Alex retweeted
Immigration policy must be driven by the present, not the past, and business leaders are too terrified of the left AND the right to acknowledge this.
Recent H1B discourse revolves around a longstanding immigration sleight-of-hand. H1B proponents point to exceptional people who came here decades ago as if they represent the current state of the program in the same way that advocates for low-skill/illegal immigration point to very favorable immigrant crime/welfare/education/etc statistics that do, in truth, have them beating native-born Americans on many fronts.
It is all a sham. The world that created those statistics, people, and businesses no longer exists. Brilliant but desperate Vietnamese fathers who fled communism have nothing in common with young men from Honduras, and the crime rates/economic acccomplishments/integration of the former should not be used to justify mass migration of the latter.
Nor should the accomplishments of people who managed to get an H1B visa in the 90s (when the program was capped to just 65,000 visas) be used to justify staffing agencies and tech companies using the program to replace American jobs for less money. The obvious abuse going on is politically suicidal and something that even the most ardent supporters of the visa should want to crack down on, no immigration program can possibly survive the obvious and widely known reality of what is going on. I am a longtime outspoken advocate for stealing the best people from other countries to make our own better, runaway abuse of existing programs robs the government of the worker trust required to do so.
Lots of people in the tech space know this. Even the dumb people are smart enough to see it. Nobody actually believes these are all incredible people with unique talents performing jobs no American can. Everyone knows the guy in Cubicle Bay 7 doing mediocre but functional web design for half the salary of his American peers is no savant and doesn't meet the statutory requirements for his H-1B visa.
Unfortunately, most people with power or profile are terrified that any public statement or acknowledgement will get them attacked by the right (You guys have been screwing over American workers for years with visa abuse, you damn hypocrite!) or the left (You are racist, sexist, misogynist, and sucking up to this fascist administration!). Or, more likely, both. I know too many tech execs in particular who feel trapped, like the only winning move is to stay silent.
JD is blowing the whole thing wide open by putting facts and stats front and center that nobody wants to engage with. Critics will talk about anything and everything else but these damning facts and this obvious truth, that H1B visas serve neither their original purpose, legal purpose, invented purpose, or the American people.
Vice President JD Vance breaks down the data:
"If you are working as an H-1B visa in the United States of America, you’re earning $20,000 less than an American citizen hired in the same position. If you were brought in by one of these foreign outsourcing firms, you’re making $48,000 less than an American citizen in a similar position. So I’m sure that everybody here understands the game that is being played. You bring in indentured servants from outside the country, you lay off American workers and, if you’re a corporation, you make a ton of money by under cutting the wages of American workers, replacing them with people who frankly shouldn’t be in the United States of America to begin with."
Alex retweeted
Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,
My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov.
The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison.
I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return.
I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something.
Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.
Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged.
Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working.
A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats.
This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried.
There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go.
Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him.
I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them.
This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one.
Three things would change the math overnight.
Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined.
End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.
And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them.
Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine.
I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it.
Respectfully,
Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit
Alex retweeted
2009. Bear Sterns had failed and the economic world was ending.
So was mine. Big debt including credit cards (so stupid), cars and a huge mortgage. Young kids. An economic crisis at the Ashley household. Fear ruled over my wife and me. Trouble sleeping. Did I mention fear?
I decided NO MORE. Fear needed to hit the trash can.
I attacked the phones for 9 months which generated exceptional business. I was scared for my financial life but also convicted that one person was responsible for my family's financial success. ME.
Calls led to meetings and then pitches which led to deals. In a market where nothing was moving, I slugged it out and found business. I closed one of the largest deals of my career in 2012.
And with the winnings of the business development assault...we slowly but surely paid down our debt. It took years of discipline and saying "no" to buying more stuff.
2026? Totally debt free including the house. You can keep your 3% mortgage, but I owe the man nothing.
I sleep like a baby at night.
And I still attack the phones today. Nothing is stopping me! I feel like like a million bucks (and maybe more ;))
And fear is no longer my master.
I am. Along with God.
Onward!
Alex retweeted
This one is heartbreaking.
He spent 25 YEARS at Adobe.
Senior Software Quality Engineer.
More than 15 years of quality engineering experience.
