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For Immediate Release
November, 18 2012, 03:14pm EDT
Contact:
In Washington, Daniel Kessler, 350.org, dk@350.org, 510-501-1779
In San Francisco, Eddie Scher, Sierra Club, eddie.scher@sierraclub.org, 415-815-7027
3,000 March at White House for Climate Solutions, Against Foreign Tar Sands and Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline
More than 3,000 people marched around the White House today, calling on the Obama Administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and keep tar sands crude out of the US. The event, organized by 350.org, the Sierra Club, and other public interest groups, followed a 350.org "Do the Math" climate event at Washington, DC's historic Warner Theater.
WASHINGTON
More than 3,000 people marched around the White House today, calling on the Obama Administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and keep tar sands crude out of the US. The event, organized by 350.org, the Sierra Club, and other public interest groups, followed a 350.org "Do the Math" climate event at Washington, DC's historic Warner Theater.
The groups also announced that today's event is the first in a series of actions promoting climate solutions and rejecting tar sands, Keystone XL, and other extreme oil sources that will culminate in a major Washington, DC rally on Presidents Day, February 18, 2013.
The marchers carried a 500 foot "oil pipeline" and held signs with famous quotes from President Barack Obama about his commitment to tackling the climate crisis, including this from election night: "We want our children to live in an America that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet."
"The President needs to know that the American people have his back on keeping tar sands crude out of America," says Sierra Club President Allison Chin. "In 2012 we've seen epic droughts and the Sandy superstorm--extreme weather delivering a loud and clear message that solutions to climate disruption can't wait. Keeping tar sands out of America is a critical step to turn this problem around."
After hearing from ranchers and farmers living along the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline and from landowners fighting to stop the Oklahoma to Texas portion of the pipeline, participants retraced the steps of a fall 2011 march that encircling the White House. Speakers at the Freedom Plaza rally which followed the march included 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Sierra Club President Allison Chin, Indigenous Environmental Network organizer Marty Cobenais and others.
"I never wanted this tar sands pipeline, but TransCanada bullied me out of my land and now they're ripping my farm apart," says Susan Scott, a landowner in the path of the pipeline and lifelong East Texan. "This pipeline puts my family, my loved ones, and my property at risk; but we all need to rise up and defend our homes because this isn't just about Texas. Keystone XL threatens us all."
A November 7, 2012 joint letter from 19 environmental leaders announced the rally, recognized the progress the administration has achieved to lower US climate pollution emissions through new car and light truck efficiency standards, and called on the President to take a strong stand against the carbon-intensive, highly polluting tar sands crude. (1)
The event followed Bill McKibben's "Do the Math" tour event at the Warner Theater. McKibben and 350.org on a 21-city nationwide tour that is connecting the dots between extreme weather, climate change, and the fossil fuel industry.
"It's time to start holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for the wholesale damage they're doing to our planet," said McKibben. "If Sandy showed us anything, it's that the hour is late and the need is urgent-but the fossil fuel industry has terrified our politicians and the result has been two decades of inaction. We need that to change."
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
Indictment of Ex-Trump Adviser John Bolton Called a 'Warning Shot to Every American'
The indictment has been condemned as part of the president's crackdown on his "enemies list," but some legal experts are also highlighting how the case differs from those of Letitia James and James Comey.
Oct 17, 2025
While critics of John Bolton have long called for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court, the federal indictment of President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser on Thursday is generating widespread alarm.
Bolton surrendered at a courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland Friday morning after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with violating the Espionage Act—specifically 18 counts of unlawfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
When former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey was indicted last month, Trump pledged that "there'll be others." Then Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James—who successfully prosecuted the president for financial crimes—was indicted last week. Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against his enemies.
Some of the reactions to Bolton's indictment were similar, including from the 76-year-old himself, who served in not only Trump's first term but also the Reagan and both Bush administrations. He said in a lengthy statement that "Donald Trump's retribution" against him began when he resigned from the president's first administration and began publicly criticizing him.
"Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts," Bolton said. "These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive efforts to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct."
"Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America's constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom," added Bolton, a longtime advocate of regime change in other countries. "I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power."
Bolton's lawyer is Abbe Lowell, who is also representing James and Lisa Cook, whom Trump is trying to oust from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. His former clients include the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Lowell said that "like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries—that is not a crime."
