U.S. Spy Trucks Target Indigenous on Border. Border Patrol Should Turn Cameras on Itself.

(Above photo by Lori Simmons)
Spy truck now on Texas border where Indigenous Peoples are defending a burial place and the National Butterfly Center from the border wall being pushed by the Ultra White Supremacist placed in the presidency.

U.S. Spy Trucks Target Indigenous on Border. U.S. Border Patrol Should Turn Cameras on Itself.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

The US Border Patrol should turn its cameras on itself. An agent was recently arrested smuggling drugs on to the Tohono O'odham Nation at Sasabe, Arizona.

 Instead the United States spies on Native people all along the border. The video spy camera trucks shown here target Indigenous People.
In the photo above, this spy truck is at McAllen, Texas, in the area where Native people are resisting the border wall, and defending the National Butterfly Center.
Below you can see one of the United Stares' spy trucks --  on Tohono O'odham Nation sovereign land -- spying into a traditional O'odham woman's home.

One Border Patrol agent on Tohono O'odham Nation has been identified as a US Border Patrol agent in Special Operations, special ops, based in El Paso. The agent pulled a gun on an O'odham woman when she told him to leave.
Along with the mobil U.S. spy trucks, now Israeli spy towers are planned by U.S. Homeland Security for sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation land. Gu-Vo District is opposing the towers which would destroy burial places and endanger the fragile desert and wildlife.
The U.S. contract is with Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor responsible for Apartheid border security in Palestine, and known around the world for human rights violations.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/09/us-israeli-pact-targets-traditional.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0cZhD7_Gw9Zpan6BJRo2-Hn1vlcydoHhd2g6PzfLyebEbSywQ0VYNV_U0-

Article copyright Brenda Norrell. Photos copyright by photographers, names withheld here.

Trump functions as game show host, while U.S. collapses

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

As a Category 4 Hurricane hit the Texas coast Friday night, Trump pardoned a racist criminal, Joe Arpaio, and Trump banned transgendered persons from the military.
While Trump was home relaxing and tweeting -- those 'fake' news reporters and first responders were on the Texas coast risking their lives and facing a hurricane.
Trump's decision to hold a rally in Phoenix this week, after Charlottesville, was a premeditated act of inciting racial violence.
Fortunately no one was killed in Phoenix.
While recklessly endangering lives with the promotion of white supremacy, mentally unstable Trump operates as a game show host on Twitter.

Phoenix ouside Trump rally

Hurricane Harvey

Water Protectors Awaken Global Movement of Pipeline Resistance and Divestment

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ARKANSAS DIAMOND PIPELINE LOCKDOWN MONDAY

Water protector Tyler Hamilton was arrested Monday. Tyler is being held without bail in the Pope County jail in Russellville, Arkansas. Tyler is being charged with 3 misdemeanors and one felony (criminal mischief in the second degree). The arresting officer stated that this class D felony charge is being pursued by the prosecuting attorney as a direct result of time and money lost by Diamond Pipeline.

Water Protectors Inspire New Resistance Camps, Global Divestment in Dakota Access Pipeline

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Because of the water protectors who stood on the frontlines and were shot with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons in freezing weather, who locked down and went to jail and were abused in jail, the movement is now a rallying point for the world.

Divestment in the banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline is one of the victories of the water protectors who camped at Standing Rock.

An Indigenous Women's Delegation to Norway was announced today, carrying the voices of the water protectors at Standing Rock to Europe, and urging divestment in Dakota Access Pipeline.

The delegates to Norway include Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle (Oglala Lakota and Mdewakantonwan Dakota living and working on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation); Wasté Win Young (Ihunktowanna/Hunkpapa of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Former Tribal Historic Preservation Officer); Tara Houska (Anishinaabe, tribal attorney, National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth, former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders); Autumn Chacon (Diné/Navajo writer and performance artist); and Michelle Cook (Diné/Navajo, human rights lawyer and founding member of the Water Protector Legal Collective at Standing Rock) - with the support of Delegate organizer Osprey Orielle Lake (Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, WECAN) and Tanyette Colon (documentary filmmaker). Read more at Censored News http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2017/03/indigenous-womens-divestment-delegation.html

Now, throughout the United States new camps are fighting other pipelines and water protectors are rising with the same fortitude, dedication and courage to protect the water, rivers, land and sacred places.
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Photo courtesy Arkansas Rising

On Monday, Tyler Hamilton was arrested as he locked down to halt the Diamond pipeline in Arkansas. Water protectors on the border of Texas and Mexico are battling the Trans Pecos pipeline owned by Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer Partner owner Kelcy Warren.

