This Post Is 15/16 Of A Foot

Alfred W. McCoy cites "endless incarceration, extrajudicial killing, pervasive surveillance, drone strikes in defiance of national boundaries, torture on demand, and immunity for all of the above on the grounds of state secrecy." "They," he suggests, "represent the real American exceptionalism."

On a lighter note, however, Vox's Zach Beauchamp writes

Virtually every country on earth aside from the United States measures temperature in Celsius. This makes sense; Celsius is a reasonable scale that assigns freezing and boiling points of water with round numbers, zero and 100. In Fahrenheit, those are, incomprehensibly, 32 and 212.

This isn't just an aesthetic issue. America's stubborn unwillingness to get rid of Fahrenheit temperatures is part of its generally dumb refusal to change over to the metric system, which has real-world consequences. One conversion error between US and metric measurements sent a $125 million NASA probe to its fiery death in Mars' atmosphere.

Once upon a time, forty years or so ago, it appeared the USA might step up and join the rest of the civilized world in using the metric system. Beauchamp continues

Congress passed a law, the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, that was theoretically supposed to begin the process of metrication. It set up a Metric Board to supervise the transition.

The law crashed and burned. Because it made metrication voluntary, rather than mandatory, the public had a major say in the matter. And lots of people didn't want to have to learn new systems for temperatures or weights.

"Motorists rebelled at the idea of highway signs in kilometers, weather watchers blanched at the notion of reading a forecast in Celsius, and consumers balked at the prospect of buying poultry by the kilogram," Jason Zengerle writes in Mother Jones. Organized labor fought it as well, according to Zengerle, so workers wouldn't have to retrain to learn the new measures.

President Reagan dismantled the Metric Board in 1982, its work in tatters. Congress's dumb implementation of the law ensured that America would keep measuring temperature in Fahrenheit.

Today, the US is virtually alone in the world in staying off the metric system, joined only by Burma and Liberia (Burma announced its intent to metricate in 2013).

Susannah Locke, also of Vox, explains

The measuring system that the United States uses right now isn't really a system at all. It's a hodgepodge of various units that often seem to have no logical relationship to one another, units collected throughout our history here and there, bit by bit. Twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 1,760 yards in a mile.

The metric system, by contrast, was intentionally created with ease and simplicity in mind. And as a result, it's incredibly efficient to use. All you need to do is multiply or divide by some factor of ten. 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 100 centimeters in a meter, 1,000 meters in a kilometer. Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C....

Not being metric-fluent can hamper collaboration and communication across borders. And it's not just annoying, but can add real costs. For example, many US manufacturers need to make two kinds of products for every item — one for here and one for there. Foreign manufacturers also have to modify products just for the US market (or decide that maybe it's not worth the bother).

The map (by NBS, via USMA) below was drawn up in 1971 but no nation has abandoned the metric system since then, and the USA remains one of a very few holdouts. Switching would be one of the few things this nation could do to acknowledge intensifying globalization without costing American jobs.  It isn't likely the country's opinion makers will make another stab at adopting the metric system. Being one of the last of a dying breed has its own advantages, such as once again proving that we are, indeed, as exceptional as we tell ourselves we are.

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Oil-Rigging A Settlement

New Jersey's singularly egocentric governor is at it again. Andrew Seidman of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports

New Jersey's acting attorney general confirmed Thursday that the state had reached a settlement agreement with ExxonMobil Corp. over decades of contamination in North Jersey, but the announcement was overshadowed by allegations that a top aide to Gov. Christie meddled in the litigation and criticism that the deal shortchanged taxpayers and the environment.

The proposed $225 million settlement, reached after state prosecutors sought $8.9 billion in damages at trial last year, is expected to be published in the New Jersey Register on April 6.

Fortunately, the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings- and we're not talking about Chris Christie covering "Born in the USA." Instead, according to Seidman, the settlement "would then be subject to a 30-day comment period and must be approved by a state judge."

The history of the settlement is more than a little curious.  Seidman explains

The 2004 environmental lawsuit alleged that for decades, ExxonMobil's plants and refineries in Linden and Bayonne contaminated the state's wetlands, marshes, and creeks.

