Rebuttal to NPR’s ICWA Series; from a Mother of Enrolled Children

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Nov 212011
 

 On October 27th, 2011, I walked through the drizzle, past Union Station and up Massachusetts Avenue to find the offices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. I was in DC to speak to various congressional staff about harms caused by the Indian Child Welfare Act and to invite people to the ‘Teach-In’ our organization was holding on Friday, Oct. 28th in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing room. I hoped that the CCAI would be interested because ICWA has been hurting children and adoptive families across the country and at some point, there needed to be an honest discussion about it.

Finding the office in a rowhouse a couple blocks from the Senate buildings, I climbed the steps and went in. Two women quietly listened while I shared with a third the purpose of my visit. Across America, children who had never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal community – including multi-racial children with extremely minimal blood quantum – have been removed from homes they know and love and placed with strangers chosen by tribal social services.

When I was finished talking, the woman, who had been listening attentively, told me she had just finished an ICWA story for NPR, and that she supported the tribal position. I initially thought she meant she had been writer for it, but now wonder if she simply meant she had been following it. At any rate, she was kind, and I was able to tell her some of the flip side and invite her to our Teach-in. She was polite and accepted the folder of letters from hurting families. She did not come to the Teach-in.

I had heard small bits about the NPR series from two Congressional offices the day before, and over the next few days a couple of our members also notified me about it. Two of my brothers even sent me links to the article. One friend wrote to me on Facebook that the NPR series had her yelling at the radio. With so much attention to the series, a rebuttal is necessary.

As the birth mother of five enrolled children, the legal custodian of three others, the legal adoptive mother of one and emotionally adopted mother of another, I can tell you what NPR did NOT report.

First, not ALL enrollable persons want to live on the reservation or be under tribal jurisdiction.

Persons of tribal heritage are no different than any other human. Each individual has their own mind, wants and needs. Blood Quantum has nothing to do with an individuals decision to participate in reservation life: some persons of 100% heritage choose to live separate from the tribe while some who have very little heritage choose to identify totally with the tribe. The notion that there is some hereditary tie – an inherent gene binding children to a single cultural tradition or geographic location is not factual.

According to the 2000 Census –

  • There are 4,119,301 people claiming to have American Indians and Alaska Native ancestry in the United States and 562 federally funded Tribes. This population includes individuals with too little blood quantum to be tribal members as well as individuals who are members of state recognized tribes.
    • Approximately 75% live outside the reservation, with about 55% living in metropolitan areas. Only about 25% live on the reservations.
    • As much as 45% of reservation residents are non-Indian. (On some reservations, it is reported that as much as 80% might be non-Indian.)
    • On 30% of the reservations, the number of non-members is equal to or greater than the number of tribal members.
    • The Montana Supreme Court, in Skillen v. Menz, wrote, “Interracial marriages are a fact of life, and, as with other marriages, so are interracial divorces and custody disputes over the children of those marriages.”

The above facts are the reason we are having troubles with the Indian Child Welfare Act.

  1. Most people of Indian heritage choose to live and raise their families outside of the reservation system.
    2. Most people of Indian heritage have more than one heritage – meaning extended family from other heritages as well.

Now, while the 2010 Census indicates that the reservation populations may have increased over the last ten years (The Seattle Times, May 6, 2011, asserts this is due to “successful casinos and other business ventures, including commercial fishing operations, economic opportunity…”) the fact remains that most enrollable children live off the reservation and MOST enrollable children have non-enrolled family members.

So while it is simple to interview only people who live on South Dakota reservations and enjoy the lifestyle found there – those who were interviewed represent only a fraction of all tribal members, reservation residents, and enrollable citizens. Further, South Dakota itself and the reservations within its boundaries don’t represent all 50 states or 562 tribes.

Was NPR providing one-sided coverage?

Having taken a full year to do their investigation, why didn’t NPR interview many of the 75% of enrollable citizens who have chosen to live off the reservation? Many, like my husband, chose to leave the reservation and raise their children differently.

While some seek economic advantages, poverty itself isn’t a bad thing or the only reason for leaving. Some of our most content years as a family were living on a couple acres in the middle of a corn field, raising goats and chickens. But crime, hopelessness, and child neglect – which is not the same as poverty – is a bad thing. Many people choose to raise their children in a safer setting.

NPR attempts to discount the impact neglect has on children by stating,

“…in South Dakota very few are taken because they’ve been physically or sexually abused. Most are taken under a far more subjective set of circumstances. The state says the parents are neglectful.”

But neglect is a valid issue of concern for children of all heritages. While some readers have come to the defense of the mother in the NPR story whose children had been left alone, the fact is that there was evidence of frequent neglect. Quote from the story; “The children, however, had a plan for situations like this. If they were ever left alone or if someone was drinking at home, they were always instructed to go across the street, to their grandma’s. If she wasn’t there, the back door would be left unlocked.”

In other words – this had happened before, and often enough that the kids needed to have a plan. NPR brushes this off as if it is a non-issue that the kids would need to seek refuge from their home. NPR, it is NOT a non-issue. What is being described IS a dangerous situation. The children were left alone. No, this does not happen in every home in America. The fact that many residents on various reservations gloss over and treat such things as a non-issue is testimony to the severity of the problem – and yes, the need for intervention.

There seems to be an inconsistency within people unfamiliar with reservations who, on the one hand, decry poverty on reservations while on the other hand maintain a belief that Indian people – and in particular, children – prefer to live in conditions most other families find dangerous. What is particularly disconcerting about this assumption is the underlying idea that Indian people don’t mind living in crime ridden, dirty circumstances.

What is most upsetting about this series, having watched so many children in our extended family suffer from neglect and abuse, is the implication that most children are removed for no cause. The biggest grief my husband and I have had over the years was that more children weren’t removed sooner. I have chased a drunk off a 10-year-old girl, stood at the casket of a 2-year-old who had been beaten to death, stood in the closet where a beautiful 16-year-old had just hanged herself, begged a hospital not to release a 15-yr-old back to the streets with her newborn daughter, and sat in shock when I was called a few weeks later by a relative hoping that I had that same baby, because the 15-year-old had “lost” her the night before while drinking.

One Minneapolis social worker once told me that the only reason my husband’s grandchildren weren’t removed from their parents sooner was because of the Indian Child Welfare Act. He said that had they been of any other heritage, they would have been protected much sooner.

In one family story that NPR highlighted, the author takes the family’s word that there had never been any prescription drug abuse –which is rampant on many reservations – and thus no reason for the children to have been taken. I don’t know if there was or wasn’t, but I wouldn’t blame social services for being cautious. Many in our extended family heavily abuse prescription drugs. I have raised four extra children in my home, on top of my five, because of the neglect and abuse they suffered. We were asked to take several more because we were considered one of the few safe homes in the extended family. Unfortunately, when we couldn’t take in any more children, that didn’t mean they were going to find another safe home. That’s not how ICWA works. When a safe relative’s home can’t be found, less safe homes are considered. Indian kids are not getting the protection that other children get.

Severe drug and alcohol abuse is rampant on many reservations. Let’s stop pretending. By glossing over reality, helpless children are being subjected to further, extended abuse and neglect. It is not racist to remove children from abusive and neglectful homes and place them somewhere safe and nurturing.

This is why we started this:

– We need help bringing attention to this issue. Indian Kids need protection EQUAL to any other child – PLEASE sign this White House Petition – 25,000 signatures will prompt a White House review of the issue. http://wh.gov/bvZ 

Read between NPR’s lines. There appears an attempt to paint the picture of a helpless group of people with almost every sentence. Take for instance the statement; “There’s only electricity when it’s possible to pay the bill” – as if that wasn’t true for every family in the United States. What I am saying is, 1) Everyone in America needs to pay their bill in order to keep the lights on, and 2) Electricity is available on this reservation. The sentence is worded to give the impression that utilities are woefully intermittent in South Dakota.

In defense of one of the parents in trouble, NPR stated,

“…tribal courts can be over-run, under funded and operated only part time.”

That may be true, but it is tribal government – under the claim of sovereignty – that is responsible for making tribal courts work, not federal or state government.

As further evidence of the series being one-sided, the article points out that “…two South Dakota judges, two lawyers and a dozen tribal advocates told NPR that state law doesn’t apply. Federal law says tribes are sovereign. The experts say a state official can’t drive off with an Indian child from Crow Creek any more than a Crow Creek official could drive off with a child from Rapid City.” (Tell this to the birth father in Texas whose child was taken by tribal officials from Arizona three years ago.)

So…NPR found less than two dozen or so officials in South Dakota who think that placing a child of heritage into a non-tribal home is illegal. Obviously, there are many more in SD who view it differently. Thankfully, there are some who realize that the best interest of children is far more important than playing politics.
NPR even quoted, then discounted, a tribal ICWA worker stating,

“I get along real good with the state and I have a good rapport with them…I’m satisfied.”

NPR also brings up the memories of the old border school system, as if it has relevance to the current need to protect children. Yes, taking children years ago for no good cause from the families they knew and loved was wrong. And it is just as wrong to do it today – taking children from homes they know and love and forcing them to live with strangers on reservations.

It is also time to stop painting every attempt at Child Protection as something malicious. Even the boarding school system wasn’t inherently malicious. David Tickerhoof, who NPR identified as the current pastor at Saint Paul’s Church, is quoted in the article saying,

“There had to be a pretty stringent discipline system…The goal wasn’t to make them non-Indian; the effort was to really help them stand as an equal in the job environment and to do that they had to be able to communicate in the dominant society.”

Further, some parents wanted the boarding schools. The NPR article itself relates one story, saying;

“She had been sent away when she was 5-years-old. Her mother couldn’t afford to provide for her or her sister. So, she enrolled them at Saint Paul’s Indian Mission”

The mother enrolled the children. Neither the state nor the mission stole them, yet, the article goes on to intimate that the mission had done something wrong in taking the two children in.

Finally, a NPR statement which I would like to see their documentation for:

“…NPR’s investigation shows that even Native American children who grow up to become foster care success stories, living happy, productive lives, say the loss of their culture and identities leaves a deep hole they spend years trying hopelessly to fill.”

Hopelessly. Meaning – no hope. For years wandering, disabled, half a person… yet, living happy, productive lives. Make up your mind, NPR.

How many people did they interview in order to draw that conclusion? Yes, adoptive children of all heritages have a sense of loss in relation to birth family. A couple of the children I raised felt this as well. It is natural. Yet, we never saw any of the children we raised pine for a heritage, whether it be their Native heritage, or Jewish, German or Irish heritage.

Suffice it to say that every human on earth has nostalgia in their heart to one extent or another, some more than others. People of every heritage have amongst them those who grieve for what was, others who yearn for what might be, and still others who are simply content with what is That’s life. Let’s move on.

Next, there’s the bonus money:

“…according to federal records, if the child has ‘special needs,’ a state can get as much as $12,000,” and “…A decade ago, South Dakota designated all Native American children ‘special needs,’ which means Native American children who are permanently removed from their homes are worth more financially to the state than other children.”

If this is true, it is just plain sick and wrong and needs to be one of the first things the South Dakota legislature changes this next session. I am not saying “maybe.” I am saying CHANGE IT. It is pure racism – plain and simple. Excuse me? Labeling a child as ‘special needs’ just because of their heritage? Nothing could be more degrading and despicable. This is the appalling outcome of the nauseating notion that persons of tribal heritage are somehow different from other people.

Further, if that was truly a factor in the foster care/adoption rate in South Dakota, throw the book at all those responsible and put an end to the sick game.

But while it is quite provocative to point out the money per head that the state gets for the children, NPR totally left out the fact that Tribal government itself gets more money per head for our children. Sometimes, tribal governments need members to be living on the reservation in order for them to receive the funds; other times they are able to use families in their head count of enrolled members whether or not the family lives on the reservation or uses tribal entitlement programs.

According to the “Tribal Complete Count Committee Handbook” published by United States Census 2000, D-3289 (4-99):

“The programs serving tribal residents …which use Federal funding based on population statistics—[include]: Johnson O’Malley, Headstart, Home Energy Assistance, Housing and Urban Development programs, etc…”The Federal government uses census data to allocate funds to tribal, state, and local governments for a wide range of programs.”

According to Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, Statement on the importance of an accurate census to American Indians and Alaska Natives, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 1999:

“….A significant portion of this federal aid is based on the information collected in the census. Federal programs that distribute aid to American Indians and Alaska Natives based in whole or in part on census data include the Job Training Partnership Act, Grants to Local Education Agencies for Indian Education, Special Programs for the Aging, and Family Violence Prevention and Services.”

