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Freezing Your Asterisk Off: Farmers’ Almanac Predicts Cold, Cold Winter

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

With yet another heat wave set to descend before summer releases its grip, the last things we may want to think about are puffy coats and long johns.

But that is what’s in store for winter 2013–14, according to predictions from the Farmers’ Almanac released officially on Monday August 26.

“The ‘Days of Shivery’ are back!” proclaimed a statement from the Farmers’ Almanac (not to be confused with The Old Farmer’s Almanac). “For 2013–2014, we are forecasting a winter that will experience below average temperatures for about two-thirds of the nation. A large area of below-normal temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to the Appalachians, north and east through New England. Coldest temperatures will be over the Northern Plains on east into the Great Lakes. Only for the Far West and the Southeast will there be a semblance of winter temperatures averaging close to normal, but only a few areas will enjoy many days where temperatures will average above normal.”

Further, the Southern Plains, Midwest and Southeast will have more precipitation than normal, the Almanac’s prognosticators said. This means a plethora of snow for the Midwest, Great Lakes and parts of New England. There will be mixes of rain and/or snow just south of that, in southern New England, southeastern New York, New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic region, the statement said. Uncharacteristically, the Pacific Northwest may be drier than usual.

“Significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone,” the Almanac said, predicting especially heavy winter weather during the first 10 days of February 2014—meaning that the Superbowl, scheduled to be played outdoors at the MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey, may be more of a “Storm Bowl,” as Almanac managing editor Sandi Duncan told the Associated Press.

“This particular part of the winter season will be particularly volatile and especially turbulent,” the statement said.

As it has since 1818, the Almanac makes predictions by triangulating the positions of the planets, sunspot activity and cycles of the moon.

Trafficking Native Children: The Seamy Underbelly of U.S. Adoption Industry

Suzette BrewerTulsa attorney Don Mason, a member of the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma — Suzette Brewer
Tulsa attorney Don Mason, a member of the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma

By Suzette Brewer, ICTMN

Jeremy Simmons was heartbroken, baffled and confused. He had been living with his girlfriend, Crystal Tarbox, in Mannford, Oklahoma, when she became pregnant in August, 2012. But in March of this year, he says she moved out when she was seven months pregnant. Without a trace, she was gone.

For the next two months, Simmons, 27, searched for Tarbox, who was 23 at the time and already the mother of two small children. Worried about her and their unborn baby, he says he asked everyone he knew about her condition and whereabouts, and tried every possible means to find her. Her relatives, who are members of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, were also unaware of what was about to happen.

But Tarbox, like Christy Maldonado, the birth mother of Baby Veronica, had disappeared, refusing any contact or financial help from Simmons. As Baby Veronica’s case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, was being discussed at the U.S. Supreme Court, Simmons was driving around northern Oklahoma looking for his pregnant girlfriend, completely unaware of what was transpiring without his knowledge or consent.

RELATED: The Fight for Baby Veronica: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and all Baby Veronica coverage.

Baby Veronica Case: Capobianco Expert Recants Damning Report on Father

It was not until two days after his daughter, Deseray, was born in May that Simmons, who is non-Indian, learned the truth from the baby’s maternal grandmother. Janet Snake called Simmons to alert him that his daughter had been put up for adoption and pleaded with him to find a lawyer to put a stop to it.

Simmons contacted Tulsa attorney Don Mason, who is not only a battle-hardened veteran family law practitioner, but also a member of the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma. He serves as chief judge in their the Delaware Tribal Court in Bartlesville and is also chief public defender in Pawnee Nation Tribal Court in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Mason is an expert on the Indian Child Welfare Act and its application in Oklahoma, which has 39 tribes and the second largest tribal population in the United States. On his client’s behalf, he filed a suit, Simmons v. Tarbox, to halt the finalization of the adoption and bring Deseray back to Oklahoma from South Carolina, where she has been living with an adoptive couple who do not have the legal authority or a court order to retain her.

“My client was cut off, lied to, left out of the loop, and never received any notice at all regarding the whereabouts of his child and the intent to remove her from the state of Oklahoma to South Carolina in this illegal adoption. His parental rights have been completely denied and abrogated by all of the attorneys and their clients in this case,” says Mason. “The only reason I got involved was because Deseray’s Indian grandmother called him to give him the heads up and asked him to intervene.”

Tarbox’s family concurs that they were also caught off-guard, having been kept in the dark about her plans to give the child up for adoption without first notifying Simmons or seeking placement with another family member. “We had no idea what was going on and we were not notified that she had even had the baby until May 15, which was two days after she was born,” says Jana Snake, Tarbox’s sister, who is fully supporting Simmons in his quest to obtain custody of his daughter. “She cut us off and didn’t tell anybody what she was doing. But I knew that [this adoption] wasn’t right. It was illegal and I knew the tribe needed to be notified. So I told my mom to call him and call the tribe to stop it, but it was already too late.”

By the time Simmons was even able to dial Mason’s phone number, Baby Deseray had already been spirited away to South Carolina, a state known to be a safe haven for quickie private adoptions to wealthy couples seeking domestic babies in the United States. Time Magazine ran a feature story in 1984 entitled “Newborn Fever—Flocking to an Adoption Mecca,” in which South Carolina’s questionable adoption practices are described as “a unique blend of tax laws, aggressive lawyers and open-minded newspapers.” Home studies, it says, are “are routinely waived by South Carolina’s lenient family-court judges.”

