Standing Rock: No DAPL Roundup.

Sacred Stone Media/YouTube Grassroots coalition against DAPL announces December as a month of action, focused on banks.

Sacred Stone Media/YouTube
Grassroots coalition against DAPL announces December as a month of action, focused on banks.

We, the below stated, are a coalition of grassroots groups living and working in the Dakota Access resistance camps along the Cannon Ball River in Oceti Sakowin treaty lands.

Sacred Stone Camp | Indigenous Environmental Network | International Indigenous Youth Council | Honor the Earth

The following is a coalition statement on the next steps for the #NoDAPL fight:

As we reflect on the decision by the U.S. Army (NOT the U.S. Army Corps) to suspend the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) river crossing easement and conduct a limited Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the resistance camps at Standing Rock are making plans for the next phase of this movement.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II has asked people to return home once the weather clears, and many will do so. Others will stay to hold the space, advance our reclamation of unceded territory affirmed in the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, and continue to build community around the protection of our sacred waters. They will also keep a close eye on the company, which has drilled right up to the last inch it can, and remains poised and ready to finish the project.

[…]

[Read more…]

High Disapproval.

1_1The Pew Research Center has a new report out, an 8 page report. Personally, I find it disturbing, because while disapproval of Trump is very high at the moment, the survey reflects a forlorn hope that somehow or another, actually being president will somehow make Trump okay at the job. That, or some people may be pinning their hope on Pence actually doing all the work, but that’s hardly good news. It would certainly be worse news for the queer community.

My point of view is that this just another example of American apathy swinging into place. “Well, he was elected, he’ll get better once he’s actually in office. That will tame him.” To that, I say the fuck it will. He’s already setting the stage for mass destruction, and he’s not in office yet. Why in the hell anyone would think it might be better once he gets in the white house is beyond me. For the zillionth time, he’s a conman, a known fraud. This is not news, and there are piles of evidence of his fraudulent practices littered all over the place. He is a compulsive liar and a sexual predator. Trump is an extreme narcissist, and he will not change once he has his feet under the presidential table.

I understand people wanting to pull some sort of protective shell around themselves, hell, if I had a bunker, I’d probably be in it by now, pretending none of this happened. It has happened though, and telling yourself little fairy stories about how it will somehow magically be alright – that won’t help. It won’t help you, it won’t help anyone else. We must all be brave, and stare reality in the face, eyes wide open, and fight back.

Pew Research Center Report in Full.

 

Russia Hacks; Trump Lies.

trump-modok-spider-gwen-188535More information continues to come out in regard to Russia’s interference in the election. They have proved to be adept masters at manipulation, not that it was particularly difficult to manipulate a good portion of the American people. Really, all it took was playing to the implicit and explicit bigotry of many white Americans, and playing on the fears of the rest. There was a time, decades ago, when America in general didn’t have a problem with intelligence. Intellect was considered to be a good thing, along with the tools to use it. There was a push to get everyone into college, and I think that was a mistake because it was done for the wrong reason, it was promoted as college = good job, rather than stressing the opportunity to learn, to expand your personal horizons, and simply to instill a lifetime love of learning.

There’s always been a serious strain of resentment bubbling along in America, the resentment of colonial minded people who are always prepared to think they’ve been denied their big ol’ piece of the pie, here in the land of the self-made man. That goes hand in hand with the idea that “lesser” people (non-white) have no business “taking jobs” away from them. This was at the bottom of the massive shift to anti-intellectualism, the eschewing of intelligence as a good or desirable trait. I’d place the serious start of this around the time of Reagan. It was slow to start, but rapidly gained ground.

Throughout the years, people got sleepy and apathetic, on all sides. We suffered through a number of years of remarkably bad leadership, this just being one of them:

Ignoring intelligence briefings can have real, disastrous consequences. In August 2001, President George W. Bush was handed a memo entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But after receiving that briefing, Bush downplayed the intelligence, reportedly telling the briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Just over one month later, Bin Laden struck with the September 11 attacks.

