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TigerSwan worked with law enforcement to fight an information war against the Indigenous-led water protectors.
Native leaders and activists, calling themselves water protectors, wanted to show the newly elected President Donald Trump that they would continue to fight for their treaty rights to lands including the pipeline route. The march would be called “Native Nations Rise.”
Law enforcement was getting ready too — and discussing plans with Energy Transfer, the parent company of the Dakota Access pipeline. Throughout much of the uprising against the pipeline, the National Sheriffs’ Association talked routinely with TigerSwan, Energy Transfer’s lead security firm on the project, working hand in hand to craft pro-pipeline messaging. A top official with the sheriffs’ PR contractor, Off the Record Strategies, floated a plan to TigerSwan’s lead propagandist, a man named Robert Rice.
“Thoughts on a crew or a news reporter — or someone pretending to be — with a camera and microphone to report from the main rally on the Friday, ask questions about pipeline and slice together [sic]?” Off the Record CEO Mark Pfeifle suggested over email.
A security firm led by a former member of the U.S. military’s shadowy Special Forces, TigerSwan was no stranger to such deception. The company had, in fact, used fake reporters before — including Rice himself — to spread its message and to spy on pipeline opponents. The National Sheriffs’ Association’s involvement in advocating for a similar disinformation campaign against the anti-pipeline movement has not been previously reported.
The email from the National Sheriffs’ Association PR shop was among the more than 55,000 internal TigerSwan documents obtained by The Intercept and Grist through a public records request. The documents, released by the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board, reveal how TigerSwan and the sheriffs’ group worked together to twist the story in the media so that it aligned with the oil company’s interests, seeking to pollute the public’s perception of the water protectors.
The documents also outline details of previously unreported collaborations on the ground between TigerSwan and police forces. During the uprising at Standing Rock, TigerSwan provided law enforcement support with helicopter flights, medics, and security guards. The private security firm pushed for the purchase, by Energy Transfer, of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of radios for the cops. TigerSwan also placed an order for a catalog of so-called less-lethal weapons for police use, including tear gas. The security contractor even planned to facilitate an exchange where Energy Transfer and police could share purported evidence of illegal activity.
Meanwhile, communications firms working for Energy Transfer and the National Sheriffs’ Association worked together to write newsletters, plant pro-pipeline articles in the media, and circulate “wanted”-style posters of particular protesters, the documents show. And the heads of both the National Sheriffs’ Association and TigerSwan engaged in discussions on strategy to counter the anti-pipeline movement, with propaganda becoming a priority for both the police and private security.
“It is extremely dangerous to have private interests dictating and coloring the flow of administrative justice,” said Chase Iron Eyes, director of the media organization Last Real Indians and a member of the Oceti Sakowin people. Iron Eyes was active at Standing Rock and mentioned in TigerSwan’s files. “We learned at Standing Rock, law and order serves capital and property.”
Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, whose jurisdiction in Morton County, North Dakota, abuts the Standing Rock reservation, said collaboration with pipeline security was limited. “We had a cooperation with them in reference to the pipeline workers’ safety while conducting their business,” he said in an email. “TigerSwan was not to be involved in any law enforcement detail.” (TigerSwan, Energy Transfer, and the National Sheriffs’ Association did not respond to requests for comment.)
Rice, the TigerSwan propagandist, had posed as a news anchor for anti-protester segments posted on a Facebook page he created to sway the local community against the Standing Rock protests. But when Pfeifle, the sheriff group’s PR man, suggested pretending to be a reporter at the Native Nations Rise protest, Rice was unavailable. (Off the Record did not respond to a request for comment.) Pfeifle found another way to tell the pipeline and police’s story: a far-right news website founded by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Pfeifle wrote to Rice: “We did get Daily Caller to cover event yesterday.”
Law Enforcement Collaboration
The idea of working with police was baked into Energy Transfer’s arrangement with TigerSwan. The firm’s contract for the Dakota Access pipeline specifically assigned TigerSwan to “take the lead with various law enforcement agencies per state, county, state National Guard and the federal interagency if required.”
Cooperation between Energy Transfer’s security operation and law enforcement agencies, however, began even before TigerSwan arrived on the scene. A PowerPoint presentation from Silverton, another contractor hired by Energy Transfer, described its relationship with law enforcement as a “public private partnership.” The September 2016 presentation said that a private intelligence cell was “coordinating with LE” — law enforcement — “and helping develop Person of Interest packets specifically designed to aid in LE prosecution.”
Multiple documents make clear that part of the purpose of Energy Transfer’s intelligence collection was to support law enforcement prosecutions. A September 2016 document describing TigerSwan’s early priorities said, “Continue to collect information of an evidentiary level in order to further the DAPL Security effort and assist Law Enforcement with information to aid in prosecution.”
