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  • pmb76
    07-14 04:29 AM
    IV core,

    Pani's letter completely undermines IV's initiatives. IV has to move in one single direction not in 10. If this guy wants to send a letter he should not be allowed to send it using IV's banner. Please request this guy to either stop this letter campaign or NOT use IV's name. I do not understand how jokers like Pani are tolerated by IV. IV must disown this guy and his dangerous campaign.




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  • dealsnet
    01-08 01:15 PM
    Read their explanation, Rayaan, regugee_new are upset about the Mumbai tread. It means what??. Need a teacher or preacher to interpret it??
    We can understand what they mean.

    dealsnet,
    I am just quite spectator , but could not resist to respond you on this ... I don't see any "Support" for terrorist or Mumbai attacks posted by Rayyan.
    PLEASE Stop making assumptions,Dude.
    As Bfadila said, you have serious language comprehension issues....




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  • Macaca
    12-30 04:19 PM
    But today, as the year ends, the netroots activists who adored Reid at the start of the new Congress have begun turning on him, musing out loud about encouraging senators to oust him as leader. They complained that Reid's Senate caved - allowing continued tax breaks for oil companies, approving a new attorney general who wouldn't call waterboarding torture, breaking the pay-as-you go promise by approving a tax break without a tax hike on the rich.

    Some liberal lawmakers believe the way to accomplish their goals is for Reid to put even more pressure on Republicans to break. Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Reid should do more to "highlight who's obstructing."

    "The one issue people have with Harry Reid, he's not embarrassing enough people," Frank said.

    Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate politics for The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan firm in Washington, said the problem for Democrats isn't that they haven't delivered much more than the Republicans.

    "It's that voters don't see a difference," Duffy said. "Voters are coming to the conclusion the parties are the same - not philosophically the same, but they conduct themselves in the same way."

    Trying to end a war

    Six weeks into the new Congress, as the promises of comity began to fade, Reid pulled a dramatic maneuver: He kept the Senate in session over Presidents Day weekend for a Saturday vote on Iraq.

    Nine Republicans failed to show up, including Nevada's John Ensign, who was back home playing golf with his son. The Republican whip, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, praised the absences, saying the senators were right to gum up a vote that his side saw as a stunt.

    The measure opposing Bush's troop surge failed to get 60 votes needed to advance. But it helped set the stage for a poisoned atmosphere that would dominate the Iraq debate for the year.

    The Senate conducted 34 votes on Iraq. Only once did a measure to bring troops home succeed. Bush vetoed it.

    Critics say Reid spent too much time on Iraq, that it became personal. He called it "Bush's war" and "the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of our country."

    By spring, as it became clear he could not find enough votes to override the president on Iraq votes, he embraced the party's left wing by putting his name on a bill to cut off troop funds.

    Vote after vote only hardened Republicans' resolve.

    Anti-war activists grew furious with Reid. All the while, the clock ticked down and other business went undone.

    "If you're going to criticize him, you can criticize him for allocating so much floor time to the debate when it was pretty clear it wasn't going to accomplish anything," Mann said. "And you can criticize him for his emotional investment."

    Could Reid really have stopped trying? Opinion polls show that more than two-thirds of Americans continue to oppose the war.

    The real question is whether Reid missed an opportunity to broker middle ground. As Republicans started speaking out against Bush's war policy in the summer months, Reid failed to entertain a more moderate bill - one without a withdrawal deadline - that could have peeled Republicans away from Bush.

    Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who faces a tough reelection in 2008, said she finds it "frustrating that those of us who were trying to find a bipartisan path forward on Iraq were unable to get votes on our proposals. I think there was an opportunity to change the course in Iraq, and to send a strong message to the president about the future direction, but that opportunity was lost."

    Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University who has written extensively on Congress, said leaders are judged by the choices they make. In his view, Reid made a mistake.

    "The criticism the Democrats have been facing is they weren't aggressive enough," Zelizer said. "I think the bigger failure was that he didn't get something more moderate through. I think it would have been a blow to the administration."

    By fall the mood in Congress shifted as news from Iraq improved. The moment had passed. Before Congress left for the holidays, lawmakers approved another war funding bill, with no strings attached.

