All Things Russia & Ukraine

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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:25 pm You apparently don't understand what reconciliation is used for.
Show me how it doesn't meet the Byrd rule standards?


By the way, OS? The answer to the question: how many employers were prosecuted for employing illegal workers during one year of Trump's Presidency?

Ten. Per year, OS. Ten, in a nation with tens of millions of residents working illegally. That's not a misprint or a punchline.


What needs to happen to get you to acknowledge that, no, our immigration laws are NOT being enforced?
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old salt
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:49 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:25 pm You apparently don't understand what reconciliation is used for.
Show me how it doesn't meet the Byrd rule standards?
Read the Byrd rule yourself. It's BUDGET reconciliation. This has nothing to do with the budget or revenues. You're using AOC civics.

By the way, OS? The answer to the question: how many employers were prosecuted for employing illegal workers during one year of Trump's Presidency?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... companies/
There was a more than 300 percent increase in investigations — including federal audits to determine whether companies were hiring undocumented immigrants — between the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, according to ICE. The number of criminal arrests of managers nearly doubled in fiscal 2018 to 100 compared with 59 in fiscal 2017, according to ICE figures. There have been 31 such arrests so far this year, but many cases are still ongoing, and more arrests are possible, the agency said.

The agency has initiated worksite audits and inspections at thousands of business across the country over the last couple of years, a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement.
“Oftentimes, those audits and inspections are the beginning of a lengthy process that could potentially lead to criminal charges, if sufficient evidence of criminal activity is discovered,” the statement said. “Compliance with all immigration laws remains a priority for the Department of Justice."

The mass immigration raids in Mississippi on Wednesday hit seven plants run by five companies in six cities.
Federal authorities have yet to announce criminal or civil charges against the companies, despite a year-long investigation that ensnared about 680 people the agency said were illegally working at their facilities. ICE said it was the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in U.S. history.
Ten. Per year, OS. Ten, in a nation with tens of millions of residents working illegally. That's not a misprint or a punchline.
How does that compare with Obama & Biden ? Raids themselves & the ensuing litigation are effective enforcement, even though it can be hard to prosecute or secure a conviction because of the widespred use of fake documentation.

What needs to happen to get you to acknowledge that, no, our immigration laws are NOT being enforced?
So get CO to mandate Everify. Do you purchase only from Everifier vendors. Are all your peaches Everified picked ?
You should put that on your label & advertise on MSNBC.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm
Read the Byrd rule yourself. It's BUDGET reconciliation. This has nothing to do with the budget or revenues. You're using AOC civics.\
:lol: Has nothing to do with the budget? Where the F do you think US Immigration and Customs Enforcement gets their money from? The Tooth Fairy?

They used Reconciliation to go after Obamacare, OS. Does that "have nothing to do with the Budget", too?
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:13 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm
Read the Byrd rule yourself. It's BUDGET reconciliation. This has nothing to do with the budget or revenues. You're using AOC civics.\
:lol: Has nothing to do with the budget? Where the F do you think US Immigration and Customs Enforcement gets their money from? The Tooth Fairy?

They used Reconciliation to go after Obamacare, OS. Does that "have nothing to do with the Budget", too?
:lol: ...you don't even understand your own argument. The ACA made several changes to the tax code & added the "Obamacare tax" on cap gains of high earners. It was used to pass the ACA with less than 60 Senate votes.

https://archives-democrats-rules.house. ... d_rule.htm
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm How does that compare with Obama & Biden ?
:lol: This is how your mind works, OS. You are 1000% ready to admit that Obama and Biden aren't enforcing all laws.

But not YOUR team, right? :lol:

To answer your question: it's about the same across all Presidents the last 30 or so years. Which is part of my point. 10 prosecutions per year. A joke.

old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm So get CO to mandate Everify. Do you purchase only from Everifier vendors. Are all your peaches Everified picked ?
You should put that on your label & advertise on MSNBC.[/color]
:lol: So after complaining that all our laws aren't being followed by Biden...and getting called out for it? Now you've changed your tune.

And now....let me see if I have this right.....a Conservative Republican who served his country for his career---sworn to protect the Constitution and Federal Laws....

.....is mocking me for deigning to follow all Federal laws surrounding labor and immigration? And to try his level best to ensure that his suppliers do the same? And all because I dared to point out that his political party is lying to him, and has no interest in enforcing laws, nor fixing the actual immigration system.

