News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Headache? How long for the aspirin to work? The relief starts between 20 to 30 minutes but full effect isn’t reached until about 100 minutes. It’s about the same for Ibuprofen and and Tylenol.
Fortune Magazine Ignored OPT Flaws
By Joe Guzzardi
Michael Goodwin, a New York Post columnist who began his journalism career at The New York Times, last month wrote a two-part commentary that chronicled the long, steady erosion of reporting integrity. Although Goodwin focused on the Times, his observations that bias has become common in the mainstream media easily applies to many publications. Editors who could once be counted on to, as Goodwin wrote, veer copy toward the middle, gradually became as much of a problem as the reporters whose work they review.
Nowhere is journalism bias more blatantly on display than in immigration stories. Even though polling shows that at least half of all Americans want less immigration, most stories tell only the expansion side, and in the process leave their readers under-informed.
Case in point: Fortune Magazine, the respected, 90-year-old business publication, recently did a story about one of most controversial programs that’s hurtful to U.S. tech workers, the Optional Practical Training program. In brief, OPT allows international students on F-1 visas to remain in the U.S. and work for at least a year, and longer if they have earned degrees in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM).
Although there are multiple reasonable arguments that can be made in opposition to OPT, none of them appeared in reporter Nicole Goodkind’s article. Among OPT’s flaws that Goodkind omitted are that OPT is not congressionally approved, yet it has ballooned into the nation’s largest guest worker program.
OPT is a voracious American job killer. Department of Homeland Securitydata shows that, since 2015 and through May 2017, nearly 500,000 students received OPT, and another 150,000 have STEM extensions. That’s 650,000 good jobs being held now by foreign nationals versus qualified American workers. There’s a powerful incentive for tech companies to hire OPT foreign workers. A 15 percent discount has allowed multinational corporations to evade at least $20 billion to $30 billion in FICA taxes over the years. The OPT worker doesn’t pay FICA either, and therefore doesn’t contribute to Social Security or Medicare.
In her 1,200-word article, Goodkind glowingly cited five pro-OPT sources, including major corporations, that profit from the program. Among them are Google and immigration advocacy groups like the Mark Zuckerberg-founded FWD.us. Goodkind wrote that an amicus brief FWD.us filed supporting OPT read like: “a who’s who of Silicon Valley. Tech giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Airbnb, Bloomberg, Intel, Microsoft, Tesla, Twitter, Uber, and Zillow….”
Yet Goodkind quoted only one critic, John Miano, a lawyer and expert on the effect of foreign labor on technology workers. Miano has worked on behalf of workers and pro-American worker organizations and for more than a decade has challenged OPT in federal court. Goodkind assassinated Miano’s character and that of his associates. Goodkind quoted Miano after she had inaccurately and wrongly marginalized him.
Miano told me, however, that if Goodkind had done the due diligence once considered honest journalism’s bedrock instead of lazily relying on FWD.usshe would have seen that the money trail explains everything. “The tech industry spends tens of millions of dollars each month lobbying for more foreign labor and to preserve their ability to replace working American with that foreign labor,” said Miano.
Fortune once was a highly respected magazine that would never have allowed slanted copy like Goodkind’s to get past the first editorial layer, let alone get published. By passing over OPT’s damaging effects on American workers, Goodkind abandoned the principals that journalists themselves established years ago. The 110-year-old Society for Professional Journalists’ ethics code warns reporters to “avoid advocacy,” advice which Goodkind ignored. As former Washington Post ombudsman E.R. Shipp wrote in her column “In Pursuit of Fairness,” no story is fair if it omits facts of major importance and significance. Goodkind disregarded that basic, most obvious rule.
Reporters like Goodkind need to remember that the full story – he said, she said – is always more compelling than a cheerleading story that quickly becomes tedious.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
The longest lightning bolt — at least the longest observed lightning bolt — occurred on June 20, 2007 in Oklahoma. It was 199.5 miles long.
William Frawley is most famous for playing Fred Mertz in the classic TV show I Love Lucy. He, however, was the “it” singer of the 1910s — the Bruno Mars of the day you can say. Frawley made popular the megahits “My Melancholy Baby“, “Carolina in the Morning”, and “My Mammy”. Yes Anthony, it was Fred Mertz who in 1912 first made Mammy a hit, not Al Jolson.
You’ve heard of “My Mammy”, right? “Carolina in the Morning”? “My Melancholy Baby? Fred Mertz? I Love Lucy?
