Indigenous News & Issues

Indigenous News & Issues Hate and Extremist Groups at Record LevelsAs you may have seen in The New York Times today, we've just released a new study showing an alarming rise in the number of racist, neo-Nazi, and far-right extremist groups operating across our country.This level of extremist activity has now surpassed what we documented in the 1990s, when Timothy McVeigh, a committed racist, bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering 168 men, women and children.Leading this current surge are antigovernment "Patriot" groups, the armed militias and other organizations that — like McVeigh — see the federal government as their enemy. Our investigation shows that these groups grew by more than 50 percent last year — capping a 755 percent since President Obama has been in the White House. The president is a lightning rod for these extremists — a "secret Muslim" or radical leftist bent on destroying America, in their view.We've already seen a series of alleged terrorist plots and other violence associated with this extremism. Last year, for example, federal authorities arrested four members of the Georgia Militia — which we had identify as a hate group – for plotting to bomb federal buildings and spread poisonous ricin powder in various cities. Officials also have accused militia members in Michigan and Alaska of deadly plots against police officers.Law enforcement officials and human rights activists across the country depend upon us to provide the latest information on the threat that these groups pose to our democracy.Please send a special gift today to help us do our vital work.With your help, we will continue to track and expose the activities of extremists and provide law enforcement with the intelligence they need to keep our communities safe.Thank you for your commitment to stand with us as we fight the forces that threaten to divide our country. Please continue to speak out against hate whenever and wherever you see it. Sincerely,Morris DeesFounder, Southern Poverty Law Center@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@I will be a guest on the Jay Nightwolf radio show tomorrow night--ple​ase join us!http://www.wpfwfm.org/ Hey everyone! I am most honored to be one of the guests on Jay Winter Nightwolf's radio show TOMORROW evening from 7 to 8 PM - EST! Please join us!? We will be discussing the beauty and powerful direction given to our Nations by the women! Jay states that this program tomorrow evening will discuss topics from the "spiritual aspect, healing abilities, leadership and the women's divine connection to Creator, Grandmother Earth and her responsiblities to humanity." I have had the honor of meeting and working with so many beautiful and strong women across many of our Nations so I am indeed pleased to join in the discussion. Join us tomorrow night online at: http://www.wpfwfm.org/ If you are unable to listen in live, the show is held on a podcast for everyone who wishes to listen in later. Same website, you just go to saved podcasts and look up Jay Nightwolf's show. Thanks for the support everyone! Thanks for joining us!Shelley Thunderbird Public RelationsShelley Bluejay Piercethunderbirdpr@yahoo.com@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@I want Publix to recognize my humanityA hunger strike is being waged right now by 70 farmworkers and allies at the corporate headquarters of Publix supermarkets in Florida . These mostly Latino farmworkers consistently face violations of their worker's rights, and they are asking Publix to join other corporations like Trader Joe's and Subway and sign onto the Fair Food Program. The program includes pay increases for tomato pickers and prevents human rights violations against farmworkers.This Saturday, they will deliver this message to Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw and we need to create a groundswell of public support to move Publix to join on. This type of campaign has worked before and now we need Publix to join the Fair Food Program.Can you sign this petition to Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw and tell him that you want him to meet with the fasters and that Publix needs to join the Fair Food Program right now. When you're done, forward this email to your friends and family. http://act.presente.org/sign/publix_fastThe fast is being led by Florida's Coalition for Immokalee Workers—a group of Latino and immigrant farmworkers who pick and package the nation's produce—and it's already getting loads of press.Publix is the largest private company in Florida, one of the largest supermarket chains in the country, and recognized as a worker and family friendly company. How can such a company not take responsibility for poverty and abuses happening to farmworker families right in its own home state?Farmworker Nely Rodriguez had this to say:"I want Publix to recognize my humanity and look me in the eye, not only as a farmworker and member of this community who deserves better wages and working conditions, and not just as a woman who has experienced harassment in the fields, but most of all as a mother who is trying to create a better future for my children."Can you sign onto this petition to Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw and tell him that you want Publix to join the Fair Food Program right now? When you're done, forward this email to your friends and family. http://act.presente.org/sign/publix_fastThanks