Hopi Vernon Masayesva: Coal fired power plants days are numbered

Vernon Masayesva: Days are numbered for Navajo Generating Station's use of Black Mesa coal and water

Black Mesa Trust Calls on EPA to Help Put Navajo Generating Station on Sound Environmental Footing

By Black Mesa Trust
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

KYKOTSOMOVI, Ariz., Jan. 30--Black Mesa Trust, an indigenous grassroots Hopi environmental, education and advocacy group serving the Native peoples of Black Mesa in northern Arizona, has called on Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 to support its efforts to require that the coal-based 2250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, and the Central Arizona Project that carries water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson, operate in an environmentally sound and culturally equitable manner.

Black Mesa Trust Executive Director Vernon Masayesva said, "The good old days when NGS produced cheap electricity to pump water to Central and Southern Arizona, using coal from Black Mesa obtained at discounted prices from the Hopi and Navajo people, are numbered.  Along with NGS, Peabody Coal is facing multiple problems, including growing opposition from Hopi and Navajo people to the world's largest strip-mining operation 

"We feel NGS can be saved as a base-load generating station, using a mix of solar, natural gas, and hydro-electricity."

The coal, water and land leases that allow Navajo Generating Station to run are up for renewal in the next few years. As the leases are renegotiated, Black Mesa Trust has requested that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar consider these issues: the historic and long-term health, water and economic harms the Hopi and Navajo peoples have suffered from the generating station and the coal mines that fuel it; the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement actions that have allowed mining operations to contaminate and degrade surface and ground water in the region, diminish water flows from springs and washes to traditional Hopi farms and destroyed hundreds of ancient burial sites; and the development of a regional energy plan focused on developing clean energy resources to provide baseload power to operation the 336-mile Central Arizona Project, which since its inception has been totally reliant on power from the Navajo Generating Station.

Masayesva and Marshall Johnson, founder of To'Nizhoni Ani, a Navajo grassroots organization dealing with water issues, have enlisted experts from Black Mesa Trust's Circle of Advisors, the Grand Canyon Trust and the Center for Applied Research to assist with the effort, and will seek support from the governors of Arizona, New Mexico and California, Hopi and Navajo government leaders and other environmental organizations to develop a plan to safeguard, honor and preserve the land, waters and cultures of Black Mesa.

Black Mesa Trust is a grassroots Hopi environmental, education and advocacy group serving the Native peoples of Black Mesa in northern Arizona, has called on Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 to support its efforts to require that the coal-based 2250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, and the Central Arizona Project that carries water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson, operate in an environmentally sound and culturally equitable manner.

Arizona School Censorship Hit with Protest from Organizations, Educators

Joan BertinExecutive Director
National Coalition Against Censorship
bertin@ncac.org
212-807-6222 x 101
 Michael O’Neil
Communications Coordinator
National Coalition Against Censorship
michael@ncac.org
212-807-6222 x 107
Chris Finan
President
American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression
Chris@abffe.org
212-587-4025 x 301
 Amy Long
Communications Coordinator
American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression
amyl@abffe.org
212-587-4025 x 302

Arizona School Censorship Hit By Salvo of Protest
From Free Speech Orgs and Educators

Censored News

TUCSON, AZ­—Dozens of national organizations have joined together to protest the banning of books used for the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).“This is censorship at its most brazen,” said Joan Bertin, Executive Director at the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). “Officials at the state and local level are responsible for this unacceptable restriction on the educational opportunities of students and their ability to have discussion in school about historical and contemporary events touching on race and ethnicity.

“We call on them to restore the books and the topics for discussion in the district’s classrooms.”

The TUSD board ordered the books removed after State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal threatened to withhold state funding pursuant to a recently-enacted Arizona law. That law is being challenged in court.

“We do not think the students of Tucson should have to wait for a federal court order to get the education they deserve,” said Chris Finan, President of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). “Regardless of the outcome of legal proceedings, this is harming students, whose education should be the primary concern of elected officials.  Instead they are putting politics and ideology ahead of the well-being of young people.”

NCAC and ABFFE have jointly created the Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), which offers support,education, and advocacy to promote the right of young people to read widely and to receive a high quality education that is challenging and relevant.  KRRP provides direct assistance to students, teachers, librarians and others opposing book-banning in schools and communities nationwide, while engaging local activists to promote the freedom to read.

In the shocking case of Tucson, many national organizations dedicated to education and constitutional right shave organized to speak in one voice, calling on the appropriate authorities to correct what they see as an egregious abuse of power.

The joint statement to Arizona officials, with signatories including representatives from publishers, teachers, civil libertarians, and booksellers from the region, may be viewed at http://www.ncac.org and http://abffe.org.

Obama to Native Americans: The cost of access in the age of spying

The Cost of Access in the Age of Spying

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

While many Native Americans were cold and hungry this winter, President Obama charged $10,000 to $35,000 for American Indians to attend his fundraiser Friday targeting Native Americans. There was another charge of  $10,000 to have one's photo taken with Obama.
Obama hoped to extract $1 million from Native Americans from the 70 expected to attend. This news came at the same time that the COINTELPRO type spying on American Indians, with its dangerous misinformation and hysteria, was exposed.
Anonymous hacktivists exposed the e-mails of the private global intelligence firm Stratfor, and the misinformed and absurd comments of Stratfor as it was spying on Occupy Austin and Deep Green Resistance.

Stratfor worked with Texas DPS to infiltrate activists. As they did, they targeted the Deep Green Resistance website, which has a 1973 photo of the occupation of Wounded Knee. The website also has Austin's Indigenous Struggle Solidarity Statement and links to Native American organizations.
Stratfor's false information, with its outdated information, exposed in the hacked files, is a good example of US flawed intelligence.
It is this flawed US intelligence that leads to innocent people being killed and tortured by the US throughout the world.
This type of false intelligence hype has far reaching consequences for those who are the victims of this type of self serving exaggerated info, outdated info, and lies -- the consequences are seen around the world, in the reckless use of drones to assassinate people by the US; the torture in secret prisons; and the creation of bogus wars.

