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July 14, 2025

Ex-UN Special Rapporteur Says Francesca Albanese Deserves Nobel Prize, Not US Sanctions

The US is punishing UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her scathing reports on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The day after Donald Trump welcomed indicted war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for the third time in less than six months, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions against UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine Francesca Albanese for her clear-eyed critiques of Israel’s genocide.

In a July 9 press statement, Rubio charged that Albanese “has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.” He alleged that Albanese “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West … including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants” for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“No comment on mafia style intimidation techniques,” Albanese responded to the sanctions in a text message to Al Jazeera. “Busy reminding member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.” She queried why she had been sanctioned: “for having exposed a genocide? For having denounced the system? They never challenged me on the facts.”

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June 30, 2025

By Ruling Against Nationwide Injunctions, SCOTUS Affirms the Imperial Presidency

SCOTUS stripped federal judges of their authority to protect people throughout the US when the president breaks the law.

Continuing in their shameful deference to the president, Donald Trump’s lackeys on the Supreme Court once again affirmed the superiority of the executive over the other two branches of government. Last year, the high court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution when they carry out official functions. Now, that same court has stripped federal judges of their authority to protect people throughout the nation when the president breaks the law.

More than two dozen nationwide (“universal”) injunctions blocking several of Trump’s policies were in effect as of mid-May. Those policies include a more stringent voter ID requirement; a rule requiring that mail-in ballots be received by Election Day; an effort to freeze $3 trillion in federal spending to review whether the disbursement of those funds aligned with administration policies; a demand that public schools eliminate DEI programs or risk losing some of the $75 billion in federal funds; and allowing over 25,000 children to enter deportation proceedings without lawyers.

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June 20, 2025

US Weighs Deeper Involvement in Israel’s Illegal Attacks Against Iran

Trump says he will decide within two weeks whether to join Israel’s war on Iran.

As Donald Trump threatens to further enmesh the U.S. in Israel’s war against Iran with direct strikes, legal experts warn that Israel’s attacks violate international law, and that U.S. attacks would also violate constitutional and statutory law.

Israel began its war on Iran on June 12, with an attack that seemed intended to distract global attention from its genocide in Gaza. Since then, the Israeli regime has killed at least 11 top Iranian generals and struck nuclear sites and missile launchers, in addition to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. By the fifth day, Israel had damaged Iran’s energy installations, nuclear infrastructure, command centers, and the state television station.

Iran has responded to the Israeli assault by shooting missiles into Israel, many of which have been intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, which the U.S. helps fund and support. As of June 17, Iran’s health ministry reported that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people and wounded more than 1,800 in Iran. Independent observers place the death toll within Iran at over 600. At least 24 Israelis have been killed and about 600 wounded.

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June 11, 2025

As Trump Sets Military Against Civilians, Service Members Have Duty to Disobey

The Marines are trained in combat, not crowd control. People are likely to get hurt.

Four and a half months after his inauguration, Donald Trump is exercising his authoritarian chops, targeting immigrants in the state he most despises — California. Making good on Trump’s nativist pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security started conducting widespread raids outside workplaces in Los Angeles. They began on June 6, with no prior notification to the California governor, L.A. mayor or local law enforcement.

During these raids, ICE officers arrested people in military-style operations that instilled fear and panic in the community and terrorized immigrants.

As a result of the Trump administration’s repressive anti-immigrant actions, thousands of people of all races and backgrounds took to the streets in solidarity with their fellow Angelenos and conducted protests that have largely consisted of mass marches and rallies. Some protesters have also engaged in direct actions, such as blocking portions of the 101 freeway. A handful of protesters have vandalized corporate-owned, self-driving Waymo robotaxis to highlight their role in expanding the police surveillance state: the driverless cars are constantly recording surveillance videos that are then used by police.

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June 4, 2025

Veterans Launch 40-Day Fast to Protest Israel’s Starvation of Gaza

“Having seen what war does … I simply have to do more than hold a sign at a demonstration,” said one veteran organizer.

As the death toll of Palestinians continues to rise and more than a half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, U.S.-based Veterans for Peace and several allied organizations have launched a 40-day “Fast for Gaza.”

