Sunday Roundup - November 23, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Iran, Ukraine, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and, in brief, Ebola and Mexico.

Iran
November 24 is the self-imposed deadline for Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent security council members (US, Russia, China, France, UK) plus Germany) to come to a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear program.  The main remaining issues are the timing of the removal of the sanctions against Iran and what degree of nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes will satisfy both sides.  “Iran has made its utmost efforts and made the necessary adjustments to its demands and we hope that all the P5+1 countries, particularly the US, which occasionally seeks excessive demands in the nuclear talks, will understand the circumstances,” [Iran President Rouhani] said, according to the state-run Press TV....Iran has been adamant that it would not allow any agreement to prevent it obtaining nuclear technology permitted by the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). But Iran and the west have different interpretations of what type of advances are permitted under the NPT, especially over enrichment capacity." [The Guardian, Nov. 12]  Opposition to a historic permanent agreement comes from three sources and Carlyn Meyer, writing at Informed Comment, warns that the critics are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water.  The right-wing in Iran does not believe their country should even be talking to the West. Critics in the American Congress have tried to impose new sanction, after Iran...started negotiating in good faith, that would derail the deal. And Israel, which is not a signer of the NPT, believes Iran should be barred from even civilian enrichment....If a negotiated Permanent Agreement doesn’t replace the Interim accord or if the talks are not extended, Iran will resume producing highly enriched uranium. The new inspectors would leave and tighter inspector regimens would die. A historic achievement for nuclear nonproliferation would be nullified.  [Informed Comment, Nov. 20]  On Thursday, officials hinted at a possible extension. A deadline to resolve a 12-year-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program may be extended from Monday to March because of sharp disagreements between Tehran and Western powers, officials close to the talks said Thursday. U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said this week a comprehensive deal would be difficult, but not impossible, to achieve by Monday. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was not optimistic, but that there may be a way of extending the deadline.  A senior Iranian official had similar expectations. "We need more time to resolve technical issues, and don’t forget that the time frame for lifting sanctions is still a huge dispute," the Iranian official said, adding that an extension until March was a possibility. Western officials also suggested March was an option, with a resumption of talks in January....Domestic constituencies hostile to compromise remain strong on both the Iranian and U.S. sides, and a delay in concluding an agreement increases the opportunities for spoilers to win the day.  [Al Jazeera, Nov. 20]
  
Ukraine

Map of rebel-held areas is from BBC News

The ceasefire in the Ukraine has seen numerous violations since it went into effect in September.  An average of 13 people have been killed daily in eastern Ukraine since a 5 September ceasefire came into place, the UN human rights office says.  In the eight weeks since the truce came into force, the UN says 957 people have been killed, amid continuing violations on both sides.  A new report by the office describes a total breakdown of law and order in rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk.  It also highlights credible allegations of abuses by government forces.  [BBC News, Nov. 20] With rhetoric escalating on both sides, Ukrainian servicemen continuing to be deployed in eastern Ukraine, and Russian military support allegedly coming into the rebel-held areas, the Ukraine Civil War is on the verge of restarting at full throttle.  As of the end of October, more than 4,000 have been killed during the conflict and more than 900,000 persons have become refugees or internally displaced.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
As Gaza struggles to recover from this summer's onslaught, tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank have risen over the past several weeks and the cycle of oppression, protests, and violence continues. Palestinians protests have been sparked by Israel's continued settlement building - particularly the recent decision to build in East Jerusalem - and concerns regarding the Al-Aqsa mosque.  A partial listing of events of the last month is given below.  Researching the history of Jerusalem's status, Ehab Zariyeh writes, The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most vexed – and volatile – sticking points in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After occupying the eastern part of the city in the war of June 1967, Israel annexed the territory, and its political leaders proclaimed the city Israel's "eternal, undivided capital." But the international community, including the United States, continues to regard East Jerusalem as occupied territory, and to reject Israel’s decision to settle its citizens there.  The article traces the history of the struggle for control of the Holy City since the UN partition plan of 1947.  [Al Jazeera, Oct. 30]  Amos Harel writes of an operation in which Israeli police acted with restraint in a village north of Jerusalem in "How to avert an Intifada". During yesterday’s operation, an undercover Jerusalem district police force surprised two suspects while they were meeting. One suspect tried to flee, but the cops were able to seize him. The other pulled out a pistol, but the police didn’t lose their cool. They pointed their weapons at him and in the end he dropped the gun and surrendered.  This incident in Anata, coming less than 48 hours after the police shooting in Kafr Kana, proves that the results of such confrontations are very dependent on the conduct of the policemen and soldiers involved....Whether the wave of violence that began in Jerusalem and is expanding to Arab communities in Israel following Hamdan’s death will spread further will be decided by how each such incident is handled....It seems that the police and army are making efforts to control and monitor their forces to prevent additional funerals. They aren’t getting much help from Israeli ministers and MKs. [Haaretz, Nov. 10]  Without a political solution, Netanyahu appears to be facing the limits of his security-based approach.  Netanyahu has built his career on opposing the creation of a Palestinian state, standing up to U.S. pressure for territorial compromise and sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear work. While he may be more pragmatic than some of his coalition partners, his coupling of low-key settlement expansion with fiery rhetoric has pushed Israel’s mainstream political median steadily to the right...The problem, of course, is that absent any political process to end the occupation, Netanyahu has precious few incentives to offer the increasingly disillusioned Palestinians for cooperation to restore security....Netanyahu now confronts a domestic security crisis for which he very deliberately offers no political solution. He has taken ending the occupation and Palestinian statehood off the agenda, but having seen off U.S. efforts to complete the peace process, he offers no alternative beyond the status quo. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 18]

