I'm sick, a lot. It's not pain, but more like I'm exhausted but still have to drive back to the buttes. My nephew is driving me to the emergency room in a littlebit. I got him some wash rags, toothpaste, flip flops and all kinds of little stuff. Not as payment, because I worry about him.

Today I told Mark Trahant how to take over a rival's territory. The gopher roll deep on his rez.

My eldest sister StacyAnn went to pay for a pull part for her pickup. I stayed with the outlaw Noble Goodiron. He lost his front teeth. He thinks he's a vampire and is trying to bite everyone's necks. Nobody from the city I was raised in would believe that this is my old ass life now.

When to see @indigenia.bsky.social before I left our capital but they said "Dr. Twyla is not accepting visitors this week. Plus you still got a school bill". I did mandatory snap a picture of her and I but it's not the same.

My breakfast burrito fell and there is no way I'm going to, in the middle of this conference, pull up a breakfast burrito from my feet like I'm some kind of morning magician. THIS CONFERENCE STINKS

If they don't put @joeytainment.bsky.social in his high school's hall of fame, I'm going to riot.

Living it up at Four Bears Casino and Lodge. Almost got into a breakdance fight in the lobby. @indigenia.bsky.social how come I can't take Three Tribes' yacht out for a cruise by myself? Am I not turtley enough for the turtle club? Just me fighting the rough waters all the way to Twin Buttes.

British Columbia's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) has become something of a political football of late, as provincial efforts to suspend portions of DRIPA draw the ire of Indigenous leaders. Hear more on APTN News Brief:

New Me. New Year. #NuÉta #Mandan #Behave_Junior

1/3 Federal law has a name. The CLOUD Act. It lets the government demand data from any company operating in America, anywhere on earth, without notice. No carve-out for Tribal governments. No Indigenous exception. The law reaches everything stored on corporate infrastructure.

The ability to write has taken me to unexpected places. I wrote this proclamation. I tried to write as fancy.

An important new bill from @wyden.senate.gov and @balint.house.gov would finally give some teeth to the law that’s supposed to prevent newsroom raids and seizures of journalists’ files. Tell your lawmakers to support it with our action center.

1/3 Steve Pearce, a former New Mexico Lawmaker was asked about protecting Chuckwalla National Monument. He said yes. However the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Cahuilla Band of Indians, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, and Fort Yuma Quechan have learned to be cautious.

Next year someone's gonna offer lunch, then BAM, compromised.

@indigenia.bsky.social I did everything you said. I dropped all the right hints. I flashed my badge all over the competition like I was robocop. And still, Still no one tried to bribe me...

Hotel wedding cake is free. You can trust me, I have diabetes.

1/3 You came because you needed to strengthen your writing muscle. You believed this was the location. Peaceful. Authentic. The kind of space where work mattered. Then the person declined to answer a basic question. That moment changed your entire perspective on it.

Sometimes unca has to get some much meds I could light up the capital city...

Here's all I know about @senmullin.bsky.social. This is back when I worked for a PBS national show. He and one of the reports argued at a Natives for Trump rally in Arizona. I would pay 4 installments of 9.99$ to see that footage again. Oh! And he thinks Native Americans don't pay taxes. 🤣

Just in case. I printed out my renewal membership. ICE will have to call IJA in Oklahoma for confirmation.

1/3 There's a journalism standard that never gets written down. No style guide covers it. No j-school teaches it. But it gets enforced in newsrooms every day, in hiring decisions, pitch meetings, and assignment calls. Indigenous journalists know exactly what it is.

1/3 Power doesn't always announce itself. The most durable kind never does. It makes certain decisions quietly enough that nobody has to justify them publicly. Then it waits for the people who noticed to run out of time.

BREAKING: AOC in Germany: “You are the Attorney General of the United States of America and you don't want to hold anyone of these pedophiles accountable? Resign or be impeached!"

My elder sister dropped off some meat for me. She's too good to me. The taste is unmistakable. This is from a hunt that happened in my homelands. It was for sustenance. To feed the people. The taste connects me to a people and place filled with sacrifices. It fills what little soul I have left.

Car dead. Column alive. That's the brand. The News So Far covers federal Indian policy and Indigneous sovereignty. The kind of writing that doesn't quit even when the Bologna the war pony does. sofarnews.substack.com (Yes, that's "Ramblin' Man" playing. Yes, the irony is noted.)

