I
do my best to deliver factual information. The "Documents"
pages are there for you to look and see for yourself. An innocent man is
in prison for crimes committed by the corrupt, who run the reservation
the way a criminal organization would run a city if they had all levels
of government supporting and protecting them.
There are many more Good People in Spirit Lake than there are corrupt, evil people there. It is the system that is corrupt, evil and I expose here all that I can.
I can be reached at this email: Contact Cat . I respond to most of my emails, however, I reserve the right to not rspond to whack jobs. I keep all information confidential. For those who wish to attack, you'll either be ignored, or, if you are really clever, you'll end up on the Moron Squad page. Some insults are more entertaining than others. I share with the class.
For those interested: The 13th Mandated Report is out. No government Agency has yet to properly reply to any of them.
Update on Richard LaFuente
Richard LaFuente was freed from prison June 5, 2014 with no real explanation. He had been turned down for parole the previous June & was not due until 2016. He has no adjustment services to leap 30 years into the present.
Freedom is only the beginning. He and the others falsely accused with him need to be exonerated, and the real killers and their accomplices, held accountable.
Stay updated on the Documentary Film being made by supporting it at: http://www.incidentatdevilslakemovie.com
~
*NOTE: Two Young Men are missing from the rez. That place is too small for them to go missing and no one knows anything about it. Someone knows. Someone better talk. Their mothers deserve to know what happened to them.
Damien Justin Greywater & Jordan Iceman
*October 27, 2014
Death By Association ---Printer Version (6)
Kalum Yankton, who went by Kalum Ironshield, is dead. Here’s the story: “He O.D.’d and dropped dead.”
Here’s the other story: “He wasn’t doing anything, and he just dropped dead.”
No one knows for sure, and those who know for sure aren’t talking and there are no obituary notices for him. He was a big-time meth dealer, went to prison, was married to June Gourd who was a Tribal Judge (that helped him avoid a lot of arrests). By the way, Tribal Council while Idiot Boy Leander Russell McDonald was Chair and the Sexual Offender, Joel Redfox and his girlfriend were on Tribal Council (Russ was bounced out for incompetence and lying last week and the other two decided to resign on Monday last so they didn’t have to face a single question from their Districts) , back then, they wanted to make June Gourd, with her questionable education ‘credentials’ (none of which qualified her to be a lawyer, much less a judge) the Chief Tribal Judge.
Idiot Boy McDonald also then tried to make Monty Stensland as Chief Judge of Tribal Court… but it turns out that Monty had a few problems of his own… mainly that he had been disbarred/suspended from practice. Ooops…
Back to Kalum. Did he OD? Drop Dead? Who knows. The way I pictured him going out would be him having his vehicle tampered with, the brakes or the accelerator, or both (possibly by Q-Ball or Roger since Alex is dead and he was the go-to vehicle tampering guy. Wait, there’s still Lemon… nevermind.) My image of Kalum meeting his fate would be late at night, coming home from a drug party, and then discovering his brakes were cut…. Stomping the brakes furiously, and in the end, standing on the brakes --- to no avail… and – everything goes black.
Kalum was a violent, despicable person. It was his meth/crank party that Mike Meade met his fate late one night. Mike Meade was a basketball hero to the tribe. He was well-liked, but he hung out with all the wrong people, as most kids do out there. The story was that he and Kalum had a violent disagreement and Mike tried to leave, but Kalum and another friend followed him, chased him, and he got rammed and his car went into Devil’s Lake.
Mike was reported missing, but no one in Law Enforcement looked for him and for some reason, Bentley GreyBear, working as a special agent for the BIA (whatever that means) would not allow anyone to go looking for him.
After more than 10 days, (was it three weeks? I can’t remember) so the upshot is that people are concerned and determined to go looking for Mike Meade and so the search very quickly goes to the Lake, where there are scrape marks on the rocks indicating a vehicle ricocheted off the rocks at high speed in a couple of places, and lo and behold, Mike’s car, with Mike in it, was dragged up out of the lake.
Bentley and the BIA didn’t do any investigation of the vehicle or the scene and they would not even allow others to take pictures of the car when it was in the shop. I have pictures someone took, somewhere. I can find those. They don’t show much, except that the vehicle most likely spun out and went into the lake backwards.
Kalum would break into people’s cars, in broad daylight and steal from them. No one in the BIA would take a report, or act on a complaint.
At one point, Kalum walked right into the then BIA Chief of Police’s bedroom, one night as the Chief and his wife were sleeping. Startled, the chief woke up and found Kalum staring over him.
“I just want to be sure you and I are still cool,” Kalum said.
The Chief nodded that they were and reassured him, and Kalum left. He was that bold, that confident that law enforcement would never touch him, that he could strut around the rez like that, even walking into the Chief of Police’s bedroom, late at night to ‘be sure we are still cool’.
Somewhere, he screwed up, crossed the wrong wires and ended up doing time. That just made him more attractive to June Gourd. June Gourd was originally appointed as a judge by Myra Pearson, aka “Naked Lawn Ornament”, the last time NLO was the Chair. (She is again, having replaced Idiot Boy).
Kalum was also the son of Andrea Yankton. Andrea Yankton, who was raped by her father from the time she was six-years old, well into her late teens and twenties, often would get drunk and declare that Kalum was her father’s son. Inbreeding pays off big time in the Turdclan.
So, Kalum is dead, and I suspect it has more to do with him crossing his biological father’s family on a drug deal or several drug deals, than it has to do with anything else. He was a long-time drug user. Long-time drug users don’t OD. They know their drugs. Someone has to give them a “hot shot” deliberately, to make them OD. If he did OD, I’d take a good long look at where he was and who he was with just before that happened.
The Turdclan is known for removing all the inconvenient types: Whether it be Eddie Peltier who insulted Poopsie by giving him a traffic ticket (speeding/ no license) (all insults worthy of murder if you cross the Turdclan): Or even members of their own family, such as their nephew, Willy, who was starting to write letters declaring the bad acts of various family members because he was angry at the way they were mistreating his mother, their sister, Celeste. (Worth noting here that at the wake for Willy, Celeste’s brothers started pounding on her and her other son, throwing chairs, pulling hair, slugging it out at the wake. We all grieve differently.)
If Kalum crossed them again, especially on Fed-Ex Wednesday, when the internet drugs show up at Pauline’s, that would be enough to sign his death warrant with them.
Then again, it was Kalum, it could have been anybody. But I strongly doubt it could have been an accident. Deaths are not investigated on the rez the way they are in other places. A conclusion is reached on the spot and no other investigation is considered necessary.
Investigating deaths only causes ‘issues’ when the death is ruled anything but an accident, or ‘suicide’ or as in the case with so many babies out there placed in the hands of the violent, “SIDS”.
I just wonder if Kalum was playing that game where he buys his way out of bigger troubles by ratting out what he knew about the corrupt in his own family and their wider connections out there? We’ll never know. He’s cold dead now.
Enter The Clowns
NLO, soon as she got into the Chairmanship this month, and the two tribal councilors bailed within an hour of one another, she appointed Alberta Redfox, a known drunk, a woman who cannot even complete a sentence, but who has held favor with those in power, specifically for her support and compliance to their corruption, for decades. She just flat appointed her as a replacement in complete violate of the Tribal Laws.
The election to replace the rapist’s girlfriend was even worse. Humpy Baker, a wild-eyed drunk, known for being passed out more than he is conscious, was elected by the larger family blocks out there that expect and will get, lots of checks, no-pay ‘loans’, and whatever else they want from him while he has access to funds.
There were some better-qualified candidates out there, but the druggies and the drunks showed up in greater numbers.
