2019-03-19: News Headlines

Democracy Now! (2019-03-19). ACLU: The U.S. Is Acting Like an Authoritarian Regime by Barring ICC Officials Probing War Crimes. democracynow.org The Trump administration has barred International Criminal Court investigators from entering the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the U.S. will start denying visas to members of the ICC who may be investigating alleged war crimes by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In September, national security adviser John Bolton threatened U.S. sanctions against ICC judges if they continued to investigate alleged war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. A 2016 ICC report accused the U.S. military of torturing at least 61 prisoners in Afghanistan during the ongoing war. The report…

commondreams (2019-03-19). ACLU Comment on Supreme Court Immigration Detention Ruling. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Global Research News (2019-03-19). Selected Articles: The Planet Is Collapsing Before Our Very Eyes. globalresearch.ca Online independent analysis of US-led wars, rampant corruption, corporate greed, civil rights and fraudulent monetary transactions is invariably relegated to the bottom rung of search engine results. | As a result we presently do not cover our monthly running costs which …

John Kiriakou (2019-03-19). Marty Gottesfeld: Another Whistleblower in Solitary Confinement. mintpressnews.com Last year I wrote about a whistleblower from New England who took direct action to save a child's life and who paid for it with his freedom. Marty Gottesfeld is now serving 10 years in prison for trying to save Justina Pelletier from abuse at the hands of her doctors at Children's Hospital in Boston. | At the age of 14, Justine developed searing stomach pain and inexplicable digestive problems. Her parents took her to a series of doctors until a metabolic geneticist at…

Rémi Castets (2019-03-19). What's Really Happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang? thenation.com What's Really Happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang?

STAFF (2019-03-19). Elizabeth Warren Calls for End to Electoral College. truthdig.com During a CNN town hall Monday night in Mississippi—where GOP laws and suppression tactics have disproportionately harmed black voters—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the best way to strengthen voting rights nationwide is to amend the U.S. Constitution and abolish the Electoral College. | "I believe we need a constitutional amendment that protects the right to vote for every American citizen and to make sure that vote gets counted," the Mas…

Fight Back (2019-03-19). Minnesotans protest Senator Klobuchar's pro-war record. fightbacknews.org Minneapolis, MN – On March 15, 30 protesters gathered in front of Senator Amy Klobuchar's Minneapolis office to condemn her support for the Trump administration policy of regime change in Venezuela and support of U.S. aid to Israel. Since Klobuchar has kicked off her presidential campaign, the Twin Cities anti-war movement has responded by holding multiple protests, including a picket at her presidential announcement at Boom Island, to draw attention to the senator's long record of voting for military aid and U.S. intervention. | Responding to the savage and racist mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, Mis…

Bay Area Poor People's Campaign (2019-03-19). Poor People's Hearing Bay Area. Against Racism, Poverty, War Economy, Climate Change. indybay.org Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church, 1188 12th St. West Oakland…

plenglish (2019-03-19). Mobilization in Brazil on April 7, One Year after Lula's Imprisonment. plenglish.com Brasilia, Mar 19 (Prensa Latina) The Free Lula National Meeting, held in Sao Paulo, announced a big mobilization in Brazil on April 7, one year after the political imprisonment of the former president, the Workers Party (PT) announced.

Lee Siu Hin, Immigrant Solidarity Network (2019-03-19). Spring 2019 National Immigrant Solidarity Network News Alert! indybay.org Trump's Racist Immigrant Detention Camp: Child Sex Abuse, Lies, Chaos and Abuse…

Robert Norse (2019-03-19). Back the Lawsuit! No Homeless Buldozing on April 17th ! indybay.org In front of City Council chambers at City Hall 809 Center St.

