Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Today, Republicans are the ruling party in the United States. They control the presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. But they also control the Supreme Court, which is the one institution that is supposed to oversee the legality and constitutionality of what the other two branches do. The Supreme Court has a super majority of six conservative justices, all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, and three of whom were appointed by Donald Trump himself.

We are joined today by Prof Leah Litman, the author of a compelling and timely new book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. Prof Litman's premise is that the “the Supreme Court is repeatedly elevating the feelings, sentiments, and political views of the Republican Party” and that the conservative justices consistently reach pre-ordained results that strictly conform to the Republican platform and then they justify those outcomes using high-minded judicial language to give the patina of objectivity. She points out that “Republican-appointed justices seem to think that the real victims of discrimination today are the Republicans, who no longer enjoy the kind of outsize influence, political power, and social standing they once did.”

Guest - Leah Litman is a professor of law at the University of Michigan and a former law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy. She is a co-host of the popular podcast Strict Scrutiny and she received the Ruth Bader Ginsberg award for “scholarly excellence” from the American Constitution Society.

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US Supreme Court Revokes Legal Protection of Venezuelan Nationals

In an emergency order issued on May 19, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to revoke legal protections that the Biden administration had granted to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals.

Only one justice publicly dissented: Ketanji Brown Jackson. Just days earlier, at a legal conference, Jackson delivered the Court’s strongest public rebuke yet of Trump-era attacks on judges who have blocked Trump’s policies on immigration, halting federal grants and contracts, and firing government workers. Her 18-minute speech earned a standing ovation.

In January, the Trump administration announced plans to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan nationals—a designation that shields individuals from deportation due to civil unrest and unsafe conditions in their home country. The U.S. has seen a sharp rise in its Venezuelan population, driven by mass displacement stemming from Venezuela’s ongoing political, economic, and humanitarian crises.

Earlier, on March 31, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued a nationwide injunction blocking the termination of TPS, preserving protections for an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans and allowing them to continue working legally until at least October 2026, or until the legal challenge was resolved. Judge Chen raised concerns that the administration’s move may have been discriminatory and lacked a sound legal basis. The National TPS Alliance.

Guest - UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham is a leading civil rights attorney and former MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Before joining UCLA, he spent nearly two decades at the ACLU of Southern California, the last two as Senior Counsel. He previously served as a federal public defender in Texas, and clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Widely recognized for his work defending immigrant rights, he has twice been named California Lawyer of the Year and is a multiple-time honoree on the Daily Journal’s Top 100 Lawyers list.

Law and Disorder co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Stephen Rohde discuss Israel’s continued assault on Gaza and the West Bank and the Trump administration doubles down—backing military aid to Israel while cracking down on pro-Palestinian voices at home. Student visas are being revoked, protests labeled “antisemitic,” and university funding slashed.

Historian and Jewish Voice for Peace board member Barry Trachtenberg joins them to explore the dangerous implications for academic freedom, dissent, and the weaponization of antisemitism to silence solidarity.

Hosts then uncover a growing movement pushing back against what critics call an illegal and anti-democratic coup inside the federal government. Labor unions, lawmakers, and community groups have joined forces to demand the removal of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency—DOGE—from power. Guest Alec Summerfield an anti-Zionist Jewish organizer and staff attorney with the American Federation of Government Employees, talks with Heidi Boghosian and Stephen Rohde about what’s at risk for democracy, labor rights, and the future of federal service.

Co-hosts Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty get a closer look at the latest U.S. negotiations with Iran and Israel's demand to dismantle Iran's nuclear energy program. Richard Becker will join hosts. He's the Western Regional Coordinator of the ANSWER Act Now to Stop War and End Racism explains in detail what is at stake.

Hosts then speak with Nadia Ben-Youssef, the Advocacy Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights about a new report submitted by four human rights groups denouncing the accelerated disintegration of democracy in the US. The report is titled Entrenching Authoritarianism: Expanding the Terrorism Framework and the Infrastructure of Surveillance to Repress Expression and Stifle Dissent

A Constitutional Crisis In The United States

America is in the midst of a constitutional crisis. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration during his first 100 days in office, resulting in more than 100 injunctions and stays, as he lays waste to fundamental constitutional protections and laws passed by Congress.

On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump had the audacity to sign an executive order claiming he was "restoring freedom of speech." Instead, his administration is systematically destroying the right to speak freely, to write freely, to dissent freely, and to protest freely.

