tagged w/ South Dakota
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Overview of a three-part investigation
Nearly 700 Native American children in South Dakota are being removed from their homes every year, sometimes in questionable circumstances. An NPR News investigation has found that the state is largely failing to place them according to the law. The vast majority of native kids in foster care in South Dakota are in nonnative homes or group homes, according to an NPR analysis of state records.Overview of a three-part investigation
Nearly 700 Native American children in South... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott plans to force public workers and welfare recipients to undergo random drug testing every three weeks. Why? Because he doesn’t like either group, Cenk Uygur argues on the Young Turks. “It’s an attempt to stigmatize, demonize, and punish those people,” Uygur says:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fhSYsb2Gtg[/youtube]
Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones explains why Scott’s plan is almost certainly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled that public employees cannot be forced to take drug tests unless public safety is at stake. The government can impose random drug testing for bus drivers, but not clerks at the DMV. Scott wants to spend millions of dollars testing all state employees. The only beneficiary of Scott’s plan will be the drug-testing industry.
From vitamins to purity balls
Martha Kempner of RH Reality Check profiles Leslee Unruh, the eccentric vitamin saleswoman-turned-crisis pregnancy center maven and abstinence crusader who is spearheading the drive for increasingly draconian abortion restrictions in South Dakota.
Unruh founded a crisis pregnancy center in 1997. Gradually, she became convinced that cajoling unhappily pregnant women to give birth was backwards. What she needed to do was save women from sex in the first place:
As Amanda Robb explains in her 2008 expose on Unruh published in MORE Magazine: “after working with hundreds of women who got pregnant unintentionally, she says she began to realize that this kind of counseling put the cart before the horse in women’s lives. To truly empower women, she became convinced, you have to ‘save them from sexual activity.’”
Unruh’s Abstinence Clearinghouse is famous for sponsoring “purity balls” at which fathers promise to guard their daughters’ sexual purity until marriage.
My uterus is a closed shop
Last weekend the Wisconsin AFL-CIO held a rally with Planned Parenthood in Madison, Wisconsin, Mike Elk reports for Working In These Times. Elk writes:
The labor movement, at its core, is about class struggle – the working class overcoming the power of the owning class in order to take control over their own lives. For women, class struggle historically has centered on overcoming the oppression of men who want to have control over their lives.
It makes sense that organized labor and the reproductive rights movement are being drawn closer together. Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has declared war on unions and reproductive health care. Walker’s notorious anti-collective bargaining bill also declared war on the state’s highly successful, money-saving family planning program.
The Walker administration declared the union-busting bill to be law last Friday, in defiance of a court ruling, Matthew Rothschild reports in The Progressive. A court had ruled that the legality of the bill was in question because it seems to have been passed in defiance of the state’s strong open meetings laws.
De-funding family planning
Some Minnesota Republicans are taking a page from Scott Walker’s playbook, Andy Birkey reports in the Minnesota Independent. A group of Republican state senators are working to de-fund the state’s family planning programs by cutting off state funding and refusing federal dollars to fund these initiatives. An estimated 40,000 people receive reproductive health care each year through programs that the GOP is trying to eliminate. Their position is surely not motivated by concerns about the deficit. Joint state-federal family planning programs have been shown to save money for the state and the federal government.
HIV/AIDS at 30
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. At Colorlines.com, LaShieka Purvis Hunter profiles a distinguished community leader in the struggle against HIV, Rev. Edwin Sanders of the Metropolitan Interdenominational Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Sanders and his congregation have been engaged in the struggle for 26 years, ever since one of the founding members of this predominantly black church died of the virus.
Saunders says that, as far as he knows, his is the only African American congregation operating an HIV/AIDS primary care clinic:
“There are other congregations with primary care clinics that do other things, but ours is exclusively focused on HIV/AIDS,” he explains. “We were really fortunate to get a planning grant from the URSA Institute about 10 years ago, and have a fully operating clinic four years after that. Now we are able to serve a population in our community that represents those who are truly disenfranchised.”
