Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Ralph talks about his new book, “Civic Self Respect” which reminds us that our civic lives have different primary roles—not only voter, but also worker, taxpayer, consumer, sometimes soldier and sometimes parent—and how each one offers special opportunities for people to organize to make change. Plus, we welcome back former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen, who tells us exactly how the Trump/Musk cabal is both gutting and weaponizing the IRS. John Koskinen [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/opinion/irs-taxes-trump.html] served as the IRS Commissioner from 2013 to 2017. This is not a how-to book. It starts at a much more elementary level and therefore should interest a much greater number of people. Because, as I say, if you can expand your civic dimension as a part of your daily role without disrupting the rhythms of your daily life (in fact, actually making them more gratifying and more interesting, less boring), you're on your way. Ralph Nader author of Civic Self-Respect The people who really fight for justice in this country have to fight for recognition, they have to fight for media, they have to fight an onslaught. And the people who lie and cheat and say the most terrible things and do the most terrible things are really the best-known people in the country. I mean, if you say who are the best-known people in Congress? They're the blowhards, the cruel and vicious people who've said things that are illegal, outrageous against innocent groups here and abroad. Ralph Nader I used to say to the Congress (trying to get appropriations) that the IRS is the only agency where if you give it money, it gives you more money back. Because the more you can actually audit people who aren't paying the proper amount or aren't filing at all, the better off you are. So no one has ever disagreed with that. John Koskinen Going back a thousand years, tax collectors have never been particularly popular. And so when you talk about the IRS, people say, "Oh, the poor old IRS." In some ways, they don't understand just the points you're making about the impact on them, on the country, of an ineffective IRS going forward. And that's why my thought is this move toward using the IRS to attack people ought to be a way for everyone to say, "You know, I may not love paying taxes, but I certainly don't want the government and the president or the treasury secretary or somebody else ordering an audit of my taxes just because they don't like my political position or what I'm teaching in my course.” John Koskinen Ralph Nader’s new book Civic Self-respect [https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4505-civic-self-respect?srsltid=AfmBOopb7vRI7vwxx9XBoLGzJ4hmgqCf2XPEtf1oDHOrCQQa1NQPNu_R] https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4505-civic-self-respect?srsltid=AfmBOopb7vRI7vwxx9XBoLGzJ4hmgqCf2XPEtf1oDHOrCQQa1NQPNu_Ris available now from Seven Stories Press. News 4/16/25 1. On Thursday April 17th, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland departed for El Salvador in an effort to personally track down Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was arrested and deported to CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran prison camp, WUSA9 [https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/dmv-immigration/sen-van-hollen-flies-to-el-salvador-deportation-kilmar-abrego-garcia/65-04761041-d8d7-4856-95be-ed32a0efc91a] reports. Garcia was legally protected against deportation by a 2019 court order and a Trump administration official admitted in court that he “should never have been on that plane.” Last week, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered that he be returned to the U.S. Van Hollen is quoted saying “You go out, you get disappeared, they say they did it in error, but they're not helping bring you back…it's a very short road to tyranny.” Gracia has not been heard from since he was deported, raising concerns about his health and wellbeing. This comes after ICE Director Todd Lyons said he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” per the Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/ice-todd-lyons-deporation-amazon]. This episode is among the most chilling in American history and we are less than four months into a four-year term. 2. Another gut-wrenching immigration story concerns Palestinian Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi who was tricked, trapped, and abducted by ICE. The Intercept [https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-citizenship-interview/] reports “Even before his friend and fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by immigration authorities, Mahdawi asked university administrators to help him find a safe place to live so he would not be taken by ICE agents…The school did nothing.” Then, “After ICE abducted Khalil last month, Mahdawi sheltered in place for more than three weeks for fear of being picked up himself.” So, the immigration authorities apparently devised a scheme. “Instead of taking him off the street…immigration authorities scheduled the citizenship test at the Colchester USCIS office and took Mahdawi into custody when he arrived.” This action is clearly intended not only to capture Mahdawi but to frighten immigrants and discourage them from seeking citizenship through the legal immigration channels for fear of being deported. Not only that, Mahdawi will be sent back to Palestine, which continues to be the target of relentless Israeli bombing. Mahdawi is quoted saying, “It’s kind of a death sentence…my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.” 3. In more international news, CNN [https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/business/boeing-china-deliveries/index.html] reports China has “halted” its deliveries of Boeing planes. According to President Trump, will “‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft.” According to CNN, Boeing is particularly vulnerable in a trade war scenario because “Boeing builds all of its planes at US factories before sending nearly two-thirds of its commercial planes to customers outside the United States.” Boeing anticipated China purchasing 8,830 new planes over the next 20 years. The aircraft manufacturer’s stock value fell in the wake of this announcement and is unlikely to fully recover unless some accommodation is reached with China. 4. On the other side of the trade war, the Trump administration is preparing to roll out steep sectoral tariffs in addition to the country-specific tariffs already announced, per the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein [https://x.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1911433813814632572]. Stein reports these will target imports of various "critical" products, including autos, steel and aluminum, copper, lumber and semiconductors. Yet, likely no sectoral tariff will bite American consumers more than the proposed tariff on pharmaceutical drugs. On April 8th, POLITICO [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/08/trump-says-major-pharmaceutical-tariffs-on-the-way-00280287] reported that Trump told the RNC he is planning to impose “major” tariffs on pharmaceuticals. FIERCE [https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/trump-administration-launches-national-security-investigation-pharmaceuticals-paving-way], a healthcare news service, reports these could be as high as 25%. Coalition for a Prosperous America [https://prosperousamerica.org/study-finds-over-90-of-all-generic-drugs-dependent-on-imports/], an advocacy group opposed to free trade with China, reports that “Over 90% of all Generic Drugs [are] Dependent on Imports.” 5. Turning to domestic matters, the Federal Trade Commission is proceeding with their anti-trust case against Facebook. According to the FTC [https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/191-0134-facebook-inc-ftc-v-ftc-v-meta-platforms-inc], “The…Commission has sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” Further, “The complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of…Instagram, its 2014 acquisition…WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly.” According to Ars Technica [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/ftcs-monopoly-case-hinges-on-zuckerbergs-damaging-texts-emails/], “Daniel Matheson, the FTC's lead litigator, [started the trial with a bang] flagg[ing] a "smoking gun"—a 2012 email where Mark Zuckerberg suggested that Facebook could buy Instagram to ‘neutralize a potential competitor.’” It is hard to see how the company could argue this was not anticompetitive corporate misbehavior. 6. A dubious tech industry scheme is also underway at the highest levels of the federal government. WIRED [https://www.wired.com/story/social-security-administration-regional-office-elon-musk-x/] reports that the Social Security Administration is shifting their communications exclusively to Elon Musk’s X app, formerly known as Twitter. Wired quotes SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis, who said in a meeting with managers earlier this week, “We are no longer planning to issue press releases or…dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes…Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … this will become our communication mechanism.” WIRED further reports that, “The regional [SSA] office workforce will soon be cut by roughly 87 percent,” going from an estimated 547 employees to 70. Musk has called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” per the AP [https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-donald-trump-doge-b21b74f56f30012a6450a629e7232a1a]. 7. Over at the National Labor Relations Board, a whistleblower claims Elon Musk and his cronies at DOGE may have extracted data including “sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets,” per NPR [https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security]. If that wasn’t shady enough, “members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks…turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access.” This whistleblower took his concerns to Congress and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel – whistleblower activities that are protected by law – but faced retaliation in the form of someone, “’physically taping a threatening note’ to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone,” clear attempts to intimidate and silence this employee. The Trump administrations have been rife with leaks at every level and instead of responding by addressing the issues raised, the administration has launched a permanent inquisition to plug the leaks by any means. 