5/11 News Roundup & Open Thread – The DAPL Is Already Leaking, Sanders To Debate Kasich, Quist Gains Ground & More

Dakota Access pipeline has first leak before fully operational

The Dakota Access pipeline has suffered its first leak, outraging indigenous groups who have long warned that the project poses a threat to the environment.
The $3.8bn oil pipeline, which sparked international protests last year and is not yet fully operational, spilled 84 gallons of crude oil at a South Dakota pump station, according to government regulators.
Although state officials said the 6 April leak was contained and quickly cleaned, critics of the project said the spill, which occurred as the pipeline is in the final stages of preparing to transport oil, raises fresh concerns about the potential hazards to waterways and Native American sites.
“They keep telling everybody that it is state of the art, that leaks won’t happen, that nothing can go wrong,” said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been fighting the project for years. “It’s always been false. They haven’t even turned the thing on and it’s shown to be false.”
..
Standing Rock Sioux tribe chairman Dave Archambault II said the spill is another sign that the courts should intervene.
“Our lawsuit challenging this dangerous project is ongoing, and it’s more important than ever for the court to step in and halt additional accidents before they happen – not just for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and our resources but for the 17 million people whose drinking water is at risk,” he said in a statement.
The company and the state made no announcements about the spill after it occurred.

More from CommonDreams:

The ‘Told You So’ Everyone Was Dreading—First DAPL Spill Reported

“As far as this happening during the start-up, I don’t want to make it sound like a major event, but the fact that you had oil leaving the tank says there’s something not right with their procedures,” longtime pipeline infrastructure expert Richard B. Kuprewicz said to Dakota Media Group. “They might have been trying to hurry.”
Joye Braun, of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe (one of those still engaged in a legal battle to shut down the pipeline), cited Kuprewicz when explaining why the news was so concerning.
“This leak hits close to home, my home,” Braun said. “We have always said it’s not if, but when, pipelines leak, and to have someone like Richard B. Kuprewicz—a pipeline infrastructure expert and incident investigator with more than 40 years of energy industry experience—question the integrity and building practices of Dakota Access says something pretty serious could go wrong.”
“That worries me,” she continued. “South Dakota already faces water shortages and our livelihoods depend on water, from ranching and farming to healthcare. Do we have more spills just waiting to happen? This is our home, our land, and our water. This just proves their hastiness is fueled by greed not in the best interest for tribes or the Dakotas.”
News from elsewhere in the country this week hardly helps ETP’s case.
Following two spills of millions of gallons of drilling fluids into Ohio wetlands last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has “curtailed work” on ETP’s Rover gas pipeline, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

A lot more news in the comments. Hope to see you there!

newest oldest most voted

LieparDestin

Tips, Comments, Complaints, Etc.

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, chaos at work! Thanks as always to those who filled in.

humphrey

A question for you LD. What does the different colors of the “user name” indicate. It has me curious.

LieparDestin

I believe light blue is moderators, normal blue is people who are authors and the light green is people who can comment but need an approval for a post/diary/whatever to go through.

humphrey

Thank you.

LieparDestin

John Kasich to debate Bernie Sanders on CNN prime-time show

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has said Republicans need to reach across the aisle to solve the country’s big problems.
Next week, Kasich will take part in a bit of a bipartisan effort himself — he is scheduled to appear on CNN at 9 p.m. May 16 in a televised town hall debate with one of the darlings of national progressives — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who like Kasich unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016.
The town hall will be filmed in Washington D.C., and moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, according to CNN.

LieparDestin

CNN to host prime-time events with Pelosi, Sanders, Kasich

CNN is set to host town halls next week with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Ohio Gov. John Kasich as tensions boil in Congress over the Russia probe, the fate of Obamacare repeal and tax reform.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo will moderate the town hall with the Democratic House leader, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Trump administration, on Monday, May 15, at 9 p.m. ET.
As Senate Republicans work to reach a deal on Obamacare repeal, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate a town hall debate at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 16, between Sanders, a former Democratic presidential candidate, and Kasich, who has vowed that he won’t “sit silent” and watch the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion get “ripped out.”

