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A federal judge in Ohio on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, as well as his longtime adviser Roger Stone, to prohibit attempts to harass voters in the crucial swing state.
The case, brought by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is just one currently being weighed by numerous states alleging that representatives of the Republican Party and the Trump campaign are engaging in illegal voter intimidation efforts.
According to Cleveland.com, U.S. District Judge James Gwin “said he will order the restraining order against Trump’s campaign and Stone,” who runs the controversial “Stop the Steal” organization, which is recruiting so-called “Vote Protector Exit Pollers” for election day. Gwin “did not order it against the Ohio Republican Party, saying there was not enough evidence to show that a restraining order against it was needed.”
Further, Gwin “did not specify exactly what will or will not be allowed but said the order would likely be generic and prohibit both Democrats and Republicans from any harassment of people entering and leaving polling places,” the outlet reported.
Throughout his presidential campaign, the GOP nominee has repeatedly called on his supporters to help ensure “ballot security” on election day.
Attorney Subodh Chandra, who documented Friday’s hearing on Twitter, noted that during the trial Gwin referenced these statements, insinuating that they were inciting aggressive poll-watching.
Stone was reportedly ordered to testify during a similar hearing in Nevada on Friday.
Ahead of the trials, Rick Hasen, professor of law and political science at University of California Irvine and blogger with the Election Law Blog, who has been following the case, said that “the lawsuits have already borne fruit by getting the campaign on the record with its plans and promises not to intimidate voters.”
Hasen wrote at Slate on Friday:
As Politico‘s Josh Gerstein recently explained, the DNC suit was borne out of the 1982 Consent Decree, which “settl[ed] a case alleging that GOP pollwatchers sought to intimidate minority voters in a practice then known as ‘caging,'” where voters are sent mail before being removed from the voting rolls. As Hasen notes, this practice is “still happening this week in North Carolina.”
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Even as it continued to post new batches of emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, Wikileaks on Friday also published new draft chapters of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) which shed new light on the pending deal that critics say puts global economies at further risk from powerful banks, financial institutions, and corporate greed.
“People want to live in a democracy; they want quality, accessible public services; a well-regulated financial sector; and decent jobs for all ― the opposite agenda of the deregulation, locked-in privatization, and antidevelopment fundamentals of the secret proposed TISA, according to today’s explosive leak.” —Deborah James, CEPRThe latest release follows a series of others by the pro-tranparency publication and comes just days ahead of the next round of TISA negotiations set to begin Monday in Washington, DC. The leaked documents included in Friday’s release include three draft chapters from the agreement—covering “Financial Services,” “Localization Provisions,” and “Bilateral Market Access.” The chapters are from June of this year and bring the number of documents related to the TISA negotiations published by Wikileaks up to 70 total.
Along with the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investement Partnership (TTIP), TISA is actually the largest of the “Three Big T’s” of pending international agreements that seek to further shape the global economic and legal systems in favor of major corporations and elite interests. TISA is the largest of the three deals, and according to World Bank figures cited by Wikileaks, services that would be covered by the massive agreement comprise around 75% of the EU economy, 80% of the US economy and the majority of economies of most countries.
However, notes Wikileaks, “despite its importance both the US Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have thus far given no position on the TISA Agreement.”
According to one of the companion analyses by Wikileaks released alongside the TISA chapters, the current deal, if finalized, “would heighten risks of financial instability and handcuff governments’ ability to respond to a domestic or global financial crisis at a time when everyone (except the finance industry and its political allies) agree that we need more financial regulation, not less.”
In response to the latest leaks on Friday, the leaders of organized labor unions said it was more clear than ever that TISA “is no more than a corporate power grab and that negotiations must be stopped.”
In a joint statement, those unions said the wide scope of “the deregulatory agenda and attack on democratic governance” found in the TISA chapters “has been exposed” and criticized European Union governments for attempting to hijack control of every level of governance from the municipal to national levels of partner countries. Their review of the chapters found clear evidence that European countries are demanding deeper liberalization of public services both within the EU and beyond.
“The EU position ignores the potential danger of exporting aggressive privatisation policies to the developing world, which have already been shown to be the cause of social and political instability in many EU countries,” said Public Services International (PSI) General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli in a statement.
