Wampum

Remove the judge.

Even if that judge was appointed by none other than the Great Conservative Father, Ronald Reagan.

Even if that judge was an icon for Clinton-hating conservatives during the '90s, as he hammer the President and his Administration time and again.

Even if that judge presided over your beloved FISA court for seven years, including the period around 9/11.

Why? Because his actions may just impinge a bit too much on your corporate owners:

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth has raised many an eyebrow with his adjective-laden opinions in the case of the thousands of American Indians suing the government for mismanaging billions of their dollars.

Yesterday, an appeals court panel was asked to decide whether his rulings show he is too biased to continue with the 10-year-old lawsuit.

"It is exceptionally rare for us to make this request we are making today, and we make it urgently," Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler said, arguing that Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, should be removed from the case to "restore the appearance of fairness."

Observers of the Indian trust case -- Cobell v. Norton -- have said that after hearing years of arguments about the more than $100 billion in oil, gas, timber and other royalties Indians say the government mishandled since 1887, Lamberth's frustration with the Interior Department is showing through.

But government lawyers assert he has gone far beyond that. Yesterday, they said he has unacceptably charged the Interior Department with racism and that his opinions show he can no longer be objective.

The Administration initially sought to have Lamberth removed last year, after he ordered the overly hostile and recallitrant Norton Interior Department to inform tribal trustees that they were being misled, once again, in correspondence from BIA that they could lose their rights if they didn't act accordingly.

Attorneys for the Indians said that Lamberth was not accusing the present-day Interior Department of racism. They said there is plenty of evidence that the government has repeatedly blocked Indians' efforts to get an accurate accounting of what they are owed.

If the appeals court removes Lamberth, "It will send a very clear message to the government that all their malfeasance . . . is exonerated," said Keith Harper, an attorney for the Indian plaintiffs.

It's important to note that Lamberth has already ruled that the Department of Interior owes the tribal Trustees an accurate accounting of their funds. Interior, having audited a fraction of Trust records, and only those from the past 30 years, now argue that the amounts owed to tribes are in the low millions, not the many billions the tribes have calculated (the Trust goes back over 120 years, and thousands of documents have been lost or purposedly destroyed, including under Norton.) If the Administration suceeds in having Lamberth removed, the chance that the Trustees will ever get an accurate accounting is close to nil.