The big problem with these elections rests entirely with the Election Board, headed by Douglas Longie, who has very strong ties with the most corrupt out there. He has allowed the unqualified, such as a man who was convicted of rape, Joel Redfox, to run for and hold office while disqualifying a man who had no convictions of any sort on his record.
Until you clean up the Election Board, you can’t clean up the elections. Oh, the Election Board is appointed. Guess by whom? Yeah, there’s your vicious circle, right there.
Clown Update
Looks like Idiot Boy landed another sweet job. He was just appointed, with great fanfare in the Grand Forks Herald, as president of United Tribes Technical College. Yeah, they appoint anyone. He’s not their first drunk, nor will he be their last. How many times have you been to rehab, Russ? Lost count? So have we all!
UTTC tends to take whomever the SLN throws out, as their highly paid President. They did it with Myra, even as she was ripping off the tribe for millions, as Chair and her abusive drunken son, Brian Pearson, (Zit Puppet) who now goes by Brie Pie Pearson on FB, and Carl WalkingEagle (who has altered his name so many different ways to cover his tracks, it will take a team to sort out how many millions he stole from the tribe. BTW, he’s got “0” native blood in him, but he carries a 4/4 Quantum Card around. Yeah, that tells you all you have to know about that process. )
The GFH even used a picture of Idiot Boy Laughing to epitomize their story. You bet he’s laughing! He’s laughing because he has yet another job he’s not qualified for, and will wreck. He failed to get a single grant when he ran the Elders’ Program. That went to shit, and Elders lost meals, health/medical assistance and heating oil as well as other things they were entitled to. Russ made sure, however, that he got paid the bonuses for those grants, more than $10K each, as if he had been successful at obtaining those grants. So, he ruined the Elder’s program and it has never recovered.
He worked at the Little Hoop college, in a broom closet. It was just a spot for him to collect a paycheck. He was incompetent and he was drunk most of the time. Maybe it was drugs, it doesn’t matter because the effect is the same. He wins, the Tribe loses.
Then he gets Tribal Chairmanship, and he ruins that even more. Makes it even worse for the children, and even appointed Melissa Merrick-Brady to run it, even as she was the most unqualified person in the room, and she was already notorious for ripping off the Victim’s Assistance Program that she was in charge of.
He outright lied and told the stupidest possible, most unrealistic lies, to the Indian Affairs SubCommittee when he went to Washington, DC. Outright lied. Just the kind of ‘Quality’ material UTTC is becoming famous for planting in the top spots of their college.
So, you bet he’s laughing. The GFH loves him. They’ll sing his praises until he’s frog-marched into jail.
Clown Car Not Empty Yet
And now, for some reason, Bri Pie Pearson has gone after Melissa Merrick-Brady, on FB, making threats against her safety. Yeah, I know, still drunk. But what did she do to tick him off? It’s just amusing to watch the corrupt attack each other.
It’s just not so amusing when one of them ends up standing on their brakes, screaming and swearing just before it all goes black.
While They Clown Around
There is more to come. The Grandfathers have gathered. They cannot be stopped. What is coming is going to be horrible to watch. The Grandfathers will stand by those who fight the Good Fight, and they will show no mercy to those who have been nurturing and sucking off the evil that has plagued Spirit Lake Nation.
The stories of the Lake are true. And they will rise again and show themselves and become the stories told to future generations, again.
The People all have Ancestors they can point to with pride. They all have Ancestors they can recite acts of courage and goodness and often at great sacrifice in the worst of times past.
Native Pride
“Native Pride” is based on being proud of your heritage and having something to be proud of in your Ancestors.
That’s all well and good, but how about you do something in your life that would make your Ancestors proud of you?
I’m tired of people riding the bones of their Ancestors to claim ‘Pride’ while doing nothing in their lives except serving themselves, taking from others, and being cowards when it came time to stand up.
You want to claim “Native Pride”? Go ahead. But when someone asks you what you have done that would make your Ancestors proud of you, what are you going to tell them?
What will your children and grandchildren have to say about you that makes them proud of you? What can they learn from you that will make them want to achieve more, be more, and do more for their people because of your example?
I see a lot of shoulders shrugging. I hear a lot of you muttering obscenities under your breath, angry that I would dare point out the obvious. But I hear even more of you chuckling, because it’s exactly what you have been saying all along.
Time Running Out
Somewhere, out there, in the dark of night, some fool is laughing because he or she thinks they are untouchable and can continue to get away with crimes against the people… until they end up standing on their brakes, screaming in the night, knowing it’s too late to do what they should have done, long, long ago.
Idiot Boy can laugh all he wants. He has only served himself at the cost to everyone else, and his time will come. He better pray it is handcuffs and not a brake job.
Those who have the most to lose in all of this, much higher up than any Tribal Chair, or even any Senator. Much higher up and much deeper inside the network that has, for decades, preyed upon the people and abused the children.
Those are the people Idiot Boy has to be afraid of. They clean up “Loose Ends” very abruptly, and they don’t tolerate the weak who no longer serve their purposes, or become a liability. I’m sure they already have a list made out and I’m pretty sure some of the clowns are already on that list. It’s just a matter of time.
Don’t worry, it will all look like accidents or suicides. There will be no investigations and no questions will be tolerated. It will all be very clean, very neat. Just a lot of coincidences strung together by time or association that most people won’t bother to connect in their own minds.
If you think Kalum’s death was an accident, you’ve already bought into the scenario. Keep your credit card open… you’re going to be buying a whole lot more.
Rock & A Hard Place
So, Idiot Boy and other Laughing Clowns out there have only two things to worry about: The Grandfathers or those Politically Powerful Connections coming after them. Make it a third thing: There is a relentless drive to get the Truth out about the corruption and the Child abuse and Human Trafficking out there.
Yeah, that could be a problem too. No soft place to land. No more rocks to hide under. The Truth will come out.
Meanwhile, the Circus is definitely in Town. We all have a ticket. I’ll be one of the narrators, but there will be more. I am just the messenger, and I am not alone.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
*Correction: Blog originally stated Kalum's mother was 'Angela' Yankton. It is Andrea Yankton. This posting has been updated to reflect that.
PS: The Blog will skip next week but return the following weekin November. I need to get some maintenance done on this rig.
~
October 20, 2014
Dangerous For Children -- Printer Version (5)
“Stranger Danger” is one of the memes that are taught to children to help protect them from abduction, rape and murder. Yes, we have to teach that to our children. There is also something else we have to teach our children: “That man over there, stay away from him.” And “That woman over there, never let her near you.” And then it goes on: “If your uncle, grampa, cousin ever rapes you again… you keep your mouth shut, you hear me?”
When it comes to protecting children, most are willing to warn their children of strangers and the residential freak shows that are Registered Sex Offenders, some of whom get to drive School Buses, or work in the Rec Center, places where children are accessible; but when it comes to the dangers within their own families, the rapist uncle, brother, father, etc, it becomes more important to “Protect the Predator” than to protect the children.
We have seen years and years of multiple, multi-level failures on the part of Tribal Social Services, State agencies, and of course, the Federal Government in the form of BIA, FBI, USAG ACF, HHS, and IHS, all of which have actively and blatantly moved with all their power and authority to silence any reports of child abuse, child rape and child trafficking, especially on the rez--- any rez for that matter.
Children and those who report their abuses are punished, harassed and penalized. The conclusion is: Child rape is BAD, unless of course you are politically well-connected and the higher the influence, the more it becomes a perk for predators in political circles, that which is forbidden from normal society.
