Black Cherokee Freedmen Hater/Abuser Chad Smith Announces Candidacy for Cherokee Nations Principal Chief

Losing to the current principal chief two years ago, Chad Smith announced this morning that he will run for his old job in the 2015 Cherokee Nation elections.

It sets up a rematch between Smith and Bill John Baker, who took office in 2011 after an election that included four recounts, a federal intervention and a re-vote.

“Some will say that it is best that I not run because of those who oppose me,” Smith said this morning during a press conference at the Tulsa Press Club downtown. “I say I run because of those who support me.

Of Baker’s term as principal chief, Smith said it is “promises made, promises broken. The Cherokee people have had enough.”

Serving three terms as chief between 1999 and 2011, Smith opposed voting rights for Cherokee freedmen, the descendants of former slaves. And he led a successful campaign in 2007 to pass a tribal constitutional amendment to exclude them from voting.

But he lost a re-election after federal authorities pressured the tribe to have a second election, counting the freedmen votes.

Sixth Casino Tour Bus Crash in Four Months Injures 13. Should Safety Inspections Be moved UP?

A tour bus heading back from a Southern California Indian casino crashed on a freeway east of Los Angeles early Monday, injuring 13 people, authorities said.

The bus went off the shoulder of an Interstate 10 off-ramp in Baldwin Park shortly after 4:30 a.m., California Highway Patrol Officer Christian Cracraft 

"The bus tried to get on the ramp to exit, but he come too fast. He can't control the bus," passenger Eduardo Magana told KCBS-TV.

Eleven people received minor injuries and two received moderate injuries, the station reported, citing the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Nearly 40 people were on board the bus, which was returning from the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio. They were briefly trapped by a blocked door before rescuers freed them.

There were two crashes last week with 50 injuries between them.  Buses from Valley View Casino and from Pala Casino overturned.

Over 100 Injured in FIVE CA Tribal Casino Tour Bus Crashes in The Last FOUR MONTHS.

It's time for Tribal Casino patrons to look a little closer at their bus transports in Southern California.

With news of the two recent crashes this week that resulted in 1 fatality and over 50 injured, that brings the total of the SIX crashes of casino tour buses in just the past 4 months to over 110 injured. If you ad the Pechanga shuttle bus crash of last year, the total rises above 120 injured.

Makes you wonder if casinos have any concern over whether the companies they charter are safe, doesn't it?

Should casinos require safety records for charters to their casinos?   Should our state be looking into this issue and crackdown on permits?    What do you think?

Fresno State's Castro Appoint Human Rights Violator To Advisory Board. The IDIOTS are in Charge at Fresno State

Apparently, our Institutes of Higher Learning in California don't require reading for their Presidents. Joseph Castro, are you an idiot?   The Chukchansi Leadership deserves the SCORN of Cal State FRESNO.

Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians tribal chairwoman Nancy Ayala was appointed to Fresno State's University Advisory Board by university President Joseph Castro.

The advisory board is a panel of community members who provide advice to Castro about improvements and development of the university.

Castro said that Ayala "will bring a unique and valuable perspective."  YA THINK?  How to get rid of people?  How to not give DUE PROCESS?  How to DEFAULT on your BONDS? How to throw burning logs at old people?  How to get rid of your elders?

READ AND LEARN JOSEPH CASTRO

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/20/3677454/fresno-state-president-appoints.html#storylink=cpy

Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians
Picayune Rancheria
  Chukchansi thuggery
  Nancy Ayala
  Chukchansi disenrollment
Chukchansi Council Dispute
  Morris Reid
  editorial in the Fresno Bee Chukchansi Council dispute
  Read Story for BIA quote here
  REGGIE LEWIS Read the FRESNO BEE STORY
  Chukchansi election contested
  Bedbugs at Chukchansi

Tour Bus Coming From PALA CASINO, Owned by Tribe That Harmed their OWN PEOPLE CRASHES with Multiple INJURIES

BREAKING:   A tour bus apparently going from Pala casino to Westminster has overturned, injuring 20. Developing and Details coming.

