Latest news with #Oglala
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Patty Pansing Brooks announces 2026 bid to return to Nebraska Legislature
Former State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska News Service) LINCOLN — Former State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks announced her 2026 candidacy Friday to return to the Nebraska Legislature, a day after the current officeholder said she would not seek reelection. State Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln announced her decision not to run again Thursday, leaving the central Lincoln seat open, as first reported by the Nebraska Examiner. Just 24 hours later, Pansing Brooks 'enthusiastically' threw her hat in the ring with Raybould's support, one of more than 70 current and former officials to endorse Pansing Brooks. 'People keep calling me saying, 'What should I do?'' Pansing Brooks told the Examiner. 'And I keep thinking, 'Well, what should I do to help this country right now?' The main thing that I know that I can do is run for office.' Pansing Brooks, 66, said she hopes to be an example for others to run for office and get involved in these 'very strident times.' During her first two terms in office, 2015 to 2023, Pansing Brooks said she worked to be a voice to bring people together, elevate conversations and help people see other sides to issues. If elected back to Legislative District 28, Pansing Brooks said she would continue uplifting juvenile justice reform, combatting human trafficking, defending workers' rights, protecting public education, supporting small businesses, expanding correctional programming for successful reentry and ensuring access to and equity in health care, 'right where I left off in 2022.' Among Pansing Brooks' previous successes: protecting survivors of human trafficking from prostitution charges, mandating new juvenile room confinement standards and reports and shielding survivors of sexual assault and sex trafficking before criminal charges are filed. 'There's still work to do,' she said. Pansing Brooks has a history of working with conservative colleagues, such as with former State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan on dyslexia. The pair toured schools and passed laws to increase interventions for students with dyslexia and require teachers to be educated about the disability. Pansing Brooks also worked closely with former State Sen. Tom Brewer, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe and the Legislature's first Native member, notably to help pressure the closing of four beer stores in the village of Whiteclay in Brewer's north-central Nebraska district. For decades, the stores helped fuel alcoholism for the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota. The duo also worked to add 'Indigenous Peoples' Day' to state law alongside Columbus Day. Brewer is one of many former conservative colleagues of Pansing Brooks to have already endorsed her 2026 campaign. Pansing Brooks, if elected, would join a handful of lawmakers to return after being term-limited. She said she knows there will be 'horrible days,' as there were before and that it might be tough. However, Pansing Brooks said, 'There's goodness and kindness to share, important laws to make and ways to support our fabulous Nebraskans.' Since 2023, the one-house Legislature has been increasingly divided on partisan lines. Pansing Brooks would return as lawmakers have a heightened focus on the LGBTQ community that she advocated for during her time in office. She had proposed legislation attempting to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, which other senators picked up after her absence. 'I care about the rights of people to live and to be who they are, to not have prejudice against them, no matter what group they're in,' Pansing Brooks said. 'But I'm also going to be there to learn and listen and try to figure out if there's new steps where I'm needed or new issues where I'm needed, then that's what I'll do.' Another lawmaker who returned after being term-limited, former State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, declined to seek reelection in 2022, in part because of how much the institution had changed in the four years he was gone. Lathrop endorsed Pansing Brooks, with whom he served. Just one lawmaker has been term-limited twice since the voter-approved restrictions took full effect after 2006: former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha. Pansing Brooks said that, if elected, she would not return with any assumptions that she would be treated differently than other 'newbie' lawmakers. She said she knows she would need to make new friendships and gain trust, which she's ready to do, and that Nebraska could be a model for Congress on working together. In 2022, Pansing Brooks was the Democratic candidate for Nebraska's 1st Congressional District, falling short to U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb. Flood, a former colleague, repeatedly sought to tie Pansing Brooks to national Democratic policies and party leaders. Pansing Brooks in that 2022 congressional race won her legislative district by a slightly greater percentage of votes than Raybould did that year. It is Lincoln's most progressive legislative district. A bipartisan group of former senators endorsed Pansing Brooks, including State Sens. Kathy Campbell, Bob Krist, John McCollister, DiAnna Schimek, John Stinner, Tony Vargas and Lynne Walz. She is endorsed by current State Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh, John Cavanaugh, Danielle Conrad, Wendy DeBoer, George Dungan, John Fredrickson, Dunixi Guereca, Megan Hunt, Margo Juarez, Terrell McKinney, Dan Quick, Raybould, Victor Rountree and Ashlei Spivey. All but Hunt, a nonpartisan progressive, are Democrats in the officially nonpartisan Legislature. Other early endorsements include Bob Kerrey and Ben Nelson (former governors and former U.S. senators), former Nebraska Lt. Govs. Kim Robak and Maxine Moul and Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird. Pansing Brooks, who had been a Republican for much of her life until the 2000s, including a stint as Lancaster County GOP chair, said she's honored by conservative friends she made in the Legislature who have now endorsed her. 