“This was no small thing, to restore a republic after it had fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may have been that our task was impossible. Yet, if we did not try then how would we know it could not be done? And if we did not try, it most certainly would not be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, would have been lost.”
“But I tell you this: We did not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we made with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from this day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”
~ Mike Vanderboegh (adapted)
This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.
“VICTORY!”
Posted in Uncategorized
Long thread for those interested in prospects for real H-1B visa reform
https://x.com/RonHira/status/1873418286291177955
EXCERPTS:
Once defending it with a threat of war, Trump advisors David Sacks and Elon Musk now publicly concede the H-1B guestworker program is “broken” and should be “overhauled”
This is the most common Washington play after the public petitions the government for a redress of its grievances. Make vague promises and then count on the public’s short attention span and news media’s facile interest until attention moves elsewhere.
It ensures real change never comes.
A few politicians, some earnest, will introduce legislation and sign executive orders, but ultimately, these efforts will never be passed or executed, as attention fades.
The upshot is that H1-B reform will only happen if people organize and place _massive_ and sustained pressure on politicians to change the system. The pressure must be massive because our political system is designed for stasis.
Get informed about the issues. The visa industrial complex has created a sophisticated misinformation machine. The players have been doing this for a long time and have a long-term strategy.
MOST policymakers and their staff are misinformed. MOST reporters are misinformed.
MOST academics are misinformed.
These are all by design and backed by money.
The X debate over the past few days is a promising example of how evidence can combat elite nonsense. Corporate elites and politicians repeatedly claimed that all H-1Bs are the “best and brightest.”
The public easily debunked these claims once they located evidence about the jobs and salaries of H-1B workers at tech firms. A simple step that most reporters never do.
https://x.com/RonHira/status/1873418286291177955
This is why I stay on this. “Corporate elites and politicians repeatedly claimed that all H-1Bs are the “best and brightest.”
That’s a big lie and they get away with their big lie when enough people stop paying attention.
David Sacks tells me don’t look behind the curtain, that’s the first place I’m gonna look.
It is a HUGE lie. In my experience they are generally pretty intelligent and solid engineers — their salaries have generally been in line with US salaries. They bring down salaries simply by increasing the available labor pool — taking jobs that Americans absolutely could do. These aren’t PhD astrophysicists however — those guys come in under other programs I believe?
The main attraction to corporations is their willingness to work very long hours and weekends, and reluctance to push back when corporate asks for something ethically questionable. When layoffs happen, the US engineers get laid off, and the H1-B retained who are now terrified of getting sent home and will do whatever they are told.
Things may be worse now — it’s been 20 years since I got out of that scene and forged my own path in the engineering world.
The cost for employees goes beyond their salary. The salary is a big part of the cost, but I rember that our accountants have a loaded cost for permanent employees that would include things like
HR, IT, administrative, management, training support. Also included are the resources needed like computer, desk, floor space, etc. Also included was medical insurance, retirement, etc.
I remember that a new employee salaried at 50K would have a loaded cost of $250-300K which corporate would use to decide on hiring or employee cost.
I have no idea what the loaded cost difference between hiring a permanent u.s. citizen employee vs. a H1-B employee is, but I bet it’s substantially more for the citizen even if the salary is similar.
Somewhere in the ‘loaded cost’ is the potential for the employee to sue the employer under EEOC, specicically for countenancing a ‘hostile work environment’ as in harrasment, typically mischaracterised as “sexual harrassment” law, even though the actual law covers bullying or other types of harrasment which have nothing to do with sex.
Anyway, such suits subject the employer to discovery, witj lawyers anally probing every aspect of company operations, and with”tthe process is the punishment” most employers will just settle.
Obviously, these indentured slaves from India are NOT going to sue their employers, and knowing that, they lower the loaded cost, and the peace of mind is priceless.
“Sue ya later” has been a card that Americans are encouraged to play. Tort reform would go a long way to lowering H1-B visas.
Just like the medical industrial complex’s business model thrives on keeping Americans sick, so it goes with lawyers and lawsuits. Our litigious society encourages settlements that reward the unscrupulous and perpetuate the filing of frivolous claims.
Thank you, Dutch. Knowledgeable on SO many fronts.
Do these companies have to offer H1b users health insurance like they do for citizen employees? That is a huge cost to companies.
If they don’t, then do those people qualify for Medicare/Medicaid?
Obamacare “fixed” that. Lower income people get tax credits. From an economic point of view, total cost per employee is what matters, not how it is itemized into cash v. benefits.
It is worse. They get sponsored a couple of years , then go home or get green cards. A new group of young and hungry single men come in willing to move 2 or 3 times annually and live as a commune basically.
There are a couple in the group that are experienced and step in to cover for the newbies when they cannot troubleshoot.
W2s (I did many 1040NR tax returns) are predominantly Cognizant and Infosystems (Indian owned in the US) and they hire only Indians.
“Hire only Indians for coding.” “Hire only Hispanics for picking.” “Hire only Haitians for low level health care in nursing homes.” Where does it end?
Thus, they are racist.
Never discount the value of an instant 7.5% unpaid corporate Social Security tax that goes straight to the profit line.
Corporations that employ Americans pay that tax. Corporations that employ foreign workers, do not.
Once green cards are handed out & chain migration begins, their elderly parents will be collecting benefits that nobody except US citizen taxpayers paid for.
Where did the rules for qualifying for SS go? Work so many quarters? How are they getting away with this.
THIS is the issue that I keep talking about like a broken record because I saw it happening in the late 80s/early 90s when I was in banking and no one seemed to understand what was happening then. A company, like Boeing or Microsoft (I lived in the Seattle area), would bring in ONE engineer on some type of a Visa, who was willing to work longer hours for less pay than an American doing the same job. That is bad enough but the chain migration is the iceberg beneath the surface that most people never see!
Once the original worker gets their green card (usually 3-5 years) they are then able to request that their family members join them. Okay, maybe I can see them wanting to bring over their wife, but it does NOT end there! They also bring their parents and their in-laws, all of whom are usually in their 50s or 60s and do not speak one word of English and have zero interest in learning! Because they are older, and “cannot” work, they are “low income seniors” and are thus eligible for SSI (which is different from Social Security). It is a supplemental income program for people who do not have enough money to support themselves and one does NOT have to be a citizen nor have ever worked a day in this country to qualify for it!
https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/spotlights/spot-non-citizens.htm
If the original green card holder brings over four relatives, EACH ONE will be paid around $800 per month, which adds up very quickly when everyone lives in the same household. They also qualify for Medicaid, again, because they are “low income” seniors…no wonder housing and health care costs are going through the roof! We are now covering MILLIONS of people who have NEVER worked a day in this country nor contributed a dime of taxes to our system!
I think this is why Vivek’s slam on “American culture” rankled so many people, myself included. Our “culture” of fairness, generosity, and honesty has been completed exploited for decades by third world cultures that consider lying, cheating, and manipulating systems to be admirable qualities but WE are slammed as being “mediocre”? I have very little hope that anything substantive is going to happen but I hope that there will be some VERY serious conversations regarding these issues and hope that Vivek and Elon will rue the day they opened this particular can of worms!
In the 1980’s it was Russians they were bringing over. 20 people would show up for one doctor’s appt. and fill up all the chairs in the office. They would all ask the doctor about their aches and pains while there – for the one appt. What a mess.
A friend worked as an ICU RN, back in the 90s. Had a lot of Bosnian patients, all of whom were
sick enough to be on ventilators. They always had a number of family members come in to visit
them: about 4 to 6.
In EVERY case one of the male visitors, age range from 20s to 60+, had a missing hand, foot, or
limb.
Neither of us wanted to even try to comprehend what had occurred in Bosnia when all the fighting
was going on.
I saw this in the hospital I worked in. Bringing in Philippineo nurses. They lived in apartments, in groups. Worked overtime while regular American staff were told not to show up for their shift. They sent most of their money back home as they awaited the arrival of Husband,children and parents to join them in America…Was a scam on the American people..
Been out 13 years I still see it and hear about it. Americans are angry.
Amen. Take a look around your hometown. Find the areas that have a high Indian population.
You will often find 1. The homes are huge. Because of the sheer amount of family that is packed into them.
Huge homes don’t come cheap, but it’s easier to pay the mortgage if you have a bunch of SSI receivers under
your roof.
Hot spots near me: Lilburn , GA area, near highway 29.
This also often applies to the Vietnamese population around Atlanta. Huge homes, multi generations of
the family under one roof. Also, FYI . I instantly know if an affluent area with newer homes has a huge
asian population. One dead give away: NO Trees.
Dropped my son off in high school into a high end neighborhood for a friend’s party. Home sizes?
Close to 4000 square feet. Number of trees? A few little twigs here and there.
“Let me guess. Your friend is Vietnamese or Cambodian,” I said. “How’d you know?” my son replied.
“Never mind”
Wish I wasn’t nodding along with everything you said in your comment, but if you know, you know…
Bureaucracy.
Follow the trail of corruption far enough and at the very end of the trail you’ll find a politician.
How indeed? They were signing up elderly Hispanic people for Medicare right in my husband’s hospital room. He had six roommates in a week. Hmmm.
Anyone here that’s past 64 would have no trouble at all believing that.
How many nuisance phone calls do you get in a day from people trying to sell you
medicare supplemental insurance? I average at least 4.
Agreed -because once you see this, you can see it everywhere and with all immigrants- legal or not.
It’s the same scenario, but different details in construction and the trades with all these Mexicans here now.
Americans can do these jobs, of course, BUT as you are saying, the Mexicans are willing to work longer hours, harder and not complain about it all. THEY now possess a work ethic that we do not.
They are not addicted, weed smokers.. they are not social justice warriors.
I suppose you could really say that their employers get ‘more bang for their buck’ and this is why they hire them- and want to hire them.
I had a long conversation about all this with a man that owns a construction company and he said that Americans have become just a pain in the ass– his words.
There are many ‘activist’ types that they live in fear of lawyering up on them.. he presented a whole long list and he certainly isn’t wrong because look around at the young labor pool today.
They make efforts to make good hires and then they get stuck with them because it’s hard to fire people now. He went on and on..
And get this, he went as far as saying that it’s this same exact reason that many men are marrying foreign women with the ‘old fashioned Conservative values’ that are now in short supply here- these are the men even desiring to get married.
It’s a broad topic that expands into many things and what it all boils down to is that we’re really suffering from the impact and effects of the cultural rot we’ve got.
We’re not making the ‘high quality’ American people that we once were.
Again, it’s plain to see all this when we’re shopping at Walmart and we encounter scene after scene of outrageous things that we’ve not seen in our lifetimes.
Excuse me amigo, but they drink. They live across the street from me.
They will buy their beer before groceries. I have a local news feed for my area on my phone. Drunk driving, theft,rape, burglary. Very rare to see an American name…
The immigrants with “work ethic” are still building crap buildings though. I don’t discount the cultural rot.
https://youtube.com/shorts/T304LJq_RWI?si=_mN14AJDRv4OD2-8
Their average salaries are about 60% of those of U.S. workers in the same jobs from what I’ve read. And employers don’t pay social security or medicare tax. The notion that they are paid the same as U.S. workers and are only here because there is a shortage of U.S. workers is a myth.
