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By Stanley Kutler $13.57
By Herman Melville
$22
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 AP/Danny Johnston, File
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By Chris Hedges — The decision to execute William Van Poyck, who in his writings from death row has chronicled our penal system’s depravity, is one more footnote to our perverted belief in the regeneration of society through violence.
Posted on May 12, 2013
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 AP/Moises Castillo
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Those who Friday convicted the Guatemalan dictator of genocide and crimes against humanity showed that political killers can be brought to justice in the modern world.
Posted on May 11, 2013
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 AP/Mississippi Department of Corrections
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Just hours before he was scheduled to die Tuesday, Willie Manning—who had been convicted of two murders and was recently denied a DNA test that could exonerate him—had his execution stayed by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Posted on May 8, 2013
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 Screenshot
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According to Dov Fox of the Georgetown University Law Center, there was never any physical evidence linking Willie Jerome Manning to the slayings. The FBI has also recently acknowledged that the forensics evidence used to convict him was flawed.
Posted on May 6, 2013
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including Bill Maher suggests a new rule for those who want to strip away constitutional rights to ensure “justice” and former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords gets a well-deserved honor.
Posted on May 5, 2013
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Dario Castillejos, Cagle Cartoons, Dario La Crisis —
Posted on Apr 26, 2013
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By Amy Goodman — Albert Woodfox has been in solitary confinement for 40 years, most of that time locked up in the notorious maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary known as “Angola.”
Posted on Feb 27, 2013
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Pavel Constantin, Cagle Cartoons, Romania —
Posted on Feb 17, 2013
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 Kelly Branan
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More than 40 years after his death, Martin Luther King Jr., one of the great prophets of American democracy, has been reduced to little more than a lifeless statue. Yet his courageous call for peace and criticism of his government at a time of war must not be lost to history.
Posted on Jan 20, 2013
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Patrick Chappatte, Cagle Cartoons, The International Herald Tribune —
Posted on Jun 3, 2012
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 Dank Depot (CC BY 2.0)
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After mischaracterizing a law governing medical marijuana distribution, the president who refused to prosecute those who led the U.S. into an indefinite war on terror told a Rolling Stone interviewer last month that he couldn’t ask the Justice Department to “turn the other way” when it comes to potential violations of medical marijuana use.
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 AP/Mel Evans
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It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that U.S. Supreme Court justices voted along party lines when approving, on a 5-4 vote, the expansion of strip-searching guidelines to include anyone who’s been arrested for any offense and is en route to jail.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Supreme Court of the United States
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Would it be possible to let some of President Obama’s infamous 2010 health care reform legislation—or “Obamacare,” if you speak Republican—stand while scrapping other parts and still have a functional law at the end of the process? That was one big question Supreme Court justices grappled with on Wednesday.
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 Adam Fagan / Rights reserved
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On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court launched a three-day deliberation session on the timely (well, for Campaign 2012, anyway) and controversial topic of the health care overhaul that President Obama oversaw and signed into law in 2010.
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 Martin Family Photo
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Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman said he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in self-defense, although a 911 operator told Zimmerman not to follow the teenager through a suburban Orlando, Fla., gated community.
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 AP / Brennan Linsley
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The indefinite detention center that has undermined American justice since the first prisoners arrived from Afghanistan 10 years ago Wednesday is still open for business in Cuba. (more)
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 AP / Reed Saxon
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By Bill Blum — Meet the woman who spent 22 years working alone and without pay to set free a convicted serial killer who, in all likelihood, is innocent.
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Princeton University professor Dr. Cornel West spoke to a crowd of almost 3,000 people at the Riverside Church in New York City on Friday during an evening of remembrance for another sort of 9/11. (more)
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 Library of Congress / Dick DeMarsico
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — We tend to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. we want to honor, not the Martin Luther King Jr. who actually existed.
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 Facebook.com/fbi
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A new investigation by Mother Jones reveals that the FBI has cultivated a huge network of informants and spies, many of whom are directed to seek out disgruntled Muslims. “And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity” to commit terrorist attacks, Trevor Aaronson writes. (more)
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 World Trade Organization (CC-BY-ND)
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Multiple sources are reporting that at a hearing Tuesday prosecutors are likely to drop some or all of the charges against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is accused of attempting to rape a maid at a New York hotel. (more)
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 Paul Keller (CC-BY)
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By Karen J. Greenberg, TomDispatch —
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the unexpected extent of the damage Americans have done to themselves and their institutions is coming into better focus.
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 AP / David J. Phillip
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By Bill Boyarsky — Gov. Rick Perry is a happy executioner, having presided over 230 executions in Texas. That’s more, reported The Texas Tribune, “than any other modern governor of any state.”
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 Flickr / Defence Images
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Pakistani lawyer and human rights champion Mirza Shahzad Akbar, who has aided the U.S. government in legal counterterrorism efforts, was banned from traveling to the States to speak at Columbia Law School after suing the CIA about drone strikes that have killed civilians in his country. (more)
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 Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey
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This week on Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK: Argentina’s bloody past and New York’s historic gay marriage moment. Also, actor and activist Mike Farrell talks about death penalty injustice. Plus, Robert and Peter Scheer celebrate (sort of) Justice Scalia.
