Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Truth to Power, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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UN Report Sounds Alarm On Climate Change
A new flagship United Nations report on climate change shows that harmful carbon emissions have never been higher in human history. And that this is proof that the world is on a fast track to disaster, with scientists arguing that it’s now or never to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Indeed, the report’s scientists claim that at the dismal rate matters to address climate change are now going, the world has but ten years—ten years–until catastrophic climate change is irreversible.
Or as the UN’s General Secretary Gutierrez puts it, the planet is now “nearing the point of no return.” In a Washington Post op-ed article, Gutierrez described the latest IPCC report as a “litany of broken promises,” which revealed a “yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality.” Indeed, the reality is that despite ever-increasing awareness of the consequences of climate change and the central role humans play–given our continuing use of fossil fuels, in bringing the change about–the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere every year continue to rise every year and are each year greater than the prior year. For as Gutierrez wrote, corporations and high-emitting governments have not just turned a blind eye to the problem, “they are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries.”
Already millions of the world’s people have been displaced by climate change, and the world now experiences a greater and greater increase in severe storms, unprecedented heat waves, widespread water shortages, and the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals.
Guest – Eleanor Stein, professor of law at Albany Law School, where she teaches Transnational Environmental Law is the author of Ecological Sensitivity and Global Warming: An International Human Rights Violation? For ten years Eleanor Stein served as an Administrative Law Judge at the New York State Public Service Commission in Albany, New York, where she presided over and mediated New York’s Renewable Portfolio Standard proceeding, a collaboration and litigation of over 150 parties, authoring in June 2004 a comprehensive decision recommending a landmark state environmental initiative to combat global warming with incentives for renewable resource-fueled power generation.
NY Times ON CLIMATE newsletter with Somini Sengupta, climate writings in NYT by David Wallace-Wells; NOT TOO LATE by Solnit and Lutunatabua; FALTER by Bill McKibben and all his current writings (and his breakthrough 1989 book on climate, The End of Nature and its sequel, EAARTH); Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker; Websites of WEACT (We Act for Environmental Justice), www.weact.org; UPROSE (United Puerto Ricans of Sunset Park), www.UPROSE.org, NYC-EJA, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, www.nyceja.org.
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CCR Lawsuit: Louisiana’s Cancer Alley
The call it “cancer alley.” It is the 135 mile long strip along both sides the Mississippi river between Baton Rouge, Louisiana south down to New Orleans
In an environmental racism case, three Louisiana organizations sued on March 21 in Federal District court in New Orleans against the Parish Council of St. Jame’s Parish. A Parish is a county in New Orleans and the Parish Council is their government.
The predominantly white Parish Council granted a permit for a company to build $9 billion petrochemical plant to make plastics. The plant is expected to spew 6000 tons a year of cancer-causing chemicals into the atmosphere.
The lawsuit seeks to protect Black neighborhoods and is asking for a moratorium on the building of more hazardous petrochemical plants where people live and breathe and where Black people are getting sick and dying in disproportionate numbers.
Guest – Attorney Astha Sharma Pokharel of the Center or Constitutional Right where she specializes in international human rights law and in challenging racial and environmental injustice. In the “cancer rally“ lawsuit she represents the Mount Trump Baptist Church and inclusive Louisiana. A project at the Tulane law school represents RISE St. James. These are the three Black neighborhood organizations that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Racist Police Violence
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You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent
There is a common belief that if you’re arrested, you are probably guilty because “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” People assume that only the guilty confess to crimes because why would an innocent person confess to a crime they didn’t commit? And when a person pleads guilty or is convicted by a jury, that’s the end of the matter, in the minds of most people.
In fact, many innocent people are arrested, especially people of color, due to racial profiling and other forms of discrimination by law enforcement. Implicit bias often infects the case as it moves through the criminal legal system – from the initial police stop, to interrogation, arrest, charging, trial and sentencing. This is particularly tragic when a person is charged with a capital crime for which the death penalty is imposed and that sentence is carried out.
