Buzzfeed very kindly invited me to participate in their panel discussion (cosponsored with, yes, the Charles Koch Institute) last week.** You can watch the result here. A couple of follow-up points:
10:55 PM 05/19/2013
Where they least expect to find it! Here is the first paragraph of that allegedly exculpatory NYT story on the IRS's Cincinnati office:
2:47 AM 05/17/2013
Things to come: Isn't it time for the inevitable Paul Krugman column endorsing the Schumer-Rubio amnesty plan? True, in the past, Krugman has expressed strong reservations (collected by John T. Bennett here) about the labor market effect of massive unskilled immigration. For example,
4:43 PM 05/16/2013
An idea so crazy it just might ... Opponents and supporters of "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e. amnesty) agree it doesn't do well on the front burner of public debate. Excessive attention exposes flaws and contradictions in the legislation and focuses the anger of opponents. Back in March, I didn't see how the Obama team, however brilliant, was going to protect its amnesty bill from this threat of publicity, given that the mainstream press was "commmitted to overcovering this issue."
8:16 PM 05/12/2013
Memories: I always thought the number of Bill Clinton enemies audited by his Internal Revenue Service was a bit high to be coincidental.* When Clinton accuser Paula Jones was audited in 1997, Clinton's press secretary Mike McCurry denied White House involvement:
6:16 PM 05/09/2013
Harmonic convergence of kausfiles themes! Two seemingly unrelated developments:
2:16 PM 05/08/2013
Handy guide to the Larger Issue: Justin Green, responding to the arguments over the Heritage Foundation's estimate of the cost of immigration amnesty, says that what this debate is "really about" is whether we're heading towards
1:57 AM 05/07/2013
Method to their hubris? Why would members of the Senate's "Gang of 8" immigration amnesty supporters put out word that "they think the bill could win at least 70 Senate votes"? It only takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate. You'd think the "Gang" would be happy with that--last time a "comprehensive" amnesty came up for a cloture vote, in 2007, it only got 45 votes, not even a majority. By setting the bar so high, at 70, they risk making what would ordinarily be a smashing triumph--e.g., 61 votes--look disappointing. If the goal, as two "Gang" members--Schumer and McCain--suggested, is sending a message to the House that the bill has overwhelming momentum, why make even a 65 vote victory look underwhelming? It seems a mystery. Are they just cocky?
4:08 AM 05/04/2013
Rubio: Illegals will pay fines or be deported! Ambassador of Amnesty Marco Rubio argues on Powerline--or rather, "Marco Rubio" argues, since the words are attributed only to his "office"**--that critics overstate the number of new immigrants who would be added by his legalization bill:
6:29 AM 05/03/2013
Shorter Marco Rubio:
4:47 AM 05/01/2013
Accomplice to Kabuki! "The most serious threat to bipartisan immigration reform," writes Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, "doesn’t involve border security or guest workers or even the path to citizenship. It’s about gay rights."
5:36 AM 04/29/2013
Psst, Krauthammer! Rubio has already caved on the border fence: Charles Krauthammer says he would "like to strike [an immigration] deal now where we get the strongest enforcement possible ... And that’s where, I think, everything hinges now." His support depends on those details: "I don't know if I'll support the final bill." He says he expects Sen. Marco Rubio to press for tough enforcement measures:
5:44 PM 04/25/2013
Pseudo.com: Mark Zuckerberg is mounting a Koch Bros.-like effort to influence American politics in the direction of immigration amnesty--he's apparently funding "Americans for Conservative Direction," an ersatz insta-group of Beltway parasites veteran Republican operatives who support the amnesty project. One of the two ads financed by the group is running in South Carolina. It's in effect a campaign ad for Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, praising him for attacking Obamacare and Obama's "seedy, Chicago style politics."
9:03 PM 04/24/2013
Schumer-Rubio Fraud O' the Day: You know the alleged requirement, heavily advertised by supporters of "comprehensive" immigration amnesty, that previously illegal immigrants will have to pay "back taxes" in order to become legal? Turns out that's basically a fraud too-- like so much else in the Schumer-Rubio "Gang of 8" amnesty bill. Politico had the story last week [E.A.]:
4:09 AM 04/22/2013
On April 17, Sen. Marco Rubio went on Mark Levin's radio show to sell the immigration amnesty bill from the "Gang of 8," of which Rubio is a prized member. He brought up the legislation's goal of apprehending 90% of illegal border crossers (in "high-risk" sectors)--alluding no less than four times in 17 minutes to its creation of a "border commission." He used virtually identical language all four times:
1:39 AM 04/18/2013
Gang of 8 Fakery, Part 1: Remember that wacky Charles Krauthammer column from a month ago--the one that began by shredding the Marco Rubio amnesty plan but wound up endorsing it? Krauthammer's reasoning at the time was strange, but (barely) defensible. The immigration plan we really want, he argued (correctly, in my boook) is
5:38 AM 04/15/2013
Marco Rubio was defensive and jargon-addled on ABCs This Week. He was slick and effective on NBC and CNN and somewhere in between on FOX, But he was selling BS on all four networks. Here are three examples:
9:12 PM 04/13/2013
"Where do I go for my amnesty?" One reason I got interested in the immigration issue was the similarity between the ... well, let's call it Liberal BS of the welfare reform debate and the BS of the immigration debate. Defenders of welfare used to argue, for example, that high benefits, or promises of training rather than required work, didn't attract people onto the dole. Obvious BS. (Even if you favored more generous welfare benefits, it didn't make sense to deny that one consequence would be more people going on welfare.) Liberals also said nobody on welfare would move from state to state for higher benefits. Had they ever been to Wisconsin?
5:37 AM 04/11/2013
Fig leaves wilting! It looks like the requirement that the Border Patrol catch 90% of illegal crossers--reported by the WSJ and touted by both Marco Rubio's chief of staff and my colleague Matt Lewis as an example of the " tough border enforcement measures" in the Gang of 8 immigration amnesty bill--has turned out to be evanescent, like so many of the other promises amnesty boosters have pitched to conservatives.
3:16 AM 04/11/2013
Where's OFA? The pro-amnesty rally in front of the U.S. Capitol was described as "massive" on my local NPR station even before it had taken place. Here is an NBC newscast with a pretty good photo-not an up-close photo, but one that lets you gauge the size of the crowd. It's not massive! It's not even very large. I'd say 10,000 or fewer.
