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Five Ways The US Has Misled UK Courts On Assange’s Health

October 28, 2021 Catherine Vogan And Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
The United States appeal against a British judge’s decision not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange begins at the High Court in London on Wednesday with prosecutors for the U.S. seeking to prove Assange is faking psychological disorders and urges to kill himself. The U.S. wants the High Court to overturn the order of Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser on Jan. 4 not to extradite Assange to the U.S. — to face charges of espionage and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion — because of Assange’s high risk of suicide and the inhumane conditions of U.S. prisons. The High Court on July 7 granted the U.S. leave to appeal that decision, but initially limited it to issues not related to Assange’s health. In an unusual move, the U.S. challenged those grounds for appeal.

A Guide To The US Government’s Appeal In The Assange Extradition Case

October 26, 2021 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. , , ,
London - On October 27, the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom will hear the Crown Prosecution Service argue on behalf of the United States government that a lower court improperly blocked the U.S. from extraditing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The proceedings in London are expected to last two days and will involve five grounds for appeal that were previously approved by the High Court of Justice. (Two were reinstated by the court after a hearing on August 11.) District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled on January 4 that Assange’s mental health was such that it would be “oppressive to extradite him” to the U.S. But two days later, she accepted the U.S. government’s objections and ordered him to remain in jail while her decision was appealed.

The US Will Break Any Laws To Protect The Elites: The Saab And Assange Cases

October 25, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
The United States government demonstrates repeatedly that it will do whatever it takes to protect the economic and political interests of the elites, even if it means total disregard for human rights and international law. Two cases that highlight this are the recent kidnapping and prosecution of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab and the attempts to extradite the Australian Wikileaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange. Clearing the FOG speaks with Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas who travelled to Cabo Verde where Saab was detained and tortured for over a year before his rendition to Miami and with Joe Lauria, the editor of Consortium News, who has covered the case of Julian Assange extensively.

Double Standard For Jessica Reznicek And Energy Transfer Partners

October 25, 2021 Charlotte Grubb, Commondreams. , , ,
Jessica Reznicek was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, ordered to pay millions in fines and labeled a terrorist by the government for her actions of civil disobedience that damaged the equipment of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is owned by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) a $54 billion dollar corporation that also co-owns the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. When ETP intentionally and illegally damaged the private property of hundreds of people in Louisiana, the company received no criminal consequences at all. Both actors damaged private property. Jessica Reznicek was labeled a domestic terrorist that is, “dangerous to human life.”  Even after the courts deemed Bayou Bridge’s property destruction illegal, the company received no criminal charges and the company was ordered by the district court to pay a mere $150 to each objector.

Tulalip Fishermen To Appear In Skagit Court Monday

October 22, 2021 Hazen Graham Shopbell, Last Real Indians. , , ,
I am a Tulalip Tribal member, Treaty fishermen, and elected member of the Tulalip Board of Directors. My Indian name from my father’s side is Wanbdi Wan Wanna Kinyan, which in English means “Eagle Who Takes Flight.” For the last six years, Anthony Paul and I have been the target of a racially motivated criminal investigation and prosecution by the State of Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). But we are not the real target. The State’s real target is Tulalip Treaty rights. The real target is our way of life. On Monday, October 25, 2021 at 9 AM, we will appear in Skagit County Superior Court in Mt. Vernon to defend our existence. Please stand with us. It was my childhood dream to become a Tribal fish buyer and to start a business that would allow Tulalip fishermen to not be ripped off any longer by non-tribal fish buyers and wholesalers.

Port Truckers Win $30 Million In Wage Theft Settlements

October 14, 2021 Margot Roosevelt, LA Times. , , ,
One of the world’s largest trucking companies, XPO Logistics, agreed Tuesday to pay $30 million to settle class-action lawsuits filed by hundreds of drivers who said they earned less than minimum wage delivering goods for major retailers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The combined settlements, approved by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner, addressed allegations that two XPO subsidiaries, XPO Logistics Cartage in Commerce and San Diego and XPO Port Service in Rancho Dominguez, paid drivers less-than-legal wages, failed to pay them for missed meal and rest periods, and failed to reimburse them for business expenses or for waiting-time penalties. The settlements amounted to a major victory for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which applauded the lawsuits as part of a decades-long effort to organize the twin ports’ more than 13,000 drivers.

Corporate Criminal Law Doesn’t Exist

October 13, 2021 Russell Mokhiber, Corporate Crime Reporter. , , ,
That’s the conclusion of two rising young stars in the corporate crime academic world – Iowa Law School Professor Mihailis Diamantis and Michigan Ross School of Business Professor Will Thomas in a new article titled – But We Haven’t Got Corporate Criminal Law! “For more than a century, pearl-clutching abolitionists have decried the conceptual puzzles and supposed injustices of corporate criminal liability,” Diamantis and Thomas write. “Meanwhile, enthusiastic proponents of corporate criminal law have celebrated a system that they believe can deliver justice for victims and effective punishment to corporate malefactors.” “The abolitionists won long ago, through craftiness rather than force of reason. By arguing that the United States should get rid of corporate criminal law, abolitionists have staged a debate that presumes corporate criminal law in fact exists.