    "Great leaders realize there are just moments, windows of opportunity," Zelizer said, "and I think he missed."

    Reid remains optimistic about his chances for securing Republican support in 2008. "We're going to continue putting the pedal to the metal," he said at his year-end news conference.

    But the Democrats and Reid are clearly trying to find their way under the new terms of the Iraq debate.

    Endgame

    The Senate chaplain, a retired Navy rear admiral, opens each day's business with a prayer. On the last Monday of the session, he called on God to remind the senators "that ultimately they will be judged by their productivity."

    The Senate had become gridlocked. Reid had threatened to do cartwheels down the aisle if it would help shake things loose.

    Democrats had accomplished plenty this year - raising the minimum wage for the first time in a decade, adopting the most sweeping ethics laws since Watergate, crafting the greatest college loan assistance program since the GI bill, increasing automotive fuel efficiency standards for the first time in 30 years and providing unprecedented oversight of the Bush administration, leading to the resignation of the beleaguered attorney general.

    Congress worked more days than in any session in years.

    But all that seemed overshadowed by what it couldn't do. Stop the war. Provide health care for working-class kids. Address global warming by rolling back oil companies' tax breaks. Start a renewable energy requirement. End the torture of war prisoners.

    Even passing the budget to keep the government running seemed dicey.

    "It's been a really lousy year," said Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

    In this hyper-partisan environment, where Reid liked to say Republicans were conducting "filibusters on steroids," could another kind of majority leader have achieved better results?

    Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was among those leading efforts to provide children's health insurance, said if not for Reid, the State Children's Health Care bill known as SCHIP wouldn't have progressed as far as it did.

    Dozens of Republicans crossed party lines to back the bill, which polls show was supported by 70 percent of Americans. Children's health care would have been paid for by increasing the tax on cigarettes. Bush vetoed the bill twice.

    Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said even if "God himself" were in the majority leader's job, it would not have been a match for Republican obstructionism. Mann sums up Reid this way: "Were Tom Daschle and George Mitchell sort of smoother, were they more effective with the Washington press? You betcha. Could they make a more compelling, favorable case? Yes. Would either of them operating in this environment have a much more productive record? No."

    By the office fireplace again

    People say running the Senate is like herding cats, with 100 Type-A personalities going in every direction. But watching the Senate feels more like being at a baseball game - so much drama happens between the big home runs and base hits, even when it looks like nothing is going on at all.

    The fire continues to burn strongly in Reid's office as snow covers the Capitol grounds. The workday is coming to a close. The Senate adjourns earlier than usual, without having taken a single roll-call vote. Christmas is almost here, and countless bills still needed to pass.

    Reid is not one for regrets, or for comparing himself to those who held the office before his arrival.

    "I can't be an Everett Dirksen, I don't have his long white hair, I don't have his voice. I can't be Mike Mansfield, I don't smoke a pipe," he says. "I just have to be who I am."

    Reid's home state has benefited substantially from his rise to the majority leader's job, as Nevada has enjoyed financial and political gains from being home to arguably the nation's top elected Democrat.

    But on the national stage Reid sees little more he can do when faced with Senate Republicans willing to stand beside Bush, even as they're "being marched over a cliff" for the next election.

    He recalls his first alone time with Bush, years ago. "He was so nice, 'I'll work with you, try to get along with Democrats.' That's Orwellian talk. Because everything he said to me personally was just the opposite ... This is not Harry Reid talking, this is history.

    "I try to be pleasant, he tries to be pleasant," Reid continued, "but there's an underlying tension there because he knows how I feel, that he's let down the American people by being a divider, not a uniter."

    He holds no hard feelings against Pelosi for setting an ambitious agenda. "Next year she will better understand the Senate than she did this year."

    In 2008 he has two legislative goals: "I would like to get us out of Iraq," he said. "I'd like to establish something to give Americans, Nevadans, the ability to go to a doctor when they're sick."

    And one day, when this job is done, "I wouldn't mind being manager of a baseball team."




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  • Macaca
    02-29 09:03 PM
    Oracle Unit Lobbied on Patents, Visas (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803503.html) Associated Press, Feb 28

    WASHINGTON -- A unit of business software maker Oracle Corp. paid VAR II LLC $140,000 in 2007 to lobby the federal government .

