John Raphling | Human Rights Watch and Pete White | Los Angeles Community Action Network Archives - JURIST - Commentary

Commentaries by John Raphling | Human Rights Watch and Pete White | Los Angeles Community Action Network

President Trump, Stop Treating People Who Lack Housing as Criminals

John Raphling | Human Rights Watch and Pete White | Los Angeles Community Action Network

August 14, 2025 03:31:40 pm

President Donald Trump’s July 24 executive order on reducing “vagrancy” is exactly the wrong approach to the pervasive problem of houselessness. It encourages, and funds, cities and states to treat people living in poverty and lacking housing like criminals and to confine them in involuntary, often inhumane, institutions. Trump takes this approach as his administration has [...]

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Pope Innocent VIII authorizes Germany witchcraft prosecutions

Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus on December 5, 1484, authorizing Dominican friars and witch hunters Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger to prosecute witchcraft in Germany. The prosecutions would later give rise to the 1486 publication of Kramer and Sprenger's Malleus Malificarum ("Hammer of the Witches") which prescribed torture as a way to coerce confessions out of suspected witches. Historians view the text as having promoted a misogynistic witch craze in late medieval Europe. Read the full papal bull.

21st Amendment ended Prohibition

On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, ending the ban on the legal sale and importation of alcohol that had been introduced in 1919 by the 18th Amendment. Learn how the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers helped bring about Prohibition's repeal.

Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria and South Yemen

On December 5, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke off diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria and South Yemen in response to the Declaration of Tripoli, which imposed sanctions on Eygpt. These hardline Arab nations had promulgated the Declaration in order to punish Egypt for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. In 1979, Egypt signed a formal peace treaty with Israel, leading to Sadat's assassination in 1981. Learn more from the BBC.