Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iran, War Resister
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The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
If a modern day Gibbons were to write about the decline and fall of the American empire she would surely feature Trump’s bringing road crushing Abrams tanks and F15 fighter planes into Washington DC. Gibbons wrote about Julius Caesar who brought his imperialistic troops into Rome. To do so they had to cross the Rubicon river. This ended the Roman Republic. Today, July 4, 2019 symbolically marks the American crossing of the Rubicon. You can’t have democracy at home and imperialism abroad. That was the lesson of Gibbons’ three volume history. But that won’t be discussed“ on Fox and Friends” so Trump will remain ignorant. The rest of us should be scared.
If there is a shattering event in our country those tanks and planes will be aimed at us.
Michael Steven Smith – July 4, 2019
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Autonomous Weapons Systems And Laws of War
The Pentagon is developing for future deployment a variety of autonomous weapons systems. They are known as “killer robots“.
They will be active in the air, on the land, and on the sea. Killer robot deployment potentially conflicts with the laws of war. The Navy, the Air Force, and the Army will all have them. The robots will use algorithms and artificial intelligence. Once deployed they can operate for months on their own, monitoring, selecting, and destroying targets, including people. CampaignToStopKillerRobots.org / Armscontrol.org
Guest – Professor Michael Klare, Five College professor emeritus of peace and world security studies, and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), holds a B.A. and M.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the Union Institute. He has written widely on U.S. military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms trade, and global resource politics. His books include American Arms Supermarket (1984), Low-Intensity Warfare (1988), Peace and World Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide (Fifth Edition, 1989; Sixth Edition, 1994), World Security: Challenges for a New Century (First Edition, 1991; Second Edition, 1994; Third Edition, 1998), Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws (1995), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict (1999), Resource Wars (2001),Blood and Oil (2004), and The Race for What’s Left (2012). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Arms Control Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Current History, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The Nation, Scientific American, and Technology Review.
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Supreme Court On Partisan Gerrymandering And The Census Question
The underlying premise of our radio program Law and Disorder is in the words of our founder attorney Michael Ratner that democracy and the rule of law are increasingly becoming incompatible with capitalism and imperialism. A terrible example of this is the recent Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering. The majority decision, written by chief justice John Roberts, was joined by his fellow four right wing pro-corporate authoritarian judges Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
In its unprecedented decision in Rucho v. Common Cause and Camon v. Bemusement Roberts wrote that supreme court would not get involved in election rigging matters, although majority rule is a foundation of American democracy.
In addition to gerrymandering, another anti-democratic strategy practiced historically in the US has been voter suppression. Most infamously, the Democrats did this during the Jim Crow era to prevent recently freed slaves from voting.
Currently the Republican Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attempted to suppress votes by including a citizenship question on the census, which occurs every 10 years, and which determines money allocations among other things. In this instance the Supreme Court recently ruled that the question cannot be asked.
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/
Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Nancy Hollander
Occasionally Law And Disorder has featured interviews with significant attorneys. We call this segment of the show Lawyers You’ll Like. One such attorney is today’s guest, Nancy Hollander. She has been practicing criminal defense lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has been a partner since 1980 in the law firm of Freedman, Boyd, Hollander, Goldman, Urias, and Ward.
Nancy Hollander‘s practice has largely been devoted to representing individuals and organizations accused of crimes, including those involving national security issues.
She was one of the attorneys in the landmark Holy Land Five case. She won whistle blower Chelsea Manning’s release in 2017 when President Obama commuted her sentence from 35 years to seven years. Although not currently representing Manning she has met with her recently. Manning has been jailed for two months for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Manning released the famous Iraqi war log video showing American war crimes in Iraq to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. He is in prison in London awaiting extradition and trial in Virginia where he faces 175 years in prison if convicted of Espionage Act violations. She represented Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose release she obtained after he served 15 years in Guantanamo without ever being charged.
Write to Chelsea Manning:
Chelsea Manning – AO181426
William D. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Guest – Attorney Nancy Hollander has been a member of the firm Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Ives & Duncan, P.A. since 1980 and a partner since 1983. Her practice is largely devoted to criminal cases, including those involving national security issues. She has also been counsel in numerous civil cases, forfeitures and administrative hearings, and has argued and won a case involving religious freedom in the United States Supreme Court. Ms. Hollander also served as a consultant to the defense in a high profile terrorism case in Ireland, has assisted counsel in other international cases and represents two prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Nancy is co-author of WestGroup’s Everytrial Criminal Defense Resource Book, Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, 15th Edition, and Wharton’s Criminal Procedure, 14th Edition. She has appeared on national television programs as PBS Now, Burden of Proof, the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, CourtTV, and the MacNeill/Lehrer News Hour.
