NYC Remains Target #1

Our enemies have sights set on NYC, cutting funding only opens the door
By Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)

05/21/10

Al Qaeda, its affiliates and sympathizers want nothing more than to attack America again, and they want to do it in New York City.
To prevent this, New York needs more federal homeland security funding. Clearly, the Obama administration doesn't understand that.
Seventeen years after the first attack on the World Trade Center and eight-and-a-half years after the toppling of the Twin Towers, New York City remains target No. 1 of Islamic terrorists.
New York City has been the intended target of at least 11 disrupted terror plots since 9/11.
In my office, we keep a list.
In 2003, police unraveled plans to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. The next year, terrorists conspired to bomb Herald Square. In 2006, law enforcement disrupted a plot to attack a tunnel connecting New Jersey to Manhattan. In 2007, investigators foiled plans to blow up JFK airport. In 2008, a native New Yorker, arrested in Pakistan, told of an al Qaeda plot to bomb the Long Island Rail Road. A year ago, the FBI stopped a planned attack on New York synagogues. Last fall, Najibullah Zazi was stopped short of blowing up New York City subway trains. This month, America saw an explosives-laden SUV nearly exploded in Times Square.
One would expect the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to understand that the terrorist threat to the United States of America is aimed primarily at the Big Apple. But, sadly, they don't.
Last week, just days after the failed Times Square car bombing, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano inexplicably slashed the 2010 homeland security funding for the NYC metropolitan area. DHS cut New York 's mass transit security funding by 27 percent and funding for New York City area port security by 25 percent.
This news was a slap in the face for New York , which endures a daily terrorist threat unlike any other U.S. city.
After their decision to cut New York 's homeland security funding, DHS officials added insult to injury with their baffling attempts to defend the indefensible.
After hearing bipartisan outrage, DHS claimed New York was actually getting more money because of a one-time payout from President Obama's "stimulus" package last year. DHS even enlisted the Democratic National Committee to attack me for my vote against the stimulus. I think they were attempting to say that because I voted against the stimulus with some money that eventually went to New York, I was somehow voting against properly funding anti-terror efforts in New York. But, really, they ended up admitting to holding homeland security money hostage in the stimulus.
Next, DHS tried the always-popular "blame Congress" routine. They claimed New York 's funding was cut because Congress appropriated only $300 million each for transit security grants and port security grants.
The truth is President Obama requested only $250 million from Congress for each of the grant programs. At $300 million, Congress gave more money than what President Obama wanted.
In what was their latest, and most laughable, attempt to explain away their big mistake, Secretary Napolitano accused New York transit and port agencies of sitting on piles of cash, refusing to spend the money they'd been awarded in recent years. In reality, according to a 2009 GAO report, DHS bureaucracy and red tape have prevented agencies from spending much of their grant money quickly. Secretary Napolitano deserves thanks for shedding new light on this problem at DHS.
As if these massive Obama administration cuts to transit and port security funding were not bad enough, they come on the heels of another unfathomable swipe at New York City. For the past two years, President Obama proposed to completely eliminate funding for the Securing the Cities Initiative, a highly successful program to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism through a ring of detectors in and around New York City. Just as what happened in Times Square, we are nearly certain the next attack on New York will come from the suburbs. And the likelihood is increasing that terrorists will try to use a radioactive dirty bomb.
With the president himself warning that we face a great threat from nuclear materials, it makes zero sense to cut funding for a program such as Securing the Cities. After the Bush administration funded it with $80 million, the Obama administration sought to eliminate funding last year. Fortunately, Congress provided $20 million. This year, Obama has again proposed nothing, but I am working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to secure the necessary funds for this vital program. Protecting New York is about protecting America . A dirty bomb attack in Manhattan , the world's financial capital, would cripple America 's financial markets and, perhaps, collapse our economy.
Terrorists have their sights set on New York in their quest to destroy America. In recent years, the terrorists have increased, not decreased, their efforts to attack New York. The Obama administration must follow suit by increasing, not decreasing, homeland security funding for New York.

A Blue Print For Immigration Reform

A rigourous commonsensical immigration policy like Ireland's!

www.city-journal.org

Steven Malanga

Click below:

The Right Immigration Policy

Not amnesty or guest workers, but newcomers who would strengthen us

Immigration and Teen Employment

Immigration vs. Teen Employment

Study Finds Immigrant Competition Contributes to Decline in Work

WASHINGTON (May 12, 2010) – The summer of 2010 is shaping up to be worst summer ever for the employment of U.S.-born teenagers (16 to 19 years old). But even before the current recession, the share of U.S.-born teens in the labor force – working or looking for work – was declining. A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that competition with immigrants (legal and illegal) explains a significant share of this decline. The fall in teen employment is worrisome because a large body of research shows that those who do not hold jobs as teenagers often fail to develop the work habits necessary to function in the labor market, creating significant negative consequences for them later in life. The report, 'A Drought of Summer Jobs: Immigration and the Long-Term Decline in Employment Among U.S.-Born Teenagers.'

Guth An Garda

Below is the text of Michael O’Boyce’s planned speech to the Garda Representative Association’s (GRA) annual conference.

GRA speaks out against government corruption!

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern boycotts conference.

Michael O'Boyce is the outgoing president of the Garda Representative Association

