Speaking of faggots who run from threads
Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
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Speaking of faggots who run from threads
Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
:lmao this bitch, the one I called out and TSA's hero, is going to hand the terrorists over to the feds
http://i2.wp.com/fusiondotnet.files....y=80&strip=all
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Hope the Feds move in to Cliven's ranch and take all his cows while he's in Oregon :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
The most idiotic people on the planet, these fuckers :lmao
Speaking of homophobes. . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
What's your point?
Still wishcasting that the audio will have your militia types not at fault?
:lol You get so caught in minutiae and desperate to win a point its hilarious. You still have no proof but hope, dipshit.
They have asked the militants to leave the grounds with their hands up and unarmed.
The confrontation started after one of the militants rode an ATV around the barricades set up outside the refuge. At one point, Fiore :lol joined the group in a prayer :lol while urging them to stay calm.
But one of the remaining occupiers, 27-year-old David Fry, can be heard at several points throughout the broadcast yelling at authorities.
The militants have said they won’t leave until Fiore :lo and the Rev. Franklin Graham, :lol who they’ve asked to negotiate on their behalf, arrive and walk out with them.
They’ve also said they won’t leave unless they can take their guns and avoid arrest — but federal authorities have said they’re not willing to negotiate.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/fbi-...gon-militants/
simplistic dumbfucks, thinking God is on their side and prayer does something.
Big Dog in the po-po! :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...e-refuge-occup
Quote:
FBI Arrests Cliven Bundy As Pressure Mounts On 4 Remaining Wildlife Refuge Occupiers
The father of two men who were among the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and are now in jail, was himself arrested in Portland, Ore., Wednesday night.
Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher prominent in protests to end federal control of western lands, is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center. His sons Ammon and Ryan were arrested Jan. 27 and are there as well.
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Please let these inbreds taste some hot motherfucking fire courtesy of the feds. They will be shocked when they go to meet their maker and he's Black. Time for them to see some chains for lying on the Most High. I hope they strip every last thread off their fucking backs and bank accounts. Fuck those asshole squatting White Christian Terrorists.
:lol Cliven Bundy
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Only thing that could make this better is arresting that lunatic Fiore on child endangerment charges :lmao
Hopefully the Feds can collect my hard-earned $1m in tax subsidies by collecting the Bundy cows :lmao
Where are you now, 3%ers? :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Had I known these armed terrorists were going to be motherfucking coddled for fucking over a month, I would have liked to have donated some hard liquor along with their tampons and vanilla creamer.
The cows gotta go.
Cliven, 74, faces conspiracy and weapons charges, the paper reported. He lead a 2014 standoff with the government over Nevada grazing rights that ended with federal agents backing down in the face of about 1,000 armed militiamen.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oregon-standoff_us_56bbfe12e4b0c3c5505019b9?
what about the $Ms he owes in grazing fees for decades?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yQERVphWhY
IMO as for the $$$ in fees he stole, I'm thinking he will get the standard issue blind-eye white treatment and go the "that was a long time ago route" that white christian terrorists are accustomed to. They want justice for every fucking one else but cannot fathom their own. They are terrorists whose lives have been spared because of their skin. At least they took full advantage of their skin tho.
Patriot Games just got real for old racist Cliven
Now Cliven will be more informed and better able to say "Let me tell you something about the Negro", as in what it feels like to be arrested.
I was reading an article, unfindable, on the history, demographics of US violence, and about the Confederate South being historically more violent, settling disputes with violence rather than otherwise, than the rest of the country, both whites and blacks.
One interesting point was that after the South lost the war, the blacks migrated north and the Johnny Rebels, with their slave-loving, secessionist hate of the North, aka the Feds, migrated out west, became cowboys, ranchers, whatever, planting the seeds of Western culture hate of the Feds "back east".
Fry is about to off himself. Can't wait for the gunshot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=616S8t9tek4
Yes!!!
Can a essay get a link to the festivities tbh? Hope he does it livestreamed. Fuck alll those asshole squatting terrorists.
Link is above, audio only.
Thanks . I hope im not late. Gotta get me a ice tea w lemininit and wait for him go meet Black Jesus.
Dude is the perfect encapsulation of the religious right gun toting nutjobs.
Boy oh Boy. My nigga baraka really really reallly fucking fucked up a lot of your white christian brains. This guy is a fucking pity party bitch. So fucking frail lol
I have no knowledge of the 20 years of harassment and attempted land grab the BLM inflicted on the militants. In your own words, can you give me a brief synopsis?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Yep. That post could be the thread title. I am fucking thrilled that this asshole smokes cigarettes too. I am so fucking happy for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Splits
Damn. FBI succeeded in talking him down, he surrendered.
That bitch on the phone almost had him pull the trigger.
Lame. I thought it said BUNNY ranch. Go back to arguing.
christians stay taking L's...tbh
This bitch actually thinks god wants anything to do with christians. Holy fuck, these christians make up shit on the fly and carry guns and point them at federal agents. She is going into chains and niggaz like Kool are gonna have the whole bundy camp picking cotton.
Cliven and all these domestic terrorists are in a world of trouble.
http://i.imgur.com/PfJ1uXb.png
Here's the full complaint: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzg...w?pref=2&pli=1
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Santelli (co-conspirator 4) gonna be in the pokey for quite some time
Any ideas on co-conspirators 1-3?
