Can Jeb fix it?

The New Neo Posted on by

No, he can’t.

I never saw Bush as a viable candidate. Despite his establishment support, he just doesn’t have a constituency to speak of. I started saying so a year and a half ago, and there’s no reason to change my mind.

Other recent poll results, for what they’re worth:

In general election matchups, Carson beat Clinton 50 percent to 40 percent, outdrawing the former secretary of state in the share of both men (55 percent to 35 percent) and of women (45 percent to 44 percent). Clinton also came up on the short end of hypothetical head-to-heads against Rubio (41 percent to 46 percent), Cruz (43 percent to 46 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (43 percent to 46 percent), who drew less than Bush among Republican voters. Quinnipiac did not test a Bush-Clinton matchup.

Matched up against Trump, however, Clinton held a lead of 46 percent to 43 percent.

Surprise, surprise: Iran deal hasn’t softened the hardliners

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times observes:

Anyone who hoped that Iran’s nuclear agreement with the United States and other powers portended a new era of openness with the West has been jolted with a series of increasingly rude awakenings over the past few weeks.

On Tuesday, the eve of the 36th anniversary of the student takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, state television announced the arrest of a Lebanese-American missing for weeks ”” after he had been invited here by the government. He has been accused of spying.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said the “Death to America” slogan is eternal. New anti-American billboards in Tehran include a mockery of the Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph that symbolized Marine sacrifice in World War II. And an Iranian knockoff version of K.F.C., the chicken chain widely associated with the United States, was summarily closed after two days.

“It feels like a witch hunt,” said one Iranian-American businessman in Tehran, who dared not speak for attribution over fear for his safety. “It’s pretty scary.”

Yes, it is. And pretty predictable.

The Times writers begin their piece with “Anyone who hoped…”, but they don’t go on to say who these vain hopers were. Might they have included the editorial staff of the NY Times?

The day after the Iran deal—which the Times supported, with some reservations—this editorial appeared in the paper:

In theory, Iran’s decision to submit to strict limits on its nuclear activities provides a chance for cooperation on other issues. By lifting crippling international economic sanctions in return for the nuclear restraints, the deal could strengthen the hand of the moderates in Iran. But if the economic benefits don’t flow quickly enough, hopes for an end to economic hardship could be dashed, discrediting the moderates and boosting the hard-liners.

In the negotiations, Mr. Obama was right to keep the focus on restraining the nuclear program. Now that the deal is done, Mr. Obama plans to encourage Iran, which has an abysmal human rights record and is exerting influence through proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere, to take a more constructive path, though there are no guarantees that Iran will be less disruptive in the future. On issues of human rights, terrorism and ballistic missiles, sanctions under United States law will remain in place indefinitely to keep pressure on Iran. The administration needs to be vigilant about exercising that leverage.

“In theory” covers a lot, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it almost certainly does not cover hard reality.

So it seems that even the Times appeared to realize that Iran’s softening was hardly in the bag. However, the paper’s editors were among those who expressed some hope that Obama and the deal would make it happen. And then, of course, those sanctions concerning human rights, terrorism, and ballistic missiles were still in place, “indefinitely.” Right?

Not if Khamenei has anything to say about them (as of about two weeks ago):

Iran will consider any sanctions imposed upon it during the next eight years, including those relating to human rights and terrorism concerns, to be a violation of the nuclear agreement and will as a result stop complying with the deal, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared Wednesday.

In a letter to President Hasan Rouhani, Khamenei delivered his verdict on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached last July between Iran, the U.S. and five other powers, and laid down his conditions for acceptance.

“During the eight-year period imposition of any sanctions at any level and under any pretexts (including the repeated and fabricated pretexts of terrorism and human rights) by any of the negotiating countries [the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany] will be considered a violation of the JCPOA,” he wrote.

This would therefore oblige the government to “stop JCPOA activities,” he added.

And a big f-you to you, says Khamenei to Obama.

An agreement is only as good as the good faith of the negotiating parties, plus the teeth behind it. This agreement clearly never had any good faith on the part of the Iranians, and few teeth on the part of the US (at least, while Obama is in office). That was apparent and obvious to anyone who looked.