The collaboration extended to materiel. TigerSwan operatives realized soon after they arrived that local law enforcement officials lacked encrypted radios and could not communicate with state or municipal law enforcement agencies — or with Dakota Access pipeline security, according to emails. Energy Transfer purchased 100 radios, for $391,347, with plans to lease a number of them to law enforcement officers.
”We want them to go to LEO as a gift which represents DAPL’s concern for public safety,” wrote Tom Siguaw, a senior director at Energy Transfer, in an email.
During large protest events, TigerSwan and police worked together to keep water protectors from interfering with construction. On one day in late October 2016, the day of the protests’ largest mass arrest, Energy Transfer’s security personnel “held law enforcement’s east flank” and supported sheriffs’ deputies and National Guard members with seven medical personnel and two helicopters, named Valkyrie and Saber.
After the incident, TigerSwan planned to set up a shared drive, where law enforcement officials could upload crime reports and charging documents, and TigerSwan could share photographs and pipeline opponents’ social media. Documents show other instances in which TigerSwan set up online exchanges with law enforcement. In a February 2017 PowerPoint presentation, TigerSwan described plans to use another shared drive to post security personnel’s videos and photographs, taken both aerially and on the ground during a different mass arrest.
A Dakota Access Pipeline helicopter also supported law enforcement officials during one of the most notorious nights of the crackdown, in November 2016, when police unleashed water hoses on water protectors in below-freezing temperatures. By morning, police were in danger of running out of less-lethal weapons — which can still be deadly but are designed to incapacitate their targets. TigerSwan and Energy Transfer again stepped in.
TigerSwan founder James Reese, a former commander in the elite Army Special Operations unit Delta Force, reached out to a contact at the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. North Carolina had recently used TigerSwan’s GuardianAngel mapping tool to respond to uprisings in Charlotte, in the aftermath of the 2016 police killing of Keith Scott. (A spokesperson from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety said the agency does not currently have a relationship with TigerSwan.)
Reese sent a list of weaponry sought by North Dakota law enforcement to an officer from the Highway Patrol. The list included tear gas, pepper spray, bean bag rounds, and foam rounds. The official referred Reese to a contact at Safariland, which manufactures the gear.
“We will purchase the items, and gift them to LE,” Reese told the Safariland representative. “We need a nation wide push if you can help?”
Meanwhile, another TigerSwan team member sent the Minnesota-based police supply store Streicher’s an even longer list of less-lethal weapons and ammunition. “Please confirm availability of the following price and ship immediately with overnight delivery,” TigerSwan’s Phil Rehak wrote.
Rehak told The Intercept and Grist that his job was to procure equipment — including for law enforcement. “I would be given an order by either somebody from TigerSwan or maybe even law enforcement, being like, ‘Hey, can you find these supplies?’” He said he doesn’t know if the less-lethal weaponry was ultimately delivered to the sheriffs.
“I am not aware of any radios for Morton County or any less lethal weapons from Tiger Swan,” Kirchmeier, the Morton County sheriff, told The Intercept and Grist in an email. “I dealt with ND DES for resources.” (Two other sheriffs involved with the multiagency law enforcement response did not answer requests for comment. Eric Jensen, a spokesperson for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, said the agency had no arrangement with TigerSwan or Energy Transfer to provide less-lethal weapons, and that they wouldn’t have knowledge of any arrangements between law enforcement and the companies.)
The “partnership” went both ways, with TigerSwan sometimes viewing law enforcement weapons as potential assets. In mid-October 2016, as senior Energy Transfer personnel prepared to join state officials for a government archeological survey to examine the pipeline route, three law enforcement “snipers” agreed to be on standby with an air team, according to a memo by another security company, RGT, that was working under TigerSwan’s management. A Predator drone was listed among “friendly assets” in the memo.
TigerSwan routinely shared what it learned about the protest movement with local police, but most of what the documents describe in the way of reciprocal sharing — from law enforcement to TigerSwan — came from the National Sheriffs’ Association.
In March 2017, the sheriffs’ group helped the South Dakota Legislature pass a law to prevent future Standing Rock-style pipeline uprisings, the documents say. To support the effort, the Morton County Sheriff’s Office sent along a “law enforcement sensitive” state operational update from the North Dakota State and Local Intelligence Center. National Sheriffs’ Association head Jonathan Thompson forwarded the document to TigerSwan executive Shawn Sweeney. Thompson recommended Sweeney look at the last page, which included a list of anti-pipeline camps across the U.S.