CaliforniaPat

Pelosi must be feeling the competition now that she is being primaried. She will make this debate dull. Sanders and Kasich would make a lively debate by themselves.

polarbear4

Oh, too bad! They must have gotten scared by Bernie talking about single payer and other great populist policies. Have to throw in the neolibcon.

LieparDestin

I could be wrong but I think the Sanders/Kasich event is separate from the Pelosi town hall?

Cuomo with Pelosi, and then Tapper and Bash moderating Sanders/ Kasich. Or am I getting myself confused?

polarbear4

oh, good.

jcitybone

The debate is more evidence that Kasich is leaving the door open for a run against Trump in 2020 (should he last that long)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/08/it-sure-sounds-like-john-kasich-might-primary-president-trump-in-2020/?utm_term=.f62846a52c43

It’s pretty clear Kasich is leaving the door cracked open here. The “no no no” part was less a “No, I won’t run” and more intended to temper the crowd’s enthusiasm. The rest of Kasich’s comments suggest that he may very well feel called to take the plunge in 2020. At the very least, he’s conspicuously leaving it open as a possibility in a way he didn’t just six weeks ago.
Either that or he just realizes that keeping this possibility open is the best way to retain a platform. Without being Trump’s potential primary challenger, he’s just the outgoing governor of Ohio who won a state in the 2016 presidential race.
But it’s also clear that Kasich sees some value in being a prominent anti-Trump voice. He has said that he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 and has been vocally critical of the president in a way even other skeptical Republicans haven’t been. He’s even got a book coming out on the subject. Either Kasich feels called to be the conscience of his party or that’s his political angle; either one seems like motivation to potentially run in 2020.

LieparDestin

Bernie Sanders Has Announced A U.K. Book Tour

Bernie Sanders is to make a rare trip to the U.K. to coincide with the paperback release of his best-selling book Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. The book tour will take place in early June and includes appearances at the Festival of Ideas in Bristol and at the Hay book festival in Oxford. Sanders will also speak at London’s Brixton Academy, a 5000 capacity venue normally used by touring bands and artists, on June 2.

LieparDestin

Jeremy Corbyn ‘hopes’ Bernie Sanders will endorse him during UK visit next month

Jeremy Corbyn is hoping he will be endorsed by Bernie Sanders when the veteran US senator visits the UK days before the 8 June general election.
Mr Sanders is planning a whistle-stop tour of the UK to help promote his book and will speak at events in Cambridge, Oxford, south London and Bristol, as well as at the Hay Festival.
Mr Corbyn said he was hoping the former Democratic presidential nominee who was eventually beaten by Hillary Clinton, would give his support to Labour during the visit.
Asked by The Guardian whether he was expecting Mr Sanders to endorse him, the Labour leader replied: “I can’t say. I hope he will. I think he probably will, actually. But we mustn’t predict these things.”
Members of the campaign team that helped propel Mr Sanders from relative obscurity to international prominence are now believed to be helping Labour in its quest for victory on 8 June.

jcitybone

Unfortunately, the latest polling shows Labour well behind the Conservatives–by about 16 or 17 points. Corbyn is even further behind May in preferred PM polls by at least 30 points. I’m not sure Bernie will officially endorse if that remains the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2017#May_vs_Corbyn_.28incl._Don.E2.80.99t_Know.29

polarbear4

Hard to believe. I know the media over there have not been kind to him. But there is a yuuge, active Bernista crowd over there, too.

humphrey

I hope the polls are as accurate as those that assured us that we would have President Hillary.

Don midwest

The Sadism of creeping Dictatorship

Juan Cole’s column today

Hazing (sadism) to scare off criticism

polarbear4

Agree, but not sure that this is the “first sign of descent.” Been descending for a while, now.

Luckily, Comey was very level headed about it. Deprive the bullies of their intent to humiliate and it’s not nearly as much fun.

LieparDestin

Sanders: Trump is ‘impeding’ Russia probe

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that President Trump is “impeding” the FBI’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, specifically citing his decision to fire FBI director James Comey.
“It is a situation where the president is impeding a significant investigation,” Sanders said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “[It’s] to determine whether, in fact, there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.”
Sanders cited recent elections in France, Germany and Ukraine as evidence of Russia’s tampering with democracy
“Our intelligence agencies all agree that [Russia] interfered significantly in the American election,” Sanders said. “This is an investigation that has to go forward in a nonpartisan way.”

