Calling from a prison phone in Nebraska, Nicholas Ely joined his wife, Julie Montpetit, for an episode of Montpetit’s podcast, “More Than an Inmate’s Girlfriend,” which aims to destigmatize relationships like theirs. Afterwards, Montpetit lost all contact with her husband. Now, Ely is suing several employees in the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, alleging that he has faced unlawful retaliation for appearing on the podcast and that his constitutional rights, including his right to free speech, were violated. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Montpetit about losing contact with her husband and about the status of his lawsuit. 

Additional Links/Resources: 

• Sarah Gentzler, Flatwater Free Press, "A Nebraska inmate went on his girlfriend’s podcast. Then the prison cut off their contact"
• More Than an Inmate's Girlfriend (podcast), "What is 'More Than an Inmate's Girlfriend'?" 

Credits: 

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rattling-the-bars--4799829/support.

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

In the USA, so many Black parents have seen their children killed by police that, now, growing numbers of those same parents are building a grassroots movement for accountability and justice. On Oct. 14—the birthday of George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020—a coalition of parents, allies, and community organizations gathered in Washington, DC, for a rally to remember those who have been killed by the police and to hear from their loved ones who continue to fight in their name. TRNN reports on the ground from the rally in Union Square.

Studio Production / Post Production: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rattling-the-bars--4799829/support.

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

President Trump repeatedly promised that his mass deportation efforts would target “the worst of the worst” criminals, yet the government’s own data reveals that immigrants with no criminal record are the largest group in US immigration detention today. How can the Trump administration justify its deployment of federal agents, and even the military, to US cities based on the factually disprovable fictions that American cities are crime-ridden “war zones” overrun with criminal “illegal aliens”? To answer that, one must study the long-established precedent in the USA of overpolicing poor communities of color that are painted as inherently violent, chaotic, and crime-ridden. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with TRNN reporters Stephen Janis and Taya Graham about what the history of policing in America can teach us about Trump’s authoritarian deployment of law enforcement agencies today.

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

Eric King is a father, poet, activist, and anarchist who was imprisoned in 2014 for acts of solidarity with the Ferguson, MO, uprising in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown. While locked up, King endured years of documented physical and psychological torture, spending the last 18 months of his sentence in the ADX supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with King about how he survived his incarceration “with heart and soul intact,” and about King’s new book, A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon, in which he “opens the doors of America’s most secretive prison and lets the reader step into the cell to experience all the horrors the Federal Bureau of Prisons tries to keep hidden underground.”

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

There are two primary federal agencies tasked with immigration detention: ICE, which is well known, and the US Marshal Service. Under the Trump administration, the US Marshals have dramatically increased their role in detaining and incarcerating undocumented immigrants, using their federal power to override restrictions on immigrant detention in local jails around the country. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative, about how the Trump administration is weaponizing legal loopholes and the US Marshal Service to execute the mass incarceration of immigrants.

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

After years of pressure from community members and a coalition of over 80 organizations, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has announced plans to close the infamous California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, CA, by the fall of 2026. But organizers say this is just the beginning—they are fighting to close more prisons in California and prevent the government from re-opening shuttered facilities for immigrant detention. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Woods Ervin of the grassroots organization Critical Resistance about California's prison system and the growing abolitionist movement working to dismantle it.

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has halted the imminent closure of the infamous "Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp in Florida; now, the future of the facility, and the people incarcerated within it, remains in limbo. “But no matter the future of Alligator Alcatraz, the Trump administration is turning it into a model for expanding detention capacity across the country,” Shannon Heffernan and Beth Schwartzapfel report at The Marshall Project. “Similar large-scale facilities, opened in collaboration with state governments, are already in the works. These projects mark the first time that states have gotten this involved in large-scale immigration detention.” In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Heffernan about how the Trump administration, in collaboration with state governments, is expanding the US system of mass incarceration to unprecedented levels. 

For full show notes and transcript, click here.

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

The “We are all DC” march on Saturday, Sept. 6, was one of the largest protests—if not the largest—to take place in the US capital since the beginning of the second Trump administration. Thousands of local residents, out-of-state supporters, union members, and others marched through the streets of Washington, DC, to demand an end to President Trump’s militarized federal occupation of DC. But the march also brought together a cross-section of concerned citizens protesting the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and more. Reporting on the ground for TRNN, Rattling the Bars host Mansa Musa speaks with a range of organizers and attendees at Saturday’s march.

Additional links/info:

• Mansa Musa & Dave Zirin, The Real News Network, “‘We are all DC’: Massive protests rock US capital in defiance of Trump”
• Mansa Musa, The Real News Network, “DC residents rebel against Trump’s ‘gestapo takeover’ of US capital: ‘We don’t want a militarized city!’”
• Maximillian Alvarez & Mansa Musa, The Real News Network, “‘Crazy as hell!’ and ‘Distraction from Epstein’: Residents respond to Trump’s takeover of Washington, DC”

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Follow us on:
Bluesky: @therealnews.com
Facebook: The Real News Network
Twitter: @TheRealNews
YouTube: @therealnews
Instagram: @therealnewsnetwork

Become a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

On Saturday, Sept. 6, thousands of local residents, out-of-state supporters, union members, and concerned citizens of all stripes marched through the nation’s capital to protest President Trump’s militarized federal occupation of Washington, D.C. The “We are all D.C.” march was the largest protest to take place in the US capital since the beginning of the second Trump administration. Reporting from Malcolm X Park, Rattling the Bars host Mansa Musa and Edge of Sports TV host Dave Zirin give an on-the-ground account of the size, makeup, and significance of Saturday’s protest. 

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast

Established by the Black Guerrilla Family in San Quentin Prison in 1979, Black August is an annual commemoration of the struggle for Black liberation and a time to remember the freedom fighters who have passed or who remain locked up in prison. In 2025, as fascism rises in the US and around the globe, what can the radical tradition of Black August teach us about keeping the fight for freedom alive in dark times? In this on-the-ground edition of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with community organizers at a Black August event hosted by the Washington, DC, chapter of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM).

Additional links/info:

• Malcolm X Grassroots Movement website, Facebook page, and Instagram
• Mansa Musa & Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “George Jackson’s unfinished revolution”
• Mansa Musa, The Real News Network, “Black August and the fight to free political prisoners”
• Eddie Conway, The Real News Network, “Black August honors the legacy of militant rebellion”

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast


Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Donate to support this podcast