Category: The Opposition

Somali Community of Nashville, busy little beavers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t gone back to see what’s up in Shelbyville lately, here is a followup to our post on the Shelbyville Times-Gazette Reporter, Brian Mosely.    The Somali Community of Nashville has been busy lately posting demands in Tennesee and then in Emporia, KS as well.  (hat tip: Blulitespecial)  I’m guessing they sent their lengthy, well written I might add, screed to Emporia as a threat.

The Somali Community of Nashville condemns the unprovoked and undeserved public defamation of Somalis in Shelbyville, TN, by Brian Mosley and the Shelbyville Times-Gazette. We also advocate the following:

____

§ A prompt and public apology by Brian Mosley and the Shelbyville Times-Gazette to the Somali community in Shelbyville, TN,
§ The immediate cessation of the baseless and negative reporting on Somalis,
§ A sincere effort to build bridges of understanding between the residents of Shelbyville and the newcomers from Somalia instead of fueling the fires of prejudice and xenophobia,
§ And the adherence by the Shelbyville Times-Gazette to journalistic integrity by providing its readership with fair and accurate reporting on sensitive issues relating to community relations and refugee resettlement.

Sometime ago we told you about this case involving the Somali Community Center of Nashville and I’d like to know if it is the same group.  Just now I tried to find the website that had existed at one time for this outfit and it seems to be gone.   Is the Somali Community of Nashville the same people as the Somali Center of Nashville?

According to annual reports, the Somali Center in south Nashville receives $400,000 per year in taxpayer dollars from federal, state and local governments.

——–

But what has some asking questions is how the center’s executive director, Abdizirik Hassan, is still getting grants after pleading guilty to making false statements during a government investigation.

——–

In 2001, Hassan’s Nashville bank was shut down by counter-terrorism investigators because they said the bank was linked to Al-Barakat. Al-Barakat is a bank and wiring transfer service that is linked to al-Qaida, according to investigators.

——–

Hassan was arrested and charged with felony illegal banking.

———

While out on bond, Hassan and the Somali Center were awarded a grant in the amount of nearly $500,000 by the same federal government that indicted him.

Check out the forum at the Emporia Gazette, there are over 1000 comments there stretching over the last couple of months.  Scroll down to near the end to see the Somali Community of Nashville demands posted there too.

Shelbyville Times-Gazette Reporter under attack

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

 Update 1/6/08:   Be sure to follow the link for the Volunteer Voter.com below, you will find the comments there very instructive.

Yesterday we reported on attacks on author Mark Steyn by Canadian Muslims and even the government, essentially branding him a racist for undisputed facts on Muslim and European birth rates that he published in his best seller, America Alone.  Now, Shelbyville, TN Times-Gazette reporter, Brian Mosely, who did a Herculean reporting job in recent weeks in a series on the tension that exists between the growing Somali community, lured to this southern town by employment at a Tyson’s Food plant, and the residents of Shelbyville. 

In fact, early in the series, readers, and those commenting on the paper’s on-line forum, accused Mr. Mosely of being too soft on the Somalis.    Either read the original series or go to our many posts on the topic, and judge for yourself.  I think you will agree the reporting is straightforward.  While comments are pretty flamboyant, one can hardly blame the reporter for citizens taking an opportunity to vent after what appears to be several years of growing frustration.

In a letter to the editor this past week, Robert Allison said:

First of all, Brian Mosely should not have been selected to author a news series profiling a racial / religious group because he has made clear in his personal blog and other writings that he cannot be impartial toward races and religions other than his own.

So, every reporter in America will now have litmus tests where some Committee for the Preservation of Political Correctness will scrutinize a reporters past writings and make a determination if he or she will be permitted to report on a certain controversial topic.    But that’s not the whole story about this building witch hunt; certainly a tough reporter will just shrug off a highly critical letter to the editor.

The other issue is that people with personal axes to grind are whipping up a frenzy and building bonfires ready to burn this so-called “racist” reporter at the stake.   Here is a blog called Volunteer Voter.com  trying desperately to strike the matches.    Note that Mr. Mosely’s editor defends the paper and reveals that those making the charges have previously brought a lawsuit against this reporter and the paper.

As Brian’s (acting) editor, I question whether Katie [Katie Allison Granju] is in a position to question Brian’s journalistic ethics. What she didn’t tell you is that her family has a prior legal dispute with Brian and the newspaper, which it’s inappropriate for me to discuss in this forum. We ran a blistering letter to the editor [quoted above] from another member of the family yesterday, which accused Brian of being a racist, without pointing this connection out, but if the family is going to dogpile on Brian I think it needs to be said.

Mr. Mosely is extremely fortunate to have an editor like John Carney who has the fortitude to stand up against this nonsense and forcefully defend his reporter.  You must see Mr. Carney’s column yesterday here. 

