On the South Korean island of Jeju. http://paradiseintheworld.com/jeju-island-south-korea/
Apparently, not a peep from Gore in his recent speech at the Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity about Islamic supremacists like ISIS and Inter-Islam civil wars causing unrest throughout a large portion of the world.
I wonder how much he was paid to speak at the posh paradise island resort?
From the Korea Herald:
Climate crisis behind political riots and refugees
JEJU ISLAND — Climate crisis-induced food shortages were behind the Arab revolutions in 2010 known as the Arab Spring, former United States Vice President Al Gore said Thursday, making the case for action to counter climate change as a growing cause of social instability.
Gore, vice president from 1993-2001 under former President Bill Clinton, was giving a speech on “Challenges and Opportunities of Climate Change” at the on-going Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity on this resort island.
Spark that began Arab Spring was about food….
“(It was) a significant event because a food vendor in Tunisia at the peak of the food crisis set himself on fire and the video of that self-immolation caused the Arab Spring,” he said, referring to the democracy protests that originated in Tunisia. “His last words were not ‘Down with the Tyrant,’ his last words were ‘How am I supposed to live?’
“(Nevertheless) the connection between climate crisis and political instability is an issue that has not yet received enough attention,” he stressed.
[….]
Also behind the outbreak of the Syrian civil war were climate change-triggered food problems, Gore also said, highlighting that a climate-related drought from 2006-2010 destroyed 60 percent of all the farms in the country and drove 1.5 million climate refugees into the cities of Syria.
“When these climate refugees collided with another 1.5 million refugees from the Iraq War in the cities of Syria, the social explosion happened,” according to Gore.
Sheesh!
See my‘Climate refugee’category where 50 posts are archived. The world ‘refugee crisis’ will never be resolved because even if all of the Islam-generated strife ended tomorrow, the Far Left is busy readying a new reason to open your wallets and your homes throughout the west and invite in the third world.
Will Donald Trump “lead us into the wilderness”today on Paris Climate Accord? I have never looked at the ‘Accord,’ does it make us responsible for MORE refugees? Does anyone know?
When I looked at this article (Huffington Post) more carefully, I see it only sends a garbled message about whether the refugee pipeline is being geared up to start seriously flowing again or is only trickling.
But, it does appear that the resettlement contractors are getting excited that it will flow with gusto soon since they are rehiring staff they let go shortly after Trump put out his first Executive Order. Limbaugh: “Does he know that it’s the Republicans that are the roadblock here?”
I think the Trump team made a big mistake by placing the refugee moratorium (to assess the adequacy of our security screening) and a reduction in the CEILING for refugee admissions in an Executive Order with the so-called travel ban for all those coming from the terror hot-spot countries.
It is my view, that Trump did not need an EO to slow the flow of refugees across the board!
By combining the two (the ceiling cap and the ban) and the subsequent rogue court decisions, Trump has lost (given up?) his power (the power the President is given in the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the admissions limit on refugees). And, thus everyone is confused, apparently even within his Administration. To add to the confusion the Republicans in Congress funded the US Refugee Admissions Program at a level for 75,000 refugees to be admitted by September 30th (the last day of this fiscal year), AND Trump signed it!
75,000 would be the second highest admission number in ten years! (see chart below)
Indeed, Rush Limbaugh was right yesterday when he asked(on a different issue): “Does he know that it’s the Republicans that are the roadblock here?”
Again, the President has the power to set the ceiling in “consultation” with Congress. If Trump wanted to take them on he could ask for a rescission of those funds to admit the numbers he wants—which he said would be UNDER 50,000!
Every day that the White House is silent on the stunning news we heard last week says to me that the White House agrees with the 75,000 admissions this year.
Why do the Republicans in Congress want to keep the pipeline going? It is because most of them work for their big business donors and the Chamber of Commerce to guarantee a steady supply of cheap immigrant labor! Adding insult to injury, your tax dollars support refugee families through the welfare system because wages are too low! You pay for the importation of the labor and for the laborers’ support once here!
It is really quite a difficult obstacle for us (who wish to see the USRAP reformed) to overcome—big businesses and global corporations pushing cheap labor in conjunction with so-called ‘religious’ charities (paid by taxpayers!) claiming this is all about humanitarianism while essentially acting as ‘head hunters’ for big business.
Anyway, hereis the HuffPo’s latest on the pipeline flowing:
The United States appears to be resuming its longstanding efforts to resettle refugees after the program was derailed and almost completely upended abroad for several months.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “has begun to expand its interview schedule in the 3rd quarter of the fiscal year,” public affairs officer Marilu Cabrera told HuffPost in a statement on Friday.The Department of Homeland Security is working with the State Department to plan for a “further expansion” through the end of fiscal year 2017, she added.
[….]
