2 Indigenous leaders explain why they are on opposing sides of the Trans Mountain debate

By Amanda Connolly National Online Journalist (Politics) Global News


The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline remains a point of contention for many Canadians.

But there is also division on the issue within one key group of stakeholders in the project — Indigenous Canadians.

READ MORE: Trans Mountain pipeline still top priority for feds despite deadline extension, says transport minister

Over recent weeks, those differences of opinion regarding how — or if — the project should proceed have come under the spotlight, after the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs issued a letter critical of the plan by the Indian Resource Council of Canada to purchase a 51 per cent stake in the expansion project.

In that letter, Chief Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, secretary-treasurer of the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs, wrote along with Grand Chief Stewart Phillip that the expansion project is not viable because of opposition to it from other First Nations communities along the proposed route, and also stressed it wasn’t worth the money.

WATCH BELOW: Protesting grandpa climbs tree to stop Trans-Mountain pipeline

“There are good reasons why Kinder Morgan chose to walk away from this project and you should carefully consider them before investing your Nation’s money,” she wrote in the open letter to other First Nations leaders. “We believe that the government has clearly overstated both and their decision to invest in this project was clouded by their short-term political needs.

“We urge you not to make the same mistake and to carefully consider the enormous environmental, social, legal, and political ramifications before committing to this project,” the letter continued, arguing the pipeline could become a “stranded asset” as oil sector giants like Shell, Cononco-Phillips, and Statoil sell off their holdings.

Speaking on the West Block, Wilson reiterated those concerns, arguing that “as long as there is one nation saying no to the pipeline, it cannot be built.”

But Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi said the opposite in an interview with the West Block earlier this year, stressing no one community will have a veto.

WATCH BELOW: No community will have veto over Trans Mountain expansion, Sohi says

Stephen Buffalo, president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council, however, argued that the project and its potential revenues could offer a valuable means of investing in communities that are underfunded by the federal government.

“How we get out of poverty, how we adjust those social issues in our communities, is looking at investments such as this as infrastructure,” he said.

“So when the federal government purchased the TMX [Trans Mountain expansion project], it presented an opportunity — a door — for our First Nations to look at possibly owning the pipeline.”

READ MORE: Jason Kenney cites ‘deep frustration’ as Alberta’s ‘turn off the taps’ law proclaimed

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government purchased the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and associated infrastructure one year ago for $4.5 billion.

That came after Kinder Morgan walked away from its plans to triple the capacity of the pipeline through an expansion.

Fierce opposition has dogged the project since the start, with environmental advocates arguing the risk of a spill along B.C.’s coast is just too great.

And although the expansion was approved federally in 2016, the NDP and Green Party coalition in B.C. has repeatedly taken steps to block the project.

Construction is currently stalled, though, because of a Federal Court injunction last summer that said there was inadequate environmental assessment of the marine impacts of the project and not enough Indigenous consultation.

WATCH BELOW: New Alberta premier talks about “turning off the taps” for B.C.’s gas supply

While the additional environmental assessment has since wrapped up, renewed consultation with the 117 Indigenous communities along the pipeline route continues.

Buffalo said he trusts the federal government under Trudeau as a partner in the project and that things in Indigenous communities cannot continue as they are.

“We need to find balance between economic development and environmental conservation. You look around this area,” said Buffalo, who is a member of the Samson Cree Nation of central Alberta and whose organization is based on the Tsuu T’ina Nation in southwestern Alberta.

“Look at the water. You know that that’s paramount for First Nations and that’s for everyone. But in the same sense, we can’t continue to live in the conditions that our communities are in.”

The federal government last month pushed its deadline for making a decision on the future of the project.

The new date for a decision is June 18.


© 2019 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Fed flags high U.S. business debt, asset prices in financial report

“With financial volatility easing since the end of last year, the Federal Reserve Board’s Financial Stability Report suggests stretched asset valuations and risky corporate debt merit continued vigilance against a backdrop of low-to- moderate vulnerabilities in the household and banking sectors,” Brainard said in an emailed statement.

The ratio of debt to assets among publicly traded, nonfinancial firms is near a 20-year high, the Fed noted, and the share of new loans going to the most indebted companies is near peaks reached in 2014 and just before the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis.

While the Fed sees the system overall as healthy, the levels of corporate debt stand out, said Fed Governor Lael Brainard.

