Category Archives: Fifth Amendment

The principle that anyone born in the United States is an American citizen is enshrined in the 14th Amendment. But in a divided decision Tuesday, a federal appeals court reaffirmed the unique inapplicability of the citizenship clause to one of Americas six federal territories American Samoa, the only one of the six where birthright citizenship does not currently apply.

The ruling in Fitisemanu v. United States doesnt just rest on a deeply flawed understanding of the 14th Amendment. It also breathes new life into a long since discredited distinction that the Supreme Court drew in the early 20th century one in which territories that just happened to be predominantly white received full constitutional protections, while those that were not didnt.

After years of struggle between the U.S., Germany, and United Kingdom for dominance over the Samoan island chain, the islands were partitioned into two in 1899. Just prior to the partition, America had gained significant overseas territories as a result of concessions arising out of the Spanish-American War. The eastern group of Samoan islands quickly joined the ranks after tribal leaders formally ceded the land to the Americans. The western group remained a German possession through Germanys defeat in World War I, becoming an independent nation in 1962.

But even as residents of other U.S. territories gained birthright citizenship either by constitutional mandate or statute, and even as American Samoans (a disproportionate percentage of whom have served in the U.S. military throughout the past century) fought for similar and other protections in Congress, they were left out.

A federal judge in Utah had agreed that the denial of citizenship was unconstitutional but a divided panel of the Denver-based federal appeals court reversed that decision.

In the case decided Tuesday, three American Samoans living in Utah had brought suit challenging their denial of citizenship which, among other things, means that they are denied the right to vote, the right to run for elective federal or state office outside American Samoa, and the right to serve on federal and state juries. A federal judge in Utah had agreed that the denial of citizenship was unconstitutional but a divided panel of the Denver-based federal appeals court reversed that decision.

Writing for the majority, Judge Carlos Lucero relied heavily on a series of early-20th century Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases. In those cases (none of which dealt specifically with birthright citizenship), the justices adopted a distinction between incorporated territories (those U.S. possessions that were destined for statehood) and unincorporated territories (those U.S. possessions that were not). The Constitution generally applied to its fullest extent in the former, whereas courts were left to decide on a case-by-case (and provision-by-provision) basis the extent to which it applied in the latter.

Forests have been felled on the myriad problems with the Insular Cases. To make a long story shorter, as five of the leading scholars on the subject wrote in 2014:

The Insular Cases approach to the constitutional status of the U.S. territories lacks any grounding in constitutional text, structure, or history. The Insular Cases, rather, reflected the assumptions of the time that the United States, like the great European powers of that era, must (despite being constrained by a written Constitution) be capable of acquiring overseas possessions without admitting their uncivilized and savage inhabitants of alien races to equal citizenship. That reasoning, even if it were constitutionally relevant, is the product of another age. It has no place in modern jurisprudence even if it had any validity in earlier times.

Of course, lower courts would still be bound by those decisions if any of them were squarely on point. But none of the Insular Cases involved the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. Instead, the Court of Appeals was free to reach the issue anew in this case and still chose to abide by the Insular Cases discredited framework. In the process, the court wholly ignored the original context of the citizenship clause enacted to overturn a Supreme Court decision in which one of the questions had been the status of slaves in federal territories.

The Supreme Courts 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case is infamous for its full-throated legal defense of the institution of slavery. But its constitutional significance was its specific holding that slaves and their descendants were not and could not become U.S. citizens. Congress accordingly did not just amend the Constitution to abolish slavery after the Civil War; it also wrote into our founding charter the principle of birthright citizenship that anyone born in the United States is a citizen thereof.

Turning to the question of whether the citizenship clause should apply in an unincorporated territory like American Samoa, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals focused its analysis on whether it would be impractical or anomalous to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa and held that it would.

Their reasoning: a majority of American Samoans have expressed concern that recognition of birthright citizenship would open the door to arguments that other constitutional provisions cannot be reconciled with some of American Samoas unique legal traditions. That includes worries that if the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment applies to American Samoa, it might presage a holding that the Supreme Courts modern Fifth Amendment property rights jurisprudence likewise applies to the Pacific Ocean territory, , threatening the islands communal ownership of property..

But this analysis not only misapplied the Supreme Courts precedents (which ask whether recognition of the right is impractical or anomalous from the federal governments perspective); it also fundamentally devalues the importance of constitutional rights in the territories where those rights that arent supported by a majority are perhaps the most in need of judicial incorporation.

One might wonder why its such a big deal that a federal appeals court has held that 50,000 Americans arent constitutionally entitled to birthright citizenship. The answer is two-fold: First, to reach that result, the court had to both ignore the original purpose and context of the citizenship clause and revive the deeply problematic rationale of the Insular Cases

Second, and more fundamentally, one of the two central goals of the post-Civil War amendments was to hard-wire into the Constitution the idea that theres only one class of American to repudiate not only the institution of slavery, but also the caste system it created. The more that contemporary courts recognize circumstances in which our compatriots are not treated as equals, the more they open the door to additional erosions of this fundamental ideal.

Steve Vladeck is a professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law whose teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, constitutional law and national security law. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Just Security blog (@just_security) and co-host of "The National Security Law Podcast" (@nslpodcast).

View post:
American Samoans are the latest victims of these ignorant Supreme Court rulings - MSNBC

Rooted in legal scholarship and academia, critical race theory experienced a small spike in public consciousness last September shortly before former President Donald Trump signed a related executive order and then interest skyrocketed over the past two months.

Signs saying, "Stand Up Greenwich: Unmask our children, ban critical race theory, protect medical freedom" popped up earlier this month in Greenwich. People have raised concerns about critical race theory to the boards of education in Greenwich and in East Lyme. More than 500 people have signed a petition asking the Guilford Board of Education to disavow critical race theory.

Republican legislators in at least 22 states have introduced billstargeting theteaching of critical race theory or certain "divisive concepts." A month ago, 20 Republican attorneys general wrote an anti-CRT letter to the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona saying the department shouldn't fund "any projects that characterize the United States as irredeemably racist or founded on principles of racism."

Lewis Gordon, head of the philosophy department at the University of Connecticut, called the latter statement a false dilemma.

"To say that the United States is a country that was built on racism and colonization and genocide is not to say that's the only things the United States were built on," he said, "because throughout, there were people including among whites who fought against white supremacy, racism, colonialism and genocide."

So, what is critical race theory, and how did the phrase become so pervasive in current discourse? And is the backlash actually to critical race theory, or to something else?

Its origins date to the 1970s and '80s, and the late Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell.

Quinnipiac University School of Law professor Angela Robinson, who teaches a course called Critical Race Theory, said it started with a group of lawyers and law professors who came up with the principles that race is a social construct and that "racism is pervasive in our society because we really haven't unpacked the effect of race."

"Critical race theory says that systems are designed to get the results they get, and so if we are continually having racial disparities which we have in wealth and education and health outcomes that must be because there is something in the system that is continually producing those results," Robinson said.

