SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Statement on Democrats' Virginia Shellacking
WASHINGTON
The following is a joint statement from the Battle Born Collective, Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, and United We Dream Action:
"We told you so. Literally. What happened in Virginia is what happens when Democrats fail to take on the GOP's divide-and-conquer racism and motivate people to turn out. The McAuliffe campaign had no comprehensive pro-worker economic message against a literal private equity magnate. It had no positive message on what the next four years would be like for Virginians. It had no rebuttal to Republican race-baiting bullshit. Put simply: it was a campaign designed to fail. <
"Terry McAuliffe ran the milquetoast campaign he wanted to run--where every other word he uttered was "Donald Trump" instead of focusing on the issues voters cared about the most. The DC establishment consolidated support behind their one-time rainmaker and in doing so sidelined two potentially history-making Black women running for the same office. There should be no questions or scapegoats about why specific demographics didn't turn out. Terry McAuliffe offered an uninspired return to yesterday, while voters were focused on what must come next.
"This was a controlled experiment for what NOT to do in 2022. This is what it looks like when Democrats get caught flat-footed and let Republicans dictate the terms of the debate by manufacturing a fake "education crisis." It does not have to be this way. There is still time to adopt an inclusive economic message that crowds out racist dog whistles. There is still time to go on offense and fight for the very voters who powered Democratic victories in 2020.
"This should be a wake up call for Democrats: Give people something to vote for or watch yourselves become the very thing they resoundingly vote against."
Justice Democrats is recruiting and supporting progressive Democrats all over the country, starting with Congress. We're working to transform the Democratic Party while building independent power. We do this by running primary challengers against out-of-touch Democratic incumbents and organizing to hold the party accountable to our issues.
(865) 408-7313LATEST NEWS
Amnesty International Defiant After Russia Dubs It 'Undesirable Organization'
"We will not give in to the threats and will continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination."
May 19, 2025
A decade after Amnesty International warned that "Russia is set to bolster an ongoing draconian crackdown which is squeezing the life out of civil society by adopting the 'undesirable organizations' law," Russian authorities on Monday hit the human rights group with that designation.
Amnesty is a longtime Kremlin critic. Shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Febraury 2022, Russia blocked the London-based group's Russian-language website and shut down its Moscow office.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office on Monday announced Amnesty's new desigantion, claiming that "they justify crimes committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, call for an increase in their funding, and insist on Russia's political and economic isolation," as Russia's state-owned news agency TASSsummarized.
"You must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you."
Responding in a Monday statement, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general, said that "this decision is part of the Russian government's broader effort to silence dissent and isolate civil society. In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed, or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked, or forced to self-censor, and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated, you must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you."
"The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by labelling our organization 'undesirable' we will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations—quite the opposite," she stressed. "We will not give in to the threats and will continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will keep documenting and speaking worldwide about the war crimes committed in Ukraine by Russia. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russia's egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad."
"We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience detained for standing up for human rights or for the repeal of repressive laws that prevent people in Russia from speaking up against injustice," Callamard continued. "We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine, or elsewhere, face justice. Put simply, no authoritarian assault will silence our fight for justice. Amnesty will never give up or back down in its fight for upholding human rights in Russia and beyond."
According toThe Associated Press:
Russia’s list of "undesirable organizations" currently covers 223 entities, including prominent independent news outlets and rights groups. Among those are prominent news organizations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Russian independent outlet Meduza, think tanks like Chatham House, anti-corruption group Transparency International, and Open Russia, an opposition group founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled tycoon who became an opposition figure.
After Open Russia was declared undesirable in 2021 and disbanded to protect its members, its leader, Andrei Pivovarov, was arrested and convicted on charges of carrying out activities of an undesirable organization. He was sentenced to four years in prison and released in 2024 in the largest prisoner exchange with the West since Soviet times.
The move against Amnesty notably comes as U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. After speaking with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday, Trump said that the two countries "will immediately start negotiations."
Trump, in his post on Truth Social, highlighted opportunities for the U.S. to trade with both Russia and Ukraine, as well as the newly elected American pope's offer to host the negotiations at the Vatican. The president also said that he called key European leaders following the call with Putin.
Like Putin, Trump has generated concern by cracking down on dissent. As Common Dreamsreported Monday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University led a letter that the coalition wrote "to sound a collective, unified alarm about the Trump administration's multifront assault on First Amendment freedoms, and to call on leaders of civic and other major institutions—including universities, media organizations, law firms, and businesses—to stand more resolutely in defense of these freedoms that are integral to our democracy."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Groups Raise Alarm Over First US City's Broad Use of Facial Recognition Tracking
"This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about," said one civil liberties campaigner.
May 19, 2025
Amid a Washington Post investigation and pushback from civil liberties defenders, New Orleans police recently paused their sweeping—and apparently unlawful—use without public oversight of a private network of over 200 surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology to track and arrest criminal suspects.
On Monday, the Postpublished an exposé detailing how the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) relied on real-time facial recognition technology provided by Project NOLA, a nonprofit organization operating out of the University of New Orleans, to locate and apprehend suspects.
"Facial recognition technology poses a direct threat to the fundamental rights of every individual and has no place in our cities."
Project NOLA's website says the group "operates the largest, most cost-efficient, and successful networked [high definition] crime camera program in America, which was created in 2009 by criminologist Bryan Lagarde to help reduce crime by dramatically increasing police efficiency and citizen awareness."
The Post's Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Schaffer described Project NOLA as "a surveillance method without a known precedent in any major American city that may violate municipal guardrails around use of the technology."
