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This week on CounterSpin: Listeners may have heard that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott installed barrels wrapped in razor wire in some parts of the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing and harm those that try. As revealed by the Houston Chronicle, Texas troopers have been ordered to push people back into the river, and to deny them water. The cruelty is obvious; the Department of Justice is talking about suing.
But there are other ways for immigration policy to be inhumane. Advocates have long declared that Biden’s asylum restrictions (which look a lot like Trump’s asylum restrictions) are not just harmful but unlawful. And a federal judge has just agreed. We learn about that from a participant in the case, Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies.
Transcript: ‘People Have to Be Able to Access the Asylum Process, Regardless of Manner of Entry’
Also on the show: In October 2017, the New York Times ran a story headlined “Why the Athletic Wants to Pillage Newspapers,” that began, “By the time you finish reading this article, the upstart sports news outlet called the Athletic probably will have hired another well-known sportswriter from your local newspaper.” In January 2022, the Times bought the Athletic for $550 million, saying that “as a stand-alone product…the Athletic is a great complement to the Times.”
It’s now July 2023, and the New York Times has announced it’s shutting down its sports desk, outsourcing that reporting to…the Athletic. Dave Zirin joins us to talk about that; he’s sports editor at The Nation, host of the Edge of Sports podcast, and author of many books, including A People’s History of Sports in the United States.
Transcript: ‘The Athletic Is the Negation of Local Sports Coverage’
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at some recent press coverage of Europe’s economy.
“Those whose intent was to enter illegally” are poor and desperate human beings, many fleeing chaos, violence and war that you cannot even imagine. The US government and border states are working hard to ensure those ordinary, working class people stay in their own countries to live or die out of sight of the American people. Much of the severe and increasing problems in Central America are directly or indirectly caused by the actions of the USA and its wealthy capitalist class who so brutally exploit the workers to extract the wealth they create.
This bears repeating Rebecca Turner: Much of the severe and increasing problems in Central America are directly or indirectly caused by the actions of the USA and its wealthy capitalist class who so brutally exploit the workers to extract the wealth they create.
Or to put it as Valdas Anelaukas did in his book America As It Is, class is THE significant factor in US American life.
I like that word, codswallop too. I wish I had somewhere to use it.
You sound like someone who wouldn’t give two nickels for Article 13 of the UNUDHR. You don’t engage in road rage too, do you?