Laid off in August 2025.
Then he spent more than a year looking for another job in tech.
Applications filtered out.
Recruiters ghosted him.
Interviews that never happened.
Eventually, he gave up.
His next career?
Driving a school bus.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with driving a school bus. It’s important, honest work.
But something is deeply broken when an American with 25 years at one of the world’s premier software companies can’t find another job in tech while we’re simultaneously told America has such a shortage of tech talent that employers need hundreds of thousands of foreign-worker positions.
This is what gets lost in the H-1B debate.
These aren’t statistics.
They’re people.
Before we search the world for another tech worker, shouldn’t Americans like him at least get a fair shot?
Another Tech career destroyed.
Maybe this is the Karma bus 🚌 for this man, or maybe it’s just how he will keep going until the wheels fall off.
Only thing I know for sure is someone who once worked as head of Software Engineering for Accolade & Adobe shouldn’t have to drive a bus because there are no other jobs being offered to our fellow Americans in Tech.
Alex retweeted
The manager was reassigned.
My brother got his hours back plus a raise and a vest that says customer experience specialist.
He wears it like a uniform of honor.
The woman who started the petition still shops there every Tuesday.
My brother saves her a cart with the good wheels.
She told me once that kindness is just paying attention out loud.
I think about that constantly.
He was never too slow. The world was just moving too fast to see him.
Alex retweeted
Many of the loser children of my wealthy friends who see no way to emulate the success of their parents, have gravitated toward Mamdani-ism and found community and a sense of purpose by rejecting capitalism as a way to cope with their own failure. Please note they have nor however rejected their trust funds or living subsidies while pursuing their “passions” in NGOs, dabbling in the arts or trying to invest their parents money in “VC”.
The DSA has become more than a political organization—it functions as a community-building institution that gives lonely, nonreligious downwardly mobile young people from elite backgrounds purpose, identity, friendships, and practical political training.
That social infrastructure produces highly committed activists who can be deployed across the country to help elect candidates and gradually normalize hard-left politics.
The movement's objective is not merely to elect self-described socialists in the short term, but to build a durable political infrastructure capable of advancing a truly Marxist agenda over time.
Figures like Zohran Mamdani help legitimize the ideology, while allied candidates in more moderate or conservative states adapt the same agenda to local political realities—downplaying labels, emphasizing populist themes, or even running as independents—to make those ideas electorally viable where an explicit socialist would struggle.
Alex retweeted
I begged and pleaded to God for a scholarship to help me pay for college.
My prayers went unanswered.
Instead, I worked full time and went to the most affordable college I could find full time. I couldn’t relate to any of my classmates and truthfully, I was jealous.
I begged and pleaded with God to help me get a better job.
My prayers went unanswered.
The pay was terrible and the bosses were stealing from each other. I worked there for 6 years.
I prayed for opportunities and deals to close when I was an investment sales agent during the financial crisis after graduation.
My prayers went unanswered.
I kept cold calling and finding creative/ humbling ways to keep us out of debt. My first check was for just 50 cents after three years. It felt like a slap in the face.
I very much despise the prosperity gospel that implies if you have enough faith or are a Christian your prayers will be answered and life will be easier.
It’s not biblical. Ask the disciples how much easier their lives got after deciding to follow Jesus.
Sometimes following God looks more like surrender. Surrender sometimes looks like accepting unanswered prayers.
My unanswered prayers in college made it possible to find a way to graduate debt free with no financial aid. I’ve taught hundreds of high schoolers how to do it.
My unanswered prayers at that first job laid the foundation for working in an industry that is full of characters that you must work with while also keeping your guard up.
My unanswered prayers during the financial crisis meant I had more time to call and talk to investors that later became the first clients at our company, Foresite.
All of those experiences provided the framework to help build CRE Launch which has helped hundreds of people, most with no industry connections, break into the industry and stay.
Unanswered prayers sometimes means no and sometimes it means there is another way. I may not like it, but it’s not my will, it’s his.
I’ve been doing this just long enough to start to see the wisdom in following God’s plan instead of pushing my own.
Sometimes we don’t even see it in our lifetimes. We just trust that God is sovereign and all things will work together for the good of those who love him, even if it’s not in our lifetime.