'It makes me realize that this is possible. We don't all have to be divided and in circular firing squads, just firing away at each other,' Pansing Brooks said. Pansing Brooks added that the Legislature is special and that she hopes lawmakers can continue to find common ground. 'We've done that in the past,' Pansing Brooks said. 'We can continue to do it.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Wall Street Journal
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Sitting Bull' Review: History Channel's Lessons on a Leader
One of the refreshing things about 'Sitting Bull,' the History Channel's two-night, four-hour documentary on the Sioux leader, is its attempt at some kind of balance amid the hosannas. The show is a fairly underpopulated, re-enactment-heavy production; Michael Spears, who plays Sitting Bull, bears a passing resemblance to actor Jon Hamm and thus suggests the CEO of Oglala Enterprises Ltd. The program does make clear the injustices done to Native Americans—the broken treaties, hypocrisy, greed and the slaughter of the bison in pursuit of Indian starvation. It features much indigenous input. And yet no one is nominated for sainthood. As noted by one expert among the many interviewed here, the Lakota (Sitting Bull's group among the Sioux people) never read Sun Tzu. Yet they were fluent in the art of war. Why? Because tribes became experts in military strategy fighting each other (the Lakota vs. the Crow, for example). They were capable of atrocities. Wholesale slaughter. Their own brand of cruelty, however it might have been provoked. This doesn't ameliorate the ultimate tragedies at hand. It further humanizes the story of a people and a leader whose devotion to duty, honor and tribe should have been the values of the U.S.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Black Hills still not for sale, Oglala Sioux Tribe rejects FOIA request to unseal value
Talli NaumanBuffalo's Fire Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out says U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum should deny a major media request to reveal the Black Hills Claim accounting record. Speculation is that interest earnings are worth over $1 billion on the $102 million land payment that federal courts adjudged to the Sioux Nation 50 years ago. The Oglala and their six fellow Teton Sioux bands never took the 1974 federal claim money offer for the theft of their Black Hills treaty-guaranteed territory. So, the Interior Department, as their legal trustee, invested the nations' behalf through its Bureau of Trust Funds Administration. CNN Investigative Unit reporter Casey Tolan, a data journalist, filed the request under Freedom of Information Act terms. He asked the Interior Department for 'the most recent statement available listing the total amount of money held in trust by the department.' Oglala leaders recently rejected the idea after being notified by the department. When Interior officials notified the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Star Comes Out said the request is 'just an underhanded way to ultimately get the Oglala Sioux Tribe to implicitly accept the 1980 Black Hills Claim.'' He told Buffalo's Fire: 'All the Sioux tribes have informed the United States since 1980 that 'The Black Hills Are Not For Sale'.' The Indian Claims Court determined the award in 1974, six years later the Supreme Court affirmed it. However, the Oglala Nation never agreed to any settlement of the Black Hills Claim, Star Comes Out said in the official response to Interior's February notification. The Oglala told Interior in their March response that the department has a fiduciary duty to keep all the information requested by CNN confidential: Case law supports that argument under Exemption 4 of the FOIA. The response, obtained by Buffalo's Fire through official channels, asserts that 'disclosure of the information in question would harm the interests of the tribes.' It says that 'wide dissemination of the amount of money in the Black Hills award trust account would likely lead to the Sioux tribes being subject to harder bargaining in commercial dealings and transactions with third parties.' Furthermore, disclosure would help individuals 'to put pressure on the tribes to make immediate distributions from the Black Hills award trust.' That would challenge tribal leadership policies that such distributions run counter to tribes' long term interests, it says. Asked for a comment, Star Comes Out said: 'Why now? Why is CNN all of a sudden interested in the current balance of the 1980 Black Hills award, especially during the Trump Administration's recent actions to cut government appropriations for Indian tribes. I would like to know who prompted Mr. Tolan to make the FOIA request.' Tolan did not answer Buffalo's Fire attempts to ask about his actions. Oglala Sioux Tribal Treasurer Cora White Horse sent the Interior Department a notarized affidavit stating she cannot release the information without a tribal council resolution. 