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<p>PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) - Willard Varnell Oliver, a member of the Navajo Code Talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language, died Wednesday. He was 88.</p> <p>Lawrence Oliver said his father died at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott, Ariz. He had been declining health for the past two years.</p>

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama will host a Tribal Nations Conference discussing issues of importance to Native Americans on November 5, the White House announced Monday. Representatives from each the country's 564...

Many critics argue that Christopher Columbus gave us a devil's bargain. In October 1492 that Italian explorer, working for Spain, opened America to his fellow Europeans. The result: we got a prosperous New World by impoverishing, enslaving and murdering the natives who were already here. But this view fails to distinguish between two types of exploitation—one over other humans and the other over nature: the former which should be expunged from our moral codes and civilized society, the latter which is the essence of morality and civilization. The former form of exploitation was suffered especially by the tens of millions...

An exchange Sunday with my eldest son got me to thinking (a rare feat, indeed). He asked if tomorrow was a holiday. I responded that it’s Columbus Day. Sensitive and bright guy that he is, he came back – half joking -- with “Don’t you mean Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Day?” He and I have debated the matter of the government’s treatment of the American Indian many times. He takes the position that we badly mistreated these original and mostly warrior inhabitants of what we now call America. I agree with him that, sadly, by violating treaties, marching them off...

Who heard it? A player on the Giants offense gave his college as "University of Chief Illini" in the pre-recorded intros.

WASHINGTON -- A group of American Indians who find the Washington Redskins' name offensive wants the Supreme Court to take up the matter. The group late Monday asked the justices to review a lower court decision that favored the NFL team on a legal technicality.

American Indians look to high court Associated Press WASHINGTON -- A group of American Indians who find the Washington Redskins' name offensive wants the Supreme Court to take up the matter. The group late Monday asked the justices to review a lower court decision that favored the NFL team on a legal technicality. The seven Native Americans have been working through the court system since 1992 to have the Redskins trademarks declared invalid. A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel ruled in their favor in 1999, but they've since suffered a series of defeats from judges who ruled that the...

Europeans named the southern mountains after the Apalchen or Apalachen tribe of natives. How did the name progress from "Apalchen" to "Appalachia" and "Appalachian Mountains?" By the whims of cartographers and geographers, it seems. The steps from "Apalchen" to "Appalachian" can be traced by referring to vintage maps which provide names for the mountains of the East.

ON the road through the tree-studded high desert toward the small town of Chinle, Ariz., the car radio was bringing in the local Navajo station, with a playlist heavy in Top 40 hits, peppered with Navajo-language station breaks and car commercials. The sky was a cloudless blue, and I was on my way, with my childhood friend Esther Chak, to Canyon de Chelly, a geologic maze of towering red cliffs and deep-cut gorges dotted with pictographs and ruins of ancient cliffside villages. Lying in the heart of the 21st-century Navajo Nation, it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places...

A “Broken” Health Care System for Native Americans On paper, the situation sounds good: Based on a 1787 agreement between tribes and the United States government, the U.S. has an obligation to provide American Indians with free health care on reservations. But that’s not how it works, reports the Associated Press. Roughly one-third more is spent per capita on health care for felons in federal prison, according to 2005 data referenced by the AP. The system’s ineffectiveness has yielded a common refrain on reservations of “don’t get sick after June,” because that‘s when federal funds run out.

Judge Napolitano in for Beck about Indian Reservation health care.

The FReeper Canteen Presents….. ~ National Navajo Code Talkers Day! ~ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace (left), US Marine Corps, talks with Navajo Code Talkers after they presented him with a Navajo blanket in the Pentagon on Aug 10, 2007. Code Talkers were Native American Marines who served in World War II and developed a communications code based on their native language. DoD photo by Staff Sgt D Myles Cullen, US Air Force. (Released) Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies’ militaryand family members of the above.Honoring...

COLLINSVILLE -- Human sacrifice! Victims buried alive! Read all about it in "Cahokia -- Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi." According to this new book by University of Illinois archaeologist and professor of anthropology Tim Pauketat, the mound builders were not always the idyllic, corn-growing, pottery-making, fishing-hunting gentle villagers depicted in various dioramas at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville. Pauketat said these long-vanished people practiced human sacrifice of women and men on a mass scale and weren't always careful to bury only the dead. Based on years of study of artifacts including many from the extensive...

If you’re a young Lakota woman with a big heart, an even bigger smile, but an immune system compromised to its brink by lupus—you know who the enemy is. If you’re a tribal chairman receiving a phone call in the middle of the night that another one of your tribal members has taken their own life—you know who the enemy is....

