Oscar-nominated writer-director Chris Weitz is known for making popular fare like American Pie, About a Boy and Twilight: New Moon. But last year he made the independent feature A Better Life, which chronicles an undocumented gardener in East LA. Now he’s turned his talents on four short films about the inhumane anti-immigrant law in Alabama.

TransCanada still has not settled on a route for its Keystone Pipeline that bypasses or protects the aquifer in Nebraska, as requested by Nebraska (GOP) officials. That delay means the project couldn’t come on line until 2015 at the earliest, despite GOP attempts to co-opt the Obama Administration’s permit regime.

This week marks the end of the public comment period on the Volcker rule. The usual suspects have all delivered their comments. The huge finance lobby delivered their mass of comments, in particular calls for multiple exemptions and waivers. But a new group, Occupy the SEC, a collection of experts in finance which sprung out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, delivered a 325 page letter to the SEC about the rule reminding the SEC about their obligations to the public.

You’ve heard enough from me. And actually, you’ll hear plenty more later. But I thought I’d line up what some other people are saying about the foreclosure fraud settlement, the terms of which have not yet totally been released (which, I repeat, is a travesty of justice).

Every day at Occupy Supply we talk with occupations across the country who are doing amazing work. When we hear that “occupy is dead,” we know that someone is seriously ill-informed. So if you see a journalist repeating the “occupy is dead” meme, be sure to forward them this list to let them know that reports of Occupy’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Still time to vote for your favorite Occupy action!

First, let’s talk about the settlement. The good news here is that the Justice Democrats aren’t jumping off the boat just yet. Delaware’s Beau Biden reaffirmed his stance against the settlement because he wanted to pursue his own investigations. And California’s Kamala Harris reiterated her stance last night.

After the death of PIPA this morning comes the news that Lamar Smith, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee who planned on resuming the markup of SOPA, the House version of anti-piracy legislation, in February, has put the bill into cold storage. The work of the grassroots coalition did the trick: SOPA and PIPA are dead for now.

[Editor's Note: For the Latest on PIPA, Vote Postponed.]

We are very close to being able to predict a loss for the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, in next week’s cloture vote in the Senate. According to the Open Congress whip count, which is user-generated and seems to have the most updated information, 33 Senators are either co-sponsors or leaning toward supporting PIPA, and 38 Senators are either confirmed No votes or leaning that way. As we all know, it takes 41 votes to block a cloture vote. So if the leaners pan out we’ll see cloture go down.

The Obama Administration officially denied the Keystone Pipeline permit pending before the State Department. The White House statement supporting the decision blamed it on the unreasonable time restriction imposed by Congress and the GOP, while leaving the door open for a renewed application.

The series of anti-SOPA activism going on today has already claimed an early victory. Marco Rubio, the Florida Senator and Tea Party favorite, dropped his support after being a co-sponsor of the bill. Now other Senators are starting to announce their opposition.