Friday News Roundup
Mass Deportation Watch
A MAGA civil war has erupted over Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s support of importing foreign tech workers for Silicon Valley via the H1-B visa program. As a result of the dust-up, several far-right influencers on Xitter, including Laura Loomer and Gavin Wax, had their verification badges removed by the easily angered Musk. Loomer was temporarily suspended by Musk after she criticized Donald Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishan as his main advisor on AI tech policy. Loomer’s main objection to Krishnan appears to be simply that he is of Indian descent, which led Loomer to go on a racist tirade about an “invasion” of immigration from Asia.
Immigrant rights activists are helping immigrant families prepare action plans over Christmas as Trump plans to change federal policy to allow armed immigration agents to invade hospitals, schools, and churches. A major unfortunate consequence of the panic Trump has fomented in immigrant communities is an increase in scammers targeting families with mixed immigration status.
Forbes magazine has a new comprehensive article outlining the negative consequences of Trump’s mass deportation policy. These outcomes include:
Labor shortages in agriculture, construction, and the tech sector
Decreased consumer spending, lower GDP growth, and increased inflation due to the removal of millions of workers from the economy
Reducing innovation in American companies by reducing the overall diversity of the American workforce
Massive increases in operation costs as American business have to retool their hiring practices to adapt to stricter immigration policies
Companies being legally required to betray their employees to immigration authorities
An overall increase in workforce instability
Pandemic Watch
As of December 18, the CDC has confirmed its first severe case of H5N1 bird flu in American patient in Louisiana.
Dairy farmers are becoming worried as bird flu has been detected in 875 dairy cows across 16 states. According to one dairy farmer whose cows have been affected by the bird flu, “It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers.”
An NBC News overview about the threat of a bird flu pandemic has concluded that “key warning signs are all going in the wrong direction.”
A sanctuary for wild cats in Washington state suffered devastating losses, up to 20 animals, including a Bengal tiger, four cougars, and two lynxes, after most of the animals in their sanctuary caught avian flu. Meanwhile, the cat food company Northwest Naturals has warned cat owners to toss out all bags of its Feline Turkey Recipe after an indoor cat died in Oregon from eating cat food tainted with bird flu.
Other Highlights
A plane from Azerbaijan crashed in Kazakhstan after being brought down by a Russian air-missile defense system. Fortunately, due to quick thinking by the crew, at least 29 of the passengers survived. Although the downing of the Azerbaijani is believed to be accidental, Russia has also launched a Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy grid.
Israel set a hospital in Northern Gaza on fire before forcibly evacuating the patients. This incident comes one day another incident in which 5 Palestinian journalists died after Israel air bombed a TV broadcast news van.
The Iranian police has detained Italian journalist Cecilia Sala but refuses to provided a reason for the arrest.