Periodically Justin Smith reviews the murder of LaVoy Finicum by the FBI (taking the lead). Finicum’s death resulted from rancher/farmer protests of intruding on their livelihood in relation to taking of their animal stock. Can you say intrusive-abusive fees and land restrictions in the name of eco-Marxists and greedy corporations?
The ironic union is motivated by protecting useless species and/or mining of metal ores often times enriching American Leftists selling out to foreign entities that offers risk rather than benefit to Americans.
The upset rancher/farmer often will cite U.S. Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 while the Leftist scoffs at the legal reasoning notably due unchallenged Congressional legislation and Judicial Activism. YET the rancher/farmer stand looks at the Constitution’s temporary stipulations of Federal control which SHOULD enable an individual State to reclaim Federally controlled land.
This is yet another dot connecting many Left-Right issues if connected to completion probably end in Civil War for a resolution.
Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.
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A Martyr in Defense of Liberty
LaVoy Finicum’s Journey and His Destiny
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 1/11/2020 2:16 AM
Raised in the northwestern corner of Arizona Navajo territory, Robert LaVoy Finicum largely came to manhood in and around the sprawling area of Fredonia and Colorado City, Arizona, just off State Route 389, and Hildale, Utah, before his fateful death, his murder by law enforcement, near Burns, Oregon on January 26th 2016, just one day before his 55th birthday. His name is a hallowed one in the annals of the Patriot movement and the minds of most American Patriots, as a man who was willing to fight for those ideas of freedom and liberty and the Founding principles of America.
LaVoy led a small band of protesters, including Cliven Bundy’s sons, Ryan and Ammon, American Patriots who understood that the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) were consistently and constantly acquiring or simply taking water and grazing rights and land unconstitutionally, from farmers and ranchers across America. These men and women were standing firm for property rights under Our Bill of Rights, when they occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 2nd 2016 and began a standoff with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, that lasted forty-one days.
[Blog Editor: In using various search engines I was disappointed that most links turned were quite negative toward ranchers and farmers being weary of the Federal government utilizing land control to manage the increasingly rare individual rural land owner’s decisions of their own ranch or farm. The perspectives were Left-Wing by far in the majority. The search engines emphasized an element of White Supremacism and racism among ranchers and farmers really more angry about imposed land limitations than politics. Most Western ranchers and farmers are Caucasians so it’s a bit moronic to call them White Supremacists. HOWEVER when White Supremacist organizations seemingly appear to offer support to generational ranch/farm operations, WHO do you think these ranchers and farmers will gravitate toward? AT ANY RATE who are two perspectives of the Malheur Occupation that too me appear Leftist yet with some sympathy toward rancher/farmer plights. The perspective was written prior to Bundy Judicial exonerations and the Hammond pardons:
LaVoy and anyone else with a proper understanding of America’s Founding understood that the land is a gift of God to man to be individually commanded and cultivated to suit his purposes, and government officials do not have any right to interfere with this unalienable God-given right. In line with this same logic, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution clearly states that land within the boundaries of a state may only be acquired by the national government, if it has the consent of the state legislature; and then, it can only acquire it for the placement of military forts, arsenals, dock yards and other needful buildings. This procedure was created to ensure that the national government could not simply grab land and use the land as a means to coerce the states and people to do their bidding and to expand its power past the limitations of the Constitution. And, this same principle applies to water and grazing rights, especially those handed down to pioneers’ descendants from territorial grants preceding statehood.
It was from this point of view that LaVoy started his journey towards his destiny, in June 2015, as he wrote the following in two separate letters to the BLM, three days apart that read, in part: “At this time I feel compelled to stand (up for) the Constitution of our land and in doing so please do not feel I am attacking your character. This is not about cows and grass, access or resources, this is about freedom and defending our Constitution in its original intent … I am severing my association with the BLM.”
During this same time frame, LaVoy had expressed his displeasure over ranchers steadily being pushed out of grazing lands like the Grand Canyon-Pashant [Blog Editor: perhaps Parashant or Pesant?] and BLM tactics, after they called him and told him to remove 24 head of his cattle grazing on “BLM land”, on the Arizona Strip. LaVoy replied that he was “not asking permission”.
After the BLM drained one of his water storage tanks to fight a grass fire, he exclaimed: “[The water is] mine. It’s for my cows. I need it. Quit stealing.” He later took to Youtube where he asked, “You gonna come in there like You did with my friend, Clive?” He concluded: “Well, I’m telling you, leave me alone. Leave me alone, leave Cliven alone.”
This set the stage for LaVoy’s trip to Harney County, Oregon to join Ammon and Ryan Bundy in the Malheur Refuge Occupation, after seeing so many other small ranchers treated unfairly by the BLM, with those truths previously mentioned solidified after standing alongside Cliven Bundy, during his standoff with the BLM. He and all the others were truly making a stand against the overreach of the federal government, and in the process, they hoped to get all America thinking more about liberty.
Just as our Federalist Founders didn’t want an all-powerful federal government, so too the people, who still hold the ideas espoused by LaVoy and others, such as Cliven Bundy, are simply wary and opposed to any heavy concentration of power in the hands of the federal government, since they have already witnessed, too often first hand, the manner that power is so easily abused, especially through the BLM. However, neither do they see government as evil, or even a necessary evil.
Far from the “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” that yellow journalists, such as Kevin Sullivan, and the establishment propaganda press, like the Washington Post, attempted to portray them as being, these men and women were simply strong advocates for a responsible, limited government that favored local solutions and a federalist system inhibiting the centralization of all government into the hands of the few, adhering to the full and proper use of the checks and balances and good government practices set forth in the Constitution.
Noted by B.J. Soper, head of the Pacific Patriots Network, in 2016, and by many patriots previous to and after him [ZeroHedge]: “We’ve let the government step over the line and rule us, and that was never the intent of this country.” And I would add, it was certainly never the intent of our nation’s Founders.
And given the dangerous assaults and violence exhibited by extremists in the protests of Black Lives Matter [the other BLM] and Occupy Wall Street, there isn’t any justification for the actions of law enforcement against LaVoy and his fellow protesters, who were protesting peacefully, even if they had “taken” Malheur. People were initially able to come and go freely, until the protesters started blocking entrance from fear of federal government infiltration aimed at arresting and removing them, before they achieved their goals. LaVoy certainly wasn’t so dangerous or violent a man that he had to be so sorely mistreated and ultimately executed.
Whether he was armed or not is irrelevant. We regularly see many militiamen at peaceful protests all over America, both socialists and conservatives, going armed with long guns and pistols. Going armed at a protest, as is Constitutionally protected from many legal perspectives, isn’t a death warrant, or at least it shouldn’t be. Our Constitution doesn’t state that anyone must allow themselves to be abused by government agents, or anyone else, and it doesn’t prevent any American from engaging in a proper and lawful act of self-defense, especially if one is defending themselves against government tyranny.
Passenger Shawna Cox captured the entire miserable and dastardly event on her cell phone, and I have watched the video with sound, that captured the moment of LaVoy’s death, so many numerous times, often choking back my own angry tears, to think that people sworn to protect and defend the Constitution could so casually ignore it in this or any case; and, each time, I can only conclude this was a planned execution.
From the first roadblock stop and the shot that hit LaVoy’s driver side mirror to the second roadblock, it becomes well and beyond apparent that this was a planned execution. The bullets were flying at LaVoy’s vehicle before he could even come to a complete stop on the slippery snow-covered road, as the video does show, in fact, a bullet piercing the truck ceiling; and, as he exited the vehicle with hands raised, he was immediately hit in the side by a round, that caused him to flinch to that side — offering the assassins their excuse “he was reaching for a gun” — and multiple rounds then hit him and his life was ended.
Several FBI agents and Oregon Highway Patrol fired on LaVoy, but it was Casey Codding, of the Oregon Highway Patrol, who fired on the vehicle before it ever stopped. FBI agent Joseph Astarita fired the first shot after LaVoy jumped from the vehicle, to divert law enforcement’s attention away from his friends, and in the course of the execution, Codding shot LaVoy in the back twice, just like a coward, even though LaVoy was not brandishing a firearm or any other weapon — even though they knew that LaVoy was an innocent, peaceful rancher without any criminal history who had told them he was on his way to a meeting with the Sheriff of Grant County — even though they knew he had a large family of eleven children and was a good man who had never threatened anyone.
Most good police officers go their entire career without ever having to kill anyone. Codding has killed three people, including a teenager, “in the line of duty”. He’s also one of LaVoy’s murderers.
Whatever happened to “protect and serve”? Who has police forces across the country so indoctrinated and so intensely concerned to the point they see ranchers and family men as the greatest enemy to their country?
There wasn’t even one attempt to peacefully negotiate with the Malheur group and LaVoy Finicum, even though all LaVoy did at the refuge was speak to authorities in a non-threatening manner. It should deeply trouble all Americans that law enforcement had so little conscience and lack of reservation, they could easily shoot LaVoy with his hands raised; equally troubling, they didn’t even check him for a pulse, until they had walked around his body for fifteen minutes, as they placed their lack of respect for human life on full display before the American people.
Far too many law enforcement don’t even understand what it really means to defend the Constitution and freedom, as they set about destroying the freedoms of the American people in an out-of-control display of power at the behest of mayors and governors using them to acquire greater influence and power, i.e. as we currently see unfolding in Virginia via Governor Northam and the Democrat majority in the Virginia legislature regarding proposed gun control measures. Wicked “leaders” could not so subvert our freedoms without willing murderers like Casey Codding.
CASEY CODDING another Finicum shooter
Today, all Americans must face the certain fact that our federal government is out-of-control and corrupt, nearly beyond the point of salvation. It will kill its own citizens if we try to live too freely, or so it does seem, of late. Who can ever remove the image from their mind, of Vicky Weaver being shot through the head, as she held her baby in her arms in the doorway of her husband’s cabin on Ruby Ridge? An innocent American shot dead by FBI sniper, Lon Horiuchi, on August 21st 1992; look at Waco, Texas in 1993 and the overreaction of the ATF; one incident after another, until the standoff at Cliven Bundy’s ranch, when armed patriots came to his defense and said “No More”.
What has happened to this America I love so well, that one can barely distinguish between the Bad Guys and the Good Guys, in the ranks of those charged to protect and defend society? This case and the recent soft coup against the President indicate a great evil courses through their ranks today.
Throughout the history of the FBI, how many times has anyone in America seen any rancher draw his firearm on an FBI agent, or any other law enforcement agent? These ranchers aren’t common low-down thugs. They are fine Americans, the salt of the earth.
Has there ever been an FBI agent who defended or aided or stood alongside a rancher, because it was the right thing to do and it kept with their oath to defend the Constitutional rights of those in their care? Has any FBI agent ever stepped outside his role as a government pawn protecting special interests, to actually protect the people he was supposedly hired to serve and protect?
LaVoy had stated, time and again, a desire to make sure that the standoff ended peacefully, and up until the day of the ambush, there wasn’t any reason to believe that it wouldn’t, since LaVoy had been in constant contact with Sheriff Glenn Palmer, who was quite sympathetic to the cowboy’s cause. These men weren’t “anti-government”; they were anti-tyranny. LaVoy would be alive and well at home, with his family today, acquitted of all wrong-doing, just as many other defendants associated with the standoff have been, if the FBI and the Oregon Highway Patrol had not escalated the situation.
Ironically, LaVoy wrote a book entitled “Only By Blood and Suffering”, originally published in 2015, that foreshadowed his own death. The protagonist, a cowboy, dies in a shootout with the federal government, just as LaVoy finally did.
Real American patriots, such as Robert LaVoy Finicum, are far and few between these days, especially in the ranks of our elected officials, since so many so-called conservatives claim to stand for the Constitution against the federal government’s overreach, as they stand by silent and meek, in the wake of its insistent and continuous assaults against ‘We the People’ and our rights to life, liberty, property and freedom from the restrictions of arbitrary force. The faux conservatives are far too willing to allow federal power grabs to go unopposed, as a large, meddlesome, intrusive state and its progressive operated institutions undermine our private economy, economic liberty and the freedom to own property and allocate our own resources, enervating the country’s civic character; but LaVoy Finicum was willing to go all the way, sacrificing himself and giving his life, in his fight against the Bureau of Land Management, in order to preserve those values that were established centuries ago that respect our God-given rights.
Twenty-one short months of LaVoy’s life passed, between the time he showed up alone at the Bundy Ranch in 2014 and the moment he died a leader of the Malheur occupation in 2016. He died as he had lived, trying to make a difference and protecting the ideas and people he loved; he died a martyr in defense of freedom and liberty.
By Justin O. Smith
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Blog Editor: Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me. Recently, the Facebook censorship tactic I’ve experienced is a couple of Group shares then jailed under the false accusation of posting too fast. So I ask those that read this, to combat censorship by sharing blog and Facebook posts with your friends or Groups you belong to.
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Edited by John R. Houk
Text embraced by brackets and source links are by the Editor.
On January 26, 2016 – LaVoy Perished in a hail of unprovoked bullets from the FBI and Oregon State Police. The shooting was so egregious that FBI Agent Joseph Astarita is on trial for trying to cover-up his part for shooting LaVoy. LaVoy’s wife Jeanette Finicum has filed a wrongful death lawsuit which so far seems to be moving forward.
