CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American
The men who wrote United States Constitution and the first Ten Amendments to it known as the Bill of Rights were mostly not Christians. America was not created as a Christian country. That is a myth. Nor was it founded on Judeo Christian principles. This is another myth. The founding fathers were deists. They were products of the enlightenment. They did not believe in a god that played any role in human affairs. They understood from European history the terrible consequences of not separating church and state.
Today’s Christian nationalists, evangelicals who are in truth white nationalists, are relentless in their attempts to tear down the wall of separation between church and state guaranteed by the first amendment. They want a theocracy where their fundamentalist religion rule us. These people have substantial political power. They are much of Trump’s base.
Guest – Attorney Andrew Seidel, a Constitutional litigator with the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the author of the just published book The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American.
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United States Supreme Court Cases Roundup
The Supreme Court is poised to hear several highly charged disputes as the justices return to the bench in 2020. It promises to be one of the most politically volatile terms in recent memory.
Since October, when the term opened, the court has heard high-profile disputes over LGBT rights in the workplace, the scope of the Second Amendment, and the deportation status of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants.
The remaining cases on the court’s docket are equally explosive. The justices will confront novel separation of powers questions, including whether to release to investigators the financial records of Donald Trump. The Court will be asked to draw new lines between church and state. And for the first time since Trump’s two nominees joined the court, the justices will hear a case on abortion. profvwolfe.com
Guest – Attorney Zachary Wolfe teaches writing at George Washington University in Washington D.C., before which he worked at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Zak is the editor of Farnsworth on Contracts and author of Hate Crimes Law.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iran, Supreme Court, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Human Rights Attorney Michael Tigar
As we enter into the new decade we look back at where we have been, legally speaking, and where we are headed.
2020 began with President Donald Trump illegally and recklessly ordering the assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani who was on a peace mission in Iraq at the time he was killed by a US drone.
Although assassination has been secretly used by the US government since the formation of the CIA in 1947, Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor, began the illegal extra-judicial open assassination of people in what was called “targeted killings.“ This included American citizens.
With regard to deportations, the Obama administration set a record by deporting more than 3 million people. Trump has continued massive deportations but also has illegally frustrated and prevented people fleeing political repression from seeking asylum in America, separating children from families and caging them in a process that continues.
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force was voted on shortly after 9/11 to justify the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan. The AUMF has been used illegally to justify the presence of American troops in the Middle East since then. It was recently renewed.
The Patriot Act has also been renewed, allowing for massive US government surveillance of American citizens in the illegal derogation of their Fourth Amendment right to privacy democratic rights and the rule of law are in obvious, unprecedented, serious jeopardy.
Truth telling whistle blowing Australian journalist Julian Assange, in the most important first amendment civil liberty case, is about to be extradited from London to Virginia where he faces espionage charges. The issue is his right to be a journalist and our right to know. If convicted he will go to prison for life destroying investigative journalism in areas the government deems “national security.“
The peoples’ constitutional right to impeach a president is also in jeopardy. The Democratic party’s attempt to remove Donald Trump from office is sure to fail because of Trump and the Republicans’ refusal to honor the constitution and allow for a fair trial in the Senate.
Trump has appointed hundreds of reactionary judges to the federal trial and appellate benches. A woman’s right to control her own body, decided in the famous case of “Roe vs Wade”, will be decided by the Supreme Court whose ranks have been bolstered by two additional reactionary judges, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
The separation of church and state and the separation of powers are also in jeopardy.
Guest – Human rights attorney Michael Tigar, a veteran of 1960s activism. He’s appeared many times before the Supreme Court, taught law at three schools and has written numerous books including the now classic, Law and the Rise of Capitalism and most recently Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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CCR Attorney Brings GTMO Cases To Highest International Court
The International Criminal Court was established in 1998 and began sitting in 2002. To date there are 123 countries who have ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC and participate in it.
The role of the ICC is to bring to justice the world’s worst crimes known to humankind – war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The United States of America is not one of the 123 countries who participate in this International Court. But it can still be investigated and tried if the crimes it commits were committed in one of the 123 countries.
