Free Republic

Are automakers using tribal names honoring those people or appropriated their culture? Learn more about the debate and models under fire. The Washington Redskins NFL team has officially changed its name to the Washington Commanders. So what–if anything–should Jeep do about the Cherokee? What about Winnebago, the Volkswagen Touareg, and Indian Motorcycles? You may be surprised just how many cars are named after tribes. Some of these models are coming under fire as Native Americans ask automakers to reconsider their names. Which cars are named after tribes? The most obvious cars named after Native American tribes are Jeep’s Cherokee and...

A group of California lawmakers on Friday met with tribal leaders in Southern California to analyze how fentanyl is impacting their communities across the state. The Assembly's Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction and Overdose Prevention held its second hearing in Alpine, which is about 30 miles east of San Diego. The group intends to travel around the state to hear how different communities are confronting the deadly drug. Tribes told the panel: They need help. "It is a crisis for us," Viejas Tribal Chairman John Christman told lawmakers. Tribal leaders noted communities have long struggled with addiction to either...

<p>Hunter Biden told his longtime friend and business partner, Devon Archer, that they would get the "last laugh" after Archer said a judge threw out his conviction, according to 2018 text messages reviewed by Fox News Digital.</p><p>Archer, who is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Monday and is reportedly preparing to tell lawmakers about President Biden's interactions with dozens of Hunter's business associates while he was vice president, informed Hunter Biden in a November 2018 text message that the "judge threw out my conviction today."</p>

Native American groups are now joining the call for reparations centuries after hundreds of tribes had land taken from them by 'land-grab universities and colleges.' An estimated 10.7 million acres of land was taken from 250 tribes following the signing of the Morrill Act by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. This law converted tribal lands into initial sites for land-grant higher education institutions in many states. Institutions such as the University of Minnesota, which received 94,440 acres of land, and Cornell University in New York that received more than 987,000 acres are being targeted. Cornell, in total, received land in...

In the Northeast woodlands the most feared and hated nation was the Iroquois — especially the Mohawk and Seneca. The Algonquian speaking nations and Iroquoian speaking Huron were particular enemies of the Iroquois. In the 1640s, the Iroquois unleashed a virtual genocide on the other Nations of the region, one that was not quickly forgotten. The Ojibwa defeated a number of the Iroquois incursions and ran the Sioux out of their forested homeland onto the plains. The Ojibwa (Chippewa and associated bands) occupied more land than any other tribe ever has from Manitoba to Indiana and took over smaller tribes...

The Biden administration will pay $75 in relocation costs to three Native American tribes whose homes are threatened by climate change, the Interior Department announced Wednesday. The Interior Department will provide $25 million each to Washington State’s Quinault Indian Nation and Alaska’s Newtok Village and Native Village of Napakiak. The Alaska communities are the site of severe erosion, which is projected to destroy critical infrastructure in Napakiak by 2030 and within the next four years in Newtok. Napakiak currently loses between 25-50 feet a year to erosion, according to DOI projections. The Quinault Indian Nation is located where the Quinault...

Barbra Streisand is using her voice to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia, saying she shares a strong connection with the country through her familial roots. The “People” singer connected with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday in a Zoom call to offer her support, according to the Ukrainian government’s fundraising platform, UNITED24. The 80-year-old Academy Award winner’s paternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from Ukraine. Given her family’s “Ukrainian roots,” Streisand said she felt “especially moved” by the country’s fight against Russia’s invasion, which began in February. “The capability and courage of the Ukrainian people is an...

[Image] The Taliban’s stated wish to have peaceful relations abroad notwithstanding, the global consequences of competitive militancy are dangerously severe Will Afghanistan again become an exporter of global terrorism? My answer, an emphatic “yes”, will trigger sharp protests. Many perhaps will cite some of what Zabiullah Mujahid, Deputy Minister for Culture and Information and official central spokesman of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (henceforth Islamic Emirate), said at the Taliban’s first official press conference in Kabul on August 17, 2021. The Taliban, he said, wished to have peaceful relations with other countries and no group would be allowed to use...

Two Florida pari-mutuels filed a new motion in federal district court in Washington late Tuesday, asking a judge to block implementation of online sports betting under the Florida tribal gaming compact which is scheduled to begin later this year. The motion, filed by Magic City Casino and Bonita Springs Poker Room against U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, asks a court to enjoin the sports-betting portion of the state’s compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The compact gives the tribe a monopoly over sports betting in the state by allowing wagers to go through an internet server on...

Like most new racial history exercises, land acknowledgments are less about a true reflection of the past than grievance politics and superficial gestures.Leftist media was all aglow on Feb. 23, when Interior Department Secretary nominee Deb Haaland began her testimony before the Senate by stating: “I acknowledge that we are on the ancestral homelands of the Nacotchtank, Anacostan, and Piscataway people.”A Vox article gushed: “It’s likely the first time a Cabinet nominee acknowledged tribal lands upon testifying before the Senate.” An indigenous activist in the Washington Post called it a “rebuke of … the countless politicians and bureaucrats who dedicated...

