32 days since the National Day of Patriotic Devotion
“We will follow two simple rules: BUY AMERICAN & HIRE AMERICAN!” Donald Trump, via Twitter, 20 January 2017
“The Trump Winery, also known as Trump Vineyard Estates, LLC, is asking to bring in 23 workers this spring to plant and harvest grapes. The workers are being sought under the federal H-2 visa program, which permits American employers to hire foreign laborers under temporary work visas as long as no qualified US workers want the jobs.” Buzzfeed, 16 Feb 2017
“Trump has vowed repeatedly to clamp down on immigration and make jobs available for Americans. But Trump’s various businesses have been granted approval to hire at least 1,256 foreign guest workers over the last 15 years …
“Most of the requests for foreign workers were for the Mar-a-Lago Club … In the past 10 years, 849 foreign guest workers were approved to work at the resort, mostly as servers, cooks, housekeepers or similar positions.
“Trump has said publicly that he has turned to foreign workers when his businesses cannot find Americans to take the jobs he is looking to fill. “You cannot get help during the season. The season goes from like October to March. It’s almost impossible to get help,” Trump said during the campaign, when asked why Mar-a-Lago hired foreign guest workers. “And part of the reason you can’t get American people is they want full time jobs.”
“Records show Mar-a-Lago appears to have done the bare minimum required by law to advertise the jobs to U.S. workers … [they] did not place advertisements in the area’s largest newspaper. Instead, ads were placed in a local paper with a small circulation. Additionally, the ads were routinely posted for just two days, the minimum required by law.CNN, 22 December 2016
“Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has signed sweeping new guidelines that empower federal authorities to more aggressively detain and deport illegal immigrants inside the United States and at the border. In a pair of memos, Kelly offered more detail on plans for the agency to hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests. The new directives would supersede nearly all of those issued under previous administrations … aimed at focusing deportations exclusively on hardened criminals and those with terrorist ties.” The Washington Post, 21 Feb 2017
“President Trump denounced anti-Semitism Tuesday after coming under pressure to address an uptick in incidents targeting Jewish institutions across the U.S. “Anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s going to stop and it has to stop,” Trump told MSNBC during a tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.” The Hill, 21 Feb 2017
“This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms,” Trump said Tuesday, delivering brief remarks after visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture for the first time. “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” Politico, 21 Feb 17
“The most egregious claim Spicer made – a claim he made over the weekend, too – is that Trump has been “very forceful with his denunciations” and that “no matter how many times he talks about this that it’s never good enough.” … Rarely did [Trump] explicitly condemn racist or anti-Semitic behavior, choosing instead to defend himself or distance himself from those acts. … the first main problem for Trump [is]: He has consistently been squishy about replying to questions about racism and anti-Semitism. … The second problem? Many of his policy proposals – on immigration, for example – overlap with the stated aims of racist groups, and the rationalizations for those proposals often use language that reinforces negative or erroneous claims about minority groups.” The Washington Post, 21 Feb 2017
“On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League reported a wave of bomb threats directed against Jewish Community Centers in multiple states, the fourth series of such threats this year. More than 170 Jewish gravestones were toppled at a cemetery in Missouri over the weekend. Calls for Trump to condemn the violence had been growing. … Trump was offered an opportunity to condemn the rising violence at a new conference Thursday. In response to an invitation by a reporter to do so, Trump called the question “insulting” … Earlier in the week … Trump was asked about rising anti-Semitic violence across the country and started his answer by talking about the size of his electoral college victory in the fall. Trump said he wants to heal “a divided nation,” but did not explicitly condemn the spate of violence.” The Washington Post, 21 Feb 2017
This Is Drivel 