Vice President JD Vance and the federal Fraud Taskforce held a press conference today announcing their investigative findings of H1B visa abuse and manipulation of green card program by U.S. corporations who hire foreign workers over Americans.
During the press conference, JD Vance announced that Microsoft and Adobe have been suspended from the H1B visa process, as well as several other tech companies. The taskforce also announced immediate investigations into nine major U.S. universities for J1 student visa fraud. The entire visa program is being targeted by the fraud taskforce and DOJ in order to ensure that American students and American workers benefit from employment and college entrance opportunities. This is well worth watching in full:
[Transcript] JD VANCE: “Yes. Good morning. Thank you all. Well, good morning to the press and good morning to all the people who’ve worked so hard on this. This is a great day for American workers because we are taking some very concrete actions to cut down on some of the H-1B and J-1 visa fraud that we’ve been tracking over the past several months.
I want to give a particular shout out to Andrew Ferguson, Stephen Miller, and of course Todd Blanche, our great Attorney General, who are standing behind me. A particular shout out to DOL Secretary Keith Sonderling, who’s been really an amazing partner in the anti-fraud Task Force. Thanks to Keith’s hard work, we’ve uncovered about $20 billion in fraud just within his, his department and secured over 200 convictions in the last five months alone.”
In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.
This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
The DOJ announced today that Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minnesota was arrested prior to carrying out an attack on the Mall of America. The suspect Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud planned to enter the Mall of America with a recently purchased AK-47 and massacre as many as possible. Sheikhdoon was born in the U.S. to Somali parents.
DOJ PRESS RELEASE – Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minnesota, was charged today by complaint with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism.
The FBI arrested the defendant on Oct. 6, and he made his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright on Oct. 7.
“This individual allegedly obtained a weapon he hoped to use in a mass casualty attack in support of ISIS, but this FBI arrested him and put a stop to his plans,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Once again this FBI is moving more effectively than we ever have before at stopping terrorists before they can attack Americans – with over 1,100 individuals prevented from conducting attacks, over 4,000 foreign terrorist organization related disruptions and arrests, a 38% increase, and more. We will continue to use every resource we have to detect and prevent acts of terrorism and wipe out their networks all over the country. Thank you to FBI Minneapolis who did an outstanding job in the investigation and likely saved lives.”
President Trump is holding a midterm MAGA rally in San Antonio, Texas today. The anticipated start time for President Trump’s remarks is 7:00pm ET with livestream links below.
Tropical Storm Isaias is forecast to track northeastward and quickly ramp up to a hurricane while over the central Gulf in the next several hours. Landfall along the central Gulf Coast is expected Friday night or Saturday morning as a strong Category 2 storm. Residents in the FL panhandle, MS, LA and AL should pay attention to local forecasts.
A hurricane watch is in effect from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, Florida. A storm surge watch is in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana to Yankeetown, Florida. {Nat Hurricane Center} Those in the forecast areas are strongly advised to pay close attention to local officials and heed all evacuation orders.
Check your hurricane supplies of shelf-stable food, water, medicine and don’t forget pets. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Everything is replaceable, except you and your family. We have a lot of Treepers in the path of this storm. If you need assistance, use the comments section of any ‘Isaias Update thread’ to reach out, or use the email address in the upper right of the site.
Right now, you are in control. Have a solid plan, work that plan – stay busy, and don’t get caught up in the hysteria. Try to avoid national media hype. Stay updated via your local news stations. Friday morning looks like the key day impact zones will be identified. Reach out to your neighbors; touch-base and check to see if they are okay or need anything. Community restoration begins before the storm arrives. Look out for each-other.
Remember the inland lessons in Tennessee and Western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene. Regarding any evacuation plan, please pay attention to your local officials who will be coordinating with state Dept. of Transportation. As the path and impact zone of the storm becomes more predictable your local officials will alert to best route(s) for evacuation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a press conference with Giorgos Gerapetritis, the Greek Foreign Minister earlier today. Rubio is on a three-nation strategic alliance tour of Iceland, Greece and Portugal.
The video and transcript of the press remarks and questions are below.
