<Response to my lazy washed up ever present cyberstalker who couldn't analyze his pissy pants from his tearful rants with a Sobfish engine:

Levy Rozman, the #1 chess streamer in the world, calls himself "LEVY", everybody calls him "LEVY", butt [sic] you've never bothered to watch one, have you??? You are incredibly ignorant Al, FIDE ID: 2018268. It's not 1984 anymore pernocchio. You really need to get up to speed with the rest of the East coast chess world and meet Levy Rozman of GothamChess:

(irrelevant and likely malware-filled links deleted)

Now go put on a dry diaper and suck your thumb awhile loafer. We don't need any more of your totally off-base analysis, poopaganda, and baseless distortions of chess-loving members.

What's more Sqawker, 11/28/2024 is an off day in Singapore. That gives plenty of time to watch Levy's videos and learn something new. FTB is not going to teach you everything you should have already known; use the links above to educate yourself.

If you're suffering, feeling anxious and/or destructive, please call the nationwide help hotline by dialing 800-273-TALK (8255). Narcissism is a treatable disease. The Compulsive Gambling Hotline is 1-410-332-0402 and Sex Addicts Anonymous 1-800-477-8191. Also, United Way Crisis Helpline 1-800-233-HELP and Stop it Now! 1-888-PREVENT.

Speak to FIDE headquarters in Switzerland at Tel: + (41) 21 6010039.>

<Elon Musk's X filed a limited objection to The Onion's bid to purchase Alex Jones' InfoWars out of bankruptcy, claiming it had "superior ownership" over the outlets' X accounts.

The objection, filed Monday in a Texas bankruptcy court, attempts to block the parody news site from running Jones or InfoWars' X accounts and objected to them being included in The Onion's bid on Jones' media operation. X's lawyers pointed to the platform's terms of service in its filing, saying any accounts were "exclusive property" of X and not its users.

X account holders simply own the content "they submit, post or display" on X, the filing claimed.

The company, as the owner of the platform, "grants each user a 'personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and nonexclusive license to use the software provided," the lawsuit added.

That means, according to X's lawyers, the company should retain the InfoWars account, as well as ownership of Jones' account, which has 3.3 million followers; a judge will be deciding whether Jones' personal X account is included in any selloff tied to his bankruptcy.

X clarified it "does not object to the proposed sale as a general matter," merely the transfer of the social accounts as part of any deal.

Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022 for $44 billion. He reinstated Jones' account, after he had been booted from the platform in 2018.

The Onion announced it had bought InfoWars earlier this month, but the deal has been held up in recent weeks. The outlet's bid now hangs in the balance, with U.S. bankruptcy judge Christoper Lopez on Monday scheduling a hearing for December on whether the deal goes through.

Jones liquidated his assets and declared bankruptcy after he was ordered to pay a $1.5 billion defamation settlement to the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.

Jones had said on his show that the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children were murdered, was "staged" by the government in order to grab guns.

"It's as phony as a $3 bill," Jones said about the shooting. He also called the parents "crisis actors" who were faking their grief.

He was later sued for defamation by a number of Sandy Hook families.

In a court deposition, Jones said he "wasn't trying to cause pain and suffering" to the families with his comments. He also said the parents and the kids were now "being used to destroy the First Amendment.">

<U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to conduct “the largest deportation effort in American history,” no matter the price tag—but the economic costs of such a campaign may be bigger than he has bargained for.

Trump soared to victory in the recent presidential election after campaigning on a hard-line immigration policy and promising to oversee mass deportations, pledging at one point to target between 15 million and 20 million undocumented immigrants. Vice President–elect J.D. Vance has said that the administration would “start with 1 million,” beginning with “the most violent criminals.”

When the former U.S. leader returns to office in January, those plans are certain to face logistic [sic], legal, political, and financial obstacles—all of which have raised questions about what Trump can actually do, and how quickly. But if Trump does succeed in conducting deportations close to the scale that he has promised, economists expect the effort to deal a blow to the U.S. economy, driving up inflation and undercutting economic growth.

“Leaving aside the human issues, leaving aside the law issues, we think that would be very destructive economically,” said Adam Posen, the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “I don’t think people have really understood how potentially big that effect is.”

