White pastors preach spiritual genocide on Wind River Reservation

In the US, where sovereignty rights are leading culture and language resurgence, growing capital resources from cannabis and casinos are building alternatives to historical trauma, hopelessness, suicide, and repression in Indian Country. 

So, in 2018, the Wind River Food Sovereignty Project began to address more broadly the food insecurity and high rates of diet-related disease in the community. With help from the Nature Conservancy, Wind Cave National Park in occupied South Dakota contributed to the reintroduction of bison to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho on the Wind River Reservation sending fifty to Wyoming in 2021. Today the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative is part of a program that teaches members traditional methods of drying meat and even modern canning techniques. 

Jason and Sarah Lucas say they felt their god leading them to start a ministry on the Wind River Reservation so they moved their family to Wyoming to birth what they call "Foundations For Nations."

On Sunday, as the Northern Arapaho Sundance ceremony was in its final day, Foundations For Nations Pastor Sarah Lucas stood before her congregation on the Wind River Reservation and suggested Native people should turn away from their traditional ways, calling them a false “idol.” As the video began circulating on social media on Wednesday, several hundred Native community members moved swiftly to protest, to demand that Foundations For Nations leave the reservation. The Lucas family fled, citing death threats. The church’s related food shelf closed its doors. But the backlash has continued, with calls for the tribes to invoke the “bad man” clause in their treaty with the U.S. government, which empowers the tribes to ban people from reservation land. [Sermon faces backlash] 

The Bad Man Clause has been applied in other actions.

The "bad man" legal argument was successfully used by Lavetta Elk, another Oglala Sioux, in a lawsuit alleging that a U.S. Army recruiter had violated the "bad man" clause when he sexually molested her while transporting her to a military recruiting appointment. Elk recently won a $650,000 settlement that left intact a federal judge's ruling that said the treaty language requires the government to reimburse Sioux tribe members who are injured by "any wrong" done by "bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States."

Tribal nations are recognized by the federal government as political sovereigns, not a racial group. Ahead of the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit and as part of the Cobell settlement the Interior Department's Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations, some three million acres in fifteen states are being returned to Tribal trust ownership. So, a plan by the US Bureau of Reclamation to remand some 60,000 acres on the Wind River Reservation to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes is long overdue.

Trump Organization racing to lock out tribes, public from public lands

An increasing number of scientists believe the US Fish and Wildlife Service isn't doing enough to crack down on red states that flout or simply ignore protections for vulnerable species so now some 80% of original grassland ecosystems are gone. 

Ag producers have destroyed shelter belts to plant industrial crops that deplete aquifers and now drought is blowing toxin-laden topsoil into downwind states. Another early spring wildfire season has begun in Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, the panhandles of Oklahoma, Texas and other Republican-held areas where moral hazard and poor ranching practices routinely decimate the high plains. In the last 10 years alone, we have lost more than 50 million acres of grasslands. 

 In January Earth hater Doug Burgum pulled the Bureau of Land Management leases from American Prairie. In February BLM and Forest Service bumped the Animal Unit Month or AUM lease to $1.69 from $1.35 for one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. 

Now, BLM and Forest Service have an app that locates unused grazing allotments so ranchers can even claim livestock act as wildland fuel reduction.

Even though rangeland management experts say overgrazing has degraded public lands, the new rules being drafted by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management — the first overhaul since 1995 — would instead expand the practice. The proposed rules would also ratchet back public participation in the agency’s decisions to allow grazing on federal public lands. The BLM’s proposed updates would strictly limit who has a say and when they can object, eliminating many steps where the public has been able to observe and comment on decisions to issue or renew permits. Other groups working on rangeland management say the regulations go too far in the opposite direction, tipping the scales toward ranchers. They point to proposals allowing ranchers to continue business as usual if they appeal agency decisions limiting grazing, threatening Native American tribes’ ability to graze bison and enshrining highly subsidized grazing fees. [First major overhaul of public lands grazing rule in a generation looks to cut out the public]

Devil finally takes Lindsay Graham; McConnell and Trump next?

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

 

Cities, states grappling with cannabis dispensary oversaturation

Deeply blue cities Santa Fe, New Mexico and Missoula, Montana are about the same population. 

New Mexico's capital city ranks exceptionally high for cannabis retail density, with roughly 43 to 45 active licensed dispensaries serving a population of about 89,000 residents. This translates to an estimated 48 to 50 dispensaries per 100,000 residents, or roughly 1 shop for every 2,000 people. A year ago the NM cannabis excise tax reached 13% and will increase 1% each year until July 2030 when it will hit 18% as set in state statute. On Tuesday an interested party paid $65 in Santa Fe for an ounce of flower containing almost 31% THC as competition weeds out the weak. 

Missoula also maintains one of the highest concentrations of cannabis dispensaries per capita in the United States, peaking at a reported 30.7 dispensaries per 50,000 residents. State statistics confirm there are 54 active dispensaries operating within Missoula city limits so in February the city council mandated that any new dispensary be at least 1,000 feet away from another dispensary keeping additional location restrictions in place but assured existing dispensaries are grandfathered in under the new rules. Just recently, Missoula enacted a prohibition on new cannabis licenses to address a range of concerns while public health officials suggest the city should have no more than twelve dispensaries based on current population.

They've taken over former sandwich shops, coffee shops and other small retail outlets in nearly all corners of Missoula. [Missoula Current]

Signed into law by Governor Tina Kotek in March, 2024 after lawmakers passed House Bill 4121 Oregon established a strict, permanent population-based cap on new cannabis licenses or a maximum of one license per 7,500 residents.

Washington State has a 37% excise tax on cannabis sales so it is struggling to compete with a burgeoning black market.

Hegseth pastor says the LDS are non-christian polytheists

Pastor Doug Wilson, a christianic evangelical theologian who leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, explicitly states that he does not see members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as Christians. Wilson and his close ministry associates describe LDS doctrine as an unsound hybridization of "new age mythology" and Christianity. Under Wilson's proposed Christian nationalist model for America, the LDS Church would be categorized as a minority religion. In his ideal societal framework, the state would not permit the LDS Church to publicly promote its faith, build new religious structures, or convert others. Members would only be allowed to practice their beliefs privately. 

During public and political controversies regarding his ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Wilson directly asserted that Mormonism is a "polytheistic" belief system. Wilson’s rhetoric and his presence as a spiritual adviser to high-ranking officials sparked heavy scrutiny, especially after the Department of Defense initially released simplified military faith codes that separated the LDS Church from mainstream Christian categories. This classification drew sharp condemnation from Latter-day Saint members of Congress before being revised by the Pentagon.

Wilson was interviewed Tuesday by Morning Edition's Leila Fadel, herself a Muslim.