[The Immortal Goon]

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will offer an extra 15,000 temporary, seasonal work visas this budget year.

The extra H-2B visas are for seasonal, non-agriculture workers for jobs at a variety of businesses, including resorts. The extra visas will be available to companies that can show that their businesses would be harmed if they can’t temporarily hire foreigner workers.

The Trump Organization is among the businesses that use the visas.

Earlier this year Congress voted to allow Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to offer more than the annual limit of 66,000 such visas. Though President Donald Trump has taken a hard line stance on immigration, legal and otherwise, Kelly said the decision to add visas was a “demonstration of the administration’s commitment to supporting American businesses.”

He described the additional visas as a “one-time extension” of the visa cap set by Congress.

A notice about the extra H-2B visas will be posted later this week in the Federal Register.

I'll also put this here:

Donald Trump has declared this week “Made in America” week. According to the White House, it’s an opportunity for the president to showcase “products that are made in America”.

Unfortunately for Trump, that description would rule out many of the products he and members of his family have made and sold. From Donald J Trump Collection clothing to Trump Vodka to Trump: the Game, the president has a track record of not making things in America.

The week was scheduled to kick off at the White House on Monday, with Trump walking around some tables looking at products made in all 50 states. So in honour of the president’s communist-dictator-esque photo opportunity, here’s a look at some not-made-in-America Trump gear.

Alcohol
Trump Vodka (“The finish is disappointingly harsh” – InternetWines.com) was an ill-fated attempt by Trump to branch into the spirits world. The vodka (“No discernable flavor” – Chicagoist) was manufactured in the Netherlands by a company called Wanders Distillery and launched in the US in 2006.

But the beverage (“My taste buds unfortunately associate the flavor with the smell of paint” – VodkaBuzz) failed to sell. The trademark was abandoned in 2008, according to Rolling Stone. By 2011, Trump Vodka was “out of circulation”.

Clothing

“We don’t need Chinese products,” Trump told Fox News in 2010. “The stuff that’s been sent over from China is – it falls apart after a year and a half. It’s crap.”

It was an odd thing to say for a self-described master businessman offering to the American public many menswear products – featured in the Donald J Trump Signature Collection – that were made in China.

Donald J Trump eyeglasses were made in China. Donald Trump’s ties were made in China. Some of the Donald J Trump suits were made in China.

To be fair, Trump is an equal opportunity overseas manufacturer. His dress shirts have been manufactured in Bangladesh, Honduras and Vietnam. And China.

It turned out Trump was right about people not needing Chinese products. In 2015, the Donald J Trump Signature Collection was jettisoned by Macy’s. His famous red hats, meanwhile, actually are made in the US. It’s the unofficial ones that aren’t.

Education

Trump University (“A fraud from beginning to end” – New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman) was a US business.

But the university, which was not actually an accredited university, encouraged students to outsource jobs overseas.

“We hear terrible things about outsourcing jobs – how sending work outside of our companies is contributing to the demise of American businesses,” Trump wrote on the Trump University blog in 2005. “But in this instance I have to take the unpopular stance that it is not always a terrible thing.”

In November 2016, Trump settled three fraud lawsuits relating to the university for $25m.

Homeware
“Several Trump Home items are listed as made in China or imported from China,” the Washington Post reported in 2016.

According to the Post, foreign-made items in Trump’s furniture collection include mirrors, ceramic vases, wall decorations, kitchen items and lighting fixtures. They were all made in China. Some Trump Home picture frames were manufactured in India.

Earlier this year, Peter York, who wrote a 2006 book about the homes of autocrats, including Saddam Hussein and Nicolae Ceaușescu, wrote about the similarities between their tastes and Trump’s interior decor preferences.

“The best aesthetic descriptor of Trump’s look, I’d argue, is dictator style,” York said.

Board games
Trump: the Game (“I loathed every miserable second of it” – Ars Technica) was launched in 1989, then pushed out again in 2004 after Trump became host of The Apprentice.

The game (“Bizarre” – Business Insider) was manufactured in the US by Milton Bradley Company. But the dice, according to this photo of the Trump: the Game packaging, were made in China.

It is difficult to tell if the dice were “crap” and fell apart after a year and a half, because Trump: the Game sold poorly. In 2011, Time magazine listed the game as one of Trump’s top 10 business failures.

Ivanka Trump clothing

It’s not just Donald Trump who has a track record of overseas manufacturing. In December, the New York Times, citing two trade databases, reported that “almost all” of Ivanka Trump’s clothing line is made overseas.

