Trust these Opinions on Need for Wall

Do we need a wall along our Mexican border, or don't we? That question isn't answered by op-ed writers claiming that President Donald Trump has "vilified" the "vast majority" of those arriving in the caravans.

Here are four fact-based opinions from Americans who have dedicated their lives to securing our borders -- people who by their training and experience are experts.

-- U.S. Customs and Border Control Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to Fox News, Dec. 17, 2018:
"We absolutely need a wall. This is what our agents on the ground have told me they need to control the border. ... I've been doing this for two decades. Border patrol agents have always wanted more barriers on the border to help them do their job. It's the only way you can stop large groups from flowing across. ...

"There are areas of the border where you've got large population centers on the south side, and immediate access to transportation hubs or neighborhoods on the north side. You got to have a wall in between those areas to help us slow down people from crossing. In other areas of the border, technology is a great solution."

When the interviewer suggested that 80 percent of fentanyl enters the U.S. at ports of entry, and that we'd be better off spending the money for detection equipment at the ports, McAleenan replied:

"We need both. The president's budget requests both. What we see are narcotics coming in between the ports in increasing numbers. They're using these groups of families to divert our agents, and then bring smugglers in behind with narcotics. ... Barriers prevent that kind of activity. The No. 1 priority sector is in the Rio Grande valley. That's the No. 1 crossing point for human smugglers. ...

"The $5 billion would help us shut down the south Texas corridor all the way to Laredo, and bolster security at El Paso and El Centro."


-- Trump's Border Patrol chief Carla Provost to Fox News, Dec. 13, 2018:

"We certainly do need a wall. Talk to any border agent and they will tell you that ... The new wall system integrates technology with the wall. It is much sturdier, has anti-dig features [and] detection technology, and is set up to attach additional technology. It's really [an entire] system. ...

"The president has listened to my men and women on the ground and has listened to me as we have described what we need to secure the border. We need the impedance that the wall brings, we need more technology and more agents on the grounds. ...

"In the first two month of the year we have apprehended over 100,000 people crossing between the ports of entry. ... Obviously we have a lot of bad actors in the group. The wall helps us as we operate .... it helps [us] do our job and makes the border communities safer."


-- U.S. Border Patrol Acting Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz to Fox news, Jan. 12:

"We have 55 miles of fencing in this (McAllen, Texas) sector. We started this job in 2006; we need to finish it. We've got the personnel. We need the technology; we need the infrastructure to control and manage it. Part of our area is covered with fencing on our east side. That accounts for about 6 percent of our traffic. Where we have no fencing, over 90 percent of our traffic occurs in those areas."

-- President Barack Obama's Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan to Fox News, Jan. 12:

"Walls absolutely work. ... The president's right. ... The president of the Border Control Council is right. ... I cannot think of a legitimate argument why anyone would not support a wall as part of a multi-layered border security [system] ... When the president says this is a national security issue, he is right.

"I agree 100 percent with what the president is trying to do with all things related to border security. ... This is based on 30 years of governmental service. It is based on walking the same ground you saw the president walking, talking to the ranchers, talking to the land owners, talking to the border patrol agents who risk their lives every single day.

"I'm telling you this is absolutely a national security and humanitarian crisis along the south west border. In 2006 ... the same language that is being used by our president today was being used by former presidents and politicians on both sides of the aisle saying that we needed a fence, a wall, a physical barrier. ...

"The strategy that they put forth a long time ago, of infrastructure, technology and personnel -- that multi-layered approach -- has been the approach since the beginning. That multi-layered approach works."

Morgan was with the FBI for 20 years. Watch the video (searchable at video.foxnews.com). This guy is impressive. He was special agent in charge of the El Paso office on the border.

Posted: QCOline.com   February 21, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea

Give Americans the Whole Truth About the Wall

In every jury trial, the jurors are the "finders of the facts" -- the sole judges of the facts.

That means that the jurors decide the case by hearing the witnesses, evaluating their truthfulness, and deciding the weight to be given to the testimony of each.

But occasionally, after hearing the evidence, the jury comes away with the impression that all the witnesses on both sides are telling half-truths, if not outright lies. How does a jury render a true verdict when every witness is either lying or telling half-truths?

In the realm of American politics, the voters are the judges of the facts. So how do the voters find the "true" facts when the Democrat and Republican politicians supported by their partisan medias each have their own parallel versions of "truth?"

I suggest that the voters are put in an impossible position. Decision making by the voters is reduced to a crap-shoot; to emotion, luck.

To illustrate my point, and not to criticize, I reference two recent opinion pieces that appeared on this page. Consider the two parallel impressions of the president's recent immigration speech to the nation.

Dan Lee: "As I watched President Donald Trump’s address to the nation last Tuesday evening, I was saddened by the spectacle that was unfolding in the Oval Office -- a spectacle that diminished the dignity of the highest office in our nation."

Jay Ambrose: "Donald Trump can look like a president. He can act like a president. He can talk like a president. He proved as much in last Tuesday’s TV speech on getting $5.7 billion for a more secure border...."

Lee: "After Trump stated that 'innocent people' are being 'horribly victimized' by immigrants who commit crimes, [Shepard] Smith [Fox News] observed, “The government’s statistics show that there is less violent crime by the undocumented immigrant population than by the general population.”

Ambrose: "On the trip to America, up to six out of every 10 women are raped, according to Amnesty International. ... Over the past two years ICE officers arrested illegal aliens who had been charged or convicted of assault (100,000), sex crimes (30,000) and violent killings (4,000). A higher percentage of natives than illegal immigrants commit serious crimes, but that hardly means it is not a worry as still more Americans die."

