Two Tea Party events in DC tomorrow; 70 brave Republicans to speak against amnesty

06/18/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From the editor: I have so much I could post here at RRW today, but circumstances out of my control are getting in the way. This is what I posted just a few minutes ago at Potomac Tea Party Report about events in DC tomorrow which might be of some interest to readers here as well.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck announced yesterday that he too will be in Washington, DC tomorrow for the rally to bring the Nation’s attention to the IRS targeting scandal, and at the same time the Brave 70 will hold an all day event in opposition to the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill working its way through the Senate.

The Seventy members of the House will be challenging Speaker John Boehner and his inner circle (including Paul Ryan) on the so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that Boehner would like to see pass the House in some form so he can go to conference committee and ‘compromise’ with what is expected to be an egregious Senate version of the bill (S.744).

If you missed it, Rush Limbaugh was great yesterday on his radio show saying that this push for amnesty isn’t driven by humanitarianism (and Hispanics won’t be voting Republican), it is being pushed on both sides of the aisle by moneyed interests who simply want the cheap labor supply, and if people like Rubio (Rush implied) want a future in national politics he has to tow the line or he won’t get the big campaign donations. Limbaugh says they are all crony capitalists now—the big money doesn’t care who (or which party) is in the White House just so they get to put their hands into the government till.

Leading the 70 Member revolt are Reps. Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert.

Here is Beck on his show yesterday (hat tip: Cathy):

This Wednesday, June 19, in Washington D.C. there will be an open forum that will feature “border security, anti-amnesty members of Congress.” The debate is slated for 9AM to 12PM and then again from 2PM to 5PM. In between, members of Congress will join with an already-planned Tea Party rally against the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations. Glenn will be joining the event and speaking at noon.

“There are 70 Republicans now in congress that we sent there,” Glenn said. “They’re standing up this week and they’re about to be slaughtered.”

“I think there will be five people in Washington this week on Wednesday because it’s, you know, it’s a Wednesday. It’s in the middle of the week. Who does this? It’s costing me a fortune to be able to get the TV and everybody up there to be able to ‑‑ to be able to just cover it, let alone speak up there. I’m flying a few of my pastors and my priests and my rabbi friends up with me for an announcement with the Black‑Robe Regiment. That’s not something I want to do. Last thing I want to do is get back on an airplane and travel up to Washington D.C. and stand there and be a part of that.”

“There are many things I don’t believe in anymore, and Washington is one of them. And I despise that city now. Because it has just become a symbol of corruption to me, a symbol of grotesque growth, where the rest of us are suffering in the rest of the country,” he said.

Here is the location of the Audit the IRS rally. The Lincoln-Douglas style debate on immigration will be in front of the US Capital (presumably where the rally will also take place, but I don’t know that for sure).

For people in Western Maryland, the Hagerstown Tea Party still has seats available on its bus (as of this writing!).

For everything we have said here at RRW about S.744, the “mother of all legislative train wrecks”, go here.

Gang of Eight bill moves to next stage in the Senate; refugees will face more job competition

06/12/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was away yesterday at a Refugee meeting in Lancaster, PA which I’ll tell you about shortly, and when I heard the news during my long drive home that Amnesty for 11-20 million illegal aliens might be on the horizon I wondered to myself what that will do to refugee resettlement.

The contractors, here are the top nine, who bring (some say drop-off) refugees in your towns and cities are struggling to find work for legal refugees (half are not finding any work!), and decent apartments (not in slums!), and to get them enrolled in welfare programs, and if the monster S.744 passes there will be a slush fund so these very same contractors will get federal money to process even more immigrants through a failing system.

Other than more money coming their way, I can’t for the life of me understand why those nine major contractors and their hundreds of subcontractors are lobbying for amnesty and the inevitable job competition for the legal refugees they can’t properly manage now!

I also predict an even greater public backlash against refugees if amnesty comes to pass because the general public will feel that immigrants are being shoved down their throats and taking their jobs. The average American citizen does not understand the difference between the federal programs and the people they permit to enter the US.

Here is what Roy Beck at NumbersUSA reported about the vote yesterday. If you are not on Numbers’ e-mail alert list, go to their website and please sign up.

DEAR FRIENDS,

We have a ton of work ahead of us, but you have done an amazing job thus far with your phone calls and faxes and personal appearances.

The Senate a couple of minutes ago passed the Motion to Proceed to bring S. 744 to the floor for debate.

Two hours ago, 82 Senators voted YES to stop a filibuster. That vote allowed the Motion to Proceed.

But don’t be alarmed by that number, even though it is far above the 60 votes needed on the all-important final filibuster vote later this month.

