They can request and may be assigned an individual tax ID number (ITIN). Having an ITIN may allow them to open a bank account. It also makes it so they pay taxes which a surprising number want to do. Since they want to stay in the country, having a long history of paying taxes is a way to show you don’t want to cause trouble and you just want to work. Hell, a lot of them probably know they got Al Capone on tax evasion and don’t want to end up like him. Here’s a report I just Googled, and possibly the source of the number which is an estimate.

On the other side is how much tax funding is used on them. Here’s a report from the House of Representatives which states they use more in services (Medicare, WIC, sending kids to school, etc) than they pay. I can’t speak to how accurate the report is considering the makeup and views publicly expressed by members of the committee. I’m personally leaning towards ‘they don’t, and can’t, use as more than they contribute’ because they’re not eligible for many benefits.

Would it make a difference to you if the controversy kicked off because the org that disqualified these two fighters was banned by the IOC from participating in the Olympics for shady stuff? Or if the org has never said why they were disqualified? Or if the guy making the wild claims is the head of the org and a friend of Putin, and the DQ for one fighter happened after she beat an until then undefeated Russian fighter?

You really should look into the background of it. Here’s an AP News link

The second half is me. I absolutely loved being a carpenter for the 3 years that I did it. But I left the field because I knew the pay ceiling wouldn’t be like in the days when my dad was my age. So, I moved to an office job that pays more than the guys in charge of work sites were (and are currently) making and I get actual benefits. I’d go back to it in a heartbeat if the pay and benefits were better, and I don’t mean matching my current ones, just definitely middle class.

I do wonder what will happen when the number of people in the trades reduces because young adults aren’t going into them such that people can see it and feel it. Will the corps raise wages and improve benefits? Will the federal government make immigration easier or restart the WPA like during the Great Depression? I don’t know. What I do know is that my buddy who’s 35 is always one of the youngest electricians on job sites and that can’t be good for the trades.

NYT - Here’s the latest on the attack in Beirut.

Israeli analysts said Hezbollah was most likely aiming at a nearby army base on Mount Hermon and did not intentionally target the village. But the group’s use of inaccurate rockets in an area dotted with civilian communities could lead to the kind of unintended consequence that risk sparking an all-out war, they said.

Sounds a lot like Israel might be using human shields to protect their base.

In February, far-right settlers went on a rampage in the West Bank town of Huwara torching dozens of houses and cars. Following the violence, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Huwara to be “wiped out”.

Hmmm, I wonder what happened to the people rampaging in the town.

Israel’s military called the settler attack on this Palestinian town a ‘pogrom.’ Videos show soldiers did little to stop it

The IDF said in a statement to CNN that dozens of Israelis had “desecrated Palestinian property” and “acted violently against Palestinian residents” on February 26, but only several were arrested. All were released without charges.

That sounds like we should follow Congress’ stock trades for our own benefit. I bet there’s a tracker out there since all that is supposed to be public information.

I found this interesting article when trying to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing with Twitter. What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter? - NBC News

On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright.

Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3,000-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, a playbook for the takeover and transformation of Twitter…

The text messages described a series of actions Musk should take after he gained full control of the social media platform: “Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”

That pressure campaign is against the Anti Defamation League which Musk has been trying to do.

So I guess he’s doing it all for far right adulation.

Mmmmm, I can really taste the rich fuel-air mix. The 91 octane is divine.