Meanwhile, while US private intelligence spies on Native Americans, some American Indians paid between $10,000 and $35,000 to be at Obama's campaign fundraiser in DC on Friday. For another $10,000 they could get their photo taken with Obama.

Censored News urges President Obama, to do the right thing, and give the money directly back to Native Americans who are cold and hungry this winter.

Obama's campaign expected to extract about $1 million from Native Americans -- while many Native people do not have firewood, food, medicine, safe homes or safe drinking water.

This disparity between the haves and the have-nots in Indian country reveals a truth about the Indian "gaming" industry, an industry devised by non-Indians to profiteer in Indian country.

Today, millions of dollars in profits from Indian casinos go to non-Indian management firms, non-Indian attorneys, non-Indian lobbyists, non-Indian charities and to the states. While a few Native Americans profit, most of Indian country continues to live in desperate need of jobs, housing, firewood, clothing and even clean water and food.

In the slick campaign to create the illusion of Indian gaming, the word "gambling" was changed to "gaming" to make it palatable, and to hide the truth of gambling and its addiction.

The slick public relations campaigns continues to deceive. The media is now complicit in these crimes against humanity.

It was this chosen few "haves" in Indian country that President Obama targeted with his fundraising on Friday.

Who paid for those tickets and photos?

Did Native Americans attending pay with money from their tribe's general funds, funds that were meant for Americans who are desperately in need?

Who approved these expenses?

Remarks by the President at the fundraiser:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Please, please have a seat. It is wonderful to see all of you here this afternoon. Some old friends and some new friends.

 As you know, I’m not here tonight just as President, but also as an adopted member of the Crow Nation. (Applause.) If my adoptive parents were here, I know what they’d say: Kids just grow up so fast. (Laughter.)

 When I made that visit to Montana, I said that my job wasn’t just to win an election. It was to make sure that Washington started to focus on you. And I took that commitment seriously.

 My commitment is deeper than our unique nation-to-nation relationship. It’s a commitment to making sure that we get that relationship right. Native Americans have to be full partners in our economy. Your children and your grandchildren have to have an equal shot at the American Dream.

 And that’s why for three years in a row now, we’ve brought tribal leaders to Washington to develop an agenda that reflects your hopes and your aspirations and the needs of your tribes. I’ve appointed Native Americans to senior positions in my administration and in my White House. And many of you have had a chance to work with Kim Teehee, who does an extraordinary job coordinating our Native American affairs in the White House. (Applause.) And we’ve worked together to tackle some of the most difficult challenges facing Native American families.

And we should be proud of what we’ve done so far. But it should also sharpen our resolve to do even more.

 As long as Native Americans face unemployment rates that are far higher than the national average, we’ve got more work to do. And I wake up every day focused on how do we restore America’s promise for all our people, including our first Americans.

So in my State of the Union address this week, I laid out my blueprint for an economy that’s built to last, an economy built on American manufacturing and American energy, skills for American workers and a return to American values of fair play and responsibility. And that’s what we’re fighting for.

And I want you guys to be full partners in that fight because I believe that one day we’re going to be able to look back on these years and say this was a turning point in nation-to-nation relations; that this was turning point when the nations all across the country recognized that they were full partners, treated with dignity and respect and consultation; that this wasn’t just a side note on a White House agenda, but this was part and parcel of our broader agenda to make sure that everybody has opportunity.

And it’s also a moment when we build a strong middle class in Indian country. It’s not simply a ward but is able to marshal the resources to create its own agenda and its own destiny and its own economic development and its own businesses. That’s what we’re looking for.

We want new businesses and new opportunities to take root on the reservation. We want to stop repeating the mistakes of the past and begin building a better future -- one that honors old traditions and also welcomes every single Native American into the American Dream.

We’ve done some great work together -- whether it’s making sure that Indian Health was permanently extended and that we were putting additional resources to make sure that we’re picking up the health of Native Americans all across the country. Whether it’s an executive order that specifies our focus on education with all of your tribes, whether it’s making sure that we are working hard to allow the expansion of land in trust on behalf of nations to go further, we’ve made some significant progress. But we’ve got a lot more to do.

And I’m going to need all of you to continue to consult with us, to continue to work with us, continue to partner with us. I guarantee you that the work we’ve done over these first three years is not the end, it’s just the beginning.

And if you stick with me, I promise you guys I’m going to be sticking with you. All right, God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)

Remarks by the President were provided by the White House Office of the Press Secretary
 

Beware of ripoff online company Laptoptown

By Brenda Norrell Censored News
Beware of the online ripoff sales from www.latptoptown.com
Three weeks after purchasing a power cord from this company online, the wires frayed and the cord produced a dangerous spark.
Here is the fraudulent scheme used by this company, laptoptown.com, to prevent the return of this power cord for reimbursement:
--First, the company asked for photos (in order to delay return of the item)
--Then the company said they would send a replacement
--Then the company said the item was out of stock
--Then the company refused to provide the mailing address to return the item, refusing to respond with the address for another 10 days. The mailing address is not on the website.
These intentional delays made return of the item impossible in the required 30 days.
These intentional delays made it impossible to file a dispute in the required 45 days with PayPal.
Laptoptown.com is a fraudulent operation, which sends out dangerous, defective merchandise and then intentionally prevents the return of the item for reimbursement.
It is a horrible experience dealing with this company, laptoptown.com, beware and avoid this company.