CAIR upset by situation at Hopkins

CAIR wants to meet with the mayor of Cleveland. 

The Cleveland-based chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations said earlier this month that Standard Parking Co., a group contracted by the city to handle parking operations, prohibits cab drivers from leaving their vehicles while they wait in line to pick up arrivals at the airport.

The policy also bans prayer in the taxi queue and prohibits other cab drivers from advancing vehicles in the taxi line for the praying driver.

If seen praying, they will be in violation of the policy and could be banned from picking up fares.

It seems there are two issues here: prayer, and traffic management.  Keeping cabbies from leaving vehicles is fine if needed to keep traffic moving smoothly, even if that does not permit Somalis to pray in the manner to which they have become accustomed.  And of course that would also apply to cabbies leaving their own cabs to cover for their praying colleagues, though that might be a point for compromise.  But banning prayer in the taxi queue is simply anti-religious. Yes, it’s a “private company” doing so, but it’s a company which has been given a city monopoly, so by extension, this is a church-state issue.  How can you ban somebody from praying in their own cab? Perhaps the way to handle this is for CAIR to fund a lawsuit by the cabbies against Standard Parking. That should back them down.

The comments on this piece are interesting. What I want to know of these legal Somali immigrants is this: how many of you paid your own way here, how many were funded by private charity, and how many were imported here as refugees by the US government? I’ve got no problem with the first 2 classes of people. But I highly doubt the wisdom of government schlepping a mess of Muslims into the country.

And I like that “religious advocacy group” label… would that apply to most evangelistic associations?

Moonbat OH to become a sanctuary city?

Oberlin City Council is considering a a sanctuary city law in the wake of a July raid at a Mexican restaurant.

Restaurant? That’s a prime student job, isn’t it? Along with groundskeeping, painting etc.? Well, if you can afford tuition at Oberlin, maybe you don’t have to work…I don’t know, but I’d kind of doubt it. It would crack me up to see student unemployment rise because illegals will do the work for less, and cheap housing disappear because it’s been snagged by illegals. And who are the wannabes in Oberlin copying today? My old home, Ann Arbor:

The council in Ann Arbor, Mich., passed a similar law in 2002 and the results have been beneficial, Mayor John Hieftje said. City officials believed federal officials were harassing the city’s large Muslim population, the mayor said.

Well, maybe they were. OTOH, there aren’t Presbyterians arguing that their religion requires them to destroy the Great Satan and impose Old Testament law on the country. So I think a little heightened scrutiny of Moslems is called for, don’t you?

Oberlin police Capt. Clifton Barnes said it sets a bad precedent “when you start picking and choosing which laws to enforce,” but agreed in general that the city’s police officers are not immigration agents.

Well, then let’s take this a step farther: don’t enforce ANY Federal laws; let the Federals do that. That would include guns and drugs and a whole mess of environmental laws.

Obama’s aunt: not only poor, but illegal

You know Oscama’s Auntie Zeituni, the one living in public housing in Boston? She’s an illegal alien. She was told to leave the country four years ago, after her asylum request was rejected, and she’s still here.

It was not immediately clear how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order.

A good question , eh? And if she’s on the dole, how’d she find the money to

…recently made a $260 campaign contribution to her nephew’s presidential bid from a work address in the city.

ONLY $260?! Mr. Soros, you’re a tightwad!
And a third good question: why do we need to get this news from a British paper?

America’s first immigration crisis

Old (2005) but good Smithsonian article on the Plymouth settlement and Indian politics of the time… and the stories of “Squanto” that you didn’t learn in grade school. A particularly tasty excerpt:

Evidence suggests that Indians tended to view Europeans with disdain. The Huron in Ontario, a chagrined missionary reported, thought the French possessed “little intelligence in comparison to themselves.” Europeans, Indians told other Indians, were physically weak, sexually untrustworthy, atrociously ugly and just plain smelly. (The British and French, many of whom had not taken a bath in their entire lives, were amazed by the Indian interest in personal hygiene.) A Jesuit reported that the “savages” were disgusted by handkerchiefs: “They say, we place what is unclean in a fine white piece of linen, and put it away in our pockets as something very precious, while they throw it upon the ground.”
For 15 days Verrazzano and his crew were the Narragansett’s honored guests—though the Indians, Verrazzano admitted, kept their women out of sight after hearing the sailors’ “irksome clamor” when females came into view. Much of the time was spent in friendly barter. To the Europeans’ confusion, their steel and cloth did not interest the Narragansett, who wanted to swap only for “little bells, blue crystals, and other trinkets to put in the ear or around the neck.” On Verrazzano’s next stop, the Maine coast, the Abenaki did want steel and cloth—demanded them, in fact. But up north the friendly welcome had vanished. The Indians denied the visitors permission to land; refusing even to touch the Europeans, they passed goods back and forth on a rope over the water. As soon as the crew members sent over the last items, the locals began “showing their buttocks and laughing.” Mooned by the Indians! Verrazzano was baffled by this “barbarous” behavior, but the reason for it seems clear: unlike the Narragansett, the Abenaki had long experience with Europeans.