and ¡adelante!Laurie on behalf of the Presente.org teamResources:"Coalition of Immokalee Workers Launches Six-Day Fast Outside Publix HQ," Democracy Now!, 3/5/12http://bit.ly/AzTjomUpdates from the Fair Food Fasthttp://www.ciw-online.org/fast@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Pfizer Receives "Excellenc​e in Profiteeri​ng" Awardhttp://www.healthcare-now.org/occupy-wall-street-gives-award-to-pfizer-excellence-in-profiteering/ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field and in the policy arena to protect America's last wild buffalo. Buffalo Field CampaignYellowstone Bison Update from the Field March 8, 2012 ------------------------------ ------------------------------* Update from the Field * Update from the Courts * REPORT: Bison Conservation in a Warming, Drying Yellowstone * Please Take Action! * BFC Wish List: Long Johns Needed! * Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week: New Study Reveals Subpopulations in Yellowstone * By the Numbers * Last Words------------------------------* Update from the Field Two gorgeous buffalo cows relax in the warming morning light. An intense blizzard moved through the Yellowstone area just hours after this photo was taken. BFC file photo by Stephany. Click photo for larger image. The snows that recently hit the Yellowstone region, along with the coming spring calving season, have spurred buffalo migrations north and west of Yellowstone National Park. The field has been relatively quiet this winter, with minimal migration, and hence, very few hunters or management actions. Yet as soon as buffalo started getting close to Montana, hunters from hundreds of miles away were somehow informed and started to arrive. We can only assume that this is a gross effort keep the buffalo's blood off of the Park's hands and on someone else's. If hunters don't kill them, the agencies certainly will. Yellowstone has said they intend to cap America's last wild buffalo populations at 3,000 animals (currently there are fewer than 3,700), and will "allow" upwards of 200 buffalo in the Gardiner Basin to be available for hunters. Should more buffalo than that migrate through, hazing, capture, and slaughter will start. Over the weekend, Nez Perce treaty hunters killed seven buffalo in the Gardiner Basin: four cows, two yearlings, and a bull. At least two of the cow buffalo that were taken were pregnant. Buffalo will start to give birth in about five to six weeks from now. Under the Interagency Bison Management Plan buffalo are forced to stay within Yellowstone's boundaries except during state and treaty hunting seasons, which can range from November through March. Wild buffalo are ecologically extinct, forbidden year-round access to critical habitat in Montana, so once they cross the border into Montana, hunters arrive to take what they can before Montana and Yellowstone force the buffalo out of Montana, through hazing, capture, and slaughter. At times, hunting, hazing, capture and slaughter happen simultaneously; none replaces the other. By design, this gross mismanagement tends to create desperate situations and desperate actions among people who want to hunt buffalo Sadly, it also means that nearly every buffalo that walks into Montana could be killed by hunters, or run through the agency gauntlet. A handsome young bull pauses from grazing to look at his admirers. BFC file photo by Stephany. Click photo for larger image. This is the reality of "tolerance" that Montana speaks of for wild buffalo: kill, chase, capture, collar, confine. As patrols observe the buffalo moving through the Gardiner Basin, in and out of Yellowstone National Park, it is clear that the new tolerance areas offer more lip service than actual habitat. From what BFC patrols have experienced, much of the expanded tolerance area habitat is either too steep for buffalo or too denuded from prior decades of cattle grazing; at most it offers small areas where there will be expanded hunting. While some hazing might be reduced, hunting will definitely increase. Buffalo are being given access to areas not for their own sake, but so hunters can have more access to them. This kind of management is the key ingredient for population control, which should be the very last thing hunters and wildlife managers should be considering for an ecologically extinct species that is so vulnerable to global extinction. BFC is running full-time camps in both the Gardiner and Hebgen Basins, monitoring the buffalo's migrations, and documenting all actions made against them by state and federal agencies. We challenge the physical and mental fences that continue to stem the tides of the country's last continuously wild, migrating buffalo, and we will not rest until these dams break! Roam Free!!