Wisconsin Gets Win Against Proposed Gtac Mine

Wisconsin needed a win, and Friday we got a big one.

The proposed massive open-pit Gogebic Taconite (Gtac) Iron ore mine that would destroy pristine habitats and waters and fill in wetlands looks dead in the wake of a statement issued Friday by Gtac President Bill Williams announcing the firm will close its Hurley office in Iron County effective Sunday. (Rick Olivo, Ashland Daily Press)

Amid Scott Walker's assaults against the Wisconsin environment and University of Wisconsin System, the news spread quickly across social media.

The closing of the mine was predicted two years ago by an attorney in Iron County, Tony Stella.

The proposed mine attracted national attention with New York Times writer, Dan Kaufman, calling the fight against the mine, The Fight for Wisconsin's Soul.

Professor Charles Wilkerson, Distinguished Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, also said Native American Treaty Law would doom the mine. (Mal Contends)

At the site of the citizens group, Citizens Concerned about the proposed Penokee Mine (Facebook), people expressed joy and determination to fight again should Gtac decide to move on another front in this massive con game.

Writes Wisconsin environmentalist, Jim Rowen:

GTac says it is shelving its plan to blow up, dig up and mill the Penokee Hills in the Bad River watershed for low-grade iron ore already in surplus supply - - because, it says it found too much water in the wetlands in the watershed at the edge of Lake Superior.

Sure, it took the mining company four years to make this discovery.

The uproar the plan caused in state politics helped force the moderate GOP mining opponent Dale Schultz from the State Senate and it seems as if the company wasted $700,000 in thank you money in routed to a Scott Walker advocacy group for his getting a sweetheart enabling bill that is still on the books through the Legislature.

A mining protestor, Katie Krow Kloth, is still facing a criminal charge from a corrupt Iron County District Attorney, Martin Lipske, who fronts for the Gtac mine and the Iron County sex industry, including sex trafficking of minors.

Maybe the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin or the FBI will look into this one day. I would not hold my breath.

In the mean time, those on the front lines in Iron and Ashland counties should be feeling good about themselves this weekend.

Said Wisconsin environmentalist, Barbara With: "I am glad that people are being realistic about GTac closing their offices, having intelligent discussions, etc etc but for this moment, can we please just be happy they are leaving? No it doesn't mean the stand is over, no, it doesn't mean they aren't coming back. But for now, thousands and thousands of people stood long and strong to protect our water, and GTAC is closing their offices and leaving. For now. So for now, we celebrate. It doesn't mean we are naive or stupid or don't understand the bigger picture. But for god's sake if we cannot savor a moment we have long dreamt of, what's the point? This effort has been exhausting. I don't know about anyone else, but I personally gave up my life for several years to take this action. So for now, please, just let me be happy. that is all."

Scott Walker Is Naked to the World—Deceitful and Premeditatedly Criminal

Watching Scotty Blow - Esquire
Photo Illustration by DonkeyHotey
via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog

Reading the machinations of Scott Walker and his close aides in some 27,000 documents is evidently what it took to kill the fiction Walker has a future as a national leader in even the contemporary Republican Party that has off gone off the rails of rational political discourse.

Scott Walker is every bit the Tea Bagger and corrupt bigot so many Wisconsin folks have long regarded him; not just a poor steward of the economy and environment, but a premeditated disaster operative—mean-spirited, petty, hateful and a crook.

"Communication between Walker's campaign and his office was 'very common,' according to a top investigator," reports Sean Sullivan in the Washington Post, in violation of Wisconsin law.

New pieces in Mother Jones, Blogging Blue, The Nation, Democurmungeon, The Political Environment, The Progressive, Slate, Uppity Wisconsin, Isthmus, Caffeinated Politics, The New York Times, Milwaukee Shepherd-Express and of course Charles P. Pierce at Esquire. A second racist email has also been reported in Buzzfeed.

That repulsive bigotry is common in the culture of Scott Walker intimates is no big surprise; this is a guy whose personal friends and appointees embezzle from military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, but hate has a way of continuing to shock the conscience.