I welcome you to the 32nd Annual Delegate Conference of the Garda Representative Association. I accept your non-attendance last year was due to circumstances beyond your control, but was disappointed you did not make greater effort to fulfil our invitation to attend the conference dinner.
At conference last year I called for the embargo on promotions to be lifted. I thank the Minister for Finance for heeding the call and I’m glad to say that practically all the members of the Garda Representative Association who should have been promoted last year now are.
At conference last year I said, “This government is driving experience out of An Garda Síochána. A rising number of members of all ranks who could and who want to continue to serve this country are considering retirement.” Sadly my words proved to be correct. In one garda division alone, numbers are down by 20 in recent months.
At conference last year I spoke about the mothballing of the Garda College. Disgracefully, there are no students in the college – for the first time in its history. Due to government policy there will be no students in the Garda College for a long time to come. An Garda Síochána is contracting by the direct action of the government; experience is being driven out and no new blood coming in. This is pushing the Force to the brink of disaster.
An effective police force needs continuity, a principle tried and tested the world over but ignored in Ireland. In these uncertain times the public needs to know that there will be adequate frontline gardaí for them. Garda numbers will fall again by the end of 2010. The people of Ireland should rightly demand garda recruitment is taken away from government because it is misused as an election gimmick. It is far too important for that. The Garda Representative Association will continue to campaign for an end to this obnoxious trick.
For the past year and a half, gardaí and other public sector workers have endured an unrelenting, distasteful and vitriolic attack from the government and their wealthy cronies. This was distasteful and unbelievable considering the role garda take in society. It most definitely verged on incitement to hatred. The attacks were orchestrated to demonise and marginalise public sector workers. They were designed to drive a wedge between public and private sector workers.
But the ancient tactic of divide and conquer did not succeed, except with those misguided souls who contact daytime radio talk shows. They were primed to deflect attention away from the ‘national saboteurs’.
We are angry, we have been betrayed and we are disillusioned. But I do not believe it is yet understood just how angry we are. And that anger will find an outlet, the anger that we feel will find its target.
We are angry at being portrayed as self-serving, overpaid, under-worked and dishonest people with overly generous pensions that we don’t pay for. Yes, there are public servants who fit into that category; they are represented by you and your colleagues, not us.
We are angry that we, our children and our children’s children have been sacrificed by this government to protect the people who bankrolled your party and robbed the Irish People. Men like Fingers and Seanie were held up by government as examples of entrepreneurial skill and business acumen but who were nothing more than ‘gombeen’ men.
We are angry at the arrogance of a government corrupted by years of power has lost touch with the reality of life on a modest salary; if they ever knew it at all. A government whose only agenda is to protect the economic traitors.
We are angry at being lectured by government on the need to be patriotic. A patriot is ‘a person who vigorously supports his country and its way of life.’ This government is misusing what it means to be Irish as they support a new aristocracy created in their image. This new aristocracy chooses whether to retain state pensions while still working as public representatives, using all means to spend vast resources on the few, while taking pay from the majority. This government have created a new class system; one that does not value our service and dedication.
We are angry about NAMA. No, not the entity set up by government to bail out developers and speculators who reneged on their debts, the cost of which you have placed on the shoulders of generations of Irish workers to come. Yes, we are angry about that, but, I am talking about the NAMA that the government is, The National Assets Mismanagement Agency.
The government of which you are a long serving member has mismanaged the wealth of this country for more than a decade by allowing our assets to be plundered and robbed by bankers and speculators and you are making generations of Irish workers pay the price for this treachery. You did this because bankers and speculators have bought your party, and in return you have sacrificed the greater good and prosperity of the Irish Nation for the benefit of the few – the few who have now taken their ill-gotten gains and secured them in tax haven around the world. Truly, a government of national sabotage.
In the face of the unwarranted attack by the government on the workers and unemployed of this country the Garda Representative Association has stood head and shoulders above other trade unions. We have shown leadership, temerity, tenaciousness and courage. We have lead from the front.
The Central Executive Committee picketed Dáil Eireann. No government minister or TD had the courage to come out and meet us. We led 4,000 of our members on a march to the Dáil. Once again no government minister had the courage to come out to us. We joined the 24/7 Frontline Services Alliance. No minister had the courage to tell us we shouldn’t be part of that alliance. They knew the answer that we would have given them.
On the 7th December 2009 we announced that we were going to ballot our members on industrial action. I have no doubt the announcement saved our allowances from the hatchet.
You Minister came out fighting, saying you were going to arrest and jail the CEC, and forgetting that you hadn’t the power. Then you threatened to seize the assets of the GRA; believing your own frenzy you went on to threaten to arrest the printers and the postal workers. As we know none of this happened – except the issuing of the ballot.
What the GRA said we would do, we did. What you, Minister, said you wouldn’t allow, you couldn’t stop.
An ‘away win’ for the Garda Representative Association.
The GRA has now set forth on a course to become a full trade union. Minister, you have said that we will never achieve that status. That is the second leg. And when, in the near future, the GRA achieves trade union status, it will be the home win.”

Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!

How Mexico Treats Illegals!

How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens

Michelle Malkin

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.
The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

Continue reading:

http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/04/28/how_mexico_treats_illegal_aliens

Fact Sheet on Arizona Law

Contact: Mark Krikorian, (202) 466-8185, msk@cis.org
Center for Immigration Studies on the New Arizona Immigration Law, SB1070

Ted Kennedy FBI file

Portions of Kennedy FBI File May Stay Family Secret

(April 12) — What secrets still remain
about one of America’s most famous public
figures?

Before the FBI releases 3,000 pages of its
file on Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy,
the family of the late political icon will have
a chance to review them and make its case
to keep some portions from being made
public.
The release of this first installment of
Kennedy’s file comes in response to several
Freedom of Information Act requests made
following the senator’s death from brain
cancer in 2009 at the age of 77.
Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
Ted Kennedy’s family will have the opportunity
to review the late Massachusetts
senator’s FBI file before it is released to the
public.
According to The Boston Globe, the
Kennedy family’s review of the documents
is an “uncommon” privilege and is meant to
ensure that the privacy of living people
mentioned in the file is not violated.
While neither the FBI nor the Kennedy
family has publicly commented on its contents,
it’s possible the file could shed new
light on such events as the 1969 death of
Mary Jo Kopechne, the passenger who
drowned when Kennedy drove his car off a
bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass.
“It’s impossible for me to say what is in
the file,” Robert Dallek, an author and former
Boston University professor, told the
Globe, “though one can speculate that it
will contain material about Sen. Kennedy’s
private life, including Chappaquiddick.”
It is also likely the FBI file contains information
regarding threats against the former
senator, whose two brothers — John F.
Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy — were
assassinated.
While family members such as
Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie
Kennedy, and his son Patrick Kennedy will
not be able to prohibit the FBI from releasing
anything within the 3,000 pages, their
objections could cause the bureau to rethink
which portions it ultimately makes
public.
Already released government documents
show that under the leadership of J. Edgar
Hoover, the FBI, in conjunction with the
Nixon White House, illegally attempted to
gather information to discredit Kennedy,
the Globe said.
As yet, no date has been set for the release
of this installment of Kennedy’s file.

2010 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sold out to the gombeen man

www.independent.ie

David McWilliams: Government has sold us out to neo-gombeen man

Over 100 years ago, JM Synge described the gombeen man as follows, "groggy patriot/publican/ge-neral shopman who is married to the priest's half-sister and is a second cousin once removed of the dispensary doctor ... the type that is running the United Irish League anti-grazier campaign, while at the same time they are swindling the people themselves in a dozen ways and buying back their holdings and packing off whole families to America".

David McWilliams: Like war in the trenches, NAMA plan is pure folly

Last year I remember watching the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' programme on RTE featuring the eminently likeable Simon Delaney. The unfolding story of his grandfather. . .

