Enjoy your flowers….mine might be up by May!!

Moesie

Quebecois at 196

What a sad/lovely story and I wish you the best in your recovery.

Thanks Dipper,

There is still oodles of pain in my life, it is what it is. I’m going forward, and it looks like I’ll be able to pedal again. Overall, it is not a sad story, I grew, I healed, I pardonned, I learned. I’m not as strong as before, pain takes an awful toll on one. But, I’m smiling, and I found this place when Libby’s trial started, another reason to smile.

For some background height, I put a tall pyramid of wires and put in scarlet bean runners in big pots. When I get back to the States, I’ll find what I put in that gave beautiful purple blossoms and long brilliant purple beans. And for me, I love heavenly blue morning glories, but there are also some other absolutely beautiful morning glories. I tie light wooden trellises to my pole bird feeders (since I don’t feed the birds in summer) and have morning glories in the summer where I had birds in the winter.

The backend of container gardens for me is the constant watering and the deadheading, but not a big price to pay for the splash of color by my front door.

ccmask @ 239

Those potatos above are peeled, no peeed. Now my “L’s are going on my keyboard….

I wondered. Because the recipe sounded good, except for the part about peeing on the potatoes, which didn’t sound so tasty.

Oh, ceter, that was LOL funny. I swear–this is a great dish because the potatoes brown and the juices from the sausages really keep it moist. About 1/2 way through you mix it a up. Just cook it until the potatoes are brown, sometimes an hour & a half.

Rayne@148 says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 pm

“kirk murphy @ 91
Judge – please uphold the rule of law and reject this plea agreement.”

Oh, you are so on the money here.

Of the Gonzales 8, 7 of the affected districts had Native American constituents:
CA — Agua Tiqua Caliente, Cahuilla, Paiute et al
NM — Apache, Comanche, Navaho, Pueblo et al
AZ — Apache, Hopi, Navaho et al
MI — Chippewa, Ottawa, Potawatomi et al
MN — Chippewa, Dakota, Ottawa et al
WA — Yakima, Nez Perce et al

(AR does not currently have a formally recognized tribe, although there is a tribe seeking status)

A substantive number of these tribes’ lands were designated as “energy corridor” under FERC’s proposed plan. A Patriot Act clause overrides the sovereignty of the tribes when it comes to protecting energy resources, permitting access to the resources in case of an emergency (will have to find the exact wording).

The problem of missing royalties owed the Native American trust has been a problem for more than 170 years — but it has gotten markedly worse under the Bush administration, now outright theft.

At what point do the Native Americans unite and take action — or is this part of what USA’s have been discouraged from doing, with members of the USAG’s Native American Issues Subcommittee kept from another meeting with tribal law enforcement leaders by their dismissals?

Great pick-up by Hotflash at 64:

The “ethics” DOI official set to watch former mining/timber industry lobbyist Griles came from the personal retinue of former mining/timber/energy lobbyist DOI Sec Gale Norton.

HotFlash@64 says:
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm

And Sue Ellen W was Gale Norton’s assistant before she got a recess appointment to be solicitor for the Dept of Interior.

This is a bio of her from the CA bar magazine, fairly laudatory. Anyone recognize the CA names?

kirk murphy@162

Hey pups -

The Wampum articles quoted above refer to suits by individual plaintiffs (aka the Cobell* case) against the US Govt for royalty payments.

The suit has gone on so long that the defendant (sitting Sec of Interior) keeps changing….

In January, individual tribes filed a new Indian Trust claims case. More from Wampum.

A brand-spanking new Indian Trust Fund Case

Just in time for Cobell v. Kempthorne (was Norton, was Babbitt) to blow the lid (with help from the Democratic Congress?) off of a century of theft and corruption regarding natural resource industries royalty payments, there’s a new lawsuit in town. Only this time, it’s tribal accounts, versus “individual” ones:

Tribes sue feds, alleging poor trust fund management
09:49 PM PST on Thursday, January 11, 2007
Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho – Nearly a dozen Indian tribes, including the Nez Perce of Idaho, have filed suit against the federal government, asking it to account for billions of dollars held in tribal trusts.

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the government’s handling of American Indian trust money, which tribal representatives contend has been shoddy and inadequate.

The Native American Rights Fund, a Boulder, Colo.-based nonprofit law firm, is seeking to represent about 240 tribal governments that have trust accounts with the United States. The firm says the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the accounts, has failed to provide a complete accounting despite several congressional orders.

The government holds about 1,600 trust fund accounts for more than 300 tribes. Their total worth is estimated at about $3 billion.

But the real issue here is buried way down in the AP article, in coverage of the earlier and ongoing litigation over the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trusts:

The latest lawsuit joins another claim alleging mismanagement of Indian trust funds. In that case, Blackfeet Indian Elouise Cobell, of Blackfoot, Mont., sued the government in 1996 over what she said was its mismanagement of hundreds of thousands of accounts held on behalf of individual Indians, containing more than $100 billion.

That suit is on hold while the Indians fight an appellate court decision to remove a federal judge from their case. The government has said it is too expensive to piece together from its records how much the Indian accounts are actually worth, and has proposed an $8 billion settlement.