As MacMillan and Schaffer reported:
Police increasingly use facial recognition software to identify unknown culprits from still images, usually taken by surveillance cameras at or near the scene of a crime. New Orleans police took this technology a step further, utilizing a private network of more than 200 facial recognition cameras to watch over the streets, constantly monitoring for wanted suspects and automatically pinging officers' mobile phones through an app to convey the names and currentlocations of possible matches.
This, despite a 2022 municipal law limiting police use of facial recognition. That ordinance reversed the city's earlier outright ban on the technology and was criticized by civil liberties advocates for dropping a provision that required permission from a judge or magistrate commissioner prior to use.
"This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about," Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told the Post. "This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone—for that matter, everyone—as we go about our lives walking around in public."
Since 2023, Project NOLA—which was paused last month amid the Post's investigation—has contributed to dozens of arrests. Proponents including NOPD and city officials credit the collaboration with Project NOLA for a decrease in crime in the city that had the nation's highest homicide rate as recently as 2022. Project NOLA has even been featured in the true crime series "Real Time Crime."
New Orleans Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said in an email last month that she is "sure that the use of [Project NOLA] meets all the requirements of the law and policies."
However, critics point to racial bias in facial recognition algorithms, which disproportionately misidentify racial minorities, as a particular cause for concern. According to one landmark federal study published in 2019, Black, Asian, and Native American people were up to 100 times likelier to be misidentified by facial recognition algorithms than white people.
The ACLU said in a statement that Project NOLA "supercharges the risks":
Consider Randal Reid, for example. He was wrongfully arrested based on faulty Louisiana facial recognition technology, despite never having set foot in the state. The false match cost him his freedom, his dignity, and thousands of dollars in legal fees. That misidentification happened based on a still image run through a facial recognition search in an investigation.
"We cannot ignore the real possibility of this tool being weaponized against marginalized communities, especially immigrants, activists, and others whose only crime is speaking out or challenging government policies," ACLU of Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms said. "These individuals could be added to Project NOLA's watchlist without the public's knowledge, and with no accountability or transparency on the part of the police departments."
"Facial recognition technology poses a direct threat to the fundamental rights of every individual and has no place in our cities," Odoms asserted. "We call on the New Orleans Police Department and the city of New Orleans to halt this program indefinitely and terminate all use of live-feed facial recognition technology."
Keep ReadingShow Less
In 'Call to Duty' for 'Civic Courage,' Free Speech Champions Challenge Trump Assault on Key Rights
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions."
May 19, 2025
In an open letter on Monday, seven leading free speech organizations in the United States warned that the capitulation of universities and other institutions to President Donald Trump's demands for suppressed speech affect not just those organizations, their employees, and their students—but the state of U.S. democracy itself.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University spearheaded the letter that was signed by the ACLU, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, and Reporters Without Borders USA.
"If First Amendment freedoms are compromised, our democracy will be compromised, too," wrote the groups. "Democracy and free speech are inextricably linked. If we are to govern ourselves, we must be able to inquire, speak, write, associate, and protest without fear of governmental retaliation."
It followed several recent victories for some international students who have been arrested for expressing opposition to the United States' support for Israel. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was marked for deportation and sent thousands of miles away from her home in Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana for writing an op-ed calling on her school to divest from companies benefiting from Israel's assault on Gaza—and was released earlier this month, with a judge saying her detention was a clear assault on the First Amendment.
"If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri was released from immigration detention in Texas last week; he was apparently targeted by the Trump administration for his support for Palestinian rights and because his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, was a former adviser to a Hamas leader. Yousef has publicly condemned Hamas' October 2023 attacks.
Columbia graduate Mohsen Mahdawi wore a keffiyeh over his robe at commencement on Monday in solidarity with Palestinians—and received a standing ovation—less than a month after he was freed from detention. He had also been marked for deportation for organizing pro-Palestinian protests.
But another Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, remains in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana more than two months after being accosted at his campus apartment along with his pregnant wife and hustled into an unmarked car by immigration agents for his role in last year's pro-Palestinian protests.
The open letter on Monday did not mention Columbia University by name, but condemned universities and organizations that have capitulated to the White House.
Columbia trustees allegedly collaborated with ICE to detain Khalil, and when threatened with the revocation of $400 million in federal grants and contract, agreed to take a number of steps the Trump administration claimed were aimed at "fighting antisemitism." The school agreed to impose a ban on masks, appointed an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hire "special officers" with the authority to swiftly remove people from campus.
"The logic that leads even powerful institutions to compromise or submit in these circumstances is of course easy to understand," reads the open letter. "But when one institution 'bends the knee,' its peers face increased pressure to do the same. Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous. We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened."
Along with its attacks on higher education, the Trump administration has targeted major law firms—terminating their federal contracts and limiting their employees from entering federal buildings—in retaliation for their representation of his political opponents.
Some law firms have filed legal challenges against the president—and won—but others, including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have negotiated with the administration, offering pro bono legal services and promising to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
"These actions call for a forceful, uncompromising response. Some institutions have countered in exactly this way, to their credit," wrote the free speech groups on Monday. "It has been disheartening, however, to see so many others capitulating to the administration's unconstitutional demands rather than asserting their rights."
The letter also condemned the Trump administration's decision to bar legal scholars from providing information to the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; its rule banningThe Associated Press from White House press briefings for its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump's chosen name, the "Gulf of America"; and the Federal Communications Commission's threat to revoke the licenses of TV and radio networks if the president disagrees with their news coverage.
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions," reads the letter. "If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, warned that "First Amendment freedoms will wither if institutional leaders don't assert and defend them."
"This letter is meant to be a call to duty," he said, "and to civic courage.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular