Month: September 2010

No new election for Kansas City candidate alleging possible voter fraud…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….in a case involving a number of Somali voters.

Here is a story a few weeks old now (Hat tip: Joyce) that raises questions about immigrant voting irregularities and shows me that election judges must be too inimidated to question unusual behavior by immigrants.

A Jackson County judge ruled late Tuesday that a Missouri House candidate who officially lost by three votes is not entitled to a new election.

But a re-count in the hotly contested 40th District primary to represent the Northeast area of Kansas City will commence at 9 a.m. today. The official count in the August election had John Joseph Rizzo winning 667 to 664 over Will Royster.

[….]

Some said a Somali man had helped others vote, sometimes going into the voting area and pointing to ballots, even though the voters had not filled out special cards designated for voters needing assistance.

Royster’s petition had stated that a man who identified himself as an interpreter for a group of Somalis stood over them as they looked at ballots and told them how to cast their votes. Royster’s attorney, Phil Willoughby, had said the only solution to the situation was a new election.

New election was denied.

Update September 26th:  More on this story at Emerging Corruption, here.

Book about refugees is Maryland “one book”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars

Yesterday I learned from Cindy that “Outcasts United” had been chosen earlier this year as the “One Maryland, One book” being promoted by the Maryland Humanities Council.

The book by author Warren St. John is billed as an “inspirational” story about how refugee boys in Clarkston, Georgia overcome the odds (which includes a town unhappy with the arrival of large numbers of refugees) to play soccer under a strict coach.  If you don’t want to read the book, you can get the gist of it from reviews at Amazon, but I warn you that virtually all the reviewers are thrilled with what sounds like just another sports underdog story with a multiculturalism is beautiful message.

More importantly though, at least for me, is the question of what is up with this “one book” thing where everyone in the state is supposed to be reading a book of the year chosen by those with a leftwing view of the world….and then we pay for what is clearly indoctrination with our tax dollars.  It kind of gives me the creeps!

Note to all those claiming we need to cut the budget at both the state and federal level—I got about a million and a half dollars right here to start with!

Check out the most recent Form 990 for the Maryland Humanities Council, here.  Note that $1.3 million of the funds for this program come from government grants.  Tracing that back further, the source of most of that government money (your tax dollars) comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, here.  Maryland taxpayers add to the kitty through the Department of Education.

By the way, the Maryland Humanities Council spent $9000 to influence legislators into awarding them more funding.   Imagine what the Founding Fathers would say about a federal role in all of this.

The One Maryland, One Book  indoctrination project only cost taxpayers $198,143 last year.   Since you paid for this, maybe some of you should attend the upcoming schedule of community discussions about Maryland’s “one book.”

Update:  Here is more about the Maryland book tour.

Another mosque controversy, this one in Kentucky

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

ACLU steps in to defend Somali mosque plans, from the Courier-Journal:

The American Civil Liberties Union has agreed to represent a man whose application for a mosque on behalf of his fellow Somalis was denied by Mayfield’s Board of Zoning Adjustment.

The Kentucky and national branches of the organization took the case after the board last month reversed its original approval for the mosque, citing a lack of adequate parking. The decision was applauded by an overflow crowd that attended the meeting.

Will Mayfield be another Shelbyville?   How many chicken plants are near Mayfield, does anyone know?

Update September 23rd:  I was only joking about the proximity of a chicken plant but this update story at AP confirms it—chicken plant nearby.

The ACLU said the applicant, Khadar Ahmed, prefers to resolve the issue outside of court but reserves the right to a court appeal. Ahmed is among about 150 Somalis who have moved to the Mayfield area recently to work in a chicken plant.

Be sure also to see this story about NGOs working with meat packers.  And, this one about Khadra’s warning about a huge storm coming to small town America.

France and Germany roiled over plans for Roma

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Moving south from Sweden, where elections today will determine whether Sweden’s open door policy toward immigrants and refugees will continue, to France and Germany where a dispute has grown between the two countries about what to do with the Roma (also known as gypsies).

From the New York Times:

BERLIN — European tempers over the treatment of Roma immigrants flared again on Friday, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the Germans were preparing to follow France’s lead and expel migrant Roma, while German officials denied they had said any such thing.

The altercation marked a significant widening of the diplomatic repercussions spreading across Europe after France in July began deporting Roma to their homes in Romania and Bulgaria.

Read on.

Is this just one more example of the growing rise in ethnic nationalism?

Look for the Roma to appear soon on the list as refugees being resettled in the US.  Afterall, there are lots of precidents.  How is this attempt by France to keep France for the French any different than the Bhutanese wanting Bhutan for the Bhutanese?   When Bhutan expelled the Nepalese and sent them back to Nepal, we scurried in (critical of Bhutan) and promised to take 60,000!  (See the latest post here at RRW on how many have arrived.)   One could say Burma has done the same—expelled those it believes not to be truly Burmese.  Now we take their minorities.   So, will the Roma be next?  Just wondering.

Swedish elections today could change balance of power in Sweden and beyond

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, it’s all about immigration!   See this story (with a pro-socialist spin) from the Guardian and watch for news later today.

The Swedish Social Democrats are no ordinary party. If Mona Sahlin, their leader, loses tomorrow’s election, as seems almost certain, she will become the first leader in the party’s history never to have been prime minister. The party has been in government for 65 of the last 78 years, and in that time no non-socialist government has ever been re-elected. But today a far-right party that blames Muslim immigration for almost all the country’s ills is poised to enter parliament and hold the balance of power. It already has members in local government across more than half the country. The local paper in Malmö, the country’s third-largest city, publishes a Google Map marking all the shootings in the city – there have been 46 this year, though no one has been killed. What on earth is going on in this tranquil, ordered and progressive country?

If you believe the international rightwing press, the answer is simple, and has been since 2004, when Fox News made a special report on the subject: Sweden, and especially Malmö, has become a laboratory for the creeping Islamisation of Europe. The most common child’s name there is now Muhammad; police dare not go into immigrant districts, where only sharia law is respected; and soon all the Jews will be driven from the city. All this, flecked with varying amounts of spittle, is recounted as fact on the net and in US papers.

Paulina Neuding, a neoliberal Swedish commentator, wrote in Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard, “Too many of the country’s Arab immigrants have brought anti-democratic values from their home countries; values that neither ‘dialogue police’ nor the world’s most generous welfare system has been able to cure. And [Sweden] is also becoming a symbol of a western country that is prepared to compromise with those values.”

To get a much better understanding of how Sweden has come to this point.  See this important history lesson at Gates of Vienna from earlier this month.  Hat tip:  Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum.

We have written many posts about the growing tensions in Sweden over Muslim immigration and this post continues to be one of our most read posts at RRW.  I think it must be the title that brings readers, “Muslim immigration killing Sweden.”   However, I thought this was a much more significant post on Sweden—Jews leaving Sweden—here.

Update September 26th:  More biased reporting from the Guardian on the Swedish vote, here.