In Oklahoma, a new camp is rising on Choctaw land. In Iowa, water protectors have created the Little Creek Camp. In Florida, water protectors are battling the Sabal Trail pipeline. New water protector camps are rising as the KXL pipeline from the dirty oil tarsands in Alberta, Canada, again threatens the Ogallala Aquifer and heartland.
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Sicangu Lakota youth Destiny Wilcuts locked down to halt Trans Pecos
pipeline on Texas border during January.

The movement is intensifying as farmers, ranchers and small families are now having their lands seized by eminent domain for private pipelines -- as President Trump pushes the agenda of big oil over people and their land rights.

Indigenous Sami Lead Way for Divestment

Sami with Water Protectors at Standing Rock Camp

"In an act of international solidarity between indigenous peoples, the Sami parliament in Norway has persuaded the country’s second largest pension fund to withdraw its money from companies linked to a controversial oil project backed by Donald Trump," The Guardian in London reports.
After lobbying by the Sami parliament, Norway’s local authority pension fund KLP announced it would sell of shares worth $58m in companies building the pipeline.

Seattle, Davis and Santa Monica withdrawing billions from Wells Fargo
Bloomberg reports Wells Fargo and Company shareholders will vote next month on whether to require the bank to adopt policies to help protect indigenous groups after protesters targeted its role in financing the Dakota Access pipeline.

On Feb. 7, Seattle severed its relationship with Wells Fargo, leading the way for other cities.

The Nation reports, "Now, inspired by the Seattle model, campaigners in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Bellingham, Raleigh, Albuquerque, and even Berlin, are bringing DAPL divestment to their communities."

"As of late February, officials in two other California cities, Davis and Santa Monica, had also pledged to bail on future banking contracts with Wells Fargo. Davis will be withdrawing its $124 million account from the bank; Santa Monica plans to take its $1 billion elsewhere as well."

More:
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/sami-dakota-access-pipeline-norway-pension-fund-divest
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/wells-fargo-s-dakota-access-financing-prompts-a-shareholder-vote
The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/these-cities-are-divesting-from-the-banks-that-support-the-dakota-access-pipeline/

Thousands Oppose Border Coal Mine as Texas Approves Permit

Thousands Call for Texas to Deny Dos Republicas Coal 

Mine Wastewater Permit

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Approval could further contaminate recreation, drinking water for border communities

By Vanessa Ramos

vanessa.ramos@sierraclub.org 
Matt Johnson matt.johnson@sierraclub.org

Censored News

AUSTIN, Texas -- Today, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved the wastewater discharge permit renewal and expansion for the Dos Republicas coal mine near Eagle Pass, Texas, despite thousands of Texans urging them to deny it.

Several Native groups, elected officials, as well as environmental and social justice advocates held a demonstration and press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Austin to speak out against the coal mine and its toxic wastewater. Local community members are concerned, after experiencing a fish kill and learning about coal mining pollution, that the Dos Republicas mine is contaminating Elm Creek and the Rio Grande River with toxic chemicals and heavy metals that make the water unsafe for drinking and recreation, and is damaging the local economy. In addition to polluting the water, the mine destroys the land, threatens wildlife, and causes air, light, and sound pollution to the City of Eagle Pass. All of the coal is sent to Mexico to be burned in some of the dirtiest power plants in the hemisphere.

“It is extremely sad and disappointing to witness the TCEQ rubber stamping this permit that basically makes it impossible for the people of Eagle Pass and Maverick County to preserve and protect their water,” said Tane Ward, Senior Organizing Manager for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “The TCEQ permitting process exists to protect these people from pollution, not put them at risk of exposure to toxic coal runoff.” 

A coalition of thousands of individuals have signed in opposition to the mine, including many elected officials of the City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County. Three thousand people signed a petition specifically asking the TCEQ to deny the wastewater discharge permit.

“Local opposition to this coal mine is very strong, and it is growing across Texas,” said Martha Baxter, a resident of Eagle Pass. “Our community relies on this water for recreating and drinking, so we just can’t sit back and watch this coal mine ruin it with its wastewater.”