Adams wrong to deny IRA leadership

Adams is wrong to deny his past even though times have changed
By Ed Curran - Monday, 5 April 2010

And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech betrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew."
Okay, so Gerry Adams wasn't actually in the IRA. He didn't specifically order the murder of Jean McConville. He had nothing to do with the death of young Paddy Joe Crawford in Long Kesh. Nor had he any Semtex-stained direct hand in the day-to-day activities of the IRA which left so many thousand dead or injured over so many years.
Let's accept once and for all that he didn't actually plant any of the infamous Bloody Friday bombs which remain imprinted in my mind to this day for their appallingly indiscriminate brutality.
Indeed, I can still see the palls of smoke rising over Belfast city-centre and hear the bombs exploding on that dreadful afternoon when everyone working in downtown Belfast felt their last hour had come.
No, Gerry you had nothing to do directly with any of it and you know what? I am inclined to understand why you take that stance, because I think I know the way your mind was working then and is still working now.
There are a few journalists around who met, interviewed and generally talked with Gerry Adams in the early 1970s. I happened to be one of them.
From time to time, I would telephone his office and seek a meeting. Why? Because that is what journalists do, even though some people including the DUP last week, as witness its attack on the BBC over the latest Peter Robinson revelations, don't understand fully the motivation behind our work.
When people are being killed all around you, it is a legitimate job of a journalist to try to answer the questions - why and by whom? And in Gerry Adams I believed, as did virtually every other inquiring reporter in Belfast, that no man could provide the answers as he could.
One extremely wintry morning in the 1970s, I met up with the Belfast republican leader. There was slushy snow on the ground outside Divis Flats. Rather than talk in the cramped environs of his Sinn Fein office, Adams picked up a key to one of the flats and we walked there.
Once inside the despairingly spartan tower block, he turned on a couple of bars of an electric fire. I remember taking off my boots and warming my feet by the fire and Adams going into the tiny kitchen and producing mugs of hot tea and toast.
He talked about the general political situation, the attitude of unionists, the British Government's position and his assessment of the IRA's campaign, then at its height.
I believed I was speaking to the mastermind of the IRA, which was why I was there in the first place. Yet never once did he betray, either in that meeting or on other occasions when we met before or after, that he had any direct hand in the operations of the IRA.
He was careful never to incriminate himself. He would say he "understood" why a murder or bombing had taken place, but he would never admit involvement.
He was always speaking at least one step removed from the IRA. He was ascribing to himself the role of strategist rather than activist, thinker rather than doer.
Now I have no idea whether he ever pulled a trigger, or planted a bomb, or whether he stood in some kangaroo courtroom and, as his erstwhile friend, the late Brendan Hughes alleges from beyond the grave, ordered anyone to die.
For all I know he may have done so, but the reason why journalists like myself relied on his views was because we believed he was the key strategist within the Belfast republican movement. Why else would we have sought him, or he respond as he did?
And the important thing to remember about the 1970s was that the key strategy was to bomb the hell out of Belfast and beyond. To shoot as many soldiers and police officers as possible.
To attack anything that would bring down the economy of Northern Ireland. To strike terror and murder into the unionist community. And to maintain a ruthless stranglehold over as many nationalist districts as possible, if needs be by engaging in tarring and feathering, punishment beatings and killings to do so.
So that was the strategy. Gerry Adams was to all of us in the media and to the British and Irish governments, the man who manipulated the mind of militant republicanism. To my mind the argument over whether he specifically ordered the killing and disappearance of Jean McConville masks the bigger canvas upon which his life must be painted.
Whether or not he soiled his hands directly in some individual terrorist acts, he appeared in his twenties to have the respect of the most ruthless paramilitary force in Europe as did his long-standing colleague and current deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
If they were not two of the principal architects of a militant strategy which showed the world how terrorism could be used for political advantage, why airlift them out of Long Kesh to negotiate with the British Government?
Why were they in such demand for their views on the IRA's campaign of violence? How did they make it to the top in an organisation which history shows required its leaders to earn their spurs?
The evidence of IRA membership and militant activity may be disputed by Gerry Adams. What is incontrovertible is his dominant strategic role in the republican movement dating back to the bloodiest times of all.
That being so, he must shoulder an infinitely greater burden of responsibility than for any single specific act of murder, such as that of Jean McConville.
As the undisputed leader of the republican movement at its most violent in our darkest days, Gerry Adams must carry the can and accept his share of guilt.
The only reason people may forgive him is because, eventually, he steered a political route out of the IRA's maze of murder.
For that we should all be grateful, but it is no excuse for denying the past.
"Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept."

Comment
This is, perhaps, one of the best theoretical opinions with regard to the steadfast refusal by Gerry Adams to admit that he ever was a member of the IRA, let alone its Chief of Staff. Given his close association with every aspect of the organization including undisputed spokesman, universally recognized intermediary with the IRA Army Council, and visible participant in the military funerals of practically every IRA volunteer for the last thirty plus years, it is extremely difficult to believe that he was not a very influential member of its hierarchy. However, at the end of the day, it is up to each individual to make their own decision whether to believe him or not.

Jack Meehan

Past National President, AOH

Adams, Not IRA???

Author defends Adams IRA claims


Monday March 29, 2010

www.independent.ie

The author of a new book alleging Gerry Adams was an IRA leader at the height of its campaign has rejected claims the allegations are being made by republicans opposed to Sinn Fein.
The latest claims that Mr Adams was a top IRA member in Belfast during some of its most infamous attacks were made by a senior republican, Brendan "Darkie" Hughes, in interviews carried out before he died in 2008.
Mr Adams has always denied ever being an IRA member and on Sunday Sinn Fein dismissed the renewed allegations that he was a leader of the group and was linked to the IRA murder of mother-of-ten Jean McConville and the "Bloody Friday" bomb blitz on Belfast which killed nine people in 1972.
Sinn Fein said the allegations are not new and claims the posthumous accounts of IRA activities were gathered with the help of republicans who "have been opposed to Sinn Fein's peace strategy from the outset".
But the author of the new book, Voices From The Grave, Ed Moloney on Monday said: "What Brendan Hughes has done here is, first of all, unprecedented in IRA annals. It has never happened before that someone like this has come forward, albeit giving interviews that wouldn't appear until his death, to tell the unvarnished truth as they saw it about what happened and who was involved."
Mr Moloney said Mr Hughes was angered by his belief that top republicans had denied their former role in the IRA. The author said: "It's pretty disappointing that every time something like this happens, the accusation is made that there is an agenda-driven effort going on here and it's just not the case."
Mr Moloney said he had encouraged the efforts to collect stories from republican and loyalist paramilitaries involved in the conflict to act as a store of information from the Troubles, with the research exercise backed by Boston college in the US.
The interviews with Mr Hughes are carried in the new book in which the deceased IRA member, who was once a close friend of Mr Adams but who later became a critic of Sinn Fein's political strategy, is quoted recalling his own earlier role in the republican movement.
"I find it difficult to come to terms [with] the fact that this man [Gerry Adams] has turned his back on everything that we ever did," Mr Hughes said. "I never carried out a major [IRA] operation without the OK or the order from Gerry."
But Sinn Fein said its leader had already denied the claims contained in the book. A party spokesperson said: "The allegations are not new. Gerry Adams has consistently denied these. In the last years of his life Brendan Hughes was very ill and he publicly disagreed with the strategy being pursued by republicans."

