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Our great great grandpas Giuseppe/Seamus/John/Klaus/Vladimir/whatever stumbled off a boat and got citizenship as long as they had a pulse prior to the Immigration Act of 1924. After that point, we set strict (and pretty arbitrary) immigration quotas from countries based on allowing 2% annually of whatever that particular immigrant population was in the country as of the 1890 census. And since then, illegal immigration has been an “issue” because we cut annual numbers of allowable legal immigration. We need immigration. Our citizen population isn’t pumping out enough kids to be able to support an aging society, crumbling infrastructure, and ballooning costs/debt. We need more people to fill houses, pay taxes, and consume goods, or we risk a collapsed real estate market, much higher tax rates, and greatly diminished services. Most immigrants aren’t doing jobs Americans want to do (landscaping/meat processing/cleaning/cooking/agriculture/etc.) or doing them for the low wages employers are willing to pay/the market supports. Anyone could probably have an all-legal roofing crew for 30-50% more cost; most will vote with their wallets and pay the cheaper rate with migrant labor. Most don’t think twice about inexpensive produce and would balk at paying what market price would be with legal labor. Most decry the loss of American manufacturing, yet have no problem buying that 69” TV from Walmart for $500 that could never be made and sold in the US for that amount. We need immigration. We need cheap labor. We need an easier path to legal citizenship. The fears today of immigrants stealing our jobs, changing our way of life, or diluting “American values” is no different than it was during any other time in civilization. The rhetoric in Gangs of New York rhymes a lot with today; we’ve just changed the ethnicity of folks we don’t want in the country. Had the Nativists been successful 150+ years ago, I’d gather a lot of us wouldn’t be in the country today.

The Dems would love that...more impressionable voters, they don’t give a fuck about the actual people or the security consequences, only increasing Pk of keeping their oligarch livelihood (to be fair, this mentality is on both sides). Make the process to gain citizenship smoother (cut a lot of the “red tape”bureaucratic bullshit), but no free lunch...immigrate legally, work illegally at your own risk with min impact to society/resources, or fuck off. I feel for the good people who are illegally here trying to make a better life, working hard, and not sucking from the gov tit, so help them out by making the process easier/smoother, but don’t just hand them citizenship and all its benefits because, well I want your vote...

Can an Uber driver or door dash delivery person set it negotiate their own compensation for providing their service, like a freelance writer or wedding DJ can? Same with etsy or ebay? That's the difference between when independent contractors are appropriate or inappropriate.

Heh, amateurs. We had an illustrious guy at a former unit I shall not name, no sh-t sit out lap #5 on the back bleachers where the turn provided cover, and got back in the peloton at the white flag. Can't make this stuff up. Proctor didn't see it, but enlisted AD clipboard holder caught it. Splash one FGO bandit. Copy kill. Paperwork city. We got our diapers ration thereafter and lost control of our internal proctoring at the host base. #FUBIJAR apparently wasn't a good enough alibi. At least fitness-by-phone retains more plausible deniability. Taking your 3-3 cues from a Bugs Bunny cartoon wasn't that solid of a plan in hindsight. 😄

For June I would recommend staying at a couple different places down on the Kenai Peninsula. I would highly recommend staying in Coopers Landing in mid June for fishing the Kenai and Russian Rivers for the first run of Sockeye (Reds) Salmon and Rainbow trout. Opening day is usually June 11. You can wade fish on the Russian and then would recommend taking a drift boat on the Kenai. Lots of good guides in Cooper landing that will get you on fish in both rivers. Homer is also a great place to visit and going out on a Charter Boat and fishing deep for Halibut is a great time. You almost always get your limit and usually walk away with a bunch of fish that costs about $20 a pound in the store. Definitely go on a private charter and don’t go on the large party fishing boats that go after smaller halibut. There are a couple different fish processing places that will flash freeze and vacuum seal your fish for reasonable rates so you can fly it back home.