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
Does treason/sedition law still merit the death penalty?Quote:
Originally Posted by Splits
Unfortunately he isn't charged with that, but dude is going to die in a prison cell that's for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Charge 1: up to 5 years
Charge 2: up to 1 year
Charge 3: up to 7 years
Charge 4: up to 10 years
Charge 5: up to 20 years
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
3%ers must be co-conspirators 1-3, they're going to face similar
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
You accused me of parroting an infowars article and asked for a link to show i didnt. I linked you to the video I posted and my comments both of which came before the article you linked was ever created.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
my militia types? I've called them idiots from the start
You ruined it Splits. I've been having a good time watching Quetzal talk to himself with no replies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Splits
The 20 years has nothing to do with the militants so can't help you there. If you want to know about what happened to the Hammonds it's posted in this thread 10+ pages back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Militia whites crying about land grabs. lol I love that there are other white christians like these inbred violent beasts that will drink themselves to sleep. I fucking love that shit. Land Grabs? lol thats rich.
My point is that you regularly parrot that shit. I don't feel like filtering and digging through vicenews and the regular stupidity every single time. Fact is they are the only outlets that are repeating what you are saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
You call them idiots yet you make excuses for them. Your actions speak louder than words. You are completely biased and full of shit. It is what it is.
No, your point was a very specific infowars article that you linked and now that you have been proven to be full of shit on that point you are now moving the goal posts and wishcasting. It is what it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
What do mutually exclusive mean? Remember that "Hmmm.. trust PBS or TSA and his breitbart takes" thread from a year or two ago. It all ties in, dimwit.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Failing to understand mutual exclusivity in attempted deductions is a great litmus tests for idiots. I've been rubbing your face in it for years and you still fail.
Youre boring, I'm not going to bother hitting view post next time. Youre as stupid as you ever were failing the same fails.
Oldie but goodie: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ehanpl...f-cliven-bundy
I don't really want to wade through your walls of texts. Would you mind just summarizing it for me?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Sufficient impulse control :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Th'LazyQuote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Was wrong on 20 years Pusher almost 50 yearsQuote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
interested enough to read a few bullet points, not interested enough to read through 35 pages of posts. thanks though.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Is there a link to this or is it excluded for a reason?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
http://bundyranch.blogspot.com/2015/...mond-case.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
seems pretty objective :rolleyes
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Is this where you got it, TSA?Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Militants warn authorities about booby traps left behind at Oregon reserve
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/mili...e+Raw+Story%29
I hope those terrorist white christians get Allll their shit taken. Leave them in the streets naked. Land grabs lol Someone help me find where I can donate a case of Maize Mash so the whole family can drinky drinky beddy bye bye . Fuck it a few cartons of marlboros too . Leaving booby traps? More $$$ gonna be spent trying to find em if any.
White Christian Terrorism-*since 1492
keen to post, but not to give credit for the work of others.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
what's he hiding?
I know. It's not like he got it from the AR15 forum.\
Or did he?
True. Who knows the original source. A search of the bullet points :lol returns a veritable cache of partisan websites - stormfront, wnd, the conservative treehouse, rightside news. It's been slurped down and passed around by every paranoid conspiracy propagating site on the net.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
TSA so longs for the feds to be the bad guys in this situation, he's willing to immerse himself in shitbag media to confirm his bias.
It's WC, COSMORED level stupidity. Embarrassing.
Feel free to dispute what happened should be pretty easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Oregon Protests: Civil Disobedience Justified
Watching the news yesterday, a person could be forgiven for thinking that a small group of Americans had literally lost their minds. Militias are marching through Oregon on behalf of convicted arsonists? A small band of armed men has taken over a federal building? The story practically writes itself. Or does it? Deranged militiamen spoiling for a fight against the federal government make for good copy, but what if they’re right? What if the government viciously and unjustly prosecuted a rancher family so as to drive them from their land? Then protest, including civil disobedience, would be not just understandable but moral, and maybe even necessary. Ignore for a moment the #OregonUnderAttack hashtag — a rallying cry for leftists accusing the protesters of terrorism — and the liberal media’s self-satisfied cackling. Read the court documents in the case that triggered the protest, and the accounts of sympathetic ranchers. What emerges is a picture of a federal agency that will use any means necessary, including abusing federal anti-terrorism statutes, to increase government landholdings. The story as told by the protesters begins not with the federal criminal case against Steven and Dwight Hammond but many years earlier, with the creation and expansion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a tract of federal land set aside by President Theodore Roosevelt as “a preserve and breeding-ground for native birds.” The federal government has since expanded the preserve in part by buying adjacent private land. Protesters allege that when private landowners refused to sell, the federal government got aggressive, diverting water during the 1980s into the “rising Malheur lakes.” Eventually, the lakes flooded “homes, corrals, barns, and graze-land.” Ranchers who were “broke and destroyed” then “begged” the government to buy their “useless ranches.” What if the government viciously and unjustly prosecuted a rancher family so as to drive them from their land? By the 1990s, the Hammonds were among the few private landowners who remained adjacent to the Refuge. The protesters allege that the government then began a campaign of harassment designed to force the family to sell its land, a beginning with barricaded roads and arbitrarily revoked grazing permits and culminating in an absurd anti-terrorism prosecution based largely on two “arsons” that began on private land but spread to the Refuge. While “arsons” might sound suspicious to urban ears, anyone familiar with land management in the West (and to a lesser degree, in the rural South and Midwest) knows that land must sometime be burned to stop the spread of invasive species and prevent or fight destructive wildfires. Indeed, the federal government frequently starts its own fires, and protesters allege (with video evidence) that these “burns” often spread to private land, killing and injuring cattle and damaging private property. Needless to say, no federal officers are ever prosecuted. The prosecution of the Hammonds revolved mainly around two burns, one in 2001 and another in 2006. The government alleged that the first was ignited to cover up evidence of poaching and placed a teenager in danger. The Hammonds claimed that they started it to clear an invasive species, as is their legal right. Whatever its intent, the fire spread from the Hammonds’ property and ultimately ignited 139 acres of public land. But the trial judge found that the teenager’s testimony was tainted by age and bias and that the fire had merely damaged “juniper trees and sagebrush” — damage that “might” total $100 in value. The other burn was trifling. Here’s how the Ninth Circuit described it: In August 2006, a lightning storm kindled several fires near where the Hammonds grew their winter feed. Steven responded by attempting back burns near the boundary of his land. Although a burn ban was in effect, Steven did not seek a waiver. His fires burned about an acre of public land. In 2010 — almost nine years after the 2001 burn — the government filed a 19-count indictment against the Hammonds that included charges under the Federal Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which mandates a five-year prison term for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States.”