According to Administration For Children and Families, (ACF) U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, May 9, 2007, Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance:

“Tribal Child Counts …For funds that become available in FY 2008, ACF will calculate grant awards based on the number of children under age 13. A Tribe must submit a self-certified Child Count Declaration for children under age 13 (not age 13 and under), in order to receive FY 2008 CCDF funds.”

How much money are we talking about? Billions.

From Indianz.com, “House panel boosts funds for Indian Programs”, Monday, June 11, 2007. Accessed Aug. 30, 2007 –

At a markup on Thursday, the committee approved 5.7 billion for Indian programs at the Interior Department and related agencies, including the Indian Health Service…. The bill “honors our obligations to Native American communities, making investments into better education and healthcare,” the committee said of the overall $27.6 billion package, an increase of 4.3 percent over current levels.”

And that was 2007. Yet NPR quotes a tribal social worker for the Pine Ridge reservation, Juanita Sherick, saying, in reference to State Social Workers,

“They make a living off of our children…”

…while failing to note that she, herself, is also making a living off of enrollable children.

What to do then?

Tribal social worker, Juanita Sherick, is further quoted saying,

“Give the children back to their relatives, because the creator gave those children to those families…Who has any right to take them away from those families?”

I agree with Juanita. The birth families, if they are fit, should have more authority than either government. That is why ICWA is unconstitutional. Tribal government does not own our children. As Juanita said – “give the children back” to their families.

Allow the families, if they are fit, to decide who they want to adopt their children, and what type of lifestyle they want their children to have. We have seen tribal governments fight for children with less than 1-2% heritage – children with absolutely no connection to the reservation. We can think of no other reason for tribal governments to be doing this than for money. Although most everyone will admit that it is wrong to treat children this way, under the ICWA, it is currently legal.

Sherick went on,

“Why send a private agency onto our reservation? [Children’s Home] is not calling us to request permission to come onto the reservation to do these home studies.”

NPR then states,

“Mendoza says her agency would do the work for free. They know the families, they know the homes.”

If it is true tribal agencies are interested in doing contractible work for free, this is a wonderful idea. While in our own family’s case tribal social workers weren’t willing to come and do proper home studies, the willingness of other tribal agencies to do so is wonderful.

The NPR writers add,

“across the state, grandmothers, aunts and uncles, family and tribal members would have cared for Brianna — and hundreds of other Native American children like her. They would have done so for free, keeping them close to their tribes and culture like federal law intended.”

If what NPR states is true – and I pray that it is – I am all for developing a program to do just that. Willing families would, of course, sign statements that they will not apply for or accept any welfare or entitlement funding for these children, whether through the federal or tribal government (which is still federal funds). But…NPR wouldn’t be trying to bluff us with that statement, right? There truly are enough homes willing to take in hundreds of children for free, right?

Now I have a story of my own to tell about an adoptive mother and her little girl. On Saturday, Nov. 19, the mother posted to Facebook,

“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we got her back.”

My Lord! She wrote this EXACTLY A YEAR from when she had first written us on Saturday, Nov. 20 – saying,

“They just took my baby after 3 years…her sobbing is forever etched in my soul.”

The courts had determined that because the little girl had some Indian heritage, ICWA applied and she had to go stay with a family she had knew nothing about.

For five months this mother suffered the loss daily, until April 13th, when they got a call from Social Services to come and get their little girl right away. There was a problem and she had to be moved immediately from the home she had been placed in. It was only supposed to be for a couple days, until Social Services could find another placement, but these parents were just glad to be able to see her and hold her for as long as they were allowed.

They left right away, driving a couple hours to get her. When she saw them, she ran into their arms and said she was ready to go “home” – “Can I go home?” she asked – Adoptive mom wept – but daughter held her tears until after they had left the building, then wept freely. The people she had been with had told there were monsters in the closet who would come eat her if she cried.

Fortunately, she wasn’t physically hurt during the five months. But she was, indeed, emotionally traumatized. She was NOT okay. She had been told her that her adoptive parents were wolves and would eat her, and she reported that she had been locked in a storage shed. She was only three so it’s still hard to say what actually happened, but it is known that things were not well – as evidenced by the emergency request by social services for the adoptive parents to go after her.

Social Services never took her back, and on Friday, Nov. 18, this family finalized the adoption of their little girl after having lost her exactly a year earlier to ICWA. They are now a permanent family.

The point? Let’s start to recognize that the Indian Child Welfare Act does NOT ensure the best interest of every child with heritage – nor protect them. While some families prefer and need to stay together on the reservation, others do not. Let us recognize that we must not be so prejudice as to assume that all children and families want the same things, simply because they have a certain heritage. Even children and families with 100% blood quantum are not always interested in remaining within the reservation system. Let us start to recognize that all citizens of the United States are guaranteed certain rights under the constitution. Let us also recognize that the safety of children, no matter what their heritage, is the first and most important consideration. If there is no safe home amongst relatives, they should not be placed in a relative’s home.

A commenter to the online article, Slandering the Red States, Part I, by John Hinderaker in Media Bias Nov. 6, 2011, wrote; …

“The whole premise of indians being kidnapped and ‘ruined’ because they are placed with white parents is racist to the core. Can you imagine a similar story about white kids that have a black or Latino dark skinned foster parent being robbed of their “cultural heritage”? Racism is racism and the NPR piece is noting but anti-white racism.”

So True.

Read real life stories in the Rez:  dyinginindiancountry.com

– We need help bringing attention to this issue. Indian Kids need protection EQUAL to any other child – 

When New Congress Starts Back, So do We

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Dec 082010
 
U.S. Constitution, American Flag

December 8, 2010

Take a Rest For Christmas; then Get Back at It.

We’ve done a good job.  We stood up, said what we had to say, and made a difference in our government.

Never mind that many of the worst politicians continue to refuse to listen to us and attempt to twist our words into their own sick meaning.  I doubt many of those offenders were honestly “elected.”  They were more likely put into office through the fraudulent handiwork of Acorn, SEIU and the like; if that weren’t so, they would have been a little less cocky over the last two years and a little more concerned about what their constituents thought.  But now that we have woken up and are watching them, they won’t be able to continue their game forever.

SEIU ballot fraud may have played a role in Harry Reid’s Re-Election

Whistleblower Video Reveals SEIU Ballot Fraud

Yes, we have frauds in office that are determined to continue padding their pockets and pleasing their benefactors.   Throughout history, every civilization has had to deal with that kind of crud.  It’s the evil in the world and there is no getting away from it.  But we can do what we can to reduce it, and come next month, there will be fewer of them in our Congress, and come 2012, there will be even less again.

We CAN clean things up and get back to our Constitutional government for a time. The important thing is not to get discouraged.  Don’t give up.  And train your children on what to watch out for when it’s their turn to steward our nation.

So take your Holiday; get your rest. And come back in January ready to hold Congress’s feet to the fire.  Don’t let up – don’t ever let them assume again that we’ll just give up and go away.

Grab hold your constitutional rights and don’t let go.

Illegal to advertise for a Christian roommate?

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Oct 232010
 

October 23rd, 2010

Apparently, it is now illegal to advertise for a Christian roommate.

Our country has seriously gone off the deep end. Is this for real? Are government officials really doing this?

I have never, to this point, called the extreme leftist ‘progressives’ names or made accusations, no matter how many times they have ridiculed us. And I don’t think I am now…because I mean what I am about to say in all seriousness. I have begun to believe that extreme liberalism is a dangerous mental illness. It’s the only explanation I can think of for this insane behavior.

A civil rights complaint has been filed against a 31-year-old Michigan woman who posted an advertisement on a bulletin board in her church seeking a Christian roommate. Someone had seen the ad – in the church – with the words “Christian roommate wanted” (horrors) and contacted the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, a private group.

The case had been turned over to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. According to the ‘Fair Housing’ Center, the ad “expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths.”

Excuse me? Well of course it expressed a preference that excluded people! That’s what everyone does when they have the opportunity to choose a roommate: they look for someone that they can be compatible with and exclude the others! And what of it? This is the woman’s personal living space – why is it suddenly illegal to choose who you want to live with?? Isn’t this America, land of the free?

I don’t know what doctrine the woman in question lives by, but if she is expressing a Christian preference, I can take at least a semi-accurate guess. Is she seriously expected to share her personal, smoke-free, daily devotion-sharing, praise-song-playing, clean-video-only, pray-over-food, alcohol-free, immoral-sex-free, foul-language-free living space with an atheist, wiccan or even someone who simply likes to party? Are you kidding me?

And doesn’t the mention of Christianity in the home give any non-Christian fair warning that it might not be a living environment they themselves want to put up with? Not to mention that this “complainer” found it on a Christian bulletin board, in a Christian church, where one goes when seeking like-minded Christian people.

Who was this “anonymous” complaint filer, anyway? Probably not a visitor in there for the sole purpose of humble worship. Was it an invited guest who decided to stab his/her host in the back by filing a complaint? A liberal activist who deliberately went into the church looking for something to find fault with? (and could find nothing more than an innocuous note on a bulletin board?)

Or was it a member of Hayne’s staff? Who in their right mind would complain about such a silly thing?

Personally, I have lived with non-Christians before – and I’d ‘prefer’ not to do it again. If I ever have to get a roommate – I will openly express my preference for praying and worshiping with those I live with. That should scare away anyone uncomfortable with my preferences – hopefully including all mentally-ill liberal activists.

But FHCWM Executive Director Nancy Haynes told Todd Starnes of Fox News that “It’s a violation to make, print or publish a discriminatory statement. There are no exemptions to that.”

Haynes also said this woman could face several hundreds of dollars in fines and “fair housing training so it doesn’t happen again.”

Again – are you kidding me? What is this training – a quasi-reeducation camp? Or simply a lesson in not putting into print anything that a mentally ill liberal bureaucrat could find offensive?

Harold Core, director of public affairs with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, appears to agree with this crazy Executive Director. While noting there are exemptions in law for gender (but not sexual preference?) when there is a shared living space, he told the Grand Rapids Press that the Fair Housing Act forbids people from publishing ads stating a preference of religion, race or handicap with respect to sale or rental of a dwelling.

Wow. How long ago was that law written? It’s not really difficult to figure out that the authors of the legislation were referring to the sale or rent of an unoccupied dwelling – NOT the personal living space of an individual looking for a roommate. No one in their right mind would have thought that would be a problem.

But interestingly, we now find out that although (according to the mentally ill) conservatives have no right to legislate what happens between two people in the privacy of their own bedroom or in the privacy of their own womb, liberals can dictate who conservative Christians live with.

It’s not the first time that self-righteous bureaucrats have twisted the words of well-meaning legislators to fit their own agendas.

And it’s not the only venue in which liberals are currently trying to force compliant living arrangements on people of incompatible life styles. They are currently doing it to our soldiers, as well.

Fortunately, the Alliance Defense Fund is representing this woman free of charge. Describing the case as “outrageous,” her attorney said, Having already sent a letter to the state asking the authorities to dismiss the case as groundless, he went on to say, There go those nasty Christians again, trying to drag that old Constitution thingee into it!

“Christians shouldn’t live in fear of being punished by the government for being Christians. It is completely absurd to try to penalize a single Christian woman for privately seeking a Christian roommate at church — an obviously legal and constitutionally protected activity.”

“The First Amendment guarantees us Freedom of Religion and we have the right to live with someone of the same faith. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is denying her rights by pursuing this complaint.”

Haynes, on the other hand, compassionately asks,

“If you read it and you were not Christian, would you not feel welcome to rent there?”

Seriously?   Is this Haynes woman any relation to Nancy Pelosi?   She sure sounds just as light-headed.

Of course, Ms. Haynes, I would not feel welcome to rent there…and so what? The better question is this: If I were to read an ad that preferred a Muslim roommate, would I not feel welcome to rent there?

Umm…Duh!  Of course I would understand I wasn’t welcome to apply. Again, so what?

Knowing it was a Muslim home is good information. My home needs to be a place where I can relax, and preferring to play my worship music at blasting volume, I wouldn’t be able to relax in a Muslim household.

So why should it bother me – or anyone, for that matter – if people describe the nature of their home and look for roommates with similar living habits?  If I saw an ad for Muslim roommates only, I’d be grateful that they were up front and saved me the time and effort that would have been spent vetting the possibility. It’s “ok” to be different.  It’s called diversity, and we’re all supposed to embrace it.

Yet, Haynes states, had the ad not included the word “Christian,” it would not have been illegal.