Around 11 million people are estimated to be in the United States illegally, according to the Department of Homeland Security, a population that accounts for nearly 5 percent of the total U.S. workforce and comprises particularly large shares of the labor force in agriculture, construction, and leisure and hospitality.

As of 2017, an estimated 66 percent of undocumented immigrants had lived in the United States for more than a decade, while some 4.4 million U.S.–born children lived with a parent who was in the country illegally.

The removal of such a sizable labor and consumer force would likely reverberate throughout the U.S. economy, economists told Foreign Policy.

The “mass deportation of millions of people will cause reduced employment opportunities for U.S. workers, it will cause reduced economic growth in America, it will cause a surge in inflation, and it will cause increased budget deficits—that is, a higher tax burden on Americans,” said Michael Clemens, an economist at George Mason University who studies international migration.

While it’s difficult to predict what exactly Trump’s deportation effort will look like, his ambitions are now coming into sharper focus. The president-elect has confirmed his plans to declare a national emergency and enlist the military to carry out the deportations. Stephen Miller, who served as the administration’s immigration czar in Trump’s first term and will be his next deputy chief of staff for policy, has said that the administration will oversee sweeping workplace raids and build “vast holding facilities,” likely in Texas, to detain those who are awaiting deportation.

“We’re already working on a plan,” said Tom Homan—whom Trump has named his next “border czar” and who was formerly acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—in a recent interview with Fox News. “We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE.”

That will likely entail a steep price tag. Mobilizing the resources to arrest, detain, legally process, then ultimately deport 1 million immigrants per year—as Vance has suggested—would cost some $88 billion annually, according to estimates by the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for immigrants. Removing all 13.3 million people who are in the United States either illegally or under some sort of revocable temporary status would require $967.9 billion over the course of more than 10 years, the group estimates.

“Deporting a person is very expensive,” said Andrea Velasquez, an economist at the University of Colorado Denver. “That is going to impose a huge fiscal burden,” she added.

And those are just the up-front costs. Undocumented immigrants comprise a major labor force in the United States—particularly in the agricultural sector, where they have accounted for some 40 percent of the farm labor force over the past three decades—often earning lower wages for jobs that the vast majority of American voters say they do not want.

These immigrants are also a major consumer force that spends money and contributes to the U.S. economy in the form of taxes, all while being ineligible for most federal benefits.

There are “the indirect costs of the lost economic contributions, productivity, and taxes of the people who would be removed,” said Julia Gelatt, an expert in U.S. immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute.....>

<....In 2022, for example, undocumented immigrants paid some $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes—the majority of which went to the federal government, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Given their tax contributions, said Wendy Edelberg, an economist at the Brookings Institution, undocumented immigrants are “really good for the federal budget.” But that’s not always the case for state and local governments, which don’t raise as much in taxes from them but are responsible for supplying schooling and health care. Supporting undocumented immigrants can often be a “net negative” for their budgets, she said.

Texas, for example, shelled out more than $100 million for undocumented immigrants’ emergency hospital care in 2023; New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that the city’s ongoing migrant crisis could cost some $12 billion over a three-year period.

Proponents of mass deportations, such as Vance, argue that the plan would be economically beneficial for American workers, including by helping to ease the affordable-housing crisis and generating employment opportunities. Given that undocumented immigrants are often working at lower pay, they reason, removing them from the country would push U.S. firms to hire American workers at higher wages.

“People say, well, Americans won’t do those jobs. Americans won’t do those jobs for below-the-table wages. They won’t do those jobs for non-living wages. But people will do those jobs, they will just do those jobs at certain wages,” Vance told the New York Times in October.

“We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers,” he added. “It’s one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force.”

Past mass deportations, however, indicate that the scheme may actually harm employment outcomes for American workers. To understand the labor-market impacts of mass deportations, a group of economists, including Velasquez, studied the effects of the Obama administration’s Secure Communities program, which expelled more than 400,000 undocumented immigrants.

Rather than boosting American workers’ job prospects, the study suggested that the Obama-era mass deportations actually cut their employment numbers and wages. With almost half a million undocumented immigrants removed from the labor pool—either through deportations or more indirectly—the economists found that 44,000 U.S.–born workers also lost their employment.

That’s likely because undocumented immigrants and U.S.–born workers often compete for different jobs, so the result of mass deportations is “labor shortages,” according to Velasquez. “That is going to lead to higher labor costs, so now it’s going to be more expensive to produce, and that is going to create a ripple effect that is also going to affect their demand for U.S.–born workers,” she said.

