Posted on 08/20/2011 1:13:29 PM PDT by Libloather
Sixty-five arrested outside White House in oil pipeline protest
By Ben Geman - 08/20/11 02:55 PM ET
Police arrested 65 environmentalists outside the White House Saturday as they staged a demonstration urging President Obama to block a proposed pipeline that would bring oil from Canadas oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.
The civil disobedience launched two-weeks of White House demonstrations with more arrests to come as activists seek to increase political pressure on Obama over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
The Obama administration is weighing TransCanada Corp.s proposed $7 billion, 1,700-mile line to bring crude from Albertas massive oil sands projects to the Texas Gulf Coast.
The pipeline needs State Department approval to proceed, and the Obama administration plans to make a decision by the end of the year.
People arrested include Bill McKibben, the prominent climate activist and founder of 350.org; Jane Hamsher, who founded the popular liberal blog Firedoglake; and Gus Speth, whose career includes co-founding the Natural Resources Defense Council and chairing the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Carter Administration.
While police said 65 people were arrested, the protest organizers put the number at 70 in an account on their website Saturday.
On Saturday activists gathered in Lafayette Square across from the White House and walked over to the sidewalk in front of the White House fence at about 11:10 a.m., where some sat down and others stood behind them holding banners against the Keystone project.
The demonstrations and U.S. Park Police arrests were a peaceful, choreographed affair planned in advance at one point, for instance, some activists waited to take a spot in front of the fence while a few tourists finished snapping pictures in front of the White House.
About 10 minutes after the activists assembled, police cleared a wide stretch of the sidewalk, sending tourists and others away as they set up waist-high metal grates around the area.
The protesters chanted slogans like hey, ho, tar sands no! and hey hey, ho ho, Keystone XLs got to go.
Many in the demonstrating group favored khakis, blazers, ties and other garb that eschewed the overtly countercultural look of some environmental protests.
At 11:30 a.m. a member of the Park Police warned the assembled demonstrators that under regulations and laws governing the area, their permit to demonstrate on the White House sidewalk had been revoked.
People demonstrating on the sidewalk must continue moving, police said, and the stationary activists were informed that due to the violations, the sidewalk was closed and they had to leave or be arrested.
Two identical warnings followed over the next several minutes, and at roughly 11:38 a.m. the arrests started, beginning with a young woman who organizers said was from Wasilla, Alaska. Police cuffed her as her fellow activists cheered and some yelled hero, youre a hero!
Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the Park Police, said the 65 arrested demonstrators were taken to their Anacostia Station for processing. They are charged with failure to obey a lawful order, he said.
While 65 were arrested Saturday, other activists hung back as they prepare for two weeks of demonstrations and civil disobedience.
Organizers of the anti-Keystone event say they expect 2,000 people to take part over two weeks.
Advocates of the pipeline including oil industry groups lobbying hard for the project say its a jobs-heavy way to increase energy security by boosting supplies from a friendly U.S. neighbor.
But environmentalists oppose the greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands projects due to concerns about global warming and the destruction of Canadian forests, and also say the pipeline could suffer from spills that pollute U.S. water supplies.
McKibben, a key organizer of the protests, calls the Obama administration decision a referendum on the president's climate change record, noting the decision rests solely with the executive branch.
He doesnt have to go through the crazy climate deniers in Congress to be able to do the right thing, McKibben said in Lafayette Square Saturday morning.
If Barack Obama mans up, says no to this thing, it will send a surge of electricity through all of the people that voted for him three years ago. It will be the reminder of why we were so enamored of this guy in 2008, McKibben said.
Speth said that more broadly he wants Obama to focus more heavily on climate change.
If he doesnt do anything about it in the 2012 campaign, what mandate is he going to have in 2013 to act on it, said Speth, who is now on the faculty of Vermont Law School and was administrator of the United Nations Development Programme in the 1990s.
Worthless 'flesh mob'?
“The US has not built a refinery in decades. “
The expansion of existing refineries each year gives us the equivalent capacity expansion of one additional refinery per year.