    The firm lobbied Congress on a patent reform bill and immigration reform legislation related to visas for high-tech workers, according to the form posted online Feb. 13 by the Senate's public records office. Oracle USA Inc. paid the firm $140,000 in the second half of 2007 to lobby on those issues after hiring VAR II earlier last year.

    The House last year approved a patent-reform bill intended to reduce litigation, improve patent quality and establish a post-approval evaluation process. Technology and financial services firms support the legislation, but pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies said it would weaken patent protection by reducing infringement penalties. The Senate is considering similar legislation.

    Oracle is based in Redwood City, Calif.

    Lobbyists are required to disclose activities that could influence members of the executive and legislative branches, under a federal law enacted in 1995.



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  • alahiri
    07-10 10:10 AM
    What logiclife has written is well said .. but did we get a chance to articulate this in the radio itself? Or "Mikey" got all the air time?




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  • nojoke
    04-08 05:35 PM
    Apart from location, area, school district and population etc,

    If you think the price of a house that you are looking to buy has come down to 2002 or 2003 price range, then i think you can buy. If not then one should wait.

    What do you guys think?

    The price may be right if it goes to 2002 level. But the way the economy is heading, I will wait for things to become more clear...
    It is not just happening in US. The housing crash started in Europe(UK in particular). It is going to be a mess and blood bath for a year or 2.



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  • eb2dec2005
    08-22 11:57 AM
    Little Johny's first day in pre-school, the teacher gave a little test. She asked the kids to close their eyes and stick the tongue out. She then put honey drops and asked them to guess what it is. When no one was able to, the teacher decided to give a hint.

    "children, its how your mom calls your dad.. well, most of the time anyways"

    On hearing this, Little Johny screamed, "SPIT IT OUT GUYS... ITS A** HOLE"


    I really cracked up reading this joke. :)




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  • posmd
    07-08 07:32 PM
    I feel the same way Gondalguru. This is a globalised world or atleast so the US would like everyone else to believe. In that sense where you are should matter less than the contribution you are making, yet alas the immigration system is stuck in its 20th century President Kennedy era mindset of "reuniting families". I am not against that per se as it is a noble virtue, but when I see that to be in direct contravention of the aims and objectives of globalization which incidently the USA also champions so vehemently, I sense hypocrisy at worst or a conflict of policy at best.

    My parents immigrated to a country which is NOT retrogressed (ROW of which I hold a passport) when I was 3 yrs old.
    I was schooled and in every other way raised as such. Yet I was born in India................as you rightly point out by mere chance. Yet I am saddled with the consequence of waiting in line with every other applicant from India. If that were not funny enough, one of my close friends, his parents were in the USA in the 60s and left when his mother was 7-8 months pregnant with him, and he was born in India, now he has to go through the same line, he also holds a ROW passport. Should the majority of gestation count toward his citizenship?
    These are difficult questions and the current policy is ill geared to deal with them. Those that win from them laud them and those that get hurt curse them. It is what it is..........dysfunctional.
    It either is or it is not a globalised world, and the policy is or is not such. Unfortunately we are all caught in this indecisive mode that the US currently finds itself locked into, it is not just about us and our immigration situation, it is about a lot of other issues as well and the USA will spend the next 10-20 yrs figuring this out.



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  • qplearn
    11-15 11:09 AM
    This guy changes sides based on the audience, check out his latest rhetoric, looks like he is feeling the heat from the results of the current elections:

    ...Zakaria refers to "CNN's Lou Dobbs and his angry band of xenophobes" and Jonathan Alter describes those who agree with me as "nativist Lou Dobbsians." But Alter and Zakaria are far too bright to not know better. I've never once called for a restriction on legal immigration -- in fact, I've called for an increase, if it can be demonstrated that as a matter of public policy the nation requires more than the one million people we bring into this country legally each year.....

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/14/Dobbs.Nov15/index.html

    Actually Lou Dobbs is attempting to paint a picture in which Dems who have won support his stand. Fact is that Dems have won, thanks to Lou Dobbs, because they were OPPOSED to his stand. Perhaps a desperate attempt to save his job at CNN :)




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  • SunnySurya
    08-05 10:45 AM
    And may I please ask how do you know that?
    May be 1% of EB2. Good to know that.