“The idea that removing [undocumented immigrants] causes U.S. workers to rush in and fill the same jobs is a fantasy,” said Clemens, who was not one of the study’s authors.

And it’s not just American labor outcomes that could be affected either; studies suggest that the impacts of mass deportations would likely be felt across the U.S. economy more broadly.

An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, for example, found that if the Trump administration deported 1.3 million people who are in the country illegally, both the U.S. gross domestic product and overall employment would suffer. GDP would drop 1.2 percent below the baseline scenario, in which there are no deportations, while employment would fall by 1.1 percent by 2028.

In a more extreme scenario, in which the Trump administration deported 8.3 million undocumented immigrants, the economic outlook would be even worse. Compared to the baseline forecast, GDP would plummet by 7.4 percent by 2028, while employment would drop by 6.7 percent.

In both scenarios, deportations would also drive up inflation through 2028, with the agricultural sector being especially hard-hit.

“Take an essential ingredient out of the economy, and the ripple effects extend,” Clemens said.>

<Unfortunately, offramp, me thinks many users won't give honest answers. Like Bill Clinton, some are simply incapable of honesty even when caught <red handed> or blue dressed:

Perhaps these questions should be considered for additional internal probing:

- Have you ever cheated to win a game of chess?

- Have you ever stuck your foot in your mouth during chess analysis?

- Have you ever arrogantly told your superior "nice try" after being rebuked and humbled in front of the masses due to your unrelenting fabrications??

- Pick one: Are you a complete internet chess dunce, or do you know who Levy Rozman is?

- Do you still have a 1980's man crush on Viktor Korchnoi or a character in the show Magnum P.I.?

- Have you ever claimed you won a game/tournament that you didn't and downloaded it into this database?

- Is your CRX rating 1574??

- Do you regularly post on the Doll page because you are a pervert who gets no love?

FTB does not want to interfere with this elaborate number system of scoring, offramp, so maybe these questions should be saved for the revised edition.

Back to the Bears - Lions game.>

Maybe you should sit on your 'scoring system' and rotate, <bestialfred>.

You can't win a game, even when cheating.

My analysis is by no means perfect, but infinitely better than your 900-level attempts to ape commentaries by others.

That question is a non sequitur; lemme <explain it> to you, <fred****sucker>. Your 'facts' do not follow.

Korchnoi and Magnum? Did you wank to them as you popped a chubby, <micropenis>?

I provide sources, <fredremf>. In case you haven't yet figured out what REMF means, it stands for rear echelon m*****f*****. There; your moronic carcase just 'learnt' something today.

Never heard of CRX, while you, of course, routinely post fabrications made up of whole cloth.

<Democrats will be looking to regroup while Republicans will be looking to grow their electoral advantages in 2025, when attention will turn to a handful of off-year races.

While the electoral landscape next year will be nothing like the battle for the White House and Congress that America just experienced, the offices up for grabs could give both parties a sense of where the country’s electorate is headed.

They also will almost certainly be interpreted as a litmus test of President-elect Trump’s popularity and standing.

Here are the key races to watch next year:

New Jersey governor

New Jersey has been seen as a heavily Democratic state, won by President Biden by 16 points in 2020.

But in 2024, Trump narrowed that gap to just 6 points, making inroads in the Democratic stronghold and giving the GOP new hope of retaking the governor’s mansion.

The GOP has already drawn a crowded field of candidates looking to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D).

Murphy last snagged reelection by just 3 points against Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli in 2021, a surprisingly tight margin after he first won the office by double digits.

New Jersey Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka are among the Democrats who have jumped into the race.

Across the aisle, Ciattarelli is trying again in the GOP primary, alongside state Sen. Jon Bramnick, former state Sen. Ed Durr and radio host Bill Spadea.

Trump is likely to hover over the race, and will inevitably be a factor in the outcome.

If a Republican wins, it will be seen as a sign of a rightward shift sparked by Trump. But if Democrats retain the governorship, it is likely to be seen as a sign of backlash against Trump.

Trump’s own successes in Washington, as a result, could be key in how the battle for New Jersey plays out.