The URSA Institute is a non-profit social interest consulting firm which supports HIV/AIDS-related research and prevention programs.
Dig for victory
Spring is here. Ellen LaConte of AlterNet explains why gardening is good for your health and your pocketbook. Produce prices are rising, thanks to increasing oil prices, dwindling soil reserves, monoculture, and other factors. LaConte predicts that gardening and small-scale collective farming will become an increasingly important source of fresh fruits and vegetables for average Americans in the years to come.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Florida Republican Governor Rick... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Vermont is poised to abolish most forms of private health insurance, Lauren Else reports for In These Times. The state’s newly inaugurated Democratic governor, Peter Shumlin, unveiled his health insurance plan in early February. If the state legislature passes the bill, Vermont will become the first state to ban most forms of private health insurance.
The bill is getting support from some unlikely quarters:
On February 24, the Republican Mayor Christopher Louras, of Rutland, urged the state to adopt the single-payer legislation, noting that more than a third of the city’s $7 million annual payroll is consumed by healthcare costs. “The only way to fix the problem is to blow it up and start over,” Louras said.
A very bad doctor
In the Texas Observer, Saul Elbein tells the bizarre story of small-town huckster Dr. Rolando Arafiles and the nurses who exposed him as a quack and paid with their jobs.
Arafiles came to work at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in 2008. Nurses Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle noticed that patients were walking out of his office with mysterious liquids. Arafiles was selling untested dietary supplements.
Sometimes, he even took patients off their real medicine and directed them to buy his cure-alls, which he sold online, and promoted in seminars at the local Pizza Hut. He prescribed powerful thyroid-stimulating drugs to patients with normal thyroid levels, a potentially lethal practice. He was also performing “unconventional” surgeries, even though he wasn’t a surgeon.
The hospital ignored the nurses’ complaints, so they reported Arafiles to the Texas Medical Board. After the board informed Arafiles that he was under investigation, Arafiles got his golf buddy, the local sheriff, to issue a warrant to search the nurses’ computers. The hospital fired the nurses. The local prosecutor indicted them for “misuse of official information” but these charges fizzled out. In 2010, the two women were awarded $750,000 in compensation from the county, but they still haven’t found new nursing jobs.
What are they doing out there?
Lon Newman is the executive director of Family Planning Health Services, a Wisconsin health clinic that offers birth control and other reproductive health care, but doesn’t provide abortions, or even abortion referrals. Anti-choice protesters picket the clinic anyway, Newman reports at RH Reality Check. They carry signs with misleading slogans like “The Pill Kills” and “Stop Chemical Abortion.”
Newman wonders why, given all the pressing problems in Wisconsin, the nation, and the world, some people make it a priority to hang out at Family Planning Health Services and badmouth birth control:
There are so many struggles for freedom, social justice, and disaster relief right now, that I do not think it is justifiable to be blocking access to health care for our uninsured neighbors who want to delay childbearing so they can finish school or take a new job or even wait to have children until they can afford them.
South Dakota institutes 72-hour abortion waiting period
The governor of South Dakota signed legislation this week that will force women seeking abortions in the state to observe a 72-hour waiting period. As Scott Lemieux argues in TAPPED, mandatory waiting period legislation is based on inherently sexist assumptions. By instituting a waiting period, the state is institutionalizing the stereotype that women seeking abortions are acting irrationally and must be coerced into waiting.
