Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Right To Dissent, Supreme Court
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The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians and Police Violence in Chicago
The comedian Lenny Bruce used to joke that Chicago was so corrupt. It was thrilling. He had no idea. Bruce was referring to run of the mill bribery of a traffic cop or a police officer taking your floor mats in lieu of a ticket or a pay off from a local bar owner. The corruption in Chicago ran much deeper. It went from the prosecutors who were actually in the police station, listening to the screams of men being tortured, before they went and took a signed confession from them.
It was the commander of a whole section of police who learned how to torture people from a tour of duty in Vietnam. He brought back an electric machine that they had actually used in Vietnam Vietnamese. This machine was used on Black people in Chicago. Three hundred people were convicted on the basis of tortured confessions. The corruption ran all the way up to the mayor’s office. Mayor Richard J Daily knew about it and said nothing.
It was only the work of a few attorneys like Flint Taylor and the community, the Black Panther party, and activists and progressive politicians who exposed it. Their victory included reparations, The torture of people in police stations on the west side and southside of Chicago is now taught to eighth grade and 10th graders in the public schools.
“In the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls“ said H. Rap Brown, the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Guest – Flint Taylor, a founding member of Chicago’s Peoples Law Office. He represented the families of slain Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. He continues to represent many survivors of police torture and wrongful convictions. Attorney Taylor is co-counsel in the Malcolm X assassination case and is the award-winning author of the historical memoir “The Torture Machine“. Flint’s book is a captivating account of the most corrupt and blood soaked chapter In Chicago law-enforcement history.
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U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Resetting Precedent Part 2
Back we go to review of more cases from the recent term of the U.S. Supreme Court. We start with the birthright citizen case. Then we take up cases dealing with immigration and executive power, as well as other major cases. We also look at what many have described as corruption among the Justices.
Guest – Ellen Yaroshefsky is the Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor of Legal Ethics, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, at Hofstra University. She is a leading educator and expert in ethics law and serves as an expert witness and advisor to lawyers and law firms. Prof. Yaroshefsky is a former Commissioner on the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics. She has previously worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights and has been in private practice. And Prof. Yaroshefsky has received numerous awards, including the New York State Bar Association’s honor for Outstanding Contribution in Criminal Law Education.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Supreme Court
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Reviewing Key SCOTUS and Lower Court Cases
Last month co-host Stephen Rohde reviewed the conservative legal doctrine known as the Unitary Executive Theory as the US Supreme Court ended its term further entrenching the reactionary Republican agenda. As legal battles mount across every tier of the judiciary, basic constitutional rights continue to be tested in the courtroom. We’ll highlight key cases that impact immigration, voting rights, freedom of speech and freedom of press.
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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Defending Attacks Against First Amendment Rights
We are living through one of the most dangerous government attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press in American history. Trump has issued more than forty executive orders, fact sheets, and presidential memorandum, along with scores of enforcement actions dutifully issued by the obedient federal officials he has appointed, that abridge the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans and foreign visitors.
Here’s a sampling of what Trump has done: He has retaliated against law firms for their advocacy and representation of specific clients; terminated billions of dollars in federal funding to universities in an effort to alter their ideological cultures and control their core academic operations; conditioned federal research and other funding on the agreement not to practice or promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “gender ideology” and to teach only “patriotic” curricula in K-12 schools; arrested, detained, and subjected to deportation international students and foreign scholars based on their viewpoints and political activism, and revoking the visas of foreign nationals based on political expression; retaliated against the press by excluding specific media outlets from White House events based on their viewpoints and reporting; threatened to revoke broadcast licenses based on networks’ editorial decisions; restricted reporters’ access to unclassified defense-related information held by the Pentagon; sued newspapers and publishers for defamation, consumer fraud, and “election interference”; scrubbed historical, scientific, and other data from federal agency websites; ordered the removal of “anti-American” displays in national museums;
Interview referenced on Medialite
Guest – Floyd Abrams, one of the most prominent First Amendment lawyers in America.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Cuba, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, War Resister
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Analysis Of A Transformation
Our country is going through a great transformation. We are no longer the constitutional democracy we once were. Its reported that Elon Musk, the world‘s first trillionaire, gave Trump and his MAGA organization $200 million in the last election. Miriam Adelson, the widow of a casino magnate gave another $100 million. Trump bragged about her ready access to the White House. Musk took a wrecking ball to federal jobs. Other institutions such as law firms, the Supreme Court,universities, and Congress have been transformed. Extraordinarily no one in Congress is able to say “the king has no clothes“. The media facilitate all of this.
