CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights
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Roe v Wade And Recent State Abortion Legislation
In 1973 in the famous Roe versus Wade case the US Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s right to obtain an abortion was protected under the US Constitution.
The core holding in Roe, which remains the law today, is that the government may not prohibit a woman from obtaining an abortion prior to fetal viability and may do so after viability as long as abortion may be available to protect a woman’s life and health.
A woman’s right to make childbearing decisions is in essential part of women’s overall equality. Recent legislation in Ohio bans abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. Kentucky and Mississippi have similar laws and 10 other states are considering them.
Will the Supreme Court take the Ohio case as an opportunity and use it to overturn the 45-year-old Roe versus Wade decision?
Guest – Dr. Vicki Breitbart in the last 40 years, Dr. Breitbart has worked as an educator, researcher, and activist, dedicated to sexual and reproductive justice. Presently, she is an Associate Professor at NYU Silver School of Social Work. Previously, she served as the Director of the graduate program in Health Advocacy at Sarah Lawrence College and has taught at Columbia and CUNY Schools of Public Health. She worked at Planned Parenthood of New York City for over 15 years in various roles including Senior Vice President and Director of the Clinician Training Initiative.
Guest – Lizzy Watson is a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project at the ACLU’s national office in New York. She litigates cases to defend the right to abortion and contraception for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, economic status, gender identity, or geographic location. Prior to joining the ACLU she provided legal services to low income individuals at the Homeless Action Center in Berkeley, CA.
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Recent United States Aggression Toward Cuba
The United States of America has ratcheted up its ongoing 60 year effort to overthrow the elected government of Cuba and restore an American dominated corporate capitalism to the island. This effort was relaxed a bit under the Obama Administration. That all has changed, dollar remittances from Cubans living in the U.S. to their relatives in Cuba have been drastically cut. Travel to Cuba by Americans which has been considerable is virtually banned.
The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 which was meant to strangle the Cuban economy wasn’t fully enforced until recently. Under the guidance of the ultra-right wing National Security Adviser John Bolton. A 23 year old dormant version of the Helms Burton Act has been invoked. It now allows Cubans who live in America to sue the government of Cuba in American courts to get back their estates, businesses and property holdings which were legally nationalized under the 1959 revolution.
This new aggression is meant to cause such severe hardship to the Cuban people that they will be willing to allow their government to be overthrown.
Guest – Walter Lippmann, editor of the Cuba News Yahoo News Group.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Climate Change, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, War Resister
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Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air
Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air is the title of the just published book by our own Michael Steven Smith. It profiles the some of the nation’s most effective agents of social change. Michael discusses how he came to write this book and previews several of the lawyers profiled therein.
As Chris Hedges quotes “The lawyers in this book valiantly fought the erosion of justice and assault on the court system.”
Portside Review by Bill Ayers:
Now open Michael Steven Smith’s smart and compelling Lawyers for the Left, and you’ll find yourself plunged into the contradictions and swirling through the vortex where that question—what is the law?—is on everyone’s mind all the time. It takes on a unique urgency and a fresh vitality as it’s debated case by case and issue by issue by these committed advocates battling against a system they see as deeply and unfairly stacked against their clients—Black freedom fighters, Puerto Rican independistas, Indigenous and immigrant rights activists, women warriors, anti-war militants, water defenders, dissidents and radicals. None of the lawyers you’ll meet here holds fast to the traditional view that the law is simply a civilized mechanism for resolving disputes in an intelligent and reasoned way. They agree, rather, that any honest analysis of the law begins elsewhere, noting that in all times and in all places, the law is constructed in the service of whatever social/economic system created it. In other words, the law is a mechanism of control that works to protect and perpetuate existing social relations.
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Necessity Defense Upheld In Climate Change Case
In a rare and heartening victory for climate change activists, a Washington state appeals court recently overturned the conviction of a man who employed the so-called necessity defense.
Activist Ken Ward said he had no alternative but to break into a pipeline facility to save the planet from global warming. While several lawyers and clients have presented this strategy in court, it is rarely allowed to proceed.