At trial, the jury found the Hammonds guilty of maliciously setting fire to public property worth less than $1,000, acquitted them of other charges, and deadlocked on the government’s conspiracy claims. While the jury continued to deliberate, the Hammonds and the prosecution reached a plea agreement in which the Hammonds agreed to waive their appeal rights and accept the jury’s verdict. It was their understanding that the plea agreement would end the case. At sentencing, the trial court refused to apply the mandatory-minimum sentence, holding that five years in prison would be “grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses” and that the Hammonds’ fires “could not have been conduct intended [to be covered] under” the Anti-terrorism act: When you say, you know, what if you burn sagebrush in the suburbs of Los Angeles where there are houses up those ravines? Might apply. Out in the wilderness here, I don’t think that’s what the Congress intended. And in addition, it just would not be — would not meet any idea I have of justice, proportionality. . . . It would be a sentence which would shock the conscience to me. Thus, he found that the mandatory-minimum sentence would — under the facts of this case — violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” He sentenced Steven Hammond to two concurrent prison terms of twelve months and one day and Dwight Hammond to one prison term of three months. The Hammonds served their sentences without incident or controversy.
The federal government, however, was not content to let the matter rest. Despite the absence of any meaningful damage to federal land, the U.S. Attorney appealed the trial judge’s sentencing decision, demanding that the Hammonds return to prison to serve a full five-year sentence. The case went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the court ruled against the Hammonds, rejecting their argument that the prosecutor violated the plea agreement by filing an appeal and dismissing the trial court’s Eighth Amendment concerns. The Hammonds were ordered back to prison. At the same time, they were struggling to pay a $400,000 civil settlement with the federal government, the terms of which gave the government right of first refusal to purchase their property if they couldn’t scrape together the money.There’s a clear argument that the government engaged in an overzealous, vindictive prosecution here. By no stretch of the imagination were the Hammonds terrorists, yet they were prosecuted under an anti-terrorism statute. The government could have let the case end once the men had served their sentences, yet it pressed for more jail time. And the whole time, it held in its back pocket potential rights to the family’s property. To the outside observer, it appears the government has attempted to crush private homeowners and destroy their livelihood in a quest for even more land. If that’s the case, civil disobedience is a valuable course of action. By occupying a vacant federal building, protesters can bring national attention to an injustice that would otherwise go unnoticed and unremedied. Moreover, they can bring attention once again to the federal government’s more systemic persecution of private landowners. RELATED: The Case for a Little Sedition With vast segments of the American West in government hands, private landowners often find themselves at the mercy of the federal government — a government that often seems to delight in expanding its power and holdings at the expense of ranchers and farmers, one in the habit of placing turtles before people. Ranchers and farmers fighting the federal government are a tiny minority up against the world’s most powerful body. “David versus Goliath” simply doesn’t do the conflict justice. While civil disobedience is justified, violence is not. So far, no one has been hurt, the “occupation” is occurring in a vacant federal building in the middle of nowhere, and there is no reported threat to innocent bystanders. It would be absurd for the federal government to treat the protesters like it treated the men and women at Waco or Ruby Ridge, and it would be absurd for the protesters to shoot police officers who are ordered to reasonably and properly enforce the law. The occupation is far less intrusive and disruptive than the Occupy Movement’s dirty and violent seizure of urban public parks, and authorities permitted that to go on for weeks. Now is the time for calm, not escalation. RELATED: The Problem with Cliven Bundy I sympathize with the ranchers’ fury, and I’m moved by the Hammonds’ plight. According to multiple accounts, they are good American citizens. Even the prosecutor noted that they “have done wonderful things for their community.” The district court noted that the character letters submitted on the Hammonds’ behalf were “tremendous” and that “these are people who have been a salt in their community.” Yet now they’re off to prison once again — not because they had to go or because they harmed any other person but because the federal government has pursued them like a pack of wolves. They are victims of an all-too-common injustice. Ranchers and other landowners across the country find themselves chafing under the thumb of an indifferent and even oppressive federal government. Now is the time for peaceful protest. If it gets the public to pay attention, it won’t have been in vain. — David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ence-justified
In October of 2015, Harney County, Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond were sentenced to five years in federal prison under an eco-terrorism charge for a 2001 incident in which they say they were setting preventative fires on their own land in order to kill weeds and suck up water (something done as a normal part of ranching), but which eventually spread elsewhere to 138 acres of federally-owned land.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) pursued charges against the Hammonds and won. Dwight and Steven served minor sentences, which U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan felt was sufficient given a five-year mandatory sentence would be disproportionate to the severity of the offense.
However, that was not enough for the federal government, which argued that the men could be charged again under the determination that Judge Hogan didn’t have the discretion to disregard mandatory minimum sentencing.
The re-sentencing resulted in a five year prison sentence for the Hammonds. This sparked outrage all over the country, from the Oregon Farm Bureau to ranchers from other states who have similarly seen the BLM overstep its boundaries.
Many people have come to the Hammonds’ defense, such as U.S. Representative Greg Walden (OR), who went before Congress to, among other things, advocate for the Hammonds. He says they are responsible ranchers, good people, and upstanding citizens of the community.
