Meeting with Obama as Cops Mass Near No DAPL Camp.

Courtesy Bucky Harjo Sunset at the new water protectors' camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

Courtesy Bucky Harjo
Sunset at the new water protectors’ camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

While Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier sat down with President Barack Obama at a private roundtable in Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 25, Morton County, N.D. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier was calling in police reinforcements from six states to enforce Energy Transfer Partners’ demands that “trespassers” be removed from the path of the pipeline.

Authorities implied they may forcibly remove the water protectors from the new camp, which is on land recently purchased by Dakota Access LLC, the subsidiary that is building the pipeline.

“We have the resources. We could go down there at any time,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said, according to the Associated Press. “We’re trying not to.”

“We are here to enforce the law as needed,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said. “It’s private property.”

The so-called trespassers are Lakota citizens and their allies determined to stand their ground to prevent further destruction of burial grounds and cultural sites, and to protect their water supply from the pipeline. As DAPL moves forward with aggressive construction even on weekends and at night, water protectors took the bold action to declare eminent domain over their homelands last week and set up a new camp directly in the pipeline’s path.

What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.

Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.

In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.

On Wednesday, October 26, civil rights leader and Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Standing Rock to speak out against the multiple human and civil rights violations being perpetrated against water protectors.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

“When will the taking stop? When will we start treating the first peoples of these lands with the respect and honor they deserve?”

The decision to change the pipeline route from north of Bismarck to its current route is “the ripest case of environmental racism I’ve seen in a long time,” Jackson said. “Bismarck residents don’t want their water threatened, so why is it okay for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”

Full story at ICTMN. Related news:

Mark Ruffalo in Standing Rock; Leo DiCaprio, Jesse Jackson Head to Standing Rock.

Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context.

DAPL: Former Vice President Al Gore Supports the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Oh, just fuckin’ great.

donald-trump-now-supports-nations-worst-anti-lgbt-lawx750

Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive.

Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. The information was disclosed in Trump’s monthly filings to the Federal Election Commission, which requires candidates to disclose their campaign finance information on a regular basis.

The financial relationship runs both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, has given $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee since the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination.

On 29 June, Warren made $3,000in donations to Trump’s presidential campaign. The limit for individual contributions to a candidate is $2,700 per election and it’s unclear whether Trump returned $300 to Warren. Trump’s campaign was contacted for comment.

Warren made a further $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee among Trump’s campaign, the RNC and 11 state parties, on 29 June. A day earlier, the Energy Transfer Partners chief executive doled out $66,800 in two separatedonations to the RNC.

Full story at the Guardian. All I have right now is a lot of fucking cussing, and feeling like I’m going to vomit. Crispy fuckin’ Christ onna stick. I’m going back to work.

No DAPL: Protectors call on Justice Department.

Protestors face off with the Riot Police across the fenceline near a Dakota Access construction site. CREDIT: Facebook/Rob Wilson.

Protestors face off with the Riot Police across the fenceline near a Dakota Access construction site. CREDIT: Facebook/Rob Wilson.

Concerned and angered by the use of dogs, pepper spray, military tactics and strip searches against unarmed water protectors at the construction sites of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to step in.

“I am seeking a Justice Department investigation because I am concerned about the safety of the people,” Archambault said in a statement. “Too often these kinds of investigations take place only after some use of excessive force by the police creates a tragedy. I hope and pray that the Department will see the wisdom of acting now to prevent such an outcome.”

In a formal letter, Archambault called on U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate the alleged civil rights violations, outlining the ways in which the protectors’ safety is being compromised and their First Amendment rights jeopardized.

[…]

Archambault said protesters and tribal members have told him that “the militarization of law enforcement agencies has escalated violence at the campsite,” even as the tribe’s lawful efforts to keep the 1,172-mile-long pipeline from being routed through sacred burial sites and underneath the Missouri River a half mile from its reservation have drawn worldwide support.

“Firsthand accounts and videos filmed by participants reveal a pattern of strong-arm tactics targeting Native Americans and peaceful protestors,” the Standing Rock Sioux said in the statement. “The abuses include strip searches, violent security dog attacks, pepper-spraying of youth and intimidation by law enforcement.”

Archambault’s letter went further, describing roadblocks, checkpoints and unwarranted stops, all of which “are clearly targeted at Indian people, and are designed to intimidate free speech.”

