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"Even today, politicians in Washington want to let their Big Oil buddies pad their profits by encroaching on your land and fouling your rivers and streams." (Photo: REYNOLD/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Editor's note: The following are the prepared remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for a speech given at the National Congress of American Indians on Wednesday, February 14, 2018.
Thank you for having me here today.
I want to start by thanking Chairwoman Andrews-Maltais for that introduction. It has been an honor to work with, to learn from, and to represent the tribes in my home state of Massachusetts, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head -- the Aquinnah -- and the Mashpee Wampanoag.
I also want to thank President Jefferson Keel, and everyone at the National Congress of American Indians. For over 70 years, you've championed the rights and dignity of First Americans and I am honored to be here with you today.
I've noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas. So I figured, let's talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.
Pocahontas - whose original name wasn't even Pocahontas.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas and John Smith meet and fall in love.
Except Smith was nearly 30, and Pocahontas was about 10 years old. Whatever happened between them, it was no love story.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas saves John Smith from execution at the hands of her father.
Except that was probably made up too.
In the fable, her baptism as "Rebecca" and her marriage to a Jamestown settler are held up to show the moral righteousness of colonization.
In reality, the fable is used to bleach away the stain of genocide.
As you know, Pocahontas's real journey was far more remarkable -- and far darker -- than the myth admits.
As a child, she played a significant role in mediating relations between the tribes ruled by her father and the early settlers at Jamestown. Those efforts helped establish early trade relations between the two peoples. Without her help, the English settlers might well have perished.
But in her teens, Pocahontas was abducted, imprisoned, and held captive. Oral history of the Mattaponi tribe indicates that she was ripped away from her first husband and child and raped in captivity.
Eventually she married another John -- John Rolfe. Her marriage led to an uneasy harmony between Jamestown and the tribes, a period that some historians call the Peace of Pocahontas.
But she was not around to enjoy it. John Rolfe paraded her around London to entertain the British and prop up financial investments in the Virginia Company. She never made it home. She was about 21 when she died, an ocean separating her from her people.
Indigenous people have been telling the story of Pocahontas -- the real Pocahontas -- for four centuries. A story of heroism. And bravery. And pain.
And, for almost as long, her story has been taken away by powerful people who twisted it to serve their own purposes.
Our country's disrespect of Native people didn't start with President Trump. It started long before President Washington ever took office.
But now we have a president who can't make it through a ceremony honoring Native American war heroes without reducing Native history, Native culture, Native people to the butt of a joke.
The joke, I guess, is supposed to be on me.
I get why some people think there's hay to be made here. You won't find my family members on any rolls, and I'm not enrolled in a tribe.
And I want to make something clear. I respect that distinction. I understand that tribal membership is determined by tribes -- and only by tribes. I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead. I never used it to advance my career.
But I want to make something else clear too: My parents were real people.
By all accounts, my mother was a beauty. She was born in Eastern Oklahoma, on this exact day -- Valentine's Day -- February 14, 1912. She grew up in the little town of Wetumka, the kind of girl who would sit for hours by herself, playing the piano and singing. My daddy fell head over heels in love with her.
But my mother's family was part Native American. And my daddy's parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.
Together, they survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. They saved up to buy a home. They raised my three older brothers, and they watched as each one headed off to serve in the military. After Daddy had a heart attack and was out of work, after we lost the family station wagon and it looked like we would lose our house and everything would come crashing down, my mother put on her best dress and walked to the Sears and got a minimum-wage job. That minimum-wage job saved our house and saved our family.
My parents struggled. They sacrificed. They paid off medical debts for years. My daddy ended up as a janitor. They fought and they drank, but more than anything, they hung together. 63 years -- that's how long they were married. When my mother died, a part of my daddy slipped away too.
Two years later, I held his hand while cancer took him. The last thing he said was, "It's time for me to be with your mother." And he smiled.
They're gone, but the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, and the story they lived will always be a part of me. And no one -- not even the president of the United States -- will ever take that part of me away.
Our stories are deeply woven into the fabric of who we are. The stories of immigrants and slaves, of explorers and refugees, have shaped and reshaped our country right up to the present day. For far too long, your story has been pushed aside, to be trotted out only in cartoons and commercials.
So I'm here today to make a promise: Every time someone brings up my family's story, I'm going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.
Your story is about contributions. The contributions you make to a country that took so much and keeps asking for more, contributions like serving in the military at rates higher than any other group in America.
It is a story about hope. The hope you create as more Native people go to college, go to graduate school and grow local economies.
