Mickey Kaus writes:

Only the most respectable, noble-minded political analysts get to call people who disagree with them ‘cowards.‘ … 7:26 P.M.

He’s talking about Morton Kondracke’s piece: July 02, 2007 Immigration Failure Gives Senate Profile in Political Cowardice.

Kondracke writes:

What can only be called the “cowardice caucus” * those who voted “yes” in 2006 and “no” this year * includes Republican Sens. Sam Brownback (Kan.), who actually voted “yes” on Thursday, then changed his vote, Norm Coleman (Minn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pete Domenici (N.M.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Gordon Smith (Ore.), George Voinovich (Ohio) and John Warner (Va.).

It also includes Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.). Those not scared off by restrictionists did the bidding of the AFL-CIO, which was hostile to the guest-worker program.

And he has a “Courage Caucus” too–the people who voted to ignore their constituents, representative government, and the wishes of the great majority of the American people and vote for amnesty. Trent Lott was saying things like “To think that you’re going to intimidate a senator into voting one way or the other by gorging your phones with phone calls…” that’s a Profile in Courage right there, Senator Lott boasting about how he’s going to ignore the Republican base. Presumably he’s so brave he doesn’t care if he or any member of his party get elected again.

New housing construction may have tanked, but you wouldn’t know it from the employment figures. The number of workers employed in construction rose by 12,000 in June, to 7.681 million. Over the last 12 months there’s been little or no decline in these jobs.

The disconnect between construction activity and construction employment is a source of great puzzlement – to some. Janet Yellen, President of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, questions the accuracy of the construction jobs data and the way it has depressed productivity growth. “Going forward, as the adjustment lags work themselves out, residential construction activity may post significant declines and productivity in that sector and the economy as a whole may rebound,” Yellen said in a July 5th speech.

Closer to the mark is Ray Stone of Stone and McCarthy Research Associates:

“We think that the BLS monthly payroll estimate is overstating the pulse of labor market conditions.”

“It may be that these payrolls are declining quickly, but the decline may be most pronounced among illegal immigrants that were not officially counted in the payroll data,” Stone says in an interview with Bloomberg columnist John M. Berry.

Like most analysts, Stone normally regards the payroll figures as a more reliable guide to the state of the labor market than the data from the BLS household survey. At the moment, he’s not sure that’s true.

Ahem, ahem: Where have you been, Mr. Stone? We have long maintained that the payroll survey undercounts employment growth because employers are reluctant to fess up to the number of illegal aliens in their employ. When labor market conditions are bad – as in the construction industry today – the reverse is true: the payroll survey will overstate job growth – or understate job losses – by ignoring changes in the illegal alien workforce.

Hispanic employment, as reported in the Household Survey, provides the best picture of how things are going for illegal alien workers. In June household employment rose a whopping 197,000 positions, but only 2,000 of those jobs went to Hispanics. In May, it was even worse: 157,000 new household jobs, but a 95,000 reduction in Hispanic employment.

Construction jobs are the most heavily Hispanicized of all. That was a boon for illegals when the industry was booming. Now it’s a negative.

Meanwhile, non-Hispanic workers are displacing their Hispanic counterparts.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

The starting catcher for the National League All-Star team tonight is my new favorite baseball player, Russell Martin of the Dodgers. He’s an example of a growing phenomenon I’ve been noticing, such as the triumph of Jordin Sparks in American Idol. As African-American culture becomes more narrowly focused on a few areas, such as football and basketball but not baseball, that leaves big openings for part-black people raised in white culture. Martin’s father was an African-American and his mother a white Quebecois. He spent a few years of his childhood living in Paris.

Catching is a highly technical skill, unlike playing the outfield where sheer footspeed matters most. So, as African Americans have lost interest in baseball, the number of African Americans catchers has dropped particularly sharply. In Bill James’ second version of his Baseball Historical Abstract covering 1875-2000, there are only four African American catchers among the top 100 catchers, and those from fairly early after integration (Roy Campanella, who had an Italian father, Elston Howard, John Roseboro, and Earl Battey). In contrast there are 27 African American centerfielders (the position demanding the most speed) among the top 100.

So, it’s not surprising that a star catcher with some black descent will have grown up in a largely white cultural milieu.

From Britain comes yet another tale of the irreconcilable clash between “diversity” and the rule of law. A criminal court suspects that a female Muslim juror was, instead of listening to the evidence in a murder trial, listening to her MP3.[British juror arrested after listening to music under hijab, AFP, Jul 9, 2007]

It’s entirely possible for Western jurors to tune out the lawyers while appearing to remain awake, true. But are we helping things by allowing a garment that basically functions as a traveling privacy tent? I suspect that the juror’s cavalier attitude toward the proceedings may have also been helped along by her natural disconnectedness from British society. As a Muslim woman in a far-off land, why should she fret about the fate of the probably British victim or defendant (I presume, given the description of a pensioner in a 50-year marriage), or care for upholding the tradition of trial by jury? I don’t pretend to be a sharia law expert, but I don’t think “trial by jury” is included.

In my own practice, I’ve had potential foreign-born jurors confidently explain to me that they don’t want to serve on an American jury because they don’t like or understand the American system of law (hey, join the club, but…) One woman began her lecture to me and opposing counsel by stating, “Well, in MY country…” MY country? Lady, you’ve been called for jury duty in New York State! (Both New York State and the United Kingdom require jurors to be citizens, not just legal residents.) This is where you live! In the middle of this same jury selection, a female Muslim juror popped up from her chair, arranged her prayer carpet on the tile floor and presented us all with her rear end, presumably because we were facing Mecca. I felt like I was in the middle of a multicultural circus instead of a solemn legal proceeding.

Trial by jury, and the broader rule of law in a democratic society, does not require perfect agreement amongst the citizenry. But it at least requires agreement on the process of dispute resolution. With immigration insanity, we have lost that.

My friend Peter Gadiel wonders if VDARE.COM was ahead of the curve in calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

Peter cites his June 2nd column as evidence.

But National Review White House correspondent Byron York, who moderated a forum labeled “Outlook: Bush’s Recent Blunders Leave Him Baseless,” doesn’t seem to agree.

Although one of the topics was supposed to cover how Bush miscalculated on immigration by teaming up with Teddy Kennedy, the subject was brushed over.

York simply confirmed the obvious by observing that Bush alienated Americans when he said that those who did not support his immigration reform proposal did not “want what was best for America.” York neglected to elaborate on how flawed the bill was and how foolish Bush was for backing it as unequivocally as he did.

Read the transcript, a string of softball comments about Bush and his policies, here.

As for Gadiel’s hope that questions about impeachment would be posed, no luck. I would have asked them myself had I not been caught in the East Coast-West Coast time zone warp.

More than any of us in the immigration reform movement, Peter and his 9/11 Families for a Secure America have compelling reasons to demand Bush’s removal from office.

Peter Brimelow and I first met Gadiel several years in New York with a group of his fellow 9/11 family victims. I remember thinking, as I listened to Gadiel speak, that none of us in immigration reform could begin to fathom the depth of his loss. But we shared his group’s anger over the folly of America’s immigration policies.

Impeachment is overdue. Bush has stubbornly put his personal perspectives on immigration before the nation’s common good. At best, Bush is a foolish, petulant and dangerous leader. At worst, he is evil.

Although it gives me no satisfaction, I’ll note that Bush never fooled me for a split second. I didn’t vote for him in 2000 or 2004.

And, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I’ll further note that I am one of the first—if not the first—journalists to predict Bush’s imminent collapse.

And in June 2004, I endorsed Ralph Nader’s call to impeach Bush citing my “deep, profound distrust” of the president.