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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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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement



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




SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017






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



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017




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



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017



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



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




SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017




SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven




2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.



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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.


Between The Lines on Stitcher

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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.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.


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Legal Challenge Temporarily Blocks Trump Muslim Ban

Posted Feb. 1, 2017

MP3 Interview with Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, conducted by Scott Harris

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The first week of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen a succession of controversial changes to U.S. policy that have triggered protests across the nation. However, Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order, titled "Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States," provoked tens of thousands of people to demonstrate their opposition at airports from coast to coast. The executive order suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days and bans travel from seven Muslim majority nations for 90 days, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order also blocks all refugees from Syria indefinitely, and reduces the total number of refugees admitted into the U.S. during the 2017 fiscal year to 50,000, down from the previous number of 110,000.

In response to Trump’s executive order, the ACLU and other activist groups filed class action lawsuits challenging the president's order. Quickly, four federal judges issued stays temporarily blocking enforcement of immigration restrictions. While the Trump administration denies that the order singles out Muslims, the executive order includes preferential treatment for Christians. Civil liberties attorneys have challenged Trump’s executive order based on the fact that discrimination against refugees on the basis of religion is unconstitutional. Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, who had served as deputy attorney general under President Obama, refused to defend the order and was summarily fired by President Trump.

Heads of state across the globe, Christian leaders, Democratic lawmakers and 15 state attorney generals have all condemned Trump’s immigration restrictions. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who examines the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order curbing immigration from majority Muslim nations. [Rush transcript.]

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: It is discriminatory. It's discriminatory by virtue of fact that it singles out mostly Muslim-majority countries. The discriminatory aspect of this order is completely clear when you look at things like this carve-out it has for refugee admissions, where if you are a religious minority in a country alleging or facing religious persecution, that may make you eligible for admission. But otherwise, you would not be. So for example, an Iraqi Christian who is facing persecution – religious persecution by virtue of their Christian faith – in Iraq or Syria, by ISIS, would be entitled to be considered for admissions to the United States. Whereas, an Iraqi Muslim who is fleeing violence and war, and physical harm in that way, would be barred from admission.

So that's what the order does. It's also introduces broad new vetting procedures for anyone, any travelers to the United States. It ties one's beliefs, one's ideology to criteria that could be considered for admission. It's unclear exactly how beliefs and sort of ideology would be implemented in terms of new vetting procedures and what that would actually look like. But it asserts that broadly as a criteria that can be considered.

So it's really broad. I think when we woke up Saturday morning and heard reports, it changed things overnight. Obviously, with a stroke of pen. I mean, it was signed Friday night, Saturday morning we awoke to reports of people being pulled off planes abroad. Families being separated at airports. Hundreds of people being detained. By the end of Saturday, there was a federal court order staying (suspending) parts of the order for people who were in transit at the time the order was signed and were being detained at airports in the United States, being told that they couldn't enter. The order was stayed with respect to some of those people and there were massive protests. I mean, the response was overwhelming. And so, I think for our feeling, anyway, and the (unintelligible) quickly went from kind of shocked and just being appalled in the morning to real hopefulness at seeing just the massive public response. People turning out and saying this is not who we are; this is not humane.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What is the strength of the argument, the constitutional argument against the Trump administration executive order here on the suspension of immigration from these seven nations? I'd heard that this could all go the way to the Supreme Court. But how much power does a president have to contravene laws on the books that prohibit discrimination based on nation of origin or religion?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: Well, there is wide discretion – executive discretion and congressional discretion when it comes to the nation's borders and when it comes to immigration control. That said, no one is above the Constitution, no one is above the law. I think when you read this order, it is clearly discriminatory in its impact. It may talk about specific countries – these are Muslim-majority countries. The impact, the overwhelming impact of this order is addressed to one specific faith of people. Many of those people are U.S. lawful residents with constitutional rights and those rights must be respected. So the president has a lot of power when it comes to immigration. But no more power than the Constitution gives him.

So I think, yeah, there have already on night one, on Day One, there were challenges filed in court, temporary stays issued by federal judges and those cases are going to continue. And there are new lawsuits being developed now that we're going to see in coming days. Those are responses legally. There's also responses politically by Congress. There are bills being introduced or talked about being introduced, calling for the president to kick back this order to revoke this order.

So we could see sort of its end, and we should see its end in response to pressure from different directions. But at least that's true – its unconstitutionality by the courts. I think, already we're seeing that federal judges view this order as violating the Constitution, at least in certain respects, and that's why these stays have been issued. And they are temporary stays, but they are because judges have found that there is merit to the arguments that are being put forward. So, while these are interim stays, and there have to be further argument and decision on the merits fully, the initial reading of judges of the arguments that have been put forward, is that they have merit.

Learn more about the constitutional arguments against Trump's executive order restricting immigration by visiting the Center For Constitutional Rights at ccrjustice.org.

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