Photo of Minneapolis police aiming weapon at camera from Physicians for Human Rights, from their report “Shot in the Head”
On this show:
0:08 – Peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan are kicking off this week in Qatar. But at stake in the peace talks is the presence of U.S. ground troops, and not its deadly air war against Afghans. We talk with Phyllis Bennis (@phyllisbennis), Middle East analyst and director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
0:34 – Private neighborhood Facebook groups and right-wing Facebook groups have spread viral misinformation falsely alleging antifascists and Black Lives Matter protesters are setting fires in Oregon, leading to militia members menacing journalists and members of the public traveling near evacuation zones. But how widespread is the misinformation? We talk with Jason Wilson (@jason_a_w), a journalist based in Portland, Oregon, reporting for The Guardian on white nationalist violence, the recent Portland protests and wildfires. His latest piece is “Social media disinformation on US west coast blazes ‘spreading faster than fire.'”
0:45 – A new open source investigation by Physicians For Human Rights has uncovered 115 cases of protesters being shot in the head or neck by law enforcement during protests across the U.S. this spring against police brutality. Dr. Rohini Haar, an emergency physician in Oakland, medical advisor at Physicians for Human Rights, and adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, joins us. She led the Shot in the Head investigation. She has conducted research on the health and human rights impacts of crowd-control weapons for nearly a decade, and says the companies who manufacture these weapons face little oversight.
1:08 – Betsy Ann Cowley, a property owner in Pulga, California, shares her experience of being in an area vulnerable to fire and trying to prepare to defend her property. She also gives tips on how to provide help and aid to people who have to evacuate during the fires.
1:15 – We get updates from Lynn Tolmachoff of Cal Fire and David King of the National Weather Service on how containment of California’s wildland fires is going, and how long the smoke event will last.
1:25 – Vic Bedoian reports on the Creek Fire in Fresno and Madera counties.
1:30 – A whistleblower in Georgia has brought forward horrifying claims that a doctor has been performing mass hysterectomies on groups of immigrant women at the Irwin County Detention Center, or ICDC, operated by private prison company LaSalle Corrections. Lawyers from Project South and the Government Accountability Project have filed an official complaint with the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to oversee and regulate ICE detention facilities. We talk with the lawyer for the whistleblower, Azadeh Shahshahani (@ashahshahani), legal and advocacy director for Project South. You can read their complaint here.
1:45 – The officer who killed Steven Taylor in a San Leandro Walmart in April is being arraigned at the Alameda County Courthouse right now on manslaughter charges — it’s the first time that DA Nancy O’Malley has brought these charges against an officer. We get an update from the courthouse from organizer Selina McManus, who grew up in San Leandro, went to high school with Steven Taylor, and is organizing for justice for his family. Visit their Instagram page for updates: Justice 4 Steven Taylor.