Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age
Homelessness in the USA has reached catastrophic proportions. In New York City alone 125,000 people are homeless. One out of eight children in public school are homeless. Shelters for homeless people are overflowing. Many sleep outside or in the subway system. Their conditions of life have driven many of these people over the edge.The problem is long-standing and quite evident.
There’s a lack of affordable housing. Why? Because building affordable housing is not as profitable as building luxury housing. How realistic is it to get money for affordable housing when the oligarchy in power lacks empathy and only seeks to enrich itself, shift money from the bottom to the top, and poor people have very little political clout in the two party system.
Guest – Patrick Markee is a prominent advocate and policy analyst known for his extensive work on homelessness in New York City. He worked at the Coalition for the Homeless for several decades. Markee’s forthcoming book Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age pinpoints systemic factors such as economic and equality, housing affordability, and policy decisions that have perpetuated homelessness since the regular administration 40 some years ago.
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Silencing Those Speaking Out Against The US-Israel War In Palestine
All across this country, academic freedom is under severe attack. Why? Well, at colleges and universities, professors and students who dare to speak out in defense of the Palestinian people and condemn Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, have been censored, disciplined, fired, deported, and arrested. Universities are told who they can hire and what they can teach under the threat of the cut-off of grant money. This is so that, in our ever more authoritarian country, centers of opposition can be brought into line, as they were in Germany. And these attacks on academic freedom are not limited to actions by university administrators, but include those by the federal government, as well.
Visiting scholars, adjuncts and lecturers without tenure have had their contracts terminated, or haven’t been renewed. Some had their classes suddenly cancelled. Faculty members who espouse views contrary to official U.S. policy vis-a-vis the Israeli-U.S. war in Palestine have been criticized in ways that have trampled on their reputations and hurt their careers. As an excuse for this present-day McCarthyism, college and university administrators, and President Trump, often claim their censorious actions are undertaken only on behalf of ensuring their Jewish students feel “safe” on campus and to fight so-called “anti-Semitic speech and actions” on campus. But there is a distinct lack of evidence to support their claimed motivation. In fact, the largest pro-Palestinian actions on campuses are often organized by Jewish groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace.
We ask our guest Professor Alan Wald about McCarthy-styled witch hunts against academic personnel, and learn how federal law is being misused as a mechanism of political repression against academia. We’ll also discuss the role that controversy over slogans such as those condemning Zionism play in this new attack on academic freedom, and what strategies are best employed today by the opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza against these attacks, as the ever more deadly Israeli-U.S. war in Palestine continues.
Guest – Professor Alan Wald, the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan…which, I might add, is my alma mater. Professor Wald has authored nine books related to today’s topic. He has been a socialist scholar since the 1960’s, and is currently an editor of the journal Against the Current, as well as a member of the editorial board of Science and Society. Professor Wald is also a founder of the University of Michigan’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine committee.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, War Resister, worker's rights
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Jewish Voice For Peace
As Israel’s expanding genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank continue, with more than 47,000 confirmed deaths and many more unconfirmed killed, the Trump administration continues its unconditional military support of Israel, while waging its own war at home against the movement for Palestinian rights. Trump has intensified his attacks by labeling pro-Palestinian protests as “antisemitic” and using that excuse to cancel student visas, deport pro-Palestinian activists, and revoke federal grants to major universities.
Guest – Professor Barry Trachtenberg serves on the Academic Board of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. He holds the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He is a historian of modern European and American Jewry, and the author of three books on the Holocaust and the revolutionary roots of modern Yiddish.
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DOGE: Targeted Purge And Deferred Resignation
A growing coalition of lawmakers, labor unions, and community advocates is rallying against what they call an “illegal and anti-democratic” takeover of the federal workforce. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees recently joined Senators and Representatives on the steps of the Office of Personnel Management in Washington. They demanded the removal of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency—known as DOGE—from federal authority. Their message was clear: DOGE is dismantling merit-based civil service protections under the guise of “efficiency,” threatening thousands of federal workers in the process.
The rally spotlighted the damage already done—more than 175,000 federal workers have been laid off or pressured into “deferred resignation.” Most of those affected, including more than 50,000 veterans, are victims of targeted purges that circumvent due process. Courts have already ruled against DOGE in over 25 cases, though legal battles continue as DOGE seeks expanded access to agency data and systems.
AFGE and its allies argue that DOGE’s agenda is not rooted in actual reform, but in political cronyism. Musk’s directives, which include replacing experienced civil servants with political loyalists and eliminating oversight roles like inspectors general. AFGE President Everett Kelley called DOGE a symbol of “blatant disdain” for the federal workforce in his four decades of union service.