8. In better news, the Independent [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-doge-government-accountability-office-b2730692.html] reports that DOGE itself is finally being subjected to an audit. The audit is being undertaken by the Government Accountability Office at the urging of Congressional leaders after “’alarming’ media reports of DOGE infiltrating federal systems,” according to a congressional aide. One DOGE worker has reportedly been identified by as “a 19-year-old high school graduate who was booted from an internship after leaking company information to a rival firm,” raising ever-deeper concerns about the purpose of the “fishing expeditions” DOGE is undergoing at every level of the federal government. 9. Another uplifting story comes to us from New York City. In the latest round of public matching fund awards, Zohran Mamdani – the Democratic Socialist candidate surging from obscurity into second place in the polls – was granted nearly $4 million in public matching funds, “the largest single payment to any candidate in the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary race to date,” according to Gothamist [https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-mayoral-race-cuomo-gets-no-public-campaign-funds-zohran-mamdani-takes-home-4m]. Meanwhile, former Governor Andrew Cuomo was awarded exactly $0. As Jeff Coltin [https://x.com/JCColtin/status/1911417037714235655] of POLITICO New York explains, “Cuomo’s campaign [was] scrambling to get the necessary info from donors to get matched…sending…dire warning to [his] entire email list, rather than…targeted outreach to donors.” If he had collected the necessary information, Cuomo would have been awarded $2.5 million in matching funds, Coltin reports [https://x.com/JCColtin/status/1912151543727485010]. Cuomo still leads in the polls; as it becomes increasingly clear that Zohran is the only viable alternative, there will be increased pressure on other candidates to throw their support behind him. 10. Finally, let’s take a peek into the political climate’s effect on Hollywood. New York Magazine [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/warner-bros-ceo-david-zaslav-hollywood-mogul.html], in an extensive profile of Warner Brothers-Discovery mogul David Zaslav, includes a piece about Zaslav seeking to ingratiate himself with Trump. According to this report, “a company representative recently reached out to the Trump0 orbit seeking advice about how the company might advantageously interact with the Whitte House.” Their answer: “look at the example of…Jeff Bezos paying Melania Trump $40 million to participate in a documentary about herself. Don Jr. might like a hunting and fishing show on the Discovery Channel, they were told.” Just like the Ivy League universities and the big law firms, if given an inch Trump will take a mile and use it for nothing short of extortion. Hollywood would be wise to steer clear. But wisdom has never been their strength. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ralph speaks to Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank about the Trump Administration's path of destruction in our federal government. Then, Ralph welcomes legendary public interest lawyer Alan Morrison to discuss the President's authority to impose tariffs and other constitutional questions. Dana Milbank [https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/dana-milbank/] is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist for the Washington Post. He also provides political commentary for various TV outlets, and he is the author of five books on politics, including the New York Times bestseller The Destructionists [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690605/the-destructionists-by-dana-milbank/] and the national bestseller Homo Politicus. His latest book is Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theories and Dunces who Burned Down the House [https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/dana-milbank/fools-on-the-hill/9780316570923/]. I shouldn't be amazed, but Mike Johnson never ceases to amaze me with the rapidity with which he'll just drop to his knees whenever Trump says something. Dana Milbank We're going to know this shortly, but it does appear that Trump's honeymoon may be over in the House as the conservatives finally seem to be finding their backbones. But I've thought that might happen before and then only to find out that they, in fact, they could not locate their backbones. So I don't want to be premature. Dana Milbank Trump seems to be gambling (and the administration seems to be gambling) that ultimately the Supreme Court is going to a wholesale reinterpretation of the Constitution to grant these never-before-seen executive powers, and it's possible that he's right about that. We're not going to know that. There have been a couple of preliminary rulings that seem friendly to Trump, but none of those is final, so we can't really be sure of it. Dana Milbank My guess is that Chief Justice Roberts is seeing his legacy heading toward the ditch after his decision of Trump v. United States, where he said that Presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted….My guess is he's going to unpleasantly surprise Trump in the coming months. Ralph Nader Alan Morrison [https://www.law.gwu.edu/alan-b-morrison] is the Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service at George Washington Law School. He currently teaches civil procedure and constitutional law, and previously taught at Harvard, NYU, Stanford, Hawaii, and American University law schools. He has argued 20 cases in the Supreme Court and co-founded the Public Citizen Litigation Group [https://www.citizen.org/about/staff/about-public-citizen-litigation-group/] in 1972, which he directed for more than 25 years. It's inevitable that even for a non-economist like myself to understand that [the costs of tariffs] are going to be passed on. Other than Donald Trump, I don't think there's anybody who believes that these taxes are not going to be passed on and that they're going to be borne by the country from which the company did the exporting. Alan Morrison It's an uphill battle on both the statutory interpretation and the undue delegation grounds, but our position is rather simple: If the Congress doesn't write a statute so that there's something that the government can't order or do, then it's gone too far. In effect, it has surrendered to the President its power to set policy and do the legislative function. Interestingly, Trump has trumpeted the breadth of what he's doing here. He calls it a revolution. Well, if we have revolutions in this country, my copy of the Constitution says that the Congress has to enact revolution and the President can't do it on its own. So we think we've got a pretty strong case if we can get it to court. Alan Morrison One of the things that I've been struck by is that laws alone cannot make this country governable. That we can't write laws to cover every situation and every quirk that any person has, especially the President. We depend on the norms of government—that people will do things not exactly the way everybody did them before, but along the same general lines, and that when we make change, we make them in moderation, because that's what the people expect. Trump has shed all norms. Alan Morrison News 4/9/25 1. Our top story this week is the killing of Omar Mohammed Rabea, an American citizen in Gaza. Known as Amer, the BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99pnvmp3kmo] reports the 14-year-old was shot by the Israeli military along with two other 14-year-old boys “on the outskirts of Turmus Ayya” on Sunday evening. Predictably, the IDF called these children “terrorists.” According to NJ.com [https://www.nj.com/news/2025/04/14-year-old-from-nj-killed-in-middle-east.html] – Rabea formerly resided in Saddle Brook, New Jersey – Rabea’s uncle sits on the board of a local Palestinian American Community Center which told the press “The ambulance was not allowed to pass the checkpoint for 30 minutes, a denial in medical treatment that ultimately resulted in Amer’s death…[his] death was entirely preventable and horrifically unjust. He was a child, a 14-year-old boy, with an entire life ahead of him.” The Rachel Corrie Foundation [https://x.com/rcfoundation/status/1909387935260328139], founded in honor of the American peace activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home, issued a statement reading “Rabea’s death…was perpetuated by Israeli settlers who act with impunity…We believe that if our own government demanded accountability…Rabea would still be alive.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has sent a letter [https://www.cair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/CAIRLettertoPamBondi.pdf] to Attorney General Bondi demanding an investigation, but chances of the Trump administration pursuing justice in this case are slim. 2. Meanwhile, President Trump seems to be driving the U.S. economy into a deep recession. Following his much-publicized tariff announcement last week – which included 10% tariffs on uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump-tariffs-antarctica-uninhabited-heard-mcdonald-islands] – the S&P dipped by 10.5%, among the largest drops in history, per the New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/business/trump-tariffs-stock-markets.html]. Far from making Trump back off however, he appears dead set on pushing this as far as it will go. After the People’s Republic of China responded to the threat of a 54% tariff with a reciprocal 34% tariff, Trump announced the U.S. will retaliate by upping the tariff to a whopping 104% on Chinese imports, according to the BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg51yw700lo]. Reuters [https://www.reuters.com/markets/jpmorgan-lifts-global-recession-odds-60-us-tariffs-stoke-fears-2025-04-04/] reports that JP Morgan forecasts a 60% chance of a recession as a result of these tariffs. 