Law and Disorder

March 28, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

Economic Update: Banking Collapse Contagion? and Upcoming Supreme Court Cases

On March 10, 2023, the Silicon Valley Bank, the most important bank in Silicon Valley, failed. After the Silicon Valley Bank crashed the Signature Bank in New York crashed followed by the Republic Bank and then Credit Suisse. We speak with the economics professor Richard Wolff on why the economy was threatened with collapse and what must be done to protect us from the unstable banking system. Guest - Richard Wolff is emerita professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts where he taught for for 35 years and a visiting professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the Nee School University, NYC. He is the founder of Democracy at Work and host of their national syndicated show Economic Update.

The cases involve the legality of President Bidens student debt relief plan, the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other independent agencies, and the liability of social media sites where it is claimed that Googles algorithms sent people to a hateful site that the plaintiffs in the case claim led to an Islamic State attack that killed their child. Also of concern is the Supreme Courts refusal to take an appeal from a lower count opinion upholding the State of Kansas law forbidding the State from doing business with any company that refuses to certify it does not support the boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS movement against Israel. Guest - Attorney Stephen Rohde is a noted constitutional scholar and activist. He is the past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; the founder and current Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; the author of American Words of Freedom, and of Freedom of Assembly.

March 21, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

My Country Is the World: Staughton Lynds Writings, Speeches, and Statements against the Vietnam War and Detroit Poet Warrior: Dr. Gloria Aneb House

Staughton Lynd was an activist, historian and attorney who became a leading critic of the U.S. war in Vietnam which claimed the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and 58,000 Americans. He argued that the United States was committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and should immediately and fully withdraw from Vietnam. Lynd traveled to Hanoi with Tom Hayden and Herbert Aptheker at the end of 1965 to the beginning of 1966 to try to open diplomatic channels between the U.S. and the Vietnamese. For that effort, he was denied tenure at Yale University and his passport was revoked. Lynd and his wife Alice worked in the draft resistance movement and advocated civil disobedience including the non-payment of taxes to confront the war machine.Guest - Luke Stewart is a historian and has collected many of Lynds writings and speeches against the Vietnam War and published an important book called My Country Is the World: Staughton Lynds Writings, Speeches, and Statements against the Vietnam War.

Around Detroit, one woman has touched many lives in many ways: artistically, intellectually and spiritually. A poet-warrior on the front lines of the fight for social justice, Dr. Gloria Aneb House has lived for decades at the intersection of art, education and urgent political movements -- from the 1960s free speech movement in Berkeley, and the civil rights struggles organizing sharecroppers in Alabama and her involvement in SNCC, to the movement for justice for Cuba, and the anti-war movement, to the current movement to end racist police brutality. During Detroits water shutoffs, and other human rights and anti-war causes, she was in the streets protesting. Guest - Dr. Gloria Aneb House has published several books of poetry since the 1980s under her chosen African name Aneb Kgositsile. She has also published essays and books since the early 1980s and taught at universities from Michigan to South Africa. Among her many awards, she received the Kresge Eminent Artist Award in 2019. Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz

March 14, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

Zachary Sklar: The Work: A Jigsaw Memoir and Exploiting The Labor Of Migrant Children

Zach Sklar's beautiful collection of personal essays tells his story of how he overcame the fear he experienced as a child growing up in Hollywood during the blacklist years. In the 1950s, Zachs father George Sklar, a playwright and screenwriter, was blacklisted from the movie industry for his past membership in the Communist Party. His mother, Miriam Blecher, was a modern dancer in the Martha Graham company and founding director of The New Dance Group. During the McCarthy era, many of their friends were hauled in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, calIed HUAC. Several of them fled the country. Others were imprisoned. As a result, Zach grew up in an atmosphere of all-pervasive fear. His fine book The Work: A Jigsaw Memoir has just been published. Guest - Zachary Sklar is a writer, editor, and teacher. A graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, he has taught magazine writing at that institution and also has served as the executive editor of The Nation magazine.

The New York Times headline, in its February 25th edition, says it all: Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S. Yes, last year 130,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, and last year the federal agency responsible for placing these children in suitable situations as their cases are processed, lost track of at least 85,000 of them. But we know where all too many of them can be found: working 10-12 hours a day in violation of our nations child labor laws in the American supply chain for many major brands and retailersretailers like Ford and General Motors. Retailers like Walmart and General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Nature Valley, and PepsiCo, which owns Frito-Lay and Quaker Oatsand the list goes on. Guest - Professor Sara Rogerson, the Director of the Justice Center at Albany Law School, where she is also the faculty Director of the Immigration Law Clinic, in which students represent immigrant victims of crime. Her scholarship addresses flaws in the administration of immigration laws and policy, including intersections with domestic violence and international law.

