Happy Halloween to You, Too.

LSU political science junior Clarke Perkins tweeted Wednesday night that her door decoration was damaged and “go back 2 Africa N— monkeys” was written on its side.

Perkins said she noticed that the decoration was damaged when she was leaving her apartment at University House at 6 p.m.

She shared a photo of the decoration online on Twitter Wednesday night. The tweet gained traction, being retweeted more than 2,200 times by Thursday afternoon, prompting LSU President F. King Alexander to release a statement.

“I am sorry this happened to you,” Alexander tweeted. “If the culprit is not a student, we will contact the district attorney for swift action. Let me be clear: LSU will not tolerate this behavior.”

Perkins said she met with Alexander in person Thursday. She said he plans to put pressure on University House and demand that the apartment complex takes steps to protect students.

University House is an off-campus complex on West Chimes Street just north of LSU’s campus. A spokesperson for University House said that they will release a statement Thursday.

Perkins said that she does not know whether she or her four other roommates were specifically targeted. She said she has lived at the apartment since Fall 2015 and has never had an issue before. She is now considering her other housing options.

For me, it’s early, and I have not had tea yet, so not much to say here. What is there to say? This sort of garbage is happening more and more, with bigots feeling happy and smug, wallowing in their poison troughs.

Via KTBS.

Oh, the fuckin’ irony.

pat-buchanan-250x141If I had a real life irony meter, I’d be dead from the massive explosion caused by Pat Buchanan. Pat is once more weeping salty tears over the marginalization and oppression of white men, and the dismal state of patriarchal control. If anyone reading has a shiny Acme™ Irony Meter, get rid of it, it will never take the strain.

Is the system rigged? Ask yourself.

For half a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has systematically de-Christianized and paganized American society and declared abortion and homosexual marriage constitutional rights.

Where did these unelected jurists get the right to impose their views and values upon us, and remake America in their own secularist image? Was that really the Court’s role in the Constitution?

Oh, come now, Pat. You were just fine with assholes like Scalia, who imposed their views and values on people, and in doing so, crushed more lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness than you could shake a stick at. As someone who had an abortion, Pat, I’ll remind you of something: none. of. your. business. I’m thankful mine took place before the mega-assholes of morality decided to involve themselves. Health-wise, I was safe rather than bleeding to death in a room somewhere, and that termination allowed me to keep my sanity. Never been in the slightest way sorry for it, either. Just relieved. (And yes, I would have taken the risk of bleeding to death in a room somewhere, that’s how strongly I felt, and my reasons? My business.) Everyone allowed to marry? Yes, why not? In case you weren’t looking Pat, that fight took many years, mostly because of those unelected jurists who thought exactly the same way you do. You’re a toddler having a tantrum.

How did we wind up with an all-powerful judicial tyranny in a nation the Founding Fathers created as a democratic republic?

Hey, you started it. Liked it well enough when decisions were going your way.

There are more than 11 million illegal immigrants here, with millions more coming. Yet the government consistently refuses to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.

Yeah, about that…even the incredibly white-washed history texts in uStates could explain this one to you, Pat.

Why should those Americans whose ancestors created, fought, bled and died to preserve America not believe they and their children are being dispossessed of a country that was their patrimony — and without their consent?

Sigh. Fuckety fuck. Oh, you mean those Americans whose ancestors happened on Turtle Island, a place which had been long inhabited, who fought, raped, pillaged, and slaughtered everyone in sight in attempted genocide to steal “America” be dispossessed of a country they stole, without the consent of the inhabitants? Stealing is wrong, Pat. I was under the impression even Christians think so. Something about commandments and being all morally superior. As for your patrimony, oh, you can shove that one, Pat. Really deep.

When did the country vote to convert the America we grew up in into the Third World country our descendants will inherit in 2042?

Perhaps you should find a place you could legally acquire, and start setting up White Patriarchs Paradise. Then everyone could be happy. You could wage war on the sun, in order to preserve that wondrous pasty whiteness, proving for once and all the might of white.

In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a Congressional majority voted to end discrimination against black folks. When did we vote to institute pervasive discrimination against white folks, especially white males, with affirmative action, quotas and racial set-asides? Even in blue states like California, affirmative action is routinely rejected in statewide ballots.

