Some bright spots, and boy do we ever need them. I hate sitting down at my desk every morning, because the tide of hatred and bigotry just gets bigger. I’ll be trying to track the resistance as well as all the fascism. I’m sure to miss things, so feel free to let me know about what’s going on.
“KILL KILL KILL BLACKS” written inside a bathroom late last week at the Sligo Creek Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. One student reported the incident to their teacher, who apparently didn’t inform the school’s administration, which only learned about the graffiti after a member of the building service crew found it and reported it.
Source: Twitter.
The above, and all like it, are being normalized as you read this. There’s an almost feverish desperation in the attempts at normalizing Trump, his appalling choices for the cabinet, his complete lack of policies, his complete lack of knowledge and experience, and his openly bigoted, violent fans. The core of white supremacy is being steadfastly ignored, as is the fact that America has gone fascist. As Giliell pointed out:
Yes, and it’s going to get normalised. I studied my country’s history well. Nobody would have stood for the Reichspogromnacht in 1933 and people just thought that it wasn’t too bad. By 1938 they cheered on as the Synagogues burned.
We’re right there, right now. I’m already seeing people deflecting in an attempt to ignore what’s happening right in front of them; people are continuing to talk about how liberals and minorities must build bridges; people are busily trying to convince themselves and everyone else that everything will be fine, nothing unusual at all, no. There’s even an attempt by people trying to say just how good a Trump presidency will be for women. A little reminder here:
(Gretchen Robinette / Gothamist).
We’ll start with Alternet. This is going to be a long post, so grab your drink of choice.
Two officials in West Virginia have come under fire for sharing racist messages about First Lady Michelle Obama.
According to WSAZ, a message about the current first lady was shared thousands of times after it was posted on Facebook by Clay County Development Corporation Director Pamela Taylor.
“It will be refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady in the White House,” Taylor wrote. “I’m tired of seeing an ape in heels.”
Clay Mayor Beverly Whaling reportedly praised Taylor’s post, writing, “Just made my day Pam.”
[…]
For Taylor’s part, she insisted to WSAZ that she had already been reprimanded by the Clay County Development Corporation, which is funded by taxpayer money.
Taylor argued that the incident had been turned into a “hate crime against me.”
Emphasis is mine. These are the people we are dealing with. These are the people we supposedly need to be nice to, understand, and build bridges to, along with the sympathy, tea and cookies. NO. Fuck No. I’ll set fire to bridges, but I’ll be damned if I’ll make one conciliatory gesture to these evil people.
Via Raw Story. And to this continuation, we can add the following: “These f*cking monkeys would be hanging if I saw this sh*t,” * Donald Trump supporters partied in KKK garb to celebrate election.
(Juan, CC BY-NC).
The Southern Poverty Law Center has a very in-depth look, following a survey, on the impact the presidential campaign has had on the nation’s schools, particularly the impact on students, and the impact on teaching. Normally, teachers take advantage of a presidential campaign to teach on a variety of subjects. That’s not the case this time. Many teachers are afraid to bring it up, because of the incitement it causes, which ends in harassment and bullying of some students, and other teachers are at a loss to explain to their students why this campaign was so utterly filthy, with none of the ideals and high standards they are taught about. Many teachers are heartbroken, seeing the profound fear many of their students have, even in kindergarten. The article is a long one, and there’s a .pdf available, and a link to full comments at the main page.
Every four years, teachers in the United States use the presidential election to impart valuable lessons to students about the electoral process, democracy, government and the responsibilities of citizenship.
But, for students and teachers alike, this year’s primary season is starkly different from any in recent memory. The results of an online survey conducted by Teaching Tolerance suggest that the campaign is having a profoundly negative effect on children and classrooms.
It’s producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported.
Other students have been emboldened by the divisive, often juvenile rhetoric in the campaign. Teachers have noted an increase in bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates on the campaign trail.
Educators are perplexed and conflicted about what to do. They report being stymied by the need to remain nonpartisan but disturbed by the anxiety in their classrooms and the lessons that children may be absorbing from this campaign.
Two responses from teachers illustrate their dilemma. A teacher in Arlington, Virginia, says, “I try to not bring it up since it is so stressful for my students.” Another, in Indianapolis, Indiana, says, “I am at a point where I’m going to take a stand even if it costs me my position.”
