Crossing the (Party) Line, Part Tali

Thanks to a Cherokee Truth reader for this video submission of Mr. Baker on camera at the Democratic National Convention.

When you watch this, for whom do you think Baker is speaking? Himself or for the entire Cherokee Nation? Regardless of your political affiliations, do you think this is appropriate behavior or good government to government relations for a sitting Chief who must deal with politicians on both sides of the political spectrum?

We'll be back on Monday.

Crossing the (Party) Line

Yesterday we talked about the quick response of Chief Baker to a disgusting stereotypical sports chant some Republican campaign staffers used to mock Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

What wasn’t clear is Baker’s involvement in the Democratic Party and what it means to the Cherokee Nation.  Thankfully, the Cherokee Phoenix, just 20 days after the closing of the Democratic National convention, has given us this update on what Baker was up to in North Carolina.  

Chief Baker at DNC

Baker was a delegate and got to speak on TV and to the entire convention.  Besides saying that Obama was the best president ever, Baker got to show off his awesome ribbon shirt and ability to read, in halting English, what was written on the card in front of him.  He said, “To stand on a national stage as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and cast my delegate vote for President Obama on behalf of the state of Oklahoma helped shine the national spotlight on the Cherokee Nation.”

Reading between the lines, what really happened here is that the national spotlight showed the Cherokee Nation endorsing Obama.  Who happens to be the least popular politician in Oklahoma right now.  In a state where our state house of representatives is overwhelmingly Republican, our state Senate is overwhelmingly Republican, our Governor is Republican, both our U.S. Senators are Republican and every Congressman is Republican except for the one who is retiring and who might be replaced by a Republican Cherokee Nation citizen who calls Obama a socialist. 

Baker tells the Cherokee Phoenix that Obama’s “collaboration with tribes is unprecedented and shows that he truly values the Indian perspective and respects our sovereignty.”

Well, Obama's BIA and Department of Interior leaders definitely respect the UKB’s sovereignty, letting them take land into trust inside Cherokee Nation's jurisdiction when every other president (Democrat & Republican) has preserved the Cherokee Nation’s territory.  And Obama definitely supports the Freedmen’s sovereignty, when every other president has agreed that the Cherokee Nation has the right to determine their own citizenship. 

So what is it that makes Mr. Baker say Obama is the best president ever?  Could it be that they gave Baker a microphone and a spotlight?  Because it doesn’t seem like the Cherokee Nation as a whole is getting much out of this deal.

So the Cherokee Nation is now officially taking sides in U.S. partisan politics, and Baker is actively and publicly choosing the side that has exactly zero power with our state or possibly ANY of our federal representatives.  But hey, it makes our Chief feel good. And it only cost us $10,000 worth of dentures and eyeglass money for him to go, so that’s a good thing. 

Cherokee Chief Sticks Nose in Massachusetts Senate race

In the last few months, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts has been in hot water for saying something every third person Oklahoma seems to say:  “I’m Cherokee but I can’t prove it.”  Only she left out the “I can’t prove it” part on her bio and law school applications.  The candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has been called out on it repeatedly by her opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Scott Brown.  Then in the last couple of days, some of Brown’s staff made fun of Warren with the tired ol’ “Tomahawk Chop” song that has featured prominently at Florida State and Atlanta Braves games over the last few decades. Click here to see the idiots from the Brown campaign for yourself.

Aside from watching white people act stupid and yell at each other (which is always entertaining), why do we care what happens when Bostonians sneak some Indian-mockery into the middle of their “Yankees suck” chants?

Because our Chief, Bill John Baker, cares. Within hours of the event, he issued a statement saying, “The use of stereotypical ‘war whoop chants’ and ‘tomahawk chops’ are offensive and downright racist…I will not be silent when individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation.”

A very quick response, but not surprising considering Baker’s declared affiliation with the Democratic Party.  To some, it appears the chief is using the Cherokee Nation’s credibility to back his preferred Democratic candidate.  For instance, the blogger Polly’s Granddaughter says:

“Because Chief Baker was a Democratic National Delegate this year, I believe his statement was politically motivated and meant to give the Democratic candidate, Elizabeth Warren, a boost.  But what Elizabeth Warren has done is much worse, in my humble opinion, than any tomahawk chop Brown's people have done. By taking a Cherokee identity she has no right to, she has committed an act of colonization. She has usurped Indigenous identity, just as her ancestors stole the land and resources. It's a hostile act of genocide and it is not okay.