So if you feel like your prayers are going unanswered, that your faith has made things harder not easier, You are right. But you are in good company with a lot of others.
Alex retweeted
Truth. I once was hired onto a company and did a promotion track with an exceptional attendance record. They gave me raises every 6 months and then moved me to a department that I would eventually manage.
I moved into a new home I was leasing with the option to buy once we settled. I got a new vehicle to deal with the commute and we started planning accordingly.
A month later they laid the entire department off with no intent to rehire, shut it down and said “good luck.”
Unemployment offered me $108 a week with check ins, written reports and mandatory tasks.
I refused and gave everything up. From the house, to the car to the relationship and my savings.
In one decision a company that promised me the world tanked my entire life.
It was the same company that told me I needed to get my properties straight and not call out when I informed them my grandmother was dying in the hospital and I was going to see her the next day.
Never again. After that I was work for myself or die trying.
Alex retweeted
Send this to your main squeeze and write "us".
Our team made a nice little video of our best selling rat plushes (the best selling on all of Amazon afaik) and it made some sales on TikTok!
These are truly great. My kids love them. Halloween is coming.
tigerharttoys.com/search?q=r…
Alex retweeted
Note to Dads who have activities with their kids today.
One day, sooner than you think, those days will be over.
I would give anything, ANYTHING, to get those days back again.
When they strike out w bases loaded: it's a gift.
When they spill their milkshake in the back seat: it's a gift.
Mess up the windows with their muddy hands: a gift.
Complain about how long the drive is taking: gift.
I don't have many regrets in life, but one of them (a BIG one) is not being present enough when I should have been and not having the right perspective at times.
So today, watch the game, enjoy the game, and recognize there are a bunch of people out there like me who would pay anything to be in that seat again.
Those are the moments that matter in your life, and they're fleeting.
The moments that don't matter...
Sending another email. Having another client call. Having another meeting.
Be an amazing dad to your kids. There's no more important job on the planet.
Alex retweeted
Let me tell you something, comrade.
No American thinks we are exceptional because we are richer, stronger and more powerful than everyone else.
We are exceptional because we are American. It is our value system that built wealth, strength, and power.
It was the American values etched into the souls of generations of people in this country that built what we have today.
Those values are something you clearly cannot understand, or you choose not to, because they would require you building something of your own.
Our nation was founded by people who simply wanted a chance to build something for themselves.
It wasn’t about being richer than others. It wasn’t about being more powerful than others. It wasn’t about being stronger than others.
It’s certainly wasn’t built on what you propose, this hideous belief that you or anyone is somehow entitled to what other people built.
That is the antithesis of America. Your ideas would have been laughed out of America 250 years ago. You ran an entire mayoral campaign on seizing assets from others.
The sheer concept of expecting the government to force hard-working people to feed, house, and fund other able-bodied men and women would have been roundly ridiculed.
In fact, that is why people migrated to America. It was about freedom.
They fled oppressive government, they fled the type of tyranny you are promoting. Where their work was not theirs, where the fruits of their labor were taken from them.
They fled here not expecting a handout, but simply hoping for a chance to build something on their own. A chance to bet on themselves.
That dream is still vibrantly alive today for the those that choose to work hard and pursue it.
You, of course, sell that it is not possible. That it is a zero sum game. That the success of one group must therefore be at the expense of another group, which is a disgusting lie disguised as “promoting fairness”.
That is the opposite of our American value system.
In America, we believe in abundance. We believe in hard work. We believe in merit. We believe in earning things. We believe if you learn, work hard, and do your best, doors will open. And they do. Every time.
Those beliefs are what made America exceptional, and that is why America continues to be the greatest country in the history of mankind.
All despite men like you.
Alex retweeted
Leaving Vietnam as a refugee 51 years ago and returning today as the Acting Secretary of the Navy is a powerful, full-circle reminder of what is possible when blessed with freedom and opportunity.
Our productive visit strengthened US-Vietnam relations and our naval partnership.
Progress often starts simply: two Sailors sitting down, sharing a common bond, and working together to achieve mutual goals. What we accomplished extends beyond the pier—strengthening the trust to keep sea lanes open, defend freedom of navigation, and preserve peace through strength across the Pacific.