Trump ordered the elimination of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) policies in both the public and private sectors and targeted several leading American universities, threatening to withhold federal funding for indoctrinating students with woke ideology, and for failing to combat antisemitism, by which he means criticism of Israel. He shut down the Voice of America and the Smithsonian Museum. He canceled the security clearances, government contracts, and access to federal buildings of several prominent law firms because he didnt like the clients they represented. He even excluded the Associated Press from the White House because it refused to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.

In one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment, the Trump administration canceled foreign student visas and deported legal permanent residents, claiming their campus protests were contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Guest - Dahlia Taha, is a Policy Manager at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where she leads the First Amendment and Civil Liberties work. Dahlia is a Palestinian-American Muslim. Prior to joining the MPAC team, she served as a Project Manager at The Texas A&M Foundation, where she researched and analyzed maternal health policy. At MPAC, Dahlia works to champion policies and initiatives that uplift and advocate for the Muslim Community nationwide, with a particular focus on protecting the First Amendment, academic institutions, and the next generation of American Muslims.

I am particularly pleased to have Dahlia with us today, because she and I are about to launch a podcast called Rapid Response, sponsored by MPAC, in which we will examine the struggle of students and community members - Muslims, Jews, and allies -, who have been targeted by the Trump administration for expressing political views in favor of Palestinian rights and sovereignty which the government is seeking to suppress.

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Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World

One of the most consequential pillars of U.S. military power is also one of its most overlooked: our vast network of overseas military bases. In his meticulously researched book Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, author and anthropologist David Vine reveals how more than 800 U.S. military installations scattered across foreign lands are not merely symbols of strength"theyre often sources of harm. From the Pacific islands to the Middle East and Europe, these bases have become fixtures of American empire. However, they rarely receive the scrutiny they deserve from policymakers or the public.

Vine documents how this sprawling base network fuels geopolitical tension, fosters anti-American resentment, and props up authoritarian regimes. He shows how bases displace local populations, pollute ecosystems, and even affect the mental health and family lives of U.S. troops stationed abroad. And while Pentagon officials downplay the cost, Vines analysis reveals that maintaining these foreign outposts drains nearly $100 billion each year from U.S. taxpayers"money that could instead fund urgent domestic priorities.

Perhaps most troubling is how these bases have enabled decades of interventionist wars, making it easier for the U.S. to engage militarily across the globe without addressing root causes of conflict or engaging in genuine diplomacy.Our guest will discuss what a post-base foreign policy might look like, who benefits from the current system, and whats behind the emerging bipartisan calls to rein it in

Guest - David Vine is a writer and political anthropologist. David was a professor of anthropology at American University for 18 years (2006-2024), He is also the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia.

Chris Hedges: Trump 2.0

Trump 2.0 is qualitatively different from his first term in office. This time Trump and his allies have brought down a tsunami on us, creating fear and chaos.Tens of thousands of government workers have been fired. Thousands have been deported, some to a torture prison in El Salvador. Due process was ignored. The court orders challenging this have been ignored, as well.

With his extreme tariff measures, Trump has damaged our economy, and it looks like there may be a recession down the road. Trump has promised to use the Army and National Guard to suppress protests. Should there be an act of violence committed by a lone wolf, Trump could use it as an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the troops. This is all too reminiscent of what happened in Germany when a lone wolf set fire to the German parliament building. Hitler used this as a pretext for suspending civil rights and civil liberties and outlawing the communist and socialist parties, which were huge at the time.

Moreover, and most importantly, not only politics, but the culture of our country is being changed, as well. The Department of Education has been disbanded. Books are banned. Certain words are forbidden. Universities have come under Trumps control, starting with Columbia University in New York City The great Kennedy Center, a mecca for U.S. culture, has been taken over by Trump and his Philistine allies.

Chris Hedges, the journalist and author spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class. Chris forthcoming book is titled A Genocide Foretold.

The Great Moral Crime Of Our Time

Israeli -American killing of the Palestinian people living in Gaza is the great moral crime of our time. Gaza is a strip of land 25 miles long and 5 miles wide situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea immediately South of Israel. It used to have a population of 2.3 million people and was one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.

The Palestinian people have been murdered by American made bombs dropped on them from American planes and American drones for the last year and a half. A short cease-fire, was recently unilaterally broken by Israel, which resumed the killing in preparation for the removal of the entire population to the Sudan or the Sinai desert in Egypt.

