Tips, Comments, Complaints, Etc!

In N.H. stop, Sanders says he’ll run for Senate re-election as an independent

Bernie Sanders said he’ll run for re-election next year as an independent candidate.

The 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and independent senator from Vermont made the news in an interview with the Monitor on Sunday evening after energizing Democratic activists packed into the American Legion hall in Rollinsford, along the Maine border. Sanders’s trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state was his second in less than two months, sparking more speculation that he just may run again for the White House in 2020.

But before any potential 2020 White House run, the former Burlington, Vt., mayor and congressman must deal with his 2018 re-election for a third term in the U.S. Senate.

“I am an independent, and I have always run in Vermont as an independent, while I caucus with the Democrats in the United States Senate,” Sanders said. “That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”

While running as an independent next year doesn’t prevent Sanders from making another bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, pundits said running as a Democrat in 2018 may have been a signal of his 2020 intentions.

Earlier, Sanders received repeated standing ovations as he headlined a Strafford County Democratic Committee fundraising dinner.

Sanders to run as an independent in 2018

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has confirmed that he will run for re-election in the Senate as an independent in 2018, despite recent pressure from some Democrats to join the party.

Sanders told Fox News of his decision to hold onto his independent status during an interview Sunday night.

“I am an independent and I have always run in Vermont as an independent, while I caucus with the Democrats in the United States Senate. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and that’s what I’ll continue to do,” Sanders told Fox News.
Sanders had been facing pressure from some Democrats to officially run as a member of the Democratic party. Sanders caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

One Democratic National Committee (DNC) member, Bob Mulholland, had introduced a resolution at the party’s fall meeting that would have demanded Sanders and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) run as Democrats in the future.

However, the resolution failed, falling short of the simple majority it needed to pass.

Bernie Sanders is coming to rally with candidates in Somerville and Cambridge

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning to rally with candidates running for city council, school board and the board of aldermen in Somerville and Cambridge.

Monday’s visit is meant to highlight candidates running in elections nationwide in November who have been endorsed by Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sanders’ unsuccessful presidential campaign.

Our Revolution Somerville member Rand Wilson says the group has been organizing for months to continue the revolution started by the Sanders’ campaign by focusing on more local political contests.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, will be campaigning with 17 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution Somerville and Our Revolution Cambridge.

This is a shame as he was one of my favorite candidates to keep an eye on:

Paul Perry Drops Out of Primary in Pennsylvania Race

Democrat Paul Perry is dropping out of the crowded primary against Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Pat Meehan, even after garnering attention for a campaign video highlighting his personal story.

Perry had a background in education and worked for a nonprofit supporting children of LGBT parents. Perry was raised by gay fathers, both veterans (in his campaign video, Perry joked, “I had gay parents before it was cool”).

In a statement about his decision shared first with Roll Call, Perry said he was discouraged by the fundraising demands of a congressional campaign.

“As I depart this race, I leave with grave questions about the sustainability of our democracy,” Perry said. “It is awash in money and influence-peddling on both sides of the aisle. The barriers to entry for everyday citizens (most of the middle class) and true public servants are far too high.”
In the most recent fundraising quarter, Perry raised the third highest amount of money in the field of seven Democrats, raking in $62,000.

But that paled in comparison to state Sen. Daylin Leach, who raised $403,000. Dan Muroff, who worked as a House chief of staff and a Philadelphia Democratic ward leader, raised nearly $117,000. Muroff ended the quarter with $20,000 more in cash on hand than Leach.

Perry had the backing of New Politics, a bipartisan group that supports candidates with public service backgrounds, and Brand New Congress, a group formed by former campaign staffers for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

DNC creates new restrictions for corporate donations

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Saturday passed a resolution banning donations from corporate contributors whose areas of interest come into conflict with the DNC’s stated values.

The resolution, which was introduced by California member Christine Pelosi, passed unanimously. Pelosi is the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Pelosi has introduced similar resolutions before that were shot down over concerns over which industries the measures would target.

The move was celebrated on Twitter by progressive members of the Democratic Party who have been pushing to reduce corporate influence in the party.
An online petition started by Pelosi indicates that the resolution was designed to target “gun, tobacco, payday lender, and other corporate donations counter to our values.”

“Thnx Pelosi for taking a stand. Admire that you have always been for eliminating these positions of cronyism,” wrote Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Twitter.

