Massachusetts

Springfield Says “No” To Biomass Power Plant

September 5, 2020 Peter Goonan, Mass Live. Resist! Air Pollution, Biomass, Energy, Massachusetts

Springfield, MA - More than 75 people gathered on the steps of City Hall on Thursday calling for an end to a long-proposed biomass project in East Springfield, saying it is a threat to public health and an environmental hazard. Some of those speaking used he phrase “we can’t breathe” in expressing their strong opposition to the wood-to-energy plant proposed by Palmer Renewable Energy LLC at 1000 Page Blvd. Verne McArthur, of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, led the activists and residents in chants against the biomass project, including, “We will, we will, block you, block you.”

Koch Academic Influence Returns To Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank

August 25, 2020 By Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Higher Education, Koch Brothers, Massachusetts, Tufts University

When a new Massachusetts think tank housed at Tufts University launched earlier this year, Boston-based media described it as a “CBO-like center” (referring to the Congressional Budget Office) that would offer an “independent analysis” of proposed state policy and legislation. But one of the main funders of this think tank, called the Center for State Policy Analysis, is a program tied financially to the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. This apparent Koch-linked funding raises questions about just how independent the center’s policy analyses may be. Initial funding for this think tank, as CommonWealth reported, has come from one of the state’s largest private health insurance companies and from a program called Emergent Ventures, which is based at the Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Activists Camp At State House For Giving Undocumented Immigrants Driver’s Licenses

July 21, 2020 Lucas Phillips, Boston Globe. Resist! Essential worker, Immigrant Rights, License, Massachusetts

Two groups urging state legislators to include a provision that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses have been encamped outside the State House gates since Friday morning, according to organizers. “This will put pressure so all the legislators can hear us and pass this bill,” said Rolando Oliva, an organizer with Cosecha Massachusetts, in Spanish through a translator as he stood outside the State House late Sunday afternoon. “We have been trying to pass this for 15 years now.” The encampment Sunday afternoon included about 10 tents where activists have been sleeping during the night as part of the round-the-clock protest in support of the provision, which organizers say could be added to a racial justice bill currently under debate.

Boston May Day 2020 Car Rally

May 2, 2020 Yoav Elinevsky, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, Massachusetts, May Day, Recession, Sanctions

The Massachusetts Peace Action, MAPA, organized a car rally in Boston today to support national and international solidarity as the COVID-19 pandemic rages around the globe. More than 50 cars participated in the rally. The impact of the Corona-19 pandemic has been overwhelming in our country. It has been especially devastating for the poor and for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. At the same time, wealthy elites value their profits more than people's lives. Now is the time to imagine and act together for reorganizing society around the needs of all the people, especially of the poor and working people. We invite you to join us and magnify the potential impact of this message by distributing it and acting similarly locally and globally. Join us in support of the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres call to waive “the sanctions imposed on countries to ensure access to food, essential health supplies, and COVID-19 medical support.

United Steelworkers In Solidarity With The Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda

February 8, 2020 Staff, Workers.org Organize! Indigenous Peoples, Labor Unions, Massachusetts, Solidarity

Whereas, USW Local 8751 represents over 1,000 school bus drivers in Boston and Randolph, Mass., most of whose families are from Haiti, Cape Verde, Barbados, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Santo Domingo, Vietnam, Honduras, states of the U.S. South, homelands that experienced waves of successive enslavement, invasion and occupation since 1492 by armies from Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, Italy and the United States...

Massachusetts State Police Becomes First Agency To Test Out Robot Dog

December 9, 2019 Bill Galluccio, Jamn945.iheart.com Educate! Fascism, Massachusetts, Police, Repression, Robots, Technology

The Massachusetts State Police have been quietly testing Boston Dynamics' robot dog named Spot and took it out into the field on two separate occasions. Boston Dynamics has been leasing Spot to a variety of companies, though it does prohibit them from using the robot dog to harm or intimidate people. Spot comes equipped with 360-degree video capabilities and is capable of walking up a flight of stairs and traversing uneven terrain. It can also open doors, using a mechanical arm that extends from its head.

