Category: 2016 Presidential campaign

Maryland Gov. Hogan says he is not voting for Trump; more refugees entering MD than during Dems control

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Maryland Republicans were beside themselves with joy that in a blue, blue state they succeeded in electing a Republican governor in the fall of 2014.
The bloom is now off the rose as Governor Larry Hogan says point blank he will not vote for Donald Trump and doesn’t agree with most of what Trump says.  (By the way, Hogan owes some of his electoral success to help from NJ Governor Chris Christie an up front supporter of Trump, so who knows what is going on there!).

Larry Hogan
Looks like Hogan was all talk when he said he didn’t want Syrian refugees resettled in Maryland.

By saying what he did, he has now, for all intents and purposes, thumbed his nose at 248,000 Marylander Republicans who voted for Trump in the primary. See Blue Ridge Forum here (248,000 orphaned GOPers).
I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds of Maryland Republican politics, but long-time Republican observer and former staffer for Congressman Roscoe Bartlett said this (below) on her facebook page.
This would have been an excellent way for the Governor to respond to demands that he tell Marylanders where he stands in this fall’s election. My prediction is that Hogan has just guaranteed that he will be a one-termer.
Keep in mind that the man who wants the governor’s mansion two years from now is Congressman John Delaney, an uber-wealthy Democrat who is apparently already bored with Congress and has been hounding the Governor to say if he supports Trump. (Delaney wins this round!).
Here is the sensible thing Hogan should have said. Maybe it’s just as well he wasn’t smart enough to give a nuanced answer.
Sallie Taylor on facebook:

SCREAM! How hard would it be for Hogan to reply “I am certainly not going to be voting for the former Secretary of State who put all our safety at risk by setting up her own unsecured email system, who failed to protect her own people in Benghazi , who appears to have been selling government favors for contributions to the Clinton Foundation.” And then Hogan just needs to walk away. Unless he is joining O’Malley and is supporting Hillary Clinton for President then how he is answering makes perfect sense.

Enough of that…..
Since this is a blog about refugees, I decided to see how the numbers are looking during Governor Hogan’s Administration. Remember he was one of the 30 or so governors who declared that Obama shouldn’t resettle un-vetted Syrians in the state and then he went silent.
Maryland doesn’t get a huge number of refugees compared to states like Texas or Michigan, but a steady stream does arrive.

However, much to our surprise more entered in the year after Hogan was elected than in any one of Martin O’Malley’s years.

Editor: It is a good thing we checked these numbers yesterday because today that important data base maintained by the US State Dept. is not available.  We hope this is a temporary problem, but if by Monday it isn’t up and running, then we know the Obama Administration is blatantly blocking the public’s right to know who has been seeded into their towns. 

Yesterday I went back ten years in the data and found that in 2005, Maryland resettled 751 refugees with a gradual increase each year until 2015 when the number jumped to 1,453 (under the Hogan Admin).  In those last ten plus years, Maryland ‘welcomed’ 12,112 refugees.
In 2016, the state has, as of June 15th, received 137 Syrians  (35 in 2015 and 93 so far this year).  The Syrians were distributed to Baltimore, Ellicott City, Riverdale, and Silver Spring.
MD resettled Muslim refugees from Iraq, Burma, Afghanistan and Somalia among many others from around the world.
Here are the towns and cities where refugees were resettled this year (some got only a handful, others got large numbers with Baltimore and Silver Spring being the top destinations).

Arbutus

Baltimore

Catonsville

College Park

Dundalk

Ellicott City

Elkridge

Gaithersburg

Halethorpe

Middle River

Nottingham

Riverdale

Rockville

Silver Spring

Looking for fresh territory! Hagerstown?

Rest assured, the contractors are out scouting new sites in Maryland and may have their eyes on Hagerstown (again).
Back in April (when we were away for a few days) the Hagerstown Herald Mail reported that the local “interfaith” group invited Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (one of nine major resettlement contractors headquartered in Baltimore) to come and discuss bringing Syrians to Hagerstown.  See here.
Watch for it!  And, know that they don’t technically have to have an office in Hagerstown (as Virginia Council of Churches did in 2007 before the program was closed) because they can resettle within a hundred mile radius of an existing office.
See our archives on Baltimore refugees by clicking here.  Could the stress from forced multiculturalism be an important factor in why Baltimore is now a city out of control?

Speaker Ryan lied to Bill O'Reilly, will O'Reilly call him out on it?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a test for the ‘no spin zone!’  

Will Bill have the guts to smack down (uh, get clarification from) the Speaker?
Here is another piece of great investigating and writing by Julia Hahn at Breitbart.  I happened to catch the interview (although I don’t often watch O’Reilly) and thought to myself that Ryan doesn’t even know what he is talking about, or did he intentionally mislead O’Reilly?.
 
O'Reilly and Ryan
 
Hahn:

In a Wednesday interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, House Speaker Paul Ryan made a demonstrably false declaration about his efforts to pause the Somali refugee program.

