US Politics July - Boner Sues the Hussein Clown Posse

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Unzip and Attack: Mar 3, 2008; USPOL May

Fried Chicken posted:

so yeah, your entire point is "well why can't I use racial slurs if they are true?". gently caress off.

Calling out Alan West for being a traitor to the black community in those exact words is now a racial slur. Glad you took the time to lay out your compelling argument dumb rear end.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 15:51

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 19:52

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Unzip and Attack posted:

Calling out Alan West for being a traitor to the black community in those exact words is now a racial slur. Glad you took the time to lay out your compelling argument dumb rear end.

Glad you are down to quoting Freep arguments and straw manning the exact opposite if what I have been saying. Wait, no, that's been what you've been doing all along.

National Geographic did a thing on hunger in America. It's pretty good, what it lacks in wonkishness it makes up for in the usual NatGeo style
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/

# ? Jul 18, 2014 15:55

Dante Logos: Dec 31, 2010

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

Yeah, my wife is Latin and while she came here legally she has a lot of family and friends here who are not and there pretty open about it around me. Like I said I have no ill feelings toward undocumented immigrants because I know I would have done the same thing if I was in there shoes. However, I still think its bullshit when corporations knowingly hire them in order to lower wages and so they can get away with treating workers like garbage. So I'm all for amnesty (give all the ones already here a green card with a probationary period) but only if regulations are put in place to make legal immigration easier and to inhibit employers/governments from incentivising illegal immigration.

edit: Most of the people here I know that are undocumented came from South America. They usually get a temporary work visa and then just never leave. Once their visa expires I believe they eventually have to get a fake tax ID/SSN # (usually one that belongs to a dead person) but my understanding was that E-verify usually catches people using those.

"When it does" are the key words here. Stories pop up every now and then when you have companies give undocumented immigrants social security numbers so that they can pass verification. This was part of the Tyson's Chicken investigation way back when. Chipotle had several as well which was discovered after the fact.

Of course, they got off easy though, so the problem will persist.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 15:56

Acelerion: May 3, 2005

Having been in both academia and hiring H1Bs into industry...yep, that's pretty much par for the course. Employers know they have no recourse to abuse.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 15:57

Joementum: May 23, 2004; jesus christ

Fried Chicken posted:

I thought he was referring to Pan Am 103

Nah, I don't buy into the FALSE FLAG(!!!) conspiracy theory for Lockerbie.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 15:57

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Acelerion posted:

Having been in both academia and hiring H1Bs into industry...yep, that's pretty much par for the course. Employers know they have no recourse to abuse.

Most of those pushing for more H1B visas in tech (Facebook) clam up when you suggest reforming the program to allow the holders to hop employers as part of any increase.

At least it isn't as bad as the TFW stuff going on in Canada though.

Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jul 18, 2014

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:01

ChristsDickWorship: Dec 7, 2004; Annihilate your demons

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

However, I still think its bullshit when corporations knowingly hire them in order to lower wages and so they can get away with treating workers like garbage. So I'm all for amnesty (give all the ones already here a green card with a probationary period) but only if regulations are put in place to make legal immigration easier and to inhibit employers/governments from incentivising illegal immigration.

In Matt Taibbi's latest book he describes an area in Georgia where they passed really harsh driving without a license laws and started putting up roadblocks on the most common paths from Latino neighborhoods into the city to both deport people and fine them on their way out. It didn't take long for the businesses in the area to start complaining because their turnover and costs went through the roof.

Matt Taibbi's "The Divide" posted:

So in February 2011 some of those leaders marched on down to Atlanta to complain. Speaking before the state senate's Special Committee on Immigration and Georgia's economy, Tom Hensley, president of a chicken processing firm called Fieldale Farms that is a big presence in the Gainesville area, stood up and complained about 287(g).

"We were 67% Hispanic in 2004. Our turnover was 25%. Our workers [compensation] cost was $50,000 a month. Our health care cost for the whole year was $8 million. It was about that time that the federal, state, and local governments let it be known that these folks were not welcome," Hensley told the committee.

"Fast forward to 2010, we're about 33% Hispanic now. Our turnover is 75%. Workers comp costs are $150,000 a month. Our health care last year was $20 million. Those are staggering numbers, but that's the economic reality."

Hensley closed by begging the committee to ease back on the profiling and no-license statues. "I implore you," he said. "Don't pass any more laws."

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:01

Beamed: Nov 26, 2010; Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.

Nonsense posted:

Did Beamed ever return to show that leftists are real racists?

Yes, I posted a list of quotes that took 5 minutes to find, not bothering to go into the half-broken archives, and you 3 hosed off, because apparently you think being a Leftist means you have to be racist I guess? I'm not sure why you assume I'm at all right of center because I don't use racial epithets, but hey, free country and all.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:03

Kalman: Jan 17, 2010

Shifty Pony posted:

Not accepting US passports is the most mind bending thing about a lot of these voter-id things. The process of getting one is far beyond the stringency required to get driver's licenses in most of the states. A passport isn't just evidence of legal status in the US (which is all that is required for even the most restrictive states for a driver license), it is straight up proof of citizenship.

The "problem" with passports as voter ID is that they don't provide verification of where you live - I have had the exact same passport while I lived in 5 different states.

(In theory voter registration weeds that problem out anyway, but there is a more-logical-than-usual argument against passports as voter ID.)

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:03

ComradeCosmobot: Dec 4, 2004; USPOL July

Shifty Pony posted:

Not accepting US passports is the most mind bending thing about a lot of these voter-id things. The process of getting one is far beyond the stringency required to get driver's licenses in most of the states. A passport isn't just evidence of legal status in the US (which is all that is required for even the most restrictive states for a driver license), it is straight up proof of citizenship.

To be fair to proponents of voter ID, passports don't have the individual's home address on them, so it's impossible to confirm that the individual is a resident of that particular state, only that they are a citizen of the United States.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:05

Unzip and Attack: Mar 3, 2008; USPOL May

Fried Chicken posted:

Glad you are down to quoting Freep arguments and straw manning the exact opposite if what I have been saying. Wait, no, that's been what you've been doing all along.

Fried Chicken posted:

so yeah, your entire point is "well why can't I use racial slurs if they are true?". gently caress off.

Unzip and Attack posted:

I agree with you that loaded terms like Uncle Tom should not be used by white people.

Unzip and Attack posted:

I'm not a fan of using terms like "Uncle Tom" and the like because as you said, those terms have racial baggage and aren't constructive.

Let me show you how on multiple occasions I have said that using these terms is wrong. Describing their actions as being traitorous or extremely harmful to their own race is different than saying someone is an "Uncle Tom". I think the former is ok and that one does not have to be a member of that group to make that supposition. The latter I do not agree with and have stated so multiple times, despite your continued inability to understand basic loving language. I don't know if you're drunk or pretending to be the world's dumbest poster but my point is made and your continued insistence that I am a Freeper or a racist makes you look like a fool.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:07

StandardVC10: Feb 6, 2007; This avatar now 50% more dark mode compliant

Would you two get a room already?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:08

ComradeCosmobot: Dec 4, 2004; USPOL July

StandardVC10 posted:

Would you two get a room already?

It is somewhat obnoxious now that the argument has spanned 15 pages.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:10

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

Kalman posted:

The "problem" with passports as voter ID is that they don't provide verification of where you live - I have had the exact same passport while I lived in 5 different states.

(In theory voter registration weeds that problem out anyway, but there is a more-logical-than-usual argument against passports as voter ID.)

But that isn't the "logic" and legal justification behind photo voter ID. You are just trying to confirm that the person in front of you is who they say they are. The rolls establishing residency to vote presumably (as you pointed out) have been vetted either at the point of registration or between registration end and election day to ensure that the addresses match with the name given.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:11

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Are two extremely liberal people trying to accuse one another of racism?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:12

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

It's much easier to not use racial slurs against people when there are other things that you can call them that are very accurate without having to justify using racialized language! I mean calling Allen West a scumfuck war criminal is pretty satisfying...

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:13

Unzip and Attack: Mar 3, 2008; USPOL May

ComradeCosmobot posted:

It is somewhat obnoxious now that the argument has spanned 15 pages.

Yeah well maybe I'm being too stubborn about it but I'm not used to being labelled a racist after being accused of advocating for the use of racial slurs in response to me having repeatedly condemned the use of said racial slurs in the same drat thread. It's not something I encounter every day.

zoux posted:

Are two extremely liberal people trying to accuse one another of racism?

No, I have not accused anyone of anything other than being unable to read and understand very simple statements like "Uncle Tom is a loaded term don't use it." But nope, racist/Freeper "Why can't I say n-----!!!"

Unzip and Attack fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Jul 18, 2014

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:13

ChristsDickWorship: Dec 7, 2004; Annihilate your demons

ComradeCosmobot posted:

To be fair to proponents of voter ID, passports don't have the individual's home address on them, so it's impossible to confirm that the individual is a resident of that particular state, only that they are a citizen of the United States.

Yea, and laws like NC's new law go even further. My understanding is your ID needs to have an address in the precinct where you're voting not just in the state. Even in-state college students have to go get new licenses and car registrations to comply with the law and vote where they go to school. And of course many of them move every August when school starts again, which gives them just a few weeks to get all their paperwork in order and register to vote in election years.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:14

Kalman: Jan 17, 2010

Shifty Pony posted:

But that isn't the "logic" and legal justification behind photo voter ID. You are just trying to confirm that the person in front of you is who they say they are. The rolls establishing residency to vote presumably (as you pointed out) have been vetted either at the point of registration or between registration end and election day to ensure that the addresses match with the name given.

