Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Racist Police Violence, Supreme Court, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights
Erwin Chemerinksy is the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law and Dean of the Berkeley Law School. He has also served on the faculties of USC Law School and Duke Law School, and he was the founding dean of the UC Irvine School of Law.
Dean Chemerinsky is a leading constitutional law scholar and teacher who has an uncommon ability to explain complex legal concepts so that non-lawyers can easily understand them. A study of legal publications between 2016 and 2020 found him to be the most frequently cited US legal scholar. He is the author of 14 books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. Dean Chemerinsky also handles legal cases, and has argued several times before the Supreme Court.
After a 2000 review of the Rampart scandal about corruption and excessive force in the LA Police Department attributed the problems to a few bad apples, Dean Chemerinsky conducted an independent analysis which uncovered systemic and structural issues in the department. In his new book, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, he writes, “Race has infected policing in the United States since its founding.” People of color are more likely than whites to be stopped, arrested and subjected to police violence.
Dean Chemerinsky cites the slave patrols which tracked and returned runaway slaves. We saw the three men who killed Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery use the logic of those slave patrols in their defense. Due in large part to a video of the killing, they were convicted of murder.
When I served as a commentator for CBS News during the O.J. Simpson trial, the people at KNX Radio called Erwin (who did frequent commentary) “the nicest guy in the world.” He is most generous in sharing his expertise. I can’t remember any time he has turned me down when I have asked him to speak at an event, even if it required traveling to San Diego. I have often said that if I were President of the United States, Erwin would be my first choice for a justice of the Supreme Court. Unlike most of the members of the Court, he would be a “justice” in the true sense of the word.
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Line 3 Is The New Standing Rock
Our guest today is water protector Chicago attorney Pat Handlin. She has been representing some of the 900 people who’ve been arrested for trying to stop Line 3. Line 3 brings the dirtiest oil on Earth down from Alberta, Canada to the shores of the Great Lakes. It is owned by the Canadian corporation Enbridge. President Trump issued their permit without any environmental impact statement. The governor of Minnesota or the President of United States you can stop Enbridge. But they haven’t.
The Line 3 oil pipeline has been operational since October. It snakes under 200 bodies of water including the Mississippi river. Native Americans from the Chippewa and Ojibwe tribe have treaty rights to the land affected by the Enbridge pipeline. Enbridge has a terrible record for oil spills, 194 of them since the year 2000. Since 1986, more than 7 million gallons have spilled in the Midwest. Much of it has never been cleaned up.
The pipeline runs through sacred land. The land has wild rice which the Native Americans harvest for nutrition and value for spiritual reasons. The land is protected by treaties which are being violated. Tribes are sovereign nations that have entered into treaties with United States. A treaty becomes the supreme law of the land. Biden has said that he would honor the treaties but has not done so.
Guest – Pat Handlin is a criminal defense attorney who represented numerous Water Protectors facing misdemeanor charges stemming from the Standing Rock No DAPL movement, provided legal support at the hearing challenging TC Energy’s permit application to use water for the KXL pipeline and represents Water Protectors charged in Minnesota for opposition to Line 3. She has been a public defender, legal services attorney, administrative law judge on employment discrimination matters, represented Occupy Chicago activists, and has litigated to protect victims of elder abuse, neglect and financial exploitation.
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Truth to Power, U.S. Militarism, War Resister, Whistleblowers
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Attorney Jim Lafferty Commentary On Rittenhouse Case
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Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021
The Vietnam War ended in 1975, but Vietnamese people today continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange, the deadly dioxin-containing chemical weapon that the U.S. sprayed over 12 percent of South Vietnam from 1961-1971, poisoning both the people and the land. The defoliant was used to more effectively prosecute the war against the Vietnamese people, exposing their hideouts, destroying their crops and food.
Descendants of approximately 2 to 4 million Vietnamese people, hundreds of thousands of U.S. Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese-Americans who were exposed to the toxin continue to record disproportionate rates of congenital disabilities and higher rates of many diseases.
U.S. veterans receive some compensation from the U.S. government, but very little assistance has been given to the Vietnamese people, who were the intended victims of the defoliant Agent Orange. Thus, on May 25, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) introduced H.R. 3518, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021, in the House of Representatives. The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (for which I serve as co-coordinator) assisted Lee in drafting the bill.
