A president says, "Take down this wall." In a campaign ad a few decades later, Sen. John McCain and a sheriff from another county stroll along beside The Great Wall of the Southwest. "Put up the dang wall," says Cowpoke John.
Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ) who has been beating the tom-tom in support of the new anti-immigration bill in Arizona is not "in favor of enforcing laws prohibiting employers from hiring undocumented workers."
Let me see if I have this straight. Undocumented workers should be deported but employers who hire them should not be prosecuted. The guy is not only pandering to his business constituents, he's wondering how he's going to pay Anglos the wages they expect to maintain his nine mansions. It's also slave labor.
The American worker expects minimum wage. Immigrants are happy to get $10 a day, if that much.
McCain went on to praise Arizona Governor Jan Brewer who signed the law "giving state police broad power to identify, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants." McCain said on Fox News that he is "proud of the work" she is doing on immigration, and justified the law “because the federal government would not enforce its responsibilities.”
But letting business get away with skirting immigration laws hurts Arizona’s workers. As the Wonk Room’s Andrea Nill has noted:
Unscrupulous employers who hire and abuse undocumented labor drive down wages and working conditions for all the Americans who work alongside them. They also put honest businesses who want to abide by immigration and labor laws in a position in which they are forced to compete on an uneven playing field.
Too bad Arizona doesn't have at least one sane Republican candidate for Senator. One who is half-way intelligent and who doesn't flip-flop.
I've tried to not beat up on this man too much because of what he's been through but it is high time he is out of the picture. Damn near worse than Raygun was at the end.
ReplyDeleteHe barely functions.
He went through it how many years ago? Time to move on. He berely functions because he shows all the signs of senility - just like Raygun did during his last term of office.
ReplyDeleteHe lost all credibility when he chose Palin as his vp. She's become his very own Frankenstein monster, and he unleashed her on US!
ReplyDeleteHe lost any credibility with me long before Palin. I've always thought he was a slippery slimy snake with no integrity - certainly not a maverick.
ReplyDeleteMcCain's a loser. He always have been a loser. He finished near the bottom of his class. He had trouble keeping an airplane in the sky. He got his ass shot down. He dumped his sick wife. He remarried rich and bought his way into politics. He has lied and cheated all his life. What we see and hear is the real John McCain. Lying, cheating, hypocritical bastard!
ReplyDeleteAnd those are his good points.
JC: LOL. Since the Keating 5 I have watched this guy shed many skins. When people have said that he's willing to work both sides of the aisle, I have just chuckled. When they've said he's a maverick I've laughed out loud. Now that some people are saying he's senile, I say I'll drink to that.
ReplyDeleteHe lost all credibility, when he stood up there smiling after George the lesser dogged him about his adopted daughter in SC. Just got worse with his pick of Bible Spice to try and pick off Hillary Clinton voters as if all she needed was to be a woman to get the women's vote. Sorry John, we women are a whole lot smarter than some of you republican men seem to think. We are not all Stepford wives, like you are accustomed to, standing behind you smiling.
ReplyDeleteNow that he is not the maverick he said he was over and over again he is trying to court the hard right residents of Teabagistan. Let him try, they won't vote for him over JD Hayworth. He does not deserve to serve the people of AZ.
There are many jobs which are worth less than the government-mandated minimum wage. The illegals are often employed at these. Abolish the government minimum wage laws so wages are instead fair, based on the real value, and there will be less incentive to hire illegal aliens for these low-value jobs. This will only affect a small amount of jobs, actually, because the real value of most of them is above the arbitrary minimum-wage value. But it will get rid of this black-market area of the labor market.
ReplyDeleteBack to McCain, yes his flip-flops on this have been noticed.
Jess: McCain will win the Republican nomination because JD Hayworth is so much worse, if you can believe that.
ReplyDeletedmarks: $7.25 an hour before taxes for a family of one is slightly more than $100 above the poverty level.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/09poverty.shtml
If employers were "fair," there would be no need for minimum wage laws, but they aren't and they never have been. That's also why we have unions.
Having lived in AZ I can say unequivocally that there is nothing fair about hiring practices there. Having been married to a "successful" businessman, I know that if it hadn't been for the union, employees would have been screwed up one side and down the other.
I don't know if I hope McCain wins or loses. His opponent is a really wright wing nutcase. Both of them are horrible choices and we can hope that there are enough sane people in Arizona to elect a Democrat in November. Unfortunately, the Mesa area that foists these wingnuts on us are very strong politically in my State and they rule the roost.
ReplyDeleteTN: "$7.25 an hour before taxes for a family of one is slightly more than $100 above the poverty level."
ReplyDeleteA large proportion of minimum wage earners are teens at first jobs or other situations where it is not relied on for family income. So, what about these? Do you mandate that employees also pay this unearned money to people who do not rely on it as you describe?
It seems nonsensical to mandate that businesses (mostly small businesses) pay people an unearned amount (welfare), especially when only some of them are in a needy situation. This is not means-tested at all.
"If employers were "fair," there would be no need for minimum wage laws"
There's no need, period. Besides, it is fair for the employee to pay for the value of the work. Not to pay everyone enough so a certain imaginary few can live according to some arbitrary standard.
Also, your "from thin air" example about the poverty level is about a family one 1. What about a family of 3? There are also families of 6. So, why aren't you instead mandating a minimum wage level of $25 or so an hour to cover these size families?
