Free Julian Assange! (Petition)

This message comes from independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

Our nation stands at a critical juncture, where the very essence of democracy and free speech hangs in the balance.

Individuals like Daniel Ellsberg, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange have bravely exposed government corruption, shedding light on injustices that threaten the core principles of our society.

But instead of honoring these truth-tellers, our government has chosen to persecute them.

As a staunch advocate for freedom of speech and transparency, I am reaching out to you today with an urgent plea: join us in demanding the immediate release of Julian Assange.

Julian Assange, a journalist and publisher, has languished behind bars for 13 years for his role in uncovering the truth about governmental wrongdoings, from torture at Guantanamo Bay to anti-democratic actions by the DNC.

It's a travesty that exposing crimes has become a greater offense than the crimes themselves. We cannot allow this injustice to continue.

Sign the Petition

On my first day in office, I pledge to pardon Julian Assange and launch a thorough investigation into the corruption and crimes he has exposed. Additionally, I will issue an executive order to put an end to any attempts by federal agencies to silence political speech.

But I cannot do this alone. I need your support.

By signing our petition, you'll join a chorus of voices demanding justice for Assange and protection for whistleblowers everywhere.

Together, we can ensure that the voices of truth are heard and that those who dare to speak out against injustice are not silenced.

Please take a moment to add your name to our petition and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. Every signature brings us one step closer to securing Julian Assange's freedom and safeguarding our fundamental rights.

Thank you for your unwavering commitment to justice and liberty.

Sign the Petition









Sincerely,


Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The American Creed and Revolutionary Regeneration

This evening I took part in a lively Braver Angels Film Club discussion of the film American Creed. I made several interventions in the chat, of which I consider the first the most important. In this, I took off from the words of one schoolchild in the film who said he thinks freedom means "no one can boss you around," observing that today most Americans don't enjoy freedom in this sense. I used this point to relate the Declaration of Independence's twin themes of individual self-determination -- "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" --  and collective self-determination -- "the right of the people to alter or to abolish" their form of government "whenever it becomes destructive of these ends" -- to Platypus's analysis of capitalism as a contradiction of bourgeois society that negates the emancipatory values of the bourgeois revolution, pointing beyond itself toward the revival of those values through socialist revolution.

FIRE to Supreme Court: Stop Government Bullies from Intimidating Social Media Platforms

In a new friend-of-the-court filing, FIRE asks the Supreme Court to prevent government officials from coercing private social media platforms into censoring speech.

From https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-supreme-court-stop-government-bullies-intimidating-social-media-platforms

In Murthy v. Missouri (formerly referred to as Missouri v. Biden), a federal court of appeals held officials from the White House and other executive agencies violated the First Amendment by urging — from both the bully pulpit and behind the scenes — private social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to block, delete, downgrade, and deplatform users and posts that expressed disfavored views on controversial topics, including COVID-19, election fraud, and Hunter Biden’s laptop. The court blocked various Biden administration officials from continuing to do so. The Biden administration has — for good reason — taken a shellacking for pressuring social media platforms into squelching online speech.

But coercing social media companies based on the content of users’ posts is not unique to the Biden administration. Plenty of Republican officials — including former President Trump and even the two government plaintiffs in this case — are guilty of the same.

On Feb. 9, FIRE filed an amicus curiae — “friend of the court” — brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent any government official from coercing or significantly encouraging private companies to censor disfavored views, regardless of that official’s political affiliation. FIRE was joined on the filing by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the First Amendment Lawyers Association.
When do officials cross the line from permissible persuasion to unconstitutional coercion?

FIRE filed its brief on Supreme Court review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that held several Biden administration officials violated the First Amendment in two ways: First, some officials unlawfully bullied and intimidated social media platforms into changing their content moderation policies, and second, other officials became so entangled with the companies’ moderation processes that those companies were no longer making their own independent decisions. Under Supreme Court precedent the first violation constitutes coercion, and the second significant encouragement of censorship. FIRE’s brief explains to the Court why the Fifth Circuit’s approach strikes the right balance between allowing legal communications between government and social media platforms, and protecting those same platforms from unconstitutional influence.

As FIRE said last year, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Missouri v. Biden is an important victory for freedom of expression” that “strongly reaffirmed the primacy of the First Amendment and the fundamental bar it imposes on government officials seeking to limit what we can say.” We are thus urging the Supreme Court to uphold that decision.

To prove coercion, the Fifth Circuit adopted a four-part test based on the Supreme Court’s holding in Bantam Books v. Sullivan and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s holding in NRA v. Vullo (another case on appeal to the Supreme Court, FIRE’s blog on which is here.) To distinguish between mere persuasion and unconstitutional coercion, the test examines four factors: the government speaker’s word choice and tone; whether the government official’s speech was perceived as a threat by the private party; whether the government speaker had regulatory authority when speaking; and whether the government speaker threatens adverse consequences should the private actor not do as requested.

This test has much to commend it. It examines the entire context of communications to determine whether an exchange was truly threatening or mere puffery. It gives government speakers plenty of leeway to advocate so long as they do not use their speech to bully or intimidate. And most importantly, the test is viewpoint neutral. It applies to any government official, regardless of political affiliation. That is why FIRE has urged the Supreme Court to adopt this test and apply it to rule against the government in both this case and in Vullo.

