Surveillance Balloons Over Winnemucca, Navajo and Hopi Lands

Aerostar helium balloon photo by Aerostar

Surveillance Balloons Over Winnemucca, Navajo and Hopi Lands

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Monday, August 21, 2023

WINNEMUCCA, Nevada -- A surveillance balloon was over Winnemucca today at 1:30 a.m., the same day that Paiute Shoshone announced that they asked the Nevada court to dismiss charges filed by Lithium Americas against those defending the Paiute Massacre Site at Peehee Mu'huh, Thacker Pass.

The surveillance balloon over Winnemucca shows no registered owner.

The balloon was in international waters northwest of Santa Barbara, California, lingering there, as shown on flight radar, before traveling over Winnemucca today. 

The Money Pump -- Non-Profits in Indian Country: Fraud, Secrecy and Deep Deception

Iron Eyes Cody, an Italian who masqueraded as an Indian, and Princess Pale Moon, both were exposed as frauds. They were part of the non-profit American Indian Heritage Foundation television commercials before the non-profit was shut down. It solicited both cash and land in its "Give the land back to the Indians" campaign. (Photo Iron Eyes Cody presents President Jimmy Carter with a headdress on April 21, 1978. Photo courtesy of Peter Bregg/Associated Press)

The Money Pump -- Non-Profits in Indian Country: Fraud, Secrecy and Deep Deception

Censored News spent months looking at the tax records of non-profits in Indian country. Here's what we found: The non-profit structure puts lots of money into the pockets of a few. We've updated our article with more documents and Standing Rock Nation's ban on two non-profits.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Updated May 3, 2023

The average income in Indian country is $40,000.

The average salary of an executive director at a non-profit in Indian country is $100,000 to $200,000, with more money being funneled to family members. The annual salaries at non-profits in Indian country are as high as $1.2 million for executives.

Many executive directors of non-profits in Indian country have been playing poor, especially when grassroots groups asked for funding. Now, their tax documents are online and reveal that many receive millions of dollars in grants and donations each year.

The tax records show CEOs and executive directors giving themselves lavish salaries and expense accounts. In some cases, the CEOs are non-Indians, and in other cases they are frauds. Some have suddenly become Cherokee, Yaqui or Apache.

The Exploitation of O'odham Sacred Lifeways

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham elder, said non-profits are exploiting the sacred.

Censored News: As media collapses, truth tellers work harder to report the news

Solidarity in Paris: Freedom for Leonard Peltier

'Aleut Story," the horrific story of Aleut forced into internment camps during WWII, where they died of hunger and disease, and then were abandoned and left to starve by the U.S. government. The film is featured this week on Vision Maker Media's free online film festival. 

Censored and under-reported news: As the media melts down, the truth-tellers continue their labors of love

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

While the media melts down, and struggles to survive, Censored News is now in its  17th year, with 22 million page views. There are no ads, salaries or revenues, as the truth-tellers share the struggles of Indigenous Peoples and the news of the defenders of human rights and of the land, water and air of the life-giving earth.

We are sharing the most censored issues in Indian country, with the breaking news from our writers, broadcasters and translators.

Solidarity in Paris: Freedom for Leonard Peltier

Censored and Under-reported news:

Mohawk Mothers are in court defending the land of unmarked graves. Canada and the US CIA conducted torture experiments at McGill University in Montreal, in its MK Ultra mind control experiments. Families in related lawsuits said Native children were among the victims.

The Catholic Church confessed to the crime of genocide. The Pope said what the church did to Native children at residential schools in Canada was genocide.

The Biden administration announced in Farmington, N.M., bordering the Navajo Nation, that the 'transition to green energy' in the region would be led by the atomic bomb industry at Los Alamos.

Then, immediately, there was a push for a new freight railway through the Navajo Nation, in the area that is already a uranium crime scene, where Dineh die from cancer from uranium mining and strewn radioactive tailings remain south of Shiprock, N.M. The railway would be in the region of the horrific Church Rock, N.M., uranium spill. The radioactive water continues to flow toward Flagstaff in the Rio Puero wash.

