Posted by Jim on March 13, 2019
In our motto, James F. McKay President AOH.
Subject: FFAI ACTION ALERT!
Support needed for House Resolution 1547
A brother Hibernian and former Irish Republican Prisoner needs our urgent help. Malachy McAllister is being threatened with deportation to Northern Ireland. Malachy has resided in New Jersey with his wife and three children for decades. He is a small business owner, dedicated Hibernian, active in many charitable efforts since he legally emigrated to our country in the 1990’s. He has come to this country legally and has complied with every required Immigration regulation asked of him for the past 30 years. This threat of deportation is not new. Because of Malachy’s Irish Republican activism, the British government has continually harassed Malachy and pressured the United States for his deportation several times since he came to this country. If the crown is able to have Malachy successfully deported, they will use this precedent as a tool to continue to harass and intimidate those who choose to stand up to their repressive regime. Malachy’s local US Representative Pascrell is submitting a Resolution to ensure Malachy is not deported. Contact your local congressman and urge them to support this bill allowing Brother McAllister to stay, safe, with his family in his adopted home. You can find your congressional representative and their contact information here by following the link and entering your address: https://www.callmycongress.com/ The bill is titled: H.R. 1547 A BILL For the relief of Malachy McAllister, Nicola McAllister, and Sean Ryan McAllister. HR 1547 was created by New Jersey Congressman Pascrell. A copy of the bill is attached for your reference. 2•HR 1547 IH1 alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence upon fil2ing an application for issuance of an immigrant visa under3 section 204 of such Act or for adjustment of status to4 lawful permanent resident.5 (b) ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS.—If Malachy McAllis6ter, Nicola McAllister, or Sean Ryan McAllister enters the7 United States before the filing deadline specified in sub8section (d), he or she shall be considered to have entered9 and remained lawfully and shall, if otherwise eligible, be10 eligible for adjustment of status under section 245 of the11 Immigration and Nationality Act as of the date of the en12actment of this Act.13 (c) WAIVER OF GROUNDS FOR REMOVAL OF, OR DE14NIAL OF ADMISSION TO, MALACHY MCALLISTER, NICOLA15 MCALLISTER, AND SEAN RYAN MCALLISTER.—16 (1) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding sections17 212(a) and 237(a) of the Immigration and Nation18ality Act, Malachy McAllister, Nicola McAllister, and19 Sean Ryan McAllister may not be removed from the20 United States, or denied admission to the United21 States, by reason of any act of any of such individ22uals that is a ground for removal or denial of admis23sion and is reflected in the records of the Depart24ment of Homeland Security, or the Visa Office ofVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:37 Mar 06, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1547.IH H1547 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS3•HR 1547 IH1 the Department of State, on the date of the enact2ment of this Act.3 (2) RESCISSION OF OUTSTANDING ORDER OF4 REMOVAL.—The Secretary of Homeland Security5 shall rescind any outstanding order of removal or de6portation, or any finding of deportability, that has7 been entered against Malachy McAllister, Nicola8 McAllister, or Sean Ryan McAllister by reason of9 any act described in paragraph (1).10 (d) DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION AND PAYMENT OF11 FEES.—Subsections (a) and (b) shall apply only if the ap12plication for issuance of an immigrant visa or the applica13tion for adjustment of status is filed with appropriate fees14 within 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act.15 (e) REDUCTION OF IMMIGRANT VISA NUMBER.—16 Upon the granting of an immigrant visa or permanent res17idence to Malachy McAllister, Nicola McAllister, and Sean18 Ryan McAllister, the Secretary of State shall instruct the19 proper officer to reduce by 3, during the current or next20 following fiscal year, the total number of immigrant visas21 that are made available to natives of the country of the22 aliens’ birth under section 203(a) of the Immigration and23 Nationality Act or, if applicable, the total number of immi-VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:37 Mar 06, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1547.IH H1547 pamtmann on DSKBFK8HB2PROD with BILLS4•HR 1547 IH1 grant visas that are made available to natives of the coun2try of the aliens’ birth under section 202(e) of such Act.ÆVerDate Sep
Posted by Jim on
“Brian Feeney, columnist for the Irish News of Belfast, continues to speak truth to power, cutting through all the nonsense. As Blessed Martin Luther King, Jr. liked to quote, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice’ (Theodore Parker,1810-1860). That arc is now finally bending toward a United Ireland—without England’s damn Border, symbol of sectarianism, division, anti-Catholicism, and denial of national self-determination and democracy. The attached article is important reading for all Members of Congress committed to solidarity, justice, unity, and peace on the island nation of St. Patrick.A Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all.”—Fr. Sean Mc Manus A border poll is inevitable, it is just a question of when
Joe Brolly said the GAA’s ‘endorsement and support for a unity poll… is entirely legitimate, peaceable and reflective of our membership’s views.’… For the first time an Irish Times columnist, Una Mullally, has tried to raise consciousness in the Republic of why it’s an important matter for Northerners, a far cry from that newspaper’s usual wide of the mark editorial line on The North.Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Now we have three famous influential GAA figures, Peter Canavan, Jarlath Burns and Joe Brolly, supporting a Border Poll, or advocating that the GAA support Irish unity in a Border Poll….