She said she teaches her students that critical race theory is one way to look at things but not the only way.

Robinson and other scholars of critical race theory say some misconceptions are that it wants white people to feel guilty about being white and that it's rooted in Marxism.

Dishonest takes on both sides

Gerald Torres, a Yale School of the Environment and Yale Law School professor who is a scholar of critical race theory, said he has "no idea whether people are being taught to feel guilty or not, but in any event, that's not critical race theory." He and other professors say the term is now being used as a "boogeyman."

Critical race theory began by viewing race as an organizing principle to examine legal doctrine, but Torres said it then moved from law schools to schools of education, and began to inform sociological and historical inquiries.

"Race has played a role in American history, and it doesn't diminish the virtues of American society to say that it did," Torres said.

William Lugo, sociology and criminologyprofessor at Eastern Connecticut State University, doesn't explicitly tell his students, "Now this is critical race theory" but it's embedded in his curriculum, as he looks at how race and racism have shaped policies and criminal justice.

He feels "frustration" with the current discourse around the theory, saying it's getting misrepresented by a focus on the most extreme examples, and he sees dishonest takes on both sides, thanks to Twitter.

Teaching criminal justice, Lugo said he tends to have a pretty even split between liberal and conservative students, and they typically respond well to critical race theory concepts.

"I don't get this sort of lightning rod backlash that you see online, and I've been doing it for 16 years," he said.

'Divisive concepts'

Yi-Chun Tricia Lin, professor and director of Women's and Gender Studies at Southern Connecticut State University, called the backlash to critical race theory an "orchestrated panic" but doesn't think all this attention is a bad thing.

In October, she organized a weeklong Critical Race Theory Teach-In at Southern. It was aresponse to Trump's Sept. 22signing Executive Order 13950, whichprohibited the United States Uniformed Services or government contractors from providing workplace training on certain "divisive concepts" and allowed federal agencies to require that grant recipients not use federal funds to promote such concepts.

The list of divisive concepts includes that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex";"the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist"; "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex"; "any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex."

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in December issued a preliminary injunction banning enforcement of parts of the order pertaining to contractors and grantees, on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds. President Joe Biden revoked the orderon Jan. 20.

At SCSU in October, at a kickoff virtual discussion with 10 speakers, multiple professors said it would be impossible to do their jobs effectively without critical race theory.

"We cannot discuss or critique America, as social scientists, without discussing or critiquing racism in this country, as racism is embedded in the very fabric of the United States," sociology professor Cassi Meyerhoffer said.

Janani Umamaheswar, also a sociology professor, questioned how we can approach a solution to the incarceration of Black and Latino people "at such alarming rates" without recognizing the role race plays, and said a colorblind approach to questions of social equity is "fundamentally flawed."

Siobhan Carter-David said it's impossible for her to teach American history "without pulling from an understanding about the role that white supremacy had in crafting the United States, even if we start after slavery ends." She listed a slew of racialized practices: convict leasing, health care experimentation, political disenfranchisement, redlining, unethical banking practices, the war on drugs.

"I don't think that anti-racist activists or people who teach critical race theory have ever made the argument that people should take responsibility for the actions of their ancestors, but rather to understand how this manifests itself today," Carter-David said.

This past week, UConn sociology professor Noel Cazenave said critical race theory first developed at a time when there was a backlash to the civil rights movement, and he sees the current attention as "a highly organized backlash" to systemic racism being forced into national discourse through protest last summer.

"Critical race theory is a perfect foil because nobody knows what the heck it is," Cazenave said.

University of New Haven professor and retired Navy officer Robert Sanders, who chairs the National Security Department, and teaches a course called Security, Sovereignty, and Slavery, said those who latched onto critical race theory "as the new boogeyman" say, "Oh, this is just another way of them telling us America is bad." But, he said, "No, America is not bad; America, just like a lot of other countries in the world, have done bad things."

Akey orchestrator of theconflict over critical race theory is Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, who told The New Yorker in a profile he called "accurate, fair, and thoughtful" the term "is the perfect villain." Rufo helped draft Trump's executive order, after the former president saw Rufo talking about critical race theory on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Rufo tweeted in March, "We have successfully frozen their brand 'critical race theory' into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category."

Some state Republicans push back

On June 7, Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 1073, which has the stated purpose of requiring "a study of state agency policies and programs to assess the equity of state government programs and the allocation of state resources."

The amendment would have prohibited Connecticut schools from teaching "divisive concepts," the same ones referenced in Trump's order, to students in kindergarten through12th grade.

"I firmly believe that we have got to get a hold of our education system in this state and in this country, and remind the next generation that America is the greatest place on Earth," Sampson said.

In response to questions from Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Windham, and Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, Sampson said the bill wouldn't prohibit teaching the Civil War or civil rights movement, and he believes schools should be able to teach that the founding fathers owned slaves.

Flexer pushed back against the part about students not feeling "discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress."

"I just don't know how we can legislate the feelings of the students," she said. She added, "I would argue that sometimes a feeling of discomfort, guilt or anguish might actually make a student want to learn more, might make a student want to engage in policies to change what they're learning about."

The amendment ultimately failed on a party-line vote, but the overall bill passed without any opposition.

During the back-and-forth between Sampson and Flexer, neither used the term "critical race theory," though Sampson did later sayhe offered the amendment "to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory in Connecticut schools."

Sampson apologized on the Senate floor for "not bringing what are many, many examples of these divisive concepts being taught in the classroom across our state" but told The Day on Friday, "I never said there were examples; I was doing it preemptively."

After the vote, Sampson emailed constituents asking people who "know of efforts to incorporate Critical Race Theory in our schools" to email him.

He told The Day that "people have certainly contacted me on the subject" but "I don't want to provide anything at this time," that he's pulling something together and wants to do that on his own timeline.

He did point to a statement this week on critical race theory from the State Education Resource Center of Connecticut, which is leading the development of a new course of studies under a state law requiring the inclusion of Black and Latino studies in public school curriculum.

SERC said through its research, it learned that CRT "strives to advance a social justice framework," explains how race and racism operate, is typically interdisciplinary and recognizes that race works with "gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality as systems of power."

"We know how confusing and disruptive some of these concepts can seem because we felt it too," SERC wrote. "But it became impossible to ignore the legacy of racism and its impact on our educational system. We could not discount students' lived experience with race and because of their race. These are their stories, and they have gone untold for so long."

Sampson also joined a virtual town hall that Rep. Kimberly Fiorello, R-Greenwich, held Monday about critical race theory called, "Why is the Accusation of Racism Everything and Everywhere?" She said many parents in Greenwich and Stamford reached out to her with concerns about what they were seeing in their classrooms.

Her featured guest was anthropologist Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars and author of "1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project."

Wood agrees that race is a social construct, and said it's true that racism has affected "political participation, wealth creation, housing, medicine, the labor market, sports, the military, schooling and higher education, and opportunities in the arts." But he doesn't believe racism is "foundational or intrinsic to American institutions."