Press Association

Voices from the grave

Gerry Adams ‘had Jean McConville disappeared’

The Sunday Times
John Burns

Brendan “darkie” Hughes, a former commander of the IRA in Belfast, has claimed posthumously that Gerry Adams ordered the killing and burial of Jean McConville, the mother-of-10 shot dead by the IRA in 1972. He also suggested that Adams gave the order for the Provisional IRA to hang one of its own members in Long Kesh in June 1973 after the 22-year-old cracked under police questioning.
Hughes also boasted that he personally ran a personation campaign for Adams’s election as MP in west Belfast in 1987, and again in the council elections of 1989, stealing a “massive” number of votes.
The claims were made in a series of interviews Hughes gave to a researcher for Boston College in 2001 and 2002. He agreed to speak on condition that the material would not be published until after his death.
“I find it so difficult to come to terms [with] the fact that this man has turned his back on everything that we ever did,” Hughes said in an interview before he died in 2008.
“I never carried out a major [IRA] operation without the okay or the order from Gerry [Adams]. And for him to sit in his plush office in Westminster or Stormont or wherever and deny it, I mean it’s like Hitler denying that there was ever a Holocaust.”
Hughes’s interviews are contained in a new book, Voices From The Grave by journalist Ed Moloney, which is serialised exclusively in today’s Sunday Times.
Adams, the Sinn Fein president, has denied any involvement in the killing of McConville and being a member of the IRA. Asked last month if he was aware that the widowed Belfast woman was to be murdered and her body dumped, he said “No”.
Hughes revealed that he was deeply involved in the affair, one of the most high-profile killings of the Troubles. He said his unit found an army transmitter in McConville’s flat in Divis. Her family insists that the widow was not an informer, and that she was shot for going to the assistance of an injured soldier.
“She was an informer; she had a transmitter in her house. The British supplied the transmitter [to watch] the movements of IRA volunteers around Divis Flats at that time,” Hughes said. “I sent a squad over to the house to check it out and there was a transmitter. We retrieved [it], arrested her, took her away, interrogated her, and she told [us] what she was doing.”
Hughes said he wasn’t “on the scene at the time”, but insisted that his unit took possession of the transmitter and, because she was a woman, released McConville with a warning. He claimed that within a few weeks another army transmitter had been put in McConville’s flat.
“She was still co-operating with the British . . . getting paid by the British to pass on information. The squad was brought into operation then,” he said. “And she was arrested again and taken away.”
Hughes said he knew McConville was to be “executed” but didn’t know whether she was to be “disappeared” or her body left on the street. He claimed Ivor Bell, another IRA leader, argued for the body to be dumped in public, but was over-ruled.
“There was only one man who gave the order for that woman to be executed,” he said. “That man is now the head of Sinn Fein. I did not give the order to execute that woman — he did. And yet he went to see [McConville’s] kids to promise an investigation into her death.
“[Bell] argued, ‘if you are going to kill her, put her on the street. What’s the sense of killing her and burying her if no-one knows what she was killed for?’ ”
Asked if Adams had rejected this logic, Hughes replied: “He rejected it.” And ordered her to be disappeared, the interviewer asked. “To be buried. She was an informer.”
Hughes accused the Sinn Fein leader of getting into a position where he had to deny all of his IRA past. “It . . . appears that way,

Courtesy Irish American GOP Activist

Virginia

And more to come ..... a "must read", I would say!

Hypocrisy & Lies Continue

I cannot encourage you enough to search the internet, look at You Tube, view websites like Republican Network for Unity, Friends of Colin Duffy, etc.... You cannot make an informed decision if you do not have all the information!

I attended an event for the Deputy First Minister Mr. McGuinness on 18 March at Rory Dolan's in the heart of the Irish community. It was POORLY attended! For the first 2 hours there were only 20-30 people. Naturally, he was running late. There is nothing like keeping people waiting! A sign of rudeness & arrogance. The Downs brothers, more than once made excuses for the "micro" turnout-- saying people must be tired from the Parade. Note the word I use here-- "micro" -- as it related directly to the hypocrisy of the event.

Finally, Mr. Deputy First Minister arrived. Along with his entourage, a total of maybe 60 people finally attended this event for Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein leader & DFM! Not great support-- I would say. Rita O'Hare spoke, then MLA John O'Dowd of Lurgan spoke, then Mr. McGuinness spoke. It was a very vigorous but very repetitious speech. The theme was "Sinn Fein has delivered", "We deliver", "SF delivered what we said we would deliver" interspersed with "We will have a united Ireland", "We have a plan", We are nearly there", We are working toward a united Ireland" and "we want your continued support". I think I remember Mr. Adams being here about 6-9 months ago asking Irish America "HOW DO WE GET A UNITED IRELAND?" -- he was asking for ideas! WOW! They came up with one pretty fast it looks like.Then the lies and hypocrisy began in full!

Toward the end of his speech, he said there are "MICRO" groups who oppose SF, the GFA, and peace...... and they have NO support. This is a lie! He further said that Americans should not support these people. He claimed that due to these "micro" groups Derrymen have lost their lives, his fellow county men, and only his county men have lost their lives due to these "micro" groups. He mentioned that his fellow Derryman Kieran Doherty was recently killed. (Mind you Kieran Doherty had stopped supporting SF before 2000 & was in the Real IRA). Martin McG. reiterated don't support them, they have no support, they are going nowhere.