As Deborah James, Director of International Programs of the Center for Economy and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC, offered in her analysis of the leaks:
Fred van Leeuwen, General Secretary of Education International (EI), said that in addition to TISA’s concerning contents, the secrecy surrounding how the deal is being negotiated remains troubling.
“These leaks give a clear indication of the dangerous direction of the TiSA negotiations,” The fact that citizens and civil society are still obliged to rely on leaks for getting a sense of the direction of the negotiations is deeply unsatisfactory.”
And Ron Oswald, General Secretary of the International Union of Food Workers (UIF), indicated that organized labor should really only have one set of demands at this point.
“It’s time to halt the negotiations, publish the secret texts and ensure the widest possible public debate to expose the full extent of the threat these treaties pose to democracy and the labour movement,” Oswald said.
And as CEPR’s James declared, “Globalization’s cheerleaders are all handwringing about the widespread opposition to trade pacts. But what they don’t acknowledge is that people around the world are not rejecting ‘trade,’ they are rejecting corporate control over our lives. People want to live in a democracy; they want quality, accessible public services; a well-regulated financial sector; and decent jobs for all ― the opposite agenda of the deregulation, locked-in privatization, and antidevelopment fundamentals of the secret proposed TISA, according to today’s explosive leak.”
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In a landmark ruling on Monday, an appeals court said federal authorities may list species as “threatened” based on climate change projections—a “huge victory” for animals that “shows the vital importance of the Endangered Species Act,” environmental advocates said.
Big Oil and the state of Alaska had challenged a decision by the National Marine Fisheries Services to list a subspecies of seal as endangered due to eventual Arctic sea ice loss, arguing that the move was speculative, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the agency had acted reasonably in doing so.
The decision, which overturns a 2014 ruling by a lower court, means federal agencies would be allowed to use climate change projections to protect a variety of wildlife that are likely to be affected by habitat loss and other environmental impacts in the coming decades.
“This is a huge victory for bearded seals and shows the vital importance of the Endangered Species Act in protecting species threatened by climate change,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity who argued the case. “This decision will give bearded seals a fighting chance while we work to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions melting their sea-ice habitat and keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground.”
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CBD noted that the seals’ winter ice habitat is expected to decline 40 percent by 2050 and that the animals also face other threats from proposed offshore oil and gas projects in the waters near Alaska.
“Bearded seals have a shot at survival thanks to the powerful protections of the Endangered Species Act, but only if we take swift and meaningful action to address climate change,” Monsell said. “If we don’t, amazing creatures like these whiskered ice seals and other animals living in the Arctic could be doomed to extinction.”
In listing the species as threatened, the court ruled, the wildlife service “adopted the position of the overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists.”
In the court’s statement, Judge Richard A. Paez noted that the Endangered Species Act does not stipulate a species can be listed “only if the underlying research is ironclad and absolute. It simply requires the agency to consider the best and most reliable scientific and commercial data and to identify the limits of that data when making a listing determination.”
“The service need not wait until a species’ habitat is destroyed to determine that habitat loss may facilitate extinction,” he wrote.
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South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican who “lacks obvious foreign policy experience,” is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—a decision that carries the added perk of elevating early Trump supporter and South Carolina Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster.
Haley clashed with Trump during the presidential primary, endorsing his GOP rival Marco Rubio and delivering a State of the Union response that not-so-subtly jabbed at Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Trump tweeted on March 1, “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!” to which Haley responded: “@realDonaldTrump, Bless your heart.”
But with Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, all that appears to be water under the bridge. “Governor Haley has a proven track record of bringing people together regardless of background or party affiliation to move critical policies forward for the betterment of her state and our country,” Trump said in a press release. “She is also a proven dealmaker, and we look to be making plenty of deals. She will be a great leader representing us on the world stage.”
“Nikki Haley goes to the UN, Trump looks like a unifier… and a Trump loyalist is appointed South Carolina Gov. Focus on the big picture.”
—@kyleraccio, Twitter
However, wrote South Carolina’s Post and Courier, her planned nomination—which must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate—”is likely to raise questions about Haley’s qualifications for a major foreign policy role since she has little diplomatic experience as state lawmaker and governor.”
