Animal Rights, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights
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Michael Smith Editorial On Kathy Boudin
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Landmark Case Roe v. Wade Analysis
In headline news, on May 3 a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion was published in Politico. Samuel Alito’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would overrule the landmark cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Alito writes that abortion is no longer a constitutional right and he leaves it up to the states to enact and enforce laws restricting a woman’s right to choose.
Alito wrote that “Roe and Casey must be overruled,” finding no constitutional right to abortion. If four more conservative members of the Supreme Court agree — which Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett reportedly do at the present time—all reproductive and privacy rights will be imperiled.
If the court overrules Roe, it’s expected that half the states will outlaw or severely limit abortion. Thirteen states with so-called “trigger laws” would immediately ban the procedure. Five states that have pre-Roe abortion bans could once again enforce them. And 14 states would ban abortions before fetal viability.
Prohibition of and restrictions on abortion would disproportionately affect poor women and people of color. People suffering early miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies could be adversely affected if Roe is overturned. Fertility procedures such as in-vitro fertilization, egg extractions and stem cell procedures could be outlawed. Other “unenumerated” rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution would be jeopardized. They include the right to travel, the right to vote and the right to interracial marriage.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn – Professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught from 1991-2016, a former criminal defense attorney, and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She lectures, writes, and provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media. On May 6, Marjorie published an article on Truthout titled: Will Demise of “Roe” Be a Death Knell for Contraception, Marriage Rights?
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Government Agencies Delay Food Safety FOIA Requests
The US Freedom of Information Act is a 1967 federal law requiring federal agencies to disclose information to the public. The logic being: “a government of, by and for the people, is transparent and accountable to those people.” Getting the act passed was a democratic victory of the movement in the 60s. Over the last half-century, FOIA requests became critical tools for both journalists and activists seeking to illuminate federal agency activities.
The problem is– it’s getting harder to wrest information from recalcitrant government agencies. Federal agencies began both heavily redacting information, or ignoring requests entirely. And delays got noticeably lengthier. The law gives agencies 20 business days to respond. But in 2019, the average wait time for a reply to your FOIA request was nearly six months (177 days).
This forces public safety groups to begin expensive and lengthy lawsuits to get data that’s rightfully ours. Today’s guest has experienced this frustrating process—first requesting information; then waiting years for respective agencies to respond; receiving either no reply or replies with much the data blacked out; and finally, being forced to sue.
Guest – Zach Corrigan, is a champion of food safety and senior attorney at Food and Water Watch. Back in 2018, Mr. Corrigan became concerned when Trump both removed 40% of the federal inspectors and allowed for faster slaughter lines in our nation’s hog slaughterhouses. Letting hog slaughterhouses regulate themselves makes foodborne illness nearly inevitable, because Trump’s new rules precluded adequate safety testing. COVID itself should have taught us that human health is inexorably linked to the health of all other animals and the environment. Yet even the Biden administration is pandering to the meat industry by deregulating it.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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- Roe v. Wade Editorial by Attorney Jim Lafferty
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Paralysis In The US Antiwar Movement
The proxy war between the United States and Russia has been going on in Ukraine, according to some, since February. Others argue it’s been happening since 2014 with the U.S.-organized coup which overthrew the elected government of Ukraine and replaced it with a government more favorable to U.S. interests.
The corporate news media in the United States have downplayed the U.S. role in the 2014 coup, which brought fascists into a European country‘s government for the first time since World War II. At that point, the coup government launched a military action against the Russian speaking population of the eastern Donbas region which had declared its independence by a popular vote. This military action by Ukrainian forces resulted in 14,000 deaths.
It is the position of many antiwar activists in the United States that Russia initiated a war of aggression by invading Ukraine this past February. Other antiwar activists say that Russia acted in self-defense, considering what happened in 2014, the expansion of NATO and military bases up to Russia’s borders; they have refused to outright condemn the Russian invasion.
This disagreement has caused a paralysis in the U.S. peace movement. Moreover, the United States has supplied the Ukrainian government with billions of dollars worth of weapons and has demonstrated no inclination to support a cease-fire or a negotiated settlement.
Some have observed that the United States will fight the Russians to the last drop of Ukrainian blood.