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict October 19 - November 18 

Oct. 19 - Einas Khalil, a 5-year-old Palestinian kindergarten student, was killed in the West Bank by an Israeli settler who ran her over with his car. [1]
Oct. 22 - A Palestinian drove his car into a Jerusalem train station, killing a three-month-old Israeli-American baby girl, Chaya Zissel Brauna, and wounding several other people. A 22-year-old Ecuadorean woman, Karen Yemima Mosquera, died later of  wounds sustained in that attack. The Palestinian driver was shot and killed shortly after the incident. [1]
Oct. 24 - A Palestinian-American teenager was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, and 12 Palestinians were wounded during protests.  Among other demands, Palestinian protesters want Israel to cease settlement activity in East Jerusalem and honor residents’ rights. [1]
Oct. 27 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue building Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite stiff international criticism and rising tensions between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians in the contested city.  Earlier in the day, Netanyahu's government announced that it would advance plans to build about 1,000 Jewish-only housing units in east Jerusalem — an attempt, Palestinians said, to further cement Israel’s control over the city, creating “facts on the ground” that would keep Jerusalem under Israeli authority in a future peace deal. [1]
Oct. 29 - An extremist rabbi was seriously wounded in a drive-by attack.  The attack [followed] a conference, at the center, which focused on the reconstruction of a Jewish temple on top of al-Aqsa Mosque, with top right-wing Jewish officials and activists in attendance. [2]
Oct. 30 - His suspected attacker was shot dead by Israeli security forces.  The suspect attempted to evade arrest by climbing onto the roof of his house and hiding there behind solar panels.  According to Israeli sources, the Police Special Anti-Terror Unit closed in on him [and] he began shooting. The unit fired back, killing him. [3]  Palestinian sources have a different version:  The Fatah movement of Jerusalem said [the suspect's] killing amounted to an extrajudicial assassination by Israeli security forces....Hejazi was alive when Israeli forces arrived on the scene, [Palestinian news agency] Maan said, adding Hejazi died after a water tank was dropped on him. [4]
Oct. 31 - East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque reopened to some Muslim worshippers after Israel had earlier ordered its closure, and following calls from the United States government and Arab countries to reverse the decision that sparked outrage. [4]
Nov. 6 - Seven Palestinians were injured...after being targeted with rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas grenades by Israeli forces, as citizens and Birzeit University scholars headed to Ofer military camp, to protest in solidarity with Jerusalem and the rising number of dead throughout Palestine. [5]
Nov. 14 - Thousands of Arab Israelis took to the streets of Israel...to protest at what they call Israeli assaults on al-Aqsa Mosque.  They were also demanding the prosecution of Israeli police who killed a 20-year old Palestinian man in northern Israel on 7 November....Hundreds of Palestinians also protested across the occupied West Bank on Friday in a campaign calling for free passage to Jerusalem and an end to the occupation. [6]
Nov. 18 - An attack by two Palestinian men on a synagogue in West Jerusalem has claimed the lives of five Israelis and injured eight others.  The Palestinian attackers, who police said were armed with a gun and axes, were shot dead by police...Following the incident, tens of Palestinians were injured in confrontations with Israeli settlers and security forces in both Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. [7]
Sources
[1] "Netanyahu vows to continue building Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem" Al Jazeera, Oct. 27 
[2] "Extremist Israeli Rabbi Shot at Jerusalem Rally" International Middle East Media Center. Oct. 30
[3] "Israeli police kill Palestinian suspect in Jerusalem assassination attempt" Haaretz, Oct. 30
[4] "Israel to reopen Al-Aqsa mosque after Palestinian outrage over closure" Al Jazeera, Oct. 30
[5] "7 Palestinians Wounded During Protest near Ofer" International Middle East Media Center, Nov, 6 
[6] "Thousands of Palestinians protest in Israel and West Bank" Middle East Eye, Nov. 14
[7] "Five dead in attack on Jerusalem synagogue" Al Jazeera, Nov. 18


