Dispatches

MAINSTREAM MEDIA BLOWS COVERAGE OF WARREN’S DNA TEST

The conventional wisdom is that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was positioned to make a strong bid for president in 2020, but she infuriated tribal leaders by releasing the results of a DNA test to prove her Native ancestry and now her future is unclear.

That’s what lots of news outlets want you to think, anyway, after Warren unexpectedly released a carefully choreographed video in mid-October featuring a geneticist who confirmed that she had a Native ancestor six to 10 generations ago.

“Nearly two months after Ms. Warren released the test results and drew hostile reactions from prominent tribal leaders, the lingering cloud over her likely presidential campaign has only darkened,” the New York Times reported in December.

Warren “enraged tribal groups and other minorities concerned about her reliance on a test to measure ethnicity,” the Washington Post reported in December. “That episode injected uncertainty over the decision-making by Warren and her campaign staff and subjected her to both anger and mockery just as she was gearing up for a potential presidential effort.”

But Jennifer Bendery noted at HuffPost (1/4) neither of these stories included comments from any elected tribal leaders. The Post story didn’t include comments from Native people at all. Of the three Native voices mixed in with political pundits in the Times story, one is a known Warren critic and one is a congresswoman-elect whose positive comments were buried — a stunning distortion of how many tribal leaders and Native people in general feel about Warren’s move.

HuffPost talked to a dozen tribal chiefs, Native politicians, researchers and influencers to get a sense of why this narrative that has taken off in the media — that Warren, who has been a strong ally to tribes, is suddenly on the ropes with them because of her DNA test — seems off. Some spoke on record; others spoke only anonymously, given their close work with tribes whose privacy they wanted to respect.

The consensus was clear: This narrative is incredibly overblown. Tribal leaders have far more pressing matters to deal with than a senator’s DNA test. And, frustratingly, non-Native people are defining a debate about Native people without letting them speak for themselves.

Was Warren wrong to release DNA test results showing that she had a Native ancestor? Are tribal leaders and Native people mad? It depends on whom you talk to. In the group that HuffPost surveyed, the answer to both those questions was overwhelmingly no.

Richard Sneed, the principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, said he’s not upset at all by Warren’s DNA test. He hasn’t heard from any tribal leaders who are mad either. His tribe is different from the Cherokee Nation and is based in North Carolina.

“It’s media fodder. It’s sensationalism. That’s what it is,” he said. “All it takes is for one person to say they’re offended, and then everybody does a dog pile. But to me, it’s ‘Wait a second. Let’s get to some of the facts here.’ Sen. Warren has always been a friend to tribes. And we need all the allies we can get.”

Sneed has been publicly defending Warren ever since she released her DNA test results, but he’s not being quoted in most of the coverage, despite being a Cherokee tribal chief. He emphasized that while he doesn’t want to diminish any Native person’s anger at Warren, given the injustice and historical trauma that tribal nations have endured, it’s important to be clear on what she did and did not do.

“She’s never claimed to be a tribal citizen. She’s never used her story of ancestry to her advantage. She just has a story of Native ancestry,” he said. “People tell me that all the time. Everywhere I go. I don’t think people are trying to gain some status by saying that.”

To date, Sneed is the only principal chief of a federally recognized tribe — there are 573 of them — who has publicly said anything about Warren’s DNA test.

Dennis Coker, the principal chief of Delaware’s Lenape Indian Tribe, which is recognized by the state but not the federal government, also defended Warren. His comments haven’t gotten much news play.

“Someone who is proud of having that native ancestor — no matter what percentage or what degree it is — in my view, is a person I honor,” Coker said in October. “I honor people who are seeking their roots.”

Many news outlets reporting that tribes are furious at Warren go back to a statement released by a single official at the Cherokee Nation, Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin. He ripped the senator after she released her video, and his statement is prominently featured in virtually every story critical of the senator.

“Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” read Hoskin’s statement. “Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”

But several of the people interviewed by HuffPost noted that Hoskin is an appointee, not an elected official, and he was speaking only for himself, not on behalf of the Cherokee Nation, according to Doug George-Kanentiio, a co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association and a former trustee for the National Museum of the American Indian.