But Baker is willing to overlook that. He said, "I will not be silent when individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation." I think what he meant was he will not be silent when Republican individuals mock and insult our people and our great nation. At least that is what his actions say.”

To the point, Baker has been Chief since last October, during which there have been at least half a dozen Florida State University football games where 70,000 plus fans go to great lengths to do exactly what a couple of Brown supporters half-heartedly attempt: they “mock and insult” en masse. 

So Baker’s not really against that behavior, he’s against Republicans-- but he’s using hollow cries of racism and the credibility of the Cherokee Nation to help a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Massachusetts.  

If Baker wants to take a stand we suggest he build up some street cred by taking on Florida State first.  Otherwise, Cherokees should consider that Baker is putting out news releases based on what the National Democratic Party wants him to say, rather than what is best for the Cherokee people who elected him.

It's OK--he's a Democrat.

Would You Trust this Man with $600 Million Part 2

Yesterday we talked about Bill John Baker’s new pick to assist the best CPA in Vian, Lacey Horn. The Cherokee Nation now has some help from another Sequoyah County CPA, Jody Reece-- who just happened to be in charge of either the finance department & grants administration in the 1990s when the Nation got busted for not auditing its own books, for using federal program funds illegally, and using tens of millions of dollars improperly. The details are in yesterday’s blog, and you will find the list is very long and very embarrassing for the Nation.

How embarrassing? Well, the result way back when of all the financial shenanigans during the Byrd/Baker/Reece era was that the Cherokee Nation wasn’t trusted with its own money and had to be put on an allowance, like a third grader.

According to the Tulsa World, because the Nation was in such bad financial shape and the feds had “substantial concerns about the tribe’s financial systems” so they gave the money to the nation “month-by-month until the tribe restores its financial credibility…”

That made Cherokee Nation officials upset at the time.  The Tulsa World quotes one as saying: “While it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable for us to have lost credibility by having weaknesses pointed out everywhere, we’ve got a plan in hand,” said the tribe’s executive director of finance and administration in a November 6, 1998 interview with the paper.

So who said that he was so embarrassed about what happened either under his own watch as the top finance guy or the controller, Jody Reece, who moved over to administer grants, which then somehow got used for purposes they weren’t supposed to be?

None other than Charles Head. Remember him? He was recently appointed by Baker to be the new Secretary of State for the Cherokee Nation.  Head and Reese were in charge of the Cherokee Nation’s finances during the worst financial crisis in the history of the Cherokee Nation.  And now Baker has brought them both back.

Justice Darrell Dowty (left) administers the oath of office to the newly confirmed Secretary of State Charles Head while Frances Head looks on.
Photo Courtesy Cherokee Nation

Would You Trust this Man with $600 Million?

Jody Reece (Photo Courtesy Indian Country Today)

According to a news release on the Cherokee Nation's web site, "the Cherokee Nation has a new controller to manage its finances.  Jody Reece, of Muldrow, took on the job in late February."

Part of Reece's credentials are that, according to the news release, he worked at the Cherokee Nation from "1991 to 1997, starting as an accountant and eventually being promoted to controller, and again from 1998 to 1999 as director of grants administration and land management."

Well, those weren't exactly the glory years for the Cherokee Nation's accounting department and quite frankly-- those might be lines most people would leave off a resume!  Saying you were in charge of the Cherokee Nation finances during those years is a little like saying you were the guy in charge of the checkbook at Enron in 2000 or Worldcom in 2002.

But back to our point today: Mr. Reece (who is the second small town Sequoyah County CPA to be hired by Baker to run the Cherokee Nation's finances) has a pretty scary track record.

Mr. Reece was the financial boss during the years when Baker was chair of the executive and finance committee in the 1990s and Baker says "the Cherokee Nation will greatly benefit from his (Reece's) talents and expertise."

According to the Tulsa World, when Mr. Reece was the Controller in the 1990s (and while Baker was Chair of the executive and finance committee), there was quite a laundry list of financial misdeeds:

• The Nation did not have "prepared financial statements for 1997 and 1998..." according to a federal audit conducted because the Nation didn't do any audits itself.  
• An HHS audit of Reese's previous time concluded that the feds should have "substantial concerns about the tribe's financial accounting systems" and "used $1.9 million of IHS funds to cover deficits in other programs."

