Moscow to slash the number of migrant workers permitted to work there.

Thanks to Michel of Innocent Bystanders.

Note: The initiative is actually being pushed by Moscow's mayor, not Putin. But that kills the joke headline, and besides, Putin has now taken over just about all power from local politicians, same as in the bad old days of the official USSR.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Comments (14)
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Bit of background: hard-left former Kossack blogger Steve Gillard passed away. I didn't note it, observing the rule that one should speak no ill of the dead (and the related rule, if you don't have something nice to say, shut up).

Long story short, Instapundit noted that a blogger had quit after receiving a lot of nasty emails. Instapundit incorrectly thought the contretempts had to do with one posting; in fact, it was almost entirely because she had linked a venomous cruelogy about his passing.

Odub slammed Instapundit as having an "agenda" (when in fact he was simply misinformed -- hey, it happens to the most cautious and details-oriented of us. Ahem.)

While Malcolm XXXL bloviates about how horrible it is to impugn the dead so shortly after their deaths and how Instapundit mustn't use his high profile to promote those who traffic in such hatred, he seems to forget posts of his own from a mere several weeks ago, showing his position on cruelogies to be, ahem, highly nuanced.

I guess Instapundit took Malcolm XXXL's advice to not link dancing-on-graves bloggers, because I don't think I see an Odub link in his posts.

I should now admit the entire reason for this post is to write "Malcolm XXXL." I'm not sure if the guy who made that up wants credit/blame for it, but as soon as he used that nickname, I demanded to know why I had not been informed immediately.

I've not bothered to pick on poor Filet-O-Fish in years; he's beneath me; he's beneath most.

But when someone comes up with Malcolm XXXL, well, basically at that point I'm just looking for an excuse to post about him.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (17)
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She was psychologically distressed to have her freedom taken from her and be incarcerated.

Uhhh, yeah. That's the whole idea of prison.

Then again, in LA, it's now legal to murder your spouse or ex-spouse, so it's hardly surprising they don't take DUI probation-violations altogether seriously.

In quasi-related sperm-receptacle news, you can now check "your boys" to see if they're capable of swimming to the prize.

The device seems to be a portable sink you're supposed to masturbate into. Terrrific -- I always thought there should be a travel-version. I mean, they've got travel versions of Scrabble and such. It should make a decent time-killer on airplanes.

Shock: Al Sharpton Interposes Himself Between Cameras And Juicy Headline-Grabbing Story: He's outraged that Paris Hilton has received preferential treatment based on her celebrity status.

He plans a rally to protest this, with special guest speaker/good friend OJ Simpson.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (48)
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Grand bargain? Or grand capitulation to the Sage of Chappequiddick? You make the call:

The late-night vote was on an amendment that would require illegal aliens who get legal status to have a minimum level of health insurance. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chamber’s most liberal member, was — not surprisingly — opposed.

Writes Mr. Dinan: “Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona both went to check with Mr. Kennedy before casting their votes to match his. Soon after, (Arizona Republican Sen. Jon) Kyl also switched his vote to match Mr. Kennedy’s.”

The amendment was defeated.

Message to Lindsey and Johnny: It's not smart to let Ted Kennedy take the wheel!

New Strategy: The Amnesty Coalition is looking to strip out all previous amendments from the bill, in hopes of once again restoring that "grand bargain" alliance.

But this would mean the guest worker program would not only be un-sunsetted, but rise from its post-amendment 200,000 per year to its original 400,000 per year, no? Which is what the liberal pro-labor Democrats hate! (And I'm not really a fan my darn self, because I'm a bigot.)

It would also mean the eradication of Ted Kennedy's weak-sister compromise amendment on blocking amnesty from hardenend criminals (a compromise he offered in order to defeat Cornyn's much-tougher provision).

Can the bill pass while pissing off liberals (union busting! wage depressing!) and conservatives (amnesty for drunk drivers, killers!) at the same time?

Here's the nutty thing: It just might. All priorities are subordinate to the most important issue of our time: bringing people out of the shadows.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (43)
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His last bluff got called. Will this one?

The Senate refused at midday to shut off debate on the immigration overhaul bill and move toward a vote, leaving the fate of the legislation uncertain and setting up another, all-important procedural vote this evening.

The move to end debate was rejected by 63 to 33, so the billÂ’s backers fell 27 votes short of the 60 needed to invoke what is known as cloture and set up a yes-or-no vote on the legislation itself.

The result was a setback not only for the billÂ’s supporters but also for President Bush, who has made a comprehensive immigration bill one of his top legislative priorities.

Nevertheless, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, scheduled another, make-or-break cloture vote for this evening. If that vote also falls short, Mr. Reid is expected to shelve the bill, meaning that changes in immigration law might not be considered again for many months.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and an architect of the bill, vowed to work “all day long” to muster support for this evening’s vote. The day-long debate offered the bill’s opponents a chance to be heard yet again and leave their mark on the bill with amendments.

