#PrayerHorseRide Prepares for Sacred Journey 2025

"We do not sell our #MotherEarth or profit off of her, Mother Earth is here to take care of us and teach us our natural ways of Life! I pray we all stand to protect our Mother,” - Josh Dini, Sr., Walker River Pauite Tribe, #WaterProtector, #PrayerHorseRider and a member of #AIM Northern Nevada.

By Prayer Horse Ride, via #CensoredNews

SCHURZ, Nevada -- "The Prayer Horse Ride is getting ready to begin our 4th annual sacred journey March 21st – April 2nd, across Nevada in the ancestral lands of the Numu (#Paiute) and Newe (#Shoshone), through Yerington, Fallon, Wadsworth, Nixon, Lovelock to McDermitt, and ending near Orovada, honoring #PeeheeMuhuh (#ThackerPass in the McDermitt Caldera).

"Those Riders, Walkers, and Runners carry the prayerful energy with each community. They'll move forward to raise awareness regarding water usage and #NativeAmericanGraves Protection and
Repatriation Act concerns about #lithium mining in Peehee Mu'huh and within the McDermitt Caldera.

"The Ride also raises awareness of several #EndangeredSpecies in #FishLakeValley (#TecopaBirdsBeak, #TiehmsBuckwheat, and #TuiChub), a place Newe gathered foods and medicines, held sacred ceremonies, and where a proposed lithium boron mine would violate the #AmericanIndianReligiousFreedomAct."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/01/prayer-horse-ride-prepares-for-sacred.html
#JusticeForMyronDewey #LithiumMining #CopperMining #NoMining #SaveThackerPass #SacredPlaces #DefendTheSacred #GreenWashing #ExtractiveIndustries #MMIWG #MMIR #CorporateColonialism #PrayerRide #ProtectTheSacred #ProtectThackerPass #ReaderSupportedNews

#Nevada #LithiumMine approved despite possible harm to #endangered #wildflower

Advocates vow to sue, saying plan, crucial to #Biden’s clean energy agenda, will drive #TiehmsBuckwheat to extinction

Thu 24 Oct 2024 16.36 EDT

"Environmentalists said Thursday that the mine’s final approval was a politically motivated violation of multiple US laws. The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement: 'Litigation is now the only way [to] stop the Rhyolite Ridge Mine.'

[...]

"Opponents of the project say it’s the latest example of Biden’s administration running roughshod over US protections for native #wildlife, rare species and #SacredTribalLands in the name of slowing the #ClimateCrisis by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and bolstering national security by easing reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals.

"'We’ve been fighting to save Tiehm’s buckwheat for six years and we’re not giving up now,' Donnelly said.

"Nevada is home to the only existing lithium mine in the US. Another is currently under construction near the Oregon line 220 miles (354km) north of Reno. That #LithiumAmericas mine at #ThackerPass, which was approved in the final days of Donald #Trump’s administration, survived numerous legal challenges from #environmentalists and #NativeAmerican tribes who said it would destroy lands they considered sacred where their ancestors were massacred by US troops in 1865."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/nevada-lithium-mine-endangered-wildflower-tiehms-buckwheat

#SaveRhyoliteRidge
#SaveThackerPass #IoneerLtd #NoLithiumMining #RecycleLithium #BiodiversityNecessityDefense #CenterForBiologicalDiversity #ProtectTheSacred #TiehmsBuckwheat #EndangeredSpecies

Thanks to everyone who boosted and donated to #CensoredNews! If you appreciate their reporting, please consider making a donation to support them...

Censored News: Reader-Supported News Thank you readers, we've reached our goal!

#BrendaNorrell: "Thank you everyone! We've reached our goal of $400 for a new computer. Our computer was destroyed when we posted our latest series. Thanks again!
Censored News is reader-supported news, with no ads, salaries, or revenues, and depends on reader donations to keep going. Donations help pay the cost of equipment, laptops and audio equipment, and expenses for live coverage.
Thank you, Brenda"

Donate via Paypal.

FMI - https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/donate-to-censored-news.html

#ReaderSupportedNews #IndigenousActivism #IndigenousNews #LandBack #Donate #Activist #Reporting #NoDAPL #SaveThackerPass #SaveOakFlat #Activism #News #IndependentNews #HumanRights #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousAction #UraniumMining #WaterIsLife #WaterProtectors

#ThackerPass protesters claim “biodiversity necessity defense” in court case with #LithiumNevada Corporation

By Kevin Sheridan
Published: Mar. 26, 2024

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. (KOLO) - "Six protesters being sued by the Lithium Nevada Corporation are using what they are calling a 'biodiversity necessity defense'.