It is a story about resilience. The resilience you show as you reclaim your history and your traditions.
And it is a story about pride and the determination of people who refuse to let their languages fade away and their cultures die.
I honor that story.
But there's another story that also needs to be told. The story of our country's mistreatment of your communities. And this isn't just a story about casual racism - war whoops and tomahawk chops and insulting Facebook memes.
It's a story about discrimination and neglect -- the unmet health care needs of Native children and families, the alarmingly high rate of suicide among Native teenagers, the growing opioid crisis and the broader epidemic of substance abuse that has ravaged so many Native communities.
It's a story about greed. For generations -- Congress after Congress, president after president -- the government robbed you of your land, suppressed your languages, put your children in boarding schools and gave your babies away for adoption. It has stolen your resources and, for many tribal governments, taken away the opportunity to grow and prosper for the good of your people.
Even today, politicians in Washington want to let their Big Oil buddies pad their profits by encroaching on your land and fouling your rivers and streams. Meanwhile, even as the economic future of your communities hangs in the balance, they want to cut nutrition assistance, cut Medicaid, and cut other programs that many Native families rely on to survive.
It's a story about violence. It is deeply offensive that this president keeps a portrait of Andrew Jackson hanging in the Oval Office, honoring a man who did his best to wipe out Native people. But the kind of violence President Jackson and his allies perpetrated isn't just an ugly chapter in a history book. Violence remains part of life today. The majority of violent crimes experienced by Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives, and more than half -- half -- of Native women have experienced sexual violence.
This must stop. And I promise I will fight to help write a different story.
Washington owes you respect. But this government owes you much more than that. This government owes you a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future -- starting with a more prosperous economic future on tribal lands.
For example. Banking and credit are the lifeblood of economic development, but it's about 12 miles on average from the center of tribal reservations to the nearest bank branch. Meanwhile, Native business owners get less start-up funding than other business owners.
And when it comes to crucial infrastructure, Native communities are far behind the rest of the country. Rural broadband access on tribal lands is worse than anywhere else in America, and more than a third of those living on tribal lands don't have high-speed broadband at all. Without it, Native communities are simply shut out of a 21st century economy.
It's time to make real investments in Indian country to build opportunity for generations to come.
And that's only part of the real change we can make.
* We can stop giant corporations from stealing your resources.
* We can expand federally protected land that is important to your tribes.
* We can protect historic monuments like Bears Ears from companies that see it as just another place to drill.
* We can take steps to stop violence against Native people - including passing Savanna's Act to fight the plague of missing Native women and girls.
Most of all, we can fight to empower tribal governments and Native communities so you can take your rightful seat at the table when it comes to determining your own future.
And we can fight to make sure that all Americans who have been left out in our economy, left out in our democracy, and left out in our history can take their rightful seat at that table.
At a time when children are still drinking bottled water in Flint, when families are still desperate for help in Puerto Rico, and when tribal governments are still asking Washington to live up to its promises, we must demand a federal government that works for all of us -- because if we don't, we become a country that belongs to only a privileged few.
That's why, even when divide-and-conquer looks to some like smart politics, we must choose unity. We must be willing to join together in each other's fights. And at a time when bigotry threatens to overwhelm our discourse, we must amplify voices of basic human respect.
We must stand with everyone who has gotten the short end of the stick from Washington over and over and over. We must weave our voices together to make them strong. We must come together to write a new story, not just for Native Americans, but for all Americans.
A story of power and respect. A story in which everyone's voice can be heard.
A story worthy of those who came before us. A story our children and grandchildren will be proud to tell.
Thank you!
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Editor's note: The following are the prepared remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for a speech given at the National Congress of American Indians on Wednesday, February 14, 2018.
Thank you for having me here today.
I want to start by thanking Chairwoman Andrews-Maltais for that introduction. It has been an honor to work with, to learn from, and to represent the tribes in my home state of Massachusetts, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head -- the Aquinnah -- and the Mashpee Wampanoag.
I also want to thank President Jefferson Keel, and everyone at the National Congress of American Indians. For over 70 years, you've championed the rights and dignity of First Americans and I am honored to be here with you today.
I've noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas. So I figured, let's talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.
Pocahontas - whose original name wasn't even Pocahontas.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas and John Smith meet and fall in love.
Except Smith was nearly 30, and Pocahontas was about 10 years old. Whatever happened between them, it was no love story.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas saves John Smith from execution at the hands of her father.
Except that was probably made up too.