TigerSwan also recruited at least one law enforcement officer with whom it worked on the ground. In November 2016, Reese requested a phone call with Maj. Chad McGinty of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, who had acted as commander of a team from Ohio sent to assist police in North Dakota. By February 1, McGinty, who declined to comment for this story, was working for TigerSwan as a law enforcement liaison, earning more than $440 a day.
Spreading Stories
TigerSwan’s contract also mandated that the firm help Energy Transfer with telling its story. The firm was expected “to help turn the page on the story that we are being overwhelmed with over the past few weeks,” according to a document from mid-September 2016.
Energy Transfer’s image was in trouble early on. Critical media coverage of Standing Rock grew dramatically in early September after private security guards hired by the company unleashed guard dogs on protesters. A flood of reporters arrived on the ground to cover the protests. Social media posts routinely went viral. The narrative that took hold portrayed the pipeline company as instigating violence against peaceful protesters.
Energy Transfer recruited third parties to spread its messaging and counter the unfavorable storyline. At least two additional contractors — DCI and MarketLeverage — joined TigerSwan in trying to burnish Energy Transfer’s image. TigerSwan recruited retired Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks, who led intelligence efforts for the Army during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and served on TigerSwan’s advisory board, to write favorable op-eds and deliver commentary. (Marks did not respond to a request for comment.) With its veneer of law enforcement authority, the National Sheriffs’ Association would become Energy Transfer’s most powerful third-party voice.
Together, TigerSwan, the National Sheriffs’ Association, and the public relations contractors formed a powerful public relations machine, monitoring social media closely, convincing outside groups to promote pro-pipeline messaging, and planting stories.
Off the Record Strategies, the public relations firm working for the National Sheriffs’ Association, coordinated with the opposition research firm Delve to track activists’ social media pages, arrest records, and funding sources. The companies sought to paint the protesters as violent, professional, billionaire-funded, out-of-state agitators whose camps represented the true ecological disaster, as well as to identify movement infighting that might be exploited. Both companies were led by Bush administration alumni. (Delve did not respond to a request for comment.)
Framing water protectors as criminals was a key National Sheriffs’ Association strategy. ”Let’s start drumbeat of the worst of the worst this week?” Pfeifle, Off the Record’s CEO, suggested to the head of the sheriffs’ group in one email. “One or two a day? Move them out through social media…The out of state wife beaters, child abusers and thieves first… Mugshot, ND arrest date, rap sheet and other data wrapped in and easy to share?”
The result was “wanted”-style posters — called “Professional Protestors with Dangerous Criminal Histories” — featuring pipeline opponents’ photos and criminal records, which Pfeifle’s team circulated online and routinely shared with TigerSwan. The National Sheriffs’ Association repeatedly asked TigerSwan to help “move” its criminal record research on social media, and TigerSwan repurposed the sheriffs’ group arrest research for its own propaganda products.
Pfeifle also made summary statistics of protesters’ arrest records and a map of where they were from. The color-coded map came with a running tally of the number of protesters. The details collected by Pfeifle then began showing up in blogs and remarks by police to reporters. One piece by KXMB-TV, a television station in Bismarck, North Dakota, repeated almost verbatim statistics summarizing the number of protesters arrested and their criminal histories, noting that “just 8 percent are from North Dakota.”
Naomi Oreskes, a science historian who has researched the fossil fuel industry’s communications strategies, said the attempt to frame environmental defenders as criminals was consistent with the long trend of attempts to discredit activists. However, it was also “particularly noxious,” she said, because the energy industry has pushed for stronger penalties against trespass and other anti-protest laws. “They make it harder for people to engage in peaceful protest,” said Oreskes. “People are arrested and they say, ‘See, those people are criminals.’”
DCI, which got its start “doing the dirty work of the tobacco industry” and helped found the tea party movement, was also a key player influencing media coverage, placing and distributing op-eds. In one exchange between DCI partner Megan Bloomgren, who would later become a top Trump administration official, and Reese, Bloomgren sent a list of 14 articles “we’ve placed that we’ve been pushing over social media.” The articles ranged from opinion pieces in support of the pipeline in local newspapers to posts on right-wing blogs.
Oreskes said using opinion articles in this way is a common strategy pioneered by the tobacco industry, among others. “You push that out into social media to make it seem as if there’s broad grassroots support for the pipeline,” said Oreskes. ”The reader doesn’t know that this is part of a coordinated strategy by the industry.”
MarketLeverage, another Energy Transfer contractor, also spent a considerable amount of its resources tracking social media and boosting pro-pipeline messages. In the weeks following the dog attacks, for instance, Shane Hackett, a top official with MarketLeverage, suggested highlighting a Facebook post by Archie Fool Bear, a Standing Rock tribal member who was critical of the NoDAPL movement. “We need to exploit that shit immediately while we have a chance,” a TigerSwan operative wrote in response to an email from their colleague Rice, the chief propagandist. (Neither DCI nor Market Leverage responded to requests for comment.)
