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Why does the University of California require so much foreign language as a prerequisite to applying to a U.C. school? Why don’t they require more classes related to computers or a computer programming language instead of French or Spanish? It seems to me that jobs of the future are more likely to be related to and based on computer skills, rather than French. (In California, I suppose one could argue that Spanish would be of more importance. To that, I would respond, “Perhaps, if you work in a taco shop!”)
Have any of you heard of “Pledge to America’s Workers?” I had not heard of it either until I happened on an article from The Dallas Morning News from earlier this month. Yes, you read that right, “The Dallas Morning News!” I guess I must have missed this pro-Trump piece of good news in my local anti-Trump newspaper! FromThe Dallas Morning News: With first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump by his side, Google CEO Sundar Pichai signed a pledge Thursday in Dallas that the company will boost its investment in tech skills training for American workers.

The Silicon Valley-based company said it will create 250,000 training opportunities over the next five years and invest $3.5 million to expand one of its certification programs to 100 community colleges by the end of next year.

Google is one of more than 350 companies to join the Pledge to America’s Workers, a White House initiative that’s enlisted the private sector to help close the gap between skills companies seek in employees and those that job candidates have. The companies have committed to train more than 14 million students and workers since Trump introduced the pledge in July 2018.

There are about 7.2 million job openings in the U.S. at the end of July, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau Labor Statistics. About 6.1 million people were unemployed that month.

Google’s expanding program will certify workers for jobs in IT support. There are more than 215,000 unfilled jobs in IT support across the U.S., according to company estimates. Students can complete the web-based curriculum to qualify for those jobs in six months, depending on their pacing.

“Our goal is to make sure that the opportunities created by technology are truly available for everyone,” Pichai said.

With the certificate, they can break into the tech industry without a college degree. The median annual wage for the entry-level tech job is about $53,500, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. Now granted $53,500 is not a salary that puts anyone in the upper echelons of income, but it’s a place to start, and it is certainly better than owing $200,000 upon graduating from college with a degree that may or may not guarantee that you will ever be able to pay back that loan.

Kudos to Sundar Pichai and Google. Kudos to Ivanka Trump and to President Trump. 

On Thursday morning I thought, “Finally, I disagree with Trump!” After almost three years during which I have agreed with just about everything President Trump has done, finally some separation. (Note carefully that I am referring to the things that he has accomplished . . . not to his always “in your face” demeanor, not to all of his tweets, not to all of his personal insults.) Finally proof that I am not merely a Trump-sycophant. 

I had thoughtfully considered both sides of the Turkey-Kurd issue, and our President’s decision to withdraw American troops from the area. I pondered, “Why are we turning our back on our friends, the Kurds?” I found myself agreeing with both Republicans and Democrats who felt strongly that President Trump was doing the wrong thing. 

On that same Thursday evening I was watching the end of the Tampa Bay vs. Houston baseball playoff game. When there was a pitching change in the eighth inning of a now 6-1 game, I did a little channel surfing and ended up on Fox’s coverage of President Trump’s speech in Minneapolis. 

Lo and behold, he was talking about his recent Turkey-Kurd decision, and why he decided what he did. He described his visits to Walter Reed, specifically the visit the Friday before, when he pinned five Purple Heart Medals on five wounded soldiers, each with his own life-changing severe injuries. He described witnessing the grief of families as they received the remains of their son/daughter . . . killed, fighting for America on his watch. 

Okay, call me gullible, but I could feel our President’s pain. He is the Commander-in-Chief, and he actually goes and welcomes the remains of deceased American soldiers back onto American soil . . . different from a prior,  in name only “Commander-in-Chief.”

I found the non-sycophant side of my split personality wavering. There must be somebody who can verbalize another position on this issue. I found Kurt Schlichter’s article on Townhall, and after reading it more than once, I found myself agreeing with his pro-Trump position.

