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Standing Rock Special: Unlicensed #DAPL Guards Attacked Water Protectors with Dogs & Pepper Spray
Many across the United States are celebrating this Thanksgiving holiday. But many for Native Americans observe it as a National Day of Mourning, marking the genocide against their communities and the theft of their land. We spend the hour looking at the standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota—the struggle against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that has galvanized the largest resistance movement of Native Americans in decades. The movement has largely been ignored on this year’s presidential campaign trail and by the national corporate media. But Democracy Now! has been covering the standoff closely. We begin with our report from North Dakota Labor Day weekend. It was Saturday, September 3, when unlicensed Dakota Access security guards attacked water protectors trying to defend a sacred tribal burial site from destruction.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Many across the United States are celebrating this Thanksgiving holiday. But many Native Americans observe it as a National Day of Mourning, marking the genocide against their communities and the theft of their land. We’ll spend today looking at the standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, the struggle against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that’s galvanized the largest resistance movement of Native Americans in decades.
In Cannon Ball, North Dakota, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and representatives of more than 200 Indigenous nations from across the Americas have been encamped for months to block the construction of the pipeline. It’s slated to carry half a million barrels of crude a day from the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois, where it will link up with an existing pipeline to carry the oil down to the refineries in the Gulf. The thousands of water protectors, as they call themselves, have been joined by many non-Native allies, all concerned a leak could contaminate the Missouri River, which provides water for the tribe and millions of people downstream. The tribe also says the pipeline’s construction across unceded Sioux treaty land will lead to the desecration of sacred sites, including tribal burial grounds. In recent months, hundreds have been arrested after using their bodies to block construction of the pipeline and to protect the sacred sites. The movement has also spread across the country and the world, as protesters have held demonstrations at banks funding the Dakota Access pipeline.
The movement has largely been ignored on this year’s presidential campaign trail and by the national corporate media. But Democracy Now! has been there on the ground covering the standoff closely. Today we’re bringing you highlights of that coverage in North Dakota. We begin with our report Labor Day weekend. It was Saturday, September 3rd, when unlicensed Dakota Access security guards attacked water protectors trying to defend a sacred tribal burial site from destruction.
WATER PROTECTOR 1: Criminals! You guys are criminals! Go get your money somewhere else!
WATER PROTECTOR 2: Yeah, you! Yeah, you!
AMY GOODMAN: We’re standing at the destruction site of the Dakota Access pipeline. It looks like there are at least three bulldozers that are, to people’s surprise, at this moment, actually bulldozing the land. There’s a helicopter above. There’s security here. And hundreds of people have been marching up, when they heard that the construction site is actually active right now.
WATER PROTECTOR 3: It’s not too late to go home!
WATER PROTECTOR 4: Yeah, that’s what you’re doing to it!
WATER PROTECTOR 5: You’re raping our mother!
WATER PROTECTOR 3: It’s not too late to go home! Think of your children!
WATER PROTECTOR 4: Where are we going to live without this [inaudible]?
JACOB JOHNS: My name is Jacob, Jacob Johns.
AMY GOODMAN: And where are you from?
JACOB JOHNS: I’m from Spokane, Washington. I’m Hopi and Akimel O’Odham.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you describe what you see, what they’re doing?
JACOB JOHNS: They are—they’re bulldozing. They’re bulldozing and preparing to put in—install a pipeline to go into the—deep in the river.
AMY GOODMAN: And above, we see a helicopter.
JACOB JOHNS: The helicopter itself has been following us and taking pictures. And we’re filming them in return.
WATER PROTECTOR 6: Come on, guys! We’ve got to stop this!
LINDA LEE BRUNER: Why are we standing and watching? Get out there! Stop this! Why are we standing and watching and taking pictures? Let’s go!
AMY GOODMAN: People have gone through the fence—men, women and children. The bulldozers are still going. And they’re yelling at the men in hard hats. One man in a hard hat threw one of the protesters down. And they’re marching over the dirt mounds. Some of the security have dogs.
The six bulldozers are pulling back right now. People are marching forward in their tracks. There are men, women and children. More security trucks are pulling up. There are some protesters on horseback. Hundreds of people are coming from the main camp. They’re climbing up the tracks left by the bulldozers—six, at least, I’ve counted, that are now receding.
Protesters advance as far as a small wooden bridge. Security unleashes one of the dogs, which attacks two of the Native Americans’ horses.
Security has some kind of gas. People are being pepper-sprayed.
WATER PROTECTORS: We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving! We are not leaving!
AMY GOODMAN: Sir, reporter from New York. What are you spraying people with?
SECURITY MAN: I didn’t spray anything, ma’am.
AMY GOODMAN: But what is that?
WATER PROTECTOR 7: This guy just maced me in the face right now. Amy Goodman, this guy maced me in the face.
LAURA GOTTESDIENER: Why don’t—can you show us the label?
WATER PROTECTOR 7: Look, it’s all over my sunglasses. Just maced me in the face. Dog bit him right now.
VICTOR PUERTAS: Throwed the dog on me. This [bleep] throwed the dog on me. Look at this. Look at this. You throwed the dog on me. No, you did it on purpose, man.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me see. Let me see.
VICTOR PUERTAS: Over there, with that dog. I was like walking. Throwed the dog on me and straight, even without any warning. You know? Look at this. Look at this.
AMY GOODMAN: That dog bit you?
VICTOR PUERTAS: Yeah, the dog did it, you know? Look at this. It’s there. It’s all bleeding.
AMY GOODMAN: Ma’am, your dog just bit this protester. Your dog just bit that protester. Are you telling the dogs to bite the protesters?
WATER PROTECTOR 8: She keeps sicking them after people.
AMY GOODMAN: The dog has blood in its nose and its mouth.
WATER PROTECTOR 8: And she’s still standing here threatening us.
WATER PROTECTOR 9: You can’t put the blame on your dog. You’re an evil woman.
WATER PROTECTOR 8: That’s mistreatment against your own animal.
WATER PROTECTOR 9: You can’t put your blame on the [bleep] dog. You’re evil.
WATER PROTECTOR 8: That’s mistreatment against your own animal.
WATER PROTECTOR 9: You will live with that.
WATER PROTECTOR 10: Get the [bleep] out of here!
WATER PROTECTOR 8: These people are just threatening all of us with these dogs. And she, that woman over there, she was charging, and it bit somebody right in the face. And then it charged at me and tried to bite me. And she’s still—they’re still threatening those dogs against us. And we’re not doing anything.
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you letting their—her dog go after the protesters? It’s covered in blood!
WATER PROTECTOR 11: Stop!
AMY GOODMAN: One of the pipeline’s security men unleashes a dog into the crowd.
WATER PROTECTOR 12: What the [bleep] are you trying to do?
WATER PROTECTOR 13: Get your [bleep] dogs [bleep] out of here! Get your [bleep] dogs out of here!
AMY GOODMAN: Protesters respond using a flagpole and sticks to fend off the dog attacks.
WATER PROTECTOR 12: Get the [bleep] out! Get out! Get the [bleep] out!
WATER PROTECTOR 14: We ain’t scared of you! We ain’t scared of you! Mother [bleep]!
WATER PROTECTOR 15: What’s the [bleep] your dog gonna do?
WATER PROTECTOR 12: Get the [bleep] out! Get the [bleep] out!
WATER PROTECTOR 16: Let them leave!
AMY GOODMAN: After the protesters said that the dog was bloody from biting them, they then pulled the dogs away, and now pickup truck by pickup truck is pulling away. We’ll see what happens. The protesters are moving in to ensure that the security leaves. Let’s go check on this woman. What happened?
REYNA CROW: Just a lot of mace, and the sweat was dripping it into—it was—the sweat was making it run down into my eyes. I had my glasses on, and that spared me the brunt of it, but then the sweat started putting it in.
AMY GOODMAN: How are you doing?
REYNA CROW: I’m great!
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name?
REYNA CROW: Reyna Crow.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think you’ve accomplished today?
REYNA CROW: I hope we’ve accomplished letting Enbridge know that the people of this nation and the people of this world, tribal or otherwise, have withdrawn their social license to pollute water, and that they need to find an honest, nonviolent way to make a living.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are you from?
REYNA CROW: Duluth, Minnesota. Idle No More Duluth.
WATER PROTECTOR 17: I got maced twice. I got bit by a dog. I was the front line.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did you get bit?
WATER PROTECTOR 17: I got bit on the ankle, where my boot is. So, I told them they needed to leave, but the guy didn’t believe me. So he didn’t want to listen. He stuck his hand out, and he maced me, this other guy, and I think he maced a lady, too. Then they tried getting the dogs on us. I was just standing there, wasn’t really doing nothing. That dog ran up on me, and it bit my—around my ankle.
AMY GOODMAN: You pushed them back, though?
WATER PROTECTOR 17: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Why is this such an important fight to you?
WATER PROTECTOR 17: Because water is life. Like I said, without water, we’d all—we wouldn’t be here. These plants wouldn’t be here. There’d be no oxygen. We’d all die without it. I wish they’d open their eyes and have a heart, to realize, you know, if this happens, we’re not going to be the only ones that are going to suffer. They’re going to suffer, too.
AMY GOODMAN: What tribe are you with?
WATER PROTECTOR 17: I’m Oglala Sioux, full blood.
AMY GOODMAN: From?
WATER PROTECTOR 17: Pine Ridge Reservation.
AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name, and where are you from?
LINDA LEE BRUNER: Linda Lee Bruner. I’m from Belcourt, North Dakota. I’ve traveled from Wichita, Kansas. I stand for my grandchildren, my next grandchildren. I already got great-grandchildren that are in the future. I know the 18-year-old and 19-year-olds that are getting ready to come here, they’ll fight to the end. We’re going to stay here, just like in 1836. We’re going to go down and wait and wait. This oil ain’t gonna go through.
WATER PROTECTOR 18: We should all walk out together. That’s a good idea, whoever said that.
ELVIA RAMIREZ: I am Elvia Ramirez. I come from Arizona, Salt River. I’m in Pima-Maricopa Tribe.
AMY GOODMAN: How old are you?
ELVIA RAMIREZ: I am 13 years old.
AMY GOODMAN: And why are you out here today?
ELVIA RAMIREZ: I am with my family, because I believe—I hear what they’re doing is wrong. This is very wrong. They should protect the water. Everybody needs water to live. Water is in us. NAWA.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the oil?
ELVIA RAMIREZ: The oil should stay in the ground. They should just leave it, because they’re hurting Mother Nature. Mother Nature is important, because without Mother Nature, we wouldn’t be here.
WATER PROTECTOR 19: No one owns this land. This land belongs to the Earth. We are only caretakers. We’re caretakers of the Earth.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like you won today?
WATER PROTECTOR 19: We win every day when we stand in unity. We stand, and we fight.
KANDI MOSSETT: My name is Kandi Mossett with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
AMY GOODMAN: Is this where the DAPL is being built?
KANDI MOSSETT: Yes, this is the pipe that is leading up to the river. So what we’re waiting for—or, what Dakota Access is waiting for is the easement to go underneath and bore under the water. My understanding was that with the TRO, they were supposed to completely quit construction. But I guess, in the oil and gas industry, that’s not the way it works.
AMY GOODMAN: The temporary restraining order.
KANDI MOSSETT: Right. Well, there was a restraining order, and they were supposed to, I thought, we all thought, stop construction completely. But they’ve been coming from the west, over here, this whole time, these past three weeks, ever since you saw the first demonstrations. And obviously, now, this is how close they are, right across the road from where we’ve been barricading. So they’re continuing to lay pipe up to the point of where they’re waiting for the easement to go underneath where they’re going to bore. So people are like, "Why are we going to wait for that? We’re not. We’re going to go out, and we’re going to stop the pipeline. We’re going to stop it where it is." And that’s what effectively has been happening the past few days in nonviolent direct action.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you feel?
WATER PROTECTOR 20: Feel great.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you accomplish today?
WATER PROTECTOR 20: We’re protecting our water. That’s what we’re here to do, and that’s what we did.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are your horses from?
WATER PROTECTOR 20: Crow Creek, South Dakota.
AMY GOODMAN: And you came from there?
WATER PROTECTOR 20: Yes, ma’am.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, describe the scene to us.
WATER PROTECTOR 20: We protected our water, and we did a good job at doing it. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!_ I’m Amy Goodman. Special thanks to Laura Gottesdiener, John Hamilton and Denis Moynihan. That report was Labor Day weekend, when unlicensed Dakota Access security guards attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray. Well, only hours before that attack, we interviewed Winona LaDuke of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, who was standing near her tipi at a nearby resistance camp.
