California: A Demographic That Might Surprise You.....Or Maybe Not

                                                                   

What if I told you that California has not experienced population growth in 39 years?  Would you believe that?  Well, I did a little research and found it's absolutely true.  Let's break it down, shall we?

In 1980 (I'll explain why I chose that year later) the U.S. population was 226 million.  Today our national population is 337 million....a 111 million increase.    

In 1980, the year that the Census Bureau noted a startling increase in the migration of illegal immigrants to this country, the population of California was 23.67 million.  Today California has 39 million people living there.  Numbers USA says that of those 39 million California residents, more than 12 million are here illegally.  

Subtract those 12 million illegals from California's 39 million total and you have a net 27 million legal citizens in California.  That is almost exactly the population number from 1980.  

Okay, let's now look at what Reagan's Amnesty program did to the state.  By the year 2000 we found Reagan's Amnesty (read welcome mat) was responsible for seven million more illegals coming to the Golden State.  It was about that time when California citizens began seeing the societal ills accompanying that 15 years of illegal migration.  All kinds of measures were attempted to slow the flow.  Californians tried to deny medical care to illegals, and Bill Clinton's liberal 9th Circuit Court appointees killed that measure dead.  Same thing with denying them Driver's Licenses.  Californians won at the polls, then lost in the courts.    California is now a geographic welcome mat for all of Central and South America.  In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Census says that, by the end of 2020, California will add at least three million more illegal residents!   So, please, let's quit saying amnesty does not spawn more illegals coming here.

But, hey, back to business.  While good thinking Californians were trying to loosen the hanging rope on their neck something else was going on.  California Democrats, after years of failing, finally allied themselves with Hispanics and began charging illegal immigration opponents as racists.  Soon the Dems were winning local and statewide offices.  And anytime California conservatives tried to fight the good fight, there were Clinton's black robed royals on the 9th Circuit, holding proposition after proposition as unconstitutional.

Now California is ruled by Democrats, and particularly Hispanics with political ambitions, as is the governorship, as is the courts, and the rule of law is subordinated by a kind of mob rule, the law being what liberals say it is, not what it actually is....and god help those "racists" who say it is anything else!

California, as anyone who has toured the Central Valley, or Los Angeles and its many suburbs, know that, aside from Silicon Valley and San Francisco, California a Third World Nation all on its own.  So it's not a surprise that, when you subtract that state's illegal population, California has the same population it had 39 years ago.

So where are all those blue collar, working stiffs going?  Well, read USA Today for the answer.  That newspaper's report today says working, law abiding, tax-paying Californians are leaving for Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Texas, those states representing five of the six fastest growing states last year.

But look on the bright side.  When someone tells you California is overcrowded, just tell them that state hasn't seen legal population growth since 1980!

Sad.  Damned Sad.

A Wall of Lies

                                                                   

The media reported today that lawmakers from both parties are huddling together to try to come up with a immigration deal in order to head off another government shutdown, or a Trump emergency declaration to have the army build it, both options unacceptable to either party.

Ho hum.  Oh, how I have heard and seen headlines like this for so many years.  Who remembers that, just four years ago the Congress allocated $25 billion for both a wall and additional border agents, allocated less than $1 billion, and never funded the rest of the money in support of their own legislation?  Who can remember all the promises that the Feds would, at last, begin enforcing participation in E-Verify...and imprison employers who violated the law?  Who remembers when it was politically acceptable to round up Visa Overstays, charge them with a crime, then deport them post-haste?  And in that interim of political cowardice millions more illegals are safely ensconsed, the majority of them firmly affixed to a government tit for generous federal and state and municipal benefits?  How many people have died at the hands of MS-13 and cartel ferried drugs into the country? How many have entered a hospital emergency room and found it clogged with illegals?  How many have seen their auto and home insurance rates soar as home invasions and hit and run accidents, and stolen car rates soared?  How many more innocents and police will have to be gunned down by illegals before anyone takes this issue seriously?

