Academic Freedom, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Freedom Of Speech, Supreme Court
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Stephen Rohde: Checks, Balances And Separation Of Powers
This half-hour, we continue our ongoing effort to understand in real time, the upheavals taking place within our US government, as well as the blitz of attacks on the rule of law – and that includes attacks on judges, lawyers, academics, students, and virtually anyone else who is critical of the Trump Administration’s policies and actions.
Today, we’ll be particularly focused on recent Supreme Court decisions that have paved the way for Trump to dismantle the Department of Education and numerous government agencies. The decisions also Limit the public’s ability to challenge government overreach and have led to swift deportations to countries in which detainees have no prior connection. We’ll also follow-up on the critically important case on First Amendment and academic freedom, American Association of University Professors v, Rubio, which is in trial right now in Boston.
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a legal scholar, writer, lecturer and political activist, who practiced civil rights and civil liberties law for over 50 years. He’s past chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and past national chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice. He’s also a co-founder and chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, and a Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He hosts the podcast, Speaking Freely.
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The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime
As V.I. Lenin observed, “There are times in history when nothing happens for decades and other times when decades happen within days” He should know. He was the leader of the Russian revolution which overthrew the feudal Tsar and changed the history of the 20th century. We are living in a time when history is unfolding very rapidly. Trump and his coterie of the upper 1/10 of 1 percent aligned with the mostly lower middle class MAGA movement have taken huge steps upending and overturning the kind of democracy, however, limited by race and class, that we have lived with since gaining independence from England 250 years ago.
We are experiencing the transition to a new absolutist executive. Trump and the ideologues who have shaped his MAGA movement is a president who acts on the premise that whatever he does is lawful. He claimed full power to close down departments like the Department of Education, impound congressionally authorized spending, deport people without due process, while ignoring the courts. This is what he calls “a unitary executive.”
The classic definition of fascism is that it is one of the political forms that capitalism may assume in its monopoly imperial phase. It has a material foundation in a tenuous alliance between sectors of the extremely rich monopoly capitalists and a mobilized lower middle class. The key to fascist rule is the privatization of large parts of the government on behalf of the monopoly class. This ideology now in ensconced in the White House.
The right wing is opposed to environmental governance, they don’t believe in climate change. They are against open borders, universal healthcare and green energy. Those who advocate for these beneficial movements are called “cultural Marxists.” They refer in a derogatory way to all contemporary progressive political causes. They call it woke. They use the term as it means to belittle all social justice struggles against racism and inequality, Its most common usage is as a racist dog whistle.
These fascists want to secure their rule by getting control of the entire cultural apparatus of society, a process that the Nazis, the German fascists of their time,called “bringing it into line.” The current attack on universities is the most recent example.
Guest – John Bellamy Foster is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is a prominent scholar on ecology and the author of many books, including Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce. Professor Foster is the editor of the venerable socialist magazine “Monthly Review“ and the author of the article The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime in its recent May 2025 issue.
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Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Immigration, police accountability
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American Association of University Professors v. Rubio
Sadly, listeners to Law & Disorder are all too familiar with how the Trump administration has systematically created a climate of repression and fear on our university campuses. Federal agencies are attempting to deport multiple individuals for their pro-Palestinian advocacy, including Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. These actions have sent chills through the community of noncitizen students and faculty on campuses around the country, causing some to pull out of academic conferences, stay home from protests, and withdraw from other forms of public advocacy and engagement.
While Khalil and other students are actively pursuing their own lawsuits and habeas corpus petitions defending their own First Amendment rights, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University has filed an innovative lawsuit attacking the Trump administration from a different angle. On March 25, 2025, the Knight Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), AAUP’s Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association, alleging that the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty who participate in pro-Palestinian activism, chills noncitizens from speaking and, by extension, robs these organizations and their U.S. citizen members of noncitizens’ perspectives on a matter of significant public debate. The suit seeks a court order declaring that the policy is unlawful and enjoining the federal government from enforcing it.
In the lawsuit, titled American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, US District Judge William G. Young in Mass. denied the government’s motion to dismiss and set a trial for July 7.
