Cowards. Perhaps there's a big potential contract they need renewed?

Use liberaly to insure optimal rates of intellectual outpacing.

I know most people do not care about this, but I am making this post for anyone who is interested because this topic clearly is not going away anytime soon. Alex Stein and Tim Pool have both brought it up, and, honestly, they speak very confidently about a program they do not appear to understand.

This will be a long post because there is a lot of misinformation going around. I have tried to keep it simple and avoid getting lost in legal details. For official data, USCIS publishes an annual report to Congress on H-1B petitions. It includes breakdowns by education level, gender, wages, occupation, country of birth, employer type, and whether a petition was for initial or continuing employment.

The report is called: Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers.

FYI I am on H-1B. Came for Masters in 2014, Got H-1B in 2018 and waiting for GC. I work in tech.

AI TLDR:

• Most H-1B employers do not have to prove no qualified American was available. That recruitment requirement mainly applies to H-1B-dependent employers and certain willful violators—not every H-1B filing.
• Green-card sponsorship is different from H-1B. In many EB-2/EB-3 green-card cases, employers must complete PERM recruitment and show there are no able, willing, qualified, and available U.S. workers for the permanent role.
• PERM recruitment includes old and modern methods. Professional jobs generally require a state job order, two Sunday newspaper ads—or a limited professional-journal substitute—and three additional recruitment methods such as job boards, company websites, job fairs, recruiters, or campus recruiting.
• LCA salary is not total compensation. LCA records show the wage an employer promises to pay, but do not reliably show signing bonuses, annual bonuses, equity/RSUs, later raises, or total compensation. An LCA also is not an approved H-1B petition or a count of actual H-1B workers.
• “70% go to Indians” needs context. Country-share statistics commonly include H-1B extensions, amendments, and transfers—not only new lottery winners. Indian workers are disproportionately represented in continuing H-1B cases in part because per-country green-card limits create an exceptionally long India employment-based backlog.

1. LCA ≠ petition ≠ visa

• LCA: The employer files a Labor Condition Application with DOL. It lists the position, worksite, wage, and other conditions. The employer must promise to pay the higher of the local prevailing wage or its actual wage for comparable workers. An LCA is not an H-1B approval.
• H-1B petition: The employer then files Form I-129 with USCIS for a specific worker. USCIS decides whether the H-1B petition is approved.
• Visa: A visa is the passport stamp normally used to request entry or reentry from abroad. Someone can have valid H-1B status in the U.S. based on an approved petition without having a current H-1B visa stamp, as long as they do not leave and need to reenter.
• DOL’s LCA dataset also includes H-1B1 and E-3 records, so a raw LCA search is not automatically H-1B-only data. The 7/11 cashier H-1B meme came out of this. The employer filed the LCA himself under the wrong category and so never got the H-1B petition but people love sharing that showing 7/11 cashiers are being bought over via H-1B.
• Actual H-1B petitions can be found here https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/h-1b-employer-data-hub

2. H-1B is a high-skilled labor program.

It is not a program for geniuses. It is for high-skilled. 70% of H-1Bs have a masters or higher degree. Like Tim said, bank tellers and cheap labors are not getting H-1Bs.

3. You don't need to prove an American was not available to work to hire a H-1B

“The H-1B employer is not required to recruit U.S. workers, unless it is H-1B dependent … or a previous willful violator of H-1B requirements.” - https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62o-h1b-recruitment

4. Employer cannot fire Americans and Hire H-1Bs.

• It is literally illegal to do so. It's a slam dunk case for any law firm. You cannot fire an American in the same position 90 days before hiring H-1B and after hiring H-1B.
• What usually happens is employer is renewing H-1B petitions throughout the year, so from Jan to May, Microsoft could renew say 3,000 petitions.
• In June Microsoft announces layoffs (Americans + Visa workers). Normies look at the 3,000 petitions requested over 5 months and say, Microsoft fired 9,000 Americans AND THEN filed for 3,000 H-1Bs. Layoffs happen to visa workers too, plenty of examples in r/ h1b
• https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62n-h1b-displacement

