Yesterday in South Carolina, Rudy Giuliani promised he could and would “end illegal immigration.” But we got video of him back in 1996 saying that’s just not possible and you’ve just got to accept that.

It’s a pretty big flip-flop. But it’s also a pretty good example of a case where the problem isn’t what Rudy said ten years ago, it’s what he’s saying today.

If you look at what he said up at the Kennedy School ten years ago, it’s eminently reasonable and even eloquent. He says that you simply cannot completely control immigration in this country if you want to have the kind of America we have now, which is to say, an America which is not a police state. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an immigration policy. You should. But with borders as big as ours, a population as diverse as ours and civil liberties as robust as ours it’s just not possible to put an end to illegal immigration. Not to mention the fact that you’d create pretty massive dislocations in the service economy.

What’s completely ridiculous is what Rudy’s saying now.

Okay, so here we are. For two centuries or more, once a bill passes Congress, only Congress can change it. The president can veto it or not. The Supreme Court can rule a law unconstitutional. But that’s it.

But it turns out that back in 2005, to guarantee an earmark payoff to one of his political contributors, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) actually went in and rewrote the text of a transportation spending bill after the thing had been passed by Congress and it was waiting to be signed by the president.

We explain what happened in today’s episode of TPMtv …

(ed.note: There was a case back a couple years ago when a bill went through Congress but a transcription error led to the bill appearing with slightly different text in the House and Senate versions. Frist and Hastert got together and decided to send the House version on to the president since that was what the conference committee agreed to. A court has since ruled the judiciary won’t second-guess this decision. That, I would say, is pretty iffy itself. But at least the leaders of both bodies speak in some fashion for each House. And it was basically setting right a technical error. So even though it was pretty bad, it’s simply not comparable to one member — with no standing — sneaking a new pay-off into the bill after final passage through Congress.)

We’ve known for a while that the administration briefed the so-called Gang of Eight on the warrantless wiretap program back in 2004. That Gang is composed of the both parties’ senior leaders in each house as well as both parties’ senior leaders in each house’s intelligence committee.

But the day after the notorious Ashcroft hospital room showdown, the White House gave a special briefing to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

For those of you interested in the US constitution, we’ve got a special report coming up later this morning on Rep. Don Young’s (R-AK) plot to overthrow the constitution. Find out more about his insidious plans and what he’s already done.

Homegrown U.S. jihadism? The New York Police Department warns that it’s found two dozen “clusters” of U.S. Muslims in the northeast on a “path” to terrorism.

From the LAT …

Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

I haven’t had time to look far enough into this to know all the details. But even in its outlines I can tell it’s a pretty big deal — and one that doesn’t seem likely to get a lot of attention. The short and sweet of it is that Time Warner has proposed and postal regulators have accepted a proposal which is actually reducing postage costs for mega-mags like Time and Newsweek while dramatically raising them for small independent publishers. From small mags on the right and left I’ve been deluged in recent weeks by letters saying the new rates are tipping them into financial crisis.

Here for instance is a passage from a blast email I got this morning from the Nation’s David Corn …

Teresa Stack, The Nation’s president, explains the crisis this way: Postal regulators have accepted a scheme designed in part by lobbyists for the Time-Warner media conglomerate. In short, mailing costs for mega-magazines like Time-Warner’s own Time, People and Sports Illustrated will go up less than other magazines or even decrease. But smaller publications like The Nation will be hit by an enormous rate increase of half a million dollars a year.

To be clear, I’m not pitching for contributions to The Nation, a publication we have no ties to. I reprint that passage only by way of example and because the email was in my inbox this morning. I’ve gotten similar messages from other publications on the left and right and in recent weeks.

Anyway, since TPM mails nothing but an occasional utility bill, I can tell you without reservation that it’s not a matter of self-interest for us as a business. But it is a matter of self-interest for every consumer of independent media. And that certainly includes us and I suspect you as well. It’s one thing to rail against the MSM and say you get your information from the internet. But still today and I suspect for some time into the future a lot of the independent news you read on the web still comes from reporting sustained by independent print-based publications that are going to be heavily affected by these changes.

For two hundred years US postal rate has been geared to support independent media and political discourse. It’s something small magazine publishes and press theory types understand very well but it’s not that widely understood in the general public. If that comes to an end it will be a very big deal. Here’s a link to where you can find out more.

Interesting analysis of Karl Rove’s career by James Carville.

It will certainly be amusing to watch the press barons and sundry journo worthies ignore all this stuff …

Your “Clinton’s sexual impulse control” crack got me thinking. It’s not easy to choose Giuliani’s most outrageous sexual escapade, but I think from the standpoint of evaluating his fitness for public office, his fling with Cristyne Lategano takes the cake.

Let me refresh your memory, in case the details are a little hazy. Lategano was working as Giuliani’s Press Secretary when their affair began, and was later elevated to Communications Director. When the affair ended in May of 1999, he installed her at the helm of the city’s tourism bureau, a $150k/year plum. Lategano, now married, denies that anything improper took place, but Rudy himself has issued a series of artful non-denial denials. His ex-wife, Donna Hanover, has blamed Lategano in public statements and court papers for the demise of her marriage. Wayne Barrett, a sort of dark Boswell to Rudy’s Johnson, assembled a vast amount of circumstantial evidence backing the allegation. And no one who moved in those circles bothers doubting it for a second; the affair was, by its conclusion, common knowledge in the city – what would once have been termed ‘open and notorious adultery.’

I raise this because, this evening, I performed a Lexis-Nexis search for news references to ‘Lategano’ in the last year. I found a dozen references – every one of them in the New York City media. (The Voice, the Observer, the News, the Post – not even the Paper of Record.) In other words, since Rudy has emerged as a serious national candidate, his relationship with Lategano has received zero scrutiny. Even voters who’ve learned of his tempestuous marriages know nothing of this affair.

And that’s not right. Because the Lategano affair embodies the very worst of Rudy – his penchant for mixing private relationships with public business, his duplicity, and his cronyism. Giuliani had an affair with a (much younger) subordinate, and then pensioned her off on the public dime.

At least Lewinsky was an *unpaid* intern.

I raise it because, unlike so many moral issues that intrude into campaigns, this one actually has a direct bearing upon the crucial issues. And from the press, utter silence. Sure, nothing was ever proven, and Lategano’s subsequent denials make this an awkward subject. It’s a sad, tawdry story. But the NYC media hasn’t had any problem covering it. So what’s up with the national press?

Of course, if that doesn’t pan out, they can look into why his main activity at the NYC terror command headquarters prior to 9/11 seems to have been cheating on his wife.

Meet Martin Kramer, Rudy Giuliani’s “Senior Middle East Advisor”. The link is to Kramer’s website.