Keith Olbermann was great tonight. He focused on the lies that Palin keeps telling about stopping the Bridge to Nowhere, Troopergate, earmarks, and the rest of the mess. Lies, lies and more lies. It's over the top, and not enough of the media are calling the McCain campaign on the carpet for this crap. Except for Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, that is.
Tonight, Keith promised to donate $100 to charity each time she repeats these lies.
This means that Keith alone could save a Native American women's shelter called My Sister Friends House, as well as buy the Pretty Bird Woman House on the Standing Rock Reservation the furnace it needs. So many lies=money for these shelters!!
So, Keith, when Palin and McCain lie, I challenge you to send your donations to these two shelters. You will be helping hundreds of American Indian women while making a good point.
If you're new here, Pretty Bird Woman House has been a pet Daily Kos project since last spring. We bought that shelter a whole new house, and are trying to help a second one stay afloat. Sarah Palin's lies could save these causes.
In all seriousness, this is a challenge to Keith, so if you could recommend this diary, he'd have a better chance of seeing it.
Pretty Bird Woman House
The other day, I wrote a pretty big diary recapping the story of the Pretty Bird Woman House on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
Here's what I wrote in that diary:
At the end of April of last year, this community was collectively infuriated by the findings of the Amnesty International research report that documented the fact that at least one in three Native American women will be the victim of sexual assault in her lifetime. I was personally outraged not only at the situation, but also by the fact that Native American issues are so invisible that I had no idea that it was possible for non-Native men to go onto Indian reservations, rape women, and then escape justice merely by stepping off the reservation (read the Amnesty report and AndyT's diary on that subject for more info).
Well, I wasn't the only one riled up. In early May 2007, Kossack Nbier (who has since retired from here) started a fundraiser that raised $27,000 in three weeks so the shelter could stay open through the summer while the director of Pretty Bird Woman House, Georgia Little Shield, could seek new grants.
We saw immediate results from our efforts. Because the phones stayed connected, the shelter staff rescued a battered woman from her home at a time when it would otherwise have been closed for lack of funds. A few weeks later, a court advocate from the shelter helped a woman who had been raped by a bar owner, whom the mayor of the town would describe under oath as an "upstanding citizen," muster the courage to press her case in court. The man was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, a rare occurrence in that area, unbelievably enough (yes, he was non-native).
So, with these stories in mind, we were all satisfied with our efforts, especially because federal grants soon started coming in. However, in the fall, vandals destroyed the shelter, which had been in an apartment building. So, AndyT and I took over for Nbier and in a little more than three months we had raised over $87,000 for a new house (I set up this blog for the shelter where you can get more background information on that effort.) Many, many other Kossacks also wrote diaries to help raise the money. Just do a stories and diaries search on Pretty Bird Woman House on this site and you'll see the number of people who participated in the effort.
Many of us were brought to tears by the generosity of this community. We cried again when the shelter finally bought a house after overcoming a little NIMBY opposition.
The Pretty Bird Woman House is a now stable, well-functioning shelter that also does community outreach.
In the summer we did another ChipIn, which raised $1000 to buy paint for the badly-peeling house. A local church youth group then spent a few days painting it, and the house now looks terrific.
OK, so aren't you proud of what we, the Netroots, have accomplished? Not only are we helping elect progressive candidates, but we are also capable of supporting vital community projects. We really are changing the world little by little.
The people who donated to the Pretty Bird Woman House can actually take credit for helping the shelter staff assist hundreds of the poorest women in the country escape domestic abuse or get help if they are sexually assaulted. The women of the Standing Rock Reservation would have nowhere else to turn if it weren't for the Netroots, and that's not an exaggeration.
My Sister Friends' House
Based on the success of the Pretty Bird Woman House fundraiser, we thought we could help out a sister shelter in Sioux Falls, called My Sister Friends' House, which has been serving mostly American Indian women since 2000. It was suddenly cut off from its main grant by its fiscal sponsor and needs a reprieve while it can get new funding. It operates in a house it rents.
After my diary went up on Monday we reached about $5200 in donations. But to remain in the house it needs $11,000, and then $24,000 more to get it through the rest of the fall grant seeking cycle.
That afternoon the shelter's fiscal sponsor told them if they didn't get the full $11,00 or the Rural Grant they've applied for, they're going to have to move out, since it wants to use the house for a different purpose.
So what are the staff going to do? They are just as determined as the Pretty Bird Woman House were to keep the shelter open. Georgia Little Shield, who is on the board of directors of My Sister Friends' House in addition to being director of Pretty Bird Woman House, told me this afternoon that they will use the donations they have gotten so far to get a cheaper house, or, failing that, will house women in one of the staff member's houses until they have a chance to write some more grants and do some more fund raising.
By the way, Georgia is working to save My Sister Friends' House even though this is taking away from the ability of Pretty Bird Woman House to raise money for a much needed furnace.
So, Keith, why don't you do it? When Palin lies, first donate to My Sister Friends House, then, once you save that shelter(it will happen fast, judging by Palin and McCain's lies just today) you can buy the Pretty Bird Woman House a new furnace.
We'll keep track of all of this for you!!
[UPDATE: Since we're in campaign mode, I thought I'd add some info on Obama's fantastic proposals to support Native Americans. Biden is great on these issues as well.]
First, you can check out the Obama campaign's web page and blog on Native American issues.
Now, here's a great video of Obama speaking to the Crow Nation.
Joe Biden's record is GREAT as well. Did you know that Joe Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act, which, among other things, provides funding for women's shelters? Just Sunday, he made this statement in Montana.
Here's an excerpt:
On Sunday, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden said an Obama-Biden administration would increase federal prosecutions in Indian Country and strengthen tribal court jurisdiction over crimes occurring within reservation borders, regardless of the race of the criminal.
snip...
Native women, in particular, suffer when tribal jurisdictions overlap with state and federal jurisdictions, creating an environment of lawlessness, said Biden, in an interview with the Missoulian, after speaking to a crowd of some 1,200 people at Flathead High School.
*
Tribes cannot prosecute a non-Native if crimes such as sexual assault or domestic abuse happen on tribal lands. Meanwhile, one in three Native women will be raped in her lifetime. More than 80 percent of the time, the rapist is non-Native.
"We use that jurisdiction as rationale not to proceed against abuse against women," said Biden, D-Del., who also wrote the landmark Violence Against Women Act.