These practices, say legal experts, have led to a deeply dark underbelly in the U.S. adoption industry that is little different than human trafficking, and in direct violation of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. “There’s no question that this is human trafficking at its worst. It’s the selling of infants and children to the highest bidder,” says Mason. “These kids generate huge legal fees in the process and there is a lot of fee splitting among attorney and adoption practitioners in keeping the assembly line moving.”

Tulsa attorney Mike Yeksavich handled the adoption of Baby Deseray in collaboration with the law firm of Bado and Bado, an Edmond, Oklahoma-based adoption team. Together, the two law firms coordinated the adoption with attorney Raymond Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoptions in Greenville, South Carolina. Godwin is also the attorney who handled Veronica’s adoption to Matt and Melanie Capobianco in 2009. Veronica’s adoption, which also went through without notification to the birth father, Dusten Brown, or the Cherokee Nation, has become the most expensive, litigious custody battle in U.S. History.

Indian Country Today Media Network has also learned that in addition to the fact that no Interstate Custody for the Protection of Children (ICPC) paperwork was filed in the case prior to Deseray’s removal from the state, Yeksavich also took the additional step of having himself appointed as the legal guardian of the baby to ensure her speedy adoption in South Carolina. Additionally, Paul Swain, the Tulsa attorney representing the Capobiancos in Oklahoma, also represents Godwin.

Bado and Bado, according to the Oklahoma Bar Association website, has had numerous complaints filed against it and was publicly reprimanded by the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys Board of Trustees in 2009 for the mishandled adoption of a Native child to a Kentucky couple.

In their review, the board demanded then that the firm “cease and desist” from the following: Conduct in which they represented themselves as an adoption agency, and not an adoption law firm; providing legal advice and counsel to birth mothers while also representing adoptive parents; holding out employees as “independent contractors”; permitting non-lawyers to practice law or explain legal issues to clients or other parties; involving themselves excessively with birth mothers whom they do not represent; and neglecting to promptly address tribal enrollment, in addition to other sanctions.

Bado and Bado could not be reached for comment by deadline on this story.

It’s the lack of oversight on the adoption industry, combined with acts of this nature, say legal experts, that led to the legal Gordian’s Knot that became the highly contentious and emotional Baby Veronica case that went to the Supreme Court.

In fact, Indian Country Today Media Network has learned that Raymond Godwin allegedly told another lawyer in South Carolina, who declined to be identified, that he placed “upwards of 50 Native American children from North Dakota” last year alone. In that conversation, Godwin said that Indian children are easier to place, “because they’re lighter-skinned.”

Even worse, says Mason, is the blatant marketing and selling of Indian children by lawyers who make anywhere from $25,000 to copy00,000 in legal fees for these children. “Anyone can do the math and realize that this is an enormous industry in the trafficking of Indian children,” says Mason. “And they’re preying on poor, uneducated Native women who are in poverty and have no idea what’s going on and don’t know any better, which is precisely why ICWA was enacted in the first place. They are predators who do everything in secret to prevent the biological fathers and the tribes from blocking the flow of income they receive off these adoptions.”

Mason says that before Simmons had even received notice on this case, Yeksavich had already filed a motion in Oklahoma County in early July to dismiss the case in Oklahoma courts. Godwin filed a motion for adoption proceedings in South Carolina at the same time in a coordinated effort to push the adoption through. Simmons was only notified of the proceedings in South Carolina on July 24 for the adoption hearing in South Carolina on July 25, which he had no way or means to attend with less than 24 hours to respond to a court action a thousand miles and five states away. As was the case for Baby Veronica’s father, Dusten Brown, the wheels had already been set in motion months before to cut him completely out of his daughter’s life.

Experts say that by the very nature of complicated and conflicting interstate laws and procedures that adoption attorneys are able circumvent not only mainstream adoption law, but the federal laws involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, as well, which has lead to chaos and confusion for judges, attorneys, birth parents and adoptive couples who may be located in multiple jurisdictions. “I came into this case trying to put the brakes on,” says Mason. “But by the time I even got a hold of it, an Order of Dismissal had already been pushed through without anyone knowing about it. Yeksavich never even gave notice of his intent to dismiss and rushed this right past the judge’s desk.”

Mason says it was a family court judge in South Carolina who finally caught on to what was happening. “To the credit of the South Carolina judge, they realized that no ICPC paperwork had been filed and refused to finalize the adoption,” says Mason. “Under the law, this child has been illegally kidnapped from Oklahoma and the judge there appointed Shannon Jones to represent my client there.”

Jones, who also represents Dusten Brown in South Carolina family court, has a thorough understanding of the Indian Child Welfare Act. She is also an expert in the Uniform Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.

In the meantime, Mason says he intends to pursue full custody for Jeremy Simmons, even if he has to file an adoption action in Creek County, Oklahoma court for Deseray to be adopted by her father. “These shady adoption practices have to stop,” says Mason. “It is the buying and selling of human beings, which is unconscionable in its vast application in the United States. Its tentacles reach far and wide and one of the only good things to come out of Adoptive Couple is that Dusten Brown has brought to light the shady practices of an adoption industry that actively worked against his parental rights from the beginning. To his everlasting credit, he dug in and fought and he should be commended for that.”

Harper Solicits Research to Blame First Nations for Murdered, Missing and Traded Indigenous Women

Pam Palmater, Intercontinental Cry

Canada’s shameful colonial history as it relates to Indigenous peoples and women specifically is not well known by the public at large. The most horrific of Canada’s abuses against Indigenous peoples are not taught in schools. Even public discussion around issues like genocide have been censored by successive federal governments, and most notably by Harper’s Conservatives. Recently, the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights refused to use the term “genocide” to describe Canada’s laws, policies and actions towards Indigenous peoples which led to millions of deaths. The reason?: because that term was not acceptable to the federal government and the museum is after all, a Crown corporation.