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  • gk_2000
    07-29 05:51 PM
    100 thousand is not for a president to worry about. But 11-12 Million is a different story..




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  • paskal
    07-14 04:45 PM
    The reason for this was not because of EB3ROW getting preference, it was because USCIS illegally used up entire year's quota before the congress actually authorized them to. Stop making false claims about EB3ROW getting preference over Eb2-I

    but you are not correct about this. please look it up. The vertical spillover was going to EB3 ROW, had that not been so, EB2 I would not have become U, even though (you are right about that) USCIS was actually allocating a little too fast.

    The bottom line is this: before the "system changed" the spillover went to EB3 ROW (country quota more important that category preference)
    Now with revised interpretation spillover goes first to EB2 retrogressed countries (preference category precedent over country quota- use of soft quota provison from AC21). Either way Eb3 I was last on the totem pole.
    There would have been no spillover to EB3 I in either situation. I'm not saying this to either to justify it or to argue for it's fairness. Just trying to make a point about the root issues.
    Therefore, the "change" leaves EB3 I exactly where it was before- which of course is an insane place to be. Frankly, in your place, I would be freaking going out of my mind. But if your only reason for this action is that "change", you have to sit back a moment and understand what the change has doen (or in this case not done) to you.
    The ONLY way to solve the EB3I problem is increased GC numbers. That is why recapture has been the first and foremost thing we have always pursued. Last time there was a recapture, GC numbers went to every single category. Anyway you look at it, if with a recapture, EB2 became current, every bit of spillover in every quarter would go to EB3. Eventually, there will be more long lasting reform. For now we desperately need the extra numbers in any form or shape.

    Just my 2c. not trying to trying to "stop your voice from being heard". One piece of friendly and well meaning advice. Target letters and measures at those that have the power to make the changes you want. Otherwise the effort is pointless from the start.



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  • immique
    07-14 01:30 AM
    what a fantasy land we are in. Do you know what an Executive order from the President means? if any one on the forum has the influence to get an Executive order from the President then this retrogression would not have existed at all.

    It may be possible to the Sec.of DHS or the President to issue an executive order to allow a "processing grace period" that extends the visa allotment past Sep30th for a given year for those cases where processing had already begun on or before Sep30th.

    This is a small incremental step - but it may help with using up a few 1000 extra numbers.




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  • rahulpaper
    03-24 06:29 PM
    We may be missing the issue by this infighting (which is not useful to anyone)

    I think any firm involved in unethical behavior (immigration / tax/ state laws/employment laws) perspective should get targeted by USCIS/ICE/DOL and mother of all DHS etc.

    In my understanding following are the type of employees....

    a) Full time employees of large and small Companies like Engineers/Pharmacist/Internal positions/...ex GE/Microsoft/Google/Wellpoint. These guys do not work for "Clients". Usually do not have bench. (there may be some exceptions but minimal unethical behavior is expected).

    b) Full time employees who work for large (Big5 and more) and small CONSULTING firms and consult to other organization... They work for specific project at a "client". Get paid at all times when on project and and on bench. (minimal unlawful activity)

    c) Full time employees of small mom and pop firms (small business/ grocery store/restaurants etc) Get paid a salary but a lot of perk (which are not on w2 in order to save taxes...and that is unethical behavior).

    d) Employee (may be not full time) focused on work at "Client". They are not full time because they do not get paid when they are not on project. Usually smaller "consulting" firms (i would prefer to call them "contracting" firms) do this. There may be many many layers of contracting firms. Each is involved in some sort of unlawful activity.

    I think USCIS should/will go after folks involved in unlawful activities like untaxed money paid...wrong skills listed etc etc etc......Lastly, Just because one was able to do this before does not mean it was legal...

    Stop the infighting......do not generalize...if you want to generalize...generalize only on 1 dimension...LAWFUL vs.UNLAWFUL

    My 2 cents...



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  • nojoke
    04-14 02:05 PM
    It is not going down everywhere...I am in a location where people are buying houses like mad and the prices are actually better than last year.