LieparDestin

We Must Have a Special Prosecutor

Trump takes us for chumps. The Republic is nothing to him but a crap game. And he loads the dice.
In this case, he signs the letter dismissing Comey and hands it to his personal bodyguard to take over to the FBI office. But Comey isn’t there. He’s in Los Angeles, where he will hear on television that he has been dumped — and at first think it’s a practical joke. We are not making this up.
Hardly 24 hours has passed since Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general who in late January also was fired by Trump, testified before a Senate hearing that she had informed the White House that Trump’s duplicitous national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, had lied about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States and was vulnerable to Russian blackmail. But it took Trump another 18 days to fire him and then only after The Washington Post leaked what Yates had uncovered.
In her testimony Monday, Yates was such a straight arrow, the iconic public servant, and so devastatingly credible that the White House had to figure out how to blunt her testimony.
How to change the story? How to send the bloodhounds of the press howling down another trail?
Fire Comey, and say you don’t like the way he handled the Hillary Clinton email affair, although last year — gasp! — you lavished praise on him for doing exactly what you now say he screwed up.
But clearly, something else is going on here. Could it be that Comey’s investigation of Russia’s interference with our election was getting closer and closer to Trump? Is that why the Trump gang pushed him out the nearest window?

CaliforniaPat

Gee, I thought this is what the Democrats wanted after what he did when he blamed Clinton right before the election. Didn’t he make her lose? Cannot have it both ways.

jcitybone

Latest from Bernie:

https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

President Trump’s reason for firing James Comey is totally ludicrous. I don’t believe it for a second. Trump was almost encouraging people at campaign rallies to shout out, “Lock her up, lock her up,” and now suddenly to say that’s the reason — the way he conducted his investigation of Hillary Clinton — is nonsense. Obviously, I am concerned about the way Comey handled himself during the campaign. But that’s certainly not the reason that Trump fired him.
Comey last week made it clear that there is an investigation going on looking at the possible collusion between Trump and Russia. Comey had asked the Department of Justice for increased resources to move that investigation along. He was going to be testifying today before the Senate Intelligence Committee. I think those are the reasons why Trump fired him: that the investigation was moving forward, and it looks to me like Trump did not want to see that happen.

CaliforniaPat

This makes me sad to see Bernie jumping on the Russian interference thing. I still have not seen proof that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC.

humphrey

I fully agree with you.

polarbear4

Me three. I expected him to jump on the “voting machines” issue. I’m going to let him know.

Unbelievable to me how everyone is OK that the machines they vote on are hacked. We do not have honest elections, folks. And it ain’t the Russians.

LieparDestin

Reporter arrested while trying to question Cabinet member

Police in West Virginia’s Capitol arrested a journalist who they said was trying “aggressively” to get past Secret Service agents and yelling questions at U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
It happened as Price and senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway came to the state Capitol in Charleston on Tuesday to learn about efforts to fight opioid addiction in a state that has the nation’s highest overdose death rate.
Capitol police said in a criminal complaint that Daniel Ralph Heyman, 54, “was aggressively breaching the secret service agents to the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple of times from the area” in a Capitol hallway. It also says he was “causing a disturbance by yelling questions at Ms. Conway and Secretary Price.”
..
Heyman, who is based in Charleston and works for the independent Public News Service, was charged with willful disruption of governmental processes, a misdemeanor, and later was released on $5,000 bond. No court hearing was immediately set. The charge carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $100 fine.
Heyman told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he believes he did nothing wrong.
He said he was arrested after he repeatedly asked Price about whether domestic violence is a pre-existing condition under the Republican health care proposals and got no response.