You should probably just read the articles in the Tulsa World yourself (after all, they were on the front page at the time and are hardly a secret), because they reveal too many financial screw-ups to list here, but we will provide some highlights during the Baker/Byrd/Reece financial era:

• Incurring legal costs without contracts
• Using taxpayers' dollars to fight the federal government
• Improperly placing $16 million of federal funds in its general operating account
• Improperly charging $88,000 to the (Interior) Department for legal services
• Transferring federal funds of at least $16.1 million to the (tribe's) general operating fund without assurance that federal program expenditures had been incurred previously and were owed.
• Inaccurate financial data in the financial status report submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
  

Like we said, not exactly resume material, unless your next move was to Enron.   

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the consequences Cherokee Nation faced for the financial mismanagement that took place when Mr. Reece was in charge of the Cherokee Nation checkbook the first time.  Some of you might be surprised by one of the names that pops up - it's a guy who picked up right where Reece left off…

Severed CNB Head Speaks

David Stewart (Photo Courtesy KOTV)

When last we talked, on Friday, CNB’s board was in the process of putting their CEO on leave.  Turns out, this is a very busy board, because they had another meeting today and KOTV Channel 6 was there.

They got a confession from board chairman/funeral service guy Sam Hart saying that CNB “is in great shape, we’re making great strides, we’re in great shape.”

So if we’re in great shape, then why is the CEO taking a leave of absence?   Well, according to Channel 6, the CEO, David Stewart, says he was “placed on a 30 day leave of absence last Friday. He says he hasn't turned in his resignation, doesn't plan too, and he hasn't been asked to resign.”

So if he’s doing a good job and doesn’t want to go, and his boss, the chairman of the board says he’s doing a good job, what gives?

Channel 6 also says “In 2002, Cherokee Nation Businesses had around a thousand employees, this year it has more than 4,500."

"In 2002, CNB's revenue was close to $25-million, in 2012, it's more than $600-million. Stewart says if this is indeed the end of his time with Cherokee Nation Businesses that he's proud of how the company has grown.”

One person who can shed light on this personnel issue, and has, is the speaker of the council, Tina Glory-Jordan, who shared details of the agreement with the media.  She says that Stewart's situation is neither a “termination or resignation but is a ‘standstill agreement between mutual, voluntary partners…”

CNB Head Gets the Scythe

The Tulsa World is reporting that Baker’s new CNB board chairman/mortician is already taking on grim reaper status: Sam Hart announced today, a mere seven days after being named Chairman, that he and the rest of the board told David Stewart, who runs all of Cherokee Nation’s business operations, to leave his office on Wednesday and turned the keys over to Shawn Slaton, who has been with CNB for “more than a decade.”

The World quotes Hart as saying:  “CNB has established the Cherokee Nation as a strong economic engine in the region, and we look forward to continuing that legacy.”

They also point out that CNB made “record profits -- $87.54 million with nearly $600 million in operating revenues…” in 2010.

So if Stewart was in charge of establishing “the Cherokee Nation as a strong economic engine…” and is making “record profits,” why is he gone, exactly?

We've talked about Baker’s habit of replacing Cherokee citizens with a track record of success with his own folks, because, well, they are his own folks.  Among the highlights: having Hart step away from the embalming table to run all of Cherokee Nation’s businesses because he didn’t want the Cherokee who runs a $5 billion bank giving his advice, and replacing the treasurer of the Nation who won awards for excellence with someone who MIGHT be the best CPA in Vian.

It will be interesting to see where he pulls Stewart’s replacement from.

Background Checks Are For the Little People

If you want to go to work for the Cherokee Nation or one of its businesses, you have to pass a background check.  Unless you want to actually RUN the Cherokee Nation Businesses, in which case the Tribal Council doesn’t care whether you can pass one or not.  They only care if you can run funeral home, in which case you are qualified to run a $600 million a year business.

Last week, Jay Hannah, the executive vice-president of a bank with $5 billion in assets, was replaced as Chairman of CNB by Sam Hart, a mortician.  

This all happened because the council changed a law last week that Baker’s newly appointed board members did NOT have to get security clearance.

These guys get background checks; Bakers guys don't

This means that the council thinks that having someone who fails a background check can't clean the carpets at Housing Authority offices, but someone who can't pass a background check running our casinos is just okie-dokie.  It's the little guys that they are worried about, us common citizens, not Baker's hand picked guys at the top. The Tribal Council decided that doing business with the federal government in the defense industry (only a trillion dollar chunk of change, according to the fine folks at Wikipedia) was not worth pursuing if it meant they had to wait any longer to get rid of a Cherokee who knows how to run a multi-billion dollar business with a guy who knows how to run a small town funeral home. 

How the Freedmen Deal Went Down Part IV: Are You Okay With Being Lied To By Your Government?

