Refugees - USA:- EU: Trump Blocks Syrian Refugees and Orders Mexican Border Wall to Be Built- by J.H. Davis

President Trump on Wednesday began a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration, ordering the immediate construction of a border wall with Mexico and aggressive efforts to find and deport unauthorized immigrants. He planned additional actions to cut back on legal immigration, including barring Syrian refugees from entering the United States.

At the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Trump signed a pair of executive orders that paved the way for a border wall and called for a newly expanded force to sweep up immigrants who are in the country illegally. He revived programs that allow the federal government to work with local and state law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain unauthorized immigrants with criminal records and to share information to help track and deport them.

He also planned to clamp down on legal immigration in another action expected as early as Thursday. An eight-page draft of that executive order, obtained by The New York Times, would indefinitely block Syrian refugees from entering the United States.

Also bar all refugees from the rest of the world for at least 120 days.

When the refugee program resumes, it would be much smaller, with the total number of refugees resettled in the United States this year more than halved, to 50,000 from 110,000.

t would also suspend any immigration for at least 30 days from a number of predominantly Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — while the government toughened its already stringent screening procedures to weed out potential terrorists.

White House officials declined to comment on the coming plan, but in a wide-ranging interview that aired Wednesday on ABC, Mr. Trump acknowledged that it aimed to erect formidable barriers for those seeking refuge in the United States.

He also said his administration would “absolutely do safe zones in Syria” to discourage refugees from seeking safety in other countries, and chided Europe and Germany in particular for accepting millions of immigrants. “It’s a disaster, what’s happening there,” Mr. Trump said.

Taken together, the moves would turn the full weight of the federal government to fortifying the United States border, rounding up some of the 11 million people who are in the country illegally and targeting refugees, who are often among the world’s most vulnerable people. It is an aggressive use of presidential power that follows through on the nationalistic vision Mr. Trump presented during his presidential campaign.

“A nation without borders is not a nation,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday at the Department of Homeland Security, where he signed the orders alongside the newly sworn-in secretary, John F. Kelly. “Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders.”

The plans are a sharp break with former President Barack Obama’s approach and what was once a bipartisan consensus to devise a path to citizenship for some of the nation’s illegal immigrants. Mr. Obama, however, angered many immigrant groups by deporting millions of unauthorized workers, largely during his first term.

“It’s going to be very hard to come in,” Mr. Trump said. “Right now, it’s very easy to come in.”

Note E-Digest:  Since Mr. Trump brought up his thoughts on refugees and immigrants entering the US it might also be appropriate, in that same context, to bring up Europe's refugee problems. 

So here we go again in bringing the Refugee Crises in Europe and its causes to the attention of the Public at Large, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, EU member states government, and last but not least President Trump, who even admitted during his presidential campaign that the US. should never have started the war against Iraq, because it did so under under a false pretext. 

Fact is that the large number of Refugees we are dealing with in the EU and Turkey today, are the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq some 14 years ago. 

This war had a 'snowball' effect  on the Middle East and North Africa and turned the whole area  into a war-zone.  The result of all this today, millions of refugees fleeing to the EU and Turkey..

Hopefully Mr. Trump  will not only apologize to the victims of thye war crimes committed by his fellow Republican President  George Bush, but also compensate the EU for the costs they are incurring as a result of the large inflow of refugees from the Middle East into the EU. 

As the saying goes "if you do the crime you have to do the time." or in this case - please pay up for those costs incurred by the EU on behalf of your country's failed Middle East policies Mr. Trump..  

 Read mor4e: Trump Blocks Syrian Refugees and Orders Mexican Border Wall to Be Built - The New York Times

Non Profits: Why I Think Nonprofits Should Act More Like Businesses - by Dan Pallotta

How would you react if you knew someone was getting wealthy in charity? How would you feel if you saw your favorite charity run a $3 million ad on the Superbowl using charitable donations to fund it? What would you think if a charity lost a million dollars on a brand new fundraising idea that flopped? Lastly, what if you learned that a charity had just paid an investor a 100 percent return on a loan?