So pardon my ho-hum.  This minuscule deal.....including Trump's own proposal, is a water-downed version of a much more aggressive campaign promised to us just half a dozen years ago.  Perhaps it is symbolic that news came today that Trump, our most aggressive spokesman in support of controlling illegal immigration, just fired 14 illegal workers in his resort business.  That's two years after Trump took office and his business entity is only now promising to participate in E-Verify?

Most pitifully, President Trump himself, to win his half of one percent of the annual budget for border security, has had to retreat from call it a wall, Pelosi and Schumer having declared a border demarcation "immoral" and insulting to the 30 million Hispanic "guests" already here...and the caravans now on their way here.

Remember that $25 billion once pledged to secure our borders a few years ago...the one that never got funded.  Remember that as Congress trots out on the front steps of the people's house, beam brightly and pronounce a deal.  Sadly, we are wielding a fly swatter to fend off Godzilla, and bound to lose one of the most critical fights of our lifetime.

Se Habla Español?  Well you better learn it, friends.  Quick like!

Attn: Frank K, et al

Some spammer has found a way to circumvent my spam screen and is blanketing both old and new blogs, pimping his business.  Consequently, for a while at least, I set my comments screen,  making comments available only to members of my blog (see the list and pics on the left side).  Membership is easy and free.  Please join until I get rid of the spammers!  I still want to hear from all of you!

Strangling On Their Own Liberal Bias

                                                                       

Last week our own Arizona Republic newspaper announced still another round of layoffs.  They got their marching orders from their corporate parent, the liberal Gannett Corporation.  Gannett currently owns USA Today and a hundred plus newspapers across the country.  And, as each once individually owned newspaper was bought, Gannet made sure they populated those newspapers with a liberal editorial staff.

Gannett had an especially difficult task trying to transition The Republic to a liberal publication.  The general populace is conservative.  About 70 percent of Arizonans are either Republican, or register as Independent, then vote Republican.  And since illegal immigration has been such a hot topic here in a state that is affected by illegal immigration every day, Gannet, being open borders advocates, began an aggressive campaign to make the ills of illegal immigration go away.  Once a week the paper published a multi-paged sob spread about the plight of illegal aliens.  Then they began censoring the news.  If an illegal committed a crime The Republic either didn't print the story, or actually censored crime news, extracting the identity of the perp, or refusing to print that the perp was charged with being here illegally.

Soon The Republic began championing liberal Democrats for elective office.  Democrats became their "choices"..announced prominently on both the front and editorial pages the week before elections.

The paper then began putting opinion pieces by their liberal columnists on the front page, presenting opinion as news.  The paper then replaced their editorial cartoonist with a flaming liberal and stopped printing nationally prominent conservative columnists.  At present The Republic has on staff eight liberal opinion writers, against one conservative columnist.

Happily, or not, The Republic's circulation has decline precipitously.  As more and more folks realized they weren't getting an objective presentation of the news they stopped taking the paper.  In the 80's The Republic had a 50 percent circulation rate.  That number has declined to 6 percent today.  While part of the sharp decline in newspaper readership is attributable to our school system turning out illiterates, much of the recent decline has come as fewer readers believe they are actually getting the truth.

I cite the Republic's circumstances because it is the same story with all of Gannett's 100 plus newspapers.  And eventually the people that still read get it.  And they've stopped buying Gannett owned newspapers.  So last week, as Gannett's latest financial report showed them bleeding red ink, they sent out a directive to cut staff.

Strangely we see this all the time with liberal media.  For the last two decades they've tried to thrive in talk radio........and every liberal radio show goes belly up, even as conservative radio enjoys huge profits and draws huge audiences.   CNN and MSNBC trail Fox News by wide margins.  Alas, the liberal media seem happy to strangle to death on their own bias.   I don't know any other business that's willing to commit suicide for the liberal cause.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Dear President Trump

                                                                       

Dear President Trump

You folded like a cheap paper plate.  A few realities to offer you.  Living and governing with principle is hard.  You chose not to when the heat was dialed up.  Had Washington folded after the Battle of Manhattan we'd still be speaking with British tongue and eating haggis.  Had Lincoln surrendered his principles the Blacks would still be slaves.  Had the 1940 Congress folded FDR would have himself 12 liberal Supreme Court judges.

