Another exciting week with Donald Trump in the White House! Never a dull moment! Right!
And, welcome to all of you new subscribers this past week!
At the end of each week (most weeks) I report on what the Top Three most-read posts of the previous week were so everyone can see what interested readers here in the US and in over 100 countries worldwide! Besides educating yourselves here at RRW, the most important thing you can do is to let Donald Trump know that you have his back. We must make sure he knows we want the Refugee Admissions Program trashed or reformed. There will never be a time like this again for a very long time, if ever. See what else you can do here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/04/comment-worth-noting-what-one-reader-said-to-president-trump/
But, first big apologies for my very outdated Fact Sheet in the header above. I know many of you clicked on it this week. I just don’t have time to keep it up, plus I have a hard time motivating myself when there is so much more interesting stuff to write about each day.
You might want to try the Frequently Asked Questionswhich leads you to some other places where you can find information.
See also recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.) I’ve been writing RRW since the summer of 2007, so there is a lot of information here (over 8,000 posts). I recommend that you just follow along for awhile and eventually you will catch up. I do try very hard to link back to older posts in each article I write. Also, you might want to try the search window (upper left hand column). It is pretty good. If you are really new to the issue, start with typing in your state and see if I’ve written about it over the years.
Enough of that. Here are the Top Three Postsof the week ending on Friday, February 3rd (top daily posts are in the right hand side bar):
If you are on twitter maybe you saw some of those criminals whose mugshots I tweeted from that #1 post above. I did individual tweets in a series one evening and had hundreds of thousands of impressions that night! I am @RefugeeWatcher if you would like to follow me.
Because I am getting e-mails from the press looking for comment. Here are some bullet points that anyone is free to use.
For those many reporters who don’t know who the heck I am or what RRW is, just briefly:
This year, in July, I will celebrate the tenth anniversary of blogging about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). I have written 8,235 posts to date and have no interest in spending long periods of time on the phone with reporters. Use RRW’s search function. Maybe start with Frequently asked questions, here.
I write this blog mostly because citizens have a right to know what plans Washington has for their towns and cities. I am a firm believer in the idea that knowledge is power.
In 2016 I received the honor of being named one of 15 anti-Muslim extremists in America by the SPLC. We learned recently that George Soros paid for the ‘study’ and presumably this nice artwork! Remember folks, they have no power but the power of name calling! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2016/10/27/a-great-honor-splc-names-me-one-of-15-anti-muslim-extremists-in-america/ Over the years I have concluded that the program is out of control and is desperately in need of reform. I am paid by no one to write RRW, this has been a charitable effort on my part. I have no office, no staff, no interns! I fully support President Trump’s EO on a moratorium on the US Refugee Admissions Program and have no comment on other aspects of the so-called ‘ban’ because many issues raised are outside of my area of expertise.
That said, although I support the short moratorium, it does not go far enough. It is an insufficient amount of time to fully investigate how the program has been administered since it was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter in 1980. The USRAP has operated in virtual secrecy for the ten years I have followed itwhere local communities are kept in the dark until refugees start arriving. Largely driven by nine major federal contractors*** who along with the US State Department collude to keep citizens from knowing what is planned for their communities. When citizens learn what is happening and start asking questions about costs, security, cultural upheaval they are unfairly labeled racists and haters. The USRAP as a multi-billion dollar a year industry is unsustainable and it is time Congress performed a much needed review.
Trump’s ceiling of 50,000 refugees for FY2017 is still too high, see my explanation, here.
The USRAP is not first and foremost driven by humanitarianism (that is the cover!), it is an effort to diversify communities, to add left-leaning voters, to change America by changing the people, to satisfy Chambers of Commerce, and to supply cheap LEGAL immigrant labor to large corporations.
President Trump should undertake the studies directed in the EO, like this one, but he must pressure Congress to review and rewrite the Refugee Act. And, the only way to pressure the chickens in Congress is to continue the moratorium until they understand that they must reform it.
As Barack Obama learned the hard way, a phone and a pen is not sufficient for the long term. To really change a policy, a President must go through the laborious and intensive battle to change the law as the Constitution envisioned—Congress passes the bills and the President signs them into law (or not). If that doesn’t happen, in 4-8 years we go back to square one!
