[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 09 February 2017 08:16.
Visigrad Post, “Central Europe Unites to Put an End to Illegal Immigration” 9 Feb 2017:
Austria, Vienna – Ministers from 15 countries gathered in Vienna on Wednesday, February 8, in order to find a common way to put an end to the illegal immigration in the Balkans and Central Europe.
Representatives from Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechia, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Greece, as well as officials of the Central European Defence Cooperation took part at the meeting.
Countries along the Balkan migration route agreed on Wednesday to seal the already hard borders and prevent a possible new surge of people trying to reach wealthy EU countries. Since the countries on the Balkans’ route already secured their borders a year ago, the number of illegal immigrants has dramatically dwindled, but hundreds of migrants still try each month to take this route.
A plan to plug the remaining gaps on the route from Greece to Austria and Germany is to be drawn up by April, defence and interior ministers from affected countries decided at a conference in Vienna.
The agreement anticipates the potential collapse of the EU‘s deal with Turkey to keep migrants and refugees.
American tech companies are gearing up to protect the thousands of workers they rely on every year who aren’t U.S. citizens and don’t have green cards.
Silicon Valley has aggressively backed legislation to protect and expand the H-1B program for temporary workers, but President Trump appears to have other ideas. He is reportedly preparing to sign a new immigration-related executive order that includes an effort to overhaul the H-1B visa program, putting in place protectionist rules that would upend the way Silicon Valley recruits talent.
Tech leaders have been warning of a “brain drain” since Election Day — and now there’s talk of companies moving employees to Canada.
A leaked draft of the executive order disseminated by Vox featured vague wording, calling for plans to “alter” the H-1B visa program, although experts point out that such changes would require an act of Congress. The draft order also discusses reforming programs that allow foreign students into the U.S. — since they pay full price, they’re an important source of tuition dollars for top-flight public universities — before then entering the American workforce.
A spokesperson for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, said that USCIS does not comment on pending legislation or executive actions.
Designed as a temporary visa for skilled workers, the H-1B became a way for corporate America to bring in highly skilled foreigners without having to tackle the permanent resident program — i.e., green cards, which are capped by country of origin, a rule that disproportionately affects places like China and India. When the program was introduced in 1990, about 800 H-1Bs were issued. By 2014, that number had grown to more than 160,000.
Both Republicans and Democrats are now pushing for reform of the program, ostensibly in order to protect U.S. workers.
GOP opposition to the H-1B in particular has been mounting for some time, but Republican politicians have generally been wary of either stifling some of America’s most successful companies or taking on immigration reform and infuriating the party’s anti-immigration base. Not all Republican politicians, however; in 2015, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions — Trump’s nominee for Attorney General — introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at curtailing the number of visas given out.
A recent bipartisan effort to tackle the issue took the form of a Senate bill introduced by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin that aimed to reform the program by creating higher salary floors for H-1B visas and making sure U.S. workers are given first dibs on potential H-1B jobs.
Two of Trump’s top advisers who reportedly crafted the refugee ban — ex-Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon and former Sessions adviser Stephen Miller — have also taken aim at Silicon Valley in the past. Earlier in January, Miller is said to have proposed both completely scrapping the lottery system used to award H-1B visas and increasing the minimum salary companies must pay visa holders in order to prevent the undercutting of more expensive American labor. Before Bannon was tapped as Trump’s campaign chief, he suggested in a 2015 interview with Trump that “when two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia,” it could undermine “civic society.”
Silicon Valley says in no uncertain terms that its success is due in part to its meritocratic embrace of anybody from anywhere who has the talent to compete. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who emigrated to the U.S. from India, told columnist Walt Mossberg, “In Silicon Valley, being an immigrant doesn’t matter. It’s the ideas that matter. We are able to build products for everyone because we attract talent from around the world.”
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 02 February 2017 05:54.
TNO, “Germany: 99.9% of Invaders Will Stay”, 2 Feb 2017
Contrary to German government claims that “refugees” will go home once there is “peace in their countries,” new statistics show that only one out of every 1,000 invaders granted “asylum” are ever refused permanent residence.
According to an investigation by Die Welt newspaper, “almost all refugees are allowed to stay permanently” in Germany, even those who were only initially granted “temporary subsidiary protection.”
The investigation revealed that the latest figures from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) proved that in 99 percent of cases, once anyone had been recognized as a “refugee,” they could remain permanently in Germany.
According to the Geneva Convention, the report continued, “asylum and refugee protection are granted for a limited period of three years.”
However, after the expiration of this period, those granted “protection” are then almost always given indefinite leave to remain, Die Welt revealed.
..after which time they are in position to spread to other parts of Europe.
