Month: June 2024

Trump’s Open Declaration of War Against the Rule of Law

We begin with Trump’s open declaration of war against the rule of law as he attacks judges, district attorneys, juries, witnesses, the FBI, election workers, government whistleblowers, Republican lawmakers who have criticized him and media figures and journalists who have reported the many damning facts about him. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric inspires his base, many of whom are unhinged and heavily armed, forcing those with a target on their back to seek law enforcement protection and private security. Joining us to compare the volatile present with the tumultuous past is Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and politics, as well as visiting professor of law at Fordham Law School. He is the author of The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents and Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Selection. His forthcoming book, out July 2, is The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It and he has an article at The Guardian “Trump’s dangerous attacks on the rule of law have US historical precedents.”

Then we look into why the US is running out of ammunition while spending the bulk of its treasure on the Pentagon and military contractors producing trillion dollar gold plated turkeys like the F-35 and Zumwalt Class destroyers, the counterparts of which enemies and allies produce for a fraction of the cost and work, while having plenty of ammunition stockpiled. Joining us is Mike Lofgren, who has spent twenty-eight years working in Congress, the last sixteen as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees and is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted.We discuss his article at The Washington Monthly.”Why Can’t America Build Enough Weapons? The debasement of the US defense industrial base began, ironically, under Ronald Reagan, and won’t be reversed until we abandon the free-market fundamentalism he introduced.”

Then finally we discuss how Trump is now calling for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools following the example of Louisiana’s Governor Jeff Landry, the far-right MAGA culture warrior who equates abortion pills with Fentanyl, wants to castrate sex-offenders and wants 18 year-olds to carry concealed weapons while killing everyone on death row immediately with nitrogen gas. Joining us is William Snowden, a professor at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. He was previously the Louisiana Director of the Vera Institute of Justice and a public defender in New Orleans.