3. In more foreign affairs news, on Friday April 4th, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was officially removed from office by that country’s Constitutional Court, “ending months of uncertainty and legal wrangling after he briefly declared martial law in December,” per CNN [https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/03/asia/yoon-impeachment-verdict-south-korea-intl-hnk/index.html]. The South Korean parliament had already voted to impeach Yoon in December of 2024. The court’s decision was unanimous and characterized the leader’s actions as a “grave betrayal of the people’s trust.” Upon this ruling being handed down, Yoon was forced to immediately vacate the presidential residence. A new election is scheduled for June 3rd. Incredible what a political and judicial class unafraid to stand up to lawlessness can accomplish. 4. Speaking of ineffectual opposition parties, one need look no further than Texas’ 18th congressional district. This safe Democratic district – including most of central Houston – was held by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee from 1995 until her death in 2024. According to the Texas Tribune [https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/19/amanda-edwards-sylvester-turner-congress/], Lee planned to run yet again in 2024, triumphing over her 43-year-old former aide Amanda Edwards in the primary. However, Lee passed in July of 2024. Edwards again sought the nomination, but the Harris County Democratic Party instead opted for 69-year-old former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, per the Texas Tribune [https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/13/turner-jackson-lee-november-ballot-houston/]. Turner made it to March of 2025 before he too passed away. This seat now sits vacant – depriving the residents of central Houston of congressional representation and the Democrats of a vote in the House. Governor Gregg Abbot has announced that he will not allow a special election before November 2025, the Texas Tribune [https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/07/greg-abbott-special-election-sylvester-turner/] reports. This is a stunning Democratic own-goal and indicative of the literal death grip the gerontocratic old guard continue to have on the party. 5. One ray of hope is that Democratic voters appear to be waking up the ineffectual nature of the party leadership. A new Data for Progress poll [https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2025/4/4/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-leads-chuck-schumer-in-hypothetical-2028-matchup-by-19-points] of the 2028 New York Senate primary posed a hypothetical matchup between incumbent Senator Chuck Schumer and Democratic Socialist firebrand Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – and found AOC with a staggering lead of 19 points. This poll showed AOC winning voters under 45 by 50 points, over 45s by eight points, non-college educated by 16 points, college educated by 23 points, Black and white voters by 16 points, and Latinos by 28. Schumer led among self-described “Moderates” by 15 and no other group. It remains to be seen whether the congresswoman from Queens will challenge the Senate Minority Leader, but this poll clearly shows her popularity in the state of New York, and Schumer’s abysmal reputation catching up with him. 6. Another bright spot from New York, is Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy and specifically his unprecedented field operation. According to the campaign [https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1908975885883146446], between April 1st and April 6th, volunteers knocked on 41,591 doors. No mayoral campaign in the history of the city has generated a grassroots movement of this intensity, with politicians traditionally relying on political machines or enormous war chests to carry them to victory. Mamdani has already reached the public financing campaign donation cap, so he can focus all of his time and energy on grassroots outreach. He remains the underdog against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, but his campaign appears stronger every day. 7. Turning to the turmoil in the federal regulatory apparatus, POLITICO [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/03/kennedy-shutters-several-foia-offices-at-hhs-00268646] reports Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has eliminated the Freedom of Information Act offices at the Centers for Disease Control, and other HHS agencies. An anonymous source told the publication that HHS will consolidate its FOIA requests into one HHS-wide office, but “Next steps are still in flux.” In the meantime, there will be no one to fulfill FOIA requests at these agencies. This piece quotes Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, who said this “sends a wrong message to the public on the administration’s commitment to transparency.” Amey added, “I often say that FOIA officers are like librarians in knowing the interactions of the agency…If you don’t have FOIA officers with that specific knowledge, it will slow down the process tremendously.” 8. At the Federal Trade Commission, Axios [https://www.axios.com/2025/04/03/ftc-stays-case-cvs-caremark-optumrx-pbm] reports the Trump administration has “paused” the FTC’s lawsuit against major pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, related to “the drug middlemen…inflating the price of insulin and driving up costs to diabetes patients.” The case, filed against CVS Caremark, OptumRx and Express Scripts was halted by the FTC in light of “the fact that there are currently no sitting Commissioners able to participate in this matter.” That is because Trump unlawfully fired the two remaining Democratic commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. In a statement [https://x.com/linamkhan/status/1907443483217907941], former FTC Chair Lina Khan called this move “A gift to the PBMs.” 9. One federal regulatory agency that seems to be at least trying to do their job is the Federal Aviation Administration. According to the American Prospect [https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2025-04-04-faa-warns-boeing-787-radio-can-cut-off-air-traffic-control/], the FAA has “[has] proposed [a] rule that would mandate Boeing update a critical communications malfunction in their 787 Dreamliner plane that could lead to disastrous accidents.” As this piece explains, “very high frequency (VHF) radio channels are transferring between the active and standby settings without flight crew input.” The FAA’s recommendation in is that Boeing address the issue with an update to the radio software. Yet disturbingly, in one of the comments on this proposed rule Qatar Airways claims that, “[they have] already modified all affected…airplanes with … [the recommended software updates] …However … flight crew are still reporting similar issues.” This comment ends with Qatar Airways stating that they believe, “the unsafe condition still exists.” Boeing planes have been plagued by critical safety malfunctions in recent years, most notably the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed nearly 350 people. 10. Finally, on a somewhat lighter note, you may have heard about Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur dubbed “The Man Who Wants to Live Forever [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Die:_The_Man_Who_Wants_to_Live_Forever].” Johnson has attracted substantial media attention for his unorthodox anti-aging methods, including regular transfusions of plasma from his own son. But this story is not about Johnson’s bizarre immortality obsession, but rather his unsavory corporate practices. A new piece in New York Magazine [https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bryan-johnson-matt-bruenig-nda-fight.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=twitter] focuses on the lawsuits filed against Johnson by his all-too-mortal workers, represented by eminent labor lawyer Matt Bruenig. This piece relays how Johnson “required his staffers to sign 20-page NDAs,” and an “opt-in” document which informed his employees they had to be comfortable “being around Johnson while he has very little clothing on” and “discussions for media production including erotica (for example, fan fiction including but not limited to story lines/ideas informed by the Twilight series and-or 50 Shades of Grey.)” Bruenig says, “That stuff is weird,” but his main interest is in the nondisparagement agreements, including the one Johnson’s former employee and former fiancée Taylor Southern entered into which has further complicated an already thorny legal dispute between Johnson and herself. Now Bruenig is fighting for Southern and against these blanket nondisparagement agreements in a case that could help define the limits of employer’s power to control their workers’ speech. Hopefully, Bruenig will prevail in showing that Johnson, whatever his pretensions, truly is a mere mortal. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ralph welcomes Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, whose group has filed eight lawsuits that have significantly slowed the Trump/Musk cabal’s attempt to dismantle the government. Then, our resident Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein reports on Public Interest Law Day at Harvard Law School and how important it is for law schools in general to step up to meet this constitutional crisis. Plus, Ralph answers listener questions! Robert Weissman is a staunch public interest advocate and activist, as well as an expert on a wide variety of issues ranging from corporate accountability and government transparency, to trade and globalization, to economic and regulatory policy. As the President of Public Citizen [https://www.citizen.org/news/public-citizen-sddf-and-afge-sue-trump-administration-over-doge/], he has spearheaded the effort to loosen the chokehold corporations and the wealthy have over our democracy. The efforts in the courts are really vital to stem the illegal, unconstitutional actions of the administration, but also to show that there's a way to fight back. In these early days and months of the administration, there's been a sense that Trump is inevitable and unstoppable. And the actions in the courts, I think, have been really critical to illustrating that that's not true. Robert Weissman It's open season for the polluters. And of course, they're also promoting in a variety of ways a rush towards climate catastrophe by undoing the positive measures that have come recently from the Biden administration to deal with the climate crisis. Robert Weissman If you pull back all the enforcement rules, and you say we're not going to enforce the rules that are left over, corporations get the message. And they're going to be more reckless, and it's a near certainty that we're going to have many more serious industrial disasters as a direct result of what they're doing at EPA and other agencies. Robert Weissman Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230617612], and American Empire: Before the Fall [https://bookshop.org/books/american-empire-before-the-fall/9781452829531]. If we don't inform the public (with the law students as well as others in the lead), we're not going to have rule of law and Harvard Law School will become an irrelevancy. It will be a museum piece. Bruce Fein I think the country and the law students are going to pay a price. They're being very narrow and myopic with regard to their immediate preoccupation with their trade school, where they're going to work the next day, and very little given to the fact that if we don't have a country anymore, they aren’t going to have a legal career. Bruce Fein It's a more cowardly, timid type of law school whose explanations are still ready to be discovered. It's a real puzzle…because they have tenure, they have status, they have wealth, and they have the ability to defend themselves because they're skilled lawyers. Ralph Nader News 4/2/25 1. Our top stories this week are on the topic of corporate crime. First, the American Prospect [https://prospect.org/justice/2025-03-28-trump-scrambles-pardon-corporate-criminals-townstone-boeing-cfpb/] reports that the Trump administration is seeking to reverse a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau case against Townstone, a mortgage brokerage firm that blatantly discouraged potential Black borrowers. According to the Prospect, Townstone’s owners Barry Sturner and David Hochberg vigorously promoted their firm though “personal-finance call-in infomercials,” on Chicago’s WGN radio station. During these infomercials, which generated 90 percent of Townstone’s business, Sturner and Hochberg “characterized the South Side of Chicago as a ‘war zone,’ downtown Chicago as a ‘jungle’ that turned on Friday and Saturday into ‘hoodlum weekend,’” and so on. As the Prospect notes, if Sturner and Hochberg were simply airing these views that would be perfectly legal, however unsavory. Instead, this program is “an informercial, which generates 90 percent of the brokerage’s leads, which the brokerage pays WGN to air, presumably punctuated at regular intervals by some phrase along the lines of ‘an equal housing lender.’” Therefore, this rhetoric was determined to have violated the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The remarkable thing about this case is that it was brought by the Trump administration’s CFPB between 2017 and 2020. Townstone eventually settled the case for a little over $100,000. Yet, just last week, the Trump administration 2.0 returned the money to Townstone posting “a long press release about how ‘abusive’ and ‘unjust’ the whole case had been.” This episode highlights just how much more extreme the new Trump administration is, even compared to the old one. 2. Another outrageous case of corporate criminal leniency comes to us from Rick Claypool [https://x.com/RickClaypool/status/1906052030650614023], a corporate crime expert at Public Citizen. For background, CNBC [https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/28/trump-pardon-bitmex-crypto-exchange-money-laundering.html?taid=67e6f303e1586a0001225271&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter] reports that Trump has “pardoned three co-founders of the BitMEX global cryptocurrency exchange, as well as…a former high-ranking employee.” As this piece explains, the co-founders received criminal sentences of probation…and were ordered to pay civil fines totaling $30 million,” after “Prosecutors accused the men of effectively operating BitMEX as a ‘money laundering platform’ …[and] ‘a sham.’” But Trump went beyond pardoning the corporate criminals involved. As Claypool noted, “the crypto corporation pled guilty and was sentenced in January to two years' probation,” leading Claypool to wonder whether Trump would pardon the corporation itself. His question was answered on March 29th when Law360 [https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/2317566/trump-pardons-bitmex-crypto-co-four-ex-executives] reported that yes, Trump pardoned the business entity. This is the logical endpoint of regarding corporations as people. Not only will individual crooks be let off the hook, the whole crooked enterprise will come out unscathed. 3. New evidence confirms the redistribution of wealth from working people to the capitalist class. A February 2025 RAND Corporation [https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html] study titled “Measuring the Income Gap from 1975 to 2023” finds that, “the bottom 90 percent of workers would have earned $3.9 trillion more with..more even growth rates [since 1975],” resulting in a “cumulative amount of $79 trillion.” This study extends prior estimates by factoring in “inflation, growth in inequality, and a longer time frame.” And even more recently, an April 2025 article in the Journal of Political Economy [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/734089], titled “How the Wealth Was Won: Factor Shares as Market Fundamentals,” finds that “40% of [the increase in real per capita value of corporate equity, which grew at an annual rate of 7.2% between 1989 and 2017]…was attributable to a reallocation of rewards to shareholders in a decelerating economy, primarily at the expense of labor compensation.” This study estimates “Economic growth accounted for just 25% of the increase,” and compares this period to the preceding era, “1952–88, [which] experienced only one-third as much growth in market equity, but economic growth accounted for more than 100% of it.” Taken together, these studies starkly illustrate an American economic machine built to make the rich even richer and the poor ever poorer. 4. On the other end of the criminal penalty spectrum, the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that they will seek the death penalty for alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin Luigi Mangione, the BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30qlr528elo] reports. The first Trump administration saw the resumption of the federal death penalty after a 16-year hiatus; the Biden administration then issued a new moratorium and commuted the sentences of most federal death row prisoners. Since returning to power, Trump has aggressively pursued federal executions once again. 5. In more positive legal news, NBC [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/france-le-pen-marine-guilty-right-national-rally-paris-embezzlement-rcna198816] reports French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty Monday of embezzling over €3 million of European Union funds. The National Rally party leader was sentenced to four years in prison (with two on house arrest and two suspended), a €100,000 fine, and a ban on holding political office for five years – making her ineligible for the 2027 French presidential election, which polls showed her leading. Her party will, for the time being, be led by her protégé 29-year-old Jordan Bardella. It is unclear if he will enjoy the same popularity Ms. Le Pen held. She announced that she plans to appeal the verdict, but will remain ineligible for public office unless and until she wins that case. 6. In more international news, British police last week executed a shocking raid on a congregation of the Quakers. The Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/met-raids-quaker-meeting-house-and-arrests-six-women-at-youth-demand-talk] reports, “More than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with Tasers, forced their way into the Westminster meeting house…[and] seized attenders’ phones and laptops.” In a statement, Paul Parker, the recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said “No one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory… This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.” The stated charge is the absurd “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.” A report on the incident in Church Times [https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/4-april/news/uk/police-raid-on-westminster-quaker-meeting-house-sparks-criticism] adds a statement from Oliver Robertson, head of witness and worship for Quakers in Britain, who said “This raid is not an isolated incident. It reflects a growing trend of excessive policing under new laws brought in by the previous government, which are now being enforced by the current administration.” Even former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, criticized the raid, stating “There has long been a tradition in this country…that religious spaces should not be invaded by the forces of law and order unless absolutely necessary.” 