Aside from the fact that this museum will be used as a propaganda tool for Canada vis-à-vis the international community, Harper’s Conservatives are also paying for targeted research to back up their propaganda as it relates to murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women. This is not the first time that Harper has paid for counter information and propaganda material as it relates to Indigenous peoples, and it likely won’t be the last. However, this instance of soliciting targeted research to help the government blame Indigenous peoples for their own victimization and oppression is particularly reprehensible given the massive loss of life involved over time.

The issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women was made very public by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) several years ago through their dedicated research, community engagement and advocacy efforts. Even the United Nations took notice and starting commenting on Canada’s obligation to address this serious issue. Yet, in typical Harper-Conservative style, once the issue became a hot topic in the media, they cut critical funding to NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit program which was the heart of their research and advocacy into murdered and missing Indigenous women.

To further complicate the matter, any attempts for a national inquiry into the issue has been thwarted by the federal government, despite support for such an inquiry by the provinces and territories. One need only look at the fiasco of the Pickton Inquiry in British Columbia to understand how little governments in Canada value the lives of Indigenous women, their families and communities. The inquiry was headed by Wally Oppal, the same man who previously denied the claims of Indigenous women who were forcibly sterilized against their knowledge and consent. The inquiry seemed more interested in insulating the RCMP from investigation and prosecution than it was about hearing the stories of Indigenous women.

Now, the Canadian public has to deal with a new chapter to this story – the sale of Indigenous women into the sex trades. The CBC recently reported that current research shows that Indigenous women, girls and babies in Canada were taken onto US ships to be sold into the sex trade. While this is not new information for Indigenous peoples, it is something that Canada has refused to recognize in the past. The research also shows that Indigenous women are brought onto these boats never to be seen from again.

The issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women has now expanded to murdered, missing and traded women. One might have expected a reaction from both the Canadian government and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Yet, the day after the story hit the news, the AFN was tweeting about local competitions and the federal government was essentially silent. I say essentially, because while all of this was taking place, the federal government put together a Request for Proposals on MERX (#275751) to solicit research to blame the families and communities of Indigenous women for being sold into the sex trade.

Instead of making a call for true academic research into the actual causes and conditions around Indigenous women, girls and babies being sold into the sex trade, the federal government solicited research to prove:

(1) the involvement of family members in their victimization;

(2) the level to which domestic violence is linked to the sale of Indigenous women into the sex trade; and

(3) even where they are investigating gang involvement, it is within the context of family involvement of the trade of Indigenous women.

The parameters of the research excludes looking into federal and/or provincial laws and policies towards Indigenous peoples; funding mechanisms which prejudice them and maintain them in the very poverty the research identifies; and negative societal attitudes formed due to government positions vis-à-vis Indigenous women like:

rapes and abuse in residential schools;
forced sterilizations;
the theft of thousands of Indigenous children into foster care;
the over-representation of Indigenous women in jails;
and the many generations of Indigenous women losing their Indian status and membership and being kicked off reserves by federal law.

The research also leaves out a critical aspect of this research which is federal and provincial enforcement laws, policies and actions or lack thereof in regards to the reports of murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women, girls and babies. The epic failure of police to follow up on reports and do proper investigations related to these issues have led some experts to conclude that this could have prevented and addressed murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women. Of even greater concern are the allegations that have surfaced in the media in relation to RCMP members sexually assaulting Indigenous women and girls.

This MERX Request for Proposals is offensive and should be retracted and re-issued in a more academically-sound manner which looks to get at the full truth, versus a federally-approved pre-determined outcome.

It’s time Canada opened up the books, and shed light on the real atrocities in this country so that we can all move forward and address them.

Originally published at

Indigenous Nationhood

Native American women are being sold into the Sex Trade on ships along Lake Superior

289718f823c4c24826a5e7a04438ae57 — Apparently the women are sold for “parties” on American ships. Picture via WikiCommons

August 26, 2013

By Dave Dean

Native women, children, and even babies are being trafficked in the sex trade on freighters crossing the Canada-US border on Lake Superior between Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Duluth, Minnesota.

Next month, Christine Stark—a student with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, who is completing her master’s degree in social work—will complete an examination of the sex trade in Minnesota, in which she compiles anecdotal, firsthand accounts of Native women, particularly from northern reservations, being trafficked across state, provincial, and international lines to be forced into servitude in the sex industry on both sides of the border.

Stark’s paper stems from a report she co-wrote, published by the Indian Women’s Sexual AssaultCoalition in Duluth in 2011, entitled, “The Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota.” Through the process of researching and writing this report, Stark kept hearing stories of trafficking in the harbors and on the freighters of Duluth and Thunder Bay. The numerous stories and the gradual realization that this was an issue decades, perhaps centuries, in the making, compelled Stark to delve further into what exactly was taking place.

She decided to conduct an exploratory study, “simply because we have these stories circulating and we wanted to gather information and begin to understand what has happened and what currently is happening around the trafficking of Native American and First Nations women on the ships” said Stark, in an interview with the CBC Radio show Superior Morning. “Hearing from so many Native women over generations talking about the ‘boat whores,’ prostitution on the ships or the ‘parties on the ships,’ this is something that… was really entrenched in the Native community and we wanted to collect more specific information about it.”

Through her independent research and work with the Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, Stark interviewed hundreds of Native women who have been through the trauma of the Lake Superior sex trade. The stories she’s compiled are evidence of an underground industry that’s thriving on the suffering of First Nations women, which is seemingly going unchecked and underreported.

