August, 26 2010, 11:00am EDT
5th Annual New Orleans Katrina Commemoration March to Honor Lives Lost Due to Hurricane Katrina and a Call to Action for Environmental Reform in the Gulf Coast
Hip Hop Caucus, New Orleans Katrina Commemoration and National Wildlife Federation Team Up to Bring National Awareness for New Orleans' Continued Need for Economic Support and Restoration
NEW ORLEANS, La.
The New Orleans Katrina Commemoration Foundation, Hip Hop Caucus and
National Wildlife Federation have teamed up to organize the 5th Annual
New Orleans Katrina Commemoration March on Sunday, August 29, 2010.
3,000 New Orleans residents, local officials and entertainers are
anticipated for the ceremony which will include the reading of names
from those lost during Hurricane Katrina and a 3 mile March to remember
the lives of those lost during the tragic hurricane.
The Hip Hop Caucus, National Wildlife Federation and New Orleans Katrina
Commemoration Foundation organized the March to continue national
awareness to the injustices that took place during the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina which caused additional death and suffering and has
yet to be addressed. The March also calls for a comprehensive recovery
plan of the Gulf Coast which focuses on areas such as housing needs, job
placement, environment restoration and oil spill response amongst other
initiatives necessary to put New Orleans and the Gulf Coast on track
for recovery.
"The 5th Anniversary Katrina Commemoration March and Secondline is an
important ceremony we've built here in New Orleans to show the families
of victims and residents we have not forgotten about their struggle to
resume their lives," said Sess 4-5, Co Founder of the New Orleans
Katrina Commemoration Foundation. "It is vital for the American people
and government officials outside of New Orleans recognize our hardships
continue and we still need their help to get many families back home and
on their feet after this disaster."
"Five years have gone by and New Orleans has still not received the
necessary backing from the United States government to help restore this
city to prominence," stated Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President of the
Hip Hop Caucus. "It is vital the people of New Orleans and local
officials unite and demonstrate our communities are still in dire need
of assistance as well recognize and create an action plan to restore our
coast and protect New Orleans for future generations."
"The Katrina anniversary and oil spill are both wake up calls that we
need to restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands, which are nature's first
defense against storms, sea level rise and flooding," said National
Wildlife Federation President and CEO Larry Schweiger. "Restoring the
coastal wetlands will not only help protect the communities and
ecosystems in south Louisiana but also help the region recover from the
BP oil spill."
The commemoration events begin at 10:00 a.m. with the reading of the
names of our lost loved ones at the Lower 9th Ward Levee Breach at
Jourdan and North Galvez. Following the Healing Ceremony, at 10:45 a.m.
the March Secondline will begin through the streets of New Orleans and
conclude at 12:45 at Hunter's Field. From 12:45, the Commemoration
Program will begin with community members, local musicians, hip hop
artists, gospel choir and spoken word performances.
For more information on the Commemoration Events, please visit, www.HipHopCaucus.org or www.KatrinaCommemoration.org.
List of Endorsers for 5th Annual Katrina Commemoration and Secondline March
1SKY
2CENT ENTERTAINMENT
350.ORG
ADVOCATES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS
AFL-CIO
AFRICAN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALIST ASSOCIATION
AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION,
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL FUND
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
AMERICAN RIGHTS AT WORK
ANTI-RACISM WORKING GROUP
APOLLO ALLIANCE
ASANTE FOUNDATION
BENJAMIN FOUNDATION
BLACK LEADERSHIP FORUM
BLACK LOVE MOVEMENT
BLACK MEN UNITED
BLACKS IN GOVERNMENT
BLOWOUT CONSCIOUSNESS
BROTHER UMRANI
CATHOLIC CHARITIES
CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENT COMMERCE AND ENERGY
CHESAPEAKE CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK
CODE PINK
COMMITTEE TO RE-OPEN CHARITY
COMMON GROUND HEALTH CLINIC
COMMUNITY BOOK CENTER
COMMUNITY UNITED FOR CHANGE
CRAIGE CULTURAL CENTER
CRITICAL RESISTANCE
CRESCENT CITY ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS
DC GREENWORKS
DEEP SOUTH CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY
DIARY FROM THE DOME
DREAMING OUT LOUD, INC.
EARLINE'S PRALINES
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CLIMATE CHANGE INITIATIVE
FM 98.5
FEDERALLY EMPLOYED WOMEN
FINDING OUR FOLKS
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
FYRE YOUTH SQUAD
GET FRESH
GLOBAL EXCHANGE
GRASSROOTS AMERICA
GREEN DMV
GRIND FOR THE GREEN
GRINDSTAFF ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
GRIS GRIS LAB
HEADCOUNT
HIGHLANDER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER
HIP HOP CAUCUS
HOT 8 BRASS BAND
HOT OFF DA PRESS PROMOTION
INDUSTRY INFLUENCE
IRON RAIL BOOK COLLECTIVE
JUNEBUG
JUVENILE JUSTICE PROJECT OF LOUISIANA
LEVI.ORG
LOUISIANA JUSTICE INSTITUTION
LOYOLA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
MALCOLM X GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
MENNONITE CENTRAL COMMITTEE--NEW ORLEANS
MIKE B. DA GRINDA
OLD SKOOL 106.7 FM
N'COBRA
NATION OF ISLAM MOSQUE #42
NATIONAL BLACK LAW STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK MAYORS
NATIONAL CONGRESS OF BLACK WOMEN
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF NEGRO WOMEN
NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN
NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION
NEW ORLEANS WELFARE RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
NOLA.TV
NUTHIN' BUT FIRE RECORDS
PEACE KEEPERS
PRAXIS PROJECT KATRINA INFORMATION NETWORK
POWER 102.9 FM
Q93.3 FM
RAINBOW PUSH COALITION
RS SECURITY INC
SESS 4-5
SAFE STREETS
SLAM NEW ORLEANS
SOJOURNER TRUTH COMMUNITY CENTER
SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AT NEW ORLEANS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
STAND WITH UNITY
STOOGES BRASS BAND
SURVIVORS VILLAGE
TAMBORINE AND FAN
THE FRUIT WIZARD
THE UPTOWN WING SHACK
TRANSAFRICA FORUM
TRUTH UNIVERSAL
TULANE UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR PUBLIC SERVICE COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAM
UNITED TEACHERS OF NEW ORLEANS
UPTOWN WING SHACK
VITAMINWATER
WBOK 1230 AM
WILD WAYNE
YOUNG SINO
ZION TRINITY
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
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U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
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As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
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Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
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Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
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'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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