Cascadia today: Helicopter returned to Newport + drug supply activists appeal conviction + a dance about rivers and oceans
Judge rules Coast Guard helicopter must return to Newport
A few days after residents of Newport filed suit over the Coast Guard removing a rescue helicopter from the coastal town, a federal judge ruled that the helicopter – used in rescues of crab fishing vessels and recreational boats – must be returned until the court challenge is resolved. The feds claim it's a cost cutting move, but residents sued, noting that “Newport fishermen and the community at large will face serious danger due to the lack of rescue helicopter coverage.”
What's abundantly clear is the feds no longer care about the health and safety of Cascadia's residents – their only interest taking our tax dollars and giving them to their corrupt crony capitalist friends, a needless war against Venezuela, and an army of masked agents terrorizing our populace.
Repeal of Idaho abortion ban nears ballot
A campaign to repeal Idaho's abortion ban – one of the most restrictive in the US – has 50,000 signatures, putting it well on the way toward the 71,000 it needs to put a repeal on the ballot in November 2026. Washington state clinics have seen a surge in patients traveling from Idaho to seek abortions and other reproductive health care. An independent Cascadia should work to guarantee complete, unrestricted access to abortion to anyone who seeks it. Abortion is reproductive health care and should be treated as such.
Drug supply group appeals conviction to supreme court
The founders of the Vancouver based Drug User Liberation Front, who founded a drug compassion club offering medically safe versions of heroin, cocaine, and meth to drug users, were convicted earlier this month of trafficking – and will challenge that verdict in Canada's supreme court, CBC reports. Jeremy Kalicum and Eris Nyx, say that providing safe supply reduces fatal overdose risk, and that shutting it down violates the Canadian charter's protections of the "right to life and security of the person." As I've written previously regarding BC's safe supply experiment, evidence shows that providing safe supply reduces overdose risk and can provide stability in drug users' lives.
Andrew Engelson
A dance than finds a sea change within us all
Head over to Seattle Dances and read a great review of a performance of Karin Stevens Dance’s Sea Change Within Us, a modern dance piece in which “Eight dancers… express concerns about rivers and dams, endangered species, ice, ocean and sea-level rise, flooding, migration, Indigenous fishing rights injustice, divisive politics, and human dis/re/connection.” The piece was performed in Seattle Art Musuem's sculpture park and sounds lovely and fascinating.
Thanks for reading! -AE
