The Miami Herald offers an anecdote-heavy story about "illegal immigrants" deciding to leave the US due to new enforcement rules (and the execution of old enforcement rules). (Via Mark Krikorian)

A Texas town's ban on renting to the "undocumented" is struck down by a federal judge:

Only the federal government can regulate immigration, U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay concluded in his decision.

The city didn't defer to the federal government on the matter, violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the federal government to pre-empt local laws, Lindsay said.

Bill Brewer, who represented apartment complex operators who opposed the rule, declared victory.

"It's a good day, not just for my clients," Brewer said. "It's a good day for people who are thinking clearly about what is the proper role of municipal governments in the immigration debate."

Representatives for the city said they had anticipated the outcome. The city has no plans to appeal the ruling because it has already stopped pursuing the ordinance and replaced it with another tactic.

"We're disappointed but not particularly surprised," Michael Jung, one of the city's attorneys, said.

The Farmers Branch council passed the ordinance last year. It would have barred apartment rentals to illegal immigrants and required landlords to verify legal status. The rule would have exempted minors and senior citizens from having to prove their immigration status or citizenship.

Families made up of both citizens and undocumented members would have been allowed to renew an apartment lease if they met three conditions: they were already tenants, the head of household or spouse was living legally in the United States, and the family included only the spouse, their minor children or parents.

The town has scrapped this policy and will be implementing a new one:

Farmers Branch has given up requiring landlords to verify immigration status and instead plans to implement a rule that would require prospective tenants to get a rental license from the city, which would then ask the federal government for the applicant's legal status before approving it.

The future of carbon trading? A British environmental committee has put forward an idea of personal carbon rations:

Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven't used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.

MPs, led by Tory Tim Yeo, say the scheme could be more effective at cutting greenhouse gas emissions than green taxes.

The Labour government doesn't oppose the idea in principle, either; it merely "warns it is 'ahead of its time'." Every purchase would be monitored and incorporated into this scheme, the news report says. George Monbiot, who is currently advocating a "citizen's arrest" of John Bolton, praises the measure's redistributionism: it "tends to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor."

Some point out the difficulties of the program:

But critics say the idea is deeply flawed. The scheme would penalise those living in the countryside who were dependent on their cars, as well as the elderly or housebound who need to heat their homes in the day.

Large families would suffer, as would those working at nights when little public transport is available.

It would need to take into account the size of families, and their ages. There is huge potential for fraud.

Matthew Elliott of the Taxpayers' Alliance said the cards would be hugely unpopular. 'The Government has shown itself incapable of managing any huge, complex IT system.' he said.

Some are also criticizing this matter more broadly in principle, saying that it would offer too extensive an intervention into the economic lives of its citizens, and some are even calling it "totalitarian." Tim Yeo has a long history of advocating further government intervention in the daily lives of its citizens. For example, last year, he argued that the UK government should work to abolish domestic flights.
Will David Cameron and the other Conservatives also support this plan? Some think they will not.

McCain reiterates his support for "comprehensive immigration reform" and pledges to make this reform a top priority of a potential first term:

After several of the business leaders complained about the difficulty in obtaining temporary H1B visas for scientists and engineers, something the Senate immigration bill was supposed to address, Mr. McCain expressed regret the measure did not pass, calling it a personal “failure,” as well as one by the federal government.

“Senator Kennedy and I tried very hard to get immigration reform, a comprehensive plan, through the Congress of the United States,” he said. “It is a federal responsibility and because of our failure as a federal obligation, we’re seeing all these various conflicts and problems throughout our nation as different towns, cities, counties, whatever they are, implement different policies and different programs which makes things even worse and even more confusing.”

He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”

So McCain emphasizes his opposition to local measures in order to deal with "illegal immigration" and, seemingly, piecemeal federal measures.
(H/T: Hot Air)

Reid pulls the AgJOBS amendment from the Iraq supplemental. But one immigration measure remains attached to the legislation. Via NumbersUSA:

The H-2B provisions still in the bill, which were sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), would exempt from the annual cap of 66,000 any H-2B nonagricultural seasonal workers who were admitted during the previous three years. This could increase the annual number of H-2B workers to over 400,000 by FY 2011.

UPDATE: Reid has now also removed the H-2B provisions from the bill.