Jen Smyers is a lobbyist for Church World Service in Washington, DC. “Director of Advocacy” is just a fancy name for lobbyist. https://cwsglobal.org/jen-smyers/
Even though both orders were blocked in federal court, the administration quietly pumped the brakes on various steps of the resettlement process that occur overseas. Vetting and screening refugees is an 18- to 24-month process, involving interviews with many branches of the U.S. government as well as various security and medical clearances.
[….]
USCIS noted in its statement that circuit rides ― a technical term that refers to DHS agent travel to different countries to conduct refugee interviews ― were suspended on Jan. 25, just prior to Trump’s first executive order, and continued on a reduced schedule from January through March.
In addition to stalled DHS interviews, security and medical checks expire after several months and “none of them [were] being re-run, said Jen Smyers, the associate director of immigration and refugee policy at Church World Service*** one of nine domestic resettlement agencies. “Also, our understanding is that for a while, [medical clearances] were not happening, with some exceptions for emergency cases.” [BTW, I don’t think they do any mental health screening as we learned here! —ed]
Because both of Trump’s executive orders attempted to lower the refugee admissions quota from 110,00 to 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year, “the State Department and USCIS assessed that it was not necessary to interview large numbers of refugee applicants in order to meet the new ceiling,” the USCIS statement said.
[….]
Resettlement experts said they’re cautiously optimistic about the expanded interview schedule.
“We’re waiting to celebrate until we see the pipeline of refugee processing look healthier,” Smyers said. “All of this is really preliminary.”
But they are already in the process of hiring back some of the almost 600 staffers they had to lay off worldwide during the executive order legal limbo.
[….]
Congress recently passed a budget with enough funding to resettle a total of 75,000 refugees through the end of the fiscal year. This should mean significant increases in the number of refugee arrivals in the coming weeks.
More here.
By the way, in a report on Trump’s original idea of choosing Christian refugees as a first priority, Smyers called it “shameful.”
***See my most recent post on Church World Service finances. 67% of their budget comes from you—taxpayers!
No refugee “clients” means no payola for them! For new readers here are the nine contractors:
For all of the refugee contractors and their groupies busily spreading propaganda that refugees never commit crimes, take note of Muslim Fazliddin Kurbanov who was already in prison, convicted on terrorism charges, and then tried to kill the prison warden a year ago this week! Obama’s US Attorney for Idaho, Wendy Olson, was concerned with American rabble that might act up during Kurbanov’s 2015 trial! Where the heck was (is!) the national media on this story?
We surely would have heard about the attempted murder by one of our star refugee criminals if anyone had reported it before now.
What do you think? Should I give the refugee advocates the benefit of the doubt and when they say there are no refugee criminals, maybe it’s because the media rarely reports those stories.
See a few of our recent ones, here, here and here(yesterday!).
You might want to see our archive on Fazliddin Kurbanov by clicking here. Don’t miss this story where Idaho US Attorney Wendy Olson suggested that Americans might demonstrate “acts of bias” during his 2015 trial! (You will see that the Idaho Statesman story is now gone!)
Olson showed her bias as she attempted to tamp down the controversy surrounding the Refugee sexual assault case in Idaho as well, here. (But, I digress!)
From KTVB-7 titled (LOL! just a “man”):
Indictment: Boise man serving terrorism sentence tried to kill prison warden
RIVERSIDE, California — A Boise man who was convicted in 2015 of terrorism-related crimes has been indicted after prosecutors say he attacked the warden at the federal prison where he was held.
Fazliddin Kurbanov, 34, was just months into a 25-year sentence when the attack happened May 31, 2016 at the Federal Correctional Institute in Victorville, California.
He was indicted Wednesday on charges of attempted murder of a federal officer, assault on a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and possession by an inmate of a prohibited object intended to be used as a weapon.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kurbanov used a prison-made knife to attack Calvin Johnson, seriously injuring him. According to the Amercian Federation of Government Employees, the warden needed more than 80 staples to close wounds on his torso.
The indictment describes the knife as “a metal blade or ‘shank’ approximately three to four inches in length.”
Kurbanov was moved to FCI Terminal Island in San Pedro after the attack. Johnson, who recovered from his injuries, is also now working at a different prison.
Kurbanov, an Uzbek national, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, one count of attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and one count of possession of an unregistered destructive device in November 2015.
Prosecutors in that case outlined how Kurbanov communicated online with members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, promising to send money and supplies, and expressing interest in carrying out an attack in the United States.
Kurbanov told FBI informants that he was considering Ann Morrison Park or Mountain Home Air Force Base as possible attack sites. Although he did not carry out any attack before his arrest, Kurbanov had stockpiled explosive ingredients including including fertilizer, Tannerite, ammonium nitrate, acetone and aluminum powder in his Curtis Road apartment before his arrest.
Typical! no mention of the ‘R’ word! REFUGEE!
Interesting! The Daily Mail has a story on Kurbanov and mentions that he considered attacking West Point as well. There is something very fishy about the admission of Uzbeks during the Bush and early Obama years, wish we knew the full story.
