The deputy leader of al-Qaida in Yemen is calling on Saudis to revolt against the king, slamming the use of bases in Saudi Arabia to launch lethal U.S. drone strikes.
Saeed al-Shihri’s audio recording appeared to back up al-Qaida denials that he was killed in a drone attack. Al-Shihri calls the Saudi royal family “the greatest agent of America.”
The 14-minute audio recording was made public on Wednesday. It was not known when it was recorded.
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Iran’s top leader on Wednesday condemned the twin bombing attacks in Boston, yet chided the U.S. for employing a double standard when it comes to drone attacks that kill innocent civilians.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, which follows the logic of Islam, is opposed to any bombings and killings of innocent people no matter if it is in Boston, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria and condemns it,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian military leaders he was addressing in Tehran.
Khamenei criticized the U.S. for killing people with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan and backing forces that kill others in Iraq and Syria.
“What kind of logic is this that if children and women are killed by Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan and by U.S.-backed terrorists in Iraq and Syria is not a problem, but if a bombing happens in the U.S. or another Western country, the whole world should pay the cost?” he asked in his comments, which were posted on his website.
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What do you think? Do you think that United States Foreign Policy conflicts with its goal of spreading peace, prosperty, liberty, freedom, and democracy?
What happens to a president who romps to reelection, channels a national tragedy that sparked coast-to-coast outrage into a deeply personal crusade, then fails to get a measure backed by nine out of ten Americans through the Senate, where his party holds a majority? Thanks to the NRA-fueled defeat of a bill that might have mildly tightened limits on gun sales, President Barack Obama is learning the hard way.
For the families of those killed or wounded by gun violence and who watched with judging eyes as the Senate killed the measure by a vote of 54-46 (it needed a supermajority of 60 votes to pass) what to make of the vote was an easy call.
“Shame on you!” Patricia Maisch shouted from the visitors gallery above the Senate floor.
Maisch, a grandmotherly figure who disarmed the shooter in the Tucson carnage that nearly claimed the life of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was happy to elaborate as reporters swarmed her after the vote. “I decided I could not sit still,” she said. “They have no souls, they have no compassion.”
But on Wednesday, they had the votes.
That’s Message One for Obama from this stinging legislative defeat: Having emotion and the majority on your side isn’t enough. NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, after all, didn’t even need to show up.
The knock on Obama has often been that he’s Mr. Spock, viewing his approach as the most logical and assuming that logic will trump the other’s side’s arguments and emotions. But only the most cynical observers will argue that the president didn’t take this fight personally – with frequent flashes of very public anger and anguish ever since the slaughter of 20 schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary. And supporters of the legislation deployed the families of the slain as lobbyists in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Moreover, as the White House never tired of pointing out, polls show roughly 90 percent of Americans support expanded background checks.
“I will put everything I’ve got into this, and so will Joe,” Obama promised in January, with Vice President Biden at his side. “But I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it.”
In the end, though, four red-state Democrats joined 41 of the Senate’s 45 Republicans to defeat the bill. Why stick their necks out for legislation whose death in the Republican-led House of Representatives was essentially foreordained?
Click below for the full article.
In a major defeat for supporters of tougher gun laws, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday defeated a compromise plan to expand background checks on firearms sales as well as a proposal to ban some semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault weapons.
The votes were on a series of amendments to a broad package of gun laws pushed by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in the aftermath of the Newtown school massacre in December.
However, fierce opposition by the powerful National Rifle Association led a backlash by conservative Republicans and a few Democrats from pro-gun states that doomed key proposals in the gun package, even after they had been watered down to try to satisfy opponents.
After the votes, Obama angrily criticized the NRA and senators who voted against the expanded background checks for rejecting a compromise he said was supported by a strong majority of Americans.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/politics/senate-guns-vote/index.html
So eight senators have agreed on a “pathway to citizenship” for America’s undocumented, leaving a mere 92 to go. And make no mistake, there are many stumbling blocks on this road to legalization.
Pro-pathway advocates are concerned that too many people are being left out, because anyone here after December 2011 will not be eligible for citizenship and will still be vulnerable to deportation.
For many on the other side, the border will never be secure enough, even if this new immigration reform bill does call for $4.5 million in funding for new border patrol agents, equipment including drones and more security fencing.
Plus history is working against the bill. A similar version failed in 2007 because of conservative outcry.
But at the White House today after Senators John McCain and Charles Schumer say they received the president’s seal of approval on the legislation, quote “very supportive of the bill” the two senators defended its chances, saying the American people have changed since 2007.
Americans’ views of immigration have pushed to support by a 2-1 margin.