After Second Deadly Crash, Regulators Say Trucks Leaking Fracked Gas Cargo Are Fine

October 19, 2019 By Justin Nobel, Desmogblog.com Create! Fracking, Massachusetts, Pipelines, Regulation

Last Friday, October 11, a “Virtual Pipeline” truck carrying compressed natural gas crashed on a highway in Orange, Massachusetts, killing the driver, leaking the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, and leading local authorities to evacuate nearby residents. “Let me put this in perspective, if one of these trucks blew up in the right conditions, it could destroy a neighborhood,” said Bill Huston, director of a research and advocacy program called Terra Vigilate, and one of a small group of advocates raising awareness about the extreme risks of fire and explosion of Virtual Pipeline trucks.

FANG Collective Protests ICE And 287g Agreements In Plymouth And Bristol Counties, MA

April 16, 2019 Washingtonbabylon.com Resist! ICE, Immigration, Massachusetts, Protests, Undocumented

We just carried out two disruptions at Plymouth County’s annual 287g steering committee meeting in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 287g agreements allow police and ICE to collaborate, and contributes to the separation of families via detention and incarceration. We demand that Plymouth County end their 287g agreement with ICE!

Massachusetts Begins Round Two In Its Fight To Tax Millionaires

April 16, 2019 By Jen Wofford, Inequality.org Create! Massachusetts, Reform, Taxes

Activists in Massachusetts were disappointed when the state’s Supreme Court struck down a ballot initiative last year to increase taxes on millionaires. But they’re already gearing up for round two. Their second try for the Fair Share Amendment – also known as the millionaire’s tax – began with a legislative hearing Thursday. Two hundred people, led by the Raise Up Massachusetts Coalition, packed the statehouse for a hearing on the Fair Share Amendment. The proposal, first brought about as a citizen’s amendment that would have appeared on the 2018 ballot, would impose an additional 4 percent tax on incomes over 1 million. The resulting revenue would fund public education and transportation infrastructure.

MA – Mothers Out Front Launches “Beyond Gas” Campaign Team And 2-Year Campaign

April 11, 2019 Anne Wright, Mothersoutfront.org Resist! Gas, Massachusetts, Women

We started the Launch Meeting with a celebration of all that has been done in past years to limit the use of dangerous fracked gas, and to stop the build-out of gas infrastructure in Massachusetts. Attendees wrote our successes out on a timeline on the wall, and then added our visions for the future: the wins we hope to have in this two-year campaign. Members were hopeful that we would stop the Weymouth Compressor Station, join the fight in Western Mass.

Top Cannabis Regulator: Massachusetts Should Create State Public Bank

March 1, 2018 Staff, Publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Marijuana, Massachusetts, New Economy, Public Banks

Recreational pot sales are scheduled to begin in July in Massachusetts, and as yet, there are no banking services for the industry predicted to have $1 billion in sales by 2020. Cannabis Control Commission chairman Steve Hoffman said in the Boston Globe, “There’s a high degree of urgency, so it’s something we need to start talking about.” Hoffman suggests the state should consider creating a state-run bank. That adds Massachusetts to the list of states — including California and Ohio — considering Public Banking due to the urgent needs of the legalized marijuana industry. Hoffman continued: “Unfortunately, it’s a real possibility that the recreational industry won’t have access to any banking services. We’re working as hard as we can to preempt that, but we can’t force any bank or credit union to service this industry.”

Massachusetts, Protesters Balk At Pipeline Company’s Payments To Police

December 5, 2017 Eoin Higgins, huffingtonpost.com Resist! Massachusetts, Pipelines, Police, Protests

