The Republicans own the Diversity Visa program. It was created and made into law via the Immigration Act of 1990. Those with a good memory will recall that George H.W. Bush was the president in 1990. In the words of the first Bush,
"S. 358 accomplishes what this Administration sought from the outset of the immigration reform process”
Ironically, it never would have passed without the Republicans. Even the Democrats voted against it, and they had the majorities in the House and Senate. Take a look at the numbers and look at who voted for and against it. Sadly, 27 years later you’ll see names of folks who are still around.
Let’s look at the law. Sponsored by Ted Kennedy. Co sponsored by two Republicans. Only 171 Democrats voted for it. It was the 93 Republicans who voted for it that allowed it to pass.
The so called gang of 8 over the years have offered to eliminate the program. But the trade off was to allow for many more to come in. In other words, drop the 50,000 and replace it with programs that allow for millions more to come in.
This is the point in the blog where I usually ask you to write your congress folks to create laws to abolish the diversity visa program. Well, imagine my surprise to find out that there are actually bills to eliminate the program in the house and senate. The senate bill was introduced in February. The house bill in March.
Yes, your conclusions are correct at this point. They have been sitting on them! They haven’t even been sent to committee. Cynics in the political world suggest that the Republicans in the house and senate on sitting on them in order to trade the eliminating the program for some other program that increase the number of immigrants.
So, now we get back to the “contact” your congress folks. How do we influence them? Obviously voting them out of office is the best way, but in the interim, let’s look at what works. According to studies, a live in person visit is the most influential method. That’s impractical for most of us, so let’s look at the best two ways that we can do it. Individualized emails to them and letters to the editor of the local paper where you name the congress folks by name (not merely the issue) are the two most influential. Phone calls are virtually worthless.
Facts on what the Diversity Visa program is and how it’s supposed to work.…
The sanctions war against Russia all lead back to the coup in the Ukraine. The EU and the US spent billions to topple the government and install NATO weaponry on Russia’s borders.
Russia called foul and we countered with sanctions to punish Russia’s economy. Russia has done well in spite of the sanctions, but the battle against those who would stand up to the EU and the US goes on.…
Both the neo cons and neo libs are the war party as we all know. If it was only about ideology, they might be excused. Opinions vary and we can all debate the pros and cons.
Sadly for those of us who pay the taxes that fund their shenanigans, it’s rarely about ideology. It’s either about making lots of money off of our military industrial complex, or about doing the bidding of our handlers like Israel or Saudi Arabia.
Turkey decided to buy a better air defense system for far less money. Nato has promised “consequences”. No one is questioning Turkey spending their own money in a prudent manner. The complaint is that it isn’t a US system and it comes from the evil Russians.
This will be interesting to watch as it develops. …
Sloppy work on the part of the Mueller team, but I doubt that anyone will really care. This has always been about trying to turn Manafort into a “snitch” and to punish those who might try to stand up to the deep state.
The author of this article makes a good point. They suggest that if meddling in the Ukraine is a crime then what haven’t John McCain and Victoria Nuland been indicted yet.…
Yesterday we got the huge announcement – Paul Manafort was indicted.
For those of us who have been paying attention, we recognize that this isn’t really about Paul Manafort. There are two dynamics going on here, and none of them are good for the rest of us.
The deep state hates us and our representative Donald Trump. They tried their best to get him to lose both the nomination and the election and now they continue to do their best to cause us to stop supporting him. So far they’ve failed miserably.
Manafort was the target of the deep state, with their thinking they can get Manafort to lie about Trump in order to escape legal punishment. We’ll see how that works.
It’s interesting to see what they are charging Manafort with. He was hired to look out for the interests of the democratically-elected president of Ukrain. Today’s post is a reminder of how the US orchestrated a coup in the Ukraine. For those who don’t remember, the US spent over $5 BILLION on this coup to replace the democratically-elected leader with what turned out to be actual Nazis! Folks use the term a lot, but these guys really are! What was the former President’s crime? He was friendly to Russia.