UPDATE:  CHP TRAFFIC labels it as FATALITY

UPDATE:  THERE ARE TWO TOUR BUS CRASHES.  There was one on the 15 fwy, just south of the 91 that overturned, reportedly taking passengers home from Pala Casino to Westminster.  A SECOND crash is near the Pala Casino and the 15/76 With a Fatality.  Stay Tuned.

UPDATE:  Crash one on N15 in Corona has had at least 20 transported to the hospital for injuries.

UPDATE: The Southern Crash site is reportedly from a tour bus coming from the VALLEY VIEW CASINO:  One person died, six were seriously injured and 13 others suffered minor injuries when a Valley View Casino tour bus overturned on south Interstate 15 just south of state Route 76 near Bonsall Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

What the Bureau of Indian Affairs IGNORES in failing to Protect Native Americans From their OWN TRIBE

I culled this from the Nooksack 306 Facebook page. It's a rundown on what the Nooksack Tribe is stealing/denying/taking from those they are working to disenroll. It denotes lack of DUE PROCESS, Penalties without judgement, Termination of Employment and impending loss of homes. The BIA should be protecting Native Americans from all this.  Sally Jewell and Kevin Washburn are abdicating their responsibility.   Sen. Maria Cantwell should be holding hearings in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Tomorrow, December 19, 2013, marks the one-year anniversary of the date the Kelly Faction started this hate-filled disenrollment effort against us. Over the last year:

• At least four members of us have been automatically disenrolled, without any hearing at all, despite the Kelly Faction’s prior promise in open court, and a Tribal Court Order, that “no person will be disenrolled prior to the completion of the meetings before the Tribal Council” – those meetings have not even commenced as a result of a Tribal Appellate Court litigation stay.

• At least thirteen members of us have been fired from our jobs with the Tribe by the Kelly Faction, without cause, or recourse.

• 64 Nooksack of our children were humiliated when the Kelly Faction denied them a $275 school supply stipend, merely because they are “proposed for disenrollment.”

• All of us were denied $250 in Christmas support, for the same shameful reason.

• Some of us have been denied Tribal public housing, for that very same reason, and 28 expect to have the homes we own taken by the Kelly Faction if we are terminated.

• 37 of our Tribal Elders face termination and a loss of health care and housing.

• The Kelly Faction has refused to hold a single public meeting of our Tribe, despite clear Tribal Constitutional requirements for (1) regular meetings of the entire Tribe on the first Tuesday of each month and (2) multiple special meetings of the Tribal Council requested by Tribal Councilpersons and various Tribal members.

• The Tribal Court Judge has dismissed two lawsuits brought by our family, believing that the Kelly Faction cannot be sued for any constitutional or civil rights violations as a mater of the Tribe’s sovereign immunity; the Judge has otherwise refused to stop any illegal behavior on the part of the Kelly Faction.

• U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, as federal trustees to us and all enrolled Native Americans, have not even acknowledged receipt of a petition signed by 900 Indians in Washington State, requesting federal intercession on our behalf.
We wish these circumstances of hate and genocide on nobody.

NOOKSACK Tribe cites "missing" Ancestor AS Grounds for Disenrollment

Outside the courthouse – a small, portable building that resembles a mobile home – about two dozen people wait out a court hearing underway inside. Their tribal membership hangs in the balance.

The Nooksack tribe’s disenrollment process started nearly a year ago, and people here have felt the sting as outcasts.

Enlarge image

Credit KUOW Photo/Liz Jones

Linda Hart, Nooksack elder who faces disenrollment: "You find out who your friends are."

“You find out who your friends are,” Linda Hart says outside the courthouse. 

“I’d come up here one time, and told them I wanted dental work,” Daniel Rapada says. “They wouldn’t even see me.”

“Matter of fact, even at a gathering, sometimes they won’t sit by you,” Lois Gladstone says.