I'd recommend going with Alaska Kenai Fishing for Fun. Brad Kirr, owner/guide, teaches science locally during the winter and has been guiding for 10+ years on the Kenai Peninsula. He put me onto my first rod/reel King on the Kasilof last summer (I've been here for 9 years). Because he teaches middle school he's got a good teaching manner if you need some help with the "Russian River floss." (You're not really fly fishing like you would Montana and you're not really casting like you would plugging for bass.) He's a good friend of ours and even though my wife and I have all the gear to combat fish the Russian we have made it an annual tradition to charter with Brad once a summer. Brad can guide you to the right spot for any/all of the species you described. If you're down there for the Russian opener this year we might see you on the river as my wife and I enjoy going for the opener just to watch all the people from the "Lesser 48" think the river is on the set of "A River Runs Through It" Have several pairs of polarized sunglasses. If you're fishing the Russian "sight" fishing has always worked the best for us; "sight" fishing is literally walking up and down the banks/shallows until you see a slug of salmon and casting in front of them. Additionally, the glasses save your eyes from all the Texans slinging lead and hooks all over the place. If you're fishing the Russian and/or the confluence, where the Kenai/Russian come together, be bear aware (Really this goes for anywhere in Alaska INCLUDING in Anchorage. I saw probably 10 bears of various flavors last year while fishing half a dozen times. If you're going to fish on your own make sure you read/understand the regulations. General ROT is if you're fishing by yourself (even at 2AM) you're probably in the wrong spot. AK Fish and Game is no joke as they will walk around, look like a normal fisherman, and start handing out citations. If you have any more questions I'd be happy to discuss more...We're starting to plan all of our camping/fishing for this summer. Assuming the 'Rona calms down those places fill up fast (I'd imagine close campgrounds are already close to capacity for the opener).

I think it's a good idea. Since you asked, here's how. The federal government can do more than one thing at a time. Securing our southern border should be a priority. A physical barrier (like Trump's wall) sometimes makes sense, in other places it makes no sense. Security is a layered process, whether it's your house, the vault at work, or the border. There's room to improve for sure, but as it is now, border crossings have declined 76 percent from 2000 to 2018. So I wouldn't say ceasing all policy actions for illegal immigrants, until we get the border fully secured, would be a good course of action. That also discounts the fact that 44% of illegal immigrants arrived here legally, but overstayed their visa. In short, the wall is largely a boogeyman, leveraged by Tucker Carlson to whip up fear. This proposed legislation is an eight-year path. Four for DACA recipients. That sounds very reasonable to me. I'd absolutely want to grant citizenship for those who are willing to work hard and color within the lines for eight years. FDNYOldGuy and nsplayr have compelling arguments for this as well.

LMK if you want to actually read the book itself & discuss! I disagree with that characterization and in fact think the opposite is true; China and India are trying desperately to become richer & more like Western nations in terms of per capita income and purchasing power, and the entire point of Yglesias' book is that if/when that happens, America will inevitably decline in importance unless we get significantly richer (very hard to do), or significantly bigger (easier than you might imagine). I would very much like America to remain the #1 nation in the world for the rest of my lifetime and ideally for my daughter's entire lifetime as well. After that, I'll have long been made dust again, so GL to everyone who remains haha! A world order where China is on top will not be as good, especially for us as Americans. A nativist, small-minded, bunker mentality of closing America and stagnating ain't gonna keep us #1 IMHO because China et al will very likely continue to grow and get richer and honestly that's a good thing. Ending dire poverty around the world is good. But, let's allow them to do so while still keeping our relative power and let's do it through something both conservatives and liberals used to agree on - growth.

This thread needs some humor Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I disagree with the take that it'll depress wages. We already have (according to the thread here), between 11 and 22 million illegal immigrants here. That's 11 to 22 million people working below the already-low minimum wage. With no recourse, fearing to report their employer because they'll be deported, fearing to file taxes, fearing to buy health insurance, car insurance, etc... Make those people legal, and you immediately make gains by raising them to at least minimum wage. Now they are competing for jobs on an even playing field with Americans, rather than undercutting them. And you get them on the taxpayer rolls...for low wage jobs, they're probably not paying much...but their employers are also paying employment taxes on those millions of people. The point of making it cheap, easy, and legal is that you get these people into the system. Right now, they're still here, they're still coming, they're still undercutting the American labor market...and we're getting nothing for it in return.