Justin Smith effectively memorializes the unjust murder as a warning that there are crooked FBI personnel willing to circumvent the Constitution for their own version of law enforcement. Be wary President Trump.
Nothing in the pursuit of justice will ever restore the Finicum Family’s joy and happiness, that they experienced, with LaVoy Finicum home and alive with them, but Jeanette Finicum has pursued justice from the day her husband was so unnecessarily shot down on a lonely stretch of Highway 395, due to his role as one of the leaders of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Preserve.
Her perseverance has resulted in the trial of Joseph Astarita, the FBI agent who fired the shots and ignited the hailstorm of bullets that ended LaVoy’s life, an ignoble act by the FBI and law enforcement who took part in the ambush, reminiscent of their action against Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge.
His trial underway as of this July 24th, Astarita stands accused of falsely denying that he fired two shots at LaVoy, and he is charged with three counts of making false statements and two counts of obstruction of justice. However, through scientific methods and aerial video of the ambush, it has been determined that it was Astarita who fired the first shots, as LaVoy exited his truck, something Astarita’s lawyers still refute. They state a belief that it was one of the Oregon Highway Patrol, who fired those first shots.
Robert LaVoy Finicum led a small band of protesters, including Cliven Bundy’s sons, Ryan and Ammon, American Patriots, who understood that the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management were consistently and constantly acquiring or simply taking land unconstitutionally, from farmers and ranchers across America. These men and women were standing firm for property rights under Our Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, when they occupied Malheur, near Burns, Oregon, on January 2, 2016 and began a stand-off with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, that lasted forty-one days, detailed by Les Zaitz in The Oregonian, that lasted forty-one days.
Since they had left the refuge before without incident, they expected this day, on January 26, 2016, to be no different. Imagine their shock, when the ambush and shooting occurred soon after LaVoy, Ryan and Ammon Bundy and Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp, along with several others, started on their way to meet peacefully with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer in John Day County. They had viewed their act of civil disobedience as a simple demonstration, much less severe and dangerous than other protests generated by Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, who were destroying entire cities without any real consequence from law enforcement.
After successfully evading the first road block, LaVoy told his friends, “Better understand how this thing is going to end. I’m going to be laying down on the ground with my blood on the street, or I’m going to see the sheriff. We got people en route.”
According to Robert Cary, Astarita’s lawyer, it was at this point that one Oregon State Patrolman radioed ahead to “Officer 1” and stated, “We’re going to have to shoot LaVoy Finicum.”
At the second roadblock, shots rained down on LaVoy’s truck before he ever stopped, forcing him to plow into a snow bank, allegedly just narrowly missing an FBI agent. And, as he jumped from the truck, to draw fire from his friends, with his hands raised above his head, two shots rang out, one shattering the driver’s side passenger window and striking Ryan Bundy in the shoulder.
In Shawna Cox’s video of the ambush, one hears the police telling him to “Get down” and LaVoy yelling, “You’re gonna have to shoot me”. Cox is heard asking, “Damn it, are they shooting him? … You assholes.”
Jeanette Finicum
The April 24th 2018 amendment (see page 51, number 269) to Jeanette Finicum’s current lawsuit for the wrongful death of her husband speaks volumes:
“The FBI, OSP and other defendants have publicly defended the deliberate ambush and murder of LaVoy on January 26, 2016, by alleging that after he exited the vehicle, and after he had been shot with at least five lethal rounds (as well as unknown number of non-lethal rounds), and after he repeatedly placed his hands on top of his head in a surrender position; that he appeared to be reaching into his jacket.”
One of the most damning points within Mrs. Finicum’s complaint, found on page 33, highlights the fact that at the time of the so-called “traffic stop”, there was still no sworn affidavit or probable cause statement or indictment against LaVoy or any of his friends accompanying him. Neither was there any arrest warrant for anyone involved.
Witnesses are on record noting that Astarita’s face was contorted after the shooting, and he was loud and “so amped up” that a supervisor had to calm him down. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Sussman also noted: “Only one guy (Astarita) stood in just the right spot. … Only one guy aimed right at Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum’s pickup [and] fired two shots in rapid succession.”
Astarita’s trial follows a growing resentment among American patriots for a federal bureaucracy that is out of control, even to the point of committing sedition, possibly treason, against a sitting U.S. president. It also doesn’t help that the FBI has a long history of arbitrary, tyrannical actions, detailed by Leah Sottile, such as witnessed in 1992, when an FBI team descended on Ruby Ridge and the home of Randy Weaver, a U.S. Army Special Forces Veteran, and a sniper murdered Vicki Weaver, as she stood in the cabin doorway holding the couple’s baby.
Just before stepping from LaVoy’s truck, hands raised, Ryan Payne looked out and saw LaVoy lying in the snow. He turned towards Shawna Cox and Victoria Sharp and said, “LaVoy is dead.”
It doesn’t really matter, in the end, whose bullets killed LaVoy, because it shouldn’t have ended like this anyway. LaVoy had time and again stated a desire to make sure that the stand-off ended peacefully, and up until the day of the ambush, there wasn’t any reason to believe that it wouldn’t, since LaVoy had been in constant contact with Sheriff Glenn Palmer, who was quite sympathetic to the cowboy’s cause. These men weren’t “anti-government”; they were anti-tyranny.
During the 2016 trial that acquitted Ammon Bundy and six other defendants, the FBI and Oregon Highway Patrol both testified they could not have identified specific legal reasons for the stop. This can only mean that had law enforcement not escalated the situation, LaVoy Finicum would have also been acquitted and alive and well at home with his family.
Robert Lavoy Finicum was willing to die for his ideas, the Constitution and freedom, and as we rise to a new sun each day, we must work in this America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, to ensure that not any future Democrat led administration, or any administration, can ever target conservative protests in such an egregious manner, impeding liberty each step of the way and executing us at will. The Finicum’s fight to hold the federal government accountable for its arrogant lawlessness, dishonesty and violence is America’s fight.
LaVoy was a good man, gunned down in cold blood. And whether or not any degree of justice comes out of this trial, God’s accounting awaits each of us one day. I pray to God justice be served and the Finicum Family finds peace of mind and heart.
By Justin O. Smith
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Edited by John R. Houk
Text embraced by brackets and source links are by the Editor.
Here is a reprise of Oregon Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff instigated by the unjust re-sentencing of Dwight and Steven Hammond after they had already served time for a conviction that should never have happened. A bunch of ranchers from all over the Western U.S. came as a protest militia against the unjust actions of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). There were a few leaders of this rancher militia but the few headlines that made into the MSM placed Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan as the faces of BLM resistance. Ammon and Ryan were fresh off a successful standoff with their father Cliven Bundy in Nevada.
Here’s a rehash of the Hammonds’ BLM difficulties:
According to an October 7, 2015 press release from theObama Department of Justice, Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, both residents of Diamond, Oregon in Harney County, were sentenced to five years in prison by Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken for arsons they committed on federal lands.
The men were charged nearly a decade after the first fire and five years after the second.
The Hammonds’ run-ins with the government began in 1999, when Steven Hammond started a fire that escaped onto U.S. Bureau of Land Management territory. The intent of the fire was to burn off juniper and sagebrush that hindered the growth of grass for their cattle.
BLM employees reminded Steven Hammond that although his family leased public land for grazing, he couldn’t burn it without a permit. But in September 2001, the Hammondsstarted another fire. This one ran off their property on Steens Mountain, consumed 139 acres of public land and took the acreage out of production for two growing seasons, according to court papers.
Then in August 2006, lightning sparked several fires near the spot where the Hammonds grew their winter feed. Steven Hammond set a back-burn to thwart the advancing flames, and it burned across about an acre of public land, according to federal court records.
…
First, bothmen were sentencedin 2012 by now-retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, following the trial. Steven received one year and a day in prison for setting fires in 2001 and 2006. Dwight got 3 months for his 2001 involvement. Hogan did not believe the men had malicious intent to be labeled as terrorists under the Antiterrorismand Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, even though he sentenced them to jail for the time he did.
…
Both men served their sentences and were released. Now, the feds have appealed those sentences and want the mandatory minimum five-year sentence imposed on the men, and so they appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who agreed with the feds that the judge ruled illegally. However, now they are wanting to label theHammonds as terrorists under the 1996 law in order to put them back in jail.
… READENTIRETY (Bigger Than Bundy Ranch: Militia put on Level 2 Alert to Defend Oregon Ranchers against Tyrannical Feds Who Label Them Terrorists; By TIM BROWN; Freedom Outpost; 11/24/17)
NOW, after this rehash and couple it with the Obama Leftist corrupt regime which pushed much of the BLM land grabbing and rancher persecution; there are HUGE indications that the FBI has become so inculcated with Obama’s Leftist swamp, that they are severely a part of the problem to devastate the property rights of Ranchers.
Can you say, Communist redistribution in favor of State management?
FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita Court Sketch 6/28/17 Photo: Deborah Marble atKGW.com
At least one FBI Agent (so far) is under criminal prosecution for intimidation and manipulating evidence. Below is the story.
In a stunning development a year after the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, where two-dozen armed supporters gathered to protest the courts’ extension of sentences for two ranchers, a sheriff has backed claims of FBI misbehavior.
The declaration came from Deschutes County SheriffShane Nelson just as FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita was pleading not guilty to three counts of making false statements and two counts of obstruction of justice in federal court in Portland, Oregon.
The FBI agent was accused of firing at the protesters, then picking up shell casings to conceal that fact and lying to investigators.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon said Astarita falsely stated he had not fired his weapon during the attempted arrest of protester LaVoy Finicum, who was shot dead by another officer during the incident, “when he knew he had in fact fired his weapon.”
“Astarita also knowingly engaged in misleading conduct toward Oregon State Police officers by failing to disclose that he had fired two rounds during the attempted arrest,” the statement said.
Nelson said, as the Washington Times reported, that the actions by “multiple members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team” had “damaged the integrity of the entire law enforcement profession, which makes me both disappointed and angry.”
Nelson said he told Justice Department and FBI officials, including now-acting Director Andrew McCabe, over a year ago about “possible criminal conduct” by some involved FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents.
And while the case against Astarita is in court, new evidence also is arising from the makers of an acclaimed documentary about the incident.
WND reported earlier on the armed standoff that has been variously described by opponents as “militia terrorism” and by defenders as rebellion against government tyranny.
The 41-day standoff ended in mass arrests after law enforcement fatally shot one of the occupiers.
The “American Standoff” story starts with Dwight and Steven Hammond, Oregon ranchers who were controversially convicted and sentenced for setting a controlled land-management fire on their property that went out of control onto federal land. But after they served their sentences and were released, a judge – at a federal prosecutor’s insistence – ordered them back into court, where they were sentenced to further time in prison under an anti-terrorism law, even though there was no evidence presented that the ranchers had planned or engaged in terrorism in any way.
Sympathetic ranchers and others – encouraged by the federal government’s stand-down from a previous armed confrontation in Nevada two years earlier on the land of rancher Cliven Bundy – protested the new injustice and ended up staging an armed occupation of the refuge.
They succeeded in keeping federal officers at bay until they were finally taken into custody when police staged a highly dangerous highway stop of vehicles carrying the protesters and shot two men.
Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven Bundy’s sons, was injured, while LaVoy Finicum was killed.
However, one of the FBI agents was charged with serious infractions of the law for the final confrontation. So far, Astarita is the only FBI agent to be indicted.
In the first, Jeanette Finicum, the widow of LaVoy Finicum, explains how the government, after killing her husband, also canceled the lease she needed to continue her family’s ranching operation.
She said she has lawyers fighting to restore the lease.
And she said a wrongful death case is inevitable against the government after a certain legal time period passes.
She insists her husband had his hands in the air and was surrendering but “was murdered.”
“He was mowed down in cold blood.”
Then, the video explains, the federal agents were “caught on camera, picking up casings before the forensic team arrived at the site of the shooting.”
Also, the video shows, Finicum’s gun, which he reportedly had been reaching for, wasn’t found for eight hours after the shooting.
“How many people tended to his body without finding it?” the video asks.
American Standoff: Aftermath is a new short form series that delves deeper into the personal lives of the characters and key issues surrounding the 2016 Malheur Standoff.
Episode 1: Finicum
After the death of Lavoy Finicum, the BLM cancelled the Finicum Ranch Grazing Permit. More than a year later, Lavoy’s widow Jeanette is still trying to get the permit reinstated.
“I think Josh Turnbow did a terrific job in ‘American Standoff,’” said Kupelian, “not just in fairly and sensitively presenting all sides of a complex and troubling situation, but in telling a riveting, deeply thought-provoking true story about today’s America.”
Kupelian said the documentary “captures the classic modus operandi of an oppressive government: Perpetrate injustice, provoking widespread public outrage, which always includes a small number of people who seriously overreact and, however well-meaning, do something illegal or irresponsible – and then portray them as the real problem, or in this case as ‘criminals’ and ‘terrorists.’”
He said the main provocation in the story was “convicting two Oregon cattle ranchers, a father and son team whose controlled burn on their own property had gotten out of control and migrated onto federal land, with arson under an anti-terrorism statute that mandates a minimum five-year prison sentence.”