Fiorello also went on Fox News to criticize the passage of a bill that, in part,declared racism a public health crisis, which she said "is critical race theory in our laws." While only one Democratic representative voted no on the bill, Republicans in the House were split: 22 voted in favor and 32 against.

e.moser@theday.com

Read more from the original source:
Critical race theory has proved divisive. What is it? - theday.com

(Court TV Image)

Triple murder defendant Christian Kit Martin took the stand in his own defense Tuesday and denied killing his neighbors and having any knowledge about who did.

After Martins testimony, the defense rested its case with jury deliberations likely to begin in Hardin County Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Martin is accused of the November 2015 murders of Calvin and Pamela Phillips and their neighbor Ed Dansereau in Pembroke. Calvin Phillips was found shot in his home, while Pamela Phillips and Dansereau were discovered a few miles away in the charred remains of a car.

Martin was asked point-blank by his attorney Tom Griffiths if he killed his neighbors.

click to download audioThe Army had charged Martin with sexual and physical abuse of three children as well as mishandling classified information. He was exonerated on the more serious charges but convicted of mishandling classified information and simple assault and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Phillips was scheduled to be a witness in Martins court-martial scheduled for two weeks after the murders. However, during questioning, Martin said Phillips was going to be called as a defense witness for his side.

click to download audioTwo key pieces of evidence in the case a shell casing and an Army dog tag with Martins name on it were reportedly found after the murder by Phillips son and sister in the Phillips home. Both were turned over to investigators. Martin was asked if the dog tag was his.

click to download audioThe defense has suggested that Martins ex-wife Joan Harmon may have been involved in the planning and execution of the murders. Martin testified that Harmon made threats to him during an argument a year prior to the murders.

click to download audioBoth the defense and Commonwealth subpoenaed Harmon, and her son to testify in the case. Both invoked their Fifth Amendment right against potential self-incrimination and have not testified.

Closing arguments should begin Wednesday with Senior Circuit Judge John Atkins expected to give the jury its instructions before deliberations begin.

Continue reading here:
Murder Defendant Martin Takes the Stand on His Defense - wkdzradio.com

Nayda Alvarez's family has lived at least five generations on land on the Texas-Mexico border where her house is but 200 feet from the Rio Grande river.

Not only is there no need for a border wall near her home in Starr County, she said, but if one were to be erected, it would be just feet from the back of her home. The high school teacher fought the Trump administration in court over an attempt to build on her property and if Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moves forward with his announced plan to try to accomplish what President Donald Trump did not, Alvarez will fight him too.

Hes trying to make his portfolio look real good because he wants to run for president, Alvarez surmised.

Abbott is likely to face logistical challenges because most of the borderland in Texas is privately owned and some of it is federally owned, which would require the Biden administration to approve any barriers built on federal land.

The Republican governor said Wednesday he would use $250 million in state money and crowdsourced financing to start building a wall on Texas' 1,200-mile border with Mexico. He did not specify how much the project would cost, where it will go and how long it would be.

Abbott claimed that a combination of state land and land volunteered by property owners would yield 100s of miles of wall. He said he is asking the federal government to return land obtained for the U.S. government's wall and return it to private citizens who can allow Texas to finish the job.

In response to the federal governments neglect of all of the people who live along the border, the people who are facing the consequences of the spread of drugs like fentanyl, Texas is stepping up and doing more than any other state ever has done to respond to these challenges along the border, Abbott said. Texas taxpayers are having to step up so we as a state can protect our citizens."

The United States currently has 771 miles of barriers along its border with Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. During the Trump administration, 373 miles of old or outdated barriers were replaced and 80 miles of new "primary and secondary" wall were erected where no barriers previously existed. Wall construction mainly focused on federally owned land in Arizona, California and New Mexico.

Trumps signature campaign promise faced consistent legal and environmental obstacles in Texas, which has the largest section of the U.S.-Mexico border, most of it without fencing. And much of the land along the Rio Grande, the river that forms the border in Texas, is privately held and environmentally sensitive.

The federal government can seize private property for public use through eminent domain, a process that could take years.

David Donatti of the ACLU of Texas said there are 100 court cases pending that involve the government trying to seize land through eminent domain. The Biden administration has not formally dropped them though it has said it is re-evaluating them.

So these cases remain in a case of limbo where the Biden administration could continue to press these cases, take property, build border wall, but they have not given that sort of concrete commitment one way or the other, Donatti said.

He called Abbotts announcement all hot air.

I think its a preposterous idea, Donatti said.

He said that although he hoped it would come to nothing, he thought it likely that Abbott was determined to do something. If the governor tried to use the power of eminent domain to take land, the ACLU would contest his authority to do that, Donatti said.

Any wall would have to be far enough away from the Rio Grandes flood plain to honor a treaty between the United States and Mexico and so it could end up being some sort of freestanding wall somewhere in the interior of Texas, he said.

So, whatever the governor builds we imagine would be at least a mile inland, if not more, thereby walling off part of the state to an area south of the border, he said.

The issue with migrants aside for a moment, the border wall is also reeking untold damage on the environment

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires the government pay just compensation to anyone whose land is taken for public use. But the government can deposit an amount it deems fair with the court, then seek to take the land immediately on the basis that a border wall is urgently needed.

Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said that he thought few landowners along the Rio Grande supported walls or barriers on their property and would likely fight as long as they can. He also questioned whether a court would consider a government request an emergency or legitimate public use of the land.

Its highly doubtful that any court would grant eminent domain to build a 13th century wall to deal with a 21st century problem, Garcia said.

Donatti noted that the Trump administration had been spending $20 billion a mile on the border, far in excess of what Abbott could spend. The state of Texas has set up a webpage and post office box so anyone can donate money for Abbott's wall. The ACLU said it would scrutinize the project for transparency and public accountability.

These projects are extremely cost intensive and allow ample opportunity for fraud and grift, he said.

An online fundraising campaign called We Build the Wall, ended with four indictments, including that of Trumps former adviser, Steve Bannon, accused with the others of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors. Trump pardoned Bannon before he left office.

Large numbers of migrants have been seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border by turning themselves over to U.S. Border Patrol agents. At the same time the number of families and children crossing into the U.S. without their parents has dropped sharply since March and April.

Abbott has taken increased action over immigration since Biden took office,including announcing last week that state troopers will now begin arresting migrants crossing the southern border and charging them with trespassing.

His plan has drawn skepticism and ridicule. Critics note that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the power to enforce immigration laws, including prosecuting illegal entry, is that of the federal government's. Whether or not there is a presidential run in Abbotts future, he is up for re-election as governor next year and is being accused of using the issue for political benefit.

This is just political grandstanding by the governor who is running for re-election, said Garcia. He knows he has no authority, he knows he has no ability to build a wall much less arrest people for trespassing and putting them in jail.

The chairwoman for the Native American tribe Hia C-ed Oodham, which means Sand People, shares her story about how the Trump administrations border wall has hurt her community. Chairwoman Christina Andrews said construction has already destroyed a childrens shrine and sacred trails.

