On The Line: Tar Sands Blocade v. Line 9 plus: Cecily McMillan and the Politics of Prison

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Wed, 05/21/2014 - 10:00am to 10:15am
Interviews with Cecicly MacMillan supporters and Tar Sands Blocade activists

 


1. A group of Burlington, Ontario  area residents have blockaded the access road to an exposed section of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline, beginning at 7am this morning. They say they will stay for at least twelve hours, one hour for every thousand anomalies Enbridge has reported to exist on the line. These community members turned away Enbridge employees who were scheduled to do work on Line 9 in preparation for it to carry toxic diluted bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands. This particular work site is adjacent to the Bronte creek, a major waterway flowing to Lake Ontario, the water source for more than ten million people.
http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/

 

 


The Justice Dept. accidentally imports an eloquent anti-prison activist into Rikers Island...

2,Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that "Occupy Activist Cecily McMillan Sentenced to Three Months in Jail." Chris Hedges writes: "McMillan says Grantley Bovell, who was in plainclothes and did not identify himself as a police officer, grabbed her from behind during a March 17, 2012, gathering of several hundred Occupy activists in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. In a video of the incident she appears to have instinctively elbowed him in the face, but she says she has no memory of what happened. Video and photographs -- mostly not permitted by the trial judge to be shown in the courtroom -- buttressed her version of events. There is no dispute that she was severely beaten by police and taken from the park to a hospital where she was handcuffed to a bed. ...
http://justiceforcecily.com/

 
3,  AP reports: "European bank Credit Suisse AG pleaded guilty Monday to helping wealthy Americans avoid paying taxes through secret offshore accounts and agreed to pay about $2.6 billion to the U.S. government and regulators. ...
"Attorney General Eric Holder, who was criticized last year after telling Congress that large banks had become hard to prosecute, appeared to foreshadow the guilty plea in a video message earlier this month in which he said no financial institution was 'too big to jail.'"
 
 
4, A rare moment occurred yesterday on an episode of Showtime's "Years of Living Dangerously": an Exec. of a major company admitted a link between fracking and runaway, catastrophic climate change.
Though he didn't put it in those terms, Southwestern Energy's Mark Boling -- SW being the 5th biggest producer of fracked gas in the U.S. -- conceded his industry has a major methane problem. And as the episode makes clear, the so-called solution to that problem is akin to greenwashing, with the industry now pushing for "green completions" of fracked wells.
 
 
5, A Weby win in the Oregon senate rpimary race.  A   Mitch McConnell win over a slightly unhinged Tea Party animal.
 
6,  Residents in a southwest Oregon county voted emphatically to ban genetically engineered crops following a campaign that attracted a bushel of out-of-state money.
With most of the ballots counted in Tuesday's all-mail election, Jackson County voters approved the measure by a 2-to-1 margin. A similar, lower-profile measure in neighboring Josephine County led 58 percent to 42 percent with nearly two-thirds of expected ballots counted.
 
 
7,  Portland voters soundly rejected a proposal to take the management of water and sewers away from the City Council.
A group of ratepayer advocates blamed city leaders for skyrocketing bills, and sought to install an elected board of seven unpaid representatives to oversee the city's water, sewer and storm-water systems.
But voters were not swayed, defeating the measure by about a 3-to-1 margin.
The City Council plans to OK another billing increase on Thursday. That will take the average charge to $94.79 a month, 64 percent higher than a bill a decade ago.

 

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