You folded.  Plain and simple.  I might remind you that, until Friday afternoon, you had about 39 percent hard core support.  You now have about 30 percent.........probably the same people who you talked about when you said you could shoot someone on the corner and still have their support.  Not me.  That 39 percent was critical.  Come 2020 you might, just might have roped in the 12 percent you need for re-election.  Now?  Forget about it.\

I'm an Independent....among the 9 percent cheering you on because I wanted that wall as much as you.  Not so much that it would stop all illegal immigration (we can't do that until we start enforcing E-Verify and rounding up Visa Overstayers.)  The wall was as symbol that we are serious about getting control over our illegal immigration.

But you folded....partly because you feared the aftermath of the pain the shutdown caused...partly because you didn't understand the Democratic base.  First of all, whether you revive the government or not, you'll still be blamed for the shutdown.   So what would it have hurt to let Chucky and Nancy squirm awhile.  Secondly, and I hate to break this to you....you were probably two more missed paychecks away from winning.  You were right when you said government bureaucrats largely vote Democratic.  And one thing Democrats love is government gravy.  Take the gravy bowl away for too long and they would have come screaming to Pelosi to let that god-damned one half of one percent of the federal budget go toward building that wall.   But you couldn't hold out.........even after your cock sure tirades that you'd never surrender.

Then you did.  So, you lost me.  You are no more principled than your wishy washy Congress on both sides of the aisle.  Worse, you are now weakened and bloodied and, worse, laughed at and derided even more, joined in the merriment by the 9 percent of us you lost yesterday.

Please don't tell me you'll shut down the government in February again.  You won't.  You may try to declare a government emergency and appropriate money from other agencies to to build your wall.  But the liberal courts will adjudicate the hell out of that and you'll look even sillier.

Your chance was now.  And you blew it.  You're one of those tissue-thin Walmart paper plates that collapse when the first 4th of July rib bone hits it.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Of Mice And Men

                                                                         

You just have to love who the Liberal Left put on a pedestal and raise them to the level of "iconic heroes". I'm not even going to get into Baltimore thugs, Hollywood perverts, or Missouri convenience store thieves.

Let's talk about the noble "Native American", the Left's latest iteration being Nathan Phillips, the twice AWOL military brig dweller who tied his hair in a ribbon, grabbed himself a tom-tom, then faced down a gaggle of Catholic high school boys. He is not a war hero, having ventured no further than Nebraska, most of his time sitting in a military jail cell, enjoying "three hots and a cot".

The Left's grab of Phillips was a desperate ploy to make a kid wearing a MAGA hat into a villain. And even then they had to censor two thirds of the video to make those kids look threatening! Which, as it turns out they weren't.

But, hell, aren't all Native Americans the "noble savage" of all liberal lore? Let's examine that. (And since I have Cherokee and Osage blood running through my veins, I feel entitled)

First of all, for the clear thinkers, can we finally dispense with the fairy tale that Native Americans were godly, peace loving people whom the White man exploited? Let me offer you a challenge. Other than the five civilized tribes, please laundry list for me any sect of Indians who, for centuries, were not trying to annihilate each other ? Hey, people, the practice of scalping didn't begin when the White man showed up! Nor did the White man whip up the first storm of ethnic war. No, tribes had been at war with each other long before the White man arrived, killing women and children, the victors acquiring the lands of those they defeated.

So is the White man blameless? Hell no! But he practiced a genocide that was no different than those that had already been committed by Native Americans themselves for centuries. Blame the human heart. Blame the evil that exists in men. But don't try to brand any ethnic group the sole villain.....and name no heroes except for those select few who love peace. Long before the Spaniards or Europeans arrived North, Central and South Americans were doing themselves in in grand style.