Co-chairs of the Not Above the Law coalition—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins of Stand Up America—connected Bolton to James and Comey in a Friday statement:
Three indictments in three weeks. Three Trump critics. Three prosecutions designed to intimidate anyone who dares challenge this president. Three people who were on Trump's "enemies list." The pattern is undeniable: Speak out against Trump, become a target of the DOJ.
The message from this administration couldn't be clearer: Loyalty gets rewarded, dissent gets investigated. While Trump's handpicked prosecutors work overtime delivering indictments against his critics, actual threats to American safety go unaddressed.
A Department of Justice that acts in service of presidential revenge rather than public safety threatens democracy itself. This isn't just about Bolton—it's a warning shot to every American that dissent now comes with the threat of prosecution.
Congress has a constitutional duty to intervene, restore DOJ independence, and end this dangerous abuse of law enforcement before more lives are destroyed for political purposes.
However, University of Alabama law professor and former US attorney Joyce Vance argued on Substack Friday that the Bolton indictment "is entirely different" from those against Comey and James in the Eastern District of Virginia, pointing out that "the US attorney in Maryland is a career prosecutor. But she didn't go into the grand jury to obtain the indictment. It's signed off on by two senior prosecutors in her office as well as lawyers from DOJ's National Security Division."
"Instead of the factually deficient indictments we've seen in the other cases, this is the sort of detailed indictment we are used to seeing in a serious matter," she highlighted. "There is undoubtedly truth to the allegation that Donald Trump wanted Bolton prosecuted. But the intervening layer of professional prosecutors here, people who assessed the case and the evidence and decided there was enough to move forward, may make it difficult to win a selective prosecution argument."
"In the Comey and James cases, experienced prosecutors declined to bring the cases, and the US attorney sacrificed his job for principle. The cases were only brought because Trump dropped in a loyalist to replace him," Vance added. "Here, unless Bolton has some evidence that these prosecutors did not proceed professionally, he may not have a winnable legal argument."
CNN's Aaron Blake published a similar analysis early Friday. Blake also noted that in 2020, US District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, "ruled in Bolton's favor in a civil case stemming from a dispute with the Trump administration over the publication of Bolton's book. But Lamberth otherwise excoriated Bolton for his handling of classified information."
Meanwhile, Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, used Bolton's indictment to call for broader reforms on Friday. He began by noting that "John Bolton is an unrepentant war criminal and one of most odious national security hawks in Washington. As part of his antipathy for press freedom, whistleblowers, and anyone who challenges the national security state, he called for both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden to be executed for exposing abuses of power by our government."
"Similarly, he called for journalist Julian Assange to get 'at least 176 years in jail' for publishing truthful information about US war crimes," Gibbons explained. "Now, Bolton, like Manning, Snowden, and Assange has been indicted under the Espionage Act."
"We at Defending Rights & Dissent were one of the leading voices in Washington in support of Manning, Snowden, and Assange. And we remain the leading voice on reforming the Espionage Act so it can no longer be used to prosecute courageous whistleblowers and journalists," he said. "As part of our reform proposal, we advocated the Espionage Act be amended to require the government to prove a defendant intended to harm the national security of the US."
"Nothing in the indictment of Bolton indicates the government believes Bolton had that level of intent," Gibbons stressed. "As a result, we do not believe Bolton should be indicted under the Espionage Act. This is the same position we took regarding Donald Trump, who himself has been responsible for abusing the Espionage Act to silence journalists and whistleblowers."
"The Espionage Act is an overly broad, archaic law. As a result, it is ripe for selective, politically motivated enforcement. It is for these reasons that Bolton championed it as a tool for political persecutions against whistleblowers and journalists. And it is for this reason the Trump administration has chosen it as a tool for their petty retaliation against a national security hawk who shares much of their views on the use of the Espionage Act," he concluded. "Enough is enough. It is well past time to reform the Espionage Act once and for all."
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Mamdani Denounces Cuomo 'Cowardice,' Pledges to Defend NYC From Trump in Mayoral Debate
Capitulation to the president, said the Democratic mayoral candidate, is "what we would see from Donald Trump's puppet."
Oct 17, 2025
New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani did not have to reach far back into the past to remind viewers of Thursday night's debate that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has displayed a refusal to stand up to President Donald Trump—which he argued could put the city at risk as the president continues to threaten cities in blue states.
When Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, addressed Trump and said, "I will fight you every step of the way if you try to hurt New York," Mamdani was quick to jump in.
"Unless he weaponizes the justice system to go after the attorney general of the state, in which case you'll issue a statement that doesn't even name the president," said the state Assembly member. "And no matter what you think about Donald Trump, you know that not even being able to name him is an act of cowardice."
