Free Republic

January 24, 2017 It is just day two of his presidency, and already Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the Obama legacy: in his latest move reported moments ago by Bloomberg, president Trump intends to sign two executive actions today "that would advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines", putting a spoke, so to say, in the train wheels of Warren Buffett's train-based oil transportation quasi-monopoly. Keystone was rejected under former President Barack Obama. Trump’s move on Energy Transfer Partners LP’s 1,172-mile Dakota Access project aims to end a standoff that has stalled the $3.8 billion project...

Protesters may want to think twice about blocking roads in North Dakota. Republican lawmakers in the state introduced a bill last week in the legislature that would not hold motorists liable for negligently running over someone obstructing a roadway. The bill was introduced in response to a year of protests over a proposed pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. "A driver of a motor vehicle who negligently causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway may not be held liable for any damages," the bill reads. "A driver of a...

North Dakota’s Republican-led Senate rejected a measure Tuesday that would have changed state law to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that same-sex couples have the right to marry. The bill failed 15-31. It would have changed dozens of references, such as “husband and wife,” to gender-neutral terms. North Dakota law lists “one man, one woman” or “husband and wife” for everything from marriages and divorces to fishing licenses. The measure got a hearing last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which voted 4-2 to recommend against passage. …

Planned Parenthood became a frequent talking point during the election. The additional attention now appears to be responsible for a skyrocketing number of donations. "Somebody stopped in yesterday, downstairs, a man, and he had nine checks of $45 each, all in the name of Mike Pence," Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota President and CEO Sarah Stoesz said. She's never seen anything like it. "Our donations are up about 300 percent over a typical year," Stoesz said. "Every time there is any kind of attack on Planned Parenthood, of any broad scale, there has been an outpouring...

Two demonstrators found guilty of blocking highway in first jury trial from high-profile protestA North Dakota judge had a message for Dakota Access pipeline protesters seeking to avoid paying their public defenders: Get a job. Two men convicted Tuesday in the first jury trial related to the long-running pipeline protest asked a judge to waive the $500 both were ordered to pay their public defenders. State District Court Judge Bruce Romanick was having none of it, informing the two men that $500 was far less than a private lawyer would have charged and noting that protesters have demonstrated ample resources...

A group of protesters chained themselves across the doors of a TD bank in Massachusetts in solidarity with Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in North Dakota. From Masslive.com: The pipeline opponents began their action just after 8 a.m. by chaining themselves to the doors, shutting the bank branch down.Police initially gave them 30 minutes to leave, but more than three hours have passed with no movement on either side.Protestors said they will remain until they are arrested. Marc Osten, a Smith College student, Aly-Johnson-Kurts and University of Massachusetts student Giovano Castro are chained in the front, while Harrison Greene and...

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has claimed that the project has encroached on its land, damaged sacred sites and would potentially harm a major source of their drinking water by going under Lake Oahe. [snip] But what continued to throw a wall up in the discussions was the tribe's demand to receive a fee for shipping the oil. "Even though the pipeline never crosses the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, [snip] "But time and again the tribe rebuffed or ignored the company's offers demanding, instead, a toll on the crude that passed through the pipeline, an ultimatum that showed the tribe's...

There's a reason why Republicans soon will control not only the presidency, but also the Senate, the House, 33 governorships and both chambers in 32 states. The reason can be found in the Dakota Access Pipeline case. With its elevation of identity politics above all else, its twisting of facts to accuse others of racism, its fanatic claim of being above the law and its wild exaggerations of environmental risk, the protest helps explain why so few Americans are willing to give the Left power. The protesters won an important battle on Sunday, when their efforts convinced the Obama administration...

The Dakota Access Pipeline will not go ahead at the Standing Rock Indian reservation, it was announced Sunday. Moments after the decision was announced Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Council Chairman Harold Frazier told DailyMail.com that he was 'shocked' by the news, which he'd received from Jo-Ellen Darcy, United States Assistant Secretary of the Army. The camp erupted into cheers as the news spread that the US Army Corps of engineers would not enforce an easement that would have allowed a pipeline to run under Lake Oahe half a mile south of their reservation, potentially affecting the tribe's drinking water and...

Federal officials have denied the final permits required for the Dakota Access Pipeline project in North Dakota. The Army Corps of Engineers announced Sunday it would instead conduct an environmental impact review of the 1,170-mile pipeline project to determine if there are other ways to route the pipeline to avoid a crossing on the Missouri River...

