March 1, 2018 – Bridge Agents

The NRA’s journey from marksmanship to political brinkmanship

March 1, 2018 Bridge Agents

United States (Conversation) – The mass shooting on Valentine’s Day in Parkland, Florida, ripped at the hearts of Americans in a way perhaps not seen or felt since the Sandy Hook Elementary School bloodshed in Newtown, Connecticut six years earlier. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who witnessed their classmates’ deaths reacted by becoming outspoken gun control advocates. They are blaming the National Rifle Association for thwarting stronger gun laws that might have prevented this tragedy and many others. Many Americans, especially teens, agree with them. But so far,…

US: Freezing Cells for Detained Migrants

March 1, 2018 Bridge Agents

(HRW) – United States border agents routinely hold families, including infants, in freezing cells when it takes them into custody at or near the border, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 44-page report, “In the Freezer: Abusive Conditions for Women and Children in US Immigration Holding Cells,” is based on interviews with 110 women and children. Human Rights Watch found that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents routinely separate adult men and teenage boys from other family members. The practice runs counter to agency policy…

As Afrin burns, where is the left?

March 1, 2018 Bridge Agents

Syria (OpenDemocracy) – The unofficial motto of the Kurdish people is, as countless opinion pieces have reminded us recently, Kurds have no friends but the mountains. They make strategic alliances with great powers from time to time; but these, predictably enough, tend to end in betrayal. The vagaries of realpolitik do not lend themselves to lasting friendship. What is less predictable is the lack of support the Kurds have received from progressives. Turkey’s invasion of Afrin should be bringing the international left out onto the streets of all major capitals. Protesters…