Author: philg

How was the immigration of Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi supposed to benefit Americans?

by philg

The U.S. has arrested a “Louisiana man” for purportedly participating in the Gazans’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians. New York Times:

This was an unavoidable situation, apparently, because he supposedly lied to Biden administration immigration officials about his level of effort in globalizing the intifada, achieving river-to-the-sea liberation, etc. Let’s ignore for the moment the question of why Americans believe that government bureaucrats who don’t speak Arabic would be able to separate truth from fiction. The question for this post is what was our theory for how Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi’s presence in the U.S. was going to make the U.S. a better place for existing Americans.

(I personally think that Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi may well have told the truth. The U.S. has an honor system in which a prospective immigrant is asked “Have you participated in terrorism?” and, by the standards of a significant percentage of Americans (especially the young/progressive and, certainly, almost every resident of Dearborn, Michigan), what the Gazans did on October 7, 2023 was a legitimate military action by oppressed indigenous Arabs, not “terrorism”. The October 7 attack was organized by a democratically elected and popularly supported government (Hamas), certainly, and, even after the Israelis counterattacked, was supported in opinion polls by the majority of Gazans.)

From The Guardian:

In June 2024, al-Muhtadi submitted an electronic US visa application in Cairo. In the application, he denied serving in any paramilitary organization or having ever engaged in terrorist activities. His application said he intended to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and work in “car repairs or food services”. He entered the US in September 2024.

Let’s leave aside the question of why a “Louisiana man” (NYT) such as Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi would intend to live in Oklahoma. Why was opening the border to someone who was going to work in “food services” going to make the U.S. a better place to live? Oklahoma was already critically short of health care workers (2024 KFOR) so bringing in one more person who would be a customer for health care rather than a provider would make it tougher for existing Oklahomans to access medical care. Maybe one individual restaurant owner would benefit from the cheap labor that Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi could potentially provide, but we’re told that advancements in robotics will soon render low-skill humans obsolete. That would leave U.S. taxpayers on the hook for multiple generations of welfare in the event that Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi either ceased working or never earned enough to get over the threshold for public housing, Medicaid, SNAP/EBT, Obamaphone, etc.

What is our rationale, in other words, for operating an immigration system under which Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi was eligible for permanent U.S. residency and eventual citizenship?

If the majority of American voters can agree that Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi moving from Egypt to Oklahoma wouldn’t have made the U.S. better off, even if Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi hadn’t been part of the October 7 attacks, why doesn’t Congress change U.S. immigration rules so as to prevent a future Biden/Harris-style administration from admitting more “Louisiana men” like Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi?

Related:

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MIT decries inequality and also wants federal money diverted from poorer-than-average states

by philg

Like Harvard, MIT takes an official position that inequality is bad. In an ideal world, all humans would have the same wealth and income and, therefore, all states would have the same wealth and income. Here’s an example from MIT’s official news page:

Inequality is “a threat to America’s values and political system”. MIT is a richer-than-average university and, thanks to the Feds pouring all of the nation’s wealth into higher ed and health care, its Massachusetts home is the richest state (Washington, D.C. is yet richer, but not a state). One would think that MIT would, therefore, refuse federal grant money, preferring to fund itself via state tax dollars and private/endowment dollars. Every dollar refused by MIT could be spent at University of Michigan, for example, a less-rich university in a poorer-than-average state.

Instead of refusing federal money, though, MIT is fighting to keep it while preserving the school’s passion for race-based admissions and Rainbow Flagism. The Hill:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would have required sweeping changes on campus in exchange for a funding advantage in federal grant awards.

The 10-point memo was provided to nine higher learning institutions last week, requiring reforms such as a rewiring of the admissions process by adjusting the consideration of race or ethnicity, student grading and demanding that transgender women be excluded from women’s locker rooms and sports teams.

