GOP Gears Up to Take On Obama's Amnesty Order

[mystery-ak]

http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx/?nodeid=615347


Newsmax
GOP Gears Up to Take On Obama's Amnesty Order
Monday, December 29, 2014 09:54 AM

By: Melanie Batley

As the Republican Party prepares to take full control of Congress in the new year, lawmakers are considering a range of proposals on immigration that would enable them to forge their own path distinct from the president's executive action.

According to The Wall Street Journal, many in the party are intent on overturning Obama's orders, but there will also be a focus on new legislation to reform the system, such as border security measures.

"We want to set our own agenda on this," Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Journal. "My bill passing, hopefully in the early part of next year, can lay the groundwork for other measures."

Legislation is slated to be ready from both the House and the Senate as early as late January.

A House bill will likely include provisions to better track illegal crossings, as well as improvements in equipment and technology along the Southwest border, the Journal said.

On the Senate side, legislation will likely provide additional surveillance, fencing, an improved visa-tracking system, and stronger workplace enforcement using the electronic system, E-Verify, to check the legal status of prospective employees.

"Once we pass a strong border security enforcement bill, we'll turn our attention to the other things, as well" to reform immigration policy, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the incoming chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the Journal.

One bill already in the works would create a temporary worker program for low-skilled jobs in industries such as construction and restaurants. Another bill could broaden the availability of visas for high-tech workers.

For his part, President Barack Obama has said he would veto any bills that roll back his plans, and it is unclear whether Democrats or the White House would sign on to new measures if they do not include provisions to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has said that the GOP's chances of winning the White House in 2016 will hinge on its efforts to push through immigration reform.

"If we don't at least make a down payment on solving the problem and rationally dealing with the 11 million [illegal immigrants believed to be in the U.S.], if we become the party of self-deportation in 2015 and 2016, then the chance of winning the White House I think is almost non-existent," he said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

Graham has been a vocal opponent of the president's executive action, accusing Obama of "acting in a rogue fashion" for "political reasons," but he said Republicans need to "do more than just fight the executive order."

Graham supports creating a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, or immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children.

"If the Republican Party cannot muster the political courage to deal with the DREAM Act children in a fair and balanced way after we secure our border, that says a lot about the Republican Party's future regarding the Hispanic community," Graham told CNN.

"I don't believe most Americans would fault the Republican Party if we allowed children who have been here since they're babies to assimilate into society with a pathway to citizenship after we secure our borders."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also warned that the GOP needs to act on immigration, among a range of issues, if it is to maintain its Senate majority and win the White House in 2016.

"There's one thing they could do right now, and quickly — pass a bill," Chamber chief executive Tom Donahue told the Journal. "Would you want to run for president in either party if you were opposing an immigration bill?"

[massadvj]

It is ludicrous.  If you listen to Lindsey Graham, what he wants to do is spend billions upon billions on security so that we can catch people who are trying to cross, but then when we catch them they get to stay.

[Cyber Liberty]

It is ludicrous.  If you listen to Lindsey Graham, what he wants to do is spend billions upon billions on security so that we can catch people who are trying to cross, but then when we catch them they get to stay.

If you listen to Lindsey Graham for more than a few seconds, your IQ will actually go down.

[Fishrrman]

I see the Republicans with their spiffy-new "Congressional majority" as having but two choices when it comes to opposing executive amnesty or anything else coming out of the Obama administration:

1. Cut off funding, some of it or all of it,
or
2. Impeach him.

Beyond that, they're powerless.
Let me spell that for clarity:
P-O-W-E-R-L-E-S-S.

Obama and Jarrett will laugh at them.
Hopefully, in their faces.

Perhaps then, and only then, will the Pubbies begin to comprehend things...

[Luis Gonzalez]

Controlling the entry points is priority #1.

I don't think that closing the borders is a realistic expectation, but if we manage to slow the entries down, then we can turn to the issue of the 11 million (that's actually a low number) here illegally.

Some estimates put as many as 20 million people in the country illegally.

