Schumer sees deal this week on immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday he's hoping for a bipartisan deal by the end of this week on a sweeping immigration bill to secure the border and allow eventual citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.

"All of us have said that there will be no agreement until the eight of us agree to a big, specific bill, but hopefully we can get that done by the end of the week," said Schumer, D-N.Y., who's leading efforts by eight senators to craft the legislation. "That's what we're on track to do."

Schumer spoke on CBS' "Face the Nation" alongside Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., another leader of the immigration talks, who suggested there could be a tough road ahead for the contentious legislation.

"There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal because everybody didn't get what they wanted," McCain said. "There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue as far as business and labor."

A deal on immigration is a top second-term priority for President Barack Obama, and his senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday that the bill being developed in the Senate is completely consistent Obama's approach ? even though the Senate plan would tie border security to a path to citizenship in a manner Obama administration officials have criticized.

Pfeiffer didn't answer directly when asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether Obama would sign legislation making a path to citizenship contingent on first securing the border, as negotiators in the Senate are doing. But he suggested Obama was supportive of the Senate plan.

"What they are looking at and what has been talked about in the Gang of Eight proposal is 100 percent consistent with what the president is doing so we feel very good about it," Pfeiffer said. "And they are looking at it in the right way."

Obama has stressed that a path to citizenship should not have major hurdles in front of it, and some immigration advocates believe that's what a requirement for a secure border would amount to. Obama's Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, has rejected the argument that border security must be achieved before a comprehensive immigration package or any pathway to legalized status can be done.

But Republicans involved in the Senate negotiations have made clear that border security is a must for them before those living here illegally can be allowed to move toward citizenship.

"We are going to secure that border and it will be tied to a pathway to citizenship or there will be no deal," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another negotiator on the bill, said Sunday.

Graham also suggested that disagreement over a new low-skilled worker program could still be hanging up an overall immigration deal ? even after an agreement a week ago between the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The hard-won deal between labor and business would ultimately allow up to 200,000 workers a year into the U.S. to fill jobs in construction, hospitality, nursing homes and other areas where employers now say they have a difficult time hiring Americans or legally bringing in foreign workers. Even after the deal was struck, some industries, such as construction, continued to voice complaints about the terms.

Without offering details, Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that negotiators were revisiting the low-skilled worker deal. But he issued a statement a short time later saying he was confident the agreement would hold.

Graham sounded optimistic overall, predicting the bill would pass the 100-member Senate with 70 votes in favor. Senators believe an overwhelming bipartisan vote is needed in the Democratic-led Senate to ensure a chance of success in the Republican-controlled House. Floor action could start in the Senate in May, Schumer said.

Meanwhile two lawmakers involved in writing a bipartisan immigration bill in the House, Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., sounded optimistic that they, too, would have a deal soon that could be reconciled with the Senate agreement.

"I am very, very optimistic that the House of Representatives is going to have a plan that is going to be able to go to a conference with the Senate in which we're going to be able to resolve this," Gutierrez said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union".

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-07-Immigration/id-dde02a8041e444c6ae5adb348dda5a02

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New interest in old Mideast peace plan

Thaer Ganaim / PPO via Getty Images

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK - APRIL 7: In this handout image provided by the Palestinian Press Office (PPO), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on April 7, 2013 in Ramallah, West Bank. Kerry's visit is in an attempt to restart mideast peace talks.

By Josef Federman, The Associated Press

A dormant, decade-old Mideast peace plan has suddenly emerged as a possible key to breaking years of deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians.

A top Palestinian official said Sunday that the visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed interest in reviving the so-called Arab Peace Initiative, a 2002 plan in which the Arab world offered comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for a full pullout from all territories it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Arab officials confirmed the Arab League was set to discuss the matter on Monday.