Finally he finished and there was a Q&A segment. Three men asked questions. I was next. I started by saying I had supported & watched SF for many years, but I and many others had questions & concerns re: a number of issues. I said I MUST correct statements made in his speech. (You could see an immediate change in his posture & body language!) I said his claim of only Derrymen being killed due to "micro" groups was NOT TRUE! I stated - Yes, Kieran Doherty was a Derryman, I knew Kieran, but John Brady was a Tyrone man, murdered in custody of "the NEW police of n.Ireland", and John was my friend. I said Joe O'Connor was a Belfast man murdered in broad daylight in front of his mother's home. I am a friend of the O'Connor Family, and young Paul Quinn was from Cullyhanny and murdered -- murdered by British agents (MI5, PSNI or Provos). I said THIS is the truth and these are facts! I also said that these "micro" groups, in fact, do have growing support. Then I said "my question for you tonight is -- Where does SF stand on SECTION 44 & the return of DIPLOCK Trials? I asked why Republicans are being harassed on a weekly basis, why men like Colin Duffy, Gary Donnelly- a Derryman- are being arrested & re-arrested & assaulted. And why MI5 are now openly recruiting for informers in Nationalist areas?

WELL...... McMcGuinness was livid. He responded by making a personal attack. He called anti-GFA groups & supporters criminals, drug dealers, thugs, & informers!! He said I was seriously misinformed. He was in a temper. He never answered my question at all! The hypocrisy is SF/the Provos have their own share of informers, drug dealers, & criminals! Let's remember Denis Donaldson & Freddie Scappeticci. Let's also remember Liam Adams-a paediophile (even Gerry accepts this as true), Provos who have been outed for raping Joe Cahill's neices, other SF sex abuse cases, Provos dealing drugs, --- last week Mr. McGuinness had the audacity to call for Cardinal Brady to step down !?!?!? I didn't hear him call for Gerry Adams to step down for hiding & covering up crimes of criminals within his own organization ! People in glass houses ....These hypocrites are now master liars & have learned from the very best---- their new masters --- the Brits! I honestly don't know how anyone can support these people. Their arrogance is out of control. They abuse anyone who questions them or who does not support them! Money & power has corrupted them completely! Republicans do not turn on Republicans. Republicans do not work with the enemy to jail Republicans!

I spoke with both Mr. McGuinness & R. O'Hare after the event and suggested that it was very bad form to slander & attack former comrades and ex-prisoners! McGuinness could hardly hold it together, he was so rattled! Ms. O'Hare had more dignity. She actually told me (which I already know) that she cannot go home and if she did she would likely face jail & trial much like Gerry McGeough!

Cathleen O'Brien

Friends of Irish Freedom

I am not at all surprised by Martin McGuinness’s negative attitude toward Ms. O’Brien’s line of questioning and her factual “corrections” to most of the statements he made at the Rory Dolan event. Unfortunately, Sinn Fein is not forthcoming with the truth about the issues Ms. O’Brien raised that evening and they have not been since before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. As a one time supporter of Sinn Fein, for about 30 years, I find it disgraceful and cowardly that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness continue to ignore the plight of their former comrades and to be complicit and silent in the cover-up of their continued harassment by the RUC/PSNI, murder, and Diplock trials of fellow Republicans who should have been part of the “amnesty” they secretly and selectively negotiated for those loyal to them.

The fact that, within the last six months, a good number of Sinn Fein members have jumped ship is an indication that all is not so good within their organization. As for their bad mouthing of other Irish Republicans – shame on them. They come here to the USA and they blow smoke and placate Irish-Americans and then go home and do just the opposite. They have been doing that since 1994 and sadly enough, most Irish-Americans just take them at face value and don’t do their homework. Kudos’ to Ms. O’Brien for her courage to address such issues with Mr. McGuinness. We should all take her advice and use the Internet to search out all Irish Republican sites/blogs to find out what is really going on behind the scenes as well as to realize that some of the “micro-groups” McGuinness continues to bad mouth, in fact do have support and that support is growing.

Helen McCLafferty
March 25, 2010 1:44 PM

People in glass houses . . .

Scandal shows how prone we are to hypocrisy and hysteria

Ruth Dudley Edwards is sickened by the abuse of children, but also by the persecution of essentially good people like Brady

Ruth Dudley Edwards – Sunday Independent - March 21 2010

I had a struggle to feel proud to be Irish this St Patrick's Day. Normally I would have smiled tolerantly at the ubiquitous shamrock-bespattered leprechaun hats and orange beards infesting central London. But I was afflicted by an attack of existential gloom, brought on by listening to Morning Ireland in full cry over Cardinal Sean Brady. It wasn't so much that we are at our least attractive when in sanctimonious lynch-mob mode: it was because this was RTE at its worst.

It was bad listening to Charlie Bird in Washington trying to persuade Brian Cowen to call for Brady's resignation and order a police investigation of his behaviour in the Seventies, but at least the Taoiseach firmly dismissed any idea that he should interfere in Church matters or the operational independence of the gardai. But then came the utterly fantastic interview with Martin McGuinness, who had no such statesmanlike inhibitions.

Wringing his hands, McGuinness told us how he tried to be as good a Catholic as he could be, how the people whose voices have not been listened to should be heard, how the Church should demonstrate real leadership and how the Cardinal "should consider his position". When it came "to such a serious matter as child abuse I do think there's a very grave responsibility on everybody in positions of leadership to do everything possible to ensure the protection of children".

I waited for Bird to ask a few of the obvious questions. Surely you are in no position to criticize Cardinal Brady for a sin of omission as a young man? By your own admission, were you not involved by 1975 in an organization that killed and mutilated children and destroyed innumerable lives? Did Pope John Paul II on his knees in 1979 not beg the IRA in the name of God "to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace"? Why did a good Catholic like you ignore his plea? Would the IRA not have murdered anyone who reported any of its members to the police? Was there not a culture of secrecy and authoritarianism within the republican movement that suppressed all criticism of the leadership? Since Gerry Adams allowed a brother he believed had raped his own daughter to work in his constituency in youth organizations for years, should he not resign? Which heads should roll because it took months to suspend an alleged child-abusing Sinn Fein councillor? Is your neck not made of solid brass?

Bird didn't ask those questions. He just kept pressing him to go further and call directly for Brady's resignation. And at the end, he said sympathetically, "It must be hard for you to say something like this to him". Oh, it was hard, said McGuinness, because he had found Brady "very decent, very supportive of the peace process". However, "We who are in positions of political leadership have a responsibility to lead".

And so I mooched off into the street, glowered at the leprechauns and with difficulty held back from explaining to passers-by that we are a nation of slovenly minded hypocrites and self-righteous hysterics. However, that isn't really true. I spent a few days in Clare the other week, where one could speak of showing some compassion to the clergy without someone shrieking that you condone child abuse.

After abandoning religion in my teens, I spent the next couple of decades practicing anti-Catholicism until I realized it was time I got over it. So I learned to be a religion-friendly atheist, not least because I found in Northern Ireland many people whose Christianity had enabled them to forgive perpetrators of terrible crimes. And now my country is in the in the grip of adolescent anti-Catholicism and I feel sorry for its victims.