That about the score here?


To answer your question: as a matter of fact, yes, our peaches are 100% picked by legal labor.

Here ya go, from the WaPo. I get my peaches from the Talbotts, OS....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:22 pm
a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:13 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm
Read the Byrd rule yourself. It's BUDGET reconciliation. This has nothing to do with the budget or revenues. You're using AOC civics.\
:lol: Has nothing to do with the budget? Where the F do you think US Immigration and Customs Enforcement gets their money from? The Tooth Fairy?

They used Reconciliation to go after Obamacare, OS. Does that "have nothing to do with the Budget", too?
:lol: ...you don't even understand your own argument. The ACA made several changes to the tax code & added the "Obamacare tax" on cap gains of high earners. It was used to pass the ACA with less than 60 Senate votes.

https://archives-democrats-rules.house. ... d_rule.htm
That's great. Where does ICE get the money to operate? Santa Claus?
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old salt
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:38 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm How does that compare with Obama & Biden ?
:lol: This is how your mind works, OS. You are 1000% ready to admit that Obama and Biden aren't enforcing all laws.

But not YOUR team, right? :lol:

To answer your question: it's about the same across all Presidents the last 30 or so years. Which is part of my point. 10 prosecutions per year. A joke.
I know that both Obama & Trump tried to go after large employers when they thought they had a chance for a conviction. Biden announced that ICE would cease doing raids. It's very hard to get a conviction. If they don't think they can get the evidence to secure a conviction, it's an abuse of enforcement powers. The widespread use of fake documents makes it hard to show probable cause unless you have evidence that the employer was complicit in procuring & the fake documents.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm So get CO to mandate Everify. Do you purchase only from Everifier vendors. Are all your peaches Everified picked ?
You should put that on your label & advertise on MSNBC.[/color]
:lol: So after complaining that all our laws aren't being followed by Biden...and getting called out for it? Now you've changed your tune.

And now....let me see if I have this right.....a Conservative Republican who served his country for his career---sworn to protect the Constitution and Federal Laws....

.....is mocking me for deigning to follow all Federal laws surrounding labor and immigration? And to try his level best to ensure that his suppliers do the same? And all because I dared to point out that his political party is lying to him, and has no interest in enforcing laws, nor fixing the actual immigration system.

That about the score here?
Your analogies & strawman standards are as realistic as expecting enforcement sufficient to produce 100% with speed limits of fed funde highways.

To answer your question: as a matter of fact, yes, our peaches are 100% picked by legal labor.

Here ya go, from the WaPo. I get my peaches from the Talbotts, OS....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
...all your grains too ? Does it take comp imm reform to get the guest worker visas processed more quickly ? Like the asylum loophole, that's existing law. It could be fixed with more priority &/or manpower & funding if that's what slows the process. That article is 4 years old, citing data 6-10 years old.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:55 pm I know that both Obama & Trump tried to go after large employers when they thought they had a chance for a conviction. Biden announced that ICE would cease doing raids. It's very hard to get a conviction. If they don't think they can get the evidence to secure a conviction, it's an abuse of enforcement powers. The widespread use of fake documents makes it hard to show probable cause unless you have evidence that the employer was complicit in procuring & the fake documents.
So again....after all this, you (snicker) still think they're operating in good faith. And not protecting the 1%ers who own these big businesses?

I give up.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm Your analogies & strawman standards are as realistic as expecting enforcement sufficient to produce 100% with speed limits of fed funde highways.
Strawman standards? Dude, between deportations and catching folks and sending them back over the border, Feds have hundreds of thousands of interactions with immigrants.

But you're telling me that we can only manage 10-----TEN---- prosecutions of businesses a year? And you think that me asking for more is unrealistic?
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm ...all your grains too ?
Sigh. Do you know how grain is harvested, OS? They don't need these workers for that.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm Does it take comp imm reform to get the guest worker visas processed more quickly ?
Nope. It doesn't!

Does this mean that you FINALLY catching on that you're getting played?