There's more than one "John Smith" out there, and without the home address he could vote all over the place!

It's stupid because voter fraud doesn't exist, but the notion that the id used to vote in elections where your eligibility is dependent on your home address should include your home address isn't itself insane. It's just trying to solve the same nonexistent problems.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:14

Zeroisanumber: Oct 23, 2010; Nap Ghost

Joementum posted:

I just wanted to mention that Chris McDaniel still hasn't conceded and is in the middle of a barnstorming effort that he's calling the "Truth and Justice Tour".

Good. Let him suck up dollars and energy from some of the biggest shitbirds in the country and cause rifts and animosity among the Mississippi GOP.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:15

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Joementum posted:

Nah, I don't buy into the FALSE FLAG(!!!) conspiracy theory for Lockerbie.

I meant sound and fury but ultimately didn't do anything, not conspiracy

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:26

Fritz Coldcockin: Nov 7, 2005

Joementum posted:

I just wanted to mention that Chris McDaniel still hasn't conceded and is in the middle of a barnstorming effort that he's calling the "Truth and Justice Tour".

Has anyone told him yet that Mississippi already certified Cochran as the winner?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:28

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Unzip and Attack posted:

Yeah well maybe I'm being too stubborn about it but I'm not used to being labelled a racist after being accused of advocating for the use of racial slurs in response to me having repeatedly condemned the use of said racial slurs in the same drat thread. It's not something I encounter every day.

except you aren't condemning them, this whole thing is that you are arguing it's ok.

quote:

No, I have not accused anyone of anything other than being unable to read and understand very simple statements like "Uncle Tom is a loaded term don't use it." But nope, racist/Freeper "Why can't I say n-----!!!"

except you are defending using it, using literally the same logic Freep uses on it.

This is amazing, you realize people can hit the page back button and see you arguing that white people using these terms is fine, because "what else would you call group 13 then?" :smuhg:

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:31

ReindeerF: Apr 20, 2002; Rubber Dinghy Rapids Bro

zoux posted:

Are two extremely liberal people trying to accuse one another of racism?

d-and-d.txt right there.

Joementum posted:

Nah, I don't buy into the FALSE FLAG(!!!) conspiracy theory for Lockerbie.

I didn't know you were Iranian. Makes sense, though. Salam!

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:35

Beamed: Nov 26, 2010; Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.

Ignore me, I don't know planes.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:40

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

mcmagic posted:

It's much easier to not use racial slurs against people when there are other things that you can call them that are very accurate without having to justify using racialized language! I mean calling Allen West a scumfuck war criminal is pretty satisfying...

That's pretty much what I get too, only I take it a step further. If someone has a bunch of lovely opinions that are bad for the disadvantaged in general, and you go for calling them a race traitor over all of those, it suggests that for you the most important thing is that they're not keeping to their own kind as god intended. Even if really you did it for rhetorical zing and rather than because you really believe that the races must advance their own groups outside of other humanitarian and ideological concerns.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:44

Amergin: Jan 29, 2013; THE SOUND A WET FART MAKES

Can we all just stop this derail and agree that liberals can be and often are as racist as conservatives, if maybe just not as self-aware about it?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:46

made of bees: May 21, 2013

Amergin posted:

if maybe just not as self-aware about it?

you're funny

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:48

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

quote:

The sound a wet fart makes

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:50

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Amergin posted:

Can we all just stop this derail and agree that liberals can be and often are as racist as conservatives, if maybe just not as self-aware about it?

I might've agreed before Obama was elected.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:50

Amergin: Jan 29, 2013; THE SOUND A WET FART MAKES

zoux posted:

I might've agreed before Obama was elected.

When a black GOP member gets nominated president and the cries of "Uncle Tom!" arise from the liberal base, I hope you remember when you said this.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:56

made of bees: May 21, 2013

Amergin posted:

When a black GOP member gets nominated president

oh man where do you get this stuff

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:57

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

HorseRenoir posted:

Fun fact about the MH17 plane crash: roughly one third of the people who died in that plane were important researchers, health workers, and activists on their way to a conference about AIDS

We all know Putin hates the gays, I think we can wrap up who shot down the jet. :tinfoil:

(yes, I know more than just gay people have AIDS, but I'm not a hardline conservative)

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:57

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Amergin posted:

When a black GOP member gets nominated president and the cries of "Uncle Tom!" arise from the liberal base, I hope you remember when you said this.

Yeah that wouldn't even approach the level of 19th century style racism that I've seen from the right since 2008.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:59

Stultus Maximus: Dec 21, 2009; USPOL May

axeil posted:

It was also carrying a sitting US Congressman at the time.