In May, New York-based activists were arrested in China while investigating the making of Ivanka Trump shoes. In July, the Washington Post traced Ivanka Trump products to Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

More than 20 stores have dropped Ivanka Trump’s products since her father started his run for president.

It was always very obvious to me that Trump was a businessman more worried about making money than anything to do with the United States or its workers.

My question is how many of these con games can Trump come out ahead on at the expense of his supporters before they turn on him?

Roger Stone would almost certainly say that Trump can do this indefinitely as long as Trump's dogs can be pointed at some other target. I like to think that people are smarter than that.

Then again, the GOP used Kansas as a beacon for how they'd run things, ran it completely into the ground and destroyed everyone there, and still gets their votes.

[Zionist Nationalist]

Trump never said he want to stop immigration

he just want to stop the uncontrolled illegal immigration coming from Mexico

[The Immortal Goon]

The implicit idea was that they were taking American jobs though. Now he's handing out more visas to take away more American jobs, should we follow this reasoning. He claims that the unemployment rate is out of control—why not let Americans have these jobs?

[skinster]

Yep, during his sales pitch he pretended to care about American workers. I wonder if his fans will be as silent on this as they have been with his attack on a Syria.

[One Degree]

No, I am disappointed. I found the arguments weak when compared to his promises. Congress not acting till May and college students not being able to work for the full season are both very weak arguments in my opinion. If he had promised a gradual change in the future, I may have bought it. This is not something that could be changed in a year.

[Dave]

An unreasonable distinction between legal and illegal aliens has long been employed by Republicans, including even immigration restrictionist ones.

Lou Dobbs--the man who did more than anyone else to make illegal aliens into a major political issue--wrote in his book a decade ago he supported tripling legal immigration.

Trump has similar views and clashes with Bannon on the subject of legal immigration.

And @The Immortal Goon, , while we welcome workers into our movement, many of us are not workers. While I think the working class has been treated too badly in the past generation, I'm a man of the right. I strongly believe in hierarchy and inequality. At this time workers should get a leg up, but this shouldn't be assumed to be some general pro-worker sentiment among us. The overall goal to keep America WHITE.

@skinster,

I realize you're talking about people on this forum, but those of us on the alt right have been highly critical on both subjects.

[redcarpet]

An unreasonable distinction between legal and illegal aliens has long been employed by Republicans, including even immigration restrictionist ones.

Lou Dobbs--the man who did more than anyone else to make illegal aliens into a major political issue--wrote in his book a decade ago he supported tripling legal immigration.

Trump has similar views and clashes with Bannon on the subject of legal immigration.

And @The Immortal Goon, , while we welcome workers into our movement, many of us are not workers. While I think the working class has been treated too badly in the past generation, I'm a man of the right. I strongly believe in hierarchy and inequality. At this time workers should get a leg up, but this shouldn't be assumed to be some general pro-worker sentiment among us. The overall goal to keep America WHITE.

You seem to make two points.

On the traditional white working'class of Ruiral-middle-sized town Americans they have a view that the U.S. should remain a manufacturing economy. The snag is they expect/demand that they be paid middle-class incomes for what multinational corporations clearly see as minimum wage jobs or totally shed for robotic automation.

With a underlying portion of that that the ex-industrial workers are like job-addicts; they only want to make money in ONE sector of the economy. Well, you don't have to work in a factory to make money. There are plenty of ways to make money, and even more than as a factory worker, etc.

The second part being, as we on the Left do accurately point out, among the opponents of immigration are outright racists. They want to both end illegal entry and even legal immigration. To maintain a white majority, a pretty big one. like 80%+ white majority.

Just like with SOME critics of Israel are antisemites. Not all, but some are.

[ThirdTerm]

The extra H-2B visas are for seasonal, non-agriculture workers for jobs at a variety of businesses, including resorts. The extra visas will be available to companies that can show that their businesses would be harmed if they can’t temporarily hire foreigner workers.

Trump himself is not against the H-2B visa program because Trump’s businesses wanted approval to hire 76 guest workers using H-2B visas. There is nothing wrong with low-wage, seasonal workers as long as they are legal. Issuing more H-2A visas for agricultural workers would end illegal immigration from Mexico.

[Decky]

Lou Dobbs--the man who did more than anyone else to make illegal aliens into a major political issue--wrote in his book a decade ago he supported tripling legal immigration.

Trump has similar views and clashes with Bannon on the subject of legal immigration.