I don't get why anyone supports regulations on these. Do people not like having convenience options for transportation and dining in their life? Yeah I get the taxi driver unions blah blah blah but you can't tell me the coal miner in Pennsylvania or the automotive part manufacturer in Michigan needs to recognize that certain jobs are not coming back due to technology, and then simultaneously stand on a hill of protecting other antiquated and obsolete jobs. Are you going to try and get rid of self checkout lines and ATMs as well? Would hate to put more cashier's and tellers out of work.

FIFY Yale Study Finds Twice as Many Undocumented Immigrants as Previous Estimates | Yale Insights If they are regularized, goodbye recent wage gains, hello race to the bottom of hourly wages for the working classes. Next will be a massive importation of knowledge workers, foreign professionals, etc... good luck middle and upper-middle class America... That's the plan - "legalize" those here illegally to transmit to those thinking about it to come over without having to say it. Overwhelm the system with numbers and change the facts on the ground. When you add (eventually) 20+ million voters who heavily skew to one political party you have changed the game to make it now unwinnable for the other player. When the Dems have power they use it, when the Repubs have power they tell us they will use it but do nothing... Nope - we need a break from immigration, all immigration, for at least 1-2 generations (I would define that as 15 years per gen) to stabilize our labor market and not radically / quickly skew our demographics to alleviate growing internal division and enmity. Big nations need a reasons to hang together and are inherently fragile internally; the conjunctive ideology holding them together may be morally right but it is not necessarily hardy or durable in the real world, proceed cautiously. Disagree - you are undermining the rule of law (what remains of it), one of the main reasons that makes our country a place people want to come here. I'll again disagree with you on the physical deportation of 11 million people, it's likely 22 million or more, it could be done but I understand why it is eschewed, but that doesn't mean we accommodate them. We either defend our borders, enforce our laws and protect our people or we are not a sovereign country anymore but something else.

Agreed. Make it faster, cheaper, and easier to cross the border legally, and punish people who do illegally. And secure the border. In some places maybe that's a wall. In some places it's increased patrols. In some places it's RPAs or manned aircraft. But if it's easy and cheap enough to immigrate legally, you'll eliminate a lot of incentive for illegal immigration. After that, I'm all for some kind of legal status for people who have been here for years. Doesn't have to be citizenship...could be a visa, could be a temporary status, could be contingent on holding down a job or providing for their American citizen kids. But the idea we're going to round up 11 million people and deport them is insane. It would not only be a huge investment in time and effort, it would be a huge blow to parts of the economy when those workers disappear.

Would also recommend doing a drift boat charter for King Salmon on the Kasilof River and then getting a guide for wade fishing for King Salmon on the Anchor River. Beginning to mid June is about the peak for both of those runs. You can pack a lot of awesome fishing into a 10-14 day trip on the Kenai Peninsula in June.

I really like shooting my SBRs in 5.56 and 300 AAC with suppressors. Still wear earpro, but eliminates the concussion. It is more complicated to get the correct barrel length and gas port size lined out. Subsonic 300 AAC or 9mm in an AR is awesome! If you’re doing shooting on private property with neighbors, I’d say it would be a good idea. Definitely reduces your noise signature. Even for super sonic rounds. Start with a rimfire and a multi use center fire, like an Omega 300 or Hybrid 46. Unless you want a pistol can, which I’d recommend something light and short. A .22 pistol is a blast to shoot suppressed. A 9mm with a 7”+ can is fun, but really changes the handling characteristics and isn’t practical for carrying.

I’ll ad one to the PT test stories. Years ago two aviators took the mass PT test. Mind you this was at the height of the “we now will do the AD test era” in our reserve unit. Both knew they could not pass the run. The running course circles the wing HQ. Sooo they decide to cut through the HQ building ensuring a passing run time. Got caught. The 05 gets a pass and “should not have done that talk”the O2 gets paperwork. O5 made O6. O2 got out. Merica.

Yes. There was a page long pre-screening questionnaire and part of that was consent to receive a vaccine that hasn’t been formally approved by the FDA.

From what I saw being Air Guard and witnessing Army Guard get vaccinated at the same time, it looked like everyone had a DHA Form 207. On that form you either check the box that you want to receive the vaccine or that you don't. See attached (must open in Acrobat Reader to work right). DHA Form 207 Blank.pdf

130 and U-28 folks are the only two platforms that can accept T-6 only right now. However at Vance the first 2.5 class will still track T-38/T-1. Also fun fact the last T-6 2.0 flight at Vance took place yesterday. To answer the OP, he'll go to Vance or Randolph.

