Here’s to the losers, and 12 more months of irrelevance for this superstar. I started out last January in obscurity wondering how I could tell an important story, in this peon’s opinion, about the illegal alien community. 14 months later I’m still seeking out one reporter to sit down with me, talk, and then travel to Mexico where the story picks up after 5 years here.. I’ve tried every trick, to bring attention to myself and this fixation I have with Mexico and the friend who’s probably back home now for good. The amnesty issue as well, is still unresolved, but it will pop up again as a hot potato for the next administration.
Sometimes when someone feels that strongly about a cause they run for political office. I ran for United States Congress in New Jersey last fall. 1200 votes later I’m now writing diaries in the Daily Kos, and getting critiqued on my writing skills and spelling. This shmuck puts his name to his diary, so give me a friggin break!
With that cantankerous introduction behind me, I’d like to denigrate myself a little more and say to the fourth estate, the establishment, the status quo; any voyeurs I pick up who don’t like me; and especially the government of Mexico: Up Yours!
After escorting two illegal alien friends back to Mexico last year, I came home supremely confident I was privy to all kinds of unique insights into that economically broken down but geographically beautiful country. I sought out that one reporter to possibly accompany me back there and meet the family of the two guys who had sanctuary in my house for 5 years. This diary could be a forward in a book about the underground illegal community, about me, and about the one exceptional brother I’d like to help. I don’t write that well I've been told. How many times do I have to promise a Pulitzer to someone who does? I’ve saved every e-mail in that regard.
Besides a paranoid neighbor (there were 2 Mexicans not 50) on disability (cough) from the New York Fire Department; my entire street, the police department in my town, the company where he worked on the books, and where he never claimed thousands of dollars on income tax refunds he was due; everybody was well aware of his comings and goings.
He was known to the prosecutor’s office in my county and to a community service organization where he worked off his punishment. For three months after a long days work in the concrete industry, my friend helped set up Thursday night bingo at the local church; the aforementioned community service. This was in addition to the fines, and court costs (not insignificant) for a speeding ticket.(Scared you needlessly)
Later, inexplicably, but possibly as a result of his scrubbed criminal history (another muffled cough) , his excellent demeanor, his work ethic, plus his recently learned 2nd language skills; a summons to be in a jury pool was mailed to him at our address. Unfortunately he was living permanently abroad by then and he wouldn’t have been allowed back in the country for even more community service; and the $10(?) a day stipend. He makes $10 dollars a day anyway breaking his back in Mexico.
That anecdote and the rest of the story, is never going to make Paul Harvey’s broadcast. Paul Harvey might be one of the few people I didn’t try contacting in 08. If he’s alive and still doing his gig, I say stuff it, with all due respect to our age difference. Sorry, but that’s for all the other elitists I tried to contact in your industry in 08.
So I didn’t find one reporter then and I still haven’t found one yet, but in between, as I alluded to above, I got, not for the first time in my life, an inspiration that would have made Ralph Kramden proud. I’d file and run for United States House of Representatives. Better than a bus driver I’d be the first janitor (I qualify) to unseat a 7 term incumbent congressman. And was I ahead of the curve when you think about all the notoriety that would later come Joe the Plumber’s way, an heir to Ed Norton.
My local paper was having none of it. Up yours Atlantic City Press for the 20 th time! I won’t kiss your behind, like one of the other independent challengers in the 2nd did, for a paltry one or two paragraphs about us, in a Saturday edition, that was neither above nor under any fold, but buried inside section B next to the obituaries.
No thanks here for the unfair and uneven coverage of three debates that Mr. Term Limits couldn’t avoid, because the economy was starting its free fall. You’d need an archivist to find any coverage of the informative, and inclusive third debate, the one following the debate the night before, that you, The Atlantic City Press sponsored. That 2nd one was thoroughly covered and thoroughly excluded four of us independents. That debate was an unseemly affair in a small room that was packed with union shills from the Atlantic City trades brotherhood, who counter intuitively, disingenuously and disgustingly cheered for the Republican. The Republican. Very classy. One of the independents, not me, got led away by the police for protesting our exclusion, and got a nice picture in the paper the next day. He was 30 years old and a Green Party candidate. I e-mailed Jason Grover that night and said I approved what he did but that he was fortunate to be 30 years old and maybe get some slack for that stunt. I meant it. He never responded by e-mail back (sound familiar?), or acknowledged the next night at that 3rd and last debate. He’s more of an elitist and tough guy than me.