In an article written for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Stark describes one disturbing anecdote of an Anishinaabe woman who had just left a shelter after being beaten by her pimp—who was a wealthy, white family man. He paid her bills, rent, and the essentials for her children, but on weekends, “brought up other white men from the cities for prostitution with Native women… he had her role play the racist ‘Indian maiden and European colonizer’ myth with him during sex.”

“The Duluth harbor is notorious among Native people as a site for the trafficking of Native women from northern reservations.” She continues, “in an ongoing project focused on the trafficking of Native women on ships in Duluth, it was found that the activity includes international transport of Native women and teens, including First Nations women and girls brought down from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to be sold on the ships… Native women, teen girls and boys, and even babies have been sold for sex on the ships.” Christine Stark’s complete research paper will be published in September.

The fact that these horrendous crimes are taking place right under the noses of North American authorities is obviously disturbing and somewhat surprising, considering we have a Conservative government that is oh-so-tough on the commercialization of human beings. However, the word trafficking can often be a blurry one.

I spoke with Kazia Pickard, the Director of Policy and Research with the Ontario Native Women’s Association based in Thunder Bay. Their organization has also been researching this issue. Kazia told me over email: “People assume that trafficking always takes place across international borders, however, the vast majority of people who are trafficked in Canada are indigenous women and girls from inside Canada and sometimes, as we’re now starting to understand, across the US border.”

In an earlier interview with the CBC, she also alluded to the possibility that there was trafficking taking place across borders in Southern Ontario as well. She made it clear to me that the image most people imagine when they think about “human trafficking” often isn’t accurate: “The majority of women who are trafficked in Canada are indigenous women and girls. So it’s not that you have people being trafficked across international borders in shipping containers or something like that.”

In most cases it’s a lot more subtle. “Women may say they [have been pulled into it by] a boyfriend, there have been some reports of family members recruiting women into the sex trade… so it doesn’t appear in this sensationalized way that we may [think it is].”

All that said, there are nearly 600 aboriginal women who are currently missing or believed to have been murdered in Canada, a number the RCMP—who are being accused of human rights abuses against aboriginal women on a monthly basis—have publicly questioned.

And while it’s refreshing to hear Canadian Parliament members (particularly Conservative ones) such as Manitoba’s Joy Smith show some honest compassion, on the whole, the government’s attitude and response to protecting vulnerable Native women has been one of indifference. In July, the federal government dismissed calls made for an inquiry into missing or murdered Indian women by the provinces and territories’ premiers.

Christine Stark’s report is one that cannot be ignored. If the government is as serious as they claim to be about human trafficking, they can’t dismiss what’s taking place between Duluth and Thunder Bay the same way that they have regarding the 600 missing First Nations women. To ignore this issue would point to an obvious double standard when it comes to the treatment of Indian women, many of whom are clearly being taken advantage of.

Follow Dave on Twitter: @ddner

New wellness center part of Rosebud diabetes plan

Associated Press

ROSEBUD | Connie Brushbreaker was a 12-Coke-a-day drinker when she was diagnosed with diabetes after the birth of a child. Now, she’s helping lead an effort on the Rosebud Indian Reservation to change the mindset of Native Americans here so they no longer view the disease as an inevitable part of life.

Brushbreaker started a diabetes education program 15 years ago that soon will include a new wellness center, a mobile unit to travel around the nearly 2,000-square-mile reservation and a plan to certify diabetes educators who are American Indian. The $5.4 million investment came from Denmark-based Novo Nordisk Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of insulin, which planned to unveil the program at a Friday ceremony in Rosebud.

“I think we’re going to be able to do wonders — to get the word out there. And if we help only a handful of people, that will save in the budget but also could save some lives,” said Brushbreaker.

American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes among U.S. racial and ethnic groups, according to the American Diabetes Association. And they are 2.2 times more likely than non-Hispanic whites to have the disease, according to the Indian Health Service. From 1994 to 2004, there was a 68 percent increase in diabetes among native youth ages 15-19 years. And an estimated 30 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives have pre-diabetes, the diabetes association said.

Loss of eyesight and amputations are common results of the disease on the reservation, and dozens of patients require kidney dialysis, Brushbreaker said.

“Native Americans can tolerate a higher blood sugar level. They get used to it,” said Rita Brokenleg, a registered nurse for Rosebud’s program.

“Our challenge is to help people understand why this is important,” she said.

Access to affordable, nutritious food is also a problem because most people live in poverty and the choices for non-processed foods are few.

“As natives, our bodies weren’t made to process the starches. Back in the old days, we were active. We had to hunt for our food,” Brushbreaker said.

She said a lack of funding, space and staff has limited what she can do, and tribal members have asked for help.

The new wellness center, which is still under construction, will offer the types of fitness classes and education that are accessible in much of the rest of the country. The building now used for classes is too small, Brushbreaker said. The biggest room is 8 by 10 feet, which makes yoga or Zumba difficult.

Because many of the more than 21,000 tribal members on Rosebud don’t have transportation, the mobile unit will travel throughout the reservation — which is larger than the state of Rhode Island — and screen people, Brushbreaker said.

The certified native educators are needed because IHS, which provides health care to Indians, no longer has any educators on the reservation, she said.

“People come into my office because they’ve not been given any information on what’s going on with their body,” Brushbreaker said. “They’ll go in to see the doctor and they’ll say, ‘here’s medication for your diabetes’ and the patient has never been told they have diabetes.”

