Tag Archives: historic

Pipeline company gets nasty as it tries to push huge new project through sensitive lands

by ChandaThibeault Posted on August 17, 2016

midwestern battles

Pipeline company gets nasty as it tries to push huge new project through sensitive lands

By on Aug 17, 2016Share

If pipeline companies learned one thing from the fight that took down Keystone XL, it’s that sustained and vocal criticism can achieve real political outcomes, so they shouldn’t underestimate their opposition.

Maybe that’s why Dakota Access LLC, the company building one of the biggest pipelines proposed in the U.S. since Keystone XL, is attacking its critics directly.

On Monday, Dakota Access filed suit against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, asking for restraining orders and seeking unspecified monetary damages against a tribal chairman and other protesters who had been “occupying” land near pipeline construction sites.

The company has already begun construction on the 1,172-mile pipeline, intended to send up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil a day from North Dakota’s Bakken shale sites, through South Dakota and Iowa, to a refinery in Illinois.

Along the pipeline route, Dakota Access cuts across farmland, the Missouri, Mississippi, and Big Sioux rivers, and cultural and historical sites sacred to Native American tribes. In one location, the pipeline runs just 500 feet from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation border, according to organizer and property owner LaDonna Brave Bull Allard.

The tribe last week organized protesters to occupy land less than a mile from the tribe’s reservation boundary — land that Dakota Access had intended to cross in order to begin laying down pipe, said Nicole Donaghy, a native of Standing Rock and lobbyist for the Dakota Resource Council.

More than 500 protesters faced off with police and private, armed security guards; about 28 people have been arrested, reports the Bismarck Tribune. (Among their number was Hollywood actress Shailene Woodley, the star of the Divergent film series, reports the Associated Press.) Dakota Access did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.

The Army Corps of Engineers in July gave the pipeline its final federal permits, despite the tribe’s pending lawsuit against the Corps, filed in D.C. district court, which has an injunction hearing scheduled for Aug. 24. The suit argues that the project violates the Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, among other laws. The tribe hopes the court will rule in its favor and issue a stop-work order.

Meanwhile, in Iowa, landowners have filed suit against eminent domain proceedings, which they argue would only be legal if the pipeline were a public utility instead of being privately owned.

Despite protests and pending lawsuits, Dakota Access will keep laying pipeline in the ground in all four states. Unless Dakota Access is derailed or delayed, the pipeline should be operational by the end of 2016.

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Pipeline company gets nasty as it tries to push huge new project through sensitive lands

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These Photos of Louisiana’s Deadly Floods Are Terrifying

by Amelie29J029 Posted on August 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Severe weather and flooding has wracked southern Louisiana in recent days, as more than two feet of rain fell in parts of the region. The flooding has so far caused at least six deaths, according to the Associated Press. More than 20,000 people have been rescued, and 10,000 others have been put in shelters, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a press conference yesterday.

The US government has declared four parishes federal disaster areas: East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, and Tangipahoa. Damage assessments are continuing in other parts of the state, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Edwards declared a state of emergency last Friday and requested aid from the federal government on Sunday.

Shocking images from the scene include cars submerged in water, floating caskets, and residents evacuating in boats. Here’s a look at the tragic scene from Louisiana:

Justin Mai reaches his hands into the mud at a construction site as he makes makeshift sandbags using plastic grocery bags during the historic flooding in Baton Rouge. Photo by Chris Granger @cgranger #flood #batonrouge

A photo posted by NOLAnews (@nolanews) on Aug 15, 2016 at 6:24am PDT

Flooding devastation is seen from the air following record-breaking rainfall in southeast Louisiana. Interstate 12 in Baton Rouge runs through the middle of this photograph. (Photo by Andrew Boyd, @gandrew55) #weather #flooding #laflood #batonrougeflood

A photo posted by NOLAnews (@nolanews) on Aug 14, 2016 at 3:51pm PDT

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These Photos of Louisiana’s Deadly Floods Are Terrifying

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Pope Challenges Joint Congress to Work for the "Common Good"

by HallieMcGruder Posted on September 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday, Pope Francis delivered his much anticipated speech before a joint Congress. In his remarks, which marks the first time the leader of the Catholic Church has spoken before a U.S. Congress, Francis urged lawmakers to focus on the “common good” of human society, specifically to protect vulnerable members of society and the environment.