7. Of course, the outrageous use of lawfare on Israel’s behalf continues in the halls of Congress as well. In a letter [https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-03-26-jdj-bm-to-mqg-re-israeli-judicial-reform-protests.pdf], Congressmen Jim Jordan, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast – famous for his role as an American volunteer for the IDF – have announced their intention to investigate activist groups critical of the Israeli government – within Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post [https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-847983], these NGOs are being investigated to, “ascertain whether funding they allegedly received from the Biden administration was utilized for the judicial reform protests in 2023.” These groups include the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and Blue and White Future, among others. 8. The government’s use of brute force to muzzle criticism of Israel continues to rock academia. At Harvard, the Crimson [https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/30/hls-faculty-letter/] reports 82 of Harvard Law School’s 118 active professors have signed a letter which “accused the federal government of exacting retribution on lawyers and law firms for representing clients and causes opposed by President Donald Trump…described Trump’s threats as a danger to the rule of law…[and] condemned the government for intimidating individuals based on their past public statements and threatening international students with deportation over ‘lawful speech and political activism.’” The letter [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25873394-hls-faculty-letter-to-students/] reads, in part, “we share a conviction that our Constitution, including its First Amendment, was designed to make dissent and debate possible without fear of government punishment. Neither a law school nor a society can properly function amidst such fear.” This letter stands in stark contrast to the recent statement [https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/our-resolve/] by Harvard President Alan Garber, in which he pledged to “engage” with the federal government’s demands in order to protect the university’s $9 billion in federal funding. 9. Last week, we reported on the “lynching” of Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land – and how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences dithered before ultimately releasing a milquetoast statement decrying violence against “artists for their work or their viewpoints,” with no mention of Palestine or even Ballal’s name. This caused so much uproar among Academy members that nearly 900 of them signed a letter “denouncing the Academy’s silence,” per Variety [https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/academy-members-hamdan-ballal-statement-mark-ruffalo-1236351147/]. The letter and full list of signatories can be found here [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfF5c2R4oVkXjrsr2jHA_bJBp2Hx-25y2eugSxrKL5eYKmbBQ/viewform]. Shamed, the Academy leadership was forced to issue a follow-up statement [https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1905766074425250257] expressing their “regret that we failed to directly acknowledge Mr. Ballal and the film by name.” This statement continues “We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal…We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances.” 10. Finally, speaking of shame, the Hill [https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5220587-democrats-town-halls-gop/] reports that the shame of Congressional Republicans is giving Democrats a golden opportunity. According to this piece, “House Democrats are ramping up their aggressive strategy of conducting town halls in Republican-held districts, vying to exploit the GOP’s advised moratorium on the events to make inroads with frustrated voters, pick up battleground seats, and flip control of the House in next year’s midterms.” One Democrat, Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign co-chair Ro Khanna, has held three town halls in Republican-held districts, whose main takeaway was “People are mad.” Republicans who have bucked the GOP leadership and held town halls anyway, such as Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-lawmaker-booed-rowdy-town-hall-complaining-crowd-obsessed-g-rcna197278] and Indiana congresswoman Victoria Spartz [https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5221643-indiana-republican-spartz-town-hall-doge-musk/] have found themselves looking down the barrel of constituents furious at the conduct of the administration in general and DOGE in particular. This, combined with the upset Democratic victories in recent special elections, has the GOP on a defensive backfoot for the first time in months. Could we be looking at the beginning of a Democratic tea party? Only time will tell. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ralph welcomes journalist Chris Hedges to talk about his new book "A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine." Then, Ralph speaks to David Swanson of World BEYOND War about what his organization is doing to resist this country’s casual acceptance of being constantly at war. Finally, Ralph checks in with our resident constitutional scholar Bruce Fein. Chris Hedges [https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/woke-imperialism] is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He is the host of The Chris Hedges Report [https://chrishedges.substack.com/], and he is a prolific author [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Our-Class/Chris-Hedges/9781982154448]— his latest book is A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine [https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4716-a-genocide-foretold?srsltid=AfmBOoqf3M7u9sOyyl4ylPgG3p-UE5SM1GOLc0AMBfDe00bj6qMylXsW]. We not only blocked the effort by most countries on the globe to halt the genocide or at least censure Israel to the genocide, but of course have continued to sendbillions of dollars in weapons and to shut down critics within the United States… And that sends a very, very ominous message to the global south, especiallyas the climate breaks down, that these are the kind of draconian murderous measuresthat we will employ. Chris Hedges It's a very, very ominous chapter in the history of historic Palestine. In some ways, far worse even than the 1948 Nakba (or “Catastrophe”) that saw massacres carried out against Palestinians in their villages and 750,000 Palestinians displaced. What we're watching now is probably the worst catastrophe to ever beset the Palestinian people. Chris Hedges It's a bit like attacking somebody for writing about Auschwitz and not giving the SS guards enough play to voice their side. We're writing about a genocide and, frankly, there isn't a lot of nuance. There's a lot of context (which is in the book). But I expect either to be blanked out or attacked because lifting up the voices of Palestinians is something at this point within American society that is considered by the dominant media platforms and those within positions of power to be unacceptable. Chris Hedges It eventually comes down to us, the American people. And it's not just the Middle East. It's a sprawling empire with hundreds of military bases, sapping the energy of our public budgets and of our ability to relate in an empathetic and humanitarian way to the rest of the world. Ralph Nader David Swanson [https://davidswanson.org/] is an author, activist, journalist, radio host and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He is executive director of World BEYOND War [https://worldbeyondwar.org/david-swanson/] and campaign coordinator for RootsAction [https://rootsaction.org/]. His books include War Is A Lie [https://davidswanson.org/warisalie/] and When the World Outlawed War [https://davidswanson.org/outlawry/]. The biggest scandal of the past two days in the United States is not government officials secretly discussing plans for mass killing, for war making, but how they did it on a group chat. You can imagine if they were talking about blowing up buildings in the United States, at least the victims would get a little mention in there. David Swanson The Democrats are the least popular they've been. They're way less popular than the Republicans because some of the Republicans' supporters actually support the horrendous behavior they're engaged in. Whereas Democrats want somebody to try anything, anything at all, and you're not getting it. David Swanson You know how many cases across the world across the decades in every hospital and health center there are of PTSD or any sort of injury from war deprivation? Not a one. Not a single one, ever. People survive just fine. And people do their damnedest to stay out of it, even in the most warmongering nations in the world. People try their very hardest to stay out of war personally, because it does great damage. David Swanson Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230617612], and American Empire: Before the Fall [https://bookshop.org/books/american-empire-before-the-fall/9781452829531]. If there were really an attorney general who was independent, they would advise the President, “You can't make these threats. They are the equivalent of extortion.” Bruce Fein Vigorous Public Interest Law Day April 1, 2025 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm at Harvard Law School the Harvard Plaintiffs’ Law Association is hosting Vigorous Public Interest Law Day with opening remarks by Ralph Nader. The program will feature highly relevant presentations and group discussions with some of the nation’s most courageous public interest lawyers including Sam Levine, Bruce Fein, Robert Weissman, Joan Claybrook, and Pete Davis, to name a few. More information here [https://hls.harvard.edu/events/public-law-interest-day/]. News 3/26/25 1. Starting off this week with some good news, Families for Safe Streets [https://x.com/Fam4SafeStreets/status/1904570369073180743] reports the Viriginia Assembly has passed HB2096, also known as the Stop Super Speeders bill. If enacted, this bill would allow would judges to “require drivers convicted of extreme speeding offenses to install Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology in their vehicles, automatically limiting their speed to the posted limit.” According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA [https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/speeding], established by Ralph Nader, speeding was responsible for 12,151 deaths in 2022 and is a contributing factor in the skyrocketing number of pedestrians killed by automobiles which hit a 40-year high in 2023, per NPR [https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car]. 