Federal Court Grants TRO against Standing Rock Members in SLAPP Suit related to Dakota Access Pipeline
Here are the materials in Dakota Access LLC v. Archambault (D.N.D.):
Via Turtle Talk.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Here are the materials in Dakota Access LLC v. Archambault (D.N.D.):
Via Turtle Talk.
Courtesy Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition
Police line up before protesters near the construction site of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project is back in the news. Over the weekend, tribal activists faced off against lines of police in Hunkpapa Territory near Cannon Ball as construction crews prepared to break ground for the new pipeline, while Standing Rock Sioux governmental officials resolved to broaden their legal battle to stop the project.
On July 26, 2016 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was stunned to learn that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had given its approval for the pipeline to run within a half-mile of the reservation without proper consultation or consent. Also, the new 1,172 mile Dakota Access Pipeline will cross Lake Oahe (formed by Oahe Dam on the Missouri) and the Missouri River as well, and disturb burial grounds and sacred sites on the tribe’s ancestral Treaty lands, according to SRST officials.
Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners will build, own and operate the proposed $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline and plans to transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil fracked from the Bakken oil fields across four states to a market hub in Illinois. The pipeline—already facing widespread opposition by a coalition of farmers, ranchers and environmental groups—will cross 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries, according to Dakota Access, LLC.
Standing Rock Sioux leaders say the pipeline will threaten the Missouri River, the tribe’s main source of drinking and irrigation water, and forever destroy burial grounds and sacred sites.
“We don’t want this black snake within our Treaty boundaries,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II. “We need to stop this pipeline that threatens our water. We have said repeatedly we don’t want it here. We want the Army Corps to honor the same rights and protections that were afforded to others, rights we were never afforded when it comes to our territories. We demand the pipeline be stopped and kept off our Treaty boundaries.”
Carol Everett (Photo: The Heidi Group).
In the not enough facepalm in the universe category, Texas legislature has designated 1.65 million dollars to a non-medical based, anti-abortion group, on the basis of aborted fetuses flooding the sewers, and somehow or another, causing the general water supply to be contaminated with STDs or HIV, because that’s just oh so realistic. Honestly, this is so goddamned embarrassing.
Carol Everett is the founder and CEO of The Heidi Group, an anti-abortion organization that gives women health “advice,” but is not a medical provider and can’t perform any health care services.
Earlier this month, Everett testified at a hearing at the Austin, Texas statehouse on a proposed requirement that women either bury or cremate the remains of an aborted fetus. According to The Austin Chronicle, Everett testified about her concerns of an impending public health disaster if fetuses were flushed down toilets. She argued that the general public could be afflicted with STDs or even HIV due to fetuses flooding the sewer systems.
“What if one day something horrible escaped into the sewer system?” she said, as the audience snickered.
Everett’s claims are scientifically impossible.
Just days later, the Texas legislature awarded The Heidi Group $1.65 million in taxpayer money for the organization’s “health care services.” Their organization doesn’t provide health care services.
While the group’s website advertises “Helping Texas Women,” further examination reveals their claims to have “programs” lists merely a phone number, the page that offers to help women with pregnancy/infant loss says “Page Coming Soon” and if a woman needs a pregnancy test they have a list of links to crisis pregnancy centers, that counsel women against abortion.
“The Heidi Group exists to ensure that all Texas women have access to quality health care by coordinating services in a statewide network of full-service medical providers,” the website says. It doesn’t explain how this is different from a Google search.
The grant comes out of funding that previously went to Planned Parenthood before Texas politicians kicked them out of the program in 2012.
In an interview with the Texas Observer, Everett admitted that she’ll be forking over a lot of the money to crisis pregnancy centers, which an investigation showed lie to women about the realities of their reproductive health. She assures the Observer that the taxpayer funds will not go to administrative costs at The Heidi Group or the organization’s rent, but it will go to nurses and doctors in rural Texas that urge women against abortions.
“My goal is to reach that little girl in a small county with no hope of having anybody explain her birth control options or have her blood pressure checked,” she said.
