ChicagoExpat

It's not "their job" to provide possibly fraudulent affidavits. It's not a "real task" to jump through whatever stupid hoops a foreign government sets up, nor is it their job to make it possible for you to live outside of Canada. Yes, our opinions do differ.

Add in North Africa, Romania, Sicily, Greece, the North Atlantic war, losing the Battle of Britain, Lend Lease, the fight against Japan, China's role and the Western role in supporting China.... While I agree too many Westerners are ignorant of the SU's role in WW2, too many Slavaboos/Magaheads (and all Russians) completely overstate their role, and actively deny that Russia's massive losses were due in large part to 1) individuals are worth nothing 2) the purge of the Red Army officer corps before the war 3) The Molotov pact with Germany 4) Russia's foolish lack of preparation for war.

NATO isn't at war with Russia, Chimpy.

Which Western leader has made any attempt to send their own armies into Ukraine? Meanwhile your favorite, Russia, has brought another army in to assist in their 3-year invasion (and counting). The truth is literally the opposite of what you said.

When they wanted to defend themselves, we, among many, many other nations helped. Quite a difference from your Russian narrative.

My point is simply that Trump supporters are cheering on this hunt for alleged corruption and fraud that is all supposedly the fault of Dems and previous Republicans... while never seeming to remember that he had 4 years to do something about it beforehand and didn't. In fact, the national debt grew significantly under Trump. So, fine, go ahead and cancel a gay USAID opera in Prague or whatever to save $20,000... it's just that we already know that for every $20K he saves here, he'll spend $1 million over there. And a lot of it will go to the same types of people his supporters hate.

And yet Trump didn't do it in his first term. Weird.

🤡🤡🤡

You have a cartoon view of what embassy workers/diplomats do.

Correct, they can't be bothered to take time away from real tasks to issue a letter saying "this all may be fake." You should be mad at the Thais for requiring an expensive letter that EVERYONE KNOWS IS WORTHLESS.

Pretty clear it is not only to cause Russia to burn through its troops (and North Korea's faster) but also to counter what will likely be Russia's main demand from its disastrous war -- "we get to keep whatever we have right now."

THAT is nonsense. The majority DO get visas (the data is online). Strange that it's not so great a place but the line to get in has never been longer.

It's not misguided and arrogant at all. It's based on reality. An absolutely enormous percentage of the world's population would go to the U.S. if they could, because they know it's a place uniquely easy to start a new life and succeed. Even if you're there illegally. There is no other country like it in human history in this respect. It's totally absurd that it's "discriminatory against Thais." The great majority of Thais who apply receive visas -- how is that RACIST? AND -- many Thais have shown what they'll do if given the chance -- something like 400K Thais in the U.S., only a small percentage of whom emigrated legally. MOST of the Thais I know who have some sort of ties to the U.S., when you really talk about who went there and how, somebody overstayed a visa or did it through a sham marriage. If anything, the Embassy isn't being tough enough, looking at the facts. Again, feel free to suggest a better system. Again, feel free to describe how the Embassy is RACIST!!!!! Or you can just keep repeating that (I can guess what you'll do).

How worked up you get. Let's see how YOU do trying to read the minds of people standing in front of you when there is a significant benefit in front of them. Millions of people have overstayed visas over the years. "Discriminatory"? I think you need to look up the word.

Congratulations on providing the perfect example of why people SHOULD be denied tourist visas, and make it hard for everyone else.

Mind if I drop in?

Russians will agitate in whatever way best undermines U.S. democracy.

I agree -- while I'm NOT a Trump fan, we've been hearing this cheapening of the Holocaust by the Left for many years now. They should be ashamed, it's disgusting.

No matter what the subject, no matter where it occurs... Israel is responsible. Got it!

I talked to a consular officer at the Embassy -- he said that while they had received a lot of anxious emails from people here about this tax stuff, they had not yet received a single complaint of someone who appeared to have been actually taxed contrary to the terms of the tax treaty.

This is such a stupid post.

Israel could kill a million Gazans, and they'd STILL have shown more consideration for them than Hamas, who purposefully created the conditions for that exact outcome.

Or tortured to death by Palestinians. Hard to know which scenario is more likely.

Wow. "Western aligned countries" underpay brown people? You strongly imply the "non-Western aligned countries" therefore are morally superior. And yet.... most brown people in the world want to leave their non-Western aligned country to go to a Western-aligned country. How to explain that? I can... the demand for racism by people like you is greater than the actual supply, so you invent it.

Being a little familiar with federal budgeting, the key word in this is "OBLIGATIONS." If FEMA is legally OBLIGED to reserve these funds for previous disasters. then there's likely nothing that can be done short of an act of Congress to de-obligate them. If there IS a process in place, and there's no realistic way those funds will ever be spent, and it's only through laziness/inattention that this money hasn't been reallocated, then that's on FEMA. The other issue is that there is also a very strong chance that de-obligated funds go back to Congress, NOT stay with FEMA to be used elsewhere, which is also a reason that agencies are reluctant to close out unspent money.