The danger of a nuclear conflagration between the United States and Russia, the world’s two most heavily nuclear armed countries, increases daily. The United States has now articulated its goal in the war: to subjugate the Russians and overthrow the Putin government.
For its part, the Ukrainian government is under tremendous pressure from right-wing forces in the country (the same forces that participated with rifle fire in the 2014 coup) to refrain from engaging in peace discussions. The Ukrainian government is operating under martial law and has banned all opposition parties, including socialists and those advocating for negotiations and peace. Repression in Ukraine is being carried out by the SUB, the Ukraine political police, with advice from the CIA.
What will it take to mobilize antiwar Americans so they act together in a unified way? What demands should they raise?
Guest – Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She serves on the CODEPINK Board of Directors and has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.
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Free Speech And Censorship In The United States
We are taught from a very young age that one of the many blessings of living in an open and democratic nation is that we all have the right to say publicly what is on our mind; that free speech is one of the great hallmarks of our democracy. And yet, throughout our nation’s history there have been periods of time when the constitutional guaranty of free speech has been under serious assault. And this is one of those times. Less than 50% of students, as well as all other American adults, feel the right of free speech is fully secure in the United States today. And I’m afraid they are correct.
In recent years a number of public opinion surveys have disclosed that a goodly number of Americans believe people with hateful or very controversial views that might unduly excite people, or insult people, should not be allowed to express those views in the public arena. And this is true of both liberals and conservatives. At least one in four college students think it’s fine to ban highly controversial speakers from their college campus and, in fact, one in six students believe that if all else fails, they can resort to physical intervention to prevent them from speaking on campus.
Well, as the old adage about it not being legally permissible to shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater, what are the limits on free speech today? Should racist speech be allowed? How about misogynous speech? Or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel speech? Does the fact that our nation is very divided, very tribal today, inform the answers to such questions? Well, we’ve a lot to cover today. Let’s get started.
Guest – Attorney Nadine Strossen is the New York Law School’s John Marshall ll Professor of Law, Emerita. From 1991-2008 she served as the president of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to do so. When she stepped down as ACLU president in 2008, three US Supreme Court Justices participated in her farewell and tribute luncheon: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Antonin Scalia. Her 2018 book, is “HATE: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship,” and her earlier book, “Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights,” was named a “notable book of 1995 by the New York Times.
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genocide, Human Rights, Torture, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Radio Documentary – It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
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Horrors Of Adana by Bedross Der Matossian
In April 1909, a few years before the 1914 Ottoman massacre of Armenians, two massacres killed more than 20,000 Christians, primarily Armenians. They transpired in Adana, situated on the Mediterranean cost of southern Anatolia. Images of the area after the attacks show unprecedented destruction of a formerly prosperous city. Armenian churches, businesses, and homes were destroyed, and the violence quickly spread across the province and extended outside its eastern borders into the province of Aleppo.
Despite the magnitude of these devastating atrocities, no one was held accountable. In fact, they have have remained largely absent from history books. But that’s about to change.
Guest – Bedross Der Matossian has written a meticulously-researched examination of these events. It’s called The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century, and it’s published by Stanford University Press. It’s a detailed exploration of the twin massacres and the events and the economic and sociopolitical transformations leading up to them. He is Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and the president of the Society for Armenian Studies. He is the author and co-editor of several books including the award-winning book, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Crony Capitalism, Supreme Court, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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The Effects Of War On Our Economy
The US government is seeking regime change in Russia. According to Biden, they want to get rid of Putin and impose the most draconian sanctions ever on Russia after its illegal war of aggression on Ukraine, a war that the US-led NATO provoked. Once again, as it did in Afghanistan, the United States got Russia involved in a war and now hopes to bleed and bury her. For this ignoble end, the US military will fight Russia in this proxy war with every last drop of Ukrainian blood.
It is the opinion of many historians and economists that the American empire is on the way out. They think its exit has been accelerated by the sanctions it has imposed on Russia, that these sanctions have boomeranged and that the unipolar world headed by the United States is about to be fragmented.
What will be the effect of the sanctions on the US dollar, which is now the currency of international trade, if the United States loses its place as the unipolar power on the planet? How will the US economy be affected if the dollar is no longer used as the only reserve currency for international trade and what will the consequences be for Americans?
