8/3 News Roundup & Open Thread – The Progressive Wing

Liz Cheney blasts native tribes for “destroying our Western way of life.”

The GOP lawmaker is upset that the tribes successfully got grizzly bears placed back on the endangered species list https://t.co/kJyjHROa1F

— Sophia Tesfaye (@SophiaTesfaye) August 2, 2019

RIVERTON, Wyo. — On a momentous day for Tribal Nations, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chairwoman, stated that the successful litigation by tribes and environmentalists to return the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) “was not based on science or facts” but motivated by plaintiffs “intent on destroying our Western way of life.”

One of the largest tribal-plaintiff alliances in recent memory prevailed in the landmark case, Crow Tribe et al v. Zinke last September, when US District Judge Dana Christensen ruled in favor of the tribes and environmental groups after finding that the Trump Administration’s US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had failed to abide by the ESA and exceeded its authority in attempting to remove federal protections from the grizzly. Tuesday, USFWS officially returned federal protections to the grizzly.

How tone deaf can a person be? Tribal nations are “intent on destroying our” our? “Western way of life”?

“So, in striving to protect our culture, our religious and spiritual freedoms, our sovereignty and our treaty rights – all of which are encapsulated in the grizzly issue – we are ‘destroying’ Cheney’s idea of the ‘Western way of life’?” questioned Rodgers. “I would remind the Congresswoman that at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition an estimated 100,000 grizzly bears roamed from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. That was all Indian Country. Now there are fewer than 2,000 grizzly bears and our people live in Third World conditions on meager reservations in the poorest counties in the US. Does she really want to talk about ‘destroying’ a ‘way of life’?” asked Rodgers.

Uh oh, there’s that word ‘Halliburton’ we are all too familiar with. So is this really about grizzly bears? Or is it more about the Cheney family fronting for the oil and gas industry? I’m going with the latter.

Tribal Nations, including the Oglala Sioux Tribe which petitioned for a Congressional inquiry into the influence of multi-national fossil-fuel corporations on FWS’s grizzly delisting decision, previously exposed the role of extractive industry in the process. USFWS engaged multinational oil and gas services group, Amec Foster Wheeler, for the peer review of its grizzly delisting rule that tribes and environmental groups deconstructed in court. Amec Foster Wheeler appointed Halliburton executive Jonathan Lewis as CEO in the same timeframe as USFWS contracted the company.

I hope Rodgers is right!

“There’s more chance of her father receiving the Nobel Peace Prize than her Grizzly Bear State Management Act reaching the House floor,” said Rodgers of Cheney’s bill.

More news and analysis below.

92

Leave a Reply

Photo and Image Files

Audio and Video Files

Other File Types

Photo and Image Files

Audio and Video Files

Other File Types

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

newest oldest most voted

magsview

Tip Jar for the seemingly growing power of Native Americans and they’re allying with environmentalists to use the courts to help wildlife, limit the reach of oil and gas companies, and preserve their lands and way of life.

The only people who do not benefit from such actions are those who would destroy our Earth for their own greedy profit.

magsview

One more quote (the whole piece is full of info):

“If this wasn’t Liz Cheney and the era of the Trump Administration, you might be rendered speechless by the insensitivity and mendacity of the statement,” said Tom Rodgers, a Senior Adviser to the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council (RMTLC), who testified at May’s Congressional hearing on The Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act. HR 2532, introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva, was inspired by the Grizzly Treaty signed by over 200 Tribal Nations.

magsview

The Presidential Front-Runners Flamed Out at Last Night’s Debate

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris had high hopes coming into the night. They departed diminished, stampeded by the back of the pack and their own tenuous grip on the details of their policy proposals. Compared to the towering performances of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren the night before, what Biden and Harris offered was thin gruel.

The impact of Gabbard’s accusations were augmented by the dramatic effect they had on their target. Harris appeared to visibly deflate as she struggled to respond, as if she could not quite believe that anyone would dare question her credentials.

Biden took the stage wreathed in astonishingly low expectations for a front-runner who allegedly commands a wide lead over the field, a hangover from his wobbly June performance. Biden put himself in a hole before the first question was asked when he leaned into Harris and said, “Go easy on me, kid.” Handsy Joe’s attempt at self-deprecating humor directed at a female U.S. senator drew immediate rebukes.

Biden was the only candidate on the stage who never had to be reminded to stay within the parameters of the time format. It was as if he had little passion for the policies he espoused, and was happy for the chance to stop talking.

A day will soon come when Sanders, Warren, Harris and Biden will all share a stage together. When it does, my money is on the duo from New England once again outperforming the prosecutor and the vice president.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-presidential-front-runners-flamed-out-at-last-nights-debate/

magsview

Biden Wants to “Restore” This Country’s Soul. Sounds Strangely Like MAGA.

