Natives push back on faulty exit poll

In an effort to reverse voter apathy in Indian Country the Montana Democratic Party became the first state party to formally include Indigenous as equitable partners. Montana is home to 12 Indigenous languages three of which are at risk of going extinct after Donald Trump weaponized a novel coronavirus strain killing many Assiniboine, Gros Ventre and Montana Salish elders. 

Trump hates American Indians so deeply after losing a 1993 casino case under the 1988 Indian Gaming Act he deployed Covid as a biological weapon in 2020 to exterminate as many Indigenous people as he could and so far he has gotten away with attempted genocide. 

So an exit poll conducted by the National Election Pool and Edison Research then released by NBC of 229 voters who self-identified as Natives that showed Trump winning a majority of NDNs is facing a backlash especially since none of the persons polled were on reservation properties. Even the Indigenous Journalists Association called the poll “highly misleading and irresponsible.” 

For example, in counties with majority Native populations, support for the Democratic candidate was larger than support for the Republican candidate in states such as Montana (67% to 28%), North Dakota (72% to 27%), South Dakota (63% to 33%), and Wisconsin (87% to 12%). [Native American Organizations Respond to Flawed NBC Exit Poll]

President Joe Biden restored the White House Tribal Nations Summit after the former guy declared war on Indian Country and undercounted Indigenous Americans because Republicans want citizens to believe democracy isn’t for everybody. 

November is Native American Heritage Month. 

Women and Democrats did well in parts of North Dakota, too.

On the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, 92% of voters cast their ballots for Kamala Harris. On the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin, 80% voted for Harris. In Apache County, Arizona, where the Navajo Nation accounts for two-thirds of the population, 58% voted for Harris compared to 39% for Trump. [Getting the Native Vote Right; The National Media Should Not Rely on Self-Identified “Wannabes”]

Reservation counties in Montana voted overwhelmingly for Democratic Senator Jon Tester. 

During Montana's last legislative session Trump worshiping reactionary Republicans moved to cut funding for Native cultural preservation. Outside Montana’s reservations the state has become the new Orange County, California where the Last Best Place is becoming the next best strip mine and a welfare rancher's wet dream. A transplant to Montana, the state's christianic Republican governor was the richest member of Congress who literally bought his seat in the state’s Executive Branch.

Learn more at Big Horn County News.

ip photo from the 2012 Santa Fe Indian Market: The Means Justifies the End, Angela Babby.

Red state failure brings extreme fire danger to South Dakota

Yep, the grassland fire danger index will reach the extreme category again today for much of Kristi Noem's stupid red state.

Another study warns that aspen is at risk to grazing

The Mountain West and Black Hills have been home to much larger aspen communities in the fairly recent past. Because it reproduces clonally underground from adult trees aspen (Populus tremuloides) is one of the first plants to reestablish after fire. The timber industry doesn’t like prescribed fire because burns release aspen and kill pine species. Ponderosa pine sucks billions of gallons from aquifer recharges, needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt while aspen leaves reflect sunlight in the summer months and hold snowpacks in winter. Insects like the mountain pine beetle and spruce bud worm can help promote drought- and fire-tolerant species like aspen. 

A study released in October by Northern Arizona University's Ecological Restoration Institute revealed that animal grazing and wildfire management have contributed to the decline of aspen trees in the area.

Although aspens can produce seeds, the most successful method of reproduction occurs when new sprouts, known as “suckers,” grow out of the root system of an existing tree. The suckers are growing back after disturbances, but cannot reach maturity due to elk grazing and lack of resources from prolonged drought and rising temperatures. [Drought, higher temperatures, hungry elk threaten aspen trees near Flagstaff]

Yep, kill off apex predators like grizzlies, wolves and cougars, spray atrazine, neonicotinoids and glyphosate on everything then wonder why cervids like deer and wapiti contract a prion contagion like chronic wasting disease. 

ip image.

Pope speaks truth to Jewish war crimes

President Harry Truman failed the United States and world peace by recognizing the illegal creation of Israel.

Today no Middle East leader is more unstable than Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no more rabid state sponsor of terrorism than Israel so the pontiff wants an investigation of the genocide Jews are perpetrating in Gaza.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa. “We should investigate carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he added. [Associated Press]

In 2015 Pope Francis backed President Barack Obama's groundbreaking action with Iran. But in 2024 young voters who turned out en masse for Pres. Obama in 2008 and 2012 turned up their noses at Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden administration's support for Israel's war crimes in Gaza so Trump won in states where Democratic senators also won.

And last November, His Eminence sacked an apostate who is an open opponent of women's rights, rejects a vaccine that prevents COVID-19, is critical of the pope’s stance on LGBTQ rights and endorsed the phrase, "you cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat." Then in January Francis banned John Nienstedt from any public ministries in all of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Now, the pontiff is pondering pink slips for a plurality of predatory pulpiteers.

Zionists, terrorists, war criminals: just a few truths being spoken to power. 

Kakistocracy is now kakistublicanism

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson called GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump a "pussy" during a 2016 Libertarian presidential debate in Mississippi after Trump referred to "Little" Marco using the “P” word. Marco Rubio isn't just a lousy money manager he's a serial con man who has misused Republican credit cards on spending sprees that rocked his 2016 campaign and put him deeply into debt.

When Marco Rubio was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, he used his official position to urge state regulators to grant a real estate license to his brother-in-law, a convicted cocaine trafficker who had been released from prison 20 months earlier, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. [Washington Post]

The night in 1983 before Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was popped for heroin possession at Rapid City Regional Airport he was partying with us at Durty Nelly's in the basement of the Franklin Hotel in Deadwood. Bobby, who's just a couple months older than this interested party suffers from spasmodic dysphonia and as a misanthrope who's just a shadow of his father much like Donald Trump who would kill 'em all and let White Jesus sort 'em out enjoys a strong following among anarchists and anti-vaxxers. And today after convincing one of his wives to take her own life and decades of womanizing Kennedy is just fucking nuts and it's likely he’s in Jeffrey Epstein's black book.

Contrast him with President Barack Obama's pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, former Senate Majority Leader and fellow Democrat Tom Daschle. Until he withdrew amid accusations that he failed to pay more than $140,000 in taxes and interest on a car and driver provided by a wealthy Democratic fundraiser Daschle was widely expected to push Congress toward a Medicaid-for-all health care plan. But in the weeks before Big Pharma-backed Max Baucus soundly rejected single-payer medical insurance and guided the passing of what would become the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare.

Tribal nations see South Dakota's current Republican governor as a terrifying pick for Homeland Security since she detests Indigenous Americans at least as deeply as Trump does.

Rubio is on board with the Convention of States phantasm as is Florida's insane governor who will simply appoint some other Earth hater to finish Marco's term so expect the US invasion of Cuba.

Rubio just said Putin poisons people with "plutonium." A man near me corrects him under his breath: "Polonium. Close enough."

— Rebecca Buck (@RebeccaBuck) January 23, 2016