The “expense” for the Bush Administration and the GOP would be overwhelmingly political, as the only way, at this juncunture, to get the most accurate accounting would be to have industry open their books. However, as we’ve seen in recent months in the scandal exploding at the Mineral Management Services, that would expose the decades of underpayment of royalties by the oil, gas, mining and forestry industries for their leases on Indian land. A full accounting a potential liability of tens, if not hundreds of billions in underpayments (and nonpayments) by the financial backers of mostly Republican political interests in this country. The fallout would be catyclismic.

With all the Trust-related news pouring out in the last few days, I have lots to write about. First I need to follow a few new leads…

[H/T to Indianz.com on the Tribal Trust Accounts litigation.]

[Bolding mine - kjm.

Indianz is the other website I’ve relied on to learn about the Indian Trust scandals. They have numerous links to the Cobell case and Abramoff’s crimes.]

Abramoff Bodies Rapidly Buried

Comment 92
Hey pups -

If anyone can help me describe this succintly, please pitch in.

This “motive-line” goes right to the center of the big winner in DOJ’s Get Out Of Jail gift to Griles – Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Mining. Cheney’s pals.

Outline

I) Energy/mining used Native American lands held in “trust” by the Department of Interior, and extracted oil/gas/coal/minerals.

II) The extractors using Indian lands were obligated to pay royalties to the individuals and/or tribes they took the goodies from.

III) The extractors and Bureau of Indian Affairs/DOI all fucked over the Indians, didn’t keep records of what they took from tribal lands, made token payments, and kept the vast majority of the royalties for the oil/gas/mining co’s.

IV) Native Americans sued DOI/extractors about the royalties, and the result is mammoth. A huge litigiation was consolidated under a Federal Judge who threatened the DOI secrectaries with prison for contempt of court – they kept “losing” the data required to figure royalties.

Even Gonzales admits the bill could be $200 billion. That’s why a real bill of a trillion – all payable by Cheney’s pals in big Energy/Mining – is possible, once interest and penalties are assessed.

That – and the conspiracy to conceal it – is what the Griles plea deal will hide.

V) Kyle Sampson – that’s right, the Same Kyle who purged the USA’s – was White House Counsel in 2002. He, Griles, and Dale Norton tried to compel the Special Trustee for Indian Affairs to give false testimony to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

When the Trustee testified before Congress in person and honestly, Griles and Sampson had him fired:

In July, 2002, Special Trustee for American Indians Tom Slonaker (a Clinton appointee held over by Bush) testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (chaired then by Sen. Inouye) that the Interior Department’s handling of the Individual Indian trusts was pretty much as fucked fouled up as it had ever been, despite a federal court order that a “full accounting” take place. Slonaker had submitted his proposed testimony to his Interior superiors, namely Dep. Sec. J. Steven Griles and Gale Norton, who summarily demanded that he change most of it. Two Justice Department attorneys as well as Kyle Sampson, White House advisor to the President, also called Slonaker and demanded he change his testimony.

Slonaker did not submit his statement, but testified in person, saying that an accounting as Norton et al. were proposing would not meet the Court’s requirement. After he appeared before SIAC, Slonaker was fired. Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in TAP, asserted at the time Sampson was involved, “Slonaker claims he was forced out, and sources close to the case say Griles and White House counsel Kyle Sampson barred Slonaker from telling the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that the Interior Department was unable to live up to its trust responsibility because documents had been destroyed.”

Pete Dominici was at that SIAC hearing, as was Orin Hatch, for whom Sampson was a top aide before being placed at the White House. Sampson used twork for Parr, Waddoups, Brown, Gee & Loveless, many of whose clients are leasors of federal and Indian land, thus potentially affected by Slonaker’s testimony, i.e., if the government doesn’t have the docs for a complete accounting, then they need to get that info from the lessors.

I know it’s complicated, but I’ve argued for years that Interior and DoJ were in collusion to try and subvert the Court’s order on a full accounting, as it could cost the government and/or the resource extraction industries many billions (Gonzales testified recently that it could be upwards of $200 billion – that was just before he and Kempthorne offered a paltry $7 billion to settle all the cases.)

[wampum]

VI) The beneficiaries of Griles’ initial crimes will further benefit from plea bargains failing to compel Griles’ co-operation with future criminal invetigations.

The beneficiaries – oil, gas, and mining megacorps – work through the Office of the Vice President and Office of the President to direct the DOJ’s active participation in obstruction of justice.

The beneficiaries of Griles’ intial crimes appear to be engaged in an active conspiracy to deceive the court regarding their own complicity, and the DOJ’s plea agreement with Griles is an instument in that conspiracy.

The DOJ’s plea bargain for Griles only requires a Federal Judge’s approval to allow the DOJ to further conceal a pattern obstruction of justice and witness tampering in which Griles was an active participant along with the DOJ.

VII) Judge – please uphold the rule of law and reject this plea agreement.

A perennial, so they’ll come back every year. The clumps spread, but not invasive. Long blooming season for a perennial, and they last a long time as cut flowers. Let some flowers develop seed heads and you’ll have goldfinches picking at them. There’s nothing more cheerful than a plot full of bright Susans! If you see the foliage wilting, a good watering will perk them right up.