"Pro Life" Or Only "Pro Birth?" - Sister Joan Chittister

What You Need to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest - Bill Moyers

Native Americans from tribes all over the country are protesting the construction of a crude-oil pipeline slated to snake through sacred sites and under the water supply for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The Dakota Access Pipeline Project (DAPL) is a $3.78 billion conduit being built from the oil-rich Bakken fields in North Dakota, near the Canadian border. It which will be located a half-mile from the reservation through land taken from the tribe in 1958.

The Dakota Access pipeline was fast-tracked from the beginning, using the Nationwide Permit 12 process that treats the pipeline as a series of small construction sites and grants exemption from the environmental review required by the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says they were not consulted and a survey of the area found several sites of “significant cultural and historic value” in the pipeline path, including burial grounds.

The tribe says that the pipeline is a significant danger to their water supply since it passes underneath the Missouri River — the main source of water for the reservation. An earlier proposal had the pipeline crossing the Missouri north of Bismarck, but authorities were concerned about the risk to the capital’s water supply in the advent of a pipeline spill.

On Aug. 10, construction began and a dozen demonstrators were arrested as they tried to stop it. The call for help went out, using social media and the #NoDAPL hashtag to spread information, and within a week hundreds of protesters arrived, swelling the ranks to more than 2,500.

The full article is available here

Democrats Did NOT Hire Protesters To "Be Violent" - Politifact

As problematic as Scott Foval’s statements were, he also says in the tape that he did not coach people to stage confrontations inside the events.  Nor did he say on tape that he told people to "be violent" and "start fist-fights," as Trump alleged. 

During the third and final presidential debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of paying people to incite violence at his rallies.

However, the videos Trump referenced (which focus on Scott Foval, who is identified as the national field director at Americans United for Change, a liberal organization) are edited in ways that the context of the conversation or the meaning of the statement isn’t always clear, nor do you know when they took place.

Additionally, Project Veritas’ undercover operatives are often goading their subjects with leading statements. It has the effect of making the viewer infer that the people said something that he or she didn’t literally say.

Tellingly, the Trump campaign provided no evidence of payment from Clinton or Obama—a charge that the video itself does not substantiate.

Trump’s claim that the Chicago “riot” reached a point that “people could’ve been killed” would seem to hold even less water. And when things did escalate during the March protest, Trump supporters played their part, as well.

It should be noted, too, that for as problematic as Foval’s statements were, he also says in the tape that he did not coach people to stage confrontations inside the events.

"They’re not starting confrontations in the rally because once they’re inside the rally, they’re under Secret Service’s control," Foval said.

Nor did he say on tape that he told people to "be violent" and "start fist-fights," as Trump alleged. Instead, Foval’s stated goal was to bait Trump supporters into violent acts simply by wearing certain t-shirts or saying anti-Trump remarks.

The full article is available here