The local CVS pharmacy and Walmart often have machines where people can have their blood pressure taken for free. Crisis pregnancy centers in Texas have been caught counseling women to use abstinence only as a birth control method and refusing to dispense contraception.
Full Story Here.
Twitter/@KNKNOKU
Image caption Kim Jayeon could not have expected that a tweet would have cost her her job.
Gamergate in Korea. Every bit as bad, and I’d say worse.
On the face of it, the slogan “Girls do not need a prince” doesn’t seem that controversial.
In many parts of the world, it would pass as the kind of thing any young woman might wear without prompting a second look.
But when the actress, Kim Jayeon, tweeted a photograph of herself wearing the garment, she generated a storm and lost herself a job.
She was the voice of one of the characters in a South Korean online game called “Closers”. Gaming is very big in South Korea, as much a part of the culture as football.
Fans of “Closers” inundated Nexon, the company which produced the game, with complaints. Many of the complaints, according to female activists, were offensive and anti-women.
Nexon quickly bowed to the protesters and sacked the actress. It told the BBC that she would be paid in full for her work but her voice would not be used on the game.
It issued a statement saying it had “recognised the voices of concern amongst the Closers community”, adding that “we have suddenly decided to seek a replacement in the role”.
The full story is at BBC.com.
Baltimore police conference protest (Photo: Baynard Woods/Twitter).
There is the woman being publicly strip-searched after being stopped for a missing headlight. There are the officers coercing sex from prostitutes in exchange for avoiding arrest, planting drugs on people they stopped, cursing “shut the fuck up bitch” because they are “the fucking law.” There is the supervisor telling officers “to arrest ‘all the black hoodies’ in a neighborhood.” There are officers using templates for arrests where they only had to fill in dates and names — the words “black male” were already inked in.
Running to 163 pages, the Department of Justice report on the ongoing abuse inflicted upon African Americans by the Baltimore police is full of stories like these.
In light of the DOJ report on just how corrupt the Baltimore cops shops are, of course the staunch defenders of bigoted, killer cops, the FOP, decided to have their conference, which was protested. Well, for a while, at least, until all those pesky persons insistent on pointing to reality were arrested.
Baltimore police arrested a dozen protesters at the Hyatt Regency on Sunday afternoon where the state Fraternal Order of Police was holding a conference.
Some of the protesters refused to leave the hotel on Light Street, blocked access to an escalator and chained themselves to railings as part of a demonstration against discriminatory police practices.
The group, some of whom were with the activist group Baltimore BLOC, were joining hands and carrying signs that read “Abolish Racist F.O.P.”
#BmoreBLOC & #BYP100 DC are currently shutting down the FOP conference in the name of #Korryn Gaines #StopFOP pic.twitter.com/ka6ls0YWUr
— asha rosa (@ashapoesis) August 14, 2016
“That is pathetic.” I haven’t heard such a lovely sentence in quite a long time.
It’s been just over a year since same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the US, and it turns out the fundraising buckets at homophobic anti-equality campaigns are looking a little empty.
National Organization for Marriage, the main US group opposing same-sex marriage, has launched a desperate plea for cash from its dwindling supporters.
And halfway through the campaign, it looks like it’s not going very well.
‘We’re now three weeks into our drive — the halfway point — and we have only received 256 contributions from our members. We’re only 17% toward our goal of receiving 1,500 membership contributions of at least $35,’ Brian Brown, the president of NOM, said in an email to the group’s supporters.
‘That is pathetic.
‘Unless this situation improves drastically right away, NOM will have little choice but to cut some of the critical programs we have underway and not pursue some of our most important work to protect you and other supporters of marriage from being targeted by LGBT extremists and their allies in government.’
NOM then lists all the horrific homophobic and transphobic things they would like to do if they only had the funds to get rid of that pesky ‘equality’ laws. He blames ‘LGBT extremists’.
That includes influencing Congress to pass a First Amendment Defense Act, which is similar to the ‘religious freedom’ law in Indiana that caused such outrage, and as well as fighting ‘President Obama’s dangerous gender “identity” agenda”.
