Wampum

A friend popped three sheets of paper out my fax yesterday. Recall William Meyers, in the costumed role of Solliciter for the Department of the Interior of the United States of America, with purview over all BLM, Monument, and Park lands, but not Forest lands, and all Indians and the Governments and territorialites of all Federally Recognized Indian Tribes, as well as all water (the real currency of the west) under Federal control, opined that a marginal (450 tons of rock per troy ounce of gold) extraction operation, using subsidized water to deliver wicked toxic cyanide to the emponded "leach heap", may, without penalties, seize or destroy any and all artifacts of human origin, including human remains, associated burial goods, and lithographic sites, regardless of prior findings of fact that the artifacts are culturally significant, or findings of law that the human remains and associated burial goods are protected by NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

• letter from Herman A. Williams, Jr., Chairman, Board of Directors, The Tualalip Tribes (the sucessors in interest to the Snohomish, Snoqualmie and Skykomish tribes and other tribes and band signatory to the Treaty of Point Eliot, WA) to Senators Hatch and Leahy. We find that Meyers has a balanced record to defend the interest of Native Americans.
• letter from John L. Berry, Chairman, Quapaw Tribe (OK) to Senators Hatch and Leahy. He has a long history as a public servant; he was a former aide to Senator Alan Simpson, and practiced law in Boise, Idaho for twenty years before joining Interior in 2001 as Solicitor. His writings, public statements and legal work also reveal his sharp legal mind. Mr. Meyers appears to be a qualified choice for this court.
• letter from Bill Anoatubby, Governor, The Chickasaw Nation (OK) to Senators Hatch and Leahy. Based upon [his] work as solicitor in the DOI, we know him to be fair and impartial. He listened to our concerns and acted upon them. He is extremely well-qualified to fill the post in the 9th Circuit and has demonstrated his ability to listen and to reason. We believe Mr. Meyers will be an asset to the Court.

Pretty strong stuff neh? Except that Chairman Williams didn't disclose that the Tualalips have been represented by the firm Holland and Hart (Colorado), which employed Williams in their Idaho office. Why Quapaw Chairman Berry or Chickaswa Governor Anoatubby went to the bother of writing, contrary to the high profile opposition to his nomination ABQ-03-061(pdf)by the National Congress of American Indians is something I don't know yet. I recommend reading the NCAI text, which the link above provides, its just a few pages, and the gist of it is that Meyers ignores the law, which requires Federal-Tribal consultations, not opening the DOI Consultative door to Tualalips, Quapaw and Chickasaw Tribes, not to mention Glamis Gold, Ltd. (trading symbol GLG), and slamming the DOI Consultative door on every other Tribe. There is nothing more fundamental in the Federal-Tribal relationship, which is why Richard Nixon would have had the Germans, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, escort DOI Solliciter Meyers out to Indian Pass and staked him out over an ant hill.

If there was any overarching point that Geoff Garin (Hart Research) provided in the conference call for "grassroots/grasstops leaders in key states and to the DC grassroots/field staff of those respective organizations", which we were invited to earlier this month, it was that the most effective message about a nominee, as measured by the Hart poll, was specific dirt.

We've pulled together specific dirt on Meyers and Griffith. I've no idea what the Fair Court Coalition are going to run with today. I lost interest rapidly when the nice person at the Maine Women's Policy Center said they were going with the local clique.