The other incident Joementum is referring to is of course the time the US shot down an Iranian airliner during the Iran-Iraq War. Turns out the US Navy vessel was in Iranian waters when it happened.

Yeah...

Both the Malaysian flight and the Vincennes incident were the results of twitchy, poorly trained anti air crews in a hot combat zone failing to properly identify radar contacts. KAL 007 was shot down by an interceptor jet who visually identified it as a passenger liner but shot anyway. For some reason, that's supposed to be a good comparison for the Republicans. :iiam:

# ? Jul 18, 2014 16:59

Jackson Taus: Oct 19, 2011

Amergin posted:

If you're too lazy to go get an ID, why should you be allowed to vote?

poo poo if you're too lazy to get an ID, you're probably too lazy to learn anything about the candidates and will likely be an ignorant "check all R/D" voter anyway.

Uh, what? ID-issuing offices are not really that accessible. Plus, on top of getting there, you've got to take half a day off from work and wait around for an hour or two. And God help you if you don't have the right seal on your birth certificate or something. Comparatively, one can learn about the candidates by having CNN on in the background while they cook dinner - zero time spent (that may not be up to D&D standards of informed, but it's better than half the country).

Amergin posted:

It's not a non-problem, it's a small problem, one that can solved with a simple solution of requiring an ID for identity verification. There is no reason, if these IDs are free and provided to people, that minorities should be harmed by this. And so far they haven't been.

So just to clarify - you're so Pro-Big-Government that you support costly solutions with the real risk of major side effects in order to solve extremely small problems? Do you support mandating wearing kevlar bodysuits to swim in to prevent shark bites?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 17:01

Justus: Apr 18, 2006; ...

Amergin posted:

When a black GOP member gets nominated president and the cries of "Uncle Tom!" arise from the liberal base, I hope you remember when you said this.

That's because all black GOP members are ~~Uncle Toms~~ race traitors.

Am I doing this right?

# ? Jul 18, 2014 17:07

Mecca-Benghazi: Mar 31, 2012

goddamnit why is this conversation still going on

The issue with Jaeger's strict reading of the ND voter ID law is that the affected tribes don't have the money to reissue IDs and Jaeger loving knows it. And many members of the tribes are extremely poor, so they don't have access to means to get to other forms of ID. And on top of that, and the article didn't really touch upon this but I've posted about it in earlier threads, there's the issue of just getting to the ballot box which would require expanded early voting hours and/or voting on rez. This is what Wandering Medicine v. McCulloch is trying to fix.

Fake edit: here it is. I posted it last month but read it again, it's at least more interesting than this slapfight: http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/11/the-missing-native-vote/

quote:

It was mid-April, and Montana was gearing up for this year’s primary election. Voting would get underway in Big Sky Country on May 5, with a month of advance voting by absentee ballot — by mail or by delivering a ballot to the county courthouse — leading up to primary day on June 3. If people hadn’t registered, they could head to the courthouse to sign up.

In the second decade of the 21st century, nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices, American Indians are still working to obtain equal voting rights.But for Ed “Buster” Moore, who lives on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in north-central Montana, it wasn’t so simple. To cast a ballot during the absentee-voting period, he would have to make the 126-mile round trip to the Blaine County Courthouse in Chinook. That’s about $21 worth of gas, not to mention the income that Moore, an artisan, would lose by taking a half day off from his work making hand drums, rawhide bags and other items that he sells in the community and on the Internet. A diabetic, he’d have to buy lunch on the road. Those expenses add up.

If he had to vote today? “I couldn’t afford it,” Moore says. For tribal members who are unemployed or receiving assistance, voting would be impossible, he says. “It’s sheer economics.”

Moore’s situation isn’t unusual. Though measures that curtail minorities’ voting rights, such as stringent ID requirements and limited voting time, have made headlines in recent years, the challenges Native Americans face when they go to the polls have never been on the national radar. In the second decade of the 21st century, nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices, American Indians are still working to obtain equal voting rights.

Montanans can register to vote during the month preceding elections — but there’s a catch. The courthouses where they register are in largely white-inhabited county seats, not on reservations. In the nation’s fourth-largest state — at 147,040 square miles, bigger than Germany — that can mean daylong trips for people like Moore from isolated reservations.

And that’s just registration. The month-long voting period is supposed to make casting a ballot easier, and hundreds of thousands of Montanans take advantage of it. In 2012, 42.5 percent of voters either mailed in an absentee ballot or voted in person during the month leading up to Primary Day, according to state election results. In-person voting, however, is only allowed at those same county courthouses, a long way from reservations. And voting by mail poses its own difficulties, thanks to unreliable postal service on reservations. For Native people, casting a ballot in Montana can be a multi-day event.

