American Police State, Neo-Nazi Terrorists, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos August 11 - 18

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.



This list covers the week of August 11 - 18.

1) By Barring Omar and Tlaib, Netanyahu Did BDS a Huge Favor

Eric Levitz, New York Intelligencer

In deference to the wishes of the United States government, Israel has barred two members of the U.S. Congress from entering its borders. Or at least that’s how Thursday’s bizarre developments in American-Israeli relations appear to have played out.

2) Now is the time for the Democratic Party to stand up to Israeli racism

Nada Elia, Mondoweiss 

The lines dividing Progressives and supporters of apartheid are becoming clearer, and they are not along Democratic and Republican party lines.

3) ‘Tlaib and Omar gave us hope’: Decision to bar entry to congresswomen sparks anger and disappointment amongst Palestinians

Yumna Patel, Mondoweiss 

Palestinians are joining the chorus of international condemnation facing Israel for barring entry to US Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar ahead of their planned delegation to the occupied Palestinian territory.

4) Did Netanyahu Just Kill Washington’s ‘Pro-Israel’ Consensus?

M. J. Rosenberg, The Nation 

Let the Likudniks, the lobby, the bought members of Congress, and the neocons cry. For those of us who want to see Israelis and Palestinians living in peace, in one country or two, with full security and sovereignty for both, Netanyahu’s stupid move is good news. It’s time someone tore the mask off the Israeli government and its fellow travelers in Washington. Perhaps, after the 2020 elections, the United States will serve as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps it will recognize that Palestinians deserve the same rights as Israelis in the land both peoples call home. Perhaps it will condition US aid to Israel on its negotiating an end to the 52-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. After all, there’s a first time for everything.

5) Argentina Primaries: Fernandez Wins Landslide Victory Over Macri With 15-Point Lead

Telesur 

Argentinian President Mauricio Macri conceded defeat Sunday night in the country’s primaries, leading to Oct. 27 general elections, against opposition ticket Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

6) Communists in Canada organizing international solidarity against plunder in Kaz Mountains

SOL International 

In a meeting that took place at the Greek Workers' Association, immigrant people from Turkey living in Montreal, representatives of the Communist Party of Canada, the Quebec Movement for Peace and the Greek Workers' Association met to discuss the actions to be held against the destruction in the Kaz Mountains, resulting in releasing a press statement on 16th of August.

On Monday, August 5th, thousands of protestors stormed the site of te Kirazli Gold mine project in North-Western Turkey. This project will have a heavy invornmental impact as 195,000 trees have been cut to access the gold resources present in this open-pit mine. To extract gold, it is said that 20,000 tons of cyanide will be needed as well as a considerable amount of other toxic elements such as arsenic. Particularly shocking to the population is the fact that this mining project is located at the fringe of the Kaz Mountains Natural Park.

7) You Must Be This Conservative To Ride: The Inside Story of Postmedia’s Right Turn

Sean Craig, Canadaland 

New CEO Andrew MacLeod has a plan to muffle moderate voices at Canada's largest newspaper company. It's created confusion and uncertainty in newsrooms across the country.

8) A&W Tells Anti-Union Conference It Keeps a Secret ‘Watch List’ To Make Sure Workers Don’t Unionize

Press Progress

Fast food giants tell anti-union conference they monitor ‘high risk’ restaurants fearing the spread of unions in the service sector.

9) 'I take responsibility,' Trudeau says in wake of damning report on SNC-Lavalin ethics violation

John Paul Tasker, CBC News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he accepts full responsibility after Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion found he violated the Conflict of Interest Act by trying to influence then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and get her to overrule a decision to not grant a deferred prosecution agreement to Quebec-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.

10) People’s Party wants to axe Multiculturalism Act, eliminate funding

Kerri Breen, Global News

Maxime Bernier‘s new political party, which plans to run candidates in every riding in the upcoming federal election, is calling for the end of “official” multiculturalism in Canada and the preservation of “Canadian values and culture.”

11) Hong Kong protesters have their flags backward

Ian Goodrum, People's World

There’s been a whole lot of controversy over flags lately.

12) Epstein’s Death Should Generate Investigations, Not Conspiracy Theories

The Real News Network 

Anti-Clinton/Trump hashtags will not get to the bottom of Epstein's death, or how the rich and powerful's involvement in child sex abuse, The Nation's Jeet Heer explains.

13) Jeffrey Epstein's Autopsy Is Raising Even More Questions About His Death

Tim Marcin, Vice News 

Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy reportedly revealed broken bones in his neck — a finding that raises questions about how, exactly, he died.

14) With Epstein's Death, Accusers Seek New Legal Recourse

Cat Schuknecht, NPR

With Jeffrey Epstein's death by apparent suicide on Saturday, his accusers lost any chance to watch him stand trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan last month.

15) Jay-Z Helped the NFL Banish Colin Kaepernick

Jemele Hill, The Atlantic 

Yesterday the hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell held a joint media session at the Roc Nation offices in New York to seal a once-implausible partnership that isn’t being received as positively as both parties probably hoped.

16) Cuts by Doug Ford Conservatives leave city’s long-term care homes short $550,000

 Joanna Frketich, The Hamilton Spectator 

Upcoming provincial cuts to long-term care funding will leave the city's two homes short more than $550,000 a year.

17) Here Are Five Lies About Iran That We Need to Refute to Stop Another Illegal War

Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept 

Last month, the Trump White House put out a typically Orwellian statement, chock-filled with lies, distortions, and half-truths about Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal. One line in particular stood out from the rest: “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”

18) Women Glitter Mexico City to Protest Rape, Gendered Violence

Telesur 

“We travel daily with the fear that when we leave home we will be harassed in the streets, harassed in public transport, work, or school. Violated by our partners, friends or bosses. Raped by our boyfriends, husbands, parents, brothers , uncles, grandparents or the police themselves," read a petition addressed to all levels of public security, state authorities, and Mexican society in general.

19) End Seattle’s inhumane sweeps of homeless camps!

Andrea Bauer, Freedom Socialist Party

The Seattle area is home to the world’s two richest people, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. It is also a place where those who have no homes are treated with inhuman callousness. The city regularly evicts them from their tent encampments with sweeps that force them to scramble for other shelter and often destroy their few possessions in the process.

20) New Zealand: Outrage over babies taken by the state

John Braddock and Tom Peters, World Socialist Web Site 

On July 30, several hundred people gathered outside parliament in Wellington for a protest titled “Hands Off Our Tamariki [children].” They delivered a petition with 17,000 signatures calling for the government to stop “stealing Maori children.” Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, a partner in the ruling Labour-led coalition government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, accepted the petition.

21) Boris Johnson risks triggering riots with rollout of blanket stop-and-search powers, Diane Abbott warns

Lizzie Deardon, The Independent 

The expansion of blanket stop and search powers that let police challenge people without reasonable suspicion could provoke unrest, the government has been warned.

22) Boris Johnson’s law and order proposals are a scam

Eleftheria Kousta, Counterfire 

In a letter published in the Daily Mail, Boris Johnson has pledged to introduce a number of measures to shore up the law and order regime. His main promises are staff increases in the police department by 20,000 over the next three years, expanding the prison network by 10,000 places, increasing in-prison security, expanding Stop-and-Search, and allocating £85 million to the the Crown Prosecution Service.

23) Homegrown hate

Ryan Thorpe, Winnipeg Free Press

A Free Press reporter posed as a white nationalist to gain inside access to a neo-Nazi paramilitary group attempting to gain a foothold in Winnipeg and across the country.

24) Militant Neo-Nazi Group Actively Recruiting Ahead of Alleged Training Camp

 Mack Lamoureux and Ben Makuch, Vice News 

The Base, a neo-Nazi group aiming to provide military and survivalist training to fellow white supremacists, has been ramping up its activities including a massive recruitment campaign and a planned "hate camp."

25) Police Keep Arresting Young White Men For Trying to Copycat El Paso

Yess Owen, Vice News

In the past week, police across the country have investigated or arrested at least six men, most of whom are young and white, for making terroristic threats, stockpiling weapons, or plotting attacks.

26) It's Snowing Microscopic Plastic Particles in Arctic: Study

Telesur 

Winter is around the corner and with falling snowflakes come microscopic plastic particles, at least that’s what scientists say is happening in the Arctic right now in a new study published in the journal Science Advances.



27) Climate Change Is Taking a Bigger Toll on Our Food, Water, and Land Than We Realized

Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones

As the planet warms, parts of the world face new risks of food and water shortages, expanding deserts, and land degradation, warns a major new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Those effects are already underway, and some of them could soon become irreversible.

28) British Columbia's dirty natural gas secret

Peter McCartney, Canada's National Observer 

When I told people I was heading to northeastern British Columbia to check out fracking sites, the most common response was: “We do that here?”

