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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

‘This is not the end, just the beginning’: Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses No Kings rally in DC

‘This is not the end, just the beginning’: Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses No Kings rally in DC

  “Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, called these rallies ‘hate America’ events. Boy, does he have it wrong. Millions of Americans are coming out today not because they hate America. We’re here because we love America. We’re here because we’re going to do everything we can to honor the sacrifices of millions of men and women who over the last 250 years fought and sometimes died to defend our democracy and our freedoms.”

Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force

Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force

By J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam This story was originally published by ProPublica When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system. Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way…

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Public health professor warns the Trump’s ‘eugenics’ policy echoes Nazism

Public health professor warns the Trump’s ‘eugenics’ policy echoes Nazism

The Daily Beast reports: An eminent ER doctor and health policy expert has warned that President Donald Trump’s government shutdown talk about “deserving” patients mirrors a “eugenics” policy adopted by the Nazis. The shutdown is about to enter its fourth week after Congress failed to pass full-year funding. The White House and Speaker Mike Johnson are demanding spending cuts and immigration concessions, while Senate Democrats insist on extending ACA subsidies and undoing the summer healthcare cuts before reopening agencies. Dr….

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Gaza must decide its own political future — before the world does for us

Gaza must decide its own political future — before the world does for us

Mahmoud Mushtaha writes: On Monday, world leaders gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh to promote what they described as a new “path toward peace” in Gaza. The summit was ostensibly intended to consolidate the phases of the ceasefire and outline a long-term governance and reconstruction plan for the Strip. Yet it ended with an ambiguous roadmap and an uncertain future for Palestinians — who, as usual, were entirely left out from the conversation. No representatives from Gaza were present in those meetings,…

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Gaza aid still critically scarce as Israelis kill Palestinians for crossing an invisible line

Gaza aid still critically scarce as Israelis kill Palestinians for crossing an invisible line

The Guardian reports: Aid remains critically scarce in Gaza one week into the ceasefire, humanitarian agencies have warned, as Israel delays the entry of food convoys into the territory. The Israeli government and Hamas continue to trade blame over violations of the truce. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it had brought about 560 tonnes of food a day on average into Gaza since the ceasefire began, but it was still below what was needed. Its…

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We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

By Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.” But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have…

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The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

Michael Steele writes: In recent days, Republican leaders have warned darkly about the “No Kings” national protests scheduled for Saturday. Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “hate-America rally” that will ​​draw “the pro-Hamas wing” of the Democratic Party and “the antifa people.” House Republican Whip Tom Emmer claimed that “you’ll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up” for the rally. Sen. Roger Marshall claimed protesters were being paid and suggested the National Guard might…

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Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Politico reports: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party. “Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement Thursday. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy…

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Life in Gaza may go from utter hell to mere nightmare. What happens now?

Life in Gaza may go from utter hell to mere nightmare. What happens now?

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza demands atonement from Palestinians for the horrific acts of 7 October, not from Israel for the barbarity that followed. It calls for Gaza’s deradicalization but not an end to Israel’s messianism. It micromanages the future of Palestinian governance while saying nothing about the future of Israel’s occupation. It is riddled with ambiguities, devoid of timetables, arbiters or consequences for inevitable eventual violations. If all goes according to plan…

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Nationwide ‘No Kings’ rally has Republicans in disarray

Nationwide ‘No Kings’ rally has Republicans in disarray

The Bulwark reports: The upcoming anti-authoritarian “No Kings” rally, which is scheduled to take place across the country on Saturday, including on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, has set off klaxons for Republican lawmakers, who are scrambling to mount a preemptive defense. While many GOP lawmakers are describing No Kings as an astroturfed political operation meant to benefit Democrats in the continuing government funding fight, some in party leadership are going further by branding it a pro-terrorism demonstration—an…

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Facebook collaborates with Trump regime by taking down ICE-sightings group in Chicago

Facebook collaborates with Trump regime by taking down ICE-sightings group in Chicago

Chicago Sun-Times reports: At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, a Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people to report sightings of federal immigration agents in the Chicago area has been taken down by the social media giant Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The group, called ICE Sighting-Chicagoland, has been increasingly used over the last five weeks of “Operation Midway Blitz,” President Donald Trump’s intense deportation campaign, to warn neighbors that federal agents are near schools, grocery stores and…

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Chicago pushes back against Trump

Chicago pushes back against Trump

Danny Postel writes: Our far North Side neighborhood is one of the most diverse and multilingual, not only in Chicago, but in the U.S. More than 80 languages are spoken here. One of the neighborhood’s high schools, Sullivan, has a long history as a home to immigrant and refugee students, and was the subject of the 2021 book “Refugee High: Coming of Age in America” by the journalist Elly Fishman. My father, a child of immigrants, attended Sullivan in the…

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‘Peace deal’ or not, Gaza remains the holocaust of our time

‘Peace deal’ or not, Gaza remains the holocaust of our time

Niamh Ni Bhriain writes: Abdullah Ahmed Jihad al-Hasani, a baby boy, not yet one year old. Masah Mohammad Hamza al-Rifi, a baby girl, not yet one year old. Celine Ahmed Mufid al-Yaziji, a baby girl, not yet one year old… a baby… not yet one year old. Somebody’s whole world, gone in an instant. In Amsterdam, as the first winds of autumn swept through the city, the names of 69,000 people killed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza were read…

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Timothy Snyder: ‘Loving your country means showing up’

Timothy Snyder: ‘Loving your country means showing up’

Protestors believe that action has meaning. Protestors are exercising the rights enshrined in the Constitution. For me, protest is about love of country. I will be there on October 18th, and I hope you will be too. #NoKings snyder.substack.com/p/no-kings-f… [image or embed] — Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) Oct 12, 2025 at 9:08 AM The American Prospect reports: Millions of people will take to the streets again this Saturday to protest the autocratic regime of President Donald Trump, his government shutdown, and…

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ICE’s use of straitjackets during deportations endangers lives and may amount to torture

ICE’s use of straitjackets during deportations endangers lives and may amount to torture

The Associated Press reports: The Nigerian man described being roused with other detainees in September in the middle of the night. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers clasped shackles on their hands and feet, he said, and told them they were being sent to Ghana, even though none of them was from there. When they asked to speak to their attorney, he said, the officers refused and straitjacketed the already-shackled men in full-body restraint suits called the WRAP, then loaded…

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After 250 years, the beacon of democracy goes dark

After 250 years, the beacon of democracy goes dark

Anne Applebaum writes: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Within weeks of their publication in July 1776, those words spread around the world. In August, a London newspaper reprinted the Declaration of Independence in full. Edinburgh followed. Soon after that, it appeared in Madrid, Leiden, Vienna, and Copenhagen. Before long, others drew on the text in more substantial ways. Thomas Jefferson himself helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of…

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