The U.S. Attorney for the state of Oregon, Amanda Marshall, called for the initial repeal of sentencing. Having previously worked at a child advocacy position, Marshall supposedly had no previous experience as a federal prosecutor. She would resign in mid-2015 citing health reasons, although many believe it to be the result of a U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General internal review for what has been described as “erratic behavior involving a subordinate”.
The primary point of concern here is the speculation that the federal government wanted to acquire most or all of the land in Harney County, Oregon, where it currently holds 3/4ths of the deeds, and that there has been more pressure put on locals to sell their land to the BLM.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this especially holds true for the Hammond family, which as one of the last private owners in the Harney Basin has experienced harassment from the feds over water rights, grazing permit revocation, restricted property access, and more.
In the case of the Hammonds, they have paid $400,000 to the federal government to settle the civil suit for the cost of fighting the fires, which if they had not been able to pay by December 31st, 2015 the government would’ve seized the property they had been after for payment. But that might not have been all that the government was seeking.
From OregonLive.com:
“The settlement also required the Hammonds to give the land bureau first chance at buying a particular ranch parcel adjacent to public land if they intended to sell. For some, this was evidence that the government all along was after the Hammond ground to add to its Steens Mountain holdings.”The issue brought to the forefront now is of federal authority of land. Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the federal government retains possession of public lands. This is especially important in the West, where a large portion of land (93% of all federal land is found in the West) falls under this control.
In Oregon, for example, the federal government owns over 53% of the land. In many cases, this land is not put to good use. Often, it goes unused for various stated reasons. The Constitution states in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 that the government can own land by “Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress” for the purposes of “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.”
Lawmakers in these western states have fought back to get these lands back to state control. They want to manage and care for it themselves, however they see fit.
The call to return these lands to state control and to give the Hammonds justice has sparked protests in the West. This includes the recent Oregon militia takeover of a federal wildlife refuge.
While violence is not the answer, anger against the BLM’s abuse of authority has reached a boiling point. Longtime President of the Oregon Farm Bureau, Barry Bushue, had this to say on the Hammond ruling:
“I find it incredible that the government would want to try these ranchers as terrorists. Now is where the rubber meets the road. Right now is when the public should absolutely be incensed. And the public, I think, should be fearful.”This is a battle that pits state sovereignty and individual rights against the federal government. We cannot allow this inexcusable behavior to go unchecked. Regardless of how you feel about the Hammonds, the current events in Oregon, or farming/ranching in general, it’s overly apparent that a change is needed in how the Bureau of Land Management actually does its job of managing land.
http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01...-mistreatment/
A lot of alleging and what ifs in that piece. And are you capable of citing a non partisan source? Honest question.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
http://www.hcn.org/issues/20/582
BURNS, Ore. - The arrest of Dwight Hammond, a hot-tempered eastern Oregon cattle rancher, has galvanized a nasty campaign of retribution against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It all began when federal agents arrested Hammond and his son Steven, Aug. 3. That turned a long-simmering dispute over cattle, fences and water on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge into a bizarre Old West showdown.
Federal officials and a fence-building crew were attempting to build a fence to keep the Hammonds' cattle from trespassing on the refuge. When Hammond and his son obstructed federal workers, they were taken into custody by nine federal agents, five of whom were armed.
The Hammonds were charged with two counts each of felony "disturbing and interfering with" federal officials or federal contractors. The Hammonds spent one night in the Deschutes County Jail in Bend, and a second night behind bars in Portland before they were hauled before a federal magistrate and released without bail.
On Aug. 10, nearly 500 incensed ranchers showed up at a rally in Burns featuring wise-use speaker Chuck Cushman of the American Land Rights Association, formerly the National Inholders Association. Cushman later issued a fax alert urging Hammond's supporters to flood refuge employees with protest calls. Some employees reported getting threatening calls at home.
Cushman plans to print a poster with the names and photos of federal agents and refuge managers involved in the arrest and distribute it nationally. "We have no way to fight back other than to make them pariahs in their community," he said.
Picking up the theme, the Oregon Lands Coalition declared in a recent newsletter, "It's time to get out the yellow ribbons - this is a hostage situation!"
On Aug. 11, Rep. Bob Smith, R-Ore., weighed in on the Hammonds' behalf in a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. "The acts of your agents last week cause my constituents to lose faith in their government," wrote Smith, who was under the erroneous impression that Hammond was arrested at his home rather than on refuge land.
The pressure apparently paid off. On Aug. 15, the U.S. attorney's office in Portland reduced the charges against the Hammonds from felonies carrying a maximum penalty of three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine to misdemeanors that could mean jail terms of up to one year and fines of up to $100,000 on each count. A hearing on the charges, originally scheduled for early September, has been postponed indefinitely.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Thomson denied that Smith's letter influenced the reduction in the charges against the Hammonds. "That's all we thought was appropriate," he said.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dwight Hammond had repeatedly violated a special permit that allowed him to move his cows across the refuge only at specific times. In June, refuge manager Forrest Cameron notified Hammond that his right to graze cattle and grow hay on the lush waterfowl haven south of Burns was revoked. The feds also said they planned to build a fence along the refuge boundary to keep Hammond's cows out of an irrigation canal.
The events of Aug. 3 are outlined in the sworn affidavit of special agent Earl M. Kisler, who assisted in the Hammonds' arrest. On the day the fence was to be built, the crew and refuge officials arrived to find Hammond had parked his Caterpillar scraper squarely on the boundary line and disabled it, removing the battery and draining fuel lines. When a tow truck arrived to move it, Dwight Hammond showed up, leaped to the controls of the scraper and hit a lever that lowered the bucket, narrowly missing another special agent. Meanwhile, said Kisler, Steve Hammond shouted obscenities at federal officials. Neither Hammond resisted arrest.