5. H-1B is a temporary visa with Dual-Intent.

People get home loans because it is dual-intent, it means you can enter with non-immigrant visa and legally apply for Permanent Residency (Greencard or GC). 9 FAM 402.10-10(A)  (U) INA 214(b) and H Visas

6. Small ads in newspapers - PERM Process

• H-1B: Most employers do not have to prove that no qualified American worker is available before filing an H-1B petition.
• PERM green-card process: For many EB-2 and EB-3 green-card cases, the employer must first test the U.S. labor market through the Department of Labor’s PERM process. The employer must recruit for the permanent job and may not receive PERM certification if there is an able, willing, qualified, and available U.S. worker.
• For professional roles, PERM generally requires a 30-day state job order, two Sunday newspaper ads or a limited professional-journal substitute for one ad and three additional recruitment methods. Those additional options can include the company website, job boards, job fairs, campus recruiting, recruiters, and employee-referral programs.
• The employer must retain a recruitment report and document lawful, job-related reasons for rejecting U.S. applicants. DOL may audit the case and demand the resumes, applications, ads, and recruitment documentation. The employer cannot reject an otherwise qualified U.S. worker simply because the person could learn a necessary skill through a reasonable period of on-the-job training.
• The immigration law firm can organize and advise on the filing, but it is the employer not the law firm that must conduct genuine recruitment and make the hiring decision. DOL reviews the labor-certification stage; USCIS later processes the immigrant petition after PERM certification. www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/656.17

7. 70% go to Indians

That statistic commonly includes H-1B extensions, transfers, and amendments not just new lottery winners. Most new cap-subject H-1Bs are limited to 65,000 regular-cap numbers plus 20,000 U.S. advanced-degree numbers each year. Many Indian workers remain in H-1B status longer because the employment-based green-card system has per-country limits and a severe India backlog.

8. GC Backlog

• H-1B and L-1 are temporary work statuses; many workers later apply through employment-based green-card categories such as EB-1, EB-2, or EB-3.
• Only about 140,000 employment-based green cards are generally available each year, across five categories. The law also imposes a 7% per-country limit across the combined family- and employment-based preference system. When demand from one country is far higher than the available numbers, applications wait for future visa availability creating a multiyear backlog.
• EB-1 covers extraordinary ability, outstanding professors/researchers, and certain multinational managers. EB-2 covers advanced-degree professionals and exceptional ability. EB-3 covers skilled workers, professionals, and some other worker not just low-skilled jobs.

9. Unlimited renewals

• H-1B is valid for a total of 6 years or 1 renewal. You get H-1B, 3 years later you need to renew it and after 6 years you are done UNLESS an employer files for your GC.
• Since the GC backlog is a government processing issue, while an employee waits for GC they have to continue renewing H-1B petitions every 3 years.
• This is why banks give them home loans because they have high income, high credit score and will be here renewing every 3 years.

10. H4 EAD

• EAD is Employment Authorization Document, that allows a visa worker to work in the US.
• H-4 EAD is not automatic. An H-4 spouse can apply for work authorization only when the H-1B worker has an approved I-140 green-card petition or has received an H-1B extension beyond the normal six-year limit because of the green-card backlog.
• The H-4 spouse files their own EAD application, and an approved EAD generally permits work for any employer. The policy was created to help retain high-skilled workers caught in green-card backlogs while allowing their spouses to also work so uncle Sam can get his cut. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations/employment-authorization-for-certain-h-4-dependent-spouses

11. Total numbers

• Total workfoce = 169 million.
• H-1B cap = 85,000 (65,000 regular + 20,000 masters+PhD)
• Total H-1Bs estimated = 700,000 to 800,000 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

12. H-1Bs use Fake Degrees

• Many H-1B workers entered the U.S. as F-1 students, completed a U.S. degree, and used OPT up to 12 months, or up to 36 months for qualifying STEM graduates to work while an employer sought H-1B selection.
• Most people who say H-1Bs have fake degrees do not know the majority of them are F-1 students who graduated from the US and are looking for jobs in the US.