David Sachs and an older clip with Tucker Carlson on censorship as a tool to keep outsiders out of power.
And David Sacks, Elon Musk, and the others are censoring the voices concerned about the H1b visa folks taking American citizen’s jobs.
“If you were to go into these message ports you wouldn’t see hate speech, you would see maybe raunchy speech”.
“They don’t employ that censorship to protect the weak, they use that phrase (hate speech) to protect the strong”
This is now exactly what Elon is doing by censoring Conservative voices. Protecting the strong.
“Some animals are more equal than others” ~ Animal Farm
Yes.
Or was deliberately started to enlighten the public about the programme’s many flaws (nothing like a scrap to get the crowd interested), whilst getting the traditional backer/voter tensions, which are readily exploitable by opponent’s to MAGA, resolved. Seems to me like this won’t be the first or last pre-inauguration argument between the two sides, as the foundations are being levelled and prepared for Trump II’s first 100 days in office.
Brilliant Peg! I’ve been so disturbed by this (retired tech career who saw it all and still has friends living it).
You’ve given me hope this will be fleshed out and used. This battle being used for that very purpose.
There needs to be BALANCED BUGET NOW
If government spending is “frozen” at current levels, nothing else needs to be done. “Balancing” the budget is sort of like that, but unrealistic, IMO. All “cuts” are cuts to increases in spending.
.
Sent to me with comment “If you are not irritated yet, you will be.”
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2024/12/28/h-1b-uproar-obscures-vast-workforce-other-white-collar-migrants/
H-1B Uproar Obscures Vast Workforce of Other White-Collar Migrants
Neil Munro 28 Dec 2024
But the H-1B program is just one of many government pipelines that deliver foreign college graduates into the valuable U.S. careers needed by the American middle class.
Each year, the H-1B program delivers roughly 130,000 new workers, including 85,000 workers for private companies. They can stay for six years or longer.
“The resident population of people with H-1Bs is [roughly] 600,000″…
There is no requirement to offer the H-1B jobs to Americans. Also, there is no limit on the inflow of H-1B workers for non-profits. That loophole has created a new style of non-profit staffing organization that transfers college graduates into private sector jobs.
More than half of the H-1Bs are from India, where the government pressures American companies to hire Indian graduates, even though they are rooted in a culture where workplace corruption and bribes are common.
Deputies working for President Barack Obama also allowed the spouses of H-1Bs to get work permits, dubbed H4EADs. Many now work in jobs alongside their spouses, adding at least 100,000 more white-collar visa workers to the U.S. labor market.
The little-known L-1 visa program allows foreign companies to move their employees into the United States for five to 7 years. In 2022, the Department of State approved 73,000 new L-1s, so the resident white-collar L-1 population is roughly 200,000 white-collar workers.
The spouses of L-1 workers are also allowed to work…
.
My coffee watch today
How ironic. DOGE should be all over this not to mention because of its impact on SS and every other govt. benefits doled out to non citizens.
” then count on the public’s short attention span ” There you have it.
reformabolitionThis is a much smaller battle inside a bigger war – namely: mass deportations of illegals.
It’s good that Elon and Vivek decloaked. America First to them is the Florida Marlins baseball model of buying a championship every so often using players who couldn’t care less about Miami or its fans. It’s a pure mercenary model. It’s hard for people who sold their souls long ago to understand how other people might not be interested in that model.
But the bigger war is the mass deportations. If Trump is successful at deporting (including self deportations) millions of foreigners from US soil, the H1B’ers will stick out like a sore thumb. And the success of mass deportations will make the public hungry for more cutbacks on immigration.
“Keep in mind that H-1B is only one of many visas being abused by employers, L-1A & L-1B, F-1/OPT, J-1, B1, TN, E-3, to name some. The apparent complexity of the program works to the advantage of the lobbyists and lawyers. But don’t be fooled. The principles are straightforward.
Guestworker visas should only be used to fill genuine shortages, and visa and US workers need rock-solid protections. None of these programs come close to meeting these basic minimum standards. ” …
Found the full thread on threadreader here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873418286291177955.html
How is Elon’s face today?
creamy
No money to aid Americans, no money to deport illegal aliens???
A frency now to send more and more billions to Ukraine
Biden announced $2.5 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States has made available $3.4 billion in additional budget aid to Ukraine
This is right after Yellen loaned Zelensky 20 billion dollars
https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-announces-25-billion-fresh-military-aid-ukraine-2024-12-30/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-treasury-disburses-20-billion-ukraine-loan-funds-world-bank-facility-2024-12-10/
I remember when the commies said we do not have enough money to complete the border wall. Since then they have spent trillions.
I know. Insane
its more profitable to Traffic Humans then build a stupid wall
why do you think the Clinton foundation has offices in Panama at the Darein gap?
“loaned”??
At this point so what? Trump may as well put us more into debt to finish the wall. We will never pay it off anyway.
This is why Social Security didn’t get a raise.
And the US Navy just shot down an American F-18 and shot at another
Gender advisors:
Less Gender Benders Prevent More Fender Benders!
They used to say, Join the Navy and ride the WAVES…
But nowadays you might just catch the “wrong ” wave and get wrecked, if you know what I mean.
Maybe more training regarding target identification and acquisition? From Top Gun to Top Dumb.
What a complete waste of money…gender adviser. What’s the pay? I could advise them in less than a minute. There are only two genders. And, if they believe gender if “fluid” then there is no need for taxpayer gender surgeries or drugs.
Gender weird, Deuteronomy says it is an abomination for a man to dress as a woman, and vice versa.
From US AID (Agency for International Developmnt) Website.
Promoting Inclusive Growth – EducationBreadcrumb
ContextEducation is a foundational driver of development results. India’s diverse educational landscape offers the opportunity to enhance foundational learning outcomes. With one of the world’s largest youth populations, there is significant potential to improve education outcomes and equip students and educators with essential skills for the future.
Sectors
Our WorkUSAID collaborates with the Indian government and private sector to enhance foundational education quality and delivery. Focused on strengthening education systems, USAID works with state governments to improve curriculum design, teacher training, and digital learning tools, and expanding access to education for girls and children with disabilities.
Our ImpactUSAID’s education partnership with India has reached over 9 million students, equipping them with essential skills for the future. This investment drives development progress, fostering economic growth, improved health, and more resilient communities, delivering lasting benefits for individuals and society.
USAID is a CIA front.
Always has been, always will be.
Yes and no.
Yes, to always been…
And
No, to always will be.
Trust God.
Fear not.
https://www.usaid.gov/CJ
Current FY 2025 budget request for USAID is $42.8 billion.
This link shows what they are involved in:
USAID PRIORITIES IN THE FY 2025 BUDGET REQUESTSUSTAIN U.S. LEADERSHIP IN HUMANITARIAN AND STABILIZATION ASSISTANCE
SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST
BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH & RESILIENCE THROUGH PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT
BUILD AND EXPAND DIGITAL AND CYBER PROGRAMS
ADDRESS FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES
ACCELERATE CLIMATE ACTION
CHAMPION GLOBAL HEALTH AND GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY
ENSURE RUSSIA’S STRATEGIC FAILURE IN UKRAINE
INVEST IN THE INDO-PACIFIC REGION
SUPPORT OUTCOMPETING THE PRC
CATALYZE PARTNERSHIPS FOR GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE
ADDRESS IRREGULAR MIGRATION IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
REVITALIZE THE USAID WORKFORCE
I find it quite disingenuous to coin the acronym “USAID”. There is no “aid” involved in the agency. It’s all about international development.
They also have the audacity to request $2.2 billion for USAID to build a responsive and resilient workforce. What the heck does that even mean???
Looks like an agency that could easily be slashed……errr….eliminated!
Brown shirts?
Hey wait a darn minute, that money goes into some American pols pockets!
.
Infuriating waste/grift of American taxpayer’s money.
.
Excellent. Love as much data as possible data to be able to cross-correlate with other data to find hidden truths. Thanks.
Why did USAID fund the Wuhan lab?
Taxpayers financed the creation of deadly pathogens
8 Jun 2024
https://unherd.com/2023/06/why-did-usaid-fund-the-wuhan-lab/
Why the CCP/PLA could count on a virus origin coverup in the West:
Jenner Furst with Tucker Carlson: Secret Chinese Biotech Programs, and the Documentary That Could Put Dr. Fauci in Jail [but won’t – W] (1:45:32)
20 Dec 2024
From the video: “There were intelligence briefs that came out after the state department report a year after the pandemic and those intelligence reports show years of knowledge about the Chinese bioweapons program and the question is how did we develop years of knowledge about the Chinese bioweapons program? Because we were effectively funding and supplying the Chinese bioweapons program with our most talented scientists who were giving them technologies they didn’t already have and the exchange was so that we could spy on them and if that isn’t a completely insane proposition I don’t know what is.”
What a complete waste of US taxpayer funds.
“Our WorkUSAID collaborates with the Indian government and private sector to enhance foundational education quality and delivery”
How about we eliminate USAID altogether and use that money for states to fix their own education systems. This is infuriating. 😤🤬🤯
Yes it is.
No more foreign aid for their education. Why isn’t India taking care of India and the US taking care of the US.
We are being raped by everyone on this planet and it needs to stop.
Start delivering birth control through the air to India.
All ANYONE needs to know with graphs of everything. A detailed analysis:
H-1B DATA MEGA-THREAD
29 Dec 2024
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873174358535110953.html
I downloaded five years of H-1B data from the US DOL website (4M+ records) and spent the day crunching data.
I went into this with an open mind, but, to be honest, I’m now *extremely* skeptical of how this program works.
Here’s what I found
[big snip]
As it turns out, these are ALL Indian companies that import H-1B tech workers en masse:
Cognizant (93k)
Infosys (61k)
Tata Consultancy Services (60k)
Wipro
Capgemini
HCL
Compunnel
Tech Mahindra
Mphasis
These aren’t American companies that needed international talent to fill critical roles. They’re foreign companies that appear to have been founded to place overseas tech workers into US companies as contractors.
[big snip]
I’ve spent my career in M&A and corporate finance, and I’ve been involved in a lot of budget and hiring decisions. Unless we’ve overpaid every developer and IT person at every company I’ve ever worked for, $80-120k for roles like this is NOT market (value).
[big snip]
You can see where I’m going with this. A casual perusal of the data shows that this isn’t a program for the top 0.1% of talent, as it’s been described. This is simply a way to recruit hundreds of thousands of relatively lower-wage IT and financial services professionals.
America needs to be a destination for the world’s most elite talent. But the H-1B program isn’t the way to do that.
———–
HUGE factor marked with ***:
Big Tech’s H1B Arguments Aren’t Just FALSE… They’re Also Immoral.
