Category Archives: Indigenous/Native American

Why is Sen. Feinstein offering a competing Climate Change proposal when GND polls at 81%?

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Senate Resolution 59 is the Green New Deal. It currently has 11 Senate co-sponsors (that’s roughly 25% of the Democratic Senate Caucus). The co-sponsors include Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Kamal Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Every single senator running for President is co-sponsoring this legislation. More importantly, the measure is overwhelmingly popular among voters. And when I say overwhelmingly, I’m not kidding: More than 80 percent of registered voters support the Green New Deal proposal being pushed by progressional Democratic lawmakers, a new poll found. The survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Communication and the George Mason University Center for … Continue reading →

11/6 Midterm Election Night & Open Thread

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Birdies–

Tonight we find out how much of a check the American people want to have on our Executive Branch. Or put it another way, how many of the 1000 legislative seats will the Dems gain from the last 10 years of losses? Will voters feel comfortable with the economy and overlook Trump? Will Trump’s divisiveness prevail and turn out his base?

Will we see our first women Native American Congressional Reps? First AA governor of FL and first female gov of GA? How well will the OR candidates perform in this cycle?

Of course, we hope there are no machine irregularities, but it’s anticipated that some will occur. And election lawyers will be on hand just in case.

In the Senate, Democrats are defending 26 seats while Republicans are only defending nine.

(those are predictions if they are filled in with red or blue, gold signifies toss-up)

In the gubernatorial races, there are 33 races, in which Dems could possibly pick up 9 of them.



(those are predictions if they are filled in with red or blue, gold signifies toss-up)

First polls close at 6ET in Indiana, VT and KY. Most in the MSM are saying to watch the 6th district in KY, but the bellwethers will be in VA 4 GOP races and FL 4 GOP races when the polls close at 7 ET.

Larry Sabato of Crystal Ball expects Dem pick-ups in the gubernatorial races, including Kansas.

Big races:

TX Sen – Beto vs Cruz
NV Sen – Rosen vs Heller
FL Sen – Sick Rott vs Nelson
AZ Sen – McSally vs Sinema
CA Sen – DeLeon vs Feinstein
MO Sen – Hawley vs McCaskill
TN Sen – Breesan vs Blackburn
VT Sen – Sanders vs a pack of Indies (well, not a big race, but it is Bernie’s re-up)

FL Gov – DeSantis vs Gillum
GA Gov – Kemp vs Abrams
MD Gov – Jealous vs Hogan
WI Gov – Evers vs Walker
IL Gov – Pritzker vs Rauner
AZ Gov – Garcia vs Ducey
ID Gov – Jordan vs Little
MI Gov – Whitmer vs Schulette
IA Gov – Hubbell vs Reynolds

MN AG – Ellison vs Wardlow

Add the races you are keen about in the comments!

A win for environmentalists & 9/25 Open Thread

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Judge overules Trump as Yellowstone grizzly bears offered protection from trophy hunts

A welcomed judicial pushback on Trump assault on the environment, this time in the form of a judge overruling Trump’s efforts to remove grizzlies from the threatened species list.

Judges in the US ordered protections to be restored to grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park, halting plans for the first licensed trophy hunts of the bears in the region in more than 40 years.

US District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana, sided with environmentalists and native American groups by overruling the President Donald Trump’s decision to strip the grizzlies of their status as a threatened species.

The outcome caps one of the most high-profile legal battles over the Endangered Species Act, rivaling previous disputes surrounding the gray wolf and northern spotted owl.

The ruling came as the Trump administration is seeking to rewrite regulations that scientists say would erode wildlife protection for the benefit of commercial interests.

While the decision only affects about 700 of the remaining 2,000 grizzlies in the ‘lower 48’, it’s a great step towards protecting the magnificent beast known as the grizzly!

The de-listing, welcomed by big-game hunters and cattlemen, had applied to about 700 Yellowstone-area grizzlies in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Grizzlies, which are slow to reproduce, number fewer than 2,000 bears across the Lower 48. That is far below an historic high of 100,000 before widespread shooting, poisoning and trapping reduced the bears’ population to just several hundred by 1975, when they were placed under federal protection.

 

Environmentalists have said that while grizzlies have made a comeback, their recovery could falter without continued federal safeguards. They point to, among other things, alterations in the bears’ food supply from climate change and high levels of human-caused mortality.

And a win for Native American tribes as well!!

Native American tribes, which revere the grizzly as sacred, sought reinstatement of its threatened status as essential to protecting their religious practices.

Please add any news you want to share below. ?

3/19 News Roundup – Sanders Is Telling The Story Corporate Media Fails To; Indigenous Leaders Begin A Week Of Civil Disobedience & More

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Bernie Sanders Wants to Tell the Story That Corporate Media Fails To Tell

For decades, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has objected to the failure of major media outlets to cover the growth of economic inequality in America. As a presidential contender in 2016, he used every opportunity that was afforded him in the media to address poverty, plutocracy and the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of “the billionaire class.”

Now, he’s doing something to tip the balance of the popular discourse away from the agendas of the super rich and toward the real life concerns of working-class Americans. Something big. On Monday, from 7 to 8:30 pm ET, he will host a livestreamed town hall meeting on “Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class.” With Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, filmmaker Michael Moore, economist Darrick Hamilton and others, Sanders will lead a discussion about the “growing power of corporate interests and how we can build economy that works for all Americans.” Livestreamed on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by Sanders, Warren, Moore, The Guardian, NowThis, The Young Turks and Act.tv, the initiative will reach social media sites with a combined following of close to 50 million Americans.

..

The Nation: You say there are two fundamental issues with inequality. What’s the first?

