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This afternoon in Las Vegas, President Obama reminded most American citizens that they were descended from immigrants themselves. Obama warned that the issue was an emotional one, but that it was important for Americans to not view it as “us versus them.” “It’s really important to remember our history,” Obama continued. “Unless you were one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else, somebody brought you,” he said

Excerpt: MANTLE OF SHAME: Perpetrators of Violence Against Native American Women. All who work against protecting Native women in the Violence Against Women Act for intentionally maintaining the jurisdictional gap on reservations that allows perpetrators to remain free. Tribal police and courts need statutory authority to hold violent offenders accountable, because Native nations were stripped of that jurisdiction by federal law, but federal and state authorities do not vigorously pursue non-Native predators on tribal lands. One in three Native women is raped during her lifetime; non-Natives commit 88 percent of all violent crimes against Natives and about 67 percent of...

... So Warren's claim to be "part Indian" is correct in mythical terms. Every old-school white Oklahoman is in this regard even if this in nominally not true. But it is not a lie to want to be Indian and to imagine your ancestors were. It is to be free of Europeanism."

The Obama administration has reached a settlement with more than 40 Indian tribes to resolve claims of mismanaged funds by the Department of the Interior. After 22 months of negotiation, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed with tribal representatives for the government to pay more than $1 billion to 41 tribes. Attorney General Eric Holder said the settlements “fairly and honorably resolve historical grievances over the accounting and management of tribal trust funds, trust lands and other non-monetary trust resources that, for far too long, have been a source of conflict between Indian tribes and the United States.” The settlement...

Chickaloon Native Village, a federally-recognized Athabascan Indian Tribal government in Alaska, filed a communication to the United Nations Independent Expert on the human right to water and sanitation in conjunction with her first official visit to the United States, which began today. Chickaloon Village’s submission asserts that the new open-pit coal strip mine in its traditional territory proposed by the Usibelli Corporation would contaminate local drinking water sources as well as rivers, streams and groundwater that support salmon, moose and other animals and plants vital for subsistence, religious and cultural practices. The US Federal Government and the State of Alaska...

RS Insider has been informed that there is a strong push by Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to pass S. 1011, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the “Akaka Bill,” this year with the active support of Senator Murkowski. The bill, sponsored by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), sets up an unconstitutional race based separate government entity for Native Hawaiians The lone Republican co-sponsor is none other than Senator Lisa Murkowski. This is the same Lisa Murkowski who was elected Vice Chairwoman of the whole Republican Conference in June of last year and is supposed to lead...

When the towers of the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2001, Clarence Wolf Guts asked his son to call the U.S. Department of Defense to see if the country needed his code talking abilities to find Osama Bin Laden. Wolf Guts was in his late 70s at the time, so his son, Don Doyle, did not make the call, but said the request personified his father's love of country.

The Obama Administration is weighing whether to sign off on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which could pose a problem to anyone who's purchased property in the United States in the past several centuries. The declaration was overwhelmingly adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 largely by rich, European countries whose indigenous peoples triumphed over the Romans and by poor, non-European countries whose indigenous populations either never were, have long since vanished or are now relatively small and powerless. For a wealthy country like the United States with large numbers of politically connected Indian...

UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - AFNQL and several human rights organizations urge Canada to endorse the Declaration unconditionally KAHNAWAKE, QC, April 23 /CNW Telbec/ - Yesterday, during the 9th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Ghislain Picard, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), intervened, on behalf of the AFNQL, AFN and other human rights organizations, to welcome Canada's first steps toward the endorsement of the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. This joint statement he read from stated: "we request the government to instantly adopt this vital...

<p>Obama Pledges To Help Native Americans: 'You Will Not Be Forgotten'</p> <p>President Obama told Native American tribal leaders this morning that they had a friend in the White House who would work to ensure that the federal government would now meet their needs.</p>

I am certain that they will be fair and objective.

I previously have posted the Oxford English Dictionary definitions and usage histories for natural-born and native born in some long thread about the question of Obama's Constitutional eligiblity to assume the office of President. But that thread was eventually deleted, and I think these definitions should be available for discussion here. Lawyers use the OED because it is sometimes the only way to examine what words meant at the time they were used to craft legislation. So here are the entries for these phrases: Of note to me is that at least some of the usages of native-born and particularly...

This link was sent out by someone from Clintons4Bush and a PUMA for distribution: Native Americans Against Obama - Whispers

A small rural school district in Fort Bend County and a determined mother are tangled in a dispute over hair. Michelle Betenbaugh says her 5-year-old son, Adriel Arocha, wears his hair long because of religious beliefs tied to his Native American heritage. But the leaders of the Needville school district have strict rules about long hair on boys and don't see any reason to make an exception in his case. The dispute illustrates a problem American schools have faced for decades: how to balance individual student rights against rules designed to maintain order and discipline in the classroom. The case...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIxK9HWideQ&feature=user

Native Sweden Volume 61 Number 4, July/August 2008 by Zach Zorich Indigenous Saami are rediscovering their long-lost heritage Smithsonian archaeologist Noel Broadbent and Tim Bayliss-Smith of Cambridge University walk past a line of 1,100-year-old hut foundations at Grundskatan. (Zach Zorich) Smithsonian archaeologist Noel Broadbent offers me a handful of blueberries he has picked from the shrubs that hug the forest floor. I pop them into my mouth. The pulp and seeds are sugary, rough, and slick at the same time. In early September the leaves change color and the berries ripen on Sweden's Hornsland peninsula. Broadbent crouches by the trail...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The village of Aniak says living with Alaska State Troopers in its community is like living with Big Brother. Earlier this month, the Aniak Traditional Council sent a letter to Alaska State Troopers asking that troopers be permanently removed from the Aniak post. The council cites unfair treatment and disregard of tribe members' civil rights as reasons and says it feels the scrutiny is racially motivated. The council complains troopers cite and fine young children for hunting or trapping ptarmigan and rabbits without a license. The say law enforcement officials also place roadblocks and conduct car searches...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq, Dec. 7, 2007 – Army Staff Sgt. Obinna Awusah’s peers say he goes the extra mile to accomplish a mission and always places the needs of others before his own, all with a smile on his face and large sense of patriotism in his heart. Army Staff Sgt. Obinna Awusah’s peers say he goes the extra mile to accomplish a mission and always places the needs of others before his own. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Awusah, a native of Nigeria, immigrated to the United States in 1981 to enroll...

Native American Skull Found at Malibu Construction Site• State Native American Heritage Commission Initiates Process for Handling Find • BY ANNE SOBLE A human skull unearthed at a construction site in the Paradise Cove mobile home park has been officially declared a prehistoric Native American find, and the wheels have been put in motion for the remains to be handled in accord with state law. Workers preparing the foundation for a new mobile home in the beachside complex discovered the skull during routine digging Monday at about 4 p.m. and contacted the sheriff’s department. Capt. Ed Winter of the Operations...

The Minnesota Supreme Court today overturned a sexual assault conviction of a Somali man, who made incriminating statements in English, but was not given his Miranda rights in his native language. Plymouth police arrested Burhan Mohammed Farrah on Nov. 20, 2003, in the parking lot of an apartment complex. A 14-year-old developmentally disabled girl reported being attacking in the same parking lot. An officer read Farrah his rights in English and had him sign a rights waiver written in English. "Do you understand your rights?" the officer asked. "Okay. Little, yeah," Farrah replied. Police proceeded with the interrogation in English...