By Eoin Higgins for The Huffington Post - SANDISFIELD, Mass. ― When Karla Colon-Aponte arrived at the Otis State Forest on the morning of Oct. 25, she intended to join her fellow protesters praying beside energy giant Kinder Morgan’s Connecticut Expansion Project line, a four-mile-long natural gas pipeline that runs in a loop through the town of Sandisfield in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts. The Connecticut Expansion Project has been the focus of sustained activist resistance in this sleepy rural community ever since Kinder Morgan began work at the site in late April. The pipeline, which went into operation last month, links natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. The portion of the project in Sandisfield cuts through Berkshire wilderness, across old-growth forest and alongside waterways, which pipeline critics say could potentially damage the natural resources in the state forest. Colon-Aponte, 22, is Taina, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, and is part of a group known as the “water protectors,” who have traveled the country protesting energy infrastructure projects, using nonviolent resistance tactics to stop projects that they see as endangering water resources. The Massachusetts State Police, expecting trouble from the protesters, were already on site in force when Colon-Aponte arrived at the pipeline. The two sides converged on a dirt road as tensions began to rise with the early morning mist. It started as a faceoff between the protesters and the cops, but quickly escalated. As the police closed in, Colon-Aponte tried to move away from the front line.

22 Arrested By Massachusetts State Police At Protest Of Kinder Morgan Pipeline

August 7, 2017 Lucas Ropek, www.masslive.com Resist! Massachusetts, Pipelines, Protesters Arrested, Protests

By Lucas Ropek for Mass Live - SANDISFIELD - Twenty two people were arrested at a staged protest of the construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline extension in Sandisfield Saturday morning, police said. The "Connecticut Expansion," an extension of an already extant Kinder Morgan pipeline that will stretch four miles through Berkshire County's Otis state forest, has been the site of repeated protests during recent months, including a recent incident involving the arrest of 98-year-old Northampton peace activist Frances Crowe. Massachusetts State Troopers took the demonstrators into custody Saturday after they refused police orders to leave a restricted area of the construction, police said in a statement. The protesters were charged with trespassing, police said. Arrests have been a common occurrence during recent protests, with activists commonly trespassing onto pipeline property as an act of protest. Many protesters are members of the Sugar Shack Alliance, a Western Massachusetts affiliation of activists that pledges non-violent resistance to the fossil fuel industry. Police noted that the arrests were made "peacefully and without resistance," similar to other trespassing arrests that have occurred in the vicinity of the pipeline project during recent weeks.

Massachusetts Governor Signs Bill To Allow Recreational Pot

August 1, 2017 Reid Wilson, www.thehill.com Create! Legislation, Marijuana, Marijuana Legalization, Massachusetts

By Reid Wilson for The Hill - Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) has signed a new measure that sets in motion a nearly yearlong process to legalize marijuana for recreational use, after months of negotiations with the state legislature. The law comes nine months after voters in Massachusetts and three other states approved ballot measures to allow recreational marijuana. The first recreational pot shops are set to open in July 2018. “We appreciate the careful consideration the legislature took to balance input from lawmakers, educators, public safety officials and public health professionals, while honoring the will of the voters regarding the adult use of marijuana,” Baker said in a statement. The new legislation makes significant changes to the initiative Bay State voters passed last year, increasing sales taxes on legal marijuana from 12 percent to 20 percent. The state will levy a 17 percent tax, while municipalities will issue their own 3 percent tax. Massachusetts anticipates generating as much as $83 million in tax revenue from marijuana sales during the first year of legalization alone, the state Department of Revenue estimated earlier this year. Sales during the second year are expected to top out at more than $1 billion, generating tax revenue of up to $200 million.

SJC Rules Against ICE In Blockbuster Massachusetts Immigration Case

July 26, 2017 Chris Villani, www.bostonherald.com Resist! ICE, Immigration, Massachusetts

By Chris Villani for Boston Herald - Massachusetts court officers cannot hold a suspected illegal immigrant in custody at the request of federal immigration agents if there is no criminal warrant or criminal detainer, the state’s highest court today found today in a blockbuster ruling sure to send shockwaves through the Bay State's immigration enforcement system. "Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a Federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time that individual would otherwise be entitled to a release from State custody,” the unanimous Supreme Judicial Court ruling states. The case was brought to the SJC by a Cambodian national named Sreynuon Lunn who was in custody on a case out of Boston Municipal Court. Unable to post a $1,500 bail, Lunn was held until his trial date, Feb. 6 of this year, at which time the charges were dismissed when Suffolk prosecutors could not move forward with a trial. However, Judge Michael Coyne refused to release Lunn due to a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to court documents.

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