“Even the presiding judge said such a severe and unjust sentence would ‘shock the conscience.’ Well, it did shock the conscience of a lot of other ranchers – and the Malheur standoff was the result,” he said.
Turnbow said he would like to find out what really happened and consider what the outcome should have been, especially with regard to the still-imprisoned ranchers serving a five-year “terrorism” sentence.
“We should be talking about it,” Turnbow says.
The larger issue at hand – federal control over land in the American West – continues to loom large.
The federal government is the largest landowner in the Rocky Mountain and Western states, owning contiguous parcels of millions of acres.
Conflicts between ranchers, who in some instances have owned and worked their land for generations, and a federal government seemingly always hungry for more, are common.
President Trump’s recent executive order to review the possibility of shrinking the boundaries of federal monuments could help defuse the longstanding tensions between America’s ranchers and the government.
See the trailer for “American Standoff”:
[Blog Editor: I am not sure if this is the same trailer WNDTV uses but it is about the same length on Youtube.]
A story as tragic and incredible as the West itself, AUDIENCE Network presents the AT&T original documentary American Standoff which tells the story of the armed takeover of Oregon’s Malheur Wildlife Refuge and its violent conclusion. Don’t miss the premiere on 5/4 at 8PM!
It was about a year ago that LaVoy Finicum was shot to death by Federal and Oregon State law enforcement UNJUSTLY. Justin reminds us that government tyranny is very possible in America – especially in an America that has a Dem Party Administration that has consistently lied to Americans for EIGHT YEARS.
“Destroyers are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state … ” — Nietzsche
Americans should pause and take some time to recall and celebrate the life of Robert LaVoy Finicum, an American patriot, who loved his family, God and country. He placed his life on the line in defense of all Americans’ right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, joining the ranks of thousands of other ranchers who have been fighting the overreaches of the federal government and the tyranny of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the past forty years. Robert LaVoy Finicum died on January 26th, 2016, one day before his 55th birthday, defending the U.S. Constitution and this America he loved so well.
By all accounts, LaVoy Finicum was “a quiet man who worked his to-do list from sun-up to sundown” (The Oregonian) and had a “light reading” list that included many history books, the U.S. Constitution and Alexis de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’. He also thoroughly enjoyed his big family – his wife and eleven children – and their evening discussions on the Scriptures, the Constitution and the Founding Fathers’ ideas on freedom.
Although Finicum had generally viewed his interaction with the BLM to be “very good” over the years, he became active in opposing them in 2014, after the BLM fined him $12,000 and claimed his cattle had grazed on federal lands past his allotted permit time. He was also heavily influenced by his own research into the BLM and the high-handed tactics he witnessed the BLM employ against the Bundy family in 2014.
Finicum rode with Cliven and Ammon Bundy on their Nevada Ranch in April of 2014, along with hundreds of other supporters, in order to reinforce the fact that Bundy’s grazing and water rights, documented in an 1878 title, predated any BLM claims and had to be honored by the BLM. And when the BLM moved along Interstate 15 to confiscate Bundy’s cattle on April 5th, Finicum, the Bundy family members and well-armed supporters stopped them cold where they stood; this would become a sore-point for the FBI that carried over to the Malheur Wildlife Reserve occupation in 2016 and the stand-off near Burns, Oregon.
After the Bundy Ranch Stand-Off, LaVoy Finicum said: “I had to do a lot of soul searching. I realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle, and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM.”
Finicum and the Bundy clan understood that the Enclave Clause [Thoughts from 2014 & 2016] (Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution) did not allow government bureaucrats to act like kings and ignore the 9th and 10th Amendments, and it did not authorize the BLM to arbitrarily seize the water rights, cattle and property of ranchers and arrogantly nullify 200 years of constitutional history. They understood, much like the U.S. Supreme Court (New York v. U.S.), that the Constitution is not a tool to protect the sovereignty of the State or for the benefit of government officials, but rather, the Constitution secures all Americans’ liberties through the diffusion of sovereign power.
However, the BLM sees things differently. Many cases spanning the years can be found, that are similar to Raymond Yowell’s experience. The BLM garnished the $200 Social Security check of this former chief of the Shoshone Indian Tribe and seized 132 head of his cattle in 2002, for grazing “unlawfully” on government lands. The BLM sold Yowell’s cattle at auction and pocketed the money.
Between 2006 and 2012, the BLM had intimidated and finally charged Steven and Dwight Hammond with nine federal counts of arson for setting backfires on their own lands that supposedly spread to federal land. The Hammonds were subsequently imprisoned, released and then sent back to prison, even though the facts illuminated that some of those out-of-control backfires actually originated with BLM employees, in an attempt to stop several lightning strike fires such as the Granddad fire that burned 46,000 acres.
Politics played heavily in the cases regarding Steven and Dwight Hammond, because the BLM wanted the Hammond ranch. Gold mining companies like Calico Resource USA out of Vancouver, Canada and uranium mining concerns like Australian owned Oregon Energy LLC had their eyes on the area, and the BLM was hoping to profit and grow more powerful through the General Mining Law of 1872.
All the great ideas and principles that shaped America went with LaVoy Finicum, as he and many other American Patriots occupied Oregon’s Malheur (French for “misfortune” or “tragedy”) National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles from Burns, Oregon, in order to force the return of 188,000 acres to local control and the release of the Hammond brothers from prison. They acted through peaceful, political protest, even though they were armed to ensure the security of their protest, and they advocated for property and states’ rights, as they took a hard stand against federal ownership of 250 million acres in America and years of oppression by the BLM and several other government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Twenty-five days into the protest, Robert LaVoy Finicum, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, Ryan Payne and Victoria Sharp headed to John Day, Oregon for a “singing” and a meeting with Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer to discuss their demands, explain their views to local people and seek a peaceful end to the stand-off. But they were ambushed along the way by the Oregon State Patrol and the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, which used combat-grade operation protocols rather than “civilian” deadly force standards, firing once without warning at the initial stop, according to many witnesses, and numerous times at the second roadblock using concussion and live rounds.
Does this remind anyone else of Ruby Ridge and the murders of Randy Weaver’s wife and son by the FBI?
If the federal authorities had been serious about desiring a peaceful resolution to this conflict, they could have coordinated with Sheriff Palmer to arrest Finicum, if just cause existed for an arrest (they knew Finicum’s destination). Instead they chose to shoot him numerous times and refuse him medical attention from Victoria Sharp, a trained EMT and his friend, as he lay on the snowy ground dying. They murdered LaVoy on a lonely, desolate stretch of Highway 395.
If the FBI had negotiated LaVoy Finicum’s peaceful surrender, as they certainly could have, he would simply have been taken into custody and released after his acquittal by a jury, just in the same manner that a jury acquitted his so-called “co-conspirators” in October 2016, including Ammon Bundy and a friend and activist, Shawna Cox. And, it should alarm everyone that the HRT agents initially concealed the fact they had fired their weapons during the stop.
Upon her release, Shawna Cox made a plea before a mass of TV cameras and supporters, imploring: “We have to be vigilant people. Wake up America, and help us restore the Constitution. Don’t sleep with your head in the sand.
Isn’t it odd that FBI agents, who are sworn to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution — lawyers all — regularly side with government imposed tyranny against U.S. citizens?
Arianna Finicum Brown, LaVoy’s 27 year old daughter, stated shortly after his death: “My Dad was such a good man, through and through. He would never want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.
During LaVoy’s funeral, his brother, Guy Finicum remarked on LaVoy’s deep faith in God, adding: “He has absolute confidence that he will be with his family again. He believes that as much as he believes the sun will rise. And that’s what gave him the ability to do what he did. He always looked at a higher goal.”
When any government, including ours, puts forth its strength on the side of injustice and murders fine men like LaVoy Finicum, it reveals itself as a mere brute force, and it becomes apparent more than ever that tyranny rules. And other patriots are served warning to desist their opposition or meet the same fate.
And what are Americans to think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses?
Robert LaVoy Finicum did not recognize unjust human laws, and he persistently stood for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, the equal of any government. He regularly fought against established injustices and the hypocrites of bureaucracies who seemed to ask, “Why do you assault us”. And LaVoy’s death — the death of an American hero — was like the planting of a good seed, and it is giving rise to a new crop of American heroes.
In a video shown at a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office press conference today, the aerial FBI video of the LaVoy Finicum shooting has been synced with a cellphone video Shawna Cox recorded from within Finicum’s truck.
I have some background perspective leading up to the good news that journalist Pete Santilli had all charges against him dismissed in relation to the Oregon Malheur Wildlife Reserve Standoff between ranchers and State/Federal authorities.
Toward the end of 2015 and the first couple months of 2016 the news media was all astir about some angry ranchers, self-termed a militia, protesting government land-grabbing around the Burns Oregon area. More specifically these angry ranchers occupied Oregon Malheur Wildlife Reserve which is public land that was nationalized by the Federal government.
What sparked a number of ranchers from many Western States to occupy a federal refuge in Oregon? A Burns area ranching family – the Hammonds – was dealing with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) who desired to purchase a swath of the Hammond family’s. After the Hammonds refused to sell the BLM and FWS utilized regulations and rules that have the force of law (even if not specifically legislated by Congress) to oppress/persecute the Hammonds to sell or for the Federal government to simply downright steal the land by force of law:
…
HISTORY: (aa) The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle. These ranchers developed a state of the art irrigated system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north.
…
(a) In 1964 the Hammonds’ purchased their ranch in the Harney Basin. The purchase included approximately 6000 acres of private property, 4 grazing rights on public land, a small ranch house and 3 water rights. The ranch is around 53 miles South of Burns, Oregon.
(a1) By the 1970’s nearly all the ranches adjacent to the Blitzen Valley were purchased by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and added to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge covers over 187,000 acres, stretches over 45 miles long and 37 miles wide. The expansion of the refuge grew and surrounds to the Hammond’s ranch. Approached many times by the FWS, the Hammonds refused to sell. Other ranchers also choose not to sell.
(a2) During the 1970’s the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), took a different approach to get the ranchers to sell. Ranchers were told: “grazing was detrimental to wildlife and must be reduced”; 32 out of 53 permits were revoked and many ranchers were forced to leave. Grazing fees were raised significantly for those who were allowed to remain. Refuge personnel took over the irrigation system claiming it as their own.
(a3) By 1980 a conflict was well on its way over water allocations on the adjacent privately owned Silvies Plain. The FWS wanted to acquire the ranch lands on the Silvies Plain to add to their already vast holdings. Refuge personnel intentionally diverted the water bypassing the vast meadow lands, directing the water into the rising Malheur Lakes. Within a few short years the surface area of the lakes doubled. Thirty-one ranches on the Silvies plains were flooded. Homes, corrals, barns and graze-land were washed away and destroyed. The ranchers who once fought to keep the FWS from taking their land, now broke and destroyed, begged the FWS to acquire their useless ranches. In 1989 the waters began to recede; now the once thriving privately owned Silvies plains are a proud part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge claimed by the FWS.
(a4) By the 1990’s the Hammonds were one of the very few ranchers who still owned private property adjacent to the refuge. Susie Hammond in an effort to make sense of what was going on began compiling facts about the refuge. In a hidden public record she found a study done by the FWS in 1975. The study showed the “no use” policies of the FWS on the refuge were causing the wildlife to leave the refuge and move to private property. The study showed the private property adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge produced four times more ducks and geese than the refuge. The study also showed the migrating birds were 13 times more likely to land on private property than on the refuge. When Susie brought this to the attention of the FWS and refuge personnel, her and her family became the subjects of a long train of abuses and corruptions.
(b) In the early 1990’s the Hammonds filed on a livestock water source and obtained a deed for the water right from the State of Oregon. When the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) found out the Hammonds obtained new water rights near the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge, they were agitated and became belligerent and vindictive toward the Hammonds. The US Fish and Wildlife Service challenged the Hammonds right to the water in an Oregon State Circuit Court. The court found the Hammonds legally obtained rights to the water in accordance to State law and therefore the use of the water belongs to the Hammonds.*
(c) In August 1994 the BLM & FWS illegally began building a fence around the Hammonds water source. Owning the water rights, and knowing that their cattle relied on that water source daily, the Hammonds tried to stop the building of the fence. The BLM & FWS called the Harney County Sheriff department and had Dwight Hammond (Father) arrested and charged with “disturbing and interfering with” federal officials or federal contractors (two counts, each a felony). Dwight spent one night in the Deschutes County Jail in Bend, and a second night behind bars in Portland. He was then hauled before a federal magistrate and released without bail. A hearing on the charges was postponed and the federal judge never set another date.
(d) The FWS also began restricting access to upper pieces of the Hammond’s private property. In order to get to the upper part of the Hammond’s ranch they had to go on a road that went through the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge. The FWS began barricading the road and threatening the Hammonds if they drove through it. The Hammonds removed the barricades and gates and continued to use their right of access. The road was proven later to be owned by the County of Harney. This further enraged the BLM & FWS.
