Domain: state.gov
Stories and comments across the archive that link to state.gov.
Comments · 1,132
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Re:To prevent discourse
The visa part, at least, is only partially true: "With a valid U.S. passport, you can stay up to 90 days [without a visa] for tourism or business during any 180-day period." I'm pretty sure long-term work or residence always required a visa.
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More Fake News from someone who did not RTFA
My guess is you never knew anything the FCC actually did, so you have no idea.
I do, but apparently you did not since your claim requires stating what is important they are not continuing operations on.
Except the EPA isn't monitoring pollution
Companies are still legally responsible for pollution so it's not like they are doing to start while monitoring is suspended.
the FDA isn't approving drugs
Fake News, applications still being processed.
Social Security is shut down (if you're on it you keep getting checks, but you cannot get on it)
Fake news, that kind of bullshit only happens under Democrats who want you to think the government is more important than it is or in fact stoppable. Applications will be processed, just with some delay.
you can still update passports...
At consulates, not everywhere.More fake news, can mail a passport in from anywhere to get renewed or apply at any USPS office
For a guy whose handle claims they always RTFA that is a LOT of background reading you did not do before throwing out a lot of unfounded assertions!!!!
Most national parks have some pre-shutdown funding still available. They'll all be closed if this keeps going on
Takes money to shut down most parks. Why even close them? The stuff Obama did was just plain mean, like putting barricades around national monuments you could just walk up to. None of that happening this time.
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Re: Honest question
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Re:Why do you think that's limited to just encrypt
Oh no, it wasn't a Republican thing. Not at all. Here's Madeline Albright falsely claiming Saddam had WMD and calling for invasion in 1998. Under Democrat Bill Clinton.
PNAC urges war in 1996
"That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor."So don't go trying to blame this on Republicans. It certainly has nothing to do with good ol' fashioned modern American politics because Americans want nothing to do with foreign affairs. Our lives are falling apart and we badly need attention to our own affairs. Literally nobody except the oh-so-wise US government was in favor of invading Iraq. Any process that produces such an obviously invalid result is suspect in all of its other choices, as well.
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Africa is a diverse continent of ~55 countries
So, sure, one may find specific combinations of infrastructure somewhere. For example:
https://sourcingjournal.com/to...
""The next China is not a where, it's a how you do business," he said. "But Africa seems to be the emergence of the next China." Africa today is much like China was in the late 80s and early 90s, McRaith explained. There's little there, but the continent is developing. The first thing to consider, however, McRaith said, is that the sizable continent cannot be discussed as one region and understood as such. Africa is big enough to fit all of the world's major players within it: the United States, China, India, Eastern Europe, Japan, the U.K., Spain, France, Germany and Italy, among others. "Africa is of a scale we've never dealt with," he said."But it may be harder than you suggest. For your example of Nairobi, consider electrical infrastructure:
http://www.afd.fr/en/reliabili...
"The poor performance of Kenya's energy sector hampers the country's economic development and poverty reduction strategy: per capita electricity consumption is low, the country suffers relatively frequent power cuts, and small proportion of the population has access to electricity, while the average tariff in the last five years was $0.15 per kilowatt hour, one of the highest in sub-Saharan Africa."And:
https://medium.com/@kyleschutt...
"You will be robbed in Nairobi, inevitably. No one really talks about it because it is a bit awkward, but it should be discussed. You should know what to do. Except for my sister, everyone I know in Nairobi has been robbed, especially if they own a business. After all, the city's nickname is Nairobbery. ..."And:
https://travel.state.gov/conte...
"Terrorist threats remain in Kenya, including those aimed at U.S., Western, and Kenyan interests, within the Nairobi area, along the coast, and within the northeastern region of the country. Terrorist attacks have cumulatively resulted in the death and injury of hundreds of people since 2011. Over the last year, most incidents have occurred in the northeastern border region of the country; there have been no major attacks in Nairobi, Mombasa, or other major cities in the last two years. ...
CRIME: Crime in Kenya is a regular occurrence and Kenyan authorities have limited capacity to deter and investigate such acts. Violent and sometimes fatal criminal attacks, including home invasions, burglaries, armed carjackings, muggings, and kidnappings can occur at any time. ..."Can large businesses set up generators (or locate near cheap hydropower perhaps), hire private security (ignoring some of those thefts mentioned were inside jobs), build gated compounds for executives and their families, and so on? Of course, but it all adds to the costs and risks of doing business.
Work ethic is a complex topic -- and note I said "hierarchical" work ethic, meaning people's willingness to submit to a big corporation versus their desire to work for themselves and/or their family, village, or tribe. One study from 2011 comparing Chinese and South African work ethic:
https://www.emeraldinsight.com...
"South Africa is a developing country, and within this context, it is essential to be economically competitive and proactive. Various sources reveal that the national productivity has been traditionally low, and continues to remain low. Within the context of the international arena, this is unacceptable. If South Africa is to become a recognised role player in the internationa -
Re: New services are not stopped by this
You just keep failing again, and again, and again
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Outer Space Treaty
Looks like someone figured out that there are some pretty big gaps in the OST. https://www.state.gov/t/isn/51...