“Meet the top Jewish officials in the Trump Administration”
American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope. Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” Those fears intensified when Trump named as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site Bannon once referred to as a “platform” of the alt-right. Trump’s strongly conservative Cabinet picks also back policies on health care, the environment, abortion and civil rights often diametrically opposed to the views of most Jewish voters.
Yet others have praised Trump’s stance on Israel and his nomination of David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who supports West Bank settlement construction and has expressed doubts about the two-state solution, as US ambassador to Israel. Trump won 24% of the Jewish vote, with especially strong support in the Orthodox community.
(Trump: “We have to protect Israel”)
Here is a look at the president’s Jewish advisers who will be helping to shape US policy for the next four years.
Jared Kushner
Trump’s Orthodox son-in law is serving as a senior adviser to the president. Kushner, the 36-year-old scion of a prominent real estate family from New Jersey, will not receive a salary and will focus on the Middle East and Israel as well as partnerships with the private sector and free trade, according to The New York Times. A day before his appointment was announced, Kushner said he would step down from his role as CEO of his family firm, Kushner Properties.
Kushner, who married Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2009, played a crucial role in the president’s campaign, especially on Israel. He worked on Trump’s speech to the AIPAC annual policy conference that earned the real estate mogul a standing ovation, and helped plan a trip to Israel for his father-in-law in 2016 (Trump canceled the trip after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his call to ban Muslim immigration to the United States).
Trump appears to be smitten with Kushner, often referring to his “fantastic” son-in-law when boasting of his pro-Israel credentials.
Kushner may have become a household name during the campaign, but he’s no stranger to the limelight. In 2006, at 25, he bought the New York Observer newspaper. Two years later he became CEO of Kushner Properties, four years after his father was sent to jail for tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. In 2015, Fortune named Kushner to its 40 Under 40 list, an “annual ranking of the most influential young people in business.”
Stephen Miller
Trump named Miller, who has played a crucial role in his campaign by writing speeches and warming up crowds at rallies, as senior adviser for policy.
Miller, who has described himself as “a practicing Jew,” joined the Trump campaign in early 2016, quickly rising through the ranks to become “one of the most important people in the campaign,” as Trump’s campaign manager told The Wall Street Journal.
Previously the 31-year-old worked for seven years as an aide to Trump’s choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., helping the lawmaker draft materials to kill a bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill. Some of Sessions’ arguments are similar to the harsh and often controversial statements by Trump on the issue, such as calling for building a wall on the Mexican border and banning Muslim immigration to the US.
Though Miller grew up in a liberal Jewish home in Southern California, he was drawn to conservative causes early. As a high school student he wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper in which he slammed his school for providing free condoms to students and for making announcements both in English and Spanish, among other things.
Carl Icahn
Icahn, a businessman and investor, is serving as a special adviser on regulatory reform issues. He is working as a private citizen rather than a federal employee or special government employee.
An early supporter of Trump’s candidacy, Icahn, 80, is the founder of Icahn Enterprises, a diversified conglomerate based in New York City formerly known as American Real Estate Partners. He has also held substantial or controlling positions in numerous American companies over the years, including RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Philips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Revlon, Time Warner, Motorola, Chesapeake Energy, Dell, Netflix, Apple and eBay.
Icahn is a major giver to Mount Sinai hospital in New York City, among other philanthropic endeavors. In 2012, he donated $200 million to the renamed Icahn School of Medicine there.
In addition, Icahn established seven Icahn Charter Schools in the Bronx borough of New York.
Steven Mnuchin
Trump picked Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who worked as Trump’s national finance chairman during the campaign, to serve as Treasury secretary.
Trump and Mnuchin have been friends for 15 years, and prior to being in charge of Trump’s campaign finances, Mnuchin, 54, served as an adviser. Part of what The New York Times describes as one of Manhattan’s “most influential families,” Mnuchin and his father — the prominent art dealer Robert Mnuchin — both became wealthy working at Goldman Sachs. The younger Mnuchin also co-founded the entertainment company RatPac-Dune Entertainment, which has worked on such Hollywood hits as “Avatar” and “Black Swan.”
Some saw Trump teaming up with Mnuchin as unusual, considering that the real-estate mogul had consistently bashed Goldman Sachs during his campaign — but it doesn’t seem to have hindered a good working relationship.
Boris Epshteyn
Epshteyn, a Republican political strategist who appeared as a Trump surrogate on TV, is working as a special assistant to the president. Epshteyn, who is in his mid-30s, also is serving as assistant communications director for surrogate operations.
A New York-based investment banker and finance attorney, Epshteyn was a communications aide for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008, focusing his efforts on the Arizona senator’s running mate, then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
He defended Trump on major TV networks over 100 times, according to The New York Times. TV hosts have described Epshteyn, who moved to the United States from his native Moscow in 1993, as “very combative” and “abrasive.”