Characteristically Brolly is the most explicit. He says The North is, ‘a dysfunctional entity, a pretense that cannot survive’. Who could disagree?
The support of these men is more evidence of the unstoppable momentum that has built up for a poll. For the first time an Irish Times columnist, Una Mullally, has tried to raise consciousness in the Republic of why it’s an important matter for Northerners, a far cry from that newspaper’s usual wide of the mark editorial line on The North.
It’s OK to say it out loud. A Border Poll is inevitable now. It’s only a question of when. There are other critical matters, of which more anon. The present stance of the two main parties in The South is hypocritical and intellectually dishonest. The short version of their response, ‘the time is not right’ is just unforgivably disingenuous. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil know perfectly well that if our dim, witless, proconsul [Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley, MP] were to call next week for a Border Poll, it would be at least 2021 before it took place.
Let’s have a brief look at the political logistics. The two governments would have to agree on the question, or questions. Yes, a Border Poll isn’t just for The North; the south must vote too. Before any such polls, there would have to be agreement on the critical matters. Would it be a unitary state, a federal state, a confederal state? Would there be a single legislature or would The North have a legislature subordinate to the Oireachtas, as already provided for in Bunreacht na hÉireann? Depending on the answer, there might have to be a constitutional referendum in The South.
All that, and more, would need to have been agreed in a forum of some kind, a citizens assembly, all-party round table talks, some mechanism to answer questions about pensions, savings, health service, education, currency (well OK, the Euro, because we’d be in the EU again), transfer of financial obligations, and so on. Remember, the SNP produced a 602 page booklet laying out what an independent Scotland would look like. So the cant, ‘the time is not right’, is a disgraceful excuse for doing nothing.
The momentum for a Border Poll is not driven by any single motor. Yes, there is rapid demographic change, there is the catastrophe of Brexit, and there is the refusal of Unionism to operate equitably the place [the Six County State] they were given in 1921. They had a decade to behave decently: they blew it. Hence Brolly’s description of this place as dysfunctional and a pretense.
Now here are a few points you mightn’t have thought of. First, as soon as a proconsul announces a border poll, the legitimacy of The North’s existence is gone. It means the British believe most people here want out of the UK. Secondly, if Unionists had any wit, which they haven’t, they would opt for a unitary state. Here’s why. They are a community in retreat. Their current majority is like snow on a pitched roof. They are a diminishing minority in Ireland.
They would be nuts to opt to keep a Stormont assembly in which they would be an ever diminishing minority, entering Stormont at a roundabout with a statue of Bobby Sands on the pedestal. Far preferable to be constantly in government in a unitary state where they would always constitute a sufficiently large group to be a junior partner in coalition, guaranteed by The South’s electoral system. Who remembers the last single party government?
There is of course the basic democratic reason for a poll. That wouldn’t appeal to Unionists, but unification is the solution which avoids the backstop and allows the British to leave the EU and give everyone else in Europe peace and quiet. It is provided for in the Good Friday Agreement and allows the will of the majority North and South to prevail.
All we need now is for an Irish government to start thinking about it before its necessity hits them in the face after an election here.
