Day: May 5, 2011

Geert Wilders will be in Tennessee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Geert Wilders, the outspoken defender of free speech in Europe as he calls for a halt to Muslim immigration to his homeland, the Netherlands, will be in Nashville next week.  This according to the excellent website Gates of Vienna, here.

The Canadian chapter of the International Free Press Society is bringing Geert Wilders to North America next week. After visiting three Canadian cities (Toronto, London, and Ottawa), on May 12 Mr. Wilders, along with Sam Solomon and Bill Warner, will appear at the Cornerstone Church in Madison, a suburb of Nashville. This event is being held under the auspices of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.

Mr. Wilders, who initiated his discussion of “The Failure of Multiculturalism” in Rome on March 25, will continue his battle against cultural relativism and Islamization, beginning in Canada on May 8 and ending in Nashville on May 12. Canada is famous for having invented Multiculturalism under Pierre Trudeau in the late 1970s, so it will be ironic for Canadians to be lectured by Geert Wilders on this modern disease, and to receive a warning from the rising political star in the Netherlands.

Mr. Wilders will continue his lectures in Nashville, where the current legislature is contemplating “anti-sharia” legislation. Nashville’s neighboring city of Murfreesboro is famous for its battle over a planned mega-mosque. The Cornerstone Church is a large church in the Nashville area, where several thousand Christians are expected to listen to Wilders’ “Warning to America.”

Judy and I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Wilders speak in Washington, DC in February of 2009 here.  Type ‘Geert Wilders’ into our search function for our many reports on his warning to the West.

Tennessee is at the epicenter right now of the push-back against Islamic supremacism in the US, here.

Michigan: Somali father and son charged in food stamp fraud bust

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Where is the mainstream media?  Does no one see the large  number of busts by the Obama Administration of the ‘mom and pop’ grocer food stamp fraud?  These two are estimated to have netted nearly a half million over 5 years.  Dad says he sent some money to Somalia.

From the Grand Rapids Press:

GRAND RAPIDS — The owner of Rayan Phone Card & Grocery is accused in a $474,000 food-stamp scheme, one of five such alleged frauds reported in the Grand Rapids area since last year.

Ahmed Sheikh-Mohamed, owner of the store, and his son, Mohamed Isse, are accused in a recently unsealed criminal complaint of redeeming electronic food-stamp benefits for cash, pre-paid phone cards, cologne and other unauthorized items.

The father told investigators he also redeemed $400 of his personal food-stamp benefits that were wired to Somalia, the government said in court records.

Unless these two have a lavish house and fancy cars (this article doesn’t tell us), I suspect they sent a whole lot more than $400 out of the country.

Then this is very annoying, if we knew they were already cheating in 2006 and 2007 what the heck took so long to arrest them?  How much money went out of the country in those nearly 5 years?

He [special agent Travis Deters] said that the store, on Eastern Avenue SE, redeemed far more in food benefits than it sold in food. From July 2006 to June 2007, the store sold an estimated $13,680 in food, but it redeemed $138,000 in food-stamp benefits over that period, he said.

“The fact that supposed benefit redemptions actually exceed the total sales of the store suggests that a significant portion (if not all) of the business’ revenue is derived from fraud,” he wrote.

He compared food-stamp redemptions from June 2006 to November 2009 at similar stores, and “Based on these comparisons, I conservatively estimate the food stamp fraud loss attributable to the owners and operators of Rayan Phone Card & Grocery during this period alone at over $474,000.”

Meanwhile, the cost of the food stamp program to the US taxpayer is going through the roof, here.

Does no one (but a few readers here at RRW) have any curiosity about how a couple of former Somali refugees have the bucks in the first place to be buying stores?

For more information (and hey, mainstream media reporters too), type ‘food stamp fraud’ into our search function for dozens more stories like this one!

WSJ: one in seven using food stamps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

The Wall Street Journal two days ago reported the latest numbers saying that the rapid increase over the last year flattened out a bit in February, but the numbers are staggering.

Of course,  the cynic (me), thinks that the number partly increased in recent years as people learned that they could get cold hard cash from the system (redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer) by just going down to the local mom and pop store and trading their benefits for cash at half their value while the store owner turns in the full value for reimbursement from the feds.

I am continually amazed that papers like the Wall Street Journal never do stories on all the immigrant convenience store fraud busts on-going (I’ve got another good one this morning, here).  As far as I know I’m the only media source writing regularly on the fraud.

Here is the Wall Street Journal (click on the link to the stats to see how your state is doing):

Growth in the food stamp program appeared to reach a plateau in February — with 14.3% of the population relying on the safety net program.

The number of food stamp recipients was essentially flat in February, the most recent month available, with 44.2 million Americans receiving benefits, according a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (See a sortable breakdown of the data here.)

The food stamp program ballooned during the recession as workers lost their jobs or saw their hours and income reduced. The rise in recipients has begun to flatten in recent months, which may mean that as the economy is improving fewer Americans are seeking to join the program. Enrollment in the program is still high though, with 11.6% more people tapping benefits in February than the same month a year earlier.

The state with the lowest food stamp use (as a percentage of population) is Wyoming!

Wyoming had the lowest rate of recipients with just 6.6% of the state’s residents using food stamps.

What a coincidence, Wyoming is also the only state in the Nation that does not take refugees.  Could we make the leap and assume they don’t have as many immigrants (percentage wise) as other states?   By the way, a state can opt-out of the refugee program, here, which is what Wyoming did at some point.

By the way, I see there is still no Office of Refugee Resettlement annual report to Congress for 2008, 2009 and 2010.  What are they hiding?  I betcha refugee food stamp use figures are among the data they don’t want you or Congress to see.

For dozens and dozens of posts on food stamp scams, just type ‘food stamp fraud’ into our search function.