President Obama repeatedly asked members of Congress to pass the American Jobs Act last week. But when no Democrat filed Obama’s bill after he presented it to Congress, a conservative congressman swiped the name for his own legislation.

The American Jobs Act introduced in the House of Representatives looks quite different from the version President Obama outlined in his speech to Congress. Instead of hiking taxes on working Americans to pay for another stimulus, Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) legislation offers a tax cut.

UPDATE: Gohmert’s bill now has a number. It’s HR 2911.

The college dreams of thousands of students who are illegal immigrants moved closer to fulfillment Wednesday after the state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid.

Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs. To be eligible, they must be California high school graduates who attended schools in the state at least three years, and demonstrate financial need and academic merit.

The Senate vote brought relief to Brian Lee, a UCLA undergraduate who was brought to the U.S. at age 4 from South Korea and fell out of legal status when his mother did not renew their visas. Lee, a biology major who hopes to become a dentist, said the chance to apply for financial aid would help him

The news that the Obama administration was planning to halt virtually all deportations of Dream Act students and possibly their families drew cheers and applause from several students and immigrant rights activists who gathered at the downtown Los Angeles office of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"This is huge," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the coalition, which has long lobbied for the measures announced Thursday. "This is wonderful for all the families who are currently facing deportation."

She said, however, that she remained cautious to see if the administration would actually enact what it pledged to do. "If they do what they say they'll do, this is good."

California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Monday a bill allowing illegal immigrants to receive privately funded scholarships to attend the state's public colleges and universities.

The bill, dubbed the California Dream Act, passed the state Legislature earlier this month and aims at helping illegal immigrants who have earned a high school diploma after attending at least three years of high school in the state.

"At the end of the day, if we're going to continue as a powerful, equal-opportunity society, we're going to have to invest in our people," Brown, a Democrat, said at the signing ceremony in the library of a Los Angeles community college.

The state law is named after a national bill introduced in Congress last year to give young, undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years a path to citizenship through college or military service.

The Senate has voted decisively to extend the legal life of three contentious terrorism-fighting powers that are set to expire at midnight without congressional action.

The 72-23 Senate vote sends the legislation to the House, which is expected to pass it quickly and transmit it to President Barack Obama for his signature.

It extends two provisions of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, one allowing for roving wiretaps and the other allowing searches of business records in the pursuit of terrorist threats. A third provision gives the government power to watch non-American "lone wolf" suspects with no certain ties to terrorist groups.

All three provisions are viewed as valuable tools by law enforcement officials but are opposed by some who say they can lead to privacy right abuses.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif, author of the fencing provisions of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, has introduced new legislation in the House of Representatives to require the construction of double-layered fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico within si

The California DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger on Oct.15. The DREAM Act was a bill that many immigrant activists were riding on to help children of illegal immigrants recei

The SAVE Act (Secure America with Verification and Enforcement Act) is an important, bi-partisan attempt to remedy our immigration crisis by enforcing our immigration laws. HR 4088, by Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) has over 90 co-sponsors, equally di

They definitely shouldn’t refer to the young people to be amnestied by the bill as children of illegal immigrants. The point here is that they’re juvenile illegal immigrants themselves. And giving them amnesty and American citizenship is rewarding bot

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Harry Reid (D-NV) are still trying to pass their DREAM Act amnesty, either as an amendment to other legislation or the stand-alone version of the bill, S 774.

Students and immigration rights activists are planning to march through Sacramento to the state Capitol in support of a new bill. They want Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the "California Dream Act." The bill would allow students who entered the United

As you may know, the DREAM Act — the latest Scamnesty scheme — is being debated in Congress at this moment. And it may be the Mexican dream, but it’s our nightmare. But that isn’t what I want to address today. We may defeat this proposal as we did

Governor Schwarzenegger needs to hear from you. Ask him to veto SB 1. Send a fax or an e-mail by entering your ZIP Code and clicking "Go!" below. Then you may want to follow with a call to the Governor’s office at 916-445-2841 and leave a phone message.

You have to give the Bush scriptwriters credit. They can come up with the darndest names for their phony, bafflegab campaigns. Their latest is the Dream Act, an amnesty proposal which will hit Congress this week. This bad dream will “officially” creat

The DREAM ACT leaves some wide open doors to let this amnesty run rampant into the millions of illegals eager to cash in on free citizenship benefits. And keep in mind that I am not a legal expert, but even a layman found all these obvious amnesty loophol