I still can’t figure out why the Trump administration wants to fund the Racism League schools. What institution ever changed in response to being showered with billions of dollars? The federal government could send its research dollars to universities that never engaged in race discrimination and/or never adopted Rainbow Flagism as an official religion. The Queers for Palestine universities would find a way to replace the federal funds with state and/or private funds and/or research groups would follow the federal money by moving to to the non-racist universities. Nowhere in the MIT Mission Statement is “hoover up as many federal tax dollars as possible”. In fact, the statement describes MIT as a purely altruistic enterprise working to help humanity and, therefore, anything that MIT can do to reduce inequality would be a positive step:

Here’s an example of two Nobelists moving from MIT to Zurich in response to a “CHF 26 million donation from the Lemann Foundation” (26 million Swiss Francs translates to 32.5 million post-Bidenflation dollars; see exchange rate chart below for how the USD was worth 1.4 Swiss Francs in 2003 and, thanks to the inflation-free environment that Congress has created via deficit spending, is now worth 0.8 Swiss Francs):

The Nobel Prize-winning economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join the University of Zurich in July 2026. Using external funds provided by the Lemann Foundation, the two researchers will establish a new center for development economics, education and public policy.

“Nobel laureate Esther Duflo proposes taxing 3,000 billionaires to protect the world’s poorest from climate change—and most Americans likely agree with the plan” (Fortune 2024) . After evaluating the $32.5 million deal, the professor who is passionate about making billionaires pay their fair share has decided to move from Maskachusetts (top personal income tax rate of 46 percent, state+federal) to a country that is renowned as a tax haven for the world’s richest people (Puerto Rico is better for U.S. citizens, though).

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The New York Times called for an “uprising” six months ago

by philg

Six months ago, the New York Times told the righteous to grab their rifles and run to the frontlines of “a comprehensive national civic uprising” (see “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.” (April 17, 2025): “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising”)

How’s the uprising going? Have the revolutionaries managed to kill enough fascists to make a difference? Or are Bernie and AOC still our only hope?

So far, the only real hint of something larger — a mass countermovement — has been the rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But this, too, is an ineffective way to respond to Trump; those partisan rallies make this fight seem like a normal contest between Democrats and Republicans.

What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.

Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

The NYT said, in the above article, “We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust.” What could account for low levels of trust? The political science nerds in the 2020 paper, below, say “We find a statistically significant negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust across all studies.” (i.e., a random assemblage of humans via asylum-based immigration will result in a low-trust society).

Could AI perhaps update this classic “To the barricades” image to show young American progressives wearing Antifa T-shirts and carrying avocado toast?

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Zohran Mamdani hates Israel for perpetrating “genocide” and loves FDR

by philg

Last night: “Mamdani repeatedly accuses Israel of genocide in NYC mayoral debate”

Also last night: Mayor Mamdani picks FDR as his “favorite modern-day president”.

This is a curious choice given that FDR was an enthusiastic proponent of killing as many Japanese and German civilians as technology allowed, e.g., 100,000 in just one night in Tokyo in March 1945, in order to force Japan and Germany into unconditional surrender (both nations repeatedly expressed willingness to negotiate mutually acceptable peace treaties, but the U.S. rejected the idea in favor of killing more Japanese and Germans). I can’t think of any American president who has been responsible for killing more civilians than FDR directed to be killed. If the Israelis followed FDR’s example, they would have shelled and bombed the Gazans, without texting/phoning warnings in advance, until the Gazans decided to surrender. Instead of sending food, water, and other supplies to the Gazans, the Israelis would have implemented something like Operation Starvation, the U.S. operation intended to prevent food from reaching Japan via ship (begun under FDR and continued under President Truman).

FDR is also a curious choice because he’s responsible for putting Japanese Americans into concentration camps during WWII (blessed by the Supreme Court) out of mere suspicion that they might try to work against the U.S. government’s program of killing as many Japanese soldiers and civilians as quickly as possible. Zohran Mamdani explicitly says that he wants to fight against the federal government (example below). If Trump followed FDR’s example, Zohran Mamdani would be interned for the duration of the federal effort to arrest and deport undocumented migrants with criminal records (“New Yorkers”, in Mayor Mamdani’s parlance).

(Omar Fateh, the next mayor of Minneapolis, would also be interned because he has also pledged to work against the federal government’s goals.)

