Category: 2008 Presidential campaign

Obama and friends on Fox this weekend

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just received this alert to a TV special featuring Daniel Pipes talking about Obama’s Islamist friends.    How does all this tie in with immigrant and refugee activists and your tax dollars being spent on groups such as the Arab American Action Network?    See my post from March, “Obama and the taxpayer money trail.”  Be sure to follow the link back to Atlas Shrugs for a full view of “community organizing” Chicago-style.

Then watch this special! 

Alert from the Middle East Forum

To watch Daniel Pipes discuss the connection between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi, please tune in to “Hannity’s America” on Fox News Channel. It will air twice:

· Saturday, May 31 at 9 p.m. EDT

· Sunday, June 1 at 9 p.m. EDT.

This is part of the show’s ongoing “Real Barack Obama” series (for links to the six prior episodes, see Fox here).

Mr. Pipes will provide information on the two men’s social, intellectual, and financial connections in Chicago, then consider the implications for his presidential candidacy.

For background on the topic see the Los Angeles Times article of April 10, 2008, “Allies of Palestinians see a freind in Barack Obama”

Blogging is changing the rules of journalism, and it’s about time!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This article brought a smile to my face when I saw it last night in the Washington Times.   It’s about the woman who taped Obama’s now famous “bitter” comments and it’s subheading says it all:  Dividing line blurred between amateur, traditional journalists.

Mayhill Fowler is no longer an unknown California blogger. In the past 48 hours, she has generated international press coverage, a profile in the New York Times and sparked furious discussion among journalists, pundits and campaign strategists.

The enterprising Mrs. Fowler, 61, and her digital recording device are behind “Bittergate.”

It’s about time!  Those traditional (professional) journalists have been sifting the news for us for my entire lifetime (and way before that), so it gives me great joy to see the mainstream media pooh-bahs brought low. 

“This situation clearly illuminates the fact that in the citizen blogger, amateur journalism world, the rules that govern the relationship between traditional journalists and their sources are not present. A traditional newsroom would not have allowed someone who was a campaign donor to cover that candidate,” said Mark Jurkowitz of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Too bad, Mr. Jurkowitz. 

For the first time in my adult life, I see some hope for reforming our political system by getting the sifters of the news out of the way.   The public should be given all the facts so they can then make up their own minds about public officials or public policy.

Blogger busts — an online exclusive amplified in big media with serious repercussions — have emerged as an increasing threat to unwary public figures and a cautionary tale.

Yup!   And, as I have said on several previous occasions:  Start a blog!

The “McCain Program” brings in more refugees from the Vietnam war

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know, you are saying, but the War ended more than 30 years ago, are there still refugees we need to bring to America?   Doesn’t John McCain know we have normalized relations with Vietnam and although the country’s growth is slowed by its Communist government, generally the lives of people there are getting better.  

Surely those who wish to come to America can just get in line for a visa like others who are not “persecuted”.  Remember refugees receive all sorts of taxpayer funded benefits, job counseling and English lessons while normal immigrants are on their own.

Last night a reader brought the McCain Program to our attention.  

The McCain Amendment provides that certain sons or daughters of former Vietnamese re-education center detainees are to be considered refugees of special humanitarian concern and may be eligible for resettlement in the U.S. if they meet the following criteria: [go to the Consulate General website here]

Read this article at VDARE by Thomas Allen for more on the reopening of the Vietnam refugee program years after it officially closed.

Senator Joe Biden is such a hypocrite

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the big lobbying week (I’ll get to that later) when NGO’s like Human Rights First ramp up their pressure on Congress and the Administration to do more to resolve what they call the “humanitarian” crisis involving Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes by the sectarian violence in Iraq. 

Last year Senator Ted (bring them to Hyannisport) Kennedy managed to pass legislation in the dark of night (attaching it to the Defense Authorization bill) that increased the number of special immigrant visas for Iraqis who might have helped America in the war (by the way, no mention of the truly persecuted Christians).   After some late night debate, but no hearings, the number was set at 5000 and the bill became law at the end of January.  Not satisfied, Kennedy and Senator Biden aided by others including Senator (open wide our gates) McCain, are about to, or have just in the last few days, introduced another bill to bring more sooner.

Senators Kennedy, Lugar, Biden and others will introduce a bipartisan bill providing additional authority for continued processing of special immigrant visas for qualified Iraqi and Afghan translators who worked for the U.S. military and U.S. government. The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008, enacted January 28, 2008, created 5,000 new special immigrant visas for Iraqis whose lives are at risk because of their service to the U.S. government. These special visas are not available until FY 2009. Senator Kennedy’s bipartisan bill would make the visas available immediately to qualified Iraqis who worked for the U.S. military and the U.S. government. Iraqi translators and interpreters who placed their lives, families, and livelihoods at risk to serve on the side of America are eligible for these special visas. Others cosponsors include Senators Leahy, Specter, Levin, Cornyn, Obama, Lieberman, McCain, Durbin, Sununu, Cardin, Smith, Hagel and Coleman.

