CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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- Attorney Jim Lafferty Commentary on Solitary Confinement
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Steven Donziger Trial Set To Begin This Week
Sixty-year-old environmental lawyer Steven Donziger has been under house arrest without trial for the last 25 months on charges that normally have a max sentence of six months. To date this is the longest sentence imposed in New York on an attorney convicted of contempt. The contempt charges are from Donziger’s refusal to give his cellphone and computer to the court. We’ve been covering Chevron’s retaliation campaign against Donziger after he helped communities in Ecuador’s Amazon win a historic $9.5 billion judgment against the oil giant. His case showed how Chevron for deliberately dumped billions of gallons of carcinogenic oil water onto Indigenous ancestral lands. The multinational corporation enlisted 60 law firms and 2,000 attorneys to block Donziger’s advocacy. In the process they bankrupted his family, and intimidated environmental activists and allies internationally.
At last, Donziger’s trial is set to begin Monday, May 10. This case offers a play-by-play account of a private oil company set out to destroy an altruistic lawyer, environmental justice, corporate accountability, Indigenous rights, and free speech.
DonzigerDefense.com
ChevronToxico.com
ChevronInEcuador.com
Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus, one of three pro bono lawyers representing Donziger in an attempt to get his law license restored. Garbus has a long and distinguished career as a civil rights and first amendment litigator.
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International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence in the US
As issues of violent policing nag at the American public’s consciousness, a new report finds the US guilty of crimes against humanity and other violations of international law. On April 27, the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence in the US Released its final Report on Racist Police Violence in the US. The report pulls together weeks of live hearings chronicling cases of people killed by police with African descent. The report also contains recommendations addressed to national and international policy makers.
The International Commission of Inquiry was organized by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the National Lawyers Guild. A distinguished panel of international legal experts from eleven countries served as Commissioners. The full 188-page document is available at the Commission’s website as are videos and transcripts from the live hearings in 44 cases.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught from 1991-2016, and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She lectures, writes, and provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media outlets. Professor Cohn has served as a news consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV, and a legal and political commentator on the BBC, CNN, NPR, and other major stations.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life And The Battle For Change
We are going to spend the entire hour with attorney Michael Tigar to discuss his just published magnificent memoir Sensing Injustice: A Lawyer’s Life And The Battle For Change.
By the time he was 26, Michael Tigar was a legend in legal circles well before he would take on some of the highest profile cases of his generation. In his first US Supreme Court case, at the age of 28, Tigar won a unanimous victory that freed thousands of Vietnam war resistors from prison. Tigar also led the legal team that secured a judgment against the Chilean Pinochet regime for the 1976 murders of dictator Pinochet opponent Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronnie Moffit in a Washington, DC car bombing.
He then worked with the lawyers who prosecuted Pinochet for torture and genocide. A relentless fighter of injustice, Tigar has been counsel for Angela Davis, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H.Rap Brown). Tigar the Chicago Eight, and leaders of the Black Panther Party, to name only a few. His book is about stories, people stories of injustice, struggle, and sometimes vindication as he put it. Michael Tigar is a magnificent storyteller with a dry wit and a prodigious memory. Monthly Review link to Sensing Injustice
Guest – Constitutional attorney Michael Tigar, professor emeritus from The Washington College of Law and has taught at the University of Texas and Duke University. He has practice before the Supreme Court, arguing his first case when he was 24 years old. Tigar has written or edited more than a dozen of important books including “Law and the Rise of Capitalism.“ He has worked for over 50 years with movements for social change as a human rights lawyer, law professor, and writer. Since 1996 he has practiced law with his wife Jane B. Tigar. Michael Tigar’s blog Tigarbytes.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Truth to Power
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The 1871 Anti-Klan Act And The NAACP Lawsuit
Black Mississippi Congressman Benny Thompson with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) last month sued former president Donald Trump, his disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the fascist group Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, a far right organization of ex-military and policemen.
