Some of America’s biggest stars — including actors Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson — appear in a short video, taking potshots at Donald Trump while rallying voters to the polls on election day.
[…]
Save the Day was founded by Joss Whedon, director of two installments of the hit “The Avengers” films, among other works.
Via Raw Story.
There’s an in-depth, heart-rending article at Solitary Watch, about William “Billy” Blake, now in his 29th year of solitary confinement, having been sentenced to 77 years in solitary. Blake wrote an essay which has been included in the slim volume Hell Is A Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. The editors naturally sent a copy of the book to all those writers who contributed, but the powers who be have decided that it’s much too dangerous for Blake to read his own writing. Yep. I highly recommend the whole article, just excerpts here.
One of Blake’s essays about living in isolation, “A Sentence Worse Than Death,” was published in the first anthology of narratives about solitary. Although the book, titled Hell is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement, was released in February, Blake has yet to hold a copy in his hands.
Jean Casella, co-director of Solitary Watch and co-editor of the book, reports that two copies of Hell Is a Very Small Place were mailed to Blake at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in upstate New York, where he is currently incarcerated. They were sent directly by the publisher, in accordance with policies laid out by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), but the copies never reached him.
Great Meadow Correctional Facility—referred to by most individuals serving time there as “Comstock,” after the small town where it is located—forwards all books entering the prison to the Facility Media Review Committee (FMRC). In deciding whether to allow access to a publication, the FMRC operates under a code of directives, or rules. After the evaluation, incarcerated individuals are issued an Inmate Disposition Notice, informing them of the FMRC’s decision.
Weeks after it was sent to him, Blake received a notice informing him that he was being denied access to his book.
The reason for the denial of Blake’s book reads: “Publication which incites disobedience towards law enforcement officers or prison personell [sic], presents clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion agiainst [sic] governmental authority.” The notice flags fourteen page numbers but fails to mention the content in violation or where on the pages that content can be found—both of which are required by DOCCS Directive 4572.
Dave Archambault Sr. has a terrific column up at Native Sun News Today:
…Nothing much has changed for Indian Nations and their tribal members since Dee Brown’s book was written 46 years ago. Nothing – Until just recently! For some unexplainable reason, the book has miraculously come to life near a small Indian village in North Dakota, called Cannonball. In live and living color, just as the book revealed tragic treatment of Indian Nations in chapter after chapter, comes Tribal Nation after Tribal Nation announcing their arrival to the “Spirit Camp.” Here throngs of water and land protectors are gathering in a fight against corporate greed. Accounts of injustices and struggles in Indian country echoes throughout the camp and serves to strengthen the resolve to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I want to cheer and cry I’m so happy to see the support that arrives daily and hourly,” said Chairman of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Dave Archambault II.
The words to describe the happening are hard to find. Never in the history of the America’s has so many Tribes come together is such a unified way. This joining is about expressing solidarity in behalf of Mother Earth and to also condemn the number one enemy of Mother Earth – Greed.
It is here beside the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, that it appears the world is watching. It is here, that the Standing Rock Sioux have drawn the line against a history of crooked dealings and disrespect for all Native rights.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, flanked by (left) United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on September 20. Courtesy Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II called on the United Nations on Tuesday to halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline through tribal treaty territory and formally invited United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to visit the reservation.
“I am here because oil companies are causing the deliberate destruction of our sacred places and burials,” he told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on September 20. “Dakota Access wants to build an oil pipeline under the river that is the source of our nation’s drinking water. This pipeline threatens our communities, the river and the earth. Our nation is working to protect our waters and our sacred places for the benefit of our children not yet born.”
Speaking at the 33rd Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which runs from September 13 through 30, Archambault outlined the ways in which the pipeline and the treatment of water protectors by the company’s employees had violated the protectors’ human rights.
“Thousands have gathered peacefully in Standing Rock in solidarity against the pipeline,” he said in a statement from the tribe afterward. “And yet many water protectors have been threatened and even injured by the pipeline’s security officers. One child was bitten and injured by a guard dog. We stand in peace but have been met with violence.”