March 7, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States

As the notion of perpetual war and a militarized society are normalized, notably absent are antiwar protests by faith-based organizations, civil rights groups, academics, and others. A new book, The Trillion Dollar Silencer, details this absence while laying bare the devastation wrought in the United States and abroad by the military industrial complex. Author Joan Roelofs delves into the pervasive role of military contractors and bases that have come to be economic hubs of their regions. She discusses how state and local governments are intertwined with the Department of Defense (DoD), including economic development commissions at all levels. Contracts and grants to universities, colleges, and faculty come from the DoD and its agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Guest - Joan Roelofs, Professor Emerita of Political Science at Keene State College. She teaches in the Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning and writes for scholarly and political publications. Joan is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, and Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities. She has been an anti-war activist ever since she protested the Korean War.

February 28, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

How The United States Took Out The Nordstream Pipeline and Denouncing The Horrors Of Socialism

The war in Ukraine is illegal. Its a violation of international law. Peace forces in the United States are demanding a ceasefire and negotiations,and the recognition of Russias legitimate security concerns. And, of course, at the same time, we recognize that the Russians were provoked by the USA and NATO in to invading Ukraine, having placed so many military bases and bombs on Russias border. The latest development of enormous economic and political consequences is the American blowing up of the two pipelines that provided cheap Russian natural gas to Europe. This was done to prevent the integration of Russia into the European economy. Guest - Seymour Hersh, has won a Pulitzer Prize and five Polk awards. His important articles were published in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other mainstream media outlets. But his article on the US blowing up of the two pipelines had to be self-published on his Substack platform.

On February 2nd of this year, the now Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution denouncing the horrors of socialism." It passed overwhelmingly in a 328"86"14 vote. More than half of the Democrats voted for it, while 86 voted against it and 14 voted present. The resolution is made up of lies and half truths. We urge listeners to read it for themselves. It is online. What is socialism? Socialism has never really existed anywhere yet there have been attempts starting with the great Russian revolution of 1917 which effectively ended the slaughter of World War I. It was overthrown in 1991 when the USA and others successfully restored capitalism. What would a socialist society be like? First of all it would be democratic politically and economically and it would not be run by the one percent. Guest - Jeff Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action and was their candidate for president in 2016 and in 2020. A lifelong activist, he is the author of 25 books and pamphlets and political, economic, and anti-US imperial war movements.

February 21, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

Ending Structural Police Violence And Abuse and The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform

On January 7, after an unlawful traffic stop, several police officers in the SCORPION unit of the Memphis Police Department beat, kicked, punched and tased Tyre Nichols, who posed no threat to the public or the officers. He died in the hospital 3 days later. In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden introduced Nichols's parents who were in the audience and he called for police reforms. We all know that racist police violence is nothing new. It has shown itself over and over throughout our history, and has led to calls for reform of the police, and abolition. But structural and systemic racism and police violence persist nevertheless. Guest - Jonathan Moore, civil rights attorney in New York City who, since the late 1970s, has specialized in police and governmental misconduct, employment discrimination, First Amendment advocacy, and international human rights. Jonathan represents the family of Eric Garner, who was killed in broad daylight in 2014 by the New York City police for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

A new book by journalist Michael Hayes reads like both an investigative report and a gripping saga of the nations largest police department, the NYCPD. The book is The Secret Files: Bill de Blasio, the NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform. Bill de Blasio, mayor from 2014 to 2021, focused his campaign on making the NYPD more accountable to the public. He had previously introduced legislation to expand the purview and clout of the watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. But from the beginning of his tenure, after two officers were fatally shot in Brooklyn in December 2014, the police department and its union doubled down in opposition to reform. Guest - Michael Hayes, in addition to his recently released book, Michael has long reported on the policies and practices of U.S. police departments and covered major criminal trials across the country.

February 14, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

Black History Month And Racist Police Violence and CIA Spied On Julian Assange Embassy Visitors: Lawsuit Update

February is Black History Month in America. And on the very first day of Black History Month this year, Tyre Nichols, a young Black man, was laid to rest in Memphis, Tennessee, having been murdered by police officers of the Memphis police department, as he simply tried to get home. The overwhelming percentage of victims of police assaults are people of color who've been murdered, or otherwise brutalized by white cops. But as the Nichols case demonstrates, police violence is so ingrained in policing in America that Black cops, too, often do not hesitate to employ gross violence in the course of their policing. What accounts for this epidemic of cop killings of people of color in America? Is it connected to Americas history of Black enslavement? And, if requiring the police to be filmed while making arrests has not ended police violence, what will it take to finally end this epidemic of racist policing? Guest - Attorney Carl Douglas is a partner in the law firm, Douglas/Hicks, one of Keenan Andersons family attorneys who've just filed a $50 million dollar claim against the City of Los Angeles for what the LAPD did in the Keenan Anderson case. Attorney Douglas, after working 6 years as a Public Defender, then spent 12 years in the Los Angeles law firm of famed, and now deceased, anti-police abuse attorney Johnnie Cochran.

