I hate to say it, but in light of theattitude of elected officials in Minnesota, and news like this, maybe some of you should consider leaving the state. Just saying!
An outbreak of 17 cases of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) has been reported in Ramsey County, the second most populous county in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Health confirmed to Breitbart News on Monday.
Working with refugee populations? Do you know what to look for?
“The outbreak has primarily affected elderly residents in the Hmong community, with 10 cases linked to a senior center where the first case was detected in 2016. Four other Hmong residents were also infected. So far six of the 17 people have died, three as a direct result of tuberculosis [TB],” the Star Tribune reported on Monday adding:
Some of the first transmissions occurred among a group of seniors who regularly played cards at the senior center.
But one of the card players had been sick and infectious for five years before diagnosis. That has left public health officials playing catch up in an effort to find everyone who is at risk.
I ask this same question every time we have a story about refugees with communicable diseases: Are volunteers for resettlement agencies trained to spot diseases in order to keep themselves and their families safe?
See my ‘health issues‘ category with over 300 posts on refugees’ physical and mental health. Many of Leahy’s previous articles on TB can be found there.
By the way, I bet none of those glowing reports about the economic boon refugees bring to a city factor in the cost of TB treatment. I hear it is a huge ticket item in some cities’ health departments.
….they fail to mention that reports coming out of their primary contractor, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (in Baltimore) indicate that maybe there is a bit of a problem there with federal audits…..
I meant to get to this news yesterday in advance of the St. Cloud City Council meeting last night where the majority of the council voted down a resolution (vote was 6-1) by one councilman who is seeking a moratorium on resettlement there in order to assess the economic and social impact resettlement by the Lutherans is having on the community. (I didn’t get to it because I don’t know if it affected all of you, but in many places in the country internet services were down.)
I realized this morning after reading thenews at the Star-Tribune that anything I said about the facts involving the Lutheran contractor and subcontractor changing St. Cloud wouldn’t matter one bit. Here is the St. Cloud Timesversion of what happened last night (you can see the text of the resolution here and maybe use it as a model where you live!).
The St. Cloud Times, clearly biased against those who want more transparency with the resettlement plan for the city, posted this factually inaccurate opinion piece from Lutheran Social Service of MN the day before the vote. No surprise that they were helping the Lutheran agency in its quest to forever change St. Cloud and supply local corporations with cheap labor.
Here is what Maureen Warren, a VEEP at LSS-MN told the citizens of St. Cloud:
Maureen Warren, who btw makes over $200,000 a year in salary and related benefits, is doing well by doing good! Has she taken any refugees to her home? http://www.lssmn.org/About-Us/Leadership/Maureen-Warren/
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota commends the new resolution supporting a just and welcoming community that passed the St. Cloud City Council on Oct. 23.
We applaud the courage and hard work by members of the City Council and others who have shown leadership and commitment to creating a strong and welcoming community for everyone.
We want to take this opportunity to correct misinformation that has surfaced in recent City Council meetings and media reports about our compliance performance in LSS Refugee Services.
On Oct. 23, the St. Cloud Times reported on a different resolution presented by council member Jeff Johnson at the last council meeting that “calls for a city moratorium on the placement of additional refugees through primary resettlement until Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota — one of six nonprofit organizations that helps settle refugees in Minnesota — demonstrates it is in compliance with federal statutes.”
We want the community to know that the LSS refugee resettlement service is subject to regular financial and service audits by the U.S. State Department and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service — and LSS is in full compliance with all federal laws and regulations.
But, how about the reports coming out of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service that they may not be in full compliance with federal grant laws and regulations?
For new readers, LSS-MN does not get refugee cases or cash directly from the federal government, but the refugees are chosen by LIRS, sent to St. Cloud and LSS-MN gets its payment of federal money passed through LIRS. LIRS receives and doles out your money to it subcontractors.
A fish rots from the head down!
LIRS fancy headquarters building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
Persistent reports coming out of LIRS indicate that the organization is in turmoil—that the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services did audit LIRS and found irregularities in its financial reporting relating to salaries and possible misuse of grant dollars.
We received a copy of a June 30th letter to the Board of Directors at LIRSfrom the Inspector General at HHS instructing LIRS to make a “corrective action plan” to account for the budget irregularities. Some of those irregularities involve ones relating to salaries of headquarters employees, sources in a position to know tell us.