That 3rd and last debate unfortunately was sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Who ever heard of them? Additionally it was held in a nice large auditorium with 6 of us sitting on stage, with a local radio station broadcasting live, but only to a very small portion of the district. Area wise the 2nd is the largest district by far in New Jersey. Was Cape May Court House too far to travel for Dan Walsh, after covering the debate the night before for the AC Press? Did he have some kind of hangover? He was assigned to htis campaign from the beginning. We still hadn’t met, and never would. Where was the chief political reporter who aked the debate questions the night before, and who I talked with on phone several months back? Since when is covering our congressman at election debates a part time affair?
The panelist’s questions at my favorite debate, the 3rd one the next night, were broad ranging and relevant compared to the night before’s high falutin (sic, hah!) stuff by the Press’s aforementioned, but underwhelming chief political reporter. If I was invited to that second debate would I have also answered in lockstep, with union shills breathing down your neck and yelping it up for the Republican? (the Republican) Right to unionize, right to privacy, right to work? Who cares! The country is agonizingly and slowly, possibly entering a depression. I asked Mr. So and So chief political reporter for the AC Press, (I recognized him) before the debate if he thought it unseemly, like I did, that the audience was packed by union workers rooting for an incumbent Republican? (Did you know the union picks events for members and they must attend several of them each year? This one was indoors) He professed not to know who they were there for. He didn't see the welcoming committee for LoBiondo at the table where you walked in offering free yard signs? Guess who the paper endorsed later? The Democrat didn’t have a chance.
Alright already, I’m going on and on as usual. Read all about it if you can stand anymore in the www.theyokelnews.com. (and turn up the volume). I can’t seem to get over it. I started out this screed hoping to publicly denounce Mexico for the 100th time, not to attack LoBiondo or the AC Press. Or maybe I did?
I’ll have to play catch up now. Up yours United States Customs Agency. (That’s my unauthorized Bronx cheer on behalf of US Airways) If it wasn’t for Customs constantly changing ID requirements for citizens returning to Mexico I’d never have acquired 6 free transferable round trip tickets to anywhere on the continent plus the Caribbean. I went to Mexico four times in one year.
I used a half a ticket to return to the US after driving a loaded Chevrolet Suburban blissfully from NJ to the Texas-Mexican border, and then with my friend meeting me in Matamoras, driving very miserably down towards Mexico City, when we really got see some southern hospitality. More about that in a minute.
Here’s a footnote before I forget. I used a half a ticket to travel to Phoenix. I was there visiting the friend who would later post www.theyokelnews.com , my unusual attempt to sway the electorate right before the election. Turn up the volume. I attended a congressional debate for the two candidates vying for the Democratic slot opposite Congressman Jeff Flake. The primary was in early September the debate was one week earlier. No coverage at all the next day in the Arizona Republic, although they did announce the debate the day before. Isn’t that peachy keen? Second footnote. When I filed in Trenton last June I met an independent candidate named Michael Hsing. He was from the 7th district, and he would later bang his head against the wall many times attempting to be included in any debates with Leonard Lance and the Democrat Linda Stender. That was a big race for an open seat. Hsing raised more money than the Republican Lance in the second quarter filing and was polling 9% according to Stenders pollsters. So the four of us down here in S. Jersey had it easier, but on a whole it’s still impossible to get elected. History shows.
Back to Mexico and my nice Chevy Suburban, and soon to be his Chevy truck. A lot of details might have to wait. (Any journalist knows where to reach me.) Stopped once in Matamoras by a clown patrolling on basically a moped, for a $5 bribe, and then twice more, getting more expensive and dangerous each time. In Tampico, it was $50 bucks, but not before we were separated into two police cars. Perhaps they don’t like Americans and Mexicans intermingling?