Pretty please, say yes.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:32 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:55 pm I know that both Obama & Trump tried to go after large employers when they thought they had a chance for a conviction. Biden announced that ICE would cease doing raids. It's very hard to get a conviction. If they don't think they can get the evidence to secure a conviction, it's an abuse of enforcement powers. The widespread use of fake documents makes it hard to show probable cause unless you have evidence that the employer was complicit in procuring & the fake documents.
So again....after all this, you (snicker) still think they're operating in good faith. And not protecting the 1%ers who own these big businesses?
I say again -- both Obama & Trump Admins did ICE raids when they thought they could get convictions. To stage raids with little chance of conviction is abuse of power & a waste of resources.
I give up. Just like Biden has when he announced there'd be no more ICE raids under his Admin.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm Your analogies & strawman standards are as realistic as expecting enforcement sufficient to produce 100% with speed limits of fed funde highways.
Strawman standards? Dude, between deportations and catching folks and sending them back over the border, Feds have hundreds of thousands of interactions with immigrants.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/20 ... migration/
Biden administration pauses deportations for 100 days and suspends “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers
The changes come on President Joe Biden’s first day in office.
He also signed executive orders rolling back additional Trump-era immigration policies.
But you're telling me that we can only manage 10-----TEN---- prosecutions of businesses a year? And you think that me asking for more is unrealistic?
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm ...all your grains too ?
Sigh. Do you know how grain is harvested, OS? They don't need these workers for that.
Yes. It's mechanized with combines. In big operations additional workers are also needed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
The novel coronavirus delayed the arrival of seasonal immigrants who normally help harvest U.S. wheat, leaving farmers to depend on high school students, school bus drivers, laid-off oilfield workers and others to run machines that bring in the crop.
As combines work their way north from the Southern Plains of Texas and Oklahoma, farmers and harvesting companies are having a hard time finding and keeping workers. Any delays in the harvest could send wheat prices higher and cause a scramble to secure supplies to make bread and pasta.
The United States is the world’s No. 3 exporter of wheat, a crop in high demand during the pandemic. A sustained labor shortage could impact the soy and corn harvests that start in September.

While grain harvests are more automated than the labor-intensive fruit and vegetable industries, they are not immune to labor shortages.
Josh Beckley of Beckley Harvesting Inc, based in Atwood, Kansas, typically counts on migrants for about 30% of his workers. The most common visa for migrant agriculture workers is the H-2A, which allows workers to stay in the United States for months at a time to work on farms.

This year, Beckley had no foreign laborers on his crew. He has struggled to find replacement workers, with many Americans unwilling to sign up for months of traveling through the U.S. farm belt.
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

Custom harvesters, or companies hired to gather crops by small-scale farmers who do not own their own equipment, also employ migrants. They roll up to a thousand combines across the U.S. Great Plains and Midwest at harvest time, handling about 30% of the U.S. wheat crop.
The harvest crews follow a trail that begins in south Texas and winds its way up the bread basket of the United States to the Canadian border.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

But many of those workers were unable to make it to the United States by the time the harvesters set off on their annual trek, according to eight harvesting companies and farmers interviewed by Reuters. Travel restrictions, tighter border controls and virus fears around the globe led to delays in workers getting out of their home countries.

U.S. Custom Harvesters Inc, which represents convoy operators, said finding employees was the No. 1 issue for the industry.
Even the biggest farmers, who own their own equipment, were having trouble filling out their workforce with Americans.

Are peaches the only fruits you buy that must be hand picked ?
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pmDoes it take comp imm reform to get the guest worker visas processed more quickly ?
Nope. It doesn't!

Does this mean that you FINALLY catching on that you're getting played? No. It does not require comp imm reform to issue more migrant visas faster. The laws & the process already exist.

Pretty please, say yes.You have informed me of nothing new, nor have any of my views changed.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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E-Verify, Salty.