Links/In Brief
Ebola 
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today that the number of Ebola cases is “no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but is still increasing in Sierra Leone”, and that preparedness teams have been sent this week to Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Senegal....The WHO report issued late today in Geneva said 15,145 cases of Ebola virus disease had been reported in six affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Spain and the United States of America) and two previously affected countries (Nigeria and Senegal) with 5,420 reported deaths. [UN News Centre, Nov. 19]

"Ebola: Mapping the outbreak" [BBC News, Nov. 21]

Mexico
"Mexico on the brink: thousands to protest over widespread corruption and student massacre" [The Guardian, Nov. 20]

"Molotov cocktails, clashes as thousands of Mexicans protest over massacre" [Reuters, Nov. 21]

Sunday Roundup - November 16, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at the US-China climate agreement, Mexico, immigration reform, Ukraine, the permanent war infrastructure, and the unheralded success of Evo Morales.

US-China Climate Agreement

Graphic from ThinkProgress website

On Tuesday night, the United States and China announced a historic agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions.  The plan...involves a series of initiatives to be undertaken in partnership between the two countries, including: expanding funding for clean energy technology research at the US-China Clean Energy Research Center; launching a large-scale pilot project in China to study carbon capture and sequestration; a push to further limit the use of hydroflourocarbons, a potent greenhouse gas found in refrigerants; a  federal framework for cities in both countries to share experiences and best practices for low-carbon economic growth and adaptation to the impacts of climate change at the municipal level; a call to boost trade in "green" goods, including energy efficiency technology and resilient infrastructure.  [Mother Jones, Nov. 11]
The announcement by the two largest carbon polluters in the world is a welcome signal ahead of the Paris 2015 climate conference.  China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, has agreed to cap its output by 2030 or earlier if possible...Now it has also promised to increase its use of energy from zero-emission sources to 20% by 2030...The United States has pledged to cut its emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025.  Both represent improved targets over previously announced goals.  [The Guardian, Nov. 12]
The deal was reached after nine months of intense negotiations.  The plan unveiled in Beijing by Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, commits the two countries to ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions after 2020, and could spur other big polluters to similar efforts.  After years of mistrust, the deal began to coalesce last spring after Obama sent a personal letter to Xi suggesting the two countries start to move in tandem to cut carbon pollution, the White House said.  The immediate inspiration for the letter arose from a visit to Beijing by John Kerry, the US secretary of state. Kerry, who had a strong environmental record when he was a senator, raised climate change to a top priority after taking over at State. [The Guardian, Nov. 12]
Related: 
"America's Solar Boom, in Charts"  According to a Deutsche Bank analyst: By 2016, solar power will be as cheap or cheaper than electricity from the conventional grid in every state except three. [Mother Jones, Nov. 7]
"How the Republican-led Congress could kill the climate change deal" [The Guardian, Nov. 12]

Mexico
On September 26 in the southwestern town of Iguala. 43 Mexican college students were detained by police after a protest against what the students considered to be discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the government.   They have not been seen since.  The former mayor of Iguala is under arrest and its police chief is on the run.  Mexico has been facing violent rallies since local authorities revealed that the 43 students were handed over by corrupt police to the Guerros Unidos gang, members of which confessed to murdering them and reducing their bodies to ashes.  On Tuesday, protesters blocked Acapulco Airport.  On Wednesday a crowd of about 500 protesters set ablaze the state congress building in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero in a violent rally over the alleged massacre of 43 college students....Their disappearance has posed the biggest challenge so far to President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration, with many questioning the government’s progress in fighting against drug violence. [Reuters, Nov. 13]
Related:
"Mexicans in ‘Forgotten State’ Hail Arrest of Fugitive Mayor" [Bloomberg, Nov. 4]

