Month: January 2008

Start your own blog! After all it is “Common Sense”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know I am harping on this, but a few weeks ago, writing in our new category called ‘creating a movement’, I suggested that a key element to advancing our concerns was to study the issues, gather some facts and start a blog of your own.    All over the world free speech is being limited— sadly even in countries like England and Canada.  So to make it harder for us to eventually have our free speech rights taken, we need to create more free speech and that is where blogs come in.

If you are thinking, “Forget it, I could never produce a blog that would attract thousands of daily readers,” no you won’t (at first anyway), but don’t place that high expectation upon yourself.   

Here is a blog called “Common Sense” that was started a few months ago by my friend The Patriot Sharpshooter.  Mostly he covers local and state issues disgesting such exciting fare as the County Board of Education budget, and writes at the rate of about a post a day.  Today he has a post on immigration that relates to what we cover here at RRW and posts along with it an e-mail from a friend in Israel who describes his personal experience with terrorism there. 

In conclusion, here is an analogy that I am sure will appeal to the Sharpshooter:  You know they say they won’t be able to come for our guns if everyone has one, well the same idea applies to free speech.   Get a blog and join the fight for America’s continued strength through freedom of speech. 

Bhutanese refugees worried that they will be slaves in America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written on several previous occasions * at RRW about the Bhutanese refugees in United Nations camps in Nepal , some have been there for as long as 17 years.   The United States has agreed to take 60,000 of these displaced people.  The problem in a nutshell right now is that many camp leaders do not want their people scattered across the face of the globe because they think that if they stay together they will continue to be a political force and then might have some hope of returning to Bhutan. 

The BBC reported this week (again) that violence and intimidation are being used against those who do wish to leave for America and points west.   This has been going on for months now.  What interested me most was this line:

……. a number of rumours are spread – that the flights out are to various extents a trick, with some people believing they will be used as slave labour on arrival in the US.

Of course ‘slavery’ in its most commonly understood ugly form is illegal in the United States.   We do occasionally hear reports that refugees are used by local volags (voluntary agencies) to do jobs for the volag without pay.  Although we suspect that is rare.

More commonly however we hear and read reports of refugees who are shocked at the menial work for long hours that they must do, preferably as soon as 30 days after arrival.   Some of you reading this are probably saying, so what, that is what we desire and admire in America—good old fashioned hard work, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and all of that.    I agree.

However, I think the problem comes when displaced people spend a generation in a camp being taken care of by the United Nations  and they haven’t a clue what it’s like in America.  Like our fellow in Hagerstown from the Congo who just couldn’t grasp that he had to work to keep from being evicted, somehow a number of refugees are arriving here, expecting Shangri-La, without proper preparation overseas for what to expect in the hardworking West.

 Reform needed

We need some reform.  We need to take less refugees and make sure those we bring are better prepared for life in America before they even get on the plane.  They must be thoroughly briefed on our culture.   And, then we need for the volags to set aside some of their government funding to pay for refugees airfare back to their home countries and, yes, maybe even  back to camps for those unhappy souls who decide they preferred their country or continent to American culture afterall.

* We have a very good search function, so check out our previous posts on this issue by typing in Bhutanese refugees into the search box.  

 I also previously suggested that refugee resettlement is being used by big companies to find cheap labor.  Here is one of the posts I did on that.   We’ve heard the same information from Emporia, KS, Shelbyville, TN and now Muscatine, Iowa (see comments).

Mohammad Khan, owner of Nadia Convenience store arrested in Hagerstown

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, the owner of a Convenience store in our city, Hagerstown, MD, was arrested on suspicion of selling drug paraphernalia.  We first heard about Mr. Khan, a Pakastani immigrant, back in December when federal agents raided the store and gathered evidence for a probe into whether the store was participating in a major food stamp scam.  Although it has nothing to do with refugees, as we wrote then, it has to do with immigrants (diversity is beautiful,right!) and our community.

Hagerstown Police arrested Mohammad Khan, who owns Nadia Convenience Store and Liberty gas station, after executing a search and seizure warrant on his two businesses, Sgt. Jim Robison said.

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Khan, 39, of 11021 Sani Lane in Hagerstown, was charged with distribution of controlled paraphernalia, two counts of distribution of paraphernalia, two counts of maintaining a common nuisance and possession of controlled paraphernalia, Robison said.

What is puzzling to many local observers is where is the Food Stamp investigation that the Office of Inspector General initiated back in December?   See our earlier post here for details.

