Read All About It in the Sunday Papers-May 3

LEAD STORY-McClatchy Papers: U. S. Refugee Allies Face Deportation Due to Bush Administration Inertia

Another serious mess left by the serial incompetents of the Bush Administration, this time featuring the sinister Michael Chertoff.

WASHINGTON — Forced to flee his homeland because he supported America’s ideals, Tsegu Bahta thought he’d be embraced by the country he emulated and respected.

Instead, the U.S. has branded him a terrorist.

Bahta is among at least 6,000 immigrants who’ve tried to find refuge in the U.S. only to be told that they don’t qualify because the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 laws label members of armed groups terrorists, even if they supported pro-democracy efforts and opposed despots and dictators. Others who gave money to terrorists under threat of death are considered terrorist sympathizers.

As a result, a wide range of immigrants, from Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government despite death threats to child soldiers who fled their African countries so they’d no longer be forced to kill, are trapped in legal limbo.

You may be asking El Somnambulo why he is placing the blame on the Bush Administration when Obama is the President and the laws were passed by Congress. Here’s why:

“After 9/11, everything switched to ‘We assume you’re a terrorist,'” said Ragland, a Washington attorney who now represents several of the immigrants.

The Bush administration vowed to fix the problem more than a year ago after Congress got word that an Iraqi interpreter who worked for the U.S. military had been told he couldn’t get a green card.

At the time, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff agreed that the Iraqi deserved permanent residency and pledged to review the thousands of pending cases.

“We’re out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’,” he said.

To ensure that the situation was remedied, Congress passed a new law giving the DHS and the State Department broader discretion to grant individuals waivers from the terrorist definition. The law included exemptions for 10 groups, including an organization that opposed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Immigrants who were forced to support terrorist organizations, such as child soldiers, also were expected to receive help.

The procedures for granting thousands of waivers were never put into place, however. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-democracy groups whose members should be eligible for asylum were left off the list.

You see, if you wanted to have procedures put in place swiftly in the Bush Administration, they had to be procedures despoiling the environment, compromising food safety, or making the workplace more dangerous. So, once again, it’s the Obama Administration to the rescue:

Refugee advocates are holding out hope that the Obama administration will take notice and overhaul the handling of the cases.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a broad review of all department policies, including the asylum rules, said agency spokesman Matt Chandler, who added that the DHS would institute changes “where possible and appropriate.”

“The Department of Homeland Security is committed to the dual goals of protecting the security of the United States while providing deserving applicants who pose no security threat the opportunity to seek and obtain immigration status,” he said.

Marisa Taylor consistently does some of the best reporting in America. Click on and read the article, and give the McClatchy folks some journalistic props. They deserve them.

New York Times: Father of ‘Kemp-Roth’ Tax Cuts Dead

While people will no doubt think of the late Jack Kemp as a social moderate in the Party of Intolerance, Kemp, more than anyone, fathered the ‘tax cuts at all costs’ movement:

Mr. Kemp, having embraced a supply-side economic theory, told the House that year that the nation suffered under a “tax code that rewards consumption, leisure, debt and borrowing, and punishes savings, investment, work and production.”

Ronald Reagan adopted the issue as a central one in his 1980 presidential campaign, and in 1981 he won passage of a 23 percent cut over three years. The legislation was known as Kemp-Roth, named for Mr. Kemp and William V. Roth Jr., the Delaware Republican and his Senate co-sponsor.

Many may have already forgotten that Kemp was also Bob Dole’s running-mate on the Electile Dysfunction ticket in 1996.

Chicago Tribune: Obama Supreme Court Choice to Have Chicago Ties?

The Trib identifies and profiles the rumored names with Chicago and, mostly, University of Chicago, ties:

Ever since Barack Obama’s election as president, there has been anticipation among scholars at the University of Chicago‘s Law School that one of their own could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court bench in the next few years.

That anticipation was heightened late last week with news that Obama, who taught constitutional law at the school from 1992 to 2004, soon will be making his first Supreme Court pick.