“With financial volatility easing since the end of last year, the Federal Reserve Board’s Financial Stability Report suggests stretched asset valuations and risky corporate debt merit continued vigilance against a backdrop of low-to- moderate vulnerabilities in the household and banking sectors,” Brainard said in an emailed statement.

The Fed report is the central bank’s latest take on a financial system that went full circle in a matter of months, along the way prompting President Donald Trump to take aim at Fed policy and demand lower interest rates. After stock markets hit record highs early last fall, they plummeted by nearly 20 percent by year’s end, and investors began demanding higher interest rates to hold the bonds of weaker corporations.

Now, stocks are back near their records and by some measures prices are high, the Fed said - the expected future price-to- earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is above its 30-year median, though well below the levels hit during the 1990s tech bubble.

Corporate credit spreads have narrowed, again focusing attention on whether investors, markets and households are taking too muted a view of economic risks.

REASON FOR CAUTION

While not one of the Fed’s explicit mandates, financial stability issues are weighed as part of its policy discussions, and can shape the outcome. In the current environment, those issues provide more reason for the Fed to discount calls from the White House or elsewhere to cut rates, a step that could make riskier assets even more attractive by reducing the returns offered by safer investments like U.S. Treasury bonds.

As in the last edition of its now twice-yearly report on the financial sector, the Fed cited the rapid growth of business debt and leveraged lending to corporations as a source of possible concern, noting that it could leave weaker companies stressed if the economy softens. Business debt has grown faster than the overall economy for a decade, the Fed noted, and “the elevated level of debt could leave the business sector vulnerable to a downturn in economic activity or a tightening in financial conditions.”

Overall debt however, including that of households, has remained in line with the size of the economy.

Among the more immediate risks cited in talks with outside contacts, the Fed noted, trade tensions and tariffs were the “preeminent” potential problem, along with slowing growth globally, political risks surrounding “Brexit,” and uncertainty around Fed policy as well.

Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci

 THE FACT THAT OVERALL DEBT IS IN LINE WITH THE SIZE OF THE ECONOMY MEANS IGNORE THE DOOMSAYERS WHO TELL US OUR HOUSEHOLD DEBT IS A TERRIBLE BURDEN TO BE CLEANED UP QUICK (PS YOU CAN'T)

IT IS TRUE BUT IT IS WHAT KEEPS CAPITALISM FUNCTIONING!!!

WHICH CAME FIRST DEBT OR CREDIT

DEBT OF COURSE

The greatest irony for the austerity crowd who constantly call for cuts, cuts to services and cuts to taxes is they like to blame debt (your mortgage) and deficits, (credit card debt) for the need to give them tax breaks and cut public services so they can be contracted out to these same privateers, as David Gabler showed in his work 5000 years of debt

Credit is the result of debt, debt begins with indentured servitude (not slavery) and thus the need for credit.  Capitalism: in, with, for and by debt Capitalism, nature, socialism  Anitra Nelson

Debt is the bond market on Wall St. It is the bonds that make the real money not stocks, the bonds are the debt the business owes to bond holders who no matter what always get paid first, last and always. See the invaluable Wall Street. How it works and for whom. Doug Henwood. Paperback originally published in 1998 by verso (New. York & London). Published on the web     

     

Workers and their pensions are sacrificed but not bondholders. For they own the company. As we have seen clearly repeated over and over again in Canada since the Nortel debacle

An Overview Of The Demise Of Nortel Networks And Key Lessons...

Key dates in Nortel Networks' history

Allthat is solid melts into Air…..

Women work inside a Northern Electric Co. Ltd. (NORTEL)factory in Montreal, Que. 

during the First World War. (Library and Archives Canada/Canadian Press)

Gun control takes center stage in 2020 Democratic presidential race

PARKLAND STUDENTS

FOR EUROPE'S MILLENNIALS IT IS CLIMATE CHANGE THAT THREATENS THEM WITH EXTINCTION IN THE USA IT'S GUNS (EP)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Cory Booker on Monday released a sweeping plan to curb gun violence by creating a national licensing program and repealing a law that gives gun manufacturers legal immunity, becoming the latest Democrat in the 2020 presidential race to make gun control measures a feature of their campaign.

In the past, Democrats have feared that supporting gun restrictions could cost them the backing of working-class, swing voters - the group widely credited with tipping the 2016 presidential contest to Republican Donald Trump.

