Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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Human Rights Attorney Steven Donziger Faces Contempt Trial Without Jury, Before Federalist Society Judge
Since the inception of Law And Disorder Radio 15 years ago we have endeavored to chronicle the decline of democracy and the rule of law in our country. A low point has been reached with the prosecution of human rights ex-attorney Steven Donziger who goes to trial in January. He is charged with criminal contempt. He will be tried without the benefit of a jury before Federalist Society right wing pro-corporate Judge Loretta Presca in the Southern District of New York.
Three decades ago Donziger successfully brought a lawsuit against the oil giant Chevron which had contaminated in the area of Ecuador the size of Rhode Island. He won over $9 billion in an Ecuadorian court. Chevron has not paid a penny of the judgment nor has it cleaned up the area it ruined. Lives of thousands of indigenous Ecuadorians have been wrecked by the cancer causing pollution.
Donziger has been targeted by Chevron which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and used over 2000 lawyers to prevent the paying of the judgment and to victimize Donziger. It attempted to send a message to environmentalists that we will crush you if you try to protect yourself from us. When federal Judge Louis Kaplan, a former tobacco company attorney, found Donziger in contempt of court for refusing to turn over his computer and cell phone to Chevron’s attorneys on the grounds that it contained privileged information on his clients, Kaplan caused Donziger to be disbarred and put under house arrest. Kaplun assigned his friend Judge Presca to try the contempt case against Donziger without a jury. The trial starts in New York City in January.
Guest – Steven Donziger is a renowned advocate, writer, and public speaker with a focus on addressing human rights abuses and corporate malfeasance. He is part of the team working with indigenous and farmer communities in an area of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest suffering from high cancer rates and other health ailments related to the massive oil pollution caused by Texaco, now owned by Chevron. In 2011, the affected communities won a historic $9.5 billon judgment against Chevron for the environmental cleanup of what experts consider to be one of the worst oil-related catastrophes in the world. Known for his “Herculean tenacity” (Business Week), Steven has represented the affected communities since first visiting the region in 1993. Steven also founded Project Due Process, a legal advocacy group for Cuban detainees who arrived in the United States in the Mariel boatlift.
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The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
Two years ago a Yale School of Medicine professor and psychiatrist told Congress that President Trump is mentally unstable, could be dangerous, and could even be involuntarily committed. Bandy Lee argued in briefings that Trump should undergo a capacity evaluation to assess his fitness for duty. Lee argues that Trump may actually be a dangerous person—one who’s shown a “pattern of violent behavior and violent tendencies”—and she’s considered whether the president should be involuntarily committed to a hospital mental-health program. “We can forcibly commit somebody and could be held legally liable if we don’t when the signs are obvious,” Lee told the Atlantic Magazine.
In Trump’s case, the pattern of violent behavior” includes incendiary tweets, comments about groping women on Access Hollywood, his encouraging violence against protesters at campaign rallies, and his defense of white nationalists. Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland, one of a dozen lawmakers who have met with Lee, proposed creating an independent commission to determine presidential capacity. “The framers foresaw a time when this could become an issue,” Raskin has said, referring to the 25th Amendment. “And we simply have to have the courage and sense of responsibility to implement the procedure they set up.” Lee has noted that this is a matter of human survival, and that psychiatrists “could be held legally liable if we don’t [speak out] when the signs are obvious.”
Guest – Professor Bandy Lee, forensic psychiatrist, an expert in violence, president of the World Mental Health Coalition and editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Democrats, Republicans, Vote Counts And The Green Party
We are recording this interview with Margaret Kimberley on November 4th, the day after the election. Over 90 million people voted early. Their ballots are still being counted. Trump doesn’t want them counted and is relying on the Supreme Court to back him up just like the Supreme Court in the year 2000 stopped the counting of ballots in Dade County Florida, thus allowing George W. Bush to steal the election. Trump wants to be able to say, as former Nicaraguan dictator Somoza bragged, “It is true you won the voting. But I won the counting.” The overwhelming consensus on the left was to hold your nose, vote for Biden, and then attempt to influence him when he takes office. Biden kept a low profile during the campaign. He didn’t have much to say programmatically. His strongest appeal was that he was not Trump, whom Noam Chomsky called the most.