Patrick Cockburn (2019-03-19). The Brutal Legacy of Bloody Sunday is a Powerful Warning to Those Hoping to Save Brexit. counterpunch.org The prosecution of a single paratrooper for allegedly murdering two out of the 13 innocent civil rights marchers in Derry in 1972 has provoked inevitable criticism from knee-jerk defenders of the British army. They stubbornly refuse to admit that the greatest recruiting sergeant for the Provisional IRA during the Troubles were the killings carried out More

RT (2019-03-19). Republican Devin Nunes sues Twitter for censoring conservatives, alleges harassment campaign. rt.com Republican congressman Devin Nunes announced he will file a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter for its alleged "explicit censorship" of conservatives. Nunes' complaint is one of many against the social media giant. |

WSWS (2019-03-19). Jailing the Maruti Suzuki workers for life "is meant to encourage the capitalists to further enslave the working class" wsws.org Jitender Dhankhar—a victimized Maruti Suzuki worker and leader of the fight to free the 13 of his former co-workers at the Manesar car assembly plant who have been jailed for life on frame-up charges—has provided the following interview to the World Socialist Web Site.

Shared by Jocelyn Dombroski (2019-03-19). Brazilian Left's Free Lula Campaign Highlights Miscarriage of Justice. therealnews.com Left forces met in Sao Paulo to relaunch the Free Lula campaign. Members of grassroots movements and political parties were there, saying that Workers Party leader Lula da Silva was unjustly imprisoned…

ACLU (2019-03-18). How Disability Rights Advocates Turned Back the Trump Administration's Attack on Students of Color. aclu.org Rules designed to help children of color and children with disabilities will go into immediate effect. | Earlier this month, in response to a lawsuit from the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national disability rights group, a federal district court ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law when it delayed a Department of Education rule designed to protect students of color and students with disabilities. | Children of color are significantly more likely to be identified as needin…

ACLU (2019-03-18). Beware the Tech Industry's Latest Privacy Trojan Horse. aclu.org A tech startup is pushing a set of state bills disguised as medical data privacy measures — but they're really focused on profits not patients. | Did you hear the story about the do-gooder tech company that is pushing new state "privacy" bills across the nation?, , The pitch by that company, Hu-manity.co — which is so effective its Oregon bill was introduced with more than 40 co-sponsors — is that patients' health information is being sold for big money witho…

ACLU (2019-03-18). Can Prosecutors Dismiss Jurors for Agreeing With the O.J. Simpson Verdict? aclu.org California's highest court ruled that the O.J. verdict question was "race neutral." The Supreme Court now has a chance to weigh in. | Gov. Gavin Newsom's moratorium on executions in California has highlighted the pernicious role race has played in who gets the death penalty in that state. In a case now awaiting review, the U.S. Supreme Court will have an opportunity to examine whether discriminatory tactics in jury selection in a California capital case can stand. | It has long been settled that prosecutors may not dismiss cit…

Vanessa Mbonu@naacpnet (2019-03-18). 10 NAACP Women You Should Know About. naacp.org Since its founding in 1909, women have been at the forefront of leadership at NAACP. Rosa Parks, Myrlie Evers, and even Eleanor Roosevelt are just a few of the iconic women who have shaped the NAACP into the civil rights force that it is now. From our founders, Executive Directors, staff and members, Black women have always …

Ipek S. Burnett (2019-03-18). Black Lives on Trial. counterpunch.org Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair | March 18, 2018. Sacramento, California. Two police officers, Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet, respond to a 9-1-1 call about an individual breaking car windows. They track the suspect down. They see the suspect is holding a gun. Or a tool bar. They fire twenty rounds. | Seven bullets enter Stephon Clark's body from the back. One hits his chest. | Clark, a 22 year-old black man in his grandmother's backyard, falls to his death. | Turns out what he was holding was not a gun or a tool bar, but a cell phone. | Almost a year goes by. On March 2, 2019, Sacramento County District Atto…

Hanene Zbiss (2019-03-18). Tunisian Children Pay for Jihadist Parents' Sins. truthdig.com About 200, most with their mothers, are locked in squalid camps and prisons in other countries, but Tunisia has refused to take them in.