LieparDestin

Asking Questions of Government Figures Is Not a Crime

LieparDestin

Interior Sec. Zinke Orders Native American Activist to ‘Be Nice’

During a tour of the heavily contested Bears Ears National Monument in Utah on Monday, U.S. Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke pointed a finger at monument supporter Cassandra Begay and told her to “be nice” after she repeatedly questioned the secretary about not spending more time talking with tribal leaders as part of his monuments review.
Begay, a tribal liaison with the group Peaceful Advocates for Native Dialogue & Organizing Support, described the encounter as “condescending and unnecessarily aggressive.”
Footage of the incident shows Begay among a throng of Bears Ears monument supporters crowding around Zinke. At one point, the Native American activist asks the secretary, “When are you going to meet with the tribal leaders? It’s kind of unfair that you’ve only met with them for one hour, sir. Is there a reason why you’re not listening to them more?”
Zinke turns around, juts his finger at Begay and says, “Be nice.”
“I’m so nice,” Begay responds.
“Be nice,” Zinke repeats. “Don’t be rude. Thank you.”
“I was scared, and my heart was racing,” Begay said in a press statement following the encounter. “It felt condescending and unnecessarily aggressive. I have no idea why asking a simple question to somebody who is on a listening tour would react so aggressively.”

Don midwest

Are some stories getting to main stream press?

The local newspaper, Columbus Dispatch, which owns well over 90% of newspapers in Central Ohio after they bought the weekly neighborhood newspapers that are mostly free,
the Dispatch was sold to a newspaper conglomerate.

David Cay Johnston wrote that the same group that owns the Rochester paper and took it down is now in control here. Like other buy outs, they started by reducing the staff of the news room and most of the content articles from the paper are from NY Times, WA Post, WSJ, etc.

The paper is delivered to our house and my wife complains and complains about how content free it is and threatens to cancel it. This has gone on for years and it is now worse.

This morning, I picked it up and scanned through the front section. (One of the changes is to make the paper physically smaller)

On the front page things got off to a start. Above the fold is an article on an on line school, ECOT, which owes the state $60 because of fraud in the counting of students. Also on the front page was the Comey firing. And a large piece with a photo of a pipeline company that is being charged by the state EPA about spills and other non compliance issues. And a policeman who stomped a suspect who was handcuffed and face down on the ground.

In the first section is: reporter in WV jailed for asking a question, Betsy DeVos getting negative treatment at college presentation, comparison to Nixon and Trump in the firing of people like Comey, the new president of S. Korea not to live in the mansion downtown, small article that immigrants are necessary for Ohio to prosper, warnings about more troops sent off to wars, Turkey pissed about support of YKP, etc.

I have been following parts of these stories for years but the average person, who gets their “news” from corporate media, could not connect the dots.

There are so many things going wrong, and Trump and the Republicans are trying to make things worse, so the dots are getting bigger from this one day, random sample of the local newspaper.

LieparDestin

Here’s to hoping! I know written/broadcast media is different but some of the best stories/interviews I found doing the BNR was from local news stations. They are also good about getting their content up on youtube/etc asap while the bigger networks pick and choose what parts of their content will make it to youtube. Rarely do the full Bernie appearances on Chris Hayes, Maddow, etc ever make it to viewing by the masses, while I go there today and see they have no problem putting Mook. Even the CNn interview with Sanders I posted above is a ‘bootleg’.

LieparDestin

US Glacier national park is losing its glaciers with just 26 of 150 left

It’s now “inevitable” that the contiguous United States will lose all of its glaciers within a matter of decades, according to scientists who have revealed the precipitous shrinkage of dozens of glaciers in Montana.
Warming temperatures have rapidly reduced the size of 39 named glaciers in Montana since 1966, according to comparisons released by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and Portland State University. Some have lost as much as 85% of their expanse over the past 50 years, with Glacier national park, site of 37 of the surveyed glaciers, set to lose all of its eponymous ice formations within the next few decades. Of the 150 glaciers that existed in the park in the late 19th century, only 26 remain.
The disappearance of glaciers in Montana is part of a broader loss that will see all glaciers, defined as moving bodies of snow and ice larger than 25 acres, largely vanish from the lower 48 states of America by the mid point of the century, according to Dr Daniel Farge, lead USGS scientist.
“It’s inevitable that we will lose them all over the next few decades,” Farge said. “The Colorado glaciers started melting before Montana’s and while there are larger glaciers in the Pacific north-west that will hold on longer, the number vanishing will steadily grow until none are left.”

magsview

I would imagine that the older you are, the more disbelieving you are that the glaciers will be all gone soon.

