Judge Rules in Cobell Litigation :(

After twelve long years of seemingly endless litigation, DC District Court Judge James Robertson finally gave a monetary amount to the betrayal of the Individual Indian Money account holders who have lost by most honest assessments billions and billions of dollars in mismanaged trust funds. The number that the Judge settled on was $455,600,000.00 - not even close to one billion dollars and a fraction of what the plaintiffs were seeking ($47 billion dollars). Once again the federales have screwed the Native people of this land, many of whom have died during the last twelve years of drawn-out litigation while the government kept delaying hearings, requesting postponements and otherwise attempting to wear the plaintiffs down and drain their meager resources so that they would settle for an amount far lower than what the government knew that they owed. Elouise Cobell (the lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit), not unexpectedly, disagrees with the ruling:
"I am disappointed, to say the least," said Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana. "We believe we presented a strong, compelling case that individual Indian trust beneficiaries are entitled to much more than the government's admitted mismanagement of our trust monies over the past 120 years."

Once again the federal government has failed to live up to its legal obligations as trustee for the Native beneficiaries in whose best interest it promised to act, and it has been exonerated by the courts of the same lying, cheating system for its failures.

If you would like to read the ruling that settled on the paltry amount that the government owes the Native people of this land, please click here.

If you'd like to see the complete history of this case, please visit Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kemthorne.

If you would like to read an interview by Amy Goodman of Elouise Cobell - see: Federal Judge Rules US Government Owes Group of Native Americans $455 Million for Unpaid Royalties on Drilling for Oil and Gas.

Could Nuance Undo the Dems?

There are several large differences between the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate for president, but the difference that has me worried at the moment can be summed up in one word - "nuance." Senator Barack Obama speaks in thoughtful, nuanced statements, Senator John McCain speaks (when he manages to speak at all :) ) in sound bites, slogans, phrases that once dissected are revealed as meaningless. The former takes careful listening and some thought while the latter is easily digested and more importantly easily repeated. This observation may help to explain why McCain is gaining in the polls during a year when even GOP pundits admit that the race is the Democrats for the taking. The current resident of the White House has lower poll numbers than any president has had before, the nation is sick and tired of sending our money and young men and women to Iraq and want that war to end. Here at home, Americans are weary of rising gas prices, and the concomitant rises in grocery and utility bills, never mind increasing foreclosures, bank failures, and job losses. In a word, the economy sucks. But this is not the greatest threat to the Obama presidential candidacy - it is rather the Harriets of the country who are still sitting at home licking their wounds, still playing the role of the wounded woman, the victim, if you will, of a sexist press corps, of unfair coverage, all the while ignoring the very real reasons why their candidate (Hillary Rodham Clinton) in not the presumptive nominee.

Why in all this mess would anybody do anything to continue this madness? I have a few choice words for the Clintonistas who have morphed into PUMAs (Party Unity My Ass), if you think sitting this one out will keep your hands clean, you haven't thought very far ahead. In a country in which the GOP is actively looking to disenfranchise any voter who may cast a vote for a Democratic candidate, choosing to stay home on election day will not only play right into the hands of the GOP, but will also help continue the madness and disastrous policies that have so severely damaged our country and our place in the world over the last eight years. I don't care whether you fancy yourself as Switzerland (and if you were in fact Swiss I can almost guarantee that you would be an Obama supporter) and claim to share their neutral stance; I must remind you that you live here in America and there is NOTHING NEUTRAL ABOUT THIS COMING ELECTION! Each and every vote will count only if each and every vote is cast and recorded accurately. That is a noble goal and one that we won't be able to achieve if we have good Democrats sitting on the sideline holding their noses or worse sitting at home on their superior couches, telling themselves the lie that there is anything meritorious about not voting on November 4th. So get off your non-unified party asses and head to the polls on November 4th and do the right thing for your party and your country. The future of the world and the history that we will make on that day demand nothing less!

Sometimes a Picture (or a Cartoon) is Worth a Thousand Words