[Transcript] – SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Thank you for your welcome. It’s actually great to be here to have our sixth Strategic Dialogue, which is ongoing, and we’ve begun downstairs a few minutes ago. It’s an event where our two countries commit to continue to work together on a range of issues.
We are two countries that are bound by a common heritage and by proud histories. The United States and Greece share a long history of friendship and partnership and alliance. In fact, the importance of this historical alliance is highlighted by the instability in the world today that we see as a result of conflicts in Hormuz with Iran, or the conflicts in the Red Sea with – in Yemen, or the conflicts in Ukraine and Russia. As you see a world that faces these destabilizing events, you recognize how important this alliance with Greece is to the United States.
It’s both historic – historical in its foundation, but it is also critical. It is a source of stability in an unstable world. And I’m thankful – we’re thankful – that Greece remains a great ally and that we share a common understanding – this is really important – not just a great ally – we share a common understanding of the threats that face our countries, the face – the threat – that face our societies. And we share a common understanding about the means to address them.
One thing we agree on, for example, is that the nations of Europe need to take on a greater share of the burden in defending their continent, and Greece is doing just that. They’re on track to meet the commitments that have been made to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense this year, with over 3.5 of that – of their GDP – percent of GDP being spent on core defense. They’re also joining the National Guard’s Bureau of State Partnership Program, and they’ll be paired, ironically enough, with the Florida National Guard, which will bring our military collaboration even closer.
During an oval office press availability today, President Trump is asked directly about Joe Biden, former AG Merrick Garland and former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith targeting himself and his family. WATCH:
Following announcements to update on the status of “Trump Accounts” for American youth, President Trump took questions from the media.
Media questions begin at 22:38 of the video below. The question topics included: AG Garland & DOJ weaponization, Russia plague a bioweapon? Trump Accounts & capitalism Mr. & Mrs. Dell & Trump Accounts (Dells respond), regret endorsing Ken Paxton? Conflict of interest (?) Could France protests happen here? Go to football game if hurricane? Nobel Peace Prize, Mar-a-Lago as Prez retreat? Dems impeach you for what? Spoken with Pres. Putin? Election integrity, Mortgage rates (Sec. Bessent responds) Trump Accounts & midterm Money givebacks & midterm Russia sharing information? (Plague) Mike Rogers & trade with Canada.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the background of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, to highlight how western civilized history created the cornerstone of western democratic ideals….. Then government became complacent.
As nations of the western world struggle with retention of civil order, Rubio notes the fundamental ideas and ethical laws that originated from Greece still exist today, and we can choose to reestablish the essential code of ideals and honor.
…”Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness.
The word “nationalism” became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments; we condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay.
And with every passing year, we seemed to outsource more of our sovereignty, transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control.”… WATCH:
[Transcript] – SECRETARY RUBIO: “There are great ruins all across the world. In many cases, they are places where history seems to have exhausted itself: remnants of distant cultures that have long passed beyond living memory.
But the Acropolis is different.
For thousands of years, the civilization that built what stands behind me has captivated the imagination of the Western world. Generations of our statesmen, artists, and philosophers have looked to it – they’ve looked to it with wonder and they’ve looked to it with awe.
Now time has a tendency to dull the senses: great victories and catastrophic defeats, they seem to shrink to becoming like a footnote in a textbook, another fact for our schoolchildren to memorize and forget. But the Greeks of antiquity, they seem to have an almost mystical hold on our memory. They call us back to them, again and again.
480 years before Christ, the armies of Xerxes arrived in this city and they put its sanctuaries to the torch. Most Athenians had by then evacuated by ship to a nearby island. But there was a handful of them that refused to leave their home. So instead, they barricaded themselves in the rocky fortress of the Acropolis to fight an extraordinary last stand, heaving massive stones down the cliffs onto the Persian invaders and holding the greatest empire of the age at bay for days. They were eventually overwhelmed. The Persians plundered the temples, burned the shrines, and razed the Acropolis to the ground but when the Athenians returned, they gathered the broken remains of the old Acropolis and buried them in the hill where it had stood. And decades later, under Pericles, they raised the Parthenon.
For 25 centuries since, the Parthenon has stood. Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow. And the progeny of the men who built it – the sons of Athens and Rome – have carried their civilization with them to the ends of the Earth.”
