Children’s Health Insurance law includes funds for legal immigrant children

We missed this story last week.   Hat tip to Joyce today for tipping me off.

President Barack Obama’s administration has brought to Washington a new attitude toward the issue of immigration, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.

In comments to a small group of Hispanic journalists, Emanuel cited Wednesday’s ceremony where Obama signed into law a bill reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The chief of staff pointed out that the law increases the number of youngsters covered by SCHIP, as the program is known, from 7 million to 11 million, including – for the first time – children of legal immigrants.

More immigrant goodies on the way?

The expansion of SCHIP to immigrants’ children represents “an advance” on what the Obama administration plans to do on behalf of immigrants during the next four years, Emanuel said.

Burmese official: Rohingya “ugly as ogres”

Oh boy,  this will be really helpful in the debate on how to deal with the Rohingya Muslims flowing out of Myanamar (Burma).   Guess these guys didn’t get the political correctness memo!    From AFP:

HONG KONG (AFP) — Myanmar’s senior official in Hong Kong has described the Rohingya people as “ugly as ogres” in a letter sent to media and foreign officials after a high-profile refugee case highlighted their plight.

The country’s Consul General Ye Myint Aung told heads of foreign missions in Hong Kong and local newspapers members of the Muslim ethnic group should not be described as being from Myanmar.

“In reality, Rohingya are neither Myanmar people nor Myanmar’s ethnic group,” he wrote, in a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday.

The envoy contrasted the “dark brown” Rohingya complexion with the “fair and soft” skin of people from Myanmar, which he said was “good looking as well”.

The leaders of the Burmese government maintain that the Rohingya are not an ethnic minority in Burma but are illegal aliens from Bangladesh. 

New readers should know that this controversy that seems so far away may affect us at some point because pressure is mounting for the Rohingya to be resettled in the West.   See our category ‘Rohingya Reports’ to catch up on the story.

Dinah’s got more on the “seethefest” press conference in Minneapolis the other day

Dinah Lord is really on top of this story we reported earlier in the week.   She has researched the statement from the mosque that some accuse of being behind the disappearance of the Minneapolis Somali youths and has linked the press conference itself.   See Dinah’s post  here.  

One of the little nuggets she unearthed is that apparently the mosque folks are blaming “individuals in the Somali community” for badmouthing the mosque!    And, it looks like that individual is Omar Jamal.  Jamal is the go-to guy for the media on this case.  If you go back and look at all the mainstream media coverage, virtually every reporter has to get their apparently obligatory quote from Jamal (Here are all the posts we have done that mention Jamal in myriad cases).    Dinah quotes the following  in her excellent post.

“It is unfortunate that some individuals in the Somali community unfairly accused the Abubakar Center to have links to the disappearance of the Somali young men,” said Adbirashid Abdi, one the board of directors for the center. “We strongly deny these unsubstantiated allegations. Abubakar Center didn’t recruit, finance or otherwise facilitate in any way shape of form the travel of those youth. (wah! It’s not us, it’s all the evil media and the evil infidel’s fault. Update: Rumor has it that these individuals are in fact, Somali community activist Omar Jamal! Sounds like there’s trouble in Little Mogadishu.)

Jamal was convicted of immigration fraud in 2005.  We would like to know  how he continues to play a prominant role with the  media.   We first came across his name defending a Somali rapist (rapist caught on tape!) and he had his nose in the Denver Somali Cyanide case last summer.  He told authorities that the Somali who died in a hotel room with enough cyanide to kill hundreds was not a terrorist, just a confused Canadian.

Who is this guy Jamal?   A big mouth?   A show off?   Something else?