(e) Shortly after the road & water disputes, the BLM & FWS arbitrarily revoked the Hammond’s upper grazing permit without any given cause, court proceeding or court ruling. As a traditional “fence out state” Oregon requires no obligation on the part of an owner to keep his or her livestock within a fence or to maintain control over the movement of the livestock. The Hammonds still intended to use their private property for grazing. However, they were informed a federal judge ruled, in a federal court, the federal government did not have to observe the Oregon fence out law. “Those laws are for the people, not for them”.
(f) The Hammonds were forced to either build and maintain miles of fences or be restricted from the use of their private property. Cutting their ranch in almost half, they could not afford to fence the land, so … READ ENTIRETY (Full Story About What’s Going on In Oregon – “Militia” Take Over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge In Protest to Hammond Family Persecution…; By sundance; The Last Refuge – Conservative Tree House; 1/3/16)
The odd thing about the plight of the Hammonds is as a family they never committed to be supportive of all the ranchers that came to the Malheur Wildlife Reserve to occupy and protest the treatment of the Hammonds and the father and son incarceration twice for the same accused crime. The Oregon local ranchers and rural communities were not very supportive either. My guess is the locals did not want to rock the status quo they had become accustomed to from the BLM and FWS OR some of the Left Coast thinking had infected the locals who may have some sympathy for the Left Wing environmentalists (Eco-Marxism) who want to protect wetlands for their precious birds (Left Coast Thinking: HERE. AND Paiutes: HERE. AND Conservative Sympathetic yet Support Feds: HERE) over the property rights being abused against ranchers who have become upset enough over Federal Land Grabbing to actually arm themselves to go down swinging against the power of Big Brother.
Even without Oregon local support, I tended to have a lot of sympathy for their protest. I will never be a fan of a coercive government pressuring American citizens pertaining to their rights to property. In the case of Western rural landowners – ranching, farming or a combination – The federal government’s job should be limited to protecting constitutional Rights rather than usurping land by coercion or pressure via bureaucratic regulations. The vast amount of land under Federal control is an intrusion of States’ Rights (Tenth Amendment).
The Ammon Bundy protest was undoubtedly doomed to failure. The Left Stream Media and politicians made little effort to report on the reasons these ranchers embarked on a doomed protest. The lack of balanced coverage painted a picture of extremists doing Right Wing nut job antics. Worse these ranchers were prepared to the weapons the 2nd Amendment guarantees every American to own for self-protection and to rise up against a tyrannical government. After all, it was British tyranny that caused thirteen British Colonies to rebel. One of the British injustices was storming onto private citizens’ property and seize food and guns. HENCE the Second Amendment. The Founding Fathers had a mistrust of a government that might devolve into tyranny.
In the case of Ammon Bundy’s rancher militia, if shooting began, there was zero possibility the militia could match the fire power of well-resourced State and Federal police force. HENCE the death of LaVoy Finicum – witnesses claim murder and the FBI claims justified shooting because Finicum was armed. By the way, armed with what to die in a hail of bullets?
Shortly after the arrest of Ammon and Ryan Bundy the militia protest ended. As far as the Left Wing Media goes, that was the end of the story. Yet anyone considered in a leadership mode were all arrested. Those prosecutions are still ongoing. I haven’t noticed any media coverage. To read coverage on the trials you have to go alternative news sources of the Left and Right to see how Big Brother is persecuting these rancher protesters. Much of the Left that is following the trials are full of condemnation ready to pitch the perceived lawbreakers to the lions of the coliseum. The sympathetic Right are typically anti-Big Brother types such as Oath Keepers and III Percenters (Explanation: SHORT – LONG). There are Establishment Conservatives that also have an unsympathetic view of the rancher militia in Oregon because they believe the Constitution does not support the Bundy/Militia view.
Then there are sympathetic types that faithfully covered the Bundy/Militia rancher standoff in blogs, radio and live streaming podcasts. The most prolific of these was Pete Santilli whose sympathies were rewarded by being present with an inside view reporting on the Malheur Wildlife Reserve Standoff. The problem for Santilli was that the Federal authorities did not appreciate him giving the public a favorable perspective of the ranchers’ complaints.
Santilli was arrested for his efforts. Prosecutors decided to throw the book at Santilli to the degree if convicted, he could have spent as long as thirty years in prison. For what? Allowing the public an inside view.
The good news for Santilli is that his lawyers managed to get the Judge to get the evidence the Prosecutors desired to use tossed. This led to the announcement that ALL CHARCHES against Pete Santilli were dismissed without prejudice. Below is The Washington Standard’s coverage of Pete Santilli’s victory over the Prosecution by Big Brother.
(I have some background links that I am providing after the WS story)
In a filing on Tuesday, US Attorney Billy J. Williams said prosecutors decided not to pursue charges against Santilli because of “this Court’s pretrial evidentiary rulings excluding evidence against” him.
“It’s been our position since the beginning that Pete had innocent intentions here,” Santilli’s lawyer Tom Coan told KOIN 6 News. “He never encouraged anyone to go out and stay at the refuge.”
The dismissal came at the request of federal prosecutors in Portland who acknowledged in court papers that they no longer had enough evidence to pursue their case against conservative radio talk show host Pete Santilli. Prosecutors cited rulings that barred them from presenting some of their evidence.
“Based upon this Court’s pretrial evidentiary rulings excluding evidence against Santilli (ECF No. 1171), the government has decided that the interests of justice do not support further pursuit of these charges against Santilli,” wrote US Attorney Billy J. Williams.
Awww, their evidence wasn’t admitted? Poor babies. Perhaps, they should try acknowledging who is actually committing the crimes on land that, according the Constitution, belongs to the people of the State of Oregon.
However, this does not mean that Santilli is completely off the hook just yet. He is being transported to Nevada where he is facing trumped up charges from the 2014 Bundy Ranch siege in Bunkerville, Nevada.
“He looks forward to focusing 100 percent of his time defending the charges here in Nevada,” Santilli attorney Chris Rasmussen said Tuesday.
Ammon Bundy’s former attorney Mike Arnold added that he believes the trial on what he refers to as “thought crimes” will be a long one.
“We don’t have thought crimes in America. You need, typically, overt acts to accompany speech in order to make it past First Amendment muster,” Arnold said. “In this case, the government is claiming that the possession of firearms on the property was such an overt act and the protesters are presumably going to say, ‘you know, we have a right to open carry.’”
I came across a video interview of a lady protestor in Burbank California protesting the murder of LaVoy Finicum in late January 2016. The method of the interview was the Mark Connors Show. You hear the audio of Connors – I believe – communicating to the lady via an onsite correspondent who seemingly relays Connors’ questions from what is heard in the correspondent’s ear bud. It is quite emotional!
Sadly, on my part, I moved on after reading about the Bundys, other ranch protest leaders of the Mahleur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns and pro-protester Youtube investigator Pete Santili being arrested by Oregon State Police and the FBI. I knew the railroad of the Justice system was about to commence. Normal Conservative outlets that were covering the standoff in Oregon also moved on so it was a bit of out-of-sight/out-of-mind for me.
The emotion of the protestor brought back a flood of memories about this government injustice toward American citizens making a living from the land even after government appropriation of that land.
The lady interviewed in this video is absolutely correct. My fellow Americans, don’t believe everything the government tells you AND especially from an Obama Administration led government.
Before cross posting the emotional video of a California protestor I need to revisit Finicum’s murder by State and Federal authorities.
Officially Finicum’s shooting was ruled justified rather than homicide. And you got to know there are many Conservatives that have swallowed the justified shooting ruling hook, line and sinker. You may have even seen commentary and transcripts of police vs. Finicum verbal exchanges leading up to Finicum being shot to death.
The thing is someone inside the same truck Finicum was in wisely took a cell phone video of the police vs. Finicum verbal exchange. If you listen to the cell phone video and line it up with the FBI released video, you will get a vastly different perspective of the Official account given by authorities.
So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to cross post an article posted at Fellowship of the Minds. The Fellowship of the Minds first places the case of the Official account and follows it with the cell phone video which is simultaneously lined up with the FBI released video. It is quite enlightening and I pray you are not too stubborn to understand the truth.
Following the Fellowship of the Minds post I’ll cross post the G+ Constitutionalist Group of the lady emotionally protesting the murder of LaVoy Finicum.
Last December, Ammon Bundy and armed militia members gathered in Burns, Oregon (about 280 miles southeast of Portland), to protest the jailing of local ranchers, father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond, for lighting fires on federal properties in 2001 and 2006 in order to scale back invasive plants and to protect their private lands from wildfires. (Ammon is the son of Nevada rancher Clive Bundy who had an armed standoff with federal authorities in 2014 over grazing rights. That matter was settled peacefully, after the Bureau of Land Management backed off and left the scene.)
After a peaceful rally in Burns, Ammon Bundy and the militia protesters took over a facility at the Mahleur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns.
On January 27, 2016, the feds put an end to the standoff by shooting dead Robert “LaVoy” Finicum multiple times at close range, and arresting other protesters, including:
Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Shawna Cox and Ryan Waylen Payne, who were arrested at a traffic stop on their way from Burns, Oregon, to a community meeting with ranchers in John Day, Oregon.
Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy (Captain O.) and Peter Santilli, who were arrested in Burns.
Jon Ritzheimer reportedly turned himself into police in Peoria, Arizona.
Yesterday, March 9, 2016, county prosecutors ruled the killing of Finicum “justified and necessary” despite the fact he had been shot three times in the back.
Below is a tweet, by RT anchor/correspondent Simone del Rosario, of an autopsy report’s sketch showing three gun wounds on Finicum’s back:
Here are excerpts from Les Zeitz’s report for The Oregonian/Oregon Live of the dramatic events that led to Finicum’s death:
As Robert “Lavoy” Finicum powered his Dodge pickup over Devine Summit on the state highway north of Burns, he spotted the police van idling on a U.S. Forest Service road.
Finicum glanced over at the state trooper in the driver’s seat as he went past.
He pointed a finger at him, as if to say “I see you” and kept going.
That likely was the moment Finicum realized he and his group wouldn’t make the community meeting planned that evening in John Day.
Less than 30 minutes later, Finicum was dead and four other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover were in handcuffs.
Police knew the leaders planned to travel to John Day in Grant County to the north on the only direct highway there – U.S. 395.
They devised a traffic stop by state troopers to allow FBI agents to arrest the group on federal conspiracy charges. By midday, some members of the arresting team positioned themselves on Forest Service Road 2820, which branches east off the state highway toward a snow park near the summit of Devine Ridge. Another team set up roughly two miles north on the highway, prepared to act as a roadblock.
“The sheriff is waiting for us,” Finicum yelled out the driver’s window to the officers and agents staged behind his truck.
He puts his hands out the window and invited police to shoot.
“Back down or you kill me now,” he said.
He repeated twice more that he was going to meet the sheriff.
Ryan Bundy, 43, of Mesquite, Nevada, seated behind Finicum with a .38-caliber pistol and two rifles within reach, yelled out the window: “Who are you?”
Finicum echoed him. “Yeah, who are you?”
“Oregon State Police” came the reply.
“I’m going over to meet the sheriff in Grant County,” Finicum said.
Police continued demanding Finicum turn off the truck and surrender, according to officer statements to investigators. But they didn’t move against those in the truck as they waited for a trooper posted at McConnell’s Jeep to bring a launcher with multiple pepper spray rounds.
Those in the truck talked about what to do next.
“If we duck and you drive, what are they going to do?” [Shannon] Cox asked Finicum. “Try to knock us out?”
He noted they still had “50 ass miles” to go to reach John Day. He turned up the volume on country music that had been playing on the radio
.
“Who can we call?” Bundy asked.
“Sheriff Palmer,” Finicum responded.
As Bundy and Cox tried to get a cell signal, Finicum continued yelling at police.
“You want a blood bath?” he asked. “I’m going to be laying down here on the ground with my blood on the street or I’m going to see the sheriff.
[…] Finicum instantly stepped out of the truck, his hands out to his sides at about shoulder height. Investigators concluded that an FBI agent on the highway clipped off two shots, one that went wild and one that pierced the truck roof and shattered the left rear passenger window. A shell fragment struck Bundy in the shoulder.
The trooper who had made it to the tree line had drawn his revolver and now commanded Finicum to get on the ground.
“Go ahead and shoot me,” Finicum said.
“Get on the ground,” the trooper yelled back.
Finicum continued yelling “Shoot me” and “You’re going to have to shoot me.”
He turned his attention from the trooper in the woods to two troopers coming up behind him, including the one who had fired at the truck. As Finicum shifted direction, the trooper in the woods holstered his gun and drew out his Taser X2, which can be effective from 25 feet but works best at about 15 feet.
Finicum at least twice reached with his right hand toward the inside of his left jacket, where he had a loaded Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol that had been a gift from his stepson.
He then turned back toward the trooper approaching with the Taser. He again reached for his jacket.
“It was consistent with drawing a handgun,” the trooper with the Taser told investigators. “He’s going for a gun and I can tell you right now, uh, I was very uncomfortable.”
He continued ordering Finicum to stop.
“He had the drop on me at this point,” the trooper said.
One of the troopers who had been coming up behind Finicum saw the same motion – “consistent with grabbing a firearm” is how he described it to investigators.