The American Diabetes Association, in an email to The Associated Press, said the effort should help: “Reservations may be located in remote areas with limited access to health care and exercise facilities with proper exercise equipment, so this innovative program has potential to have high impact, especially since many reservations have limited resources (financial, land, etc.). Additionally, a wellness center that emphasizes proper nutrition and provided education would be extremely beneficial to those on reservations.”

Novo Nordisk founded the World Diabetes Foundation to diagnose and help people with diabetes in developing countries. Rosebud is the first such project in North America, said the pharmaceutical company’s general counsel, Curt Oltmans, who grew up nearby in Nebraska and made meat deliveries to Rosebud while in college.

“I said if I’m ever in a position to help the people, I’d like to do that,” Oltmans said by phone from Princeton, N.J. “Almost 30 years later, I had this opportunity to get involved.”

Details of the program will be presented in December at a conference in Melbourne, Australia, at the World Diabetes Congress, he said.

“My personal hope is that this is going to lead better awareness and education and screening on the reservation. We have a fear that there’s a lot of undiagnosed diabetes,” Oltmans said. “Their views are very Third World, unfortunately, uninformed views of diabetes.”

The Rosebud program is drawing attention from other groups that work with Native Americans, and the company views it as a long-term commitment, Oltmans said.

“A lot of companies say, ‘Here’s your mobile unit and wellness center, good luck,'” he said. “We’re going to have to stay engaged. We’re going to measure. Are we having an impact? How many people go to the wellness center? What are their ages? Are they losing weight? Are their numbers getting better or are they getting worse?”

Let Freedom Ring – American Indian Drums Asked to Sound Wednesday at 3pm edt

American Indian drum groups are being encouraged to participate in "Let Freedom Ring" — American Indian drum groups are being encouraged to participate in “Let Freedom Ring”

Source: Native News Network

ATLANTA – Fifty years after to the date and time of day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, people across America are asked to ring bells and American Indian drums are asked to sound on to “let freedom ring.’

Church bells will sound across America. Hand held bells will be rung.

“I think it would be nice to have American Indian drum groups to participate to show support,”

commented Melissa Claramunt, American Indian specialist and Civil Rights specialist at Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights encourages you to take part in (or organize!) Let Freedom Ring! celebrations all across the state (and country) on that day – in schools, churches, mosques, universities, anywhere there’s a bell or carillon – or drum.

This is a unique opportunity to be part of history. Ring a bell on August 28 and honor Dr. King and his enduring message of freedom, justice, and equality. To learn more, visit facebook.com/midcr and www.mlkdream50.com.

(l to r) Elana Jimenez, Robert Sky-Eagle, Terra Branson, Emily White Hat, & Derrick Beetso. (not pictured: Chia Beetso, Gerald Kaquatosh, & Sandy Brewster-walker, Hugo & Nancy Trotman. Legend Trotman, Aanaya Trotman, Trinity Trotman, Kimimila Beetso, Tashina Beetso.

Yesterday, thousands were in the nation’s capital to honor the memory of Dr. King and the historic March on Washington in the “Realize the Dream” March and Rally.

Part of the thousands was a group representing the National Congress of American Indians.

“We marched on behalf of the National Congress of American Indians and along with the Leadership Conference. We marched for voting rights and to support better adoption practices for our Native kids,”

commented Derrick Beetso, a staff attorney with the National Congress of American Indians, the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization in the country.

Study launched to examine declining salmon runs

Bill Sheets, The Herald

Millions of dollars have been spent to restore fish habitat in Western Washington.

Property owners pay taxes to local governments to control stormwater runoff.

State government and tribal fisheries have put huge investments into hatcheries.

“While all that has been going on, we’ve seen a precipitous decline in the survival rate of both hatchery fish as well as wild fish,” said Phil Anderson, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

That’s why the department, along with the Tulalip Tribes and 25 other organizations, are beginning a five-year study to determine why some species of salmon and trout are having trouble surviving their saltwater voyages.

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, as it’s called, is an international effort. Canadian groups are agreeing to pay half of the estimated, eventual $20 million cost of the study.

The decline has been seen in fish runs both in Washington and British Columbia.

“The fish don’t know there’s a border,” said Mike Crewson, fisheries enhancement biologist for the Tulalip Tribes.

The marine survival rate for many stocks of Chinook and coho salmon, along with steelhead, has dropped more than 90 percent over the past 30 years, according to Long Live the Kings, a Seattle-based non-profit group formed around fish preservation.

Numbers for sockeye, chum, and pink salmon have varied widely over the same time period.

For some reason, many of these anadromous fish — those that spawn in fresh water and spend most of their lives at sea — are not doing well in saltwater, particularly in the inland waters of Western Washington.

The Snohomish and Skagit river systems have been hit particularly hard, Crewson said.

While there’s a solid understanding of the factors affecting salmon survival in fresh water, according to Long Live the Kings, the issues in the marine environment are more complex.

From what is known so far, the survival problem has been traced to a combination of factors. Pollution, climate change, loss of habitat and increased consumption of salmon by seals and sea lions are all playing a part, Tulalip tribal officials have said.

Tribes and government agencies have been collecting information on their own, but it hasn’t yet been put together into context, Crewson said.

That will be one benefit of the new study — synthesizing the work done so far, he said. More research will be done as well.

The Tulalips, for example, have two smolt traps they use to catch young fish to track their progress and survival rates. The tribe already spends about $500,000 per year on fish survival programs and will increase their sampling efforts as part of this study, Crewson said.

Other studies more focused on certain areas, such as a joint effort between the Tulalips and the Nisqually tribe focusing on the Snohomish and Nisqually river systems, will be folded into the larger effort, Crewson said.

