On Thursday, President Barack Obama’s administration requested that a federal court reverse a July 24 order which prohibited the detention of mothers and children who fled violence in countries in Central America. This represents a slimy attempt to push Judge Dolly M. Gee into scuttling an order, which sought to hold the Obama administration accountable for corruption and misconduct that has been ongoing as a result of immigration policies. But the administration does not stop there.
Former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, who pushed for nuclear disarmament in meetings with President Ronald Reagan, told Der Spiegel that the US as an “insurmountable obstacle on the road to a nuclear-free world,” and suggested, “That’s why we have to put demilitarization back on the agenda of international politics.”
The chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), who was involved in firing Professor Steven Salaita over tweets he sent about Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, has announced her resignation yesterday. The announcement comes as a federal judge refused to dismiss Salaita’s lawsuit against the university for violating his free speech.
There’s a popular idea, often repeated in the media, that all the protest music is gone. Kevin Gosztola’s new Protest Music Project will highlight the best protest music of the 2010s, and provide new artists a forum to highlight their best work. Most of all, it will help end the myth that protest music died with the 1960s.
Kevin Gosztola interviews Duncan Campbell, recently published in The Intercept, about his 4 decades as a journalist dedicated to uncovering the surveillance state and the international ECHELON program. Campbell says less has changed for today’s journalists than you might think.
Executives of the “social media risk management” firm ZeroFOX have defended an assessment the company produced for Baltimore, which labeled Black Lives Matter activists as “threat actors.” After Baltimore police killed Freddie Gray, an uprising, which included rioting, occurred. ZeroFOX offered pro bono assistance to city officials and produced a “confidential” report identifying supposed threats to the city. It recommended steps city officials could take to protect security, including keeping a close eye on protest leaders.
Boston is also one of three cities, selected in February, for the launch of a pilot program with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the National Counterterrorism Center to “counter violent extremism.” But local advocates for civil rights worry the program is really infringing on Muslims’ rights.
“Forgetting about the thug sheriff for a moment — there is a real issue here when children with disabilities in school become violent. My little cousin was victimized constantly by a little girl with disabilities who spat at her and punched her in the face in public …”
A lawsuit filed yesterday in Kentucky challenges the handcuffing of schoolchildren, especially those with disabilities, as a way of dealing with behavioral problems. According to the ACLU suit, two children with Attention Deficit Disorder and other disabilities, were “unlawfully restrained and handcuffed at school with excessive force and without necessity.”