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Exclusive: Ravi Ragbir Speaks Out After Being Freed from “Unnecessarily Cruel” ICE Detention
On Monday, a federal judge in New York City ordered the immediate release of immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir from immigration jail, calling his detention “unnecessarily cruel.” In a decision read aloud from the bench, District Judge Katherine Forrest said Ragbir had “the freedom to say goodbye,” and compared his treatment to that of “regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away. We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it.” Ragbir is the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition. He’s one of a handful of high-profile immigrant rights activists who have been targeted by the Trump administration.

Ravi Ragbir of the New Sanctuary Coalition: I Was Detained Because of Our Immigration Activism
Last month, Ravi Ragbir was one of several nationally recognized activists to be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was handcuffed and arrested during his routine check-in on January 11, prompting a mass protest that ended with 18 arrested, including two members of the New York City Council. Ravi was then quickly flown by ICE, in shackles, to the Krome Detention Center in Florida. As he faced imminent deportation to his native Trinidad, public outcry grew. Then ICE informed his lawyers that he would be brought back to detention in the New York City area. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest said Ragbir’s detention was “unnecessarily cruel,” and ordered ICE to free him. But he still faces deportation.

Two Immigrants Detained in NJ While Taking Children to School; Third Seeks Sanctuary in Church
In New Jersey, immigrant rights advocates and faith leaders are speaking out against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for detaining multiple parents while they were taking their children to school. On Thursday, Roby Sanger was detained by ICE after dropping his two daughters off at school, while Gunawan Liem was detained after he dropped his daughter off at the school bus stop. Both men are Indonesian. A third man, also from Indonesia, Harry Pangemanan, has taken sanctuary at the Reformed Church of Highland Park in New Jersey, after he says he saw undercover ICE agents waiting outside his home as he was preparing to drive his daughter to school. All three are parents of U.S.-born children. For more, we speak with Seth Kaper-Dale, pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, where Harry Pangemanan has sought sanctuary.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

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“Unprecedented Level of Violence” in Heart of Kabul as Taliban Sends “Clear Message” to Trump
In Afghanistan, Islamic State militants have carried out an early-morning attack on a military academy in the western outskirts of the capital of Kabul, killing at least 11 troops and wounding 16. This marks the latest in a wave of deadly attacks this month. Monday was already declared a national day of mourning in Afghanistan, after a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives into the heart of the city on Saturday, killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235. One week earlier, Taliban militants killed 22 people at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. Last week, another six people were killed in an assault claimed by the Islamic State on the office of aid group Save the Children in the eastern city of Jalalabad. This comes as the United States has stepped up its assistance to Afghan security forces and its airstrikes against the Taliban and other militant groups.

With Larry Nassar Sentenced for Sexual Abuse of 160 Female Athletes, Many Now Ask: Who Else Knew?
Michigan’s attorney general has launched an investigation into Michigan State University, and the entire board of directors of USA Gymnastics is resigning, after team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison last week for sexually assaulting and abusing more than 160 young female athletes. Reporter Mark Alesia, part of the investigative team at The Indianapolis Star, which broke the story, discusses his latest story, “What’s next for USA Gymnastics? A long, tough road at best.”

“Are You a U.S. Citizen?”: Trump Could Sabotage the 2020 Census by Adding Controversial Question
The Trump administration says its request to add a question on citizenship status to the 2020 census is under legal review. Data from the once-a-decade census has major implications for shaping the political landscape. The population count is used to determine how congressional seats are distributed across the country and where hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent. Critics say that including a citizenship question on the census will deter undocumented residents from participating in the questionnaire out of fear that the government could use the information against them. Trump’s request to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census would “sabotage the entire census,” says Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones, and “massively depress responses among immigrant groups.”

“We’re Living in a Rigged System”: Ari Berman Says GOP Uses Gerrymandering to Stay in Power
Ari Berman, senior writer at Mother Jones and a reporting fellow at The Nation Institute, speaks about his new for piece for Rolling Stone titled “How the GOP Rigs Elections.” “We like to think in this country, if you get the most votes, you’re the winner. But that’s not how it works, because of gerrymandering right now,” Berman notes.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

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Women’s Rights Attorney Gloria Allred on Suing Donald Trump for Sexual Assault: “Truth Matters”
The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, has been surging with energy from the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement. It was at Sundance two decades ago that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein allegedly assaulted actress Rose McGowan. McGowan told The New York Times in October that Weinstein offered her $1 million in a hush money payment if she signed a nondisclosure agreement to not come forward with her charges that he raped her in a hotel room during the 1997 festival. Longtime women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred represents one of the women who have accused President Trump of sexual assault, and feature an excerpt from a new documentary on her life and path-breaking legal career, called “Seeing Allred.”