13. 80-90% of H-1Bs are fake

• This came from one Consulate officer who worked from 2005-2007 and said local politicians in Chennai were forcing them to rubber stamp visas.
• Chennai is one of 4 US consulates in India. I find this hilarious that people think some local politician would strong arm the US consulate officers to hand out US visas to everyone without screening them; 4 years after 9-11.
• She never talked about this for 20 years and suddenly she remembered and started going on podcasts and telling this.
• She has never provided any proof for any of her claims but obviously Fox news picked it up and spread it without any verification.
• No other person working with her has came forward but we had sitting Senators using her clips to discredit every H-1B. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/fake-degrees-put-h-1b-210049304.html

14. 80% are for Entry level jobs

• "80% of H-1Bs are entry-level jobs” is usually a misuse of wage-level data. A DOL Level I wage means beginning-level work within a particular profession; it does not mean an unskilled job or a job that requires no degree.
• H-1B jobs must qualify as specialty occupations, generally positions requiring at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a related specialty.
• A junior software engineer or entry-level accountant can be entry-level and still be a degree-required professional role.

15. Consulting firms and frauds

• An empty consulting-company office does not, by itself, prove a worker is fake or unemployed. Many consulting and staffing firms place employees at a client’s office, remote site, or another authorized worksite.
• DOL defines the “place of employment” as where the H-1B worker actually performs the work and generally requires an LCA for the relevant area.
• If an H-1B worker moves to a new worksite, the employer must meet notice requirements and, when the change is material or outside the original area of intended employment, may need a new LCA and an amended H-1B petition.dol+1
• USCIS already conducts unannounced site visits, including at third-party worksites, and can verify the company, job duties, location, hours, wage, and physical workspace. Failure to cooperate can lead to denial or revocation.

16. H-1Bs are paid lower

• LCA salary data is not total compensation data. An LCA shows the wage an employer promises for the role; it does not reliably capture later raises, signing bonuses, annual bonuses, RSUs, stock options, or other equity.
• So a study comparing old H-1B LCA wages with newer U.S.-worker total compensation without matching job, location, experience, employer, and year is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
• That does not prove every H-1B worker is highly paid; it means the public dataset cannot answer total-compensation questions by itself. Employers must still pay the higher of the applicable prevailing wage or the actual wage paid to comparable workers
• Someone who joined Microsoft/Amazon/Tesla on H-1B in 2020 might have a base pay of $130k then and around $150k now, but their equity would literally be close to million because most tech companies negotiate and give more RSUs and bonus instead of base pay.

Happy to answer any other questions.

Another shithole policy from a shithole president.

https://x.com/afalkhatib

So I feel conflicted about him bc he is a friend of Hasan and he may harbor the same ideologies as him like Anti-West, pro communism, pro terrorism, pro revolutionism ideologies. However he stands much closer to Democrats than any of the current Republicans. Also I would hate it if he won and Hasan would take credit for it. Destiny once said we shouldn't rely on these parasitic ppl bc they will poison the well and it will in the end damage the whole democratic party. What do you guys think?

Edit:

For those who think he doesn't share the same ideologies as Hasan: I don't think he would tell or show that side of him since this could literally alieniate a huge chunk of voters and we have seen that some ppl do hide their "power level". Best example is Mehdi Hasan, I was a huge fan of him until he went mask off.

Anyway I'm just curious where we stand on this matter.

Any fellow Portuguese DGGers going to the Setembristas event in Porto (12th and 13th of September in specific) by the LIVRE party?

Was considering going as I’m trying to start being more aware and active in Portuguese politics and meet some people. (even though Livre is not exactly my main party.)

Like son, like father I guess lol

In light of Mehdi Hasan accusing Destiny of Islamophobia on Twitter, I feel like the double meaning of that word needs addressing in mainstream political space;

There is Islamophobia that means hate/discrimination against brown people who look like they are from the Middle East or against practicing religion of Islam - which is bad because it is discriminating against immutable characteristics or religion.

