90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

CNN’s Stelter: Trump Skipping Correspondents’ Dinner Is ‘Attack Against The Media’

CNN's Brian Stelter claimed on Tuesday that Trump administration officials skipping the White House Correspondents' Dinner constituted an "attack against the media."

The Washington Times reported on Tuesday that Trump is going to skip the event, for the third year in a row, and that White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley "announced that all Trump administration officials are being ordered to boycott the dinner."

"The president and members of his administration will not attend the White House Correspondents Dinner this year," a senior administration official told The Times on Tuesday. "Instead, Saturday evening President Trump will travel to Green Bay, Wisconsin where he will hold a campaign rally."

In a clip flagged by NewsBusters' Curtis Houck, Stelter made the remarks on "CNN Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin.

"It is an awards dinner and a fundraiser," Stelter said. "In the past, presidents have shown up even if they were angry at the press at any given time and, importantly, it’s useful for White House aide to schmooze with reporters."

"It’s helpful for us to get to know our sources," Stelter continued. "There’s some value in these sorts of festive events, but it is, as you said, another example of a tradition at least being put on pause during the Trump age. Here’s what the Correspondents’ Association says. They said, basically, they don't mind either way and this event is about celebrating journalists and the First Amendment and so the show will go on. There is the statement about this weekend's dinner and dinners in the future."

"But look, it’s yet another example of what we’re seeing. This administration’s attack against the media takes many forms," Stelter concluded. "One form is the President having a rally this Saturday instead of attending the dinner and I do think it matters mostly because...

It's as if they have an agenda or somfin'....

UNHCR Corruption: Resettlement Spots for a Price

Since ‘vulnerability’ is no longer the key to selecting refugees for resettlement, does that mean bribery is?

A story about alleged corruption in refugee resettlement at the UN refugee agency was published recently by NBC News.1 The seven-month investigation into refugee processing centers in five countries — Kenya, Uganda, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Libya — found widespread reports of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staffers accepting bribes from refugees in order to refer them for resettlement in a Western country.

Years ago, as I began researching the UN's role in the U.S. refugee resettlement program, I forewarned of the likely "subjectivity" of UNHCR's national staff (citizens of the countries where they are working, usually in regions of turmoil and economic unrest) responsible for refugee status determinations and resettlement referrals.2 Their appraisals can be at best complaisant and at worst open to the highest bidder.

In the wake of the NBC report, I looked at the five countries mentioned and found the following:

In FY 2019, the United States resettled 2,756 refugees from the processing centers in Kenya, Uganda, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Libya.
A total of 1,914 UNHCR staff members work at the refugee processing centers, of whom 79 percent (1,506) are national staff and 21 percent (408) international staff.
The average Transparency International average corruption score in 2018 for the five countries was 23.6/100 (the lower the number the more corrupt). The average ranking of these five among the 180 ranked countries was 150.6 out of 180 (180 being the most corrupt country in the world — Somalia). For comparison, the United States had a score of 71/100 and ranked 22nd out of 180 countries.
The United States is the top funder of UNHCR activities in four of the five countries.

UNHCR, Resettlement, and Fraud

UNHCR has the international mandate to determine who is (and who is not) attributed refugee status, to provide refugee assistance, and to decide who is eligible for resettlement in third countries. Resettlement is the "transfer of refugees from the country in which they have sought asylum to another state that has agreed to admit them as refugees and to grant them permanent settlement and the opportunity for eventual citizenship."3 A number of countries (29 nations in 2018) participate in UNHCR's resettlement program; the world's top resettlement country remains the United States.4

UNHCR's resettlement program is not impermeable to fraud. By UNHCR's own admission, "Refugee status and resettlement places are valuable commodities, particularly in countries with acute poverty, where the temptation to make money by whatever means is strong. This makes the resettlement process a target for abuse."5

UNHCR distinguishes between "external resettlement fraud" and "internal resettlement fraud".6 "External resettlement fraud" applies to "fraud perpetrated by persons other than those having a contractual relationship with UNHCR", such as the refugees themselves. One example of external resettlement fraud is identity fraud: "Identity fraud occurs when an identity is either invented, or the identity of another real person is assumed by an impostor. Supporting documents may be missing, or fraudulent documents provided." Other types include "family composition fraud", "one of the areas where misrepresentation or fraud is most likely to be committed"; and "document fraud" or "material misrepresentation fraud", whereby "refugees deliberately exaggerate, invent, or otherwise misrepresent the nature or details of their refugee claim or resettlement needs."