How will the war affect those who depended on Ukraine as the breadbasket of the world for its massive production of wheat? What about its effect on Europeans, who depend on Russian natural gas and oil?
Guest – Economist Richard Wolff assesses the catastrophic effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Richard Wolff is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, where he was the chairman of the economics department. He is the founder of Democracy at Work and the author of numerous books. He is presently a visiting professor at the New School in New York City.
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Ethical Conflict Of Interest
In an ethics bombshell for the legal community, the Washington Post recently broke the story of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Virginia (or “Ginni”) Thomas’s text messages to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
In her texts, Ginni Thomas urged Meadows to do anything he could to subvert the democratic voting result and to fight, in her words, for good over evil. The goal was to frustrate Joe Biden’s victory and keep Donald Trump in power.
Ginni Thomas has been a persistent voice on behalf of tea party activism. She founded Growdswell, a group of far-right activists, nonprofit heads, journalists, and others who reportedly meet weekly at the offices of Judicial Watch to strategize in order to advance a right-wing agenda. A New York Times Magazine investigation revealed that Thomas oversaw Groundswell’s project of a “30-front war” to “exchange and amplify hardline positions on immigration, abortion, and gun control.”
Ginni Thomas also sits on the board of the action arm of the Center for National Policy, a secretive, right-wing entity that helped advance, according to the Times, the “Stop the Steal” movement. Thomas was thus greatly involved in efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
Advocacy on these and other issues that come before the Supreme Court, without Ginni Thomas’s husband recusing himself, threaten to further erode Americans’ trust in this legal pillar of democracy.
Guest – James Sample is a professor at Hofstra Law School. Professor Sample regularly comments on ethical issues for leading media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Law Journal, Slate.com and The Huffington Post, and he is a frequent presenter at national conferences.
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Animal Rights, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Supreme Court
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The Supreme Court Nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
During vicious, racist questioning by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson remained dignified, poised and unruffled. Jackson’s record is impeccable. No nominee for the Supreme Court has had stronger credentials.
GOP senators on the committee leveled racist and sexist attacks against Jackson, playing to their radical right-wing base. Many of the questions mirrored QAnon talking points. GOP committee members apparently sought to peel off votes for Jackson’s confirmation while appealing to right-wing voters in their forthcoming congressional and presidential campaigns.
Ted Cruz attacked Jackson with charges about critical race theory. Josh Hawley tried to paint Jackson as “soft on crime.” And Lindsey Graham accused Jackson of aiding terrorism by representing Guantánamo detainees.
Nevertheless, it appears that Jackson will be confirmed to the Supreme Court, the only Black woman ever to serve as a justice on the high court. Although Jackson’s confirmation will not change the skewed ideological balance of the court, she and Sonia Sotomayor will comprise a strong progressive wing of the court.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, who is a co-host on Law and Disorder. Marjorie is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a former criminal defense attorney. Her books include The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, Abuse, and she writes a regular column for Truthout.
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Basic Legal Rights For Animals: Activists and Advocates
Discussions over whether animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, pleasure or suffering, date back as far as ancient thinkers such as Plutarch, Hippocrates and Pythagoras. They all advocated for the fair treatment of animals. The term animal rights stands for the proposition that non-human animals have the right to be treated, not as property, but rather as the individuals they are, with their own desires and needs.
Animal law is now widely taught in law schools across North America. There are 167 law schools in the U.S. and Canada, and 11 in Australia and New Zealand, teaching courses in animal law. Several legal scholars support extending basic legal rights and to personhood to non-human animals.
Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot have rights. Another argument is that animals may be used as resources as long as they don’t undergo unnecessary suffering.
Certain forms of animal rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and animal labs by the ALF or Animal Liberation Front, have also attracted criticism, and prompted Congressional reaction by enacting of harsh laws allowing these activities to be prosecuted as terrorism. These laws include the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Guest – Attorney Tamara Bedic, chairperson of the National Lawyers Guild Animal Rights Project. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and a masters degree from Columbia University-NY University. Tamara practices employment law with a focus on women and harassment in the workplace.
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