Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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Tuesday, Nov. 04, 2003mish mash of matters
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
-----Original Message-----
To: John (Puddy)
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:38 AM
From: Your �Buddy�
Subject: my email address
I didn�t remember which of my email addresses you needed. This is work, obviously. My personal address is: [email protected]
My shower started clogging up this morning. Isn�t that funny? Right after you were talking about how the Drano "really worked"!
Plus, Linda can�t take me to get my car fixed on Saturday. She and Chuck are going away for the weekend. In addition, Cathy invited me to go on a hike with her on Saturday with this hiking group she found on the internet. We have to be down in San Juan Capistrano by 9:00am.
I would just postpone my appointment again, but the following weekend (11/14 - 11/16) I am supposed to do the breast cancer walk. My car needs an oil change, too, so I was thinking of coming up to see you the following weekend (11/21 - 11/23) and asking you to change my oil while I�m up there (*wink, wink*). Then the following weekend (11/27 - 11/30) is Thanksgiving. My point is, if I don�t get my car done this weekend, when the heck am I supposed to get it done?
Maybe I�ll work something out with Cathy for Saturday...
Re. the Breast Cancer Walk: I emailed them yesterday to see if I could switch and be a member of the volunteer crew, since I probably wouldn�t make the $2,000 minimum in donations anyway. I don�t think that�s going to work, though. Apparently, it is way too late for me to work on the crew. Everything is already in place and everyone has been trained. So anyway, I guess if I don�t end up doing the walk, I can come see you that weekend. I took a couple of vacation days (Friday and Monday) anyway.
Let me know what you think. Talk to you later.
Tiger Pus
~~~
Politics
IT'S TIME TO ROCK THE VOTE:
Get some friends together and watch CNN from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Nov. 4, when Rock the Vote holds a candidates forum in Boston and airs it live. It will also be rebroadcast from 1:00 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Eastern, and again on Sunday, Nov. 9 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. http://www.rockthevote.com/rtv_cnn.php
COLORADO DEBATE ON AIR LIVE:
Kucinich campaign advisor Jeff Cohen and a local Colorado Kucinich supporter will engage two Dean supporters in a live debate / discussion on KGNU radio in Boulder on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. Mountain. Listen on the internet here: http://www.kgnu.org
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich:
"Iraq will not find peace or stability until the U.S. occupation ends. For almost a month, I have promoted a plan to bring our troops home and turn control of the transition over to the United Nations. The sons and daughters of the U.S. are dying in increasing numbers for the benefit of war profiteers with close ties to the Bush Administration. There was no basis for a war in Iraq. It was wrong to go in, and it's wrong to stay in. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. We should not be sacrificing the lives of our brave men and women for the profits of Halliburton, Bechtel, and other corporate interests. This disastrous mission must be ended before any more lives are lost. It is urgent for the United States to go to the U.N. with a new resolution, which contains the basis of an exit strategy. It is time to bring our troops home. It is time to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of Iraq."
Read more and check out the new website design at http://kucinich.us
~~~
WASHINGTON, DC � Citing damaging provisions that would effectively stay the recent Cobell v. Norton decision and the omission of additional funding for the Indian Health Service, Senator Tom Daschle today criticized the FY 2004 Interior Department appropriations bill.
While Daschle supported significant portions of the bill, he voted against adoption of the conference report to register his opposition to trust reform language and inadequate funding for the Indian Health Service in the final legislation.
In a recent decision in the Cobell v. Norton case, the United States District Court ordered the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive review of assets held in trust by the Department for the more than 300,000 individual American Indian account holders. The ruling is part of a long-overdue attempt to adequately compensate account holders and would be severely undermined by provisions inserted by the conference committee that would effectively nullify the District Court�s decision.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Daschle also noted the failure to adequately fund the Indian Health Service, which currently faces a $2.9 billion shortfall in funds for clinical services to Native Americans. Daschle has authored amendments to cover the shortfall. Rejecting Daschle�s amendment to the FY 2004 budget resolution to add $2.9 billion to IHS clinical services, Senate Republicans agreed to add $292 million for that purpose. On the Interior appropriations bill, however, they defeated a Daschle amendment to make good on that promise.
The text of Senator Daschle�s prepared statement is attached below.
�I come to the floor to express my objection to a provision in the conference report the Senate just passed regarding management and accounting of the American Indian trust fund.
Just over a month ago, on September 25, U.S. District Court Royce Lamberth ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior to conduct a full and accurate historical accounting of the assets held in trust by the Department for hundreds of thousands of individual American Indian account holders. In his ruling, Judge Lamberth charged that the Interior Department�s handling of the Indian trust funds �has served as a gold standard for mismanagement by the federal government for more than a century.�
The trust fund language inserted into this conference report -- behind closed doors -- would stay Judge Lamberth�s decision. It would effectively halt the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit and further delay justice for 300,000 to as many as a half-million Indian trust fund account holders. This provision is unconstitutional and, I believe, unconscionable.
