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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 August 15, 2022
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White Nationalism and the Republican Party: Toward Minority Rule in America
White supremacy has been a guiding principle of the United States since its birth. From the genocide of the Indians to the pernicious institution of slavery, racism has permeated every aspect of this nation. After the short-lived period of Reconstruction, Jim Crow followed and it continues to animate race relations in the U.S. While the Civil Rights Movement led to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party and now the right-wing Supreme Court have adopted policies to undermine the protections of the promise of racial equality. False claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and the ensuing attempted insurrection have shaken the institutions of democracy to their core.
Trump rode racism and nativism to the presidency, making it the nucleus of his reign. After descending the escalator to announce his presidential campaign, Trump singled out Mexico, declaring, “They’re bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” One of his first acts as president was the creation of the “Muslim Ban,” which married white supremacy with nativism.
White nationalism didn’t begin with Trump. Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan planted the seeds for Trump to adopt white supremacy as the explicit centerpiece of his campaign and his presidency. Whether or not Trump runs for president in 2024, Trumpism is unfortunately alive and well in our political system.
Political science scholar John Ehrenberg has just published a book titled “White Nationalism and the Republican Party: Toward Minority Rule in America.” In it, he explains how Trump weaponized the use of race, drawing on his Republican predecessors.
Guest – John Ehrenberg, Senior Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Political Science Department at Long Island University in New York. He has devoted his life to research and writing about political ideologies and the history of political thought. He is the author of “Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea, Proudhon and His Age” and “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat: Marxism’s Theory of Socialist Democracy.” Full disclosure: In the 1960s, John and I both participated in the Stanford University honors program called Social Thought and Institutions.
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The Federalist Society, Charles Koch, The Bradley Foundation and The U.S. Supreme Court
The nation is still reeling from the Trump administration’s assaults to the rule of law, and their ripple effects on democratic institutions. But these attacks were the result of strategic planning over decades, and the handiwork of networks of well-funded think tanks and lobbyists. Some of the country’s richest and most conservative individuals are, with so-called Dark Money, anonymously supporting these efforts.
Chief among these forces is the Federalist Society. Not well known until recently, the Society has worked quietly since the Reagan administration to overhaul the Supreme Court into a bastion of conservatism. Enriched with Dark Money, it’s had an outsized impact on the composition of the federal and the Supreme Court. Recently, we’ve witnessed how hard-fought social gains of the 20th century have been taken away from Americans, and landmark Supreme Court decisions have been overruled such as Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to reproductive freedom, and Lemon v. Kurtzman, guaranteeing the separation of church and state.
Guest – Attorney Lisa Graves, is the founder, director, and editor-in-chief of True North Research. Her analysis of such research has been cited by every major newspaper in the country. She has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of government. Lisa served as chief counsel for the US Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Patrick Leahy. She was also a career deputy assistant attorney general the US Department of Justice. Lisa has spent the past 12 years examining the impact of dark money on judicial selection.
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Law and Disorder August 8, 2022
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January 6 Committee Has Provided Sufficient Evidence for Garland to Indict Trump
During the course of eight public hearings, the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack presented overwhelming evidence of former President Donald `Trump’s guilt of at least 2 federal crimes and crimes in the state of Georgia. Although it has been more than 2 years since Trump initiated his wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, Attorney General Merrick Garland still has not indicted the ex-president.
Through the testimony primarily of Trump loyalists, the Committee demonstrated that Trump was the fulcrum of a multipronged conspiracy to fraudulently declare himself the winner of the election. The Committee has provided Garland with more than enough evidence to indict Trump. But will Garland bring charges against Trump?
Guest – Marjorie Cohn, is a former criminal defense attorney, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She has published several books and writes a regular column for Truthout. Her most recent piece is titled, “January 6 Committee Has Provided Sufficient Evidence for Garland to Indict Trump.”
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Lawyers You’ll Like: Attorney Bill Goodman
Bill Goodman, the son of Ernie Goodman, who was one of the founding members of the National Lawyers Guild, is a legend in his own right. A past national president of the NLG, one of the founding officers of the NLG National Police Accountability Project, the former Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a founding board member of the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, Bill was also a partner in the first racially integrated law firm in the United States. He is currently a partner in the Detroit civil rights firm, Goodman Hurwitz & James, where he continues to work tirelessly for the rights of victims of government and corporate abuse. Bill is also an adjunct professor of law at Wayne State Law School, where he teaches Constitutional Litigation. Bill has successfully litigated numerous police and government misconduct cases as well as other high-profile cases on behalf of prisoners, toxic tort victims, the wrongfully convicted and victims of racism, always in the pursuit of constitutional, social and economic justice.
Host Attorney Julie Hurwitz: Bill is also my law partner in Goodman Hurwitz & James and a former long-term partner in life – we’ve known each other a long time! We’ll discuss two cases that have been brought to confront the unconstitutional and inhumane conduct of individual police officers, but more importantly, the historically unconstitutional and inhumane ways in which police departments institutionally tolerate, promote and reward such behavior by their officers.
Hosted By Attorneys Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
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Law and Disorder August 1, 2022
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Remembering The Life Of Glen Ford
Glen Ford died last July 28 of lung cancer. I knew Glen the last seven years of his life. I first met him in 2014 after a speech that he gave at Harlem’s Riverside Church church on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the Black Agenda Report of which he was the executive editor. The two other editors were Margaret Kimberley, who has taken over as the editor, and the late Bruce Dixon of Chicago who died two years ago. They were a formidable threesome. That night he spoke about what he called the Black misleadership class, a description he coined, and how it was an enemy of the movement. He said the Democratic party, which they populate, was not the lesser of two evils but the most effective of two evils. In particular, he zeroed in on New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. I kept in touch with Glen. He was a guest on Law And Disorder several times. I helped assemble a selection of his writings titled The Black Agenda which will very soon be published by OR books. Two months ago the publisher of OR books, Colin Robinson and I drove out to New Jersey to visit Glen.
He had just got out of the hospital where they took fluid out of his cancerous lung. He was somewhat frail but pretty chipper. We ate bagels and cream cheese at the dining room table and talked politics for two hours. As we left Colin remarked that it was a shame we hadn’t recorded our conversation. Glen was brilliant. Glen was the real thing. A Black nationalist and a socialist, as he described himself. He was a former Black Panther and usually wore a black beret when he spoke. He ended his speeches with his right arm held high in the air saying “power to the people.“
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The Black Misleadership Class Versus the Movement and its Legacy
We go now to hear Glen Ford speaking at the Black Agenda Report 7th anniversary gathering at Harlem’s Riverside Church. The theme of the event was ““The Black Misleadership Class Versus the Movement and its Legacy.” Ford gives strong criticism of newly elected New Jersey Senator Cory Booker as the essence of Black misleadership, showing the many ties of the current Newark mayor to corporate America.
Guest – Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report. Ford founded the Black Agenda Report and has edited it since 2006. He was a founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and he has delivered presentations at many colleges and universities.
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