521 groups lobbying on immigration — 98 percent for more immigrants or looser enforcement

FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform has a report that made my eyes pop:

According to lobbying reports that are required to be filed with the House Office of the Clerk and the Senate Office of Public Records, 521 corporations, trade associations, business groups, labor organizations, government entities, and nonprofit organizations engaged in lobbying on one or more pieces of the immigration-related legislation included in this report. Only 2 percent of these organizations are known to have promoted positions in favor of enforcement of existing immigration laws, limiting the influx of foreign guest workers, and reducing overall levels of immigration.

….The remaining 98 percent of the interest groups had a direct financial or political interest in relaxing immigration enforcement, and/or expansion of existing immigration quotas — positions that are widely rejected by the public.

And look at the money involved:

Collectively, these organizations and associations reported spending $345 million dollars lobbying Congress during this time period. While it is impossible to determine how much of that considerable sum was spent lobbying on specific pieces of immigration legislation, virtually all of the lobbying money expended by these groups is directed at gaining some benefit for themselves.

FAIR comments:

If Americans are disheartened and disillusioned by what they see going on in Washington, the intense lobbying that has taken place over immigration policy provides a case study for how powerful special interests with deep pockets are able to run roughshod over the interests and concerns of ordinary Americans.

Just think how easily the refugee volags can get their way. At least most Americans know about the problems with our immigration policy, have strong feelings about it, and are willing and eager to let their representatives know what they think. In contrast, most Americans know nothing about refugee policy or any of the problems associated with refugees.

Hat tip: Mark Krikorian at the Corner.

Addendum: I didn’t have time to go to the full report when I posted, but later when I saw Ann’s comments I looked at it. Here’s the direct link and the list of lobbying organizations begins on page 18.  Here are just a few:

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — $19 million. Exxon Mobil — $6 million. Time Warner — $1.9 million.  National Association of Realtors — $6.8 million. Each of these figures is for lobbying for just one bill; some companies and unions lobbied on multiple bills.

Looks like the Washington Post can’t win

I told you recently that after subscribing for about 30 years we recently cancelled our subscription to the Washington Post.   Their love affair with Obama was sickening and they completely savaged Sarah Palin.  I figured I didn’t need to pay to read such biased reporting.

Now, however, I am feeling a little sorry for them, not because they are going down the tubes financially,  but that the wacky ANSWER people are going to descend on them this Friday in Washington.  Do you know International ANSWER?  Well, they are the Marxist group that is orchestrating, along with the likes of the Muslim America Society (originally Muslim Brotherhood), these vile anti-Israel rallies around the US.

Seems they are now focusing their anger at the Washington Post for not covering their DC rallies.   Read all about it here!

The Post just can’t win.   After showing all that love for Obama, his friends now turn on them!

End war in Gaza: Stop funding the Palestinian “youth bulge”

What the heck is a youth bulge? It’s a huge number of young people (especially male) among a population. And it causes lots of trouble.

The first I heard of it was in a post by Andy McCarthy on the Corner. He linked to an article by Gunnar Heinsohn in the Wall Street Journal, who heads “an institute devoted to comparative genocide research.”  In case you think that sounds softheaded and useless, his article is extremely hardheaded and useful. Only one of his recommendations is bad. Really bad. I’ll get to that later.

Heinsohn’s article is called “Ending the West’s Proxy War Against Israel: Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too. ”  He writes of ” the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.”

In such “youth bulge” countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society. In Arab nations such as Lebanon (150,000 dead in the civil war between 1975 and 1990) or Algeria (200,000 dead in the Islamists’ war against their own people between 1999 and 2006), the slaughter abated only when the fertility rates in these countries fell from seven children per woman to fewer than two. The warring stopped because no more warriors were being born.

In Gaza, however, there has been no demographic disarmament. The average woman still bears six babies. For every 1,000 men aged 40-44, there are 4,300 boys aged 0-4 years. In the U.S. the latter figure is 1,000, and in the U.K. it’s only 670.

Compared to other “youth bulge” countries, the death toll among Israel’s enemies is low. That’s because Israel does not target civilians and tries to avoid killing them (even though its enemies do everything they can to get their civilians killed).

Then he gets to the heart of the matter. The reason for the youth bulge is that the people of Gaza do not have to support their children. We are supporting them — you and I, through our taxes!

Most babies are fed, clothed, vaccinated and educated by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Unlike the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which deals with the rest of the world’s refugees and aims to settle them in their respective host countries, UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian problem by classifying as refugees not only those who originally fled their homes, but all of their descendents as well.

UNRWA is benevolently funded by the U.S. (31%) and the European Union (nearly 50%) — only 7% of the funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to the West’s largesse, nearly the entire population of Gaza lives in a kind of lowly but regularly paid dependence. One result of this unlimited welfare is an endless population boom. Between 1950 and 2008, Gaza’s population has grown from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West basically created a new Near Eastern people in Gaza that at current trends will reach three million in 2040. Within that period, Gazans may alter the justifications and directions of their aggression but are unlikely to stop the aggression itself.

Gazan children are brought up to see war as their only future. Here and here are two videos that show the horrifying militarization of childhood there.  There is scarcely any economy there; why should there be when the people can live on welfare? They destroyed the economic infrastructure Israelis left them when they vacated Gaza — modern greenhouses, from which the Israelis made a good living, as well as brand-new computers to help the greenhouse business, supplied by an American donor. Smashed up, all of it.

By generously supporting UNRWA’s budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in their own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza’s untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war by proxy against the Jews of Israel.

Heinsohn has two recommendations. The first follows obviously from his thesis:

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA’s help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

And then the bad one, which I’ll charitably say must have been an afterthought, not thought through.

