Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq War, media

Labels: 2008 election, comedy, John Edwards, Stephen Colbert

The McCains' marriage has mixed business and politics from the beginning, according to an expansive review by The Associated Press of thousands of pages of campaign, personal finance, real estate and property records nationwide. The paperwork chronicles the McCains' ascent from Arizona newlyweds to political power couple on the national stage.

As heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and vacation homes at his disposal, and her connections helped him launch his political career -- even if the millions remain in her name alone. Yet the arm's-length distance between McCain and his wife's assets also has helped shield him from conflict-of-interest problems.

Nearly 30 years before John McCain became the Republican presidential nominee, he worked in public relations at his wife's family company.

Within a few years of marrying Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, John McCain won his first election. He was new to Arizona politics and fundraising in the 1982 House race, and his campaign quickly fell into debt. Personal money -- tens of thousands of dollars in loans to his campaign from McCain bank accounts -- helped him survive.

Anheuser-Busch's political action committee was among McCain's earliest donors. Cindy McCain's father, James Hensley, and other Hensley & Co. executives gave so much the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain to give some of it back. McCain's campaign used Hensley office equipment such as computers and copiers, and Cindy McCain personally paid some of the campaign's bills.

The campaign gradually reimbursed Hensley for use of its equipment and Cindy McCain for her expenses. The loans -- described initially by John McCain as coming from him and his wife -- caught the eye of the FEC, which repeatedly questioned him about them; spouses are held to the same donation limits as everyone else.

McCain told the FEC the loaned money came from his share of joint accounts. At the time, McCain reported drawing a $25,067 salary and $25,000 bonus working for Hensley in public relations and receiving a Navy pension of $11,038 a year; his 1982 financial disclosure report showed bank interest but didn't say how much the bank accounts held.

Labels: hypocrisy, John McCain

Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new — an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that.

But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.

He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.

Obama also made a pair of grand and cynical promises that are the sign of someone who is thinking more about campaigning than governing.

Labels: Barack Obama, David Brooks, hack journalism

IMUS: Stephanopoulos I thought was great, and the debate was fine. I thought Senator Obama was on the defensive most of the night. But they're both sissy boys or sissy girls, or whatever. Because they talk big when they're out on the campaign trail, wolfing on each other.

McCORD: But then --

IMUS: And then when they show up at the debate, they fold up like a couple of cheap lawn chairs. I mean, I don't understand that. And he's almost a bigger pussy than she is.

Labels: Don Imus, double standards

Labels: bloggers, hack journalism, hypocrisy, John McCain

Labels: ABC, blogswarm, democratic debate, hack journalism

Labels: bloggers

GIBSON: There have already been many votes in many states, and you have each, as you analyze the vote, appealed disproportionately to different constituencies in the party, and that dismays many in the party. Governor Cuomo, an elder statesman in your party, has come forward with a suggestion. He has said, look, fight it to the end.

Let every vote be counted. You contest every delegate. Go at each other to the -- right till the end. Don't give an inch to one another. But pledge now that whichever one of you wins this contest, you'll take the other as your running mate, and that the other will agree if they lose, to take second place on the ticket.

******

CHARLES GIBSON: Talking to a closed-door fundraiser in San Francisco 10 days ago, you got talking in California about small-town Pennsylvanians who have had tough economic times in recent years. And you said they get bitter, and they cling to guns or they cling to their religion or they cling to antipathy toward people who are not like them.

Now, you've said you misspoke; you said you mangled what it was you wanted to say. But we've talked to a lot of voters. Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?

******

GEORGE SUCKUPAGUS: Senator Clinton, when Bill Richardson called you to say he was endorsing Barack Obama, you told him that Senator Obama can't win. I'm not going to ask you about that conversation. I know you don't want to talk about it. But a simple yes-or-no question: Do you think Senator Obama can beat John McCain or not?


GIBSON: Senator Obama, since you last debated, you made a significant speech in this building on the subject of race and your former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And you said subsequent to giving that speech that you never heard him say from the pulpit the kinds of things that so have offended people.