Pretty sure most people know the consequences of that instance of lousy leadership. That consequence so scared many Americans, who were living in their insular bubble, that they voluntarily started giving up their rights, one after the other. We’re still dealing with the fucking snarled mess created in the aftermath, and none of it is right. We took rights away from citizens, but gave every right to militarized cops. Citizens are expected to be under constant surveillance, but cops are not expected to have visual records of their behaviour, and no one seems to care if they tamper with what records do exist. So, Putin takes a good look at his buddy, Trump. Then he takes a good look at all the money which could be made if Trump were to be elected. Then he takes a look at the mob. A mob fueled by bigotry based hate, with a hard on against intelligence and critical thought, but enamored with conspiracy theories. People soaking up fake news with nary a thought to flex their index finger a couple of times to verify. Not difficult to manipulate at all. The timing was exquisite, and the hack worked exactly as planned. Time for homework:

Trump claims no one discussed Russian hacking before the election. His own tweets prove he’s lying.

Trump says it’s OK if he skips intelligence briefings because he’s ‘a smart person’.

McConnell Covered Up CIA Reports That Russian Hacks Were Aimed At Electing Trump.

Russian media expert tells CNN: ‘They’ve succeeded in hacking our elections’ and now ‘the damage is done’.

Trump’s response on Russia draws pushback from Republican senators.

All of the Republicans supporting a congressional investigation into Russian election interference.

No DAPL: Oren Lyons Speaks Out.

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Oren Lyons is a faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) and a longtime international indigenous rights and sovereignty activist.

Accompanying article at ICTMN.

RNC Emails Hacked; Russia Held Them Back.

Two women look at their cell phones in front of portraits of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, as they arrive at the Union Jack pub in Moscow, Russia, to watch a live telecast of the U.S. presidential election on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.

Two women look at their cell phones in front of portraits of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, as they arrive at the Union Jack pub in Moscow, Russia, to watch a live telecast of the U.S. presidential election on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.

Yet explosive new reporting from the Washington Post tells us that the CIA informed U.S. senators last week that it was “quite clear” from a “growing body of intelligence from multiple sources” that Russia’s goal was to elect Trump.

The “consensus view,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators, according to the Post, is that “it is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”

The New York Times also reported Friday evening that intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that Russian cyberattacks had the goal of helping Trump because the Republican National Committee was hacked. The data and email traffic was not released. The hacked emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and sent to WikiLeaks gained international headlines for weeks, causing headaches for the Clinton campaign and the resignation of the DNC chair after internal party squabbles became public.

[…]

The idea that Russia actively put its thumb on the scale in Trump’s favor in a very close election where he prevailed in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by almost three million votes alarms more than Democrats.

Trump has shocked people across the political spectrum with his laudatory praise for Russia and Vladimir Putin and his desire to diminish NATO. One of his first staffing choices was former general Michael Flynn for National Security Advisor, who equated a Russian propaganda media outlet to CNN. For secretary of state, he is considering congressional Putin advocate Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and someone who may be closer to Vladimir Putin than anyone in America: ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

“[Tillerson] has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,” security expert John Hamre told the Wall Street Journal this week.

Think Progress has the full story.

Labor Secretary: Burgers, Bikinis, Very American.

*CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, August 6, 2014 in Austin, Texas. CREDIT: Jack Plunkett/AP Images.

*CKE Restaurants CEO Andy Puzder speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, August 6, 2014 in Austin, Texas. CREDIT: Jack Plunkett/AP Images.

Trump has appointed an open sexist to the position of labor secretary, which oversees discrimination laws, equal pay, and The Women’s Bureau. This man probably laughed delightedly over the prez-elect’s pussy grabbing ways. He certainly seems to have little use for women outside of using them in unbelievably sexist, hypersexualized adverts. I haven’t seen any of these previously, because no television, and I am very grateful for that right now. I once met Carl Karcher, in the capacity of a servant – I was wait staff at one of his daughter’s wedding rehearsals or some such. Massive house and grounds, hundreds of people, and the Karchers were quite nice. Mrs. Karcher was particularly nice when I walked right into a sliding glass door which had previously been open. Unfortunately, they were also rabid conservatives, and supported evil institutions, such as the Catholic church and the John Birch Society, among others. I rather expect the Karchers would be more than a bit alarmed and disapproving of Puzder’s tactics. Here’s one of the ads:

Ad link.