That’s because in most courts, including federal appeals courts, protesters are unable to meet the threshold burden of showing their actions were in reaction to an imminent threat, like fire chief Steve McQueen blowing up a skyscraper’s water tank to put out a fire in the film The Towering Inferno.
But in his April 8 decision, Judge David Mann ruled that Ward, quote, “reasonably believed the crimes he committed were necessary to minimize the harms that he perceived.”
Last year, Law and Disorder reported on how a Boston prosecutor reduced charges against 13 pipeline protesters who planned to mount a necessity defense, eliminating the possibility of a trial. Even so, West Roxbury Judge Mary Ann Driscoll still found them not guilty for reason of necessity.
In the Washington case, the Court of Appeals reversed the burglary conviction of Ken Ward, saying the trial court judge had violated his Sixth Amendment rights by refusing to allow him to present a “necessity defense” to the jury.
Guest – Ted Hamilton, co-founder and staff attorney of the Climate Defense Center. Ted has studied comparative literature and philosophy at Cornell and Yale, and written about books, politics, and climate change for a variety of publications. During law school he focused on protest defense and growing the climate movement through involvement in the Harvard divestment campaign and internships with the Civil Liberties Defense Center and Climate Disobedience Center.
Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Attorney James Goodale On Julian Assange Arrest
Last week, at the behest of the U.S. government, police entered the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested Julian Assange on charges of espionage. This case promises to threaten the First Amendment rights of all journalists. We’re honored to have one of the nation’s foremost authorities on First Amendment law, Attorney James Goodale. In the April edition of the Atlantic, he wrote an article titled, Why Julian Assange deserves First Amendment Protection.
Listeners may recall that last fall, a court filing inadvertently suggested that the Justice Department had indicted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other outlets reported soon after that Assange had likely been secretly indicted for conspiring with his sources to publish classified government material and hacked documents belonging to the Democratic National Committee, among other things.
Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006 to provide a place for newsworthy information to be confidentially released. The site came gained prominence when Assange obtained thousands of classified documents relating to the Iraq War from US Army soldier Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning.
Guest – Attorney James C. Goodale has represented The New York Times in four of its cases to go to the Supreme Court: the Pentagon Papers case (The New York Times Co. v. The U.S.), The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (libel), Branzburg v. Hayes (see below) and The New York Times Co. v. Tasini, (digital rights). He developed the argument that the Espionage Act does not apply to publishers or the press.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. Government could not stop the Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, holding that prior restraints were barred by the First Amendment unless the publication “will surely result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage to our Nation or its people.” He became known as the “father of the reporter’s privilege.” A prolific writer, he has written two books on the First Amendment, The New York Times v. The U.S. and All About Cable, and approximately 200 articles, particularly on the role of the press in the Information Revolution.
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Al Otro Lado and the Border Crisis
United States President Donald Trump said that we have a “crisis” on the border. He called it an “infestation” and said that “These aren’t people. These are animals.” Last week he fired Kirstjen Nielsen who as the head of the Department for Homeland Security pursued the most aggressive enforcement strategy of any secretary in the history of the organization. Nielsen and the Trump administration has separated children from their parents and instituted an illegal turn back policy using tactics to restrict the numbers of asylum-seekers who want to access the asylum process at points of entry like Tijuana and El Paso.
Tactics used by the administration include lies, intimidating coercion, verbal abuse, physical force, out right denial of access, unreasonable delay, threats, and family separation. The Center for Constitution Rights is currently representing Al Otro Lado, a legal and human rights organization that helps migrants at the border. They are challenging the U S. Customs and Border Patrol on its turnaround policy in a pending lawsuit.
Last month CCR’s chairwoman of the board and Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke met six students in Tijuana Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California, to advise migrants on what they will face in the hands of US legal authorities.
- Al Otro Lado provides essential legal support to migrants to prepare them for the asylum process in the U.S. You can support here.
- Santa Fe Dreamers also provides free legal support to immigrants, with a particular focus on transgender immigrants.
- Please visit this site if you are interested in contributing to the parole/bail fund for detainees.
