Monday, December 30, 2019

Tribal Sovereignty Without Accountability Leads to Abuses Like Disenrollment and Apartheid

Disenrollment is NOT the Indian Way
Readers, some of this was posted as early as June 2007 and it still does apply.  The links tell the story of what's happened at my Pechanga reservation and other reservations.  Feel free to comment, they are open, but more importantly, share far and wide.

Tribal gaming has helped many tribes in CA, come out of poverty, Pechanga included. Many of the Pechanga people aren't well educated and I remember they were so excited when they qualified for a Target credit card. Unfortunately, with success, greed soon follows. They looked at who they could get rid of to increase their per capita. FOLLOW Pechanga's per capita growth here
The money didn't made everyone happy, some needed power.

Monday, December 23, 2019

NOT ALL FAKE INDIANS are CHEROKEE, CHUMASH in CA Has Some

It's not just Iron Eyes Cody, Elizabeth Warren and Andrea Smith that have been exposed as fake Indians, the last two Cherokee...add Mati Waiya to that motley crew.  The Los Angeles Times digs deep into a fake Chumash, who's making big money off the tribe's good name.
  Waiya 2010         (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
For more than a quarter of a century, Waiya has served as one of the most prominent voices for the Chumash, invoking his ancestors’ ties to the land along the Santa Clara River. His nonprofit Wishtoyo Foundation, which runs an education center in Malibu, has raised more than $12 million since 2015, IRS records show.

Pope Francis Could Have Saved MILLIONS of Natives...

Pope Francis
IF only, this pope was around in Junipero Serra's time, the slavery, abuse and murder of Natives might have been reduced.  Conversion by the sword and whip.

Pope Francis told Christian high school students this weekend they should respect people of other faiths and not attempt to convert them to Christianity, insisting “we are not living in the times of the crusades.”


Thursday, December 19, 2019

FAKER Elizabeth Warren To Meet With Tribal Leaders In Oklahoma This Weekend

ELIZABETH WARREN still trying to get her theft of tribal identity behind her. She MUST apologize to the CHEROKEE people, not just Native American tribes.  She CLAIMED CHEROKEE, they never claimed her
This weekend she has invited representatives from 40 Native American tribes to a meeting with her in Oklahoma. The Washington Post reports that about 12 have already said they plan to attend, but the final tally won’t be known until Saturday when the tribes meet to discuss it.

NOOKSACK 306 Disenrollment Started 7 years Ago TODAY



Washington attorney extraordinaire Gabriel Galanda reports on his twitter @ndnlawyer that
Seven years ago today, the disenrollment of the Nooksack 306 commenced. They are still at Nooksack. They still belong. #StopDisenrollment

Their fight continues, from one year after, we posted Michelle Robert's piece:


We've continuously reported on their progress, their trials and tribulation and the abuses by those in power.

Nooksack:  1800-Disenrollment
Abuse of Nooksack Children by Bob Kelly Council
KUOW on Nooksack Playing Roulette with Native Lives
NOOKSACK 306: BIG WIN from IBIA in Washington DC! Disenrollment order VACATED AND REMANDED

The big takeaway?   The Nooksack 306 have been fighting HARD for their rights. THEY have gotten the council, the tribal courts the media to consider their right to belong.  Can the 10,500 others say the same?  Enterprise and Robinson Rancherias have BROUGHT THEIR PEOPLE HOME.  Doing the right thing by the living and for the ancestors.

IF YOU DON'T fight for YOUR rights?  Why should anyone else?


Learn More on Disenrollment, Ethnic Cleansing in Indian Gaming Country at these Links:
Gaming Revenue Blamed for Disenrollment
disenrollment is paper Genocide
CA Tribal Cleansing
Tribal terrorism
TRIBAL TERRORISM includes Banishment
Nooksack Disenrollment

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Disenrollment is a HIGH STAKES BLOOD BATTLE From Ancestor to the Unborn

An early 2004 story on disenrollments at Pechanga and Redding Rancherias in the Chicago Tribune, with AIM's Laura Wass commenting on the abuses


John Gomez Jr. is the great-great-great-great grandson of tribal forebear Pablo Apish, whose 1842 land grant from Mexico is now the site of a casino and hotel operated by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Southern California.
But last March, Gomez and 133 adult relatives were banished by the tribe after a rival faction persuaded tribal leaders to conclude that Apish's granddaughter didn't live on the reservation at the turn of the previous century.

