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Legal System

Assange Loses, High Court Allows US Appeal; Quashes Assange’s Discharge

December 10, 2021 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The High Court in London on Friday ruled in the U.S. appeal against a lower court decision not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange by sending the case back to Magistrate’s Court with instructions to send the case to the secretary of state to decide on Assange’s extradition. The matter is now in the hands of Dominic Raab, secretary of state for justice, unless Assange’s lawyers appeal the decision to the U.K. Supreme Court, which they have said they will do. If extradited, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison on charges under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange is the first journalist to be charged with espionage for obtaining and publishing state secrets.

Chris Hedges: American Satyricon

December 6, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
The trial of Ghislaine Maxwell which began this week in Manhattan will not hold to account the powerful and wealthy men who are also complicit in the sexual assaults of girls as young as twelve Maxwell allegedly procured for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard Larry Summers, Stephen Pinker, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, the J.P Morgan banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barack, real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, former Maine senator George Mitchell, Harvey Weinstein and many others who were at least present and most likely participated in Epstein’s perpetual Bacchanalia, are not in court.

On Contact: Prison

November 28, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
The poet Dwayne Betts for a long time hid the fact that he had been incarcerated from the ages of 16 to 24 for a carjacking. Betts, a lawyer who was sworn into the Connecticut bar two years ago, is finishing up his PhD at Yale University, where he also earned his law degree. He currently works as a public defender. In his book ‘A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison,’ and in his poems, including his third book of poems ‘Felon,’ he grapples with the degradation, humiliation, and trauma of prison life. Betts, like Virgil in Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ leads his readers into the dark and frightening labyrinth of the American prison system, where, as he writes, “Black men go to become Lazarus.” Confronting evil has a cost.

When Being White And Jewish Isn’t Enough

November 27, 2021 Miko Peled, Mintpress News. , , ,
Jerusalem — “I need a cell for a Jew,” the Israeli cops driving the jeep called into the jail. I was the Jew they were referring to and the jail was the infamous “Muskobia,” in the heart of West Jerusalem. This was the end of a long and tiring day that began with a protest in the village of Nabi Saleh in Palestine. I was covered in sweat, tear gas, dust, and quite a bit of the disgusting skunk liquid that the Israeli army sprays on protestors. It was a hot day and my arms were full of bruises, my elbow and wrists sprained from the soldiers twisting them during the arrest. But regardless of the fact that I was protesting with Palestinians, I was still a Jew and when I was sent to jail for the night the authorities needed to make sure I was in a cell for Jews.

Why There Are So Few Whistleblowers

November 26, 2021 Melvin Goodman, Counter Punch. , , ,
Adam Schiff’s new book, “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could,” makes a strong case for the importance of whistleblowing, particularly in these fractured times.  Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, argues that his committee is “uniquely dependent on whistleblowers” because of the “classified nature” of its work. Without whistleblowers, the congressional intelligence committees would  be “almost completely reliant on the intelligence agencies to self-report,” according to Schiff.  A whistleblower in the intelligence community cannot go to the press, so they must have “access to Congress” or the “whole system fails.”

Steven Donziger’s First Letter From Prison

November 20, 2021 Steven Donziger, Popular Resistance. , , ,
I am finally able to write directly from inside the belly of the beast: the federal prison in Danbury, CT. I am now on day 23 of my incarceration, and the experience has been nothing short of mind-blowing. I am living with another person in a 54 sq ft cell; next door is a 37-year-old man, one of the kindest people I have ever met. He was sentenced to a 35-year term for gang violence when he was 19. Three people in my unit of 80 or so men are lifers and have over 30 years in the system. The length of the sentences for various crimes is astounding. We are unique as a country for the extraordinarily punitive nature of our criminal justice system. And it sickens me to see it from the inside. All of us here are simply raw material for a business built largely on money and politics that has virtually nothing to do with rehabilitation (although there are staff here working miracles against all odds to help inmates adjust to the outside).

Judge Keeps Oil Pipeline Case In Federal Court

November 18, 2021 John Flesher, Indian Country Today. , , ,
A federal judge retained jurisdiction Tuesday in a dispute over a Canadian oil pipeline that runs through a section of the Great Lakes, rejecting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's contention that the case belongs in state court. The clash over whether Enbridge Energy's Line 5 should continue operating raises issues “under consideration at the highest levels of this country's government” involving a U.S.-Canada treaty and federal pipeline safety regulation, U.S. District Judge Janet Neff ruled. The matter "is properly in federal court,” she wrote in a 15-page opinion that drew praise from Enbridge. Whitmer's office expressed disappointment and environmentalists ramped up pressure on President Joe Biden to intervene.

‘Tell the Bosses We’re Coming’

November 17, 2021 Eric Dirnbach, Organizing Upgrade. , , ,
The ongoing debate about reviving the U.S. labor movement tries to grapple with the devastating decline in the union membership rate from one-third of the workforce in the 1950s to less than 11% today. In this discussion, occasionally a book comes along that is a great combination of labor history, thoughtful analysis of union organizing, and suggestions for ways forward. Shaun Richman’s Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century is such a book. Richman is the Program Director of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies at the State University of New York Empire State College. He brings the unique perspective of a veteran organizer who stepped away from union work to rethink organizing strategy and the legal framework in which unions operate.