Pro-Trump graffiti found at Episcopal Church of Our Savior in Silver Spring, Maryland.
WJLA reported that the vandals struck Episcopal Church of Our Savior in Silver Spring on Saturday night. A sign reaching out to the Hispanic community was defaced to read: “Trump Nation whites only.”
The message was also scrawled on one of the church’s exterior walls.
Church Rector Robert Harvey told WJLA that the church membership consisted of about 80 percent immigrants, including people from more than 50 countries.
“They’re afraid,” Harvey explained, noting that church members were aware of the countless incidents of racism across the country following Trump’s election.
Harvey said that two white men were seen yelling racial slurs at Latina women across the street from the church last week.
Via Raw Story.
New School dorm doors – screen capture.
Students at New York City’s New School — which bills itself as “A Progressive University” — woke Sunday morning to find Nazi symbols scrawled on their doors, reports NY1.
According to the father of one Jewish student whose door was defaced, his daughter has three roommates including one who is also Jewish and another who is Hispanic.
Although security scrubbed the offensive symbols off of four door, students at the school are not taking it lightly.
“It just shows that this can happen anywhere,” said student Nina Houghton. “Hatred is rampant. Anyone can be a victim of it.”
“I think more than anything it felt very violating and personal because it happened in a space where we live, where we hang out, where we sleep,” another student, Ashley Luna added. “It’s the place where we’re supposed to feel the most safe in the city while we’re away from our families.”
Via Raw Story.
The rich are busy with survivalism, not only buying insanely expensive luxury bunkers, but a whole survivalist community is going up in Texas. (Where else?) Oh, pardon me, they refer to it as a long-term sustainability community, not a survival community. This is a country club based community, with capacity for about 1,600 people. I imagine we’d be talking rich white people here. I’m not in the least rich, and I’m not all the way white, but I’ve had a longstanding interest in sustainability, especially when it comes to Indigenous people having their land stolen over and over, and their ability to sustain themselves ripped away in order to give yet more to people who don’t give one shit about sustainable resources. Now it looks like sustainability and clean energy are really only for those who can afford it, and are allowed into the country club. I’d be willing to bet that every asshole who buys into this place has fought any initiative on climate change and clean energy tooth and fucking nail.
Trident Lakes is a 700-acre, $300 million development that’s billed as a “lavish country-club community” that’ developers say is “part private resort, part safe haven.” Trident Lakes CEO Jim O’Connor and spokesman Richie Whitt said the 400 planned condos will be able to house about 1,600 people total. The condos will range from 900 to 3,600 square feet in size and feature underground floors.
O’Connor understands there may be an inkling to look at Trident Lakes as a “doomsday survival community,” but said he doesn’t view his development in such terms. “We’ve evolved it into long-term sustainability instead of a survival community,” O’Connor said. “The concept is to build a community that will last two centuries or longer. That means we’re looking at designs that include earth structures that won’t be exposed to the elements.” Part of that longevity feature is building most of the condos underground.
O’Connor plans to make the community sustainable by including “off the grid” sources of food, water and energy. Communal greenhouses, an air purification system and even a DNA vault are also planned for the community.
On the upscale side of Trident Lakes, O’Connor plans on adding an equestrian center, polo fields, zip lines and gun ranges. Retail shops, restaurants and a row of helipads are also in the works. O’Connor and Whitt haven’t disclosed a set price to move into the community yet. Whitt said the condos will be comparable to owning a second home.
[…]
“We’re looking into using different energy sources and innovative amenities,” O’Connor said. “This is not only a place to go in an emergency, but also a place people can enjoy living in year round.”
Via Houston Chronicle.
Kali Holloway has an excellent article up at Raw Story: Stop asking me to empathize with the white working class. Here’s just a bit of it:
[…] Trump stoked racial hatred, but he didn’t invent it, so stop acting like he did because it makes you feel good. The irony of this whole thing is that Trump knew better than a lot of “good” white folks—even recognized as well as folks of color did—how much white power and supremacy means to white people. From day one, he bet that it would be enough to get him elected. He ran a brilliant campaign, in a country where a brilliant campaign can almost solely consist of telling white people they might not be on top forever. He called it. Credit where it’s due.