…The fast food chains have continuously released these ads since 2005, even when research shows that most Americans find them offensive. According to a market research firm that tested an ad showing model Charlotte McKinney walking, seemingly naked, through a farmer’s market, 52 percent of viewers found the ad offensive and 51 percent found it irritating and annoying.

Yet as Mic reported, Puzder — who has led the company since 2000 — has defended the strategy. “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American,” he told Entrepreneur last year. “I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.”

He also claimed that he would take issue if people were not offended by the ads.

“If you don’t complain, I go to the head of marketing and say, ‘What’s wrong with our ads?’” he said. …

Our new secretary of labor. Impressed? Think Progress has the full story.

EPA Opponent to Head EPA.

Fossil fuel-backed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt could be the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

Fossil fuel-backed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt could be the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

EPA Opponent to Head EPA. This is the kind of thing we are going to see more and more of, and while there are massive concerns with virtually every Trump appointee, this one is particularly worrisome, because this means there will be no more EPA. Instead there will be the office of Hell Yes, tear the planet to shreds, it’s all good! This news comes on top of the current rapid arctic ice melt. Rapacious greed and Christian dominionism are now in charge.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been tapped to run the Environmental Protection Agency in the Trump administration, multiple sources reported Wednesday.

Pruitt’s selection, while not a surprise, signifies a complete rethinking of the EPA. Environmental groups were appalled by the selection, saying it was a win for polluters and a loss for the American public.

As with so many of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet and transition staff, Pruitt does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change. As attorney general, Pruitt has routinely backed fossil fuel interests over those of environmental regulators and has rejected the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to human-caused climate change.

Pruitt’s ties to fossil fuel companies run deep. He received some $300,000 in fossil fuel money to support his campaign for attorney general.

In one instance, Pruitt used talking points from an energy company in a letter to the EPA, opposing air pollution standards for natural gas production. According to reporting from the New York Times, Devon Energy, an Oklahoma-based oil and gas company actually wrote the 2011 letter, which Pruitt submitted on state letterhead.

Oklahoma, under Pruitt, is one of the states that has sued to block the Clean Power Plan, an ambitious EPA regulation that seeks to curb emissions from power plants. Along with other Republican attorneys general, Pruitt attended private, high-dollar meetings with coal companies prior to joining the lawsuit.

The full story is at Think Progress.

Standing Rock: We Need To Go Home.

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We’re in the midst of a blizzard here in nDakota, and sub zero temps. Chairman Archambault has put out the call to go home.

Putting people at risk in that way is something the ancestral leaders would never have done, he said.

“I don’t want anyone to be living in an unsafe environment,” Archambault said. “We need to stay in prayer, believe in our prayer, and begin our journey home in prayer. I believe in my prayers and in the Creator. Take the lessons we learned here and apply them at home—unity, peace, prayer.”

The camps’ efforts to get the NoDAPL battle to this point have been essential, but “now it is time we pivot to the next phase of this struggle,” Archambault said. “That will be lead on different fronts like in court, with the new Administration, with Congress, and with the investors.”

He said the path is being laid down “to help the world understand that what we asked for, and what we got is the right decision. The world is watching us, and our behavior will determine the final outcome.”

Archambault suggested that each resident make a plan for closing and exiting the camp, leaving the land as it was when they got there, and to get home before the bitterest part of winter sets in.

“Pass this on—let everyone know that we are thankful for their passion and commitment and we are thankful for them all standing with us,” Archambault said. “It’s time now to enjoy this winter with your families. We need all to respect the host tribe’s wishes. We are asking all tribes to pass this on to their members.”

The winter, he added, has barely begun, and the current storm is tamer than what the worst of the season will bring. Temperatures drop even lower than they already have, and the shelters at the camps would be no match for blizzard conditions.

