Tag: Rep. Keith Ellison

Is Minnesota lost? That has to be the question many are asking this morning

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I woke up this morning with my head spinning about the results nationwide, and couldn’t at first figure out where to dive in to tell you what I think about the midterm election results.

Over time, I’ll have more to say about what it all means, but I do know this—there will be no legislative reform of the US Refugee Admissions Program in the next two years.

Now that the House is controlled by the Dems, that means that each committee will revert to Democrat control.  And, they will never open for review the Refugee Act of 1980.

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Minnesota not-so-nice power duo: Keith Ellison with US Senator Amy Klobuchar (will she run for Prez in 2020?)

Any further reform of the refugee program will have to come from the White House and if I were a betting person, I would bet that they have done about all they will do before 2020 which is to keep the numbers low.

Enough of that, I could be wrong.

As for my friends in Minnesota, don’t get angry at me for asking, but was outgoing governor Dayton right when he famously said in 2015, if you don’t like immigrants find another state?

See my post yesterday on Minnesota.

Here is just one of many stories this morning from Minnesota with Keith Ellison, the state’s new Attorney General saying—-if you mess with Minnesota we will fight back. Which sounds like a veiled threat to silence speech.

From The Minnesota Sun:

Keith Ellison Defeats Doug Wardlow Completing DFL Sweep of Statewide Offices

An emotional Keith Ellison took the stage at St. Paul’s Crowne Plaza hotel late Tuesday night to deliver his victory speech after defeating Republican Doug Wardlow in the race for Minnesota’s Attorney General Office.

The race has been a constant source of controversy on both sides of the aisle, though Republicans were hopeful that Ellison’s past affiliations as well as a domestic-abuse allegation made against him by an ex-girlfriend would keep him from winning the state’s top law-enforcement job.

Polls frequently showed a tight race with large numbers of undecided voters, but Ellison managed to squeak out a victory over Warldow, winning 49 percent of the vote compared to Wardlow’s 44 percent.

Ellison began his victory speech by praising the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party as one based on the “values of love, respect, transparency, and accountability.”

[….]

“We don’t care who it is—if anybody is messing with somebody in Minnesota, your Minnesota attorney general is going to stand up for them and fight back,” he concluded. “Tonight is a good night. Every statewide elected official is a Democrat in Minnesota.”

More here.

Minnesotans, tell me what you think by commenting to this post.  Send me links to other news from the state in the wake of the midterm election.

Minnesota Muslims “waking up” and expect to make gains in voting today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From NPR:

Muslims Hope To ‘Wake Up’ At The Ballot Box This Year

On a recent Saturday afternoon in an office in St. Paul, Minn., a flurry of calls went out to Native American and Latinos voters reminding them to vote Nov. 6. And there was a new group added to the list: Muslims.

Until last year, ISAIAH, a multi-racial coalition of faith communities in Minnesota, was mostly made up of churches. Now, 24 mosques have joined the voter turnout effort. The group is focused on getting communities of color to vote this year in reaction to what it describes as politics of fear and a rise of white nationalism.

 

Ellison and Imam Asad Zaman
Pals! Imam Asad Zaman (left) with Rep. Keith Ellison.  Will Ellison be Minnesota’s next Attorney General after today?

 

With Muslims and immigrants used as boogeymen in political rhetoric, Imam Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, said, getting his community to the ballot box is vital. Zaman is leading the local Muslim effort to get out the vote and has been a leader on political engagement in the community for more than 15 years.

And there are more Muslims now running for office, hoping to be part of a “blue wave.” In Minnesota, nine Muslims are on the ballot for state, federal and local offices.

“Many candidates running for office are using Islamophobia as a means to get to political power. That is absolutely un-American,” Zaman said. “The community is under assault. Fortunately, most of us are beginning to wake up.”

The community is under assault. Fortunately, most of us are beginning to wake up.

(Imam Asad Zaman)

He points out that in Minnesota there are 50,000 registered Muslim voters. Though Muslims make up a small voting bloc — they’re about one percent of the nation’s population — those votes can matter in close elections. Many feel a renewed sense of urgency to choose leaders that will represent them.

[….]

About two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats according to the Pew Research Center and about 13 percent as Republican.

Muslim populations growing in key battleground states

“What’s interesting is that they are clustered in key areas including battleground states such as Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and especially in urban areas,” Alzayat says. “So, for example you have about 120,000 registered Muslim voters in the state of Michigan. You have about 120,000 registered in Florida. You have about 100,000 registered in Virginia and those numbers really matter because in close elections … just a few votes can make a difference let alone tens of thousands, if not 100,000.”

It is a long ‘glowing’ story, read more here.

I have a huge Minnesota archive, go here if you have some time to read!

MN Rep Keith Ellison pushing for US to resettle 110,000 refugees beginning on Monday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Rep. Keith Ellison is among 50 or so Congressional members of the House Progressive Caucus who have submitted a Resolution in the House pushing for Trump to return to Obama’s proposed 110,000 ceiling for refugees to be admitted to the US in the coming fiscal year.

The story is at the Minnesota Sun entitled:

Keith Ellison Wants to Flood Minnesota and the U.S. with 110,000 Refugees in 2019

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) is leading an effort to try to force President Trump to boost the number of refugees permanently resettled in the United States over the next fiscal year by more than 300 percent.

Ellison is the Democrat nominee for the statewide office of attorney general in Minnesota. He holds a slight lead in the most recent polls over his Republican opponent, Doug Wardlow, and is currently entangled in allegations of sexual abuse by two women.

Ellison at HIAS demo
Taxpayer dollars at work? In February 2017, Ellison headlined an anti-Trump rally in New York organized by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society a federally-funded refugee resettlement ‘non-profit’ group. Since 2008, HIAS has received $186 million from the US Treasury. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/14/breitbart-federally-funded-refugee-resettlement-contractor-hias-organized-ny-rally-against-trump/

 

The Minnesota Sun continues….