The spy towers built by Israel's Elbit Systems on the Tohono O'odham Nation, on O'odham burial places, now allow US Border Patrol agents to stalk vulnerable traditional O'odham.

Exposing the Genocide: Torture Experiments, Trafficking and Mining

(Photo) The remains of Paiute children forced into a southern Utah boarding school in the early 1900s are believed to be buried in an unmarked cemetery in Panguitch, Utah.

Exposing the Genocide: Torture Experiments, Trafficking and Mining

For the Children Who Never Came Home

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Heart breaking, and gut wrenching, we are sharing the stories of the children who never came home.

The brainwashing, torture, trafficking, and drugging of children by the so-called elite -- politicians, Hollywood, and (disputed) royalty -- and CIA -- are being exposed in the Mohawk Mothers court case; Epstein articles; and the case of Tokata Iron Eyes, Lakota, daughter of Sara Jumping Eagle, pediatrician, and Chase Iron Eyes, attorney. 

Actor Ezra Miller remains in hiding with Tokata and police are unable to serve protective orders and warrants.

The Genocide

At the same time, many leaders of the movements now have COVID. On the northern border, Kanahus with the Tiny House Warriors was arrested at the border, charged and released.

The Mohawk Mothers continue their case in Ottawa Supreme Court, exposing the torture experiments of Canada and the U.S. CIA in the MK Ultra mind control experiments, the role of the band councils in genocide, and the search for the unmarked graves of the little ones, the children who never came home.

Mohawk Mothers told Aljazeera of the children who never came home from McGill University medical center, "I personally know of somebody who was taken there because he was 'unruly.'"

"They did a lobotomy on him and sent him back. And for 40 years, his family took care of him."

Google and Facebook reap news revenues, while reporters become destitute

Google and Facebook reap news revenues while real reporters struggle to survive

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

The Wall Street Journal is hardly the voice of the people, but it makes an important point here -- Google and Facebook are receiving most of the revenues from news these days, and reporters are receiving almost nothing.
The article does not mention the fact that reporters in Indian country are usually paying out of their own pockets to go out on news stories, and the thieves on Facebook and websites shared by Google, are making about three-fourths of the money.
Most of the news websites on Facebook are not alternative news sites at all, they are stolen news. These are operated by plagiarizers who copy and paste, or rewrite, the hard work of the real reporters struggling to survive.
For real reporters, there is the cost of travel -- cars and lodging -- along with computer, photography, cell and video equipment. All this makes it nearly impossible for most freelancers to keep going.
And in Indian country, the few remaining reporters who are present are usually freelancers, which means no expense reimbursements, no insurance, and of course, no bail money during protests.
There must be a way to turn this around, and return salaries and expenses to honest, hard working reporters.
It probably would help if readers would not share stolen rewrites and stolen photos by those who are illegally profiteering. They are seizing this content without permission, and placing it on a webpage to illegally make money off of it.
These are often obvious because the webpages are loaded with advertising, so just scroll down to the bottom and look. On Facebook, the pages say "shop now" at the top.
Many fake site use the word 'Native' or 'Indigenous,' or use progressive words like 'Free Thought,' 'Freedom,' or 'Progress.'
Clickbait and Adwords are hard to determine. These are about getting traffic to websites of stolen work. They want 'clicks' on their links, and 'likes' on Facebook.
Here's what readers can do: Before posting or sharing, message the reporters and photographers and ask them if this is their original work and if they were actually present.
Readers can carry out a web search by copying and pasting the first portion of the news story into a search, in order to see if a reputable news organization, or reporter, actually wrote the article.
Meanwhile, those brilliant new reporters and publishers can work on a means of creating the new journalism for future generations -- where news professionals can make a living and prosper for their hard work. And remember, many risk their lives to do this work.
Thanks to all of you, Brenda, Censored News.

Wall Street Journal Article

https://www.wsj.com/articles/protect-the-news-from-google-and-facebook-1519594942


Brenda Norrell created Censored News in 2006, after being censored and terminated as a longtime staff reporter at Indian Country Today. She began her lifelong career as a reporter at the Navajo Times, during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. As a freelancer, she worked for The Associated Press for five years, covering the Navajo Nation and federal courts, and USA Today for seven years. Since moving to the borderlands, she has traveled with the Zapatistas in Mexico numerous times, and reported from the mountains of Bolivia, and Indian lands throughout the West.

Censored by Twitter
Twitter has blocked the links of Censored News since September of 2016, when Censored News exposed the police and Dakota Access Pipeline security officers responsible for attacking water protectors at Standing Rock with dogs.

Journalists: The Gift of Being Present

For journalists, the gift of being present is the greatest gift

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Photo: On the road to Zapatista Stronghold by Brenda Norrell

It is often the simplest memory, the simplest truth, that is the most profound: Riding in the back of a cargo truck through Zapatista country in Chiapas, wearing our red bandannas; driving into Pine Ridge from the south, with the sky as a painter's palette; and hiking outside my log cabin in the Navajo Chuskas, watching for wild turkey, black bear and acorns.

It is often the simplest truth in a news story that returns to our minds in the years that follow: Hopi and Japanese revealing how water has intelligence and changes its appearance in response to positive words, or Navajo elder Howard McKinley remembering eating wild baked yucca bananas in Tse Ho Tso and how the ice from Blue Canyon was cut, hauled by wagon, and stored in the rock houses of finely chiseled stone.

This is why it matters to be present as journalists. The new cyber journalism, with editors telling journalists that it is OK to stay home and plagiarize the web, or rewrite others hard work and add a phone call interview to disguise it, are committing a crime of journalism. Besides being paid for others work, and publishing articles with content errors, these editors are denying journalists a precious gift.

It is the gift of being present. It is the gift of great and beautiful memories. It is the gift of sharing some vital truth when you see the speakers eyes, smell the blue corn cooking for lunch, taste the tamales steamed in banana leaves, and see the resilience within the young mother grinding corn.

It is the gift of riding horseback on Arapaho's Wind River, and on the back of a Harley in Green Bay. It is the gift of crossing the border one more time, going beyond the saguaros at sunset and seeing just one more time, where the desert meets the sea. It is the gift of smelling the damp red earth after a great rain and hearing words spoken which may never be spoken again.

It is the gift of swimming in rivers.

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Brenda Norrell has been a reporter in Indian country for 34 years, beginning as a staff reporter for Navajo Times and stringer for AP and USA Today. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today, she was censored and terminated. As a result, she created Censored News, now in its 10th year with no ads or grants. She is blacklisted by all the paying media.

For permission to republish this article: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Please share our links.

Photos by Brenda Norrell: Photo 1: Mike Flores, Tohono O'odham and Mark Maracle, Mohawk, Indigenous Border Summit, San Xavier, Tohono O'odham land in Arizona. Photo 2: Bolivia, in mountains and home community of President Evo Morales as Morales played soccer, during Mother Earth Conference 2010. Photo 3: Dine' (Navajo) relocation resister Roberta Blackgoat protesting Peabody Coal mining and aquifer theft on Black Mesa, during Flagstaff, Arizona, protest. Photo 4: Jean Whitehorse, Dine', exposing the sterilization of American Indian women during AIM West Conference in San Francisco. Photo 5: Comcaac (Seri) in Sonora, Mexico.

Photos below from Sonora, Mexico by Brenda Norrell

Indian Gaming: The Price of Influence

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Indian casino lobbyists and management companies continue to bilk millions, possibly billions, out of Indian Nations. They use the sovereign status of Indian Nations, combined with PR spin, lobbyists and politicians, to enrich non-Indians. 

The national Indian media, largely funded by casinos, is part of the scheme.