Baltimore People Power Assembly and The Harriet Tubman Center For Social Justice
Guest – Alec Summerfield, is staff counsel of the National VA Council at the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. He is also an anti-Zionist Jewish advocate for Palestinian rights. We’ll hear how his background informs his activism and why AFGE’s resistance to DOGE is part of a broader movement to defend democracy and protect public service from authoritarian erosion.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Gaza, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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A New Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement Amid Tension
In 2015 the United States and Iran negotiated an agreement designed to allow Iran to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy, but not nuclear weapons. That agreement was terminated in 2018 during Trump’s first administration, and sanctions on Iran were re-imposed, sanctions that have proven to be very damaging to Iran’s financial well-being. Now, Trump has said his new administration is prepared to enter into a new nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Iran. But at the recent conclusion of what was the third round of U.S.-Iran negotiations on the issue, negotiations that appear to have gathered momentum, Israel’s Netanyahu has demanded that even Iran’s nuclear program for peaceful uses be dismantled, something Iran has steadfastly refused to consider.
Will Israel be successful in opposing Iran’s development of a nuclear program even if it is limited to peaceful uses? If Iran will not agree to give up its peaceful uses of nuclear energy, is a war between Israel and Iran inevitable? Meanwhile, the back-and-forth attacks by Israel on Iran and Iran on Israel continue. Just last week the Houthis, an Iran proxy, dropped a missile near Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. All of this raises the question, “Would the Trump Administration join Israel if it waged war on Iran, perhaps including its nuclear facilities and how would other Middle Eastern nations respond if war did break out between Israel and Iran and, perhaps, with the United States fighting alongside Israel?”
Guest – Richard Becker is the Western Regional Coordinator of the ANSWER—Act Now to Stop War and End Racism—Coalition, and the author of Palestine, Israel the U.S. Empire and of the book The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks.
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Entrenching Authoritarianism: Expanding the Terrorism Framework and the Infrastructure of Surveillance to Repress Expression and Stifle Dissent
Recently, the Center For Constitutional Rights along with a group of four human rights organizations together with legal clinics published a new report urging the United Nations to denounce the accelerated disintegration of democracy in the US. The report focuses on the US government’s increasing criminalization and repression of free speech, dissent, and protest under the guise of “national security.” The report was then submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is scheduled to formally review the United States compliance with its human rights obligations in November. The link to the report is above.
Guest – Attorney Nadia Ben-Youssef, the Advocacy Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights is quoted saying “Our hope is that the report sounds the alarm for the international community to act with greater urgency to challenge this administration and its belligerent efforts to dismantle constitutional protections and international law.” She directs all advocacy around issues related to the promotion of civil and human rights. Together with the legal, advocacy, and communication teams, Nadia identifies opportunities for the Center for Constitutional Rights to make strategic cultural and political interventions that shift public narrative and policy on our issues.
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, Gaza, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, War Resister
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A Constitutional Crisis In The United States
America is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration during his first 100 days in office, resulting in more than 100 injunctions and stays, as he lays waste to fundamental constitutional protections and laws passed by Congress.
On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump had the audacity to sign an executive order claiming he was “restoring freedom of speech.” Instead, his administration is systematically destroying the right to speak freely, to write freely, to dissent freely, and to protest freely.
Trump ordered the elimination of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies in both the public and private sectors and targeted several leading American universities, threatening to withhold federal funding for indoctrinating students with “woke” ideology, and for failing to combat antisemitism, by which he means criticism of Israel. He shut down the Voice of America and the Smithsonian Museum. He canceled the security clearances, government contracts, and access to federal buildings of several prominent law firms because he didn’t like the clients they represented. He even excluded the Associated Press from the White House because it refused to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.
In one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment, the Trump administration canceled foreign student visas and deported legal permanent residents, claiming their campus protests were contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Guest – Dahlia Taha, is a Policy Manager at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where she leads the First Amendment and Civil Liberties work. Dahlia is a Palestinian-American Muslim. Prior to joining the MPAC team, she served as a Project Manager at The Texas A&M Foundation, where she researched and analyzed maternal health policy. At MPAC, Dahlia works to champion policies and initiatives that uplift and advocate for the Muslim Community nationwide, with a particular focus on protecting the First Amendment, academic institutions, and the next generation of American Muslims.
I am particularly pleased to have Dahlia with us today, because she and I are about to launch a podcast called Rapid Response, sponsored by MPAC, in which we will examine the struggle of students and community members – Muslims, Jews, and allies -, who have been targeted by the Trump administration for expressing political views in favor of Palestinian rights and sovereignty which the government is seeking to suppress.
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Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World
One of the most consequential pillars of U.S. military power is also one of its most overlooked: our vast network of overseas military bases. In his meticulously researched book Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, author and anthropologist David Vine reveals how more than 800 U.S. military installations scattered across foreign lands are not merely symbols of strength—they’re often sources of harm. From the Pacific islands to the Middle East and Europe, these bases have become fixtures of American empire. However, they rarely receive the scrutiny they deserve from policymakers or the public.
Vine documents how this sprawling base network fuels geopolitical tension, fosters anti-American resentment, and props up authoritarian regimes. He shows how bases displace local populations, pollute ecosystems, and even affect the mental health and family lives of U.S. troops stationed abroad. And while Pentagon officials downplay the cost, Vine’s analysis reveals that maintaining these foreign outposts drains nearly $100 billion each year from U.S. taxpayers—money that could instead fund urgent domestic priorities.
