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What the Dakota Access Pipeline Is Really About
The Wall Street Journal ^ | Dec 7, 2016 | Kevin Cramer

Posted on 12/07/2016 2:25:44 PM PST by KeyLargo

What the Dakota Access Pipeline Is Really About

The standoff isn’t about tribal rights or water, but a White House that ignores the rule of law.

Kevin Cramer

A little more than two weeks ago, during a confrontation between protesters and law enforcement, an improvised explosive device was detonated on a public bridge in southern North Dakota. That was simply the latest manifestation of the “prayerful” and “peaceful” protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Escalating tensions were temporarily defused Sunday when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at the direction of the Obama administration, announced it would refuse to grant the final permit needed to complete the $3.8 billion project. The pipeline, which runs nearly 1,200 miles from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to Illinois, is nearly complete except for a small section where it needs to pass under the Missouri River. Denying the permit for that construction only punts the issue to next month—to a new president who won’t thumb his nose at the rule of law.

Like many North Dakotans, I’ve had to endure preaching about the pipeline from the press, environmental activists, musicians and politicians in other states. More often than not, these sermons are informed by little more than a Facebook post. At the risk of spoiling the protesters’ narrative, I’d like to bring us back to ground truth.

• This isn’t about tribal rights or protecting cultural resources. The pipeline does not cross any land owned by the Standing Rock Sioux. The land under discussion belongs to private owners and the federal government. To suggest that the Standing Rock tribe has the legal ability to block the pipeline is to turn America’s property rights upside down.

• Two federal courts have rejected claims that the tribe wasn’t consulted....

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: activists; climatechange; dakota; democrats; economy; enviros; law; nativeamericans; obama; pipeline; politicians; statesrights
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Excellent explanation regarding the politics of the protest.

Google the headline to read.

"So what is the pipeline dispute really about? Political expediency in a White House that does not see itself as being bound by the rule of law. The Obama administration has decided to build a political legacy rather than lead the country. It is facilitating an illegal occupation that has grown wildly out of control. That the economy depends on a consistent and predictable permitting regime seems never to have crossed the president’s mind."

1 posted on 12/07/2016 2:25:44 PM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo

But let a bunch of Militia types try something similar in Oregon and in comes the FBI tactical units.


2 posted on 12/07/2016 2:28:21 PM PST by MNJohnnie ("need to buck up and endure just as much winning as we possibly can." -BeauBo)
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To: KeyLargo
Wampum? 💵🔌🏹🤑
3 posted on 12/07/2016 2:28:57 PM PST by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?!)
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To: KeyLargo

Imagine if the rancher would have used an ied.

You know how they were spun even without this.

These people are spun as saints.

It is brutally sickening.


4 posted on 12/07/2016 2:29:59 PM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: KeyLargo

Exactly the point I have been making.

No rule of law for Obama. He does not, and never has cared about such things.

His whole life has been about disrupting and defeating the rule of law.


5 posted on 12/07/2016 2:30:41 PM PST by marktwain
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To: KeyLargo

Just an FYI, Native Americans DO NOT live in tepees. They’re not that hardy nor that stupid.


6 posted on 12/07/2016 2:36:48 PM PST by upsdriver (I support Sarah Palin.)
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To: rktman

Uhm, wrong tribe Joe.....

7 posted on 12/07/2016 2:36:48 PM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo

I don’t know what is worst, the communist left or just ignorant. This pipeline is needed and poses no problem to the Indians or the rotten core of communists Democrat ignorant.


8 posted on 12/07/2016 2:37:01 PM PST by Logical me
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To: KeyLargo

Don’t we still have those Hotchkiss guns in storage somewhere?


9 posted on 12/07/2016 2:37:14 PM PST by DesertRhino (November 8, America's Brexit!!!)
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To: KeyLargo

It’s about....if you give us money, we won’t object so much..Indians have done this since the beginning...


10 posted on 12/07/2016 2:39:23 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: KeyLargo

I used to be able to Google search my way into WSJ articles, but it hasn’t worked the last couple of times. Is there something I’m missing?


11 posted on 12/07/2016 2:39:59 PM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
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To: KeyLargo

He’ll let President Trump do the dirty and hard work to enforce the rule of law and then he’ll stand on the sidelines and harp at Trump if things get nasty. Lawless freak.


12 posted on 12/07/2016 2:40:22 PM PST by Lent
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To: upsdriver
"Just an FYI, Native Americans DO NOT live in tepees. They’re not that hardy nor that stupid."