It eliminates your excuse. And theirs.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am
a fan wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:32 pm
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:55 pm I know that both Obama & Trump tried to go after large employers when they thought they had a chance for a conviction. Biden announced that ICE would cease doing raids. It's very hard to get a conviction. If they don't think they can get the evidence to secure a conviction, it's an abuse of enforcement powers. The widespread use of fake documents makes it hard to show probable cause unless you have evidence that the employer was complicit in procuring & the fake documents.
So again....after all this, you (snicker) still think they're operating in good faith. And not protecting the 1%ers who own these big businesses?
I say again -- both Obama & Trump Admins did ICE raids when they thought they could get convictions. To stage raids with little chance of conviction is abuse of power & a waste of resources.
I give up. Just like Biden has when he announced there'd be no more ICE raids under his Admin.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm Your analogies & strawman standards are as realistic as expecting enforcement sufficient to produce 100% with speed limits of fed funde highways.
Strawman standards? Dude, between deportations and catching folks and sending them back over the border, Feds have hundreds of thousands of interactions with immigrants.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/20 ... migration/
Biden administration pauses deportations for 100 days and suspends “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers
The changes come on President Joe Biden’s first day in office.
He also signed executive orders rolling back additional Trump-era immigration policies.
But you're telling me that we can only manage 10-----TEN---- prosecutions of businesses a year? And you think that me asking for more is unrealistic?
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm ...all your grains too ?
Sigh. Do you know how grain is harvested, OS? They don't need these workers for that.
Yes. It's mechanized with combines. In big operations additional workers are also needed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
The novel coronavirus delayed the arrival of seasonal immigrants who normally help harvest U.S. wheat, leaving farmers to depend on high school students, school bus drivers, laid-off oilfield workers and others to run machines that bring in the crop.
As combines work their way north from the Southern Plains of Texas and Oklahoma, farmers and harvesting companies are having a hard time finding and keeping workers. Any delays in the harvest could send wheat prices higher and cause a scramble to secure supplies to make bread and pasta.
The United States is the world’s No. 3 exporter of wheat, a crop in high demand during the pandemic. A sustained labor shortage could impact the soy and corn harvests that start in September.

While grain harvests are more automated than the labor-intensive fruit and vegetable industries, they are not immune to labor shortages.
Josh Beckley of Beckley Harvesting Inc, based in Atwood, Kansas, typically counts on migrants for about 30% of his workers. The most common visa for migrant agriculture workers is the H-2A, which allows workers to stay in the United States for months at a time to work on farms.

This year, Beckley had no foreign laborers on his crew. He has struggled to find replacement workers, with many Americans unwilling to sign up for months of traveling through the U.S. farm belt.
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

Custom harvesters, or companies hired to gather crops by small-scale farmers who do not own their own equipment, also employ migrants. They roll up to a thousand combines across the U.S. Great Plains and Midwest at harvest time, handling about 30% of the U.S. wheat crop.
The harvest crews follow a trail that begins in south Texas and winds its way up the bread basket of the United States to the Canadian border.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

But many of those workers were unable to make it to the United States by the time the harvesters set off on their annual trek, according to eight harvesting companies and farmers interviewed by Reuters. Travel restrictions, tighter border controls and virus fears around the globe led to delays in workers getting out of their home countries.

U.S. Custom Harvesters Inc, which represents convoy operators, said finding employees was the No. 1 issue for the industry.
Even the biggest farmers, who own their own equipment, were having trouble filling out their workforce with Americans.

Are peaches the only fruits you buy that must be hand picked ?
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pmDoes it take comp imm reform to get the guest worker visas processed more quickly ?
Nope. It doesn't!

Does this mean that you FINALLY catching on that you're getting played? No. It does not require comp imm reform to issue more migrant visas faster. The laws & the process already exist.

Pretty please, say yes.You have informed me of nothing new, nor have any of my views changed.
Clearly a “market” imbalance. I wonder what it is about these jobs that makes them hard to staff?🤔

“U.S. Custom Harvesters Inc, which represents convoy operators, said finding employees was the No. 1 issue for the industry.
Even the biggest farmers, who own their own equipment, were having trouble filling out their workforce with Americans.”

I think the answer is dog-fearing, loyal Americans with a track record of public service.

Can we count on you, OS?
"There is nothing more difficult and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. One makes enemies of those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support from those who would prosper under the new."
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am I say again -- both Obama & Trump Admins did ICE raids when they thought they could get convictions. To stage raids with little chance of conviction is abuse of power & a waste of resources.
Which is why you turn on Everify, and make it Federal law to use it. That solves that problem instantly.

Then you don't need ICE or made-for-TV raids. All you need is a bureaucrat and a laptop to get your convictions.
old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am Just like Biden has when he announced there'd be no more ICE raids under his Admin.
Yep. So again, you get it when a POTUS with a little D does it.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm Biden administration pauses deportations for 100 days and suspends “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers
The changes come on President Joe Biden’s first day in office.
He also signed executive orders rolling back additional Trump-era immigration policies.
Which is why you change the laws when your team is in power, OS.