I’m betting there is more to come for this reporter who dared to discuss the taboo subject of Muslim Somalis in small town USA.   What’s next, will Mr. Mosely and his editor have a little visit from the Race Relations Reeducation Committee for Silencing Wayward Racist Reporters (RRRCSWRR)?

Smear tactics of the Godly folks–gosh, is this hate speech?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We thought when the announcement came that the Virginia Council of Churches office was to be closed in Hagerstown, MD,  that that was the end of the bashing of those of us who questioned refugee resettlement.  Oh, how wrong we were.  Most fascinating to me is that the bashing and smearing continues by those very people who claim to have an inside track to God. 

I’m writing this now to give courage to all of you across the country who have questions about this community- altering program of the federal government.  Please speak up, ask questions and don’t be intimidated, just be prepared and know that many of those claiming to be on God’s side will be the most hateful in attacking you personally. 

Some years ago, I founded a non-profit home for retired service horses (military, police and horses for the handicapped).   It seems that this part of my personal life is fair game for attack by the Godly folks.  First, the editor of our local paper, the Herald-Mail, said in an e-mail that perhaps I would have more compassion for refugees if they were four-legged grasseaters [he subsequently apologized for being unprofessional].  

Nearly every day,  editors at the paper work in something, even into a humorous editorial about antique airplanes, to lob another attack on us “unwelcoming” xenophobic, racist, hate mongering, vocal yokels.

And then there is this, an e-mail from someone I may have met once:

Receiving the message from the Ranger Foundation [the horse retirement home I founded] regarding the Open House has prompted me to ask a question I’ve pondered with events over the last past weeks: how do those who have been blessed with so much begrudge those fellow humans who have so very little a chance or opportunity to improve their lot? The “unwelcoming” label that has been placed on us in Washington County as a result of a vocal few is quite sad and is another situation where I think we make God cry.

——

While the care and protection of retired service horses is important and something to be appreciated, it’s difficult to reconcile with the issue above. Frankly, we want no part of it so we ask that you remove us from your contact list…..

Thank you.

Elizabeth Carnes, Publisher

Her withdrawal from our contact list is no great loss because she has never supported our old horses anyway.   Her e-mail was just a mean-spirited smear—-the tactic favored by leftists who have no facts and no real intellectual arguments to make.  Although Ms. Carnes, publisher, seems to know what makes God cry she hasn’t a clue about the facts of refugee resettlement in Hagerstown.  

Oh, and I almost forgot this one, I live next to the little Civil War town of Sharpsburg and a couple of years ago about six KKK guys held a rally there.   Richard Cline (Virginia Council of Churches) intimated to several people that I might be a member of the clan—-what,  because I live next to the town that once had a clan rally.

Go ahead beat us up if that makes you feel closer to God, but it’s not going to shut us up!

Why is Church World Service lumped in with this crowd?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The People’s Weekly World reported yesterday that Church World Service representatives were banned from the Philippines last summer.  The government claimed the blacklisted people had links to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Philippines: Blacklist bars rights advocates

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently reported that a government blacklist barred 504 people from 50 countries from entering the Philippines during July and August, before and after a ministerial meeting in Manila of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

——-

The government, alleging the blacklisted persons have links to the Taliban or Al Qaeda, banned Filipino expatriates and U.S. members of Church World Service, the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

——-

A foreign ministry official cited by Philippines Labor Net admitted previous blacklisting had excluded Brian Campbell, a U.S. lawyer for the International Labor Rights Fund, and other human rights activists, among them former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Church World Service (CWS) is one of ten major volags resettling refugees in the United States and was the major funder of the refugee resettlement that caused such a ruckus in Hagerstown, MD recently.  CWS received approximately $24 million from the taxpayers last year.    It is highly far-fetched to think they are even remotely connected to international terrorism.  However, more interesting to me is that they were among a group of such unabashed Socialists and Communists.  Or, is this just a case of guilt by association?    The People’s Weekly World that reported this story says of itself:

We enjoy a special relationship with the Communist Party USA, founded in 1919, and publish its news and views.

I guess I’ll never be able to see “Crop Walk” publicity again without thinking about these possible connections.

More on Nashville’s Kurdish Gangs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Last Friday,  VDare published a letter from Pary Karadaghi, Chief Executive Officer of the Kurdish Human Rights Watch in Fairfax, VA, critical of a July piece by Brenda Walker of Immigrations Human Cost entitled “What the New York Times didn’t tell you about Nashville’s Kurdish Gangs and the Patriotic Backlash.”    Karadaghi calls Walker anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim.

Walker’s response to Karadaghi’s criticism:

As a refugee, you may believe that America should be the sanctuary for the world. On a planet of over six billion,  such a thing is simply not possible, even if it were desirable.

—–

Like all other peoples, Americans have the right to maintain their own culture.

That last line says it all.