------------------------------* Update from the Courts Last Thursday, in Livingston, Montana, a Park County District Court held a hearing on a lawsuit filed by Park County and the Park County Stockgrowers Association, who filed suit against the State of Montana during April 2011 for considering temporary tolerance for wild buffalo in the Gardiner Basin. Buffalo Field Campaign and Western Watersheds Project intervened in this lawsuit on behalf of the buffalo. While the court proceedings revealed some extremely interesting information, the hearings have been postponed until mid-August, in order to give the new Stockgrowers lawyer some time to prepare. The new Stockgrowers lawyer, Alanah Griffith, made some ridiculous assertions. She said that, as a hunter, she had a constitutional right to have all diseased wildlife excluded from Montana. Judge E. Wayne Phillips first asked her if she was saying there was no place for bison anywhere in Montana, to which she answered "yes." When Judge Phillips asked her how her argument accounted for elk (who also carry brucellosis), she couldn't rationally defend her argument other than saying "bison are different." Then Hertha Lund, attorney for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation (another livestock interest group), showed her extreme viewpoints by repeatedly referring to bison as "bio-terrorist agents." The irony is that such extreme viewpoints by these cattle-interest lawyers were attacking the Montana Department of Livestock (named in the lawsuit) to the point where the DOL was actually defending wild buffalo in Montana! Hertha Lund went so far as to say, "this is not about bison, your honor, it's about children contracting undulant fever, for which there is no cure, on the playgrounds." Attorney Tim Preso, representing conservation groups, pointed out that bison have been hanging out on the playgrounds in and around Gardiner for well over a decade, without ever having "threatened" children. The hearings have been rescheduled until August 14 through August 17, 2012. Read an article about the hearing in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. ------------------------------* REPORT: Bison Conservation in a Warming, Drying Yellowstone Rising temperatures are forcing a variety of important and alarming changes on the Yellowstone bison's world. If bison remain confined to currently restricted habitat, their hope of adaption to these changes is subject to serious question. Significant new challenges in the decades immediately ahead will not replace current challenges, but instead will be added to them. Download this new report:Bison Conservation in a Warming, Drying Yellowstone (LINK)by Lance Olsen------------------------------* PLEASE TAKE ACTION! These are some of the wild Yellowstone buffalo that were stolen from the wild and the public last May, and are being held captive by USDA-APHIS for birth control experiments with the pesticide chemical GonaCon. Please help set these buffalo free and prevent APHIS from acquiring more buffalo for use in this harmful and unecessary study! Take action below! BFC file photo by Stephany. Click photo for larger image. Visit the take action links below and please spread the word among your networks of friends. New action items will be posted as such. All actions are current and will be removed when no longer active. Except for public comment periods on official proposals, you can take action on these issues as often as necessary, and our sample letters enable you to edit them into your own words. Thank You for being a voice for wild buffalo!1. DEADLINE APPROACHING - Stop APHIS's Plans to Sterilize Wild Buffalo! Help the buffalo in the photo above, and prevent others from being captured! Please comment to prevent birth control experiments on wild buffalo! Comment period ends March 13, 2012. 2. Write Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk and tell him to stop Yellowstone's plans to capture and slaughter hundreds of wild bison. Tell him also to stop his employees from telling hunters where buffalo are, and to stop being so irresponsible as to include America's 3,700 last wild buffalo in with the 400,000 beefalo in the country! After you write him, give his office a call at 307-344-2002 (LINK)3. Write Letters to the Editor Opposing Montana's Bison Management Harvest. On February 16, the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission approved the controversial expansion of the use of hunters in bison "management," meaning that at any time of year, hunters may be called on to kill bison that migrate across ecologically meaningless lines, under the guise of a "fair chase hunt." Montana claims this is necessary to help rancher interests "tolerate" them.4. Urge Congress to Support Voluntary Retirement of Public Lands Cattle Grazing! This bill will help open public lands habitat for wild bison and other important wildlife species! 5. Volunteer with BFC! Field volunteers are needed now through May. BFC provides room, board, gear, and training. The buffalo and their landscape provide the inspiration! Please join us on the front lines in defense of America's last wild buffalo!6. Help keep BFC strong and effective in the field and at every level of the policy arena. Donations are tax-deductible and go directly to BFC's critical program work. Thank you so much for taking these important actions! Please spread the word by passing these alerts on through all your networks of friends and colleagues!