“I need to take action to stop him from being a threat” to the trooper with the Taser, he later told investigators.
He fired two rounds, both striking Finicum in the back. At the same instant, another trooper nearby fired a single round into Finicum’s back.
[…] Fifty seconds after Finicum left his truck, the shooting was over.”
You can hear and see Finicum yelling to the police in the video below of cell phone footage from inside Finicum’s truck (lower left corner) synced with aerial footage taken by the FBI. Finicum was in the driver’s seat, while Ryan Bundy, Victoria Sharp and Shauna Cox were in the back seat.
In a video shown at a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office press conference today, the aerial FBI video of the LaVoy Finicum shooting has been synced with a cellphone video Shawna Cox recorded from within Finicum’s truck.
Do you think Finicum had goaded police to shoot him? Was shooting him in the back justified? How could the police have de-escalated the situation?
[Blog Editor: Below is the passionate interview with the Burbank California protestor I found on the G+ Constitutionalist Group. Please take note that even though the audio is similar to the previous post’s official version, the intonation gives an entirely different perspective. The government lied! The witness accounts are the truth!]
Police shot Oregon protester Lavoy Finicum 3 times in back
About Fellowship of the Minds
We are Conservatives in the undying tradition of America’s Founding Fathers, deeply concerned about the sorry state of our country and the ruinous path our government, political, and cultural elites have taken. That is why we have formed this fellowship, this blog.
Despite our very different backgrounds, we share a deep love for God and country. We work on this blog for no pay. We do this as a public service and a labor of love.
We closely follow political, cultural, and economic news and commentaries on a daily basis. We will sift through the daily news and post the important ones you need to know, together with our unapologetic nonPC editorial comments. We will also alert you to political action: Calling your representatives in Washington, D.C.; rallies, marches, and demonstrations.
We believe that bloggers can and are making a difference. The new technology of the Internet has made us extremely well-informed about politics and what politicians are doing. No longer must we depend on the intermediaries of professional media or the supposed “expert” opinions of professional pundits. In fact, a former CIA officer calls bloggers the Paul Reveres of the 21st century who … READ THE REST
Tony Newbill examines the Land Grab environment that the American Left is imposing on Western ranchers, farmers, the job creating oil industry and so on. A lot of this goes to explain the reasons ranchers such as the Bundys, Hammonds, Finicums and more have begun to confront the government on Land Grab policies. Some of the underlying motives of the Left can be seen in the UN Agenda 21.
More on why we are where we are with Tyranny Today in America
By Tony Newbill
3/15/2016 9:39 AM
More on where the ideology comes from for a Totalitarian system which is tearing down the Liberty of the USA that those like Lavoy and Ammon have acted out against. When the truth is not Transparent Confused people is the result and that is why we see Conflict happen!!!!
For the last two weeks or so, I’ve been going back into the C-Span Archives to watch programs concerning the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) that was created by Executive Order 12852 in 1993. I was doing that as a part of my research on the Bureau of Land Management related to the Bundy Family, the Hammond Family, the Yantis Family and countless other ranching families that the federal government declared war on.
Ammon Bundy and the Malheur Occupiers called attention to the BLM’s war on ranchers and for that I, as an American citizen am grateful because the issues they exposed are just the tip of the iceberg. They have done a great service for this nation that goes well beyond the war on ranchers.
The second meeting of the PCSD was held on October 18, 1993. The meeting was hosted by the Department of Commerce. Ron Brown was the Secretary of Commerce. He was the first speaker at the meeting.
This is a video clip of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown speaking at the second meeting of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in 1993.
In four minutes, Ron Brown laid at the strategy for what was a coup d’etat on the American government and the establishment of a system to facilitate the development of a global commercial crime syndicate. Here are the main points from Ron Brown’s … READ THE REST (Government Overthrow of the People; By Vicky Davis; TVOI News; 3/7/16)
More on where the ideology comes from for a Totalitarian system
Here is a long History of Healthcare reform and what that reform in the minds of our Bureaucracy looks like. During the time Obamacare was being championed for approval Jonathan was in and out of the Whitehouse many times:
ObamaCare architect, Jonathan Gruber has been removed from the Massachusetts Health Connector Board after calling the American people stupid.
The MIT economist professor was involved in the construction of ObamaCare visiting the White House on several occasions and has also made several controversial statements linking abortion to eugenics, the reduction of welfare, crime, and black births.
A look at the White House visitor logs reveals that Gruber was a regular at the Obama White House.
While apologizing for his insulting statements to the American people Gruber was also grilled on controversial eugenics like statementshe made on abortion, referring to the poor as “marginal children” and calling for “positive selection.”
Agenda 21 is a product of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and it is the means by which Americans may soon be saddled with lower living standards. Agenda 21 is implementing “soft law” through ICLEI, which amounts to bribes and regulations imposed by state and local governments.
By Tom Eddlem – Liberty News Network Correspondent.
While we were all distracted with Weiner’s weiner, President Obama signed yet another Executive Order, this one to take control of all Rural Lands across the heartland. If you live outside the city, look out the Feds are coming. To help you of course.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01), who is also Chairman on House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, appeared on C-SPAN, Washington Journal and talked to Peter Slen about the situation in Oregon involving federal lands. He displayed maps on the program depicting issues that private land owners may face when the government possesses such a significant percentage of land within a state.
The same thing talked about here over water rights is what happened to Hammonds in Burns:
For those wishing a greater understanding of the issues facing property owners in the West, Ramona Hage gives a succinct explanation based on her years as the daughter of one of America’s foremost ranchers. Wayne Hage purchased his family’s ranch in 1978 and the struggle with the BLM and other federal agencies, including the Forest Service, started soon thereafter (see his last interview before he passed away here: https://youtu.be/f4hKiEnQdwU). The family has fought for their private property rights in court for over thirty years. (Posted courtesy of the National Press Club.) Further information is available at “sustainingamerica.com”
THIS is a Very Important Video, all states should do this:
March 2012, Governor Herbert signed HB148, Utah’s Transfer of Public Lands Act, which demands that the United States extinguish title to Federal Lands and turn them over to the state to manage by the end of 2014. There are a number or resources on the internet to get more background on the ACT and find out what other western states are doing at www.americanlandscouncil.org.
This week on the County Seat we ask, What is the status of Transfer of Public Lands in Utah?
A number of organizations such as, National Association of Counties, The National Republican Committee, and a number of States have passed resolutions in favor of Transfer of Public Lands.
We also had an opportunity to talk to two professors from the University of Utah about the constitutional and political issues involved in a transfer of public lands.
Tune in to ABC4Utah Sunday Morning at … READ THE REST
Congressman Bishop Addresses Document Showing Plot for Federal Land Grab
Congressman Rob Bishop addresses the Administration’s secret internal document that shows planning within the Department of Interior to designate as many as 14 new national monuments in 11 different states. Over 13 million acres of land were proposed as possible national monument sites.
Feds vs. Raisins: Small Farmers Stand Up to the USDA
“They want us to pay for our own raisins that we grew,” says Raisin Valley Farms owner Marvin Horne. “We have to buy them back!”
This is but one absurdity that Marvin and his wife Laura have faced during their decade-long legal battle with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Every year, the Hornes plant seeds, tie vines, harvest fruit, and place grapes in paper trays to create sun-dried raisins. And every year, the federal government prevents them from bringing their full harvest to market.
It’s called an agriculture marketing order. Depression-era regulations meant to stabilize crop prices endanger the livelihoods of small farmers across the country, but the raisin marketing order is particularly egregious. An elected board of bureaucrats known as the Raisin Administrative Committee decides what the proper yield should be in any given year in order to meet a previously decided-upon price. Once they can estimate the size of the year’s harvest, they force every farmer to surrender a percentage of their crop to raisin packers like Sun-Maid. The packers then place the raisins in a “reserve pool,” a special holding vat for raisins that cannot be sold in the U.S. Eventually, the packers can sell the reserve pool raisins overseas at highly discounted prices set by the government or funnel them into school lunch programs for next to nothing.
The government allows them to sell one out of every two raisins.The farmers were always supposed to get a percentage of the money raised from the reserve pool raisins, but as profit margins dwindled over the years, so did the return to farmers. The tipping point came in 2003, when farmers received zero dollars in return for the 47 percent of the crop they had surrendered.
“You can’t work for a whole year and then give 47 percent of what you made away and still keep that business afloat,” says … READ THE REST
And it all comes back to what happened in Burns and everywhere else in the USA where there are resources. And restricting all citizens from their access to these fruits of their labors on a Capitalist economic growth policy due to Climate Change, but at the same time allowing some to access the resources….
The Clintons: is the Oregon standoff really about uranium? by Jon Rappoport
Is uranium at the heart of the Oregon Malheur federal-protestor standoff? That’s the question I’m asking. It isn’t a flippant question.
I realize there are many other issues swirling around this event. The Hammonds, the Bundys, militias, the feds, cattle grazing on federal lands, federal land grabs, and so on. This article isn’t meant to take apart those matters.
It’s meant to follow up on my previous article, in which I present a circumstantial case for the Clintons’ heavy involvement in a scheme that’s transferred 20% of US uranium production to Putin and Russia. And the key company in that piece is Uranium One. Remember the name. It’s apparently a major clue in what I’m about to discuss.
I also want to say, at the outset, that I don’t know how many independent news outlets and websites are covering the uranium question, or which outlet initiated this line of investigation. I’m relying on one provocative January 23 article at intellihub, by Shepard Ambellas:
Down in the body of that article, the author provides a link to a page at the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior.
On that BLM page (“National BLM > OR/WA > Energy > Uranium Energy”), in …
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What does this have to do with Hillary and Bill Clinton? I’ll reprint my previous article so you can read the details, but the short version is: there’s a case to be made that they, through Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, facilitated the sale of Uranium One to Putin and the Russians. And if so, and if this area of Oregon is projected to be part of that uranium mining deal, then we are looking at a stunning “coincidence”: the US federal government is coming down hard on a group of protestors who are occupying, for their own reasons, a very valuable piece of territory that goes far beyond the issue of private cattle grazing on government land.
It comes under the heading of … READ ENTIRETY (The Clintons: is the Oregon standoff really about uranium? By Jon Rappoport; Jon Rappoport’s Blog; 1/27/16)
This article says that Malheur County may be the BIGGEST Uranium Deposit in the USA!!!!!!!
In Malheur County, the poorest in Oregon, there is wealth buried in the ground.
It’s uranium—and the county has what may be the biggest sources in the U.S.
For the first time in decades, someone wants to mine uranium in the state. Oregon Energy LLC, owned by an Australian company, hopes to extract at least 18 million pounds of uranium oxide from a 450-acre southeast Oregon site called the Aurora property.
Uranium oxide, better known as yellowcake, now trades near $52 per pound, six times its value a decade ago. Yellowcake is used to fuel nuclear reactors and can be processed into a form suitable for nuclear weapons.
Oregon Energy President Lachlan Reynolds tells WW the mine will provide uranium for domestic nuclear plants, noting the U.S. produces only 5 percent of the uranium it uses.
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But the project, three miles from the Nevada border, worries some industry critics. Uranium mining—not practiced in Oregon since the 1960s—often left hidden poisons in the earth and groundwater. The Aurora project would be the first test of a 1991 Oregon law aimed at policing mining operations that use chemical extraction.
“I can’t think of a clearer example of what’s wrong with federal mining law,” says Larry Tuttle, director of the Center for Environmental Equity. “No one was talking about nuclear weapons in 1872 when the law was passed.”
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Machines will scrape the earth from an open-pit mine a half-mile in length. The heavy clay soil, placed in vats, will be sprayed with a chemical mixture that probably contains sulfuric acid. The acid bonds with the uranium, which is extracted, dried and sold as yellowcake. The leftover dirt is discarded in a “tailings pile” near the site.
The 1991 Oregon law—pushed by Tuttle despite mining industry opposition—was intended to prevent environmental damage that such mining has created elsewhere.
There’s GOLD up in them thar hills! And if we have learned anything in this world of greed and corruption we have learned to follow the money. Everyone knows that the debt notes issued by the Federal Reserve have no value; but natural resources such as gold, diamonds, and even uranium (which is more valuable than gold BTW) do have intrinsic value and are real tangible things that can be traded independently.
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Bundy’s ranch just happens to be at “GOLD” Butte volcano in Nevada… The same “Gold Butte” that Harry Reid wanted to “level” out for a solar farm. Yes, let’s just level out the “gold butte” and all those minerals, and then go to Vegas… oops, er I mean … build a solar farm.
This Gold Butte actually has quite a wild history of government trying to take the land, including closing the only post office in the area so that packages could not be delivered which put a real damper on things for those trying to live in the area. Another interesting bit of information is that the wiki page for Gold Butte Ghost Town was recently updated to reflect “new” changes to a page for a “ghost town”. Why would it need to be updated? Check out this … READ THE REST (The Secret That NO ONE Wants You To Know About The Standoff in Oregon; By Trent-004; Freedom from Government | Official Website; 1/16/16)
This totally ties right into the basis for what is driving the food and fiber producers like the Bundy’s and Finicum’s distrust and confrontations with the Federal Government.