From Townhall: 

“Donald Trump came into office promising to not start any new wars and to get us out of the old ones our feckless elite had dragged us into, and now that he’s doing it in Syria the usual suspects are outraged. How dare he actually deliver on his promise not to have anymore of our precious warriors shipped home in boxes after getting killed on battlefields we can’t even pronounce, while refereeing conflicts that began long before America was a thing, in campaigns without any kind of coherent objective?”

Schlichter continued for another few pages, but I was actually convinced by the time the pitching change had been completed in the baseball game. 

“Now pitching on the side of the American soldier . . . Donald Trump!”

Another campaign promise fulfilled.

There was an interesting article in my local liberal rag about all the good things that can happen when you give people free money. This privately funded experimental program is taking place in Stockton, Ca. where 125 needy people are receiving $500 a month for a total of 18 months on a prepaid debit card. Thus far the initial results at the six month mark “show they spend most of this on food, clothing, and utility bills.” Stockton’s African American mayor, Michael Tubbs, hopes to convince state lawmakers to implement the program statewide. 
The participants were chosen from a group that made less than the city’s median household income of $46,033. Of the participants 43% were working full or part time, while 2% were unemployed and not looking for work. The article reports that nearly 40% of the money was spent on food, and 24% went to “sales and merchandise” (places like Walmart and the Dollar Store). Michael Zwolinski, Director of the center for the Ethics, Economics and Public Policy at University of San Diego, said that “the program is more about story telling than it is about social science.” Other critics say that the experiment likely will not provide useful information from a social science perspective given its limited size and duration. 
But think of it . . . what a wonderful way to help those among us who are less fortunate! Only one basic problem . . . 40% of the total value of the monthly $500 on the debit card was withdrawn in cash! The fallback position here was to fill in the blanks by asking people how they spent that cash. Whoa there, big boy! If they spent this 40% or even a part of this 40% on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes gambling, etc., how likely is it that they would admit to such? (When I used to ask people if they were still using alcohol, etc., The inevitable answer was “no,” while the spouse in the room would roll his/her eyes and nod affirmative. Granted my experience was not scientific, but everyone in the room knew what the truth was.)

Before I am ready to give millions of Californians free money, I will need to see something where I do not have to take someone’s word on how the missing cash was spent. Despite, sure to come, liberal protestations, poor people are no more honest or dishonest than the rest of us.

The next Democrat Debate is upcoming. BTW: Unfortunately I will be busy that night, but this only reminded me of something that the Dems do not have.

Last week I was watching one of my grandsons playing youth basketball, and his team won. Now let’s be clear, although he is a good player, he is not a future NBA prospect. He scored about four points, even while missing a couple of free throws. He is very good on defense and stole the ball three or four times from the other team. His defensive assignment was to cover the opponents best player, and putting the clamps on their star player was one of the reasons for the victory. However despite his defensive prowess, his best basketball talent is his ability to pass. He doesn’t panic, and he consistently found one of his open teammates. In fact he found them so many times that I lost track of the number of his assists. Whether he will be able to play basketball in high school is something that is unknown at this time. If the high school coach values teamwork, he has a reasonable shot at making the team . . . that is if he grows another four inches or so.

Teamwork! A word that is seemingly unknown in the cadre of the Democrat’s presidential candidates. Kamala Harris went after Ol’ Joe during the initial debate, and she has sunk like a lead weight ever since. Likewise one of the other “irrelevants” went after Ol’ Joe in the second debate, and we haven’t heard a peep from him since.

With all of this recent furor over Ukraine, etc., I have not heard any of the potential nominees come to the defense of Ol’ Joe . . . Zero, zip, nada! I have not seen any of them try to assist Ol’ Joe. Will someone please assist him. Throw him the ball, so that he can score some points. Everybody loves teamwork. The American people love teamwork. If one of the trolls on the next debate stage were to play some team defense and disrupt the passing lanes by coming to Ol’ Joe’s defense, I would forecast a significant rise in the polls for him/her. But don’t hold your breath!