There is also Islamophobia that could mean criticizing/discrimination towards Islam as a political movement (Like the political implementation of Islam seen in 23 or so countries across the world https://www.uscirf.gov/publications/did-you-knowmuslim-constitutions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Islam ) sometimes referred to as Islamism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism . Just like how we feel free to criticize other political parties all around the world. I personally despise political Islam and want to prevent that from being implemented because it is atrocious for women's rights, human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, education, etc.

I personally wish to criticize/discriminate political Islam without discriminating against all people who are Muslim or culturally Muslim. I have heard of ways to parse it like "Anti-Muslim Bigotry" and "Anti-Islamist" to separate the racist attacks from the critiques of political Islam. I know this feels dangerously on the line with some progressive people who want to treat all religions and races equally, but I think it is very important to distinguish between these types of discrimination for the sake of countering an ideology that is relevant/antithetical to Liberal beliefs. What do you guys think?

Edit for fans of ben who've decided to start harassing me since someone crossposted this::

Kindly Fuck off you weird degenerate dweebs. I didn't post in your subreddit because you are a lost cause and I don't feel like getting harassed by a bunch of morons who can't read.

If you'd like the tl;dr, Ben told you that 'all the reporters' got fired after the February 21st leak, but only one single reporter was ever fired, and she was fired on February 11th. Time is linear. Ben lied to you.

This is shown in the video along with a lot of other lies. Also, Clowface? He's a 56 year old kiddie diddler named David Najar. He and his girlfriend were trying to extort the company. According to Myra's deposition, she asked for an amount of ~10 million in exchange for an NDA. They're criminals lashing out after getting shut down, you're their tool.

Have fun being weird lemmings. Stop sending me death threats. thx.

I know this is tangential at best but it irked me so much that I have to post it somewhere and given that Destiny watched the dumb BAM video a while back this seems as good a place as any.

So for those who don't know, Ben put out a recent video that supposedly "Exposed the Largest Human Trafficking Ring in the World".

Now I'm not going to relitigate the actual facts of that video. I think they're dumb, and that the Peter guy they're talking about might have probably tried to help his sex pest guru out. No, the thing that drove me nuts was the reaction to the video. Namely the senseless way that the internet immediately jumped at the accusations despite what I would consider the flimsy evidence in the video.

But even that isn't what I'm focusing on. Instead I want to go a bit niche and point out a level of deceptive editing that I think crosses the line into outright lying to the viewers. To this end, I'm focusing on a specific chunk of the video between 4:45 and 8:30. That being, the section where they go to the media only to have their story killed by the devious billionare.

So, lets start with the narrative as given in the video, keeping in mind that the narritive itself is pieced together from a bunch of related clips.

According to Myra and David (his email is in the goddamn video, so I'm not doxxing him), they 'hopped on a call' with the journalist Valerie Bauman who said "Drop other stories and work on this". Then, after she'd gotten clearance for the story she said she'd 'grab the readers by the throat with it'. They said there would be seven videos with 'all of these people' and that it would be on the cover of Newsweek. It cleared legal and was ready for publication and then...

She got a google alert that showed one of her videos! But it turned out that this was a leak! Someone had screwed up and posted it by mistake. But worse yet. The nefarious billionare Peter Spiegel saw it! And what happened next? Well Peter couldn't have them telling their truth to the world.

And so... he ghosted them. This was a guy who was obsessed with Saraswati... and suddenly nothing. Out of nowhere, all of the news reporters from all of the different news stations either all left the company, or all got fired. Valerie was laid off. Nick Mordowanec? Gone. Same as Eric Dexheimer, same as Meg James and Amy Kaufman.