But more than a year ago, you rescinded the invitation to him to attend the event when you announced your candidacy. He was to give the invocation. And according to the reverend, I'm quoting him, you said to him, "You can get kind of rough in sermons. So what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public." I'm quoting the reverend. But what did you know about his statements that caused you to rescind that invitation? [...] And if you knew he got rough in sermons, why did it take you more than a year to publicly disassociate yourself from his remarks?

******

SUCKUPAGUS: Senator, two questions. Number one, do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do? And number two, if you get the nomination, what will you do when those sermons are played on television again and again and again? [...] But you do believe he's as patriotic as you are?

******

SUCKUPAGUS: Senator Obama, your campaign has sent out a cascade of e-mails, just about every day, questioning Senator Clinton's credibility. And you yourself have said she hasn't been fully truthful about what she would do as president.

Do you believe that Senator Clinton has been fully truthful about her past?

******

MR. GIBSON: And Senator Obama, I want to do one more question, which goes to the basic issue of electability. And it is a question raised by a voter in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a woman by the name of Nash McCabe. Take a look.

NASH MCCABE (Latrobe, Pennsylvania): (From videotape.) Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't.


SUCKUPAGUS: [...]if you get the nomination, you'll have to -- (applause) -- (inaudible).

I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

MATTHEWS: So this is what it‘s like to be president, right this moment. It‘s going to be like this if you make it. You‘re a flip of the coin away from being the president of the United States, based on all the polls. You‘re about 50/50. The toughest question first is for you.

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: Can I—can I...

MATTHEWS: The question is...

MCCAIN: Can I ask you a question first?

MATTHEWS: No.

MCCAIN: Cheese steaks, Pat‘s or Gino‘s?

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)

MCCAIN: Do you refuse to answer?

MATTHEWS: The answer is, take your chances!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good afternoon, Senator McCain, Mr. Matthews. My name is Matthew Brady (ph). Senator McCain, the day following Barack Obama‘s speech on racism at the National Constitution Center, he remarked on comments he made during his speech about his racist grandmother, referring to her as a “typical white person.” Would you characterize yourself, as Barack Obama would phrase, as a typical white person?

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

[...]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Senator McCain. My name is Peter Doocey (ph). I‘m a junior here. And I‘m sure that you saw your—one of your Democratic opponents, Hillary Clinton, recently drinking whiskey shots with some potential voters. Now, I was wondering if you think that she‘s finally resorted to hitting the sauce just because of some unfavorable polling. And I was also wondering if you would care to join me for a shot after this.

(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)

[...]

MATTHEWS: Why do you think a guy, Barack Obama, who grew up in not exactly easy circumstances—he—his father went back to Africa after he was just born, basically. He was raised in Indonesia, a Third World country, a white American mother, basically never had any breaks, except he‘s a smart guy, obviously.

But why do you think he thinks like an elitist, or talks like one, if he‘s not an elitist?

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your Republican party. You‘ve been a maverick, and a lot of people like you because of that. I want to ask you how much of a maverick you are. Would you put a person on the ticket with you, like the former governor of this state who is very popular, Tom Ridge, even though he may disagree on the issue of Roe v Wade and abortion rights? Would you put somebody on the ticket like that, on that one issue? Would that stop him?

Labels: democratic debate, hack journalism, icepick meet forehead

Labels: Jon Stewart, torture

Labels: Air America, Sam Seder

Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, spoke at length about those economic hardships and suggested he might well break with the economic policies of President Bush and former President Ronald Reagan. “It will not be enough to simply dust off the economic policies of four, eight or 28 years ago,” he said in the speech, at Carnegie Mellon University. “We have our own work to do.”

But a major component of his economic plan — like those of Presidents Bush and Reagan — centered on tax cuts. Besides making the Bush income tax cuts permanent and reducing corporate taxes to 25 percent from 35 percent, Mr. McCain called for eliminating the alternative minimum tax and doubling the value of exemptions for dependents to $7,000 from $3,500, among other recommendations. He also proposed giving taxpayers the option of filing a simpler, shorter tax form each year than is available now.