In the fable, her baptism as "Rebecca" and her marriage to a Jamestown settler are held up to show the moral righteousness of colonization.
In reality, the fable is used to bleach away the stain of genocide.
As you know, Pocahontas's real journey was far more remarkable -- and far darker -- than the myth admits.
As a child, she played a significant role in mediating relations between the tribes ruled by her father and the early settlers at Jamestown. Those efforts helped establish early trade relations between the two peoples. Without her help, the English settlers might well have perished.
But in her teens, Pocahontas was abducted, imprisoned, and held captive. Oral history of the Mattaponi tribe indicates that she was ripped away from her first husband and child and raped in captivity.
Eventually she married another John -- John Rolfe. Her marriage led to an uneasy harmony between Jamestown and the tribes, a period that some historians call the Peace of Pocahontas.
But she was not around to enjoy it. John Rolfe paraded her around London to entertain the British and prop up financial investments in the Virginia Company. She never made it home. She was about 21 when she died, an ocean separating her from her people.
Indigenous people have been telling the story of Pocahontas -- the real Pocahontas -- for four centuries. A story of heroism. And bravery. And pain.
And, for almost as long, her story has been taken away by powerful people who twisted it to serve their own purposes.
Our country's disrespect of Native people didn't start with President Trump. It started long before President Washington ever took office.
But now we have a president who can't make it through a ceremony honoring Native American war heroes without reducing Native history, Native culture, Native people to the butt of a joke.
The joke, I guess, is supposed to be on me.
I get why some people think there's hay to be made here. You won't find my family members on any rolls, and I'm not enrolled in a tribe.
And I want to make something clear. I respect that distinction. I understand that tribal membership is determined by tribes -- and only by tribes. I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead. I never used it to advance my career.
But I want to make something else clear too: My parents were real people.
By all accounts, my mother was a beauty. She was born in Eastern Oklahoma, on this exact day -- Valentine's Day -- February 14, 1912. She grew up in the little town of Wetumka, the kind of girl who would sit for hours by herself, playing the piano and singing. My daddy fell head over heels in love with her.
But my mother's family was part Native American. And my daddy's parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.
Together, they survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. They saved up to buy a home. They raised my three older brothers, and they watched as each one headed off to serve in the military. After Daddy had a heart attack and was out of work, after we lost the family station wagon and it looked like we would lose our house and everything would come crashing down, my mother put on her best dress and walked to the Sears and got a minimum-wage job. That minimum-wage job saved our house and saved our family.
My parents struggled. They sacrificed. They paid off medical debts for years. My daddy ended up as a janitor. They fought and they drank, but more than anything, they hung together. 63 years -- that's how long they were married. When my mother died, a part of my daddy slipped away too.
Two years later, I held his hand while cancer took him. The last thing he said was, "It's time for me to be with your mother." And he smiled.
They're gone, but the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, and the story they lived will always be a part of me. And no one -- not even the president of the United States -- will ever take that part of me away.
Our stories are deeply woven into the fabric of who we are. The stories of immigrants and slaves, of explorers and refugees, have shaped and reshaped our country right up to the present day. For far too long, your story has been pushed aside, to be trotted out only in cartoons and commercials.
So I'm here today to make a promise: Every time someone brings up my family's story, I'm going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.
Your story is about contributions. The contributions you make to a country that took so much and keeps asking for more, contributions like serving in the military at rates higher than any other group in America.
It is a story about hope. The hope you create as more Native people go to college, go to graduate school and grow local economies.
It is a story about resilience. The resilience you show as you reclaim your history and your traditions.
And it is a story about pride and the determination of people who refuse to let their languages fade away and their cultures die.
I honor that story.
But there's another story that also needs to be told. The story of our country's mistreatment of your communities. And this isn't just a story about casual racism - war whoops and tomahawk chops and insulting Facebook memes.
It's a story about discrimination and neglect -- the unmet health care needs of Native children and families, the alarmingly high rate of suicide among Native teenagers, the growing opioid crisis and the broader epidemic of substance abuse that has ravaged so many Native communities.
It's a story about greed. For generations -- Congress after Congress, president after president -- the government robbed you of your land, suppressed your languages, put your children in boarding schools and gave your babies away for adoption. It has stolen your resources and, for many tribal governments, taken away the opportunity to grow and prosper for the good of your people.
Even today, politicians in Washington want to let their Big Oil buddies pad their profits by encroaching on your land and fouling your rivers and streams. Meanwhile, even as the economic future of your communities hangs in the balance, they want to cut nutrition assistance, cut Medicaid, and cut other programs that many Native families rely on to survive.