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Supreme Court: Cable Companies Can Limit Public Access
Last month United States Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision written by Brett Kavanaugh decided that TV cable companies can, in the words of our guest, losing plaintive DeeDee Halleck, “censor whatever, whoever, and whenever they want.”
Cable companies like Manhattan Neighborhood Network can now limit public access that carry TV shows to be available in hundreds of cities and towns.
The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network is not subject to First Amendment constraints, that the free-speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private abridgment of speech and that MNN is a private company.
Judges Cavanagh, Robert, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch is found against the free-speech argument of Halleck and her co-plaintiff Jesus Melendez. Judge Sotomayor wrote the dissent which was joined in on by Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan.
Guest – Deedee Halleck one of the plaintiffs in this case and among the top media activists. She’s co-founder of Paper Tiger Television and also the Deep Dish Satellite Network, the first grass roots community television network. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication at the University of California at San Diego.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Cuba, Human Rights, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Analyzing Recent Abortion Legislation
Halfway through 2019 nine states have already passed bills to limit abortion. Louisiana recently passed a ban on the medical procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected. That makes it the 9th state in 2019 year to pass abortion restrictions that could challenge the constitutional right established in Roe v.Wade.
Alabama legislators also recently voted to ban abortions in nearly all cases. Other measures, like Louisiana’s, have limited the procedure to earlier in pregnancy, typically around six weeks.
Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio stopped short of outright bans. They’ve passed so-called heartbeat bills that effectively prohibit abortions after six to eight weeks of pregnancy. That’s when doctors usually start detecting a fetal heartbeat. Utah and Arkansas voted to limit the procedure to the middle of the second trimester.
Most other states follow the standard set by the Supreme Court’s 1972 Roe decision, which says abortion is legal until the fetus reaches viability, usually at 24 to 28 weeks.
The latest bans are not yet in effect (Kentucky’s was blocked by a judge), and all bans are expected to face protracted court battles. What does all this mean? More states are considering and will likely pass measures similar to that in Louisiana in an attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade.
Guest – Attorney Elisabeth Smith from the Center for Reproductive Rights. Elisabeth is their Chief Counsel for State Policy. Before that she was Legislative Director at the ACLU of Washington where she was the Legislative Director.
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Cuban Revolution 60th Anniversary And The 1996 Helms-Burton Act
July 26, 2019 marks the 60th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. On that date revolutionary troops led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara marched into Havana. The American supported dictator Batista fled to the Dominican Republic. Other rich Cubans went to Miami. At that time the wealth of Cuba, it’s vast fertile sugarcane and tobacco fields, it’s oil refinery, its phone company, were owned by US corporations and a handful of wealthy Cubans.
To obstruct the revolution, the US owned oil refinery stopped providing oil so there was no gasoline. In response, the Cuban revolutionaries nationalized the refinery, then the phone company, the nickel mines, and the vast land holdings. This was the beginning of the Cuban revolution The Cuban government offered to pay the owners for the nationalized property in the amount that the owners had listed the properties for tax purposes. The owners refused to take the money. Since then the American government has waged economic warfare on Cuba.
In an escalation of this warfare Last week we saw the instigation of the dormant title III section of the anti-Cuba 1996 Helms-Burton Act. This law permits US citizens to sue anyone anywhere in the world in American Courts for using property legally expropriated by the Cuban government after the revolution. Expropriation of a foreign owned property is legal under international law so long as the owners are compensated.
In addition to the invocation of the Helms-Burton law the US government has ended people to people travel to Cuba and drastically reduced the amount of money Cuban Americans living in the US can remit to their families on the island.
Guest – Netfa Freeman, policy analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies and an Organizer in the International Committee for Peace Justice & Dignity.
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Censorship, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Iraq War, NSA Spying, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange’s Case And The Doomsday Machine
Two weeks ago the Trump administration announced it had indicted Julian Assange in the Eastern District of Virginia on 17 counts of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Assange is currently in the Belmarsh prison hospital in London. If extradited, tried, and convicted he faces 175 years in prison.
The Espionage Act is a 102 year old law used initially to imprison the great socialist Eugene V Debs for an anti-World War I speech he gave in Canton, Ohio and also used to crush the industrial workers of the world, the IWW, a large antiwar union at the time.
In 1971 it was famously used against Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon papers to the New York Times and other media outlets. Lately the Espionage Act has been used against many truth telling whistleblowers during the Obama and Trump administrations.
This is the first time it is being used against a journalist.
