Another Gulf Is Possible

06/16/2026

With Starbase, “SpaceX has already burned down dozens of acres of wildlife habitat, is dumping polluted water on our beach, has sent rocket debris into our communities, into communities in Mexico,” says Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, which is part of the lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Elon Musk is using our impoverished community as his laboratory to blow up dangerous experimental SpaceX rockets.”

While groups like the South Texas Environmental Justice Network are organizing opposition to Musk’s operations in South Texas, local officials are ignoring constituents’ complaints that SpaceX is degrading the environment and their quality of life, says Hinojosa.

“We’ve seen elected officials take money from SpaceX here and lobby in favor of more bills that benefit SpaceX.”

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on Friday with the largest initial public offering in stock market history for his rocket and AI company SpaceX. The company is based in South Texas in a city controlled by Musk known as Starbase, which SpaceX has used for rocket launches since 2014....

06/10/2026

On a warm October morning in 1995, about a dozen people shuffled into a meeting room at the Ramada Inn Bayfront hotel in Corpus Christi. Some were Corpus residents.

Others were from around the Coastal Bend, hailing from Taft and Portland.

All were there to talk about how, some 30 years prior, secret Army airplanes flew over their homes and sprayed them with chemicals.

"Someone needs to point us in the right direction so we can get some answers," Patty Flouerke, who lived in the area for 35 years, said, per the Caller-Times. "I don't want my daughter to be able to sit down in 20 years and count 80 cancer deaths among her friends and family.

Flouerke and her fellow residents were there to help the National Research Council's subcommittee on Zinc-Cadmium Sulfide determine if any of these deaths were related to a U.S. Army experiment in the 1960s

https://www.chron.com/texas/article/corpus-christi-chemical-experiments-22293295.php?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=6a28a0d09bc4940001ed203e&fbclid=IwdGRleASWjntleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeYXj3xi1-w2-fpliMKRmYqT2Hb8P5snj4ej4XbnSWNk7plxSEasdXFL537I4_aem__G-e8S4Bbuvu0EW6YHCdCQ

When the Army selected sites for secret chemical experiments, they picked Corpus Christi. Why?

06/07/2026

Urgent, please make calls. Information from Frontera Federation. Bail fund information will be posted soon.

06/06/2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/us/politics/ken-paxton-latino-voting.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

In the name of election integrity, the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature criminalized what had been fairly routine tools for civic groups, churches and political campaigns, particularly in Latino communities.

The new law made it a felony to pay staff or give volunteers benefits — such as stipends or gas money — or to drop by the homes of voters.

The measure also made it illegal for volunteers to help fill in ballots for, say, elderly or bilingual voters, and bring them to polling sites or drop boxes. Volunteers are allowed only to read mail-in ballotsy to those they would assist.y

The Texas attorney general has mounted an all-out effort to prove Democratic Hispanic groups have been corrupting elections. Now he could be the beneficiary of his own attacks.

05/24/2026

The NC Climate Justice Collective Arts Residency is an immersive creative experience dedicated to cultural organizing, political education, and artivism for climate and social justice! This is a participatory space for artists, cultural workers, and creatives to explore the intersection of art, climate justice, and community engagement. 

We invite applications from artists of all disciplines, including but not limited to visual arts, performing arts, literary arts, and multimedia. We particularly welcome applications from artists who identify as members of communities most impacted by climate change and injustice, including Indigenous peoples, people of color, and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Artists should demonstrate a strong commitment to climate and social justice.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with a deadline of June 18, 2026. The residency kicks off with a retreat asking place July 21-25, 2026. The retreat will take place at Lake Logan in Canton, NC.

Find out more information about the residency and retreat at the link in our bio or www.ncclimatejustice.org or https://bit.ly/2026taprootresidency

05/24/2026

In 1970, HISD attempted to skirt school integration by classifying Mexican Americans as white, busing them to Black schools across the city and leaving Anglo students unaffected while still fulfilling court-mandated quotas. Mexican community leaders revolted and set up “huelga,” or “strike,” schools to home school their children over the next two years.

2022 Texas Poet Laureate and current HISD teacher Lupe Mendez compiled years of records and interviews to create a new book on desegregation and the 'huelga' school movement.

05/21/2026

Jose Luis Bautista, a 25-year-old man from Donna, died Friday morning after falling 8 feet from scaffolding, according to Cameron County Justice of the Peace Mary Esther Sorola.

Sorola said Bautista was transported from Starbase to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, where he was pronounced dead at 5:15 a.m.

A preliminary autopsy report showed he died from blunt force trauma caused by the fall, Sorola said.

SpaceX has had seven OSHA violations in the past year. Despite the worker’s death, the next rocket launch is scheduled for May 21.

05/07/2026

President Trump’s recent endorsement has brought renewed attention to the project, and community members are outraged by its resurgence. “I have received calls and emails every day from residents who do not want to see this refinery built,” says Bekah.

If America First Refining begins construction by TCEQ’s October 2027 deadline for the project, the refinery would be located directly across the Brownsville Ship Channel from the Shrimp Basin—a historic commercial sh*****ng and fishing dock on the Gulf of Mexico.

It would release the potent climate pollutant methane plus a host of harmful emissions, such as soot, nitrous oxides, nitrogen dioxide, and volatile organic compounds, into the air and water. These pollutants are linked to respiratory illness, asthma, lung cancer, impaired immune health, heart attacks, strokes, metabolic disorders like diabetes, preterm birth, and nervous system effects, including cognitive effects.

https://www.momscleanairforce.org/brownsville-tx-zombie-oil-refinery/?fbclid=IwZnRzaARpuwBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEegpu-mhLCckoRsK0o7D2u2-_wnXwMeY62RhI2LXJwHMqdInCqtLF_lL6bCVk_aem_IgYXCC1j9tjyCH8ERL50Fg

In early March, President Trump announced his support for the first new polluting oil refinery in Brownsville, Texas, in the last 50 years, and suddenly, a project presumed dead after nearly a decade of inaction might actually move forward.

05/07/2026

“This latest trend shows an embrace of anti-intellectualism, undermining public knowledge by devaluing education and expertise,” said Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s freedom to read program.

"It is another example of how censorship sweeps broadly, leading to removals of all kinds of books, in its efforts to sow fear and distrust in our public education system.”

The year also saw double the percentage of books about s*x education being banned, including titles such as You Know, S*x: Bodies, Gender, Puberty and Other Things by Cory Silverberg.

Findings also showed high figures for marginalised communities with LGBTQ+ characters (39%) and people of colour (44%) continuing to be over-represented in the books being targeted.

Books about death and grief made up 48% of titles while those about empowerment and self-esteem made up 39%.
Fiction titles at risk in the past year included dystopian dramas such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and other books including To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Push by Sapphire.”

Excerpt From
“Report shows banned non-fiction books doubled over last school year in US”
Benjamin Lee
The Guardian
https://apple.news/Agc6UdB-zRGiTFrFQ7Adbsg
This material may be protected by copyright.

New PEN America report analysed 3,743 unique titles removed from libraries and classrooms and found books about activism and social movements were targeted

05/07/2026

‘Keystone Light’: These Wyoming oil tycoons are reviving the controversial pipeline

The Trump administration is rushing to approve a 650-mile pipeline to bring oil from Canada’s tar sands into the U.S.

The Trump administration is rushing to approve a 650-mile pipeline to bring oil from Canada’s tar sands into the U.S.