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Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: Court finds the approval of Dakota Access Pipeline violated the law


The Indigenous American
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 00:00 UTC
StandingRockers
© CNN.com
Ruling: Trump administration shortcut environmental review; Court seeks additional briefing on whether to shut down pipeline

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its fight to protect the Tribe's drinking water and ancestral lands from the Dakota Access pipeline.

A federal judge ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.

In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg wrote,
"the Court agrees that [the Corps] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline's effects are likely to be highly controversial." The Court did not determine whether pipeline operations should be shut off and has requested additional briefing on the subject and a status conference next week.

"This is a major victory for the Tribe and we commend the courts for upholding the law and doing the right thing," said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II in a recent statement. "The previous administration painstakingly considered the impacts of this pipeline, and President Trump hastily dismissed these careful environmental considerations in favor of political and personal interests. We applaud the courts for protecting our laws and regulations from undue political influence and will ask the Court to shut down pipeline operations immediately."

Comment: So, a semi, but significant victory for the Tribe, though the way forward is still unclear. Trump, having a history with numerous legal processes, should have given this decision more evaluation and time, especially when it concerned the health of native Americans and access to their ancestral lands. Sometimes, money is not the higher payoff.

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Snakes in Suits

Trump has issued more H-2B visas to low-wage foreign workers


RT
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 20:33 UTC
visa
© The Indian Express
The Trump administration has increased this year's quota for foreign temporary workers allowed into the United States by 15,000 new visas. Some say the decision contradicts President Donald Trump's "Buy American, Hire American" agenda.

Allowing more foreign workers with H-2B visas for jobs in industries such as seasonal resorts, landscaping, seafood harvesting, will help American businesses avert the "irreparable harm" that can be caused by a shortage of such labor, said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

After consulting with Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, US Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly found there were not enough qualified and willing American workers available to perform temporary nonagricultural work, the department said in a statement.
"As a demonstration of the administration's commitment to supporting American businesses, DHS is providing this one-time increase to the congressionally set annual cap," Kelly said.
This year's limit for H-2B visas is 66,000. In May, Congress gave the Trump administration the authority to increase the number upon determination that the needs of American businesses cannot be satisfied in fiscal year 2017 with United States workers who are willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor, the bill said.
The decision threatens to reverse the trend of employers "raising pay to successfully recruit more unemployed Americans for lower-skilled jobs," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that favors reduced immigration levels. This is yet another example of the administration and Congress failing to keep the Trump campaign promise of putting American workers first," he said.

Comment: One-time only...will that be the case? It is hard to believe that in all of the USA there are not 15,000 qualified people willing to 'perform temporary nonagricultural work.' That said, European countries hire migrants all the time. It is a common solution.

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Piggy Bank

Millions in UK taxpayer cash handed out 'last minute' to meet 'foreign aid targets'


RT
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:07 UTC
London Britain UK foreign aid
© Stefan Wermuth / AFP
The government is "struggling" to spend its allocated overseas aid budget and dispenses cash overseas in a last-minute frenzy to meet its targets, the spending watchdog has said.

A National Audit Office (NAO) report has raised concerns that money is being wasted because of the "rush" by civil servants to hit the legal requirement of 0.7 percent of the nation's income going to overseas aid, according to the Telegraph.

Tory MPs accused the government of needlessly spending money to meet "artificial targets" after the report revealed five out of 11 Whitehall departments spent more than half their annual aid budget in the last few weeks of the year to meet financial deadlines.

Comment: There's trillions to spend around the globe while, in Britain, the number of homeless families has doubled since 2010:
The number of homeless families in the UK has almost doubled since the Conservative Party took power seven years ago, figures show.

Up to 59,090 households, or one in every 393 in the country, were declared homeless or in "priority need" of housing between March and April 2017, a 48 percent rise on the 40,020 in the same period in 2010.

According to a report by the Department of Communities and Local Government, up to 4,060 of the 14,600 households reported to local councils in the first quarter of 2017 were in London, accounting for 28 percent of the total.

The rise is thought to be down to both the economic and housing crises affecting Britain in recent years.


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Stock Up

Export customs data shows dramatic rise in Russian vegetable exports


RT
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:14 UTC
Russian cucumbers
© Evgenya Novozhenina / Reuters
Exports of Russian vegetables have increased significantly since the beginning of the year, according to the data from Russia's Federal Customs Service.

Tomato exports quadrupled in the six months from January to June. Shipments of cucumbers surged 29 percent in the same period, while cabbage exports grew 12.6 percent.

Exports of frozen vegetables are up 350 percent, according to the report, while shipments of canned vegetable products have doubled.

