New Mexico questions Desert Rock fish impact

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

WINDOW ROCK — New Mexico Environment Department has requested a meeting with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss the impacts of emissions from the proposed Desert Rock power plant on threatened and endangered species.

NMED Secretary Ron Curry sent a letter March 30 to the service’s New Mexico Ecological Services Field Office Supervisor Wally Murphy requesting a meeting to discuss the biological assessment for the plant.

“The assessment indicates 13 chemicals of potential concern, including high levels of mercury and selenium, will be emitted from the proposed Desert Rock facility and will impact the San Juan River and the Rio Grande,” Curry stated in the letter.

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2009/04April/040209newmexico.html

AGs air Desert Rock permit concerns

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

WINDOW ROCK — The attorneys general of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont have jointly submitted comments to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency voicing concerns regarding the proposed issuance of an air quality permit for construction of the Desert Rock power plant.

The attorneys general said they believe EPA’s Region 9 cannot properly rely on a memo from former EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, issued about a month before the Bush administration left office, as the basis for refusing to impose the “best available control technology” requirement for carbon dioxide.

“Rushed through without an opportunity for public comment, the Johnson memo was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act,” they said.

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2009/03March/033009agsairdesertrock.html

Statement from Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, UH Center for Hawaiian Studies

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

Today we learn that the Supreme Court of Injustice of America, has ruled unanimously that the illegal State of Hawaii has the right to sell “ceded” lands.

Why are we not surprised? If they had ruled otherwise every native nation whose lands have been taken by America would file suit for a return of their lands.

We, the Hawaiian people, who are born from the union of Papahanaumoku and Wakea, earth mother and sky father, and who have lived in these islands for over 100 generations, will always have the moral right to the lands of Hawaii now and forever, no matter what any court says.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090331/BREAKING/90331041/1352

Churchill wins CU suit but awarded just $1

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

Ward Churchill won his case against the University of Colorado today as a Denver jury unanimously decided he was fired in retaliation for his controversial essay about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The jury gave Churchill $1 for past losses, finding he was fired over protected free speech.

Denver Chief District Judge Larry Naves will decide in a separate hearing whether the former Boulder professor can return to his job or receive pay for years he could have worked at CU.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12055632

240 fires on nuclear submarines

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

BRITAIN’S nuclear submarines have been involved in 14 collisions in the past 21 years, it emerged last night.

The Royal Navy has also admitted there have been 237 fires on its nuclear-powered submarine fleet since 1987.

However, Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister, who revealed the figures in a written Commons answer, said the only collision with another submarine was the one in February with a French vessel in the mid-Atlantic.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk/240-fires-on-nuclear-submarines.5138309.jp

GAO: Department of Labor Failing to Protect Workers

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

Federal agents posing as workers have completed an undercover investigation of the Department of Labor (DOL) that has resulted in claims that the department frequently mishandles serious worker complaints, placing many workers at risk. The outcome of the investigation is detailed in a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found DOL mishandled nine out of the 10 cases included in the undercover operation.

The report, which is scheduled to be released on March 25, found that the agency’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) not only failed to properly investigate wage and hour complaints, but also ignored a complaint that underage children were working at a California meatpacking plant during school hours, a violation of a number of labor laws.

GAO filed 10 common complaints with WHD district offices across the country. The undercover tests revealed “sluggish response times, a poor complaint intake process and failed conciliation attempts, among other problems,” said GAO in its report. “In one case, a WHD investigator lied about investigative work performed and did not investigate GAO’s fictitious complaint. At the end of the undercover tests, GAO was still waiting for WHD to begin investigating three cases – a delay of nearly 5, 4 and 2 months, respectively.

http://ehstoday.com/standards/osha/department-labor-protect-workers-7153/

NRC details latest nuclear plant leak

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

BRATTLEBORO – The latest radioactive leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is in a threaded plug on the bottom of a demineralizer tank that is part of the reactor’s water cleanup system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday.

The tank contains filter material and is used to clean and purify reactor coolant water that circulates through the reactor, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The filter also removes radioactivity.

“The leak is small and unrelated to the leak involving the valve,” Sheehan said, referring to the December leak, which was only contained last week.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20090403/NEWS02/904030383/1003/NEWS02

MNN: ‘Operative Journalists trying to set up Indigenous People for Attack?’

