Stopping hate is really about stopping debate!

03/12/2010 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you are in DC next week, you might want to stop by the National Press Club on Thursday for what should be a steamy session as the Center for Immigration Studies releases a new report on the tactics used by the Southern Poverty Law Center against anyone who disagrees with them on immigration (or anything else for that matter).

WASHINGTON (March 10, 2010) – After the collapse of the Senate amnesty bill in 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) joined with the National Council of La Raza and others to launch a campaign to smear the three largest mainstream groups making a case for tighter enforcement and lower immigration. At the center of this campaign was the designation of the Federation for American Immigration Reform as a “hate group” and the spread of that taint to Numbers USA and the Center for Immigration Studies. The announced goal was to pressure journalists and policymakers not to meet or speak with these organizations. Touted as an effort to “stop the hate,” it was a thinly disguised move to stifle debate.

CIS will release a report next week examining the SPLC and its role in this campaign. “Immigration and the SPLC: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Invented a Smear, Served La Raza, Manipulated the Press, and Duped its Donors,” authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Jerry Kammer, will be released at a panel discussion on Thursday, March 18, at 9:30 a.m. at the Murrow Room of the National Press Club, 14th & F streets NW.

For more information, go here.

Frequent visitors to this blog may remember that the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence from Portland, ME is affiliated with the Southern Poverty Law Center and is planning to “stop any debate” and vilify the citizens in four cities sometime soon. See my report here. One of those cities is nearby Frederick, MD.

I previously wrote about the Southern Poverty Law Center, here, when I wrote about their front man, Mark Potok, in a post that although over a year old is visited daily at RRW.

Numbers update: refugees pouring into US

03/12/2010 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Cultural Resource Orientation Center has its stats for FY2010 updated through February 28th. We have just short of 30,000 new refugees for this fiscal year so far. The target is 80,000. Go here to see what countries they have come from.

But, of course they have no jobs and more tax dollars are needed to care for them or as Rep. Dingell (D-MI) says, a domestic refugee crisis is at hand, here.

Rep. John Dingell: “Help Prevent a Domestic Refugee Crisis!”

03/12/2010 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Remember those lobbyists at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops I just mentioned in my previous post, or in the post yesterday where Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services is looking for a new lobbyist, this is what they are doing! This is what lobbyists do, I know, I was one once. They work hand in glove with government agencies looking for more money, your money (and in this case LIRS and USCCB will get their piece of the pie). They use your money to get more of your money!

They are working with sympathetic staffers and carrying around a Dear Colleague letter from that old progressive bully John Dingell of Michigan and some other Michigan Congressmen (well, Michigan needs your tax dollars because they have a huge immigrant population dependent on welfare and the state is going down the toilet). Dingell says we must fund the refugee program with an 18% increase in order to prevent a domestic refugee crisis. Hey, John, there is one already—it’s called too many refugees and no jobs.

How about no new funding until a financial audit is done on the program and all of its contractors!

Here’s John:

Support the President’s increase to the Refugee and Entrant Assistance Account in FY 2011!

(Current signatories: Dingell, Peters, Berman, Clarke, Conyers, Ellison, Grijalva, Hastings (FL), Levin, Moore (WI), Pingree, Rangel, Rush, Schakowsky)

Deadline: COB March 15, 2010

Dear Colleague,

We are writing to urge you to support full funding of the President’s request for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account within the fiscal year (FY) 2011 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. This account funds the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Since 2008, more than 30,000 of the nearly 4.5 million Iraqis displaced since the Iraq war have been admitted into the United States and thousands more will be resettled in the coming years. Regrettably, funding for ORR has not kept pace with the increasing number of admitted refugees. Not only does this result in insufficient assistance to meet the short term needs of refugee families, such as groceries, rent, and employment, it also means that refugees are struggling to gain long term self sufficiency and become productive members of society.