Maybe FDR is celebrated by Mamdani because he gave Americans free cash? Ida May Fuller, for example, got paid nearly 1000X what she’d contributed to Social Security. Who wouldn’t love that?

Mayor Mamdani attacked Cuomo for his failure to visit mosques. I wonder what would have happened if Cuomo had talked about visiting Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn where some of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers met. See “Brooklyn Mosque Becomes Terror Icon, but Federal Case Is Unclear” (NYT, 2003):

Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, a six-story converted factory trimmed in orange and gold, has been many things to many people during its life: a mystery, a noisy neighbor, a source of suspicion, and, for thousands of Muslims who live or work along Atlantic Avenue, the main street of Arab Brooklyn, a place of worship.

Last week, the mosque became, not for the first time, a symbol of terror. A federal affidavit unsealed on Tuesday describes links between the mosque, several Brooklyn businessmen and a cleric in Yemen who, prosecutors say, claims to have funneled more than $20 million to Al Qaeda. ”They did their fund-raising right here in our own backyard,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.

But while Al Farooq has been the spiritual home of some infamous men — including, briefly, the blind Egyptian sheik eventually convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the man who killed Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 — the role of the mosque and its members in supporting more recent terrorist activity remains unclear.

(New Yorkers responded to the 1993 jihad, which killed 6, including a pregnant woman, and injured more than 1,000, by advocating for increased levels of Islamic immigration and then responded to the 2001 jihad against the World Trade Center by advocating for completely open borders to Muslims.)

Who watched the debate? I saw a few snippets on X. I was, of course, happy to see Florida Realtor of the Year 2020/2021 (Andrew Cuomo) and Florida Realtor of the Year 2026 (Ayatollah Mamdani) on stage at the same time. Mostly, however, I’m amazed that these are the three ablest humans among the 8.5 million (or 9 million if we count the uncountable undocumented?) residents of New York City.

Separately, I’m close to 100,000 views on this X reply:

It is unfair to paint Mr. Mamdani as a Hamas supporter. Based on his public statements, he is equally aligned with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

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Is it unconstitutional to pay federal workers for not working during the shutdown?

by philg

The 14th Amendment theoretically provides for Equal Protection. Thanks to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, federal government workers who don’t work during a shutdown are paid in full, just like the government workers unfortunate enough to be declared “essential” and forced to work. What’s “equal” about someone who works 40 hours per week (add 15 hours for commuting in DC? Traffic was horrific when we were there the weekend of October 2-5) getting paid the same as someone who works 0 hours per week and who might be playing Xbox or on vacation at Disney World, in Europe, or in Asia?

Alternatively, if government employees who don’t work get paid shouldn’t Equal Protection require ordinary citizens who don’t work to get paid the same amount after any government shutdown?

What makes the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 Constitutional?

Here’s a $20/person museum in Northwest DC that we visited earlier this month (the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the rich heiress/executive who built Mar-a-Lago). Not only do the non-essential federal government workers get paid time off, but they can use that paid time off to go to un-free museums for free (“Federal workers are invited to seek respite and rejuvenation at Hillwood with complimentary admission (with government ID).”). What kind of “respite and rejuvenation” is needed after a person transitions from doing almost nothing in exchange for a paycheck to doing exactly nothing in exchange for the same paycheck?

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Rich inequality-haters are upset about getting less federal money

by philg

“Trump Targets Democratic Districts by Halting Billions During Shutdown” (NYT, October 14, 2025):

Two weeks into the government shutdown, the Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion that had been reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Each of these infrastructure projects had received federal aid, sometimes after officials spent years pleading in Washington — only to see that money halted as President Trump has looked to punish Democrats over the course of the fiscal stalemate.

The projects include new investments in clean energy, upgrades to the electric grid and fixes to the nation’s transportation infrastructure, primarily in Democratic strongholds, such as New York and California.

The article goes on to describe parts of the U.S. that are much richer than average, e.g., New York City, and Chicago, and where nearly 100 percent of those in power say that they want inequality in the U.S. reduced.