Please help me understand this Democrat impeachment ploy. It makes no sense! Is there some underlying “secret plan?” I am betting that there must be . . . but let’s think this whole thing through for a few seconds. First of all, in general, the Democrats aren’t stupid. Their policies are often stupid, but they usually are not. Granted they often think emotionally, or in other words they often do not think things through, but again that doesn’t mean that they are all dumb. Certainly with this impeachment ploy, the Democrats are playing to their base, but there must be more than this sucking up to the far left. Everyone who has half a brain realizes that the Senate will never convict President Trump on this impeachment charge, or charges. It would take a 2/3rds vote in the Senate to convict, and this is just not possible, even if a few of the RINOs, like Mitt Romney, are swayed by the Democrat’s caterwauling. Sure the Dems in the House will be able to yell, point fingers, and suggest just about anything, but basically the country has heard their bleating before on multiple occasions. They will convince just a few of the country’s independents, as most of the non-Dems are growing pretty tired of the constant Democrat posturing. In addition many of the Dems in the House will then have to go on record as supporting this nonsense – to their potential detriment in the 2020 elections.

Making this ploy even more potentially catastrophic for the Dems is that if there is a trial in the Senate, the defense (President Trump’s Legal team) will be able to call a multitude of witnesses, including possibly Comey, Biden, and even Hillary, etc. to testify under oath. There will potentially be a number of individuals thrown under the proverbial bus, as c.y.a. will become endemic! Again this makes no sense. Why go through with this version of political suicide?

I can think of only two possible reasons for this frivolity. First, those in the know may realize that the chance of defeating Trump in 2020 is a long shot, and so they are willing to do something desperate to try to alter the momentum and simultaneously fire up their base to actually turn out to vote and thus change the inevitable. Possible, but again potentially suicidal. Second, the Dems may be willing to risk it all in order to win control of the Senate. When this ridiculous attempt at impeachment fails in the Senate, their message to the voters will be to defeat those sob’s who allowed Trump to dodge his “just and deserved punishment.”

In the 2018 elections, it seemed to me that President Trump adroitly put all of his impetus and effort behind those candidates running for the Senate. His gambit worked. He knew that the real power is in the Senate (confirmation of judicial nominees including those nominated for the Supreme Court, and the power on any further impeachment trials that come up from 2020 to 2024.) Undoubtedly Justice Ginsberg will not still be on the Supreme Court much longer after 2020, and another conservative Trump appointee will solidify a conservative majority in the Supreme Court for decades to come. Trump knows this and the Dems know this, and so perhaps they are willing to risk the whole kit-and-caboodle on these upcoming Senate contests. Will this ploy work? . . . No!

Recently while in the Boston area, my daughter and I were walking my daughter’s dog. We happened upon a pond that was covered in green slime. Yuck! I thought, “How can something which was designed to be so perfect be so ugly?” As I pointed to it my daughter said, “We do not let anyone or anything go anywhere near that swamp; No dogs; No children. Everyone knows that it is far from what it should be, but nobody is incentivized to do anything. It just goes on, year after year. What a mess! Those in the town government refer to it as a pond, but we know that it is closer to a swamp! I wish that those in power would actually get a closer look at this. If someone in the town government was honest and objective, he would call it what it really is . . . a swamp! Then perhaps, it could be remedied . . . perhaps they would do what needs to be done . . . to drain the swamp.”

When we had finished our walk, I sat down and began to read about the latest out of Washington. A whistleblower complaint against President Trump alleges that Trump broke the law during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but apparently the person making the complaint was “not a direct witness” to the wrongdoing that he claimed Trump had committed. Wow! This sounded simplistically similar to that game of “telephone” that the young children play. It appeared worse than the “he said, she said game” that the Democrats recently have insisted on playing. This version is “he said that she said that he apparently said.” How could this nonsense pass for anything close to credible in D.C.? 