“President Obama’s Overwhelm the System” is what this Sue and Settle Strategy looks like:
Wayne Allyn Root opined that President Obama “is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos.”
Conservative political commentator Wayne Allyn Root opined back in 2010 that President Obama “is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos.”
Claim: Wayne Allyn Root wrote in an opinion piece that President Obama is “purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy.”
CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED
Example: [Root, June 2010]
Rahm Emanuel cynically said, “You never want a crisis to go to waste.” It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama’s presidency.
Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos — thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.
Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of ’83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they’re alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival … and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
Origins:Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party’s 2008 vice presidential candidate, is a political commentator whose columns appear on various conservative web sites and the author of several books, including The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts. He penned a biweekly political opinion column published the … READ THE REST
Sue and Settle is a chronic disease that is affecting the Liberties set forth in the US Constitution with the ESA.
ST. GEORGE– Inspired by the actions of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his stance against federal control of public lands, a rancher on the Arizona Strip has also declared the Bureau of Land Management to be an illegitimate agency and said he will no longer comply with or recognize it.
“I hereby cancel all my contracts with the BLM,” LaVoy Finicum, of Cane Beds, Arizona, wrote in a letter he sent to the U.S. Solicitor General following his decision to no longer acknowledge BLM or its policies. Thus far, he has chosen to discontinue paying grazing permit fees and to ignore when the BLM allows certain allotments – or pasture areas – to be used for grazing.
Backing beliefs with action
Unlike Bundy, who has had a strained relationship with the BLM and similar federal agencies for over 20 years now, Finicum’s relationship with the local BLM has been largely positive and civil.
“Some people think I’ve been oppressed by the BLM and hassled by the BLM and things have not been going well,” Finicum said, “but the history between me and the BLM has been very good.”
So what happened to change Finicum’s mind concerning the BLM and it’s [sic] oversight of public lands?
MOCCASIN, Arizona – Pickup trucks and horse trailers filled the parking lot and stretched down the street next to a community park in Moccasin, Arizona, Friday, as concerned ranchers and representatives from agencies like the Arizona Farm Bureau and the Arizona Game and Fish Department gathered together. Their aim? Fighting to save a way of life they say is being threatened.
“They’re backing the ranchers into a corner, and you’re going to see a lot of Cliven Bundys out there,” Bill Gubler, a rancher from Santa Clara, said.
Gubler currently ranches on the Arizona Strip and has cattle grazing allotments there, as do … READ THE REST
ARIZONA STRIP – The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona announced Thursday that Sheriff Jim McCabe has sent letters to federal officials in opposition to the proposed Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument.
The Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument would designate 1.7 million acres of Arizona land as a national monument, including lands on the Arizona Strip and the North Kaibab and Tusayan Ranger Districts of the Kaibab National Forest.
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Below is the sheriff’s letter in its entirety:
I write to express my opposition to the formation of the proposed Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument by presidential executive order.
Creating a new and enormous – 1.7 million acres – National Monument amounts to a significant Federal land grab. It would add additional Federal regulation to human activity, including ranching, hunting, and recreational access.
It is just this sort of Federal overreached that has led to proposals for states to assume control of the huge areas of public land in the American West. Creation of vast new National Monuments not by Congressional open debate and action but by presidential executive order, even while lawful, would contribute further to distrust of the Federal action.
I ask for your support in opposing the proposed Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument.
…
Ranchers, members of the mining industry, hunters and others who reside, recreate and make a living in the affected areas say such land grabs have been detrimental in other places where they’ve occurred. They maintain that approving the designation of the Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument will impact the livelihoods of many, impede land use, and hinder the ability of ranchers and others to maintain and exercise wise stewardship over the land and continue effectively doing business.
September 9, 2011 – A FEDERAL JUDGE approved the landmark 757 species legal agreement between the Center for Biological Diversity and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
November 20, 2012 – For the first time since 1996, the number of plants and animals waiting for federal protection dropped below 200, HIGHLIGHTING THE SUCCESS OUR AGREEMENT. According to the 2012 “candidate notice of review” released today by the Service, 192 SPECIES ARE AWAITING ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROTECTION.
February 8, 2013 – The Fish and Wildlife Service released a four-year work plan detailing the years in which ALL the NOT-YET-PROTECTED SPECIES IN OUR AGREEMENT would get protective decisions or critical habitat designations.
THE “CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY” IS BATTING NEARLY 1000 “SUE AND SETTLE” ENDANGERED SPECIES.
BASED ON ONE FEDERAL JUDGE that approved the landmark 757 species “SUE AND SETTLE” legal agreement between … READ THE REST
This procedure might be one we would want to employ as a way to challenge the Spotted Frog Listing, and there is an opinion in this link that suggests that the Obama Administration is Favoring this method of use of the ESA;
For years environmentalists have usurped individual private property rights and thwarted economic development. Now, thanks to Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, it appears that the job creators may have finally learned something from the extreme tactics of groups, like the Wild Earth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which have been using the courts to their advantage by filing lawsuits against the federal government.
On Monday, March 17, on behalf of the state of Oklahoma and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA), Pruitt filed a lawsuit against the federal government, specifically the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The lawsuit alleges the “FWS engaged in ‘sue and settle’ tactics when the agency agreed to settle a lawsuit with a national environmental group over the [Endangered Species Act] listing status of several animal species, including the Lesser Prairie Chicken.”
… A “threatened” listing would restrict the land use in the bird’s 40-million-acre, five-state habitat: Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas. The affected area includes private, state, and federal lands—lands rich in energy resources, ranch and farm land—plus municipal infrastructure, such as water pipelines and electric transmission.
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A DEPA spokesman states: “This designation could disrupt drilling and exploration on hundreds of thousands of very promising oil and gas lands in this part of the country.” The CBD has made no secret of their disdain for oil and gas extraction and has filed many successful lawsuits specifically to block development.
Pruitt says: “the sue-and-settle timelines force the FWS to make determinations without a thorough review of the science. This violates the original statute requiring sound science before listing species.”
Stephen Moore, formerly with the Wall Street Journal, explains: “Under the Obama Administration, the feds have entered into a consent agreement with the environmentalists to rush forward a judgment on an unprecedented number of species. A 2012 Chamber of Commerce study found record numbers of such ‘sue and settle’ cases under Obama.” Pruitt adds: “Under President Obama, we have had sue and settle on steroids.”
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The Democrats are in a bind. The rushed listings are being forced by the environmental base, which is myopically focused on the anti-fossil-fuel (job-killing) agenda of restricting oil-and-gas development on Western lands and isn’t looking at the bigger political consequences.
It appears the decision has been made. Sources tell me that Dan Ashe, Director of the FWS, has called a meeting on Capitol Hill to brief the stakeholders prior to Thursday’s announcement. If he decides to list the LPC, Pruitt’s lawsuit could be just the first shot that ignites the new rebellion pushing states to take control of the lands within their borders.
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Sue and Settle
It is these tactics, along with a friendly Obama government, that has led to the “sue and settle” procedure that Pruitt’s lawsuit is hoping to end. The lawsuit is seeking “declaratory and injunctive relief for violations of the ESA.” Moore reports: “The relief is intended to overturn designations of dozens of species added to the threatened or endangered list through the ‘sue and settle’ process.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer is addressing the question, “Does EPA’s sue-and-settle policy circumvent the legislative and regulatory process?”
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… starting in 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency took control of many state visibility programs, costing states millions of dollars with no discernible visibility improvement.
And the states were not even told it was happening. It was authorized by a Consent Decree between EPA and an outside environmental advocacy group. EPA claimed that it had no choice but to follow the legally binding settlement and override the states’ plans.
This practice, known as “sue and settle,” gives special-interest groups a legal mechanism to reprioritize and control agency rulemaking activities with little or no public participation.
… These settlements all occurred without notifying or allowing key stakeholders—the public, the states, the regulated community or Congress—to participate.
How do special-interest groups take control of an agency’s rulemaking activities and circumvent congressional funding priorities?
An advocacy group sues an agency to enforce a missed statutory deadline for agency action. Rather than defend against the lawsuit, the agency simply agrees to settle and take the action or issue the new rule demanded by the group, within a deadline set by the group.
Without any notice to the public, the settlement agreement and draft Consent Decree are filed with a court. Only after the Consent Decree is filed does it become public.
Once the court signs the draft Consent Decree, the agency is legally bound to comply with … READ ENTIRETY (Pro: ‘Sue and Settle’ bypasses democratic process; By William Kovacs; GazetteXtra; 12/19/13)
And the Undemocratic process of Sue and Settle is being done to our Community by the same ones that have a Massive Track Record of doing it and they need to be called out as these links show them to be Undemocratic!!!!!!!!
Liberal Activists, Mainstream Media, Law Enforcement Bear Partial Blame for Showdown in Oregon that Led to Death of LaVoy Finicum
WASHINGTON, DC – Left-wing activists and news outlets that only partially cover their activities are in part to blame for the confrontation in Oregon that led to the death of LaVoy Finicum, says the National Center for Public Policy Research.
That’s because left-wing organizations often use civil disobedience without consequences, which leads the public to believe law-breaking in pursuit of political or public policy goals can take place without serious consequences.
Parts of the news media are complicit because they cover stories in ways that help the left-wing organizations achieve their goals.
Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a left-wing green group, was repeatedly covered in the news media criticizing those occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (for example, here, here, here, here, here). No story we found mentioned that Suckling has been found guilty in court (here, here) for occupying private property and refusing to leave as part of a political protest, or that he has been arrested (and even bragged about it by issuing a press release) for civil disobedience as recently as 2014.
“In yet another case of ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ the environmental left is protesting civil disobedience by citizens while it practices and/or condones civil disobedience itself,” said David Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.
“Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a left-wing green group that sues the government while expecting the taxpayers to pay its legal bills, has gone to Oregon to protest the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Yet he has been found guilty of much the same offense. Occupying another’s property without … READ THE REST(Liberal Activists, Mainstream Media, Law Enforcement Bear Partial Blame for Showdown in Oregon that Led to Death of LaVoy Finicum; By Frank DuBois; The Westerner; 1/27/16)
Liberal Activists, Mainstream Media, Law Enforcement Bear Partial Blame for Showdown in Oregon that Led to Death of LaVoy Finicum
Left-Wing Civil Disobedience Often Goes Unpenalized, With Media Complicity
Is It Any Wonder Some Conclude Civil Disobedience is a Safe and Consequence-Free Activity?
Washington, D.C. – Left-wing activists and news outlets that only partially cover their activities are in part to blame for the confrontation in Oregon that led to the death of LaVoy Finicum, says the National Center for Public Policy Research.
That’s because left-wing organizations often use civil disobedience without consequences, which leads the public to believe law-breaking in pursuit of political or public policy goals can take place without serious consequences.
As the presidential election heats up, ask yourself which candidate will repeal WOTUS, get control of the EPA and allow ranchers to get back to work without being held back by unfair regulations.
Don’t hold your breath for any of them to “repeal WOTUS” etc. There is not a dime’s worth of difference in any of them. They are all under the influence of radical environmentalism (because it is PC and being PC is necessary to get elected).
But, at least it is encouraging to see a main-stream rag like Beef Magazine is finally beginning to pay attention to what is going on in the (about to get really) Wild West. — jtl, 419
I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, the 2016 presidential election can’t come soon enough.
For the 22nd time during his nearly eight years in office, President Obama has taken advantage of the Antiquities Act of 1906, locking up millions of acres of land in the western states.
Obama’s designations total 265 million acres, and his most recent designation of the Sand to Snow National Monument, Mojave Trails National Monument and Castle Mountains National Monument totals 1.8 million acres.
With several months left in office, Obama is expected to designate another 10 million acres of land in Oregon, Arizona and Utah. What’s worse, Obama will more than likely continue to use his executive power when making these designations without any public comment period or economic studies.
Locking out this land under the guise of protecting it negates the fact that ranchers with grazing permits pay to run the ground and also are responsible for the management of those leases. Somehow I have my doubts about the federal government’s abilities to manage this expansive amount of land, and with our nation’s multi-trillion dollar debt, I don’t see how there is enough funding available to make improvements, control weeds, manage bison and elk herds, and fight fires on this land.
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ranchers fighting the governmentagainst a powerful land grab. In fact, an … READ THE REST (Ranchers losing ground in government land grab; By Amanda Radke; Land & Livestock International, Inc. – Originally in Beef Daily; 2/29/16)
Environmental shakedown through bastardized application of science, policy, and education.
Disgruntled ex-federal employees found a way to bilk taxpayers out of millions of dollars using the flawed Endangered Species Act.
Over a 3-year period, 2009-2012, Department of Justice data show American taxpayers footed the bill for more than $53 million in so-called environmental groups’ legal fees—and the actual number could be much higher. The real motivation behind the Endangered Species Act (ESA) litigation, perhaps, could have more to do with vengeance and penance than with a real desire to protect flora and fauna.
On May 7, I spoke at the Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference in Farmington, New Mexico. During the two-day event, I sat in on many of the other sessions and had conversations with dozens of attendees. I left the event with the distinct impression that the current implementation of the ESA is a major impediment to the economic growth, tax revenue, and job creation that comes with oil-and-gas development. I have written on ESA issues many times, most recently I wrote about the lesser prairie chicken’s proposed “threatened” listing (which the Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS] listed on March 27) and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s lawsuit against the federal government over the “sue and settle” tactics of FWS and the Department of the Interior.