Today’s Times article observes:

Many proponents of the nuclear accord, in both countries, have suggested that a gradual improvement in relations was inevitable. Some even foresaw a shift in the region, shaped by collaboration between the United States and Iran to bring peace, coupled with an eased enmity that could embolden President Hassan Rouhani to open up the country.

While Mr. Rouhani promised more freedoms when he was elected two years ago, he has taken only a few cosmetic steps.

Now, as the autumn leaves are falling in Tehran, there are no signs that bolder changes are coming. On the contrary, a backlash appears to be underway, promoted by Mr. Rouhani’s hard-line adversaries in the government who are deeply skeptical of the United States and its allies.

The backlash comes as Iran is preparing for parliamentary elections in February that constitute a litmus test of Mr. Rouhani’s policies. It seems that hard-liners, using the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, have started rounding up journalists, activists and cultural figures, as a warning that the post nuclear-deal period cannot lead to further relaxation or political demands.

Again, note that the Times doesn’t see fit to tell us who those “proponents of the nuclear accord” who thought softening was “inevitable” might be. The Times itself, although definitely a strong proponent of the accord in general, was always hedging its bets in terms of what would happen: maybe yes, maybe no, and certainly not “inevitable.” As the Times notes, there was no dearth of people who did think moderation would flow from this deal, however, and many of them used that as a prime motivation for the signing of the deal in the first place.

It never made any sense. Giving into a regime such as Iran’s—and this deal has been widely regarded as having done exactly that—emboldens it rather than forcing it into concessions. Giving it more money does the same. It is folly to think otherwise. Perhaps in the long run—the very very long run—something will happen to change the human rights situation for the better in Iran. But it’s not likely to be as a result of this deal, and certainly not soon. Au contraire.

Could it be a trend?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already commented on Bevin’s surprisingly strong win in Kentucky. That’s a victory not just for Republicans, but for conservatives. And it may not be an isolated trend limited to Kentucky, either.

Commenter “physicsguy” writes:

The earth shook yesterday! In my little corner of the world in eastern Connecticut, the GOP made some huge gains. In Norwich the GOP swept the entire city council. In my own town we have a GOP 1st Selectman and new GOP selectmen for the first time in 25 years, and the BoEd now has 4 new GOP members. Similar results throughout eastern CT (which is fairly rural, BTW). Never would I have ever thought such could happen. Does local translate to national??

That’s the billion-dollar question. I’d say that add enough locals together and it does translate to a possible national trend. At least, it’s a snapshot of where we’re at as of now.

There are other indications from yesterday’s elections, small tremors that might indicate something bigger coming. Wishful thinking, perhaps? After all, this is an off-year election, and those tend to run more to the right than in presidential years.

But take a look at these results:

(1) A Houston equal rights measure passed by the City Council but now subjected to a popular vote, and widely perceived as allowing men alleging to be transsexuals to use women’s bathrooms, is soundly defeated (also see this for a much more detailed explanation of what went on there). I wonder if, as with other such popular defeats of the LGTB agenda, the vote results will now be declared unconstitutional by the courts.

(2) The Virginia Senate failed to flip over to the Democrats, holding its slim Republican majority. This was not as local a race as it sounds, either. Virginia has a Democratic governor who was intent on getting a Democratic Senate to work with, and outsiders contributed money to accomplish that result. The effort failed:

…[T]he biggest prize the elections offered was momentum ”” the opportunity for the winning party to claim that voters in this key presidential swing state were leaning its way one year ahead of the White House contest.

McAuliffe, once a record-smashing fundraiser for his close friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, had hoped a win would help sway purple Virginia in 2016.

National donors and outside groups on the left and right seized on the state Senate races.

(3) A San Francisco sheriff who is a strong defender of its sanctuary city status was not re-elected.

(4) Ohio rejected legalization of recreational pot.

Of these four results, I think Virginia’s is potentially the most important.

[ADDENDUM: More here.]

Bevin wins in Kentucky

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a win for Bevin (R), who was not thought to be a strong candidate, and whose opponent had been leading in the polls.

And Bevin’s win is decisive:

The last Bluegrass Poll before the election showed Conway with a 5-point edge over Bevin, who only won the Republican primary for governor by 83 votes.