That roughly equals the combined populations of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, West Virginia, Nebraska, New Mexico and Nevada, give or take about half a million.

The process of deporting an individual is burdensome, slow, costly and labor intense.

The combined cost of securing the borders to the degree that will satisfy illegal immigration issue voters and attempting to round up and deport what could be up to 20 million people makes the whole thing abysmally costly.

If Reagan found no option other than amnesty at a time when the problem of illegal aliens in the US was significantly smaller than it is today, I don't know what exactly is expected of this Congress that's realistic in any way.

[massadvj]

The process of deporting an individual is burdensome, slow, costly and labor intense.

There would be no need to deport them if there was no public cost to their being here.  If people came here and worked, stabilizing the cost of labor, and did not burden the system by collecting unemployment benefits in the off-season (or welfare, food stamps, disability, etc. all the time), then the economic value of the immigrants would far outweigh the costs.  The problem is that the modern wave of immigrants is not the earnest, resourceful type we have had in the past.  That is our fault, not theirs.  We placed a big slice of cheesecake in the middle of a field and did not expect to draw ants.  And no amount of building fences around the cheesecake is going to keep the ants away.  The only solution is to get rid of the cheesecake.  Grant legal residency, but eliminate any possibility of public benefits for undocumented immigrants, and no path to citizenship except to go back to the home country and start over legally.  If an undocumented gets caught in any crime, double or triple the penalty.  Then open the border to anyone who wants to come here and work.  Let them come and go freely, documenting who is coming and going.  That way we can focus on SECURITY (which is the federal government's concern) rather than artificially constraining the labor supply (which should not be).

I look at every "amnesty" proposal that has come down the pike so far and it is 180 degrees from this approach.  They all attempt to seal the border instead of encouraging free labor exchange, they grant undocumented workers access to the social safety net (usually through the back door), they reward criminality by offering a path to citizenship, and in general they encourage the poor of Central America to come here and live off the American taxpayer.  That is why I have opposed them.

The truth is, we have a labor shortage in this country.  We need young, energetic resourceful people to maintain, clean and repair all of our stuff at a reasonable price.  I don't know if you have noticed, but our cities look like hell holes.  Young American men seem to prefer hanging around the liquor stores all day, and we pay them to do it.  So let's bring some people in who can do good work at a fair global labor rate and get this country moving forward again.

Finally, let me say this to the "build a bigger fence" crowd.  A fence that keeps people out can easily be used to keep people in, and we are becoming the kind of country that needs to keep people in.  They called it an "iron curtain" for a reason.  I am perplexed that reasonable people with a healthy distrust of government think that government can be trusted when it come to border security.  It's like the Patriot Act.  We cannot expect to keep our liberty and gain security.  To gain collective security, we must give up liberty, and usually we end losing both.  Small government - a few vigorously-enforced laws - is way, way preferable to big walls and massive regulations that no one understands or enforces.

[Bigun]

Controlling the entry points is priority #1.

Sorry but no it isn't! Not if you are serious about correcting the problem!

If that were the case priority #1 would be to turn off ALL the magnets that attract them here in the first place! No Jobs, no free healthcare at emergency rooms, no anchor babies... and the problem begins to take care of itself very rapidly!

[MACVSOG68]

Then open the border to anyone who wants to come here and work.  Let them come and go freely, documenting who is coming and going.

Some downsides to that concept include drug traffickers, fraud peddlers, human traffickers, gang bangers and other assorted criminal types.  And that doesn't even include terrorists.  Then of course, those coming from Central and South America aren't necessarily the skill sets we need here.  Sanctuary cities and states will continue to harbor and provide benefits to those who aren't working, thwarting any efforts at internal control.  Under the circumstances, I doubt any congress regardless of makeup would countenance such a proposal.

After Obama's orders on immigration amnesty, I doubt there's any real opportunities for substantive reform.  Republicans lost their chances this past year and in 2007.  They should not be whining now.