The distance between reservations and county courthouses isn’t just an inconvenience; for many Natives, that distance can mean the difference between voting and not voting. Johnathan Walker, student body president of Fort Belknap’s Aaniiih Nakoda College and an avid participant in get-out-the-vote efforts, recalls one 85-year-old woman who missed her opportunity to vote because Walker was unable to secure transportation for her to the courthouse.

To measure the impact of these hurdles, a 2014 report by Jean Schroedel, a professor of political science at Claremont Graduate University, examined voting methods used in the 2012 general election in three Montana counties that overlap reservations. In Blaine County, she found, 46 percent of voters in white precincts cast absentee ballots. Meanwhile, just 18 percent did so in Indian precincts. The proportions were similar elsewhere in the state.

None of this adds up to equal rights, according to former Fort Belknap tribal president and cultural leader William “Snuffy” Main. “Indians have one day to vote, assuming they’ve registered ahead of time, and everyone else has a month,” says Main, a board member of the Native voting-rights nonprofit Four Directions. As Mark Azure, Fort Belknap’s current tribal president, puts it, “I would love to walk out the door, cross the street, cast my vote and get back to my life — and not have to take half a day and go off the reservation to a town where I know that … I’m not really welcome.”

He may soon be able to do just that, thanks to a federal lawsuit led by Mark Wandering Medicine, a Northern Cheyenne spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran who would have to travel 180 miles round trip to get to a county courthouse. The case, Wandering Medicine v. McCulloch, pits plaintiffs from three Montana reservations — Fort Belknap, Northern Cheyenne and Crow — against county elections officials and the secretary of state and top elections officer, Linda McCulloch. The plaintiffs demand equal access on their reservations to the absentee voting and late registration currently offered only in county courthouses.

At press time, in late May, the opponents in the suit were set to appear in a federal courtroom near the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn within days of the battle’s 138th late-June anniversary. The location and timing are apt, as the lawsuit is shaping up to be a sequel to that famous encounter, also known as Custer’s Last Stand. The plaintiffs include descendants of the legendary Plains tribes that won the 1876 engagement — the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Blackfeet and Gros Ventres. With support from regional and national organizations, the cause has gone well beyond Montana. “New Native allies from Alaska to Arizona have joined our fight,” says Four Directions co-director OJ Semans, a Rosebud Sioux from South Dakota. Even Lt. Colonel Custer has a proxy for Little Bighorn II: Geraldine Custer, an election official named in the lawsuit, is married to a Custer descendant.

This time, however, the Native people have the United States on their side: Wandering Medicine has attracted the interest of the Department of Justice, which views the suit as an important test of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and has taken it up as part of its efforts to ensure equal rights nationwide. (For example, the federal government is also challenging Texas’ 2011 voter-ID law and North Carolina’s increased voter-ID requirements and shortened voting period.) The DOJ has filed an amicus brief and two Statements of Interest on behalf of the Wandering Medicine plaintiffs, and sent an attorney to argue in a 2013 hearing.

One of the defendants’ central claims in briefs and in court has been that because Montana Natives have participated to some degree in the electoral process and have elected some representatives of their choice, they have all the rights the law guarantees. But the DOJ disputes this, arguing that the Voting Rights Act does not require minority voters to prove they lack all electoral opportunity. If the state and county defendants prevail, warns the DOJ, jurisdictions would have “a green light to discriminate” and could, for example, keep polling places open for 12 hours in white precincts but only three hours elsewhere. “That simply cannot be the law,” the DOJ wrote in its April Statement of Interest.

On the other hand, a ruling for the Native plaintiffs would mean equality for Native voters — and possibly for other isolated minority communities, such as Latinos in the Southwest. “Wandering Medicine has the potential to transform minority voting access,” says Semans.

Leaping voting hurdles

Fort Belknap sits north of the Little Rocky Mountains, where pines and aspens climb the mile-high, 15-mile-wide range and an old wagon road winds along the base of the craggy slopes. Buffalo and horses graze in hilly grasslands; other areas are given over to cattle and hay.

The reservation is about the size of Rhode Island and is home to two tribes: the Gros Ventre (pronounced grow-vont), who call themselves the A’aninin, and the Assiniboine, also known as the Nakoda. About half of the 7,000 enrolled tribal members live on the reservation. Most live in modest, ranch-style homes, some clustered together, others scattered across the 1,200 square miles of rolling plains. Those who have found employment mostly work for the tribal government, the Indian Health Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Fort Belknap’s Aaniiih Nakoda College.