Indeed, “Haley’s qualifications for the job are thin,” argued Margaret Hartmann at New York magazine. “She worked on trade and labor issues during her six years as governor, but her foreign policy experience is confined to eight trips to foreign nations to discuss economic-development opportunities in her state.”
Politico added, “little is known about her stance on contentious topics such as how to end the war in Syria. Like other Republicans, Haley opposed the Iran nuclear deal, which is widely supported by most of the international community.”
The outlet further reported:
And ThinkProgress noted that “Haley appears worryingly, if not surprisingly, out of step with the international community when it comes to climate change. Most of the world has recognized that anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and the U.N. has become a major framework for addressing greenhouse gas emissions.”
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“While she has not explicitly denied the veracity of climate change science, in 2013, Haley was accused of burying a report from the South Carolina Department of Environmental Resources on the challenges climate change will bring to the state,” ThinkProgress reported. “More recently, Haley was lambasted for failing to acknowledge the role of climate change in her state’s devastating floods.”
Meanwhile, her appointment is also a gift to South Carolina Lt. Gov. McMaster, who will take Haley’s place and was among the first to endorse Trump during the primary campaign. In delivering the nomination speech for Trump at the Republican National Convention, McMaster praised the president-elect’s “uncommon strength” and lauded him for “walking away from a business enterprise…because he loves his country.”
People responded to Haley’s nomination and its implications on social media:
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Water protectors near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation continued to face violence and intimidation on Sunday, with police again firing tear gars as they attempted to defend their sacred ground.
According to reporting by Unicorn Riot, the Dakota Access Pipeline foes “crossed the Cantapeta Creek (an offshoot of the Cannonball river) to set up camp on the land formation now referred to as ‘Turtle Island.'” Both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux lay claim to that land.
Video documentation by Unicorn Riot and photos on Twitter by those on the scene show a row of police on top the hill above where the water protectors had cross onto the island. The video footage shows tear gas landing near the protesters.
Some of the pipeline opponents swam across the creek while others used small boats.
#NoDAPL Water Protectors Tear Gassed by Police During Attempt to Reclaim Sacred Burial Site from Unicorn Riot on Vimeo.
An image captured by film director and environmental activist Josh Fox shows one protester holding up a mirror to reflect back the brutality of the police tactics.
The creek is the same site where just days earlier another violent standoff took place between police and water protectors. One journalist was shot by police with a rubber bullet during that incident while she was conducting an interview.
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The latest militarized police response to the protesters comes as North Dakota regulators are set to file a complaint against pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners “for failing to disclose the discovery of Native American artifacts in the path of construction,” the Guardian reported Saturday. The reporting continued:
The standoff also comes a day after Steve Horn reported that
Further, as Common Dreams reported last week,
With the feeling by some that now “time is running out,” native leaders are calling for a thousands-strong mobilization on Nov. 15 to take place at Army Corps of Engineers offices across the country.
“This is a call for all of our relatives who’ve been wanting to support,” said Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network in a media statement. “Whether you’ve come to the camp, whether you haven’t come to the camp. If you live near an Army Corps of Engineers office, we’re asking you to step up to mobilize. We’re asking you to come out in numbers and not only let the Army Corps of Engineers hear your voices, but let the Obama Administration hear your voice.”
“We need sincere action in order to stop this pipeline,” he continued.
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Greenhouse gases are rising so fast that it could soon be “game over” for the climate, a leading scientist warned in response to a new study published Wednesday that finds the planet could be heading for more than 7°C warming within a lifetime.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, reported that the United Nations’ most accurate estimates on the “business as usual” rate of global warming may actually be vastly underestimated.
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently estimated that continuing to use fossil fuels at current rates would put the Earth on track for an average temperature rise of 2.6°C to 4.8°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
But the authors, a team of climate researchers and scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the University of Washington, the University of Albany, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, say the range for that same time period is actually 4.78°C to 7.36°C. That’s because the climate has “substantially higher sensitivity” to greenhouse gases during warm phases, they write—which ultimately means that “within the 21st century, global mean temperatures will very likely exceed maximum levels reconstructed for the last 784,000 years.”
The results correspond with other recent data that finds, despite all the pledges made in the landmark Paris climate agreement, the planet is still on track for at least a 3°C global temperature rise. Scientists have long warned that catastrophic, irreversible damage would come at 2°C.