The case finally moved to trial last year, and all that was left to determine was what ExxonMobil owed in damages.

The judge was apparently close to issuing a ruling. But in January, the state asked the judge to delay a decision so that settlement talks could proceed, the New York Times reported last week.

Environmental law professor Edward Lloyd of Columbia University Law School noted the timing of the settlement was odd and maintained, wrote Seidman,

There are times in the life of a case when a settlement is really opportune but that doesn't seem to be the case here. You've done all the work. The case is in; it's in front of the judge. Why all of a sudden do you think the judge is going to discounty your claim by 95 percent? If you thought that, why wasn't the case settled five years ago, for instance?

Why, indeed? I think we know the answer to that, given

Under the appropriations bill Christie signed in June, the first $50 million the state obtains "in natural resource, cost recoveries and other associated damages" must be deposited into a fund for hazardous discharge cleanup.

But the law says all money obtained beyond that "shall" be diverted to the general fund. Democrats had sought to allocate half of such money - beyond the initial $50 million - to environmental programs, but Christie vetoed that language.

New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel contends

This is a bigger scandal than Bridgegate. Bridgegate was about retribution. This settlement is costing the taxpayers billions of dollars.Wen you sell out the public and let the poluters off the hook, it sends a message that you can get away with anything in the Christie administration.

Not if you're a teacher or a Navy SEAL. Or a reporter (video below).  Or just about any citizen.  If you're a corporation (corporations are people, my friend!), you've bought your ticket to scavenge Chris Christie's constituents..

"The administration had no reason to settle," Tittel recognizes, "other than balancing the budget and giving away the store to Exxon-Mobil at the expense of New Jersey's environment."

But Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman, appointed by the governor, begs to differ and, Seidman notes, "said Thursday that the state wouldn't  receive settlemnt money until fiscal 2016 at the earliest. The funds would be allocated in accordance with the appropriations act for that fiscal year, which begins July 1."

The fiscal year runs July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016. And what would it be which would take place within that time frame?  It couldn't be a Repub presidential race,could it?  It would not be wise for Chris Christie to face GOP primary voters- and, especially, wealthy potential donors- having to defend reinstating a millionaires' tax to balance the budget.  Or to do  anything, even if it were helping to facilitate the Second Coming.

No one can accuse ExxonMobil of stupidity or an excess of altruism. Seidman found

Records filed with the IRS show ExxonMobil donated $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association in 2014, when Christie chaired the group and raised record sums to help elect GOP governors across the country. The company had made contributions to the RGA in previous years, including more than $600,000 in 2010, records show.

ExxonMobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said the company also donated to the Democratic Governors Association. Christie's position as RGA chairman last year "had no bearing on our decision to donate or the amount donated," he said.

No, of course it didn't. Jeffers didn't say how much (or when, as far as the reader can tell) his company had donated to the Democratic Governors Association. He also neglected to mention that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton never had been chairperson of the Democratic Governors Association

The authentic and non-apologetic "what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of politician" may have been tangentially involved:

In a commentary published Thursday in the New York Times, Bradley M. Campbell, a former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection who authorized the lawsuit against ExxonMobil in 2004, called the settlement a "disgrace" and an "embarrassment to law enforcement and good government."

He said former colleagues in state government had told him that Christopher Porrino, the governor's chief counsel, "elbowed aside the attorney general and career employees who had developed and prosecuted the litigation, and cut the deal favorable to Exxon."

Counter-attacking, Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts termed Bradley's claims "baseless allegations" and "irresponsible (and) disingenuous" coming from a "many-time Democratic appointee."  Blaming the messenger rather than refuting the message is a classic tactic, one nearly perfected in recent years by Repub operatives.  Roberts' attack, though, is best understood  by a story told by an attorney and literary agent, who in 1985 wrote


I call it “The Last Resort Rule.” It was taught to me by a great teacher at Columbia Law School named Jerome Michael, who taught a course in appellate advocacy. At the last moment in the last class of the course, when he had taught us everything he knew, he said: “These are my final words on advocacy. If you have the facts on your side, hammer the facts. If you have the law on your side, hammer the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, hammer the table.”