American Indian Movement (AIM) Stands up on Disenrollment and Sovereignty

Excellent news from Indian country.  Laura Wass of the American Indian Movement has issues a press release, where they will explore the issue of Tribal Disenrollment and how tribal sovereignty aren't mutually exclusive.
THANK YOU AIM, We've stood together in Sacramento and this is SORELY needed.  Click on the pictures to enlarge



Excellent news from Indian country.  Laura Wass of the American Indian Movement has issues a press release


Tuesday, December 17, 2019

SoFi Stadium Turns A Blind Eye to Civil and Human Rights Violations by their "FOUNDING PARTNER"

The money is too good to let little things like civil right violations, apartheid and segregation, elder abuse and other human rights violations get in the way.


SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park officially announced Pechanga Resort Casino as its newest Founding Partner of the new 70,000-seat stadium and 298-acre development being built by Rams Owner/Chairman E. Stanley Kroenke. As a part of this expansive agreement, Pechanga Resort Casino, owned and operated by the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, will be the official California casino partner of the Rams, Chargers, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park. Pechanga is the first Southern California-headquartered company to announce a sponsorship with SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Chargers and the Rams, and to be a part of SoFi Stadium,” said Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro. “This isn’t just a Los Angeles stadium, it’s a Southern California stadium, and Southern California has always been and will always be our home. We are especially proud to be able to help local students and people in need with the grants we announced today.”   Unmentioned is that Macarro ordered his jackebooted thugs  to remove my family's children from the tribal school

READ the full story here:  AND....

Read more about Pechanga's actions here:
Pechanga’s corrupt tribal council
Mark Macarro
READ about moratorium  child molester testimony

Monday, December 16, 2019

Banishment from Uintah and Ouray Reservation goes to Federal Court

CREDIT NATE HEGYI / MOUNTAIN WEST NEWS BUREAU

Four women from the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah have turned to the federal court system after they were banished by Ute tribal leadership last year.  We've posted on the Mixed Blood Uintahs Fight for recognition here



Angelita Chegup said the banishment forced her into an early retirement from her position as a grant coordinator for the Ute Indian Tribe. She lost her health and life insurance. Now, unless Chegup has a police escort, she can’t attend traditional ceremonies on reservation lands or visit friends and family. She says she’s missed funerals.
“Our families died,” she says. “I’ve had a few die and couldn’t attend their funerals because of what the council decided.”
The conflict began after the women intervened in two major lawsuits pertaining to the tribe, using the opportunities to assert what they saw as their sovereignty and their right to have a voice at the table. The women argue they have 19th century treaty rights to the Uintah Valley, an oil-rich part of the reservation.
“We’ve been bringing this issue out,” Chegup said. “‘We all need to know our history here.”
That history is at the core of this dispute. Chegup says she’s from the Uintah band of Indians of Utah and that they’ve lived in the valley since time immemorial. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed an executive order granting the band ownership over the land there.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Attorney General William Barr, WHAT is your Policy on Protecting Native Americans from Civil Rights Abuses

Please, send AG Barr a letter you can copy here...I know he's busy, but maybe he will respond, where Sessions, Lynch and Holder had not.

 Image result for William Barr

US Department of Justice
    Attorney General William Barr
    950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
    Washington , D.C. 20530-0001
    Email: askdoj@usdoj.gov
    Fax Number: 202-307-6777

From:
     
Re: Request for Policy Statement


Dear Attorney General Barr,

I am writing this request on behalf of thousands of American Indians who have been removed from the Membership Rolls of Federally Recognized Tribes without due process and in violation of their right to equal protection under the law.

Many of the decisions to terminate tribal membership have been imposed by Tribal Leaders without the approval of the General Membership of the Tribe, in direct contradiction of the governing documents of their respective Tribes, and motivated by racial bias. This racial bias is compounded by the fact that some of these Tribal Leaders have no Indian ancestry themselves, and would not meet the same standards as these disenrolled Indians, who have endured discrimination and bias from American society, and now face bias and discrimination from within their own tribes.

Tribal Leaders act with impunity due to the protections of sovereign immunity. Many of these leaders claim that the Santa Clara Pueblos v. Martinez Supreme Court decision gives them the right to exclude legitimate tribal members and they have done so, causing egregious harm to the Native Americans who lose their tribal citizenship. This harm extends far beyond the loss of membership in a Federally Recognized Tribe. It means denial of eligibility for federal benefits to help finance education, medical treatment, and even emergency assistance to families in need. It means the loss of land rights, burial rights, and access to benefits provided by the tribe. It means a denial of heritage, and the legacy of their ancestors, and the connection to their culture.

I want to clarify the facts regarding the disenrollments that are eerily similar in most cases. Disenrollees committed no crime, and in no way compromised their standing within the tribe. The disenrollees did not suddenly stop being American Indians or change in any way. What changed were the Tribal Leaders and their attitude toward certain citizens of their nation. The Tribal Leaders decided arbitrarily and selectively to exclude certain members and targeted them because of their race. They said these members did not belong to the community, that these members did not have the blood of the band, and that these members should never have been enrolled into the Tribe.