  

In addition to its disastrous environmental impacts, Dos Republicas is near one of the oldest historical human settlement areas in all of the Americas and is ancestral territory to many Native Texans. More than 100 archaeological sites are under threat of destruction by dynamite blasting, surface mining, and toxic pollutants, which will completely destroy Native burials, historic artifacts, and sacred sites. In April, 2016, a historic gathering of Native Texans representing several tribes marched against the mine in Eagle Pass.

Watch videos:
https://www.facebook.com/TexasSierraClub/videos/10154298512097920/

https://www.facebook.com/TexasSierraClub/posts/10154298327042920

Migrant children's prisons in Texas: Hold US responsible for international crimes

By imprisoning migrant children, in violation of international law, the United States has proven to be the world's bully, abusing children who have no one to protect them, or fight for their rights. -- Censored News

Photo: Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a US Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville, Texas. (Reuters/Eric Gay)

The United States and the United Nations refuse to protect the world's most vulnerable asset -- migrant children -- and refuse to defend its most valuable asset, its children

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

The United States is imprisoning children in migrant prisons, in violation of international law. The imprisonment of migrant children with adult strangers in Texas is an egregious crime against humanity. Further the State of Texas is further violating the rights of humanity by classifying migrant children's prisons as "child care facilities."

This flagrant violation, and the United States ongoing targeted assassinations using drones, combined with secret renditions to foreign countries, torture, and imprisonment without charges in Guantanamo, mandate that the United States be held responsible for crimes against humanity, and be responsible for punitive damages. 

Both the Bush and Obama administrations, and the individuals responsible, should be held responsible for war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The most recent egregious violation of human rights is the imprisonment of children with adult strangers in a private prison-for-profit in Dilley, Texas.

The prison in Dilley is operated by Corrections Corporation of America. It is one of two privately run detention centers in Texas under contract with the United States government to hold undocumented immigrant women and children.

The other unit, in Karnes City, is operated by the Geo Group. The Karnes City unit can hold about 600 people and has already been issued a state license.

These two prisons-for-profit, both CCA and GEO (formerly Wackenhut), are operating in a criminal manner.

The Texas Tribune reports, "A Travis County judge ruled Wednesday that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services cannot license an immigration detention center as a childcare facility, giving immigrant rights groups a victory in a months-long battle with the state.

"State District Judge Karin Crump said her injunction was needed to protect the women and children being held in the 2,400-bed facility in Dilley, Texas. Crump said current licensing exceptions allow mixed gender detainees to room together and in some cases, force children to share quarters with adult strangers.

“The exceptions allow and have allowed for situations for children that are dangerous,” she said. “And this temporary injunction addresses those concerns.” Read the article: Texas: Judge blocks private prison licensing https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/01/judge-blocks-state-licensing-detention-facility-ch/

The United States continues to act with impunity, violating international law, with mass incarceration of migrant children, and global assassinations. The United States should be held responsible for violations of the Geneva Conventions. 

Further, during its Periodic Review before the United Nations in Geneva in 2015, the countries of the world made it clear that the United States practice of longterm solidarity confinement in US prisons is torture.

The countries of the world also pointed out that the United States had failed in assuring women's rights and failed to protect blacks and people of color from racist police who use deadly force with impunity. 

At the United Nations, the countries of the world also made it clear that the United States had targeted American Indian communities with poisonous mining and toxic dumping, constituting environmental racism.

The United Nations has shown no willingness to actually hold the United States responsible for war crimes and egregious human rights violations.

The United Nations has revealed that on the issues of the United States war crimes, and crimes against humanity, that the United Nations is a hoax. As Lakota activist Russell Means always said the United Nations is no more than a "dog and pony show," and a puppet to the United States.

While the United Nations grandstands on human rights issues, and postures before the world with its theater, it refuses, and fails to carry out the vital protection necessary for the world's migrants and  people of color.

The United States and the United Nations refuse to protect the world's most vulnerable asset -- migrant children -- and refuse to defend its most valuable asset, its children.

EAGLE PASS: Native Groups Lead Action Against Dos Republicas Coal Mine

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Native Groups Lead Historic Action Against Dos Republicas Coal Mine

By Matt Johnson and Olka Forster

Censored News

Dutch translation by Alice Holemans, NAIS at:

http://www.denaisgazet.be/nieuws/navajo-protest-peabody-coal-moet-betalen

EAGLE PASS, Texas -- Native American Groups gathered for a historic rally and march to protest the open-pit coal strip mine in Eagle Pass, Tex. The protesters called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  to rescind the mine’s permit, halt expansion and protect the land from further destruction. 

