Act Now: The Cherokee Nation deserves a seat in Congress!

 

“Congress should honor Native American Heritage Month by finally seating the Cherokee Nation’s Delegate in the U.S. House!”
– Kim Teehee, Cherokee Nation Delegate-Designee

We couldn’t agree more. After waiting 188 years, the Cherokee Nation should get their promised seat.

In 1835, the U.S. government and the Cherokee Nation signed the Treaty of New Echota, the legal basis to force the Cherokee people to give up their ancestral homelands and move west. In return, the tribe was supposed to get a voice in Congress.

In the following years, thousands of people would die as a result of the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing that today is known as the “Trail of Tears.” And nearly two centuries later, Congress has yet to take the formal action necessary to establish the designated seat.

A Delegate can sit on committees, request meetings with Cabinet officials, and push for new policy proposals. This influence can be crucial, and the Cherokee Nation deserves a seat at the table. But for it to happen, a majority of the House needs to be on board. That’s where you come in — and a day like today, Human Rights Day, is a great moment to make it happen.

You can help generate enough political power to ensure there’s enough support to seat a Cherokee Nation Delegate. Sign now to tell the House: Seat a Cherokee Nation Delegate!

Winning without war means building a world where everyone can thrive without the fear of violence. The fights for Indigenous rights, security, and peace are the same.

Genocide, land theft, forced migration, criminalization, and cultural erasure are woven throughout our history. For too long, U.S. policy — foreign and domestic — has exploited Indigenous people and their lands. It happened when the United States waged an all-out war on Native peoples across the country. It happened when the government instigated coups that repressed Indigenous communities in Latin America.

That history continues today through the destruction of sacred land for oil pipelines and uranium mines, inadequate attention given to violence against Native women, and a centuries-old failure to honor agreements and promises of the past.

Just over a year ago, the House Rules Committee held a hearing on the Cherokee delegate question, but the issue remains unresolved. Today, the obligation to seat a Cherokee Nation delegate is as urgent now as it was in 1835. Tribal leaders continue to push Congress to make good on this promise — can you add your voice to join them?

The United States made a commitment to the Cherokee Nation nearly two centuries ago, and it’s time to make good on that promise. The House of Representatives has the authority to get it done — and they will, if enough people like us push them to do it.

Now, and always, our work must be about more than national security strategy; it has to include how we show up in community with one another. On December 10, Human Rights Day we celebrate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

That’s why today, I hope you’ll help you join us to push Congress to affirm Indigenous rights and correct past wrongs against Native communities by seating a Cherokee Nation delegate as quickly as possible.

Thank you for working for peace,
Shayna, Julien, Sara, and the Win Without War team

A U.S. foreign policy rooted in human rights and justice won’t happen overnight.

Win Without War 2021
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 656-4999 | info@winwithoutwar.org 

THIS & THAT................

John P Epstein

First Trump ignored it. Then he said:

1) “it will go away in April with the heat”

2) the risk is low and the U.S. will have a “very good ending” regarding the threat of COVID

3) it’s under control and nothing to worry about

4) “only 15 people have it. Within a few days it will be down to zero. We’ve done a pretty good job”

5) “it will disappear like a miracle”

6) “Coronavirus is the Democrats new hoax”

7) “anybody who wants to test can get it. The tests are perfect.”

8) “I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

9) “it’s no different from the common flu”

10) “the risk is very very low”

11) “take hydroxychloroquine. Let’s see what happens.” (some Americans die from following this advice)

12) “we are halting all funding for the WHO”

13) “it’s time to LIBERATE Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia”

14) it’s Obama and Biden’s fault we weren’t prepared

15) “disinfectants (like bleach) knock it out in a minute. We can do something like that by injection”

16) “the U.S. is the world leader in responding to Coronavirus. We’re getting great marks”

17) “we have prevailed against coronavirus”

18) “I was earlier than anyone else in responding to coronavirus”

19) I’ve done my job well and responded early”

20). “I’m not responsible”

TomDispatch

 

7 hrs

At Newsweek, Timothy Wirth and Tom Rogers offer a genuinely creepy scenario for how Trump could lose the election and still possibly make himself president. No one can doubt that he could be ready to do anything rather than lose in November. Anyway, check this out. Tom

"It is increasingly looking as if Joe Biden can beat President Donald Trump in November. The president seems more and more out of step with the national mood, from his handling of the pandemic to his response to racially biased policing, not to mention a wide array of other issues. Even in key swing states, Trump is losing ground that will be difficult for him to make up.