Hart, Rapada and Gladstone are Nooksack elders and among 306 members targeted by tribal officials for disenrollment. The cuts would reduce the 2,000-member tribe by about 15 percent, and would likely be the largest disenrollment ever in Washington state.

Without tribal standing, the members stand to lose fishing rights plus access to health care and housing programs, among other benefits. Similar disenrollment battles have increased across Indian Country in recent years.

Enlarge image

Credit KUOW Photo/Liz Jones

Daniel Rapada, a Nooksack elder: “I’d come up here one time, and told them I wanted dental work. They wouldn’t even see me.”

In February, the Nooksack Tribal Council sent letters to the 306 members, citing documentation errors with their proof of ancestry.

"I was really mad," Rapada said. "I mean, I was ready to come here and chew on somebody."

Most of the 306, as they call themselves, enrolled in the tribe in the 1980s, about a decade after the tribe gained federal status. Their Nooksack ancestor, upon whom they based their enrollment, is a woman named Annie George. However, in the disenrollment letters, the tribe says George is missing from a 1942 census that is used to verify lineage.

Read the Rest of The Article

Disenrollment as GENOCIDE A Year in the Life of the Nooksack 306 -

We MUST tell the stories of what has happened to us.   We MUST share the details of the corruption, the shameless theft of our rights.   Here, Michelle Roberts writes about the Nooksack 306, who are currently being disenrolled by the Nooksack Tribe.

Genocide: A Year In The Life of The Nooksack 306 

By Nooksack Tribal Councilwoman Michelle Roberts

I am the great granddaughter of Annie George, the daughter of ancestral Nooksack Chief Matsqui George. I belong to the Nooksack Tribe, and last year I was elected to our Tribal Council by the Nooksack People.

Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of the date when disenrollment against my extended Nooksack family and I—known as the “Nooksack 306”— began. Since December 19, 2012, we have been persecuted in ways unimaginable anywhere else in America.

I live on the Nooksack Reservation, which is situated in Whatcom County, just east of Bellingham, in Northern Washington. I have 3/4 American Indian blood. I am also part Filipino-American by way of my grandfather. But because of my “Indipino” mixed blood, Nooksack Tribal Chairman Bob Kelly proclaimed in recent Secretarial election propaganda that my family and I have “weaker ties to Nooksack than the rest of us who are currently enrolled here.” (Incidentally, Bob Kelly has been adopted into our tribe; he has zero Nooksack blood.) In other words, we have been blatantly discriminated against, through tribally funded mailings and a federal taxpayer funded election.  Meanwhile, federal officials, ranging from local BIA Superintendent Judy Joseph to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, have turned a blind eye to the illegal use of a federal election as a weapon of discrimination and genocide. That simply would not happen anywhere else but in Indian Country.

I have sued in Nooksack Tribal Court for racial discrimination under the Nooksack Constitution Equal Protection Clause and for misuse of tribal funds. But the Tribal Court Judge dismissed my claims, citing Bob Kelly and his Council faction’s ability to assert the Tribe’s sovereign immunity from any suit. That resulted from recent changes that they made to the Nooksack judicial code, to shield themselves from the very civil rights claims that they foresaw my family and I bringing against them. To date I have not been able obtain any legal recourse at all for violation of my civil rights. That simply would not happen anywhere else in America.

This summer, I was abruptly fired from my day job as the Human Resource Manager at the Nooksack River Casino, where I had worked for six years. I was fired simply because I was “an employee at will.” Twelve other members of my family have likewise lost their tribal jobs this year. In reality, I was fired by Bob Kelly and his Council faction because I have spoken out against the injustices that my family and I have suffered. I also cannot seek any legal recourse for blatant workplace retaliation. That simply would not happen anywhere else but in Indian Country.