------------------------------* BFC Wish List: Long Johns Needed! Hello Buffalo Family, We wish to thank each and every one of you for your continued support for the wild buffalo and Buffalo Field Campaign. BFC volunteers are maintaining a constant and persistent presence in the field to monitor this year's bison migration and document any actions made against them. Although the winter weather to this point has been mild, we are feeling the effects of the last decade and a half of field patrols in our clothing supplies. If anyone of you could make donations of wool and/or synthetic long johns, our volunteers would start using them immediately. We find ourselves in need of all sizes and weights of wool and/or synthetic long underwear bottoms and tops. Thank you all for past and future donations; your enduring kindness keeps us moving forward for wild bison. For the Wild Ones, Peet Support Coordinator Buffalo Field Campaign Click HERE to view BFC's complete Wish List------------------------------* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week A family group of wild buffalo walk into a blizzard, giving a ghostly appearance. These sacred beings are threatened with global extinction if current mismanagement practices continue. BFC file photo by Stephany. Click photo for larger image. Researchers at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and Biomedical Sciences, and their collaborators, have conducted conservation genetics studies of the wild buffalo of the Yellowstone region, and have discovered that the buffalo are two distinct subpopulations. According to the study, the two populations "have shown genetic differentiation usually seen in populations that have been geographically separated for more than 40 years. In addition, we were also able to identify critical differences in migration patterns between the two subpopulations," said CVM Professor James Derr.Read more here. Have a fact you'd like to share with us? Email it to Stephany.------------------------------* By the NumbersAMERICAN BUFFALO ELIMINATED from the last wild population in the U.S. The last wild population is currently estimated at fewer than 3,700 individual buffalo. Wild bison are currently ecologically extinct throughout their native range in North America. 2011-2012 Total Buffalo Killed: 24 2011-2012 Government Capture: 2011-2012 Government Slaughter: 2011-2012 Held for Government Experiment: 2011-2012 Died In Government Trap: 2011-2012 Miscarriage in Government Trap: 2011-2012 State & Treaty Hunts: 24 2011-2012 Quarantine: 2011-2012 Shot by Agents: 2011-2012 Killed by Angry Residents: 2011-2012 Highway Mortality: 2010-2011 Total: 227 2009-2010 Total: 7 2008-2009 Total: 22 2007-2008 Total: 1,631 * Total Since 2000: 3,996* *includes lethal government action, trap-related fatalities, quarantine/experiments, hunts, highway mortality-----------------------------* Last Words"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you have submissions for Last Words? Send them to bfc-media@wildrockies.org. Thank you for all the poems, songs, quotes and stories you have been sending! Keep them coming!------------------------------ --Media & Outreach Buffalo Field Campaign P.O. Box 957 West Yellowstone, MT 59758406-646-0070bfc-media@wildrockies.orghttp://www.buffalofieldcampaign.orgBFC is the only group working in the field every day in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.KEEP BFC ON THE FRONTLINES Join Buffalo Field Campaign -- It's Free!Tell-a-Friend!Take Action!Find BFC on FaceBook! ROAM FREE! @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@BAY AREA INDIAN CALENDAR, MAR 7, 2012 http://gaduginews.blogspot.com/2012/03/bay-area-indian-calendar-mar-7-2012.html On Myspace you must copy the above link in a new window because they block you from moving from their website to competing websites. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Aim Southern Cal Justice for PATTY DAWSON http://www.facebook.com/groups/72715069104/10150666683629105/@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@Welcome to the World Harmony Run World Harmony Run www.worldharmonyrun.orgSri Chinmoy founded the World Harmony Run in 1987 in an effort to promote international friendship and understanding. Since then the Run has visited more than 140 countries.http://www.facebook.com/groups/LongestWalk/10150593450926569/ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@BP Settlement Sells Out VictimsDeal buries evidence of oil company willful negligenceby Greg Palast for TheMudflatsSunday, March 4, 2012Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Greg Palast led a four-continent investigation of BP PLC for Britain's television series Dispatches. From 1989-91, Palast directed the investigation of fraud charges in the Exxon Valdez grounding for Alaska Native villages. Some deal. BP gets the gold mine and its victims get the shaft. And a few lawyers will get vacation homes—though they won't be so stupid as to build them on the Gulf Coast.On Friday night, the judge-picked lawyers for 120,000 victims of the Deepwater Horizon blow-out cut a back-room deal with oil company BP PLC which will save the lawyers the hard work of a trial and save the oil giant billions of dollars. It will also save the company the threat of exposing the true and very ugly story of the Gulf of Mexico oil platform blow-out.I have been to the Gulf and seen the damage — and the oil that BP says is gone. Miles of it. As an economist who calculated damages for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, I can tell you right now that there is no way, no how, that the $7.8 billion BP says it will spend on this settlement will cover that damage, the lost incomes, homes, businesses and boats, let alone the lost lives — from cancers, fetal deformities, miscarriages, and lung and skin diseases.Two years ago, President Barack Obama forced BP to set aside at least $20 billion for the oil spill's victims. This week's settlement will add exactly ZERO to that fund. Indeed, BP is crowing that, adding in the sums