Donald Trump in Cleveland prayer huddle — (YouTube screen grab)
Right Wing Watch reports that there was an evangelical huddle yesterday, with laying on of hands and praying to block out a satanic attack on Trump. A concentrated one. Is that the same thing as concentrated juice? Lucifer gets such a bad rap. (See Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible by Steve Wells.) It’s that nasty Jehovah you need to worry about, well, if they were real.
Today, Donald Trump attended the Midwest Vision and Values Pastors Leadership Conference in Cleveland alongside his vice presidential running mate Mike Pence and campaign surrogates Ben Carson, Michael Cohen and Omarosa Manigault. The event was hosted by pro-Trump pastor Darrell Scott and co-hosted by Trump’s “liaison for Christian policy” Frank Amedia. Boxing promoter Don King introduced Trump at the gathering.
Scott, who hosted the event at his New Spirit Revival Center, told the audience that a “nationally known” preacher warned Trump before he launched his campaign “that if you choose to run for president, there’s going to be a concentrated Satanic attack against you.”
“He said there’s going to be a demon, principalities and powers, that are going to war against you on a level that you’ve never seen before and I’m watching it every day,” Scott said.
Later, Scott’s wife, Belinda Scott, prayed over Trump: “God we ask you right now that Your choice is this choice.”
“God, I ask that you would touch this man, Donald J. Trump,” she continued, “give him the anointing to lead this nation.”
I’m pretty sure Trump is touched already. I’m not sure with what, but it’s not good. Via RWW.
Siobhan at Against the Grain has a post up about the latest anti-transgender peoples campaign of yet another conservative, bigoted, paranoid Christian group. They are all ‘family’ something or other, this one is Family Policy Alliance. I’ll just go with Fapa. Fapa apparently thinks they are oh-so-brilliant, with their latest attempt to spread bigotry, hate, and fear: they want people to ask them for permission to pee, or whatever else they plan to do in the lav. They have a website, full of women boo-hooing over the possibility that male genitals might be lurking behind a closed door. Well, maybe full isn’t the right word. They are soliciting stories, though! I’m rude enough to suggest that all manner of people send stories in – there really isn’t a rule the story has to be a hateful piece of bigotry, it’s just an expectation. They have a hashtag on twitter, which isn’t going that well for them. I think the Fapa should be completely drowned out. I can think of all kinds of things I’d apply #AskMeFirst to in the case of conservative, hateful, immoral Christians. I bet everyone else can, too.
Personally, I think it would be grand if every person of this particular persuasion had to #AskMeFirst if it was alright for them to continually try to legislate hate. Naturally, once they got their no, it would expected of them to take that answer gracefully and respectfully.
Ah, that was a nice fantasy, wasn’t it?
I think it’s time for people to get quite rude, in the nicest way possible, of course.
Via Against the Grain.
Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity: pic.twitter.com/HDSPYtepqb
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) September 21, 2016
Audience Member: I had a question about, there’s been a lot of violence in the black community – I want to know, what would you do to help stop that violence, you know, black-on-black crime…
Trump: Right, well, one of the things I’d do, Ricardo, is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York city it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way it worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.
Alexandra Jaffe: Trump will propose nationwide stop-and-frisk to address violence in black community 2nite on Hannity.
Trump will be yakking on tonight about instituting Stop ‘n’ Frisks, citing the disastrous, unconstitutional mess that took place in New York. He seems to think that’s just an incredibly brilliant idea, and that’s going to “cure” all that black violence, and of course, it will make black people vote for him. Yep.
Alex Jacobs has an excellent column up at ICTMN.
