A single scandalous fish in a river full of crimes.

The other day I was speaking with someone about this latest raft of Bush Administration scandals, specifically the attorney firings, when I had an unusual realization. I mentioned in passing something about the "day-to-day pattern of criminal behavior" those brigands in the White House are exercising.

"What do you mean?" said my friend.

And that's when I realized that even at this advanced date, few people have seen what I saw. Though many of us have been reading about the crimes of the White House in the murky (but better and more honestly reported) depths of the alternative media, few people have actually seen what I mean by a day-to-day pattern of criminal behavior.

Those attorney firings? They're not concealing a single crime, or a few crimes. Those firings are designed to cover up a criminal assault upon our nation the likes of which I have never seen before nor ever studied about, though I spent the better part of a decade researching government-sanctioned crimes in the field of Indian Affairs. I'm talking about crimes committed every single day, some large, some small, all of them affronts to our national dignity and a disgrace to our country's name.

About this time of year on the Potomac River, the shad run through Washington, DC to spawn--millions of 'em, so many that you can simply dip a net in the water and pull out a handful of six-inch long appetizers. Similarly, the transgressions of the Bush Administration run so thick and so deep that future historians will be able to look at no single act of this Presidency without considering that act part of an enormous school of criminal deeds, all swimming in dark formation in the muddy water they intentionally left churned.

So remember this when I tell you this little story: it's but one story among a myriad, only a few dozen of which I have seen myself. It's a crime which will never be prosecuted, probably never even acknowledged, first because there are so many bigger fish to fry, second dipping your net in the waters of the Bush Administration will always yield a criminal fish--but probably not a single one of the fish I watched swim by.

You've allowed my my flowery introduction, so I'll skip most of the actual story's exposition and start with this. In 2002, Senator Tim Johnson was re-elected in South Dakota by the slimmest of margins over the GOP's best boy, John Thune. By all accounts, the winning votes came from a larger-than-normal turnout in the state's Indian reservations, particularly among the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The Oglalas have a long and troubled history with the federal government, from well before Wounded Knee and the more recent FBI-condoned murders of AIM activists in the 1970s. But Johnson's reelection--and the inability of the Republicans to steal that election anyway, though they certainly tried--drew the attention of the White House itself.

The following spring, when the President's budget proposal came out, the displeasure of the White House was readily apparent. It was my job to track the funding proposed by the White House for the Oglala Sioux, and the result was nothing short of disaster: COPS funding was proposed to be cut to the bone, which would severely affect the tribe's law enforcement (and in fact the tribe ran out of law enforcement money that year, and anarchy nearly reigned officially); the Indian Health Service killed several programs upon which the Oglalas relied; educational funding for tribes was cut as were school construction funds, which ensured that Oglala children could continue to go to school in one-half of their dilapidated building, the other half having been shut down due to asbestos and water damage.

Most of these swipes were broad and (I happen to think) aimed at punishing American Indians in general for daring to vote, but one in particular was aimed square at the heart of the Oglalas: the Bush Administration proposed to cut funding for the Mni Wiconi project from the previous year's amount of roughly $30 million to about $13 million, of which only $6 million was to be for actual development. The Mni Wiconi project is a pipeline designed to pipe drinking water from the Missouri River to the various reservations which used to comprise the Great Sioux Nation along South Dakota's southern border.

Did I mention that today, in the Twenty-first Century, most of the Oglalas don't have access to clean running water?

I'll spare you the sob story about how this project was supposed to be completed a decade ago, or how the project was expanded to include non-Indian grazing interests further up the line (and how that part of it is now complete).

Here's the important part: six million dollars wouldn't be enough to keep the blueprints for future work dry, because it still rains in parts of South Dakota where the Indians don't live.

My role in getting that funding back was small but somewhat significant. My job was to track down the justification for cutting the funding. The official justification can be found here (.pdf file), page GP-46 of the FY 04 Bureau of Reclamation Budget Justification:



Which is further not explained on page GP-7:



There is yet another page here, with all kinds of nice graphs, which also explains nothing, but which also refers to another document which also explains nothing specific about why the Mni Wiconi funding was cut.