Add to that the “constant surveillance, with low-flying planes and helicopters constantly overhead at the camps of the water protectors,” the confiscation of at least one drone and the shooting down of another, even those being used by journalists, plus the actual arrests of journalists such as Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, add up to a “larger effort by local law enforcement to intimidate the press and to prevent the full and fair reporting of the activities of law enforcement on this matter,” Archambault’s letter said.

“Rather than seeking to keep the peace, law enforcement personnel are clearly working in tandem with private security of Dakota Access,” the chairman wrote, adding that the tactics not only evoke the civil rights movement of 50 years ago but also bring up the collective memory of the U.S. government’s “long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people.”

Via ICTMN. In related news: Justice Dept Reaffirms It Will Not Grant DAPL River-Crossing Permits Anytime Soon.

43.

George W. Bush. Whitehouse.gov.

George W. Bush. Whitehouse.gov.

One year before winning the election of 2000, George Walker Bush, then Texas governor and Republican frontrunner in the presidential race, championed for states’ rights, which he believed trumped the rights of tribes.

During a trip to Syracuse, New York, in October 1999, Bush, already an adversary to Indian casinos in his home state of Texas, advocated a position that contradicted both the U.S. Constitution and more than 200 years of federal Indian law.

“My view is that state law reigns supreme when it comes to the Indians, whether it be gambling or any other issue,” he told the Syracuse Post-Standard on October 24, 1999.

[Read more…]

NO DAPL: Water Protectors Needed!

Courtesy Rob Wilson Photography.

Courtesy Rob Wilson Photography.

Sarah Sunshine Manning highlights and details the need for more water protectors to make their way to the camps.

On October 18, water protectors called for reinforcements as the Dakota Access construction is quickly closing in on the Missouri River in North Dakota.

Water protectors, skilled in non-violent direct action, should plan to make their way to Standing Rock as quickly as you can get here.

This massive call-to-action is endorsed by more than 10 groups, including the Indigenous Peoples Power Project (IP3), The Ruckus Society, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor The Earth, the Oceti Sakowin Camp, the Sacred Stone Camp, West Coast Women Warriors Media Cooperative, Ancestral Pride, Digital Smoke Signals, Greenpeace USA, and The Other98.

“If we’re going to beat the pipeline, we’re going to need more people,” Nick Tilsen, Oglala Lakota, and co-founder of the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, told me.

An informational video was released in accompaniment with the joint-statement made by the groups with the title, “Warriors Wanted.”

“We’re asking for reinforcements to come stand with us, to pray, and to protect,” Tilsen said. “Of all the times to take action, the time is now.”

On October 22, water protectors in the camps reported that Dakota Access construction was just a few miles from the camp, and approximately 5 miles from the Missouri River.

[…]

In another Facebook video posted by Mark K. Tilsen, Oglala Lakota from Porcupine, South Dakota, Tilsen delivered a poignant message to allies across the globe:

“I’m asking you to come to Standing Rock,” he said. “Follow local leadership, but you will be given autonomy to choose your actions, and how you choose to creatively stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Please. Come to Standing Rock.”

Mark Tilsen has been stationed at the Oceti Sakowin camp for the past two months, also assisting in non-violent direct action trainings.

“We need help. We need bodies on the ground,” said Tilsen. “We need people here who are dedicated and willing. This is not a tourist action. This is not a party. We’re here to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Thank you.”

There’s much more here, including a video about strip searching protesters who were arrested for disorderly conduct. This is an obvious tactic on the part of the Keystone cops here to humiliate those who dare to protect the earth and water. Even Chairman Archambault was subjected to this.

In other NO DAPL news:

[Read more…]

The Alpha Male’s Social Media Prowess.

Cult-of-Trump-4

I guess you could call this the precursor to TrumpTV – TrumpFacebook. The Trump campaign has launched a nightly “news” show on Facebook Live to counter that so-called media bias, and they are all excited about what they call bypassing that horrible left wing media, oh my yes.

“[We’re] excited to be bypassing the left-wing media,” host Boris Epshteyn said in opening the inaugural segment, which he co-hosts with fellow Trump adviser Cliff Sims from Trump Tower.

The first 6:30 p.m., 30-minute stream featured Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer, communications director and chief strategist of the Republican National Committee, Mediaite reported. Conservative pundit Tomi Lahren of the Blaze delivered an opinion segment titled “Final Thoughts.”