- If you are interested in serving as a sponsor for an asylum seeker.
- This video offers a very good portrait of the situation at Chaparral where La Lista is maintained and asylum seekers wait for their number to be called.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Franke, is the Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Columbia University, where she also directs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law and is the faculty director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project (Formerly the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project). She is a member of the Executive Committee for the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, and the Center for Palestine Studies. She is among the nation’s leading scholars writing on law, religion and rights, drawing from feminist, queer, and critical race theory.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Misuse of Grand Juries And The Prosecution Of Chelsea Manning
The Trump administration wants to prosecute the news organization Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. In order to do so they have recently jailed whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been in solitary confinement since March 8th, 2019 in hopes to squeeze her to get testimony that could be used against Assange. Prolonged solitary confinement is a form of torture.
Chelsea Manning has refused to answer questions of the Government Prosecutor in front of a grand jury. In 2010 Chelsea Manning, then in the Army, released documents to WikiLeaks known as the Iraq War Logs. One of them was a video showing a U.S. Apache attack helicopter killing 12 people, including two Reuters journalists, two children and a passerby who stopped his van to rescue the wounded. She maintains that there’s nothing new to be learned and that she’s already given full testimony.
Chelsea Manning was convicted and served 7 years of a 35 year sentence before her sentence was commuted by Barack Obama. The prosecution of WikiLeaks for accepting leaked secret documents is a threat to press freedom and would criminalize journalism. The government is trying to frame Assange charging him with actively colluding with Manning, not just being a passive recipient of the leak. Historically grand juries have been misused in order to suppress political dissent.
Write to Chelsea Manning in solitary confinement:
Chelsea Manning
Ao181426
William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Rd.
Alexandria, VA 22314
Guest – Attorney Michael Deutsch, an expert on the misuse of grand juries. He is a partner in the Chicago law firm The People’s Law Office and a former director of litigation at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He has represented political activists and victims of government repression. Among his clients have been the Attica prisoners in the 1971 uprising, Puerto Rican independence fighters, members of the black liberation movement, grand jury resistors, and Palestinians falsely accused of terrorism.
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The Brooklyn Folk Festival April 2019
In the political radicalizations and social upheaval’s within the United States of America in the 30s and again in the 60s, we saw an increased interest in folk music. This phenomenon is repeating itself today. We speak today with Eli Smith, the producer of the Brooklyn Folk Festival. He is a banjo player, a folklorist, and a member of the string band The Downhill Strugglers. The Brooklyn Folk Festival is the largest of its type in the country and is now in its 11th year. It takes place in Brooklyn Heights at the historic Saint Ann’s Church this April.
Guest – Eli Smith, a musician, producer and activist from Brooklyn, who has helped organize the event. Eli Smith is also a folklorist and music producer who organizes the annual “Brooklyn Folk Festival.”
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U.S. Appeals Court Opens Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Case
In 2016, the United States appeals court re-instituted the Abu Ghraib prison abuse case against a private military contractor CACI. Since that time, the plaintiffs have had multiple victories.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is representing the abused prisoners. CCR‘s legal director Baher Azmy said “There is no question that torture is unlawful under domestic, military, and international law. The only issue in this case is whether CACI Will be held accountable – or treated with impunity – for its role in torture at Abu Ghraib. Now, the case is set for trial in Alexandria, Virginia on April 23.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Gallagher filed the case nearly 11 years ago and she is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Katherine works on universal jurisdiction and international criminal law cases involving U.S. and foreign officials and torture and other war crimes, and cases involving private military corporations and torture at Abu Ghraib. Her major cases include Al Shimari v. CACI, the international U.S. torture accountability cases, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) v. Vatican, seeking accountability for the crimes against humanity of sexual violence by clergy and cover-up.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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U.S. Peace Council Returns From Venezuela
The Trump administration is attempting to illegally overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela and its president Nicolas Maduro.
The effort is being led by Trump’s recently appointed envoy Elliot Abrams, the notorious convicted perjurer who was complicit during the Reagan Administration in the massacre and cover up of the mass slaughter of indigenous people in central America.
