The Cromwell administration has yet to present a strategy for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe that will actually do something to benefit the tribal members. Trust us, a march from Collins Lot to the council office is a bootleg attempt to rally support for a totally lost cause. Unless you have 1,000 people it has no impact. Even after you do, it’s gobbled up in the news cycle and has no impact on a government that could care less.
The lost cause is the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, failure to find a new path for taking our land in trust. Okay so Shovel Ready Ceddie wants to sue the DOI BIA because it could not do it. What the federal agencies decided was, that there was no way around the Carcieri decision rendered by the US Supreme Court. We did not meet that criteria so the federal district court sent it back to the BIA and said ” maybe the tribe has other options?” And after screwing around for quite a while, the BIA said, Nah.
Well, we all knew what was going to happen. And Cedric’s response is to sue the BIA. That’s tantamount to suing or appealing the Supreme Court Carcieri decision. The US Supreme Court is the end of the line. Suing the BIA is like suing the US Supreme Court because they are adhering to the final ruling. But really people……it’s just another way for Cedric and the payola tribal council members to keep getting paid. Let’s rewind for a minute .
For over 2 years this hand off to the BIA to ” find a new path” has been languishing at the agency. Cedric knew the outcome. Anyone with an iota of education knew the outcome. Instead of trying to exercise options to benefit the tribe, Cedric and the payola council members kept taking pay checks, doing nothing and collecting millions to vote as Cedric told them to. Meanwhile the tribe has absolutely nothing established for the future.
All the people who set up the bogus LIT application are gone, the overpaid consultants,and lawyers who also made millions. Course Messy Jessie is still here exploiting the tribe with her scams in her family tradition. Cedric has a new friend at the Town of Mashpee. The former police chief who used to arrest his enemies and harass tribal members, is the town manager. Hmmmmm. Well the town is trying to join the congressional legislation which was pointed our by former tribal vice chairman Aaron Tobey. Tobey has filed suit saying the town has ulterior motives that will greatly restrict our sovereignty. And he’s right. Extraordinary is the fact that Cedric never exercised due diligence with the town as a legitimate tribal government because he was oblivious to the need to build a relationship and prove our legitimacy and earn respect. Now he crawls begging for their help with lobbyists and legal help. The Town of Mashpee will own us if the congress allows it to insert itself..
Instead of building a team to do the job in the congress years ago. He just kept taking a check,. Details tomorrow of the whole sorry deal.