We can go round and round on this as long as you want. You can't escape the fact that your team doesn't want to fix this.
old salt wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:08 pm
you have informed me of nothing new, nor have any of my views changed.
We know. Enjoying the results of your line of thinking? Open borders, OS. Enjoy them. And please, tell us one last time about how it's everyone's fault except you and your political party.

That's alright. Farming isn't important to you. Let's shut down more farms.

Keep it up. I'll be here to wager, again, that your new R POTUS will do nothing to fix these problems in two years.

And you, like always...will refuse the wager, while in the same breath, tell me how awesome his party is at solving immigration problems.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am It does not require comp imm reform to issue more migrant visas faster. The laws & the process already exist.
:lol: So.......how come Trump didn't fix this problem, OS?

I told you why he didn't....to get your vote by pointing to a broken system.

But I"m all ears: what's your explanation? :lol: Take your time. Craft some REAL BS for us.
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old salt
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

Post by old salt »

a fan wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:25 pm
old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am It does not require comp imm reform to issue more migrant visas faster. The laws & the process already exist.
:lol: So.......how come Trump didn't fix this problem, OS?
...re-read the below article from July, 2020, Trump term stats.

I told you why he didn't....to get your vote by pointing to a broken system.

But I"m all ears: what's your explanation? :lol: Take your time. Craft some REAL BS for us.
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/h2a-vi ... iolations/
Visas for farmworkers have surged under Trump.
The federal visa program for guest farmworkers, known as H-2A, has grown rapidly as the rural workforce has aged and as a crackdown against undocumented workers has intensified under President Donald Trump. Even as the White House has broadly restricted visas during the coronavirus pandemic, the administration has made exceptions for H-2A visas, deeming H-2A workers to be essential and calling the program "vital to maintaining and securing the country's critical food supply chain."

https://rollcall.com/2019/01/18/trump-a ... m-workers/
FTR -- I gave Obama (D) credit for trying.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm FTR -- I gave Obama (D) credit for trying.
I don't. He could have fixed this, too. He didn't. It's not a priority. Never has been for D's.

old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
That's a VERY specific VISA, shortages for ALL work VISAs abound. Under every President, OS.
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

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a fan wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:37 pm
old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm FTR -- I gave Obama (D) credit for trying.
I don't. He could have fixed this, too. He didn't. It's not a priority. Never has been for D's.

old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
That's a VERY specific VISA, shortages for ALL work VISAs abound. Under every President, OS.
It's an ag worker visa -- how is it specific ?
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

Post by old salt »

From behind the NR paywall :
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/06/ ... term=first

How to Lose Big in Ukraine

Back in 2015 at the Munich Security Conference, Senator Lindsey Graham argued for aggressively arming Ukraine in what was perhaps the least inspiring fashion imaginable. “I don’t know how this will end if you give [Ukraine] defensive capability,” he explained, “but I know this: I will feel better because when my nation was needed to stand up to the garbage and to stand by freedom, I stood by freedom. . . . They [the Ukrainians] may die, they may lose, but I’ll tell you what . . . if somebody doesn’t push back better, we’re all gonna lose.”

For nearly eight years now, I’ve made one simple argument over and over and over and over again: We should not get too involved in Ukraine, because in the end Russia will expend more political will, take more risks, and suffer more consequences to determine the final outcome there. In short, Ukraine is peripheral to us, and dear to them. So, in the meantime, our politicians and policy-makers should not put their own, and their nation’s, credibility on the line there. These high-flown promises were, I wrote, “the credit-default swaps of national security, a moral hazard that jeopardizes more than our retirement plans.”

When the Russians spread their attack too thin across all Ukraine and were driven back from Kyiv, the foreign-policy blob fantasized that, with further investments from the United States and Europe, Putin would not only be defeated entirely in Ukraine, but NATO was reinvigorated, and that, ultimately, Putin would lose power in Russia.

There’s less in the news lately about the war in Ukraine because the war has entered a slow phase of brutal attrition, and because Lindsey Graham’s slightly macabre wish that he would “feel better” while Ukrainians die and lose a war to Russia seems to be coming true. Only, it’s worse than he thought. It’s precisely by assisting Ukraine as we have — by playing a geopolitical game that we don’t have the will or resources to end in a favorable way — that “we’re all gonna lose.”