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - The College of William & Mary in Virginia is looking for a mascot and ideas have ranged from a feathered horse to an asparagus stalk. The school said Monday more than 400 nominations have been submitted. William & Mary for decades was known as the Indians, but the school changed its nickname to Tribe in the 1980s. The NCAA ruled in 2006 that the college could keep the Tribe nickname but its feathered logo was demeaning to Native Americans and had to go. The school's athletic teams will still be called the Tribe, but the college wants...

Out of Deference to Tribes, State Outlaws It in Names of Public Places, Prompting a Squall STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine -- For nearly a decade, locals here have been fighting American Indians over the name of a dead-end dirt road.The lane in question, on a woodsy bluff overlooking the ocean, was once called Squaw Point Road. Maine banned the word "squaw" from place names in 2000, in deference to Indians who consider it racist. Names such as Squaw's Bosom Mountain and Little Squaw Brook quietly receded into history. But residents here played Scrabble with the spelling instead. They renamed the road...

RAPID CITY, S.D. - Custer rides again, although he's atop a plastic motorcycle and in a McDonald's Happy Meal box. And that doesn't sit well with some in the Native American community. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was killed in 1876 along the Little Big Horn River by Native Americans he aimed to destroy. But Hollywood brought him back to life as a character in the Ben Stiller comedy “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” which opened in theaters May 22. McDonald's included characters from the movie as toys in its kid-sized Happy Meals. The fast food chain's...

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 15, 2009 President Obama Announces Kimberly Teehee as Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs WASHINGTON – Today, in taped remarks to the 2009 National Congress of American Indians Mid-Year Conference, President Barack Obama announced the appointment of Kimberly Teehee as Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs. As a member of the Domestic Policy Council, Teehee will advise the President on issues impacting Indian Country. President Obama also announced that the White House will hold a Tribal Nations Conference later this fall. "Kim Teehee will be...

Spitting in the eye of mainstream education Dave Getzschman Students sit in detention at American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland for offenses ranging from getting up during class or skipping a problem on a homework assignment. Students who misbehave in the slightest must stay an hour after school; if they misbehave again in the same week, they get more detention and four hours of Saturday detention. Three no-frills charter schools in Oakland mock liberal orthodoxy, teach strictly to the test -- and produce some of the state's top scores. By Mitchell Landsberg May 30, 2009 Reporting from Oakland --...

Navajo Code Talker dies Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., offers condolences to family WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., today conveyed his condolences to the family of the late Navajo Code Talker and Navajo Tribal Councilman John Brown, Jr., of Crystal, N.M., who died this morning at home. He was 88. “Today, with sadness, we heard of the passing of Mr. John Brown, Jr., one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers and one of the Navajo Nation’s great warriors,” President Shirley said. “For so long, these brave men were the true unsung heroes of...

Written by . Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., offers condolences to family WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., today conveyed his condolences to the family of the late Navajo Code Talker and Navajo Tribal Councilman John Brown, Jr., of Crystal, N.M., who died this morning at home. He was 88. “Today, with sadness, we heard of the passing of Mr. John Brown, Jr., one of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers and one of the Navajo Nation’s great warriors,” President Shirley said. “For so long, these brave men were the true unsung heroes of World...

WASHINGTON – The Washington Redskins won another legal victory Friday in a 17-year fight with a group of American Indians who argue the football team's trademark is racially offensive. The decision issued Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington doesn't address the main question of racism at the center of the case. Instead, it upholds the lower court's decision in favor of the football team on a legal technicality. The court agreed that the seven Native Americans waited too long to challenge the trademark first issued in 1967. They initially won — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations. Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: Virtually without exception the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory. “Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to...

Last Monday began the PBS Series, "WE SHALL REMAIN" with their first Episode "After The Mayflower". The ones that will get my attention begin next week, Monday April 20th, 2009, and especially the April 27th "Trail of Tears" episode which will feature "The Ridge", the Cherokee leader and his clan who I wrote about in "Jesus Wept" An American Story. It will be VERY interesting to see how PBS deals with this situation or if they will be overtaken with the usual political correctness and historical rumor. My story is taken from documented records as well as family letters saved...

Court rules for state in American Indian land case I. – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday limited the federal government's authority to hold land in trust for Indian tribes, a victory for Rhode Island and other states seeking to impose local laws and control over development on Indian lands. The court's ruling applies to tribes recognized by the federal government after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. The U.S. government argued that the law allows it to take land into trust for tribes regardless of when they were recognized, but Justice Clarence Thomas said in his majority opinion that the...

I am watching McLauglin group and I think I just heard all American Indians to each get $1,000. Can anyone confirm this?

It’s happened again. My most quoted article, “What’s Up With White Women?” has been cited in another new book: Michael Medved’s The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation (Crown, 2008). I was tipped off by a friend who was reading the book. Here is what Medved wrote: An American Indian academic and musician named David A. Yeagley (an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation) tells a sobering story about one of his students at Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City. A “tall and pretty” girl with amber hair and brown eyes, she spoke out in a class...

