Blue Ridge Forum

Yesterday’s clash between northern Virginia Representative Frank Wolf and Americans For Tax Reform chief Grover Norquist reminds us that there are more policy choices for conservatives than those represented by these two GOP voices. (We do not mean to imply here any moral equivalence between Mr. Wolf and Mr. Norquist.)

Most conservatives today strongly support the goal of no new taxes. They also want a realistic road map leading toward smaller government and reining in the administrative state.

As the slogan of the “Tea Party” protests of the past couple of years has it, “We are Taxed Enough, Already (TEA).”

Conservatives also want a strong national defense, not a minimalist one. As defense expert Frank Gaffney wrote this Monday –

“The United States is teetering on the precipice of disaster. It not only confronts an increasingly dangerous world, it is engaged in defense budget cuts that, predictably, will make the world more so. Worse yet, legislators are actively contemplating steps that would not just hollow out our military but eviscerate it - an irresistible invitation to aggression by freedom’s foes.” (Emphasis Forum’s.)

These are not negotiable goals with the Other Team who have come a frighteningly long way since January 2009 in transforming American government.

Why do we have the “ideological gridlock” that Mr. Wolf complains of?  It is because the House GOP leadership  is standing firm on taxes?  Many of the same GOP luminaries, however,  helped lay the groundwork for this unwelcome transformation of America by president Barack Obama.  They did so over the last decade by their own expansion of entitlements and their domestic spending.

How much did Grover Norquist’s circle throw their considerable weight against former president George Bush’s major government and entitlement expansion? They talked up taxpayer-protection policy instead– which, while very important, is only part of the struggle to rein in intrusive government. Oh, and they pushed amnesty which of course has no fiscal consequences.

Conservatives should not be limited in their choices between working with an Islamist-friendly Norquist circle based at Americans for Tax Reform, or working with a big-government-is-here-to-stay circle represented by Frank Wolf and many in the GOP Establishment.

For all his public virtues, Republican stalwart Frank Wolf, ironically like many on the Other Team, seems to see Mr. Norquist as a figure twelve feet tall and with supernatural powers.

Yet, if Grover Norquist were to be snatched away by extra-terrestials to another galaxy, most House GOP members and nearly all Senate conservatives would still remain opposed to new taxes.

The no-new-taxes pledge is a ratification of these members’ position, not some means of blackmailing unwitting signers.  Monitoring the pledge is also a tool for analysis: a useful way to let elected officials know, even before they vote, when a seemingly innocuous measure is actually a tax hike.

Reports have just reached us that Mr. Norquist’s circle is seeking a candidate to oppose Mr. Wolf in the GOP primary for Virginia’s 10th Congressional district.

But the northern Virginia GOP already has one Norquist candidate (for delegate) in David Ramadan.

It is fine if two groups, the older big-government-is-here-to-stay and the newer smaller-government advocates, contend for GOP votes in a  primary.

If the smaller-government folks want to put forward a respectable candidate, however, their selection should be free of the Norquist taint.

And candidates from both groups should bear in mind the imminent danger of curtailing  appropriations for our national defense.  This would have the gravest consequences not easily undone. Cutting defense is second nature for politicians on the Left, but it is also a temptation for GOP politicians in stressful economic times.

We have our sharp differences with senior House of Representatives appropriator Frank Wolf over the size and role of government.

But Mr. Wolf first of all is a patriot, and strong supporter of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. That is what is so important here.

Today the seasoned Virginia U.S. Representative joined other critics of Grover Norquist in spotlighting Mr. Norquist’s connections with what we call Political Islam. Drawn from Virginia member Wolf’s press release, here are some excerpts from his statement in today’s Congressional Record.

“TERRORIST CONNECTIONS”

“Not only was Mr. Norquist entangled with the criminal dealings of Jack Abramoff, but documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.

According to Senate lobbying disclosure records of his now defunct lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, around the years 2000 and 2001 Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison.”

“OPPOSING THE PATRIOT ACT”

“Mr. Norquist also has been an outspoken supporter of Al-Arian’s effort to end the use of classified evidence in terror trials.  In fact, Norquist was scheduled to lead a delegation to the White House on September 11, 2001, that included a convicted felon and some who would later be identified by federal law enforcement as suspected terrorist financiers.