Millions of dollars each year go to lobbyists and politicians, while Indian people at home suffer. 

Just drive across the Tohono O'odham Nation and you will see that the revenues from the lucrative Desert Diamond Casino are not going to the O'odham people.

Open Secrets reveals that currently the Chickasaw Nation tops the list for giving dollars to politicians. The Gila River Indian Communtiy tops the list for funding lobbyists in DC with $2.7 million to lobbyists this year. Next is Tohono O'odham Nation with $1.1 million to lobbyists. Both tribes have casinos in the same region of southern Arizona. Tohono O'odham is building another close to Gila River:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G6550

Dollars to Lobbyists:

Dollars to Republicans, Democrats and Special Interest groups

Open secrets also reveals that the Oneida Indian Nation in New York gave top dollars to the right wing Patriot Prosperity. The Oneida Indian Nation owns Indian Country Today Media Network.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000036389

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The film Casino Jack reveals the crimes of Indian casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who extorted millions from Indian Nations in casino scams and exorbitant fees. The film reveals how lobbyists manipulate Congress. It also reveals how Indian Nations pay for influence in Congress and at the White House. It further reveals how Indian Nations fund lobbyists to keep other Indian casinos out of their region. Casino Jack makes one good point: Arizona Sen. John McCain is among those who have financially benefited.

Although the film attempts to make Abramoff appear righteous regardless of his crimes, it does make the point that some of the criminals in DC do go to prison. In the end, the real number of billions going to non-Indians from Indian casinos, is not really known. While some Indian Nations have prospered from Indian gaming, primarily those with small enrollments, others have not.

If you examine the national Indian media, you'll see that these issues are censored. If you examine the dollars from Indian casinos going to non-Indian charities, and to the states, you will see more of the real situation. 

For instance, while the Tohono O'odham Nation was fighting for another casino in the Phoenix area, Desert Diamond Casino donated a new fire truck to one of the wealthiest communities in Phoenix. At the same time, many O'odham at home are living in desperate conditions, lacking safe drinking water, housing, jobs and struggle even to get food due to the lack of transportation and distance to grocery stores.

Open Secrets: Tohono O'odham lobbyists: 

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000030452

Finally, here's the politicians receiving top dollars for Indian gaming, with Oklahoma and California Congressmen topping the list:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2014&ind=G6550

Censored News celebrates six years of publishing the warriors!

Celebrating six years of publishing the warriors, revolutaries and truth tellers!

 

By Brenda Norrell, publisher

brendanorrell@gmail.com
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Censored News bolts into its seventh year of publishing in October 2012. It has been a bumpy ride to keep it going. But always there are those who have no other place to post their news for a global audience. The worst offenders, like the US Border Patrol, Canadian mining corporations, the US government, and other human rights abusers are able to either co-op, or silence, most of the media.

The news reporters that can not be squelched are bought off. Then, too, some news reporters have simply just given up. The fight for truth has been too long and too exhausting for them. Others never really started the fight, relying instead on plagiarism and rewriting others hard work.

Well, that’s the bad news.

The good news is that it is a thrill to look online and see all the good hearts that are still out there doing it. And not many of them are reporters. At least not anymore. They are the warriors. They are the grassroots warriors, standing in front of trucks, locking down to heavy machinery, and saying no to the destruction of their homes, communities and the Earth.

They are the grandmother water walkers, the canoe paddlers, and those that live in uncertainty with US Border Patrol spy cameras pointed at them in the night.

They are the ones that say ‘No’ to being co-opted and being bought off. They are the ones who refuse to look the other way when there is fraud, when people are being deceived and cheated.

They are the Indigenous in Guatemala and Peru being assassinated by mining companies. They are the truth tellers at Wikileaks. They are Anonymous revealing facts in a way that no one else can.

They are all the people who can not trust the mainstream media to tell their story and get it right. They are the ones saying 'NO!' to corporations. They are the ones who protest the banning of books. They are the Native American youths who walk across America. They are the American Indian elders who tell their stories. They are the children who arise with hope.