    And yet, some people in my location are thinking about nothing but resale. They are not able to see a home as anything other than an investment and I am referring to such people in my earlier post.

    Where do you live? Give it time...




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  • EndlessWait
    07-14 09:24 PM
    for those who were eligible to file in EB2, its even more painful...

    There are just too many cases in the Eb3 pipeline, unless USCIS/govt. does something about it..



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  • lskreddy
    12-27 09:52 PM
    As much as terrorism is an evil thing, surgical strikes and stuff won't do crap. It will further alienate and give fodder to the mullahs to create more Kasab's. Really, do you think we can stop 20 yr old guys who are willing to kill themselves, think again? These guys are just washed out completely, there is no retribution, pain, all they see is a target and blow themselves out.

    Instead, we should concentrate on the war within that we face. Be it from communal/political/socio-economic violence or lack of regard for the common man's life. By no means I am saying inaction but war is certainly not the solution. Pakistan will meet its fate sooner than later if they continue the path they have chosen. We don't have to hasten it.

    200 Indians dying is painful but look at these figures to put things into perspective.

    Accidents in India:
    http://morth.nic.in/writereaddata/sublinkimages/table-6408184011.htm

    AIDS
    http://www.avert.org/indiaaids.htm

    Infant Mortality:
    http://www.indexmundi.com/India/infant_mortality_rate.html

    Rapes
    http://keralaonline.com/news/india-ranks-rape-cases_12144.html

    These are all staggering numbers and something none of us have to depend on a third country to seek the cure.

    I hope India continues to apply diplomatic pressure and show the world the parasite Pakistan it has become. As Zardari today acknowledged, they have a cancer within the country, its eating up. If they don't, its just a matter of time. To cure that, if they find mullahs as their doctors, time will be up pretty soon..




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  • lfwf
    08-06 02:50 PM
    But you see, what YOU think RollingFlood wants cannot be achieved through a lawsuit. From what I and pretty much most of us understand from the letter of the law is that it allows for earliest priority date. A lawsuit cannot change the law. Also remember that GCs in the employment based category are given based on SPONSORSHIP by an employer. So an EB3 got an earlier priority date based on a labor petition that existed at some earlier period in time when RollingFlood, I, and plenty of others decided we wanted to get a PhD instead. That was OUR choice.

    Also, this is a free country. People who are really committed to get an advanced degree, can enroll in graduate school part time, which is what many people I know did. They hopped onto the GC line as EB3 and went to grad school part time. Some now have graduate degrees from places like Stanford.

    Also note that the law accounts for really smart people to be unfettered by allowing for things such as EB2 National Interest Waiver and EB1 exceptional ability.

    To say that just because someone was doing a PhD and therefore needs to get an earlier priority date that accounts for their graduate program is, to say the least, weird. It is mixing up the employment based system with a merit based system. In fact, one could argue a merit based system should not have any notion of priority dates whatsoever!

    Also, just like you, I have no personal gain from this, one way or the other :-)



    I have desisted from posting here because all people do is give hystero-emotonal resposnses ranging from "advanced degree means nothing in law' to "his parents must have waived him goodbye". However recently I see some sane posts that actually consider the issues rather than the rhetoric and I feel constrained to point out that you are wrong.

    1. I cannot judge the merits of a lawsuit but the "equivelance" of an advanced degree is set at 5 years by regulation not law. That can be challenged in court. Again- I don't know if it will be thrown out, but it can be challenged all right. It would satisfy the goal of OP, whose primary grouse was with people who do not qualify initially for EB2, using the 5 years to both jump to EB2 and preserve their PD.

    2. The employment based system is actually stratified by "merit" or" "level of job difficulty" (rightly or wrongly so- that's a separate issue). So they are not different things. The preference categories are set up so that it's easist to qualify for EB3 and toughest for EB1. Therefore the jump that BS +5 takes to EB2 already gives them the advantage of a better cut off date in a smaller category. The PD porting magnifies that to the extent that genuine (adding this to avoid renewed attacks on the terrible things EB2 folks do to qualify) original EB2 filers are left at a huge disadvantage. I asked repeatedly why people who spent the same years getting adavanced education should be left behind. No one addressed that, instead gave me alternative sob stories about being wrongly placed in EB3. Two wrongs do not make a right! And I (at least) am not challenging the rights of people who initially could have qualified for an EB2 to port.

