Note:As I began writing this post, Firefox appears to be blocking access to RRW. I don’t know what is up with that, so I’ve switched to Chrome for now….let me know if you are having problems too!
I debated whether to post this photo—I’ll call it the photo of the week—but decided to do it because there is no sense sugar-coating where the western world is this Christmas. In the wake of the Berlin Islamic terror attack…..
Posted at Drudge a day ago….
Here are our Top Three Posts of the week (top daily most popular posts are in the right hand side bar):
For new readers, I have a good summary of how to use RRW and find information at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.
And, many thanks to everyone who has suggested that I might be useful to the Trump team. I am flattered, but there are several good people I know who hope to be placed in agencies involving refugee resettlement in the Trump Administration, so let’s hope the Trump Transition Team has the good sense to hire them!
As for me, who would write RRW if I was busy in DC battling bureaucrats every day? And, besides, I need to be right here, not only informing you, but ready and willing to keep Donald Trump and his people honest if they stray from Trump’s campaign promises on immigration!
I should have written this over the weekend, so am now trying to get it done before I head off to jury duty today. By the way, if you missed it over the weekend be sure to see my exchangewith ‘Jake the fake‘ posted on Saturday. And, on a more serious note see where thousands of Syrians have been placed in the first ten weeks of fiscal year 2017, here. Here are the Top Three Posts of last week (top daily posts are in the right hand side bar):
Those Montanans must really have been sending the news far and wide for that third post to make the top posts of the week! For new readers, I have a good summary of how to use RRW and find information at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.
Admittedly I get all sorts of strange e-mails, but this series of e-mails is the most interesting, informative and amusing I’ve ever gotten. We all, especially bloggers, need to be on the lookout for fake news. Was Jake a fake? Other than trying to get me to publish fake news, what else might he have been doing in this e-mail thread? It began with an e-mail on December 1 from someone identifying himself as ‘Jake.’
Below is a chronological report on our e-mail conversation. I am taking out all references to numbers, ethnic groups and locations so that Jake (or his friends) can’t turn around and say I am promoting fake news.
Read this and tell me what you think!
Jake:
Hello,
My company is looking to provide jobs and housing for up to _____ (6-figure number) _____ (Muslim ethnic group) refugees in ____ and ____ (states). We are going to help them gain residence and resettle in the US so they can start a new life here. Can you point me in the right direction so that I may get in touch with the management of the refugee camps in _____and _____ (countries)? We have purchased two properties adjacent to our office park and manufacturing plants and based on early estimates we should be able to provide decent housing for at least ____(6-figure) people. Please if you can point me in the right direction as we are hoping to have these refugees resettled and getting their lives back together within ___ years. Our ultimate goal is the help them resettle in the area as seamlessly as possible.
Me:
Hi Jake, forgive me, but is this a joke? LOL! Tis the season of fake news after all….look forward to hearing from you if you are serious!
Jake:
Hi Anne,
I’m not sure what would be a joke about it but yes we would like to help as many as we can. Please let me know if you have any information for me.
Thank you,
Jake
Me:
Call me.
Jake:
Anne,
I’m currently overseas and have not had great luck with phone service where I am. I wanted to find out if you had information on the management for some of these refugee camps so we can talk to them about our resettlement program. Our goal is to provide____ (5-figure) well paying jobs and housing to families totaling up to ____(5-figure) people.
Me (going along but noting a big discrepancy in the numbers he first gave me):
Hi again, Your numbers have changed somewhat. Tell me more about what you have in mind and if you have been in touch with the US State Department about your plans? What sort of jobs are you envisioning?
When do you return to the US?
Jake (highlighting mine):
____ (6-figure number) is correct, ____ (5-figure number) was a typo. We have manufacturing plants and office parks in___ and ___ (states). We would provide training and jobs rang from manufacturing, groundskeeping, to office work depending on the needs and skills, as well as our national and international frieght network. Because of the specialized nature of our work we have been able to streamline the immigration process to gain residence at a much faster pace than is normally provided for refugees. By providing specialized work we can not only ensure that our company has skilled workers for decades to come, we can also bypass the slow relocation process. That is the glory of working with a large company. Right now we have the capacity to fill ____ (five figure) jobs and provide housing for ____ (6-figure numbers, but not the same numbers) people. The most important next step in the processes is to reach out to refugee camps and _____ (Muslim ethnic group) communities so that we can begin the immigration process in the smoothest way possible. Do you have some contact details for me? I think this is a wonderful opportunity to save lives while making the US more diverse. I also feel personally that we need a lot more cultural diversity in the US because the barbaric White/Christian leadership is just so destructive on a global level. As our nation is a melting pot, a refuge for refugees, I hope to see our leadership represented in similar numbers. [I hope you are having a good chuckle by now, it gets better, keep reading!—ed]
Me:
Can you tell me why you feel the ____(ethnic group Jake named) are the best choice for your purpose? No matter which LEGAL immigration program you go through, you still must go through the US State Department, something you would not have to do if you chose out-of-work Americans (of any color), plus they already speak English.
