Free Republic

A prominent Native American group says Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren had “better be able to defend” her past claims of being an Indian-American minority. The Democratic candidate is facing questions about her heritage following the revelation on Friday that she described herself as a Native American minority in professional law school directories during the 1980s and ’90s. “Once you put that down, you better be able to defend it,” Ray Ramirez of the Native American Rights Fund told The Daily Caller on Monday. Warren, who no longer publicly refers to herself as Native American, has disputed that she claimed...

Why didn't somebody tell me Harvard University was looking to hire Native Americans? If Harvard really wanted one, they should have called me. Unlike the vast majority of blow-ins -- you know, the professors who teach at that venerable institution of higher learning, like Professor Pocahontas -- I was not only born in Massachusetts, I was actually born in Cambridge. How much more Native American can you be? Not only that, I arrived in this world, not from a reservation in Oklahoma or a farm in Kenya, or some other foreign locale, but at Cambridge City Hospital, which is now...

Elizabeth Warren said yesterday she is “proud” of her Native American heritage and indicated she had no problem with Harvard Law School using her roots to claim her as a diversity hire, but her campaign still could not produce documents proving her lineage. “I am very proud of my Native American heritage, thank you,” said Warren when asked if she disapproved of the school counting her as a minority woman on the faculty. “These are my family stories ... This is our lives and I am very proud of that.” The Herald reported yesterday that Harvard Law School officials listed...

Three tribes lead the best practice initiative treating the epidemic of painkiller addiction in Native America, Oklahoma, the nation's leader in painkiller addiction. Treating all adults, Medicaid. Last month the Center for Disease Control called prescription painkiller addiction an epidemic in the country, identifying Oklahoma as leading the nation in both the addiction and related deaths. It is only fitting that the battle against such addiction in "Native America" be led by three tribal owned clinics, Absentee Shawnee Counseling Services, OKC; Keetoowah Cherokee Treatment Services, Tulsa; and Quapaw Counseling Services, Miami. Generally speaking, prescription painkillers are opiates. There are 14...

SANTA FE, N.M. — A Native American tribe in New Mexico says it has the right to ask residents of a tribal-owned mobile home community for proof of U.S. citizenship and proper immigration documentation.

In Ages Past Black Elk: Lakota Holy Man, Catholic Catechist Black Elk's conversion was actually where he found true freedom and fulfillment as a healer and teacher. By Pat McNamara, May 02, 2011 In his book Black Elk Speaks, author John Neihardt interviewed a Lakota holy man who recounted pre-reservation life and events he witnessed, including Custer's Last Stand and the Wounded Knee massacre. Later, anthropologist Joseph Epes Brown interviewed Black Elk about Lakota religious traditions for his book The Sacred Pipe (1953). Both works are touched with a certain sadness, that of a man whose best days have...

Leaders of the Onondaga Nation blasted as “reprehensible” the assigning of the world’s most wanted terrorist “Geronimo” as a codename. Bin Laden was killed during an attack on his compound in Pakistan Sunday. “We’ve ID’d Geronimo,” U.S. forces reported by radio to the White House. Later, word came that “Geronimo” was dead. “Think of the outcry if they had used any other ethnic group’s hero,” the Onondaga Council of Chiefs said in a release Tuesday. “Geronimo bravely and heroically defended his homeland and his people, eventually surrendering and living out the rest of his days peacefully, if in captivity,” the...

Was Chief Sitting Bull a Catholic convert? Did he convert William “Buffalo Bill” Cody? That was the scuttlebutt around Catholic circles this past week. From stories, to blogging, to Catholic radio shows, to postings from Facebook friends, I heard it multiple times. As a student of the Old West, having read numerous accounts of Sitting Bull and a resident of the once vast Dakota Territory, I thought it unlikely. But was it possible that Sitting Bull was a full member of the Catholic Church? To begin with, there are no baptismal records from Father Pierre De Smet, the most likely...

Sitting Bull (sitting) wearing his crucifix Not long ago, I was speaking with Father Phil Wolfe about the evangelization of the Flathead Indians in northwest America. He stood up up from his desk and went to one of his many bookshelves and pulled down a book. He opened it and set it in front of me with a page open to a photo. "Who's that?" I had seen the photo several times since my youth. It's in every student's US History book. "That's Sitting Bull," I said. "Have you ever seen this photo before?" he asked. "Yes, of course."...