When we started sending arms, Ukraine was said to have just 6,000 combat-ready troops. By the time the war started, Robert Zubrin marveled at Ukraine for having the largest armed forces in Europe, 450,000 active-duty servicemen.

Writing seven years ago, Casey Michel argued: “The point of increasing arms to Ukraine is not, as Bloomberg’s editorial board claimed, to simply ‘escalat[e] a fight that it’s almost certain to lose.’ Nor is the aim to deter any form of immediate Russian retreat. The point, rather, is to inflict more casualties than the Russian government is willing to stomach. As noted in the Brookings report, ‘Only if the Kremlin knows that the risks and costs of further military action are high will it seek to find an acceptable political solution.’” That rather seemed to confirm the point that there was no reasonable strategic goal the United States could achieve there.

Now, the Kremlin did eventually seek a political solution in Minsk II, an agreement that joined a cease-fire to Russian demands of some local autonomy for Donetsk. Although Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had run on finding a resolution to the conflict with Russia, he could not get Ukraine to implement Minsk II. He faced the fierce objections of the far-right Ukrainian nationalist militias on one side, and the international-foreign-policy borg and the press on the other. Nobody, it turned out, was willing to assist Ukraine in ending the frozen conflict. Or helping its president overcome the resistance of ultranationalists to do it.

Having failed to get what it wanted from Minsk II, Russia decided to take a military option. In other words, deterrence failed. Russia accepted the high risks and costs of switching to a strategy of compellence.

And in three months Russia has done in Ukraine what the Pentagon could not do in Afghanistan over two decades: settle on a reasonable set of goals and develop an effective strategy for annihilating its opponents.

Even after Western powers unveiled the mother of all sanctions, Vladimir Putin is giving major public addresses confidently predicting that Russia will get through it, and announcing that the sanctions, like most Western sanctions, were failing to achieve their political objective of humbling Russia, while at the same time they were extracting a significant price for Westerners themselves. And by the way, revenues to the Russian state were surging because of high oil prices.

Meanwhile, according to a report at the Washington Post, the White House and foreign-policy blob has no idea how to extricate itself from this conflict with its honor or credibility intact.

We are going to face a global recession and see food shortages throughout the third world, in part because it would be awkward to tell the Ukrainians that we aren’t going to support them to the point where they could recapture not just the Donbas but Crimea as well.

Here’s a telling excerpt:

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who now heads the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said the battlefield impasse leaves the United States with a stark choice: either continue to help Ukraine sustain a potentially bloody status quo, with the devastating global consequences that entails; or halt support and permit Moscow to prevail.

“That would mean feeding Ukraine to the wolves,” Daalder said, referring to a withdrawal of support. “And no one is prepared to do that.”

A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe ongoing international deliberations, said Biden administration officials had discussed the possibility of a protracted conflict with global spillover effects even before February, as U.S. intelligence suggested Putin was preparing to invade.

The Biden administration hopes that the new weaponry, in addition to successive waves of sanctions and Russia’s diplomatic isolation, will make a difference in an eventual negotiated conclusion to the war, potentially diminishing Putin’s willingness to keep up the fight, the official said.

This mismatch is quite clear. Consistent with the theory that Russia ultimately cares more about this conflict, it is acting vigorously to achieve an acceptable end. Meanwhile, the United States, unable to rally the deep passions of the American people to take significant risks in this conflict, must satisfy itself with hoping that more of the same failed strategy will yield a marginally less humiliating outcome. Our policy-makers in the executive branch and across the blob of NGOs are cut off from the people whom the Constitution authorizes to declare war through their elected representatives. Cut off this way, these policy elites have involved American honor, treasure, and credibility in a conflict the American people are unwilling to take charge of themselves and end victoriously.

