CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Hydraulic Fracturing, Truth to Power
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Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited
In 1913, a 29 year old New York Jew who managed a pencil factory outside of Atlanta was hauled out of his jail cell in Marietta, Georgia by a group of prominent citizens including the judge who found him guilty. He was placed standing table. A rope was tied to a tall tree and put around his neck. The judge kicked the table out from under him. Leo Frank was lynched. The case had became a national scandal with Frank being accused and found guilty of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl, Mary Phagan, who worked at the pencil factory. Frank was sentence to death, although he was innocent, but lost his appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. The governor of Georgia, feeling uneasy about the impending execution, commuted his sentenced to life in prison. The commutation incited the local citizens to carry out the execution themselves by breaking into Frank’s cell and taking him out for the lynching. The Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City at the southern tip of Manhattan is featuring a show on the Frank case.
Guest – Steve Oney, was educated at the University of Georgia and at Harvard, where he was a Nieman Fellow. He worked for many years as a staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Magazine. He has also contributed articles to many national publications, including Esquire, Playboy, Premiere, GQ and the New York Times Magazine. Oney lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Madeline Stuart. Steve is the author of The Dead Shall Rise : an acclaimed account that re-creates the entire story for the first time, from the police investigations to the gripping trial to the brutal lynching and its aftermath. Oney vividly renders Atlanta, a city enjoying newfound prosperity a half-century after the Civil War, but still rife with barely hidden prejudices and resentments. He introduces a Dickensian pageant of characters, including zealous policemen, intrepid reporters, Frank’s martyred wife, and a fiery populist who manipulated local anger at Northern newspapers that pushed for Frank’s exoneration. Combining investigative journalism and sweeping social history, this is the definitive account of one of American history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.
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Dakota Access Pipeline: Dispatch #4
The Dakota Access Pipeline which is planned to bring dirty shale oil through North Dakota and underneath the Missouri River into the Midwest has been stalled by a powerful occupation of representatives of some 180 native American tribes and several thousand supporters who are camped out in North Dakota. The pipeline is being constructed by a Texas company. It is a $3.8 billion project financed by loans from Goldman Sachs, the Chase Manhattan Bank, UBS bank and other banks. The amount of air pollution emitted by not keeping this oil in the hole is substantial and will contribute substantially to global warming. Moreover, if the pipe breaks under the river, as these pipelines frequently do, such an incident could pollute the drinking water of up to 20 million people who depend on it.
Guest – National Lawyers Guild Attorney Jeff Haas, recently returned from living at the North Dakota encampment with thousands of Native Americans and climate change activists who gathered in solidarity with the Standing Rock Indian tribe in North Dakota to protest the pipeline construction. Jeff Haas was a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He victoriously represented the family of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and proved that Hampton was assassinated by the FBI and Chicago Police Department. He’s also author of the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton.
Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense – Lawyers wanting to support the Sacred Stone Camp, contact Attorney Robin Martinez – robin.martinez@martinezlaw.net
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, War Resister
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Legal Support For The Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance
The Dakota Access Pipeline, LLC seeks to build it’s pipeline across the Missouri River in North Dakota. If allowed, the 30 inch 1172 mile pipeline would carry more than 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the Bakken Shale in western North Dakota to the Midwest. A breach in the integrity of that pipeline would likely contaminate the Missouri River, a source of water for at least 20 million people. The pipeline itself threatens the water in traditional lands of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The pipeline was redirected towards the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe so that it would not go through white non-native lands and community.
In April of this year, researchers at the University of Michigan found that the Bakken oil field is emitting about 2% of the worlds methane, about 250,000 tons per year into the air, directly affecting air-quality across North America. These emissions, combined with combustion of Bakken oil, are major contributors to the global climate crisis that threatens the well-being of our environment, future generations, and planet Earth. The resistance started with 35 people, there are now more than 2000 people and Native American representatives from over 100 native nations gathering in North Dakota to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Guest – Attorney Jeff Haas is one of the National Lawyers Guild members representing the Camp of the Sacred Stones in North Dakota. They are seeking to block construction of the oil pipeline. Jeff Haas was a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office in Chicago. He victoriously represented the family of Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party and proved that Hampton was assassinated by the FBI and Chicago Police Department. He’s also author of the book The Assassination of Fred Hampton.
Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense – Lawyers wanting to support the Sacred Stone Camp, contact Attorney Robin Martinez – robin.martinez@martinezlaw.net
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DeeDee Halleck: New York State Otisville Training School
Long before the state correctional facility Otisville was established in Mount Hope, NY, it was a tuberculosis sanitarium, a training school for boys, and a drug abuse treatment center. After the TB Hospital closed in 1955 the State Division for Youth purchased the sprawling property and renamed it the New York State Otisville Training School. It housed boys aged 14-17 from across the state for periods up to 18 months and functioned as a boys’ training school. Many were Persons in Need of Supervision who’d had fights with their parents or been truants from school. Others were there for drugs, robbery and even homicide.
