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From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
31, 2003
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July 26 / 27, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
Steve Dunifer
Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
July
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses...Again
Robert
Fisk
The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The
US Torture Camp in Iraq
David
Lindorff
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in
Puerto Rico
David
Vest
Dylan in Bend
Tom Turnipseed
Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops
Douglas
Valentine
A Nation of Assassins
Stew Albert
Contract Killing
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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July
31, 2003
The
Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke
Think
of Jose Padilla's Attorneys, Lynne Stewart and Michael Tigar
By ELAINE CASSEL
The Washington Post reported on the brave lawyers
of Jose Padilla, the only American citizen seized on American
soil who has been declared an enemy combatant. Padilla's lawyers,
Donna Newman and Andrew Pate, are court-appointed by the U.S.
District Court in New York City to represent Padilla. They are
paid $90 an hour, a fraction of their going rate for "paying"
clients.
But Newman and Patel are not representing
Padilla because they are going to get rich (obviously) and get
more business as a result (not hardly) or become famous (not
likely, at least not in a "good" way). They are doing
it for you and me--fighting for our Sixth Amendment rights.
The Sixth Amendment, as given life by
numerous important Supreme Court decisions, gives us the right
to counsel in a criminal proceeding. Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi
are being denied that right. Hamdi's case has already gotten
through the first appellate stage, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals,
which easily stomped down his claim to have legal counsel. Padilla
was appointed lawyers when he was being detained as a material
witness in a government investigation into a "dirty bomb"
plot. Under the enemy combatant rules adopted by the Pentagon,
an enemy combatant has no right to a lawyer. But the judge ruled
that Padilla should still be able to see his lawyers, even though
Padilla was removed from the court's jurisdiction and sent to
a brig in South Carolina. The government appealed that ruling
and the judge stayed his order that Padilla meet with his lawyers
pending the decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which
will likely be handed down this fall.
Padilla and Hamdi have not been charged
with any crime; yet they are being held in prison for one reason:
President Bush has named them "enemy combatants," meaning
that they are not entitled to the benefits of the civil justice
system. Bush has the dubious distinction of being the only President
in history to name Americans unlawful combatants. If you don't
think that is a scary precedent, think about what you would do
if it happened to you. You would disappear into the black whole
of nothingness. The government will not tell your lawyer or your
family where you are. You may never be charged. You may very
well die in government custody. You may be killed by the government.
No one will ever know.
Padilla has not been allowed to communicate
with his lawyers since he was whisked out of the federal criminal
justice system and sent to the navy brig. His lawyers write him
and send him copies of their motions and briefs, but they have
no way of knowing if he receives them. They assume that he does
not. In essence, Newman and Patel do not have a client. So why
are they continuing to fight this battle? They do so because
they are in the tradition of lawyers who believe in the right
of representation for its own sake.
New York Attorney Lynne Stewart was charged
with acts of terrorism that arose out of her court-appointed
representation of Sheikh Abdel Ramen, convicted of complicity
in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombings. Michael Tigar, one of
the best lawyers in the country, was appointed by Judge Koeltl
to represent Lynne Stewart. Tigar's hourly rate is stratospheric;
he is not defending Stewart for the money. He is defending the
right to defend. He convinced Judge Koeltl to throw out the terrorism
charges, a resounding defeat for John Ashcroft, who wanted to
show defense attorneys a thing or two by charging Stewart.
Thousands of attorneys in the U.S. today
give freely of their skill and expertise to represent indigent
defendants. It is among the most gratifying work that I do. My
clients often do not "appreciate" my efforts, but I
am doing it for a cause greater than my client. Like Newman,
Patel, Stewart, Tigar, and others like me, I am defending the
right of the indigent and the unpopular to be defended.
Don't you hope that if and when you are
taken off the street by Ashcroft's thugs or a proverbial gun
held to your head as prosecutors did in the case of the Lackawanna
Six that you have someone like Donna Newman or Andrew Patel willing
to sacrifice their financial well-beings and reputations to defend
you?
I do.
Think about them the next time you crack
a lawyer joke.
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend Edition Features for July 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
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