Category Archives: blog

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Keep Dreaming: Dream Act vote on hold in Senate

The fight over taxes trumped the fight over the undocumented this week.  No time for GOP handwringing over “illegals.” The rich want to make sure they get their dole extended.

I hope the people who want the tax cuts know that the undocumented pay more than their share in taxes.  They don’t need a tax cut. But they sure merit a reward for being productive members of our society. Residency, citizenship? None of that should be withheld.

The House passed the Dream Act this week to give the young undocumented hope.   But passing the dream in the Senate will be a problem next week.

On Thursday, the Senate voted  to put off the measure till next week because many Senate Republicans said they’d filibuster the bill if it came up before the tax compromise.

So the delay gives more time for supporters  to lobby.

Check out my regular post  to see the key senators who are important in the vote. It’s on my regular column/blog:

 www.aaldef.org/blog

blog, diversity, news, politics, sports

It’s not as dreamy as I’d like, but Congress set to vote on Dream Act this week

Check out my blog post on the uphill battle for the Dream Act  at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund website:

http://www.aaldef.org/blog/

Many GOPers are planning to vote against the Dream Act. 

They’re not thinking.

All those undocumented students that would be legalized become voters for life. Voting for the Dream Act is ultimately a selfish act for a GOP legislator.

But they’re stuck in the old closed-minded thinking about immigration that believes the undocumented shouldn’t be rewarded for becoming educated and productive taxpayers. To them, the dream is to send people back to their countries and cut off any new access to the border.

That’s not my dream. Is it yours?

blog, news, politics

What’s so heroic about WikiLeaks’ wiki-dump?

I am no enemy of Democracy, but I’m having a hard time with the massive wiki-dump from WikiLeaks.

One thing I will grant WikiLeaks. If a journalist had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get all of 250,000 cables, it wouldn’t have happened. It would have come back super-redacted with so many blackouts it would read like an undone New York Times crossword.

Still, the sheer almagamation of stuff is mind boggling, as opposed to the little details which are kind of interesting, but not screaming front page headlines.

A deluge, however, is still a deluge. 

Got to hand it to the New York Times, which has become the de facto Cliff’s Notes of the Wiki-dump. As a sub-sub-leaker, the paper leaked in true old-fashioned  journalistic style. It went to the Obama administration and asked for more redactions, some of which it followed. But then it published it anyway because it didn’t want to be left out in the cold when WikiLeaks let everything out anyway.  Hard to be a journalistic purist in the age of the net. It was the same kind of thing when the Times quoted the National Enquirer in salacious stories. Hard to be a prude when everything’s exposed.

Still, if the best headlines are what’s been in the Times so far (the Yemenis, China hacking Google, “Let’s make a deal” for Guantanamo prisoners, South Korea and the U.S. baffled over China, and Qadafi’s blonde nurse),  I still don’t find anything as outrageous as the fact that some diplomats are getting personal  info on foreign dignatiries.

In other words, the diplomats are working as spies which can be used for surveillance and data mining. That’s not supposed to happen. And if it is, then you wouldn’t want to expose our spies, now would you?

Some critics are calling for Hillary Clinton’s head over this. I’m not sure it’s at that level yet. But the leaks have shown that our diplomatic efforts are far less diplomatic than they appear.

Is that something to thank WikiLeaks for? I don’t think so. They just stripped our diplomatic force of their dignity making it harder to carry on and do the work they must do if we are to avoid the stupid wars we find ourselves currently involved in. That’s not worth the gossipy tidbits that seem to excite the foreign policy wonks.

Check out my other post at www.aaldef.org/blog

blog, news, politics

Emil Guillermo’s Amok: Since when did the “S” in TSA stand for sex? On pat-downs, victimization, and oh yes, that thing called the Fourth Amendment

So are you going through security this week in nothing but your birthday suit in protest to those pat-downs? Or do you want the pat-down?

Do you think some lonely people are taking red-eyes just for the late night pat-down?

Read my take on the TSA issue on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund site’s blog at

http://www.aaldef.org/blog/

Strange how the new angle being reported this morning  is about the “poor abused TSA agent,” as if victimization will get them some sympathy. It’s not my fault they end up being the face and fingers of a hapless bureaucracy.

A frequent flyer I know today in Florida told me how clueless these people really are.  A lot depends on who you get and where you are. These people are human, not robots. So the chances of getting a closet sex offender is actually pretty high. The flyer I know said she went through a full body scan and then was told she had to do the pat-down too. A double dose of intrusion.

When the flyer protested, TSA backed down. So now it’s optional? Or were they overreaching for the pat-down? Do you get the sense they are making it up as they go?

So be assertive. Know your rights.

Funny how most stories never mention anything about the Fourth Amendment and illegal search. Is all that out the window? It isn’t unless you want to give up your rights freely.

Also note how the leading voices on this issue against the pat-downs seems to be Republicans. I haven’t heard many Democrats speak out against it. And Obama? From this weekends comments, he feels your pain, flyer. But the grope? The green light’s still on.