Chicago - A message from the station manager

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies/Common Dreams

Agents of Saudi Arabia’s despotic government brutally murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2, 2018 on direct orders from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Eight Saudi men have been convicted of Khashoggi’s murder in a Saudi court in what the Washington Post characterized as sham trials with no transparency. The higher-ups who ordered the murder, including MBS, continue to escape responsibility.
Khashoggi’s assassination and dismemberment was so horrific and cold-blooded that it sparked worldwide public outrage. President Trump, however, stood by MBS, bragging to journalist Bob Woodward that he saved the prince’s “ass” and got “Congress to leave him alone.”

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Posted on October 4, 2020

Heed The Lessons Of The Wilmette Man Who Translated The Nazis To Death

By David Rutter

Peter Less died a year ago this week in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was 99 and left a large swath of history for us to consider.
Not that it matters much, but you would have liked him. He had witnessed too much evil and pain in his life to be gregarious. He had seen goodness, some of which he shared with all of us.
He was measured and serene. He coveted his private thoughts. He seemed to have found a path.
Less was at peace, which was a state he had earned.
And for us, he left lessons to be absorbed if we are mindful of that history, too.

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Posted on September 30, 2020

Bust ‘Em All: De-Monopolize Tech, Telecoms And Entertainment

By Cory Doctorow/The Electronic Frontier Foundation

The early 1980s were a period of tremendous foment and excitement for tech. In the four years between 1980 and 1984, Americans met:
* The Vic-20 (1980)
* The Commodore 64 (1981)
* The IBM PC (1982)
* The PC-compatible ROM (1984)
But no matter how exciting things were in Silicon Valley during those years, even more seismic changes were afoot in Washington, D.C., where a jurist named Robert Bork found the ear of President Reagan and a coterie of elite legal insiders and began to fundamentally reshape U.S. antitrust law.

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Posted on September 29, 2020

Europe Picks Top Judges Way Better Than U.S.

By David Orentlicher/The Conversation

Filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court immediately sparked a bitter partisan fight. But choosing judges for the nation’s highest court doesn’t have to be so polarizing.
In some European countries, judicial appointments are designed to ensure the court’s ideological balance, and the entire process, from nomination to confirmation, is generally not seen as partisan. By choice and by law, high court justices in those places work together to render consensus-based decisions.

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Posted on September 28, 2020

The Dreadful Cowboy

By Thomas Chambers

Adam Hollingsworth, aka the Dreadhead Cowboy, would be wearing a homemade cape and a bulging Speedo if he weren’t doing this.
Cosmic justice would dictate that something like this would happen to Hollingsworth, maybe just from 35th Street to 43rd, which is the next exit. That’s a lot shorter than the six to eight fucking miles he ran to beat his horse, NuNu, to within a half-inch of his life. One report had the distance at 7.5 miles.
There are very long horse races in the world, but they are carefully regulated at a more leisurely pace, and certainly not on concrete.

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Posted on September 25, 2020

President Trump Has 3,400 Conflicts Of Interest

By Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

Averaging more than two conflicts of interest per day, Donald Trump continues to be the most corrupt president in history, engaging in more than 3,400 conflicts of interest since taking office, according to a new report released Thursday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Since CREW issued its last conflicts report in February, Trump has engaged in an additional 400 conflicts of interest and made millions of dollars for his personal businesses. Today’s report details some of the most glaring examples of presidential corruption and conflicts of interest ever raised by a president, all of which stem from his refusal to divest from his businesses.

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Posted on September 24, 2020

Ignoring U.S. War Crimes In Yemen

By Andrea Prasow/Human Rights Watch

The longstanding involvement of the United States in the conflict in Yemen is facing renewed scrutiny. On September 16, State Department officials testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about whether the State Department misled Congress – and the American people – by circumventing controls designed to limit arms sales and ensure congressional oversight.
The crimes occurring in Yemen are serious – and the responsible parties demonstrably unwilling or unable to address them. The most recent report by the United Nations Group of Eminent and International Regional Experts on Yemen described “an acute accountability gap” and recommended that the UN Security Council refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court.
A State Department Inspector General report found that “the department did not fully assess risks and implement mitigation measures to reduce civilian casualties and legal concerns associated with the transfer” of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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Posted on September 23, 2020

When Bigotry Masquerades As Choice

By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report

President Trump regularly sows racial division and fear, invoking age-old stereotypes through his words and policy. It was clear he was promising to protect suburban whites from an incursion of Black and Brown people when he wrote in his now infamous tweet about the “Suburban Lifestyle Dream” that suburbanites would “no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.” This isn’t dog-whistle language. We all hear and recognize the racist undertones of the policy he was pushing.


The Trump administration’s new housing rule is titled “Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice.” It rescinds an Obama-era mandate that encouraged local municipalities that receive federal funds to address systemic bias. Trump promised housing prices will go up and crime will go down in the suburbs, once the rule, meant to make housing more equitable, was removed.
This is poorly veiled bigotry rooted in negative perceptions about poor and Black people. No, poor and Black people don’t bring housing prices down. Negative beliefs about Black people do. Similarly, Black schools aren’t failing: They’ve been starved of needed resources and hampered by prejudice and systems organized against their success.
“Choice” has always been a term a racist can love. In theory, choice means allowing people the freedom to choose the home, neighborhood and school that’s best for them. In practice, choice is frequently a code word for preserving white preferences – in housing and schooling – and excluding Black and Brown people. In education, the word “choice” too often accompanies statements about the need to escape failing schools and zip codes. Read: Black schools and neighborhoods.

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Posted on September 16, 2020

Really, COPA? Vaunted Police Video Policy Not Working

By The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General

The Public Safety Section of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a review which finds that the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) is not in full compliance with the Video Release Policy (the Policy), which requires that the City publicly release video and audio files and certain police documents related to use-of-force incidents within 60 days of the incident.
Criteria for releases under the policy include: certain types of firearms discharges, taser discharges resulting in death or great bodily harm, and use of force against individuals in police custody resulting in death or great bodily harm.

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Posted on September 15, 2020

Busted: Chicago Police Oversight Agency Improperly Closing Investigations

By The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General

The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Public Safety section has released an advisory to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) regarding the agency’s practice of administratively terminating police disciplinary investigations short of an investigative finding.
OIG found that administrative termination is ill-defined and frequently misapplied, and therefore each investigation in which it is used represents a risk that an allegation of police misconduct is improperly disposed of without ensuring either accountability or vindication for a Chicago Police Department (CPD) member.

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Posted on September 12, 2020

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