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez’ Family Demand Justice 9 Years After Murder

October 12, 2021 Justice for José Antonio Collective. , , ,
Since the night of October 10, 2012, Taide Elena and Araceli Rodriguez have traveled a long road to access justice for Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. The road has not been easy. On three occasions, the U.S. government has denied them justice. On countless other events, the same government has violated their rights as victims of a crime that has become tragically common over the years: the murder of people -migrants or not- by U.S. Border Patrol agents. In the first trial on April 2018, a jury in a federal courtroom in Tucson, Arizona, acquitted Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz of second-degree murder charges for the murder of Jose Antonio. In a second trial for lesser charges in November 2018, a jury only reached a nonguilty verdict for involuntary manslaughter and a hung jury for voluntary manslaughter. 

20 State AGs File Suit Over Plan To Sabotage Postal Service

October 10, 2021 Jon Queally, Common Dreams. , , ,
Twenty state Attorneys General on Friday filed a joint complaint in an effort to block changes to the U.S. Postal Service enacted last week by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and which critics warn are an overt effort to cripple the mail service from within by slowing delivery times while also increasing the cost to consumers. The official complaint filed by the 20 AGs is directed at the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which is charged with providing independent oversight of the USPS, but which the suit alleges betrayed its mandate by allowing the controversial plan put forth by DeJoy to move into implementation on October 1 without proper review.

The Anonymous Executioners Of The Corporate State

October 7, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
Judge Loretta Preska, an adviser to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York.  Preska’s caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, “It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law” — capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of Vasiliy Vasilievich, the presiding judge at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi judge Roland Freisler who once shouted at a defendant, “You really are a lousy piece of trash!” 

Criminal Cases Against Line 3 Protesters Clog Court System

October 6, 2021 Kristi Marohn, Our Midland. , , ,
Brainerd, Minnesota - Maya Stovall was a student at Carleton College helping organize on climate issues when she learned about the Line 3 oil pipeline. She decided to travel to northern Minnesota to join the protests against the pipeline — and kept going back. “Fighting Line 3 felt like the thing to be doing,” said Stovall, 20, who is from Illinois and majoring in political science and international relations. “We can’t have new fossil fuel infrastructure like Line 3 if we’re going to have a breathable planet.” In March, Stovall was arrested along with other protesters who locked themselves together surrounding a prayer lodge at a pipeline construction site in Hubbard County. She was arrested twice more at other protest actions during the summer.

Appeals Court Blocks Judge Order, Allows Deportation Of Families

October 5, 2021 People's Dispatch. , , ,
In a setback to migrant rights advocates in the United States, a federal appeal court has allowed the forcible expulsion of apprehended undocumented migrant families to continue. The ruling was passed by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Thursday, September 30. It was a last minute ruling which blocked a prior ruling by a federal judge against the expulsions before it went into effect. Thursday’s ruling was in response to the appeals filed by the administration of president Joe Biden against the order by district judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court for DC (District of Columbia) on September 16. The district judge’s order was stayed as a case against the current immigration policy is ongoing.

Six-Month Sentence For Lawyer Who Took On Chevron Denounced

October 4, 2021 Julia Conley, Commondreams. , , ,
The sentence, delivered by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York City, represents "an international outrage," tweeted journalist Emma Vigeland following its announcement. Donziger's sentence came a day after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was "appalled" by the U.S. legal system's treatment of the former environmental lawyer and demanded the U.S. government "remedy the situation of Mr. Steven Donziger without delay and bring it in conformity with the relevant international norms" by immediately releasing him. Donziger represented a group of farmers and Indigenous people in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador in the 1990s in a lawsuit against Texaco—since acquired by Chevron—in which the company was accused of contaminating soil and water with its "deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon."

UN Finds Steven Donziger’s House Arrest Violates International Law

October 1, 2021 Dharna Noor, Gizmodo. , , ,
The world’s top human rights legal body just offered a crucial show of support for Steven Donziger, the attorney who won a landmark multibillion-dollar case against an oil giant over pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. The ruling came on the eve of his sentencing in a criminal trial. On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights ruled that Donziger’s home detention is illegal under international law and called on the U.S. to release him. Donziger will have spent an unprecedented 787 days on house arrest as of Friday in what is one of the most winding and wild court cases that spans multiple countries and involves Chevron and thousands of Indigenous people in the Amazon.

Two DC Officers Indicted For Murder Of Karon Hylton-Brown

September 25, 2021 Black Lives Matter DC, Popular Resistance. , ,
Washington, DC – After months of fighting for justice in the police murder of Karon Hylton-Brown, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. announced the indictment of Terence Sutton for second-degree murder, one of the DC Police officers involved with this gross negligence of their duties and complete disregard for this young man’s life. He was also indicted with federal charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, along with his supervisor Andrew Zabavsky. We stand in solidarity and full support of Karon Hylton-Brown’s family as they continue their fight for justice and accountability for all. Since his death on October 23rd, 2020, organizations, volunteers and supporters of his family have pushed for an investigation into his death. Not only demanding MPD exercise their due diligence as required by law to investigate, but to hold the officers accountable for their behaviors that caused his death.
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