You make it sound like this happened because a bunch of old white dudes were sitting around one day, and decided to be all loving and stuff. That’s not quite what happened, Pat. There was a long and ferocious road to acknowledging people of colour as full human beings, and a whole lot of people died to make that happen. It was hardly trivial, and it was only a first step. We remain racist, with too many white people refusing to budge so much as a quarter step toward actual equality. You’re one of the assholes who thinks the Civil Rights Act fixed everything.

Yet it remains regime policy, embedded in the bureaucracy.

Oh, you’re one of those folks who buys into that “Obama Regime” noise. That’s not unexpected, with you being one of the old guard white men, wailing, gnashing your teeth, and lamenting your loss of absolute dominion over other people. You can’t be toppled soon enough, Pat.

Via Right Wing Watch.

The Fuzziness of the Army Corps.

Major General Donald Jackson.

Major General Donald Jackson. Mary Annette Pember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The full story is at ICTMN.

First Baby Born at Standing Rock Camp.

baby

The first baby was born at one of the Standing Rock camps earlier in the week. A woman’s healthcare center has been put together at the No DAPL camp, focusing on Indigenous ways regarding family, pregnancy, parenting, birthing, and childcare. There’s a video and transcript at Democracy Now.

George Takei: There Is Hope.

George Takei (MSNBC).

George Takei (MSNBC).

George Takei has an open letter at The Daily Beast, and a message many of us sorely need to hear. Just an excerpt from the middle here:

You see, I am ever an optimist. A poll taken in August of voters aged 18-34 showed that the vast majority favored Clinton over Trump—64 percent to 29 percent. That split tells me the same thing that the polls for same-sex marriage told us years ago: Over time, reason and fairness will win out, while bigotry and hatred literally would die off. In 20 years, you will all be in charge, and demonstrate far less appetite or patience for Trump’s brand of nativist rhetoric and race baiting. Trump and his supporters understand they are on borrowed time, and while they may seem resurgent today, this in fact could be their last chance to take control. Our country is rapidly moving on from their discredited and archaic worldview. Perhaps that is why the death throes of their campaign are so spectacular.

You are in many ways wiser to the world than your older counterparts. You came of age in a time where there was greater cause for skepticism, and you’re accustomed to the non-stop barrage of social media. Unlike your parents, you understand that we all live in an echo chamber, and that it is up to each of us to depart from it to hear alternative points of view. You are more likely to place your trust in science and embrace diversity, to reject hate while celebrating love in all its manifestations. You are more focused on racial justice and equality of opportunity than the two generations before you. And contrary to common myth, you are not disengaged. In this election cycle, millions of young voters made their concerns heard and very nearly succeeded in realigning the entire election. Nor are you impractical; even when your favored candidate did not succeed, you stuck by your convictions and goals, and in overwhelming numbers now support the party that will best advance them.

Full article at The Daily Beast.

From the Dakotas to the Desert.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

A youthful supporter of the campaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. cool revolution via Flickr.

Chris Clarke has an excellent article at ICTMN, covering the broad scope of how Indigenous people pay when energy enters the picture. To be truly mindful, you need to understand the big picture, and you also need to be able to see and understand when cleaner and greener energy is as much of a problem as the dirty type.

Commentary: An energy company plans a project that would destroy land Native people hold as sacred. Despite Native protests, neither state nor federal agencies intervene to protect those cultural sites. The project proceeds. The land is forever altered. Hundreds of Native people and their supporters converge on the site to protest and to grieve their loss.

Given recent news, not to mention the choice of photo at the top of this story, you could be forgiven for assuming I’m describing current events at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. That’s where the company Energy Transfer Partners is trying to push the new Dakota Access Pipeline through burial grounds and medicine wheels sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The project has already destroyed important sacred sites, and threatens to pollute the Missouri River and local groundwater if it’s built and the inevitable spills ensue.

But I’m actually describing a gathering four years ago in the southernmost parts of the California desert. There, near the little desert town of Ocotillo, hundreds of Native people from across the southwestern United States gathered on June 24, 2014. They were there to mark the destruction of ancient cremation sites, ceremonial locations and other important cultural resources by Pattern Energy, which built the Ocotillo Express wind power facility in Imperial County.