26 Dec 2024
https://thenationalpulse.com/analysis-post/big-techs-h1b-arguments-arent-just-false-theyre-also-immoral/
Excerpts:
H1Bs benefit tech companies on two key fronts:
First, on average, H1B workers are paid significantly less than their American-born counterparts. This effectively puts downward pressure on wages across the industry, meaning American workers also get paid less;
***Secondly, because the visa is attached to the sponsor company, the foreign worker lacks the leverage afforded to American-born workers who can demand higher salaries by simply looking to take a job with a different firm.***
Little data actually supports the tech industry’s claims of a worker shortage and a need to end H1B country caps. The data does suggest, however, that big tech is replacing qualified and capable American workers with cheaper foreign labor.
Between 2022 and 2024, Amazon laid off nearly 30,000 high-skilled workers. In the same period—though in compliance with federal law regarding when companies can request H1B visa workers—the online retail giant expanded its workforce by nearly 100,000 foreign workers.
[document images]
Despite the layoffs, Amazon asked the federal government for a total allotment of 125,000 new H1B visa workers between 2022 and 2024, while they requested to retain around 90,000.
Similar trends are true for Google and Microsoft. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly 60,000 American workers were laid off among the three companies, while the companies increased their H1B employees by over 340 percent.
[document images]
———–
In an identical vein, cost cutting is one of the reasons for open borders. The corporations want cheap, hard working labor that can’t complain about work conditions, can’t demand higher wages or unionize, and whose wages and benefits are supplemented by taxpayer subsidies for the poor. As a side benefit, the increase in citizens by birth government dependents increases the control of our Corporatocracy.
Occasionally, PBS does something useful:
PBS Frontline
TRAFFICKED IN AMERICA
April 24, 2018
FRONTLINE and the Investigative Reporting Program at U.C. Berkeley tell the inside story of Guatemalan teens who were forced to work against their will on an Ohio egg farm in 2014.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/trafficked-in-america/
Social security is regularly said to be going broke, so the response of the Masters of the Universe is to replace American workers who pay into the system, with foreign workers who do not.
Their social security response is to give it to all government grifters so they can collect the benefits without ever paying a dime into the system ….and let us foot the bill…plus collect their government pension as well.
When the green cards hit their hands, the chain migration begins. The 1st to arrive are their elderly parents who will immediately begin collecting benefits that only US citizen taxpayers pay for.
What better way for the Masters to get rid of SS …..is to make it go broke.
The self-labeled elites intend to crash the United States of America. They are attempting this crash in every way possible, just like the voter fraud is done every which way to install their favored totalitarians.
Those hundreds of thousands of workers then get their families over here who promptly sign up for every government subsidy we have; housing, healthcare, SNAP, WIC, legal, and on and on it goes.
Corporations make huge profits and the US taxpayers subsidizes those worker’s living expenses. This is how they are able to send the remittances back to their home countries. Mexico received a whopping $63 Billion to Mexican families to prop up their Socialist economy. It’s a giant racket!
Thank you Winston! Data matters! Infuriating.
From Author: Salesian Missions
Publication Date: February 21, 2023
INDIA: New technology education center to be built with funding secured by Salesian Missions from USAID/ASHA
INDIA: New technology education center to be built with funding secured by Salesian Missions from USAID/ASHA – Salesian Missions
US AID publication
Five Decades of U.S. – India Cooperation Since 1951, the U.S. has provided $15.4 billion (the equivalent $59 billion in today’s dollars) in economic assistance to India. U.S. assistance has always reflected the Indian Government’s requests and priorities and, as the Indian economy has developed, the nature of this economic assistance has changed to meet new requirements. U.S. economic assistance peaked at $1.6 billion in 1960, when food aid accounted for 92% of the annual assistance budget. As India became self sufficient in food production and expanded its industrial capability and infrastructure, the focus of USAID programs shifted to science and technology transfer, economic liberalization, and global issues of population growth, HIV/AIDS, and the status of women.
Key takeaways: Currently, USAID’s program areas include:
Workforce development
Establishing eight agricultural universities
Developing world class agricultural research capacity • Establishing 14 regional engineering colleges
Establishing the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur and Kharagpur
Establishing four regional colleges of education
Training more than 10,000 Indians in the United States
Madrasas (Muslim schools) became more integrated with the government education system – over 500 Madrasas, covering 48,000 children, have introduced a government approved formal education system. Substantial government and private sector resources have been leveraged for long term sustainability.
USAID/India’s successful Youth Skill Development Initiative, which provides basic life and market oriented employability skills to out of school youth, was designed as a public private partnership, with 50% of the program costs coming from non-USAID sources. Partnerships have been established with the government and the private sector, including Moserbaer, Genpact, Reliance, and the Tata Group for implementation, technical cooperation, and scale-up.
The politicians and education officials pocket a huge percentage of that US aid!
What’s “ten percent” of $2.5 billion, “Big Guy?”
By now, you ain’t foolin’ anybody.
Ukraine aid will just help them keep killing themselves.
DECEMBER 30 2024
US announces $5.9 billion in military and budget aid to Ukraine
The United States on Monday announced nearly $6 billion in additional military and budget assistance for Ukraine as President Joe Biden uses his final weeks in office to surge aid to Kiev before President-elect Donald Trump takes power.
Biden announced $2.5 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States has made available $3.4 billion in additional budget aid to Ukraine, giving the war-torn country critical resources amid intensifying Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.
“At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office,” Biden said in a statement.
[…]
https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-announces-25-billion-fresh-military-aid-ukraine-2024-12-30/
DECEMBER 30 2024
Ukraine, World Bank sign $15B agreement funded by US
Funds to be provided by US are part of Washington’s $20B contribution to G7 loan initiative for Ukraine, says Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Monday announced that
Kiev and the World Bank signed an agreement worth $15 billion, which will be funded by the US.
“The United States will provide Ukraine with $15 billion, secured by revenues from frozen Russian assets,” Shmyhal said in a statement on Telegram.
Shmyhal said the funding will be made under the World Bank’s PEACE in Ukraine project, and is part of Washington’s $20 billion contribution to Group of Seven’s (G7) loan initiative for the country.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/ukraine-world-bank-sign-15b-agreement-funded-by-us-premier/3438015
===================================
twitter – Denys Shmyhal
The United States will provide Ukraine with USD 15 billion secured by future proceeds from frozen russian assets.
This will be funding under the PEACE in Ukraine Project and part of the U.S. contribution of USD 20 billion under the G7 initiative to be directed to social and humanitarian spending.
We thank the U.S. and WorldBank for promoting the initiative that makes russia pay.
https://x.com/Denys_Shmyhal/status/1873680120591811051
That is just sad. This is what happens when you allow democrats to be governors.
Good one.
https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/dec-11-2024-administrator-samantha-power-americas-ground-game-how-usaid-changing-and-why-it-matters?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Administrator Samantha Power on “America’s Ground Game: How USAID is Changing and Why It Matters
Dec 11, 2024
Samantha Power:
With the partners that we work with on the ground as well, of course, the local organizations, we are trying to shift from the top down approaches that we often used in the past, and instead, are engaging with local leaders from the very beginning, the local leaders who have the deep contextual knowledge and relationships in their communities to understand the most effective levers of change. These leaders don’t leave when a USAID program ends, they continue working to better their own communities.
So, we are increasing our outreach to these partners, expanding our use of local languages and simplifying, again, the process of partnering with us. We are also channeling more funding directly to local civil society, government, and private sector leaders who are driving change in their communities. From 2021 to 2024, we doubled the amount of funding going to local partners, but ….still just about 11 percent of USAID’s funding is going to these groups directly. …. We are also looking to reduce barriers that hinder our direct engagement with partner governments, so called G2G assistance, which is absolutely critical again, to driving sustainable change at scale that will continue long after USAID’s initial investment.
The second part of being catalytic is really seeing ourselves now as a leveraging agency, upping our focus on engaging with foundations, the diaspora, multilateral development banks, and the private sector, so that we can draw in other partners who will contribute their own resources and skills to our work. For instance, companies are natural partners in development work, so much of which comes down to generating economic opportunity. Yet, historically, we have not invested nearly enough in building these partnerships. So, we have set out to change that. We are cultivating deeper, more lasting relationships with private sector partners, from small businesses to mega corporations. They tell us what is deterring them in a given place from investing in development priorities, and then we, working with others, try to help take down those barriers.
USAID has established a first of its kind fund to draw in private capital. Some of you know about this fund. It’s called the EDGE Fund, and it dedicates $50 million a year to help de-risk commercial investments on behalf of development objectives. To date, USAID’s $100 million of investments in the EDGE Fund have brought in more than $280 million in commitments from private sector partners with the potential to mobilize an additional $2 billion in investments over the next five years.
Thanks to efforts like these, from 2021 to 2023 alone, private sector partner contributions to USAID activities jumped by 42 percent. We have also substantially increased our engagement with multilateral development banks, who can channel resources to the problems we face again at the scale and with the time horizons that are required.
…Governments need significant financing to rebuild these systems, so we invested in the Global Financing Facility, which offers technical assistance to countries to help them shape national strategies to improve primary health care and bring World Bank financing to implement them. Every dollar invested in the GFF connects partners with $7 more in financing from the World Bank. This is leveraging.
And third, the third way we are thinking about and trying to become more catalytic, is recognizing that sometimes pushing for key policy changes can yield impact far beyond individual programs. Now, I know this sounds obvious, of course, that’s the nature of advocacy. It’s the nature of what even we advocate for within government – policy change. But what is so exciting at USAID is seeing a fresh cadre of so-called development diplomats who, in addition to thinking about programs and how to leverage those programs and those resources, are identifying and pushing for policy changes around the world. …
For clarity –
The Global Finance Facility was launched at the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 by the United Nations and the World Bank as part of an effort to achieve goal three of the Sustainable Development Goals, …
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global objectives established by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financing_Facility
“Climate Scam Unraveling: World Bank Really Doesn’t Know Where $41 Billion in Funding Goes”
https://www.westernjournal.com/climate-scam-unraveling-world-bank-really-doesnt-know-41-billion-funding-goes/#insticator-commenting
<World Bank Really Doesn’t Know Where $41 Billion in Funding Goes>
“A design feature of everything USAID does”, as Samantha Power likes to say.
https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/speeches/dec-10-2024-assistant-administrator-management-and-resources-michele-sumilas-council-international-development-companies
DECEMBER 30 2024
reuters
Trump gives US House Speaker Johnson ‘complete and total endorsement’
Donald Trump on Monday threw his support behind House Speaker Mike Johnson, who must stand for re-election this week with a slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man.
He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN.
Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.
MAGA!!!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-gives-us-house-speaker-johnson-complete-total-endorsement-2024-12-30/
Yeesh, I hope that’s a front about Mike Johnson for something going on behind the scenes that will be better for America and Americans.
read that before and Johnson screwed him big time.
Jesus Trump
This is sickening.
this must be part of the deal
Its getting more obvious
I will be first to say
I’M A NEVER JD VANCER
I was SHOCKED.
