Pro-pipeline Sen Bennet's office occupied in Honor the Treaties action

On the 18th of November, activists associated with the Cowboy-Indian Alliance against the Keystone XL occupied the office of pro-Keystone Senator Michael Bennet. They were supported by student climate activists in taking over the office of this Democratic Senator who is being counted as a "for" vote in the scheduled Nov 18 vote (today) on the pipeline.

Senator Bennet's Twitter feed is full of references to protecting the environment, yet Native Americans and others threatened by the Keystone pipeline found it necessary to take over his office because he planned to vote for the most destructive of all projects to come before Congress. This is the height of hypocrisy on his part, and the banner taken into his office demanded "Sen Bennet, if you're not a climate change denier, don't vote like one!"

Breaking 6:30PM 11-18:Indigenous singers celebrate in the Capitol galleries as Keystone bill defeated CNN Video of reaction to singing in the galleries

Greg Grey Cloud of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe sang the unci makawiwayangwacipi song in the Senate chambers and was quickly followed by other singing "what you gonna do" referring to continuing attempts to ram the pipeline over lands of the Lakota and others unwilling to have their lands poisoned forever. In all the long years of colonialist aggression against the Lakota and other Indigenous Nations, this may be the first time that song has ever been heard on the floor of the Senate.

Greg was arrested for the song,continuing to sing as he was thrown against the wall. He lives on the Rosebud reservation, whose president has declared that any attempt to build the pipeline over their land will be considered an act of war against their sovereign nation. The borders of Rosebud will be closed to those attempting to build the pipeline and their heavy machinery kept out of the reservation.