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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 September 15, 2025
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Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America
At the heart of Trump’s blizzard of chaotic, cruel, and corrupt attacks on our democracy is one of the most turbulent, disruptive, and consequential assaults on freedom of speech in American history. Trump and his obedient underlings have enlisted the full force of the federal government’s overwhelming criminal, civil, administrative, immigration, and national security apparatus to illegally crush protest, dissent, and free speech.
On an unprecedented scale, directly and indirectly, Trump is violating the First Amendment rights of every person in the United States to express and receive information and ideas free of government censorship. He is going after the Voice of America, the Smithsonian Museum, the Associated Press, NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS, the Library of Congress, local public libraries, foreign and domestic students, immigrants, colleges and universities, elected officials, law firms, and judges. And by silencing all of these voices, he is denying the constitutional right of every American to hear what those voices have to say.
The United States is in a constitutional crisis. It is imperative that we vigorously defend our rights. The reissuance of the seminal book Defending My Enemy: Skokie and the Legacy of Free Speech in America by Aryeh Neier could not have come at a better time to remind us of the importance of defending the essential freedom upon which all others depend – freedom of speech.
Defending My Enemy was originally published in 1979. At that time Neier was the national executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which agreed to represent the Nazis in the Skokie controversy. Defending My Enemy was a brave book when it was originally published, and almost 50 years later it remains an indispensable guide to help us navigate today’s convulsive debates over free speech on American campuses and throughout our society.
This edition of Defending My Enemy is enhanced by a new foreword by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a new afterword by Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, and an extensive new chapter by Neier himself offering his views on the contemporary challenges facing free speech in America. In addition to previously serving as Executive Director of the ACLU, Neier co-founded Human Rights Watch, and is President Emeritus of the Open Society Foundations, where he remains active in their work. He has written seven books and over three hundred articles and op-eds on civil and human rights.
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National Guard Occupy The Streets Of DC
Soldiers in uniform are still patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C. They’re not just on guard duty — they’ve been spotted picking up trash, spreading mulch, and even posing with tourists. And now their mission has been extended indefinitely. The Army has ordered nearly a thousand National Guard members to remain on active duty through November 30, 2025. Donald Trump could end it sooner, or push it even further, but for now the deployment is open-ended. Another 1,300 Guard troops from states like Louisiana and Ohio are also staying through December.
The official line is they are tackling “out of control” crime. But many residents and local officials see something else: a military force filling civic space, performing chores that look more like public relations than public safety. Ward 1 Commissioner Peter Wood called the outreach “uncomfortable and concerning,” stressing that soldiers patrolling civilian neighborhoods creates more fear than comfort.
This isn’t just about crime or clean-up crews — it’s about what kind of country we want to be when soldiers become part of daily civic life.
Guest – Attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the Center for Protest Law and Litigation in Washington, DC. Mara is one of the nation’s leading litigators defending protesters and winning numerous reforms in police practices at mass assemblies and demonstrations.
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Law and Disorder September 8, 2025
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From The Flag To The Cross: Fascism American Style
From The Flag To The Cross: Fascism American Style is the title of a recently published anthology edited by Zachary Sklar and our own Michael Smith. Co-host Jim Lafferty wrote the introduction. The book draws from seven key interviews with prominent socialist thinkers in the United States and Canada. They include Margaret Kimberly, Henry Giroux, Dianne Feeley and Bill Mullen. Bill will also be joining Michael and Jim in the guest seat. He’s Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Purdue University and author of We Charge Genocide! American Fascism and the Rule of Law.
Chris Hedges who is also included in this book, writes “when fascism comes to America, it will be mass of recitations of the pledge of allegiance, the Christian cross and the flag.” We’ll explore these frayed boundaries of Christian fascism, capitalism, and the assaults on free speech and censorship while highlighting the strategies of community based actions.
Guest – Michael Steven Smith is the author, editor, and co-editor of many books, mostly recently Imagine: Living In A Socialist U.S.A. and “The Emerging Police State,” by William M. Kunstler. He has testified before committees of the United States Congress and the United Nations on human rights issues. Mr. Smith lives and had practiced law in New York City with his wife Debby, where on behalf of seriously injured persons he sues insurance companies and occasionally the New York City Police Department.