The midday move to end debate failed chiefly because a significant number of conservative Republicans wanted more time to offer amendments to make the measure more to their liking.

The 33 “yes” votes were all cast by Democrats, except for the one cast by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who won re-election last fall as an independent. Even Republicans who support the overall bill voted against ending debate.

Liebs, what up with that?

Robert Bluey writes that there is, despite Bush's and McCain's insistence, another option between instant amnesty and "doing nothing:" actually enforcing the laws we have on the books now.

The fact that so many Democrats voted for the poison-pill guest-worker-sunset amendment may indicate that they are responding to the unpopularity of the bill moreso than Republicans, and are seeking a cutesy way to make the bill unpalatable to Republicans so that it will be the GOP blamed (credited) for filibustering it.

Certainly Lindsey Graham seems to think the Dorgan Amendment may be a deal-breaker, as demonstrated by his somewhat embarrassing display in this video. And Obama's cool cat "What's the worse that can happen?" response may indicate that, as his previous statements suggested, he may like this bill, but he doesn't like-like this bill, and he's not going to let it get in the way of his presidential bid.

With a strong majority of blacks against it (as well as just about everyone else, except non-American immigrants themselves), who can blame him? Democrats themselves oppose this bill by a majority similar to that found among Republicans. Here former Democratic Congressman Brad Carson makes the Democratic case against a permanent inflow of unskilled foreign laborers. Which, being something of a sovereignist and someone who believes that the American government should put the welfare of actual Americans above all others a racist, also strikes me as a decent Republican case against the bill.

Saxby Chambliss seems to be having second thoughts about the bill. First he was booed and hissed at a public appearance, then he discovers he's vulnerable to a challenge on immigration, possibly from a Democrat flanking him on the right, and now he says he believes in the basic principles of this bill, but not actually the bill itself, necessarily.

Contact him and let him know which way he should vote -- and if he votes the right way, all will be forgiven. Shouldn't let him think he's doomed at this point no matter what he does.

And here's that contact list for senators again. If you're writing them, don't forget to also write the heroes on this, like Enzi, Crapo (I think) and especially Jeff Sessions. They can use a bit of moral support in the face of Linsey Graham's freak-outs and name-calling. And let them know their stalwartness is appreciated -- cash-money appreciated!

Many links here cribbed from Kaus, who really was on this killer-amendment business before most others, and entitles his latest dispatch "Faster, Dorgan! Kill! Kill!" That's worth a click just for the title!*

* Exuberant punctuation in honor of Kaus! All those exclamation points just sort of rubbed off on me!

Bonus: Live feed from the Senate. It won't be interesting around five-ish.

Who To Contact: Some Senators are skittish, or noncommital, or just plain indecisive. Good! We can work with that!

Well-placed sources tell me that activists are focusing their attention on the following list of senators: Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.), Richard Burr (R.-N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (R.-Ga.), Larry Craig (R.-Idaho), Pete Domenici (R.-N.M.), Byron Dorgan (D.-N.D.), John Ensign (R.-Nev.), Mike Enzi (R.-Wyo.), Judd Gregg (R.-N.H.), Johnny Isakson (R.-Ga.), Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.), Mary Landrieu (D.-La.), Trent Lott (R.-Miss.), Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.), Claire McCaskill (D.-Mo.), Ben Nelson (D.-Neb.), Mark Pryor (D.-Ark.), Debbie Stabenow (D.-Mich.), John Sununu (R.-N.H.), Jon Tester (D.-Mont.), George Voinovich (R.-Ohio), Jim Webb (D.-Va.), and John Warner (R.-Va.).

Jon Kyl is not yet lost -- especially with his "grand compromise" being undone by Byron Dorgan.

All Most can be forgiven, if these dopes just listen to their constituents for once.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (14)
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If at first it seems like 63 is enough to invoke cloture, it is, but those were the votes against it. Only 33 voted to close debate at as Harry Reid demanded.

48 Republicans and 15 Democrats seem to think this giant, transformative bill ought to still be debated.

Posted by: Ace at 09:16 AM | Comments (137)
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The CBO says that amnestied immigrants will more pay for themselves in taxes.

Oh really?

The CBO concluded that the cost of the bill in immigration-law enforcement, border controls and federal benefits to immigrants would be more than offset by tax payments -- especially Social Security tax payments -- from newly legalized workers. White House officials latched on to that finding as they continued to seek GOP support for the bill.

Did you see that as the White House, with an assist from the CBO and WaPo, whizzed that fastball right on by?

