Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underclass

Author / Rania Khalek

On this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure, Kevin Gosztola and I speak with independent journalist and filmmaker Raven Rakia about the Michael Dunn verdict, Jordan Davis’ defiance of respectability politics, the lack of outrage over police killings, and how structural and implicit racism work together to perpetuate what Raven calls the “presumed guiltiness of black […]

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The Jewish Journal has an incredible write-up on the Los Angeles Police Department’s recent visit to Israel. For nine days early this month, eight of the LAPD’s highest ranking officers toured Israel on a trip organized by LAPD Deputy Chief and commander of the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau Michael Downing, and headed by LAPD Information Technology Bureau […]

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We finally have a name! Kevin Gosztola and I have decided to call our podcast, now into its fifth episode, Unauthorized Disclosure. It has a nice “fuck the system” ring to it, don’t you think? This week we speak with US foreign policy analyst Nima Shirazi about three decades of propaganda surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, the harm […]

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The UK-based human right group Reprieve is reporting that drone strike victim Kareem Khan has been released after enduring nearly 10 days of interrogation and torture related to his anti-drone activism.  Khan went missing February 5, when he was abducted from his home in the Pothohar region of Pakistan by men in police uniforms. At the time of his disappearance, Khan was […]

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In the fourth episode of our podcast (we’re working on a name, I swear), Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola and I speak with Chloe Gleichman from the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS) about three Michigan activists who face up to two years behind bars for participating in nonviolent direct action to prevent the construction of an Enbridge Inc. […]

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For the third episode of our new yet-to-be named podcast, FDL’s Kevin Gosztola and I speak with Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Project at the ACLU of Massachusetts, about how US authorities at all levels of government have used post-9/11 hysteria to go after activists and militarize the hell out of local police departments. […]

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Three people have filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department alleging that officers subjected them to publicly invasive strip searches last year. The suit calls the behavior of the officers “extreme and outrageous, exceeding all bounds of human decency.”

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Jordan Baker, a 26-year-old Houston Community College student and father, “took his last breath in a trash-strewn alley behind a Northwest Houston strip center” on Thursday, January 16, all because he was a black man wearing a hoodie. Houston police officer J Castro, an 11-year veteran who was moonlighting as a security guard for the strip […]

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In the second episode of our new podcast, Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola and I speak with Gadeir Abbas, a staff attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), about the NSA surveillance as it relates to and impacts Muslim communities. This part really stood out and should leave you outraged: The saddest thing I’ve ever heard as a […]

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For our new weekly podcast, Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola and I interviewed a resident of West Virginia about the chemical spill that left 300,000 people without usable water for days after 7,500 gallons of a chemical used to clean coal leaked into the Elk River earlier this month. West Va. officials insist that the water is […]

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