Guest – Attorney Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney at The Center for Constitutional Rights will be appearing before the ICC in the Hague in Holland on December 4, 2019. Attorney Gallagher will be representing two men currently being held and indefinitely detained in the US offshore prison camp in Guantánamo Cuba. 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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In Defense of Julian Assange Book Launch
Margaret Kunstler, Aaron Mate, Nathan Fuller, Amy Goodman, and Barry Pollack spoke about the wrongly prosecuted Julian Assange on the occasion of the recent publication by OR Books of In Defense of Julian Assange composed of 39 authors offering a range of insights and perspectives. The event on November 21, 2019 took place at the home of the late Michael Ratner, Assange’s former attorney. We hear from Margaret Kunstler, Barry Pollack, Nathan Fuller and Amy Goodman.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Victory: Trump Administration Rescinds Planned Anti-Protest Rules
In a stunning victory for free speech, the National Park Service was recently forced to do an about face. It withdrew a proposal that would have place burdensome restrictions on protests on the Mall and other federal land in Washington, DC.
Citing feedback it had received from the public — more than 140,000 comments — the Park Service announced it was ending its effort to rewrite the regulations governing speech and demonstrations on public lands under federal jurisdiction in the nation’s capitol. The proposed new regulations made public in August 2018 by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would have imposed hefty and unprecedented fees on groups organizing protests on federal park lands in Washington.
The Park Service has the responsibility and the legal obligation to protect First Amendment activity, and so it is good that officials dropped this plan.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC. Over the years, Mara and the Partnership have secured millions of dollars in settlements for police infractions of protesters’ rights at mass assemblies, from the 2000 and 2002 IMF/World Bank protests to cases where law enforcement used false arrest tactics based on political affiliation. She also successfully challenged New York City’s efforts to restrict mass assembly in Central Park.
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United States Officially Recognizes The Armenian Genocide
In a bipartisan rebuke to Turkey after its offensive into northeastern Syria, the U.S. House of Representatives recently approved two measures pushing back at its longtime NATO ally.
The first measure was a symbolic resolution labeling the deaths of roughly 1.5 to 2 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 in the Ottoman Empire, now modern-day Turkey, as a “genocide.” It passed 405-11, with 3 members voting present. The second measure was a bipartisan bill that imposed sanctions on Turkish officials and prevents the sale of arms to Turkey for use in Syria. That passed overwhelmingly as well: 403-16.
To this day, the Republic of Turkey enforces a gag-rule against U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide, despite overwhelming evidence documenting its crimes against humanity.
Despite formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. government in 1951 and 1981, successive U.S. presidential administrations have supported the Turkish government’s revisionism. Fearful of offending Turkey they have opposed passage of Congressional Armenian Genocide resolutions and objected to the use of the word “genocide” to describe systematic destruction of the Armenian people.
A just resolution of the Armenian Genocide would decrease regional tensions, open the door to improved Armenia-Turkey relations, help reform Turkey into a pluralist and tolerant society.
Guest – Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America or ANCA. ANCA is the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots political organization. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters and supporters throughout the United States and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCA actively advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Jeremy Hammond Refused To Answer Federal Grand Jury Questions
Imprisoned information activist Jeremy Hammond was recently found in contempt for refusing to answer seven questions in front of a Federal Grand Jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Earlier this year Chelsea Manning was remanded into custody for failure to provide testimony before the same grand jury.
In late August 2019, Jeremy was removed from the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis, Tennessee where he was serving a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges he hacked the private intelligence contractor Stratfor Global Intelligence. At the time of his transfer Jeremy was enrolled in the Federal Bureau of Prison’s intensive Residential Drug Abuse Program. Participants qualify for early release on completion of the program. Jeremy’s release date was projected to come around mid-December of 2019. Because of his removal from the drug program and the summons to this grand jury his prison time incarcerated could be extended by over two years.
FreeJeremyHammond
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Jeremy is currently confined at William G. Truesdale Correctional Center in Alexandria, VA and will likely remain there for the duration of these proceedings.
Guest – Attorney Sarah Kunstler – Sarah attended law school and graduated from Columbia Law School in 2004. She began practicing law in 2005 and is an attorney at Kunstler Law, helping people with Civil Rights issues.
Guest – Jeremy Hammond is a member of the hacktivist network Anonymous and a gifted computer programmer whose case has attracted the attention of activists, civil libertarians and those concerned about the rights of whistleblowers. He is currently spending a decade in prison for allegedly disclosing information about the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), revealing that they had been spying on human rights defenders at the behest of corporations and governments.
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US Abandons Kurds Again
Russia was poised to step into the power vacuum left after President Trump ordered American troops to leave northeast Syria earlier this month, paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive. U.S. forces only numbered around 1,000, but with their Kurdish partners they were able to beat back ISIS and bring relative stability to a large part of Syria after six years of war.
Thousands of the Kurdish-led fighters died while fighting ISIS, and now say they’ve been betrayed by America.