Guest – Ann Wright is a retired colonel in the army having served 29 years in it and the reserves . She then became a diplomat and was posted in many countries around the world. In 2003 she quit over the lies the government told to manipulate the American people into supporting a war on Iraq. She then co-wrote the book with Susan Dixon titled “Dissent : Voices of Conscience : Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq. It includes a forward by Daniel Ellsberg. Ann Wright has been active since then as a the leader of the anti-war group Code Pink and a leader of Veterans for Peace. She is was on numerous flotillas that sailed across the Mediterranean to bring help to the Palestinians and publicize their plight. VoicesOfConscience.
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We Will Dismantle The ICC Brick By Brick
The United States has long endeavored to undermine the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although it is not a party to the Rome Statute, the U.S. has consistently attacked the ICC. In 2003, Congress passed, and then-President George W. Bush signed, the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, known as “The Hague Invasion Act.” It says that if a national of the U.S. or its ally (which includes Israel) is detained by the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, the U.S. military can use armed force to extricate them.
The Bush administration effectively blackmailed 100 countries that were parties to the Rome Statute by forcing them to sign bilateral immunity agreements in which they promised not to turn over U.S. persons to the ICC, or the United States would withhold foreign aid from them. In November 2024, after an investigation lasting more than three years, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They stand charged with the war crimes of starvation as a form of warfare, and intentional attacks on civilians; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Donald Trump has taken the U.S. assault on the ICC to a new level with punishing sanctions against those who seek to hold accountable individuals who commit the most heinous crimes. In February, Trump issued an executive order that has led to the sanctioning of nine of the ICC’s 18 judges and three ICC prosecutors. Sanctions include frozen or closed bank accounts, rejection of financial transactions, denial of access to digital services, and travel bans.
In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court. He accused the ICC of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.” In an article in Wall Street Journal, Rubio wrote that “we will dismantle the ICC – brick by brick, if necessary.”
Now four prominent human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Trump’s executive order violates the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and international law.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn, a former host on Law and Disorder is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory board of Veterans For Peace, she is a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and serves as the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She writes a regular column for Truthout, including a recent one entitled, Trump Sanctioned ICC Officials to Shield Israeli Leaders. Rights Groups Sued.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Supreme Court
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Transgender Community Legal Protection, LGBTQ Rights and SCOTUS
The transgender community is the whipping boy of the Republican Party. Conservatives never miss a chance to try to inflame voters with scary stories about transgender people invading public bathrooms and women’s sports. Transphobia has now reached the US Supreme Court which has handed down a series of regressive decisions seriously impairing trans rights.To help us understand what’s going on and how decent people can stand in solidarity with the transgender community, we’re delighted to be joined by Shannon Minter, who is Vice President and Legal Director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, where he has led the legal team’s impact litigation, legislative, and public policy efforts for nearly 30 years.
Currently, he is leading litigation challenging a range of anti-transgender executive orders and federal policies. Shannon is one of the nation’s foremost experts on conversion therapy, helping to draft and pass legislation in states to protect LGBTQ youth and support survivors.An appointee to President Obama’s Commission on White House Fellowships, Shannon was one of the most senior transgender appointees in the Obama administration. He was named to the 2026 TIME100 and has received ABA’s Stonewall Award and several other important recognitions.
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Agents Of Hope: Rebuilding American Democracy
We are 10 weeks away from one of the most momentous Midterm Elections in the history of the United States, which could well spell the future of the American democracy. If the Democrats do not win control of Congress, President Donald Trump will have clear sailing to continue to expand his fascist regime by killing citizens and non-citizens, dismantling cherished American institutions, and violating the US Constitution.
The question facing every one of us is what are We the People going to do about it. What are we going to do deny the MAGA movement control of the House and Senate and governorships and state legislatures, and what are we going to do over the next 2 years, 4 years, 8 years and beyond to take back and rebuild our democracy.
