State Department: Keystone XL Pipeline Would Create 35 Permanent Jobs

January 27, 2017   |   Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — President Donald Trump’s decision to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline may ultimately backfire, as the State Department has estimated the pipeline will only create 35 permanent jobs after the one or two years’ worth of construction work has been completed.

According to Census.gov, the current population of the United States is over 316 million. Congratulations – Donald Trump has successfully created jobs for 0.000011 percent of the American population.

Republican supporters have long argued that the pipeline project will be a tremendous job creator. In 2012, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce took out a full-page ad in the New York Times warning Barack Obama not to say no to 20,000 jobs (the pipeline company’s estimate.)

The State Department’s recent estimate means the pipeline could bring in 42,100 jobs in total, but they would all be one-year only contracts. What happens to the 42,000 workers after that one year of construction? Do they build a new pipeline? This does not sound sustainable.

As noted by the Guardian, the proposed Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines will also create an enormity of blowback in other ways:

“Beyond risking our energy economy on what we now call ‘alternative facts,’ these pipelines pose specific risks to Indian Country – and President Trump ignores those risks at his own political peril. Keystone XL would run on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, a vast multi-state underground reservoir that provides water to millions of Americans, including many Native American tribes, across the midwest. Part of the Dakota Access pipeline would run under Lake Oahe, a major water source for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota. Consultation with Native American tribes in the construction of both pipelines has been feeble.”

This is quite humorous given that publications such as the Guardian and other corporate media outlets refused to report on the protests happening at Standing Rock in its early stages. It wasn’t until many alternative media organizations began to break the story, forcing the issue on social media, that these news outlets were willing to take notice of the situation.

Now that it is Trump ramping up these proposals, however, the media is suddenly on the side of the people again.

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This article (State Department: Keystone XL Pipeline Would Create 35 Permanent Jobs) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

As Everyone Watches the Inauguration, Violence Returns to Standing Rock

January 20, 2017   |   Derrick Broze

(ANTIMEDIA) Cannonball, ND — Early Friday afternoon, all eyes and ears from around the world seemed to focus on Washington D.C. for the inauguration of America’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump. The political pundits and social media armchair activists were ranting and raving about what exactly “Make America Great Again” is going to mean for Americans. Meanwhile, violence broke out in the streets of D.C. as anti-Trump protesters clashed with Trump supporters and law enforcement. But while the nation is distracted by the selection of the latest puppet-in-chief, violence has returned to North Dakota in the ongoing fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

After a relatively quiet December and early January, tensions are running high at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannonball, North Dakota. Over the weekend, water protectors with the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies once again clashed with the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the National Guard.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, social media accounts connected to the fight against the DAPL and in support of the Sioux posted several videos showing law enforcement using tear gas and rubber bullets on water protectors who attempted to set up a tipi on Backwater bridge off highway 1806. Social media reports state law enforcement grabbed an “unknown amount of water protectors.” Backwater Bridge was the site of conflict throughout the months of October and November.

The Morton County Sheriff’s announced 21 arrests on Wednesday night via their Facebook page. The following is an account of the protests as reported by the Sheriff’s office:

“Protesters began assembling on the Backwater Bridge around 6:45pm on Wednesday, January 18. By 8:30pm, the crowd of protesters had grown to approximately 150. During the following four hours, protesters started three tire fires on the bridge and two fires on each side of the bridge as well as erecting two tipis further blocking the bridge. Protestors [sic] flanked the law enforcement line several times, attempting to get behind them. After protesters failed to comply to multiple orders from law enforcement to return to the south side of the bridge and go back to camp, law enforcement deployed less-than-lethal munitions.”

Video posted on the Morton County Sheriff’s Facebook page on Tuesday also shows water protectors using tools to cut down fences and standing toe to toe, shoving police who are carrying riot shields. Morton County reported 14 arrests on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

On Monday night, the water protectors held rallies and marches to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. According to the Sacred Stone Camp:

“Hundreds of water protectors led a prayer walk to the razor wire barricade approximately 700 feet from the drill pad where the Dakota Access Pipeline is proposed to cross the Missouri river.  Law enforcement fired tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber-coated steel bullets at point blank range, hitting one person directly in the eye. A total of 14 water protectors were arrested, and some were held in cold dog kennels overnight.”