Hackett suggested creating a graphic out of the tribal member’s post and having “other accounts share his post with the same hashtags.” Rice provided the social media text and hashtags, including, “Respected Tribe Members Call Attention to Standing Rock Leadership Lies and Failures #TribeLiesMatter #NoDAPL #SiouxTruth.” Obscure social media accounts then repeated the exact language.
“These people who are trained to use whatever publicity they can for their advantage, they’re going to do what they want anyway,” Fool Bear told The Intercept and Grist. “They don’t live in my shoes, and they don’t believe in what my beliefs are. If they’re going to take what I say and manipulate it, I can’t stop them.”
Sheriffs vs. Indigenous and Environmental Justice
Off the Record Strategies and the National Sheriffs’ Association didn’t just focus on issues of law-breaking. The association parroted some of the same messages that TigerSwan — as well as climate change deniers in Congress — were trafficking. Notable among them was a right-wing conspiracy theory that the environmental movement was “directed and controlled” by a club of billionaires.
The National Sheriffs’ Association also tried to undermine the credibility of well-known advocates Bill McKibben and Jane Kleeb, who founded the environmental organizations 350.org and Bold Alliance, respectively. Pfeifle circulated memos on the two movement leaders. “McKibben is a radical liberal determined to ‘bankrupt’ energy producers,” said one, adding, “McKibben will join any protest because he enjoys the fanfare.” Another memo said, “Kleeb admitted her pipeline opposition was about political organization and opportunity, not the environment.”
Kleeb and McKibben expressed bemusement at TigerSwan and the sheriffs’ association’s fixation on their work. “It’s all pretty creepy,” McKibben, a former Grist board member, said in an email. “I live in a county with a sheriff, and it seems okay if he tracks the speed of my car down Rte 116, but tracking every word I write seems like… not his job.”
The sheriffs’ group also listed the nonprofit organizations Center for Biological Diversity, Rainforest Action Network, and Food & Water Watch as “Extremist Environmental Groups” — a pejorative used by some authoritarian government officials, including from the Trump administration.
“Campaigning against corporations driving our climate crisis and human rights violations is not extremist,” said Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Ginger Cassady. Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the association’s flyer contained “categorically false” information about the organization — a sentiment repeated by others mentioned throughout TigerSwan’s other records.
“We would urge the Sheriffs’ Association to focus on its own responsibilities instead of attempting to undermine well-meaning organizations like ours,” added Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch’s executive director.
Both the National Sheriffs’ Association and TigerSwan took pride in meddling in tribal affairs. Reese enthusiastically encouraged his personnel to spread a story that the Prairie Knights Casino, run by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was discharging sewage into the Missouri River watershed. Meanwhile, the sheriffs’ association worked with TigerSwan to push a story about a drop in revenue at the casino. In an email to TigerSwan’s Rice, Pfeifle noted that the issue had been raised at a recent Standing Rock tribal council meeting.
“We moved this story on front page of Sunday Bismarck Tribune and in SAB blog Friday, playing perfectly into the ‘get-out’ narrative going into next week,” Pfeifle wrote to Rice a few days later, referring to the conservative Say Anything Blog. “Please help echo and amplify, if possible.”
Using newsletters and news-like web sites to discredit pipeline opponents’ concerns as “fake news” was a top tactic for both TigerSwan and the National Sheriffs’ Association. The irony of the strategy was not lost on its protagonists.
Over WhatsApp, in June 2017, Rice, the propagandist, chatted with Wesley Fricks, TigerSwan’s director of external affairs, about a possible response to a Facebook video in which an unnamed reporter described recently published news reports on TigerSwan’s tactics. They would post it on one of the astroturf sites Rice created and describe it as “fake news.”
“That will cause a few people’s brains to explode,” Rice wrote in a WhatsApp message. “fake news calling fake news fake which is calling other news fake?”
Frick replied, “One big circle.”
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Tikhiy, 41-year-old, a Russian who joined the Freedom of Russia Legion to fight on the side of Ukraine, wears the patch of the Freedom of Russia Legion in Dolyna, eastern Ukraine on December 26, 2022. Freedom of Russia Legion is a Foreign volunteer legion formed in March 2022 with defectors from the Russian Armed Forces, Russian and Belarusian volunteers. (photo: Ameer Al-Doumy/AFP)
ALSO SEE: Putin Defectors Say They've Seized Belgorod Towns,
Vow to 'Liberate Russia'
Self-described Russian partisans the Freedom of Russia Legion say they launched cross-border raid
The Freedom of Russia Legion, which describes itself as an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, claimed to have crossed the border and overrun the settlement of Kozinka, while sending units into the town of Grayvoron in Russia’s Belgorod region.