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Risky Business

The Associated Press Thursday reported

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his speech to the U.S. Congress offered a "practical alternative" to a possible Iranian nuclear deal, while opinion polls showed his party received a slight bump following his address ahead of the country's March 17 election.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the Israeli leader had offered no viable alternative to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, saying "there was nothing new" in Netanyahu's speech Tuesday.

In a statement released after he landed in Israel, Netanyahu said the alternative deal he presented in Congress would make it harder for Iran to build a nuclear bomb.

"I proposed a practical alternative that through tougher restrictions would extend the breakout time, by years, that it would take Iran to reach a nuclear weapon if it decides to breach the agreement," he said.

Netanyahu (photo from AP/Susan Walsh) argued that the current restrictions should not be lifted until the world demands "that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state."

It is, he might have added, the one and only democratic state in the region, but far be it for me to tell a fellow who got 23 standing ovations how to frame an applause line.

The Prime Minister demanded not one, not two, but three things be accomplished before the current restrictions are lifted.  If the USA is going to implement sanctions against any Arab or Persian country  which does not stop aggression, support terrorism, or threaten to annihilate Israel, we're going to have a rather wide-ranging sanctions regime. We can begin with Saudi Arabia, which formerly funded Hamas and ISIL. These are not nations with good intentions.

The AP noted also "He said he received 'very encouraging" responses from Democrats and Republicans to his speech."

If indeed the Prime Minister heard "very encouraging' responses from Democrats, they may have been blowing smoke up his posterior, given that chances for veto-proof passage by Congress of a sanctions bill appear to have declined as a result of the speech. However, the opinion polls back home do show an improvement, however slight, for Likud.

Mission accomplished. Electoral victory is susceptible to major influence by the Prime Minister. The reaction of Iran to an increase in sanctions is not, though it is likely it would break off negotiations and ramp up its effort to produce a nuclear weapon.      As Mother Jones' David Corn points out, "if the past 12 years are any guide, unintended consequences are the norm when it comes to war and policy in the Middle East."





Correction: In a rather stupid mistake, my previous post contained quotes from a Netanyahu speech and a link to it. Unfortunately, that was the speech the Prime Minister delivered in Israel before embarking to the USA. The error is regretted or, as public officials are wont to put it, "I apologize if you misinterpreted anything I said and it offended you."  






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Republican Production

In the course of slapping American policy toward Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a valid point when he noted

As Assad drops bell bombs on his own people, Israeli doctors treat his victims in our hospitals right across the fence in the Golan Heights.

As Christians in the Middle East are beheaded and their ancient communities are decimated, Israel’s Christian community is growing and thriving, the only one such community in the Middle East.

As women in the region are repressed, enslaved, and raped, women in Israel serve as chief justices, CEOs, fighter pilots, two women chief justices in a row.Well, not in a row, but in succession. That’s pretty good.

Two "not in a row, but in succession"- even the grammar was impeccable, unsurprising from someone who went to high school in the greater Philadelphia, Pa. area.

Still, the Miami Herald's Jim Morin succinctly and exquisitely captures the essence of the Netanyahu visit:

No disrespect, indeed.  Netanyahu spoke before a joint session of Congress, as American presidents do, in an effort to derail any deal between the administration of this president and Tehran, and from the same rostrum as presidents do. There, he gave a shout-out to Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the USA, as "a man who knows how to take the heat," stating "I couldn't be prouder to have you representing Israel in Washington." (By contrast, he commended US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro for "the great job you’re doing representing the United States and the State of Israel." The US and Israel?)

Yet, Netanyahu has an election to win and calculates that pressing Israel's interests (as he sees them) in such an august setting in the capital of Israel's most powerful and steadfast ally is likely to help him squeeze through.

John Boehner and his merry band of obstructionists, however, have no such excuse.Notwithstanding Netanyahu's strategic gamble and  the ironic phrase coming from the Israeli prime minister in Morin's cartoon, this nearly unprecedented event was driven not by Bibi but by House Repubs.  Tuesday afternoon, Vox's Zack Beauchamp explained

On January 8, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reached out to Ron Dermer, Israel's Ambassador to the US (and a former Republican operative), to discuss having Netanyahu speak in Congress. The Israelis and Republicans worked out the details of the event without notifying the White House, to "make sure," in Boehner's words, "that there was no interference" from the administration.