Body positive
Body hatred hasn’t been this popular since the days of the hair shirt. Hundreds of millions of women, and no shortage of men, spend billions of hours and billions of dollars despising their bodies. A new movement is afoot to find the political in this very personal issue, Sarah Seltzer reports in AlterNet. This year, the Women’s Therapy Center Institute will hold a series of summits in New York, London, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Melbourne. In keeping with the theme of “Loved Bodies, Big Ideas” participants are discussing a range of ideas for helping to improve body image, including a so-called “reality stamp,” a seal of approval that would indicate that a photograph hasn’t been digitally altered beyond the bounds of reason. Come to think of it, a “reality stamp” could be useful for all kinds of politics.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Vermont is poised to abolish most... more
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A little jab at South Dakota and their new bill that could make killing an abortion doctor O.K.A little jab at South Dakota and their new bill that could make killing an abortion... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The entire federal government might shut down over birth control. Yes, birth control. This special edition of the Pulse is about the ongoing war against women being waged in Congress and in state legislatures nationwide.
Cutting birth control
Last Friday, the House voted to amend the continuing resolution to fund the federal government to defund the $317 million Title X Family Planning Program, a major beneficiary of which is Planned Parenthood. None of this money funds abortions. Instead, it goes to birth control, cancer screenings, and other reproductive health services for 5 million low-income Americans.
This kind of preventive care is highly cost-effective. Every federal family planning dollar saves an estimated $4 tax dollars on unintended pregnancy costs alone. Saving money by de-funding contraception is like “saving money” by not paying your rent. It’s not savings if you end up staying in a hotel that costs even more.
As Nick Baumann reports for Mother Jones, Senate Democrats are confident that they can defeat the measure. However, if that happens and the House Republicans won’t pass an acceptable alternative, the federal government will run out of money and shut down until the impasse is resolved.
Julianne Hing, blogging at TAPPED, wrote of last Friday’s House vote to de-fund Planned Parenthood:
I find it difficult to summon the energy to be angered or even shocked by the news anymore. I wouldn’t describe my reaction on Friday as either of those two. It felt like something much deeper — like an attack on women and women’s access to health care. I took it personally.
The vote was just the latest assault on women’s health care by House Republicans. H.R. 3 initially proposed to redefine rape as “forcible rape.” That provision was withdrawn amid public outcry, but the bill would still effectively eliminate private health insurance coverage for abortion. H.R. 358 would give hospitals a loophole to not refer women for abortion, even if their lives are in danger.
The miscarriage mafia
Georgia state Rep. Bobbie Franklin (R) has introduced a bill that would investigate unsupervised miscarriages as potential murders, Robin Marty reports for Care2.
Here’s the relevant text of the bill, H.B.1:
When a spontaneous fetal death required to be reported by this Code section occurs without medical attendance at or immediately after the delivery or when inquiry is required by Article 2 of Chapter 16 of Title 45, the ‘Georgia Death Investigation Act,’ the proper investigating official shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall prepare and file the report within 30 days[.]
The bill opens with the familiar anti-choice tactic of defining a fetus as a person and declaring abortion to be murder. Even fervent anti-choicers may regard this as something of an overreach on Franklin’s part. Historically, anti-choicers have sought to pass discrete “personhood amendments” while maintaining the polite fiction that these laws have nothing to do with restricting abortion. Franklin is not a fan of the incremental approach. He is seeking to redefine a fetus as a person and abortion as murder in a single piece of legislation.
As Marty notes, one third of all pregnancies end in miscarriages. In early miscarriages, the woman may never even know she was pregnant. So, Franklin essentially wants to criminalize unauthorized vaginal bleeding in Georgia. Setting aside the basic human rights of women, as Franklin is only too happy to do, his miscarriage bill is about as practical as his bid to make Georgians pay their state taxes in gold and silver coins.
State legislatures all over the country are weighing ever more draconian restrictions on abortion. Republican lawmakers in Ohio have proposed legislation to ban abortion of any fetus with a heartbeat, Daniel Tencer of Raw Story reports. South Dakota Republicans were forced to back off a proposed law that appeared to legalize the murder of abortion providers.
Scott Walker’s anti-abortion crusade
You probably know Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as the Tea Party favorite who wants to take collective bargaining rights away from the state’s public employees. You may not know that Walker is also a longtime anti-abortion crusader. Andy Kroll of Mother Jones reports that Walker, a former president of his college’s chapter of Students for Life, has a long history of campaigning against abortion, contraception, and sex ed. As a gubernatorial candidate, Walker won the endorsement of the hardline Pro-Life Wisconsin, which even opposes abortion to save the life of the woman.