Virginia governor

In Virginia, where Trump also improved upon his 2020 showing this year, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin is limited to a single term, opening up the Trump ally’s gubernatorial seat in the Old Dominion.

When he first scored the seat in 2021, Youngkin became the first Republican to win a statewide election in Virginia since 2009. And though the state has gone blue in every presidential election since 2008, Vice President Harris won this year by a smaller margin than Biden enjoyed last cycle.

Youngkin has endorsed Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) to succeed him, lauding her last week as “an outspoken advocate for commonsense conservative principles and policies.”

The state’s Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), who was elected alongside Youngkin and Earle-Sears, decided against a gubernatorial bid, which could ease the path for Earle-Sears.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) launched her campaign late last year. Though there’s still time for other candidates to crowd into the race, a Spanberger match-up against Earle-Sears would be historic, potentially paving way for Virginia’s first female governor.

Just as in New Jersey, both parties will be watching the results in Virginia for evidence on how Trump is being perceived.

A chaotic year in Washington for Trump would almost certainly be bad news for Republicans hoping to hold the governor’s mansion in Virginia, particularly given the importance of voters in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

If Trump has a good first year in his second term, that could increase the GOP’s chances.>

<....New York City mayor

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is looking to defy political gravity as he vies for reelection while grappling with federal corruption charges and low approval ratings.

Prosecutors allege the New York mayor “used his prominent positions in New York City government to obtain illegal campaign contributions and luxury travel,” noting he “sought and accepted improper valuable benefits” from at least one Turkish government official and foreign businesspeople. Adams has denied wrongdoing, and he’s set to stand trial in April.

In the face of Adams’s legal woes, challengers are crowding into the race to represent the biggest city in the country.

The declared Democratic candidates include New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former Obama White House aide Michael Blake and Democratic donor Whitney Tilson.

Attorney Jim Walden, a political independent, is also running.

New Yorkers are watching to see whether state Attorney General Letitia James (D) or former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will also enter the ring.

Virginia House of Delegates

Democrats flipped control of the Virginia House of Delegates two years ago, giving them a narrow 51-49 majority. But Trump’s performance across the state and elsewhere during the 2024 election is raising questions about whether that favorable political environment for Republicans will carry into the next elections.

Biden carried the state by 10 points in 2020, with Harris only carrying it by 5 points earlier this month.

No matter what happens with the Virginia governor’s race and the battle for the state House, Democrats will cling to some power in the state Legislature. Democrats hold a narrow 21-19 edge in the state Senate.

But the GOP sees the race for the House of Delegates as crucial.

If they lose the gubernatorial race, they’ll need the House majority as a bulwark against a Democratic governor’s agenda.

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Partisan control is on the line in the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

The state’s high court currently has a 4-3 liberal tilt, but Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s retirement will bring it to an even 3-3 split.

So far, two candidates are running for Bradley’s spot — Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and former state Attorney General Brad Schimel (R).

Crawford has represented Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in addition to the Madison teachers union in their lawsuit over Act 10, a policy passed under former Gov. Scott Walker (R) that curtailed collective bargaining rights for many public workers.

Some of most prominent cases that Schimel, now a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge, handled while Wisconsin attorney general included appeals to the state’s legislative maps after they were struck down in 2016 as an unconstitutional gerrymander. That case was successfully appealed after making its way to the Supreme Court.

He also appealed a case that would have brought back a 2013 law that said doctors who had admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of where an abortion took place were the only ones who could provide abortion access. The case escalated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

The last Wisconsin Supreme Court election in 2023, which also determined partisan control on the high court, shattered records in spending as groups threw tens of millions of dollars into advertising. Experts say they won’t be surprised if the same is true again this cycle.>

https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...

'Looking for sources' in your incessant stalking campaign, <fredthedouche>?

<Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy intend to lean on two recent Supreme Court rulings that they argue will make it easier to tear up a multitude of federal regulations.

The duo, who President-elect Donald Trump named to lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, point to the decisions in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 and in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo earlier this year, both of which limited federal agencies’ regulatory authority.

However, multiple legal and regulatory experts told CNN that Musk and Ramaswamy are misinterpreting the decisions, which could actually make it harder to overturn existing rules.

“These recent Supreme Court rulings won’t make their life easier in reducing the stock of existing regulations,” said James Broughel, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank that aims to reduce regulations. Decisions “like Loper Bright work against them,” he said.