You have seen Marrianne McMullen and her Flying Monkeys, George Sheldon and James Murray, actually make a sport out of concealing reports, harassing those who make the reports. This is ‘sport’ for them. George Sheldon allowed over 100 children to be viciously murdered on his watch as Florida’s Director of DCF in 2009, and the real number is doubtless closer to or higher than 200 children, while he pursued a political agenda that required those numbers, those reports, never see daylight.
It wasn’t a mistake, it was deliberate. If it were mistakes that those children died, then they would have been learned from by the time the 10th child was tortured to death because of nonsensical policies that prevented children from being removed from dangerous hands and also prevented those who would give safety, from being able to do so.
There has been years and years of this. Until the Miami Herald did their Innocents Lost series earlier this year, no one even knew how many children actually died in 2009. George Sheldon had claimed only 69 deaths. Still, at that, 69 was greater than the sum total of all the deaths of all the children in the other 49 States, that were also in Government Care. The real number being over 3 times that, is an even greater, more shocking betrayal of the Public Trust.
He is currently running as the Democratic challenger for the position of Attorney General of Florida. He abruptly quit his position in ACF working directly under Ms. Marrianne McMullen, when his successor at Florida DCF abruptly resigned. He immediately announced his campaign for Florida AG. That tells me that he needs to get in there at the top level and stop any further investigations into the abuses of children during his tenure as Director in 2009.
I’m sure there are many, many more bodies to bury and he needs to be in a position to protect himself and to protect others just like him, who have spent their careers protecting predators, leaving children with no escape, and creating a population of abuse graduates who either become abusers themselves or slide into addictions, dangerous lifestyles, suicides or other chronic violence outcomes.
By the way, the cost to taxpayers grows and grows. People who are long-time addicted usually don’t have good paying jobs. They usually don’t have stable, secure families. They often are incarcerated. All of that costs taxpayers and denies us a society wherein people are more productive, more secure and contribute more to the General Welfare. Instead we spend more and more of our money on police, incarceration, security measures to protect ourselves, higher insurance rates (theft, vandalism, etc)… and our neighborhoods are less and less congenial.
We’ve had almost 4 generations of failed policies so in case you are wondering why things are getting worse and worse, you need only to look at the rise in child abuse, and the lack of protection those children are given, while those who report the crimes are subjected to harassment, threats, intimidation and abuse by those who are supposed to be protecting children. That has to change or we have only more of the worst possible outcomes to expect in our future, and the futures of our children and grandchildren.
Where this is at it’s worst is on the rez. This is where the government neglect and abuse is the clearest. This is where we have to draw the line. If we can’t clean up that one tiny rez because the corruption is so entrenched, from every level of government, then we can’t expect to clear it up anywhere.
Case in Point: Jr. Herman was hauled in by the US Marshals last week. Not the FBI. Not the BIA, but the US Marshals. Considering that it was about four years ago that he was arrested for abducting and raping a 6 or 7 year old girl, and that he wrote her parents an “I’m sorry for raping your daughter” note from his jail cell, for some reason, Jan Morley of the US Attorney General’s Office, was unable to get a conviction.
Even with the note, she could not get a conviction. He was free to abduct and rape all he wanted after that. Tribal Social Services, not then nor now, thought they should take steps to remove his children from him; The BIA did not see any threat worthy of them keeping him away from children… and the USAG’s office took no further steps to investigate him and arrest him. The FBI could not be bothered to even knock on his door.
So, he got hauled in by the US Marshals. Guess what the charge was? Anyone? Yes, you in the back row… Correct! Child Rape! Are any of these other agencies shocked or surprised? Are any of them even bothering to investigate how many other victims he’s made since walking away from that previous child rape charge? No.
But somehow, the US Marshals got called in. Now, you will see a flurry of agents and effort on the rez. The US Marshals will be working to get evidence, and the rest of the government agencies, starting with the BIA, will be working to hide, burn, shred, destroy any evidence they have so it can’t be used to convict Jr. Herman.
Jr. Herman just happens to be the son of Celeste Herman. She’s the Yankton Sister that bashed Eddie Peltier in the head with a cast iron frying pan and stunned him while his brothers were three-on-one, beating him up in her kitchen that night, back in August of 1983, where they killed him.
Ever since the Federal Government worked with the Yanktons to frame and convict the innocent, while concealing the real killers, they have had an unholy alliance between government and the Turd Clan, and several others out there.
The crooked Feds cannot afford to have any of the Turd Clan, especially those who know what happened that night, incarcerated for anything, lest they trade in that big fat “I know who murdered Eddie Peltier” chip, and it drags down everyone that helped to cover it up. Everyone. That means the FBI, the BIA, the USAG and everyone they have managed to tangle in their web since then.
Billions of dollars goes into Indian Country every month and is never tracked, audited, accounted for. That can be mighty tempting for those with weak character. There are other temptations in that Secret Garden of Delights as well, since no one is looking--- besides money, there is drugs, underage sex, child sex, infant sex and child trafficking, just to name a few.
Once the politically powerful have indulged in any of those, they have to protect everyone connected to all of those or they will be brought into the light, and revealed for what they are and whom they truly serve.
That explains why it took years for Jr. Herman to be arrested for what you know he was doing daily out there. And it also explains why it had to be the US Marshals that did it. So far, I have not seen them connected to any of the corruption out there. There may be a few, but I haven’t found it.
Now, let’s see how long that creep is in jail, and whether they can get a conviction on him. There’s tons of evidence. There are so many children whose lives have been turned into a lifelong nightmare, but remember: Last time there was a handwritten apology note that still failed to yield a conviction.
Further, there are some FBI agents who really don’t want him to start talking. Dennis Trout for one. Jr. Herman was the man described that was one of the men that tortured, mutilated, raped and murdered Destiny and her brother Travis, ages 9 & 6, in May of 2011.
Jr. Herman lived next door to that house and was a frequent visitor with the children’s meth addicted father. Agent Trout immediately set about the scene to destroy evidence. He demanded that the clothing worn by the mother and the surviving child be removed and laundered immediately. He instructed a neighborhood teen to remove basket loads of clothing and other evidence from the scene… within an hour of it being reported!
Yes, if Jr. Herman starts talking, a bunch of dominoes start falling. Other dominoes in other corners of the corrupt kingdom are already leaning and wobbling… so, my take on this is that USAG Tim Purdon, himself, will throw this case as badly as Jan Morley threw the last one against Jr. Herman.
Just think of all the kids that could have been spared the living nightmare of rape and abuse had Jan Morley done her job in the first place, or if Tim Purdon had not opted to cover for that particular loose end in the Turd Clan and their web of conspirators, accessories and accomplices?
Now, it’s popped up again; That loose end; That child rapist. That one that could trade in information on decades of corruption, murders and more… The mountain of evidence against Jr. won’t be enough to convict him. He has some very powerful people who must, if they are to remain free themselves, bury this stink any way they can.
The Stone is turning. There is no going back to the silence that curtained off the corruption, abuse, child trafficking, and worse. There is no rest for those who have, all this time, prospered from it, profiting financially and politically at the expense of children, the community, and all of us. They cannot close their eyes without worrying that yet another dot has been exposed, and it’s blinking neon red, and someone just might connect that dot to all those other dots…
They know the end is coming. Their walls are being breached, and it’s all going to spill out at our feet where we can see it, clearly.
There’s going to be a hella cleanup when that happens. We’re going to have to, all of us, Red, White, Black, Brown and Yellow, all pull together to make all of us safer.
First, we must make the children safe. We must know that we CAN make the children safe. We must do that FIRST in Spirit Lake, where the Good People of that Tribe have, at great personal risk, and despite the abuse and harassment they have encountered, persevered to throw a brighter light on all that has been consuming their community for decades.