    And if its a free country OP has every right to question the regulation. Why have fits over it? How about analysing the issue itself instead and figuring out it's strengths and weaknesses? Do you think USCIS or Congress care that your attorney "made you file EB3"?

    3. EB2 NIW still gives you a PD only AFTER you complete your advanced education and prove yourself exceptional. Still the same EB2 line. EB1 similarly gives you a PD much later- of course for now it does not matter since its current- if it backlogs, expect the same questions from them.

    I fear this thread is fodder for anti immigrants. Virtually every EB3 here has questioned "most EB2's" classification and accused all of us of some kind of fraud. Really guys, be ashamed.




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  • Macaca
    03-04 07:13 AM
    Some paras from The Power Player (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/citizen-k-street/chapters/introduction/index.html).

    Cassidy helped invent the new Washington, which had made him seriously rich. His personal fortune exceeded $125 million. He and his original partner, whom he forced out of the firm 20 years earlier, devised a new kind of business, subsequently mimicked by many others. Their innovation was the first modern "earmarked appropriations" -- federal funds directed by Congress to private institutions when no federal agency had proposed spending the money. Over the subsequent three decades, the government dispensed billions of dollars in "earmarks," and lobbying for such appropriations became a booming Washington industry.

    Cassidy may be the richest Washington lobbyist, but he is far from the best-known. Since a scandal erupted that bears his name, that title belongs to Jack Abramoff, the confessed felon, bribe-payer and tax evader who is now an inmate in the federal prison camp in Cumberland, Md. He is still cooperating in a widening federal probe of corruption on Capitol Hill.

    Cassidy's is a subtler epic that probably reveals more about the culture of Washington, D.C. It, too, involves favors, gifts and contributions, but they are supplemented by the disciplined application of intellect, hard work, salesmanship and connections. In Cassidy's story, all these can influence the decisions of government to the benefit of private parties -- Cassidy's clients.

    On a personal level, Cassidy's saga is a variation on the classic American myth: A determined man from nowhere accumulates great wealth and rises to the top. At different moments it evokes Charles Foster Kane, Jay Gatsby or a character from a Horatio Alger tale. Like them, Cassidy is a self-made man who fulfilled many of his most ambitious dreams. But material success has not pacified all of his personal demons. He is tough, temperamental, driven and, according to many around him, rather lonely.

    Over the next five weeks, The Washington Post will tell Gerald Cassidy's story in a unique way. On Monday, the series will jump to the newspaper's Web site, washingtonpost.com, to begin a 25-chapter serial narrative that will describe how Cassidy built his business, how he made the deals that earned his millions, how he and his fellow-lobbyists influenced decisions of government and helped create the money-centric culture of modern Washington.

    Cassidy's career has spanned an astounding boom in the lobbying business. When Cassidy became a lobbyist in 1975, the total revenue of Washington lobbyists was less than $100 million a year. In 2006 the fees paid to registered lobbyists surpassed $2.5 billion; the Cassidy firm's 51 lobbyists earned about $29 million. In 1975 the rare hiring of a former member of Congress as a lobbyist made eyebrows rise. Today 200 former members of the House and Senate are registered lobbyists. Two of them, tall, gregarious men named Marty Russo and Jack Quinn, work for Cassidy, and at the 30th birthday party they worked the crowd with relish.




    chanduv23
    03-25 01:48 PM
    UN,
    Any stories of AOS applicants porting to self employment under AC21, that you could share with us?

    Given your explanation on risks involved with porting to a small company, I wonder how self employment plays out in an AC21 scenario.

    Thanks very much, as always.

    I heard from the grapevine that UNITEDNATIONS will be the next USCIS chief - so folks better behave with him or he wil report ya all :D :D :D :D




    ghost
    07-17 10:24 AM
    Also I forgot to say Randall, I think you really want to see no greencards to anyone. Are you a spy?

    What's wrong with you man, do your homework before spitting out such venemous statements.



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