Major rulings

In the Loper Bright ruling, the justices overturned long-standing judicial precedent that required courts to give deference to federal agencies’ rulemaking when a law is ambiguous, with the new decision meaning that courts will give more scrutiny to the regulatory moves the executive branch is making. In the West Virginia case, the Supreme Court cut back agencies’ power to address issues of major economic and political significance when Congress hasn’t explicitly given the agencies those authorities.

“Together, these cases suggest that a plethora of current federal regulations exceed the authority Congress has granted under the law,” Musk and Ramaswamy, who have many business ventures that would benefit from fewer regulations, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. This would liberate individuals and businesses from illicit regulations never passed by Congress and stimulate the U.S. economy.”

But there are several problems with the pair’s assertions, said Nicholas Bagley, an administrative law expert and University of Michigan Law School professor.

“Those are cases that limit agency discretion,” he told CNN. “The cases add nothing to the executive branch’s power to reconsider old regulations.”

Plus, federal departments would still have to follow the administrative process to overturn a rule – by issuing a new regulation in its place. The agencies would have to justify why they are changing the regulation and allow the public to comment on the proposed rule. The cumbersome effort would require significant agency resources, could take several years and would likely be subject to legal challenges after the new regulation was finalized.

“It’s a very painstaking, very difficult process that’s likely to fail in most cases,” said Richard Pierce Jr., a George Washington University law professor who specializes in administrative law and government regulation....>

<....Slashing needed workers

What’s more, the endeavor would require a lot of assistance from agency staffers – the very workers that Musk and Ramaswamy have promised to cut. The duo argue in the op-ed that a reduction in the number of federal workers should at least be “proportionate” to the number of regulations eliminated, adding that fewer employees would be needed to produce and enforce regulations in the future.

That could backfire, experts say.

“These are the people that [sic] they’re going to need to review all these regulations,” Broughel said. “If they really want to make a major dent in the stock of regulations, they’re going to need people who have been working with these regulations day in and day out, and that’s the career civil service staff.”

Trump also promised a massive rollback in regulations during his first term, but he was more successful in slowing the pace of new regulations rather than slashing a multitude of existing ones, Broughel said.

During Trump’s first administration, the Council of Economic Advisers published a report in 2019 that said the president’s deregulatory actions would raise household income by $3,100 after five to 10 years. Also, it noted that the introduction of new regulations was being kept to a minimum.

There is, however, a way to eliminate some of the regulations recently implemented by the Biden administration. GOP lawmakers can use the Congressional Review Act to overturn rules enacted in the final months of President Joe Biden’s term, and those reversal measures are not subject to the Senate filibuster, meaning Republicans will only need 50 votes in the upper chamber to wipe those newly enacted Biden rules off the books. Roughly 100 rules could be eligible, according to a list compiled by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

Conflicts of interest

Both Musk, who owns X and is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, have reasons to want to slash regulations, which could interfere with their vast business portfolios. For instance, in a town hall on X last month, Musk repeatedly criticized government regulations, citing their interference with his companies.

“It’s quite arduous getting regulatory approval,” Musk said while discussing his Neuralink startup that develops implantable brain-computer interfaces. “It does slow us down, and I think we should be able to go faster in the US with advancing Neuralink technology and other technologies that are out there unrelated to my company.”>

<Mass deportations promised by President-elect Donald Trump could have a seismic economic effect in California — potentially inflicting billions of dollars in direct damages to a wide range of industries, including small business, agriculture, construction and child care, advocates and academics said.

The impact could also spread outward to other sectors, including growth drivers like tech.

The Golden State relies heavily on the labor of immigrants, whether they’re naturalized U.S. citizens, have temporary visas or are undocumented. More than 10 million, or 27%, of California’s population is foreign-born, according to the most recent U.S. Census data. Roughly a fifth of those are thought to be undocumented; as of 2022, estimates ranged from 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center, to 2.4 million, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

If undocumented immigrants “magically disappear, you’re going to erase 10% of California production,” said Giovanni Peri, professor of international economics at UC Davis. “We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The loss of workers only speaks to part of the financial impact of deportations. Undocumented immigrants also power the state’s economy as consumers and taxpayers.