Personally, I almost find it hard to believe! But the pictures and data don’t lie.

LieparDestin

grapevines

Thank you Jordan for covering this and thank you LD for sharing it.

Here’s an exert from the St Louis Post-Dispatchpublished 5/9/201:.

“Twenty-seven owners of a farm adjacent to the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills sued the landfills’ owners and two landfill workers in St. Louis County Circuit Court Thursday, alleging that radioactive waste has contaminated the farm and family members.
The suit, filed by extended members of the family of the late Edward Boenker, says that radioactive waste that was improperly disposed of on the site has now spread to the farm. Boenker relatives have been exposed to radiation and have experienced “unusually high amount of cancers associated with and caused by radiation exposure,” the suit says. Some have died of cancer, it says.
The suit names Republic Services, the Arizona-based operator of the site, and several affiliated companies. Republic assumed ownership of the landfills after it merged with Allied Waste in 2008.”

I think that it doesn’t help that the EPA’s monitoring network, known as RadNet, was in disarray when radiation began spewing from Fukushima and most radiation air monitoring sites across the country have been down since then…especially on the west coast.

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/EPA-s-Gina-McCarthy-under-scrutiny-4299291.php

Cover-up or lack of prioritized funds…who knows?

for further info on this covered up sites problems go here..I’m having a hard time trying to link the site addresses.

http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com/

https://www.facebook.com/westlakelandfill/

grapevines

what happened to the extensive reply and links I just posted to this interview? It seems to have just disappeared and I even edited it and saved it…what did I do incorrectly? It seems too have been put in the SPAM folder! yelp!

@LieparDestin

LieparDestin

Sometimes the spam filter freaks out! I’ll unlock it, sorry!

grapevines

Thanks LD…for a while there I considered maybe I’d become persona non grata or something…lol

LieparDestin

never!

LieparDestin

polarbear4

Haven’t watched it yet, but yes, Glenn, I agree! U.S.-Russia relations should be encouraged! After watching Oliver Stone’s Untold History, it’s painful to see how every time there’s been a chance for friendlier relations, the MIC has interfered and started a proxy war or done something to poke them in the eye.

LieparDestin

FBI refuses to disclose documents on Trump’s call to Russia to hack Clinton

The US justice department is refusing to disclose FBI documents relating to Donald Trump’s highly contentious election year call on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Senior DoJ officials have declined to release the documents on grounds that such disclosure could “interfere with enforcement proceedings”. In a filing to a federal court in Washington DC, the DoJ states that “because of the existence of an active, ongoing investigation, the FBI anticipates that it will … withhold all records.”
The statement suggests that Trump’s provocative comment last July is being seen by the FBI as relevant to its own ongoing investigation.
In March, the then director of the FBI James Comey confirmed the existence of that investigation to a Congressional hearing. On Tuesday Comey was summarily sacked by Trump in a move that sent shockwaves across the capital and provoked widespread calls for an independent inquiry into allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump associates.

LieparDestin

Former FBI agents voice anger and humiliation over James Comey firing

Donald Trump’s firing of the FBI director, James Comey, has left FBI agents shocked, angry and humiliated, with some former agents worried that the president has fundamentally compromised the bureau’s prized political neutrality.
Bobby Chacon, a former FBI agent who served in Los Angeles and New York and retired in 2014, compared the abrupt firing to “a punch in the stomach to agents”.
“I myself, and I would speak for a lot of agents, feel very disrespected by the administration and how this was handled,” he told the Guardian. Other former agents said the way Comey was fired was an “outrage” and said that the Trump administration’s approach “besmirches the reputation of the FBI”.
In defending the FBI director’s firing, the Trump administration has argued that agents on the street were ready to see Comey go.
“The rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director,” deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a White House press briefing Wednesday.
But former agents said the abrupt firing was shocking and disturbing.

LieparDestin

https://youtu.be/OdqnlvWvhGw

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5/11 News Roundup & Open Thread – The DAPL Is Already Leaking, Sanders To Debate Kasich, Quist Gains Ground & More