Of course our “good friend” John McCain was on the ground in the Ukraine, touting the evils of the Russians. The Russians responded to this coup to protect Crimea, and they whole series of sanctions that continue to this day started.
The Neo goal was to get Ukraine both into the EU and NATO and put western weaponry on the border of Russia.…
Diplomacy kept the Cold War from ever going nuclear. With the fall of the Soviet Union, our diplomacy changed from the State Department to the Department of Defense. Brute force became the strategy and the tactic.
Our two largest “competitors” on the world stage, China and Russia have taken different roads in their path to becoming a challenger to the US’s sole superpower status.
China is doing it primarily with economic methods, building alliances throughout the world. Russia has worked it primarily through protecting its homeland. The Soviet Union experienced 26.6 to 40 MILLION casualties during WWII, so defending their borders is very understandable.
The “hatred” of Russia by the US isn’t understandable, yet with 7000 nuclear warheads, we can’t push too hard. You’d think that real diplomacy would be a good start. Perhaps chastising them for something that they don’t do and we do isn’t too smart.…
While the US and European media provided little explanation as to how militants from the self-titled Islamic State (IS) managed to appear, expand and then fight for years against the combined military power of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia, it was abundantly clear to many analysts that the IS organization was not only receiving state sponsorship, but it was receiving reinforcements, weapons and supplies from far beyond Syria’s and Iraq’s borders.
Maps of the conflict stretching over the last several years show clear corridors used to reinforce IS positions, leading primarily from Turkey’s southern border and to a lesser extent, from Jordan’s borders.
However, another possible vector may be desert highways in Iraq’s western Anbar province where US military contractors are allegedly to “provide security” as well as build gas stations and rest areas. These highways contributed to the current conflict and still serve as a hotbed for state sponsored terrorism. Whether these US-controlled and improved highways pose a significant threat for a reorganized effort by the US and its regional allies to divide and destroy Iraq and Syria seems all but inevitable.…
If you read the real news, you will realize that the neos have decided that the war on Syria and the never ending war on Iraq is virtually over. Yeah, we lost after spending trillions of dollars, but failure never stops the neos.
We have been supporting our allies, Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen. It’s pretty much ignored by our media, but the suffering and atrocities in Yemen should be front page news. Saudi Arabia, despite having some of the most modern weaponry in the world has been achieving the same success as we have with our expensive and modern weaponry.
So suddenly we’re seeing the headlines that ISIS is being seen in Yemen. Of course for the neos, this is the green light to join Saudi Arabia in the fight in Yemen.
…
Lots of exciting news regarding the so-called Trump dossier. Most of the headlines and the stories are talking about the Hillary campaign buying the report and/or the Fusion Groups role in the dossier.
I don’t have a problem with the Clinton Campaign buying what they thought was opposition research. Yeah, they look stupid for buying such a brazenly false report, but politics at the presidential level is a blood sport. The more dirt you can dig up on your opponent helps to make people not vote for them.
What I want to know is who funded creating the dossier. That is the huge red herring out there. I’m inclined to believe that it was deep state “never Trump” folks. Remember who turned the dossier over to the FBI – John McCain.
…
Most of us have mixed feelings about “whistle-blowers”. On the one hand, we all applaud when the truth is revealed. Heck, most of us “wish” for the so-called good old days when the media was objective.
We like whistleblowers a lot when they reveal things that folks we don’t like do (the right loves Hillary stuff and the left loves anti military complex stuff, for example).
We like it less when it embarrasses out country. People hate Bradley Manning because he revealed some of the bad things we were doing in the war. Many folks hate Edward Snowden because he revealed some of the evil that our surveillance state still does. Many folks have very mixed feelings about Julian Assange.
If we want the truth, the truth that turns information into knowledge, we need to concentrate on the truth and not the messenger. The truth is the truth, no matter what motivations the messenger might have.…