“No one bothered to contact the principal chief of Cherokee Nation to see if he agreed,” said George-Kanentiio, who is Akwesasne Mohawk. “Instead, they took one phrase by this one official in Oklahoma, and it ignited this debate about Warren’s heritage.”

If people really want to know how tribal leaders feel about Warren, they should watch the fiery speech she gave at the National Congress of American Indians in February 2018, said Kanentiio. There were nearly 1,000 reputable tribal leaders there, he said, and “she stood there and was embraced.”

To some, the fact that any Cherokee Nation official issued a statement, along with Sneed publicly weighing in, should have made Warren’s DNA test a non-issue going forward.

“I think the jury’s out. I’ve heard both sides of the Cherokees. I respect both sides,” said Frank LaMere, a longtime Native activist and citizen of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. “I support Elizabeth Warren. Nobody’s going tell me what she is and what she’s not.”

Others lamented that it feels as though Warren’s personal journey of self-discovery is being weaponized against Native identity and Native people.

MAINE’S NEW GOV. GIVES HEALTH CARE TO 70,000 ON FIRST DAY. On her first day in office, new Gov. Janet Mills (D) ordered Maine to move forward with Medicaid expansion, which is likely to provide health insurance for an additional 70,000 Maine residents.

Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid eligibility was extended to nearly all low-income people making below 138% of the federal poverty line. However, the Supreme Court in 2012 allowed states to opt out of expanding Medicaid, and Maine was one of 12 states run by Republican governors who decided to opt out.

Over the past few years, lawmakers in Maine tried to expand Medicaid, but former Gov. Paul LePage (R) vetoed five different bills on the issue. So, in 2017, Medicaid expansion supporters put Medicaid expansion up for a vote as a ballot measure. Almost 60% of Maine voters endorsed the expansion, making the first time a state had approved the ACA’s Medicaid expansion through a ballot initiative.

But LePage blocked implementation of the measure at every turn, even using his final weeks in office to ignore a Maine Superior Court Justice’s ruling that LePage had to stop sabotaging Medicaid expansion.

“I will go to jail before I put the state in red ink,” LePage said last summer, emphasizing his desire to keep Maine’s budget in check. “And if the court tells me I have to do it, then we’re going to be going to jail.”

The Medicaid expansion will help Maine residents fight the opioid epidemic, which is particularly important considering that Maine was one of the states that saw an increase in overdose deaths between 2017 and 2018, according to Huffington Post.

US-MEXICO TREATY SHOWS TRUMP BORDER WALL ABSURD, ALSO ILLEGAL. Much of the government has been shut down for more than two weeks, as we go to press, because President Donald Trump insists that Congress fund a border wall that is both a terrible idea and illegal, Joe Romm noted at ThinkProgress (1/7).

The shutdown is because Trump demands extending the existing border walls and barriers to vast areas that make no sense largely because they are in the Rio Grande floodplain. Building barriers in that floodplain was such a problematic idea that a 1970 treaty between US and Mexico explicitly bans them.

“The president really doesn’t understand the issue,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos (1/6). “But we have actually already built a wall across much of the border, and all border security experts that I talk to say, where a wall makes sense, it’s already been built.”

The overwhelming majority of the border, where there isn’t some form of barrier, runs straight down the middle of 1,254 snaking miles of the enormous Rio Grande River.

But the Rio Grande routinely floods. In fact, as ThinkProgress previously reported, flooding has gotten more frequent and more severe in recent years thanks to climate change.

The Trump administration’s own National Climate Assessment concluded in November that “record-breaking flooding events increased over the past 30 years” in the Southern Great Plains (Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas) — and that extreme flooding events are only going to get worse.

But putting barriers in the Rio Grande floodplain was actually banned long before countries started worrying about climate change.

The 1970 “Treaty to Resolve Pending Boundary Differences and Maintain the Rio Grande and Colorado River as the International Boundary” states that the joint US-Mexico International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) “must approve construction of works proposed in either country” along those rivers. It explicitly prohibits the construction of projects “which, in the judgment of the commission, may cause deflection or obstruction of the normal flow of the river or of its flood flows.”

If Trump flagrantly violates the treaty to build his wall, not only will it lead to court challenges, but it will worsen relations with the very country we need to work with if the US is to improve the border situation.

