As we get close to labor day you need to know that while Obama says "Yes you can!" McCain says "No you can't!" to American workers, telling them that they can't do the job.

In McCain's fragile mind the real problem isn't about paying a man or woman fair wages for an honest day's work... McCain thinks the problem is that Americans just aren't good enough - hard working enough - to do these jobs.

I guess McCain thinks that you need to work harder at finding a pill-popping sugar momma beer heiress 2nd wife, like Cindy McCain, to pay your bills for you if you want to be able to succeed like he did?

I know that the work he is talking about is hard as hell. And it is only made worse by companies that hire undocumented immigrants and put the workers through hellish conditions that are often nothing more than modern day slave labor. Those are the very real issues that McCain would rather ignore.

Instead of having these companies hire by honest free market rules McCain and the GOP would rather let these companies continue to exploit fellow human beings and claim that Americans can't or won't do the work.

Originally posted at drinking liberally in new milford:
"McCain Thinks American Workers Aren't Good Enough"

Hat-tip to ricardomath for the heads-up.

When officials who have several options take one of the harshest options first, you know there's something wrong with the government.

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U.S. town turned into an open-air prison
by Charles Lewis, National Post
Published: Friday, August 15, 2008

The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison.

...[...snip...]...

On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.

...[...snip...]...

"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."

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Boggles the mind indeed.

Click the link in the title to read the whole thing.

This is an Open Thread.

promoted... good to see XP's posting!

Hot off the press, the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility just released a report on the improper hiring practices by Monica Goodling, the Department of Justice's (DOJ) White House Liaison and Senior Counsel to the Attorney General. According to the report, Goodling broke federal law by discriminating against job applicants on account of their political views.

YES Magazine, Summer '08 Edition, has a number of really good articles, and an interview, that should be read and obsorbed as to some of what we should be putting into public discussion as we try to turn this ship of state around and head in a direction that should already have been. These articles touch on a number of important issues, Very Important, not only for us, as a country, but our place in the world and for the world as a whole.

Susan Ferriss/SacBee:
Labor inspectors root out violations along Central Valley back roads

A vision from the Great Depression lay before them. .. More than 30 tents rose like mushrooms under the trees. Clothes hung from branches, and empty cans and food packages were piled high. Smoke curled from one of the fire pits that had been dug into the soil.

About 100 men – migrant workers who follow crops – were sleeping on the ground by night in this orchard owned by R & J Dondero Inc., and climbing ladders by day to pick the company's cherries. Only a few overflowing portable toilets – and the orchard – were available for the men.

Marisa Taylor/McClatchy: Critics: New screening methods target Muslims
Federal agencies have created internal lists of countries that are of "special interest" . . . So many federal agencies have created different lists that U.S. officials contemplated adopting a single one to streamline the process . . . The proposed list, which officials said had yet to be adopted, includes 35 countries, most with significant Muslim or Arab populations. Almost 20 percent of the world's countries — including some of the United States' key allies, such as Jordan, Turkey and Egypt — are on the list.
:: :: ::

Which seems to be the norm for this country, just look at the leadership that's allowed to continue,
across the board, on any subject one might pick!

A Los Angeles man with mental problems,
who spent three months lost in Mexico after being deported despite being a U.S. citizen, sued homeland security
and immigration officials on Wednesday.

Mr Guzman apparently was arrested for trespassing and speant time in lockup than,

2008-02-21 00:34:46 -- cho

And Immigration.

Think they don't mix?

Well, GOP lobbyist had no work permit

And guess who he worked for:

A former California Republican Party official who resigned last year in a controversy over his immigration status had no valid visa or work permit during his high-profile career as a Washington lobbyist for conservative icon Grover Norquist, newly filed court records show.

The more things don't change, the more they look different, but smell the same. Gettin' so bad even the immigrants are leaving:

Aluisio Carvalho, 66, left a wife and four children behind in Brazil in 2001 when he set off to find work in Boston. Since then, he has managed to pay for the education of his children by working in a restaurant, but is now planning to leave himself in February

"Salaries are really low, and living costs are high. We also face too much exploitation at work here, too many demands," he said.

For the rest of us the old saying applies: when you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
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[Image @ AmHist Lecture 22, Shultz+Tishler/UWISC.]

Lou Dobbs speaks a variety of the English language known as lie-speak. I was pleased to see a favorite commentator Amy Goodman taking up the cudgels against him, in her piece Lou Dobbs Spreads Vile Misinformation about Immigrants.