Bevin’s win comes the same day outgoing Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear predicted Democrats will run on Obamacare in 2016 and “pound the Republicans into dust.”…

The centerpiece of Bevin’s campaign for Senate in 2014 was defunding Obamacare and as a gubernatorial candidate this year he pledged to roll back Beshear’s acceptance of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Democrats argued throughout the campaign that his election would place thousands of Kentuckians’ health insurance in jeopardy.

Another thing about this race: Jenean Hampton, who is Bevin’s running mate, is Kentucky’s first African-American lieutenant governor and its first black statewide elected official. A black Republican, I might add.

Michael Barone writes:

[The win] comes despite Bevin’s own particular weaknesses ”” his lack of experience in public office and some impolitic statements. It comes despite the fact that, as Harry Enten of fivethirtyeight.com noted Monday, governor elections have not followed presidential voting patterns as closely as elections to Congress have done in recent years. Enten, an excellent analyst, wrote, “You shouldn’t be surprised if the race is as close as the polls suggest.” Actually, it looks like it won’t be close ”” and that the candidate who was behind in four of five public polls and tied in the other will end up with a solid margin…

What’s interesting is that the polls in the 2014 Senate race, like those in the 2015 governor race, showed the Republican running just about even with or even behind the Democrat, but the final returns showed or, at the moment, show the Democrat getting just about what he or she was polling and the Republican running far ahead of his poll numbers. Tentative conclusion: lots of Republican-inclined voters, as reflected in national polls on the party and its leaders, are reluctant to tell pollsters how they’re voting; maybe in their disgruntlement they haven’t really decided to pull the Republican again. But they end up voting Republican anyway,

Republicans and conservatives who comment on blogs often mention that they don’t like to cooperate with pollsters. But till now, I hadn’t seen it reflected consistently in election results; for the most part, polls tend to predict results rather well. Could this type of disparity be the start of a larger trend?

[ADDENDUM: Jenean Hampton’s bio reminds me a little bit of Dr. Ben Carson’s. Take a look:

Born on Detroit’s west side in 1958, Jenean Hampton grew up in a less than ideal financial situation. One of four daughters born to Donald and Marie Hampton, Jenean learned to get by with very little as she watched her parents struggle to support the family.

At the age of 7, things became more difficult for Jenean when her parents divorced, leaving her mother with few opportunities to provide for the children. Without a high school diploma, Marie Hampton found work where she could, cleaning houses to help support her daughters. Although for many years the family lacked basic ‘luxuries’ like new clothes, a car, or a television, Jenean fondly remembers learning from her mother how to live within a tight budget. Jenean taught herself to sew so she could make her own clothes, and developed a love of reading with books borrowed from the public library.

As a minority female growing up in inner-city Detroit, Jenean’s prospects seemed bleak. However, she found inspiration in NASA’s space program. When the family acquired a television, Jenean never missed an opportunity to watch space mission launches and landings…

After high school, Jenean worked in the automotive industry five years to help pay for college, and earned an Industrial Engineering degree from Wayne State University in 1985. Shortly after graduation she joined the U.S. Air Force as a computer systems officer, writing computer code and testing software…

Both were born in the Detroit inner city during the 50s, both grew up under very reduced circumstances financially, with divorced parents and mothers who worked at housecleaning jobs. But clearly, both had their heads on straight and worked very hard to fulfill their dreams. The role of religion looms large in their lives. And of course, both are conservative blacks, which in and of itself takes a certain amount of courage.

Both are liberal Democrats’ worst nightmare.]

[ADDENDUM II: Still another thing about these candidates that contradicts the Democratic narrative about bigoted Republicans: both the Bevin and the Hampton families are interracial. Hampton is married to a white man, and among Bevin’s nine children are four children he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia.]

Are you willing to give Speaker Paul Ryan a chance?

The New Neo Posted on by

A quote from Ryan:

Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., would not rule out the House including policy riders in an omnibus appropriations bill.

“We fully expect we’re going to exercise that power,” Ryan said Tuesday at his first news conference as speaker, regarding the legislative branch’s latitude to direct spending how it sees fit.

…Ryan, appearing Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” declined to answer a question about whether the omnibus bill would defund Planned Parenthood. He said the congressional committees, particularly a new investigative panel, are in the driver’s seat and that he’s unsure how it will play out.