They never left the neighborhood. It just wasn't international news until tragedy struck.

Some younger women (college?)at the grocery store came up and said "we just thought you dyed your sudeburns grey". Like, as fashion I thought. "Nope I'm just old" I said. And then I peaced out of there to post the interaction on two different social media networks. They didn't start with hello.

1/3 Model documents. Template language. Boilerplate Tribal citizenship ship sections. During the New Deal federal officials handed these to Native governments. "Suggested" they adopt them. Many did. The percentages inside weren't accidents.

NEW: The DHS arrest records make no mention of the Tren de Aragua gang even though officials repeatedly cited its presence in the building as motivation for the raid, in which agents descended from a Blackhawk helicopter and zip-tied U.S. citizens.

I grabbed the w2s and the books from last quarter. Fancy new building. Upstairs, the new MHA Nation education office. Soon as I put my head in the office manager said "you're a Mandan from Twin Buttes" She already knew my family's last name. "You got big ears, big eyes and chubby cheeks."

An ICE agent told Elaine Miles her Tribal ID looked fake. A jail held Leticia Jacobo for a week despite her fingerprints being on file, called it "clerical error." Minneapolis headlines said the Oglala president "walked back" claims when he said "working to verify." The system dismisses. Media spins

The grocery delivery person just stole my groceries. bawhahahahahaha I'm not going to report it. He needed them frozen veggies, chicken breasts, black tea bags, toothpaste, coffee beans, eggs, bacon and bag of potatoes. I ain't mad at him. What a weird time...

Four citizens of the Oglala Sioux Tribe have been held by ICE since Thursday. The unhoused men were picked up during an ICE raid and despite advocacy from their tribe, three have not been released. The place where the men are being held (the ICE facility in Minneapolis) is

1/3 ICE shot a woman in South Minneapolis. This is where I was raised. The federal government called it self defense. But the videos, they tell something different, colder. This isn't about a traffic misunderstanding. It's about what happens when federal force meets a city head on.

The U.S. is wretched, but let’s not forget Denmark is a colonizer of Greenland. Greenland is the sovereign home of #Inuit people. The US and Denmark are the bad guys. Colonization is the issue, not a single elected official or political party. #CrushColonialism

Only sometimes all the times.

Older guy took me home, asked where I was from. It's Native code for "who claims you?" One of my favorite things. Twin Buttes. He is from Turtle Mountains. And then he visited up a Storm. I got out, walked to the back. He checked to make sure I could get in the house. "It's crazy times Stay Safe"💜💜💜

Turning a quick trip into a spy thriller would absolutely flop at the box office. Watch one handsome, charming and tall shopper hilariously out-maneuver five clumsy "agents" who clearly missed spy school. Racism is a terrible director. Full story: sofarnews.substack.com/p/loss-preve...

17,000 Indigenous people got the smallpox vaccine in 1832. The NuÉta weren't included. Five years later, 90% were dead. Federal health policy as abandonment isn't new. It's precedent. New column: mrw1zard.substack.com/p/what-small...

1/3 Just read @indigenia.bsky.social's "Carrying The Light." It lands in your bones. A Mandan and Hidatsa view of winter times. The best places to set and tell ans hear stories told and retold like porridge, just right. This hits different. It doesn't frame winter as emptiness. It's full, a gift.

Another new year, another day the Space Aliens haven't come to colonize...

Happy New Year. Sorry about your dad.

NuÉta leader MáhtoTóhpa's final words: "I have been always the friend to the whites... I do not fear Death my friends. But to die with my face rotten... caused by those dogs the whites... think of your wives, children, brothers, sisters, friends all dead."

1/3 Sec. of War Lewis Cass designed the Indian Vaccination Act and chose which Native Nations received the smallpox vaccine. He selected those "friendly" to the U.S., with "important economic roles." The NuÉta didn't qualify. Five years later, the virus arrived. This was policy, not accident.

👀

He's a highly problematic person, but the 8th grader in me is losing his fool mind.

I'll always remember on one christmas day driving from Minneapolis to Red Wing to hold hands with my partner's racist rich family and sing happy birthday to Jesus. They gave me someone's silk tie from Italy. I still have it somewhere.

Throwing pants on two legs at a time is diabolical. I wouldn't be able to jump high enough to do that. #DrTwyla_knows_ball