Andrew Cuomo acts tough on TV. But when Donald Trump came after our Attorney General, Cuomo couldn't even name him. That's cowardice. pic.twitter.com/kThCkhFBye
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) October 16, 2025
Mamdani was referring to a statement released last week by Cuomo after Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged bank fraud. James has been a target of the president, especially since she successfully prosecuted him for financial fraud, and he forced a US attorney out of his job over his refusal to file charges against New York's top law enforcement official.
In his initial statement after the indictment, Cuomo did not mention James or Trump by name, saying only that "when the law is weaponized or manipulated to advance political agendas, it erodes public trust and weakens the very foundation of justice."
He named the president and attorney general, who is a close ally of Mamdani, in a subsequent statement, but when asked by a PIX 11 reporter this week whether he would condemn Trump for using the DOJ to target James, he replied, "Condemn him for what?”
"Both sides, Democrats and Republicans believe there’s too much politics in the justice system," added the former governor, who was forced to resign in 2021 after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.
The interview led Mamdani to warn that "Andrew Cuomo is incapable of speaking clearly and directly about Trump’s authoritarianism," and the mayoral candidate doubled down on that assertion during the debate, saying that capitulation to the president is "what we would see from Donald Trump's puppet."
The exchange comes as Trump is ramping up federal law enforcement operations in cities including Chicago and Portland, Oregon, which he has claimed are overrun with undocumented immigrants who commit crimes and violent left-wing protesters—allegations that are not supported by statistical data and have been rejected by courts, local residents, and officials.
The president has threatened to deploy the National Guard to multiple Democratic-led cities—which both Mamdani and Cuomo said they oppose during the debate—but Mamdani warned the president will "have to get through me as the next mayor of the city" if he attacks New York City as he's threatened to, should the progressive Democrat win the election.
Trump has also threatened to rip federal funding away from the city if Mamdani wins, and has reportedly spoken to Cuomo about the race in a recent call, weighing the possibility of getting involved in the election to try to sway the vote toward the former governor. Both Cuomo and Trump have denied the call took place.
As the debate aired, Mamdani reminded New Yorkers of previous comments Cuomo has made about Trump's deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Los Angeles, when he said officers were "going to do things that are illegal and unconstitutional, but let's not overreact"—a reference to protests against the deployment.
"This is how Andrew Cuomo thinks we should respond to authoritarianism," said Mamdani, who was filmed earlier this year joining other New Yorkers in confronting Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, on the abduction of former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil.
He also talked about the terror that's unfolded in recent months at the city's immigration court, where federal officers have detained people attending asylum hearings, threw a woman to the ground as she was pleading with agents not to take her husband away from her and her children, and arrested Democratic officials who were helping immigrants and protesting the enforcement actions.
"I agree that we need more legal representation," said Mamdani. "I also think we need to actually be able to stand up to Donald Trump."
What used to be a place of joy or simple routine check-ins has become a horror house of fear and separation under this federal government.
As someone who would be the first immigrant Mayor in generations, I refuse to stand for it. pic.twitter.com/AIDt6WuxGc
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) October 17, 2025
During the debate, Mamdani also hammered home his campaign's central message regarding the need to make the city more affordable for working people—lambasting Cuomo for his focus on the rent-stabilized apartment Mamdani and his wife live in, which the former governor has said the couple should leave to allow low-income New Yorkers to live there.
"You've heard it from Andrew Cuomo that the No. 1 crisis in the city, the housing crisis, the answer is to evict my wife and I," said Mamdani. "He thinks you address this crisis by unleashing my landlord's ability to raise my rent. If you think the problem in this city is that my rent is too low, vote for him. If you know that the problem in this city is that your rent it too high, vote for me."
When Cuomo invoked Mamdani's lack of experience in an executive role and suggested he would be ill-prepared to lead the city through a crisis, Mamdani responded with a barb regarding Cuomo's March 2020 order that nursing homes allow residents to be readmitted after a Covid-19 diagnosis, which was followed by efforts to undercount the death toll in the facilities.
"If we have a health pandemic then why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes?" said Mamdani. "That's the kind of experience that's on offer here today."
"What I don't have in experience I make up for in integrity," he said, turning to his rival, "and what you don't have in integrity you could never make up for in experience."
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More Than 170 US Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents, Some Abused or Detained for Days: ProPublica
"Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents," the investigation found.
