Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez And The United States’ Subjugation Of Puerto Rico

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With Eric Holder on his way out the door as Attorney General, many Puerto Ricans are stepping up their calls for President Barack Obama to pardon 71-year-old political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, who has spent the last 33 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy. The holiday season is a common time for Presidents to use their power to grant clemency, but this was not to be in 2014 for the President who has granted the fewest pardons in modern times.

For Puerto Ricans, dismissal of their political demands is emblematic of their subjugation as colonial subjects.

In December, at a concert in San Juan, reggaeton singer René Pérez Joglar of the band Calle 13 brought López’s daughter Clarissa on stage to read a letter pleading for her father’s release. After winning the silver medal in judo in the Central American and Caribbean games in November, Augusto Miranda told the press: “I want to use this forum for all the people of Puerto Rico and the United States. It’s an abuse what they’ve done to Oscar López Rivera, political prisoner. It’s time to give him his freedom.”

AL And His Best Bud Gerry Mander

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The Supreme Court is set to hear a case concerning gerrymandering in Alabama, specifically the recent case spearheaded by Alabama Republicans. Generally, as is the case with the current Alabama ballyhoo, politicians squeeze or stretch the lines of voting districts in an effort to stack them in their favor or to hurt their opponent.

The case that the Supreme Court will be hearing concerns changes made in 2010 by Alabama’s majority Republican legislature which consolidated black voters into already majority black districts. The intended outcome of this is obvious: if Southern black voters, who generally vote for Democrats, are consolidated together into voting districts, their vote will have less of an impact in elections.

Our law actually allows for politicians to lump people into voting districts to stack bigger districts with their constituents in an effort to affect the outcome of elections. Therefore, it is not the indecency of southern conservatives that is the root of this problem, it is the age-old practice of gerrymandering that should truly be on trial.

Bush Family And Its Inner Circle Play Central Role In Lawsuits Against Denton Fracking Ban

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On November 4, Denton, Texas, became the first city in the state to ban the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) when 59 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the initiative. It did so in the heart of the Barnett Shale basin, where George Mitchell — the “father of fracking” — drilled the first sample wells for his company Mitchell Energy.

As promised by the oil and gas industry and by Texas Railroad Commission commissioner David Porter, the vote was met with immediate legal backlash. Both the Texas General Land Office and the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA) filed lawsuits in Texas courts within roughly 12 hours of the vote taking place, the latest actions in the aggressive months-long campaign by the industry and the Texas state government to fend off the ban.

The Land Office and TXOGA lawsuits, besides making similar legal arguments about state law preempting local law under the Texas Constitution, share something else in common: ties to former President George W. Bush and the Bush family at large.

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