of Americanization.

In 1891, when Sir John A. Macdonald won his last Dominion election, he was campaigning against Sir Wilfred Laurier’s Liberals who were running on a platform of “unrestricted reciprocity” or what today would be called “free trade” with the United States.  Macdonald has overseen the construction of the railroad in his premiership both to promote trade within Canada, uniting our economy, and to resist pressure to become dependent on trade with the United States, because he correctly foresaw trade dependence on the United States as a step towards falling into the cultural and political gravitational pull of the American republic and so undermining the Confederation Project.  Macdonald won his last majority government in that election, shortly before he passed away, by campaigning against any such outcome.  His campaign posters bore the slogan “The Old Flag, the Old Policy, the Old Leader.”  William Lyon Mackenzie King, who led the Liberal Party for much of the early twentieth century was even more of a free trader and Americanizer than Laurier. 

Now someone might point out that Mackenzie King represented a different wing of the Liberal Party big tent than that which today is identified with the Trudeau family.  That is true but it is also true that the Trudeau Liberals as much as the Mackenzie King Liberals took their cues from the United States.  Indeed, the very celebrity of the Trudeau family in Canada is an imitation of that of the Kennedy family in the United States.  Americans should be grateful that they have not had a second Kennedy presidency.

When Pierre Eliot Trudeau became prime minister he began to expand federal social programs in an unveiled imitation of Lyndon Johnson’s similar expansion in the United States.  More importantly, in 1977 Pierre Trudeau introduced the Canadian Human Rights Act and in 1982, he introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in imitation of the US Bill of Rights.  The Charter gave the Canadian Supreme Court the type of powers the American Supreme Court has and after 1982 Canada began for the first time to experience the kind of cultural revolution through liberal judicial activism that had plagued the United States for decades prior.  The American Supreme Court, for example, threw the Bible and prayer out of American public schools two decades before Pierre Trudeau introduced the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  They were still in Canadian public schools when I attended and I would have been in Grade 1 when the Charter passed.  The Morgentaler ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court came in 1988, 15 years after Roe v. Wade in the United States. Such a ruling would not have been possible prior to 1982.

As for the Canadian Human Rights Act, this was an imitation of the United States’ unnecessary 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting private discrimination that capped Martin Luther King Jr. phoney career as a civil rights crusader which started a year after segregation had been ruled unconstitutional by the American Supreme Court and was hence already legally dead.  Most of the free speech battles in Canada during my lifetime have been because of problems that go back to this Act.  Those who maintain that we would not have had these problems if we had the American First Amendment are grossly mistaken.  From 1949 to 1987 the American communications regulator the FCC had a policy called the Fairness Doctrine that amounted to what Jordan Peterson calls “compelled speech”, which transgresses freedom of speech worse than “prohibited speech.”  The Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters, if they expressed editorial opinions, to give equal time to the opposite view, thus forcing them to subsidize views they disagreed with.  It was not evenly enforced but was enforced against right-wing broadcasters while left-wing broadcasters were generally left alone.  The Rev. Carl McIntire ran afoul of it, for example, on a number of occasions.  It was not struck down by the US Supreme Court on the grounds of the First Amendment, although challenges on that basis were made.  After pressure from Congress and the Reagan administration, the FCC repealed it itself in 1987.  So no, the American First Amendment is not the sacred guarantee of freedom of speech that some think it to be.  Furthermore, and this is actually the main point, the enforced racial, sexual, and gender identity politics of today’s wokeness, at least insofar as it touches on public policy, in Canada can be traced directly to Pierre Trudeau’s introduction of an Act in 1977 based on an American Act of 1964.  This, coupled with the fact that the biggest agent for promoting wokeness in popular culture, not only in North America but throughout the civilization formerly known as Christendom, has been the mass culture production industry centred in Los Angeles, California demonstrates that wokeness comes stamped with “Made in the USA.”

In 1980 at the beginning of the Reagan administration in the United States and a year into Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in the United Kingdom, Sir Roger Scruton wrote The Meaning of Conservatism to demonstrate that while Reagan and Thatcher had their good points, conservatism was not what they thought it was, free market ideology, but rather the instinct to preserve and pass on the good things that others have built before you because these things are much easier to destroy than to build.  Towards the end of the 1980s, a movement arose in Canada that completely ignored Scruton’s message.  It called itself small-c conservative to distinguish itself from the party, and it took the position that Reaganism/Thatcherism is the standard to which conservatism should hold itself.  While the movement loathed the Liberal Party, its foundational misconception meant that it would never be more than an imitation of the centre-right wing of the Liberal Party.  When it founded an alternative party to the old Conservatives, it gave it the name that the movement which became the Liberal Party had gone under in the years leading up to Confederation, the Reform Party.  It promoted more economic integration between Canada and the United States, the Liberal Party’s position, rather than the economic nationalism traditional to both Canadian Toryism and American Republicanism.  Lacking historical depth and a proper understanding of Confederation it wanted to make Canadian provinces more like American states and the Canadian Senate more like the American Senate.  The social and cultural conservatism of the movement and the Reform Party initially attracted me to them until I realized that these were entirely expendable to the movement and that it would always put business interests ahead of traditions, institutions, and basically all those good things Scruton said that a conservative instinctually defends. 

It is understandable, perhaps, that small-c conservatives, after almost a decade of misrule by the Liberal Party at its worst as far as extreme Leftism goes, would look to the success of the MAGA movement in the United States, but it is a huge mistake to follow the example of the Liberal Party in taking cues from the United States.  Since Epiphany, small-c conservatives have demanded that the prorogation of Parliament end and that we go into the next Dominion Election right away.  I, as well, would like to see that happen.  Challenging the prorogation in court is not the way to go about it.  Should the challenge go through this would weaken the Crown’s reserve powers and that outcome would be worse for us than having to wait until March for the no confidence vote that will inevitably bring down the Liberals.  We should be strengthening, not weakening, the Crown, so as to check any future prime minister from becoming as autocratic as the current one.  What this means is that the role of recommending whom the King appoints as Governor General must go to someone other than the prime minister.  The Governor General should have refused to prorogue Parliament to give the Liberal Party time to choose a new leader, just as Lord Byng refused to dissolve it to save Mackenzie King’s skin 99 years ago.  The solution is not to have the use of the Crown’s powers subjected to judicial review but to take control over the appointment of the Governor General away from the prime minister.  Lord Byng was not appointed at the prime minister’s recommendation.

