Senator receives briefing on UFO sightings by Navy pilots, his spokesperson says it’s a ‘safety concern’. “If naval pilots are running into unexplained interference in the air, that’s a safety concern Senator Warner believes we need to get to the bottom of.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/senators-classified-briefing-ufo-sightings-002544653.html Oh, pleeease! You guys need a better scriptwriter. If YOU were briefed about multiple videos of UFOs taken by military pilots, and the objects appeared to be clearly extraterrestrial, how would you respond? How about, “This is really exciting, and we’re having discussions now about how to make contact.” But that would be a farce, too. Disclosure is long overdue.
Journalists claim to have discovered witness who says she knows who murdered James Reeb in 1965. “Three men charged in 1965 with attacking Reeb and two other ministers on a street corner in Selma, Ala., were acquitted by an all-white jury.” https://www.npr.org/2019/06/18/733401736/npr-identifies-fourth-attacker-in-civil-rights-era-cold-case
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are not running on the same platform. “Warren will quickly point out that Sanders is a self-avowed democratic socialist (although there’s a debate about that, too). She, on the other hand, is a capitalist who believes in markets, as long as they are strongly regulated.” https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/18/18678000/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-2020-similarities-differences Bernie Sanders seems to believe in markets too, as his ideal seems to be some kind of Scandinavian welfare state where companies get to run the economy but they have to treat their employees well. That would be like, instead of abolishing slavery, making sure the slaves are well-treated.
Iran not covered by anti-terror war powers authorization Trump administration official admits, reluctantly. “This was an issue because committee members were very keen to make the point that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) after 9/11 does not authorize a US attack on Iran, and that there is subsequently not any legal basis to start such a war.” https://news.antiwar.com/2019/06/19/us-official-pressed-to-say-iran-not-behind-9-11-as-congress-warns-against-war/
Kamala Harris claims Israel generally complies with international human rights norms. “Overall, yes.” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/israel-human-rights-democratic-candidates.html And most of the other candidates either agreed or dodged the question, except for Pete Buttigieg: “Israel’s human rights record is problematic and moving in the wrong direction.” What does Human Rights Watch say? “Between March 30 and November 19, security forces killed 189 Palestinian demonstrators, including 31 children and 3 medical workers, and wounded more than 5,800 with live fire.” https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/israel/palestine
Democrats and Republicans unite to protect the government’s warrantless mass surveillance program, voting down an amendment that would restrict the collection of domestic data. “The Democrats who voted against this common sense amendment just threw immigrants, LGBTQ folks, activists, journalists, and political dissidents under the bus by voting to rubber-stamp the Trump administration’s Orwellian domestic spying capabilities.” https://thehill.com/policy/technology/449234-house-votes-against-curtailing-warrantless-collection-of-americans-data
Soldiers say they cleared contaminated soil from nuclear test sites in the Pacific without protective gear. “Wearing not much more than shorts, service members used shovels, bulldozers and other heavy equipment to scrap radioactive materials from the islands, breathing in deadly powder along the way.” https://www.stripes.com/news/conspiracy-of-silence-after-atomic-blasts-a-dangerous-cleanup-scarred-troops-for-life-1.586563
Members of opposition party reportedly being targeted by Cambodian government. “Cambodian authorities have questioned, summoned or detained more than 140 members of the former Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in an escalating suppression of dissent, two U.N. human rights experts said on Wednesday.” https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-cambodia-politics-un/cambodia-targets-140-opposition-figures-to-silence-dissent-u-n-idUKKCN1TK1EB
House Judiciary committee holds hearing on the legacy of slavery. “(Sheila Jackson Lee’s) legislation would establish a 13-person government commission to study possible forms of compensation for the descendants of slaves as well as ‘any other forms of rehabilitation or restitution’.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/reparations-ta-nehisi-coates-cory-booker-congress-debate
Judge prohibits ICE from arresting immigrants at Massachusetts courthouses. “Criminal defendants will be unable to vindicate their rights if they are taken into ICE custody prior to appearing in court or if witnesses in their defense are too fearful to visit a courthouse.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/20/federal-judge-blocks-ice-making-civil-arrests-massachusetts-courthouses/1516119001/
Trump administration reverses President Obama’s push for cleaner power. “While Obama’s measure would have substantially reduced planet-killing pollution from coal plants, by setting national emissions limits and requiring the ‘reconstruction of power grids to move utilities away from coal’, Trump’s rule will almost certainly increase levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere by allowing states to decide how much they want to cut emissions. If they don’t want to cut them at all? That’s totally cool!” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/trump-epa-affordable-clean-energy-rule
