Censorship, Civil Liberties, Freedom Of Speech, Human Rights, Iran, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary and an Evangelical Christian, has explicitly framed the Iran war through the lens of his religious faith, weaving scripture into his remarks, praying for “overwhelming violence” against his enemies and insisting that God stands with the U.S. against Iran, a Muslim-majority nation of some 90 million people. The ex-Fox News host has long worn his faith on his sleeve — and on his flesh. He has a large Jerusalem cross tattooed on his chest and the words “Deus Vult,” a rallying cry used by the Crusaders, which means “God wills it,” are inked on his arm. In his 2020 book American Crusade, Hegseth rejected the principle of separation of church and called it “leftist folklore.” At a prayer breakfast on Feb. 6, he said that the U.S. “remains a Christian nation in our DNA, if we can keep it.”
Hegseth told CBS News on March 6: “The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops.” When asked if he views the conflict in a religious context, Hegseth responded: “I’m a man of faith, who encourages our troops to lean into their faith.” During a press briefing on the war four days later, he quoted Psalm 144, stating, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” Last week, while hosting a Pentagon prayer service, Hegseth implored God to: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation” and asked that “wicked souls be delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them.”
Guest – Mikey Weinstein has been described by Harper’s magazine as “the constitutional conscience of the U.S. military, a man determined to force accountability.” Mikey’s family has a long and distinguished U.S. military history spanning three consecutive generations of military academy graduates and over 130 years of combined active duty military service. Mikey is a lawyer and a 1977 Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy.
A registered Republican, Mikey spent over three years working for the Reagan Administration as legal counsel in the White House. In 2006, he founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to battle the influence of far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists in the US military.He’s the author of two books “With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military” and “No Snowflake in an Avalanche: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, its Battle to Defend the Constitution, and One Family’s Courageous War Against Religious Extremism in High Places.”
In 2011, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State presented Mikey with AU’s first ever Person of the Year Award, calling him “the leading voice protecting church-state separation in the military.” In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He was also named one of the 50 most influential Jews in America by the Forward, one of the nation’s preeminent Jewish publications. Not unexpectedly, Mikey has been reviled by the radical fundamentalist Christian far-right, which has called him “Satan”, “Satan’s lawyer”, “the Antichrist”, “That Godless, Secular Leftist”, “Antagonizer of All Christians”, “Most Dangerous Man in America” and “Field General of the Godless Armies of Satan.”
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We Need More ‘Muckrakers and Fewer Buck-Takers
There was a time when journalism didn’t just report the news—it changed the country. It broke monopolies, exposed corruption, and forced presidents to act. Today, with public trust in media at historic lows, that kind of reporting can feel like a relic. But what if the real story isn’t that it’s gone—but that we’ve stopped supporting it? Media scholar and activist Mickey Huff has just written a provocative call to action titled We Need More ‘Muckrakers and Fewer Buck-Takers. It’s a phrase rooted in the legacy of Carl Jensen, who believed journalism should serve the public—not profits—and who spent decades exposing the stories corporate media ignored.
At a moment when misinformation spreads faster than truth and corporate consolidation shapes what we see and don’t see, this conversation asks something deeper: What kind of media system does democracy require—and what role do we play in rebuilding it?
Guest – Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and president of the Media Freedom Foundation, where he has co-edited its annual Censored book series since 2009. In 2024, he joined Ithaca College as a Professor of Journalism and the Distinguished Director of the Park Center for Independent Media. Through these roles, he leads efforts in critical media literacy, independent journalism, and the production of the weekly syndicated Project Censored Show. Park Center For Independent Media
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Civil Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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U.S. Aids Israel’s Brutal Geopolitical Positioning
We are living in a time of great peril to humanity. Two nuclear-armed countries, the United States of America and Israel, commenced a war of aggression against Iran, on February 28th. This war threatens to spread uncontrollably. It has already quickly become a regional war. A full world war could be triggered, creating the danger that the United States or Israel might use their atomic weapons. The radioactive fallout would bring about a nuclear winter.