Right. So it’s all about “expressing” our preferences? Isn’t that why Juan Williams was fired? Never mind that all he did was say what the majority of Americans feel – (at least momentarily) – when they see a Muslim on their flight. (And hey – believe it or not, the first tell-tale sign that someone might be a Muslim is their clothing)

How many people don’t think of 911 for even a fleeting second when a man with a turban or woman with a burqa boards the plane with them? And how many Muslims have a passing thought about 911 while preparing for a morning flight? Get real! All Juan did was speak out in words what most people themselves are thinking. Most sane people, at any rate.

Speaking of which – Dearborn is in Michigan, isn’t it? Is the Michigan Department of Civil Rights prepared to press charges on Muslims that prefer to live with Muslims? Can anyone seriously expect that an extended Muslim family would be happy about an adult daughter rooming with a Christian woman? Heaven knows – a Bible might get accidently forgotten on the coffee table, or a Christian radio station might be heard through the bedroom door.

This is further evidence that liberalism is a mental illness – for I am fairly certain that Michigan would never take a Muslim to court for a similar transgression, whether or not they wrote their preference on a note.

Haynes said officials plan on pursuing the matter because “We want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

But I firmly believe these particular bureaucrats have only one group they plan to monitor and persecute – I mean prosecute – on this issue.

The real intent here is intimidation, and, in essence, religious persecution – albeit persecution ‘lite.’ The point is they’ve found a token victim to harass, and in doing so, they are able to goad the entire Church while pursuing case law that will support their twisted interpretation of statute.

Make me puke.

Is the Obama Administration fanning the flames of a Race War?

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Sep 232010
 

September, 23, 2010

Let’s see, we had Black Panthers, La Raza, NAACP, and Mrs. Obama all talking “us against them.” Now we have President Obama, himself, telling black lawmakers, “

I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops. Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can’t wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now.”

As many know, in late 2008, the Department of Justice, under President Bush, filed a lawsuit alleging that the ‘New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense’ (NBPPSD) and two of its members had intimidated Philadelphia voters during the Nov. 4, 2008 general election.

According to the complaint, two members of the NBPPSD were stationed at the entrance to a Philadelphia polling station. They wore their uniforms and one carried a “police-style baton weapon.” Two witnesses testified that at least three voters, after seeing the two men in front of the door, turned away without voting and that a black poll watcher was harassed, called a race traitor, and told that if he stepped outside, there would be ‘hell to pay.’

Later the Black Panthers admitted that they had ‘deployed’ members to polling locations nationwide and these two men were part of that deployment.

But soon after Obama took over the presidency, the case was dropped. Apparently, career prosecutors at the DOJ wanted to proceed with the case, but Obama appointees did not. The Obama administration, it was said, won.

According to whistleblower J. Christian Adams, attorney of 18 years and until a few months ago, Department of Justice employee, dropping the case was about ‘race,’ not fidelity to the law.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former career Counsel to the Assistant AG for Civil Rights, thinks this action by the Justice Department is unprecedented and says the DOJ has failed its duty to enforce voting laws. He told The Bulletin that the dismissal by the DOJ, with no notice on the Justice Department press site, particularly against an organization listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a horrible miscarriage of justice.

Having heard of Mr. Adams sworn testimony, why didn’t President Obama push for justice in the matter?

Later, one of the NBPPSD members who was at the Philly polling place was video taped at an event, yelling at the crowd that black people have to get with it and ”Kill Some Crackers and Their Babies!”

It is clearly obvious that the Tea Party is multiracial in both leadership and membership, while the Black Panthers are not. And yet, it is the ‘Tea Party’ that Obama’s followers, including the NAACP, are accusing of racism. In truth, who are the ones creating issues over race, i.e. racists?

Last month, the NAACP voted on a Resolution concerning the ‘Tea Party.’ Although the NAACP refuses to release the language of the Resolution until October, ABC reported that it says

“Tea Party members have used “racial epithets,” have verbally abused black members of Congress and threatened them, and protesters have engaged in “explicitly racist behavior” and “displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically.”

To this date, no one has come forward with any video or audio of Tea Party participants engaging in any of the behavior described – other than displaying signs and posters concerning the misguided politics of President Barack Obama. But no one has supplied evidence of a poster intended to specifically degrade people “of color” on account of their “color.”

Despite the lack of any evidence, the President of the NAACP went on with his claims:

“For more than a year we’ve watched as Tea Party members have called congressmen the N-word, have called congressmen the F-word. We see them carry racist signs and whenever it happens, the membership tries to shirk responsibility,” NAACP President Ben Jealous (an apt surname) said in an interview with ABC News. “If the Tea Party wants to be respected and wants to be part of the mainstream in this country, they have to take responsibility.”

The NAACP unanimously passed this resolution, purportedly calling on Tea Party members to ‘repudiate’ what the NAACP calls “ultra-nationalist and racist factions within the organization.”

Okay…back up. Now they have thrown the word “Ultra-nationalist” into the mix? What’s that supposed to mean? Is that what the left now calls Patriotism? So now Patriotism is a bad thing, inherently associated with racism?  They have no evidence of racism, so they must be going after Patriotism because its the only thing there’s lots of evidence of within the Tea Party!

Yet, there is plenty of footage of the Black Panthers using direct, deliberate racist language towards non-blacks. Has Mr. Jealous taken responsibility and repudiated that clear, undeniable racism – racism from who Mrs. Obama has for some reason called “African” Americans?

Somehow the NAACP’s complaints smell more political than anything else. This isn’t an organization devoted to supporting a people group, it’s an organization devoted to supporting a political party,

Fortunately, not every US citizen of African heritage thinks the NAACP is correct. ABC reports that the Rev. C.L. Bryant, former president of NAACP’s Garland, Texas, chapter and now a leading Tea Party activist, said;

“The idea that the Tea Party is racist or is trying to instigate a racist climate is “simply a lie.”

But the NAACP isn’t alone. Organizations such as the National Urban League, Acorn, and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition all appear to see non- “African” American people in this country as a stumbling block to their political objective.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based social-justice group Sojourners, former leader of the Michigan Students for a Democratic Society (associated with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground) and a key member of Obama’s faith council, wrote on May 27 that, “There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white…” and claimed that an undercurrent of white resentment is part of the tea party ethos. Apparently not having heard or understood anything that has been said by Conservatives over the last year, he also asked whether the Tea party would even exist if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office.

Willis’ group, Sojourners, BTW, had actively lobbied for communist regimes that seized power in Latin America in the late 1970s, and is currently advocating for the controversial Imam and Mosque in New York.
The left’s constant invective that everyone else in America is racist appears to be a shallow effort to provoke young, minority voters nationwide to rise up and save the Democratic Party over these next two election cycles.

And it appears that Michelle Obama is assisting in that effort. Are we being too hard on her?

First Lady Obama, who wrote in her 1985 undergraduate thesis at Princeton, “I will always be black first and a student second,” and “Princeton made me more aware of my blackness than ever before,” spoke to the NAACP prior to their vote on the Tea Party Resolution. ABC News, as expected, commended her speech in their report headlined, “Michelle Obama Rouses NAACP Before Vote Condemning ‘Racist’ Elements of Tea Party”

Her speech had to do with childhood obesity, but her community focus was very narrow. Many felt her speech was incendiary and race baiting. Her statement that “African American communities are still hit harder than just about anywhere by this economic downturn…” was very hard for someone of a different heritage to hear while struggling to keep the electric bill paid and food on the table. The entire speech was focused on the idea that the “African American” community struggles harder than any other. President Obama has made similar statements.

The Obama’s, like so many in their inner circle, appear to be blind to people of other heritages. Does she honestly believe that the ‘African American’ community has been hit harder by this economy than the Native American community? Does she have statistics to back that up? And is it really hit harder by childhood obesity than the ‘Caucasian’ community, or ‘Latino’ community?

Mrs. Obama went on to say, “African American” children “won’t be in any shape to continue the work begun by the founders of this great organization (NAACP).”

Again…back up. Is that the point of teaching the children good nutrition? So that they will be in good condition to work for the NAACP? I certainly hope that was simply poor speech writing, and not the true goal. Incidentally, what is the work that she is hoping these children will do? And why does Mrs. Obama, the NAACP, and their followers continue to call American citizens with darker skin tones “African” Americans? Why the continual, purposeful pointing out of centuries ‘past’ heritage?

And why the persistent attacks on “America?” Why does the left appear to be continually, purposefully, blaming and riling people? Were initial concerns about the Obama’s twenty-year relationship with Pastor Jeremiah Wright well-founded?

Listening to Sermons such as this one:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme. ~ Jeremiah Wright (2003 sermon)

Which brings us to one of his more recent ones: an anti-Semitic Palm Sunday Sermon …

This is no fluke in thought or sermon. On Palm Sunday, 2010, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, pastor Emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, Ill., whose church Barack and Michelle Obama attended for 20 years, gave the following sermon at a Church in Detroit:

Based on 2 Kings 6:8-17, Rev. Wright spoke on “What You Can’t See.”  The passage related how the Prophet Elisha saw God’s invisible host of Angels standing ready to protect him against the King of Syria. Pastor Wright stressed, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them…”

Ellis Washington, former editor of the Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute was a witness to this sermon and later stated,

“Despite the thunderous shouts of Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! and hysterical laughter in response to Rev. Wright’s sermon, I knew in my heart that this man standing before me in the pulpit was deceitful to core; a false prophet perverting the word of God like no other person I had ever witnessed.”
“For example, I heard Rev. Wright read the well-known biblical passage …but the political spin he put on it was quite outrageous…

  • Syria-Israel War = America-Iraq War;
    • King of Syria = President George W. Bush;
    • Operation Capture Elisha = Operation Desert Storm;
    • Prophet Elisha = Saddam Hussein (an innocent man with no WMDs);
    • Syrian Army = U.S. military (i.e., an evil pagan army hell-bent on capturing the man of God);
    • Syria’s servants = President George Bush military and political advisers;
    • Elisha’s servants = black Americans whose eyes needed to be open about how evil and irredeemable the US of KKKA is.

Okay, Rev. Wright…so where do the other American minorities fit in? As far as the Tea Party is concerned, they fit in right next to the rest of us. But where do they fit in with the NAACP, and Wrights version of America?

Because, you know, their human and want to fit in somewhere…

A few months ago, Ron Gochez, a LA Unified School District Teacher, railed against conservative Caucasian capitalists at a small Los Angeles rally and called for a Communist Progressive revolution in America. This liberal Revolution would involve killing people in the United States.

On Cinco de Mayo, May 5, 2010, Robert Rodriguez released an “illegal” trailer on Ain’t It Cool News. The trailer implied that the film would be about Machete leading a revolt against conservative anti-immigration politicians and citizens. Very unfunny – and an excellent reason to boycott the movie.

Do Obama and his administration truly believe that Fanning the Flames of Race War will help them win in 2010 and 2012? Are they honestly willing to push America to the edge in order to obtain their goals?

In August, 2010, a man went on a shooting rampage at his former workplace. After shooting 10 co-workers, killing eight, Omar Thornton told the 911 operator,

“This place is a racist place. They treat me bad over here. They treat all the black employees bad over here, too. So I took into my own hands and handled the problem,” he said. “I wish I could have got more of the people.”

Unfortunately, while most people continue to rise above the rhetoric and remember who we are as a country, angry, racial rhetoric is now rising from all sides and heritages. Two years ago, many were not angry and did not say such things as they are saying now. People are growing more frightened of each other; unsure what the other person might be thinking or where they stand. It’s always a relief when one finds out that despite the difference in heritage, the other person still thinks just like you do. Despite the wedge that the left is trying to force between everyone, most of us still want to be neighbors.

This was supposed to be a “post” racial presidency. Why is our leadership fanning these flames?

On September 18, 2010, President Barack Obama , in a speech to just the black lawmakers said, ”

I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops. Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can’t wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now.”

Why was this message given to only part of the liberal Congress members? Why weren’t non-black lawmakers included?

The president, in effort to secure their support, repeated the First Lady’s claim, saying the recession had struck “with a particular vengeance on African-American communities” and implied that opposition to his policies is based on racism.

Members of “the other side,” Obama said, “want to take us backward. We want to move America forward.”

The caucus dinner with the lawmakers capped a concentrated week of outreach to minority groups. On Monday there was a White House reception for black college officials. On Wednesday there were speeches by the president to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and by first lady to a black caucus legislative conference. Obama told the Hispanic group he is committed to an immigration overhaul, even though it has stalled in Congress. He blamed GOP opposition and said Hispanic voters should keep that in mind.  Obama was also interviewed on “The Tom Joyner Show” radio program last week, which has a large black audience.