According to a Arab American Institute 2002 report, ‘Healing the Nation,’ ‘[o]n the day of the terrorist attacks, Arab American and Muslim American leaders were already in Washington, D.C. for a previously scheduled meeting with President Bush to discuss the use of  ‘secret evidence’ in certain immigration proceedings and racial profiling of Arab Americans at the nation’s airports and security checkpoints.”

I have seen the list of attendees for the scheduled meeting.  Among those listed:

• Madhi Bray, a convicted felon who was found guilty of drug and fraud charges in the 1980s.  Bray appeared cheering on stage with Alamoudi at the October 2000 rally in Lafayette Park as Alamoudi declared his support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
• Omar Ahmed, co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). According to an April 18, 2011, Politico article by Josh Gerstein, “Federal prosecutors… have introduced evidence in court of Ahmad’s attendance at a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia that the FBI contends was a gathering of Hamas supporters seeking to undermine the Middle East peace process.  Prosecutors [in the Holy Land Foundation case] have also presented documents that appear to show CAIR as part of a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.S.”

The list provided to the White House by Norquist’s Islamic Institute included representatives from each of Norquist’s organizations, including a Janus-Merrit lobbyist. At the top of the list: Grover Norquist, representing Americans for Tax Reform. “

“GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES”

“More recently, Mr. Norquist has become an outspoken advocate for moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States.  According to a November 16, 2009, Huffington Post article by Sam Stein, Norquist led a public campaign to undermine Republican-led efforts to block the Obama Administration’s transfer of 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed to New York City and other terrorist detainees to Thompson Prison in Illinois, the first time terrorists would be held indefinitely inside the United States.

The article reported that Mr. Norquist wrote that, ‘moving suspected terrorists to the Thomson, Illinois prison facility, ‘makes good sense.’ Taxpayers, [Norquist wrote], have already invested $145 million in the facility, which has been ‘little used.’ ‘The scaremongering about these issues should stop,’ [Norquist wrote], noting that there is ‘absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.’”

“GROUND ZERO MOSQUE”

“Mr. Norquist also interjected himself into the debate about the proposed ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ last summer, calling legitimate concerns about the location a ‘Monica Lewinsky ploy’ by Republicans, according to an August 18, 2010, report by Michael Scherer on Time magazine’s Web site.  Mr. Norquist further trivialized the concerns saying that Republicans were, ‘distracted by shiny things.’

Mr. Norquist even used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque.’  Patrick Gleason, director of state affairs for Americans for Tax Reform, wrote an August 17, 2010, letter to state affiliates urging them to share the petition with their coalition.

Why would Americans for Tax Reform circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque?’  For the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 or during operations in the War on Terror, concerns about the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ were neither a ploy nor a distraction, as Norquist described it.”

Faithful readers may revisit this ATR petition here.

Read the entire Wolf statement and give those parts relating to Mr. Norquist’s questionable affiliations careful consideration.

The No-New-Taxes Pledge and All That

This is not the place to discuss the merits of the pledge or related fiscal matters.  In an era of well-established bi-partisan support for big government, one can love the pledge as a device to hold politicians accountable (as we do) yet have no brief for Grover Norquist nor his questionable friends.

Many times in the last decade during informal Maryland taxpayer activist discussions, we hoped the former president would make Mr. Norquist the ambassador to Patagonia so Americans for Tax Reform could then be led by a strong fiscal advocate and a gifted organizer –  but one without Mr. Norquist’s always increasingly toxic baggage.

We expected, correctly, that the exposure — once it registered in the legacy media — of his affiliation with Political Islam, to say nothing of his earlier association with Mr. Abramoff, could taint the whole taxpayer-protection movement.

At another time, we will return to contend with Mr. Wolf’s positions on the size and role of government. Right now, however, we all owe him a great debt for his courageous statement this morning.  Few, if any other Republican politicians in Virginia have taken on Political Islam either with reference to Mr. Norquist today or earlier with reference to the Islamic Saudi Academy (scroll down in the foregoing link).

And too many in national conservative leadership circles have shown a consistent and extended lack of  fortitude in addressing the Norquist Islamist scandal.

