All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

German police raid 30 premises linked to far-right extremists

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Alleged target is Inferno Cottbus ’99 group, suspected of criminal activity and neo-Nazism

Police have carried out extensive raids in four German states on premises linked to suspected far-right extremists.

Thirty properties including flats, offices and commercial premises in the states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony were searched in the operations which began at dawn and continued into Wednesday afternoon.

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William Barr says ‘spying did occur’ on Trump campaign during Obama era

Given up all support of law and democracy

The US attorney general said in testimony at congressional hearing that ‘I am concerned about it and looking into it’

The US attorney general, William Barr, made an explosive claim in Washington on Wednesday, saying that he believed “spying did occur” on Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign under Barack Obama’s administration.

The president has frequently made such a claim and Barr indicated that he believed it was true in some fashion and that he wanted to determine whether that surveillance was justified. Under sharp questioning by lawmakers, he admitted there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

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Trump Disappointed Military Can’t Get ‘Rough’ At Border

At a fundraiser in San Antonio, Texas, President Trump expressed disappointment that his troops-rough-up-asylum-seekers-at-the-border fanfiction has yet to become a reality. “Our military can’t act like a military would act,” said Trump. “Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy.” Trump also used the roundtable to spread more lies about dangerous migrants and the effectiveness of his fantasy wall. [NY Times/NBC News]

Source: Trump Disappointed Military Can’t Get ‘Rough’ At Border

Tuesday Open Thread | Trump told border patrol agents to defy law, block migrants: CNN

Trump told Customs and Border Patrol agents last week to refuse to allow any migrants through the border in defiance of federal laws and court orders, CNN reported Monday.

On Friday, during a visit to Calexico, Calif., Trump told border patrol agents behind the scenes not to let any migrants in and, if ordered to by a judge, to respond, “Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room,” two sources told CNN.

When the agents later asked their commanding officers about the remarks, their superiors said policy was to obey the law and that they would face personal liability if they complied with Trump’s orders, according to the network.

The news comes amid the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen, who has frequently found herself the subject of Trump’s ire over illegal immigration policy.

“Presidents are not allowed to order people to break the law,” @BillKristol says in response to reporting that President Trump pushed to close the US-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas, and told agents not to admit migrants and to resume family separations. https://t.co/6X7OgyXLRm pic.twitter.com/6DvFe1KUqR

— CNN (@CNN) April 8, 2019

During Friday’s trip to the border, Trump reportedly told Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to shut down the port of El Paso on March 22, with plans to close other ports later.

Nielsen pushed back on the idea, arguing that closing down the ports would simply shut down legal commerce and travel while migrants entered between the ports. Trump reportedly responded “I don’t care,” according to two people in the room, CNN reports.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was eventually able to talk Trump out of the plan, leading Trump to pivot to instead refusing entry to asylum seekers. Nielsen allegedly tried in vain to explain to Trump that migrants from Central America are legally allowed to apply for asylum.

Monday’s articles echo earlier reports from NBC News that Nielsen’s resignation Sunday night was largely due to Trump pressuring her to resume the separation of parents from their children at the border. Trump argued family separation was the most effective deterrent, while Nielsen reminded him he had already signed an executive order ending the practice, according to NBC.

The family-separation policy led to sharp and bipartisan backlash last year, with even some of Trump’s strongest allies decrying it before the president backtracked and ended the practice.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller is reportedly pushing him to remove further senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, including Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Lee Cissna, and the department’s general counsel, John Mitnick.

The White House and DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Left-wingers are busing Arabs to the polls in droves — for real this time

Playing on Netanyahu’s warning about Arab citizens of Israel voting in the last elections, a grassroots campaign raises tens of thousands of shekels to bring Bedouin from unrecognized villages to the polls — not quite in droves, but mini-bus by mini-bus.

Illustrative photo of an Israeli bus driving along an unpaved road in the Negev/Naqab desert. (Zoe Vayer/Flash90)

Illustrative photo of an Israeli bus driving along an unpaved road in the Negev/Naqab desert. (Zoe Vayer/Flash90)

On Election Day in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu sent a video to his supporters warning that “Arabs are heading to the polls in droves, and left-wing organizations are bringing them in buses.” This Tuesday, his then-baseless exhortation will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

More than 1,400 Israelis have donated tens of thousands of shekels to a crowdfunded initiative to bus to the polls Bedouin citizens of Israel who live in unrecognized villages in the Negev desert (Naqab, in Arabic).

[tmwinpost]

Get-out-the-vote efforts are par for the course for nearly every party in nearly every democratic country these days. In the United States, both major parties field volunteers to drive voters to the polls. Even Netanyahu’s warning about droves of Arab voters was a scare tactic meant to push his voters off the couch and to the ballot box. Turnout is almost always a deciding factor in elections, and motivation to vote is a driving force in turnout.

The campaign to bus Bedouin voters, however, was designed to solve a different problem. So-called unrecognized Bedouin villages, where tens of thousands of Israeli citizens live, do not have the most basic infrastructure most developed nations afford their citizens. They do not have running water, electricity, sewage, paved roads, public transportation — and no polling places.

Anyone living in an unrecognized Bedouin village who wants to vote must travel significant distances in order to do so in most cases. And without a car, it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to pull off.

The initiative, which is being fully funded by a crowdfunding campaign run by “Zazim,” an Israeli grassroots organizing group akin to MoveOn, and the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages of Negev, is expected to bring between 6,000 and 10,000 Bedouin voters to the polls on Tuesday.

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According to Zazim’s website, as of Sunday morning the campaign had raised enough money to hire at least 40 mini-buses and all-terrain vans that can ferry as many as 15 voters at a time between their villages and polling places.

“A high percentage of people in unrecognized villages don’t show up to vote simply because they don’t have a way to,” estimated Atia al-Asam, head of the informal unrecognized villages council, which as part of the campaign mapped out what the villagers need to make it to the polls on Tuesday.

“The polling places are only in recognized villages,” al-Asam explained, adding that some are forced to travel up to 70 kilometers (over 40 miles). He believes it is the lack of transportation that makes most Bedouin residents of the unrecognized villages stay home on Election Day.

The state has an obligation to enable its citizens to vote, al-Asam said. “Why don’t they put polling places in the unrecognized villages where there are schools? It would solve the problem.”

“We don’t tell people whom to vote for,” al-Asam emphasized, “the point is that they vote.”

At Zazim, the message was more political, inasmuch as the legitimacy of Arab votes and voters has been politicized in Israel.

“In the 2015 elections, Netanyahu tried to present Arab citizens’ votes as a threat but the real threat to democracy is the worsening incitement against 20 percent of [Israeli citizens],” Zazim’s executive director, Raluka Ganea said, referring to the more-than 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel.

“Our initiative is the grassroots answer to that incitement, Ganea added. “Our community is extending its hand in solidarity to the Bedouin citizens of the Negev, and is sending a clear message to all Arab citizens: your voice counts to us.”

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

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