We’re going to start locally today. While I was sleeping off my overnight shift a protest took place in Fitchburg declaring we are “welcoming” to “immigrants” and are opposed to not only President Trump’s executive order on extreme vetting but against any enforcement of laws concerning illegal immigration. Our chief of police said this:
The Fitchburg Police Department shall not detain any individual on the basis of a civil immigration detainer on the request of ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement),” he said.
Six and a half hours later I was in a movie theatre in the city watching the picture Patriot’s day with my wife and with the rest of the crowd being reminded how much death, destruction and damage two improperly vetted immigrants were able to do just a few miles to the east of us.
Perhaps I should buy the chief and the protesters tickets to the movie as they’ve managed to unlearn the lessons of the Marathon bombing in only four years.
I would also like to ask the chief this, if I get a parking or speeding ticket being a citizen & legal resident I’m expected to show up & either pay or contest said fine in court, if such a ticket is given to an illegal alien & said person never shows up, will that default warrant be enforced & if not isn’t that a prima facia example of unequal treatment under the law where one violating federal law is favored over one in compliance with it?
The very next day the front page of the Sentinel and Enterprise talked about two clubs that had violated state law:
Two local private social clubs have hearings scheduled with the state Alcohol Beverages Control Commission in Boston after being cited for violations that they allegedly permitted gambling on their premises.
On May 19, 2016, ABCC investigators found the Knights of Columbus and the South End National Club were allegedly paying patrons cash from their automatic amusement devices, according to an investigative report filed by ABCC officials.
“When these devices are used for gambling, they are illegal,” said Ralph Sacramone, executive director of the ABCC.
Given the previous story we can see that if people are illegally taking jobs from Massachusetts workers in violation of federal law, the state of Massachusetts and the City of Fitchburg considers it no big deal.
But if one illegally pays off on a gaming machine and takes away potential revenue that is necessary to make up that new pay raise for our state legislators, we’ll see you in court.
Perhaps the two clubs in question should declare themselves “Sanctuary Clubs” then not only could they claim immunity from the enforcement of these laws, but the very idea that such laws might be inforced would be considered so beyond the pale that it could not even be suggested.
Incidentally as a Knight of Columbus & a former member of counsel #99 this story illustrates one of the disadvantages of a building or bar based council vs a church based council such as the St Anthony of Padua council #15962 also in fitchburg of which I’m a charter member.
Sticking with this theme I have an idea for Governor Charlie Baker in terms of how to respond to this
Massachusetts lawmakers steamrolled Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of pay raise legislation Thursday, delivering big salary increases for themselves, six statewide constitutional officers, and scores of judges.
In a turn of events that no one was predicting heading into the new year, the Democrat-controlled Legislature in just over three weeks surfaced the idea of pay raises for public officials and then rammed the bill through authorizing the increases, which are worth about $18 million per year, tacking on language ensuring that the larger paychecks occur right away.
On Thursday, lawmakers completed their work by overriding Gov. Baker’s veto of the bill by votes of 116-43 in the House and 31-9 in the Senate. No members of either branch changed their vote in the week between the bill’s passage and Thursday’s veto override.
I disagree with the idea in this article that this wasn’t predictable, if you have a one party state dominated by tax and spend liberals the idea that said liberals would vote themselves pay raises with impunity and do, not only in the middle of Super Bowl fever in NE but time it so the maximum possible amount of time can pass between the passage of such a law the next time they have to face the voters is in my opinion entirely predictable.
However I have an idea for Governor Baker that will really resonate with voters: Baker should declare the statehouse a “Sanctuary building for taxpayers” and instruct the state treasurer and comptroller not to enforce the pay raise law for any person who works within said building.
I suspect if he did so not only would he get a ton of publicity and keep this story alive for the midterms but he would likely win reelection by such a large margin that you might not be able to count the votes.
If I was Chairperson Christian Hugues rather than press releases like this:
“The silence from these statewide Democrats has been deafening: Taxpayers have been waiting for weeks to see whether AG Healey, Secretary Galvin, and Treasurer Goldberg will stand with them. But it seems they’d rather duck the tough questions and allow the Legislature to go forward with this underhanded scheme that benefits them, despite public outcry.” -MassGOP Chairman Kirsten Hughes
I’d be pushing my “Sanctuary building for taxpayers” idea , it’s the best opening they state has had to create dramatic change in the composition of the legislature in decades and she should jump at it.
Speaking of sanctuaries it appears Berkley is a sanctuary if you want to riot, burn and loot in response to a conservative coming to speak http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/02/03/bb-news-daily-milo-berkeley-police/:
they started firing fireworks, throwing eggs and that’s when they started pulling apart the barriers and they tipped over that light stand that had a diesel generator in it, that’s what caused the fire and lit the tree on fire. And the police effectively did nothing, nothing while we were there.”
“I think the fact that there were no arrests,” said Marlow, “at the violent protests at UC Berkeley that shut down speech, that prevented your event from going forward and really broke the heart of a lot of fans as well, lets not underestimate that as well, people are entitled to have performers that they enjoy and go see them, it was a very unfortunate upsetting event and no on got arrested which to me sends a signal that this can go on over and over and it just is gonna embolden the left and Tej as a security expert what are your thoughts on that?”
“It just fuels the fire,” replied Tej, “the no arrest thing, hands off policy, every time they do this and they do it successfully with no arrest, no trouble, there’s no consequences and if there’s no consequences why stop? Each time they’re gonna get stronger and stronger.”
In fairness there were not NO arrests but you can count the number of people arrested on the thumb of one hand.
