I left my coffee cup in the cab. They brought it back. Reason: Someone will definitely steal a cup that says "GIRL BOSS" on it.

"I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass one day. I was left without adequate words to describe that experience. It reminded me that I am alive."

A daughter brushes her mother's hair. This simple act is at the heart of the dementia crisis in Indian Country. It's care the system can't bill for, so it pretends doesn't exist. It's medicine. #DementiaCare #NativeAmerican #FamilyCaregiver #UnfundedCare #IndianCountry #HairbrushMedicine

1/5 A Head Start director in Wisconsin got an email from the government. The attachment was a list of nearly 200 banned words for grant money. The words "tribal" and "land acknowledgment" are on that list. This is how it started.

Maybe if I keep my head down no one will notice my pizza face...

From a hairbrush to a five-hour drive, the dementia crisis in Indian Country exposes a brutal truth: the federal system is designed for acute care, not for people. The real medicine happens at home, unpaid and unmeasured. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/unwritten-...

It's 2am. I read more about Native Nation resources and the crumbling environment around their territories. Nothing is the best news. Something is always full of caution. This is what I do. Something catches my eye. I read all evening. Academic papers as drug while I forget to eat again. #buh

This makes my day. I wanted to write in one genre. But now I help share the People, Places, Policy and Politics of Indian Country. @marktrahant.bsky.social, who everyone should be following and reading, gave me some advice. I've been begrudgingly using it everyday. open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard

Mark Trahant digs into the plan to move Native education programs from the Education Dept. back to Interior. Here's the catch: the Bureau of Indian Education is already in Interior. It's not a transfer, it's a shell game with a treaty promise. A 1977 report called education a specific debt, not aid.

I absolutely love how these series was presented. It's on All front. From the website to social media it is all rich and the content is free flowing. The link back to the website doesn’t feel like a push. And once you're there, the design and layout reward you. The story envelopes and crushes you.

Busta bustwas going for his on the TMNT float and I wanted Michelangelo to hop down and start Krumping.

I have begun telling all my nieces and nephews "It feels like I've known you my whole life." Ages 33 to 11. They all hate it. I'm bringing the next generation together. I'm a unifer.

A single federal form dictates how an Indigenous Nation can rename itself. The form is numbered. The process is in the code. The outcome needs a signature from Washington. This is how sovereignty gets translated for the filing cabinet. Read It! Share it! mrw1zard.substack.com/p/names-they...

DAAAAAANG!!! The Great White Ruffalo giving you the uncle bump?!?!?! @joeytainment.bsky.social you deserve all this.

Read one thing today. A breakdown of how Natives are in the United States Constitution. It's about three words: "Indians not taxed." Not race. Sovereignty. That legal firewall is now being hacked in court. Full column: open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

THREAD: It was supposed to be a routine surgery. So when the doctor stepped out, Sandra Parker wasn’t sure she heard right. Her husband’s heart couldn’t have stopped for more than 5 or 6 minutes, the doctor was saying. “That’s not a lot of time,” Mrs. Parker thought. “Is it?”

Article I, Section 8. Article I, Section 2. The 14th Amendment. The only three places. This is what they say, what they mean, and why that's the only thing that matters. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/power-in-p... #Constitution #Breakdown #Law #Sovereignty #In_Cage_We_Trust #E_Pluribus_Cage

Not a celebration kind of person I guess...

The most powerful force in Washington is the quiet, bipartisan agreement to underfund the same critical obligations, year after year. It's a choice, not an accident. #Politics #Policy #FederalBudget #Bipartisan #Washington #GovernmentSpending mrw1zard.substack.com/p/different-...

I'm this much indian. #indianer

Tried to post every day of #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth. But it wears you down. The numbers stack, stats climb. No resolve, only a pause before the roller-coaster drops again. I'll cry around some more. That's my routine. Wake up, read, look it up. Doesn't matter what month it is. I do that.

The mascots and names are sacrificial. They're built to be controversial, to be debated and eventually consumed, so you never question the permanent, powerful institutions that remain untouched behind the curtain of ash. Read: mrw1zard.substack.com/p/matchstick...

The food you eat shapes your future. For generations, a federal program defined dinner: survival on the government's terms. But A quiet and determined few continue rewriting a decades-old relationship between Indigenous people and the food they eat. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/pass-the-c...

A thirty-year-old law promised to return Native people. The process was stalled by loopholes and institutional delay. A fundamental shift is forcing a long-overdue conversation about possession, return and bureaucratic barriers to justice. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/relative-s... #NAGPRA #Repatriation

Federal offices are closed. Flights delayed. Programs stalled. Indigenous communities keep moving. Leaders make decisions, businesses operate, schools teach. Life doesn't wait. Resilience is action. #NativeNations #IndianCountry #CommunityPower mrw1zard.substack.com/p/wheels-kee...

No thank you.