The resolution’s strength in the DNC is unclear. Hours after the resolution passed, Pelosi warned that DNC officials were whispering that the vote is not legally binding, allowing DNC Chair Tom Perez to ignore it. Pelosi issued a call on her Twitter account, challenging Perez to uphold the vote of DNC members.

If anyone is sitting around waiting on ideas from centrists… they will be waiting quite a while.
Centrist Democrats’ biggest dilemma: Where are the big ideas?

Moderate Democrats are increasingly wary of their party’s ascendant liberal wing, which has grown louder and more influential since Donald Trump’s election.

But in at least one key way, Democratic centrists say they’d benefit from imitating their progressive counterparts: Coming up with — and then relentlessly promoting — big policy ideas.

In a party desperate to find its way back to power after last year’s electoral wipeout, economic populists in the mold of Bernie Sanders have thus far dominated the conversation, using far-reaching plans such as single-payer health care or tuition-free college to pull the Democrats’ center of gravity to the left.

Their agenda has drawn pushback, but leaders of the centrist Democratic faction say mere objections aren’t enough —they need their own marquee proposals to truly compete for the party’s heart and soul.

“There are a lot of really big ideas and changes, and there need to be more,” said Will Marshall, who runs the new centrist Democratic group New Democracy. “We’re not at the end of this quest. We’re embarking on it.”

Centrist Democrats generally differ rhetorically from their liberal counterparts in their focus on economic opportunity instead of economic inequality, on working with business instead of expanding government programs. But the rhetoric, party strategists say, has to be buffeted by serious, attractive proposals that can win converts and drive conversations.

“You gotta have a bunch of big ideas that support your vision,” said Matt Bennett, senior vice president at the centrist Democratic group Third Way. “It’s not enough to say, ‘We’ve gotta tackle opportunity.’ We’ve gotta have ideas to do that.”

This fight isn’t over James J Zogby

Having come through a difficult 2016 primary campaign and a hotly contested 2017 race for party chair, what Democrats desperately need is to unify their ranks to confront the challenges they will face in the 2018 mid-term elections and beyond. What happened over the last three days of Democratic National Committee (DNC) meetings not only didn’t contribute to unity, it added to our division. It hasn’t been an easy three days.

There were a few personal setbacks. The new chair removed me and a few other colleagues from the party’s executive committee. What we all had in common was that, earlier this year, we had been supporters of the losing candidate in the contest for chair. To make matters worse, someone started an ugly rumour that attempted to implicate me and two of my close associates from the Sanders’ campaign in an effort to challenge the presence of three prominent African American women who had just been nominated to serve on the DNC.

Both the removals and the rumours were not only wrong and hurtful, they were political blunders in that they deepened divisions and became negative news stories that cast a pall over the proceedings.

Despite the upbeat tone of the speeches delivered by party leaders at public sessions, the reality is that Democrats face serious problems. Over the past nine years, we’ve lost more than 1,000 state legislative seats, 12 governorships, and nine seats in the Senate and 62 in the House, resulting in our loss of control of both houses of Congress.

As a first step to secure unity, Democrats must make a determined effort to engage supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Dismissing or ignoring this imperative can be fatal. The two camps are real and the wounds left from the 2016 contest are still open sores. The charge made by Clinton during her recent book tour that Sanders cost her the election only served to fan the fires of division.

DNC enters 2018 in cash panic

The Democratic National Committee is reeling, facing a turnaround that’s proving a much bigger lift than anyone expected as it struggles to raise enough money to cover its basic promises.

Many donors are refusing to write checks. And on-the-ground operatives worry they won’t have the resources to build the infrastructure they need to compete effectively in next year’s midterms and in the run-up to 2020.

Here in the halls of Bally’s hotel and casino for the DNC’s fall meeting through the weekend, state committee chairs and operatives echoed a now-common concern among donors and strategists: The DNC’s recovery is still a ways away, and that could have serious repercussions for the party in the coming years.

“Donors, small and large, are so over the party,” said Nebraska party chair Jane Kleeb, summing up the problem facing DNC chairman Tom Perez and his counterparts in the states. Kleeb, who is working on grass-roots fundraising efforts for the committee, said she believes the money will come eventually.

..

The financial challenges reflect a broader struggle at a committee led by a chairman who is new to party politics — and on a steep learning curve at a time when national Democrats are still searching for an identity after a historic loss. And it’s not just donors who are staying away as the Perez-led group promises an expansive set of new investments and innovations. The party’s old leaders, led by former President Barack Obama, have kept their involvement to a minimum, as well.

