If You See Something at the State Department Hearings, Say Something Here

News — admin September 26, 2011 at 6:56 pm

 

Today marked the beginning of the State Department hearings, and our expectations were confirmed: the Keystone XL’s corporate backers are paying to bus in pipeline supporters to to attempt to tilt the process in their favor and keep opponents of the pipeline from making their voices heard.

We don’t yet have any confirmed reports of serious issues, but to help monitor the process, we’ve set up a hotline where anyone at the hearings can leave us a message reporting on any problems they see.

Call or text (402) 937-1473 with any reports of issues, and we’ll do our best to spread the word and hold the State Department to their promise to create an open dialog about Keystone XL.

UPDATE: This report comes from Kathy DeSilva from Port Arthur, TX:

“I attended and spoke at the Port Arthur State Dept. meeting last night. I left with the feeling of being scammed. We arrived 45 minutes early to sign up, & found hundreds of oil field workers already in line (having been bused in) wearing navy blue or orange matching t-shirts, bold lettering: BUILD KEYSTONE XL NOW! GOOD JOBS! U.S. SECURITY! Once we were allowed to sign up to speak (at a table staffed by Cardno Entrix, according to their name tags) we entered the room to find the first 8-10 rows, (left side:suits, right side: oil field workers), filled by these individuals and their slogans. This after being told we could not bring any signs into the meeting? The 2 microphones were set up in the middle, just behind the last rows of bright shirts. When one stood up to speak, these were the only people in the field of vision. The first 40 or so speakers were for the pipeline (having been bused in & stood in line to sign up first). They were told their time limit was 3 minutes, but it was not strictly enforced. Once people started speaking in opposition, we were told it was getting so late, the time was now 2 minutes (strictly enforced). On the sign up table, there was a stack of papers entitled, “Fact Sheet, Keystone XL Pipeline”. No where in this publication is tar sands oil referred to, just “crude oil”. The paper ends with these words: ABOVE ALL ELSE, THE DEPARTMENT IS COMMITTED TO MAINTAINING THE INTEGRITY OF A TRANSPARENT, IMPARTIAL, AND RIGOROUS PROCESS. After driving 4 hours to attend and speak at this meeting, I feel like it was a scam and in no way transparent, impartial and rigorous.”

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  • Kathy DaSilva

    I attended and spoke at the Port Arthur State Dept. meeting last night. I left with the feeling of being scammed. We arrived 45 minutes early to sign up, & found hundreds of oil field workers already in line (having been bused in) wearing navy blue or orange matching t-shirts, bold lettering: BUILD KEYSTONE XL NOW! GOOD JOBS! U.S. SECURITY! Once we were allowed to sign up to speak (at a table staffed by Cardno Entrix, according to their name tags) we entered the room to find the first 8-10 rows, (left side:suits, right side: oil field workers), filled by these individuals and their slogans. This after being told we could not bring any signs into the meeting? The 2 microphones were set up in the middle, just behind the last rows of bright shirts. When one stood up to speak, these were the only people in the field of vision. The first 40 or so speakers were for the pipeline (having been bused in & stood in line to sign up first). They were told their time limit was 3 minutes, but it was not strictly enforced. Once people started speaking in opposition, we were told it was getting so late, the time was now 2 minutes (strictly enforced). On the sign up table, there was a stack of papers entitled, “Fact Sheet, Keystone XL Pipeline”. No where in this publication is tar sands oil referred to, just “crude oil”. The paper ends with these words: ABOVE ALL ELSE, THE DEPARTMENT IS COMMITTED TO MAINTAINING THE INTEGRITY OF A TRANSPARENT, IMPARTIAL, AND RIGOROUS PROCESS. After driving 4 hours to attend and speak at this meeting, I feel like it was a scam and in no way transparent, impartial and rigorous.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=670317990 Jessica Ellison

      That is so depressing, Kathy. We’re going to have our meeting in Austin tomorrow. I hope it goes better than Port A’s did … thank you for taking the time to go down to testify. We will continue fighting!

  • Olivia Stockman

    There are fliers up at Dawson Community College in Glendive, Montana, the sight of today’s Montana hearing that offer to pay students to stand in line to hold pro-pipeline testimony spots. Classes were cancelled today because the College was concerned about parking and other issues. We’re on our way to go get one of these fliers.

