Thread by @majorityfm

#AMQuickie

In a shocking and damning move, the United States has imposed sanctions on senior officials of the International Criminal Court at the Hague.

The ICC prosecutes war criminals around the world.

The US sanctions include the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Bensouda was once justice minister of her home country, The Gambia.

Her experience in international justice includes advising a United Nations tribunal that prosecuted key figures in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda

The new sanctions allow the US to block assets of those targeted, as well as bar them from entry to the US.

So why is the US sanctioning The Hague prosecutors now? Well, it’s simple: The ICC has been investigating American war crimes in Afghanistan.

Announcing the sanctions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called those ICC investigations "illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction."

The US is one of a dozen countries including China, India, and Russia that have refused to recognize the ICC’s authority

Human Rights Watch says the sanctions mark a shameful new low for US commitments to justice for victims of the worst crimes, and a stunning perversion of US sanctions that were devised to penalize rights abusers and kleptocrats.

Instead, they will be used to harass those seeking justice for victims of war crimes.

Folks, just ask yourselves: Is this how a country operates when it has nothing to answer for, nothing to hide?

#LEFTISBEST

#AMQuickie

A Homeland Security Department official who resigned in April told NPR News that the Trump administration is fanning the flames of violence and right-wing extremism.

This won’t be news to most listeners of this program..

.. but it’s something else to hear it from a person like Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary of counterterrorism and threat prevention at DHS.

Neumann also said, unequivocally, "The threat of domestic terrorism is not from antifa."

To paraphrase Trump, put that in your soup and throw it!

#LEFTISBEST