There may also be indirect impacts from the deportations. The loss of workers in construction, agriculture (including the state’s world-famous wine industry), hospitality and the care economy would have ripple effects on the rest of the state, according to Manuel Pastor, professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

“Behind every software engineer is an army of nannies, food-service workers and gardeners,” Pastor said.

Pastor thinks businesses are likely to protest significant cuts to their workforces given how tight the labor market is. “They’ve come for the tax cut, they didn’t stay for stripping away their labor force,” he said, referring to business owners who supported Trump.

At his campaign rallies, Trump has said immigrants are “attacking” Black and Latino Americans’ jobs. Federal data undermines that claim, instead showing foreign-born, noncitizen Black and Hispanic workers predominantly work different types of jobs than their native-born counterparts.

It could be costly to replace those who are deported. In the construction industry, for example, the median weekly earnings of full-time, U.S.-born workers as of 2020 were $1,031 vs. $786 for foreign-born workers, according to an analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In California, the median hourly wage as of 2021 was $30 an hour for U.S.-born workers vs. $24 an hour for immigrant workers vs. $16 an hour for undocumented workers, according to the California Immigrant Data Portal, a project by the Equity Research Institute at USC, which is directed by Pastor.

Even if Trump does not fully carry out his plan — or takes a long time to do so — the mere threat of deportations will have an economic impact, said Maria Lemus, executive director of Vision y Compromiso, a national community-based organization started in San Francisco that supports promotores, people who serve as liaisons between immigrant communities and health and social service providers.

“There will probably be a lot of people not going to work for fear of getting picked up,” Lemus said. “Employers will suffer the repercussions of this also.”

If a segment of the population goes into hiding, they will earn less and spend less, she said. Their kids — who are likely U.S. citizens — may not go to school, either, Lemus added.

And undocumented immigrants contribute not just their labor, they also pay significantly into government coffers. In 2022, they paid $8.5 billion in local and state taxes in California, according to a national study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Mass deportations would lead to lost sales, property and income taxes paid by those immigrants — including into programs they have never drawn from because they can’t, such as unemployment insurance benefits, or, until recently, Medi-Cal.

Then there are the immigrants who have legal status and may be in the state for different reasons, such as for temporary work. During the campaign this time around, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance mentioned that they would also target the Temporary Protected Status program, which allows immigrants to stay in this country and work legally if their countries are determined to be unsafe.

<....The U.S. approved more than 46,000 H-1B visas for California employers in September, according to the most recent U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. About 30% were for Google, Meta and Apple.

Chris Iglesias, CEO of Unity Council, a nonprofit affordable-housing developer that also provides social services to thousands of residents of Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, said people there are alarmed but not panicked.

Iglesias said there is “a lot of Trump-proofing” going on at organizations such as his, which serve low-income and marginalized communities that include undocumented immigrants.

Though President Joe Biden’s administration has also deported immigrants, Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is different. He has referred to immigrants as criminals, “rough people” and even animals. The incoming president has said he will use the U.S. military to carry out deportations.

“He built his whole campaign off vilifying Latinos and immigrants,” Iglesias said. “People feel ready. They know this is coming.” Iglesias said the previous Trump term, plus the pandemic, strengthened bonds in the community, which has found “different ways to feed and house” its members.

He is also taking comfort in the fact that Oakland is a sanctuary city, and in the promises state officials have made, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, to fight the Trump administration. Newsom has called a special session to ask the state Legislature to fund lawsuits against the incoming administration. Bonta told CalMatters in a recent interview that his office is preparing legal challenges to “a full frontal assault on our immigrant communities.”

In San Francisco, Lemus’ organization has joined with other community groups to prepare for the deportations.

They are working on getting out information about what people can do to get ready and to inform them of their legal rights. “They don’t have to open their doors,” she said. “They can refuse to give out their information.”

She also said the fear is bound to be felt by others who could be mistaken for being undocumented: “I’m a dark Latina. What if I’m walking somewhere and don’t have my (ID)? What would happen to me?”

Business and labor representatives from some of the industries most likely to be affected refused interview requests from CalMatters, or had no comment. They include the California Restaurant Association, Napa Valley Vintners, the Wine Institute and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California.

The California Chamber of Commerce emailed a statement from its president, Jennifer Barrera: “It is no secret that undocumented workers greatly contribute to California’s economy given our geographical proximity to the border, which is why CalChamber has been a long-time supporter of a national comprehensive effort that provides a pathway to citizenship or legal status for these individuals while at the same time addressing border security.”