New Campaign To Drop Charges Against Line 3 Pipeline Water Protectors

November 17, 2021 Resist Line 3, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Anishinaabe Akiing, Minnesota - Today, defendants arrested while opposing the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline launched a campaign calling on Minnesota’s elected leadership to drop all criminal charges against over 700 water protectors. A Drop the Charges petition to MN Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison has already garnered over 13,000 signatures. Organizers of the campaign describe the charges as unjust based on the brutal policing tactics that the Enbridge corporation directly funded, the violation of Anishinaabe treaty rights, and the project’s contribution to catastrophic climate change.  Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, said about the campaign launch, “It's entirely wrong that Enbridge—a foreign oil corporation— has committed egregious crimes against the water and people, yet it’s us who are being prosecuted.

The Criminal ‘Justice’ System Protects Kyle Rittenhouse

November 16, 2021 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. , , ,
On August 25, 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse drove across state lines with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and killed two people. He then, carrying the murder weapon, walked past a police line as witnesses screamed that he was getting away, got back in his car, and drove home. All in a day’s work for the young Rittenhouse, a vocal member of the Blue Lives Matter “movement” who came to Kenosha, Wisconsin (a town and a state that he didn’t live in) with the express intention of using violence against Black Lives Matter protesters — framed, of course, as a “defense” of property. Rittenhouse’s trial began on November 1 and it has quickly become clear that the worst assumptions of many activists are correct: the fix is in and the criminal “justice” system is clearly working to protect Rittenhouse.

Judge Allows Testimony On Impacts Of Climate Change And Role Of Banks

November 13, 2021 Walk for Our Grandchildren, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In a trial that took place on the last scheduled day of the COP 26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Judge Kerry Taylor allowed the 11 pro se defendants who last June sat in rocking chairs in the main thoroughfare in front of JP Morgan Chase Bank’s credit card headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, to submit testimony about the climate crisis and the role of banks in funding it. Defendants pursued a “choice of evils” strategy, which under Delaware law allows someone to break the law to prevent a greater “imminent” harm.  The prosecutor, who was the arresting officer, kept asking defendants who took the witness stand how their blocking the road prevented “imminent” harm that would justify the inconvenience to motorists who were delayed for a short time.

‘Unite The Right’ On Trial In Charlottesville

November 11, 2021 Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Charlottesville, VA – After four long years of litigation the lawsuit trial against leading white supremacist organizers and groups kicked off on October 25, 2021 at the federal courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia. Attorneys for victims of the ‘Unite the Right’ racist attacks are seeking justice in a civil lawsuit. Called ‘Sines v. Kessler’ for short, the trial expected to last a full month, just a few blocks from where convicted defendant James Alex Fields killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more, including several plaintiffs in the case. The lawsuit seeks to prove that the white supremacists were motivated by ‘racial animus’, and organized premeditated violence, which is unlawful and actionable under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.

Trials Highlight Racism

November 10, 2021 Monica Moorehead, Workers World. , , ,
Two high-profile murder trials are taking place simultaneously in the U.S. – one in the Deep South and the other in the Midwest. Despite the obvious distance in miles, both trials have two main political themes in common: The first is the prevalence of white supremacy and the second is the Black Lives Matter struggle. These two important societal issues loom large over the individuals on trial. The first trial involves three white men – two who had openly voiced Klan-like opinions – who are accused of fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old son of African immigrants, on Feb. 23, 2020. Arbery was jogging in a majority white suburb of Brunswick, Georgia, when he was chased down by a pickup truck driven by Greg McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael.

A Torture Survivor Speaks At The Guantanamo Military Commissions

November 5, 2021 Scott Roehm, Just Security. , , ,
“I have a story that I have waited almost two decades to tell, so I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to my statement.” For the next two hours, Majid Khan spoke to a panel of military jurors, and to his family—especially his father and sister, who had hugged their son and brother that morning for the first time in nineteen years and sat just feet away in the spectator gallery, visibly suffering through the horror of what they heard. Mr. Khan described brutality and its effects even beyond the heinous acts detailed in the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 oversight study of the CIA torture program. Torture inflicted by medical personnel stood out. He explained that he was raped by CIA medics – under the guise of both “rectal feeding” and “rectal rehydration,” the latter using a “green garden hose,” with one end connected to a faucet and the other forcibly inserted into his rectum.

‘Every Turn In This Case Has Been Another Brick Wall’

November 3, 2021 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. , , ,
Janine Jackson: I will introduce our guest essentially the same way I did in May 2017: When we talk about environmental justice, the emphasis is usually on the first word. That might be what comes to mind when you think about Chevron, formerly Texaco, dumping some 16 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into the land and water of Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador. But when, having poisoned those communities, Chevron refuses to clean it up, and instead embarks on a decades-long effort to intimidate and silence anyone who tries to call attention to the disaster they created and profited from—well, then, it’s clear that it’s a story about justice, as well as years of cross-national organizing and solidarity.
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