The eco-socialist Green Party led by Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker got very little attention from neither the main stream press nor the left of center media. His campaign was vilified with critics stating that a vote for the Greens was tantamount to a vote for Trump. The Democratic Party in Wisconsin went so far as to help successfully prevent Hawkins and Walker from staying on the ballot in that state after Walker changed her home address after her papers were filed. Regardless of how people on the left voted, the immediate question, which is always the key political question, is what are we to do next?
Guest – Green Party supporter Margaret Kimberley, senior editor at the Black Agenda Report and the author of the widely read book ”Prejudential”.
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Pre-Election Unrest and Aftermath
Days before last week’s November 3 presidential election, businesses across the nation boarded up storefronts in anticipation of violent protests. Cities prepared for election-related unrest as activists get ready for what could be weeks of sustained street actions, depending on how the vote count goes and how President Donald Trump acts after his repeated refusals to say if he will accept election results.
At the time of this recording, not surprisingly, results from several states were still pending.
We can be sure, however, that even if Joe Biden is declared the winner, Donald Trump will challenge the results as fraudulent, laying the groundwork for a series of protracted legal battles. But a larger issue remains: While mass uprisings in the streets have altered the social discourse around racism, several larger issues are still at play, determined to keep Donald Trump in office.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Mara is one of the nation’s pre-eminent authorities on the policing of First Amendment protected activities including the right to peaceably assemble and associate.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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The Federalist Society, Charles Koch, The Bradley Foundation and The U.S. Supreme Court
Despite the clear language of the constitution that Congress shall have no religious test for the office of judge last week every Republican in the Senate except one put Amy Coney Barrett on an already packed right wing Supreme Court.
Barrett is a leader of the charismatic Christian cult called “ People of Promise.” It is a group of Protestant and Catholic evangelicals who reportedly speak in tongues. They believe in the subjugation of women, oppose their right to choose, oppose gay marriage, and are authoritarian and pro corporate in the extreme.
Garrett earned her bones by first clerking for the now dead Justice Antonin Scalia. She was part of the legal team along with John Roberts who helped republican George W. Bush steal the presidency by stopping the the recount of ballots in Florida in the year 2000.
The Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo, has been responsible for packing the federal courts with over 200 largely unqualified young ideologues who serve for life. Leo, like the 6 of 9 Supreme Court justices, is an ultra right wing Catholic. For 20 years he has guided the Federalist Society. He is a member of Opus Dei, Latin for God’s work. It was founded on 1928 by a Spanish priest who was also a lawyer and supporter of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
Ultra right wing billionaire Charles Koch and the Bradley foundation have contributed to the efforts of the Federalist Society. Dark money is behind the appointments of the over 200 judges to the federal judiciary. Organizations funded by dark money find and encourage plaintiffs to bring cases challenging laws they don’t like and write the briefs to submit to the judges they helped appoint.
Guest – Attorney Lisa Graves, created True North Research and is it executive director and editor-in-chief. Her research and analysis has been cited by every major paper in the country. Attorney Graves has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of government. She has served as chief counsel for nominations for the US Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Patrick Leahy. She was a career deputy assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice. Graves has spent the past 10 years investigating the impact of dark money on judicial selection.
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The Future of Academic Freedom and Big Tech Intrusion
Big tech companies rather than leaders of academic institutions, it seems, are fast becoming an arbiter of academic speech.
Two weeks ago Zoom shut down a New York University-organized webinar; ironically it was on the issue of censorship by tech platforms. The webinar was going to take up the censorship of an earlier open classroom session at San Francisco State University, featuring Palestinian rights advocate Leila Khaled. It was part of a so-called “Day of Action Against the Criminalization and Censorship of Campus Political Speech.”
Censored Zoom Video
Canceling a campus event violates the principle of academic freedom that universities must observe. Allowing Zoom to override this bedrock principle, at the behest of organized, politically motivated groups, is a grave error for any university administration to make, and it should not escape censure from faculty
Sifting and Winnowing
Guest – Professor Henry Reichman, former vice president of the American Association of University Professors and longtime chair of its committee on academic freedom and tenure. Reichman is especially qualified to discuss the issue. Professor emeritus of history at California State University at East Bay, Professor Reichman devotes nearly 300 pages doing so in his new book by Johns Hopkins University Press.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power
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Attorney Michael Tigar: Sensing Justice
Democracy and the rule of law have been in decline long before the Trump administration came at the office. The decline is accelerating. We can trace it back at least 19 years to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The Patriot Act resulted and put in place the surveillance state making Americans the most spied on people in history.