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President-elect Donald Trump, who has denied that climate change exists, has vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and his transition team is rife with fellow deniers and fossil fuel industry lobbyists. Green groups on Wednesday reacted to his win by calling on people around the world to mobilize against his anti-environmental policies “for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world and for all future generations.”
Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University told the Independent that the study “does indeed provide support for the notion that a Donald Trump presidency could be game over for the climate.”
“By ‘game over for the climate,’ I mean game over for stabilizing warming below dangerous (i.e. greater than 2°C) levels,” he wrote in an email to the outlet. “If Trump makes good on his promises, and the U.S. pulls out of the Paris [climate] treaty, it is difficult to see a path forward to keeping warming below those levels.”
Dr. Tobias Friedrich, one of the authors, said, “Our results imply that the Earth’s sensitivity to variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide increases as the climate warms. Currently, our planet is in a warm phase—an interglacial period—and the associated increased climate sensitivity needs to be taken into account for future projections of warming induced by human activities.”
“The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” he said.
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President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers are aiming to privatize Native American reservations that contain about a fifth of the nation’s oil and gas, Reuters reports.
Two chairmen of Trump’s Native American Affairs Coalition told the outlet that they want to put those lands into private ownership, a proposal that would upend historic policies put into place to preserve Indigenous sovereignty. The plan would deregulate drilling, which the coalition says would benefit the tribes who currently have the rights to use the land, but do not own it. In addition to holding about 20 percent of the nation’s oil and gas, the lands also include vast coal reserves—all worth an estimated $1.5 trillion.
Chair Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, told Reuters, “We should take tribal land away from public treatment. As long as we can do it without unintended consequences, I think we will have broad support around Indian country.”
Coming just as Native American water protectors cautiously celebrate a hard-fought victory against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the proposal is another example of Trump’s incendiary and divisive policies. Trump has also officially expressed his support for DAPL, making opponents wary that he would reverse any orders that blocked construction on the 1,172-mile project once he gets into office.
Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and a member of the Navajo Nation, told Reuters, “Our spiritual leaders are opposed to the privatization of our lands, which means the commoditization of the nature, water, air we hold sacred. Privatization has been the goal since colonization—to strip Native Nations of their sovereignty.”
Trump’s transition team reportedly did not respond to Reuters‘ requests for comment.
Notably, three of the four coalition chairs have ties to the fossil fuel industry, with Mullin receiving about eight percent of his campaign funds from various energy companies. Ross Swimmer, another co-chair and ex-chief of the Cherokee Nation who also worked in the Reagan administration, is a partner at an investment firm with funds in Energy Transfer Partners—the builder of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Kevin Washburn, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and former assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior under President Barack Obama, warned that U.S. history is rife with treaty violations, especially when privatization is involved.
“Privatization of Indian lands during the 1880s is widely viewed as one of the greatest mistakes in federal Indian policy,” he told Reuters.
Washburn added that with the specter of a Republican-majority Congress looming, as well as the possibility of Trump appointing conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, legal challenges to any such policy would be much harder to win.
“With this alignment in the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court,” he said, “we should be concerned about erosion of self determination, if not a return to termination.”
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The global giraffe population has “plummeted” by nearly 40 percent over the last 30 years, and is now “threatened with extinction,” according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “Red List” released Thursday.
The IUCN cites illegal hunting, habitat loss due to expanding agriculture and mining, increasing human-wildlife conflict, and civil unrest as factors “pushing the species towards extinction.” For the first time, the giraffe has been listed as “vulnerable” on the authoritative list, released at the 13th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP13) currently taking place in Cancun, Mexico.
“Nine small puddles will evaporate far more quickly than one big puddle, and so it is with life. It is the historic ‘death-by-a-thousand-cuts,’ writ large.”
—Jules Howard, zoologist
“While there ha[s] been great concern about elephants and rhinos, giraffes have gone under the radar but, unfortunately, their numbers have been plummeting, and this is something that we were a little shocked about, that they have declined by so much in so little time,” Dr. Julian Fennessy, who co-chairs the IUCN giraffe specialist group, told the BBC.