After dozens of mass shootings in recent years, however, including at schools like the February 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead, curbing gun violence has become a component of the Democratic policy platform embraced by congressional and presidential candidates.

“In my community, kids fear fireworks on the Fourth of July because they sound like gunshots,” Booker said of his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, in a news release. “In communities across the country, from Newark to Charlotte, from San Diego to Chicago, and everywhere in between, Americans are being killed and families are being torn apart. We must do better. We need to do better.”

Booker’s plan would also ban assault weapons; allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission to regulate gun manufacturers; require microstamping technology be incorporated into new models of semi-automatic handguns; calls for universal background checks for gun sales; and close the “boyfriend loophole” that allows dating partners to purchase firearms after being convicted of abuse or under a restraining order. Current and former spouses convicted of abuse or under a restraining order are prohibited from purchasing a firearm.

Most but not all components of Booker’s plan would require approval of the U.S. Congress. Democrats currently control the House of Representatives and Republicans the Senate, where gun safety legislation would likely meet intense pushback.

‘THE CENTER HAS SHIFTED’

“Today is more proof that the center has shifted on gun control,” Igor Volsky, founder of Guns Down America Action Fund, said in a statement. “Senator Booker has clearly listened to and heard from the majority of Americans that are crying out for a future with fewer guns. Fewer guns means safer communities.”

Senator Kamala Harris, another 2020 contender, said last month that she too would move quickly to curb gun violence if elected to the White House.

Harris said she would give Congress 100 days to pass gun-control legislation, such as a universal background checks bill or a renewal of the ban on assault weapons, before using presidential executive power to act on the issue.

Harris said she would use executive power to require sellers of five or more weapons a year to run background checks for all gun sales; revoke the license of gun manufacturers and dealers who break the law; reverse a move by Trump to redefine “fugitive from justice” that allowed those with outstanding arrest warrants to buy guns; and close the boyfriend loophole.

An assault weapons ban was enacted in 1994 during Bill Clinton’s presidency. It was among the reasons cited when Democrats lost congressional seats in the 1994 midterm elections. The ban expired in 2004.

In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry did not make gun control a focus of his campaign and was photographed with a weapon on a hunting trip. Former President Barack Obama did not make guns a focus of his 2008 or 2012 campaigns. Hillary Clinton supported gun control measures during her 2016 campaign but did not emphasize them.

But gun-control advocates say the Parkland shooting and many others, including the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017 that left 58 dead and hundreds more wounded, and another at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub in 2016 when 49 were killed have shifted public opinion on the issue.

Reuters/Ipsos polling in Feb. 2019 showed that 58 percent of Americans support policies that would make it more difficult to own a gun. About 69 percent said they strongly favored prohibiting individuals with a history of mental illness from buying a firearm. About 61 percent strongly or somewhat favored banning online sales of ammunition.

Supporting gun control measures did not hinder Democrats during the 2018 midterm congressional elections. Nearly 80 percent of the 62 newly elected Democrats included the issue in their campaign platforms. A Reuters analysis found the percentage far outstripped the proportion of Democratic candidates who did so during 2016 congressional elections.

After Democrats regained control of the House, they passed in March a universal background checks bill, the first major gun control legislation since the 1994 ban on assault weapons.

It was not taken up by the Republican-controlled Senate and Trump has threatened to veto it should it reach his desk.

Reporting By Amanda Becker; editing by Bill Berkrot

Syrian Kurds reshape region with books and schools

From Kobani to Kirkuk: the Kurdish struggle

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING TIME FOR #4440

WWW.IWW.ORG

CULTURE

This modded Roomba screams in mortal pain when it runs into things

Cue the robot uprising.

Peter Thiel's Palantir helped

 ICE separate families

Big tech is helping the Trump administration carry out its immigration policies.

IMAGE: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

BY RACHEL KRAUS2 DAYS AGO

The tech world's vampire-in-chief has reportedly been helping ICE deport families. 

A new document unearthed by a coalition of immigrant rights foundations shows that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used software provided by Peter Thiel's big data company, Palantir, to identify and prosecute the U.S. family members of migrant children found crossing the border. First reported by the Latinx political organizing group Mijente, the documents refute Palantir's earlier statement implying that its ICE contract did not concern the agency's family separation and deportation efforts.

