No wonder people can’t trust the big print media anymore.
Don’t mainstream media outlets have some responsibility to fact check letters to the editor or can anyone just make up ‘facts’ from history, that are very easy to check, and just throw them out there for the gullible public?
Before I get to the letter from someone named Eric Goldman, let me say that there was a time that I wrote in glowing terms about the reporting from The Salt Lake Tribune and that was when they did super reporting on the horrific rape and murder of Hser Ner Moo, a little Christian Burmese refugee, by a fellow refugee from Burma (a likely Rohingya) named Esar Met.
The Salt Lake Tribune actually sent a reporter to the camps in Thailand to get the full story. But, that was before the Mormon church had drunk the koolaide on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program and began enthusiastically welcoming refugees of all stripes to Utah.
Click here for all of my posts on this Utah murder case that was never thoroughly reported on a national level, but see what a good job the Trib did in its coverage.
(I think it was never widely reported because Esar Met didn’t fit the media image of a refugee—lovable, grateful and hardworking.)
Now back to my beef today with The Salt Lake Tribune…..
Continue reading “Ronald Reagan was NOT responsible for Refugee Act of 1980; fake news from The Salt Lake Trib”
Tag: media bias
SPLC takes down their "Field Guide" to anti-Muslim extremists
Possibly getting wind of an upcoming lawsuit the Southern Poverty Law Center has apparently blinked and removed their October 2016 “Field Guide,” that included yours truly, from their website.
The Field Guide was meant to let the media know who they were supposed to shun when seeking comment on anything to do with Islam.
If you visit my post on the ‘honor’ here you will see that the link to the news no longer works.
However, as pointed out by National Review writer Jack Crowe, the pdf version is still available. Download it now for further reference!
The list of “extremists” besides me, included: Steve Emerson, Brigitte Gabriel, Frank Gaffney, Pamela Geller, John Guandolo, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, David Horowitz, Ryan Mauro, Robert Muise, Maajid Nawas, Daniel Pipes, Walid Shoebat, Robert Spencer, and David Yerushalmi.
As I said previously, I don’t really belong in such an august group. My real ‘sin’ is that I was getting under the skin of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, one of the nine major federal refugee contractors***, and a close ally of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
On learning of the honor, I said this:
By the way, it was a study by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, here in 2013, that directed the SPLC to focus on my work. I wrote about it here.
Inclusion on the list meant that I must have really hit a nerve at HIAS.
Below is what Crowe reported yesterday at National Review (hat tip: Judy):
The Southern Poverty Law Center has removed the “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” from their website after attorneys for Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim and prominent Islamic reformer, threatened legal action over his inclusion on the list.
The report, which had been active on the SPLC’s website since it was published in December 2016, was intended to serve as a resource for journalists to identify promoters of hateful propaganda; but it included a number of liberal reformers such as Nawaz, a former Islamic extremist who has since dedicated his life to combating the hateful ideology.
“A shocking number of these extremists are seen regularly on television news programs and quoted in the pages of our leading newspapers. There, they routinely espouse a wide range of utter falsehoods, all designed to make Muslims appear as bloodthirsty terrorists or people intent on undermining American constitutional freedoms. More often than not, these claims go uncontested,” the report, which still exists in PDF form, reads.
Nawaz, who founded the anti-extremist think tank Quilliam, said during a Wednesday night appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, a popular podcast hosted by comedian Joe Rogan, that the report was removed from the SPLC website under legal threat sometime in the last two days.
“We have retained Clare Loch, they are writing to the Southern Poverty Law Center as we speak. I think they’ve got wind of it — the Southern Poverty Law Center — and as of yesterday, or the day before, they’ve removed the entire list that’s been up there for two years,” Nawaz said on the podcast.
Nawaz — informed by his experience as a former member of a global terror organization and a political prisoner in Egypt — routinely criticizes the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that gives rise to terrorism. As a result of that work, the SPLC and a coalition of partner organizations that helped create the list accused him of “savaging Islam.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born liberal feminist who fled her home country amid civil war and now works at the Hoover Institution, was also branded an “anti-Muslim extremist” by the SPLC.