This echoed remarks by Sir David Attenborough in June, when he said of the world’s tallest land mammal: “These gentle giants have been overlooked. It’s well known that African elephants are in trouble and there are perhaps just under half a million left. But what no one realized is there are far fewer giraffes, which have already become extinct in seven countries.”
And we are to blame, wrote zoologist and author Jules Howard in an op-ed on Thursday:
And that “something” must address what Howard calls “the threat of fragmentation”—the isolation of the world’s creatures into “breeding pockets” that are in turn encroached upon by climate change and other dangers.
“Nine small puddles will evaporate far more quickly than one big puddle, and so it is with life,” he wrote. “It is the historic ‘death-by-a-thousand-cuts,’ writ large. Giraffes are just one striking addition to what is fast becoming a global phenomenon. It is the threat of fragmentation.”
That’s why the CBD COP13 is so important, said IUCN director general Inger Andersen. “Many species are slipping away before we can even describe them,” she said. “This IUCN Red List update shows that the scale of the global extinction crisis may be even greater than we thought. Governments gathered at the UN biodiversity summit in Cancun have the immense responsibility to step up their efforts to protect our planet’s biodiversity.”
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Amid a nationwide protest effort aimed at convincing members of the Electoral College to reject Donald Trump and serious concerns about alleged interference in the U.S. election by Russia’s government, a new poll out Sunday reveals majority support for delaying Monday’s scheduled vote until electors are given an official intelligence briefing on the matter.
According to a YouGov poll conducted on behalf of the advocacy group Avaaz, 52% percent of respondents either “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that Monday’s “vote should be delayed until the Electors can be briefed about the allegations of Russian hacking.”
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Demands for Electors to receive such a briefing have been growing steadily since several high-profile news stories said U.S. intelligence officials have determined with a “high level of confidence” that the Kremlin was involved with obtaining emails from the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems as well as emails from John Podesta, the powerful D.C. lobbyist who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair. Additional reporting claimed the CIA also believes that Russia specifically intervened to improve the chances of Donald Trump and NBC News used unnamed sources in its reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “personally” involved in the operations.
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But despite lingering and serious questions about the actual “evidence” which might support those claims, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on Friday said it would not brief Electors prior to Monday’s vote due to an ongoing review of the alleged Russian interference ordered by President Obama. “This effort is ongoing and involves sensitive classified information,” the ODNI said in a statement. “Once the review is complete in the coming weeks, the Intelligence Community stands ready to brief Congress and will make those findings available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods.”
On Sunday, former CIA director James Woolsey appeared on ABC’s ‘This Week’ and said it will ultimately be up to the National Security Agency (NSA) to determine whether or not Russia was behind the targeting of the DNC and Podesta emails. “This is really an NSA decision,” Woolsey said, “…and if NSA is confident that it’s the Russians, then it almost certainly is. Depends on them.”
Unfortunately, the NSA leadership—and the intelligence community overall—have a mixed record when it comes to releasing relevant information in a timely manner or being honest with the American public.
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Almost half of the people who voted for President-elect Donald Trump say they support taking legal steps to make it easier to sue the media, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by Morning Consult for the Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm Glover Park, found that 49 percent of self-identified Trump supporters say the courts should change libel laws in a way that would allow public figures to sue news outlets for unfavorable or allegedly false coverage.
Only 29 percent said they were against such a move, while 22 percent said they weren’t sure.
It’s a sign that Trump’s supporters are continuing to follow his lead, despite evidence of him breaking many of his populist campaign promises. Throughout the election, and even after his win, Trump repeatedly referred to the press as “dishonest,” “corrupt,” and “unfair.”
“One of the things I’m going to do if I win, and I hope we do and we’re certainly leading. I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said in February during a rally.
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“So when the New York Times writes a hit piece—which is a total disgrace—or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected,” he said.
Trump also criticized the media for “inciting” anger against his win after protests erupted across the U.S. to express outrage at his election. Many fear that his rise to power threatens freedom of the press and expression worldwide.
Despite his antagonistic relationship with the press, on Sunday, Trump hosted journalists for drinks and off-the-record comments at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Critics warned last month that the media must not normalize or roll over for Trump, but instead respond with “some dignity and return aggression,” as Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald put it. However, it seems some outlets have already started to submit.
For Trump and many of his supporters, even that may not be enough.
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