In 2014, he was charged with misdemeanor assault after being involved in a bar tussle. The charge was dropped after Epshteyn agreed to undergo anger management training and perform community service.
Gary Cohn
Cohn, the outgoing president and chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, heads the White House National Economic Council. At Goldman Sachs, where he had worked since 1990, Cohn answered to CEO Lloyd Blankfein and was considered a strong candidate to lead the bank.
The 56-year-old father of three has a reputation for abrasiveness, but also for getting things done, according to a Wall Street Journal profile last year. In a 2014 New York Times op-ed, Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith wrote on the day he resigned that Blankfein and Cohn were responsible for a “decline in the firm’s moral fiber” that placed its interests above those of its clients.
Cohn, a Cleveland native, in 2009 funded the Cohn Jewish Student Center at Kent State University named for his parents.
Success wasn’t always obvious for Cohn, whose struggle with dyslexia made school difficult for him. But the Goldman Sachs banker, who was featured in a book on underdogs by writer Malcolm Gladwell, told the author that his learning disability also taught him how to deal with failure and that “I wouldn’t be where I am today without my dyslexia.”
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 31 January 2017 09:28.
Breitbart, “Pro-Life Leaders on Judge Gorsuch’s Nomination
- Donald Trump ‘A Man of His Word”, 31 Jan 2017:
National pro-life leaders are applauding President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit, to take the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“We want to express our thanks to President Trump for nominating a man of such stellar quality as Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “One of the reasons I endorsed Trump for president was because of the strong promises he made to pro-life leaders. Now, after less than two weeks in office, he is keeping those promises, and we are very encouraged. He has proved himself to be a man of his word.”
“The nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court is a tremendous victory for religious freedom and, indeed, for the entire nation,” said Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life. “His reasoned opinions in decisions upholding the rights of groups who — like Priests for Life — have challenged the Obama administration’s HHS mandate show that he respects the rights of Americans of all beliefs. His statements in favor of upholding the Constitution are totally in line with those of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. President Trump has made an excellent choice.”
Regarding the nomination of Gorsuch, Leonard A. Leo, Trump’s Supreme Court Advisor, said the announcement fulfilled the promise the president made to the American people.
“Judge Gorsuch possesses keen intellect, independence of judgment, integrity, courage, and a sense of fairness that is grounded in the Constitution and laws as they are written,” Leo said in a statement. “This is what the President very much wanted in a nominee.”
“Under our Constitution, power ultimately rests with the people,” he added. “This ideal is at the core of Justice Scalia’s legacy. As we heard from President Trump’s inauguration speech, it is at the core of the President’s agenda, and it’s very much at the core of what Neil Gorsuch’s record is as a jurist.”
Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), a member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, reacted to Gorsuch’s nomination in a statement:
I applaud President Trump for nominating a fair-minded Constitutionalist like Judge Gorsuch to serve on our highest court. With this selection, President Trump has chosen a respected jurist who will uphold both the spirit and the letter of our law. I am especially encouraged by Judge Gorsuch’s opinions in the cases of Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius and Little Sisters of the Poor vs. Burwell, which display a clear respect for religious freedom that has been missing in too many corners of Washington over the last eight years. He is uniquely qualified for this role, having already been confirmed without opposition to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals by the US Senate in 2006, and I know that he will be a worthy successor to the esteemed legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins attended the White House announcement. He said in a statement:
I was pleased to witness President Trump follow through on his promise and select a nominee from the list he presented during the campaign. The president has been very clear on the type of justices that he would appoint: textualists who will not issue rulings based on the shadows of the Constitution.
Judge Gorsuch’s record over the last 14 years, especially on religious liberty, gives Americans every reason to believe he will make a fine Supreme Court justice. His reputation as a judge with integrity and dedication to the Constitution should be an encouragement to all Americans.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization, said:
We are thrilled with Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the US Supreme Court by President Trump, who is continuing to fulfill campaign promises at a breakneck speed. A strict Constitutionalist and firm supporter of religious freedom and liberties dictated by the Founding Fathers, Judge Gorsuch is an excellent replacement for the late Justice Scalia, and one who has the potential to leave a powerful legacy.
The Supreme Court was of great concern to voters this past November and the Senate should take swift action to confirm Judge Gorsuch to the high Court to ensure a full slate of Justices. The Senate unanimously confirmed Judge Gorsuch to the 10th US Circuit of Appeals and they should follow their previous example. We aren’t tired of winning yet.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 25 January 2017 03:44.
“Don’t be surprised if the money he used to buy-up American real estate came from U.S. foreign aid” - TT. Pictured, Trump signalng 181 dimensional chess with Pakistani-American real estate tycoon, Sajid Tarahas, founder of ‘Muslims for Trump.’