This was originally posted by Brenda Norrell at http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

MNN: ‘Operative Journalists trying to set up Indigenous People for Attack?’

“OPERATIVE” JOURNALISTS TRYING TO SET UP INDIGENOUS PEOPLE FOR ATTACK?

Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

MNN. April 1, 2009. The colonies of U.S. and Canada know we, the Rotinoshonnionwe, have a birthright to conduct trade and commerce on our homeland, Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island. State and Federal authorities cannot legally stop us except by coercion, breaking laws, criminalizing and threatening us. We are peaceful, law abiding and take care of our families and communities. The misnomer Center for Public Integrity out of Washington DC has been putting out propaganda to produce racial hatred against us.

“Serial warfare” uses the media to set up the target for the attack. “Investigative journalists” seek the truth. “Operative journalists” use deceit, misinformation, destruction, psychological attacks and exaggeration on their “mark”. They create suspicion and biases against us by falsely connecting us to “guns”, “contraband”, “drugs”, “organized crime”, “smuggling” and “global terrorism”, to set the stage for an attack by U.S. and Canadian occupational forces, both military and corporate.

We are being criminalized by the foreigners for something that is not a crime. We have a right to trade and commerce. Tobacco is our product which we create on our homeland.

No violence is associated with any of our legitimate businesses. The only violence is that perpetrated on us by foreign cops and outside interests. No one supports those few business people who may be involved in drugs, similar to the U.S. government that was trading drugs for guns in the Iran-Contra affair, or the CIA releasing drugs in East LA [GaryWebb: Dark Alliance]. The colonists constantly criminalize almost anything we do that would make us independent. We have tried to play by the rules. The government raised the taxes and demands so high to try to control us that we could not sustain our businesses.

If most U.S. and Canadian businesses were criminalized or taxed too high to be viable, they may be forced to break their own laws to survive. The state has been trying to determine that the Mohawk People are “insurgents” to remove any human rights protections we have according to international law.

We would never carry out criminal economic enterprises like Bernie Madoff, AIG, Wall Street bankers and all the other corrupt scrum bags who have created the worldwide melt down. These are the kinds of interests that are coming after us.

The “operative media” plays a major role. Mainstream papers are losing circulation, influence and advertising. Many like the Montreal Gazette have become cheap sensation seeking rags. They divert the public from their own dire situations by ganging up on the “Indians”, a target they think can’t defend themselves.

The Center for Public Integrity is a propagandist of racial hatred which is a precursor to genocide. They criminalize and slander us for whoever hired them to set us up for the kill. This group of media whores may be lobbying for Big Tobacco and the foundations that fund them. They are “generously” funded by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. NYC Mayor and billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, constantly condemns “Indians” and tobacco and hires journalistic “hit men” to assassinate both. Other donators are the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, JEHT Foundation, John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation, Park Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and PIERS Port Import Export Reporting Services.

Their propaganda does not mention that the police forces are involved in stealing our products and money such as the Ontario Provincial Police, Surete du Quebec, RCMP, NYS Troopers, U.S. and Canada Customs Border Patrol, Cornwall, Montreal and other city cops. They hijack our products and then sell them to their own customers. This is known as the silent “blue market”. Many of our people don’t get a summons to go to court to reclaim our possessions. We sometimes find our vehicles in the parking lots of various donut shops.

Big Tobacco companies such as Rothman’s, Imperial and RJ Reynolds are headquartered in Britain. They don’t want any competition or for Indigenous to profit from trade in our own products. They want to be the only game in town, make the rules for everybody and call in the military on some made up pretext.

Tobacco is legal. The fear is that the profits are being invested in our youth, families and communities which will make us stronger. Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island, is the richest territory in the world. The invaders want to keep us as the poorest. If we had a real share of our own resources, we would not have to resort to what they call the “underground economy”. We are not afraid to work in the light of day because we aren’t criminals.

This is not about lost revenue or health care expenses in the U.S. and Canada. It’s about loss of control over this aspect of our lives. The “extortion” they are crying over is chump change compared to the trillions of dollars they are stealing from us.