If those who are upset by this would stop and think a moment… Jan 3rd is when they pick the Speaker. Jan 6th is when the Electoral Votes are officially “counted” and President Trump is declared the winner.
Now, what do you think would happen if there is suddenly a stupid fight over R Speaker?
Of course, there WILL be a fight because the R’s cannot work together… but there shouldn’t be. They can have the fight another day when it doesn’t impact Jan 6th.
If they don’t elect a Speaker of the House and cannot certify the election by January 20th Senator Grassley would become President.
The U.S. Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 outline the presidential order of succession. The line of succession of cabinet officers is in the order of their agencies’ creation.
Vice President
Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
I told you – President Trump will be reinstated in April.
Speaker has no role on Jan 6.
President of Senate (Harris) presides.
yeah don’t people KNOW that….
That’s what I was thinking too. I hope at least the house makes it easier to vote Johnson out after Jan 20 🤣 not that we have anyone else on deck…..
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man.”
This is one of those episodes where POTUS Trump’s naivete about Christianity and his ignorance of Scripture is obvious.
James 2:19 – “Even the demons believe and tremble.”
The Romans and the temple priests who arranged for the death of Jesus, the Christ were very religious. The cults that thrive today are filled with people who are very religious. Church leaders of all stripes who abuse their parishioners in any way are, nearly always, very religious. POTUS Trump is not aware that being religious is not worth anything when it comes to personal recommendations.
Yeah so was 30 Pence….
YEP and Pence’s family friend and worthless AG Jeff Sessions was in his White House Bible study group.
Wearing a cross doesn’t prove a politician isn’t a snake. “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.”
he is making a HUGE mistake backing Johnson. Did he not see what Johnson did with the DummyCrats on the CR? Geez. Would have rather he said…we’ll let the House select their Leader
Hubby and I both received a notice from SSA informing us that we were going to receive a 2.5% cost of living increase, effective Jan 2025.
The same notice let us know our Medicare costs were rising about $300 per month also effective January 2025.
Net result is a loss of about $200 per month in paid SSA benefits for each of us. Gotta love government math.
Interested to know how many others found themselves in a similar situation? Apologies if this has already been discussed or is in the wrong thread.
I am blessed that I got to keep my health insurance from my employer after I retired. My insurance only went up a few dollars for me and my wife
Our very good supplemental insurance which is part of Hubby’s retirement benefits did not go up thank goodness.
I got it and my insurance went up a crazy amount and my landlord has decided that he wants to double the rent so IDK what will happen but just like everything else in this country – it’s not sustainable.
I’m right there with ya!! Same letter in the mail a few days ago.
Same thing for us, rose just over $200 for spouse. No wonder people can’t afford to live on SS only.
Well you can, but you can’t show any income above $20,000. Assets are not counted in my state for Free medical. You just need to fit into the box for food stamps and income. Now if you sell an asset, it’s considered income. Sell all your assets before you retire and keep cash under your pillow, then you fit into the box. Play the game everyone else is, or you’ll be left behind being broke.
Don’t need to sell the assets. Put them into a trust.
My Mom is a firm believer in “mattress money”. It has helped supplement her measly SS check.
I don’t believe you was supposed to be able to live off of SS, that it was to “supplement” your income when you got older. As for me I never counted on SS and never will.
Same here. My late husband and I saved enough so that “if” SS was not available we could still live a comfortable lifestyle. That being said, I’m still debating on taking the SS death benefits or waiting til I’m old enough. Part of me thinks I might as well take what he paid in before it really does go broke.
Part of you is spot on. Take what your husband earned while it’s available to you.
Take it.
All of my jobs never included pensions. There is that. Not much to save on $8.00/hr. All medical jobs.
My monthly SS amount went up (2.5%) $60.30 – Medicare went up $66/mo = result $5.70 LESS per month!
I love to remind everyone that I have paid into Medicare (worked full time) since its inception in 1965, along with my employers contribution. Tons of $$$ and yet still paying and getting outrageous increases!
I’m from the government and here to help…. bahahahahaha
from 1965, til retirement in 2019 (forgot that)
Medicare payments were a way of cutting benefits while saying they won’t cut benefits.
Your increase is due to IRMAA, right? I’m looking at a similar increase.
Yes.
Are some state’s residents charged a different amount of monthly Medicare that’s deducted from their SS monthly checks?
I’m in CA and the Medicare deduction went from $174.70 a month last year to $185 this year. That’s only about a $10 rise compared to your $300 rise claim.
Our SS pay raise was the same as yours, 2.5 %.
I think Barbs is referring to IRMAA which is another insidious federal tax increase on the middle class. If your income (from 2 years earlier) exceeds a specified level then your monthly Medicare cost will increase. The cost increase is not gradual but jumps dramatically each time your income crosses a certain threshold. And it is not difficult at all to exceed the lowest IRMAA threshold if you are required to take a distribution from an IRA or 401k.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/medicare/what-is-the-medicare-irmaa
Just another thing they never tell you about when enrolling in a 401k. What a scam!
Thanks! I couldn’t figure out why there was such a difference in Medicare deduction. I was unaware of irmaa as I retired in 2000 and it started several years later which I had never heard about before!
Same in the South $174…….Isn’t it wonderful that families making up to $74000 pay much less ,some $0, for obamacare ? Meanwhile folks living on SS pay $174 and counting for medicare. . Make government make sense.
In Minnesota seniors have to pay income tax on their social security “income.”
That’s lil’ tampon timmy, always working
to screwfor the little guy.It depends if the SS recipient is having both Part A and Part B &C deducted from their checks; if only Part B &C the increase went from the $174.70 up to $185.00; if they are having both A & B/C deducted it’s higher.
Which part of medicare went up? From what to what?
Part B – from $174 to $185 per month.
The monthly cost coming out of your Social Security check and the deductible you pay when you visit the first doctors in the year.
My costs were raised and outstripped the COLA.
My Medicare cost increased 10.00 a month, but am not using Original Medicare but one of the many Medicare Advantage programs out there; some need to stay on the original, which is more expensive, due to underlying medical conditions and/or the restrictions on providers since most advantage programs are either Preferred Provider or even the more restrictive HMO type policies.
More physicians are limiting the type of patients they see; whereas Original Medicare if a hospital or physician’s office accepts any type of medicare then they must accept that patient where the advantage programs offer limited physicians and hospitals.
Yes, the same thing is happening to me with SS and Medicare….
Welcome to Amerika!
H1B indentured slaves? Considering the above post I think we can put ourselves into the indentured category as well.
Starting to really really like Andrew Torba
https://redstate.com/smoosieq/2024/12/30/new-2nd-circuit-rules-on-trumps-appeal-of-e-jean-carroll-verdict-n2183737
Second Circuit panel refuses to reverse E. Jean Carroll verdict. Now on to petition for en banc hearing or to SCOTUS.
This is only the $5 million verdict for the alleged assault. His appeal of the libel verdict is still pending.
How insane is this? They couldn’t see through the fake claims of this deranged woman? Or that a law was briefly changed to allow her to bring this Reid Hoffman funded drama?
For crying out loud! She didn’t even know WHEN this supposed assault took place! So many reasons to have overturned this ridiculous ruling. Not the least of which is it was a FANTASY she had and wrote about.
It’s up to the jury to decide credibility, not the appeals court. A jury can believe all, part or none of a witness’ testimony. The jury sees the witness in person. The appeals court just reads words in a transcript. That’s the rationale.
What baffles me is that Trump’s lawyers did not raise the two most important constitutional issues:
The first is the revival of long-dead claims by lifting the statute of limitations. While this might be necessary in the case of people abused while they were minors, Carroll was an adult at the time of the alleged assault, and could have filed within two years.
The second is a bill of attainder. Although the statute does not mention Trump by name, Reid Hoffman, the tech billionaire who pushed the change in the law, publicly said that getting Trump was his motivation.
I hope Trump’s lawyers find a way around the waiver of these issues. If not, Trump should sue his lawyers for malpractice.
As I recall, President Trump’s legal team was not allowed to introduce Carroll’s previous history of accusing men of rape when there was none. The Judge pretty much tied their hands.
Her previous history of false claims has nothing to do with the violation of Trump’s constitutional rights.
However, the judge’s ruling was an issue of evidentiary law, and should have been grounds for reversal,.
But Trump’s lawyers should have raised the constitutional issues, too.
It’s more than that. If a jury isn’t allowed ALL of the information then it is impossible for a jury to make a proper ruling. And that is exactly what happened in that highly defective court. There had been a huge range of things Trump’s defense was not allowed to present to the jury.
The fact that laws were changed (special legal holiday law celebrating Trump for some reason right?) is seriously bad. But this is New York’s operations of its judiciary. It will take incredibly skilled constitutional attorneys to make arguments to show they violated Trump’s rights and due process. It definitely looks and feels like it, but it must be articulated properly.
I would want to see them start with this ridiculous change in the statute of limitations holiday. That can’t be legal.
This wasn’t in the New York judiciary.
It was a federal trial, under the Federal Rules of Evidence. It was a state law case hard in federal court because of the diversity of citizenship (two different states) of the parties.
And yes, I think the jury should have heard more evidence.
The Rules give the district judges a lot of discretion in evidentiary rulings, so it’s hard to get a reversal on those grounds.
The party appealing has to show that the excluded evidence could have changed the outcome of the trial. So the trial level judges do get away with a lot of sloppy evidentiary rulings.
I always appreciate your legal mind and helping us to understand what is going onl
Thank you Wethal! 😊
Thanks. 🙂
The woman is looney tunes. Didn’t she borrow the scenario from ” Law an Order.”
She needs to be sued, see how she handles the truth. Not well one would assume.
Mike Johnson endorsement 🤮
It is the simplest way, At this time! If they manage to keep the speaker seat open, there can be NO confirmation of a new President.
could we apply the same understanding of H1B abuse to the healthcare sector?
Asking for a friend……..
“Trump gives full endorsement to Mike Johnson for SOH” -Trump has learned NOTHING. America First is dead.
I have to say, I am at a total loss as to President Trump’s thinking on this.
How does he expect to keep the house in 2026 with such an unpopular Speaker.?
How many losses to his detriment in the next two years is he willing to take?
Last, does he really want to expire in prison when the Dems come after him in 2026.
He needs Johnson’s certification, after that who knows.
Point well made. Pick another hill to die on but this one ain’t it. Commies would have a field day with a vacated SOH chair and the subsequent train wreck. Cross this bridge and see if it needs to be torched in another month or two.
Kamala will certify. Does Johnson even have anything to do with it? I don’t really know….and WHY is Johnson is such a GOOD CHRISTIAN man would he object to certifying an obvious landslide just because he didn’t get the gavel
It’s likely the FIB or other intelligence agency has something on Mike Johnson so old Mikey has had to dance to whatever song that FJB played. Soon Trump will (hopefully) have control over those agencies. I have the feeling Mike Johnson will be doing the Trump dance now…
He must make it to office before he can do much.
Are you saying if you don’t understand President Trump’s strategy then our “America first” movement is dead? Geez, it sounds like to save the nation President Trump needs to put you on speed dial.