Mr. McCain even called for cutting one tax before the Republican National Convention, let alone the election: he urged Congress to suspend the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax from this Memorial Day until Labor Day. He said doing so would provide “an immediate economic stimulus,” but such plans have gained little traction recently in Congress, and some environmentalists fear such a cut would encourage more people to use their cars at a time when Mr. McCain has made combating global warming a central theme of his campaign.

The McCain campaign put the cost of his tax cuts at roughly $200 billion a year, but its estimate did not include the cost of making the Bush tax cuts permanent, which would more than double that figure.

The campaign said it would offset the lost $200 billion by eliminating from the federal budget earmarked pork-barrel projects; putting a one-year freeze on discretionary spending in most federal agencies, later eliminating wasteful programs; broadening the tax base by eliminating loopholes; and spurring economic growth. But its estimate of how much could be saved with such measures was far higher than those of some other independent budget analysts.

Labels: John McCain, supply-side economics, utter horseshit

In the Senate bill, the nation’s biggest home builders, some now on the verge of bankruptcy, won a provision that would let them claim millions in tax refunds by charging their current losses against the huge profits they made three or four years ago. Other struggling industries would benefit from this provision.

“This is our biggest legislative effort since the Tax Reform Act of 1986,” said Jerry M. Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. Hundreds of the association’s members flooded the district offices of representatives and senators while they were home for the spring recess last month.

Supporters of the bill, including Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, say it represents sound tax policy carefully focused to help stimulate the lagging economy. But the White House opposes the Senate bill, and Democratic leaders in the House not only have promised to provide more relief for individual homeowners, but have also dropped the corporate tax provisions from their version.

Downtrodden automakers — Ford and General Motors — were especially dogged in securing a tax break that would let them collect alternative minimum tax credits, also known as the A.M.T., that would otherwise be out of reach because they did not pay enough taxes in recent years to claim a rebate.

If the provision becomes law, it could mean checks up to $40 million for the car manufacturers, as long as the companies had made investments in plant or equipment in that amount.

A Ford spokesman, Mike Moran, said he was aware that Ford would benefit from the tax credit in the bill passed by the Senate. But Mr. Moran said that the credit applied to a range of industries, not just automakers. A General Motors spokesman could not be reached.

Domestic airlines and manufacturers other than automakers would be eligible to claim the A.M.T. break as well. One lobbyist said that the companies that had sought the tax breaks in meetings with lawmakers included Ford, General Motors, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines and Goodyear Tire and Rubber.

Companies could claim only one of the new tax breaks, which in all, are expected to cost $6 billion through 2018. The jockeying among industry groups, including Realtors, home builders and bankers, is certain to intensify in coming weeks as lawmakers move to reconcile the Senate bill with a more ambitious package of housing legislation now under way in the House.

Lawmakers on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee have omitted the corporate tax cuts from their version of the bill in favor of tax breaks for first-time home buyers and developers of low-income rental housing, and more aid for owners facing foreclosure.

Congressional Democrats are also hearing from consumer advocates and other groups who say that the Senate bill does little to help Americans in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.

“The Senate legislation gave corporations and Wall Street billions in tax breaks,” Terence M. O’Sullivan, the president of the Laborers International Union of North America, said at a news conference on Tuesday to denounce the bill.

“Tax breaks for corporate home builders won’t help stabilize the housing market, won’t create jobs and won’t prevent a single foreclosure,” he continued. “If anything, this multibillion-dollar windfall will make things worse.”

Labels: housing bubble, Senate

• For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated outside of the United States?
  
• For each of the last five fiscal years, how many employees have you terminated inside of the United States?
  
• How many of these employees were U.S. citizens?
  
• Did H-1B visa holders replace or take over the job responsibilities of any of these terminated employees?
  
• Would you support legislation prohibiting all employers from displacing an American worker with a H-1B visa holder? Please explain.

Why would Senators Durbin and Grassley feel the need to send out these letters?

