Real Indian Sues over Persecution from Friends of 'Fake Indian'
Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — jokingly referred to by President Donald Trump as Pocahontas — has come under fire and been the butt of jokes for years regarding her controversial and unsubstantiated claims of Native American heritage.
As such, the “fake Indian” who has been in the Senate since 2013 is now being challenged by a man who calls himself a “real Indian” because unlike Warren, he’s actually from India.
That challenger would be Shiva Ayyadurai, and according to The Washington Times, it appears as though this “real Indian” is facing persecution at the hands of some government bureaucrat friends of the “fake Indian.”
Ayyadurai owns an office building located about a mile from Sen. Warren’s home, and for more than a year he has parked a re-purposed school bus-turned-campaign bus on the property. The bus features massive signs on each side promoting his candidacy. The messages on the signs have varied and appear to be changed every few months.
That had never been an issue until the city of Cambridge suddenly decided it had a problem with the signs on the bus, which Ayyadurai has been ordered to take down. If he doesn’t, he could face fines and legal action.
“This is a political vendetta by City officials who are supporters of Elizabeth Warren,” stated the Bombay, India-born Ayyadurai.
So what was the message on the signs that prompted this alleged “political vendetta” by Warren-supporting city officials?
The new sign, posted since March 17, reads, “Only a real Indian can defeat the fake Indian,” and features a picture of Ayyadurai next to a photoshopped image of Warren wearing a feathered Native American headdress.
On April 5, Ayyadurai received a letter from Cambridge building inspector Branden Vigneault stating that his department had received “a series of anonymous complaints” about the signs. Vigneault declared them to be in violation of a city zoning ordinance as they were posted “without approvals and permits.”
“These signs must be removed immediately,” Vigneault wrote in the letter. “Failure to do so, may result in fines up to $300.00 dollars per day and legal action.”
Ayyadurai has argued that his signs aren’t in violation of any building codes or zoning ordinances since they are merely posted on a bus parked on his own property, and aren’t erected as part of a building.
Furthermore, he claims that his free speech rights have been violated by the city via the demand that he take down the signs. As a result, he has filed a civil lawsuit in opposition to the order.
“We will not remove the slogan from our bus,” Ayyadurai stated. “We will defend the First Amendment, and we will fight this egregious attack on the First Amendment, at any cost.”
“They didn’t say anything when we had the first sign,” he explained of the previous messages he had posted. “It was only when we put, ‘Only a real Indian can defeat the fake Indian,’ so it’s clearly trying to censor speech.”
The fact that Ayyadurai has posted signs on his property for a year with nary a peep from the city, who only now has issued a complaint once his message against Warren touched on a sore subject for her, lends credence to his assertion that this is a “political vendetta” by her supporters.
That touchy topic for Warren could ultimately be her undoing — it certainly hasn’t helped her in recent years — and her opponent in the 2018 Senate race has figured out that it’s a button he can push to garner an overreaction from her camp.
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