Better than Elon or Vivek on speed dial.
Are you saying you have the ability to contribute half a billion dollars or more to our President’s goals? Or are you saying you are more knowledgeable than Musk and friends? In other words, you’ve built tech products and companies that required intensive interaction with several government entities and at this point you are successful/a leader in the industry (and as in the case of Musk the richest man) in the world?
From reading your comments, you don’t seem to fit either of those categories. You seem to be more in the category of “do what I want or I’ll yell and scream (and use capital letters when I write comments) to tell the world what a dud you are.”
Maybe half a billion dollars was to ensure that Musk’s goals were enacted. I guess now we know what Trump’s price was.
I am an American citizen. A Mayflower descendant. My vote is just as important as Musk’s or Vivek’s and you should be ashamed to say that because they have built their wealth off the backs of hard working American citizens who lost their jobs to cheap imported labor they have bought the right to influence the President.
I yell and scream because this is our last chance for America and I see it slipping quickly away. It’s called RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION !
You are misunderstanding my comments to you. I am not saying that because anyone built wealth they have a right to influence our President. But that is how the world works. People who donate money do it because they hope to have influence.
In other words, you would find it difficult to influence President Trump because you don’t have the kind of money that would make it worth his while to have conversations with you. President Trump doesn’t have time to speak individually with 80 million people (even though one of them is you). He needs to use his time to the best advantage and that means using it to further contributions and forge relationships with leaders/influencers. This is just reality — it’s nothing personal against you.
My second point is that yelling and screaming because you don’t like something is childish in that it doesn’t accomplish anything. If all it took was yelling and screaming to get anything done, we’d all be the most productive people imaginable.
I am not disagreeing with you about the problems having to do with Mike Johnson or importing foreign workers. Where I am disagreeing is you apparently think the way to solve a problem (for example, you disagree with the President about Mike Johnson) is for you to yell and scream and use that as justification to make wild claims such as “he {our President} has learned nothing.”
You would do a lot better to try and get more info so you could think about why President Trump does what he does. As an example, in the Mike Johnson disagreement, look at that fact that January 6 is when President Trump will be certified President. I doubt he wants a war in Congress (a fight over the speakership) to up end the certification process.
When you see the “bad operators” as political captives instead of people acting independently evil, it all sort of makes sense.
Imagine, in you will, US intelligence are all brought to heel. The pressure on “good but weak people” will cease. Then we will better know who the bad guys are.
No, I believe he just wants the certification to go smoothly. We can have the Speaker debate after that process is complete.
Trump has learned NOTHING; neither has anyone else. The whole system is an illusion of choice, and it’s heads they win, tails you lose. The system was designed this way long ago. Remember the movie ‘War Games’? – The only winning strategy is not to play.
Once in a while you find a gem-like synopsis that someone else has done that explains and illustrates a difficult concept with grace and simplicity. Here under the Youtube Title “How “They” Use Your Energy Against You(and you don’t even notice) no bs” is such a gem. If you listen carefully, you will not only understand why nothing changes or only gets worse, no matter which “side” is in control, but you will also see how this result is guaranteed and favors the parasites responsible. In straight terms, this is why it does not matter if the system is “left” or “right”, Democrat or Republican, Muslim or Jew, Communist or Fascism.
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TRUTH SOCIAL TODAY
“We are the Party of COMMON SENSE, a primary reason that we WON, in a landslide, the magnificent and historic Presidential Election of 2024.
ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, 312 ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES, AND THE POPULAR VOTE BY MILLIONS OF VOTERS (Despite large scale voter fraud taking place in numerous states, including California, where votes are ridiculously still being counted, or under review!), ALL WON WITH EASE, CALM, & PROFESSIONALISM.
Republicans are being praised for having run a “legendary” campaign!
Democrats are being excoriated for their effort, having wasted 2.5 Billion Dollars, much of it unaccounted for, with some being used to illegally buy endorsements ($11,000,000 to Beyoncé, who never even sang a song, $2,000,000 to Oprah for doing next to nothing, and even $500,000 to Reverend AL, a professional con man and instigator, who agreed to “interview” their “star spangled” candidates, Kamala and Joe).
We ran a flawless campaign, having spent FAR LESS, with lots of money left over.
They ran a very expensive “sinking ship,” embracing DOJ & FBI WEAPONIZATION against their political opponent, ME. BUT IT DIDN’T WORK, IT WAS A DISASTER!!!
LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN.
The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.
MAGA!!!”
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113742374534233751
And when Johnson stabs him in the back again, all of that will change. It will happen.
DECEMBER 30 2024
ROMANIA
In Bucharest, a crowd has assembled in front of the Court of Appeal
to back Calin Georgescu, the leading candidate from the now-nullified presidential election.
Georgescu is contesting the decision by the Constitutional Court to cancel the first round of voting.
=======================
Calin Georgescu at the Bucharest Court of Appeal
This “Constitutional Court” must be taking orders from the Washington DC courts or the Southern District of New York.
Mute Point is also known as censorship.
WORDMAN?? Is that you??
(Seriously, Rix Six, I know its you…to which I can only applaud wildly 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You might be surprised by just how many people continue to fight against censorship in all sorts of ways. Censorship is never a moot point as long as there is life and breath to resist.
I’ll add:
Mischievous is mispronounced Miss Chee Vee Us.
I wince when I hear it.
Having said that, my then four year old granddaughter constructed her own pronunciations.
“Comfy” became “Comfty”, which when you think of the spelling of ” Comfortable ” kind of, sort of makes sense. To this day we all pronounce it that way 😉😎
To my daughter cookies were booies. She would point to the cabinet and say “booies.”
Have you adopted it??? I would…sweet 💕
Ax Ask
👍🏻
ant….aunt
Prolly, probably
Enunciation is much underrated.
It is a regional accent phenomena: where I came from sandwich is pronounced “samwich”
My daughter would climb the walls when she heard my pronunciation this way.
Was she a teenager then, GRM? Remembering will be a lovely memory for her one day I think…
Yes, Betsy jones, though at present, I doubt it will be a lovely memory for her, I am sorry to say.
“supposedly,supposedly” is the one that drives me up a wall..
Supposebly and not supposedly. ‘Supposebly we’ll leave at 7.’
Pacific and not specific. ‘Please be pacific in your answer.’
Exspecially and not especially. This one drives me bonkers the most! I know a woman who added the word “exspecially” to her word processing dictionary, since, ‘Dang it!,’ that dictionary didn’t even have the word ‘exspecially’ in it!
Comftable, Comfortable
Impor-ant.
I miss hearing the T.
Offen.
Same thing.
I knew there was something sinister in that orange slide on the left side!
We were being programmed, sis 😎
Looks like Democrats and RINO’s completely F’d us once again. Yellen and the debt ceiling, RINO’s not willing to raise the debt ceiling. Elon and Vivek blocking free speech through Elon’s X. Having to pay Biden’s bills under Trump’s watch. No money for border wall, or anything else.
NOW WHAT?????
more pretending everything will fix itself
its what we do best !
Psalm 109-5-10.
If the debt ceiling can’t be raised, then it seems that makes DOGE even more important. Let’s start shutting down all of these agencies to cut spending.
I don’t trust DOGE as far as I can throw them. After this h1b visa kerfluffle DOGE can drop dead. The sooner the better.
DOGE is a farce.
How did THIS turn out?:
“The Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC), commonly referred to as the Grace Commission, was an investigation requested by United States President Ronald Reagan, authorized in Executive Order 12369 on June 30, 1982. In doing so President Reagan used the now famous phrase, “Drain the swamp”. The survey’s focus was on eliminating waste and inefficiency in the United States federal government. Businessman J. Peter Grace chaired the commission. Reagan asked the members of that commission to ‘Be bold. We want your team to work like tireless bloodhounds. Don’t leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency.’”
Not well. Here’s why and its just as valid for DOGE:
As he left the [DOGE] meeting, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) [Liberty Score A 95%] offered a pessimistic take on the DOGE mission. “If Congress doesn’t have the guts to do those things they’re talking real big about, it’s just a waste of time,” Burchett said.
CONgress holds the purse strings. DOGE is just an advisory group.
DOGE is just an advisory group.
BUT the two men heading it up are not going to sit there quietly and allow nothing to happen.
Elon has X that he loves to use and Vivek is quite a talker.
We’re going to get day by day reports that are probably more than we can even stomach.
I’m bracing for what these two are going to find and shine the sanitizing light upon.
Then it’s up to us to do our thing to see it get dealt with- or rather to demand it’s dealt with.
Perhaps that is ultimately what they will wind up doing: shining the light upon all we need to see that we’ve not been shown like this before.
There is a lot of success just in this alone.. it’s more than we had before.
If we are hitting the debt ceiling like Her Majesty Ugly and Stupid said the other day, where is Biden coming up with billions more to give Ukraine?
There is no budget or process in the budget process. It is all a farce.
Thanks to former SotH Kevin McTurd, the Xiden junta doesn’t have a debt ceiling.
They can’t hit what simply isn’t there…
They made sure he didn’t have a debt ceiling. Made it easier to bring us down.
There is still money to build the wall. They can’t touch what was allocated in his first administration. President Trump can and will find more money to continue building the wall. If he declares it a National emergency the funds can most definitely come from Defense.
And I truly believe that if President Trump called for volunteers to come build the wall, he would get them.
1929.
Ready, set,
Reset
https://usdebtclock.org/
But plenty…$4 billion…for Ukraine.
Priorities, priorities.
Milton Friedman talks about eliminating entire Departments of the United States Government to rid taxpayers of wasteful and fraudulent spending. He essentially advocates for abolishing 8 of the Departments. I wholeheartedly agree with him!
“Will DOGE Do This? Famed Economist Breaks Down How to Take a Sledgehammer to the Deep State”
Excerpts:
However, the fact that DOGE’s acronym itself is a meme — so seldom a good sign when Elon is involved, it must be noted — makes one wonder whether this is just another way for Republicans to make empty promises to slash big government while sustaining it through compromises and backsliding.
Thus, if DOGE is going to be effective, it’s going to have to be brutal. Like, Milton Friedman brutal.
Toward the end of the episode, Robinson — a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan best known for penning the line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — asked Friedman about a bit of “cabinet remodeling,” or what he’d do if he had his way with the (then) 14 cabinet-level departments there were.
Department of Agriculture: “Abolish,” Friedman said.
Department of Commerce: “Abolish,” Friedman said.
Department of Defense: “Keep.”
Department of Education: “Abolish.”
Department of the Interior: “Well, given the problem there is that you first have to sell off all the land that the government owns — but that’s what you should do. … The government now owns something like one third of all the land in the country, and that’s too much,” Friedman said, adding it should go down to almost zero. However, they should own government buildings, so maybe a very, very, verydownsized Department of the Interior would suit Friedman’s likings.
https://www.westernjournal.com/will-doge-famed-economist-breaks-take-sledgehammer-deep-state/
Milton Friedman was as good as it gets!
