In keeping with a recent trend of abandoning key tenets of its stated mission, State Department is rewriting its statement of purpose without any mention of promoting “justice” and “democracy.” According to internal State Department emails obtained by the Washington Post, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered the department to redefine its stated mission. A draft that was circulated within the department on Friday read, “We promote the security, prosperity, and interests of the American people globally” and said the department will strive to “lead America’s foreign policy through global advocacy, action and assistance to shape a safer, more prosperous world.” This contrasts with the department’s mission statement from…

Replacing torches with candles and hate with hope, thousands gathered across the United States Wednesday night to mourn the death of Heather Heyer and stand peacefully against the violence perpetrated by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend. “There seem to be way more people with candles here at UVA than there were white supremacists here Friday. Candles instead of torches. This is Charlottesville.” —Nora NeusAt the University of Virginia (UVA), the same place white supremacists rallied and chanted racist slogans, hundreds came together for an impromptu candlelight vigil, which was initially “kept secret to prevent it from becoming a media circus and, more important, to keep the white supremacists from…

While several of Texas’ Southeastern cities are still enduring the heavy floods caused by Hurricane Harvey, immigrant advocates and undocumented residents breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday night, when a federal district court temporarily halted a new state law that would ban sanctuary cities, just two days before it was scheduled to take effect. “Senate Bill 4 would have led to rampant discrimination and made communities less safe.”—Lee Gerlernt, ACLU In San Antonio, federal district court judge Orlando Garcia granted a temporary injunction, striking down most of Texas Senate Bill 4, or SB4, which would have required local law enforcement officers to carry out federal immigration law. Critics have…

“At this point, who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?” “Out of all the awful things Trump has done, his base seems most upset about allowing model citizen immigrants brought to US as kids to stay.” —Adam BestThat was right-wing anti-immigrant provocateur Ann Coulter’s furious reaction Thursday to reports that President Donald Trump had reached a deal with Democrats to protect young immigrants by acting quickly to “enshrine the protections of [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] into law.” As Common Dreams reported, Trump denied having reached such an agreement, but that didn’t stop his most fervent backers from collectively freaking out over the possibility that the president had undercut their deepest nationalistic…

The woman whose reported affair with Pennsylvania Rep. Tim MurphyTim MurphyBiden receives endorsements from three swing-district Democrats A federal abortion law might be needed Female Dems see double standard in Klobuchar accusations MORE (R) led to his resignation allegedly threatened to kill her husband in 2016, the Tribune Review reported Friday. Shannon Edwards, the 33-year-old psychologist who is running for the Republican nomination to mount a bid against Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) in a neighboring district, was accused by her husband of drunkenly attacking him in 2016 and threatening to kill him. A judge granted him a temporary restraining order. ADVERTISEMENT Edwards’s husband, Jesse Sally, is now seeking divorce in a sealed…

Illinois congressional candidate Benjamin Thomas Wolf, a former FBI employee who has become known as the “cannabis candidate,” has been accused of past physical abuse and misrepresenting his resume. Wolf, a progressive candidate running in the Democratic primary to unseat Rep. Mike QuigleyMichael (Mike) Bruce QuigleyDemocrats call for probe into ouster of State Dept. watchdog Bipartisan lawmakers call for global ‘wet markets’ ban amid coronavirus crisis EPA defends suspension of pollution monitoring in letter to Congress MORE (D) in a district near Chicago, is facing scrutiny after a former girlfriend who interned for his campaign accused him of being emotionally and physically abusive. Katarina Coates, a student at DePaul University, told Politico…

While President Donald Trump on Wednesday asserted from a podium in Indianapolis that his tax plan was “more fair for everyday Americans,” a chorus of voices quickly derided the new, detail-short proposal as “wealth-fare,” a “cruel joke,” a “plan that only the superrich and giant corporations could love,” and like “Christmas morning for tax cheats.” The president’s plan includes slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent; capping the individual rate—now 39.6 percent—at 35 percent; cutting the so-called “pass-through” rate by a third; and eliminating entirely the estate tax. “This isn’t tax reform; this is simply tax cuts for rich people.” —Josh Bivens and Hunter Blair, EPI…

In order to lift the burden of debt on millions of students and unleash the potential of current and futute generations, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declared on Tuesday night that the time is now “to make public colleges and universities tuition free” in the United States. “Each and every American must be able to get the education they need to match their skills and fulfill their dreams.”   —Sen. Bernie Sanders In the speech, delivered at Castleton University in his home state of Vermont, Sanders called for all U.S. students, regardless of background or ambitions, to have access to higher education that would not saddle them with loans. “It’s time…

Legendary civil rights activist, singer, and actor Harry Belafonte took the stage over the weekend at what he said would be his last public appearance and issued a stark warning about what he thinks may be in store for America. Electing Donald Trump was a mistake, he said, “and I think the next mistake might very well be the gas chamber and what happened to Jews [under] Hitler is not too far from our door,” the Guardian reports him as saying. Ninety-year-old Belafonte, who recently said he thinks “the nation is at the crossroads of probably our most challenging moment in history,” was speaking on “Civil Rights and Black Leadership”…

As the United Nations climate conference known as COP23 drew to a close on Friday, leaders from the global climate justice movement called for greater ambition to make the necessary transition away from fossil fuels. “Our job is to get out there and demand the fossil free world that science and justice demand.”—Jamie Henn, 350.orgThe two-week summit in Bonn, Germany (but presided over by Fiji) saw delegates from nearly 200 countries work towards creating a “rulebook” for implementing the Paris climate accord, while protesters on the sidelines drew attention to the urgency of the crisis and its already-felt impacts on communities. As one indigenous activist at the conference said: “Life…