'The Black Hills statement information requested by CNN has … never been disclosed to the public nor been shared with any private commercial entity, nonprofit organization, or with any state, local, or other tribal government,' White Horse stated in the affidavit. Furthermore she said, the information is 'subject to physical security measures and cybersecurity measures instituted and maintained by my office to prevent the trust account statements from either being hacked or otherwise leaked or disclosed in an unauthorized manner to others.' Oglala Sioux Tribal Attorney Mario Gonzalez drafted the tribal response to the CNN FOIA request -- in consultation with President Star Comes Out and Treasurer White Horse. Gonzalez was the attorney who stopped payment of Black Hills Claim money to the Oglala Sioux Tribe in 1980. His litigation in the 1973 Claims Distribution Act ultimately kept the money in trust for all the Sioux tribes with no call for them to cede the territory. Star Comes Out told Buffalo's Fire, 'We will never sell out our holy lands, the Black Hills, to the United States for monetary compensation.' He said: "I believe, however, the Sioux tribes would be open to engaging in nation-to-nation consultations under mutually agreed-to protocols with new Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to find innovative ways to resolve the Sioux land claims without having to sell out our homelands.' The Oglala Sioux and Standing Rock Sioux tribal councils 'have a pending request for such consultations with Secretary Burgum," Star Comes Out said.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
LEST WE FORGET: Luther Standing Bear
Raymond WilsonSpecial to ICT There exists confusion regarding the year and reservation where Luther Standing Bear was born (either in 1863 or 1868) on the Rosebud Reservation or the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and whether he was a Lakota Brule or Oglala. He identified himself as an Oglala, born at Pine Ridge. Originally named Plenty Kill, Standing Bear became a well-known author, activist and movie actor. Like other Native males, he was trained in traditional ways to be a hunter and warrior. In 1879, his father, Standing Bear, sent him to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania as a member of the first class of Native students. At Carlisle, he and other Native students were forbidden to speak their languages, had their hair cut, had to wear uncomfortable non-Native attire, and were given a new name. He chose Luther and became Luther Standing Bear was a model student at Carlisle and returned to the Rosebud Reservation after spending five years at the school, where he learned to become a tinsmith, a not particularly useful occupation on the reservation. Fortunately, Carlisle Superintendent Richard Henry Pratt secured him a government position as a teacher's assistant on the reservation, with a salary of $300 a year, and Standing Bear received high praise from other Bureau of Indian Affairs employees. In 1891, Standing Bear became superintendent of a day school on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Other jobs he held included an agency clerk, operator of a small store, an assistant minister, and ranch 1902, he became a member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and travelled to England with the troupe. Standing Bear was among the Sioux performers who were seriously injured in a terrible train accident near Melrose Park, Illinois, on April 7,1904. He sustained two broken and three bruised ribs, a broken left arm, left leg, collar bone, and nose, cuts above both eyes, a severe gash on the back of his head, and dislocation of both the accident, Standing Bear sold his land allotment on Pine Ridge, moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and later to Walthill, Nebraska, working at a variety of jobs such as a store clerk and rodeo performer. Ultimately in 1912, he moved to California, where he delivered lectures and became a Hollywood movie actor. Standing Bear appeared in dozens of films and worked with such famous actors as Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix, and William S. Hart. Along with other Native actors, Standing Bear worked to ensure Natives were portrayed more accurately in Bear wrote four books: My People the Sioux (1928), My Indian Boyhood (1931), Land of the Spotted Eagle (1933), and Stories of the Sioux (1934). In his books, he wrote of his upbringing, traditional customs and beliefs, and inclusion into the dominant society. He also offered criticism of federal Indian policies that he blamed for deplorable reservation Standing Bear deserves more recognition as an activist who fought to ensure Native people were allowed to embrace their traditional identities and be treated as equal members of the dominant society. He believed Native and non-Native teachers in Indian schools should be bilingual, Native American history should be part of the curriculum in all schools, and Natives should have more leadership roles on reservations and hold more BIA Standing Bear died on Feb. 20, 1939, after contracting the flu during the production of the film Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck. Native actors in the film spoke Lakota and were not as stereotyped as in previous Carlisle Indian School Digital Research Center; My People the Sioux (1928); My Indian Boyhood (1931); Land of the Spotted Eagle (1933); Stories of the Sioux (1934); and Luther Standing Bear Films. Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.
