JustOneMinute

When You Come To The Fork In The Road, Take It

At the moment of decision the NY Times editors boldly endorse not one but TWO Democrats for President.

OK, who cares? In 2008 the Times editors backed their hometown honey Hillary over the young Barack Obama,which alienated a big part of their newsroom. In 2016 they may have experienced a similar dynamic by backing Hillary over the darling of young socialists everywhere, Bernie. So in this moment of tension and fraught decision making the Times sends out the punting team on third and long.

Getting Ready For Some Football!

I'd like to see Kansas City and Green Bay advance so we can spend two weeks re-hashing Super Bowl I. However, my Bold Prediction is that we get KC and San Francisco.

Saturday Morning!

Enjoy the MLK weekend!

How Did THIS Make The Times?

The NY Times runs a piece on immigration from a self-declared "liberal restrictionist". Guess what? In his time as a reporter he learned that Big Business liked the availability of cheap labor AND leftists liked the prospect of new union members and (one day) voters. Who knew?!?

I’m a Liberal Who Thinks Immigration Must Be Restricted

Immigration can invigorate the country. But when it is poorly managed, it can cause social division — just as it’s doing right now.

By Jerry Kammer

His intro:

In 2001, when I was the new Washington correspondent for The Arizona Republic, I attended the annual awards dinner of the National Immigration Forum. The forum is a left-right coalition that lobbies for unauthorized immigrants and expansive immigration policies. Its board has included officials of the National Council of La Raza, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, as well as the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Restaurant Association and the American Nursery and Landscape Association.

After dinner, the group’s executive director, Frank Sharry, made a pitch to business allies who wanted Congress to allow them unfettered access to foreign workers. “You guys in business get all the workers you want, whenever you want them,” he proposed. “No bureaucracy.”

“Sold!” yelled John Gay, a lobbyist for the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Mr. Sharry quickly added that the deal must include advocacy for “three little, tiny pieces of paper: a green card, a union card and a voter registration card” for unauthorized immigrants.

For me, a reporter who had long covered immigration in the Southwest and Mexico, the exchange was a revelation about the politics of immigration in Washington. Business lobbyists like Mr. Gay — conservatives who seek loose labor markets so employers can keep wages down — align themselves with liberal activists like Frank Sharry to pursue policies that serve their groups.

OK, that was 2001, but really? The Chamber of Commerce Republicans have been in an unholy immigration alliance with the Emerging Democratic Majority people for decades.

Who, I wondered, was lobbying for the American workers competing with the new arrivals? The answer, I learned, was no one. As the former labor secretary Robert Reich once put it, “There’s no National Association of Working Poor.”

This mismatch of political influence, combined with the social and fiscal consequences of a wave of low-skilled immigrants, led me to believe that immigration should be restricted so that its power to invigorate our country is not eclipsed by its potential to harm workers. I think immigration, like capitalism itself, should be regulated in the national interest, not shaped to serve the free-market libertarianism of the right or the post-national humanitarianism of the left.

That’s why I call myself a liberal restrictionist.

This might be Mickey Kaus' moment.

Hacking Our Way To The Mainstream

Sen. McSally told a CNN journalist what she really thought of him. Awkward!

Begun They Have, The Prog Wars

OK, this was neither conciliatory nor well-planned by Warren:

Warren Told Sanders After Debate, ‘I Think You Called Me a Liar on National TV’

Bernie did NOT respond with "If the moccasin fits...", and mores the pity.

I don't think Warren will win a pissing match about credibility. Gail Heriot takes us back to Warren's medical bankruptcy "study", which at most revealed a crisis of disability insurance (and when a progressive has lost FactCheck...).

Warren's Fauxcahontas story is well known, as is her brilliantly planned Big Reveal that she might be 1/1024 Native American, so take that, Trump.

Let's not even mention Medicare For All, her "I was for it before I was for it but later" own goal.

And more recently, the WaPo took a look at her conveniently evolving standards on big dollar donations.

Warren is fighting the wrong battle with the wrong guy. Yet another display of poor judgment on her part.

 

Those Sexist Democrats

The big news from the Dem debate came when it was over.

Hard to see the Sanders and Warren loyalists kissing and making up after this.

DO LET ME ADD: The Thirty Years Skirmish was funny, by which I mean stupid and pointless. Bernie beat a Republican incumbent in November 1990, 29 years and 2 months ago. Was that within Warren's parameter of "the past thirty years"? Progressive mathematicians are still sorting it out. 

Cory Booker Out And Bernie Surging

The vegan bows out. Nice guy but it never threatened to happen for him.

Meanwhile, its all about authenticity - as the faux-socialist fades the real one gathers the flock. And yes, we'll all be flocked if Bernie is the nominee.

Getting Ready For Some More Football

Break up the Titans! After watching the Titans dominate and humiliate the Ravens, one wonders whether Brady and Belichick are a bit less to blame for falling to the Titan wrecking ball.

Today I'll be wrong about the Chiefs and the Seahawks.

Saturday Morning Action

Here we go.

I am intrigued by Iran's admission of responsibility for the airliner shoot-down. Apparently they may have set back Operation National Unity, their attempt to provoke a foreign crisis to distract from domestic woes:

In Iran, a debate over how much blame the government bears threatened to destroy the national solidarity that followed the country’s conflict with the United States. Many Iranians said that their anger over the lack of accountability at the highest levels of government had quickly returned.

However, they were in a bit of a box. Another Iranian goal is to present themselves to the international community as the more credible and responsible negotiating partner vis a vis Trump. Shooting down airliners is not helpful but pretending they weren't at fault would have been worse.

Media Q & A

Helpful headlines:

Question from Bloomberg News:

Impeachment Standoff May Be Near End With Pelosi Allies Stumped

(Bloomberg) -- Lawmakers expect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will soon end her delay of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial without any notable concessions from Senate Republicans, leaving her allies stumped about her strategy in the three-week standoff.

Answer from David Brooks:

Trump Has Made Us All Stupid

Compounding Iran's Worries

Well, hmm:

Iran missiles appear to have shot down Ukraine-bound Boeing airliner, US sources tell NBC News

Let's see, Iran would have had their air defenses in high alert in the hours after their attack. The FAA had warned US flights away from the area.

Lindsay Graham says that if Iran did this it's an outrage, but Trump doesn't sound outraged:

“It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood,” Trump said of the crash, which occurred soon after Iran launched missile attacks on bases in Iraq that house U.S. and coalition forces.

“Someone could have made a mistake.”

I have a feeling that — it’s just some very terrible, something very terrible happened, very devastating,” he said.

Sensibly conciliatory, with Graham as the bad cop. OK.

MORE: The FAA warning, as reported in the NY Times:

On Tuesday, hours before the crash, the F.A.A. barred American airliners from flying over Iran, citing a risk that commercial planes would be mistaken for military aircraft. Several non-American carriers rerouted flights on Wednesday to avoid Iraq and Iran, according to Flightradar24.

Deliberately Underwhelming

Not to say the Ayatollah blinked, but he seems (for the moment) to have blinked. I'm not Ayatollah but I would have too - IMHO, they have been provoking us for months as an attempt to create a unifying engagement with the US that would distract their own unhappy populace from Iranian domestic and economic woes.

Trump's targeting of Suleimani was a surprise but it gave the Iranians the funeral they wanted (and then some). With national unity in hand, it makes sense for the Ayatollah to step back.

OK, this might be more of a roller coaster ride on Trump Mountain than people had in mind to start the New Year but so far, well, so good. Or at least, not as bad as feared.

Sunday Evening

Quite a weekend.