Interestingly enough, I trust my relatives and friends words more than yours.
Soros is the biggest, and yes, the money spent here is a major drag on the state.
That is the information I am asking for. A Google search for "soros site:www.kfyrtv.com" returns nothing.
The reason I ask is that "George Soros is funding protests" has become something of a meme in right-wing circles to dismiss anything from the Women's March, the airport protests to Standing Rock as being little more than some kind of left-wing conspiracy. To date, I have not seen any evidence backing up those assertions. It is entirely possible I have missed it, though, so I'd like to be filled in.
Frankly, when you know people and have relatives on both sides and get told a lot but keep getting called and voted as a liar really doesn't make me want to bother anymore. People forget the problems we are having with rail transport and one of the other tribes being dragged out of poverty because of the oil. I still love my relatives doing the protesting, but they would have been better served if the tribe had bother to do its paperwork years ago.
I don't know about those other things.
I'm sorry, but that's what happens when you make accusations without any evidence. If your relatives are telling you that George Soros is funding protests, ask them why they think that. Or don't - I know what relatives can be like - but don't blankly repeat their claims when you know you do not possess any evidence to back up the assertion.
So how exactly does one get paid for attending a protest? What's the going rate? Is there a bonus for being shown on television or getting arrested? Will any chant phrases be provided beforehand, or are they ad hoc? Will they get a 1099, or is it cash under the table?
If the hypothesis is that some protesters are paid, wouldn't it be prudent to at least test that hypothesis by trying to get paid for doing one yourself?
[Edit:] I have seen multiple instances, from multiple sources, where people are claiming that protesters are literally being paid with actual dollars--not in warm fuzzies or in social justice scrip, but actual spendable cash. They will respond to a crowd photo by saying, "That must have cost [Soros|The Koch Bros.|Murdoch|Redstone|The Illuminati] a few million." I am aware that organizing events costs money, but they seem to think that every individual in the photograph actually got a check for showing up.
I'm more than sympathetic to the idea that advocacy campaigns are useful idiots being steered by business interests (and that if you don't see who's doing the steering, then you're likely being steered). But I am also sympathetic to the neoliberal idea that financial alchemists can be on the side of good, profiting from pushing then riding the market into a better local optimum.
And so tossing out "Soros" just triggers my redgroupthink detector - his funding itself wouldn't invalidate the protest (if this were the case, then neither side has any moral authority), but the actual cui bono could.
So it is absolutely not the case, that "if oil doesn't move by pipeline it will move by rail", since, depending on market conditions, if oil doesn't move by pipeline it will sit in the ground.
Still that seems like a relatively small business interest, relative to the overwhelming behemoth implied by "astroturfing". The presence of some amount of self-interested business funding cannot invalidate the legitimacy of a point of view, or there would be no such thing as a legitimate point of view. So what I look for is a severe power disparity between the two sides which would swamp the smaller side's point of view.
In this situation, that seems like the oil companies and the legible-business-interest preference of state and federal governments. Railroads being on the opposing side doesn't really alter my appraisal of that balance. But I'd be interested in hearing the involvement of a larger entity that I've missed.