WINONA LADUKE: And the governor, you know, what I feel like telling the governor is that, you know, you are not George Wallace, and this is not Alabama. You know? This is 2016, and you don’t get to treat Indians like you have for those last hundred years. We’re done. You know? It’ll be interesting times.AMY GOODMAN: Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke. ... Read More →
Standing Rock Special: Historian Says Dakota Access Co. Attack Came on Anniv. of Whitestone Massacre
While reporting from the standoff at Standing Rock in September, Democracy Now! sat down with Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard to speak about another attack against her tribe—this one on the same day 153 years before. On September 3, 1863, the U.S. Army massacred more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in what became known as the Whitestone massacre. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is not only the tribal historian, she’s also one of the founders of the Sacred Stone Camp, launched on her land April 1, 2016, to resist the Dakota Access pipeline.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: That day, September 3rd, we also sat down with Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard to speak about another attack against her tribe, this one on the same day 153 years before. It was on September 3rd, 1863, that the U.S. Army massacred more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in what’s become known as the Whitestone massacre. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is not only the tribal historian, but also one of the founders of the Sacred Stone Camp, the first resistance camp launched on her land April 1st, 2016, to resist the Dakota Access pipeline.
LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD: A hundred and fifty-three years ago—fifty-two years ago, the Whitestone massacre happened, which the people in this community, the Cannon Ball community, are from, descendants of that massacre. We are the survivors of that massacre. One of the things that, you know, I always say is, this massacre happened, America forgot they killed us. And we have just—spending this time trying to figure out how to survive. So, we were the wrong Indians that they killed at that time. The Dakota Wars were happening in 1863. And so the government put up these armed forces to go after the Isanti, the Santee, and so they put this military action together.
On the morning of September 3rd, our people were gathered, as we do every year at this time. We gather because it’s harvest time. The fruit and vegetables are ready. It is a time when we are doing the buffalo call, and we have ceremonies to call the buffaloes for the people to come to hunt, so that we can prepare the meat for winter. So this is what was happening at Whitestone at that time. And so, we have a large gathering of 4,000 people. And I think that’s kind of unique. There’s almost 4,000 people here. And so, we had all of these communities coming in together to go into this trade. And as people are preparing buffalo hides and getting dry meat ready, they are also visiting, making relatives, having marriages. All of these things are happening in this camp. And so, they say the soldiers are coming. And our leaders said, "We have never had an argument with the white people. We have only been at peace. We do not have a treaty with them." And so, our people got together and said, "We heard that if you take a white flag, they will honor that to talk with us." So they took a white flour sack, and they put it on a stick, and our leaders all went out into the soldiers to say they wanted to talk.
AMY GOODMAN: Your grandfather was one of them?
LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD: Yes. So my grandfather was a medicine man. His name was Tatanka Ohikita, Brave Buffalo. So, Brave Buffalo was among them, with the chiefs. They went out to talk to the soldiers. The soldiers surrounded them and took them as a prisoners of war and cordoned them off from their people. And so, the people were watching. And just like we are taught, automatically, if there is an enemy coming in, we gather all the children in the center, all the women. People were starting to tear down their lodges. People were trying to move in the chaos. So the first things the women did is they tied the babies to the dogs, they tied the children to the horses, and they shooed the dogs and the horses out of the camp. And then they gathered what they could, and they started running.
Well, at the camp, at Whitestone, they came down, and there’s this ravine. And so the people started making their way down to the ravine. And it’s kind of bizarre to us that these soldiers came in just as the sun was going down. And so, they were going to the ravine. And the soldiers came on this top of the ravine and this top of the ravine, and started shooting the women and children in the ravine. And one of the—one of our soldiers went out in front and broke the open, so that people can continue running. So, as night is falling, my grandma, Nape Hota Win, Grey Hand, she was running, and, she said, all of a sudden she had a sharp pain in her hip, and she fell down.
AMY GOODMAN: She was a child.
LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD: Yeah, she was nine years old. And she laid on that ground, and she spent the night calling, "Ina! Ina!" or "Mom! Mom!" with no answer. Everywhere, she could hear the crying and screams, the songs of people dying. And as the sun came over and she could see everything that was happening, two of the soldiers came and grabbed her and threw her in the back of a buckboard. I am unsure of why that happened, because they went around, and they killed the other wounded. Why they did not kill my grandmother, I do not know.
So she laid in the buckboard as she watched the soldiers come and start killing the dogs and the babies, killing the horses, killing the wounded. They gathered up all of our property—the tents, the meat, the hides, everything we own. And we had one section of soldiers sitting down there poking holes in the bottom of our pots. And they gathered all that, and they started this great big fire, burning all our food, our homes, everything. They said that there was so much buffalo meat that they burned, that tallow ran down like rivers out into the creeks. And the people ran. For three to four days they ran, as the soldiers continued to chase and kill them. Part of our people came across here. This used to be a narrow crossing, where they crossed. And they crossed over on this side of the river to get from the soldiers.
And one of the things that we always say at this massacre is they forgot they killed us, and we weren’t even the right Indians.
AMY GOODMAN: That river crossing that you’ve described, the people fleeing from the soldiers, that’s where the Dakota Access pipeline will be built?
LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD: Yes. Right where the Dakota Access pipeline is the area where our people made it across the river. It is our major river crossing there. And I will say that where this pipeline is going underneath the Missouri River is also a burial site, and so they’ll be going underneath this burial site. We are very concerned because any type of motion can bring up our remains.
AMY GOODMAN: Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. We’ll be back in a minute. ... Read More →
Standing Rock Special: Dakota Excess Pipeline? Media & Water Protectors Face Strip Searches, Jail
Today we’re revisiting Democracy Now! reports on the ongoing standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where thousands of Native American water defenders are resisting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, over concerns a pipeline leak could contaminate the Missouri River, which provides water for millions of people. Their resistance has been met by increasing repression by hundreds of police officers from North Dakota and surrounding states, as well as by unlicensed pipeline security guards, who unleashed dogs and pepper spray against Native American protectors on September 3. Five days after the Democracy Now! report on the attack went viral, Morton County issued an arrest warrant for Amy Goodman. The original charge against her was criminal trespass. Yet, on Friday, October 14, after Democracy Now! returned to North Dakota to challenge the charges and to continue covering the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, we learned that the state’s attorney, Ladd Erickson, had dropped the criminal trespass charge for lack of evidence, but had filed a new charge: riot. We feature part of our live broadcast from outside the Morton County Courthouse on the morning of October 17 as we waited to see whether Judge John Grinsteiner would approve the new riot charge, and speak with Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, and with Anishinaabe activist Winona LaDuke, co-founder of Honor the Earth.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Today we’re looking at the ongoing standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where thousands of Native American water defenders and their allies are resisting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline over concerns that a leak could contaminate the Missouri River, which provides water for millions of people. Their resistance has been met by increasing repression by hundreds of police officers from North Dakota and surrounding states, as well as by unlicensed pipeline security guards, who unleashed dogs and pepper spray against Native American protectors on September 3rd.
Well, Democracy Now!'s exclusive video report of that attack went viral, was viewed over 14 million times on Facebook and was broadcast by major outlets, including NBC, CBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, The Huffington Post and many others. Five days after Democracy Now! released this on-the-ground report, Morton County issued an arrest warrant for me. The original charge against me was criminal trespass. Yet, on Friday, October 14th, after Democracy Now! returned to North Dakota to fight the charges and to continue covering the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, we learned that the state's attorney, Ladd Erickson, had dropped the criminal trespass charge for lack of evidence, but had filed a new charge against me: riot. This is part of Democracy Now!’s live broadcast from outside the Morton County Courthouse and jail on the morning of October 17th as I waited to see whether Judge John Grinsteiner would approve the new riot charge.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting live from outside the courthouse and jail in Mandan, North Dakota. Water and land protectors, as they call themselves, report facing increasing repression amidst the ongoing resistance to the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Police have begun deploying military-grade equipment, including armored personnel carriers, surveillance helicopters, planes and drones. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple activated the National Guard in late September. Roughly 140 people have been arrested. Some report being strip-searched in custody at the Morton County jail, even when they’re facing minor misdemeanor charges. This is Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle, a pediatrician on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
DR. SARA JUMPING EAGLE: When I was taken to the jail, first I was taken by a corrections officer, transported from the protest site to the Morton County jail. And then, when they took me in there, you know, they had to take some basic information. And then, one of the things that they do is have you go into a small room, and there was a female officer there, and we had to—I had to take my clothes off, and then, I don’t know, basically—
AMY GOODMAN: Cavity search?
DR. SARA JUMPING EAGLE: No, not a cavity search, but I had to squat and cough. That’s what she said. I had to squat and cough and then put the orange suit on.
AMY GOODMAN: So you were put in an orange jumpsuit?
DR. SARA JUMPING EAGLE: Yeah, I was put in an orange jumpsuit. And then I was held there for several hours. And initially, you know, my family didn’t know where I was or didn’t—you know, they heard about it pretty quickly and were able to come and bond me out or bail me out. I don’t know what you call it. But I was in there for several hours.
AMY GOODMAN: How did it make you feel?
DR. SARA JUMPING EAGLE: It made me feel—you know, it made me think about my ancestors and what had they gone through. And this was in no way a comparison to what we’ve survived before, so just made me feel more determined about what I’m doing and why I’m here.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle, a pediatrician, member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She was charged with disorderly conduct. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, who founded the first resistance camp, the Sacred Stone Camp, on her own land April 1st, says her daughter was recently arrested, taken into custody at the Morton County jail, strip-searched in front of multiple male officers, then left for hours in her cell, naked and freezing, before the guards finally gave her clothes to wear. LaDonna Allard says her daughter was repeatedly asked by guards, "Who is your mother?" which Allard sees as an indication that her daughter was targeted because of who she is. Cody Hall from Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota says he was also strip-searched after he was arrested Friday, September 9th, held for three days without bail or bond, and then charged with two misdemeanors.
CODY HALL: As I exited out of the vehicles and entered Morton County, I came up an elevator, and as the elevator opened up, I was met with state police. And then, you know, of course, Morton County people were there to book people, but—and then, from there, started the process of the booking, and then, again, you know, went into a private room, where they ask you to, you know, get naked. You know, they had my arms. They, you know, kind of like extend your arms out. And you’re fully naked. And they have you, you know, lift up your genitals and bend over, you know, cough. And so, it’s really one of those tactics that they try to break down your mentalness of everyday life, because not every day do you wake up and say, "Hey, I’m going to get, you know, naked and have somebody search me today," you know? That’s a private—you know, that’s a private feeling for you, when you get naked, so...
AMY GOODMAN: And four days later, when you were finally released—they hadn’t allowed you to go out on bail or bond for those four days—you came before a judge in the orange jumpsuit?
CODY HALL: Yes, yes, I sat in the court office in my orange jumpsuit, locked, you know, still handcuffed, exited out of the courtroom. And as I left the courtroom, there were 20 or so state police all in their bullet-proof vests, everything just looking, you know, like—you know, like they’re going into action of some sort. And then they literally had a line from the courtroom to the door that connects you to the county jail. And my mother walked out with me. And as we got to the door, they were opening the door up. And as I looked behind me, my mother and I, all of the cops then proceeded to kind of swarm, you know, like make, you know, that big wall as I entered in, which was, again, an overkill, you know, but that, too, though, to show a dominant force.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Cody Hall, who was arrested on two misdemeanors, held for four days, strip-searched here at the Morton County jail just behind us.
Well, for more on the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline and the police crackdown, we’re joined by two guests. Winona LaDuke, Native American activist, executive director of the group Honor the Earth, she lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. And we’re joined by Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth. She is Ojibwe from the Couchiching First Nation.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Winona, let’s start with you. We have spoken to you intermittently through this resistance. Where does it stand now?
WINONA LADUKE: Well, as far as we are in—I mean, I’m just looking at the big picture. Right now there is about 900,000 barrels per day of oil coming out of this state, and they project that into 2019. And so, what I’m trying to understand is, is that if that’s all they have and it’s already going out, why do they need another pipeline of 570,000 barrels of oil per day? In other words, they’re already meeting all their demand. For the next two years, that’s all the oil that’s in there. And this is really—what we call this is the Dakota Excess pipeline.
AMY GOODMAN: The Dakota Excess.
WINONA LADUKE: Dakota Excess pipeline. This is really about spites. It’s really about spite.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?
WINONA LADUKE: It’s just really about hating. You know, it’s just really about trying to put something in across these tribes. It’s exactly what the chairman and you said before: If they wanted this pipeline so damn bad, they should have put it north of Bismarck, you know, and they should have—they should not have violated the law. The whole pipeline was approved through something called the Nationwide Permit number 12, which means they could it into a lot of little pieces and never do an EIS, and pretend like—you know, that’s intended for like if you have like a pipeline from a school to the water service center or something like that. It’s not intended for a 1,600-mile pipeline. Total misuse of the law, you know, and the president really needs to intervene and uphold the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Tara Houska, you have been following these protests and the level of militarization in response to the protests. You were there on Saturday. We spoke to you at one of these peaceful marches of hundreds of Native Americans.
TARA HOUSKA: Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen this incredibly militarized response from North Dakota that has been so over the top in reaction to Native Americans peacefully protesting, praying for the land, praying for the water. These are women and children that are out there. I mean, we saw the most—the most recent one on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They had Native Americans out there praying for the land. They put a tipi up in front of the actual pipeline route, and they called that a riot. There’s nobody there rioting. They’re doing that as they’re—North Dakota is doing that as it’s increasing the amount of militarized response, militarized force. They’re calling in other sheriffs from other states. They’re upping this incredible amount of police force for no reason.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, all for this pipeline. Winona, who profits from this pipeline? Who owns this pipeline?