[massadvj]

Some downsides to that concept include drug traffickers, fraud peddlers, human traffickers, gang bangers and other assorted criminal types.  And that doesn't even include terrorists.  Then of course, those coming from Central and South America aren't necessarily the skill sets we need here.  Sanctuary cities and states will continue to harbor and provide benefits to those who aren't working, thwarting any efforts at internal control.  Under the circumstances, I doubt any congress regardless of makeup would countenance such a proposal.

After Obama's orders on immigration amnesty, I doubt there's any real opportunities for substantive reform.  Republicans lost their chances this past year and in 2007.  They should not be whining now.

Obviously, the point of documenting who is coming and going is to snare the security risks.  That is the point.  If innocent people know they can come and go merely by documenting themselves, then it eliminates the "noise" at the border so the authorities can concentrate on the security threats.  It also gives them a database that can be mined for the purposes of identifying terrorists and criminals.

As far as sanctuary cities and states, it is a states rights issue and a local issue, not the concern of the federal government except as it concerns their harboring federal criminals.  No one who has come into the country and documented his coming is in violation of the law, so no crime.  If cities, counties and states want to spend resources for undocumented workers, that is their perfect right.  Unless it is a security risk to the USA, it should be of no concern to the federal government one way or the other.

I would also eliminate all federal funds for education, welfare, food stamps, privatize Social Security and Medicare, get rid of all federal bail outs for public pensions, etc.  I don't think American citizens should be burdened with these things, either.  I am simply applying the standard to undocumenteds as I am American citizens insofar as my aspirations for them.  I want everyone to realize their full potential with a minimum of federal government manipulation and interference.

[MACVSOG68]

Obviously, the point of documenting who is coming and going is to snare the security risks.  That is the point.  If innocent people know they can come and go merely by documenting themselves, then it eliminates the "noise" at the border so the authorities can concentrate on the security threats.  It also gives them a database that can be mined for the purposes of identifying terrorists and criminals.

As far as sanctuary cities and states, it is a states rights issue and a local issue, not the concern of the federal government except as it concerns their harboring federal criminals.  No one who has come into the country and documented his coming is in violation of the law, so no crime.  If cities, counties and states want to spend resources for undocumented workers, that is their perfect right.  Unless it is a security risk to the USA, it should be of no concern to the federal government one way or the other.

I would also eliminate all federal funds for education, welfare, food stamps, privatize Social Security and Medicare, get rid of all federal bail outs for public pensions, etc.  I don't think American citizens should be burdened with these things, either.  I am simply applying the standard to undocumenteds as I am American citizens insofar as my aspirations for them.  I want everyone to realize their full potential with a minimum of federal government manipulation and interference.

To make sure I understand what you propose, the assumption is that the US government will man the current entry points to document who comes and goes, but not secure the other 99.9% of the borders?  So no one gets any federal benefits regardless of whether they are means-tested or earned?  65% of the budget is mandatory spending, much of it for earned entitlements.  The question would be how you would transition to a private program, with 50% of households having members receiving federal benefits.   Over half of the discretionary budget is military.  I'm guessing we could probably slice that one up pretty well too and still keep a standing military.

But I agree that it would be difficult to get rid of the sanctuary programs regardless of the immigration status.  Cities today seem to care little about the criminal background of illegal immigrants in granting them all sorts of benefits and sanctuary.  And those that do care get tossed under the bus by liberal courts and this Administration.

But it's an interesting thought.  Is there anyone in Congress that takes those positions?

[aligncare]

There would be no need to deport them if there was no public cost to their being here.  If people came here and worked, stabilizing the cost of labor, and did not burden the system by collecting unemployment benefits in the off-season (or welfare, food stamps, disability, etc. all the time), then the economic value of the immigrants would far outweigh the costs.  The problem is that the modern wave of immigrants is not the earnest, resourceful type we have had in the past.  That is our fault, not theirs.  We placed a big slice of cheesecake in the middle of a field and did not expect to draw ants.  And no amount of building fences around the cheesecake is going to keep the ants away.  The only solution is to get rid of the cheesecake.  Grant legal residency, but eliminate any possibility of public benefits for undocumented immigrants, and no path to citizenship except to go back to the home country and start over legally.  If an undocumented gets caught in any crime, double or triple the penalty.  Then open the border to anyone who wants to come here and work.  Let them come and go freely, documenting who is coming and going.  That way we can focus on SECURITY (which is the federal government's concern) rather than artificially constraining the labor supply (which should not be).