During the interview, O’Reilly criticized Ryan for failing to message on immigration controls and asked Ryan specifically about the Somali refugee crisis in Minnesota.

O’Reilly: “We have a Somali problem up in Minneapolis-St. Paul. [We] have a problem there and those are refugees from Somalia. And if, God forbid, some refugee comes in and blows people up, it’s going to be grisly.”

Ryan replied by explaining that he passed a bill to pause the refugee program. Ryan said: “Right. Right. That’s why– just so you know that’s why we passed a bill pausing this refugee program, because we don’t think the refugee program works. That’s why we don’t want it to continue right now.”

Rosemary Jenks
Rosemary Jenks, Numbers USA

However, Ryan did no such thing. The bill Ryan championed did not in any way pause the Somali refugee program– it applied solely to refugees from Syria and Iraq.

The House bill would “not have affected the Somali refugee program at all,” said NumbersUSA Director of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks.

Jenks further noted that, “The bill the House passed would in no way pause the refugee program. They had the option of taking up the Babin bill, which would have paused the refugee program, but they refused to do that… All [the House bill] required was that the government sign off that individuals had been vetted. It didn’t even change the fact that we don’t have any information by which to vet them.”

This is great! Continue reading here.  Watch the O’Reilly interview, here.  Start at about minute 1:50 or a little earlier.
And, be sure to see the numbers we reported in our previous post for this fiscal year.  Somalis, at this time, actually surpass Syrian numbers and we all know there is no way to know who they all are any more than we can know who the Syrians are—no data bases in their failed or failing countries!
Ryan has to go! See how you can help by clicking here.

NBC foreign correspondent tells Rachel Maddow that ISIS will infiltrate refugee flow

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Oopsy!

maddow_bio_02
Maddow learns the cold hard truth! Trump might have a point (of course she would never admit it!)

The story by Jack Coleman at News Busters is entitled: NBC’s Richard Engel Strays From Script of Syrian Refugees as Entirely Harmless. Of course to us (and Donald Trump) that is a no-brainer, but it might be new news to Ms. Maddow.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed Engel from Instanbul, 4:40 a.m. local time, on her show Monday night about the terrorist massacre in Orlando and breaking news of the murder of a French police officer and his wife by another ISIS-inspired jihadist.

With ISIS losing ground in Syria and Iraq, its leaders are urging Islamists to attack Europeans and Americans in their countries rather than joining ISIS fighters on the battlefield in the Middle East, Engel said. Then came an assertion you’re unlikely to hear again on MSNBC —

So, already what we’re seeing a little bit, and French officials have been warning about this, is people trying to leave the battlefield. They don’t want to stay in Raqqa and face the bombings, so they’re trying to get out, come back through Turkey, come back anyway they can. The migrant trail is once again moving, not on the scale that it did last year, but still is underway. And that is also a concern that as you smash them in Iraq and Syria, they spread out. Or, they just inspire the ones like this awful shooter in Orlando who was clearly full of hate.

More here with the video clip itself.

Comment worth noting: Trump answers question about repealing Refugee Act

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor: If you are a regular reader, you know that occasionally we post a comment from a reader that we don’t want to lose buried at a specific post.  This is from Joe Newton of Georgia’s ‘Refugee Resettlement Relief’ a citizens’ group (a pocket of resistance!):
Trump in Georgia

“This morning our Ex. Dir. of Refugee Resettlement Relief spoke with the presumptive Republican nomineeDonald Trump at the Trump Victory event. Our director raised his hand and was acknowledged by Mr. Trump, then stated: “Mr. Trump please repeal the Refugee Resettlement Act.*** That is how the terrorist are getting into the country.” Trump responded, “I agree” and then pointed out several recent acts of Islamic terrorism committed by refugees and their families.

Mr. Trump had already spent most of his time talking about terrorism. With regard to the mass shooting in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub he said a high ranking representative in the gay community told him that the LBGT community was going to support him because “they know I am the only one who is going to protect them.” He went on to say that this is not only true for the gay community, but for all of us.

He again committed to building the wall and reminded us that the 16,000 Federal Border Patrol employees have endorsed him—-something they have never done in any other presidential race.

Trump emphasized the immigration issue at the Mexican border.  He dwelled on the massive amount of illegal drugs coming across the border, and claimed that the wall would help stem the flow of the drugs.

Trump was calm, well spoken and reasonable. He was a very pleasant, but a firmly committed gentleman. This is not the Donald Trump the media is describing. Donald Trump is thoroughly a gentleman, knows where he is going and what he wants to do when elected president.”

LOL! Check out this story about the event. Trump left empty seats for the banned Washington Post Reporters!
***Of course we all know it takes Congress to repeal the Act (Trump can press Congress from the bully pulpit), that is why it is so important that Speaker Ryan be given the heave-ho. Under his leadership it will never happen!
For all of our comments worth noting and guest posts, click here.