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Re:Communism has never been tried
But if you're entire country's basic systems fall apart and the rest of the world decides to punish you with sanctions for no particular reason
No particular reason? What the fuck are you smoking?
This is literally the second google hit for "venezuela sanctions":
This new authority is aimed at persons involved in or responsible for the erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the significant public corruption by senior government officials in Venezuela. E.O. 13692 does not target the people or economy of Venezuela.
Those are very particular reasons.
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Re:This Jackoff
Do you think anyone in his administration has mentioned to Trump that the United States is bound by a treaty, ratified in 1967, which specifically forbids militarization of space?
Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
https://www.state.gov/t/isn/51...
Read your own link. Pay attention to what the treaty actually does, not just a general statement about the purpose behind it.
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This Jackoff
Do you think anyone in his administration has mentioned to Trump that the United States is bound by a treaty, ratified in 1967, which specifically forbids militarization of space?
Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
https://www.state.gov/t/isn/51...
I mean, I understand that he wants to do anything he can to distract us from the fact that his campaign manager is sitting in a jail cell, his personal attorney is spilling his guts and his administration is keeping children in concentration camps on our Southern border, but does he really think anyone but the most dedicated MAGA chud is going to think the SPACE FORCE is anything but the butt of future jokes?
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Re:I just closed all my dating accounts
It sounds like you are in an area where potential matches are very limited. You are not willing to move so you need to find someone who will move to you. I know people who have had great success with foreigners. The culture in other parts of the world can be very different. It may well be that a foreign culture suits you better.
From your other posts it is clear you live in the US, and have for at least 15 years. That suggests to me you are a US citizen. There are women all over the world who would love to marry an American and move to the US. I recommend looking in a country that is on the US visa waiver program so she can visit you in person before you start down the path of marriage and immigration.
If you aim for a foreigner one big concern will be scammers that are just looking for money or a ticket to the US. One key rule is to not send any money (you can make an exception for customs duties and immigration fees). Another is to make sure she spends a couple hours per day chatting with you online. If she has to spend a couple hours per day working on a relationship where the only return is the possibility of a long-term relationship she is probably the real deal. If she is just using you to get to the US it will likely be evident during the months of online chatting the two of you would engage in.
Also take note of the site/service you meet your mate on. If it is classified as an international marriage broker certain steps need to be followed or immigration will not let her into the country.
To immigrate you have to prove the two of you have a bona fide relationship. So you should keep a log of all email/texts/instant messages you send, a log of when all online chats start and stop, keep a copy of all receipts especially travel related. You will have to prove you have met in person (unless your religion prohibits it) so take lots of pictures together. You will need other documents as well. Visa Journey has great documentation on the whole process.
I also recommend you read How to Win Friends & Influence People. It is a classic book and a great read. It is aimed at salesman but the advise is good for everyone. I have seen it quoted by celebrities, politicians, and even a US Supreme Court justice. Some of your posts would have been written very differently if you had applied the book's advise. There is a good chance many of your online dating messages would have been written different as well.
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Re:The key number here is 15 million per year
That's 41,000 per day now. If that requirement hits, it may be thousands and thousands less. Since there is no security benefit, I can only assume the goal is to prevent people from traveling to US so much. I am sure the tourist industry / travel industry would love that.
Read between the lines. If you look here, you'll see that only 7,432,515 B1/B2 (tourist and business) visas were issued. That's a little over 20k per day. A large percentage of these will be business visitors.
The total number of arrivals for 2017 is 54,973,043. That's a little over 150k per day. So your visa-based tourists and business travelers together make up ~13% of yearly travelers to the U.S.
Remember that a lot of countries are exempt from the visa requirements through the Visa Waiver Program. -
Re:Tourists don't need Visa's
You don't need a Visa for vacation, you need a passport from your country of residence. Visa's are required for school or working in the US.
Correct, as long as your country of citizenship (not residence) is in the visa-waiver program. Otherwise you need a visa to visit the USA.
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Re:A better idea:
You know that it is required to have a B-2 Visa (Tourism and Visit) to enter the US as a tourist, right? Now, don't you feel stupid? Or do you intend for all foreign tourists to be replaced by domestic tourists, since we all come and "steal your jobs"? I guess that the tourist industry don't want customers over there. Well, with the people like you around and laws like these, I sure have crossed off the US from my list of countries to visit (again).
Look at the statistics of your own State Department (PDF) and note that the visas for business visits or tourist visits far outnumber any other visa by at least one, if not two or three magnitudes.
So stop being a racist moron and get your head out of your ass!
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Safer in DPRK? Not likely
There is roughly a zero chance of getting mugged in DPRK. Yes, you can go to prison for things.
Like pointing out that their Dear Leader is an asshat. Or looking at anything your handler doesn't approve of. Or photographing anything unapproved. Or talking with the locals without permission.
But so long as you play the part of good tourist, you are much safer in DPRK than Mexico (or the US).
Bullshit. I guarantee I'm safer in the US or Mexico. It's not even a close contest.
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Please expedite my submission
“Loyalty to the United States, strength of character, trustworthiness, honesty, reliability,’’ are among the attributes sought in the process, according to the U.S. State Department website.