“You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics,” Francis said. “A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.”

Francis also directly addressed the struggles of immigrants crossing the border and the current refugees crisis in Europe.

“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation,” he said.

“Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'”

The Golden Rule was a theme he continued to invoke in order to underscore his positions on income inequality, abortion, and capitol punishment.

For weeks leading up to the historic speech, Francis’ address has been a point of contention for some Republicans who view his outspoken messages on combating climate change and income inequality to conflict with the party’s stance on these issues. Last week, one Catholic congressman even announced he would be boycotting the speech altogether.

Read his speech in full here.

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Pope Challenges Joint Congress to Work for the "Common Good"

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Iran Agreement Looks Like a Done Deal in Congress

by Marcella5971 Posted on August 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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From the Guardian:

Barack Obama has enough votes to get the Iran deal through the House of Representatives, despite Republican efforts to block the historic nuclear accord, the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, has said.

With a Senate vote looking increasingly secure for the president, Pelosi’s comments suggest it is now extremely unlikely that Congress will halt the deal.

Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said on Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press that she was confident House Democrats would have the votes if necessary to see the Iran deal through.

Nancy Pelosi is a pretty shrewd vote counter. If she says there are enough House Democrats to see the deal through, I believe her. It probably doesn’t matter, though: there are now 25 declared supporters of the deal in the Senate, and Obama only needs nine more to ensure passage of the deal. That shouldn’t be too hard.

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Iran Agreement Looks Like a Done Deal in Congress

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The Lawyer Who Handled Dylann Roof’s Drug Case Says He Seemed Like "Just a Normal Kid"

by RondaMoonlight Posted on June 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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After Dylann Storm Roof was arrested Thursday morning for allegedly shooting nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Ken Mathews, an attorney who has been representing Roof in an ongoing drug-possession case, was, he says, “very shocked” to hear about what Roof had allegedly done. He tells Mother Jones, “The dealings I had with him, he was just a normal kid.”

Mathews, a Columbia, South Carolina, attorney, notes that so far in the drug case he has had “very limited dealings” with Roof. He says he saw “nothing that would indicate that Roof would take this type of action.”

The local police have called the shooting a hate crime. Mathews says he has seen no signs that Roof harbored any racial animus: “I had no inkling of anything like that in the dealings I had with him.”

Mathews has known the Roof family for years, dating back to a custody dispute between Dylann’s father Ben and mother Amy over visitation rights concerning Dylann. Mathews says he spoke to Dylann’s father this morning, and “it’s very, very difficult.”

Mathews became Roof’s lawyer after Roof was arrested in March at the Columbiana Centre, a mall in Columbia, and charged with possession of suboxone, a narcotic painkiller. Mathews says Roof had gone into some stores and “asked people some questions, which made some people uncomfortable,” including what time the stores closed. Someone at one of the stores contacted the authorities. Roof was stopped and searched, according to Mathews, and the police found he was carrying suboxone and arrested him. Roof was also given a trespassing warning, which he violated a couple of weeks later, Mathews notes, and Roof was subsequently cited for trespassing.