The issue of refugee resettlement has become a hot topic in the state’s gubernatorial race between GOP nominee Jeff Johnson and Democrat nominee Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN).

House Resolution 1073 was submitted by Ellison and more than 50 other Democrat members of Congress to the House Judiciary Committee, where it could receive a hearing or be ignored.

Minnesota and Ohio have ranked among the top five states for receiving refugees over the last 10 years, with the vast majority coming from Somalia. And both states have had problems with Somali violence, including knife attacks at two difference malls in Minnesota and a car-ramming and knife attack at Ohio State University, among the most bloody examples.

The list of signatories on the resolution reads like a who’s who of the leadership of the House Progressive Caucus, which is considered the most far left of the Democrat Party. Ellison is vice chair of the caucus.

[….]

As Barack Obama once said, “elections have consequences,” and one of Trump’s campaign promises was to admit fewer refugees and other low-skill immigrants.

That infuriates, almost more than anything else Trump has done, the far left of the Democrat Party.

Hence, you have the resolution drawn up and submitted this week by Ellison, who is one of two Muslim members of Congress along with Rep. Andre Carson, (D-IN). Carson has also signed the resolution.

The House resolution claims to be “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Presidential Determination of the annual refugee admissions limit in fiscal year 2019 shall be no less than 110,000 and that President Trump and his administration must operate the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) in good faith.”

As faithful readers know, Secretary of State Pompeo announced a week ago that the administration is looking at a ceiling/cap of 30,000, see here.

More here.

And, don’t miss my post on the myth about Obama’s 110,000.

Hetfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society thinks Hawaiian judge just opened floodgates

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  By the end of the day we are now over the President’s ceiling by 194, and I think it would only be fair if HIAS set up an office in Hawaii and resettle all of those over the ceiling in that state! After all, Hawaii isn’t getting its fair share—only 3 so far in FY17.
I really don’t mean to turn RRW in to HIAS Watch***, but it is Mark Hetfield, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s well paid CEO who is setting himself up as the leading spokesman for the refugee industry.
Here (below) is his statement on the decision by the Hawaiian rogue judge.

Hetfield gets an award: https://www.hias.org/blog/adl-hebrew-union-college-honor-hias-work-behalf-refugees

If the Trump administration allows one judge in Hawaii to prevail, after deciding all by himself, what a “bona fide relationship” is, we might as well call it quits and go to the beach (for life!).

There is no legal standard because the Supreme Court literally made it up on the fly!

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society:

SILVER SPRING, Md.—On Thursday, July 13, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued an important ruling in Hawaii halting the implementation of portions of the Trump administration’s executive order banning refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

As a result of this ruling, refugees with assurances from U.S.-based resettlement agencies are now officially considered to have “bona fide” relationships with a U.S. entity, as defined by the Supreme Court. The Trump administration had previously interpreted the Supreme Court order to mean that refugees with such ties would not be permitted entry on that basis alone.

In his decision, Judge Watson wrote that “an assurance from a United States resettlement agency, in fact, meets each of the Supreme Court’s touchstones,” and that “bona fide does not get any more bona fide than that.”

Additionally, the Court expanded the administration’s overly narrow interpretation of which close family ties would qualify to be exempted from the refugee ban, which had originally excluded even grandparents and grandchildren.

HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield said, “This is a common-sense ruling which correctly interprets what the Supreme Court explicitly wrote. Critically, thousands of refugees escaping precarious and dangerous situations should now have the chance to find the safety promised to them in this country.”

More here.

Rep. Keith Ellison was the ‘draw’ at NY anti-Trump rally sponsored by HIAS.

Remember readers, this is all about their “compensation,” about money (taxpayer money!) for each refugee they place in your towns.  It is about their office overhead, their staff salaries, their travel budgets, and their ability to put on anti-Trump rallies like this one.
***This gives me an idea.  Readers are always asking me what they can do. Here is something: Start a “watch” for each of the nine contractors. Pick your favorite from the list below and write your own blog! If I can do it, so can you!
If you decide to choose HIAS we have a huge archive on them here (a good place to start!).
Federal contractors/middlemen/lobbyists/community organizers paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities.  Because their income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, the only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove the contractors from the process.

Learn more about how dangerous Tom Perez will be as head of the DNC

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

perez-and-ellison
Did the Dems calculate that they need Hispanic voters more than Muslim voters?

Frankly I’ve been rooting for Rep. Keith Ellison to be the face of the Democratic National Committee. I think he would finally finish off the party.
The smooth Tom Perez is much more calculating, devious and dangerous.  Perez was elected yesterday, and as I said on twitter the Hispanic beat out the Muslim for the face of the party….hmmmm!
Perez has been a longtime advocate for Open Borders who snookered Republicans in Maryland for many years.
I wrote probably 20 posts about him, here at my tea party blog shared with my friend Judy (when I had more time to write on subjects other than refugees).
He was most recently Obama’s Labor Secretary, but his years at Obama’s Justice Department saw him as an attack dog against states attempting to get voter ID laws in place. He vigorously ignored immigration law and saw it as his mission to weaken local police departments. I expect that AG Jeff Sessions will have to cope with Perez’s legacy there by rooting out lawyers installed by Perez.
Here are screenshots of just a couple of pages of posts at Potomac Tea Party Report:
 
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Go here to learn more about new DNC chairman Thomas Perez.  If anyone wants to write a lengthy expose’ on Perez, there is a lot of background information on those pages.
An afterthought: I have to laugh when I hear Democrat pundits say that Perez is a more mainstream Dem than is Ellison. Perez is every bit a Leftist as Ellison, just that he hides it better.