I’m unsure too. Past experience says it will play out as it so often has before, with the Republicans slinking off quietly into the night. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised.

Left and right in Britain

The New Neo Posted on by

Looking at this video on the “refugee” crisis in Europe, I see that some aspects of the left/right divide don’t seem so very different there as compared to the US. There’s a cast of very familiar characters, even though they have British rather than American accents (and in one case, Scots). The last lady who speaks in this clip is my very favorite, a real classic:

(If you take a look at the YouTube commentary—which I’m not necessarily recommending—it’s loaded with anti-Semitic references.)

The most talkative liberal on the panel in the clip is Simon Schama. His articulate antagonist, Rod Liddle, writes about the exchange here. A quote:

What I realised after that edition of Question Time is that the facts, the practicalities, the realities of the situation, do not matter one jot. There is a small minority of British opinion ”” the polls suggest that the overwhelming majority of the population…do not wish to see more migrants entering the country ”” which is absolutely impervious to the facts which show that letting more people in the country will make things worse both for them and for us. And clearly anyone who doesn’t agree is unaware that the migrants are ”˜human beings’ and is thus a borderline psychopath…And yet ask them for a course of action and none is forthcoming.

But it is the imperviousness to reason that is most striking ”” and which convinces me that in some strange way they are articulating this ectoplasmic rubbish (we must ”˜do more’!) in order to make themselves feel better, without any thought of the consequences for either the migrants or our country.

Read the whole thing.

[NOTE: By the way, although I wasn’t familiar with Liddle before writing this post, and although I characterized his point of view as expressed in this post as representing that of the right, I’m well aware that he’s not really of the right. He’s a more complex figure politically, somewhat akin to the late Christopher Hitchens. That is, he’s an iconoclast who likes to be non-PC. Liddle is very much to the right on immigration—the subject matter here—but his politics are all over the place. For example, in the recent British election he voted Labor. But as he describes his reasons, they are extremely idiosyncratic, to say the least. He’s a bit like Orwell in that regard, upset by issues of class and supporting Labor for that reason. Liddle was also a Socialist in his youth, so he’s somewhat of a changer.]

Standing up to moderators, standing up to Putin

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama the class act likes to ridicule the opposition:

“Have you noticed that everyone of these candidates say, ‘Obama’s weak. Putin’s kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he’s going to straighten out,'” Obama said, impersonating a refrain among Republican candidates that he’s allowed Russian President Vladimir Putin too much leeway.

“Then it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at the debate. Let me tell you, if you can’t handle those guys, then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you,” Obama said.

Of course, Obama has never had to handle anything even remotely like the questions at that CNBC debate, since the MSM is respectful to him to the point of obsequiousness, and debate moderators have gone so far as to carry his water when he seems about to falter. In 2007, he and Hillary Clinton boycotted a debate that had been scheduled to be co-hosted by Fox News; the other co-host was the Congressional Black Caucus, but apparently even that hosting balancing act wasn’t quite friendly enough.

Obama has been protected from anything like those CNBC questions from the press for much of his public life, and as president he has assiduously avoided (and criticized, as well as banned) press members who might even come close.

As for his assertion that the Republican candidates “can’t handle” the moderators of CNBC, the overwhelming consensus among all but the most extreme pundits on the left was that the Republicans’ attack hit its mark and drew metaphoric blood.

And then there are the Chinese and the Russians. Does anyone on earth except Obama (and perhaps Valerie Jarrett) believe that the Chinese and Russians are afraid of him, even one iota? They might be afraid that his policies will end up causing some sort of conflagration, and/or the escalation of Islamic terrorism, of course. But afraid of negotiating with Obama, or of him calling their bluffs? It’s laughable. And we can certainly include the Iranians in that group, as well.

I would wager that the Chinese and Russians would be a great deal more afraid of the toughness of almost anyone on that debate stage last Wednesday than of dealing with Obama. Which of the Republican candidates would they be most afraid of? I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t be Bush and it wouldn’t be Kasich. Trump, Cruz, and Fiorina might be the leaders in that regard, with Christie and Rubio somewhere after that. I’m not sure about Carson, but I think he’d ultimately be intimidating, too, of the “speak softly and carry a big stick” variety.

