Thank You For Smoking, Part Tali: Follow the Money

We got some feedback about our blog regarding the mysterious smoke shop subsidy, which puts money in the pockets of people who sell cancer sticks in our communities.  Seems pretty stupid, but it passed the Tribal Council unanimously, and Baker’s treasurer was there to support it.  So someone said we should follow the money.  As in, whose pockets does that $725,000 land in?  And lo and behold, the mystery became much clearer.

First, remember that the money helps two classes of people:  1) the people who lease their land to smoke shop owners, who now have most of their rent guaranteed, and 2) the smoke shop owners themselves, who now don’t actually have to pay their own rent. 

So a closer look shows that one of the proponents of giving Cherokee money to cancer peddlers instead of senior citizens was Chuck Hoskin, Jr.  And it turns out that his dad, Chuck Hoskin, Sr. owns land that is leased to a smoke shop.  Cha-ching!  What a great deal!  Chuck Jr. didn’t even recuse himself, he just voted to have the Cherokee Nation send money to his dad.  Pretty sweet.  It must be tough for Chuck Sr., making ends meet.  He’s already having to work two full-time jobs (State Rep and Chief of Staff).  The Nation was only paying Chuck Senior $130,000 this year, and the State of Oklahoma was chipping in a mere $38,400. 

While that’s not bad for a guy who lives in Vinita but whose offices at both of these “full-time” jobs are in Tahlequah and OKC, he did manage to find a way to squeeze another few extra bucks out of the Nation.  Well played.

Who else?  Well, who else is close to Baker?  No one is closer, literally, to Baker than the guy whose job is to drive him around.  Billy Bob Dougherty was a campaign donor Baker hired to be his driver/special projects guy.

But guess what?  Dougherty also owns a smoke shop and apparently needs a second check from the Cherokee Nation. Thanks to his boss/co-pilot, he doesn’t have to pay rent at his store anymore, according to the Cherokee Phoenix. 

So, he can continue selling low-tax tobacco, because of course it is in the Nation’s best interest to do so.  And the idea of giving the Cherokee people’s money away to people who sell tobacco, instead of say, that elder stipend we’ve be waiting by the mailbox for, is not just a stupid idea.  It’s starting to look like a corrupt one.

Thanks For Smoking

Last month, the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council voted unanimously to pass a law that subsidizes the sale of tobacco.  So, the Nation is now in the position of buying billboards that say “Tobacco Stops With Me,” while at the same time paying people to sell you tobacco at below-market prices.

Here’s the deal: The Cherokee Nation is going to take $725,000 of the Cherokee people’s money and give it to the people who own the land that the smoke shops sit on.  Which means that the people who run the smokeshops don’t actually have to pay their rent anymore, the Cherokee Nation is picking up the tab.

Which is actually good news, because if the Cherokee Nation has close to a million bucks to subsidize the people who sell us cancer sticks, we’re sure that means they’ve already fully-funded health care and college scholarships, and of course, eyeglasses and dentures.   

We’re glad there are no longer any social problems that need to be addressed in the Cherokee Nation, and we anxiously await the roll-out of subsidies for folks at liquor stores and perhaps the fine folks at Hostess because the price of Ding-Dongs is getting just a little too high for our diabetes-riddled communities.

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…”

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.

Look who's back!

To paraphrase a short white guy from Detroit:

“Guess who’s back, back again, Truth is back, Tell a friend.”  It seems so empty without us, right?  Well for a somewhat limited engagement Cherokee Truth is back for this week, and depending on how much fodder our Cherokee elected officials give us, a while longer.  We won’t be going full wall to wall election Truth like last Spring/Summer/Fall, but we’ll be updating more often.

If you want more (and you know you do), we do need your help.  There are (and have been) rumors going around, but we don’t deal in rumors.  In the next few days we’ll have some solid facts with backup documentation that will make some people uncomfortable.  But that’s what the Truth does.

Remember:  Truth is back, tell a friend!

Enough About You, Let's Talk About Us!

Pardon us while we toot our own horn!

People have asked if we are going anywhere, now that the election is over.  The short answer is, no.  After six months of almost daily blogs, we’ll probably slow down. But we’re going to keep doing this, in part, because it seems no one else will.

When we started, no one else was doing what we are doing on Facebook (or on our blogspot):  using facts and cutting through the B.S. to get to what was really going on with the Cherokee Nation and the election(s).  We link to documents and reliable sources to back up what we say.  We don’t just copy what someone else says; we interpret, research and write blogs based on facts so you can make informed decisions.  And we’ll continue to do that.

When we started, we had no following. Zero.  Now, less than six months later, we have more than 1,000 fans.  3,500 different people visit our page every month.  Every day, we have 6,000+ post views, which means people are actually reading what they see here.  

And some of you are talking back!  We average almost 90 bits of feedback a day (comments, likes, shares, etc.).  If you want to see how far reaching we are, do a google image search of Joe Crittenden.  What comes back number one?  Cherokee Truth, that’s what.

The bulk of our readers are 35 and older and 68% are female.  What's most amazing to us is where we're being read. Cherokee Truth is internationally enjoyed in countries like The United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, France, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Sweden, New Zealand, Singapore, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, India, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia and Italy.

And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we are most flattered. We've lost count of how many other pages have used some variation of our name, Truth, Truths, etc. But that flattery hasn't quite matched the original, we figure, because no one else is putting in the time to come up with cold, hard verifiable facts about what is going on in the Cherokee Nation.

What started out as a little blog that we thought would last about 45 days tops has morphed into-- well this. This is our 169th blog post. 
 

As always, we appreciate your help in all this.  Police yourselves--- no name calling or ugliness. Do send us ideas for what to talk about and if you have them, email us documents and facts that we need to keep people informed.  And tell your friends.  We know you have a lot of choices out there on the web-- so thanks for reading and sticking with the Truth.