They’re Slacking about me. I just know it. Slack, a “corporate messaging app” currently valued at $2.8 billion, apparently allows employees to easily set up “private groups, which require an invitation to join and are hidden even from administrators.” This sort of cabal cabal would be poisonous in, oh, approximately 100% of the places I’ve ever worked. Managing editors would be especially endangered. (And I would almost certainly not be cool enough to be in Amanda Hess’s group.) …

Def Cab Diaries: David Frum links to an anecdote about T.S. Eliot being recognized by his London cab driver and the ensuing conversation.  (“I ‘ad that Lord Russell in the back o’ the cab the other day. …”) I suppose there are a lot of London cabbie stories. Mine is from when I went to see the Barbican production of an Ayckbourn play in the ’90s. I couldn’t make heads or tales of it — I’m a dunce when it comes to drama.

“So wot did ya see?” the cabbie asked when I got in to go home.

“This Ayckbourn play, Wildest Dreams, about a bunch of people who play Dungeons & Dragons. I didn’t understand it.”

“Let me guess,” said the cabbie. “They gradually become the characters they play in the Dungeons & Dragons game!”

“That’s it!  It all makes sense now! How did you know? Have you seen the play?”

“No, guvnor. But oy know ‘ow the playwright’s mind works. ‘Ad Mister Ayckbourn in the back ‘o the cab the other day ….”

It’s the Singer Not the Song: On Sunday, Bob Scheiffer asked Marco Rubio if as president he’d sign his own “Gang of 8” immigration bill. Rubio ducked, saying “That’s a hypothetical.” Yes, it is! A germane and highly informative hypothetical, which he should be able to answer. It’s his damn bill. He tried to foist it on us. Why won’t he tell us if he’d sign it? And if Rubio’s so keen on letting Republican primary voters know he’s learned his lesson, why isn’t the answer he gives simply “No, I wouldn’t sign it today”?

I don’t see the upside for Rubio in waffling — if he gets the nomination there will be plenty of ways to backslide and re-suck-up to Latino ethnocentrists. (And isn’t the point of nominating a Latino like Rubio that he doesn’t have to suck up?) Byron York notes that there was a lot of junk in the Gang of 8 bill, providing a smorgasbord of reasons for Rubio to cite when justifying  his change of heart. …

It’s hard not to suspect that Rubio’s potential money men — including pro-amnesty casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and pro-amnesty billionaire hedgie Paul Singer — are influencing him to leave the Amnesty First door open. That would also explain why Rubio hasn’t lately been saying what York heard him say back in August –– that he’d require immigration-control measures be actually “up and running — before legalization.” [York’s paraphrase] …

Your Dem Dogma at Work: How to raise the (stagnant) median wage? Economist Jared Bernstein will propose anything — apprenticeship programs! pre-K education! refundable child care credits! — except tightening the labor market by controlling the influx of immigrant workers. … P.S.: Bernstein also wants something called “‘fair chance hiring’ for job seekers with criminal records.” It would certainly be good if those people could get jobs. But does Bernstein really think employers will ever hire Americans “with criminal records” if they can instead hire eager workers from an inexhaustible stream of immigrants? …

Rubio’s Key Fudge: Before he moves on to his Gang of 8-style mass immigration amnesty, would Marco Rubio require that border enforcement measures a) merely pass Congress or b) be “actually completed and functioning”? Byron York, after interviewing Rubio in August, thought (b). But Rubio’s recent book suggests (a). From page 49:

“Once both of these reforms have been passed, then I believe the conditions will be in place …” [Emphasis added]

It’s a key fudge point. Universal E-Verify, for example, could easily pass Congress and still be held up in the courts or undone through hostile regulations — a common pattern for immigration enforcement measures. The same goes double for a border fence (which Rubio doesn’t even call for) and an “entry-exit tracking system,” which Rubio wants but which Congress has already, futilely, mandated more than once.  A President Rubio would be way more likely to get Democratic support for (a), precisely because so many Democrats would like to knock out enforcement after pocketing Rubio’s amnesty. …

So which is it? Someone should force Rubio to choose — to clearly say what he means. [Won’t he just lie? -ed Always good to have a baseline from which the lying starts.] ….

Update: On Face the Nation Sunday morning, Rubio seemed pretty clearly to be proposing only that Congress “pass” a bill “that puts in place E-Verify,” etc. before it passed his amnesty provisions. (“It has to happen in that order.”) So it is Reagan’s 1986 reform all over again — the legalization (“work permits”) will be near-instantaneous, the promised enforcement never actually happens. Republicans who favor immigration control should not be fooled.

P.S.: It’s possible Rubio changes his position to suit his audience — he lets York think he means that enforcement measures have to actually be fully implemented, he lets CBS’ Bob Schieffer (who’s trying to shame him for abandoning the Beltway consensus bill) think he just wants to rearrange the legislative calendar. We’ll see if he tries to go all York again when facing a GOP base crowd. It’s hard to believe he thinks he can get away with that kind of game-playing on this issue, though.

Russ Smith says “phoning it in” as if it were a bad thing. ….

The Balkans have nothing on Beverly Hills ….