WINONA LADUKE: Well, Enbridge—you know, we just spent four years fighting Enbridge. And Enbridge and Marathon Oil just bought a third of this pipeline. And—
AMY GOODMAN: You fought them in northern Minnesota.
WINONA LADUKE: We fought them in northern Minnesota. And in August, they announced that they had canceled the Sandpiper, which was the 640,000-barrel-per-day oil pipeline, tar—you know, pipeline from—the fracked oil pipeline they wanted to put across our territory. We defeated that pipeline, and they came out here and moved out here.
But, you know, I think that the whole context that you’re talking about is really important. This is pretty much the Deep North. That’s what it is. Nobody’s been paying attention to what’s happening in North Dakota. They’ve been flying over it and say, "Hope it works out for y’all." And in the meantime, Indian arrests have been consistent. There’s no infrastructure. Native people are treated like, you know, third-class citizens. You know, suicide rates—everything is going on. And, you know, the governor is acting like this is Mississippi up here, and you can just do that. And now people are finally noticing. But it’s been going on for a long time up here. And this is, you know, finally a flashpoint where people are saying, "That’s enough. We’re not going to let you take our water. We’re not going to let you destroy that which is ours."
AMY GOODMAN: You know, after Ferguson, the whole country saw the level of militarization of local police departments. You were there, Tara, where there was an MRAP, there’s a armored personnel carrier at this peaceful protest, where you offered the police water, clean water, right?
TARA HOUSKA: We did. You know, indigenous women went up there, and we offered the police water, sage and sweet grass, and, you know, trying to show that we are peaceful, that we are doing this for not only our children, but their children, too. This is a people issue. Water is a people issue.
AMY GOODMAN: What inspires you most, Tara?
TARA HOUSKA: I think, you know, it’s incredibly inspiring to go out there and to see, you know, a line of police like that and an MRAP—and, you know, we’ve seen sound cannons, there’s helicopters flying overhead—and there’s this little group of Native American people and their allies that are out there, standing there defiant and, you know, trying to defend their people and their land.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to talk about this issue of strip-searching, Winona. It is astounding to hear that even people, like the pediatrician for Standing Rock, Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle, was strip-searched for disorderly conduct. Is this typical?
WINONA LADUKE: I would say that, generally, North Dakota is not good to Native people and is really behind the times in terms of constitutional and civil rights. You know, I mean, for many, many years, our people have had an undue burden of the legal system against them, and nobody has really paid attention. I mean, the ACLU, for instance, American Civil Liberties Union, had one person that covered both North and South Dakota—a little understaffed, I’d say. You know, and that’s how things developed like this. But it is wrong. It’s wrong.
AMY GOODMAN: Do they have a right to strip-search people for disorderly conduct?
TARA HOUSKA: I think that this state is reading the law as broadly as it can when it comes to violating the constitutional rights to free speech of these people. I think that they—just like Winona said, they have a very long history of treating folks in this manner. And it’s now just kind of coming to light, right? I mean, we’re seeing yourself being—you know, as a journalist, being arrested when you’re out there on the front lines. You’re seeing Shailene Woodley, a famous actress, that’s out there being arrested as she’s filming it, live-streaming it back to her, you know, RV. I mean, this has been happening to Native people in this state for a very, very long time, and it’s just now reaching the mass—you know, people are looking at this, seeing here’s a Native American ceremony, and there’s hundreds of police officers with a militarized response behind them. It’s madness.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you continue to resist with this level of force against you, arrayed against you?
TARA HOUSKA: Because this is—what these folks are standing here for, what I’m standing here for, is the protection of water and the protection of the future generations. That matters more than any, you know, criminal trespass or these, you know, attempts to suppress and keep our voices down. You know, we’re seeing the police represent and protect a company interest more than human beings and people. These are U.S. citizens that are all here standing together. And seeing their rights violated, seeing young children afraid of the police, that shouldn’t happen, but it is.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s what people were saying to the police on Saturday, when they lined up all in riot gear with the MRAP, the armored personnel carrier. They were saying, "Who are you protecting? Why aren’t you protecting us?"
TARA HOUSKA: They’re clearly protecting Dakota Access. You know, they’re protecting this profit interest over people and saying that we’re the danger.
WINONA LADUKE: The system has gone totally rogue, is what’s happened. I mean, you know, the fact is, is that you should not be protecting—how far are you going to go with this pipeline? How far are you going to push these people? How far are you going to push all of us for these pipelines? You know, it’s way too militarized. It’s called a mine-resistant armored personnel carrier. That’s what it is, an MRAP, a mine-resistant. At what point did you need a mine-resistant armored personnel carrier in North Dakota?
TARA HOUSKA: And seeing, I mean, local schools doing, you know, lockdowns when these protests are happening. We saw that emergency alert, which is typically reserved for an amber alert for a child that’s been taken, for protesters, warning in the area—frightening people, like we’re somehow scary.
AMY GOODMAN: This has just started happening. On Saturday, we kept getting, on all of our phones, "emergency alert." And then it would say something like "protesters in the area."
WINONA LADUKE: Yeah, they are totally trying to demonize us, is what they’re trying to do. And the fact is, is that the people that are out here, you know, are trying to protect the water. They aren’t making any new water in North Dakota, and this is the only water we’ve got, same water as when dinosaurs were here. And this is what we’re going to need to drink and our descendants are going to need to drink. And all our animals, our horses—all our animals need that water, too. And this is a chance to protect that water. North Dakota has already done enough to kind of mess up the water out here with all that fracking waste and starting to pretend that that’s working out OK for us. It’s not. It’s time to stop. It’s time to stop and protect the water.
AMY GOODMAN: There are a lot of people concerned that this is escalating to a very bad situation. Are you concerned about this?
WINONA LADUKE: Yes, I am concerned that they escalating it. The police are who’s escalating it. Our people have consistently been praying. Our people have been consistently engaged in nonviolent direct action. And, you know, we had a forum in Bismarck this last week, and it was very well attended, because I think people in Bismarck want to know why all these cops are out there, what is going on, you know, why these people are coming in here. So, you know, I’m saying to people of Bismarck, people in North Dakota, we’re here because it matters. I’m from northern Minnesota, and bad things happen in North Dakota and head my way, whether they’re pipelines or emissions from your coal plants. You know, it affects all of us. So, you know, it is time to say our civil rights, our constitutional rights are all being violated.
AMY GOODMAN: Winona, you’re leaving here in just a few hours to go back to Minnesota—
WINONA LADUKE: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: —to fight another pipeline?
WINONA LADUKE: That is right. I also have to say hello to my grandchildren and my children. They’ve been asking me to return.
But, you know, what I would say is that—so, we’re facing this other line—Line 3, it’s called, Enbridge line, 760,000 barrels per day, a tar sand pipeline proposal, same route. You know, we defeated the Sandpiper which was proposed, a brand-new pristine route, as opposed to the six-pipeline-wide aging pipeline infrastructure in northern Minnesota that goes around—across Highway 2. Enbridge now wants 760,000-barrel-per-day pipeline called Line 3, and it’s their single largest project. So, I’m going home. Hearings are starting on that. So, I have to face that.
And, you know, that’s the one that’s going into Wisconsin. That’s why Dane County was also out here, is because they’re facing the biggest pipelines—tar sands pipeline ever. It’s a twin of that, you know. And with a bad governor and, you know, who doesn’t want to protect the people of Wisconsin, that’s why he sent those people out here, too. But they are projecting they’re going to have a big battle on that Line 66 going through Wisconsin, as well as in, you know, northern Minnesota. And I told Enbridge—I had a meeting with them—I said, "We know how to camp, too. We know how to camp, too, you know, and we aren’t going to let you get that pipeline." You know, they didn’t get the last one; they didn’t get the Sandpiper. And they are not going to get Line 3. And so they should move on.
Enbridge itself, you know, big investor in this, they have a $4 billion wind portfolio. I’m like, "Put some wind up. We’d like you. Do something real. Don’t call this 'energy security,' 'national energy security for the future,' 'energy self-sufficiency.' That’s a pipeline that’s not helping anybody, except for those oil companies. Wind, solar, efficiency—these houses out here are just freezing in the winter. People freeze to death because they don’t have adequate infrastructure in their houses. They’ve got a 50-year-old health clinic. Do something for people if you’re going to invest out here.
AMY GOODMAN: Tara Houska, what is it like to be on the front lines of these protests?
TARA HOUSKA: When you’re out there, you are in a very rural place. I mean, North Dakota is a very rural state. And there’s very limited cell service. There’s very limited connection and connectivity to the outside world. And when you’re out there and you’re facing a, you know, line of police that are armed with assault rifles, there’s an MRAP, there’s whatever military—there’s helicopters overhead, it is very scary. You think about what happens if someone just accidentally, you know, gets too excited and thinks that somehow, you know, maybe we’re praying too hard or whatever it is, and they shoot. You know, that’s how it feels when you’re there. And the police are a scary presence.
It’s not a comfortable feeling to know that you are actually afraid for your life from the police because they’re protecting a pipeline and they’re protecting the interests of Dakota Access. That’s a very scary feeling, and it’s one that I think, you know, more people need to be aware of. And they need to understand that we’ve reached a point now where we’ve got, you know, a state actively and openly protecting the interests of Big Oil, and we’ve got a Congress that’s directly controlled. You know, there’s so many campaign donations that come from Big Oil. And we see a Congress that deregulates the oil industry again and again and again.AMY GOODMAN: That was Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth. She is Ojibwe from the Couchiching First Nation. And before that, Anishinaabe activist Winona LaDuke, co-founder of Honor the Earth. Well, only hours after that broadcast, I learned Judge John Grinsteiner had refused to sign off on the riot charges against me, a major victory for press freedom. But since that victory, protectors and journalists have continued to get arrested in North Dakota. More than 400 people have been arrested. When we come back, we’ll be speaking about the increasing repression against the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Standing Rock Special: Dallas Goldtooth on Police Violence & Repression of Movement Against DAPL
We continue our look back at Democracy Now!'s coverage of the ongoing standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where thousands of Native American water defenders are resisting the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. In recent months, the repression against the water protectors—and journalists covering the movement—has continued to intensify. The state of North Dakota has approved $10 million to police the ongoing protest, and Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier has called in hundreds of deputies from neighboring states. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has also activated the National Guard. Riot police with military-grade equipment have attacked the Native American protectors with pepper spray, tear gas, bean bag rounds, rubber bullets and sound cannons called LRADs—that's a long-range acoustic device. Water protectors also report near-constant surveillance from police planes and helicopters. Over 400 people have been arrested during the ongoing protests, and many report being subjected to strip searches while in the Morton County jail in North Dakota. On October 31, we spoke with Dakota and Dine activist Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network about a violent police raid on a frontline camp established at the site of the same sacred tribal burial ground where unlicensed Dakota Access security guards attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray on September 3.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Today we’re looking at the ongoing standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, where thousands of Native American water defenders and their non-Native allies are resisting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Well, in recent months, the repression against the water protectors and journalists covering the movement has continued to intensify. The state of North Dakota has approved $10 million to police the ongoing protest, and Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier has called in hundreds of deputies from neighboring states. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has also activated the National Guard. Riot police with military-grade equipment have attacked the Native American protectors with pepper spray, tear gas, bean bag rounds, rubber bullets and sound cannons, called LRADs—that’s long-range acoustic device. Water protectors also report near-constant surveillance from police planes and helicopters. Over 400 people have been arrested so far, and many report being subjected to strip searches while in the Morton County jail in North Dakota.
Well, on October 31st, we spoke with Dakota and Dine Nation activist Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network about a violent police raid on a frontline camp established at the site of the same sacred tribal burial ground where unlicensed Dakota Access security guards attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray on September 3rd. Dallas Goldtooth began by telling us about shocking video footage that emerged from the day of the raid of a man who worked with the Dakota Access pipeline. He was a pipeline guard. But he was wearing a bandana covering his face, carrying a rifle, apparently attempting to infiltrate a group of water protectors.
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: Thanks for having me on, Amy.
That moment, I was there when that—when this gunman, you know, was cornered into the middle of this pond nearby. And it was a very terrifying moment for a lot of us watching, I mean, to see this man pointing an assault rifle at our water protectors. And I think that—many blessings and gratitude to some of the military veterans within our security from within our Oceti Sakowin camp, who stepped up to negotiate and to de-escalate this man, to really talk to him to make sure that he did not hurt anybody, until the Bureau of Indian Affairs police officers could show up.
You know, your description is accurate. Individuals, our security teams on the ground noticed this man driving erratically, driving at high speeds through a crowded street—through the crowded highway. And they did their very best to incapacitate the vehicle and did their very best to de-escalate the situation, which they were successful in doing.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain—
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: I think that—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain who you understand he is.
