Economics, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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.
—-
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.
——————
Cuba, Executive Branch Law Breaking, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Taxpayers Against Genocide and the National Lawyers Guild Submit Petition To UN
Eighty years ago, after 2 world wars claimed millions of lives, nations worldwide — including the United States — came together and established the UN system “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The UN Charter requires that all states settle their disputes peacefully and refrain from the use of armed force, except in self-defense after an armed attack against a UN state by another state, or when the Security Council authorizes it.
But, motivated by American exceptionalism — the notion that the U.S. is unique and morally superior and thus not bound by the rules — successive U.S. governments have violated the commands of the UN Charter and illegally attacked other countries with impunity. Trump has ignored the straightforward rules about the lawful use of force, but he is not the first U.S. president to do so. The last five presidents have launched armed attacks without Security Council approval against countries that had not carried out armed attacks on the U.S. or other UN member countries.
Besides violating the Charter’s prohibition on the use of force, the U.S. government – under both Biden and Trump – has aided and abetted Israel’s commission of genocide in Gaza. As the number of Palestinians killed by Israel exceeds 66,000, and famine has reached the “catastrophic” phase, thousands of taxpayers across the country have united with Palestinian-Americans to file an international legal complaint against the U.S. government for funding Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
An initial petition was filed in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in May by Taxpayers Against Genocide and the National Lawyers Guild. It charged the U.S. with aiding and abetting Israel in genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Tomorrow, the petitioners will file a new petition with the Commission. It includes substantial evidence of the U.S. role in Israel’s campaign of starvation.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is Professor Emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is a legal political analyst who does commentary and writes columns on Truthout and other outlets, and she a former host on Law and Disorder radio. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Marjorie wrote an article published last week on Truthout about U.S. violations of the UN Charter. Her article about the petition to be filed in the Inter-American Commission will be published tomorrow on Scheer Post.
—
Lisa Cook is ‘Low Hanging Fruit—While Jerome Powell Is a Bridge Too Far
Sharon Kyle is the publisher of the L.A. Progressive. She has written a couple of fine articles about racism in American life in that publication. One of them, written at the end of August, is titled, Lisa Cook is ‘Low Hanging Fruit—While Jerome Powell Is a Bridge Too Far. She maintains that when political commentators, and the corporate media, describe Cook as “low hanging fruit” they expose the racism in American life and politics.
So, we’ve invited Sharon Kyle to be our guest today to explain her claim of racism in connection with Trump’s efforts to get rid of Cook on the vitally important Federal Reserve Board, and replace her with someone who would do his bidding.
Guest – Sharon Kyle is not only the publisher of the L.A. Progressive, a must read, online daily newsletter for all serious political thinkers and activists in and around L.A. She is also the former president of the Peoples College of Law, a former member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Southern California, and is on the editorial board of the BlackCommentator.com.
Remembering Assata Shakur (1947-2025)
————————————————-
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Immigration, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The Zionist’s Long Term Plan
The humanitarian catastrophe Israel has engineered, in Gaza has no precedent in the modern era, “ Patrick Lawrence recently wrote, in that “Israel hates the United Nations and all it stands for, international law above all, without limit.”
Last week using American airplanes and bombs, Israel illegally attacked Lebanon and then Syria. It is aiming to get the United States involved in a war against Iran.
Israel’s action in overwhelming, displacing, and murdering the native Palestinians was baked into the Zionists plan and carried out over the last hundred years. David Ben Gurion, called the father of modern Israel, said that “the Jewish people have a map… which our youth and adults should try to fulfill, from the Nile to the Euphrates… one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war”. The events of October 7 of last year were merely the pretext.
Ariel Sharon, Israeli general, Prime Minister, and statesman, was responsible for murdering Arabs in neighboring Lebanon. 17,000 civilians were killed in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. About 2000 were killed in the Sabra Sheila massacre by Phalangist allies of Israel and Sharon.
Sharon said, “I don’t mind if after the job is done, you put me in front of a Nuremberg trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you like, as a war criminal. What you don’t understand is the dirty work of Zionism is not yet finished, far from it.”
We will now see more of the “the dirty work”, carried out with Trump promising to “finish the job.”
Guest – Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi is a Palestinian American historian of the Middle East, the Edward Said professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and Director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. He was educated at Yale and Oxford universities and is the author of many books on the Middle East. He is also the author of Under Siege: PLO Decision Making During the 1982 War, Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East and recently The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017.
—
The Effects Of Donald Trump’s Reelection
The reelection of Donald Trump will have disastrous effects inside the United States and around the world. Today we examine two related crises, one at home and the other in the Middle East.
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, according to Palestinian and international agencies has killed at least 43,020 people—most of them women and children. At least 101,110 others have been wounded and over 10,000 Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed homes and other structures. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened by Israel’s invasion and “complete siege” of Gaza.In October, senior members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Cabinet and national lawmakers spoke at a conference advocating the ethnic cleansing and recolonization of Gaza.
On October 28, the government of South Africa filed 750 pages of what it called “overwhelming” proof that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Under the court’s rules, the contents of the memorial cannot be made public at this time, but in a statement the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, called the material a “comprehensive presentation of the overwhelming evidence of genocide in Gaza.”
In response to the genocide in Gaza, campus protests which roiled over 400 colleges and universities last year are heating up again but this time protesters face an incoming President who has promised to use the National Guard and even the US military to brutally suppress dissent, whether its in opposition to the renewed alliance between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu or in response to Trump’s promise to launch mass deportations.
Trump and his allies have reportedly drafted plans for him to deploy the military against civil demonstrators on his first day in office, according to a Washington Post report from November 2023. Trump has also indicated that he will use the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
When Fox News asked Trump whether he thought “outside agitators” might have an effect on Election Day, Trump responded by saying, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within.” He added, “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” We’re very fortunate to have a guest who is well-equipped to address both of these crises.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is professor of law emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is also Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She writes frequent articles about the Supreme Court for Truthout.
