The History Behind Cobell Vs. Salazar

The History Behind Cobell Vs. Salazar Surviving multiple presidential administrations since its inception in 1996, the Cobell case has been known variously as Cobell v. Babbit, Cobell v. Norton, Cobell v. Kempthorne and its current name, Cobell v. Salazar (all defendants being Secretaries of the Interior under which the Bureau of Indian affairs is organized). With upwards of 500,000 plaintiffs, it has been called the largest class-action lawsuit against the United States in U.S. history. The suit is the result of over 100 years of abusive federal Indian policy and gross negligence in the management of Indian trust lands. Overview Eloise Cobell, a Blackfoot Indian from Montana and banker by profession, filed the lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of thousands of individual Indians in 1996 after finding many discrepancies in the management of funds for lands held in trust by the United States in her job as treasurer for the Blackfoot tribe. According to U.S. law, Indian lands are technically not owned by tribes or individual Indians themselves but are held in trust by the U.S. government. Under U.S. management, Indian trust lands Indian reservations are often leased to non-Indian individuals or companies for resource extraction or other uses. The revenue generated from the leases is to be paid to the tribes and individual Indian land owners. The United States has a fiduciary responsibility to manage the lands to the best benefit of tribes and individual Indians, but as the lawsuit revealed, for over 100 years the government failed in its duties to accurately account for the income generated by the leases, let alone pay the revenues to the Indians. History of Indian Land Policy and Law The foundation of federal Indian law begins with the principles based on the doctrine of discovery, originally defined in Johnson v. MacIntosh (1823) which maintains that Indians only have a right to occupancy and not the title to their own lands. This led to the legal principle of the trust doctrine to which the United States is held on behalf of Native American tribes. In its mission to civilize and assimilate Indians into mainstream American culture, the Dawes Act of 1887 broke up the communal landholdings of tribes into individual allotments which were held in trust for a period of 25 years. After the 25-year period, a patent in fee simple would be issued, enabling an individual to sell their land if they chose to and ultimately breaking up the reservations. The goal of the assimilation policy would have resulted in all Indian trust lands in private ownership, but a new generation of lawmakers in the early 20th century reversed the assimilation policy based on the landmark Merria m Report which detailed the deleterious effects of the previous policy. Fractionation Throughout the decades as the original allottees died the allotments passed to their heirs in subsequent generations. The result has been that an allotment of 40, 60, 80, or 160 acres, which was originally owned by one person is now owned by hundreds or sometimes even thousands of people. These fractionated allotments are usually vacant parcels of land that are still managed under resource leases by the U.S. and have been rendered useless for any other purposes because they can only be developed with the approval 51% of all other owners, an unlikely scenario. Each of those people is assigned Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts which are credited with any revenue generated by the leases (or would have been had there been appropriate accounting and crediting maintained). With hundreds of thousands of IIM accounts now in existence, accounting has become a bureaucratic nightmare and highly costly. The Settlement The Cobell case hinged in large part on whether or not an accurate accounting of the IIM accounts could be determined. After over 15 years of litigation, the defendant and the plaintiffs both agreed that an accurate accounting was not possible and in 2010 a settlement was finally reached for a total of $3.4 billion. The settlement, known as the Claims Settlement Act of 2010, was divided into three sections: $1.5 billion was created for an Accounting/Trust Administration fund (to be distributed to IIM account holders), $60 million is set aside for Indian access to higher education, and the remaining $1.9 billion sets up the Trust Land Consolidation Fund, which provides funds for tribal governments to purchase individual fractionated interests, consolidating the allotments into once again communally held land. However, the settlement has yet to be paid due to legal challenges by four Indian plaintiffs.

Scary Clown Costume Ideas for This Halloween

Scary Clown Costume Ideas for This Halloween In case you haven’t heard, scary clowns are all the rage this fall. The trend has sparked terror all across the country and internationally as people don scary clown costumes at night and head out to terrorize their neighborhood. With a costume this hot, nobody wants to be left out. So if you’re planning to be your own breed of scary clown this Halloween, or even tonight, here are some tips on how to do it right. There are lots of scary clown styles to choose from, from Stephen King’s It to Clownhouse to Carnival of Souls to Zombieland. Here are some top scary looks and how to get them: Stephen King’s IT The hair He doesn’t have the classic Ronald McDonald Hair, instead he has frizzy red hair and a majorly receding hairline. So, you’ll need to cover up your own hairline with a swim-cap or other cap before you don the wig. The face Use white face-paint and lots of it. If you put a thin layer on, your skin tone will still shine through so make sure you pile on the white face-paint to get his look right. The nose He doesn’t have one of those perfectly red noses, instead it’s textured and bulbous. You can get the same effect by covering a traditional red nose with a sponge material and painting it red. The eyes Red contacts can help you imitate his menacing gaze. The teeth This clown’s got killer teeth. And they’re yellow to boot. Look for a set of scary sharp teeth to complete your look and dirty them up with brown and yellow food coloring before going out. Clownhouse There’s more than one scary clown in this film but the lead clown’s look is the best. The hair Again, he has a receding hairline, but with shorter hair than the It clown. You’ll need to don that swim-cap again to cover up your hairline before putting on the wig. The face Use a base of white face-paint first. This clown has triangles above his eyes and he frames the eyes with a black line that goes from the temples and across the forehead which can be drawn in with black eyeliner or face-paint. The nose A traditional clown’s nose made out of rubber, not plastic, will work here. The lips His lips are filled in with a deep red color that goes outside the border of his lips, making for a creepy looking red mouth. Carnival of Souls The hair This guy doesn’t have the traditional red hair. Instead, you can find a dark green wig for the hair. Top it off with his signature purple top-hat. The face Begin with a base of white face-paint. Then draw in exaggerated arched eyebrows with black eyeliner or face-paint. For his creepy eye look, use red face-paint all around the eyes. His mouth has a downturned smile, so use red face-paint or lipstick to fill in and around the lips. Zombieland The hair This clown is also a zombie and has two green tufts of hair growing out of either side and is bald in the middle. The face You’ll have a lot of fun with this one. His zombie look has rotten flesh around the chin and deep unhealed scars across his temples and cheeks. Use a base of grey-ish white face-paint for his undead look. Black face-paint around the eyes will create a sunken eyeball look. Add a turned up red clown’s smile around the mouth with lipstick or face-paint. His bulbous red nose is shiny plastic. The accessory You simply can’t ignore this guy’s bowtie. The enormous blue and white polka-dot tie would make this scary clown outfit complete. Choose your favorite scary clown look to scare your neighbors tonight or to have the most popular Halloween costume of the season. If you dont like clowns, you should check out other Halloween costume ideas to create the scariest costume for the party! Also, you can be even scarier after applying Halloween makeup! image credit: flickr.com