According to a newly released ABC News/Washington Post poll, Americans were evenly split on the issue (49 percent to 46 percent) in 2007, whereas today that number is 63 percent to 33 percent.
That may mean the difference between the 2012 bill’s passage and the 2007 bill’s demise. Schumer said the fact that labor is on board now, when in 2007 they were most definitely not, means this bill has a greater chance of success.
Attitude of American people has changed since 2007,” McCain said at the press briefing today, including the effect of the Latino turnout in the election of President Obama, which he said “quite frankly” had an “impact as well.”
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Culture wars! They are not, contrary to what U.S. media coverage might suggest, a wholly American phenomena.
On Wednesday, after facing stiff resistance from conservative group Family First, the New Zealand parliament passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, according to NPR.
The move comes a week after the French senate voted to legalize gay marriage despite the 340,000 people who had previously protested in opposition at the Eiffel Tower. Before that, Uruguay’s parliament voted to become the second country in Latin America to recognize gay marriage despite strong Catholic opposition, according to The Guardian. (Argentina is the other Latin American country where same-sex marriage is legal.) The bills in New Zealand, France, and Uruguay are all expected to be signed into law.
Click below for the full article.
http://theweek.com/article/index/242703/11-countries-where-gay-marriage-is-legal-updated
As Quanesha Wallace remembers, it was around this time last year when the idea first came up at Wilcox County High School. It was nothing big, just chatter about prom, school, what comes next, what they’d change.
If things were different, someone said, we’d all go to the same prom.
For as long as anyone could remember, students in their South Georgia community went to separate proms, and homecoming dances, too. White students from Wilcox County attend one. Black students, another. They’re private, invitation-only events organized by parents and students, not the school district. Schools have long been desegregated, but in Wilcox County, the dances never changed.
The friends all agreed they’d go to an integrated prom, Quanesha said, and when they asked, others said, “Yeah, I’d go, too.”
“We are all friends,” Quanesha’s friend, Stephanie Sinnot, told CNN affiliate WGXA-TV in Macon, Georgia. “That’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together.”
So now it’s April, and prom is coming up, and these black and white friends, longtime pals who go to classes together and play sports together and hang out together, are going to prom together, too. For the first, the students are organizing an integrated dance, one that welcomes any of Wilcox County High’s 400 students.
Click below for the full article.
http://wqad.com/2013/04/06/georgia-high-school-to-hold-first-desegregated-prom/
aw enforcement officials don’t have any official suspects in Monday’s twin bombings at the finish line of the Boston marathon. And President Obama specifically urged people not to speculate on who’s behind the attack, which killed at least three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and wounded more than 100 others, including several amputations.
“We still don’t know who did this or why,” Obama said Monday night. “People should not jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But make no mistake. We will get to the bottom of this. We will find out who did this. We will find out why they did this. Any individual or responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”
Click below for the full article on 4 theories of who was behind the attacks.
http://theweek.com/article/index/242773/whos-behind-the-boston-marathon-bombings-4-theories
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky endorsed immigration changes that would give legal status to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in a move to broaden his appeal ahead of a potential 2016 Republican presidential bid.
Paul’s plan, outlined in a speech yesterday, would create work visas for an estimated 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally and let Congress verify border security before revamping the nation’s immigration laws.
Paul set his proposal apart from one being crafted by a bipartisan group of senators, including another potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Marco Rubio of Florida. Their plan would provide a pathway to citizenship.
“I’m not creating a new line for citizenship,” Paul said on CNN yesterday. “I’m just saying, you get in the current line that exists.”
“You don’t have to go back home, but we also don’t want to put you at the front of the line because that’s unfair to people who’ve been waiting legally,” he told reporters on a conference call yesterday.
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What do you think about Paul’s plans and the other bipartisan plan proposed? Click below for the full article.
To some conservatives, it’s amnesty.
To some immigration advocates, it’s unnecessarily punitive.
The Senate’s new bipartisan immigration bill drew criticism from the right and from the left Tuesday — convincing members of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” that wrote it that they’re on the right track.
“This has something for everybody to hate,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “No one gets everything they want.”
Schumer and another leader of the effort, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met with President Barack Obama on Tuesday to brief him on the bill, a top second-term priority for the president. Obama issued a statement after the meeting supporting the Senate effort and urging action.
“This bill is clearly a compromise, and no one will get everything they wanted, including me. But it is largely consistent with the principles that I have repeatedly laid out for comprehensive reform,” Obama said. “I urge the Senate to quickly move this bill forward and, as I told Sens. Schumer and McCain, I stand willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that comprehensive immigration reform becomes a reality as soon as possible.”
Click below for the full article.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-04-16/bipartisan-bill-would-remake-immigration-system