Donatti said that the ACLU of Texas would scrutinize trespassing and other arrests and Abbotts efforts to ratchet up penalties. It is well established that the federal government has authority over the countrys immigration laws and if a state interferes by arresting non Americans, there is the possibility of diplomatic problems, he said.

Meanwhile, Alvarez is hoping the Biden administration drops hers and other eminent domain cases.

We cant celebrate until we get a real dismissal, she said.

However, she's still worried that going forward the security of her property will depend on the political affiliation of the administration in office.

Alvarez also questioned claims by Abbott and others who have said those crossing illegally are armed and dangerous. The immigrants crossing the river are mostly trying to claim asylum but would be turned away on the bridges, she said.

The violence is coming in? Where? Because I sure dont see it, she said.

Read more:
Gov. Abbott Vowed to Build a Wall With Mexico. Texas Borderland Owners Say Not in My Backyard - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Also Monday, both officers invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to testify as they did during the first trial

ST. LOUIS Prosecutors trying to convict two former St. Louis police officers for assaulting one of their own as he worked undercover as a protester rested its case Monday with perhaps its most powerful evidence against them: text messages.

In the messages, former Officer Dustin Boone uses the n-word and sends a lengthy apology to the victim in the case, Detective Luther Hall. In one, he tells a friend, I feel bad, we obviously didn't know he was a policeman.

In others, former Officer Christopher Myers writes, Lets whoop some (expletive) as the protests were about to start in 2017 after a judge acquitted a white St. Louis police officer of murdering a Black man.

The jury also heard from a doctor who treated Hall, and said his injuries are consistent with the alleged assault because he did not complain or experience any neck or back problems before it.

Patrick Kilgore, who is representing Boone, suggested the neck issues could be degenerative.

One noticeable absence from the prosecutions witness list is former Officer Randy Hays. He has already pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged assault and is awaiting sentencing.

He testified during the first trial and changed his recollection of what the officers did during the alleged assault.

This is the second time these officers are on trial for their role in this assault.

A jury returned partial verdicts following a two-week trial in March.

Boone is facing the most serious of charges in this case, aiding and abetting in the deprivation of civil rights. It carries a sentence of 10 years in prison.

Myers is charged with tampering with evidence to impede an investigation for allegedly destroying Halls cellphone.

The government must prove Boone knew he was aiding and abetting in the deprivation of Halls civil rights. His defense has focused heavily on how Boone assumed his fellow officers had probable cause to make the arrest, and thats why he held Hall down by putting a knee in his back and pushed his head back down to the ground.

The same can be said for Myers.

The government must prove Myers is the one who struck the phone, and that he knew there was a criminal investigation he needed to impede.

His defense has focused heavily on creating reasonable doubt around who actually destroyed the phone, suggesting at one point Monday that an officer who stepped on it could have shattered the screen and a pebble in that officers shoe could have created the circular shape of the cracks.

The prosecution has said the crack to the phone clearly came from an asp and went through photographs taken by a newspaper photographer and Halls own cellphone to demonstrate its theory.

The defense also spent hours going through the images, and the corresponding timestamps, showing their clients were not near Hall during the alleged assault.

Prosecutors have said the last few frames caught on Halls cellphone show an officer raising a baton before striking the phone and the audio cuts off. Defense attorneys suggested Myers was not near Hall at the moment the phone was struck.

Myers face can be seen in the last few moments before the phone cuts off entirely. His attorneys say he picked it up, saw blood on it, and threw it out of the way. Before Hall was taken away, Myers put the phone back in Halls backpack another move his attorneys say prove he had no intention of destroying evidence.

Also Monday, both officers invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to testify as they did during the first trial.

The defense called four officers to the stand and is expected to call additional officers Tuesday.

Lt. Joe Crews was among the officer called. He said he saw Hall at police headquarters holding a towel to his bloody lip and asked him what happened.

He told me he was running with the (expletives), the worst of the worse, when the police got him.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Costantin reminded Crews of his statement to the FBI in which he said Hall told him he was running with everyone and got his (expletive) beat by the police.

The defense is expected to call at least two more witnesses Tuesday, and the jury could start deliberations Tuesday afternoon.

Visit link:
Prosecution rests in 2nd trial of officers accused of assaulting Black colleague by again focusing on texts - KSDK.com

Get inside Wall Street with StreetInsider Premium. Claim your 1-week free trial here.

Washington, D.C., June 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In June 2016, Christopher Novinger and the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reached a settlement of the agencys claims that he and his company, ICAN Investment Group, LLC (ICAN), violated federal securities law. SEC required Mr. Novinger and ICAN to sign a consent order claiming that he had agreed to be bound forever by a Gag Orderan administrative tool meant to silence people with lifetime speech bans related to their prosecutions. For nearly 50 years, SEC has insisted that all people who settle their cases with the agency must agree to a gag that violates nearly every free speech doctrine.

Today the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, filed aMotion for Relief from Judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of Mr. Novinger and ICAN, challenging the constitutionality of the SEC Gag Order that continues to hold themand the truthhostage. Mr. Novinger simply wants to speak candidly about SECs enforcement proceedings without facing the threat of a reopened prosecution.

Mr. Novingers Gag Order is broad, all-encompassing, and fails to provide clear notice of what speech it forbids. Worse, the Gag Order never expires. The ban is longer even than a criminal sentence would have been for the charged violation, which is especially relevant here as Mr. Novinger was never criminally charged. Perpetually mandating silence on such unclear terms that forbid him to do what even convicted people have every right to do (i.e., speak about their cases) violates Mr. Novingers due process rights.

The Gag Rule violates the First Amendment for a multitude of reasons: 1) it is a forbidden prior restraint on future speech; 2) it is a content-based restriction of speech; 3) it grants SEC unbridled enforcement discretion and silences Mr. Novinger in perpetuity; 4) it forbids truthful speech; 5) it unconstitutionally conditions settlement upon surrender of Americans inalienable rights of free speech; 6) it compels speech; and 7) it abridges Americans rights of petition long protected by the First Amendment. Any rule that racks up a list of constitutional violations this lengthy compels the conclusion that it could never have been a valid rule in the first place.

And, in fact, it was not. As NCLA points out, SEC created this Rule in 1972 without notice and comment, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. SEC dishonestly called it a Housekeeping Rule. Such rules cannot bind anyone outside the government, but SECs gag orders always bind outside parties. The Gag Rule was void from the day it was snuck into the Federal Register.

NCLA released the following statements:

SEC is notorious for issuing press releases that instantly destroy careers, reputations, businesses, and lives. It is hard to imagine a policy better designed to suppress the truth about these important matters than SECs Gag Rule, which contrives to give the agency the last word and render those it charges powerless to defend themselves in the court of public opinion. Fortunately, our Constitution does not permit that baleful bargain. Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

The SEC requires settling defendants to state that they do not deny the SECs allegations if they truthfully say they do not admit them. The First Amendment forbids such compelled speech. The Gag Order also requires individuals to impute their own guilt. The Fifth Amendment does not permit such coerced self-condemnation. It is high time for SECs enforcement apparatus to be made to workwithin the confines of the Constitution. Kara Rollins, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

For more information visit the case page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholarPhilip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights.

