Pay to Play? National Journal has just announced an event, “Pathways to Reform: A Discussion on High-Skilled Immigration Policy.” Underwritten by Qualcomm, which of course has a corporate interest in increasing the supply of high-skilled immigrant labor. That’s a not uncontroversial position, given the unemployment rate among skilled current residents of the U.S.. Yet of the seven “key stakeholders and experts” on the panel, I count seven supporters of more high-skilled immigration, and zero skeptics. Should be a “robust discussion.”

I have several friends who work for the National Journal and Atlantic.  They’re usually sticklers for ethics. So I ‘d ask them: Isn’t it corrupt of National Journal to seemingly rent out to Qualcomm not only the prestige of its name, but its credibility — as if this panel represented the real diversity of national opinion on the issue, in National Journal’s estimation. (If that really is their estimation, Lord help them.)  It’s also amazingly unsavvy of Qualcomm’s D.C. office not to take the risk of including even a token dissenter on the panel. Is their argument that weak?

I always thought the Atlantic/National Journal model was to have a reasonable panel, plus a bonus corporate lobbyist panelist who happens to have contributed to the bottom line. This seems different — an entirely artificial, hermetically curated event, a fake debate. …

Once dunned twice shy, baby: Here’s the New York Times quotation of the day, from Hillary advisor Harold Ickes, who is apparently having trouble finding “Democratic donors who can give $5 million or even $10 million each” to a pro-Hillary SuperPac (which would be formally independent of the official Hillary campaign):

“Our side isn’t used to being asked for that kind of money. If you asked them to put up $100 million for a hospital wing, they’d be the first in line.”

Hmm. Why might Ickes find it hard to recruit rich Democrats for a SuperPac to elect Hillary in 2016? Maybe because rich Dems were pushed into giving millions to Ickes’ unofficial PAC (the Media Fund) to elect a Democrat in 2004 –– remember the “mandatory” meeting of Hollywood libs? — and felt the money was largely wasted. It certainly didn’t elect John Kerry. Early on, Ickes even got in a sniping match with Kerry’s official campaign — the sort of SuperPAC  vs. candidate discord that may be our best hope in a Citizens United world, but that the donors might fail to appreciate. A hospital wing probably seems a better bet. …

Peggy Noonan suggests a question for Hillary:

“Broad amnesty would worsen chronic unemployment and is in that sense a way of giving up, and on our own people, many of whom were blasted out of manufacturing jobs by globalist hacks in Washington—but it will keep wages down, give you a feeling of creamy moral goodness and nail down the Hispanic vote, so all good, right?”

Right. I detect incipient Moe Tuckerism! Can’t business be pleasantly surprised that Americans stood for globalized trade, and not try to also import the world to bid down pay in the few unskilled jobs that still have to be performed here? …

Mick Jagger talks about how he, Mick Jagger, came up with “Moonlight Mile” on his guitar, and worries that Keith Richards’ new guitar additions may make the live version “too cluttered.” It’s lucky there’s no rivalry between those two, because if there was this might cause tension. …

Byron York notes that the Presidential Records Act bans a president from using an un-official e-mail system unless the messages are then properly archived. He suspects President Hillary couldn’t be made to obey this law. Maybe. Certainly she shouldn’t be above the law. But it should also be noted that this particular law is insane. Decisionmakers — from presidents to parents — need a private zone of honesty where they can say what they really think. That used to be done in person, and over the telephone. Now it’s done through e-mails. Making all e-mails subject to disclosure, even decades down the road, just forces people to search for other, inevitably more cumbersome, ways to have the real conversatons that matter (as opposed to BS for-public-consumption discussions). When a Benghazi hits, do you want the Secretary of State focused on protecting American interests (actions for which she will be judged by voters) or protecting her own reputation in the archives? … It’s the Sunshine Fallacy, the idea that all human activities can be completely and accurately recorded for the public without humans reacting (in counterproductive ways) to all that public data collection. Obvious analogy: Heisenberg Principle. Cultural reductio ad absurdum: “We Live in Public.” …

Another way of putting it: The Records Act is the equivalent requiring a White House taping system, for the benefit of historians. Wasn’t the discovery of Nixon and Johnson’s taping system a huge scandal? When did historians become the most important people in the world?….