[NOTE: Obama is using an interesting technique—Alinsky’s rule #5 advocating the use of ridicule as a potent weapon—to attack Republicans in their strong suit. In other words, he’s well aware, I believe, that the Republicans are considered more intimidating to China and Russia than he is. He’s also well aware of—and has been instrumental in orchestrating and using—the fact that the press is generally very friendly to him. But he sees the CNBC debate as an opportunity to cut into that narrative by making a false and mocking assertion that Republicans backed off from and were somehow fearful of the CNBC moderators, and then another false equivalence between dealing with press insults during a debate that’s supposed to be a showcase for your thoughts in front of the American people, and the very different process of negotiation with a geopolitical enemy or rival.

Remember this example of Obama’s ridicule?]

On Cruz and auditory memory

The New Neo Posted on by

This tidbit about Cruz (from commenter “Orson”) is certainly interesting, and it explains a lot:

According to Sean Hannity, Cruz has eidetic aural memory. He remembers everything he hears ”“ and thus, at the debate, segmented his complaints with perfect reference to the targets and what was said to them in proper serial order.

Hannity further explained (on his radio show) that this helps to explain how Cruz can seem robotic in stump speech delivery. Because Cruz, almost literally to himself, inserts a given audio file and simply performs it.

His apparent lack of spontaneity is in direct contrast to Trump’s style. People speculate on whether Cruz can reach populist appeal, given this difference in style.

“Eidetic” means: “an ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for some time after exposure, without using mnemonics.” The word is usually applied to visual memory (for passages in books, for example), but I suppose it could apply to spoken words. Cruz was indeed impressive in that debate passage, which was done without notes.

I have to say that, although I’m not in Cruz’s league, I have some pretty decent skills in that area myself. In terms of visual memory for passages in books, when I was back in school I often used to be able to remember where on the page I had read a certain fact. And it was the bane of my husband’s existence (and my mother’s, I might add) that I was usually able to remember conversations—if not always verbatim, then at least in terms of what generally had been said and in what order.

That certainly assists with arguments. But it was particularly useful when working with clients, a situation (especially with couples or groups) where the ability to process conversations and remember who said what and when is extraordinarily helpful. It also is good to be able to remember something a client said—an important story from his/her life, for example—from many sessions earlier, and to be able to relate it to something new that the same client is saying now.

I have no idea what gives a person this skill. But I’ve always thought it has something to do with intense concentration on the exchange. For some of my memories of my own conversations, it also has to do with intense emotion. For many people, the more emotional they are during an exchange, the less likely they are to remember what happened and when. For me, strong emotion has usually heightened the ability to remember.

Post-debate polls

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been curious to see some non-internet post-debate polls on the Republican side, particularly ones for primary states. Here’s a new one for New Hampshire:

One-in-four (26%) likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire continue to back Donald Trump for the presidential nomination. Ben Carson (16%) places second and Marco Rubio (13%) comes in third, followed closely by John Kasich (11%). Other contenders include Ted Cruz (9%), Jeb Bush (7%), Carly Fiorina (5%), Chris Christie (5%), and Rand Paul (3%).

Most of these results are within a few points of each candidates’ vote share back in September, except for Marco Rubio whose support has tripled from 4%. In the past two months, Christie’s support has increased by 3 points, while support for Trump and Fiorina have each decreased by 2 points, all within the survey’s margin of error.

Interesting. I have no idea why New Hampshire voters are so strong for Kasich, except that I think he’s spent a lot of money on ads there.

This is even more interesting, I think:

Currently, only 1-in-5 (20%) likely primary voters say they are completely decided on who they will support, 39% say they have a strong preference but are willing to consider other candidates, 22% have only a slight preference, and 19% say they are really undecided. Just 1-in-3 voters say they would be very (11%) or somewhat (21%) unhappy if their chosen candidate did not win the Republican nomination. Half (50%) say they would be okay with a different outcome and 18% say their feeling would depend on who becomes the nominee. Among the front runners, Rubio supporters (18%) are the least likely to feel unhappy if someone else won the nomination.

In other words: it’s early.

Leaving the light on

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that we’ve turned the clocks back—boy, it’s getting dark earlier.

And it will be getting dark even earlier before it starts reversing itself. That’s one of the things I dislike about this time of year, and here up north it’s accentuated. Of course, that only makes it sweeter when the days get longer again.