Perhaps most troubling is how these bases have enabled decades of interventionist wars, making it easier for the U.S. to engage militarily across the globe without addressing root causes of conflict or engaging in genuine diplomacy.Our guest will discuss what a post-base foreign policy might look like, who benefits from the current system, and what’s behind the emerging bipartisan calls to rein it in
Guest – David Vine is a writer and political anthropologist. David was a professor of anthropology at American University for 18 years (2006-2024), He is also the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Illegal Immigration, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Chris Hedges: Trump 2.0
Trump 2.0 is qualitatively different from his first term in office. This time Trump and his allies have brought down a tsunami on us, creating fear and chaos. Tens of thousands of government workers have been fired. Thousands have been deported, some to a torture prison in El Salvador. Due process was ignored. The court orders challenging this have been ignored, as well.
With his extreme tariff measures, Trump has damaged our economy, and it looks like there may be a recession down the road. Trump has promised to use the Army and National Guard to suppress protests. Should there be an act of violence committed by a lone wolf, Trump could use it as an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the troops. This is all too reminiscent of what happened in Germany when a lone wolf set fire to the German parliament building. Hitler used this as a pretext for suspending civil rights and civil liberties and outlawing the communist and socialist parties, which were huge at the time.
Moreover, and most importantly, not only politics, but the culture of our country is being changed, as well. The Department of Education has been disbanded. Books are banned. Certain words are forbidden. Universities have come under Trump’s control, starting with Columbia University in New York City The great Kennedy Center, a mecca for U.S. culture, has been taken over by Trump and his Philistine allies.
Chris Hedges, the journalist and author spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class. Chris’ forthcoming book is titled A Genocide Foretold.
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The Great Moral Crime Of Our Time
Israeli -American killing of the Palestinian people living in Gaza is the great moral crime of our time. Gaza is a strip of land 25 miles long and 5 miles wide situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea immediately South of Israel. It used to have a population of 2.3 million people and was one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
The Palestinian people have been murdered by American made bombs dropped on them from American planes and American drones for the last year and a half. A short cease-fire, was recently unilaterally broken by Israel, which resumed the killing in preparation for the removal of the entire population to the Sudan or the Sinai desert in Egypt.
Guest – Philip Weiss is the founder of Mondoweiss, a news and opinion website known for its critical perspective on Zionism and Israeli government policies as well as his support for Palestinian rights. Weiss, a former mainstream journalist, launched Mondoweiss in the mid 2000s as a personal blog before it evolved into a larger platform. His background includes work with publications such as the New York Observer and Esquire magazine. Overtime, Mondoweiss has built a team of contributors and has become a significant voice in progressive circles when it comes to Middle Eastern policies.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, War Resister, worker's rights
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Oligarchs and Billionaires Reshape Economic-Political Landscape
We’re living at a time of profound changes in the institutions that previously governed our society. One hundred years ago V.I Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, observed that sometimes nothing changes for decades and at other times decades-long changes occur within several days.
This is what is happening now in America as the old institutions, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the universities, the media, the government, including Congress, governmental agencies, the elite law firms, educational institutions and most recently long-standing tariff policy are being reconfigured as instruments of authoritarian rule.
More than 800 billionaires form the upper crust in America. Three people alone own as much as the entire bottom, half of the population. Democracy, the rule of the people, however aspirational, no longer prevails. We have become an oligarchy, a majority of our people ruled by a relative handful. Our institutions have rapidly changed to reflect this new reality.
We are governed by an amoral man who’s only interest is in power and money, which is another form of power.
Guest – Professor Henry A. Giroux, author of many books and articles, including most recently a piece in Counterpunch titled Abducting Bodies, Silencing Dissent : Mamoud Kailil and the Rise of State Terrorism. Professor Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies department and is the Pablo Frère, Distinguished Scholar in Creative Pedagogy. Henry Giroux has authored many books, most recently with Anthony DiMaggio, titled, Fascism on Trial: Education, and the Possibility of Democracy.
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Critical Media Update: War Made Invisible
With respect to the Israeli/U.S. war in Gaza, peace talks limp along; Israel has accelerated its war in Gaza and the West Bank; and recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Donald Trump, make it clear that both countries intend, if they can do it, to ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinian people from Palestine, thereby bringing about the expected end result of their genocidal war on the Palestinian people.
Meanwhile here in the United States, President Trump has seized upon the claim of rampant anti-Semitism on our nation’s college and university campuses to deport non-U.S. citizen leaders in the movement on the campuses in support of the Palestinian side in the war, and to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the campuses until they eliminate the “anti-Semitic atmosphere on our campuses.” And, according to our guest today, press reporting in the mainstream media on the war has been less than clear and balanced.
Guest – Norman Solomon is the co-founder of RootsAction.org and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and is, in fact, the author or co-author, of 12 books, most touching on today’s topic in either close or tangential ways. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. The paperback edition of his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
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