During back-to-school season this fall, several of my nieces and nephews and other youth in our family from ages 3 to 19, were denied a $275 schools supply stipend by Bob Kelly and his Council faction—simply because they are among the 64 Nooksack children “proposed for disenrollment.” Our children were humiliated when they were denied financial aid for new backpacks and supplies, only to see all of their friends with new things for the first day of school. If that were not awful enough, this month our families’ holidays were dampened when Bob Kelly and his Council passed a Resolution that likewise denied us and our children $250 in Christmas support because we are “subject to pending disenrollment proceedings.” That simply would not happen anywhere else in America.

For the last year, I have not been notified of various Tribal Council meetings, despite my elected seat on the Council. At the meetings that Bob Kelly and his Council faction have told me about, he has ordered me to leave them due to unspecified “conflicts of interest” relating to the pending disenrollment process against me and my voting constituents. Or I have been allowed to participate by conference call, only to be muted by Bob Kelly from his off-reservation home when I spoken from my heart. That simply would not happen anywhere else but in Indian Country.

Over the last year, I have been unsuccessful in my formal pleas that Bob Kelly and Council his faction convene some form—any form—of public meeting of the Nooksack People. Still, there has not been a democratic meeting at Nooksack this entire year. That despite the clear requirements of our Constitution that the Chairman at least convene an open tribal meeting of the Nooksack People on the first Tuesday of every month. A government shutdown for an entire year – that simply would not anywhere else in America, not even Washington, DC.

On two occasions this year, nearly 200 enrolled members of my Tribe—some proposed for disenrollment, some not—have signed a petition for the recall Bob Kelly, due to his failure to honor the Nooksack Constitution or any notion of democratic government. On both occasions, he and his Council faction simply refused to allow the recall petitions to go to a vote of the Nooksack electorate. They suppressed the Nooksack People’s right to vote, twice. That simply would not happen anywhere else but in Indian Country.

Meanwhile, we possess federal probate records, expert opinions from two Ph.D. anthropologists, recorded sacred oral testimony from one of our deceased matriarchs, and even a 1996 legal opinion and enrollment record from the Tribe’s lawyer, all of which all makes clear that we are, and have always been, properly enrolled Nooksack. But we have no place to go with this proof. That is because over the course of the entire last year, Bob Kelly and his Council faction have deliberately denied my family and I—and really, our entire Nooksack Tribe—access to any political process, access to any electoral process, access to any judicial process, and access to any other forum where Indian democracy or due process might reign.

That simply would not happen anywhere else in America.

Tribal Leaders Don't Trust Lobbyists At Tribal Nations Conference. Can Holly Cook Macarro Only Wear ONE HAT?

Holly Cook Macarro, a Principal at IETAN CONSULTINGis miffed at a story in Indian Country Today about some tribal leaders that don't trust that she can attend a national conference as a member of the Red Lake Ojibwe tribe and not use some of her time lobbying for her clients.  Holly's firm gets $240,000 to lobby for her husband's tribe.  Do YOU believe she wouldn't mention his interests, even if he was there?

Many tribal leaders wanted Obama to put intense pressure on Democratic senators, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to drop their bids to use a Carcieri fix to limit Indian gaming, as these tribal leaders maintain that the two issues are separate—land-into-trust is not just about gaming, after all.  (OP:  Limited gaming means tribes can protect their market share at the expense of tribes who would benefit by gaming)

At the same time, some tribal lobbyists thought the best strategy was to bargain with Congress in ways that would protect some of the lobbyists’ Indian clients from competition from other tribes. In a flurry of negotiations with Congress in late-2012, those lobbyists began to add new ideas to the table. What if off-reservation gaming were limited just in some areas, like California, asked one tribal lobbyist—could that gain favor with the rest of Indian country? Ietan Consulting, founded by Larry Rosenthal, former legislative director for U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.),  and Holly Cook Macarro, wife of Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians Chairman Mark Macarro was one of the lead lobbying firms pushing for a Carcieri compromise. The firm represents California tribal interests that would benefit from a narrowing of Indian gaming.

So, NOT ONLY is Pechanga not satisfied with stealing per capita from members they disenrolled, they want to keep other tribes from gaining gambling.  Pechanga has stolen over $400 MILLION from terminated members.