We need people to write or call the Office of Inspector General at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC and urge them to thoroughly investigate the allegations of fraud against Mr. Khan.   I haven’t a clue if he is incarcerated or is a flight risk should he be released.

Here is an address and phone number for the US Department of Agriculture: 

USDA, Office of Inspector General
Room 117-W Jamie Whitten Bldg
1400 Independence Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20250
Phone: (202) 720-8001
Fax: (202) 690-1278

If you write, then copy your correspondence to the Secretary of Agriculture at the same street address above (we have only an acting Sec. of Agriculture at this time).  And, definitely put a copy of your letter in the mail to your own Congressman and Senators.   Writing will have more impact then just phoning or e-mailing.

Although scams like the ones alleged here might not be driven by anything more than personal greed, we have seen reports that part of the Jihadist agenda against the West involves drug money to advance their agenda while corrupting the morals of westerners by perpetuating the drug culture.    I am not saying that Mr. Khan is guilty of anything at this point in time, and it may turn out to have no connection to a worldwide strategy but we hope our federal officials will follow through now with a thorough investigation because there appears to be a lot of foot dragging to this point on the part of the federal government.

Africans want ‘out of Africa’ in a big way

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Africans are piling up like migrating birds along the north African coast waiting for the weather to improve to flock across the Mediterranean Sea to breeding grounds in Europe and especially Great Britain.  (Oh boy, I can just hear the hissing!)     Seriously,  Dymphna over at Gates of Vienna sent us this post yesterday about an article from The Guardian saying just that (without the migrating bird analogy).    It seems that Africans from many nations are gathering in Libya ready to make a big push to enter Europe illegally in the spring.  

Her post reminded me of a couple of posts I did back in RRW’s first month about African illegal immigrants arriving on the Mediterranean island of Malta because their little boats couldn’t get them to Europe.  On Malta they sought “refugee” status from the United Nations and applied to come to the US.    And, when I wrote those posts back in July we were planning to take 200 so-called refugees every year to relieve Malta’s illegal immigration burden.  See those posts here and here.

Remember as “refugees” fleeing persecution they get airfare to America, a US State Dept. subsidized apartment, food stamps, medical care (treatment for TB and HIV),  schools for their children, English lessons and a caseworker to find them a job— all supplied by YOU!

More news from Walkersville, MD, Citizen leader answers bias charge

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The debate continues in Walkersville, MD where an Islamic sect is seeking to purchase property for a 200 plus acre religious compound.   If you are new to this issue, please check our posts here and here.

Steve Berryman, a spokesman for the Citizens for Walkersville answered charges that he is biased in yesterday’s on-line Frederick County publication, The Tentacle.   An attorney for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had suggested during hearings last week that Mr. Berryman (and I assume by extension his fellow citizens) is biased, citing a blog article written by Mr. Berryman last summer entitled “Deceiving the Infidel”.

The word ‘biased’ as used here is just a more subtle way of calling Mr. Berryman a racist.

Mr. Berryman counters that he is biased —biased toward a “peaceful” community.    

It’s maddening and we have written about it on numerous occasions.  We saw demonizing demonstrated in Hagerstown when we questioned the refugee program on-going in our county seat.   Somehow people who question the whole diversity is beautiful theme and want to live with people of their own culture are automatically labelled as racists, bigots or more politely as biased. 

For instance, I have never heard the Somalis called racists when they choose to live in separate enclaves with their own kind in American cities and towns?   When have you ever heard anyone refer to the inhabitants of Chinatown as those racist Chinese?  Why is it that only white Americans (or white Europeans) are presumed to be racists (bigots or biased)  and have no right to live with people like themselves.  I am not talking about color here!  I am talking about culture!

As for Mr. Berryman’s desire for a peaceful community.  He has reason to be concerned.  Last week when I researched the Rohingyas in Bangladesh (who may come to America as refugees), the Hudson Institute report entitled, “The Rising Tide of Islamism in Bangladesh”  also discussed the Ahmadiyya.

Radical Islamists have also targeted the Ahmadiyya community, a Muslim reformist and revivalist movement founded in Qadyan, India in the nineteenth century.

The implication is that although the Ahmadiyya may not be promoting violent Jihad themselves, the citizens of Walkersville might have a legitimate fear that feuds between factions within Islam could come to their little rural town. 

Why do elitists in Washington willy-nilly import the conflicting sects of Islam from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to America and expect they will live happily ever after side by side?    Judy tells me that her wise husband says when you can’t figure out why something is happening, turn to just plain stupidity as the cause.

The citizens of Walkersville are not stupid—they want a peaceful community and they have every right to demand one without being called racists, bigoted or biased.