Speaking of sanctuary I think Marc Lamont Hill needed sanctuary from Ben Ferguson who asked him point blank: “Tell me the last time a bunch of conservatives went to a college campus and acted this way?”
The response to that question spoke volumes.
It looks like those rioting leftist at Berkeley who wanted Sanctuary from Milo Yiannopoulos are going to be disappointed:
Milo Yiannopoulos made an announcement Saturday morning that may have members of the East Bay up in arms all over again.
He says he is planning on returning to Berkeley to give the speech he was unable to deliver earlier this week when chaos broke out over his appearance.
“I’m planning to return to Berkeley to give the speech I was prevented from delivering,” Yiannopoulos said in a Facebook post. “Hopefully within the next few months. I’ll keep you posted.”
But the real people who will need sanctuary will be former DHS head & UCAL system head Janet Napolitano, and Berkley mayor Jessie Arreguin
Napolitano, along with the Mayor of Berkeley, Jesse Arreguin, failed to request adequate assistance to prevent the violence that had been signaled by Leftists who cannot survive an airing of contrary views. Evidently, officers were issued orders and/or lacked equipment that could have prevented the violence that caused cancellation of the lecture. Water cannons are made for the purpose of breaking up violent mobs before they can do their worst. If the Campus police or Berkeley PD lack the equipment, there must be other agencies that have water cannons. The masked, unformed, armed thugs who marched onto the Berkeley campus could have been thwarted much earlier. They were already violating the law, and should have been ordered to disperse. As the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Napolitano ought to have been supremely qualified to understand and overcome the threat.
I’ll wager both will not be very happy with making the choice of protecting Milo and upholding the law vs ignoring the law and allowing people to see that those who cry Nazi at Milo do so with mendacity.
Speaking of Sanctuary, I have yet to see any major coverage of this story that we reported on here last week:
Did President Trump just solve the migrant crisis with a single phone call? pic.twitter.com/eIu2BlakLx
— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) January 30, 2017
You would think that a deal to protect Syrian Refugees by giving them Sanctuary in Syria financed by the Saudi’s would be an incredible breakthrough and not only national but international news, but it’s been a week and as far as the MSM is concerned it didn’t happen.
But apparently the press needed sanctuary from that story.
Apparently while the rich may be largely in favor of sanctuary cities in the US but they seem to be taking sanctuary themselves:
uber-rich Americans who have recently bought homes there include the billionaire hedge-fund pioneer Julian Robertson and the Hollywood film director James Cameron.
Local estate agents say their U.S. clients rarely intend to live in New Zealand, but cite reasons for their purchases such as the toxic presidential election and the spate of mass shootings in America.
In the first ten months of last year, foreigners — mainly Australians and Americans — bought nearly 1,400 square miles of land there, more than four times what they bought in the same period the previous year.
And one of the biggest open border folks Mark Zukerberg of Facebook is making a sanctuary right here in the US
Mark Zuckerberg’s construction of a 6-foot wall around his oceanfront property in Hawaii has reportedly made him a lightning rod in the community.
The wall around the 32-year-old Facebook billionaire’s more than 700-acre Kilauea property is reportedly being built to block noise from nearby roads.
Walls for me and not for thee
It’s looking like the Little Sisters of the Poor will finally get sanctuary from the heavy hand of the Federal government:
After a draft of a religious freedom executive order from President Donald Trump was leaked to the media, a group of Catholic nuns have once again found themselves in the spotlight.
“I am aware of the draft executive order that seems to be circulating as of the last couple of days,” Sister Constance Veit, director of communications for the Little Sisters of the Poor in the U.S., told The Daily Signal on Friday. “It’s just a very hopeful sign that things could be coming to an end.”
The Little Sisters of the Poor are a group of nuns who care for the elderly poor. Under Obamacare, they argued the government refused to accommodate their pro-life religious beliefs by forcing them to be involved in the coverage of contraceptives and abortifacients.
Some might have thought that going after a bunch of nuns who take care of poor old people might have been a bug of Obamacare but to the left that was a feature.
We’ve heard the press say a lot about “fake news” but apparently in the under 3 weeks that Donald Trump has been president they have taken sanctuary from pesky things like facts:
Journalists can’t seem to get their stories straight in the opening weeks of the Trump administration, whether in tweets or in articles where falsehoods have been spread almost daily.
The mistakes have not just been from newer liberal news outlets such The Huffington Post or BuzzFeed, but from legacy media like Reuters, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
and it’s getting embarrassing
@SCClemons @SecretService advising that your reporting continues to be false. Still waiting for you to contact us for official statement.
— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) February 3, 2017
Remember this is only 3 weeks in, can you imagine what this will happen over four years.
When I started this post in the Am on Sunday the question was can the Atlanta Falcons and Roger Goodell will be able to take sanctuary from Tom Brady but more importantly for the NFL will be a sanctuary from the political conflicts for those who love the game. As I update this in the 3rd quarter with Atlanta leading by 25 so Roger Goodell is likely dancing in the streets but more importantly Lady Gaga decided her songs were liberal enough so she decided to shut up and sing meaning that the NFL was able to get sanctuary from the left meaning football fans won’t have to take sanctuary from the game.
Frankly if Brady & the pats were not playing I wouldn’t give a damn and if it wasn’t Brady on that field I’d consider this game over.
UPDATE: Unfortunately for Atlanta that was in fact Brady on the field and I suspect those extra four weeks of rest came in handy in those final 18 minutes. You have to go back to William Tecumseh Sherman to find a bunch of Georgia boys more manhandled by an invader from the North.
Update 2: Instalanche, thanks Sarah.
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