ICE has been a growing cause of concern among U.S. citizens and immigrant rights advocates, especially after its family separation and child detention practices came to light in 2018. 

The Palantir revelation could fuel efforts to disrupt tech companies' cooperation and contracts with ICE, a government agency allegedly responsible for multiple human rights violations. Employees asked Palantir leadership to cancel the ICE contract, to no avail. Microsoft faced public and internal backlash when employees criticized its contract with ICE in June 2018. Now, as reported by Gizmodo, a California lawmaker is proposing a bill that would cancel state contracts with tech firms that share data with ICE. 

“The state has a moral obligation to protect its residents from persecution,” the bill reads.

Mijente@ConMijente

BREAKING

New document reveals Palantir played a *key role* in Trump admin's efforts to prosecute & arrest parents of children crossing the border alone.

Border agents used Palantir to build cases against families, helping ICE separate families.https://mijente.net/2019/05/02/palantir-arresting-families/ …

462

3:01 PM - May 2, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

A 2017 report from The Intercept detailed how Palantir helped power ICE's immigration enforcement efforts. Palantir is a "data firm" founded by early Facebook investor and Trump pal Peter Thiel. Palantir got a $41 million contract from ICE to provide a case management system.

When Palantir renewed the contract in December 2018, it attempted to draw a line in its work with ICE, implying that it helped ICE manage its workflow systems, but did not participate in the part of the organization that carried out family separations. 

Now, that statement rings hollow. The documents show that ICE specifically used Palantir software to help it identify and build cases against the family members of children ICE found migrating to the U.S. Previously, Palantir CEO Alex Karp told the New York Times “we’re proud that we’re working with the U.S. government.”

Palantir is expected to go public this year. But with Thiel at the helm, and billions in the bank, it's unclear if moral objections will stop the company from helping ICE separate more families. 

Palantir, the CIA-funded data analysis company founded by billionaire Trump adviser Peter Thiel, provided software at the center of a 2017 operation targeting unaccompanied children and their families, newly released Homeland Security documents show.

THEINTERCEPT.COM

Peter Thiel’s Palantir Was Used To Bust Relatives of Migrant Children, New Documents Show

Palantir previously claimed its software was strictly involved in criminal investigations as opposed to deportations. This was false.

Satellite photos show how pitiful ice cover is in the Arctic right now


Sea ice in the Arctic: 2014 on left, versus 2019 on right.
IMAGE: NOAA

BY MARK KAUFMAN APR 02, 2019

Happy early spring. This is the time of year that Arctic sea ice often reaches its greatest size, freezing over the vast northern ocean. But in 2019, this ice cover — called the maximum ice extent — is meager, particularly in the usually ice-clad Bering Sea.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a comparison of Bering and Chukchi sea ice in 2014 (a normal year) versus the maximum sea ice extent this year. As you can see, where there is supposed to be ice, there is a great open ocean — months ahead of schedule.

It's the lowest sea ice extent on record for the Bering Sea.
2014-2019

IMAGE: NOAA

In the greater Arctic, 2019 tied for the seventh lowest maximum ice extent in four decades of satellite records. This is part of a now-unquestionable, wide-scale planetary trend.

The Arctic is the fastest warming region on Earth.





Zack Labe
✔@ZLabe
March 2019's total #Arctic sea ice extent was tied for the 7th lowest in the passive microwave satellite record. Note that there is large year-to-year variability in addition to a long-term trend.
9:04 AM - Apr 1, 2019

A month ago, the Bering Sea forewarned of a profoundly low maximum sea ice extent. The waters in the Bering Strait were already nearly ice-free, though scientists expected some ice to grow as more favorable weather patterns set in. But a month later, the ice is gone.

What's more, the ice should be here for months longer. "There should be ice here until May," Lars Kaleschke, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, told Mashable in March. World’s largest plane by wingspan lifts off into the history books

Though NOAA is studying the exact causes for the record-low sea ice, Arctic sea ice today is getting hit on multiple fronts. The warming ocean plays an outsized role. Specifically, as more ice melts, there's less bright ice cover to reflect the sun. Instead, the dark ocean absorbs more heat, warming the region even more. Then, of course, there's warming of the atmosphere. In March 2019, extremely high temperatures — stoked by a combination of weather events and longer-term climate change — blanketed Alaska, breaking all-time and daily records around the state.

