July, 14 2016, 02:15pm EDT
Milwaukee Marches on the GOP Convention to Stop Trump
Community members slam Scott Walker and Paul Ryan for presiding over a convention set to choose a historically racist candidate and divisive party platform
MILWAUKEE, WI
At 11pmSunday, July 17th, Milwaukee immigrant families will join dozens of students, workers, and community members in a caravan to Cleveland. There the group will join thousands expected in a 12pm permitted march on Monday to protest the Republican National Convention's nomination of Donald Trump for President and the party's platform. The march is organized by the Coalition to Stop Trump and March on the RNC.
"We must use our First Amendment rights to condemn the hatred expressed by Donald Trump and the Republican Party platform," said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera Action. "Trump's provocation to violence and total disregard for others' humanity is galvanizing white supremacists and threatens our families and communities. Trump and the Republican party's calls for the mass deportation of immigrants and their US citizen children, the banning of Muslims and closure of mosques, attacks on women's and LGBT rights, racism toward African-Americans and disregard for the real needs of working families should lead all people of good will to organize to defeat the politics of hate and division."
Many Wisconsin politicians will have a prominent role in the convention, including Governor Scott Walker and House Speaker Paul Ryan. "Paul Ryan and Scott Walker have repeatedly attacked immigrant communities, so I shouldn't be surprised they are supporting Trump," said Jose Flores, an undocumented father of 4 and member of Voces de la Frontera Action who will be in Cleveland protesting. "Scott Walker's lawsuit blocked President Obama's executive actions on immigration which would have kept families like mine together and brought hardworking immigrants into the legal economy. Paul Ryan has voted repeatedly to deport immigrant youth and parents. Still, as someone from Wisconsin I am ashamed that some of our state's most visible leaders don't have the spine to stand up to Trump, who is supported by the KKK."
Voces de la Frontera is Wisconsin's leading immigrant rights group - a grassroots organization that believes power comes from below and that people can overcome injustice to build a better world.
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More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
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While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
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The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
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This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
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A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
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Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
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