"They say the defense is 'a legal argument used to justify breaking the law when a greater harm is being prevented; for example, breaking a car window to save an infant locked inside on a stifling hot day, or breaking down a door to help someone screaming inside a locked home. In these cases, trespassing is justified to save a life.'

"This week’s filing states that the 'Defendants possessed an actual belief that their acts of protest were necessary to prevent the present, continuing harms and evils of ecocide and irreversible climate change.'

"'We’re in the midst of the 6th mass extinction of life on Earth, and it’s being caused by human activities like mining,' said attorney Terry Lodge, who is representing the protesters. 'Our lives are made possible by biodiversity and ecosystems. Protecting our children from pollution and biodiversity collapse isn’t criminal, it’s heroic.'

"In a filing with the court, Lodge and other attorneys claimed the company had 'unclean hands', and that Lithium Nevada has 'engaged in serious misconduct including violating the Defendants’ human rights, Defendants’ civil rights, misleading the public about the impacts of lithium mining and how lithium mining contributes to climate change and biodiversity collapse, and conducting the inherently dangerous and ecologically destructive practice of surface mining at the Thacker Pass mine'.

"They further argue stopping the mine will prevent significant greenhouse gas emissions, and that their actions are justified because they are working to prevent #CimateChange."

https://www.kolotv.com/2024/03/26/thacker-pass-protesters-claim-biodiversity-necessity-defense-court-case-with-lithium-nevada-corporation/

#ClimateNecessityDefense #BiodiversityNecessityDefense #ThackerPassProtectors #SLAPPs #SaveThackerPass
#PeeheeMuhuh #Pauite #Shoshone #NoMining #LithiumMining #DirectAction #EarthDefenders #SacredSites #ProtectThackerPass

The #ClimateNecessityDefense : A Legal Tool for #ClimateActivists

2017

"As of the writing of this pamphlet, the climate necessity defense has succeeded only once, in the United Kingdom in 2008. Although it hasn’t yet worked in the United States, there’s good reason to think it will soon.

"As described earlier, an activist attempting a climate necessity defense will plead not guilty to her charges and will notify the judge that she wishes to present a necessity defense. The judge will decide as a matter of law whether to allow the activist to use the defense — that is, whether the criminal statute under which the activist has been charged allows the necessity defense at all, and whether a reasonable juror could possibly find the defense to be valid (step 3). Because judges enjoy a wide range of discretion at this stage in the criminal process, most attempts at the necessity defense have failed here, before the jury ever hears the activists’ arguments.

"So keep this in mind: the climate necessity defense is a novel legal tool that hasn’t yet succeeded in any court in the United States.

"But there’s cause for hope. In the past, activists have been found not guilty by reason of necessity for protesting issues like #NuclearWeapons, #CIA recruitment, and #apartheid. Once they were able to describe their civil disobedience to a jury, protesters were often able to prove that their minor crimes of trespassing or disorderly conduct were justified in light of the serious injustices that they were facing. But in each case, it took the courts several years to catch up to public opinion and to allow the activists to present their necessity arguments to a jury. Luckily, it looks like courts are finally starting to reach this point in cases involving protests against #ClimateChange..."

https://www.climatedisobedience.org/necessitydefense

#BiodiversityNecessityDefense #SaveThackerPass #Activists #EarthDefenders #WaterProtectors

#ThackerPass #Protectors File First-Ever '#BiodiversityNecessityDefense' in #Nevada Court

While pursuing a '#ClimateNecessityDefense,' and making allegations that #mining company has violated their rights, their attorney said, 'They’re not criminals; they’re heroes.'

Bhie-Cie Zahn-Nahtzu: “#LithiumNevada is a #greedy #corporation on the wrong side of history when it comes to #EnvironmentalRacism and desecration of #SacredSites. It’s ironic to me that I’m the trespasser because I want to see my ancestral land preserved.”

By #ProtectThackerPass, #CensoredNews, March 26, 2024

"In a first for the American legal system, the lawyers for six people sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation for protesting the Thacker Pass mine are arguing a ‘biodiversity necessity defense.’

"The necessity defense is a legal argument used to justify breaking the law when a greater harm is being prevented; for example, breaking a car window to save an infant locked inside on a stifling hot day, or breaking down a door to help someone screaming inside a locked home. In these cases, trespassing is justified to save a life.
.
"This week’s filing states: 'Defendants possessed an actual belief that their acts of protest were necessary to prevent the present, continuing harms and evils of #ecocide and irreversible #ClimateChange.'