It was the warmest March on record for nearly all of Alaska. Deadhorse, Alaska, hit a whopping 40 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.


Brian Brettschneider@Climatologist49
Here are the daily departures from normal for Deadhorse, AK the last 7 days:

+31.9°F above normal

+33.0°F above normal

+38.0°F above normal

+36.5°F above normal

+36.0°F above normal

+40.0°F above normal

+38.4°F above normal@AlaskaWx
11:46 AM - Apr 1, 2019


Exacerbating matters are storms in the Bering Sea, which roll through and batter whatever sea ice is left. There will be little to no sea ice here before the onset of summer, allowing the sea to stock itself with even more heat before the warm season, noted Rick Thoman, a climate specialist for the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Meanwhile, after a long, sun-drenched summer, the melted Arctic reaches its lowest sea ice extent, or minimum, in late September. This year promises to fit the trend: The 12 lowest ice extents on record have all occurred in the last 12 years.

"The changes in the Arctic are happening faster than they’re happening anywhere else on the rest of the planet," Jeremey Mathis, a NOAA oceanographer, told Mashable.

SEE
The Bering Strait should be covered in ice, but it's nearly all gone

The Bering Strait should be covered in ice, but it's nearly all gone

Satellite imagery of the mostly ice-free Bering Strait on Feb. 28. 2019.
IMAGE: SENTINEL HUB EO BROWSER/SENTINEL 3

BY MARK KAUFMAN MAR 04, 2019

During winter, the Bering Strait has historically been blanketed in ice. But this year, the ice has nearly vanished.

"The usually ice-covered Bering Strait is almost completely open water," Zack Labe, a climate scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Irvine, said over email.

At its narrowest point, the Arctic strait between the U.S. and Russia is 55 miles across, and there's a prominent theory that people once crossed from Asia into North America across an exposed Bering land bridge (back when sea levels were lower). In modern times, however, this frigid waterway usually builds ice through the winter, reaching its greatest extent in late March.

After that, the ice usually lingers for months.

"There should be ice here until May," Lars Kaleschke, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, said over email.



Lars Kaleschke@seaice_de
· Mar 3, 2019


There is something significant going on in the Bering Sea: a very low ice extent for the second year in a row.




Lars Kaleschke@seaice_de


A new record low sea ice extent for the day of the year in the Bering Sea. pic.twitter.com/DuznyRcKV4
33
3:09 PM - Mar 3, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy



But now, in early March, the ice extent is the lowest in the 40-year satellite record, said Labe. On March 2 specifically, the ice extent was lowest on record for that day of the year, added Kaleschke.

Overall, the last two years have now seen exceptionally low ice cover in the Bering Sea, and there are a few reasons why.

In the longer-term, the Arctic is warming over twice as fast as the rest of the globe, leading to significant melting across much of the Arctic, even where the ice is the thickest, oldest, and most resilient. "The 12 lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last 12 years," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2018 Arctic report concluded.

This Arctic warming is especially notable near the Bering Strait. "In the long-term, temperatures in northern Alaska have been rising faster than anywhere else in the United States," said Labe.


SEE ALSO: An appreciation of the persistently grim tweets from the Norway Ice Service

It was the warmest March on record for nearly all of Alaska. Deadhorse, Alaska, hit a whopping 40 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. 

Brian Brettschneider@Climatologist49

Here are the daily departures from normal for Deadhorse, AK the last 7 days:
+31.9°F above normal
+33.0°F above normal
+38.0°F above normal
+36.5°F above normal
+36.0°F above normal
+40.0°F above normal
+38.4°F above normal

@AlaskaWx

Twitter Ads info and privac

Exacerbating matters are storms in the Bering Sea, which roll through and batter whatever sea ice is left. There will be little to no sea ice here before the onset of summer, allowing the sea to stock itself with even more heat before the warm season, noted Rick Thoman, a climate specialist for the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Meanwhile, after a long, sun-drenched summer, the melted Arctic reaches its lowest sea ice extent, or minimum, in late September. This year promises to fit the trend: The 12 lowest ice extents on record have all occurred in the last 12 years. 

"The changes in the Arctic are happening faster than they’re happening anywhere else on the rest of the planet," Jeremey Mathis, a NOAA oceanographer, told Mashable. 

SEE Satellite photos show how pitiful ice cover is in the Arctic right now