Why does the Biden Administration hate Native Americans? – On Sunday I wrote about the negative reaction by officials in New Mexico to China Joe Potato Head Biden’s order halting all oil and gas leasing and permitting actions on federal lands for 60 days. The Land of Enchantment’s officials turn out not to be so enchanted with the idea of shutting down the industry that funds about half of the state’s annual budget. Go figure. Well, New Mexicans are not the only ones who are more than a little irritated by the new administration’s rash action. See, the Biden ban...

Tribal clashes have been renewed near the Lebanese-Syrian border and have expanded over the past few days under criticism from Hezbollah and the Syrian regime and accusations of failure to control the issue. The clashes broke out about a month ago between the Al-Ja'far and Al-Jamal tribes. Lebanese media reported that this happened because young men from Al-Jaafar stole a car belonging to a Hezbollah official from Al-Dirani in the border town of "Zita" of "Hermel" area in the Syrian side. The car was immediately spotted in Syria in "Aqrabiya" in the countryside of al-Qusir and held in the detachment...

A friend put me onto an excellent review of the movie Wind River, now on Netflix, about life and crime among the Arapaho Indians on the Wind River Reservation. The movie realistically depicts life on most any Indian reservation today – the poverty, the solitude, the despair. The murders in the movie were committed by drunken whites, but they could have been Indians or Latinos or whatever. For over a decade, I taught high school on the Navajo Reservation, where this movie could have been situated just as honestly. These people live with violence. The guy in Wind River laid...

Native American groups plan to make the Trump Hotel in Washington ground zero in their major protest next weekend against the president's energy and environment policies. Tribal groups will descend Thursday night on the grounds near the hotel to flash projections on its walls, dance, chant and give speeches ahead of Saturday's main event, the People's Climate March. The Indigenous Environmental Network, tribal nations, and aligned groups will hold the pre-protest rally at Trump's flagship hotel.

Two prominent religious leaders in Russia have provoked outrage after suggesting female genital mutilation could help reduce sexual promiscuity. The scandal erupted on Wednesday when Vsevolod Chaplin, a former spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, rushed to the defence of Ismail Berdiyev, a senior Muslim cleric from Dagestan who said “all women” should be subjected to the practice to eliminate sexual depravity. Mr Berdiyev, chairman of the Coordination Centre of North Caucasus Muslims, made the controversial comments when asked to comment on a report into the practice published earlier this week. “All women should be circumcised so there would be...

Across Northwest Wisconsin there has been much discussion about the decline of the walleye population. In response one of Governor Scott Walker’s initiatives has been stocking lakes with larger “extended walleye” versus small fry in the hopes that the larger fish have better chance of surviving and then reproducing. However, Governor Walker in his proposed biennium budget has also proposed cutting some key Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) scientists in the Bureau of Science Services, scientist behind the extended walleye initiative and who also created the modeling for the three-bag limit of walleyes using length as the critical factor...

KENOSHA – The issue of the Kenosha Casino is a hot-button issue in the 2014 race for Wisconsin Governor as Scott Walker (R-Wauwatosa) is yet to make a decision on whether he would approve the casino. However, one union that has been actively campaigning against Scott Walker in Kenosha entered into an agreement with the Menominee Indian Nation. The United Food and Commercial Workers Working Families Advocacy Project, an arm of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, has been active in the State of Wisconsin trying to turn out the vote in the Racine and Kenosha Areas. On September...

The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed with one another within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports. Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East. But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent. The findings are based analysis of the genomes of nine ancient Europeans. Agriculture originated in the Near East - in modern Syria, Iraq and Israel - before expanding into Europe around 7,500 years ago. Multiple lines of evidence suggested this new way...

The one-sided media and the mob aim to beat doubters into silence, but striking back is not the answer. I stayed silent, like a lot of white folks, while events unfolded in Ferguson, Mo. I was flabbergasted at the anger of the protesters and their certainty, which seemed to doubt any narrative but the one presented by the family attorney, who replayed his Trayvon Martin appearance: Brown was “executed in broad daylight.” A young man — not a boy — lay dead in the streets of a quiet suburb that, whatever its flaws, does not fit our usual image of...

Agency officials coached tribes on how to oppose Alaska’s Pebble Mine. Obama has repeatedly urged that science guide environmental decisions, regulators inside the Environmental Protection Agency secretly worked with tribal and environmental activists to preempt a full review of an Alaskan mine and veto the project before the owners’ permits could be considered, internal memos show. Charged with being neutral arbiters, EPA officials instead began advocating for a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in western Alaska as early as 2008, long before any scientific studies were conducted or the permit applications for the project were even filed, ......