So with 2018’s midterms presenting a clear opportunity for Democrats to leap forward, the worry is that they simply may not be prepared in time. While the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms — and individual candidates — are having no problem raising funds, the comparatively anemic cash flow at the central committee and state branches could affect organizing efforts on the ground across the country.

Thanks for coming out in Austin today!! On our way to New Braunfels, 6:30PM at Krause’s Cafe. See you soon! pic.twitter.com/NIJotuTZHI

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 22, 2017

Thanks to all who came out to our discussion on the effects of stuttering. I still struggle with a stutter from time to time. pic.twitter.com/dPxVTy56Af

— Ben Jealous (@BenJealous) October 22, 2017

Another reason I'm running:
New pipelines can end up locking in fossil fuels longer#FlipNY11https://t.co/VhZm8jEbNh via @EnvDefenseFund

— Michael De Vito Jr. (@mdevitojr) October 22, 2017

Boerne. Area. Democrats. Y'all.
Huge turnout for the Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner. #tx21 pic.twitter.com/u9gIzxIWeu

— Derrick Crowe (@electcrowe) October 22, 2017

What an amazing night at the Planned Parenthood Gala! #crosbyforcongress #IStandwithPP #PlannedParenthood pic.twitter.com/9QvPdn5o9R

— Richard Crosby (@R_CrosbyEsq) October 22, 2017

You won’t believe everywhere we & our ✨awesome✨ volunteers were today! THANK YOU for helping us reach more of #IN09! [thread] #HomegrownReps pic.twitter.com/1tEHgcbyPz

— Canon For Indiana (@CanonForIndiana) October 22, 2017

The Environmental Justice seminar is a packed house and lots of great information has been shared!!!! Thanks for attending!!! #OurRevolution pic.twitter.com/VBohSVbphh

— Our Revolution SC (@OurRevolutionSC) October 21, 2017

From hard-hat worker to political hardball, Randy Bryce challenges Paul Ryan for Congress

For now, Randy Bryce is the Democratic contender from central casting.

He’s a union ironworker and military veteran. A 52-year-old guy who survived a bout of cancer. A son looking out for his mother and father who are both battling health problems.

When Bryce entered the race to take on House Speaker Paul Ryan in early June, his announcement video went viral, fundraising spiked and his campaign took off like a rocket.

..

The marathon, underdog campaign to knock off Ryan in the 1st Congressional District will surely have more twists and turns.

Democrats appear to be going all in on Bryce, even though he has never won elective office, losing twice in legislative contests and once for Racine Unified School Board.

There is also another challenger in the Democratic race, Cathy Myers, a public school teacher and Janesville School Board member who is trying to ignite a local, grassroots campaign.

Myers said Ryan “doesn’t have any idea what the needs of his district are anymore. Or maybe he does have an idea, but he just doesn’t seem to care.”

Half a Million March in Massive Uprising Against Spanish Plan to Overtake Catalonia

Catalans did not take the news that Spanish Prime Minister will move to impose direct rule on their region quietly on Saturday. Nearly half a million people marched in Barcelona soon after the prime minister’s press conference.

Carles Puigdemont, president of Catalonia, joined the demonstration before a planned speech responding to Mariano Rajoy’s statement that pending the approval of the senate, which his party controls, he would remove the Catalan government from power and call for a special election in the coming months.

The protesters chanted, “Freedom!” and “Rajoy, Rajoy, so you know we are leaving!”

Ordering Search for Sponsor, Appeals Court Further Delays Jane Doe’s Fight to Have An Abortion

The American Civil Liberties Union pushed back against a Washington, D.C. appeals court decision announced Friday in the case of Jane Doe, an undocumented immigrant who is currently in need of abortion care.

In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court gave the government 11 days to find a sponsor for the 17-year-old, such as a family member living in the United States, instead of upholding a lower court’s earlier order to simply allow the girl to have an abortion.

Jane Doe, as she is called in court documents, is 15 weeks pregnant and currently in a shelter in Texas under supervision of the Health and Human Services Department. Texas bans most abortions after 20 weeks.

“She’s already suffered weeks of delays, which the government has no business doing,” said Jennifer Dalven, one of the ACLU lawyers representing the young woman, in an interview with the Washington Post.

The dissenting opinion of Judge Patricia A. Millett did not mince words, calling the majority’s decision “wrong” and “unconstitutional.”