Click on over to ICTMN to read the full story.

Solidarity: 19 Cities Say No DAPL.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Nineteen cities stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux in opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Although more than 300 tribes have rallied in support of the Standing Rock Sioux’s stance against the routing of the Dakota Access oil pipeline under the Missouri River near their reservation, the support has not all been Native.

Nineteen U.S. city governments have passed resolutions or written letters opposing construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a statement on October 13.

From Seattle to Saint Paul and Minneapolis, to Cleveland, to Portland, Oregon, and all over Turtle Island, the resolutions have been streaming in for weeks. In California the cities of Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Oakland have sent in resolutions. So have Asheville, North Carolina; Sitka, Alaska, and Urbana, Illinois, the latter one of the four states that the pipeline will pass through.

The myriad resolutions being passed by city and municipal councils around the United States express solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and Indigenous Peoples in general. They reference everything from treaty rights and broken promises, to the common need for drinking water and the burgeoning of distrust in oil companies’ ability to ensure the safety of their pipelines.

This is good news, and I’m thankful to have such allies. Full story at ICTMN.

Pine Nuts.

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

Johnny Bob, a spiritual leader from Yomba Shoshone Tribe, gathering pine cones in a mountain valley in central Nevada. (Photo by Joseph Zummo).

There’s a very good article at ICTMN about the Western Shoshone tribes and a staple of their diet, pine nuts. A staple, which is considered sacred, and is healthy, it also treated with utter disregard by non-natives, who have been using any excuse to destroy the trees.

“Everything depends on the water and the trees,” said spiritual leader Johnny Bob, from the Yomba Shoshone Tribe, as he prayed for the start of a Western Shoshone pine-nut gathering. In September, members of several bands came together in a steep-walled mountain valley in central Nevada to collect the protein- and nutrient-rich nuts that were once the mainstay of their diet.

Some people took hold of long sticks and began to knock the sticky green cones off the tops of the pinyon trees. Others gathered fallen branches to chop up for the fire in which they would later roast the cones to release the sweet, creamy nuts. These can be eaten out of hand, added to soups and stews or parched and ground for gravy or mush.

“As we collect, we are pruning the trees to ensure there are even more cones next year. We are also cleaning the forest,” explained Joseph Holley, former chairman and now council member of the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone.

[…]

This critical food source, along with game living in the forest, began to disappear during the late 19th century, as newly arrived settlers chopped down trees for fuel over many square miles around towns and mining operations. Starting in the 20th century, these losses were amplified by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, which together have uprooted more than 3 million acres of pinyon-plus-juniper woodlands.

To destroy the forests, the federal agencies use tractors to drag gargantuan chains through them, ripping up everything in their path. The ruined landscapes look like the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Sometimes, the agencies eliminate woodlands in order to increase rangeland for grazing, an activity that further damages the fragile arid lands where pinyons flourish. Scientists estimate that soil in an erosion-prone “chained” landscape may take 10,000 years to recover.

The full story is at ICTMN.

Standing Rock: Winter Wish List.

s9

Oct 14, 2016 — Winter is approaching fast here in North Dakota – and we’re not going anywhere. Dakota Access may think that they can simply wait us out, but we are here for the long haul.

That being said, we need supplies and support to survive here at camp. Dakota winters are no joke! We have created an Amazon wishlist with all sorts of gear for sleeping, staying warm, lighting our camp, and organizing our group. We’re hoping for tents, lanterns, phones for communicating between groups, and more. Take a look and see if there’s anything you can purchase and send to help us out: http://amzn.to/2dLiG1G

Thank you as always for your generosity!

Anna, Bobbi, and the Oceti Sakowin Youth.

Via Change.org. I will add my thank you thank you thank you to anyone who can help out. As usual, I’ll say that you don’t need money to help – spreading the word and signal boosting is incredibly important, so if you’re a social media person, please, pass this on, with all my gratitude.