From May 22 to June 30, 600 people in the U.S. and abroad are fasting and demanding full humanitarian aid to Gaza under UN authority and an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel.

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May 12, 2025

Stephen Miller’s Argument for Suspending Habeas Corpus Is Legal Garbage

Suspending the right to challenge the legality of one’s detention in court would shred a core tenet of the Constitution.

If White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is to be believed, Team Trump is poised to drive another stake through the heart of the Constitution. On May 9, Miller told reporters that the administration is considering whether to suspend the right to habeas corpus – known as “The Great Writ” – in immigration cases. Suspending habeas corpus, which allows individuals to challenge the legality of their detention in court, would be unconstitutional.

The Suspension Clause, located in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution, says: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

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May 6, 2025

US and Hungary Stand Alone at ICJ in Favor of Israel’s Blockade on Gaza

Thirty-seven states, the UN and international NGOs all condemned Israel’s blockade at the International Court of Justice.

Since March 2, Israel has blocked all food, medicine, fuel, and other relief from entering the besieged Gaza Strip, home to 2.1 million Palestinian people. “Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives,” Ammar Hijazi, Palestine’s ambassador to the Netherlands, told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) during last week’s five-day hearing. “Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war.”

The ICJ convened the hearing at the request of the UN General Assembly to address the following question:

What are the obligations of Israel, as an occupying Power and as a member of the United Nations, in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, other international organizations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population as well as of basic services and humanitarian and development assistance, for the benefit of the Palestinian civilian population, and in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination?

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April 30, 2025

Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims Remain Uncompensated. Tlaib Aims to Change That.

Vietnamese and US descendants of those exposed to Agent Orange continue to face diseases and congenital anomalies.

Today marks 50 years since the end of the American War in Vietnam, which killed an estimated 3.3 million Vietnamese people, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, tens of thousands of Laotians and more than 58,000 U.S. service members. But for many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian people; Vietnamese Americans; and U.S. Vietnam veterans and their descendants, the impacts of the war never ended. They continue to suffer the devastating consequences of Agent Orange, an herbicide mixture used by the U.S. military that contained dioxin, the deadliest chemical known to humankind.

The United States used Agent Orange as a weapon of war. From 1961-1971, the U.S. military sprayed toxins that contained large quantities of dioxin in order to destroy food supplies and improve visibility for the U.S. military by killing broad swathes of vegetation throughout southern Vietnam. As a result, many people have been born with congenital anomalies — disabling changes in the formation of the spinal cord, limbs, heart, palate, and more. This remains the largest deployment of herbicidal warfare in history.

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April 22, 2025

Orbán Faces ICC Investigation After Refusing to Arrest Netanyahu in Hungary

As a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute, Hungary is obliged to arrest suspected war criminals and send them to The Hague.

In a shameless attempt to undermine international accountability for accused war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungarian President Viktor Orbán graciously hosted the architect of Israel’s 18-month genocide in Gaza on April 3.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is now formally investigating Hungary’s blatant refusal to fulfill its legal obligation to arrest Netanyahu and send him to The Hague. States parties to the Rome Statute have a duty to cooperate with the court and facilitate the arrest of any ICC suspect who enters their territory. Although Orbán announced Hungary’s withdrawal from the statute on April 3, it does not take effect for one year.

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April 15, 2025

Appalled at Funding Genocide, Over 2,000 US Taxpayers Turn to the UN for Redress

With no recourse in U.S. courts or Congress, the Taxpayers Against Genocide movement pivots to the UN Human Rights Council.

Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG), a nongovernmental grassroots mass movement comprised of more than 2,000 taxpayers who have been protesting their congressional representatives’ votes to fund Israel’s genocide in Gaza, filed an unprecedented report with the UN Human Rights Council on April 7.

“We have gone through all the channels open to us in our effort to stop U.S. officials from using our tax dollars to fund genocide. We have called and met with these officials, we have peacefully protested, and we have taken them to federal court. To date, none of this has stopped them,” Seth Donnelly, lead taxpayer plaintiff in the federal lawsuit, told Truthout. “The genocide in Gaza rages on, fueled by our tax dollars. We have now elevated our struggle to the international arena, starting with our report to the UN Human Rights Council, as one necessary step towards countering the impunity of the U.S. government.”

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