“The survival’s especially poor in Puget Sound (as opposed to the open ocean),” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what’s different in Puget Sound.”

The state recently appropriated nearly $800,000 toward the new study. The Pacific Salmon Foundation, a Canadian group, has raised $750,000 to support project activities north of the border. That group is serving as the organizer for efforts there, as is Long Live the Kings on the American side.

The Pacific Salmon Commission, a joint Canadian-American organization formed to implement treaty agreements, is putting in $175,000.

The rest of the money will be raised as the study progresses, officials said. A report and action plan is expected after five years.

In challenging tribal court, Alaska state goes to bat for man convicted of beating his wife

August 25, 2013 Anchorage Daily News

By RICHARD MAUER — rmauer@adn.com

Earlier this month, when Edward Parks was convicted in Fairbanks of the kidnapping and brutal assault of his girlfriend, the prosecutor told a Fairbanks reporter it was a victory in the “state’s larger war against domestic violence.”

But three months earlier, with Parks sitting in jail awaiting trial for beating Bessie Stearman so badly he broke three of her ribs and collapsed one of her lungs, the Parnell administration intervened on his behalf before the Alaska Supreme Court. In a case that’s still pending, the state government is seeking to void a tribal court order declaring him an unfit parent.

For Natalie Landreth, a Native-rights attorney representing the adoptive parents of one of Parks’ children, the state’s move was an outrageous example of attaching greater importance to its political fight against tribal rights than the protection of the child, who is now 5.

“Why on earth would you step in to defend someone’s right to access a child when he has just been convicted of almost murdering the mother?” Landreth said.

Attorney General Michael Geraghty said the state is intervening on Parks’ side to protect Parks’ constitutional rights, not get his child back.

“I guess I can understand to a lay person how it might appear that we’re supporting Mr. Parks, but I don’t think that’s the case. We’re supporting his due process rights as we would with any other Alaskan,” Geraghty said. “That doesn’t mean we think he’s a good guy, that he should be a parent or that he’s entitled to custody of his kids.”

Parks has his own attorney to defend his rights and the state’s entry into the case on his behalf was optional, Geraghty acknowledged, but he said the state chose to file its own brief in the Alaska Supreme Court because the case was bigger than Parks.

At issue is whether a small tribal court in the village of Minto, 130 road miles west of Fairbanks, could strip Parks of his parental rights to one of his daughters, named “S.P.” in legal filings, and approve her adoption by Jeff Simmonds, the cousin of the child’s mother, and Simmonds’ wife Rozella. According to court filings, S.P. is a member of the Minto tribe, as is her mother, Stearman, the victim of Parks’ rage. Jeff Simmonds is also a Minto tribe member, while Rozella Simmonds is a Zuni Pueblo Indian from the Southwest.

One of Parks’ parents is Alaska Native and Parks himself is an enrolled member of the tribe at Stevens Village, about 60 miles north of Minto on the Yukon River, according to the court filings.

To the state, that meant that the Minto court was trying to enforce its order against a nonmember of its tribe. The Minto court’s declaration on May 7, 2009, that Parks was an unfit parent was improperly reached, the state said in its brief to the Alaska Supreme Court, filed in April.

The proper venue for that question is before a state judge in Fairbanks, not the elders of the Minto court, the state said.

Landreth, from the Native American Rights Fund office in Anchorage, said the state is overreaching and ignoring the years of legal precedent since Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978.

‘sovereignty issues are current issues’

Alaska, like other Western states with significant Native American populations, has had a contentious history with tribal rights. The federal government recognizes more than 200 tribes in Alaska — most of them small, rural villages — and they form parallel governments to the municipalities under state law, and the state itself — at least for duties and rights granted by Congress. Native rights are based in the U.S. Constitution and in aboriginal-rights doctrine subscribed to by the United States. Tensions over tribal sovereignty have grown or subsided, depending on who was governor and what issues were hot at the time.

“Certainly tribal sovereignty issues are current issues, they’re topical issues, I agree with that,” Geraghty said. But the decision to intervene on Parks’ behalf against the Minto tribal court was about Parks’ legal rights, not an effort by the state to restrict tribes.

Landreth doesn’t see it that way. By declaring that Parks shouldn’t be bound by the tribal court even though his daughter, his daughter’s mother, and one of the adopted parents are tribal members, the state is trying to make new, impractical law, she said.

“The legal term for that kind of argument is ‘Just Silly,'” Landreth said. “Tribes, especially in Alaska, are so small that nobody’s going to marry someone in their own tribe because they’re mostly related within two degrees of blood.”

If both parents have to be members of the same tribe for a tribal court to have jurisdiction under the Indian Child Welfare Act, that would foreclose a decision in almost every case except those involving the largest tribes in the state, like the Tlingit-Haida people, she said.

QUESTIONS OF JURISDICTION

S.P. was born in Fairbanks in 2007. At the time, Bessie Stearman, her mother, was on probation for drug charges, according to the filings with the Supreme Court. By the following January, Parks had been jailed on an assault charge for breaking Stearman’s finger “in a dispute relating to the trimming of S.P.’s fingernails.” The attack came to the attention of a tribal social worker.

In May 2008, with Parks working on the North Slope, Stearman was jailed for probation violations. She asked Rozella Simmonds to care for S.P.

Parks found out, quit his job, and returned to Fairbanks. He learned that the Minto tribal court had granted temporary, emergency custody to the Simmondses, and agreed to that arrangement at least for the time being, though he preferred placing the baby with his mother instead.

Over the course of the next year, the tribe held more hearings and set up a visitation schedule for S.P. with Parks and Stearman. The couple continued in their relationship and eventually had three more children, including a set of twins.