Also, breaking is news that Scott Walker's mining terrorirst friend, Gtac's Bill Williams has been indicted in Spain for willful poisoning and breaking of environmental regulations. And the Bad River Band Asks EPA to Stop All Mining Activity in Penokees, a crucial first step in the mandatory analysis of Native American treaty rights.

From Uppity Wisconsin comes an email authored by Scott Walker on the secret e-mail system directing that this illegal medium be used for an official statement:

Scott Walker himself urging the use of non-official accounts to coordinate a
campaign statement #WalkerDocs

Newly-released e-mails show that the Wisconsin governor may have more of a Chris Christie problem than even Chris Christie. Ruth Conniff and MSNBC have great video on the fall of a sleaze.

Casting Eyes on Mining Companies' Plunder of Wisconsin

What kind of sick SOBs would intentionally poison Wisconsin families?

The extraction conglomerates operating or trying to establish new turf in Wisconsin.

A trio of stories on what mining companies are up to:

• Asbestos in the proposed Penokee mine site
• Abundant Asbestos Confirmed at GTAC Bulk Sampling Site
• Frac sand health fears rise as mining booms in Wisconsin

Maybe Wisconsin citizens demanding answers and protection can find succor in the mining companies' PR messages: All mining cares about are jobs, the environment; asbestos and mesothelioma are really your friends, and even if asbestos and mesothelioma were deadly, no asbestos will be found near any mining operation.

Indian Treaty Law Expert: Adverse Effect on Treaty-protected Species Dooms Mine

Getches, Wilkinson, Williams and Fletcher's
Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law

Charles F. Wilkinson, arguably the leading legal expert on native American treaties who literally wrote the book on Federal Indian Case Law, and wrote and edited numerous other treatises on federal Native American law, offered his comments on the Lac Courte Oreilles' efforts to halt the proposed Gogebic Taconite mine in an e-mail received moments ago.

Professor Wilkerson is the Distinguished Professor, Moses Lasky Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, and most recently primary author of the Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law, (6th ed. 2011) (with David H. Getches, Robert A. Williams, Jr. and Matthew L. M. Fletcher)

Wilkerson's brief e-mail appears to indicate that because Republicans have admitted they expect environmental damage in the very text of bill, the mine likely will have to be revised or abandoned when challenged in light of Native American treaties.

[See Charles Pierce's Wisconsin INC: "The bill reflects the reality of mining. There are going to be some impacts to the environment above the iron ore body," said (Sen. Tom) Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst.]
 ---
Reads Prof. Wilkinson's e-mail:

This iron mine complex cannot go ahead without a full analysis of the treaty rights of the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) band. More than a century and a half ago, the LCO negotiated treaties that guaranteed tribal members the right to hunt and fish on their former lands. The transfer of those lands by the tribes has been of great benefit to the non-Indians of northern Wisconsin but the courts have squarely recognized that, in return, those promises must be honored. Earlier this year a federal judge in Washington State ruled, under similar circumstances, that the treaties require more than just allowing tribal members to hunt and fish—the treaties also require healthy habitat so that the species can thrive.

And, so, the question is: 'Will this mining complex adversely affect the habitat of treaty-protected species?' If so, the proposed mining project will have to be revised or abandoned.

Charles Wilkinson
Moses Lasky Professor of Law
University of Colorado Law School
#

Corruption Fuels Mining Company's Moves in Northern Wisconsin

When the multibillion-dollar mining corporation with a record of poisoning the environment came into Wisconsin and announced it intended to dig and operate a 20-mile, open pit iron-ore mine in the Penokee Hills of Northern Wisconsin under the authority of state legislation the mining company drafted, opposition arose quickly.

Gogebic Taconite, one cog in the huge private mining conglomerate, Cline Resource and Development Group, determined they wanted the iron-ore extracted in what would be the largest mine in Wisconsin's history, and the Republican Party decided they wanted the $15 million they received from the mining concerns.

What the people of Wisconsin want is of no concern.

What environmentalists and Native Americans wish specifically similarly is of no apparent concern, as now Iron County (Wisconsin) officials are threatening to evict, arrest and prosecute the Lac Courte Oreilles band which has set up a Harvest and Education camp near the mining site.