We must first make the children safe. We have to prove that it can be done and we have to start in that one small speck on the map. Those who object to that effort have something to hide.
Stay focused. Keep demanding the Truth. Keep demanding action. If we can’t protect those children there, you know we can’t protect them anywhere. I don’t think any of us is prepared to live with that reality. I don’t think we could face our future if it was only going to be worse. We have to help them, but we have to do it in order to help ourselves.
You know if the corruption is exposed there, it will be exposed everywhere. That is the domino that needs to fall. That is the place where this begins.
If we fail to act in that one dark corner, where all those vile creatures make their webs and where the stink comes from, it will surely take over another corner, and another, and then there will be no place where we are not surrounded by the ugliness and the stink of it all, nowhere safe.
I tell you again: Sandusky and the Penn State Scandal was only the tip of the Iceberg out there. You know he could not have done this alone all those decades. He had people in high places covering for him until that dam broke loose. Funny how they have stopped the investigations as if he was the one and only, iddnit?
What is happening in SLN is a thousand times greater than the Sandusky/Penn State Scandal. It reaches even deeper into the Ivory Towers, and spans across generations and nations.
The corrupt have only one power: “Silence”. If you work to break that silence and expose them, they will, to spare themselves, roll over on one another at a rate that will astonish you.
It’s going to be HUGE when it happens. But it will start small, and they will try to keep it small, and make you think that only a handful of corrupt were involved… and the big boys will skate by again. Maybe not. Maybe this time, it won’t be so easy for them. Maybe this time, as the walls start to crumble, instead of helping them to rebuild them, there will be enough decent people in government to rip down every single brick in that wall and expose it all.
Jr. Herman was hauled off by US Marshals last week. Well, that’s something. It’s a start. It may very well be the end of what has been the Blanket of Darkness that has oppressed that tribe, maybe even an entire nation. We’ll see.
Some child found the courage to speak out again. Don’t abandon this one.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
~
A little something you may want to read when you get the chance: "Unspeakable Poverty of Loss: Intergenerational Trauma and the Bakken Oil Fields"
October 16, 2014
When Dogs Chase Cars ----Printer Version (6)
Almost every neighborhood has at least one. Some have a small pack of them. They are the mindless yapping dogs that roam freely, and when they see a car coming they start chasing it, yapping all the way, while the driver of the car either doesn’t notice at all, or is doing all they can to avoid running over that stupid animal that is obviously loved by someone who feeds it but who doesn’t bother to keep it safely on a leash.
After the car gets away, the dog struts around all proud and such as if “I showed that one!” When in truth, it was lucky to not have been hit, run over or worse.
Every once in awhile, that dog succeeds in bringing a vehicle to a slowdown or a complete stop. It’s not because the dog is so fierce, but because it is so stupid, the driver is concerned for it’s safety.
The dog, however, thinks it has everyone fooled into thinking it’s all powerful.
Reading the latest lavishly embellished accounts from Melissa Merrick-Brady on Real Indianz website, I am reminded of that yapping dog syndrome.
She again relives and grossly exaggerates the meeting held in 2013 where Heitkamp and Cramer and their staff were present on the rez to discuss several issues.
Cramer was well aware of the corruption in tribal court on Spirit Lake. He was also well-aware of the corruption of the Tribal Council, and how women and children were in direct danger as a result of that corruption. He was also aware of the major flaws in VAWA that was recently passed (which he voted for, despite the major flaws and loopholes that it contained, that would essentially leave victims of violence on the rez with only the corrupt tribal court as their avenue of recourse) and he was frustrated by it.
He made a comment about wanting ‘wring some necks and throw someone against the wall’ in reference to the rampant unchecked abuses of women and children on the rez.
This is where Ms. Melissa became the heroine of her own melodrama. Melissa was the unqualified and corrupt Director of Victim’s Assistance on SLN at the time. She was widely known for her disdain for victims and for helping herself to the emergency credit cards (“I’m a victim of abuse too, so I am entitled to use these cards,”) to pay for her shopping and her utility bills.
There are several cases of how she herself abused clients by putting them in even greater danger. Case in point: The Wife of a BIA cop was badly beaten up by him (and not for the first time). She was hospitalized. She sought help at Victim’s Assistance in order to escape the danger. Melissa, (and the whole tribe for that matter) knew the same BIA agent was having an affair with one of the staff on Victim’s Assistance, and in fact, that staffer was about 8 months pregnant with his child at the time. Melissa assigned the wife to that staffer. Of course, the BIA Cop was told by his mistress that the complaint had been filed against him and he beat her up again. There was never a dime of assistance that went to the wife, nor even transportation to the hospital given by Melissa and her staffer.
As a fact, after the woman was beaten up again, Melissa lied and said that it was because the wife herself, had told the husband she had reported him.
Yes, that is how Melissa ran Victim’s Assistance the entire time she was at the helm. But, because she had a position, she also had political standing and that made her and Heidi Heitkamp best of buddies.
Recently, the Tribal Council, so corrupt that three of it’s members were ousted within two weeks of one another in the past 30 days, in it’s infinite wisdom, chose Melissa as the new Director of Tribal Social Services. Given that she has none of the pre requisites for either Victim’s Assistance nor Tribal Social Services, it can only be attributed to her political connections to Senator Heitkamp as well as whomever she bedded to get the Victim’s Assistance Directorship in the first place. Honestly, I can see no qualifications, no degrees, nothing that would qualify her so I am left with the only option.
Recently, when she attended a conference of Social Workers from other tribes, she was booed and laughed at for her nonsensical talking points. Her crap will not fly among those who do have the prerequisite qualifications and degrees.
As a note here: Prior to the ouster of the Chairman and the abrupt resignation of the two Tribal Councilors who were having an affair and robbing the tribe blind, they had appointed disgraced and disbarred former attorney Monty Stensland as their new Chief Judge for Tribal Court. Monty got caught forging documents of his clients so he was a bad boy. He should have actually done prison time, but disbarment was the only real penalty he received.
When confronted with the facts of Mr. Stensland’s record at the subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, then Chairman McDonald said that they really had not checked his qualifications prior to hiring him. He later said that the tribe never hired him. That’s the typical way these very crucial jobs are handed out. To friends. Pals, and to whatever.
Note: Stensland was then replaced by Billy Dean Cavenaugh who is even more worthless and less qualified but he’s an Indian, and he has strong political ties to the corrupt forces that are strangling the life out of that tribe, so no questions asked.
Well, after the meeting in 2013 with the Senator, Congressman Cramer and their staff, Melissa Merrick went into what I call the Road Show, where she would tell and retell the tale, exaggerating more and more each time, and then she would glide like a feather down to her fainting couch, and be surrounded by sycophantic supporters who would throw mean looks in the general direction of Congressman Cramer.
If you read her whole screed, you will see she has added so many fabrications, and instead of the general direction of Cramer’s anger towards the corruption and that no one is really safe on the rez because of it, she has now turned it like a thousand arrows, aimed directly at her, personally!
The conversation/dialogue she describes never took place. Read that again. It never took place. Her then stating that “After I spoke, Cramer began what turned out to be roughly 20 minutes verbal attacks directed at me and meant for all Native people.” << Pure BS
The imagery of her being ‘verbally abused’ by Cramer is ludicrous. She adds in that another native woman was starting to ‘tear up’ she was so offended… didn’t happen. And then that flourishing finale she describes of Cramer ‘grabbing a native woman without her consent, and telling her “I love you!” is comical and disgusting.