A.J. Rossitto, advocacy director for the California Hotel and Lodging Association, said the group “does not anticipate a significant impact to hotel operations in California at this time.”

That contradicts the view of Unite Here Local 11, a union that represents 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers and airports.

“It’s really hard to hear that there would be no impact,” said Ada Briceño, co-president of the union. “It seems there’s a shortsightedness about not understanding who (the workers) are.”

She said the union is trying to figure out how to support those who would feel the impact of deportations, from its own members to their children and families. That includes educating the workers about what to do in case of workplace raids, or “making sure they’re able to assign legal guardians to their children.”

Many California small businesses could also be affected by deportations.

Iglesias, of Unity Council in Oakland, said “a lot of our merchants and business owners in Fruitvale, whether they’re immigrants with or without status, are worried about the impact on their businesses.”

Carolina Martinez, CEO of small business advocacy group CAMEO Network, said “entrepreneurs who are undocumented pay taxes and support the economy.”

Latin American immigrants start businesses at double the rate of other Americans, she said, referring to a recent UCLA Luskin Public Policy analysis of U.S. Census data, which also found that immigrants started 36% of U.S. businesses last year.

<On Election Night, with characteristic modesty, Donald Trump claimed an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” He certainly won the contest legitimately, if more narrowly than many observers initially thought. His popular-vote margin over Kamala Harris has dropped from around 3 percent on the evening of November 5 (or about two-thirds of Joe Biden’s margin in 2020) to 1.55 percent today. That’s about a half-percent smaller than Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote margin over Trump in 2016. To make some other comparisons: Barack Obama won the popular vote by 3.9 percent in 2012 and 7.2 percent in 2008, and George W. Bush won the popular vote by 2.4 percent in the very close 2004 election.

Unlike Obama and Bush, moreover, Trump did not win a majority of the national popular vote. Though it looked like he was over 50 percent on Election Night, the steady drip of late ballots has eroded his percentage to (currently) 49.83 percent, with further slippage very likely before all the votes are in.

Trump’s win in the Electoral College was more impressive, though his 316 electoral votes were less than Obama’s in either of his elections and just above Biden’s in 2020. In Pennsylvania, the “tipping point” state that clinched a second term for Trump, his margin over Harris was 1.8 percent, not exactly a landslide.

So by any measure, the claim of an “unprecedented” mandate simply isn’t true. Trump won a very close election and will govern a country where a near majority of people have voted against him three times. Yes, his party won control of Congress as well. But in the House, the margin of Republican control (with three contests still undecided) is so small that Trump’s appointment of three representatives to Cabinet positions could make any controversial votes extremely difficult for House Speaker Mike Johnson until special elections are held, and very difficult even then.

Given that perilous hold on power, Trump might want to reconsider his current strategy of ruling Washington like a devastated and occupied enemy city with a Cabinet largely composed of men and women who appear to hate the departments and agencies they are supposed to oversee, plus a governing plan that may rely on testing the tolerance of the federal judiciary for totally unparalleled assertions of supreme presidential powers. And Trump’s MAGA base should also cool its jets a bit. There’s certainly a degree of triumphalism in the air that really isn’t justified by the election returns. Consider this take from RealClearPolitics columnist Frank Miele, who suggests Trump follow the U.S. Civil War model for subduing enemies:

This time around, Trump knows he only has four years to fulfill his plans. So he’s moving with lightning speed to do exactly what Abraham Lincoln accomplished in his four years in the White House: unite the country by demonstrating strength, wisdom, and patriotism.