“The sound system pipes the rites in the mosque throughout the three-story facility. After the sermon and prayer, Virginia state Delegate Dick Black, a familiar and welcome face at the ADAMS Center, addresses the congregation. A conservative Republican, a Catholic, and a former Marine Corps pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam, Black has been in the Legislature since 1998, and he gets considerable financial support and volunteer assistance from the local Muslim community. Election Day is some two weeks away, and he has come trolling for votes. ‘I know many of you,’ Black begins. Reminding them of his positions on issues, he says, ‘I have always had sharp differences with the [Bush] administration on foreign policy.’ In particular, he explains, the Israeli-occupied West Bank must be ‘entirely cleaned out’ of Israeli settlements and returned to Palestinians.” — Paul Starobin 2005 in National Journal.

This is a story about a political icon for many northern Virginia conservatives; an icon, however, who has been strangely indifferent to some of the political company he keeps; and who needs to recognize promptly and publicly the dangers of Political Islam.

Dick Black is running as the GOP nominee in the 13th district to be a state senator in the Virginia General Assembly.

He has an indisputably conservative record on many issues, and a long career in our armed forces.

He is pro-Second Amendment and pro-life. He was one of the “Marshall defendants” joining delegate Bob Marshall who brought a successful action (Marshall v. NTVA) reaffirming  “the mandates of accountability and transparency that the Constitution requires when the General Assembly exercises the legislative taxing authority permitted by the Constitution.”

He also has a blind spot about Political Islam.

Last Monday we wrote (yet again) that –

Some time ago we asked whether the Virginia GOP would come to terms with Political Islam. We have met many rank and file Virginia Republicans who are increasingly concerned about this threat.

Lamentably the Virginia GOP Establishment – perhaps one not up to the high standards of Tammany Hall but nonetheless an organization [exercising] grinding control — is in rigid denial about Political Islam.

Can reviewing any GOP campaign donations from organizations seen as being in the orbit of the Safa Group help us understand why the Virginia GOP  has lost its voice on Political Islam?  In part.

We pointed to the Safa Group about which P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry in their “Muslim Mafia” declared –

“THE SAFA GROUP IS THE Saudi wing made up of more than one hundred business and charitable front groups operating mainly out of Northern Virginia (along the so-called Wahhabi Corridor, just outside DC), as well as Georgia.  Before he was sent to prison, [Abdurahman] Alamoudi controlled the group, along with Jamal Barzinji, who remains at its helm.”

And we offered some detailed context for the group –

Here is a link to the “AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF APPLICATION FOR SEARCH WARRANT (OCTOBER 2003)” where senior special customs agent David Kane makes his extensive case to be granted a search warrant. (In affidavit — scroll to pages 42 and 105 for a survey of his target organizations.)

Agent Kane related –

“Since December 2001, I and other agents of the USCS, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (‘IRS-CI’), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’), have been investigating a group of individuals that are suspected of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering, and tax evasion through the use of a variety of related for-profit companies and ostensible charitable entities under their control, most of which are located at 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia. For ease of reference, I will refer to the web of companies and charities controlled by these individuals as the ‘Safa Group.’” (Emphasis Forum’s.)

Readers can also review ATTACHMENT D Safa Group  Officers and Directors & Their Related Businesses and Organizations.

Here are the contributions to Mr. Black from some of the organizations apparently part of the Safa Group’s universe, including contributions made both to his delegate races as well as to his current race for a state senate seat.

Reston Investments $17,650  (2002-2011)

Sterling Management Group $13,750 (2003-2011)

Mena Investments $11,500 (2002-2010)

Mena Estates $10,650 (2002-2011)

Mar-Jac Investments $9,250 (2003-2010)

Mar-Jac Poultry $3,000 (2005)

This is almost $66,000 in campaign contributions from 2002 to 2011 received from these arguably questionable sources.

But didn’t Mr. Black endorse Jo-Ann Chase in her unsuccessful delegate primary contest in the 87th district with David Ramadan — a contest where concerns about Mr. Ramadan’s espousal of the Ground Zero Mosque and unanswered questions about his background and positions took center stage?

Yes, Mr. Black emailed us his endorsement of Jo-Ann Chase on 4.11.2011 which we posted.

Consider, however,  that in 2010-2011 alone, former delegate Black got, in campaign contributions,  $18,300 from Sterling Management, Reston Investments, Mena Investments, Mena Estates, and Mar-Jac Investments.

But, of the $ 18,300, $1,000 came from Sterling Management on 6.16.2011; $900 came from Reston Investments on 6.17.2011; $900 came from Mena Estates on 6.22.2011. All arrived after his Chase endorsement.

