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| Trump imposes social media ban on Cabinet picks after MAGA civil war over migrant visas | |
| 2025-01-01 | |
In a stunning move, Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles told those who will become his top lieutenants to get anything they put on X, or other networks, cleared first. It came after a MAGA 'civil war' erupted this week over the issue of visas for skilled migrants. 'While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself,' Wiles wrote in a memo reported by the New York Post. 'Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel.' It was unclear what sparked the crackdown but Senate confirmation hearings for Cabinet nominees are due to start in the new year. Earlier this week, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who will head Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), threatened to 'go to war' with MAGA Republicans as he defended visas for skilled foreigners. Trump sided with Musk after a fierce debate, including on social media, sent some of his supporters into a meltdown. Family Arguments [AccordingToHoyt] I keep giggling when the media — even some on the right — refers to the lively… discussion last week about the appropriate use of H1B visas and when to import workers as “A MAGA civil war.” Sure, there were the usual sh*theads babbling about how America is a “blood and soil” nation and all that nonsense. (The most amusing was the one arguing with me that America was created explicitly as a white nation. He failed to tell me which documents say so, and explain the divergence in what was considered “white” then, or even show me the set aside for free black people, which, yes, existed in the North.) But let’s be real and talk about the actual argument amid actual Americans. Not the (Mostly Russian. And they probably actually believe what they’re posting) paid trolls. I suggest we mostly ignore anyone screaming about the “white” race or set asides thereonto until they come up with better trolls. This wasn’t a civil war. This was barely a family argument. Here I should interject. Where I come from expression is loud and voluble, particularly if your mom is a bit deaf. I remember the first time Dan (the poor man is from a Connecticut patrician family!) found himself at the table with my family. I saw when his eyes got all panicky and he started looking at the steak knives, and wondering whether to dive under the table. At which point I told him we weren’t about to slit each other’s throats. We were discussing where to buy shoes the next day. It hadn’t even gotten impolite. We were all just enthusiastically shouting our opinions and disagreement. But it was the kid next door, in the quiet house where no one ever raised their voices who tried to commit suicide by dropping from a roof. And it was in that quiet house that the father and mother divorced, in a long, bitter mostly silent process that took years and left them both broken. I’m not saying loud is preferable (My Connecticut DIL still tries to dive under the table while her husband and BIL scream at each other at the top of their considerably powerful voices over…. who gets to sit next to whom at holiday meals. Or whether one of them set the trivets in the right place for me to place the turkey pan.) I’m saying that some family arguments — granted not the ones about Spiderman retcons — need to be had, no matter the volume. And that there’s worse than having arguments out in the open where the world can see and hear. Sometimes “not in front of the kids, dear” is justifiable. And sometimes all it does is tamp down the tensions till everything explodes. Let me unpack it for you: Of course Musk and Trump had a prejudice pro H1B visas. The first came here with one, and he and the second see only the results after they’ve been normalized, tamped, cleared and made rational by their middle managers. So, of course, Trump and Elon stepped in it, after Vivek really stepped in it by thinking America is how Hollywood portrays it. But Elon and Trump have walked it back, and I really think they mean it. They truly were not aware of how bad it’s gotten. Yes, every new job created in a quarter going to foreign born people might have been a clue, but I think they didn’t connect it. They didn’t realize how bad it was 20 years ago and how it has incrementally grown. Yes, sure, offshoring is bad but “inshoring” and laying off your entire department to bring in foreign labor who then perpetuates itself by despising Americans, in a purely xenophobic snit (Hi Vivek!) is just as bad. And creates massive resentment. Which Elon and Trump got to see, up close and personal. (Oh, and much as I stare at Vivek in horrified fascination, let me tell you as someone who acculturated, this is one of the phases. You’re trying to understand your new culture, and you go through a phase of believing the media, not realizing it has its own biases. “Oh, so things really are like Revenge of the Nerds. Or Pretty In Pink. Or whatever.” You have to work at moving out of that phase. So I have some limited sympathy for him. Acculturating is difficult and a hell of a lot of work. Which is reason #300000 why mass immigration is a bad idea and makes every country worse. As the world is finding out.) | |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #5 Seriously, I have been against it from day one as it is a form of INDENTURED SERVITUDE Just give them a green card ... And quit all that stupid lawyer and lottery shit for green cards. Maybe make the first 3 or 4 years a provisional green card and if you don't screw up then just renew it. Cut the damned lawyers out of the game. Oh and green card owners are fair job competition compared to an H1B that can be quickly kicked out of the country if they don't lick their employers boots right. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2025-01-01 20:08 |
| #4 Interesting debate on a topic that is about number ten on a list of importance. 1. Limited government has been weaponized against all of us. 2. Government has facilitated an invasion of our country. 3. Fix our economy please. 4. Stop hosing down Ukraine with our money. 5. Tell us where the Ukraine money and FEMA money went. 6. Epstein was selling kids to adults, but only one person ever got charged. Now we have Diddy. 7. Did Fauci create a virus that killed a bunch of people? What about Bird Flu? 8. How come we have political prisoners that are confined pre trial and then railroaded? Was it a setup? 9. Why is our military ineffective again Iran and the Houthi? |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2025-01-01 14:55 |
| #3 Supply and demand curves have feelings nor emotions. Every piece of imported labor (increased "supply") will reduce the price paid to labor already here. Even communists understand supply and demand curves work--they let the mask slip once or twice a year when they tap the strategic reserve to manipulate the price of gasoline. 5 minutes later they're back to practicing the equivalent of voodoo economics and pretending that actions don't cause reactions. |
| Posted by: Crusader 2025-01-01 13:32 |
| #2 Gee, they don't agree on absolutely everything! We're doomed! |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2025-01-01 12:11 |
| #1 As in, "Shut up, get your head in the game." The people you're talking to are not your friends. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2025-01-01 08:24 |