I was raised in the DFL, amongst many people that seriously believed that liberal policies would help people. I wonder what some of those older people I grew up around; Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Don Frazer and Rudy Perpich would be thinking, or are thinking, about the Democratic Party now. They seemed so honest while I was growing up. I have a hard time believing they would support the current administration.

But I’ve also realized for years that it is the liberal mindset that keeps people separated and angry, salting wounds. Having had lots of experience living in very low income communities and on reservations, I began to see how the liberal policies were doing much more harm than good. More recently, I have begun to wonder if that is their real purpose. I still believe the people I grew up around were sincere, but the Democratic Party, at the top, as near as I can tell, is now the party of elite wanting power over the poor.

I see the Democrats today as more closely aligned with the Communists of 60 – 80 years ago, who professed to be for the poor while they terrorized and subjugated them.

You can hear it in their angry words – the venom, rudeness, and hate with which they treat their political opponents. In Blog comments and on twitter, they have been attacking the elderly, vets, and young mothers with disdain and the foulest language. Why? That kind of behavior certainly doesn’t endear them to anyone. It only pushes people farther away from the Democratic Party. People that attack brutely rather than debate maturely are scary people. I do not want them leading us; they are the type that hit when they aren’t obeyed.  However it appears this is the type of people we now have in the White House.

We can not let this small group of ultra-liberals push us into race war.

Not only is race is irrelevant in any context, (including in the U.S. census), race doesn’t even exist. According to Genome Project, there is no such thing as race. There is no gene for race. There are only genes for familial differences, such as facial cheekbones, shade of skin, and texture of hair. Those aren’t race differences; they are family differences. Human genes have been traced back to just one family. (The genome project stopped short of saying that all humans descended from one couple. Too touchy of a statement, I would guess.)

Commenting on current racial tensions, Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, “The NAACP is slamming the Tea Party for racism, as all the while the NAACP supports Planned Parenthood, the most racist arm of genocide in America today. Add to this melee the most recent attack by the Pro-abortion Movement on the Pro-Life Prayer Movement that is sweeping the nation. As the games play out, one thing is apparent. The concept of separate races and consequently racism are a lie.”

“What people need to do is to read the Bible, or at least read my Uncle Martin’s book Strength to Love,” said Dr. King. “Human dignity, bringing love and respect for each other as human beings, not considering ourselves as separate races is the answer to this puzzle.”

Mrs. Obama, what is Racism?

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Aug 062010
 

First Lady Obama, speaking at NAACP in July, on the eve of their declaring the Tea Party racist, stated,

“When African American communities are still hit harder than just about anywhere by this economic downturn and so many families are just barely scraping by…”
and

“…just like so many other challenges that we face as a nation, the African American community is being hit even harder by this issue.”

Mrs. Obama, like so many in her small circle, appears to be completely blind to the rest of America. Does she honestly believe that the ‘African American’ community is hit harder by the economic downturn than, say…the ‘Native American’ community?  Is it really hit harder by childhood obesity than the ‘Caucasian’ community, or the ‘Latino’ community?  Does she have statistics to back that up?

If she is right, whose fault is it?  How does she propose to fix the ‘issue?’  Will more stimulus funds solve it?

If so, will the funds be targeted at only those served by the NAACP, or will children of other heritages, who Mrs. Obama doesn’t appear to be as concerned about, also benefit?

Mrs. Obama went on to say that if the ‘issue’ of childhood obesity within the ‘African American’ community isn’t resolved, ‘African American’ children “won’t be in any shape to continue the work begun by the founders of this great organization.”  (the NAACP)

And what is that work? Please tell the rest of us, because for years we’ve been lead to believe that the NAACP was a civil rights organization with an altruistic heart for equality of all people.  It sure doesn’t seem that this is the case, anymore.  Maybe it never was.

Lastly, why does Mrs. Obama, the NAACP, and their followers continue to call American citizens of darker skin “African” Americans?  Why is there a continual, purposeful pointing out of centuries old heritage?

I have never been referred to as a “German American.” …Or an “Irish American,” or “Scottish American,” for that matter. (My, my, which one would I choose?)

OH WAIT!  Africa is a continent.  Therefore, I would be called a “European” American.  And by the way – are ONLY people of dark skin who are of African heritage allowed in the NAACP?  What if they have European heritage as well?

Oh, wait, President Obama has more than one heritage.  So…is he considered “African” American or…”European” American, …or both?

Excuse me, but who here are the people most focused on “race” here… aka  – the true racists?

Rep. King, Obama IS a Racist

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Jun 172010
 

Finally – someone has had the guts to say something.

Iowa Congressman Steve King, in a June 16, 2010, FOX article by Cristina Corbinon, reaffirmed his belief that President Obama has “a default mechanism that breaks down on the side of the minority.”

While he stopped short of calling the president a racist, saying “I don’t know if I want to go so far as to make that allegation,” King ”made no apologies for his comments about Obama favoring Minorities.”

The Iowa Representative meant exactly what he said on G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show Monday: that President Obama favors blacks over whites and “needs to be called to task on that.” He felt he is performing a public service by stating that the President obviously favors blacks over whites.

YES – he had done a public service!  President Obama, Eric Holder, and the extremely large number of people in our country that are doing the same thing DO need to be called on it.  They MUST be called on it, because to continue this ridiculous facade is seriously harming us all.

One of King’s examples was the July 2009 Cambridge, MA, brouhaha where white police officer Sgt. James Crowley arrested black Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside his home. Before knowing the facts, Obama said the officer had acted “stupidly” by arresting Gates.  Under severe criticism, Obama later ate his words and pretended to make it all better at a White House ”beer summit,” where he and Gates continued their assault on the varied motivations of law enforcement.  (One thing that was noticeable in the press photos of their walk to the table was Crowley’s kind attention in assisting Gates, who uses a cane, while Obama lumbered ahead, oblivious to them both.) 

King said Obama’s initial statement on the incident “brought up race in the beginning” and “concluded with race.”

King went on to cite Obama’s criticism of Arizona’s immigration law and Eric Holders decision to drop the 2008 voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.  Two members of that party had been standing at the door of a Philedelphia voting center in election day, waving sticks.

Democrats are feigning outrage over King’s remarks, and even some republicans have run hiding.  Never mind he’s speaking to an issue that many of us had been aware of, or have become aware of, over the last year.

While King stops short of calling the president a racist, I have no such hesitancy.

It is beyond me how my husband, who was 100% Native American, was called a racist by the Montana Human Rights Commission simply because he politically opposed what tribal leaders are doing to people of Indian heritage.  Yet, he never showed disdain for the tribe. In fact, everything he did was because he loved his family and friends and hated to see them continue to be hurt by destructive federal Indian policy.  His only crime?  He was taking the same side on the issues as many conservative white people. Therefore, because the left labeled those white people as racist, they labeled him as a racist as well.  In fact, the Montana Human Rights Network claimed that ANYONE who opposed tribal government decisions was inherently a racist.

Yet Obama, Jackson, Sharpton, Rev. Wright, and the like , (I’m referring to ideology here), can behave as they have toward whites – not with simple political opposition, but with constant hate mongering in the form of  false  accusations about the motivations of Caucasians.  And no one is supposed to say anything.

What’s honestly behind the huge outcry against the Arizona law – the one that reflects and upholds federal law?  The only ones making this a racial issue are the ones who are calling the law racist and inferring that Arizonans are as well.  That would be Obama, Holder, Napolitano, and the Mayor of LA… to name just a few.

While the state was forced to enact the law because federal government wasn’t doing its job concerning gang members and drug runners crossing the border in greater numbers, Arizona law enforcement personnel are not idiots, nor are they all racists. For Obama, Holder, various mayors and pandering politicians from the left to accuse them as such is racism in itself.

Arizona Law Enforcement personnel are trained professionals and they deserve respect.  They have arrested criminals of every size, shape, color and persuasion in the past and will continue to do so in the future. While jerks exist in any and every group, (including the White House) Arizona policemen do not intend to eyeball only Latinos for suspicious activity and arrest and let everyone else go on about their crimes.

Further,  the need for a secure border and strict law isn’t only about Latinos! So pretending that Latinos are the only issue – the only ones crossing the border illegally and the only ones to be affected by the bill …is racist.

In case not everyone has heard, we were attacked in 2001, and not one of the attackers was Latino.  Further, on an Arizona reservation just last month, a Pakistani was picked up after crossing the border illegally.

It has also been known for quite awhile that Al-Qaeda has been recruiting Caucasians in Britain to commit terrorist acts. In 2008, a Scotland paper wrote,

“As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK.”

In Israel, terrorists are now coming in every shape, size, gender, and color.

So let’s get real. We can’t play games with our border, no matter who feels offended and pouts. This is about crime, not race.

Further, quoting Dr. William B. Allen, former Chair of the US Comm. on Civil Rights and Dean Emeritus, Political Science, MSU

(The Arizona Law) …addresses individuals who have broken the law, and looks for ordinary social indications in order to determine who such persons are. … So, in the case of immigration laws, … the laws operate universally, to protect those who enter legally and to condemn those who enter illegally.  It is the individual, personal decision to enter legally that identifies the person as subject to the law, and not the person’s race or ethnicity.

So why does Obama and other keep making it about race?  Who are the real racists?

Obama’s comments and behavior consistently reek racism and even anti-Semitism.  (He couldn’t even bring himself to dine with or have his picture taken with Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.) 

Some argue Obama can’t be racist because of his mother and grandmother. The fact that Obama’s mother was white is irrelevant. As a Berkeley psychotherapist noted, “His mother disregarded his basic needs, dragged him all over the place, and ultimately abandoned him.” She also wrote that “Barack Sr. was an abusive, alcoholic bigamist.”  But Obama subsequently wrote a book praising his father.

It’s time for the whole ‘racism’ game to stop. Many of us refuse to play anymore.

This is a country full of varied individuals.  Our multi-racial family refuses to even answer questions about ‘race’ posed by the census, school documents, and the like.  Race doesn’t matter!!  It’s liberals who keep trying to make it an issue.  We didn’t answer it on the 1990, 2000, or 2010 census.   We encourage everyone – of every heritage – to stop answering that racist, immaterial question no matter what document it comes on.

They will tell you that the question is only for funding purposes – but that’s part of the problem!  Why is the federal government allocating funds based upon question of race?  It’s way past time for all this garbage to stop!

To Those who Love an Indian Child hurt by ICWA –

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Jun 072010
 

 – I am one of those –

 – that person you are afraid of.  That person with whom children were placed, not because I could handle them, not because I even knew them …

In fact, my abilities, emotional stability, and character were never a factor at all. My husband was their grandfather. That’s all that mattered. No one from the tribe or the court ever talked to me about whether I could handle four more kids on top of my own five.  No Guardian Ad Litem called to chat.  No one seemed to care whether I could do this or not.

The Tribe did finally send a couple women over to do a “home study,” but that was a good year or more after they had already placed the kids with us. That was the first, and last, time anyone checked on our home.

And they didn’t even check the bedrooms. If they had, they would have discovered that not all the kids had their own beds. In fact, not all the kids even had bedrooms. We used two of our shops storage rooms for some of the kids.

No, the two tribal “social workers” who flew in from another state and who we were told would spend two days with us, chatted with my husband for about an hour, then asked how to get to a local attraction. They were anxious to get started with their paid vacation.  We were happy to give them directions and be finished with the faux “home study.”

That was it. Never saw them again.

So…our family knows first hand what it takes to be one of our tribe’s “acceptable” Indian homes.

How did it turn out?  I’d like to say that we became the Brady Bunch. But it’s not that simple.

In some ways, at various points of time, we did great. There was love, laughs, and kindness, along with the stress, sibling rivalry, and melt downs. The four kids, all under 7 when they arrived, started calling us Mom and Dad, just as our first five did, and all the kids, most of whom were the same age, began referring to each other as brothers & sisters.

But our lives were far from story book (Or even TV series). The reality of the effects of alcohol exposure, crack exposure, and neglect on the four wove through all of our lives. It’s one thing if a family is trying to help one child get through this kind of storm. It’s quite another when one is trying to help four without training, support, or resources – while trying to raise your own five young children at the same time.

Yup. The tribe mandated the ICWA thing, and then left us hanging.

