Government

First ‘Clean Coal’ Plant Is Backdoor Subsidy To Oil

April 4, 2015 David Roberts, www.grist.org Educate! Capitalism, Environment, Government, Oil & Gas

The Boundary Dam Power Station, located just north of the North Dakota border, is the province’s oldest and largest coal-fired power plant. Its first boiler was commissioned in 1959. Boilers have been added and decommissioned over the years; there are now six, four of which are active. It is owned and run by SaskPower, the province’s principal utility. (A vertically integrated monopoly utility, for those keeping score at home.) In 2008, the provincial government announced the Boundary Dam CCS project, whereby one of the station’s boilers (No. 3) would be replaced with a modern 160-megawatt boiler and coupled with a facility that would capture and store up to 90 percent of the boiler’s CO2 emissions.

The Plan Behind The TPP To Destroy National Sovereignty

March 18, 2015 Curtis Ellis, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Democracy, Government, Nationalism, Politics, TPP

The TransPacific Partnership is labelled as a "free trade" magic elixir that will cure all ills - Jobs! Prosperity! World Peace! - but in fact it's a toxic brew that weakens the American body politic and the Constitution. And when you look at how it came about you see that those are design features, not bugs. The historical record is clear: what are misleadingly called "free trade agreements" were never really about trade. Their goal is to render independent nation states null and void, and hand power over to unaccountable, transnational corporatist authorities. This sounds like a plot lifted from a Bond supervillain, yet it is precisely what a powerful State Department official told a Congressional hearing in 1967. And much of what he laid out nearly 50 years ago has come to pass under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The Most Dangerous Woman In America

March 17, 2015 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Elections, Government, Politics, Seattle, Socialism

Kshama Sawant, the socialist on the City Council, is up for re-election this year. Since joining the council in January of 2014 she has helped push through a gradual raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Seattle. She has expanded funding for social services and blocked, along with housing advocates, an attempt by the Seattle Housing Authority to allow a rent increase of up to 400 percent. She has successfully lobbied for city money to support tent encampments and is fighting for an excise tax on millionaires. And for this she has become the bête noire of the Establishment, especially the Democratic Party. The corporate powers, from Seattle’s mayor to the Chamber of Commerce and the area’s Democratic Party, are determined she be defeated, and these local corporate elites have the national elites behind them.

Bratton Wants 350 More NYPD To Fight ISIS Threat

March 16, 2015 CBS, www.newyork.cbslocal.com Resist! Government, New York City (NYC), NYPD, police brutality

Protesters made a scene inside the City Council chamber on Thursday, voicing their displeasure with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton’s request for money to hire more officers. On the very day that the Bratton finally admitted he needs more cops, a small group of dissidents hid themselves around the chamber to systematically interrupt him and shout him down, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported. It started small, with one woman screaming “It’s a lie!” in the direction of Commissioner Bratton as he started testifying about the NYPD budget. Then about half a dozen individual protesters stood up, one at a time, to attack the NYPD’s so-called “broken window” policy of arresting people for low-level crimes.

Large Anti-Water Charge Protests Across Ireland

February 1, 2015 Staff, www.thejournal.ie Resist! Government, Human Rights, Ireland, Water

TheJournal.ie was out on the streets of Dublin asking people why they were marching today. Lorraine from Tallaght, who was walking on crutches said that people have had enough with the current government. “They have tried to blacken protesters as they have nothing else on us. We are just normal people, everyday people, who are saying no more. We are in debt, we are losing our homes, people are taking their lives, and enough is enough. We won’t take it,” she said. “Every age group is here, it is a peaceful protest,” she added. John from Finglas said that the slogan today is “No way, we won’t pay”. He said that he is broken by the taxes he has to pay, but said while he has no problem paying his taxes, this one is just “too far”. He said that the government are “shooting themselves in the foot” by not listening to the people, but said that message will be delivered to them “loud and clear” at the ballot boxes.

2014: Stingrays Go Mainstream

January 3, 2015 Hanni Fakhoury, www.eff.org Educate! Government, NSA, Surveillance

We've long worried about the government's use of IMSI catchers or cell site simulators. Commonly known as a "Stingray" after a specific device manufactured by the Harris Corporation, IMSI catchers masquerade as a legitimate cell phone tower, tricking phones nearby to connect to the device in order to track a phone's location in real time. We’re not just worried about how invasive these devices can be but also that the government has been less than forthright with judges about how and when they use IMSI catchers. This year the public learned just how desperately law enforcement wanted to keep details about Stingrays secret thanks to a flurry of public records act requests by news organizations across the country. The results are shocking.

Who Is In Charge Police Or Local Government

December 25, 2014 Scott Jay, www.libcom.org Educate! Government, Law, Police, Politics

The view that most in the US hold of the police, even many critics of police misconduct, is that they are ultimately accountable to the leadership of the city in which they operate. The mayor is the democratically elected chief executive and the police are committed to following their orders. Since city leaders typically defend and excuse police misconduct, the responsibility seems to rest with City Hall. However, police actions against Occupy Oakland, along with longstanding issues of police accountability during a decade-long negotiated settlement, show how little control Oakland City Hall has over its own police force. While long simmering disagreements between the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and Oakland City Hall have often been papered over by pubic relations efforts, they have come to the surface during several contentious moments over the years.