However, it is estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 people are currently serving time in prison after being convicted of crimes they did not commit, largely due to prosecutorial misconduct and police misconduct. Unfortunately, even when exonerated, the psychological and physical damage done is so extensive that many people are never able to fully recover from the trauma. In addition, when the wrongful conviction is solely the result of prosecutorial misconduct, those convicted have no legal recourse to be compensated for the wrong done to them because of prosecutorial immunity.
Guest – Justin Brooks criminal defense attorney and law professor has spent decades working to free innocent people from prison. The Founding Director of the California Innocence Project, Brooks is the author of the provocative new book, “You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent.” In it, he discusses false identifications, junk science, lying snitches, and incompetent defense lawyers – which too often lead to the imprisonment of innocent people.
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Expert Panel On Grutter v. Bollinger
Last October, Law and Disorder aired a segment exploring the possibility that the Supreme Court might be poised to overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and gut affirmative action. That’s the landmark 2003 case that held that the 14th Amendment allows public universities to consider race as a factor to assemble a diverse student body.
Around the time of our interview, the National Lawyers Guild New York City Chapter and the Society of American Law Teachers, or SALT, held an educational panel exploring the two affirmative action cases that the Supreme Court will decide by June or July. As many await the high court’s decision, we are pleased to present excerpts from this panel.
The speakers are Victor Goode, former Executive Director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers and Professor Emeritus at CUNY School of Law. Corinthia Carter is a board member of the NLG-NYC Chapter Foundation and president of the Legal Services Staff Association of the UAW. Rounding out the panel is law professor Vinay Harpalani from the New Mexico School of Law and a member of SALT’s board of governors. The panel was moderated by Olympia Duhart, co-president of SALT and a law professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Law.\
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
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Civil Rights, Human Rights, Immigration, worker's rights
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Zachary Sklar: The Work: A Jigsaw Memoir
Screenwriter and journalist Zachary Sklar grew up in Hollywood as, in his words, “a child of the blacklist.” His fine book The Work: A Jigsaw Memoir has just been published. We will speak with him today.
In the 1950s, Zach’s father George Sklar, a playwright and screenwriter, was blacklisted from the movie industry for his past membership in the Communist Party. His mother, Miriam Blecher, was a modern dancer in the Martha Graham company and founding director of The New Dance Group. During the McCarthy era, many of their friends were hauled in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, calIed HUAC. Several of them fled the country. Others were imprisoned. As a result, Zach grew up in an atmosphere of all-pervasive fear.
Richard Nixon rode to power on fear. After he retired, a reporter asked him what his secret was. He replied instantly, “It was fear, fear, and they don’t teach you that in the Boy Scouts.”
Zach’s beautiful collection of personal essays tells his story of how he overcame the fear he experienced as a child growing up in Hollywood during the blacklist years.
Guest – Zachary Sklar is a writer, editor, and teacher. A graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, he has taught magazine writing at that institution and also has served as the executive editor of The Nation magazine. Zach Sklar edited several books about the CIA for Sheridan Square Press, including Ari Ben-Menashe’s Profits of War and New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison’s bestselling On the Trail of the Assassins, which makes the case that the CIA was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Zach later co-wrote with Oliver Stone the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the movie JFK. He has been a creative adviser at Sundance Screenwriting Labs for more than two decades, and currently teaches screenwriting for the Harlem Dramatic Writing Workshop in New York. Zach Sklar was a friend of our show’s co-founder Michael Ratner and edited Michael’s memoir Moving the Bar: My Life as a Radical Lawyer.
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Exploiting The Labor Of Migrant Children
The New York Times headline, in its February 25th edition, says it all: “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.” Yes, last year 130,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, and last year the federal agency responsible for placing these children in suitable situations as their cases are processed, lost track of at least 85,000 of them. But we know where all too many of them can be found: working 10-12 hours a day in violation of our nation’s child labor laws in the American supply chain for many major brands and retailers…retailers like Ford and General Motors. Retailers like Walmart and General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Nature Valley, and PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay and Quaker Oats…and the list goes on.