###

More here:
NCLA Lawsuit in Texas Seeks to End SEC's Lifetime Gag Orders that Violate the First Amendment - StreetInsider.com

From the Nothing New Under the Sun files, I bring you a former president whose concern over leaks to the press eventually blew his entire administration straight to hell.

President Nixons staffers formed the White House Plumbers, explains Time, a secret unit tasked with digging up dirt on Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. The Plumbers went on to commit crimes for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, including the Watergate burglaries. Although Nixon denied knowledge of the Plumbers activities, tapes subpoenaed during the Watergate investigation revealed years of political espionage and illegal surveillance. The Smoking Gun tape revealed that Nixon was involved in the cover up. On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the only American president to resign the office.

Nothing so dramatic as that is in the offing today; Donald Trump whose own surveillance program against journalists, Democratic politicians and their families, and even his own lawyer, is roiling Washington, D.C., once again is already out of office. He has been quacking about getting reinstated as president from his funnel hole in New Jersey. Sure, put him back in, and then impeach him a third time. Maybe this one will stick.

The first reports of Trumps administration running its own ham-fisted Plumbers operation landed late last week with a rolling boom. As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members, reported The New York Times. One was a minor.

The roll call of people affected is a perfect match to another Nixonian throwback, the enemies list. Atop Trumps effective corollary to Nixons list was House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who was a regular target of Trumps tirades. All told, Apple received subpoenas that covered 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses. A number of the people swept up in this metadata search were not in government, including the aforementioned minor.

Along with the subpoena came a nondisclosure order which barred Apple from informing its customers that the Justice Department was digging into their data. The nondisclosure order was extended three times, reports CNN, each time for a year, Apple said. When it was not extended for a fourth time, Apple said it informed the affected customers on May 5, 2021.

Concurrently, the Trump administration also seized communications data from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post. This revelation landed more than a week ago, tangling the Biden administration up in the mess, because his Justice Department apparently continued this surveillance after Trump left office. The Biden White House has disavowed these activities, and the policy regarding leak investigations over at Justice has been changed.

The wildest revelation came this weekend, when it was revealed that one of Trumps targets was his own White House counsel, Doug McGahn. Apple told Mr. McGahn about the subpoena last month, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Mr. McGahns wife also received a similar notice from Apple, reports the Times.

The time frame for this is easy enough to recall. Not long after Trump took office, his administration sprang more leaks than a badly wrapped diaper. Nobody in the administrations lower echelons had the courage to resign in protest over the terrifying things they were seeing Anonymous, your table is ready but they were more than happy to spray that cheese into the wind for the news media to collect, and collect it they did.

There were weeks when one could not walk around the block without tripping over 10 heavily sourced news reports about White House shenanigans regarding the southern border, the ceaseless infighting within the administration that was usually inspired by Trump himself, and the administrations dealings with Russia both before and after the election. The Russia questions, it appears, hit a tender spot with Trump, initially prompting the broad and surreptitious data harvest.

Fallout from these revelations is just beginning. House Democrats intend to hold hearings on the matter and will subpoena any witnesses who dont come voluntarily. This includes former Attorney General William Barr, who was running Justice when all of this went down. Barr is trying to put as much daylight as he can between himself and these subpoenas, but that will be challenging.

In May of 2019, then-Sen. Kamala Harris asked Barr directly if the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested you open an investigation into anyone? Barrs reply was a tap-dancing clinic, but if and when he appears at a hearing on this matter, he will not have many places to hide besides an invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights.

The House will not be the only entity involved in this investigation. The Justice Departments internal watchdog announced Friday that he would review how officials sought the data of reporters, lawmakers and others as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks during the Trump administration, reports the Post, a day after it was revealed the department years ago had secretly obtained the data of two congressmen well known for their criticism of President Donald Trump.

For their part, congressional Republicans are putting on their best What, me worry? faces as these revelations continue to roll in, and why not? Few of them have paid a price for loyalty to Trump, even now that he is out of office. As far as the public stance of the GOP goes, its all blue skies.

but I do wonder. At present, the Republican Party has tasked itself to defeat several wildly popular pieces of Democratic legislation, bury the sacking of the Capitol by Trump supporters under a compost pile of They were just tourists excuses even as they block an investigation into the incident, and now this, a scandal straight out of central casting with an eerily familiar historical hook to boot. There are only so many running chainsaws a person can juggle before limbs start getting lopped off.

The reason this latest issue is so important is that it appears to show the executive branch of the government wielding presidential power to target the legislative branch, reports CNNs Stephen Collinson, and the Presidents personal political enemies. It would be hard to find a more clear and flagrant abuse of presidential power. This behavior would not only be a perversion of the DOJs critical role in ensuring the neutral and apolitical application of justice a key requirement for a democratic society. It would also mirror the actions of autocrats across the world, many of whom Trump openly admired.

The GOPs worst enemy in this? Trump himself, of course. Does anyone think he will sit quietly while this investigation unfolds daily on the television he watches relentlessly? I would be not at all surprised if at some point he winds up pulling a Colonel Jessup from A Few Good Men: Did you order the Code Red? YOURE GOD DAMNED RIGHT I DID!

One of these days not today or tomorrow, but someday I have to believe the GOP will be forced to wise up and toss this hot potato back into the pot. They are whistling past the political graveyard now because Trumps base still has the back of the loyal, but there are not enough voters in that base to make a winning national coalition. As these treacherous stories about the former president continue to pile up, that loyalty may come only to be worth the price of a bus ticket home.

Read the original here:
In His Wild Bid to Stop Leaks to the Press, Trump Even Spied on His Own Lawyer - Truthout

Paul Robeson was a Renaissance man in many ways athlete, lawyer, actor, singer, and activist for racial justice, international solidarity, and socialism. Over Robesons decades-long career, he recorded nearly three hundred songs and starred in countless shows and films, including Shakespeares Othello and the film The Proud Valley.

Every avenue of professional success seemed open to Robeson, but his commitment to the struggle for socialism and against colonialism shaped industry and public perceptions of him. During the McCarthy era, he was blacklisted in Hollywood and questioned before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Despite the domestic political persecution, he never wavered in his political commitment to social equality.

In 1973, three years before Robesons death, Dr Harold D. Weaver Jr wrote the following essay, published in The Black Scholar, on Robesons life, career, and organizing. Dr Weaver is an associate at Harvard Universitys Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and a longtime leader in the BlackQuaker Project. The article has been lightly edited for length.

Who is Paul Robeson, the man? He had just about as good a mind, body, will, and voice all in one person as functioned in the first half of the twentieth century. Honored throughout the world as an outstanding drama, film, and concert performer, Robeson transferred this artistic prestige to that of a political spokesman on behalf of those seeking to gain and to retain freedom. His friendship with, and active support of, Third World freedom fighters Azikiwe, Kenyatta, Nehru, and Nkrumah attest to this. To the United States State Department, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the renters of major US concert halls, the National Football Hall of Fame, and numerous Rutgers alumni, his political utterances brought infamy and, from some, cries of disloyalty.