But she needs to lie, to exaggerate and to make herself the victim to justify her mindless attacks on Cramer, that are purely politically motivated and nothing else. Just like she justified using the emergency credit cards that were intended for REAL VICTIMS of abuse, for her own personal use, by claiming she was a victim.
She’s now spreading this roadshow tour throughout FaceBook in an attempt to unseat Cramer in the upcoming election. She doesn’t want a congressman that actually cares about the core issues of corruption and injustice both on and off the rez that affect Indian People. She wants someone like Heitkamp that will shovel hundreds of thousands of dollars, right down that same corrupt commode, over and over again.
Cramer is not a threat to Indian People, he is a threat to the corrupt, at all levels of government, from Tribal Councils to BIA and FBI, where they have abused and mistreated Indian People and most of all, the Children.
Heitkamp has never once called for Justice or Investigations into the corruption and crimes against children on the rez. Cramer has called hearings to delve into that no-man’s land, and for that, he is considered an enemy of the corrupt, and that includes Ms. Merrick-Brady, and those who side with her.
Strangely enough, one of her biggest supporters on FaceBook and elsewhere, I am sure, is Monty Stensland. Go figure! For a history on Mr. Stensland’s notorious bad behavior, read the numerous complaints against him here.
For those reading the mindless, myriad of attacks on Kevin Cramer on his FB Page feel free to post and repost the links to Mr. Stensland’s proven scandalous record just to keep the posts “fair and balanced”. Facts have a way of tipping the balance, so expect even more fury from the yapping dogs that follow Ms. Merrick-Brady’s smear campaign.
There are mindless attacks on Cramer, going around on the comments. One moron spouted off that Cramer had not even visited the rez since the 2013 meeting. That is true. He can only come if he is invited.
There were conferences scheduled there and Ms. Merrick saw to it that he was disinvited and not allowed to attend. Now, they all want to yap about how he has not been there. Either they don’t know how these things work, or they think no one will call them on their BS rampage. It’s a tactic employed by those who want to deceive and they do that because they know they have nothing legitimate to bitch about. So they ‘create’ a scenario, deny him access and then decry that he has not been there.
Melissa has portrayed, in the most melodramatic terms, a false, libelous description of events that never occurred in order to smear Kevin Cramer.
That same woman, at the Congressional Subcommittee Hearings last summer, could not answer a single question regarding what either Victims Assistance Program or Tribal Social Services needed or even how they functioned.
Keep in mind, Tribal Social Services was so corrupt that they saw their mission was to keep children who were being horribly abused, OUT of Foster Care and to remain with their abusers. (That’s the Casey Family Programs Policy that they follow, despite the hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths it leads to every single year, for decades now) . Most notably was when the children of a man who was under investigation by the FBI for raping, sodomizing and torturing his children was being supported in Tribal Court by Tribal Social Services in order to regain his children until he went to trial because “He’s not found guilty yet.”
The Foster Parents of those children at their own expense hired an attorney to protect the children. The man did go to prison. But the Children were removed from the only safe home they had ever known by the vindictive Director of Tribal Social Services, Paul Hutchinson, who was dismissed after complaints were filed with the Board of Social Workers in ND, (not by the tribal council, but by those who were seeking to protect those children). The Director was removed, and the children to this day, remain in an unfit foster home, where there is drug dealing and continued abuse, this under the Directorship of Ms Merrick-Brady.
You see, it is the policy that these programs are run by the corrupt. There are millions of dollars that go into these programs and it becomes a source of enrichment for the corrupt who fill their own pockets with no worries of investigations or arrests.
Anyone starts to look too close, ask too many questions, is considered a threat. Ms Merrick-Brady sees that kind of threat in Kevin Cramer, and she is on a mission to smear him with lies on a campaign level that is mind-boggling.
What I find seriously odd in all the FB comments, especially from Mr. Stensland, is that they appear to be either defending the corruption in the BIA or acting as if there is no corruption in the BIA. Clearly, the corruption in the BIA exists, and that is how most of these abuses, child rapes etc, are allowed to continue on SLN and of course, every other reservation that they preside over. You can’t solve the problem of injustice by pretending it’s ok, (or ‘everyone is doing it everywhere so don’t look here’) or that it doesn’t exist. We need problem solvers, not problem deniers.
Remember: It was the BIA “Strike Force” that took over Tribal Social Services and the first thing they did was spend 14 hrs a day for weeks on end, shredding files on Spirit Lake. Now, again, tell me how that’s a bunch of hard working individuals interested in helping those who have been victimized by abusers?
Cramer never attacked Melissa, never threatened her, never went on a rampage about her… in fact, he apologized for even saying in general, that he felt like wringing necks of those who are hurting the children and terrorizing the women, because his remarks were ‘misunderstood’ by the ever so dramatic Melissa.
Only and incredibly stupid person or an entirely corrupt person could have deliberately missed the point and now made it their road show.
Keep in mind, the people supporting Melissa Merrick-Brady are themselves among the most corrupt. Monty Stensland is the least of them. Heitkamp was a State Attorney General from 1993-2001, and she never once dealt with the abuses of children on Tribal Lands. Unless of course, you want to believe that as the Top Law Dog in ND, she never heard of any child abuse, child rape or child trafficking on any of the reservations?
To this DAY, Senator Heitkamp has not demanded any investigations, into or about, child abuse and child rape or Human Trafficking on the rez. In fact, when Betty Jo Krenz went to Washington, DC to meet with her in her office, (she made an appointment), Heidi said “Hi”, shook her hand, and told her that her staffer would be taking care of things and exited the office like a whirlwind. She.Doesn’t.Want.To.Hear.About.It.
Heitkamp and Merrick-Brady are best buds. They photo op together, brunch and lunch together… you know, what bff’s do.
Hire The Corrupt
Worth noting here, that the corruption on SLN has continued, unabated, despite the energetic efforts by the tribal members to oust the incompetent and the corrupt. The corruption is supported by a network much higher up and more wide-spread than just that tiny reservation. It could not carry on any other way.
Because there are millions of dollars that go into the tribe with little or no accounting as to whether that money even touches those it’s supposed to help, it has become a watering hole of sorts, where the bullies, the abusers, the corrupt all gather to both indulge themselves and prevent others from getting near.
Case in point: A few months ago there was a huge meth bust on the rez. Sally Alberts house was raided. SWAT came out and took down her house and the two Black Men who were armed, hiding in the back room. They were all arrested. They dismantled the lab, and that left Sally Alberts with no way to make a living.
A few days later, as there were changes to the Elderly program and those seeking help and loans had to fill out a form to qualify, and those forms had to be approved, guess who got the job of approving those forms? Sally Alberts!
Challenging Corruption
Are people upset? Yes. Can they do anything about it? Not as long as the corrupt are invincible both on that Tribal Council, in those departments, running those programs and in our political spectrum including the BIA and FBI as well as those who say that we should not ‘say bad things about what’s going on at SLN until we have cleaned up the corruption on all the reservations first,’.
Think about that concept for a moment: “Don’t even start to clean up the corruption and child abuse that you know is rampant on SLN until you first clean it up on all the other reservations.”
In other words: “Don’t arrest any criminals until you have arrested all the other criminals first.“
Considering how unhelpful Heitkamp and her song and dance team of yapping dogs raising a ruckus every time someone dares to come near to the network of abuse and corruption, how likely is it that anything will ever get done if we don’t find and elect people of integrity and courage to take up the challenge?
We are not electing people to keep things just the way they are; we are electing them to fix the problems and make this a better, safer society for all of us. That won’t happen over night, but it will happen if we support those who fight the good fight. You know who one of them is, there’s a pack of yapping dogs trying to drown out his message on FaceBook right now.