Consider this. Without the White man Native Americans would still be savages. There would be no rule of law. There would be no property rights. There would not even be our desperate attempts to establish a society where civilized man might thrive.

If the White man had behaved as liberals today wish us to there would be no America. The "liberal mice" would have stayed in their conclaves in Europe, wearing hemp dresses and stringing beads and following the lead of Lord or King and its many forms of tyranny. 

Instead, as man is bent to do, he went out to explore his world. After half of a millennia of Dark Ages he was finally able to read the social philosophers who proposed that man can rule himself. And yes, man, as acquisitive as he is, ventured out to exploit those who will be exploited, just as the mighty Sioux and many other tribes exploited their neighbors. No difference. None!

And, God Bless us, a small educated tribe of European descended gentlemen had read the Magna Carta, and read Locke, and read Rousseau.....and damned if they didn't write a Constitution that codified the god given rights of at least most of the new inhabitants! 

And for more than two hundred years society, as faulty as it was and is, took a few steps up the evolutionary chain....giving man a more stable environment in which to thrive as human beings.

Alas, a good portion of society now wants to revert back to "mouse-ism", surrendering everything new, idolizing the long history of the rest of the world's failures, then scramble for the same tired wheel of cheese.

Nathan Phillips is a loser. Cloaking him in Indian garb does not make him a hero. Giving him a tom-tom to drum out his hate does not make him "pedestal qualified". 

Given a choice between mice and men, I'll take "man" please, even with our many faults.

Blue Collar People

                                                                   

Travel down any road you choose come commute time in the morning. You'll see many sad, worried, fretting faces as they head out to their municipal clerkship, or to hawk mattresses, or to light up the lamp on the blue light special, or to burn up the phone lines trying to push a stock tip to a brokerage client.

Contrast that with what I witnessed yesterday morning, bright and early. A crew of eight men arrived in company service trucks, pulling into the curb...sitting there quietly in their cabs, taking a last sip of coffee before they haul themselves out and knock on my door at the 8 o'clock proscribed time.

The work foreman was, at first, the only one who entered my door. Wearing a smile he patiently went over with me the work they would be doing today. Meantime, ladders and tool boxes were hauled off the trucks and men began scurrying up ladders, or assembling metal elbows, checking their tool boxes for just the next tool they would need.

Every one of those fellows were smiling. Every one of them full of the life juices that comes when you are doing a job you love to do. And for the next eight hours they sawed, and they bolted and unbolted, and they carved beautifully fitted pieces of wall board, to fit over holes left from the remnants of a 60 year old air conditioner and only relatively old furnace. They did their work only after laying tarps across my floor, and covering furniture in plastic, and they worked their magic with a smile playing across their faces, their talk not of lousy foreman, or union matters, or government shutdowns. Instead they joked about a recent get together at a beer bar, or they teased one fellow about his upcoming nuptials, or they sang the praises about the two Hispanics on the crew who had taken them to a place that served habanero enchiladas.

These were blue collar men, enjoying their work, satisfied at being paid a fair wage for a fair day's work. These were men who knew they were being paid better than 90 percent of the white collar and tie crowd. And they did not long for the superficial adornments of Cole-Haan dress shoes and weekly office conferences. 

At one point I tentatively approached the youngest guy on the crew....a kid not yet old enough to drink. I pointed up at the side of my house and showed him a piece of flashing that had come loose. I wondered if he might, if he had a spare moment while up on the roof, might secure that flashing in place for me....for a fee I assured him.

His right hand was in a cast and he nodded his head and smiled and said, "sir, it would be my privilege, but I won't charge you anything for it." I tried to insist and he refused. 