It is not yet clear how many people have been injured in the fighting, which continued into the evening. Footage of the raid, purportedly from a border checkpoint in Grayvoron, has shown casualties, including video of a Russian officer lying facedown in a pool of blood next to Russian passports and other documents scattered on the floor. The video also showed armoured vehicles appearing to overrun the post.
The growing chaos in Belgorod region, where local authorities announced a “counterterrorist regime” on Monday evening, was a rare case where Russian villages have come face-to-face with a conflict that the country’s army has unleashed across Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukrainian officials have confirmed fighting at the border.
Any capture of territory has not been independently confirmed by journalists on the ground. Another anti-Kremlin militia, the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is led by a prominent Russian nationalist, also said it had taken part in the raid. The Freedom of Russia Legion is not known to have participated in any major battles during the war.
“We are the same Russians as you,” said a statement put out by the Freedom of Russia Legion on social media. “We are distinguished only by the fact that we no longer wanted to justify the actions of criminals in power and took up arms to defend our and your freedom. But today it’s time for everyone to take responsibility for their future. It’s time to put an end to the Kremlin’s dictatorship.”
Video posted to social media showed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter trailing flares over Kozinka and videos of smoke rising from the settlement with the sounds of emergency sirens clearly audible. Hundreds of cars were filmed evacuating the area. “Something terrifying is happening,” said one woman filming from her window as a helicopter over Kozinka dropped flares meant to divert surface-to-air missiles.
The governor of the Belgorod region confirmed an attack on Monday, writing that “sabotage and reconnaissance group of the armed forces of Ukraine have entered the territory of the Grayvoron district. The armed forces of the Russian Federation, together with the border service, Rosgvardiya and the FSB, are taking the necessary measures to eliminate the enemy.”
The Kremlin said Putin had been informed of the cross-border incursion, adding Moscow believed the attack was designed to “divert attention” from Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city where Russia is tightening its grip.
Ukraine has disavowed connection to the Russian partisan fighters, saying that they act independently and are not subject to military control.
“Yes, today the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion, which consist of citizens of the Russian Federation, have launched an operation to liberate these territories of the Belgorod region from the so-called Putin regime and push back the enemy in order to create a certain security zone to protect the Ukrainian civilian population,” Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence, told Ukrainian media.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser wrote that Kyiv had nothing to do with the attacks but then wryly compared them to Russia’s past use of proxy forces to fight in Ukraine. “As you know, tanks are sold at any Russian military store, and underground guerrilla groups are composed of Russian citizens,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser.
The US and other western powers have supplied weapons to Ukraine with the caveat that they not be used to strike targets inside Russia. Ukraine has denied any connection to past attacks on Russian territory, including strikes that have hit Russian airfields, energy infrastructure, and even the drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.
It is not clear whether the raid is part of a sustained military strategy or meant as a diversionary strike, as expectations remain that Ukraine is preparing to launch a summer counteroffensive to retake territory occupied by Russia.
But clashes are increasing along the border in the Belgorod and Bryansk regions. Earlier this month, four Russian military aircraft, including two jets and two helicopters, were shot down in one of the worst single-day losses of the war.
In March, the Moscow-born far-right militia leader Denis Nikitin claimed to have led a raid into a town in Bryansk.
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Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., April 27, 2023. (photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Trump’s latest defamation lawsuit comes after his investment in struggling Truth Social platform saw his net wealth fall by $700m in the past year
The lawsuit, filed by Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (TMTG) in Florida’s Sarasota County, claims that a 13 May article that alleged the company may have committed securities fraud was false and defamatory, and posed an “existential threat”.
The article titled “Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social” alleged that the company had concealed key details about a proposed merger from the Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholders, citing internal documents provided by a whistleblower.
The lawsuit claims the Washington Post had been on a “years-long crusade” to undermine the Trump Media, which was founded in February 2021.
“The clickbait headline of the WaPo Article... immediately grabbed the common mind of readers, falsely insinuating that TMTG was involved in shady business dealings,” the suit claims.
The case is the latest in a series of defamation suits brought by Mr Trump, his political campaign organisations and companies in recent years.
In March 2020, the Trump Campaign filed a defamation suit against The Post over two articles about Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and his campaign strategy.
The suit was dismissed by a federal judge in March this year.
A $100m defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and his niece Mary Trump alleging an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records was thrown out by a New York supreme court judge in May.
Mr Trump was ordered to pay all of the legal fees and costs associated with the case.