My friend being home only one month, and still fairly Americanized, was a little embarrassed by my introduction to this blatant police corruption; and I don’t like being jerked around either; so we determined to hold out when we got stopped the inevitable third time. See we did absolutely nothing wrong to warrant getting stopped the first time when I was driving, or the second time, and yes, you guessed it, the third time when he was driving. The travel guides make it sound like being pulled over is not to be missed. The police are under paid, you must have been doing something or another wrong in the first place, and you’re spared sending a check or going to traffic court; and you can tell your friends about it back home.
There was nothing amusing about the posse in Puebla outside of Mexico City. The first officer was taller than me and wasn’t riding the usual 200 cc Brazilian scooter. No, they got some expensive, real bikes to maintain. Milwaukee, Wiss., York, PA’s, and one of the U.S.’s finest exports. Hogs. We had gotten pulled over again thanks to my New Jersey plates. Go right ahead Patrolman Smith, use your cell phone and call the station house and announce we’re on our way. Five hours later that first cop told my friend he couldn’t believe how stupid we where and now the chief gets the entire $800 bucks, and he gets nothing. His fine supervisor, also about 6ft tall, and one Puebla's finest public servants wanted $2000. When we held out they promised to have someone physically remove me from the truck and were going to put my friend in jail. And get this; they said you’d never see the damage to my lower body. (As their hostage my friend also served as an interpreter.) I could have left him and been on my way with a good home cooked meal waiting at his house (if I ever got there). It was still two hours away and my Spanish ain’t too good. My friend negotiated the $800.
Perhaps we could have stayed, him in jail, me somewhere, and fought them the next day. Something tells you not to leave the truck in their impound. Accidents can and will happen. Why could I leave in the truck initially, but not later? There are no good answers.
Long story short, we made it home very late. There was road construction going on for miles, and miles, although I didn’t see too many heavy trucks and equipment parked to the side; so I suggest you stay away from Puebla for at least the next year. Once we left Puebla, all it takes is for one road sign to be missing, pointing in the right direction, and you can see we we’re just having a ball.....
We went to re-new his drivers license the next day one town over. One stop at motor vehicle and two stops at two different police stations. It’s in a triangular pattern, and it took half a day. Inside the one station stood a young man that refused to pay his shakedown the night before, either because he didn’t have money on him late at night, or because he was more principled then even us. We got off very easy when you consider that the station cops had to apologize for their skunk who unscrewed the young man’s license plate the previous night, and claimed to have lost it in less then 24 hours. You don’t replace a plate there as simply as you do here, so the police gave him a receipt to carry in his car when he inevitably gets pulled over again, this time for driving without a plate.
My friend asked me that night if I remembered a young lady who stuck her head in the door and greeted the police, and if I do, what she said. A rhetorical question because of course I didn’t. She called the two policeman at the substation F***** Rats. They laughed and asked each other who’s the biggest rat. Funny we were only there 30 minutes.
That’s a little taste of 08 and Mexico and why I said over, and over, and over, and over as the candidate nobody knew was running; a vote for me is a vote for us to get tough with the Mexican government. How? Issue drivers licenses now for illegals, but play hard ball with the amnesty issue. (Poor Eliot Spitzer, before his other troubles.) There are 40 or 50 million legal Hispanics here and 12 million illegals, many of whom send back remittances. Don’t! And don’t visit down there and clue the relatives back home in on the strategy. The rest of us will cheer and hopefully we’ll all support amnesty then.
Focus these clowns running Mexico into getting their house in order, but start practicing honest government hundreds of miles away from the drug cartels where it’s much safer. Unleach the economy. It’s an idea at least, and it’s close to home. What can we the small fry’s do about Russia, Africa or the Middle East anyway?* What can we accomplish? Much, much better diarists than me aren’t allowed on the home page of the Kos, there’s a another sign where we stand. You got to have a pecking order, and I know where I fit in now. Up yours!
*p.s. Want to see how screwy I could be? Why don’t Israeli’s sell 80% of their land back to these maniacs, keep 20% for their own fanatics, including Jerusalem, and move to Mexico and fix the infrastructure? Just a fantasy, but what the hell is going to happen there eventually? Up mine sideways!