Social security payments are not used to pay the current operating costs of government. Rather, ultimately, they are dollars extracted from you so that the government can give you them back later in your life. It's all more complex than that, as current SS revenues are used to pay current retirees (and you yourself will have your SS benefits paid by future taxpayers), and of course the government routinely includes SS collections in its budgets in order to offset its massive current-operating-expenses deficits, but still, it's a lie. A dollar taken via SS collections is not "revenue" for the government. Every dollar taken creates a dollar of future obligation (more really, but whatever).

To claim that amnestied immigrants will "pay for themselves" in taxes when including their Social Security payments is to double-count their SS tax dollars twice, once towards current expenses, and again towards the future obligation incurred by including them in the system.

Why not just count each of those dollars ten times and claim that amnestied immigrants will bring in six or seven times the tax revenues they cost?

Also: the CBO seems to have not bothered to calculate the local tax/expenditure impact of amnestied immigrants. And you don't pay state or local Social Security taxes to help goose the numbers.

This is par for the course for Bush, of course, who seems to forever be employing the branch of advanced mathematics called bistromath in his budgeting.

But what will Mr. Straight Talk have to say about it? (That's a link to more Luntz focus-group hate on McCain, which I'd tipped Allah too earlier. Brutal stuff.)

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 PM | Comments (113)
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Jeff Sessions is a crafty one.

Immigration bill inches forward

Senate amendment could jeopardize deal

By Karoun Demirjian
Washington Bureau
Published June 7, 2007

WASHINGTON — The Senate's approval of an amendment to review and possibly terminate a central feature of the fragile immigration bill in the wee hours of Thursday morning may have critically jeopardized the measure as it enters final days of consideration.

The third time proved to be the charm for Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced a twice-revamped proposal to mandate a five-year review and potential termination of the temporary guest worker program that would allow immigrants to obtain special "Y-1" visas to work in the U.S. for three separate two-year intervals. Though earlier versions of the amendment had failed, the Senate voted 49-48 to keep it in after several senators changed their positions from previous votes on the issue.

The temporary guest worker program is a controversial but key feature of the compromise legislation for many of the bill's supporters, including President Bush.

...

"No one has the right to meet in secret with special-interest groups and write a bill and ram it down the throats of the United States Senate," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a critic of the bill who voted to kill the guest worker program. "I hope today people begin to see that a small group of senators Â… don't have the power to say we can't have an amendment and we can't change it."

..

he core bipartisan coalition of 10 senators who drafted the compromise hung together as a body to oppose the Dorgan amendment, and through many other difficult votes, knowing that if some of the amendments offered by the bill's most vocal critics were approved, that could spell defeat for the overall measure.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ratcheted up the pressure for passage by announcing the Senate would vote Thursday on a motion to limit debate to 30 additional hours.

Reid presented the move as a challenge to senators, especially Republicans, who he said were trying to delay and debate the bill to death. Republicans cried foul, complaining that they had not had sufficient time to offer amendments.

Nice. If you can't make it better -- which of course the Democrats and McCain and Graham won't permit -- make it worse*, and make your fellow Republicans choke on it.

* Although actually I don't know if this makes it that much worse. I'm not really keen on this idea, favored by comfortably white-collar WSJ corporate types, that not only should there be no trade barriers on goods, there should also be no trade barriers on labor, and American citizens have no right to expect "special favoritism" over any of the world's teeming pool of potential workers, even in America itself.

Without a doubt, though, it reduces the bill's appeal for Republicans eager to flood America with cheap labor.

Correction: No tie-breaker from Cheney. I'm not sure where I got that from.

Posted by: Ace at 10:38 PM | Comments (11)
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Huh.

Allah says he's watching the wires and no idea yet what Drudge is teasing. I looked myself, and I can only find stuff like this:

Immigration deal survives Senate challenges, backers more optimistic it will pass

...about the Amnesty Coalition's success in thwarting amendments to either tighten security/lmiit the amnesty or make the amnesty even more generous, thus protecting the abortion from both the right and left, insuring it will please no one at all.

Perhaps a few supporters have peeled away due to their support being contingent on one of these amendments passing. Or maybe someone's just blowing smoke at Drudge.

Novak... might have already reported on why the bill may be in trouble. (Assuming it is in trouble.)

Immigration: The Senate became embroiled Tuesday afternoon in a debate over which amendments would be allowed votes on the immigration bill. The resulting squabble endangered the immigration reform bill and the fragile coalition that built it. The bill's future was on the edge this morning.

1. The clash that has led Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to file for cloture came after conservative opponents of the bill faulted the Republican leadership for abandoning them and acquiescing to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill's main sponsor. The complaint among conservatives had been that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was not doing enough to insist on votes for their amendments, but McConnell stood up to Reid in demanding time for more votes.

2. Reid responded by announcing that he would file for cloture and that just 20 amendments would receive votes. McConnell, noting that far more amendments were considered last year, objected to the proceedings. Republican senators had been frustrated that none of their amendments could be introduced, since Democrats objected to the introduction of most of them.