What do you expect? The right has always been the driving force behind mass immigration. Once working class people organised into powerful unions and demanded a decent deal the capitalists had to stop crushing us into the dust and they decided instead to simply replace us. You are a supporter and a campaigner for the mass immigration party Dave.

[Dave]

You seem to make two points.

On the traditional white working'class of Ruiral-middle-sized town Americans they have a view that the U.S. should remain a manufacturing economy. The snag is they expect/demand that they be paid middle-class incomes for what multinational corporations clearly see as minimum wage jobs or totally shed for robotic automation.

With a underlying portion of that that the ex-industrial workers are like job-addicts; they only want to make money in ONE sector of the economy. Well, you don't have to work in a factory to make money. There are plenty of ways to make money, and even more than as a factory worker, etc.

There are three reasons why restoring manufacturing jobs in particular is very important. The first two relate to the interests of the whole country, and the third is particular to the working-class Trump constituency.

1. Most international trade consists of manufactures. Without a robust manufacturing sector, the country is unable to balance its books on trade. Hence we've had forty years of trade deficits and now foreigners own 25% of the equity in our 500 largest corporations.

2. The manufacturing sector historically, and presently, leads all other sectors of the economy is total factor productivity growth. A smaller manufacturing sector thus means permanently lower growth rates, something which has become quite obvious in this century. Is it surprising that Germany, with a manufacturing sector more than twice the size of ours, has grown per capita GDP by 20% in this century while we've only grown ours by 14%?

The third reason is particular to the Trump voters you identified in rural America and small towns in the heartland. Heartland America does not have much to offer non-agricultural businesses other than cheap land and cheap labor. Leading service sector businesses concentrate their operations in metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers.

Prior to offshoring, manufacturing businesses frequently located operations in relatively impoverished regions of America in order to take advantage of lower costs. There is no longer any reason to do so since costs can be cut far more by relocating operations abroad.

The second part being, as we on the Left do accurately point out, among the opponents of immigration are outright racists. They want to both end illegal entry and even legal immigration. To maintain a white majority, a pretty big one. like 80%+ white majority.

Just like with SOME critics of Israel are antisemites. Not all, but some are.

I just love being lectured by a Jewish Zionist about the sins of racism.

Yes, we on the alt right are racist and unapologetic about it. We're going to take our country back, and that means keeping our country white.

There is nothing wrong with racism, and in fact the very word itself is less than a century old and was created to demoralize white people and white societies.

What do you expect? The right has always been the driving force behind mass immigration. Once working class people organised into powerful unions and demanded a decent deal the capitalists had to stop crushing us into the dust and they decided instead to simply replace us. You are a supporter and a campaigner for the mass immigration party Dave.

Bernie Sanders in fact made this point until he was bullied into supporting mass immigration.

Capital of course has been historically the main promoter of mass immigration for obvious reasons. We're currently engaged in a struggle to transform the Republican Party from being a capitalist party into a populist party.

Taking over an existing national party is more viable for us than establishing a new party.

The Democratic Party purports to represent workers (and once, in the distant past, it did), but is now primarily motivated by hatred of white males.

[Quantum]

Unskilled immigration has no benefits. How does America (and other countries) benefit from such uneducated people in the long run once their "temporary" status has ended? I'd rather let businesses go under than allow the economy to supposedly "grow".

America has tens of millions of unskilled workers lying around and you might as well utilise them but that's too expensive according to the holy free market. I would have thought America would have learned its lessons from its previous binges on "cheap" labour.

[redcarpet]

We're going to take our country back, and that means keeping our country white.

And what makes it belong to white people? As opposed to say Native Americans?

[Dave]

@redcarpet,

Because they lost, duh. Are you being deliberately thick or something?

I mean what makes Israel belong to the jews? As opposed to say Palestinians?

[redcarpet]

@redcarpet,

Because they lost, duh. Are you being deliberately thick or something?

I mean what makes Israel belong to the jews? As opposed to say Palestinians?

It belongs to all citizens of the society.

And whites aren't the only demographic sector of the U.S. society.

I'll reiterate the point you didn't address; you don't have to work in a factory to make money. If these Trump-supporters are so SERIOUS about working they'd apply for the many service sector jobs available. Well they won't, because most of them are minimum wage & long hours.

They're work-shy bumbs living on welfare.

[Decky]

It belongs to all citizens of the society.

And whites aren't the only demographic sector of the U.S. society.

I'll reiterate the point you didn't address; you don't have to work in a factory to make money. If these Trump-supporters are so SERIOUS about working they'd apply for the many service sector jobs available. Well they won't, because most of them are minimum wage & long hours.

