April 11, 2016

100+ arrested at ‘Democracy Spring’ sit-in at US Capitol (VIDEO)

Source: RT

Dozens of “Democracy Spring” protesters have been arrested on the steps of the US Capitol. Thousands of activists arrived in Washington DC, after a 10-day, 140-mile (225km) march from Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell, to protest the role of money in politics.

“People are fed up with the system, they are fed up with the corruption, and we want free and fair elections,” Cenk Uygur, host of the TV show Young Turks and one of the participants in the protest, told RT. “This is our core American right.”

“The fight begins today. It doesn’t mean we win today. But in the end, we always win,” Uygur said. “Progressives have never lost. We won in civil rights, we won in women’s rights, we won in gay rights, and we’re going to win in getting our democracy back.”

Attendees are being asked and trained to be non-violent protesters with guidelines that include no destruction or damage of property, “no weapons or any means of physical defense, including shields,” and no masks or other ways to conceal identity.

Read more: https://www.rt.com/usa/339192-democracy-spring-protest-capitol/

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Precious little mainstream media coverage of this, even though the police have arrested so many at the Capitol that they're running out of space. Apparently there's been some chanting of "Where's CNN?"

April 4, 2016

Premier Wynne meets publicly with Black Lives Matters in Toronto

It's the meeting the BLMTO group has been begging Mayor John Tory for, but it looks like Kathleen Wynne is going to take the public meeting with the ongoing BLMTO protest group.

This is breaking, so right now it's mostly just tweets as it happens from the reporters:
https://twitter.com/CBCQueensPark/status/717023363433148416
https://twitter.com/goldsbie/status/717024605505003520

And some breaking news on the CBC website:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/black-lives-matter-toronto-1.3519283

For a little more context, BLMTO has been occupying a camp outside of the Toronto Police Services building in downtown Toronto near College and Yonge. The protest was sparked by the SIU investigation of the police shooting death of Andrew Loku last summer. They've set up an occupy-style camp there, and have also been out in front of Wynne's house. They've been asking mayor John Tory for a public meeting, but Tory said he would only meet them in private, not in public.
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/03/31/occupy-tactics-mark-shift-for-black-lives-matter-in-toronto.html

This is a developing story, but fascinating to see Wynne actually address them in public. That's huge news.

Updates:
Here are a few more articles addressing Wynne's engaging of the protest:
http://www.citynews.ca/2016/04/04/wynne-walks-into-black-lives-matter-protest-promises-to-meet-with-organizers/
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/04/04/kathleen-wynne-meets-with-black-lives-matter-protesters.html