human rights

There is good cause for Americans to be alarmed and highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Last week Republicans seized on a Twitter post by Democratic freshman representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, which even some Democrats condemned as anti-Semitic. Suddenly even Jewish Democrats were accused of anti-Semitism in the GOP’s divisive messaging war for 2020. In the GOP framing, any criticism of Israel, in particular any criticism of their favorite far-right but … Read more

Trump lets the Saudis get away with the murder of a U.S. resident and one of the Arab world’s most prominent journalists

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After weeks of charges and denials between autocratic regimes Turkey and Saudi Arabia over the assassination of permanent U.S. resident and Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, last week the CIA concluded Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination:

The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation[.]

In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.

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Inspector General report critical of ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy

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With the daily, almost hourly scandals coming out of Washington, D.C., this long-running scandal was almost overlooked by the media. At any other time, it would have been the focus of media coverage for days. This is how Trump’s “chaos theory” works: overwhelm the public with multiple scandals until they are too numbed to respond any longer.

The Washington Post reports, Trump’s family separation policy was flawed from the start, watchdog review says:

The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown at the border this spring was troubled from the outset by planning shortfalls, widespread communication failures and administrative indifference to the separation of small children from their parents, according to an unpublished report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the government’s first attempt to autopsy the chaos produced between May 5 and June 20, when President Trump abruptly halted the separations under mounting pressure from his party and members of his family.

The DHS Office of Inspector General’s review found at least 860 migrant children were left in Border Patrol holding cells longer than the 72-hour limit mandated by U.S. courts, with one minor confined for 12 days and another for 25.

Many of those children were put in chain-link holding pens in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. The facilities were designed as short-term way stations, lacking beds and showers, while the children awaited transfer to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. border officials in the Rio Grande Valley sector, the busiest for illegal crossings along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, held at least 564 children longer than they were supposed to, according to the report. Officials in the El Paso sector held 297 children over the legal limit.

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Trump reverses course, will jail immigrant families together in indefinite detention (Updated)

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“Dear Leader” Donald Trump reversed course today in the face of public outrage against his immoral, inhumane and cruel family-separation policy.

Instead, he will now jail families together in indefinite detention. That’s a middle-finger to America. His defiance of the law and his cruelty knows no bounds.

The Washington Post reports, Trump reverses course, says he will put an end to family separations on southern border:

President Trump abruptly reversed course Wednesday, saying he would sign an executive order ending family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border after a public uproar over the impact of his administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

The plan, as described by administration officials, would keep families together in federal custody while awaiting prosecution for illegal border crossings, potentially violating a 1997 court settlement limiting the duration of child detentions.

“We have to be very strong on the border but at the same time we want to be very compassionate,” Trump said at the White House during a meeting with lawmakers that was opened to the media.

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Trump’s order is not expected to alter the “zero tolerance” policy itself that the administration put in place in April. Under that policy, the administration has sought to prosecute as many border-crossing offenses as possible, including those involving families with children.

Because the Justice Department can’t prosecute children along with their parents, the result of the zero-tolerance policy has been a sharp rise in the number of children detained separately.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said 2,342 children have been separated from their parents since last month.

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