Sources say Rosemary Morillo, chairwoman of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, couldn’t believe what had happened. Apparently, she felt tribal lobbyists with their own interests had been able to have more of an influence with the federal government than the elected tribal leaders of sovereign nations. And it had hurt Indian country’s economic and sovereign interests.

Sources have said that after the deal was dead, Morillo expressed her exasperation toward tribal lobbyists on a conference call set up by national Indian organizations with tribal advocates from around the country to assess the Carcieris ituation. She said they should be ashamed of themselves for their role in the failed Carcieri fix dealings. Their work had caused Indian country to lose its unity on an issue that should be a no-brainer, she said, since all tribes should be treated equally on land-into-trust matters.

Welcome to REAL WORLD Madame Chairman.  Other tribes don't see you as brothers, they see you as COMPETITION.  You are feeling the flea bites from the DOGS you lay down with.

More from Morillo:  Morillo thinks that if important Indian policy is going to pass Congress anytime soon, tribal leaders need to be present at such meetings.

“I think tribes need to take the time to send elected tribal leaders,” she says. “We’re making history here—when that invitation is extended, that’s a gesture that opens up a lot of doors. We need to make sure the doors that are opened help the tribal citizens, not the lobbyists.”

In an email that went out to many prominent Indian Leaders, Holly says:

Per Red Lake Tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain, Jr., I was appointed to attend the conference as a Red Lake Band member representative, not as a lobbyist.  Rob Capriccioso's off-base attempt to paint my attendance as anything other than as a representative of the Red Lake Nation is wrong.   I am concerned that Michael O. Finley, as an official of the National Congress of American Indians, would support a position that seeks to dictate who tribes can choose as their representative to a federal meeting.  Neither other Tribal leaders, the White House, nor the BIA should dictate who tribes choose to attend the Tribal Nations conference - that is an act of a sovereign nation and worthy of respect.  As I noted to Rob Capriccioso when he contacted me regarding this article, there were many non-elected tribal official attendees at the Tribal Nations conference.  VAWA activists, Law & Order Commission members, and many others - yet he chose to ignore those facts, which should have been included to provide Indian country with an accurate story.

Funny, it was HER HUSBAND, MARK MACARRO's Tribe, The Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians that trampled on the sovereignty of the Ramona Band at a TASIN meeting, pulling out a Ramona Tribal employee, who was a terminated Pechanga Member and asking him to LEAVE the Pechanga Reservation as he had been banished.  Except they forgot to notify him.

Read about it HERE:  http://www.originalpechanga.com/2008/11/at-tasin-meeting-last-week-pechanga.html

Read the response to the banishment here:   http://www.originalpechanga.com/2010/05/airros-john-gomez-jr-responds-to.html

IETAN works for three tribes that have harmed THOUSANDS of Native Americans via disenrollment.  If you can't trust them not to harm their own tribal members, do you think you can trust their lobbyists?

Should all sovereign tribes be treated equally?? 

 http://www.originalpechanga.com/2013/10/treating-sovereign-tribal-nations.html

 

Mega Millions Jackpot Reaches $586 MILLION. Almost What has been stolen by Tribes from Disenrollee's Per Capita!

The Mega Millions jackpot has been boosted to $586 million, a jump from the earlier projection but still trailing a $656 million prize last year that was the largest in U.S. history.    

The amount stolen from Native Americans by their OWN TRIBES has surpassed that number.  Well over $400 MILLION from Pechanga alone.

What would YOU do with your winnings?  I know we'd help our families, would you BUY a politician or two like the corrupt tribes have?

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/12/15/3669632/mega-millions-jackpot-climbs-toward.html#storylink=cpy

Indian Country Today: Loss of Citizenship via Disenrollment is a DISASTER

What is happening at Nooksack is making the national stage.  It helps those who have been victims of corrupt activities to keep bringing their stories forward.   Pechanga, Chukchansi, Redding, Pala, Cherokee Freedmen all have disenrollment stories, and they are not alone. Moratoriums have harmed hundreds, and loss of federal recognition, like the Mixed Blood Uinta Utes are stories that also need to be learned.

