Randy

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Archives for the ‘Patriotism’ Category

Will the gas tax repeal on November’s ballot help conservatives to win?

Thursday, June 7, 2018, 12:53 pm | Randy Thomasson

SaveCalifornia.com provides this solely for educational purposes
and does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

With low voter turnout among young people and Democrats in general, there were enough conservatives who voted in California’s primary election, enabling Republican candidates to get into the “Top 2” in most of the statewide offices.

A REPUBLICAN WILL FACE A DEMOCRAT IN THESE RUNOFF RACES FOR STATEWIDE CALIFORNIA OFFICES, GIVING VOTERS A MUCH MORE CLEAR CHOICE (AND HOPE FOR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES WHO WRAP THEMSELVES AROUND THE POPULAR GAS TAX REPEAL ON THE NOVEMBER BALLOT):

Governor: Republican John Cox vs. Democrat Gavin Newsom

Secretary of State: Republican Mark Meuser vs. Democrat incumbent Alex Padilla

Controller: Republican Konstantinos Roditis vs. Democrat incumbent Betty Yee

Treasurer: Republican Greg Conlon vs. Democrat Fiona Ma

Attorney General: Republican Steven Bailey vs. Democrat incumbent Xavier Becerra

A MORE REFORMIST DEMOCRAT AND A CONSERVATIVE INDEPENDENT VS. ESTABLISHMENT DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER:

Insurance Commissioner: Independent (and former Republican) Steve Poizner vs. Democrat Ricardo Lara

Superintendent of Public Instruction: (Reform-minded) Democrat Marshall Tuck vs. (union-backed) Democrat Tony Thurmond

IT APPEARS THAT FED-UP CALIFORNIANS ARE MORE IN FAVOR OF RECALLS:

Both a tax-hiking freshman Democrat state senator (Josh Newman of Fullerton) was decisively removed from office, as was Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who had been accused of giving a lenient sentence to a rapist. Persky is the first sitting judge recalled in more than 80 years in California.

RESULTS OF THE 2 UP-FOR-GRABS CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS:

Two Republican congressmen — Ed Royce and Darrell Issa — had announced their retirements, and Democrat strategists went into a frenzy to try to take their seats. Meanwhile, liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans squared off. Here are the results:

In north Orange County, to replace Congressman Royce, pro-“LGBT” Republican Young Kim took first place and liberal Democrat Gil Cisneros took second place.

In north San Diego County, to replace Congressman Issa, pro-family conservative Diane Harkey took first place, while two liberal Democrats, Mike Levin and Sara Jacobs, are still “counting votes” to see who gets second place.

AND SAVED THIS ONE FOR LAST:

One of the most consistent morally conservative speakers and fighters in the State Assembly in recent years was Tim Donnelly. After running for governor four years ago (he was beaten by the establishment), Donnelly went into talk radio. Two years ago, he ran against establishment Republican Paul Cook of the High Desert area of California. Falling short then, but trying again this year, Donnelly appears to have earned a Republican vs. Republican runoff in November. If Donnelly’s lead over a Democrat candidate holds, this will be one of the most watched congressional races this fall.

Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?
Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
Psalm 94:16

Yes, illegal immigration harms your family

Friday, March 9, 2018, 2:21 pm | Randy Thomasson

How does illegal immigration harm you, your children and grandchildren? You need to know.

The California Democrats’ so-called “sanctuary” law has collided with the U.S. Constitution and federal law, which is being enforced by the Trump Administration’s federal raids in California and federal lawsuits in U.S. district courts in California.

This very public issue requires a moral response from all of us — what’s right and what’s wrong? Please read four reasons why illegals harm you, your family, and our nation.

1. Loving your neighbor includes physically protecting people at home and nearby. Yet illegal aliens have caused more crimes in our state and nation:

In L.A., “dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gangbanger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law.” City Journal, Winter 2004 (full of little-reported facts).

“About 50 Percent of California State Primary Convictions of SCAAP Illegal Alien Inmates in Fiscal Year 2008 Were Related to Drugs, Assault, and Sex Offenses”
United States Government Accountability Office, May 2011 (especially see pages 12 and 29)

“Using data collected in the SCAAP system for 2009, an average share of 5.4 percent of the prisoners in state and local prisons were criminal aliens. The share was more than double that average in California (12.7%) and Arizona (11.7%).” Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), May 2016

A 2005 federal government report looked at illegals in federal or state prisons, or local jails, in fiscal year 2003. According to the Heritage Foundation analysis of the report, “Those 55,322 illegal aliens had been arrested 459,614 times, an average of 8.3 arrests per illegal alien, and had committed almost 700,000 criminal offenses, an average of roughly 12.7 offenses per illegal alien. Out of all of the arrests, 12 percent were for violent crimes such as murder, robbery, assault and sex-related crimes; 15 percent were for burglary, larceny, theft and property damage; 24 percent were for drug offenses; and the remaining offenses were for DUI, fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, weapons, immigration, and obstruction of justice.” Heritage Foundation, March 13, 2017

“About one in five inmates in federal prison are foreign-born, and more than 90 percent of those are in the United States illegally” New York Times, December 21, 2017

2. Oppose murderous, anti-American terrorists? Oppose a porous border:

Based on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2015 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics:

Not every illegal alien who crosses the southern border dodges Gila monsters and skirts cacti in search of the American dream. Beyond old-fashioned killers, such as the remarkably brutal MS-13 gang, “special interest aliens” hail from nations rife with militant Islam, including Iran, Pakistan, and Syria. Most of these border jumpers may be perfectly harmless, but the risk that even a few may want to murder Americans is a needless gamble.

