Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Truth to Power
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Impeaching the President: Past, Present and Future
Two U.S. presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1998. Richard Nixon would have been impeached but he resigned in 1974. Rumblings of impeaching the winner of the 2016 president elections even took place before the votes were in. Opponents of Hillary Clinton cited her use of a private e-mail server as Secretary of State as reason. Opponents of Donald Trump cited his business interests disqualified him. Possible criminal activities involving the Trump campaign added fuel to those calls.
Restraints on executive power exist because he greatest risk of tyranny comes from the executive branch. That’s partly because the president is a single person. In contrast, Congress and the Supreme Court must persuade a majority of their colleagues in order to act. As well, presidential authority as commander in chief includes the power to deploy weaponry as the head of the military and law enforcement.
The nation’s founding fathers value checks on tyranny. in part because of oppression by the British monarchy. At the Constitutional Convention some delegates opposed making one person responsible for executing the nation”s laws. While it decided in favor of a one-person executive, it adopted provisions aimed at preventing the president from becoming king-like.
Limits including four-year terms and voter approval to stay in office. The founders knew that even in four years the president could do much damage. So they created a mechanism for quicker replacement of the President if needed. The House of Representatives could “impeach” him, an accusation of wrongdoing that would prompt a trial in the Senate. If the Senate voted by two-thirds vote to convict the president, it would automatically result in removal from office. Impeachment can also be used to remove all federal officers.
Guest – Alan Hirsh, author of Impeaching the President: Past, Present and Future. Alan is a Lecturer in Humanities and Chair of Justice and Law Studies at Williams College. He’s also the author of For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights and A Citizen’s Guide to Impeachment.
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Remembering Mujahid Farid, Lead Organizer of Release Aging Persons in Prison
Today we remember and celebrate the life of Mujahid Farid who passed away last week in New York. Listeners will recall that Farid had been on Law and Disorder several times in the last few years, along with Laura Whitehorn and Dave George from his organization Release Aging Persons in Prison. In 1978, Farid was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He was 28 years old. He first became eligible for parole in 1993. He had earned four college degrees including two masters degrees while incarcerated. He was denied parole nine times. As we’ve discussed in prior segments, New York state parole commissioners denied his requests as with many others based on the nature of his crime rather than he many accomplishments he made while in prison.
In an article in the Village Voice, Farid noted that he asked the commissioners: “Is there anything I can do to make myself eligible for release?” He didn’t get a response but said he saw disapproving changes in the body language and facial expressions of the commissioners that his question wasn’t welcome. He was denied again. These denials added 18 years to his incarceration.
In 2011, Farid appeared before the parole boar for the tenth time. He stood before two new commissioners who had high rates of granting parole and that year, Farid was released. Farid became a 2013 Soros Justice Fellow. During his confinement, in 1987 Farid was part of a trio that created and proposed the first HIV/AIDS peer education program in New York State prisons, that later developed into the widely acclaimed state-wide program called PACE (Prisoners AIDS Counseling & Education). Farid participated in the creation of a college certificate program sponsored by New York Theological Seminary, and he taught introduction to sociology courses for people training for Alcohol and Substance Abuse (ASAT) counseling certification.
Since his release Farid initiated two programs designed to have an impact on dismantling mass incarceration: The RAPP Campaign and the Rise & Shine Small Business Coalition, the latter providing support for the creation and start-up of community businesses operating on principles of social entrepreneurship. In 2013 Farid was awarded a joint New York State legislative commendation for his community work and a Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc. award for social activism.
As listeners may recall, the number of people aged 50 and older in New York State, where RAPP was founded, has doubled since 2000; it now exceeds 10,000— which is about 20% of the total incarcerated population. This reflects a national crisis in the prison system and the extension of a culture of revenge and punishment into all areas of our society.
RAPP focuses on aging people in prison, many of whom are long-termers convicted of serious crimes. Many of these human beings have transformed their lives and developed skills and abilities they lacked before incarceration. They could be released from prison with little or no threat to public safety. Yet many are denied release, often for political reasons, and they needlessly remain imprisoned into old age. These elders could return to their communities if current mechanisms such as parole and compassionate release were correctly utilized.