Thanks @POTUS, @SecRubio, and @SecWar for your leadership and commitment to ensuring our @USNavy and @USMC have what they need to maintain maritime dominance.
Alex retweeted
我想要雇佣如下的人:
1. 必须说流利中文和先进的英语
2. 亚洲工作时间
3. 你会处理在中国和东南亚的网店
4. 我们需要注重细节又积极主动的人还有你必须乐于创新
5. 付款回事美元
6. 工资面议
如果这个工作对你有趣请发给邮件送到support在viahart点.com
Alex retweeted
I give a lot of self-employment advice and one of the most challenging things is what I call "schema correction"
roughly 9 out of 10 working adults in the US work a "W2 job"
the "W2 job," which of course is a tax-code construction, refers to a person whose working hours, specific tasks, and work location are dictated or otherwise controlled by your employer
the concept of the W2 job itself is borne out of the fact that we built significant physical urban and suburban infrastructure for industrial employment which gave way to the info age of instant communication obviating much of the prior need.... so that infrastructure was effectively co-opted by social planners during the Cold War in part as a way to mitigate the odds the population would view communism and the USSR as a better social model...
so specific policies were passed like the 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highways Act and the 1958 National Defense Education Act (passed right after the national alarm of Sputnik), backed by the GI Bill and FHA-subsidized mortgages... with less-discussed direct quotes from the planners and builders pushing it... like the NDEA's own text declaring that..
"the security of the Nation requires the fullest development of the mental resources and technical skills of its young men and women" or...
Famous Levittown developer William Levitt on the homeownership side...
"no man who owns his own house and lot can be a Communist... he has too much to do"
William Levitt is known as the "Father of Suburbia"...
There was a real, concerted effort to to organize American society around common fixed work hours and a conveyor belt style college-to-office type pipeline
that's all fine... you can believe it was a net positive given Communism or pure chaos.. yet still planned... but folks need to realize that this is not a natural way of organizing society... you can argue there really isn't a natural way... not nefariously planned but often practically or built from good intentions given the alternatives
still... you are an individual in that system
and that system has more or less trained most of those 90% of Americans to view their value.. sort of like a caste... based on what quality-on-paper education they therefore have and what income they're generating
but worse.... they are trained on the consistency of the income.... the steady drip of a paycheck... you make $100K/year and twice a month you get a check for something like $2,916.
this brings you comfort.. predictability.. you know how much you'll have next week or next month so you feel more comfortable spending money and being a consumer of "stuff"... house, car, nice neighborhood near your job
it's a big circular reference
and it's all psychology and narrative that they don't actively think about day to day... and if pushed on it... their defense mechanisms go off.. especially the extremely intelligent among them... no shortage of mental and philosophical gymnastics will be demonstrated to comfort them when they prefer not to think about these things... that they're not really in charge or as individualistic as they've come to think of themselves
so one of the big schema corrections is just untraining your mind off the drip
if you're going to work for yourself, first of all nobody is sending you checks willingly... you're most often going to have to chase people or set up a firm accounts-receivable and invoicing process that's separate from you so that you don't add friction to the relationship with clients...
but also train your mind that income and value in the real world isn't cut up into neat little bi-weekly chunks with your healthcare and fed/state/FICA taxes already removed by the HR or payroll department... like a little hamster getting their filtered water and vitamins and minerals through a drip straw...
in the real world... you might make $50,000 in one month... and zero for 3 months... then $20K then $30K at random times
or... you're "earning" that $2,916 in an accounting "earned revenue" sense... but your receivables are building up and at any given time you might be owed $15,000
do you think the company you work for is getting paid equal amounts from clients every month? no.. they're dealing with payroll and receivables mismatches too.. all the time...
that's the real world and 9 out of 10 working adults are insulated from this
so schema correction.... that's the first challenge of self-employment
Alex retweeted
The mistake many make is the assumption that it has anything at all to do with wanting the common good and is not just simply resentment via legislation
Alex retweeted
The decade that followed losing my job were the worst years of my life. I had to very intentionally work through forgiveness so that I never wished upon them what they had done to me. To be honest, It took years. This moment in time was proof to myself I finally reached that point of forgiveness.