Category: Domestic Affairs,

Syria’s Assad threatens force against US-backed Kurds

On By peanutgallerynhIn Middle East,, Military,Leave a comment

“It’s our land, it’s our right and it’s our duty to liberate it, and the Americans should leave. Somehow they’re going to leave,” he said.

Both the SDF and Russian-backed Syrian government troops are engaged in separate operations against IS jihadists in eastern Syria, creating a highly volatile situation where de-confliction mechanisms have already been tested several times.

Assad also said that a confrontation between Russia and US forces over Syria was narrowly avoided.

….”Fortunately, it has been avoided, not by the wisdom of the American leadership….”

….A US-led wave of Western missile strikes on Syrian government targets across the country last month raised fears of a Russian response and full-blown internationalisation of the seven-year-old conflict.

More strikes by US ally Israel have further raised fears that the devastating war, which has left more than 350,000 people dead, could yet escalate.

Syria’s Assad threatens force against US-backed Kurds | Daily Mail Online

Sigh….

hmmm

ACLU Report: Detained Immigrant Children Subjected To Widespread Abuse By Officials

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

The allegations include reports of physical, verbal, sexual and psychological abuse of migrant children and the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food.

Among the allegations, U.S. officials are said to have:

– Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth.
– Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed.”
– Left a 4-lb. premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell filled with sick people, against medical advice.
– Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
– Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him repeatedly.

“These agencies have taken no meaningful action to hold federal officials accountable for abusing children or to ensure that such abuse never occurs again,” she said.

The ACLU report, co-written by the University of Chicago Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, says the U.S. government “has failed to provide adequate safeguards and humane detention conditions for children in CBP custody.”

“These failures,” it says, “have allowed a culture of impunity to flourish within CBP, subjecting immigrant children to conditions that are too often neglectful at best and sadistic at worst.”

ACLU Report: Detained Immigrant Children Subjected To Widespread Abuse By Officials : The Two-Way : NPR

Well, what do you expect in a society where individuals tasked with law enforcement are valued and protected more than the actual citizenry they charged with protecting? When the only people you value are given guns and exempt from consequences for their crimes people get treated like they are lower than dogshit.

In Passing ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill, House Lawmakers Ignore Civil Rights Leaders

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, co-authored a letter asking members of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote no on HR 5698, the “Protect and Serve Act of 2018.” But lawmakers, including Democrats, overwhelmingly voted to pass the legislation the next day.

The bill would establish offenses that target law enforcement officers as a federal crime, imposing penalties that are leading many of its opponents to label it the country’s first national “Blue Lives Matter” bill. Named for the push to “counter” Black Lives Matter, at least 32 of these bills were proposed in state legislatures last year, all intending to increase the penalties against those who harm officers.

…At least 987 people—disproportionately people of color—were shot and killed by police in 2017 and 963 in 2016, according to analysis from the Washington Post.

“Creating a new, yet superfluous, crime for offenses committed against law enforcement is a particularly disconnected and non-responsive policy choice,” the letter continued.

….Civil rights groups believe that the U.S. Senate version of the bill, which was introduced on May 7 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and co-sponsored by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), is significantly worse because it establishes crimes against law enforcement as hate crimes.

“Not only does [the Senate’s bill] create a new crime by targeting law enforcement, it does it using the hate crimes framework,” Kanya A. Bennett, ACLU legislative counsel, told Rewire.News. “We know that law enforcement is already the most protected class of people given the federal laws that protect them [and] given the state laws that protect them.”

In Passing ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Bill, House Lawmakers Ignore Civil Rights Leaders – Rewire.News

When those enforcing the law are valued by the government as more valuable than the citizenry itself? you have fascism. Fascism. Buckle up people. It’s not going to get pretty from here.

Donald Trump just accidentally revealed something very important about his ‘fake news’ attacks

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Put aside the authoritarian — but ultimately empty — threat about taking away the media’s “credentials,” and focus instead on this sentence: “91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake).”

Trump, I think, is referring to a 2017 study by the conservative Media Research Center which claimed that 91% of the nightly news coverage on the president was negative.

But, that’s not (really) the point here. The point can be summed up in these two words from Trump: “negative (Fake).”

Donald Trump just accidentally revealed something very important about his ‘fake news’ attacks – CNNPolitics

hmmmm

This Candidate Became The First Woman To Use Campaign Funds To Pay For A Babysitter

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The Federal Election Commission on Thursday gave a woman candidate running for Congress the green light to use portions of her campaign funds to pay for child care.

Liuba Grechen Shirley, a New York mother of two young children running for Congress on Long Island, pays $22 an hour for a babysitter to take care of her toddlers for about 20 hours per week.

Last month she petitioned the FEC asking for permission to use campaign funds to pay for child care, citing two cases from 1995 and 2008 where male candidates asked to use campaign funds to pay for certain child care expenses in more limited circumstances.

…The FEC’s ruling applies to future candidates who, like Grechen Shirley, incur child care costs as a result of running for office.

“The Commission concludes that your authorized campaign committee may use campaign funds to pay for the childcare expenses described in your request because such expenses would not exist irrespective of your candidacy,” the FEC wrote in its ruling.

…Grechen Shirley said she hopes Thursday’s ruling will inspire more women to run for public office.

“We need people of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds,” she said. “We desperately need working women in Congress.”

This Candidate Became The First Woman To Use Campaign Funds To Pay For A Babysitter

very cool