So how, exactly, does this PART thing work?, I asked. Well, that's where the fun began. You see, nobody could tell me, exactly. When I asked to see the paperwork behind the assessment, nobody had it, or knew where it could be had. At one point, an exasperated Department of the Interior official (no, I can't remember whom now) suggested I talk to J. Steven Griles, who pled guilty the other day to obstruction of justice over his relationship with Jack Abramoff.

It turns out that PART was bullshit, the whole time, and it's one of the many avenues of corruption that Rep. Waxman is trying to seal off. According to Waxman, pencil-pushers at the OMB had far too much power--subjective power--to give negative assessments without any real justification, just like in the case of Mni Wiconi.

One of those pencil-pushers at OMB was David Safavian, later convicted on four felony counts for his relationship with Jack Abramoff.

See, the thing here is that Jack Abramoff wouldn't lift a dirty fingernail to screw over the Oglala Sioux--they don't have enough money to steal. This hit job was personal, and political. And yet the same names keep popping up... almost like the job went through the same people, but from a different source....

But I'm getting ahead of myself. When I found myself being blocked by bureaucratic red tape and vacuous explanations at every turn, I did what every mediocre researcher is supposed to do when he smells a rat in the Bush Administration: I told my bosses what I found, and I moved on to the next day's crimes. And I kept moving on for another year or two before I couldn't stand it anymore and cracked up.

One of the last things I remember about the incident, besides Tim Johnson's heroic work to restore funding for the project that year (which he successfully did--one more reason why he's a great guy), was one attorney saying to another, "we should report this to the Department of Justice."

I'll bet they did. And I'll bet nothing happened. I just looked and find that the new US Attorney for the District of South Dakota is a fellow named Marty Jackley, who replaced Kent Mullins in 2006, who replaced Michelle Tapken in 2005, who replaced James McMahon in 2005. The last three appointees had the approval of now-Senator John Thune, who rebounded from his defeat in 2002 to defeat Tom Daschle in 2004. McMahon resigned shortly after Thune won.

I don't know if James McMahon is on the firings list.

Is it a crime? It should be. Ethically, it certainly is a rotten thing--to those of us who saw it it was an obvious hit job, followed up by an obvious snow job. If it's not a crime yet I'll bet it would be if someone had the balls to start asking questions, whereupon these vultures would lie about it under oath. But I saw things like that every single fucking day from the first day these gangsters stole the office.

All I saw was what they were doing to the Indians. I only heard stories about how they were raping the environment, robbing the treasury, getting contractors fat at the DOD, selling off the airwaves, holding back the IRS, and on, and on, and on....

Like I said, one small fish in the net. Look quick, because I'm sick of fish, and I'm throwing it back.

But there are millions more where that one came from.

and as the layers continue to get peeled back....the stench and the rot grows more and more...

and once again the American Indian gets hammered again by the same type of uncaring, money grubbing, revenge bent bigots...

The officials in the DOJ are getting ready to face the very justice that they would abuse...


Thank you for sharing...

K & R

Those bastards!

:applause: Thanks for recapping the fish. Wish we could have a fry! Is which one a crime? The water? The firing, the failure to fund the Mni Wiconi project? Is that three fish or one?

very enlightening. and nauseating... how do you contain that kind of evil?

K&R, btw.

Thanks all for your fine replies. As far as the evil goes, it consumed me, broke my heart, and left me the husk of a man.

But I did play Frisbee golf today. So I've got that going for me.

Thank you for trying... love your name by the way... that phrase makes my husband giggle, every time, whatever the context.

Better a husk of a man with a SOUL than one of THOSE OTHER BASTARDS who, obviously, were born without one.

:yourock:

opening some eyes today.

...they do unto the Native Peoples ten times over, with no compunction and no understanding that "whatsoever you do unto the least of these..."

I don't know how much Chief Seattle knew about the historical Jesus, but he had his own take on that susbject:



Thanks for shining the light on yet another outrage against the original inhabitants of "our land."

The condensed version is compelling, but I think this story could be told in 250 or 300 pages, with more character development. It's also very cathartic to put words down, as you know simply by telling this small part of it on DU.

Sometimes I feel like we're all living in the middle of a very bad novel, because every time we say, "It couldn't get worse," sure enough, it gets worse. I think they intended to wear us all down with shock fatigue.

Sorry about your crack-up, it's what happens when a caring person runs into one brick wall after another.

