Monday, December 5, 2016

Rumors Abound [With Some Follow Up]

A couple of hours ago Reuters reported that Dave Archambault II, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman, had told the non-Sioux Water Protectors to go home:
"I'm asking them to go. Their presence will only cause the environment to be unsafe," he said of the non-Sioux protesters, adding that he hopes to meet with incoming-president Donald Trump to educate him about the decision made and the future of the pipeline.
At the time, thousands of Water Protectors,  Veterans and allies were assembling at Backwater Bridge in a fierce blizzard for morning ceremony. "Going home" in weather conditions such as are current at the camp is unwise to say the least.

I have a hard time imagining that Dave Archambault would think let alone say such a thing under the current blizzard conditions.

So far, this report is only on Reuters and the Reuters report is referenced by others.

Live streams from the ceremony at the bridge have made no mention of it, and so far, I've found no confirmation from any other source.

Until and unless I see/hear the words from his own mouth, I will consider it nothing but a rumor or fake news.

[Follow up: In fact there has been a kinda-sorta confirmation from Dave Archambault's own mouth. Apparently on the afternoon or evening of December 4, after the announcement that the ACE would not approve an easement under the Missouri River, Archambault said that the people in the camp could go home to their families and enjoy the Holidays. He was convinced that nothing would happen with the pipeline before January, and perhaps not even then. If people wanted to stay, they could, but they would be more comfortable at home. I don't know whether he was quoted accurately by Reuters, but nothing I have seen so far of what he said at the camp or to the people in the camp was in any way comparable to the Reuters quote. And meanwhile, a blizzard came in which made it essentially out of the question for anyone to leave yesterday.

Archambault's video statement made yesterday:



Defiance from Water Protectors:

Chase Iron Eyes responds:



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/06/standing-rock-protesters-asked-to-go-home-by-sioux-leader

Hate to say it, but this is a typical corporate-government divide and conquer tactic. As solid as he has been throughout this struggle, one does wonder if he's been bought off.]

Rumors abound that Energy Transfer Partners is ignoring the Army Corps and has continued drilling under the Missouri River in order to complete the pipeline. Again no confirmation, but the rumor mill insists it's true.

Fake news? I don't know.

[Follow up: there have been numerous unconfirmed reports that ETP has continued drilling under Lake Oahe in defiance of the ACE. It may be true. But I've found no proof. A suggestive indication, however, is that the FAA forbade drone flights over the drilling platform that's set up by the river had quite a lot of activity to and fro a few days ago. That suggests to me that something is going on there that somebody doesn't want seen. On the other hand, the way the drilling platform is set up, it would be difficult to tell if there is active drilling going on.]

And in that regard the story of the Pennsylvania recount has become such a muddled mess, it's almost impossible to sort out truth from... something else.

It was reported on Friday that Jill Stein had abandoned the Pennsylvania recount effort by withdrawing from the Commonwealth Court petition to compel a statewide recount.

Reporting was sensational and inaccurate, but what else is new. In fact, recounts are and were going on in some election districts, but the petition was filed -- by "100 or more" Pennsylvania voters, not Jill Stein or the Green Party -- in order to meet Pennsylvania legal requirements to contest the election as a whole.

The petition was withdrawn when the Court imposed a $1 million bond simply to hold a hearing and required full payment by today. The petitioners said they couldn't pay the excessive bond. This was inaccurately reported as the Green Party/Jill Stein refusing to pay the bond, when they weren't the petitioners, "100 or more" Pennsylvania voters were as was required by Pennsylvania law. And they didn't have the money.

By Friday evening, Jill Stein and her attorneys stated they would be filing a federal court complaint for injunctive relief to compel recounts where possible and require forensic examination of electronic voting machines where recounts were not possible. Most Pennsylvania voting machines have no paper trail or any other way to verify their count and results. Thus a recount of those machines -- in the sense of verifying the vote -- isn't possible. This was not reported at all by some outlets, whereas others garbled it. A few got it right, but the initial false "abandonment" report was already out there, and updating or correcting it was... slow or nonexistent.

Jill Stein did in fact file for injunctive relief in federal court this morning.

And as always, the Trump Trope that she's scamming the public with this recount jaggoff was inserted everywhere possible.

What a whirled, what a whirled.

[Follow up: The story is mostly comprehensible in most of the media now, but things are moving so fast that the Pennsylvania recount is more of a sideshow. Apparently problems with the initial Michigan count have surfaced which are so severe that the Michigan vote could be challenged in its entirety. Developing. And from what I've seen so far, the Wisconsin recount is almost exactly the same as the initial count. Hm. Interesting.]

Time for some Springfield:




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