Here’s a passel of updates while I work on work on another deadline. Included is the latest on the Dream Act, creepy quotes from the Jena District Attorney, and more.
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THE DREAM ACT DIES (TEMPORARILY AT LEAST)
On Wednesday, Dick Durbin faced the fact that he was not able to get enough Republican support to keep the Dream Act alive as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, and so Harry Reid told him to spike it. Then, on the Senate floor, Reid professed undying love for the Dream Act and said he’d “move the measure forward by Nov. 16.”
Mary Ann Zehr of Education Week, has good info on a few of the nuances of the bill including this:
While for years the DREAM Act contained a provision clarifying that states could provide in-state college tuition rates for undocumented students who were eligible to benefit from the act, that provision was dropped in the version of the act filed in the U.S. Senate last week
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JENA: THE GOOD NEWS AND THE REALLY CREEPY QUOTE
The good news out of Jena yesterday was that Mychal Bell’s, the main kid of the so-called Jena six, was released on $45,000 bail, after the DA on the case announced that he won’t fight the recent appellate court ruling demanding that Bell’s case be transferred to juvenile court.
The fact that District Attorney Reed Walters won’t push for adult charges means that Bell, who had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison on his aggravated second-degree battery conviction last month, instead can only be held in juvenile lock-up until he turns 21 if he is convicted in juvenile court.
The creepy quote came earlier in the week when the ever-chatty DA Walters had a lot more to say about various Jena-related issues, according to the Chicago Tribune:
Meanwhile, the Louisiana district attorney whose prosecution of the Jena 6 defendants sparked the civil rights protest declared that only through the intervention of Jesus Christ was Jena spared from a “disaster” last week when more than 20,000 African American demonstrators marched peacefully through the town.
“I firmly believe that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened,” LaSalle Parish District Atty. Reed Walters told a nationally televised press conference.
Okie dokie, Reed, honey. We surely are grateful that Jesus saw fit to keep those rowdy dark-skinned people in line.
Good gravy.
For the rest click here
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TEXAS, ALABAMA, THE SUPREMES & THE NEW LETHAL INJECTION CASE
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court surprised many by agreeing to hear Baze V. Reese, a Kentucky case contesting the Constitutionality of lethal injection. A columnist for the legal mag Jurist speculates that SCOTUS decision to take Baze should cause many lethal injection states to put a hold their upcoming executions in which the lethal injection protocol has been challenged on hold.
This Reuters story about an Alabama execution just given a stay suggests that a Baze Effect may (or may not) already be taking place.
Texas, on the other hand has decided screw the Supremes and has already offed another death row inmate this week, just since the SCOTUS decision, according to the AP.
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SUPREMES PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
The new Supreme Court term starts on Monday and one of the most closely eyed cases will be Boumediene v. Bush, which deals with the issue of whether foreign nationals being held indefinitely at Git’mo (or anywhere else, for that matter, have the right to go before a judge and plead their case with a habeas corpus petition. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones offers an informative rundown on the issue.
ON A SIMILAR BUT NON-SCOTUS-RELATED NOTE….
This morning’s WaPo has this article on the Defense department’s decision to allow the 14 “high value” Guantanamo prisoners to have lawyers. The article is chock full of quotes about what it all means.
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WINNER TAKES ALL AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!
Backers of the California initiative drive to break up the way California’s 55 electoral votes are apportioned are pulling the plug on that extremely annoying and brazen political ploy, reports the LA Times political blog. This means we stay a Winner Take All system.
A provision of the Dream Act not often mentioned is
“The amendment would have provided a path to legalization for undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools and attend college or serve in the military for at least two yearsâ€â€and meet certain other criteria.”
And another un-mentioned fact is that the military has illegal aliens among its ranks. Or that some of those killed in Iraq were not U.S. citizens.
An army of Juan
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Re Jena – The DA there is a living stereotype for all those who see the South as a backward hole.
1. I hope the Dream Act remains only a dream. It is too radical to stand on its own merits, which is why the Democrats tried to slip it through in the defense appropriations bill. Sleazeballs.
2. Yeah, let’s make fun of Christians. Celeste, were you there and did you see whether or not a lot of those people from out of town were militant with the potential of rioting? You should know that you view threats a little differently if they are in your face than if you view them from a thousand miles away. If this guy says that Jesus protected the town, I’m not going to call him a liar or say that Jesus wouldn’t or couldn’t do it.
3. On the Alabama stay of execution, I did a post on it with emphasis on why a contract killer is still hanging around (not literally) twenty-five years after the crime. Justice also demands swift punishment rather than frivolous delays. I’m not pushing anyone to the site, but here’s the link if you want it: LINK: Justice Delayed…and Delayed and Delayed There isn’t any “nice” way to kill someone. Maybe if criminals are so concerned with being executed in the fashion that they want, let’s use the method that they chose to dispatch their victims.
4. Oh, gosh. Another article from “Mother Jones.” I can’t bring myself to look at it. The war criminals at Guantanamo deserve no better treatment and no different system of justice than Nazi soldiers whom we captured.
5. The “brazen political ploy” is exactly what the Democrats tried to do in Colorado last year. I don’t remember you coming down on that. Government is political. Big surprise. However, I believe that the substantial conservative votes of one state are being silenced by California’s current system. I might feel differently if California was a smaller state. So, as things stand now and with big government, lazy, welfare dependent citizens making up so much of the state, the Democrats will take the state for granted and the Republicans will stay out–which means that California gets generally ignored and has no leverage in the presidential election. Good thinking.
Why, why, why do I always have to set you straight? Your daddy couldn’t have raised you to be like this.
Woody, I’m not making fun of Christians, I’m making fun of arrogant idiots who act as if Jesus is their personal club president, bouncer, security guard and, if necessary, hit man. (We will prevail against the enemy because God is on our side, yadda, yadda, yadda.)
If Jesus ever returned to earth, with whom do you think he’d be walking? Certainly not with the D. A. Walters of the world.
Click on the link in the story, and see what the far saner black Christian pastor had to say. By the way, the organizers of the rally emphasized over and over and over again that it had to be peaceful, and anyone who had inclinations otherwise could just say home.
PS: My daddy tried his best, but he was raising an uppity girl and there was no reasoning with her.
I looked around the world and decided the town of Jena needed my help so I kept an eye on them uppity blacks. Now I need to keep my eye on an uppity reporter from Los Angeles.
Oh, that’s right. There have never been any problems with civil unrest when the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson show up. God watches out for everyone, as long as “contributions” are paid to the Revs.
I hope that God is with Southern Cal in their game against Washington this weekend, and He’s available. He caught the last train for the coast the day the Braves were eliminated.
God may not get into wars and things, but So Cal football? Hell….er….heck, yes!
(I now feel like Jesus is watching me. Paranoid? I don’t think so. On the other hand, maybe it’s just the cat again.)
Jesus helped So Cal through, so it’s time to become a believer. Right after helping So Cal, he took a fast train for the east coast and helped Auburn beat Florida.