Yay, Valerie Jarrett!

Ms. Jarrett often serves as a counterweight to the more centrist Clinton veterans in the administration, reminding them and her innately cautious boss that he came to Washington to do big things. Some of his boldest moves, on women’s issues, gay rights and immigration, have been in areas she cares about most. If Karl Rove was known as George W. Bush’s political brain, Ms. Jarrett is Mr. Obama’s spine.

For more, go here.

(Thanks, Mr Jender!)

7/7 survivor faces deportation

A few years ago, I found myself putting together a petition to save an Egyptian friend from deportation.  Her husband, with dual UK/Egyptian nationality, had been wrongly issued a student visa, on which she came in.  When it came time to renew, the error was discovered, and she was to be deported due to her “fraudulent” visa.  Our efforts failed and she was forced to leave.  So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the absurdities of British immigration law.  But I still am surprised by this one.

In the frightening days after 7/7, John Tulloch was the face of Britain’s resistance to terror: bloodied, dazed, clothes in shreds, his picture appeared on newspaper front pages around the world.

Sitting opposite a suicide bomber on a Circle Line train, he had been saved from death by his own luggage. He was visited in hospital by the Prince of Wales, who proclaimed him an example of the “resilience of the British people”.

Prof Tulloch, 70, who traces his ancestry here back to the 14th century, was born to British parents in a British colony. He has a British wife, children and brother. He was raised and educated in Britain from the age of three, has substantial assets and property here and has lived or worked in the UK for most of his life, holding a series of posts at British universities. He even held a British passport. But now, his passport has been confiscated and he faces expulsion from Britain in the latest bizarre twist in this country’s “Kafkaesque” immigration laws.

 

For more, go here.