The Bad River Band soon will set a similar camp.

Iron County is the least populated county in Wisconsin, isolated in the north woods; and its district attorney, one Martin Lipske, is known for being corrupt, incompetent and provincial. A lot like the Republican Party.

Worse, Lipske is suspected of deceitfully pursuing and obtaining the conviction in 1997 of an innocent man, Don Miller, now serving a 42-year sentence for a crime that he apparently did not commit, though Lipske has been shown to have been made aware of exculpatory evidence.

Small town justice in the deep north woods in a county selling out the environment and taking away the life blood of an innocent man.

Lipske refuses comment on all matters now, and in recent weeks has gone silent on the mining operation as his history has hit Wisconsin political blogs.

Now, Lipske pursues his effort on behalf of Gogebic Taconite to charge a 26-year-old woman protester, Katie M. Kloth, 26, of Stevens Point, with robbery with force, misdemeanor theft, and two counts of criminal damage to property.

Her crime?

Kloth yelled at Gogebic Taconite personnel and allegedly stole a cell phone some weeks back.

Lipske has amble experience in throwing people in prison for years without cause. But the spotlight is beginning to shine on Lipske now, illuminating a corrupt and cowardly man ... hiding.

This will change, and I predict here Lipske will meet justice for his crimes.

As for the environment under threat by Gogebic Taconite and supported by Iron County officials and the Republican Party, public consciousness of the planet we inhabit has a way of exploding.

"No one should be surprised by what this mining company is doing. So many people in this country have been raised without an environmental ethic. It's hard for them to develop a sense of the earth as an organism when you live in an artificial setting and away from what's natural," said Becky Gawboy, a Native American environmental and education activist living in rural northeastern Minnesota. "Corporations like this mining outfit are simply the culmination of a culture that is obsessed with material things like TVs, isolated and alienated from the living world. Of course they can't make healthy decisions about the environment because they don't see themselves as part of it. They wish to devour it. Really, corporation are evil entities and as corporations have evolved they have become the center of darkness, a rapacious, destructive force."

Iron County, Wisconsin is not Lowndes County, Alabama—a notorious, racist county 1,100 miles almost due south from Hurley, Wisconsin.

But small-town injustice and corruption join Iron County and Lowndes County.

Iron County features an epic case study in corruption and a huge corporation v. families and the environment; the fate of this clash is directly dependent on how many good men and women remain silent.

Wisconsin GOP, Iron County Want Native American Mining Protesters Out

County District Attorney Martin Lipske.

But there is nothing funny about Iron County officials again trying to drum up racist resentment against the Lac Courte Oreilles band of Ojibwe.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin front-group, Media Trackers, and its Republican writer, Brian Sikma, are attacking a wooded campsite because it's calling attention to the proposed open-pit mine, owned by Gogebic Taconite for whom Wisconsin Republicans wrote a mining bill rushed through on a party-line vote earlier this year.

Writes Lee Bergquist this morning:

An attorney for Iron County says that a wooded campsite that's been a hub for opponents of a proposed iron-ore mine is violating county ordinances by exceeding the timeline that such a gathering can take place.

Michael Pope, corporation counsel for Iron County, said Thursday that the harvest camp organized by the Lac Courte Oreilles band of Lake Superior Chippewa has exceeded a two-week limit for such gatherings.

But Paul DeMain, a spokesman for the camp, said Iron County officials have raised no questions about the legality of the tent community directly with tribal leaders. He suggested the issue is politically motivated, as debate over mining shows no sign of abating.

Wisconsin Republicans like Sikma and Iron County officials should give it up.

The Lac Courte Oreilles band of the Ojibwe operate at a level of commitment that Republicans like Brian Sikma simply cannot understand.

Harassment will be laughed off.