"For Trump, there are two broad pathways to maintaining power. First, we can already see very clearly a strategy designed to suppress voter turnout with the purging of registration rolls of large numbers of mostly urban voters; efforts to suppress mail-in ballots, which are more necessary than ever, given COVID-19; a re-election apparatus that is training 50,000 poll watchers for the purpose of challenging citizens' right to vote on Election Day; and significant efforts to make in-person voting in urban areas as cumbersome as possible in order to have long lines that discourage people from exercising their voting rights.

"The second pathway to subverting the election is even more ominous—but we must be cognizant of it because Trump is already laying the groundwork for how he can lose the popular vote, and even lose in the key swing states necessary for an Electoral College victory, but still remain president.

"This spring, HBO aired The Plot Against America, based on the Philip Roth novel of how an authoritarian president could grab control of the United States government using emergency powers that no one could foresee. Recent press reports have revealed the compilation by the Brennan Center at New York University of an extensive list of presidential emergency powers that might be inappropriately invoked in a national security crisis. Attorney General William Barr, known for his extremist view of the expanse of presidential power, is widely believed to be developing a Justice Department opinion arguing that the president can exercise emergency powers in certain national security situations, while stating that the courts, being extremely reluctant to intervene in the sphere of a national security emergency, would allow the president to proceed unchecked.

"Something like the following scenario is not just possible but increasingly probable because it is clear Trump will do anything to avoid the moniker he hates more than any other: "loser."

"Trump actually tweeted on June 22: "Rigged 2020 election: millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others. It will be the scandal of our times!" With this, Trump has begun to lay the groundwork for the step-by-step process by which he holds on to the presidency after he has clearly lost the election:

Biden wins the popular vote, and carries the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania by decent but not overwhelming margins.

Trump immediately declares that the voting was rigged, that there was mail-in ballot fraud and that the Chinese were behind a plan to provide fraudulent mail-in ballots and other "election hacking" throughout the four key swing states that gave Biden his victory.

Having railed against the Chinese throughout the campaign, calling Biden "soft on China," Trump delivers his narrative claiming the Chinese have interfered in the U.S. election.

Trump indicates this is a major national security issue, and he invokes emergency powers, directing the Justice Department to investigate the alleged activity in the swing states. The legal justification for the presidential powers he invokes has already been developed and issued by Barr.

The investigation is intended to tick down the clock toward December 14, the deadline when each state's Electoral College electors must be appointed. This is the very issue that the Supreme Court harped on in Bush v. Gore in ruling that the election process had to be brought to a close, thus forbidding the further counting of Florida ballots.

All four swing states have Republican control of both their upper and lower houses of their state legislatures. Those state legislatures refuse to allow any Electoral College slate to be certified until the "national security" investigation is complete.

The Democrats will have begun a legal action to certify the results in those four states, and the appointment of the Biden slate of electors, arguing that Trump has manufactured a national security emergency in order to create the ensuing chaos.

The issue goes up to the Supreme Court, which unlike the 2000 election does not decide the election in favor of the Republicans. However, it indicates again that the December 14 Electoral College deadline must be met; that the president's national security powers legally authorize him to investigate potential foreign country intrusion into the national election; and if no Electoral College slate can be certified by any state by December 14, the Electoral College must meet anyway and cast its votes.

The Electoral College meets, and without the electors from those four states being represented, neither Biden nor Trump has sufficient votes to get an Electoral College majority.

The election is thrown into the House of Representatives, pursuant to the Constitution. Under the relevant constitutional process, the vote in the House is by state delegation, where each delegation casts one vote, which is determined by the majority of the representatives in that state.

Currently, there are 26 states that have a majority Republican House delegation. 23 states have a majority Democratic delegation. There is one state, Pennsylvania, that has an evenly split delegation. Even if the Democrats were to pick up seats in Pennsylvania and hold all their 2018 House gains, the Republicans would have a 26 to 24 delegation majority.

This vote would enable Trump to retain the presidency.