The initiative was revolutionary when it was introduced by Saudi Arabia's then crown prince, King Abdullah, and later endorsed by the 22-member Arab League at a summit in Beirut. However, the plan was overshadowed by fierce Israeli-Palestinian fighting at the time and greeted with skepticism by Israel. The Arab League re-endorsed the plan in 2007, and technically, the offer remains in effect.

Key obstacles remain. Israel has not softened its objections to the plan, and the Palestinians turned down a request from Kerry for changes in it.

In the 1967 war, Israel took control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Sinai and Golan Heights. Israeli returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982 in the framework of a peace treaty and pulled out of Gaza unilaterally in 2005. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, and peace talks with Syria over the territory have repeatedly failed.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been deadlocked since late 2008, in large part over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians refuse to talk while Israel settles its population on the occupied territories where they want to establish their state. They have demanded that Israel accept the 1967 lines as the basis for a future Palestine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a return to the 1967 lines and calls for talks with no preconditions.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation has also endorsed the 2002 Arab peace initiative.

The plan, if adopted, considers the Arab-Israeli conflict "ended," offers "normal relations" with Israel and calls for providing "security for all the states of the region."

Israel has rejected a return to the 1967 lines for both security and spiritual reasons. Israeli leaders have long argued that the 1967 frontiers are indefensible. In addition, a return to those boundaries would mean a withdrawal from east Jerusalem, home to the city's holiest Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious sites.

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem, and Netanyahu has vowed never to share control of the sensitive area. The Palestinians say there can be no peace without establishing their capital in east Jerusalem. These conflicting claims to east Jerusalem are perhaps the most emotional and explosive issue in the conflict.

Kerry on Sunday kicked off what is expected to be several months of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians with a stop in the West Bank for talks with President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was not immediately clear whether the Arab initiative came up in Sunday night's talks. A senior State Department official said the meeting "included a discussion on how to create a positive climate for negotiations," but that Kerry had asked all participants to keep the details confidential. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of Kerry's orders not to brief reporters.

Abbas spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, said Abbas urged Israel to release Palestinian prisoners it is holding, called on Israel to halt settlement construction and urged Israel to commit to a solution based on the 1967 lines. He did not say whether the Arab peace initiative was discussed but confirmed Abbas was leaving Monday for talks on the plan at an Arab League meeting in Qatar.

Mohammed Subeih, the Arab League's undersecretary for Palestinian affairs, confirmed a special committee on the peace initiative would hold "an urgent meeting" in Doha on Monday.

He said the prime minister of Qatar would chair the meeting, and foreign ministers of key countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Palestinians, would attend. The Arab League's chief Nabil El-Araby is also expected, he said.

Subeih said the committee would form a delegation, chaired by El-Araby and the Qatari prime minister, to travel to Washington in the coming weeks. In Washington, the delegation will try together with the American side draw a road map to "end Israeli occupation," he said.

Earlier Sunday, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Kerry has been floating the Arab initiative as a possible way out of the deadlock.

Officials say Kerry has proposed two small changes to make it more palatable to Israel, saying the 1967 lines could be modified through mutual agreement and pressing for stronger security guarantees. Security-obsessed Israel has grown increasingly jittery during the upheaval that has swept through the Middle East over the past two years.

Speaking to the Voice of Palestine radio station, Erekat said the plan could not be changed. "Kerry asked us to change few words in the Arab Peace Initiative but we refused," he said.

Israeli officials refused to comment on the matter. An Israeli official said the Israelis were planning to offer "a wide spectrum of ideas" to Kerry when they meet with him in the current days. The official declined to elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because nothing has been formally presented yet.

In the past, Netanyahu has described the Arab peace initiative as a welcome sign of acceptance from the Arab world but refused to accept it in its current form. Netanyahu has said that presenting the plan as an ultimatum would undermine negotiations.

But after years of deadlock, and growing international isolation over continued Israeli settlement construction, Netanyahu could find himself in a difficult position if the offer is again extended.?