“Forcing her to continue an unwanted pregnancy just in the hopes of finding a sponsor that has not been found in the past six weeks sacrifices J.D.’s constitutional liberty, autonomy, and personal dignity for no justifiable governmental reason,” wrote Judge Millett.

Senate Republicans (and One Democrat) Team Up to Open Arctic to Big Oil Plunder

In addition to mounting a “horrific” assault on life-saving social safety net programs like Medicaid and Medicaid, the GOP-crafted budget resolution passed by 51 Republican senators late Thursday also lays the groundwork for “drastic cuts” to programs that help shield the nation’s land, air, and water from exploitation by big polluters.

“Adding insult to injury,” 51 Republicans also teamed up with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to thwart an amendment to their budget that would have barred drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

In a statement on Friday, Jennie Olson of Environment America said the GOP’s decision to kill the amendment—crafted by a group of Senate Democrats—opens the pristine refuge to “irreversible damage…just so corporate polluters can make a profit.”

“This is the wrong budget for our health, environment, and kids,” Olson concluded. “With the strong support of the American public, we must fight to ensure that this short-sighted provision to authorize oil and gas development in the iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not a part of any final budget reconciliation package.”

Under Trump, Brags Mike Pompeo, CIA Will Be ‘Much More Vicious Agency’

According to Mike Pompeo, the agency he leads—which has supported coups across the globe, engaged in targeted killings, and led a detention and torture program—has not been nasty enough.

Speaking Thursday at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies forum, the CIA director, who has signaled suport for torture, said “we’ve now laid out a strategy for how we’re going to execute our strategy with incredible vigor. We’re going to become a much more vicious agency in ensuring that we are delivering this work. We are going to go to the hardest places with some of the hardest people and of our organization to crush it.”

President Donald Trump, he said, “has promised that he will have our backs and that he will resource us.”

Corporate TV Drops the Ball on Climate Change by Amy Goodman

Legendary independent journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone often cautioned, “All governments lie.” But even Izzy would have been dizzy with the deluge of lies pouring out of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump’s claim that human-induced climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to hurt the U.S. economy. Global warming has exacerbated recent catastrophic events from Houston to Miami to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and, now, to raging fires sweeping across California. The corporate TV weather reporting aids and abets Trump’s misinformation by consistently ignoring the role of climate change in this string of disasters.

California fires took thousands of homes. Now rent in hardest-hit areas is soaring

Last week, Jeff Sugarman escaped his burning home in Santa Rosa, California. This week he faced the horrors of the region’s housing market.

One of the first inquiries Sugarman made was about a rental house nearby that was listed for $3,700 a month on Zillow. But when he emailed about seeing it, the owner told him the price had soared.

“He said insurance companies had been calling him all day and they were willing to pay $4,700 to $5,000 (to house fire victims) so I’d better be prepared to pay more,” Sugarman said, adding that he told the landlord he was “appalled” and “this was wrong”.

Sugarman passed the communications to the local newspaper and the US justice department, which he said was investigating price gouging in the wake of the northern California fires that killed at least 42 people and destroyed 8,400 buildings.

A spokesman for the California state attorney general’s office said investigators planned to enforce a price gouging provision in the state penal code that prohibits anyone from raising prices more than 10% following the declaration of a state of emergency.

Jimmy Carter says he is willing to go to North Korea on peace mission

In an interview marked by conciliatory remarks regarding Donald Trump and his administration, Jimmy Carter said he was willing to travel to North Korea in an attempt to soften tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.

Speaking to the New York Times mostly about foreign policy, the 93-year-old former president also said Trump was not solely to blame for damage to America’s world image.

“The media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” he said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”

Trump has engaged in a war of words with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, often via Twitter and with liberal use of a mocking nickname, “Little Rocket Man”. The president has also undercut efforts by his secretary of state to talk to Pyongyang, repeatedly suggesting that only military action will work, and used his maiden speech to the United Nations to threaten to “totally destroy” the country.

..

Carter said he was “afraid” of nuclear conflict between the US and North Korea. “They want to save their regime [and have] now got advanced nuclear weaponry that can destroy the Korean peninsula and Japan, and some of our outlying territories in the Pacific, maybe even our mainland.” Carter had indicated a willingness to talk peace with North Korea last month, according to an academic at the University of Georgia.