Lincoln’s Confederate enemies, to be clear, seceded from the Union and launched a violent attack on U.S. military facilities that led to a conflict that killed over 2 percent of the nation’s population, followed by the military occupation of rebel areas. If Trump and his supporters believe that’s the kind of mandate the 47th president has somehow been given by a minority of Americans, we are all in a lot of trouble.>

<[Event "Boylston CC Championship"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1998.09.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Chase, Christopher"]
[Black "Cherniack, Alex"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C61"]
[WhiteElo "2377"]
[BlackElo "2255"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4 4.Nxd4 exd4 5.O-O Bc5 6.d3 c6 7.Bc4 d6 8.f4 Nf6 9.Nd2 d5 10.exd5 cxd5 11.Bb5+ Kf8 12.Ba4 h5 13.Nf3 h4 14.h3 Ne8 15.Bxe8 Qxe8 16.Re1 Qd8 17.Bd2 Bf5 18.Re5 Qd7 19.Qe1 f6 20.Re2 Kf7 21.Nxh4 Rae8 22.Rxe8 Rxe8 23.Qf2 Qc8 24.Qf3 Kg8 25.Qxd5+ Be6 26.Qf3 Bb6 27.Rc1 Qc5 28.f5 Bxa2 29.b3 Ba5 30.Qh5 Re5 31.Bxa5 Qxa5 32.Ng6 Re1+ 33.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 34.Kh2 Qe8 35.Qh4 Qb8+ 36.Kg1 Qd6 37.Qh8+ Kf7 38.Qc8 1-0>

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e5 d4 5.Ne2 Nd5 6.d3 Bg4 7.Nf4 Nc6 8.h3 Nxf4 9.Bxf4 Be6 10.Be2 Qb6 11.Ng5 Bd5 12.Bf3 Nb4 13.O-O e6 14.a3 Bxf3 15.Qxf3 Nc6 16.Bg3 Qc7 17.Qe4 h6 18.Nf3 Be7 19.Nd2 O-O 20.f4 Qd7 21.Rae1 Rac8 22.Nf3 b5 23.Bf2 Bd8 24.g4 Ne7 25.Bh4 Nd5 26.Bf2 f5 27.exf6 Rxf6 28.Ne5 Qe8 29.Bh4 Rxf4 30.Rxf4 Bxh4 31.Rf7 Bf6 32.Rxa7 Bg5 33.Nf7 Be3+ 34.Rxe3 dxe3 35.Nd6 1-0>

<Texas Governor Greg Abbott has threatened a children’s hospital with “consequences” after a doctor posted a viral TikTok telling patients they’re not legally obligated to tell a hospital their citizenship status.

On November 1, a new executive order went into effect requiring Texas hospitals that accept Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Plan to ask patients if they’re US citizens. The question now appears on intake forms at hospitals across the state, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

Dr. Tony Pastor, a cardiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, went on to post a TikTok on November 11 telling patients they’re not obligated to answer the question. The video went viral, garnering more than one million views.

As a result, the Republican governor said on Wednesday the hospital’s state funding could be at risk.

“Hey Texas Children’s Hospital & Baylor College of Medicine this doctor is putting your Medicaid & Medicare funding at risk,” Abbott wrote on X, sharing a link to an Express-News article that reports on Pastor’s video.

“ou [sic] better think twice & have crystal clear records,” he added. “There will be consequences for failing to follow the law in the Order.”

Pastor told his followers in the viral TikTok, which appears to be deleted as of Thursday, that “people do not actually have to answer the question.”

“So my proposal to everyone who’s seeing this is, just know that you do not have to answer this question,” Pastor said.

The cardiologist posted another TikTok earlier this week expanding on his argument.

“This new law that's asking hospitals for immigration status is under the guise of trying to get data on how much money we're spending on undocumented patients,” he said.

Pastor also said he’s “going to keep advocating for our patients because that’s why we went to medical school, and not to be ICE deportation people,” according to local outlet KFOXTV.

Pastor isn’t the only one informing patients that they don’t have to answer the question.

The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District released a flyer informing patients they do not have to tell the hospital their citizenship status.

“You do not have to answer the citizenship question if you don’t want to. Your answer will not affect your care — you will not be turned away,” the flyer states. “You have a right to life-saving care, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has also said patients aren’t legally required to respond.

A representative for Texas Children’s Hospital told KFOXTV that they intend to comply with the law.

"Texas Children’s fully supports Governor Abbott’s new Executive Order and is in full compliance,” a hospital spokesperson said in a statement. “We have worked closely with the Texas Hospital Association and our industry partners across the state to ensure compliance in advance of the effective date.”

“While we recognize that individuals working at Texas Children’s hold their own personal views on many topics, those opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position of Texas Children’s Hospital,” the spokesperson added. “We will continue to prioritize patient care while ensuring we are in full compliance with all laws and legal directives."

The Independent has contacted Pastor for comment.>