Month: November 2024

Trump Has No Discernible Interest in Fiscal Responsibility

Posted on by Lone Candle

“By the end of Trump’s term, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculated, he had signed legislation and issued executive orders that, on balance, added $8.4 trillion to the national debt (including interest) over 10 years. As of last June, the corresponding figure for President Joe Biden was $4.3 trillion.
During his 2024 run, Trump expressed approximately zero concern about any of this. To the contrary, the Republican platform in effect promised more borrowing to finance “large tax cuts,” an expanded military budget, and “the largest deportation operation in American history.”

The platform also promised that Trump would “fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age.” Given the looming financial crises in those entitlement programs, which will include mandatory, across-the-board cuts to Social Security benefits in a decade, that commitment is utterly reckless.

Adding together all of Trump’s promises, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that his fiscal plans would add about $7.8 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. The corresponding estimate for Vice President Kamala Harris was about $4 trillion.”

https://reason.com/2024/11/13/trump-has-no-discernible-interest-in-fiscal-responsibility/

FEMA resuming normal North Carolina operations after scaling back due to threat

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Federal Emergency Management Agency crews in North Carolina were forced to relocate due to a reported armed threat against workers, first reported by The Washington Post.
An email sent by the U.S. Forest Service to federal responders in Rutherford County alerted them of an apparent standdown after National Guard troops reportedly encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.”

Out of an abundance of caution, FEMA said its disaster assistance teams will be stationed at fixed locations instead of going door-to-door, which has been the agency’s common practice in the past.

One person was arrested in connection to the threat, CBS News confirmed on Monday.

“FEMA continues to support communities impacted by Helene and help survivors apply for assistance. For the safety of our dedicated staff and the disaster survivors we are helping, FEMA has made some operational adjustments. Disaster Recovery Centers will continue to be open as scheduled, survivors continue to register for assistance, and we continue to help the people of North Carolina with their recovery,” FEMA said in a statement to CBS News.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fema-crews-threatened-amid-hurricane-145523932.html

Trump Promised More Legal High-Skilled Immigration. His Record Says Otherwise.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Take Trump’s record on the H-1B program, the largest U.S. temporary work visa program for high-skilled workers. Jorge Loweree, managing director of programs at the American Immigration Council (AIC), described the program to Reason as a “critical tool for us to attract talent from abroad” and to continue “our leadership role in the tech sector around the world.” Every year, it provides 65,000 visas for “highly educated foreign professionals,” with an additional 20,000 reserved for “foreign professionals who graduate with a master’s degree or doctorate from a U.S. institution,” according to an H-1B visa factsheet by AIC.
“During his prior term in office. His administration implemented a series of policy changes that made obtaining and maintaining [H-1B] status significantly more challenging,” Loweree stated.

Trump increased regulation on the program, starting with the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order which instructed agencies to “propose new rules and issue new guidance…to protect the interests of United States workers in the administration of our immigration system.”

This increased denial rates for H-1B applicants and made the process of applying costlier, according to Forbes. In FY 2015 denial rates for H-1B visas were six percent. By FY 2018 they rose to a high of 24 percent, according to AIC. Attorney fees for filing an H-1B visa increased between $2,000 and $4,500 per applicant. Wait times for spouses of H-1B applicants also increased, taking up to two years, in some instances, for them to receive their H-4 dependent, which allows them to live in the U.S.

Prior deference, which allowed current H-1B recipients to avoid going through the time-consuming interview process and paperwork to extend their H-1B visa, was also eliminated by Trump, according to Loweree. It was later reinstated by President Joe Biden.”

…

“H-1B workers impact the U.S. economy in many ways. Highly skilled immigrants who use the H-1B visa “directly increase the production of knowledge through patents, innovation, and entrepreneurship,” according to the Cato Institute. And, because they primarily specialize in STEM fields, foreign-born workers increase productivity, employment, and wages for native-born workers.

While Trump’s promise on the All-In podcast is encouraging, his record shows that it will unlikely be kept. A calculated attack on H-1B visas by a second Trump administration would hurt U.S. innovation and the native-born workers who benefit from the skills that legal immigrants bring.”

https://reason.com/2024/11/13/trump-promised-more-legal-high-skilled-immigration-his-record-says-otherwise/

To Succeed at Cutting Government, Musk and Ramaswamy Must Take on Entitlements

Posted on by Lone Candle

“First, it’s not as if there is some secret knowledge to be uncovered by the DOGE when it comes to fixing the rampant inefficiencies of the federal government. Those Medicare and Medicaid overpayments are documented annually, for example. The Government Accountability Office and various inspectors general file regular reports. The Congressional Budget Office maintains a list of things that could be cut to reduce the deficit. Various members of Congress—most prominently, Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.)—periodically publish lists of silly, wasteful, or dubious government spending.
What’s lacking, in short, is not ideas but the political will to act on them.