Maybe if you described the actual work, I might be able to make some suggestions.
Thanks, look forward to hearing more!
Ann
p.s. when do you plan to be back in the US so we can have a phone conversation?
Jake:
_____(ethnic group) need our help, isn’t your website an advocacy group for refugees including the ____(ethnic group)? I thought you’d be the best person to talk to. I’ve honestly never met an American who was facing genocide, If an American is out of work they probably need to look harder. I’ve also found that immigrants have a better work ethic. Please let me know if you have the contact info I’m looking for. We build medical equipment, specifically MRI, Dental lasers, x-ray, and sample storage units.
Me (we are now at December 6th):
Jake, let’s be honest, I don’t know what your game is. And who are you?
For someone supposedly wanting to get ____ (6-figure number) of refugees in to the US quickly, you know so little about the immigration process in America that I can’t believe any company has employed you to get the job done. And, that you would write to a blogger for information that bloggers are not privy to—information about who to contact in refugee camps in Asia—strikes me as incredibly naive (if that is what it is).
Tell you what, if you give me the name of your company (LOL! is it the SPLC?), I will believe you. (I told him I planned to write about his inquiry)
Jake:
Wow, clearly your website is a fraud. You have no interest in helping refugees resettle in the US. That is pretty pathetic of you to have a supposed watchdog website for the benefit of refugees but ultimately have no interest in actually helping anyone, it’s just for show. I have written about 6 emails to you and you have not offered a single piece of useful information. We have offered jobs to immigrants for decades and the immigration process is handled by our legal office. I do not need sit here and waste me time speaking with a “blogger” if all you will do is ask me questions instead of being useful. From the brief look I had of your site, it seemed that you actually knew something about the situation in ____(country), but I guess that was false. If you can point me in the right direction so that I may get in touch with some camps, please do. If you are unable to provide this then please stop wasting my time. It seems there are two kind of people in this world, people who actually work to help others, and those who just blog about it….
Me:
“I do not need sit here and waste me time speaking with a “blogger” if all you will do is ask me questions instead of being useful.” [quoting Jake—ed]
Wow! Just wow! I’m wasting your time? You first e-mailed me hoping I would bite on some fake news. Sorry to disappoint you! Come on who do you really work for? No businessman looking to import immigrant labor would sound so dumb! (not to mention have such poor writing skills!) and contact a blogger for advice! Did you ever hear of the US State Department and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees?
Look forward to more e-mails from you!
Jake and his final salvo (or I think it is) on December 13th:
I’m actually dyslexic but do quite alright at my job and the pay is more than I will ever need. I don’t know what fake news you are talking about but you are a disgrace of a human being if you would use refugees to push a blog about helping refugees but have no interest in actually taking action. The fact that you are profiting by pretending to help others makes you not only a fraud, but also a joke. It’s ok, we have been put in touch with the management for two camps and will be beginning the immigration process shorty. I cannot tell you how disgusted I am that you would attempt to profit from the suffering of people. If there is any justice in the world you will also feel the pain and suffering these people experience. I have been to every corner of the world with my work and I promise you that if there is one group of people who deserve to live in refugee camps and face persecution it’s the average American white trash like you who has no concept of the world around them outside of their bubble of ignorance.
Good day, if you believe in God I hope that he has mercy on you. You are a disgrace and it’s artificial people like you who are the reason our country will fall.
Anyone want to hazard a guess about what Jake was up to all along? Was he trying to get me to report a fake news story? Write a derogatory e-mail to him? Trump derangement syndrome? Or, what? Look forward to hearing what you think (no expletives or threats please!)!
A couple of things before I give you the top three most-read posts of the week: If you subscribe to RRW, are you getting your e-mail notices in a timely fashion? That would be usually within minutes of my posting. Of course you don’t know exactly when I posted, but if you get an e-mail and see that I actually posted that news the day before, then something is wrong.