“Yeah, she went back to him,” said assistant District Attorney Andrew Baldock. “As domestic violence cases go, it’s not unusual for that sort of thing to happen.”

Parks got a lawyer, Don Mitchell, an Anchorage attorney who has written extensively about Native law — and who has a problem with tribes as legal entities in Alaska.

Parks demanded that S.P. be returned to him. He accused the tribe of kidnapping her. On May 5, 2009, he “abducted” S.P. from the Simmondses, according to Landreth’s petition. The Alaska Office of Children’s Services, with the help of Fairbanks police, returned S.P. “to her tribal foster home,” Landreth wrote.

Two days later, the tribal court convened again, this time in a hearing to terminate the parental rights of Stearman and Parks. The court met in Minto. Stearman, Parks, Parks’ mother and Mitchell participated over a speakerphone in the Tanana Chiefs Conference office in Fairbanks.

Parks told the court it had no jurisdiction over him. Mitchell wanted to speak on Parks’ behalf, but was told by a “court facilitator” — a clerk of sorts — that lawyers are only allowed to advise their clients and submit written documents, not make oral arguments.

The court allowed the interested parties to speak, went into closed session, and returned with its verdict: S.P.’s parents were unable to provide a “violence-free environment” and were not fit as parents. The child would continue to live with Stearman’s cousin and his wife.

LEGAL PROTECTIONS

Parks and Stearman filed suit in Superior Court in Fairbanks on Sept. 17, 2009, trying to get S.P. back. Mitchell originally represented him. The judge, Paul Lyle, refused Landreth’s request to dismiss the case, ruling that Parks was denied due process by the Minto court.

While the case was kicking back and forth between Lyle’s court and the Alaska Supreme Court, Parks lost control again, this time apparently worse than at any other time.

On Dec. 18, 2011, according to the Fairbanks News-Miner, Parks took Stearman to an area near South Cushman Street in Fairbanks and began beating her. He brought her home, tied her with a belt, and kicked and choked her some more. Parks held her for two days, refusing to take her to the hospital until she promised not to call police.

“There were some very small children that were in the residence,” Baldock, the prosecutor, said in a telephone interview. “She was not physically able to go to the hospital — she had a collapsed lung and a couple broken ribs and the children were just kept in the other room away from her.”

But not S.P. She was safe with Jeff and Rozella Simmonds.

Parks was arrested. On Feb. 9, 2012, a Fairbanks grand jury handed up a seven-count indictment that included two kidnapping charges. Another count was for witness tampering. From his jail cell, Parks continued to try to get Stearman to not testify against him, Baldock said. Parks also used delaying tactics to put off the trial, apparently believing Stearman would change her mind, Baldock said.

It didn’t happen. She testified against him. After a one-week trial, the News-Miner reported, he was convicted Aug. 12 on all counts.

Baldock said he was carrying out state policy to aggressively pursue domestic violence cases under Gov. Sean Parnell and Attorney General Geraghty’s “Choose Respect” campaign.

“I can’t speak anything about the civil stuff,” Baldock said, referring to the state’s role in the Minto tribal case, “but certainly from the attorney general on down, there’s a real impetus in making sure that these kind of cases are handled appropriately.”

The civil lawsuit had ground along as Parks waited for trial in his jail cell in Fairbanks. The state intervened on his behalf April 26.

“Having the government in your corner is certainly a useful situation for any litigant,” said Mitchell, Parks’ attorney. “I viewed it as a helpful development.”

Mitchell had to drop out of the case because he had represented both Stearman and Parks, and they had become adversaries in the criminal case. Each now has their own attorney in the civil case. He still believes it was right to pursue the lawsuit.

“At the heart of this problem is the fact that every single person who lives in a village is a citizen of the state of Alaska who is entitled to have access to the same procedural and substantive protections as any other citizen of Alaska, and that has been thrown out the window in the political enthusiasm for the invention of Indian tribes in Alaska and the further invention of tribal courts,” Mitchell said.

But Landreth said the tribal court got it right years before.

“Respondent now has 43 criminal entries on Court View,” she wrote in 2012 in her second petition to the Alaska Supreme Court, referring to Parks’ record in the state’s on-line court database. “As this case has progressed, the wisdom of the Minto Tribal Court’s decision to place S.P. in the Petitioners’ (Simmondses) stable home has become even more apparent.”

The matter is pending in the Alaska state courts. Parks is due to be sentenced in February.

Reach Richard Mauer at rmauer@adn.com or 257-4345.

Veronica case: Motion filed to suspend visits from Capobiancos

Matt and Melanie Copabianco (back left and right) arrive at Cherokee Nation Courthouse on Aug. 16 for a custody hearing involving a 3-year-old Cherokee girl they are trying to adopt.LISA SNELL | NATIVE TIMES PHOTO — Matt and Melanie Copabianco (back left and right) arrive at Cherokee Nation Courthouse on Aug. 16 for a custody hearing involving a 3-year-old Cherokee girl they are trying to adopt.
LISA SNELL | NATIVE TIMES PHOTO

25 August 2013

LENZY KREHBIEL-BURTON, Native Times

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – A motion is now on file to suspend any visits between a non-Native South Carolina couple and the three-year-old Cherokee child they have been attempting to adopt for almost four years.

According to docket sheets posted Sunday on the On Demand Court Records system, Angel Smith, the court-appointed attorney for Cherokee Nation citizen Veronica Brown, filed the motion Friday in Cherokee County District Court, along with a request for a hearing to revisit the matter.

