Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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Special "Why does the new iTunes crash all the time?" edition:
Details from The Washington Post and MyDD.
The lovely and talented Ursula will certainly have more to say on this issue, but here's the nickel summary.
On policy, this seems like something of a raw deal. Republicans gave up a long fence that won't work in exchange for a short fence that won't work. Democrats allowed the return of the bracero program, which will move America towards European-style immigration. What's more, this does nothing to solve the big problem in immigration enforcement: employers and employees still have every incentive to cheat. Even if we returned to Clinton-era levels of labor law enforcement (the number of fines against employers for hiring undocumented immigrants has dropped to near-zero levels under Bush), it will still be too easy to hire incoming undocumented immigrants. It's difficult to forecast the exact consequences of the guest worker program; will it make it easier to prevent the entrance and hiring of the 100,000 to 300,000 immigrants who will still probably enter illegally? Will we allow guest workers to apply for green cards, in which case, strictly speaking, one doesn't need a new "path to citizenship"? We can't tell. In theory one can make those changes later, but the bulk of the bill has to pass now.
Bowers is looking at the politics solely in terms of next election cycle, in which case, yes, you have to be worried about Democrats losing some ground among Latinos, though a Tancredo-led uprising in the GOP might fix that problem. But in the long term, passing the immigration bill this session is the right thing to do. You can't pass anything in '08 because it's an election year. In 2009, an incoming President of either party will have too many priorities to expend political capital on immigration reform. An incoming Democratic President, in particular, is not going to have much cover to compromise on immigration. You have to bite the bullet now rather than later.
What a fantastic bad movie! And I don't mean that it's an entertaining but substance-free high-budget action flick like, say, Enemy of the State,The 5th Element or The Rock. It's just ... awful, and therefore hilarious. The dialogue transparently cheesey it's hard not to laugh out loud. Clearly the writers must have been searching for this aesthetic ... it's to contrived to be an accident.
The Filthy Critic has this about right.
What's most surprising about Paul Wolfowitz's imminent departure from the World Bank is that the White House hasn't yet fired him. It's been abundantly clear for the last few years that other member countries have had enough, that they rightly think you can't engage in corrupt activities while pushing for developing nations to reduce corruption, and that they will fire Wolfowitz and not allow the U.S. to name his replacement. Historically, the U.S. has appointed the World Bank President, while Europe has appointed the IMF President. But by all indications, the U.S. is about to reject a compromise that would end the European campaign to end this tradition.
Yes, the Bush administration places a high value on loyalty; however, when it looks like Team Bush will lose, they have a history of folding. Nominations are withdraw, bills are pulled, etc. It seems we reached a point where failure was certain about a week ago, yet the White House stood by Wolfowitz. Bizarre.
Drinking Liberally tonight at the Montlake Ale House.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 12:02 15 May 2007