Guest - Philip Weiss is the founder of Mondoweiss, a news and opinion website known for its critical perspective on Zionism and Israeli government policies as well as his support for Palestinian rights. Weiss, a former mainstream journalist, launched Mondoweiss in the mid 2000s as a personal blog before it evolved into a larger platform. His background includes work with publications such as the New York Observer and Esquire magazine. Overtime, Mondoweiss has built a team of contributors and has become a significant voice in progressive circles when it comes to Middle Eastern policies.

Radio Documentary – It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories

Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.

The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.

Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.

As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.

Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.

Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.

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Investigating Armenian-American Debanking Trend

The greater Los Angeles area is home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia—estimated at over 200,000 people. For years, that community has faced instances of racism and discrimination, including a rise in anti-Armenian racism, known as “Armenophobia.”

In 2022, leaked audio recordings revealed derogatory remarks by Los Angeles City Council members about Armenians, reflecting underlying biases within political institutions.

Recently, the Armenian Bar Association has launched an investigation into alleged discriminatory practices by banks in the Los Angeles area, where Armenian-American individuals and businesses have reported abrupt and unexplained closures of their bank accounts. These closures raise alarms about potential ethnic or national origin-based profiling, particularly considering ongoing geopolitical tensions in the South Caucasus.

This troubling trend comes at a time when the U.S. government is considering a major financial arrangement with Azerbaijan. The Armenian Bar Association has issued a formal objection to a proposed $100 million loan or financial guarantee to Azerbaijan under the authority of the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945. The Bar Association argues that such financial support would not only contradict U.S. human rights values but could also embolden a regime with a well-documented history of aggression against Armenia and the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), many of whom have recently been displaced.

The Bar Association’s efforts reflect broader concerns about the security and civil rights of Armenian-Americans at home, as well as U.S. foreign policy decisions that may have far-reaching consequences abroad.

Guest - Alex Hrag Bastian, a member of the ABA’s Board of Governors and Chair of its Armenian Rights Watch Committee.

Oligarchs, Billionaires And Reshaping The Economic-Political Landscape

We’re living at a time of profound changes in the institutions that previously governed our society. One hundred years ago V.I Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, observed that sometimes nothing changes for decades and at other times decades-long changes occur within several days.

This is what is happening now in America as the old institutions, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the universities, the media, the government, including Congress, governmental agencies, the elite law firms, educational institutions and most recently long-standing tariff policy are being reconfigured as instruments of authoritarian rule.

More than 800 billionaires form the upper crust in America. Three people alone own as much as the entire bottom, half of the population. Democracy, the rule of the people, however aspirational, no longer prevails. We have become an oligarchy, a majority of our people ruled by a relative handful. Our institutions have rapidly changed to reflect this new reality.

We are governed by an amoral man who’s only interest is in power and money, which is another form of power.

Guest – Professor Henry A. Giroux, author of many books and articles, including most recently a piece in Counterpunch titled Abducting Bodies, Silencing Dissent : Mamoud Kailil and the Rise of State Terrorism. Professor Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies department and is the Pablo Frère, Distinguished Scholar in Creative Pedagogy. Henry Giroux has authored many books, most recently with Anthony DiMaggio, titled, Fascism on Trial: Education, and the Possibility of Democracy.

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Critical Media Update: War Made Invisible

With respect to the Israeli/U.S. war in Gaza, peace talks limp along; Israel has accelerated its war in Gaza and the West Bank; and recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Donald Trump, make it clear that both countries intend, if they can do it, to ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinian people from Palestine, thereby bringing about the expected end result of their genocidal war on the Palestinian people.

Meanwhile here in the United States, President Trump has seized upon the claim of rampant anti-Semitism on our nation’s college and university campuses to deport non-U.S. citizen leaders in the movement on the campuses in support of the Palestinian side in the war, and to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the campuses until they eliminate the “anti-Semitic atmosphere on our campuses.” And, according to our guest today, press reporting in the mainstream media on the war has been less than clear and balanced.

Guest – Norman Solomon is the co-founder of RootsAction.org and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and is, in fact, the author or co-author, of 12 books, most touching on today’s topic in either close or tangential ways. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. The paperback edition of his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” includes an afterword about the Gaza war.

The Dangerous Militarization of AI and the Profiteering Behind It

A recent exposé by investigative journalist Peter Byrne, titled One Ring to Rule them All, and published by Project Censored, reveals the unsettling extent of Silicon Valley's deepening ties to the military-industrial complex. Byrne traces the rise of Palantir Technologies—founded with seed money from the CIA and ominously named after the all-seeing stone in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Today, Palantir stands as a $200-billion powerhouse, fueling AI-driven military operations across the globe.

