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For Immediate Release
August, 24 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Derrick Robinson, Lawyers’ Committee, DRobinson@LawyersCommittee.org, 202-662-8327 (o), 240-473-3034
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Applauds Reversal of Randolph County Plan to Close Polling Locations
Today, the Randolph County Board of Elections and Registration voted down a proposal to to shutter 75% of the county's polling places during the November election amid criticism that doing so would discriminate against African-Americans living there. Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law released the following statement:
"This is a victory for African American voters across Georgia who are too often subject to a relentless campaign of voter suppression.
WASHINGTON
Today, the Randolph County Board of Elections and Registration voted down a proposal to to shutter 75% of the county's polling places during the November election amid criticism that doing so would discriminate against African-Americans living there. Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law released the following statement:
"This is a victory for African American voters across Georgia who are too often subject to a relentless campaign of voter suppression.
"The defeat of this proposal also shows the power of resistance and the impact that we can have by leveraging our voices against injustice. We're pleased that the Board has seen fit to bow both to needs of the electorate and the dictates of the law and reject this poorly conceived consolidation of polling places. The right to vote is the most sacred civil right in our democracy and we stand fully prepared to defend that right throughout the midterm election cycle."
On Monday, voting rights groups sent a pre-suit demand letter to the Randolph County Board of Elections and Registration objecting to its proposal, and urging the Board to abandon the plan or risk facing legal action in federal court. The demand letter was issued by Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on behalf of the New Georgia Project, the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, and the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda.
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has a long history of fighting voter suppression in Georgia including an attempt to relocate a polling site to a hostile location in Macon-Bibb County, a purge program in Hancock County, a discriminatory exact-match policy maintained by the Georgia Secretary of State, and more.
If prospective voters have any questions about the location of their polling place in Georgia or elsewhere, they may call the national, nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE to receive assistance.
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
(202) 662-8600LATEST NEWS
NY State Judge Throws Out Terrorism Charges Against Luigi Mangione
"While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally," said the judge, "it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population.'"
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A judge in New York City on Tuesday threw out a pair of charges against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December of last year while he walked down a street in Manhattan.
Judge Gregory Carro did not throw out the entirety of the murder charges against Mangione, but said two of the most serious charges—murder in the first degree as a crime of terrorism and a second-degree charge related to terrorism—were not proven by the prosecution's case presented to a grand jury.
The judge indicated that just because Mangione may have been motivated by ideological opposition to the for-profit industry, that does not de facto make it terrorism under New York statute.
"While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’ and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal,” Carro wrote in his decision.
In addition to state charges in New York, Mangione is also facing a federal murder case over the killing of Thompson, with the federal prosecutors seeking the death penalty. The accused has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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'It Is Clear': UN Commission Finding Confirms Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza
“To do nothing is not neutrality,” said the head of the commission. “It is complicity.”
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A commission of independent experts at the United Nations on Tuesday said Western countries must stop providing military aid to Israel as it released an extensive report confirming that the Israeli government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza—joining international and Israeli human rights groups and numerous genocide experts that have come to the same conclusion in recent months.
"The commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," said the UN Commission of Inquiry, citing four of the five "genocidal acts" defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In its bombardment of Gaza, the three-member panel found, Israel has killed members of a group, caused serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicted conditions to destroy the group, and acted to prevent births.
The only genocidal act classified under the Genocide Convention that the commission did not find evidence of in Gaza was the forcible transfer of children from one group to another.
Under the Convention, committing just one or more genocidal act constitutes a genocide.
The report cited an Israeli attack on Gaza's largest fertility clinic in December 2023, which reportedly destroyed 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples and fertilized eggs, as evidence that Israel has acted to prevent Palestinian births in Gaza. More than 18,000 Palestinian children have also been killed in Israel's assault.
Navi Pillay, the commission chair and former UN high commissioner for human rights, emphasized the key finding that Israeli officials have demonstrated their "intent" to commit genocide.
"It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention," said Pillay in a statement.
