Category Archives: Europe

NEW: America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?

Crime, Democrats, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Politics, Relatives

THIS WEEK’S COLUMN, “America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?”, first appeared on Townhall.com and is currently featured on American Greatness, where you can read it.

An excerpt:

The FBI, which Americans are meant to trust with matters of life and death, is unable—or unwilling—to confirm whether U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) perpetrated fraud by marrying her brother, Ahmed Elmi, to enable him to obtain a coveted green card, thus granting him permanent-resident status in the United States, and a path to citizenship. But the bureau is said to be “investigating.”

Conversely, the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, had little difficulty gathering a critical mass of facts, enough to conclude that, in 2009, Omar did indeed secretly wed said sibling. The newspaper, and anyone else suggesting the same, has yet to be sued by Omar. Could the story be true?

As it happens, a Somali community leader has also outed Ilhan Omar as an outlaw. Abdihaikm Osman Nur contends that the Somali-born freshman congresswoman “had indeed married her brother.” So reported Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Despite “a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia,” which complicates an investigation and a definitive determination, the British tabloid dug up the requisite information that the FBI has yet to release. The young man whom Omar is alleged to have married certainly bears a remarkable resemblance to the congresswoman. They’re both … pretty (although Elmi looks happier and a lot more festive).

It was in August of 2016 that Mr. Nur, aforementioned, seconded the story first published by Scott Johnson, of the Power Line blog: Omar had married her sibling, ostensibly to allow him to stay in the U.S.  As the Daily Mail had relayed, Mr. Nur took issue with Omar’s alleged marriage-cum-immigration fraud. It would appear that the British tabloid was more vested in the truth, as this patriotic Somali told it, than was the FBI.

To date, these are the facts on the fraud alleged to have been committed by a member of the U.S congress. Yet nobody is likely to do more than mutter at the striking absence of scruples in Ilhan Omar. For not only does she appear to flout the law, but she also offends sensibilities: Omar had first married Ahmed Hirsi, father of her children, in 2002. Bigamy and incest (even if the relationship is unconsummated) are cultural taboos.

Contrast Omar’s treatment in the United States with the manner in which the Dutch government treated a lesser form of immigration fraud committed by another Somali, Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali. …

… READ THE REST. THIS WEEK’S COLUMN, “America Has A Con Woman In Congress—But Where’s The Law?”, is currently featured on American Greatness.

 

UPDATED (7/11/020): Education: UK & US Much More Radically Egalitarian Than Europe

America, Britain, Conservatism, Education, Egalitarianism, Europe, Intelligence

The two Anglo-American countries, as I have surprisingly come to realize, are fundamentally more radical on many fronts than the Europeans.

Take education. Germany has a “The three-tiered German education system—which sorts children on the basis of ability at the age of ten into either university-preparatory schools or vocational ones.” It “has always been criticized for fostering social segregation.” (The Economist: “The dignity of all the talents: A battle over gifted education is brewing in America.”)

The impetus to “to eliminate separatism in secondary education” began in … you guessed it, England and America, where the very idea that some individuals are more intelligent than others is anathema, apparently.

“The debate over whether education of gifted children segregates them on the basis of pre-existing privilege rather than cognitive ability is neither new nor uniquely American. The number of selective, state-run grammar schools in Britain reached its zenith in 1965, before the Labour government of Harold Wilson embarked on a largely successful effort “to eliminate separatism in secondary education”.

In New York City, Bill de Blasio, the city’s left-wing mayor, wants to eliminate what he deems unjust programmes and school screening for gifted and talented students. … “Mr de Blasio floated the idea of scrapping the entrance test and admitting the top 7% of students from each middle school (roughly, for pupils aged 11 to 14) to specialised schools. … One problem is that at some middle schools this would include students who had not passed the state maths exam. This infuriated many Asian parents, who do not see why their children should be punished for studying hard.” Or, for being more intelligent.

An astonishing 40% of high schools in the city do not teach chemistry, physics or upper-level algebra, notes Clara Hemphill, the founding editor of InsideSchools, an education-policy website. “The problem is not learning linear algebra in schools, but not knowing arithmetic.” …
… Only 6% of high-school pupils attend one of the eight sought-after specialised high schools. Because admissions are based on high-stakes tests …

“Some advocates yearn for an egalitarian model like Finland’s—where comprehensive schools and a focus on special education (or disabilities) rather than giftedness coincide with high rankings on international measures such as PISA scores.”

I suspect Finland is so much more homogeneous a society, down to its education system, than the US.

“But even in Finland, more than 10% of upper-secondary schools (those before university) are specialised. Other attributes, such as high education spending and extreme selectivity of applicants to become teachers (only 10% make it), are probably also critical to the education system’s success. Removing programmes for the gifted will not suddenly turn New York into Finland.”