Wikileaks Defense Funds:
Guest – Daniel Ellsberg, educated at Harvard and Cambridge and has been an activist since the 1970s. Ellsberg’s latest book, The Doomsday Machine, is an extensive study of nuclear theory and nuclear policy. In 2018 he was awarded the Olaf Palme prize for his “profound humanism and exceptional moral courage.
From 1957-59 he was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard in 1962 with his thesis, Risk, Ambiguity and Decision. His research leading up to this dissertation—in particular his work on what has become known as the “Ellsberg Paradox,” first published in an article entitled Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms—is widely considered a landmark in decision theory and behavioral economics.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Updates:
- Two MOVE9 Members Released From Prison
- Julian Assange Update
- Never Get Rid Of Newspapers…The Headlines Alone Make Them Worth Keeping
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Suicide Increase In The United States
Suicide ranks among the top ten leading causes of death in the United States. As rates have generally fallen in other developed nations, the number of suicides per 100,000 rose over 30 percent between 1999 and 2015.
Those in midlife had the largest uptick in suicide. Researchers find that two social factors have contributed to this trend: the weakening of the social safety net and increasing income inequality.
One study of suicide in the U.S. found that the rising rates were closely linked with reductions in social welfare spending between 1960 and 1995. Such expenditures include Medicaid, a medical assistance program for low income persons; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children; the Supplemental Security Income program for the blind, disabled and elderly; children’s services including adoption, foster care and day care; shelters; and funding of public hospitals for medical assistance other than Medicaid.
While their suicide rates are on the decline, three European nations still have rates higher than the U.S. They are Belgium, Finland and France.
Guest – Stephen Platt, Emeritus Professor of Health Policy Research at the University of Edinburgh, UK. His research focuses on the social, epidemiological and cultural aspects of suicide, self-harm and mental health. He is an adviser on suicide prevention research and policy to NHS Health Scotland and the Scottish Government, the Irish National Office for Suicide Prevention and Samaritans.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Cuba, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Venezuelan Embassy Protected Against Staged Attacks In DC
Democracy and the rule of law are being rapidly unraveled in our country by President Trump, his advisers, especially convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams, who was put in charge of policy in Venezuela, and John Bolton, who said that if the top 10 floors of United Nations building were lopped off it wouldn’t make any difference, and with the support of the rightist insurgent Republican Party.
The latest example is the American government’s failed attempt military coup in Venezuela and its support of the ongoing attack on the Venezuelan embassy here in Washington DC.
On April 30th, the United States tried and failed to overthrow the democratically elected Venezuelan president Nikolai Maduro. They fail to supplant him with Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed a president who’s only real power is outside of Venezuela and comes mostly from the Trump administration.
Back home in Washington DC right wing counterrevolutionaries in support of Juan Guaidó have so far failed in their attempt to take over the Venezuelan embassy. Under centuries of international law the embassy is considered the property of Venezuela itself.
Last week the Washington DC utility company, undoubtedly at the request of the US government, turned off the building’s water electricity supply. Washington DC police and the Secret Service are preventing people from bringing food and water into the embassy. A number of American citizens, acting in support of democracy in Venezuela, entered the building to protect it against an invasion by coup supporters. They are also demonstrating outside of the building. The embassy protectors are being represented by attorney Mara VerhaydenHilliard of the Washington DC Partnership For Civil Justice.
Popular Resistance, Answer Coalition, Code Pink
Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard has in the past successfully sued both the Washington DC police department and the New York City Police Department for their abuse demonstrators. She is co-chair of the Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee. co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia.
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Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air
Lawyers For The Left: In The Courts, In the Streets And On The Air is the title of the just published book by our own Michael Steven Smith. It profiles the some of the nation’s most effective agents of social change. Michael discusses how he came to write this book and previews several of the lawyers profiled therein.
As Chris Hedges quotes “The lawyers in this book valiantly fought the erosion of justice and assault on the court system.”
Portside Review by Bill Ayers:
Now open Michael Steven Smith’s smart and compelling Lawyers for the Left, and you’ll find yourself plunged into the contradictions and swirling through the vortex where that question—what is the law?—is on everyone’s mind all the time. It takes on a unique urgency and a fresh vitality as it’s debated case by case and issue by issue by these committed advocates battling against a system they see as deeply and unfairly stacked against their clients—Black freedom fighters, Puerto Rican independistas, Indigenous and immigrant rights activists, women warriors, anti-war militants, water defenders, dissidents and radicals. None of the lawyers you’ll meet here holds fast to the traditional view that the law is simply a civilized mechanism for resolving disputes in an intelligent and reasoned way. They agree, rather, that any honest analysis of the law begins elsewhere, noting that in all times and in all places, the law is constructed in the service of whatever social/economic system created it. In other words, the law is a mechanism of control that works to protect and perpetuate existing social relations.
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