“Native people have a very hard time in Montana. Keeping polling places in white communities is a very efficient way to disenfranchise us.”To determine how distance and poverty affect Native voting access, the DOJ asked University of Wyoming geography professor Gerald R. Webster to examine the three Montana reservations involved in Wandering Medicine. Webster found that Indians on those reservations traveled two to three times farther than whites to get to a county courthouse. Meanwhile, depending on the reservation, Indians were two to three times more likely not to have a vehicle for the trip. They were also less likely to have money to fill the gas tank: In Blaine County, which overlaps Fort Belknap, Webster found that the Native poverty rate was 2.5 times that of whites; in Rosebud County, which overlaps the Northern Cheyenne reservation, Natives were four times more likely than whites to live below the poverty line.

Fear also keeps Natives away from white towns and their courthouses, establishing an apartheid condition in American Indian communities. “They are today the poorest, most isolated and in some quarters, the most racially castigated population in the country,” writes sociologist Garth Massey, a University of Wyoming emeritus professor who submitted an expert report to the court on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Natives have plenty of reason to fear venturing outside their communities. In 2000 and 2007, the US Civil Rights Commission (USCRC) issued reports on the hate crimes, murders and fatal police shootings that Natives face in towns near reservations in states such as Montana, South Dakota and New Mexico.

South Dakota, home to Lakota and Dakota tribes, has scores of gruesome murders, many unsolved, involving Indian victims. The USCRC and the FBI have decades of files describing murdered Indians found abandoned by roadsides, floating in rivers and, in one notorious case, stuffed in a garbage can. “In recent years, things have improved in South Dakota,” says Semans, a former criminal investigator for tribes, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies. “Indians may still be murdered with impunity in some cases, but the police no longer feel free to simply open fire on us.” Not so in Montana, where Semans has encountered stories he finds credible of police harassment and brutality, and fatal police shootings. “Native people have a very hard time in Montana,” he says. “Keeping polling places in white communities is a very efficient way to disenfranchise us.”

Full political participation has been a long time coming for American Indians. Nineteenth-century policy veered between killing and “civilizing” Indians, writes Daniel McCool, political science professor at the University of Utah and author of Native Vote: American Indians, the Voting Rights Act, and the Right to Vote. State laws offered enfranchisement to Indians who could show they’d done such things as renouncing tribal ties, and owning “white” clothes and houses.

In 1924, Congress declared Native people to be US citizens, and thus entitled to vote, but they still had to overcome state laws and court decisions that blocked suffrage, says McCool. Even passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 didn’t ensure that American Indians could vote. They faced — and in some cases, still face — gerrymandered districts, lack of language assistance for those not fluent in English, registration barriers and harassment at the polls. “Native people are still in the courts, suing for access that the VRA and Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing equal protection say they should already have,” says Four Directions legal director Greg Lembrich, an attorney in New York City.

Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Cultural Borders
To overcome the hurdles of distance, poverty, racism and a painful history, in mid-2012 several Montana tribes asked state and county elections officials for one satellite office on each of their reservations during the month prior to federal elections. Four Directions assisted with negotiations. But the counties were adamant that they didn’t have the time or resources to provide the offices. In 2012, Geraldine Custer told investigative news site 100Reporters.com, “I don’t care if they’re white, black or Chinese; I just don’t have the staff. It’s not about race. I’m just swamped.”

With no solution in sight, Four Directions helped tribal leaders from three reservations to identify plaintiffs, including Moore, and file a federal lawsuit. The first hearing, in October 2012, was for an emergency injunction to set up offices prior to the fall election. After US District Judge Richard Cebull dismissed the request, the plaintiffs appealed.

At the time, Cebull was under fire for sending an email maligning President Obama’s mother. Cebull then resigned. In October 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Cebull’s opinion in the Wandering Medicine lawsuit and sent the case back to Montana for a do-over. (In January 2014, a judicial oversight panel revealed that Cebull had sent hundreds of racist, sexist and homophobic emails, including some disparaging Native Americans.)

The change of judges has given Wandering Medicine new hope. In February, he watched a preliminary hearing before the new US District judge, Donald Molloy, and told Indian Country Today Media Network that the suit is finally being heard by someone “who wants to stick to the facts and the law.”

The Senate at stake?

If Wandering Medicine succeeds in giving Natives in Montana equal access to the polls, the impact could resonate far beyond the state borders. As of late May, a New York Times analysis suggested that Republicans had about a 40 percent chance of gaining the six seats they need to take control of the Senate. Three seats seen as potential Republican pick-ups are in Montana, Alaska and South Dakota, which have large Native minorities (8, 19 and 10 percent, respectively) that lean, sometimes heavily, Democratic. In other words, the Native vote just might determine control of the Senate.

There are no nationwide Native party-registration figures, so understanding the party split among Native voters is best done by looking at areas that are almost entirely American Indian, says Four Directions consultant Bret Healy. He points to South Dakota’s Shannon County, which is nearly contiguous with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In 2012, according to state figures, 5,930 residents were registered as Democrats and 583 as Republicans.