Trump has pressed China to help rein in Pyongyang but Carter said “we greatly overestimate China’s influence on North Korea. Particularly to Kim.” The North Korean leader has “never, so far as I know, been to China”, Carter said. “And they have no relationship. Kim Jong-il [the current leader’s father] did go to China and was very close to them.”

Asked if Trump was responsible for souring America’s image in the world, he said “he might be escalating it but I think that precedes Trump. The United States has been the dominant character in the whole world and now we’re not any more. And we’re not going to be. Russia’s coming back and India and China are coming forward.”

Post-hurricane cleanup work could kill more workers than storms themselves

More workers could die from the long-term effects of cleaning up after hurricanes Harvey and Irma than were killed by the storms, according to a nationwide network of workplace health and safety groups.

The mainland US death toll for the two hurricanes, which battered Texas and Florida in August and September, now stands at approximately 200 people. But according to Jessica Martinez, executive director of National Council of Occupation Safety and Health (Cosh), a nationwide network of workplace health and safety groups, a greater number of people will die cleaning up in their wake “if more resources aren’t put into health and safety training from post-cleanup.”

And local work safety groups said federal officials have been conspicuously absent from meetings about worker safety.

José Garza, former associate deputy assistant secretary for policy at Department of Labor under Obama, and now executive director of the Texas-based Workers Defense Project, said he had been working with more than 60 organizers in communities in Texas since the storm and had yet to meet with any high-ranking government officials. “Ultimately, the lives of workers are too important for us to sit back and do nothing,” he said.

The ‘Ali summit’: a turning point in sports’ fight against injustice

In 1967, athletes put their weight behind Muhammad Ali after he refused to be drafted. Fifty years later, NFL players are again taking a political stand

Cub Scout kicked out of group after grilling Colorado Republican on guns

A Cub Scout was kicked out of his group after he questioned a Colorado Republican lawmaker about gun control and contentious comments she made about African Americans.

The story, which spread via social media, represents another political flashpoint for the Boy Scouts of America, of which the Cub Scouts is a part. The organisation faced harsh criticism this summer, after President Donald Trump used a speech at its national jamboree to rail against “fake news” and Barack Obama, boast about beating Hillary Clinton and reminisce about his hedonistic life in New York.

At a group meeting in Broomfield, Colorado, earlier this month, Cub Scouts were told to come prepared to talk to state senator Vicki Marble about issues important to them. Lori Mayfield, the mother of 11-year-old Ames Mayfield, posted footage of ensuing exchanges online.

Reading from a printed sheet, her son asked Marble about “commonsense gun control”. “I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun,” he said. “… Why on earth would you want someone who beats their wife to have access to a gun?”

The boy also mentioned a vote to repeal background checks on private gun sales, support for concealed carry without a permit, and the struggles of some victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting to afford healthcare for the injuries.

At a group meeting in Broomfield, Colorado, earlier this month, Cub Scouts were told to come prepared to talk to state senator Vicki Marble about issues important to them. Lori Mayfield, the mother of 11-year-old Ames Mayfield, posted footage of ensuing exchanges online.

Reading from a printed sheet, her son asked Marble about “commonsense gun control”. “I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun,” he said. “… Why on earth would you want someone who beats their wife to have access to a gun?”

..

The boy also mentioned a vote to repeal background checks on private gun sales, support for concealed carry without a permit, and the struggles of some victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting to afford healthcare for the injuries.

Americans want a tax on carbon pollution, but how to get one?

According to a new study published by Yale scientists in Environmental Research Letters, Americans are willing to pay a carbon tax that would increase their household energy bills by $15 per month, or about 15%, on average. This result is consistent with a survey from last year that also found Americans are willing to pay an average of $15 to $20 per month to combat climate change. Another recent Yale survey found that overall, 78% of registered American voters support taxing and/or regulating carbon pollution, including 67% of Republicans and 60% of conservative Republicans.

This raises the question – with such broad support across the political spectrum, why doesn’t America have a carbon tax in place by now? Study co-author Anthony Leiserowitz noted the similarity to public support for many gun control policies:

Policy elites sometimes have ideological stances quite different than their constituents, even of their own party (e.g., background checks on gun purchases in the US which is overwhelmingly favored by Democrats and Republicans).