So, while there is a Mount Paul Robeson in the USSR, a Paul Robeson Archives in the German Democratic Republic, and an International Stalin Peace Prize in Robesons possession, his own government would not even permit him a passport to go abroad to practice his profession; entrepreneurs denied him the privilege of singing in the Carnegie Halls of America for eight long years. His failure to continue supporting a political-economic system whose military efforts against fascism he had actively backed during World War II by recruiting, by publicly justifying, and by entertaining troops at military installations and workers at defense plants, was interpreted by some as treasonable.

Robeson was in the vanguard of significant developments related to black intellectual and political assertion. He was an intellectual forerunner in scholarly publications on African culture and linguistics in the 1930s. His warning to President Truman in 1946 that unless the US government began to protect black Americans from lynchings, blacks would take the necessary steps of self-defense preceded the teachings of Malcolm X, Robert Williams, the Deacons for Justice, and the Black Panthers. Robeson had a concrete liberation program. His proposed tactics of using two mass-based organizations the churches and the labor unions was an important contribution to black political thought.

Robeson grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of the minister of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. At age sixty (in his very important political statement Here I Stand) Paul Robeson was to reminisce about his father, about the important role of his father, in young Pauls search for identity: As I went out into life, one thing loomed above all else. I was my fathers son, a Negro in America. That was the challenge.

As C. L. R. James has put it, Paul Robeson was a great political figure. He took part in a struggle which was bigger than himself. And he never buckled down under brute force, racist pressures, or an imperialist campaign to discredit him, which was a big and an unprecedented sacrifice for humanity.

From the early 1930s, Robeson developed and advocated two major political commitments African liberation and anti-imperialism. The American establishment garnered its forces to persecute him on both, often confusing its population about which was more threatening.

Robeson linked the liberation struggle of his people in America with the same struggle of his people in Africa. He threw himself into African efforts at identity, positive images, and freedom in several ways: (1) through his studies, interviews, speeches, and writings on African linguistics and culture; (2) through his films; (3) through direct individual aid to African and other Third World nationalists in the United Kingdom; and (4) organizationally through the Council on African Affairs in the United States.

In 1937, Robeson cofounded the Council of African Affairs, which he was to serve actively as chairman, to aid the national-liberation struggles. The organization was politically smeared into oblivion in 1955 as a result of conflicts with the American government. According to Adelaide Hill and Martin Kilson, in Apropos of Africa, the council was the first organization of Negro Americans actively to involve Africans in the United States within an institution whose specific purpose was to influence government policy toward Africa. It was at its 1944 conference, over which Robeson presided, that a young student from Ghana, Francis Nwi-Kof Nkrumah [who would later go on to become Kwame Nkrumah], participated, as a representative of the African Students Association; the conference was aimed at drafting a program for Africas postwar liberation and advancement. The councils program was sixfold:

1. To give concrete help to the struggle of the African masses.2. To disseminate accurate information concerning Africa and its people; in that, to wake up Americans to what is happening in Africa, the one continent where undisguised colonial slavery is still practiced.3. To influence the adoption of governmental policies designed to promote their advancement and freedom and preserve international peace.4. To smash the iron curtain of secrecy and double talk surrounding the schemes for intensified imperialist exploitation of Africa and its people.5. To prevent American loans and guns from being used to crush the freedom struggle of Africans and other subjected peoples.6. To strengthen the alliance of progressive Americans, black and white, with the peoples of Africa and other lands in the common struggle for world peace and freedom.

Through mass rallies, conferences, workshops, cables, declarations, press releases and advertisements, financial and food aid to famines in Africa, hosting nationalist leaders and delegations, and meetings with major members of the US Government and of the UN Secretariat and delegations, Robeson and the council contributed to the cause of African freedom.

Significant was Robesons declaration in a 1946 meeting with President Truman. In response to the presidents assertion that the United States and Britain were the last refuges of freedom in the world, Robeson replied, the British Empire is one of the greatest enslavers of human beings. Because of Robesons international prestige and popularity, the British press and at least one top member of its government, the colonial secretary, expressed sharp opposition to this.

With his linking the struggle for black liberation in the United States with the worldwide struggle of oppressed peoples, Robeson identified American imperialism as the main enemy of liberation efforts. That is the context in which he said that he did not see how black Americans would want to fight against the Soviet Union on behalf of their oppressors, including Senator Eastland (Miss.).

How did Robeson respond to Marxism-Leninism generally and to the USSR specifically? Only the Soviet Union was seen as militarily strong enough to be able to challenge US imperialism and Western colonialism in international forums and elsewhere. Robesons political evolution to socialism took several steps. From experiencing racial exploitation in the United States, he began to see class exploitation on the Liverpool docks and in the Welsh coal mines. After personally experiencing a near-lynching at the Friedrichstrasse railway station in Hitlers Germany, Robeson was deeply moved by his warm reception in the Soviet Union, both from the political and artistic elites and from the general population. The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, whom he had gone to the USSR to see to discuss a movie about Toussaint LOuverture and Henri Christophe, welcomed him at the Moscow train station. People were to greet him warmly wherever he went. Those personal experiences and observations were to aid his attraction to the country; Robeson was to remark that for the first time in his life he felt like a man.

It is alleged, but not substantiated, that during World War II, only two photos were allowed in Soviet government offices: Joseph Stalins and Robesons. He later became a confidant of the next head of Soviet government and party, Nikita Khrushchev, even before any American president was to meet Chairman Khrushchev occasionally relaxing at Khrushchevs dacha on the Black Sea. Robeson was optimistic of a major role which he saw the USSR playing in a racist world:

Russia is the father of experiment. The Russians will save the white world from complete destruction. The black and yellow man will rise up to avenge themselves. They will show that men are equal, that difference in color does not make men the enemies of one another.

His exposure to Marxist thinkers and readings in London, his positive experiences and treatment throughout the USSR, and his observations of cultural and economic evolution in Central Asia were to aid his subsequent identification with scientific socialism.

A major illustration shows the responses of the United States political system to Robeson during the period between 1950 and 1958 a period during which, as the New Statesman and Nation put it, he was sentenced to unemployment in a country he could not leave. His encounter with the notorious House Committee on American Activities which with the State Department was leading the governments efforts to silence Robeson deserves our attention.

Robeson had answered a subpoena to appear on June 12, 1956, before HUAC with the impression that such an appearance might help him retrieve the passport that the United States State Department had confiscated. Instead, the committee turned the hearing into a personal attack on Robeson. Inquisitors attempted to discredit him by labeling him a Communist subversive, loyal to a foreign power. Robeson was denied his request to face and to examine his accusers, as well as to read a prepared statement. Invoking the Fifth Amendment over thirty times, Robeson refused to aid and abet the national witch hunt of senators Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon and their Lower House colleagues.