Why did I do it? Why didn’t I just say “No?” Again, because of ICWA. I had seen the conditions in which my husband’s nephews, nieces and other grandchildren were being made to live. I knew that even though I was on the edge of losing my mind, our home was still better and safer than any other that the tribe might choose. I couldn’t turn these four away to that kind of life. Believe it or not—as much as I felt like a basket case on my better days and the wicked witch on my worst, our home was truly the best these children would get in an ICWA placement.

And we had Jesus Christ to lean on, and a wonderful, loving, large church family. Without these, I truly might have lost my mind.

Three years after my husband was given custody, he was diagnosed with cancer.  Four years later, he passed away. Through all those hard years, church brothers & sisters practically carried us.

After he passed, though, is when real troubles began. It was as if a dam of emotions, pent up and waiting, suddenly exploded. Some of it was the grief of birth children, some the impulse of teen-agers. The hardest though, was the eruption of FAE angst and the familial predilection to alcoholism as children entered adolescence one by one.

Today the storm is over. Only four of the nine are still minors. At this point in our story, despite years of trying to teach the children the dangers of drugs, all is not well.

Just last week, I gave custody of one of the grandchildren to the county in order that he be able to get the mental health help that he needs, as well as for the protection of the other children still in the home. I did this because the two grandchildren that had thus far reached adulthood have returned to the birth family—as well as the destructive family lifestyle. I now needed to change how I was doing things in order to prevent the same outcome with this child.

I just wish I had fully realized years ago how necessary trained help was, so that the other two might have benefitted as well.  (By the way, through correct interpretation of the law, as we explained it to the judge, this particular custody transfer was deemed non-ICWA.)

Long story short—Contrary to the belief of Congress and one-sided, tribal government testimony, the “best interest of the child” does NOT require a relative placement or even an Indian placement.

As much as many tribal leaders want society to believe that all children of heritage are “theirs” and have a “connection” to tribal culture that will crush them if broken, it’s just not true. To some people such things matter, to others, it doesn’t.

My birth children and grandchildren, for example, would be crushed if forced to live on the reservation.  My Children may be 50% Indian, but they have been raised in much safer, loving communities than the reservation community in which they are enrolled.  Living on the reservation would have destroyed them.

Further, most children aren’t “just” Indian. Ours are also Irish, Scottish, German and even Jewish.  All their heritages are equally important.  Most children of tribal heritage have other, equally important heritages, and they are all US citizens who should be constitutionally given Equal Protection.  Meaning – contrary to common practice today, enrolled children should not be left in conditions that children of any other heritage would be removed from.  They are not mere chattel—a means for additional funding— for tribal governments.

Many children, after suffering abuse and neglect, need real help, and several tribal governments are negligent in that they place them into situations where they can not get it.

Time and again I have seen children placed by their tribe into violent, verbally, physically, and even sexually abusive, drug infested homes.  I have seen little or no attention given to the emotional and mental health issues these children have had. That isn’t to say that no tribal governments care—it’s just to say that I, having lived in this particular extended family for 30 some years, haven’t seen it.

ICWA, in all our family experience, is a crime against children. 

www.caicw.org

Mayor Villaraigosa; Who are the Racists?

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May 272010
 

Dear Sir;
While I respect the concern you have regarding racial profiling, I believe that the Law Enforcement Officers of Arizona are professionals.

Many of us in the north are appalled that our southern neighbors have been forced by the federal government to live with violent drug runners racing through their property.  I can’t imagine how frightening that must be.  The fact that a rancher was murdered last month while minding his business, driving on his own land, doesn’t seem to bother the White House at all.

What is our federal government there for, if not to organize and protect our borders?

Sir, the only ones that I see making this a racial issue are the ones that are calling Arizonans racist.

Yes, the law was written because Latinos from Mexico – impoverished families as well as gang members and drug runners – have been illegally crossing the border in greater and greater numbers and with that much hurt has come to Arizona.

But Arizona law enforcement personnel are not idiots. They aren’t the racist rednecks various mayors and pandering politicians from the left have accused them of being.  They are, believe it or not, trained professionals.  I suspect that most have arrested criminals of every persuasion in the past and they expect to do so in the future. While jerks exist in any and every group, (including among White House Staffers) I doubt Arizona policemen intend to eyeball only Latinos for suspicious activity and arrest, and let everyone else go on about their crimes.

The first job of the Police officer, according to SB 1070, is to be about fighting crime and catching law breakers.  That is the number one thing that the Police are supposed to be looking for. Illegal presence in the United States is a secondary factor, and deporting law breakers because they are here illegally is simply common sense.

If a neighbor kid comes into my house and steals something off my dresser…no matter what his heritage is, I’m gonna kick him out and tell him not to come back. (I’ve done the “forgive – let’s talk about this” route before. Forget it.)

Further, it is extremely short sighted to act as if the need for a secure border and strict laws is only about Latinos.

An alert went out this week for someone from Somalia – not a Latino – that is/was attempting to cross the southern Border to commit terrorism.  It has also been known for quite awhile that Al-Qaeda has been recruiting Caucasians in Britain to commit terrorist acts.  In 2008, a Scotland paper wrote,

“As many as 1,500 white Britons are believed to have converted to Islam for the purpose of funding, planning and carrying out surprise terror attacks inside the UK.”

In Israel, terrorists are now coming in every shape, size, gender, and color.

So let’s get real.  The War on Drugs isn’t our only border concern; there is also a War on Terror.  We can’t play games with our border, no matter who feels offended and pouts.  This is about crime, not race.  Any time anyone crosses the border to stay in the United States without permission, it is a crime.

Every state needs to adopt an Arizona type law.  Why should I be afraid of it?   The police already always ask for my ID every time they stop me for speeding.  I also already carry the kids’ birth certificates in a binder because we go to Canada frequently.  I even keep their shot records, our car’s registration, and other documents in it because it’s so convenient.  When we were students there, I kept the visas in the same binder.  And I have NEVER been offended when a Canadian officer has asked to see my documents at the border – it’s their right.

The only ones that should be upset by it are those that are here illegally. (So, Obama, why are you upset?)

Arizona has every right to protect its citizens.  Everyone that has seriously read SB 1070 has been forced to realize that it is definitely constitutional.  Even Eric Holder and his crew haven’t been able to justify a reason to fight it.  That’s why they are sitting on it, claiming that they are going to go slowly in order to mull it over.  As near as many of us can tell, they are sitting on it until the law takes effect in the hopes of catching an Arizona police officer attempting to use it to commit a crime.

I don’t understand how they think that will help their argument against the SB 1070, though.  People commit crimes. That’s why we have laws.  Laws that are thought out and well written don’t cause crime, they address them.  And SB 1070 is a law written – apparently very well – to address and deal with crime being committed by people of every heritage, size, and contortion, even if the impetus was about Mexican citizens.

I certainly pray that the federal government, in their present silliness, doesn’t attempt to set up an entrapment, and that Arizona is left alone to work out the law as they need to.

Now, Honorable Mayor Villaraigosa, as far as your boycott is concerned, according to the CATO institute,

“Preventing such interstate discrimination was, of course, one of the original purposes of the Constitution and, specifically, its Commerce Clause (which grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce).”

It’s one thing for an entity to suggest individual citizens boycott an offending entity. It’s another thing when a government passes a law forcing a Boycott of interstate commerce.  Your boycott, sir, is what is unconstitutional.

So – as much as I love driving Highway 1, visiting the Pier, Universal Studios, relatives in Santa Monica, the Sequoia forest to the north, and much more…I will NOT visit LA or California at all until California officials grow up and cease their foolish attack on Arizona.

By the way – at one point, the Canadian government turned down out request to extend our visas.  We had apparently filled out our paperwork wrong.  Although we disagreed with their assertion, We did not protest or demand an imagined right to stay.  We left, as we were told.  We camped in Glacier Park and returned to the border to do the paperwork again.  This time the visas were granted.  Yes, it cost me another $1200, but we did it and it was legal.  Although we are a multi-racial family, we never accused Canadian officials of racism.  Canada has the right to govern its borders, and so do “we” in the US.

Please remember, Mayor Villaraigosa, as well as President Obama; it’s “We the People” that run this country.  Not a political party, and not a self-important person.

Obama, trying to beat McCain to punch, sends 1,200 troops to…to sit at desks

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May 262010
 

So…after again behaving with arrogance during a private meeting with Senate Republicans yesterday, and giving them the impression that he wasn’t interested in sending troops to help secure our southern border, President Obama waltzed out of the room and immediately announced that he’s sending up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border as well and $500 million for “enhanced border protection and law enforcement.”

He hadn’t said a word to the Republicans, even though they had been discussing this very thing with him. In fact, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said that he and Sen, McCain (R-AZ) had told Obama that McCain was introducing an amendment that very day that would send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border and would be paid for with unspent stimulus money.

”Sen. McCain spoke to it…and then I stood up. One of the things I said was we were going to the floor in a few minutes to request additional money for sending troops to the border. But that was the end of the conversation.”

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who described the meeting as “testy,” said the president

“wasn’t embracing” the call to secure the bordersbefore pressing forward with a comprehensive immigration policy overhaul.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) put it a little more bluntly:

“The more he talked, the more he got upset. He needs to take a valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans and just calm down, and don’t take anything so seriously. If you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re attacking their motives — and he takes it that way and tends then to lecture and then gets upset.”

What?  What is wrong with Obama?  Maybe the Republicans weren’t questioning his motives, but I sure am. Why doesn’t he seem able to sit at a table with his opponents and behave with any kind of openness and sincerity?

The last time he has a real meeting with Republicans, he did the same thing.  He goes in, puts on an anemic show of bipartisanship, all the while arrogantly keeping Republicans at arms length – and making sure he doesn’t do anything that will give them any credit.  So insecure in his authority, he is loathe to give any appearance that he’s not totally in control. So he leaves the meeting intending to do only that which will prove to Americans that he’s the one on top.

Last time, after the health care ’summit’, he continued on with his own plans despite every good idea and point made by his opposition.  This time, it was “get to the people and announce a border guard surge before McCain gets to the Senate floor.”

His announcement came just as several Republican border security amendments, including McCain’s, were being introduced on the Senate floor. Amazing…

McCain, whose re-election depends on appearing firmly conservative, said from the floor that he appreciates Obama’s decision …but there needs to be more.

“I think it is a recognition of the violence on the border which has been really beyond description in some respects,” McCain said. “But it’s simply not enough.”

But will his “surge” do any good?

A White House official, who claimed Obama’s announcement was “part of his comprehensive plan to secure the southwest border,” has confirmed that the National Guard will “provide intelligence, surveillance,” “training capacity” and support for “reconnaissance” and “counter narcotics enforcement” until more Border Patrol officers can be hired. The additional funds are to improve security technology and increase the number of agents, investigators and prosecutors for the area.

Essentially, according to Sen. Jon Kyl, (R-AZ),

…”the 1,200 border patrol troops are, in effect, desk jobs…They aren’t boots on the ground at the border, they were not intended to be deployed to the border.  Rather they’ll be investigating, administrative support, maybe training. Now that’s all fine…but the real value of the National Guard is to be seen.”

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer gave a response that we hope Obama can learn from; she spoke with courtesy  regarding the deployment, even though he is an opponent and has mocked her, and even though it’s obvious the deployment is simply a political gesture. She applauded his plan as a ”very significant and important shift in the president’s immigration and border security policy.”

“I am pleased that President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal immigration without other pre-conditions, such as passage of ‘comprehensive immigration reform…I am anxious to hear of the details that have not yet been disclosed of where, how, and for how long additional forces will be deployed.  With the accountability of this election year, I am pleased and grateful that at long last there has been a partial response from the Obama administration to my demands that Washington do its job.”

But the CATO Institute had no trouble summing it up;

President Obama is deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border and requesting $500 million more for border security. With due respect to Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, who want even more troops and money, this approach is neither here nor there. (And it echoes Obama’s split-the-baby decision on Afghanistan, not willing to go for a whole-hog escalation but also not willing to rethink the overall policy.) Half-measures won’t do it here, Mr. President (and Congress). If you lack the heart (or have too much of a brain) for a full wall-and-militarization of our southern border — and perhaps mass rounding up and deportation of 12 million people — it’s time for a fundamental reorganization of the immigration system.

U.S. immigration (non-)policy is nonsensical and unworkable. We’re beyond the point of perestroika; it’s time for regime change.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D-AZ), who, with others, had requested more border security after a rancher, Robert Krentz, was murdered in March by an illegal immigrant, kept her party face on and praised Obama for the deployment. She said that Arizona residents,

“… know that more boots on the ground means a safer and more secure border. Washington heard our message.”

