Akela Lacy (2019-07-02). Democratic Governor Considering Signing Major GOP Voter Suppression Legislation in Pennsylvania. theintercept.com Gov. Tom Wolf is weighing whether to sign SB 48, a GOP bill that would ban straight-ticket voting and give Donald Trump an edge in 2020.

Text: R. Robertson Photos: Wes Chang, Pro Bono Photo (2019-07-02). In San José, Japanese Americans Protest Plan to Jail Migrant Kids. indybay.org Members of the Japanese American community and allies gathered near the steps of the historic Issei Memorial Building in San José's Japantown on June 27 to say, "Never again is now." | In related video (see link), a protest in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma is interrupted by military police on June 24. The Oklahoma location once held Japanese Americans during WWII without due process and before that it imprisoned Native Americans. Protests in San José and Ft. Sill were demonstrations against the Trump administration plan to reopen Ft. Sill to imprison the children of asylum seekers. | Please credit the photographer: Wes Chan…

Labor Video Project (2019-07-02). SF PRIDE 2019 "One Job Is Enough!" Unite Here Local 2 & Free Chelsea & Assange. indybay.org At San Francisco PRIDE march and rally on June 30, 2019, Unite Here Local 2 workers and leaders talked about why they support PRIDE and also supporters of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange marched and talked about the jailin of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.

Bamby Salcedo (2019-07-02). There Can Be No Queer Liberation Without Trans Liberation. thenation.com There Can Be No Queer Liberation Without Trans Liberation…

WSWS (2019-07-02). Australian PM refused to raise persecution of Assange with Trump. wsws.org At the G20 summit Morrison fawned over Trump, who is seeking to imprison the WikiLeaks founder for life, or execute him.

WSWS (2019-07-02). UK: GCHQ/MI5 admit illegally spying on millions. wsws.org Their admissions were the result of a court case brought by the civil rights group Liberty.

Bob Price (2019-07-02). Stop ICE Raids! Stop Detentions! indybay.org San Francisco Federal Building | 7th Street at Mission | San Francisco (near Civic Center BART station)…

CGTN Africa (2019-07-02). Rwandan in US sentenced for 8 years for lying about role in genocide. cgtn.com A Rwandan man convicted of hiding his involvement in the country's 1994 genocide in an attempt to win asylum in the U.S. was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison. | Jean Leonard Teganya participated in at least seven murders and five rapes during the genocide, in which Hutu extremists slaughtered Tutsis and Hutus who tried to protect them, prosecutors said. | He was found guilty in April of immigration fraud and perjury after authorities say he lied on his asylum application to portray himself as a victim rather than a perpetrator of the massacre. | Teganya denies playing a role in the genocide…

Abayomi Azikiwe (2019-07-01). Military Coup in Sudan, Overthrow of President Al-Bashir: Transitional Process Impeded by Domestic and International Factors. globalresearch.ca With the suppression by the military of the popular movement for democracy in the Republic of Sudan the current situation inside the country remains indecisive. | On June 3 the Rapid Security Forces (RSF) backed by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) …

Marc Morial (2019-07-01). Urban League President Morial: "We Must Not Let Our Guard Down" Because Supreme Court Temporarily Blocked Trump's Bigoted Census Citizenship Question. blackstarnews.com National Urban League President Marc Morial: "We must not let our guard down" because Supreme Court temporarily blocked Census citizenship question… | Civil rights groups and advocates for a fair census breathed a sigh of relief this week when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's "contrived" justification for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. | However, the court did not categorically rule out the addition of a question, should the administration eventually provide sufficient justification. | We must not let down our guard. | We have known from the beginning that the additi…

Ruth Milka (2019-07-01). Abortion discrimination in the workplace is illegal says U.S. district court. nationofchange.org A district court in Louisiana has issued a landmark ruling asserting that abortion discrimination by an employer is illegal and violates women's protections in the workplace. | A yearlong civil rights discrimination case came to a close in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana when U.S. Federal Judge Janis van Meerveld ruled that Nicole Ducharme, a bartender that was fired within 48 hours of having an abortion, was terminated illegally. | Ducharme was a former bartender at the Deja Vu Bar & Grill in New Orleans. She notified her supervisor that she needed time off to terminate her pregn…