Yes, we have organized crime in our communities called “Indian Affairs” and other colonial agencies. Non-native business people and the colonial state, with the help of their “Indian” mules, use the protection of the colonial Indian Act and Federal Indian law “band” and “tribal” recognition to make money. They help build casinos and other developments on our lands from which we do not benefit or control. The “kingpins” are all on the outside. We’re left with trying to clean up their mess! [MNN “Canada & Big Tobacco..” 2/6/09].

Big Tobacco and their global cohorts want everybody in the world to be under their thumb or otherwise eliminated. They are trying to corner us and cut us off from any means to survive. The streets of Kahnawake, Akwesasne, Kanehsatake, Cattaraugus and Tuscarora are safer than any street in Montreal, New York, Buffalo or Washington, D.C. This fear mongering hyperbole by the journalistic “guns for hire” of the multinationals and their colonial agents means we better get ready to defend ourselves. A big attack by the combined forces of the U.S. and Canada may be coming our way soon!

MNN Staff, Mohawk Nation News & Native Pride www.mohawknationnews.com www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com katenies20@yahoo.com
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
Note: At this time your financial help is urgently needed and appreciated for the lawsuit against the Canadian government for assault of Indigenous women at the Cornwall border. Please send your donations to PayPal at http://www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN “General” category for more stories on this; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.ph
; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

GLUTTONOUS SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH WHOSE GREED KNOWS NO BOUNDS: Prime Min. Stephen Harper pm@pm.ca; RJ. Reynolds America www.rjrt.com, Salem NC; Rothman UK Holding Ltd. www.fundinguniverse.com 15 Hill St., London W1X 7FB 071-491-4366; Imperial Tobacco Group PLC www.imperial-tobacco.com P.O. Box 244, Upton Rd., Bristol BS99 7UJ +44-0-177-963-6636; See Rothmans UK Holdings Limited London (071) 491-4366 Fax (071) 493-8404; JOSEPH GOEBBELS SCHOOL OF DIARRHEA JOURNALISM: Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.org; William “Who-needs-a-carton-of-Immodium-diarrhea-cure” Marsden wmarsden@thegazette.canwest.com; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health http://www.jhsph.edu; Carnegie Foundation www.carnegie.org; Ford Foundation www.fordfound.org; JHET Foundation www.jehtfoundation.org; John D. & Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation http://www.found.org; Park Foundation info@parkfoundation.org; Rockefeller Foundation rockfound.org; PIERS info@piers.com.
Note: Upper Cut School of Journalism looking for suitable candidates with integrity.

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 7:43 PM

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/04/mnn-operative-journalists-trying-to-set.html

Ward Churchill, and justice, prevailed in a Denver courtroom this afternoon

In case you haven’t heard yet, Ward Churchill, and justice, prevailed in
a Denver courtroom this afternoon. The jury in the 31/2 week trial was
asked to decide three questions (which I’m paraphrasing): 1)Did CU
Regents use protected speech (Ward’s 9/11 essay) as a substantial or
motivating factor in its decision to terminate Ward? The jury answered Yes.
2)Did the termination harm Ward? The jury answered Yes.
3)Have the defendants shown that Ward would have been dismissed for
other reasons? The jury answered No. In some ways this was the most
important question. By answering No, the jury said not only that Ward’s
First Amendment protected speech led to his firing, but that the
“finding” of the CU committee that Ward engaged in academic misconduct
was bogus, and there was no justification for firing him. As Ward said
to the press shortly after the verdict, and as was obvious all along,
this was a political motivated firing, and the jury in their verdict
said as much.
The jury awarded one dollar. But as David Lane, Ward’s primary attorney,
had said all along, this was never about money, it was about justice and
vindication for Ward, and that’s what the jury gave him.
Whether Ward will get reinstated is now apparently up to Judge Naves.
Attorneys have 30 days to prepare motions and then he’ll make a decision.

Via gmail.com

CLOSER LOOK AT THE KILLER DRONES

CLOSER LOOK AT THE KILLER DRONES

By Kathy Kelly and Brian Terrall

It’s one thing to study online articles describing the MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators. It’s quite another to identify these drones as they take off from runways at Nevada’s Creech Air Force base, where our “Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind” campaign is holding a ten-day vigil.