Some Catholic clergy did bad things, others showed a lack of moral courage and others defended their institution blindly in the way the institutionalized do. In Ireland, our craw-thumping society colluded all the way in allowing them to abuse their power. I am sickened by what happened to children, but I'm sickened too by the persecution of people I believe to be fundamentally good, like the 70-year-old Cardinal Brady and the 82-year-old Pope Benedict XVI. We are all fallible.

Perhaps next time Bird is looking for a question to ask Martin McGuinness, he might ask him why he's forgotten Jesus Christ's recommendation that you don't throw stones unless you're sinless.

Comment

Perhaps Mr. McGuinness should examine his conscience, look inward, and practice some self criticism before attacking a man who has dedicated his entire life to the service of God and his fellow man. His criticism of Cardinal Brady marks him as more of a publicity seeking, run of the mill politician than the statesman in the making that some of his admirers consider him to be. Dr. Edwards, a self proclaimed atheist, has struck the nail squarely on the head in this article.

Jack Meehan, Past National President
Ancient Order of Hibernians in America
Knights of Columbus – 4th Degree
.

Islamic terror suspects detained in Ireland

Seven quizzed over cartoonist 'murder plot'
Thursday, March 11 2010

www.independent.ie

Seven Muslims detained over a suspected plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist, allegedly masterminded by a self-styled "Jihad Jane", were facing another three days of questioning today.
Four men and three women were detained in Cork and Waterford over an alleged international conspiracy to murder Lars Vilks, who controversially depicted the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog.
Two Libyan men and a woman, one Algerian man and a Palestinian woman had their periods of detention extended at a closed court hearing last night while a US woman and Croatian man were ordered back into garda custody at a brief sitting today.
They can be questioned until Sunday morning.
The group had been arrested on Tuesday in a series of raids by anti-terrorist units acting on intelligence from the CIA, FBI and European agencies.
A judge at Waterford District Court agreed to a special closed sitting to protect the investigation as US caretaker Colleen LaRose, who styled herself Jihad Jane in a YouTube video, was charged with plotting the murder bid.
The suspect was accused in the US on Tuesday of conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war, or jihad.
According to the US Justice Department, the 46-year-old, who also goes by the name Fatima LaRose, plotted with five others in South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and the US to recruit men on the internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe.
They are also accused of recruiting women online to travel to and around Europe supporting violent jihad.
It is understood LaRose agreed to marry an online contact from South Asia so he could move to Europe.
US prosecutors said she was ordered to kill Mr Vilks in a way which would frighten "the whole Kufar [non-believer] world".
The seven people held in Ireland, aged from their mid-twenties to late forties, can be questioned for another 72 hours when detectives can ask a judge to extend their detention for another 48 hours.
Some of those arrested in Ireland have been legally in the country for up to 10 years.
Mr Vilks, whose cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog were printed in the Swedish Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in August 2007, has been under threat of death from Iraqi members of the Islamic terrorist group al Qaida.
They put a $100,000 (€74,000) bounty on the cartoonist's head, forcing him into police protection in an isolated area of Sweden.
LaRose is also accused of travelling to Europe and tracking Mr Vilks online in an effort to complete her task.
If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a one million dollar fine. She has been under arrest since last October.
Senior gardai do not believe those detained in Ireland are members of the terrorist group and stressed there was no threat to Irish security.
It is understood at least one of the suspects is a naturalised Irish citizen while a number of others have attempted to claim asylum.
Press Association

Let Freedom Ring

Courtesy of Irish American GOP Activist, Virginia

An American obsession with freedom
Tony Blankley

The publishing of the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago by our Founders was responded to in London by two of the 18th century's greatest minds: Dr. Samuel Johnson (after whom a literary age was named) and Edmund Burke (the intellectual father of modern Anglo-American conservatism).

Dr. Johnson made the harsh assertion that our Declaration was "the delirious dream of republican fanaticism" that, if sincere, would "put the axe to the roots of all government." Moreover, he went on, it was the rankest hypocrisy for owners of slaves to shout for freedom, or, as Johnson put it: "Why is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of negroes?" But it was Edmund Burke who had the more profound insight. He recognized that it wasn't despite being slaveholders that American Colonists felt so powerfully about liberty. Rather, being in the midst of the obvious evils of slavery, those men who were free more fully appreciated their freedom. "Those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of rank and privilege," Burke argued. Or, as Jedediah Purdy (from whose historically rich and ingenious book "A Tolerable Anarchy" I have abstracted these observations) put it: "Slavery made masters uniquely sensitive to any invasion of their independence."

These sensitivities - sensibilities - that Burke so shrewdly observed in 1775 continue to manifest themselves in American politics today as we fight over socializing health care, nationalizing industries, indebting our grandchildren, regulating and taxing energy creation and the other intrusions into what Americans have long considered not to be the government's business.

Burke would understand what Europeans (and many European-influenced Americans) in 2010 continue to scoff at as America's obsession with the slogan of freedom. Because although we Americans may talk about freedom as an abstraction - and believe in freedom as an abstraction - our politics come alive when we experience an intrusion into what John Adams called "the sensations of freedom." As Burke explained: "Abstract liberty, like other abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point which ... becomes the criterion of their happiness."

I believe that the rise of the Tea Party movement and the impassioned nature of American politics in 2009-10 is the result of the Obama administration's having, probably inadvertently, intruded into "some favorite points which becomes the criterion of [our] happiness."
That is to say, though the Democrats see their health care proposal as merely another step along a continuum of government action, a strong majority of the American people sense that the "quantity" of the intrusion has changed the "quality" of the intrusion. What is seen, currently, as a basically private-sector health process with some government intervention has crossed over, in the Democrats' plans, into basically a government system. And, by being seen to have so crossed over, it is an attack on "some sensible object" (i.e. private-sector health care) in which our "Liberty inheres."

Similarly, the shift from less than $500 billion of annual deficit in the last George W. Bush year to a $1.5 trillion deficit in each of the first and second Obama years (and the proposed addition of almost $10 trillion of new public debt over the next decade) has - by the increase in quantity - changed the nature of public debt in such a way as to intrude into our sense of our fundamental liberty.

If the Chinese, by selling off our debt notes, can destroy our economy and way of life at a whim - as the accumulating debt suggests is possible - then what had been merely irresponsible, self-indulgent deficit spending by both Republicans and Democrats in the recent past has transformed into a fundamental threat to our liberty and our grandchildren's future.

The Obama administration and the Democrats crossed a line and touched a nerve in America's body politic. We sense our fundamental freedom endangered. And the response will be as remorseless as was our revolution against the British. Against all odds, the intrusion on those things around which our "liberty inheres" will be driven from our political midst. (It is not Waterloo, but Yorktown, that is likely to be the terminal point.)