Joe Biden bookended the second night of the Democratic debates in Detroit, Michigan, with familiar appeals to a bygone era of American greatness. In his opening statement, Biden claimed to be “running for president to restore the soul of this country.” He closed the night on a similar note. “We’re in a battle for the soul of America,” he said. “This is the most consequential election any one of you, no matter how old or young you are, has ever, ever participated in.”

Biden’s boomer nostalgia isn’t just folksy rhetoric. It’s an inherently backwards-looking, and therefore, conservative point of view. The language of restoration orients backward toward a past that never existed, and limits our capacity to imagine a better future. Biden seems to be running on the argument that the election of Donald Trump can somehow be erased and that Biden can serve what would amount to Obama’s third term. Biden argued that Trump serving a single term would amount to an “aberration” in U.S. politics, rather than an expression of the white nationalism that has always animated political life in this country.

Reactionary metaphors are ubiquitous in liberal politics. Democrats are constantly calling to “take America back” from someone or something who stole it. That formulation necessitates an imagined prior ownership that has been lost. But who could legitimately claim ownership to the country in the past? As Adam Serwer argues, the United States has only been a multiracial democracy since 1965, and there has never been a time when workers had real ownership in the wealth of this country.

Biden exemplifies the reactionary mindset that many liberals would like to assume is only present in conservative politics.

https://truthout.org/articles/biden-wants-to-restore-this-countrys-soul-sounds-strangely-like-maga/

orlbucfan

T and R, mags!! 🙂 Liz Cheney…..still another example of a FRightwing bad joke who never applied for a job in her life. Her criminal fruitcake Daddy “Bear” made sure of it. Bubonic Plague POX on the whole worthless bunch!

la58

https://publicserviceforum.com

WATCH THE LIVESTREAM HERE ON
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3 AT 9 A.M. PDT
Presidential candidates will gather at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where they’ll face questions about their commitment to protecting public services and the working men and women who dedicate their lives to their communities. The forum is an AFSCME member event and will be moderated by HuffPost Washington bureau chief Amanda Terkel and Nevada Independent editor Jon Ralston.

America’s public service workers will make their voices heard in this election. Whether they’re responding to emergency calls, driving our children to school, caring for our most vulnerable, or doing any of the hundreds of jobs AFSCME members perform every day, people in public service deserve respect for their work and to have a voice on the job.

magsview

Thanks la58!

magsview

Bernie Sanders Dominates as Analyses of Fundraising Data Show Vermont Senator With Widespread Support Across Nation

The data “contradicts both the mainstream narrative and some national polling data that suggest that only a centrist Democrat could succeed in this political environment.”

Individual donors to Democratic candidates for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination overwhelmingly gave to Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to analyses released Friday.

The New York Times, in a map produced by the paper’s reporters, found that Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, dominates most of the country as the primary or secondary recipient of nearly all donations from Americans in all states—though his support is strongest in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the eastern Great Plains, and the West.

“The movement is so strong that NYT has to create a separate map that excludes @BernieSanders from it,” tweeted Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir.

The L.A. Times went into further detail in a piece which allows readers to zero in on their zip codes for hard numbers. The Wall Street Journal showed who had the most small dollar donations across the country (unsurprisingly, the majority of the country went to Sanders in that regard).

Check out this, from @ChadSDay and the good folks @WSJ: https://t.co/wcHnEjx3u6

— Carrie Levine (@levinecarrie) August 2, 2019

And a study from The Center for Public Integrity and FiveThirtyEight demonstrated that the senator is the recipient of donations from one out of every three Democrats donating to primary candidates, irrespective of how many other candidates they’re donating to.

The 2020 Democratic field is inspiring donors to spread the wealth – 1 in 5 have contributed to more than one candidate.

1 in 3 have given to @BernieSanders https://t.co/u6PJN1I3oM

— OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecretsDC) August 2, 2019

The breadth of Sanders’ appeal, especially through the middle of the country, spurred the senator’s Iowa communications director to challenge the conventional wisdom that “the Midwest doesn’t want or support progressive policies.”

Sanders’ strength may be even greater than the maps show, however, as the Times admitted that “information about donors giving $200 or less directly to a campaign is not available.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/02/bernie-sanders-dominates-analyses-fundraising-data-show-vermont-senator-widespread

Why in the world is information about donors giving $200 or less not available to the NYT?? It’s almost as though only big donors ‘matter’.

jcitybone

Under federal law, all contributions of more than $200 to federal candidates, PACs, or parties must be itemized and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. Donors must report their name, address, employer and occupation, and these records are publicly available from the FEC and several other websites.

magsview

Ahhhhh, thank you jcitybone! One of those laws meant to root out shenanigans, but now being used to skew the donor results to the establishment’s ends.

92 Leave a Reply

92

Leave a Reply