Sanders: The first one is that this country is moving into oligarchy. The three wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. The top one-tenth of one percent now owns as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. And then, politically, what we have seen since the Citizens United decision (by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010) is billionaires like the Koch brothers and a few of their friends pouring hundreds and millions of dollars into the political process to elect candidates who represent the wealthy and the powerful. That is an issue of huge consequence to the future of America – in terms of the economic life of this country and the collapse of the middle class, and a political system which is being corrupted by big money and Citizens United.

And the second issue has to do with how the first is covered?

The second issue deals with the fact that we have a corporate media, which is not as Donald Trump defines it “fake news.” That’s not the issue. It’s not that you have people on CNN, or writing for The New York Times, who are deliberately lying or trying to destroy politicians – that’s not the case. Everyday there are very good and important articles that appear in The Washington Post and The New York Times, on CBS News and everywhere else.

The problem is that, to a very significant degree, corporate media ignores, or pays very little attention, to the most important issues facing working people. That is the problem with corporate media today.

If you look at just the issue I described to you – the movement in this country toward oligarchy – you will find very, very little discussion about that. Stormy Daniels will get ten times more print and video coverage than will the movement toward oligarchy in this country. You will see very little discussion about poverty in this country. “Poverty” is just not a word that is used on television very often.

Bernie also spoke to Ana Kasparian of TYT about inequality and his upcoming national town hall:

More news/video/tweets/etc. in the comments.

2/15 News Roundup – Warren To Highlight Stories & Struggles Of Native Americans, Sanders Demands DACA Action + More

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Taking on Trump’s Racist ‘Pocahontas’ Slur, Warren Vows to ‘Lift Up’ Stories, Struggles of Native Americans

With a speech delivered at the National Congress of American Indians on Wednesday morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the gathering of Native Americans that she will not allow President Donald Trump’s racist attack on her heritage to be a smear against her, but will instead do her best to use such attacks to uplift the proud traditions—as well as the historic struggles—of North America’s indigenous tribes and communities.

Addressing directly how the president referred to her as ‘Pocahontas’ during a White House ceremony last year, Warren said that she is proud of her Native American roots.

“I’ve noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas,” she said. “So I figured, let’s talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.”

The mythology around Pocahontas, said Warren, is one that “has been taken away by powerful people who twisted it to serve their own purposes. The fable is used to bleach away the stain of genocide. As you know, Pocahontas’s real journey was far more remarkable — and far darker — than the myth admits.”

Why denouncing the president’s clear intent to use the name as a racist slur and a smear against her and Native Americans more broadly—with many in the right-wing media echo chamber happy to play along—Warren said she does not intend to submit to those designs.

“I’m here today to make a promise,” Warren told the audience, according to a transcript first published in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. “Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.”

Yes. Let’s Talk About Pocahontas. – The following are the prepared remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren

More news/video/tweets/etc. in the comments.

Deb Haaland’s Campaign For Congress (NM-1)

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This Native American Congressional Candidate Wants to Bring Environmental Justice to New Mexico and to Capitol Hill

I Learned from my parents to revere nature. Their way of teaching my siblings and I to respect the environment was to be in it, and so we spent a great deal of time outdoors. I fondly remember a family vacation at Dismal Swamp – rowing a boat up and down the swamp fishing for several days; once while at the beach in Virginia, my sister and I floated at least a mile out on the Chesapeake Bay on dime store blow up rafts. The Marine lifeguards who swam out to rescue us were surprised that my sister and I were not scared. We calmly sat atop our rafts because the ocean was a familiar place.

Running for Congress isn’t something I ever thought I would do. I got my start working to get out the Native vote, because I felt more of us needed to be active participants in electing people who would represent us. I persevered election after election, and eventually decided to run myself and won my seat as New Mexico Democratic Party Chairwoman. I was the first Native American woman to chair a state party. After years of grassroots organizing and advocacy, I decided to continue my mission to elevate our Native voice — in Congress.

If I win, I will be the first Native American woman elected to Congress. Over 10,200 people have been elected to Congress, and not one has been a Native woman.

But, that’s not the reason I’m running. Diversity is important, but I have a larger agenda, and it starts with saving our planet. Everything depends on our ability to sustainably inhabit this earth, and true sustainability will require us all to change our way of thinking on how we take from the earth and how we give back.

Read More @ Vice

Just A Few Of Haaland’s Priorities

ECONOMY – We will double down on clean energy to create more good paying jobs; we’ll make it easier for those who want to start or expand their small business, and we must increase the minimum wage locally and federally. I believe in a fair society, where hardworking New Mexicans all have a shot at opportunities for success, and where corporations and the wealthiest all pay their fair share in taxes. Read my full education platform

HEALTHCARE – I support a woman’s right to choose when and how to have a child, full access to contraception, and believe that everyone should have access to affordable healthcare. Let’s fix Obamacare to protect healthcare for 250,000 New Mexicans, and move to a universal health care program. No American should face bankruptcy or death because of a lack of healthcare. Read my full healthcare platform

ENVIRONMENT – Climate change is real, and poses a real threat to our economy and our way of life; we must work for real solutions to stop it. We must fight for clean air and clean water, and drastically reduce our carbon emissions. We must make real change now so that we protect a future for our children. Public lands are there for all of us, and not for a few at the top to make a profit. Read my full environment platform

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Lakota In America

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Genevieve Iron Lightning is a young Lakota dancer on the Cheyenne River reservation, one of the poorest communities in the US. Unemployment, addiction, alcoholism, and suicide are all challenges for Lakota on the reservation.

For nearly a hundred years it was illegal to practice Lakota customs. Now the Cheyenne River Youth Project is working with young people like Genevieve to create a stronger economic and cultural future – andthrey using their Lakota heritage to get there.

“Lakota In America” is the third film in Square’s For Every Kind of Dream series. See the other films at http://foreverydream.com.

The Cheyenne River Youth Project

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