BBC, “Trump’s Hindu, Sikh and Muslim power brokers”, 24 Jan 2017:
When Indian-American industrialist Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar donated close to a million dollars to the Trump campaign, many in the community dismissed it as a poor investment.
But today, Mr Kumar is the go-to guy not just for Indian-Americans chasing opportunities in the new administration but apparently for the Indian officials seeking contacts with Trump aides.
A leading Indian TV channel NDTV introduced him as “the man with a direct line to Trump” on their show. Another top-ranking Diaspora website, The American Bazar, has called him “the most influential Indian-American power broker” in DC.
And Kumar isn’t complaining about this new celebrity status. “I would like to be the bridge between the two sides,” he told the BBC. “I have arranged two big meetings between Indian officials and leading figures in the Trump team.”
A majority in the Indian immigrant community have traditionally supported Democrats and Trump’s anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric seemed to have further alienated many.
Kumar says he and his Republican Hindu Coalition mobilised Hindu Indian-Americans votes in swing states like Florida.
Their message? Trump was the anti-terrorism candidate, and would help India and US see greater collaboration in defence, energy and manufacturing.
Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric did appeal to some Hindus, but whether that actually swayed the community at large is unclear.
Kumar is not the only one whose stock has soared with a Trump victory.
Pakistani-American Sajid Tarar, who is a Muslim, and Sikh-American Jesse Singh, sided with Mr Trump at the peak of his anti-Muslim barbs. They were pilloried by their own communities for doing so. One exit poll suggested more than three-quarters of Muslims voted for Clinton.
Mr Tarar’s Facebook inbox used to be swamped with negative messages, calling him a “disgrace to Pakistan and Islam”.
But on the morning of 9 November, his phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Mr Tarar had more than 80 messages congratulating him on Mr Trump’s victory and how he had made Pakistan proud.
He says the Pakistan embassy reached out to him to facilitate a call between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the President-elect.
“I sent out a few emails and the call happened,” says Mr Tarar, a real estate businessman.
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 22 January 2017 09:41.
Visigrad Post, “Hungary’s PM Orbán: Nowhere Do Human Rights Prescribe National Suicide”, Jan 2017:
Hungary – The Hungarian government goes further in its opposition to non-European immigration, both illegal and legal. Viktor Orbán made again a strong speech against “national suicide” and meantime, the government announces its will to put an end to the residency bonds.
In front of 532 new deputy border guards, Viktor Orbán explained, on Thursday, January 12, that their job will be to protect Hungary’s borders and the safety of all Hungarians, “and that of all of Europe as well, as has been the fate of the nation for hundreds of years”.
“Terror attacks, riots, violence, crime, ethnic and cultural clashes all show us that those who come do not want to live our lives,” Orbán told the border guards. “They want to continue living their lives, just on the European standard of living. We understand them but we can’t let them into Europe. Nowhere do human rights prescribe national suicide.”
Asylum-seekers will be detained in close camps from now on
Systematic detention of migrants arriving in the country will be put in place, explained Viktor Orbán on Friday, January 13, during his weekly talk at the public radio. “We have reinstated alien police detention in the cases of those whose application to enter Europe has not yet been legally judged”. “As long as there is a verdict outstanding (in their asylum applications) they cannot move freely in Hungary,” said the Hungarian PM.
Under pressure from Brussels, the UN refugee agency and the European Court of Human Rights, Hungary in 2013 suspended the practice of detaining asylum applicants. The close camps are demanded by Jobbik’s vice-president and mayor of a little town at the border with Serbia, László Toroczkai, from the beginning of 2015, the same man that asked for the fence first in Hungary.
“Since then there have been terror acts in western Europe,” Orbán said Friday”. Any legal regulation that facilitates terror acts must be changed in the interests of our own self-defense.” He said he was aware that this “openly goes against the EU”, taking the risk of an open-conflict with Brussels, once again.
No more residency bonds
Three months ago, the constitutional bill against mandatory quotas of migrants, proposed by the ruling Fidesz, failed due to the surprise boycott of the vote by the right-wing populist party Jobbik, which wanted to add into the bill the suppression of the residency bonds. These bonds allow non-EU citizens to buy a Schengen permanent residency permit.
Really harsh discussions took place in the Hungarian parliament between the national-conservative ruling Fidesz and the right-wing populist Jobbik on these bonds. Security threats, suspicion of high corruption and treason toward the Hungarians — who reject non-European immigration — were the main arguments of the Jobbik.
Eventually, the government will suspend indefinitely the program, claiming these bonds are not necessary anymore since ratings agency Moody’s upgraded the country’s credit rating. Several scandals of corruption related to these bonds merged in 2016 and it is most likely that the government wanted to put an end to this failed program. Therefore, no more residency bonds requests will be accepted from April 1.