Posted by Jim on March 10, 2019
A decision on Bloody Sunday prosecutions is due to be issued on
Thursday, and the day will mark a key moment in a 47-year-old campaign
for justice.
A Public Prosecutions Service team has been assessing evidence against
17 Parachute Regiment soldiers who were involved in the Bloody Sunday
massacre, in which fourteen civilians were killed by British
Paratroopers, and a further 22 were injured.
Relatives of Bloody Sunday victims have said the passage of time cannot
be used as an excuse to deny justice for their loved ones.
Kate Nash’s brother William was shot dead on January 30, 1972 and her
father Alex was seriously wounded attempting to come to his son’s aid.
Speaking to Derry Now, she rejected a campaign by Tories and unionists
to ensure the perpetrators are protected from the courts
“There’s absolutely no reason why these people should not be
prosecuted,” she said.
“I mean, there have been various people that we’ve heard like Boris
Johnson that these soldiers should not be prosecuted because of their
age.
“They are asking ‘is this how we treat our national heroes?’ Well, I can
tell you should treat national heroes very well, but these guys are not
heroes. They committed the atrocity on Bloody Sunday.
“My only complaint about the whole thing is how long it took. It should
never have taken all this time. We are talking about almost
half-a-century. It seems to have gone in the blink of an eye.
“Also, they should be joined in the dock by the officers who were they.
People talk about the soldiers having been ordered in as some sort of
excuse not to prosecute them, but as ordinary soldiers they are still
responsible for their actions. However, the fact of the matter is that
their officers left these soldiers by themselves. They were described as
‘bad apples’. But, of course we know that that’s the establishment
looking after itself. Is that fair?
“I think the PPS should be questioned on theft that squaddies are being
charged but their officers are not with them.
“But, that’s not the conclusions that Saville came to. He concluded that
the atrocity was carried out by nine ‘bad apples’. Well, I don’t agree
with that because they’ve spent a long, long time in their cover up.
“We’ve had the Widgery whitewash and then Saville and the whole truth
still didn’t come out there either. Look at the Ballymurphy case, and
thankfully after all these years they have an inquest. But during
Saville our legal teams did refer to Ballymurphy which happened only a
few months before Bloody Sunday, but Lord Saville wouldn’t touch that.
“What he did touch on however was looking into the background relatives
of some of the witnesses and whether or not they were republicans. So,
why show interest in that? To me that seemed like an information
gathering operation instead of concentrating on the Ballymurphy case
which had more relevance.”
The justice campaigner also said that even with regard to the arrests of
soldiers during the PSNI investigation, the system was skewed in favour
of the former soldiers.
In 2015, the soldier referred to be the cipher Lance Corporal J was
arrested. It is believed he was the man responsible for wounding Kate’s
father Alex.
Kate continued: “I am told that when Soldier J was arrested he was
terribly shocked. What we learned from that was that his family were
made aware that he was involved in Bloody Sunday and he was ashamed. So,
if you like, he didn’t want that known to his family.
“My question is then, why would heroes be hiding their actions in the
past?
“That perception has always been out there that all Catholics were
republicans when they are not. We know that there were deals done with
the IRA and the British Government over the ‘On The Run Letters’ (OTR).
“Families then have had to answer this, and I’ve had to answer it myself
sometimes, and I’ve had to say what have OTR letters got to do with
innocent people being murdered?
“It has nothing to do with it. Perhaps that was done to ensure that
soldiers wouldn’t be prosecuted because they have tried every dirty move
in the book.
“This has created stories about hounding soldiers-we haven’t hounded
soldiers. We have been accused of seeking vengeance for years. Never-we
simply want the same thing for my brother that everybody else would
expect in law.
“We want whoever killed him to be made responsible. But, there are
officers thereto. There are more questions there and plenty more to be
answered.
“They got medals. They were lauded for what they did on Bloody Sunday.
An officer received an OBE. We don’t even know if he’s one of the
soldiers that may be prosecuted.”
The former British Army officer Kate Nash referred to is Derek Wilford
who received his award in the New Year’s honours list in January, 1973
almost exactly a year after Bloody Sunday.