The first hard step in that defense will be the election in November. The second, even harder step will be the rollback of already enacted debt and damage to our freedom. Defining the extent and detail of the rollback must be the agenda for the government's loyal opposition in this year's election. And the things to which we are loyal are our Constitution, our founding principles and the good institutions and social contrivances brought into being by those principles over our providential history.

Tony Blankley is the author of "American Grit: What It Will Take to Survive and Win in the 21st Century" (Regnery, 2009) and vice president of the Edelman public relations firm in Washington.

Something is Rotten in . . .

www.tribune.ie

'Why am I on trial and McGuinness is not?'

Ex-IRA member Gerry McGeough believes his trial for a 1981 murder is a political conspiracy, writes Suzanne Breen

'Why am I on trial and McGuinness is not?'

Sinn Fein - Radical Socialists

Sinn Féin Ardfheis
The Irish Times - Mon, Mar 08, 2010

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams may have credibility problems with the broad electorate, but his reception at the party’s weekend ardfheis in Dublin would suggest a colossal level of support among active members. As for early retirement, he appears determined to lead the party into the forthcoming Westminster and Northern Ireland Assembly elections and beyond.

Attempting to tap into public anger over Government cutbacks and widespread unemployment, Mr Adams spoke of transforming life in the South and building a new Republic where there would be homes and work for all and no banker would be able to evict a family. Nama would not be tolerated. There would be help for the farm sector and disadvantaged areas. And people would be encouraged to take a stand against corruption, greed and injustice. It was as appealing as homemade apple pie. But, in urging people to take a stand against authority, there were hints of a public disobedience campaign.

The grainy, difficult side of politics emerged when discussion turned to the Hillsborough agreement and arrangements for the transfer of policing and justice powers. Martin McGuinness excoriated Reg Empey and the Ulster Unionist Party for jeopardising a hard-won deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, while Mr Adams justified concessions made to Peter Robinson on Orange parades. Sinn Féin was in government in Northern Ireland and was bringing about change. It could do the same in the South.

It was a delicate exercise. Having offered to share power with Fianna Fáil before a disappointing 2007 general election and to form a broad alliance with the Labour Party and the Green Party before the local and European elections of 2009, future party alliances were uncertain. Activists sought to forestall a future alliance with Fianna Fail through an anti-coalition motion. They were routed by a leadership that damned both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and went on to assure delegates that a special conference would be called to decide the matter. Despite that, such open dissent within the party – following the resignation of a number of councillors – is likely to spell future trouble.

Becalmed in the opinion polls since last year’s local elections, Sinn Féin has struggled to connect with the economic concerns of southern voters and offer a positive way forward. Its solution: a jobs creation programme based on higher taxes and increased State borrowing and spending over an extended period carried echoes of trade union demands. The approach is likely to appeal to newly unemployed and low paid workers.

Getting that message to its target audience may be complicated. Delegates complained of being excluded by the media from the broad economic debate. Their problems do not stop there. Support for the party is greatest among low-income groups where voting can be sporadic, at best. Expanding that base will be difficult. Senior members spoke of making ‘incremental’ progress. Sinn Féin is flying high in Northern Ireland. Down here, it looks like being a long, slow haul.

Comment
This is a classic example of the radical socialist codswallop that is at the root of Sinn Fein’s political agenda. If their goal for a United Ireland is “a 32 county socialist republic”, it certainly is not mine. I am quite sure that a huge majority of those Americans who have admired their steadfast, unwavering pursuit of a free and United Ireland, myself included, were either not aware of, or chose not to recognize, their radical socialist agenda. As a very proud citizen of both the United States of America and Ireland, I am disgusted by the very thought of the United Ireland of our dreams being established as a 32 county socialist republic.
I do not believe, nor will I ever accept that in order for a person to be considered an avid supporter of a free, united, 32 county Ireland whose destiny is to be determined only by her own people, the person must also be expected to support the entire political agenda of any specific political party. This is especially true when that party's agenda advocates a policy of radical socialism. I want to be perfectly clear when I say that I hold no animosity toward Sinn Fein, but I vehemently disagree with their socialist political ideology.

Jack Meehan, Past National President
Ancient Order of Hibernians in America

Special Deal for Pro Sinn Fein 'On the Runs' ?

Former IRA men 'given immunity' in secret deal
'On the runs' given royal pardon under British scheme, claims Gerry McGeough
Suzanne Breen, Northern Editor
William Cherry

www.tribune.ie

The British government has operated a secret scheme granting royal pardons or immunity from prosecution to hand-picked ex-IRA members wanted for killings, bombings and other paramilitary activities, it has been claimed.
Of 216 'on the runs', 47 have been told they are free to return to the North with no fear of prosecution, according to leading Tyrone republican Gerry McGeough.
An ex-IRA gun-runner and former Sinn Féin ard comhairle member, McGeough goes on trial in Belfast tomorrow charged with IRA membership in 1975 and the 1981 attempted murder of UDR man Sammy Brush.
He will be the first republican on trial for historical crimes since the Good Friday Agreement. McGeough said: "Excellent detective work by my lawyers has uncovered that around a fifth of 'on the runs' have been given a royal pardon, immunity from prosecution, or else haven't had to serve their minimum sentence as laid out by the Good Friday Agreement.
"There was a secret deal between the British and Sinn Féin. A meeting was held in a Dundalk hotel. I'm disgusted that hand-picked 'on the runs' have received preferential treatment – and can come home and lead normal lives with their families – while others can't or if they do return are living in fear, always looking over their shoulders."
The Sunday Tribune has seen the names of some of those allegedly given immunity. They include prominent ex-IRA members. A Northern Ireland Office (NIO) spokesman denied the claim. "There is no secret deal to pardon on the runs," he said.
McGeough was arrested at the 2007 Assembly election count. He had stood as an anti-PSNI republican candidate. His lawyers will tomorrow put forward an abuse of process application: "They will argue that my prosecution breaches article six of the European Convention which guarantees a fair trial, and article 14 which guarantees the right not to be discriminated against.
"I've been singled out for prosecution because I am a republican opposed to the political status quo." McGeough said his former Sinn Féin colleagues had offered no support.
"I've been imprisoned in Germany and the US for my republican activities yet Sinn Féin leaders meeting for their ard fheis this weekend are unsupportive because I'm not 'on message'."
Tyrone man Vincent McAnespie was also charged with the attempted murder of Brush and weapons' possession. The first, but not second charge, has since been withdrawn against McAnespie who is pleading not guilty.
In a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Kevin Winters' solicitors, the NIO says Sinn Féin provided the names of 216 on the runs. The PSNI and the Public Prosecution Service then reviewed files "to determine whether the individual is wanted for questioning, arrest or prosecution".
The NIO said decisions were evidence-based and whether prosecution was in "the public interest".
It claimed "political considerations play no part in this assessment".
McGeough's lawyers are demanding the authorities disclose "all material pertaining to any discussion, meetings and correspondence" relating to decisions not to prosecute certain republicans.
The former head of the PSNI's serious crime squad, Norman Baxter, told a House of Commons' committee last November: "There was an extremely unhealthy interest by (NIO) officials about prioritising individuals who were on the run and ensuring they were cleared to return to the North."

