As a progressive Jew, I find that many of my family members and friends are still what we call “PEP” — progressive except Palestine. Amid ever-worsening injustices created by the Israeli system of apartheid and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, it is past time for this to change. I am hopeful that the firestorm… Read more »
Donald Trump’s decision to send thousands of troops to the US-Mexican border to intercept migrants who intend to apply for asylum is not just a bald-faced political stunt — it is also illegal. Passed in 1878 to end the use of federal troops in overseeing elections in the post–Civil War South, the Posse Comitatus Act… Read more »
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, affirming Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, allows the United States to act in flagrant violation of international law. Under the guise of deferring to the president on matters of national security, the 5-4 majority disregarded a litany of Trump’s anti-Muslim statements and held that the ban does not… Read more »
The 300 asylum seekers who arrived at the US border on April 29 after a month-long, 2,000-mile journey have another grueling struggle ahead of them, according to the immigration attorneys who are donating their time to represent them. More than three-quarters of asylum claims from Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans between 2012 and 2017 were denied, according… Read more »
After a video of the arrest of two African-American men sitting in Starbucks without buying anything went viral, Starbucks scheduled anti-racism training. But their inclusion of the Anti-Defamation League in the training provoked another outcry and Starbucks capitulated. On April 12, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were arrested for trespassing at a Philadelphia Starbucks. A… Read more »
As members of Congress worked against the March 5 deadline Donald Trump had imposed to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), two federal district courts ruled that DACA would continue — for now. On March 6, a third district court judge found Trump’s termination of DACA to be lawful. The conflict among the… Read more »
After Donald Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries” and exclaimed, “We should have more people from Norway,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) noted that being a racist “must be in his DNA, in his makeup.” Trump’s offensive characterization of Haitians and the entire continent of Africa, the latest in his pattern and practice of racist epithets, imperils… Read more »
In December 2016 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution reaffirming that Israel’s Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are illegal and calling on Israel to stop settlement activities in the OPT. Resolution 2334 says the settlements have “no legal validity,” calls them “a flagrant violation under international law,” and demands Israel “immediately… Read more »
After federal courts struck down Donald Trump’s first two Muslim bans, his functionaries crafted a third one. In an attempt to withstand judicial scrutiny by convincing the courts it is not really aimed at Muslims, Trump’s new travel ban (Muslim Ban 3.0) cosmetically adds two countries — Venezuela and North Korea — that do not… Read more »
The Trump administration’s rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been met with widespread resistance by people across the political spectrum. Thousands have marched in the streets to save the “Dreamers” from deportation. Human rights and civil liberties organizations as well as legislators on both sides of the aisle condemned the ending of… Read more »