Furthermore, it is one thing to accuse the prime minister of abusing the process and putting party ahead of country by asking for Parliament to be prorogued until the eve of Lady Day to give the Liberals enough time to choose a new leader.  It is quite another to complain that the Liberal Party choosing a new leader before the dissolution of Parliament that will lead to the Dominion election in which the Liberals are defeated is letting Party insiders choose the next prime  minister rather than the people.  Small-c conservatives, like Ezra Levant and Candace Malcolm, have perhaps not thought through the implications of this talk.  There will be another Dominion Election by October.  There will be one a lot sooner than that, because whoever the Liberals put in as their next leader will be brought down almost immediately when the House sits again.  The next Liberal leader may technically be the next prime minister but it will be a very, very, short premiership.  What Levant, Malcolm, et al., are demonstrating, however, is a lack of understanding of the Westminster Parliamentary model, which allows for the premiership to change hands between elections.  In Dominion elections, we do not vote for the prime minister in the same way Americans vote for their president.  We vote individually for the representative of our constituency, and collectively for a Parliament.  The results determine who will be the next Prime minister – the person who has the confidence of the House – but not directly.  It has been a huge mistake over the last thirty years or so to increasingly treat each Dominion election as if it were a direct vote for the prime minister.  The last thing we need in this country is to import more of the American cult of the leader.  Green Party leader Elizabeth May showed more understanding of our Parliamentary system and more basic constitutional conservatism than anyone at True North or Rebel when she schooled the American president-elect on why Wayne Gretsky can’t run directly for prime minister.

Then there are those who think Kevin O’Leary’s proposal of an EU style, common market, common currency has merit.  This appears to include Brian Lilley.  Has it perhaps eluded their notice that the result of this experiment in Europe was that each country involved began to face a migration crisis and related problems similar but on a larger scale to those that conservatives in Canada and the United States say they want to solve rather than exacerbate?

The small-c conservatives who have annoyed me the most have been those who have suggested one anti-patriotic response to Trump’s obnoxious behaviour or another.  Laughing alongside Trump as if his “51st state” remarks were jokes only at Trudeau’s expense rather than that of the country as a whole is one example, excusing his remarks on the grounds that this is how he does business, “it’s all in the Art of the Deal” is another.  If that is how he does business that compounds the charge against him it does not excuse it.  Going around saying “I’m bigger than you and stronger then you therefore you have to do as I say or I’m going to take your toys” is bad behaviour in the schoolyard and it is no more acceptable anywhere else.  It is just as reprehensible in business as it is in geopolitics.  Then there is the response of emphasizing what good friends Canada and the United States have been.  That is not the way to talk at this time.  As Joe Warmington in the Toronto Sun put it “Trump can no longer claim to be a friend to Canada. No friend talks like this.”  The problem with these anti-patriotic small-c “conservatives” is that while they lack true patriotism, that love of Canada like unto their love for their own immediately family, they do have a Nietzschean worship of power and strength which they direct towards the United States that in certain respects resembles what Joe Sobran called nationalism except that it is worse because it is focused on a country other than their own.  Mercifully, these types are, I think, a small, if loud, minority.

The prize for the most reprehensible attitude goes to Stephen K. Roney who has been positively salivating at the idea of becoming the 51st state.  He seems to be under the impression that those of us who love our country bear the burden of justifying her continuing independence of the United States.  My answer to him is that if he wants to be an American so badly he is free to move there if the Americans will let him.  I wouldn’t let him if I were the Americans.  Someone who has that kind of attitude towards his own country cannot be trusted to be loyal to any other.

Yes, if these types are what it means to be “conservative” today, I am glad that I am a Tory rather than a conservative, just as I am very glad to be a Canadian, a citizen of a Commonwealth Realm and the subject of a king who went to his coronation to follow the example of the King of kings, not to be served but to serve, rather than the citizen of an imperial republic, whose incoming president is so full of himself, that I half expect him to raise a statue of himself in the National Cathedral in Washington DC and demand that not just Americans but everyone in the world worship before it.

God Save the King. Gerry T. Neal

Paul Fromm on “The Political Cesspool” :The End of Trudeau & Major Positive Effects of Incoming President Donald Trump

Posted on by

Paul Fromm on “The Political Cesspool” :The End of Trudeau & Major Positive Effects of Incoming President Donald Trump

I appeared on “The Political Cesspool” tonight, hosted by James Edwards. I discussed Trudeau’s resignation and the many positive effects of Donald Trump on Canada. Change is already coming and the reversal of Woke. Radio Show Hour 1 – 2025/01/11 – The Political Cesspool Radio Programme. https://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/radio-show-hour-1-2025-01-11/

Woke Canada & The Great Replacement in the Age of Trump

Posted on by

p

Woke Canada & The Great Replacement in the Age of Trump

Veteran Canadian Nationalist Paul Fromm joins Australian nationalist and author Nathan Sykes to discuss the impact that Donald Trump’s Presidential victory will likely have on woke Canada and its resoundingly hated Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. They also discuss the replacement of Canadians, Australians and Europeans through the immigration pogrom.

What President Trump’s Victory Means to Canada: Will We Get Immigration Reform, At Last?

Posted on by

The Alternative Forum & the Canada First Immigration Reform Committee Proudly Present

PAUL FROMM

Director, Canadian Association for Free Expression

Winner of the George Orwell Free Speech Award, 1994

What President Trump’s Victory Means to Canada: Will We Get Immigration Reform, At Last?

· Stopping the Invasion in the U.S.

· Will the frustrated invaders flood north?

· Other policy pressures (energy, defence) which may hasten real change in People’s Party of Canada – Scarborough Centre

WE HAD A STANDING ROOM ONLY CROWD.