Farid, you are in our thoughts and we send you our love.
Guest – Laura Whitehorn is a former political prisoner and native New Yorker, who was active in supporting groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Movement and was active with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Laura worked to help expose the FBI’s Counter Intelligence programs.
Guest – Mujahid Farid co-founded the Prisoners AIDS Counseling and Education program and helped design prison-based sociology and theology courses that allowed others to earn college-credited in prison. He also earned four college degrees and other certifications while incarcerated, including his paralegal certificate, NYS Department of Labor Certificate in Human Development Counseling, and NYC Department of Health Certificate in HIV/AIDS Counseling.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Political Prisoner, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War
US Army Ranger turned conscientious objector Rory Fanning recently wrote in this in The Guardian newspaper: “Last week Sunday ,November 11, we celebrated Veterans Day. It used to be called Armistice Day and was a celebration of peace after the slaughter of World War One. Now it is called Veterans Day. The United States has 668 military bases around the globe. The United States has conducted military operations in 2/3 of the world’s countries since September 11, 2001. It has spent 3/4 of $1 trillion each year on it’s military – more than the next 13 countries combined. The US has taken hundreds of thousands of lives around the world these past 14 years and shows no signs of slowing down.“
Guest – H. Bruce Franklin, is one of America’s leading cultural historians, H. Bruce Franklin is the author or editor of nineteen books and more than 300 articles on culture and history published in more than a hundred major magazines and newspapers, academic journals, and reference works. He has given over five hundred addresses on college campuses, on radio and TV shows, and at academic conferences, museums, and libraries, and he has participated in making four films. He has taught at Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, and Yale and currently is the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark. Before becoming an academic, Franklin worked in factories, was a tugboat mate and deckhand, and flew for three years in the United States Air Force as a Strategic Air Command navigator and intelligence officer. Professor Franklin is touring the country to speak about his just publish book Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, War Resister
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Update: Hosts Discuss U.S. Primary Election
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Trump’s Judges Imperil Our Rights for Decades
In less than two years, Donald Trump has two installed not one, but two, right-wing justices on the Supreme Court, ensuring a conservative majority for decades to come.
Republican congressional leadership appropriated (stole?) a high Court appointment from Barack Obama and appointed Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch has cast the deciding vote in 14 cases that hurt workers, consumers, voters, immigrants and reproductive rights, while upholding abuses of government authority. Notably, he cast the deciding vote to uphold Trump’s Muslim travel ban in Trump v. Hawaii.
Republicans then pushed through the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, who lied under oath and displayed conduct unbecoming a Justice. Just as Gorsuch has upheld the views of conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation backers, Kavanaugh will surely do the same.
The public is less aware, however, of Trump’s systematic appointment of 29 right-wing judges on the federal circuit courts of appeals. And he hopes to appoint even more by year-end. These circuit court appointees have handed down regressive decisions favoring interests of the rich and upholding unlimited spending in politics. Judges who sit on the circuit courts wield enormous power because most cases are resolved at that level.
Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, for example, voted in one case to allow a corporation to racially segregate its workplace. She also rejected the asylum claim of an immigrant who alleged he was tortured, without even considering the case merits. In the Sixth Circuit Judge Amul Thapar voted to allow public officials to lead Christian-only prayers at public Board of Commissioners meetings.
These decisions are just the tip of the iceberg.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. The former president of the National Lawyers Guild and criminal defense attorney is a legal scholar and political analyst who writes books and articles, and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. Her columns appear on Truthout, HuffPost, JURIST, Truthdig, Portside, Alternet, CommonDreams and Consortium News, and she has provided commentary for CBS News, BBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR and Pacifica Radio. Her website is http://marjoriecohn.com/
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The Nature of American Fascism
One hundred and eleven years ago American socialist and famed novelist Jack London in his book “The Iron Heel” anticipated what we are seeing developing in the USA today. He wrote “There is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What its nature may be I refuse to imagine. But what I wanted to say was this: you are in a perilous position.“
With our experience with fascism in the 20th century in Germany and Italy and with what we see developing in the USA right now we can clearly imagine what American fascism would look like.