Posted on Jun 29, 2011
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This week on Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK: Argentina’s bloody past and New York’s historic gay marriage moment. Also, actor and activist Mike Farrell talks about death penalty injustice. Plus, Robert and Peter Scheer celebrate (sort of) Justice Scalia. Update: Full transcript.
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 Jeff Schuler (CC-BY)
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The FBI is making it easier for agents to snoop on their fellow Americans without leaving a paper trail, raising disturbing questions outlined by The American Prospect’s Adam Serwer. A former agent quoted by Serwer says it may return the agency to the COINTELPRO era.
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 Mr. Fish
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By Chris Hedges — The draconian legal mechanisms that condemn Muslim Americans who speak out publicly about the outrages we commit in the Middle East have left many wasting away in supermax prisons.
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On this week’s episode of Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK, we investigate why so many innocent people end up in prison; find out how much various college majors really pay; look into the future of depression-chic food; and learn why Apple’s high profits threaten teachers. Plus, another special report from the cutting edge by Mr. Fish. Update: Full transcript.
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 Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey
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On this week’s episode of Truthdig Radio in collaboration with KPFK, we investigate why so many innocent people end up in prison; find out how much various college majors really pay; look into the future of depression-chic food; and learn why Apple’s high profits threaten teachers. Plus, another special report from the cutting edge by Mr. Fish.
Posted on Jun 1, 2011
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 supremecourtus.gov
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What are we to make of Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, which will make life more difficult for Arizona employers who deliberately hire undocumented workers? The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen offered his perspective later that day.
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 Rob Shenk (CC-BY-SA)
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California’s overcrowded prisons have “fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements,” causing “needless suffering and death,” according to a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. The state, which imposes draconian sentences on repeat offenders, must now find a way to reduce its prison population by at least 38,000 inmates.
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Angry Wisconsin liberals are using the state’s Supreme Court election as a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker and taking aim at expletive-flinging Justice David Prosser. Will this justice be served?
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By Amy Goodman — This week, the New York state Supreme Court will hear the case against John Leso, a psychologist who is accused of participating in torture at the Gitmo prison camp that President Obama pledged, and failed, to close.
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 World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger
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Officials at the SEC have begun to doubt that the agency can prove that executives of the now-defunct Lehman Brothers investment bank broke the law after the company allegedly moved billions of dollars off its balance sheet.
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 Paul Keller (CC-BY)
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Military trials will resume at America’s notorious island gulag. The president failed during the last two years to shut down the detention facility, which he says helps America’s enemies recruit, and move trials to the civilian justice system. (more)
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 Composite: Flickr: oneras / free tibet
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By Stanley Kutler — The Constitution is rooted and understood in terms of its history; without that, it is merely an isolated document, portraying a moment in 1787. We can do without the arriviste Michele Bachmann to tell us exactly what its words mean.
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 Flickr / World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CC-BY-SA)
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If Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, signs off on the legislation, Illinois will become the 16th state to eliminate the death penalty. The state has not executed anyone since 1999, after it was discovered that innocent convicts had been put to death.
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By Eugene Robinson — Race still matters in America and justice is not completely blind. Anyone who believes otherwise should examine the case of Cornelius Dupree Jr., who was ruled innocent Tuesday after spending 30 years in prison.
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 Flickr / Stefano Mortellaro (CC-BY-ND)
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Gulet Mohamed is an 18-year old American citizen who was effectively exiled while traveling abroad for the apparent crime of exploring his Muslim heritage. While in Kuwait, Mohamed was added to the no-fly list, arrested, beaten and threatened with torture. Glenn Greenwald has posted a 50-minute conversation with Mohamed.
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 AP / Max Whittaker
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The first day of deliberation in the Supreme Court about that perennial legal favorite, violence in video games, brought debate Tuesday about the potential damage done by minors’ exposure to sex versus violence ... and a Founding Fathers joke from Justice Samuel Alito.
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 Wikimedia Commons
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Now that retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens no longer has to see his former colleague Justice Antonin Scalia in the lunchroom every day, he’s free to tell tales out of the top court, which he did earlier this month in a speech criticizing Scalia’s handling of a case from 1991.
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 Flickr / dbking
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What do you get when you mix issues regarding a fallen soldier, free speech, homophobia and gays in the military and throw in hatemonger pastor Fred Phelps and Larry Flynt’s famous court battle with Jerry Fallwell?
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 Flickr / World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CC-BY-SA)
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Teresa Lewis is scheduled to be executed this month, the first woman to be officially killed by the state of Virginia in nearly a century. In the five years since a woman was last executed in the United States, the government put 220 men to death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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 Flickr / notsogoodphotography (CC-BY)
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Twenty-eight-year-old German singer Nadja Benaissa faces prison time for allegedly having unprotected sex with multiple partners without informing them that she has the virus that causes AIDS.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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The Senate confirmed Elena Kagan on Thursday by a vote of 63-37. She will be the nation’s 112th Supreme Court justice and Barack Obama’s second appointment. Once she takes her oaths, it will be the first time, despite her impressive résumé, that Kagan has ever been a judge.
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 Flickr / Berkman10_220 (CC-BY-SA)
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Elena Kagan is almost through the wringer, awaiting a Senate vote later this week on her Supreme Court nomination. Hers has been a fairly uneventful vetting process, and judging by the mood on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, she’ll soon be sporting a black robe.
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