Is it possible the wait would be less than 311 days if I was an Eagle Scout who contributed a large amount to a strategically selected political campaign?
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Re:Hands tied?
These are *children* who were brought here at ages where they didn't have the ability to understand a concept like immigration law.
Even most adult American citizens don't even understand US immigration law.
How often do you see something stupid like "Why can't those illegal Mexicans just register themselves legally?" ignorant of the fact that there is no way for a Mexican without direct family to legally immigrate to the US, and even when you have direct family, the wait time can be 20 years as it is now for Mexican F1 visas (Unmarried Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens).
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Re:This is a bad strategy
How is Iran a rogue nation? Here's a start:
It's a state sponsor of terrorism.
It has an unaccountable paramilitary force, the Revolutionary Guards, who regularly attack and detain foreigners, among others.
They flirt with nuclear proliferation, to the extent that Israel has unilaterally attacked them in the past.Any one of these would be enough to label it a rogue nation.
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Re:better idea
I looked up the numbers and terrorists kill about 28,000 people a year worldwide. And most of them are likely Muslims that the terrorists don't think are in the "right" sect.
From the linked article: "More than 55% of all attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria), and 74% of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan)."
Terrorism in countries like the US or Australia is actually vanishingly low. It's touted as a horrible threat by politicians to take away rights and to get themselves more power, but you're more likely to die in a car accident than from a terrorist. (There are 37,000 road accident deaths in the US per year and 1.3 million worldwide - Source.)
If people want to ban all Muslims because of the tiny risk of terrorism, why aren't we banning all motor vehicles to combat the higher risk of automobile-related deaths?
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Re:s/Trump/Obama/g
Obama wouldn't try to stifle the free press.
Wrong. On the same day that US governement announced World Press Freedom Day,
https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm
Julian Assange was arrested.
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/08/131892110/wikileaks-dodges-obstacles-to-stay-online
On that same day, the famous journalist Daniel Ellsberg defended Assange, pointing out that "EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."
http://blog.sfgate.com/opinionshop/2010/12/07/daniel-ellsberg-praises-wikileaks/
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Re:Kind, compassionate idiots
"I'm not quite sure how fighting the Axis after being attacked by it counts as generous" - Well, before December 1941 the US with Franklin D. Roosevelt as President was doing quite a bit of prodding the Axis (rightly, in my British view), for example:
- Lend Lease "...This program effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality and was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy, which had dominated United States foreign relations since 1931
... In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the U.S. would be the 'Arsenal of Democracy' and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada ..." - Battle of the Atlantic "... By 1941, the United States was taking an increasing part in the war, despite its nominal neutrality. In April 1941 President Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland. British forces occupied Iceland when Denmark fell to the Germans in 1940; the US was persuaded to provide forces to relieve British troops on the island. American warships began escorting Allied convoys in the western Atlantic as far as Iceland, and had several hostile encounters with U-boats.
..."
Escort Duties: ... From May 1941 the US Navy became a British ally in the struggle in the Atlantic. By taking over escort duties in the western Atlantic, it became involved in a shooting war with Germany, and on Halloween 1941, the inevitable happened. While escorting a British convoy, an American warship, the destroyer Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine U-562. This was at a time when Roosevelt still faced fierce opposition from isolationists within the USA, and escort duties in the Battle of the Atlantic had so far been the most that the President could do to bring the USA into the war on the British side. However, eventually this undeclared German-American naval war probably played a role in Hitler's decision to declare war on the USA - in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. ... - US aid to China:
... In 1940 and 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt formalized U.S. aid to China. The U.S. Government extended credits to the Chinese Government for the purchase of war supplies, as it slowly began to tighten restrictions on Japan. The United States was the main supplier of the oil, steel, iron, and other commodities needed by the Japanese military as it became bogged down by Chinese resistance but, in January, 1940, Japan abrogated the existing treaty of commerce with the United States. Although this did not lead to an immediate embargo, it meant that the Roosevelt Administration could now restrict the flow of military supplies into Japan and use this as leverage to force Japan to halt its aggression in China. After January 1940, the United States combined a strategy of increasing aid to China through larger credits and the Lend-Lease program with a gradual move towards an embargo on the trade of all militarily useful items with Japan. ...
- Lend Lease "...This program effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality and was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy, which had dominated United States foreign relations since 1931
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Re:Protectionist state
> IANAIL and all that, but my understanding is that since he's being paid by a US company, coming to the US for a meeting with that company is considered work, and he's no eligible for VWP or a B-1 visa.
It's called business. And it's covered by B-1 visa.
Nope, B-1 visa doesn't cover everything "called business". See the PDF I linked to earlier; it specifically says that if you're coming for a meeting, you're eligible for a B-1 only if you "will receive no salary or income from a U.S based company/entity." Like I said, people who work for a non-US company can enter the US with a B-1 (or under the VWP) to attend a business meeting, but the guy works for the Mozilla Corporation, which is a US (California) company.