Guest – Jim Lafferty is the Executive Director Emeritus of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles and the host of The Lawyers Guild Show on Pacifica Radio’s Los Angeles station, KPFK. Jim has been a national leader in the peace and social justice movement for 60-years. He served as a national Coordinator of the National Peace Action Coalition, the group that organized the largest protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam, and in leadership positions in other peace coalitions opposing various imperialist U.S. wars. In the early 1960’s he was the national Director of the National Lawyers Guild during its historic work in the South. In the mid-1960’s until the 1980’s, Jim was in the private practice of law in Detroit, Michigan, where he specialized in Selective Service law, employment discrimination law, and civil rights law. He serves on the governing board of the A.C.L.U. of Southern California, is a member of the steering committee of the national Julian Assange Defense Committee, and a Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Southern California.
Guest – Bill Mullen is professor emeritus of American studies at Purdue University and the co-founder of The Campus Anti-fascist Network. He’s also co-author of The Black Antifascist Tradition and We Charge Genocide: American Ashes and the Rule of Law. He’s a contributor to the just published Law And Disorder book From the Flag to the Cross: Fascism American Style.
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Law and Disorder September 1, 2025
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Paul Le Blanc On Democratic Socialist Trend
In a remarkable come from behind victory in the Democratic primary over disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic Socialist Zorhan Mamdani is likely to become the next mayor of New York City in November when he wins the election. This comes a decade after the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) exploded onto the stage of US politics. The organization is full of vibrant campaigns, discussion, and experimentation. How can democratic socialists build a working-class political alternative powerful enough to defeat Trump’s authoritarian agenda? How should it relate to the pro capitalist Democratic Party? What strategy can revive the labor movement? What is its vision of democratic socialism? How does it get there?
Guest – Paul Le Blanc – is a retired professor of history from La Roche University in Pittsburgh and he has been active in movements for human rights and economic justice for more than six decades. Currently a member of Democratic Socialists of America, Solidarity, and the Tempest Collective, he has written and edited many books, including A Short History of the U.S. Working Class. He is a contributor to A User’s Guide to the DSA and recently attended DSA’s bi-annual convention in Chicago.
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Lawyers You’ll Like – Attorney Mel Wulf
Mel Wulf died at age 95 on July 1, 2023. He was one of the great constitutional litigators of his time. He served as Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. Today we bring you a re-broadcast of an interview that attorney Michael Ratner, and I, Michael Smith, did with Mel 10 years ago for a segment we called Lawyers You’ll Like. It is a scintillating fast paced discussion with a relevance to our situation now
We’re joined today by Attorney Mel Wulf, former legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. He was a law partner with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark during the Kennedy Administration and much more. Wulf was part of some of the greatest contributions to the civil rights movement. He’s now retired after practicing law for 54 years. As part of our Lawyers You’ll Like series, we talk with Wulf about his work with the ACLU during the early 60s, and also about the forming of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee.
Attorney Mel Wulf:
- Phil Agee was a dissident CIA agent who spent decades working against the CIA, published a couple of books.
- He lost his passport because when the dissidents took over the embassy in Tehran in 1979, the New York Post carried a story accusing Phil of helping the students who’d invaded the embassy to put together all of that written material that had been shredded.
- It was another New York Post bald faced lie.
- The State Department, based upon that story revoked his passport.
- I had represented Phil Agee, I was his principle lawyer for 30 years.
- Agee was very widely disliked in Washington because he was well known to be a CIA dissident who disclosed the names of many CIA agents.
- I was for the workers and not for the bosses and I’ve always been for the workers and not for the bosses, which I think is the distinguishing political factor in our world. Which side are you on?
- I got my Bachelors Degree in ’52 and I had a Navy Commission which I had gotten from the New York State Maritime Academy earlier on.
- The draft board sent me a 1A notice, I applied to Columbia and when I finished Columbia they sent me another 1A notice because the draft was still on. I spent 2 years in the Navy as a Lieutenant Junior Grade Officer in Southern California.
- I went to work at the ACLU in 1958 as the assistant legal director, in 1962 I was given the job of the legal director of the ACLU.
- I had actually been going down to Mississippi from 1961 to 1962, working with then one of the two black lawyers who were practicing in Mississippi.
- We tried a couple of capitol cases in Mississippi. I continued to argue the systematic exclusion of blacks from the jury.
- I finally got a case up to the Supreme Court on that issue.
- Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee: We had several hundred lawyers who went down to Mississippi for periods of a week or two. They were representing people being arrested during the Mississippi summer.
- Most of the judges allowed these lawyers to make some sort of presentation.
Guest – Attorney Mel Wulf, former legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union for 15 years. He was a law partner with former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark during the Kennedy Administration and much more. Wulf was part of some of the greatest contributions to the civil rights movement. He’s now retired after practicing law for 54 years.
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