According to Tom Rodgers, a Washington, DC, political strategist and member of the Blackfeet, a Montana tribe, the non-Native population in that state is divided between the two major parties, at about 45 percent each. “In between are the Indians,” says Rodgers, who notes that they vote overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2012, the Obama-Biden ticket received more than 90 percent of the vote in two Fort Belknap precincts and five Blackfeet precincts.

Among the states with large Native populations, the tightest Senate race is in Alaska, where the Times analysis placed even odds on incumbent Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, holding on to his seat. In Montana and South Dakota, the latest polls show the Republican candidates ahead by double digits. But with five months left before the general election, nothing is certain. Healy notes that the race is shifting in South Dakota, where the general election will likely pit Democrat Rick Weiland against not only a Republican challenger, but also two former Republican office-holders running as independents. The potential for a split conservative vote combined with high Native turnout could give Weiland a shot, says Healy.

Meanwhile, in Montana, where Democratic incumbent Sen. John Walsh is facing a challenge from US Rep. Steve Daines (R), Democrats are pulling out the stops to court the Native vote, including energetic campaigning on reservations. And Walsh is co-sponsoring the Native Voting Rights Act, which Alaska’s Begich introduced in the Senate on May 22.

Could American Indians turn the tide for Walsh? Maybe, says Rodgers. “But we have to have access. By that, I mean satellite voting offices on the reservations, and turnout in large numbers.”

“We’ve proven that if we get out to vote, we can make a difference.”It wouldn’t be the first time American Indians decided a national election, Lembrich notes. The Native vote has been credited with ushering Montana’s other senator, Democrat Jon Tester, to victory in 2006 and 2012. In South Dakota, Democrat Tim Johnson held on to his US Senate seat in 2002 by just 500-some ballots after earning 92 percent of the roughly 3,000 ballots cast on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Other Democratic senators with decisive tribal backing include Begich, Washington state’s Maria Cantwell, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. In the 2002 Arizona governor’s race, Navajo turnout helped Democrat Janet Napolitano eke out a 12,000-vote margin of victory. “Without the Native American vote, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” Napolitano told the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

“We’ve proven that if we get out to vote, we can make a difference,” says Azure. If candidates ignore the reservations? “They may not get in,” he says.

Dems gone missing

While some Congressional Democrats are working to expand Native voting — Begich’s Native Voting Rights Act has five co-sponsors, including Montana’s embattled Walsh — the Democratic Party is curiously absent from the support team for the Wandering Medicine plaintiffs. In fact, the lead defendant and several county officials named in the suit are Democrats. Semans accuses Democrats of trading on decades-old accomplishments and alliances instead of addressing contemporary rights issues. This year in particular, he says, party members have basked in the reflected glory of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. “They’re riding the coattails of truly great leaders such as Dr. King, while ignoring today’s Native call for civil rights,” he says.

About the national party’s position on the Montana lawsuit, the Democratic National Committee’s voter protection director Pratt Wiley says the DNC backs the Montana reservation satellite offices in theory, but believes “technical” challenges prevent setting them up. The party seems to be counseling patience. “The heart of the question in Montana from the Democratic perspective [is] how do we get to where we all want to be. It has to do with those technical questions: Who has the authority to do it, and who will write the check?” he says. Still, Wiley says, the American Indians are a “core constituency” of the party.

As a matter of recognized constitutional law, “technicalities” don’t override equal rights, says civil rights attorney Laughlin McDonald, director emeritus of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project and author of American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights. “Administrative inconvenience cannot justify practices that burden the fundamental right to vote,” he says.

What would Martin Luther King do? “About Native voting? He sure as hell wouldn’t dither about technicalities,” says Four Directions consultant Healy, a former head of the South Dakota Democratic Party. “Read Dr. King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ on the subject of waiting for rights.” In the 1963 letter, King decries the man “who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”

But hey, Democrats! How about winning elections? Controlling the Senate? Doesn’t the party want all those Native Democrats at the polls? Wiley says the DNC doesn’t see it that way. “We don’t look at [expanding the vote] as making sure that more Democratic voters vote. We don’t look at it as a program to make sure more African-American or Latino or Native voters can vote. It’s [about] making sure everyone can vote.”

Healy speculates that the DNC is reluctant to break ranks with party members who are among the Wandering Medicine defendants or with lead defendant McCulloch’s attorney, Jorge Quintana, who is on the Democratic National Committee. Rodgers adds that local elected officials of either party don’t want to rile constituents in areas surrounding reservations. If Indians voted in large numbers, the balance of power would shift locally, says Rodgers, and non-Native people would no longer set the political agenda. Tribal members would be at the table when decisions are made — about water rights, rural transportation, energy development, healthcare for the high proportion of tribal members who are veterans, and much more.