I am a Democrat. I am a foaming at the mouth die hard Democrat. But in this case, I am supporting the one person I have seen actually take action and move against the corruption and abuse. Cramer is the one person that cares about the children and yes, about all children and he knows that the corruption on the rez, as it exists today, makes no man, woman or child safer. He dared so speak it. That took courage.
If I lived in North Dakota, I’d vote for courage and Integrity, regardless of party.
Those of you who buy Melissa Merrick-Brady’s-go-round, you’re being lied to by a con artist. The woman has done nothing for any victim on SLN. She has taken funds intended for the victims for her own personal use and she has denied safety & rescue to those who have come to her seeking help. She is no one’s rescuer. She’s a fraud.
She’s also playing Poor-Indian-Woman-Victim-to-big-Bad-White-Man and is using all the buzzwords her friends in high places help her script. No lie too big to come out of her mouth.
She was laughed out of the conference of Social Workers right there in Indian Country where standards are very, very minimal. She could not answer a single question about her job at the Congressional Subcommittee hearing.
She sent a badly battered woman to the mistress of the husband that beat her almost to death, and then blamed her for him ‘finding out’ that she had filed a report.
Merrick has no integrity and frankly, she should be investigated for corruption and the abuse of victims herself.
Please, don’t make me write another one of these. Learn the facts. If you want to help the children, protect women, you have to vote for the man who has already shown courage and integrity and who is now being shelled by those who want to keep the corruption out of sight, out of mind, and flourishing as it always has.
There is FaceBook, and then there are FACTS. Know the difference.
In all of this, the one person I am the most disappointed in is Monty Stensland. His fall from Grace was breathtaking. That he has the nerve to now support and stand with Melissa Merrick-Brady, tells me just how far he has fallen. There was a time, 20 years ago, when she would be one of the people he would have prosecuted. I guess he decided he couldn’t lick ‘em, so he joined ‘em.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
~
October 13, 2014
Chaos & Corruption --- Printer Version (4)
Now that SLN has NLO back in the Chair, her corruption, her connections are all tuning up and resuming their former influence and their network is reforming as if it never left.
This is what happens when you don’t have a back up/follow through plan. You got rid of Russell McDonald, who frankly, was almost as embarrassing to the tribe as was Roger Yankton, as chair. NLO is more clever than they are, but also much dirtier because she has closer ties to corruption in higher places, and she knows how to employ it.
When you go to remove someone by petition, stop and think: Who will we replace them with? Whom can we count on to set things right? And then you have to be sure you can get that person in, and that you will continue to support them otherwise you get reruns on corruption, such as you have with NLO back in the saddle, riding the tribe into the flames.
Last Monday, both Mardel Lewis and Joel The Rapist Redfox, up and quit their tribal council seats. The petitions were in, and they didn’t even have the guts to stand up and face the communities they let down so badly. By quitting within an hour or so of each other, they were free to spend the rest of their day doing whatever it is they were doing before, only you were paying them while they were doing it.
Mardel will have time on her hands so maybe she’ll follow Joel around a little more closely and see what it is he does and maybe when she figures it out she can ask herself if that is the sort of thing she wants to be involved with. Going down may be fun for her, but going down as an accomplice/accessory, is something else entirely.
She’ll figure it out. She has a college degree.
There is an election to replace Mardel, but Myra, the Naked Lawn Ornament, decided not to risk the Tokio seat on an election, so she appointed Alberta Redfox, who only got 6 votes last time she ran, to take that seat. It violates the Constitution but why let a piece of paper like that slow down NLO? Alberta is the perfect Puppet for the show she has in mind.
If you are not familiar with Alberta Redfox, she used to run the Alcohol/Rehab program. So stupid she could not even talk on the phone, or even complete a sentence. Now that she’s a tribal councilor, ask her to speak a full sentence that makes sense. G’wan, it’ll be fun.
Bright people, educated people, people with integrity, need not apply. Good luck on the election for the other seat. Look closely and choose the person you think is both the best educated and who has the most integrity and guts.
One thing I’ll say for the Good People of Spirit Lake, is that even though they’ve been pushed around and beaten up by the corrupt out there, they’ve learned to stand up and demand answers, and they are no longer afraid to sign petitions and to act on them.
Keep shouting, keep voting. Keep looking for better to lead you in that community. I know there are good people out there, but they need to be supported.
You all came out and supported Mardell before her mask fell off and everyone saw her as just another in a long chain of corrupt and those who support the corrupt. She fooled us all once, but she knew she could not fool you again. She could have been great for the tribe, and you would have supported her to the very end, but she decided that she’d throw her marriage in the toilet, and take up with a convicted rapist, who, btw, never should have been allowed to run for Tribal Council much less hold a seat!
Seriously, y’all need to get Doug Longie off the Election Board. Interesting that he used to be married to Alberta Redfox. I guess that’s why he’s giving that one a pass.
You need and you deserve better. But that takes work. Getting the corruption out is much harder than stopping it in the first place. You would have had to stop it, in this case, a hundred years earlier, back when the reservation system started. Back when the Indian Act made people into chattel, and back in the day when the Federal Government installed thugs and goons to keep the people oppressed.
But the only place you can fight it for now, is right there, in your Tribal Council and in the Tribal Court System and worst of all, the Election Board that makes all the corruption possible. Without a corrupt Election Board, you would have better Elections and better choices. Chew on that for a bit.
Nobody Plans To Have An Accident
That’s why they’re called “Accidents”. I had an idiot friend who lived in Nevada and she would not use her seatbelt and would not put her kid in one because at the time, there was no law about it there. “Freedumb!” I told her I would not ride with her if she didn’t buckle up. Period.
“I’m not planning on having an accident,” she’d tell me. Who does?
“Your boy will fly like a torpedo and hit against the windows and the roof, is that what you want?” It was incredible, the answer she came up with:
“I had a palm reader tell me that he was going to live to be an old man,” she told me.
Putting aside that she would have a “Palm Reader” determine the security of her son, for a moment… “Did he or she tell you that he would live a healthy life? Or as a vegetable on life support because his mother couldn’t stand to restrict his movement in the car?”
She got mad, pulled over and buckled him up. And then a freak accident happened. A train of shopping carts came out of the side road and crossed in front of us! (No one ‘plans’ to have a 40 ft train of runaway shopping carts cross the road, now do they?) She slammed on the brakes so hard, her handbag slammed into the windshield and the contents were smashed. (That could have easily been her son’s skull, for those tracking the events). Whoever pushed them out there (probably as a prank) ran off.
I never drove with her after that if everyone wasn’t buckled up to begin with. By the way, she totaled 6 SUVs in less than 4 years. I guess she ‘planned’ those?
People, listen, put the seatbelts ON. Put your children in proper seats & restraints.
Or just let it ‘happen’.
On that note, Joel Lenoir was only 29 when he died in a rollover last month. That is way too young and way too preventable.
Bundy died from not having a seatbelt on. So did one of his children. The other two are still seriously injured and in the hospital. He’s not around to protect them anymore. Buckle up. Show you care about your kids. Keep them safe and keep yourself safe so that you can be there for them as they are growing up.
Guessing Game
So, word is out that Celeste’s siblings beat the crap out of her son, Monte Herman, mostly just for fun. Her family is great about fighting. Never one on one, always a gang of them, typically an ambush. Celeste could put a stop to all of it by ratting them out for the Murder of Eddie Peltier, but they have her convinced that she’s the one that murdered him and that they are covering up for her. So, I guess she likes her kids being beaten up. They even beat up on her, attacked her, started pulling her hair and throwing her around at the wake for her son Willy. Pretty sure they ran Willy boy off the road to begin with. He was getting mad and ready to talk.