The Optics Say Birmingham 1963, but It’s Standing Rock 2016, Or could it be Selma 1965, Bloody Sunday, when the President had to federalize the National Guard. Many of the water and land protectors may feel it’s like the Greasy Grass Fight in 1876, Alcatraz 1969 or Wounded Knee 1973. A new generation of activists are being passed the drums and pipes. But right now they need lawyers and funds to bail them out of North Dakota jails. Dozens more were arrested at the Red Warrior Camp including media with their cameras (probably to be used as evidence). If hundreds of the protectors went in to get arrested that would shut down the system. Perhaps shut down the camps too, but more people will come to sneak past the checkpoints, just like 1973.
The land they are on, folks keep calling it private property or Army Corps of Engineers land. But the Oceti Sakowin say the land was theirs until the Army Corps of Engineers at the behest of North Dakota politicians came in and flooded Standing Rock and Cheyenne River lands where Lake Oahe is now. There was no consultation and no compensation for their homelands, for this violation of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868. Now it’s where the Dakota Access Pipeline threatens to be built 100 feet below, crossing the Missouri River three times. The Indians say the whites flooded the river, stole their land and left them nothing but poverty.
What we Natives are fighting, among many things, is the perceived numbers against us. We cannot deny that we are the very bottom 2% of the population. For every person talking about #NoDAPL and #Standing Rock, nine are arguing over various media distractions. But don’t get mad, just get even. Keep talking, texting, tweeting, posting, writing about #NoDAPL, Sacred Stone, Red Warrior, the indigenous activists coming from around the world and Lawrence O’Donnell too. Billionaire Kelcy Warren set-up his Energy Transfer Partners as a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) company which does not pay taxes. North Dakota politicians are in lock step with the oil & gas industries, Congressman Kevin Cramer as an energy advisor – and climate change denier – to Donald Trump (see no evil), Senator John Hoeven who sits on both Native American and Energy Committees (hear no evil), and Senator Heidi Heitcamp’s non-sequitur responses who also sits on a Native American Committee (say no evil). Is this a pattern of conflict of interests in North Dakota?
Natives are told to go home, do your protest legally, petition the government as citizens do and depend on the courts. Sovereignty, treaties, environmental justice?
Kelcy Warren and the ETP strategy is to keep buying up weaker pipeline, oil & gas companies, because the price of oil is low. The plan for DAPL/ETP in Iowa was all this dirty fracked Bakken oil in the pipelines was for domestic consumption. But Congress changed the 40 year ban to allow U.S. companies to export crude oil, this dirty fracked Bakken oil, to counter the oil price war the Saudis have unleashed on the world. All thanks to Warren’s friend, ex-Texas Governor Rick Perry who joined the board of ETP and lobbied to end the ban.
It’s no longer about American Energy Independence but outright profits for the U.S. and foreign banks who’ve invested in a futures deal to get cheap oil to their countries. The biggest problem for the citizenry (and for ETP) is that these huge pipelines need to be full to maximize profits. Bakken crude is dirty and needs to be heated to move better. This bakes the soil and along with oil and brine spills, the once black fertile land becomes useless. ETP heats, cools, or liquefies the oil & gas for its 70,000 miles of pipelines and is aiming for a goal of 150,000 miles. ETP says, “this is a growth project” and they are “exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on U.S. energy exports.” So forget any carbon reduction and pollution treaties, this sets the stage for more fracking and environmental degradation for years.
[…]
But the nation and the world is watching now. I remember the story, the Crow scouts told Lt. Col. Custer the day they looked down at the biggest gathering of Indians anyone had seen. You don’t have enough bullets for all the Indians down there. Custer didn’t believe, didn’t care about those numbers.
We got to think like that, that whatever they think they got, we got more. They fight for a paycheck. We fight for all we got and all we will have and all that we lost. We got them now. Now it’s them stuck in the past trying to impose a nationwide system of pipelines that will degrade the environment for the next 50 years. The Native water and land protectors, #NoDAPL, the Raging Grannies, farmers and ranchers of Iowa, Bold Nebraska now Bold Alliance that took down Keystone XL, all need to prepare to fight for the future. The country needs to rebuild its infrastructure, go into debt if need be to create millions of jobs not just thousands, with new transmission lines for all manner of green energy projects and not just pipelines. This is the time to start the switch to renewables.