Before the training school closed its doors in 1972, a special 16 mm film program launched in the late 60s tapped the creativity of the boys there.
Guest – DeeDee Halleck is hoping to re-connect with any listeners who may have attended this. film project. DeeDee is among the top media activists, and 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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Bernardine Dohrn: Juveniles In The Criminal Justice System
Juveniles in the U.S. criminal justice system are not afforded the same protections as adults. They are often not allowed to have a lawyer when they are arrested or interrogated and often see a lawyer only for the first time at their trial. When under interrogation, the police use deceptive methods to secure confessions, sometimes false ones. Comparitively, the protections afforded juveniles in Europe are more fair. They include the provision of an attorney when the child is first taken into custody as well as later, through trial, and revocation of parole or probation. We know from medical science and adolescent behavioral development that children’s brains are not the same as adults. The reasoning and decision-making abilities of a child are different. Moreover, children of color are not treated the same as white children in the United States of America.
Guest – Attorney Bernardine Dohrn is a retired professor and founder/former director of the Children and Family Justice Center and the Bluhm Legal Clinic. She is also former leader of SDS and longtime member of the National Lawyers Guild where she served a student organizer in the late 60s. Until recently Bernadine Dorhn taught law at Northwestern University Law School supporting justice for juveniles.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Truth to Power
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Updates:
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Federal Judges Often Let Bad Cops Slide
In examining the root causes of police violence across the nation, few people consider the role that federal judges play in contributing to this epidemic. According to one of the authors of Police Misconduct: Law and Litigation, a principal cause of police brutality is a widespread unwillingness of federal judges to hold officers accountable for instances of misconduct.
The problem even extends to the US Supreme Court, where Justice Kagan has shown deference to two reckless officers who shot and nearly killed a mentally ill woman in her own apartment rather than waiting for backup.
Guest – Professor Michael Avery, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and co-author of the police misconduct treatise for attorneys on civil rights cases, Michael has reviewed thousands of such cases over several decades. His op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, “Federal Judges Often Let Bad Cops Slide,” asserts that judges’ failure to hold officers accountable for abuse of authority is a central cause of police brutality in this country.
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Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter
The policing strategy called “broken windows” was first established in New York City under Police Commissioner William Bratton. It is a doctrine that has vastly broadened police power the world over and to deadly effect. The underlying concept of broken windows policing is deceptively simple: to stop major crimes from occurring, police must first prevent small signs of “disorder” from proliferating, such as graffiti, litter, panhandling, the sale of untaxed cigarettes and so forth. Disorder in the form of minor violations is presumed to breed larger disorder. Broken windows policing has functioned as an urban strategy enabling the gentrification of cities – a class project that has displaced the urban multi-racial working class worldwide. It has led to widespread invasive police practices, racial profiling, police brutality, and many deaths. We now have in America a crisis of authority and legitimacy for US policing.
Guest – Professor Christina Heatherton, coeditor with Jordan T. Camp of the recently published book Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter. Heatherton is an American studies scholar and an historian of antiracist social movements. She teaches at Trinity College in Connecticut.
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Brazil Government Coup Illegitmate Says International Tribunal
An international tribunal has declared the impeachment of Brazil’s President and head of the workers party Dilma Rousseff an illegitimate coup. The Tribunal for Democracy in Brazil convened in Rio de Janeiro two months ago. It was organized by social movements in Brazil to analyze and render a judgment on what they described as a break in the democratic process and a new type of coup.
Guest – Attorney Azadeh Shahshahani former member of the tribunal. She recently wrote an article on its findings for the nation magazine. Attorney Shahshahani is the Legal and Advocacy Director with Project South and a past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner
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Updates:
- Swedish Police To Question Julian Assange At Ecuadorian Embassy
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Comedian Lenny Bruce Life And First Amendment Trial Remembered
The great 1950s comedian and rebellious social satirist Lenny Bruce died 50 years ago this month accidently from a morphine overdose. He was certainly driven to death by the various trials prosecutors put him through said Martin Garbis, the young attorney who in 1964 unsuccessfully represented him in a crucial obscenity trial in New York City. Bruce was a groundbreaker, transcending the conventional subjects for humor at every opportunity. He was concerned with vanguard ideas in the mid 50s black power, prison reform, the rights of convicts, the plight of Native Americans, religious and political frauds like Billy Graham and his friend President Richard Nixon, and the right to abortion. He was not taken in by US Cold War ideology. He thought Cuba, that the United States Navy,at the better claim to Guantánamo Bay. He refused to support radio free Europe, thinking it hypocritical given the racism and corruption in America. And he said – the ultimate heresy – that of communism cooked for you “solid”. Richard Kuh, who as an assistant District Attorney in Manhattan prosecuted Bruce for obscenity in 1964 thought that Bruce crystallized rebellion. He provided not only bone searing talk, but fanfare and a rallying point.
