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Category: Law/Crime

Gaza is starving

Gaza is starving

Isaac Chotiner writes: Last month, a United Nations report on hunger described a catastrophic situation in Gaza, where more than ninety per cent of the population has been facing “acute food insecurity,” and where “virtually all households are skipping meals every day.” Much of Gaza is at risk of famine in the next several months. Parents have been going without food to insure that their kids have at least something to eat; where food is available, moreover, prices have skyrocketed,…

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Israeli public figures accuse judiciary of ignoring incitement to genocide in Gaza

Israeli public figures accuse judiciary of ignoring incitement to genocide in Gaza

The Guardian reports: A group of prominent Israelis has accused the country’s judicial authorities of ignoring “extensive and blatant” incitement to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza by influential public figures. In a letter to the attorney general and state prosecutors, they demand action to stop the normalisation of language that breaks both Israeli and international law. “For the first time that we can remember, the explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes, as stated, against millions of civilians have turned…

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How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump

How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump

Zack Beauchamp reports: Stephen Richer should have been safe. In early 2021, Richer was an Arizona Republican official who regularly attended local party events. At the time, he was the newly elected county recorder of Maricopa County. The job was a new level of prominence — he was now the most important election supervisory official in the state’s largest county — but going to Arizona Republican events was routine: the kind of thing that Richer, like any state politician, had…

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Trump plot to turn his Jan. 6 trial into a ‘MAGA freak show’

Trump plot to turn his Jan. 6 trial into a ‘MAGA freak show’

Rolling Stone reports: Attempts to drag Nancy Pelosi into court to berate her on the stand and, hopefully, on live TV. Claims that the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was an FBI frame job, with an assist from Antifa. Conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was indeed “stolen,” supposedly backed up by still-classified documents. Unhinged assertions that President Joe Biden is now secretly, personally orchestrating an unprecedented act of political persecution. Calls to publicly unmask the federal officials and lawyers investigating…

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International Court of Justice could charge Israel with genocide in Gaza, state officials fear

International Court of Justice could charge Israel with genocide in Gaza, state officials fear

  Haaretz reports: The security establishment and the State Attorney’s Office are concerned that the International Court of Justice at the Hague will charge Israel with genocide in the Gaza Strip – this at the request of South Africa, which petitioned the court over the weekend. Haaretz has learned that a senior legal expert dealing with the matter has in recent days warned IDF brass, including Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi, that there is real danger that the court will…

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The quest to make Big Oil pay for climate change

The quest to make Big Oil pay for climate change

Jake Bolster writes: Eight days after the Marshall Fire [in Colorado in 2021], U.S. President Joe Biden toured the wreckage and gave a speech to the community, saying, “We can’t ignore the reality that these fires are being supercharged. They’re being supercharged by a change in the weather.” Three years before the Marshall Fire, Boulder and San Miguel counties had filed a lawsuit seeking damages from the oil companies Exxon and Suncor by claiming much the same thing. Changes in…

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South Africa files genocide case against Israel at International Court of Justice over Gaza war

South Africa files genocide case against Israel at International Court of Justice over Gaza war

The Guardian reports: South Africa has launched a case against Israel at the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) accusing the state of committing genocide in its military campaign in Gaza. Israel responded to the allegations “with disgust”, calling South Africa’s case a “blood libel” and urging the ICJ to reject it. Any case at the ICJ is likely to take years to resolve, but South Africa has called for the court to convene in the next few days to…

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The EU should support Ireland’s bold move to regulate social media

The EU should support Ireland’s bold move to regulate social media

Zephyr Teachout and Roger McNamee write: Dublin, Ireland, was stunned a month ago by riots that transformed its downtown into chaos, the worst rioting in decades, stemming from far-right online rumors about an attack on children.  The riots, like Jan. 6, appear to be a direct outgrowth of the amplification ecosystem supported by social media networks such as TikTok, Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram, which likely keep their European headquarters in Dublin for tax reasons.  Ireland, long ridiculed for bowing…

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Here’s what the Supreme Court should do with the Trump ballot cases

Here’s what the Supreme Court should do with the Trump ballot cases

Shan Wu writes: The U.S. Supreme Court needs to understand that the disqualification of former President Donald J. Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment from running again for President of the United States is going exactly as it should. The Maine Secretary of State ruled in an administrative proceeding that Trump is disqualified, and the Colorado Supreme Court ruled similarly. Both states followed the law set forth in the U.S. Constitution that anyone who once took an oath…

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Jack Smith: Trump immunity bid a ‘license’ to commit crimes

Jack Smith: Trump immunity bid a ‘license’ to commit crimes

The Daily Beast reports: Special counsel Jack Smith warned in a new filing Saturday that ex-President Donald Trump’s bid for immunity could “license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.” The brief lodged in the D.C. Court of Appeals came in response to the ex-president’s claims that he is immune to prosecution for his efforts to undo his 2020 defeat because he survived an impeachment proceeding in the Senate, and because his plotting fell within the powers and duties…

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Kremlin says it has list of Western assets to be seized if Russian assets are confiscated

Kremlin says it has list of Western assets to be seized if Russian assets are confiscated

Reuters reports: The Kremlin on Friday warned the West that it had a list of U.S., European and other assets that would be seized if G7 leaders decided to go ahead and confiscate $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank reserves. Leaders of the Group of Seven major industralised nations will discuss a new legal theory that would enable the seizure of frozen Russian assets when they meet in February, two sources familiar with the plans and a British official…

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Benjamin Netanyahu’s war crimes

Benjamin Netanyahu’s war crimes

Hafiz Rashid writes: As 2023 comes to a close, grim numbers in Gaza are piling up, where Israel’s bombardment and invasion have thus far killed more than 20,000 people, including 8,200 children and 6,200 women. Those dire statistics lay alongside the grievous outcome of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed—including 36 children—and nearly 250 Israelis were taken hostage by Hamas, again, including about 30 children. But beyond the dismal casualty statistics, we’re ending…

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Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election

Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election

CNN reports: Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail. So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress,…

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A fake Trump elector in Michigan told prosecutors of regret, anger

A fake Trump elector in Michigan told prosecutors of regret, anger

The New York Times reports: One of the Republicans in Michigan who acted as a fake elector for Donald J. Trump expressed deep regret about his participation, according to a recording of his interview with the state attorney general’s office that was obtained by The New York Times. The elector, James Renner, is thus far the only Trump elector who has reached an agreement with the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, which brought criminal charges in July against…

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Ex-GOP student leader’s links to Jan. 6 Capitol riot and a neo-Nazi web site

Ex-GOP student leader’s links to Jan. 6 Capitol riot and a neo-Nazi web site

USA Today reports: The young man is seen running with the crowd of Trump supporters toward the U.S. Capitol early in the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021. He wears a thigh-length dark blue coat, his face almost fully covered with a mask. The bill of an off-white baseball cap pokes out of the hood of his gray sweatshirt. At 2:35 p.m. and 20 seconds, a security camera inside the Capitol captures the man as he steps across the threshold of…

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Trump is not the only reason to fix this uniquely dangerous law

Trump is not the only reason to fix this uniquely dangerous law

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith write: The Insurrection Act is a dangerous centuries-old federal statute that authorizes the president, with few restraints, to deploy the U.S. military inside the United States to suppress threats the president perceives to the constitutional order. Commentators have recently proposed tightening the law following reports that former President Donald Trump and his advisers are planning to use it aggressively for law enforcement and to quell domestic disturbances if Mr. Trump is once more elected. This…

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