About 200,000 civilians have fled the clashes with Turkey, and a Kurdish lawmaker called on President Trump to stop what she called “ethnic cleansing” of the Kurds in northern Syria. Turkey insists its offensive has not targeted civilians and views the Kurdish-led forces as terrorists linked to a separatist movement based in southern Turkey.
Erdogan has said if the Kurds aren’t completely out of what he’s called a “safe zone,” stretching across most of Syria’s northern border and about 20 miles south into Syrian territory, his offensive against them will resume. Already it has claimed dozens of civilian lives and has forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Syria’s Russian-backed President Bashar Assad has lambasted Turkey for its offensive on his soil, and criticized Syrian Kurds for asking the U..S for help.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she works on anti-war, US foreign policy and Palestinian rights issues. She has worked as an informal adviser to several key UN officials on Palestinian issues. Her books including Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
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Fall Out From US Troop Withdrawal From Syria
The US constitution commands that Congress must declare war before the President, the commander-in-chief of the arm forces, can engage in hostilities.
Moreover, the United Nations charter, to which the United States is a signatory, and which was established after World War II to prevent wars of aggression, requires countries to obtain permission from United Nations Security Council before going to war. There are no exceptions except for self-defense.
Since 2011 United States has had troops in Syria in violation of both the US Constitution and the United Nations charter.
When Donald Trump ran for the presidency in 2016 he criticized the Iraq war. Recently he said that war, commenced in 2003, was based on a lie. The lie was that Saddam Hussein, then leader of that country, had been in possession of weapons of mass destruction and in league with the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. As a result of this lie tens of thousands of lives were lost and millions of people displaced and made into refugees.
Three weeks ago Trump withdrew US troops from neighboring Syria, where they had been sent after the commencement of the war in Iraq. This move was condemned by a lopsided vote in the US in the US House of Representatives, which included many Republicans and was condemned as well in the mainstream media. Trump was accused of betraying the Kurds who live in Northeast Syria and who had fought alongside American troops against the terrorist organization ISIS. After the withdrawal of US troops the Kurds were immediately attacked by forces of neighboring Turkey which has resisted autonomy for the Kurds since the end of World War in 1917.
contact – jmackler (at) lmai (dot) net
Guest – Jeff Mackler, author of “Syria: Anatomy of Another Imperialist War“. He is on the administrative committee and a founder of the United National Antiwar Coalition. Jeff Mackler is Socialist Action’s candidate for the US presidency in 2020.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Impeachment, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Impeachment Inquiry With Constitutional Law Professor Marjorie Cohn
Nearly 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials signed an open letter on October 6, calling for an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The signatures were gathered by National Security Action, an organization that former Obama administration officials formed out of concern for Trump’s “reckless leadership.” The list includes many others who served as career officials in Republican and Democratic administrations.
The former national security professionals said they had largely avoided politics during their public service, but said allegations revealed in the recent whistleblower complaints warranted an additional investigation.
“The revelations of recent days, however, demand a response,” the statement says. “President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes.”
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. MarjorieCohn
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Trump Impeachment Inquiry
Like President Richard Nixon before him President Donald Trump made the mistake of using his power as president to go after the wrong target.
Nixon had his people burglarize the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington DC. President Trump himself used his power to try to get the president of the Ukraine to investigate his, Trump’s, main Democratic Party rival, Joe Biden.
This transgression, not Trump’s caging of children, violating the separation of powers, or violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, was viewed by the mainstream of the Democratic Party and their leader Nancy Pelosi as a “high crime and misdemeanor” violative of the constitution and worthy of an impeachment inquiry. Joe Biden is the preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment.
By impeaching Trump they want to preempt any possible attack on Biden, or on themselves, that could emerge from the Ukraine. It is to be remembered that the Obama Biden Clinton administration orchestrated and overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014, replacing it with the current government, which, for the first time since World War II has actual fascists in the Ukrainian government.
The impeachment process as it gains momentum could spread to other figures in the Trump administration. Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani seems likely to get indicted for violating election finance laws.
The impeachment inquiry could also expose the reality of the democratic party itself which under Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton organized the overthrow in 2014 of the democratically elected government of Ukraine and opened the door to American investment in the country, especially in natural gas. Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, as is now widely known, got a seat on the board of Berksems, the largest natural gas company in the Ukraine. This evident sinecure netted him $50,000 a month for a period of several years.
Guest – Ron Jacobs, author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest offering is a pamphlet titled Capitalism: Is the Problem.
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