Politics
Immigration Reform Deferred Yet Again – The DREAM Act Dies in the Senate –
So Latinos are less important than gays is one way to look at this sad news, maybe?
“The weeks of rallies, hunger strikes and sit-ins and the thousands of phone calls placed to Senate offices didn’t pay off for immigration activists.
The decade-old DREAM Act once again failed to break a filibuster in the Senate on Saturday morning, effectively killing the bill this year and shutting the door on what perhaps was the last chance for pro-immigration reform legislation until at least the 2012 election.
Senate Democrats came up five votes short of the 60 needed to advance the House-passed bill, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children if they attend college or join the military for two years.
The 55-41 vote was mostly along party lines, though a handful of Democrats — perhaps fearful of their 2012 election outlook — also voted against the DREAM Act.”
Read the full article at Politico.
Was Fox News pieces like this, “DREAM Act or Nightmare?” part of the reason?
More:
President Obama on the DREAM Act: “My Administration Will Not Give Up” [The White House Blog]
Video: President Obama Speaks on the Annual Afghanistan-Pakistan Review
I’m reading Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory abut the f-ckery surrounding Pat Tillman’s death by US friendly fire and he goes into some decent detail about the modern (post-World War II) history of Afghanistan and how the Taliban came to power in the wake of their victory, as the Mujaheddin forces (with weaponry funded by the US’s CIA channeled via Pakistan’s ISI), over the Soviets in Afghanistan. Honestly based on what I’m reading, the US is f-cked. That country has about as much of a shot of becoming a functioning, self-governing democracy as I do of ever becoming say, a world-class rapper!
More:
Read an Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review. [alt. link: NYT]
The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson says: In Afghanistan, the US is on track to nowhere.
The New York Times: “For Americans, anxious about the war in Afghanistan, there is not a lot of comfort or clarity to be found in President Obama’s long-promised strategy review.”
[via the White House blog]
Music Videos: Jamieson – Things I Learned / Foreign Exchange
“The London bred wordsmith returns with another visual entitled “Things I Learned” off his forthcoming EP I Came, I Saw Vol. II. The second installment from Jamieson’s EP series includes guest appearances by Sean Price, Joell Ortiz, and Sony recording artist, Sammy.”
Sentiment of the song is appreciated but the flow here is from from mind-blowing. Great visual though. Hit the jump for the “Foreign Exchange” video, his commentary on the illegal immigration issue. (more…)
Riots Break out in Rome after Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi Survives No-Confidence Vote
The UK, Italy, where else?
Clinton and Obama-era diplomat, Richard Holbrooke Dead at Age 69 Today
He was most recently serving as special envoy to the Af-pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) region in the Obama administration when he suffered a torn aorta which he unfortunately succumbed to today despite undergoing 20 hours of intensive surgery this weekend. Holbrooke is best known for shepherding the Dayton Peace Accord that ended for conflict in Bosnia of the early 90’s to signing.
Am i doing the nerd equivalent of listening to a rapper’s entire catalog when they die if I put Holbrooke’s To End A War book on my request list at the library?
Read more about Richard Holbrooke via The New York Times then ht the jump to watch a 5-track playlist of Richard Holbrooke being interviewed on Times Talks about Afghanistan & Pakistan.
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