Guest – Xiangnong (George) Wang is a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. He first joined the Institute as a legal fellow from 2020 to 2021 before serving as a law clerk to the Hon. William J. Kayatta, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Wang received a B.A. in public policy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
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Police Accountability Enforcement In Louisville, KY
In the wake of Breonna Taylor’s 2020 murder, the city of Louisville created the Office of Inspector General to provide independent oversight of the Louisville Metro Police Department. In 2021, Ed Harness was appointed the city’s first Inspector General, tasked with investigating police misconduct and recommending policy reforms. His term ends this November, and community groups—including the Louisville NAACP—are calling for his reappointment.
But questions remain about how local reforms will be enforced, especially as the federal government steps back. A recent executive order gives the U.S. Attorney General authority to unilaterally end consent decrees, raising concerns about long-term accountability.
Guest – Ed Harness is a former U.S. Army Military Police officer and Milwaukee police officer, Ed previously served as Executive Director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency in Albuquerque and led the Dispute Resolution Division of the Wisconsin Better Business Bureau. In addition to his duties in Louisville, he serves as a Board Member at Large for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE).
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Illegal Immigration
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Young Voters Support Openly Socialist Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mandani
In a spectacular primary victory with national implications, the 33-year-old charismatic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary race in New York City on June 24. He most assuredly will win the general election and become the next mayor of New York City in the fall. With broad support, especially amongst younger people, Mamdani came from way behind to win in a landslide over former 67-year-old former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo had name recognition and the support of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign was well funded to the tune of $25 million donated by superpacs and billionaires. This included a last-minute $5 million infusion by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
Cuomo was supported by most of the trade union bureaucracy, conservative Black leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who is credited with getting Bernie Sanders defeated, and the charlatan Al Sharpton. Mamdani’s popularity skyrocketed when New Yorkers became aware of him and his platform. His campaign recruited 40,000 volunteers who knocked on 1,500,000 doors. 20,000 people contributed small amounts to his effort.
While Cuomo campaigned on fear supporting a policeman on every subway car Mamdani took a radically different approach. His campaign was anchored in the idea that New York should become an affordable city for the working and Middle class people who live there. He advocated a rent freeze; free, fast, buses; free childcare, and city run grocery stores in neighborhoods who need them. He stood up for Palestinians.
The core of Mamdani’s campaign workers resided in the Democratic Socialist of America. He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Ilhan Omar. Mamdani is the Muslim son of South Asian immigrants. His father is a professor at Columbia University and his mother is a film director. Mamdani himself had served for four years as a State Assembly man from Astoria, Queens. He was born in Uganda and grew up on the west side of Manhattan. He had been active supporting taxi cab drivers who were financially ruined by the intrusion of Uber and Lyft into their businesses. Several committed suicide. Mamdami led a hunger strike and a successful effort to get financial help for them.
Guest – John Tarleton is a co-founder and editor in chief of the Indypendent, a free monthly newspaper and website publishing in New York City since 2000. He’s the cohost of the independent NewsHour on WBAI in New York City.
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Trump v Casa : Presidential Immunity
On June 27, the last day of the Supreme Court’s official term, the 6-member ultra-conservative majority issued one of the most dangerous decisions in its history, which the 3 dissenting judges called “shameful” and a “grave attack on our system of law.”
In three lawsuits consolidated as Trump v, CASA Inc, 22 state attorneys general, several pregnant women who are not American citizens, and a variety of civil rights organizations challenged Donald Trump’s Executive Order banning birthright citizenship. That’s the principle enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that all babies born in the United States are American citizens regardless of the citizenship or immigration status of their mothers. But the June 27 decision didn’t reach the merits of that challenge.
Instead, it dealt with the scope of the injunctions which three different US District Courts in Maryland, Washington, and Mass issued enjoining Trump’s EO. All of those district courts found that to grant complete relief to the plaintiffs, it was necessary to issue “universal injunctions” which not only restrained Trump from implementing his EO against the specific plaintiffs named in those lawsuits but also restrained Trump from implementing it nationwide. Three different federal appellate court denied Trump’s request to stay those universal injunctions, but last week the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gave Trump a green light to proceed within 30 days against any mother who was not one of the named plaintiffs.