That process went on for two weeks. The afternoon of January 20, Boehner's office "informed Ambassador Dermer of our intent to issue the invitation." Dermer "accepted and acknowledged [their] intent to do so."

Sometime between then and the morning of January 21, the Speaker's office told the Obama administration of the plan. That morning, Boehner issued a formal invitation to Netanyahu. The Prime Minister accepted, and here we are.

The details of the timing are important. Dermer knew about the invitation before Obama did, and, according to Boehner's office, accepted that the invitation was coming. But Netanyahu did not formally accept until after the White House had been informed.

Evidently, this was largely a deal between the Speaker of the GOP House and Dermer, who

was widely seen in Israel as having steered Netanyahu toward showing almost overt support for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in his failed 2012 electoral bid to unseat President Barack Obama, with whom Netanyahu had had frosty ties.

Israeli media reported that Dermer, though officially welcomed by the Obama administration, had had ties with the U.S. leader’s Republican rivals.

During the campaign for the November election, Netanyahu had a high-profile meeting with Romney when he visited Israel, in contrast with past Israeli practice of avoiding publicity that may be seen as expressing support for any U.S. candidate.

The Haaretz newspaper wrote on its website that Dermer was seen as a “clear supporter of the Republican party”, whose family has had close ties with the party. State-owned Channel One television said he was seen as someone who supported Romney.

Admittedly, Bibi Netanyahu was, and is, more than a pawn.  Nonetheless, this whole escapade has been a political gambit spawned by two GOP heavy hitters (approved by the P.M.)  more interested in political advantage than in heading off acquisition of a nuclear weapon by Iran.  In approximately two weeks Israeli voters will have an opportunity to prove they won't be played.

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No Cognitive Dissonance Here

You will be forgiven for wondering, at times, what it must like to be a conservative Republican. Being of that faith means a lot of things, one of which apparently is the tendency toward self-delusion.

In June, 2014 a contributing editor at National Review, Quin Hillyer, was convinced he understood American exceptionalism and who was undermining it when he argued

Part of the attack is cultural, with radicals running our colleges, anti-competitive nonsense peddled in our elementary schools and playgrounds, filth dominating the entertainment industry, traditional faith sneered at (and increasingly disfavored by public policy), and the idea of American exceptionalism (along with appreciation for its constituent parts) denied from the Oval Office itself.

Hillyer believed the USA no longer was considered the world's dominant power as

.... America’s traditional strengths are terribly imperiled abroad while not just eroding, but being chipped away at, from within. Everything that made us what we once were is under attack. People feel it. They see it. They understand it. They fear it. And, in hushed tones, they talk about it. 

This is the ongoing legacy of Barack Obama. The question is, as long as he is president, how do we stop it from happening?

Monday, the day before the Prime Minister of Israel would give his speech to Congress aimed at undermining the President of the USA and enhancing his own re-election prospects, Hillyer chose to contrast the week-kneed Obama with the strong-willed Benjamin Netanyahu. "While Barack Obama babbles about the supposedly 'legitimate grievances,' of those who turn to jihad,"  Hillyer wrote,

Right now, nobody on the world stage speaks for civilization the way Netanyahu does....

Benjamin Netanyahu of course speaks first for Israel, but he speaks also for you and for me, for decency and humaneness, and for vigilance and strength against truly evil adversaries. Congress, by inviting him, is wise. Obama, by opposing him, is horribly wrong. And the civilized world, if it ignores him, will be well-nigh suicidal.

He says a foreign leader, not the President of the United States (US Constitution, Article II, Section 2) "speaks also for you and for me."  Of course, this is following the cue from the Awesome Man himself, Netanyahu, who three weeks ago declared “I went to Paris not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people" (helpfully rebuked by Senator Dianne Feinstein, below).









But today's award for self-delusion goes to Scott Walker. Slamming Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, Walker previously contended  "Ronald Reagan would never have uttered the words 'self-deportation.'" The other day on Fox News Sunday, he maintained "Well, I don't believe in amnesty. Part of the reason why I made that a firm position is that I look at the way that this president has mishandled that issue."

