USPOL Dec: The War on Christmas -- Just another example of the War on Coal

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Dec: The War on Christmas -- Just another example of the War on Coal

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

ComradeCosmobot posted:

The NAACP has filed suit against Alabama's voter ID law.

Well there's some good news, I guess

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 05:47

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:27

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

If they win.

There's no way the way they've been loving with DMV/ID locations will stand up to the smallest amount of scrutiny in a federal court. They didn't even try to be subtle about it.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 05:50

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Luigi Thirty posted:

Aha, it's considered a binary options prediction market. The DoD tried to make one to predict terrorism once. They have an official "we cool" letter from the CFTC.

We have a thread in RSF discussing it if you'd like to know more. I probably should have opened it in D&D but oh well.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2015 08:35

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Someone help me I'm agreeing with Cruz

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3014365/it-careers/sen-ted-cruz-wants-minimum-h-1b-wage-of-110-000.html?google_editors_picks=true

quote:

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has morphed from a vocal supporter of the H-1B program to a leading critic of it. He has done so in a new H-1B reform bill designed to raise the cost of hiring temporary visa workers.

This bill, released late Thursday, sets a minimum wage of $110,000 for H-1B workers, who currently can be paid well less than half that amount in some U.S. regions under prevailing wage rules. This base salary will adjust annually for inflation.

The legislative intent is to do more "to prevent employers from using the program to replace hard-working American men and woman with cheaper foreign labor," said Cruz, in a statement. The bill is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the chair of the Senate immigration subcommittee.

The bill also eliminates the Optional Practical Training Program (OPT), which provides a means to work via a student visa in the U.S. for at least 12 months. It prohibits employment authorization to anyone on student visa or F-1 status (who is no longer engaged in full time study) under the OPT program or a successor program, "without an express Act of Congress authorizing such a program."

Session called the OPT program "a backdoor method for replacing American workers," in a statement.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 16:06

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Shakugan posted:

Getting rid of OPT would be disastrous. OPT is the program that American educated international students use to work in the US after graduation. Sponsoring people for H1-B's is already a huge hassle for companies when they aren't able to pay them pennies (e.g. hiring foreigners graduating from US colleges) to make up for it, and so there's a simple reason that they bother. They NEED the talent. A number of industries would tank in the US without the ability to hire these people.

Yeah the OPT part is obviously garbage. As for the H1-B any time a job-creator bemoans how it's impossible to find the talent they need in the US marketplace your brain should automatically add 'for the price I want' to the end. I'm fine with companies using H1-B as long as they sincerely can't find the people they need. Unfortunately that's usually not the case. The problem is it takes a lot of work to analyze any given job market for talent availability and establishing a minimum wage is actually a fairly elegant solution to the problem.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 16:27

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Ashcans posted:

Attacking OPT is dumb, it's one of the few ways that foreign workers actually compete equally in the job market (because if you underpay or abuse them they can walk freely to another employer) and everyone on it is a US grad so you would just be shipping away your graduates that much sooner than we already do.

Fixing H-1Bs is something that needs to happen, but that isn't a good approach, because it doesn't actually target the primary sources of abuse in the program (worker mills, contracting, and exploiting workers). Setting a minimum wage at $110,000 would kill the H-1B for a lot of legitimate employers (like universities, where pay scales are determined by CBAs and unions) while worker mills would just continue to throw in paperwork and cheat the end employee. If you are not going to engage in comprehensive reform (which is what really needs to happen but never will) you should focus on performing timely audits/inspections of H-1B employers and put worker classification with the DOL instead of letting it be employer-generated.

The broad minimum wage is too crude agreed but they could probably set it on a per-job title basis using DoL wage statistics for each metropolitan area. Basically find the median wage for a given job category in a certain area and that's your minimum wage for an H1-B

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 16:49

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Motto posted:

otoh: https://twitter.com/SeanMcElwee/status/681234287958556675?s=09

Does anyone know more about this? Given how nasty and complex state budgets can get this feels like it could have been taken way out of context and he doesn't really attribute any evidence to it. Which Republican legislator was this? Which hospital? I mean don't get me wrong this is the mother fucker responsible for the Terri Schiavo shitcircus so I'm not putting it past him but i'd like some ammo on this.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2015 03:53

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:27

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

marshmonkey posted:

Here is the episode: http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/president-barack-obama-just-tell-him-you-re-the-president

Their web-player is hot garbage so here's a more stable source: http://www.crackle.com/watch/video/2497717/

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 21:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Dec: The War on Christmas -- Just another example of the War on Coal