As I reported in RH Reality Check, Walker’s anti-union “budget repair” bill also contains an all-out attack on a popular and successful Medicaid program to provide birth control to Wisconsinites whose incomes would qualify them for Medicaid if they became pregnant. The program saves Wisconsin an estimated $45 million a year in maternal and infant health costs alone and brings in 9 federal dollars for every on dollar spent by the state.
The Republicans swept to power with promises of limited government and fiscal conservatism. Now that they’re in office, their true agenda appears to be restricting women’s freedom at taxpayers’ expense.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The entire federal government might... more
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Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has issued a statement declaring that he will not run for president in 2012.
The full statement:
"For months now, my wife Kimberley and I have received encouragement from family, friends, colleagues, and supporters from across South Dakota and the country to run for the presidency of the United States. We have appreciated hearing their concerns about where the country is headed and their hopes for a new direction.
During this time, Kimberley and I and our two daughters have given a great deal of thought to how we might best serve South Dakota and our nation. That process has involved lots of prayer.
Along the way, we have been reminded of the importance of being in the arena, of being in the fight. And make no mistake that during this period of fiscal crisis and economic uncertainty there is a fight for the future direction of America. There is a battle to be waged over what kind of country we are going to leave our children and grandchildren and that battle is happening now in Washington, not two years from now. So at this time, I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America's future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.
I want to thank those who have encouraged us and prayed for us during the past several months. We are forever grateful for all the support.
John and Kimberley"
DNC Executive Director Jennifer O'Malley Dillon told HuffPost's Sam Stein last July that Thune was the prospective GOP candidate who worried her the most. "This is personal but John Thune is somebody that I have nightmares about," she said at the time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/john-thune-president-2012_n_826572.htmlSen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has issued a statement declaring that he will not run for... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The South Dakota House of Representatives will soon vote on a bill that would expand the definition of justifiable homicide to include killing to protect the life of a fetus. The plain language of the bill would appear to legalize the murder of abortion providers for performing legal abortions on women who request them.
Kate Sheppard explains in Mother Jones:
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.
“The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers,” Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Foundation told Mother Jones.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Phil Jensen, vehemently denies that his bill would legalize the murder of abortion doctors, Sheppard reports in a follow-up post. Jensen did not return Mother Jones’s calls for comment before the original story ran, but he now claims that he simply wants to update the state’s fetal homicide legislation.
Jensen’s stated intent is irrelevant, however. The plain language of his bill expands the category of “justifiable homicide” to protect certain people who kill to save a fetus.
There is no question that many radical anti-choicers will interpret this legislation as a license to kill. If this bill becomes law, it is only a matter of time before one of these terrorists travels to South Dakota to test that interpretation.
As Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check notes, the bill codifies the same legal argument that anti-choice terrorist Scott Roeder deployed unsuccessfully at his trial for the assassination of the prominent late-term abortion provider and pro-choice activist Dr. George Tiller. Technically, the bill would only protect people who killed to “protect” a fetus being carried by their partner or family member, not strangers like Roeder who killed to “protect” fetuses in general, but the veiled threat to abortion providers is clear.
The bill cleared the legislature’s judiciary committee by a party-line vote of 9-3. The legislation is co-sponsored by 22 state legislators and 4 state senators. The full state house is scheduled to vote on the bill on Wednesday.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly sees the legislation as a sign of a “radical turn” in the culture war.
“Birth or Die Act” advances
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the anti-choice bill H.R. 358 passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Miriam Perez reports for Feministing. H.R. 358 is controversial on two fronts. First, it appears to create an opening for hospitals to refuse abortion care and abortion referrals, even when a woman’s life is at risk. Second, the bill would effectively end private insurance coverage for abortion as we know it.