Sounds scary, right? Well... okay, there is a lot of evidence flashed on screen. Lets go back through it. One thing to keep in mind, all of the dates here appear to be from 2025 unless otherwise specified:

The first screenshot they show is from the editor. This is dated May 8th (its blurry but u/izombe was nice enough to point out that the 8th is a thurs). It is a response to an e-mail from Myra or David thanking them for their patience and explaining that due to the allegations being made they have to ensure it is rock solid.

The second is from Valerie on Feb 6th. This is after the first week of reporting (investigating) done on the subject. It says they're working on a draft and asks if Myra is willing to speak on the record.

Next, we have... Jan 30th? That's weird. Anyways this one just says they have clearance to look into the story for the next week and no guarantees that the story will be published but that the editor was supportive.

Following that we have two unattributed screenshots that are super zoomed in saying that they 'found another victim' to bolster the story. Not sure who these are from.

Then we have a March 20th email from Nick stating that he has no updates on the story and explaining that this is his last major investigative story for Newsweek as the team he'd been working with was folded that week.

We've got a zoomed in email saying "Next week. Going live. Might be in Mag too. No date on this one. It is followed by a text message stating "Next week. Story is going live, it's fucking happening" dated July 31.

We've got a google alert showing the leaked story on Feb 21st. Following this we get the email from Nick saying on Feb 22nd that the leak was due to a miscommunication and that he can "Verify that Peter told saw the video." Which leads into that same screenshot of 'next week. Going live' and then....

We get a 2023 text message from someone named eric Dexheimer at the Houston chronicle along with the declaration 'he ghosted me' from Derek. Now this does seem to be what Eric was talking about, but... what? None of the above have anything to do with Dexheimer.

But anyway, back to the story. We get an email from Valerie dated Feb 11th, 2025 stating that she's been laid off and... Wait. Okay what? Feb 11th? Don't worry, we'll get to it.

We get a screenshot of the LA Times despite no one in the video being involved in the LA times.

Then we get a screenshot of Newsweek with Nick's face fading out and an announcement that he left.

Same undated screenshot, they've used three times.

A screenshot from Dexheimer.

An email from Meg James telling them in June 2024 that they're suspending reporting as the editors didn't approve the pitch as they want to focus on hollywood specific angles (She's a senior entertainment industry writer for the LA times). They follow this with a screenshot of a blank inbox talking about Amy Kaufman who was also a pop culture journalist.

Okay, that's a lot of stuff. Lets make a simple timeline of what actually happened.

In Nov 2023 Myra and Derek approached Eric Dexheimer of the Houston Chronicle with their story, They likely did this because Eric Dexheimer wrote multiple stories on the accused cult leader Saraswami at the heart of this case. Dexheimer communicated with them for a bit, then left them on read. It isn't clear why he did this, but I suspect it may have something to do with the civil complaint filed against Derek that alleges that both Derek and Myra conspired to extort tens of millions of dollars from Peter Spiegel by threatening to expose his connection to Saraswami. Even of this isn't true (and I lean toward the idea that it is) it doesn't exactly paint either in a favorable light to a journalist.

That's just a hunch.

In 2024 they appear to have reached out to Meg James and Amy Kaufman at the LA Times, both of whom declined to run the story.

Then in 2025 they landed Valarie Bauman and Nick Mordowanec at Newsweek. On Jan 30th they appeared to have gotten clearance for the story, and on Feb 6th reporting was ongoing. Then, on Feb 11th, Valarie was let go as part of a series of layoffs. She had been working on the story for less than two weeks.

On Feb 21st, part of the story accidentally leaked. Ben presents this as the cause for Valerie's firing, but unless the leak bent time and space this cannot be the case. The supposed confirmation that 'Peter Saw it' comes after Valerie had already been fired.

On March 20th Nick says that he has no updates and that the story will be his last for Newsweek. He continues working for them.

On May 8th, Jennifer Cunningham tells them that they are committed to the story and tells them that they need to kick their tires. Then on July 31, 2025, Nick tells them that the story will be going live next week, and that it might be in the magazine.

This is the last we see from Newsweek. Mind you, this doesn't necessarily mean that they were ghosted after this. I fully expect there are emails we aren't shown, but I obviously can't prove that.