Iron County DA Has History of Professional Misconduct, Suspension of License for Discipline

Iron County District Attorney Martin Lipske's
law license was suspended for two years in 1990.
Lipske's  license was suspended four times
between 1985 and 1990 as well

Updated - Steven Verburg and the editors of the Wisconsin State Journal either have not vetted Iron County DA Martin Lipske as a credible source or do not care about Lipske's shady history of practicing law in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin corporate press is playing stenographer to Iron County DA Martin Lipske as Lipske makes pro-mining political statements to the press and threatens to throw the book at a mining protester as he publicly muses about prosecutions of several other Gogebic Taconite mining protesters prior to any criminal complaint or the inception of any law enforcement investigation, the latest careless move in a reckless history of Lipske's, confirmed by the State Bar of Wisconsin this morning.

To this point, the Wisconsin press has failed to report the numerous instances of professional misconduct in Lipske's legal career, treating Lipske's overheated characterization of mining protesters as credible, despite Lipske's slipshod history as an attorney in Wisconsin, as referenced by the State Bar of Wisconsin's history of Lipske's license to practice obtained this morning from the Bar in an e-mail after a phone call, and reproduced below.

Lipske as an attorney had his license to practice law suspended for nearly four years in Wisconsin, and is currently barred from practicing law in Minnesota for numerous ethical violations, including a two-year suspension for discipline involving "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misconduct."

Lipske is getting a free political ride as Lipske takes political shots at mining protesters in the press in his apparent attempt to criminalize opposition to the proposed, massive Iron mine in northern Wisconsin.

Steven Verburg of the Wisconsin State Journal offers editorial support for the Gogebic Taconite mining interests and its allies like Lipske in his news piece today.

Writes Verburg this morning: "The details on the [alleged criminal] incident help explain why the Gogebic Taconite mining company hired heavily armed security guards from Arizona who wore camouflage and masks, Lipske said."

Is that what Lipske said?

Verburg either has not vetted Lipske as a credible source, or does not care about Lipske's shady history of practicing law in Wisconsin.

The State Bar of Wisconsin confirmed this morning the almost four-year suspension of Lipske's license to practice law from 1990-1994, after a quick phone call.

Iron county in northern Wisconsin has a population of 6,861 people.

Lipske's suspension to practice law was lifted in 1994.

Lipske was "Suspended for Discipline" for two years under the category of "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misconduct" in 1990, it was reported in the Ironwood Daily Globe (Ralph Ansami), after consultations with the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation.

The State Bar will not provide specifics per its policy, but a press account from the Ironwood Daily Globe (Ansami. September 6, 1994) when Lipske ran for Iron County DA, reads:

Lipske was also sanctioned for failing to provide competent representation, and for neglect of several legal matters.

[Lipske] was suspended from practicing law in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Additionally, Lipske had his license to practice law in Wisconsin suspended four times for administrative delinquencies between 1985 to 1988.

Specifically, Lipske was suspended three times for failure to pay dues, and once for failing to obtain a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirement in 1985.

The history of Lipske's license to practice is reproduced below.

All of Lipske's suspensions to practice law in Wisconsin have been lifted since 1994.

Currently, Lipske is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin in good standing.

Further information can also be obtained through the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Iron County DA Martin Lipske License Status (State Bar of Wisconsin)
Atty. Martin Lipske License Status’

10/31/1985 Suspended for CLE (Education requirements)

11/1/1985 Suspended for Dues and CLE

11/7/1985 Suspended for Dues (CLE Lifted)

11/11/1985 Good Standing (All suspensions lifted)

11/3/1986 Suspended for Dues

11/12/1986 Good Standing (All suspensions lifted)

5/11/1988 Suspended for CLE

07/05/1988 Good Standing (All suspensions lifted)

7/1/1990 Suspended for Discipline [emphasis added]

1/19/1994 Good Standing (All suspensions lifted)

Mining Company Deploys New Masked Militiamen

Kate Sheppard has the piece at Mother Jones.

Corporate terror continues as Mining Company deploys new militia -  Image by Jim Limbach

WKOW TV Lets Genocide, Death Threats Fall into Equivalence Fallacy

So dedicated is local broadcast TV news to the proposition that any and all viewpoints are the same that even the Wisconsinites for Safe Mining references to "Genocide" go unmet, amid an explicit death threat now under criminal investigation.

