Between The Lines - Carling Sothoron: Activists Engage in Civil Disobedience in Opposition to LNG Terminal at Cove Point, Maryland (Week Ending Feb. 20, 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.

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"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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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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Opposing Cove Point Maryland LNG Terminal, Activists Launch Civil Disobedience Actions

Posted Feb. 11, 2015

Interview with Carling Sothoron, anti-LNG project activist, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

On Feb. 3, an anti-fracking activist climbed a 150-foot crane on the site of Dominion Resources' liquid natural gas – or LNG – refinery and export terminal under construction at Cove Point, on southern Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay shore. Carling Sothoron, 27, works as a teacher at a farm school in Baltimore and is a member of the group SEED – Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction. It's one of many organizations – local and regional – campaigning to stop the $3.8 billion LNG project.

Opponents say the LNG terminal will bring noise and dangerous pollution to residents living near the site in the town of Lusby; greatly increase fracking throughout the Marcellus shale region where natural gas is extracted and blow a hole in any attempt to rein in carbon pollution to keep climate change from going into overdrive.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus, who has worked on the Cove Point issue, spoke with Sothoron after she was brought down from the crane, arrested and released. Here, she explains what motivated her to engage in this civil disobedience action and what she believes is at risk if the export terminal is built.

CARLING SOTHORON: Heather Doyle and I entered the Dominion Cove Point site and we proceeded to climb onto the crane structure and Heather was my belay person as I climbed to the top of the crane. And at the top, I unfurled a banner that read, "Dominion Get Out" and "Don't Frack Maryland" and "No Gas Exports" and "Save Cove Point."

BETWEEN THE LINES: How did you get down from the top of the crane?

CARLING SOTHORON: I tried to come down on my own by asking for my rope back. The end of my rope – the part that Heather was attached to – once Heather was removed from the crane, the police officer tied off the end of my rope so I couldn't retrieve my rope to allow myself to come down on my own. So they lowered the crane with me on it. So I felt a bit unsafe because I didn't know what was happening.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What led you to take this kind of action, which could be pretty risky to your safety and also carry a legal risk?

CARLING SOTHORON: I'd actually been out of the country for a little while and I returned back to Maryland this past summer, and pretty soon afterward I found out about Dominion's project in Cove Point. For the last few years I've been learning more about natural gas fracking and its impacts on the environment and the communities where this process is happening, and have felt very strongly against the practice of natural gas drilling. And when I found out about this project, the more I was learning about the impact it would have, the more I wanted to do something about it. So I found a group of people that were actively working on stopping this project from happening, and in the past few months there's been a lot of activity as far as protests and actions taken to raise awareness about what this project is going to mean for nearby communities, but also the region, and even beyond just Maryland.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What do you think those impacts are, or would be?

CARLING SOTHORON: In the immediate region, they're clear-cutting lots of land for this project. They're not even hiring local folks, and to send natural gas abroad means that the price of natural gas here in the U.S. is going to go up. It also means if we're starting to ship natural gas outside of the U.S., we're going to need to be producing more natural gas in the U.S. Right now, there is no fracking happening in Maryland, but it seems like it will be on the table shortly, especially with a new governor who supports it. So in western Maryland there is the Marcellus shale, which is an area where a lot of natural gas exists underground that is somewhat easily accessible. So the likelihood that natural gas fracking will start happening in western Maryland seems very high. And once that happens then the natural gas needs to get to export facilities somehow, and that would be through pipelines, so there's going to be thousands of miles of pipelines built to transport this gas to the export facility. Also, at this particular Cove Point facility, they have to build a plant to change the gas from gas to liquid. The liquid makes it easier to ship; there's lots of negative environmental impacts associated with that process. So on various levels, there's not going to be any benefit to the community.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The Cove Point LNG export terminal has gotten all its approvals and is already under construction, so do you really think there's any chance of stopping it?

CARLING SOTHORON: If I didn't think there was a chance of stopping it, I wouldn't have done what I did the other day. I absolutely believ we have the power to cancel this project, to stop them where they're at now. I believe in the people who are putting their lives on the line and that are organizing. I believe in our power of community to make sure Dominion doesn't move forward with this project. I think it's a big challenge and Dominion has a lot of money, but there's a lot of willpower and we're willing to fight and we know what's at risk, and we're going to do what we can do stop it.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Sothoron was charged with trespassing and failure to obey a lawful order – both misdemeanors – and has a court date in March. Several other activists who also disrupted construction at the site go to court on Feb. 23. Learn more about groups opposed to natural gas fracking by visiting SEED, Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction, at seedcoalition.wordpress.com.