Witness in SEAL murder trial claims HE killed the teenage IS prisoner, not Edward Gallagher. “Special Operator 1st Class Corey Scott, a SEAL Team Seven medic, testifying for the prosecution under an immunity agreement, told the court that he held his ‘thumb over (the prisoners) TT tube until he quit breathing’, admitting that he asphyxiated the captive, despite saying that he saw Gallagher stab the boy in his neck…. ‘I wanted to save him from what was going to happen to him next,’ Scott said, referring to alleged torture by Iraqi captors.” https://www.foxnews.com/us/navy-wont-drop-murder-charges-against-seal-edward-gallagher-despite-bombshell-testimony
Philadelphia pulls 72 police officers off the street for threatening and prejudiced Facebook comments. “(Police Commissioner Richard Ross) said the internal affairs division prioritized posts ‘clearly advocating violence or death against any protected class such as ethnicity, national origin, sex, religion and race’.” https://www.kbtx.com/content/news/511567182.html
UN official calls for criminal investigation into Jamal Khashoggi murder. “(U.N. human special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes) Callamard singled out the U.S., calling on the country to recognize its duties to Khashoggi as a legal U.S. resident and its jurisdiction to investigate, and prosecute, possible stateside links to the plot.” https://theintercept.com/2019/06/20/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-un-report/
U.S. has joined the axis of evil, according to an international poll. “It shows Iran as the country seen as most likely to use its influence for bad, (at) 31% followed by Israel 24%, Russia 25%, Saudi Arabia 25% and the US 22%.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/19/us-russia-saudi-arabia-israel-iran-forces-for-bad-poll-finds
Senate condemns planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia. “These are bombs that we know have killed thousands of civilians in Yemen, patients in hospitals, children on school buses.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/20/saudi-arabia-arms-sales-trump-faces-senate-vote-block
Leader of centrist Democratic Party groups calls Bernie Sanders ‘an existential threat’ to the party. “The cat is out of the bag,” Sanders tweeted… “The corporate wing of the Democratic party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie’.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/bernie-sanders-centrist-democrats-brand-existential-threat-2020-campaign
Congresswoman criticizes excessive U.S. military spending. “After the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a massive spending package that includes $733 billion for the Pentagon—up from $716 billion the previous year—Rep. Rashida Tlaib slammed America’s ‘out of control warfare budget’ and said the U.S. should be investing more in programs that benefit the public, not massive defense contractors.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/20/these-are-huge-checks-being-written-boeing-and-lockheed-rep-rashida-tlaib-rips
Anti-poverty activist tells Congress its priorities are messed up. “We do not need more tax cuts for the rich,” added (Rev. William) Barber. “We must end this systemic policy violence against poor and low-wealth people.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/19/house-hearing-poor-peoples-campaign-demands-end-systemic-policy-violence-against
After Joseph Biden reassures room full of billionaires that he won’t be demonizing them during his campaign, and that ‘nobody has to be punished’, pundits suggest new campaign slogan. “Biden 2020: ‘Nothing would fundamentally change'” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/19/vowing-not-demonize-rich-biden-tells-billionaires-nothing-would-fundamentally-change
Federal judge suggests the federal government can’t be held legally accountable for intentional disinformation. “(U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott) Corley is presiding over a lawsuit that claims the Trump administration issued a misleading January 2018 report that ‘manipulates information’ to justify a travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority nations.” https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-says-us-has-no-duty-to-correct-bogus-information/
College-educated women in the workforce now outnumber college-educated men in the workforce for the first time, although women with college degrees have long outnumbered men with college degrees. “Nationally, on a consistent basis, college-educated women are less likely to participate in the labor force.” https://www.courthousenews.com/more-college-educated-women-than-men-in-us-workforce/
Lawyers say conditions at detention center in Clint, Texas violate human rights of child detainees. “The children told lawyers they were fed uncooked frozen food or rice and had gone weeks without bathing or a clean change of clothes at the makeshift prison in Clint, in the desert scrubland some 25 miles southeast of El Paso.” https://www.courthousenews.com/250-children-jailed-in-misery-at-texas-border/
Federal court hears arguments in lawsuit brought by man who was jailed after he created a Parma, Ohio police department parody account on Facebook. “Officer defendants sought and executed numerous search warrants against plaintiff. They sought and executed an arrest warrant against plaintiff, charged him with a felony, and put him in Cuyahoga County jail. They sought a grand jury indictment against plaintiff and testified against him in a felony trial. Each of defendants’ actions alone would chill a person of ordinary firmness from exercising his First Amendment rights.” https://www.courthousenews.com/sixth-circuit-hears-case-of-police-parody-facebook-page/
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