For example this postI wrote entitled: ‘Comment worth noting: We aid and abet ISIS when we don’t tell the truth about Islam‘ arrived in my e-mail inbox a day after I posted it. As I have said before, I don’t control those e-mails to subscribers, wordpress does. The fact that it was sent out a day late made me wonder if someone somewhere is screening certain topics. It could even be my e-mail server. So, just wondering if you are seeing that either with RRW or some other blog not in favor with the PC police. This is one of my tweets this morning. There is so much news I could hardly post on all of it. So see my tweets in the right hand side bar here at RRW, or better still follow me at twitter. Every post I write is tweeted and it might be a better way to see what I am writing about than subscribing to the blog. And, another word about comments. I do screen them so please don’t get carried away. I know you are ticked-off, but you can be angry without threats or foul language. Also, I wouldn’t recommend signing your comments with your full name and town because who knows who is reading RRW. So, if you’ve wondered about the fact that you did use your name and town (and sometimes phone #) and it doesn’t appear, I have taken the liberty of removing it! Fake news alert! Someone wrote to me in the last week and I am sure it was an attempt to get me to fall for fake news. I am planning to write about it if I get a few extra minutes. He/she was pretty humorously ham-handed. So, do keep an eye out for Lefties/Open borders types attempting to lure you in to a trap (some are pretty unhinged since Trump won the presidential election) especially if you are blogging yourself. Excused absence! I have jury duty starting tomorrow. Not sure yet how much of my time that will be eating up, but alas it is our duty. I don’t expect to be chosen to actually sit on a jury, but I do have to report for the next month.
Here then are the Top Three Posts of last week (daily top posts are in the right hand side bar):
For new readers, go to this October roundup and scroll down for instructions. In addition to twitter (@refugeewatcher), RRW does have a facebook page, here.
And, as always, thanks so much for your donations. It isn’t necessary, but appreciated as a vote of confidence for my work.
For those of you who love facebook. We do have a facebook page where I post maybe once or twice a day and a colleague occasionally posts some related news. It has over 35,000 likes and you can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeInfoResource What a month! We have much to be thankful for!
As regular readers know, I try to report weekly and sometimes monthly about what posts readers found most interesting (interesting enough to spread far and wide), what countries our readers are coming from, and give new readers tips on finding stuff here at RRW which in 2017 will be TEN years old.
I’m going to give you first the Top Three Most Read Posts of the Month, then the countries as I usually do, then I want to talk about a few things regarding subscriptions and comments which you can read or not read! (Top daily posts are in the right hand side bar)
By the way, when there is a terrorist attack by a Muslim migrant our numbers boom, but since the Ohio Somali Slasher attack happened so late in the month it won’t show up in the top three this month.
This is the only post I plan to write today, unless some news earthquake happens regarding the Refugee Program later in the day.
On the third top post, you know by now that Haley will be UN Ambassador which I don’t think bodes well for severing any ties with the UN or reducing the refugee flow. We will see!
Here, in descending order, are the Top Ten Countries (excluding the US) from which readers arrived at RRW:
Canada
UK
Australia
Germany
Norway
South Africa
India
France
Netherlands
Malaysia
I think this is the first time Malaysia is in the Top Ten. You should know we are processing large numbers of refugees destined for your towns through Malaysia (a Muslim country). About comments, subscriptions and keeping up with the news on refugees: On comments, as mentioned previously, because I screen all comments and I’m not always at the computer, sometimes your comments don’t get posted promptly. Additionally my rule has always been: no talk of violence, no foul language and no personal ad hominem attacks on other commenters. But, I want to talk about something else, please don’t write a book with loads and loads of links because I can’t always check all of your links. Frankly I would rather be researching and writing more news with my limited time.
And, let me be clear, I am a supporter of the nation of Israel and since I don’t have to be fair and balanced (heck, a blog like this is by definition, a representation of my views), I am not posting harangues against Israel or Jews in general. The Refugee Program is not a Jewish conspiracy on America, but increasingly I am getting comments along those lines which I have no intention of posting. On subscriptions, I’m increasingly hearing that some of you have trouble subscribing, or that you do subscribe and eventually don’t get the e-mail notifications. There is nothing I can do about this because this is something WordPress does automatically. I contacted them and was told it might have to do with your settings and your spam settings, but frankly it is gobbledygook to me. I recommend you simply visit RRW directly every day or so and see what is new by scrolling back through the previous days. While you are here, use some of the other features on this page (like the twitter feed in the right hand side bar)! On keeping up with the news on this issue, honestly there is way too much happening and it is hard for me to keep up too! When I can’t write about everything breaking every day, I rely on twitter to get it out to you (I am lousy at facebook). So, I highly recommend twitter as a way to keep up with all breaking news. Assuming you are a news junkie, if you follow certain key people when you get up in the morning or during the day, you will have news faster than even Drudge provides, or certainly faster than Fox News or other cable news. I am @refugeewatcher with over 5,600 followers at the moment. Apologies to all for not being able to see and respond to all of your e-mails (I’m working on that today). And, I do appreciate your donations and I need to get to work on more thank you notes too! For new readers who want to know how to use RRW, and so as not to make this post any longer, I’m directing you to the new readers section of my October round-up, here.
Thank you for continuing to read RRW and for your work to educate your communities on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.
I should have written this over the weekend, so am now trying to get it done before I head off to jury duty today. By the way, if you missed it over the weekend be sure to
