The FANG Collective staged a demonstration outside TD Bank Wednesday to protest the company’s support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which is even now being blocked by First Nation protesters from many different tribes. TD Bank is one of many lending institutions financing the pipeline.
This protest follows an action last week in which two protesters locked themselves down in the bank’s lobby and had to be removed by police. Wednesday’s action, which was publicly announced on Facebook, drew a Providence Police detail, but the entire affair was very low key, and no arrests were made.
Protesters handed out flyers and held signs. One woman, Amy, after hearing from protester Sally Mendzela about the bank’s involvement with DAPL, told me that though she had come to open an account with the bank, she was not. Mendzela said that the woman was the second person to be dissuaded from doing business with TD Bank since she arrived.
Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the “water protecters” and DAPL developer Energy Transfer Partners. Tribes are invoking their treaty rights even as the developer threatens arrests and even violence. As reported by Mary Annette Pember, “the Morton County Sheriff’s Department backed by North Dakota Governor Jack Dalyrmple continued to ratchet up displays of military-style police force.”
The video below, published by Jennifer Minor on October 25, shows police using pepper spray before arresting protesters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066h12rmcDQ
Nearly three dozen people marched and chanted outside Wendy’s on Charles St in Providence Friday afternoon to call attention to the boycott of the food chain called by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group that has fought for farmworker’s rights and fair treatment for two decades. Wendy’s remains the largest fast food chain that refuses to ethically source their produce from CIW supported growers. Rather than supporting the 
In order to fund their ideas, the CIW asked corporation to pay an extra one cent per pound of produce purchased. This money would allow the workers to push for higher wages and establish a code of conduct that contained zero tolerance for the worst abuses. This allowed workers to demand respect, and in fact they mandated that the worker’s voices be heard during the implementation of these changes.
Today 14 corporations are signed on, but CIW is looking to expand this program of Worker Driven Social Responsibility. They have expanded beyond Florida and into other states such as Georgia and North and South Carolina. They have expanded beyond tomatoes and into other crops such as strawberries and bell peppers. They want more corporations to sign on.
As large as Invenergy‘s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant would be if it were to be actually built in the pristine wilderness of Burrillville, the project is but a small part of a colossal, three-state fracked gas infrastructure project that has been in development for years in the northwest corner of the Rhode Island and beyond. Eight power plants currently litter a 31 mile expanse of pipeline, from Killingly, Connecticut, through Rhode Island, to Medway, Massachusetts. If built, Burrillville would be power plant number nine and Killingly is the proposed site of power plant number ten.
The Killingly power plant is to be built in a residential neighborhood within a mile of 460 Killingly housing units. At least five schools and day cares, over 5,000 students, are within three miles of the proposed plant. Wyndham County, where Killingly is located, has asthma rates 18 percent higher than the rest of Connecticut.
The Town of Killingly is categorized as a distressed community. Like other areas where these types of facilities are targeted, there are environmental justice issues to be considered. Very often the facilities are like these are aimed at low income communities that lack the financial means to either fight the power plant or resist the financial carrots dangled by the company building the plant.
The candidacy of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States finds daily a new road to Hell, and threatens to drag the nation, and the world, down with it.
Catholics for Choice has released a 
Raimondo has consistently touted her support for renewables like wind and solar, only occasionally voicing her support for fracking. Raimondo never holds a press release in front of a fracked gas pipeline or compressor station. She holds them at wind turbines and solar farms, giving the appearance of a strong leader on the environment.
Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) filed a lawsuit today against ExxonMobil for its endangerment of communities along the Mystic River – the first lawsuit of its kind in the nation since revelations last year about the corporation’s decades-long campaign to discredit climate science. Today’s filing comes several months after CLF submitted a formal letter of intent to sue ExxonMobil, 
TD Bank in downtown Providence became the target of local environmental and indigenous American activists Thursday in response to calls for solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux as they continue to battle the $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). TD Bank is one of many financial institutions funding the pipeline. Similar actions have been 
Organizers contend that construction of the DAPL “would engender a renewed fracking-frenzy in the Bakken shale region, as well as endanger a source of fresh water for the Standing Rock Sioux and 8 million people living downstream. DAPL would also impact many sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous nations.”
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza sent a 
A march from Kennedy Plaza to the Providence Public Safety Complex, with a brief, tense stop in front of the Providence Place Mall was held in Providence Friday evening in solidarity with a 
On my way back to Kennedy Plaza after the event Lt. Perez told me, half jokingly, that “those kids kind of hurt my feelings.”
Saying that fighting dark money in politics is his “patriotic duty,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse sat next to Congressmembers David Cicilline and James Langevin in a “roundtable discussion” to highlight his work on the 
Notably, there were protesters outside Save the Bay holding signs reminding their elected representatives about both Invenergy’s proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant and National Grid’s proposed LNG liquefaction facility for Fields Point in the Port of Providence, a stone’s throw away. They were there to remind elected officials that their jobs in Washington do not absolve them from taking positions on local issues. None of the elected leaders in the room, aside from State Senator Juan Pichardo, who has publicly 
The influence of corporate spending on elections since the 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court is a major concern to all who attended the event. Citizens United unleashed a previously restricted torrent of special interest money into the political system. More than $1.5 billion in unlimited contributions, including more than $500 million in secret contributions, have been poured into federal elections since the decision was issued.