Gen. Weasley Clark’s Son To Lead Veterans’ Group To Protest Dakota Access Pipeline The son of retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark heads a veterans’ group committed to preventing law enforcement from evacuating Dakota Access Pipeline protesters. The group plans to arrive at the encampment Sunday.The group will supplement the few veterans who already arrived at one of the encampments earlier in the week and and demanded that law enforcement lay down their firearms.Wesley “Wes” Clark Jr. and former U.S. Marine Michael Wood Jr. lead Veterans Stand for Standing Rock. Clark’s father was also a 2004 Democratic presidential primary...

U.S. military veterans were building barracks on Friday at a protest camp in North Dakota to support thousands of activists who have squared off against authorities in frigid conditions to oppose a multibillion-dollar pipeline project near a Native American reservation. Veterans volunteering to be human shields have been arriving at the Oceti Sakowin camp near the small town of Cannon Ball, where they will work with protesters who have spent months demonstrating against plans to route the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, organizers said. The Native Americans and protesters say the $3.8 billion...

President-elect Donald Trump is set to meet Friday with North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a red-state Democrat, which could put Senate Democrats at a further disadvantage if she were to join the Trump administration. Heitkamp told CNN Thursday she has no inkling of what the meeting may be about, but said she was open to discussing serving in a Trump administration. News of the meeting set off a panic among top Democrats, some of whom began to privately make the case that Heitkamp should stay in the Senate rather than give up a seat that would likely be a GOP...

The hardware store chain said a statement circulating on social media indicating it had stopped selling products to protesters had been “manipulated.” Despite social media reports and rumors to the contrary, Ace Hardware says that its stores have not stopped selling supplies to people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Protests in North Dakota have been ongoing for months.

Donald Trump will meet with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) on Friday, his team announced before suggesting she's in the mix for a cabinet job that could cost Democrats a seat in the Senate. "She comes very highly recommended, very highly qualified, is a proven leader and would be an asset in any role or capacity," Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters on a Thursday morning conference call. A Heitkamp appointment would give Trump's cabinet the veneer of bipartisanship, and all but certainly hand Republicans control of another Senate seat, giving them a 53-47 edge in the upper chamber. The first-term...

CANNON BALL, ND--More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans plan to form a human shield to protect protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline project near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, organizers said, just ahead of a federal deadline for activists to leave the camp they have been occupying. It comes as North Dakota law enforcement backed away from a previous plan to cut off supplies to the camp--an idea quickly abandoned after an outcry and with law enforcement's treatment of Dakota Access Pipeline protestors increasingly under the microscope. Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, a contingent of more than 2,000...

Perhaps significantly advancing the time frame designated in the Army Corps of Engineers’ notice several Standing Rock Camps would face some form of eviction on December 5, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple opportuned an incoming winter storm to issue a mandatory emergency evacuation order — for all encampments north of the Cannonball River. Although the evacuation appears not be one of force, it is obligatory — all water protectors camping in Army Corps-managed land have been ordered by Dalrymple to take all possessions and vacate the area. “These persons are ordered to leave the evacuation area immediately, and are further...

A reported influx of white protestors at Standing Rock has led to an unusual request from activists at the North Dakota Access Pipeline protest. According to the Independent, fellow protestors are asking white demonstrators to please stop treating the area like a free-for-all festival, complete with drugs, unsolicited music and photo ops. "No drugs or alcohol... This is not burning man or a festival," one statement posted on Facebook reads. "... YOU ARE NOT ON VACATION. This is not a camping trip." "White people are colonizing the camps..." protestor Alicia Smith added on Facebook. "They are coming in, taking food,...

Tension is brewing within the Dakota Access protest as complaints grow about outside activists trashing the camps, mooching off donations, and treating the anti-pipeline demonstration like a Burning Man-style festival for hippies. “Need to get something off my chest that I witnessed and found very disturbing in my brief time there that I believe many others have started to speak up about as well. White people colonizing the camps,” said Alicia Smith on Facebook. “They are coming in, taking food, clothing etc and occupying space without any desire to participate in camp maintenance and without respect of tribal protocols,” she...

Native Americans protesting the construction of the 1,200-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline: quit throwing rocks at police; stop setting cars ablaze; discard your “Children Don’t Drink Oil” signs—and join your fellow brothers and sisters in making America great again. “We don’t have weapons. … We are looking out for … the children who are not even born yet,” Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault II said to defend his 10,000-member tribe’s use of violence, aggression and disorderly conduct to protest the construction of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline. No weapons? “A line of sheriff’s officers retreated in the face...