Lee said, “The United States has a moral responsibility to compensate the victims of the Agent Orange campaign. In the same way we are focused on beginning to repair the damage of systemic racism in the form of reparations, and the war on drugs with restorative justice, it is also our responsibility to try and atone for this disgraceful campaign during the Vietnam War.”
Susan Schnall is co-coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. She was an active duty Navy nurse during the conflict in Vietnam and in 1969, she was tried and found guilty by general court martial of conduct unbecoming an officer for dropping anti-war flyers over military bases in the San Francisco Bay area and an aircraft, and wearing her uniform in the GI and Veterans March for Peace demonstration in San Francisco.
Guest – Susan Schnall is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the American Public Health Association. She is also President of the New York City Veterans for Peace chapter and a board member of national Veterans For Peace. Susan organized and led a delegation of Science/Public Health professionals to Vietnam in 2013 to survey the land that had been contaminated by the US use of Agent Orange/dioxin and visit the people who had been harmed by the chemicals. In 2006, Susan was awarded the medal for peace and friendship between peoples by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations.
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The U.S. Role In Cuba Destabilization
First the Trump and now the Biden administration have accelerated their efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Cuban socialist government with the aim of reestablishing capitalism on the island.
This effort is 62 years old going back to 1959 when a popular revolution lead by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara succeeded in getting rid of the U. S. imposed dictator Batista. The still popular revolution has improved the lives of the Cuban people. Back in 1959 Cuba was a U S. colony. Its resources were owned by US corporations, its dictatorial government was a puppet of the United States.
The population, both urban and rural, was desperately poor. These were the people who made the revolution. The new government instituted land reform. They offered to pay the US corporations for the value of the land. The corporations refused so the Cuban government nationalized the land and re-distributed it to the peasantry, as was their legal right.
In retaliation, the US-owned oil refinery was shut down, crippling the Cuban economy. So the Cubans nationalized the oil refinery, the telephone company, the nickel mines and so on. This all came under control of the Cuban people. This is the essence of the Cuban revolution. The US Government immediately instituted its policy, which continues to this day, of isolation and aggression. It started in 1960, a year after revolution. President Dwight D Eisenhower, pursuant to a 1960 memo written by a senior state department official, the US Government instituted a financial, economic, and commercial blockade of Cuba which is enshrined in our law and continues to this day.
Trump introduced some 200 new measures to overthrow the Cuban revolution. Biden continued this effort with even more measures. The US government and its counter-revolutionary supporters in South Florida promoted the recent July 11 demonstrations in cities throughout the island. These demonstrations were joined by many Cubans who have valid criticisms about bureaucracy, mismanagement, and corruption in the Cuban government. For example, there are long lines people have to wait in to buy food and a lot of items are unavailable.
The situation of the Cuban people is one of hardship brought about by the 60 year old commercial and economic blockade set up at United States. Their suffering has been further exacerbated of course by the pandemic. Cubans suffer a shortage of food and medicine and a blow to the economy which was largely based on tourism. The US counter-revolutionary efforts involve a massive spending of money on social media and a direct role in organizing opponents of the Cuban government. After the July demonstrations a new one was planned for November 15. It was a total flop.
Guest – Attorney Art Heitzer, author and head of the Cuba subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild.
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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/
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, Human Rights, Iran, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Political Analysis: United States Attacks On Syria
The recent American cruise missile attack on alleged chemical war infrastructure in Douma, Syria have been defended as legitimate, if not legal. Trump called Syrian president Assad “ an animal“ who gassed his own people and had to be deterred from further attacks on them.
Critics of the attack have said that it violated both American and international law and risked nuclear warfare. They argued that our Constitution states that only Congress can declare war, that there was no question of self-defense, that the United States was under attack, and that in any case The United Nations charter, to which the United States is a signatory, precludes what United States did. The UN charter is a treaty which binds America and is part of American law.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former NLG president. My book, ‘Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues,’ was recently published in a second, updated edition. marjoriecohn.com.
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Inside Iran: The Real History And Politics Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran
Medea Benjamin presented a powerful book talk at the A.J Muste Memorial Institute. Medea was introduced by our own Heidi Boghosian.
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 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. She received numerous prices, including: the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Peace Prize by the US Peace Memorial, the Gandhi Peace Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Award. She is a former economist and nutritionist with the United Nations and World Health Organization.
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