The only surprise to come out of this election is how many, and how quickly, white people want us to empathize with the people who voted against our humanity, our right to exist in this place. Even before the election, the Washington Post actually had the audacity to berate us for not crying for the white working class. In the days since Trump won, the number of articles urging everybody to be cool to Trump’s America, to understand what they are facing, to hear their grievances, has added insult to injury. Bernie Sanders issued a statement saying Trump “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.” I read it at least three times and couldn’t find the words “white supremacy” anywhere in it.
Please miss me with all this nonsense. I’m not even going to get into how this is based on an easily refutable economic lie, especially since others have already spent precious time they’ll never get back breaking this down. But even if it was true—and I am well aware of what’s plaguing the white working class, from substance abuse to suicide to a loss of manufacturing jobs—I refuse to take part in the endless privileging of white pain above all others. (Martin Gilens, who has studied this stuff going way back, notes that when the media face of poverty is white, this country suddenly gets a lot more compassionate.) Latinos and African Americans remain worse off than the white working class—which is still the “largest demographic bloc in the workforce”—by pretty much every measurable outcome, from home ownership to life expectancy. Where are these appeals for us when we protest or riot against the systemic inequality we live with? Where are all the calls to recognize and understand our anger?
For hundreds of years, white people have controlled everything in this country: the executive office, Congress, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, Wall Street, the lending institutions, the history textbook industry, the false narrative that America cares about liberty and justice for all. But I need to understand white feelings of marginalization because a black man was in the White House for eight years? Because political correctness—a general plea for white people not to be as awful as they have been in the past— asked that white people put more effort into being decent than they felt up to? Because white folks didn’t like that feeling when politicians aren’t singularly focused on the hard times and struggles of their communities? Audre Lorde said (I wonder if that woman ever got sick of being right), “oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.” For a people who have shamed black folks for supposedly always wanting a hand out, for being a problem of the entitlement state, I have never seen people who so firmly believe they are owed something.
Let me pass along some advice black folks have been given for a long time: stop being so angry and seeing yourself as a victim, and try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s really all I have for you right now, this re-gifting of wisdom. […]
I’ll stand with Ms. Holloway here, and I stand by Iris, too. Over at Death to Squirrels, I said that my days of empathizing with cons of any stripe are over, and they are. White people have gone full court whiny now, wanting everyone to pat them on the head and say, yes, yes, you have it so bad, darling. No. Even liberal white people are getting in on the Whine Wagon. “But you have to be nice to them! They’re just misunderstood!” My response to that? The fuck I do, and the fuck they are.
Before I go on, the standard disclaimer: no, all white people aren’t awful. No, all white people aren’t unrepentant bigots. No, all white people are not willfully ignorant assholes. Yes, lots of white people get it.
This nonsense of “you must have empathy for them, you must!” needs to stop, right now. The people who voted Trump into the position of president-elect did so for specific reasons, but the primary one is exactly what Ms. Holloway said: power. White people are all about power, and they love their privilege. Of course they listened to a fucking gold-plated idiot who told them their power as Mighty Whitey was slipping. They’ve already felt that, and yep, they’ve been very upset about it, and grabbed onto Trump with a death grip in order to get firmly ensconced on top of the people pile once more. I have no idea why white liberals have latched onto the tone argument; Trumpoids have no interest in anyone being nice and understanding, they want obeisance and submission. They want to be what they always have been in this country – lords of the manor. They want to be able to spit, sneer, and be in a position of authoritative judgment of all others. White cons have no use whatsoever for white liberals, either, so that makes the tone argument even more inexplicable.
I’ll be 59 in a matter of days. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. Tumultuous times, rife with change, change for the better. There was such hope in the ’70s, people had such faith in the future. This is not what we were dreaming about. The 80s saw the serious rise of conservatism once again, especially Christian conservatism. I’ve been around for the whole thing, and decade by decade, cons have gotten worse, more extreme, more hateful, more spiteful, more poisonous. It’s not a surprise the white wall of conservative xianity took their one chance to power, nor is it surprising that white supremacists have wrapped themselves around Trump like a cloak. All that, I understand. I don’t like it at all, but I understand it.