Tough Talk Needed on Border Issues

Posted on by

Tough talk needed on border issues

“Lay low for 14 days and you’re in as an illegal”

  • National Post
  • 14 Nov 2024
  • JAMIE SARKONAK
With the threat of mass deportations from the U.S., and a policy in Canada that allows unauthorized residents to claim asylum should they lay low for 14 days, it’s only rational for would-be claimants to try, Jamie Sarkonak says.

Currently, as the rules stand, migrants from the United States can cross into Canada, wait two weeks, and become eligible to file a refugee claim here. The northern border sure must be looking like a home-free line, now that Donald Trump has been elected on a promise to carry out mass deportations of illegal migrants.

So, if there was ever a time Canada needed to send a very loud, very public, “no more Mr. Nice Guy” message to economically motivated asylum seekers — firm messaging backed up by policy changes to ward their numbers off — it’s right now.

The numbers are already too high. Last year, nearly 150,000 people staked refugee claims here, rendering us the fifth-largest destination for asylum seekers that year. Two years’ worth of asylum claims are inching their way through the immigration system, many of these from friendly not-at-war countries that have no business sending us thousands of refugees.

India, Nigeria, and Mexico are where the largest number of claims come from, but there are many others that shouldn’t be sending refugees our way. Each successful applicant — from friendly, at-peace countries — is a potential online advertisement for immigration services online; that is, potential inspiration for others looking to claim refugee status. Of course, many of these claimants aren’t actually in danger, as required by law, and are willing to travel home, prompting immigration consultants to make warnings against doing so.

With the threat of mass deportations from the U.S., and a policy in Canada that allows unauthorized residents to claim asylum should they lay low for 14 days, it’s only rational for would-be claimants to try. It could very well be a painful squeeze — the U.S. received 1.2 million asylum claims last year alone, and some fraction of that number can be expected to divert to the north come 2025.

The trek to Canada will be a rational one for many. To observers on the outside, we’re the country that welcomes everyone, hands out bags of free food, offers free care, has loads of jobs to fill along with land, oh so much land. We know this isn’t actually how Canada works, but they don’t.

Seriously. Extensive immigration influencer videos have advertised Canadian “free food” to those abroad, which have no doubt made this country a more attractive place to attempt asylum. Rent is often covered by the Canadian tax base as the wait for claim adjudication drags on — which ultimately puts low-income Canadians in competition with migrants for housing. Some also end up competing with homeless Canadians, taking up critical space in shelters from Vancouver to Toronto.

MANY OF THESE CLAIMANTS AREN’T ACTUALLY IN DANGER.

In health care, it’s a similar problem. These populations strain the health-care system: the Star reported last week that “Midwives and physicians in emergency departments said they’re seeing significantly more uninsured clients accessing care at later stages of a complicated pregnancy or an already developed cancer or AIDS.” The uninsured being, in part, migrants who are in Canada illegally. Bad deal for us, good deal for them.

Between rosy influencer advertising and borders-open messaging from our own Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a lot more needs to be done to reverse the perception that Canada is a welcome home for economic “refugees.”

The incoming Trump administration has been strong out of the gate in turning around the perception of the United States as a bottomless bread basket of free amenities. Federal and state governments have rolled out unauthorized-friendly initiatives for a while now: feds have done their best to soften deportation rules, and some state governments have offered perks like pre-paid debit cards for migrants, as well as free rent. But Trump’s messaging has been clear that deportations are coming, and his border-enforcer-to-be, Tom Homan, is just as forceful: “You better start packing now, cause you’re going home,” Homan told a crowd earlier this year.

We haven’t been so firm. Visitor visa rules were tightened this week, but the home-free-in-twoweeks line remains in place.

Most of our country’s messaging includes tepid inward-facing assurances that everything is under control. The faceless blob that is the Canadian administrative state says there’s nothing to worry about: the RCMP learned from post-2016 migration which “provided us with the tools and insight necessary to address similar types of occurrences.” The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) says, “we are ready to respond and adapt as needed.”

Homan, meanwhile, isn’t raving about our competency, stating in a recent TV interview that the northern border is an “extreme national security vulnerability” and that “tough conversations” are soon to be had with Canada.

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Marc Miller is nonchalant, telling the Globe and Mail: “We will always be acting in the national interest and those measures that we move to undertake, regardless of what decision is taken by the new administration, to make sure that our borders are secure, that people that are coming to Canada do so in a regular pathway, and the reality that not everyone is welcome here.”

Well, that sure sends a message. “Not everyone is welcome here.”

Each statement from Canadian officials has the same bland, inoffensive lack of substance that could only come from either a comms department trained to generate few words of meaning or an AI text generator. None are backed by the force of strong, loophole-closing policy change.

Miller’s job right now isn’t just to soothe Canadians with words as bland as beige walls. He has to dispel years of false impressions of Canadian life inspired by a multitude of enthusiastic foreign-language Youtube and Tiktok howto vlogs about immigration, with rhetoric and hard policy. Right now, he’s falling short.

Inside Immigration from Numbers USA

Posted on by

OK, this email says the number of illegals is about 15 million. I’ve been saying 50 plus. Not accounted for are the unknown number of “get-a-ways” that have sifted thru our sandy sieve of a border and gotten away with their ill gotten gains for over 50 years now, so they can get away with statements like that.

Also, for decades, Ive been reading statements from supposed immigration restriction organizations, to the effect that the number of illegals that get in each year is about one million. Add that up since 1970 or so, and the so and so’s can fool the johnny-come-lately citizens suddenly interested in the issue — and so there’s your over 50 million in addition to the “get-aways”.

These organizations still spout that they are for “sensible immigration”. Show me why a moratorium on this displacement of our native population is not the right thing to enact now. Pat Buchanan, where are you now?