"This president" has not handled the issue nearly as adroitly as, say, the Man of 666, Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6).   A few months ago, the Associated Press' Andrew Taylor reminded us

Nearly three decades ago, there was barely a peep when Reagan and Bush used their authority to extend amnesty to the spouses and minor children of immigrants covered by the 1986 law.

In 1986, Congress and Reagan enacted a sweeping overhaul that gave legal status to up to 3 million immigrants without authorization to be in the country, if they had come to the U.S. before 1982. Spouses and children who could not meet that test did not qualify, which incited protests that the new law was breaking up families.

Early efforts in Congress to amend the law to cover family members failed. In 1987, Reagan's Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner announced that minor children of parents granted amnesty by the law would get protection from deportation.


So Scott Walker doesn't "believe in amnesty," claims "unlike Romney, Reagan connected with the daily struggles of ordinary Americans," and idolizes the man largely responsible for two (2) programs of amnesty for illegal immigrants.  For so many conservative Repubs, simultaneously holding two contradictory viewpoints is not cause for reconsideration or re-examination, but simply de rigueur.





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Some Form Of Legalization. Or Whatever.

Greg Sargent is all excited about what he views as moderating opinions of Republican presidential aspirants on immigration. Or maybe not excited, but at least intrigued, as he writes

Bush’s suggestion today that he supports legalization — combined with his reflexive nodding along as Hannity demanded the border be secured first — puts him in this same vague space. Marco Rubio, who previously supported the Senate bill, has also reverted to this same place. Obviously CPAC was not the place to roll out detailed policy proposals, and it’s way too early in the process to expect specifics. But one surprise about the 2016 GOP field has been that, unlike many House Republicans, most of the contenders actually do appear open to supporting some form of legalization or other. 

"Some form of legalization or other,"  Chris Christie has avoided answering questions about immigration and John Kasich seems confused. But when you cut through the confusing statements of Repub hopefuls, this is what those contenders say about immigration, as culled from the National Journal and other sources:

- Rand Paul:  "assimilation" and normalization after ensuring border security;
- Ted Cruz: no citizenship but perhaps "a path to legal status"
- John Ellis Bush: "Let’s do it. Let’s do it, man. Let’s control the border. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what a great nation has to do.”)
-Marco Rubio: securing the border first is "the only way forward"
-Bobby Jindal: President Obama "just needs to man up and secure our border.”
-Ben Carson: "Whoever wins in 2016....should make it their goal to seal that border within a year" (great surgeon, awful grammarian)
-Scott Walker: "First and foremost, you've got to secure that border or none of these plans make any sense."
- Rick Perry: according to a spokesperson, "believes we must secure the border first before addressing immigration reform. After the border is secure, we can have a conversation.."
-Mike Huckabee: "....immigration reform should start with repealing Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders and securing our border
-Rick Santorum: is "a strident opponent of a general pathway to citizenship"
-Carly Fiorina: legalization but not "full citizenship" (as National Journal put it)
-Lindsay Graham: "a pathway to citizenship after we secure our borders"

"Secure the borders first" is their lifeline and none will endorse citizenship. Walker, as close as there is to a Repub frontrunner at present, was asked Sunday about a path to citizenship and replied "I believe there’s a way you can do that. First and foremost, you have to secure that border, or none of these plans make any sense." (Videos below are from a month ago.) Pleased, Sargent tweeted "key to Walker's immigration comments: He said 'there's a way' to get to legalization, if border secured first."


"Nearly all of the Republicans talk like that," Steve M. recognizes,

because Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush weren't immigration hardliners, because many of their big donors aren't immigration hardliners, and because a lot of them tried to win a bit of Hispanic support in past elections. But if we elect a Republican president next year, that president will be dealing with anti-immigration zealots in his own party just as Bush did during his presidency, and just as John Boehner is doing now.