Here’s what else we know about Roof:

Roof, 21, was arrested midday Thursday in Shelby, North Carolina, about a three and a half-hour drive from the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. The shooting of nine black churchgoers happened at about 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Charleston police chief Greg Mullen said he believed the shooting to be a “hate crime.”
Roof’s uncle told Reuters that Roof was introverted and soft-spoken.
The uncle also said Roof’s father had recently given him a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present. “I don’t have any words for it. Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming,” he said.
Roof is from Lexington, South Carolina, and attended White Knoll High School, which a high school friend said had a mix of black and white students.
An ornamental license plate on the front of Roof’s car had a Confederate flag on it.
Roof’s roommate told ABC News that Roof was a “bit into segregation and other stuff,” and “said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”

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The Lawyer Who Handled Dylann Roof’s Drug Case Says He Seemed Like "Just a Normal Kid"

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Baked Alaska

by Myrna Posted on March 17, 2015

If the Last Frontier is the canary in the climate coal mine, we’re in trouble. Bear Glacier, Alaska, in 2007 Tim Hamilton/Flickr Earlier this winter, Monica Zappa packed up her crew of Alaskan sled dogs and headed south, in search of snow. “We haven’t been able to train where we live for two months,” she told me. Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, which Zappa calls home, has been practically tropical this winter. Rick Thoman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alaska, has been dumbfounded. “Homer, Alaska, keeps setting record after record, and I keep looking at the data like, Has the temperature sensor gone out or something?” Something does seem to be going on in Alaska. Last fall, a skipjack tuna, which is more likely to be found in the Galápagos than near a glacier, was caught about 150 miles southeast of Anchorage, not far from the Kenai. This past weekend, race organizers had to truck in snow to the ceremonial Iditarod start line in Anchorage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska tweeted a photo of one of the piles of snow with the hashtag #wemakeitwork. But it’s unclear how long that will be possible. Alaska is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the country—a canary in our climate coal mine. A new report shows that warming in Alaska, along with the rest of the Arctic, is accelerating as the loss of snow and ice cover begins to set off a feedback loop of further warming. Warming in wintertime has been the most dramatic—more than 6 degrees in the past 50 years. And this is just a fraction of the warming that’s expected to come over just the next few decades. Read the rest at Slate. Read more –  Baked Alaska ; ; ;

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Baked Alaska

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 April 2014

by AlisiaSears Posted on April 18, 2014

Mother Jones

I have to leave early today for yet another pulmonary checkup, so Friday catblogging comes a little ahead of schedule this week. Here is Domino pretending she doesn’t notice the fabulous feline shadow she’s casting in the late afternoon sun. But it is fabulous, no?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 April 2014

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Krauthammer Lights the Way for Tidal Waves of Secret Campaign Cash

by ColePiguenit Posted on April 18, 2014

Mother Jones

Charles Krauthammer writes today that he used to think there was a simple and elegant solution to the fight over campaign finance reform: “For a long time, a simple finesse offered a rather elegant solution: no limits on giving — but with full disclosure.” But now he’s changed his mind:

This used to be my position. No longer. I had not foreseen how donor lists would be used not to ferret out corruption but to pursue and persecute citizens with contrary views. Which corrupts the very idea of full disclosure.

It is now an invitation to the creation of enemies lists. Containing, for example, Brendan Eich, forced to resign as Mozilla CEO when it was disclosed that six years earlier he’d given $1,000 to support a referendum banning gay marriage. He was hardly the first. Activists compiled blacklists of donors to Proposition 8 and went after them. Indeed, shortly after the referendum passed, both the artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento and the president of the Los Angeles Film Festival were hounded out of office.

….The ultimate victim here is full disclosure itself. If revealing your views opens you to the politics of personal destruction, then transparency, however valuable, must give way to the ultimate core political good, free expression.

Our collective loss. Coupling unlimited donations and full disclosure was a reasonable way to reconcile the irreconcilables of campaign finance. Like so much else in our politics, however, it has been ruined by zealots. What a pity.

I wonder if Krauthammer feels the same way about free speech? Or gun rights. Or fair trials. The scope of zealots to abuse the system in those cases is infinitely greater than the sparse, weak-tea “harassment” he points to in the case of campaign finance disclosure.