“Environmentalist” are suicidal. A poor United States would be much more harmful to the environment than a healthy, thriving nation.
I wonder about the feasibility of putting a refinery in Detroit, and shipping oil via the great lakes. It may not be as cost effective as a pipeline, but it would be very flexible. I don’t know if Detroit has year round port operations though.
Detroit does have a refinery, and also there’s a refinery north of there located in Sarnia, Ontario.
Damn! Why couldn't they have just beaten them instead.
You think they could expand one from NJ or PA up here to Maine?
Drill the sh*t out of Gaia; then build refineries on the carcass...
65 arrested.
5 "disappeared".
They just wanted to hold a sign and sit outside working on their tans. I'm guessing the sign was professionally printed... don't see any typos.
Poor things. They all look ragged and homeless. They couldn’t be on payrolls of competing interests. Politics!
Buncha leftard ashholes. Probably all of them traveled there via the use of fossil fuels.
I’m guessing they’re funded by China just like the old Ground Zero anti-nuke protestors were funded by the USSR.
China wants the oil but NAFTA says Canada has to give first the US first shot at the oil. If we don’t want it, they can sell it to anyone.
So, a 1700 mile pipeline goes to Prince Rupert, BC instead of the Gulf of Mexico and the oil is tankered to China.
Most likely, they’re all useful (to China) idiots.
Isn’t this the same place that members of FreeRepublic demonstrated every Saturday morning for 2 years during the Clinton Administration?
I don’t understand this story. What did they do wrong? They had a permit. I don’t read of any violence breaking out. Why did the police revoke the permit during the middle of the demonstration?
So, people here don’t like this group. So what? They have freedom of speech just like we do? I don’t understand why their permit to demonstrate was suddenly revoked. There must be more to this story.
Hookers do community service?
The buses to take the 'rent a union protestor' crowd home could not get close to the WH due to new 'rules' from the SS. The protestors were arrested (taken) to the Police Station, and they will be processed and then have only a short walk to the waiting buses.
The protestors are saved cab fares, and get to brag about being arrested and spending the evening in jail (waiting for the free 'meal' before being released to load onto the buses).
It's like we're fighting demons ... every move of theirs is a lie.
hey hey, ho ho,
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Hmm. the idiots from 60 yrs ago apparently didn’t put a patent on that drivel.
You would think with all the ‘new blood’ they would have come up with a different ‘chant’.
And they call themselves ‘Progressives’....sounds more like Regressives.
If PROgress is moving ahead,
What does CONgress mean?
Present members (for a part) excluded.
That's the thing - there IS NO NEW BLOOD.
Dem 'protest' are run by paid professional pretending it's still the sixties... it's not. Some of the average 'protest' members at liberal rallies: Union goons - coerced by union bosses to show up, paid political members of the Democrat Party, citizens working off court ordered 'community service', and some old hippies looking to get laid ( the sixties ARE O-VAR guys).
The 'court ordered' thing is new - here's how it works. Nonprofit organizations - groups we think of as 'doing good' have people remanded over to them by the Court system to work off fines - or work off time in lieu of going to jail. Some are people caught shop lifting, flash mobbing, drinking under the influence etc. Nonprofits tend to be liberal and judges can't call one over the other - either they're legally a nonprofit or not... These are the people who become the liberal rent a crowd 'demonstrations'...
So x rmuen - there is NO new blood. Their numbers are small which is why there are no large demonstrations. They can't pull off large showings with paid participants, old hippies, smattering of Unitarians and union goons. Lucky for them they've got the press in their pocket... Our side would never be able to pull that scam without getting caught - they've been brazen enough to advertise on Craig's list looking for college age kids... ( keeping the illusion of the 60's going)... Dem protest are soooooo lame, but the MSM WANTS TO BELIEVE so badly - that - low and behold - they DO. They believe the 60's are still with us and that young intellectual journalist are waaaaay cool and will get all the girls. Or something like that - logic defies any other type of explanation.
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