Byrne’s investigation uncovers how Palantir and its sister company Anduril Industries, has built an AI weapons consortium that appears to skirt antitrust laws, monopolize Pentagon contracts, accelerate the militarization of artificial intelligence, and bypass essential democratic oversight. His reporting lifts the curtain on the hidden architecture of autonomous weapons systems and exposes Silicon Valley's quiet but profound military takeover. At the heart of the story is a troubling shift: AI systems that could soon make life-and-death decisions without human intervention.

Byrne also draws a sobering parallel between today’s AI-fueled war economy and the era of the Gilded Age robber barons. But this time, the stakes are even higher—not only economic inequality, but also the global proliferation of algorithmic warfare. His work raises a critical question: Are we witnessing the construction of a 21st-century “Ring of Power” capable of dominating both markets and militaries?

Guest - Peter Byrne is a veteran investigative reporter with decades of experience uncovering the dark intersections of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the ever-expanding military-industrial complex. His work, frequently featured by Project Censored and other independent outlets, has consistently exposed the hidden mechanisms behind surveillance, privatization, and unchecked corporate power.

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Taxpayers Against Genocide

The Israeli genocide in Gaza continues without any end in sight, resulting in the slaughter of over 50,000 Palestinians, with over 113,000 wounded. Meanwhile, the United States is escalating its support for Israel. Donald Trump is sending obscene amounts of military aid to Israel to help fuel the extermination of the Palestinian people, while threatening to take over the Palestinian homeland and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East."

But most Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the war in Gaza; support for Israel in the United States is at the lowest its been in 25 years and support for the Palestinians is up 6 points since last year. About 60% of Americans support a ceasefire in Gaza.

So the question is what can be done to restrain the US government from its costly, illegal, and inhumane support for Israel's war in Gaza?

Taxpayers Against Genocide - TAG- has an answer. TAG is a grassroots mass movement comprising of over 1,000 U.S. taxpayers. Countless federal tax payers repeatedly called, emailed, petitioned and peacefully protested their congressional representatives and U.S. government officials to stop using their tax dollars to fund what had become clear was a genocide in Gaza. After almost one year of having their congress members refuse to meet or consider their constituents’ pleas, a group of Northern California taxpayers formed TAG in fall 2024 and filed a federal class action lawsuit arguing that it is illegal to use tax dollars for genocide. But the case was dismissed on February 10th, 2025.

Undaunted, TAG is not giving up. On February 19th TAG launched a National Call to Action. With the support of National Lawyers Guild attorneys, on the day this program will be broadcast, April 7th, 2025, TAG will submit a comprehensive report to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and on April 30th, TAG will file an official complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Guest - Attorney Margaret DeMatteo is a movement lawyer and former class member of Donnelly et al. v. Thompson, et al. , a class action brought by the grassroots Northern CA group Taxpayers Against Genocide. She is currently working on an imminent submission to the United Nations Human Right Council’s Universal Periodic Review of the United States, based on its complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Guest - Attorney Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian American attorney and human rights activist. She is a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, supporting Palestinian popular resistance on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory and also an organizer with the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege on Gaza. In the US, she practices civil rights law and is an active member of the National Lawyers Guild. 

The Silencing of Genocide Critics

The International Court of Justice, known as the World Court, found it plausible that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian people living in Gaza. Thereafter the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Since October 8, 2023 Israel has murdered, on an industrial scale, upwards of 70,000 people and reduced most of the Gaza strip to a pile of rubble. They used American bombs and received American diplomatic cover and financial aid. On March 18, 2025, Israel unilaterally broke a recent cease-fire killing 400 people, including 174 children, in one night. Israel is carrying out the final stage of the genocide. The people living in Gaza will either be deported or killed.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote “ The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.“ Israel has fallen. It is a profound historical truth, as Mark Twain observed 100 years ago, that you can’t have imperialism abroad and a republic at home. The Democratic rights that we citizens of the United States hold are being suppressed here as an illustration of this maxim.

American partnership with Israel’s war has worked to destroy our liberal universities here at home. It started with the trustees at Columbia University totally surrendering the universities academic freedom, self government, and free speech in return for the promise by the Trump administration of restoring $400 million in federal funding. Columbia has been more than compliant in hopes that they’ll get the money.