Sidney Secular

Sid Secula


From: immigrationinfo@numbersusa.com
To: SidSecular1@aol.com
Sent: 2/17/2024 7:16:48 AM Eastern Standard Time
Subject: NumbersUSA – Inside Immigration

NumbersUSA with flag
OVERVIEW FROM THE CEO (JAMES MASSA)   welcome to the “Inside Immigration” Newsletter of NumbersUSA   Your Voice Mattered in Defeating Senate Border Bill There is so much misinformation in the media regarding the Senate Border Bill that was defeated this past week. First, the vote itself was procedural and was not a vote on the bill. As explained in our short video last week, the Senate bill did not pass “cloture”. Second, the short powerful truth is that your voice mattered! Your contacting your member of congress and telling them that the Senate deal was no deal at all and you wanted H.R. 2, the Secure Border Act, as passed in the House of Representatives is what really shut down chances of the Senate bill even reaching a vote. Third, the Senate bill was bad immigration policy. It did not accomplish anything it was touted to have done. It raised legal immigration in several ways. It failed to close heavily abused loopholes. It ignored the fact that the President already has authority to get control of the border. It normalized 1.8 million illegal alien encounters a year, suggesting that anything less wasn’t an emergency. It was bad immigration policy offered in an attempt to pass funding for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. Finally, it is an election year. President Biden who is seeking reelection and his party have made every attempt to say the bill gave Republicans everything they wanted and yet they still voted it down. Nonsense! H.R. 2 gives everything the Republicans want and not a word of it was in the Senate bill. Another election year spin has been to blame former President Donald Trump, who is seeking reelection, saying he influenced the vote. This is just not what caused the Senate Border (plus Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel) funding bill to go down in a cloture vote. Trump has done many things to highlight the issue of illegal immigration. However, the Senate bill was defeated by you and it being bad policy. This week there are efforts to fund the military defense items separately and, as we have shared in other e-mails, to vote again to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas. We await the upcoming government funding appropriation bills to see if the House of Representatives with their power of the purse will ensure that the national security issue which is our nation’s southern border is secured. Grant Newman will give an update on Mayorkas in the federal section.       FEDERAL (GRANT NEWMAN)   DHS Secretary Mayorkas Impeached
Yesterday, the House of Representatives successfully impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust. This marks the first time a cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years. Next, the impeachment articles go over to the Senate, which has to immediately consider them and determine whether to convict or acquit the Secretary on each article. The Senate is currently in recess until after the President’s Day recess, but is set to return the week of February 23rd. We’re hearing rumors that Senate Democrats may try to swiftly move on from impeachment, so stay tuned for developments.
 
January Border Numbers Drop… Already
Only a couple of weeks after the December Customs and Border Protection numbers dropped, January’s numbers arrived early. In fact, not only does the data show (relatively) good news, but that news dropped on the same day the House was reconsidering the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas. What a coincidence! That said, 242,587 encounters in a month is far from normal. There are many reasons why the drop may have occurred in January. First, historically, January is a slower month than others on the border. You may also have seen articles about Texas Governor Greg Abbot making an effort to slow the influx into Texas in lieu of Federal assistance. Another factor is action occurring on the Mexican side of the border, reported by Todd Bensman at CIS, where Mexican military and law enforcement are suddenly cracking down on migrants. We’ll see soon enough whether this is something that will continue, or if it’s a temporary action.  
STATE (ANDREW GOOD)
 
(Idaho capitol building in Boise; Idaho state Representative Jordan Redman (R-03)) IDAHO Another state has joined the list of states where there is active E-Verify legislation. Introduced by Rep. Jordan Redman, Idaho’s H.B. 510 is an excellent bill which requires all businesses in the state of Idaho to use E-Verify for new hires. HB510 has been referred to the Commerce and Human Resources Committee, and we are pushing to get a hearing on the bill as a next step.   West Virginia As you might remember from our last Inside Immigration update, the West Virginia Senate has an active piece of legislation that was passed by the West Virginia House of Delegates already (82-18), and would require employers of 15 or more employees to use E-Verify for new hires. H.B. 4759 (sponsored by Del. Chris Phillips) has been the target of a coordinated, last-minute opposition effort by business lobbyists to protect the ability of employers to have access to workers without effectively checking legal status. While the Senate did unanimously support E-Verify for all employers just last year, there will still need to be two committee hearings (Government Organization and Judiciary) where opponents of E-Verify will also seek to testify on the bill. These hearings have not yet been scheduled. Meanwhile, West Virginians continue to flood Charleston with messages of support. COLORADO Colorado is a state that has a number of sanctuary policies at both state and local levels. SHB24-1128, sponsored by Rep. Richard Holtorf and Sen. Mark Baisley, is a bill that would repeal sanctuary policy laws enacted in the past. This legislation will get a hearing in the State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee next week, on February 22nd. High-profile cases like this recent fatal DUI will surely make for a contentious affair on the topic, another case in which the public needs to overcome zealous support for sanctuary policies within the legislature.   SUSTAINABILITY (JEREMY BECK)   Defending a way of life A half-century of elevated immigration levels has diminished agricultural land and habitats throughout America (Henry Barbaro looks at wetlands). Due to extremely high levels, immigration over this period changed the landscape . . . and the way people want to live. See the media coverage of our Idaho study.   OUR STUDIES NumbersUSA’s two decades of sprawl studies have been cited in scholarly literature over a hundred times in over a dozen languages. You can now access them all in one place. COMING TO AUSTIN If you’re in Austin, TX on February 21st, come say “hello”! Rob Harding will be presenting NumbersUSA’s findings to the American Conservation Coalition. The event is free. Reserve a spot!    
HIRING LINE (JEREMY BECK)
 
To those of the White race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth ans strange tongue and habits... cast down your bucket where you are.  Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know. -- Booker T. Washington
It is noth a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest. -- Barbara Jordan
Every hour sees the Black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived immigrant whose hunger and whose color are thought to him a better title to the place. -- Frederick Douglass
  “What about poor and desolate citizens here?” Stephen A. Smith’s viral statement about the border crisis and its impact on American communities is one of the latest examples of nonpolitical people “spilling the tea” about immigration. Read Andre Barnes’ article. INDIFFERENCE Why did NumbersUSA oppose the failed Senate immigration package that so many political and media institutions praised? For starters, the immigration provisions displayed a profound indifference to the inadequate job prospects of vulnerable American workers. Read more. Knowledge is power The quotes from Washington, Jordan, and Douglass above are all found in Back of the Hiring Line. In case you missed it, listen to author Roy Beck revisit the 200-year history of immigration surges, employer bias, and the depression of Black wealth with Denise Long in their Feb 1 conversation.  
ALLIANCES (JIM ROBB)
 