Thompson used the 1871 Anti-Klan Act as a basis for his lawsuit. He alleges that there was a conspiracy between Trump and the other defendants to stop Congress from doing its business when Trump incited the January 6, 2021 ransacking of the Capitol.
The 1871 Anti-Klan Act was passed for precisely this purpose. 150 years ago, six years after the conclusion of the Civil War, the southern losers who wanted to keep slavery in another form, formed the Ku Klux Klan to murder, terrorize, and harass Black people for registering to vote, voting, running for office or performing their duties after getting elected.
The launching of this lawsuit is an extremely positive development. It’s chances of success would be increased exponentially if the fight was extended beyond the courtroom and masses of people were mobilized behind it. This is a lesson to be learned from Attorney Michael Ratner.
Guest – Black rights and socialist activist Malik Miah, an advisory editor for Against the Current magazine and a regular contributor to the Australian newspaper, “Green Left Weekly”. Malik Miah is a retired airline mechanic and trade unionist at United Airlines in San Francisco.
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Ross Ulbricht: Petition For Clemency
Seven years ago a NY jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty on charges related to operating the Silk Road website. The site was a Tor-hidden site, and used Bitcoin, triggering an all-out FBI search to determine the operator’s identity. The 29-year-old convicted on seven charges, including a kingpin charge, and Judge Katherine Forrest imposed two life sentences and 40 years without the possibility of parole, for the young, nonviolent and first-time offender.
The sentence was far longer than prosecutors sought. The website sold, among other items, illicit substances. Ross wasn’t convicting of selling illegal drugs but rather of creating an e-commerce website that others elected to use for that purpose. At trial, no victims were named; rather rampant corruption, abuse, evidence tampering and several violations of Ross’s rights cast doubt in the legal and technology communities on both the conviction and the extraordinary sentence.
In the 2016 appeal, defense attorneys presented a litany of improprieties in the investigation and the trial itself. One of the consequential of these was the court precluding information about two corrupt federal agents investigating Silk Road who were sent to prison on corruption charges. The Supreme Court refused to consider the case. So supporters spent the past four years preparing to petition Donald Trump for Clemency.
Guest – Ross’s mother, Lyn Ulbricht joins us to talk about a petition for clemency to President Donald Trump. Free Ross Ulbricht.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister
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- Commentary By Attorney Jim Lafferty: Christian Nationalism
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Activists Face Felony Charges In Action Denouncing Elijah McClain Murder
On September 17, 2020 at least six anti-racist activists were arrested in an action denouncing the Colorado police, notably for the murder of Elijah McClain. In the summer of 2019, three Aurora Colorado police officers put 23-year-old McClain in a chokehold and medics injected him with ketamine. The young violinist and massage therapist went into cardiac arrest, was pronounced brain dead, and died three days later.
The social justice activists now face a litany of felony charges, and possible decades in prison, on charges that include “kidnapping.” Four of those arrested — Russel Ruch, Lillian House, Joel Northam, and Eliza Lucero — are considered protest leaders and are members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Police made a spectacle of the arrests, sending what many assert is a threatening message to other activists. Police followed Russel Ruch to Home Depot where they arrested him in the parking lot; five police cars surrounded Lillian House as she was driving; and a S.W.A.T team was dispatched to Joel Northam’s home. According to the 30-page arrest affidavits, the police used livestream footage, call transcripts, and social media posts to build a case against those arrested.
Guest – Lillian House, one of the four protest leaders. More information at Denverdefense.org
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The Current Risk of Nuclear War And Treaty Restoration
When Donald Trump was president, the Democrats called him Putin‘s poodle. They falsely claimed that Russia influenced the election and caused Hillary Clinton to lose to Trump. Clinton famously said “all roads lead to Russia.“
But the truth of the matter was quite different. Despite Trump seemingly adoration of Vladimir Putin as a strong man, American policy towards Russia was not completely friendly. The question now is what will Biden do?
The risk of nuclear war with Russia has been a grave concern since the cold war of the 1950s. Under Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama American nuclear policies were such that the threat of war including accidental war was never reduced. With Biden as president will this change? Will there be a restoration of nuclear treaties and a de-escalation.
