Ellsberg; Muslim female fed judge

'Pentagon Papers' whistleblower Ellsberg dead at 92 

NEW YORK - Daniel Ellsberg, the history-making whistleblower who by leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed longtime government doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War and inspired acts of retaliation by President Richard Nixon that helped lead to his resignation, has died. He was 92.  

Ellsberg, whose actions led to a landmark First Amendment ruling by the Supreme Court, had disclosed in February that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer.  

Until the early 1970s, when he disclosed that he was the source for the stunning media reports on the 47-volume, 7,000-page Defense Department study of the U.S. role in Indochina, Ellsberg was a well-placed member of the government-military elite. 

He was a Harvard graduate and self-defined “cold warrior” who served as a private and government consultant on Vietnam throughout the 1960s, risked his life on the battlefield, received the highest security clearances and came to be trusted by officials in Democratic and Republican administrations. 

He was especially valued, he would later note, for his “talent for discretion.” 

But like millions of Americans, he had turned against the years-long war in Vietnam, the government’s claims that the battle was winnable and that a victory for the North Vietnamese over the U.S.-backed South would lead to the spread of communism throughout the region. 

Unlike so many other war opponents, he was in a special position to make a difference.

  

“An entire generation of Vietnam-era insiders had become just as disillusioned as I with a war they saw as hopeless and interminable,” he wrote in his 2002 memoir, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.” “By 1968, if not earlier, they all wanted, as I did, to see us out of this war.” 

First female Muslim fed judge in US history 
WASHINGTON - Nusrat Chowdhury, a civil rights lawyer, has been confirmed by the Senate as the first Muslim female federal judge in U.S. history. She will assume her lifetime appointment in Brooklyn federal court in New York after a 50-49 vote on Thursday, mostly along party lines. The confirmation drew praise from the American Civil Liberties Union, where she is the legal director of the ACLU of Illinois. Prior to that post, she served from 2008 to 2020 at the national ACLU office, including seven years as deputy director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program. In a tweet, the ACLU called her a “trailblazing civil rights lawyer. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who recommended her, said she makes history as the first Bangladeshi American as well as the first Muslim American woman to be a federal judge. “Nusrat Choudhury is a shining example of the American Dream,” Schumer said in a statement. “She is the daughter of immigrant parents, a graduate of Columbia, Princeton, and Yale Law School, and has dedicated her career to making sure all people can have their voices heard in court.” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voted against the appointment, citing her support for criminal justice reform. He said in a statement that some of her past statements call into question her ability to be unbiased toward members of law enforcement. (The AP 06/16/23)