I look at every "amnesty" proposal that has come down the pike so far and it is 180 degrees from this approach.  They all attempt to seal the border instead of encouraging free labor exchange, they grant undocumented workers access to the social safety net (usually through the back door), they reward criminality by offering a path to citizenship, and in general they encourage the poor of Central America to come here and live off the American taxpayer.  That is why I have opposed them.

The truth is, we have a labor shortage in this country.  We need young, energetic resourceful people to maintain, clean and repair all of our stuff at a reasonable price.  I don't know if you have noticed, but our cities look like hell holes.  Young American men seem to prefer hanging around the liquor stores all day, and we pay them to do it.  So let's bring some people in who can do good work at a fair global labor rate and get this country moving forward again.

Finally, let me say this to the "build a bigger fence" crowd.  A fence that keeps people out can easily be used to keep people in, and we are becoming the kind of country that needs to keep people in.  They called it an "iron curtain" for a reason.  I am perplexed that reasonable people with a healthy distrust of government think that government can be trusted when it come to border security.  It's like the Patriot Act.  We cannot expect to keep our liberty and gain security.  To gain collective security, we must give up liberty, and usually we end losing both.  Small government - a few vigorously-enforced laws - is way, way preferable to big walls and massive regulations that no one understands or enforces.

Post of the decade – if not the previous, and present, century!

[Fishrrman]

Bigun wrote above:
[[ If that were the case priority #1 would be to turn off ALL the magnets that attract them here in the first place! No Jobs, no free healthcare at emergency rooms, no anchor babies... and the problem begins to take care of itself very rapidly! ]]

I respectfully disagree.

Controlling the border can be the ONLY priority before anything else.
All other changes must not happen until the border has been brought under control.
That border will NEVER be brought "under control" until an effective barrier has been built the entire length of it, from the Gulf to the Pacific.
Only then can control be established at the points of entrance and egress.

Consider:
What -is- "immigration"?
Dictionary:
noun:
the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country: patterns of immigration from the Indian sub-continent to Britain.
(source - Apple's "Dictionary" app)

"Immigration" occurs when a person crosses one border (of one country) to live in another country.

If there is no effective border any longer, how can there continue to be "immigration" as defined above?

Once, we DID have "an effective border".
It has been the concerted endeavor of the left over the past quarter century to attempt to erase that "border" from the map.
The current administration has all-but succeeded in doing just that.

Why?
To essentially replace the concept of "immigration" with something entirely new.
Call it "free migration" for lack of a better term.
To wit, we now are undergoing movement across an all-but imaginary border from one area (NOT "one country") to another "area".

At this, they are winning spectacularly.
While the Pubbies in Washington play their fiddles and watch [what once was] the border burn...

[Bigun]

Bigun wrote above:
[[ If that were the case priority #1 would be to turn off ALL the magnets that attract them here in the first place! No Jobs, no free healthcare at emergency rooms, no anchor babies... and the problem begins to take care of itself very rapidly! ]]

I respectfully disagree.

Controlling the border can be the ONLY priority before anything else.
All other changes must not happen until the border has been brought under control.
That border will NEVER be brought "under control" until an effective barrier has been built the entire length of it, from the Gulf to the Pacific.
Only then can control be established at the points of entrance and egress.

Consider:
What -is- "immigration"?
Dictionary:
noun:
the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country: patterns of immigration from the Indian sub-continent to Britain.
(source - Apple's "Dictionary" app)

"Immigration" occurs when a person crosses one border (of one country) to live in another country.

If there is no effective border any longer, how can there continue to be "immigration" as defined above?

Once, we DID have "an effective border".
It has been the concerted endeavor of the left over the past quarter century to attempt to erase that "border" from the map.
The current administration has all-but succeeded in doing just that.