Remember The Greasy Grass River 140 years ago. They don’t have enough “bullets” if we all stand up.
I’m just going to add a reminder here: when you read or hear “light and sweet” or “like olive oil” in regard to oil, remember that you’re drinking oil’s kool-aid. It’s marketing. They want people to think of honey or other food, because in our minds, we consign honey, syrup, or plant oils to the good category. If this oil was that manner of good, it wouldn’t poison land and water. If this oil was that manner of good, the white people of Bismarck wouldn’t have gotten upset about the pipeline running north of them. It’s toxic. It’s poison. It kills. It renders water into death, not life. It is inimical to life. Oil is invested in this type of marketing so that people won’t question, won’t try to stop them. They count on such marketing to keep the majority of people on their side of things.
Via ICTMN.
Crowds of atheists and other freethinkers assembled by the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool for the Reason Rally on June 4, 2016 in Washington, D.C. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks.
(RNS) Maybe atheists should just embrace it as a slogan: “Atheists: The group Americans love to hate.”
About 40 percent of Americans say atheists “do not at all agree” with their vision of America, according to a new study from sociologists at the University of Minnesota who compared Americans’ perceptions of minority faith and racial groups.
But the study marks a grimmer milestone — Americans’ disapproval of Muslims has jumped to 45.5 percent from just over 26 percent 10 years ago, the last time the question was asked.
And “nones” — those who say they have no religious affiliation, but may also have spiritual or religious beliefs — are also unpopular. This is significant because nones now make up one-third of the U.S. population.
- Almost half of those surveyed — 48.9 percent — said they would disapprove of their child marrying a Muslim, up from 33.5 percent in 2006.
- The spiritual but not religious are mistrusted by 12 percent of Americans, while almost 40 percent of Americans say the rise of the “nones” is “not a good thing.”
- Disapproval rates for several minority groups have grown — Jews, Latinos and Asian-Americans experienced 10-point jumps in disapproval, while recent immigrants, conservative Christians and African-Americans grew about 13 percent each.
The new study also attempts to find out why atheists are so reviled by what its authors call “dominant group members” — aka religious Americans. The findings pinpoint three things: Religious Americans associate atheists with “criminality,” materialism and “a lack of accountability.”
Considering how often various religions and religious people are shown to be engaged in criminal activities, such as child rape and fraud, it staggers me that we continue to be associated with criminality and a lack of accountability. As for accountability, what comes to mind are a string of public ‘confessions’ by high profile Christians, complete with crocodile tears, proclaiming their supposed regret for fraud, adultery, or whatever crime, and saying they are accountable to god. I don’t care about that, because being accountable to a god means absolutely nothing. I am not accountable to any god, I am not accountable to any fictional character. I am accountable to other people, human and not. That is what matters, taking responsibility for my own life, and every way that life affects or impacts others. Christians are quite willing to be utterly immoral, telling themselves that this, that or the other is ‘god’s will’. (I speak more of Christians, because the bulk of my exposure and experience is with one form of Christianity or another.) They often speak in the most appalling terms, and are openly hateful and bigoted. Yet, it’s the non-religious who remain blamed for all the ills.
Abrahamaic based religions are highly splintered, particularly so in the States, with a rather amazing amount of different flavours of Christianity. I really feel for all the Muslims who are now the focus of much hatred, because if there’s one thing I wish Christians at large would get through their collective thick skull, it’s that the religious belief is the same. Abrahamaic based, same basic beliefs, same god, same, same, same. Yes, interpretations are different, but the basic belief? The same.
The study’s authors — sociologists Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, Evan Stewart and Joseph Gerteis — describe the jump in disapproval of Muslims as a major change and are focusing now on identifying reasons for it.
“Religion becomes a signal and a marker, an easy shorthand for Americans’ moral judgment,” Hartmann said. “But that is not the only thing going on with Muslims. It’s more complicated.”