Perhaps the DNC believes it can count on Native voters without taking sides in Wandering Medicine. This may be hubris, warns former Montana Democratic state legislator Margarett Campbell. Originally from Fort Peck Indian Reservation and now a Fort Belknap school superintendent, Campbell has fought for Indian rights for decades. She suspects that confidence in the Democratic Party may wane among tribal members, who may then stay home in 2014. “You can’t take a huge segment of your voting population and treat them like that without them feeling disenfranchised,” she says.

Aaniiih Nakoda College student body president Walker agrees, saying the timing of this crisis of confidence is terrible. He explains that the sequester and government shutdown badly affected Indian country, since delaying and canceling government contracts put tribal members out of work. As a result, American Indians see voting and having a political voice as not just important, but critical. At the same time, they feel the party they’ve supported so enthusiastically isn’t listening. “It’s disheartening,” says Walker.

Democrats should never take American Indian votes for granted, says Native Vote author McCool. He describes Native Americans as “acutely aware” and “issue-specific” voters, who have supported Republicans, including John McCain. Montana’s Republican Senate candidate understands this. In his bid to unseat Walsh, Daines has hired a tribal liaison and filed bills and held hearings on issues that interest tribes.

Finding solutions

William Main stands overlooking a warm spring in a deep valley just north of the Little Rocky Mountains. “The frogs have disappeared,” he says. “So have the fireflies and a silver-striped minnow.” The likely culprit is a cyanide heap-leach gold mine that the federal and state governments allowed to open in 1979 on one of the range’s peaks, Spirit Mountain, over the objections of many tribal members. The sacred site, where tribal members have long sought visions and collected healing plants, is gone, too. All that remains is an immense yellow scar on the horizon, where orange, yellow and blue-grey streams carrying lead, arsenic and other heavy metals bleed down battered slopes into the reservation’s rivers and creeks. For years, tribal members have called for robust studies on the effect of the mine’s toxins on human and environmental health.

According to Main, better voting access would encourage elected officials to help launch such studies and to respond to tribes’ myriad other problems as well: high unemployment, extreme poverty, substance abuse, a chronically underfunded healthcare system, and crumbling schools, public buildings and homes.

Wandering Medicine is not the only recent lawsuit that takes aim at the numerous obstacles Native people face in securing equal rights. In April, Voting Rights Project director emeritus McDonald and Montana ACLU attorneys negotiated a redistricting settlement that provides Fort Peck tribal members with equal representation on a local school board. That suit, Jackson v. Board of Trustees of Wolf Point School District, is one of many since the 1960s that have restructured districts that marginalized the Indian vote. The Navajo Nation is currently advancing just such a suit, which claims that election districts in Utah’s San Juan County, which the reservation overlaps, are designed so Navajo votes have less weight than those of non-Navajos.

In Alaska Native settlements, lack of language assistance is a major voting obstacle, according to Las Vegas attorney James Tucker. In Toyukuk v. Treadwell, Tucker argues that Yup’ik speakers in parts of southwestern Alaska haven’t received language assistance mandated by the Voting Rights Act for those who aren’t English-proficient. As a result, some Alaska Native voters struggle with lists of candidates, text of referenda, and instructions for signing, folding and other manipulations of the ballot that must be done correctly for the vote to count, says Tucker. He calls voting under such circumstances “a Hail Mary play.”

In South Dakota, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation voters settled Brooks v. Gant last year, giving them absentee-voting satellite offices through 2018. Four Directions helped frame the lawsuit, based on its experience setting up offices in past elections. The nonprofit then secured a commitment from South Dakota to use Help America Vote Act funds for offices on more reservations.

Main says these struggles and victories will bring Native people into our nation’s political life. “There will be more Native elected officials and a greater involvement for us in our traditional lands, which, taken altogether for the US tribes, encompass the United States of America,” Main says. “We have fought for this country, and now we want to be part of taking better care of it.”

Semans agrees. “People are always telling us we have to improve our social and economic conditions,” he says. “Participating in the electoral process is how we’ll do it.”

# ? Jul 18, 2014 17:08

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Jackson Taus posted:

Uh, what? ID-issuing offices are not really that accessible. Plus, on top of getting there, you've got to take half a day off from work and wait around for an hour or two. And God help you if you don't have the right seal on your birth certificate or something. Comparatively, one can learn about the candidates by having CNN on in the background while they cook dinner - zero time spent (that may not be up to D&D standards of informed, but it's better than half the country).

While I agree on the first part, the second makes me think back to the study that suggested people who just leave 24 hour news channels running a lot know less about the news than people who don't follow it at all.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 17:11

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 19:52

Alec Bald Snatch: Sep 12, 2012; by exmarx

I'm gonna name my pet unicorn which farts rainbows and bitcoins Uncle Tom in commemoration of the day the GOP nominates a black presidential candidate.

# ? Jul 18, 2014 17:19

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