A Lifetime of Activism: Jane Fonda on Gender Violence, Indigenous Rights & Opposing War in Vietnam
Political activist, feminist and Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda gives an in-depth interview at the Sundance Film Festival, where she is the focus of a new documentary, “Jane Fonda in Five Acts.” As actresses in Hollywood are being recognized for speaking out in the Time’s Up movement, Fonda discusses how she has consistently challenged power, from opposing the war in Vietnam to organizing around civil rights and economic justice.

Actor & Musician Common on Erica Garner, Colin Kaepernick, DREAMers, Trump & Standing Up for Justice
Oscar-winning musician and actor Common was nominated again for an Oscar on Tuesday for his song “Stand Up for Something” from the film “Marshall” about former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Common is also starring in “The Tale,” a film about child sexual abuse. On Saturday, Common also performed at the Respect Rally in Park City. He discusses civil and voting rights, Colin Kaepernick, the late anti-police-brutality activist Erica Garner and President Trump.

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Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

MLK’s Radical Final Years: Civil Rights Leader Was Isolated After Taking On Capitalism & Vietnam War
Fifty years ago this April, Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old. Today’s show looks back at the last three years of King’s life, beginning after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Despite passage of the monumental legislation, King set his eyes on new battles by launching a Poor People’s Campaign and campaigning to stop the Vietnam War. King’s decision to publicly oppose the war isolated him from many of his closest supporters. Clips are featured from a new HBO documentary about King’s last years, titled “King in the Wilderness,” and speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch, who wrote the “America in the King Years” trilogy and is featured in the film, as well as the film’s director Peter Kunhardt and writer Trey Ellis.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

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Fantasy Novelist Ursula Le Guin, Who Explored Resistance & Change, Dies at Age 88
Celebrated fantasy novelist Ursula Le Guin has died at the age of 88. The feminist writer was the author of more than 20 novels, more than a dozen collections of poetry and another dozen children’s books. Among her most famous works was her 1969 novel “The Left Hand of Darkness,” which is set on a planet where people are “ambisexual”—neither male nor female—and contains one of the most famous sentences ever written in a fantasy novel: “The King was pregnant.” Ursula Le Guin’s 1974 novel “The Dispossessed” is also one of the most celebrated explorations of utopia, dystopia, capitalism, anarchism and oppression.

“Strong Island”: Trans Filmmaker Yance Ford Searches for Justice After His Brother’s Racist Murder
On Tuesday, Yance Ford became the first trans director to be nominated for an Academy Award. His film “Strong Island” is up for best documentary. Ford, who is African-American, chronicles what happened to his own family after his brother, William Ford Jr., was shot dead by a white mechanic in Long Island, New York, in 1992. The killer was questioned by police but never charged. “My brother’s case 25 years ago simply affirms what we are seeing now,” Ford says. “It doesn’t matter if you follow the rules. The justice system isn’t meant to work for people of color in this country.”

Alabama’s Hale County is Subject of Poetic Documentary on Blackness and Everyday Life in the Black Belt
Two weeks before he was assassinated 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. spent the night in Hale County, Alabama, in the heart of the Black Belt of Alabama. He came to Greensboro on March 21, 1968, in an effort to rally support for his Poor People’s Campaign. Supporters of King had to hide him in a small wooden house on the outskirts of Greensboro as members of the Ku Klux Klan tried to hunt him down. It would be the last time King was in Hale County, Alabama. Two weeks later, he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The safe house where King stayed is now a museum. Now Hale County is the subject of a new documentary: “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” The film just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and looks at life in the predominantly African-American county, which is named after a Confederate general. In the film, director RaMell Ross paints an impressionistic portrait of life in the Black Belt in the 21st century.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

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DuPont vs. the World: Chemical Giant Covered Up Health Risks of Teflon Contamination Across Globe
Three guests who personally battled with DuPont are featured in the new documentary called “The Devil We Know,” that looks at how former DuPont employees, residents and lawyers took on the chemical giant to expose the danger of the chemical C8, found in Teflon and countless household products—from stain- and water-resistant apparel to microwave popcorn bags to dental floss. The chemical has now been linked to six diseases, including testicular and kidney cancers. Bucky Bailey’s mother worked in the Teflon division of a DuPont plant in West Virginia while she was pregnant with him, and who was born with only one nostril and a deformed eye and has undergone more than 30 surgeries to fix the birth defects; Joe Kiger is lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against DuPont, and a school teacher in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who suffered from liver disease; Rob Bilott is the attorney that brought DuPont to court.