——————
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Violations of U.S. and International Law
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
South Africa Brings Israel To World Court
On January 11 and 12, South Africa and Israel appeared in a historic case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, in The Hague. South Africa’s legal team made a strong and persuasive argument that Israel is engaging in genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. South Africa asked the court to impose nine emergency “provisional measures” aimed at putting an end to the slaughter.
South Africa’s application to the ICJ places Israel’s genocidal acts and omissions in the broader context of Israel’s 75-year apartheid policy, 56-year occupation, and 16-year blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip. This siege was described by the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza as “a silent killer of people.”
South Africa told the court that it “unequivocally condemned the targeting of civilians by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups and the taking of hostages on 7 October.” But, it continued, “no armed attack on a State’s territory no matter how serious — even an attack involving atrocity crimes — can provide any justification for, or defence to” genocide. Israel “has crossed this line.”
Israel responded by placing responsibility on Hamas for the situation in Gaza. It accused South Africa of an “attempt to weaponize the term genocide.” Israel argued that international humanitarian law is the relevant framework — that Hamas committed war crimes. In Israel’s view, this is not a genocide case; if anyone was the victim of genocide, Israel claims IT was on October 7 when Palestinian resistance forces killed what Israel claims were 1,200 people. However, Hamas is not part of this case, because it is not a state party to the Genocide Convention.
Guest – co-host Marjorie Cohn is Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie is also professor of law emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She writes prolifically about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people.
—-
Honoring the Legacy Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We hear part of an hour long program honoring the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr.Martin Luther King. Our listeners know all too well that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was shot on April 4, 1968. Not so well known is the radical Dr. King, who said in the last months of his life that:
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world, declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo.”
Joining us are special guests Ruby Sales, a colleague of Dr. King’s and co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.). We’re also joined by author and activist Matt Meyer, a board member of the AJMI.
Dr. King began close ties with A.J. Muste and with the F.O.R. during the Montgomery bus boycott, when FOR staff members Bayard Rustin and Glenn Smiley came to Alabama to support local efforts nonviolently challenging racial segregation. Dr. King developed a special relationship with former FOR chairman A.J. Muste, whose absolute pacifism King had, as a theological seminary student, questioned.
Before heading F.O.R., Muste was a prominent labor leader, helping to found the militant Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). And Dr. King, of course, was killed exactly one year after taking a staunch anti-Vietnam war position and in the midst of supporting a significant strike of sanitation workers, linking—as he had been—issues of race, class, and violence as King deepened his critique of the roots of oppressive U.S. society.
Guest – Ruby Sales is the founder and director of the “SpiritHouse Project”, a national organization that uses the arts, research, education, action and spirituality to bring diverse peoples together to work for racial, economic and social justice as well as for spiritual maturity. A life-long organizer, scholar and public theologian in the areas of civil, gender and other human rights, she was a member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and served as national convener of the Make Every Church A Peace Church movement.
Guest – Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson is the Executive Pastor of The Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Brooklyn, NY. She has combined pastoral ministry with the social justice community. The former Executive Director of the Children’s Defense Fund she is now the Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Guest – Matt Meyer is Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association, Chair of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Financial Advisory Committee, Africa Support Network Coordinator of the War Resisters International, and Senior Research Scholar at U-Mass Amherst. As current National co-chair of FOR and former Chair of the War Resisters League, he is second only to AJ Muste in holding the top post of those two historic US peace organizations. He is author of the recently published White Lives Matter Most And Other “Little” White Lies.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn (also as guest)
———————————–
Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
US Obligation To The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
A United Nations body has issued a damning report blasting the United States for its rampant violations of a major human rights treaty that it ratified in 1992. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or ICCPR, enshrines fair trial rights, the right to life, to vote, and to freedom of expression and assembly. It prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also forbids discrimination in the enjoyment of civil and political rights based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (which includes sexual orientation).
The Human Rights Committee is a group of 18 independent experts that monitor the implementation of the ICCPR by its States Parties, each of whom files periodic reports on their progress in implementing the obligations in the treaty.
In its November 3, 2023 report on U.S compliance with the ICCPR, the Human Rights Committee found 30 some violations of the treaty by the United States. Racial discrimination permeated two-thirds of the documented U.S. violations.
In addition to discrimination based on race, the Committee found several instances of discrimination against women, particularly in the area of reproductive rights. The Committee also found discrimination on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans for Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse” and “Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.” Marjorie is founding dean of the People’s Academy of International Law. Her article about the report of the Human Rights Committee was published last week by Truthout.
—-
Voices of Mass Incarceration: A Symposium
Opening with a keynote discussion featuring Angela Davis, Pam Africa, Julia Wright, and Johanna Fernández, the event featured two dozen experts and artists working and studying incarceration and its wide-ranging effects on society. The second day of the symposium also marked the opening of the Mumia Abu-Jamal papers for research at the John Hay Library with the launch of the exhibit, Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Portrait of Mass Incarceration. This exhibition centers on the writing, music and art of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose papers anchor the John Hay Library’s Voices of Mass Incarceration in the United States collection. Mumia has been imprisoned for 43 years for allegedly killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
One of the panels focused on how systemic changes have strained the existing healthcare system. With 44% of prison detainees receiving a psychiatric diagnosis, prisons are now among the largest providers of healthcare, more so than major hospitals and other care facilities.
We are pleased to bring you the remarks of Hope Metcalf, Lecturer at Yale Law School, on medical care for incarcerated individuals including mental health and hepatitis C. We’ll also hear from Lauren Weinstock, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
——————————————————–
