In an attempt to buy Native American votes to help him squeak through in certain key swing states, Bush is dangling homeownership before the tribes. Buzzers and bells should be going off 1. Fannie Mae has a history of discriminating against minorities. The sudden burst of "affirmative action" is pure politics - once the Native American vote is secured, those policies will return and so will the foreclosures and credit "branding." 2. Only Native American are being offered this deal. Why? Bush sees the Native American vote buy as "cheap" - Native Americans represent just 1% or less of the population - a small fraction of the US minority population. 3. The homeowner deal is for reservation property - property that, in some states, the Bush admin. has hoped to help corporations exploit. And this can be done by selling off one foreclosed lot at a time. Some tribes (e.g. Crows) already have foreseen that contingency and have taken steps to avert this danger.

ENN News: "A court-appointed investigator has resigned from the multibillion-dollar lawsuit by American Indians against the Interior Department, contending the government wanted him off the case after he found evidence that energy companies got special treatment at the expense of impoverished Indians. Alan Balaran, the special master in the case, contends his findings could have cost the companies millions of dollars and that department officials with ties to the industry 'could not let this happen.' Justice has been much too long in coming for the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans... Billions of dollars are at stake,' according to the resignation letter made public Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. The Interior Department [of course!] accused Balaran of 'concocting preposterous charges.' "

Leaders of Native American organizations have converged on Washington to protest the nomination of William G. Myers III to a lifetime seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Myers has a long history of failure to protect federal trust lands while serving as solicitor of the U.S. Dept of the Interior. Myers has spent much of his career as a lawyer and lobbyist for mining and grazing interests. "No other nominee has acted with such blatant disregard for the law and for our sacred places," said NCAI President Tex G. Hall. "We dread to think what damage Myers could do as a judge for the appeals court that overseas nine Western states containing scores of Indian reservations. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decides the lion's share of cases impacting Indian Country, and houses more than one hundred Indian tribes, millions of Indian people, and millions of acres of public lands."

"Gilbert Badoni remembers how Navajo uranium miners took their water bottles into the mines and filled those bottles with radioactive water for their wives to prepare formulas for their babies. 'The United States government knew all along the uranium mining would kill Navajos, the government got away with it,' said Badoni, among Navajos organizing opposition to further uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. As a child, Badoni and his family lived in a summer shade house in a western Colorado uranium mining camp, where Navajos were used as guinea pigs during the Cold War. Badoni's father, Harry Badoni, died of cancer after working in the uranium mine at Slit Rock, Colorado. Now, Gilbert's mother, sister and two brothers who lived at the camp have cancer. Gilbert has lung disease.... Although white miners at Eldorado mine wore protective clothing and were required to shower off the uranium dust after every shift, Native laborers referred to as 'coolies,' were never told of the dangers."

"How do we know what is real, when the government has hidden the standard from us? What do we do when we are given the choice of unquestioning trust or to be 'cast into that burnin' lake of fire in hell, 'Texas style'? I'm confused! [The mainstream media] presents the image of a populace blowing kisses and throwing rose petals at the footsteps of their adored leader; all America celebrating with one big 'ole country barbeque, running around sniffing each other's asses for oil wells, beating the piss out of a few queers and otherwise frolicking in a red-neck paradise. Atlanta Constitution runs a poll with a question simply put, 'do you think the government had foreknowledge of the events of 9/11?' and out of 23,125 responders 52% believe in a government that deliberately let its citizens die. How do you fall in love with the sinister?" So asks an American citizen.

Under Clinton, the U.S. government apologized for America's overthrow of Hawaii's Queen Lili' uokalani in the late 1800s. It was also proposed that Native Hawaiians be given the same sovereign status as most Native American tribes. Now, under Bush, a real-estate hungry non-native man is suing to overturn the special leases that ensure native Hawaiian islanders -- already plagued by poverty -- an affordable place to live. Patrick Barrett figures that with the Bush Supremes presiding, he'll be able to boot the natives off their property, no problem, and thereby snatch away the few shreds of security the U.S. has granted these people. This would be like the good old days of the 'Trail of Tears.' We find it interesting that Shrub's big argument against the patients' rights bill is that it will encourage lawsuits. But we've never seen anything as outrageous as the lawsuits now spewing forth from special interests hoping to be granted a 'sure thing' hearing by the Corporate Supremes.