Yesterday I was in the car listening to the radio, and a song came on with a lyric about leaving the light on, and about the fall season and loss. It was by a woman, but I missed the announcement of the artist’s name. I figured that I’d just Google the lyric when I got home and it would pop up. I’ve been so spoiled by Google that I automatically assume this will happen; I’m no longer used to the frustration and mystery of not knowing. But this time, no dice. No song.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of songs about leaving a light on—for somebody else, often someone whose gone but who the singer wishes would return. And I know a couple of classics, like this yearning one:

Jesse come home
There’s a hole in the bed
where we slept
Now it’s growing cold
Hey Jesse, your face
in the place where we lay
by the hearth, all apart
It hangs on my heart

And I’m leaving the light on the stairs
No I’m not scared – I wait for you
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely, come home…

Or this more bitter one, by the person leaving:

And it ain’t no use in turning on your light, babe
The light I never knowed
And it ain’t no use in turning on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road…

Maybe someone out there knows the one I’m looking for. As best I remember it, the refrain was “I’ll leave the light on for me,” followed by something like “I think somebody should.” Any takers?

Meanwhile, here’s another of my recent photos of fall. This one was taken during a trip to the Hudson River near West Point:

HudsonRiverHighlands2015 028-001

[NOTE: On the theme of fall, you also might like to revisit this post on poetry.]

Searching for the truth: those H-1B visas and STEM employment

The New Neo Posted on by

The subject of H-1B visas* came up during last Wednesday’s Republican debate, most particularly regarding Rubio, who advocates an expansion of the program with some restrictions. So I decided to try to find out the truth about what’s involved and whether the program is being abused.

As with most such quests, it’s easier said than done. In fact, much easier. I could spend a few days or more doing in-depth research and maybe I would find the illumination and clarity I seek (I tend to doubt it, actually). But since I don’t have that sort of time to write this post, I’ll just show you what I found—which is the usual war of statistics being used by both sides, with the truth somewhat elusive. Perhaps it’s buried in those statistics, and those of you who have the time and inclination (and the ability to be objective, which can often be the most difficult) to tease it out, please be my guests. Meanwhile, this is what I found.

The H-1B visa program—which offers temporary visas for “specialty” occupations (often including, but not limited to, STEM jobs) is just one portion of the visa system by which foreign workers come to this country legally. The other two are H-2A (the temporary agricultural worker program) and H-2B (the same for non-agricultural workers). All of these programs require, on paper at least, that the employer show that there aren’t enough American workers to fill the need, and that the hires aren’t undercutting American workers in terms of wages (you can go to the links to read the regulations that are built into each program and supposedly guarantee that they won’t be abused, and your guess is as good as mine as to how often that happens—which may be rather often). The H1-B program has similar built-in protections of no small complexity, which are alleged to also be abused but which on paper aim to protect US workers.

You can see why this would be a book.

By the way, quite a few of Donald Trump’s companies make liberal use of the H-2B visa program (for example, a resort in Florida requesting waiters and cleaning people, mostly from Latin American countries), some use of the H-2A program (vineyard workers), and use of the H-1B program for hiring foreign models.

In another aside—just as an example of how hard it is to locate the facts on this, a search to find the actual numbers of visas issued each year in each class turned up this AFL-CIO “fact” sheet, which states that “Temporary work visa laws do not have provisions to protect guest workers or American workers.” On the contrary, they all provide such provisions, and extensive ones at that. Whether or not these regulations are properly enforced, and how often they are subject to fraud, is another question. But each program does have extensive protections in place, contrary to the assertion on that website.

As to the numbers, here’s a chart for 2012, which may be outdated but it’s what I could find:

hchart

As you can see, the numbers aren’t huge. But it adds up, and to someone displaced in an industry (or someone who believes he/she has been displaced) I am sure it is infuriating.

So, what is the H-1B program doing, and what would happen if its numbers were increased, as Rubio and some others are suggesting? This US News article presents the pro-H-B1 argument:

But experts say the visa system is not damaging American salaries or their chance at getting a job in Silicon Valley. Jonathan Rothwell, a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, points out that “H1-B workers are paid at least as well as their American counterparts” and the unemployment rate for computer workers is not high relative to other occupations. Salaries for tech occupations have also increased faster than wages for other jobs during the past decade despite the use of the skilled immigrant workers, he says, citing research he completed in 2013.