If the West prefers calm around Gaza even before 2025, it may consider offering immigration to those young Palestinians only born because of the West’s well-meant but cruelly misguided aid. In the decades to come, North America and Europe will have to take in tens of millions of immigrants anyway to slow the aging of their populations. If, say, 200,000 of them are taken from the 360,000 boys coming of age in Gaza in the next 15 years, that would be a negligible move for the big democracies but a quantum leap for peace in the Near East.

Bring 200,000 young men who have been brought up to become terrorists into western countries? That’s a negligible move? I have a better idea. Those Muslim countries haven’t been paying their way to support UNRWA. Let them take these warrior children.

But aside from this final point, Mr. Heinsohn has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the connection between refugee policies and violence. See Edward Luttwak’s article for another one I posted on.

Refugees are still refugees nearly two decades after the breakup of Yugoslavia

Here is a story from Reuters (but written by the UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) about a family driven from their home in what is now Bosnia and still living as refugees in Serbia.   It made me think of the Gaza situation.

There are no family photos, no paintings, no book collection, no heirlooms – no possessions recalling their former lives in their hometown of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We didn’t take anything with us because we didn’t have time. We had to run for our lives. The only thing that comes to mind in such a situation is to save your children and your own life,” says Miljo. “You don’t think about the photographs, you don’t think about personal documents, clothes, whatever.”

Miljo, his wife Milica, son Milutin and daughter Stanislava are refugees, forced to flee Tuzla in 1992. All they have as proof of their past and their identity is a refugee card. Their belongings were left behind as Miljo and his wife, clutching their then infant children, rushed to escape.

More than half-a-million civilians fled to Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Croatia in the 1990s conflicts. Considerable success has been achieved on local integration, with over 200,000 former refugees now holding Serbian citizenship. But some 96,000 refugees remain – the remnants of Europe’s largest protracted refugee situation. Many live in desperate conditions and face a bleak future.

The article never tells us why they fled, but I am guessing they are not Muslims.  Bosnia today is a majority Muslim country and if they were Muslims I don’t know why they would fear going home, but they do.

Miljo and Milica thought about going back to Tuzla, but their old home had been trashed and looted and they did not feel safe. They considered selling the property, but they would never make enough from the sale to build a new place. What’s more, their children had grown used to Serbia. So repatriation is not an option; nor is resettlement.

That leaves local integration. But taking Serbian nationality will not guarantee them employment or a new house, while the cash-strapped government cannot afford to give too much under its social welfare programmes. So they are holding onto their refugee cards, which entitle them to basic medical care and occasional humanitarian assistance from UNHCR and its partners.

This made me think of Gaza and the perpetual refugee status of the Arabs (Palestinians) for generations who never have to fear they will not be taken care of by the international community through another UN agency, UNRWA.

But Miljo and Milica are aware that one day their refugee status will be revoked because they are no longer deemed to be in danger and the root causes of the Balkan refugee problem have almost ceased to exist. That won’t end the problem of finding employment and paying for food, rent and medical bills at a time when they will be near retirement age.

According to this report, the UNHCR, is trying to figure out how to find a solution for the “protracted refugee situations” not only in Europe but throughout the world.

The UN refugee agency has recently put renewed stress on finding solutions to protracted refugee situations, which account for some 6 million people worldwide who have been in exile for at least five years – many of them for decades. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said last month that political will was a main precondition for finding durable solutions.

How about if the UNHCR gets off the dime and tells the UNRWA to do the same!

Endnote:  We brought over 100,000 Bosnian Muslims (the next largest group of Muslims was the Somalis at 80,000)  to the US  in the wake of Bill Clinton’s Bosnian War.  That is what makes me think Miljo and Milica are not Muslims, if they had been they would be here now.

Al-Shabab suffers a defeat in Somalia, foreign fighters among the dead

Voice of America (VOA) is reporting that a major battle in Somalia this week has resulted in the death of possibly 50 fighters belonging to terrorist group al-Shabab (sometimes spelled Shabaab).  Readers will recall that our missing Somali young men (former refugees to the US) may have been recruited by al-Shabab.

Somalis are celebrating reports of the defeat of the Islamic fundamentalist group al-Shabab after several members of their fighters were killed Sunday in fierce clashes in central Somalia. Al-Shabab, described as by Washington as a terrorist organization, clashed with Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca for control of central Somalia as Ethiopian troops began their crucial withdrawal. Several al-Shabab militant fighters were reported killed and their weapons seized. Sheik Abdulkarim Risak is a senior officer of the Islamic group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca. He tells reporter Peter Clottey that his fighters will continue fighting al-Shabab until they are flushed out of Somalia.

This is Muslim on Muslim warfare and we have Friends of Obama pushing for him and Hillary to get involved in Somalia.  In light of Judy’s great post about peace can only come when one side or the other has won, I say let them burn themselves out. 

Is anyone watching “24?”   We need to get that message to President Taylor!

Back to VOA:

He said his Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca fighters would continue to protect mainstream defenseless Somalis.

“We are defending ourselves. We are defending our wives. And we are defending our religion. Our religion prohibits Muslims fighting among ourselves, and you know, these people are not Muslims at all. They are foreign fighters, and I think they are al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda is not functioning here in Somalia,” he said.

Where have the foreign fighters come from?    Sheik Risak thinks from South East Asia.  How about from the US and Europe too?

“Thanks to Allah, we have taught them a lesson today because they left at least 50 persons dead. And I think most of them are foreigners, and maybe they might be coming from South East Asia.

I wonder, will we be bringing home anymore US citizens from Somalia and giving them decent burials as we did last month?

Note to new readers:   The State Department has halted all family reunification worldwide due to widespread immigration fraud found mostly among Somalis wishing to get into the US and those in the US trying to bring in “family.”