planetary systems'

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/shell-consultant-resigns-blasts-company/

A long-time Shell consultant based in the United Kingdom quit with a bang on Monday, condemning the fossil fuel giant for its dangerous efforts to expand oil and gas production despite numerous scientific warnings about the need for swift decarbonization to avert climate disaster.

"Shell's stated safety ambition is to 'do no harm,'" Caroline Dennett, who worked with the company for 11 years as a senior safety consultant, said in a video shared on LinkedIn, which echoed points made in a resignation letter she emailed to CEO Ben Van Beurden and 1,400 employees.

This so-called "Goal Zero" pledge "sounds honorable," said Dennett. "But they are completely failing on it. They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes extreme harms to our climate, to our environment, and to people."

"Shell is operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems," Dennett wrote in an email obtained by Politico. "Shell is not implementing steps to mitigate the known risks. Shell is not putting environmental safety before production."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/massachusetts-court-exxon-trial-climate/

The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday rejected ExxonMobil's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state, meaning the biggest oil giant in the U.S. must stand trial for allegations that it lied to the public about the climate emergency and the fossil fuel industry's role in driving it.

The lawsuit filed in 2019 by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accuses Exxon of violating the state's consumer protection laws through a decadeslong effort to conceal what it knew about the negative environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels.
In particular, the complaint says, Exxon deceived investors about the risks that global warming poses to its business and misled consumers by downplaying the dangerous effects of its products and overstating what the company is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As The Guardian reported, "Exxon claimed the lawsuit was in breach of legislation against what are known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPS, used by wealthy individuals and corporations to silence critics."

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, however, ruled unanimously that the state's "anti-SLAPP" law is not applicable to government enforcement actions, affirming a lower court's decision to deny Exxon's special motion to dismiss the case.

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https://www.rawstory.com/oklahoma-native-american-sovereignty-kevin-stitt/

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, has warned the states of many Native American tribes that if they allow abortion on sovereign land he will intervene.

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Native American tribes are allowed to govern themselves on their own land. Their sovereignty is the reason that they can have things like casinos in states where it is banned. Once known as Indian Territory, the state has more than 40 tribes in its borders.

It was just last month that Oklahoma politicians faced off against tribes in an ongoing refusal to cooperate with the Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma.

"In the McGirt ruling, the Supreme Court held that much of eastern Oklahoma is Indian country under the terms of an 1833 treaty between the U.S. government and the Muscogee Creek Nation," explained Professor Kirsten Matoy Carlson of Wayne State University. "Based on that treaty and an 1885 federal law, the ruling effectively means that the state of Oklahoma cannot prosecute crimes committed by or against American Indians there. Federal and tribal officials are the only ones who can pursue these cases."

Oklahoma's state government has asked the Supreme Court to rehear the case over 40 times. Under the existing Supreme Court rulings, about 43% of Oklahoma is ruled by tribal lands. It ultimately means that the GOP governor doesn't have control over the whole state when it comes to his laws.


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Maybe Clarence Thomas should direct his comments about "not liking the results" to Gov. Stitt.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/us-government-subpoena-guardian-reporter-phone-records

The US justice department secretly issued a subpoena to gain access to details of the phone account of a Guardian reporter as part of an aggressive leak investigation into media stories about an official inquiry into the Trump administration’s child separation policy at the southern border.

Leak investigators issued the subpoena to obtain the phone number of Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian’s investigations correspondent in Washington. The move was carried out without notifying the newspaper or its reporter, as part of an attempt to ferret out the source of media articles about a review into family separation conducted by the Department of Justice’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz.

It is highly unusual for US government officials to obtain a journalist’s phone details in this way, especially when no national security or classified information is involved. The move was all the more surprising in that it came from the DoJ’s inspector general’s office – the watchdog responsible for ethical oversight and whistleblower protections.

Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, decried the action as “an egregious example of infringement on press freedom and public interest journalism by the US Department of Justice”.

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