Oct 17, 2025
More than 170 US citizens have been detained by immigration agents against their will since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, according to a new investigation by ProPublica.
The reporters examined every publicly available case they could find in which citizens were detained by immigration officers.
"Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, and shot by immigration agents," they wrote in the report published Thursday. "They've had their necks kneeled on. They've been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched."
"About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones," continued the report.
The findings fly in the face of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's recent assertion, in a ruling that allowed the Trump administration to use racial profiling to carry out its mass deportation agenda in Los Angeles, that "if the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a US citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go."
Video evidence from Los Angeles has shown immigration officials carrying out what appear to be large, indiscriminate roundups of random groups of Latino people.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has been at the helm of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" in Chicago, has acknowledged in an interview with a local news station that immigration enforcement decides whether to detain people based on "how they look," and suggested that the white reporter interviewing him would be less likely to be detained.
ProPublica's report bolsters the accusation that the administration is carrying out explicit racial profiling. The investigation found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship, almost all of whom were Latino.
And while immigration officials are allowed to arrest citizens who obstruct their operations or assault officers, it found that the 130 cases in which Americans were accused of doing so "often wilted under scrutiny." In nearly 50, it said, charges were never filed or the cases were dismissed, while only a small number have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.
Citizens who have been detained have often faced severe mistreatment at the hands of officers:
Among the detentions in which allegations have not stuck, masked agents pointed a gun at, pepper sprayed, and punched a young man who had filmed them searching for his relative.
In another, agents knocked over and then tackled a 79-year-old car wash owner, pressing their knees into his neck and back. His lawyer said he was held for 12 hours and wasn't given medical attention despite having broken ribs in the incident and having recently had heart surgery.
In a third case, agents grabbed and handcuffed a woman on her way to work who was caught up in a chaotic raid on street vendors. In a complaint filed against the government, she described being held for more than two days, without being allowed to contact the outside world for much of that time. (The Supreme Court has ruled that two days is generally the longest federal officials can hold Americans without charges.)
The investigation also found that at least 20 of the detained US citizens were children, including two with cancer. Another four were held, with their undocumented mother, for weeks without access to a lawyer. They were released following the intervention of Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), but still remain without their mother, who has not been accused of a crime.
In many cases, agents were found to have ignored proof of citizenship. In one case, they tackled an Alabama construction worker, Leonardo Garcia Venegas, to the ground even as he shouted that he was a citizen. When officers took out his REAL ID, which Alabama only issues to US citizens, they dismissed it as fake and held Garcia in handcuffs for over an hour. Agents later detained him a second time and dismissed his REAL ID again, while also holding two other workers with legal status.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called ProPublica's report "absolutely shocking."
" ICE does not have the authority to detain US citizens during immigration enforcement—full stop," she said. "The Trump administration is out of control, violating the rights of American citizens. They must be held accountable."
ProPublica's investigation focused on the detention of US citizens, but Kavanaugh's contention that legal immigrants are also "promptly released" is also flagrantly untrue. While there has not been a comprehensive effort to aggregate the number of green-card or visa holders detained or deported, there have been numerous documented cases of them falling into the grasp of immigration enforcement without any clear justification.
Earlier this week, the BBC reported that 48-year-old Paramjit Singh, a green-card holder who has a brain tumor and a heart condition, has been in ICE detention for over two months and has been denied the medical care he needs, despite there being no active cases against him. Another green-card holder in Kentucky, Vicente Castillo Flores, who has lived in the US for over 30 years, was detained by ICE earlier this month at a toll booth despite showing agents his work visa. According to Newsweek, the agency has not provided a reason for why he was detained despite his legal status.
The ProPublica reporters noted that their investigation was undertaken because "the government does not track how often immigration agents hold Americans." They said the number of US citizens held in detention was likely even higher than what they reported.
Their report is the latest in a long line of reports that have revealed an extraordinary lack of accountability and transparency for ICE and Trump's immigration enforcement agenda, which has mainly gone after people without criminal records despite Trump's claims to the contrary.
Last month, an investigation from the Miami Herald found that over 1,000 detainees held at Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention facility had mysteriously vanished, with no record of where they went, leading the Florida Immigrant Coalition to describe it as "an extrajudicial black site."
Three individuals have died in ICE custody just over the past two weeks, bringing the total number up to 23 this year, the highest number in 20 years.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called ProPublica's report "an outrage."
"Every single Republican needs to answer for this," she said. "We can't let this administration sweep this kind of gross abuse of power under the rug."
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