So, underaged children, here in the U.S., and needing to earn money to send to their destitute families back home, or pay off the smuggler who brought them to the United States, are working under long, unsafe and exploited conditions, for some of America’s largest corporations. Never mind that the federal child labor provisions, authorized by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, also known as the “child labor laws,” were enacted to ensure that when minors do work, the work is safe and does not jeopardize their health, well-being or educational opportunities, and that sets age limits for various types of work.
As we will shortly learn from our guest for this topic today, that Act is being violated over and over again in 2023. Twelve-year old roofers in Florida and Tennessee, underage slaughterhouse workers in Biden’s home state, Delaware, and children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota. The shame of this should be mind boggling for the American people. But as we now begin interviewing today’s guest, this is still the despicable reality of the lives of these minors now in our country.
Guest – Professor Sara Rogerson, the Director of the Justice Center at Albany Law School, where she is also the faculty Director of the Immigration Law Clinic, in which students represent immigrant victims of crime. Her scholarship addresses flaws in the administration of immigration laws and policy, including intersections with domestic violence and international law. SSRN.com
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States
As the notion of perpetual war and a militarized society are normalized, notably absent are antiwar protests by faith-based organizations, civil rights groups, academics, and others. A new book, “The Trillion Dollar Silencer,” details this absence while laying bare the devastation wrought in the United States and abroad by the military industrial complex.
Author Joan Roelofs delves into the pervasive role of military contractors and bases that have come to be economic hubs of their regions. She discusses how state and local governments are intertwined with the Department of Defense (DoD), including economic development commissions at all levels. Contracts and grants to universities, colleges, and faculty come from the DoD and its agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Minerva Initiative funds social scientists for military research. Civilian jobs in the DoD provide opportunities for scientists, engineers, policy analysts, and others. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs are subsidized by the DoD.
In addition to businesses large and small, nonprofits receive DoD contracts and grants, including environmental and charitable organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and Goodwill Industries. Individuals, arts institutions, charities, churches, and universities share in the profitability of military-related investments. Pension funds for public and private employees and unions are replete with military stocks. In other words, the military industrial complex is so embedded in our political economy that it has become virtually impossible to find any sector of our society that is not intertwined with militarism.
Guest – Joan Roelofs, Professor Emerita of Political Science at Keene State College. She teaches in the Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning and writes for scholarly and political publications. Joan is the author of “Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism,” and “Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities.” She has been an anti-war activist ever since she protested the Korean War.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Julie Hurwitz
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, Truth to Power, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers, worker's rights
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How The United States Took Out The Nordstream Pipeline
The war in Ukraine is illegal. It’s a violation of international law. Peace forces in the United States are demanding a ceasefire and negotiations and the recognition of Russia’s legitimate security concerns. At the same time, we recognize that the Russians were provoked by the United States and NATO in to invading Ukraine, having placed so many military bases and bombs on Russia’s border.
The latest development of enormous economic and political consequences is the American blowing up of the two pipelines that provided cheap Russian natural gas to Europe. The great investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, has recently discovered and published a hugely significant investigative article on Substack, proving that the United States,despite its vehement denials, was in fact, responsible for the blowing up the pipelines.
This was done to prevent the integration of Russia into the European economy. Because now the United States and Norway sell liquefied natural gas and natural gas, to Western Europe at four or five times the price of Russian gas.
Guest – Seymour Hersh, has won a Pulitzer Prize and five Polk awards, beginning with his expose of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam where American troops killed 500 women, children and old men. His important articles were published in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other mainstream media outlets. But his article on the US blowing up of the two pipelines had to be self-published on his Substack platform.