Public support often doesn’t translate into policy. On the issue of gun control, Republican lawmakers are afraid that if they vote for even the most benign policies like requiring background checks for all gun purchases, the NRA will mobilize its supporters against them. In primary races with relatively low turnout, with partisans more likely to vote, Republican lawmakers fear that mobilizing even a relatively small minority of opposition voters could cost them their jobs. On the issue of climate change and carbon taxes, they have the same fear of the Koch network.

In short, the wealthy and powerful have more influence over American policy than average voters.

US prepping nuclear bombers for 24-hour ready alert status

The U.S. Air Force is readying its nuclear bombers for 24-hour alert status, according to a Defense One report.

“This is yet one more step in ensuring that we’re prepared,” the Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. David Goldfein, told the news outlet in an interview.

“I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward.”
The Air Force has yet to receive the order, according to Defense One. But if it does, it would be the first time B-52 bombers equipped with nuclear weapons are moved to the end of base runways since the end of the Cold War.

Mueller shifts to Tony Podesta, Democratic lobbying firm: report

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group, according to an NBC News report.

Mueller, who is leading the investigation into Russia’s attempts to meddle in the United States election, is reportedly probing the firm to determine whether it violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in its work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU). The non-profit ECMU was part of a public relations campaign run by former President Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to support Ukraine’s reputation.

The Podesta Group “is cooperating fully with the Special Counsel’s office and has taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms timely compliance. In all of our client engagements, the Podesta Group conducts due diligence and consults with appropriate legal experts to ensure compliance with disclosure regulations at all times — and we did so in this case,” according to a statement provided to the news network.

FBI watched, then acted as Russian spy moved closer to Hillary Clinton

As Hillary Clinton was beginning her job as President Obama’s chief diplomat, federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin’s machine unleashed an influence campaign designed to win access to the new secretary of State, her husband Bill Clinton and members of their inner circle, according to interviews and once-sealed FBI records.

Some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal.

A female Russian spy posing as an American accountant, for instance, used a false identity to burrow her way into the employ of a major Democratic donor in hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton’s department, records show. The spy was arrested and deported as she moved closer to getting inside the secretary’s department, agents said.

Other activities were perfectly legal and sitting in plain view, such as when a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled nuclear energy company hired a Washington firm to lobby the Obama administration. At the time it was hired, the firm was providing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in pro bono support to Bill Clinton’s global charitable initiative, and it legally helped the Russian company secure federal decisions that led to billions in new U.S. commercial nuclear business, records show.

Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News

Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary, and “classic propaganda” could soon reach three-quarters of US households.

Where Native Kids Were Sent To Be Americanized

In the late 19th century, the US government opened the first of 25 off-reservation “American Indian boarding schools.” Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were bused to the schools as part of a federal effort to inculcate them with Judeo-Christian values and speed their assimilation.

The last of these schools, the Sherman Institute, opened in Riverside, California, in 1903. In a new photo book, Shadows of Sherman Institute, co-authors Cliff Trafzer, Jeffrey Smith, Lorene Sisquoc (curator of the Sherman Indian Museum) tell the story of the school and its students with the help of more than 150 rarely seen images.

“It’s a hidden part of American history,” says Trafzer, a professor of American Indian History at the University of California-Riverside who began working with the school, now Sherman Indian High School, in 1991. “Few people know about the boarding school system and the United States government taking children and bringing them to these schools, separating them from their families and their communities on purpose.”

Many of the photos show students learning practical skills, such as sewing, smithing, or shoemaking. Those that appear staged, Trafzer says, were typically used by administrators to lobby for more federal funding.

“Yes, they were teaching English, a little bit of math and science, but the emphasis was on making it a trade school—to make Native Americans useful,” he says. “To make them part of broader society. It was part of the assimilation program of the United States, to totally change them. That’s what we’re seeing. An attempt to destroy that which was Indian and re-create people in the image of White America.”

6 people arrested in pipeline protest Saturday are identified by state police, charged with criminal trespass

The six people arrested Saturday while attempting to block construction of the Atlantic Sunrise gas pipeline in West Hempfield Township were identified Sunday by state police.

Only one of the people charged with criminal trespass Saturday is from Lancaster County.

In a statement early Sunday afternoon, state police said they were asked by West Hempfield Township police to “oversee any incidents involving civil disorder” at the site.

..

According to police, the protesters entered an easement granted to Williams Partners, the parent company of the pipeline project, at 3:18 p.m. They received “numerous warnings” to leave, police said, after which time they were taken into custody.

None of the six people arrested Saturday were among a group of 23 people arrested at the site on Oct. 16.