Guest – Ray McGovern former CIA intelligence analyst, Ray briefed President George H. W. Bush every morning on intelligence matters, particularly with respect to Russia. He is a founder of VIPS, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a contributor to the blog Common Dreams.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard: Law Enforcement Caught Off Guard On January 6th?
Many are saying that the police were caught off guard when rioters stormed the nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021, leaving four people dead. It was the most significant breach of Congress in more than 200 years, and pro-Trump rioters promised that it won’t be the last. In their violent and lawless efforts to upend what they called a fraudulent election, they faced minimal police resistance. Far-right mobs smashed windows and doors, stormed the Capitol behind a traitorous, terrorist Confederate flag, and broke into the Senate chamber.
Unlike Black Lives Matter protesters and legions of peaceful protesters before them, police have consistently used potentially lethal weapons to disburse and social justice mass demonstrations. But how could the Capitol be unprepared? Word on social media and in the news was that fascists planned to converge in throngs prior to the changing of presidential administrations.
Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, that is partnering with the newly-formed Center for Protest Law and Litigation, to demand a fully public investigation into law enforcement’s handling of the riot on the Capitol Building on that day that shocked much of the nation.
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Fred Hampton: The Fight For Truth
Fred Hampton was the young dynamic leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. On December 4, 1969 he was assassinated. An assassination is a political murder. He was assassinated as part of FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover‘s Cointelpro program. Cointelpro was initiated by Hoover to disrupt, destroy and neutralize the Party and the civil rights movement. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had already been killed under suspicious circumstances.
Chicago attorney Flint Taylor of the Peoples Law Office, who along with Jeff Haas, Dennis Cunningham, and Morton Stavis of the Center for Constitutional Rights was part of a team that after 13 years of litigation were able to prove that the FBI, the Chicago police, and the Chicago States Attorney were guilty of killing Fred Hampton, his fellow Black Panther Mark Clark, and wounding several others.
The murders took place in a pre-dawn raid on Hampton‘s apartment. An FBI informer, William O’Neal, supplied the killers with a map of the apartment showing where Fred was sleeping. and drugged, probably by O’Neal, when the police opened fire with a hail of 90 bullets. A Chicago police officer fired two shots into Hampton’s head at close range as he lay in bed.
It has recently been disclosed that O’Neal’s control control agent. Roy Mitchell, was paid a bonus for his and O’Neal’s role in the assassination, and that Hoover, and his top lieutenants William Sullivan and George Moore, were aware of O’Neal’s activities and authorized this award directly after the raid. What are the lessons we can learn from this? Is the FBI still carrying on Cointelpro type operations? How do we protect ourselves?
Guest – Attorney Flint Taylor, Flint and Jeff Haas have recently written an article about the new information which can be found on Truthout and the Black Agenda Report. Flint, welcome back to Law And Disorder.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith interviewed some of Michael Ratner’s closest friends and colleagues as part of a special broadcast highlighting Michael Ratner’s legal work and mentorship. The special also marked the upcoming release of Michael Ratner’s autobiography Moving The Bar: My Life As A Radical Lawyer published by OR Books. In this one hour taken from the two hour fundraiser broadcast, we hear from attorneys including Eleanor Stein, Richard Levy, Ray Brescia, David Cole and Baher Azmy.
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Michael Ratner’s pathbreaking legal and political work is unmatched. He provided crucial support for the Cuban Revolution and won the seminal case in the Supreme Court guaranteeing the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees. Michael also challenged U.S. policy in Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Israel-Palestine. This book is a testament to his unflagging efforts on behalf of the poor and oppressed around the world.
– Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Ratner personified lawyering that brought both radical and human values into challenges to the use of governmental power to violate the essence of the Bill of Rights. From the torture of prisoners after 911 to the massive racial profiling by the New York Police Department, Michael’s voice and vision continue to resonate. This book provides a powerful testament to the spirit of this extraordinary man.
– Attorney Bill Goodman
