‘Real Indian’ Running Against Elizabeth Warren Sues City For Telling Him To Stop Calling Her ‘Fake’

A self-described “real Indian” who is running against Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is suing after city officials demanded he take down his signs calling her a “fake Indian.” The independent Senate challenger, Shiva Ayyadurai, filed a federal lawsuit alleging his free speech rights were violated.

Infamously described as “Pocahontas” by president Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren has lied for years about being of Native American heritage to secure jobs, including one as a Harvard law professor. She’s also refused genealogy tests to prove her heritage and Ayyadurai is finally taking her to task for it.

 According to The Washington Times, since March 17, Ayyadurai’s campaign bus has sported two identical signs picturing himself and a rendition of Warren wearing Indian attire. Emblazoned next to the images are the words: “Only a REAL INDIAN Can Defeat the Fake Indian.” The bus has reportedly been stationed in a parking lot in front of an office building owned by Ayyadurai for more than a month, just a mile from Warren’s home.

Earlier this month, the Ayyadurai campaign received a notice from Cambridge building inspector Branden Vigneault that the signs lacked the appropriate “approvals and permits,” according to local reports and the Ayyadurai campaign. Vigneault threatened fines of $300 per day plus additional legal penalties if the signs remain in place, according to Ayyadurai.

But he’s fighting back.  “We will not remove the slogan from our bus,” Ayyadurai told The Washington Times. “We will defend the First Amendment, and we will fight this egregious attack on the First Amendment, at any cost.” Ayyadurai’s campaign also said that the building code doesn’t apply to the signs because they’re on a bus, not a structure.

Warren has faked being of Native American heritage for a long time, and even Cherokee genealogists claim she’s lying and casts doubts on her story of her parent’s elopement.

“The problem with Warren’s story is that none of the evidence supports it. Her genealogy shows no indication of Cherokee ancestry. Her parents’ wedding doesn’t resemble an elopement. And additional evidence doesn’t show any indication of her Herring grandparents being Indian haters.” – Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes

When asked in March whether she’d agree to calls for genetic testing to resolve the heritage controversy, Warren launched into a family history, as purportedly told by her parents and grandparents, before saying, “It’s a part of who I am, and no one’s ever going to take that away.”

Of course, Ayyadurai’s campaign has problems as well, such as his long-standing claim that he invented email. Ayyadurai supposedly faces “long odds” at beating Warren.

Cherokee Nation Files Lawsuit Against Big Pharma Over Opioid Epidemic

Authored by Alex Thomas via TheAntiMedia.org,

Late last week, lawyers representing the Cherokee Nation filed a lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies, claiming they have pumped dangerous painkillers into Native American communities in Oklahoma. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the court filing and reported that the companies are accused of breaking laws by “failing to prevent the diversion of pain pills to the black market.”

Specifically, the suit claims the corporations “turned a blind eye to the problem of opioid diversion and profited from the sale of prescription opioids to the citizens of the Cherokee Nation in quantities that far exceeded the number of prescriptions that could reasonably have been used for legitimate medical purposes.” With the markets bursting with pain pills, the drugs quickly found their way onto the black market. Lawyers for the Cherokee Nation posit that the companies bear some of the responsibility for that “opioid diversion.”

The claim the opioid crisis has caused the Cherokee Nation to incur “increased spending on law enforcement, medical facilities, drug treatment centers and foster and adoption programs,” the Post reported.

Attorneys hope that by filing the suits in tribal court, they will be able to gain quicker access to records that could show distinct negligence on the part of major drug companies. The suit names McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, which together control 85% of prescription drug distribution in the United States. Walgreen’s and CVS are also included in the suit.

In late 2016, an investigative piece by the West Virginia Gazette reported that the same three companies “supplied more than half of all pain pills statewide” while West Virginia was in the throes of a massive opioid crisis. In one county, AmerisouceBergen went from distributing 292,000 pills to 1.2 million pills in a single year. In a statement, Amerisource passed the blame, saying doctors and pharmacists — not the companies — were to blame.

In reference to the Cherokee Nation lawsuit, AmerisourceBergen issued a statement similar to their West Virginia defense, claiming “the issue of opioid abuse is a complex one that spans the full healthcare spectrum, including manufacturers, wholesalers, insurers, prescribers, pharmacists and regulatory and enforcement agencies.” However, Cherokee Attorney General Todd Hembree didn’t seem to echo the drug companies’ sentiments. He claimed the corporations’ “main goal is profit, and this scourge has cost lives and the Cherokee Nation millions.” The West Virginia Gazette article reported that the CEOs of the three major companies have collectively been paid $450 million in the past four years.

Like the lawsuit leveled against the companies in West Virginia, the Cherokee lawsuit charges the companies, commonly referred to as “the big three,” with pursuing “unfair and deceptive practices.”

“These defendants really had the ability to limit the number of deaths and the level of addiction if they just followed the law,” said Richard Fields, a lawyer for the Cherokees.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2015, the companies pumped enough drugs into the Cherokee Nation to provide “every adult and child with 955 5mg pills.” In West Virginia, that number was 433.

And the companies have put their earnings to good use, filling the pockets of politicians they hope might be sympathetic to their causes. The Center for Responsive Politics showed that AmerisourceBergen gave $20k to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and over $10k to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — both of whom have loud voices in Washington DC.

The Cherokee Nation’s lawsuit is unlikely to be the last filed against the “big three,” as the opioid crisis sweeping the nation shows no signs of slowing down. A fact sheet published by the American Society of Addiction Medicine states that “heroin overdose deaths among women have tripled [from 2010 to 2013].”

Principal chief of the Cherokees, Bill John Baker, said, “[T]ribal nations have survived disease, removal from our homelands, termination and other adversities, and still we prospered. However, I fear the opioid epidemic is emerging as the next great challenge of our modern era.”

The lawyers filing cases against the companies are hoping the multi-billion dollar corporations will start taking responsibility for the drugs they sell.