Awesome photo!

Agreed, nice shot.
How daring of Edwards to support a popular strike, while he backs away from supporting driving licenses for immigrants. Typical politician.

I agree with El Chavo, but then again I’m already over the whole next election prelim to the primary’s positioning. I’m just waiting for Ralphy to come up and stir the pot. Ooops…he did check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxal17aJ744
The mud slinging this early bothers me as I see another divisive acerbic election ahead.

If you don’t mind explaining, how is support of the strike and non-support of DL for illegal immigrants “Typically politician” I don’t see where these stances contradict each other, if that’s what your implying…

Gee, El Chavo… The writers are citizens or legal immigrants/visitors who pay taxes and work legally and, if they’re citizens, vote. Illegals are, well, here illegally, and too many of them steal resour… er, suck u… er, use resources that US taxpayers fund for the benefit of those who are citizens or are here legally. Try a legitimate argument next time.

Neil,
It’s typical this way: when he had some tiny balls (4 years ago) he stood up for the program, as there was still a space for discussing the issue. Now that the country seems to be sticking it’s collective head in the sand, he goes with the herd and changes his mind, flip-flop. If people think immigrants are going to give up driving due to lack of licenses and insurance, they are sadly, terribly, mistaken.

Lee,
Your argument is tired and of no consequence.

Unfortunately, it appears that most of the candidates, including Edwards, are willing to shift their opinions and stands when it risks their votes.

However, giving licenses to illegal immigrants makes no logic to me whatsoever. If people are here illegally anyway, if they happen to lose their license for whatever reason – DUI, failure to have insurance, etc. – what’s to keep them off the roads then? It appears to me that giving licenses to illegals would create another loophole, and opportunity to abuse the system. If the “immigration mess” is to be fixed, it needs to start by making the legal immigration or temp worker programs looser and easier.

David do you know up until Pete Wilson became the Governor that you didn’t need to be a citizen to have a driver’s license. That’s a little something extra he added to be a jerk.

For years license and citizenship in California was never a problem or an issue until Republicans made it one to make the lives of the poor and working class hurt just a little more.

Writers are more of “citizens” than the people who serve writers their food, that’s pretty rich…

Browne

Driver’s licenses? I think it’s great people are engaged with Spitzer’s defunct plan (he dropped it, for some reason), but anyone who joins the line should be welcomed. Especially anyone with the majority of SEIU endorsements backing him. Thanks John.

El Chavo: No consequence, asshat?

So you believe that criminals should roam free without penalty? If someone breaks into your house, take what they want? If you get carjacked, they can just take your car?

It’s not a tired argument at all. Mexico is BRUTAL to people who illegally cross their borders, but encourages them to cross ours. Tried sneaking into England lately? We have every right to enforce our borders.

If you believe illegals should have full rights and benefits here despite entering the country criminally, you’re aiding and abetting a Federal crime. Defend that in court, sunshine.

As a federal employee union member and strong WGA supporter, it’s great to see the best labor candidate out there on the strike line. Good for John Edwards. Bet the studios would have not found the strike so appetizing if the Oval Office was pro-union.

Here’s a link to the video of his speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyXLdWJewQI

As someone who is out of work because of this strike and who has felt pretty disconnected from the cause of the writers, this speech inspired me to recognize what is really at stake. Go writers and go Edwards.

El Chavo: I apologize for calling you an asshat. But that said, you’re still wrong 8-).

We moved from LA to North Florida, and you know all those jobs illegal apologists like you swear Americans won’t do? Guess who does them here? Normal Americans. White. Black. Blonde. Bald. Young. Old.

David,
Nothing is going to keep workers off the road, they’ll just be driving illegally and without insurance. It doesn’t seem practical to enforce that scenario from the start. We let tourists drive here, might as well let permanent visitors do the same.

Lee,
See, I’ve heard all those reasons before but I’m not buying it. Over staying your visit in the US doesn’t make you a criminal.
“If you believe illegals should have full rights and benefits here despite entering the country criminally, you’re aiding and abetting a Federal crime.” That’s stupid. But whatever, if having a practical approach to immigration makes me an accessory to a crime, so be it.
The Criminal Asshat!

As someone not involved in the entertainment industry, but as the widow of an AFSCME worker. Someone who has seen and experienced first hand how this brave new world economy destroys workers wages and rights protections. Whose husband died because you have to be affluent enough to purchase protection under the law. How the health care crisis is far more deadly than those comfortably ensconced above one glass ceiling or another chooses to be cognizant of.. I have to say, as someone who supports the striking writers that I now can understand why the right wing get away with stereotyping Hollywood as being disconnected from the wider realities. Perhaps sometimes there are kernels of truth at times to negative stereotypes?

I’d expected a far more nuanced understanding of the issues facing us all. But it seems that the blinders, the willing indifference and actual ignorance from those writing on this blog are far worse than those you’d attempt to pigeonhole as being ignorant.

As to Edwards, he’s the only candidate who has stated that we need to force trade deals to actually not hurt workers, whether in the US or elsewhere. But perhaps some of you either find that inconvenient or you don’t bother reading beyond what you’re told to by which ever extreme ideology you label yourself?

Mr. Chavo, if you truly are concerned about the poverty of people who seek to come to the US illegally, then why aren’t you activist in demanding that their home countries actually do something “revolutionary” like raise wages and increase the taxes on their wealthiest ciitizens and industries to provide them a better quality of life there? I mean, if you are actually concerned about their human rights, that is.. ? Why is it wrong for American citizens who are being thrown out of work, facing homelessness on a weekly basis, who are speaking out in defense of their own civil rights (they are also black, brown and white) being painted as racist or xenophobic? Or is it that you fail to grasp the concept that equality, that freedom is a two way street? Perhaps you find equality and freedom inconvenient? Why not use your energy towards actually attacking the root causes of that poverty instead of rationalizing the status quo that creates and perpetuate it? Hmmm.. maybe because you want to profit from it?

Speaking for someone who lives out in the real world (and who never believed the negative stereotypes of most people in the entertainment biz prior to reading this blog), who sees, and has experienced what those in the media refuse to report on. How the outsourcing of jobs since the 1980s has decimated entire communities across the US, untold millions of American citizens are long term unemployed underemployed, they are not counted in the unemployment numbers. That we are seeing numbers of citizens with malnutrition and anemia, that we haven’t experienced in this country since the great depression. Homelessess is now experienced at greater numbers than we have ever seen, and most of them are citizen individuals and families who lost jobs, or wages can’t keep pace with inflation. That the poverty we saw after hurricane Katrina exists in each of the fifty states, in all our backyards.

People like myself didn’t need for the study conducted by Harvard University, that reported last week that there really isn’t a worker shortage in the US, whether we’re talking about blue collar labor or up into the tech field. If you live in the real world you know many people, friends, family and aquaintances who are denied an ability to work because first and foremost that they are Americans and would merit an American wage standard.

To the person whinging on about waiting for “Ralphy”, as someone who recognized what the wider implications of what your plaster saint rationalized back in 2000.. (he did say that electing Bush was important to impose suffering on America) would bring about. War (yes, Ralphy and all those who supported him, have the blood of troops and innocent Iraqis on their hands, just like Bush and his neo-con faithful.. blood for spoils.. does that make you feel more relevant?), terrible, cruel poverty, hunger, privation, death, exploitation, pollution. They creamed in their jeans in delight because they felt so empowered to be able to exercise the power of things they purported to be activist against.. You obviously fail to recognize that you’ve shown yourselves to be hypocrites..