When I went out later I saw that the kid has tin-snipped and shaped a portion of new flashing, then secured it in place, then had used my extra house paint to re-paint the replaced flashing. I have to admit that my heart caught in my throat and I had to turn away, lest someone see a set of misty eyes.

At the end of the work day I again approached the kid, trying to press some money in his hand. He again refused, then said "sir, if we've done a good job for you, just let the boss man know", then walked away, happy in his extending a kindness to an old gent.

That was the way it was all day with that blue collar crew...from the guy who patiently walked me through my new wi fi/smart phone enabled thermostat, to the guy who, on hands and knees, used his shop vac to vacuum a microspot of sawdust on my floors.

That blue collar crew did far more than install a new HVAC system. They restored my faith that there are good men out there in America....men who wear hard hats and blue jeans and work vests and steel-toed boots, who may be America's last hope.

Thank you, you Blue Collar People. Thank you very, very much.

Today's Women March

                                                                       

So the 3rd Annual Women's March has kicked off this morning.  I admit to understanding nothing about it.  What I've heard is that it's all about hating Trump.  And as I flicked on the TV this morning that sentiment seemed to be illustrated with mothers hanging sandwich signs around their six year old daughters that read "Trump Is Mean!", or "I Hate Trump".  I guess teaching hate is started earlier these days.

I've also heard that there are actually two groups of women, marching at different venues, because it seems almost natural law that if you get enough biddies together they are gonna start fighting among themselves and nearly forget the original purpose of their protests.

I find almost all marches suspect.  I've never understood how there could be so many people who have the time to march.  Most people have jobs to go to, or chores at home, or some such as helping the wide swath of illiterate children with their homework, lest they end up flipping burgers for a living.

But, nope, there are apparently tens of millions of women who have lots of time on their hands.  So they put on their meanest face, adorn themselves in protest regalia, grab a sign with some serious vulgarity printed on it, then head out to the streets of a hundred cities, to let everyone know they are pissed about something.

Some of them are pissed about a female desk clerk in a police station not making as much as the cop on the streets.  Or a factory worker spinning copper coils not making the same as the construction guy standing on a 50 story beam stringing that copper.   To today's women neither the strenuousness of the job, nor the peril posed when performing it should matter.  

Also in today's march will be thousands of women marching to make sure someone else is paying for her birth control pills.  Or footing the bill for her spermal offal's free pre-school, free school breakfasts and lunches, and Medicaid Card.  

Others are protesting border walls.  Still others are protesting the cruelty of a federal government that dares to put children at peril by separating them from they Guatemalan escorts....those people that dragged those same children 2,000 miles in hopes of  a free pass into America and it's free ride on the gravy train.

I guess if we pay attention to the signs today we'll get a feel for what has pissed them off the most this year.  Many thousands of them are pissed that their children have to endure forced vaccinations to attend public schools.  An equal number are pissed because their kids are enduring flu and measles and chicken pox outbreaks from parents who are NOT getting their children vaccinated.  Many more are marching to easing entry for illegal children..........so their own children's classrooms can be even more overcrowded and an overworked teacher will be able to teach no one.    But that's okay.  Those children can always grow up to be burger flippers and march in those $15 dollar per hour minimum wage marches.

Sigh.

Anarchy Now An American Concern

                                                                         

Unlike Europe, and Asia, America has never been much of a mannered society.  While other countries relied on class or well established custom, America, the mongrels that we were, pretty much got by on our semi-respect for our newly formed institutions, and a bit of mutual kindness.

Alas, in the second half of the 20th Century, we began to see the dissolution of our institutions.  First came the wholesale abandonment of the farm, in favor of urban living, then a quite natural erosion of the extended family as social unit.  In the 60's we began to experience the "two worker family", when mom joined pop in the work force.  With no one at home, and the harvesting of millions of latch key kids, even the basic family unit began to deteriorate.

As the institution of the nuclear family began to dissolve so too did our educational system...no one available to attend parent-teacher conferences, or PTA meetings, with both working parents too tired to help with, or even monitor homework.