Mr. Ramadan, now the official Republican nominee for this delegate seat,  emailed Dick Black’s endorsement of him on 9.13.2011.

Some might wonder why Dick Black’s endorsement of Jo-Ann Chase resulted in even more help from these arguably questionable sources? Apparently Mr. Black had recaptured their attention by last June.

For conservative voters in Virginia’s 13th state senatorial district, what can Mr. Black do before November 8 to assure them that he now recognizes the danger of Political Islam in Virginia?

More than just tossing off a phrase, we would think.

Perhaps Mr. Black could start by showing us that he has grasped the central truths former Federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy illustrates in his The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America

These extracts are from McCarthy’s chapter entitled “Destroying Western Civilization From Within”  –

“It is not every day that, even as the game is being played, the opposition’s playbook falls into your hands, telling you, chapter and verse, exactly how he intends to beat your brains in.”. . . “Still, by any standard, the Brotherhood memorandum obtained by the FBI and presented in Texas at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial in 2007 was an eye-opener.  The document [was] called “An Exploratory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” and [was] dated May 22, 1991 . . .” . . .“The seizures of the Brotherhood’s gameplan leave no doubt about its intentions. As aptly described by the former U. S. intelligence analyst Joseph Myers, these Islamists seek nothing less than ‘the usurpation and replacement’ of America’s foundations – Judeo-Christianity and Western liberalism – - by Islam. Given that reality, and the equally indisputable fact that the sabotage strategy relies on leveraging American liberties and democratic processes to Islamist advantage, the current U. S. strategic response of embracing the Brotherhood is akin to confronting an epidemic by increasing one’s unprotected exposures to the contagion.”

What did all these arguably questionable contributors expect from delegate Black?  What do they expect from a state senator Black?

Alert voters can press Mr. Black on these cloudy matters.

Paul Starobin also reported in his November 18, 2005 National Journal article “Crescent Conflict” –

“I caught up with Black in the hallway. He had put his shoes back on and was accepting greetings from congregants, some of whom requested bumper stickers. His political opponents,  Black told me, have tried to make an issue of his being ‘too close’ to ‘Mohammed types.’ But that strategy is not working, he says.

Black said he gets campaign contributions from ‘thousands’ of Muslim Americans — money that some critics worry could be a means by which Islamic militants penetrate American politics. Black says he is not aware of getting any tainted funds, but he acknowledges, ‘Sometimes, it passes through my mind — what if I am wrong?’ (Black was unexpectedly swept out of office by the Democratic tide overtaking Northern Virginia in the November elections.)

The ADAMS Center is a frequent visiting spot, suggested by the State Department, for foreign delegations interested to see how American Muslims are faring. The imam is Mohammed Magid, a tall man, with a broad smile, who was born in Sudan in 1965 and has lived in America for nearly 20 years. He is a Sunni from the Sufi tradition; his father was an Islamic scholar trained in Cairo. The center has a predominantly South Asian congregation, from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.”

Conservative columnist Diana West, however, gives us (scroll down in foregoing link) some background on this imam:

“Magid is imam of the ADAMS center. He is also Vice President of ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), another entity linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing trial in US history, the Holy Land Foundation trial. In 2005, Freedom House identified Magid’s ADAMS center as one of many mosques distributing anti-Christian and antisemitic screeds. As Steven Emerson has reported in testimony before Congress, Magid has publicly downplayed mass murder in  Darfur, and ‘is listed as an advisor to the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, which was raided as part of the SAAR network … According to a government affidavit, the Sterling Charitable Gift Fund was used as a conduit for money laundering and support for terrorist organizations.’ In 2008, the ADAMS center hosted a fundraiser for convicted cop-killer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, where jihadist imam Luqman Abdullah, recently killed in a fatal confrontation with FBI agents, addressed the gathering.”

Readers are invited to revisit David Horowitz’ February 2011 CPAC talk here to get his take on those who are now helping Political Islam.  Author and editor Horowitz warns –

“I urge conservatives to school themselves in the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood and the networks it has spawned. And to be vigilant against its spread into the ranks of the conservative movement and the government of the country they love.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Stay tuned for more about  candidate links to Political Islam, including the vendors which these candidates utilize for their campaigns.