Fruitwashing
You’ve heard of “greenwashing,” the marketing trend where companies repackage their old polluting inventory as planet-healthy products? The latest corporate marketing gambit is to convince consumers that sugar, starch, and red food dye are good for us, a process dubbed “fruitwashing,” by Brie Cadman of change.org.
Cadman takes food giant Kellogg’s to task for touting the “real fruit” in its frosted mini Pop Tarts, now available in 100-calorie packs. Of course, these rosy toaster pastries contain only a minuscule amount of fruit.
Kellogg’s is a repeat offender when it comes to fruitwashing. The box of the company’s Frosted Mini Wheats Blueberry Muffin cereal features photos of real blueberries, but the actual “blueberry crunchlets” in the box are made of sugar, soybean oil, red dye #40 and blue dye #2.
Play with your food
In an article called “Why Playing With Your Food is Serious Business,” Carol Deppe of Grist argues that processed fare is driving us to overeat by cheating us out of our instinctive drive to interact with our foods before we eat them:
I also tend to overeat the delicious bean soup on that day I effortlessly thawed a portion from the freezer, compared with the day that I made the soup from scratch myself. The act of preparing food seems to actually be one of my satiety mechanisms. That is, to avoid overeating, to feel satisfied with normal, healthful amounts of food, I have to play with my food.
A highly processed diet enables us to practically inhale our calories, leaving us unsatisfied.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
The South Dakota House of... more
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South Dakota's proposed "justified homicide bill" has been withdrawn for the time being, but don't be surprised if it returns like cow flop on a South Dakota rancher's boots.South Dakota's proposed "justified homicide bill" has been withdrawn... more
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A state bill to expand the definition of justifiable homicide in South Dakota to include killing someone in the defense of an unborn child was postponed indefinitely Wednesday after an uproar over whether the legislation would put abortion providers at greater risk.
The House speaker, Val Rausch, said that the legislation had been shelved, pending a decision on whether to allow a vote, amend the language or drop it entirely. A spokesman for Gov. Dennis Daugaard said, “Clearly the bill as it’s currently written is a very bad idea.”
The bill, approved by the House Judiciary Committee last week on a 9-to-3 party-line vote, establishes in part that “homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person.”
The phrasing caused concern and disbelief on both sides of the abortion debate, with activists in the abortion rights and anti-abortion movements calling the language poorly conceived at best, and perhaps an incitement to violence. The bill was cheered, though, by those anti-abortion activists who argue that the use of violence is justified to stop doctors from carrying out abortions.
Dr. Marvin Buehner, of Rapid City, S.D., who is the only doctor in the region to provide abortions for women whose health and safety are at risk, said he was shaken by the measure.
“Once you get the sense that the Legislature will tolerate violence against abortion providers, even if the legislation is not enacted, it crosses the line into intimidation,” he said.
Troy Newman, leader of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group, said he was “shocked” when he read the bill, which he worried could encourage violence. “The pro-life movement, by definition, is in favor of protecting human life from the moment of conception to natural death, and we reject all forms of violence,” he said.
Republican supporters of the legislation said it was being misinterpreted as an anti-abortion measure, The intent, they say, is to afford equal protection to unborn children in existing law.
But Sarah Stoesz, president of the local Planned Parenthood chapter, said she also doubted the sponsors’ claims that the legislation was not intended to be an anti-abortion measure. “It’s a very clear shift in the conversation,” she said. “We have never had a public conversation about whether it’s right to kill a doctor.”
Several people convicted of killing abortion providers have tried unsuccessfully to use the justifiable homicide argument.
Dave Leach, an Iowa anti-abortion activist, praised the bill, saying it could end abortions in South Dakota by scaring away doctors or by establishing grounds for someone to kill those who stay.