2. In more troubling auto safety news AP [https://apnews.com/article/cybertruck-recall-tesla-elon-musk-nhtsa-8c517e21aa1119d74b9db39f6aca01b7] reports NHTSA has ordered a new recall on nearly all Cybertrucks. This recall centers on an exterior panel that can “detach while driving, creating a dangerous road hazard for other drivers, [and] increasing the risk of a crash.” This panel, called a “cant rail assembly,” is attached with a glue that is vulnerable to “environmental embrittlement,” per NHTSA. This is the eighth recall of the vehicles since they hit the road just one year ago. 3. At the same time, the Democratic-controlled Delaware state legislature has passed a bill to “award…Musk $56 billion, shield corporate executives from liability, and strip away voting power from shareholders,” reports the Lever [https://www.levernews.com/musk-has-triggered-a-corporate-deregulation-bomb/]. According to this report, written before the law passed, the bill would “set an extremely high bar for plaintiffs to obtain internal company documents, records, and communications — the core pieces of evidence needed to build a lawsuit against a company.” On the other hand, “Corporate executives and investors with a controlling stake in a firm would no longer be required to hold full shareholder votes on various transactions in which management has a direct conflict of interest.” As this piece notes, this bill was backed by a pressure campaign led by Musk and his lawyers that began with a Delaware Chancery Court ruling that jeopardized his $56 billion compensation package. In retaliation, Musk threatened to lead a mass exodus of corporations from the state. Instead of calling his bluff, the state legislature folded, likely beginning a race to the bottom among other corporate-friendly states that will strip anyone but the largest shareholders of any remaining influence on corporate decision making. 4. Speaking of folding under pressure, Reuters [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/columbia-research-takes-immediate-hit-trump-funding-cuts-2025-03-21/] reports Columbia University will “acquiesce” to the outrageous and unprecedented demands of the Trump administration. These include a new mask ban on campus, and placing the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department – along with the Center for Palestine Studies –under academic receivership for at least five years. By caving to these demands, the University hopes the administration will unfreeze $400 million in NIH grants they threatened to withhold. Reuters quotes historian of education, Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, who decried this as “The government…using the money as a cudgel to micromanage a university,” and Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, who called the administration's demands “arguably the greatest incursion into academic freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy that we've seen since the McCarthy era.” 5. The authoritarianism creeping through higher education doesn’t end there. Following the chilling disappearing of Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration has begun deploying the same tactic against more students for increasingly minor supposed offenses. First there was Georgetown post-doc student Badar Khan Suri, originally from India, who “had been living in Virginia for nearly three years when the police knocked on his door on the evening of 17 March and arrested him,” per the BBC [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rk62znm3yo]. His crime? Being married to the daughter of a former advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, who in 2010 left the Gaza government and “started the House of Wisdom…to encourage peace and conflict resolution in Gaza.” A court has blocked Suri’s deportation. Then there is Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts who was on her way home from an Iftar dinner when she was surrounded and physically restrained by plainclothes agents on the street, CNN [https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/rumeysa-ozturk-detained-what-we-know/index.html] reports. Video of this incident has been shared widely. Secretary of State Marco Rubio supposedly “determined” that Ozturk’s alleged activities would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.” These activities? Co-writing a March 2024 op-ed in the school paper which stated “Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.” The U.S. has long decried regimes that use secret police to suppress dissident speech. Now it seems it has become one. 6. Yet the Trump administration is not only using deportations as a blunt object to punish pro-Palestine speech, it is also using it to go after labor rights activists. Seattle public radio station KUOW [https://www.kuow.org/stories/ice-detains-farmworker-activist-in-northwest-washington-state] reports “Farmworker activist and union leader Alfredo Juarez Zeferino, known…as ‘Lelo,’ was taken into custody by [ICE].” A farmworker and fellow activist Rosalinda Guillén is quoted saying “[Lelo] doesn’t have a criminal record…they stopped him because of his leadership, because of his activism.” She added “I think that this is a political attack.” Simultaneously, the Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/27/trump-labor-department-international-child-labor/] reports “John Clark, a Trump-appointed Labor Department official, directed the agency’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs…to end all of its grants.” These cuts are “expected to end 69 programs that have allocated more than $500 million to combat child labor, forced labor and human trafficking, and to enforce labor standards in more than 40 countries.” 7. All of these moves by the Trump administration are despicable and largely unprecedented, but even they are not as brazen as the assault on the twin pillars of the American social welfare system: Social Security and Medicare. Social Security is bearing the brunt of the attacks at the moment. First, AP [https://apnews.com/article/social-security-layoffs-doge-musk-trump-93efbed33957af5ec8ac37744d0592de] reported that Elon Musk’s DOGE planned to cut up to 50% of the Social Security Administration staff. Then, the Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/18/social-security-musk-trump-doge/] reported that the administration planned to force millions of seniors to submit claims in person rather than via phone. Now the administration is announcing that they are shifting Social Security payments from paper checks to prepaid debit cards, per Axios [https://www.axios.com/2025/03/26/trump-social-security-paper-checks-direct-deposit]. Nearly half a million seniors still receive their payments via physical checks. These massive disruptions in Social Security have roiled seniors across the nation, many of whom are Republican Trump supporters, and they are voicing their frustration to their Republican elected officials – who in turn are chafing at being cut out of the loop by Musk. NBC [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-loop-doge-social-security-administration-rcna198102] reports Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance subcommittee on Social Security, said “he had not been told ahead of time about DOGE's moves at the agency.” Senators Steve Daines and Bill Cassidy have echoed this sentiment. And, while Social Security takes center stage, Medicare is next in line. Drop Site [https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/dr-oz-trump-plot-medicare-advantage-plans] is out with a new report on how Trump’s nominee to oversee the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services – Dr. Oz – could shift millions of seniors from traditional Medicare to the insurer-controlled Medicare Advantage system. Medicare and Social Security have long been seen as the “third rail” of American politics, meaning politicians who try to tamper with those programs meet their political demise. This is the toughest test yet of whether that remains true. 8. The impact of Oscar winning documentary No Other Land continues to reverberate, a testament to the power of its message. In Miami Beach, Mayor Steven Meiner issued a draft resolution calling for the city to terminate its lease agreement with O Cinema, located at Old City Hall, simply for screening the film. Deadline [https://deadline.com/2025/03/no-other-land-miami-beach-mayor-wont-shut-theater-1236330842/] reports however that he was forced to back down. And just this week, co-director of the film Hamdan Ballal was reportedly “lynched” by Israeli settlers in his West Bank village, according to co-director Yuval Abraham, an anti-occupation Jewish Israeli journalist. The Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/25/oscar-winning-palestinian-director-hamdan-ballal-released-from-israeli-detention] reports “the settlers beat him in front of his home and filmed the assault…he was held at an army base, blindfolded, for 24 hours and forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.” Another co-director, Basel Adra of Masafer Yatta, told the AP [https://apnews.com/article/no-other-land-oscar-israel-palestinians-084c63f33e748a3279646759e9b705c2] “We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us…This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.” Stunningly, it took days for the Academy of Motion Pictures to issue a statement [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GnECVa_bgAUvgcM?format=jpg&name=large] decrying the violence and even then, the statement was remarkably tepid with no mention of Palestine at all, only condemning “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints.” 9. In some more positive news, Zohran Mamdani – the Democratic Socialist candidate for Mayor of New York City – has maxed out donations, per Gothamist [https://gothamist.com/news/mamdani-maxes-out-fundraising-for-nyc-mayoral-primary-campaign-says]. Mamdani says he has raised “more than $8 million with projected matching funds from about 18,000 donors citywide and has done so at a faster rate than any campaign in city history.” Having hit the public financing cap this early, Mamdani promised to not spend any more of the campaign raising money and instead plans to “build the single largest volunteer operation we've ever seen in the New York City's mayor's race.” Witnessing a politician asking supporters not to send more money is a truly one-of-a-kind moment. Recent polling shows Mamdani in second place, well behind disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo and well ahead of his other rivals, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, per CBS [https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-mayors-race-democrats-poll-cuomo-adams-mamdani/]. However, Mamdani remains unknown to large numbers of New Yorkers, meaning his ceiling could be much higher. Plenty of time remains before the June mayoral election. 