Day: March 12, 2017

"Battle of Rotterdam" on eve of historic election in the Netherlands

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe news….

Western Civilization is under assault: “If this continues, our culture will cease to exist.”

(A Dutch citizen of Amsterdam told The Washington Post this week)

 
All eyes will be on the Dutch election scheduled for this Wednesday!
And, if things couldn’t be more tense in the lead-up to election day, last night Turkish Muslim protestors were driven from the streets of Rotterdam by mounted police officers and water cannons.
Trumpeted The Sun:

THE BATTLE OF ROTTERDAM Dutch riot cops use batons, water cannon and horse charges to clear thousands of Turkish protesters in Rotterdam

DUTCH riot police have broken up protests by supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Turkish ministers were barred from speaking at a rally in the Netherlands.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam last night after cops prevented Turkey’s family minister from entering the building.

The Washington Post, in a lengthy story written before the Battle of Rotterdam last night, tells us what is at stake on Wednesday:

Anti-immigrant anger threatens to remake the liberal Netherlands

AMSTERDAM — Xandra Lammers lives on an island in Amsterdam, the back door of her modern and spacious four-bedroom house opening onto a graceful canal where ducks, swans and canoes glide by.

The translation business she and her husband run from their home is thriving. The neighborhood is booming, with luxury homes going up as fast as workers can build them, a quietly efficient tramway to speed residents to work in the world-renowned city center, and parks, bike paths, art galleries, beaches and cafes all within a short amble.

By outward appearances, Lammers is living the Dutch dream. But in the 60-year-old’s telling, she has been dropped into the middle of a nightmare, one in which Western civilization is under assault from the Muslim immigrants who have become her neighbors.

“The influx has been too much. The borders should close,” said Lammers, soft-spoken with pale blue eyes and brown hair that frames a deceptively serene-looking face. “If this continues, our culture will cease to exist.”

The stakes have risen sharply as Europeans’ anti-establishment anger has swelled. In interviews across the Netherlands in recent days, far-right voters expressed stridently nationalist, anti-immigrant views that were long considered fringe but that have now entered the Dutch mainstream.

Voters young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural said they would back the Geert Wilders-led Freedom Party — no longer the preserve of the “left-behinds” — which promises to solve the country’s problems by shutting borders, closing mosques and helping to dismantle the European Union.

“They’ve found a very powerful narrative,” said Koen Damhuis, a researcher at the European University Institute who studies the far right. “By creating a master conflict of the national versus the foreign, they’re able to attract support from all elements of society.”

Ronald Meulendijks has a poster of Geert Wilders in his IJburg apartment. “I think Holland will need a civil war,” he said, “between the people who don’t belong here and the real people.” (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

[….]

“The main issue is identity,” said Joost Niemöller, a journalist and author who has written extensively on Wilders and is sympathetic to his cause. “People feel they’re losing their Dutch identity and Dutch society. The neighborhoods are changing. Immigrants are coming in. And they can’t say anything about it because they’ll be called racist. So they feel helpless. Because they feel helpless, they get angry.”

Echoing a theme I’ve heard on my travels everywhere in America:

“A government has to treat its own people correctly before accepting new ones. First, you must take care of your own.”

And if the government fails, Meulendijks has dark visions of what’s to come.

“I think Holland will need a civil war,” he said, “between the people who don’t belong here and the real people.”

Continue reading here.
Did the civil war begin in Rotterdam, last night?
Americans should be enormously thankful that we have a window on our own future as we watch the invasion of the European continent.  And, now that Donald Trump is in office, we, God-willing, will not go down the path Europe has been on for way too long.
Go here for our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.  And, here for The Netherlands, Geert Wilders, here.
BTW, we heard Wilders speak as a side event at CPAC 8 years ago (2009). It was a side event because the organizers of CPAC refused his presence on the main program. (CPAC organizers have been notoriously Republican establishment dolts who never understood where the people were headed on the issues of Islam and immigration.)

Idaho refugee contractor: Refugees pay taxes!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Who are you trying to kid?
Message to the head of the local resettlement agency in Twin Falls, Idaho: It is not a good idea to start putting out information about a refugee’s tax liability that can be easily checked!

70% of the workers at Idaho dairy factories are immigrants, many illegal, however refugee labor is being employed not just at Chobani Yogurt in Twin Falls, but at the milk production end as well. https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-10-31/lesson-immigration-reform-head-idaho-dairy-farm

Zeze Rwasama spoke earlier this month to the Pocotello Rotary Club and made the claim that refugees are not getting much in the way of taxpayer support:

“Resettlement in the U.S. in not for them to become a burden to our public assistance,” Rwasama said. “Yes, we help them for only eight months. After that, they become taxpayers as well. That means we can help more. … A single refugee brought in 2014 working in a dairy made about $26,000 that year. But when you look at how much the agency spent on that person, it was only about $4,600. When you look at the W-2 form and see how much money that person paid into tax that one year, it’s actually close to that $4,600. So in one year this person has paid into the tax funds the total amount of money that was spent on him. That means we can help more because they are coming here to contribute and coming here to support themselves.”

LOL! I’m betting members of the Rotary Club were doing some mental math as he spoke—$4,600 federal tax liability on $26,000 annual income? No way!
Do you see how Rwasama has parsed his words. His dairy worker “paid into tax” close to that $4,600, but when you check his tax liability it is about $2,255 ($2,345 less than the $4,600 withheld).  He will get a tax refund of that difference—approximately $2,345!  (That tax calculation may vary depending on which year, but you get the idea!).
And, then Zeze Rwasama is only referring to the $4,600 his agency paid to subsidize the dairy farmer’s employee and doesn’t mention the medical care, food stamps and possibly even a housing subsidy that the refugee making $26,000 a year would be eligible for!
And, I just realized that what is never calculated is the cost of the overseas processing of this dairy worker: the vetting, the medical checks, the cost of sending US workers to do the paperwork.
BTW, if the dairy farm employee took a refugee wife on this salary (filing jointly) he might only pay in about $530 in federal income tax.
Rwasama’s agency would presumably have spent $4,600 on her and the couple would then have cost you $9,200 (not including Rwasama’s salary and office expenses, which you paid too!).
If you are interested, just search around for news on Idaho (Oregon, Wisconsin) dairy farms and refugees=controversy!
See our extensive Twin Falls archive by clicking here.
For all of you working in ‘pockets of resistance’ be sure to find out what industries are driving the resettlement where you live.  Look for large corporate farms, meatpackers, hotels, manufacturers requiring few skills, and anyone needing cleaning staff. (This is why you see little interest on the part of Republican leaders in Congress to reform the US Refugee Admissions Program.)
This is not about humanitarianism!
Endnote: If there is some accountant out there who has better numbers than I can find, have at it! Let me know what you find. Wouldn’t it be great if someone followed one of these dairy (or hotel, or meatpacking) workers from a camp in Thailand, Kenya or Nepal all the way through the system to see how many tax dollars support the delivery of one (captive) worker to BIG MEAT or BIG DAIRY.