Readers: Let me know if the latest on this charming refugee (who will be costing us a fortune to keep in prison for life!) makes it to any national news story or any cable news outlet!
Go hereto see what the LA Times is reporting about the stunning reversal on Thursday by the Trump State Department on refugee admissions where we learned that by September 30th we could see 70,000 refugees admitted to the US, in a year Trump initially said we would see a MORATORIUM. 70,000 is a number higher than five of Obama’s eight years! Worried about not enough paying ‘clients’ in the pipeline to America! See how much of your money they get here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/11/05/refugee-contractor-church-world-service-could-not-exist-without-your-tax-dollars/
Be sure to take note that it is Congress that is shoving money (your money) for refugees down the throats of the Administration. I contend that the Administration has the power (but no will!) to reject it and tell Congress to rescind it (but that is a story for another day).
This is the bit of the LA Timesstory I wanted you to see. The refugee resettlement contractors are complaining that the “pipeline” abroad has been so severely interrupted that they might not get even 50,000 in FY18. Only urgent cases are being interviewed! Isn’t that what should be done? Why are US taxpayers responsible for non-urgent cases?
“I worry the damage has been done internationally,” said Erol Kekic, executive director of the immigration and refugee program at Church World Service. “Agencies that do refugee processing have been so severely cut [including] staff laid off that even if the money is made available, it will take time.”
[….]
Experts are also concerned about the near-complete halt in interviews and screenings by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which is required for refugees to complete the application process.
“Only people with urgent cases are being screened and interviewed,” Kekic said. “Unless we continue to add people to the pipeline, we aren’t certain if we will be able to even meet the level of 50,000 refugees entering the U.S. for fiscal year 2018.”
There is more here.
This entire system of refugee resettlement set up by the Refugee Act of 1980 should be scrapped. Contractors like Kekic’s Church World Serviceare worried because they are paid by the head and must build their entire budgets (since it is largely funded by you) around the number of refugee clients in a “pipeline” to America.
There is never any incentive to moderate the flow when nine contractors are ‘bidding for bodies!’
My disappointment at the news, that Trump’s State Department has apparently caved to pressure and is opening the spigot wide for the remainder of the fiscal year, is primarily because this move signals that the Administration has no plans to lead a reform of the program in Congress.
Congress is never going to review, in any serious way, the program and change it significantly without leadership from the White House.
What can the White House do? The White House could have continued on its earlier course. A MORATORIUM placed on the program would be a strong incentive for Congress to finally, after 35 years, review the original law and scrap or re-write it.
And, remember this in the first EO, see here?
It is Section 5 (g):
(g) It is the policy of the executive branch that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable, State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees. To that end, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which, consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement.
There is no longer any mention of impact on communities, states rights, cost to taxpayers, public health concerns, crime, security concerns, transparency, nothing!—nothing that motivated voters to work their butts off for Trump.
Sadly, we have been dragged into a debate framed solely on numbers. Will it be 50,000, 60,000, 75,000, 100,000, more?
As I said yesterday, although Trump’s proposed FY18 Budget contains (we are told) enough money for as many as 50,000 refugees for FY18, the refugee resettlement contractors are pushing Congress for more. The President has the power to set the refugee admissions ceiling for the upcoming year (in “consultation” with Congress), and that is normally done in September.
But, it appears to me that the contractors think they have a chance to move the Republican Congress to appropriate enough money for 75,000 refugees in FY18 and by doing that essentially steal the power the President has under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the ceiling for the upcoming year. (Always remember RINOs want cheap immigrant laborers for their business donors!)
Here is an alert I received yesterday. Of course their language is unnecessarily alarmist as we are no longer debating Trump’s original moratorium vs. some number of refugees, the debate is now simply over how many!
That second link directs readers to this page which begins (under this banner):
HIAS:
In the midst of the largest refugee crisis in recorded history, with over 65 million people displaced around the world, the U.S. government must do more—not less—to help refugees.
Please take a minute to urge your elected officials to fund a humanitarian response that demonstrates America’s global leadership and honors our values. We need to make sure Congress provides adequate funding for refugees and allows organizations like HIAS to continue the important work of helping refugees here and abroad.
Then HIAS supplies their supporters with a ready-made letter to Congress.
I cannot overemphasize the fact that the refugee contractors understand the appropriations process in Washington (their financial lives depend on it!), but that citizens concerned with the secret placement of third worlders in to your towns and cities don’t understand it. And, we definitely don’t have lobbyists (as HIAS does) in Washington to help get your message to your representatives. As I have said repeatedly, the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program should be scrapped and if it is in our interest to take some refugees, a new law should be written. Sadly, after encouraging us with MORATORIUM language, there is no sign that the Trump team will lead any major reform. The battle is being framed simply around numbers (in a range of 50,000-75,000).
