Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
As reports of police abuse at Dakota Access Pipeline protests accumulate, a civil liberties NGO warns that activists’ constitutional rights are under attack.
“In Standing Rock, the cops are out of control,” warned Cooper Brinson, staff attorney at Civil Liberties Defense Center, in a report published on Thursday.
Citing reports of humiliation, beatings by police, and unnecessary strip-searches of arrestees, Brinson wrote:
Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News
Excluded from the third and final presidential debate by the two-party system, Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein took to Facebook Live and Twitter on Wednesday night to offer an alternative point of view.
Over 932,000 people viewed her broadcast and it had been shared more than 19,700 times by Thursday afternoon.
“Thank you so much for tuning in to the real debate,” Stein told her Facebook audience during the opening moments of her video.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Although charges were recently dropped against prominent progressive journalist Amy Goodman, multiple reporters still face serious charges for covering protests against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Among them is Deia Schlosberg, an Emmy-winning documentarian who was recording nonviolent protests against the Dakota Access pipeline for an upcoming film. She’s currently up against three felony charges which carry a maximum combined sentence of 45 years in prison.
On Monday, a judge in North Dakota threw out the case against Goodman, an award-winning journalist and host of Democracy Now! North Dakota State’s Attorney Ladd R. Erickson had initially filed charges of criminal trespass against Goodman on Sept. 8, just days after a Democracy Now! video showing pipeline security attacking Native American activists with dogs went viral. On Oct. 14, the trespass charge was dropped and replaced with a misdemeanor charge of rioting.
Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News
Contained within some of WikiLeaks’ latest dumps of John Podesta’s emails are details on Hillary Clinton’s efforts to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement amid mounting U.S. opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Clinton is well known for her opposition to the BDS movement, which seeks to put financial pressure on Israel to end its apartheid policies toward the indigenous Palestinian population. WikiLeaks’ growing archive of emails taken from the Gmail account of Clinton’s campaign chairman show the candidate carrying out a difficult balancing act in order to placate both her pro-Israeli backers and liberal Americans.
“I was talking to HRC today about the idea of having her meet with some Jewish leaders later this week about BDS/delegitimization efforts,” wrote Jake Sullivan, the top foreign policy advisor to the Clinton campaign, in a June 21, 2015 email sent to Stuart Eizenstat, a former U.S. diplomat and a lawyer at the powerful Washington-based law firm Covington & Burling.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
A State Department spokesperson called for Saudi Arabia to be allowed to investigate itself over airstrikes on a funeral, which is a potential war crime, while simultaneously advocating for an international investigation into Russia’s actions in Syria.
On Saturday, the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen bombed a funeral in the capital city of Sanaa. At least 140 people were killed and over 500 others were injured in the airstrike, which human rights experts warned likely constitutes a war crime. Some reports even suggest the Saudi coalition targeted the funeral repeatedly, so as to injure or kill rescuers coming to the aid of the victims of the first airstrike.
Speaking at the United Nations on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry called on Russia and Syria to face a formal investigation over possible war crimes committed in the Syrian civil war. No similar investigation into Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen will be forthcoming, however, according to State Department spokesperson John Kirby, who addressed the issue during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street
Both the Democrats and Republican party tickets are calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, even though this could provoke a nuclear war with Russia in a worst-case scenario. Meanwhile, the mainstream media, and even many “progressive” news outlets are beating the drums of war. And who is Booz Allen Hamilton, the NSA contractor linked in two significant leaks of classified information?
On Wednesday, I made my monthly appearance on Black Tower Radio to touch on overlooked or poorly reported news. Also mentioned in our discussion: Occupy Austin, independent journalist Vanessa Beeley’s reports from Aleppo, and Tim Shorrock’s reporting on the NSA’s “Private Spies.”