One risk of making your rivals’ wars more costly is that you just might make their eventual victory even larger. If the Ukrainian army fails to make a crucial strategic retreat, and is broken in the cauldrons of the Donbas, the United States will have made Russia’s victory much costlier, but also much more significant than it otherwise would have been. Putin will be able to claim he defeated not just the nationalists in Ukraine, but the Western powers that funded and trained their army from 6,000 to nearly half a million men. After the humiliation in Afghanistan, it would be the second massive U.S.-funded and trained army to be defeated in the space of two years. That is the real risk we are taking. And it’s not one that is going to leave NATO “reinvigorated” in the end. More like panicked and on the run. That is what I meant by becoming “pot-committed” in Ukraine. By so proudly and loudly raising the stakes, Western policy influencers such as Ivo Daalder now face impossible choices that “no one is prepared” to make. Is it a good thing for NATO to have two American-funded, NATO-supported armies destroyed in two years?

In the end, the policy-makers will try to blame the American people for the policy failures they authored because they were incapable of thinking more than two steps ahead. They’ve already started. Skeptics like me were slimed as people who ultimately sympathized with Putin and who saw strongmen as vigorous and democracies as weak. This was a lie. I believe nothing is so fearful as a democracy that has truly gone to war. But our people have not gone to war. Only a policy elite has done that, using money they borrowed from us.

In fact it is worse than a lie — it’s projection. It is the foolish hawks who have said that this “is a contest not just of armies but of societal wills” between democracies and authoritarianism. And now they are retreating into decadent fantasy.
Casey Michel now writes that to “avoid more senseless bloodshed” (the bloodshed his last idea failed to avoid), the West must “decolonize Russia” — that is, break up the Russian federation into perhaps more than a dozen different ethnically divided republics. Do we really think the American people are anxious to study up on, fund, or bleed for the Tuvan People’s Republic? Has Adam Kingzinger started rehearsing the line, “We are all Mordovians now”? Will we blow trumpets for Komi sovereignty over Syktyvkar? Well, our policy elite is hoping to save its failure of deterrence in Ukraine by casting us in such fantasies.

At least these dreams make Lindsey Graham feel better.
a fan
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

Post by a fan »

old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:35 pm
a fan wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:37 pm
old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm FTR -- I gave Obama (D) credit for trying.
I don't. He could have fixed this, too. He didn't. It's not a priority. Never has been for D's.

old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:14 pm
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN2431BQ
Farmers, who have been loyal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have grown more reliant on immigrant labor in recent years. The Trump administration continues to issue agriculture visas while clamping down on tech workers, students and other groups.

The number of H-2A visas granted for agriculture equipment operators rose to 10,798 from October through March, the typical hiring period for harvesters looking for a labor force that starts cutting wheat in May. That was up 49% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
That's a VERY specific VISA, shortages for ALL work VISAs abound. Under every President, OS.
It's an ag worker visa -- how is it specific ?
Because you can get American workers to drive a combine or trucks....Grain is different.

To qualify for H-2A nonimmigrant classification, the petitioner must:

Offer a job that is of a temporary or seasonal nature.

-Demonstrate that there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work.

-Show that employing H-2A workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

Generally, submit a single valid temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor with the H-2A petition. (A limited exception to this requirement exists in certain “emergent circumstances.”See e.g., 8 CFR 214.2(h)(-5)(x) for specific details.)



The second bolded one trips up the application, because gringos will drive trucks and equipment.
a fan
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

Post by a fan »

old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:26 pm Skeptics like me were slimed as people who ultimately sympathized with Putin and who saw strongmen as vigorous and democracies as weak. This was a lie.[/color] I believe nothing is so fearful as a democracy that has truly gone to war. But our people have not gone to war. Only a policy elite has done that, using money they borrowed from us.
:lol: So now a right winger understands how you're treated in America when you don't get behind our nonstop wars....and thinks he's the first guy this has happened to?

Called UnAmerican. America hater. Hate our troops?

Welcome aboard, dude. There's a seat right over here.
Typical Lax Dad
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Re: All Things Russia & Ukraine

Post by Typical Lax Dad »

a fan wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:43 pm
old salt wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:26 pm Skeptics like me were slimed as people who ultimately sympathized with Putin and who saw strongmen as vigorous and democracies as weak. This was a lie.[/color] I believe nothing is so fearful as a democracy that has truly gone to war. But our people have not gone to war. Only a policy elite has done that, using money they borrowed from us.
:lol: So now a right winger understands how you're treated in America when you don't get behind our nonstop wars....and thinks he's the first guy this has happened to?

Called UnAmerican. America hater. Hate our troops?

Welcome aboard, dude. There's a seat right over here.
Whining some more!
“You lucky I ain’t read wretched yet!”
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