"The refuge has been trying to work with Hammond for many years," said agency spokeswoman Susan Saul. A thick file at refuge headquarters reveals just how patient refuge managers have been. Hammond allegedly made death threats against previous managers in 1986 and 1988 and against Cameron, the current manager, in 1991 and again this year. Saul said Hammond has never given the required 24 hours' notice before moving his cows across the refuge and that he allowed the cows to linger for as long as three days, trespassing along streams and trampling young willows that refuge workers had planted to repair damage wrought by years of overgrazing.
Susie Hammond, Dwight's wife, said the cattle trail is a "historic right of way" that has been in use since 1871. "We have never had a permit," she said. "We have a right to use it."
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-no.../post_227.html
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management was the target of withering criticism Tuesday by Oregon Rep. Greg Walden in a dramatic speech.
Walden, speaking from the House floor for nearly a half hour, gave voice to rural frustrations with government officials, particularly the federal land bureau that manages huge swaths of eastern Oregon.
Here is the text of his speech, provided by his office:
Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleagues are aware of the situation in Harney County, Oregon, where a group of armed protesters have overtaken a Federal facility in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
This group is led largely by people who are not necessarily from Oregon, although they obviously have supporters from Oregon. They were originally there to protest the sentencing of Dwight and Steve Hammond.
I know the Hammonds. I have known them for probably close to 20 years. They are longtime, responsible ranchers in Harney County. They have been sentenced to prison not once, but now twice. I will get into that in a moment.
The point I want to make at the outset is for people in this Chamber to understand what drives people to do what is happening tonight in Harney County.
I have had the great honor and privilege to represent Harney County for a number of years. I have seen the impact of Federal policies from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration. I have seen what happens when overzealous bureaucrats and agencies go beyond the law and clamp down on people. I have seen what courts have done. I have seen the time for Congress to act and then it has not.
I want to put this area in perspective because I think it is really important to understand how big this region is. By size, my congressional district in Oregon is something like the seventh or eighth biggest in the Congress. If you overlaid it over the east coast, it would start in the Atlantic and end in Ohio.
The county where this occupation is taking place--Harney County--is over 10,000 square miles. There are 7,000 souls inhabiting it. If my math is right, that is one person for every 1.4 miles. One person for every 1.4 miles.
Just this one county is 10 times the size of Rhode Island. It is larger than the State of Maryland. And 72 percent of it is under the command and control of the Federal Government.
It is the public's land. That is true. But what people don't understand is the culture, the lifestyle, of the great American West and how much these ranchers care about the environment, about the future, about their children, about America, and how much they believe in the Constitution. Now we see the extent they will go to in order to defend what they view as their constitutional rights.
Now, I am not defending armed takeovers. I do not think that is appropriate. I think the time has come for those to consider that they have made their case in the public about what is happening in the West, and perhaps it is time for them to realize they have made their case and to go home.
But I want to talk about what happened with the Hammonds. I want to put in perspective what happens almost every year in my district. That is these enormous wildfires.
The Miller Homestead Wildfire in 2012 burned 160,000 acres, mostly in this county, if not all; 250 square miles, a quarter of the size of the State of Rhode Island. That was just in 2012.
The Barry Point Fire that year, in Lake County, next door, burned 93,000 acres. Last summer alone, we burned 799,974 acres across Oregon; that is both forest and high desert. In 2012, 3.4 million acres burned in Oregon.
There was another fire in Malheur County. The Long Draw Fire, in 2012, burned 557,000 acres, five times the size of Rhode Island. So 93,000 acres, 557,000 acres, 160,000 acres, all burning.
The Hammonds are in prison tonight for setting a backfire that they admit to, that burned 139 acres, and they will sit in prison, time served and time going forward, 5 years, under a law that I would argue was never intended to mete out that kind of punishment, and I will get to that in a moment.
I have told you I worked with the Hammonds and many ranchers in Harney County. In the last years of the Clinton administration, despite their own agency's reviews and analysis, Bill Clinton threatened to create a giant monument on Steens Mountain.
When Secretary Babbitt, the Interior Secretary at the time, came before the House Resources Committee, of which I was a member, I said: Mr. Secretary, your own resource advisory committees in the area just reported that there was no need for additional protection on Steens Mountain, and yet, you and the President are threatening to create this national monument. Why do you waste the time of the citizens to go through a process to determine if additional protections are needed and then ignore what they came up with?
To Bruce Babbitt's credit, he agreed when I told him: I think you would be surprised about what the local ranchers and citizens of Harney County would be willing to do if you give them a chance. To his credit, he said: All right, I will give them that chance. And he did.
We went to work on legislation. It took a full year. I worked with the Hammonds. I worked with Stacy Davies, I worked with all kinds of folks, put a staffer on it full-time, multiple staffs, and we worked with the environmental community and others. And we created the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act, model legislation, never been done before, because I said: We don't have to live by past laws, we write laws.
So we wrote a new law to create a cooperative spirit of management in Harney County. The Hammonds were part of that discussion. We saved a running camp, Harlan Priority Runs. We protected inholder. We tried to do all the right things and create the kind of partnership and cooperation that the Federal Government and the citizens should have.
Fast forward on that particular law. Not long after that became law, and it was heralded as this monumental law of great significance and new era in cooperation and spirit of cooperation, some of those involved on the other side and some of the agencies decided to reinterpret it. The first thing they tried to do is shut down this kids' running camp because they said: Well, too many, maybe more than 20, run down this canyon and back up, as they had for many, many years. They wanted to shut it down. So we had to fight them back and said: No, the law says historical standards.