Go here for more of the National Review report and to follow links.
Below is a screenshot of the SPLC case against me:
*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!). The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has taken the lead in political and legal activism against President Trump’s so-called Muslim ban. I have a huge archive about them, see here.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
- Church World Service (CWS) (71%)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)(93%)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (99.5%)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (57%)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular) (66.5%)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular) (98%)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) (97%)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) (97%)
- World Relief Corporation (WR) (72.8%)
Zogby: They are ready! "Muslim blue wave" going to the voting booth for Muslim candidates
This article at Financial Review reminded me of the story I first wrote in 2007 about a Frederick, MD Imam going to Saudi Arabia and reporting to the Saudis that they were ready then to elect 30 Muslim mayors by 2015. It didn’t happen of course.
This is what Imam Yahya Hendi said, as reported in a front page story at the Washington Times, in August 2007:
“There are serious efforts being made among the second and third generation to become part of the political establishment. The challenge we face is in the media and from some Christian extremists who don’t want an Islamic presence in America.”
—–
Mr. Hendi said U.S. Muslims were working on “nationalizing” Islam as part of the fabric of U.S. society, including cutting funding links to Muslim countries.
—–
“Last year, we elected the first Muslim to Congress, and I expect that by 2015, there will be three or four, as well as at least 30 mayors,” he said, adding that the number of Muslim lawyers in the United States has multiplied since September 11.
I wrapped up that post (the story and post got virtually NO attention at the time) with this:
Can you imagine if some Catholic or Jewish leader was telling a foreign nation that they were working toward 30 (any number) Jewish mayors, or 30 Catholic mayors, all hell would break loose in the mainstream media!
The Financial Review doesn’t stop to consider that thought from a decade ago either. It is all go, go, go for the Muslim blue wave!
And, they say it is Donald Trump who is the great motivator.
Numbers, numbers, numbers!
The reality is that the demographic change (the Hijra!) is happening, and, as we admit more and more immigrants from Muslim countries, the push for “their values” will only get stronger.
American Muslims launch political campaigns in protest against Donald Trump
Fayaz Nawabi has never met President Donald Trump. But he credits the president with convincing him to run for office.
Nawabi, a 31-year-old candidate for San Diego City Council, supports almost everything that Trump opposes: he is pro-affordable housing, pro-environment, pro-immigrant and pro-refugee. That makes him part of the blue wave of new liberal candidates spurred to run by Trump’s election and policies.
But Nawabi is also part of a notable subset: the Muslim blue wave.
More than 90 American Muslims, nearly all of them Democrats, are running for public office across the country this year. Many are young and politically inexperienced, and most are long shots. But they represent a collective gamble: that voters are so disgusted by America’s least popular president on record that they’re willing to elect members of America’s least popular religious minority group.
Although their number seems small, the candidacies mark an unprecedented rise for the nation’s diverse Muslim community that typically has been under-represented in American politics.
There are more than 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, but Muslim Americans hold just two of the 535 seats in Congress. And the Muslim community’s voter participation pales in comparison to the general public’s.
Growth in Muslim immigrant population that votes for Democrats….
The Financial Review continues….
The rise of Muslim candidates coincides with the growth of the predominantly immigrant population and a partisan shift that has played out over a generation.
In a 2001 Zogby poll of American Muslims, 42 per cent said they voted for Republican George W. Bush in the previous year’s presidential election, while 31 per cent said they voted for Democrat Al Gore. By last year, just 8 per cent of voting American Muslims in a Pew poll said they voted for Trump, while 78 per cent said they voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
[….]
Now, Muslim candidates are running for a wide range of offices across the country, from local school boards to the US Senate. Some are making their Muslim identity central to their campaigns.
“When you put someone in a corner and they’re in survival mode, they have a tendency to come out and speak more prominently about their beliefs,” said Nawabi, who considers himself an “unapologetic Muslim” who can quote the Koran from memory and moonlights as a “freelance imam”.