The current war of illegal aggression reminds us that on September 1, 1939, Hitler sent his troops east to invade Poland. Six years later, the resulting world war ended with the United States using atomic weapons, for the first time, on Japan. Sixty million people died in World War II.
Israel seeks to make Iran into a failed state to achieve what it has always wanted, to become the region’s hegemon and only nuclear power. Getting the United States involved in a war against Iran has been the project of Benjamin Netanyahu for 30 years. American presidents and the military have long resisted this. But not Trump.
There are already 50,000 American soldiers in the region. 3000 Marines are headed towards Iran. The 101st airborne division has deployed paratroopers, just as they did in the illegal invasion of Iraq 23 years ago. At that time, President George Bush falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The lie this time is that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles and the capability to deliver them.
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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Cuba, Economics, Iran, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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The Long War Against Iran: New Events, Old Questions
The war the United States and Israel started against Iran has been going on now since the last day of February. It will end Trump says “when I feel it in my bones.” For the US’s part, President Trump wants a regime change and a weak client state. He had hoped that assassinating Ayatollah Khomeini the Supreme Leader, as well as many others in the top tiers of the Iranian government would accomplish this. It did not.
The Iranian people are protecting their sovereignty against an illegal war – the greatest of all crimes – which already has killed 2000 people and destroyed much of the infrastructure of their country. Twenty three years ago, President George W. Bush falsely alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and attacked that country in violation of the United Nations charter.
The Israeli American war against Iran was initiated by the same sort of fraud by alleging that Iran was on the brink of developing nuclear weapons and missiles to developed them all the way to the United States. The day before the war was initiated The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran did not have and was not trying to develop a nuclear bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has falsely accused Iran of being on the edge of developing nuclear weapons for 30 years.
Although the United States would like to reduce Iran to a weak client state, the Israeli government would like to make it into a failed state. Are we on the verge of World War III? We don’t know. Iran is achieving successes against American military assets in the region and doesn’t want a ceasefire, although none has been offered, because they want to make sure this never happens again.
Guest – Professor Behrooz Ghamari is the author of The Long War Against Iran: New Events, Old Questions. He is affiliated with the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto and before that was Professor and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Although he’s not a supporter of politics of the current clerical regime he is a defender of Iran sovereignty.
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Cuba’s Future After 2026 Blockade
Actions taken by the Trump Administration have ensured that Cuba’s government, weakened by decades of US sanctions and illegal boycotts, is facing one of its most severe situations in years, with the country edging toward a humanitarian crisis. Power outages are widespread, hospitals are cutting back on surgeries, shortages of fuel and food are worsening, and tourism is declining.
The situation in Cuba deteriorated further after the January 3 US military invasion that removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose government had long supplied Cuba with heavily subsidized oil. Severing Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba is clearly part of Washington’s broader strategy of toppling Havana’s government. Since mid-December, Washington has blockaded Venezuela from shipping oil to Cuba, economically strangling the island.
US officials say the invasion to capture Maduro also exposed Cuba’s vulnerabilities, killing dozens of Cuban security personnel assigned to protect Maduro. Washington’s decision to leave some of Maduro’s allies in power in Venezuela, including allowing Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to be acting president, signaled that the Trump administration may be willing to strike deals with Cuban rival factions rather than seek total regime change.
US officials had already been quietly holding hush-hush meetings with Venezuelan elites before Maduro’s capture and are now reportedly exploring similar contacts with influential figures in Cuba. And on March 16th, President Trump, when asked about Cuba said, “I’ll take it!” And, “I’ll do whatever I want with it.”
Guest – Sandra Levinson is the Executive Director of the Center for Cuban Studies. The Center for Cuban Studies, since the early 1970’s, has been organizing trips to Cuba and hosting events and showcasing installations of Cuban art all around the United States.