That is all for now…..
*** For all the reporters who have no clue about how refugee resettlement works in America, these are the nine major federal contractors being paid with taxpayer dollars to place refugees in American towns and cities in every state but Wyoming!
It has been a big week here at RRW! Just last Monday the ORR published the 2015 report to Congress. These reports are treasure troves of information. Serious students of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program should have a look: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/office-of-refugee-resettlement-annual-report-to-congress-2015
This weekly roundup ended on Friday, the 27th before the big news hit the fan Friday evening.
Knowledge is power!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that two (out of the top three posts of the week) were widely read because it means that you were more interested in educating yourselves last week than in the hot juicy news coming out of Washington.
That is good, that you are so interested in continuing to educate yourselves (in pockets of resistance!), because it sure looks like there is no time to rest now.
For all of you new readers (and there have been thousands in the last few days, many from around the world), I try every week to get something posted on which posts interested readers the most in the previous week.
So here are the Top Three for the week ending on Friday. (Top daily posts are in the right hand side bar):
See recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.)
A word about comments….
I don’t post any comments with foul language, threats of violence, or comments that are personal attacks on other commenters. I am also sick to death with comments about the Jews/Israel being responsible for every problem in the world, so don’t bother sending those.
As I have said repeatedly, for nearly ten years, I have no obligation to be LOL! ‘fair and balanced,’ I try to be as factually accurate as I can, but I am a blogger! I have a point of view. If you don’t like what I am saying and you feel strongly about an issue or several issues, write your own blog on your own time!I do this on my time, no one pays me, and so this is my time, my charitable work! If you don’t like what I say, don’t read RRW!
One more thing! I have been a supporter of Donald Trump from the beginning. I never had another candidate. But, that does not mean I won’t criticize him and his administration when I don’t like what they are doing(like that Australia dealif Reuters is being accurate). You know the other side is going to attempt to pull him in their political direction so there must necessarily be a counter pressure from us.
Thanks to long time readers for all of your kind words. I apologize for not always responding!
Update! Oopsy, put the wrong year in the title, corrected now!
I’m going to make this a quick post because I have too much other important news to write about.
Before I get to the three top posts of the week, I want to talk about facebook. Truthfully, I never really got into it and so I’m not very savvy about using it and I don’t have enough hours in the day to answer your many comments and inquiries at my Refugee Resettlement Watch facebook page here. (Remember it is just me here, this is not an organization and I have no staff). This is my logo at RRW’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeInfoResource/
I haven’t posted everything I write at that facebook page, but I think I will from now on. At this point in time, the page has 37,000 likes and a friend posts some additional news items on it. I believe you can go there and follow me there.
As for my ‘friends,’ I get many requests every day and I will try harder to add you, but I don’t post much on my personal timeline anyway, I post at the page!
And, as I have said many times, I am on twitter (@refugeewatcher) and I tweet often (average around 8 tweets a day). I place every post I write on twitter plus many other related news items every day (some that you send me, but that I have no time to post on the blog itself).
You can see both my twitter feed in the right hand column here and my facebook page in the left hand column right here on RRW.
Enough of that!
For more weekly, monthly and annual round-ups go here. For new readers: See recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.)
Yippee! This time next week, we will have a new America!
Happy New Year!
Just short of 2 million views were recorded at Refugee Resettlement Watch this past year—only a tiny number less than our top year so far (2015) when the refugee issue broke through and became a major political issue widely discussed in government circles and around kitchen tables (just as I am writing this, Fox News is doing a refugee segment based on a recent Breitbart story). That is not a lot of viewers by big blog standards, but for a single issue blog, I’m thrilled by those numbers. Purchase of my booklet benefits a national security organization.
In July of 2017, Refugee Resettlement Watch turns ten! In our first full year, 2008, we had just short of 200,000 views and the numbers have grown ever since. The largest number of our readers arrive simply through search engines, followed by facebook and twitter users who send around our posts.
To date we have written 8,143 posts (I’ll give you the top three for the year shortly).