(Full disclosure:  Dick Black is running in the district where we vote.  We were contributors to Jo-Ann Chase’s primary campaign for the House of Delegates.)

Today veteran investigator and Middle East expert Ken Timmerman addresses the question of the camel’s nose under the tent in his “Grover Norquist’s New Muslim Protégé” (Front Page Magazine) –

“Imad Ramadan is just the latest of a series of Muslim protégés discovered and promoted by Republican activist Grover Norquist,  the man whose vicious personal attacks on conservative Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma over ethanol subsidies earlier this year (Norquist favored the corporate hand-outs; Coburn opposed them) prompted Coburn’s chief of staff to respond that Norquist has become the ‘chief cleric of sharia tax law.’

What’s wrong with Muslims running for public office or assuming prominent positions in the conservative movement? Nothing at all – as long as they are clear about the primacy of the U.S. Constitution over Koranic (or Sharia) law.

Where does Imad Afif ‘David’ Ramadan stand on this crucial question? The answer is – well, unclear. And that’s when the camel begins to spit.”

Author Timmerman proposed a reasonable test for Mr. Ramadan –

“So how do you identify an Islamist – that is, someone who believes in the Koranic precept that Islam must dominate the world through voluntary submission or by force – especially if he goes out of his way to appear non-aggressive?

The answer is actually pretty simple. You listen to see if he denounces Islamic dictatorship – the rule of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the rule of the Shiite clerics in Iran, the rule of Hamas in Gaza or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or the rule of the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.

In answering a similar question about another Grover Norquist protégé, Suhail Khan, at CPAC earlier this year, David Horowitz recalled his own experience as a former leftist who had grown up as a red diaper baby.

‘When an honest person has been a member of a destructive movement and leaves it, he will feel compelled to repudiate it publicly and to warn others of the dangers it poses. This is a sure test as to whether someone has left the Muslim Brotherhood or not,’  Horowitz said.

Absent such a repudiation, one has to comb through Imad Ramadan’s past and behavior. And there, the camel starts kicking and snorting.”

Some time ago we asked whether the Virginia GOP would come to terms with Political Islam. We have met many rank and file Virginia Republicans who are increasingly concerned about this threat.

Lamentably the Virginia GOP Establishment –perhaps one not up to the high standards of Tammany Hall but nonetheless an organization of grinding control — is in rigid denial about Political Islam.

Can reviewing any GOP campaign donations from organizations seen as being in the orbit of the Safa Group help us understand why the Virginia GOP  has lost its voice on Political Islam? In part. But as we earlier explained  – -

The good governor of Virginia presents us with a different kind of example that is hard to trump. Mr. Ramadan gave in 2008 and 2009 a total of $20,000 to the McDonnell for Governor campaign. Mr. Ramadan’s business affiliate, Howard Heavin, CEO of Texas-based Curves International, gave a total of $50,000 to the McDonnell for Governor campaign in 2008 and 2009. By some coincidence, on July 1, 2010, the governor of Virginia appointed “David-Imad Ramadan” to the Board of Visitors of George Mason University. Listed here are the powers and duties of this board of visitors.

But back to today’s focus, the Safa Group, P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry in their “Muslim Mafia” declared –

“THE SAFA GROUP IS THE Saudi wing made up of more than one hundred business and charitable front groups operating mainly out of Northern Virginia (along the so-called Wahhabi Corridor, just outside DC), as well as Georgia.  Before he was sent to prison, [Abdurahman] Alamoudi controlled the group, along with Jamal Barzinji, who remains at its helm.”

Chapter and Verse

Here is a link to the “AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF APPLICATION FOR SEARCH WARRANT (OCTOBER 2003)” where senior special customs agent David Kane makes his extensive case for a search warrant (scroll to pages 42 and 105 for a survey of his target organizations).

Agent Kane related –

“Since December 2001, I and other agents of the USCS, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (‘IRS-CI’), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (‘FBI’), have been investigating a group of individuals that are suspected of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering, and tax evasion through the use of a variety of related for-profit companies and ostensible charitable entities under their control, most of which are located at 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia. For ease of reference, I will refer to the web of companies and charities controlled by these individuals as the ‘Safa Group.’”