A Warning from the Center of the World: Pacific Nation Kiribati Is Disappearing as Sea Level Rises
At the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, former President Anote Tong speaks about his desperate efforts to save his small Pacific Island state of Kiribati from rising sea levels from global warming, as told in the new documentary “Anote’s Ark.” Kiribati is a collection of 33 coral atolls and reef islands located over 1,000 miles south of Hawaii and nearly 4,000 miles northeast of Australia. It is home to 100,000 people. Already, an entire village was inundated, and its residents forced to flee, as the sea wall broke into a freshwater pond. Tong predicts his country will become uninhabitable in 30 to 60 years as rising tides displace more and more people, wash away infrastructure, degrade fragile coral reefs and disrupt the remote island’s food supply.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and it’s shaping up to be an exciting, information-packed edition. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

Links to today’s show transcripts:

“The Year of Our Awakening”: Global Protests Mark Anniversary of Women’s March & Trump Inauguration
Hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets across the country this weekend to mark the first anniversary of last year’s historic Women’s March protesting President Trump’s inauguration. As Democracy Now! broadcast from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, protesters braved freezing temperatures and a snowstorm to take part in a Respect Rally.

Amy Goodman Questions Ruth Bader Ginsburg About #MeToo Movement at Sundance Film Festival
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was at Sundance for the premiere of the new documentary ”RGB” and spoke to Amy Goodman about the her thoughts on the #MeToo movement and the Women’s March. When Ginsburg argued before the Supreme Court the first time in 1972, she quoted Sarah Grimke, the noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women, who said, “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Goodman asked if this demand still stands.

“RBG”: New Documentary Celebrates Life of Groundbreaking Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
One of the most talked-about documentaries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival looks at the groundbreaking life of the nearly 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 2018 marks her 25th year on the court, and she has no plans to retire. Ginsburg first gained fame in the 1970s when she co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she argued six gender discrimination cases before the Supreme Court. In recent years, Ginsburg’s public profile has soared as the court has swerved to the right. Ginsburg often now finds herself on the dissenting side of opinions.

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and we expect to publish by the end of this month. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.

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As Shutdown Looms over Immigration, Trump’s Rejection of Refugees Could Have Global Domino Effect
As Senate Democrats say they’ll vote against a government spending bill that fails to protect DACA recipients, setting up a potential government shutdown, this segment looks at the worldwide refugee crisis. The United Nations Refugee Agency reports the number of displaced people worldwide has hit a record high, with more than 65 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. As the humanitarian crisis grows, the United States and many other nations are limiting immigration and closing their borders. During his first year in office, President Trump sought to ban all refugees and citizens of many majority-Muslim nations. When federal judges struck down multiple versions of the so-called Muslim travel bans, Trump then slashed the number of refugees who could be resettled in the United States this year, capping the number at 45,000—the lowest level in three decades.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Democratic Party Faces Reckoning for Purging Sanders Supporters
As President Trump completes his first year in office, activists in cities across the country will hold mass protests Saturday on the first anniversary of the historic Women’s March. This comes as a slew of lawmakers have joined members of the Black Congressional Caucus in backing a resolution to censure President Trump over his racist comments in which the president reportedly used an expletive to refer to African nations, El Salvador and Haiti. Several Democratic lawmakers say they will also skip the State of the Union address on January 30 over Trump’s racist remarks. Meanwhile, Trump himself denies being a racist, claiming on Sunday that he is “the least racist person.” Discussing Trump’s first year in office, the direction of the Democratic Party and where racial justice movements go from here is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University. She is the author of “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” and editor of a new collection of essays titled “How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.”

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on “How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective”
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor speaks about the new collection of essays she edited that is titled “How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.” Taylor is an assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University and the author of “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation.”

Eric is busily working on The Art of Becoming, the 2018 Planet Waves Annual; and we expect to publish by the end of this month. You can pre-order all 12 chapter-length signs here, or you may choose your individual signs here.