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Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2025-01-20 · 17:53 UTC

Moments before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Indigenous activist #Leonard #Peltier, who was convicted in the 1975 killings of two FBI agents.
Peltier was denied parole as recently as July and wasn’t eligible for parole again until 2026. He was serving life in prison for the deaths of the agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
He will transition to home confinement, Biden said in a statement.
Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson said after Biden’s commutation that Peltier remained incarcerated Monday at USP Coleman, a high-security prison in Florida.
The fight for Peltier’s freedom is entangled with the Indigenous rights movements.
Nearly half a century later, his name remains a rallying cry.
An enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, Peltier was active in the American Indian Movement,
which began in the 1960s as a local organization in Minneapolis that grappled with issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans. It quickly became a national force.
The movement grabbed headlines in 1973 when it took over the village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge
— the Oglala Lakota Nation’s reservation
— leading to a 71-day standoff with federal agents.
Tensions between the movement and the government remained high for years.
On June 26, 1975, agents went to Pine Ridge to serve arrest warrants amid battles over Native treaty rights and self-determination.
After being injured in a shootout, agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were shot in the head at close range, the FBI said.
American Indian Movement member Joseph Stuntz was also killed in the shootout.
Two other movement members and Peltier’s co-defendants, Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were acquitted of killing Coler and Williams.
After fleeing to Canada and being extradited to the United States, Peltier was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced in 1977 to life in prison, despite defense claims that evidence against him had been falsified.
Biden’s action Monday followed decades of lobbying and protests on Peltier’s behalf by Native American leaders, human rights activists, liberal lawmakers and celebrities who maintain he was wrongfully convicted.
Amnesty International has long considered Peltier a political prisoner.
Advocates for his release have included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, actor and director Robert Redford and musicians Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte and Jackson Browne.

https://apnews.com/article/leonard-peltier-biden-pardons-eba525b713f2ec739b84aa4426366775

#leonard #peltier

Chuck Darwin @[email protected] · 2024-11-15 · 21:49 UTC

Electoral reform was on the ballot in several states this election.
-- Why did these measures fail?

Americans in several states rejected ballot initiatives to curb extreme partisan gerrymandering and implement open primaries and ranked-choice voting.

Ohio voters decisively rejected a ballot measure that would have stripped lawmakers of their ability to draw electoral districts and given it to a 15-person bipartisan commission of ordinary citizens.

The vote came after Republicans, who control the legislature and redistricting process, ignored the state supreme court seven times to draw districts that heavily favored Republicans.

Voters in seven states – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and South Dakota – all rejected ballot measures that would have done away with party primaries and replaced them with a non-partisan primary in which the top vote-getters would advance to the general election.
Several of the measures would have implemented ranked-choice voting for the general election.

The defeats were somewhat surprising.
Ballot initiatives to curb partisan gerrymandering and implement electoral reforms have been broadly successful in recent years. Bipartisan momentum around them has built, especially after Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

But the failures this year show that momentum may be stalling.
Opposition to ranked-choice voting has grown more organized, led by a network linked to #Leonard #Leo, the influential conservative who has wielded enormous influence in shaping the US supreme court.

“In retrospect, it looks like it was always going to be a tough year for these pro-democracy ballot measures,” said Deb Otis,
the director of #FairVote,
a non-profit that supports ranked-choice voting.
“The presidential election was looming heavily over voters and with a large number of ballot measures in some of these states. I think maybe voters defaulted to a no position on new concepts.
“I also think the ranked-choice measures were harmed by an increasingly well-organized national opposition,” she added.
“This opposition is driven by funders and organizations that have sown uncertainty in our elections for years. These are the same forces behind [the] ‘stop the steal’ [movement] and election denialism

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/electoral-reform-ballot-measures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#leonard #leo #fairvote

DoomsdaysCW @[email protected] · 2026-02-15 · 23:35 UTC

#Epstein and #RobertKennedyJr., were on #PineRidge '#FossilHunting'

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Feb. 13, 2026

Excerpt: "In related news, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's is in the Epstein files.

The horrific abuse of children now being exposed in the Epstein files includes these facts: The #ZorroRanch in #NewMexico was never searched, and is now believed to have the bodies of young victims buried there.

"Former New Mexico Gov. #BillRichardson, who was deeply involved in energy negotiations in Indian country, was in contact with Epstein for years. Richardson is among those named by one of the underage girls as being responsible for abusing her. She also named #PrinceAndrew.

"The United Nations is also included in the horrific scheme. #GhislaineMaxwell promoted her #TerraMar, a false front non-profit claiming to protect the oceans, during years of testimony at the U.N.

"The University of Arizona in Tucson was among those who received a grant from Epstein's Gratitude 'non-profit.'

"These are just a few of the facts being exposed in the millions of Epstein's files now being released.

"Gov. Richardson's involvement with energy in #IndianCountry was during the same years that #TexHall rose to so-called glory.

"Hall, the #EnergyCzar from #FortBerthold in #NorthDakota, headed the National Congress of American Indians, and brought in massive #OilAndGas wells to the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota. Hall's business associate was later convicted in the two murders for hire of their other business partners.

"Hall and Gov. Richardson were energy czars in Indian country, during the years when Richardson served as New Mexico Governor and U.S. #EnergySecretary."

#BigOilAndGas #USPol #RFKJr #WorldPol #PedophileRing #MissingChildren #MMIC #ReaderSupportedNews

#epstein #robertkennedyjr #pineridge #fossilhunting #brendanorrell #censorednews