I can’t figure out why these haters of inequality asked for the money to begin with. The only position that would be consistent with their stated principles would be “We’ll pay for what we need ourselves. Don’t even think of giving us federal money until Buffalo, Providence, and Detroit have been lifted up to an equal level of per-capita income.”

A few photos from my August trip to the Mamdani Caliphate (there were about 15 marijuana stores within two blocks of my Lower East Side hotel and the density fell to 0 once one got to Chinatown (Asians don’t want to maximize their health?)):

The last photo in the series is of the Vladeck Houses, a public housing project on prime Lower Manhattan land (note the luxurious amount of land devoted to green space; no non-government development in Manhattan has anything like this). The city could sell this land to a private developer, give each resident enough money to buy a single-family house almost anywhere in the U.S., and might still have enough money to fund all of the fancy infrastructure projects for which they’re trying to feed at the federal trough.

I posted the above idea as a comment on the article and it drew at least 12 angry replies. The righteous agree that the rich hard-working Blue states should keep 100% of their money and stop subsidizing lazy unproductive Red states. Inequality, apparently, isn’t something to fight against when Blue is richer than Red. Here are some of the responses:

These places also contribute far more money to the Federal coffers than they get in return unlike the majority of red states that receive far more in federal aid than they contribute. Maybe it’s time to stop the free loading. If blue states are going to get cheated by the federal government perhaps we should stop funding it. See how the red states feel about it when there are no blue state dollars coming to their aid.

since they pay the vast majority of the taxes, they’ve earned it. Blue states: makers; Red states: takers

There would BE NO federal funding without these states. They supply almost ALL of it, and the red states leech off that. Residents of the states paying in deserve federal funds as much as the freeloaders.

A migrant who enjoys a fully taxpayer-funded lifestyle in NYC is not a “freeloader”, but everyone in a Red state is a “freeloader”.

(Separately, much of the data on maker/taker states is distorted by retirement moves. A person might pay into Social Security and Medicare through age 65 while living in New Jersey, for example, and then collect Social Security and Medicare benefits in Florida or South Carolina after a post-retirement move. This makes it look as though NJ is subsidizing SC/FL even though it is just the younger self of the older beneficiary who is paying (assuming that we accept the accounting fictions of Social Security/Medicare).)

Finally, how’s everyone’s shutdown going? The media is reporting a complete meltdown of Air Traffic Control. However, we did a flight on Sunday to Tampa International and ATC was apparently fully staffed because they cheerfully gave us (optional for them) VFR advisories. The only drama was that 2/3 runways at KTPA were closed for maintenance, leaving only 1L, which requires a 12-step program to reach from the FBOs. The ground controllers would give single-pilot piston aircraft Russian novel-length instructions and then be surprised when 1956 Cessna 172 flying club pilot couldn’t follow them correctly. For someone leaving Sheltair, the directive from ground control might be “Romeo 2 to right turn on Sierra to left on Sierra 2 across 28 to November 3 to left turn on November to hold short 1 Right then right turn Lima then left Juliet then left Victor then right Victor 1 then left Whiskey to 1 Left” (the “hold short 1L” is implicit).

(On arrival, the ground controller said “You’re going to Signature, right”, referring to the Gulfstream-fueling operation substantially owned by Climate Change Alarmist Bill Gates. I responded “Are you kidding? I can’t afford Signature.” We actually did go to Signature TPA once (see Merry Christmas to the Sea Turtles).)

How did your blog host do on the 12-step program? I didn’t even try it! The magic words: “Request progressive.” (progressivism is always great, as I’m sure everyone will agree)

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Immigrants expand our economy, but millions of immigrants exiting the U.S. don’t shrink our economy

by philg

Immigration Logic 101 requires us to believe that low-skill immigrants expand the U.S. economy (aggregate GDP growth) and make everyone in the U.S. richer (per-capita GDP growth).

We’re informed that the U.S. economy is growing or, at least, not shrinking.

