This summer, we’re rising up to protest the Keystone XL pipeline—more than 60,000 people have signed the Pledge of Resistance to engage in civil disobedience and risk arrest if President Obama’s administration issues a draft approval of Keystone XL. It is a huge and complex undertaking but we believe preparing for mass civil disobedience is a necessary next step in our movement.
The first action will be a sit-in on Monday, June 17th, in President Obama’s home town of CHICAGO. Read more about what’s up this summer here.
Tracks
I think you’re misunderstanding the perceived problem, Mr. President. No one is saying that you broke any laws. We’re just saying it’s a little bit weird that you didn’t have to.
Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
The New York Times editorial is NOT PLEASED about the news broken by The Guardian about the federal government’s data collection on phone calls through Verizon (essentially everything but the actual conversation). The anger in the editorial is visible and sharp, and is an excellent interrogation of the necessity and effectiveness, as well as the morality, of measures like this one. (via thepoliticalnotebook)
Hold those feet to the fire!
(via shortformblog)
A federal judge has ruled in our favor that the Obama Administration violated the law — three different laws, in fact — when it authorized the Apache Alaska Corporation to use deafening seismic airguns to search for oil and gas in Cook Inlet, threatening the survival of its last 312 beluga whales.
The ruling is a crucial step forward in our campaign to protect these rare white whales, which are threatened not only by oil and gas companies but by the proposed Pebble Mine as well.
That court has now stated that the National Marine Fisheries Service gave Apache Alaska a green light by systematically undercounting the toll that seismic airguns would take on belugas.
The explosive noise from seismic airguns can deafen, injure and even kill whales. Apache’s sonic blasts will repeat every 10 to 12 seconds — and could go on for years.
The Fisheries Service predicted that Apache’s airguns would harm at least 30 belugas during its first year of operations alone — a staggering number that the court now says was clearly underestimated.
But make no mistake: while the court’s decision is an essential first step in the right direction, this fight is far from over.
The court’s ruling backs up the charge that the Obama Administration was too quick to sacrifice whales to Big Oil — but it does not shut down Apache’s operation.filed under #oilcompaniesallsuckandIhatethem
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink being “escorted” out as she bravely questioned President Obama on drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen as well as Guantanamo Bay. Full speech here.
Looks like our Nobel Peace Prize winning harbinger of hope and justice and what not couldn’t handle actual freedom of speech. In other news, grass is green.
Gentlemen, I’ve only been here five months, but this is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today. The Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, clearly says that the Congress has the power to declare war. This—this authorization, the AUMF [Authorization for Use of Military Force], is very limited. And you keep using the term “associated forces.” You use it 13 times in your statement. That is not in the AUMF. And you said at one point, “It suits us very well.” I assume it does suit you very well, because you’re reading it to cover everything and anything. And then you said, at another point, “So, even if the AUMF doesn’t apply, the general law of war applies, and we can take these actions.” So, my question is: How do you possibly square this with the requirement of the Constitution that the Congress has the power to declare war?
This is one of the most fundamental divisions in our constitutional scheme, that the Congress has the power to declare war; the president is the commander-in-chief and prosecutes the war. But you’re reading this AUMF in such a way as to apply clearly outside of what it says. Senator McCain was absolutely right: It refers to the people who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks on September 11. That’s a date. That’s a date. It doesn’t go into the future. And then it says, “or harbored such organizations”—past tense—”or persons in order to prevent any future acts by such nations, organizations or persons.” It established a date.
I don’t disagree that we need to fight terrorism. But we need to do it in a constitutionally sound way. Now, I’m just a little, old lawyer from Brunswick, Maine, but I don’t see how you can possibly read this to be in comport with the Constitution and authorize any acts by the president.
This is what happens when a Guantanamo detainee gets force-fed
A detailed and unsettling description of how the U.S. facility keeps hunger-striking prisoners from starving to death.
Read this.
(Source: humanrightswatch)
Obama has said that when it comes to the issue of torture during the Bush years, he prefers to “turn the page.” He’s pointed out that his Administration has banned “enhanced interrogation techniques” by executive order, but another Administration can just as easily re-authorize them. Without access to this meticulous, tragic, and available history, what’s to stop the country from repeating it? Before turning the page, the President might do well to make sure he, and the rest of us, can read it.
Jeremy Scahill gave a powerful talk tonight, sponsored by the Peace Resource Center of San Diego and the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, covering the manner in which the US government is conducting a campaign of violence abroad without oversight by the American public or their representatives in Congress. The talk began with the story of Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a Yemeni journalist imprisoned on orders from the Obama administration for reporting the truth about women and children murdered in a cruise missile strike.
Mr. Scahill’s talk ended with a plea that the lives of all people be valued equally regardless of where they live. —May 2, 2013
More Than One Million Comments Urge Obama Administration to Reject Keystone XL
There is a common message among the opponents of the pipeline: Keystone XL is all risk and no reward.
“It’s a profit scheme for big oil. It would feed our addiction to fossil fuels, accelerate climate change and put our heartland farmers, ranchers and communities at risk. It needs to be denied.”
