Democracy Now!
Fri Feb 10, 2017
Headlines
Stories
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In a major victory for civil rights advocates, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously refused to reinstate Donald Trump’s executive order that banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States and sparked nationwide protests. The judges ruled that the administration "has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States." Trump has vowed to appeal the case, possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court. We get reaction from Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "It is the veracity of the administration that is at stake," Warren says.
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On Thursday, President Trump signed three new executive orders addressing crime and immigration. One seeks to increase penalties on those found guilty of assaulting police officers. A second order directs law enforcement agencies to increase intelligence sharing while going after drug cartels. A third order directs Attorney General Sessions to prioritize fighting "illegal immigration" alongside drug trafficking and violent crime. This is "the beginnings of what we are calling a blue lives matter regime," explains our guest, Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
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We are joined from Phoenix by Aarón Rayos, the husband of a mother of two U.S.-born children who is at the center of an immigration fight in Arizona and has been deported to Mexico. Guadalupe García de Rayos was arrested and detained Wednesday during a routine check-in with immigration officials. She had been living in the United States for the past 21 years, but had been arrested in 2008 during a raid on a water park in Maricopa County and convicted of a felony for using forged documents in order to get a job. Advocates say her arrest signals a clear shift by the Trump administration to deport people considered a "low priority" for removal under President Obama. We also speak with Francisca Porchas, organizing director of Puente Arizona.
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As the nonexistent terrorist attack manufactured by Donald Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway makes headlines, we look at an actual threat by an extremist in Bowling Green, Ohio. In 2012, an FBI raid uncovered a full arsenal of assault rifles, firearms, body armor and ammunition amassed by the suspect, who prosecutors later determined was planning to carry out mass killings. But the suspect is not a radical Muslim. He is white supremacist Richard Schmidt, who federal authorities say was planning targeted attacks on African Americans and Jews. Investigators found a list of names and addresses of people to be assassinated, including the leaders of NAACP chapters in Michigan and Ohio. Schmidt was sentenced to less than six years in prison after a federal judge said prosecutors had failed to adequately establish that he was a political terrorist. He is scheduled for release in February 2018. His case isn’t the only one involving terror threats by a white supremacist that received little coverage by mainstream media. On Monday, the trial of Christian minister Robert Doggart began in Tennessee federal district court. Undercover FBI agents allege that Doggart was plotting to travel to upstate New York to kill Muslims there, using explosives, an M-4 assault rifle and a machete. According to a federal investigation, Doggart saw himself as a religious "warrior" and wanted to kill Muslims to show his commitment to his Christian god. We speak with ProPublica’s A.C. Thompson, whose recent article is "When the Government Really Did Fear a Bowling Green Massacre—From a White Supremacist," and with Dean Obeidallah, a columnist for The Daily Beast writing about the Doggart case.
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Full Show
Web Exclusive
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Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds, who worked with Coretta Scott King on her memoir, recalls why King opposed Jeff Sessions.
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We look at an actual threat from a white extremist in Bowling Green, Ohio, and at the ongoing trial of a Christian minister for plotting to kill Muslims.
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