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a700978/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C0A70C176431510Enew0Einterest0Ein0Eold0Emideast0Epeace0Eplan0Dlite/story01.htm

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Is Usually The Girlfriend Fooling | Issues

April 6, 2013 rapidx88 issues

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Is Usually The Girlfriend Fooling

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Pope wants to act 'with determination' - Morocco World News

VATICAN CITY, April 05, 2013 (AFP)

Pope Francis on Friday urged Vatican disciplinarians to act ?with determination? against sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic clergy, the Holy See said in a statement, the pope?s first public pronouncement on the issue.

?The Holy Father in particular asked that the congregation ? act with determination in cases of sexual abuse,? the Vatican said, referring to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases, after the pope met with its director.

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Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/04/85443/pope-wants-to-act-with-determination-on-sex-abuse/

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Ala. Legislature votes to pardon Scottsboro Boys

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) ? Opening a final chapter to one of the most important civil rights episodes in American history, Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to allow posthumous pardons for the "Scottsboro Boys": nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women more than 80 years ago.

The bill setting up a procedure to pardon the group must be signed by Gov. Robert Bentley to become law. He plans to study the legislation but has said he favors the pardons.

All but the youngest member of the group, whose ages ranged from 13 to 19, were imprisoned on death row after false accusations from the women and convictions by all-white juries. All were eventually freed without executions, although several suffered for many years in prison.

One, Haywood Paterson, escaped. While a fugitive, he helped publish a book about the case. Patterson was captured soon after, but the governor of Michigan refused his extradition to Alabama in 1950.

Over time, the case became a symbol of the tragedies wrought by racial injustice. It inspired popular songs, books and films. A Broadway musical was staged in 2010, the same year a museum dedicated to the case opened in Scottsboro.

The legal saga also set important legal precedents, including a Supreme Court decision that outlawed the practice of systematically excluding black people from juries.

The last of the men died in 1989.

The House approved the legislation Thursday morning in a 103-0 vote. The measure earlier passed the Senate 29-0.

"This is a great for Alabama. It was long overdue," said Democratic Rep. Laura Hall of Huntsville, who sponsored the bill in the House.

House Speaker Mike Hubbard, a Republican, said, "You can't change history, but you can take steps to right the wrongs of the past. The fact that this passed unanimously shows that today's 21st century Alabama is far removed from the one that caused such pain for so many so long ago."

That distance is still being measured.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, applauded the correction of "an historic miscarriage of justice." But he noted that Alabama is involved in a Supreme Court case over the Voting Rights Act and has passed laws that critics say are discriminatory against immigrants in the country illegally.

"Like so many communities that have had tried to move beyond their ugliest chapters, Alabama has learned you can only move forward if you are honest about your past," Jealous said. "It's heartening that this was a unanimous vote."

"Unfortunately," he continued, "Alabama still needs to confront its present."

Susan Glisson, executive director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, also was gladdened by the measure. "It is an opportunity for us to understand that period, especially the ways in which blacks were deemed inferior and therefore not worthy of equal treatment before the law," she said.

But she found it ironic that it happened while Alabama is challenging its requirements under the Voting Rights Act, and said that the amount of time it took to pass may lead some to consider it an "empty gesture."

"For those of us who care about where our country's headed, I would hope we would take the opportunity to ask difficult questions about what reconciliation really means and also to understand the critical role that education and justice plays in its accomplishment," Glisson said.

The nine teens were accused of raping two white women on a freight train in Alabama in 1931. At this time during the Great Depression, many people would sneak aboard for free rides between cities. There had been a fight between whites and blacks on the train, and the two women made the false rape accusations in hopes of avoiding arrest.

The defendants were convicted in trials where, as was typical in such Deep South cases then, guilty verdicts were never in doubt. The Communist Party seized on the case as an opportunity to make inroads among black people and liberals. It got one of its lawyers named as defense counsel, and also secured the services of famed defense attorney Samuel Liebowitz. There were years of appeals ? some successful, as one of the women recanted and said their claim was a lie.