Federal agents in 2015 nabbed 3,977 people from the four places that the State Department then classified as “state sponsors of terrorism,” plus ten others that the Transportation Safety Administration since 2010 designates as “countries of interest.” All told, 67,180 individuals from those 14 nations were apprehended while attempting to enter, or residing in, America illegally — from fiscal years 2006 through 2015 — according to the Department of Homeland Security’s 2015 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, released last November.

These latest statistics encompass all apprehensions within the U.S. and at its borders. However, among the 462,388 illegal aliens arrested in FY 2015, 331,333 (72 percent) were apprehended on the southern frontier. It is reasonable to believe that at least some of the illegals from these 14 trouble spots were among those who pierced the U.S./Mexican border. National Review, January 31, 2018

From “Terror and the Mexico border,” Christian Science Monitor, January 15, 2017:

Islamic militants purchase a nuclear device from a sympathetic official in Pakistan and ship the weapon on the flip side of a drug trafficking route through West Africa to South America. Next, the package is smuggled north to the United States-Mexico border.

Although this sounds like the plot line of a spy thriller, it is a scenario laid out in an online magazine produced by the Islamic State, the apocalyptic Syria-based terror group also known as ISIS.

“From there it’s just a quick hop through a smuggling tunnel and … presto, they’re mingling with another 12 million ‘illegal’ aliens in America with a nuclear bomb in the trunk of their car,” the 2015 ISIS article says.

* * *

From November 2013 to July 2014, officials apprehended 143 individuals listed on the US terror watch list trying to cross the Mexico border and enter the US illegally, according to a confidential Texas Department of Public Safety report obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

And last summer, the US military’s Southern Command warned in an intelligence report that Muslim extremists were using existing migrant smuggling rings in Latin America to gain entry to the US across the Mexico border, according to an account in the Washington Free Beacon.

* * *

…large numbers of individuals continue to enter the US without authorization and completely undetected.

Of prime concern are those from 35 so-called “special interest” countries. These are countries where terrorism is an acute problem.

In Fiscal Year 2014, the Border Patrol apprehended 4,585 unauthorized migrants from “special interest” countries, including 66 from Afghanistan, 223 from Iran, 173 from Iraq, 350 from Pakistan, 169 from Somalia, and 61 from Syria, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics.

* * *

In the fall of 2015, for example, five Pakistanis and an Afghan were arrested near Patagonia, Ariz., after crossing the border roughly 20 miles to the south. While no links to terrorism were found at the time, a later search of a Federal Bureau of Investigation database revealed that the Afghan had family connections to the Taliban, according to The Washington Times. The Afghan is still in custody. The five Pakistanis sought refugee status and were reportedly released.

A few weeks later, the arrests of five men described as “Middle Eastern” near Amado, Ariz., along a common smuggling route, prompted an investigation by the Arizona attorney general’s office. It revealed a steady flow of money from Middle Easterners to human smuggling rings in Mexico.

* * *

A growing number of individuals from special interest countries are attempting to cross the border. When they do, Border Patrol agents are instructed to detain them and notify Homeland Security agents or the FBI.

“I personally have arrested maybe a handful every year,” says one long-time Border Patrol agent.

* * *

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has also issued a series of reports claiming the existence of terror training camps on the Mexican side of the border.

“An internal Mexican law enforcement report obtained by Judicial Watch confirms that Islamic terrorists have ‘people along the border, principally in Tijuana, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas,’ ” according to one recent report. Christian Science Monitor, January 15, 2017

3. Illegal aliens cost you and your family a lot of money:

“California Accounted for about 70 Percent of Total Costs for Selected States to Incarcerate SCAAP Criminal Aliens in Fiscal Year 2008.” We estimated that California’s total cost to incarcerate SCAAP criminal aliens in fiscal year 2008 was about $1.1 billion. This represents about 70 percent of the $1.6 billion total estimated costs for the five states we reviewed, as shown in figure 21. California’s estimated cost is higher than the other four states due to higher per inmate incarceration costs and the larger number of SCAAP criminal aliens. In 2005, we estimated that California’s total cost to incarcerate SCAAP criminal aliens was about $510 million in fiscal year 2002 and $635 million in fiscal year 2003.
United States Government Accountability Office, May 2011 (especially see pp. 40-42)

The cost of imprisoning each of California’s 130,000 inmates is expected to reach a record $75,560 in the next year. That’s enough to cover the annual cost of attending Harvard University and still have plenty left over for pizza and beer. Gov. Jerry Brown’s spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1 includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because voters in November approved earlier releases for many inmates. Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2017