“There may be something I’m overlooking, but from all appearances, this bill would certainly justify an individual taking the life of an abortionist in order to save human lives,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17dakota.html?_r=4&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1297958503-w3B/PKX72O7gv1phxJsKHAA state bill to expand the definition of justifiable homicide in South Dakota to... more
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State lawmakers in South Dakota have introduced legislation that would require all residents aged 21 and over to purchase a firearm beginning in 2012.
The bill is reportedly meant as a quixotic attempt to protest the reach of the health insurance mandate set to be implemented by President Obama's health care reform, ruled unconstitutional by a Florida judge on Monday.
State Rep. Hal Wick (R), one of the bill's sponsors, recently explained the objective of the legislative demonstration taken on by him and four other lawmakers.
"Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance," Wick told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
Despite the purely idealistic nature of the proposal, it seems perhaps particularly strange in the state of South Dakota, where legal immigrants have been barred from accessing concealed weapons permits since 2002, when the legislature changed the law following the attacks on 9/11. A measure is now in the works to return those firearms rights to legal immigrants.State lawmakers in South Dakota have introduced legislation that would require all... more
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We really would like to congratulate Alexa Vega and her longtime beau Sean Covel as they tied the knots yesterday on Sunday October 10, 2010 in SouthWe really would like to congratulate Alexa Vega and her longtime beau Sean Covel as... more
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Systematic Republican Disenfranchisement Efforts Against Native Americans Underway In South Dakota
Friday, Digby, Amato and I trucked over to a get-together Norman Lear was throwing for a branch of People for the American Way, the Young Elected Officials Network, which supports elected leaders ages 35 and under as they define issues, develop solutions and respond to the needs of their communities.
You may remember that two years ago DWT readers helped South Dakota candidate Kevin Killer raise enough money to compete successfully in his race for a seat in the South Dakota legislature. When I ran into Kevin Friday at the event, he told me it had been an excellent two years and the Republicans aren't even bothering to run someone against him this year. That's great news, and Kevin is spending a lot of time helping elect other progressives. Here's a video he made talking about the challenges facing rural districts like his:
Yesterday I got a note from another South Dakota progressive candidate we've met before, Ben Nesselhuf, who's running for Secretary of State. Remember? Ben mentioned some serious right-wing disenfranchisement efforts against Native Americans going on in his state, and I recognized the area as part of Kevin Killer's district.
> In the latest instance of decades of blatant racially motivated voter
> disenfranchisement in South Dakota, Republican officials at the state and county
> level have begun the process of limiting Native American access to the ballot.
> Shannon County, home of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, faces the prospect of
> no early voting access this fall. Worse still, there remains the very real possibility of
> no Election Day voting at all in Shannon County.
> There is little ambiguity to what has transpired in South Dakota in the last month.
> According to the 2000 Census, Shannon County is 94.2% Native American. Lying
> entirely on reservation land, Shannon County is the second poorest county in the
> United States. In the 2004 and 2008 elections, Shannon County has been the
> highest Democratic performing county in the country. In 2008, Barack Obama
> received 88.6% of the vote in Shannon County. Because of the rural nature of the
> county, it has traditionally seen much higher levels of absentee and early voting than
> the South Dakota averages.
> Because Shannon County is one of two unorganized counties in South Dakota,
> elections have been administered by neighboring Fall River County. This has been
> standard procedure for over thirty years. Frustrated and seeing a political
> opportunity, however, Republican officials at the state and county level decided to
> act. In August, county officials in Fall River County made it clear they would resign if
> asked to administer the same early voting opportunities in Shannon County that
> every other county receives. When they were formally asked to do so on September
> 3, 2010, a number of county officials subsequently resigned, leaving no one to run
> the election in Shannon County.
> The next Thursday, September 9, Republican Secretary of State Chris Nelson met
> with officials from both Shannon and Fall River Counties. As reported by the Rapid
> City Journal, Nelson arbitrarily declared that Shannon County had only until the next
> Monday, September 13, to resolve the situation. In addition to only giving Shannon
> County two business days to respond, Nelson repeatedly suggested that there was
> nothing that the state could do to help. Brazenly, Nelson told those gathered at the
> meeting, “You all have a huge challenge on your hands.” Nelson, the chief elections
> officer in the state and a former Republican candidate for Congress, is prepared to
> sit idly by and watch an entire county be disenfranchised.