From the Committees printed record, a verbatim excerpt of an exchange between Brother Robeson and inquisitor Francis Walter, committee chairman, speaks for itself:

Chairman: You are speaking to the chairman of this committee.Robeson: Mr. Walter?Chairman: Yes.Robeson: The Pennsylvania Walter?Chairman: That is right.Robeson: Representative of the steelworkers?Chairman: That is right.Robeson: Of the coal mining workers and not United States Steel, by any chance? A great patriot.Chairman: That is right.Robeson: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country?Chairman: No, only your kind.Robeson: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds, and just the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.Chairman: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.Robeson: You do not want any colored people to come in?Chairman: Proceed

And proceed Robeson did he proceeded to challenge uncompromisingly the political, economic, and cultural foundations of American racism.

Paul Robeson Jr summarizes the interaction between his father and establishment institutions political, communications, cultural, and economic:

My father survived an unprecedented onslaught. He took all they had to throw at him, came out the other end triumphant, unbowed his famous comment was, I shall not retreat one thousandth part of an inch. . . . He never took a word back, and he retired unbowed and undefeated.

To separate Robeson, the artist from Robeson, the man, or, for that matter, from Robeson, the political man, is not possible.

Robesons view of the artist as activist came early. He gave as a reason for leaving a potentially lucrative career as a Wall Street lawyer the argument that he could reach more people in a single evening as an artist than he could reach in several years practicing law. John Henrik Clarke describes Robeson, the artist-activist: He was the forerunner of the artist who saw that his art extended beyond the stage and had to be involved with the life of the people.

The culture of his own people was his window to the culture of other peoples of the world. He saw the interrelationship among them and, thus, he came to study the cultures of the common people their folk art, folk music, and folk literature. His refusal to sing to Jim Crow audiences in the South occurred two generations ago and began a trend that was to lead to civil rights activities in the South in the 1950s and 1960s.

As Anatal Schlosser has pointed out, It was through singing that he best came to realize both personal and political ambitions. . . . It was not his speeches but his songs that spoke for his politics. Robesons political beliefs were manifested in his concert presentations; he became interested in the kinship of folk music generally and introduced folk songs of all nations on his programs. And as fascism expanded in Europe in the 1930s, Robeson contributed his art to anti-fascist causes, while maintaining his regular concert schedule. The effect of his growing militant position in regular recitals became evident in his interpretation of spirituals and the changing of lyrics of other music to give them greater political meaning. In England, gallery-seat prices were reduced in order to admit more of the people he believed really wanted to hear him.

Of Paul Robesons numerous successes on the stage, his was the definitive Othello in the modern theater. Setting an all-time record of 296 performances for a Shakespearean play on Broadway, Othello in 1944 won for Robeson highest praise. His roles on the stage had symbolic political significance. He performed superbly to satisfy his audience but also transmitted to that same audience a political message which would eventually help to intensify political freedom as well as social equality.

In film, as Thomas Cripps has pointed out, Robesons role should be viewed essentially as that of a man who fought successfully to help destroy the distorted myths about blacks projected by the Hollywood film industry. In the formative years of Robesons movie career, certain roles were forced upon him. The thinking of Hollywood in those days, as it very well may be today, was anti-black in every respect, especially the thought of assigning meaningful roles to black actors. Robeson became the victim of his trade. Beginning with Oscar Micheauxs Body and Soul, Robeson made eleven feature films, mostly in England, between 1924 and 1944, along with three significant political documentaries, for which he did the voice-over narrations.

Robesons film experiences were intertwined with his political life in several ways. His negative experiences with American and British film producers and directors in the highly competitive film industry inevitably were to help shape his evolving views of the capitalist economic system. Overt racism prevailed through all layers of the industry, including the intentional distortion of images, patterns of discrimination in employment, and the distribution of films. Even as a famous interpretive artist he was not immune to racism in film, in concert, in theater. Regarding images, Robeson was to remark: Hollywood can only visualize the plantation type of Negro the Negro of Poor Old Joe and Swanee Ribber.

His film Song of Freedom (1937), about a successful black singer who, after discovering his aristocratic African origins, returns to take over leadership, received Robesons praise: I believe this is the first film to give a true picture of many aspects of the life of a coloured man in the West. Hitherto . . . he has been caricatured as a comedy character. This film shows him as a real man. The film has two significant autobiographical items. One is the profoundly personal identification with, and interest in, the history, aspirations, and culture of the African motherland. A second is the abdication by a successful artist of a lucrative career and fame on behalf of a cause in which he believes and which he sees as paramount. Kwame Nkrumah who had worked closely with Robeson in Britain selected the film for viewing at his Convention Peoples Partys second anniversary celebration in 1950 and was later to offer Robeson a visiting professorship of drama and music at the University in independent Ghana, a post which Robesons health would not permit his accepting.

Finally, involvement in film led to Robesons first trip to the USSR, in 1936, to meet with the great Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein. Although initially made to discuss making a film on the Haitian military and anti-slavery leader Toussaint LOuverture, the voyage was to have profound political impact on the thirty-eight-year-old Robeson, and to influence his thinking and behavior about political, economic, and social phenomena for the rest of his public life.

Despite his international fame in the concert halls, in the theater, and on the screen, it is significant that this artist-activist never allowed his personal success to explain away what happened to his people. The essence of Robesons political evolution can be seen in his changing the lyrics of Oscar Hammersteins Ol Man River. Early in his artistic career, Robeson was to sing it as written:

You get a little drunk and you lands in jail,I gets weary and sick of tryinIm scared of livin and feared of dyin

His later message to the worlds oppressed, with whom he identified, and to the oppressor, for whom he had scorn, is summed up by the significant changes:

You show a little grit and youll land in jail.I must keep fightin until Im dyin

He dared assert his manhood and that of his people. That is how the beleaguered Robeson responded to racism, whether it be in the classroom, on the football field, in the political arena, on the stage, in the concert hall, or on the screen.

Read the original:
Paul Robeson Was One of the Greatest Figures of the 20th Century - Jacobin magazine

Here we go again. The corporate influence on elections and public policies is again in the news.

The 2021 version centers on major corporations speaking out against proposed and passed voter-suppression laws in Georgia and elsewhere.

When some corporations suspended contributions to Republican politicians who voted against certifying Bidens election, the GOP expressed outrage that corporations dared to take political positions against them.

The GOP simultaneously bemoaned the prospect that the tsunami of corporate campaign contributions might be cut off or reduced. Just shut up and donate, was the message from Mitch McConnell.