Vanessa Mbonu (2019-07-01). What's Trending: Black News Weekly. naacp.org NPR: How Texas Prevented Black Women From Voting Decades After The 19th Amendment In 1918, when she was 25 years old, Christia Adair went door-to-door organizing for women's right to vote in Texas. "This effort was to pass a bill where women would be able to vote like men," Adair remembered later in a 1977 oral …

RT (2019-07-01). The 'greatest country in the world' can't afford soap for kids — and it's not Sarah Fabian's fault. rt.com A single DOJ lawyer has become a lightning rod for anger over conditions for kids in US border detention facilities — but let's not gloss over the utter absurdity of having debates over soap and toothpaste in 21st century America.

Andrea Germanos, staff writer (2019-07-01). Ocasio-Cortez Live Tweets 'Horrifying' and 'Dehumanizing' Treatment of Migrants as She Tours US Detention Facilities. commondreams.org "We're talking systemic cruelty with a dehumanizing culture that treats them like animals." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/congressional-democrats-ocasio-cortez-detention-facilities.jpg…

Julia Conley, staff writer (2019-07-01). #NeverAgainIsNow: 36 Arrested As Hundreds of Jewish Protesters Block Road to Migrant Detention Center. commondreams.org Rejecting the notion that denouncing the Trump administration's immigrant detention centers as "concentration camps" does harm to the memory of the Holocaust, 200 Jewish people demonstrated at a facility in New Jersey Sunday evening and demanded the release of thousands of immigrants in U.S. custody. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/screen_shot_2019-07-01_at_10.50.56_am.jpg…

Sasha Abramsky (2019-07-01). Trump Is Dumping Asylum Seekers on American Streets—but Solidarity Activists Are Fighting Back. thenation.com Trump Is Dumping Asylum Seekers on American Streets—but Solidarity Activists Are Fighting Back…

A.C. Thompson (2019-07-01). Inside the secret border patrol Facebook group where agents joke about migrant deaths and post sexist memes. nationofchange.org The three-year-old group, which has roughly 9,500 members, shared derogatory comments about Latina lawmakers who plan to visit a controversial Texas detention facility on Monday, calling them "scum buckets" and "hoes."

WSWS (2019-07-01). Trump renews threat of mass immigrant raids "sometime after July Fourth" wsws.org The passage of a bill funding immigration detention centers last week, with the support of the Democratic Party, makes the Democrats full partners in the savage repression of immigrants.

Staff (2019-07-01). Border Patrol's Scandalous Facebook Group Exposed. truthdig.com Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings. | In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to…

Julia Conley, staff writer (2019-07-01). Xenophobic and Misogynist Posts in Secret CBP Facebook Group 'Confirm Our Worst Fears' of Agency Culture, Lawmakers Say. commondreams.org Lawmakers who visited an immigrant detention center near El Paso, Texas on Monday spoke out about revelations of a secret Facebook group in which current and former Border Patrol agents had shared violent and misogynist comments about the members of Congress. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-11279297151.jpg…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2019-07-01). 'Trump Is Not Above the Law': New Lawsuit Aims to Defeat Keystone XL. commondreams.org As climate scientists on Monday issued a fresh warning about the devastating consequences of continuing to burn and extract fossil fuels, national green groups filed a new federal lawsuit targeting the Trump administration's efforts to force through the long-delayed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-6326101281.jpg…

John McEvoy (2019-07-01). Jewish activists say 'never again is now' as they shut down US 'concentration camp'. thecanary.co On 30 June, US police arrested over 30 Jewish activists protesting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in New Jersey. The activists, citing the Holocaust, said " never again