Disenrollees do not receive hearings in many cases. They do not have the opportunity to face their accusers, have representation of counsel, present evidence and arguments in their defense, or to be judged by their peers. Disenrollees do not receive equal protection under the law since they have been singled out and placed under a standard that is not applied equally to other tribal members. Disenrollees face ridicule and derision once their membership is terminated, and they are denied recourse because the Tribal Leaders strip them of citizenship and all their rights under tribal law.

Once disenrollees lose their standing as dual citizens, they must be recognized as U.S. Citizens with the full protections of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, yet the powers and authorities of the U.S. Government have completely abandoned them. Their rights have been abused, their identities destroyed, and their tribal citizenship has been revoked without just cause, but the BIA refuses to interfere. When they attempt to bring the Tribal Leaders to justice, the Courts claim they empathize but have no jurisdiction, and regularly dismiss complaints filed against Tribal Leaders on grounds of sovereign immunity. The Department of Justice has ignored all requests to investigate, and even refused to acknowledge that there have been civil rights abuses.

Now these U.S. Citizens formally request a Policy Statement from the Department of Justice. Does the DOJ recognize the civil rights of U.S. Citizens who are also Tribal Members, and support their quest for due process, and equal protection under the law? Does the DOJ acknowledge that they have a duty and obligation to protect these U.S. Citizens from the abuse of their civil rights, and to investigate the reported violations just as they would civil rights violations in Ferguson , Mississippi or St. Louis , Missouri ?

Please do not once again ignore the thousands of people who have suffered harm through civil rights abuses. They are U.S. Citizens and are entitled to know what policy and guidelines the Department of Justice has in place to enforce civil rights laws on behalf of Native Americans who face discrimination within their own Tribes.

Sincerely,

Monday, December 9, 2019

ABC's STUMPTOWN Brushes with Tribal Disenrollment on Recent Episode



ABC's rookie show STUMPTOWN starring Cobie Smulders had a brief foray into the issue of disenrollment and banishment in it's episode "The Other Woman"

Needless to say, it was more a drive by in this show about a private investigators with ties to the local native american tribe.

The episode had to do with attacks on the tribal chairwoman (played by Tantoo Cardinal of Cree and Metis descent)  and the investigator Dex's ties to her son.  A young tribal member was disenrolled and banished for drug sales.  The tribal leader used sovereignty rights to protect him as he was the nephew of her right hand man.  She simply would have him re-enrolled, realizing mistakes were made.

Disenrollment has been the subject in other shows including LONGMIRE and HOUSE of CARDS   yet none seem to want to delve deeply into the issues, which includes greed, power and abuse

For more on tribal disenrollment, I have over 50 links here

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indian Disenrollments: When Hearsay Trumped Historical Evidence

The Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in Temecula disenrolled 25% of their tribe, including my family, descended from Paulina Hunter.  Pechanga's enrollment committee commissioned noted anthropologist John R. Johnson to research her ancestry.   When he determined that she was indeed Pechanga, they simply didn't considered the report they paid for.
Paulina Hunter 


Here is what they accepted:

Despite the unequivocal proof of Paulina Hunter as an original person of Pechanga Temecula the ROD (record of decison) notes “Raymond Basquez, Sr., Gloria Wright, and Vincent Ibanez (then imprisoned for child sexual abuse) provided affidavits and statements to the Committee contending that Paulina Walla Hunter and her heirs were not historically recognized as Pechanga members.”  ROD at 25. 

The Enrollment Committee does not indicate what evidence supports the positions of Mr. Basquez, Ms. Wright, or Mr. Ibanez or provide any analysis or why their opinions are to be given greater weight than the litany of evidence supporting the membership of Paulina Hunter, or how a previous Enrollment Committee made any error in providing membership to Paulina Hunter’s descendants. 

Unlike the statements provided to support the membership of Paulina Hunter, Mr. Basquez, Ms. Wright, and Mr. Ibanez did not live during the lifetime of Paulina Hunter and have no direct knowledge of her membership in the Tribe or residence on the Reservation.  None of these people are anthropologists or experts in genealogical research.  Their testimony should not have been given greater weight than contradictory affidavits from others evidencing Paulina Hunter’s membership. 