‘I really don’t believe — I just can’t imagine the thought — that NOM’s members have quit fighting for the institution of marriage as a union between man and woman,’ Brown said.
‘And yet, only 256 of you have responded with an urgently needed membership contribution during this critical period.’
‘If NOM has to scale back, the fight for marriage and religious liberty is seriously weakened,’ he added.
It looks like NOM is finally dying, and that’s a very good thing. I suspect the reason for that though, is that conservatives are seeing an easier to attain road with all the current religious liberty laws, so it’s not like the fight is over in the least. That said, I couldn’t be happier to see the ugliness that is NOM wither away. It’s about time.
Via Gay Star News.
Artist Ken Walton ad daughter Wren — Facebook.
In a post going viral on Facebook, Ken Walton describes being arrested at gunpoint by an Arizona Highway Patrol officer who threatened to shoot him in the back in front of his 7-year-old daughter.
Here’s what Ken says happened:
My daughter and I are from San Francisco, on vacation, traveling through the Southwest. Today we were driving from Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon in a Toyota Camry we’d rented from Fox Car Rental in Las Vegas. In Williams, Arizona, as I exited Interstate 40 to head north toward the Canyon rim, I was pulled over by an AHP officer who’d been tailing me for a couple of miles. I hadn’t been speeding, so I wondered if perhaps the car had a broken taillight or something. I rolled down my window and waited.
Suddenly, the officer rapped on the rear passenger side window with his pistol. My daughter, who was sitting inches from the barrel of his gun, jumped with fear as the officer yelled at me to roll down the front passenger window, his service weapon pointed directly at me. I knew something was terribly awry and I tried to remain calm, keeping my hands visible as I slowly fumbled for the window controls in an unfamiliar car. My daughter rolled down her window and I explained that we were in a rental car, that we had no weapons, and I was having trouble figuring out how to roll down the front passenger window from my driver’s side door. The officer didn’t listen, and kept yelling louder and more insistently, ordering me to comply with his request as he leered at me down the barrel of his pistol. My daughter panicked and tried to get out of her booster seat to reach forward to roll down the front window, and the officer screamed at her not to move as he pointed his pistol at her.
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — The most controversial moment of a Donald Trump rally here Thursday night may have come before the bombastic candidate took the stage. For a solid 20 minutes, a Confederate flag with the words “Trump 2016” hung from the railing in the Silver Spurs Arena.
It was easily visible even as public figures like Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Pastor Mark Burns gave warm-up speeches before the Republican presidential nominee took the stage. Then minutes before Trump began his speech, organizers asked the supporters who brought the flag into the venue to furl it.
The imagery harkens back to a heated debate throughout the South over the flag’s racist meaning after another mass shooting, in Charleston, S.C., which ended with the flag being removed from the capitol grounds. It also harkens back to a New York Times video that recently went viral that recorded unfiltered remarks by Trump supporters that were unabashedly racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic. Confederate symbolism makes an apperance there as well.
The media doesn’t often focus on the attitude of the Trump crowds. Even in this latest case, as tends to happen at Trump rallies, such symbolism got brushed aside as the crowd got whipped up over other matters.
[…]
Most importantly, Trump was speaking in a suburb of Orlando two months after the Pulse massacre and hours after meeting with pastors and evangelicals during an event critics have called an anti-LGBT gathering. Trump made mention of the Orlando attack, saying more people should have reported shooter Omar Mateen to the FBI: “People knew he was demented.” In fact, Mateen was interviewed multiple times by the FBI based on complaints placed by those who knew him.
Clearly building off the closed-door discussions with leaders at the American Renewal Project conference in Orlando earlier in the day, Trump appealed to social conservatives in the room. “The evangelicals took me to a point that I never even thought we could reach,” he said. “All around the country we did well.”