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Re:Protectionist state
Even if Sweden was one of them, Stenberg has a clear relationship with a US Company. So the real question is, does Stenberg have a valid work visa? Most of the people I hear being denied entry into the US are denied because they had a paying US gig and got the wrong kind of visa
I think the summary and article make it clear that he doesn't have a work visa; he was trying to enter through the visa waiver program. And I agree that the lack of work visa is probably the issue--you can enter through the VWP or on a B-1 business visitor visa to attend a business meeting if you're employed by a foreign company and are not being paid by a US company. But Stenberg's a (presumably paid) employee of Mozilla. IANAIL and all that, but my understanding is that since he's being paid by a US company, coming to the US for a meeting with that company is considered work, and he's no eligible for VWP or a B-1 visa.
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Re:IRS
There is a procedure
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Re:But Trump is the Emperor
According to State, it usually takes 60 days, so not sure what process you are talking about.
https://travel.state.gov/conte...
Perhaps you meant the legal immigration process which hasn't been changed?
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Re:*marked* classified - she ordered markings be r
With Hillary you have to pay attention to her exact words.
Ok, lets look at what she actually said:
“This is another instance where what is common practice — I need information, I had some points I had to make and I was waiting for a secure fax that could give me the whole picture, but oftentimes there is a lot of information that isn’t at all classified,” Clinton said Sunday on "Face the Nation." “So whatever information can be appropriately transmitted unclassified often was. That’s true for every agency in the government and everybody that does business with the government.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/265367-clinton-defends-telling-aid-to-send-data-through-nonsecure-channelLater we found out that's because she ordered her people to (unlawfully) remove the markings.
As you can see, that's false. Furthermore, you've been corrected many times and continue to repeat that lie. You don't have any interest in the truth, only scoring points for your "team."
Of course in some cases they didn't remove the markings, so she did have stuff marked classified too.
There were only two emails that contained any markings.* They were her phone call schedules for the day that had been declassified and partial markings were incorrectly left in the middle of the documents. Her call sheets are only classified to begin with in case the calls aren't made so as to avoid embarrassing the other party that they were blown off by the secretary of state. You can see the two documents yourself in the emails released by the state department. Which is all the proof you need that they were indeed unclassified because "leaking" does not declassify a document, so the fact that they were published by the state department proves they were unclassified.
Here are the two emails, you can see the errnoneous "(C)" (for confidential, the lowest level of classification) on the individual line-items:
CALL TO PRESIDENT BANDA
KOFI ANNAN CALL SHEET* state department press statement that there were only two such cases search for "aware of two" to find the part of the press conference where that is confirmed.
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Re:*marked* classified - she ordered markings be r
With Hillary you have to pay attention to her exact words.
Ok, lets look at what she actually said:
“This is another instance where what is common practice — I need information, I had some points I had to make and I was waiting for a secure fax that could give me the whole picture, but oftentimes there is a lot of information that isn’t at all classified,” Clinton said Sunday on "Face the Nation." “So whatever information can be appropriately transmitted unclassified often was. That’s true for every agency in the government and everybody that does business with the government.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/265367-clinton-defends-telling-aid-to-send-data-through-nonsecure-channelLater we found out that's because she ordered her people to (unlawfully) remove the markings.
As you can see, that's false. Furthermore, you've been corrected many times and continue to repeat that lie. You don't have any interest in the truth, only scoring points for your "team."
Of course in some cases they didn't remove the markings, so she did have stuff marked classified too.
There were only two emails that contained any markings.* They were her phone call schedules for the day that had been declassified and partial markings were incorrectly left in the middle of the documents. Her call sheets are only classified to begin with in case the calls aren't made so as to avoid embarrassing the other party that they were blown off by the secretary of state. You can see the two documents yourself in the emails released by the state department. Which is all the proof you need that they were indeed unclassified because "leaking" does not declassify a document, so the fact that they were published by the state department proves they were unclassified.
Here are the two emails, you can see the errnoneous "(C)" (for confidential, the lowest level of classification) on the individual line-items:
CALL TO PRESIDENT BANDA
KOFI ANNAN CALL SHEET* state department press statement that there were only two such cases search for "aware of two" to find the part of the press conference where that is confirmed.
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Re: USA! USA! USA!
Actually, you're rather wrong
NO U
what you don't need to do is apply for a tourist visa in some countries. What they put in your passport when you're entering is a visa, and it's automatically issued to people from certain countries.
Visa exempt/visa waiver program is distinct from visa on arrival. E.g., Thailand offers visa-free entry for citizens of certain countries, visa on arrival for citizens of other countries, and requires applying for a visa in advance for citizens of yet another set of countries. Travelers who are visa-exempt get a stamp in their passport, but that stamp is not a visa, and may have restrictions compared to an actual visa. E.g., visa-exempt entry to the US cannot be extended, while entry on a tourist visa (and some other non-immigrant visas) can.
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Re:Put the blame where it belongs.
This.
But the simplest way is to copy the Australians and Canadians.
You get a certain number of points for each year of education and experience, a certain number of points for speaking English fluently, a certain number of points for being in an "in-demand" occupation.
If you score enough points, you pay a few grand to uncle sam, then uncle sam asks you to prove you have enough cash to support yourself for a year and enough for a return ticket (in case it doesn't work out) as well as pass a medical test to make sure you don't have the pox, then sign a contract that you won't try to claim welfare till you've paid at least five years worth of tax (for example).