Then the bureaucrats, because we said: You should have your historical access to your private property, if you are up on Steens Mountain, you should maintain that access like you have always had it. Do you know what the bureaucrats said? They began to solicit from the inholders in this area: How many times did you go up there last year? You see, they wanted to put a noose around the neck of those who were inside. That was a total violation of what we intended, and we had to back them off.
See, the bureaucracy wants to interpret the laws we write in ways they want, and in this case they were wrong, not once, but twice.
Then, a couple of years ago, I learned that, despite the fact we created the first cow-free wilderness in the United States under this law, and said clearly in this law that it would be the responsibility of the government to put up fencing to keep the cows out, as part of the agreement, the Bureau of Land Management said: No, we are not going to follow that law. And they told the ranchers they had to build the fence.
I networked with my Democrat colleague from Oregon, Mr. DeFazio, who was part of writing this law. I said: Peter, you remember that, right? He said: Yeah, I didn't like it, but that was the case. BLM still wouldn't listen. So we continued to push it and they argued back.
Well, it turns out there had been a second rancher who brought this to my attention who they were telling had to do the same thing, build a fence, when the government was supposed to under the law I wrote. The arrogance of the agency was such that they said: We don't agree with you.
Now, there aren't many times, Mr. Speaker, in this job when you can say I know what the intent of the law was, but in this case I could because I wrote the law, I knew the intent.
Oh, that wasn't good enough. No, no, no. No, no, no. The arrogance of these agency people was such that we had to go to the archives and drag out the boxes from 2000, 1999-2000, when we wrote this law, from the hearings that had all the records for the hearings and the floor discussions to talk about the intent. And our retired Member, George Miller, actually we used some of his information where he said the government would provide the fencing. They were still reluctant to follow it. So I put language in the appropriations bill that restated the Federal law.
Do you understand how frustrated I am at this? Can you imagine how the people on the ground feel? Can you imagine? If you are not there, you can't. If you are not there, you can't.
You ridicule them. The Portland Oregonian is running a thing, what do you send? Meals for militia. Let's have fun with this.
This is not a laughing matter from any consequence. Nobody is going to win out of this thing.
This is a government that has gone too far for too long. Now, I am not condoning this takeover in any way. I want to make that clear. I don't think it is appropriate. There is a right to protest. I think they have gone too far. But I understand and hear their anger.
Right now, this administration, secretly, but not so much, is threatening, in the next county over, that looks a lot like this one, Malheur County, to force a monument of 2.5 million acres, we believe. I think this is outrageous. It flies in the face of the people and the way of life and the public access.
There is a company, Keen Shoes, that already has a big marketing campaign. This is about selling shoes, for God's sake.
I call on the President, if he wants to help reduce the tension that is out there, to walk away from this. And if he doesn't want to walk away and say, no, we are not going to do that, to help us bring down this level of frustration and anger, then at least be honest, or his Secretary of the Interior needs to be honest with us and tell us they are going to do it.
Either they are or they aren't. But all they are is being coy. That feeds into this. It feeds into the anger that I feel. It feeds into the anger out there.
So the President should say: I am not going to do a national monument. I am not going to add more fuel on this fire in the West.
We have fought other issues. More than half of my district is under Federal management, or lack thereof. They have come out with these proposals to close roads into the forests. They have ignored public input. They often claim to have all these open meetings and listen to the public, and then, in the case of Wallowa-Whitman, the forest supervisor who was eventually relieved because of this, I believe, completely ignored all the meetings, all the input, all the work of the counties and the local people, and said: Forget it, I am going my own direction.
There were 900 people that turned out at the National Guard Armory where they had a public hearing, standing room only and beyond, furious.
You see, how do you have faith in a government that doesn't ever listen to you? How do you have faith in a government that, when elected Representatives write a law, those charged with the responsibility of implementing it choose to go the other direction and not do so? That is what is breaking faith between the American people and their government, and that is what has to change.
The other thing that has to change, the law under which the Hammonds were sentenced. Now, they probably did some things that weren't legal. I have given you the size of the acreages that burned naturally. I haven't gotten into the discussion about how these fires are often fought and how the Federal Government frequently will go on private land and set a fire without permission to backburn. That happens all the time.
In fact, in the Barry Point Fire down in Lake County, they set fire on private timber land as a backburn while the owners of the property were putting out spot fires down in the canyon. I drove down there afterwards. They are darn lucky to have come out alive.
There was nobody sentenced under the terrorism act there. Oh, heck no. It is the government. They weren't sentenced. Nobody was charged. Oh, it just happened.
Now, fires are tough to fight. I have great respect for firefighters. There are always two sides on how these fires get fought. But I can tell you, a few years back in Harney County, because I went and held a meeting out there right as the fire was being put out, that the fire crews came in, went on private ground, lit a backfire on private ground, behind a fence line, that then burned out the farmer's fence, the rancher's fence, and burned all the way over and down into a canyon where there was a wetland, which would have been the natural break to stop the fire from the other side. You see, they never needed to burn that land.
These things happen in the course of fighting fire. It doesn't mean they are right. But rare is it that somebody ends up 5 years in prison.
Let me tell you what the senior judge said when he sentenced the Hammonds the first time, Judge Michael Hogan, senior Federal judge, highly respected in Oregon. He sentenced Dwight Hammond to 3 months and Steve to a year. There were different offenses here.
He said: ''I am not going to apply the mandatory minimum because, to me, to do so, under the Eighth Amendment, would result in a sentence which is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses here.''
The Judge went on to say: ''And with regard to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, this sort of conduct would not have been conduct intended under the statute.
''When you ask, you know, what if you burn sagebrush in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and there are homes up the ravines, it might apply. Out in the wilderness here, I don't think that is what the Congress intended.
''In addition, it just would not meet any idea I have of justice proportionality. It would be a sentence which would shock the conscience, to me.''
