The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

In case you missed the Air America – The Good, The Bad, The Ridiculous panel with Josh Norton, Laura Flanders, and Sam Seder, click here to access the video of the entire panel.

Here’s my previous post when I found out Air America had folded. Suffice to say, I thought it was depressing to see Air America disappear from the air waves.

Most revealing tidbits from this panel for me: how a memo was discovered being circulated, advising sponsors not to advertise on Air America. Also, sounds like management did not know how to really interact with their progressive audience … in other words, sounds like they were clueless about having an Integrated Marketing Communications strategy. It was all old model and old ways of marketing and not really about building an interface to effectively interact with its progressive audience.

Missed the speech? Watch the whole speech, link here.

Positive: the President mentioned the DREAM Act. Called out the mistaken notion that taking on immigration reform is “bad politics”. Pointed out what few dare to admit with the passing of immigration laws similar to Arizona: how they actually increase crime because they plant fear in immigrants and deter them from trusting police to report crimes. Recognized the nature of the humanitarian crisis going on in our borders: having thousands upon thousands of human beings risk their lives, with many dying in their treks in the quest to escape oppressive poverty for themselves and their families.

Negative: on parts of the speech the President relied too much on conservative buzz phrases, which tends to constrict the immigration debate to issues of legalese rather than on fighting the extreme poverty that drives people to flee their countries in the first place to take refuge in the U.S. economy, in other words: the root of “illegal immigration”.

Evocative: the choice of location was designed to evoke the memory of Senator Ted Kennedy, who was an icon for Latinos and other immigrants in the advancement of their civil rights.

Follow up questions: what was the purpose of the speech? It was powerful, as President Obama’s speeches usually are. There was no mention of a specific timeline for next steps, no mention of what are the actual next steps, no actual commitment to pass a specific part of immigration reform (like the DREAM Act, for example). Was the speech intended to be more of a campaign promise for the Latino vote going into the upcoming difficult midterm elections?

For more updates, visit Project Economic Refugee.