Socialist ideology in partnership with homosexual demons.

rainbow-whitehouse

Hat tip to Pierce Butler for alerting me to this. I think. Right Wing Watch (their site has had a makeover!) reports on the current panic of those inhabiting the sewer of hate and conspiracy, Barbwire. One Julio Severo is very upset about the Bisexual conference which took place at the White House, as part of Bisexual Awareness Week in September. Now, as most of you know, there’s a growing awareness of Two-Spirit peoples among native communities, and there was an Indigenous Two Spirit person at the conference who spoke, Victor Raymond, a Rosebud Sicangu Oyate Lakota. Rosebud is in Sdakota, and not terribly far from me. There is a complete fucktonne of wrong coming up, so grit those teeth and get your cussing brain in gear.

BiNet organizer Victor Raymond introduced himself “as an out bisexual two-spirit man” and a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. “Two-spirit” is an Indian term for a male-female spirit.

“Today, we are here at the White House, and I call upon the ancestors to witness our presence, and for the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, to guide our words and thoughts so that we can speak true and strong,” he said.

Raymond continued, saying, “As bisexual people, we have always been here. Amongst my people, the Lakota Sioux, two-spirit people, bisexual, gay, lesbian people, as they are now known, transgender people, were given the gift of medicine to share with the members of the tribe. It was Wanka, a mystery. But it was proper and it was part of our community.”

“Now we are faced with new times, when bisexual people, two-spirit people, others that we now know as LGBQ, are not recognized and our place in the community questioned. But bi and trans people — and particularly now amongst many tribes and communities, by bisexual, transgender, Native American women in particular — face challenge and discrimination. We stand with them and with all people whose place is no longer recognized.”

Raymond also said members of the bisexual community need to support Black Lives Matter (a black-oriented socialist movement) as part of standing for “other communities.” Socialist ideology in partnership with homosexual demons.

Okay, for the most part, that’s straight up recounting of what took place. Well, except for that bit about homosexual demon infested social ideology.

An interaction between spirits of homosexuality and Indian religions is not uncommon. In Brazil, the most prominent homosexualists are adherents of African and Indian religions, very similar to voodoo. These religions embrace all forms of homosexuality as a gift from their “gods.” Such deities are considered demons in the Christian worldview.

In Christianity and Judaism, homosexuality is accepted only when there is apostasy in those religions. But in Indian religions, heavily affected by witchcraft, no apostasy is necessary for a homosexual presence in their practices, because homosexuality is active among their witchdoctors and other adherents.

Uh…oh FFS, I haven’t even had a whole cuppa tea yet, and it still hurts to sit. What little brain function I have right now does not need this utter isht. Will no one rid me of these meddlesome purveyors of ignorance? This isn’t fractal wrong. This isn’t even beyond wrong wrong. This is wrong spit out from the denseness of a black hole of Christian hate. These people hang onto ignorance like it was their baby. So now we have generic African religion, some Brazilian beliefs thrown in for good measure, and there’s us Indians tacked on. As I have mentioned before, Lakota people do not have deities, we don’t worship them. Please, read John Trudell on the subject. Most indigenous peoples don’t have deities. So, no demons. Also, Indigenous people (in uStates) don’t have witch doctors. We don’t have shamans, either. We also aren’t looking to convert or recruit. It’s difficult enough to stop non-Native people using various bits of Indigenous culture and tradition to scam other non-natives. I’ll also point out that the term two-spirit originated with one particular nation, but now it has been adopted out for more general use among Indigenous people. I’ll also point out that LGBTI people are not wholesale accepted and embraced throughout different Indigenous cultures. There are plenty of Indians who hold onto a bigotry in that regard. That’s also true for a lot of African peoples as well. And people all over the planet, actually. As for what might constitute a “prominent homosexualist”, someone will have to educate me. No idea at all.

A homosexual culture is a culture of demon possession.

No, no it isn’t.

Has the White House turned into a haunt of demons?

No, no it hasn’t.

The first step for a “visitation” of such spirits is invocation — which was made at the White House. Homosexual spirits heard. Their presence is in the place where they were invoked, until their expelling, which can be done only by people who know and use the authority of Jesus’ name.

