Opinion
By Dave Scott, 1-13-23
Que Pasa? Like me you’re probably hearing more Spanish spoken in the local grocery stores, on downtown Fernandina streets, in malls and elsewhere hereabouts.
It’s obvious these folks aren’t tourists. They didn’t disembark from a cruise ship, with name tags dangling around their necks, pointing aged index fingers at the 3rd and Centre Street Fudge Shop while glancing up from town maps.
And is it my imagination or are the “International Food” sections in local grocery stores taking up more and more shelf space? We’ve even got one entire grocery near downtown Fernandina devoted entirely to Hispanic foods. It’s the only place in Nassau County where I can buy menudo, a traditional Hispanic hangover cure, if you can get past the tripe floating around in its spicy broth. I intentionally attended a menudo cook-off in Texas once but that’s a story for a future column.
Meanwhile back at the ranch we’ll continue to hear even more linguistic chatter as the torrent of illegals crossing into the U.S. on the country’s southern border increases daily under Biden’s open border program.
No matter what Biden and his deceitful administrative lackeys say, there is absolutely no enforcement on the U.S. border. It’s wide open. Mexican crime cartels are in charge of the U.S. southern border and control it with deadly efficiency and without interference by any authority.
Biden and the incompetents running his administration yammer on about women’s rights and nonsensical gender blather yet ignore the open border which facilitates rape and a massive sex trafficking business for the cartels. Biden’s hypocritical leftist flunkies say they are for helping addicts and then open the border to massive fentanyl trafficking that killed 107,000 Americans last year.
It’s difficult to blame the masses of desperate people who pay the cartels an average of $6,000 each to guide them across the border. Even the dangerous and filthy, crime-ridden streets of the Democrat-run cities of Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, etc. are cleaner and safer than many of the hellholes these determined people are fleeing. But there is a limit to what the American people are willing to tolerate and what the country can afford. Even some of the Democrats are actually calling for enforcement.
Border cities in Texas and Arizona are suffering the most. The Democrat mayor of El Paso declared a national emergency despite the pleadings of Joe Biden not to. The streets of his city, and even that city’s airport, are overflowing with illegals who have set up camps there. Well, they were until last Sunday, when the streets were briefly cleansed so Biden wouldn’t have to look at the chaotic mess he created during his photo-op three-hour border stop-over.
Border cities of Eagle Pass, TX, Yuma, AZ, and more are teeming with homeless illegals who are overwhelming those city’s hospitals, schools, and other social services functions, not to mention damaging private property and terrifying local citizens.
Even the “sanctuary” cities of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, etc. are crying “Uncle” saying they can’t manage the influx of illegals being shipped to them by fed-up officials in the border states. The Democrat mayors of New York and Chicago are even telling the Democrat governor of Colorado to stop sending them any more illegals, they’re full they say.
U.S. government-funded planes loaded with illegals arrive daily in U.S. cities including Jacksonville in the dead of night. Many of the aliens aboard them are making their way to Nassau County where tax-paying residents are paying for their support.
They come here destitute, unable to speak English, and with little to no education or skills. How many servers, dishwashers, and cooks do Pepper’s and Pablo’s need?
Do these people have criminal records, covid or other infectious diseases? Who knows! They aren’t vetted. Some are even on the terrorist “No-Fly” list. Where do they stay? How do they contribute? Who pays for their healthcare, lodging and education? What are they up to, particularly the ones on the “No-Fly” list?
Biden and his bungling group of do-nothings won’t do anything to stem this constant and dangerous flow of illegals. Fortunately some state politicians like Florida’ s Governor Ron DeSantis are taking action.
Governor DeSantis signed a bill in 2020 that put Florida businesses on notice. It requires private employers to verify a person’s employment eligibility after accepting an offer for a job.
Companies that violate that law could find themselves out of business.
The state requires an affidavit from each company to demonstrate they are performing the verifications. The affidavit must say that the company has terminated the employment of all unauthorized aliens employed by the company in the state of Florida, will not intentionally or knowingly employ an unauthorized alien in the state of Florida, will fully comply with section 448.095(3)(b), Florida Statutes. The law was enacted on January 1st, 2021, after a DeSantis signature in 2020.