Ilana Novick (2019-03-18). White Nationalists Have Infiltrated the Military, Report Reveals. truthdig.com Patrick Casey came to the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on a mission. Casey, executive director of Identity Evropa, a white nationalist group that was involved in the "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, believes diversity is harmful to the United States and aims to create a " white supermajority." He told NBC in an interview at C…

Dave Zirin (2019-03-18). US Women's Soccer and the Fight for Pay Equity. thenation.com US Women's Soccer and the Fight for Pay Equity…

Shared by Merula Furtado (2019-03-18). Will Decentralization of Neo-Nazism Spur More Right-Wing Terrorism? truthout.org For the first time in decades, it is possible that there will be no U.S. neo-Nazi party large enough to hold public rallies. In a story worthy of a plot-twisting HBO special, Black civil rights activist James Stern convinced the leader of the largest U.S. neo-Nazi party, the National Socialist Movement (NSM), to officially make him their president in order to help protect the party from a lawsuit. Afterward, he said, "As a Black man, I took over a neo-Nazi group and outsmarted them,…

WSWS (2019-03-18). Millions of American youth attend schools with police but no support staff. wsws.org The "Cops and No Counselors" report released last week by the ACLU reveals the decay of American public schools and the growing militarization of society.

Rachel M. Cohen (2019-03-18). A Federal Civil Rights Office Wants to Limit Access to Emotional-Support Animals That Can Help With Depression. theintercept.com Housing industry groups have been lobbying the Department of Housing and Urban Development to make it harder for tenants to have emotional-support animals.

WSWS (2019-03-18). Two years since Indian court condemned autoworkers to life-in-prison in monstrous frame-up. wsws.org The Maruti Suzuki 13 are class war prisoners, who have already had to endure six and a half years in the nightmare that is India's penal system.

Shared by Jocelyn Dombroski (2019-03-18). 38 Years Prison and 148 Lashes for Iranian Human Rights Defender. therealnews.com Nasrin Sotoudeh defended political prisoners and worked to abolish Iran's death penalty. Human rights groups are worried her sentence could signal increased repression of peace activism in Iran under a judiciary with a history of human rights violations…

Adam Lee (2019-03-17). We must override this veto! naacp.org On 2-26-2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H. J. Res 46, a resolution to reject and nullify President Donald Trump's declaration of an emergency so he could shift as much as $6.7 billion of previously appropriated monies away from their intended recipients and used instead to build a wall along the …

Fight Back (2019-03-17). Frank Chapman condemns political repression against Rasmea Odeh. fightbacknews.org Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Frank Chapman, Field Organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. | Rasmea Odeh, an historic figure in the Palestine national movement, is being threatened by German authorities with denial of her right to speak in Germany, as well as attempting to take away her visa. | The Chicago Alliance once again expresses our complete solidarity with our dear sister, Rasmea, and with her beloved Palestine. For a number of years, the Alliance and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network marched together to defend Rasmea from the p…

Murtaza Hussain (2019-03-17). Guantánamo Bay "Forever" Prisoner Speaks Out — to Praise Congress, Lindsey Graham, and Thomas Friedman. theintercept.com Considered for years an unrepentant militant, Ghassan al-Sharbi is locked up at Guantánamo Bay. He has never spoken to the media — until now.

Tyler Durden (2019-03-17). New Zealand Threatens 10 Years In Prison For 'Possessing' Mosque Shooting Video. theantimedia.com (ZH) — New Zealand authorities have reminded citizens that they face up to 10 years in prison for "knowingly" possessing a copy of the New Zealand mosque shooting video — and up to 14 years in prison for sharing it. Corporations (such as web hosts) face an additional $200,000 ($137,000 US) fine under the same law. …

ACLU (2019-03-15). Keeping Civilian Drone Deaths Secret Keeps Them Going. aclu.org What's behind Trump's order reversing a transparency requirement to release information on civilian deaths? | This piece was originally published by The Washington Post. | In an executive order last week, President Trump ended a requirement for…

ACLU (2019-03-15). ICE's 'Bait and Switch' Policies Tear Apart Families for Following the Rules. aclu.org Wanrong Lin went to his green card marriage interview and proved he was married to a U.S. citizen. ICE deported him anyway. | On Nov. 20, 2018, Wanrong Lin was stranded at an airport in Shanghai, China, almost 7,000 miles away from his wife, kids, and home in St. Mary's County, Maryland. He found himself wandering China — with no money, no cell phone, and no goodbyes exchanged — after Immigration and Customs Enforcement illegally arrested and deported him when he and his wife showed up for his "marriage interview." Alone back at home for weeks, Lin's wife, Hui Fang Dong, tended to their three children…