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Economics, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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An Economic State Of The Union: Professor Richard Wolff
President Donald Trump did not deliver the traditional State Of The Union address to the American people and Congress last week. Instead, for nearly two hours, he hosted what amounted to a MAGA campaign rally. Trump’s approval rating is under 40% and sinking. The two uppermost concerns of the American people are their increasing economic difficulties and their opposition to ICE and its reign of terror in major American cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He put both forward as huge successes.
Trump has secured a budget of billions of dollars to fund ICE, which has more money going forward than is in the combined budgets of all the state and local police departments in the United States. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security is either building, or leasing, space for huge detention centers across the country. Trump has issued National Security Presidential Memorandum Number 7 (NSPM7) which targets critical thinkers. NSPM7 was then supplemented by a list of laws by Attorney General Pam Bondi, which she indicates will be used against these disobedient critical thinkers and activists.
Guest – Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus from the University of Massachusetts, and the author of Understanding Capitalism. According to New York Times, Richard Wolff is, probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist. He is the founder of Democracy at Work and host of their national syndicated show Economic Update. Professor Wolff has authorized numerous books on capitalism and socialism, including most recently “The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us From Pandemics or Itself“, “Understanding Socialism“; and “Understanding Marxism”, which can be found at democracyatwork.info.
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US-Israeli Attacks Against Iran, IEEPA Tariffs And Cuban Fuel Blockades
More than 1,000 Iranians — primarily civilians, including 180 students at a girls’ elementary school in Minab — have been killed in the U.S.-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, that was launched February 28 by President Donald Trump and his accomplice, accused war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This aggression has destabilized the region and triggered Iran’s legitimate exercise of self-defense.
Trump claimed he attacked Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. But U.S. intelligence has found that Iran is not acquiring nuclear weapons. Before the February 28 U.S.-Israeli attack, the country of Oman had been brokering negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. and Israel insisted that Iran stop enriching uranium, limit its ballistic missile program, and end support for its “proxies” Hezbollah and the Houthis.
On February 27, Oman’s foreign minister said on CBS News that the negotiations had made significant progress, and a nuclear agreement was “within our reach.” Nevertheless, Trump maintained that diplomacy had been exhausted. The U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran the next day.
One month before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, Trump issued an executive order aimed at tightening the U.S. noose around Cuba’s neck. Trump’s January 29 order preposterously declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat,” without providing a shred of evidence. He warned that he would impose punitive tariffs on states that deliver fuel to Cuba. Trump’s intention is to suffocate the Cuban people, who rely on oil for 80 percent of their electricity.
On February 20, however, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s massive tariffs because they exceeded authority delegated by Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The IEEPA authorizes the president to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats. Later that day, in response to the court’s decision, Trump issued an executive order ending IEEPA-based tariffs, including those that would penalize countries that ship oil to Cuba. That order stops the collection of all IEEPA tariffs, including those threatened in his January 29 Cuba emergency order.
Trump’s attempt to tighten the fuel blockade of Cuba came on the heels of the U.S. oil blockade of Venezuela, which had supplied more than 50 percent of Cuba’s oil. Countries that provided Cuba with oil, particularly Mexico, halted their shipments after January 29. Oil shipments to Cuba have virtually stopped. The lack of electricity has led to widespread blackouts, impacting hospitals and essential services. Cuba’s oil reserves could be totally depleted by March.
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 two recent ones about Cuba and Iran.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Freedom Of Speech, genocide, Human Rights, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance
Civil liberties attorney Cindy Cohn is widely recognized as one of the leading voices on digital freedom in the United States. As she prepares to step down as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, she leaves behind a 25-year legacy at the forefront of the fight for online rights. Over the years, she has helped shape some of the most important debates around encryption, government surveillance, and freedom on the internet.
Cohn first rose to national prominence in the 1990s as lead counsel for the EFF and PhD student Daniel Bernstein in Bernstein v. Department of Justice. That was the landmark case establishing that computer code is protected speech under the First Amendment. During the height of the so-called “crypto wars,” that decision helped free encryption from government control and shaped the security of the modern internet.