Toxic chemicals are turning water and land into a battleground across Indian Country. Native inuNations taking action in court, challenging corporations, and asserting their right to protect health, culture, and sovereignty. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/infinite-c...

Every November, Native people pull themselves out of America's invisible story. Just like every day of the year, this impact sits just below the surface ready for everyone to be taken in. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/beyond-a-n...

Forty-seven years after the Indian Child Welfare Act became law, Indigenous children are still overrepresented in foster care across the U.S. Families, advocates, and Native Nations keep fighting to make the law real. Read the full story: mrw1zard.substack.com/p/law-and-shadow

Washington just extended a key funding deadline, protecting over $500M for Native small businesses. The full story of this win for Native economic power is on Substack. Link also in bio. mrw1zard.substack.com/p/pause-for-patience #NativeBusiness #SSBCI

The Indian Affairs committee is debating the Lumbee Fairness Act. It's a clash over process and precedent. Should one group have different rules than others? How does this matter for the federal recognition system? mrw1zard.substack.com/p/rules-are-... #Lumbee #FederalRecognition #IndianCountry

Indigenous leaders sign compacts for economic survival. The price is a piece of their sovereignty. These are new age treaties. It happens with water rights, mineral leases, and now cannabis. Natives Nations are forced to accept terms that are always set by states. open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

So I came from Twitter and posted different over there. It was a lot more than just a person who writes as a grain of sand on the beach. Somewhere I made a distinction between being a goofball who is mouthy to just being mouthy. Anyways, look at this photo of me being super serious.

Dig if you will a future. Where a Native Nation's success is measured only by its own people's well-being and its businesses money stays within, building and sustaining for generations. The only gaming compact a tribe needs is with its own vision for the future. open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

The Office of Indian Education just had 7 of its 9 people cut. This shows what the U.S. shutdown means for Native Nations. It's not closed offices. It is a halted legal obligation. The stakes beyond the politics. open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard... #TreatyRights #TrustResponsibility #IndianCountry

In April, the Mashantucket Pequot Nation's $81,490 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was terminated. The Department of Government Efficiency eliminated hundreds of humanities grants. The funds were redirected to support the Trump administration's "patriotic education" agenda.

I saw this headline "Judge slashes Greenpeace penalty to $345M." But that's a distraction. The ongoing story is what this corporate lawsuit tries to erase: the Standing Rock Oyate's fight for their water against the active Dakota Access Pipeline. A thread. 🧵

I spent the weekend in Vancouver on the campus of the University of British Columbia for a conference on Beyond Fires and Floods; Indigenous views about climate change. A lot to think about … so much of what we talked about will percolate in the weeks ahead. open.substack.com/pub/marktrah...

The government shutdown isn't just politics. It's a fridge running empty in Native homes. SNAP cuts mean nearly a million Indigenous kids could miss meals this month. #NativeNews #SNAP #IndigenousChildren #FoodSecurity open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

Listen, you would not like to hang out with me. I know my worth and I can smell hustle. I got a big mouth, a silver tongue and I'm nosey as fuuuuuk. So when it goes down, I speak right up because I was raised to. Rural rez and urban Indins made sure survival was the least of my worries.

Completely unrelated. I need directions to the Bern Historical Museum in Switzerland. Additionally I need a group of people interested in creating a flash mob inside the Bern. I just want to check out Mato-Tope's exploit robe and do not want to be DISTRACTED while I do it #fights_with_strength_of

Day 4 at the 2025 ND Behavioral Health & Children and Family Services Conference. Dr. Katie Johnson from @mayoclinic.org in Rochester led the breakout session. I sat in the front row. A backpack sat at the end of the table I sat at. I'm an Indigenous man surviving racist North Dakota.

Third day of the ND Behavioral Health & Children and Family Services Conference. Just after lunch. Lara Love Hardin is on stage. She's telling her addiction recovery story. Love-Hardin starts with her life before it all. Wealthy White neighborhood. Kids in Private schools. Dripped in Success.

I wrote about this, but that was like days ago. And now it feels like every day I get 500 years older open.substack.com/pub/mrw1zard...

I'm attending the 2025 North Dakota Behavioral Health & Children and Family Services Conference. These are all the people stealing Indigenous kids from their families. It's like the World Series of forced assimilation. They look mad guilty too. It's Mullet City, population: This conference 🫣😂🙄

Al misses land maps. Doesn't know what a tribal business council does. It's not broken. It was never trained to see us. The system works fine. It just works without us. That's not a surprise, it's the blueprint. And it's already running in the background. substack.com/@mrw1zard/no...

Halong didn't stop at the shoreline. It pulled homes off foundations, dropped boats in tundra, flooded entire neighborhoods. Rescue helicopters flew in. No one was ready. #AlaskaNativeVoices #TyphoonHalong #ClimateDisplacement #BlueSkyReads

It's been a decade since I was Indin famous. I miss how it made my neighborhood feel. That's it.