Between The Lines - Melinda Tuhus: Jan. 26 protest to stop tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to Maine (Week Ending Feb. 8, 2013)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Portland, Maine Protest Opposes Plans to Pump Tar Sands Oil from Canada to New England, Largest to Date in Northeast

RealAudio MP3

Posted Jan. 30, 2013

Between The Lines Report recorded and produced by Melinda Tuhus

The Portland-Montreal Pipe Line Corporation says it has "no plans" to reverse the flow of an oil pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands oil to Portland, Maine’s harbor for export. But despite the company’s public denial, about a thousand Maine residents joined by activists from all over New England and Canada rallied on Saturday, Jan. 26 at Portland harbor to put their concerns about that very possibility "on the map." The action was supported by local and national environmental groups including 350.org, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment Maine and the Natural Resource Council of Maine.

There’s growing opposition to the extraction of tar sands oil, because it produces far more greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming than conventional production methods.

Enbridge, the Canadian company responsible for spilling almost a million gallons of tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010, has applied for a permit from the Canadian National Energy Board to reverse the flow of its Line 9 pipeline from Midwest U.S. states to Montreal, declaring it might transport "heavy crude" oil. Environmentalists fear that the pipeline will eventually bring tar sands from the province of Alberta in the west to Eastern Canada, where it could connect with an existing pipeline that runs from Montreal to Portland. That 236-mile long pipeline already has a presidential permit allowing it to cross an international border, but the permit makes no mention of tar sands. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus was in Portland during the Jan. 26 march and rally and files this report featuring some of the voices of protest activists. We first hear from Portlander Jason Wentworth, who came to the rally with his daughter by bike.

PROTESTERS: "We don't want your dirty oil, leave the tar sands in the soil!"

PROTESTER: We just took a tube that's about eight inches in diameter and made up a little sign that says No Tar Sands and mounted it on her bike stroller. It was actually her idea to do something like a pipe, and she was quite excited about riding in it. The cold has taken away a little bit of her excitement, but she's still into it. I'm here to be with the rest of the people here in support of a petroleum-free future, if you will, and the tar sands are a particular concern here in Maine because we've got a pipeline that ExxonMobil wants to use to bring them through to our port, and that pipeline is way too old to handle this kind of material, and if there were ever a leak, a spill, it could really cause a problem for our environment in Maine. So that's the immediate concern. And then the big concern is that my 5-year-old daughter needs to have a future; we won't have a future on this planet if we burn all the tar sands that are in Alberta.

MELINDA TUHUS: Dylan Voorhees works with the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

DYLAN VOORHEES: There's a 62-year-old pipeline that runs from here to Montreal, where it connects to more pipelines across Quebec and Ontario. Right now, it carries regular crude oil north and west, but Alberta is sitting on a mountain of tar sands buried under the forest and the soils, and they're digging it out and putting it in dump trucks the size of your house. The big oil companies want to get that tar sands out of Alberta to global energy markets, and that means getting it onto tankers, and the only thing standing in their way is....US! (crowd response). A lot of states, a lot of provinces, they're trying to get it down Keystone to the Gulf, they're trying to get it through British Columbia to the Pacific, and they want to try and send it through this pipeline and reverse the flow down to Portland. The pipeline company is still saying they don't have an "active plan" send it through Maine, just like I don't have an active plan for dinner tonight.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Emily Figdor is executive director of Environment Maine.

EMILY FIGDOR: The presidential permit allows them to transfer oil across an international border. But it says nothing - nothing - about tar sands oil, and that gives President Obama and his State Department, which is soon to be run by Sen. John Kerry - it gives the President and John Kerry the chance to require a new permit and a new environmental review. We all heard President Obama talk about climate change in his inaugural address; he spent more time on it than any other issue. He declared that failure to act would betray our children and future generations. This pipeline project, the tar sands fight - more broadly, keeping tar sands in the ground - that's at the core of the climate fight. But the only way President Obama can stick his neck out on this issue and require a new permit and a new process is if we all give him reason to do so that we speak out so loudly that he responds.

MELINDA TUHUS: Portland area Congresswoman Chellie Pingree made a vow to locals and out-of-staters at the rally.

CHELLIE PINGREE: Damaging storms like Katrina and Hurricane Sandy – and right here in Maine, where the lobsters shed six weeks earlier than normal – tells us the ocean is warming too fast – something that's going to cost us lives and jobs and our economic future and possibly the future of this earth. We have a lot of work to develop renewable energy; we have a lot of work to do to make sure we end our dependence on carbon fuels and offshore oil. Reversing the flow of the Portland pipeline so tar sands oil can be delivered to Portland harbor would pose serious environmental risks and I, on behalf of my constituents in Maine, am going to ask the Obama administration to do a full environmental review of any attempts to pump tar sands through that old pipeline.

MELINDA TUHUS: Jason Brown, a member of the Penobscot tribe of Maine, brought participants into a circle dance to end the rally, signifying, he said, that caring for the earth is everyone's responsibility.

MELINDA TUHUS: For Between the Lines, I'm Melinda Tuhus in Portland, Maine.

Find more information on the campaigns to stop the development and transport of tar sands oil by visiting the Natural Resources Council of Maine at nrcm.org.