One Iraqi family and loads of helpers

I don’t have time to write about it, but check out this story of an Iraqi family arriving in Wilton, CT where it looks like a ton of volunteers are helping them get settled.   Maybe there are problems, but it sure doesn’t look like it.     Then go back and read about the unhappy bunch of Iraqis in Baltimore, MD here.

We continue to maintain that refugee resettlement needs to be done one-on-one—one family and a sponsoring church or other group.   Looks like this family got one-on-ten or so!

US Conference of Catholic Bishops gave money to ACORN

Update Nov. 23rd:  Catholics fight back in Illinois!

And, now they are worried!   The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the largest refugee resettlement federal contractor, is worried that as ACORN is investigated it might somehow drag the Catholic Church into the mess, possibly jeopardizing its tax exempt status.  From the Catholic News Agency:

Washington DC, Nov 5, 2008 / 12:26 am (CNA).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has begun investigating the more than $1 million in church grants given to the voter registration group ACORN. Fearing the grants may have been used in partisan or fraudulent ways which could threaten the Church’s tax-exempt status, they have hired forensic accounting experts.

Workers with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are being questioned by state officials and the FBI about voter registration forms they submitted with signatures from Mickey Mouse and members of the Dallas Cowboys football team, the Washington Times reports.

ACORN’s registration efforts target low-income neighborhoods believed to favor the Democrats. Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama himself once worked with ACORN as a community organizer and lawyer in Chicago.

According to the Washington Times, the Catholic Campaign on Human Development (CCHD) granted $1,037,000 to ACORN in 2007, including a $40,000 grant to an ACORN affiliate in Las Vegas that the Nevada attorney general’s office raided last month as part of a voter fraud investigation.

The CCHD has reportedly given more than $7.3 million to ACORN over the past decade for about 320 projects.

I’m guessing this is a CYA move.  You know “cover your ….” because you know that the Catholic Bishops are in the tank for all these leftwing outfits.   Look at this line-up:

The CCHD receives about $9.4 million each year in second collections from Catholic churches. This year’s collection for CCHD will take place on November 23. According to the Washington Times, such donations go to anti-poverty groups, interfaith associations, peace and justice groups, immigrant aid groups, environmental coalitions, labor rights groups and housing coalitions.

Note to my fellow conservative Catholics, find a local charity and give directly!

Virginia Council of Churches 90% funded by taxpayers

I just came across this puff-piece article from Richmond, VA about the Virginia Council of Churches (VCC) having its annual assembly this past week.  They were thrilled by Obama’s election, but that isn’t what I found interesting.

There was a line near the end of the article about how much money VCC invests in its rural family development and refugee resettlement programs.   The implication is that this is hard-earned church folk’s donations.  It isn’t!   The Virginia Council of Churches is just over 90% funded by federal and state taxpayers!

The Richmond-based council spent more than $3.2 million on rural family development in 2007-08, which accounted for about 66 percent of its expenses. It spent about another $1.4 million, or 28 percent, on refugee resettlement.

Go to their annual report for 2007 here and check out the numbers yourself.    The East Coast Migrant Head Start grants comprising 58 % of the “churches” income is from the Department of Health and Human Services.  It’s a grant program that began in the Clinton Administration.   The State of Virginia kicked in 15 % of their annual income and the 18% from Church World Service is also federal money just passed through to VCC as a federal subcontractor to Church World Service.

The total amount of taxpayer funding is just over $4 million and around 90% of their income.   I doubt the reporter writing this story ever thought to ask where the money they so generously distribute actually comes from.

The final kicker is that because VCC is a “church” they don’t file a Form 990 so you can’t see the finer details of where YOUR money is going.

Diversity is strength? Does that mean witchcraft too?

Brenda Walker over at VDARE has a very detailed article (with lots of links) this week about African immigration and witchcraft that raises the question AGAIN, where is the evidence that diversity is strength?  It further challenges this radical cult-like worship of cultural relativism we’ve talked about on other occasions.    Hat tip: Blulitespecial.

This is the end of Walker’s article: 

So it goes in the increasingly borderless world that elites are promoting, in opposition to our old-fashioned nations with unitary cultures.

The advantages of One-Worldism are much-touted. We hear much less about the darker side of human nature with its many dark corners of fear and ignorance.

The social progress we have made in America is threatened by the deluge of immigrants whose customs are incompatible with our values. We have a system of government and society which we run by principles based on reason, not the reading of entrails. And we would like to keep depending on rationality.

Remember this when the new President starts pressing for more African immigration and influence.