...these vicious, petty-minded, cold-hearted bastards in Washington must be held accountable...

Excellent, EXCELLENT post...

P.S. PM Will Pitt..he seems to have a knack about how to get stuff published...! ;-)

Thank you for the excellent informative post. K & R

misadministration has been NOTHING but corrupt, scandal-ridden, dishonest, dishonorable, and just plain evil since the day they stole their positions and marched into the White House.

WAY PAST TIME to throw them all out.

Ok, I can think of one thing: they've woken a hell of a lot of people up. Unintentionally of course. Perhaps it still counts.

She: "Can you think of one single thing those idiots in the White House have done right?"
Me: "They killed the Republican Party dead as the dodo."
She: "They didn't do that. That happened because of them. So they're still at a score of zero in six years."

. . . from watching the weakest suffer. Only thing I can deduce, after watching what is happening here in the inner-city.

Tremendous post. You are one hell of a writer, btw.

professional human being - and you think what a privilege it would be to know the person and talk with them. I'll bet that's what a lot of posters here feel.

He make us feel his desolation, doesn't he? In some mysterious way, just by reading this post, we feel somehow ennobled. We will seldom feel less alone. We feel heartened and strengthened by the spirit of a man brought to an extremity by his own courage, in the face of seemingly endless and overwhelming evil; a burnt-out case. Only words written from the heart, a full heart, could express it all in such a beautifully compelling way.

. This President and Vice-President are (probably) the most vengeful people occupying human bodies - it's all there for historians to prove if it can all be compiled.

. The part about so many citizens not having a clue about what's going on is probably not measureable.

. What's obvious and could probably be measured is the media - the corporate media is not reporting all these scandals. Period. It is inversely proportional? The more scandals there are, the less they report.

Someone - is there someone out there with the time to prove this about the media?

It is hard work to keep up with the scandals. There was a mother lode of scandals and verbal atrocities today.

But, they stay lucky with the voters - things are falling apart fast, but they are falling apart simultaneiously with just a little overlap and a lot of step-by-step progression. It's overwhelming.

Thanks for sharing. I wish you the energy to proceed.

How about polishing it up and submitting it to Democracy Now or The Nation?

This is very painful to read....but it surely is more painful to suffer through it all...the injustice. I'm sorry for any part that I've (my family) has contributed to this.

Apologies aren't enough, I know. Still, I am very very sorry and ashamed .

Rec'd and I suggest you do too.

-Hoot

And a travesty of justice at least on par with the USA scandal.

As you say, the everyday stuff is just as bad as the (rare) headline-grabbers.

in the country. WELL SAID! This is sickening. I am SICK AND TIRED of these bastards sucking the very life out of the poor! What is it going to take for this country to get FED UP with this administration? God almighty, these are the people we should help FIRST. My only consellation is that HISTORY will be the judge and these will be dark days indeed.

I read through it like the engaging, riveting story that it is -- and so well told, Sofa King!

Being an Oklahoman, I am familiar also with the innumerable crimes and offenses wrought by the national government upon the native peoples, and I've been bitterly angry about it for a very long time.

It seems to me that there was a time not all that long ago when the native peoples in this region had managed to get a lot of things going well for themselves, not due to any intelligent, compassionate, and well-deserved help from the U.S. government, but due almost exclusively to their own hard work at revitalizing their culture and their daily lives.

But I worry that too much of the prosperity they have experienced in modern times is based on the gambling interests which are admittedly successful but bring with them so much other baggage that is harmful to all involved. I hope always for a brighter future for the native peoples of this land who have been wronged and robbed and harmed in every way imaginable ever since Europeans set foot on these shores.

But I am very worried that whatever gains the native peoples have made in recent years may be undone somehow by the vicious, vengeful actions of this corrupt maladministration such as you describe!

Thank you for all you have done to fight the wicked thieves and thwart their efforts to destroy good things for native peoples!

I, too, understand the inevitable crack-up that lies along the path you have traveled, and I hope very much that you can recover some of your strength and vigor and sense of wellbeing.

Struggles such as you have engaged in completely drain a person and leave you wondering if you can go on sometimes -- I know. We just have to rest and recuperate, take a break if necessary from the heat of the battles, and try to pick up again and go on when we are up to it.

I take heart that the native peoples in your area have such a valiant soldier fighting for their rights and needs to be fulfilled.

