Last updated on 2022-01-04
Speaking of protest and the President, Indians, cowboys, and other folks who prefer water to oil are coming to Watertown to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Starting at noon Friday, pipeline opponents will gather in Belmont Park, right across from the Watertown Civic Arena, to prepare to welcome the President with their call to stop TransCanada from taking South Dakotans’ land for their private profit.
Dallas Goldtooth has an enthusiastic video invite to the rally on Facebook. The protesters’ Facebook page also shows youth of the Sisseton Wahpeton Tribe preparing posters for the rally.
South Dakotans young and old should come out to Belmont Park tomorrow to wave to the President and make clear that we want him to protect South Dakota from the Keystone XL pipeline.
Alberta may have just ceded the Keystone issue. On Tuesday, they elected an NDP leader – the first political party change since 1971, the fourth party in it’s history, and the first time this change was a shift to the political left. It is a stunning result – imagine Texas electing Bernie Sanders.
Incoming Premier Rachel Notley campaigned on a promise to raise the corporate tax rate, increase taxes on the highest-income Albertans and review the oil company royalties paid to the province. In addition, during the campaign
“Notley has said she will not pursue the Keystone XL or Northern Gateway pipelines because both are hampered by legal and political battles that could drag on for years. She has said she will instead devote her focus to the Energy East pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion to the West Coast.” http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Leader+Rachel+Notley+condemns+Tories+politics+fear/11021255/story.html
Are you going to Watertown to cover this Cory?
The change in leadership in Alberta should give President Obama good cover for denying TransCanada’s pipeline permit. As if he needed any more reasons to deny.
Exactly, Paul. Especially if there is a similar change in national leadership after the general election in Canada this October – an outcome that seems more likely after the Alberta results.
I wish, Ken, but I’m working tomorrow! How about you?
Alberta goes NDP?! Like Texas going Sanders… or like South Dakota electing Bernie Hunhoff!
Barbara, what provoked this remarkable vote? What changed in Alberta culture?
Yay Alberta! And Yay pipeline protesters! This is all wonderful, hopeful news.
I think I might head that way. Today I finished the project that has been consuming all my time. This might be an interesting way to spend a free day.
Porno Pat Powers and his partisan pukes have once again embarrassed South Dakota on the national stage.
You know, the stage that overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama by wide margins. The guy who oversees the big checks to South Dakota so the disrespectful Governor can balance his budget while fleecing the flock that he is conservative?
USA Today ran this piece, where prominent South Dakota politicians did their best to diss the President of These United States of America and show just how little and petty we were as a state.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/06/obama-states-travel-south-dakota-column/26943117/
Well played Governor! I’m sure the petty and proud of the GOP will give you a high five. In the meantime…please don’t ever think that you belong on the stage with someone who has done so much with so little support from the Red Menace that is the GOP obstruction machine.
I’m sure history will not be kind to these petty partisans.
Grow up!!!
Jana, there are probably some people who wish Mr. Obama had just finished his term without causing all this ruckus here in South Dakota for his own attention garnering reasons. Botching up traffic and wasting taxpayer dollars by trucking into the very corner of the state and then taking up seats from the parents of the very kids he comes here to laud.
I do hope they televise his lauding so I can hear it. I want to listen. I wonder if he will tour Menards or Bramble Park.
Grud…check your history on his visit. It was the GOP and media who were taunting him for not visiting.
I’m searching for all your kvetching about the Bush visits. Got any links to make it easier?
Heck, his visit to Lake Area Vo-Tech will probably get more positive attention than the taxpayer funded ad push to get kids to go to our Tech Schools and get trained to work for a complete a-hole like Yackley at Trail King.
Either grow up Grud or start the fight to have SD give all the money back to Obama that he has sent South Dakota so you can live with less taxes! Just weird how you conservatives of convenience rail on this guy!
psst…Grud…I hear they have openings on Mars. Could use an old guy like you there just to keep the Martians off our lawns! Not to mention teach a whole universe about the wonders of taters & gravy!
