Can anyone explain to me what this means?

From the Los Angeles Times
Navajo Nation loses Supreme Court bid for coal money
Justices rule against the tribe a second time in its battle with the federal government over payment for mining on tribal land.
Associated Press
April 7, 2009

Anyone understand this?

in regards to federal Indian law, including tribal sovereignty, the rights of tribes, and tribal land issues. It mesns that, as those of us who live in Indian Country and who (like my husband) are involved in tribal legal matters already know, the Court is very hostile to Indian rights and said federal Indian law and have thought nothing of throwing decades and centuries of established federal Indian law principles under the bus and have actually been proud of their willful ignorance concerning federal Indian law. It means that, once again, the tribe is screwed out of money that is rightfully theirs. It means that Obama's justice dept. needs to start getting on the ball and reversing some horrible SUPCO rulings these past several years and that Indian Country is screwed if it doesn't.

the Court in regards to Indian rights and federal Indian law; O'Connor often joined in that "club" when she was there. Alito and Roberts have been very clearly hostile to and deliberately ignorant of federal Indian law and Indian rights since they've come aboard, which really shouldn't be any surprise. There have been some really horrid recent SUPCO rulings that have done some real damage to Indian Country and that have not at all followed federal Indian law.

:(

else is new? Believe me, living on a reservation, that's a lot more common nowadays than you'd think. And right now, Defenders of the Black Hills is trying to prevent uranium mining in a couple of Hills areas, without much success so far, as well as encroachment by that damn Sturgis bike rally on Bear Butte, a sacred site to them in the Hills area (they're now allowing tavern and rally campground permits for less than one mile from the area), again without much success. It really is a never-ending battle here.

the ground they have placed people on, or indeed people think they own in title i.e. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4651566

Extraction companies with mineral rights can destroy the top to get to the under. We are all Indians now.

We're dealing with *There Will Be Blood* "I Drink Your Milkshake!!" dudes here

Ground water very salty. Extraction companies can get that salty water out of their way by bringing it to the surface and pouring it out. Kills the land. No gas or water lines out in the boonies, but soon, no wheat or cattle either. Makes me wonder what will be for dinner in a few years.

1) Peabody, a private mining company, wanted to mine on the Navajo reservation in the 1980s.
2) Treaties between the US government and the Navajo tribe allow the US government to give permission to mine on Navajo lands, and to set the price that Peabody would pay the Navajo for mining rights.
3) The Navajo felt that the price the US government set was too low.
4) The Navajo sued the US government, claiming that the Secretary of the Interior deliberately set the price too low by "conspiring" with Peabody.
5) As evidence, the Navaj lawyers cited other government beaurocrats who also felt the price was too low.
6) After many appeals and revisions, the case was rejected by the Supreme Court for the second time.

Nothing in the article gives an indication of how good the Navajo case was.

and without having the briefs and the history of the case, it's impossible to know why the Supremes ruled as they did - although the fact that it was unanimous suggests to me that there were fatal flaws in the case.

That said, I don't doubt for one instant the Court's hostility towards Indians in America. Scalia and Thomas are renowned pricks when any minority is involved. Pricks. I had to say it twice, because they're that bad....................

then so were Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer.

and that's what makes me think it was a fatally flawed case and couldn't be rescued.

See, those people aren't rightwingnut pricks. So, there was something very wrong with it. Probably should never have gone to the Supremes, but sometimes these things happen.

I always expect them to be twisted around to set precedent for more GOP abuses later on.

Good article explains at the link:

U.S. Supreme Court kills bid to hold Interior accountable for coal royalty deceit

http://www.navajotimes.com/news/2009/0409/040909coal.php


The Navajo Nation claims it lost as much as $600 million because Donald Hodel, Interior secretary under Ronald Reagan, derailed a Zah administration effort to increase the royalty rate for Navajo coal by more than 10 times the existing rate.

When Hodel's role became known years later, the tribe sued both Peabody Coal Co., which had hired a personal friend of Hodel to lobby on its behalf, and the Interior Department.

(snip)

The tribe claimed that Hodel, after a secret meeting with John Hulett, his friend the Peabody lobbyist, suppressed research his own staff had developed and instead used his influence to get the tribe to accept a lower royalty rate.

~~~~

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/07-1410.htm

Case arguments here:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/07-1410.pdf

Scalia opinion here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/07-1410P.ZO

Souter concurring here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/07-1410P.ZC

its a very complex case with terrible procedural history. NO ONE should blame any individual on the Court for this result.

The Department of the Interior was and maybe still is and maybe will be the worst, least competent, most corrupt of Federal agencies.