Immigration Reform
President Obama is pledging to take executive action on immigration reform before year end. Depending on the specifics, the executive actions may protect between 2 and 5 million immigrants from deportation.  A comprehensive reform bill passed the Senate in 2013 but the Republican-controlled House has refused to act.  At a news conference during a visit to Myanmar, the President said, "There has been ample opportunity for Congress to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would strengthen our borders, improve the legal immigration system and lift millions of people out of the shadows....I said that if in fact Congress failed to act, I would use all the lawful authority I possess to try to make the system work better."  The executive actions are centered on an extension of the President's "deferred action plan" which was designed to protect young adults who were brought to the US illegally as children from being deported.  The plan is to include parents of children who are US citizens or legal residents.  The action is designed to prevent the break-up of families via deportations.  Other steps reportedly include increasing the number of high-tech workers allowed to live and work in the US, [expanding] the existing deferred action plans [by moving] the cut-off date for children arriving to 2010, and [shifting] border security resources to the US southern border. Republicans are gearing up to fight Obama's actions, and one potential outcome of the showdown is a government shutdown. [BBC News, Nov. 14]

Ukraine
The US and Europe are warning Russia on increased sanctions for Russia's part in "destabilizing" the Ukraine.  Vladimir Putin planned to leave the G20 summit early after the criticism.  Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Thursday of the counter accusations between Russia and Ukraine.  Moscow and Kiev accused each other on Thursday of violating a ceasefire and the United States warned Russia the West might punish it further for its "military escalation" of the Ukraine crisis.  Ukraine accused Russia of sending soldiers and weapons to help separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine launch a new offensive in a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people. Russia warned Kiev that any resumption of hostilities against the separatists would be catastrophic for Ukraine.  Increasing violence, truce violations and reports of unmarked armed convoys traveling from the direction of the Russian border have aroused fears that a shaky Sept. 5 truce could collapse.  [Reuters, Nov. 13]

In an op-ed piece appearing in The Guardian, Volodymyr Ishchenko warns of the danger of ignoring the far right.  Ukrainian authorities and mainstream opinion in Ukraine continue to show unacceptable ignorance of the danger from the far right and even openly neo-Nazi forces, cooperating with them in elections and allowing them to take positions within law enforcement...It is short-sighted and formalistic to conclude that the Ukrainian far right is insignificant based on the lack of electoral success. The rhetoric of many politicians which could be called centrist or even liberal has moved significantly to the right, competing for the increasingly patriotic and even nationalist voters...Ukrainians have already paid a very high price for ignoring the far right. According to research into systematic protests, members of the far right were the most visibly identified political agents in the Maidan protests, from the very beginning of the movement to the overthrow of Yanukovych.  Moreover, they were relatively more visible in eastern and southern regions where Maidan did not have the majority support, thus pushing the local population even further away from the protest message.  Ishchenko concludes that this tolerance for the far right has already cost Ukraine lost territories, a mass destruction of industry and infrastructure, and thousands and thousands of lives. It is necessary to break with the “it might be beneficial for Putin” logic and start to think what is beneficial for all the people living in Ukraine, and whether the radical nationalist ideas can fit the Ukrainian future to which we aspire.

NATO Map (Wikimedia Commons)

John Mearsheimer has an in-depth analysis of the roots of the crisis in Ukraine in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.  The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a “coup” -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.   Mearsheimer asks us to imagine the American outrage if China built an impressive military alliance and tried to include Canada and Mexico. He proposes the West rethink its Ukraine strategy:  There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however -- although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.

The Permanent War Infrastructure
David Vine, writing at tomdispatch.com, discusses the long-standing US military presence in the Middle East  and the consequences of that policy.  Approaching its 35th anniversary, the strategy of maintaining such a structure of garrisons, troops, planes, and ships in the Middle East has been one of the great disasters in the history of American foreign policy. The rapid disappearance of debate about our newest, possibly illegal war should remind us of just how easy this huge infrastructure of bases has made it for anyone in the Oval Office to launch a war that seems guaranteed, like its predecessors, to set off new cycles of blowback and yet more war.  Vine traces the development of our base building policy and the morphing of the Rapid Deployment Force into the U.S. Central Command from 1980 through the present day.  Originally intended to maintain access to the oil-rich region during the Cold War era, the bases have become a "catalyst for anti-Americanism and radicalization” since a suicide bombing killed 241 marines in Lebanon in 1983....The garrisoning of the Muslim Holy Land was a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama Bin Laden's professed motivation for the 9/11 attacks....Part of the anti-American anger has stemmed from the support U.S. bases offer to repressive, undemocratic regimes....Of course, using bases to launch wars and other kinds of interventions does much the same, generating anger, antagonism, and anti-American attacks....Rather than providing security, the infrastructure of bases in the Greater Middle East has made it ever easier to go to war far from home. It has enabled wars of choice and an interventionist foreign policy that has resulted in repeated disasters for the region, the United States, and the world.  By one estimate, the United States has spent $10 trillion protecting Persian Gulf oil supplies over the past four decades. Vine concludes: The sad irony is that any legitimate desire to maintain the free flow of regional oil to the global economy could be sustained through other far less expensive and deadly means....In addition to the direct damage our military spending has caused, it has diverted money and attention from developing the kinds of alternative energy sources that could free the United States and the world from a dependence on Middle Eastern oil -- and from the cycle of war that our military bases have fed. [TomDispatch, Nov.13]