In October, Mr Trump sued CNN in a Florida court for $475m, claiming he had been smeared “with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels”.
The Independent has contacted the Post for comment.
Truth Social was announced in October 2021 as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, after Mr Trump was kicked off both platforms for inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol riots.
The business, which is 85 per cent-owned by Mr Trump, was hyped with a potential value of $22bn after investors piled money into Truth Social’s special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
But according to Forbes, the business was worth around $1.2bn in April this year.
Truth Social is reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department for alleged money laundering, and is subject to probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Regulatory Agency.
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As Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida gears up for a 2024 presidential campaign, he is drawing on his legislative record on prescription drugs to attract older voters. (photo: Stefani Reynolds/NYT)
The civil rights organization is the latest to caution travelers against visiting Florida; the League of United Latin American Citizens and LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida previously issued travel advisories.
"Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon," NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson said. "He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We're not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation."
CBS News reached out to DeSantis' office for a comment about the travel advisory. DeSantis is expected to launch a presidential campaign in the coming days.
The DeSantis administration in January blocked the introduction of an Advanced Placement course for high school students that focuses on African American studies.
"Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals," the NAACP travel notice states. "Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color."
The NAACP previously issued a travel advisory in 2017 to people planning to visit Missouri.
Tourism is a massive industry in Florida. Around 137.6 million people visited the state in 2022, according to tourism agency Visit Florida. Visitors contributed $101.9 billion to the state's economy and supported more than 1.7 million jobs in 2021.
Disney, one of the biggest draws for tourists, has also been engaged in an ongoing dispute with Gov. DeSantis. Most recently, Disney canceled a $1 billion plan to build a campus in Florida. The feud started after Disney criticized the state's "Don't Say Gay" law.
Equality Florida issued its advisory after DeSantis signed the "Don't Say Gay" bill into law.
"That law, along with additional proposals being considered, has turned the state's classrooms into political battlefields and is telegraphing to LGBTQ families and students that they are not welcome in Florida," the group said at the time.
The League of United Latin American Citizens advisory cited strict Florida laws dealing with immigrants. Organization president Domingo Garcia called the new immigration laws "hostile and dangerous," saying they presented a clear and present danger to Latinos.
"Florida is a dangerous, hostile environment for law-abiding Americans and immigrants," Garcia said.
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U.S. Sen. Patty Murray discusses efforts to protect reproductive rights during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in August 2022. Murray has re-introduced legislation that would require health insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control if the FDA approves it. (photo: Drew Angerer/NPR)
"Women in many states today, because of the decision by the Supreme Court, are really worried about their access to be able to have birth control pills as a way of making sure they don't become pregnant, because in their states, they won't have access to abortion care," Murray, a Democrat, said in an interview with NPR.
"I disagree wholeheartedly with the Supreme Court decision," she said, referring to last summer's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling that overturned decades of abortion-rights precedent. "But at the same time, we need to make sure that over-the-counter birth control is available."
Murray re-introduced legislation on Thursday that would require insurance companies to cover over-the-counter birth control pills as soon as they become available without a prescription, as recently recommended unanimously by a Food and Drug Administration panel. More than 100 countries already allow oral contraceptives to be dispensed this way.
Murray's bill would build on a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that most health insurance companies provide contraceptive coverage without a co-pay.
"Now that we are seeing that it may become available over the counter, we want to make sure that insurers still pay for it because it is costly," Murray says. "This is a great step if FDA approves this and women can go to the drugstore and purchase it without having to have a doctor's appointment ... but it will only be available for some women if it is not covered by insurance."
A push for Republican support
In the wake of the Dobbs decision, Murray says she hopes Republicans will join her — which would be essential in a closely-divided Congress for her legislation to advance.
Murray notes that some Republicans who oppose abortion rights have said they do not intend to limit access to birth control. Leaders of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, among others, have made such claims.
"I say to them, this is your opportunity to show people that you are living the words that you're speaking and co-sign the legislation," Murray says. "Work with us. Let's get this passed."
So far, she has no Republican co-sponsors. But some Congressional Republicans have a history of supporting legislation meant to ease access to contraceptives. Last year, just weeks after the Dobbs decision, a group of Iowa Republicans including Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and Congresswomen Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson proposed legislation designed to expedite efforts to make certain contraceptives available over the counter to patients 18 and older.
Groups opposed to abortion rights have generally avoided taking positions explicitly opposing contraception, although some support legislation that reproductive rights advocates warn could threaten access to some birth control methods.
In a statement, Students for Life of America described the move toward over-the-counter birth control as "reckless" and suggested that easier distribution of birth control pills is unwise given rising rates of some types of sexually transmitted infections, which the organization described as an "epidemic of sexually transmitted disease."