Companies do not have unlimited time to comply with this final warning. The state expects to receive the affidavits within 30 days of sending the letters. If the companies fail to respond in the given time, yet again, the state will begin suspending their business licenses.
U.S. citizens have enough problems. The average American is faced with the inflationary cost of food, gasoline, heating fuel, and many other commodities and Joe Biden is adding millions of mouths for us to feed, house, educate, and provide medical care. Biden is creating a massive welfare state with his illegal open border policy.
How is this flow of illegals impacting folks hereabouts, particularly the Nassau County School System? More about that next week. Let me know if you’ve got a story to tell about this situation.
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Democracy At Work: Democrats and their supporters who were gleeful at what they perceived as Republican chaos during the Speaker of the House selection procedure last week will be unpleasantly surprised in the coming weeks.
That messy part of democracy resulted in concessions that were successfully negotiated, ending with California Congressman Kevin McCarthy as the new House Speaker.
Based on the reams of information I’ve shifted through, the conservative Freedom Caucus members successfully negotiated and won a number of major issues, including one that addresses the current border crisis. They are:
- Something called “The Texas Border Plan” will be put before Congress. It aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.’”
- It will only take a single congressperson, to move to remove the Speaker if he goes back on his word or policy agenda.
- A committee will be convened to look into the “weaponization” of the FBI and other government organizations (the CIA, Homeland Security, IRS, etc.) against the American people.
- Funding for 87,000 new IRS agents will be halted and they already voted to stop it. It’s up to the Senate now.
- Term limits will be put up for a vote.
- Bills presented to Congress will be single subject, not omnibus with all the attendant earmark waste and there will be a 72-hour minimum period enabling elected officials to read them.
- Covid mandates will be ended as will all funding for them, including so-called “emergency funding.”
- Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable as well.
I don’t see a single issue to argue about.
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Wait! What? The Energy Department recently admitted that the Keystone Pipeline shutdown cost 16,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic growth. What took them so long? And if they knew it, why did they do it? The incompetence and ineptitude of the Biden administration has no limits.
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Who Ya Gonna Call? When residents go to the Fernandina Beach City website to obtain an email address for a City Commissioner, they are directed to a form.
I used the form to send emails to two commissioners. One responded about two days later and I have yet to hear from the other one. In the past the commissioners direct emails were posted on the city site, and I never had an issue sending questions and receiving answers. The print Fernandina Beach News Leader used to post them weekly, but stopped when the new form appeared.
So, I find it odd that in City Manager Dale Martin’s weekly comments letter posted in selected city news outlets, he tells citizens to contact their commissioners by using the following direct email addresses, never mentioning the bureaucratic form on the city’s website.
Here’s how to email the city’s elected officials according to Mr. Martin:
- Mayor Bradley Bean [email protected]
- Vice Mayor David Sturges [email protected]
- Commissioner James Antun [email protected]
- Commissioner Darron Ayscue [email protected]
- Commissioner Chip Ross [email protected]
Use these, they are far more effective than the city’s silly form. Even City Manager Martin figured this out
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Last Minute Addition: Like me, alert reader Harrison Waller noticed something odd about the site’s most recent poll adding a recent last-minute comment saying: “Dave, someone is manipulating the poll, it has changed dramatically over the past few days. Do you want the newly aligned Fernandina Beach City Commission to embark on a series of budgetary restraints, property tax reductions, budget reductions, hiring freezes, etc,? Yes (50%, 161 Votes) No (50%, 160 Votes)”.
The system is designed so folks can only vote once and I have no way of knowing who votes or how. In the past couple of days the “No” votes jumped from 36% to 50%. Are there really folks out there who want to pay more in property taxes? Are they’ve organized? My guess is it’s a group of city employees and/or supporters of the disgruntled losing Commission candidates. Any other conjectures? I’d welcome an explanation by any of those folks who voted that they don’t want reduced property taxes, a city hiring freeze, or budgetary restraints. Tell us why.
Republished with the author’s permission. Read The Dave Scott Blog– subscribe Free
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
