Democracy Now! — Friday, Sept. 9, 2016

UPDATE: The Obama administration just ordered construction of the pipeline to stop! Congratulations to Standing Rock and all those who have raised their voices in solidarity. Thanks to Carol van Strum for the heads up.

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San Francisco protesters march on the offices of Citibank to protest the bank’s role in financing the Dakota Access pipeline. Image from Democracy Now! website.

North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has activated the National Guard ahead of today’s ruling on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. government over the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is set to rule today on an injunction in a lawsuit challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to issue permits for the pipeline, arguing it violates the National Historic Preservation Act. This comes as over 1,000 people representing more than 100 Native American tribes are gathered along the Cannonball River by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to resist the pipeline’s construction. It’s been described as the largest unification of Native American tribes in decades. Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth, gives an update.

Food & Water Watch’s Hugh MacMillan talks about his new investigation that reveals the dozens of financial institutions that are bankrolling the Dakota Access pipeline, including Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. “They are banking on this company and banking on being able to drill and frack for the oil to send through the pipeline over the coming decades,” MacMillan says. “So they’re providing the capital for the construction of this pipeline.”

Today prisoners in at least 24 states are set to participate in a nationally coordinated strike that comes on the 45th anniversary of the prison uprising at Attica. Much like the prisoners who took over New York’s infamous correctional facility in 1971, today’s prisoners are protesting long-term isolation, inadequate healthcare, overcrowding, violent attacks and slave labor. The show features an excerpt from an interview in May with one of the organizers, Kinetik Justice, who joined us by phone from solitary confinement in Holman Correctional Facility. He is co-founder of the Free Alabama Movement. He was serving his 28th month in solitary for organizing a similar protest in 2014.

This segment also features the author of an explosive new book about the four-day standoff, when unarmed prisoners held 39 prison guards hostage, that ended when armed state troopers raided the prison and shot indiscriminately more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. In the end, 39 men would die, including 29 prisoners and 10 guards.

We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.

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Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.

3 thoughts on “Democracy Now! — Friday, Sept. 9, 2016

    1. Amy Elliott

      Fantastic – thank you, Michele! Solar Fire chart for this time available here.

      That’s Chariklo rising and the Uranus-Eris conjunction on the IC, the point opposite the midheaven, representing matters of the fourth house: family, home, ancestors and so on. I only hope the decision is not reversed when Mercury is direct.

  1. Amy Elliott

    Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Sara Victoria for this alert – it now transpires Democracy Now!’s own Amy Goodman has been hit with an arrest warrant for…doing her job as a journalist.

    “This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press,” said Amy Goodman in a statement. “I was doing my job by covering pipeline guards unleashing dogs and pepper spray on Native American protesters.”

    Her full report on the protest is viewable here. It’s already gone viral; I have no doubt its success is the reason for these harsh and unethical measures.

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