The commission report cited comments by former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in October 2023, when he said Israel would impose "a complete siege" on Gaza with "no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel" entering the exclave in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.
"We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly," said Gallant at the time. The near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that resulted from his order has killed more than 400 people including at least 145 children so far, with many dying in recent months.
Gallant's comments were just one example of Israeli officials' intent to hold Gaza's entire population of 2.2 million Palestinians accountable for the actions of Hamas in October 2023. Israeli President Isaac Herzog explicitly said that the entire group was "responsible" and said there were no "civilians who were not aware and not involved" in the attack on southern Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called on Israeli soldiers to "remember what Amalek did to you," a reference to the Amalekites in the Hebrew Bible, whom God commanded the Israelites to exterminate.
"The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” Pillay said in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 65,000 Palestinians since beginning the assault on Gaza—attacking hospitals, schools, and refugee camps while claiming that Hamas operates out of civilian infrastructure. Doctors have reported operating on many children who have gunshot wounds to the head and chest—suggesting they were deliberately targeted. Israeli soldiers have also described being ordered to shoot civilians.
Pillay said in an interview with Zeteo that, under the Genocide Convention, countries are legally obligated to step in and take action to stop Israel from continuing the genocide.
"It's not a choice," said Pillay. "It's an obligation that states have under the Genocide Convention, and they are all parties to that."
In an op-ed at The New York Times, Pillay wrote: "Every state has an obligation to prevent genocide wherever it occurs. That obligation requires action: halting the transfer of weapons and military support used in genocidal acts, ensuring unimpeded humanitarian assistance, stopping the mass displacement and destruction, and using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing."
"To do nothing is not neutrality," she said. "It is complicity."
The report was released as the IDF launched a ground offensive to take control of Gaza City, killing at least 68 Palestinians in the city on Tuesday.
Forty percent of the city's residents have been forced to flee south to a coastal encampment in al-Mawasi, which has repeatedly been struck by Israeli forces despite being declared a "safe zone." Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in the tent encampment without access to sanitation, safe water, or basic services.
"They have to run out of their homes in the middle of the night with nothing other than the clothes that they’re wearing, seeking shelter towards the coast of Gaza City," reported Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud in a dispatch from Gaza City on Tuesday. "Fighter jets are hovering at a very dangerously low level in the past hour or two. The sky remains filled with the constant hum of drones, leaving residents unable to rest."
"What we are witnessing is a systematic, unfolding terror inflicted on this population," said Mahmoud. "They live in constant fear that their building will be next and they will lose everything and find themselves on the road again to displacement."
The offensive in Gaza City comes weeks after Netanyahu confirmed that his government is planning a full takeover of the Gaza Strip, defying international law.
The UN commission's findings on Tuesday could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, which has a warrant out for the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant and has accused them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.
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White House Working to Criminalize Left-Wing Dissent as 'Domestic Terror' in Wake of Kirk Murder
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," one Democratic congresswoman asserted.
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Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing "domestic terror movement" following last week's assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand's murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.
Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk's killer, members of Trump's inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.
According to The New York Times:
On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.
Appearing on the latest episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" podcast—which was guest hosted by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that "we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people."
"It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name," Miller vowed.
Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream."
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,'” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence."
Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at "people who are celebrating" Kirk's killing.
Another unnamed administration official told the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.
Vance and Miller's threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.
Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published on the National Institute for Justice's online library showing that "since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives" versus "42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives" committed by "far-left extremists."
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”The Trump DOJ scrubbed this study from their website.
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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Responding to Miller's remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted on social media that "Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection."
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller's attempt to exploit Kirk's murder, writing on the social media site Bluesky that "it's never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing."
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," she added.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted Monday on social media that Miller "has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization."
"This isn’t about crime and safety," Newsom added. "It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans."
The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said Monday on social media that "JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups."
"Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history," WFP continued. "They're dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration."
Vance and Miller "want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities," WFP added. "This isn't going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence."
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