A number of the Senators who voted to proceed have announced over the last few days that they will eventually vote against the b ill unless it is significantly changed on the floor. And the changes they are demanding are being called unacceptable on the floor right now by Chief Amnestymeister Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

We have no doubt that your tens of thousands of calls the last two days planted very powerful seeds among many of the YES voters today that makes them realize that they are going to have a very hard time voting YES at the end when the question is not debate but passage.

The 15 Senators who today said that this bill is so hopelessly out of touch with the needs of America that it shouldn’t even be debated included four Senators who a couple of weeks ago were being touted in the media as prime swing voters who would push the final vote over 60:

Kirk of Illinois

Crapo of Idaho

Risch of Idaho

Barrasso of Wyoming

Congratulations to all of you from those three states who have done such a remarkable job of helping those Senators understand both where the voters are in your state and also the moral and practical imperative of stopping this bill.

Back in 2007, we also lost big on this procedural first vote to bring that amnesty bill to the floor. But we built on the solid opposition of a strong bloc of Senators to kill the amnesty on the final vote later.

HERE ARE TODAY’S CHAMPIONS WHO TRIED TO STOP THE AMNESTY BILL IN ITS TRACKS

ALABAMA: Sessions & Shelby

ARKANSAS: Boozman

IDAHO: Crapo & Risch

ILLINOIS: Kirk

IOWA: Grassley

KANSAS: Roberts

LOUISIANA: Vitter

OKLAHOMA: Inhofe

SOUTH CAROLINA: Scot

TEXAS: Cruz

UTAH: Lee

WYOMING: Barrasso & Enzi

Everybody else voted YES, except for three who didn’t vote:

ALASKA: Murkowski

ARIZONA: McCain

OKLAHOMA: Coburn

I have no idea at this time why they didn’t vote. Murkowski and Coburn have both made strong nods toward voting for the bill recently but have been hammered by the voters.

Senator Jeff Session a champion for common sense! The numbers are just too high!

Sen. Sessions (R-Ala.) did a magnificent job in his speech on the floor today, speaking up not only for the 20 million unemployed but for the millions more Americans whose real wages have been driven downward by 30 yea rs of high immigration.

He painted the picture very clearly that this is a bill about helping those affluent Americans who happen also to be greedy at the expense of the most struggling members of our society, and at the expense of the taxpayers.

If you haven’t gotten in gear yet to oppose S.744, the next couple of weeks are critical. The Senate will proceed now to floor debate, so contact your US Senators. The House will be crafting a bill, so contact your Member of the House—NOW! Tell them to stop the bipartisan Obama/Schumer/Rubio destruction of America.

By the way, at RRW we believe at minimum all refugee and asylum changes should be stripped from the bill because the program is in dire need of Congressional review on its own—especially in light of the Boston Marathon bombing by a political refugee.

Addendum: If you’ve never watched Roy Beck’s video—Immigration by the Numbers—take a few minutes and watch it now.

Mother of all legislative train wrecks goes to the Senate floor this week—S.744

06/09/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s note: This is cross-posted from my other blog, Potomac Tea Party Report. Regular readers here at RRW know that the Gang of Eight bill is going to expand the refugee and asylum sections of the law and create a “slush fund” for the non-profit organizations involved in refugee resettlement. Here is our archive on the so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform bill (S.744).

This is it! After the first punch, Obamacare, the second punch is the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill, the so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform bill. It’s the one-two punch that is going to destroy America.

Marco looking for love from the Left!

You need to take your eyes off of the scandalpalooza going on in Washington and direct your energy this week to telling your US Senators to vote NO! on S.744. (Yes, Marylanders, even Mikulski and Cardin!).

I stole that title—Mother of all legislative train wrecks—from this website. Visit it and follow links to Forty Reasons why the bill is bad for America.

I’ll update this post as the week goes on.

* The caricature of Senator Marco Rubio, a key Republican member of the Gang of Eight and a leading contender for the 2016 Presidential race, is from the Daily Kos, here in February where they call him “Kochsman” (a reference to the wealthy Republican mega-donor brothers who favor ‘immigration reform’ because they want cheap labor). Once Rubio fulfills their wishes (the Koch’s and the Left’s) on S.744, they, Daily Kos and other Lefties, will go right back to caricaturing him this way. He won’t have their love in 2016 and he won’t have ours either (unless he bails out of the coming train wreck now)!

Worldwide angst over possible end to Diversity Visa Lottery

06/06/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ahhhh! Whole villages in Ethiopia are sweating, Korean Pop Stars groupies are worried and so is the Soros-funded Center for American Progress that the Gang of Eight plus Grover Senate immigration bill (S.744) would abolish the “popular” program to bring more diversity to your American towns via a lottery.

Rep Donald M. Payne, Jr. from Newark, NJ: Not enough poor Africans are getting to my district! (he didn’t say that, I did!)

Note to readers: These are not refugees we are writing about, they are 55,000 lucky lottery winners each year from countries where we don’t get enough immigrants. This is not a joke! I am not kidding!