Jake Johnson (2019-07-01). Nationwide 'close the camps' demonstrations announced to protest horrific conditions at Trump detention centers. nationofchange.org As appalling details of the conditions at immigrant detention centers in the U.S. continue to pour in—with one doctor recently comparing them to " torture facilities"—a coalition of rights groups on Friday announced nationwide "Close the Camps" demonstrations for next week to protest the Trump administration's treatment of migrant children. | "We've seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers," said MoveOn.org, one of the groups help…

Special To The Black Star News (2019-06-30). Civil Rights Group Denounces New Racist Voter Suppression Law Signed By Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. blackstarnews.com Civil Rights lawyer Kristen Clarke says Florida Governor DeSantis' signing of SB7066 will deny voting opportunities to over 1 million Blacks and Latinos… | The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a statement after Governor DeSantis Friday signed SB 7066 into law on Friday–which undermines Amendment 4 to the Florida Constitution. | Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued the following statement: | "Florida joins a host of states actively working to suppress the rights of voters on the eve of the 2020 election cycle. This…

Fight Back (2019-06-30). "The Damned Don't Cry: Pages from the Life of a Black Prisoner and Organizer" fightbacknews.org Chicago, IL – I've been waiting for this book. I first read an earlier draft of Frank Chapman's memoirs in 2014. I thought then and now that this needed to get published, first and foremost, because the revolutionary movement needs it. As a result of the prison abolition movement, there is a broad awareness of the injustice of mass incarceration, but this book sees the revolutionary side of the misery. | There's a specific section of society which needs this book: those in prison. Chapman relates how becoming a communist led him not into his frustration, but out of it. The book belongs in the genre with the Autob…

Betsey Piette (2019-06-30). Eddie Africa, MOVE 9 member, released after 40 years. workers.org MOVE 9 member Edward (Goodman) Africa was released on parole June 21, following prior releases of Debbie, Michael, Janet and Janine Africa. MOVE 9 members Merle and Phil died in prison. From far left: Fred Riley; Carlos Africa; Eddie Africa; his son, Little Eddie; daughter-in-law Sukona; and Raymond Africa Jr. . . . | Continue reading Eddie Africa, MOVE 9 member, released after 40 years at Workers.org

Paul Haeder (2019-06-30). You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can't choose two out of three. dissidentvoice.org The central argument of Amusing Ourselves [Neil Postman] is simple: there were two landmark dystopian novels written by brilliant British cultural critics — Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell — and we Americans had mistakenly feared and obsessed over the vision portrayed in the latter book (an information-censoring, movement-restricting, individuality-emaciating state) rather than the …

Colin Benjamin (2019-06-29). Tiffany Cabán's Candidacy For District Attorney Threatens To Upset Queens Mass Incarceration Exploitation Machine. blackstarnews.com Cabán's campaign has some Whites worried about the dismantling of Queens incarceration machine… | Tiffany Cabán's grassroots campaign in the Democratic primary race for Queens District Attorney has her poised to deliver a staggering blow to the borough's racist mass incarceration criminalization machine. | If Cabán can maintain her lead, with some 3,000 votes still to be counted, it could greatly benefit the Black and Latino communities in Queens. Councilman Rory Lancman, told the Black Star News, before he dropped out of the Queens District Attorney race, that "Queens sends more people to Rikers Island for mi…

Susan Stryker (2019-06-29). Stonewall Proved That Resistance Is Always Possible. thenation.com Stonewall Proved That Resistance Is Always Possible…

Zoe PC (2019-06-29). Tech privacy pioneer Ola Bini released after 70 days of extrajudicial detention in Ecuador. mronline.org After 70 days in preventive detention without formal charges, Ola Bini's request for habeas corpus was granted, and shortly after, he was released from prison. | Source

Mike Ervin (2019-06-29). Smart Ass Cripple: Happy Birthday Olmstead. progressive.org Twenty years ago, a civil rights victory helped disabled people escape institutional life.

Shaun King (2019-06-29). History Has Taught Us That Concentration Camps Should Be Liberated. We Can't Wait Until 2020. theintercept.com Few of us have fully considered what we would do if concentration camps were built and operated in our nation, by our government, on our watch, on our dime.