A group of ten senators writes a letter to Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) over the Feinstein/Craig Ag-Jobs measure. The press release announcing this letter:

U.S. Sen. David Vitter today joined fellow immigration reform-minded colleagues in a letter to U.S. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing disappointment in the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee’s inclusion of the Feinstein AGJobs language to the Iraq War emergency funding bill and urging for the controversial provision to be removed. Vitter joined U.S Sens. Jeff Sessions, Charles Grassley, Tom Coburn, Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chambliss, James Inhofe, John Barrasso, Elizabeth Dole and Jim Bunning on the letter.

“The Democratic leadership is building a reputation for sneaking unpopular provisions that would never see the light of day as stand-alone bills into larger necessary pieces of legislation, like the Iraq War supplemental funding bill,” said Vitter. “When will the amnesty proponents learn that the American people want border security and enforcement as their immigration reform policy, not sweeping amnesty for millions of illegal aliens? I join my colleagues in urging the Democratic leader to remove the Feinstein AG Jobs provision.”

Vitter also announced that he will introduce an amendment today to strike that Feinstein AGJobs language from the Iraq War emergency funding bill.

“My clear and concise amendment will simply state that the immigration amnesty language should be removed. We need to fight this bad policy and raise the awareness of the American people,” added Vitter.

The letter pledges a "vigorous debate on immigration policy" if Feinstein/Craig remains in the bill.

NumbersUSA has a more detailed analysis of Feinstein/Craig. In order to qualify for the amendment's visas, a worker would somehow have to show that he or she had worked "863 hours or 150 work days (defined as 5.75 hours of work per “work day”), or earned at least $7,000 in agricultural employment between January1, 2004, and December 31, 2007." Workers would not, it seems, be required to pay back taxes on this money earned; they will only be required to pay taxes on the money earned once they've been legalized. Once legalized, workers may be joined by their family members. In order to maintain this legal status, visa-holders would have to work in agriculture at least 100 days a year. Feinstein/Craig visas are applicable for five years.
NumbersUSA also brings out another interesting aspect of this amendment. It claims that Feinstein/Craig would bring "virtually all immigration enforcement to a grinding halt": if passed, the legislation would allow any apprehended "illegal immigrant" 30 days to file an application for legalization (assuming he or she could make a "nonfrivolous" claim) and could not be deported until after this claim is adjudicated.

Ira Mehlman of FAIR reports on some of the details of the immigration-related measures attached to the Iraq funding supplemental, bringing out the numbers that may be involved in these amendments. He thinks at least 2 million individuals could have their statuses changed:

In one afternoon, the Appropriations Committee approved amnesty for 1.35 million illegal alien agricultural workers, and made available an additional 650,000 skilled and unskilled foreign guest workers over the next three years.
[...]
The 2 million figure does not include the dependents of the amnesty recipients or new workers who could be admitted under existing agricultural guest worker programs. Under the agricultural amnesty – written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) at the behest of the California agricultural lobby – the spouses of amnesty recipients will also be authorized to compete with American workers for jobs in any sector of our labor market. Nor does it include the potentially unlimited number of new guest workers agricultural employers will be able to import under a “streamlined” H-2A program that requires the Department of Labor to issue visas within seven days of an employer’s request.

In addition to Feinstein/Craig, other immigration measures were tacked on to the Iraq supplemental for both "skilled" and "unskilled" workers (e.a.):

The Maryland fishing and tourism industries also want a ready supply of cheap foreign labor, and Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) was happy to accommodate by offering an amendment that exempts returning unskilled or low-skilled H-2B workers from counting against the caps for that category. (Never mind that there are fewer Maryland crabs to harvest each year, and that with the skyrocketing price of gas people may not be able to afford to drive to the Eastern Shore.) Over the next three years, the cumulative number of H-2B workers admitted could reach 432,000.

And while the Appropriations Committee was piling on goodies for the low-skill industries, they found time to take care of the lobbyists for the high tech industry as well. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Microsoft/Wash.) added a provision to “recapture” 218,000 visas for skilled foreign workers. These visas didn’t really “escape,” so much as they just went unutilized between 1996 and 2004, especially during the years immediately after the high tech bubble burst. But now high tech employers and labor contractors want those visas back, because foreign guest workers tamp down labor costs for the industry.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a leading opponent of the "grand bargain," is mobilizing against the Feinstein/Craig amendment. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Mickey Kaus outlines some of the political aspects of the Feinstein/Craig Ag-Jobs amendment. A few of his points:

a) Bad for McCain, right? Just when he's papered over his split with the right on immigration, this would reopen the wound. Maybe that's the Dems point. ...