"'We’re in the midst of the 6th #MassExtinction of life on Earth, and it’s being caused by human activities like mining,' said attorney Terry Lodge, who is representing the #protesters. 'Our lives are made possible by #biodiversity and #ecosystems. Protecting our children from pollution and biodiversity collapse isn’t criminal, it’s heroic.'

"Currently Earth is experiencing one of the most rapid and widespread extinction events in the planet’s 4-billion-year history.

"Biologists report that habitat destruction, like the bulldozing of nearly 6,000 acres of biodiverse #sagebrush steppe for the Thacker Pass mine, is the main cause of this '#6thMassExtinction.'"

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/thacker-pass-protectors-file-first-ever.html

#ThackerPassProtectors #SLAPPs #SaveThackerPass #PeeheeMuhuh #Pauite #Shoshone #NoMining #LithiumMining #EarthDefenders

Still at $375. Please help if you can...!

Update on #CensoredNews #fundraiser:

"Thank you everyone! Censored News is $375 very close to our goal of raising $400 for our new computer. Our computer was destroyed when we posted this week's series. Thank again! Thursday afternoon update, March 28, 2024.

Censored News is reader-supported news, with no ads, salaries, or revenues, and depends on reader donations to keep going. Donations help pay the cost of equipment, laptops and audio equipment, and expenses for live coverage.
New fundraising for a computer, March 2024.
Thank you, Brenda"

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/donate-to-censored-news.html

#IndigenousActivism #IndigenousNews #MutualAid
#LandBack #Donate #Activist #Reporting #NoDAPL #SaveThackerPass #SaveOakFlat #Activism #News #IndependentNews #HumanRights #IndigenousPeoples #ReaderSupportedNews #IndigenousAction #Fundraisers
#UraniumMining #WaterIsLife #WaterProtectors #BrendaNorrell

Quick update on #CensoredNews fundraiser -- as of Noon, Saturday, March 23, it is up to $275 ($400 needed for a computer replacement). Please consider donating even if #BrendaNorrell makes her goal -- she could use financial support to keep doing what she does!

FMI - https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/donate-to-censored-news.html

#IndigenousActivism #IndigenousNews #MutualAid #LandBack #SettlerSaturday #MutualAid #Fundraiser #Donate #Activist #Reporting #NoDAPL #SaveThackerPass #SaveOakFlat #Activism #News #IndependentNews #HumanRights #IndigenousPeoples #ReaderSupportedNews #IndigenousAction #Fundraisers #UraniumMining

Update on the #CensoredNews fundraiser:

"Thank you everyone! Censored News is $225 closer to our goal of raising $400 for our new computer, which was destroyed when we posted this week's series.

"Censored News is reader-supported news, with no ads, salaries, or revenues, and depends on reader donations to keep going. Donations help pay the cost of equipment, laptops and audio equipment, and expenses for live coverage.
New fundraising for a computer, March 2024.
Thank you, Brenda"

FMI - https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/donate-to-censored-news.html

#IndigenousActivism #IndigenousNews #MutualAid #LandBack #SettlerSaturday #MutualAid #Fundraiser #Donate #Activist #Reporting
#NoDAPL #SaveThackerPass
#SaveOakFlat #Activism #News #IndependentNews
#HumanRights #IndigenousPeoples #ReaderSupportedNews
#IndigenousAction #Fundraisers #UraniumMining

Update on the fundraiser -- goal of $400 has been raised. But please consider donating to support #ReaderSupportedNews!

Boosting the signal for my friend #BrendaNorrell, who runs #CensoredNews. She's been reporting on #NativeAmerican and other #IndigenousPeoples' struggles since the 1990s, and bringing to light news of #IndigenousActivism and #DirectAction! She needs a new computer and is accepting donations through PayPal. Please donate if you can...!

Censored News: Reader-Supported News
Fundraiser for Computer

"Censored News is reader-supported news, with no ads, salaries, or revenues, and depends on reader donations to keep going. Donations help pay the cost of equipment, laptops and audio equipment, and expenses for live coverage.
New fundraising for a computer, March 2024.
Thank you, Brenda"

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/08/donate-to-censored-news.html

#MutualAid #Donate #Activist #Reporting #NoDAPL #SaveThackerPass #SaveOakFlat #Activism #Activist #News #IndependentNews #HumanRights #ReaderSupportedNews