Read this opinion piece from Indian Country Today:

Prof. David Wilkins is dismayed by language chosen by the Chief Judge of the Nooksack Tribal Court in a disenrollment decision.

His dismay is directed not at the holding of the case, which supported the sovereign authority of the Nooksack Nation to be stupid, but to the Chief Judge’s assertion that tribal enrollment is of less legal import than loss of US citizenship.

Nowhere in Prof. Wilkins’s critique of the opinion does he touch the essential argument the judge made: “While the impact on the disenrollee is serious and detrimental, it is not akin to becoming stateless.”

I propose a thought experiment. Suppose that the persons subject to disenrollment by the Nooksacks had US citizenship not by the right of birth set out in the Fourteenth Amendment, but rather a derivative citizenship based on the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

Suppose that upon disenrollment, US passports had to be surrendered, Social Security numbers cancelled. Would that not be at least a different kettle of fish, if not two seasons ofThe Deadliest Catch?

Disenrollees would be insulted and diminished. They may have lost affirmative action consideration if it existed anymore. They would have lost any benefits that flow though membership in the Nooksack Social Club—for so it will render itself by its own actions.

Disenrollees are not stateless persons in two senses. The first is that they still have passports and the consular rights those passports confer. They still have Social Security cards and access to the anemic social safety net those cards confer.

The second is that they are still citizens of the Nooksack Nation to the degree it still exists, as the Cherokee Nation does, as the Six Nations do, as the Navajo Nation does…I am not fully informed how many tribal nations survive, but I’m certain that it’s a substantially smaller number than can be found in 25Code of Federal RegulationsPart 83.

You don’t get your tribal citizenship from the US government.

Either something of your tribal identity, your peoplehood, survives as more than family folklore or it does not.

 

Three Chukchansi Leaders Act Like THREE STOOGES. WHICH ONE IS MOE?

The FRESNO BEE continues to shine the spotlight on the corruption and infighting at Chukchansi.  It's amazing that the three so-called "leaders" can't see how stupid they are.  How does that dead golden goose taste?   Like it has bedbugs in it?   Nancy AYALA is accusing Lewis of TREASON against the tribe now.   Really, you stupid idiot?  And you were part of the faction that destroyed your own tribe?    Nancy is not smart enough to be LARRY.... so can we call her Curly?

Lewis, Ayala and Reid, Which one is MOE?

The three leaders vying for control of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians — and its $9 million-a-month haul from its Madera County casino — have undeniably different styles.

Reggie Lewis, 62, conducts business from a high-rent, north Fresno office that has a sweeping view of the San Joaquin River. He has control of the tribe's multimillion-dollar bank accounts.

Nancy Ayala, 46, holds meetings in a windowless portable building near the tribe's Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino, which opened in 2003 along Highway 41 near Coarsegold. Ayala controls the daily casino profits, which she no longer deposits in the tribe's bank accounts for Lewis to use.

Morris Reid, 72, keeps tabs on the tribe from his Fresno home near Saint Agnes Medical Center. He has neither access to the bank accounts nor the casino profits.

While all three agree that in-fighting is bad for business, none of them are willing to step aside.

 The power struggle has led to charges — and counter charges — of embezzlement that, in Ayala's estimation, will put the casino in bankruptcy within a year if the leadership issue isn't resolved.

Now, Lewis has upped the ante, said Ayala, who described the dispute as "a chess match."

For years, Lewis opposed the North Fork Rancheria Band of Mono Indians' plan to put a swanky casino resort along Highway 99 north of Madera because it would cut into the Chukchansi tribe's profits.

As recently as May, Lewis sent out a newsletter to tribal members voicing his opposition. But now, Ayala said, he is trying to cut a deal with the North Fork tribe "for his own personal gain."

"He's a traitor. He's not only selling out his mother, he is selling out the entire tribe," she said.


Read the REST OF THE STORY HERE