A separate fight - over abortion pills
Murray's bill focuses on improving access to birth control pills, which prevent pregnancy. But the proposal comes amidst other battles over access to reproductive health care, including ongoing litigation in the federal courts over the abortion pill, mifepristone. That drug is widely used in combination with another medication to terminate mostly first-trimester pregnancies, and to treat patients experiencing miscarriages.
A lawsuit filed by a coalition of anti-abortion rights groups challenges the FDA's approval of the pill in 2000 and several subsequent rule changes that have eased access to the drug, including allowing the pills to be distributed by mail. It seeks to remove mifepristone from the market altogether.
Federal appeals court in New Orleans considers the fate of an abortion pill
In the latest development in that case, a federal appeals court heard arguments last week during a hearing in New Orleans.
As NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reported, a panel of conservative-leaning federal judges posed questions to lawyers on both sides. Judge Cory Wilson asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sarah Harrington, who was representing the FDA, what happens to patients who receive pills in the mail, if the drugs do not successfully terminate a pregnancy within two weeks. Harrington told Wilson that in a small percentage of cases, patients may need to contact their healthcare providers for follow-up care.
Abortion rights advocates say medication abortion is a preferred option for many patients for a variety of reasons, including for people who live in rural areas without access to abortion clinics, those who want to avoid a surgical procedure to terminate an unwanted pregnancy or help ease a miscarriage already underway, or who prefer to complete the process at home.
In an interview with NPR's Becky Sullivan, a woman named Rebecca, who asked that we use only her first name, said that having the option to terminate her pregnancy at home in 2020 during the pandemic was a "godsend," particularly given the fact that she believed some of her family members would not have supported her decision.
"Being able to do it in the privacy of my home and not having to explain anything to anyone is the biggest part of it," she said.
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Migrants with CBP One app interviews are allowed to enter the United States at the Chaparral pedestrian border on May 16, 2023 in Tijuana, Mexico. (photo: Carlos A. Moreno/Anadolu Agency)
The expiration of Title 42 has put migration front and center in US politics. Can a humane policy also be a winning political one?
Most economists think the country would be much richer and better off if it were significantly easier for people to get permission to live and work here, but instead it’s nearly impossible. And millions — arguably billions — of people who want to live and work here live in poverty elsewhere instead because we have made it illegal for Americans to choose to hire them.
And on top of all that, enforcement of immigration law is typically excruciatingly inhumane. Children are taken from their parents. Widespread brutality and sexual assault take years to address, if they’re addressed at all. Most of the people who die in ICE custody are young and healthy and should not have died. Some of the worst elements of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement have since been changed — for example, after a 2018 outcry, there were changes to the policy to take young children from their asylum-seeking parents — but families are still routinely sundered forever by deportations, and the US-Mexico border is still effectively enforced in part by “you will probably die of dehydration while trying to cross it on foot,” and the legal system surrounding immigration is confusing, expensive, and often deeply unjust.
This has affected many people I know personally. These are incredible people who want to work on important problems, and who have employers eager to hire them, but who happen to have been born in the wrong place and so will never have the opportunities I was born with.
I’m mad, sad, and frustrated about immigration policy. And one question I think about a lot is how journalists and citizens can productively demand better. In the last week, Title 42 — a temporary coronavirus-related order put in place during the Trump administration — was repealed in favor of a new, Biden administration policy, which will allow asylum seekers to apply online but turn them away by the tens of thousands at the border. It remains to be seen how it will work in practice, but it has a bit of an air of a political compromise that satisfies no one (is applying online really an option for the people in the greatest danger?) and will likely still leave us with a perpetual humanitarian crisis at the border.
When political strategy gets in the way of helping people
Talk to people within the Biden administration about this dilemma, and often they’ll agree — but argue they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, especially when it comes to enforcement of immigration law at the US-Mexico border. The rules seem tremendously unfair and in no one’s interests, and enforcing them might require lots of deeply inhumane policies. I don’t get the sense that anyone in the administration is happy about the horrifying recent spike in deaths crossing the border or leaving people to die for being born in the wrong place.
But expanding admissions of asylum seekers is politically unpopular, and people in the Biden administration suspect that if they take too many steps to welcome asylum seekers, they’ll lose the next election. In the cold realpolitik logic here for some, it’s worth perpetuating an unjust system to keep approval ratings from slipping in order to stay in power, so that it’s later possible to change the laws that are the whole problem.
How should we think about logic like that? I don’t like it. I tend to be very skeptical that anyone who says they just need to hold onto power first, then make things better, will actually make things better. It’s too easy for that kind of self-serving logic to become all-consuming; there’s always another election to win.