But Hussein Rashid, an adjunct professor at Barnard College who frequently writes and consults about Islam in the U.S., said the jump in anti-Islamic sentiment the study pinpoints is reflected in the current political rhetoric.
“The data from this survey shows that there is an increasing pull away from the promise of America,” he said in an email. “In 10 years, people have a more negative perception of Muslims, Jews, gays, Latinos, and Blacks. As a new America is taking shape, with all its diversity, there is a reactionary response that wants a mythic America of everyone being exactly the same.”
The study has more bad news for atheists — despite a decade of organized effort from groups such as American Atheists, the Secular Coalition for America and Openly Secular to normalize nonbelief, Americans are not buying it — religious belief remains a measure of trustworthiness and belonging, the study found.
“Overall, we find no support for the idea that the increasing visibility of non-religious persons, groups, and movements in American life has reduced anti-atheist sentiment in any significant way,” the study’s authors write.
[…]
The study was written from data collected in 2014 from 2,500 participants. It was published in the current issue of Social Forces journal. The previous study was published in 2006 by three of the same authors.
Gerald R. Ford. Whitehouse.gov
When Gerald Rudolph Ford was sworn in as President in August 1974, he inherited a conflict that was already a century in the making.
Ninety-seven years earlier, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the federal government entered into an agreement with a small group of Sioux Indians. The February 1877 agreement called for the Sioux to relinquish their rights to the Black Hills, a range of sprawling, tree-covered mountains the Sioux had occupied since the 1770s.
In exchange for 7.3 million acres of land in the Black Hills—and rights to gold Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer discovered there in 1874—the government promised allotments in Indian Territory, along with “all necessary aid to assist the said Indians in the work of civilization.” It also promised rations of beef, bacon, flour, corn, coffee, sugar and beans, etc., “until the Indians are able to support themselves.”
Ten percent of the Sioux Nation’s adult male population signed the agreement, along with representatives from the Northern Arapaho and Cheyenne nations. But the agreement, later passed by Congress, directly violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which the Black Hills, were “set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians,” and determined that land would not be ceded without approval from three-fourths of the tribe’s adult male population.
Although the Sioux believed the 1877 act violated the 1868 treaty, they had no way to pursue litigation against the United States. That changed in 1946 when President Harry S. Truman signed the Indian Claims Commission Act, establishing a process for resolving long-standing disputes between Indians and the federal government.
The Sioux Nation filed an initial claim in 1950. Twenty-four years later, in February 1974, the Indian Claims Commission ruled that the United States took the Black Hills illegally. The commission also determined that the 1877 value of the land—and gold discovered there—was copy7.5 million (inflated to copy03 million by 1974).
Two months after taking office, Ford signed the Indian Claims Commission Appropriations Legislation, which he called an opportunity “to take clear and decisive action” to make things right. “Although we cannot undo the injustices from our history, we can insure that the actions we take today are just and fair and designed to heal such wounds from the past,” he said.
Ford called on the government to pay the monetary claim, but did not take action to return the land. The Sioux refused the money, which still sits in the U.S. Treasury, earning interest.
Richard M. Nixon. Whitehouse.gov
I’d be willing to bet that most people had no idea of how progressive Nixon was when it came to Indians. In fairness though, most non-Indians paid no attention to any president’s Indian policies.
Richard Milhous Nixon is perhaps best known for being the only U.S. president to resign from office, but the man forever linked to the Watergate scandal also transformed federal Indian policy.
Eighteen months into his first term, Nixon delivered to Congress a landmark address on Indian Affairs, unveiling policies that ushered in the era of self-determination. In his July 8, 1970, address, Nixon called for a new policy of “self-determination without termination,” instigating lasting changes in federal-Indian relationships.
“The first Americans—the Indians—are the most deprived and most isolated minority group in our nation,” he said. “On virtually every scale of measurement—employment, income, education, health—the condition of the Indian people ranks at the bottom.”