NumbersUSA speakers featured in national debate on closing the border NumbersUSA is a charter member of the Braver Network, which is groups trying to lower the temperature of political discourse even while keeping to their positions and principles. Last Thursday, VP of Alliances & Activism Jim Robb, Director of Planned Giving & Member Retention Christy Shaw, and CEO James Massa were featured speakers in the Braver Angels national Zoom debate on the question: “Resolved: Close the Border.” The video clip below shows James Massa’s opening 4-minute speech that urged that the U.S. border be closed. Listen in! To see the entire debate featuring many speakers, including James Massa, click below: Immigration: A Braver Angels Debate (1)    
NUMBERSUSA IN THE NEWS
 
NumbersUSA representatives are frequently featured in the media – on radio, TV, podcasts, and in print – providing commentary in support of sensible immigration policies. Check out a few recent highlights. KZIM KSIM – Faune Riggin – February 7th – Director of Research and Public Relations Eric Ruark WisconsinWatch.org – Tom Kertscher – February 7th – Does Wisconsin US Rep. Mike Gallagher support open borders? News Talk 1540 KXEL – Jeff Stein – February 7th – Eric Ruark of NumbersUSA 700WLW – Bill Cunningham – February 7th – 2-7-24 Bill Cunningham Show – Eric Ruark WTIC NewsTalk 1080 – Todd Feinburg – February 8th – Afternoons with Todd Feinburg 2-8-24 Hr 1 – Eric Ruark SiriusXM Radio – David Webb – February 12th – Senate border discussions – Eric Ruark  
NUMBERS THAT MATTER
 
Foreign-Born Population Reaches Record Peak Amidst the worst border crisis in our history, it is worth taking a look at a lesser known, but equally important figure: the actual size of the immigrant population in the U.S. Foreign Born in the United States (in millions and % of population) 1920: 13.9m, 14.7%. 1970: 9.6m, 4.7%. 2023: 49.5m, 15%
Our friends at the Center for Immigration Studies have done a deep dive into the recent Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) data (October 2023) that show that the foreign-born population in the U.S. has reached a peak in both numbers and percentage share of the overall population – 49.5 million and 15% – higher than at any other time in our history. Although illegal immigration accounts for a significant share of the recent foreign-born growth, it is worth noting that legal immigrants still account for 75% of the total foreign-born population.  
 
OK, this email says the number of illegals is about 15 million. I’ve been saying 50 plus. Not accounted for are the unknown number of “get-a-ways” that have sifted thru our sandy sieve of a border and gotten away with their ill gotten gains for over 50 years now, so they can get away with statements like that.



Also, for decades, Ive been reading statements from supposed immigration restriction organizations, to the effect that the number of illegals that get in each year is about one million. Add that up since 1970 or so, and the so and so’s can fool the johnny-come-lately citizens suddenly interested in the issue — and so there’s your over 50 million in addition to the “get-aways”.



These organizations still spout that they are for “sensible immigration”. Show me why a moratorium on this displacement of our native population is not the right thing to enact now. Pat Buchanan, where are you now?



Sidney Secular













 
Sid Secular


From: immigrationinfo@numbersusa.com
To: SidSecular1@aol.com
Sent: 2/17/2024 7:16:48 AM Eastern Standard Time
Subject: NumbersUSA – Inside Immigration

NumbersUSA with flag
OVERVIEW FROM THE CEO (JAMES MASSA)
 
welcome to the “Inside Immigration” Newsletter of NumbersUSA
 
Your Voice Mattered in Defeating Senate Border Bill
There is so much misinformation in the media regarding the Senate Border Bill that was defeated this past week.
First, the vote itself was procedural and was not a vote on the bill. As explained in our short video last week, the Senate bill did not pass “cloture”.
Second, the short powerful truth is that your voice mattered! Your contacting your member of congress and telling them that the Senate deal was no deal at all and you wanted H.R. 2, the Secure Border Act, as passed in the House of Representatives is what really shut down chances of the Senate bill even reaching a vote.
Third, the Senate bill was bad immigration policy. It did not accomplish anything it was touted to have done. It raised legal immigration in several ways. It failed to close heavily abused loopholes. It ignored the fact that the President already has authority to get control of the border. It normalized 1.8 million illegal alien encounters a year, suggesting that anything less wasn’t an emergency. It was bad immigration policy offered in an attempt to pass funding for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.
Finally, it is an election year. President Biden who is seeking reelection and his party have made every attempt to say the bill gave Republicans everything they wanted and yet they still voted it down. Nonsense! H.R. 2 gives everything the Republicans want and not a word of it was in the Senate bill. Another election year spin has been to blame former President Donald Trump, who is seeking reelection, saying he influenced the vote. This is just not what caused the Senate Border (plus Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel) funding bill to go down in a cloture vote. Trump has done many things to highlight the issue of illegal immigration. However, the Senate bill was defeated by you and it being bad policy.
This week there are efforts to fund the military defense items separately and, as we have shared in other e-mails, to vote again to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas. We await the upcoming government funding appropriation bills to see if the House of Representatives with their power of the purse will ensure that the national security issue which is our nation’s southern border is secured. Grant Newman will give an update on Mayorkas in the federal section.
 
 
 
FEDERAL (GRANT NEWMAN)
 
DHS Secretary Mayorkas Impeached

Yesterday, the House of Representatives successfully impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust. This marks the first time a cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years.
Next, the impeachment articles go over to the Senate, which has to immediately consider them and determine whether to convict or acquit the Secretary on each article. The Senate is currently in recess until after the President’s Day recess, but is set to return the week of February 23rd. We’re hearing rumors that Senate Democrats may try to swiftly move on from impeachment, so stay tuned for developments.
 
