Day: June 4, 2011

Adam Gadahn, American convert to Islam, urges Muslims in America to rise up…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….get guns and start killing political leaders and heads of large American businesses.  Oh, and if you get caught don’t worry because they will just eventually let you go (referring presumably to the Gitmo prisoners that both Bush and Obama have released).

From ABC News:

In a new video message released on the internet Friday, American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn calls on Muslims living in America to carry out deadly one-man terrorist acts using fully automatic weapons purchased at gun shows, and to target major institutions and public figures.

[….]

Gadahn sounds the same theme in his message, a series of soundbites interspersed throughout the video and accompanied by images of U.S. airliners, bombmaking and the logos of U.S. companies. “Muslims in the West have to remember that they are perfectly placed to play an important and decisive part in the Jihad against the Zionists and crusaders, and to do major damage to the enemies of Islam, waging war on their religion, sacred places, and things, and brethren,” says Gadahn. “This is a golden opportunity and a blessing.”

[….]

Gadahn suggests targeting major institutions — after a clip showing the logos of such firms as Exxon, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America — and “influential public figures.” “Getting to these criminals isn’t as hard as you might think,” says Gadahn.

[….]

He claims that many Western born or raised jihadis, the “brothers who came from abroad” are now thinking about returning to their “Crusader” countries to “discharge their duty of jihad.” He also says not to worry about imprisonment, since so many have been jihadis have been set free. “If it’s Allah’s will that you be captured, then it’s not the end the world, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison.” Many mujahideen who were locked up “are now back home with their families, or back on the frontlines, fighting the enemies.”

I suggest this master of propaganda (and right hand man of the now deceased Osama bin Laden) should move to the top of the US hit list.

Why there is no “right of return” for Palestinian “refugees”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The New York Daily News has published a terrific column by Asaf Romirowsky that tells you what you need to know about Palestinian “refugees” and the Arabs’ demand for their  so-called right of return as part of a peace agreement with Israel. The headline says it: “UN refugee agency poisons the push for Mideast peace:  UNRWA only furthers Palestinians’ suffering.”

The “right of return” is a big deal to the Arabs, which is why–

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out of his lengthy sitdown with President Obama, he focused as much on the question of the right of return of Palestinian refugees as he did on the dispute over the 1967 boundaries. “It’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly it’s not going to happen,” said Netanyahu – and with good reason, for within a matter of just a few years, an influx of refugees would effectively erase Israel as a Jewish state.

If Obama agrees, there is a significant step he can take now – namely, working to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), whose very existence has been built around perpetuating this so-called right.

The call for a Palestinian right of return is based on a highly specific – and discredited – reading of history, which assumes Israeli responsibility for creating the refugee problem via “ethnic cleansing.” Restitution from the allegedly guilty party, then, involves the eventual return of the refugees and their descendants, even when they are generations removed from the initial “crime” of Israel’s founding.

He goes further into the reasons for dismantling the terrible UN agency UNRWA, concluding:

A UN agency that’s invested in perpetual conflict will not help bring about peace.

 Amen. We’ve written a lot about the Palestinian “refugees” and UNRWA. See this search page  or click on our “Israel and refugees” category in the column on the left. But the Romirowsky piece summarizes most of the issues in this complicated subject that most of the world’s media distorts out of ignorance or ill will or both.

Tennessee takes major first step to regain some local control of refugee resettlement process

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have been writing about this problem for years and questioning why the US State Department and its contractors are not required to take the wishes of local communities into consideration when distributing refugees throughout the country.

Fed up the lack of any state or local control over the refugee resettlement process in Tennessee, two women have led the initiative, now signed into law by the governor of Tennessee, that would begin to give some power to decide how many refugees may be resettled to local communities back to local governments.  We told you about this bill introduced by State Senator Jim Tracy, whose district includes Shelbyville, here, in February.   (For new readers, Shelbyville archive is here.)

The first law of its kind in the US

The Tennessee Eagle Forum led the legislative push with help from members of ACT for America.

Here is a summary (written by one of the activists involved in its passage) of the Tennessee Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act:

The “Refugee Absorptive Capacity Act” passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate with bi-partisan support and is the first of its kind to be passed in any state. [The governor has signed the bill into law—ed]

The federal refugee resettlement program is not particularly well understood nor is its impact on local “host” communities either well documented or even publicized. However, as state and local budgets become more challenging to constrain, combined with local economies and unemployment statistics, the issue of whether a particular community can absorb and provide for new refugees, is a very timely issue. The objectives of the Tennessee RACA bill are especially relevant for states like Tennessee, which in 2007 withdrew from administering the federal program, and opted to allow Catholic Charities as the fiduciary agency, administrate the state’s refugee program.

The change-over in 2007 inadvertently created a communication gap at both the state and local level which has been addressed by the RACA with a requirement for quarterly reporting to the relevant legislative committees and to the local city council budget chairman.

Within 30 days of arriving in the U.S., local resettlement agencies assist new refugees in applying for all public entitlement and benefit programs. The resettlement agencies also assist with such necessities as housing, securing employment and medical care. While the initial 4 months of resettlement are funded with federal dollars, subsequent sources of support may need to come from state and local resources.

The RACA, consistent with federal regulations, articulates the factors that are supposed to be assessed to determine local “absorptive capacity” and goes on to require that the “absorptive capacity” is evaluated at regular intervals in consultation between local governments and local resettlement agencies before commitments are made for refugee resettlement in any particular community.

It has been unclear in the past whether the local authorities responsible for addressing local budgetary allocation and needs, have been included in the consultative process. Assuring their active participation in this process helps to ensure that commitments made on behalf of a host community by the agency contracting with the federal government who in turn contracts with the local affiliate resettlement agencies, are commitments that the host community can fulfill.

The RACA also incorporates in a slightly modified model, a recommendation that has been made repeatedly by the National Governor’s Association and more recently in a hearing by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the refugee resettlement program. The RACA provides that a local city council or other local governing body, may pass a resolution establishing that based on the “absorptive capacity” factors in the bill the community cannot absorb new refugees and may thereby request a one year moratorium on new refugee resettlement in that community.

Also, please see this one  page fact sheet at the Tennessee Eagle Forum website.

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana (a state suffering under refugee overload especially in Ft. Wayne) authored a major report on this same issue—absorptive capacity—here last summer.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul calls for hearings on refugee security screening

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In response to the Iraqi refugee terror bust in his state, Senator Paul is calling for hearings on Iraqi immigration.  All I can say is, IT IS ABOUT TIME!

From AP:

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) – U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is calling for Senate hearings to get answers on how two Iraqi refugees were granted asylum to live in the United States.

Paul made the call for hearings Friday during a press conference in Bowling Green, where the two were arrested last week after an FBI investigation.

Paul is too new in the Senate to be in too deep with the industries that push for refugee labor (like the meatpackers)—the new slavery— but I wonder about Senator Mitch McConnell who has apparently never lifted a finger to question the huge flow of refugees into Kentucky even when a concerned citizen brought to his office’s attention in 2009 the deplorable conditions in which refugees live in Bowling Green, here.