administration, a tacit acknowledgment that businesses' needs may not have been given enough credence in the past by the workforce investment boards designed to help job seekers get the skills they need for local employers. A key strategic change in the White House's approach was to bring the Commerce Department to the table. Commerce officials and Biden's staff reached out to dozens of employers in crafting the new apprenticeship grant program, which is funded by fees from H-1B visa applications.” [National Journal, 4/21/14] O’malley Two cameramen, who had been intermittently filming O’Malley’s speech and conversations, wheeled around and turned on their lights. “This bill would give legal status to approximately 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, and also it would create a massive surge in legal immigration,” said Pewitt. “Don’t you think, as a Democrat, that would reduce wages for workers in the United States? George Borjas, of Harvard, claims quite strongly that mass immigration lowers wages. And Hal Salzman of Rutgers says that the H1B visas, which were going to be piled into that S744 bill, would lower wages for STEM workers. How can the Democratic Party, which is supposed to speak up for workers, be for immigration, when it lowers wages and displaces U.S. workers?’ He said all of this without notes as camera lights beamed into O’Malley’s pale eyes. This was O’Malley’s first trip to a primary state since his Annapolis years ended. More importantly, the trip was coming after two weeks of brutal news for Hillary Clinton, who in the most recent poll of a potential New Hampshire Democratic primary led O’Malley by 69 points. She was at 69 percent; he was at 0 percent. The press corps, in person and absent, wanted to see if O’Malley would whack Hillary or if he’d stumble. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2015-03-09/martin-o-malley-readies- his-run-as-the-un-hillary