White: Not Guilty. Native, Black, Brown: Guilty.

It really pays to be white. Via here and here.

Meeting with Obama as Cops Mass Near No DAPL Camp.

Courtesy Bucky Harjo Sunset at the new water protectors' camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

Courtesy Bucky Harjo
Sunset at the new water protectors’ camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).

While Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier sat down with President Barack Obama at a private roundtable in Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 25, Morton County, N.D. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier was calling in police reinforcements from six states to enforce Energy Transfer Partners’ demands that “trespassers” be removed from the path of the pipeline.

Authorities implied they may forcibly remove the water protectors from the new camp, which is on land recently purchased by Dakota Access LLC, the subsidiary that is building the pipeline.

“We have the resources. We could go down there at any time,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said, according to the Associated Press. “We’re trying not to.”

“We are here to enforce the law as needed,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said. “It’s private property.”

The so-called trespassers are Lakota citizens and their allies determined to stand their ground to prevent further destruction of burial grounds and cultural sites, and to protect their water supply from the pipeline. As DAPL moves forward with aggressive construction even on weekends and at night, water protectors took the bold action to declare eminent domain over their homelands last week and set up a new camp directly in the pipeline’s path.

What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.

Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.

In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.

On Wednesday, October 26, civil rights leader and Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Standing Rock to speak out against the multiple human and civil rights violations being perpetrated against water protectors.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)

“When will the taking stop? When will we start treating the first peoples of these lands with the respect and honor they deserve?”

The decision to change the pipeline route from north of Bismarck to its current route is “the ripest case of environmental racism I’ve seen in a long time,” Jackson said. “Bismarck residents don’t want their water threatened, so why is it okay for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”

Full story at ICTMN. Related news:

Mark Ruffalo in Standing Rock; Leo DiCaprio, Jesse Jackson Head to Standing Rock.

Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context.

DAPL: Former Vice President Al Gore Supports the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Jesus Dethroned by Memes.

“WE DID IT PEOPLE,” wrote Salonen. “WE FUCKING DID IT. HOLY SHIT.”

After a reign lasting more than 2000 years, the King of the Judeans has been dethroned.

According to Google Trends, which tracks how often a particular term is searched for, “memes” officially overtook “jesus” earlier this year. The breakaway appears to have occurred in late August, but it wasn’t widely recognized until Tuesday, when Norwegian developer Dominik Salonen publicized his findings on Twitter.

Via Gizmodo. If Ray Comfort sees this, he’ll go apoplectic, seeing as he thinks there’s an atheist conspiracy to ruin the rating of his Atheist Delusion flick.

Bodies, Dead People, Ashes: The New Guidelines.

vatican-tour-01

The Vatican on Tuesday urged Catholics not to scatter the ashes of the dead after cremation and instead to store them in places approved by the Church.

The new guidelines published by the Church also say that the ashes of the dead should not be kept at home but should instead be kept at a cemetery or other sacred place.

Doing so reduces “the risk of shielding the dead from prayers for them and the memory of their family and the Christian community”, German cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the prefect of the doctrinal watchdog, told journalists.

“We also avoid eventually forgetting (them) and the lack of respect which can happen, especially after the passing of the first generation,” he said.

“Conserving ashes in a home is not authorised,” Mueller said.

I wonder how long it took them to come up with this “shielding the dead from prayers” business. I know the church has to come up with new bullshit on a regular basis, lest all the faithful start to get a glimmer of how pointless and corrupt the church is, but this hardly speaks of putting an effort in. C’mon, guys, you’re supposed to baffle them with bullshit, seeing as your dazzling days are long over.

The new guidelines come just in time for “All Souls’ Day” on November 2 when the faithful typically pray for the dead.

“The body is not the private property of the family. A dead person is a son of God. It is part of the body of Christ, it is part of God’s people. It’s for this reason that there is not only private rites for the deceased but it’s a public ceremony,” said Mueller.

Hmmm. Well, if a corpse isn’t the property and responsibility of kin, then I guess the Vatican is going to pry open that vast wallet and start paying for all death and funeral expenses, right? After all, if a corpse is a god’s property, then let a god pay. Or a god’s representative.

Bishops will however be able to authorise exceptions to the new guidelines “in serious and exceptional circumstances linked to local customs and practices”.

The new rules also prohibit the scattering of ashes at sea, said Mueller.

Right, well, there’s the out the Catholic church always provides itself.

The Vatican has said that cremations “do not touch the soul” and do no “prevent the all powerful God from resurrecting the body”.

They decided that in 1963. Before that, cremation was a big ol’ no no. It never ceases to amaze just how little that all powerful god can actually do. Doesn’t add up to much.

But the guidelines will not be applied retrospectively to the relics of saints whose remains have been preserved over the centuries “to avoid provoking a war between believers”, according to one of Mueller’s aides.

Ah yes, different rules for everyone, that’s the way!

Via Raw Story.

Oh, golf. Well, that’s okay then.

Rudy Giuliani speaks to MSNBC (screen grab).

Rudy Giuliani speaks to MSNBC (screen grab).

Oh, it’s Giuliani again, being the very best drama llama he can be, and not only denying any racism on his part, or on Trump’s part, but there is no racism, no, none at all. Wait, yes, there is a bit of racism, on Clinton’s part. That’s it.

“Racist? The last thing in this world that Donald Trump is is a racist,” Giuliani scoffed. “The man likes white people, he likes black people, he likes Hispanic people, he plays golf with them.”

I bet he’d even let them use one of his bathrooms, right Rudy? Who knew that golf canceled out racism, I didn’t know that.

“To say that Donald Trump is a racist is outrageous!” Giuliani replied indignantly. “To call anybody a racist is outrageous. I can’t stand that.”

“Hold on,” Ruhle interrupted. “There are people that you can call racist.”

Giuliani, however, pivoted: “It’s Hillary Clinton who says to us, we all have implicit bias.”

“Hillary, I got news for you, I don’t,” he added. “Maybe you do. I have no racial guilt. Not a single bit of it, which is why I’m willing to tell the truth about black crime and what has to be done about it.”

Oh yes, to point out racist behaviour and attitudes is just so much worse than the effects of racism, yep. The wounded bellow of white privilege, hear it bluster and sob. As for ‘no racial guilt’? Please. Yes, Rudy, you have implicit bias, we all do. What you don’t seem to have is any sense of shame. Or any ability to think, let alone critically.

“And there is no mayor in this history of this city that saved more black lives than me. Nobody even close.”

Why do I get the idea that Giuliani’s idea of saving black lives is putting a whole lot of black people in prison?

Full story here.