These are the kinds of scenarios that make our blood boil with rage and the kinds of practices that give charities a bad name, right?

But what if we're wrong about all of it? What if the things that send us into a rage are actually the things it would take to end humanity's most vexing and extreme forms of suffering? And what if you are only being given half of the story?

These are the issues that have consumed me for the last 15 years and that were the subject of my closing talk at the 2013 TED conference.

Ask yourself how you would feel if you were given the whole story.

Suppose that the person getting wealthy in charity was worth it. Imagine, for example, that the Boys & Girls Clubs hires a leader that triples revenues in 8 years from half a billion annually to $1.5 billion annually. This allows the clubs to double the number of kids served. She gets a total compensation package of about $1 million annually. This is not a fairy tale. It really happened. And the Boys & Girls Clubs were criticized for it.

Is $1 million not a cheap price to pay for $1 billion in new revenues and double the kids served? Would we rather they hire a leader for a more modest $150,000 who is incapable of increasing revenues and serving more kids? Save $850,000 in salary expense and lose a billion dollars a year in revenue?

Read more: WATCH: Why I Think Nonprofits Should Act More Like Businesses | Dan Pallotta

Canadians value more vacation over pay hikes survey shows

An international report Wednesday found that Canadian workers would rather get an additional week's paid vacation than be paid more to do their jobs.

The Mercer consultancy report says 20 per cent of Canadians polled said the job perk they would most like to receive from employers is another week's worth of paid vacation.

Canadians were the only country in the survey — which included workers from the U.S., Britain, France, China and Brazil — who said they valued time off over more money.

Read more: Canadians value more vacation over pay hikes - Business - CBC News

EU fat cats paid more than UK prime minister

"The bloated salaries of the Brussels gravy train sparked outrage yesterday after it emerged that over 1,000 Eurocrats are paid more than the Prime Minister. His annual income of £142,500 is dwarfed by Herman Van Rompuy, who earns £245,000 plus expenses as EU President, partly funded by hard-working ­British taxpayers.

Mr Van Rompuy, EU foreign minister Lady Ashton, and Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, head up a list of 1,023 Euro fat cats who have bigger ­salaries than David Cameron.

Six vice-presidents and 19 commissioners are paid between £57,000 and £103,000 more than the PM and 90 of the EU’s 995 civil servants earning £146,267 to £179,703 are British.

Note EU-Digest: the question is not so much related to the justification for such high EU salaries, but rather the lack of transparency about the income and expenses of the EU staff.

For more: Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: EU fat cats paid more than UK prime minister

The Nation: The Heart of Wall Street - "Capitalism at its best with CEOs making more than 400 times the average worker's pay" - by Greg Kaufmann

For the complete report from the Nation click on this link

When "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday, most members seemed quite pleased with his work. Feinberg, after all, had just slashed cash compensation by 90 percent, and total compensation by 50 percent, for the top twenty-five executives at each of the seven companies under his purview--the seven lemons the American people now own post-bailout--AIG, Bank of America, Chrysler Financial, Chrysler Group LLC, Citigroup, GM, and GMAC. For politicians whose constituents want, if not blood, then at least some measure of revenge against the bailed-out fat cats, Feinberg's work is a gift. But it quickly became clear that whatever impact Feinberg's decisions might have on these seven companies, executive excess on Wall Street--which Missouri Democratic Congressman William Lacy Clay pointed out has resulted in CEOs making more than 400 times the average worker's pay, an all-time high--will not be impacted.

It's undeniable that Feinberg has had an impact on the companies in his purview. But it's equally clear that the casino culture that created this mess--including guaranteed exorbitant salaries and bonuses that have nothing to do with performance--remains untouched. Despite Feinberg's wish, Wall Street ain't the Yellow Brick Road, and the execs aren't Tin Men. There's no post-bailout heart waiting to be discovered here.