I checked my first youtube video yesterday for the first time in a long time and see that it has 2,651,000+ views. And, I had a look at Amazon to get some information about my little book.
Wow! I have never looked at the reviews and now see that there are 117 of them. Only 9 are critical. So thanks to all who took time to give a thumbs-up to ‘Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America.‘
This will make you laugh! Amazon placed this comment in the 9 critical ones:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good little book
ByChelsea M.on July 10, 2015
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Good little book! Glad the author gave information such as this – more people should care. Only gave a 3 because it made me mad – the book deserves a 5.
The highlight of my year was the summer roadtrip I made where I met so many of you, some for the first time! I put 6,000 miles on my car over 30 days. Thanks to all who welcomed me and took time to tell me about what is happening in your communities and what you are doing about it.
Another highlight of 2016 was receiving this coveted award from the Southern Poverty Law Center. What the SPLC doesn’t get is that by listing me in this esteemed group, they actually further encourage me to keep doing what I am doing!
On this third top post of last year…. For years I followed food stamp fraud (trafficking) stories (like this one), but because the refugee issue was exploding, I had to necessarily curtail my interest in this HUGE form of fraud on American taxpayers. We aren’t talking about the little fraud involving purchasing items not allowed in the SNAP program, but huge multi-million dollar food stamp fraud called trafficking mostly at immigrant owned/managed convenience stores. I cannot understand why no reporters are interested in what could be Pulitzer Prize worthy investigative work (assuming the PP went to politically incorrect journalism!). To date, to my knowledge, no real journalist has taken on this major scam on America!
If anyone wants to get a start, type ‘food stamp fraud’ in to RRW’s search window and get some background on trafficking.
Next, here are the Top Ten Countries from which readers arrived at RRW in 2016 (excluding the US of course):
Canada
UK
Australia
Germany
South Africa
France
Norway
Netherlands
India
Sweden
For new readers: See recent monthly round-ups for instructions on getting the most out of RRW (at the end of both the October roundup, here, and at the end of the November roundup, here.)
More comments from me on commenting….
Always looking for a way to find more time to research and write (and have a life!), I’m making a change in how I handle your comments. I’ve always moderated comments and excluded ones that include foul language, ad hominem attacks against other commenters, and threats of violence, but I am going to further limit them.
First, not wanting to sound too unkind, but RRW is written by me alone and as most blogs do, it reflects the blogger’s political views (in other words my political views). Although I am happy that so many people want to hear what I have to report, I don’t make a living at this. This is a labor of love and I am not paid for my work by anyone. Notice I have no ads here at RRW, so traffic is not an issue for me. If you don’t like my views, don’t visit!
A prime example of the point I am making is about Israel and Jews. I have said this before and I guess I may have to keep repeating it! I am a supporter of the state of Israel and I don’t believe there is a Jewish conspiracy to change America. It is my opinion that it is progressive political ideology that is attempting to change America by changing the people. Progressives come from all major religious groups and includes those with no religious beliefs as well. So, I have not been, and am not going to, post any comments about a Jewish conspiracy. RRW isn’t a forum for you to write a blog within my blog. How about creating your own blog!
Increasingly, so many of you are sending many links in each comment and often the comment does not relate in any way to the post where the comment has been placed. I can’t look at all your links and still find time to write and research.
So (starting today) I am asking you to limit comments (you can disagree with what I have said, with the above exception) to about 150 words and to include only one or two links. If you have something longer to say, write to me at RefugeeWatcher@gmail.com and ask me to consider your longer piece as a guest post.
I’ll try harder to check that e-mail address if you promise to not send me e-mails all day long on every subject under the sun! (I have no staff, no interns!) I too am interested in many issues, but there is not enough time in the day. I’m a firm believer in focusing on one or two issues in order to accomplish something. I don’t think being the most well-read person on the internet accomplishes much!
Enough! Again Happy New Year (and sorry to sound so mean and opinionated, but I want to notburn out!)! P.S. This is no time to sit back, or burn out! Keep the pressure on Donald Trump to do what he promised during his Presidential campaign!
