Category Archives: Social Justice

Why the US military usually punishes misconduct but police often close ranks

*NYPD officers turning their backs on New York mayor Bill de Blasio after he remarked on police violence, Jan. 4, 2015.*
*AP Photo/John Minchillo,*

Dwight Stirling, University of Southern California

Many U.S. military members publicly disavowed President Trump’s decision to pardon Edward Gallagher, the former SEAL commando convicted of killing a teenage detainee in Iraq in 2017.

Gallagher’s alleged war crimes were nearly universally condemned up the chain of command, from enlisted men to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. Indeed, it was Gallagher’s SEAL colleagues who reported the former commando’s actions.

This insistence on holding fellow service members accountable for bad behavior sharply differentiates the military from the police. Continue reading →

With Support of Just One Republican, House Passes ‘Historic’ Bill to Restore and Expand Voting Rights

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“Brings us one step closer to restoring the Voting Rights Act.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-6-2019

The introduction of H.R. 4 on February 26, 2019. Photo: PFAW

Just one Republican—Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania—joined a united House Democratic caucus on Friday to pass what rights groups hailed as “historic” legislation to restore and expand voter protections that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen, said passage of the Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4) is a “critical step” in combating Republican voter suppression efforts that have proliferated in the six years since the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Shelby County v. Holder. Continue reading →

Report Details How Social Security Has Become Rigged for the Wealthy While Leaving Behind Those It Was Designed to Help

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“The program’s become less progressive,” said Jim Roosevelt, a former Social Security Administration official and grandson of FDR.

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-3-2019

Image: Alliance for Retired Americans

The benefits of Social Security, a program designed to help vulnerable and low-income people, have since the 1980s become increasingly skewed toward the wealthy due to demographic shifts and soaring inequality, according to a new report.

Proponents of Social Security expansion, responding to the report (pdf) by Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, said the New Deal-era program’s increasing regressivity was not inevitable, but the result of lawmakers’ refusal to enact basic progressive reforms such as lifting the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. Continue reading →

Global Offshore Corporate Networks Exposed in Massive Data Leak

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By Dan Feldt. Published 12-3-2019 by Unicorn Riot

Hundreds of thousands of documents from inside Formations House, a posh British finance firm located in central London, have been released online tonight. Formations House created thousands of companies for ultra-wealthy business-people for offshore banking and international transactions. The transparency collective ‘Distributed Denial of Secrets‘ obtained these documents from a source dubbed “Babylon” and is publishing them online. More than 100,000 recorded phone calls between Formations House, its customers, and related figures, are included. Full archives of the phone calls are expected to be released in coming days.

This new data release is named ‘#29Leaks’ after 29 Harley Street, the original location in London of Formations House (it moved to a new address after 2016 – the records in this release were generated out of that original location); it’s a prestigious address about a thirty-minute walk from Parliament. Continue reading →

Jair Bolsonaro accused of inciting genocide before the International Criminal Court

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A complaint against President Jair Messias Bolsonaro has been presented in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. This adds international pressure to his continuous attacks on human rights, indigenous peoples and environmentalist NGOs

By openDemocracy. Published 11-29-2019

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, seen here at the U.N. General Assembly’s 74th session on Sept. 24, 2019. (Photo: Cia Pak/U.N.)

A group of Brazilian lawyers, along with a powerful human rights group and some former ministers, denounced President Jair Bolsonaro before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for inciting the “genocide of indigenous peoples” of Brazil and committing “crimes against humanity”.

The Arns Commission and the Human Rights Defense Collective delivered a note to Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, this last Wednesday. Lawyers promoting the complaint reported to democraciaAbierta and other media that the document is 60 pages long and identifies 33 actions and official speeches of Jair Bolsonaro that might have a criminal character, as established by the Rome Statute, ratified by Brazil in 2002. Continue reading →

Thousands of Activists Stage Protests at Three German Coal Mines to Demand Bolder Climate Policies

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“We’re at a critical moment—the window of opportunity to stop the climate crisis is closing rapidly.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-30-2019

Climate activists protests at three coal mines in Germany Saturday. (Photo: Ende Gelände/Twitter)

On the heels of Friday’s global youth-led climate strike, thousands of activists staged demonstrations at three coal mines in Germany Saturday to protest the government’s plan to phase out coal by 2038, which activists say isn’t soon enough.

The German news agency dpa reported that “protesters ran into the Jänschwalde and Welzow-Süd open-cast mining sites in the eastern state of Brandenburg, as well as the United Schleenhain lignite mining area in neighboring Saxony.” Continue reading →

Why Are Drug Prices Rising So Much? Pharma Exec Admits ‘No Other Rationale’ But Profit-Making

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“The industry executive said the quiet part out loud,” said one outside expert in response. “Price-gouging is central to the industry business model.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-28-2019

Photo: Liz McGregor

Corporations’ quest for profits is what “is driving up drug prices and nothing more.”

That’s according to Dennis Bourdette, M.D., chair of neurology in the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine, who co-authored a study published Monday that sought to find out companies’ rationale for the escalating prices on medications for patients with multiple sclerosis. Continue reading →

‘Their Secret Agenda Today Is Exposed’: Corbyn Says Leaked Trade Docs Show Tory Plan to Privatize NHS With Trump’s Help

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The U.K. Labour leader said the move, if successful, “could lead to runaway privatization of our health service.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-27-2019

U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn holds redacted copies of the Department for International Trade’s U.K.-U.S. Trade and Investment Working Group report following a speech about the National Health Service in Westminster, London. Photo: Devutopia/Twitter

U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday unveiled over 450 pages of leaked documents that he said expose British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s effort to open up the National Health Service to corporate exploitation in trade negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.

During a press conference, Corbyn said the Trump administration’s negotiators are “demanding” that the NHS be put “on the table” in talks over a possible post-Brexit trade pact between the U.S. and U.K. Continue reading →

Law Enforcement Crushing Pipeline Dissent in Minnesota at Water Protectors’ Blockade of Enbridge Terminal

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Police were about to saw off the leg of a tripod from which a protester was hanging, activists said.

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-25-2019

Water protectors on Monday blocked the entrance to an Enbridge terminal in Minnesota to display ongoing opposition to the proposed Line 3 tar sands project. (Photo: ResistLine3 via Twitter)

Police in Clearbrook, Minnesota were accused of putting the “profits of oil companies before human life” after activists said law enforcement on Monday began sawing the leg of a tripod from which a tar sands protester was suspended.

An estimated 30 protesters blockaded the entrance to Enbrige’s Clearbrook Terminal in a display of ongoing opposition to the oil company’s proposed Line 3 project, which would bring tar sands from Alberta to a Wisconsin shipping hub, passing through Minnesota. Continue reading →

Pompeo Calls It ‘Democracy’ in Bolivia as Post-Coup Violence Grows and Fear of Civil War Intensifies

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“The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing. Please, tell the international community to come here and stop this.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-22-2019

A photo of the coffins of two of the Bolivian anti-coup protesters, killed by security forces, that had to be left behind after a funeral procession was attacked by those same security forces.. Screenshot: redfish/Twitter

Observers on the ground in Bolivia are calling on the United Nations to take urgent action to prevent the country from descending into a full-blown civil war as the military, with a green light from the right-wing coup regime, continues to repress and massacre supporters of ousted former President Evo Morales.

On Thursday afternoon, Bolivian security forces teargassed a massive Indigenous-led funeral procession in the city of La Paz for the eight people gunned down by security forces Tuesday in the nearby working class city of El Alto, where Morales supporters blockaded a major gasoline plant. Continue reading →