She said: “I applied a few years ago to the Forfeiture Committee in
England to have those medals returned. What kind of an insult is that to
innocent victims who were murdered that someone got a medal for killing
them? What was brave about that? What was heroic about that?”
Posted by Jim on
There are many reasons you might think Karen Bradley should resign, but
the Derry Girls may not be the first one that comes to mind.
You may already know this, but Derry Girls is a comedy television series
set in the 1990s. It is in its second series, and it is not hard to see
why it works. It is well written and manages to present a comedic view
of an awful time in Derry’s terrible history, from the view of some
innocent, and some not-so-innocent, schoolgirls.
It is black, gallows humour, but it is all in good fun, despite the
number of silly jokes that would have been considered inappropriately
sectarian in the past.
In the past. People have moved on. But not the Tories, not the NIO, and
and definitely not Karen Bradley, who spent this week trying to
indemnify the murders of Irish people by the British state.
The statement she made to MPs on Wednesday are of the kind made at
private luncheons and dinners by those that were regularly sent over to
Ireland to direct the killing. The words could as easily have come from
General Tuzo or Kitson or Jackson, or from Ted Heath or Margaret
Thatcher themselves. In the context of Britain’s Dirty War, and their
propaganda war, she delivered the kind of guarantee that would have been
intended to boost the mercenary killers as they set about the slaughter
of innocents.
The people of Ireland, North or South, Protestant or Catholic, have
every right to be in a blind, burning rage over her statement, because
it applies to all of us equally, regardless of creed or political
persuasion. They are colonial in nature. They put all Irish people on a
lower level of humanity to the British.
The British government has always viewed this island as a colony,
inhabited by the equivalent of Hutus and Tutsis, warring natives who can
be set against each other for England’s own advantage.
Despite this, what we have seen for the past 25 years is people in the
north of Ireland trying to make peace with each other. And what we see
very clearly this week is that they have been doing this in the absence
of any understanding or concern by the British government.
But we are still here, and we are still trying to move on. Just like the
Derry girls, we can laugh at the crazy misconceptions which Catholics
had for Protestants and vice versa, the half-baked ideas about each
others’ taste in music or our imagined customs.
The truth of the situation, as republicans have always said, is that we
are no different from each other than the people of Ballybofey are from
those in Stranorlar, or the folk of Norwich are from those in Ipswich.
Barely enough to inspire an energetic game of football.
And the fact that people can laugh about these imagined differences,
now, is testimony to the efforts of those pacifists who believed that
peace by itself could be the solution to the conflict here.
But into this just enterprise, we see once again a British government
which appears hell-bent on conflict. Not just with such statements,
which seek to justify the heinous massacres of their past, but also
future killings; and not just with their callous disregard of the peace
process; but now, more clearly than ever, their plan to reimpose their
border, which has always been the primary source of conflict in Ireland,
and retains the potential to reignite it.
It might be tempting to believe the Tories are just flailing towards
disaster because of some ineptitude or misunderstanding or
short-sightedness. Karen Bradley, in her own defence, has tried to
present herself as some sort of political Bridget Jones, a female Boris
Johnson whose incompetence is meant to be proof of her blue-blooded
sincerity.
But there was nothing accidental about her statement. Her message, and
the Brexit agenda which the Tories are implementing, are the direct
result of a singular need to stay in power through the support of the
DUP and the most xenophobic elements of their own party.
It is not right that the people of Ireland must pick up the pieces of a
conflict imposed on us, only to have them kicked away by the
short-termism of a bloodthirsty Tory regime which has zero mandate here.
Unless someone shouts stop, the victims of such a trajectory will be
Catholics and Protestants alike, and perhaps another generation of
British soldiers of the kind Bradley thought she was defending.
Set against the thousands of lives lost, regardless of how you calculate
the victims or the combatants, it is something that should not be
tolerated for a day by any of us, regardless of our politics.
And that is why Catholics and Protestants, Derry girls and Ballymena
boys, should unite in making sure Karen Bradley and her kind do not get
the chance to wreck our future once again.
Posted by Jim on
Tories have abandoned pretense of impartiality on North
Bradley’s stupid blunder demonstrates lengths May will go to keep DUP support
Northern Ireland secretary of state Karen Bradley: has already won herself a reputation as the stupidest and most inept secretary of state anyone can remember.