They are the keepers of tradition, the defenders of sacred lands, protectors of the old growth pines, caribou and Beluga whales.

They are the tree sitters. They are the whistleblowers. They are the media that walk out and tell the truth. They are the poets. They are the revolutionaries. They are the resisters.

So, as we come to the end of six years of publishing, Censored News celebrates all of you who are out there doing it, keeping it real, and refusing to give up, for the sake of the future generations and in defense of the earth.

Thank you to all of our readers, writers, photographers, translators, contributors, and well-wishers!

 

Censored News began in 2006 when reporter Brenda Norrell was censored, then terminated by Indian Country Today, after serving as a longtime staff reporter. Norrell is a former reporter for Navajo Times and served as a stringer for AP and USA Today during the 18 years she lived on the Navajo Nation. She has been a news reporter in Indian country for 30 years, covering the western US, and traveling with the Zapatistas in Mexico.

The original Censored posted in 2006, with articles censored by Indian Country Today, is at http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/

Censored News www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com is a service to Indigenous Peoples and other grassroots people engaged in the defense of human rights and the protection of the Earth. Censored News continues with no advertising.

 

 

brendanorrell@gmail.com
 

 

 

When fat cat reporters come to town

When the fat cat reporters come to town,
be ready to accommodate them

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

When outside reporters come to Indian country, they seem to think that local reporters and editors are really anxious to work for them for free, and also to be misquoted. Then they sensationalize something they think the public wants to hear and make promises they never fulfill. Tim Giago, Lakota, writes about this today in his column, "Beer sniffing reporters descend on Pine Ridge."

What outside news reporters do at Pine Ridge is the same thing they do in Arizona. On the border, reporters like to try and trick people into interviews, promising to tell their story, assuring them the news story won't be just another racist story with a focus on drugs and border crossings. Then, guess what, the article comes out, and the promises were all a hoax, it is the same old racist, xenophobic story told again, with US Border Patrol agents and elected criminals starring as John Wayne characters.

The reporters, broadcasters, book authors and filmmakers e-mail in advance to let people know they are coming. It goes something like this: "I am a great news maker and I am coming to town. I don't have much money or time, so I expect everyone to accommodate me, drive to me for interviews, even if it cost you $100 in gas, and show up when I want you to. No, I can't help you with expenses."

Then the reporters, broadcasters, book writers and filmmakers write to local reporters, including the unpaid ones doing it as a labor of love: "I can't contact X, would you do it for me, and line up my interviews. No, I don't have any funds to pay you, even if it takes you days, and a huge phone bill, to arrange my interviews for me."

Poor me, says the reporter, so little time and money to be in your area. But I will be staying at an expensive hotel and eating great food while I'm there in Tucson on my big fat budget. Can you recommend some great restaurants? Maybe a little night life? I'll be happy to swing for a cup of coffee for you.

With most fat cat reporters, nothing is really "off the record," as you will find when their article, book, TV show or film comes out.

Of course, this refers to the ones who actually come to town, and not the armchair "reporters" who just sit home in their easy chairs and plagiarize, or make a phone call or two to disguise their plagiarism. Then there's the "copy and paste" reporters who just steal others hard work and put their name on it.

One time, I responded to a reporter planning to spend three whole days in Arizona to tell an epic story: "You need to live here for years to gain peoples trust and tell their stories, ten years is a good number. And no, they said they don't have gas money to meet you anywhere. And no, they don't know you or trust you."
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Brenda Norrell is publisher of Censored News. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years and has been a reporter of Indian news for 30 years.