* Image courtesy Stuyvesant High School, for the gifted, 345 Chambers Street, New York (Photo By: Susan Watts/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

MORE: “The dignity of all the talents: A battle over gifted education is brewing in America.”

UPDATE (7/11/020):

 

Ann Coulter’s RIGHT: Legal Immigration Policy In Europe Is More Conservative Than America’s

America, Ann Coulter, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Race, Racism

In “U.S. ISN’T BECOMING EUROPE. WE’RE BECOMING ROME,” Ann Coulter blows a hole in the delusions conservatives hold about North African immigration into Europe: The influx into the US, and the attendant demographic changes, are worse.

Conservatives regularly point to the mass migration afflicting Europe as if it’s the Ghost of Christmas Future for America. Since waves of Third World migrants began sweeping into the European Union, we’ve seen terrorism, knifings, rape gangs and riots popping up all over the birthplace of Western civilization. Sweden has gone from a country where rape was essentially nonexistent to the Rape Capital of the World.

It’s sweet of Americans to be so concerned about Europe, but maybe they should look at their own country. On account of a mass immigration policy imposed on us by our government, the United States has undergone a transformation unprecedented in all of world history.

From 1620 to 1970, the U.S. was demographically stable — not to be confused with “a nation of immigrants.” The country was about 85% to 90% white, almost entirely British, German, French and Dutch, and 10% to 15% African American. (The American Indian population, technically in their own nations, steadily plummeted — an example of how vast numbers of new people can displace the old, both accidentally and on purpose.)

In a generation, the white majority has nearly disappeared, while the black percentage has remained about the same, with more than 90% of African Americans still native-born. White Americans are one border surge away from becoming a minority in their own country. …

… MORE.

Take Germany, for example.

Leave aside the refugee debacle, and Germany, to cite The Economist, has only NOW “opened up a crack,” and is “cautiously recruiting more workers from outside the EU.” Yes, actual legal immigration policy in Germany is more conservative than that of open-borders America:

German parliamentarians are discussing the country’s first attempt to regulate the immigration of semi-skilled workers from outside the European Union. If passed, the Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz (“Skilled workers immigration law”) will from 2020 extend the rules covering foreign graduates to vocationally trained workers. Firms will no longer have to favour EU citizens for such jobs, meaning they can hire non-EU immigrants so long as they speak decent German and have been trained to German standards. The restriction of immigration to “bottleneck” occupations is to be scrapped. Some foreigners will be able to come to Germany and spend six months seeking work or a training contract, albeit with conditions.

The law is a hard-fought compromise between Germany’s “grand coalition” of centre-right and centre-left. Hubertus Heil, the labour minister, calls it a “milestone” in German history. …

… the skilled-worker law is accompanied by a controversial bill to toughen deportation rules.

The German business lobby is pulling a fast one on the German working-class. Where have we seen that before?

* Image courtesy of The Economist.

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Oy Vey, Owens: Candace’ Nationalism Arguments Are Confused

Argument, Europe, Fascism, Logic, Nationhood, Political Philosophy, Reason, Republicans, War

As appealing as she is as an activist, Candace Owens is no clear thinker. She certainly manages to confuse with her default definition of nationalism vis-a-vis the Trump Revolution.

The setting: Some moronic, white-nationalism Congressional hearings.
There, Owens roughly asserted that “Hitler killed his own people hence he was not a nationalist,” which is a non sequitur.

Ms. Owens here is proceeding from the asserted premise—for she doesn’t argue it—that nationalists do not “kill their own people.” This may be true (but would further depend on definitions; what is meant by “own people”), although I very much doubt it. Nevertheless, it appears that Owens’ thought process is something like,

“I like nationalism [check], and, therefore, Hitler, whom I most certainly don’t like, and who was a monster, could not have been a nationalist.”

Consider: Like all Republicans, Owens, no doubt, adores Lincoln. But would she call Honest Abe a nationalist? Why not? I mean, nationalism is a good thing and Abe, say Republicans like Owens, was a good guy.

Well, there is the pesky fact of Lincoln having killed “his own people” … hmmm. By Owens’ seemingly dogmatic definition of nationalism (not killing your own people), Lincoln, at least, does not qualify as a nationalist.

Just so we’re clear.

What preceded Owens’ odd assertion above was an even stranger comment, again, about Hitler. (This was at the same moronic, white-nationalism Congressional hearings.)

“If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well — OK, fine,” she says. “The problem is … he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German.”

The problem with Hitler? Heavens! Where does one start? It was not that he was a “globalist.” (Is that the kind of “globalist” George Soros Citizen of The World is, Candace?)

How about that Hitler is synonymous with conquest, subjugation, slavery and industrialized mass murder in the service of world hegemony, which, he truly believed, would make Germany  indisputably the greatest power?

the presumed successor of the medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire of 800 to 1806 (the First Reich) and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918 (the Second Reich)