As Anti-Media recently reported, the Morton County Sheriff’s office has also deployed an Avenger Air Defense System in Cannonball. The Avenger is a humvee-mounted, low altitude surface-to-air missile system.

In the background of the ongoing violence, legal battles over the fate of the Dakota Access Pipeline continue to be fought. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge James Boesberg denied DAPL attorneys’ attempt to stop the Army Corp of Engineers from conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Lake Oahe crossing. Following Boesberg’s decision, the Army Corps of Engineers officially published a notice of intent in the federal register to prepare a partial EIS. The legal process now moves into the formal comment period, which lasts until February 20. The EIS was ordered after the Corps denied a permit for Energy Transfer Partners, DAPL’s parent company, to build the final easement under Lake Oahe.

Despite the call for an EIS, the Standing Rock Sioux say the Corps is neglecting to do a full environmental study. “The proposed scoping fails to include the entire length of the pipeline or downstream impacts of other tribes of the Great Sioux Nation,” the Sioux write.

Another court decision issued on Wednesday officially ended the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s efforts to fight the pipeline via the legal system. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Sioux had no standing in their arguments against construction. The Sioux were attempting to get the court to issue a preliminary injunction to stop construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline based on threats to sacred and cultural sites. In early October, more than 100 scientists from universities across the United States issued an open letter, stating that they “support halting any construction of the DAPL until revised environmental and cultural assessments are carried out as requested by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.”

For the time being, it seems the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline will continue in the fields of North Dakota rather than the courts. The incoming fossil fuel-friendly Trump administration is likely to move on the project soon. Water protectors are preparing to put their bodies on the line to stop a project that threatens the environment, their culture, and the health of future generations.

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This article (As Everyone Watches the Inauguration, Violence Returns to Standing Rock) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article at edits@theantimedia.org.

The Genocide That Is Being Ignored by The World

January 18, 2017   |   Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — If you need evidence that politicians and the mainstream media pick and choose which oppressive conflicts to cover in order to further geopolitical ambitions, you need only Google “West Papua.”

Ever heard of it? Have you ever been sitting at home watching CNN, BBC, or Fox News and heard the news anchor mention West Papua?

It’s strange that this oppression receives little to no media coverage considering a recent fact-finding mission conducted by the Brisbane Archdiocese’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission reported that West Papua was experiencing a “slow motion genocide.” The report warned West Papua’s indigenous population is at risk of becoming “an anthropological museum exhibit of a bygone culture.”

When you learn what fuels the conflict in West Papua, it becomes clear why this issue receives hardly a blink from our peace-loving politicians and media establishment.

West Papua is home to one of the world’s largest gold mines (and third largest copper mine), known as the Grasberg Mine. Grasberg is majority-owned by the American mining firm Freeport McMoRan. It has reserves worth an estimated $100 billion, and the company is Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer.

Money and geopolitics usually beat out human rights. Since the Suharto dictatorship of Indonesia annexed West Papua in a 1969 U.N. referendum – largely viewed as a land grab – an estimated 500,000 West Papuans have been killed fighting to achieve independence.

Freeport McMoRan was given rights to Grasberg when the Indonesian government signed the right to extract mineral wealth from the site in 1967. In order to preserve this quite literal gold mine, the Indonesian military uses brute force against the local indigenous population. Benny Wenda, a native Papuan who has campaigned his whole life for independence, details the kinds of experiences the local population has endured at the hands of the Indonesian military:

“Now, every morning on the way to their gardens, Benny and his mother and aunties would be stopped and checked by Indonesian soldiers. Often the soldiers would force the women to wash themselves in the river before brutally raping them in front of their children. Many young women, including three of Benny’s aunties, died in the jungle from the trauma and injuries inflicted during these attacks, which often involved genital mutilation. Every day Papuan women had to report to the military post to provide food from their gardens, and to clean and cook for the soldiers. Violence, racism and enforced subservience became part of daily routine.” [emphasis added]

Australia, a country with a cozy, albeit confusing relationship with Indonesia, plays its part in destroying any decent discussion on this horrifying issue. In November of last year, the Indonesian government asked Australia to put pressure on the Pacific nations who have begun to show support for West Papua’s campaign for independence, effectively stopping these tiny islands from “interfering” in Indonesia’s affairs. Australia has been quite complicit in this issue to date, even providing the Indonesian military with the equipment necessary to wreak havoc on the local population.