"Internal resettlement fraud" (the subject of the NBC story) refers to fraud perpetrated by UNHCR staff themselves. Examples include drafting false refugee claims or false needs assessments for resettlement; facilitating preferential processing or access to the procedure; charging a fee or asking for a favor to be added to an interview list; coaching refugees prior to or during the interview; and providing false medical attestations. Resettlement procedures are free of charge, but the fraudulent actions described above are often undertaken for a fee, a favor, or a gift and...

AOC Says VA Isn’t Broke, Shouldn’t Be Fixed While Veterans Are Dying Waiting for Healthcare

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said a lot of dumb things. Whether it was not knowing the difference between red and blue states or being completely unable to answer basic questions about her views, the 29-year-old “Democratic socialist” seems to have a knack for acting clueless.

But she may have just outdone herself. A new clip of the New York representative is so jaw-dropping that it would be absolutely hilarious, except for the fact that some of America’s best citizens are being impacted by her ignorance.

On Monday, journalist Ryan Saavedra posted a video of Ocasio-Cortez basically waving away problems within the Veteran’s Administration and scolding the people who have called for repairing the many problems within the troubled VA.

“Especially when it comes to the VA, all I can think of is that classic refrain that my parents always told me growing up. Which is that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” the congresswoman declared during an event in New York.

Come again? Does Ocasio-Cortez truly believe that a federal agency that has been plagued with problems for years “ain’t broke”? If there was any doubt that this was what she was saying, the representative repeated the claim as she...

Oral arguments heard at the Supreme Court Tuesday were ostensibly about whether the 2020 census could include a question about citizenship.

But don’t be fooled. The reason this case rocketed to the Supreme Court and has been so hotly contested is that the debate hinges, at bottom, on two starkly different visions of America.

In one vision, what matters is loyalty to and affiliation with a nation-state that is self-contained, independent, civic, and colorbind. In the other vision, priority is given to one’s membership in a subnational group that is based on subjective self-identity (like race or sexual orientation), and association with that group yields benefits and preferences in everything, from hiring to contracting, employment, housing, and even electoral redistricting.

The divide essentially comes down to a commitment to America as a nation vs. a commitment to one’s subgroup and the hierarchy of victimhood.

This is one of the great debates of our time—not just here, but around the world.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides—and an opinion is needed by summer if the Census Bureau is to meet its deadline of printing millions of forms—rest assured that this debate will not go away any time soon.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the nation-state seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Despite pressure from above—from sovereignty-draining, transnational institutions like the United Nations and the European Union—and from below, i.e., from identity groups based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, and anything else that can confer conceptual victimhood (and thus special rights) on an individual, the nation-state has shown remarkable resilience.

Defenders of the nation-state remind us that democracy, the rule of law, self-determination, liberty, and everything else Americans and like-minded people hold dear depend on territorially and culturally defined nation-states. Its opponents like to portray the nation-state as archaic, unnecessary, and a gateway to authoritarianism, if not worse.

The Trump administration has championed the sovereignist view, and in 2017 recognized the importance of citizenship by requesting that a question on citizenship be added to the 2020 census.

Progressive groups have left no stone unturned in their bid to frustrate the administration on this front. Notably, these same groups defend a panoply of other census questions that divide Americans by sex, ethnicity, and race.

These groups argue that the citizenship question would depress responses among certain marginalized groups, especially...