Tag Archives: Corruption

Despite ‘War Crimes’ Concerns in Yemen, Raytheon Nabs $1.6 Billion Arms Deal With UAE

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Announcement comes as resolution to end U.S. complicity in Yemen war edges toward Senate vote

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-18-2019

Destroyed house in Sanaa. Photo: brahem Qasim [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia Commons

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just inked billions in deals to secure new weapons from top Pentagon contractor Raytheon a week after an Amnesty International investigation further implicated the Gulf nation in war crimes for transferring Western weapons to unaccountable militia groups, thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis and fueling carnage in war-ravaged Yemen.

“The ongoing carnage against civilians in Yemen—including at the hands of the Saudi Arabia and UAE-led coalition and the militias it backs—should give serious pause to all states supplying arms,” said Patrick Wilcken, arms control and human rights researcher at Amnesty International. “Emirati forces receive billions of dollars’ worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes.” Continue reading →

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The soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality

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The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions. AP Photo/Frings

Michael V. Drake, The Ohio State University

When Sly and the Family Stone released “Everyday People” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.

“We got to live together,” he sang, “I am no better and neither are you.”

Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music. Continue reading →

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“It’s What Happens in a Totalitarian Regime”: Capitol Police Slammed for “Disturbing” Physical Attacks on Reporters

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“It was insane, people were getting shoved into walls. It was unsustainable. It was violent.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-16-2019

Capitol Police became physically aggressive toward journalists who were trying to speak with senators at the Russell Senate Office Building on Thursday afternoon, according to a Roll Call report. (Photo: @pkcapitol/Twitter)

Press freedom advocates and journalists described a Friday report of Capitol Police manhandling and shoving reporters in the Russell Senate Office Building as “bizarre” and “disturbing,” with some calling the altercation an incident far more likely to take place in a totalitarian regime than in a democracy.

As Roll Call reported Friday, Capitol Police pushed and “slammed into” reporters on Thursday afternoon around the time that senators were voting on the spending bill. The police attempted to prevent reporters from speaking to lawmakers—a practice that is common in the Senate Capitol basement, where the incident took place. Continue reading →

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Blow to ‘Powerful Corporate Interests’ as Federal Court Throws Out Pipeline Company Lawsuit Against DAPL Water Protectors

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Greenpeace lawyer confident that decision will deter other companies “from abusing the legal system in their quest to bully those who speak truth to power.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-15-2019

Krystal Two Bulls and other defendants celebrated on Thursday after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit targeting water protectors who organized against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). (Photo: EarthRights International/Twitter)

In a “landmark” ruling on Thursday, a federal court in North Dakota tossed out a “baseless” case against Greenpeace and other environmental and Indigenous activists who organized protests against the deeply controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which drew thousands of people to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016.

District Judge Billy Roy Wilson dismissed (pdf) all claims against all defendants in a lawsuit brought by fossil fuel giant Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which sought to hold the water protectors liable under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for millions of dollars in alleged damages

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‘No One Should Be Surprised’: After Long Career Stiffing Workers, Trump Blocks Back Pay for Federal Contractors

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Lack of back pay for low-wage contractors also called a “policy and political failure” for Democratic leaders, who were accused of failing to publicly fight the president’s cruelty

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-14-2019

The Trump International Hotel and Tower under construction in Chicago, Illinois., 2006. Photo: Antonio Vernon (public domain)

As a real estate mogul, Donald Trump was notorious for swindling low-wage workers out of pay.

So—as economist Robert Reich put it—”no one should be surprised” that Trump is continuing this cruel practice as president, this time by reportedly refusing to sign any government funding deal that includes back pay for the estimated 580,000 federal contractors who were furloughed or forced to work without pay for over a month due to the shutdown.

“I’ve been told the president won’t sign that,” Sen. Roy Blunt told ABC News, as Democrats made a last-minute push on Wednesday to attach back pay for contractors to the bipartisan federal spending package. “I guess federal contractors are different in his view than federal employees.” Continue reading →

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‘The US Government Has Scarred My Daughter and Me for Life’: Families Sue Trump Over Deliberate and ‘Inexplicable Cruelty’

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“The government’s use of emotionally traumatizing children to try to achieve a policy objective very clearly meets all the legal elements of the offense intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-12-2019

Photo: ACLU

Accusing the Trump administration of deliberate and “inexplicable cruelty” perpetrated against them under it’s so-called “zero tolerance” immigration policy, six families have filed suit against the U.S. government for the harm and “lasting trauma” they continue to suffer.

