Mike Pence does a decent job of defending his boss under the circumstances, but I’d sooner kill myself than sit there in front of the nation and make apologies for such bullshit.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Breaking News–Christmas Came Early for Some of Us.
The secretary of the Army Corps of Engineers has told Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault that the current route for the Dakota Access pipeline will be denied.
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Dakota-Access-Pipeline-Denied-near-sioux-re
servation-404636436.html
Thanks mino, it’s nice to get some good news for a change.
great! thanks for posting!
Obama will no more allow this pipeline to be stopped than he allowed Keystone XL to be stopped.
I don’t believe the pipeline is being stopped. The DAPL demonstrations were to re-route the pipeline away from the Missouri River and native American tribal lands and sacred grounds.
It’s unclear where the pipeline will now be routed.
Maybe back towards Bismark where it was first routed and then moved because the predominantly white population was concerned about water contamination
You’re doing the lord’s work here.
Got proof that Obama played any role in the CoE decision (other than not nixing it)? Perhaps replacing his first US Secretary of the Army (a Republican politician that served as Obama’s Sec Army from 9/09-11/15) with a 25 year government employee who is also a Democrat is what made the difference. Maybe like Bunnatine Greenhouse, Eric Fanning understands the mission, listens to subordinates that know how to apply the rules and laws in accordance with the mission. Fanning, who was only confirmed last May, wouldn’t have been involved in this matter until only recently.
There’s a reason why lefties carped about every GOP and DINO appointment Obama made. The routing of the DAPL should never not have been rejected by the CoE and Native Americans should never have been put in the position of having to mount a huge and costly protest in an effort to stop it. Prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Do you have any proof he played no role? Occam’s razor dictates that this was a high profile issue and the President was certainly in the loop on how it played out. As does the fact that President Obama asked the pipeline company to stop construction weeks ago.
As for your lecture that people for those of us who didn’t tear down President Obama at every turn should reflect on the 2016 election, I agree but that also goes for people like you who did.
For example those who called President Obama a sell-out for not pushing for single payer ought to reflect on the fact that single payer was crushed on Colorado. And for people who raked him through the coals for not ending DADT soon enough should now realize that by taking the approach he did it isn’t something Trump can undo with an executive order.
I know this comes as a shock to you but you weren’t right on all of the issues either. If the D party is to find its way back into power all sides of the party need to stop assuming they have all the answers because this election proved none of them do.
Do you not understand the definition of “perhaps?” The CoE had the data on the routing long before Fanning was appointed and confirmed and did nothing. No change at the top from then to now. So, perhaps the one high level change in the chain of command made the difference. Even if Obama had wanted to stop it earlier, he was dependent on the Secretary of Army and CoE to provide the legal justification for doing so. We’ll probably never find out if Obama ordered the Sec Army to “find it” and he followed orders or Fanning and his subordinates did it on their own. The latter is always more likely than the POTUS having some sort of independent revelation. Even when in the presences of protests which Obama and most presidents ignore.
There’s a lot of power and competence and incompetence in all US agencies. But they are always under the command and control of the senior appointed officials who in turn have to answer to their boss. When the senior official suppresses the competence of the permanent underlings, the latter have to choose between retaining their jobs and hoping for a better boss next time or go rogue as a whistleblower, a role that holds no glory with the general public and TPTB.
consistently credit for the course change doesn’t qualify as “proof” of “playing any role” in the outcome!?
[Reviewing where this started:
“Interesting” interpretation!
(I’ll stipulate I doubt Obama nominated Fanning for the sole purpose of getting the Corps to reverse the pipeline routing approval.)
Perhaps you missed the history of the commentator. His/her job is to trash anyone not in line with the DP PTB regardless of how wrong, etc. the DP PTB are.
In this instance she/he isn’t even technically correct as the claim that “Obama wouldn’t stop the pipeline” still stands because he hasn’t stopped the pipeline. Even if we grant that Obama did his will through the CoE, it’s only the routing of one section of the pipeline that can’t go forward.
the content of the individual comment rather than a nursed grudge based on the “history” of the commenter as you perceive it.
Further — your contributions here over the years have been limited to “clap louder” and mock those that didn’t. Same tactic employed by the Bushies until they got their asses handed to them in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Well, your Democratic ass has been handed to you in the 2014 and 2016 elections and by Donald – freaking – Trump. An adult would reflect on that.
Trump’s housing policy: Pray. A sinecure for an “idiot savant” outside his only skill set. Guess the only other option was appointing a dead cat.
On a related note — also from The Guardian — Artists and advocates say deadly Oakland fire is product of housing crisis . That was one of my first thoughts in reading about this tragic event. Elites believe that cities thrive when only “their kind” lives within them. And “their kind” doesn’t include all the people required to keep the streets, power, water, etc. in working order.
the bay areas housing crisis is very real but I don’t like mixing that up with the issues of this fire, which involve an owner and a manager using that totally unsafe space as an unlicensed nightclub.
Chicken or egg? Those that pointed fingers at Wall St crooks (and they were crooks) and/or irresponsible people purchasing houses they couldn’t afford as the cause of the financial meltdown succeeded in deflecting attention away from the primary change that created the landscape where it could happen — specifically the repeal of Glass-Steagall (officially known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley to better able mask that it was a repeal act of foundational legislation that had protected the general public for over sixty years).
From Tom Sullivan @ digby’s place. Seems very relevant to lots of . . . er . . . “discussion” here. Argues “progressives”* should mimic the tactics (not the evil) of “disaster capitalists” as detailed by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine, essentially, stand ready to exploit opportunities as they arise:
And yes, the cliche applies: you should go read the whole thing (not that long).
*much as I dislike and generally avoid “progressive/-ism” as descriptor of politics I align myself with, seeing the term as the refuge timid/cowardly actual Liberals ran away to under the dishonest assault of Rove/Gingrich’s immensely successful (in substantial part as a result of that cowardly retreat) propaganda campaign to demonize “liberal/-ism” and turn it into a pejorative; instead of mounting a robust defense of what it actually means, is, and has accomplished, in the process of proudly claiming it. I see this ongoing unwillingness to stand up for and promote our values as a (if not the) major weakness that’s got the Dems where they are today.
It is a good article. Sullivan is worth reading regularly.
And do read the whole thing.
.