In Michigan, where 13 Muslim candidates are running for office, physician Abdul El-Sayed is hoping voters will elect him to be the first Muslim governor in the US and has used his religion in campaign ads against Republican front-runner Bill Schuette, whom Trump has endorsed.
This (above) made me laugh: El-Sayed is using his religion in his ads as if that is hunky-dory.
Egregious double standard!
Can you imagine the media storm if a gubernatorial candidate proudly used his Christian or Jewish religion in his ads! All hell would break loose!
A small number of Muslim and Arab advocacy groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Emgage (formerly called Emerge USA), and the Arab American Institute have spent years training young political activists, tracking rising politicians and running get-out-the-vote campaigns, particularly in immigrant communities after the 9/11 terrorist attacks set off an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab backlash.
[….]
“They’re ready,” said James Zogby, a long-time Democratic operative and president of the Arab American Institute, who has provided funding and mentorship to several candidates. “Both communities separately have reached a level of maturation.”
[….]
Some candidates and political activists say that even if no Muslim candidate wins a seat this year, the blue Muslim wave still will have accomplished something. The American public will grow more accustomed to seeing Muslim candidates, they say, and Muslim youth will see candidates who look like them or share their values.
But, what exactly are their values, that is the question?
And, can you imagine any mainstream publication publishing the line below with a straight face, as the Financial Review has done with the above line:
Christian youth will see candidates who look like them or share their values.
Heads explode!
You can read the whole story here (worth it to learn about the candidates and where they are).
Burmese refugees jittery about USCIS fraud investigation
It appears that the USCIS is doing something rarely done and that is attempting to find holes in the system that have allowed the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program to chug along for decades with rarely an examination of the fraud that we hear is rampant at processing centers throughout the world.
The suspicion of fraud in the huge Burmese flow to America, processed mostly through the Muslim country of Malaysia, does not surprise me (I’ve talked to sources who know about fraud first hand!).
Since FY07 we admitted 166,539 refugees from Burma. The vast majority are Christians and many obediently go to work in meatpacking towns across the country.
Although it should be noted that we have started to bring in more Muslim Rohingya. In Obama’s last two years in office we admitted 3,809, and 3,127 Muslims (some processed through Malaysia) to bring the total to 19,607 since FY07.
Texas, by far, is the number one placement destination.
Here is reporter Victoria Macchi penning a story obviously tilted toward ‘ain’t Trump’s people awful’!
Voice of America! Shouldn’t we expect more from a media outlet that works FOR the US government!
US Investigation Rattles Resettled Burmese Refugees
WASHINGTON —
When letters from the U.S. government last month summoned more than 1,000 Burmese refugees in the United States for official interviews, chatter spread across the immigrant community: Were the letters real? Did the refugees have to attend? What was the government trying to glean from meeting with refugees who were already in the country, in some cases for years?
The letters — sent by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that conducts interviews with refugees overseas and vets immigration applications — were real.
Some of the refugees opted to go to the interviews, depending on where they were in the residency or citizenship process. Failing to comply could jeopardize pending immigration applications, according to the letters.
The ultimate goal of the investigation into possible identity fraud — specifically, two refugees entering under the same name — that may go back nearly a decade remains unclear a month later. USCIS will not say whether criminal charges have been or will be filed, and refugee advocates have not reported any such actions.
[….]
Jill Niswander, director of communications and fund development at EMBARC Iowa, a refugee support organization in Des Moines, Iowa, said the USCIS interview requests rattled the Burmese community.
This next bit is when Ms Macchi really shows her bias, and, in so doing, causes me to dismiss VOA as a balanced news source. But, I guess what more can you expect from ‘journalists’ educated at Columbia Univ. They just can’t help themselves!
The investigation into potential identity fraud cases isn’t the first time the U.S. has investigated its refugee vetting process. It’s rare, and narrow in scope when it does happen. Yet, an internet search of fraud and refugee-vetting turned up a mix of stories, many of which tout the risk of refugees to the country. The subject is a favorite among ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs.