I'll break my timeline a bit and mention the April 4, 2008 article written by intrepid reporter Jennifer Bjorhus from the TwinCities Pioneer Press. (As of today, I could find the article by typing in "H-1B" in the online paper's internal search engine, but I couldn't find a permanent link. Norman Matloff reprinted the entire article in his H-1B/L-1 Offshoring e-Newsletter #113.) Bjorhus, one of the few newspaper reporters I'm aware of that is doing any real digging into this topic, has been following H-1B/L-1 visa issues since her days at the San Jose Mercury News (the official mouthpiece for Corporate Silicon Valley).

Outside of Ron Hira's 2005 book, Outsourcing America, this is one of the better write-ups I've seen on the difficulties of obtaining the necessary facts, figures and statistics in order to get a true picture of what is going on with the H-1B/L-1 visa programs.

Industry has long argued that the temporary work visas are necessary to stay competitive by attracting the world's best and brightest workers. Many employers, most recently Bill Gates, argue there's a critical shortage of skilled U.S. workers.

snip

Critics charge there's no shortage but too many over-specific job descriptions and overly picky employers. The guest worker program cheats U.S. workers by importing younger workers who are often less well paid, they charge. Laid-off U.S. tech workers have testified on Capitol Hill of being forced to train their H-1B replacements. What's missing from the decade-old debate is solid information about how the program actually functions. Exactly which white-collar jobs go begging for lack of qualified U.S. workers? What are specific workers being paid? How are specific employers in various parts of the country using the program? Are there patterns to their particular hiring?

snip

Companies won't discuss specifics. [Note from Carrie. Vague notices like the recent Chrysler announcement to outsource their Information Technology functions to Indian bodyshop Tata Consulting Services are the norm.] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will not release detailed information it keeps on the thousands of worker-specific visas it approves each year to be issued by the State Department.

"It's a huge hole," said Ron Hira, assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of "Outsourcing America." "Why would you expand a program without knowing what its impacts are? [Emphasis mine.] It's very bizarre to me."

Hira has company. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday [April 1, 2008] mailed 25 letters to the country's top H-1B employers asking for detailed information on how they use the program.

The Pioneer Press in 2004 filed a Freedom of Information Act request to immigration services for basic information on each H-1B and related L-1 visa it approved for employers since 2000. L-1 visas, which have no cap, are increasingly used by employers to bring their own foreign employees to the U.S. to work.

The newspaper's request remains unfilled. In January, immigration officials mailed a disk that doesn't contain records of any H-1B visas, and with tens of thousands of blank fields where job codes should be, and more than 400,000 blank fields where the worker's education level should be recorded. [Emphasis mine.]

The Pioneer Press filed an appeal with immigration services, which recently informed the newspaper that the appeal is No. 2,771 in a backlog of 2,845 appeals. Chris Rhatigan, an immigration services spokeswoman, said her agency considers the newspaper's request filled, noting the "appeal is still pending a final decision."

snip

As for immigration services, it does publish a yearly report,"Characteristics of Specialty Occupation Workers," showing aggregate totals at the national level — such as that 50 percent of the H-1B visas in fiscal year 2005 were for people from India, half were issued to people in their 20s, 5 percent of the workers held doctorate degrees and about half the jobs were computer-related.The report doesn't provide employer-specific or job-specific information.The agency is also two years behind on its reports.

On April 2, 2008, Michael Chertoff from the Department of Homeland Security signed an interim final rule with a request for comments (that was nice of him) to extend the Optional Practical Training program for F-1 STEM visa holders from 12 months to 29 months. Chertoff's document claims that:

The inability of U.S. employers, in particular in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to obtain H-1B status for highly skilled foreign students and foreign nonimmigrant workers has adversely affected the ability of U.S. employers to remit and retain skilled workers and creates a competitive disadvantage for U.S. companies.

Again, this was shamefully unpublicized in an obvious ploy to sneak through a de facto increase in the number of foreign worker visa holders without input from the American public.

The rule further stipulates that students must be enrolled in Optional Practical Training programs that relate to their college majors, and that employers must be enrolled in the USCIS E-Verify Employment Verification Progam.