It's a story about violence. It is deeply offensive that this president keeps a portrait of Andrew Jackson hanging in the Oval Office, honoring a man who did his best to wipe out Native people. But the kind of violence President Jackson and his allies perpetrated isn't just an ugly chapter in a history book. Violence remains part of life today. The majority of violent crimes experienced by Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives, and more than half -- half -- of Native women have experienced sexual violence.
This must stop. And I promise I will fight to help write a different story.
Washington owes you respect. But this government owes you much more than that. This government owes you a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future -- starting with a more prosperous economic future on tribal lands.
For example. Banking and credit are the lifeblood of economic development, but it's about 12 miles on average from the center of tribal reservations to the nearest bank branch. Meanwhile, Native business owners get less start-up funding than other business owners.
And when it comes to crucial infrastructure, Native communities are far behind the rest of the country. Rural broadband access on tribal lands is worse than anywhere else in America, and more than a third of those living on tribal lands don't have high-speed broadband at all. Without it, Native communities are simply shut out of a 21st century economy.
It's time to make real investments in Indian country to build opportunity for generations to come.
And that's only part of the real change we can make.
* We can stop giant corporations from stealing your resources.
* We can expand federally protected land that is important to your tribes.
* We can protect historic monuments like Bears Ears from companies that see it as just another place to drill.
* We can take steps to stop violence against Native people - including passing Savanna's Act to fight the plague of missing Native women and girls.
Most of all, we can fight to empower tribal governments and Native communities so you can take your rightful seat at the table when it comes to determining your own future.
And we can fight to make sure that all Americans who have been left out in our economy, left out in our democracy, and left out in our history can take their rightful seat at that table.
At a time when children are still drinking bottled water in Flint, when families are still desperate for help in Puerto Rico, and when tribal governments are still asking Washington to live up to its promises, we must demand a federal government that works for all of us -- because if we don't, we become a country that belongs to only a privileged few.
That's why, even when divide-and-conquer looks to some like smart politics, we must choose unity. We must be willing to join together in each other's fights. And at a time when bigotry threatens to overwhelm our discourse, we must amplify voices of basic human respect.
We must stand with everyone who has gotten the short end of the stick from Washington over and over and over. We must weave our voices together to make them strong. We must come together to write a new story, not just for Native Americans, but for all Americans.
A story of power and respect. A story in which everyone's voice can be heard.
A story worthy of those who came before us. A story our children and grandchildren will be proud to tell.
Thank you!
Editor's note: The following are the prepared remarks of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for a speech given at the National Congress of American Indians on Wednesday, February 14, 2018.
Thank you for having me here today.
I want to start by thanking Chairwoman Andrews-Maltais for that introduction. It has been an honor to work with, to learn from, and to represent the tribes in my home state of Massachusetts, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head -- the Aquinnah -- and the Mashpee Wampanoag.
I also want to thank President Jefferson Keel, and everyone at the National Congress of American Indians. For over 70 years, you've championed the rights and dignity of First Americans and I am honored to be here with you today.
I've noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas. So I figured, let's talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.
Pocahontas - whose original name wasn't even Pocahontas.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas and John Smith meet and fall in love.
Except Smith was nearly 30, and Pocahontas was about 10 years old. Whatever happened between them, it was no love story.
In the fairy tale, Pocahontas saves John Smith from execution at the hands of her father.
Except that was probably made up too.
In the fable, her baptism as "Rebecca" and her marriage to a Jamestown settler are held up to show the moral righteousness of colonization.
In reality, the fable is used to bleach away the stain of genocide.
As you know, Pocahontas's real journey was far more remarkable -- and far darker -- than the myth admits.
As a child, she played a significant role in mediating relations between the tribes ruled by her father and the early settlers at Jamestown. Those efforts helped establish early trade relations between the two peoples. Without her help, the English settlers might well have perished.
But in her teens, Pocahontas was abducted, imprisoned, and held captive. Oral history of the Mattaponi tribe indicates that she was ripped away from her first husband and child and raped in captivity.
Eventually she married another John -- John Rolfe. Her marriage led to an uneasy harmony between Jamestown and the tribes, a period that some historians call the Peace of Pocahontas.
But she was not around to enjoy it. John Rolfe paraded her around London to entertain the British and prop up financial investments in the Virginia Company. She never made it home. She was about 21 when she died, an ocean separating her from her people.