We’re informed that, apparently contradicting the two items above, that the U.S. is becoming impoverished in immigrants (not as enriched by enrichers). “Immigrant Population in U.S. Drops for the First Time in Decades” (New York Times):

An analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the foreign-born population declined by nearly 1.5 million. … experts predict looming negative economic and demographic consequences for the United States if the trend persists. Immigrants are a critical work force in many sectors, and the country’s reliance on them is growing as more baby boomers retire.

Covering a somewhat longer time period and announced with a bit more color, DHS says that 2 million migrants are no longer among us:

If immigration makes us rich how is it possible that de-immigration doesn’t make us poor?

Related:

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Reparations from the Gates Foundation for every Black American who is forced to buy a new PC due to lack of security support for Windows 10?

by philg

Today is the end of security support for Windows 10, thus making it impractical to run a Windows 10 machine connected to the Internet (Microsoft does have a paid Extended Security Updates program, in fairness, for one more year). As noted in $2449 of e-waste thanks to Microsoft (and best way for kids to organize and sort photos?), a lot of people with perfectly decently machines are being forced to upgrade. Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation is sitting on about $80 billion in assets, i.e., roughly $1500 for every American who identifies as Black (including Zohran Mamdani).

How about a law to confiscate the assets of the Gates Foundation, which have thus far escaped any federal taxation and which are headed out of the country (see “Bill Gates to Direct Majority of $200 Billion Pledge Toward Africa’s Future”; the $200 billion maybe includes some money yet to be donated?), and give them to the people who built this nation, i.e., Black Americans (see 1609 Project), so that they can replace their perfectly functional Windows 10 machines with Windows 11 machines that will perform the same tasks using the same applications at very nearly the same speeds?

Separately, how are we doing with Where are the 16 TB M.2 SSDs? (July 2025)? The only thing worse than $200 billion flying out of the U.S. is having to get creative about moving stuff off the C: drive.

Here’s the guy who won’t be paying even $1 in tax on those $200 billion in profits saying that other rich people should pay more in tax:

Here’s Bill Gates saying that there is too much wealth inequality in the U.S. (CNBC 2019):

He wants higher capital gains tax rates for the capital gains tax that he doesn’t pay (since he donates the appreciated assets to his foundation, which then ships the money to Africa). He doesn’t want to give his $200 billion to low-income Americans, which would immediately reduce wealth inequality in the U.S., but will instead give $200 billion to people in Africa.

Queers for Palestine makes more sense to me than what Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation are doing!

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Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine

by philg

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day to those who celebrate. In the spirit of the holiday, here are some photos from the Abbe Museum, which is devoted to telling the story of the Wabanaki to anyone willing to pay $18:

Note that a person who is able-bodied and able-minded but who chooses to refrain from work gets in free via his/her/zir/their SNAP/EBT card. The person with a developmental or intellectual disability, however, is charged $16. The museum admits in various places that it occupies stolen land and, to their credit, admits the rightful owners for free (“Tribal ID” is required so Elizabeth Warren would be excluded).

Masks were encouraged on June 10, 2025. Note the fine Maine summer weather (50 degrees and rain/mist all day):

Inside the museum, roughly half of the visitors took the mask encouragement to heart (“to lungs”?), though I also observed a couple of ceremonial chin diapers. In a victory for common sense, a family visiting had 100 percent mask coverage rather than one member wearing a mask and then becoming infected by the non-masked members after returning home.

Two out of three masked in the photo below:

Here’s a Land Acknowledgement, which also informs via Science that the “Native communities [] have lived here for thousands of generations” (even with a Palestinian rate of reproduction, it is tough to understand how “thousands of generations” can fit into the 13,000 years that archaeologists say is how long people have lived in Maine):

And a statement about genocide and decolonization:

Nobody seems to like the idea of giving the land back to its rightful owners and paying rent.

The men’s room was ready for Tim Walz’s visit:

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Titania McGrath on the Israel-Hamas deal

by philg

From the Islamic Republic of Britain:

Separately, I’m amazed that Donald Trump was able to address the Knesset today. I get jet lag just thinking about a trip to Israel. #NotMyPresident is 79 years old. How does he have the energy?

In case the author is arrested and imprisoned and all of her content memory-holed, a screen shot:

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