As legal director, and then as executive director, at EFF, Cindy has led major legal challenges to NSA mass surveillance. She as defended independent security researchers, fought government overreach justified in the name of national security, and pushed back against expanding corporate data collection. A central voice at the intersection of law and technology she has shaped debates over encryption, privacy, online speech, and civil liberties in the digital age. Her new book, Privacy’s Defender, published by MIT Press, reflects on those battles and what comes next.
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Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right
By all that is right and just, we will be rid of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States on January 20, 2029. But we will not be rid of the tremendous damage he is causing to our country. And we will not be rid of the cruel, populist, racist, White Christian, patriarchal, and nationalist MAGA New Right ideology that now dominates the Republican Party. Even after Trump decamps to Mar-a-Largo, MAGA will continue to pose an existential threat to our constitutional democracy.
We need to fully understand that there is an extensive, well-financed ideological structure made up of think tanks, publications, university institutes, and PhDs, that provide an intellectual patina to this dangerous movement. Unless the pro-democracy resistance exposes and dismantles the MAGA New Right, it will find replacements for Trump and will continue to wreck havoc, destroying the lives of people in the United States and around the world.
Guest – Laura K. Field is the author of the revealing new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. Field holds a PhD in government from the University of Texas at Austin, and has written for The New Republic, Politico, and The Bulwark. Field’s exposure of the ideological foundations of the MAGA New Right is based on copious research and her own experiences while she was embedded in that movement. She says she is grateful she “extracted” herself from that world as she saw how untethered the mostly privileged male purveyors of MAGA’s dangerous tenets are from the everyday struggles of real people. She realized how dedicated they are to eliminating the hard-fought advances our pluralistic society has won based on the values of equality, compassion, and justice.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Chris Hedges: Assessing The Political Landscape In 2026
What we are going to do in this segment of today’s Law and Disorder is learn the thinking of our guest on the following questions. Is there a meaningful ceasefire in Gaza? When will the Palestinians have their own sovereign nation? Is it reasonable to still designate America as a democracy? Is President Trump an authoritarian and would-be dictator? Is it quite possible that the 2026 mid-term elections will be cancelled or so demeaned as to be totally unrepresentative of the true will of the American people?
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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Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand
Hitler’s fascist organization came to power in Germany. It employed the violence of Hitler’s storm troopers. There is a parallel today with President Trump’s administration and the MAGA people employing the violence of ICE to terrorize people in our large cities. Hitler tried unsuccessfully to distance himself from the violence of the storm troopers. He was not successful because of the brilliant cross examination by German attorney Hans Litten, who put Hitler on the stand and subjected him to a devastating three hour cross examination. Today we re-broadcast Law and Disorder founding cohost attorney, Michael Ratner’s interview with Benjamin Carter Hett, the history professor who wrote the book Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand.
Author Benjamin Hett outlines the fascinating and tragic story of a young lawyer Hans Litten in his recent book Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand. Before the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s, they incited calculated violence among the working class in German taverns. Four Nazi stormtroopers were charged with firing randomly into a dance hall where a communist hiking club were holding a party. Three young men were wounded. Hans Litton was the advocate for the 3 men.
Hans Litten called Hitler to the witness stand to show that the Nazi party was a violent party, and by cross examining Hitler he tried to prove that. Litten forced Hitler to contradict himself, reducing him to humiliating rage that revealed his true intention. At that time, Hitler wanted to be a legal party in Germany and of course you couldn’t be a party that was extra-constitutional and legal but at the same time he didn’t want to disappoint the base of his party which was this violent working class aspect. Two years later, the Nazi Party rose to power.
What came after the Reichstag Fire was the arrest of about 5 thousand people across Germany who the Nazis have identified as opponents or potential opponents. Hans Litten was among them and sent to a concentration camp. Author Benjamin Hett describes a powerful narrative of Hans facing torture yet still telling stories and teaching art to other prisoners. Hans Litten was born in 1903 in Halle in Central Germany, his father was a law professor and Jewish but converted to German evangelical (Lutheran).
Guest – Benjamin Hett, author of Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand. Hett is a former trial lawyer, and now Associate Professor of History at Hunter College.
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