WINNIPEG - Canada's polar bears are not teetering on the brink of extinction and don't need the alarmist rhetoric coming from some of the world's biologists, an Inuit expert said Friday at a one-day summit to discuss the fate of the arctic mammals. While scientists warned vanishing sea ice and over-hunting means two-thirds of the iconic predators could be gone within 50 years, the people who have shared "a personal relationship" with polar bears for thousands of years say the threat is exaggerated. "The current population is stable. It is not constructive to exaggerate the situation," said Gabriel Nirlungayuk, director...

BUFFALO -- It appears the New York State Thruway will again figure prominently in a dispute between the Seneca Indian Nation and the state over cigarette taxes. On Tuesday, Seneca President Barry Snyder outlined the nations response to a law signed by Gov. David Paterson that would ban manufacturers from selling unstamped cigarettes to wholesalers who supply reservation stores. Snyder says tribal councilors are now devising a system to collect tolls of $2 per car on the Thruway, where it passes through the tribes Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York. He called the interstate an illegal, unlicensed business. In 1997,...

WYANDOTTE, Mich. (AP) -- Members of the Wyandotte Marching Chiefs high school band plan to perform in the inaugural parade in Washington, but they won't be known by the name they've had since the 1950s. The Detroit Free Press reports Thursday that the band from Roosevelt High School will perform as the Roosevelt High School Marching Band. Patches will be sewn over logos on band uniform sleeves and the band's Marching Chiefs banner won't be carried. The decision was in response to a letter from a group that opposes the use of American Indian nicknames and logos.

Gov. David Paterson is heading near Indian Country to sign a bill that would call for the state to collect taxes on sales by Indian retailers. Despite urgings by the Seneca Nation for the governor to veto the measure, he is traveling to Oneida County to sign the legislation in Utica on Monday

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving — for this year only — to honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States. Frank Suniga, a descendent of Mescalero Apache Indians who lives in Oregon, said he and others began pushing in 2001 for a national day that recognizes tribal heritage... After the Thanksgiving weekend, Suniga said, he and other advocates plan to lobby to place the Native American Heritage Day on the nation's calendar annually...

Wampanoag Indians in a History Channel scene, filmed at Plimoth Plantation (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) – A nine-year-old girl was recently asked to remove her “Indian” costume before entering the Wampanoag Homesite of the Plimoth Plantation, a historical site that allows visitors to experience Plymouth, Mass., as it was in the 17th century. The outdoor museum features a 1627 English village beside a Wampanoag home site. The purpose of the museum is to educate visitors (school-children and adults) about what happened between the Native Americans and the colonists, especially during the first Thanksgiving. The nine-year-old was one of thousands who flock...

CLAREMONT, Calif. (KABC) -- There is a costume controversy in Claremont. The school board changed a decades-long tradition of students dressing up to celebrate Thanksgiving, and some parents are outraged. The tradition involves kindergarten students at Mountain View and Condit elementary schools. The kids usually dress up in costumes. Each school takes turns dressing up as pilgrims and Indians, and then join together for a Thanksgiving feast.This year, however, there is a big change. The school board decided to continue holding the feast, but they are not allowing the students to dress up. The board is concerned the Indian costumes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM_rZevlZaI In a surprise move, an American Indian tribe has apparently launched the world's only non-fiat bank. And it seems the descendants of Crazy Horse have a more robust security arrangement than the Liberty Dollar folks...

Political Correctness Claims Another Victim: 40-Year-Old Kindergarten Thanksgiving Celebration Killed by Political Correctness Gone Wild "Racist" children celebrate Thanksgiving by "dehumanizing" American Indians In yet another case of political correctness run amok, a forty year history of kindergarteners dressed as pilgrims and native Americans celebrating Thanksgiving at school has been quashed in Claremont, California, due to four people who complained the celebration used "racist stereotypes" which were "dehumanizing". According to the Los Angeles Times, parents of kindergarteners are "furious" over the Claremont School Board's decision to ban the kiddies wearing costumes after one mom, Michelle Raheja, an English professor at...

[NOTE - This politically-correct article is posted here so you can see the garbage coming from Madison, Wisconsin this Thanksgiving. Pay attention to the dates referenced. Rush also referenced it today, so i thought I'd post it here for your perusal. Not to be read too soon after eating cookies, or you'll lose them.] ******************************************************* Everything you know about the "first" Thanksgiving is wrong. Plymouth Rock. Pilgrims. Perseverance. Big feast. Happy Indians sharing in the bounty. According to "award-winning" filmmaker Patty Loew, it's all bunk, except maybe the part about eating turkey. Early settlers were so hungry they ate about...