This is for you Fred:
Twitter Bans Hegseth For Journalism — Fox News journalist Pete Hegseth, who received a Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge for his service in Iraq, was temporarily banned from Twitter Saturday, Dec. 7, for posted screenshots of the manifesto thought to have been written by Mohammed Alshamrani, the Saudi military student who killed three and wounded 12 in a shooting rampage Friday at the Navy Station Pensacola on Friday.
The manifesto had been originally posted on Twitter but had been removed by the big tech firm after the shooting. It was traced to Alshamrani by the respected Site Intelligence Group Enterprises.
The Tweet said:
O American People,
I’m not against you for just being American. I don’t hate you because your freedoms, I hate you because every day you supporting funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie. I see invasion of many countries by it’s troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.
You say anything wrong in reporting it? Do you believe ignorance is good? Twitter apparently does.
Sign up for Gab. It doesn’t mean you have to give up Twitter.
Twitter, by the way, has a rather troubling history with Islamism.
Saudi prince and billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal was a major investor in Twitter. In 2015, he owned 34.9 million shares in it which put him ahead of CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey. He appears to have lost it following his arrest Nov. 4, 2017 arrest by his relatives.
A year later journalist Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser was tortured to death in a Saudi jail for criticizing the ruling family via a secret Twitter account. How did the tyrants learn of the account? Via spies at Twitter’s regional headquarter in Dubai.
And on Nov. 7 this year, it was reported that two Twitter employees were arrested by the Feds for spying for the Saudi government about users critical of the Saudi government.
Yeah, get on Gab.
Here is a screen shot of the manifesto courtesy Heavy.com.
The USS Nevada was one tough battleship. It survived Pearl Harbor despite being hit by at least six bombs and one torpedo, and shooting down at least four Japanese attackers. She was straddled by German fire on D-Day and was hit by a kamikaze at Okinawa. After the war, she was painted orange for use as the main target of atomic bomb tests. Two were dropped on her and she remained afloat. Finally, she was towed to Hawaii and used for gunnery practice by the mighty USS Iowa and other ships. Salvos from the Iowa’s 16-inch main guns failed to sink her. Unable to fight back, an aerial torpedo finally sent her under.
Six electric cars have held land speed records with last time being April 29, 1899 when Camille Jenatzy hit 65.79 mph in a La Jamais Contente.
That’s right Christopher, it was on Dec. 5, 1952 that the Great Smog of London started. It killed up to 12,000 people.
The human stomach capacity is 4 liters when distended. That would be 1.057 gallons. Drinking a gallon of water would increase your weight by eight pounds. Don’t do that though. Drinking too much water can kill you.
Pennsylvania Legislative Salaries Hit $90,300 (and this doesn’t include benefits).
By Leo Knepper
As of Dec. 1, the base salary for Pennsylvania lawmakers will increase to $90,300 per year. This pay raise comes as the result of an annual cost-of-living-increase (COLA) they receive automatically. The higher salary will be on top of any per diems, health insurance, etc. that lawmakers are eligible to receive.
As an aside, lawmakers pay only one percent per year of their salary for health benefits. In other words, their annual premium is roughly $900 for health insurance that is second to none. There are many taxpayers whose monthly insurance bill exceeds that amount.
The $90,300 salary is the minimum for members of the General Assembly. As noted by the Associated Press:
“Lawmakers in leadership posts will top out at $141,000 for House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson. The four caucus floor leaders in the House and Senate will each make almost 130,900 while the four caucus whips and the four Appropriations Committee chairs will receive $121,100.”
The salary differences between rank and file members and “leadership” are especially noteworthy. It presents another clear example of how our beloved judicial branch ignores the plain text of the Pennsylvania Constitution. According to Article II, Section 8, “The members of the General Assembly shall receive such salary and mileage for regular and special sessions as shall be fixed by law, and no other compensation whatever, whether for service upon committee or otherwise.” (Emphasis added)
Members of the General Assembly aren’t the only ones who will benefit from taxpayers’ forced generosity in the new year. When January rolls around, members of the executive branch will also see an increase in their pay. Governor Wolf’s salary will increase to over $200,000 per year. The Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Tom Saylor, will make over $220,000 per year.
Many lawmakers will, if they haven’t already, make a show of donating their salary increase to a charity. It is a standard public relations move on their part, and has become as regular as the leaves changing colors. However, despite their righteous indignation, there is never any real interest in eliminating the automatic COLA by changing the law. Finally, for any lawmakers in the defined benefit pension plan, the higher annual salary, regardless of charitable contributions, will be used to calculate their pension benefits upon retirement.
Unlike members of the General Assembly, CAP can’t force anyone to pay for projects we want to undertake. Next year is going to be incredibly busy for us. If you value what CAP does and would like to help us continue holding Harrisburg accountable, please consider making a financial contribution to our efforts.