Later in the 60's, and throughout the 70's those latchkey kids grew up and, having never been schooled with any working set of principles, decided it was okay to decide which wars they would choose to fight in.  And they decided that sex need not be practiced solely through the marriage union.  And thanks to the liberal courts those same young adults found that abortion was a perfectly sound solution to birth control.  So that, by the latter half of the last century, even the sanctity of human life was something to be negotiated.  And why worry about any religious concerns...because no one need attend church either.

All of those societal changes contributed to a gradual decline in the many institutions that held us together.  And, as it must, our government at all levels began to reflect how society as a whole valued moral principle.  Big city mayors became kingpins, employing the arts of graft and corruption, and the rewarding of municipal workers to support them electorally.  State houses became the catalyst for relaxing the rule of laws, in favor of governmental handouts and a happy electorate.

Then, at the federal level, we had a President that practiced sodomy in the Oval Office, and that was okay cause he was a charming rascal who could talk "perty".  

Then, in 2008 we elected the most "un-American" President we've ever had....a fellow who grew up smoking dope, riding the scholarships of academia that favored minorities and scorned the idea of holding down a job, instead favoring the generous offerings so freely available to a community organizer and those he sought to transform into his image.

And when he achieved office, one Barack Hussein Obama decided that thugs were victims and that law enforcement were the bad guys.  And since every President has always been the "mouthpiece" for the fashioning of societal attitudes, more and more people began disparaging the police as an institution, and challenging any law that proved inconvenient in their compliance.  Even contract law, one of the very pillars of civilized society, was turned on its head under this President.  Banks holding mortgages were forced into forgiving loans, banks assuming the total blame for mortgages left unpaid.  And what once was America's largest corporation; General Motors, was nationalized by an intrusive government, control of that corporation given to union labor.

Then Barack and his party commandeered our immigration laws.  Calling them offensive to "our Mexican guests" both Obama and the Democratic Party chose to ignore our immigration laws altogether.  And, following "Dear Leader's" cue, half of America now believes open borders is a pretty fine idea.

So, let's review again how the institutions that once kept us in a state of societal control is crumbling beneath our feet.  The dissolution first of the extended family (grandpa and grandma at home), followed by the nuclear family,  Then the church, as corrupted as any other institution, began playing a smaller and smaller role in our moral development declined.  Our school systems, with no one concerned except the selective good teachers, began turning out illiterates and that institution too is now a costly grand joke.  Now our police are under constant attack.  And as more and more folks hitch a ride on the government gravy train, even the idea of work is a frightful thing.

Now, as I look to Washington, all I see are clowns and cowards.  I see a million federal workers unemployed, all over a dispute about a $5 billion dollar wall....one half of one percent of our federal budget, and a group of federals fighting over whether we should enforce our immigration laws.

And, folks, I fear that this latest crop of clowns and cowards are the last brick put in place for total national anarchy.  It is not inconceivable that, when the whole of America loses respect for our federal lawmakers, we begin to enter "3rd World Territory"...with the occasional coup to overthrow the current crop of corrupt..in favor of the next crop of corrupt.

Every institution in America is either under assault or are as dead as our founding fathers.  (Indeed there is a growing distaste for those founders themselves.)  When you have nothing to hold society together you can at best expect the arrival of American anarchy that will trump every unstable society that ever peopled the earth.

This anarchy arrived in stages over the last 75 years.  It has now turned into a growing cancer that threatens to destroy our republic.  And the only certainty we can derive from all this is that, no matter how corrupt and cowardly our government has become, it all began with us.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

Evil Wampum

                                                                         

Evil Wampum

Senator Elizabeth Warren flew into Iowa this week, transversing the state, giving speeches to standing room only adoring supporters.