Vijay Prashad (2019-06-29). My friend is in a prison in Ecuador. mronline.org This article was first published on June 10, 2019 in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Two months ago, the police in Ecuador arrested my friend Ola Bini at Quito airport. Ola was on his way to Japan for a two-week martial arts course. He's a software developer from Sweden who has lived in Ecuador since 2013. […] | Source

ACLU (2019-06-28). Georgia Tried to Ban Abortion, So We Sued. aclu.org Abortion bans place people in danger, and Georgia's is no exception. | Alabama. Arkansas. Kentucky. Ohio. And today, Georgia. That's the list of states where the ACLU has had to go to court over the last few months to challenge laws banning abortion. | The Georgia law bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy and is in clear violation of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. In fact, that is the whole point of the law. Georgia politicians, including Governor Brian Kemp, emboldened by President Trump's appointment of two new justices to the Supreme Court, think this is their chance to get the court to take aw…

ACLU (2019-06-28). Working in Prison, I Witnessed the Inhumane Conditions of Solitary for Incarcerated Women. aclu.org Solitary confinement can amount to torture. One practitioner witnessed this first hand, and shares her story and her journey to action. | At the first checkpoint at Tennessee Prison for Women, there was a large, scrolling television screen behind the desk displaying the image of two pairs of hands — one pair with a key and one pair in handcuffs. The message read, "You can either be one of us or one of them." I had been working in the facility for less than a year, but this message exemplified an uneasiness I had long felt without articulating: The prison's faàßade of "rehabilitation" masked a system s…

ACLU (2019-06-28). Why the ACLU Is Suing Florida For Its New Poll Tax. aclu.org The law forces returning citizens with criminal records to pay for the right to vote. | On November 6, 2018, nearly 65 percent of Florida voters—more than 5 million people—resoundingly approved Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to over a million of their fellow citizens. By passing Amendment 4, Floridians successfully ushered in the largest expansion of the electorate in nearly 50 years. The people of Florida did it on their own, using a constitutional ballot initiative, to finally achieve change where Florida politicians had failed. | Instead of celebrating this progress, Florida politicians are t…

ACLU (2019-06-28). How to Help Families at the Border Right Now. aclu.org We know that a better future is possible, and we at the ACLU, along with our supporters and allies, are daring to create it. | The images of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria, who lost their lives trying to seek refuge in the United States, have left us haunted. They serve as an ever-important reminder of the urgency of the fight for immigrant justice on our southern border and the need to stand up to the Trump administration's policies denying humanitarian protection and basic due process to families fleeing for their lives. | We remain at the frontlines of the family separation fight…

splcenter (2019-06-28). Charlottesville Federal Court Sentences James Alex Fields to Life in Prison for 'Unite the Right' Killing. splcenter.org A neo-Nazi sympathizer from Ohio received two consecutive and 27 concurrent life sentences in federal prison for killing a counterprotester and injuring others in the aftermath of 2017's racist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Keegan Hankes, Intelligence Project (2019-06-28). SPLC: Sentencing of James Alex Fields Jr., who killed Heather Heyer at 'Unite the Right,' will not heal victims or their families. splcenter.org James Alex Fields Jr., who was sentenced to life in prison today for murdering a woman who was protesting a white supremacist rally two years ago, is a remorseless killer and a domestic terrorist.