Why?
To essentially replace the concept of "immigration" with something entirely new.
Call it "free migration" for lack of a better term.
To wit, we now are undergoing movement across an all-but imaginary border from one area (NOT "one country") to another "area".

At this, they are winning spectacularly.
While the Pubbies in Washington play their fiddles and watch [what once was] the border burn...

Actually I would do both but IMHO controlling the border would be so much easier if there were no longer any "magnets" to attract potential illegal border crosser. No sugar to attract the flies so to speak!

[Luis Gonzalez]

There would be no need to deport them if there was no public cost to their being here.  If people came here and worked, stabilizing the cost of labor, and did not burden the system by collecting unemployment benefits in the off-season (or welfare, food stamps, disability, etc. all the time), then the economic value of the immigrants would far outweigh the costs.  The problem is that the modern wave of immigrants is not the earnest, resourceful type we have had in the past.  That is our fault, not theirs.  We placed a big slice of cheesecake in the middle of a field and did not expect to draw ants.  And no amount of building fences around the cheesecake is going to keep the ants away.  The only solution is to get rid of the cheesecake.  Grant legal residency, but eliminate any possibility of public benefits for undocumented immigrants, and no path to citizenship except to go back to the home country and start over legally.  If an undocumented gets caught in any crime, double or triple the penalty.  Then open the border to anyone who wants to come here and work.  Let them come and go freely, documenting who is coming and going.  That way we can focus on SECURITY (which is the federal government's concern) rather than artificially constraining the labor supply (which should not be).

I look at every "amnesty" proposal that has come down the pike so far and it is 180 degrees from this approach.  They all attempt to seal the border instead of encouraging free labor exchange, they grant undocumented workers access to the social safety net (usually through the back door), they reward criminality by offering a path to citizenship, and in general they encourage the poor of Central America to come here and live off the American taxpayer.  That is why I have opposed them.

The truth is, we have a labor shortage in this country.  We need young, energetic resourceful people to maintain, clean and repair all of our stuff at a reasonable price.  I don't know if you have noticed, but our cities look like hell holes.  Young American men seem to prefer hanging around the liquor stores all day, and we pay them to do it.  So let's bring some people in who can do good work at a fair global labor rate and get this country moving forward again.

Finally, let me say this to the "build a bigger fence" crowd.  A fence that keeps people out can easily be used to keep people in, and we are becoming the kind of country that needs to keep people in.  They called it an "iron curtain" for a reason.  I am perplexed that reasonable people with a healthy distrust of government think that government can be trusted when it come to border security.  It's like the Patriot Act.  We cannot expect to keep our liberty and gain security.  To gain collective security, we must give up liberty, and usually we end losing both.  Small government - a few vigorously-enforced laws - is way, way preferable to big walls and massive regulations that no one understands or enforces.

There's a public cost to every single individual that is here legally, illegally, on vacation or business, with or without all the extemporaneous bennies of our government teat society. I don't see how we could get to that point where there is no public cost for any segment of the population without creating a secondary class of individual who, unlike in what is unquestionable the spirit of the nation, is not only not equal, but actually lesser than rest. That would mean that children of immigrants would not get to go to school and that immigrant families could not abide themselves of all the programs that by being here and working here legally, they contribute to maintain.

In fact, all those people being here and working here illegally has actually helped maintain Social Security afloat.

This is from an old NYT article, but the situation has not changed since:

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

In the first decade of this century, that file has registered $763.5 billion in uncredited earnings (not adjusted for inflation).

By controlling the borders I meant giving the workers an easy legal means to enter the country to work, and an equally easy way to return home when the work is done. Take your earnings and go back home in the off season because your money will afford you a better life there. Revive the old Bracero program.

The Bracero program ended in 1964, and just about 20 years later Reagan was forced to issue an amnesty because the numbers of people here illegally had grown to an unacceptable level.Once crossing the border to come and work became expensive and dangerous, people who managed to cross it simply stayed here.

We now have the same problem Reagan faced, but in spades.