To help us chart that path, we are very fortunate to be joined today on Law and Disorder by Heather Booth. Heather Booth is one of the country’s leading strategists on progressive issue campaigns and elections. She began organizing in the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s. She started JANE, an underground abortion service in 1965, before Roe v Wade was decided.
Heather has been involved in and managed a wide range of political campaigns and was the Training Director of the Democratic National Committee. In 2000, she was the Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which helped to increase African American election turnout. In 2008, she was the director of the Health Care Campaign for the AFL-CIO. In 2009, she directed the campaign to pass President Barack Obama’s first budget. In 2010 she was the founding director of Americans for Financial Reform, fighting to regulate the financial industry. She was the national coordinator for the coalition around marriage equality and a strategic advisor to the Alliance for Citizenship. She was the field director for the 2017 campaign to stop the tax giveaways to millionaires and billionaires and won the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Dodd/Frank Bill. She directed Progressive and Seniors Outreach for the Biden/Harris campaign.
Currently, Heather Booth is a member of the consulting firm Democracy Partners, she is national outreach director of Battleground Alliance, organizing in about 40 marginal congressional districts, and she is President of the Midwest Academy, training social change leaders and organizers. Best of all she is the sister of Dave Tobis, one of my dearest friends and classmates at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, Long Island.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Cuba, Freedom Of Speech, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, War Resister
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Moving The Bar: My Life As A Radical Lawyer
Hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith interviewed some of Michael Ratner’s closest friends and colleagues as part of a special broadcast highlighting Michael Ratner’s legal work and mentorship. The special also marked the upcoming release of Michael Ratner’s autobiography Moving The Bar: My Life As A Radical Lawyer published by OR Books. In this one hour taken from the two hour fundraiser broadcast, we hear from attorneys including Eleanor Stein, Richard Levy, Ray Brescia, David Cole and Baher Azmy.
Michael Ratner’s pathbreaking legal and political work is unmatched. He provided crucial support for the Cuban Revolution and won the seminal case in the Supreme Court guaranteeing the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees. Michael also challenged U.S. policy in Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Israel-Palestine. This book is a testament to his unflagging efforts on behalf of the poor and oppressed around the world.
– Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Ratner personified lawyering that brought both radical and human values into challenges to the use of governmental power to violate the essence of the Bill of Rights. From the torture of prisoners after 911 to the massive racial profiling by the New York Police Department, Michael’s voice and vision continue to resonate. This book provides a powerful testament to the spirit of this extraordinary man.
– Attorney Bill Goodman
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights
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Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times – A Guide for All of Us: How to Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy
We’re joined by Skye Perryman, the author of a new book, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times – A Guide for All of Us: How to Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy.
Skye opens her book this way: “I know how you feel – because I’ve been there to … On a bad day, and there are many bad days, our nation’s backslide from democracy into autocracy accelerates….Untrained, masked federal agents are running roughshod in our streets, terrorizing communities. Peaceful protesters have been killed. The government has been weaponized, and the Supreme Court feels stacked. It is harder and harder for many to make ends meet….We are all so tired. And many of us are numb…. It’s almost impossible to keep up; even harder to know what to do.”
Guest – Skye Perryman is the President and CEO of Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that advances democracy and progress in the courts. Named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, she is a leader in the largest affirmative litigation effort against executive branch overreach in United States history. In reviewing her new book for Ms Magazine, I called it “timely, hopeful, and practical. She is the author of a new book, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times – A Guide for All of Us: How to Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy.
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A Real Right To Vote: How A Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy
From Donald Trump’s dangerous Executive Orders imposing restrictions on voting to the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act and all the efforts at voter suppression in Congress and state legislatures, the right to vote in America is under assault. The Midterm Elections are less than 90 days away and many people are asking whether free and fair elections will even take place this November, and if they do, whether Trump and the Republicans will try to block the results in races they lose.
To help us understand what is going on, we’re very pleased to be joined by an internationally recognized expert in election law, Rick Hasen.
Guest – Rick Hasen is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, and Director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law. He is co-author of leading casebooks in election law and served in 2022 and 2024 as an NBC News/MSNBC Election Law Analyst. He was a CNN Election Law Analyst in 2020. From 2001-2010, he served as founding co-editor of the quarterly peer-reviewed publication, Election Law Journal. He is the author of over 100 articles on election law issues. His latest book, A Real Right to Vote, was published by Princeton University Press in February 2024.