Lee: "(There is a) flow of heroin and other illicit drugs through ports of entry. This is done in various ways. In some cases, heroin and other illicit drugs are hidden in secret compartments in cars going through the checkpoints. In other cases, it is mixed in with legitimate cargo in trucks crossing the border. ... This illicit activity must be stopped. Building a higher wall, however, will have no impact on it."

Ambrose: "(The President said) a whole slew of illegal drugs come across the border, and fact checkers said lots of them came from other places as well. But they did not deny Trump was right in saying that 90 percent of heroin comes across the border, killing 300 a week."

Lee: "An expensive wall will do nothing to stem the flow of heroin and other deadly drugs into this country."

Ambrose: "(Speaker Nancy) Pelosi, is wrong that walls are ineffective. They are highly effective."


So what is the American voter to do when politicians and members of the press have such radically different "expert" opinions? Do hard facts support either opinion?

Opinions aside, here are three examples of hard facts:

1. Israel has security barriers. In 2002, the year before construction was started, 457 Israelis were murdered by terrorists and suicide bombers; in 2009, after construction, only 9.

2. In 2014, the average cost of educating a child in U.S. public schools was $11,155. Therefore, the annual cost of educating 725,000 non-citizen illegal alien children was $8 billion. The cost of educating 3.2 million children born in the U. S. (and therefore, citizens) of illegal alien parents was an additional $35.7 billion.

3. U.S. citizens murdered or killed by illegal aliens include: Pierce Corcoran, Officer Ronil Singh, Justin Lee, Mollie Tibbitts, and most recently, Connie Koontz, Sophia Renken (age 74), Gerald and Sharon David (ages 80 and 81), et. al.

The American people need the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A decision based on rank opinion and emotions will probably be political and wrong.

So, do we build a wall or not? The American people need honest facts. So, why not listen to the men and women charged with protecting our border?

See my next op-ed.

Posted: QCOline.com   February 14, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea

A Baby after Birth is a "Person" possessed of all Constitutional Rights (Editor's caption: "There's no denying, this abortion bill murder")

Is it murder for a doctor and a mother to kill a baby minutes after its birth if its mother consents? You're damn right it is!


On this issue, those who believe in the right to life cannot compromise.


If you intentionally kill your mother without lawful justification, you have committed matricide. The act of intentionally killing one's father without lawful justification is patricide. Killing one's brother is fratricide. A parent who kills his son or daughter without justification commits filicide.


But are matricide, patricide, fratricide and filicide anything less than murder? Or does murder cease to be murder when we give it a fancy Latin name? Do we "justify” a father's murder of his 2-year-old son simply because we label the strangling of the child filicide? Do we excuse a married woman when she stabs her husband to death in his sleep, as "merely matricide?"


If the killing relieves "stress" or "anxiety," is that "lawful justification?"


In this country, a person who kills another person without lawful justification commits murder if, in performing the acts which cause death, he either:

1. Intends to kill or do great bodily harm to the other person, or

2. Knows that such acts will cause death to the other person, or

3. Knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to the other.


The principle lawful justification is self defense. In Illinois a person is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another.


On Jan. 28, Democratic state Rep. Kathy Tran testified before the Virginia House in support of a proposed bill to remove abortion restrictions. She was questioned by Todd Gilbert, the Republican chairman of a Virginia House committee.


Gilbert: "How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated it would impair the mental health of a woman?"


Tran: "The physical health ...."

Gilbert: "I'm talking about the mental health."

Tran: "So, I mean through the third trimester. The third trimester goes up to 40 weeks."

Gilbert: "So, to the end of the third trimester?"

Tran: "Yes, I don't think we have a limit in the bill."

Gilbert: "So, where it is obvious a woman is about to give birth ... where she has physical signs she is about to give birth .... Would that be the point at which she could request an abortion if it was so certified? She's dilating ...."

Tran: "Mr. Chairman, that would be a decision that the doctor, the physician and the woman would make at that point ..."

Gilbert: "I understand that. I am asking if your bill allows that. "

Tran: "My bill would allow that, yes."


In the hours that followed, Virginia's Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam gave a radio interview in 

which he supported delegate Tran's bill, and even went a step further. 

           “So in this particular example if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what 

           would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. 

           The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and 

           then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”


Note what Northam said: "The infant would be delivered .... kept comfortable." It would then be up to the mother and the doctors to decide whether a baby should be killed.


At the time established by Northam, we are not talking about an embryo, or a fetus. We are talking about a completely born baby, a human person.


What Northam would allow is murder. Infanticide, no less than matricide, patricide and filicide, is murder. It is the intentional killing of another person without lawful justification.


The child is born. The mother survived. Where is the genuine threat of "imminent death or great bodily harm" to the mother at that point in time?


Or are we now going to permit mothers and fathers to justify murdering their children because the child creates stress, anxiety, or other emotional or financial problems for the family? And if you are justified in murdering your newborn because it cause stress or anxiety, why can't a father logically and justifiably kill his daughter to eliminate the stress caused by her marrying a Christian?


The very same progressives who would shower any 1-year-old child who crosses our southern border with free attorneys and a full panoply of Constitutional rights would deny those very same rights to any other child born in Virginia.


Once we deny the personhood of a baby that has just been born, we are no better than slave holders and Nazis. Killing Jews and babies without lawful justification is murder.


Posted: QCOline.com   February 7, 2019
Copyright 2019, John Donald O'Shea