They're work-shy bumbs living on welfare.

What kind of socialist are you Labour boy? You think working class people should happily file into jobs with shit pay and conditions instead of organising politically to get decent jobs with decent pay and conditions? The only reason Trump has managed to seize the working class vote is middle class people like yourself inexplicably claiming to be socialists and tarring the label.

Honestly read your post, you are a Tory not a socialist.

[One Degree]

It belongs to all citizens of the society.

And whites aren't the only demographic sector of the U.S. society.

I'll reiterate the point you didn't address; you don't have to work in a factory to make money. If these Trump-supporters are so SERIOUS about working they'd apply for the many service sector jobs available. Well they won't, because most of them are minimum wage & long hours.

They're work-shy bumbs living on welfare.

Trump supporters are just humans like everyone else, as hard as that may be for you to believe. Telling young men they should be satisfied working at McDonald's instead of having a factory job is wrong on so many levels. These are men who want to live like men. Testosterone is a thing.

[Dave]

It belongs to all citizens of the society.

And whites aren't the only demographic sector of the U.S. society.

Right, the explicitly Jewish state belongs equally to Israeli Arabs, who I'm sure identify strongly with the national flag showing the Star of David.

But sure, we can play this game too. America shall become (again) a white, Christian, English-speaking nation which belongs to all citizens of our society.

I have eyes and I can read demographic tables. I'm fully cognizant of the non-white groups in American society, and their swift population growth is why it's urgent to address this issue. And step one in addressing the issue was electing President Trump. Step two is transforming the Republican Party from a capitalist party to a racial-nationalist party. Step three is mass deportations and the implementation of a population policy which favors whites--and eugenics. Step four is capturing all state institutions and permanently excluding the "left" from power.

I'll reiterate the point you didn't address; you don't have to work in a factory to make money. If these Trump-supporters are so SERIOUS about working they'd apply for the many service sector jobs available. Well they won't, because most of them are minimum wage & long hours.

They're work-shy bumbs living on welfare.

I'm a Trump supporter who runs a factory which hires Trump supporters at much better wages and working conditions than the service sector.

And I did address your point. I'll quote my last post for you since you missed it:

There are three reasons why restoring manufacturing jobs in particular is very important. The first two relate to the interests of the whole country, and the third is particular to the working-class Trump constituency.

1. Most international trade consists of manufactures. Without a robust manufacturing sector, the country is unable to balance its books on trade. Hence we've had forty years of trade deficits and now foreigners own 25% of the equity in our 500 largest corporations.

2. The manufacturing sector historically, and presently, leads all other sectors of the economy is total factor productivity growth. A smaller manufacturing sector thus means permanently lower growth rates, something which has become quite obvious in this century. Is it surprising that Germany, with a manufacturing sector more than twice the size of ours, has grown per capita GDP by 20% in this century while we've only grown ours by 14%?

The third reason is particular to the Trump voters you identified in rural America and small towns in the heartland. Heartland America does not have much to offer non-agricultural businesses other than cheap land and cheap labor. Leading service sector businesses concentrate their operations in metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers.

Prior to offshoring, manufacturing businesses frequently located operations in relatively impoverished regions of America in order to take advantage of lower costs. There is no longer any reason to do so since costs can be cut far more by relocating operations abroad.

[redcarpet]

Dave, why are $16 million dollars worth of agriculture in California being wasted after deportations of undocumented immigrants? Go on tell me!

[Zagadka]

Hey, make more low income menial and manufacturing jobs, keep min wage down, restrict access to healthcare, remove workplace oversight. Seems like a winning plan.

[redcarpet]

What kind of socialist are you Labour boy? You think working class people should happily file into jobs with shit pay and conditions instead of organising politically to get decent jobs with decent pay and conditions? The only reason Trump has managed to seize the working class vote is middle class people like yourself inexplicably claiming to be socialists and tarring the label.

Honestly read your post, you are a Tory not a socialist.

Assertion alone means nothing. I recall you claiming I attended private schools. I didn't. You're a liar.

If I attended a university and graduated with a degree/diploma for a middle-class job and got it, thereby earning a middle-class income, yeah I'd be middle-class. But that's not what happened in my life. You just want to pretend that it did.

You don't have to be right-wing to accept it is absurd to argue that like a 7-Elevewn worker should be paid the same as a doctor or lawyer. The former is pretty basic with no major skills or qualifications required, so obviously should be paid way less than the latter.

What next? A street-sweeper or garbage collector should be paid the same as a lawyer? Oh come ON!