Oh, well, that will certainly be fair and unbiased. I just rolled my eyes so hard my spine almost popped out.

Trump’s children and various surrogates are expected to take part as well on subsequent installments.

The show, which will air nightly during weeknights in the lead-up to the Nov. 8 election, is to serve as a lead-in to Trump’s nightly campaign rallies, which also will be streamed live.

“This is a historic movement. Together, we will once again make a government by, for, and of the people! Help us close out the final weeks of this campaign strong and win,” Trump posted on Facebook Monday.

Epshteyn and Sims said the broadcast is a way to capture Trump’s social media prowess, the Hill reported.

Oh, the social media prowess of the alpha male of God, oooooh. If this social media prowess is in any way connected to the constant mess of tantrums on twitter, everyone better sharpen their mockery spears, they are going to get much use.

“We all know how strong the left wing media bias is. This is us delivering our message to voters,” Epshteyn told Wired. “It has nothing to do with Trump TV. It’s about using 21st-century technology and communication in a way that’s effective.”

Before last week’s final debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Facebook Live broadcast garnered 200,000 simultaneous viewers, which CNNMoney said is high compared to other viewership figures on the web. After it was archived, viewership rose to 8.6 million Facebook users, CrowdTangle data indicated, topping debate streams from ABC and Fox.

Well, all the people jumping off the Fox ship have to have somewhere to go, I suppose.

Via Raw Story.

“All the stuff, I am against.”

Nevada voter named Barbara speaks to CBS News (screen grab).

Nevada voter named Barbara speaks to CBS News (screen grab).

Following the third presidential debate, Face the Nation host John Dickerson spoke to a group of voters in Nevada about why they supported either Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

A voter named Barbara explained that she was motivated to support Trump because “morality and values” were important to her.

“Based on what the country was based on,” she said. “I think that the laws that Obama has passed, the way the country has — I call it down turning. Some of the other people are proud of it and happy for it. I personally am against it, the homosexuals, the abortions. All the stuff, I am against.”

“When Donald Trump says ‘Make American Great Again,’ is that what you hear?” Dickerson wondered. “That it’s going to go back to before the time that you’re now describing?”

“That’s part of it,” Barbara agreed.

No, Barbara, morality and values aren’t important to you in the least. You wouldn’t know morals, values, or ethics if they leaped up and bit your nose. What is important to you? The need to control, dominate, and oppress others. The need to be sitting on top of the people heap. The need to be a judgmental asshole, pointing a finger in accusation and screaming about prayer. People like yourself Barbara, have this awful sadistic need to stomp all over other people you perceive as lesser, giving them the convenient label of sinner. You dream of an America that never was, like most ignorant white asses. I have a bit of news for you, Barbara – all your stuff, I am against. I suggest you run and hide, because all the liberal, queer, and thinking people, they are coming to get you, Barbara.

Full story here.

Books: Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Courtesy University of Nebraska Press Plans for cultural genocide as well as the stories of courage and oppression at the famous/infamous residential Carlisle Indian Industrial School appear in an unprecedented collection of essays, poems and photos entitled “Carlisle Indian Industrial School/Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations,” recently published.

Courtesy University of Nebraska Press
Plans for cultural genocide as well as the stories of courage and oppression at the famous/infamous residential Carlisle Indian Industrial School appear in an unprecedented collection of essays, poems and photos entitled “Carlisle Indian Industrial School/Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations,” recently published.

Plans for cultural genocide as well as the stories of courage and oppression at the famous/infamous residential Carlisle Indian Industrial School appear in an unprecedented collection of essays, poems and photos entitled “Carlisle Indian Industrial School/Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations,” recently published by University of Nebraska Press and edited by Jacqueline Fear-Segal and Susan D. Rose.

This compelling gathering of work examines the legacy of the Carlisle experience through verse by noted poets N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and Maurice Kenney (Mohawk) along with essays by distinguished historians and scholars such as Fear-Segal, Rose, Barbara Landis and Louellyn White (Mohawk). It also includes the recollections and reflections of some descendants of the more than 10,000 Native children who attended the school between 1879 and 1918.

The book is divided into six parts—1) A Sacred and Storied Space; 2) Student Lives and Losses; 3) Carlisle Indian School Cemetery; 4) Reclamations; 5) Revisioning the Past; and 6) Reflections and Responses—and provides a panoramic view of the experience, including many poignant and heartbreaking stories.