“Skilled computer jobs are among the hardest to fill and the vacancies stay open for the longest period of time,” he says, adding that Rubio’s proposal for companies to wait 180 days is “an absurdly long period of time to wait to fill a skilled position.”

Indeed, a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the U.S. is not graduating enough students with skills in science, math and technology to meet the growing demand for tech company workers ”“ a point confirmed by data from the 2015 U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index. The U.S. will need “approximately 1 million more STEM professionals than the U.S. will produce at the current rate over the next decade if the country is to retain its historical preeminence in science and technology,” according to the BLS report.

You can follow those links and take a look if you want to crunch the numbers. The article adds:

Data from MyVisaJobs shows that the top 25 companies sponsoring H1-B visa workers ”“ including Google, Apple and Microsoft ”“ offer foreign workers an average salary that is competitive with wages offered to Americans for tech occupations.

The article also states that most of these Silicon Valley H-1B workers are from China and India (we can assume that most of the H-2B and and H-2A workers are likely to come from Latin American countries).

Jeff Sessions makes the case against the H-1B program:

Microsoft even signed a letter urging passage of the I-Squared H-1B increase, asserting that “there are tens of thousands of unfilled jobs requiring highly skilled individuals. Four high-tech companies alone ”“ IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle ”“ have combined 10,000 openings in the United States.” But consulting firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas recently noted that “employers in the computer industry saw the heaviest downsizing of the year, announcing a total of 59,528 planned layoffs. That is 69 percent more than a year ago.” Perhaps these companies, instead of lobbying for H-1B workers, should hire some of the thousands of tech workers who are being laid off?

As Microsoft’s layoffs show, there is a surplus””not a shortage””of skilled, talented, and qualified Americans seeking STEM employment. Each year, universities graduate twice as many students with STEM degrees as find STEM jobs. According to the Census Bureau, more than 11 million Americans with STEM degrees are not employed in STEM jobs””or 3 in 4 STEM degree holders. Among recent graduates, about 35 percent of science students, 55 percent of technology students, 20 percent of engineering students, and 30 percent of math students are now working in jobs that don’t require any four-year college degree””let alone their area of specialty.

The truth is that, as Professor Ron Hira testified, “the H-1B visa has become a highly lucrative business model of bringing in cheaper H-1B workers to substitute for Americans”¦ Most of the H-1B program is now being used to import cheaper foreign guestworkers, replacing American workers, and undercutting their wages.”

So, which is it: same salaries, or lower for the guest workers in the tech industries? Just try to find Ron Hira’s actual testimony and the context in which he said that, by the way; I couldn’t, at least not in a quick Googling. What I did find for Hira was this sort of thing:

There are two reasons these firms hire H-1Bs instead of Americans: 1) an H-1B worker can legally be paid less than a U.S. worker in the same occupation and locality…

Confusing, to say the least. At least on paper, the program contains protections against that sort of thing:

By signing the LCA, the employer attests that:

The employer pays H-1B non-immigrants the same wage level paid to all other individuals with similar experience and qualifications for that specific employment, or the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of employment, whichever is higher.
The employment of H-1B non-immigrants does not adversely affect working conditions of workers similarly employed…

That’s the sort of maze one enters when trying to get at the truth. And the truth as alleged by Sessions or Rubio or Trump or Hira or as written into the law is probably something quite different from the truth as it is actually practiced. Good luck with finding statistics that can tease that out, though.

This, however, was of interest to me. It’s a summary of the report Sessions cited (or at least, it’s very similar to the report Sessions cited; Sessions did not provide a link, of course) which found that most STEM graduates aren’t employed in STEM industries.

Certain things about it leaped out at me when I took a look. The first is that it’s not limited to recent graduates; it appears to include everyone between the ages of 25 and 64 who has a degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) discipline. The second thing that struck me is that unemployment in general in this group is low. So we can conclude that they’re employed, maybe even happily employed (the study doesn’t seem to ask that question), although not necessarily in a STEM field. The study sheds no light on what I would consider the all-important question of whether these people wanted to be in a STEM field, were looking for work in a STEM field and were denied it, once worked in a STEM field and had made a switch (for example, those older employees), or what’s actually going on with their job situations. We also don’t know from that Sessions quote whether the downsizing in the tech industry (Microsoft) involved the same or similar jobs that the H-1B workers filled, or whether there was little or no connection between the two.