If I walked into my basement one day and found it flooded, I would look first for the source of the water to stop it from coming in. Once I fixed that problem, I would figure out why the floor drain had not let all the water out and fix that letting the majority of the water vacate the basement that way, THEN I would mop up whatever water still remained in the basement.

We need to stop the flow of illegal immigrants first. Then we need to account for the ones already here and figure out what to do about their being here, THEN, once we're done with phases 1 and 2 we address the larger issue of the entitlements, because if we try addressing the issue with the runaway entitlement society FIRST, we're going to get a lot of push back from all the citizens already on that government teat.

I got this from a report by Population Reference Bureau titled "Government Spending" published back in 2002. Everything in it is still valid.

This is from a section titled "Dependency Ratios" discussing the Social Security system:

Many attempts have been made to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration, which not only generates demand for public education, health care, and other services, but also expands the tax base and slows the aging of the population. Some economists rely on cross-sectional estimates, using current data on immigrant households to compare benefits received from the government at all levels and taxes paid this year. But to investigate the long-term fiscal impact, analysis must take into account the expected payments over the life of an immigrant, and even the lifetimes of the immigrant’s children and grandchildren.

According to a study panel under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, the long term impact of a newly arrived immigrant turns out to depend greatly on the immigrant’s age at arrival. An average 20-year-old has many years in which to work and pay taxes before reaching the age when individuals typically receive more from the government than they pay in taxes. A 50-year old, by contrast, is expected to work for only a few more years before becoming a net consumer of government services. The long-term impact also varies significantly with the immigrant’s education: Those with more education are likely to pay higher taxes during their working years, and the benefits they receive from government are not proportionately higher.

In a recent update of estimates prepared for the panel, Ronald Lee and Timothy Miller found that each additional immigrant with characteristics (such as age, education, and family size) typical of recent immigrants has a “net present value” of $46,000. That is, a new immigrant’s impact over the next 75 years is expected to be equivalent to a one-time investment of $46,000. But Lee and Miller estimate that the country would need to admit an additional 5 million immigrants per year, quintupling the current level of immigration, in order to achieve long-term balance in the Social Security trust fund. A recent report from the United Nations Population Division reached a similar conclusion for European countries, announcing that even much larger migration flows than are currently permitted would not counterbalance the effects of population aging.

To maintain the 2000 ratio between the working-age population (people between the ages of 20 and 64) and the older population (people ages 65 and older), the United States would need roughly 95 million more working-age persons in 2025, in addition to those already expected at current levels of immigration. In other words, if the entire working-age population of Mexico were to move to the United States in 2025, there still would not be enough people to restore the old-age dependency ratio of 2000.

P.S. I like the ants analogy... obviously.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/822665/posts

https://boilingfrogs.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/ants-redux/

[Cyber Liberty]

Good article about ants, Luis.  I like the analogy.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Good article about ants, Luis.  I like the analogy.

You said you liked it in the original FR thread.

[Cyber Liberty]

You said you liked it in the original FR thread.

Yes, I did. and I did.  And I still do.

That's known as "The test of time."  You haz it.  And I thank you, Luis.  Mrs. Pat says "Hi!"  Her favorite was about the orange tree seed.  You have a gift.

[libertybele]

I see the Republicans with their spiffy-new "Congressional majority" as having but two choices when it comes to opposing executive amnesty or anything else coming out of the Obama administration:

1. Cut off funding, some of it or all of it,
or
2. Impeach him.

Beyond that, they're powerless.
Let me spell that for clarity:
P-O-W-E-R-L-E-S-S.

Obama and Jarrett will laugh at them.
Hopefully, in their faces.

Perhaps then, and only then, will the Pubbies begin to comprehend things...

Actually, cutting funding hasn't really worked; so why waste time?  IMPEACH him. It's the RIGHT thing to do!

[Luis Gonzalez]

Yes, I did. and I did.  And I still do.

That's known as "The test of time."  You haz it.  And I thank you, Luis.  Mrs. Pat says "Hi!"  Her favorite was about the orange tree seed.  You have a gift.

Had.

[Cyber Liberty]

Had.

Haz.  Don's sell yourself short.