The anthology starts out with a comprehensive introduction to the school, the historical context of Manifest Destiny, Native dispossession and a compelling re-imagining of how the Native children must have felt after being seized and sent far away to be forcibly “assimilated” into white culture. The removal of children, in effect the tearing apart of families and communities, was part of the attempt to “Kill the Indian, and save the man,” a seminal quote from the school’s founder and superintendent, Richard Henry Pratt who sought to change the children, beginning with their names.

One of the many themes in the book involves names, the white names given to Native children and the names on tombstones in the school’s cemetery.

“Names are especially important in Native American culture,” Momaday wrote in “The Stones at Carlisle.” “Names and being are thought to be indivisible. One who bears no name cannot truly be said to exist, for one has being in his name… In this context we see how serious is the loss of one’s name. In the case of the tombstones at Carlisle we are talking about the crime of neglect and negation. We are talking not only about the theft of identity, but the theft of essential being.”

The full article is at ICTMN. This goes right to the top of my reading list. The book is available from the University of Nebraska Press, and an excerpt can be read here.

Reno Truck Assault: Driver Charged.

Courtesy Louis Magriel/Reno Gazette-Journal.

Courtesy Louis Magriel/Reno Gazette-Journal.

The 18-year-old man who drove through a crowd of 40 protestors was charged Friday with provoking assault and released on a $1,000 bond, police said.

Five people were injured when Nick Mahaffey rammed his white Nissan pickup truck into a group of Columbus Day protestors in Reno, Nevada, last week.

Police also charged two protesters involved in the incident. James Fletcher and Samuel Harry were both charged with simple battery, CBS News reported.

ICTMN has the full story.

Turing Bill Withdrawn.

Alan Turing.

Alan Turing.

A British bill that would have granted pardons for men convicted of gay sex is not moving forward, the BBC reports.

The “Turing Bill” — named for World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, who was subjected to chemical castration because of his homosexuality — would have removed the criminal records of thousands of gay and bi men, both living and dead.

After emotional testimony from the bill’s author, member of Parliament John Nicolson, and shouts of “shame” from sympathetic politicians who saw the legislation dying a slow death, the “Turing Bill” was withdrawn. The conflict was over a companion bill introduced by the Ministry of Justice, which would only pardon dead men convicted of sex crimes. The government believes Nicolson’s Sexual Offences (Pardons) Bill could lead to the clearing of convictions for behavior that remains criminal.

Nicolson’s bill would overturn the convictions of men charged under a 1956 “buggery” law and an 1885 sexual “offences” act, assuming all those involved were consensual partners and over 16 at the time.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to pardon men who were tortured for no reason, that might be the right thing to do, can’t have that! For Fuck’s Sake. Via The Advocate.

The Fuzziness of the Army Corps.

Major General Donald Jackson.

Major General Donald Jackson. Mary Annette Pember.

As with most issues between Indian country and the federal government, the important bits are steeped in legalese and long numerical references to laws and regulations. The very stuff of life and its protection, however, is referenced and hidden within these dryly-worded documents.

A set of regulations created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) called Appendix C is one such example, and it may determine the future of the Dakota Access Pipeline project as well as other projects for which the Army Corps is responsible for issuing federal permits.

It turns out that tribes have been complaining about the legality of Appendix C for a very long time, and with good reason. Appendix C spells out how the Corps will meet its obligation to fulfill Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), created to protect places of historic, architectural and/or cultural significance.

Part of the NPHA’s Section 106 requires that agencies carry out the process in consultation with Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPO) and identify and assess impacts to properties of traditional religious and cultural significance to tribes. Although all federal agencies are allowed to create their own means by which they fulfill the requirements of Section 106, the Army Corps chose to streamline the process by creating its own regulations that tribes and other federal agencies argue not only fail to meet the requirement of the NHPA’s Section 106, but are also in direct conflict with the law.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with overseeing implementation of the NHPA. The Corps contradicts several of ACHP’s regulations through use of its own process spelled out under Appendix C.

The differences between Section 106 regulations and Appendix C are substantial. Chief among these differences includes the Corps’ decision in the Standing Rock case to review each river crossing of the Dakota Access pipeline as a separate project rather than consider the entire pipeline as one project.

“This allows the Corps to dismiss the potential for effects to historic properties that may be located within the broader project area of an undertaking,” according to an August 2, 2016 letter from the ACHP to the Corps.

The full story is at ICTMN.