January Border Numbers Drop… Already

Only a couple of weeks after the December Customs and Border Protection numbers dropped, January’s numbers arrived early. In fact, not only does the data show (relatively) good news, but that news dropped on the same day the House was reconsidering the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas. What a coincidence!
That said, 242,587 encounters in a month is far from normal.
There are many reasons why the drop may have occurred in January. First, historically, January is a slower month than others on the border. You may also have seen articles about Texas Governor Greg Abbot making an effort to slow the influx into Texas in lieu of Federal assistance. Another factor is action occurring on the Mexican side of the border, reported by Todd Bensman at CIS, where Mexican military and law enforcement are suddenly cracking down on migrants. We’ll see soon enough whether this is something that will continue, or if it’s a temporary action.
 
STATE (ANDREW GOOD)
 

(Idaho capitol building in Boise; Idaho state Representative Jordan Redman (R-03))
IDAHO
Another state has joined the list of states where there is active E-Verify legislation. Introduced by Rep. Jordan Redman, Idaho’s H.B. 510 is an excellent bill which requires all businesses in the state of Idaho to use E-Verify for new hires. HB510 has been referred to the Commerce and Human Resources Committee, and we are pushing to get a hearing on the bill as a next step.
 
West Virginia
As you might remember from our last Inside Immigration update, the West Virginia Senate has an active piece of legislation that was passed by the West Virginia House of Delegates already (82-18), and would require employers of 15 or more employees to use E-Verify for new hires.
H.B. 4759 (sponsored by Del. Chris Phillips) has been the target of a coordinated, last-minute opposition effort by business lobbyists to protect the ability of employers to have access to workers without effectively checking legal status. While the Senate did unanimously support E-Verify for all employers just last year, there will still need to be two committee hearings (Government Organization and Judiciary) where opponents of E-Verify will also seek to testify on the bill. These hearings have not yet been scheduled. Meanwhile, West Virginians continue to flood Charleston with messages of support.
COLORADO
Colorado is a state that has a number of sanctuary policies at both state and local levels. SHB24-1128, sponsored by Rep. Richard Holtorf and Sen. Mark Baisley, is a bill that would repeal sanctuary policy laws enacted in the past. This legislation will get a hearing in the State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee next week, on February 22nd. High-profile cases like this recent fatal DUI will surely make for a contentious affair on the topic, another case in which the public needs to overcome zealous support for sanctuary policies within the legislature.
 
SUSTAINABILITY (JEREMY BECK)
 
Defending a way of life
A half-century of elevated immigration levels has diminished agricultural land and habitats throughout America (Henry Barbaro looks at wetlands). Due to extremely high levels, immigration over this period changed the landscape . . . and the way people want to live. See the media coverage of our Idaho study.

 
OUR STUDIES
NumbersUSA’s two decades of sprawl studies have been cited in scholarly literature over a hundred times in over a dozen languages. You can now access them all in one place.
COMING TO AUSTIN

If you’re in Austin, TX on February 21st, come say “hello”! Rob Harding will be presenting NumbersUSA’s findings to the American Conservation Coalition. The event is free. Reserve a spot!
 
 
HIRING LINE (JEREMY BECK)
 
To those of the White race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth ans strange tongue and habits... cast down your bucket where you are.  Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know. -- Booker T. Washington
It is noth a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest. -- Barbara Jordan Every hour sees the Black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived immigrant whose hunger and whose color are thought to him a better title to the place. -- Frederick Douglass  
“What about poor and desolate citizens here?”
Stephen A. Smith’s viral statement about the border crisis and its impact on American communities is one of the latest examples of nonpolitical people “spilling the tea” about immigration. Read Andre Barnes’ article.
INDIFFERENCE
Why did NumbersUSA oppose the failed Senate immigration package that so many political and media institutions praised? For starters, the immigration provisions displayed a profound indifference to the inadequate job prospects of vulnerable American workers. Read more.
Knowledge is power
The quotes from Washington, Jordan, and Douglass above are all found in Back of the Hiring Line. In case you missed it, listen to author Roy Beck revisit the 200-year history of immigration surges, employer bias, and the depression of Black wealth with Denise Long in their Feb 1 conversation.
 
ALLIANCES (JIM ROBB)
 
NumbersUSA speakers featured in national debate on closing the border
NumbersUSA is a charter member of the Braver Network, which is groups trying to lower the temperature of political discourse even while keeping to their positions and principles. Last Thursday, VP of Alliances & Activism Jim Robb, Director of Planned Giving & Member Retention Christy Shaw, and CEO James Massa were featured speakers in the Braver Angels national Zoom debate on the question: “Resolved: Close the Border.” The video clip below shows James Massa’s opening 4-minute speech that urged that the U.S. border be closed. Listen in!
To see the entire debate featuring many speakers, including James Massa, click below:
Immigration: A Braver Angels Debate (1)
 
 
NUMBERSUSA IN THE NEWS
 
NumbersUSA representatives are frequently featured in the media – on radio, TV, podcasts, and in print – providing commentary in support of sensible immigration policies. Check out a few recent highlights. KZIM KSIM – Faune Riggin – February 7th – Director of Research and Public Relations Eric Ruark
WisconsinWatch.org – Tom Kertscher – February 7th – Does Wisconsin US Rep. Mike Gallagher support open borders?
News Talk 1540 KXEL – Jeff Stein – February 7th – Eric Ruark of NumbersUSA
700WLW – Bill Cunningham – February 7th – 2-7-24 Bill Cunningham Show – Eric Ruark
WTIC NewsTalk 1080 – Todd Feinburg – February 8th – Afternoons with Todd Feinburg 2-8-24 Hr 1 – Eric Ruark
SiriusXM Radio – David Webb – February 12th – Senate border discussions – Eric Ruark
 
NUMBERS THAT MATTER
 
Foreign-Born Population Reaches Record Peak
Amidst the worst border crisis in our history, it is worth taking a look at a lesser known, but equally important figure: the actual size of the immigrant population in the U.S.
Foreign Born in the United States (in millions and % of population) 1920: 13.9m, 14.7%. 1970: 9.6m, 4.7%. 2023: 49.5m, 15%
Our friends at the Center for Immigration Studies have done a deep dive into the recent Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) data (October 2023) that show that the foreign-born population in the U.S. has reached a peak in both numbers and percentage share of the overall population – 49.5 million and 15% – higher than at any other time in our history. Although illegal immigration accounts for a significant share of the recent foreign-born growth, it is worth noting that legal immigrants still account for 75% of the total foreign-born population.
 