Workers At US Capitol Strike For Living Wage

November 15, 2014 John Clarke, www.reuters.com Organize! Government, Labor Unions, usa

Hundreds of striking federal contract workers, including for the first time some from the U.S. Capitol, rallied on Thursday to urge President Barack Obama to boost pay and spur unionization. About 800 striking workers and supporters, including members of Congress, gathered at the Capitol after a march through Washington streets led by a brass band. The one-day strike by federal contract workers was the 10th organized by the Good Jobs Nation campaign for better pay and benefits since May 2013. "For the first time in history, workers are on strike at the United States Capitol," rally organizer Joseph Geervarghese told the cheering crowd.

Pay to Prey: Governors Facilitate Predatory Privatization Of Services

October 16, 2014 Source Watch, www.sourcewatch.org Educate! Government, Neo-Liberalism, Privatization

Maggots, drug smuggling, sex with inmates. As if the news were not already bad enough, shocking new allegations of a murder-for-hire plot are emerging from Michigan as the media digs deeper into that state’s failed outsourcing of prison services. In 2013, Governor Rick Snyder invited the Philadelphia- based for-profit company Aramark to take over food services in the state’s prisons. The action was a 180-degree change in course, as the administration previously rejected all such bids on the grounds that none of the proposals would save the state money. The $570,000 Aramark spent on lobbying surely helped the company persuade the administration to change its mind.

Santa Ana Mayor Cancels Meeting After Battle With Activists

October 11, 2014 Adam Elmahrek, www.voiceofoc.org Resist! California, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Law, police brutality

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido called off Tuesday night’s City Council meeting after a chaotic confrontation over free speech and decorum that began when the mayor ordered the council chambers cleared because a man would not abide by his order to remove a hat with an obscene statement directed at police. The man, a 22-year-old member of an activist group called CopWatch Santa Ana and who goes by the name Bijan, was sitting in the nearly packed chambers wearing a hat with the words “Fuck the Police.” Before the public portion of the meeting began, Pulido ordered Bijan to remove the hat or leave, declaring the hat a threat to decorum. When Bijan ignored the order, Pulido directed everyone in the council chambers to leave. But a group of approximately 20 residents also refused to go and said the mayor was trying to shut down free speech.

Privatization Fails, Will We Learn Government Can Do Better

October 10, 2014 Dan Carpenter, www.nuvo.net Educate! Government, Indiana, Privatization, Public

The money from the Indianapolis water-sewer utility sale is gone, and rates are going up, as the city told us would happen, sale or no sale. The money from the Indianapolis parking meter sale is gone, and rates have risen and billable hours have lengthened, with the collections flowing past city coffers to an outfit in Texas. The money from the Indiana Toll Road lease is gone, and now the foreign consortium running it has declared bankruptcy, ominously struggling against low use combined with raised tolls and much-criticized service. The spectacular failure of IBM’s takeover of welfare eligibility determination, a fiasco that wrought untold suffering upon the poor, disabled and elderly, has the state before the Indiana Supreme Court trying to scratch back tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Disability Community Rejects Appointee Who Supports Subminimum Wage And Segregated Housing

October 9, 2014 Center for Disability Rights, www.cdrnys.org Organize! Disabilities, Government, Housing, Law

The Center for Disability Rights is deeply concerned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has appointed Bob Brown, a proponent of subminimum wage and segregated housing, to serve on the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency charged with advising the President, Congress, and other federal agencies regarding policies, programs, practices, and procedures that affect people with disabilities. While NCD appointees have previously been appointed by the President, a new provision in the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act allows four Council Members whose terms are about to expire to be replaced by appointments made by the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and the House Minority Leader. NCD’s membership will also be reduced from fifteen to nine as the next six Council members will not be replaced when their terms expire.

Protesters Condemn Senators’ Israel Support

October 7, 2014 Clifford Michel, www.capitalnewyork.com Resist! Direct Action, Government, Israel, Palestine, US

Approximately 50 demonstrators gathered outside the offices of U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer Monday morning to condemn the officials' support for Israel. The protesters called on Congress to end military aid to the Israel Defense Forces through enforcement of the Leahy Law, a human rights law that prevents the United States from aiding foreign militaries that commit war crimes. “Senator Schumer has repeatedly supported Israeli government aggression against the Palestinian people, including the latest assault on the Palestinians of Gaza,” said Candace Graff from Jewish Voices for Peace-NY.

Why Protesters Code Pink Stay Out Of Jail

October 1, 2014 Daniel Nasaw, www.bbc.com Strategize! Government, Law, Protest, Wars and Militarism

Benjamin says that the activists launch their actions knowing full well they face arrest - and that knowledge frees her psychologically, for example, to berate the president of the United States for authorising drone strikes in Yemen before an international television audience. "We don't like getting arrested - it takes time and it's expensive and takes lawyers," she said. "But we've been arrested dozens of times." Benjamin has also been denied entry into Canada and Egypt, where she says an Egyptian policeman fractured her shoulder attempting to force her onto a plane out of the country. But in Washington, the Capitol complex and committee hearings are by law and democratic tradition open to the public unless secret intelligence matters are being discussed.

Corporations Causing Climate Change Should Be Taken Over

September 30, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Climate Change, Democracy, Energy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Green party

The richest 1% own the two major parties. It's time working people had one of our own. That's why I'm running for Governor. My name is Howie Hawkins. I'm a working Teamster and my running mate, Brian Jones, is a teacher and union member. New York has the greatest income inequality in the country -- and it has gotten worse under Governor Cuomo's tax breaks for the rich and spending cuts for the rest of us. Our schools are the most segregated in the nation. Poverty is on the rise in cities across the state. It doesn't have to be this way. We can create an economy that meets human needs and protects our planet. (read more: http://www.howiehawkins.org/)

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