Running on Blade Runner
Mayor Villaraigosa sees L.A.'s future, and it's dense.
This isn't the language of a politician who wants to transcend partisan difference. This is the language of a politician who wants to wallow in partisan (and ideological) cant! Obama knows better, of course--he gave a very different answer at the time of the big immigration marches of May, 2006 [E.A.]:
It does appear that undocumented workers have a somewhat adverse effect in depressing the wages of low-skill workers, which is why in the African-American community, for example, there is some nervousness of about the number of undocumented workers that are coming into this country and whether they are systematically replacing or pushing out low-skill, low-wage black workers.
I doubt he's changed his mind. He's just pandering.
[2] Obama can't even bring himself to say that the problem of losing control of the borders is the number of illegal immigrants who come in. No, it's just that we don't know "who they are"! The suggestion to his target constituency is that he's happy with unlimited immigration as long as all those tens of millions of immigrants are identified. ...
[3] Most pathetically, he says he wants to crack down on employers who violate minimum wage laws, etc, but can't even bring himself to say he would crack down on employers because they hire illegals. Sanctions against such employers--even if they pay the minimum wage--are the conventional core of the "comprehensive" enforcement-for-amnesty deal. Often Democrats overeemphasize these sanctions as a way of bashing employers instead of immigrants and avoiding talk of a fence. But this week, apparently, mentioning the completely respectable Bush/McCain/Kennedy sanctions idea is too comprehensive for Obama. Risks upsetting some Latino voters. They don't "need to know," I guess. ...
Swoontime is over here at kf. ... 2:56 A.M. link
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
It sure sounded like a concession speech to me. ... Rush Limbaugh could have called on conservatives across the country to rally to Romney and stop McCain. He didn't. That seems like a big signal. ... 1:37 P.M. link
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Maybe you can figure out if McCain actually answered Janet Hook's question last night [E.A.] [Update: Transcript has been corrected. See below]:
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