Apparently that letter and subsequent internal turmoil sent the organization in to a tailspin, employees resigned, but others were given handsome severance packages in order to leave quietly, we hear.
In September the Board of Directors at LIRS announced its own investigation of the top management of the contractor that receives on average 96% of its funding from taxpayers! Here is the text of one e-mail from Board chairman Rev. Michael Rinehart that we received. Clearly whatever is going on, it is very serious. If federal grant mismanagement occurred, at minimum the organization must repay misappropriated dollars?
From: Michael Rinehart
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2017
Update:
Executive Committee convened and agreed to an investigation.
I have spoken to Linda.
The investigation team has formed. They will meet next week in St. Louis.
I have the names of three law firms with whom to talk.
Things are moving fast.
Peace, Mike Michael Rinehart, Bishop Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
We are offering an open invitation for a representative of LIRS in Baltimore (or the Board of Directors) to write a guest column for RRW to explain what exactly is going on if the reports I am receiving are in some way inaccurate!
Just a reminder that getting at the truth is our business because LIRS is almost completely funded from the US Treasury (and Congress is doing nothing to watch out for our money!).
Now to the other compliance audits that LSS-MN referenced in its St. Cloud Times piece—the State Department Service audits.
These are audits done on an irregular basis where someone shows up (usually announced!) from the US State Department to assess whether the local subcontractor (LSS-MN) is complying with its contract mostly regarding the care given to refugees.
The compliance reports that are written are kept secret from the public.
I have heard of them being obtained through FOIA requests that the State Department takes years to respond to.
If LSS-MN is now in “full compliance” surely they wouldn’t object to releasing those compliance reports where they weren’t compliant and explain to the public what they have done to satisfy the federal requirements that they apparently were not following.
And, readers, isn’t it incredible how little scrutiny they get from Washington—monitoring visits FIVE years apart! And, the 2017 visit was from LIRS in Baltimore. The US State Department hasn’t been there since 2012!
I’d like to know if there are even any penalties for not being in FULL compliance!
See my giant St. Cloud archive by clicking here. Don’t miss two posts on LIRS signing contracts with global meatpackers JBS Swift hereand Tyson Foods here. (See LSS-MN helped get this deal somehow).
Just think about it—greedy global corporations changing the demographic makeup of small heartland cities with third world-laborers, aided and abetted by the Lutherans!
He’s baaaaack! Dr. Luke Tripp of St. Cloud State is once again accusing “white conservatives” of stirring up St. Cloud racial tensions as he does it himself! And, he clearly is fixated on former Rep. Michele Bachmannwho we first noticed he targeted in 2010 and reported on these pages.
This man is not a peacemaker!
Tripp went to Colorado in February. See what they said about him (taxpayers of MN pay his salary!): “In honor of Black History Month, Adams State University will host “Then and Now: The Revolutionary Workers League in Detroit and Black Lives Matter,” a lecture by Dr. Luke Trip [Tripp-ed] A longtime activist and educator, Trip is currently professor of African American Studies at St. Cloud State University. He holds degrees from St. Benedict College, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan. He was among the founders of the League of Revolutionary Workers in Detroit and served as the first Minister of Education of the Detroit Chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was chair of UHURU (Freedom in Swahili), a black student lead organization active in the liberation movement of the 1960s. https://www.adams.edu/news/feb1705.phpBut, before I get to Dr. Tripp’s latest tirade…
I’ll remind readers of the chaos going on in St. Cloud as the next City Council meeting is to be held tomorrow evening and that Councilman Jeff Johnson, we hear, is planning to introduce his resolution seeking more transparency and economic analysis of the impact of Somali refugee resettlement on that community.
See my ever-expanding St. Cloud archive here(the city I call the canary in the coal mine!).
I first wrote about Tripp,the former Detroit revolutionary and Black Panther organizer,here in January 2010.
In that article we reported on his efforts to ‘get’ then Rep. Michele Bachmann. Frankly the African Muslim migrants require the leadership of, shall we say the communist/socialist, Leftwing community organizers like Tripp.
You should have heard about the concept either from James Simpson’s‘Red-Green Axis’writing or perhaps you have heard him speak! Tripp is the personification of the concept.
