April, 12 2018, 05:00pm EDT
Enbridge Blunder Proves Line 5 Solutions a Sham: Time to Shut It Down
Statement by Jessica Fujan, Midwest Director, Food & Water Watch
Lansing, MI
Tuesday, Enbridge disclosed that dents in the dual pipelines were caused by the same vessel that hit two electric cables and spilled 600 gallons of hazardous oils into the Straits last week. In response, Food & Water Watch Midwest Director Jessica Fujan issued the following statement:
"The grossly inadequate response to this latest Line 5 calamity should leave lawmakers and concerned citizens confident that neither Enbridge or the State of Michigan can ensure safe utilization of this aging pipeline. To prevent greater catastrophe, Line 5 must be decommissioned immediately.
We urge the Governor and Attorney General Bill Schuette to respond to the public movement against Line 5, protect the safety and health of surrounding communities and the environment, and shut down the deteriorating pipeline once and for all."
Following Enbridge's botched handling of the crisis, Republican Senator Wayne Schmidt of Traverse City issued a statement decrying the severity of their error. "I have zero confidence situations like this have been and will be handled in a timely, effective manner... As a result, I am calling for a complete shutdown of Line 5...There is simply too much conflict and too great a risk to our state's natural resources."
Meanwhile, Governor Rick Snyder indicated intentions to proceed with an alternatives study on the oil line to continue into June. During this time, the pipeline poses eminent risk to the vulnerable Great Lakes which provide drinking water for millions of people across the Midwest.
Food & Water Watch has joined with the Oil & Water Don't Mix Campaign, 70 municipalities and 10 indigenous nations to pass resolutions calling for the shut down of Line 5.
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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Project 2025 Architect Signals Bloodshed If Left Opposes Trump-Led 'Revolution'
The "second American Revolution" now underway will "remain bloodless," said the president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, "if the left allows it to be."
Jul 03, 2024
The president of the right-wing group spearheading Project 2025 raised the specter of violence Tuesday against those who refuse to capitulate to what he characterized as "the second American Revolution" ushered in by presumptive GOP nominee and would-be authoritarian Donald Trump.
Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, said in an appearance on "Real America's Voice" that the coming "revolution" will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be"—a thinly veiled threat against those who resist the far-right's efforts to seize power.
Trump said in April that whether there is violence surrounding the 2024 presidential election "depends" on the "fairness" of the contest and the outcome.
Watch Roberts' remarks:
The president of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025:
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." pic.twitter.com/g0oKslNwkA
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 3, 2024
"We are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back," declared Roberts, who has said Project 2025 is "institutionalizing Trumpism" in preparation for a possible victory in November.
The Heritage Foundation president also hailed as "vital" the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this week bestowing what analysts and critics described as king-like powers on the presidency—powers that Trump is already planning to exploit.
Project 2025, a sweeping 922-page document, provides Trump with a detailed blueprint to advance his far-right agenda, including by purging career federal civil servants and replacing them with loyalists and centralizing power in the executive branch.
Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has called Project 2025 "a blueprint for autocracy," characterizing it as "a direct copy of the plan that Viktor Orban used to take over the Hungarian government in 2010."
"If it is carried out, Project 2025 will concentrate huge power in the hands of the president, giving him the power to control the whole federal government at his whim," Scheppele added.
Scheppele's assessment echoed that of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which warned in an analysis published late last year that "the entire project is devoted to aggrandizing executive power by centralizing authority in the presidency, and a key aspect of democratic backsliding is viewing opposition elements as attempting to destroy the 'real' community, an essential aspect to quashing dissent."
"Project 2025 paints progressives and liberals as outside acceptable politics, and not just ideological opponents, but inherently anti-American and 'replacing American values,'" the analysis said. "Targeting vulnerable communities is a core tenet of Project 2025. Project 2025 is very clearly on a path to Christian nationalism as well as authoritarianism."
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Nader released the letter, dated June 28, on the day the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority ruled that current and former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution—a decision that threw a wrench in the hush money proceedings and the separate election-subversion case led by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
On Tuesday, Merchan granted a request from Trump's legal team to delay the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's sentencing in the hush money case—in which he was found guilty on 34 felony counts—and consider how the Supreme Court's immunity ruling could impact the proceedings. Trump is now scheduled to be sentenced on September 18, "if such is still necessary," Merchan announced.
Nader argued in a social media post that "a prison sentence is more imperative than ever."
In light of the Supreme Court blocking all avenues of accountability for Trump with its decision in Trump v. United States, Judge Merchan is the last best hope to preserve the Republic from its overthrow by Donald Trump. See our letter to Judge Merchan, which explains why a…
— Ralph Nader (@RalphNader) July 1, 2024
In their letter to Merchan, Nader and Fein wrote that "the future of the United States will be materially influenced by your sentencing Donald J. Trump."
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Nader, a four-time presidential candidate, has vocally warned of the fascist threat posed by Trump and the GOP, a threat he says has only grown in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States. Trump's advisers have already signaled that the former president intends to exploit the high court's ruling if he wins in November.
"The six Supreme Court dictators have issued an opinion that 'the king can do no wrong,'" Nader wrote in response to the decision. "They have given absolute immunity to presidents to use the Insurrection Act and the vague national emergency and national security declarations to suppress citizen protests and their political opponents."
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"This administration has chosen to uphold the status quo instead of listening to the diverse voices of staff urgently demanding freedom and justice for Palestinians."
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A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians."
"Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement.
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Palestine defenders applauded Hassanein's resignation—which made her at least the 11th American official to step down over U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza, according to HuffPost.
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The Biden administration has been Israel's staunchest supporter, even after 270 days of what United Nations officials, human rights experts, and countries led by South Africa in an International Court of Justice case all call a genocidal assault on Gaza's 2.3 million people. Despite this, Biden has approved billions of dollars in military assistance and provided diplomatic support for Israel.
According to Palestinian and international agencies, at least 37,925 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed by Israeli forces, while upward of 87,000 others have been wounded and at least 11,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged buildings.
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