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William John Cox | |
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 Cox in 2004 | |
| Born | February 15, 1941 [1] Lubbock, Texas, U.S. [1] |
| Education | Rio Hondo College (AS) Southwestern Law School (JD) |
| Occupations |
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William John "Billy Jack" Cox (born February 15, 1941) is an American public interest lawyer and author.
Employed in 1962 by the El Cajon Police Department, [2] he attended the nearby San Diego Police Department Academy. [3] [4] In 1968, Cox transferred to the Los Angeles Police Department where he graduated from the Police Academy. He received an associate degree in Police Administration from Rio Hondo College.
In 1974 he was appointed a Deputy Los Angeles County District Attorney. [5]
Believing that control of the United States government had been seized by special interest groups and no longer cared for the voters who elected it, Cox filed a pro bono class action lawsuit on July 9, 1979, on behalf of every American citizen directly in the Supreme Court of the United States, which was denied without comment. [6] [7]
Cox later represented Mel Mermelstein, a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Cox investigated and sued a group of radical right-wing organizations, including the Liberty Lobby and Institute for Historical Review, [8] [9] that engaged in Holocaust denial and which had offered a reward for proof of Nazi gas chambers. [10] [11] The primary legal issue in the case was resolved in October 1981, when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas T. Johnson took judicial notice of the fact that "Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944." [12] The Holocaust Case was the subject of the 1991 TNT motion picture, Never Forget , produced by and starring Leonard Nimoy. [13]
In 1991, Cox arranged for the publication of almost 1,800 photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls under the control of the École Biblique that had been suppressed for more than 40 years. [14] [15] He signed a contract with the Biblical Archaeology Society to publish A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in November 1991. [16] [17] The Huntington Library in California subsequently allowed all "qualified scholars" to study its set of photographs, and the Israel Antiquities Authority permitted the publication of a microfiche edition. [18]
Between 1999 and 2007, Cox served as a supervising trial counsel for the State Bar of California. In 2012, Cox drafted and commenced circulation of the United States Voters' Rights Amendment (USVRA) to the U.S. Constitution, which provides for national paid voting holidays, a national hand-countable paper ballot, and a process for the people to have a more direct role in the formulation of public policy. Moreover, it mandates voter registration and prohibits voter suppression, restricts gerrymandering and lengthy campaigns, and it encourages public financing of elections and discourages paid lobbying. Finally, it eliminates the Electoral College to allow for open primaries and the popular election of presidents. [19] [20] [21]
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps, also called death camps, or killing centers, in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Extermination through labour was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps. Millions were also murdered in concentration camps, in the Aktion T4, or directly on site.
Leonard Simon Nimoy was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the Star Trek franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original Star Trek series in 1966, then Star Trek: The Animated Series, the first six Star Trek films, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Nimoy also directed films, including Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and appeared in several films, television shows, and voice acted in several video games. Outside of acting, Nimoy was a film director, photographer, author, singer, and songwriter.
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust denial involves making one or more of the following false claims:
The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) is a United States–based nonprofit organization which promotes Holocaust denial. It is considered by many scholars to be central to the international Holocaust denial movement. Self-described as a "historical revisionist" organization, the IHR promotes antisemitic viewpoints and has links to several neo-Nazi and neo-fascist organizations.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of archaeology with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with extra-biblical and deuterocanonical manuscripts that preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, located in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds — they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War — whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.
Melvin Mermelstein was a Czechoslovak-born American Holocaust survivor and autobiographer. A Jew, he was the sole survivor of his family's extermination at Auschwitz concentration camp.
Willis Allison Carto was an American far-right political activist. He described himself as a Jeffersonian and a populist, but was primarily known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.
The Holocaust—the murder of about six million Jews by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945—is the best-documented genocide in history. Although there is no single document which lists all Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, there is conclusive evidence that about six million were murdered. There is also conclusive evidence that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Operation Reinhard extermination camps, and in gas vans, and that there was a systematic plan by the Nazi leadership to murder them.
Judicial notice is a rule in the law of evidence that allows a fact to be introduced into evidence if the truth of that fact is so notorious or well-known, or so authoritatively attested, that it cannot reasonably be doubted. This is done upon the request of the party seeking to rely on the fact at issue. Facts and materials admitted under judicial notice are accepted without being formally introduced by a witness or other rule of evidence, even if one party wishes to plead evidence to the contrary.
The Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) is a public school district located in eastern San Diego County, California, and serves high school, adult school, and Regional Occupational Program (ROP) students in the cities of El Cajon, Lemon Grove, and Santee; the unincorporated communities of Alpine, Casa de Oro, Crest, Dehesa, Dulzura, Jamul, Lakeside, Mount Helix, Rancho San Diego, and Spring Valley; most of La Mesa, and parts of San Diego.
William David McCalden was active in the British political far-right. After moving to the United States, he was co-founder of the Institute for Historical Review in 1978 and advocated Holocaust denial. McCalden died of AIDS-related complications in 1990.
David Noel Freedman was an American biblical scholar, author, editor, archaeologist, and, after his conversion from Judaism, a Presbyterian minister. He was one of the first Americans to work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He is the son of the writer David Freedman. He died of a heart ailment.
Robert Eisenman is an American biblical scholar, historian, archaeologist, and poet. He is currently professor of Middle East religions, archaeology, and Islamic law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University Long Beach.
The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the Biblical Archaeology Review, whilst previously circulating the Bible Review (1985–2005) and Archaeology Odyssey (1998–2006). The Biblical Archaeology Society also publishes books about biblical archaeology aimed at a general readership. The Society has, for more than 45 years, run seminars and tours offering an opportunity to learn directly from world-renowned archaeologists and scholars. It also produced videos (DVD) and CDs on archaeology and biblical archaeology.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany perpetrated the Holocaust: a large-scale genocidal campaign in which approximately six million European Jews were systematically murdered throughout German-occupied Europe. Since World War II, several countries have criminalised Holocaust denial—the assertion by antisemites that the genocide was a hoax. Currently, 17 European countries, along with Israel and Canada, have laws in place that cover Holocaust denial as a punishable offence. Many countries also have broader laws that criminalise genocide denial, including that of the Holocaust. Among the countries that have banned Holocaust denial, Russia, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania have also banned Nazi symbols. Any expression of genocide justification is also a criminal offence in several countries, as is any attempt to portray Nazism in a positive light.
Suhail A. Khan is the Senior Fellow for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Institute for Global Engagement and Director of External Affairs at Microsoft Corporation. Khan was previously a senior political appointee with the Bush administration, and a conservative political activist in Washington, D.C.
Qumran Caves are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
Najib Anton Albina was the master photographer of the Palestine Archaeological Museum and, in that position, took the first original sets of photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Through his positions with the American Colony and Palestine Archaeological Museum, he used photography as a means of recording the history of Christian Palestinian culture as well as the discovery of past cultures in the region. He had a significant impact on the techniques of archeological photographers, especially those who took pictures of the Dead Sea Scrolls, through his contributions to the use of infrared photography.
The government of the City of Los Angeles operates as a charter city under the charter of the City of Los Angeles. The elected government is composed of the Los Angeles City Council with 15 city council districts and the mayor of Los Angeles, which operate under a mayor–council government, as well as several other elective offices. Under the California Constitution, all judicial, school, county, and city offices, including those of chartered cities, are nonpartisan. The current mayor is Karen Bass, the current city attorney is Hydee Feldstein Soto and the current city controller is Kenneth Mejia.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles the facts of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, in the 20th century. It includes events in the history of antisemitic thought, actions taken to combat or relieve the effects of antisemitism, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
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