All six were processed at the Lancaster barracks on Lincoln Highway East and were released by 6:30 p.m.

‘Landmark’ decision casts youth as official intervenors in pipeline case

In what is regarded as an unusual step, a group of 13 young people have joined together to become court sanctioned intervenors as they fight a proposed Enbridge Energy pipeline through northern Minnesota.

Intervenors are sanctioned by the state Public Utilities Commission to represent parties in contested cases. They are generally lawyers and experts hired by energy firms, clean energy organizations, environmental groups, governmental agencies and an occasional citizen or two.

It’s rare to see millennials attending a PUC hearing, or even someone not on the payroll of an organization involved in the process. But administrative law judge Ann O’Reilly accepted the argument by Youth Climate Intervenors that their generation will disproportionately feel the burden of climate change.

“In a landmark decision she granted us standing,” said Akilah Sanders-Reed, the 23-year-old who founded the group. “She acknowledged we (young people) had a stake in it and that we deserved a seat at the table. What that means is that the Youth Climate Intervenors have the same rights in that courtroom as Enbridge Energy does.”

A recent ThinkProgress article on millennial climate change activists said the organization is the only youth group nationally ever granted intervenor status in a pipeline case.

WVONGA Says Pipelines Mean More Drilling

About $8.5 billion worth of new pipeline infrastructure may help unleash West Virginia’s oil and natural industry, but environmental advocacy groups vow to continue the fight against both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“The approval of these projects marks a milestone in the evolution of West Virginia’s natural gas industry and offers the promise of economic opportunity for the state and its residents for generations to come,” said Anne Blankenship, who serves as executive director of the Mountain State’s Oil and Natural Gas Association.

“Greenlighting the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines doesn’t advance West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina communities — it threatens them by pumping fracked gas through them, releasing methane every step of the way,” countered Kelly Martin of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club.

After #NoDAPL, oil states crack down on right to protest

Earlier this year, a generally unnoticed and largely ignored but very troubling set of developments took place. Several state legislatures considered and, in some cases, enacted laws that aim to significantly limit
the right of working and oppressed communities to protest. These reactionary measures came in the wake of the militant Dakota Access Pipeline protests, Black Lives Matter protests and wide ranging anti-Trump rallies.

Nineteen different states in all sections of the country introduced and considered legislation, while four states—North and South Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee—actually passed legislation limiting the right to protest and imposing severe penalties for doing so.

In most cases, the proposed legislation came in direct response to the #NoDAPL protest that took place during most of 2016. In the four cases where anti-protest bills passed, petroleum companies lobbied exhaustively to ensure passage and received support from both Democrats and Republicans. The state of Oklahoma led the way, enacting legislation to increase significantly legal penalties against protestors and the organizations that support their activities.

As Indigenous people we exist outside of sporting arenas and welfare dependency

Indigenous and mainstream Australians often have very different ideas about the concept of “success”. For non-Indigenous Australians success opportunities are almost exclusively economic concepts, based on stolen and inherited resources and privilege. For Indigenous people, achieving this normative conceptualisation of success involves abandoning our home cultures and assimilating into the dominant culture, usually without any of the advantages of inherited wealth and privilege.

Indeed, success for Indigenous people involves coming face-to-face with the reality that we start out at the very bottom of the economic ladder because our assets and resources were stripped from our nations during Australia’s violent colonial history. Indigenous Australian activists have fought back against this structural disadvantage over the last century or so, particularly in more recent decades, and this has resulted in some wider recognition of this glaring economic reality.

Yet despite this transformation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders continue to experience some of the highest incarceration, suicide and ill-health rates in the world. For these Indigenous Australians, the barriers to success are still real and visceral. In many cases, exclusion is still the reality. There are all too often hidden – or not so hidden – barriers that prevent some Indigenous people from feeling comfortable in places of overwhelming whiteness.

Northwestern Ontario First Nation finds alternative to diesel fuel

The northwestern Ontario community of Whitesand First Nation is building a biomass and wood processing facility.

The federal and provincial governments announced on Friday in Thunder Bay that they will contribute a collective $3.76 million towards the project.

“It’s a privilege to support this project in going forward because this is exactly the kind of innovation that we need in terms of energy production for our country,” said Patty Hajdu, minister of employment, workforce development and labour and MP for Thunder Bay- Superior North.

Whitesand First Nation is approximately 250 km north of Thunder Bay and has a population of about 500.

