MM raids in Montana sending signals to Indian Country

There are six versions of the 2010 Tribal Law and Order Act. Turtle Talk Law tells us:

Federal laws limit the authority of Indian tribes to punish Indian offenders to no more than 1-year imprisonment, and force reservation residents to rely on Federal (and in some cases State) officials to investigate and prosecute violent crimes on Indian lands. The Tribal Law and Order Act takes a comprehensive approach at addressing these shortfalls by establishing accountability measures for Federal agencies responsible for investigating and prosecuting reservation crime, and by providing tribes with additional tools to combat crime locally. Foreign drug cartels are aware of the lack of police presence on Indian lands and are targeting some reservations to distribute and manufacture drugs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs within the US Department of the Interior is the nearly universally hated clearinghouse of resources and trusts for tribes while DoI manages The Peoples' water and mineral tracts for lease to the various industries of extraction. The Office of Special Trustee has a temporary director. The GOP's solution? Eliminate the BIA:

The toast of the Tea Party, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, so desperately wants to cut the federal budget that he’s ready to stomp all over federal trust responsibility and treaty obligations to Indians—even obliterate them, if he must. The good news: The United States won’t be quite so broke. The bad news: The United States will have broken the law in order to balance its books on the backs of Indians.

Law enforcement are the last men standing: ATF, DEA, FBI, DHS...because Republicans sell prisons as economic development solutions, take the money from programs treating core issues, and use violence to suppress the results.

The raids on providers in Montana mean that there are forces gathered for interdiction now. Trails are leading the Feds into places where money and guns equal power.

While Montana lawmakers grapple to control a booming medical marijuana industry, the state's seven Indian reservations are islands where the drug is still illegal in all circumstances. As sovereign nations, each tribal government can pass laws stricter or more lenient than state or federal laws. The debate reminds Blackfeet Chief Earl Old Person of a similar discussion more than 50 years ago. Decades after prohibition ended, the tribe continued to outlaw the use and sale of alcohol on the reservation. The council agreed to allow it on the reservation in 1954. "The people supporting it said 'if our boys can fight in wars, why can't they drink liquor?'" Old Person said.

Discussions of medical marijuana on Montana reservations began about a year ago with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai but has not yet circulated to all seven recognized tribes as a black market flourishes within peeing distance of 450 Minuteman IIIs.

Witch hunt against Judge Fuller updated:

Pennington County State's Attorney Glenn Brenner, Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender and then Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway filed the complaint last May after Fuller referred to law enforcement officers as a "bunch of racists."

What a bunch of fucking racists.