Supreme Court rulings related to the case guaranteed the right to effective counsel and barred the practice of keeping blacks off juror rolls.

The Senate sponsor of the legislation, Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur, credited Sheila Washington, founder of the Scottsboro Boys Museum, for pursuing the legislation after the governor and parole board said they didn't have the legal authority to issue pardons to the deceased.

Washington said the pardons would finally shine a light on "this dark injustice."

If the bill is signed into law, a petition would need to be filed for each of the men for each of them to be pardoned, said Eddie Cook, executive director of the state parole board. The parole board will then decide whether to grant the pardon. Previously, there had not been a procedure for pardoning someone who is dead.

Orr said it was unfortunate that the pardons are coming after all the Scottsboro Boys have died, but the legislation does let the state write a "better final chapter."

"Their lives were ruined by the convictions," he said. "By doing this, it sends a very positive message nationally and internationally that this is a different state than we were many years ago."

___

Johnson reported from Montgomery. Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at www.twitter.com/jessewashington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ala-legislature-votes-pardon-scottsboro-boys-160219720.html

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Pat Toomey is just another GOP obstructionist

Perhaps by now the people of Pennsylvania are beginning to realize what a mistake they made in electing Pat Toomey to the U.S. Senate. Like most Republicans in Washington, he reflexively rejects everything President Barack Obama proposes. He supports the Ryan budgets, which voucherize Medicare, and he inexplicably champions austerity when the economy is weak, raising the specter of a double-dip recession like Britain's.

One of Mr. Toomey's worst acts is to vote for filibusters against President Obama's nominees for important federal positions. After four years in office, the president has not been able to fill many vital positions in the government because of Republican filibusters, meaning it takes 60 votes, not 51, to confirm an appointee.

Two years ago President Obama appointed Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Although this highly qualified Princeton University-Georgetown Law School honors graduate has gotten a majority vote twice (54 and 51), filibusters have kept her off the court. In a letter to me, Mr. Toomey states: "I believe that Ms. Halligan is not qualified to serve on the United States Court of Appeals. ... Her record unfortunately reflects an ideological deviation from legal precedent and established constitutional principles."

This is standard stuff for anyone a Democratic president nominates these days. Mr. Toomey doesn't give one single example of her deviation from constitutional precedents. The real guiding principle of Republicans like Pat Toomey, I fear, is to make Mr. Obama fail by any means possible. Will Pennsylvanians let this obstructionist politician fool them again when he comes up for re-election?

DAVID W. SOUTHERN
Canonsburg

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Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/letters/pat-toomey-is-just-another-gop-obstructionist-682216

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School textbook: 'Hippies' were followers of Satan-worshipping rock stars

Hippies (AmericaBlog)

A school participating in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's controversial voucher program is apparently using a history book that teaches its eighth-grade students that "hippies" were dirty followers of Satan-worshipping rock musicians.

The textbook, ?America: Land I Love," includes a section on the counterculture movement of the 1960s.

Here's a paragraph taken from that section, which was published Wednesday by AmericaBlog.com:

Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship.

It's not clear which school is using the aforementioned textbook. John Aravosis, who published the text on AmericaBlog, said the source was "a friend" who sent him a photo of the section.

But this isn't the first time books used in Jindal's voucher program?which allows poor and middle-class students the opportunity to attend private schools that often have religion-based curricula?have been called into question. Last fall, Mother Jones magazine published a list of "14 wacky 'facts' kids will learn in Louisiana's voucher schools."

Among them:

(AmericaBlog)

"A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."?United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

And:

"[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."?United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

Last month, Jindal defended the program in Washington.

"To oppose school choice is to put the wishes of the adults who control the status quo ahead of the needs of our children," Jindal said. "To oppose school choice is to oppose equal opportunity."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/hippies-satan-worship-school-history-book-201334876.html

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