News flash! Apparently the intelligence community between May 2018 and August 2019 secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. A new whistleblower complaint form now does not require potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing they are reporting. A previous version of the whistleblower complaint form declared that any complaint must contain only first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing and that complaints that provide only hearsay, rumor, or gossip would be rejected. The new version of the whistleblower complaint form allows employees to file complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about” wrongdoing from others. 

Does this sound suspicious to anybody other than me? The intelligence community recently changes the rules concerning whistleblowers, and then, “out of the blue,” President Trump is accused of something by someone that supposedly who had no direct knowledge of what was actually said. Hmmm! To me this looks like another swamp that should be drained! The difference however is that this one is the real swamp . . . and it stinks!

When A and B seem to occur together with surprising frequency there are only a few possibilities. First, they occur together by coincidence. Second, A causes B. Third, B causes A. Fourth, there is some common factor, Z, that causes both A and B. Occasionally the “obvious” relationship between A and B is the obvious. Let’s take for example, the relationship between how a city is doing and who is in charge in that city. Presently the two of the most obvious examples are Los Angeles and San Francisco. In regard to both of these cities, most are aghast when they see the disgusting dirt, trash, excrement, and discarded needles on the streets in parts of these cities. Most of this filth is occurring in the homeless encampments that line the streets in certain areas of each of these cities.Last year we had a similar problem in San Diego. In the downtown area there were blocks of tents and makeshift shelters on the sidewalks that looked similar to what we are seeing in L.A. and in San Francisco today. What brought this issue to a head was a hepatitis outbreak that occurred in part because of these squalid living conditions. Today in the downtown area, those block-long encampments are no more. On certain mornings of the week, city crews can be seen hosing down the sidewalks with some sort of disinfectant, and more than once I have seen police telling homeless men and women to move on. In the last six months or so, to me it appears that the number of homeless in the downtown area is much less. Problem solved ? . . . Not by a long shot as after the “clearing of the homeless from the downtown area,” complaints of an increased number of homeless began to crop up in the adjacent neighborhoods of Mission Hills and Hillcrest. So apparently the homeless were still homeless, and had merely relocated. Now the latest is to open a storage facility in the neighborhood of El Cerritos about ten miles east of the city’s two other storage facilities in the downtown area. In theory, these facilities are a place for the homeless to leave their belongings when they are elsewhere, while keeping sidewalks clear of shopping carts, makeshift  structures, and other debris and clutter. Unfortunately, having a storage facility in El Cerritos is only going to attract homeless to the El Cerritos vicinity.

San Francisco saw a 17% jump in the number of homeless residents over the last two years, according to preliminary results of the city’s point-in-time count. In January, volunteers recorded 8,011 homeless people living in shelters and on the streets in the city of roughly 880,000. Their 2017 count logged 6,858 people.California is spending millions of dollars to stem the tide of homelessness without much to show for it. The latest evidence of that arrived last month when several Bay Area cities and counties (not just San Francisco) reported that their latest tallies of homeless people revealed big increases.
As of January 2018, California had an estimated 129,972 experiencing homelessness on any given day, as reported by Continuums of Care to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Of that Total, 6,702 were family households, 10,836 were Veterans, 12,396were unaccompanied young adults (aged 18-24), and 34,332 were individuals experiencing chronic homelessness.
According to California State Association of Counties (CSAC)Joint Homeless Task Force “Homelessness impacts all 58 counties in California – rural or urban, northern or southern, inland or coastal. It impacts individuals and families of every background.  The causes of homelessness can be traced to a variety of problems including loss of employment, lack of affordable housing, drug and alcohol abuse, and physical and mental illness. There is no one solution to this growing problem.”I do not pretend to know the answer to the homeless problem in California, but I think it is reasonable to say that whatever the Democrats in Sacramento are doing, is not working!