already paid out, the company will still have spent less than the amount committed to the Obama fund.There's so much corrosion, mendacity and evil here in this settlement deal that I hardly know where to begin.So, let's start with punitive damages. I was stunned that there is no provision, as expected, for a punishment fee to by paid by BP for it's willful negligence. In the Exxon Valdez trial, a jury awarded us $5 billion in punitives - and BP's action, and the damage caused in the Gulf, is far, far worse.BP now has to pay no more than proven damages. It's like telling a bank robber, "Hey, just put back the money in the vault and all's forgiven." This case screamed for punitive damages. Here's just a couple of facts that should have been presented to a jury:For example, the only reason six hundred miles of Gulf coastline has been slimed by oil was that BP failed to have emergency oil spill containment equipment ready to roll when the Deepwater Horizon blew out. BP had promised the equipment's readiness in writing and under oath.And here's the sick, sick part. This is exactly the same thing BP did in the Exxon Valdez case. It was BP, not Exxon, that was responsible for stopping the spread of oil in Alaska in 1989. In Alaska, decades ago, BP told federal regulators it would have oil spill "boom" (the rubber that corrals the spreading stuff) ready to roll out if a tanker hit. When the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef, BP's promised equipment wasn't there: BP had lied.And in 2010, BP did it again. Instead of getting the oil contained in five hours as promised as a condition of drilling, it took five days to get the equipment in place (and that was done by the US Navy on orders of the President). This was more than negligence: it was fraud, and by a repeat offender. Now BP is laughing all the way to the bank.And there's more. BP mixed nitrogen into the cement which capped the well-head below the Deepwater Horizon. BP claimed to be shocked and horrified when the cement failed, releasing methane gas that blew apart the rig. BP accused the cement's seller, Halliburton, of hiding the fact that this "quick-set" cement can blow out in deep water. But, in an investigation that took me to Central Asia, I discovered that BP knew the quick-set cement could fail - because it had failed already in an earlier blow-out which BP covered up with the help of an Asian dictatorship. The lack of promised equipment, the prior blow-out — it all could have, should have, come out in trial.Think about it: BP knew the cement could fail but continued to use it to save money. Over time, the savings to BP of its life-threatening methods added up to billions of dollars worldwide. BP will get to keep that savings bought at the cost of eleven men's lives.Other investigators have uncovered more penny-pinching, life-threatening failures by BP and its drilling buck-buddies, Halliburton and TransOcean. These include bogus "blow-out preventers" and a managerial system that could be called, "We-Don't-Care Chaos."As BP had no choice but to pay proven damages and conceded as much, what exactly are the lawyers getting paid for? (Don't be surprised if the fee requests hit a billion dollars.) How could these lawyers let BP walk away on the cheap? The judge picked the lawyers that would settle or try the case for the 120,000 plaintiffs. His Honor side-lined the legal "A-Team," like Cajun trial lawyer Daniel Becnel, guys with the guts, experience and financial wherewithal to go eyeball-to-eyeball with BP and not blink. Welcome to Louisiana, oil colony.So BP walks without the civil punishment that tort law and justice demand, grinning and ready to do it again: drill on the cheap with the price paid by its workers and the public.But stopping a trial denies the public more than the full payment due: it denies us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The President has just opened up the arctic waters of Alaska for drilling, has reopened the Gulf to deepwater platforms, and is fiddling with the idea of allowing the XL Pipeline to slice America in half. So we need to know: Can we trust this industry?Without a trial in the Deepwater Horizon case, we may never get the answer, never get the the full story of the prior blow-outs, the fakery in the spill response system, and other profits-first kill-later trickery that bloats the bottom line of BP and the entire drill-baby-drill industry.***For more on Palast's worldwide investigation of BP and the industry in Central Asia, the Gulf, Alaska and the Amazon, read Palast's new book, Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores at www.VulturesPicnic.org.You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.Support the Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.GregPalast.com@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Wanique Shabazz invited you to "WRFG 89.3 FM FUND PLEDGE DRIVE MARCH 5TH THROUGH MARCH 25TH" WRFG 89.3 FM FUND PLEDGE DRIVE MARCH 5TH THROUGH MARCH 25TH Tomorrow, March 5 at 12:00am Location: WWW..WRFG.ORG / 404 523 8989 / WRFG RADIO 1083 AUSTIN AVE N.E. ATLANTA GA. 30307 Are you attending? http://www.facebook.com/events/155569904563701/-- "When crazy people call you crazy, you know you're sane. When evil people call you evil, you know that you are a good person. When lairs call you a liar, you know that you are truthful. Know who you are and don't let others tell you who you are." - Dave Kitchen