By the way, did you ever notice how they always put this translator stuff in these pitches.   Some of those are the “refugees” Homeland Security is most concerned about and Denmark discovered that the hard way.

I don’t know where McCain’s head is on this because this whole effort smacks of whacking the Bush Administration over the war and McCain continues to be a strong supporter of the war.    This large public relations campaign on refugees is meant to damage Republicans.    If McCain were smart instead of  signing on to this initiative to bring Iraqi Mulsims here (to live in ghettos and clean motels)  he should be promoting a sort of Marshall plan for Iraq.   Here is another post on unhappy Iraqis in Arizona no less.

There is also a report attached to this article that you need to read.  I quickly searched it to see if it said anything about a rebuilding effort in Iraq and I didn’t see a mention.

Now to Senator Joe Biden!   Just as Senator Ted isn’t going to be resettling any refugees of any sort to Hyannisport, Senator Joe (any place but Delaware) Biden is a hypocrite.    He is one of the few originators of the Refugee Act of 1980 (along with chief sponsor Kennedy) still in the Senate, yet his own state of Delaware ranks third from the bottom in the number of refugees resettled there between 1983 and 2005, this while surrounding states Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have each brought tens of thousands of refugees.    Ranking below Delaware are only West Virginia and Wyoming.   

So, Senator Biden is promoting bringing more Iraqis but few if any will come to Delaware.   The politics of this stinks!

The public relations campaign to brainwash the American public gets underway shortly.  More in my next post.

Obama and the taxpayer money trail

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars: 

The article that caught my eye appeared first at World Net Daily on February 28th entitled, “Obama raised funds for Islamic causes,”  and then I saw some of the same information posted at Atlas Shrugs here.   The articles suggest that Senator Obama is a closet supporter of the Palestinian cause (not a surprise in light of his Reverend buddy) and thus may be connected with questionable characters in the terror world, but I can’t speak to that.    What interested me is the more mundane issue of taxpayer money flowing through the “community” organizations of Chicago.

Here are some of the quotes from World Net Daily that sent me searching tax returns.

Abunimah (Ali Abunimah, a Chicago-based Palestinian-American activist) serves on the board of the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a “catastrophe” and supports intense immigration reform, including providing driver’s licenses and education to illegal aliens.

_____

WND reported yesterday the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit on which Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist, provided $75,000 in grants to the AAAN.

______

Obama’s advocacy on behalf of Palestinians comes after WND reported yesterday the presidential candidate served on the board of the Woods Fund alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombings against government buildings.

It’s a free country right, and groups can form and advocate for their causes all they want.  It is one of our great freedoms.   But, what if the taxpayers are funding some causes and not others.    The Woods Fund is a private foundation with assets of over $70,000,000 in 2006.   The fund owns pages and pages of shares in companies of every sort, but pays only a pittance in taxes because it gives some (around $3,000,000 in 2006) of its earnings to charities of its choice and hires people like Bill Ayers and previously Barack Obama to govern it. 

The Woods Fund gave grants to groups such as the above mentioned Arab American Action Network, Prison Reform, Latinos United, Inner City Muslim Action Network and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to name a tiny fraction.    I was looking for groups like maybe Suburban Redneck Rights Coalition, or Nascar Fans United for Peace, or  Unemployed Conservative Trailer Park Citizens for Human Rights.   This community organizing B.S. that Obama brags about is really left wing political organizing couched in multicultural grievance language and paid for by us.

Maybe you are saying so what, it’s a private foundation.  But, get this!  The Arab American Action Network (AAAN) is getting direct government (taxpayer funded!) grants to work against you!   In the most recent Form 990 I could get for them (2004), they received $122,327 in government grants as part of their $394,687 income for the year.   That is about 31% of their budget to “organize” Chicago Arabs.   Lest you think they are running bake sales or pig roast fundraisers, much of the other “direct public support” they receive comes from grants from the likes of the Woods Fund.

Next I wanted to know what is this Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR).  See what they do here.  And, while you are reading think about the fact that in 2005 you funded this group to the tune of $5,276,202 as part of an overall income of $6,779,751.  YOU are paying 78% of what they do.  To be completely accurate, if you live in Illinois you are paying much of this.

But, rest assured the ICIRR isn’t greedy, it doesn’t roll around in your money it passes it on to groups like Council of Islamic Organizations, Chinese Mutual Aid Assn.,  World Relief (Moline), Instituto Del Progresso Latino, Muslim Women Resource Center, Arab American Family Services, Bosnian-Herz American Community Center. and of course the Arab American Action Network ($82,000 in 2005) among 40 some other similar groups.

Funny I didn’t see any groups for people like me.

So, first Obama was busy getting these folks organized in the “community,”  then as a State legislator in Illinois (I’ll bet you a buck) he  made darn sure all his “community” groups got their fair share of your paycheck so they could keep organizing against you.  

Some racket, huh!