b) Bad for Rahm Emanuel's swing-district Democratic first-termers who campaigned on tough-on-illegal-immigration platforms, no? If it ever comes to a vote, will they reveal to their electorates that it was all just a pose? ...

c) But not an unclever strategy, if you are a pro-legalization Congressperson and want to strike while Hispandering Season is at its height. ...

d) Presumably McCain is now honor bound to oppose this, having pledged to push legalization only after "widespread consensus that our borders are secure." (If he sticks to his word, it might actually wind up helping him in November, you'd think.)

e) Can you pass a big bill like this in a presidential election year? Well, welfare reform passed in 1996. The key difference? Welfare reform was overwhelming popular, virtually across the board. The fight was largely over who could claim credit for it. Congressmen weren't worried that someone might run an ad accusing them of making welfare recipients go to work.

f) Is this a tacit admission by the legalization caucus that a semi-amnesty might not be as easy to pass in the next president's first two years than you might think (given that all three contenders are formally pro-legalization). ...

Tom Bevan raises some doubts about the notion that George W. Bush's "attack" upon Barack Obama at the Knesset (even though he never mentioned Obama or Democrats but merely criticized appeasement) is "unprecedented" (in that it was an American politician criticizing another American politician while on foreign soil). While some are calling this "political treason" and are suggesting that Bush be impeached over these remarks, are they completely unprecedented? Bevan notes that Bush has said a number of similar things against "appeasement" before, so they're not "unprecedented" on that count.

What about one American politician to be criticizing another on foreign soil (assuming Bush is criticizing Obama)? Just to refresh, here's what Bush actually said:

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you.

We might compare these words of Bush with those of John Kerry speaking at Davos, Switzerland
in January 2007 (some video at Hot Air):

Kerry said the Bush administration has failed to adequately address a number of foreign policy issues, speaking during a World Economic Forum panel discussion that also included Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi and Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad's more moderate predecessor as Iranian president.

"When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy," Kerry said.

"So we have a crisis of confidence in the Middle East — in the world, really. I've never seen our country as isolated, as much as a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons as it is today."

[...]

Kerry criticized what he called the "unfortunate habit" of Americans to see the world "exclusively through an American lens."

He said a new approach could yet bring great benefits to the United States and other countries.

"I think if we did that more forcefully and effectively we could really change the dynamics of the world," Kerry said. "We should be less engaged in this 'neocon' rhetoric of regime change and more involved in building relations and living up to our own values so that people make a different judgment about us."

These are certainly attacks upon the present administration's policies and are more clearly focused on Bush than Bush's remarks seem to have been on Obama. Are these words by Kerry "political treason," too?

Of course, it seems--in the short term at least--to have been advantageous for Obama to pounce on these remarks: it gives an opening for the media, which seems to have tired of primary season, to enter general election mode, and it helps position Obama as the anti-Bush.

Malkin has some more details from Numbers USA about the Ag-Jobs amendment to the Iraq supplemental:

Rosemary Jenks (our Vice President, Government Relations) just called me after finishing reading the Iraq supplemental spending bill as it came out of committee. It would:

# Grant a three-year work visa followed by a permanent greencard to all illegal aliens who have been working as shepherds, goat herders and dairy herders.

# Grant a five-year work visa to the estimated 1.3 million illegal aliens working in other agricultural jobs — plus all of their families. There is no instruction on what happens after the five years.

# Grant a tripling of the maximum number of H-2B visas for lower skill, non-agricultural seasonal workers.

# Grant industries an extra 218,000 additional permanent green cards for skilled foreign workers.

Right now, it looks like the full Senate might be voting on this supplemental around Wednesday. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) may be offering an amendment in the full Senate to strike this Ag-Jobs language.

Numbers USA is warning that Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) may be planning on trying to tack an agricultural worker "amnesty" onto the current Iraq funding supplemental.

UPDATE: Feinstein's amendment has been adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee 17-12. The Hill has some details:

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday added to an Iraq spending bill a controversial provision to help pave the way for undocumented agriculture workers to win legal status, a move that may reopen the divisive immigration debate on the Senate floor.
The so-called Ag-Jobs amendment, sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would create a process that allows undocumented workers to continue to work on farms. Without the amendment, Feinstein warned that the U.S. would lose $5-9 billion to foreign competition, tens of thousands of farms would shut down and 80,000 workers would be transferred to Mexico. The bill would sunset in five years.