Lately, however, there has been some progress. The two countries suspended military ties after an Indonesian military official found “offensive” material at an Australian military base, including homework that suggested West Papua was part of Melanesia and should be given independence.

Regardless, Papua has the highest poverty rate in Indonesia. It is nearly three times the national average. It also has the highest infant, child, and maternal mortality rates in Indonesia, as well as the worst health indicators and the lowest literacy rates.

Imagine how greatly the West Papuans could improve their standard of living if they were allowed to control their own resources without the Indonesian military forcibly destroying their lives.

Meanwhile, an American mining company continues to make hundreds of billions of dollars at the expense of innocent natives.

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This article (The Genocide That Is Being Ignored by The World) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

North Dakota Lawmakers Want to Legalize Running Over Protesters

House Bill Number 1203 (pdf) states that, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway, is not guilty of an offense.”

The bill is slated to be heard by the North Dakota’s House Transportation Committee on Friday.

Rep. Keith Kempenich (R-Bowman), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday, “[The roads are] not there for the protesters. They’re intentionally putting themselves in danger.”

“It’s shifting the burden of proof from the motor vehicle driver to the pedestrian,” Kempenich said.

Tara Houska, an Indigenous water protector and attorney who has resided at the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) resistance camps since August, told NBC News that the bill was “a direct violation of our First Amendment rights.”

“It’s shocking to see legislation that allows for people to literally be killed for exercising their right to protest in a public space,” said Houska, who also serves as the national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-focused environmental nonprofit.

Water protectors at times blocked roads leading to DAPL construction sites as part of the resistance to the pipeline. Blocking traffic is also an occasional tactic of various environmental and human rights movements.

Houska also criticized another bill in the legislative lineup that would require North Dakota’s attorney general to sue the federal government to recoup some of the cost of policing the months-long DAPL protests.

“These [bills] are meant to criminalize the protests with no real concern for constitutional law,” she said.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II added, “The state claims they want to work closely with the tribe on repairing our relationship with them. Clearly that is not happening when legislation that impacts us is being drafted without consultation, consent, or even basic communication.”

Allison Renville, an activist from the Lakota nation, saw the bills as an insult to sovereign Native American communities, and expressed concern about the recent naming of Republican Sen. John Hoeven, a supporter of the DAPL pipeline and fossil fuel industry, as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

“This is a really scary time for Indian Country,” Renville told NBC News. “To have such an avid supporter of the oil industry who has consistently stated his support for extractive industry projects on Native lands named to the position as chairman is akin to stepping on our sovereignty.”

Dakota Access Protesters Make Dramatic Statement During NFL Game

January 2, 2017   |   admintam

(COMMONDREAMS) Continuing a strategy to target the project’s financial backers, a small team of Dakota Access Pipeline opponents on Sunday pulled off a dramatic banner-drop from the rafters of the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis as the Minnesota Vikings played the Chicago Bears.

Above the crowded stadium, which can hold nearly 70,000 attendees at capacity, the two individuals—later identified as Karl Zimmerman, 32, and Sen Holiday, 26—rappelled from large steel girders during the second quarter of the game alongside an expansive banner reading, “US Bank, DIVEST, #NoDAPL.”

Incredible sight at #Vikings NFL game – #NoDAPL water protectors climb roof support & drop massive #DefundDAPL banner! #DivestfromDAPL pic.twitter.com/poyhVrTGoZ

— Collin Rees (@collinrees) January 1, 2017

I’m @ the Vikings game. It’s 3rd quarter & the water protectors are still up there! Currently, 4 cops r waiting for them @ the top. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/oGY5JpwgEx

— Margie (@AdopteeMovement) January 1, 2017

Holiday, who shot live video while dangling beside the banner, explained their reasoning. “We are here today at the U.S. Bank Stadium in solidarity with water protectors from standing rock,” she said. “We are urging US Bank to divest from the Dakota Access pipeline, a project threatening the tribe’s clean water supply.”

