THE DAILY BLADE: Obama – Not McCain - Will Be Bush III: New York Times
Citing President Bush’s agreeing to a “time horizon” for troop withdrawals from Iraq (second item) and the administration’s having authorized high-level talks with Iran and North Korea, The New York Times notes that McCain – who remains opposed to a timed withdrawal not contingent on conditions on the ground, as well as to diplomatic engagement with “axis of evil” countries – is creating “the perception that he is more conservative than Mr. Bush”:
Essentially, as the administration has taken a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy, the decision of Mr. McCain to adhere to his more hawkish positions illustrates the continuing influence of neoconservatives on his thinking even as they are losing clout within the administration.
Whether the perception of Mr. McCain as being at odds with the administration is politically advantageous for him is a matter of debate among his supporters, but many of his more conservative advisers do not think it is a bad thing.
“There’s no doubt, particularly as Bush has adopted policies in the direction of Obama, that that gives Obama bragging rights,” said John R. Bolton, the Bush administration’s former ambassador to the United Nations, who has sharply criticized the administration’s talks with Iran and North Korea. “But if you believe as I do that this administration is in the midst of an intellectual collapse, it doesn’t hurt McCain. Occasionally in politics it helps to be right.”
Stop the presses! The Times admits that Bush’s and McCain’s foreign policy strategies and objectives are not identical. But it gets better: A couple of days earlier The Times’ political blog, The Caucus, had already made the case that Obama will be Bush III.
Describing a speech by Bush that was not televised delivered before “400 invited guests of the United States Agency for International Development, including administration officials and dissidents from Cuba, Belarus, Iran and North Korea” reporter Steven Lee Myers wrote:
President Bush also gave a speech on America’s role in the world on Thursday, and while the setting and the style could hardly be different, there were some striking parallels between his and Senator Barack Obama’s.
Both men talked about hope. Both spoke of freedom as the core of American foreign policy. They sought to revive the spirit of NATO, the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan for a new era and a new war against extremism. It is a conflict that involves not only military might, but the instruments of soft power: aid, trade, help fighting AIDS.
Both championed the victims of political oppression in places like Myanmar, Iran, Zimbabwe and Darfur. Neither offered any new proposal. …
Substantively, however, the two speeches suggested that, all campaigning aside, some fundamental aspects of American foreign policy are likely to remain more or less unchanged. Those include opposition to Iran’s nuclear weapons, support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, a strong NATO role in helping rebuild Afghanistan.
Even on Iraq, where he has differed most with the administration, Mr. Obama called on the world to help Iraqis achieve sovereignty.
When it comes to steadfastness, the less things change, the more they stay the same. Now that’s lack of change The Stiletto can believe in!
Employers Hiring Forged Documented Aliens Are Lawbreakers In Other Ways, Too
Last May’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid of kosher meatpacking plant Agriprocessors in Postville, IA, not only found that nearly half the employees at Agriprocessors were found to be illegal immigrants, and 20 of the 389 who were rounded up were under-age - some as young as 13-years old, reports The New York Times:
[I]n the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said. …
Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.
In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies are also looking into complaints that “female employees … were offered promotions in exchange for sexual favors,” reports New York Magazine, as well as allegations that the plant housed a methamphetamine lab.
The illegals may also sue under the Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations. According to an affidavit by Elmer L., an illegal alien from Guatemala who said he was 16 years old when he started working at the plant: he regularly worked 17 hours a day, with no breaks; he made $7.25 an hour, but was not routinely paid overtime; he only had time to work and sleep, and felt like he was “a slave.” Elmer L. also said, “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
After learning of these egregious labor – and human rights – abuses, Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Joe Baca (D-CA), members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who went to Postville on a “fact finding” tour, were horrified. Sires said, “We don't want it to ever happen again."
But he didn’t mean: “We don’t want employers ever again to hire illegal aliens so they can abuse them, knowing they are too afraid to go to the authorities.” He meant: “We don’t ever want ICE to investigate and raid a workplace known to break immigration law, no matter what else is going on in there.”
Just as liberals don't get that a drug dealer will not scruple to obey gun control laws, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the ACLU, Hispanic activists and other other pro-illegal immigration shills don’t understand that employers who knowingly hire forged documented aliens will not scruple to obey other labor laws. The only way to uncover abuses such as those allegedly occurring at Agriprocessors – which are tantamount to indentured servitude – is to keep raiding workplaces suspected of violating immigration laws.
Comments