Go here to see where your town’s diversity winners are coming from.

If you aren’t a regular reader of Korean Pop Entertainment news you would have no idea about the stressed-out Ethiopians or the New Jersey Congressman who says we aren’t letting enough Africans into the US.

Here is the story from KPopStarz about the “green card lottery:”

The green card lottery, a method through which at least 8 million foreigners wish to obtain their legal permanent residency, has been confirmed not to be cancelled for 2013 and 2014.

Although the odds of winning the green card lottery are not great, foreign hopefuls still have a chance of winning their legal status with a green card.

Just a few weeks ago, there was much speculation that the green card lottery would be taken away this year and that it was likely to be quietly cut. However, the US Embassy Press Secretary confirmed on Thursday that the green card application program will continue as usual for this year and next year.

According to the Armenpress on Thursday, US Embassy Press Secretary Taguhi Jahukyan said, “The Diversity Visa Program is continuing as usual for fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2014.”

While Congress has been discussing changes to immigration policy through new immigration bills, President Obama has not yet signed any immigration bill into law.

As the legislative process for changes in immigration policy is ongoing, no comment has been made on whether the green card lottery will continue onto 2015.

Just last year, at least 8 million foreigners submitted a green card application through the green card lottery. Only 55,000 green card applications were able to obtain a green card for themselves, their spouses, and their children.

The green card lottery is extremely popular, and foreigners would be very disappointed if the lottery program had been removed.

One green card lottery winner from Ethiopia said, “In my country, whole cities wait to hear the results of this lottery. I can’t believe they would take it away.”

The Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which issues winners a U.S. green card, started in 1995. Since then, thousands of foreigners have been granted immigrant visas and green cards.

One New Jersey House Representative, Donald Payne Jr. supported the continuance of the green card lottery program saying, “Diversity visas are one of the few ways people from Africa and the Caribbean can come to this country.” [I guess the Congressman doesn’t know about refugee resettlement and asylum—ed]

You know it’s a bad program if the Center for American Progress (read all about CAP here) wants desperately to save it!

Here is what they say in an introduction to an informative “Infographic” (AN END TO DIVERSITY?—Ahhhhhh!):

The immigration reform bill currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, however, would eliminate the diversity-visa program and grant those who are eligible a small number of points in the new merit-based green-card allocations—explained in the infographic below. Without this visa category, immigration from certain low-sending regions would diminish further and would undermine the goal of welcoming immigrants from diverse backgrounds. The infographic below portrays the current distribution of diversity visas and highlights the disproportionate effect that the elimination of this category would have on migration from Africa.

Tell Rep. Payne that there are 100,000 plus Africans arriving in the US each year according to this useful graphic from CAP. Eliminating the Diversity Visa could knock that number down by 20,000, but they will surely be picked up through whatever changes are made to immigration by the Gang (unfortunately, you can count on that):

They chanted “si,se puede!”(yes we can) as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send amnesty bill to the Senate floor

05/22/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is one story at The Hill. Few changes were made that would make the bill more acceptable to most Americans. (I’m working on a magazine article today and have little time to post unfortunately, but you will see lots of coverage elsewhere of the not-unexpected setback for America).

Five Republicans voted against S.744 (The Gang of Eight plus Grover bill). Those heroes are Senators Chuck Grassley, Jeff Sessions, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.

Voting with the Democrats were Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake and Orrin Hatch. Here is the list of all committee members. Final vote was 13-5.

As the bill was voted on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (one of nine major federal refugee contractors) tweeted:

And the bill moves to Senate floor – room erupts with “yes we can!” and “si, se puede”! We just live-tweeted history

Yesterday I was surprised to see that Bill Kristol, usually a supporter of supposed immigration reform, urged Senator Marco Rubio to abandon this monstrosity and “walk away.” Frankly, if Rubio sticks with this bill on the Senate floor his political future as a Presidential candidate will be over, especially as the Tea Party re-emerges as a political counterweight to the “ruling class” Republicans. Watch out for ‘ruling class’ extraordinaire Speaker John Boehner in the House going forward! He is showing signs of squishing out!

Here is Kristol:

The Weekly Standard editor told Ingraham that Rubio — who Kristol said he considers “a friend” — should step away from the “big government bill.” Instead, immigration reform should be dealt with issue-by-issue rather than by one comprehensive piece of “bad legislation,” Kristol said.

Our view too! S.744 expands refugee and asylum law without increasing the security issues that the Boston Bombers exposed.

We are among a distinguished group!

Go here and see the letter (opposing S. 744 as it goes to the Senate floor) to which we, Refugee Resettlement Watch, are a proud signator. Be sure to scroll down to see all the Tea Party groups which have signed. So, the next time you see mention of Tea Partiers supporting so-called “immigration reform” consider that Grover (Norquist) and gang are putting out that misinformation.

Photo is from the Politico story.