If it’s not a solid wall, the president has recently suggested the wall could be a “steel slat barrier.” But even steel fencing and barriers are problematic because in a flood they turn into dams that can greatly worsen local flooding.

Indeed, as the Arizona Daily Star reported in 2008, a 5-mile border fence constructed along Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument’s southern border “became a dam” during a flash flood that year.

A 17-page US Interior Department report at the time concluded that, because of the fencing, water that normally flowed north to south ended up flowing laterally. As the Daily Star summed it up: “A wash directly west of Lukeville flowed more than 200 feet along the fence and through the port of entry at the international border, causing flood damage to private property, government offices and businesses.”

And that was just a tiny fence during a relatively small flash flood. What happens when a barrier is built that has to withstand floods along the Rio Grande that are so vast they can be seen from outer space  —  like those from September 2008, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite?

As these events make clear, it’s impractical to build the wall or barrier right next to a huge river like the Rio Grande that increasingly floods. This means it would need to be placed far from the river, potentially miles away.

But as a viral video from former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso) recently pointed out, that means the border would “Block access to the Rio Grande” and require seizing vast amounts of land from Texans through eminent domain, which in turn would “Exile hundreds of thousands of acres of the US to a no mans land between the river and the wall.”

The bottom line is that building a concrete or steel wall or barrier along the Rio Grande River is a terrible and illegal idea. And yet, the president is shutting down much of the federal government simply because Congress won’t fund it.

ONLY SIX IMMIGRANTS IN TERROR DATABASE STOPPED AT SOUTHERN BORDER IN FIRST HALF OF 2018. AND MORE IMMIGRANTS ARE LEAVING THAN COMING IN. US Customs and Border Protection encountered only six immigrants at ports of entry on the US-Mexico border in the first half of fiscal year 2018 whose names were on a federal government list of known or suspected terrorists, according to CBP data provided to Congress in May 2018 and obtained by NBC News.

The low number contradicts statements by Trump administration officials, including White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who claimed (1/4) that CBP stopped nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists from crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2018.

When she tried that line on Fox News Sunday (1/6), Sanders was challenged by host Chris Wallace, who noted that the overwhelming majority of those suspected terrorists trying to get into the country were stopped at airports.

The latest data provided to Congress showed that, overall, 41 people on the Terrorist Screening Database were encountered at the southern border from Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, but 35 of them were US citizens or lawful permanent residents. Six were classified as non-US persons.

On the northern border with Canada, CBP stopped 91 people listed in the database, including 41 who were not US citizens or residents.

Kevin Drum at MotherJones.com noted Pew Research Center estimates based on US Census data that show the net traffic entering the US is zero or lower. “To put it plainly: more people are leaving than are coming in. This is not a crisis. It is not anything close to a crisis.”

The number of undocumented workers in the US has been declining steadily for a decade, Drum noted. “It’s obviously not something to panic over. What’s more, anyone who’s truly concerned about the undocumented population anyway should be obsessed with E-Verify, not a wall. This is because a properly functioning E-Verify system would (a) be more effective than a wall, (b) stop illegal immigration from everywhere, not just the south, and (c) reduce all forms of illegal immigration, including visa overstays, which a wall can’t stop.

“Trump’s obsession with a wall is a sign of unseriousness. The big businesses that run the Republican Party encourage it because they know it won’t work — and something that works is the last thing they want.”

TRUMP’S TRADE WAR COSTS MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES $200 TO $300 THIS YEAR. Donald Trump claimed (1/3) the US “Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly. In the meantime we are doing well in various Trade Negotiations currently going on. At some point this had to be done!”

Kevin Drum of MotherJones com noted that the Treasury appears to be taking in an extra $1 billion to $2 billion per month, and it’s going up. “Anyway, tariffs are paid by domestic firms who import stuff, so this is ultimately all a tax on consumer goods,” Drum noted. “Over the course of the year it will probably amount to a tax increase of about $200-300 per family — maybe more. I hope everyone enjoys paying their share in order to show Canada who’s boss.”

TRUMP IN ‘NO HURRY’ TO GET SENATE-CONFIRMED CABINET SECRETARIES. Several key members of Donald Trump’s cabinet are there in an “acting” capacity. They weren’t nominated for their posts; they weren’t considered or confirmed by the Senate; and in theory, they’ll soon by replaced by actual cabinet secretaries who’ll fill the offices in the proper way, Steve Benen noted at MaddowBlog.com (1/7) .