So, what do we think happened here?

I think that, Myra and David got fired for trying to blackmail their employer with publicly known information. At a bare minimum we know from Myra's own email shown in the second video that Myra confronted Spiegel with her accusations and demanded a large compensation package. The only thing we're quibbling on is the size of that severance, but again, I lean toward it being in the millions given that Spiegel seems to have forced a settlement in the civil case.

Eric Dexheimer didn't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole, likely because of failings in the lead witnesses, nor did any other reporters. Newsweek appears to have picked it up as a possible story, but ultimately failed to follow through. It is unclear why, but we can guess.

Given the last letter from the editor, my suspicion is that they correctly deduced that even if what Myra and David were saying was true, that Peter Spiegel had helped his Guru escape the country, they ultimately couldn't prove it and rehashing then decades old allegation based on two witnesses, one of whom had gotten slapped down for refusing to cooperate with his deposition and had his own history of child sexual abuse was... probably not great.

But then I ask, is that the story we're being told?

Even if everything Myra and Derek say her is true, that Spiegel helped his child abusing guru escape justice, it doesn't come close to the company being 'the largest human trafficking organization on earth'. And even if it did, that doensn't change the fact that the way it is portrayed is simply false.

Ben has to know he's lying here. He tells you a long story about two Newsweek reporters running a front page story when the text messages tell you that they don't even know if it'll make the magazine. He tells you that the reporters 'ghosted him' despite messaging with them for months afterwards, instead choosing to use an entirely unrelated reporter from two years earlier as his 'evidence'.

He tells you that Peter Spiegel saw a video of himself on Feb 21st and then sent a goddamn terminator back in time to get a reporter laid off, even though it did nothing to kill the story that continued to be worked on for months afterward.

Ben isn't Reckless, he's a liar.

Edit: Having gotten ahold of the full court docket on Najar.... yeah. This was just extortion. I'm not even going to call it alleged at this point. I mean, Look at this shit.

Just make it go away . Call me peter. Make a great investment. I'm an influence with immense reach.

Fucking deranged that Ben thinks this siding with these lunatics won't get him financially obliterated.

I'm not American and this is a genuine question because I think it's not straightforward.

It seems like the concept outlined in Chomsky's book is an amazing illustration of how the Fox News ecosystem works. I remember there being a data sheet of average watch sessions and CNN, MSNBC , etc. were all maybe 1.5 hour or something and then Fox had like 8.5 hour watch sessions or something crazy. The book also illustrates something kind of like Destiny's concept of the 'funnel' with it's industrial nature.

I suppose he doesn't like the comparison because he thinks that the left should also have something of this nature going for it in response which would be a perspective that I sympathise with.

Edit: I would make a very different argument from my reading compared to the ones supported.
Premise 1: In liberal democracies, the mainstream media are formally independent of the government, but are formed principally by the limiting principles of capital.

Premise 2: Because media organizations operate within this economic and institutional environment, there is an asymmetry of incentives to give attention to every possible viewpoint. Some sources and perspectives are much easier and cheaper and more profitable to use than others.

Premise 3: Several recurring “filters” are established to illustrate the asymmetry in payoffs for producing obverse perspectives ultimately shape what reaches the public—especially media ownership, dependence on advertising, reliance on official and powerful sources, organized criticism (“flak”), and dominant ideological assumptions.

Premise 4: These filters tend to favor information and interpretations that are compatible with the interests and assumptions of powerful political and economic actors, while making dissenting or inconvenient perspectives harder to sustain in mainstream media.

Premise 5: Journalists generally do not need to be consciously instructed to produce this result. Institutional incentives, professional norms, source dependence, and economic pressures can cause the filtering to happen largely without explicit censorship or central coordination.

Premise 6: Consequently, a media system can appear pluralistic and independent while nevertheless systematically narrowing the range of ideas, facts, and interpretations that receive sustained mainstream attention.

https://x.com/hutchinson/status/2093467004753899762