By way of background and via Andy McCarthy, we learned of Patrick Poole’s report last April (PJM Exclusive) Holder’s DOJ Scuttled More Terror-Related Prosecutions that –

“According to these congressional sources, one case that was scuttled by Assistant Attorney General David Kris (who wrote the memo declining to prosecute Omar Ahmad in the Holy Land Foundation case) was a tax evasion and money laundering prosecution prepared by the U.S. attorney’s office in the eastern district of Virginia. The targets of these indictments would have been several Muslim leaders of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the now-defunct SAAR Foundation/SAFA Group, who were investigated and raided for a wide range of activities to support foreign terrorist organizations.”

We’ll be reviewing in some detail any donations GOP candidates and incumbents have received from these questionable sources.

Voters are certainly entitled to full explanations.

Stay tuned.

Even when we first met Joyce Thomann in Maryland in 2000 (see her Annapolis Capital obituary here), we marveled at her vigor and forthrightness in presenting conservative causes and GOP candidates in Maryland.

But after just a glimpse of her earlier life, we were no longer surprised at her unremitting efforts.

Joyce had worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, served on senator Gordon Allot’s staff,  acted as an aide to the late Paul Weyrich, and was present at the creation of the Heritage Foundation.

Hers was no work for sissies — particularly in those years — and Joyce later brought her extraordinary national experience to bear in behalf of Maryland causes.

Joyce Thomann was a faithful Christian in the Anglican tradition, and a deeply patriotic American. Her interment will be at Arlington National Cemetery on October 4 at 9:30 AM.

All of us who knew her will treasure her courage and dedication.

UPDATE FROM KRIKORIAN ! More on Perry’s Jobs Record and Immigration

Will Immigration Play Its Proper Role in the GOP Finals?

Few controversies illustrate the gulf between the conservative base and the GOP Establishment as do those surrounding immigration.

Jobs and Immigration in Texas

Yesterday Steve Camarota pointed to (NRO) “Perry’s Ambiguous Employment Record : Who benefited from job growth in Texas?” –

“Texas governor Rick Perry has pointed to job growth in Texas during the current economic downturn as one of his main accomplishments. But in a new report for immigrants (legal and illegal) have been the primary beneficiaries of this the Center for Immigration Studies, based on data collected monthly by the Census Bureau, we found that newly arrived growth between 2007 and 2011, not native-born workers.

We found that of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent (225,000) were taken by newly arrived foreign workers (legal and illegal). The Census Bureau asks immigrants to say when they came to the United States, so it is easy to look at new arrivals who took jobs. Of newly arrived immigrants who took a job in Texas, the data show that 93 percent were not U.S. citizens. We estimate that about half of newly arrived immigrants who took jobs in Texas since 2007 were illegal immigrants. This means that about 40 percent of all the job growth in Texas between 2007 and 2011 went to newly arrived illegal immigrants and 40 percent went to newly arrived legal immigrants.

What is so surprising about these numbers is that so much of the job growth in the state went to immigrants even though the native-born accounted for 69 percent of the growth in Texas’s working-age population (16 to 65). Put another way, even though natives made up most of the growth in potential workers, most of the job growth went to immigrants. As a result, the employment rate for natives — the share of working-age natives holding a job in the state — declined in a manner very similar to that seen in the rest of the country. This is an indication that the situation for native-born workers in Texas is very similar to that of the nation as a whole, despite the state’s job growth.” (Emphasis Forum’s.)

The Candidates and Immigration Concerns

NumbersUSA gives only three presidential candidates passing grades (in our view, a grade above “D-”) on immigration, and major GOP contender governor Rick Perry gets a “D-”.

More Than Illegals?

Ann Corcoran, an expert on the flawed Refugee program,  also gave her perspective yesterday in the Potomac Tea Party Report on immigration concerns widely shared by many throughout the conservative base –

“I feel like a broken record, but urge everyone to stop saying ‘legal immigration is o.k., it’s illegal I have a problem with’—our legal immigration system is filled with fraud and abuse and must be reformed and the numbers admitted to the US reduced!

And, once again, establishment Republicans, and of course Democrats, continue to fail to see the huge impact the immigration issue will have on this election.”

Bad Dreams — in-state tuition rates for illegals.

The good Mr. Perry’s support of the Texas version of the so-called dream act is certainly a complication for Maryland conservative leaders who are doing their utmost to bring the Maryland version of the dream act to referendum.