"If border secured first," Walker cautions, because as he and his fellow Repubs realize the border simply will not be secured- ever.  If it is- and that's highly unlikely- it would be in some far off future, with many circumstances intervening. By that time, no one would hold any Repub to his/her vague promise to do something or other about what no politician seriously believes ever will happen.  And Laura Ingraham aside, most Republicans have no interest in cutting off the supply of cheap labor, while Democrats will not block blocking immigration from south of the Texas border.

Greg Sargent is thrilled a likely viable presidential candidate has suggested a way to get to legalization. Even he is not focused on citizenship because, well... he must have some reason.





 

Trying To Hit That Sweet Spot

John Ellis Bush has been all over the map on illegal immigration.

As Politifact has noted, in 1994 he opposed a border fence, but was for deportation.   In 2006, he supported a broad guest worker program and citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.  In 2009, he was in favor of legalization and citizenship, but in a separate statement, supported only legalization.  In 2012, it was a path to citizenship "or a path to legalization." The following year, he advocated "a path to permanent legal resident status" because "A grant of citizenship is an undeserving reward for conduct that we cannot afford to encourage."

Now an all-but-declared candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, John Ellis Bush may have settled on the latter position. On Friday in a question-and-answer format (Bush, below) at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he remarked

The plan also includes a path to legal status. I have not seen anybody- and I know there's disagreement here. Some of these people are angry about this and look, I kind of feel your pain. I was in Miami this morning- it was 70 degrees, so.   The simple fact is there is no plan to deport 11 million people. We should give them a path to legal status where they work, they don't receive government benefits, where they don't break the law, where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society. That's what we need to be focused on.









Legal status, legalization, residency: all terms used at one time or another by John Ellis Bush, and each a (slightly) different way to say: "you can come here and work but you're not going to be able to vote or get any benefits of American citizenship because you're just not up to our standards."

That's John Ellis Bush trying- thus far unsuccessfully- to thread the needle. The popular base doesn't want any concessions whatsoever to illegal immigrants (Laura Ingraham, below) and Bush thinks they will be mollified if he wants to deny them under all circumstances the right to vote (Democratic). Meanwhile, he knows that his numerous big money donors like the idea of letting immigrants (legal and illegal) in and having them compete with American citizens for jobs.








It's hardly surprising that the former Florida governor, the preferred candidate of the 1%, is sympathetic to increasing immigration as long as the entrants don't gain the dignity or the bargaining power of citizenship. In an article in Salon, Philip Cafaro explains the task for progressives to chip away at growing income inequality:

Harvard’s George Borjas, a leading authority on the economic impacts of immigration, contends that during the 1970s and 1980s, each immigration-driven 10 percent increase in the number of workers in a particular economic field in the United States decreased wages in that field by an average of 3.5 percent. More recently, studying the impact of immigration on African-Americans, Borjas and colleagues found that a 10 percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the wages of black workers in that group by 4 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a percentage point....

In recent decades, mass immigration arguably has harmed poorer workers and increased economic inequality in the United States. But this should not surprise us. By importing millions of poor people into the United States and setting them in competition with other poor people for scarce jobs, we drive down wages and increase unemployment among those who can least afford it. Our current era of gross economic inequality, low wages and persistently high unemployment seems like precisely the wrong time to expand immigration.

Arguably, today, progressives concerned about American workers should advocate reductions in legal immigration. After all, immigration can go up as well as down. Just as Congress increased immigration levels in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s, it could decrease immigration levels today, at a time when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed and the majority suffers from stagnating wages. Perhaps a moratorium on non-essential immigration is in order, until the official unemployment rate declines below 5 percent and stays there for several years in a row, or until real wages for the bottom half of American workers increase by 25 percent or more. Tightening up labor markets worked post-World War II, during the golden age of the American labor movement. It can work again today (just ask the American Medical Association, which lobbies vigorously against accrediting foreign doctors).

There is good reason the AMA lobbies against bringing in foreign doctors, and a good reason John Ellis Bush is in favor of bringing in people to perform work for low-wage work in farming, building maintenance, food preparation, and other fields. They have good reason- for themselves and for the people they represent. For the rest of us- especially if immigrants don't get a clear, streamlined path to citizenship- it's a bad deal.

And in St. Louis today, it was 37 degrees. So.

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