On a larger scale, I realize that the Koch brothers think they’ve suffered abuse akin to the Holocaust at the hands of Harry Reid, but that’s what happens when you enter the political arena in a big way. You take your lumps. That’s no reason to allow billions of dollars to influence the political system with not even the slightest shred of accountability for where it’s coming from. With allies as weak as Krauthammer, ready to cave at the slightest provocation, campaign finance disclosure is now just the latest victim of conservative goal post moving.

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Krauthammer Lights the Way for Tidal Waves of Secret Campaign Cash

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Medical Inflation Is Up, But It’s Probably Just a Blip

by WilliamThrelkel Posted on April 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Sarah Kliff reports that health care spending ticked upward at the end of 2013:

A four-year slowdown in health spending growth could be coming to an end….Federal data suggests that health care spending is now growing just as quickly as it was prior to the recession.

….The Altarum Institute in Ann Arbor, Mich. tracks health spending growth by month. It saw an uptick in late 2013 that has continued into preliminary numbers for 2014. Separate data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which tracks the growth or consumer spending by quarter, shows something similar: health spending grew by 5.6 percent in the last quarter of 2013, the fastest growth recorded since 2004.

Inflation in the final quarter of 2013 ran a little over 1 percent, which means health care spending rose 4.5 percent faster than the overall inflation rate. That’s a lot. But it’s also only one quarter, and it’s hardly unexpected. Take a look at the chart on the right, which shows how much per capita health care spending has increased over and above the inflation rate for the past 40 years. There are two key takeaways:

Medical inflation has been on a striking long-term downward path since the early 80s.
There’s a ton of noise in the data, with every decline followed by a subsequent upward correction.

The HMO revolution of the 90s sent medical inflation plummeting. Then a correction. Then another big drop. And another upward correction. Then another drop. If that’s followed by an upward correction for a few years, it would hardly be a surprise.

Nonetheless, the long-term trend is pretty clear, and it shows up no matter how you slice the data. For many years, medical inflation was running as much as 4-6 percent higher than overall inflation. Today that number is 1-2 percent, and the variability seems to be getting smaller. What’s more, that 1-2 percent number matches the long-term trend during the entire postwar period (see chart below). There’s good reason to think that it might be the natural rate of medical inflation, with the 80s and early 90s as an outlier. That’s where I’d put my money, anyway.

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Medical Inflation Is Up, But It’s Probably Just a Blip

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Donald Rumsfeld Will Never Overpay His Taxes

by AileenFlanagan Posted on April 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Via Steve Benen, I see that Donald Rumsfeld sends the IRS a letter every year when he files his taxes. Here it is:

I have sent in our federal income tax and our gift tax returns for 2013. As in prior years, it is important for you to know that I have absolutely no idea whether our tax returns and our tax payments are accurate. I say that despite the fact that I am a college graduate and I try hard to make sure our tax returns are accurate.

The tax code is so complex and the forms are so complicated, that I know I cannot have any confidence that I know what is being requested and therefore I cannot and do not know, as I suspect a great many Americans cannot know, whether or not their tax returns are accurate. As in past years, I have spent more money that I wanted to….

Etc. Two things here:

As a longtime feeder at the public trough, Rumsfeld is surely aware that the IRS isn’t responsible for the complexity of the tax code. Congress is. He needs to write an annual letter to his representative in Congress instead. As a resident of Washington DC, of course, he doesn’t really have one, but that’s a whole different story. However, I’m sure Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton would be delighted to receive his letter anyway.
The big reason taxes are complicated is because people do complicated things with their money—often with the express aim of lowering their taxes. Nobody is forced to do this. If you want, you can just add up all your income and pay the statutory rate without worrying about deductions and loopholes and capital gains rates and so forth. That will make your taxes easy. But if you’re the kind of person who has enough money to hire expensive accountants to manage your carefully tailored investments, then you have enough money to pay those accountants to do your taxes too.

In any case, none of this really matters. No matter how much Rumsfeld pays in taxes, it will never be enough to make up for the damage he’s done to this country over his lifetime. He should stop whining. He owes us.

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Donald Rumsfeld Will Never Overpay His Taxes

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