A native woman kidnapped by the Vikings may have been the first American to arrive in Europe around 1,000 years ago, according to a startling new study. The discovery of a gene found in just 80 Icelanders links them with early Americans who may have been brought back to Iceland by Viking raiders. The discovery means that the female slave was in Europe five centuries before Christopher Columbus first paraded American Indians through the streets in Spain after his epic voyage of discovery in 1492...

Was anyone else able to catch the PBS program last night about the history of Indian wars in the American and Midwest? I missed a lot of it, but saw enough to make some observations. The art direction was spectacular!! However, the program was grinding the same old ax. America is awful and has no right to exist. Period. I mean, it was a perfect laundry list of all the evils of civilization! Of course, Native Americans were entirely blameless and the unqualified textbook image of the noble savage... far above the crude brutality of white settlers and the military....

Unless we measure success by how children perform, we'll have higher standards for pop stars than public schools. Over the past few years, I have often complained about a hidebound culture that prevents many newspapers from responding to the challenges of new technology. There is, however, another hidebound American institution that is also finding it difficult to respond to new challenges: our big-city schools. Today, for example, the United States is home to more than 2,000 dysfunctional high schools. They represent less than 15% of American high schools yet account for about half of our dropouts. When you break this...

"Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land," President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821. The United States of America declared its independence in 1776.

THE US formally apologised to American Indian tribes today for "ill-conceived policies" and acts of violence committed against them. Republican Senator Sam Brownback read the congressional resolution at an event attended by representatives of five Indian nations at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington: the Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and Pawnee nations.

The State of Arizona passed a law to uphold federal law and to protect their citizens but the liberal DC establishment, instead of supporting the right of Arizona to enact the legislation is acting full bore against them. First, let’s get the media and open border politician's spin corrected. There is nothing in the Arizona law contrary to Federal Law. The State of Arizona is acting in concert and protection of the the US Constitution and law. Today, an article in David Horowitz’s blog describes it. “ Tragically, the very powers that are Constitutionally supposed to protect America from...

Sending a Message with the Census [Mark Krikorian] John: I haven't gotten my letter from the Census Bureau yet asking me to make sure I fill out the questionnaire. But when I do fill it out, I'll use it to send a message. Fully one-quarter of the space on this year's form is taken up with questions of race and ethnicity, which are clearly illegitimate and none of the government's business (despite the New York Times' assurances to the contrary on today's editorial page). So until we succeed in building the needed wall of separation between race and state, I...

Government census taker was just here, they are hand delivering their envelopes to be filled out and mailed in. I filled how many in this household with a black majic marker and across the rest of their B.S. I wrote....SEE MY US CONSTITUION...in big black majic marker. It will be in the mail tomorrow.

ATHENS (WATE) -- There's a new federal ID requirement that says you have to produce a birth certificate when your driver's license expires. A Native American named Aldea "Hawk" Silverhawk called 6 On Your Side to explain why he doesn't have a birth certificate and how difficult it is to prove where he was born. Years ago, many Tennesseans were born at home and delivered by a midwife. In some cases, there's no record of the birth. For those who fall under these circumstances, if you can show documentation of early schooling or your parent's birth, you can get what's...

The scene is the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut . The year 2000. The congressman has $100 chips stacked high, having a grand time at the crap table. He likes to gamble and isn't afraid to show some temper when he loses. Along for the ride are his campaign manager and one of the two biggest lobbyist handing out campaign money from various Indian tribes who was also a 20 year friend of the legislator. By now we've all heard about the money J.D. Hayworth received from an Indian tribe by way of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was one...

New York To all Americans: Your census form will be in the mail this spring – and please take 10 minutes to fill it out. That was the message on Monday when government officials kicked off a $130 million campaign in Times Square in New York to encourage public awareness of the census. As the campaign gathers speed, it will be hard to miss: Vehicles promoting the census will crisscross the United States, and ads for the census will run in nearly every form of communication.In late January, census forms will arrive in the most remote parts of Alaska. But...