LOS ANGELES COUNTY—The Department of Public Social Services reported over $600 million in welfare and food stamp benefits were issued to illegal alien parents for their native-born children in 2014, announced Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. The $604 million consisted of $222 million in CalWORKs (welfare) and $381 million in CalFresh (food stamps). Nearly 20% of the County’s public welfare funds are spent on illegal immigrants. This does not include the $550 million in public safety costs, $500 million in healthcare costs, hundreds of millions spent on public education, or the $240 million cost to issue 1.4 million California driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants over the next three years. “California taxpayers are now spending approximately $2.5 billion each year on illegal immigrants, while the needs of our foster youth, homeless, mentally ill and crime victims go unmet,” said Antonovich. “We must serve the needs of our community, before serving those who are here illegally.” Michael D. Antonivch, February 11, 2015

4. For the United States of America to be its OWN county, its citizens must oppose illegal immigration, which violates our sovereignty:

Sovereignty means an entity (nation, state, individual, etc.) sets and enforces its own policies, and no other power can make it do what it does not want to do.

The United States of America is a sovereign nation with laws that must be obeyed within its borders. Allowing some people to break the law means the U.S. is no longer sovereign and that another force — invaders — is over it.

For example, if you had home rules for your children, but then a neighbor or a stranger came in and told your children they must obey their new rules, not their parents’, you’d be more than annoyed. You would have lost your sovereignty.

Like ancient invaders destroying government markers, or more recently, ISIS destroying thousands of years of irreplaceable artifacts, illegal aliens flout the laws of the United States, then once inside, change the culture from the inside out. It’s a matter of sovereignty and a matter of permission. Anyone who comes into your home or nation uninvited or unapproved is an invader by definition.

The first president of the United States, George Washington, understood that America is a sovereign nation and no vassal to any other. “But if we are to be told by a foreign Power (if our engagements with it are not infracted) what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, & have contended hitherto for very little.” George Washington letter to Alexander Hamilton in 1796

See the straightforward U.S. laws against illegal immigration:

8 U.S. Code § 1325 – Improper entry by alien

8 U.S. Code § 1227 – Deportable aliens

In conclusion, you see the evidence. “Illegals” streaming into our nation harm your safety, harm you financially, and threaten our national sovereignty. Remember, in the Bible, there were only two kinds of foreigners — those who were permitted, and those who weren’t. The former had to obey all the laws of the land; the latter were known as invaders.

Your land is devastated,
your cities burned with fire.
Right before your eyes your crops
are being destroyed by foreign invaders.
They leave behind devastation and destruction.
Isaiah 1:7

How I overcame ‘Hernia Hill’

Sunday, November 26, 2017, 9:10 pm | Randy Thomasson

Sometimes, the most powerful story of perseverance is your own.

Like that impossible situation you determined to take on…
Or that amazing opportunity where you gave your all…
Or that crucible where you did what’s right, despite temptation or opposition.

For me, learning about perseverance started on “Hernia Hill.” It was an incredibly steep hill I faced many times running on the cross-country team in high school.

That hill was dreaded by every guy on the team, including me. But oh, the goodness that awaited just beyond the peak as “Hernia Hill” descended to flat land — the coveted finish line!

During one race, I ran my best and found myself in second place just before the steep incline. Pressing ahead in pain when my body was telling me to quit, I pushed myself past my opponent and won, setting a school record.

At the time, I didn’t realize the impact that conquering “Hernia Hill” had on me. I could have quit when it looked impossible. I could have walked away when it got too hard.

Thankfully, I didn’t.

That young story of perseverance helped build in me the fortitude that I would eventually need to work in Sacramento for pro-family values, and ultimately the leadership of SaveCalifornia.com.

To be bold and persistent. To stay the course when it gets hard. And to do what’s right for our side — no matter the outcome — and despite opposition from enemies of the moral and Biblical values you and I hold dear.

Yes, the lessons then prepared me to live out of my comfort zone. Like lobbying politicians at the State Capitol; debating liberal opponents on local and national TV; working on a slew of challenging issues impacting moral values and our freedoms in this state.

I hope as you reflect on your times of perseverance — your own “Hernia Hill” — you will recall the magnificent endurance you learned, and how it helped you be a stronger person today.

Because we both know that perseverance is absolutely required by moral patriots such as you and me.

And just as you have persevered so many times, like I persevered in cross country, SaveCalifornia.com has been persevering for children and families in California since 1999.

THANK YOU for being a part of who we are and what we do. Thank you for allowing me and our Team to work FOR you and your family, and AGAINST the radical Left that desperately wants to silence our voice for Godly values and remove our freedoms.

Together, let’s keep persevering for all that is good and right and true. Let’s keep running the race and fighting the good fight in California. Thanks again!

P.S. It’s an honor to represent your voice and your values in the fight for what’s right in California. As we persevere on behalf of your family values, we would be honored to receive your generous support. Your tax-deductible gift to SaveCalifornia.com will give a voice to your values, and provide bold representation on key issues impacting your family. Together, let’s make sure our voices are heard, not silenced! Give your gift here.

Blessed is the man who endures temptation;
for when he has been approved,
he will receive the crown of life
which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

James 1:12

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations,
knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Roman 5:3-4