What I don’t understand is this hand-wringing call for sympathy, tea and cookies. No. No, no, no. When have Christian Cons every had empathy for anyone except themselves? When have white supremacists ever had empathy for anyone except themselves? Christian Cons and white supremacists are evil people, perfectly willing commit themselves to evil to gain their goals. We’re dealing with one of those acts of evil right now. They did the proverbial deal with the devil in order to get closer to all the things they want, and what they want, more than anything, is to stomp people into submission, one way or another. They want to stomp all those feminist sluts into the ground, removing any sort of bodily autonomy, unless it happens to be their bodily autonomy on the line, natch. “No More Uppity” might as well be their battle cry, along with the requisite god, guns, and bible business.
I haven’t recovered quite yet, but to anyone who thinks that “you gotta be nice to them” is some sort of strategy or argument, I have one response: Fuck No.
Kali Holloway’s full article is here, highly recommended. Also recommended: https://twitter.com/drskyskull/status/796916965956874241
Mother, Jennifer Reynaga — (NBC4 screen grab)
A Los Angeles area substitute teacher has been fired after a student recorded him taunting Latino sixth graders about the election of Donald Trump, telling them their parents were going to be deported, reports NBC4.
According to Jennifer Reynaga, she expected Latino students to be harassed after the election of Trump who made bashing immigrants,and Mexicans in particular, a cornerstone of his campaign.
“I would think the kids would do it, but I never thought a teacher would do it,” said Reynaga said in an interview.
The Reynaga family turned over the recording, captured with another student’s cellphone, to the school district where the unidentified substitute physical education teacher can be heard speaking to students at Bret Harte Middle School in South Los Angeles.
“If you were born here, then your parents got to go. Then they will leave you behind, and you will be in foster care,” the teacher can be heard telling Reynaga’s 11-year-old daughter.
When the sixth grader asked how Trump would find them, the teacher replied, “I have your phone numbers, your address, your mama’s address, your daddy’s address. It’s all in the system, sweetie.”
Emphasis mine. So, this is adulthood, is it? A person supposedly mature enough to be trusted with children? Apparently, all those people who decided to cast a vote for Trump are immature assholes who represent a clear danger to others. This ‘teacher’ has been fired, but it’s not enough. Such incidents also need to see charges and arrests. Here in the lost country, it’s perfectly okay to abuse the hell out of people who are simply trying to keep water clean, to arrest them and charge them for doing nothing at all, but someone who threatens children has nothing happen outside the loss of their job. Welcome to Trump Land indeed.
Another teacher is on the receiving end of a suspension, but for offending Trumpoids:
The Monterey Herald said that Mountain View High School placed teacher Frank Navarro on paid leave after a parent complained in an email about the lesson and statements that Navarro made in class.
Navarro — a 40-year classroom veteran and expert in Holocaust studies — said, “This feels like we’re trying to squash free speech. Everything I talk about is factually based. They can go and check it out. It’s not propaganda or bias if it’s based on hard facts.”
The school district, Navarro said, would neither reveal the contents of the complaint email nor go over the lesson plan with him to determine what the parent found problematic.
Mountain View/Los Altos High School District Superintendent Jeff Harding told the Herald that Navarro was originally suspended through Wednesday, Nov. 16, but he could return to the classroom as early as Monday.
“We are interested in getting Frank back in the classroom … we’re just trying to maintain our due diligence,” Harding said. “We have a heightened emotional environment right now with the election. It’s always a challenge to maintain a line in a classroom.”
Mountain View High School’s newspaper, the Oracle said that some of Navarro’s students that his lessons were “one-sided” and that he used language that Trump supporters would find offensive. Other students have defended the 65-year-old teacher, who has won multiple awards for his studies of the Nazi Holocaust.
[…]
“I’ve had Mexican kids come and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Navarro, I might be deported,’” he said. “Is it better to see bigotry and say nothing? That’s what the principal was telling me (during our conversation). In my silence, I would be substantiating the bigotry.”
Aaaaand:
“Your headscarf isn’t allowed anymore. Why don’t you tie it around your neck and hang yourself with it off of your neck instead of your head.”
The note was signed, “America!”
Full story here.
Religion was almost invisible during the presidential campaign, and yet it is the missing piece in understanding Mr. Trump’s victory. The Christian right worked largely under the national media’s radar this year, but it helped deliver the presidency to a thrice-married mogul who bragged about groping women and has been accused by multiple women of actually doing it.