Bolivia's Evo Morales

Photo of Evo Morales is from greanvillepost.com

While some warn that the rise of a racist far right presents a "clear and present danger "to both Western and Eastern Europe, Sergi Halimi writing in Le Monde Diplomatique wonders why the success of Bolivia's indigenous, leftist president Evo Morales has gone unremarked by the media. In times of crisis, a head of state who gets re-elected in the first round, having already served two terms, is a rarity indeed. One such is Evo Morales, whose win, with 61% of the vote, should have received more attention than it did. All the more so since he pulled off this electoral feat in Bolivia — which had five different presidents between 2001 and 2005. His victory follows a 25% reduction in poverty, an 87% real-terms increase in the minimum wage, a lowering of the retirement age and an annual growth rate of over 5% — all since 2006.  Pointing to the security failures such as the student massacre in Mexico - the students were protesting the neoliberal education reforms proposed by the conservative regime, Sergi Halimi asks us to imagine what would have leapt to mind had the student massacre taken place in Ecuador, Cuba or Venezuela. Or indeed in Bolivia, where President Morales has just been re-elected. [Le Monde Diplomatique, November 2014]

Sunday Roundup - June 30, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at reaction to the immigration bill that passed the Senate Thursday. Sources are The News (Mexico) website and Mother Jones.

“The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources--because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.” - Lyndon B. Johnson

A compromise bipartisan immigration bill passed the US Senate this past Thursday by a vote of 68-32. It combines a path to citizenship with $40 billion in "border security" measures thrown in to try to bring in more Republican votes. As the Senate bill was being debated, Mexico's Foreign Secretary Jose Antonio Meade noted that the bill "could benefit the millions of Mexican immigrants who make contributions each day to the prosperity and development of the United States." But he had some reservations about the 700 mile fence... “We are convinced that fences do not bring people together,” Meade said, adding that, “Fences are not the solution to the phenomenon of immigration and are not consistent with a modern and safe border.” [The News (Mexico)]

 

"We’ll be the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall." - John McCain

 

 Ricardo Castillo in a July 27 post in The News wrote "Hardcore conservative U.S. Senators have conveniently forgotten Ronald Reagan's history making June 1987 statement at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' Now they have inserted a wall of their own in the Immigration Reform Bill. Seen from a psychoanalytical point of view, the wall on the Mexican border, along with a Communist East German-like police guarding it, is a revisitation of the southern U.S.A.'s secession in the 1860s."

[Archival photo from latinamericanstudies.org website "A meeting at a border fence near Tijuana"]

“I take issue with many people's description of people being "Illegal" Immigrants. There aren't any illegal Human Beings as far as I'm concerned.”   - Dennis Kucinich

In spite of its wasteful border surge provision, which was bad enough to cause the Latino advocacy group Presente.org to withdraw its support for a bill that is "guaranteed to increase death and destruction through increased militarization of the border.", the Senate measure faces an uncertain future in the House which has been preparing its own harsher version of an immigration bill. Again from The News: "Far-reaching immigration legislation cruised toward passage in the Senate as House Republicans pushed ahead Wednesday on a different approach that cracks down on millions living in the United States illegally rather than offering them a chance at citizenship." Two bills have passed through the relevant House committee. The first makes it a new crime to remain in the country without legal status, allows state and local governments to enforce federal immigration laws, and encourages those living in the United States unlawfully to depart voluntarily. "The second bill that cleared last week deals with farm workers who come to the United States temporarily with government permission. Unlike the Senate legislation, it offers no pathway to citizenship."

"In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8% of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent." - Wikipedia entry on "Native Americans in the United States"

Mother Jones notes that the House GOP now faces its "moment of truth." Gavin Aronsen in a June 27 post writes: "Bipartisan talks regarding immigration reform have repeatedly stalled in the lower chamber, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has found himself in a tight spot, forced to choose between alienating millions of Latino voters—a key constituency the Republican Party is trying to court—and appeasing tea party lawmakers who oppose a pathway to citizenship. The coming weeks, before Congress recesses for the month of August, will be a make-or-break moment for the House GOP."

 

“Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”   - Carlos Fuentes