We should give all the money back, Ms. Jana. We should indeed. Let us start with the welfare dollars we stop giving to the lazy and the slackards.
Yeah Grudz! Let’s start with the Noem family, then Walmart stores, then Wells Fargo, and we’ll go on from there. Start with the lazy slackards who vacuum away the most and go down from there.
Grudz, you nailed it!
Indeed, my young friend Ms. Geelsdottir. This Noem family as just a family will be easy for the President to cut from the welfare roles. He may trouble more with the Walmart world. But if Obama is truly insidious as most suspect, he will dole out individual parcels like how the federal government broke the back of the tribes by giving land to individual members. I blame Obama.
Cory, your followup post addresses the cultural changes better than I could summarize here.
But I thought you would like this reason for her winning the election – she was a better debater.
“For many Albertans, the choices seemed to crystalize during the debate. (Incumbent PC) Prentice elevated NDP Leader Rachel Notley by ignoring all but her. Notley, elevated herself by winning a head-on battle with a man who, not long before, was considered unbeatable.” http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-election-2015-ndp-win-a-different-kind-of-miracle-on-the-prairies-1.3062279
“Rachel Notley, the NDP leader, won Thursday’s debate of party leaders and it was not even close on the score cards.” http://www.calgarysun.com/2015/04/23/ndp-rachel-notley-outclasses-the-field-in-leaders-debate
“I blame Obama.”
Of course you do Grudz. (While patting him gently on the head.) That’s why I take your every utterance so seriously. (Sincerely smiling.)
After reading the comments only this post, I remember why I never read the comments.
Sorry, Vi. I’ll try harder!
You know it would have been interesting if President Obama did not visit South Dakota.
The lack of a South Dakota visit would have made a small footnote in President Obama’s official biography with a full explanation of why he didn’t the state.
**President Obama did not feel safe in a state that is known for its racism and is in fact home to one of the most notorious KKK leaders.
Ken, if you go, take some referendum petitions! I would think there’d be lots of people in the park and lining the streets waiting all afternoon for a brief glimpse of the President and his helicopter. The protesters should be especially interested in signing for our right to vote, but even the spectators should have a higher percentage of politically attentive people.
Darn right, Barbara! Debate matters!
I do my best on this kind of stuff. I just nearly worked my fingers to the bone typing a request to public radio to play Handel’s Water Music to show thanks for the rain and for the President visiting WATERtown. It is a tough job, but somebody has got to do it.
The XL project is a nearly perfect example of the combined greed of corporations and the heel of government aiding and abetting the robber barons. The combination was the heart of Fascism and is a danger to all in no matter what system of government.
XL is not in the national interest of the US. That should be the primary concern of President Obama.
get used to it grudz-yer party’s got 8 more years of bully pulpit to endure after Obama leaves a nation better in everyway from republican devishness
Maybe someone in the press or someone who might have contact with Obama while he is in South Dakota can ask him why his Department of Energy is withholding information regarding how South Dakota entities are or are not saying responding to the DOE’s Request for Information and draft Request for Proposal regarding the deep borehole disposal test. My informal request for that information submitted to the contact person at DOE has been turned down.
Although I was turned down, this refusal is pretty clear evidence that South Dakota is pursuing high-level radioactive waste disposal. If they did not have any such information, they would have simply said those records don’t exist.
I will not pursue the information through more formal avenues.
Openness on these radioactive waste matters was supposed to be
Sorry, forgot to finish the sentence:
…a hallmark of Obama’s new policy regarding radioactive waste disposal. Someone needs to find out whether Obama’s new policy is just for window dressing or is it real. If it is real, maybe Obama can intervene, and have this information released.
Doug, excellent comment at 11:17. Thanks.
(Donald, I’m reading that borehole report: http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2014/1417430r.pdf. Very interesting.)