  • ezekiel_trinity

    NON IDEAS from the 2 legged PIGG

    Yes. The world should be diligent against Earthly contaminants, but no connection to events in 2011, 201x, 201.
    The Kingdom of Christ and the fairy tale book are at WAR with EVIL Man on Earth.
    The XL pipeline is another bad and sad non idea from the 2 legged.
    Only Satan continues to challenge the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and contribute to the downward spiral of the 2 legged mis creation in 2011, 201x, 201.
    Defiance 2 legged PIGG?
    Lesson NOT learned?
    Resistance is futile.
    The intensity of the compensation RISES. America has become the Jew that does not accept Christ as it’s King and Savior.
    The TOOLS, MINDS and MORALITY needed to do THIS or breech the deep Ocean floors, in harmony with the Earth and it’s creations “DO NOT EXIST” and WE KNOW and ONLY THE PIGG proceeds.
    It is EVIL Man in 2011, 201x, 201 that uses Satan’s version of Eminent Domain to take away Christ’s creations, their homes, their way of life, and their SPIRIT across the planet.
    Who gave the 2 legged mis created PIGG this permission?
    Will the U.S. be liberated?
    Creates jobs?
    Yes. For Satan and his midget oil disciples.
    Canada and U.S. will get REWARDS FOR AMBIVALENCE from the Beast. The habitats for “the disturbed” will be disturbed and Instantaneous CHANGES are FORCED upon YOUR livelihoods and children.
    Instead of earthly caretakers, the 2 legged becomes earthly undertakers.
    It is us that gets managed and steered from above, because of mis deeds below.
    Sleep 2 legged.
    Sleep.
    WE RECITE and WE TRUMPET.
    The action to place these things on the table, gets a reaction from the Table far above.
    NYC GETS NUKED.
    The Mayans saw it and Edgar Casey too – 1000% correcto

  • ezekiel_trinity

    The US State Department is a PIGG

    Inventories
    Of PIGG Minds Are WAAAY TOO HIGH in the U.S. and across the World
    Satan and his Legion will NOW MANAGE HIS INVENTORIES and BRING THEM WAAAY DOWN TO THE PIGGS LEVEL:
    The Red Plague, The RED Federal Reserve, The SEC, PIGG Banks, Brokerages MM’s and the Wall Alley PIGG, OIL PIGGS, and Hunter PIGGS and NOT limited 2.
    NYC GETS NUKED

  • ezekiel_trinity

    What is the difference between Satan, his Legion AnD?
    • Red Plague NRA & Hunter PIGGS that put weapons to Christ’s animals. The animals LOVE each other just the way SOME of the 2 leggeds do U dirty bastard PIGGS.
    • Red Plague PIGGS that have BEEN TOLD by majority America and the world, to stop breeching the Ocean floors for FILTH and coming up with IDIOT XL pipeline non ideas when they DO NOT have the technology, brains or morality to do this. Shell, British PIGG and the rest of the filthy midget oil piglets. U and your offspring are BRANDED by Satan, something which U can NEVER get away from. Mother Earth DOES NOT WANT U PIGGS touching it.
    • Fed Reserve and SEC PIGGS (on the take) that protect and nurture criminal shorting and derivatives that TOOK THE WORLD DOWN and CONTINUE to USE and SUPPORT them against the world after leeching America’s and the world’s savings to fill 1% of the worlds PIGGY BANKS.
    • Wall Alley PIGGS, Brokerages and Banks that play against the world’s portfolios criminally shorting the world’s wealth like parasites. NYC GETS NUKED. NYC GETS
    NUKED.

    THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE – THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE – THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE

    Assassins’ teams have been hired in all 50 states & around the world to HUNT and kill EVIL Man on sight all these PIGGS and their families for their BOUNTIES,
    But U CALLED and Satan brings U END TIME events. Horrific, instantaneous events for the 2 legged bitch, but wonderful PIGGS. Satan will rip the ARROGANCE, GREED, AMBIVALENCE… from U and your incestual sodomizing BREED for there can be only 1 PIGG.
    Instead of following Christ, the PIGGS want Satan and they shall have him!

  • Pat Mcramsden

    The Death of Sorrow

    here the shadow of the last tree falls
    across a poisoned lake.
    like the stiff corpse on a steely slab,
    In the light of too many fading moons.
    a Loon crawls sick across an oil slick
    and slips its heavy coat over a heavy- metal slope

    I hear mourning songs
    a thick and stupid hope
    from deep within a collective human throat.
    A warm wind blows the dusty breath
    of death across the wet lands.
    We hide from the slime of mines,
    Who send their fearless tendrils deeper
    to find the last lost lake of golden oil?