"We cannot let ourselves believe that this is a far-fetched scenario. We have just seen Trump threaten to invoke emergency powers under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to call up the U.S. military against domestic protesters. The remarkable apology by Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, stating that it was wrong to create a perception that the military would get directly involved in a domestic political protest and intervene against American civilians, underscores the corrupt use of executive powers Trump is willing to employ. As Fareed Zakaria recently said in summing up the lessons of former national security adviser John Bolton's new book: "Donald Trump will pay any price, make any deal, bend any rule, to assure his own survival and success."

"So what do we do as citizens to face the impending reality of The Plot Against America? We must "out" this scenario—and do so loudly and consistently. We have an imperative to build a "people's firewall" that reaches deeply across the country and reflects public revulsion at the potential for Trump to undermine our entire democratic system of governance.

"Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, should immediately ask the Judiciary, Commerce, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees to hold hearings on how steps can be taken to safeguard against this scenario, especially how to confront any invocation of emergency powers by the president.

"There needs to be an outpouring at all levels of society that this will not be tolerated—from government officials and lawmakers at all levels; to civic associations and civil rights groups; to business groups and trade associations, who have to recognize the economic chaos that would result from this kind of coup; to lawyers, academics and student groups practiced in resisting government policies; and, of course, to the editorial voices of the press, both local and national.

"The recent resistance of our military establishment is an encouraging sign and necessary component of the "people's firewall." The president has to know there will be overwhelming resistance to any post-election chaos to undermine our constitutional order. He must know that the "people's firewall" will not yield to lawlessness. He has to be confronted with the reality that The Plot Against America must remain a work of fiction."

https://www.newsweek.com/how-trump-could-lose-election-still-remain-president-opinion-1513975

NEWSWEEK.COM

How Trump could lose the election—and still remain president | Opinion

It's possible only a "people's firewall" can prevent President Donald Trump from bringing "Th

Secret Service Forces Press to Leave the White House as Police Use Pepper Spray and Batons to Beat Back Protesters

"The move to force members of the media off White House grounds is highly unusual," CNN reported after two of its journalists were removed.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/23/secret-service-forces-press-leave-white-house-police-use-pepper-spray-and-batons

"The move to force members of the media off White House grounds is highly unusual," CNN reported after two of its journalists were removed.

About this website

COMMONDREAMS.ORG

Secret Service Forces Press to Leave the White House as Police Use Pepper Spray and Batons to Beat Back Protesters

"The move to force members of the media off White House grounds is highly unusual," CNN reported after two of its journalists were removed.

Without initially offering an explanation, the Secret Service late Monday ordered members of the press to leave the White House grounds as law enforcement officials in riot gear used pepper spray and batons to beat back a nearby protest at which some attempted to topple a statue of former President Andrew Jackson.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service said in a statement hours later that "four members of the media were misdirected by the Secret Service to leave the White House grounds."

"The members of the press were rerouted to exits on the south side of the complex for their own safety" as demonstrations raged in Lafayette Park, the agency spokesperson said.

CNN reported late Monday that "journalists, including two CNN employees, were told they had to leave the White House grounds immediately via the south side of the complex, which is not the normal entrance/exit for the press."

"The move to force members of the media off White House grounds is highly unusual," the outlet reported. "Typically in security situations at the White House, the press corps is locked down inside the complex."

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the White House Monday as part of ongoing demonstrations sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

Videos posted to social media show protesters using ropes in an attempt to pull down a statue of Jackson—the slave-owning former president responsible for the Trail of Tears—before police cleared the area using chemical irritants and batons.

President Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed "fan" of Jackson, tweeted late Monday that "numerous people" were "arrested in D.C. for the disgraceful vandalism, in Lafayette Park, of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson."

Trump went on to threaten protesters with a decade in prison "under the Veteran's Memorial Preservation Act."

"Beware!" the president added.

The Washington Post reported that "it was not immediately clear if anyone had been arrested."

"In a chaotic scene, a helicopter flew low over the park as 150 to 200 U.S. Park and D.C. police moved through," according to the Post. "Officers used a chemical irritant to disperse protesters and sweep them back to H Street NW. Protesters did smash the wooden wheels of four replica cannons at the base of the Jackson statue."

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