Further, most of Mr. Basquez’s family are members of the Concerned Pechanga People (CPP) and have publicly called for the disenrollment of the Hunter family.  Mr. Basquez clearly has a conflict of interest and his testimony should have been disregarded.  Ironically, Mr. Basquez’s family traces through Maximimio Leyva, whose 1928 application also indicated San Luis Rey instead of Pechanga

Under the Enrollment Committees reasoning Mr. Basquez’s family is not Pechanga either.  Like the letter from Mr. Basquez, Gloria Wright’s letter should have been disregarded because she is a member of the CPP and has publicly stated at a Pechanga general membership meeting that “you people [including the Hunter family] are out voting us and that is why I’m in favor of
disenrollment.

What Pechanga did stinks.

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Is Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro a Political Albatross? His Backing Produces Losers Including Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris

It appears that the only candidate that Mark Macarro backs that can win is HIMSELF. And that after eliminating 25% of his potential opposition votes via tribal disenrollment.   The leader of the Apartheid tribal nation of Temecula can't produce a winner?

His candidates haven't done so well
Andrew Masiel , a loser who was a loser in CA-75 election to Marie Waldron
Hillary Clinton a big electoral loser to (gasp!) Donald Trump
and now his huge endorsement, broadcast to Twitter by Kamala Harris lead NOWHERE, she dropped like a stone:

BREAKING: FAILURE Kamala Harris to DROP OUT OF Presidential Race

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is dropping her bid for the presidency, she told staff in a phone call Tuesday.  She dropped below latecomer Michael Bloomberg. Even Democrats can't stand her

Harris is expected to release a video announcing her decision later on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

GOODBYE, GOOD RIDDANCE, now only WE in CA will suffer with her as Senator....
Decade of Indifference in Indian Country

Monday, December 2, 2019

DUNCAN HUNTER, who stood by while Tribes Abused Civil Rights of Their Members, TO PLEAD GUILTY

 Embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) plans to plead guilty to a charge of misusing campaign funds for personal expenses, the congressman told the TV station KUSI Monday.  SEE YA..



We told you about this in August 2018

California Republican Duncan Hunter and his wife Margaret have been indicted for allegedly using $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses, including dental work and trips to Italy and Hawaii.
To conceal their purchases, the Duncans misclassified purchases in their campaign finance records, labeling expenses as “campaign travel” or “dinner with volunteers” in submissions to the Federal Elections Commission.

Hunter, along with Rep. Chris Collins of New York, were the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in 2016 in his run for the presidency. Both men have now been indicted.

The Justice Department alleges that instances of Duncan illegally using campaign money to pay for personal expenses date back to 2009 and the indictment chronicles them through 2016.

The criminal investigation began in June of 2016, two months after the Federal Election Commission and the San Diego Union-Tribune questioned some of Hunter’s campaign expenses as potentially personal, according to a Justice Department release.

“The indictment alleges that Congressman Hunter and his wife repeatedly dipped into campaign coffers as if they were personal bank accounts, and falsified FEC campaign finance reports to cover their tracks,” said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman in a statement. “Elected representatives should jealously guard the public’s trust, not abuse their positions for personal gain. Today’s indictment is a reminder that no one is above the law.”
The Hunters’ arraignment is scheduled for Thursday. The charges include conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud, falsification of records and prohibited use of campaign contributions.
Hunter’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it appears that his name will be on the ballot in November despite the indictment. Sam Mahood, a spokesman for California's Secretary of State, told Roll Call, “At this point there does not exist a process in elections code for him to have his name removed from the ballot.”
Hunter faces Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar in the fall.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Pechanga's ORAL HISTORY: We Pechanga Indians INCLUDED Paulina Hunter



DELORES TORTUGA in 1915:



It is very clear that Pechanga elder Dolores Tortuga included our ancestor Paulina Hunter in the inclusive "we Pechanga Indians" when she testified in the 1915 probate hearings by saying in response to the examiner's question below:

"Were you acquainted with the deceased Pechanga Indian allottee Paulina Hunter?"

Tortuga responded by saying, "yes, I knew her as a neighbor when WE PECHANGA INDIANS lived on the Pauba Ranch near Temecula, California."

Tortuga's testimony was collaborated by Pechanga elder Jose David Rodriguez who added that he knew Paulina Hunter as a neighbor on the Pechanga reservation.

There is NO DISPUTE that our family has a land patent as Temecula Indians from the U.S. government.

Paulina Hunter, who lived her whole life as a Pechanga Indian was an
official citizen of her Indian Tribe, even if she wasn't a citizen of the United States.
To retroactively take away her Pechanga citizenship leaves the Hunter Family's founding matriarch without any historical citizenship whatsoever. This is nothing less than an assault on the true heritage of the Hunter Family and an abomination of the history of the Pechanga Tribe.  (Jeffredo v Macarro)

Hunter family disenrollment is UNJUST and the sitting tribal should overturn the injustice.