 

Canada must build a border wall ASAP

Posted on by

Canada must build a border wall ASAP

I am worried. Very worried. In the wake of the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire Primary, and
Biden’s ongoing failures, I now believe that Donald Trump is unstoppable. He will not only win
the GOP nomination, but the White House.


While this is  great news for the United States, it is very bad news for Canada, especially those
pockets of Canada where progressive Americans of means seek refuge. I live in one of those
pockets. Worse still, I live in a tourist destination well known to this demographic.  I am in close
proximity to three blue states in the Pacific Northwest.


I have seen this (horror) movie before.


When Trump won in 2016, my community was inundated with these accursed contemptibles.
One could not safely walk one’s dog or stroll down an isle of the local supermarket or frequent
an outdoor cafe without bumping into one of them. Beneath their superficial good cheer, there
was a seething cauldron of rage looking for any opportunity to vent. On too many occasions I
was the chosen sounding board. Lucky me. Apparently these woke head cases mistook me for a
trained clinical psychologist.  But I am simply not equipped to treat Americans with Trump
Derangement Syndrome.


 These encounters would follow a predictable pattern. After a brief exchange of banalities. the
creative American liberal would find a way to insert a gratuitous anti-Trump remark entirely out
of context. Much in  the same way that virtue-signalling  Covidian cultists felt obliged to inform
you that they had just been vaccinated, as if it were a badge of honour rather than what it actually
was.  A badge of fear, wilful ignorance, indoctrination and groupthink.


 Typically their tirade was launched from the presumption that Canadians know as little about
American politics as Americans do about Canada’s. So they would proceed to school me. It was
like having MSNBC played back to me. When we parted I felt so stuffed with lying bullshit that
I had to resist the impulse to sprint to the nearest drugstore in search of a laxative.  I am pretty
resilient but there is only so much misinformation I can digest in one sitting.   Frankly I have
found these people insufferable, and have come to tremble when they approach each and every
summer, when their numbers become overwhelming.


While one can theoretically endure their rantings by wearing earplugs or feigning deafness, localresidents have not been able to endure their devastating impact on real estate prices and rents. 
As Professor Alberto Saiz of the University of Pittsburgh concluded from his study of the
negative impact of tourism on housing affordability,  affluent tourists behave much as Julius
Caesar did. Only instead of “He came, he saw, he conquered”  it’s “They came, they saw and
they bought”, real estate that is, epricing locals out of the housing market. The result is a
community like mine. A madhouse for four warm months and a ghost town in the colder months.
A place where forty percent of housing units belong to absentee owners and essential workers
could n’t find shelter.  That’s the xenophobic fact of the matter.


The spectre of a waves upon waves of mask-wearing morons pouring across the border to escape
Trump shakes me to the core I can barely contend with the CBC parrots who make up two-
thirds of permanent Canadian residents here, but when their idiocy is shored up by American
blue state progressives, I will feel like Custer at Little Big Horn. How can I repel these zombies?
I feel helpless. I know they’re coming but I can’t fight them  off.  At least the Texans at the
Alamo had guns, but in Jacinda Trudeau’s Republic, Canadians may soon be forbidden to arm
themselves with a pea shooter.


Canadians, that is, reality-based Canadians, desperately need protection from this woke horde. 
We can rid our country of Trudeau in the next election, assuming there is one, but how can we
stop a tidal wave of blue county hordes in 2025?


Perhaps I should sell my house to one of them and use the proceeds to buy a house in Idaho or
Montana. Or in one of the 11 counties in eastern Oregon who want to secede and cut themselves
off from Leftwing lunacy. It would be a win-win. They can live out the rest of their life in
California North and run it into the ground the same way they ran Seattle, Portland and San
Francisco into the ground.. And  I can spend the rest of my life hanging around people with a
modicum of common sense. The culture shock might kill me. But I’d take the risk.


Imagine me living in a place where I was able to say what is on my mind without first looking
over my shoulder. Imagine not being compelled to publicly say something I don’t believe to be
true, like the contention that a man can have a baby or the US Mexico border is secure. Imagine
not having to  celebrate mental illness on “pride” days. Imagine living in a jurisdiction where
parents could protect their kids from Drag Queens and groomers.   Or living in a world where
election results are not determined by the ability of governments and their Big Tech collaborators
to deny access to crucial information? Or living in a state or province where citizens could make
an informed decision about an inadequately tested gene therapeutic because skeptics could
debate government appointed medical "experts" on an even playing field.


Well, I can dream, can’t I?


If I could cross the Iron Curtain and reach that Promised Land to the south, it would be Back to
the Future. A return to the Canada I once knew. That was when Communism was a dirty word
and people knew what a woman was.
Tim Murphy

Migrants Displace U.S. Workers — Biden Paroles 540,000 Illegals!!