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: I mean, it’s pretty straightforward. I mean, we found three—two documents that listed him as a Dakota Access worker. And he, himself, as I’ve understood, to even our security, stated that he worked for Dakota Access. And so, it was pretty straightforward. And I think that he’s a security contractor that has been hired by Dakota Access to guard its equipment, from what I believe, or at least to protect, you know, the workers or whatever it may be.
I think that it’s pretty terrifying to know that there—that Dakota Access has infiltrators within our camp, is paying for individuals like this, armed individuals, to create situations of escalation, potentially creating very, very dangerous situations by—you know, we don’t know what his intention could have been. He could have, you know, fired upon police, creating a situation where the police think it’s coming from our protectors when it’s not. I mean, it goes hand in hand with this series of mysterious situations that really paints—creates a situation where we have to feel suspicious about what Dakota Access’s intentions are. And it just clearly paints that Dakota Access has no regard for common decency or any kind of corporate responsibility. And it’s really surprising that people are still invested in this company.
AMY GOODMAN: Has Dakota Access pipeline responded to this video?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: From what I understand, the initial response from Dakota Access is that they state that this individual does not work for Dakota Access, even though he had clear identification as a Dakota Access worker.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it said—you see the ID. It says Kyle Thompson. Is that right?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: Yes, yes. His name is on it. The insurance found in the truck is—belongs to Dakota Access. You know, he has an ID card with DAPLwritten on it. I mean, how much more evidence do you need?
AMY GOODMAN: Right. And did he say what his intentions were, as people surrounded him, as the police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs police, arrested him?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: There’s a variety of accounts, but it was—from what I understood, that was told to me, that he was tasked with also identifying and being within the crowd, watching internally with the crowd, and that there was some suggestion that he might—he might have been tasked with instigating some sort of violence from within the crowd and to garner a reaction from law enforcement. I mean, that’s just what I’ve heard from different folks that were talking with him in that moment to de-escalate the situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, if you could talk about the fire that was set, where did it happen and what you understand was its origin?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: No, this happened last night. This was a—or two nights ago. It was just to the immediate west of the Oceti Sakowin camp across Highway 1806. There was some mysterious incident of a vehicle that came out of nowhere, that was almost acting as a distraction, was making a—spinning doughnuts in the middle of the road, and then it sped off to the south. And immediately after that, flames were seen on top of the hill to the west. There was a lot of—there’s documented footage that what appears to be a drip line, which is a—from what I understand, is a technique used in firefighting. I mean, it was very, very clear that that brush fire that happened was an act of arson by unknown individuals. But given the recent events with the Dakota Access worker, given the escalation of law enforcement, that, you know, a lot of fingers are pointing towards Dakota Access that—as being a culprit behind this late fire. And thank God that the wind was pushing away from the camp. The fire spread pretty large.
And the thing that’s most disturbing to me is this, Amy, is that when—on October 27th, when the police attacked our peaceful protectors at the frontline treaty camp, the excuse they used to move upon that camp was so that they could clear a barricade that we set up, a temporary barricade that we set up, so that emergency services could be delivered to the Oceti Sakowin camp, our main camp. Now, their reason for moving on, using rubber bullets and pepper spray and concussion grenades upon our water protectors was so that they could deliver—have access to deliver emergency services, ambulances and fire equipment, if needed, to the main camp. So, why is it that a number of days later, when a fire actually does happen, they refuse—the Morton County Sheriff ignores the calls and pleas for help and does not send any ambulances or fire trucks to the place that they stated that they need to get to? Why is it that there was no delivery of any kind of services until six hours later by the National Guard, who brought in a helicopter to drop water on a fire that had at that point already been put out? Why is it that Bureau of Indian Affairs officers, who were on site with medical emergency service, with firefighting equipment, who were not allowed to combat that fire without explicit permission from Morton County, they never received that permission? They asked. Morton County never gave them the permission to fight that fire. They just let it burn. I mean, there’s—it’s obvious collusion between Morton County and the Dakota Access pipeline. And that collusion is causing a very, very dangerous situation for our water protectors and for the main camp, that houses women, children, elders and just people that care and love for the land and are there for one sole purpose: to protect the water.
AMY GOODMAN: Dallas, we got word that a horse had to be put down after being shot with rubber bullets by police. Is this true?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: This is true. When the police moved ahead to clear out the frontline camp to the far east, a number of our warriors, our horseback riders—actually, it was a really beautiful moment, is—we had a wall of police, backed by armored personnel carriers, and there was Humvees up on the hill with snipers on top of them aimed at our water protectors. And we were being pushed back, and batons are being swung, cracking over the heads and arms of our water protectors. And then we looked to the east, and over the hills to the east comes a herd of a couple hundred buffalo, bison, roaming, like stampeding towards the police line. And it was like a beautiful moment, because people saw this herd of buffalo, and this like cheer came up from the crowd, because it was like this—like almost like that our—that we were—our fight was being recognized by the four-legged nation of the bison. And immediately behind them came some horseback riders, some young riders, men and women, who were actually guiding these buffalo towards the police line in an act of resistance and defiance.
The police immediately responded by using—flying a helicopter extremely low. They were like flying like 30 feet off the ground to scare the buffalo off. And then they deployed ATVs to attack the horseback riders. They were shot with rubber bullets. They were shot—there was concussion grenades that were fired at the horseback riders. One of the horseback riders was pulled off their horse. And sadly, one horse was injured so badly by the police that it had to be put down. And so, we—those horseback riders have since been honored and have been given war deeds and recognized as warriors and have been given honors as warriors because of the deeds that they did that day.
AMY GOODMAN: Dallas, before you go, can you give us the overall context of why—what happened on Thursday and Friday, why the escalated police presence, the roadblocks, the MRAP, the LRAD, you know, the sound cannons, the armored vehicles? What is taking place now? Where is the building of the pipeline happening? And has, as the Standing Rock Sioux tribal chair, Dave Archambault, said on Democracy Now! Friday—has the—asked, called for the Justice Department to intervene to stop the pipeline from moving forward?
DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: We haven’t heard any response from the Department of Justice to intervene to protect our civil rights on the ground as water protectors. There’s been silence on that end.
And right now, we’re in a dire situation, Amy. Like, the pipeline is literally within miles of the Missouri River. I mean, they can’t—at this point, cannot cross the Missouri River. But we need to do everything in our power to keep it from getting to that place. And so, in that—with that at heart, we had established a frontline camp, a treaty camp, right on the Dakota Access easement, on Dakota Access—what they call their own land, but really is our land as Oceti Sakowin people. We enacted a form of eminent domain, claiming the land back for ourselves as Oceti Sakowin folks. And we set up a beautiful encampment on that piece of property, which severely threatened Dakota Access, and, obviously, Morton County sheriff, for their intents to build this pipeline. And so they came in with a large force. And you described, you know, a lot of the equipment that was there. And it was terrifying. I mean, we had elders, women and children who were put at severe risk because of the actions of law enforcement.
A lot of folks know the Ponca leader Casey Camp. She stood in defiance, in peaceful prayer, in front of an armored personnel carrier, because she loved the land and wanted to protect the Missouri River, not just for the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, but for all nations and all people and the millions of people who depend on the Missouri River for drinking water. So this movement is not founded out of hate for the police officers or for the workers themselves, but out of love for the land and for all of us as human beings. That’s why we’re there. That’s not—our enemy is not the worker. Our enemy is not the police. It’s the corporations that are hell-bent on poisoning Mother Earth and disconnecting ourselves even further from the sacred integrity of the land and the water.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dallas Goldtooth of the Dakota and Dine Nations. He works with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Special thanks to Laura Gottesdiener, John Hamilton and Denis Moynihan. To view all our coverage of the Dakota Access pipeline resistance and the standoff at Standing Rock, go to democracynow.org.
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As the planet warms, Trump sends a chill through Marrakech BY AMY GOODMAN AND DENIS MOYNIHAN
MARRAKECH, Morocco — The world is reeling from Donald Trump’s election. With each passing day, news of his potential Cabinet and other senior appointments emerges, defining a far-right-wing administration that few could have imagined possible just weeks ago. Protests across the United States continue, day after day, night after night, and have spread internationally. School administrators are making counselors available to deal with the confusion overwhelming their students, especially immigrant children who fear they or their parents may well be targeted as part of Trump’s promised roundup and deportation of 3 million undocumented people. Nowhere is the immediate and potentially devastating impact of Trump’s capture of the presidency felt more clearly than at the United Nations climate change summit here in Marrakech. Four years ago, Donald Trump famously tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” That was Donald Trump the reality-TV star, the leader of the birther movement that sought to delegitimize President Barack Obama by accusing him of being born in Kenya. Now, in the year 2016, predicted this week by the World Meteorological Organization to be the hottest year in history, Trump the climate denier is about to assume the presidency of the United States. One year after the nations of the world reached the historic, if limited, Paris Agreement on climate change, this meeting in Morocco was to be “Action COP” (for Conference of the Parties to the agreement). This is where the global community would put its collective shoulder to the wheel to implement a complex array of strategies to “de-carbonize” the world economy, to break our addiction to fossil fuels, in time — hopefully — to limit the increase in the planet’s average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or, failing that, to cap the rise to 2 degrees Celsius (or 2.7 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). United States cooperation or, more importantly, leadership is essential if we are to combat catastrophic climate disruption. Yet last May at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, Trump declared, “We’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement. Where better to deny climate change and trumpet fossil fuels than Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota and the de facto capital of the Bakken shale formation, the area from the Dakotas to southern Canada with vast reservoirs of oil, which is most typically extracted through fracking. Bismarck is only about 30 miles north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where, just one month before Trump spoke in Bismarck, a resistance camp was established to oppose construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline would carry over half a million barrels of Bakken crude oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois, where it would connect to another pipeline for transfer to the Gulf of Mexico for export. The resisters, who call themselves water protectors, not protesters, fear the pipeline will inevitably rupture where it crosses under the Missouri River, polluting the fresh-water supply on which they and many millions of people downriver depend. That small camp in April grew to several camps with thousands of protectors, including delegations from over 200 tribes — the largest gathering of tribes in decades. In September, “Democracy Now!” filmed Dakota Access Pipeline security guards unleashing attack dogs on Native Americans. The video went viral, attracting over 15 million views. Networks across the world broadcast it. The Obama administration issued an order delaying, though not yet stopping, Dakota Access Pipeline’s permission to tunnel under the Missouri River. Obama should deny it now. Kelcy Warren, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners (the parent company of Dakota Access Pipeline), told CBS that under Trump, “It’s 100 percent ... that the easement gets granted and the pipeline gets built.” The movement to defeat the Dakota Access Pipeline has gone global, as has the opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump. There are daily expressions of solidarity with Standing Rock here at the U.N. climate summit, while discussions abound about the grim implications of a Trump administration on the climate. Years ago on the “Democracy Now!” news hour, after wrapping up an interview with a Guyanese woman in order to shift to an interview on the U.S. presidential election, she interrupted, “I will be staying on the program for that discussion.” When asked why, she said, “Because people from all over the world should be able to vote for president of the United States.” She made a profound point: The United States is the world’s most powerful country. It has an enormous impact on the world. Donald Trump clinched the necessary Electoral College votes to win, but he clearly lost the national popular vote. Had the world’s population been able to vote, Trump would have lost resoundingly. Fortunately, the fate of the planet is not in the hands of one man. It’s up to movements everywhere to save it.
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Stories:
Father of Activist Injured at Standing Rock Calls on Obama to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline Drilling
Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Thanksgiving: "It Has Never Been About Honoring Native Americans"As much of the United States prepares to mark Thanksgiving this weekend, many Native Americans will gather in Plymouth to commemorate the 47th National Day of Mourning. This year is dedicated to water protectors at Standing Rock and to the struggle for recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. To discuss this and more, we speak with indigenous historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She is the author of "An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States" and co-author of "All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As much of the United States prepares to mark Thanksgiving this weekend, many Native Americans will gather in Plymouth to commemorate the 47th National Day of Mourning. This year is dedicated to water protectors at Standing Rock and to the struggle for recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. To discuss this and more, we’re joined in San Francisco by indigenous historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She’s the author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and co-author of All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Roxanne. Could you tell us, as the nation prepares to observe Thanksgiving, a national holiday ostensibly meant to honor Native people, what are your thoughts?
ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ: Well, thank you for having me on the show.
Actually, it’s never been about honoring Native Americans. It’s been about the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide, dispossession and constant warfare from that time—actually, from 1607 in Jamestown—until the present. It’s a colonial system that was set up.
There’s a sort of annual calendar for this origin story, beginning with Columbus, October 12. Why celebrate Columbus? It was the onset of colonialism, the slave trade and dispossession of the Native people of the Americas. So, that is celebrated with a federal holiday. That’s followed then by Thanksgiving, which is a completely made-up story to say the Native people welcomed these people who were going to devastate their civilizations, which is simply a lie. And then you go to Presidents’ Days, the Founding Fathers, in February, and celebrate these slaveowners, Indian killers. George Washington headed the Virginia militia for the very purpose of killing Native people on the periphery of the colony, before, you know, when it was still a Virginia colony. And then we have the big day, the fireworks, July 4th, independence, which is probably the most tragic event in world history, because it gave us—it gave the world a genocidal regime under the guise of democracy. And that’s really the—I’m a historian, so that’s the historical context that I think we have to see Thanksgiving in, that it is a part of that mythology that attempts to cover up the real history of the United States.
It actually—when it was introduced as a holiday by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, there was no mention of pilgrims and Native people or food or pumpkins or anything like that. It was simply a day for families to be together and mourn their dead and be grateful for the living. And I think that’s an appropriate holiday, that—how people should enjoy it. But they should take Native Americans and Puritans out of the picture for it to be a legitimate holiday of feast and sharing with family and friends.
So, that’s—you know, the people at Plymouth, I send greetings to them. They have, for many years—I think it’s almost 40 years now—stood up and testified to the lie of Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, the pilgrims. And this is very hard for people to give up. This is the national—nationalism. It’s actually—Americanism is white supremacy and represents negative things. There’s almost no way to reconcile it. It simply has to be deconstructed and faced up to; and, otherwise, there will be no social change that’s meaningful for anyone.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, thank you so much for joining us, indigenous historian and activist.
That does it for today’s show. Tune in tomorrow for our Standing Rock special.... Read More →
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Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Wednesday, November 23, 2016
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Stories:
Father of Activist Injured at Standing Rock Calls on Obama to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline Drilling
We get an update from Wayne Wilansky, the father of 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky, who was injured during the standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota. Sophia has been undergoing a series of surgeries after reportedly being hit by a concussion grenade during the police attack against water protectors protesting the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota Sunday night. The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council says 300 people were hurt in the attack, with injuries including hypothermia from being sprayed by water cannons in subfreezing temperatures, seizures, loss of consciousness, and impaired vision as a result of being shot by a rubber bullet in the face. "President Obama has to step in there and stop this," says Wayne Wilansky. "They’re drilling now, even though they don’t have a permit."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Nermeen Shaikh, filling in for Amy Goodman. She’s on assignment and will be back on Monday. In Minneapolis, 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky has been undergoing a series of surgeries after reportedly being hit by a concussion grenade during the police attack against water protectors fighting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota Sunday night. The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council says 300 people were hurt in the attack, with the injuries including hypothermia from being sprayed by water cannons in subfreezing temperatures, seizures, loss of consciousness, and impaired vision as a result of being shot by a rubber bullet in the face. On Sunday night, Sophia Wilansky was evacuated and airlifted to a Minneapolis hospital after suffering a critical injury to her left arm. Photos show parts of Sophia’s left arm nearly blown away, with her arteries, muscle and bone exposed. A warning to our TV audiences, these photos are graphic. This is Army veteran Brandi King of the Fort Belknap Reservation, who helped transport Sophia after she was injured. King served in the U.S. Army for eight years, including in a combat tour in Mosul, Iraq.
BRANDI KING: I can’t even explain to you how it felt, because you don’t really—I guess you don’t expect those kind of wounds happening when they’re not in combat. That was just—just felt like it was a combat wound, you know, looked like it was a combat wound. She had shrapnel wounds. She didn’t have any burns. Her arm was split open. Her skin, her flesh was ripped off of her arm. Her bones were broke.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Morton County Sheriff’s Department is claiming the police are not responsible for her injury and that concussion grenades were not used during the police attack.
Well, for more, we’re joined in Minneapolis by Sophia’s father, Wayne Wilansky.
Mr. Wilansky, thank you so much for joining us on Democracy Now! Could you tell us, first off, how your daughter Sophia is now?
WAYNE WILANSKY: She is resting. And she had a second surgery yesterday, so they could try to clean out the open wound. She still has an opening from her elbow to her wrist. There’s no flesh there. And she’s resting comfortably, and she will have a third surgery on Friday.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Mr. Wilansky, what about your response to the claims made by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department that they were not—that the police were not responsible for the concussion grenades?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Yeah, they’re ridiculous. Apparently, they’ve changed their story three times since the incident occurred. My daughter is very clear about the fact that she was being shot at the time. She’s got bullet wounds on her body. And she was backing away at the time, and she was trying to reach for a shield so that the bullets wouldn’t hit her at the time that the concussion grenade hit her in the arm and exploded. Witnesses that I’ve spoken to said that the police officers—it takes seven seconds for these concussion grenades to go off. And Instead of throwing them on the ground, they pulled the plug, held them for five seconds and threw them directly at her. So, I’d say that the comments from the Morton County Sheriff’s Department are utterly absurd and ridiculous and not worthy of a shred of belief.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And the doctors also found shrapnel in her wound?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Yes, her treating vascular surgeon told me after the surgery that he was—he pulled as much out as he thought he could, and the second day was to clean it out and make sure that they didn’t leave anything in there. They try to get as—you have to get all of the debris out; otherwise, you can’t—all the tissue will get infected, and the whole arm will die anyway. So, yes, he pulled all the shrapnel out. Apparently, it went to the pathology, so it’s in the hospital records.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Wayne Wilansky, I want to ask you about the FBI agents who visited your daughter’s hospital room yesterday. At least one of the FBI agents was wearing a jacket from the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Democracy Now! reached out to the FBI Tuesday, but the agency refused to comment. Can you explain what the FBI agents were doing at the hospital yesterday?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Well, obviously, it was a very intrusive and it was a very hard time, and Sophia was being—waiting to go to surgery. And they’re basically keeping us prisoner inside her hospital room, waiting for a warrant, which never came. They didn’t tell us what they were there for, for many hours. Eventually, I got to speak to a supervisor and learned that what they were looking for was her clothing. And I did eventually consent. I had taken her clothing back to my hotel room the night before, and I did consent to give them the clothing, eventually, after talking to the supervisors. I have an unwritten agreement, but I put it in writing anyway, that they will give me access to those materials so that I can test them, as well, and that they’ll preserve and not destroy that evidence, because I would want to see it, and I would want to have it forensically tested myself.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, very quickly, before we conclude, Mr. Wilansky, what is it that you’re demanding now?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Well, what I’m demanding is, number one, they clear that bridge, because it took many, many hours to get Sophia airlifted out of there, and there are people that are going to die there. They need to clear that bridge so that people can get to hospitals. They need to have someone—the president, President Obama, has to step in there and stop this. They’re drilling now even though they don’t have a permit. The Army Corps of Engineers has asked them to stop. The Army Corps of Engineers has said that they were not going to issue a permit until after they did further environmental studies and spoke with the tribe, and yet they go ahead and set all the drills in place, and they continue. They’re probably drilling under the river right now, as we speak. And it’s a very, very dangerous situation there. And that’s just thing number one. Number two is they have to demilitarize the police there. There’s no reason that the police should be intentionally trying to kill people, maim people. And this has to stop.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us from Minneapolis, Wayne Wilansky, father of 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky. ... Read More →
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Nermeen Shaikh, filling in for Amy Goodman. She’s on assignment and will be back on Monday. In Minneapolis, 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky has been undergoing a series of surgeries after reportedly being hit by a concussion grenade during the police attack against water protectors fighting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota Sunday night. The Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council says 300 people were hurt in the attack, with the injuries including hypothermia from being sprayed by water cannons in subfreezing temperatures, seizures, loss of consciousness, and impaired vision as a result of being shot by a rubber bullet in the face. On Sunday night, Sophia Wilansky was evacuated and airlifted to a Minneapolis hospital after suffering a critical injury to her left arm. Photos show parts of Sophia’s left arm nearly blown away, with her arteries, muscle and bone exposed. A warning to our TV audiences, these photos are graphic. This is Army veteran Brandi King of the Fort Belknap Reservation, who helped transport Sophia after she was injured. King served in the U.S. Army for eight years, including in a combat tour in Mosul, Iraq.
BRANDI KING: I can’t even explain to you how it felt, because you don’t really—I guess you don’t expect those kind of wounds happening when they’re not in combat. That was just—just felt like it was a combat wound, you know, looked like it was a combat wound. She had shrapnel wounds. She didn’t have any burns. Her arm was split open. Her skin, her flesh was ripped off of her arm. Her bones were broke.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The Morton County Sheriff’s Department is claiming the police are not responsible for her injury and that concussion grenades were not used during the police attack.
Well, for more, we’re joined in Minneapolis by Sophia’s father, Wayne Wilansky.
Mr. Wilansky, thank you so much for joining us on Democracy Now! Could you tell us, first off, how your daughter Sophia is now?
WAYNE WILANSKY: She is resting. And she had a second surgery yesterday, so they could try to clean out the open wound. She still has an opening from her elbow to her wrist. There’s no flesh there. And she’s resting comfortably, and she will have a third surgery on Friday.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Mr. Wilansky, what about your response to the claims made by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department that they were not—that the police were not responsible for the concussion grenades?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Yeah, they’re ridiculous. Apparently, they’ve changed their story three times since the incident occurred. My daughter is very clear about the fact that she was being shot at the time. She’s got bullet wounds on her body. And she was backing away at the time, and she was trying to reach for a shield so that the bullets wouldn’t hit her at the time that the concussion grenade hit her in the arm and exploded. Witnesses that I’ve spoken to said that the police officers—it takes seven seconds for these concussion grenades to go off. And Instead of throwing them on the ground, they pulled the plug, held them for five seconds and threw them directly at her. So, I’d say that the comments from the Morton County Sheriff’s Department are utterly absurd and ridiculous and not worthy of a shred of belief.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And the doctors also found shrapnel in her wound?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Yes, her treating vascular surgeon told me after the surgery that he was—he pulled as much out as he thought he could, and the second day was to clean it out and make sure that they didn’t leave anything in there. They try to get as—you have to get all of the debris out; otherwise, you can’t—all the tissue will get infected, and the whole arm will die anyway. So, yes, he pulled all the shrapnel out. Apparently, it went to the pathology, so it’s in the hospital records.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Wayne Wilansky, I want to ask you about the FBI agents who visited your daughter’s hospital room yesterday. At least one of the FBI agents was wearing a jacket from the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Democracy Now! reached out to the FBI Tuesday, but the agency refused to comment. Can you explain what the FBI agents were doing at the hospital yesterday?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Well, obviously, it was a very intrusive and it was a very hard time, and Sophia was being—waiting to go to surgery. And they’re basically keeping us prisoner inside her hospital room, waiting for a warrant, which never came. They didn’t tell us what they were there for, for many hours. Eventually, I got to speak to a supervisor and learned that what they were looking for was her clothing. And I did eventually consent. I had taken her clothing back to my hotel room the night before, and I did consent to give them the clothing, eventually, after talking to the supervisors. I have an unwritten agreement, but I put it in writing anyway, that they will give me access to those materials so that I can test them, as well, and that they’ll preserve and not destroy that evidence, because I would want to see it, and I would want to have it forensically tested myself.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, very quickly, before we conclude, Mr. Wilansky, what is it that you’re demanding now?
WAYNE WILANSKY: Well, what I’m demanding is, number one, they clear that bridge, because it took many, many hours to get Sophia airlifted out of there, and there are people that are going to die there. They need to clear that bridge so that people can get to hospitals. They need to have someone—the president, President Obama, has to step in there and stop this. They’re drilling now even though they don’t have a permit. The Army Corps of Engineers has asked them to stop. The Army Corps of Engineers has said that they were not going to issue a permit until after they did further environmental studies and spoke with the tribe, and yet they go ahead and set all the drills in place, and they continue. They’re probably drilling under the river right now, as we speak. And it’s a very, very dangerous situation there. And that’s just thing number one. Number two is they have to demilitarize the police there. There’s no reason that the police should be intentionally trying to kill people, maim people. And this has to stop.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us from Minneapolis, Wayne Wilansky, father of 21-year-old activist Sophia Wilansky. ... Read More →
Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Thanksgiving: "It Has Never Been About Honoring Native Americans"As much of the United States prepares to mark Thanksgiving this weekend, many Native Americans will gather in Plymouth to commemorate the 47th National Day of Mourning. This year is dedicated to water protectors at Standing Rock and to the struggle for recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. To discuss this and more, we speak with indigenous historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She is the author of "An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States" and co-author of "All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As much of the United States prepares to mark Thanksgiving this weekend, many Native Americans will gather in Plymouth to commemorate the 47th National Day of Mourning. This year is dedicated to water protectors at Standing Rock and to the struggle for recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. To discuss this and more, we’re joined in San Francisco by indigenous historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She’s the author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and co-author of All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Roxanne. Could you tell us, as the nation prepares to observe Thanksgiving, a national holiday ostensibly meant to honor Native people, what are your thoughts?
ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ: Well, thank you for having me on the show.
Actually, it’s never been about honoring Native Americans. It’s been about the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide, dispossession and constant warfare from that time—actually, from 1607 in Jamestown—until the present. It’s a colonial system that was set up.
There’s a sort of annual calendar for this origin story, beginning with Columbus, October 12. Why celebrate Columbus? It was the onset of colonialism, the slave trade and dispossession of the Native people of the Americas. So, that is celebrated with a federal holiday. That’s followed then by Thanksgiving, which is a completely made-up story to say the Native people welcomed these people who were going to devastate their civilizations, which is simply a lie. And then you go to Presidents’ Days, the Founding Fathers, in February, and celebrate these slaveowners, Indian killers. George Washington headed the Virginia militia for the very purpose of killing Native people on the periphery of the colony, before, you know, when it was still a Virginia colony. And then we have the big day, the fireworks, July 4th, independence, which is probably the most tragic event in world history, because it gave us—it gave the world a genocidal regime under the guise of democracy. And that’s really the—I’m a historian, so that’s the historical context that I think we have to see Thanksgiving in, that it is a part of that mythology that attempts to cover up the real history of the United States.
It actually—when it was introduced as a holiday by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, there was no mention of pilgrims and Native people or food or pumpkins or anything like that. It was simply a day for families to be together and mourn their dead and be grateful for the living. And I think that’s an appropriate holiday, that—how people should enjoy it. But they should take Native Americans and Puritans out of the picture for it to be a legitimate holiday of feast and sharing with family and friends.
So, that’s—you know, the people at Plymouth, I send greetings to them. They have, for many years—I think it’s almost 40 years now—stood up and testified to the lie of Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, the pilgrims. And this is very hard for people to give up. This is the national—nationalism. It’s actually—Americanism is white supremacy and represents negative things. There’s almost no way to reconcile it. It simply has to be deconstructed and faced up to; and, otherwise, there will be no social change that’s meaningful for anyone.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, thank you so much for joining us, indigenous historian and activist.
That does it for today’s show. Tune in tomorrow for our Standing Rock special.... Read More →
As Trump Disavows "Alt-Right" Support, Critics Question If He Will Still Normalize White SupremacyAs President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and early Cabinet picks embolden white supremacists and threaten reproductive rights, we speak with Katherine Franke, director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia University. Her recent piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books is headlined "Making White Supremacy Respectable. Again."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President-elect Donald Trump met with journalists and editors at The New York Times Tuesday for a wide-ranging conversation that covered the election, Hillary Clinton, climate change and foreign policy. One question focused on the growing movement in the United States that calls itself the alt-right. Critics say the group has been energized by Trump’s win. When asked about the movement, Trump answered, quote, "I don’t want to energize the group. I’m not looking to energize them. I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group. ... What we do want to do is we want to bring the country together, because the country is very, very divided ... and I’m going to work very hard to bring the country together." Concerns about the so-called alt-right were heightened after a conference that took place over the weekend in Washington, D.C., where hundreds gathered to celebrate Donald Trump’s victory, and some attendees raised their arms in the traditional Nazi salute as leader Richard Spencer spoke.
RICHARD SPENCER: America was, until this past generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Leaders of the self-proclaimed alt-right movement were also emboldened after Trump named Steve Bannon to become his chief strategist after first being his campaign manager. Bannon is the former head of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart Media.
Well, for more, we’re joined by Katherine Franke, director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia University. Her recent piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books is headlined "Making White Supremacy Respectable. Again."
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Katherine Franke. Could you tell us about this piece, "Making White Supremacy Respectable. Again." You wrote it in response to a New York Times opinion piece by your Columbia University colleague, Mark Lilla. Tell us what you found objectionable in the arguments he articulated in his piece, which was headlined "The End of Identity Liberalism."
KATHERINE FRANKE. Well, thank you for having me on the show and for engaging this piece.
You know, the arguments that Lilla makes in The New York Times op-ed are not new. They resonate with arguments that were made in the late 1990s by the likes of Todd Gitlin or Michael Tomasky, who really felt like "enough already" of being bothered by special interests, whether that was women, people of color, gay and lesbian people. "Let’s get back to what made America great," which was liberal democracy that our Founding Fathers had in mind, and that these—this attention to racism, sexism, homophobia is really a distraction, and it kind of surrendered a self-indulgence that is counterproductive.
For my colleague, Professor Lilla, to issue this kind of op-ed in The New York Timesat this time just struck me as enormously insensitive, both to the political situation we’re in now, where Donald Trump’s election signals these—the invitation of a kind of new white supremacy in this country, but even more than that, or parallel to that, what’s going on at Columbia. I feel—I’m worried about his students, as he issues this op-ed in the same week that a number of men, young men, on our wrestling team at Columbia were chastised and then discharged from the team for issuing the most ugly, sexist, racist and homophobic tweets among themselves. So, there’s ugly hatred going on on our campus. There’s ugly hatred going on in this country. And Lilla is collaborating and facilitating and rendering that hatred respectable again.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’d like to ask you about a specific point that he makes in the article, which is that, during her campaign, Hillary Clinton explicitly referred to African-American, Latino, LGBT and women voters, but in so doing, he writes, a large percentage of the American electorate were excluded, and, according to Lilla, this accounts in part for her defeat, since white working-class and evangelical voters voted almost across the board for Trump. Do you agree with that assessment?
KATHERINE FRANKE. I do. And, you know, as my wise friend Suzanne Hoover said to me yesterday after she read the piece in the L.A. Review of Books, in a way, what we’re seeing here is a kind of seductive argument to well-intentioned liberals who are tired of feeling uncomfortable. They have a kind of identity fatigue. They’re tired of being called out for their privilege. "Let’s get back to the kinds of forms of governance we’re comfortable with." And those are the forms of governance that are white, white-led, and where the interests of white people figure at the center as the neutral norm.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s turn to President-elect Trump. Your response to the fact that yesterday, to The New York Times, he said that he disavows the alt-right movement and that Steve Bannon is not a part of it? Why do you think—first of all, why did he say that? Because that’s not exactly what he’s said in the past. And do you think it indicates a shift away from Trump’s association with white supremacy?
KATHERINE FRANKE. I guess we’ll see. You know, on Monday he says one thing, on Tuesday he says another, on Wednesday we’ll hear another thing. I don’t have any faith, from watching this man on a national political stage, that any of this he feels deeply in his heart and will remain consistent in repudiating white supremacists like Richard Spencer or like Steve Bannon or like Breitbart News. Indeed, he’s baking them into his administration with the kind of appointments that he’s making of right-wing supporters of white supremacy and/or appointing people with absolutely no experience or expertise to things like the U.N. representative—or, excuse me, the U.S. representative to the U.N., or Ben Carson at HUD, who knows absolutely nothing about housing. I mean, I guess I could do brain surgery, but very badly. Just as Dr. Carson could run HUD, but, surely, quite badly.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, what about Mike Pence, the second in command, his—the vice president-elect? There’s speculation that, in fact, he may be the most powerful vice president in history in the United States?
KATHERINE FRANKE. Well, he actually knows a little something about how government works, both on the state level and on the federal level, which—it’s a low bar, but he certainly passes it. But if we can understand Donald Trump as a kind of robber baron who uses crony capitalism to undermine democracy, what we see in Mike Pence is the ascent or the victory of evangelical Christianity as a way to overcome underlying long-term commitment to democracy and pluralism, value pluralism in this country. So, what I think—what we certainly saw with Governor Pence in Indiana and, I think, what we’ll see with Vice President Pence in Washington is the turn to religious liberty as a kind of delivery system for white Christian nationalism.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to thank you very much, Katherine Franke, for joining us. Katherine Franke is director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia University. ... Read More →
"Nothing Short of a Slaughter": 1 Million Syrians in Aleppo Under Siege with No Hospital, FoodAs the United Nations says nearly 1 million Syrians are living under siege and the last remaining hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been destroyed, we speak with Syrian analyst Bassam Haddad and get an update from a physician in touch with medical personnel in Aleppo. Dr. Zaher Sahloul is founder of the American Relief Coalition for Syria and senior adviser and former president of the Syrian American Medical Society. He has visited Aleppo five times since the war began.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today in Syria, where the United Nations is warning nearly 1 million Syrians are living under siege, double the number last year. The vast majority, 850,000 people, are being blockaded by the Syrian government. On Monday, the U.N. human rights agency said civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo, where the last hospitals have been destroyed by Syrian government bombing, are facing annihilation. On Tuesday, the U.N. spokesperson, Rupert Colville, said the attacks on hospitals, if proven deliberate and as part of a systematic pattern, could amount to war crimes.
RUPERT COLVILLE: The situation in eastern Aleppo is really so horrendous. I mean, it’s beyond words. I think we’re all struggling to say anything new about it, because it’s so unremittingly awful. Despite the occasional letups, overall, the picture is horrendous. And the fact that these hospitals and clinics are continuously being hit is a matter of very, very grave concern.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The World Health Organization says the Syrian government’s intense bombing campaign against eastern Aleppo has damaged and shut down the area’s only remaining hospitals, leaving 250,000 people trapped without access to medical care. Doctors warn the damaged hospitals may not be able to reopen. This comes as Syrian government forces have surrounded eastern Aleppo, which is rapidly running out of food, fuel and water. Meanwhile, on Sunday, the government of Bashar al-Assad said it had rejected a proposal by the U.N. special envoy for Syria, which called for eastern Aleppo to be granted autonomy if jihadist fighters linked to al-Qaeda withdrew and the fighting stopped.
Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests. In Chicago, Dr. Zaher Sahloul is founder of the American Relief Coalition for Syria and senior adviser and former president of the Syrian American Medical Society. He has visited Aleppo five times since the war began. He was a classmate of Bashar al-Assad in medical school. And in Washington, D.C., Bassam Haddad is director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at George Mason University. He’s co-founder of Jadaliyya and director of the Arab Studies Institute. He wrote a piece for The Nation last month headlined "The Debate over Syria Has Reached a Dead End." He’s also the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience.
Welcome back to both of you to Democracy Now! Dr. Zaher Sahloul, I’d like to begin with you to go over what we said in our introduction, namely, the state of hospitals in eastern Aleppo. According to the World Health Organization, there are no functioning hospitals left in East Aleppo. And you were last on the show in August, when you said the situation in Aleppo was, quote, "10 times worse than hell." Could you tell us what you know of the situation in East Aleppo today and, in particular, the state of medical facilities?
DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL: It’s even worse than last time. And really, words at this point do not mean anything. The use of "catastrophic" or "beyond description" do not mean anything, because we’re talking about a city that has 300,000 people, among them 100,000 children, who are trapped with no food or medicine for the past four months and a half. And everyone is watching them with indifference. That’s at least what they perceive.
So, we’re talking about all hospitals in Aleppo right now that have capacity to treat victims of bombing that are destroyed, including the hospital that I spent last medical mission in with my colleagues. That was M10 hospital. It was a hospital underground for protection of doctors and nurses, and it was completely destroyed. That hospital used to perform 4,000 surgeries, life-saving surgeries, every year. In the last two days, two more hospitals were destroyed, which are the largest hospitals that are doing surgeries and taking the trauma patients. Every day there are massacres. And right now the space for treating these patients is shrinking, in addition to the shortage of the medicine, IV fluid, antibiotics, pain medicine, suture sets and, of course, the shortage of doctors.
Every 17 hours right now in Aleppo, there is a targeting of healthcare facility. Every 60 hours, there is a targeting and killing of a healthcare worker. In the last 144 days, there were 143 attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria committed by the Syrian government and its ally, mostly Russia, and one-third of them happened in the city of Aleppo. So, right now, to be a medical worker in Syria is the most dangerous job on Earth. In spite of that, we have doctors and nurses in Syria, and Aleppo especially, who want to continue to save their lives, but they need to be protected.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Dr. Sahloul, could you say then where people are going now? You’re in touch with medical personnel in East Aleppo. Where are people going now to seek medical treatment?
DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL: There are still small medical facilities that are open and treating patients. They’re semi-destroyed or partially destroyed. There are some basements of buildings that our doctors are treating their patients. When I was in Aleppo, I visited seven medical facilities. These are hospitals that were in Aleppo before the crisis. And a few of them are very small, and they do not have the capacity to treat the victims of trauma or victims of chemical weapons, as we were seeing in the last few days. But in spite of that, they are opening some of their spaces that are not destroyed to keep accommodating the patients. You know, healthcare is one essential part that keeps a city going. And if you destroy every facility or medical facility, that means you are destroying the neighborhoods, you are destroying the city. And that’s why it’s very crucial to keep anything that will keep providing medical care to the civilians in the city available.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’d like to bring in Professor Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at George Mason University and also co-founder of Jadaliyya. Doctor—Professor Haddad, on this site, Jadaliyya, which you co-founded, you and your colleagues have been documenting developments in Aleppo, and you point out on the site that in addition to the carnage in East Aleppo, there have been repeated attacks on the government-controlled side of Aleppo, West Aleppo. What do you know of the scale of these attacks and who’s carrying them out?
BASSAM HADDAD: Thanks, Nermeen. Well, clearly, there’s been a slamming of western Aleppo by the rebels. And the issue here or the point here is that these, of course, pale in comparison to the brutal bombardment of eastern Aleppo and the almost total destruction of life. The issue is not necessarily want to create any kind of parity, but it reveals a lack of reporting in Western media about that kind of direction of shelling into western Aleppo. But the more significant point, as my co-panelist, if you will, has just shared, is that what we are witnessing in Aleppo today, and especially in East Aleppo, of course, is nothing short of a slaughter. And that is, unfortunately—when I was here three weeks ago on the show, I had discussed that we had not seen then anything yet compared to what is likely to happen, and I fear that this will continue, this viciousness will continue, until the regime and Russia take over eastern Aleppo, because it is considered a necessary step to prop up their position in any future negotiation, before, during or after the takeover or the Trump administration comes into effect. And that is a chilling prospect, given what needs to happen in order for Aleppo to fall. The rebels will not give up; the regime and the Russians will go to any length to not just take over, but the idea here is to destroy life in itself. And we see that with the targeting of hospitals that cannot be but deliberate in this situation.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Haddad, could you say a little more about what you expect will happen, given the intransigence of the regime and other parties involved? What do you think will happen in East Aleppo?
BASSAM HADDAD: You know, I mean, it’s—as my colleague said, we are all in a loss for words. I mean, there’s nothing that could describe what actually might happen if this onslaught continues. But at a strategic level, the Syrian regime and the Russians will not stop until this—it seems that they will not stop until eastern Aleppo is within their control. And it is important to note that the regime and Russia today have overlapping interests in doing so. However, it is also important to recognize that there might be a rift after that point, because the degree to which they both want to conquer all of Aleppo is very similar, but in any future process it seems like Russia is much more interested in focusing on stability and some sort of control of the situation in Syria, whereas the regime is mostly interested in reconquering the entirety of Syria and re-establishing itself and certainly its survival. And that might actually open the door for some negotiation.
But I fear that if this is the case, if the entirety of Aleppo is captured, it will leave, in any scenario, very little room for negotiation at a time when no international power, and certainly the U.S., neither have the will or the interest in doing very much to stop this. So there is this theater that people are asking the United States to intervene and to do more, but, in reality, neither is there a will nor is there any kind of desire to stop this process. And it seems that there is a consensus, not just against the revolution, as people say—people are always concerned about the revolution—but there is a consensus against the well-being of Syria and Syrian, with—and Syrians, with or without the revolution or the regime, for purposes that are mostly geopolitical, because, as we know, before 2011, all the parties that supposedly today are trying to defend Syria or fight for Syria or help the revolution in Syria were supporting the Syrian regime, from the Arab Gulf states to the United States, at various times.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, before we talk about the role of the U.S. in Syria, I’d like to ask Dr. Sahloul about comments that some have made that groups like al-Nusra and other extreme Islamist groups operating in East Aleppo are keeping people hostage and using them as human shields in East Aleppo. Some—there have been reports that people in East Aleppo fear leaving for the western part of the city, because they’re likely to be detained there as terrorists. Dr. Sahloul, could you comment on that and what you know of the situation of people attempting to flee East Aleppo?
DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL: When I was in Aleppo in the last medical mission just before the siege became a reality, I was there with two physicians from Chicago, Dr. John Kahler and Dr. Samer Attar. We frankly did not see al-Nusra. We visited all hospitals in Aleppo. And it’s dangerous for me as an American doctor to be in a situation where you have encounter with these terrorists. But we have not seen any signs for them, at least in the neighborhoods and the hospitals we visited.
Now, there might be a few fighters of al-Nusra in the city of Aleppo and around it, but that’s not what is keeping the people in. Let’s not forget that the population of eastern Aleppo was 1.5 million before the crisis, and right now it’s 300,000. That means that 1.2 million are already refugees or internally displaced somewhere, in Turkey, in Europe or in the rest of Syria. The 300,000 people are there because they don’t have any other place to go. Even if they wanted to leave, where would they go? Turkey has sealed the border completely. Any other place in Syria is dangerous, because the Russians and the Syrians have been bombing Idlib, for example, which is nearby. They cannot go to government-controlled areas, because they can be tortured and detained. And, of course, that happened frequently, previously, in other places that were put under siege. And if they are let go, that’s called ethnic cleansing, forced evacuation, according to the United Nations. It happened in Darayya. It happened in Muadamiyat. It happend in Zabadani. It happened in the Old City of Homs. And right now we are witnessing what’s becoming the next ethnic cleansing or forced evacuation in Syria. There might be some terrorist group or al-Nusra around Aleppo, but that’s not what’s keeping the people in. And what’s keeping the people in, that they have no other place to go, and they are also trapped. They cannot go to any place that is safe.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Bassam Haddad, to return to the point that you raised about U.S. involvement in Syria, I’d like to quote from an interview with the Syrian writer and political dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh. You pointed out that the U.S. has been supporting rebel groups in Syria, as of couse they have, but he says in this interview with The Intercept, quote, "In many important ways, the Americans have been supporting Bashar al-Assad. The United States helped create a situation," he says, "in which Syria would be plunged into chaos, but the regime would remain in power." So, could you respond to that and also give us a sense of what U.S. policy vis-à-vis Syria has been from the start of the uprising in 2011 to the present day?
BASSAM HADDAD: Yes. Well, first, I respect the perseverance of Yassin al-Haj Saleh as a dissident who was imprisoned by the Syrian regime and suffered the structural brutality for 16 years by the Syrian regime. And I support the idea that the U.S. intervention has been anything but positive from the very beginning. And, you know, as I shared earlier, I mean, this has been, in my view, quite obvious. It’s just that I also wish—based on the quote that you gave me, I wish that Yassin al-Haj Saleh has—or, had thought about this or provided it as an advice early on to the revolutionaries, when they were tripping over themselves here, next door, down the street, in Washington, D.C., to cozy up to U.S. policymakers in trying to move things in a particular direction, when, in reality, this was basically a moot point, considering exactly what Yassin al-Haj Saleh is saying right now. So, in my view, that is not a controversial point, and the idea here is to move beyond this call for U.S. intervention and think about what is the real interest of Syrians, because everybody is bypassing the interests of Syrians.
In fact, as a result of this kind of support by people like Yassin al-Haj Saleh for a more critical view, we are beginning to see a rift, if you will, between think tank analysts within the U.S. supportive of a traditional establishment approach that seeks to secure, first and foremost, the security of Israel—we’re becoming—we’re beginning to see a rift between this group of supporters of the Syrian revolution and many Syrians who support the Syrian uprising and revolution, whereby the former group is much more interested in the outcomes of the revolution in relation to Iran’s domination of the region, or control, and Israel’s security, whereas the revolutionaries are much more interested in the well-being of Syrians. And this rift actually can be—can be viewed by looking at how think tank analysts today are scrambling to oppose a Trump policy on the basis of not the Syrian people, not the health of the Syrian uprising, but on how it might produce positive effects—that is, Trump’s policy might produce a positive effect for Iran, Syria and their allies, including Hezbollah, in the region, and how it would threaten Israel. This line of argument reveals from the—reveals what has been a concern and the worry, from the beginning, of that kind of trajectory. And this is actually what we are witnessing today—and that quote is apt—a rift that should have existed from the very beginning for the sake of building a healthier, independent and democratic uprising in Syria against a dictatorial regime.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Sahloul, very quickly, before we conclude, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, commented for the first time on Trump’s electoral victory last week, calling him, quote, "a natural ally" of his regime. So could you, very quickly, tell us what you expect from a Trump presidency vis-à-vis Syria?
DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL: Before that, we’re calling for a day of solidarity with the doctors and nurses in Syria on Friday, where everyone should put a hashtag that #NeverAgainIsNow to support medical medics in Syria. And this is something that is very important, because committing war crimes against doctors and nurses should be rejected by everyone. It should not be normalized.
Now, Trump has said that he will be—support President Assad. What kept the people in Syria hopeful of the future, the fact that there will be one day that they will have the same liberties and freedom that we have and enjoy in this country. And if this is removed, if Trump will be supportive of Assad, and Assad will control the rest of the Syria, and he will declare victory, and he will continue to be a president for the next 14 years, as he has promised, then that will be really the last nail in the coffin of the aspiration of the Syrian people, the young people of Syria, who rose up in the beginning of this five years ago for freedoms and liberties that we enjoy and we all support.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to thank you both for joining us. Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder of the American Relief Coalition for Syria and senior adviser and former president of the Syrian American Medical Society, he has visited Aleppo five times since the war began, and was a classmate of Bashar al-Assad. Bassam Haddad is director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program. Thank you so much for joining us. He’s also associate professor at the Schar School for Policy and Government at George Mason University, co-founder of Jadaliyya and director of the Arab Studies Institute. He wrote a piece for The Nation last month headlined "The Debate over Syria Has Reached a Dead End."
And when we come back, we turn to Trump’s policies that are concerned—that people are concerned about: "Making White Supremacy Respectable. Again." That’s the name of an article by Katherine Franke, who will be joining us in the next segment. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Are Trump's Plans to Expand Obama's Surveillance State & Activate Muslim Registry Unconstitutional?We speak with Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, about President-elect Donald Trump’s potential foreign policy positions, how he could expand Obama’s surveillance state and authorization of military force and reactivate the registry for immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to turn to Obama’s surveillance state and the authorization of military force and how it could be expanded under President Trump. During his meeting Tuesday with The New York Times, he also answered questions on foreign policy. When asked about his position on torture, Trump referenced a meeting he had with retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, considered a top pick for Trump’s secretary of defense. Trump stated, quote, "General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length, and I asked him that question. I said, 'What do you think of waterboarding?' He said—I was surprised—he said, ’I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ’I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’" And Trump says, "I was very impressed by that answer."
Well, for more on Trump’s foreign policy positions, we’re joined now by Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project.
So, Hina Shamsi, can you tell us some of your concerns about what a Trump presidency will mean for questions having to do, for instance, with this proposed plan for a Muslim registry, although he’s gone back and forth on that, and it’s very unclear what precisely he means by it now, and what the origins, in particular, of this Muslim registry system are, when the system was first put in place, and what you think is the likelihood that Trump will be able to implement it?
HINA SHAMSI: Of course. So much to discuss here, Nermeen. And thank you for having me again.
You know, one of the latest aspects of controversy that have come out—and let me start off by saying that I think it’s very hard to know what the things are that candidate Trump proposed, which are deeply troubling and unconstitutional. We’ve analyzed many of these proposals and are poised to challenge them should they be put in place.
But let’s take this registry. And what it is, is what you referred to earlier in the segment as the NSEERS program. And this was put in place after 9/11, and it was a program that was aimed at non-immigrant males and required them to—men from 25 countries, most majority-Muslim countries, and required them to come in for fingerprinting and interrogation. It resulted in devastation. Approximately 13,000 people were slated for deportation. Families were torn apart. Small businesses were deeply, negatively impacted. The impacts continue in communities today.
Now, the program was discontinued in April 2011. It never, notably, resulted in any kind of criminal prosecution for terrorism, for example. And the Department of Homeland Security discontinued it and said that they were going to focus instead on targeting actual wrongdoing instead of these kinds of registrations and sweeps.
Now, recently, you know, it appears that this program is again under consideration. This is one of the things that candidate Trump talked about, that his advisers have talked about. And despite the fact that the program was stopped, there is a concern, a deep concern, one that is roiling minority communities around the country, that it could be reinstated. And so, there is one very important thing that the Obama administration can do, and the ACLU, over 200 organizations, colleagues around the country have asked for this, which is dismantle the regulatory framework that still exists for NSEERS and is still in place, and make clear that it served little to no purpose, so that this program may not be—will be harder to reinstate again, if the new administration is hell-bent on doing it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
When we come back, we turn to North—the Standing—to North Dakota, and we’ll be joined by two guests there. Please stay with us. ... Read More →
Headlines:Trump Picks Gov. Nikki Haley to Be U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has reportedly accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to be ambassador to the United Nations, making her the first woman to be picked for his Cabinet. The first five appointments were white men. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has almost no foreign policy experience, except for making eight trips overseas to discuss economic development opportunities. During the presidential race, she supported Florida Senator Marco Rubio, but later said she voted for Trump. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be replaced by South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster, a major ally of Trump.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Trump Considering Neurosurgeon Ben Carson for HUD Secretary
This comes as Trump has reportedly asked retired neurosurgeon and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson to consider taking the position of secretary of housing and urban development. Carson has no government experience and no experience with housing or urban policy.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Trump Defends Bannon, Says He Will Not Prosecute Clinton
Trump held an on-the-record meeting with reporters and editors at The New York Times office Tuesday, after briefly canceling the meeting earlier that morning. In the interview, Trump said he would not seek to prosecute Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite spending months threatening to "jail her" and inciting crowds to chant "lock her up, lock her up" during his campaign. At the Times building, Trump also defended his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, claiming he did not think Bannon was racist, but instead thought he was a "decent guy." Nevada Senator Harry Reid has called Bannon a "champion of white supremacists," and the Southern Poverty Law Center has called Breitbart Media, which Bannon headed, a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill." Trump also attempted to distance himself from white supremacists, who have celebrated his victory, including during a white supremacist conference over the weekend in which participants used the Nazi salute and quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
CNN Under Fire for Caption Questioning Whether Jews are People
Meanwhile, CNN is under fire over a segment on white supremacist Richard Spencer, during which the lower third on CNN’s screen read "Alt-right founder questions if Jews are people." Spencer has said he has a "psychic connection" with Donald Trump. After widespread backlash, CNN called the caption "poor judgement."
TOPICS:
Media Analysis
Trump Adviser Kobach Accidentally Reveals "Strategic Plan" for DHS
A member of Donald Trump’s transition team, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has accidentally revealed his proposed "strategic plan" for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes an ideological "extreme vetting" test for immigrants seeking to enter the United States, and reinstating a registry for immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. Kobach was photographed carrying documents outlining this "strategic plan" into a meeting with Donald Trump on Sunday. Following 9/11, Kobach himself helped design the registry for immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS. Under the program, more than 10,000 Muslims were deported and more than 80,000 were spied on. The Department of Homeland Security abandoned the program in 2011 after deeming it ineffective. Nearly 200 organizations are now calling on the Obama administration to rescind the legal framework for the registry before Obama leaves office, so Trump’s administration cannot reinstate the program.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Immigration
Arabs and Muslims in America
NYC Spends $1 Million a Day Protecting Donald Trump
New York City is spending more than $1 million a day to protect Donald Trump and his family at Trump Tower, where the New York Police Department has set up barricades and patrols, amid frequent protests. City officials say these costs will continue even after Trump’s inauguration, as his wife, Melania Trump, and their son Barron are expected to continue living in Trump Tower.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
New York
Wisconsin Court Rules State Illegally Gerrymandered Districts to Favor GOP
In Wisconsin, a court has ruled the state Legislature engaged in unconstitutional gerrymandering to favor the Republican Party when it redrew the State Assembly districts in 2011. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court.
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Wisconsin
Workers Plan Airport Strike at Chicago's O'Hare on November 29
Baggage handlers at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport have announced plans to go on strike next Tuesday, changing their original plan of striking on Thanksgiving. The move avoids a strike at one of the world’s busiest airports on one of the year’s busiest travel days. The Service Employees International Union is backing the workers, who want to raise their wages to $15 an hour. This comes as Germany’s main airline, Lufthansa, canceled nearly 900 flights today after pilots went on strike to demand a pay raise.
TOPICS:
Labor
Unions
#FightFor15 Workers Plan National Day of Disruption on November 29
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of fast-food workers, home care and childcare workers in 340 cities will join the Chicago airport workers on Tuesday for what they’re calling a National Day of Disruption. The protest marks the fourth anniversary of the movement to raise wages known as the #FightFor15.
TOPICS:
Labor
#NoBlackSnakeFriday: Water Protectors Fighting Dakota Access Pipeline Declare Global Day of Action
Hundreds more across the U.S. are planning protests on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is considered a major shopping day in the United States. In Chicago, activists are planning a Black Friday boycott along Michigan Avenue to demand police accountability. Water protectors fighting the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota have also declared a global day of action on Friday, calling for protests at banks financing the $3.8 billion pipeline and at the offices of sheriff’s departments who have sent deputies to police the ongoing resistance, which is led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota.
TOPICS:
Dakota Access Pipeline
U.N.: 68,000 Civilians Displaced from Mosul
In news on Iraq, the United Nations says as many as 68,000 civilians have been displaced from Mosul amid the ongoing fight by Iraqi security forces, backed by the U.S. special operations soldiers and U.S. airstrikes, to retake Mosul from ISIS. The U.N. says half of those displaced so far are children, and warns that hundreds of thousands more may be displaced in the coming weeks. This is Abu al-Abed.
Abu al-Abed: "We fled from the Aden neighborhood. We fled on foot, and the army then transported us by truck and brought us here, thank God. The situation is good. Clashes are still going on, but the army will prevail, God willing."
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Iraq
Yemen: 19 Die Near Taiz as Ceasefire Expires
In Yemen, at least 19 people have died in fighting on the outskirts of Taiz as a 48-hour ceasefire expired. The ceasefire never completely halted U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes, nor offensives by the Houthi rebels.
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Yemen
British Court Hears Lawsuit Against Shell over Spills in Niger River Delta
Britain’s High Court began hearing a lawsuit Tuesday filed by more than 40,000 Nigerians demanding oil giant Shell clean up spills that have contaminated water with cancer-causing chemicals, including benzene. The lawsuit was launched by the Ogale and Bille people, who allege Shell has poisoned their water during decades of drilling in the Niger River Delta.
TOPICS:
Nigeria
Natural Gas & Oil Drilling
Peru: Officials Declare State of Emergency Amid Climate-Fueled Fires
In Peru, authorities hav declared a state of emergency in seven districts in the north amid raging wildfires. Scientists say the fires are fueled by less rainfall due to climate change. The fires are threatening indigenous land and crops in the Peruvian Amazon. This is the Peruvian prime minister.
Prime Minister Fernando Zavala: "In the first place, because of the magnitude of the fire’s reach, the government has declared a state of emergency in the zones affected by the greatest intensity and risk. This will permit the national government to continue mobilizing people, resources and diverse equipment in order to confront these fires and attend to the population that has been affected."
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Peru
Latin America
Climate Change
Pakistan: Indian Army Killed 9 Civilians in Kashmir
Pakistan says Indian Army shelling in Kashmir has killed at least nine civilians and injured nine more, after an artillery shell hit a bus Wednesday. The Pakistani officials say the Indian Army also attacked the ambulance that arrived on site. Fighting between Pakistan and India in the disputed Kashmir region has been escalating for months.
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Pakistan
Ohio: Prosecutor to Retry Officer Ray Tensing for Murdering Sam DuBose
And in Ohio, a prosecutor says he’ll retry white former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing for murdering 43-year-old Samuel DuBose. Officer Tensing shot DuBose in the head after pulling him over for having a missing front license plate in 2015. Tensing was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a Confederate battle flag under his uniform when he fatally shot DuBose. A judge declared a mistrial in his case earlier this month after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
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Ohio
Police Brutality
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has reportedly accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to be ambassador to the United Nations, making her the first woman to be picked for his Cabinet. The first five appointments were white men. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has almost no foreign policy experience, except for making eight trips overseas to discuss economic development opportunities. During the presidential race, she supported Florida Senator Marco Rubio, but later said she voted for Trump. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be replaced by South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster, a major ally of Trump.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Trump Considering Neurosurgeon Ben Carson for HUD Secretary
This comes as Trump has reportedly asked retired neurosurgeon and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson to consider taking the position of secretary of housing and urban development. Carson has no government experience and no experience with housing or urban policy.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Trump Defends Bannon, Says He Will Not Prosecute Clinton
Trump held an on-the-record meeting with reporters and editors at The New York Times office Tuesday, after briefly canceling the meeting earlier that morning. In the interview, Trump said he would not seek to prosecute Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite spending months threatening to "jail her" and inciting crowds to chant "lock her up, lock her up" during his campaign. At the Times building, Trump also defended his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, claiming he did not think Bannon was racist, but instead thought he was a "decent guy." Nevada Senator Harry Reid has called Bannon a "champion of white supremacists," and the Southern Poverty Law Center has called Breitbart Media, which Bannon headed, a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill." Trump also attempted to distance himself from white supremacists, who have celebrated his victory, including during a white supremacist conference over the weekend in which participants used the Nazi salute and quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
CNN Under Fire for Caption Questioning Whether Jews are People
Meanwhile, CNN is under fire over a segment on white supremacist Richard Spencer, during which the lower third on CNN’s screen read "Alt-right founder questions if Jews are people." Spencer has said he has a "psychic connection" with Donald Trump. After widespread backlash, CNN called the caption "poor judgement."
TOPICS:
Media Analysis
Trump Adviser Kobach Accidentally Reveals "Strategic Plan" for DHS
A member of Donald Trump’s transition team, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has accidentally revealed his proposed "strategic plan" for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes an ideological "extreme vetting" test for immigrants seeking to enter the United States, and reinstating a registry for immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. Kobach was photographed carrying documents outlining this "strategic plan" into a meeting with Donald Trump on Sunday. Following 9/11, Kobach himself helped design the registry for immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS. Under the program, more than 10,000 Muslims were deported and more than 80,000 were spied on. The Department of Homeland Security abandoned the program in 2011 after deeming it ineffective. Nearly 200 organizations are now calling on the Obama administration to rescind the legal framework for the registry before Obama leaves office, so Trump’s administration cannot reinstate the program.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
Immigration
Arabs and Muslims in America
NYC Spends $1 Million a Day Protecting Donald Trump
New York City is spending more than $1 million a day to protect Donald Trump and his family at Trump Tower, where the New York Police Department has set up barricades and patrols, amid frequent protests. City officials say these costs will continue even after Trump’s inauguration, as his wife, Melania Trump, and their son Barron are expected to continue living in Trump Tower.
TOPICS:
Donald Trump
New York
Wisconsin Court Rules State Illegally Gerrymandered Districts to Favor GOP
In Wisconsin, a court has ruled the state Legislature engaged in unconstitutional gerrymandering to favor the Republican Party when it redrew the State Assembly districts in 2011. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court.
TOPICS:
Wisconsin
Workers Plan Airport Strike at Chicago's O'Hare on November 29
Baggage handlers at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport have announced plans to go on strike next Tuesday, changing their original plan of striking on Thanksgiving. The move avoids a strike at one of the world’s busiest airports on one of the year’s busiest travel days. The Service Employees International Union is backing the workers, who want to raise their wages to $15 an hour. This comes as Germany’s main airline, Lufthansa, canceled nearly 900 flights today after pilots went on strike to demand a pay raise.
TOPICS:
Labor
Unions
#FightFor15 Workers Plan National Day of Disruption on November 29
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of fast-food workers, home care and childcare workers in 340 cities will join the Chicago airport workers on Tuesday for what they’re calling a National Day of Disruption. The protest marks the fourth anniversary of the movement to raise wages known as the #FightFor15.
TOPICS:
Labor
#NoBlackSnakeFriday: Water Protectors Fighting Dakota Access Pipeline Declare Global Day of Action
Hundreds more across the U.S. are planning protests on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is considered a major shopping day in the United States. In Chicago, activists are planning a Black Friday boycott along Michigan Avenue to demand police accountability. Water protectors fighting the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota have also declared a global day of action on Friday, calling for protests at banks financing the $3.8 billion pipeline and at the offices of sheriff’s departments who have sent deputies to police the ongoing resistance, which is led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota.
TOPICS:
Dakota Access Pipeline
U.N.: 68,000 Civilians Displaced from Mosul
In news on Iraq, the United Nations says as many as 68,000 civilians have been displaced from Mosul amid the ongoing fight by Iraqi security forces, backed by the U.S. special operations soldiers and U.S. airstrikes, to retake Mosul from ISIS. The U.N. says half of those displaced so far are children, and warns that hundreds of thousands more may be displaced in the coming weeks. This is Abu al-Abed.
Abu al-Abed: "We fled from the Aden neighborhood. We fled on foot, and the army then transported us by truck and brought us here, thank God. The situation is good. Clashes are still going on, but the army will prevail, God willing."
TOPICS:
Iraq
Yemen: 19 Die Near Taiz as Ceasefire Expires
In Yemen, at least 19 people have died in fighting on the outskirts of Taiz as a 48-hour ceasefire expired. The ceasefire never completely halted U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes, nor offensives by the Houthi rebels.
TOPICS:
Yemen
British Court Hears Lawsuit Against Shell over Spills in Niger River Delta
Britain’s High Court began hearing a lawsuit Tuesday filed by more than 40,000 Nigerians demanding oil giant Shell clean up spills that have contaminated water with cancer-causing chemicals, including benzene. The lawsuit was launched by the Ogale and Bille people, who allege Shell has poisoned their water during decades of drilling in the Niger River Delta.
TOPICS:
Nigeria
Natural Gas & Oil Drilling
Peru: Officials Declare State of Emergency Amid Climate-Fueled Fires
In Peru, authorities hav declared a state of emergency in seven districts in the north amid raging wildfires. Scientists say the fires are fueled by less rainfall due to climate change. The fires are threatening indigenous land and crops in the Peruvian Amazon. This is the Peruvian prime minister.
Prime Minister Fernando Zavala: "In the first place, because of the magnitude of the fire’s reach, the government has declared a state of emergency in the zones affected by the greatest intensity and risk. This will permit the national government to continue mobilizing people, resources and diverse equipment in order to confront these fires and attend to the population that has been affected."
TOPICS:
Peru
Latin America
Climate Change
Pakistan: Indian Army Killed 9 Civilians in Kashmir
Pakistan says Indian Army shelling in Kashmir has killed at least nine civilians and injured nine more, after an artillery shell hit a bus Wednesday. The Pakistani officials say the Indian Army also attacked the ambulance that arrived on site. Fighting between Pakistan and India in the disputed Kashmir region has been escalating for months.
TOPICS:
Pakistan
Ohio: Prosecutor to Retry Officer Ray Tensing for Murdering Sam DuBose
And in Ohio, a prosecutor says he’ll retry white former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing for murdering 43-year-old Samuel DuBose. Officer Tensing shot DuBose in the head after pulling him over for having a missing front license plate in 2015. Tensing was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a Confederate battle flag under his uniform when he fatally shot DuBose. A judge declared a mistrial in his case earlier this month after the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
TOPICS:
Ohio
Police Brutality
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