Indigenous people have been telling the story of Pocahontas -- the real Pocahontas -- for four centuries. A story of heroism. And bravery. And pain.
And, for almost as long, her story has been taken away by powerful people who twisted it to serve their own purposes.
Our country's disrespect of Native people didn't start with President Trump. It started long before President Washington ever took office.
But now we have a president who can't make it through a ceremony honoring Native American war heroes without reducing Native history, Native culture, Native people to the butt of a joke.
The joke, I guess, is supposed to be on me.
I get why some people think there's hay to be made here. You won't find my family members on any rolls, and I'm not enrolled in a tribe.
And I want to make something clear. I respect that distinction. I understand that tribal membership is determined by tribes -- and only by tribes. I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead. I never used it to advance my career.
But I want to make something else clear too: My parents were real people.
By all accounts, my mother was a beauty. She was born in Eastern Oklahoma, on this exact day -- Valentine's Day -- February 14, 1912. She grew up in the little town of Wetumka, the kind of girl who would sit for hours by herself, playing the piano and singing. My daddy fell head over heels in love with her.
But my mother's family was part Native American. And my daddy's parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.
Together, they survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. They saved up to buy a home. They raised my three older brothers, and they watched as each one headed off to serve in the military. After Daddy had a heart attack and was out of work, after we lost the family station wagon and it looked like we would lose our house and everything would come crashing down, my mother put on her best dress and walked to the Sears and got a minimum-wage job. That minimum-wage job saved our house and saved our family.
My parents struggled. They sacrificed. They paid off medical debts for years. My daddy ended up as a janitor. They fought and they drank, but more than anything, they hung together. 63 years -- that's how long they were married. When my mother died, a part of my daddy slipped away too.
Two years later, I held his hand while cancer took him. The last thing he said was, "It's time for me to be with your mother." And he smiled.
They're gone, but the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, and the story they lived will always be a part of me. And no one -- not even the president of the United States -- will ever take that part of me away.
Our stories are deeply woven into the fabric of who we are. The stories of immigrants and slaves, of explorers and refugees, have shaped and reshaped our country right up to the present day. For far too long, your story has been pushed aside, to be trotted out only in cartoons and commercials.
So I'm here today to make a promise: Every time someone brings up my family's story, I'm going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.
Your story is about contributions. The contributions you make to a country that took so much and keeps asking for more, contributions like serving in the military at rates higher than any other group in America.
It is a story about hope. The hope you create as more Native people go to college, go to graduate school and grow local economies.
It is a story about resilience. The resilience you show as you reclaim your history and your traditions.
And it is a story about pride and the determination of people who refuse to let their languages fade away and their cultures die.
I honor that story.
But there's another story that also needs to be told. The story of our country's mistreatment of your communities. And this isn't just a story about casual racism - war whoops and tomahawk chops and insulting Facebook memes.
It's a story about discrimination and neglect -- the unmet health care needs of Native children and families, the alarmingly high rate of suicide among Native teenagers, the growing opioid crisis and the broader epidemic of substance abuse that has ravaged so many Native communities.
It's a story about greed. For generations -- Congress after Congress, president after president -- the government robbed you of your land, suppressed your languages, put your children in boarding schools and gave your babies away for adoption. It has stolen your resources and, for many tribal governments, taken away the opportunity to grow and prosper for the good of your people.
Even today, politicians in Washington want to let their Big Oil buddies pad their profits by encroaching on your land and fouling your rivers and streams. Meanwhile, even as the economic future of your communities hangs in the balance, they want to cut nutrition assistance, cut Medicaid, and cut other programs that many Native families rely on to survive.
It's a story about violence. It is deeply offensive that this president keeps a portrait of Andrew Jackson hanging in the Oval Office, honoring a man who did his best to wipe out Native people. But the kind of violence President Jackson and his allies perpetrated isn't just an ugly chapter in a history book. Violence remains part of life today. The majority of violent crimes experienced by Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives, and more than half -- half -- of Native women have experienced sexual violence.
This must stop. And I promise I will fight to help write a different story.
Washington owes you respect. But this government owes you much more than that. This government owes you a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future -- starting with a more prosperous economic future on tribal lands.
For example. Banking and credit are the lifeblood of economic development, but it's about 12 miles on average from the center of tribal reservations to the nearest bank branch. Meanwhile, Native business owners get less start-up funding than other business owners.
And when it comes to crucial infrastructure, Native communities are far behind the rest of the country. Rural broadband access on tribal lands is worse than anywhere else in America, and more than a third of those living on tribal lands don't have high-speed broadband at all. Without it, Native communities are simply shut out of a 21st century economy.