Nixon’s remarks came 17 years after Congress approved House Concurrent Resolution 108, which called for an end to Indians’ “status as wards of the United States” and officially launched the termination era. During the next 10 years, the federal government terminated its relationship with more than 100 tribes, severing tribes’ rights to land, sovereignty and special protections.
Nixon called for congressional action to overturn House Concurrent Resolution 108. Indian policy too often was “ineffective and demeaning,” he said. Instead, it should “recognize and build upon the capacities and insights” of Indians themselves.
Credit: Youtube.
You really can’t say that McCrory is doubling down at this point. It’s gone far beyond that. He hangs onto HB 2 like it was a life preserver and he a drowning man. I don’t know why he clings so very hard to this hateful bigotry, especially in the face of so much opposition, not only from people all over the States, but from his own constituency. The majority of people in NC are not invested in this legalization of hate and fear; they don’t want this enacted. [See the full article for stats.] Surely, it must have occurred to McCrory that he could salvage at least a part of his reputation if he stepped back and killed HB 2. People might not like him, but he would at least get grudging respect for doing the right thing, for once. Unfortunately, McCrory is still McCrory, and he’s busy spreading his hate, fear, and bigotry as far as he can. Beware, there’s a major irony hazard coming up:
A new campaign ad from North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory released Wednesday defends his anti-trans bathroom bill on the basis of “privacy and safety.”
The 30-second spot is intended to answer criticisms of House Bill 2, the controversial legislation that effectively forces trans people to use public restrooms (in government buildings) that do not correspond with their gender identity; it also invalidated all municipal protections for LGBT people, and makes it impossible to pass future pro-LGBT housing and employment laws. In the ad, McCrory stands by the embattled bill, which was introduced, debated, and signed into law in a single day.
“You know, when we were raising average teacher pay, creating new jobs, and cutting taxes, other folks were actually pushing to make our schools allow boys to use the girls’ locker rooms and showers,” McCrory claims. “Are we really talking about this? Does the desire to be politically correct outweigh our children’s privacy and safety? Not on my watch. Our kids and teachers are my priority.
“This is North Carolina,” he concludes. “Let’s do what’s right.”
Wouldn’t that be something, seeing McCrory doing something right? As for his “watch”, from what I understand, there’s hardly a thing McCrory has touched that hasn’t been a major fuck up. By this time, McCrory knows about trans* peoples, and how they work, so he has zero excuses for this “oh no, boys in the girl’s locker room!” nonsense. This has been ceaselessly debunked, and yet he carries on. He is an excellent example of someone who holds up hate and bigotry as virtues, I’ll give him that much. Content Note: contains lies, bigotry, and hate.
Full Story at The Advocate.
Lyndon B. Johnson. Whitehouse.gov
Playing presidential catch up here. I’ll have 37 up tomorrow, and 38 on Tuesday, the regular day.
Two months after Lyndon Baines Johnson took office as the 36th president of the United States, he pledged to put Indians at the “forefront” of his war on poverty.
The statistics were grim for the 400,000 Indians living on reservations, Johnson told members of the National Congress of American Indians during a January 1964 speech. The average family income was less than one-third the national average; unemployment rates ranged between 50 and 85 percent; the average young adult had an eighth-grade education; the high school dropout rate was 60 percent; and the average lifespan of an Indian on a reservation was 42, compared with the national average of 62.
“Both in terms of statistics and in terms of human welfare, it is a fact that America’s first citizens, our Indian people, suffer more from poverty than any other group in America,” Johnson said. “That is a shameful fact.”
The speech came 12 days after Johnson, in his first State of the Union address, urged Congress to declare “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment” and to prioritize civil rights.
“Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope—some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both,” he said. “Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.”
This War on Poverty was part of Johnson’s plan to “build a great society, a place where the meaning of man’s life matches the marvels of man’s labor.”
This utopia or “Great Society” became Johnson’s central goal, and he pushed for sweeping socio-economic reform that improved education, health care, conservation and economic development.