The Advocate has the full story. Speaking of the intense anti-LGBT gathering in Orlando, again, Marco Rubio just will not shut up about being a keynote speaker, and keeps on attempting to defend his stance, while at the same time, telling people not to be judgmental. Hypocrisy knows no limit where Rubio is concerned:
ORLANDO — In a speech laden with scripture, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday compelled church leaders at a conference here to “abandon the spirit of judgment” against LGBT neighbors. The remarks came on the two-month anniversary of a shooting at the Pulse night club located about 10 miles from the religious gathering.
[…]
Rubio was the headline speaker for The American Renewal Project’s two-day event in Orlando, and on Friday devoted much of a 30-minute speech to encouraging preachers to create an accepting environment free of discrimination. “In order to love people, we have to listen to them,” he said. “When it comes to our brothers and our sisters, our fellow Americans, our neighbors in the LGBT community, we should recognize that our nation, while the greatest nation in the history of mankind, is one with a history that has been marred by the discrimination against and the rejection of gays and lesbians.”
He also emphasized his continued opposition to marriage equality, saying his faith called for the elevation of the “union of one man and one woman.” But he said Christian leaders should understand many gays and lesbians felt “angry and humiliated” that the law until recently did not recognize their own loving relationships. “Many have experienced sometimes severe condemnation and judgment from some Christians,” Rubio said. “They have heard some say that the reason God will bring condemnation on America is because of them. As if somehow God was willing to put up with adultery and gluttony and greed and pride, but now this is the last straw.”
[…]
Rubio’s anti-LGBT record is lengthy. The senator doesn’t support the Equality Act proposed in Congress, for example. It would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1967 Civil Rights Act, ensuring protection from discrimination in housing and employment. When he had a chance to vote in 2013, Rubio voted against passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which some moderate Republicans helped pass 64-32 in the Senate, though it would stall in the House. But his discriminatory policy stands don’t stop there. Rubio has in the past said letting LGBT people adopt children is a “social experiment” that he opposes. He also opposed reversing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that required LGBT people to stay closeted while serving in the U.S. military.
The Advocate has the full story.
Monsignor Lawrence McGovern — Fox 40 screenshot.
Oh look, another priest who doesn’t understand boundaries, consent, and immoral, unethical behaviour. About the only thing new in this case is that Monsignor McGovern decided to sexually harass an adult. I have no doubt that Monsignor, who has been placed on administrative leave will be yet another priest in the Catholic church’s ongoing game of “Where’s the Pedo Priest?” Given that this is case of sexual harassment, rather than assault or rape, the Monsignor will most likely merit the lightest of smacks on the wrist, perhaps 40 Lord’s Prayers and 50 Hail Marys.
The Stockton Catholic Diocese has suspended a monsignor over allegations that he sent pictures of his penis to the church pool maintenance man who complained — only to be fired.
According to FOX40, Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton, has been removed from his duties after the landscaper filed a lawsuit against the church for sexual harassment.
According to an attorney for the unidentified father of two, who is also a church parishioner, McGovern sent his client sexually explicit pictures.
“It’s extremely disturbing that the person’s who is head of this parish would be sending text with photographs of his exposed genitals,” attorney Vince Finaldi said before ading. “Someone’s who’s engaging in that type of conduct has very, very serious credibility issues and issues with judgement.”
According to Finaldi, his client confronted the priest over the pictures and pressed him over his vow of celibacy.
According to the victim, McGovern responded, “Oh, that just means that you’re not married.”
The local diocese issued a statement saying, “Today the Diocese of Stockton learned for the first time of employment related allegations against Monsignor Lawrence McGovern, the Pastor of Presentation Parish in Stockton. In accordance with the Canon Law of the Church, Bishop Stephen Blaire has placed Monsignor McGovern on administrative leave pending a full and complete investigation.”
A full and complete investigation. Right. There really isn’t anything to investigate though, is there? So what they actually mean is that they need to get together to figure out what they are going to try and sell people to make them believe they are actually doing something.
According to Finaldi, McGovern should be dismissed, saying, “That person has no business being in a parish and head of a school where there are numerous young children walking around everyday.”
I’m with Mr. Finaldi. I’m damn tired of priests and cops constantly being given another ride on the merry-go-round, no matter how bad their behaviour, and no matter what heinous acts they commit.