They were willing to forgive Mr. Trump’s personal transgressions because he stoked their fears that a Hillary Clinton administration would take away their religious liberties, use their tax dollars to fund late-term abortions at home and abroad, and expand the rights of gay and transgender people, political analysts said. Mr. Trump warned at rallies and at conservative Christian gatherings that he alone was their last hope to protect them against a changing culture, using the refrain, “This is your last chance.”
Now that he has won, evangelical leaders say they are confident Mr. Trump will deliver on the political promises he made to them. These include appointing a conservative to the Supreme Court, defunding Planned Parenthood, protecting businesses that refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings and rescinding the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that requires insurance coverage for birth control.
And with Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, an evangelical with a record of legislating against abortion and same-sex marriage, as vice president, Christian leaders say they feel reassured they will have access to the White House and a seat at the table.
I wrote about this in a comment at Pharyngula, because all kinds of people have been writing some less than stellar pieces about rural white Americans. A lot of people attempting to parse rural America don’t live in it. I do. I’m in a very tiny town in nDakota. This is what I wrote in that comment:
I live rural. One thing you often hear from people is “oh, I don’t understand that stuff”, so they go with confirmation bias. This is very clear when it comes to something like climate change. The rest of it can simply be explained by good old conservatism, the preserving of the colonial, Christian, white status quo. A lot of people who live rural are older, conservative, and fearful. They don’t approve of women being able to obtain abortions; they still think single women having sex is scandalous, and they don’t think it’s okay for them to pay for their contraception. They understand healthcare, but are terrified of “creeping socialism”, so they are against ACA. They aren’t terribly keen on that feminism stuff, and anything queer they find very unsettling, set their lips in a straight line and shake their heads. Most won’t come out and say anything nasty, but the “that’s unnatural” vibe is very strong. They don’t think it’s okay for queer people to marry, and they are easily scared by propaganda about transgender people using a public lav.
It is true, to an extent, that rural farmers feel isolated and ignored, but that’s not why they voted for Trump. They aren’t so stupid as to not understand that a one percenter doesn’t give a shit about them, but they think he’ll keep the conservative status quo.
I’ll add to this that to a large extent, in rural areas, you have people who will simply buy, lock, stock, and barrel, whatever the hell they hear on Fox. It seldom bothers them that all those screaming pundits who are pandering to fear don’t actually believe what they spout, but are happy enough to get rich off all those who swallow the shit whole. There are more resources than ever, when it comes to finding out whether or not a fear is legitimate; it’s easier than ever to educate yourself and learn, but in spite of that, most older rural people stay very insular on the internet, too. They might email, they might have an account at Facebook, but to them, the rest of the ‘net is as bewildering and just as frightening as the ‘real’ world. They yearn for those imaginary good old days, they want their 1950s back, when people of colour knew their place and those uppity women were properly punished if they had sex.
Christians have a great capacity for hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. In a matter of a few short decades, they’ve gone from denouncing politicians who couldn’t keep their pants zipped, and other activities they considered immoral. That doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is the ends justifying the means. Oh, when a raging pundit gets caught with his pants around his ankles while swallowing fistfuls of illegal drugs? Eh, we should pray for the poor man. Bill Clinton gets a blow job? Pretty sure most people remember the conservative Christian outrage on that on. Trump is a sexual predator, a rapist, and a cheater, but white Christians don’t seem terribly concerned about that. Nor are they terribly concerned about the amount of boys who are grabbing girls by the crotch, claiming it’s okay because the Prez said so. Those Christian values are amazingly elastic, they expand and contract to either cover something unacceptable, or to exclude anything or anyone disapproved of by them.
As recently as five years ago, Christians were far more judgmental of politicians accused of transgressions in their personal lives. Now, in the era of Mr. Trump, there is more tolerance, especially among evangelicals, according to a study by Mr. Jones’s institute. The group often called “values voters” was not dissuaded by headlines about Mr. Trump sexually harassing women, lying, refusing to pay taxes or stiffing contractors.
“Trump has really changed their entire political ethic. It’s moved from a principled basis to more of a utilitarian ethic, where the ends justify the means,” Mr. Jones said.
The hypocrisy there is absolutely stunning, but Christians excel at justifying the most awful and evil actions. They are quite comfortable with evil, and being evil, because they always think it’s okay if they do it. It’s only wrong if those others do it. Yes, Christians have marched fascism into power, and like fascists before, they have all the justifications in the world why it’s the right thing to do. In order to get their way, in order to be in control of other people, they have joined arms with the very worst of white supremacists. As evil blossoms in this lost country, white Christians will continue to justify the flames even as they are being consumed by them.