This morning, during a one hour walk from Cactus Springs, Nevada, where we are housed, to the gates of Creech Air Force base, we saw the Predator and Reaper drones glide into the skies, once every two minutes.

We could easily distinguish the Predator from the Reaper, – if the tailfins are up, it’s a Predator, tail fins down, a Reaper.

The MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones both function to collect information through surveillance; both can carry weapons. The MQ9 Reaper drone, which the USAF refers to as a “hunter-killer” vehicle, can carry two 500 pound bombs as well as several Hellfire missiles. Creech Air Force Base is headquarters for coordinating the latest high tech weapons that use unmanned aerial systems (UASs) for surveillance and increasingly lethal attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, (UAVs), take off from runways in the country of origin, controlled by a pilot, nearby, “on the ground.” But once many of the UAVs are airborne, teams inside trailers at Creech Air Force base and other U. S. sites begin to control them.

We’ve become more skilled in spotting and hearing the vehicles.

But, we want to acknowledge that Creech Air Force base pilots guiding surveillance missions over areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they are ordered to hunt down Taliban fighters, are absorbing and processing information which we wish they could disclose to us. Trainers at the base have arranged for a contractor to hire “extras” to pose as insurgents, walking about the range inside the base, so that pilots training for combat can practice shooting them. This is all done by simulation. Sometimes flares are set up to simulate plumes of smoke representing pretended battle scenes. But when the pilots fly drones over actual land in Pakistan and Afghanistan, they can see faces; they can gain a sense for the terrain and study the infrastructure. A drone’s camera can show them pictures of everyday life in a region most of us never think much about. We should be thinking about the cares and concerns of people who have been enduring steady attacks, displacement, economic stress, and, amongst the most impoverished, insufficient supplies of food, water and medicine. The Pentagon stated, today, that the situation in Pakistan is dire. We agree. Pakistanis have faced dire shortages of goods needed to sustain basic human rights. Security issues such as food security, provision of health care, and development of education can’t be addressed by sending more and more troops into a region, or by firing missiles and dropping bombs. In the past few days, the Taliban have responded to U.S. drone attacks with attacks of their own and with threats of further retaliation which have provoked renewed drone attacks by the United States. Are we to believe that the predictable spiral of violence is the only way forward? Antagonisms against the US in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq will be reduced when we actively respond to the reality revealed to us by the drones’ own surveillance cameras: severe poverty and a crumbling or nonexistent infrastructure. Human interaction, negotiation, diplomacy and dialogue, not surveillance and bombing by robots, will ensure a more peaceful future at home and abroad. We can’t see what the drones’ “pilots” can see through the camera-eye of the surveillance vehicle. But, we can see a pattern in the way that the U.S. government sells or markets yet another war strategy in an area of the world where the U.S. wants to dominate other people’s precious resources and control or develop transportation routes. We’ve heard before that the U.S. must go to war to protect human rights of people in the war zone and to enhance security of U.S. people. Certainly, the U.S. is nervous because Pakistan possesses a “nuclear asset,” that is to say, nuclear bombs. But so do other states that have been reckless and dangerous in the conduct of their foreign policy, particularly the United States and Israel.

At the gates of Creech Air Force Base, our signs read: “Ground the Drones…Lest You Reap the Whirlwind,” and “Ending War: Our Collective Responsibility.” Our statement says: “Proponents of the use of UASs insist that there is a great advantage to fighting wars in ‘real-time’ by ‘pilots’ sitting at consoles in offices on air bases far from the dangerous front line of military activity. With less risk to the lives of U.S. soldiers and hence to the popularity and careers of politicians, the deaths of ‘enemy’ noncombatants by the thousands are counted acceptable. The illusion that war can be waged with no domestic cost dehumanizes both us and our enemies. It fosters a callous disregard for human life that can lead to even more recklessness on the part of politicians.

” We hope that U.S. people will take a closer look at our belief that peace will come through generous love and through human interaction, negotiation, dialogue and diplomacy, and not through robots armed with missiles.

Kathy Kelly is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the author of Other Lands Have Dreams (published by CounterPunch/AK Press). Her email is kathy@vcnv.org

Brian Terrell (terrellcpm@yahoo.com) lives and works at the Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, IA.

Via gmail.com