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Aquatic ‘First Responders’ Form Mosquito Fleet To Halt Climate Change & Shell Oil

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

After years of marches and land-based blockades, environmental activists are now taking to the seas to stop the growth of the fossil fuel industry and protest the environmental threats facing them.

Inspired by actions last year against Shell Oil Co.’s plans to drill in the Arctic Circle, which included a kayak-based blockade, activists in the Pacific Northwest are forming a new “Mosquito Fleet” — a swarm of tiny boats that they hope will have a big impact by acting together.

Lois Canright, a fleet member who recently completed her first action, told MintPress News, “To me, the most important thing that I can do for me and everyone on this planet is to try and lower emissions down and to try to throw some wrenches into the fossil fuel infrastructure, especially because they’re trying to expand it in our region.”

The fleet took to the waters earlier this month, joining an effort by Break Free PNW to halt traffic from major fossil fuel export terminals operated by Shell Oil and Tesoro, another fossil fuel giant, at March Point in Anacortes, Washington, on the Puget Sound in the Salish Sea.

New Law Could Empower Disabled To Live Independent Lives

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and Truthout

“A good 75 percent of us were arrested on the first day,” says disability rights activist Danny Saenz, laughing as he recalls a direct action he was part of in the early 1990s, soon after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Saenz and other activists with disabilities had traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the annual convention of the American Health Care Association, the most powerful nursing home lobbying group in the country.

“We went to their hotel and we took it over, and the whole bunch of us were rounded up and we spent three days in jail,” he told Truthout.

Saenz has been a member of the disability rights group ADAPT for over 25 years, and that day in Florida was just one of many times he’s been arrested while protesting for civil rights, often after having chained his wheelchair to other activists.

In our interview, Saenz — from Austin, Texas — is genial and soft-spoken, but he says that at protests, he and his allies are anything but quiet. “Our chant as we were fixing to get arrested was ‘We’d rather go to jail than die in a nursing home,'” he said.

More than two decades after that protest, hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities are still in nursing homes, where their movement may be highly restricted, even when they could be living more independent lives with the right support from their communities.

Come To Guantanamo & See The Iguanas: Snowden Files Offer Glimpse Inside NSA Culture

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Water skiing in the morning, supervising the torture of a prisoner of the global war on terror in the afternoon — that’s just a typical day for National Security Agency personnel.

That’s one of the many glimpses of National Security Agency life found in newly released documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks, which reveal the NSA’s intimate involvement with Guantanamo Bay interrogations and the Iraq War, as well as the dramatically increased demand for intelligence after 9/11.

On May 16, The Intercept released 166 new documents from the thousands leaked by Snowden, comprising a partial archive of an internal electronic newsletter called SIDtoday.

In an introduction to the release, Peter Maass describes the publication as resembling a “small-town newsletter” for the Signals Intelligence Directorate, one of the most important departments within the NSA. SIDtoday opens a window into the NSA’s internal corporate culture, and because they were written purely for NSA employees, the documents include some surprisingly candid disclosures about employees’ actions around the world from an underground bunker in Belgium to Guantanamo Bay and the Middle East.

Inside The Fight To Protect Face-To-Face Visitation For Prisoners

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and The Establishment

When you’re behind bars, “there’s something psychologically uplifting about knowing someone is coming to visit you,” Jorge Renaud explained.

Renaud is an organizer with Grassroots Leadership and Texas Advocates for Justice who spoke with me by phone from Austin, Texas. He told me that unless you’ve been incarcerated, you can’t understand the emotional impact of a visit from a friend or loved one. His voice vibrated with emotion as he recalled those desperately needed visits, his tone expressing more than words could say.

This crucial connection with the outside world is endangered around the country, as more and more prisons and jails install video visitation systems. While the technology theoretically offers a new way to connect with prisoners—for those who can afford it—jails across the nation are also doing away with in-person visitation entirely, in favor of relying exclusively on these video visitations.

Maryland’s Green Party Senate Candidate Says It’s Time To ‘Build A Political Alternative’

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

A pediatrician and activist from Maryland who’s running for the U.S. Senate says it’s time for Americans to demand a voice in government.

“This seems like a really important time to start to build a political alternative that’s the opposite of what the two corporate parties are,” Margaret Flowers told MintPress News.

In January, a Gallup poll showed that fewer Americans identify with either major political party than at almost any other time in history. And voters seem increasingly interested in third-party candidates, with Google searches for both Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party seeing a marked increase in recent months.

“The Democratic and Republican parties are dying. They’re at the smallest stage that they’ve ever been and the majority of people are rejecting them, becoming independent or becoming members of other parties,” Flowers, who also occasionally contributes analysis and reporting to MintPress, said.

UPDATE: Uber & Lyft Cease Operations In Austin After Voters Reject Record-Breaking Electoral Campaign

Posted in Archive, Austin, Journalism, and MintPress News

Two big corporations with almost limitless bank accounts are bent on circumventing local law by buying a municipal election, according to their opponents.

Facing new regulations from the Austin City Council, Uber and Lyft, the popular ride-booking apps, brought the battle to the ballot box, launching a campaign to pass Proposition 1. Both drivers and paid petitioners canvassed widely for the issue last year, collecting thousands of signatures in order to trigger the election.

Based on the most recent electoral filings, Uber and Lyft have sunk over $8 million into Ridesharing Works For Austin, their joint PAC urging voters to vote in favor of Prop 1, the sole item on the ballot in the special election. By contrast, two smaller PACs opposed to the resolution, Our City Our Safety Our Choice PAC and Austin Unites, have raised less than $100,000 combined.

The election comes after months of negotiations between the City Council and the corporations, according toDelia Garza, a City Council member from Austin’s District 2. “Every time we tried to solve an issue they’d bring up, they’d move the ball,” she told MintPress News.