Guest – Stephen Rohde believes that Trump v CASA is a monumental decision that dangerously builds on last year’s disastrous decision in Trump v US, in which the same 6-member conservative majority invented absolute presidential criminal immunity. Steve practiced civil rights and civil liberties law for almost 50 years, and is a prolific author of two books and scores of articles and book reviews on constitutional law and history. He is former President of the ACLU of Southern California and is Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He is also host of the new podcast Speaking Freely produced by Ms Studios which is available on Spotify, I Heart Radio and other streaming platforms.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, War Resister
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Dangerous Threshold: Long Range Implications Of Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
In a dangerous escalation of U.S. foreign policy, Donald Trump announced on June 22 that the U.S. had bombed 13 Iranian nuclear facilities in support of Israel. The Israeli-Iranian conflict has already left hundreds dead—including scores of civilians—and now risks igniting a wider regional, if not global, war.
While Trump claimed to broker a ceasefire, Israeli missiles struck Iranian targets just hours later. Iran denied any retaliation but was quickly blamed for alleged missile fire—charges used to justify further Israeli attacks. Trump publicly rebuked both nations, saying he’s “not happy with Israel,” even as White House officials praised his supposed diplomatic intervention. With the region in crisis, global powers maneuvering, and questions mounting over legality and legitimacy, we examine the broader implications for peace, international law, and U.S. democracy. BreakthroughNews
Guest – Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition and a longtime critic of U.S. imperialism and military intervention. A leader of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, he’s also a leading voice in the movement to end the occupation of Palestine.
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Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy
Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy is a new book by our own co-host Heidi Boghosian. Heidi explains how the erosion of civics education combined with widespread digital illiteracy, leaves Americans vulnerable to manipulation—by Big Tech, foreign adversaries, extremist movements, and even our own government. She argues that we’re not just under-informed—we’re being actively rewired by the very systems we depend on daily.
Yet people are fighting back and taking cyber citizenship seriously. They include librarians teaching patrons to use Tor, activists leveraging open-source tools, educators using justice-themed games to teach critical thinking, and whistleblowers risking everything to expose abuses by governments and tech giants. Heidi’s earlier books include Spying on Democracy and I Have Nothing to Hide, and her writing has appeared in outlets like the LA Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the ABA Human Rights Journal. She’s on the Advisory Board of the Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology and the Media Freedom Foundation.
Guest – Heidi Boghosian is executive director of the A.J. Muste Foundation for Peace and Justice, a charitable organization providing support to activist organizations. Before that she was executive director of the National Lawyers Guild. Her book ““I Have Nothing to Hide”: And 20 Other Myths About Surveillance and Privacy was published in 2021 (Beacon Press). She received her JD from Temple Law School where she was editor-in-chief of the Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review. She has an MS from Boston University’s College of Communication and a BA from Brown University.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, Surveillance, U.S. Militarism
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Law Firms Targeted By Trump Administration
Trump and the MAGA movement behind him have taken huge steps to upend and overturn the kind of democracy, however limited by race and class, that we have lived with since our independence from England some 250 years ago. In order to secure their rule, these fascists, like those in the Hitler movement 90 years ago, attempted to get control of the various apparatuses of our society. They aimed at the major media, the universities, the states like California, the scientific establishment, the medical profession, the cultural apparatus, the top brass in the military, and the big law firms.
Hitler’s fascist party in Germany called this effort “bringing it into line”. What we are going to examine today is Trump’s efforts to dominate the major law firms in America. He has succeeded in dominating some, but not all, of these law firms, which are known as “big law.“ The resistance has been impressive and a tribute to the spirit of fairness in the American legal tradition.
What did Trump do? He told the big law firms that he would sign an executive order banning them from federal buildings, including the courthouses where they practiced. Further, he would take away their security clearances and he would cancel any contracts they had with the federal government. This was calculated to break these firms and they knew it. A target was the venerable firm of Paul Weiss, established in 1875, which was active in the civil rights movement in the 50s. It helped to win the landmark desegregation victory in “Brown vs the Board of Education.” Paul Weiss initially tried to resist. It asked other firms for help. But to no avail.