Posted on by
 Migrants Displace U.S. Workers — Biden Paroles 540,000 Illegals!!
Staggering figures have revealed that over 1.2million US-born workers lost their jobs last month while the foreign-born workforce increased by nearly 700,000 – as migrants continue to flood across the border under the Biden administration.
CLAUDIA AORAHA | DAILYMAIL.COM | 9/4/2023 | Condensed ·
· Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that between July and August, there was a staggering decrease of 1.223million native-born people in the workforce – which is a low not beaten since the jobs crash when Covid hit in April 2020. · In stark contrast almost 688,000 jobs were secured by foreign-born workers, underlining the difference in Joe Biden‘s pro-migration policies versus Donald Trump‘s tough border stance.
Employment for foreign workers has been expanding, rather than contracting [every year].
The increase in foreign-born people working in the US this summer, 668,000, is the highest July-to-August jump in the last 10 years. The only July-to-August period that has come close was during the height of the pandemic in 2020 – 605,000.
What the figures suggest is there has been nearly a net-zero increase in native-born jobs created since the Covid economic crash. The job market is only just about reaching the highs seen in October 2019, where employment was 131.72million.
Trends also seem to show that under Donald Trump, there were less foreign-born people working in the US month-on-month, the Bureau’s data shows.
Comparing figures from the first three years of each of their tenures, the Republican president’s foreign-born workforce expanded by 752,000 between August 2017 to 2019.
By contrast, Democrat Biden’s figure from August 2021 to 2023 was 3.943million
Recap of foreign workforce expansion in three-year period: Trump: + 752,000Biden: + 3,943,000 During Trump’s presidency, between July and August of 2017, foreign-born employment rose by just 82,000.
The 668,000 foreign workforce figure in 2023 is a staggering eight times more – set on the backdrop of the Biden administration’s control of the movement across the US-Mexico border since the end of pandemic-era Title 42 in May
 Biden’s Migrants are automatically granted temporary legal status, are handed a work visa, a bank account, welfare assistance, and travel expenses paid to the destination of their choice. These foreign workers will be in our system for as long as 4-10 years waiting for a court appearance, and meanwhile start families, have anchor babies, and make plans for family chain migration, despite over 90% entering on bogus asylum claims.   Note: 1/3 of all ICE arrests have criminal backgrounds and MANY of the illegals arriving from one of 150 nations come from countries where criminal records are inaccessible like ISIS trafficked countries of Syria, Uzbekistan, and more. 

This year alone, Biden has admitted 2,556,286 from October to July. That means 1,868,286 did not gain employment and are surviving solely on taxpayer subsidies that are nearly double the value of what average unskilled labor households earn each month.   Out of Biden’s 8 million illegals granted work visa’s, 51% or 4,057,000, are completely dependent on taxpayer subsidies and the rest have devoured desperately needed US jobs!   Black and Hispanic native-born citizens are suffering the greatest job losses and unfair job competition with limited unskilled work available to them!

Biden’s illegal migrants are immediately granted access to welfare benefits, with 51% demanding welfare compared to 33% of US citizens.   Biden’s open border policy has cost US taxpayers 960 billion dollars!
The emergency housing resources and tents popping up in sanctuary cities is only due to the OVERWHELMED NGO’s that can’t keep up with demand in terms of organizing their placement in coordination with city Mayors and local officials. Meanwhile, homeless vets and destitute citizens have no equal access to the benefits Congress has budgeted for ‘asylum’ seekers.   In case you missed it…Stop Taxpayer Funded Border Invasion-Government Hiding Spending Through Charities on Your Dime!
According to unpublished government data, the Biden administration has granted parole to more than 541,000 foreign nationals who do not have visas to enter the United States. The expansive use of parole is a key component of the administration’s policy of creating new “legal pathways” for migrants to enter the country.
There’s just one problem with this plan that the administration and nearly every journalist reporting on it conveniently overlook. This pathway is not legal. Through  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution, the founders of our republic vested Congress with plenary authority to “establish an (sic) uniform Rule of Naturalization…throughout the United States.” That means that the Executive Branch of government has no authority to create sweeping new immigration programs.

Congress did grant the Executive Branch parole authority. But that authority is very limited, and the conditions for granting it are clearly defined. Section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that parole may be granted “temporarily…only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” That is language that might apply to 541 foreign nationals, not 541,000. Moreover, we know that the parole being granted here is not of a temporary nature, as required by statute. The Administration’s own regulations governing these new parole programs outright admit that the purpose is to allow these aliens to live and work in the U.S. until they can find a way to convert to a legal status.

Allies of the administration, like Leon Rodriguez who served as President Obama’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director, argue that the expansive use of parole authority is a “necessity,” because “the pressures are much greater now.” Of course, much of the pressure has been created by the administration’s signal that we would accommodate endless flows of migrants. And nowhere in the statute creating parole authority does it say anything about it being a mechanism to alleviate to pressure.

More alarming is that the Biden administration is only getting started on its abuse of parole to expand pathways for inadmissible aliens to enter the United States. Of the 541,000 who have already entered, 133,000 were people who used the CBP One app to schedule an appointment at a port of entry. That is a program that the administration began ramping up only in the past few months. The administration anticipates that as many as 529,250 migrants a year can be accommodated through the use of the app. That figure does not include the 360,000 a year that are allowed to enter under a special parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. Yet another parole program, Uniting for Ukraine, which has allowed 141,200 people to enter, has no numerical limit.

If the combined entries of people using the CBP One app and the country-specific programs are maxed out, those numbers would actually exceed the 740,000 green cards issued through our legal immigration admission process in 2021 – thereby making a mockery of not only of our legal immigration system, but our Constitution.

In sum the Future of our Nation is at stake!! —- – Contact your Representative and Senators NOW. Insist they commit to Opposing any Illegal Alien Amnesty and to providing any taxpayer-funded benefits to Illegals!!!!!   AND support a zero-Net MORATORIUM on Legal Immigration (which would still allow 150,000 settlers a year)  
And Most Important to Note: ONLY pushing CCN’s all-categories-included zero Net MORATORIUM on Legal Immigration MAXIMIZES the chances of stopping this Horrendous Mass Alien Amnesty Bill which would also double Legal Immigration. Pushing any less restrictive number, as the two National Mass Immigration Management Groups do, will likely result in a Compromise Bill reducing the numbers by just a few thousand at most….. a totally unacceptable result. 
Indeed, since those two National Mass Immigration Management groups refuse to support ANY Moratorium Bill (like Rep. Gosar’s e.g.) THEY ARE DE FACTO ENABLERS OF CONTINUING MASS IMMIGRATION!!
Note: CCN is anti-mass immigration but NOT anti-immigrant.
CCN’s Great Challenge to Mobilizing our Activists now is that CCN is de facto out of money:. mainly because many of our donors have been put out of business or are barely surviving due to intensifying Inflation and Economic slowdown!   Donations NOW!! to CCN are ESSENTIAL for CCN to stop these Bills and reverse these policies!!   Donations are Tax-Deductible. Help CCN intensify our efforts. Please DONATE NOW by Credit Card at carryingcapacity.org. or by Check via U.S. mail to:
CCN’S MAILING ADDRESS
Carrying Capacity Network
P.O.BOX 457
San Francisco, CA  94104