– Socialism would be illegal and it’s proponents imprisoned
– Labor unions would be totally illuminated as an organization for those without property
– Quality public education would be further reduced
– The independence of public universities would be totally undermined
– Billions of dollars would continually being devoted to slick propaganda
– Much of traditional government functions with the exception of the police and the armed forces would be privatized
– The media and the Internet would be put under direct government control
– Minorities, blacks, Muslims, Jews, Mexicans, and LBGTQ people would be scapegoated for societies’ills.
– Women would be denied control over their own bodies
– Church and state would no longer be separated
– The rule of law would be cast aside.
Fascism doesn’t just doesn’t descend on us all at once like the falling of a dark curtain. It creeps in. It has been creeping in over the last 40 years of neoliberalism and with the rise of the ultra right who have taken over the Republican Party. All this was topped off to years ago with the election of Trump. In the last two weeks it has gotten even worse. Two black people were assassinated in Kentucky, 11 Jews were slaughtered inside there Pittsburgh synagogue, Trump canceled a nuclear non-proliferation pact with Russia, he declared himself a nationalist, really a white nationalist, and then sent 14,000 troops to the Mexican border to prevent desperate mostly women and children walking north from Honduras from claiming their lawful ride to asylum, and then he threatened to cancel birthright citizenship, a right guaranteed by the 14th amendment to our constitution.
We know which fascism looks like. We have identified it. But what do we do to fight it?
Guest – Barry Sheppard, is a political writer from Oakland California, a longtime socialist, activist, and author. Contact email: Lundshep@att.net
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Criminalizing Dissent, Green Scare, Human Rights, Iran, War Resister
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What Happened To Journalist Jamal Khashoggi?
This much has become clear: 33-year-old Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman knew of or directed the gruesome torture, murder, and dismemberment of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.
The US has had an alliance with the Saudi theocratic monarchy since it was forged by President Roosevelt in 1945 at the end of World War II.
The United States needs Saudi Arabia to help rule the Middle East. It needs their cooperation in keeping oil prices low, their petro-dollars, their arms purchases, and it needs Saudi Arabian support for both its planned war against Iran and it’s support for a joint Israeli/American planned effort to permanently repress the Palestinian people, an effort which Trump has put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of. But with the murder of Khashoggi the US/ Saudi alliance is beginning to fray.
Guest – Attorney Abdeen Jabara, the former president of the Arab American Anti-discrimination Committee, a leader of Palestine solidarity work in the National Lawyers Guild. He’s also a former board member at the Center for Constitutional
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Necessity Defense: Climate Defense Project
Earlier this month a judge dismissed the case against three environmental activists who were charged with damaging a northern Minnesota pipeline in 2016. The defendants call themselves as “valve turners.” They shut off the valves of two Enbridge Energy Company pipelines near Leonard in Clearwater County to protest the oil industry’s contribution to climate change. The action was part of a coordinated effort across several states.
Like the defendants, their 3-person legal team traveled thousands of miles to present their case in the small northwoods town. The team consisted of Kelsey Skaggs from the Climate Defense Project in San Francisco and Twin-Cities based attorney Timothy Phillips along with Oregon-based Lauren Regan.
State representative Pat Garofalo, said: “Today’s decision is irresponsible, and sends the message that protesters are free to engage in reckless, illegal, and dangerous behavior that puts Minnesotans’ safety at risk.” He said this dangerous action needs to be corrected in the next legislative session.” Judge Robert Tiffany dismissed the case at the defense attorneys’ request midway through the second day of trial after County Attorney Alan Rogalla rested his case.
Tiffany granted the dismissal based on arguments from the defense attorneys, one of which was that the prosecution failed to prove the defendants had damaged the actual pipeline rather than merely the chains and locks bound to the pipeline valve. Enbridge supervisor Bill Palmer testified that simply shutting off the valve would not have caused any damage to the pipeline.