In practice, however, the president doesn’t exactly seem eager to follow the process. the Washington Post reported:

“Well, I’m in no hurry,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for Camp David. “I have ‘acting.’ And my actings are doing really great.”

He praised acting interior secretary David Bernhardt and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, saying they are “doing great” in their temporary roles.

“I sort of like ‘acting,’ ” Trump said. “It gives me more flexibility; do you understand that?”

Benen asked, “Is that a rhetorical question? Because it’s not at all clear what kind of ‘flexibility’ the president needs in this area and why he considers it a priority.”

Indeed, recent departures from Trump’s cabinet have created some awfully swamp-like conditions for the Republican’s cabinet. As Ryan Zinke ends his scandal-plagued tenure at the Department of the Interior, for example, his acting successor is David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist.

At the Pentagon, former Secretary James Mattis’ office is now being filled by Patrick Shanahan, a former executive at a major defense contractor. At the EPA, the acting administrator is Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist. At the Justice Department, the acting attorney general is Matthew Whitaker, who shouldn’t be there for a wide variety of reasons.

None of these people have been confirmed to lead their respective cabinet agencies, and according to the president, he’s in “no hurry” to disrupt the “flexibility” his team of “actings” currently provides him.

TRUMP TOPS 7,645 LIES IN DECEMBER. In the first eight months of his presidency, Donald Trump made 1,137 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day. In October, as he barnstormed the country holding rallies in advance of the midterm elections, the president made 1,205 false claims — an average of 39 a day.

Combined with the rest of his presidency, that adds up to a total of 7,645 claims through Dec. 30, the 710th day of his term in office, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.

The flood of presidential misinformation picked up dramatically as the president campaigned across the country, holding rallies with his supporters. Each of those rallies usually yielded 35 to 45 suspect claims. But the president often tacked on interviews with local media (in which he repeats the same false statements) and gaggles with the White House press corps before and after his trips.

The second biggest month was November, with 866 claims, and that’s largely because of the president’s rallies just before the Nov. 6 election. The president’s proclivity to twist data and fabricate stories is on full display at his rallies. He has his greatest hits: 125 times he had falsely said he passed the biggest tax cut in history, 110 times he has asserted that the US economy today is the best in history, and 94 times he has falsely said his border wall is already being built. (Congress has allocated only $1.6 billion for fencing, but Trump also frequently mentioned additional funding that has not yet been appropriated.) All three of those claims are on The Fact Checker’s list of Bottomless Pinocchios.

SUPREME COURT CLEARS WAY FOR MASS. A.G. TO PURSUE EXXONMOBIL. After a 2015 report exposed that fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil hid its knowledge of the fossil fuel industry’s adverse impact on our planet’s environment, Massachusetts and New York state attorneys general filed lawsuits against the corporation, charging that not only has the corporation hidden important information from consumers, but it has actively pushed misinformation about the science of climate change. One legal battle has been over how many decades’ worth of documents

ExxonMobil would have to release. ExxonMobil has argued that its privacy is being compromised. The US Supreme Court decided (1/7) not to hear the oil giant’s appeal of a 2017 Massachusetts judge’s ruling.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey tweeted: “Today’s #SCOTUS victory clears the way for our office to investigate Exxon’s conduct toward consumers and investors. The public deserves answers from this company about what it knew about the impacts of burning fossil fuels, and when.”

This is another setback in a slew of setbacks for ExxonMobil, Walter Einenkel noted at DailyKos (1/7). “Even former US Secretary of State and climate-change-question-evader Rex Tillerson … has not been able to shield his former company.”

DON’T MESS WITH AOC. When US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) mischaracterized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to increase the top marginal tax rate to 70%, tweeting, “Republicans: Let Americans keep more of their own hard-earned money Democrats: Take away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy programs,” AOC replied, “You’re the GOP Minority Whip. How do you not know how marginal tax rates work?

“Oh that’s right, almost forgot: GOP works for the corporate CEOs showering themselves in multi-million $ bonuses; not the actual working people whose wages + healthcare they’re ripping off for profit.”

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2019

Populist.com