Here’s an opinion piece I’ve written for today’s L.A. Times on the pro-immigrant demonstrations and boycotts planned for next Monday. As you can see, I’m a big booster of the overall movement but I think the specific tactic of a one-day economic boycott is a mistake.

I don’t know whether it’s more appropriate to laugh or cry while tracking the political jockeying over $3.50 a gallon gas prices. Neither party has any real power to much affect the price of a global commodity. Unless of course there might be some bi-partisan support for nationalizing the oil industry and then subsidizing the consumer market price. [...]

The biggest state in the union which is governed by the world’s most famous working movie star is having a gubernatorial election (the primary is only six weeks away) and hardly anyone is noticing. I’ve written an L.A. Weekly column about it. And smart gal that she is, Chris Nolan has penned a similar take. [...]

As widely rumored, Fox News commentator Tony Snow has been named as the new White House press secretary replacing the hapless Scotty McClellan. Snow’s appointment is hardly the great crossover event that some are making of it. Prior to enlisting with Fox he had been a speechwriter for Poppy Bush. The appointment of this or [...]

I’m back at work and so is the U.S. Senate. The question is whether it will now take up where it left off before going into recess and finally pass a decent immigration reform bill? President Bush, under pressure from anxious and poll-afflicted Republican lawmakers, waded directly into the debate Monday, saying he opposed deportation [...]

Thanks to those of you who privately emailed me asking with some concern about my hiatus. Everything’s fine and dandy. There was only accumulated busy-work that had to be tended to late last week. And this weekend was a planned vacation in a remote location! Back to blogging tomorrow, Tuesday.

Taking a life-imposed hiatus until Monday evening. Talk amongst yourselves. No throwing of food, however.

Poor Scotty McClellan has finally been beamed up from Planet Stupid. I don’t know about you, but I could never work it up to hate or even dislike the President’s spokesman. Mostly, I felt sorry for him. Truth is, among the White House press corps, McClellan was actually well-liked. He was viewed as a nice [...]

Comedian Lewis Black likes to joke that the difference between the two parties is that the Republicans are the party of bad ideas while the Democrats are the party of no ideas. Writer and professor Alan Wolfe takes up at least the first half of that axiom in a somewhat more serious vein in the most recent Chronicle [...]

Here’s an excerpt from a piece just out critiquing the recently re-stated Bush National Security Strategy. Let’s overlook the author and source for a moment. The article slams the White House doctrine of shaping the world with a “goal of ending tyranny in our world.” The excerpt: How are we to explain this propensity for [...]

I’m not much of a joiner. Wasn’t even back when I actually used to join this or that group.  Those groups were — mostly– left-libertarian or even anarchist. My suspicion and fear of anthing that even has a whiff of “party-discipine” attached to it makes me tremble. But I have decided to put my signature [...]

George W. Bush claims he ignores polls and politicians when it comes to advice on Iraq and that he relies strictly on the judgement of the generals on the ground. Apparently not. Retired Major General John Batiste – a lifelong Republican who commanded the U.S. Army’s 1st infantry division in Iraq in 2003 and 2004– says [...]

Remember, just the other day when I was saying how the sort of optimism that has buoyed the immigrant marches of the past month has become such a rare commodity? Kevin Drum, with whom I’ve had a friendly email dialogue about the immigration issue last week (and who I think is pretty smart guy), for example, can’t easily accept [...]

Having lived in Italy for three years in the late 70′s, and like my friend Roger Simon, believing it’s the greatest place in the world to have lunch, I pay special attention to its national politics. This week’s election has left the country very neatly divided in almost perfect halves. Fortunately, the balance tipped against [...]

Michael Berube has a rollicking time remembering what Governor Schwarzenegger said (or didn’t) about immigrants at the 2004 Republican Convention.

I’ve just finished writing this week’s column for L.A. Weekly. And while it won’t be posted for a couple more days, allow me — in the best traditions of the Bush administration– to leak you my key point (that’s all I have time to do as I’m swamped with work and can only lightly blog). What’s [...]

When a half-million marched in downtown Los Angeles March 25 for immigrants’ rights many observers (freely challenged on this site) made dire predictions about some ominous xenophobic backlash that would be provoked by Mexicans out in the streets waving Mexican flags. Two weeks later we can now confidently say, Que paso, ‘mano? What’s happened, of [...]

Update: Early reports say yet another half-million people, this time in Dallas, marched for immigrant rights on Sunday. I believe this startling event adds even more context to what is said below. Another marker on just how much the entire professional American political class (Republicans and Democrats) has fallen behind ground-level reality. Kevin Drum, among [...]

The collapse of the Senate immigration bill, shamefully consumated on Friday, was not totally unforeseen. I’m among those who publicly predicted an eventual punt from Congress. What we didn’t anticipate it is what appears to be the ignominious role played by Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid. I had written, as recently as Thursday, that it [...]

My long piece reviewing the current literature and debate about the border and immigration is just out in the May edition of The Atantic. This is a premium service so, for the moment, I can only offer you the tickler. The link above or the one at the bottom of this post will allow you [...]