10. Finally, in an extremely bizarre story, Columbia Professor Anthony Zenkus [https://x.com/anthonyzenkus/status/1903125637121868170] reports “Robert Ehrlich, millionaire founder of snack food giant Pirate's Booty…tried to take over the sleepy Long Island town of Sea Cliff.” Zenkus relays that Ehrlich waged a “last minute write-in campaign for mayor in which he only received 62 votes - then declared himself mayor anyway.” Though Ehrlich only received 5% of the vote, he “stormed the village hall with an entourage, declaring himself the duly-elected mayor, screaming that he was there to dissolve the entire town government and that he alone had the power to form a new government.” Ehrlich claimed the election was “rigged” and thus invalid, citing as evidence “One of my supporters voted three times. Another one voted four times…” which constitutes a confession to election fraud. Zenkus ends this story by noting that Ehrlich was “escorted out by police.” It’s hard to make heads or tails of this story, but if nothing else it indicates that these petty robber barons are simply out of control – believing they can stage their own mini coup d’etats. And after all, why shouldn’t they think so, when one of their ilk occupies perhaps the most powerful office in the history of the world. Bad omens all around. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Ralph welcomes New York Times journalist, David Enrich, author of “Murder the Truth” an in-depth exposé of the attack on freedom of the press as protected by the landmark Supreme Court decision “Sullivan v. The New York Times.” Also, Professor Michael Graetz a leading authority on tax politics and policy joins to discuss his book “The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America.” Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, updates us on his latest efforts to push for the impeachment of Donald Trump. David Enrich is the business investigations editor for The New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-enrich]. He writes about the intersection of law and business, including the power wielded by giant corporate law firms and the changing contours of the First Amendment and libel law. His latest book is titled Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/murder-the-truth-david-enrich], an in-depth exposé of the broad campaign—orchestrated by elite Americans—to overturn sixty years of Supreme Court precedent, weaponize our speech laws, and silence dissent. When all the institutions are crushed by a dictator in the White House, it's only the people that can save the people. Ralph Nader The interesting thing was that Fox, and these other right-wing outlets for years had been kind of banging the drum against New York Times v. Sullivan and against the protections that many journalists have come to count on. And then they get sued and their immediate fallback is to very happily cite New York Times v. Sullivan. David Enrich These threats and these lawsuits have become an extremely popular weapon among everyone from the President down to mayors, city council members, local real estate development companies, on and on and on…And the direct result of that will be that powerful people, companies, organizations, institutions are going to be able to do bad things without anyone knowing about it. David Enrich People keep asking me what they can do, what they should do. And I think the answer is really to try and understand these issues. They're complicated, but they're also getting deliberately misframed and misrepresented often, especially on the right, but sometimes not on the right. And I think it's really important for people to understand the importance of New York Times v. Sullivan, and to understand the grave threats facing journalists, especially at the local level right now, and the consequences that could have for our democracy. David Enrich Michael Graetz [https://law.yale.edu/michael-j-graetz] is professor emeritus at Columbia Law School and Yale Law School and a leading authority on tax politics and policy. He served in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy and is the author and coauthor of many books, including Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127897/death-by-a-thousand-cuts?srsltid=AfmBOoqsumUO_EbDLFUIgmAcykZe7DjzOGYc0C3Ln387rV66qDLUHTIW] and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right. His latest book is The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America [https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691225548/the-power-to-destroy?srsltid=AfmBOoppXWVlSaZlnnwAqyMYosSzGg1YXvxJok80NRh3zw7f2PLMTIaF]. I spent a lot of time asking people to name the most important political and social movements of the last half century. And no surprise, they named the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the LGBTQ movement, the Christian Evangelical movement, the MAGA movement lately, but no one ever mentioned the anti-tax movement. And unlike the other movements I've named, the anti-tax movement is really the only one that has not suffered a serious setback in the past half century. Michael Graetz The anti-tax movement has always relied on a false dichotomy between “us” (those who pay taxes) and “them” (those who receive government benefits). Michael Graetz The Democrats now don't want to tax 98% of the people and the Republicans don't want to tax 100% of the people and the question is: how do you get anywhere with those kinds of firm “no new taxes” pledges? And that's a problem. And I think it's a problem that the Democrats have fallen into basically based on the success of the Republicans antitax coalition. Michael Graetz You're going to see individuals' budgets pinched because the federal government refuses to treat its budget with any degree of seriousness. Michael Graetz The label they use to justify tax cuts for the rich and the corporate they call them the “job creators.” Well, that has not been proven at all. Ralph Nader Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230617612], and American Empire: Before the Fall [https://bookshop.org/books/american-empire-before-the-fall/9781452829531]. Certainly, the current Congress is not going to act without citizen involvement, pressure, clamoring that they do something to save the processes which are the heart and soul of our civilization as opposed to the law of the jungle. Bruce Fein News 3/19/25 1. The AP [https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-ceasefire-hostages-03-18-2025-0df87331efc6a7b1dfd99275f52868a5] reports that on Tuesday Israel broke the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, launching airstrikes that have killed over 400 Palestinians. These strikes, which have killed mostly women and children, are described as “open-ended and expected to expand.” This new offensive began the same day Prime Minister Netanyahu was scheduled to appear in court to provide testimony in his corruption trial; according to Israeli broadcaster KAN News [https://x.com/kann_news/status/1901857125501931787], Netanyahu used the surprise attack to annul this court date. 2. This new offensive endangers the lives of some two dozen Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. These hostages would have been released as part of the prisoner exchanges brokered through the ceasefire agreement. In order to dissuade further escalation, journalist Dimi Reider [https://x.com/reider/status/1901983273800061024] reports “Israeli hostage families are trying to make a human chain around Gaza to physically block a ground incursion.” This human chain includes prominent Israeli activist Einav Zangauker, whose son is still held in Gaza and who has made herself an implacable opponent of Netanyahu. 3. On the home front, a new round of state-backed repression is underway, targeted at pro-Palestine activists on college and university campuses. The Mahmoud Khalil case has received perhaps the most attention and with good reason. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. He has long been active in pro-Palestine organizing at the college, which White House officials have claimed make him a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.” The Trump administration has refused to honor Khalil’s Constitutional rights – including refusing to let him meet with his lawyer – and has admitted that they are persecuting him on the basis of political speech, a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment. A White House official explicitly told the Free Press [https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ice-detention-of-a-columbia-student], “The allegation…is not that he was breaking the law.” In addition to Khalil however, Columbia has taken the opportunity to expel, suspend and revoke the degrees of 22 students involved in the Hind’s Hall occupation last year, per the Middle East Eye [https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/feds-appear-columbia-second-time-week-while-university-capitualates-government-ultimatum-0]. This raft of penalizations includes the expulsion of Grant Miner, President of UAW Local 2710, which represents thousands of Columbia student workers. Per the UAW [https://uaw.org/in-shocking-move-columbia-university-fires-union-president-one-day-before-contract-negotiations-begin-in-further-crackdown-on-free-speech/], “the firing comes one day before contract negotiations were set to open with the University.” The timing of this expulsion is suspicious to say the least. 