How does the Department of Homeland Security feel they are able to shove through a ruling without prior public comment? Per page 23 of the .pdf file:

To avoid a loss of skilled students through the next round of H-1B filings in April 2008, DHS is implementing this initiative as an interim final rule without first providing notice and the opportunity for public comment under the "good cause" exception found under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) at 5 U.S.C. 553(b)). The APA provides that an agency may dispense with notice and comment rulemaking procedures when an agency, for "good cause," finds that those procedures are "impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest." See 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). The exception excuses notice and comment, however, in emergency situations, or where "the delay created by the notice and comment requirements would result in serious damage to important interests. [Emphasis mine.]

In other words, if Bill Gates says this is a national emergency, then this is a national emergency!

One thing that held me up on this blog post was the fact that I really had no idea what was meant by "Optional Practical Training." I had read discussions that the training could occur while the student was in school, after graduation, or a combination of the two. It wasn't until I heard Rob Sanchez' podcast on the George Putnam show that I found out what was really going on.

DOH! (Carrie slaps hand to forehead.)

The Optional Practical Training program means internships! Unlimited numbers of foreign STEM graduates can now take up internships and effectively shut out American-born STEM graduates from future technical careers! Despite the rhetoric from the likes of Microsoft and Oracle, competition for job openings in the tech industry is fierce. Having a high quality internship on your resume is crucial to landing that important first real job. The ability to land an internship means the difference between either starting a career in your chosen technical field or ending up in law school after spending two years of sending out resumes while working at Burger King.

I wrote a post last month about how graduates of the University of Michigan School of Engineering are having a difficult time landing jobs within their career fields, both inside and outside of the state of Michigan. As Bob Oak points out in his No Slaves blog, "Students graduating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics majors are about three times the total number of new jobs created in the United States for these majors." Studies by Vivek Wadhwa et al from Harvard University, the RAND Corporation, Michael Teitelbaum on behalf of the Sloan Corporation (per his testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation on November 6, 2007), the Urban Institute, and Norman Matloff from UC-Davis, all confirm in varying degrees the myth of the high tech skills shortage.

On April 4, 2008, the world finally found out about the extension of the Optional Practical Training program from 12 months to 29 months from this announcement from the Department of Homeland Security. The interim final rule was entered into the Federal Register on April 8, 2008, which marked the start of the 60-day limit for public comments on this policy.

The No Slaves blog lists a few ways you can officially voice your outrage at this stealth change in policy. Pages 2 and 3 of the DHS interim rules .pdf file also gives details on how you can submit public comments.

Also, on April 4, 2008, Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) and the Republican High Tech Task Force (HTTF) finally admitted that they were the force behind the Department of Homeland Security's decision to extend the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for F-1 non-immigrant students.

On April 8, 2008, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced ".... that it has received enough H-1B petitions to meet the congressionally mandated cap for fiscal year 2009. "

On April 9, 2008, the Daily Princetonian reported that some foreign students are not happy that the Department of Homeland Security's ruling for the expanded OPT program does not apply to non-STEM majors.

Many current international students are upset with the academic restrictions.

“I don’t think it’s fair that not everyone is eligible for the extension, because we all face the same problems in obtaining work visas upon graduation,” Megan Chiao ’09, former president of the International Students Association, said in an e-mail. Chiao, an ORFE [Operations Research and Financial Engineering] concentrator, is from Singapore.

snip

[Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Rachel] Baldwin fears that the selectively granted extension — instituted because of the demand for foreign students in technical fields — will drive international students away from non-STEM majors because of the relative post-graduation disadvantage.

“Some international students may stray away from the Woodrow Wilson School, Romance Languages and other fields that do not qualify for the extension,” Baldwin explained.

“I think it will be frustrating for non-STEM majors, and it is unfair that the decision was not made to support all F-1 students, despite their chosen major,” Baldwin said.

Economics major Cee-Kay Ying ’08, who is from Australia, disagreed with the STEM requirement, noting that humanities concentrators are no less skilled than students in other majors.