Two sources here: Religious Right Believes Donald Trump Will Deliver on His Promises and The Rage of White, Christian America.
Recommended Reading: What happens in the US doesn’t stay in the US.
Credit: NASA.
Trump’s policies would also be creating failed states at America’s doorstep. Here is what a 2015 NASA study projected the normal climate of North America will look like (under the kind of fossil-fuel-intensive growth Trump has promised). The darkest areas have soil moisture comparable to that seen during the 1930s Dust Bowl.
Our poorer neighbors to the south will be engulfed by near-permanent Dust Bowl or severe drought. At the same time, their coastal areas (and ours) will be trying to “adapt” to sea level rise of perhaps 6 or more feet by 2100 (rising as much as a foot a decade after that). For all but the wealthiest, abandonment will be the primary adaptation strategy.
Inevitably, over a hundred million people from Mexico and Central America will be trying to find a place to live that isn’t anywhere near as hot and dry, that has enough fresh water and food to go around. They won’t be looking south.
Tragically, Donald Trump combines xenophobia with a vow to be the world’s primary obstacle to preserving a livable climate for our southern neighbors. It’s like we would be setting fire to our neighbor’s house and farm — and then blocking efforts by the fire department to put the fire out AND at the same time condemning any notion that we have an obligation to house and feed them.
Trump would be creating the perfect conditions for failed states and violence in North America.
A world where President Trump succeeds in thwarting or reversing climate action is a world with dozens of Syrias and Darfurs and Pakistani mega-floods, a world with hundreds of millions of climate refugees in the coming decades, all clamoring to move to places that aren’t flooded or Dust-Bowlified, including parts of the United States.
It would be a world where everyone eventually becomes a veteran, a refugee, or a casualty of war. That’s something worth remembering this Veteran’s Day.
That’s just a small excerpt from a very good article taking a look at what climate change has already brought about, and how it’s going to get much worse. Yes, there are things we can do to help avert the worst, but thinking people already know we’re in this very late, and all we can do right now is to mitigate all the damage we have done. That mitigation requires cooperation and change. Two things Trump is incapable of are cooperation and change. He has vowed to go full bore ahead on dirty energy, ripping the earth apart in a quest for more, more, more, without one thought to the very near future. If you have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and you voted for that maniac, you have just screwed them, and their future into the ground. Unfortunately, you decided to screw over everyone else, too.
Trump is a silver spoon idiot, a person who can barely think at all, is of little education,* doesn’t read, and doesn’t care about anything except himself. He inherited wealth, and an inflated sense of entitlement. That sense of entitlement is what drives him now, and in that quest, he will ensure he does his damnedest to hasten the death of most life on our planet, that life including yours and that of those you love.
*No, I don’t care if you didn’t go to college. Hell, I don’t care if you didn’t make it through high school. I do care whether or not you have learned throughout your life, whether you have made an effort to learn about things happening in the world. If you haven’t, and you’ve just sat on your ass letting any con man fill your head with shit, you deserve what you’ve brought down, but the rest of us? No, we don’t deserve that.
Full article here. In other climate news: Trump victory puts the chill on international climate talks. Court rules that children can sue the government over climate negligence.
Will Trump go down in history as the man who pulled the plug on a livable climate?
The fate of humanity is in the hands of a denier who pledged to kill domestic and global climate action and all clean energy research.
Courtesy Dr0ne2bewild Shiyé Bidziil/Vimeo.
Energy Transfer Partners has gone so far as to build its drilling pad for tunneling under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, even though it still awaits the necessary easements.
The U.S. Department of Justice is about to announce next steps on de-escalating the standoff regarding construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“Today, the Department of Justice announced in federal court that it will be announcing the next steps on a ‘path forward’ for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing at Lake Oahe,” said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II in a statement on November 10.
Energy Transfer Partners is refusing to stand down on its construction plans despite two requests from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it do so.
The company, builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), said on Tuesday November 8 that it planned to begin drilling in two weeks—even though at the moment it does not have the easements necessary for it to tunnel under the river legally.
Full story at ICTMN.