Most, if not all, of us abhor hypocrites. It is the one name that no one likes to be called, as it cuts to core of our being. We are all aware that white-lying and exaggeration are part and parcel of being a politician, and for the most part we will reluctantly accept both. However, being a hypocrite is the bottom of the barrel. In politics a hypocrite is one who says that he believes in one thing, but when convenient, he changes his tune. For example, Joe Biden in recent months has shed his career-long opposition to federal funding for abortions and has come out in favor of a public insurance option on health care.  He also announced a proposal on 7/23/19 that would eliminate the death penalty and attempt to undo some of the impacts of the legislation he championed a quarter-century ago. He is obviously trying to cuddle up to the more liberal factions of his party, but a hypocrite? Joe is a flip-flopper, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may not remember what he said last week!
To me the biggest hypocrite is Chuck Schumer. Read the following two quotes and then explain to me why he is not a hypocrite.“When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we give a message to the American people that the government is not serious about controlling illegal immigration.” and “Illegal immigration is wrong, pure and simple. Until the American people are convinced that we will stop future flows of illegal immigration, we will make no progress in dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants who are here now, and on rationalizing our system of legal immigration.” Yep, he said both ! I saw the videos of him saying both. A hypocrite!

But Chuck is not alone among the Democrats in Washington. At the present time most of them appear to have very short memories when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. In 1996, Bill Clinton said the following (again I saw the video): “Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our border by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as before. And we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years. We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens.” If I did not know it, I would have said that this was President Trump speaking! The Democrats agreed with President Clinton then, but now disagree when President Trump essentially says the same thing. Hypocrites!

In 2005, Barack Obama said the following:“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the U.S., undetected, undocumented, and unchecked, circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully, to become legal immigrants in this country.” Again, this sounds very Trumpian!  The Democrats apparently agreed with Mr. Obama back then as he was their candidate for president in 2008. Later, when Mr. Obama was the President, he sent 1200 National Guard troops to the border, and in addition to the troops, he requested $500 million for border security, the Democrats did not raise a fuss. However they now disagree when President Trump who is saying and doing essentially the same thing, because . . . because they are hypo-crats!

My wife and I recently took three of our grandkids to Chicago – yes, I still go back to Chicago, but no longer in winter, as I have become allergic to winter! On this most recent visit we spent all of our time either downtown in the Loop or along Michigan Avenue. I no longer go back to my old neighborhood on the west side of the city, as I am also allergic to getting shot! One day we happened onto “The Picasso.”  For those of you not familiar with Chicago, “The Picasso”is an untitled monumental Picasso sculpture dedicated on August 15, 1967, in Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop, which is not actually a loop, but rather a rectangle.(“The Rectangle” does not have much of a ring to it, so it is called the Loop!) Those of us who lived in Chicago when it was unveiled merely refer to it as “The Picasso,” as back then it was unclear what it was a sculpture of.

One of the three grandkids asked, “What is it supposed to be, Gpa?” I told them to spread out at different spots around the perimeter, study the sculpture, and then come back and tell me what they each thought. One of the amazing things about “The Picasso” back in 1967 was that from different angles and to different people it appeared  to be something completely different. (FYI: Picasso never told anyone what it was supposed to be!) Kerri checked it out from around the back and said,”It’s his girlfriend.”Paige from the right side said, “No doubt about it. It’s an Afghan dog.” P.J. just laughed at these suggestions and from the left side said,”Obviously, it’s the head of a baboon!” From the front my wife chimed in, “It’s a bird.” Back in the day, in fact, one of the most popular descriptive interpretations of that sculpture was that it was a bird.