Apparently no one told her that those boots won’t actually be on the ground.

 

Quotes from FOXNews.com – May 25, 2010

Obama Blames Congress for Borders, but sat on it like Bush/Clinton

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May 192010
 

Obama, in yet another speech last Friday, failed to apologize for not having been any better than his predecessors in taking action to protect the border, and blamed Congress – who he had forced into a year long pre-occupation with health care – for failing to enact ‘comprehensive reform.’  He then made another ‘promise’ that if Congress continues to waste its time (pandering to his agenda) ”We will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.”

In Fact, it was Obama himself that said on April 28, 2010, that he didn’t want to force an immigration bill through Congress at this time. “We’ve gone though a very tough year and I’ve been working Congress very hard, so I know there may not be an appetite immediately to dive into another controversial issue,” the president told reporters, although that sentiment hadn’t stopped him from pushing additional stimulus packages and sneaky legislation concerning student loans …and even Puerto Rican statehood.

He ended his blame of Congress by insulting the people of Arizona yet again, saying that the absence of a federal resolution opens the door to irresponsibility by “others,” ie “the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.”

TODAY – in continued oblivion toward the thoughts, feelings and needs of his countrymen, President Obama stood with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to chastise Arizona for its new immigration law, insinuating that the Arizona police Force is racist, mean-spirited, …and not very bright.

Obama said the immigration law – which is simply an enforcement of Federal law and makes it a State crime to be in the U.S. illegally –  is a “misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system.”  He failed again to mention why his White House has made no effort to address and fix the system.

However, he DID say,

“We’re examining any implications especially for civil rights because in the United States of America, no law abiding person — be they an American citizen, illegal immigrant, or a visitor or tourist from Mexico — should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.”

So I guess you could say he’s doing something, although there is nothing in the law that says it has anything to do with what a person looks like.

You see, believe it or not, (bearing in mind there are always going to be loose cannons in any group) the Arizona police force is professional.  Most have lived in Arizona for a long time, lived with Latino neighbors all their lives, and some – hold on to your chairs – are even Latino themselves.  Further, they, like everyone else, know that an act of terrorism can come at the hand of anyone – any size, shape, gender or color.  They have been trained to watch everyone.  White people rob convenience stores, too.  They aren’t looking for illegals.  They are looking for crime, and when they find it, they are supposed to check the person’s ID.  This is something they do at every traffic stop with every person already.  Plain and simple.  They also all know that there are harsh ramifications if they mess with people without cause.  They all know the whole world is watching.  Does our President think they are idiots?

…Well, we already know he didn’t think too highly of the Cambridge police force.

Calderon, claiming that the Arizona law forces “our people to face discrimination,” doesn’t seem to think very highly of the Arizona police force, either.  He asked that the two countries work together to design an immigration policy that is more to his liking.  I’m sure Obama will accommodate him.

Calderon waxed poetic, saying;

“We can do so if we create a safer border — a border that will unite us instead of dividing us….We can do so with a community that will promote a dignified life in an orderly way for both our countries, who are some of them still living here in the shadows…If we are divided we cannot overcome these problems. We can only do this if we actually face our mutual problems.”

Calderon also waxed Self-Righteous, saying,

“My government cannot and will not remain indifferent when these kinds of policies go against human rights.”

Who is he kidding?  Did Obama think to ask the President of Mexico if he planned on doing the same thing with HIS southern border?  I wonder how the people of Panama and Guatemala feel about all this?

Right – this from Mexico. Up until 2008, illegal immigration was a criminal offense in Mexico. Anyone arrested in violation of Immigration law could be fined, imprisoned for up to two years and deported.  Which country has the record for going against Human Rights, Mr. President?  Officials in Mexico have been known to take bribes to keep suspects out of jail.

The law against illegal immigration in Mexico today is a civil violation, but just like Arizona, Police are “required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country before attending to any issues.”

The law requires the same – but the behavior of Law Enforcement is not the same. Mexico has been cited repeatedly by human rights groups for abusing or ignoring the abuse of migrants from Central America. Just a few weeks ago, Amnesty International issued a report stating illegal immigrants in Mexico are abused, raped and kidnapped.  Mexican police don’t do much to stop it.  Is this why President Calderón thinks Arizona police are crooked?  That may be his excuse, but what is our President Obama’s?  And why are Americans supposed to stomach hypocrisy from President Calderón?

Well, why has Obama expected us to swallow any of the hypocrisy that he’s dished out?

“Illegal immigration is down, not up,” Obama asserted, “And we will continue to do whatever is necessary to secure our shared border…Today I want every American to know my administration has devoted unprecedented resources in personnel and technology to securing our border.”

When did he do that?  Yesterday?

By the way,  the U.S. has given Mexico about $1.3 billion to fight the drug war.  This includes special equipment meant to help capture drug runners as well as protect Mexican police and judges. According to Washington Post Reporter, William Booth, the equipment included “Black Hawk helicopters, night-vision goggles and armored cars and trains.” Obama wants to give Mexico 310 million more in 2011.

Mexican President’s Hypocrisy

Truth Meter: Obama’s Feigned Concern over the Dangers of Ipods

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May 112010
 

In a May 9 commencement speech to graduates at Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, President Obama claimed that modern technology and social media are “putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.”

Great! Many HOPE that to be true, as both our country and democracy have been needing a new pressure – a pressure that would cause people to wake up and “smell the coffee” (as one of my old teachers would have put it).  Our democracy has been spiraling out of control with Democrats and Republicans both having made decisions that put us on a financial train wreck.  Modern technology and social media bring pressure by providing a level of transparency and public discourse never before possible in history.  Many thank God for it.

Not so President Obama, although he made great use of modern technology and social media throughout his 2008 campaign.  He told the graduates on Sunday,

“…meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter.”

Let’s stop here. Truth meter?  Obama is going to lecture US about truth?  Does he sincerely believe that most of America still thinks he’s honest?

He goes on,

“And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations – none of which I know how to work – (laughter) – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.”

WHAT?

– OK, first, he’s talking about a Truth meter, and inferring that that Truth is important…and then goes ahead and lies about his use of this horrid technology.  CNN.com’s SciTech blog, John D. Sutter writes that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama told Rolling Stone his iPod contained songs by Bob Dylan, Jay-Z and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He also told the AP he has all Michael Jackson music “on my iPod.” He’s even given the Queen Elizabeth an Ipod (With…can you believe this?… his speeches programmed in. Talk about arrogant…) And his administration uses social media to push their agenda constantly. His Press Secretary made a big show of starting to use Twitter.

– Second…most of us feel that yes, indeed, modern technology HAS been a huge tool for empowerment and emancipation!  Call Twitter, Blogs and other non-traditional media what you want, but I and many others are GRATEFUL for the ability to get news without having to depend on NBC, ABC or CBS.

– But third …wait, most of what he mentioned in the above list ARE …primarily tools used for…entertainment, right? Not information?  So…what’s he talking about?  Tools for entertainment aren’t putting pressure on the democracy…are they?   Wait…there’s an ipod in England loaded with his speeches….right; an entertainment ipod which contains distracting information that doesn’t rank that high on the truth meter… exists.

No, this feigned concern over the dangers of ipods, etc. was a farce.  He campaigned using social media, and his administration continues to use it heavily.  This wasn’t about the dangers of modern technology.  This was about the lamest attempt to quash dissent ever recorded.  Obama can control a few of the major news sources, but he hasn’t been able to control what we text, tweet, and blog each other.  And that’s what he hates, just as much as he hates the Tea Party.

Some think that this was his first volley in an attempt to control the Internet as well as dissenting news media.  If it was, it was a very weak and ineffective volley.  Needless to say, any attempt to circumvent the constitution and prevent people from freely communicating would only anger the public further. No matter what, they would continue to communicate by any means possible.

He might have wanted to give the appearance that he was trying to ”warn” America’s youth about the dangers of new technology, but for many of us, the actual warning we received is that he’s trying – ineffectively – to dampen trust in the myriad news sources that he can’t control.

Obama Swipes at Media, Says ‘Information’ Onslaught Pressuring ‘Democracy’

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/10/obama-targets-ipods-video-games-commencement-address/

Arnold, Forget the Angry Mob; Watch out for Angry Moms

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May 022010
 

May 2nd, 2010

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday that he expects the tea party to “twinkle and disappear” as the economy improves.

Is he kidding? He obviously has no clue how people really feel and why. Will an improved economy change how we feel the The National Debt? Obamacare? How about the way Obamacare was forced on us? The corruption rampant in Congress? The buying and selling of votes?  The attitude the politically elite have had toward average Americans? The way the Obama administration have treated us? Excuse me?

What Gov. Schwarzenegger is exhibiting here is exactly the callous and tone deaf attitude that we are so angry about!

Gov. Schwarzenegger doesn’t understand because he is not part of it, and he is not part of it… because he doesn’t understand.

Schwarzenegger derided the tea party during the Van Susteren, complaining about what he thinks is lack of momentum and solutions.

He said, “People meet. They talk about it. What can we change? How? And it’s all healthy and it’s all good. But I’m just saying they’re not going anywhere with it because nobody is coming up and saying, Here’s our candidate, here’s our solution, here’s what we’re going to do, and have a whole policy debate over the various different issues. So this is why I think, in the end, when the economy comes back, I think that the tea party will disappear again. It will, you know, twinkle and disappear, and that will be it. So that’s exactly what I feel about it.”

Again, he’s obviously not listening. The Tea Party has suggested solutions on many various issues and has backed several candidates. And momentum? What do you call the feverish pitch with which the Tea Party has grown over the last year? What grass roots movement has he watched grow as quickly as this one, pulling such a diverse group of people from all over the country?

What he really doesn’t like, as evidenced in his confusion over why there is no policy platform, is the organizational structure of the Tea Party – or lack thereof.  He assumes that because it doesn’t look or function like a conventional political party, it must not be a real movement and can’t work.

Well. we’ll see about that.  The reason there isn’t a set platform is because the Tea Party’s are all individual, local bodies.  They don’t want anyone from afar defining them.  The reason for the grass root, local, loose organizational model is a direct result of the anger people are feeling toward the out-of-control and unaccountable leadership we’ve had from the Democrats and Republicans. Call it a knee jerk reaction.

And of course that very same leadership isn’t going to understand that. They want everything to continue as it had been – where they expect to get automatically reelected no matter how much they cheated and lied to their constituents.  They don’t want us standing up and telling them “No,” and they most definitely don’t want to lose control of our votes.  They want us to get back into our separate Democrat / Republican corners and stay there.  But we’ve been resilient to their efforts to mock and divide us.  Therefore, they fear the Tea Party, and want to see it fail.
Yes, there will be a change. That’s the whole point of the Tea Party. Our country has reached the point where we have to go one direction or the other. Fortunately, it will probably change in a good direction as it appears that most Americans want to return to a Constitutional Republic.

It’s just so sad that a third of America is still trying to control everyone else with the kinds of remarks and accusations they’ve bandied about; Not just Gov. Schwarzenegger, but the reigning leadership in DC, calling us a “Mob”, and accusing us of being violent and racist. Funny, we didn’t see Nancy Pelosi crying about the violence from leftist protesters in Arizona this last week. Or Bill Clinton, warning those protesters to behave themselves. In fact, I don’t think either of them said anything.

Of course they didn’t. Our out-of-control Political leaders tend to think that Liberal protesters are always justified in carrying through with their angst.

But conservative protesters better not even have a tinge of emotion in their voices. The conservatives are the ones that really scare them, even though the Tea Partiers have been anything but violent.

I think maybe our leaders have seen too many Hollywood movies – the ones that portray rural conservatives as idiots, racists, and murderers. That’s Hollywood for you.  Maybe our leaders should try to get to know some of us.  They might find out Hollywood was wrong.

But …I suppose it’s to be expected; in any historical situation, there is always a group that, for their own selfish reasons, opposes what is right and good. There’s no getting away from it.

I pray, in the name of Jesus, that we, the Tea Partiers, will stay strong – as well as nonviolent. I pray that we will be able to continue with the current structure of local control, open to all who want to join in support of constitutional law, as well as continuing to be mature in our communication with those we disagree with.

I pray for the healing of our country, and a return to the standards, morals, and ethics that once made it strong. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The Manhattan Declaration
The Mount Vernon Statement

ObamaCare: Don’t make me Sick

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Mar 222010
 

Thieves!  I don’t have much money, but what little I have – Keep your hands off!