Happy St. Patrick's Day

La Le Padraig Shona Agaibh!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to All!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le_aVQTAKyY&feature=related

Poll Finds No Support for Amnesty

Contact: Steven A. Camarota, (202) 466-8185, sac@cis.org
Minority Advocates, Constituents Differ on Immigration

Zogby Poll Finds Wide Support for Enforcement, Lower Numbers

WASHINGTON (February 25, 2010) – While it is sometimes assumed that minorities, particularly Hispanics, favor increased immigration and legalization for illegal immigrants, a new Zogby survey finds that minority voters’ views are more complex. The poll of Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American likely voters finds some support for legalization. But overall each of these groups prefers enforcement and for illegal immigrants to return home. Moreover, significant majorities of all three groups think that the current level of immigration is too high.

These views are in sharp contrast to the leaders of most ethnic advocacy organizations, who argue for increased immigration and legalization of illegal immigrants. The survey used neutral language, avoiding such terms as “amnesty,” “illegal alien,” or “undocumented.”

The findings

In contrast to the leadership of many ethnic advocacy groups, most members of minority groups think immigration is too high.

Hispanics: 56 percent said it is too high; 7 percent said too low; 14 percent just right.
Asian-Americans: 57 percent said immigration is too high; 5 percent said too low; 18 percent just right.
African-Americans: 68 percent said it is too high; 4 percent said too low; 14 percent just right.

Most members of minority groups do not feel that illegal immigration is caused by limits on legal immigration as many ethnic advocacy groups argue; instead, members feel it’s due to a lack of enforcement.

Hispanics: Just 20 percent said illegal immigration was caused by not letting in enough legal immigrants; 61 percent said inadequate enforcement.
Asian-Americans: 19 percent said not enough legal immigration; 69 percent said inadequate enforcement.
African-Americans: 16 percent said not enough legal immigration; 70 percent said inadequate enforcement.

Most members of minority groups feel that there are plenty of Americans available to fill unskilled jobs.

Hispanics: 15 percent said legal immigration should be increased to fill unskilled jobs; 65 percent said there are plenty of Americans available to do unskilled jobs, employers just need to pay more.
Asian-Americans: 19 percent said increase immigration; 65 percent said plenty of Americans are available.
African-Americans: 6 percent said increase immigration; 81 percent said plenty of Americans are available.

When asked to choose between enforcement that would cause illegal immigrants in the country to go home or offering them a pathway to citizenship with conditions, most members of minority groups choose enforcement.

Hispanics: 52 percent support enforcement to encourage illegals to go home; 34 percent support conditional legalization.
Asian-Americans: 57 percent support enforcement; 29 percent support conditional legalization.

African-Americans: 50 percent support enforcement; 30 percent support conditional legalization.

Discussion

This survey of minority voters shows that when it comes to the issue of legalizing illegal immigrants, these voters disagree with the leadership of many ethnic advocacy groups. Most voters want the law enforced and illegal immigrants to return to their home countries. Overall they also feel that the current level of immigration is too high.

The poll specifically asks voters to put aside the issue of legal status and focus only on the numbers. Even so, most think the level of immigration is too high and very few think it is too low. Not surprisingly, when it comes to allowing more unskilled workers into the country, most Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American voters feel there are plenty of Americans here to do such work; employers just need to pay more.

The overall findings of this poll show a significant divide between the perception that minority voters want legalization and increased legal immigration and the reality, which is that they want enforcement and less immigration. Like most Americans, minority voters are not anti-immigrant or anti-immigration per se. Moreover there is not unanimity on the immigration issue among or between groups. What the poll does show is that, like most Americans, Hispanic, Asian, and black voters want the law enforced and illegal immigrants to go home. Moreover, they think the overall level of immigration is too high.

When some leaders of minority groups speak on immigration and argue for legalization, they are merely offering their own personal opinions, not necessarily those of voters in these communities.

Methodology

Zogby International was commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies to conduct an online survey. A sampling of Zogby International’s online panel, which is representative of the adult population of the United States, was invited to participate. Zogby maintains the panel and has used it for other surveys. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender, and education to more accurately reflect the U.S. population. The survey included roughly 700 Hispanic, 400 African-American, and 400 Asian-American likely voters. The survey was conducted by Zogby from November 13 to 30, 2009. The margin of error for likely voters is +/- 0.5 percent. The margin of error for Hispanic likely voters is 3.7 percent; for African-Americans it is 4.7 percent; and for Asian-Americans voters it is 5.1 percent.

The poll is available online at http://cis.org/Minority-Views-Immigration.
# # #

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent research institution that examines the impact of immigration on the United States.

Bagpiper at Funeral

Bagpiper at Funeral

As a bagpiper, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery in the remote countryside and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there. As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost and being a typical man, did not stop for directions.

I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew who were eating lunch but the hearse was nowhere in sight.I apologized to the workers for my tardiness and stepped to the side of the open grave where I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch.

I played out my heart and soul. I played and I played like I'd never played before, from Going Home and The Lord is My Shepherd to Flowers of the Forest. As I played the workers began to weep. I closed the lengthy session with Amazing Grace and walked to my car.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another..."Sweet Jaysus, Mary 'n Joseph, I have never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for 22 years."

Courtesy of American Sympathizer

Somewhere, County Waterford

Behind the Lace Curtain

Helen Rittelmeyer
Author Archive Latest
March 17, 2009 4:00 A.M.

Behind the Lace Curtain: How the GOP blew it with the Boston Irish

In 1938, John Danaher of Connecticut became the first Irish Catholic elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. When word got out that Danaher had joined the GOP, one Irish grandmother was incredulous: “It can’t be true. I saw him at Mass just last Sunday!”

Continue reading, click below:

http://article.nationalreview.com/388682/behind-the-lace-curtain/helen-rittelmeyer?page=1

The Real Che Guevara

The Real Che Guevara

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38mm4TimlLw