Happy Ramadan; now you can really starve

This is too good: illegals rounded up at a Swift meatpacking plant in Colorado were replaced by Somalis, who insist on praying at Ramedan. Supervisors were willing to informally accommodate this, but other workers were complaining because they had to pick up the slack. So the company stopped, 400 Muslims walked off the job, and 100 of those have been let go because “This action is a direct violation of our collective bargaining agreement”

The union is complaining of course, because that’s their job. But that’s all they’ll do. I suspect the workforce is largely Hispanic, and the Somalis are replacement workers for Hispanics…not quite scabs, but close. So are they going to go on strike for 100 Muslims? If not, it’s just hot air.

“If I’d known there was a problem with prayer, I would have never come here,” Ibrahim said.

Did you ASK?

UPDATE 9/17. Well, I’ll be… the union actually did its job and worked out a deal for the Somalis. Didn’t see that coming.

Making the Irish Ticket look good

Wow! There are party-nominated candidates out there so freaking insane that they make the Irish Ticket (Barry O’Bama, Johnny McCain) look like sane, sensible, deep thinkers.

During a decade when border issues between the U.S. and Mexico have intensified and the Democrats and Republicans have gone on the attack against immigrants, Vice Presidential Candidate Stewart A. Alexander is proposing a common U.S.-Mexican currency and establishing a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) for working people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The BIG might be a good idea if it replaced the current welfare system and was set at the wage of the typical Mexican peasant. If we spread the misery and bureaucracy around, there’ll be no reason to cross the border, except that Mexican jackboots are more bribeable than ours. As for a common currency, we’ll get somewhere near there anyway if the Fed continues the pesoization of the dollar.

Tip o’ hat to Independent Political Report.

If you have the means to emigrate, you won’t for long

In preparation for the possibility that Americans might rebel at the debt and taxes incurred by their government, they’ve just passed a new law that will stop your capital — or at least a good portion of it — at the border, should you decide to leave.

You probably didn’t notice this little provision inserted into the Heroes Act of 2008, passed by Congress on June 17.

The headlines in the press release about the law were about the increased benefits for veterans and families of deceased military.

But Richard Kohan of Price WaterhouseCoopers drew my attention to one section of the act — the portion that states anyone voluntarily giving up his or her citizenship will be taxed on ALL of his assets as if he or she had sold them — paying capital gains on assets that have increased in value, even though they have not been sold!

That’s right. While everyone in the media is focused on keeping aliens out of America, Congress has voted to lock its citizens — or at least a good portion of their assets — into – America! Maybe they’re thinking that patriotism won’t be enough to keep the smart money from recognizing the coming increases in the tax burden.

Our national socialists have imposed their own Reichsfluchtsteuer, but they being politically correct, it applies to everyone with assets, not just Jews.

Thanks (?) to Boortz.

RIP John Hartman

…age 55, cause unknown to me.

John was Lakewood’s premiere marijuana-freedom and Libertarian Party activist. I didn’t know him well, and I wasn’t very involved in MJ decrim (went to the Million Marijuana March several times) His energy and dedication will be missed.

Thanks (?) to David Macko for the news.

When you visit Iceland, say you’re Canadian, eh?

Erla Ósk Arnardóttir Lilliendahl of Iceland overstayed her visa by 3 weeks, 12 years ago. She’d been back to New York since, with no trouble. A week and a half ago, she went to New York City with some friends. She made it as far as the airport. The tale of what happened next is here.

If she’d been here illegally to chop up chickens or mow lawns, she would have had no problem. If she’d gotten drunk and killed an American while driving without license or insurance, they would have treated her humanely while repatriating her. But spending money and helping America’s foreign-exchange balance is an intolerable crime.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t look like an Islamic terrorist,  else we’d have to throw the book at her let her go.

Aren’t there US military bases in Iceland? If I were an Icelandic MP, I’d be asking how necessary they were to Iceland’s interests.

Thanks (I think) to James Chang.

The unanswered question

4 Mexicans found stabbed in their apartment, nobody knows by who. They sent money to their families in Mexico. They worked for a concrete company, named in the article. At least one full wallet was left behind.

This was a terrible tragedy, but there was one relevant question never asked by the reporter. Can you guess what it is?

UPDATE 12/20: E. Eduardo Castillo of the AP wasn’t afraid to ask that question. It looks like the motive was robbery rather than anything political, though yes, they were illegals. And there are a bunch of children without daddies this Christmas.