The Onion: Ninth Circuit Judge Reinhardt Cancels Christmas

Here.

NYTs (Liptak) on SCT Cert Petition involving Cherokee ICWA Case

Here.

New Scholarship on Anishinaabe Law and Diplomacy

Joseph Bauerkemper and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark have published “The Trans/National Terrain of Anishinaabe Law and Diplomacy” in the Journal of Trans/National American Studies.

Other papers in the same issue include:

SPECIAL FORUM: Charting Transnational Native American Studies: Aesthetics, Politics, Identity

Charting Transnational Native American Studies
Huang, Hsinya; Deloria, Philip J.; Furlan, Laura M.; Gamber, John

A Transnational Native American Studies? Why Not Studies That Are Trans-Indigenous?
Allen, Chadwick

Alone on the Snow, Alone on the Beach: “A Global Sense of Place” in Atanarjuat and Fountain
Horton, Jessica L.

“¡Todos Somos Indios!” Revolutionary Imagination, Alternative Modernity, and Transnational Organizing in the Work of Silko, Tamez, and Anzaldúa
Adamson, Joni

“The Simple Truth about Gun Control”

Here.

An excerpt:

“Five thousand seven hundred and forty children and teens died from gunfire in the United States, just in 2008 and 2009.”

“Why Gun ‘Control’ Is Not Enough”

Here.

An excerpt:

One would think that if widespread gun ownership had the robust deterrent effects that gun advocates claim it has, our country would be freer of crime than other developed societies.  But it’s not.  When most citizens are armed, as they were in the Wild West, crime doesn’t cease.  Instead, criminals work to be better armed, more efficient in their use of guns (“quicker on the draw”), and readier to use them.  When this happens, those who get guns may be safer than they would be without them, but those without them become progressively more vulnerable.

Looking back at the 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference

From the White House and Interior blogs:

Transcript available here.

Click here for some photos from the opening and closing sessions, as well as some photos from the breakout sessions held with tribal leaders.

Download Video [Right-Click and Select “Save As”]

Sens. Akaka and Murkowski Speeches on Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act

Check pages 17-19 of this pdf:

CREC-2012-12-20-pt1-PgS8251-2

Lots Going on in Senate Yesterday, According to Belt Way Indian

Here and here and just generally here.

Federal Court Orders Exhaustion of Tribal Remedies in Shoshone-Bannock Zoning Case

Here are the materials in Evans v. Shoshone-Bannock Land Use Policy Commission (D. Idaho):

Dkt 20-1 Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss (00049369)[1].PDF[1][1]

Evans Opposition

Evans Motion for PI

Dkt 49 – Response to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction (00049977)[1][2][1]

Memorandum Decision & Order[2][2]

From Mark Echo-Hawk, atty for the Tribes:

The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes earned a winning decision in a hard-fought battle in the Idaho District Court today. The case was about exhaustion of tribal court remedies. The specific issue was whether the Tribes could enforce their land use laws against a non-Indian who built a single family residence on fee owned land on the Fort Hall Reservation. The Tribes attempted to enforce their building permit and business licensing laws against the builder and his contractors and when their efforts were ignored the Tribes filed suit in tribal court. The non-Indian landowner and contractors (backed by the surrounding county and non-Indian businesses) sued in federal court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The Tribes filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that exhaustion of tribal court remedies was required. The non-Indian landowner and contractors argued the Reservation was ‘open’, or diminished, and that the tribes initiated the suit in bad faith. The case came down to whether it was plausible that tribal jurisdiction existed under Montana’s second exception. The federal district court found that the Reservation area in question was not open, that jurisdiction was plausible, and granted the tribes’ motion to dismiss, requiring exhaustion of tribal court remedies. Significantly, the Court confined the ‘catastrophic’ consequences language in Plains Commerce Bank relating to Montana’s second exception to land sale cases and distinguished the analysis required for land use cases. Here is the Court’s decision and the Tribes’ supporting briefing: (attached). The Tribes have been fighting with Power County for years about land use jurisdiction. There aren’t many favorable exhaustion cases that focus on Montana’s second exception, so this may be helpful to other Tribes.

WaPo: House Republicans Protecting Rapists and Murderers by Killing VAWA

Here.