Private prison hustlers target Indian country

PRIVATE PRISONS: PROFITEERING FROM MISERY
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogpsot.com

In the same way that coal mining, power plants, uranium mining and oil and gas drilling companies targeted Indian country for their cancer alleys, private prison profiteers and private security firms are now targeting Indian country, bordertowns and economically-desperate regions of the U.S. to profit from misery.
The private security firm American Police Force, operated by an ex-con in Hardin, Mon., is under probe. The links to CorPlan and the proposed Tohono O'odham migrant prison are now exposed.
Private prison profiteers proposed a migrant prison on San Xavier land of the Tohono O'odham Nation, near Tucson. Although the residents of nearby Sahuarita and O'odham halted those plans, the alternative plan calls for the migrant prison to be built east of Three Points, Ariz.
Tohono O'odham opposing the prison say the migrant prison violates their Himdaag, their sacred way of being.
Read Frank Smith's article for Censored News on the private prison fiascos in Montana, Oklahoma and Arizona:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/corrupt-prison-hustlers-linked-to.html
More articles at Google News on the probe of American Police Force:
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=American+Police+Force
Also see: NM targeted by private prison scam
http://newmexicoindependent.com/39009/private-prison-developer-behind-montana-fiasco-involved-in-construction-of-nm-private-prisons
Private prison developer behind Montana fiasco involved in construction of NM private prisons
"The company that built a Montana private prison, which eventually led to a national embarrassment with the involvement of American Police Force, is also the company that constructed a number of prisons around New Mexico..."

Vice President Cheney profiteered from private prisons, migrant xenophobia
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

While vice president, Dick Cheney profiteered from private prisons by way of his investments. During the same time, the Bush/Cheney administration fanned the flames of racism toward migrants.
Private prisons flourished, especially in Texas and border states, and were filled with migrants and people of color.
Grossly mismanaged, the private prisons are now pits of sexual abuse, violence and murder.
In Nov. 2008, Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were indicted in Texas.
Although they have not been prosecuted, their link to profiteering at private prisons was exposed. Cheney invested in Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison operator GEO (formerly Wackenhut Corrections.)
AP reported in Nov. 2008, "Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted. The indictment in Willacy County has not yet been signed by the presiding judge.
Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of those privately run prisons."

Uranium in Indian country: Paul Zimmerman releases 'The Cult of Nuclearists'

Zimmerman releases chapter of new book to Censored News to aid in the struggles of Indigenous Peoples

From author Paul Zimmerman to Brenda Norrell:

"I recently read your article on CounterPunch.com about proposed uranium mining in the Grand Canyon. It got me thinking as to whether or not I could make some small contribution to the struggle, being played out yet again, between native peoples and what I call the Cult of Nuclearists. I decided to release a chapter that I'm very proud of from my newly published book. When you read the attached document, and if you find it of worth, I would be honored if you would share it with whatever groups and individuals you are aware of who may find it interesting and informative."

A Primer in the Art of Deception
The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science
by Paul Zimmerman
Copies of this book can be ordered at http://www.du-deceptions.com/ or by contacting the author at either info@du-deceptions.com or P.O. Box 145, Lyndonville, NY 14098
Excerpts, read full chapter at link below:
"... Peoples of the Navajo Nation, Laguna Pueblo and Acoma Pueblo suffered the greatest impact from this invasion by the large energy companies. Their familiar pastoral economy was rapidly transformed into a mining-industrial economy,and they became a mining-dependent population (Kuletz). Recruited as a cheap source of labor for the mines, Native Americans were exploited economically, receiving two-thirds the salary of employees brought in from off the reservation (Churchill). During the uranium boom of the 1970s, the median salary for the Laguna Pueblo was 50 dollars per week(Kuletz). Maximum economic gain for the mining companies was the driving force for the abuses showered on Native American communities in the Four Corners region ..."

"The desecration of sacred lands by uranium mining interests is never ending. A particularly appalling example became public knowledge in 2008 when newspapers reported that VANE Minerals, a UK mining company, was petitioning the US government for mining rights in the Grand Canyon."
Read Zimmerman's chapter online:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2009/09/paul-zimmerman-cult-of-nuclearists.html

Read more:

Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, CounterPunch

Photo: Havasupai Gathering to Halt Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon/Photo by Brenda Norrell