“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

The time between events, collective narrative created and new revelations challenging the official narrative keep getting shorter. This could be an interesting year.

Push to destroy Native American agreements with the Government has always been assisted by private individuals. Past conflicts have included settlers moving onto into Indian territory or miners looking for gold. Any conflict created the perfect excuse to send the cavalry and extract new concessions. Today lawsuits moving forward to the Supreme Court is the path to change the rules.

Betting, adoption lawsuits pose greatest threat to tribes in decades, experts say The Oregonian Jan 1, 2022

A lawsuit in Washington state and another case before the U.S. Supreme Court are part of a coordinated campaign that experts say is pushing once-fringe legal theories to the nation’s highest court and represents the most serious challenge to tribal sovereignty in over 50 years.
...
The two cases share a set of underlying arguments based on the idea that federal laws that outline the U.S. government’s obligations to Indigenous nations, including the Indian Child Welfare Act and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Those bringing the cases argue that such laws are racially discriminatory — against non-Indigenous people.

The political status of tribal nations is laid out in the Constitution and affirmed by hundreds of years of legal precedent. The U.S. government had to negotiate and, in nearly 400 cases, sign treaties with Native American tribes because of their political, cultural and military strength. Just as the federal government honors the treaties it has signed with France or Germany, it’s bound by those it has agreed to with sovereign Indigenous nations.
...
In the Termination Era beginning in the 1950s, the federal government enacted policies based on a viewpoint similar to the one espoused by CERA and Marcussen: that Indigenous people should assimilate into American society and give up their Indigenous identities, and that the rights negotiated in treaties and codified in federal laws were preventing them from doing so.

Congress quickly passed 46 laws terminating 109 tribes around the United States, including 62 in Oregon — more than any other state.

The result was disastrous for Native Americans.

Termination unilaterally dissolved tribal membership and ended the U.S. government’s obligations toward terminated tribes, including the services guaranteed in treaties in exchange for land. Termination policies also allowed the government to seize millions of acres of tribal lands rich with minerals and timber.
...
Lewerenz said both cases could result in rulings that cast tribes as “merely private associations of people with a common racial ancestry.”

“If that happens,” Lewerenz said, “then it’s hard to understand why they would have any governing power, any political power.”

Nagle said that power flows from tribes’ unique position as sovereign nations that predate the United States.

“What racial group in the United States has its own land?” she asked. “Its own water rights and environmental regulations? Its own police force, its own elections, its own government?”

Tribes fear they stand to lose almost everything: their right to self-governance, the resources to preserve their culture and traditions, and the main economic engine that provides for basic tribal services.

But for those with interests in the private casino industry, such a change could be a boon. The same goes for corporations looking to develop oil and gas leases without interference from Indigenous nations, whose right to co-manage the lands they stewarded for millennia is increasingly recognized by the federal government.

Makes one wonder what policies are happening now which will mature into a hot conflict in 30 years.

The first US onslaught to ‘weaken’ post-Cold War Russia Asia Times January 8, 2022

The first post-Cold War assault on Russia by the West began in the early 1990s well before the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It took the form of a US-induced economic depression in Russia that was deeper and more disastrous than the Great Depression that devastated the US in the 1930s.
...
It is immediately clear that Poland went through a brief downturn lasting two years but recovered quickly, unlike Russia, which continued in a slump for 16 years. Why the difference between the two?

A big part of the answer is provided by Jeffrey Sachs, who was in the forefront of advisers for the transitions in both countries and hence is a man who knows whereof he speaks. As Sachs put it in an interview here on Democracy Now, he was present during a “controlled experiment” where he could observe what led to such different outcomes. He says:

“I had a controlled experiment, because I was economic adviser both to Poland and to the Soviet Union in the last year of president [Mikhail] Gorbachev and to president [Boris] Yeltsin in the first two years of Russian independence, 1992, ’93.
...
“Well, interestingly, in the case of Poland, I made a series of very specific recommendations, and they were all accepted by the US government – creating a stabilization fund, canceling part of Poland’s debts, allowing many financial maneuvers to get Poland out of the difficulty. And, you know, I patted myself on the back. ‘Oh, look at this!’

“I make a recommendation, and one of them, for a billion dollars, stabilization fund, was accepted within eight hours by the White House. So, I thought, ‘Pretty good.’“Then came the analogous appeal on behalf of, first, Gorbachev, in the final days, and then president Yeltsin. Everything I recommended, which was on the same basis of economic dynamics, was rejected flat out by the White House.

Qatar has room for improvement on influencing others.

Bribe Back Better: How Qatar Can Buy EU Officials For Fun & Profit Without Police Interference Zero Hedge Jan 20, 2023

Offer ‘side jobs’ for EU MEPs and officials

Qatar also needs to understand that politicians do not need millions in bribe money to do the country’s bidding.
...
Sometimes it is too difficult to hand officials money outright. Instead, NGOs end up contracting with a media worker for a whole month and spend around €10,000 paying that person’s bills instead of directly paying the journalist a fee or salary.
...
Although this example applies to journalists, with politicians and officials, you can go much farther, such as a spoken or outspoken promise of a well-paid “honorary” board position at an NGO or corporation, often after they leave their position. Paid speeches are also a very lucrative option, one which U.S. politicians have made tens of millions. The revolving door between the corporate, non-profit, and political world is the status quo in the Western world, and especially in Brussels and Washington.
...
Qatar can overcome its poor image
...
The formula is there. The country just needs to spend the money, build the NGO and media networks, and work within the system.
...
Be careful who you bribe

If Qatar cannot be bothered with the whole NGO network and legal bribery and wants to continue down the path of illegal bribery, it is important the country picks the right people to work with.

So, we get a little more time before the Pacific ocean is hit with a fresh dose of radioactive waste.

Japan eyes delay of Fukushima plant water release Taiwan News January 13, 2023

Japan has revised the timing of a planned release to the sea of treated but still radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima nuclear power plant to “around spring or summer,” indicating a delay from the initial target of this spring, after factoring in the progress of a release tunnel and the need to gain public support.

The government and the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, announced in April 2021 a plan to begin releasing the treated wastewater into the sea starting in spring 2023. They say more than 1 million tons of water stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant are hampering its decommissioning and risk leaking in the event of a major earthquake or tsunami.
...
The release plan has been fiercely opposed by fishermen, local residents and Japan’s neighbors, including China and South Korea. Fukushima residents worry the reputation of their agricultural and fishing products will be further damaged.

Most of the radioactivity is removed from the water during treatment, but tritium cannot be removed and low levels of some other radionuclides also remain. The government and TEPCO say the environmental and health impacts will be negligible as the water will be slowly released after further treatment and dilution by large amounts of seawater.

Some scientists say the impact of long-term, low-dose exposure to tritium and other radionuclides on the environment and humans is still unknown and the release plan should be delayed. They say tritium affects humans more when it is consumed in fish.

What is on your mind today?