(2018-06-28). Powerful New Yorkers Are Criminalizing Ecuadorians Seeking Relief From Chevron. truthout.org Two powerful New Yorkers have been indispensable in protecting Chevron from having to pay $9.5 billion to clean up its massive oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest after an Ecuadorian court decision. The contamination was an intentional injustice that killed and injured thousands of Ecuadorians — many Indigenous people and many children. | The Ecuadorian lawsuit, first filed 25 years ago, continues to languish because Chevron refuses to pay damages while 200,000 pages of lawful evidence of contamination by Chevron and Texaco have been ignored in a New York court. | Chevron's intent in this case always has been to turn the focus from its own wrong-doing to the criminalization and de-legitimization of the Ecuadorians and their legal system. | The brain behind this travesty of justice is Chevron, but the muscle is Judge Lewis A. Kaplan and Chevron's attorney Randy…
(2018-06-28). How Jeff Sessions Is Undermining Immigration Courts. truthout.org The Trump Administration's "zero tolerance" prosecution policy for unauthorized border crossings has separated families and placed children in cages. And President Trump's new executive order, which purportedly ends the separation of parents and children, still heralds indefinite detention of families until criminal cases against the parents and any immigration matters involving family members are completed. Many of these detainees will land in the nation's already overburdened immigration courts — just as Attorney General Jeff Sessions is also quietly remaking these courts with his brand of reform. | Sessions, a notorious immigration opponent, has introduced changes to immigration court that masquerade as technical tweaks, but fundamentally remake how immigration judges hear cases, while at the same time making it more difficult for immigrants to effectively make claims for asylum — protection for…
(2018-06-28). Federal Judge Orders Unwanted Alien Families Reunited. globalresearch.ca The order reflects a window of justice, perhaps a pyrrhic triumph — way overshadowed by Trump regime, congressional hardliners, and Supreme Court harshness, hostile to unwanted aliens, uncaring about constitutionally guaranteed due process and equal protection rights — mandated for …
(2018-06-28). Trump-Backing GOP Governor Blasts President on Trade — and Warns of Massive Job Losses. alternet.org 
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fears Trump policies will hurt his state. | President Donald Trump risks hurting many of his own voters as he digs in on his mercantilist trade policies, and even friendly GOP politicians are starting to call him out on it. Texas Gov. Gary Abbott blasted the president's policy of slapping tariffs on foreign goods — which are simply import taxes that hit American consumers — saying that the policy will hurt residents of his state. Steel and aluminum are two of the main industries Trump is attempting to protect with his tariffs, but Abbott says that the policy isn't worth the cost. "Our country's steel and aluminum workers are a vital part of the national workforce, and creating jobs in that industry must be a top priority," he said in a letter to the president, as the Texas Tribune first. . .
(2018-06-28). Trump's "Shithole Countries" Remark Is at the Center of a Lawsuit to Reinstate Protections for Immigrants. theintercept.com 
When President Donald Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and an assortment of African nations as " shithole countries" during a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders and Cabinet members in January, he may have unwittingly planted the seed for the unraveling of a critical part of his deportation agenda. | Last Friday, in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the first hearing was held for a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's revocation of Temporary Protected Status for over 200,000 foreign nationals from four countries who currently live in the United States. The lawsuit alleges that Trump's rhetoric demonstrates that his administration's cancellation of TPS was motivated by bigotry, rather than policy concerns. | "The Trump administration's decision to end TPS for people from these countries was motivated by its racism against non-white, non-Europeans immigrants," said Ahilan Arulanantham, legal director at the American…
(2018-06-27). New Zealand's "First Baby" fuels media frenzy. wsws.org The orchestrated fawning over the "First Child" is designed to divert attention from the sharpening class struggle within New Zealand and increasing global turmoil.
(2018-06-27). Trump Has Appointed Some Major Corporate Cronies, but This FTC Stooge Might Beat Them All. theintercept.com Andrew Smith, the newly installed head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, represented an array of miscreant companies.
(2018-06-27). Hong Kong: Freedoms Rapidly Deteriorating. hrw.org 
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other officials stand in front of a line dividing Hong Kong and mainland Chinese control zone as part of the joint immigration checkpoint inside West Kowloon Terminus for the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link in Hong Kong, China March 23, 2018. | © 2018 Lama Leung/Hong Kong Economic Times Pool via Reuters | (New York) — Hong Kong's protection of civil and political rights is deteriorating at a quickening pace, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. July 1, 2018, is the 21st anniversary of Hong Kong's transfer from British to Chinese control. | "The Chinese government has kept chipping away at Hong Kong's freedoms, and has stepped up these efforts in recent years," said Sophie Richardson, China director at…
(2018-06-26). SPLC seeks documents detailing rollback of protections for transgender people in prison. splcenter.org The SPLC is requesting documents from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the Department of Justice about a Trump administration decision to weaken protections for transgender people who are incarcerated by requiring that they be housed according to their "biological sex."
(2018-06-26). For WaPo, Subsidizing Bus Fare Is a Lot Like Giving the Rich $5 Trillion. fair.org 
Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador "bears more than a passing political resemblance to President Trump," according to the Washington Post editorial page ( 6/17/18). | According to the Washington Post ( 6/17/18), Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the frontrunner in Mexico's July 1 election, "bears more than a passing political resemblance" to US President Donald Trump. | Indeed, they are practically the same person: In the late 1970s, AMLO—as López Obrador is sometimes called— was "taking on Mexico's state-run oil company, Pemex, setting up protest camps outside its offices to force it to pay compensation to indigenous communities and campesinos whose lands it had polluted." | Around the same time, in 1975, Donald Trump was busy settling a lawsuit with the US Justice Department that accused the company he owned with his father of refusing to rent or…
(2018-06-26). Headlines for June 26, 2018. democracynow.org Mattis: U.S. Preparing to Imprison Immigrant Children on Two Texas Military Bases, Border Patrol to Stop Handing Immigrant Parents Over for Prosecution, In El Paso, Immigrant Parents Demand Return of Their Children, AP: Algeria Has Expelled 13,000 Migrants into Sahara Desert, Newly Released Scott Pruitt Emails Show More Ties to Lobbyist, Fossil Fuel Industry, NOAA Proposed Dropping "Climate" from Mission, Judge Dismisses Cities' Effort to Force Fossil Fuel Companies to Pay for Climate Change, Trump Attacks & Threatens Rep. Maxine Waters, PA: Family Holds Funeral for Antwon Rose, Unarmed Black Teen Killed by Police, Mexico: 2 More Political Candidates Assassinated in Lead-Up to Presidential Election, Brazilian Radio Journalist Jairo Sousa Assassinated in Pará, Argentina: Unions Launch 24-Hour General Strike to Protest Austerity, FDA Approves Cannabis-Based Drug for the First Time…
(2018-06-22). WaPo Can't Believe White Supremacist Senate Candidate Really Means It. fair.org 
Washington Post ( 6/15/18) takes on Corey Stewart and his "combative style." | A few things about Virginia Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart: | He described as "one of my personal heroes" Wisconsin congressional candidate and self-described "pro-White Christian" Paul Nehlen, who suggests deporting all Muslims, and whose overt and various hatreds have led Breitbart to break ties with him, along with a Twitter ban. | Stewart joined his endorser Jason Kessler at a rally for Kessler's group, Unity and Security for America, last year. Kessler, of course, was the organizer of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, with the Nazi salutes and the "blood and soil" chanting, and the murder of counter-protester Heather Heyer. After the Charlottesville rally, Stewart declared there was "no reason to apologize." | A self-described "proud Southerner" who was born and raised in…
(2018-06-21). Headlines for June 21, 2018. democracynow.org Trump Signs Executive Order to Jail Immigrant Families Together, Without Limit, House to Debate Anti-Immigrant Bills Providing $25B to Militarize Border, Migrant Children Secretly Transported to NYC Foster Care in Dead of Night, Reveal: Migrant Youths Sent to Detention Centers with Abuse Histories, Airlines Refuse to Transport Separated Migrant Children, Portland ICE Office Closes Amid 24/7 Protest over Family Separations, Scathing New Report Gives U.S. "F" Grade over Refugee Treatment, Hungary Approves Law Criminalizing Those Who Help Migrants, U.N. Investigators: Syrian Gov't Committed War Crimes in Eastern Ghouta, EPA Releases Long-Suppressed "Nightmare" Study on Water Contamination, Nearly 100 U.S. Meteorologists to Stage On-Air Climate Change Protest, Climate Change Fuels Floods in Texas, Ivory Coast, India, Bangladesh, Former Archbishop of D.C. Removed over Sexual Abuse Accusations, Disney Raises 21st Century Fox Takeover Bid to $71 Billion, UNC Student Faces Possible Expulsion over Confederate Statue Protest…
(2018-06-19). "Trump Creates Crises & Preys on Fear": Rep. Jayapal on Policy of Separating Kids from Parents. democracynow.org 
Outrage is growing over the Trump administration's separation of children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, ProPublica released audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children estimated to be between the ages of 4 and 10 years old are heard crying "Mama" and "Papi" after being separated from their parents. In another part of the audio, a Border Patrol agent is heard joking, in Spanish, "Well, we have an orchestra here. What's missing is a conductor." Video footage released by the U.S. Border Patrol Monday shows migrant children in concrete-floored chain link cages in an old warehouse in McAllen, Texas. A new Quinnipiac poll shows roughly two-thirds of U.S. voters oppose separating children from their parents at the border. About 7 percent of Democratic voters support the Trump policy, while 55 percent of Republicans support…
(2018-06-07). Maduro & Workers Push to Stimulate Venezuela's Oil Industry amid Collapsing Production. venezuelanalysis.com It is alleged that PDVSA does not possess sufficient stocks to fulfill its June export orders.