My Representative, Earl Pomeroy, voted FOR the passage of the Senate’s massive health insurance overhaul Sunday night. Among many of the onerous provisions that our country can’t afford:

– Children will be able to remain under their parents health coverage until they are 26.

– Insurance companies who participate in the government-run exchange will be allowed to provide for abortions. Many prolife orgs, including the National Right to Life, say that federal funds will be used for some of those abortions.

– In all, there will be a half a trillion in new taxes.

– The House “fixes” on the Senate bill raise taxes $50 Billion dollars more, as well as cut Medicare spending $66 billion more for a total of $523 billion.

– The $523 billion of money taken from Medicare will be used to pay for this new government program, including subsidies to help families with incomes up to $75,000 a year buy health insurance. $75,000 is NOT low income.  I, for one, do not want my health needs to come before those of my elders – in particular, the vets who fought for our country and their wives.

– Estimates are that this legislation will expand the deficit by more than $660 billion dollars.  So, not only are we neglecting the needs our elders, but we’ll be leaving our grandchildren with an impossible debt.

– The above are facts. There are rumors of much more to be frightened of.

Thanks Earl Pomeroy. I for one, will be voting for your opponent.  You, too, Obama. You are no hero of mine.

The campaigns against all those that voted for this horrendous legislation must begin today, whether or not they even have an opponent yet.

I write this as a low income widow that has lived many years without Insurance.  Having lived seven years in Canada and witnessed their abysmal care, I would rather have no insurance than to have our country and health care system ruined by Canadian style Obamacare.

These last few weeks, even listening to Obama go on and on with his rhetoric makes me sick to my stomach.  Is it just me, or does he talk now with a sing song in his voice, as if he’s a Television Evangelist?  Someone please tell him to stop.  Please.  It’s truly nauseating.

Michelle Obama and her News-Free Zone

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Feb 202010
 

Are you kidding me?  In an interview with Mike Huckabee, Michelle Obama said she stays away from news because she wants to formulate her own opinions based on her “experiences.”  Obama said she reads news clips from the headlines, “but I tend and I try to keep home kind of news-free zone.”

At this unusual time in American history – when more Americans are waking up to what’s going on in their government and getting involved, Queen Obama announces that her family home is a “News-Free” zone, because she prefers her own “experience” to those of her fellow citizens.  She has no need for factual events going on with anyone else.

We teach our kids in school to stay on top of current events and we hold discussions with them in classrooms and at our dinner-tables.  Adults gather at watercoolers, lunch tables, and townhall meetings to discuss news.   Many turn to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to stay informed.  And wait – didn’t liberals mock Sarah Palin when she didn’t answer Katie Couric’s question about magazines she reads?

But not Michelle Obama.  Forget about gathering information and researching facts.  Her home is a “News-Free” zone and her personal experience is all that she needs.

Heaven knows that any news about what the country is actually thinking, doing, or saying is the last thing she wants to hear about.

“Let them eat cake” she may as well have said.

Never mind if her personal experience has been limited to Chicago, and she knows nothing about the experience of rural, non-black, or “less than elite” Americans.

Has she ever been on welfare?  Has she ever slept in the projects?  No?

What about an understanding of middle class America?  She’s been living on the high end for a long time; enjoying the pay-offs that come with her husband’s social and political positions.  Does she have any understanding of what it is like to work your fingers to the bone and still not be able to make ends meet?  Or what it is like to keep a small family business in the black with today’s economy and taxes?  No?  Lived and worked in the rural bread basket of America; known people who gather for coffee in a small town cafe?

I’ve had experience with all those things, and it amazes me that Michelle Obama assumes she can have any understanding of what I or most other Americans are about.  She’ll never understand the Tea Party if she’s going to depend solely on her personal “experiences” to formulate her opinions.  But…maybe she doesn’t want to understand the Tea Party.

But what can we expect.  This is no different then what any of the “progressive” elite are doing.  They really don’t give a rip about the poor or middle class.  Just like John Edwards, they don’t even like being around them.  They feign concern, wailing about “all the poor that can’t afford Health insurance” simply because it makes good sound bites and gives an excuse for their dominating agenda.

But heaven forbid they spend any real time getting their hands dirty.  You won’t see John Edwards or Michelle Obama wiping saliva off the chins of elderly with dementia, much less take the time to really hear what “Tea Partiers” are trying to say.

Lastly, as can be seen on twitter and other social sites – Americans react to news as a group. It’s actually part of who we are.  Before the day is out, most of us know if someone of importance had passed away that day, or if there was a major tragedy a few states away.  We talk about it with people at school, work and home.  Part of the feeling of being “slapped” by her statement is …well, it’s the elitist attitude.  Not only does it seem that she doesn’t care about facts, but it seems she doesn’t care to share in our community news, whether it be national joy or national agnst.   We’re just not important to her.

Obama, Tireless Campaigner, Hires Plouffe to Snow Us Some More

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Jan 252010
 

Excuse me? Obama is in trouble for lying to the country, taking over banks and car companies, trying to push legislation down the people’s throats, mocking regular people for speaking up, staffing the White House with socialists and communists, and causing the Democratic Party to take a nose dive – and he responds, not by changing his direction, apologizing, or bringing in new, non-communist people to take crucial lead positions in the administration; he brings in his old campaign manager, David Plouffe.  A political consultant? Are you kidding me?

Remember when it was noted that he was a master campaigner, but wouldn’t know how to run the country? So what is he doing now but continuing to campaign rather than run the country.  That’s all he knows how to do – campaign – and that was noted long ago, as he’d gone from one campaign to another, climbing up the political ladder without ever accomplishing anything; barely spending a year in the US Senate before beginning his campaign for the presidency.

Now, again, it appears that the plan is to do some more campaigning rather than lead the country.  It appears that he’s going to fix all his troubles by getting his campaign manager to come up with a plan to try to snow us – to tell us what they think we want to hear, rather than getting a crew around him that can devise an agenda that will work with our country and our people.

Why?  Why would they respond to the Massachusetts election by hiring David Plouffe?  Because they don’t plan on changing their current agenda.  They plan to change how we perceive their agenda.  Thus begins a new campaign.  Brace yourselves for some fresh propaganda.

The Tale of Two Earthquakes: Tragedy in Haiti, Triumph in Massachusetts

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Jan 192010
 

Who would have thought that two earthquakes of such magnitude could be occurring at the same time: one Earthquake all too physically destructive, the other a virtual earthquake – shaking our political fabric to its very core, and with it, destruction of the hopes and dreams of the far left.

For certain – the physical earthquake in Haiti is much, much worse.  It is life and death; it is suffering, fear, despair; quick death as well as slow death by infection, stress, and dehydration.  It is trapped human beings, orphaned children, and abandoned elderly.   This was an event no one of conscience would wish on anyone.  We care for them, and reach out and help.

But on the political landscape, there has never been an election earthquake as destructive to an administration as the one currently occurring in Massachusetts.   If ones priorities are in the proper order, it isn’t anything to despair about. Those that are shaken by it will still have their lives, homes, and families.  But, wrapped up in their own self-importance, many will despair all the same.  After all, they are in this earthquake exactly because they were clueless to priorities.  Nothing mattered to them more than their own power and pocket book.   This is an event that anyone with conscience is glad to see happen.  Those that cared only for themselves have been put in their place.

The Massachusetts Earthquake has occurred, whether or not Scott Brown wins. The Blue Dems have got to be reconsidering their Health Care votes.  If they do not, they are mindless.

I only wish that I could be there tonight for the first real Boston Tea Party in over 200 years.

White House Tells Artists to Tell Country “What to do”

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Sep 222009
 

“You are the thought leaders,” the artists were told. “You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool and what’s not cool. And so I’m hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.” This from Michael Skolnik, political director for a hip-hop mogul.

“We’re going to need your help, and we’re going to come at you with some specific ‘asks’ here,” added Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. “But we know that you guys are ready for it and eager to participate, so one we want to thank you, and two, I hope you guys are ready.”  The White House Office of Public Engagement, together with the NEA and “United We Serve,” an initiative created by President Obama, held this telephone conference in August with hand-picked artists from across the country.

They are the “thought leaders,” according to the White House, being directed to change our minds.  They are the thought leaders, whose jobs are to tell us what to do and think. 

How offensive is that?  Who does this administration think they are: first telling hundreds of thousands of the American public – the elderly, veterans, young families, from all walks of life – that they are a “mob,” “astro-turf,” and “racists,” for speaking their minds, and now telling rappers and painters that the public is also so stupid that they will let artists tell them what they are supposed to think?  And at our own (tax-payer) expense?

This administration appears to have no understanding of the American public.  They seem to assume that Americans are lemmings, and any lemming that doesn’t follow must have something wrong with him.

This administration is way off in “left” field.  Art inspires, but only when it touches what is already in the heart.  In other words, the art that becomes popular only becomes so because it is reflecting what people are feeling.  It is public passion that inspires art, not the other way around.

So in the current political climate, on a grass roots level, did you notice how quickly the picture of the President as a joker took off? Or the t-shirts with the words, “RIP Constitution”? Or the “I am the Mob” logos on twitter?   Wow. Artists creating popular political art without the help or instruction of the government.  Have you seen anything from the liberal side catch on like that recently on a grass roots level?   Sure, during the campaign there were things that were meant to inspire the public, but there they were created as campaign tools and died as soon as the campaign was over.  Heard any classrooms singing Obama songs lately?

AND for goodness sake – get off the bandwagon that any news station or host is leading the public.  It is the public that is leading Fox News! Fox News is merely the megaphone for the thoughts and feelings of millions of Americans. It is currently the only station listening to the public and giving them the news they are looking for.  I’ve EVEN heard people say that Bill O”reilly is becoming too soft!  And yes – we know that Beck is a little silly – but he’s offering us documented information that no one else is willing to discuss.  We don’t all draw his same conclusions, but we appreciate the information. When will it occur to the left that people choose to watch programs that reflect what’s already on their hearts – not the other way around?  They are leaving MSM in droves because they know much NBC and ABC are only reporting what they are told to report.

The left is imbedded in the concept that they are able to bend minds.  Thus the efforts to control what is taught in schools, push the “Fairness Doctrine,” and coax artists to support their agenda.  What they forget is that throughout history, other countries attempting to control the thoughts and lives of their citizens have eventually failed at the effort.  People push back. People inherently want freedom and independence. Ever heard of Solzhenitsyn?  Or the underground churches in China?  There were rebels even in Nazi Germany.   It was for rebels like that that leaders created, at best, the re-education camps, at horrific worst, Gulags and even death camps.  No! I’m not suggesting that’s where we are headed.  All I am saying is that when the effort to bend people’s minds’ fails, a government must either push harder, or come to the realization that it just doesn’t work.  So realize it right now.  It doesn’t matter to me what you pay a rapper to sing, a painter to paint, a troll to twitter, or even how well articulated an Obama speech is.  My experience and knowledge tell me it is wrong.Lisa Blogs at http://whitetrashvote.blogspot.com/

Cash for Clunkers Hurts Poor People

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Aug 012009
 

August 1st, 2009

The Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association has predicted that there will be a backlash to the “Cash for Clunkers” program.  I agree, only it will come too late.   “Cash for Clunkers” hurts lower income people, but no one has thought much about that yet – including the lower income people that voted for Obama.

Although I drive a 1994 Suburban, I wasn’t planning on doing the  “Cash for Clunkers”. Gas guzzler that the Suburban is, it’s actually been nice for our size family, who are all too big to be sitting in the back seat of small five-seater cars anymore.  And I can carry and move things.

But even if I wanted to get a more fuel efficient minivan, I can’t afford to participate in  “Cash for Clunkers” program (more officially known as the CAR Allowance Rebate System or the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009.)   

To participate, a person has to be buying a new car.  Sure you get up to $4500 in a rebate, but you still have to have quite a bit of actual money in order to afford a new car.  People of lower income don’t have the kind of money. But more importantly, because  “Cash for Clunkers” merely replaces your trade-in value, the benefit of the program isn’t as great as many anticipate, and for the American taxpayer, it’s another program that they can’t afford.  As nice as free money (ie: the rebate) sounds, American taxpayers can’t afford to be giving this money away.  And low-income people, most especially, can’t afford to be helping pay for any more bailouts.So I just figured I’d hang onto my car for another dozen or more years, until it becomes valuable as an antique, because there won’t be any other cars of this time period around.  Most will have been crushed.  Maybe we’d fix it up and drive it in the parades!