We speak today with New York City attorney Deborah Hrbek who along with her law partner Margaret Ratner Kunstler are suing the CIA, its former Director Mike Pompeo, and the Company they contracted with to spy for them on Julian Assange and his visitors including attorneys at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange lived there for seven years having been granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government. The CIA contract employee DC Global copied information off of their cell phones and computers when they visited their client Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. They are demanding an injunction forbidding the CIA to use the private information they stole from their devices. The CIA says that it has every right to do what it did because the plaintiffs had no right to expect privacy. Guest - Deborah Hrbek is a founding partner at Hrbek Kunstler, a Manhattan entertainment law firm that has represented WikiLeaks in media law matters since 2015. In the course of her work with WikiLeaks journalist and filmmakers she has visited Julian Assange many times, both at the Ecuadorian Embassy at London where he was there as a political Ashlee and in recent years in Belmarsh prison, a maximum-security prison

February 7, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

The Movement To Stop “Cop City” and No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights

Less than two weeks after Atlanta police fatally shot an environmental activist, officials held a news conference to announce they are moving forward with plans to build a massive police and firefighter training center. Plans to build the training center have met with opposition, trees would be felled, undermining the city's efforts to save its tree canopy and increasing the risk of flooding. Others oppose the center for its practice of "urban warfare" and its proximity to poor and majority-Black neighborhoods. The Atlanta Police and Fire Chiefs claim the center will replace substandard trainings and boost morale. The police department especially has had difficulty hiring and retaining officers. Guest - Kamau Franklin is a former practicing attorney from New York, the founder of the national grassroots organization Community Movement Builders, and co-host of the podcast Renegade Culture.

Professor Peter Hammer along with Professor Emeritus Edward Littlejohn, recently wrote a critically acclaimed book No Equal Justice: The Legacy of Civil Rights Icon George W. Crockett Jr, just released in 2022. This book tells the amazing story of George W. Crockett and his trailblazing life. He was the grandson of a slave and son of a carpenter. Crockett became the only Black graduate of University of Michigan Law School in 1934, the first Black man to work as a staff attorney for the United Auto Workers in the 1940s, the first Black law partner in the first integrated law firm in the country in the 1950s, one of the first Black men to be elected as a judge on Detroit's criminal court in the 1960s, and the oldest African American ever elected to the U.S. Congress. He was also, along with Ernie Goodman and Maurice Sugar, one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild. Guest Professor Peter Hammer is the Director of the Damon J Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State Law School, and has long been a strong advocate for shining light on the intersection of race, class, power and the law. Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz

January 31, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

The January 6 Report and Martin Luther King Jr. : A Dream Realized

The January 6 Report by the House January 6 Committee has just been published by Harper Collins. It is a page turner. Most strikingly, the report documents the multi-pronged attack that Trump plotted. The crucial point made by the January 6 Committee report is its demonstration that it is a profound misconception to view the January 6 invasion of the Capitol as merely a group of Trump supporters gone wild. The plot was not limited to the January 6 violence at the Capital. Guest - attorney Stephen Rohde who recently reviewed The January 6 Report with a forward by the author Ari Melber. Rohdes review appeared in Truthdig and in the LA Progressive.

We take a look at where the long struggle to end racial injustice stands in the United States today. Oh, some progress has surely been made, but to say we've a very long way to go before Martin Luther King Jr.s dream can be considered realized is both true and also a sad and gross understatement; a sad commentary on the role that white privilege and racial hatred continue to play in the United States, hundreds of years since our founding. Guest - Attorney Sharon Kyle is the publisher and co-founder of the LA Progressive on-line newsletter and a former president of the Peoples College of Law, a law school in Los Angeles established by the National Lawyers Guild and other minority bar associations.

January 24, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs

The Supreme Court Is About To Eviscerate The Right To Strike and Free Range Kids

Sixty-four years ago, workers and unions gained protection from state lawsuits while pursuing unfair labor practice claims with the federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On January 10, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that threatens to unravel those protections. A company called Glacier Northwest is suing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174, after 85 truck drivers walked off the job. If the high Court rules in favor of Glacier, unions will have to defend against costly lawsuits. And that will likely discourage them from going on strike. A Court decision is expected by the end of June. Seventy-one percent of the U.S. public supports labor unions. Thats the highest number since 1965. And with an increase in economic inequality, union strikes are on the uptick. Guest " Attorney Marjorie Cohn is a legal and political analyst who provides commentary on local, national and international media.

Last year, Utah passed a law making it not a crime for parents to let their children play in a park without supervision or walk home alone from school. This is hopeful news for our guest Lenore Skenazy who has been advocating for so-called free range parenting laws for many years. Under the law, neglect does not include allowing a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities such as going to and from school by walking, running or bicycling, going to nearby stores or recreational facilities and playing outside. A recent U.S. Census showed that 7 million of the nations 38 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are left home alone on a regular basis, while the average time spent alone is six hours per week. Only a few states legislate an age under which kids may not be home alone. Guest " Lenore Skenazy "New York City columnist-turned-reality TV show host got that title after letting her 9-year-old son take the subway, alone.