Category: News

1.

Holy crap you guys. Battle not won but nonetheless some champagne popping is in order. “Army Will Not Grant Easement for Dakota Access Pipeline Crossing,” Army.mil.

2.

“This is a victory for organizing, and it doesn’t stop now. We are asking our supporters to keep up the pressure, because while President Obama has granted us a victory today, that victory isn’t guaranteed in the next administration. More threats are likely in the year to come, and we cannot stop until this pipeline is completely and utterly defeated, and our water and climate are safe.”

Sacred Stone Camp

3.

Woah. “Sarah Palin: Trump’s Carrier deal is ‘crony capitalism’,” Politico.

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

“The Corps sent a letter to Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault Nov. 25, saying the decision is to protect the general public from violent confrontations between protesters and law enforcement in that area.“

Hey, law enforcement aren’t like grizzly bears or coyotes or something, the government could actually just tell them not to be violent, and that would ALSO protect the general public from violent confrontations between protesters and law enforcement in that area.

This is such horseshit.

You can contact the regulatory complaint line of the Army Corps of Engineers at (202) 761-5903.

ETA 28 Nov: Read “CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX TRIBE REACTS TO U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS EVICTION NOTICE: YOUR LETTER MAKES A GRAVE & DANGEROUS MISTAKE“

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

1.

“Law enforcement officials in North Dakota have deployed tear gas and water hoses against hundreds of activists protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline.” In freezing temperatures. This is not ok.

The more I think about this, the angrier I get. The police say this is justified because the protesters are setting fires (which the protesters say are bonfires to keep warm, which I believe, but I’m just looking at what the police themselves are claiming). How is that a justification? Even if you take the police at 100% face value, ARSON IS NOT A CAPITAL CRIME.

2.

“Wisconsin legislative map ruled illegally partisan; case will go to Supreme Court,” WaPo.

3.

I’m in a doctor’s office, so no control over the tv. They’re playing The View, and this is the first time I’ve watched it. They’re talking about the alt-right and calling it explicitly white supremacist. That’s good to see.

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

Good news! “Statement Regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline“:

Today, the Army informed the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Energy Transfer Partners, and Dakota Access, LLC, that it has completed the review that it launched on September 9, 2016. The Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property.

Timely reminder why pipelines are dangerous: “Mapping 7 million gallons of crude oil spills,” High Country News (from 2015).

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

If Trump doesn’t change his mind again, we might be able to keep coverage for children up to age 26 and for people with pre-existing conditions. I don’t know how we’ll pay for these things without the mandate, unless we get single payer. That would be amazing but I don’t see a Republican congress approving it.

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

If you feel like you need to do something, give money and/or time to Standing Rock or Black Lives Matter or the Innocence Project or the Government Accountability Project or Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or your local library or your local soup kitchen.

The world hasn’t ended. This is an armistice, not a defeat.

If you feel like all you can do today is build a blanket fort and watch Jane Austen movies, do that. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your neighbours. Let’s be gentle with each other. Let’s be there for each other. Every small kindness matters. I’m so glad you are all here with me and I’m sending you all love and resilience.

2016 continues to be bonkers.

1. The Irrational Downfall of Park Geun-hye [Ask a Korean]
2. “He has solemnly told the country to trust him while refusing to produce any records to prove whether he speaks the truth or has utter contempt for it.” [Newsweek, “Donald Trump’s Companies Destroyed Emails in Defiance of Court Orders“]
3. “For instance, could his judicial appointments be influenced by his own court cases? . . . Would lawyers, parties in cases and even judges seek to curry favor with a powerful individual in a way that might alter the outcome?” [USA Today, “How 75 pending lawsuits could distract a Donald Trump presidency“]
4. Another great story from David A. Fahrenthold with this amazing anecdote:

In the fall of 1996, a charity called the Association to Benefit Children held a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for a new nursery school serving children with AIDS. The bold-faced names took seats up front …[with] a seat saved for Steven Fisher, a developer who had given generously to build the nursery.

Then, all of a sudden, there was Donald Trump.

“Nobody knew he was coming,” said Abigail Disney, another donor sitting on the dais. “There’s this kind of ruckus at the door, and I don’t know what was going on, and in comes Donald Trump. [He] just gets up on the podium and sits down.”

Trump was not a major donor. He was not a donor, period. . . . So they warbled into the first song on the program, “This Little Light of Mine,” alongside Trump and a chorus of children — with a photographer snapping photos, and Trump looking for all the world like an honored donor to the cause.

Afterward, Disney and Buchenholz recalled, Trump left without offering an explanation. Or a donation. Fisher was stuck in the audience. The charity spent months trying to repair its relationship with him.

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

Strong words from the Sierra Club:

We’ve seen North Dakota, in particular, put out messaging that says folks are violent, that we’re aggressive, that we are antagonizing the situation and somehow necessitating this militarized response. The reality is, if you’re here and you’re seeing the grassroots media coming out, it’s people who are gathered together in prayer and unity and coming together for the first time, really, in history. This is a historic moment for tribal nations to come together like this. We’ve got people who are historic enemies camping alongside each other, learning to live together and be together in this space . . . . People are out exercising their first amendment rights and being met with militarized response in incredibly dangerous situations: guns drawn, mace, planes flying overhead.

Amnesty International is to “monitor the response of law enforcement to protests by Indigenous communities.”

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

Reached Kenya safely – have pretty much been on media blackout since Saturday. Logged in to check FB and this is basically the first news I saw. Woah.

1.

Former senior U.S. national security officials are dismayed at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s repeated refusal to accept the judgment of intelligence professionals that Russia stole files from the Democratic National Committee computers in an effort to influence the U.S. election.

Chicago Tribune

2.

Pretty concerning. From the original study: “Findings revealed that when expecting challenging behaviors teachers gazed longer at Black children, especially Black boys. Findings also suggested that implicit biases may differ depending on teacher race. Providing family background information resulted in lowered severity ratings when teacher and child race matched, but resulted in increased severity ratings when their race did not match.” [NPR]

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]

1.

“I’ve been in favor of getting rid of carried interest for years,” Clinton replied. “Starting when I was a senator from New York.”

“Why didn’t you do it?” Trump asked. “Why didn’t you do it”

“Because I was a senator with a Republican president,” Clinton replied.

“If you were an effective senator, you could have done it,” Trump shot back.

This is, to put it mildly, not how the American political system works. Trump has always had an ambitious view of executive power, but here he showed a basic ignorance of the system’s basic functioning. Even an effective senator cannot, on their own, overwhelm a presidential veto.

Vox, “Donald Trump confirmed our worst fears about the kind of president he would be“

2.

This is not funny. It is terrifying. The Russians engage in a sloppy disinformation effort and, before the day is out, the Republican nominee for president is standing on a stage reciting the manufactured story as truth. How did this happen? Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?

Newsweek, “Dear Mr Trump, I Am Not Sidney Blumenthal“

Here’s the email at Wikileaks.

[Note from the future: NYMHM grew out of these public posts from Joanne Merriam’s Facebook account. We retain them here in archives to provide a record going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency.]