Critics are denouncing this measure as "amnesty."
Numbers USA's offering some more details about this and other immigration-related amendments:

The copy of the amendment obtained by NumbersUSA indicates a maximum of 1.35 million illegal aliens, plus their families, could obtain "emergency agricultural worker status" for a five-year period. However, the amendment also provides for an adjustment of status, which paves the way for permanent legalization. The committee also adopted other immigration-related amendments, including one that drastically expands the H-2B visa program for non-agricultural seasonal workers.

This spending bill still needs to pass the Senate as a whole and then Congress as a whole and be signed. K-Lo's heard from an aide to Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) who says that Vitter will be putting forward an amendment to strike this Ag-Jobs language. A vote could be happening on this appropriations bill soon.
Malkin has some other information here. She also reports on this interesting seperate immigration-reform measure under discussion that may, among other things, seek to preempt local enforcement efforts.

Harold Meyerson assures us that, when Republicans refer to "America," they're really making a bigoted statement. So when John McCain says that he's running to be President of the United States of America, you know that he's really attacking the cultural other. Meyerson outlines two "America"'s (e.a.):

Now, I mean to take nothing away from McCain's Americanness by noting that it's Obama's story that represents a triumph of specifically American identity over racial and religious identity. It was the lure of America, the shining city on a hill, that brought his black Kenyan father here, where he met Obama's white Kansan mother. It is because America is uniquely the land of immigrants and has moved beyond a racial caste system that Obama exists, has thrived and stands a good chance of being our next president.

That's not the America, though, that the Republicans refer to in proclaiming their own Americanness. For them, "American" is a term to be used as a wedge issue, a way to distinguish their more racially and religiously homogeneous party from the historically more polyglot Democrats.

(Never mind the fact that the new Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is himself the son of immigrants...)

Meyerson also claims that this bigoted appeal is the Republicans' only hope in the fall (since he believes that the voters don't agree and could never agree with Republicans/John McCain on any issue). Notice the neat little narrative sketched by this move: a potential loss by Obama in November would be the triumph of American bigotry! Thus, Obama's electoral victory and the success of American (if I can use the word "American") anti-racism are--conveniently for Meyerson and other Obama supporters--intertwined.

There's another alternative: Republicans could try to persuade Americans about the wisdom of their positions on certain issues. And the American people could even agree with them and vote for Republicans because of this agreement! But Meyerson, it seems, wants to discount the possibility of that debate.

A variety of charges lead to what is called the largest immigration raid in US history in Iowa--over 300 have been detained. A sample of some of the claims:

The Des Moines Register (a Gannett newspaper) reports that according to search warrants unsealed today, federal authorities had received information about alleged immigration violations for the past two years at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postsville. One source, a former plant supervisor, told agents the plant hired foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe. Around 80% were in the United States illegally, said a supervisor with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The source also reported that some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons into the plant, which employs about 1,000. He said he was fired after he told his superiors.

Hendrick Hertzberg has an interesting breakdown of the various ways of calculating the popular vote numbers of Clinton and Obama in the Democratic primary. According to one method, Obama's ahead by about 500,000 votes; according to another, Clinton leads by 121,000. The numbers vary due whether or not Florida and Michigan are counted, whether some caucuses are counted, and how the "uncommitted" votes in Michigan are counted (Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan--only Clinton was--so, even though Clinton won a majority there, there are hundreds of thousands of "uncommitted" voters who may have been favoring Obama). Hertzberg lays out one scenario in which claims about the popular vote could be muddled enough to give Clinton an opening to argue for her popular legitimacy:

I calculate that roughly another four and a half million people will vote in the remaining Democratic primaries. If Clinton wins these by the overall margin she piled up in Pennsylvania—i.e., around ten points, 55-45—she will net another 450,000 votes.