    Kiateur Falls… falls.
    Majesty sold to despair and thirsty lumber giants.
    Spruce trees dying on the Brazilian landscape
    not native to the Amazon. Planted in the loam of misplaced hope.
    Exotic Purple Heart,
    sickening and lurching, dropping
    ever helpless against the wicked brigade
    of switch and trade.
    In an rainless rain-forest
    a thundering profusion springs forth.
    Colour and celebration
    announce a lie—to
    a hopeful morning sky.
    Perversions performed by industrial morticians,
    pivoting to spout progress
    from the trigger side of their barrels
    guns or gold or oil they shoot plumes high
    writing sorrows obituary
    on our polluted sky~. Patsy McAuley

  • Zoidie

    We need to show up in greater numbers and Early – and do it consistently.

    State Department SCAM!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1644274182 Eva Wojcik
  • Vicki Baggett

    I attended both the Port Arthur and the Austin hearings. The very same union people in their bright orange t-shirts that were at Port Arthur were bused to Austin. They arrived before 7:15 a.m. and took the first 25 or so speaking spots, worth 75+ minutes. Another busload arrived shortly after the first. They had testified at the Port Arthur hearing, so their testimony wouldn’t count, but they made it more difficult for the rest of us to testify and gave any media present at the start of the hearing the impression that everyone was only concerned about the job issue.

    The union people very rudely and consistently moved up and down the aisle whenever an anti-pipeline person spoke. The microphones were in the middle of an aisle, so it was an intimidated and distracting move. They did not cease, even when asked to do so by the moderator after the break. The moderator did not make any more attempts to stop this behavior.

    Cardno Entrix employees signed people in and kept time.

    The anti-pipeline folks gave thoughtful, intelligent, multifaceted testimony, in contrast to the pro-pipeliner’s we-need-jobs-and-energy-security dogma, but I still came away with the feeling that this was TransCanada’s show.

  • Margot Kidder

    I just got back to Livingston Montana today after attending the State Department “hearings” in Glendive, Montana. These hearings are a scam. We arrived to the scene of three or four busloads of orange shirted people from various unions, organized from a group from Seattle called the Laborers International Union, being told to line up and sign in. (This was after them having been served a large lunch.) I walked among the orange T-shirts handing out flyers about the REAL number of local jobs that will be created by this pipeline that is not even close to the 13 to 20 thousand jobs being cited by TransCanada and the various politicians pushing for this. I worked my way up the line to the front where a woman was taking down names and getting each person’s number which the woman beside her then found in a neat pile of envelopes that were backlit to expose what was almost certainly a check inside.

    In other words, the people being bussed in were being paid.

    Their signs are exactly the same as the ones I have seen at the hearings in the other states. As soon as the organizers realized I was not with their group they loudly and rudely told me I had to leave. When I protested that we were in a public parking lot at a University they simply yelled “YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO BE OVER THERE!!!

    When the speaking began it was pretty much person after person giving exactly the same speech, which are the talking points from TransCanada.

    I gave a pro labour, pro union, but anti-pipeline speech with the CORRECT number of local jobs that would be created and afterwards many of the people in the orange shirts came up and thanked me. When I asked how much they had been paid, each one of them said exactly the same thing, which was “Are you with the press?” and when I said no, they all said they weren’t allowed to tell me anything.

    A friend I came with asked someone in the union group who paid for the buses and got the same response.

    I later learned that the Laborers International Union, representing the Teamsters, the Pipefitters, and several other unions had already made a deal with Trans Canada a full year ago.

    We also learned that TransCanada is already building houses for their workers in Miles City, Montana – about 40 minutes from Glendive, which part of the pipeline will go right past. And we learned that the huge trucks with South Korean parts for the Tar Sands are already moving up our highways to Alberta, in spite of a Montana judge’s ruling that it would be illegal to do so until November when he made his final decision.

    All these things, combined with the knowledge that Hillary Clinton has already advised Obama to say yes to the pipeline, makes it pretty clear that a deal with TransCanada has already been made in secrecy and behind the backs of both congress and the American people.

    We, and the Unions, are getting lied to and screwed yet again.

    sincerely,

    Margot Kidder

  • Vicki Baggett

    More from Austin—Cardno Entrix shut off testimony from citizens, turning away dozens of speakers. One man was arrested for criminal trespass when he questioned the process. Read first hand account here: http://texasvox.org/2011/09/29/austin-tar-sands-hearing-a-farce/


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