In one, the U.S. temporarily suspended refugee arrivals from East Africa in 2008 after some refugees failed DNA testing to confirm blood relations they claimed in their paperwork.
Somali fraud!
She downplays the incredible degree of fraud uncovered by the State Department in 2008 (in one of the only fraud investigations I know of!) which was first revealed by Miriam Jordan at The Wall Street Journal (not this “xenophobic blog”). The State Department estimated that at least 20,000 Somalis entered the US fraudulently through family reunification and the whole P-3 program for Somalis and other Africans was closed for more than four years! Ms. Macchi says “temporarily suspended!” See here.
The fact that there was very little coverage of the Somali cheaters (except at “ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs”) is because the mainstream media and probably VOA never mentioned it because it didn’t fit their narrative!
Not one of the Somali liars was removed from the country that I know of!
Ms. Macchi goes on…..
Though the problem originated on the ground in Malaysia, when refugees were registered with the U.N. system, it remains unclear how the errors occurred — whether there was a system for buying refugee identity cards, or errors in data entry in the rush to register refugees, or if refugees assumed the identities of other refugees in an attempt to get out of a country that was threatening them.
So, aren’t those all legitimate reasons to see if fraud is occurring, and isn’t it about time we uncover the truth!
My guess is that the fraud is occurring either with the UNHCR or through the International Rescue Committee (one of the nine federal resettlement contractors) that works for the US State Department in Malaysia, see here.
Someone doing the paperwork is being bought off I suspect. Whatever it is, American citizens (paying for it all!) have a right to know!
There is more, but the darn article was jumping around my screen so much I couldn’t stand it another minute.
St. Cloud city councilman Jeff Johnson to speak in Washington
Update March 24th: You can see a video of the panel discussion here at CIS.
And, the St. Cloud Times once again shows how biased it is against anyone who challenges the power in that city and state that is hauling in third world workers for the slaughterhouse industry ( while faking humanitarian concern!) by falling for the Southern Poverty Law Centers‘ shoddy research.
@SctimesSteph
(RRW is listed as a “hate group” as well, and as you know I’m a single blogger/journalist with NO group—so much for their research.)
And, by the way, Breitbart has a big story on Friday entitled:
Disgraced Media Already Hit with Massive Layoffs in 2018
Newspapers are going down and sloppy work and biased reporting by the likes of the St. Cloud Times will eventually bring it down too!
This is what I mean….
In large type, reporter Stephanie Dickrell and her editor post this subheadline so as to bias readers right up front.
Group hosting panel was labeled an anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2016
Here is some of Dickrell’s story:
A St. Cloud City Council member will travel to the nation’s capital this week to discuss the local impact of refugee resettlement.
Jeff Johnson will be part of a panel Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., discussing whether states should be able to opt out of the federal Refugee Resettlement Program.
The host of the panel, the Center for Immigration Studies, says its agenda is pro-immigrant but for low immigration. The Southern Poverty Law Center listed it as an anti-immigrant hate group in 2016.
Last fall Johnson proposed a moratorium on refugee resettlement in St. Cloud. The motion failed and an ensuing council vote declared St. Cloud a welcoming city.
The National Press Club panel discussion — “Should States Be Able to Opt Out of the Refugee Resettlement Program?” — will use a January report by center fellow Don Barnett as a starting point. He outlined what say states have in refugee resettlement, highlighting “federal overreach.”
He includes a history of the states’ interactions with the refugee program and recommendations for better defining the state role. It also includes a case study of a recent federal lawsuit filed by the state of Tennessee which claims the refugee resettlement program was an imposition by Washington over which the state had no control.
In addition to Johnson and Barnett, the panel will include Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, which represented Tennessee in the lawsuit. Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian will serve as moderator.
More here.
Minnesotans, this is the time to develop more alternative media in the state.
Papers like the St. Cloud Times (which swallows the lies of Leftwing money-grubbing groups like SPLC) will die and you need to be ready with other sources of news that support your interests and concerns. And, the more the merrier!
See my ever-expanding archive on St. Cloud by clicking here.