While at the conference, I received an email announcing that FWS has asked a federal court for a 6-month delay in making a final determination on whether to list the Gunnison sage grouse as an endangered species—moving the decision past the November elections. Up for re-election, Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) “cheered” the extension request. The E & E report states: Colorado elected leaders “fear the listing could have significant economic impacts.”
Kent Holsinger, a Colorado attorney specializing in lands, wildlife, and water, posited: “Senator Udall is among those lauding the move—perhaps because a listing decision would affect his fate in the U.S. Senate. Gunnison sage grouse populations are stable, if not on the increase. In addition, myriad state, local and private conservation efforts have been put into place over the last decade. Those efforts, and the Gunnison sage grouse, are at risk if the FWS pursues listing.”
The report continues: “WildEarth Guardians is not opposing the latest extension after Fish and Wildlife agreed to some extensive new mitigation measures that will be made in the interim, including increasing buffer zones around sage grouse breeding grounds, called leks, and deferring coal, oil and gas leasing, said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians.” It goes on to say: “But the Center for Biological Diversity, which is a party to the settlement agreements with WildEarth Guardians, said the latest extension is a bad move for the grouse, which it says has needed ESA protections for years.”
Two important items to notice in the Gunnison sage grouse story. One, the power the environmental groups wield. Two, part of appeasing the environmental groups involves “deferring coal, oil and gas leasing.”
It is widely known that these groups despise fossil fuels. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)brags about its use of lawsuits to block development—but it is not just oil and gas they block, it is … READ THE REST (Environmental shakedown through bastardized application of science, policy, and education; By Marita Noon; Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow; 5/14/14)
I have been following the Oregon incident with the Bundy ranchers holed up on a nature reserve to protest Bureau of Land Management (BLM) abuse of land despotically managed and usurped by the Federal government. The standoff led to mass arrests mostly of people that were protesting the BLM legally and one person who was a reporter probably because his reporting placed the government in a bad light and favorable toward ranchers. The standoff culminated in what I believe to be the unjustifiable murder of LaVoy Finicum by State and Federal police. The last post was a submission by Justin Smith which I felt was a decent summary up to the date.
I have been a bit surprised by those who usually demonstrate a lack of trust of information disseminated by government sources who support the storyline that Finicum was justifiably killed by authorities because he reached for a gun inside his vest when cornered by multiple armed police. On a personal level I don’t buy that explanation at least not with more information being released for public viewing. I expect a coverup.
Below is a post from Timothy Baldwin which I believe is closer to the truth.
The FBI and Oregon police killed a rancher, Lavoy Finicum, last week. Savoy joined Ammon Bundy, among others, for three weeks in occupying a refuge on public lands in Burns. Like many Americans, the occupiers believed BLM had been long abusing power. Police released one video of the incident (but not other pertinent surveillance). Was this killing lawful?
Under the Fourth Amendment, police who use deadly force have a burden to prove their actions were objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them based on the totality of the circumstances.
Regardless of one’s view of the occupation, the video raises issues regarding police’ actions: (1) Why block the highway in nowhere-ville? (2) Why use snipers and a dozen-plus officers? (3) Why not use spike strips to stop him? (4) When exactly was Lavoy likely to harm police?—when shot, Lavoy was facing no police, could barely walk in deep snow and held no gun. (5) Lavoy had not just committed a dangerous felony and fleeing therefrom. (6) Police had prior opportunities to serve an arrest warrant in a safe manner. (7) Why immediately rush Lavoy and spark conflict rather than contain the area and determine his actions?
The occupiers did not convince the greater part of society to aid them, given their seeming “state of war” approach. Still, if our laws can condemn Lavoy, they can also condemn police.
In fairness, there are some who are not normally forgiving to government abuse but believe police were justified in killing Lavoy: one such notable viewpoint on this incident is my dad, Chuck Baldwin. I, on the other hand, believe the video suggests that police were not justified in killing Lavoy when they did–even assuming he had a pistol inside his jacket and was reaching for it.
After Lavoy’s death, his family was able to view his body. They released a press statement that they observed nine (9) bullet inserts in Lavoy’s body. Police have yet to release autopsy records or comment on that statement; however, reports record police admitting that Lavoy was shot several times.
For now, assuming Lavoy was shot multiple times, those shots had to occur before the last shot–the kill shot to Lavoy’s head, which dropped Lavoy to the snow-covered ground.
Since police did not release any audio or other videos–all of which they possess and could release–of the incident, the public does not know exactly when and how many times police shot Lavoy, with the exception of what appears to be the last shot to Lavoy’s head.
Regardless of whether Lavoy was shot 9 (as Lavoy’s family states) or a few times (as police state), the video shows that the last shot was the fatal head shot. Thus, the other shots were to his body before Lavoy was shot in the head. Of course, all of these shots had to happen within seconds after Lavoy exited his vehicle with his hands up.
If Lavoy was shot more than once in his body before the last shot to his head, this supports the argument that quickly after Lavoy exited his vehicle with his hands up (signaling his surrender) police shot him in his body. This would have caused Lavoy to drop his hands where he was shot.
Since Lavoy dropped his hands to his body and statements from both Lavoy’s family and police state that Lavoy was shot several times in his body, one must assume that Lavoy dropped his hands and placed them on his body where he was shot. Ironically, Lavoy’s dropping his hands in this manner was the alleged justification for killing Lavoy.
Did police create the “justification” of killing Lavoy by shooting him in his body, which caused him to drop his hands?
Still, assuming police did not shoot Lavoy in his body before they shot him in his head (which means they shot him while he was dead on the ground–why would they do that?) and assuming Lavoy was reaching for a pistol inside his jacket or pocket (which is it?), the video reveals that the police who rushed out of the woods and charged Lavoy killed him prematurely.
The video shows two police charging Lavoy (one from the bottom and one from the top of the video) immediately after Lavoy exited his truck. This rush approach was not only unnecessary, but also needlessly provocative under these circumstances.
In a real sense, police created the exigency needed to kill Lavoy for “officer safety”, similar to police creating the exigency of completely blocking the road in what appears to be a location that gave Lavoy very little time to slow down or stop his truck. (One would need to study Oregon’s and federal laws of when and how road blocks are to be conducted: there are limits by law. See e.g. State v. Boyanovsky, 304 Ore. 131, 134, 743 P.2d 711, 712 (Or. 1987) (ruling road block was unconstitutional); see also Nelson v. Lane County, 304 Ore. 97, 125, 743 P.2d 692, 70 (Or. 1987) (discussion of constitutionality of road blocks).
This is clear from the video: police did not give Lavoy a reasonable opportunity to surrender and enough time to assess the danger level. Instead of the heavy force of police maintaining their positions behind cover until such time as Lavoy clearly demonstrated his intent, police–who appeared little concerned about containing the safety of everyone and use as little force as necessary–immediately charged Lavoy and quickly shot him.
But here are the factors that essentially demonstrate that police killed Lavoy unjustifiably.
During the short and quick period of time that the two aforementioned police rushed him, Lavoy (1) could hardly keep his footing in the deep snow, (2) had no gun in his hand, (3) had no meaningful opportunity to draw a pistol inside his clothing quickly enough to take accurate aim and shoot any nearby police, and (4) was not even facing the two nearest police (who charged him) when he was shot in the head and killed. The totality of these circumstances supports the conclusion that he was killed prematurely, or at a minimum, calls into question the police’ claim of justification.
Assuming Lavoy would have pulled a gun at any time and posed a legitimate threat to a police officer, there were dozens of police ready and able to kill or disable Lavoy. This reality is what makes the actions of the two police who charged Lavoy appear so unnecessary, excessive and provocative. One must wonder how much training and experience the police had (especially who shot Lavoy) for these situations; what kind of briefing took place before the incident; and whether the rush tactic at a road block was preplanned or orchestrated.
Admittedly, more facts are needed to form a solid opinion here.
The government has a heavy burden of proof of justifying their killing of Lavoy. The released video and summary statement by police that since Lavoy was “going for a gun” police were justified in killing him do not meet that heavy burden: the totality of the circumstances simply does not appear to justify their killing Lavoy.
Police should release (as they should in time with demands from the Finnicum family attorneys) all of the evidence relative to the question, including:
use of force reports
incident reports
police training manuals and certifications
applicable warrants or court orders and affidavits in support
written and recorded witness statements
photos of entire scene and Lavoy’s body
in-car video surveillance of all vehicles and drones
police body-cameras of all officers
police policy and procedures (state and federal) for use of deadly force
briefing memorandums
dispatch records
road block planning memorandums
officer duty and task assignments
autopsy report
ballistic reports
One interested in justice would hope that the government does not withhold, destroy, lose or fabricate the evidence. Whether you agree with Lavoy and the Oregon occupiers or not, the government must follow the law. Accepting any other standard places all political dissidents and protestors in the government’s absolute wrath and arbitrary use of deadly force. Liberty cannot survive in that environment.
Lastly, there are federal laws in effect to detain and prosecute “enemy combatants” and “domestic terrorists” who place themselves in a state of war with the United States. Notably, the federal and state governments did not treat Lavoy and the occupiers under such laws. Rather, they treated them as normal citizens of the United States who were simply breaking the law, such as criminal trespass, intimidation, and impeding an officer’s investigation/duty. Therefore, Lavoy and the occupiers deserved the same treatment and respect of the law as you and I.
Timothy Baldwin, born in 1979, is an attorney licensed to practice law in Montana (and formerly Florida) and handles a variety of cases, including constitutional, criminal, and civil. Baldwin graduated from the University of West Florida in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in English and Political Science. In 2004, Baldwin graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, AL with a Juris Doctorate (JD) degree. From there, Baldwin became an Assistant State Attorney in Florida. For 2 1/2 years, Baldwin prosecuted criminal actions and tried nearly 60 jury trials. In 2006, Baldwin started his private law practice and has maintained it since.
Baldwin is a published author, public speaker and student of political philosophy. Baldwin is the author ofFreedom For A Change, Romans 13-The True Meaning of Submission, and To Keep or Not To Keep: Why Christians Should Not Give Up Their Guns–all of which are available for purchase throughlibertydefenseleague.com.Baldwin has also authored hundreds of political articles relative to liberty in the United States of America. Baldwin has been the guest of scores of radio shows and public events and continues to exposit principles which the people in America will need to determine its direction for the future.
There are a significant amount of pro-gun enthusiasts and Conservatives that have spreading speculation about the murder of LaVoy Finicum in an armed police shooting gallery. These people who may have been on the side of the Rancher standoff believe Finicum was reaching for his vest gun and that was when the police emptied a volley of bullets into Finicum.
Primarily due to the lack of sound in the aerial video taken of Finicum being shot, I am not convinced he was reaching for a gun in his vest. Many witnesses have established the vest reach was to Finicum’s torso point of a bullet impact. Then after Finicum was down, witnesses cowering in fear of the designs of the Oregon State Police and the FBI assert Finicum’s downed body continued to be shot. Was he already dead or were the police making sure he was dead? Witnesses claim Finicum exited his truck so the police would shoot him rather than the ladies with him in the truck. Until proven by documentation rather than the word of the police involved in shooting Finicum, I believe the witnesses rather than the police or the significant amount of pro-gun enthusiasts willing to throw Finicum under the bus. Yes, I AM STILL OUTRAGED! (A version of this paragraph was written hastily an update the post, “I AM OUTRAGED BY THE SHOOTING OF LaVoy Finicum.”)
Justin Smith shares some of his thoughts in his submission below.
“You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war … Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is a sin.” — The Book of James
On a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 395, Robert LaVoy Finicum, spokesman for the Bundy group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a grandfather, rancher and an American patriot, was murdered by federal authorities and Oregon State Troopers on January 26th, after repeated FBI assurances that he and his fellow protesters would be given safe passage to leave at any time. The murder of LaVoy, who was peacefully protesting the incarceration of Dwight and Steven Hammonds and in defense of the U.S. Constitution and our sacred rights, ever mindful of the fact he was armed as was his right, spilled the kindred blood that flows in the veins of all American patriots.
Their cause is just, true and righteous, and they accurately note that the federal government was limited by the Founders, under Article I, Section 8 and Clause 17 in regards to buying large parcels of State land and awing the State into an undue obedience to the federal government. The Founders never intended for the federal government to own 50% of the land west of Kansas, 65% of Utah, 56% of Oregon, or, as in this case, 76% of the 10,000 square miles that comprises Harney County and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
These men are not “domestic terrorists” as alleged by the government. They are small business owners, military veterans and authors simply standing against the incredible over-regulation enacted by an unconstitutionally empowered Bureau of Land Management, which is acting on its own arbitrary agenda and strangling the efforts of private citizens to make use of their own private land to the best advantage for their lives and convenience — to subdue and hold dominion over their land as commanded by our Creator.