Russian beans and potatoes have also become popular among foreign consumers, the agency said.
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Bad Guys

Israeli police fire rubber bullets to disperse Temple Mount protestors, injuring 3 people


RT
Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:12 UTC
Palestinian arguing Israeli officer
© Ammar Awad / ReutersA Palestinian argues with an Israeli border police officer July 17, 2017.
Israeli forces fired rubber bullets to disperse protesting Palestinians outside the Temple Mount or al-แธคaram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) as referred to by Muslims, in Jerusalem, injuring three people, including Palestinian political figure Mustafa Barghouti.

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House

Dying middle class: Suburbs have absorbed half of America's poverty growth

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 12:56 UTC
Wichita Kansas neighborhood
© Kansas Leadership Center
For decades suburbia was home to the highest concentration of wealth in America, and perhaps even the entire world. It was the seat of our nation's thriving middle class and a beacon of economic mobility. The streets were clean and safe, the schools were highly regarded, and there were plenty of middle class jobs to be had.

But something has changed in suburbia. While offshoring and automation have destroyed millions of jobs across the country, the decimation of brick and mortar stores by online retailers has pounded the wealth base of suburbia. So much so, that there are more people living in poverty in suburbia than any other place in America.
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Stock Down

$10bn cryptocurrency devaluation in past 24 hours, Bitcoin hit hard but recovering


RT
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 22:23 UTC
Bitcoin
© Benoit Tessier / Reuters
Cryptocurrency investors have suffered heavy losses following a dramatic drop in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum in recent days.

Bitcoin fell to around $1,863 and Ethereum to around $133 over the weekend - 38 percent and 67 percent off their all-time high respectively. Bitcoin, in particular, suffered heavy losses since hitting a high of $3,018 on June 12.

By Monday, Bitcoin had recovered slightly to $2,129 while Ethereum also rose to $176.

The decline appears to be part of a wider trend across the market, with trade publication Coindesk reporting Sunday that the worth of all publicly traded digital currencies had fallen by a total of $10 billion in 24 hours over the weekend.
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Chart Pie

Oxfam report: Gap between rich and poor in US among highest of major industrial countries


RT
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 21:46 UTC
homeless man playing flute
© Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
Although the US is the richest country in the history of the world, its level of inequality is among the highest of major industrial countries, according to a new Oxfam report which says that tens of millions of working Americans are impoverished.

In 2015, 193 United Nations member states promised to reduce inequality as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Oxfam's Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index, released Monday, ranks 152 countries based on how they are tackling the gap between rich and poor.

The report breaks down each country's scores into three categories: spending on health, education and social protection; progressive structure and incidence of tax; and labor market policies to address inequality.
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Dollars

Million dollar cars: Marijuana packages smuggled into US in new Ford cars built in Mexico


RT
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 21:29 UTC
Ford Fusion car
© John Marshall Mantel / Reuters
Chunks of marijuana in the shape of half-moons were found smuggled in the spare tire wells of newly manufactured Ford Fusions in Ohio, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The authorities are still investigating how they got there.

Workers at a local car dealership found a package of marijuana hidden in the trunk of a vehicle and called in the Portage County Sheriff Department and the DEA, WKYC reported.

"Clearly something went wrong," Silverio Balzano, a DEA agent in Youngstown, Ohio, told WKBN. "Generally speaking, they take it off anywhere else along the way."

The vehicles were manufactured at the Ford plant in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico before being shipped by rail to Lordstown, Ohio.
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Cult

American singer R. Kelly accused of manipulating young women into joining his sex cult

Daniel Kreps
Rolling Stone
Mon, 17 Jul 2017 19:13 UTC
R. Kelly
© Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesR. Kelly
R. Kelly has been accused of "brainwashing" at least two aspiring female singers into sexual servitude in his homes in Chicago and Atlanta, Buzzfeed News reports. The investigation spoke to the families of both women, who said that Kelly preyed upon the women using physical and verbal abuse.

The Buzzfeed report alleged that Kelly keeps at least six women, all of legal age, on a pair of his properties. There, he dictates what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep and how they engage in sexual encounters, which he reportedly records. The women must adhere to a certain set of "rules" or face punishment. Kelly allegedly issues the women new cell phones and any communication with their parents is considered a breach of the rules. In many cases, the women have cut off all communication with their families, the report says.

One woman, who was once in Kelly's entourage, confirmed the report. "You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom ... [Kelly] is a master at mind control. ... He is a puppet master," she said of the singer. In total, three women who were "former members of Kelly's inner circle" contributed to the report.

Comment: See also:

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