> As of now, there is no plan in place for how any elections are to take place in
> Shannon County, South Dakota. Voting rights groups believe the turnout for the
> 2010 cycle in Shannon County could be as high as 5,000 votes, a sizeable
> percentage of the state vote in South Dakota. Because many of those votes will be
> for Democrats, South Dakota Republicans are willing to take on lengthy legal fights
> to protect [the decision], because they know it can’t be resolved before election day.
> None of this is new. For the past several years, South Dakota has openly flouted the
> 1965 Voting Rights Act, considering fair and equal access to the ballot an
> unnecessary hassle that the state need not worry about. This has led to numerous
> lawsuits, all of which have been lost by the state. The problem is that by the time the
> court resolves the issues, the damage has been done.
You can imagine that Ben isn't taking this sitting down-- nor did it come as a surprise to him. He's running on a platform of fair and equal elections in South Dakota in every county. He feels it's the obligation of the state to make sure that every county has the resources and facilities they need to have early voting and smoothly run elections. On September 8, Nesselhuf was quoted in Indian Country Today saying that he considers the way the state has run previous elections as “systematic disenfranchisement.”
His far right Republican opponent has nothing to say about this, although he keeps screaming about voter fraud and sounds like ACORN is sending agents to South Dakota homes to steal elections and children. For Republican officials in South Dakota, every time a Native American votes, it’s “fraud.”
Here's Ben's website, and you can donate to his campaign directly through ActBlue. This video is a little light for the seriousness of the topic. Hopefully it will help Ben get elected so he can take care of it.Systematic Republican Disenfranchisement Efforts Against Native Americans Underway In... more
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In this scene from "Rape on the Reservation," correspondent Mariana van Zeller goes for a ridealong with "Hawkeye," a law enforcement officer on Rosebud reservation where often authorities reach a scene long after the crime has been committed.
According to national statistics, one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes. In "Rape on the Reservation," Vanguard correspondent Mariana Van Zeller travels to Rosebud reservation in South Dakota to investigate the alarmingly high incidence of rape and sexual assaults.
"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Wednesdays at 10/9c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.
For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.In this scene from "Rape on the Reservation," correspondent Mariana van... more
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In this Travel Bug Robert episode, Robert travels to Custer State Park in South Dakota. South Dakota tourism just doesn't stop at Mount Rushmore. It doesn't even stop at Wall Drug or Badlands National Park. No, the plains state of South Dakota keeps its travel attractions coming with Custer State Park. It's definitely the forgotten travel destination in an area overflowing with road trip-friendly stops. Well, tack this one on your road trip, too. With beautiful scenery, wildlife, and no Yellowstone-like traffic jams, Custer State Park is a must see for those who want the great American road trip experience.
Get more travel tips and videos at www.travelbugrobert.com.In this Travel Bug Robert episode, Robert travels to Custer State Park in South... more
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Story/photo about Drew Nelson song about sacred Eagle Rock came out in this week's Indian Country Today newspaper
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/greatlakes/96146394.html
Video with Drew Nelson song entitled "Eagle Rock (Song for the People)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ces63iissE
Contact singer/songwriter Drew Nelson who wrote Eagle Rock (Song for the People)
http://www.drewnelson.net
http://www.drewnelson.net/boozhoo/shows/
http://www.drewnelson.net/boozhoo/2010/05/20/please-read-2/
Book Drew Nelson:
1-616-706-2539
drew@drewnelson.net
Two Hearted Music L.L.C.