Fortunately, the President’s budget request takes important steps to address America’s growing refugee crisis. The request funds ORR at $877,602,000, an 18.5 percent increase above the FY10 enacted level. The increase to ORR is offset by reductions within HHS, preserving the President’s commitment to freeze discretionary non-defense spending.

The United States has made a commitment to assist those who have been displaced during the Iraq War, many of whom are persecuted because of their cooperation and assistance to U.S. troops abroad. Providing a minimum level of basic assistance is necessary to keep that commitment and sends a signal of our support to those who are assisting us in the fight against our enemies abroad. A modest increase in refugee benefits included in the President’s budget will go far to help alleviate the burden on our states by helping more refugees obtain employment and self sufficiency, enabling them to thrive and contribute to the vibrancy of our communities.

Again, we hope you will join us in requesting full funding for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account within the fiscal year (FY) 2011 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The text of the letter to the Appropriations Committee is below. To sign on, please contact Erica Fein, in Congressman Dingell’s office at 5-4071, or Carly Hepola, in Congressman Peters’ office at 5-5802.

Sincerely,

____________________ ____________________

John D. Dingell Gary Peters

Member of Congress Member of Congress

—-

Chairman David Obey

House Appropriations Subcommittee on

Labor, HHS, Education

2358-B Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Ranking Member Todd Tiahrt

House Appropriation Subcommittee on

Labor, HHS, Education

1016 Longworth House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

March xx, 2010

Dear Chairman Obey and Ranking Member Tiahart,

We are writing to urge full funding of President Obama’s budget request for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account within the fiscal year (FY) 2011 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. This account funds the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Since 2008, more than 30,000 of the nearly 4.5 million Iraqis displaced since the Iraq war have been admitted into the United States and thousands more will be resettled in the coming years. Many of these refugees are victims of torture and persecution, or were forced to flee because of their support for American military operations. ORR’s purpose is to provide a lifeline to Iraqi refugees and Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIVs) holders, as well as other vulnerable populations such as Cuban and Haitian immigrants, trafficking victims, torture victims, and unaccompanied alien children, so that these new residents may achieve self sufficiency. ORR is charged with providing a wide range of services, including eight months cash and medical assistance, case management, job development, job placement, interim housing, English-language training, and social adjustment services and interpretation services.

However, funding for ORR has not kept pace with the increasing number of refugee admissions. The amount and duration of cash and medical assistance is widely considered inadequate to meet even basic needs such as rent or groceries for a refugee family. The total package of assistance available to refugees amounts to between just seventeen to forty percent of the federal poverty line. In some cities, average cash assistance for a family of five may be as low as $700 per month. Additionally, ORR’s funding formula relies on admissions numbers from the prior 3 years, and thus fails to capture and divert resources to areas receiving large numbers of recent Iraqi refugees. Furthermore, the economic recession, which has caused high unemployment throughout the country, has equally affected the ability of resettled refugees to gain employment. A recent report by the Georgetown Law Center found in some areas as few as 10% of refugees have obtained employment at the end of the eight month benefit period. Refugees who do not find employment are forced to rely on traditional welfare programs, straining the resources of state agencies, local non-profits, and charities who struggle to provide basic services.

The President’s budget request takes important steps needed to address America’s growing refugee crisis. The request funds ORR at $877,602,000, an 18.5 percent increase above the FY10 enacted level. The request also will also provide for a contingency fund that can target resources to areas experiencing high levels of secondary migration or refugee admissions that are not immediately accounted for under the ORR funding formula. The President’s request for an increase in the ORR budget is offset by reductions within HHS, preserving his commitment to freeze discretionary non-defense spending.

The United States has made a commitment to these refugees, many of whom are persecuted because of their cooperation and assistance to U.S. troops abroad. Providing a minimum level of basic assistance is necessary to keep that commitment and sends a signal of our support to those who are assisting us in the fight against our enemies abroad. A modest increase in refugee benefits included in the President’s budget will go far to help alleviate the burden on our states by helping more refugees to obtain employment and self sufficiency, enabling them to thrive and contribute to the vibrancy of our communities. We hope you will consider fully funding President Obama’s FY11 budget request for ORR.