The project, owned by Dos Republicas Coal Partnership, mines lignite coal, which is transported by train from Maverick County across the border to be burned in a Mexican coal-fired power plant. The mine began operating several months ago, despite widespread local public opposition, and is harming the ancestral homelands of many Native groups and damaging sacred lands and more than 100 archaeological sites.

“This mine has already caused irreparable damage, destroying multiple burial sites and erasing our cultural heritage in the process,” said Maria Torres, Tribal Chairwoman of the Pacuache Clan of Texas. “This land is our patrimonial heritage, and it holds the story of our ancient aboriginal people -- how we lived and how we died. When we lose access to our land and to the ancient wildlife of the area, from the jaguarundi and ocelot to crucial plant life, we lose part of our heritage and our connection with Mother Earth.”

Many Native groups say they were not properly consulted by Federal agencies as required prior to granting the permits necessary for the coal mine to open. The project also faced widespread local opposition. More than eight thousand Eagle Pass residents and allies signed a petition in opposition to the Dos Republicas mine before its opening.

"This project is the worst example of environmental injustice I've seen,” said Dr. Jonathan Hook, former Director of Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs for the EPA, Cherokee Nation citizen and Maverick County resident. “Everything about it is wrong. Given the incomplete processes and potential damage to one of the most vulnerable communities in the country, the Dos Republicas mine should have been stopped before it even started."

Representatives from the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, Pacuache Band Coahuiltecan Nation, Carrizo-Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and American Indian Movement of Central Texas were present at the Saturday event, which included Native drumming, and other cultural expressions along with large banners, signs, and puppets.

“Native leaders, tribal members and allies from across the country are uniting here today, and they join thousands from the area who are standing up against this disastrous project," said Dr. Tane Ward, and Native and decolonial organizer working with the Sierra Club. "It’s unclear why the state of Texas has been so supportive of the controversial mining project. Not only does it harm culturally rich and historic land, the Dos Republicas mine threatens the safety and livelihood of those who live nearby all so the coal can be shipped to Mexico and burned in coal plants. It's time for this dangerous project to be stopped, once and for all."

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Photo above Pablo Mancias

US Gunrunning to Cartels: Four facts mainstream media doesn't want you to know

Arizona police circulated ATF Project Gunrunner 'Weapons of Choice' in 2008

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

When US Attorney General Eric Holder resigned, the Blaze reported that it was in response to the fact that a federal judge ruled that Fast and Furious documents must be released.

Still, the mainstream media is scratching itself, and refusing to report on the ATF gunrunning weapons to the cartels.

Here's four facts that the media, and the US government, don't want you to know:

1. Gunrunning to cartels began in 2005 in Texas:

A Department of Justice report in 2010 states that Project Gunrunner began in Laredo, Texas, during the Bush administration in 2005. 
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/OIG_report.pdf
More http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-gunrunner-enters-oz-phase-with.html

2. Tucson's Operation in 2006:

Although the news media has focused on the ATF’s Fast and Furious, another operation, Operation Wide Receiver, allowed guns to “walk” into Mexico during the Bush administration, 2006 -- 2007, according to a Tucson gun seller who kept a lengthy journal.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/tucsons-wide-receiver-gunrunners-during.html

3. US Army and Navy were on Arizona police e-mail about gunrunning in 2008:

Anonymous' Lulzsec hacked the Arizona police departments and a Project Gunrunner brochure was exposed and posted online. (See photo above.) ATF's Project Gunrunner Weapons of Choice was dated as revised in 2008 and shows photos of the automatic weapons, which the US allowed to "walk" across the border. The e-mail containing the brochure was circulated by e-mail from an Arizona police officer to US army and navy personnel.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/06/project-gunrunner-collapsed-media-cant.html

4. US public showed little compassion for the death of Mexican citizens

There was no public outcry in the US after the US gunrunning to cartels was first exposed, even though innocent bystanders were often killed with those weapons in Mexico. The outrage came only after US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed with one of the weapons in southern Arizona in 2010. A second US federal agent, ICE agent Jaime Zapata, was killed with one of the weapons in northern Mexico in 2011.