Iraqi refugees to Houston, another “lack of will” story

It’s laughable to watch how these refugee stories spread around the country using the same phraseology.   Here is another one from Houston, TX.    And, yet another organization involved.  These refugee groups are breeding like rabbits it seems.   The Refugee Council USA has a website but there appear to be no financial documents available to the public;  it looks like a lobbying outfit seeking more money all around for refugee resettlement.  [It is the same M.O. as the global warming ‘crisis’.  Hype = more government funding]

“There is a huge need and a lack of will,” said Elizabeth Campbell, director of Refugee Council USA, a Washington-based coalition. “They are failing to meet their own targets. People who worked for the United States find their lives are in imminent danger, and to simply leave them there is despicable.”

Then we have our old buddy Jacob Kurtzer from Refugees International, but this time he is a “researcher” (not a “congressional advocate”) trumpeting the same theme:

“When we talk of the lack of political will by this administration, we are thinking of President (Gerald) Ford, who gave a presidential order so there could be an airlift of 135,000 Vietnamese at the time of the fall of Saigon. He recognized the vulnerability of a huge population of South Vietnamese,” Kurtzer said.

There is one big differance here, maybe two.  First, the war is not over and we haven’t abandoned Iraq like we did Vietnam, and secondly the Vietnamese didn’t have terrorists hiding in their refugee ranks who wished to kill us.

It is so blatantly political it’s disgusting.  There are definitely some desparate Iraqis, the Christians, but these refugee lobbyists are so partisan they hurt those with a  legitimate claim to protection.

By the way, Refugees International is headed by Mr.Partisan himself, Ken Bacon.  Maybe you will recall that he was the guy working in the Clinton Defense Department who released Linda Tripp’s personel file to reporters during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Follow the Money! OMB database now available

Your tax dollars: 

The Washington Post reported yesterday that OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has launched a new site called USAspending.gov, and here’s what they say about it:

The story began late last year, when two other political opposites, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), sponsored legislation requiring the federal government to set up a searchable online database tracing federal budget spending by Jan. 1, 2008.

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The goal was to make both the executive branch and Congress accountable for their spending decisions by allowing regular taxpayers to follow the money.

As you will see when you read the article, there is already a site called OMB Watch.   So between the two we should be able to spend some long winter days pouring over the finances involved in Refugee Resettlement.  And, if you don’t find what you are looking for, contact the site and tell them what you need because new data is being added daily, according to one of those involved in designing the site.

“It’s a work in progress. The site doesn’t include as much data as we want, but we are like a gerbil in an exercise wheel, loading data as we speak.”

Alrighty then, let’s give those “gerbils” some work!