Related to US Government fraudulent spending of our tax dollars is the giant Climate Change Scam. The World Bank doesn’t know where the US funding $41 Billion went. I do. It lined the pockets of the $Billionaire elites! Climate Change is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the World!
“Climate Scam Unraveling: World Bank Really Doesn’t Know Where $41 Billion in Funding Goes”
Excerpts:
The controversy centers around an Oct. 2024 report titled “Climate Finance Unchecked: How much does the World Bank know about the climate actions it claims?” Answer: not as much as it probably should.
The findings are front-loaded in a TL;DR on page two of the 33-page report, in case you’re not interested in reading the whole thing through: “Oxfam finds that for World Bank projects, many things can change during implementation. On average, actual expenditures on the Bank’s projects differ from budgeted amounts by 26%-43% above or below the claimed climate finance. Across the entire climate finance portfolio, between 2017 and 2023, this difference amounts to US $24.28- US $41.32 Billion.” the report states.
https://www.westernjournal.com/climate-scam-unraveling-world-bank-really-doesnt-know-41-billion-funding-goes/#insticator-commenting
What’s “ten percent” of $41 billion, “Big Guy?”
We all know where “all that money” is going . . .
Milei in Argentina: “Fuera!”
Afuera!
DOGE needs to be renamed the Department of Government Shutdowns or DOGS. Release the DOGS dogs.
Will DOGE slash foreign aid to India?
Abolish USAID! Abolish corporate welfare!
To do so will require a functioning congress. We are not where near any kind of functionality in DC. DOGE can suggest but somebody else controls the purse.
Can you imagine the yelling and screaming if real cuts are implemented? Baton down the hatches. It’s either cut significantly or the Country dies.
FUBAR…
“Will DOGE Do This?”
DOGE is an advisory group!!! They have NO POWERS!
If CONgress doesn’t do what they advise and they WON’T unless it also coincides with the last paragraph of the following, they are just feel good noise about imaginary control of government:
Trust the science!™
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens [Princeton University, 2014]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/S1537592714001595a.pdf/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens.pdf
Excerpts:
A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.
When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system [that describes the overwhelming influence of The Blob – W], even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
***To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out; they fairly often get the policies they favor, but only because those policies happen also to be preferred by the economically-elite citizens [and their Blob – W] who wield the actual influence.***
How does anyone get past using child labor? Tucker should ask Elon about the use of children as young as four going down into the cobalt mines next time they chat.
Elon’s dream at any cost.
” In 2019, IRAdvocates, a US-based NGO filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, Google, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Dell alleging the corporations profited from child labour in their cobalt supply chains in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Plaintiffs are either guardians of children killed in cobalt mining tunnels or children who were maimed while working in the mines.”
~Business-Human Rights Org
Elon is evil. We should know this now.
He hasn’t won one yet! (Other than the SC decision and the federal judge in WPB!).
“A federal appeals court has upheld the $5m verdict against Donald Trump for sexually abusing and defaming the magazine writer E Jean Carroll, dealing a legal setback to the president-elect.
The three-judge panel at the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump’s arguments for a new trial, ruling that evidence including testimony from other accusers – as well as the infamous Access Hollywood tape that captured him boasting about how it was normal for him to “grab [women] by the pussy” – was properly admitted.
The May 2023 verdict found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a New York department store dressing room in about 1996, 20 years before winning his first presidency, though the jury stopped short of calling the case a rape. The verdict included $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defaming Carroll in an October 2022 social media post where he called her allegations a “hoax”.”
The fact that she’s publicly accused a half-dozen professional men of rape and said that The Apprentice was her favorite TV Show didn’t matter to the Appeals Court…but we knew that going in!
Using her logic he should accuse her of raping him with her mind.
What really stuck in her craw was Trump saying “She wasn’t my type.” Haha Not then and certainly not now.
Keep in mind this ruling was on the mechanics and technicalities of the process, AND NOT on the substance of the original charge by that fraudulent woman.
It’s pretty scary when someone can be convicted of assault with absolutely no evidence. As I recall, there were no witnesses, and Trump was a highly recognizable person. They met walking down the streets of NY and went into a large department store and strolled up to the women’s clothing department and no one noticed. Then she could not only remember the month this occurred or even the year.
If someone can be convicted of assault with absolutely no evidence , not even circumstantial, then we are really in trouble-let the law suits flourish.
It’s called: extortion. And unfortunately it happens all the time. Sometimes, no matter what a woman says about a rich man, she is automatically believed.
The only purpose of it all was, and still is, to “Get Trump.™”
And the dress she claimed she was wearing was not made at the time.
How dare you say you’re innocent! You’ve defamed the accuser!
DECEMBER 30 2024
Trump loses appeal of $5 million verdict in E. Jean Carroll sex abuse trial
NEW YORK — An appeals court has upheld a $5 million verdict against Donald Trump for sexually abusing and defaming magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
A three-judge panel at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled Monday that Judge Lewis Kaplan didn’t get it wrong when he allowed two other women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct to take the stand, and let the jury hear the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.
https://www.swoknews.com/ap/national/trump-loses-appeal-of-5-million-verdict-in-e-jean-carroll-sex-abuse-trial/article_a838cc67-0f0a-5058-821b-4116652f0c81.html
===========================
reuters
Trump loses appeal of E. Jean Carroll $5-million defamation, sexual assault verdict
“Taking the record as a whole and considering the strength of Ms. Carroll’s case, we are not persuaded that any claimed error or combination of errors in the district court’s evidentiary rulings affected Mr. Trump’s substantial rights,” the court said in an unsigned decision.
[…]Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said in a statement: “E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision.”
[…]The court also rejected Trump’s claim that Kaplan should have allowed evidence that a prominent Democratic critic, billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, funded Carroll’s case, saying it had “little probative value.” Carroll is also a Democrat.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-loses-appeal-e-jean-carroll-5-million-defamation-verdict-2024-12-30/
…….and considering the strength of Ms. Carroll’s case, …….
And what strength would that be ? I know of no evidence that was presented other than a previous comment by Trump that was video recorded and released by ABC(?) before the 2016 election. I think about how easy women are with celebrity advances…grabbing….
If that’s their strength then never tell an off color joke. You may live to regret it.
Underscore Manhattan….I can hardly wait until the Epstein data is released and Hoffman is exposed.
The post millennial says Trump endorsed Johnson for speaker of the 119 congress. Is this just ti make sure Trump can get sworn in?
Yes!
Yes
They will harvest all of us….
I frankly do not believe assertions like this one. Period.
Well, believe it… it happened. It is on video AND there are records. The guy who exposed this was prosecuted by Kamala…
Yes, as you mentioned, Observer, David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress did the exposé and were brought into court by Harris. You can look it up. All too sadly, Lila Rosa’s assertion is accurate.
Thank you , liberty, I could not remember David’s name when I responded to Mike, who must have been asleep when this all took place. Even Fox covered it!
If you can’t accept this much of the Truth . . . you are potentiaally about to have a really tough year, Mike.
Jim Caveziel and Lara Logan did not turn their eyes away.
I don’t know whether the rumors of Marines saving 2,000 kids marked in permanent ink categories (organs, slaves, sex) the last time the power went out in LA has anything behind it or not. But I would not rule it out.
Dave Daleiden is a hero who documented a very real reality.
Put on the full armor of God.
And contemplate: How does PDJT know most of the missing 350,000 or more kids are dead?
Who killed them?
How?
Why?
They are resorting to name-calling.
Noticing a reality of DEI bigotry and discrimination – and mobilizing politically to fight it – is the opposite of woke.
They label it “woke” so you run away screaming and give up.
That’s the most horrible “spin” on the angle of “both sides do it!.” No, they don’t. It’s like saying “The Republicans wanted slavery too!”
It has NOTHING to do with RACE. Family members applied for jobs in the CDF, California Department of Forestry back in the era of Affirmative Action. One person received the letter from the state of California saying, “congratulations you tested the top in the group but unfortunately we are mandated to hire women and minorities.” I paraphrased but that is exactly why we are pissed off that foreigners are getting jobs Americans should.
Yes the state of California stated in writing my family couldn’t work for the state of California because of Race and Gender.
We are sick of it!!!!!!!!!!!
I think the CCP made that term up just to muddy the waters.
Who else here thinks corporations destroyed Christmas? What is the reason for the season?
President Donald Trump has endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson to continue in his role as House Speaker under the incoming 119th Congress.
The President doesnt have any better option unfortunately. Election Fraud the biggest contributor right now to maintaining the UniParty status quo in Congress.
DECEMBER 30 2024
Tucker Carlson
Brigham Buhler: UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassination, & the Mass Monetization of Chronic Illness
=============================
0:00 The Assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO
13:32 The Opioid Crisis Could Have Been Prevented
27:32 Monetizing Your Chronic Illness
32:17 How Health Insurance Companies Are Scamming You
48:01 The Mass Exodus of Doctors
52:55 How They Profit off of Cancer
1:07:11 Trump’s Plan to Cut Out the Medical Middle Man
1:20:34 Why Are Media Outlets Lying About This?
=====================================
This is definitely a topic I try to steer clear of because it has helped a lot of people with health issues. However, I do believe there is a difference between legalization for all and Medical legalization. President Trump has also weighed in on this topic. I honestly thought Elton John would say something far different, after all he is a liberal.
“Music Legend Rips Apart America and Canada Making ‘Greatest Mistakes of All Time’”
Excerpts:
After chronicling his own sordid past when it came to drug use, John toldTime that he thinks North America has made a catastrophic mistake with its laissez-faire attitude towards marijuana.
I maintain that it’s addictive,” John said. “It leads to other drugs.”
Beyond the gateway drug hypothesis, there’s also been plenty of reports suggesting that marijuana isn’t as harmless as its advocates would have you think.
But the British musician saved his most biting critique for addressing North America directly: “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”
“John now divides his life into pre- and post-sober periods,” Time noted. “He has helped many people kick drugs and has offered to help many more.
Time said that John “offers a balanced answer, suggesting that while alcohol is part of the fabric of society, there are studies that find it’s much less healthy than people believe it to be.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/music-legend-rips-apart-america-canada-making-greatest/
“This summer, President-elect Trump outlined reasonable and fair changes to cannabis laws that included an end to minor possession incarcerations, legalization of adult use in Florida, recategorization of marijuana to a lower-risk drug, support for states’ rights to pass reforms and commercial banking access for legal cannabis businesses.”
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2024/12/12/fixing_weed_one_election_issue_in_which_theres_consensus_1078280.html
Medicines aren’t party drugs.
Rick Simpson Oil. Used only for medicine as a “cure” for cancer and many other health issues.
Rick Simpson uses marijuana only to help people, and had to flee his home country of Canada due to being arrested multiple times.
https://ricksimpsonoil.com/
Queen John of Elton maintains he is HIV negative.
He may be addicted to Fauci’s HIV drugs.