Via Raw Story.
August 13th is International Left Handers Day, and that should be something celebratory and fun, but for a great many children, it’s anything but. At Intransitive, left0ver1under is doing a 7 day series on why this is an important issue which needs attention.
Why is left handedness an important social justice issue? Because those most affected are children, and there is no one who speaks out for them. It’s not a “first world problem” – the countries where it happens most are in Asia, Africa and muslim countries, where use of the left hand is deemed “shameful” and “disrespectful”, where “corporal punishment” is still inflicted on children. In South America and many Eastern European countries, it is still seen as “problem that needs correction”.
But even in wealthy and supposedly “enlightened” countries, it’s still an issue. I have found a grand total of *one* teacher training program (Stephen F. Austin University in Texas) where teachers are taught how to teach left handed handwriting. Everywhere else, they say, “Just copy what the right handers do.” Poor training in writing skills affects speed, learning and testing at school. Left handed kids are getting a second class education. And that’s without mentioning the design of classroom furniture or stationery….
Visit Intransitive, and spend some time on the sinister side.
P.S. If you’re having a difficult time with the image, note that it’s the print of the inside of a left hand. If you hold up your left hand to the monitor, it will magically match! :D Or you could have fun, and coat your left palm and fingers with paint, and do a print.
Corey Multer (LinkedIn)
Content Warning: contains social media posts that some may find offensive.
Yet another person who just could not manage to reign in their bigotry and hatred. This time it’s one Corey Multer, a managing director for New York Life Insurance Co. Well, make that former managing director. It looks like New York Life Insurance makes a concerted effort to be a diverse company, but any person of colour working with or near Mr. Multer couldn’t have had an easy time of it, given his attitude and views.
Shanelle Matthews, director of communications with the Black Lives Matter organization, was verbally attacked on Facebook by Corey Multer, a managing director of New York Life Insurance Co.
Multer wrote:
You f–king racist pig whore. The world would be a much better place if you jumped in front of a moving train. Die!
Ms. Matthews had quite the response, and it was most excellent. For those of you who aren’t on facebook, her complete response is under the fold.
After a brief back and forth with New York Life Insurance, this was tweeted:
@TheShanelleM as a result of his comment this individual is no longer employed by us
— New York Life (@NewYorkLife) August 10, 2016
Good for Ms. Matthews for fighting the good fight, and refusing to back down. And good on New York Life Insurance Co too, for putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak.
John Savage at Politico has an in-depth article about the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who not only continue their constant fight to keep confederate statues, symbols, and flags in place and protected, but are now planning a massive confederate monument, at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Orange’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, in the town of Orange, East Texas. Nothing subtle about that.
…Throughout this tempest, the Texas chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an aging army of deeply religious, federal government distrusting, neo-Confederate true believers, has emerged as a steadfast defender of Confederate iconography. The Texas SCV only claims about 5,000 members, but their ideology carries significant weight in the state. SCV members sued the University of Texas in an effort to stop the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue. They distributed more than 1,000 Confederate flags in Fort Worth after the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo banned the Confederate battle flag. Wherever someone wants to rename a school or remove a statue that honors the Confederacy, the SCV’s members soon follow.
But the Texas SCV is not only fighting against the disappearance of Confederate symbolism, they are behind the construction of what is likely the largest Confederate memorial built in a century — a multi-ton shrine nearing completion in an east Texas town near the Louisiana border. For the SCV, this battle is not just about protecting a Confederate heritage, it’s about resurrecting it, restoring that heritage so that they will continue to have something to protect.
[…]
Jim Toungate is the adjutant of the Williamson County chapter of the Texas SCV, and Savage had a long interview with him at his residence.
Joe Caslin tackles Ireland’s steadfast refusal to legalize same sex marriage. Caslin’s art is printed out using biodegradable inks, then papered onto a suitably large surface. You can read about Yes Equality here. Caslin has also done a series, Our Nation’s Sons, dealing with mental health, depression, and suicide in Ireland’s men. Joe Caslin’s website is here, and there’s lot a lot to explore!