 It has always been interesting to me that two people can look at the same thing, at the same time, one from the left and one from the right and come up with different interpretations. That caused me to think about something I read in today’s paper.
The headline, from the New York Times read: North America Sees 29% Decline in Birds. The sub-headline read: “Habitat loss, use of pesticides, among possible culprits.” Apparently the number of birds has decreased significantly since 1970, according to an article published the journal Science. David Yarnold, President of the Audubon Society called the findings, “a full-blown crisis.” The writer of this NYT’s article then postulated that the most important causes are habitat loss and use of pesticides. What was interesting to me was that no other possible causes for this decrease were mentioned. The following day in Townhall, the same Science article was referenced, another possible cause for the significant decrease in the North American bird population was considered. This Townhall article pointed out that since 1969 wind turbines and solar panels have been going up at record rates. Could some of the “habitat loss” be due to the the vast amounts of land now taken up by solar farms and wind farms? Mark Zuckerberg is building six solar projects – each the size of four football fields – in the New Mexico desert, and Ivanpah, the solar thermal project along the California-Nevada border took over 4,000 acres of desert land. Speaking of Ivanpah, bird scientist Shawn Smallwood testified that one large solar farm alone—the Ivanpah solar panel project in California—likely kills 28,380 birds annually. This is nothing compared to numbers of birds that are killed by wind turbines. In 2014, Yahoo! News reported that wind turbines are responsible for killing over 573,000 birds annually. That’s over 600,000 birds that have been killed annually . . . for how many years?

Again I find it interesting that the left-leaning NYT did not even mention the bird carnage caused by solar farms and by wind turbines in their article. Of course when one thinks about it, it would be akin to heresy for the NYT to cast any aspersions on green energy! Here as with Picasso, two different observers, one from the left-side and one from the right see the bird-crisis entirely differently.

The 5th annual survey of D.A.C.A. recipients was just published in September, 2019. More than 1100 were surveyed by multiple agencies. The results were predictable with the vast majority wanting to stay in the U.S.A. More than 90% expressed concern with multiple things if they had to return to the country of their birth. They were mostly concerned about security for themselves and their families, but also were concerned about access to food and education. For these individuals getting sent back to a country in which they have no ties would be the culmination of a truly bad dream.

To bring everyone up to date, D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is an American immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the U.S.
This policy was “created” in 2012 by then President Obama. He spoke about the failure of Congress to pass the “Dream Act,” which would have provided a path to citizenship for certain immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. He said that in the absence of congressional action, the Department of Homeland Security would institute a temporary program to defer deportation for “eligible individuals who do not present a risk to national security or public safety.” The most important word here is “temporary,” and in fact he referred to it as a “temporary stopgap measure” . . . Plans to phase out DACA were announced by the Trump Administration on September 5, 2017; implementation was put on hold for six months to allow Congress time to pass the Dream Act or some other legislative protection for Dreamers. Congress failed to act and the time extension expired on March 5, 2018, but the phase-out of DACA has been put on hold by several courts. On August 31, 2018, District Court Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that DACA is likely unconstitutional. However, he let the program remain in place as litigation proceeds. The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to hear three cases related to the DACA, consolidated into one, in their term starting October 2019.

I think that it is reasonable to assume that many, if not most Americans feel sympathy towards the plight of these so-called “Dreamers.” However, the fact is that they are all illegal. Although I do not often agree with Barack Obama, his dictate concerning the Dreamers was a reasonable attempt at a compromise, but recall that even President Obama felt that it was “temporary,” and, oh yeah, a minor problem . . . only Congress can make laws, and only Congress can change our present immigration laws. President Trump, on the other hand, recognized not only the illegality of the Dreamers, but also the illegality of what President Obama had done back in 2012, and this has produced this present stalemate . . . a stalemate that will be hopefully be temporarily resolved by a definitive decision by the Supreme Court. But actually, nothing will be definitively resolved until Congress gets its act together on what to do with the Dreamers.

My solution should be acceptable to the American people as well as to the Washington politicians on both sides of the aisle. To me the stumbling block here is that the Dreamers should have a path to citizenship. Why should they have a path to citizenship? Remember, despite all of the sympathy that they engender, they are illegal. Get rid of this potential citizenship path as well as all of the benefits resulting from citizenship, including the right to ever vote, and from my perspective, a compassionate deal could easily be worked out. They would be placed in another category, a category of legal non-citizens, who can merely dream of citizenship, as it will never come to them.

Poetically, we can just continue to call them “Dreamers,” and their present bad dream would not have turned into a nightmare.