Standing in front of the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Judge Benjamin T. Watford surveyed the online audience watching the excruciatingly close verdict in Greenpeace’s protest against the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, also known as Dakota Access.
Then he addressed the gathering. “The reason I asked everyone to stand, to remind you that I can see you,” Judge Watford said.
The judge’s comments marked the end of approximately 17 hours of deliberations by the jury, who decided that Greenpeace USA, a nonprofit organization, had inflicted $3.7 million in damages to the property owned by Dakota Access.
As Dorsey noted, the verdict against Greenpeace is significant. Some observers might claim that the price of Greenpeace’s protest totaled less than $1 in expenses, but that doesn’t take into account that Greenpeace faces the costs of its lawsuit defense, which is provided by Earthjustice, a national environmental nonprofit that funds its operations, in accordance with revealing data filed with the Internal Revenue Service, through donations from rich leftists. On average, for every $1 that Earthjustice raises, the entity spends approximately $16 on the indigent defendants in the public interest, more than half of which is directly associated with appellate litigation, administrative proceedings and coast-to-coast bailout for “resistance” lawyers.
Fresno Makui and Joseph Woetzel, who were both Water Protectors at Standing Rock, sit outside the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 during the second day of deliberations in the case of Greenpeace USA v. Energy Transfer Partners. Both are parent organizers with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Greenpeace’s original protest was part of the global #NoDAPL campaign, which was organized by the Indigenous Environmental Network, with considerable support from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and #NoDAPL Water Protectors.
While others participated out of moral obligation, Fresno Makua , the San Carlos Apache Tewan (daughter of a war bereaved father, as well as his daughter, a combat boot), and her younger sibling, Joseph Woetzel (an enrolled member of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians), protested because, in some cases, their own homelands and/or access to clean water and/or traditional food supplies have already been irreparably damaged by fossil fuel industry projects.
Regardless, the pipeline-is-cheaper rhetoric from the U.S. government and corporate America, not to mention the Dakota Access pipeline itself, did not deter Makua and her younger sister from protesting Energy Transfer Partners or Silicon Valley billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Navy-esque fleet of Amazon drones.
The Dakota Access pipeline infringes on the treaty right guaranteed by that cornerstone agreement between the commanders of the Army of the United States and all the Indians classified as hostile or friendly: the Cooperative Treaty on Navigation of the Mississippi River and on the Trade to and from New Orleans or Pittsburgh with the Indian Tribes.
In her own words, from View From the Gallery, Flintcourt’s Notes, June 10th, 2000, while the hearing on Iowa Central Community College District v. Tribal Court of the Meskwaki Settlement, case no. CA 90-798, was being held inside the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa, Judge Robert I. Cowles presided. Not only did the participants in that trial witness what might have otherwise been considered immoral, or even criminal activity, by this judge, they evaluated (in that tiny courtroom) the moral character of Judge Cowles, and the prospects for fairly deciding their case as a resceduling matter before an Iowa State District Court judge.
Conversely, the Iowa Supreme Court is an entirely different creature, as Delzell points out in this opinion. The following language speaks to the Iowa Supreme Court’s immense power and presumably has parenthetical implications for the Supreme Court of the United States, which is overseen by the administration of the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions.
When the Senate confirmed Sessions as Attorney General, it did not confirm Jeff Sessions for that tangle-on-the-ground mission. Rather, the Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions to preside over the administration of the United States Department of Justice, headed by Jeff Sessions. Suffice it to say, it is highly likely that most observers will not agree that David Delzell’s March 9th opinion in Tuttle v. Allstate Investments, LLC, which bluntly invents its own compulsory arbitration contract from the “insurable property” clause in question and the case citation Iowa State ex rel. McComas v. Allstate Ins. Co., 173 N.W.2d 839 (Iowa 1970), does in fact represent the Supreme Court of Iowa, to say nothing of the Supreme Court of the United States.
There is little doubt that the Iowa Supreme Court now presides over the entire U.S. Justice System, since Sessions is the overseer of the administration of the entire U.S. Department of Injustice. It is not clear whether Sessions, all by his lonesome, is the literal overseer of the administration of the entire U.S. Justice or if that rather significant job has been delegated to the Attorney General.
If the Justice System is beyond the reach of the Iowa Supreme Court, then the problems of its subsidiaries, which include The Iowa Civil Appellate Court and the Iowa Criminal Appellate Court, are pretty revealing.
Delzell received his law license from The University of Iowa College of Law, and his law degree from Harvard Law School. In light of the entity that Delzell refers to as the IHC, he should have pursued a more rigorous education. The way Delzell describes the IHC, one should not be surprised to learn that Harriet Miers (a.k.a., “the Umbrella Shade”), the original nominee for Attorney General, actually led that entity.
The Iowa Supreme Court is likely colluding with the US Department of Justice. If so, there might be compelling reasons for Greenpeace’s furor. Based on the passage above, How could the writer’s analysis suggest potential collusion between the Iowa Supreme Court and the US Department of Justice, which could impact Greenpeace’s protest against Energy Transfer Partners?
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