"I know that if it hadn't been for the union, employees would have been screwed up one side and down the other."
So, instead we have situations like Flint, Michigan, where, thanks to the union, the workers have lost their jobs. Now, who did the screwing there?
A good friend of mine, a few months ago, was forced into the SEIU. There was a union secret vote no one was told about. So guess what happened? The SEIU got her a $40 a month raise. That's great. But they are also taking $70 a month now in dues. So she ends up poorer due to the union: making $30 less a month. She got screwed here, and it was by the union. She had no choice of whether or not to join, which is actually my main problem with unions.
I’m playing catch-up and have just read your last three posts. Before coming to your blog I read Rand Paul’s comments on CNN’s Politiccal Ticker defending BP in the oil spill. While I will not comment on each post, I will conclude that our opponents in the political sphere are F-N NUTS! BJ
ReplyDeleteDarlene: Are there any Democrats besides you in AZ? ; )
ReplyDeletedmarks: I was going to respond but I'm tired of your long diatribes that are totally off topic and that are never backed up and I sure as hell don't have time to do your research.
ReplyDeletetnlib, you ask if there are many democratic voters like Darlene in AZ. Why yes, yes there are, plenty of them, which in about another 5-10 yrs it will probably flip to the democrats, the way repubs are alienating all but the crazy. I know several of them, Tuscon, Phoenix are basically a nice purple color right now but trending democratic.
ReplyDeleteIMO, this will be like a re run of prop 187 in California from the 80s. It will hurt the republicans in the long run, with the Hispanic vote. I heard Pearce is apprently not done with this. He now wants to revisit the 14th amendment and the "anchor babies" as he calls them. Someone needs to take him aside and let him know, that is FEDERAL and not the state's jurisdiction. Here is an investigative reporter, showing he wants to go further after gtting a bunch of emails to and from Pearce. Of course, this will all be some sort of liberal plot to make him look bad when he does come out and try to spin it away, as the repubs always do. I may be way out of line here, but weren't the Mexicans, Native Americans here first, I think they were. Maybe we just need to get rid of people like Pearce. I hear Plum Island in NY is going up for sale, maybe we can gather up the teabaggers and let them go there to enjoy Teabagistan all on their own. Below is the video from the investigatvie reporter in AZ discussing what he had found in the emails.
http://www.kpho.com/video/23615713/index.html
Weak employers, too lazy or stupid to define and enforce work rules are what closes business Dmarks.
ReplyDeleteOr they are enamored with paying slave wages so they take the traitorous rout and move manufacturing overseas. Bet you're real proud of Nike and the wonderful working conditions they support in China.
I don't know what business you're in Dmarks but if all you can afford to pay is less than minimum wage then perhaps you should think about a different career. Maybe a Union job someplace.
To Jess; Yes, Arizona, Texas, part of New Mexico and California were all part of Mexico before we took it away from them. Of course, the only real natives are the Indians.
ReplyDeleteI really think John McCain is losing it. I see signs of senility. He was always playing both sides against the middle. Thank goodness he did not win the presidency. But the fact that he was even the candidate should give people pause. The fact that he got any votes is frightening.
tn: off topic, yes. but the points are quite obvious and are backed up. You will probably not object to my comment on the more recent item (about immigration) because it is something we happen to agree on. That's the key difference here: off-topic "diatribes" are OK if they are on your side.
ReplyDeletetruth: There are no such thing as "slave wages". Slaves are not paid wages. The inclusion of the word "slave" there is to invoke some sort of emotional response and nothing more. And there is nothing "traitorous" about employing the best workers, even if they have a different skin color and speak a funny language.
Jess: I used to live in AZ and was being a bit sarcastic. Also lived in Texas, so I'm pretty familiar with the demographics of that area, including Colorado. I hope this doesn't come across as sounding patronizing because that's not the way I mean it.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about this being under Federal jurisdiction and about Spanish speaking peoples (from Mexico and Spain) and the Native Americans being here before the White Immigrant.
The problem, as I'm sure you know, is that these Neanderthals are not hindered by facts. If it's not in the Good Book, it can't be true.
Watched the video. Very interesting. "Men don't drop the Anchor Babies???" Nope, they just fuck the soon-to-be-mother and turn the other way while mother and child are being deported - kind of like flippy floppy here.
Truth: You're right. I've never understood why employers sob in their beers and moan about an employee who's lazy or stupid or both. Fire them. Quit yer snivveling.
ReplyDeleteI've joined several unions in my life time - by choice. I wasn't pressured anymore than a person would be to join a neighborhood association. In the end, it was ((my choice.))
When I fired someone for literally falling asleep at her desk - several times - after a night of high living, I got more grief from management than I did the un ion.
Darlene: You and I are on the same track.
ReplyDeletedmarks: ". . . the points are quite obvious and are backed up."
Where?
". . .off-topic "diatribes" are OK if they are on your side."
You just love to be personally insulting - like the time you sent me an email accusing me of being mean. You need to understand that a person's blog is their own and they can run it anyway they want. If you aren't happy with this arrangement, you need to consider visiting other blogs.
At any rate, I'm tired of dealing with this SOS.
No, it didn't come across that way at all. I just happen to know some people there and know they all are good dems.
ReplyDelete