Acknowledging that people were socked in by the storm, Archambault said it was time to take the water protection battles beyond Indian country, to the rest of the U.S. and the world.

“I understand that folks cannot go at this moment, but as soon as this current storm has passed, we must execute an exit strategy and continue our battles to protect water,” Archambault said. “These efforts are not only needed in Standing Rock, but they are needed throughout Indian Country, across America and internationally. I want you to know that Standing Rock stands with you as you return home to carry this energy and movement into the future.”

That’s just a small bit from the full article, which is at ICTMN. People are unable to leave right now, roads are closed everywhere (we’re snowed in too), but this blizzard will pass eventually, then it will be time for people to make their way to safety.

There’s a good rundown of the current ETP financial woes, and the takeover by Sunoco here.

Understanding the Danger of Narcissism.

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Mano Singham has an excellent post up about understanding what we are actually facing with a narcissist poised to be president. Highly recommended reading, just a bit here:

This is not someone who is merely narcissistic in the colloquial, casual sense of the term, meaning that he’s selfish or self-centered. This is someone with a psychiatric disorder in all its flagrant, florid particulars. To grasp its seriousness is to be staggered that someone too disordered and rancid to be a trustee of your condo association will be running our country. How is it possible that almost half the voters, even those who like his values and disliked his (conventional politician of an) opponent, could have listened to him taunt and lie and bully his way through a campaign and then said, “Yep. That’s who should be in charge of the country”?

The implications going forward are nothing short of chilling.

Go have a read about what we are truly facing: What having an extreme narcissist as president is going to entail.

After reading Alfie Kohn’s article, I’m going to add this from the beginning, because there’s something I want to hammer home.

Reporter: What do you think people will take away from the [Republican National]   Convention? What are you hoping?

Donald Trump: From the convention? The fact that I’m very well liked.

– New York Times, July 21, 2016

The initial shock has given way to a twofold horror. First, there is the unavoidable fact that more than 62 million Americans voted for this man. Most white college graduates preferred him. Most white women preferred him. Presumably many of those 62 million aren’t bigots or bullies or sexual predators or compulsive liars. But they knowingly voted for someone who is all of those things and more.

And then there are the sickening practical implications. During the campaign, novelist Adam Haslett remarked that “endless acts of verbal violence shock us into stunned passivity so we no longer register the horror of what we’re living through.” But that’s nothing compared to the horror fatigue that awaits us under a Trump administration. His election — along with Republican control of both Houses of Congress and more than two thirds of state legislatures — will almost certainly precipitate an assault on civil rights, civil liberties, environmental protections (including a reversal of early, tentative steps to deal with global climate change), consumer protections, reproductive rights, gay rights, workers’ rights, prisoners’ rights, humane immigration policies, aid to the poor, gun control, antimilitarism, support for public education, and on and on. It will be bad enough for an individual deeply committed to any one of these issues; for those interested in all of them, it will be difficult to absorb, let alone summon outrage about and become active in opposing, a tidal wave of reactionary policies likely to continue on a daily basis for many years.

The potential impact on official policy is staggering. And yet I can’t stop thinking about the man himself.

The emphasis is mine. For every single person who either voted for Trump, or who used their opportunity to avoid this catastrophe by writing in someone or something stupid while voting, or who didn’t bother to vote, you fucking did this. You. That’s where the responsibility for the ruin we face rests. And more than anyone else, it’s you who needs to read that article. After that, try to figure out how to become a human being, because we’re going to have one hell of a fight in front of us.

The GOP, So Busy…

jefferson-gathering-prayer-700x263

Praying. Yep. Driving that ol’ Demon-in-Chief outta the capitol. FFS, we are in so much trouble. Fascists are bad enough. 1% billionaire fascists worse. Religious fanatic fascism? Yeah, that’s gonna help. Be nice if these people could manage to work, and do something truly miraculous, like work for all people, rather than praying to their fictitious psychopath.

