Here is the short article in the Atlantic. Here is the Rapid City Journal news article detailing the visit to Pine Ridge, which came at Judge Karen Schreier’s invitation and included a visit to Red Cloud Indian School. Chi-miigwetch to everyone who sent it along.
Mr. Cohen offered three questions he would have asked Justice Alito at Pine Ridge if he could have gone. One on Arvo Mikkanen’s nomination; one on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Jicarilla; and one on Factbound and Splitless. He has previously written on all three issues: The Mikkanen nomination here and here; the Jicarilla case here; and Factbound and Splitless here.
Justice Alito and the Majority have crossed the line, and have brought the court to the brink the precipice towards which it has steadily approached since the Oliphant Decision and its prodgeny. What comes next after endorsement of a principle of law by which the United States may dissipate and eventually complete the destruction of the “corpus” of the trust though mismanagment and outright fraud and theft? Can the United States now put the American Indians unders such living conditions by which the complete destruction of the trust corpus facilitates the eventual disappearance of the benficiaries of the trust? Is the Court articulating that the purpose of American Indian Policy is the eventual destruction or dissipation of Indian Country and the eventual destruction of Native Americans by attrition? Is this acceptable to the International Community?
Kudos, Matthew, on the attention to your fine article!