Welcome to Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 150 stations and on Apple podcast. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder August 10, 2026
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Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism
On July 20th, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department released a 100-page McCarthyite propaganda report. It is a document that seeks to serve as the ideological justification for an escalating assault on Cuba, the Cuba solidarity movement and all political dissent on the left. The report casts a wide net of unfounded accusations, maliciously painting over 40 left-leaning social movement organizations and individuals as purported Cuban “front groups” while employing guilt-by-association tactics to smear even elected officials such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
Among the organizations cited is the National Lawyers Guild, an association of attorneys, law students and legal workers, of which all of the hosts here on Law and Disorder are members. It goes so far as to cite reports from the long-discredited House Un-American Activities Committee, reviving Cold War conspiracy theories from the 1950s and repackaging them for the present.
As our guest today writes, “These accusations are not meant to be rational. They, like the charges that our elections are manipulated, are transparent excuses to go after institutions and individuals that are seen as threatening Trump and the Republican Party’s absolute grip on power.”
Guest – Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, and the former Middle East correspondent for the New York Times. Among his more than a dozen books are American Fascism: The Christian Right and the War on America; The Greatest Evil Is War; and A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine. Chris Hedges is also one of the contributors to the book titled From the Flag to the Cross: Fascism American Style, a book composed of summaries of interviews with guests here on the Law and Disorder radio show, and available for purchase at O/R Books.
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Mahmood Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident has sued senior Trump administration officials and private anti-Palestinian groups for conspiring to target, detain, and attempt to deport him because of his identity and his advocacy for Palestinian rights. He is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the law firm of Beldock, Levine and Hoffman.
The lawsuit argues that government officials and private actors, including the Heritage Foundation, Betar and Canary Mission violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and the US Constitution when they coordinated to suppress political speech and support of Palestinian rights through the weaponization of immigration enforcement and baseless, pretrial accusations of terrorism and antisemitism.
Mahmoud‘s arrest, detention, and attempted deportation were part of a broader strategy to criminalized solidarity, chill speech and make an example of those who speak out against the subjugation of Palestinians. This case is about more than one person or one freedom movement. Is about whether government power can be weaponized by private actors to target human rights defenders and strip people of their constitutional rights.
Guest – New York attorney Adina Marx-Padare. She is a justice fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights ( CCR). She graduated.CUNY law school and worked at Bronx Defenders.
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Law and Disorder August 3, 2026
Challenges To The Trump Administration’s Executive Orders
The legal system is straining as it tries to hold the Trump administration accountable for its unprecedented assault on our constitutional rights. Close to a thousand lawsuits have been filed challenging Trump’s Executive Orders and their implementation, plus more than ten thousand separate habeas corpus petitions filed by people targeted by Trump’s immigration crackdown.
We take a deeper look at some of these legal and political developments. We’re joined by our very own co-host Steve Rohde, who practiced constitutional law for almost 50 years. He is a former Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the author or two books and numerous articles on the courts and the law.
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a journalist, lecturer and political activist. For almost 50 years, he practiced civil rights, civil liberties, and intellectual property law and has won significant First Amendment victories in state and federal appellate courts.Steve is past chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and Chair Emeritus of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice. He is a founder and current chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; and a member of the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus. He is the Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.Steve is the author of the books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly and numerous articles and book reviews on civil liberties and constitutional history. He is co-author of Foundations of Freedom published by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. Steve is also the host of Speaking Freely: A First Amendment Podcast exploring the most important Supreme Court cases in the area of free speech and free press.
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Student Journalism Supported By Law Center
Student journalism is one of the most vital—and often overlooked—front lines in the fight for a free press. Across the country, student reporters expose such topics as sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and government secrecy. Yet without the institutional legal backing enjoyed by newsrooms, they frequently face censorship, retaliation, and lawsuit threats from administrators and public officials.
For more than fifty years, the Student Press Law Center has stood as the nation’s leading legal advocate for student journalists. Founded in 1974, the nonprofit offers free legal help via a nationwide hotline, advises on First Amendment issues—from libel to public records access—and spearheads the “New Voices” movement for state-level legal protections.
Guest – SPLC staff attorney Jonathan Gaston-Falk. A former student journalist himself at York High School in Virginia, Jonathan joined the center in March 2022 after a five-year tenure leading the Education Law Unit at the Legal Aid Society of Rochester, New York. There, he advocated for student free speech rights before school boards and the state Commissioner of Education.
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Law and Disorder July 27, 2026
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Unitary Executive Theory
The US Supreme Court just ended a momentous term further entrenching the reactionary Republican agenda. Our sometimes consideration of relevant court cases and other legal developments, today includes a review of the conservative legal doctrine known as the Unitary Executive Theory, now favored by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and the conservative doctrine of Originalism. We’ll also look at a new opinion poll of Americans showing that at least half of Americans disapprove of the job the Supreme Court is doing.
Guest – Stephen Rohde is the author of two books and numerous articles and book reviews on constitutional law and history. He is the former president of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and is a special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He is host of the new podcast Speaking Freely produced by MS Studios and is available on Spotify and I Heart radio and other streaming platforms. Steve Rohde is also, of course, one of the co-hosts here on the Law and Disorder radio show.
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Hold Your Representative Accountable
A dozen years ago, two professors from prestigious universities, Martin Gillens and Benjamin Gage conducted a study of decision-making in our government. Their conclusion was a bombshell destroying as it did the myth that America is a majoritarian democracy. Their conclusion, in the most widely cited quote from their study, was that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, nearly 0 statistically, non-significant impact on public policy.”
So who decides the policies of the government? Not us. It is the economic leaders, the business interests and the organized lobbies that call the shots. The American people by and large are way to the left of their government. However, they are ignorant of the true record of the Congress people who claim to represent them. What can be done about this?
Guest – Felice Gelman is a long time movement activist and part of The Network For Voter Education, a non-partisan effort that has created an Internet tool called yourreprecord.org which people can use to look up the true record of members of Congress.
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