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President Trump's nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management, William Perry Pendley, has a long history of racist writings targeting Native Americans. Writing at The Intercept, Alleen Brown takes a deep dive into Pendley's five books, including his 2006 book Warriors for the West, in which Pendley wrote that Indigenous people may cease to exist entirely, and that Congress and the Supreme Court may need to consider “whether there remains a need for the federal government’s policy of paternalistic protection.” Pendley continued by claiming that “with ever-declining blood quantum per tribal member, recognized tribes may soon be little more than associations of financial convenience.”
Pendley's invocation of “blood quantum” refers to a policy imposed on tribes by white Americans seeking to limit the number of tribal members, according to Professor Jill Doerfler of the University of Minnesota Duluth. “This seems like a long, old argument going back to the reason the federal government ever tried to push blood quantum as a way to identify American Indians,” Doerfler said.
Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University, was more direct. “That’s just a crazy, crazy racist perception of what Indian people are and what tribes are,” Fletcher said. “Somebody who talks like that about people should not have a place in any public position in government. That is just overt racism.”
Grijalva tests positive for coronavirus
Days after holding a Congressional hearing in which he sat close to Rep. Louie Gohmert, who frequently refused to wear a mask on Capitol Hill, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raúl Grijalva tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the 12th known member of Congress to contract the virus. Reason's Radley Balko noted on Twitter that Grijalva had wanted to hold the hearing on the U.S. Park Police's tear gassing of peaceful protesters via video, but Interior Secretary David Bernhardt refused to cooperate unless the 72-year-old flew from Arizona to appear in person. Grijalva and his staff saw Bernhardt's behavior “as a childish taunt,” but agreed to go to D.C. because investigating the police violence in Lafayette Square was important.
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While I cannot blame anyone directly for this, this week has shown that there are some Members of Congress who fail to take this crisis seriously. Numerous Republican members routinely strut around the Capitol without a mask to selfishly make a political statement at the expense of their colleagues, staff, and their families.”