But here’s when I realized the AAIA is right.  Junk yards that crush the CARS program cars aren’t allowed to pull engines or certain other parts before they are crushed.  Earlier this month, I made use of a junk yard twice – once for a radiator and once for an engine.   I still need to put in an alternator.  Will certain parts for older cars become harder – and more expensive – to get?When all is said and done  –  “Cash for Clunkers” benefits New Car Dealerships primarily, by increasing sales, and the upper and middle class possibly, but giving them an extra few hundred dollars.  But it’s not good news at all for lower income people.   We can’t afford a new car, and we won’t be able to continue fixing our older cars at an affordable price, if we can find the parts at all.  This isn’t good.  In fact, the Obama administration knew they were taking away our options to keep our vehicles running.  They want our cars off the road, and they really don’t care how it affects those of us with very little money.   The little guy isn’t a priority.  Obama pretended to champion the little guy in order to get their vote, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that special interest – those that have received the bailout money and those industries he is choosing to socialize – are what he really champions.  Politics as usual.

I’ll bet many of the people that voted for Obama haven’t even thought of this particular ramification yet.  They’re still waiting for him to pay their mortgages and health insurance.  The  “Cash for Clunkers” program will be all done and over with, with most of the cars crushed, before the little guy realizes that the price of his used part just went up a whole lot.

What Gates’ “Teaching Moment” Taught Some of Us…

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Jul 272009
 

Professor Henry Louis Gates said he hoped his arrest by Crowley leads to greater sensitivity on racial profiling. He described it as a teaching moment, saying that he planned to use his arrest and jail experience as the basis of a documentary on racial profiling.

So what did we learn from the Gates arrest in Boston?  For me, it confirmed my belief that many (not all) accusations of racism and racial profiling are excuses for beligerance when someone is in a situation they don’t like.  For many others, the Boston incident taught them that some accusations of racism might be simple grandstanding and can be ignored.

My education along this line began twenty some years ago, when I first met the man that was to become my husband.  I remember one incident in particular.  I was paying for a meal at a chain restaurant.  The cashier, before taking my check, asked me for some ID.  I pulled out my driver’s license and showed it to her, and we went on our way.

Walking out the door, my to-be husband whispered to me that she wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t been standing behind me.  He truly believed that the only reason she asked for my ID was because I was with a minority.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I knew that getting carded at a restaurant was nothing new for me.  Sometimes they did it, sometimes they didn’t, but it had nothing to do with whether he was there or not.  I scoffed at his assumption that it was all about him.

And we had other such “teaching moments” when he needed to learn that it wasn’t all about his skin.  He needed to learn that some clerks are just tired or have bad days, just like he does, and if they scowl, it doesn’t mean that they are even thinking about him let alone hating him.  I’m a person who falls into deep thought about various issues and I don’t always notice who is around me.  If I am lost in my own thoughts, thinking about something difficult or emotional, it frequently shows on my face.  It has nothing to do with who is in the room.  There are many people in this world just like me.  Not every scowl is racially motivated.

When I first met him and he attended a party at my Dad’s house, he gravitated after a short time to the garage and ate his meal out there.  This wasn’t because anyone in the house had any animosity against him.  It was a reaction born of his own insecurity.

Fortunately, my husband did learn from these teaching moments, and the older he got the more he began to relax around people of “non-color” and even enjoy himself.  In his later years, he not only enjoyed people of all heritages, but he felt comfortable standing up and speaking to various politicians about the fallacy of race-based laws (such as ICWA).  He even went to DC several times to speak to various Congressmen on issues.

This isn’t to say that we never experienced real racism.  On a few isolated occasions, we ran up against the real thing.  But now he could tell the difference.

Interestingly, it was because he relaxed and became comfortable with his own thoughts and voice that he himself began to be accused of being a racist by a state Human Rights Network.  You see, he was a minority speaking against political correctness.  That makes the Left very uncomfortable.  They would rather that all minorities stay in neat little, controllable packages.

When he passed away five years ago, his birth family was surprised by the number of people of “non-color” that not only showed up at his funeral, but stood up and spoke of their admiration for him.

Perhaps Professor Gates has spent too much time in his ivory tower and needs to get out more.

Crowley Better Bring a Friend to that Beer Party

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Jul 262009
 

July 26th, 2009

So they’re supposed to sit down over a beer and come out all smiles? Come on, you know how it goes. Not one of the three has actually backed down from their positions, and there’s two of them and only one of Crowley. Anyone of us faced with that kind of situation wants to bring emotional support along.

Sergeant Crowley continues to assert that he didn’t do anything wrong and the entire Boston police force stands behind him, stating that everything he did was standard procedure. Further, Crowley, as it turns out, has for years been teaching cadets to avoid racial profiling. He knows that what he did that day was what he would have done in any home under the same circumstances.

Professor Gates, on the other hand, stated Friday evening in an email that he hoped the incident would bring “greater sensitivity on racial profiling,” even though no racial profiling apparently occurred. No apology was given by Gates for misunderstanding Crowley and jumping to conclusions.

Obama has also failed to apologize for his rush to judgment, saying that he only wishes he “calibrated those words differently.” In fact, he went on to say, “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station.”

I’m sorry, but I do want the police to ask for identification if there is suspicion that someone doesn’t belong in my home. Even if it’s me that they are requesting ID from.

Now, I understand that Professor Gates had just returned from a long trip. I know that when I come home from a long trip, I am tired and crabby. It had to further aggravate him that when trying to get into his home to finally kick his shoes off and rest, the door was jammed. Topping off a long and tiring day, the police showed up and began questioning him. All he wanted to do was take a hot shower and go to bed, right? That’s all understandable. But none of it was Crowley’s fault and there is no indication that racial profiling occurred.

So now is the time to apologize to the men in blue who were just doing their jobs, and quit the grandstanding.

That all said, will there be humbling apologies over that beer? With both Gates and Obama, proud men that they are, still convinced that profiling occurred and Crowley knowing it hasn’t? his bounds? Not likely. No real apologies, but unfortunately, Crowley will probably feel pressure to suck up whatever spiel the White House wants to put on the beer fest, even if his stomach is turning. After all, the beer is supposed to end the fight, and they are all supposed to come out smiling. We’ve all been faced with similar situations. How can he say no without looking like a jerk?

More on Minority Civil Rights Issues at www.caicw.org
,Lisa

Health Crisis? Liberals Push More Nurses to Quit

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Jul 262009
 

July 26th, 2009

Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, a nurse from Brooklyn, was forced to assist in an abortion last May. Her supervisors told her that it was a medical emergency, and that if she didn’t participate, she could lose her job. Turns out that there was no medical emergency. For Cenzon-DeCarlo, this was tantamount to murdering a baby, and she’s struggled with it emotionally and spiritually ever since.

And can you believe this? Liberal commentators are saying she shouldn’t have taken the job if she didn’t want to do the work.

Let me get this straight. Obama is all over the place complaining about a so-called health crisis, while at the same time, lefties commenting on the above article are saying things like, “if preforming termination of pregnacy is not you line of work then leave the job,” and “Don’t we file this one under “It comes with the job, toots?”

So…those of you that believe Cenzon-DeCarlo should have gotten another job: Do you honestly think that this nurse is the only one that doesn’t want to participate in abortions? Do you think there aren’t any doctors that feel the same way? Do you realize that a large number in the medical profession are Christians? If you are willing to mandate they participate, do you know how many people will walk off the job? Doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s murder. The people that will walk away from the medical profession do.

I am a former RN. I left the field 16 years ago after I got tired of the way nurses were treated. For one example, I was told I couldn’t tell any of my staff if there was an AIDS patient on the floor due to “patient confidentiality.” My LPN’s and Nsg. Assts were allowed to know any other diagnosis. Patient confidentiality didn’t matter with any other disease. Aids was the only illness they weren’t allowed to know. This was on a unit where an AID’s patient was wiping his feces all over his bedroom walls. People that aren’t responsible for cleaning up that type of thing can say what they want. I stuck up for my staff.

That’s just one of many examples. I’m not the only nurse to walk away over such issues. Others have obviously stayed in the field. But mandating participation in abortions – that’s a major line to cross over.

If you want Canadian style Health Care, where the staff to patient ratio is a fraction of what it is in the states, keep up your rhetoric. Pay your medical professionals less, and tell them they don’t have any rights. Keep it up and see what happens. Then be happy with yourself when someone you love has to wait for days or weeks to get the medical care they need.

Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo is right to be upset and file suit.  She wasn’t abandoning a patient.  MT Sinai had plenty of time to find a replacement.  Mt Sinai abandoned its staff.  I hope she gets everything she is asking for.  Hospitals should not be allowed to do that to people.  Here in America, we still have Freedom of Religion.  At least for now.
,

VIEWPOINT : Law could tear children from a ‘tribe’ they love

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Mar 292007
 

By Lisa Morris,
Published Thursday, March 29, 2007, Grand Forks Herald

RONAN, Mont. – At 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 9, Patrick and Virgina Swartz of Van Buren County, Ark., were getting their two girls ready for bed. The 10-year-old twins already were in pajamas when police suddenly arrived. Brandishing a court order, they took the frightened girls and drove them 60 miles to the home of an elderly relative. The girls couldn’t even tell their friends good-bye.

By all accounts, the Swartz’s, owners of an Arkansas trucking company, took good care of the girls. In October 2002, the birth mother, Virginia’s fourth cousin, had arranged for them to adopt the twins. However, another relative with four of the twins’ siblings began custody action. With the support of the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation, she won.

Neither the birth mother, the Swartzes NOR the relative are Indian. So why was this tribe from Arizona involved?

Because the twins’ natural father is Indian. And although he has “undisputedly abandoned the children,” his status as an enrolled member of the tribe makes him “relevant to this case,” the Arkansas Court of Appeals declared.

This gave the tribe jurisdiction under the Indian Child Welfare Act. The tribe wanted the twins placed with the siblings, “irrespective of the fact that other full and half-siblings are scattered among several other states,” according to the court.

Again, why take children from the only safe, nuclear family they’d ever had?

The appeals court found that the “best interest” of the twins wasn’t the only issue. Citing the Indian Child Welfare Act, the court found that “maintaining the integrity of the Nation, its culture, its children, and its progression through time not to become extinct” also had to be considered.

Neither the tribe nor the court adequately explained how moving the girls from the nontribal home they loved to a nontribal home they didn’t know would preserve the tribe.

The Indian Child Welfare Act’s original goal was to combat abusive practices that took Indian children from tribal communities and put them in unfamiliar environments with strangers. The trauma that Indian children suffered from, among other things, being forced to enroll in far-off boarding schools is undeniable.

But today, the reverse is happening. Children who never have been near a reservation are being removed from environments they love and forced to live with strangers chosen by tribes.

Stories affecting black, hispanic, Norwegian-American and other families reflect this reality. Letters from birth parents, grandparents, pre-adoptive families and tribal members themselves can be read at www.caicw.org/

Many children falling under the Indian Child Welfare Act are primarily nontribal. Tribal governments decide their own membership, and most have decided ¼ blood quantum is all that’s necessary. Some have decided less.

Furthermore, parents can’t avoid the act by not enrolling their children. The act defines an Indian child as any “enrollable” child. So today, children with ¼ or less heritage and no connection to Indian Country fall under the act.

Any emotionally healthy child, no matter their heritage, is devastated when taken from home and forced to live with strangers. Even children of 100 percent tribal heritage are devastated if they’re taken from non-tribal homes they love and put into reservation homes they know nothing about. And remember, children with less than 100 percent blood quantum have other relatives and heritages as well.

Why should Herald readers be concerned? Because Minnesota state officials are working to disallow courts even from considering a child’s lack of involvement with a tribe.

A February agreement signed by Minnesota and tribal governments mandates that the Indian Child Welfare Act apply to all children eligible for tribal membership. This agreement does away with the “Existing Family Doctrine,” an exception used to determine if ICWA applies.

Furthermore, House File 1169 and Senate File 1221 amend Minnesota law to read that the act is “applicable without exception.” A court may not use questions about a child’s lack of contact with a tribe or whether “a child is part of an existing Indian family” to determine the act’s applicability, the change declares.

Tribal authorities argue they are most qualified to decide the best interest of enrollable children. Are they? I am birth mother to five members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. As well-intended as some in government are, they haven’t the ability to know what’s best for families who have left to live a different life.

Please ask Gov. Tim Pawlenty and state legislators to ensure that the “Existing Family Doctrine” remains available to Minnesota families who choose not to live within the reservation system.

Morris is administrator of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare.

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May 092002
 

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