Rachel Johnson (2019-03-15). Dear Young Ardelia Walker… naacp.org As we continue to celebrate Women's History Month, we would like to share another "Letter To Our Younger Self". The NAACP will be sharing letters written by our regional Women In the NAACP (WIN) Coordinators to their younger self. Our second highlight comes from Ardelia Walker of Region 6. Dear Ardelia: I have several messages for …

Janine Jackson (2019-03-15). Colleagues Defend Tucker Carlson's 'Ideas'—That Iraqis Are 'Monkeys,' Child Rape Is 'Commitment to Love'. fair.org David French's claim (National Review, 3/11/19) that no one was really offended by Tucker Carlson's defense of raping 12-year-olds, or his calling Iraqis "primitive monkeys," was <...

Consortiumnews (2019-03-15). Watch the 20th Vigil for Assange. consortiumnews.com With Chelsea Manning still in jail for refusing to testify about Julian Assange, who remains arbitrarily detained in London, the 20th webcast vigil for Assange took place on Friday. Among the guests were Australian broadcaster Mary Kostakidis, James Cogan of the… Read more →

Vanessa Mbonu@naacpnet (2019-03-15). Tom Joyner to Receive Vanguard Award at 50th NAACP Image Awards. naacp.org PRESENTERS TO INCLUDE AMANDLA STENBERG, KERRY WASHINGTON, KIKI LAYNE, LENA WAITHE, LETITIA WRIGHT, THANDIE NEWTON, TREVOR NOAH AND MORE! LIVE TV Special to Air on TV One Saturday, March 30, 2019 Hosted by Anthony Anderson LOS ANGELES (March 14, 2019) — The NAACP today announced that mass media icon Tom Joyner will be honored with the Vanguard Award at the …

splcenter (2019-03-15). After New Zealand Shooting, Far-right, Racists Claim Victimhood, Hail Killer as Hero. splcenter.org Andrew Anglin found humor in the livestreamed video of a man in New Zealand storming into the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, then shooting and killing 49 people.

pip.hinman (2019-03-15). Australia pays Indonesia to detain refugees. greenleft.org.au Refugee Action Collective organised a forum on refugees in Indonesia on March 4. | Mozhgan Moaref, a co-founder of the Refugees and Asylum Seekers Information Centre in Jakarta, spoke by video link. She said some of the refugees are living in detention, others are in "community housing" provided by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), while yet others are homeless and living on the street. | Those living in community housing are subject to a curfew and some have protested about bad treatment, extortion and torture. Homeless refugees have held protests demanding housing. Some have even asked to be p…

pip.hinman (2019-03-15). Malaysian socialists warn of rise of racism. greenleft.org.au The Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) contested the Semenyih by-election in the state seat of Selangor on March 2. Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Zakaria Hanafi defeated Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate Muhammad Aiman Zainali. Green Left Weekly's Alex Salmon spoke to PSM's campaign media coordinator Nalini Elumalai about the campaign and result. | What is PSM's assessment of this result and its wider implication for Malaysian politics? | PSM accepts the fact that we have lost. Though painful, the outcome reflects the state of the country's political situation, where voters are still not ready to accept third force r…

ACLU (2019-03-14). Kentucky Just Banned Abortion. aclu.org Two new laws passed this week are part of coordinated effort to ban abortion nationwide. | The Kentucky Legislature passed two bills on abortion this week, and unless a court blocks them, the procedure will effectively be banned in the state. | One bill, passed on Thursday night, prohibits abortion after six weeks in pregnancy before most women even know that they are pregnant. The other, passed late Wednesday night, bans abortion if a woman is seeking it because of a fetal diagnosis. The ACLU is challenging both laws, asking a judge to block them immediately to ensure that the only abortion provider in Kentucky,…

Democracy Now! (2019-03-14). Until We Reckon: Mass Incarceration, Violence & the Radical Possibilities of Restorative Justice. democracynow.org A staggering 2.2 million people are locked up in America's sprawling prison system, and more than half of those currently confined in state prisons have been convicted of violent crime. In order to radically reduce the prison population and transform criminal justice in this country, author and community organizer Danielle Sered argues that reformers must reckon with violent crime and come up with radically new ways to address it. She lays out a path for this transformation in her new unflinching book, "Until We Reckon." Sered has spent nearly a decade working directly with people that have committed violent acts…

