This article by Jon Schwarz appeared in The Intercept on December 6th, 2019. But first a Community Rights commentary by Community Rights US Founder and Director Paul Cienfuegos. Most US’ians believe that it was the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that opened the floodgates for corporate and gazillionaire money in our elections. That people think [...]
Patrick Farnsworth interviews Will Falk about his newly released book "How Dams Fall" and other essential Community Rights topics on his Last Born in the Wilderness podcast. It was published on July 29th, 2019. Below is the description of the interview. In this episode I speak with lawyer and radical environmental activist Will Falk. In [...]
This article by Jim Saunders was published in the Orlando Weekly on July 29th, 2019. State governments don't just stop at preempting gun laws. For instance, back in 2014, the citizens of Denton, Texas banned hydraulic fracturing within its city limits. Months later the State of Texas stepped in and overruled the local law with [...]
An investigation by USA Today, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity. Authors: Rob O'Dell and Nick Penzenstadler. Published on April 4, 2019. It’s terrific that mainstream corporate print media is finally catching on to this crisis of democracy story - good for them. But it’s a bit disingenuous for them to claim [...]
Derrick Jensen interviews Ben Price, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund's (CELDF) national organizing director, about his newly published book, "How Wealth Rules the World: Saving our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property." on June 2nd, 2019. This 53 minute interview can be listened to and downloaded HERE and HERE. A bit about [...]
As I travel around the country leading Community Rights workshops, I constantly have to remind the mostly progressive audiences I meet with that it’s not just Republican-controlled state legislatures that are constantly trying to stop local governments from exercising any kind of relevant law-making. In my state of Oregon, which has a Democrat supermajority in [...]
A proposal, among the first of its kind for large U.S. cities, could redefine conservation efforts. This article by Trevor Bach appeared on the U.S. News and World Report website, February 22, 2019. BY EARLY AUGUST OF 2014 hundreds of square miles of Lake Erie's surface were covered in a thick green ooze, a massive algae bloom [...]
Lawmakers in at least a half-dozen states are considering forming a compact in which they would agree to end efforts to lure companies with tax incentives. This article by Liz Farmer appeared in Governing, February 17th, 2019. A brief commentary about this article by Community Rights US Director and Founder Paul Cienfuegos: It’s terrific news that [...]
This original essay was written by Paul Cienfuegos, our Founding Director, in direct response to all of the progressive cheerleading that has been going on across the indy media for the past few days since Amazon Corp's directors pulled out of their plans to build a second HQ in New York City. His essay was [...]
This article by Simon Davis-Cohen appeared on DeSmog, January 24th, 2019. Commentary by Valley Mills, Texas resident and Community Rights supporter Ingrid Martine* below. Quote from article: Klamath Tribal Council Chairman Don Gentry told DeSmog that the tribal council believes “we need to exhaust every administrative opportunity that we have to express our opposition to [...]
