Originally posted on Citizen Orange.

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

A lot has happened as we complete the third week of the DREAM Now Series.  The DREAM Act picked up two new co-sponsors in the U.S. House: Mike Thompson (D-CA-1) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1).  Two extremely important and influential organizations have also come out strongly in support of passing the DREAM Act as a downpayment on comprehensive immigration reform: the Center for American Progress and the AFL-CIO.  Finally, a major victory was won in Arizona where the deportation of Marlen Moreno was deferred.  Please express support for the above in anyway possible.  It has all helped build a lot of momentum for passing the DREAM Act, this year. 

Just was we have been busy moving the DREAM Act forward, though, nativists have been busy undermining it.

This is getting to be interesting.

There is something oddly hilarious about two 80 year old Senators dueling it out on Twitter.

Grassley’s at it again

Chuck “Twitter” Grassley is at it again.

I’ve had enough, and some Senators have had enough too.

If we’re serious about containing costs, then we have to be serious about the public option.

The fact that patients are never heard in Washington was laughed at on NPR yesterday.

The prospects for healthcare reform in the Senate brightened appreciably this week with Al Franken being declared the winner of the Minnesota senate race and key Republicans making bipartisan overtures.

Can the Democrats pass a healthcare reform in the Senate without a filibuster-proof majority? There is a way to pass health care with a simple majority in the Senate, but only if the Democrats can circumvent the Byrd Rule and insert healthcare language during budget reconciliation.