29) The Planet's Real Overpopulation Problem: Too Many Rich People

Joe Sandler Clarke, Vice News

If the world as it is does have an overpopulation problem, it's that there are too many rich people using too much stuff.

30) Indian Communist leader slams ‘denial of basic democratic rights’ over Kashmir detention

The Morning Star 

COMMUNIST Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury has protested to Indian President Ram Nath Kovind over his detention in Srinagar on Friday, when he and Communist Party of India leader Doraisamy Raja were held at the city’s airport while trying to visit party members in Jammu and Kashmir and denied entry to the state.

31) The Silence Is the Loudest Sound

 Arundhati Roy, The New York Times 

As India celebrates her 73rd year of independence from British rule, ragged children thread their way through traffic in Delhi, selling outsized national flags and souvenirs that say, “Mera Bharat Mahan.” My India is Great. Quite honestly, it’s hard to feel that way right now, because it looks very much as though our government has gone rogue.

32) A New Trump Policy Could Deny Green Cards To Immigrants Who Use Public Benefits

Hamed Aleaziz, BuzzFeed News

The Trump administration introduced a sweeping policy Monday that will allow the government to deny permanent residency to immigrants who use or are likely to use public benefits, such as food stamps, housing vouchers and Medicaid.

33) Trump Is Now Going to Make Life Hell for Immigrants With Disabilities

Emma Ockerman, Morgan Baskin, and Gaby Del Valle, Vice News 

The Trump administration’s new “public charge” rule will force immigrants with disabilities to choose between receiving health care and staying in the U.S., advocates warn — and it’ll favor wealthy, able-bodied immigrants instead.

34) Trump 'Embodies Nearly Every Aspect Of A Racist,' Author Says

Rachel Martin, NPR

The writer Ibram X. Kendi has made a name for himself by tackling one of the most important — and one of the most sensitive — topics in America today.

35) Steve King Is Racist, Misogynist—and Not that Different From Other Republicans

Elie Mystal, The Nation 

Republicans should be awarded no points for calling on Iowa Congressman Steve King to resign. Pointing out that this racist misogynist has no business serving in Congress is like pointing out that you shouldn’t make toast in a bathtub. It doesn’t mean you are insightful; it means the people who disagree with you are enfeebled.

36) Unequal Outcomes: Most ICE Detainees Held In Rural Areas Where Deportation Risks Soar

Yuki Noguchi, NPR

Yoel Alonso sat in a cell for 10 months before he ever met with a lawyer. His wife had to travel 1,000 miles to visit him at the remote Louisiana facility where he was detained.

37) A Prison Guard Drove A Truck Through A Group Of Jewish ICE Protesters, Injuring Several

Julia Reinstein, BuzzFeed News

"If they're willing to do that to us, we can't imagine the violence the ICE detainees behind those walls may be subject to every day," an organizer said.

38) Why a Banking Heiress Spent Her Fortune on Keeping Immigrants Out

 Nicholas Kulish and Mike McIntire, The New York Times

She was an heiress without a cause — an indifferent student, an unhappy young bride, a miscast socialite. Her most enduring passion was for birds.

39) Getting killed by police is a leading cause of death for young black men in America

Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times

About 1 in 1,000 black men and boys in America can expect to die at the hands of police, according to a new analysis of deaths involving law enforcement officers. That makes them 2.5 times more likely than white men and boys to die during an encounter with cops.

40) AG Barr said there must be 'zero tolerance for resisting police' and went after 'social-justice reformers' in a heated speech to the US's largest law-enforcement organization

Sonam Sheth, Business Insider 

His comments come when law enforcement is under heightened scrutiny in the US over allegations of systemic brutality and bigotry in some communities.

41) Insurance Companies Are Paying Cops To Investigate Their Own Customers

Kendall Taggart, BuzzFeed News

A cozy alliance between insurers and law enforcement has turned the justice system into the industry’s hired gun and left innocent customers facing prison.

42) Family Wants Independent Probe In Fatal Police Shooting Of Teen In Colorado

Brakkton Booker and Richard Gonzales, NPR

"In my humble opinion, the black and brown citizens of Colorado Springs are not safe with these officers on the street," Terry Thomas, pastor of Lifting Up Jesus Church, said, as quoted by the Associated Press.

See also: El Paso Aftermath, Venezuela Embargo, Kashmir, ICE Raids & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos August 4 - 11