Guest – Kelsey Skaggs, Executive Director of the Climate Defense Project.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Chris Hedges – America: the Farewell Tour
We are living in terrible times. Novelist Barbara Kingsolver has said that “it feels like the end of the world.” Last week hurricane Michael destroyed much of the Florida Panhandle. Before that hurricanes decimated Puerto Rico and before that Houston and before that New Orleans. Climate scientists predict it will only get worse and that we are rapidly running out of time to hold the disaster.
Many people have observed that Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The insurgency in the Republican Party has installed a purposeful, strategic and successful ultra right into power in all three branches of the Federal government and in the legislatures of half the states.
The war in Afghanistan has been pursued for 17 years. Iraq and Libya have been destroyed. The military budget was increased by 10% and is now some $700 billion a year, half of what the government spends all together. Are we on the verge of climate catastrophe, a great economic crash, or the end of the American empire?
Guest – Chris Hedges has written 11 books including the recently published America: the Farewell Tour. Although he is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, Chris Hedges was pushed out of the New York times where he was reporter for publicly criticizing the Iraq war. Pulitzer-Prize winning author and journalist. He was also a war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. His most recent book is ‘Death of the Liberal Class (2010). Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
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Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Torture, War Resister
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The Power of Public Outrage: Laquan McDonald’s Place in History
Jason van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who four years ago shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in the back, was found guilty on October 5th of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery by Chicago jury.
This was the first time in 50 years that a Chicago police officer has been found guilty of murdering somebody while he was on duty.
The McDonald murder was massively covered up beginning with the cops who were on the job with van Dyke, the commanding officers of the Chicago police department, up to the office of the Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Key to the conviction was video footage taken by a police car dash camera. This video was suppressed by the police, and the mayor for three years and only revealed after a massive campaign by a number of Chicago grassroots organizations. Nationally, there have been no convictions in the murders of Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, or Trayvon Martin.
Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the USA. Recently 50 Chicago schools have been closed as well as many mental health clinics. Even the parking meters have been sold in a wave of divestment from the inner-city.
Guest – Attorney G.Flint Taylor, a graduate of Brown University and Northwestern Law School, is a founding partner of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, an office which has been dedicated to litigating civil rights, police violence, government misconduct, and death penalty cases for more than 40 years.
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Neo-Colonial Regime Kill Peaceful Ambazonian Protesters in Africa
Ambazonia is an English-speaking territory located between Cameroon and Nigeria in West Africa. Also known as the Southern Cameroons, for most of its recent history it has been under military occupation by the French neo-colonial regime in Cameroon. A majority of Ambazonians reject the legitimacy of this regime and its military control.
In violation of an agreement to create an equal confederacy between the two autonomous states, French Cameroon has been dismantling and defunding Ambazonian systems, and pillaging its resources since the country was created in 1961.
Since December 2016, French Cameroon military has responded to peaceful protests with force, killing over 400 civilians. 200 more have been disappeared and are feared dead. More than 90 villages burnt down, resulting in 60,000 people fleeing to neighboring Nigeria.
More than 2,500 activist and peaceful protesters imprisoned, some tried in military courts, a violation of international law, and some sentenced for terrorism and other unjustifiable charges. Prisoners include prominent nonviolence advocate Julius AyukTabe and 11 of his senior aides, arrested in January 2018, and unlawfully repatriated. Julius’s appeal hearing just happened last Thursday.
On January 26, 2018—with no extradition treaty between Cameroon and Nigeria, and without a presiding judge—Nigeria forcibly handed 10 of the prisoners and 37 other refugees to Cameroon. That was in violation of international law forbidding a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country where they likely face persecution. This action drew condemnation from Amnesty International, the UNHCR, the U.S. Department of State, and other leading human rights advocates. The Ambazonia Prisoners of Conscience Support Network, or APOCS, was recently formed to address this crisis.
Guest – Sphynx Eben, a founding member of APOCS and also a longtime media organizer with the Indymedia Africa Working Group. https://www.facebook.com/apocsnetwork/
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