Norman Markowitz (2019-06-28). Harry Hay: Communist pioneer in the fight for gay liberation. peoplesworld.org Beginning with the "ghetto riot" at the Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village in 1969, an open gay liberation movement came into existence which has been a significant force in the larger peoples' movements for almost a half-century. While most people identify gay liberation with the "New Left" of the 1960s, it, like the civil rights, …

Aída Chávez (2019-06-28). Josh Gottheimer Warned Democratic Leaders He Had Votes to Block Bill Mandating Better Conditions for Children in Detention. theintercept.com The bill passed by Congress "does nothing to hold a rogue agency accountable for its cruelty," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

Staff (2019-06-27). Progressive Leads Queens DA Race, Shocking the Establishment. therealnews.com 31-year-old Public Defender Tiffany Caban ran an AOC-style grassroots campaign calling for an end to mass incarceration and radical reform to the prosecutor's office…

ACLU (2019-06-27). Supreme Court Finds that Wilbur Ross Lied To Put Citizenship Question on the 2020 Census. aclu.org The ruling affirms that the Trump administration cannot offer pretextual reasons to cover up its anti-immigrant attacks. | This morning, the Supreme Court told the country what we and our clients have long known: that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross provided a false reason for his decision to add a citizenship question to the Decennial Census. The court explained that the Trump administration's stated reason for adding a citizenship question—enf…

Staff (2019-06-27). Headlines for June 27, 2019. democracynow.org 2020 Democratic Primary Debate Kicks Off with Focus on Immigration, Healthcare, Senate Passes Border Aid Package After Rejecting House Version, Bank of America Ends Relationship with Migrant Prison Companies, Asylum Officers Say Trump's "Remain in Mexico" Policy Threatens Migrants' Lives, Family of Black Man Shot by Indiana Cop Sues Officer, City of South Bend, Twin Suicide Bombs Rock Tunis, Trump, World Leaders in Osaka for G20, Court Rules France Failed to Properly Address Air Pollution, U.N. Expert Warns of Impending "Climate Apartheid", NYC Votes to Declare a "Climate Emergency", Dems Vote to Subpoena Kellyan…

Peter Maass (2019-06-27). What the Concentration Camps of Bosnia Can Teach Us About the Abuse of Immigrants on the U.S. Border. theintercept.com I never thought the pattern of abuse and deceit that I saw at Serb-run prison camps in the 1990s would be relevant to America — but it is.

Austyn Ross (2019-06-27). Statements by Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP, on Supreme Court's Democracy Rulings. naacp.org Statement on Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek: "The Court's rulings today upend our democratic principles by allowing party politics to determine the outcomes of our elections. Extreme partisan gerrymandering has infected our electoral process for far too long. Exercise of the franchise, which many fought and even died for, must not be …

Staff (2019-06-27). In First Debate, Julián Castro Challenges Democrats to End the Criminalization of Immigration. democracynow.org The Democrats' first debate was held in Miami, Florida. The venue was less than an hour away from Homestead, Florida, where more than 2,000 unaccompanied minors are incarcerated in a for-profit detention center run by Caliburn. Trump's former Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly sits on its board. Prior to the debate, Senators Warren and Klobuchar visited the facility. During the debate, Julián Castro, the former secretary of housing and urban development, criticized the immigration policies of fellow Texan, former Congressmember Beto O'Rourke. We air part of the debate and speak to Ana María Archila of the Center for…

United Nations (2019-06-27). After Rio Grande tragedy, UNICEF chief highlights 'dire' detention centres on US-Mexico border. un.org The shocking image of a drowned Central American migrant and his infant daughter on the banks of the river dividing Mexico and the United States, continues to evoke strong reactions, the latest from the head of the UN Children's Fund.

Jennifer Lunden (2019-06-27). What Should We Do About Concentration Camps in Trump's America? progressive.org Portland, Maine is welcoming a wave of migrants with kindness as the administration comes under fire for its cruelty at immigrant detention centers.

Staff (2019-06-26). Trump Admin Moves 100 Migrant Kids Back to "Child Jail" Despite Concern over Inhumane Conditions. democracynow.org The Department of Homeland Security has moved 100 migrant children back to a Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, where infants and toddlers have been locked up without adequate food, water, sanitation or medical care, with older children having to care for the younger ones. Around 300 kids were removed from the facility Monday following widespread outrage over the reports, but Customs and Border Protection said some of the children are being sent back, claiming that the facility is no longer overcrowded. Lawyers who recently visited the facility described a scene of chaos and sickness, with children unable to…