Smith was appointed in Cherokee County District Court on Aug. 19 after representing the child in Cherokee Nation District Court for almost a month. She is also Brown’s representative in a federal lawsuit filed last month by the Native American Rights Fund, the National Indian Child Welfare Association and the National Congress of American Indians.

It is unclear whether Matt and Melanie Capobianco, the James Island, S.C., couple attempting to adopt the child, have actually met with the girl and if so, how often, since arriving in Oklahoma two weeks ago. The Capobiancos were awarded custody of the child last month by a South Carolina family court judge, but the order has not been enforced in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has threatened to sign off on an extradition warrant for Veronica’s biological father, Dusten Brown, if he did not allow the couple to see the girl. Brown is wanted in South Carolina for custodial interference after missing a court-ordered visitation with the Capobiancos and an adoption investigator earlier this month while he was at National Guard training in Iowa. He has since turned himself in to Sequoyah County law enforcement and has a hearing scheduled for Sept. 12 in Sallisaw.

Along with Smith’s motions, the Capobiancos have filed their own motions with the court objecting to the appointment of a guardian ad litem to represent Veronica Brown’s best interests during the court proceedings, as well as their objection to Smith’s appointment as the three-year-old’s lawyer.

Additionally, special judge Holli Wells entered an order of recusal Friday, excusing herself from future proceedings in the case.

Thanks to a gag order issued by both the Cherokee County District Court and the Cherokee Nation District Court and a seal on all related documents, no details are available about the flurry of Friday filings other than the docket sheet line items. Earlier this month, the two sides agreed to mediation, but it is unclear whether those talks have started and if so, how they have progressed. It is also unclear what, if any, challenges were filed in Oklahoma to the South Carolina family court’s order granting custody to the Capobiancos. Under Oklahoma statute, Brown and his attorneys had until Friday to do so.

U.S. proposes overhauling process for recognizing Indian tribes

By Michael Melia, Source: Associated Press; Washington Post

KENT, Conn. — His tribe once controlled huge swaths of what is now New York and Connecticut, but the shrunken reservation presided over by Alan Russell today hosts little more than four mostly dilapidated homes and a pair of rattlesnake dens.

The Schaghticoke Indian Tribe leader is hopeful that its fortunes may soon be improving. As the Interior Department overhauls its rules for recognizing American Indian tribes, a nod from the federal government appears within reach, potentially bolstering its claims to surrounding land and opening the door to a tribal-owned casino.

“It’s the future generations we’re fighting for,” Russell said.

The rules floated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, intended to streamline the approval process, are seen by some as lowering the bar through changes such as one requiring that tribes demonstrate political continuity since 1934 and not “first contact” with European settlers. Across the country, the push is setting up battles with host communities and already recognized tribes who fear upheaval.

In Kent, a small Berkshires mountain town with one of New England’s oldest covered bridges, residents have been calling the selectman’s office with their concerns. The tribe claims land including property held by the Kent School, a boarding school, and many residents put up their own money a decade ago to fight a recognition bid by another faction of the Schaghticokes.

Members of the stae’s congressional delegation also have been in touch with the first selectman, Bruce Adams, who said he fears court battles over land claims and the possibility that the tribe would open its own businesses as a sovereign nation within town boundaries.

“Everybody is on board that we have to do what we can to prevent this from happening,” he said.

The new rules were proposed in June by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which invited public comment at hearings over the summer in Oregon, California, Michigan, Maine and Louisiana. The Obama administration intends to improve a recognition process that has been criticized as slow, inconsistent and overly susceptible to political influence.

Federal recognition, which has been granted to 566 American tribes, is coveted because it brings increased health and education benefits to tribal members in addition to land protections and opportunities for commercial development.

Tribes have been pushing for years for Congress or the Interior Department to revise the process.

“I am glad that the Department is proposing to keep its promise to fix a system that has been broken for years, leaving behind generations of abuse, waste, and broken dreams,” wrote Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, which was recognized in 2007.

The new rules would create tensions for host communities and some recognized tribes, according to Richard Monette, a law professor and expert on American Indian tribes at the University of Wisconsin. Tribes along the Columbia River in Washington state, for instance, will be wary of a new tribe at the river’s mouth gaining recognition and cutting into their take of salmon. Tribes elsewhere fear encroachment on casino gaming markets.

“This is a big issue throughout the whole country,” Monette said.

The salmon-harvesting Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in Washington state argues that the new rules seem to lower the threshold for recognition. Tribal Chairman Virginia Cross wrote to the Interior Department that the changes, if approved, would lead to acknowledgment of groups of descendants who “have neither a history of self-government, nor a clear sense of identity.”

In Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D) said the state’s congressional delegation is united against changes that he said would have far-reaching ramifications for several towns and the entire state.

“Our hope is we can dissuade officials from proceeding with a regulatory step that would be very misguided, because it would essentially eviscerate and eliminate key criteria,” Blumenthal said.

Supporters of the rule change say it helps to remove unfair burdens. Judith Shapiro, an attorney who has worked with several tribes on recognition bids, said some have lost out because records were lost or burned over hundreds of years.

The Schaghticoke reservation dates to the mid-1700s, but it has been carved up to a tenth of its original size. As recently as 1960, Russell said, the town fire department would come out to burn down homes on the reservation when tribal members died to prevent others from occupying them.

When Russell’s house burned down in 1998, however, the townspeople from across the Housatonic River helped him to rebuild. Russell, who grew up hunting and fishing on the reservation, said that if the tribe wins recognition, it can work something out with the town on the land claims.

“That’s what I want them to understand,” he said. “We’re not the enemy.”

— Associated Press