Editor: Knowledge is power! For all of you trying to understand what is going on in St. Cloud, it is important for you to know who the ‘community agitators’ are. Tripp is one. He may in fact be the leader. But, I haven’t the time or energy to summarize all of my previous writing on Tripp and his Somali legions. I expect you to do your homework! As the old saying goes—you must know your enemy. And, read! Read! Read!
Before I get to Dr. Tripp’s lastest blast (still focusing on the departed Michele Bachmann), here is another post on Tripp from April 2010. Go here for other mentions here at RRW. Don’t miss Tripp’s involvement with the Somalis who successfully sued a local meat plant. (Special accommodation for Islamic prayer times = shariah law!).
Now here is Tripp’s salvo from last Thursday at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorderwhere he is wearing his “women’s studies” hat:
(Sounds pretty racist to me, what do you think?)
I witnessed and experienced how St. Cloud earned the dubious reputation of “White Cloud.”
[….]
Go here and see Tripp talking about his Marxist activities in Detroit. Did they destroy the auto industry? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yyZz8k3k4E
I believe that Jeff Johnson’s resolution calling for a temporary ban on resettlement of refugees in St. Cloud is aimed at Somalis who are under attack in St. Cloud because of their race (they are Black), their religion (they are Muslims), and their immigration/refugee status (they are perceived to be untrustworthy aliens).
The City of St. Cloud, historically a very conservative White town, has only recently become home to a significant population of about 6,000 Somalis who represented about eight percent of St. Cloud’s population of 68,000 people in 2013. There has been a series of hateful attacks against the growing Somali community since they began arriving here in the 1990s.
[….]
The animosity against Somalisreflects the sentiments of a significant segment of conservative White residents in the city of St. Cloudwhose views were politically expressed by their right-wing extremist ex-congresswoman, Michele Bachmann,who represented Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District from 2007 to 2015. Bachmann was a staunch advocate of barriers against immigrants and their culture. Her voting record on anti-immigration legislation is graded A+.
There is more. But, this is the funny part: I thought I recognized those words! Check out what he said in 2010. In addition to sounding racist he must be lazy! Throughout the above tirade he simply rehashed his many tired old charges from 2010! (I’ve highlighted one of those rehashed paragraphs in red—one from last week above and the other from 2010 below–this is hilarious!)
This is the same paragraph in a February 2010 rant (and why the fixation on Bachmann? Alinsky rule***):
The animosity against Somalis reflects the sentiments of a significant segment of conservative White residents in the city of St. Cloudwhose views are politically expressed by their right-wing extremist congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, who represents Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District.Bachmann is a staunch advocate of barriers against immigrants and their culture. Her voting record on anti-immigration legislation is graded A+.
***This is Alinsky Rule 13: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” He is making Bachmann the face of the problem. He is sending a message to the Mayor and Council of St. Cloud—we (bullies) will do this to you too if you go against us!
Bottomline readers, please listen!
You will continue to lose if your elected officials are more afraid of trained agitators like Luke Tripp and his legions (which includes the Islamic supremacists) than they are of you—American citizens who want answers and demand a right to help decide the future of your communities!
I know it is uncomfortable, but get over it! You (conservatives of whatever color) need to fight the way they fight! Make your elected officials more uncomfortable than they do!
Start by picking a target and steal yourselves for the anger, the chaos and the controversy that is happening and will happen—saving western civilization isn’t for the faint-hearted!
Editor: There was an announcement posted here for an Arkansas college event for Canopy NWA to promote refugee resettlement in the state. The original photo was lost when the speech police had RRW removed from WordPress this past summer.
We told you here this October, on October 24th, that LIRS has signed a contract with JBS Swift the foreign-owned globalist meatpacking giant whose North American headquarters are in Greeley, CO to find, and help them retain, cheap and compliant refugee labor for its plants in four states.
But that isn’t the only arrangement that LIRS has made with globalist corporations—they have an agreement with Tyson Foodswhose headquarters are in guess where? Arkansas! (Original home of Bill and Hill and cattle futures—remember that!)
We were able to obtain this confirmation, that yes, LIRS, has a deal with Tyson Foods for a $50,000 pilot project to teach “financial literacy” to refugees, whatever the heck that means!
See here:
From: Nina Zelic
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2017 8:03:02 PM
To: Linda Hartke Subject: Tyson Foods–good news!
