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Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.



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SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris





SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018



SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018





SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018




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SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017



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SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017



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SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017




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2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.


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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.





Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.



JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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U.S. Judge Clears Way for Deportation of Former El Salvadoran General for War Crimes

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Posted Feb. 29, 2012

Interview with Patty Blum, senior legal adviser to the Center for Justice and Accountability, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

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A U.S. immigration judge last week approved the deportation of Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who from 1980 to 1989 served as head of El Salvador’s National Guard and later as defense minister during the nation’s bloody civil war, when tens of thousands of Salvadoran civilians were murdered and many were tortured. On Feb. 23, Judge James Grim, of Orlando, Fla.’s Immigration Court found Vides Casanova liable for acts of torture and murder committed by soldiers under his command, including the rape and murder of four American church women in December 1980. At the time, Washington was supporting the Salvadoran government’s war against the FMLN leftist guerilla movement. In deciding the case, the judge cleared the way for the former general’s deportation from the U.S.

Gen. Casanova was also found to have assisted in the torture of two Salvadorans who testified at the proceedings and were represented by the Center for Justice and Accountability. The case was prosecuted by the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Vides Casanova has denied participation in, or even knowledge of these crimes. He has several avenues of appeal still open to him before a final judgment is rendered.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Carolyn Patty Blum, senior legal adviser to the Center for Justice and Accountability. She explains how her organization was able to win a 2002 civil judgment and settlement of $300,000 from Vides Casanova on behalf of three Salvadoran torture victims, and discusses the importance of this most recent Immigration Court decision.

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: In reality, money was not the reason why our clients wanted to participate in the lawsuit. It was not the reason why we brought the case. There are sort of larger goals with this kind of litigation that have to do with bringing out the whole truth of what happened in El Salvador: creating a historical record of what happened there; holding the people at the pinnacle of command responsible; having that declared by a court of law; having jurors listen to the evidence and make those conclusions. We kept the immigration service and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice aware of Vides' presence in the U.S., and encouraging them and the members of Congress who had an interest to put pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to remove him from the U.S. so that he would not be able to continue to live here – both after a successful civil judgment against him finding him responsible for our clients' torture – but also because of the position he held in the Salvadoran military.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You said the Center for Justice and Accountability got involved in the legislative effort to make it easier to remove human rights abusers from the U.S., which passed in 2004. How does it work?

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: This is the legislation that amended the Immigration and Nationality Act, and how it amended it was to enable the Department of Homeland Security to give them more tools to deport people who were accused of ordering, inciting, assisting or otherwise participating in extrajudicial assassination. I would say in all frankness that during the period Bush was in office, the lens was turned much more toward terrorism. There were people who were in overlapping units who were dealing with "domestic terrorism" and so-called human rights abusers. And the human rights abusers' portfolio kind of got dropped by the wayside. And it wasn't until the Obama administration came in that there was a bit of a revival of the office of people who were committed to really looking at this array of human rights abusers from various countries who were in the U.S. – El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Rwanda, Bosnia, Liberia – a number of different places. There have been pretty consistent reporting that there were, in fact, a number of human rights abusers in the U.S. We knew, certainly from the cases we had done that the defendants that had lost the cases that we had litigated which were focused on El Salvador. It got a better recognition and there were some people in Congress who were very supportive, both in passing the legislation, and making sure it would be implemented, and holding hearings.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Patty Blum, how significant is this ruling from the immigration judge regarding Vides Casanova?

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: It's the first time the Department of Homeland Security has used it against a person who was at the absolute top position in the military command, and for that reason it's quite significant that they went forward against him and that the judge rendered a decision against him and specifically found him responsible for participating or assisting in the torture of two of our clients who testified at the immigration judge hearing, and for the assassination of the four American church women and of two other Americans who were killed with a Salvadoran land reform activist.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Is the idea that he would be deported back to El Salvador and that he'd stand trial there?

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: The ultimate end game of this is that he would be returned to El Salvador and while he may not face any type of prosecution in El Salvador – currently he wouldn't, but things could change in El Salvador...

BETWEEN THE LINES: Oh, and that's because of the amnesty that's in place there?

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: Yes. He has been living in the U.S. for a long time; his family is here. It would be, I'm sure from his perspective, a real punishment to have to leave the U.S.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Would you say that it's becoming more possible to get judgments against some of the Central American military leaders of the 1970s and 1980s who are now living in the U.S.?

CAROLYN PATTY BLUM: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think that things have really changed dramatically internationally over the past 15 years. There really has developed an international movement to oppose impunity and to demand accountability for crimes that occurred in the past, even when there's a transition to a new, more democratic system.

For more information on the Center for Justice and Accountability, visit www.cja.org/.

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