Annie Linskey reported in her “Rick Perry to raise $$ in Maryland” (Baltimore Sun) –

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, is set to make a stop in Baltimore later this month to raise money for his presidential bid, an event that would be his first in Maryland since announcing his national intentions last month. Organizing the fundraiser is Republican money man Dick Hug, a veteran from Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s tenure. He also raised money for President George W. Bush. Hug said that he flew down to Texas about three weeks ago with other fundraisers and spent time with the Perry team. ‘When you see him and meet with him you’ll be very impressed,’ Hug said. ‘He’s going to be our next president.’ The Perry fundraiser is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. Tuesday Sept. 27 at The Center Club in downtown Baltimore. Tickets are $2,500 and include a photo-op with the presidential hopeful, according to a list compiled by Annapolis lobbyist Bruce Bereano.” (Emphasis Forum’s.)

One wonders whether those $2,500 Maryland contributors to Texas governor Rick Perry next Tuesday will also open their purses for Mdpetitions.com which seeks donations to “continue the fight to stop Maryland in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens, as it moves into the courts.”

Revivifying our own culture in the face of Cultural Marxism (or multi-culturalism) is a key conservative goal.

And this means re-instituting the study of our history — including our military history.

It means celebrating (among more than a few “specialists”) those Americans who stood fast against our enemies — both in battle, and if captured.

The saga of Albert Brown, the oldest survivor of the Bataan Death March, who died last month aged 105 is a gripping one.

The London Telegraph, with its world-class military obituary section, tells some of his story:

“Two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese overran the Philippines, American and Filipino forces retreated into the mountainous jungles of the Bataan peninsula. Eventually, in April 1942, some 78,000 of them surrendered. Unprepared for the scale of their victory, the Japanese decided forcibly to march the PoWs to camps via a railhead 75 miles away at San Fernando.”

Many Americans are unaware of the brutality to prisoners of war and to civilians practiced by the Imperial Japanese forces in the Second World War, and too many Americans are unaware of the conflict in the Philippines itself, where American soldiers felt abandoned by their government during the Japanese invasion. (By way of background, from 1935 to 1946, the Philippines were a commonwealth of the United States.)

Correspondent Frank Hewlitt wrote in 1942 –

“We’re the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!”

The Daily Telegraph obituary spells out in more detail Captain Brown’s ordeal –

“A week later, at the end of the murderous 75-mile trek in temperatures of 90ºF, Brown and another 12,000 American prisoners were put on trains for the three-hour journey to a PoW enclosure at Camp O’Donnell, a former US Air Force facility. At least 600 Americans and 6,000 Filipinos had perished along the way, and another 1,000 Americans and 16,000 Filipinos died over the following six weeks.

“For more than half a century, Brown remained silent about his ordeal. But not only had he survived, he had also secretly chronicled his experiences, using a pencil stub to scribble down details on a tiny pad of paper he hid in the lining of his canvas bag. ‘[There] was an officer with a samurai sword,’ he noted. ‘They had [prisoners] kneel down and just whacked the head off — that happened a lot.’

“Brown’s account described the torment suffered every mile by US troops as they passed freshly dug wells from which they were forbidden to drink. Sympathetic Filipinos who tried to throw bread, rice, cakes or fruit to the marchers were often killed on the spot. The roadside was littered with dead bodies, some crushed beneath trucks. The stench was overpowering as more and more men suffering from dysentery fouled the ground. Those who reached the limits of their endurance were shot as they fell. “

In 2007, Victor Davis Hanson explained (City Journal) “Why Study War? Military history teaches us about honor, sacrifice, and the inevitability of conflict.”  –

“Try explaining to a college student that Tet was an American military victory. You’ll provoke not a counterargument—let alone an assent—but a blank stare: Who or what was Tet? Doing interviews about the recent hit movie 300, I encountered similar bewilderment from listeners and hosts. Not only did most of them not know who the 300 were or what Thermopylae was; they seemed clueless about the Persian Wars altogether.”

We must keep this in mind: There are conservative goals well beyond (and unlikely to be addressed through) the outcome of the elections of November 6, 2012.

Crucial among these goals is the teaching of our history in all its dimensions  – political, religious, economic, and military.  Our citizens — of all ages –  must get a firm grasp of the many achievements and struggles that made our land a beacon to the world.  Otherwise America will indeed be permanently “transformed,”  and grossly diminished.