Lenny Bruce was indeed the spiritual father of the cultural radicalization of the 60s. New York Governor George Pataki pardoned Lenny Bruce in 2003 stating that his decision, nearly 4 decades after the conviction, was “a declaration of New York’s commitment to upholding the First Amendment.
Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus represented Lenny Bruce. Martin is one of the country’s top trial lawyers, as well as an author and sought-after speaker. Time magazine called him “legendary” and “one of the greatest trial lawyers in the country”. The Guardian, declared him “one of the worlds finest trial lawyers”. An expert at every level of civil and criminal trial, and litigation, he has appeared before the United States Supreme Court in leading First Amendment cases, and his cases have established precedents there and in other courts throughout the country. A case he filed, Goldberg v. Kelly, that resulted in a favorable 5-4 Supreme Court opinion was described by Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan as “arguably the most important due process case of the 20th Century”. Martin Garbus has written seven books, hundreds of articles, and has taught that the law schools at Columbia and Yale Universities.
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Immigrant Children Forced To Act As Their Own Lawyers
Each year, thousands of children are forced to act as their own lawyers in United States immigration courts with no one to explain the chargest against them.. They are thrust against trained federal prosecutors in seeking asylum or other types of relief in proceedings that most adults find often impossible to understand much less navigate effectively.
In contrast to individuals charged with criminal offenses, such as homicide or kidnapping, the government has no obligation to provide court-appointed legal defense for those who cannot afford an attorney in civil cases. Many children in immigration court hail from Central America where they escaped poverty and especially perilous conditions.
Having an attorney can mean the difference between being deported—often putting their lives at risk—and remaining in this country. One survey found that more than half the children representing themselves were deported, contrasted with only one in 10 who were provided legal representation.
A class action lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other civil rights groups is challenging this gross systemic failure.
Guest – Attorney Lauren Dasse, Executive Director of The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. Lauren has been representing young people facing deportation for years, and last year gave 7,500 know-your-rights presentations to children in Arizona shelters. Lauren Dasse grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and earned her B.A. in Latin American Studies and Sociology from the University of Arizona. She received her J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the CUNY Law Review. She has interned with the Center for Constitutional Rights and Make the Road New York, and participated in the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic at CUNY Law.
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Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Iraq Veterans, Iraq War, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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The Movement For Black Lives
In response to the ongoing violence by police against Black communities across the United States, more than 50 organizations have come together to express a common vision and agenda for change. The Movement for Black Lives has issued a call to end the war against Black people that includes ending the criminalization, imprisonment and killing, not only of Black individuals, but all oppressed people. Broad areas for reform include economic justice, ending the war on Black people, reparations, invest-divest, community control and political power.
Guest – Donna Murch, Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of Living In The City: Migration, Eduation and the Rise of the Black Panther Party. She also contributed an article to the forthcoming verso press book “False Choice: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Clinton.
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U.S. – Saudi Arabia Arms Deal
Last month Congress narrowly approved the sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. They are being used in the Saudi war against Yemen and are dropped on civilians. The bombs are manufactured by the General Dynamics Corporation, part of the American military Industrial complex. Now a second arms sale, this one involving tanks and armored personnel carriers, is up for Congressional approval. A number of peace groups including human rights watch have come out against it. Last week a New York Times editorial stated that “Congress should put the arms sales on hold and President Obama should quietly inform Riyadh that the United States will withdraw crucial assistance if the Saudis do not stop targeting civilians and agree to negotiate peace. ” The Saudi Arabian Monarchy has been a long time ally of the United States and provides a significant amount of oil to United States as well as being a major purchaser of American corporate made weapons. They are used in Yemen and illegal under American law.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS, working as a writer, activist and analyst on Middle East and UN issues. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2001 she helped found and remains active with the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. She works with many anti-war organizations, and writes and speaks widely across the U.S. and around the world as part of the global peace movement. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
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Bush
George W. Bush is now 70 years old and retired on his ranch outside of Crawford Texas. Many Americans remember him as a clueless figure on the morning of September 11, 2001 reading My Pet Goat to a classroom of children. They think of Bush as a hands-off leader who turned over the reins of power to his Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the head of the CIA George Tenet. But the major decisions after the attacks on September 11, 2001, including the bombing of Afghanistan, the opening of the Guantánamo offshore prison camp, torture, and the introduction of the Patriot Act, and the war on Iraq were made by George W. Bush, who denominated himself as “the decider.” He had “and unnerving level of certitude” – as Jean Edward Smith, author of the recent expansive biography called “Bush” has written. Smith writes that Bush “firmly believed that he was the instrument of God’s will.”
Guest – Professor Jean Edward Smith, is ean Edward Smith is the author of twelve books, including highly acclaimed biographies of Chief Justice John Marshall, General Lucius D. Clay, and Ulysses S. Grant (a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist). A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Universities, Smith taught at the University of Toronto for thirty-five years before joining the faculty at Marshall University where he was the John Marshall Professor of Political Science.