Senior Judge Mike Hogan, when he did the original sentencing.
But, you see, under this 1996 law under which they were charged and convicted, it turns out he had no judicial leeway. He could not mete out a sentence that was proportionate to what the crime was.
So yesterday, Dwight and Steve went to prison again. Dwight will be 73 when he gets out. Steve will be about 50.
Meanwhile, in Harney County, on the ranch, Susie will continue to try and survive; 6,000-acre ranch, she needs grazing permits to make this happen. It would be a cruel and unjust act, by the way, if access to those grazing permits that allow that ranch to work were not extended. What possible good could come out of bankrupting a grandmother that was trying to keep a ranch together, while the husband sits in prison, her son sits in prison? What possible good?
They will serve their sentences. There is nothing, short of clemency that only the President can offer, that we can do. But we can change that law, and we should, so that nobody ever is locked in like that for a situation like this, where a senior judge, literally, on his final day on the bench, says this goes too far, it goes too far. They appealed that, by the way, and lost. But I believe that the judge was right.
We have to listen to the people. We have to understand why events like this are taking place in our communities. They are taking place in cities. We have witnessed that, and we try and get our heads around it.
There are more people from the cities, so there are more Members from the cities. There aren't many of us that represent these vast, wide-open, incredibly beautiful, harsh districts like the one I do.
The people there love the land. It was the ranchers who came up with the concept of the cooperative management. It was the ranchers who loved Steens Mountain that know that for them to survive they have to take care of the range.
They are good people. Their sons and daughters, by a higher proportion, fight in our wars and die, and I have been to their funerals. So to my friends across eastern Oregon, I will always fight for you. But we have to understand there is a time and a way. Hopefully the country through this understands we have a real problem in America: how we manage our lands and how we are losing them.
It is not like we haven't tried here, Mr. Speaker. Year after year we pass bipartisan legislation to provide more active management on our forests so we don't lose them all to fire, and we are losing them all to fire. We are losing firefighters' lives, homes, and watersheds--great resources of the West. Teddy Roosevelt would role over in his grave. He created this wildlife refuge in 1908.
There were some bad actors there in the 1980s, by the way. They were very aggressive running the refuge, basically threatening eminent domain and other things that took ranches. It was bad. That lasted for at least a decade or more. It has gotten better though. It is not perfect. There is a much better relationship, and the refuge and the ranchers work closer together. In fact, during this fire in 2012, the refuge actually opened itself up to the ranchers for hay and feed because theirs was burned out because of this big fire. So there was a better spirit there.
But there are still these problems: the threat of waters of the U.S. shutting down stock ponds and irrigation canals and a way of life, the threat of fire every year that seems to not be battled right and just gets away, and no one is really held accountable; the continued restriction on the lives of the men and women who, for generations, have worked hard in a tough environment. It has just gone too far. It is hurtful.
I hope people understand how serious this is felt and how heartfelt this is by those who pay their taxes and try and live by the law and do the right things and how oppressed they feel by the government that they elect and the government they certainly don't elect, and how much they will always defend the flag and the country, and their sons and daughters would go to war, some will not come back--and they have not from this area.
There is a better solution here. The President needs to back off on the monument. The BLM needs to make sure Susie Hammond isn't pushed into bankruptcy and has her ranch taken by the government and added to those that have been. We need to be better at hearing people from all walks of life and all regions of our country and understanding this anger that is out there and what we can do to bring about correct change and peaceful resolution.
It is not too late. We can do this. It is a great country. We have the processes to do it right.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/29/us...ns-dreams.html
RISING LAKES ARE DROWNING OREGONIANS' DREAMS
By WALLACE TURNER
Published: September 29, 1984
LAWEN, Ore.— People tended to look away from the natural disaster as it advanced on the flourishing ranch life around here. Certainly they hid it from strangers.
When asked how she got into her present predicament, Shirley Moore, who runs the Lawen post office and general store, said, ''Just ignorance.'' ''We came here last November and my husband looked this place over from top to bottom,'' Mrs. Moore said. ''When we moved in last spring, it wasn't a week until people began to tell me they were moving out because of the high water. That was the first I heard about it.''
Most of her customers have moved away. Now the solid, 80-year-old store building where Mrs. Moore and her two older sons live has started to twist apart as water causes shifts in the soil. The basement is flooded. The toilet is about to quit as rising water invades the septic-tank field, and her well water is almost unusable.
''We'll keep toughing it out,'' said Mrs. Moore, who said she bought the store from a woman who moved to Alaska after operating it for a year.
Lakes' Water SpreadingA quarter of a mile down the side road, a power substation sits idle in foot- deep water and the roadway disappears into a lake. For miles and miles ranch buildings jut up from the waters of the Malheur and Harney Lakes, which spread after a series of unusually wet years. Combined, the lakes now cover about 160,000 acres. In past years they covered 45,000 acres.
Because the water rose gradually over six years, ranchers were unable to collect on insurance, nor have they been able to tap into Federal disaster relief programs for flood victims.
''Sudden'' is a word that appears in definitions of disaster, and there has been nothing sudden about the calamity here.
Except for the cries of the migratory water fowl that swim and feed in the rising waters, all is quiet among the farm buildings and their protective clumps of cottonwood or poplar trees.
The Lawen school that was within walking distance for Mrs. Moore's two girls was closed in May and did not reopen because the waters of Malheur Lake had flooded its grounds. The girls have gone to live with their father while he fulfills a highway maintenance contract 100 miles west of here and lives in a house trailer near a school.
Until the water level began climbing in the late 1970's, a thriving cattle ranch community existed for a century on the floor of a prehistoric lake that the centuries reduced to two marshes.