Senator Leahy mentioned just now in a replay of an earlier Judiciary Committee hearing proceeding that I'm watching on CSPAN, the COPS programs cuts you also talked about in your OP, saying, "I guess this administration needed to send this money instead to the well-run police operations in IRAQ!"

FBI Director Robert Mueller is getting a piece of Leahy's mind today, and well he should!

But it is nowhere near enough. All the many hearings and the testimonies of Bu$h administration officials being pursued by Democratic leaders in Congress, good though it is to see these efforts being made. They are still not enough to right all the wrongs of the Bu$hCo maladministration -- if for no other reason, simply because, as you so beautifully described, THERE ARE TOO MANY FISH IN THE MURKY RIVER OF THEIR CRIMES TO GET THEM ALL.

At least they're trying, and you have done well in your efforts too, Sofa King!

Thank you so much for telling your story. I agree with the poster upthread who suggested you write a book about your journey, your battle, on behalf of the native peoples in your area in this situation you describe. Except I understand how that goes, because people are always telling me I should "write a book" also about some of the battles I've engaged in that are not that different from yours.

I always think, when someone suggests that to me, that they have no idea what they ask, because writing a book -- one that might never even be published or read -- about such things is like prolonged torture, even as it provides some catharsis, as noted above by that poster. :)

We will be cleaning up bu$hmess for many years to come! Thanks for your GOOD work!

ASAP

It's on life support and we're following the laws of Texas (meaning that life support is about to be severed).

One of the things that struck me was the connection between several of the fired USA and NAIS (U.S. Attorney General's Native American Issues Subcommittee)

It was illegal to invade the Native Nations territory under the rule of King George before ther Revolutionary War. There are more Revolutionary War officers buried at the site of the first fort on the Ohio River than anywhere. That first fort was built in a pyramid/mound complex and featured gun slots to shoot Indians. The officers received the best land grants in Ohio as payment for overthrowing the law that prevented the invasion of sovereign Nations. The first bank of the fledgling USA was going bankrupt, and was floated by selling the rich lands in the "Northwest Territory" (Ohio). Does this explain the US dollar image? The USA was literally built on invasion and conquest of the Indian Nations.

How many Sioux are descendents of refugees from the terror in Ohio in the late 1700s?

How many GOP families today are descendents of the invaders? There is also a great genealogy library on the site of the Marietta pyramid complex, near the old fort from which the Indians were shot! The Washington County library rests atop one of the pyramids.

Too bad it has to be about such a crooked and unfortunate subject. K & R.

neocon quote that they create reality, and while we're reacting to it, they create more. This is a losing proposition for us.

The important thing about the crime is the wave. There's a pattern of corruption, and it relates to the incompetence. They are completely incompetent at governing because they have no interest in the nation's welfare, but are just gaming the system for private gains. The incompetence is just the reverse side of the coin.

This is a brilliant post.

It should have 150 rec's by now.

:patriot:

cracked up from the immorality of it all.

But what strikes me the most is the complete and utter SADISM of this administration. Who but someone who is a complete sadistic sociopath (rove) could deny clean drinking water to poverty stricken Indians?

I believe we will see these sadists FRY! And I will dance in the streets when it happens....and I bet I'll see alot of others out there with me.

-- so expensive, as the Republican said at the GSA hearing.

I propose a new tax on registered Republicans to pay for the biggest fucking net ever seen.

ROOT. IT. OUT.

Great Story. Thank you.

What's so sickening is that they not only smear and badmouth those they view - even in the slightest way - as an opponent, but they go out of their way to destroy thair lives.

And the human scum of the Bush administration - beginning with Bush himself - are small people, little men and women who enjoy destroying the human spirit the way a child child enjoys picking the wings off of flies. I've never seen such a collection of complete and utter zeroes wield so much power.

What a vile stench this government leaves in every single crevice of American society. Goddamn this filthy bunch.

A river full of daily crimes. A million fish swim past, but the fish you see is not the same fish I see (though they are family...cousins).

I don't usually say this but...wow. This is the grandaddy of a all appropriate analogies to decribe the daily pattern of criminal behavior (yes, most have STILL not seen it thanks to the most sophisticated Infoganda machine in human history, light years ahead of the Nazis or Soviets).

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick: