Water protectors battling the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline once again faced down police in riot gear, tear gas, and arrests on Monday as Indigenous activists attempted to hold a peaceful prayer walk at the pipeline drilling site alongside the Missouri River near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
Observers were swift to call attention to the police crackdown:
While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month denied an easement necessary for drilling under the Missouri River, the company behind the pipeline is looking to resume the project once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The Republican-dominated North Dakota legislature is also pushing legislation that would make it legal to run over protestors with cars, among other anti-protest measures.
Still, despite the odds, harsh winter weather, and growing tension, Indigenous water protectors and allies are continuing to maintain a presence near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation, to protect the Missouri River’s water.
In video footage taken at the scene Monday afternoon, water protectors can be seen peacefully chanting and singing in front of a line of riot police holding batons and other weapons:
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And in footage filmed later in the evening, clouds of tear gas waft over the water protectors, and the sound of something being shot can be heard as the activists hold strong and continue their peaceful stand into the night:
At least three water protectors were arrested, Reuters reports. Participants in the action also claimed on social media that the police were firing rubber bullets, and alleged that one person was struck by a police snowmobile and taken in an ambulance from the scene:
“On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, ND law enforcement shot at and tear gassed people praying and expressing their 1st amendment rights,” observed Dakota/Lakota Sioux writer Ruth Hopkins on Twitter.
And despite widespread condemnation of such aggressive tactics, the police appear to be ramping up their presence. The Indigenous Environmental Network’s Dallas Goldtooth posted photos on Facebook Tuesday of “an AN/TWQ-1 Avenger vehicle,” a surface-to-air missile system, overlooking the protest camp.
Human rights groups are outraged over President Donald Trump’s plan to publish a “weekly list of crimes” committed by immigrants living in sanctuary cities.
The foreboding proposal, which was part of several executive orders cracking down on immigration and refugees, is “shocking in the extreme,” Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
“This is completely consistent with Trump’s xenophobic demonizing of immigrants throughout the campaign, of course, but the idea of a public list like this—a kind of weekly hate list—is still shocking in the extreme,” the group’s European media director, Andrew Stroehlein, told the Independent. “The measures this administration has announced against immigrants in its first few days will devastate families—including U.S. citizen families, naturally—and terrorize communities across the country.”
Trump’s plan read:
All this comes despite the fact that evidence points to immigrants being less likely than non-immigrants to commit crimes in the U.S., rather than the other way around.
The language echoes Trump’s infamously xenophobic campaign rhetoric, including his first speech as a candidate in 2016 calling Mexicans criminals and rapists—and is part of a series of sweeping executive actions on immigration, including an order to start construction on a border wall and a freeze on visas to immigrants from several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
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And it comes straight from the rightwing propaganda playbook. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate crimes, noted that the order is reminiscent of content published at extremist website Breitbart News, which “has championed such hardline anti-immigrant ideas for years.”
Several White House staffers joined the team directly from the outlet—most notably, Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
Moreover, Wednesday’s orders broaden the definition of who is considered a criminal, as the New York Times pointed out, extending to anyone who crosses the border without documents or “abused any public benefits program.” (Under former President Barack Obama, only those who had committed serious crimes, were considered national security threats, or had arrived recently were targeted for deportation.)
“Mr. Trump is opening the door to deporting far more unauthorized immigrants than previous administrations,” the Times‘ Jennifer Medine wrote.
Amnesty International’s U.K. Refugee Program director, Steve Symonds, warned, “Singling out a section of society in such an obviously negative way would be reckless.”
“It risks seriously adding to fear and anxiety—already dangerously inflamed by poisonous rhetoric, including from the U.S. president—relating to migrants and those perceived to be migrants,” he said.
The orders were met Wednesday with widespread resistance from self-designated sanctuary cities, as mayor after mayor vowed to protect their undocumented residents.
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of a presidential memorandum Donald Trump is expected to sign within days suspends a 2010 rule that discouraged American companies from funding conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo through their purchase of “conflict minerals.”
The memo, distributed inside the administration on Friday afternoon and obtained by The Intercept, directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to temporarily waive the requirements of the Conflict Mineral Rule, a provision of the Dodd Frank Act, for two years — which the rule explicitly allows the president to do for national security purposes. The memorandum also directs the State Department and Treasury Department to find an alternative plan to “address such problems in the DRC and adjoining countries.”
The idea behind the rule, which had bipartisan support, was to drain militias of revenue by forcing firms to conduct reviews of their supply chain to determine if contractors used minerals sourced from the militias.
The impending decision comes as Trump held a meeting Wednesday with Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, one of the leading firms impacted by conflict mineral regulations. At the White House today, Krzanich appeared with the president to announce a new manufacturing plant in Arizona.
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Human rights advocates — who had celebrated the conflicts rule as a major step forward — were appalled. “Any executive action suspending the U.S. conflict minerals rule would be a gift to predatory armed groups seeking to profit from Congo’s minerals as well as a gift to companies wanting to do business with the criminal and the corrupt,” said Carly Oboth, the policy adviser at Global Witness, in a statement responding to a Reuters article that first reported the move.
“It is an abuse of power that the Trump administration is claiming that the law should be suspended through a national security exemption intended for emergency purposes. Suspending this provision could actually undermine U.S. national security.”
Lawyers for a 22-year-old “Dreamer” named Daniela Vargas, whose parents brought her to the United States from Argentina when she was just seven years old, say she faces deportation without a hearing after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained her Wednesday morning.
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Her arrest came just after she addressed an immigrant rights news conference in Jackson, Mississippi—and on the heels of remarks by President Donald Trump that supposedly indicated a softened stance on people like Vargas, undocumented immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
Vargas is currently being held without bond at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, according to her attorneys, who filed a stay of removal Friday. The Clarion-Ledger reports that “[i]f the stay is denied, Vargas could be deported to Argentina in two to three weeks.”
CNN reported Friday morning: “Her attorneys are working to prepare a package with personal statements about Vargas from people who know her, in hopes of it landing in sympathetic hands that will grant her a trial instead of immediate deportation.”
Vargas released a statement through her lawyers on Thursday evening:
Vargas had applied for renewal of her expired DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status before being detained on Wednesday. But Abby Peterson, one of her lawyers, told the Jackson Free Press that it “appears that immigration officers are not taking her application into consideration.”
The Free Press further reported:
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Writing Thursday at The Nation, Julianne Hing put Vargas’ detention and potential deportation in the context of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“When Obama was in the White House, the safest place for young undocumented immigrants like Vargas was in the public eye,” Hing wrote. “Declaring one’s immigration status provided a kind of political protection from being seized by immigration agents. The federal government was sensitive to being publicly shamed for pursuing the ‘wrong’ undocumented immigrants for removal.”
“Those like Ms. Vargas just want a better life for themselves and their families and are true believers in the American dream—they should not be pushed further into the shadows.” —U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi
“What Vargas’s detention shows is that those days are over,” she continued. “The Trump administration is upending the unspoken norms of how the federal government will deal with undocumented immigrants. The once-safe places do not exist as such anymore. Those who were once the most sympathetic immigrants now join millions of other undocumented immigrants as the new targets.”
One rally was taking place Friday afternoon at the Mississippi state capitol building calling for Vargas’ release, while another was planned for later in the day outside the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C.
A petition is currently circulating demanding the same.
“Our country must have immigration policies that are constitutional and remain true to our values,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement. “Ms. Vargas appears to have committed no crime and was only speaking out on behalf of her family, who is threatened by this President’s misguided immigration agenda. ICE’s assertion that her detention is ‘routine’ is absurd and seems anything but. Clearly, ICE resources used in this case would have been better utilized to find and detain dangerous criminals and get them off our streets.”
“As a DACA recipient she should be allowed to stay here,” Thompson said. “Those like Ms. Vargas just want a better life for themselves and their families and are true believers in the American dream—they should not be pushed further into the shadows.”
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Creating the nation’s largest local TV station conglomerate—and raising the frightening prospect of a network that would rival Fox News—conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Monday it will buy Tribune Media for $3.9 billion.
Craig Aaron, president of the communications watchdog organization Free Press, called the deal “a scandal,” while former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner and Common Cause adviser Michael Copps said it was both “expected and disappointing.”
“Expected because the new FCC majority is foaming at the mouth to rubber stamp more massive media mergers,” Copps explained, “and disappointing because Sinclair is not known for the best journalism in the land, to put it mildly. Our nation’s civic dialogue suffers yet another blow with this merger.”
The deal must still be approved by the Trump administration’s FCC, which has “signaled its openness to media consolidation,” CNN notes.
Indeed, the FCC recently voted to reinstate a technical loophole called the UHF discount, thereby allowing broadcast companies to exceed the limit on how much of a nationwide audience they can reach. At the time, Jessica J. González, Free Press deputy director and senior counsel, said the decision was favorable for Sinclair and other big broadcasters, and as the New York Times reported Monday, “[t]he change effectively lowered Sinclair’s coverage of American households to about 25 percent, from a current limit of 39 percent, freeing it to pursue acquisitions.”
Now, if the merger is approved, 42 Tribune stations would be added to the Sinclair empire of 173 TV stations, many of which are affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and the CW. As the LA Times wrote, the deal “would give Sinclair a presence in the top three TV markets, with KTLA in Los Angeles, WPIX in New York, and WGN in Chicago.” Sinclair would also gain Tribune’s ownership stakes in the Food Network and CareerBuilder.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the merger would give Sinclair ownership or control of TV stations in 72 percent of the United States.
“There has also been speculation that Sinclair, with the addition of Tribune’s portfolio, could try to launch a rival to Fox News, though the company has not commented on the possibility,” media critic Brian Stelter noted at CNN.
Already, the New York Times wrote last week, Sinclair has used its existing network of local stations “to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda since the presidency of George W. Bush.”
The Times reported:
“More recently, Jared Kushner, [President Donald] Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser in the White House, said at a meeting with business executives that the Trump campaign had reached an agreement with Sinclair to give more access to Mr. Trump and the campaign under the condition that the interviews be broadcast without commentary on the company’s affiliates, according to two people who had attended the meeting but were not authorized to discuss it,” the Times added. “Taped in Sinclair’s Washington bureau, the interviews with Mr. Trump were broadcast across several swing states.”
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The Washington Post further reported Monday that “[i]n the most recent campaign, [Washington, D.C. station] WJLA, and Sinclair stations around the country, gave a disproportionate amount of neutral or favorable coverage to candidate Donald Trump compared with his rival, Hillary Clinton, according to internal documents supplied by people at WJLA.”
The Post continued:
All this raises significant alarm for media watchdogs like Aaron, who said Monday: “Sure looks like a quid pro quo: friendly coverage and full employment for ex-Trump mouthpieces in exchange for a green light to get as big as Sinclair wants. I feel terrible for the local journalists who will be forced to set aside their news judgment to air Trump-administration talking points and reactionary commentaries from Sinclair’s headquarters.”
“This deal would have been DOA in any other administration,” he said, “but the Trump FCC isn’t just approving it; they’re practically arranging it.”
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Mick Schumacher will make his official entry into F1 next week when the young German driver takes part in the Eifel Grand Prix’s first practice session at the Nürburgring.
The current leader of the FIA Formula 2 Championship has tested for the Swiss outfit in the past – as well as with Ferrari – but it will be the first time since the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2012 that the Schumacher name will appear on an official F1 timesheet on a race weekend.
Schumacher will replace Antonio Giovinazzi in the opening free practice session, an appearance on home soil that should please the local crowd.
“I am overjoyed to get this chance in free practice,” said Schumacher. “The fact that my first participation in a Formula 1 weekend will take place in front of my home audience at the Nürburgring makes this moment even more special.
“I would like to thank Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN and the Ferrari Driver Academy for giving me the opportunity to get another taste of Formula 1 air one and a half years after our common test drive in Bahrain.
“For the next ten days I’m going to prepare myself well, so that I can do the best possible job for the team and gain some valuable data for the weekend.”
Schumacher will be joined in FP1 by fellow Ferrari Driver Academy member Callum Ilott who will take part in the session with Haas, while the Scuderia’s third hopeful in line for an F1 drive, Robert Shartzman, will be handed an FP1 outing at the end of season Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Furthermore, all three drivers are set to test a 2018 Ferrari SF71-H on Wednesday at Fiorano.
Callum Ilott handed FP1 session with Haas at Eifel GP
Alfa Romeo team boss Frédéric Vasseur said:
“There is no doubt that Mick is one of the great talents coming through the feeder series’ ranks and his recent results have been showing it,” commented the Frenchman.
“He is obviously quick, but he is also consistent and mature behind the wheel – all hallmarks of a champion in the making.
“He impressed us with his approach and work ethic in those occasions he has been with us last year and we are looking forward to working with him once more at the Nürburgring.”
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Global lifestyle apparel company, Kontoor Brands, led by labels Wrangler and Lee has announced its first set of global sustainability goals.
Wrangler and Lee have a longstanding commitment to help the impact of the fashion industry on the environment. Kontoor’s global sustainability strategy aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Its goals for the planet are to establish a science-based climate target by 2022, save ten billion litres of water by 2025 and to power 100 percent of its owned and operated facilities with renewable energy by 2025.
For the production of the product, its plan is to source 100 percent sustainable raw materials (forest-derived and animal-derived materials by 2023, cotton by 2025 and synthetics by 2030), and use 100 percent preferred chemistry by 2023.
Scott Baxter, president and CEO of Kontoor Brands, said in a statement: “Denim is known as being tough, durable and long-lasting. But the production process historically has been resource-intensive.
“We’re facing this challenge head-on by scrutinising every aspect of the denim lifecycle and investing as needed to develop more sustainable processes. With a little over one year behind us as a publicly traded company, we are proud of our initial steps in a long-term commitment to maximize value and innovate for a healthier future.”
Tim Miller, a prominent GOP operative and the former communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said Tuesday that he has donated to Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones’s campaign in Alabama.
“I just donated to a Democrat for the first time in my life if any of yall want to do so as well,” Miller, a partner at the consulting firm Definers Public Affairs, tweeted.
I just donated to a Democrat for the first time in my life if any of yall want to do so as well. Enough is enough. https://t.co/YlDXTXSnyJ
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) November 21, 2017
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The move comes as Alabama GOP special election nominee Roy Moore faces allegations that he pursued sexual and romantic relations with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.
While Moore has forcefully denied most of the allegations, including one from a woman who says she was 14 years old when she had a sexual encounter with Moore, he has faced calls from GOP officials across the country to withdraw from the race.
President Trump broke his relative silence on Moore on Tuesday, stressing that the former state Supreme Court chief justice has denied the allegations.
“We don’t need a liberal Democrat in that seat,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Miller has spoken critically of Trump in the past, and previously led the anti-Trump super PAC “Our Principles.” He’s currently a contributor to Crooked Media, a website founded by three aides to former President Obama.
Michigan state Senator Steve Bieda (D) on Wednesday announced that he will run for the state’s open seat in the 9th Congressional District now that Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) has officially said he will retire when his current term ends.
In an announcement, Bieda praised Levin for his many years in Congress and thanked constituents in the district who have urged him to launch a bid.
“Working families in the 9th Congressional District need leadership that is proven, steady and strong,” he said.
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“As your congressman, I pledge to never stop fighting for good jobs for the middle class, to protect our Great Lakes and to hold elected officials to the highest ethical standards.”
Bieda has served as a Michigan state senator since 2011 and previously served as a state representative.
He also took a shot at President TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE in the announcement, saying that there is no room to vote for someone who has to learn on the job because “the stakes are too high.”
“In this day and age, there is no room for error and no room for a congressperson who needs on-the-job training for how to pass a bill or to win bipartisan legislative support on progressive issues,” Bieda said.
“With Donald Trump in the White House, the stakes are too high.”
There was speculation Bieda would launch a bid for the House seat after it was reported that Levin would not run for reelection in 2018.
Levin in his retirement announcement said he plans to join the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy after he departs from Congress.
Former Rep. John ConyersJohn James ConyersFormer impeachment managers clash over surveillance bill VA could lead way for nation on lower drug pricing The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Dems release first transcripts from impeachment probe witnesses MORE Jr., another Michigan Democrat who served for decades in the House, announced Tuesday that he would retire immediately after weeks of being embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal.
After the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) approval of a sweeping new deportation guidelines last week, new reporting on Monday revealed that the aggressive plan has already been endorsed by the recently installed Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The guidelines, signed by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and dated Friday, would empower federal authorities to “hire thousands of additional enforcement agents, expand the pool of immigrants who are prioritized for removal, speed up deportation hearings, and enlist local law enforcement to help make arrests,” the Washington Post reported.
Also under the new guidelines, parents of unaccompanied minors who travel from Mexico and Central America “could be prosecuted if they are found to have paid smugglers to bring the children across the border,” according to The Post.
After the the memo was first reported, an unnamed White House official told reporters that the rules are still “under review by the White House Counsel’s Office.”
But as McClatchy‘s Franco Ordoñez pointed out on Monday, Sessions, the controversial new head of the Department of Justice, had specifically called for these harsh terms months prior while still serving in Congress, suggesting that the memos “are not out of the mainstream of Trump administration thinking in spite of the White House insistence that the orders have not yet been approved.”
What’s more, Ordoñez noted that “former Sessions aide Stephen Miller is now a top adviser to Trump and is believed to have been behind Trump’s controversial immigration executive orders.”
He reported:
“Strong leadership and a commitment to the faithful execution of the laws on the books would convey a clear message to the world that if you come to the United States illegally, you will be removed,” read the letter, which was co-authored by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and obtained by McClatchy.
Coming amid a widespread immigration crackdown, with deportation raids now targeting law-abiding and long-term residents, the new terms raised alarm among rights groups who say they violate fundamental human rights.
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“This is immigration enforcement under Trump: due process, human decency, and common sense are treated as inconvenient obstacles on the path to mass deportation,” Joanne Lin, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a Friday statement. “The Trump administration is intent on inflicting cruelty on millions of immigrant families across the country.”
“Immigrants and allies have proven that we can fight back against Trump,” Lin vowed, “and we will not allow his radical, unprecedented combination of unconstitutional actions and terrible policy to become our reality.”
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