My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics, but Im not talking about political contributions, he stated in response to Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and other national and transnational corporations that criticized new voter-suppression laws across the country. This is a brand new same old story.

var vf_ad_container = document.getElementById(vf_div_id);vf_ad_container.innerHTML = '

';AdBridg.cmd.push(function() {var vf_gpt_slot = AdBridg.defineSlot('/5195/NCPC_TheUnion/ROS/opinion', [300,250], vf_div_id).setTargeting('slot', vf_div_id);var vf_size_mapping = AdBridg.sizeMapping().addSize([320,50]).build();AdBridg.useSizeMapping(vf_gpt_slot, vf_size_mapping);AdBridg.display('ad-big-box4');AdBridg.serve();})

var r1 = vf_ad_container.closest('.vf-promo');if (typeof r1 !== undefined) r1.style.display = "block";

});

});

Remember the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision, which entrenched the notion that money is First Amendment protected free speech? This ruling allowed individuals and corporations to legally spend vast amounts of money in elections, much of it on attack ads targeting candidates on issues the funders oppose.

This decision incensed the public, which feared that the megaphone of mega money would drown out the voices of the vast majority of individuals who dont make big donations.

Here we are again. The public is justly critical of the massive hypocrisy displayed by Mitch and his GOP cohorts who welcome the cascade of corporate and CEO cash, while simultaneously expressing indignation when their corporate donors express political free speech opinions the GOP does not like.

Recall that the GOP did not attack corporate so-called free speech rights when corporations released press statements supporting the 2017 tax cut legislation for corporations and the wealthy.

As with Citizens United, the hypocritical application of the court invented so-called corporate free speech rights invites us to expose and abolish the totality and illegitimacy of anti-democratic corporate constitutional rights.

But even if corporate political free speech rights is abolished, corporate entities will still possess other century-old Supreme Court-invented anti-democratic constitutional rights that shield them from public accountability, and gives them undue political power and ensures that corporate profits preempt the rights of individuals, communities and even the natural world.

Among these never-intended corporate constitutional rights:

First Amendment right not to speak used to overturn state laws requiring the labeling of a dangerous ingredient on food products and chemicals determined to cause cancer.

Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights used to prevent surprise inspections of corporate property, even routine inspections, removing the ability of inspectors to detect dangerous conditions (food contamination, dangerous working conditions) before they are temporarily removed or covered up.

Fifth Amendment takings rights used to overturn public regulations that protect private property from corporate actions. Fossil fuel corporations would undoubtedly challenge laws to keep fossil fuels in the ground to prevent impending climate collapse as a taking of corporate property without just compensation.

Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights used to overturn laws providing protection to local businesses (and local economies) over chain stores, and due process rights used to overturn over 200 state and federal economic regulations.

The corporate hijacking of these constitutional amendments provide business corporations overwhelming unaccountable power to overturn democratically enacted laws at every level of government.

The solution is the We the People Amendment (HJR 48), recently introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., with 56 House co-sponsors. The constitutional amendment would abolish both the money equals speech and corporate constitutional rights doctrines.

Its a response to the fundamental truth that solutions must be equivalent in scale to problems, which in this case are the massive corrupting influences of money in elections from the super rich and corporate control over so many aspects of our lives, as well as plundering of the natural world.

Corporations shouldnt be allowed to meddle in elections. Its up to human persons to fundamentally define what our legal creations can and cannot do. Enactment of the We the People Amendment is a necessary and urgent step toward authentic democracy for all people. Support HJR 48 by calling your congressman and senator today!

Lorraine Reich is a member of Move to Amend, Nevada County.

The rest is here:
Lorraine Reich: It's more than corporate money in elections - The Union of Grass Valley

Ex-pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli speaks to the press in front of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York with members of his legal team after the jury issued a verdict on Aug. 4, 2017.

Not even a seven-year sentence for securities fraud can keep Martin Shkreli from allegedly engaging in the machinations that earned him the nickname Pharma Bro.

In a ruling on Tuesday, a federal judge found that Shkreli used a contraband phone to communicate with his associates in the company behind Daraprim, the live-saving drug whose price he jacked up 40-fold roughly half a decade ago.

After the drug went from $13.50 per tablet to $500 overnight, Shkreli was criminally prosecuted for an unrelated Ponzi-like scheme involving investors in another drug company, Retrophin.

After a federal jury convicted him of securities fraud charges, state and federal regulators piled on civil antitrust charges revived from the old Daraprim scandal. Those accusations could lead to Shkrelis lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.

En route to trial, the Federal Trade Commission and multiple attorneys general asked U.S. District Judge Denise Cote to sanction Shkreli for destroying evidence. They asked the judge to effectively decide the cases major issues in their favor before a trial, seeking judicial findings that Shkreli was continuously involved in Vyera and Phoenixuss business from 2015 to present, communicated with Vyera executives about company business from prison, and engaged in the challenged conduct to restrain generic entry into the Daraprim market.

Refusing to go quite so far, Judge Cote made clear that she agreed with at least some of the regulators allegations about Shkrelis handling of the evidence.

The plaintiffs have shown that Shkreli has used a prison phone to discuss highly relevant company business and that he knew in doing so that those communications should have been but would not be preserved, the 11-page ruling states. Shkrelis use of the prison phone to discuss business development constitutes intentional spoliation and warrants sanctions.

The business communications at issue have to do with the company Vyera, the rebranded name of the company behind Shkrelis price hike of Daraprim, Turing Pharmaceuticals. Phoenixus is the parent company of Vyera. Shkreli founded the company.

Vyera executive Akeel Mithani testified that he communicated with Shkreli about business development from the end of 2018 through February 2019, while Shkreli was incarcerated inside a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

Some of those communications took place over the encrypted messaging platform WhatsApp, Mithani testified.

Kevin Mulleady, an owner and former director of Vyera, produced two text messages that he received from a still-incarcerated Shkreli in October 2017, some two months after the reputed Pharma Bros conviction.

When asked during a deposition earlier this year whether he had a cell phone in prison, Shkreli invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to the ruling.

The plaintiffs have been prejudiced by Shkrelis conduct because they do not have access to messages about Vyera that Shkreli sent and received while in prison, Judge Cote found, opting for the lighter sanctions Shkreli proposed rather than what regulators requested.

In an exercise of discretion, however, this Court declines to impose the plaintiffs proposed sanctions, her ruling states. As a result, Shkrelis proposed sanction that he be precluded from introducing any argument or evidence contrary to the presumption that he communicated with Mr. Mulleady and Mr. Mithani about company business from prison is adopted.

Cote declined to find that Vyera fell short in failing to preserve Shkrelis messages by wiping his company-issued iPhone during a factory reset between 2016 and 2017, after regulators placed a preservation notice.

Although it is undisputed that the Shkreli phone was subject to a factory reset in or around 2016-2017, Vyera has represented that it automatically backs up employee messages to iCloud, Judge Cote found. No party has suggested that that back up would not include text messages Shkreli sent and received using the Shkreli Phone. Counsel for Vyera will be required to confirm that an appropriate search has been conducted for these messages and that any relevant communications have been produced.

Cote directed Vyera to file a letter stating whether it searched the companys iCloud backup to or from the Shkreli phone.

Shkrelis lawyer did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Read the ruling below:

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Have a tip we should know? [emailprotected]

See more here:
Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Gets a Slap on the Wrist for Using Contraband Phone to Discuss Pharma Business Behind Bars - Law & Crime