Jack of Harts

In a galaxy torn by war, where battles shatter civilizations, the heart of family endures. From adoptions that bridge species to foster homes offering refuge to aliens and humans alike, love becomes the ultimate rebellion against conflict. Discover uplifting tales of unlikely kin—blood, chosen, or found—building havens of hope amidst chaos. In this heartwarming collection, explore the lives of those who choose compassion over strife, the consequences that reshape worlds, and the reasons why family, in all its forms, is the brightest light in the darkest times. A feel-good celebration of unity and resilience that will leave you inspired.

America has a complicated relationship with Mass Migrations. The fact is that we love them. We wouldn’t exist without them. We were born of a mass migration started by people who wanted religious liberty and built a nation that enshrined it in the highest laws of the land. And though it took us over a century, we built an economic powerhouse that helped lift the world out of poverty and war via continued mass migration.

And even now our companies are always looking for new workers willing to work for less money than someone who grew up in America. Illegal mass immigration into America didn’t start four years ago. Or twelve. Or twenty. An estimated tens of millions of illegal aliens already lived in America when I was young and Reagan was president and the first big border bill compromise between Republicans and Democrats was signed. Republicans promised and delivered amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Democrats promised funding towards border security and then blocked all attempts to follow through on that.

That is not the origin of the old joke about Democrats needing people to do the jobs Americans won’t do. Like voting for Democrats. But when combined with how much Democrats hate requiring photo ID or proof of citizenship to vote, it certainly emphasizes the joke.

Even twenty years ago, twenty or thirty million illegal aliens wasn’t an issue most Americans considered critical. They literally did the jobs other people didn’t want to do. Picking the crops too delicate for machine harvesting. Cleaning hotel rooms. And then they went back home during the winter. It was largely an ebb and flow that most people weren’t concerned about.

Obama changed the manner of mass migration in America, but it took a while for most people to realize it. He granted 1 million green cards to people from all over the world, but targeting Muslim majority countries. And he did not deport five hundred thousand people who overstayed their temporary visas. Yes, he deported millions of illegal aliens who crossed the border, but what does an absolute minimum, documented, 1-2 million person mass migration in eight years look like?

It looks like Third World Ghettos in a dozen or so big cities all across America. Imagine seventy thousand new Somalis in one neighborhood of one city, who are happy to go out and march in favor of killing American cops. Who DO kill cops. And civilians as well. Looking at documented cases here. Imagine a woman born in Somalia, now a Representative of a major American city to our nation’s capital. Imagine entire big city neighborhoods burned down in “mostly peaceful protests.”

That is the destabilizing environment a 1-2 million person mass migration over eight years can help to build. That is one way mass migration can work that most Americans never guessed because we remember building a great and powerful society on it. But if you ask the Indians, growing up on their Indian Reservations, out on the edges of the civilization we built over the last few centuries of our mass migration, they would just nod and smile because they DO remember what mass migration can do to the people who live there.

I watched Ballard over the weekend. It is the latest series in the Bosch family of shows, and I can’t recommend the Bosch shows enough. They are awesome police procedurals with a gruff but competent detective in the lead role. The actors are spot on and do their characters proud, the stories are interesting, and overall they are just good TV. You can get them all on Prime Video as part of Amazon Prime, and they are worth it.

Ballard focuses on a detective introduced in the last year of the Bosch Legacy series, and also gives most of the Bosch actors at least one cameo to show the stuff. Ballard is a good character played by an amazing actor. And that’s as much praise as I can give the Ballard series.

It is woke.

I do not use that term often, because I frankly think it is overused. But this is a case where it is warranted. The main story revolves around the fact that the police are rotten and hopelessly corrupt and pretty much every single fit white male is some form of scumbag, asshole, or otherwise ends up getting treated badly by the show. The team is straight from CW central casting. The team leader, a woman of color, who once again is a great actress who plays the part well. One overweight old white guy. One up and coming eager teenage girl. One old overweight psychic woman. One fit white asshole man who might have a heart of gold if he could find it. And for the final CW casting character reveal, we have the angry fat BLM female who is stuck on the fact that policemen are bad, the police department is evil, black people who join the department are traitors, and other similar shouting rants over and over and over again.

And the less said about the ending the better. I come from a time when TV shows would at least try to leave some form of happy ending, even if there was a tease of more bad stuff to come. This is not that. The whole show drives you through the ringer one episode after another, and then dumps on you some more at the end.

I did not sign up for that when I started watching, and I did not enjoy it. I cannot recommend Ballard to people who liked Bosch. It is not Bosch, and it deviates from Bosch in a bad way.