Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams writes—Announcing Retrial, Federal Prosecutors to Continue 'Unconscionable Prosecution' of Humanitarian Scott Warren for Helping Migrants:
Federal prosecutors in Arizona announced Tuesday that they will seek a retrial in the case of humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren, who could face several years in prison for providing food, water, clean clothes, and beds to migrants in the desert.
The move by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona comes after Warren's first trial ended with a hung jury last month. The Arizona Republic reported Tuesday that "Anna Wright, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in Tucson federal court that the government would dismiss one count of conspiracy to transport or shield, but that they would seek a retrial on two counts of harboring an undocumented immigrant."
Warren—a 36-year-old college geography instructor—and two undocumented migrants were arrested in January of 2018 after Border Patrol agents set up surveillance outside "The Barn," a building in the Ajo area of Arizona where humanitarian workers provide migrants with water and other essentials. Human rights advocates worldwide have accused the Trump administration of "criminalizing compassion" with the decision to charge Warren with multiple felonies.
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QUOTATION
“They spoke very loudly when they said their laws were made for everybody; but we soon learned that although they expected us to to keep them, they thought nothing of breaking them themselves. They told us not to drink whisky, yet they made it themselves and traded it to us for furs and robes.”
~~Plenty Coups, chief of the Crow Indians (Apsáalooke)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2013—CWA's Larry Cohen: 'This is not democracy!'
In a number of actions across the country today, working families and activists will be telling the Senate it's time to confirm the five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board that Republicans have been obstructing. Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, writes about what's at stake if the NLRB positions aren't filled, and the Board is shut down.
Today, under the watch of another Democratic President and a Democratic majority in the Senate, the NLRB is now in danger of being completely stripped of its authority. The protections that workers fought and died for, already diminished by subsequent legislation and court decisions, will soon disappear if the Senate fails to confirm the president’s nominees before its summer recess. [...]
If the Senate does not act, we’ll soon be celebrating Labor Day without any labor law. Zero enforcement and no protections for 80 million American workers in the private sector.