“Some majors between engineering and humanities have lots of overlap, such as ORFE and Econ,” she said in an e-mail. ORFE but not economics concentrators qualify for extension.

“Depending on what track you take, you could pretty much have the same coursework [except for] the independent work,” Ying explained. “Does this mean ORFE [concentrators are] more qualified to work in the US than econ majors? This perhaps could be a deciding factor among internationals wanting to maximize their opportunities to work in the US after graduation.”

Earth to Ying! Do you really believe that our economists are going to allow an unlimited number of foreign students to take away their jobs?

Americans are told every day by economists, business leaders and politicians that we need to lose our sense of entitlement to education, health care, job security, Social Security and old age pensions. I would find it quite refreshing if someone would stand up and tell these foreign students that they need to give up their sense of entitlement to college educations funded by American taxpayers and guaranteed job offers from American companies upon graduation!

On April 10, 2008, per an update to an April 8, 2008 article written by Patrick Thibodeau at ComputerWorld, the USCIS announced they received 163,000 requests for H-1B visas, along with 31,200 applications for foreign nationals holding advanced degrees.

Also on April 10, 2008, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the "Global Competitiveness Act of 2008". Among other things, the bill (S. 2839) would:

• Recapture 150,000 supposedly unused visas and dole them out over a 3-year period.
• Raise the main numerical cap on visas from 65,000 to 115,000 per fiscal year
• Raise the numerical cap on advanced degree holders (masters degrees and above) from 20,000 to 30,000 per fiscal year.

Rob Sanchez noted in his Job Destruction Newsletter:

Have any of you noticed that so many of the proposed visa increases lately are now being called national emergencies? First, we had the massive defacto H-1B increase that the DHS approved to extend the Optional Practical Training time period. Now we have a bill introduced by Sen. Cornyn that he says is "emergency relief" for employers. Why doesn't Cornyn feel that his constituents need emergency job creation?

As of this writing, the complete text of the bill has yet to be released. However, according to the outline in the press release, the wording includes the obligatory "we'll outlaw all visa abuses" language. Rob Sanchez further pointed out:

The Cornyn bill contains what may appear to be a restriction on how bodyshops use H-1B visas. Don't be fooled -- bodyshops aren't the most important issue -- the number of visas available is far more important. Cornyn was very clever to insert this provision into the bill in order to split the opposition. It won't stop bodyshops from operating in the U.S. but it might inconvenience them a little since they will have to change how they bill their work.

Cornyn's bill also has some verbiage to enforce the law against fraud. As I have explained before, fraud isn't a major problem in the H-1B visa program, so the provisions he is offering will do nothing to help American workers against the huge onslaught of foreigners he wants to import.

USCIS conducted their random selection process on April 14, 2008 for their H-1B lottery, per this update.

April 15, 2008. I'm sure I've missed something. Please feel free to comment if you noticed any glaring omissions.

April 16, 2008. [Fill in the blank. I'm sure something momentous will happen that will make my article obsolete as soon as I hit the "Publish Post" button.]

Anyone can tell that the High and the Mighty are hell-bent on getting their visa limit increases. There seems to be growing consensus that at least one of these measures will be passed this year despite the fact unemployment rates are so high even the figures provided by the Bush administration are showing that the jobless rate is increasing.

I've been learning about these issues for a little over a year now. I've seen the same unoriginal arguments over and over and over again that we need a limitless supply of foreign tech workers because we are not producing enough of the best and brightest to fill all of these mysterious job openings that are supposedly open to everyone. Every once in a while the high tech lobby does something that jolts me awake again. This year, so far, it's the possibly unconstitutional fiat from the Department of Homeland Security to deal with this "national crisis" by increasing the Optional Practical Training program time limit for F-1 STEM student visa holders.

I wonder what the next surprise will be?

(Cross-posted at Carrie's Nation.)

Labels: education, employment, F-1's, H-1Bs, L-1s, skills shortage

Mr. Bush and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame the gas-price increase on the Clinton administration, saying the administration has had no coherent domestic energy policy and, in imposing regulations to meet clean air standards, had allowed prices to drift as high as $2.39 a gallon in the Midwest. Mr. Bush also said the administration had failed to persuade the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to ''open the spigots'' to increase the supply. (source)

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

''I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply,'' Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. ''Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.''

Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.

''Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies,'' he said. (source)

The price of New York crude oil on Tuesday surged to a record high of 112.78 dollars a barrel, boosted by a weak US currency and tightening energy supplies, traders said.

Later Tuesday, New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, stood at 112.65 dollars a barrel, up 89 cents on Monday's close.

London's Brent North Sea crude for May struck its own record high of 110.91 dollars a barrel on Tuesday. It later stood at 110.85 dollars, up 1.01 dollars.

[snip]

The US dollar dived to a fresh low of 1.5913 to the euro last Wednesday and has only partially regained its ground against the European unit.

Meanwhile US energy stockpiles showed an unexpectedly sharp decline in the week ending April 4, according to the last report from the US Department of Energy. The DoE was to publish its next inventories release on Wednesday.

Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz and the electronics seller Sharper Image — have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales.

But the troubles are quickly spreading to bigger national companies, like Linens ‘n Things, the bedding and furniture retailer with 500 stores in 47 states. It may file for bankruptcy as early as this week, according to people briefed on the matter.

Even retailers that can avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash through what could be a long economic downturn. Over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will start to shutter 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100.

The surging cost of necessities has led to a national belt-tightening among consumers. Figures released on Monday showed that spending on food and gasoline is crowding out other purchases, leaving people with less to spend on furniture, clothing and electronics. Consequently, chains specializing in those goods are proving vulnerable.

Retailing is a business with big ups and downs during the year, and retailers rely heavily on borrowed money to finance their purchases of merchandise and even to meet payrolls during slow periods. Yet the nation’s banks, struggling with the growing mortgage crisis, have started to balk at extending new loans, effectively cutting up the retail industry’s collective credit cards.

Labels: economic death watch

It seems that Cindy McCain, John McCain's perfect, blonde beer-baroness wife is about to find herself painted as the latest example of plagiarism on the campaign trail.

This past Sunday, Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site.

On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." Ms. Handel quickly realized that some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.

At least three of the "McCain Family Recipes" appear to be lifted directly from the Food Network, while at least one is a Rachael Ray recipe with minor changes.

See for yourself... and Bon Appetit...

Labels: John McCain, snark

Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell, two media figures who led major newspaper acquisitions in recent months, are among four new members joining the board of directors of The Associated Press, it was announced Monday at the news cooperative's annual meeting.

[snip]

Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., was appointed by the board until the next election of directors to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Jay Smith, who announced earlier this month he was retiring as president of Cox Newspapers.

[snip]

The AP board has 18 directors elected by AP members at their annual meeting, in staggered groups of six each year. These directors are elected to three-year terms and are eligible to serve up to a total of nine years. The board can also appoint up to six additional directors if it chooses. These seats are sometimes filled by former elected directors who first joined the board to fill unexpired terms and end their elected service with one or two years of eligibility remaining.

After addressing the journalists gathered at the annual Associated Press luncheon in Washington, D.C., today, Sen. Barack Obama, standing at the podium, took a few questions. The last one from the audience, delivered via AP chairman W. Dean Singleton, was related to Afghanistan, our troops in Iraq and the threat posed by, as Singleton put it, "Obama bin Laden."

Obama quickly corrected Singleton. “That’s Osama bin Laden,” he said. The crowd laughed a bit. "If I did that, I am so sorry," Singleton replied.

Labels: hack journalism, icepick meet forehead

Labels: 2008 election

Sometime between the government bailout of Bear Stearns and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that America lost 80,000 jobs in March, Lee Tachman spent roughly $50,000 last month on a four-day jaunt to Miami for himself and three close friends.