Here’s what that would do to the margins in our eight categories, in the order I’ve discussed them, starting with just the D.N.C.-approved primaries down to the two “corrected” (by me) Michigan-included ones:

Regular primaries:

Obama’s margin: 51,298

Regular + four caucus states:

Obama’s margin: 161,520

Regular + Florida:

Clinton’s margin: 243,474

Regular + Florida + caucuses:

Clinton’s margin: 133,252

Regular + Florida + Michigan:

Clinton’s margin: 571,783

Regular + Florida + Michigan + caucuses:

Clinton’s margin: 461,561

Regular + Florida + Michigan + uncommitted:

Clinton’s margin: 371,783

Regular + Florida + Michigan + caucuses + uncommitted:

Clinton’s margin: 261,561

In other words, Clinton would have a case. Obama would have one, too—he’d still be a little bit ahead in the popular vote according to to the rules everybody agreed upon in advance, and he would definitely be ahead in elected delegates. She would have a popular vote lead in all the count-Florida-and-Michigan categories. But neither candidate could any longer plausibly claim that he or she was unambiguously the people’s choice.

Of course, that presumes she can win by ten points in every state, and a ten-point victory doesn't seem too likely in North Carolina for starters....Based on his speculations, Hertzberg says that, for every point less than ten in Clinton's overall post-PA lead, Obama nets 45,000 votes. Timothy Noah's claiming that any hope of a Clinton win is a "fairy tale," but Hertzberg thinks that there's a possibility of a "rough" popular vote tie (and thinks that the popular vote will matter a lot) and seems to suggest that the race may not be over yet.

Virginia's Prince William County changes some of its policies for last year's immigration-enforcement laws. Now, instead of having police checking the immigration status of all those suspected of a crime, it will check the immigration status of only those arrested for a crime. (H/T Matt Yglesias)

David Freddoso draws attention to a report by scientists that places part of the blame for spiraling food prices on the embrace of food-based biofuels (like ethanol). This report suggests that a moratorium of food-based biofuels could cut corn prices by as much as 20%. A World Bank study has claimed that the 60% rise in corn prices can be traced to the US ethanol program. Some at the White House put a lower rate of influence for the biofuel program.
Lester Brown and Jonathan Lewis, associated with two prominent environmental groups, think that ethanol has provided limited energy benefit and significant environmental damage. They provide this statistic: the US last year "burned about a quarter of its corn supply as fuel," and, for this quarter, saw oil consumption drop by 1%. That's a lot of corn! Transferring corn to ethanol takes a lot of (coal-based) energy, and the extension of corn crops would itself entail certain environmental pressures, so it's unclear how much energy/environmental benefit is derived from ethanol mandates. They urge Congress and other government institutions to withdraw biofuel mandates. President Bush remains a strong supporter of ethanol.

Rather than engaging the main thrust of Michael Hirsh's essay claiming that the US has become a bastion of Southern intolerance, I'll instead make a cheap shot about a detail:

What does seem foreign to us today is the dedication to free thought and, even more, free moral choice that so dominated the correspondence between those two great minds [of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson]. When Jefferson, in his letter of May 5, 1817, condemned the "den of the priesthood" and "protestant popedom" represented by Massachusetts' state-supported church, he was speaking for both of them--the North and South poles of the revolution. Yet John McCain, even with the GOP nomination in hand, would never dare repeat his brave but politically foolhardy condemnation of the religious right in 2000 as "agents of intolerance." Why? Because we have become an intolerant nation, and that's what gets you elected.

Without wanting to take anything away either Jefferson or Adams or their intellectual seriousness, I think Hirsh's comparison is inapt. There's a big difference between a statement written in private correspondence between two ex-presidents (Adams was out of office for over sixteen years and Jefferson for over eight years by the time this letter was written) and a statement given by a presidential candidate on the campaign trail. It certainly wasn't very politically risky for Jefferson to attack Massachusetts religious laws after he'd left the highest executive office in the land (and some might see the "den of the priesthood" comment as not particularly tolerant, either).
And what did McCain say about the "religious right" in 2000? It doesn't sound like he condemned the "religious right" as a whole back then:

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

He does call Robertson and Falwell "agents of intolerance," but are they the whole of the "religious right"? Maybe Hirsh thinks they are. Though, to be fair to Hirsh, McCain did reconcile with Falwell and did go to speak at Falwell's Liberty University, so McCain obviously has backtracked from that earlier statement.

TalkLeft has a roundup of polls on the eve of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Most show a Clinton advantage. According to Drudge, Clinton's own internals seem to put her about 11 points ahead.
UPDATE: Clinton's team is denying the existence of any such internal polls:

"I encourage you to try and get a copy of the poll," Wolfson said, "because no such poll exists." Wolfson called it an "obvious attempt" by someone to boost expectations for Clinton on the eve of the primary vote in the Keystone State.

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign will try to downplay expectations. And so it goes...