The amount of political will is going to matter, because that is very relevant to the second point: Unless Trump is willing to set aside his promise not to touch America’s entitlement programs, the DOGE will be unable to follow through on its mandate.

Again, look at those improper payments made by Medicare and Medicaid. The $101.4 billion of improper payments the two entitlements made in 2023 accounted for 40 percent of all improper payments across the entire government that year, according to the GAO. That same GAO report suggested a simple change in how Medicaid bills some of its services that, if implemented, could save $141 billion over 10 years.”

…

“The same problem pops up when you start looking at other big swings that the DOGE could take. Seven of the top nine suggestions made by the Congressional Budget Office’s annual report on “options for reducing the deficit” involve changing elements of America’s three federal entitlement programs. Capping Medicaid spending, increasing premiums for Medicare Part B, or reconfiguring how Social Security benefits are paid to wealthier Americans each could save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. None will be possible as long as entitlement reform is off the table.

All of this is a function of the federal government’s fiscal reality: Entitlements are the biggest and fastest-growing segment of the budget. This year, so-called “mandatory spending”—primarily Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with a few other government-funded health care programs—will cost nearly $4 trillion, while all discretionary spending will total less than $1.8 trillion.

Musk has promised $2 trillion in spending cuts, but he could propose eliminating all discretionary spending—good luck zeroing out the Pentagon—and would still fall short of that goal. It is impossible to be serious about fiscal reform while promising not to touch the entitlement programs.”

https://reason.com/2024/11/13/to-succeed-at-cutting-government-musk-and-ramaswamy-must-take-on-entitlements/

House has ‘numerous’ photos from women who say they were paid a total of more than $10,000 by Gaetz for sex, lawyer says

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Two women who claim they were paid for sex by former Rep. Matt Gaetz provided House ethics investigators with “numerous” photos related to time they spent with the Florida Republican, a lawyer for the women said Tuesday, including from an alleged 2019 trip to New York.
The women said they were paid by the former congressman for sex on that trip, during which they also joined Gaetz at a Fox News studio while he filmed a TV appearance, their attorney Joel Leppard told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.” Gaetz allegedly covered the women’s travel costs as well, Leppard said.

The women additionally provided the House Ethics Committee with selfies Gaetz is said to have sent them, according to their lawyer. They also testified that they sent nude photos to Gaetz, sometimes at his request, Leppard said.”

…

“Leppard noted the House panel heard testimony from several other witnesses.

“The evidence that the House has, I would presume, is overwhelming, because my clients were just two of the other witnesses, and there are very important witnesses who have yet to come out and give a preview of what the House Ethics Committee results might show,” he said.

House investigators, according to the lawyer, asked the two women about records they had obtained showing payments, largely transmitted electronically, allegedly made to them by Gaetz. Leppard said the records showed one of his clients was paid more than $6,000 by the congressman and the other more than $4,000.

“What I’m telling you is just a fraction of the evidence that’s available, of the thousands of documents” the House obtained, Leppard said.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-numerous-photos-women-were-012611151.html

Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted, sparking warnings of possible ‘hybrid warfare’

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure.
A communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut on Sunday morning around 10:00 a.m. local time, a spokesperson from telecommunications company Telia Lithuania confirmed to CNN.

The company’s monitoring systems could tell there was a cut due to the traffic disruption, and that the cause was likely physical damage to the cable itself, Telia Lithuania spokesperson Audrius Stasiulaitis told CNN. “We can confirm that the internet traffic disruption was not caused by equipment failure but by physical damage to the fiber optic cable.”

Another cable linking Finland and Germany was also disrupted, according to Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that runs the link. The C-Lion cable – the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and Central Europe – spans nearly 1,200 kilometers (730 miles), alongside other key pieces of infrastructure, including gas pipelines and power cables.

The incidents came as two of the affected countries, Sweden and Finland, updated their guidance to citizens on how to survive war. Millions of households in the Nordic nations will be given booklets with instructions on how to prepare for the effects of military conflicts, communications outages and power cuts.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mystery-fault-takes-undersea-internet-143858766.html