Yes, we know...

13 posted on 12/07/2016 2:43:10 PM PST by KeyLargo
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To: KeyLargo

These protestors have been bussed in by Buffet and Soros. They are not locals....and are paid $15.00 an hour to protest. The underground pipeline will be far safer than rail or road transport, and Buffet has the contract for rail transport.


14 posted on 12/07/2016 2:44:54 PM PST by Rushmore Rocks (,)
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To: Sacajaweau

Great article here:

Native American reservations: America’s failed Socialist experiment

Posted by ReaganGirl in Economy, Native Americans, Socialism

September 19, 2016
Native American Reservations: “Socialist Archipelago”

Andrei Znamenski
Mises Institute Daily

Imagine a country that has a corrupt authoritarian government. In that country no one knows about checks and balances or an independent court system. Private property is not recognized in that country either. Neither can one buy or sell land. And businesses are reluctant to bring investments into this country. Those who have jobs usually work for the public sector. Those who don’t have jobs subsist on entitlements that provide basic food. At the same time, this country sports a free health care system and free access to education. Can you guess what country it is? It could be the former Soviet Union, Cuba, or any other socialist country of the past.

Yet, I want to assure you that such a country exists right here in the United States. And its name is Indian Country. Indian Country is a generic metaphor that writers and scholars use to refer to the archipelago of 310 Native American reservations, which occupy 2 percent of the U.S. soil. Scattered all over the United States, these sheltered land enclaves are held in trust by the federal government. So legally, many of these land enclaves are a federal property. So there you cannot freely buy and sell land or use it as collateral. On top of this, since the Indian tribes are wards of the federal government, one cannot sue them for breach of contract. Indian reservations are communally used by Indian groups and subsidized by the BIA (the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior) with a current annual budget of about $3 billion dollars. Besides being a major financial resource that sustains the reservation system, BIA’s goal is also to safeguard indigenous communities, or, in other words, to make sure that they would never fail when dealing with the “outside” society. People in the government and many Native American leaders naÏvely believe that it is good for the well-being of the Indians to be segregated and sheltered from the rest of American society.

This peculiar trust status of Indian Country, where private property rights are insecure, scares away businesses and investors.1 They consider these forbidden grounds high risk areas. So, in Indian Country, we have an extreme case of what Robert Higgs famously labeled “regime uncertainty” that retards economic development.2 In fact, this “regime uncertainty” borders on socialism. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior in the first Reagan administration, was the first to publicly state this. In 1983, he said (and then dearly paid for this), “If you want an example of the failure of socialism, don’t go to Russia, come to America and go to the Indian reservations.”3...

Read at:

http://reagangirl.com/native-american-reservations-americas-failed-socialist-experiment/


15 posted on 12/07/2016 2:46:49 PM PST by KeyLargo
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To: upsdriver

You’re so right. Can you imagine why they would be in a building made of skin/cloth, and have to sit on the FROZEN ground; Lunacy .. and they’re not stupid.


16 posted on 12/07/2016 2:49:14 PM PST by CyberAnt (Peace through Strength)
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To: upsdriver

But there are a number of American Indians who do know how to put up a lodge and looking at the way those lodges are put together is just painful. The skin is slack, which means they didn’t ‘diamond’ cut the poles to keep them from turning once planted in the ground (or didn’t put the bows out in the first place), the smoke flaps aren’t oriented right for conditions, there’s disrepair which should have long ago been fixed...

There are some American Indians who do live year round in lodges - they do so for a number of reasons (most often, because they make money from doing it.)

But ghads, all I see in that picture are a bunch of college ‘Native American Activist’ teepees which have zero clue how to deal with their tents. Hell, call them what they are, death traps.


17 posted on 12/07/2016 2:51:09 PM PST by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: MNJohnnie

Wish they would come to Phoenix and protest the expansion of the 202 freeway!


18 posted on 12/07/2016 2:51:09 PM PST by Irish Eyes
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To: KeyLargo

I won’t be long before a Trump-led DoJ and FBI puts an end to this shenanigan and gets the pipeline built.


19 posted on 12/07/2016 2:51:09 PM PST by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
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To: KeyLargo

They ignored the part about it being about money (the Indians are mad they can’t fleece the white man because it goes around the reservation).


20 posted on 12/07/2016 2:52:13 PM PST by reaganaut (Yes I am female, yes I love guns, yes I carry and yes I reload and handload my own ammo.)
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