The trip was an exercise in luxuriant male bonding. Mr. Tachman, who is 38, and his friends got around by private jet, helicopter, Hummer limousine, Ferraris and Lamborghinis; stayed in V.I.P. rooms at Casa Casuarina, the South Beach hotel that was formerly Gianni Versace’s mansion; and played “extreme adventure paintball” with former agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mr. Tachman, a manager for a company that executes trades for hedge funds and the owner of “a handful” of buildings in New York, said he has not felt the need to cut back.

“I always feel like there’s a sword of Damocles over my head, like it could all come crashing down at any time,” he said. “But there’s always going to be people who are trading, and there’s always going to be a demand for real estate in New York.”

He is hardly alone in his eagerness to keep spending. Some businesses that cater to the superrich report that clients — many of them traders and private equity investors whose work is tied to Wall Street — are still splurging on multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartments, custom-built yachts, contemporary art and lavish parties.

Buyers this year have already closed on 71 Manhattan apartments that each cost more than $10 million, compared with 17 apartments in that price range during all of 2007. Last week, a New York art dealer paid a record $1.6 million for an Edward Weston photograph at Sotheby’s. And the GoldBar, a downtown lounge, reports that bankers continue to order $3,000 bottles of Rémy Martin Louis XIII Cognac.

“When times get tough, the smart spend money,” said David Monn, an event planner who is organizing a black-tie party on May 10 for dignitaries and recent purchasers of apartments at the Plaza Hotel; the average price there was $7 million. “Short of our country going on food stamps, I don’t think we’re doing anything differently.”

Some extreme spenders say they have not cut back on their impulse Bentley or apartment purchases because they have made so much money in the good times from the Internet, stock market and real estate. Some have been able to move their money into investments like private equity that are available only to those with extensive capital. Some rationalize cars and home renovations as “investments.” And some simply don’t want to skimp on the weddings and anniversary parties that they see as milestone events.

“We’re trying to spend on what we feel is important,” said Victor Self, an executive with a fitness company who, with his partner, is planning to spend $100,000 on a commitment ceremony on St. Barts and a dessert party for 200 to 300 guests at Jeffrey, a clothing store in the meatpacking district.

Labels: greed, income inequality

Labels: just another outrage

It would be a "cop-out" for countries to skip the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics as a way of protesting China's crackdown in Tibet, President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday.

The kind of "quiet diplomacy" that the U.S. is practicing is a better way to send a message to China's leaders rather than "frontal confrontation," Stephen Hadley said.

Labels: foreign policy, icepick meet forehead

The lawsuit asks the Court to compel the FEC to conduct an investigation into McCain's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the public financing system, and, should the FEC continue to fail to do so, to allow the DNC to sue McCain directly for disobeying campaign finance laws.

"We believe he's breaking the law every day," said DNC Executive Director Tom McMahon on a conference call Sunday.

The complaint faces some significant hurdles. For one, the FEC is hamstrung from dealing with the complex legal issues by a shortage of commissioners -- four of six seats are vacant pending senate confirmations -- and each additional step in the suit would drag out the process. So long as it remains unresolved, McCain will be able to continue to spend above the primary limits.

Then there is the McCain campaign's argument -- crafted by the candidate's lawyer, a former FEC chairman -- that public financing is voluntary, and McCain had every right to withdraw from the system when it became clear the campaign wouldn't need federal matching money.

As you likely know, the FEC is stymied at the moment due to the Bush Administration trying to shove Hans Von Spakovsky and all of his "caging" and other alleged nefarious campaign activities onto the election commission as a GOP dirty tricks ringer. Because the Democratic-led Congress said "no way" to Hans being voted through in a bloc vote, the Administration and their pal, Mitch McConnell, have balked at any FEC commissioner vote in the Senate. Which means that in this very important 2008 election cycle, the FEC is unable to act promptly to enforce the campaign finance laws.

Even so, FEC Chairman David Mason sent McCain's campaign a strongly worded letter (PDF), letting them know that even though McCain didn't consider his word on accepting public financing binding, that the FEC was not about to let him off the legal hook. What did McCain do? He ignored the letter, secured a loan based on representations of obtaining public financing and then blew past the public financing law spending limits...and he's still raising campaign cash, too.

Labels: Bill Maher