It's time to make real investments in Indian country to build opportunity for generations to come.
And that's only part of the real change we can make.
* We can stop giant corporations from stealing your resources.
* We can expand federally protected land that is important to your tribes.
* We can protect historic monuments like Bears Ears from companies that see it as just another place to drill.
* We can take steps to stop violence against Native people - including passing Savanna's Act to fight the plague of missing Native women and girls.
Most of all, we can fight to empower tribal governments and Native communities so you can take your rightful seat at the table when it comes to determining your own future.
And we can fight to make sure that all Americans who have been left out in our economy, left out in our democracy, and left out in our history can take their rightful seat at that table.
At a time when children are still drinking bottled water in Flint, when families are still desperate for help in Puerto Rico, and when tribal governments are still asking Washington to live up to its promises, we must demand a federal government that works for all of us -- because if we don't, we become a country that belongs to only a privileged few.
That's why, even when divide-and-conquer looks to some like smart politics, we must choose unity. We must be willing to join together in each other's fights. And at a time when bigotry threatens to overwhelm our discourse, we must amplify voices of basic human respect.
We must stand with everyone who has gotten the short end of the stick from Washington over and over and over. We must weave our voices together to make them strong. We must come together to write a new story, not just for Native Americans, but for all Americans.
A story of power and respect. A story in which everyone's voice can be heard.
A story worthy of those who came before us. A story our children and grandchildren will be proud to tell.
Thank you!
"Zeldin's assertion that the EPA shouldn't address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn't fight fires," said one critic. "It is as malicious as it is absurd."
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration faced an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday for starting the process of repealing the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—which has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.
Confirming reports from last week, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the rule to rescind the 2009 "endangerment finding" at a truck dealership in Indiana. According to The New York Times, he said that "the proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States."
If the administration succeeds in repealing the legal finding, the EPA would lack authority under the Clean Air Act to impose standards for greenhouse gas emissions—meaning the move would kill vehicle regulations. As with the reporting last week, the formal announcement was sharply condemned by climate and health advocates and experts.
"Greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and are the root cause of the climate crisis," said Deanna Noël with Public Citizen's Climate Program, ripping the administration's effort as "grossly misguided and exceptionally dangerous."
"This isn't just a denial of science and reality—it's a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else."
"Stripping the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases is like throwing away the fire extinguisher while the house is already burning," she warned. "The administration is shamelessly handing Big Oil a hall pass to pollute unchecked and dodge accountability, leaving working families to bear the costs through worsening health outcomes, rising energy bills, more climate-fueled extreme weather, and an increasingly unstable future. This isn't just a denial of science and reality—it's a betrayal of public trust and yet another signal that this administration is working for corporate interests, and no one else."
Noël was far from alone in accusing the administration's leaders of serving the polluters who helped Trump return to power.
"Zeldin and Trump are concerned only with maximizing short-term profits for polluting corporations and the CEOs funneling millions of dollars to their campaign coffers," said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch. "Zeldin's assertion that the EPA shouldn't address greenhouse gas emissions is like a fire chief claiming that they shouldn't fight fires. It is as malicious as it is absurd."
Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Safe Climate Transport Campaign, similarly said that the proposal is "purely a political bow to the oil industry" and "Trump is putting fealty to Big Oil over sound science and people's health."
Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel also called the rule "a perverse gift to the fossil fuel industry that rejects yearslong efforts by the agency, scientists, NGOs, frontline communities, and industry to protect public health and our environment."
"Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin are playing with fire—and with floods and droughts and public health risks, too," she stressed, as about 168 million Americans on Tuesday faced advisories for extreme heat made more likely by the climate crisis.
🚨 The Trump administration just took its most extreme step yet in rolling back climate protections.
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— Sierra Club (@sierraclub.org) July 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents over 8,000 EPA workers nationwide, said that the repeal plan "is reckless and will have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for the USA."
"EPA career professionals have worked for decades on the development of the science and policy of greenhouse gases to protect the American public," he continued, "and this policy decision completely disregards all of their work in service to the public."
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) highlighted that Chris Wright, head of the Department of Energy, joined Zeldin at the Tuesday press conference and "announced a DOE 'climate science study' alongside remarks that were rife with climate denial talking points and disinformation."
UCS president Gretchen Goldman said that "it's abundantly clear what's going on here. The Trump administration refuses to acknowledge robust climate science and is using the kitchen sink approach: making every specious argument it can to avoid complying with the law."