THEN... after all that, Uncle Sam cuts you a green card and in you come.
Within limits. e.g. no more than 250,000 invididuals per year.
THAT works in Canada and Australia and there not the huge indentured servant problem. It's not tied to company sponsorship.
The point system is great for *merit* based immigration, but in the US, immigration advocates are worried that certain categories of people are underrepresented in the immigration quota, thus we have a *quota* based system for each of Family-Based and Employment-Based and Diversity lottery. Within each of these is a preference level (families based preferences favoring children, spouses and siblings, where employment based favoring advance degrees and exceptional ability over simply professionals and investors).
The problem is that because the way the law is structured to embody diversity quotas instead of points, a maximum of non-exempt 7% of immigrants can come from a *specific* country. This pushes many folks from impacted countries to seek alternative non-immigrant visas like the H1B (temporary worker status) which has it's own issues because it wasn't designed for that. The reason H1B works has a loophole in that you can come right away and work whilst you wait for your green-card (if you come on most other non-immigrant visas, you cannot work and/or apply for a green card). This H1B is also overused by the hi-tech job shop. People often conflate green-cards with H1B. For many, there is nothing stopping you from applying for a green-card with your job offer to come to the US (current green-card processing times are generally about the same as H1B processing times).
For a current viewof priority dates for US green cards, we can see that most are current (which means they process green card applications as received and are processed as fast as a massively inefficient bureaucracy can general move which means about 120 days). As expected, the problematic countries are India and China, but as expected EB-1 (the highest preference employment-based category) is current for all countries (including India and China). The worst is EB-3 India (priority date of 22MAR05 more than 10 years) which is the one flooded by the H1B holders hi-tech job shops
I don't expect that most US voters outside of the hi-tech job distortion field think this is too broken. Exceptional people from all countries get green cards as fast as our grinding government bureaucracy can move. Working stiffs wait in a diversity enforcing quota line. Family doesn't have to wait behind employment. We limit the immigration rate to a manageable amount. It works the way they generally want it to work.
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Re:Human nature and fission
People are afraid of nuclear fission whether or not those fears are justified. That is human nature and it is unlikely to change.
Nonsense. It's not even remotely human nature, and it was changed, forcibly. Humanity's fear, and in particular Americans' fear of nuclear power is one of the great propaganda victories of the 20th Century.
Immediately after the end of World War II, the Greatest Generation was absolutely convinced that they were entering the Atomic Age and that it was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. Science fiction was absolutely saturated with atomic everything, and even though it was a disrespected fringe literature at the time, that didn't stop its enthusiasm from leaking over into the rest of the world. To the point where "atomic" became synonymous with "good", "modern", and "the future", slapped on advertising copy as a matter of course, in much the same way as "green" is today. The phrase "too cheap to meter" originated in 1954, and though the speaker was referring to fusion power, the phrase stuck, and is still applied today, to both fission and fusion. (Sarcastically, nowadays, but it persists nonetheless.) The future was bright, and it was going to be nuclear powered.
Then Green Peace set themselves against it. They spent the '60s and '70s telling the world how dangerous nuclear power was, and when the Three Mile Island accident happened in 1979, they were quick to capitalize on it, despite there being zero injuries or deaths caused by it right up through the present day. They spent the next seven years hammering on that accident, trying to convince the world how scary nuclear power was. And they were succeeding. If the propaganda had gone the other way, Three Mile Island would have been a great victory for nuclear power. Even with a partial core meltdown, no one was injured. The "Big Scary Thing" had happened, and it wasn't scary at all. Except people were being told that it was scary, and after a generation of it being hammered on, it was starting to stick.
Then in 1986, the Chernobyl disaster happened, the greatest gift to anti-nuclear forces since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And still, it could have gone the other way. The Nixon era attempt at détente had withered and the USSR was again the Great Enemy of America. (The USSR didn't disintegrate until the tail end of 1991.) Chernobyl could have been spun as a Soviet screwup, proof of the inherent inferiority of the Soviet system and indeed, it was used for that purpose, but by far the loudest message hitched to that disaster was "nuclear bad". And it worked.
It took two generations of intense propaganda and legal obstructionism, but Green Peace won. They had completely reversed the attitude towards nuclear power of an entire continent. Meanwhile, between 1946 and 1989, 4208 people, including 116 children, died in coal mining accidents and disasters around the world, while just 31 people died as a direct result of Chernobyl. (The count of indirect deaths of both coal burning and the Chernobyl disaster are violently disputed, so I'll leave them aside, saying only that both are much bigger than the direct deaths.) Human nature should have been terrified of coal by the end of the 20th Century, because it had indisputably and directly killed so many. Human nature is to be scared of the things we're told to be scared o
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Re:WTF?
if they want a flimsy excuse to reject people to match a quota and show that the TSA is "working" by throwing out a large number of "potential terrorists".
Look, we were originally discussing immigration. A few articles above, you then just switched to the TSA for no good reason. Do you even understand the difference between TSA and immigration?
