There's a Disturbance in the Force Out There in Republicanland

Karen Savage, an award-winning investigative reporter, did not expect to be arrested as she covered Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, a river swamp bigger than the Florida Everglades. “We were on land that the pipeline company doesn’t even claim to have,” she said, adding that she had permission in writing from the property owner to be there. “I didn’t think there was really any risk at all.” Savage, a freelance reporter who teaches at the City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism, has previously covered the BP oil spill and environmental justice issues. Truthout describes her as “embedded” with L’eau Est La Vie protest camp, which opposes the pipeline. She now faces “critical infrastructure” trespass charges, as do over half a dozen others recently arrested near Bayou Bridge construction. These felony charges come under a newly minted Louisiana law modeled after “critical infrastructure” laws in other states, which have been criticized as efforts to criminalize oil and gas pipeline protests.

The law comes as people strongly opposed to the project - and the continued proliferation of fossil-fuel infrastructure - have been monitoring Energy Transfer Partners’ Bayou Bridge pipeline construction across south Louisiana, sometimes stopping construction work in protest.

The pipeline - the second phase of a facility that currently extends from Nederlands, Texas, to Lake Charles - will extend from Lake Charles to refineries in St. James, pumping crude oil across the country from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. Protesters have already been arrested for trespassing at these sites, which are located on private property for which ETP subsidiary Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC gained a right-of-way.

An existing law already criminalizes trespassing on critical infrastructure but does not include pipelines and their construction sites. The proposed law adds those pipeline sites to the law and hikes up the penalties, including by creating the crime of conspiracy to trespass on such properties. The existing punishment for trespassing on that infrastructure could lead to a fine up to $1,000 or prison for up to six years, with or without hard labor. The proposed law changes the prison sentence to up to five years but creates new crimes with stiffer penalties, including criminal damage to critical infrastructure - a crime that could lead to prison with or without hard labor for between one and 15 years and a fine up to $10,000.

Early Monday morning, a Bayou Bridge activist who identifies as a “water protector” was tased and arrested after being forced from a “skypod,” a device similar to the tripods sometimes used in civil disobedience campaigns. That person was charged and held on $10,000 bail, according to a statement put out by local activists. Like many who opposed Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota, Bayou Bridge opponents identify themselves as water protectors. Some of those opposed to Bayou Bridge have engaged in tree-sits as a form of civil disobedience.

“Clearly the purpose is to chill lawful dissent,” New Orleans-based environmental activist Meg Logue told The Advocate in April. Other reports of police misconduct and the blurring of the lines between public officials and private security at Bayou Bridge sites drew a warning from lawyers from three prominent civil liberties organizations in late July. Police stood by while company “[c]onstruction workers [used] chainsaws on the very trees these individuals are sitting in,” William P. Quigley, law professor and director of the Loyola Law Clinic; Pam Spees, senior staff attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights; and Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center wrote in a July 28 letter to Louisiana’s governor. “We also have reports that various state employees from the Department of Public Safety, Corrections, and Probation and Parole are working as private security in this matter.”

“FULLY OCCUPIED SILVER 4 DR SEDAN NEWER MODEL - THINKS THEY ARE WAITING FOR DRUGS AT THE LOCAL DRUG HOUSE - WOULD LIKE THEM MOVED ALONG,” read the notes from the call for service, made shortly before 7 p.m. on Aug. 7. The driver of the car was 71-year-old Linda Hoskins. Her 8-year-old granddaughter sat in the backseat. Her daughter, Shelia Stubbs, stood nearby, talking to a resident of the neighborhood in his doorway. The two women and the child are all African-American.

Stubbs, 46, was a candidate for state Assembly and a 12-year veteran of the Dane County Board of Supervisors. She was knocking doors, introducing herself to voters in the 77th Assembly District. Exactly one week later, her name would appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary election, which she would win with nearly 50 percent of the vote. But in the moments when she spotted the squad car next to her own vehicle, asked the officer what was wrong, explained what she was doing and tried to then explain to her daughter why any of it had happened, she was heartbroken and humiliated. "It's 2018," Stubbs said in an interview. "It shouldn't be strange that a black woman's knocking on your door. I didn't do anything to make myself stand out. I felt like they thought I didn't belong there."

Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for Florida governor, has another racial issue to deal with. Less than a month after telling Florida voters not to “monkey this up” after Democrat Andrew Gillum won the democratic gubernatorial nomination, one of his leading donors recently tweeted a racial slur directed at former president Barack Obama. On Sept. 8, Steven Alembik responded to a tweet from the Republican National Committee that criticized Obama for correctly saying that “over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.” Alembik, who has given $23,000 to DeSantis, responded to the tweet by tweeting “F- THE MUSLIM N-–”, in reference to Obama.

The parade of names began last month with the news that state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a moderate Republican from Mission Hills, was endorsing Democrat Laura Kelly for governor. Then on Sept. 4 came the announcement that former two-term Kansas Gov. Bill Graves, a Republican, was backing Kelly. On Tuesday, it was former Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, whose father was the 1936 GOP nominee for president. “Laura Kelly studies the issues and is willing to work with others for solutions to real problems,” Kassebaum said. Other Republicans have come to a similar conclusion. A few days ago, Kelly’s campaign announced another 27 prominent Republicans who publicly back her in this intensifying three-way race featuring Kelly, Republican Kris Kobach and independent Greg Orman.