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Denouncing The Horrors Of Socialism
On February 2nd of this year, the now Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution “ denouncing the horrors of socialism.” It passed overwhelmingly in a 328–86–14 vote. More than half of the Democrats voted for it, while 86 voted against it and 14 voted “present“. The resolution is made up of lies and half truths. We urge listeners to read it for themselves. It is online. The resolution is three pages in length and 99% of it consists of a series of whereas clauses pointing out with the Republican authors of the resolution believe are examples of the “horribles” of Socialism.
What is socialism? Socialism has never really existed anywhere yet there have been attempts starting with the great Russian revolution of 1917 which effectively ended the slaughter of World War I. It was overthrown in 1991 when the USA and others successfully restored capitalism. What would a socialist society be like? First of all it would be democratic politically and economically and it would not be run by the one percent.
America has a rich history of electing people with a socialist vision. Socialism would illuminate racism and economic want. It would provide for education and healthcare, housing and employment for everybody. Production would be for human needs, not for profit. It would clean up the environment and eliminate the threat of catastrophic man-made climate change.
Guest – Jeff Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action and was their candidate for president in 2016 and in 2020. Mr. Mackler also serves on the Administrative Committee of the United National Anti-war Coalition, or “UNAC”. He is the Director of the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and a steering committee member of the National Julian Assange Defense Committee. A lifelong activist, Jeff Mackler is the author of 25 books and pamphlets and political, economic, and anti-US imperial war movements.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Racist Police Violence, Torture, Uncategorized, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Ending Structural Police Violence And Abuse
On January 7, after an unlawful traffic stop, several police officers in the SCORPION unit of the Memphis Police Department beat, kicked, punched and tased Tyre Nichols, who posed no threat to the public or the officers. He died in the hospital 3 days later. SCORPION, which was disbanded following Nichols’s death, stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods. In reality, SCORPION’s targets – as with similar such units around the country — were primarily Black men. Far from restoring peace, these officers escalated the violence and killed Nichols. The officers later lied about stopping him for reckless driving and the police chief admitted there was no legal basis for stopping Nichols.
One month later, in his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden introduced Nichols’s parents who were in the audience and he called for police reforms. We all know that racist police violence is nothing new. It has shown itself over and over throughout our history, and has led to calls for reform of the police, and abolition. But structural and systemic racism and police violence persist nevertheless.
In spite of the worldwide outrage at the public execution of George Floyd in 2020, and several superficial reforms, police killings continue to increase, not decrease.
Guest – Jonathan Moore, civil rights attorney in New York City who, since the late 1970’s, has specialized in police and governmental misconduct, employment discrimination, First Amendment advocacy, and international human rights. Jonathan represents the family of Eric Garner, who was killed in broad daylight in 2014 by the New York City police for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. He was also the lead attorney in the New York “stop and frisk” case in 2013 that led to the historic ruling that banned the practice as unconstitutional. And he represented the Exonerated Five (formerly known as the Central Park Five) in their successful wrongful conviction case against the City of New York.
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The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform
The issue of police reform looms large across the nation, with daily reports and images of lethal police violence against Black and Brown persons striking a collective raw nerve. A new book by journalist Michael Hayes reads like both an investigative report and a gripping saga of the nation’s largest police department. Its protagonists are the New York City Police Department (NYPD), its powerful union, Black and Latino New Yorkers, and the Mayor. The book is “The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.”
Bill de Blasio, mayor from 2014 to 2021, focused his campaign on making the NYPD more accountable to the public. Previously, while serving on the City Council, he introduced legislation to expand the purview and clout of the watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. While in office, de Blasio tried to end the NYPD’s long-standing “stop and frisk” policy, among other pernicious practices. But from the beginning of his tenure, after two officers were fatally shot in Brooklyn in December 2014, the police department and its union doubled down in opposition to reform. One example was to effectively prevent public disclosure of internal investigation files or the identities of police officers known to be the subjects of those investigations.
Guest – Michael Hayes, in addition to his recently released book, Michael has long reported on the policies and practices of U.S. police departments and covered major criminal trials across the country.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
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