In a Pacific Patriots Network interview, Susy Pearce, a rancher who drove 6.5 hours from Plumas County, California to join the protest on January 2nd, said: “We feel the same way they do about the overreach of the federal government. If you’re a rancher, you get taxed, fined and … overregulated to death.” And then she teared up as she spoke of Finicum, who she knew and respected, calling him an “amazing man … smart and honest” and naming his death an “outrageous, uncalled-for murder.”
Dwight Hammonds and his son Steven were charged with nine separate federal charges in connection with the 2001 and 2006 planned burns on their own property to eradicate invasive juniper trees. Although the fires burned about 140 acres of BLM land, the damage was primarily to open range land; and, the over-zealous prosecution of the Hammonds on arson charges and their subsequent 5-year sentence was unfounded and malicious, especially in light of all the facts.
Incredibly, the Hammonds lost their appeal before District Chief Judge Ann Aiken last October and they were ordered to finish their five year sentences. How could the Ninth Circuit Court ignore the fact that the Hammonds and the BLM had simultaneous fires ongoing with numerous smaller fires caused by lightning strikes? How could Judge Aiken find them guilty of arson, when they had received permission from the BLM to light the fires, as sworn by Dwight’s wife Susan?
Many range conservationists, technicians and watershed specialists, such as Erin Maupin and Rusty Inglis, testified that the Hammond fires were beneficial and improved rangeland conditions. It is also important to note that the 2006 “arson”, the Krumbo Butte Fire in the Malheur Refuge, started with lightning strikes, and Steven Hammonds only started a back fire in an attempt to save his ranch’s winter feed.
Deeper investigation reveals that the Hammonds were the last hold-outs standing in the way of the Oregon Natural Desert Association’s and the BLM’s plan for a 100,000 “cow-free wilderness”, by which many ranchers traded their BLM permits and private property in the Steens Mountain area for land on the valley floor. They felt this was the only way to prevent a pending monument designation after the fashion of the 2000 Clinton/ Babbitt designation.
Rusty Inglis, with 34 years in the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, stated: “The Hammonds are not arsonists. They are number one … They know their land management. It’s become more obvious over the years that the BLM and the wildlife refuge want that ranch.”
This is the very sort of federal abuse of power foreseen by many respected American leaders in the early 1800s and written about by Justice Joseph Story in 1833 in his ‘Commentaries’. They believed too much land in the hands of the federal government would enable the growth of tyranny from these lands, and “a system of laws (BLM regulations) incompatible with the nature and principles of a representative democracy, though not likely to be introduced at once, may be matured by degrees, and diffuse its influence through the states, and finally lay the foundation of the most important changes in the nature of the federal government.”
By all accounts, LaVoy Finicum was headed to a meeting in order to secure a peaceful resolution to this standoff, when he and Ryan and Ammon Bundy and two female passengers and Ryan Payne encountered the roadblock ambush, in which the FBI fired the first shots after Payne looked out the passenger window. Without returning fire, LaVoy announced his intentions to confer with the Sheriff, according to eyewitness and passenger Victoria Sharp, and as he drove away a hail of FBI bullets followed; it was at this point LaVoy veered off the road and exited the vehicle with his hands up.
Moments later, as seen in an FBI video, LaVoy drops his hands and makes several side-to-side movements. Without any accompanying sound, it is not readily discernible if LaVoy’s actions were a result of him being shot first or if he was in fact reaching for his pistol: This case has an eerily similar dark cloud accompanying it, as the events that surrounded federal criminal wrongs in relation to the Randy Weaver case and the murders of his family members.
“It was an assassination”, said Harney County resident Monte Seigner. “He had his hands up. He didn’t have a gun in his hands, and he wasn’t threatening no one.”
Susy Pearce said, “I don’t think they (the Feds) intended for any of them to survive”, as she referred to the occupants of Finicum’s vehicle, including 18-year-old Victoria Sharp. “I think he sacrificed himself to save them.” [Bold emphasis by Blog Editor]
Arianna Finicum Brown, 26, one of Finicum’s 11 children, said: “My dad was such a good man, through and through. He would never want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”
A few days before he and the Bundy brothers were ambushed by federal agents using excessive, unprovoked and unjustified force, Robert LaVoy Finicum stated in an interview “some things are more important than life, and defending liberty is one of them.”
Tony Newbill has found two stories that are not really similar except perhaps in one thought; viz. the focus is in government overreach as in utilizing too much police authority as per the rights of American citizens.
The first examines that LaVoy Finicum’s murder was motivated more by government greed via the deception of ecological concern. Evidently the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) usurped public land in Oregon under the auspices of protecting a bird that MIGHT go on the endangered species, BUT when the bird did not make the list the BLM began collaborating with a mining company that wants to mine for uranium to turn it into yellow cake. The thing is the process of extracting the yellow cake is a probably environmental disaster toward ranchers and farmers in that Oregon area.
The second case involved the Dearborn Police chasing a woman that fled a mall in which she aimed her car at mall security. As the chase ensued the Dearborn Police managed to place the lady’s car into an enough of a standstill for massive bullet to be shot at the fleeing 31-year-old lady (Janet Wilson) who died from the bullets. Two things of note to me is that the Dearborn Police have a habit propping up the Dearborn Muslim majority’s acts of stifling the First Amendment rights of Christians AND the 31-year-old lady was an African-American. Sadly, within a 40-day period the 31-year-old Black lady was the second African-American that died (Kevin Matthews) at the hands of the Dearborn Police through the same use of unreasonable force.
The Hegelian Dialectic: Problem, Reaction, Solution
Oregon Standoff: Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum Dead, Bundys Arrested
Tony Newbill
Sent: 1/31/2016 11:03 AM
The police in cooperation with the FBI got their men about 20 miles north of Burns, Oregon on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. Mark that day in history, folks, as the day the old west was given a warning shot. A warning shot that said very loud and clear to the American public: Don’t mess with the government, don’t question authority, don’t stand up for the Constitution or your supposed “rights,” just submit or die.
Once there was a cowboy who let his herd of cattle roam free on thousands of acres of wilderness. He knew that they would live in harmony with the other critters, and that the land would benefit. He made sure that there was plenty of water and plenty of room so that the land would flourish. You see, if given enough room, critters are good for the land. They eat the overgrown forage and leave behind fertilizer that helps new forage to grow, which nourishes every other critter. Each critter has enough room to get out of the other one’s way, and everyone is happy.
That is, until the government in its infinite “scientific” wisdom, decides that cattle are bad for the land.
But is that the real reason that cattle ranching, as it has been done for over a hundred years, is now scheduled to become obsolete? A thing of the past – something to be disdained and thrown to the curb?
Picture a pristine wilderness devoid of the ravages of civilization and industrial development. Birds flying overhead and deer roaming free. Paradise as far as the eye can see. And in the middle of this haven designated as “public lands” set apart to be protected by the benevolence of the Federal Government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is an open pit uranium mine.
Say what??? You have got to be kidding me! Nope. This is what the BLM has on the back burner for the Malheur Wilderness area.
And the cowboys? Well, the last ones who attempted to get in the way of this takeover of land for the “public good” are now sentenced to 5 years in prison and branded as terrorists for protecting their land and cattle and forced to “grant the BLM first right of refusalif the Hammonds ever sold their ranch.”
The Dark Side of Environmental Conservation
Environmental conservation is a good thing. But is that what is really being done by the BLM when it takes over land? Maybe what the BLM is actually doing is grabbing land in the name of environmental conservation and placing it under the sole control of the government and out of the hands of we the people in order to do with it as the government pleases.
The lands that the government collects are called “public lands.” The BLM is charged with managing “public lands,” and routinely leases and sells mineral rights on the very same lands that it is supposed to manage and protect.
BLM’s Planning Manual 1601 explains the use of public lands:
Land use plans ensure that the public lands are managed in accordance with the intent of Congress as stated in FLPMA (43 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), i.e., under the principles of multiple use and sustained yield. As required by FLPMA, the public lands must be managed in a manner that protects the quality of scientific, scenic, historical, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archaeological values; that, where appropriate, will preserve and protect certain public lands in their natural condition; that will provide food and habitat for fish and wildlife and domestic animals; and that will provide for outdoor recreation and human occupancy and use by encouraging collaboration and public participation throughout the planning process. In addition, the public lands must be managed in a manner that recognizes the Nation’s need for domestic sources of minerals, food, timber, and fiber from the public lands.
According to the BLM Planning Manual, the agency is charged with maintaining the ecological environment of its public lands. That is, of course, unless it decides that mining for uranium supersedes any such directive.
Uranium on BLM-Administered Lands in OR/WA
In September 2011, a representative from Oregon Energy, L.L.C. (formally Uranium One), met with local citizens, and county and state officials, to discuss the possibility of opening a uranium oxide (“yellowcake”) mine in southern Malheur County in southeastern Oregon. Oregon Energy is interested in developing a 17-Claim parcel of land known as the Aurora Project through an open pit mining method. Besides the mine, there would be a mill for processing. The claim area occupies about 450 acres and is also referred to as the “New U” uranium claims.
This is conservation? Here is the open pit uranium mining proposal:
Uranium mine plan
Oregon Energy’s proposal calls for extracting ore from a mile-long, 600-foot wide, 250-foot deep open pit 10 miles west of McDermitt and 3 miles north of the Oregon-Nevada border. The mine, adjoining the former Bretz Mercury Mine, a contaminated open-pit site from the 1960s, would cost $200 million to develop and uranium extraction could continue for up to 20 years, said Oregon Energy President Lachlan Reynolds.
Plans call for the ore to be crushed and mixed with an acid solution in enclosed vats to leach out the uranium, he said. The acid would bond with the uranium and when dry become a sand-like powder called uranium oxide concentrate, or yellowcake. Yellowcake would bring $52 per pound and could fuel nuclear reactors or be processed into weapons.
The likelihood of sulfuric acid being used in … READ THE REST
Problem: The government wants the land.
Reaction: Demonize cattle ranchers and blame the cattle for a decline in the sage grouse in order to free the land for alternate government use by pitting environmentalists against cattle grazing and the ranchers to gain the required reaction of placing the land under further restrictions in order to be protected from environmental harm.
Solution: The government gets the land.
The government wants the land for “conservation” efforts. In order to achieve this, the ranchers with their cattle and any private property interests need to go so that there is no interference. This way the land can be “protected” by the BLM and used for any purpose that the government wants it for, including uranium development.
The question then becomes – who will get the land – the sage grouse or uranium miners. In either case, the ranchers are out and the cattle can be consigned to your friendly neighborhood CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation).
The rancher takes the blame, and the government does as it pleases. If the grouse is listed as an endangered species, the land is taken for conservation. If it isn’t, the land is taken for corporate energy and uranium mining. A win/win for big government. It’s called hedging your bets. Either way, the little guy loses and the government wins, and the rancher is left holding the bag. He either gets booted out by the sage grouse, or booted out by uranium interests, and there goes another source of local food and independence, leaving us ever more dependent on the corporate food chain.
Since a decision was made to not list the sage grouse as an endangered species in 2015, guess which interests won? You’ve got it – mining. Now the only problem left is to work out how to make the energy industry operations appear “beneficial” to the environment so as not to concern the sage grouse supporters, and to declare more public land as “cattle free,” again, for the benefit of the environment. Not a problem that a good Public Relations campaign can’t handle. Cha-Ching!
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Wayne County Medical Examiner rules death of woman shot by Dearborn police a homicide (UPDATED) Yesterday’s fatal shooting of a 31-year-old Detroit woman by Dearborn police has been ruled a homicide by the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office.
Janet Wilson was shot Wednesday afternoon by a Dearborn officer after driving erratically and allegedly trying to run over an officer on Hubbard Drive near the Southfield Freeway. Witnesses had reported Wilson acting strangely at nearby Fairlane Town Center and mall security was notified.
Wayne County Medical Examiner rules death of woman shot by Dearborn police a homicide (UPDATED)
By Andrea Blum
Published: Sunday, January 31, 2016
Press & Guide
Yesterday’s fatal shooting of a 31-year-old Detroit woman by Dearborn police has been ruled a homicide by the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office.
Janet Wilson was shot Wednesday afternoon by a Dearborn officer after driving erratically and allegedly trying to run over an officer on Hubbard Drive near the Southfield Freeway. Witnesses had reported Wilson acting strangely at nearby Fairlane Town Center and mall security was notified.
Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw said the 31-year-old woman’s vehicle got stuck in traffic as she left the mall, and she tried to flee as officers approached.
Shaw says a Dearborn officer fired when the woman almost ran over an officer. Wilson died of multiple gunshot wounds and the officer was treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said both of the officer-involved shooting incidents are being independently criminally investigated by outside agencies, and that the department is committed to transparency and disclosure by fully cooperating with the investigations.
“Upon conclusion of the criminal investigations we will be conducting internal reviews on both of these incidents,” Haddad said. “While we are very proud of our long history of Civil Rights advocacy as well as our history of appropriate use of force, we will closely examine all of our policies and procedures to ensure that we are employing the latest training and following national best practices in all of our responsibilities to the community.
Once we are allowed and it is appropriate to do so, we fully intend to make public disclosures regarding these incidents.”
FBI Joseph-Astarita murdered LaVoy Finicum
CASEY CODDING another Finicum shooter
CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED
The Conservative-Patriot Christian Right 
