Between The Lines - Cassady Sharp: Broad coalition of environmental groups working to stop oil drilling in the Arctic (Week Ending April 10, 2015)

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.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

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.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Broad Coalition of Environmental Groups Working to Stop Oil Drilling in the Arctic

Posted April 1, 2015

Interview with Cassady Sharp, media officer with Greenpeace USA, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Many environmental activists believe President Obama has been schizophrenic in his approach to climate change, calling for reductions in carbon pollution from vehicles and power plants on one hand, and on the other, calling for an "all of the above" energy strategy that includes massive exploitation of oil and gas.

A similar pattern can be seen in the White House policy towards the Arctic, where Obama has called for protection of certain areas while allowing drilling for oil in others. Over the next 30 days, the U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will perform an environmental assessment of the Shell Oil company’s plan to drill for oil in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea, which is rich in both oil reserves and wildlife diversity.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Cassady Sharp, media officer with Greenpeace USA, the group which is leading a campaign to stop all drilling in the Arctic. She maintains that research has shown that if all recoverable oil using current technology were to be extracted from the entire Arctic region, not just in the U.S., it would provide just five years of oil supply to U.S. consumers at current rates. Here, she discusses the coalition of groups that are fighting to stop oil drilling in the Arctic’s pristine ecosystem, which are now accessible for drilling in many new areas due to global warming having opened up the frozen seas.

CASSADY SHARP: What President Obama and his administration basically did was protect parts of the Arctic on Sunday and then turn around and auction it off to the highest bidder on Tuesday. President Obama had protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which then Congress has to approve, so protected 9.8 million acres of the Arctic Ocean – which seems like quite a lot and we were very happy to hear that, as were other environmental organizations. However, a couple days later, he also opened up several Atlantic coast drilling leases and also opened up major parts of the Alaskan Arctic to drilling as well. You can't really protect some parts of the Arctic and then open up other parts for drilling, because those paper boundaries are not going to stop wildlife from wandering in to drilling spots.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What can President Obama do without Congress to protect the Arctic? Like, can he declare some or all of the Arctic seas that are part of U.S. territory to be a marine sanctuary with no drilling allowed?

CASSADY SHARP: So, President Obama right now and his administration – and that includes the Department of the Interior and Interior Secretary Sally Jewel, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is an agency of the Department of the Interior – all the decisions on whether or not to allow oil companies to drill there really rests on them. Congress does not have a lot of power there at all. So what they can do, any minute now, is they could choose to cancel Shell's lease to drill in the Chukchi Sea. That would be a major step forward, not only to send a message to companies like Shell that these projects can't go forward if we're to avoid catastrophic climate change, but it would mean a lot that the half a million comments that were sent in to the administration to cancel these leases were actually listened to.

Just this week, the U.S. plans to submit a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions up to nearly 30 percent as part of the global treaty leading up to the Paris climate talks. So if he does that this week, that's great news. But then in the same week to approve a company like Shell to go and drill in the Arctic, which would not only lead to a devastating oil spill, but global scientists have also said we cannot burn Arctic oil if we're going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. So this is something he actually can do is say no to Shell. He can certainly do things like protect the ANWR, but that typically goes through Congress to approve, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski is not wild about that protection. She is the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the Senate.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So Shell has had several disastrous attempts to drill in the Arctic, and they want to try again. Any other oil companies following suit?

CASSADY SHARP: Shell is the only company that has plans to drill, that has openly said they want to drill and act on the leases they have bought. Other companies are waiting to see. They are basically the guinea pigs to go up there. They're waiting to see if they (Shell) are successful. When they went to drill in 2012, it was disaster after disaster after disaster. Two of their rigs nearly ran aground. The Kolluk did run aground, which is one of their rigs that they used in 2012, so they really are the only company that's acting on any of their leases. They've spent more than $6 billion so far on the Arctic drilling project with really nothing to show for it.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I've heard this effort to stop Arctic drilling described like the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, that if it's approved it will be game over for the climate. Is Greenpeace part of any coalition that's fighting Arctic drilling in various ways, beyond just having your boats following Shell around the Arctic?

CASSADY SHARP: Yeah, that's actually the most exciting part and we saw this happen with Keystone, which is why Arctic drilling is poised to become the next Keystone moment, not just from a symbolic standpoint but from a standpoint that this project cannot go forward, and we see tons of organizations really taking this issue and prioritizing it. So just this year, for instance, Greenpeace has joined Sierra Club, Alaska Wilderness League, Oceana, Credo, Avaaz, the list goes on, to submit more than half a million comments asking the Obama administration to cancel these leases.

But where we're really seeing a lot of excitement now, too, is in Seattle, where the Port Commission of Seattle ended up signing a lease with Shell to house their Arctic drilling fleet – which we like to call the Arctic Destroyers – to stay at Terminal 5 in Seattle. So we're seeing an amazing movement in Seattle right now, tons of groups – labor groups, environmental groups – saying, not only do we not want Shell's drilling fleet in Seattle (they signed a two-year lease), we are opposed to Arctic drilling completely. And so there's a lot of local groups joining national groups and global groups like Greenpeace and 350.org and Rising Tide and some other local groups that focus on accountability of the Port Commission to really stand up to that lease and to say, "We don't want Shell here" and we don't want Arctic drilling to go forward. So we're working on multiple fronts right now. We have our ship, the Esperanza, in the Pacific Ocean following Shell's drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer, which is heading north towards Seattle. And they're keeping a watch on them; they're trailing them through the ocean, so we're working on that front. And we're also working in Seattle. And we're also working in D.C., with national organizations to keep up with every step of the regulatory process and taking part in comment periods and letting President Obama know this is not something we want to see move forward.

For more information on Greenpeace USA, visit greenpeace.org.