Very strange ones about the TSA "helping people" by looking at the private portions of their social media accounts. I just don't get it.
Well, one of your problems is perhaps that you are confusing immigration and security. Another problem may be that (I believe) you have never actually been a immigrant to the US. Take it from someone who has been: as a legal immigrant to the US, my status was that of a petitioner and guest of the US, not as someone who could demand entry. Entry into the US is not a right, it is a privilege that is granted selectively and discriminatively.
I do not think so. In my opinion it only makes sense if they wish to build up a dossier on each visitor
As far as I can tell, immigration agents have a record of every border crossing and every answer non-citizens have given them in the past, plus numerous other sources of information.
Personally I think the entire low rent bunch should be replaced by the sort of professional airport security that is done in Israel.
You mean the kind of professional airport security that asks for access to private portions of social media profiles and the kind of immigration agents that deny entry to HIV positive visitors? The kind of immigration agents that wave elderly Jewish couples through security, while being hostile to any Arabs or Muslims?
Israeli security officials have also on occasion requested access to travelers’ personal e-mail accounts or other social media accounts as a condition of entry. In such circumstances, travelers should have no expectation of privacy for any data stored on such devices or in their accounts.
Some U.S. citizens of Arab or Muslim heritage have experienced significant difficulties and unequal and hostile treatment at Israel’s borders and checkpoints
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Re:Data Extradition?
This exists ( https://www.state.gov/document... ). A sizeable volume of requests are processed every year. However, some US judges don't want to use the official channels, I suspect because they are egotistical enough to think that their writ applies outside US territory. I don't mean to knock Americans, this is just human nature. An Irish policeman recently was recently in the papers for cooperation with the FBI to get Facebook to do something that could have been done much quicker by just asking the company's Irish branch office.
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Re:Automatically fired
I see what you did there, but this is probably a bit closer to the real list.
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Best introduction to London
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Re:Only if they aren't aimed
After all, maiming civilians is what it's all about for these brave warrior nations.
The US uses landmines only along the Korean DMZ, where there are no civilians.
Here is a link to that policy. The is now explicitly in compliance with the Ottawa Treaty (Mine Ban Treaty) with the sole exception of its use on the Korean DMZ, which is a closed, fenced, thoroughly marked, and patrolled military zone where there is no possibility of civilian (or for that matter military) encounter.
OTOH, the U.S. still uses sea mines, which can sink civilian ships as easily as military ones. Not quite the same problem as land mines, but not completely different either.
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Re:He's literally not
Bleh, linked the wrong article for the visa bit. This is the tab I meant to link: https://travel.state.gov/conte...
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Re:GOP [Re: Immigration policy is not hate speech]
Simple solution: Free passports for citizens. Cost: About 300,000,000 x $140 42 billion (thousand million) at no discount and assuming 300 million citizens, (who being Americans haven't left the country...joke). ref: https://travel.state.gov/conte...
Use for voting and getting a job. Permanent residents use green cards for jobs. Complicated remains complicated.
No jobs without a passport/green card. No wall required, it would just get in the way of Mexicans going home.
Passport lasts 10 years now (???IIRC), so 4.2 billion/year. Find a few obsolete money holes in the federal budget and we're there. Rural electrification program? Hasn't electrified anybody in 50 years IIRC $800 million/year. Rural power install is full price...10k$/pole (more years ago than I want to think about).
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Re:paranoia
Who's the reality denier?
Email chains not only detail Steven's position but planned movements on insecure server AKA handing information to terrorist.
Here's a breakdown:
http://www.thepoliticalinsider...Here's the federal FOIA confirmation:
https://foia.state.gov/Search/...Here's the leaked confirmation:
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-...Here's the documents that show she knew it was going to happen:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/d...I have a special dislike for Clinton - she's a murderer, a liar, a thief and she covers for multiple sexual offenders. My feelings about Trump are very mixed - he doesn't fit with my vision overall but I like the promise of "swamp draining" I just don't like the idea of him replacing what gets weeded out with something else. Sometime you remove something and replace it with nothing and that's the best answer.
Facts are the foundation of a rational opinion. I am not a member of the "feelings" party, nor am I a member of the "bomb them all" party, the two of which the lines tend to blur between. It's obvious you and AC are part of the "for the feelz" groups.
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If you have experienced the immigration process...
...Then you should be familiar with something called "Moral Turpitude."
If it's been a while, then let me catch you up. Every US immigrant, before entering the country, has to file a DS 230 with the State Department. On the form is a checkbox asking you if you've ever committed an act of Moral Turpitude. The expression "Moral Turpitude" is a fancy legal way of encompassing anything and everything that is morally wrong, all the way from 1st degree murder to eating meat on Good Friday. It is the government's easiest way of barring you from entry into the country, because, let's face it, we've all done something wrong in our lives. (And therefore, it's also the easiest way to kick an immigrant out of the country; all the government needs to do is find evidence of something you've done wrong in your life, then add to it lying on a government document, and then put you on a one-way plane trip back to where you came from.)
Anyways, entering the country illegally certainly qualifies as such. By declaring that, momma could be barred from re-entry for up to 10 years. There -are- ways around that, though they all require strong legal representation, which, let's face it, the vast majority of immigrants can't afford.