Over the last week or so (in parts I-III), we’ve established that the Cherokee people are being lied to about how the Freedmen miraculously became citizens just days before last fall’s elections.  Joe Crittenden was asked to supply all the communications he had with the BIA and the Freedmen as he negotiated a deal to make them citizens, but all Crittenden turned over were a bunch of all-employee emails which appears someone else wrote and signed his name to, and receipts for this trip to DC so he could get paid some cash money for going to our Nation’s capital and selling HIS Nation’s constitution down the river.

So, what are you, the Cherokee citizens, going to do about it?  You’ve been lied to, and there is a cover-up going on!  Documents that exist have not been turned over as required by law, and no explanation has been given as to why.

On this blog, we only care about the TRUTH.  And nothing makes us madder than when people lie to the Cherokee people.  Crittenden will get away with the lie and his noncompliance with the law if the Cherokee people let them.

So here’s what you all need to do.  Get out a sharp pencil, a dull crayon, an old IBM Selectric or the writing utensil of your choice and send a Freedom of Information Act Request to Bill John Baker, Cherokee Nation, PO BOX 948, Tahlequah, OK 74464.

Write something like this:

Dear Chief Baker,

One of the pillars of your campaign and pledged hallmarks of your administration was transparency.  In the interest of the Cherokee people’s understanding of how people with no Cherokee blood became citizens of the Cherokee Nation just before September’s election, even though our Tribal Supreme Court had ruled they were not citizens.

Please provide ALL written emails, letters and phone call notes, travel, meeting dates and topics Acting Chief Joe Crittenden, and ANY of his staff, liaisons, contractors or other types of representatives have had with Larry Echo Hawk, Echo Hawk’s staff, BIA officials, DOI officials, Marilyn Vann, Jon Velie (attorney for Freedmen), any other Freedmen plaintiffs or representatives and DOJ concerning the Freedmen, citizenship for the Freedmen, pending Court cases, Judge Kennedy and anyone else associated with this important case for the past six months.  Please include the materials left out by Joe Crittenden in a previous FOIA request, including the letter(s) he sent to the BIA that the BIA acknowledges receiving but that Crittenden refused to disclose earlier.

Please respond to this request as required by LA 25-01, Cherokee Nation’s  Freedom of Information Act."

Or something like that.

Better yet, ask him to put the documents on the web.  Pester the folks at the Cherokee Phoenix about why they are ignoring the story and it’s coverup. 

Write your council members demanding to know what happened.

Write the Attorney General and point out Crittenden’s noncompliance.  It’s AG Todd Hembree's duty to make sure EVERYONE follows the law, including and ESPECIALLY elected leaders.  If our Constitution is ignored, supposedly for the greater good, we have a right to know how that happened.  We have a right not to be lied to and then have the TRUTH covered up.

Do it.  And if no one else will publicize what you find, rest assured we will always stand for the CHEROKEE TRUTH.

How the Freedmen Deal Went Down Part III: Save Your Reciepts

For the last couple of days we’ve been trying to figure out what happened in September when freedmen suddenly became citizens.  Read the intro blog from earlier this week as well as the amazing telepathic communications blog if you haven’t already to catch up.  The short version:  Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden is hiding SOMETHING, we just don’t know if it’s his ignorance or something more sinister.  He didn’t turn over any documentation of how the decisions were made.

Here are some examples.  On page 12 of the 94-pager, the BIA thanks APCSJC for submitting a letter and the election code to them for review.  WHOOPS!  APCSJC didn’t include that actual letter in the correspondence.  So obviously he was communicating with the BIA, but he won’t tell us what he sent them.  Thanks for being “truthful and transparent” APCSJC!  

On page 82, there is a letter to all employees signed by APCSJC but written and emailed by someone named Sedelta Oosahwee.   There is no reply from him, or nothing saying he got the email, or approved the email.  Maybe this person just had carte blanche to sign APCSJC’s name to any ol’ thing about our sovereignty.  

Finally, were just a few carefully maintained, hand-written documents that APCSJC managed to find that could shed some light on how the freedmen got to be citizens.  Scroll all the way down to page 94… that’s where you see he managed to save his receipts so he could get reimbursed his cab ride and parking for his trip to DC.  You know the one where he single-handedly made the freedmen citizens again, but can’t find any documents or communications to show how it happened.  All we really know is it costs $15 bucks or so to get to the hotel from the airport, and that when it comes to keeping track of pieces of paper so he can get paid, APCSJC is top notch.  When it comes to keeping track of documents that show why he gave away the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty, he’s not so good.  More tomorrow.