3. Republican supporters of the bill -- especially Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) -- denounced Reid for showing bad faith. Reid has relented, however, by allowing some amendments. This impasse could have brought about the end of the immigration bill, leaving several Republican senators holding the bag after taking legislative action that upset their conservative base. This would work out quite well for Democrats, who benefit from keeping the issue alive longer and letting it divide the GOP.

4. Part of the problem with amendments has been that any change -- no matter how mild -- threatened to disrupt and possibly destroy the fragile coalition of senators that has come together behind the bill. The most critical amendment was that of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), to restrict legalization of violent felons and gang members. That amendment failed 51 to 46, but a weaker version by Sen. Kennedy passed.

This may be all Drudge is teasing.

Nope: That article is already old news, as the Amnesty Coalition has already crowed that they've rescued the bill from the brink by knocking down every amendment.

Still, it is perhaps possible that some weak supporters of the bill have grown annoyed at the iron fist with which this bill -- unamended -- is being shoved down their throats.

Or perhaps they've actually read the polls, showing that "doing nothing" is now favored over their Frankamnestein monster 49-32.

If this is going to be a link, yet again, to the Politico, I'm going to be pissed off.

Nope, Not Just the Politico: Drudge has edited to now say "Reports" (plural) indicate the deal's on the brink, and tmi3rd says it's being mentioned on Fox radio, but without any more detail than Drudge has.

Is This It? If so, it's bubkis. Listen to the Fox radio feed starting around 1:00.

It's nothing, and I hope Drudge has more than this. It's just Harry Reid's promise to withdraw the bill from consideration (and blame Republicans for taking the bill -- something they'd do better to take credit for) unless he gets sixty votes for cloture tomorrow, ending all further attempts to amend the bill.

This isn't new news. He's been threatening to do this for a while. He already demanded a cloture vote tomorrow.

If that's all Drudge has regarding these "reports," then he's not merely overhyped this, then he shouldn't have hyped it at all.

Now This May Be It: Byron Dorgan's been angling to get the guest-worker provision stripped from the bill -- which is the part of the bill most attractive to pro-business(-subsidizing) corporate-conservatives.

Some of the bill's most ardent critics supported this amendment -- believing that without the guest-worker program, there won't be enough conservative supporters in favor of it.

Kaus had this a while ago. Read him for his background on "killer amendments" generally. And he notes that just weeks ago, when the immediate strip-out of the guest-worker provision was proposed, pro-union liberal Democrats voted to keep in place because they felt without the guest-worker provisions they would not have the Republican votes necessary to pass the bill.

So now the guest-worker program is gone -- in five years, at least.

Honestly, are even pro-business(-subsidy) Republican corporatists now getting anything at all out of this bill, apart from the priviledge of not being branded a racist by Lindsey Graham?

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 PM | Comments (42)
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More infuriating than cathartic, because no amount of yelling by Gibson is a sufficient rebuke to these assholes.

I'm just curious: If fire can't melt steel, how exactly do Truthers explain the centuries-old profession of blacksmithing? See, if fire isn't melting steel, how is possible to reshape steel after it begins glowing red-hot?

Of course this all relies on determined ignorance: The temperature at which they claim steel "melts" is in fact the temperature at which steel liquifies. It obviously partly melts at much lower temperatures, allowing blacksmiths to deform and reform it with a mere oven and bellows. Steel, like all other metals, has the property of losing its rigidity with increasing heat; metallic bonds do not give out all at once as in the case of many other materials (e.g., when ice melts it's a discreet, dramatic phase-change from clearly-solid to clearly-liquid), but rather degrade allowing a partly liquid, partly liquid transition state.

Common glass behaves similarly (it warps and bends before it actually liquifies, though this is for different reasons -- glass, unlike metal, is, if I'm remembering right, an amorphous solid, which is kind of like a liquid that just stopped flowing). Still, same behavior -- you can't quite say precisely when glass "melts," as it melts more and more with increasing temperature. You can say exactly when it liquifies, but that's not the same as "melting," as glass becomes more and more liquid-like, before actually liquifiying, as it gets hotter.

Just like metals.

Again, this is well-known. To anyone who's taken high school level chemistry, or simply wondered how on earth steel girders are made. (Apparently the Truthers believe iron's basic natural elemental state takes the form of I-beams and trusses.)

Not only is this obvious to anyone who isn't retarded, but it's been explained to them time and time again, but they don't care. Chemistry books dating from the 1930's are, I guess, part of the conspiracy now.

Via Hor Air again. Be sure to check out the Bush Administration's shock their one-time supporters took offense at being called racist and anti-American.

Posted by: Ace at 07:48 PM | Comments (45)
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