"But getting around the Clean Air Act won't be easy," she added. "The science establishing climate harms to human health was unequivocally clear back in 2009, and more than 15 years later, the evidence has only accumulated."
Today, Zeldin’s EPA plans to release a proposal to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which is the legal & scientific foundation of EPA’s responsibility to limit climate-heating greenhouse gas pollution from major sources.
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— Moms Clean Air Force (@momscleanairforce.org) July 29, 2025 at 12:58 PM
David Bookbinder, director of law and policy at the Environmental Integrity Project, was a lead attorney in the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs. EPA, which affirmed the agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and ultimately led to the endangerment finding two years later.
Bookbinder said Tuesday that "because this approach has already been rejected by the courts—and doubtless will be again—this baseless effort to pretend that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that cause climate change are not harmful pollutants is nothing more than a transparent attempt to delay and derail our efforts to control greenhouse pollution at the worst possible time, when deadly floods and heat waves are killing more people every day."
In a statement from the Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of ex-EPA staff, Joseph Goffman, former assistant administrator of the agency's Office of Air and Radiation, also cited the 2007 ruling.
"This decision is both legally indefensible and morally bankrupt," Goffman said of the Tuesday proposal. "The Supreme Court made clear that EPA cannot ignore science or evade its responsibilities under the Clean Air Act. By walking away from the endangerment finding, EPA has not only broken with precedent; it has broken with reality."
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, responded to the EPA proposal with defiance, declaring that "Donald Trump and his Big Oil donors are lighting the world on fire and fueling their private jets with young people's lives. We refuse to be sacrifices for their greed. We're coming for them, and we're not backing down."
Israel has already summarily rejected the U.K. leader's ultimatum to take "substantive" steps to end the war on Gaza by September, agree to a two-state solution, and reject West Bank annexation.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer was accused of "political grandstanding" after he said Tuesday that his country would recognize Palestinian statehood if Israel did not take ambiguously defined steps to end its war on Gaza—conditions that were promptly dismissed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Today, as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the U.K. will recognize the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a cease-fire, and commit to a long-term sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution," Starmer said during a press conference.
"This includes allowing the U.N. to restart the supply of aid and making clear that there will be no annexations in the West Bank," the prime minister continued, adding that "the terrorists of Hamas... must immediately release all of the hostages, sign up to a cease-fire, disarm, and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza."
Member of Scottish Parliament Scott Greer (Scottish Greens-West Scotland) responded to Tuesday's announcement on social media, saying, "Starmer wouldn't threaten to withdraw U.K. recognition of Israel, but he's made recognition of Palestinian statehood conditional on the actions of their genocidal oppressor?"
"Another profoundly unjust act from a Labour government thoroughly complicit in Israel's crimes," Greer added.
British attorney and activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu asserted that "Keir Starmer knows his time is up and pivots to save his career but it's too late."
"By placing a condition on recognizing Palestine this declaration is performative and disingenuous because before September he can claim Israel has substantively complied with the condition," she added.
Leftist politician and Accountability Archive co-founder Philip Proudfoot argued on social media that "decent" Members of Parliament "need to table a no-confidence motion in Starmer now."
"He has just used the recognition of Palestine as a bargaining chip in exchange for Israel following its BASIC LEGAL OBLIGATIONS," he added. "This is one of the lowest political acts in living memory."
Media critic Sana Saeed said on social media, "Using Palestinian life and future as a bargaining chip and threat to Israel—not a surprise from kid starver Keir Starmer."
Journalist Sangita Myska argued that "rather than threatening the gesture politics of recognizing a Palestinian state (that may never happen)," Starmer should expel Israel's ambassador to the U.K., impose "full trade sanctions" and a "full arms embargo," and end alleged Royal Air Force surveillance flights over Gaza.
Political analyst Bushra Shaikh accused Starmer of "political grandstanding" and "speaking from both sides of his mouth."
Starmer's announcement followed a Monday meeting in Turnberry, Scotland with U.S. President Donald Trump, who signaled that he would not object to U.K. recognition of Palestine.
However, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called Starmer's announcement "a slap in the face for the victims of October 7," a reference to the Hamas-led attack of 2023.
While the United States remains Israel's staunchest supporter and enabler—providing billions of dollars in annual armed aid and diplomatic cover—Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee have all expressed concerns over mounting starvation deaths in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the U.N.-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that a "worst-case" famine scenario is developing in Gaza, where health officials say at least 147 Palestinians, including at least 88 children, have died from malnutrition since Israel launched its obliteration and siege of the enclave following the October 2023 attack.