Dear Linda,
This evening we received some good news from Tyson Foods regarding our proposal for a pilot financial literacy project in northwest Arkansas/Missouri. Our proposal was accepted and we will be moving forward with Tyson. This is incredible news for LIRS because the clear goal of Tyson Foods is to provide financial literacy in all of their plants and to all of their team members (over 10,000) nationwide.
To quote Tyson:
“We are pleased to announce that your organization has been selected as our financial literacy award recipient. We want to formally congratulate your team on an exceptional proposal. In particular, we were impressed with the cultural and gender sensitivities it included, the overall structure of your pilot, and the local partnership networks you were able to identify. We were also encouraged to learn about your organizational experience working with one of our major competitors – JBS. We hope this will give LIRS insight into our specific industry and will help you maximize programmatic traction early on.”
Our proposal would not have been possible without Kirsten’s singular efforts, and finance’s inputs. Also, Canopy of NWA, LFS-RM, and LSS-MN played roles.
Thank you,
Nina
—
Nina Zelic
Director for Refugee Services | NZelic@lirs.org | 410-230-2765 |
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
700 Light Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230 | www.lirs.org
Note that Canopy of NWA helped make this possible along with Lutheran Family Service-Rocky Mountains, and our old pals in Minnesota—-Lutheran Social Service-MN!
LOL! I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a small price to pay for Tyson Foods to have an inside track with a resettlement contractor who might then alert them to fresh batches of refugees (aka laborers) entering the US.
By the way, I did try to reach Ms. Zelic by e-mail, but never got a response perhaps because we hear the Baltimore office is going through some tough times?
So, would someone please tell those well-intentioned students that they are shilling for the globalists—-BIG MEAT! (and BIG CHICKEN!).
Do none of the privileged students at the University of Arkansas have friends back home who would love to work in a meat plant for good wages—the kind of wages meatpackers did pay before they discovered immigrant labor?
Well, I can envision something worse as we are hearing rumors that the major Lutheran contractor (the one responsible for moving cases to Nebraska and elsewhere) is having some internal strife.
That would be Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service(headquartered in Baltimore) the same one thatcontracted with major meatpacker, the foreign-owned JBS Swift, to provide refugee labor and training to retain that labor.
In the summer of 2015, I traveled from Greeley, CO (JBS home away from home) through Nebraska—I saw the big meat plants greedy for cheap immigrant labor!
Back to my story from the Omaha World-Heraldwhere of course there is no mention of the connection between refugee labor and BIG MEAT!
It is not just BIG MEAT looking for refugees in Nebraska. The Nebraska Democrat Party is looking for voters. Nevermind new refugees can’t vote for 5 years. See Jane Kleeb here. Are the Dems working for BIG MEAT? http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/nebraska-dems-criticized-by-far-right-outlets-for-giving-voter/article_cd25719b-197b-5f3c-9a1d-8706a9b10fd2.html
Refugee resettlements in Nebraska have slowed from a trickle to a drip.
Advocates lamented the resettlement numbers at an Omaha Refugee Task Force meeting Wednesday.
“It’s as bad as it can get,” Jaleel Oladipo, the state’s reception and placement manager for Lutheran Family Services, said at the meeting. The task force meets every other month to review incoming refugee numbers and share ways to better serve refugees. [By the way, this is a meeting that should be open to the public. Is it?—ed]
[….]
Statewide, LFS resettled 43 refugees in Omaha and Lincoln in September, the last month of the 2017 federal fiscal year, and 31 in both cities in October. Four are expected for November. Oladipo said LFS could resettle as few as 20 to 30 total statewide from now until March.
During the same period last year, LFS resettled 224 in September, 140 in October and 512 between Nov 1. and March 31.
In 2016, Nebraska accepted 1,441 refugees, becoming the nation’s top refugee resettlement state per capita.
Karen Parde, Nebraska’s refugee resettlement coordinator, said at Wednesday’s meeting that refugee resettlement numbers are “very much down.”
[….]
“We need to re-look at how we do our business,” Parde said. “It’s going to be a very small year.”
What she means by that is that they receive their funding on a per head basis. Each NEW refugee is a paying client who comes with federal money attached. No new clients means dwindling income and that means staff reductions. Their whole “business” has been built on a house of cards!
Concerned citizens in Nebraska are encouraged to pin down Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Is he all for bringing in cheap immigrant labor and more Democrat voters?