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Re:Resonating with Americans
If that was your intent, it was not communicated by saying "nail their balls to the wall" and is at odds with the description of the TPP by the negotiators who have said that China would be welcome to join the TPP.
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Re:But . . .
There were three kinds of "classified" documents in Clinton's email:
(1) Previously classified, now unclassified, but not all of the markings were fully removed as part of the declassification. They still had a (C) (for confidential) on the line item that had formerly been classified. There were only two of these and you can see them in the emails that the state department officially released, here they are hosted on wikileaks, but they were not released by wikileaks:
CALL TO PRESIDENT BANDA
KOFI ANNAN CALL SHEET
To be clear - these were the only documents with markings but they were not actually classified. The FBI director himself testified to that fact in front of the Senate - although at the time he said there were 3 documents, but that has since been corrected to two.(2) Discussions of ongoing events that have been retroactively classified by the CIA, FBI and other agencies. Classification, which in some cases, the Dept of State disputes is appropriate. Different agencies have different agendas with respect to classification - State tends to be less restrictive because they have to collaborate with non-US and uncleared partners, so over-classification inhibits their mission in ways that it does not for other agencies that are more insular.
(3) Documents that were highly classified (secret and top-secret) that had their markings removed. The origin of these documents was outside the state department and they were not solicited by Clinton or anyone else at State. As Secretary, if she wanted them she could have requested them internally. They were sent to her by Sidney Blumenthal who is a friend of Clinton but is not a government employee, he operates a "private intelligence service" with a focus on the middle east. Somebody removed the markings and gave those documents to Blumenthal. Most likely that person was an employee of the CIA. An investigation of that imbroglio is certain, but is unlikely to ever be made public because CIA.
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Re:Mobile phone access?
I don't know about the UK, but the US considers them sovereign:
While diplomatic spaces remain the territory of the host state, an embassy or consulate represents a sovereign state
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Re:Does anybody ...
Hollywood myth. Embassy grounds remain part of the host country's territory. They do have a special status by virtue of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. So the embassy controls who gets into the premises and the host country cannot raid or search the embassy under any circumstances unless authorized by the ambassador. But the embassies still have to respect local law and they remain under the host's sovereignty and in the host's territory.
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Re:Does anybody ...The cops can't enter the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest someone without creating an international incident, unless they've been invited into it for that express purpose. They can't even go in to put out a fire without permission.
(as an adherent to the Vienna Convention) the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country, even to put out a fire.[11] International rules designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents.[citation needed] The term "extraterritoriality" is often applied to diplomatic missions, but normally only in this broader sense.
As the host country may not enter the representing country's embassy without permission, embassies are sometimes used by refugees escaping from either the host country or a third country.
Do you remember the Americans hiding in the homes of 2 Canadian ambassadors in Iran?
Same as diplomatic pouches aren't searched - they can't even be x-rayed by the TSA or anyone else.
Inviolability of Diplomatic Pouches
In accordance with Article 27.3 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR), properly designated diplomatic pouches “shall not be opened or detained.” Although inspection of a pouch by X-ray would not physically break the external seal of the shipment, such an action constitutes the modern-day electronic equivalent of “opening” a pouch. As a result, the United States does not search properly designated and handled diplomatic pouches, either physically or electronically (e.g., by X-ray) and considers it a serious breach of the clear obligations of the VCDR for another country to do so.
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Re:We're going to nuke Russia
The statute you cite is for physical information. E-mail may not necessarily be covered unless the meaning was litigated?
Here you go. "Floppy disks" are not email, but your analog would be the hard drives in the Clinton email server. John Deutch is probably an even better example (he was pardoned after a VERY similar set of circumstances). Finding more than this is a bit difficult, given that most cases are military related, and military justice is not the same thing as civilian justice, but I think the above is close enough for government work.
And the other problem with the "prosecutions" case is the timing of the classification. If it came after the original messages were sent/received then there is no violation.
While this is not public, so I can only speculate, the comments along the lines of "strip off the markings and transmit it anyway" show that at least some information was classified at the time. I'll agree that if this was data from State that she had the authority to do that, however the claim is that there was compartmentalized information (from multiple different programs) as well, and while I can imagine that something at that level of secrecy might be retroactively classified, if strains credulity to think that "lots of things of this nature" were retroactively classified.
And.... intent is always a part of criminal law. It has been since the origin of the USA.
It's a sad fact that mens rea has been under attack in the US for the last several decades, and there are MANY crimes that you and I can be convicted of that do not require criminal intent. I find that to be repugnant, so I find your argument in this regard to be fairly persuasive. That said, the issue we are discussing is the negligent acts of someone entrusted with a responsibility to keep information secure. It's hard to argue that we should not hold people accountable for their negligence because they did not intend to do harm.
Further, these people have to accept this fact before they are entrusted with classified data, get regular refreshers on what their responsibilities (and the punishments for failing in those responsibilities) are. As such "she really didn't mean it" does not hold water.
So you may not like Hilary but leave the interpretation to the professionals like the FBI... and oh by the way Congress in the Benghazi hearings where they couldn't find any criminal actions.