Elton John honors Anthony Fauci on World AIDS Day
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/01/politics/fauci-elton-john-usglc-world-aids-day/index.html
“It’s all his fault we are spending $6 billion in tax payer dollars on HIV and AIDS this month”
Of course he “honors” Fauci. It is what he and his sycophantic and obsequious friends do in the presence of Fauci.
no sniff there…….yet
.
I have seen a number of articles to the effect that there is no definitive evidence that cannabis is any better for pain relief than placebos. Also arguments that some people consciously or subconsciously have ulterior motives in wanting marijuana rather than an established pain killer.
My personal experience with this drug is close to nil, but I do wonder why, after decades of people using it to get high, and then fairly recently the claim that it helps with nausea, it took so long for the newest claim of “pain relief” to come to the fore.
I am suspicious of Big Pharma’s motivations in their negative research, as well as the tobacco industry’s wanting pot growing to continue to be “regulated” because that means profits for them. From a libertarian standpoint, if it’s so safe, why not just let people grow their own.
.
Marijuana has been used for pain relief since at least the 1980’s. The 50-ish guy downstairs from us in the apartment building we lived in used it for that, he had a very bad back and surgeries. We ran the fan a lot.
Just curious if anyone else is getting spammed by adware when they specifically visit this website? This is the only page where I see these “Alert! Your computer is contaminated” attacks or fake deals from Qwest. I see it on my phone and PC browsers. But no other websites I visit are affected. Trying to figure out if this is on my end or if it’s originating from elsewhere.
I used to get them with Firefox browser. I swapped to brave browser and all the crap stopped.
Same here, only I used Safari on my Mac, now Brave!
I use DDG and it’s usually good at blocking that stuff. It’s odd that I’ve only seen it at CTH, nowhere else.
Just started on me, too, since the H1-B articles were posted. I’m on an iPhone using the Safari browser.
Three weeks from today.
CNN propagandist admits on air the real reason everyone in the MSM is just now noticing FJB’s obvious mental acuity decline. It’s his age…they admit this so they can now spend the next four years diminishing President Trumps’s accomplishments and focusing solely on the 25th Amendment because, well just because. My Mom has friends that are in their 80s and 90s that could literally run circles around FJB, both mentally and physically.
“Scott Jennings Sets Delusional CNN Panel Straight on the Truth About Biden’s ‘Legacy’”
Excerpts:
Anyone with a shred of objectivity in them should be able to look at all that and admit that Joe Biden’s four years as president were less-than-stellar, to say the absolute least.
The presidency ages you. And so I’m interested to see how Donald Trump continues to look, act, if he has the same vigor over the next two, three, four years, because being an 80-year-old president, as we have just seen for the last four years, is a bit much.”
Comparing FJB and President Trump will be like comparing apples to oranges…but they will try. They will pick apart every sentence uttered, especially gaffes or when he misspeaks.
(Oh, now they care about a president’s age.)
But as we continue to learn about the massive cover-up that went on, not about his health, but about his mental acuity, to cover that up, the efforts that were undertaken by the White House staff, by his family, not in the last couple of months, but for all four years, I think it’s going to be a really ugly chapter.
“It’s a diminished presidency because of it. And I think we still don’t know the full extent of what they did to try to hide what they have been doing over in the West Wing.”
While quote-posting the above clip, Jennings took to X to note: “He’s a disgrace. Pardons. Commutations. Corruption. Coverups. The absolute degrading and ransacking of the presidency.”
https://www.westernjournal.com/scott-jennings-sets-delusional-cnn-panel-straight-truth-bidens-legacy/
@ScottJennings dismantled a CNN panel as they attempted to defend Joe Biden’s legacy:
“I think he’s going to leave office in disgrace.”
“The Hunter Biden pardon was disgraceful. He’s going to be remembered largely for inflation and for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout. And I think as we continue to we’re just getting the first draft of this now.”
“But as we continue to learn about the massive cover up that went on, not about his health, but about his mental acuity to cover that up, the efforts, that were undertaken by the White House staff, by his family, not in the last couple of months, but for all four years. I think it’s going to be a really ugly chapter.”
“I think we still don’t know the full extent of what they did to try to hide what they’ve been doing over in the West Wing.”
Judge Hur even tried to tell them, but NO! His evaluation of Biden didn’t fit their narrative!
Joint Strategic Plan 2022 – State Dept and USAID – March 2022
April 8, 2024
USAID’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Foreign Assistancen
https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/Information%20Brief%20on%20USAID%27s%20Use%20of%20Artificial%20Intelligence%20Technologies%20in%20Foreign%20Assistance%20Programs_0.pdf
USAID is leaning into artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies to enhance the Agency’s ability to carry out its foreign assistance mandate around the world. According to the Agency, “promising applications funded by USAID are proliferating across various geographies and sectors, including agriculture, health and infectious diseases, civic spaces and democracy, education … and humanitarian assistance.”
This information brief describes USAID’s approach to using AI in foreign assistance programs as well as the associated benefits and risks of expanded AI use. We prepared this brief using public and nonpublic information.
Two Executive Orders guide Federal agencies’ increasing use of AI..
A December 2020 order promotes AI use to improve Federal government operations while protecting privacy, civil rights, and other laws. The order also required agencies to submit their AI inventory annually to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
An October 2023 order establishes a government-wide effort to guide responsible AI development and deployment through industry regulations and engagement with international partners.3
USAID states it must must ensure Principles for Digital Development are implemented…
See page 8 linked below for unsaid AI action plan which “must” use Principles for Digital Development
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/USAID_Artificial_Intelligence_Action_Plan.pdf
*****
2024 – Principles for Digital Development are launched at ICT4D Conference
The Principles for Digital Development serve as a compass for those working to promote sustainable and inclusive development in today’s complex digital landscape. Using these Principles as a starting point, policymakers, practitioners, and technologists will be better equipped to ensure that all people can benefit from digital initiatives and from the broader digital society.
Originally developed in 2014, the Principles are officially endorsed by more than 300 organizations, including donors, international organizations, and civil society organizations. During the first decade (2014-2024), they widely influenced funder procurement policies and the design and implementation of development programs.
In 2024, the Principles were updated in consultation with a diverse set of individuals and organizations. Through this effort, the community expressed the need for the Principles to better reflect that people today largely interact with technology outside of development programs. Today, all people – even those who do not yet have access to or use technology – live in societies that are increasingly shaped by digital ecosystems that can bring both immense benefit and immense harm. Therefore, the refreshed Principles recognize the need for radical inclusion and local ownership; elevate issues arising from the generation and use of digital data; emphasize that open approaches to innovation can support the realization of the nine Principles; and intentionally speak to the original audience while resonating further with the full diversity of individuals and organizations that exert power over the design, deployment, and governance of digital systems and solutions. The Principles are mutually reinforcing, as they emphasize the actions needed to ensure no one is left behind in an increasingly digital world.
https://digitalprinciples.org
Apologies for the long thread but thought important to link.
12TH ICT4D CONFERENCE UPDATE
https://www.ict4dconference.org/12-ict4d-conference-update/
…Senior Practitioners from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, and CRS are among the first to join the plenary.
…The 12th ICT4D Conference, founded by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is taking place in Accra, Ghana on March 19 – 20, 2024. The internationally recognized Conference brings together technical advisors and senior practitioners from community-led organizations, NGOs, multilateral agencies, research institutions, and private sector companies. The purpose of the Conference is to facilitate meaningful discourse and collaboration focused on the use of digital technology and data innovations for good. The event in Accra will feature over 80 sessions led by thought leaders in technology for global development.
Led by CRS, the ICT4D Conference is co-organized by a robust list of consortium partners and sponsors from the global digital development community. This year’s consortium partners include Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), eGov Foundation, Mercy Corps, MERL Tech, Public Digital, and SOS Children’s Villages. The event is sponsored by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bixal, DataKind, Esri, NetHope, RedRose, Sahaj, Microsoft, ActivityInfo, Element22, GeniusTags, Bluesquare, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
The agenda is jam-packed with interactive sessions on some of the most current topics in ICT4D such as generative AI and locally-led digital transformation, as well as discussions and case studies on truly impactful uses of ICTs for impact. At the high level, we have three focus themes for the Conference agenda: digital approaches to wicked problems, exploring data innovations for impact, and discussing how to build responsible, sustainable, and locally owned digital foundations.
… Joshua Templeton, Foreign Service Officer for USAID will be presenting a case study on harnessing AI to mitigate the effects of climate change, soil degradation, and food insecurity. Addressing the food security challenge, Kathryn Clifton and Austen Moore will share how Catholic Relief Services is scaling machine learning to strengthen resilience and address food insecurity. There is also a strong focus on digital health, covering topics such as system strengthening and integrated health systems. Representatives from Tai Tanzania, African Health Innovation Centre, and Mumble will present health innovations at the Demonstration Stage. One of the world’s largest NGOs focused on supporting vulnerable children and young people, SOS Children’s Villages, are facilitating a panel discussion on youth engagement and employment.
The data innovations for impact theme focuses on the opportunities and challenges presented by the rapid advancements in our ability to leverage data.
Thanks, RG,
A little history … This is a 2021 article from Forbes about the efforts of the first Trump administration to curtail H1B visas. It highlights the resulting court cases.
To me the general tone of the article seems biased against the Trump administration’s efforts. Also it uncritically quotes opinions about H1B benefits to America and Americans. However, I think the granular information is very valuable. It gave me a new perspective on what the first Trump administration actually did and the battles it faced in this regard.
And likely will face again.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/02/01/the-story-of-how-trump-officials-tried-to-end-h-1b-visas/
Here’s a quote from near the end of the article:
“The fatal blow to the core of the Trump administration’s restrictive H-1B visa policies came in an opinion issued on March 10, 2020. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer invalidated the key USCIS memos and policies that caused H-1B denial rates to skyrocket, particularly for IT services companies.
“ ‘A decision like this has been long overdue. We finally have the judicial system agreeing with the employers that USCIS has been out of bounds for a long time,’ said ITServe Alliance National President Amar Varada. “
“Amar Varada” thinks rules thwarting his invasion of the US with his minions are bad bad bad…
So, it appears that President Trump did try to take care of the issue pursuant to the Disney workers having to train their foreign replacements and was thwarted by a left wing DC Judge (who also happened to be on the FISA court).
Disgusting.
DECEMBER 30 2024
reuters
Germany accuses Elon Musk of trying to influence its election
The German government accused U.S. billionaire Elon Musk on Monday of trying to influence its election due in February with articles supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, even though it suggested they amounted to “nonsense”.
[…]Musk is free to express his opinion, the spokesperson said, adding:
“After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.”
[…]The government spokesperson said Musk’s endorsement of the AfD was “a recommendation to vote for a party that is being monitored (by domestic intelligence) on suspicion of being right-wing extremist and which has already been recognised as partly right-wing extremist”.
[…]Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats and current favourite to succeed Scholz as chancellor, told Funke that Musk’s comments were “intrusive and pretentious”.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/berlin-says-elon-musk-trying-exert-influence-over-german-election-2024-12-30/
========================
the guardian
Berlin accuses Elon Musk of trying to influence German election
( 1 min 44 )
CBC News
Germany accuses Elon Musk of interfering in their upcoming election
Musk’s op-ed was published in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper over the weekend,
and it was met by criticism from politicians and the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor.