Okay, really, dude, you’re upset because it wasn’t a Christian invocation. Things would be much simpler if you’d just say what you mean. The ‘Great Spirit’ is a mistranslation from the Lakota language. Russell Means spoke about this at length. Wakan Tanka is more properly translated as Great Mystery. There’s no deity hanging about waiting to be invoked, there’s no demon, either. Basically, you’re invoking the universe, if it could be said you’re invoking, which we are not.

This is getting into what would God need with a starship territory. That nasty El Shaddai of yours can’t manage some gay spirits?

The Bisexual Community Briefing focused on “policy and cultural issues of significance for the American bisexual community.” Spirits focused on the invisible, lethal and destruction.

No, spirits didn’t focus on anything, invisible or visible. I do see an upside here though, if you all are so darn scared of those gay spirits coming to get you, perhaps you’ll keep your distance from the political center of uStates. One can only hope.

Via RRW and Barbwire.

The Senators Standing with Standing Rock.

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Bernie Sanders (Good Morning America).

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and four other senators on Thursday called on President Barack Obama to order a comprehensive environmental review of a pipeline project that has stirred widespread opposition from Native Americans and environmental activists.

After a U.S. appeals court on Sunday night denied a request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the senators asked Obama to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a full environmental impact statement for a contested part of the route that includes stronger tribal consultation.

“The project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” said the letter by Sanders and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin.

In recent weeks, protests against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota drew international attention, prompting the U.S. government to temporarily block its construction on federal land.

[…]

On Tuesday, anti-pipeline activists in four states closed pipeline valves to halt the flow of crude through arteries transporting 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption..

When fully connected, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km) pipeline would be the first to carry crude directly to the U.S. Gulf from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.

The $3.7 billion project is being built by the Dakota Access subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, which has vowed to complete construction.

“There must be a serious consideration of the full potential climate impacts of this pipeline prior to the Army Corps of Engineers approving any permits or easements for the Dakota Access pipeline,” the senators said.

Experts say that the full environmental review requested by the senators could take several months.

The U.S. appeal court’s ruling was the second time the federal judiciary rejected the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to halt construction of the pipeline. On Sept. 9, a U.S. judge rejected a similar request.

Oh, so scrutiny would take a couple of months, golly, the agony for those poor, poor billionaires. Cry me a river, oil wašichu, cry me a river of clean, untainted water. Once again, we see just how much, and how easily Indigenous concerns are brushed aside, and treaties broken, again. And again. And again. My thanks to Senators Sanders, Feinstein, Markey, Leahy, and Cardin. Please, please keep the pressure on. I think everyone should remind the President of his visit to Standing Rock two years ago. How can it possibly be, in any way, to turn away from people who keep asking for justice? How long for people to wake the fuck up to all the lies, all the crimes committed by DA and Energy Transfer Partners? Remember when they swore up and down that the oil running through this travesty of a pipeline was “sweet and light”? The only people pointing out that that was a lie were Indigenous people who live in the Dakotas. I posted about that, and heard arguments and “oh no, you’re wrong.” No, we aren’t wrong. Oil lies, and it would be great if people would wake up to that fact, and stay woke. This is a disaster waiting to happen, to all of us.

Via Raw Story.

Michelle Obama Addresses Sexual Assault.

Our First Lady, a forthright, courageous woman who is unafraid to face the ugliest of human behaviours, and I thank her for speaking out, for not turning away, as so many have done.

“The fact is that in this election, we have a candidate for president of the United States who, over the course of his lifetime and the course of this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning, I simply will not repeat anything here today,” she told a crowd in Manchester, New Hampshire. “And last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexually assaulting women. And I can’t believe that I’m saying that. A candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women and I have to tell you that I can’t stop thinking about this.”

It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted. So while I’d love nothing more than to pretend like this isn’t happening and come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous for me to move on to the next thing like this was just a bad dream.

This is not something we can ignore. It’s not something we can sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad election season. Because this was not just a lewd conversation. This wasn’t locker room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior. And actually bragging about kissing and groping women. Using language so obscene that many of us are worried about our children hearing it when we turn on the TV. To make matters worse, it now seems clear this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life.

I have to tell you that I listened to all this. And I feel it so personally. And I’m sure that many of you do too. Particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It is frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.

The video is via CNN. Full article at Raw Story.