The community currently burns diesel fuel for energy and the new biomass plant will provide a greener alternative.

“Hopefully with this new plant we will have clean energy and keep the environment clean,” said Allan Gustafson, chief of Whitesand First Nation.

The new plant will provide power to the town of Armstrong, as well as Whitesand and Collins First Nations and will help power the new wood pellet plant being built alongside the biomass plant

First Nation says governments failing to protect residents

A First Nation in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley says a promised Ontario health study needs to focus on the community surrounded by the petrochemical industry.

That’s among the steps the Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s chief and council are calling for in the wake of Toronto media reports that have raised questions about the reporting of chemical releases from area industries and the province’s enforcement of its own environmental laws.

“Parents want to make sure that their kids are always healthy and safe,” Aamjiwnaang Chief Joanne Rogers said. “That’s what we, as leaders of our community, want to ensure as well.”

Environment and Climate Change Minister Chris Ballard said in a statement the province is “committed to funding a health study to understand the localized impact of air pollution on Sarnia residents, and will be working with the communities in the coming weeks to determine how best to do that.”

Work on a Sarnia-Lambton community health study that began in 2008 stopped in June 2016 because of a lack of financial backing by the provincial and federal governments.

Are US Federal Courts Harder on Native American Offenders?

The government bulldozed my tribe’s sacred burial site. We want an apology.

What would you do if the government needlessly bulldozed your place of worship? That is what happened to me, and that is why I will be seeking justice in federal court on Monday.

I am an elder in the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, which means I help keep our traditional ways alive by passing them to future generations. For centuries, my people have worshiped in the forests surrounding Oregon’s Mount Hood in an ancient burial site known as Ana Kwna Nchi nchi Patat, or the “Place of Big Big Trees.” This place is sacred to my people. Since I was a young woman, I have visited this site to meditate, pray, gather medicine plants, perform ceremonies at a stone altar and pay respects to my ancestors.

The federal government took this land from my people in the 1850s and forced us onto a reservation. In the 1980s, we pleaded with the government to protect our site from a highway widening project, and at first, it promised to do so. But in 2008, the government broke that promise, widened the highway, and bulldozed our sacred site.

There were many ways to widen the highway while still protecting our sacred site. The government could have widened the opposite side of the highway. It could have built a retaining wall to protect our site. Or it could have built the road differently, as it did to protect nearby wetlands and even a tattoo parlor. But ultimately, when it came to our sacred site — which is like a church to us — the government unleashed the chain saws and bulldozers.

The highway expansion destroyed the altar and other burial markers, covered our ancestral burial grounds with a huge mound of dirt, cut down the tall trees, stripped the sacred medicine plants and removed safe access to the sites. To add to the insult, the government left the opposite side of the highway untouched.

I was devastated as I watched this destruction — the soil with burial markers was ripped apart like an open wound, and the tall, noble trees were cut to pieces. My heart broke when I saw that Ana Kwna Nchi nchi Patat was the “Place of Big Big Trees” no longer.

$13M settlement proposed for 2003 oil spill off Westport

More than 14 years after a barge spilled 98,000 gallons of oil into Buzzards Bay, state and federal officials have announced a proposed settlement that would require the transportation company in charge of the vessel to pay more than $13 million for damages to migratory birds and their habitats.

In April 2003, a Bouchard Transportation Company barge traveling to the power plant on the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich struck rocks south of Westport. The crash ruptured the barge’s hull and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the bay, damaging salt marshes, beaches, and hundreds of birds such as loons, seaducks, terns and shorebirds.

The settlement proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island was filed in U.S. District Court, where it must be approved before being finalized.

If the settlement is approved, it would bring the total amount of money paid to resolve claims filed by the Natural Resource Damages Trustee Council, a group comprised of several state and federal agencies, up to $19 million. Bouchard previously paid $6 million for claims on shoreline resources, piping plovers, and other damage recovery efforts.

And, while the cleanup efforts have concluded, the $13 million would go to help the future of the birds that were affected.

Thank you, friends, for such a warm and welcoming reception throughout the district this weekend. #FlipIN09 #RunWithLiz pic.twitter.com/pVHlfAt8Ob

— Liz Watson (@LizForIndiana) October 22, 2017

Here is why we're in Africa. pic.twitter.com/zjOse3S8R3

— Pam McKelvy (@PamMcKelvy) October 21, 2017