I did not bring up Benghazi, nor do I believe it has any relationship to the email scandal that we are discussing. In response to your "let the professionals handle it," I will point out that those professionals did, in fact, conclude she broke the law but that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges." I'll again ask the question that led you to reply to me: in what way does "extremely careless" differ from "grossly negligent" other than in the "politically expedient" sense?
By the way: you're correct that I do not like Hillary (for the record, I actually like Trump even less) but that does not prevent me from being objective about this issue.
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Re:Nice spin
I didn't know Bush was part of the Clinton Foundation. I guess all the times we got "but Clinton!!1!" while Bush was president was more than just him wishing he was as slick as ol' Willie.
You DO realize that TARP was back when Bush was president, right? Back when Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state (not that the State department had a damn thing to do with the bailouts)
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Re:What selfish bastards
RTFA. This procedure is illegal in the USA, so the parents went to Mexico. This baby IS an immigrant.
1. The article says that this is a Jordanian couple who sought treatment from U.S. doctors, and that the U.S. doctors chose to perform their work in Mexico.
2. The article doesn't suggest that anyone was an immigrant anywhere (def'n: "a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.). People appear to have temporarily traveled to do stuff, then returned to their respective homes. So, the baby is an immigrant to where? The parents' home country? Because?
3. Finally, there's this little thing called citizenship by birth, which the not terribly reliable but readable-by-non-arabic-speaking-me source suggests is automatic for this child. Your own country, by definition, is not a foreign country, which means that you cannot be an immigrant to it. Similarly, for a child born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent in wedlock, odds are pretty good that they're already a U.S. citizen, falling on the "Nationality" side of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
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Gross Negligence and 18 USC 793
"Gross negligence" is defined as "such a gross want of care...as to justify the presumption of willfulness "
--Black's Law Dictionary 1185 (4th ed.1968), the definitive dictionary for the legal profession;"Whoever, being entrusted with...any document...relating to the national defense...through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
--18 U.S.C. 793(f);"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information...110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification...To be clear , this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. "
--James Comey ( transcript source: FBI National Press Office, "Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System",July 5, 2016 )The FBI just released its notes from the meeting with Hillary Clinton regarding the email server.
Hillary Clinton used her mobile phone on a balcony outside of secured areas to check her email:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew that she was not allowed to use mobile devices in her office — so she would walk onto the 8th floor balcony of the State Department building to check her email messages, new FBI documents reveal.Clinton’s office was located in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), where mobile devices were not allowed. “According to [Huma] Abedin, Clinton primarily used her personal BlackBerry or personal iPad for checking emails, and she left the SCIF to do so, often visiting State’s eighth floor balcony,” the FBI investigation noted.
[. . . ]
Presumably, anyone watching the movements of the Secretary of State would have known that when she appeared on the balcony, she was about to use her mobile devices, either to access her email or perhaps to make telephone calls, as soon as she appeared on the balcony.
(source: "FBI: Hillary Clinton Checked Email on Public State Dept. Balcony", by Joel B Pollack, September 2, 2016 at http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/02/fbi-hillary-clinton-sent-received-emails-state-dept-balcony/)
Hillary claimed to the FBI she didn't receive training on handling classified information, yet her signature shows otherwise; how is this not a direct lie to the FBI?
Hillary Clinton told FBI questioners numerous times that she did not receive the various guidance documents and training sessions from State Department officials that employees get to ensure they protect and preserve their official emails and computer documents.
[...]
She said she was not trained on handling classified information.That claim is a puzzle because her signature is attached to a 2009 State Department document testifying that she was trained on handling classified information.
That contradiction was highlighted by
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Re:Unfair?
I guess in 2015 the number of industries dropped that require a joint-venture.. mainly because China was starting to lose a lot of manufacturing business.
http://spiegeler.com/chinas-ne...
http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/...
So technically you can set up in most industries without Chinese investment. If you want to cut through the political red tape, you get Chinese investment.
If your goal is to manufacture some widget to sell to the US, you probably won't have much issue. If you want to sell your product in China, you're going to need a JV because they don't want the profits to leave the country. -
Re:That's 129.2F if you're interested.
You are either lying or lack comprehension yourself. He did say that AC was as dangerous as ISIL. Read the transcript of his speech.
Here is the relevant portion:
And the use of hydrofluorocarbons is unfortunately growing. Already, the HFCs used in refrigerators, air conditioners, inhalers, and other items are emitting an entire gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent pollution into the atmosphere annuallyNow, you could ague that the above passage comes a few paragraphs after the one you are disingenuously quoting, but its the context that matters. His speech is on the whole AGW argument that seems to be going on forever around these parts. His claim, if you missed it is:
1. ISIL is a global threat
2. AGW is a global threat
3. AC systems release GHGs
Therefore, AC is an equivalent threat to ISILIts pretty clear from the context of the speech what he means and what conclusion he intended for his listeners to draw. The only thing you could claim at this point is that this is just political rhetoric, meant for shock value to give his speech emotional impact. Maybe so. Nonetheless, he said it and it was a foolish comparison to make by a n abundantly foolish politician (but I repeat myself
:-) ).