Warren spoke of her own humble beginnings, her own personal crusade in moving from poverty to middle class, her previous $350,000 dollar Harvard salary the only thing standing in the way of abject poverty. Her modest million dollar Massachusetts home, earned from her three hour per week teaching class load at Harvard in exchange for that $350,000 a year salary. Alas, now she must make do on a United States senator's pay and benefits package so she's cut back on further purchases of Indian Princess headdress and choosing not to add more beads to her jewelry chests.

Apparently Iowans love Liz. They swarmed her and fawned over her from the top of the state, all the way to the bottom. They loved her message that says every Iowan's trouble is attributable to the nasty rich. And they lover her "MeTooism" messages about glass ceilings and back alley abortions, and the danger of having to pay for their own birth control pills.

Just as Democrats flooded the polls last November, to win control the U.S. House, these Democrats are not happy with their tax cuts, or their bigger paychecks, or their farm ponds no longer being administered by the EPA. They're just happy to support anyone who might beat President Trump in 2020.

Turning Iowa blue is the party goal. That's evident as their current Democratic candidate for governor is running neck and neck with Governor Terry Reynolds, who has only managed to implement the biggest tax cut in Iowa history, while running up a budget surplus of $127 million.

These "new Iowans", these "blue Iowans" would rather have Liz. She talks perty just like Barack talked perty. She gives them a villain to root against. She promises them more generous government benefits and will tax the fat cats into poverty to achieve that goal.

Liz does not explain what will happen to the economy when those fat cats...the job creators...perish from the earth. Let's face it, those "fat cats" will give up risking their capital if any gains are taxed at 90 percent. And, just as with Barack's massive failure to jump start the economy, should she fail she never has to say she's sorry. It's a "love story" that will never end.

Senator Warren's favorite tag line is "the system is rigged against the poor and middle class." She does not explain just how...but it sounds good. My guess would be Ms. Warren does not want to hear how the fellow over in neighboring Omaha began building his fortune by delivering newspapers as a kid, and selling magazine subscriptions. Warren Buffet, and his $150 billion, would send a totally different message. Nor will Ms. Warren explain how making a thousand dollars an hour in a Harvard classroom is a perfectly legit way to make a living.

Econ 101

                                                                   

Economics 101

So the U.S. Labor Department reported this morning that a whopping 312,000 new jobs were created last month. That is second only to last springs 324,000 jobs created during President Trump's Presidency.

Curiously unemployment rose from a 49 year low of 3.7 percent to 3.9 percent. Let's look at the factors that seemingly made those numbers appear at least a little in conflict.

First of all the unemployment rate rose slightly because hundreds of thousands of Americans rejoined the labor pool, looking for work. Why did Americans rejoin the search for a job?

Could it be that Congress recently passed legislation that makes it harder to get food stamps? Could it be all the talk in Washington about requiring able bodied Americans to look for work while drawing a welfare check? Could it be the 3.12 percent increase in wages, driven by businesses more willing to pay a living wage after Trump's tax cuts? Or could it be that American businesses are finally foregoing cheap Chinese labor in favor of American workers? Or could it be that American companies are avoiding Trump's tariffs and finally manufacturing more in the U.S.? Or could it be that Trump illegal immigration efforts have finally stemmed the tide of the illegal invasion.......thus opening up positions for American workers? Have at least some of illegals begun to self deport? Have employers finally awakened to the financial penalties imposed when hiring illegal workers? Or could it be that Americans like keeping more of their paycheck, thus find working for a living actually pays off?

I believe all of those things have contributed. Though Democrats are gonna hate today's news, today's number does speak well for any leader who is willing to champion free market capitalism, defend our borders and make better trade deals.

Is America "great again?" Way too early to say. We are under assault by a growing cade of socialists, both in academia and in government. But today's employment numbers, and growing GDP are certainly rewarding Americans with more than a "chicken in every pot".

Today's huge job numbers stunned our economic gurus. It really shouldn't. A combination of factors have contributed to a vastly improving economy, most of those policies implemented by Trump, whose contributions were largely just getting the hell out of the way to let a little more capitalism rise from the economic kettle.