Susan McKay. Irish Times.Dublin. Saturday, March 9, 2019
The British prime minister, Theresa May, puts on a special voice when she’s reassuring the DUP about “our precious, precious union”. We all know she only does it to hold on to their precious, precious votes. However, it is now clear she is dangerously willing to pay any price for the highly equivocal loyalty of that party.
She has already alienated the majority of Northern voters, those who voted to remain in the EU, over Brexit. Now she has shown that her government will trample on the independence of the legal system, jeopardize trials and inquests, and grievously insult the families of children, women and men bereaved at the hands of her security forces.
It was the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly who asked the question in parliament on Wednesday. With so much focus on the 10 per cent of people killed by the security forces during the Troubles, she demanded, what was the government going to do for the other 90 per cent, those she called the “innocent victims of terrorism”.
As it happens, Little-Pengelly’s father was convicted, in France, of involvement in a loyalist gun-running plot. Alongside the late Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Sammy Wilson, he donned the red beret of the Ulster Resistance Movement.
He denies he actually imported arms. The DUP distanced itself from the group after it came out that it had imported weapons. But when it gets exercised about terrorists, the DUP is referring, by and large, to the IRA. It is left to others to point out that mounting evidence of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries skews all the figures.
The context of Little-Pengelly’s question is the impending announcement by the Public Prosecution Service about whether or not paratroopers will face prosecution over the role of the regiment on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972 when 13 unarmed civilians were murdered. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley thanked her for asking. Killings during the conflict by soldiers and police were “not crimes”, she said. These people were “acting under orders and under instruction and fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”.
Harrowing evidence
While she was speaking, an inquest in Belfast was hearing from a man who said he had spent the last 48 years trying to forget what he had seen on the day he was shot as a nine-year-old child by a British soldier during what has become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre.
The Butler brothers were shot at as they tried to run away across a field. They saw soldiers flinging injured people and bodies into the back of a Saracen. One teenager was crying.
“One of the soldiers pulled out a gun and said F**k up, you c**t and shot him once or twice towards the chest. There was no sound from him after that,” Edward Butler said in evidence.
Relatives of Joan Connolly who had come out of her house to search for her daughters, sobbed as they heard harrowing evidence of her final moments after she was shot in the face. Those soldiers were from the Parachute Regiment. Had the regiment been disciplined in any way for its actions that day, its soldiers might not have felt free to go on a similar rampage in Derry six months later – on what will henceforth be known not as Bloody but as Dignified and Appropriate Sunday.
Bradley has already won herself a reputation as the stupidest and most inept secretary of state anyone can remember – she laughingly boasted that when she was given the role she had not known that nationalists did not vote for unionists, and vice versa.
Now she has blundered into undoing the tentative healing which began with former prime minister David Cameron stating in 2010 that the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable”. She has also inadvertently lent her support to those who argue that it is various decorated gents including Gen Sir Mike Jackson who should be in the dock since they were the givers of orders and instructions.
Outrageous comments
More shocking even than her outrageous comments was the fact that while the SOS[Secretary of State] (oh the aptness of that acronym!) was speaking, her Tory colleagues on the benches behind her continued to chat among themselves, as oblivious to what Bradley was saying as they were to the television cameras.
At one level, it is just another demonstration of how little the parties at Westminster care about The North. For years now, MPs have been racing each other to the exit doors whenever it comes up. Bradley rushed through Northern Ireland’s budget last week to benches that were almost empty.
Report after report shows that The North is likely to be disproportionately badly impacted by Brexit, particularly if there is no deal. That hasn’t stopped the Conservatives, particularly the extreme Brexiteers who are favourites among the DUP, from flirting with that outcome.
But it is worse than that. When the British government signed up to the Belfast Agreement in 1998, it committed itself to “rigorous impartiality”. In her desperate bid to hold on to power at any cost, the prime minister has abandoned all pretence of this. As for the profundity of Bradley’s belated apology – we already have irrefutable evidence that this secretary of state is deeply, deeply shallow. Is it reassuring when a senior politician says, “I want to be very clear – I do not believe what I said. That is not my view”? It is not.