And now, her other son, Jr. Herman, I am told, was hauled off by the US Marshals. Not sure what that is about, and will let you know when I find out. Not that there isn’t a lot he could be arrested for, mind you. He’s a rapist, kidnapper, and has more kiddie porn than you can imagine… but he’s gotten away with it for decades.
Well, he got away with all of that and worse, because the FBI protected him. They can’t afford to have him go to jail because he can trade information on corruption and major crimes out there that will put away not only his family, but several FBI agents and a few other highly placed individuals.
Well, that explains why it wasn’t the FBI that arrested him. I bet that makes a lot of bad guys, both on and OFF the rez, very nervous right now. It should make Junior nervous too. They’ll kill him to stop him from talking to the US Marshals.
It’s kind of like watching dominoes, all artistically lined up, each standing only because the ones next to them have not fallen. They haven’t fallen because that first one hasn’t fallen… but it will. And when it does, they all will come down. There will be rows, and bridges and flips and bumps and jumps, and it will snake around this way and that way, but in the end, they will all fall down. They are too interconnected to each other.
Some of those dominoes think they can jump out of the way if they see that tumbling down begin… but they can’t. Like the shaking of a rattlesnake’s tail, it will come closer and closer until there is nowhere and no way they can get out.
The smart ones have figured out that the only way to save themselves is to turn on the others before they turn on them. There are some that can’t turn, and others that have no way out.
Just like one of those Domino knockdowns that are so entertaining, this one will go places you never thought it could go. It will climb ramps and tag images of people you would never suspect were hidden in those dark places, and they will be revealed.
Bells will ring, alarms to some, and it will go faster and slower… but always falling, falling, falling…
The stress of watching those dominoes down below them fall, knowing they are coming to their door, must be an interesting, metallic flavored fear.
So, what was Jr. Herman hauled off for? And is he the First Domino? How many can he take down with him? How many can those he takes down, affect and make even more fall down?
Clickity-clack, click-a-clack-a, clickityclickity….
When it comes, you will see it, and you will smell the fear of those it’s coming near. Low places, high places, all will be in line, all will be held accountable.
Now that the US Marshals office is paying visits to the bad guys… I expect there will be pushback by the FBI, Purdon and the rest of them. Boy, are they going to be surprised!
You know where to find me,
~Cat
~
October 6, 2014
Murder by Suicide -- Printer Version (6)
It started in Pine Ridge, where she was born to a family that moved her back to the Mother’s rez, Spirit Lake Nation, where things got worse and worse for Talayah Autumn Brown-Ironhawk.
So bad in fact that she was one of the lucky few given rescue by a good and decent Foster Family in Rolla, but it was not enough to repair the damage done, all those years of living with abuse in a system that protects, even shields the abusers, at the cost of young lives, and then praises itself for ‘making progress’.
The news of Talayah’s suicide came right on the heels of the latest chirpy PR piece in the Grand Forks Herald, praising all the ‘changes’, in Tribal Social Services. None of which improved the lives or made more safe, a single child.
Hint: Are there any criminal investigations into the abuse and neglect by Tribal Social Services? No? Then there is no “Progress”, got that? Progress is measured by Justice, not by PR.
She had no idea of how valued, loved and important she was to those who cared. That part of her that could have sensed or believed that, was torn from her, long ago.
Children so badly abused, and then ignored by the system, their abusers protected by that system, don’t recover easily, and some not at all. The government has yet to pursue a single investigation of a single Mandated Report. What chance would there ever be of Justice? What chance that those who abused her, and who abused others, and who continue, to this day, to victimize children, would ever be stopped? None.
Foster Families don’t get the support they are supposed to receive. Many do not even get the monthly stipends to care for the children they home. If they ask questions, they are threatened with removal of those same fragile children, and that keeps many silent, allowing those who abuse and those in the system who protect those abusers, to continue. It also allows for chirpy media pieces, that declare that things are so much better now… nothing to see here… please stop looking…
One part of Pat Springer’s piece in Grand Forks Herald that caught my eye was the over $800K that has been granted to the tribe specifically to ‘deal’ with the issues of rampant child abuse. They plan to hire 3 people with that. Most be a hefty salary for each of them, eh? Or more likely, that money will disappear just as all the money before it, and all the trust fund monies that were set up for the children in care, and the IIM funds … all taken by those who have the power to take for themselves, and who never are investigated because anyone that complains loses even more, suffers even greater.
There needs to be Justice. Not PR, not throwing more money down the same corrupt toilet as before as if it will ‘maybe be better this time’.
Justice is the only disincentive to corruption. But corruption pays so well! And it gathers so many political allies! It becomes so easy!
When the mother of a 12-year old girl prostitutes her out to drug dealers in order that she can obtain a dime bag, and to another so she can buy some more drugs, and to another so she can go gambling… what do you think that does to the psyche of a child? How does it affect her siblings? It happens to all of them.
How does that child grow into an adult and what do they become? And that child reports the abuse and that child is then punished for reporting the abuse by the very people in the system that are supposed to protect that child--- what does that world look like?
One of her pallbearers, I’m sure he will weep, is a bootlegger who sells booze out of his basement, and whatever else can turn a profit, what does that tell us? “Children Are Sacred”?
You bet that family has already collected all their funeral money. She may be dead, but that 16-yr Old child had yet another profit to turn for that family of hers. A family that created her nightmares, from which even a caring Foster Home could never fully retrieve her.
Her nightmares, like so many other children’s horrors, began on SLN, and even though she suicided in Rolla, it was the ongoing injustice for her, and hundreds like her, in SLN and in the State and Federal Agencies that support that corruption, that killed her. Let’s just call it “Murder by Suicide”, because really, that is what it is.
The Value of Survival
Everyday, every night, children going through this, with no chance of rescue, much less Justice, are contemplating the very same thing. As young as eight-years old, a little girl, committed suicide on that rez a little more than 10 yrs ago. The youngest attempt I ever heard of was a three-year old who missed his brother, who suicided at the age of 9.
So, you see why I am not impressed when I see these puff pastry pieces that essentially just recite what they are told by the very people who are making life a living hell for the children of Spirit Lake, and for those who try to rescue them, or who seek Justice for them, against their abusers.
There are some very brave people in Spirit Lake. They are abandoned by the agencies and the system that are supposed to enforce the laws and protect them, but they keep fighting. I can tell you this much for absolutely certain: Some of the best, the bravest and the strongest people I have ever met or heard from, come from that rez, and reservations just like it. They’ll tell you the Truth if you let them.
It’s not the tribe that’s hurting these children, it’s the corruption that allows these tribes to be ruled over and run over, by the most corrupt, the most evil in their midst.
We need more survivors. Like those who survived the generations of abuse at Residential Schools, where the combined power and influence of the Federal Government and the GOD those priests and nuns supposedly worshipped, stripped every child from their home, and then took their dignity, their sense of safety, their identity of who they were in this world, and replaced it with a self-loathing, sexual abuse, beatings & berating that alienated them from their families, their own children later on, and themselves overall… there were survivors of that. They had miserable lives and many became abusive themselves, but they survived and they told their stories. They tell their stories in rehab, recovery, and sometimes, to the person sitting next to them on a long train ride across the country.
They told their stories over and over again. History books omitted those parts when they educated our nation, for generations, leaving the Indian Man, Woman and Child as an enigma, and their social degeneration, their violence, their suffering, unexplainable and misunderstood, even to this day, by the nation as a whole.