You may be shocked (as I was) to learn that the STEM designation includes social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Although I can’t find a list of what STEM occupations the census research that Sessions quoted used, it is likely that these social sciences were included (they are on the NSF lists of STEM subjects, and they are also included in the list used by immigration, for example).

To be even remotely meaningful for the purposes of evaluating the H-1B program and how it actually works in real life, and its impact on companies and the American worker, we’d need to know a great deal more than I’ve been able to uncover by reading what Sessions wrote or that report on the census research. But the fact that a 50-year old who graduated years ago with a degree in psychology (which is a very popular degree for those who have no idea what they want to do when they get out of school, or at least it used to be) is not necessarily employed in a psychology or tech field is hardly a surprise, and hardly relevant to the subject at hand.

I was thinking of titling this post “Finding the truth: those H-1B visas and STEM employment.” But I decided to change it to “Searching for the truth: those H-1B visas and STEM employment.” I could go on and on and on with this, but I think you get the idea.

[ *NOTE: The program keeps being referred to in the media and by many politicians as H1-B, but my research indicates that all these programs follow the same form, and that it’s actually H-1B.]

The n-word and me

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed that there’s a proposal to ban the n-word in Boston public schools:

“The critical thing is making sure the students understand that we want to do this with them and that this is not about punishing them,” said Sadiki Kambon, director of the Black Community Information Center.

“We don’t want them suspended or expelled — we just want them to get on board with us,” Kambon said.

Kambon and Imam Abdullah Faaruuq of the Mosque for the Praising of the Lord in Roxbury emerged from an hour-long meeting with Chang at school headquarters saying they were encouraged by the enthusiasm to support The Coalition to Ban the N-Word.

Kambon’s effort was quickly praised by other black community leaders.

“I think it’s critically important. They’re trying to create an atmosphere where the word will not be tolerated, and I think that makes all the cultural sense in the world,” said Darnell Williams, director of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts.

My guess is that this is aimed more at black students’ use of the word than white ones, because the word has become rather casual among young black people today, partly as a result of rap music. Banning words is a very dangerous and slippery slope, although a school system has the power to ban lots of things that are usually considered rights (dress codes are standard in schools, for example). Schools maintain decorum, and trying to discourage the flinging of certain words around is part of that.

This is dangerous and troubling, though (and note some of the players, which makes me wonder what’s next for banning). When I was growing up, we kids would never even think of using such words or a host of others, in school or elsewhere. They were powerful and scary, and we didn’t ordinarily hear adults using them, either; it was a rare rare exception. You may have grown up in a different atmosphere, but that was the milieu in which I was raised, and my public high school was no stranger to minority students, either.

I’ve never used the n-word myself (except perhaps when directly quoting someone using it). Except for rap music—which I cannot stand and don’t voluntarily listen to—and movies and television and the like, I’ve never personally witnessed a person using it to address anyone.

Except for one time.

And that one time, the person was referring to me.

It happened when I was three years old. The elderly man across the street (who had probably been born in the 1870s, by my current calculations) said to me jokingly that I looked like “a little n***** baby.”

I had absolutely no idea what that was. But it didn’t sound like a pretty word, and the manner in which he said it didn’t sound nice, either. But when I asked him what the word meant, he just sort of chuckled at me.

By the way, this is what I looked like around that time. It was in the summer, when I played outdoors nearly every day and always got a very dark suntan (and no, I didn’t ordinarily carry a paper umbrella around; this was a gift I had been given and it only lasted a day before it broke):

parasols1-001

My mother often used to call me something quite different, which she meant to be affectionate: sullen cherub.

raphaelSullenCherub

That day, though, when I got home from across the street and asked her what the word n***** meant, she was very sharp with me.

“Where did you hear that?” she asked, frowning.

I told her that the old man across the street had called me that. She said it was a very very bad and rude word that meant the same as Negro people (which was the “right” word back then), but that I should never ever say it. And that was that.

But it scared me that a mere word could have such power, and I’ve remembered the incident all these years.