Sincerely,

Far-Left USCCB is not being straight with Catholics

03/12/2010 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Last night I came upon this typical puffy article where Archbishop John Nienstedt (Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis) writing in The Catholic Spirit tells Catholics what great charitable work they are doing taking care of refugees. Here is how his article begins:

Throughout the world, we find areas where war, strife or persecution have forced families and individuals to leave their homes and emigrate elsewhere, becoming refugees.

Many of these refugees have come to the United States, seeking a better life for themselves and for their families. Theirs is generally a difficult transition and, if they are lucky, they overcome numerous hardships before they are able to carve out a place for themselves in our society.

For decades now, the Catholic Church here in the United States, through the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has committed resources [whose resources?-ed] to refugee assistance.

This past year, through agencies such as Catholic Charities and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the USCCB has resettled 22,565 refugees, or approximately 30 percent of the annual total refugees admitted into the United States.

In an effort to provide even more life-giving assistance, the USCCB has developed a comprehensive plan to increase by 25 percent over the next two years the capacity to welcome and serve refugees who come to our land.

Taking from Caesar!

He goes on with the blah, blah, blah talking points about “welcoming the stranger” —not one single word about how exactly they are doing this and he leaves the reader thinking that we Catholics are good people donating our own hard-earned money to “welcome” refugees.

The Archbishop’s article then led me here to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Justice for Immigrants* site. This is obviously the branch of USCCB that is behind organizing for the Open Borders Washington demonstration on March 21st (the day after the Marxist/Muslim/Unions/immigrants march on the 20th).

Justice for Immigrants led me here. That is the Migration and Refugee Services branch of the huge USCCB. That led me here.

And, finally to something I have wanted to see for a long time–the annual report for the USCCB refugee program. (The USCCB doesn’t even file an IRS Form 990 probably claiming they are a church!).

On Page 16 of the 2008 annual report, all decent and faithful Catholics must see the funding—all Catholics that is who know that Christ never intended for his followers to take from Caesar!

Of an annual budget of $43,112,314, $39,259,516 comes directly from the government (from taxpayers).

Then note the $1,704,108 for travel loans. That is also federal money! Refugees are loaned money by the taxpayer for their airfare to the US, but then are sent dunning letters by the USCCB collection agency people. Instead of returning all the money to the federal goverment, the USCCB gets a 25% cut as a fee for strong-arming the refugees.

Granted that although parishoners give $1,497,701 in collections, private giving only amounts to $181,581. All this adds up to approximately 95% of the refugee program at the USCCB is funded by US taxpayers! (And, I am not even counting here the millions that go directly from the federal government to Catholic Charities throughout the US). The Refugee Resettlement program is supposed to be a public-private partnership—what a joke!

Be sure to check out the expenses side of the ledger and note how much of this federal funding goes to salaries and office overhead (nearly $11 million). Because so little of their funding is privately raised, the only conclusion one can draw is that we, the taxpaying American public of every religion, are paying for a lobbying office in Washington D.C. for the USCCB!

So either the good Archbishop (above) is not aware of this information or he is a lying sack! You decide!

And, yes, the USCCB is a far-left organization.

The final straw for me in last night’s wandering is this! Real Catholic TV.com has produced an hour and a quarter long documentary on the history of how the Catholic Church in the US represented by the USCCB has been taken over by the POLITICAL ATHEIST LEFTWING entitled, “CCHD and Saul Alinsky.”

Saul Alinsky, whose book “Rules for Radicals” is dedicated to Lucifer, taught that the ends justify the means. I guess that is a lesson the USCCB has swallowed hook, line and sinker.

*Addendum: I forgot this earlier. When I went to Justice for Immigrants site I noticed they linked to a study about how immigrants supposedly help the economy. But then I howled with laughter. They are citing a report from the Extreme Leftwing at George Soros Center for American Progress. So if you have any doubt about how entwined the Bishops are with the Far Left this should help dispel any doubt.