Things to Keep an Eye On

H1B debate, fake vehicle inspection stickers, Lt. Gen Honoré on Musk, Trump loses appeal in E. Jean Carroll case, Matthew Livelsberger, Judge Yegel's suicide

Debate over H1B visas explodes

It’s about time the country had a debate about the H1B visa. There are all sorts of reasons why this program doesn’t work for Americans, the main one is tech jobs. Opposition is coming from some unlikely quarters, including the Sikh community which has already voiced increasing concern about the BJP’s transnational repression in the United States.

The above chart is the crux of the issue. It appears that Bernie Sanders is outflanking Trump, coming out really strong against H1B visas. The left in general is very sympathetic to the idea that these visas are exploitative, and give too much power to employers over their employees.

If you take a close look at what occupations in various well-known companies H1B visas are used to fill, you’ll find some that are fairly justifiable, like the six tool-and-die specialists at Tesla, which America does a poor job of producing. But most of the jobs are in software, where H1B visas are used to undercut native-born Americans who have studied computer science with the expectation that they will enter a job market capable of paying middle-class wages. If you look at how they’re employed at Fidelity, for instance, they’re outsourcing their software department, while Americans work in customer service. That’s not a good arrangement.

Incoming President Trump has been disturbingly quiet about the issue, while Elon Musk has started freaking out about MAGA opposition to the program. Other Trump supporters who have favored H1Bs are Grant Cardone and a slew of libertarian-minded influencers.

CBP seizes 22,000 fake vehicle inspection stickers imported from Israel

Pretty interesting, via AP:

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said it has seized more than 20,000 counterfeit Pennsylvania vehicle inspection stickers that were shipped from Israel to an address in Philadelphia.

Customs officers found the stickers in two different shipments that arrived on two different days, Nov. 26 and Dec. 9, and confirmed with Pennsylvania authorities that the stickers were counterfeit, the agency said.

The agency did not say in a Thursday statement who sent the stickers, who was to receive them or what purpose the stickers were going to serve. The agency said it made no arrests.

Lt. Gen. Honoré says Elon Musk is a national security risk

Corroborating many things on this blog published in the last year or two. The cajun general had an op-ed in the Times and a hit on MSNBC:

A former U.S. lieutenant general warned Sunday that Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has become intricately involved in President-elect Trump’s transition, may pose national security risks due to his ties to China and Russia.

Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré pointed to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s business interests in China, as well as his reported conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump loses appeal in E. Jean Carroll case

The verdict against him in the civil trial has been upheld:

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $5-million verdict that E. Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the U.S. president-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump's argument that the trial judge should not have let jurors hear evidence about the Republican's alleged past sexual misconduct, making the trial and verdict unfair.

DC U.S. Attorney to retire in mid-January

This came out just before New Years:

Matthew M. Graves announced today that he is resigning as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, effective January 16, 2025, after serving in the role for more than three years.

“Serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has been the honor of a lifetime,” said U.S. Attorney Graves. “I am deeply thankful to Congresswoman Holmes Norton for recommending me; to President Biden for nominating me; and to Attorney General Garland for placing his trust in me.”

Final payouts to victims in Madoff fraud made

Good news:

The Justice Department announced today that the Madoff Victim Fund (MVF) began its 10th and final distribution of over $131.4 million to victims of the Bernard L. Madoff fraud scheme. These funds were forfeited by the U.S. government in connection with the Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) fraud scheme.

In this distribution, payments will be sent to more than 23,000 victims across the globe. With this 10th distribution, over 40,000 victims in the Madoff scheme will have recovered 93.71% of their fraud losses. Most of these victims were small investors who lost less than $500,000 in the fraud. Through its 10 distributions, MVF has paid over $4.3 billion from forfeited funds to 40,930 victims in 127 countries for losses they suffered from the collapse of BLMIS.

Russian judge sanctioned under Magnitsky Act

In retaliation for the detention of a human rights activist:

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Russian judge Olesya Mendeleeva (Mendeleeva) for her role in the arbitrary detention of Moscow city councilor and human rights defender, Alexei Gorinov. Mendeleeva is being designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world. This action is also undertaken in the spirit of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (P. L. 112-208).

Montenegro extradites Do Kwon

We don’t have a bilateral extradition treaty with Montenegro, but they joined NATO in 2017:

Montenegro on Tuesday extradited a South Korean mogul known as “the cryptocurrency king” to the United States, following a decision of its justice ministry earlier this month to accept a U.S. request, while refusing a South Korean handover plea, the Balkan country’s authorities said.

Police said that officers of the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Montenegro handed over Do Kwon, the founder of the Singapore crypto firm Terraform Labs, to FBI officers at the Podgorica Airport border crossing.

The very odd suicide of Judge Yegel

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp refused to accept his resignation, and there were weird records issues going on:

The Herald has confirmed that Judge Yekel sent a letter of resignation to Gov. Brian Kemp on Dec. 6 with an effective date of Dec. 30. In his resignation letter Yekel stated, “I feel that the office of State Court Judge of Effingham County is too important to be decided by only six percent of the eligible voters in Effingham County.”

According to the Effingham County Elections office, 2,886 (6.25%) of 46,188 registered voters cast their ballots in the June 18 runoff election. Yekel lost to Melissa Calhoun 1,407 to 1,088 votes in the runoff.

The Livelsberger explosion

There’s so much that’s odd about the explosion of the Tesla truck rented by Matthew Livelsberger outside the Trump casino in Las Vegas.

We don’t know how the detonation was done, but the video shows the truck exploding from the back. That means it would have had to be a remote detonation, whether or not Livelsberger was in the cab—reporting has suggested he is being assumed to be in it. Using a remote detonator in a suicide bombing is really odd.

Livelsberger’s name is on a patent assigned to AAI Corporation, a subsidiary of Textron, which competes with DJI in the drone market.

Livelsberger also owned a house in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The local high school, where Jim Jarmusch, former acting CIA director Mike Morrell, and the gay serial killer Robert Berdella are alums, has the black tiger as its mascot. Two days before New Years Elon Musk posted a meme of someone flicking a black tiger’s balls.

DeAnna Calderon has more here.