NEW VIDEO: Water Protectors Unfurl Massive (10x40ft) #DivestFromDAPL Banner at @usbankstadium during @Vikings Game – 3 Arrests #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/GgOrqZ30IA

— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) January 2, 2017

Organizers of the protest also emailed a statement to local news outlets:

Was just emailed this press release about the protest at US Bank Stadium. pic.twitter.com/kQ4lxA1hOl

— Matt Vensel (@mattvensel) January 1, 2017

According to the statement, U.S. Bank was targeted for a $175 million line of credit given to Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of the pipeline.

Though the game was never disrupted, those seated directly below the banner were evacuated from their seats by stadium staff.

Corey Schmidt, a public information officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, told local CBS affiliate WCCO Channel 4 News the largest concern was for safety. “That sign could have fallen, they could have fallen,” Schmidt said. “We don’t want people to do that.”

Returning to the ground after several hours, both Zimmerman and Holiday, were arrested for trespassing and burglary, both gross misdemeanors, for their participation in the protest. A third person, identified by police as 27-year-old Carolyn Feldman, was arrested on lesser charges.

Speaking from jail with WCCO reporter Jeff Wagner, Zimmerman declined to say how they got their climbing equipment and the banner inside the stadium, but said that like police, the idea of safety was also on their mind. “What’s relevant is that the Dakota Access Pipeline is unsafe,” Zimmerman told Wagner. “It’s unsafe for the residents of Bismarck, it’s unsafe for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and it is unsafe for the Missouri River.”

Did the message get across?

Local football fan Willian Ihrke was asked what he thought.

“I think these guys are basically trying to shed light on their message and they definitely achieved their goal,” he said.

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This article (Dakota Access Protesters Make Dramatic Statement During NFL Game) by Jon Queally originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org

‘They Always Break!’ Latest Pipeline Leak Underscores Dangers of DAPL

October 25, 2016   |   admintam

(COMMONDREAMS) Underscoring once again the dangers of America’s unreliable fossil fuel infrastructure, a significant U.S. oil pipeline has been shut down after a leak was reported Monday morning.

Enterprise Products Partners said Monday it had shut its Seaway Crude Pipeline, a 400,000-barrel per day conduit that transports crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma to Gulf coast refineries. The leak occurred Sunday night in an industrial area of Cushing. The company did not provide an estimate of the volume spilled, but said there was no danger to the public.

“Seaway personnel continue to make progress in cleaning up the spill, substantially all of which has been contained in a retention pond at Enbridge’s facility,” the company said in a news release (pdf), explaining that the pipeline is a “50/50 joint venture” between Enterprise and Enbridge Inc. “Vacuum trucks are being used to recover the crude oil and return it to storage tanks on-site.”

“The impacted segment of the legacy pipeline has a capacity of 50,000 barrels,” the release added, “however the actual amount of crude oil released will be significantly less and won’t be determined until recovery efforts are complete.”

The incident comes after another pipeline rupture in Pennsylvania early on Friday, where 55,000 gallons of gasoline poured into the Susquehanna River, and about one month after a major gasoline pipeline run by Colonial Pipeline Co. had to halt pumping for a couple of weeks due to a spill in Alabama.

Meanwhile, UPI reports that “[t]he release from the Seaway pipeline is the second associated with the Cushing storage hub in less than a month. Plains All American Pipeline reported problems with infrastructure from Colorado City [Texas] to Cushing earlier this month.”

Environmentalists, Indigenous people, and energy companies are in the midst of a heated debate over pipeline safety. Water protectors and their allies along the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) have been saying for months that the project threatens their right to safe drinking water.

“Oil pipelines break, spill, and leak—it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of where and when,” 13-year-old Anna Lee Rain YellowHammer, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, wrote in a recent appeal.

“With such a high chance that this pipeline will leak,” she wrote of the Enbridge-backed DAPL, “I can only guess that the oil industry keeps pushing for it because it doesn’t care about our health and safety. The industry seems to think our lives are more expendable than others’.”

Indeed, referring to the Cushing leak, one observer tweeted on Monday: “That’s why we’re screaming #NoDAPL! They always break!”

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This article (‘They Always Break!’ Latest Pipeline Leak Underscores Dangers of DAPL) by Deirdre Fulton originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org