Israel—which imposed a "complete siege" on Gaza following that attack—has severely limited the amount of humanitarian aid that can enter the strip. According to U.N. officials, Israel Defense Forces troops have killed more than 1,000 aid-seeking civilians at distribution points run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. IDF troops have said they were ordered to shoot live bullets and artillery shells at aid seekers.
Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza including murder and weaponized starvation—responded to the U.K. prime minister's ultimatum in a social media post stating, "Starmer rewards Hamas' monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims."
"A jihadist state on Israel's border TODAY will threaten Britain TOMORROW," Netanyahu said. "Appeasement towards jihadist terrorists always fails. It will fail you too. It will not happen."
The U.K. played a critical role in the foundation of the modern state of Israel, allowing Jewish colonization of what was then the British Mandate of Palestine under condition that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," who made up more than 90% of the population.
Seeing that Jewish immigrants returning to their ancestral homeland were usurping the indigenous Arabs of Palestine, the British subsequently prohibited further Zionist colonization. This sparked a nearly decadelong wave of terrorism and other attacks against the British occupiers that ultimately resulted in the U.K. abandoning Palestine and the establishment of Israel under the authority of the United Nations—an outcome achieved by the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs.
On the topic of annexing the West Bank, earlier this month, all 15 Israeli government ministers representing Netanyahu's Likud party recommended the move, citing support from Trump. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found last year that Israel's occupation of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, is an illegal form of apartheid.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would announce its formal recognition of Palestinian statehood during September's U.N. General Assembly in New York. France is set to become the first Group of Seven nation to recognize Palestine, which is currently officially acknowledged by approximately 150 of the 193 U.N. member states.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz subsequently threatened "severe consequences" for nations that recognize Palestine.
Starmer's announcement came on the same day that the Gaza Health Ministry said that the death toll from Israel's 662-day assault and siege on Gaza—which is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case at the ICJ—topped 60,000. However, multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet have concluded that Gaza officials' casualty tallies are likely significant undercounts.
"Eric Adams is a complete non-factor in this race," remarked a founding partner of pollster Zenith Research.
A new poll of the New York City mayoral race found that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is very well positioned to win later this year and that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is only competitive in the race if every other Mamdani opponent drops out.
The survey, which was conducted by polling firm Zenith Research, showed Mamdani holding what Zenith founding partner Adam Carlson described on X as a "commanding" lead of 28 points among likely voters in a five-way race featuring Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and independent candidate Jim Walden. Even in other scenarios where other candidates drop out of the race, Mamdani would still garner more than 50% of likely votes in each instance.
However, Mamdani's lead becomes much smaller when the poll is expanded to all registered voters, among whom he only holds a three-point advantage over Cuomo in a head-to-head matchup. This suggests that Cuomo has room to grow as long as he can convince Adams, Sliwa, and Walden to exit the race.
Even so, commented Carlson, Cuomo faces significant headwinds that could block his path to victory even if he succeeds somehow in making it a one-on-one race.
"Another thing that’s extremely tough for Cuomo is that 60% of likely voters (as well as 52% of registered voters) would not even consider voting for him," he explained. "Only 32% say they wouldn't consider voting for Mamdani. Cuomo will need to go scorched earth to bring that number up."
New Yorkers who oppose Mamdani will have to place their hopes in the disgraced former governor, given the dismal standing held by incumbent Adams.
"Eric Adams is a complete non-factor in this race," remarked Carlson. "He polls at 7% in the five-way race, 14% if Cuomo drops out, and 32% if Cuomo and Sliwa drop out. More than half of [likely voters] strongly disapprove of his performance and have a very unfavorable view of him. 68% won't consider voting for him."
The poll also found Mamdani with an overall lead among Jewish voters despite efforts by opponents to paint him as antisemitic given his opposition to Israel's war in Gaza and his past reluctance to criticize the slogan "globalize the intifada," which he told The Bulwark he viewed as "a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights." New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive Jewish ally of Mamdani's who has endorsed his mayoral bid, acknowledged before the election that some Jewish people view the phrase as a threat of violence.
Among likely Jewish voters, Mamdani leads Cuomo by 17 points in a five-way race. Although Cuomo holds a double-digit lead over Mamdani among likely Jewish voters over the age of 45, Mamdani dominates among young Jewish voters by pulling in more than two-thirds of likely Jewish voters between the ages of 18 and 44.