Which river or what part of the state are you going to fish? If your based out of Anchorage you can easily fish ship creek without a guide. Also know that some rivers you might not be able to catch Kings (check with Alaska state fisheries) which run the time of year you are planning to be there. I was stationed in Alaska (Elmo). I have family up there and multiple friends. just let me know where you plan to fish. Have you considered trolling for salmon and halibut?

Best plan if you have the means is max out TSP and IRA. Either flavor, Roth or traditional. Priority towards Roth if you don’t need the tax benefits. Looking at 19,500 for TSP and another 6k for IRA.

Hurlburt Field dispensed all their allotted doses this week. I got the 1st Moderna shot on Thursday, felt a little shitty yesterday but otherwise it wasn’t bad at all (personally thought anthrax and yellow fever were worse). As an added bonus, post vaccine my 5G download speeds have been incredible (4K UHD streaming pornog in the middle of the range, no problem!) and an image of Bill Gates constantly pops up in my periph with helpful dining out suggestions. Totally worth it!!

I think he may still be a reservist at the 76th FS at Moody. He was in the retired reserves and I know he was flying recently. If not, call the 76th and they’ll know how to contact him. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I'll lead off with I agree with your last paragraph, the status quo isn't good enough, and we need to do better in discouraging abusing the system while making it available to people who need it. So I think we both want to see us get to the same end state. I will however, challenge some of your assumptions, mainly because years ago I held very similar beliefs and viewpoints you did (and that's not to say I'm right now and you're wrong, but I've questioned some of my assumptions when presented with different viewpoints I hadn't considered and it changed my opinion). You assume that the construction worker could get a job with better benefits: those are likely to be more competitive, and limited. But let's assume they have good work ethic, and don't want to be in unemployment waiting for a "good" job while taking a government handout, so they take whatever job they can to pay their bills. If they then have a workplace accident that results in their leg being crushed and subsequently amputated, then what? "Sorry bro, life sucks and you had bad luck? Thanks for your contribution to the economy in building stores/homes, good luck finding a job with one leg, hope someone donates a prosthetic leg?" Sure, there may be some workers comp available, and that may cover the initial hospital bills, but what happens long term? Being in crutches permanently isn't conducive to many low skill jobs, and while discrimination against disabled is generally illegal, an employer can usually find another reason (plausible deniability) to hire someone else without a disability, especially for low skill or entry level work. And retraining into a new field of work costs money, both for training, and to cover expenses while in training (though admittedly unemployment benefits can help bridge the gap). I agree that the welfare system should have changes to prevent abuse. But we have to address social and economic barriers to do so. Some of it is practical (those financial cliffs mentioned earlier in the thread). Some of it is learned behavior from multiple sources. I don't dispute your experience with workers in welfare. All I will say is be careful generalizing based on a small population. Maybe your assessment is correct for the overall population of people on welfare in America, but then again maybe not. The way to draw generalizations needed for policy is to study a relevant portion of that population, while controlling for other factors. If you have a minimum wage or low paying job with decent (i.e. non high deductible plans) health insurance, great. If you get sick and have to go to urgent care, that $20 copay may mean skipping meals to make ends meet, not to mention the cost of any medicines required. Referred out to specialty care? That's an extra $50 copay, and likely half a day missed from work (increasing the financial pain). Need an operation done? Hope you have the $1-3k available for your deductible and you don't have coinsurance requirements. So while they may have health insurance, you may not be able to practically use it except in an emergency, at which point it may drain any savings you have anyways. And if you don't have paid sick leave, you may just deal with the issue and show up to work anyways because you need the money to make rent. But if you keep hours to the point you remain on welfare, you end up not having to pay those medical costs, and may not have to skip means and go hungry to get medical care. You don't have to work about an emergency wiping out your work because there's nothing really to lose. So there's this painful transition point. If you can get through it and start earning more money (maybe you get a raise after 1 year of work), you can be better off than on welfare. But you've got to get through to that point, and the way welfare is set up doesn't allow for a graceful transition. Maybe an individual has tried to make that jump and failed, and it's now disincentived to try again because of their previous failure. And even middle class workers can be wiped out by a medical event despite having okay health insurance due to deductible and coinsurance requirements. Maybe this speaks more