CLAREMONT - Audience members at the school board meeting argued among themselves about whether elementary school students should dress in costume for a Thanksgiving feast. "The Thanksgiving story has been disproved as a myth," parent Diana Linden told the Claremont Unified school board on Thursday night. The board meeting - held for the first time in new district offices at 170 W. San Jose Ave. - was packed with opinionated people on both sides of the issue. The audience cheered loudest for speakers in favor of having the feast in costume. One parent told the school board not to be...

....and environmental leaders from northwest California went to Omaha to ask Buffett to tear down......buffett gives Billions to the Gates foundation.....

ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 12, 2008 – A Veterans Day observance yesterday at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial here honored the contributions of women in uniform throughout the nation’s history. Retired Air Force Maj. Linda S. Schwartz, left, and Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Patricia D. Ruth attend the Veterans Day observance at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Arlington, Va., Nov. 11, 2008. DoD photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, president of the Women’s Memorial foundation, hosted the annual event,...

Wealth breeds 'poverty of soul' Ten years after the casino cash started flowing, the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians' good fortune is on display across the peaceful Capay Valley. Thanks to their Cache Creek Casino Resort – which makes about $300 million a year and is scheduled to expand – each of the 26 adults in the 60-member nation gets about $1 million a year after taxes, more if they're on the tribal council or committees. They get a travel allowance to expand their horizons to Tahiti, Europe or anyplace they desire. They own luxury cars, custom homes on the...

Came across someone in FR thread who said that Obama in Grand Junction today mispronounced the name of the Ute Tribe of American Indians. Is this so, and can we please have a youtube?

Welcome to Native Americans Against Obama http://www.nativeamericansagainstobama.com/about.html We are a National Group dedicated to stopping one of the worst mistakes this country has ever made..... We are a intertribal group of many nations. We invite you to join us..... Our main objective is to bring all tribes members, non tribe members together to make a stand against Obama. (Excerpt:) John McCain has made a special effort to reach out to the Native Community. Soon we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of voting rights for Native Americans. John McCain has promised to improve our schools, on reservations, and continue to support...

A large swath of the sprawling Navajo Nation could lose access to the Internet today, in a dispute that threatens services from personal e-mail to police radio communications on the 27,000-square-mile reservation. The Navajos' problem stems from a funding battle over whether an arm of the Federal Communications Commission will continue to pay grant money to the tribe's Internet provider. ( ... ) The tribe of about 250,000 people already has lost Internet service to libraries and community centers known as "chapter houses," and has little access to cellphone service on a reservation that stretches across parts of Arizona, New...

DENVER - Planners of the Democratic National Convention are limiting the party's carbon footprint through a unique partnership with an Indian-focused environmental business. The Democratic National Convention Committee began working with NativeEnergy Inc. this spring to purchase carbon offsets for the dozens of convention staff who are flying, driving and otherwise polluting Denver as they carry out the big event. Party organizers are now asking that delegates, members of the media and other political officials who will be attending the late August gathering do the same. Delegates to the convention with the highest percentage of members offsetting their carbon emissions...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIxK9HWideQ&feature=user

Just thought some of you might be interested in this website: http://www.nativeamericansagainstobama.com/

A federal judge today ruled against the Seneca Nation's Buffalo Creek Casino, saying that casino gambling cannot legally take place on the nine-acre site on Michigan Avenue. U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, in a 127-page decision, vacated the earlier decision by the commissioner of the National Indian Gaming Commission to allow gambling. It was not immediately clear whether Skretny's ruling will halt construction on the $333 million permanent casino, but it is clear that the temporary casino no longer has the legal right to operate. Skretny ruled that the parcel is indeed Indian country. "However, the court finds that...

Today is the anniversary of one of the more controversial battles in US history - one that has been debated over and over for years. On this day in 1876, Genl George A Custer and large share of the US 7th Cavalry were killed in a battle near the Little Bighorn River in Montana. Because many of us on Free Republic enjoy history as well as debating history, I wanted to post this to see what you all have to say about this battle? Who's fault was it? Did Custer have a bad battle plan? Or did Reno and Benteern...

Governor says deal curbs the growth of Indian gamblingOLYMPIA -- Gov. Chris Gregoire is benefiting from more than $650,000 in campaign contributions from Indian tribes that hit the jackpot in 2005 when she killed a gambling compact potentially worth more than $140 million a year to the state. Unlike 22 other states that collect millions from revenue sharing agreements for tribal gambling, Washington gets no money from tribal casinos under the compact that Gregoire renegotiated with the Spokane Tribe. Gregoire backed away from the 2005 agreement that included revenue sharing in an attempt to keep gambling from expanding too quickly...