1251 Penn Ave N.E.
Grand Rapids MI 49505
http://www.myspace.com/drewnelsonmusic
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drew-Nelson-singersongwriter/45080254917
http://www.reverbnation.com/drewnelson
http://www.concertsinyourhome.com/artist/drewnelson.html
Eagle Rock (Song for the People)
By Drew Nelson
Sun breaks over the Yellow Dog
call the thunder down
feel the wind rush against my face
sound of the children
breaks the stillness of the morning
red tail rises not a mile from this place
all through the night
they kept the fire burning
all through the night they sang
call the directions, put tobacco down
prayers and smoke on the wind
Chorus:
Here at Eagle Rock we will take our stand
Here at Eagle Rock we will pray
for the healing of our people
and the healing of our land
there’s a fire burning in our hearts
Ishkoday (Anishinaabe for sacred fire)
Ishkoday
Ishkoday
For a thousand years
this place has been sacred
it will be for a thousand more
all those who lover her
cry all my relations
see the old ones sing
see the young ones grow
Chorus repeats:
There is a law higher than any government
places more important than a mine
a love that is greater than any corporation
ask the Eagle, ask the Bear, Ask the Pines.
Three brave American Indian women from Baraga, MI started the encampment at sacred Eagle Rock at sunset on April 23, 2010.
They are KBIC members Charlotte Loonsfoot, 37, and Chalsea Smith, 20, and Georgenia Earring of the Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux tribe in South Dakota.
The camp was triggered by mine officials ordering the trespassing arrest three days earlier (April 20) of non-native environmentalist Cynthia Pryor of the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve
Over the next month campers would build lean-tos, start several campfires including the sacred Grandfather Fire, pitch dozens of tents, pray, plant the Eagle Rock Memorial Garden, host the KBIC Tribal Council meeting (May 10), hear from many healers and elders including popular Native American singer “Bobby Bullet” St. Germaine (Lac Du Flambeau Tribe) and Lee Sprague (Little River Band of Ottawa Indians), and create a kitchen to store tons of food and other supplies donated by supporters.
A massive police raid began about 9 a.m. on May 27 as dozens of heavily armed state and local law enforcement officers swopped down on the camp at the order of officials with Kennecott Eagle Minerals.
Two members of Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve arrived moments before the raid to warn four campers that police were on their way.
Arrested Keweenaw Bay Indian Community members Chris Chosa, 28, and Charlotte Loonsfoot, 37, both of Baraga, Mich.
The other two campers present for the raid were Kalvin Hartwig (Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa), and Catherine Parker of Marquette – were ordered by police and mice security to leave with their vehicles.
Stand for the Land blog
http://www.standfortheland.com
Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve
http://www.yellowdogwatershed.org
Save the Wild UP
http://www.savethewildup.org
Cedar Tree Institute
http://www.CedarTreeInstitute.org
Drew Nelson photo:
http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac141/NavajoLutheranMission/Kennecott%20Minerals%20orders%20Ojibwa%20camp%20crushed/SingerDrewNelsonEagleRocksongwri-1.jpgStory/photo about Drew Nelson song about sacred Eagle Rock came out in this... more
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Ojibwa Treaty Rights trampled once again - by state of Michigan Kennecott Minerals
Stand for the Land Rally at Michigan Capitol: They sang, they cried, they proclaimed Mother Nature First! as Native Americans, non-Natives protested the raid on sacred Eagle Rock and continued the fight against Kennecott Eagle Minerals nickel and copper mine on the Yellow Dog Plains near Lake Superior
http://turtleislandproject.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/standforthelandrallymichigancapitolOjibwa Treaty Rights trampled once again - by state of Michigan Kennecott Minerals... more
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Eagle Rock Video Drew Nelson's Song:
Over 100 attended June 3 rally at the Michigan State Capitol protesting arrest of Ojibwa defenders at sacred Eagle Rock, sulfide mining in northern Michigan on the Yellow Dog Plains near Lake Superior in violation of Ojibwa Treaty Rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ces63iissEEagle Rock Video Drew Nelson's Song:
Over 100 attended June 3 rally at the... more
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