to problems in healthcare, but it's still intertwined with the welfare issue. On the behavioral point, how do we get people to shift their mindset and actions? Also consider that many factors influence how a person chooses to live: family, race, gender, friends, religion, location, culture, etc. All of which influence your values and your decisions. You could teach finances in school, though the education system has incentive to focus on standardized testing (which right now doesn't measure financial planning knowledge) for school funding. That testing focused on skills to make the individual more valuable in the workforce, not skills needed to navigate life, with the assumption that the latter will come from the parents (who may not be good examples). How do you change a social group's norms? Part of it may be showing examples of people that made changes in their life and we're able to "succeed." I used to think it was dumb for all these "firsts" for race/gender/pick you group. To some extent, it still is when it's done for purely political reasons or for virtue signaling (potentially a wrong action for a "right" reason). But if a disadvantaged group can see people from their group be successful, it can provide hope that they too can be successful and escape their current circumstances. So those "firsts" may not mean anything to me as someone outside that group, or just seem like a waste if time, but that doesn't mean it has no meaning to some people within the group. And it doesn't really cost much if anything to recognize people's accomplishments. So it's less about dividing the country based on certain group affiliations, but rather showing a group they are accepted and can succeed within the greater society. On the flip side, there's the whole crabs in a pot problem, where if someone starts to make progress escaping their circumstances, others around them pull them back down, making it harder to escape. A person trying to escape welfare may be ridiculed or cut off from their friends/family (maybe seen as being "too good" for them anymore), making that transition harder because now it is being done without a social network to support or encourage them. Do people on welfare spend money on drugs and alcohol because they are pursuing pleasure ahead of essentials (they can't budget right!), or are they using them as tools to escape their life/circumstances for a bit and take the edge off their pain for a while? Put another way, are they poor because they abuse drugs/alcohol, or do they abuse drugs/alcohol because they are poor? The answer may not be the same for everyone, but usually conservatives will assume the former (poor because of drug abuse), I know I did for a long time. It goes back to the belief that if you work hard, there's no way for you to be poor, so if you are poor, you must have a moral failing and poor work ethic. The use of drugs further reinforces the belief that the poor are immoral (regardless of if the person making that judgement also uses drugs, usually with a hand waive of something along the lines of "I've earned it" and the poors are just being financially irresponsible). Compare the response to prescription opioid abuse vs heroin abuse: one is predominantly abused by wealthier people and viewed as them needing therapy to address their underlying issues (get them medical care, not jail time), and the other is abused by poorer people who are breaking the law to get high and should be punished for breaking the law since they should know better (give them jail time, not medical care). Plus, poor people on welfare likely won't have access to treatments for depression, so they self medicate with whatever is available and cheap. I will say that there are lots of good charities out there that fill some of the gaps our government doesn't cover. And a lot of these issues with being poor are community issues. But I think government money, spent wisely, can help enable charities and communities be more effective in addressing problems.

While I think I see your theme, and it wasn't my intent to paint all recipients of relief as people who don't deserve or need it, there are plenty of people who fall into the category I identified. And that category is growing. In any case, my original point was why does a pandemic justify paying someone who didn't have income in the first place? Operable phrase: "Why does the pandemic..." Not: "I wonder if this person who didn't have a job needs or would like government cheese." So, why does the pandemic justify paying someone unemployment who didn't have income in the first place. If they qualified for unemployment, they should already be getting it. IMO, it's nothing more than a bribe. The idea underlying this thought I could get behind. One idea would be to punt their social security collection X months/years into the future. "Oh, I see right here, Mr. Jones, that you needed 8 years of unemployment assistance to get by?" "Yes..." "Cool, well your social security check will start when you're 73...thanks." Or, you want your social security to start on time? Sweet, then we'll enroll you in a "catch-up" plan to "re-fund" your "early withdrawal" and get you back in good standing. We cannot continue to act as if there is infinite money. The rest of the world is only gonna let us get away with that for so long.

I wrote them and got a draft of the proposed new emblem. Not approved yet but in coordination. CD64EF33-660B-45F2-99B4-8039C994B068.pdf

Standard AF, call one woman a cunt and we all pay the price, amirite?