The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United allowed for dark money guided by the right wing Federalist Society to pack the federal judiciary with 200+ Trump appointed right wing judges, Amy Comey Barrett being the latest. Local police forces have been militarized and we have seen the results of this in the Black Lives Matter uprisings since June.
The attack on democracy has been bipartisan. The Obama administration claimed the right to assassinate anyone without due process including American citizens, even children. They put more whistleblowers in prison than ever before. Trump initiated the unprecedented prosecution of Julian Assange, a whistleblowing publisher who exposed US war crimes. Now Trump, with the backing of the Republican Party and gun toting militias have promised not to honor the results of the upcoming election if he loses.
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 is the author of Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power. 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.“ Since 1996 he has practiced law with his wife Jane B. Tigar. Michael Tigar’s blog Tigarbytes.
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The Chicago Seven: Attorney Bill Kunstler At Carolines Comedy Club
We hear part of the presentation by William Kunstler at Carolines Comedy Club in 1995.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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How Can You Steal The U.S. Presidential Election?
How can you steal a U.S. presidential election? Let us count the ways. That’s the topic of a front-page article in the LA Progressive. It details the likely ways President Donald Trump will try to steal the election, and what the progressive movement should do to try and stop it. As we’re less than one month away from November 3 we’re delighted to welcome back Jim Lafferty.
Guest – Attorney Jim Lafferty, Executive Director Emeritus of the Los Angeles National Lawyers Guild. Jim is also host of The Lawyers Guild Show on sister station KPFK in Los Angeles; and a frequent contributor to the LA Progressive on-line magazine. His most recent article, and the subject of our interview today, is: Massive Mobilization: Only Sure Way to Save the Election.
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One People’s Project: Proud Boys Update
During President Trump’s presidential debate with former VP Joe Biden on September 29, Trump refused to condemn white supremacists. He commented that the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, should “stand by.”
When moderator Chris Wallace asked the president if he would condemn white supremacist groups, Trump said he was “willing to do that.” But he went on to blame the “left wing” for most of the unrest in cities across the nation. Trump asked Wallace “who would you like me to condemn,” and Biden asked the president to respond to the Proud Boys. Trump said: “The Proud Boys — stand back and stand by,”
Members of the Proud Boys took the president’s words as encouragement. They went so far as to add the phrase “stand back and stand by” to their logo on the social media platform Telegram. Joe Biggs, one of the group’s leaders, wrote on the conservative social media platform Parler that Mr. Trump’s comment “makes me so happy.” Many social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, have suspended the group.
Guest – Daryle Lamont Jenkins, founder of One People’s Project, joins us today. Since 1988 Daryle has been documenting and writing about right-wing individuals and organizations even while serving as a police officer in the US Air Force. In 2000, he founded One’s People’s Project out of a counter-protest to a rally in Morristown, NJ. The organization soon gained a reputation of publicly documenting hate groups and their activities.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself
COVID-19 did not cause the current economic devastation to billions of people around the world. It triggered the crisis. It illuminated the inherent instability in the capitalist system itself. Capitalism exacerbates unemployment, inequality, racism, and patriarchy and threatens the health and safety of workers and our communities.
We are in the worst economic crisis since the great depression of 90 years ago. Half of the American population is poor or near poor. Twenty million people are unemployed. It is estimated that 400,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year. Most of these people will be Black, Latino, the poor and the elderly.
The large corporations have bought out both the Republican and Democratic parties. Neither one of these parties has put forward an effective plan on what to do to get us out of this catastrophic situation.
Guest – Professor Richard Wolff, author of The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself. Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. His previous books are Understanding Socialism and Understanding Marxism.
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Julian Assange Extradition Case Update
The decline of democracy and the rule of law, already advanced under Obama , has accelerated under Trump. By his own admission it is widely known that President Trump will not consent to leaving office if he loses the election. What is not so widely known is the case that he caused to be prosecuted against journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange.
Assange is being railroaded in the Old Bailey courthouse in London in an effort by US government, in collaboration with its British ally, to extradite Assange and send him to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act.
Assange told the truth about American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2010. He is 49 years old and in terrible mental and physical health. If he loses and is sent to the Eastern District of Virginia for trial and successfully prosecuted, which is a given, it will be the death of free journalism and a blow to the first amendment which is a keystone of our democracy because it involves the right to learn.
Assange Defense
@defenseassange – Nathan Fuller twitter
Defend.wikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Nathan Fuller who has been attending Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in London. He leads the London-based Courage Foundation and the director of the newly formed Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties.
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