In the filing, six mothers described having their children torn away from them, with officials giving them little to no information about where their children were, if they were safe, and when they would be reunited—treatment that the lawyers involved in the suit argue fit the legal definition of intentionally inflicting emotional distress. Continue reading →

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New Legislation Aims to Avert Arctic Giveaway to ‘Corporate Polluters’ Sneaked Into GOP Tax Scam

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Announcement comes as scholars warn fossil fuel drilling in Arctic refuge “would contribute to the escalating crises of climate change and biological annihilation.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-12-2019

A member of the Porcupine caribou herd, which conservation groups say would be horribly impacted if fossil fuel exploration and extraction takes place in ANWR’s coastal plain. New legislation sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) aims to make sure that doesn’t happen. (Photo: G MacRae/flickr/cc)

Conservation groups are cheering the introduction on Monday of a measure to stop fossil fuel extraction in a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

“This bill calls a halt to the administration’s headlong rush to sell off this special wilderness to corporate polluters,” said John Bowman, senior director for federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “And it preserves the fundamental human rights of the Gwich’in people whom these lands have sustained for thousands of years, and who—among two-thirds of all Americans—oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge.”

The legislation is a renewed effort by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), and would repeal a provision included in the GOP’s 2017 tax bill (pdf). Denounced as “a Big Oil polar payout,” the provision opens the refuge’s coastal plain to oil and gas exploration and drilling. Continue reading →

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‘People Shouldn’t Be Going Bankrupt and Dying’: Nationwide Week of Action Aims to Build Mass Movement Behind Medicare for All

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“As nurses, we understand the need for guaranteed healthcare for everyone. That’s why we are fighting to win Medicare for All and joining thousands at barnstorms across the country.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-10-2019

“Folks are gathering to talk about the plan to win guaranteed healthcare.Next steps involve knocking on doors, phone banks—various ways of engaging our communities to get involved,” said National Nurses United executive director Bonnie Castillo. (Photo: National Nurses United/Flickr)

With Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) expected to introduce the Medicare for All Act of 2019 in the coming days, nurses, progressive activists, and ordinary people who have felt firsthand the crushing weight of America’s for-profit healthcare system took part in nationwide “barnstorms” this weekend to build grassroots support for transformative change.

From Texas to Kansas to California—around 150 total locations across the country—Medicare for All supporters gathered to discuss the necessity of a single-payer system that leaves no one behind, at a time when over 30 million Americans are uninsured and two-thirds of personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Continue reading →

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Warnings of Trumpism ‘Forever’ as Senate GOP Rams Through 44 Lifetime Judges in One Day

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“Too many of these nominees have spent their careers opposing the rights of women, minorities, the LGBTQ community, and Americans who need affordable healthcare.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-8-2019

Mitch McConnell, Brett Kavanaugh, Mike Pence and Jon Kyl before Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Photo: Office of the Vice President [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

With the nation’s eyes largely elsewhere in a sea of distraction on Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee quietly advanced 44 of President Donald Trump’s federal judicial nominees in what civil rights defenders denounced as a “monster markup” that threatens to leave the president’s dangerous ideological footprint on the nation’s courts for generations to come.Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said the move “disturbingly exemplifies the joint Senate Republican-Trump administration effort to distort our federal judiciary and roll back our civil and human rights.”

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Replicating Regime Change Playbook, Pompeo Says US Obligated to ‘Take Down’ Hezbollah in Venezuela

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“It’s no coincidence that this seems copy/paste from Bush’s lies to justify his wars.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-7-2019

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday claimed the designated terrorist organization Hezbollah “has active cells” in Venezuela. (Photo: Fox Business)

As a U.S.-backed effort to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro continues,U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Wednesday that Hezbollah “has active cells” in Venezuela—a claim that was immediately scrutinized and compared with the second Bush administration’s lies to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Hezbollah, a political and militant Shi’ite Muslim group based in Lebanon, has been on the U.S. State Department’s “Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations” list since 1997. In the interview with Fox Business, Pompeo, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s CIA director, also charged that Iran and Cuba are strongly influencing the country. Continue reading →

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