To prove significant encouragement of censorship, the Fifth Circuit relied on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Blum v. Yaretsky and held that there must be “some exercise of active (not passive), meaningful (impactful enough to render them responsible) control on the part of the government over the private party’s challenged decision.” That can be shown with proof that the government is either entangled in a private party’s independent decision-making, or if the government becomes directly involved in carrying out the private party’s decisions.

Again, this approach is a good one, and FIRE’s brief urges the Supreme Court to adopt it. This test punishes government actors only when they become so involved with a private company’s content moderation that they effectively insert themselves into private editorial decisions. At that point, the government actors become “responsible” for those decisions to censor, and they violate the First Amendment.

A monumental term for freedom of expression

Murthy v. Missouri is but one of several major First Amendment cases the Supreme Court is currently considering that involve the abuse of governmental power.

In NRA v. Vullo, the Court will consider whether a similar instance of government coercion violates the First Amendment. In that case, the head of New York’s Department of Financial Services made a series of thinly veiled threats against regulated banks and insurance companies to pressure them to sever ties with the NRA because the official opposes the NRA’s political advocacy. FIRE’s brief explained that informal censorship actions are nothing more than tactics by which state actors seek to bypass First Amendment scrutiny and evade the rule of law.

In two companion cases, NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, the Court will consider whether states may impose direct control over social media platforms’ private moderation decisions. While Murthy v. Missouri involves informal, backroom pressure on private companies, the NetChoice cases involve formal legislation regulating what content social media companies must permit on their sites. But as FIRE’s brief in the NetChoice cases identified, the “overriding issue” is “whether the government or private actors shall have the predominant role” in oversight of social media platforms’ content moderation decision.

Finally, in Lindke v. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliffe v. Garnier, the Court will decide when an individual government official’s use of a social media platform becomes state action. FIRE’s briefs in both cases explain why public officials’ actions should be subject to the First Amendment when they use their private social media accounts to conduct public affairs. Like this case, Lindke and O’Connor-Ratcliffe involve government officials seeking to evade First Amendment requirements when they conduct government business.

These cases and Murthy demonstrate government officials’ increasing willingness to use both formal and informal methods to try to escape the strictures of the First Amendment. It also proves their willingness to flip-flop on free speech to satisfy political ends. In a case of inadvertent irony, two of the plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri — the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana — advocated in favor of overt government censorship in the NetChoice cases, despite arguing against backroom government censorship in their own case against the Biden administration.

But in Murthy and the other cases this term, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to stop them in their tracks. As FIRE’s brief states:


Political actors use the First Amendment as a club when convenient, then ignore it when it gets in the way of their own ambitions. But the great virtue of the First Amendment is its neutrality. This Court should send the same clear message in this case as in the others on the docket this Term: The First Amendment is not a weapon for government actors to wield in the culture wars.

FIRE and its allies urge the Supreme Court to affirm the Fifth Circuit.

Standing Together Fourth National Convention in Haifa

This news from Standing Together, the binational Israeli-Palestinian peace and justice movement:
 

On Friday over 1000 Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel came together for our fourth National Convention! We voted for our national leadership and discussed the need to build a new path - toward justice, equality and peace in Israel/Palestine.

We started the day with a performance from the Jerusalem Youth Choir, an Israeli-Palestinian choir that sings in Hebrew and Arabic, speeches from members of the Standing Together leadership, and a performance by Luna Abu Nassar, a local Palestinian singer. We then broke into four different panel discussions under the following topics:
 

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We’re over three months into this gruesome war. Over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including over 10,000 children. There are still 132 Israeli hostages in captivity, with 27 of them believed to be killed.

Throughout the day, movement members submitted digital votes for candidates running for the national leadership, and at the end of the convention, the national leadership was announced. We are so pleased to have such an inspiring and diverse national leadership, of which 13 are women, 12 are men, 13 are Jewish and 12 are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

It gives us hope to know that even amid this extreme crisis, there are masses of people who believe that there is another way, people who refuse to give into despair and are determined to build a better future. The convention was a huge success, and we are filled with renewed energy for the long fight that lies ahead of us.

Residents of northern Israel near the Lebanon border are still displaced or living under dangerous circumstances, and on an almost daily basis, we hear of more Israeli soldiers dying and being severely injured in combat. We know that this war has not and will not bring us long-lasting security. The only thing that is capable of bringing us safety and security is peace - a peace that guarantees justice, freedom, and safety for all Palestinians and Jews in Israel/Palestine.


SUPPORT OUR CALL FOR PEACE
 

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We need your support for the long run - join friends of Standing Together! When you become a Friend of Standing Together, you support us with a monthly donation, join a global community of Standing Together supporters, and gain access to exclusive content, online events, and mentoring. Our Friends of Standing Together community helps us to become more financially stable, enabling us to rely more on small donations from our community.

Thank you so much for being part of this journey with us, your support makes all of this possible!

Our mailing address is:
info@standing-together.org

RQ Requiem Issue Release Party

Root Quarterly is releasing another issue.

The details:

ISSUE RELEASE PARTY REQUIEM ISSUE

Cover Art
Synthesis #8 by John Singletary. 40 x 41, 2012

SATURDAY FEB 10

‘Requiem’ Issue Release Party
7 - 10 p.m.
Old Swedes’ (Gloria Dei Church)
927 S. Water Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
Join us for cocktails, art, music, and lively conversation.
Kids table with drawing supplies available.
Free parking in lot adjacent to church
Register on Eventbrite

USE CODE
“WINTER”
AT CHECKOUT FOR $10
OFF YOUR TICKET
UNTIL FEBRUARY 5TH!