Two of the pastors who participated in the event, Dave Kistler of the North Carolina Pastors Network and Dale Walker of the Tennessee Pastors Network, discussed their experiences on the American Pastors Network’s “Stand in the Gap” radio program last Friday.

Kistler revealed that U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black preached to participants and reportedly prophesied that a revival is about to sweep America and “it will commence … in the halls of Congress” and Walker concurred.

“If God rules in the halls of legislation, it’s the pulpit’s benefit of being there, being on site and standing up and speaking the law of God to our elected leaders and praying for them,” Walker said. “It’s been the absence of the pulpits is the reason why Satan has ruled in the halls of legislation.”

Kistler also revealed that in addition to praying in the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Capitol, pastors were given access to the U.S. Senate chamber by Rep. Louie Gohmert. In the senate chamber, he said, “we got on our knees … and it sounded almost like a labor room as people were crying out to God for the revival that Chaplain Black believes is coming and that we believe is coming.”

“To do that in the Senate chamber was an absolutely astounding opportunity,” Kistler said, “and again it puts an exclamation point on the Senate chaplain’s assessment that revival is on the way and may indeed begin in the halls of Congress.”

All that showy bullshit, “oh look, I’m on my knees, fist on forehead!” “No, look at me, I’m bowed all the way down, with my head almost on the ground, but not like those other people do, no.” Why don’t these fanatical morons ever, just once, pay attention to their book of myths, where the sacrificed son of their psychopathic god specifically said not to pray in that manner?

Right Wing Watch has the full story.

A Timely Reminder from Pussy Riot.

Nadya Tolokonnikova (Facebook).

Nadya Tolokonnikova (Facebook).

Nadya Tolokonnikova — the Russian artist, activist and Pussy Riot member — warned Americans not to grow complacent after the election of Donald Trump, who she said has the power to reshape political norms to his own benefit.

She said many Russians, including the wealthy oligarchs who helped engineer his rise to power, failed to appreciate the threat Vladimir Putin posed to the nation’s fledgling democratic institutions until it was too late, reported the New York Times.

“It’s important not to say to yourself, ‘Oh, it’s okay,’” Tolokonnikova said. “It’s important to remember that, for example, in Russia, for the first year of when Vladimir Putin came to power, everybody was thinking that it will be okay.”

[…]

Trump has frequently praised Putin and said his killing of critical journalists makes him a “strong leader,” and Tolokonnikova warned Americans that their democratic institutions are vulnerable to the same threats.

“It is a common phrase right now that ‘America has institutions,’” Tolokonnikova said. “It does. But a president has power to change institutions and a president moreover has power to change public perception of what is normal, which could lead to changing institutions.”

Full story here.

Ware the Talking Toys.

toys

Kids say a lot of random, unsolicited, or just plain personal things to their toys while playing. When that toy is stuffed with just fluff and beans, it doesn’t matter what the kid says: their toy is a safe sounding board. When their playtime companion is an internet-connected recording device that ships off audio files to a remote server without even notifying parents — that’s a whole other kind of problem.

[…]

A lot of parents will skim the above, shrug, and think it’s no big deal, because isn’t everything connected now? There’s a big problem with these particular toys though, and that’s a third party, Nuance, who happens to be a defense contractor. You might want to think twice about inviting them into your house to listen to every word.

Nuance is a giant company best-known — to consumers, at least — for its Dragon-branded suite of speech-to-text dictation software. The company also has a significant presence in healthcare dictation, and is — like more large corporations than you’d think — a defense contractor that sells products, including “voice biometric solutions,” to military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies.

And here’s where it starts to get more complicated: both toys are also governed under Nuance’s general privacy policy, which says, “We may use the information that we collect for our internal purposes to develop, tune, enhance, and improve our products and services, and for advertising and marketing consistent with this Privacy Policy.”

It continues, “If you are under 18 or otherwise would be required to have parent or guardian consent to share information with Nuance, you should not send any information about yourself to us.”

Yes, it’s very interesting, that warning being on toys marketed to 4 year olds and up. There’s a lot to this story, and if you’ve found these items on your sproggens’ wish list, you might want to find alternatives. Full story here.