4. Yet, even in the face of such repression, pro-Palestine campus activism perseveres. Democracy Now! [https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/14/headlines/harvard_law_students_vote_to_divest_from_israeli_war_machine] reports that on March 14th, Harvard Law School students “overwhelmingly passed a referendum calling on Harvard to divest its more than $50 billion endowment from ‘weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine.’” The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee [https://x.com/HarvxrdPSC/status/1900396876991783112] adds that the referendum passed with approximately 73% of the vote, an unquestionably decisive margin. Even still, the university is unlikely to even consider adopting the resolution. 5. The resilience of student activists in the face of state-backed repression highlights the fecklessness of elected Democrats. The political leadership of New York for example has not mobilized to defend Mahmoud Khalil from authoritarian overreach by the federal government. Even locally, none of the current mayoral hopefuls – a rather underwhelming lot including the comically corrupt [https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/27/us/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-allegations-timeline/index.html] incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, infamous for killing thousands of seniors [https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/02/20/andrew-cuomo-faces-a-reckoning-for-a-pandemic-related-cover-up] via his Covid policies and for the pervasive culture of sexual harassment [https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/26/cuomo-sexual-harassment-doj-00138140] in his office – have forcefully spoken up for Khalil. That is except for Zohran Mamdani, the DSA-endorsed mayoral candidate steadily climbing in the polls thanks to his popular message [https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/zohran-mamdani-interview/] and well-crafted political ads [https://youtu.be/dQ8Dt5NtsNQ?si=c8m0qaWwHLsFF9x3]. His advocacy on behalf of Khalil seems to have won him the support [https://x.com/fareedi_kamran/status/1899229655992799279] of perhaps the most principled progressive in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, who likewise is leading [https://x.com/RepRashida/status/1899474793553875255] the meager Congressional effort to pressure the administration to rescind the disappearance of Khalil. 6. In light of their anemic response to Trump and Trumpism, Democratic discontent is reaching a boiling point. A flashpoint emerged last week when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer opted not to fight the Republican budget proposal and vote for cloture instead of shutting down the government. Democratic voters were so incensed by this decision that Schumer was forced to postpone his book tour [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/chuck-schumer-book-tour-backlash] and the Democratic Party registered its lowest ever approval ratings [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-party-hits-new-polling-low-voters-want-fight-trump-harder-rcna196161], with just seven percent of voters saying they have a “very positive” view of the party. As this debacle unfolded, House Democrats were at a retreat in Leesburg, Virginia where AOC “slammed…[Schumer’s]…decision to ‘completely roll over and give up on protecting the Constitution.’” One member told CNN [https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/13/politics/ocasio-cortez-schumer-democratic-shutdown-plan/index.html?cid=ios_app] Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrists were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate.” And Pass the Torch [https://www.passthetorchbiden.com/index.html#takeaction], the grassroots progressive group that called for President Biden withdraw from the 2024 campaign is now calling for Schumer to resign as minority leader, the Hill [https://thehill.com/homenews/5195068-grassroots-democratic-group-calls-for-schumer-to-resign-as-minority-leader/] reports. In their statement, the group writes “[Schumer’s] sole job is to fight MAGA’s fascist takeover of our democracy — instead, he’s directly enabling it. Americans desperately need a real opposition party to stand up to Trump.” 7. In the early evening on Tuesday March 18th, Trump unlawfully dismissed the two remaining Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission, POLITICO [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/18/trump-removes-democratic-members-federal-trade-commission-00237371] reports. One Commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, tweeted [https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1902105345545113607] “The President just illegally fired me.” Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was also ousted from her post. In her statement [https://bsky.app/profile/ddayen.bsky.social/post/3lkom2itjzc2h], she wrote that her dismissal violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent. Why? Because…[Trump] is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.” Trump similarly violated the law when he dismissed National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox who filed a lawsuit which prevailed in federal district court. POLITICO reports she returned to work last week. Biden’s superstar FTC Chair Lina Khan, already ousted by Trump, commented [https://x.com/linamkhan/status/1902144900008988811] “The @FTC must enforce the law without fear or favor. The administration's illegal attempt to fire Commissioners Slaughter & Bedoya is a disturbing sign that this FTC won't. It's a gift to corporate lawbreakers that squeeze American consumers, workers, and honest businesses.” On March 19th, Bedoya added [https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1902218890584653912] “Don’t worry…We are still commissioners. We’re suing to make that clear for everyone.” 8. Trump’s radical deregulatory agenda could not come at a worse time. Amid a streak of horrific aviation accidents and incidents [https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/accident_incidents], it now appears that Elon Musk is seeking to permanently worm his way into the Federal Aviation Administration. Forbes [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/03/13/elon-musk-hit-with-first-formal-conflict-of-interest-complaint-over-faa-starlink-deal/] reports that the Campaign Legal Center [https://campaignlegal.org/document/clc-complaint-inspector-general-regarding-musk-conflicts-interest-faa] has filed a legal complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Transportation Department alleging that Musk may have violated conflict of interest laws through his “involvement with a deal between the Federal Aviation Administration and his own company Starlink.” Per the Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/26/musk-starlink-doge-faa-verizon/], the FAA is “close to canceling” its existing $2.4 billion contract with Verizon in favor of working with Starlink, and according to the legal complaint, Musk “appears to have personally and substantially participated” in these negotiations. This matter will have to play out in court, but the risks are very real. As Representative Greg Casar [https://x.com/RepCasar/status/1901399060885479864] put it, “Musk is trying to make our air traffic control system ‘dependent’ on him by integrating his equipment, which has not gone through security and risk-management review. It's corruption. And it's dangerous.” 9. In more Musk news, President Trump has announced that he will institute a new rule classifying any attack on Tesla dealers as domestic terrorism, Reuters [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-will-buy-new-tesla-show-support-musk-2025-03-11/] reports. This comes in response to the peaceful, so-called “Tesla Takedown” protests, which urge participants to “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.” Any connection between the protests and isolated cases of vandalism against Teslas or Tesla dealerships is tenuous at most. Instead, this theatrical display of support for the auto manufacturer seems to be a response Tesla’s declining stock value. Reuters reports “Tesla's market capitalization has more than halved since hitting an all-time high of $1.5 trillion on December 17, erasing most of the gains the stock made after Musk-backed Trump won the U.S. election in November.” It seems unlikely that invoking the iron fist of the state against peaceful protestors will do much to buoy Tesla’s market position. 10. Finally, in a humiliating bit of tragic irony, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long maintained a personal brand as a crusader against junk food [https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/02/13/rfk-jr-food/], is being deployed by the Trump administration to boost the fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake. Ostensibly, the endorsement is predicated on the chain using beef tallow rather than seed oils to prepare their French fries – the company called it “RFK’ing the fries [https://x.com/SteaknShake/status/1899993339098705923]” – yet even that claim appears shaky. According to NBC [https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/steak-n-shake-rfkd-fries-became-maha-darling-rcna196201], “the chain’s move inspired some in the [Make America Healthy Again] world to look deeper… finding that [Steak ‘n Shake’s] fries were precooked in seed oils.” Nevertheless, RFK’s endorsement has been echoed by many others in Trump-world, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, Charlie Kirk, and others. NBC adds that in February, Tesla announced it had signed a deal to build charging stations at Steak ’n Shake locations. Funny how Musk’s fingers seem to appear in every pie, or in this case grasping at every tallow French fry. This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven’t Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]