The WKOW reporter, Greg Neumann, means well in his piece.

But what exactly has to be done and said before dumbed-down broadcast news ditches the false equivalence of Conservationists v. Mining, Corporate Militias, and now idiots who think "Genocide" is funny.

Likely, the poster of the "shoot on sight" Facebook post believes he is being funny.

Does Neumann get why it isn't?

Only one side is armed: The mining and militia side
Only one side thinks Genocide is funny:  The mining and militia side
Only one side thinks issues death threat: The mining and militia side

What has to happen before WKOW and other news sites stop treating all sides as equal?

Mining Operation's Supporters Make Online Death Threats

"Shoot on sight," reads Wisconsinites for Safe Mining Facebook page.

Someone get word to local media, this is not bad PR.

This is a reckless death threat, among other moronic chatter.

Do these people even remember who Jared Lee Loughner and former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are?

What passes for humor among the rightwing can have deadly consequences perpetrated by the armed and hateful.

By Greg Neumann:

[One] Terry Dipper identifies Lisa Wells and three other women as making threats against the [Iron mine site] as justification for the [Bulletproof] guards.

In a post directly follow Dipper's, Wisconsinites For Safe Mining wrote:  "We have initiated a shoot on sight order for the malcontents that you have listed.  Trespassing on a mining site = genocide."

 Trespassing on a mining site = genocide? [sic]

Further comment should be unnecessary, but corporate media will find a way to present a false equivalence between death threats from idiots v. conservationists.

Dump False Equivalence of Conservationists v. Mining, Corporate Militias

Dump anything you want here, just watch the PR message

Wisconsin State Journal needs to begin thinking about the communities of Wisconsin, and forget the silly riffs on PR tactics

Not expecting rigor when I read Wisconsin State Journal editorials but its equating indignant Wisconsin citizens with armed, unlicensed, corporate, and illegal (look it up) militias is ludicrous.

The editorial from the Scott Walker rah-rah sheet concludes: "... [B]oth mining and protesting can proceed as planned."

No.

Actually, many federal laws and regulations have to be followed, and Wisconsin citizens retain their right to free speech, disregarded by Republicans after they sold out Wisconsin.


Yelling obscenities at out-of-state corporations poisoning our land and our water is self-defense.

If you don't agree, why not have your children or your parents drink the wastewater discharge that comes from huge open pit mines like that proposed up north. Personally, I don't drink anything with sulfuric acid.

Have some fish from the poisoned water, which is so predictable, Republicans actually wrote into the statute language that they expect environmental damage, so the numerous coming legal challenges can be met with the argument: We contemplated and wanted this pollution. [See "There are going to be some impacts to the environment above the iron ore body."]

The mine in fact will be stopped. The GOP's stating: We don't care about federal law; that's in the state law our party passed is in fact not an argument that will prevail in federal court.

Doesn't the State Journal have a problem with this? Is the State Journal so out-of-touch now that it can only think about Wisconsin families and communities in terms of good or bad PR?

The State Journal begins, "The message from northern Wisconsin last week was unmistakable: One giant public relations blunder can be topped only by ... another giant public relations blunder."

Firstly, the public has the right, guaranteed access, to the Iron Mine site.

Secondly, opening shop and operating as a private security firm is illegal without a license. It's the law and breaking the law is not a "PR blunder."

Since when is civil a prerequisite to stopping operations like Cline's new outfit Gogebic Taconite, coming in our backyard and poisoning the water and earth? You expect everyone to say, thank you.

No, 'get the hell out,' is appropriate for these trespassers, corporate terrorists like 'Bulletproof,' and the sick minds that would come in and poison families and their environment which they call home.

This is not about PR.

This is about preserving the environment and the health of Wisconsin families.

And these mining operations are in this for the money period.

What do you think, these are committed environmentally conscious, full-employment activists who care only about strengthening Wisconsin communities?

The State Journal needs to begin thinking about the communities of Wisconsin, and not worry about the profits of huge mining conglomerates and its political patrons.

Are you  the Wisconsin State Journal or the Republican State Journal.

Nothing wrong with being a party paper, but be honest about it.