Using the pretext of providing security for their Jewish students, American universities across the country enforce the silencing of critics of the ongoing genocide. They have not fought back to preserve the integrity of their institutions and the freedom of their students.

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.

Is The Trump Administration Upholding The Bedrock Of America's Democracy?

On March 3rd, the American Bar Association issued a statement titled, The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession. They called upon the Trump Administration to adhere to four major principles of law that have, they say, “guided our country for more than 200 years.” The four principles are: to defend judges and the courts; to acknowledge the role of the courts; to adhere to the rule of law; and to respect the separation of powers and the three co-equal branches of government with distinct duties and responsibilities. These principles have, they state, been the “bedrocks of American democracy.” The ABA statement accuses the Trump administration of violating these principles in several ways.

Law and Disorder co-host Stephen Rohde takes our guest seat to evaluate whether the Trump Administration is upholding, or violating the principles that the ABA calls "the bedrock of America’s democracy."

Guest – Stephen Rohde is a writer, lecturer and political activist. For almost 50 years, he practiced civil rights, civil liberties, and intellectual property law and has won significant First Amendment victories in state and federal appellate courts. He is a past chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and past National Chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice. He is a founder and current chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; member of the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus, and a member of the Black Jewish Justice Alliance. Mr. Rohde is the author of the books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly plus numerous articles and book reviews on civil liberties and constitutional history for the Los Angeles Review of Books, American Prospect, LA Times, Ms. Magazine, Los Angeles Lawyer, LA Progressive, and Truthdig.

James Goodale: Fighting for the Press and Freedom of Speech

Donald Trump has wasted no time in his second term attacking free speech and freedom of the press. He arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card and a student visa, and is trying to deport him (until restrained by a federal judge) because Khalil led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. He has threatened to deport other students for their pro-Palestinian protests. Trump banned the Associated Press from White House press briefings and Air Force One for using the term "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America."

He also banned Reuters News Service and Huffington Post from the press pool. He has issued Executive Orders which federal agencies have cited as authority to ban forbidden words from government websites such as the words Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He's threaten to pull federal funding from over 50 universities for teaching aspects of American history such as slavery and racism, which he labels "divisive." He has encouraged congressional investigations against Democrats who served on the January 6 Committee.

He has promoted a definition of "antisemitism" which would punish political criticism of Israel. And he has filed lawsuits seeking hundreds of million of dollars in damages against ABC, CBS, Media Matters for America, and newspapers based on how they have reported on him, his candidacy, and his actions as President.

Guest - James Goodale is the former vice president and general counsel for The New York Times and, later, the Times’ vice chairman. He is the author of Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles. Goodale represented The New York Times in four of its United States Supreme Court cases, including Branzburg v. Hayes, in which the Times intervened on behalf of its reporter Earl Caldwell. The other cases were New York Times v. Sullivan, New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case), and New York Times Co. v. Tasini. He has been called “the father of the reporter’s privilege” in the Hastings Law Journal because of his interpretation of the Branzburg case.

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Pushing The Limit Of Presidential Power

Since being sworn in for his second term on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump has signed (with a big black marker) almost 90 Executive Orders or EOs, stretching the limits of Presidential power. In response, over 100 lawsuits have been filed challenging the most egregious and questionable EOs. Some of the most sweeping orders seek to totally dismantle over 70 years of laws, policies, and programs promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. These EOs were immediately challenged in court. Meanwhile, some companies have surrendered to Trump and terminated their Diversity programs, while civil rights groups are fighting back.

Stephen's recent article - First They Came For Mahmoud Khalil

Stephen Rohde is a writer, lecturer and political activist. For almost 50 years, he practiced civil rights, civil liberties, and intellectual property law and has won significant First Amendment victories in state and federal appellate courts. He is a past chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and past National Chair of Bend the Arc, a Jewish Partnership for Justice. He is a founder and current chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; member of the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus, and a member of the Black Jewish Justice Alliance. He is the Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Mr. Rohde is the author of the books American Words of Freedom: The Words That Define Our Nation and Freedom of Assembly and numerous articles and book reviews on civil liberties and constitutional history for the Los Angeles Review of Books, American Prospect, LA Times, Ms. Magazine, Los Angeles Lawyer, LA Progressive, Truthdig and other publications. He is co-author of Foundations of Freedom published by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. His new podcast Speaking Freely: Exploring the First Amendment with Stephen Rohde will soon be released by Ms Media. The Muslim Public Affairs Council has named me Special Advisor on Free Speech and the First Amendment

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