Video: Anti-Oil Zealots Shut Down Public Hearing on Line Three Pipeline

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t10.18.2017 -- Steve Kuchera -- 101917.N.DNT.EnbridgeC8 -- Opponents of the proposed replacement of Enbridge’s Line 3 oil pipeline enter the DECC before the evening session of Wednesday’s public hearing. Steve Kuchera / skuchera@duluthnews.com

The political extremists in the anti-oil movement have promised to make Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project into the next #NoDAPL movement.

Given that the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline were hugely violent, and saw millions of dollars worth of vandalism and economic damage perpetrated in the region, the folks of Minnesota should feel a sense of trepidation.

Last night Duluth residents got a taste of just how ugly things can get.

Activists – many of them wearing masks and shouting profanity and accusations of racism – disrupted a public hearing on the project presided over by Administrative Law Judge Ann O’Reilly.

The disruption hasn’t received much press coverage  – there is scant mention of it in this report from the Duluth News Tribune –  but as you can see from this video posted by one of the protesters things got out of control:

I don’t care what side of the oil/pipeline debate you’re on, that sort of behavior is unacceptable.

That was a public hearing, meant to collect and document public input on the pipeline project, and it was interrupted by political extremists who want to decide the issue by shouting down the opposition.

That’s not democracy. That’s a sort of tyranny of the mob.