But they keep telling their stories, and the stories keep being retold and the Truth gets out, despite every effort to smother it by those who prospered and profited from it then, and now, as the families who built their fortunes and political power bases on all that they stole from Indian People, and the rest of us, for generations.
And while that story gets told, by survivors, and that hard curtain that divides us by race, begins to fray and melt away, as we see more and more our Brothers and Sisters, with hopes and dreams like our own, we begin to understand.
With that understanding comes the awareness of what is ongoing, and what must be stopped. For the outrages of the past are screaming at us today through the suicides and murders by suicides of young people, unable to take another step forward. It glares at us from the eyes of the addicted, the blank stares of those we pass on the street with no idea how they make it through each day.
We don’t want to know. It would break our hearts and it would raise up in our nation an anger so hot at our government that we would act to change how it is now, because it is too late to change how it was then. Our anger would drive us to demand justice, for the survivors and for those who could not take another step forward.
The more who survive, the more chance we have to hear the stories and to demand Justice. But we need survivors, as many as can make it, to keep the Truth alive and to tell their story, and to show us their scars, their un-healing wounds that we can see more clearly who and what it is that drives the wheels of power in this nation. What we abide by our ignorance of what really happened & what keeps happening.
There will be resistance to the stories. We won’t want to believe. We will seek out and choose to only believe those chirpy pieces that declare it’s so much better now… but keep telling your story and tell the stories of others that you know who have told their stories to you and it will seep into the light, despite those who would smother it before anyone ever saw it or heard it.
It will be believed by those who know the truth when they hear it, and who will pick it up and carry it with you.
Keep beating your drum and you will hear the sound of other drums beating. And then more drums and more drums… That drum is your heart and it must keep beating. It must keep beating because somewhere out there, another drummer is drumming and hoping to hear they are not alone. Only you can provide that for them. Your drum has to be heard. It must keep beating, or their drum will quit beating for the silence in return.
We who fight this fight are not doing it out of “hope”. We are doing this out of the sure and certain knowledge that these wrongs must be told; they must be told by us and by those who lived through them.
For the most part, media will ignore you, or try to counter with puffy, chirpy pieces of pabulum designed to appease the corrupt and those who prefer the lies & denials to the truth, but you will know your story is powerful because if your story was not threatening to them, they would not bother trying to paint over it with cheery nonsense, like bandages that don’t stick, & have to keep being re-applied.
The Truth has a way of piercing through the lies regardless of how many generations deep those lies go. The Truth never changes. Lies must constantly maneuver, change and try to get in front of you. The Truth just is, and eventually, when the lies crumble at the intersections of their contradictions, and the minions of darkness and their allies scramble to reassemble around it, you will glimpse that shining, piercing clear as a bell Truth, and so will others.
The more you see it, the more it can’t be hidden from you. The more people who see it and know it, the more glaringly obvious it becomes until everything they throw at it just slides off and rolls away.
I cannot promise you Justice in my lifetime or even in yours, but I can promise you this: Survive as long as you can, as best as you can, and your story will become a part of that truth that rises out of the fog that surrounds and occludes from view of the nation, and it will get bigger and stronger for your surviving, and it will be seen, it will become known and there will be a turning of the stone that will undo the entirety of corruption that has planted itself in the heart of Indian Country.
When corruption is exposed and justice is pursued in Indian Country, there will be a domino effect of corruption failing everywhere in this nation, because once the mechanisms by which they have prospered and profited in Indian Country are exposed, they will be exposed everywhere.
If there can be Justice in Indian Country, there can be Justice throughout the land. If we can take down the corrupt where they are the most obvious, we can take it down everywhere.
If we fail to address it directly in Indian Country, where it is the most obvious, the most blatant and the most damaging, if we tolerate it there as if it is not affecting us, then we can only expect it will get worse for those in Indian Country, and for those who think it only happens in Indian Country. Nothing will change anywhere until it changes in Indian Country, where it began, and where it’s roots are the deepest and where it generates the poisonous tree.
As long as we tolerate Murder by Suicide, and think there is nothing we can do to prevent the next one, nothing will change.
Many are becoming pro active. Many are becoming more politically aware and politically active. That helps. It helps a lot. This monster has to be dismantled politically and agency-by-agency, brick-by-brick, puppet-by-puppet.
Those who have stolen the wealth of nations, continue to steal from us all. The way we know it is still going on is by the ongoing damage being done in Indian Country, where the corrupt are even placed in State and Federal Agencies, to keep the corruption in place, while appearing to be ‘dealing with’ the ‘issues’.
Nothing is being dealt with, nothing is being solved until you see them pursuing criminal prosecutions of the corrupt. Not just the abusers, whom we see show up in court when the murder of children in their care becomes public knowledge, but the corrupt who placed those children there, ignored the 960’s, dismissed the disclosures of children, and who never bothered to investigate the rapes of children reported to them.
You have a USAG in Timothy Purdon who literally said that “…there are two sides to every rape story”, when confronted about the rape of a 13-yr old girl by her mother’s 38-year old boyfriend. The boyfriend never investigated (because he said she wanted it) and the girl taken to an institution as punishment for speaking out. Keep in mind, the rapist never denied raping the girl, but said it was consensual and that’s good enough for Tim Purdon!
Would it be good enough for you--- If it was your child? Or are we to expect that Indian Children are okay with rape and abuse?
We have to become more aware.
We need a greater and greater awakening. We need to listen to those beating drums, over there, through that curtain of fog. We need to go and listen to them, and pick up a drum of our own and start beating in their cadence, to let them know they are being heard.
I think just being heard is more than most of these kids expect right now. We must do more than just hear. We must speak out for them, with them, on their behalf.
And we need those who have survived, to give strength to others so that they will survive. They need to drown the air with their drums beating so that no one will be able to ignore them any longer. It will save them. It will save us all.
It is our children and grandchildren who will inherit from us a society of corruption or a society of Justice. The awakening begins, the journey starts, and we cannot rest in this lifetime until we have taken this as far as we can.
And for those who have fallen, those who have succumbed to the damage done, we must reach out to where they fell, pick up their drum, and carry it for them. In that Great Circle where we are all judged for what we have done in this life, let us hear the drums!
To those who have profited and prospered from this evil, all this time, and who continue to harass, attack and try to silence those who speak the Truth, we see your fear in your desperation.
You fear the Truth, and the Truth cannot be killed. Do what you will, in the end, the Truth will pierce you and reveal you to generations past and present, and you shall be lost to this world and the next. Evil and greed need only those who will keep their secrets, to thrive. Your secrets will all be revealed. All. Be. Revealed.
Those you have struck, those you have wounded, those you have damaged, will all rise up, whole and strong, to defy you.
That is what the opposition fears. They fear the Survivors. They fear the Truth.
Somewhere, a wheel is turning. It’s a very big wheel so it takes a lot to get it to move, but once it starts moving, it cannot be stopped. I sense that wheel is turning. So do the bad guys. And they fear it.
Survivors: Beat your drums, sing your songs and know that you are Precious to that Great Circle, and you are needed here, to turn that wheel. Every time the truth is told, the wheel turns. We are, when we unite together, more powerful than all that is evil, corrupt and hateful.
They are afraid that we will awaken to that. They want us to go back to sleep enveloped in that fog… We’re here to make you restless, and unable to return to the comfort of that mist, regardless of how they try to woo you back from their shadowy corners, hoping you won’t see them or sense what they are doing. They’re afraid that if your eyes open, you’ll see them as they are.
Stay Restless.
You know where to find me.
~Cat