Maureen Murphy Subpoenaed

Maureen Murphy is one of four additional people on whom the FBI served subpoenas yesterday. A rally to protest U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's witch hunt was held today and the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago.

Here is Attorney Michael Deutsch with Maureen Murphy at the news conference in the lobby of the Dirksen Building.




Murphy is an active member of a movement to free Palestine. It is her exercise of her First Amendment right to support a cause that has made her the target of the grand jury. Palestinian well-wishers came out to support her and speak on her behalf.

Stop-FBI-Raids Rally

Supporters of the individuals who got subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Chicago held a rally on Monday, December 6, 2010, to demand that the subpoenas be stopped.

National Lawyers Guild Convention - Friday

This day of the convention had a lot of fireworks. It started at the first plenary. The topic was What Happened to the Working Class Consciousness: Reminding Us of the Relevance of Labor Unions in the 21st Century. Elise Bryant, Staff, National Labor College, Silver Spring, Maryland, started if off.






Elise was followed by Stewart Acuff, co-author of a new book entitled "Getting America Back to Work." He hammered home the point that America will not get out of its economic crisis until the working class begins working again.










Stewart was followed by Jaribu Hill, Director, Missisippi Workers' Center for Human Rights in Greenville, Mississippi. I thought, how is she possibly going to follow these two acts? But she did. In fact, she raised the bar pointing out specific instances where corporations were abusing workers, and where unions were needed to correct those abuses. In one example she mentioned, workers were required to wear disposable diapers so they wouldn't have to go to the bathroom.
















After the plenary, the Guild staged a demonstration in front of Tony Moran's restaurant in the French Quarter. Tony apparently doesn't want to have to pay his workers. So we crowded into the restaurant, ordered nothing, left big tips for the workers, and demonstrated out in front.

National Lawyers Guild Convention - Thursday

The National Lawyers Guild held its annual convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 22 through September 26, 2010. The International Committee held its meeting on Thursday, September 23, where Steve Goldberg explained the implications of the holding in the case of Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder as it relates to the work being done by members of the Guild.


Here, Jimmie Leas listens as Steve outlines some of the pitfalls established by the holding.

A lively discussion followed Steve's presentation.

Later, at the Iran Subcommittee meeting, some of the newer members got to exchange ideas with members who had been in this subcommittee before.

Next, there was the Free Palestine Subcommittee meeting. Being a past-co-chair, I was interested in seeing who was new and who wasn't. There are always some interesting faces here.

John Thompson was the keynote speaker that evening. John is the founder and director of Resurrection After Exoneration, an organization he formed after having been imprisoned in New Orleans for around two decades. John was released after DNA testing proved his innocence. He has since won a handsome sum from the state for wrongful incarceration.

John shared with us his remembrances from the inside.

Later that evening, the Guild was treated to the music of one of the local bands. These young brothers smoked!

Summer Road Trip to Portland, Oregon

I took a trip to Portland, Oregon, this summer. The scenery was stunning! This is a shoot along the way of Willard Bay off the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

This is a view of the Columbia River Gorge just east of Portland.