Democracy Now! (2019-03-14). Headlines for March 14, 2019. democracynow.org Trump Orders Boeing 737 MAX Planes Grounded After Fatal Crashes, Senate Votes to End U.S. Support for Saudi-Led War on Yemen, Pompeo Defends Support for Saudi Arabia Amid Reports of Torture, Senate Poised to Block Trump's National Emergency Declaration, Former Trump Campaign Chair Sentenced to 43 More Months in Prison, U.N. Warns Arctic on Pace to Warm by 5 Degrees Celsius by 2050, Spanish Investigators Link CIA to Attack on North Korean Embassy, Brazil: Two Gunmen Kill 8, Reportedly Inspired by Columbine Massacre, Nigeria: Lagos Building Collapse Kills 10 and Traps Schoolchildren, British MPs Reject "No-Deal" Br…

Sarah Lahm (2019-03-14). Billionaire-Backed Lawsuit Against Teacher Tenure Fails in Minnesota. progressive.org Trump has proposed to slash funding for public education in his 2020 budget. In courts across the country, however, public schools are holding up in lawsuits brought by pro-charter interests.

kathy_f (2019-03-14). NSW Not 4 Sale. greenleft.org.au Is anything really going to change in NSW on March 23? | Let's assume Glad the Impaler [NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian] gets up and we are subjected to another four years of the Coalition's neo-conservative brutality. | Everything that hasn't already been sold is then put up for sale, forgoing any pretence of morality or acting in the public good. Public assets segue into private property. | The entire state becomes a private entity, run purely for profit — even the prisons. | The public service is further eviscerated with the few remaining public assets given over to the multinational corporates and the sc…

pip.hinman (2019-03-14). Chelsea Manning jailed again and not a squeak from the Democrats. greenleft.org.au Chelsea Manning, a transgender soldier who blew the whistle on US war crimes, and spent four years in an army stockade from 2013 as a result, is back in prison again. | This time it is because she refuses to join a bipartisan campaign against Wikileaks that seeks to bring its founder Julian Assange from his refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to the US to put him on trial and send him to prison. | In 2010, Manning leaked hundreds of thousands of documents about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She first tried to get mainstream media to publish them, to no avail, before turning to Wikileaks, which did p…

pip.hinman (2019-03-14). 'Our feminism is anti-racist and internationalist'. greenleft.org.au Elections in Berlin in September 2016 returned a coalition government made up of the Social Democratic Party, the socialist Left Party and the Green Party. Early this year, the city declared International Women's Day (IWD) a public holiday. | Internationally, the call for a women's strike on IWD has been gathering momentum. In Berlin on March 8, an alliance of feminist organisations organised a Women's Fighting Day rally and march with the theme "celebrating, striking, keep on fighting". About 20,000 people attended. | Sibylle Kaczorek, a member of Socialist Alliance and the Left Party who is currently living in…

ACLU (2019-03-13). Press Freedom Groups Urge Court to Uphold Core First Amendment Protection in DNC-Russia Lawsuit. aclu.org The First Amendment protects Wikileaks from being sued over the release of the DNC's hacked emails. | In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee was hacked, and thousands of its emails and other private documents were stolen. Those documents were eventually released to the public through a website run by "Guccifer 2.0" (an online persona allegedly maintained by the Russian government) and through WikiLeaks. Early last year, the DNC sued those it believes are responsible for the hack, including the Trump campaign and Russian officials. | The DNC also sued WikiLeaks and Juli…

Aba Blankson (2019-03-13). NAACP Issues Letters to Congress Calling for Hearings on Domestic Terrorism and Government Surveillance of Black Activists. naacp.org Letters sent to chairs of House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees BALTIMORE (March 13, 2019)—Today, the nation's foremost civil rights organization issued letters addressed to the chairs of the House Committees on Homeland Security and the House Judiciary Committee to request hearings on the issues of domestic terrorism; and regarding the ways in which Black …