Partly because so many Americans Indians live on remote reservations, not many Americans understand what the Indian trust fund dispute is about. This dispute stretches back to the 1880s, when the U.S. government broke up large tracts of Indian land into small parcels of 80 and 160 acres, which it allotted to individual Indians. The government, acting as a �trustee,� then took control of these lands and established individual accounts for the land owners. The government was supposed to manage the lands. Any revenues generated from oil drilling, mining, grazing, timber harvesting or any other use of the land was to be distributed to the account holders and their heirs.
The government has never -- never -- lived up to its trust fund responsibilities. The Indian trust fund has been so badly mismanaged, for so long, by administrations of both political parties, that today, no one knows how much money the trust fund should contain. Estimates of how much is owed to individual account holders range from a low of $10 billion to more than $100 billion. As Tex Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians has said, �this is the Enron of Indian Country.� In fact, it may well be bigger than Enron.
The people who are being denied justice in this case include some of the most impoverished people in all of America. More than 68,000 are enrolled members of South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska tribes. Some live in homes that are little more than shacks, with no electricity and no running water. They are being denied money that is rightfully theirs � money they need, in many cases, to pay for basic necessities.
The court has ordered an accounting. This rider will undermine that order. It will delay resolution and delay justice. What other group of Americans would we dare to treat this way? I don�t know of one, Mr. President. Why target American Indians? Many account holders are older people, �elders� who have suffered extreme economic deprivation their entire lives. If this rider staying Judge Lamberth�s ruling becomes law, as I expect it will, many of them may not live long enough to see justice. This is shameful.
When the Senate debated the Interior appropriations bill, several of us offered an amendment that would have strengthened accountability for the Indian trust fund. Instead, unbelievably, the provision in this conference report would weaken accountability of the trust fund.
Judge Lamberth�s decision directed the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a full and fair historical account of the trust. Such an accounting is the first, critical step in reaching a fair resolution to the Indian trust fund dispute.
The mismanagement of the Indian trust fund is a national disgrace. It stretches back generations and, as I have said on numerous occasions, administrations of both parties share the blame. In the seven years since the Cobell lawsuit was filed, Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars on litigation-related activities. This is money that is desperately needed and would have been much better spent funding health and education and housing programs in Indian Country.
In addition to the gross injustice, there are three additional aspects of this provision that are deeply troubling.
First, this rider is unconstitutional. By telling the court on how it must construe existing law, Congress would be violating the constitutional separation of powers. In addition, by denying account holders a full accounting of their trust fund monies and other assets, this rider constitutes a taking of property without just compensation or due process of law.
Second, there has been virtually no public debate or discussion of this rider. It was drafted without any consultation with tribes, with plaintiffs in the Cobell Indian trust fund lawsuit or with the membership of the Congressional committees of jurisdiction. This rider ignores the government-to-government relationship between tribes and the federal government, and is almost universally opposed in Indian Country. Since any effective, long-term solution to the trust fund problem must be based on government-to-government dialogue, this rider is likely to prove deeply counter-productive.
Last week, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a hearing on a settlement bill where both parties agreed to mediation. The House Resources Committee has been holding field hearings on settlement. This is the way the trust fund dispute should be resolved � not in back-room deals.
Third and finally, this provision perpetuates a shameful pattern of neglect of American Indians and tribes and a failure of the federal government to meet its legal and moral obligations to them.
Mr. President, there�s another shameful truth about this bill � and that is what is not in here.
Earlier this month, during Senate debate on the Interior appropriations bill, Democrats offered an amendment to address a critical funding shortfall for the Indian Health Service � a shortfall so acute that Indian people are frequently turned away from IHS clinics and hospitals unless they are literally in danger of losing a life or limb. They are denied earlier, less expensive care that might prevent such a dangerous condition in the first place.
We asked our Republican colleagues to restore the $292 million that they had promised, during the budget debate, to support. They refused. The actual shortfall in IHS clinical services is over $2.9 billion. And our colleagues refused to provide one-tenth of that amount in this bill. They refused to support one-tenth of what is needed to provide basic health services to American Indians.
Our Republican colleagues said they agreed on the need for better health care for Indian people; they said they agreed that much of the care being denied is truly essential; but they said, we simply can�t afford to do more. Given some of the spending we�ve seen lately, that excuse rings pretty hollow to Indian people. And it rings pretty hollow to me, too.
We spend twice as much on health care for federal prisoners as we spend for American Indians. The Indian Health Service has to ration care because of lack of funding. That is inexcusable.
Despite these deep flaws with the Indian trust fund and the Indian Health Service, the Senate has approved this rider, in part because this conference report contains many other programs that are urgently needed. But this is not the end. This in no way absolves the Interior Department of its legal and moral obligation to restore integrity to trust fund management as soon as possible. We will continue to press for a full and fair accounting of all assets in the Indian trust funds. And we will continue to push for full funding of Indian health care. It is long past time that we keep the promises we have made to American Indians and tribes.�
To view the latest information concerning this case, go to www.indiantrust.com
~~~
Word of the Day for Tuesday November 4, 2003
crux KRUHKS, noun;
plural cruxes, also cruces KROO-seez:
1. The basic, central, or critical point or feature.
2. Anything that is very puzzling or difficult to explain or solve.
last / next
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