Almost every short list of possible nominees to succeed Justice David Souter includes three individuals with strong ties to the Hyde Park law school: U.S. Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood, Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

Even if Obama does not pick one of the past or present faculty members this year, feelings run strong on campus that he will before he leaves the White House.

The Beast Who Slumbers wants a reliable vote who is young enough to be on the Court for some time. Obama must pick people who will outlast, at least, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas. The thumbnail profiles are interesting and, after reading them, you may well have your personal favorite. For now, ‘bulo leans towards Elena Kagan b/c she’s brilliant and only 48.

Boston Globe: University of Pennsylvania Inspiration for Urban Renewal?

Not being the egghead type, the Beast Who Slumbers was unaware of the proactive role that Penn had played in revitalizing West Philly. Harvard is now looking at Penn as a model as Ve*ri*tas U looks to remake Allston:

Penn never pretended to be performing public service. Its massive investments in the community, school officials said, were designed to improve the university. It stopped making excuses, fronted the money for projects large and small through good and recessionary times, and got the job done.

At the same time it began making risky forays into real estate, Penn started a public elementary and middle school to attract families and stabilize the neighborhood. It planted thousands of spruce and silver maples along barren sidewalks. It gave faculty and staff cash incentives to buy homes there, and some of its top administrators moved in.

Even now, construction continues, just as it did during the downturn in 2001 and 2002.

“This is not altruism or noblesse oblige,” Penn president Amy Gutmann said in a recent interview. “It’s the right thing to do because it can make us stronger as well as our community stronger.”

While Penn built up the neighborhood to improve the college, Allston residents hope that Harvard’s push to expand its own footprint will lead to improvements in the neighborhood. Allston does not come close to approaching the level of deterioration that plagued West Philadelphia, but the historically blue-collar neighborhood, where Harvard owns more than 350 acres, is pocked with university-owned lots and storefronts that have sat vacant for years.

Tracy Jan‘s article raises excellent questions about the missions of universities and cites some of the inherent skepticism in doing something like this. ‘Bulo sees the arguments on both sides and he finds them quite worthy of discussion. So, come back and discuss.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Guess Who’s the Leading Global Champion for Organic Farming??

Here’s a hint from the early ’80’s, from a famous toast, no less: “Drink Up, Chuck & Di” (say it 3 times fast, ‘bulo dares you).

That’s right, the man with bigger ears than Spock or even Mike Castle has done something good, and he’s been doing it for a long time:

But here’s something you probably don’t know about HRH Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales: For almost a quarter-century, he has been a prescient champion of organic gardening, a famous, if lonely, voice in a wilderness once considered the preserve of wackos and hippies.

At long last, the gardener formally known as Prince is alone no more. Organic gardening is coming into its own.

The number of U.S. households using only all-natural or organic fertilizer, insect controls, and weed controls increased from about five million in 2004 to 12 million last year, according to the National Gardening Association’s lawn and garden survey, done by Harris Interactive.

Most of the nation’s 100 million gardening households still use conventional methods such as synthetic chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and insecticide, but the organic component is growing rapidly. And at least some of the credit goes to Charles, who has gardened organically at Highgrove House, the 21-room (plus nursery wing) Gloucestershire estate he shared first with Princess Diana and now shares with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

This is a really cool article. Once you’re done reading it, pour yourself a favorite libation, raise your chalice skyward, and say…”L’Chayyim.”

The (UK) Independent: The ‘Nets About to Change Significantly for the Better…and Cooler!

The Beast Who Slumbers is sure that the Geeksters and gadgeteers among us will pooh-pooh this, but ‘bulo just can’t wait:

The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.

The new system, Wolfram Alpha (could this be the new nickname ‘bulo has been searching for?) , showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet’s Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out “on the fly”, according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in “10 flips for four heads” and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

Dr Wolfram, an award-winning physicist who is based in America, added that the information is “curated”, meaning it is assessed first by experts. This means that the weaknesses of sites such as Wikipedia, where doubts are cast on the information because anyone can contribute, are taken out. It is based on his best-selling Mathematica software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for crunching complex maths.

Wow, as if ‘bulo isn’t spending enough time online…OK, naysayers, say your nays.

Be back next week, same ‘bulo time, same ‘bulo channel.