John Bolton is working alongside Abrams. He recently showed the American government’s intent by flashing a hand written sign on a yellow pad stating “5000 troops to Venezuela.“ Showing his contempt for international law, he famously said that if the top part of the United Nations building was lopped off it would not make any difference.
So far the United States has been unable to topple all the Venezuelan government. Unable to win over the Venezuelan military the United States is now embargoing Venezuela, which is a form of a medieval siege, aimed at depriving Venezuelans of food and medicine. The U.S. government and its ally Great Britain have frozen Venezuelan assets held abroad and prevented trade with the country, whose economy has shrunk dramatically.
The United States has secured support for it’s coup attempt from the right wing governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile as well as the countries of the European Union.
Guest – Ajamu Baraka has recently returned from Venezuela. He is on the steering committee of the US Peace Council, which organized the trip. Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace, writes for the Black Agenda Report, and was the 2016 Green party candidate for vice president.
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Reprieve: UK Human Rights Group
A year after the death penalty was abolished in the United Kingdom, in 1999, human rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith founded the nonprofit organization Reprieve. Smith has represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in the southern United States and has helped secure the release of 65 Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and others internationally who claim that the United States government has tortured them.
Reprieve currently works to represent 15 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, as well as an evolving caseload of death row clients around the world. It investigates international complicity in extraordinary renditions, and has recently started working in Pakistan with the Foundation for Fundamental Rights to begin discussions on the use of drones there.
Guest – Katie Taylor, a Deputy Director at Reprieve who coordinates the Life After Guantanamo Project. Katie has worked at WarChild UK and in Palestine on human and childrens’ rights issues for several local and international agencies.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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My Lai Memorial Exhibit
The aggressiveness of United States war machine has killed 500,000 people since 911, caused millions of people to be displaced, and all this at a cost of some $6 trillion.
President Trump has said that “all options are on the table” regarding sending troops to Venezuela. His National Security Adviser John Bolton said that Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua are part of the “troika of tyranny ” – in the US’s gun sites. After first promising to withdraw troops from Syria, Trump has reversed himself. Troops are still fighting in Afghanistan after 19 years. Iran remains the ultimate target in the Middle East. How did our country get to the state? What was done 50 years ago in the Vietnam era by millions of American citizens which help end in 1975 the American war in that country?
March 18 marks the 51st anniversary of the infamous My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. Their American troops murdered 504 Vietnamese women, old men, children and babies. It marked a turning point in the American peoples’ revulsion and consequent mobilization against the war.
Guest – former Navy Lieutenant Susan Schnall of Veterans for Peace. She became famous in 1968 when she dropped antiwar leaflets from an airplane on navy ships in San Francisco Bay.
Guest – Mac MacDevitt – is an associate member of Chicago Veterans for Peace and Committee Chair of the My Lai Memorial Project. He is an artist, storyteller and educator who came of age and was forever changed during the Vietnam War. He was radicalized by witnessing the wounded fellow protesters, beaten by US Marshals as night fell after the March on the Pentagon in 1967. In 1981 Mac did a social work internship at the VA Hospital in White River Junction, Vermont in the psych department where he experienced vets dealing with ghosts from Vietnam and earlier wars.
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Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics
The United States is unique among advanced countries in having the greatest inequality, highest poverty rate, highest portion of its population imprisoned, and highest proportion lacking healthcare.
Victor Wallis’ new book Democracy Denied offers a succinct history of several traits unique to the nation.
It came out of a lecture series in China and presents a historically grounded perspective on these traits, including chapters on “American exceptionalism,” on U.S. imperialism, the trajectory of African-descended people in the United States, efforts to develop a socialist alternative to the dominant institutions, and the current configuration of U.S. politics.
Guest – Victor Wallis is a professor in the Liberal Arts department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. For twenty years he was the managing editor of Socialism and Democracy. He is the author of Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism (2018) and of many articles on topics related to environmentalism, social justice, and radical politics. Victor’s activism dates from the 1960s and encompasses issues ranging from U.S. foreign intervention to prisoners’ rights.
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