To be fair, there are important respects in which the Biden administration’s immigration law is less capricious and stupid than that of his predecessor: more refugee resettlement, more permanent visas, and so on. Some of that progress is because Trump made a lot of things worse in reversible ways, and because the pandemic temporarily made everything much worse, rather than Biden making a lot of things better. It would be bad for just immigration policy if its proponents gave up on doing politically popular things, picked a bunch of unwinnable fights, provoked a backlash, and lost.
So obviously the logic of “this is unjust but we have to pick our battles” is legitimate logic at least sometimes. It’s just a question of when it’s reasonable and deserves a pass, and when it becomes an excuse.
Going beyond
Immigration is where this question has recently been most salient because of Title 42’s recent expiration and because people who work on making US immigration policy better have been struggling with what good policy from here would actually look like. But I think this quandary goes far beyond immigration.
Any policy role involves some balance of trying to accumulate power and trying to spend it — hopefully on making the world a better place. No matter how important a problem is, you’re going to spend some of your time trying to get the power to do something about it, and then some of your time trying to do something about it. It’s a setup ripe for deception — or self-deception — about how much you need to sacrifice for your own political position.
Maybe the frustrating and inadequate new asylum rules are the best compromise between political and humanitarian concerns; maybe they’re not. And maybe the justified sense among voters that our politicians are making unprincipled, confusing, bureaucratic compromises is part of how we got into this boat in the first place.
Politics is about doing what’s possible, not what’s best, and what’s possible is always going to fall far short of what’s best. At the same time, if all of us are too willing to give unethical systems and the politicians perpetuating them a pass on the pragmatic grounds that their opponents are even worse, I think that makes those unethical decisions easier to keep making — even where they aren’t necessary and we can do better.
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Water from the Colorado River fills an irrigation canal in Maricopa, Arizona. The historic reduction that will probably trigger significant water restrictions. (photo: Matt York/AP)
US States Agree Breakthrough Deal to Prevent Colorado River From Drying Up
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
California, Arizona and Nevada strike deal with US government to take about 13% less water from drought-stricken river
The agreement, announced on Monday, will involve the three states, water districts, Native American tribes and farm operators cutting about 13% of the total water use in the lower Colorado basin, a historic reduction that will probably trigger significant water restrictions on the region’s residents and farmland.
In all, 3m acre-feet of water is expected to be conserved over the next three years – an acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep. A single acre-foot is enough to sustain two average California households for a year.
Of these savings, 2.3m acre-feet will be compensated by the federal government, with $1.2bn going to cities, tribes and water districts. The rest of the savings will be voluntary, uncompensated ones to be worked out between the states.
The agreement averts, for now, the prospect of the Biden administration imposing unilateral water cuts upon the seven states – California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – that rely upon the river, a prospect that has loomed since last summer when the waterway’s two main reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, hit perilously low levels.
“Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to working with states, tribes and communities throughout the west to find consensus solutions in the face of climate change and sustained drought,” said Deb Haaland, the US interior secretary.
Governors in California, Arizona and Nevada released a statement in which they hailed the breakthrough. “The lower basin plan is the product of months of tireless work by our water managers to develop an agreement that stabilizes the Colorado River system through 2026,” said Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs.
Experts welcomed the deal but cautioned that a longer-term solution was still badly needed. “The fact that the lower basin states and federal government came to an agreement is encouraging, it’s a significant step forward,” said Sharon Megdal, a water policy expert at the University of Arizona.
“Lots of people will say three million acre feet isn’t enough, but this is about stopping the system from immediately crashing. Hopefully this will get us through the next few years and we can focus on what happens after 2026, because we were all worried how we would get there. Now there’s the hard work of getting a longer-term solution because this is by no means the end of the story.”
Harnessing the might of the Colorado river, which rises in the Rocky mountains and flows all the way to Mexico, has enabled cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas to flourish, as well as allowing millions of acres of agricultural land to be cultivated in otherwise harsh desert environments. More than 40m people rely upon the water the 1,450-mile river provides.
But the enormous extraction of water, mainly for farming, coupled with the climate crisis, which has increased the evaporation of water and reduced the snowpack that feeds the river, has caused a crisis point for the river and US west. The region is experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years, with this year’s bumper rain and snowfall not expected to fully release the grip of a two-decade “megadrought”.
Without a deal, it was feared that the water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell would fall so much that the hydroelectric turbines they powered would fail, risking the power supply to millions of people.
Any further drop – Lake Mead is only about a third full and is at its lowest ebb since the construction of the Hoover Dam, which created it – could see the drying up of the Colorado river south of the reservoir, which feeds the lower basin states – Nevada, California and Arizona.
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