( 2 min 53 )
bloomberg
Germany Latest: Musk Reiterates Support for Far-Right AfD as Election Looms
( 4 min 24 )
DECEMBER 30 2024
GERMANY _ MAGDEBURG
German official says Christmas market attack suspect shows signs of mental illness
The German government, under fire for failing to prevent a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market, said Monday that the tragedy would have been hard to prevent and said that the suspect appeared to be mentally disturbed.
[…]no motive had yet been established
[…]“there are striking signs of a pathological psyche.”
[…]don’t fit conventional threat categories and who “are psychologically disturbed and… driven by confused conspiracy theories.”
[…]The minister argued that “such attackers do not fit any threat profile” — such as far-right extremist or Islamist —
[…]Faeser said there were “tens of thousands of tweets” the suspect had posted over the years that were yet to be fully examined.
[…]he posted rambling commentary on X, among other things blaming Germany’s supposed liberalism for the death of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates,
[…]The state premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, described it at the time as “a lone attack.”
[…] the suspect had in the past been treated for mental illness and tested positive for drug use on the night of his arrest.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-christmas-market-attack-suspect-mental-illness/
How about what the hell is he doing in the country in the first place?
Maybe there were no Germans smart enough to be psychiatrists and they had to bring him in to save the country./sarc
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113743482601368738
Get ready to go under the bus, American workers.
People who believe Americans should have American jobs and be paid enough to live in America have been threatened with “war,” called racists and implicitly been labeled lazy, uneducated, and culturally lacking.
I guess if you illegally enter the country but “work like hell” you are welcome.
Has the America first principle been traded for the “work like hell” principle.
FWIW: I am sorry for the vulgarity but it seems the be the new standard being set by our leaders.
With all due respect, Elon is not my leader and none of them set my standards.
Elon deserves zero respect. Hes a grifter and a fraud.
Thankfully, patriots are responding to him with the truth and are doing it with great assertiveness!
There are cemeteries loaded with dead “contributors”. Everyone else is indebted.
At least you can answer him on truth social?
Yes
To be fair, this particular post by Musk that was reposted on Truth by President Trump, doesn’t specifically point to H1B, although I can’t see the context of the entire thread, if there was one, and they are three days apart (is that correct?)–an eternity in politics.
President Trump could be referring to legal immigration, regular jobs, regular working citizens? Are we sure that he is referring to H1B’s? I hope this is not “TRUTH” and an ambiguous statement of DJT’s policy regarding H1B’s.
This seems wishy-washy to me and doesn’t really answer the question as to policy–or maybe that’s what makes me more comfortable to believe.
Here is the X/tweet from Elon’s timeline:
Good grief. First he says he loves H1b visas and were all supposed to excuse it because he doesn’t really use H1b visas. Now he retweets Elon respecting everyone who comes here and works hard has his respect. How wilfully blind are we expected to be? Why doesn’t he just say what he means. Hes playing stupid games and frankly I’m sick to death of it.
.
Trump can “endorse” this statement because it doesn’t mean much. The overwhelming entirety of the U.S. population came from immigrants. That doesn’t mean we can’t pause all of it now — with great “respect” for those who “worked like hell”. There is ample precedent. We mostly did that between 1924 and 1965.
.
Its a racket and he knows its a racket. He knows its bad for American workers because he said so in 2016. He has chosen his side and no amount of spin is going to change that.
.
He has chosen his side…
He has? Why do you say this? Cite please.
In his first administration, Trump did more than talk — he tried but was thwarted in attempts to cut down on these visas (he has more reaffirmed Supreme Court authority to do so now). He’s nominated anti-immigration Stephen Miller as Dep. Chief of Policy.
.
The tweet he retweeted or re truthed of Elons above us. Thats my citation.
Shame on Trump.
So illegals too.
wow … I’ve had two wow moments today
Will you please comment on the bird flu situation? It’s pretty obvious they’re trying to make it a thing either before or during Trump’s inauguration.
Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, and Dr. Wu are all back just in time for Trump’s inauguration.
Bird flu lockdowns coming?
Love that Fauci is saying it will magically mix with covid to create a whole new virus. Doesn’t sound engineered at all. Interesting we never see this with regular cold and flu.
Of course the sheep are eating it up. By the way, the thing about avian flu having a mortality rate round 50% is a lie. In fact they weren’t even sure back then: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/h5n1-bird-flu-case-fatality-calculations/
“As for how far off the case/fatality rate is, there is no way of knowing. Uyeki, who has studied the issue at length, gives his estimate: “Are we missing some [cases]? Yeah, probably we’re missing some. But are we missing hundreds of thousands? No, I don’t think so. Are we missing tens of thousands? Probably not. Are we missing hundreds? Possibly. It’s really hard to know.”
And to think, we had the same sort of so called experts saying the same thing during covid, but better lockdown the whole country! Just in case!
I swear if Trump lets states lockdown again without intervention…
.
These people are the infection.
.
You win the internet today! 😀
they are getting ready to unleash another virus. Just wait and see. All three of these people need to be tried for treason and thrown in jail. May they all burn in hell
DECEMBER 30 2024
FRANCE – Strasbourg
Car-becue
University Of Iowa Slated To Roll Back Gender, Women’s, And Sexuality Studies Department
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/university-of-iowa-slated-to-roll-back-gender-womens-and-sexuality-studies-department/
The University of Iowa has revealed that it plans on closing its Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies department as public universities begin rolling back DEI programs.
Now University of New Hampshire!
After the H1B reveal for the scam it is lets do Foreign Medical Grads next. https://www.businessinsider.com/india-families-paying-thousands-help-students-cheat-entrance-exams-2024-9
Yes, please!!!
LIVE Exclusive W/Daniel Horowitz – New Year 2025 Analysis On Culture, Economy & Politics (2:35:02)
The Shannon Joy Show
30 Dec 2024
https://rumble.com/v643sqy-live-exclusive-wdaniel-horowitz-new-year-2025-analysis-on-culture-economy-a.html
Book:
Rise of the Fourth Reich: Confronting COVID Fascism with a New Nuremberg Trial, So This Never Happens Again (February 14, 2023) – Daniel Horowitz (Author)
Braxton McCoy
@braxton_mccoy
I don’t know if this is true so take it with a grain of salt, but I have had several truck drivers/owners of trucking companies tell me H1Bs are ruining the industry. Several claimed the government helps H1Bs pay for their trucks, which makes it easier for these people to undercut American drivers/companies.
https://x.com/braxton_mccoy/status/1872318275499004226
But Elon and Trump love them so shut up America.
👎👎👎👎
REPORT: Costco defends DEI program as other major retailers drop controversial diversity push. The wholesaler’s board of directors is urging shareholders to vote against a proposal that would eliminate the company’s DEI program.
https://truthsocial.com/@Electionwiz/113741736129905728
Vivek Ramaswamy’s father never became an American Citizen. I did not know that. His ties to India must be very strong.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/vivek-ramaswamy-s-father-still-holds-indian-passport-but-mom-became-us-citizen-because-101731397209692.html
Indians are notorious for only hiring other Indians. He’s going to disenfranchise our nation from the top down.
Because we aren’t a country we are a host organism
NEITHER PARENT WERE CITIZENS of The UNITED STATES
When VIVEK Was BORN —> HIS DAD STILL Is NOT a CITIZEN of The UNITED STATES according to This Article Above !
JUST LIKE KAMALA HARRIS –
PAST TIME For THIS SUBJECT To BE ADJUDICATED and ARGUED By CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS
with ALL FOOTNOTES PRESENTED
in
the HOUSE, SENATE and THEN The COURTS In THIS ORDER.
ADDRESS the ISSUE
EDUCATE the LEGAL CITIZEN POPULACE of THE LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS of THIS PERVERSION of THE CONSTITUTION and U.S. CODE
DEBATE The ISSUES in the PEOPLE’S HOUSE
and
THEN SCHOLARS / LAWYERS ARGUE Before THE COURTS
How many don’t go home, overstay or violate the terms of admission? These are NOT H1b or other work visa, H1 is only the tip of the iceberg.
DHS Non Immigrant Admissions
U.S. Nonimmigrant Admissions 2023 Annual Flow Report
Nonimmigrants are foreign nationals with permanent residence outside the United States who are granted temporary admission to the United States for a specific purpose, including temporary visits for business or pleasure, academic or vocational study, temporary employment, and to act as a representative of a foreign government or international organization. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) collects information regarding nonimmigrant admissions at ports of entry (POEs) and from DHS Form I-94/I-94W.1 The 2023 U.S. Nonimmigrant Admissions Annual Flow Report, authored by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS), presents workload information on total nonimmigrant admissions and detailed data gathered from I-94 arrival records on the number and characteristics of nonimmigrant admissions to the United States in Fiscal Year 2023.2 SUMMARY In 2023, DHS granted an estimated 132 million nonimmigrant admissions to the United States (Figure 1).3 These included 68 million admissions of nonimmigrants who were issued Form I-94, the primary focus of this report.4 Nonimmigrant admissions in 2023 increased 52 percent from 2022 and were 16 percent lower than 2019, the last pre-pandemic full year. During the pandemic, nonimmigrant admissions reached a low point of 160,000 in April 2020, followed by an overall increase to a high of 7.1 million in August 2023, and then 6.2 million in September 2023 (Figure 2). Of the over 68 million I-94 amissions in 2023, 88 percent were temporary visitors for business or pleasure, 7.3 percent were temporary workers and their families, and 2.5 percent were students and their families (Table 1). As in 2022, the four leading countries of citizenship for I-94 admissions were Mexico (29 percent), Canada (20 percent), the United Kingdom (6.2 percent), and India (3.8 percent) (Table 2). The fifth leading country was Germany (2.9 percent), replacing France from 2022.
Footnone #4
I-94 data do not describe all nonimmigrant admissions because certain visitors are not required to have an I-94 form, including all sea and air crew admissions (D1 and D2 visas) and a large share of Mexican and Canadian business and tourist travelers, as discussed elsewhere in this report. Current DHS data systems limit this report to the I-94 population, but OHSS is working to describe characteristics of all nonimmigrant admissions in future reports.
I really do not understand why people are upset with President Trump endorsing Speaker Johnson for another term as Speaker since not one single Republican Congress member has stepped up and declared they themself want to be Speaker nor has anyone offered to fight to become Speaker and everyone of those Freedom Caucus members crying and moaning about this – it’s on them, they are creating this drama because, why not?, is getting very old and seems to be all that group does anymore, make noise and keep people upset.
He had to do it because he was told that congress could choose not certify his election if the Republicans don’t have a speaker or some such thing. I agree with your last two sentences, also…
Whether there is a rule like that or not, having a speaker fight right now would cause chaos. President Trump ‘s immediate goal is to get the certification done. After that, as he would say, “Let’s see what happens.”
Right. i agree.
That makes sense.