The other firms refused and instead began to pick off their clients. Faced with financial ruin Paul Weiss gave in and agreed to donate millions of dollars in free legal work to projects of Trump‘s choice. So did other famous firms. Collectively, these firms agreed to furnish Trump with over $1 billion in pro bono assistance to Trump and his projects, like defending cops in cases of police abuse and murder, as in the George Floyd case.
Guest – Los Angeles attorney John Burton was the president of the Board of Directors of the National Police Accountability Project, an organization representing more than 600 police misconduct, lawyers and other professionals throughout the United States. He established his law firm in 1984. Mr. Burton has covered the story for the World Socialist Website. As he has written, the battle Trump started is not over. Four judges have ruled against him. 24 friend of the court amicus briefs have been filed. 1000 law firms have come on board.
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Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens
Among the tsunami of Trump‘s executive orders is EO number 14288. Trump signed it on April 25, 2025. It is ominous. The order is titled Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.
It orders review and likely cancellation of police/citizen consent decrees like the one the movement in Minneapolis won against the Minneapolis Police Department after they murdered George Floyd several years ago. It militarizes law-enforcement by distributing military assets to local police forces and encouraging coordination between the Department of Defense and Federal-local law-enforcement. One of its core objectives is to establish pro bono representation by some of the biggest law firms in America to help shield offending police from suits against them for abuse of local citizens. Trump previously secured agreements with these firms to provide over $1 billion with a representation for free to entities that he designates.
Guest – Russ Bellant has researched rightist, fascist, and the Nazi forces in the United States for over 50 years. He has published articles in many magazines and has written three books based on his research. They include Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party and The Religious Right In Michigan Politics. Email: RussBellant (at) gmail.com (reply that you want to be on the email list)
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Immigration, Right To Dissent, U.S. Militarism
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Leadership Failure Within The Democratic Party
The unfolding events in Los Angeles after Donald Trump called up the National Guard in violation of federal law and his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act are but his latest assault on democracy and the Constitution. Lawyers, social justice organizations, and watchdog groups are fighting back in over 245 lawsuits against the Trump administration winning over 180 injunctions. Last Saturday, thousands of NO KINGS rallies were held in every state of the Union.
But many are asking: Where is the Democratic Party in all this? Opinion surveys show the public is not impressed with Democratic leadership. What are Democrats in Congress and in state governments doing to oppose Trump and offer the American people an alternative? And what more should they be doing?
Guest – Alan Minsky, the Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Previously, Alan was the longtime Program Director at KPFK Radio Los Angeles and the coordinator of Pacifica Radio’s national political coverage. Progressive Democrats of America was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and our country. PDA seeks to build a party and government controlled by citizens, not monied interests, with policies that serve the public and the planet. PDA is proud to say that they transformed American politics by successfully drafting Bernie Sanders to run for President as a Democrat in 2016.
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Protests Erupt Over University and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Partnership
A controversy is brewing at St. John’s University in Queens in New York—an institution known for its Catholic and Vincentian mission to serve the poor, the immigrant, and the marginalized. A recently announced partnership between the university and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has sparked backlash among faculty, students, alumni, and human rights advocates. In dispute is a new Institute for Border Security and Intelligence Studies, a training center for homeland security professionals created in collaboration with CBP’s New York Field Office.
Since the announcement, more than 900 members of the St. John’s community have signed a petition calling for the immediate termination of the partnership. They contend that working with an agency accused of human rights violations—notably against immigrants and communities of color—is in opposition to the university’s core religious and moral code. The petition to university leadership, notes concerns about academic freedom, the safety of immigrant students and faculty, and the ethical implications of normalizing CBP practices on campus.
Like any controversy, there are many angles. Supporters of the partnership cite the benefits of real world training and federal job opportunities. However, our guest today will tell us about potential downsides.
Guest – Professor Gary Mongiovi’s main area of specialization is the history of economic ideas, particularly those of John Maynard KAYnes and Karl Marx, and non-mainstream approaches in economics. Recently he has been working on the ideological role that economics plays in society. He has been a member of the editorial board of the Review of Radical Political Economics since 1994. His writings have appeared in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Catalyst, Critical Sociology, Social Research, Metroeconomica, and The Nation.
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