One, Harney Lake, which was usually so dry as to be a source of dust clouds when the winds rose, lies to the west and is joined by a narrow channel to Malheur Lake, which was full of reeds and, in season, of migratory water fowl. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established there by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Don Obie first saw the valley when he was 6 years old, newly orphaned and visiting his brother, who managed the old Thompson ranch.
That was in 1942. As the years rolled past, the little boy grew up to be 6 feet 5 1/2 inches tall, and in 1973 he was manager of the ranch when the owner died.
He borrowed the money to buy the place. He had 1,800 acres of haying meadow in the old lake bottom for winter feed for the 700 cows he ran on 5,600 acres of summer pasture he owned in the mountains, and on Federal grazing lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
''I tell you what I had,'' he said. ''And I tell you what I got left.
''I was offered $1.3 million for my ranch in the spring of 1979, by this realtor with his buyer with the money,'' he said.
''I was too smart to sell,'' Mr. Obie said, with a sardonic laugh. ''And I'm broke today. That's how simple it all is.''
Water now is four feet deep in his home and farm buildings. He had to move away from his home last March, and he still owes three more annual payments on his mortgage. He intends to pay off the ranch, he says. Somehow.
Dale White holds the office of County Judge, or chief administrator, of Harney County. With 10,100 square miles, this is one of the largest counties in the nation, and its 7,250 residents have all the elbow room anyone could ask.
The rising waters have been an economic disaster for the county. The 30 flooded-out ranches represented a significant slice of the county's livestock breeding operation.
The land here is fertile, but with elevations of 4,100 feet and more, frost occurs in late June and again in August, so farming is limited to grasses and alfalfa for hay. Ranchers, who generally sell their spring calf crop in the fall, have been operating at a loss since the depression in beef prices began, Mr. White said.
The flooding and the beef market's sag have come on top of the cuts in woodworking operations at the mills in Hines, a company town next door to Burns. The county has lost 1,000 people, one-eighth of its population, since 1980, Mr. White said.
But the worst effect of the flooding has been the closing of the Union Pacific spur line that serves the mills. The railroad has elected to wait to see what nature does, rather than elevate the tracks above the water. The county has raised the roads that pass through flooded areas.
''Heavy water years have filled the underground systems so that even if we had a drought this year, it would not go down much,'' Mr. White said. ''Nobody knows what to expect.''
People resent the United States Army Corps of Engineers' decision not to reopen a 17-mile channel that would drain the lake into the south fork of the Malheur River, which discharges into the Snake River 100 miles east of here.
Since settlement here in the 1870's, the channel, now filled with silt, has not been needed. The Corps decision was based on the judgment that too few people are involved to justify the multimillion-dollar expense.
http://www.bendbulletin.com/news/148...r-water-rights
Ranchers and officials feud over water rights
Rachel Odell /
Published May 16, 2004 at 05:00AM / Updated Nov 19, 2013 at 12:31AM
BURNS - Harney County rancher Susie Hammond believes the best type of neighbor is the one you don't see too often, lends a hand if you need it, and to whom she offers help.
The matriarch of the Hammond Ranch, nestled in the Blitzen Valley about 60 miles south of Burns in eastern Oregon, said she doesn't like the neighbor she has: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She accuses it of misusing the region's water - one of the West's most precious resources.
The Fish and Wildlife Service manages endangered species and wildlife refuges, including the 186,500-acre Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which borders the ranch the Hammonds bought in 1964.
A towering woman with short, white hair, diamond rings on her fingers and a no-nonsense look, Hammond said the fights with the refuge began in the mid-1970s when the agency made drastic changes to its livestock grazing program.
Confrontations between the Hammonds and the refuge landed Hammond's husband, Dwight, in federal prison for several days in 1994 for interfering with federal contractors.
About 25 miles north of the Hammond ranch, in the cool offices of the Fish and Wildlife Service, deputy refuge manager Chad Karges acknowledges there is a ”long history” between the Hammonds and the refuge.
In a quiet voice, Karges says that officials are working hard to better relationships with all the Harney County neighbors, including the Hammonds.
Still, the bristling between the two neighbors - a rancher and the federal government - promises to continue.
The Hammonds are trying to stop the state from granting a winter water right for 820 cubic feet per second from the Donner und Blitzen River, which meanders from its headwaters on Steens Mountain north to Malheur Lake.
That's enough water to irrigate roughly 33,000 acres.
The river's flows vary depending on the time of year, with peak flows in the spring melting season of about 1,900 cubic feet per second.
The water right would allow the refuge to divert the water during the non-irrigation season, from Oct. 2 to March 14. During that time farmers in the lush valley likely couldn't use early spring runoff - water generated when warm spells that melt snow on Steens - to irrigate crops. That is when the ground is usually frozen and it is not the growing season.
But even though the farmers cannot use the water during that time, Hammond and an agriculture industry advocacy group known as Water For Life, along with some local officials, say the refuge shouldn't have it either.
Already the refuge has water rights to irrigate 33,000 acres during the irrigation season, from March 15 to Oct. 1.
”They would be taking the water away from Harney County,” Hammond said. ”We're looking at the refuge wanting to claim all of the water, all of the time with absolutely no consideration for future economic development.”
Refuge officials say the water right application just seeks to make legal a practice that has been ongoing for decades.
State officials asked the refuge to apply for the winter water right in the early 1990s, saying the agency needed to formally get a right to use the early season water.
The Hammonds and others objected to the water right request. They argued that the full 820 cfs is not available at least 50 percent of the time, which Oregon law requires before the state can grant a water right.
The refuge asked for an exemption to that rule, saying they would use any spring runoff up to 820 cfs. They also said the use of the water served a public good - essentially because it helped the federal agency fulfill its mission of protecting wildlife.
For decades, when spring run off was available, refuge officials diverted some of that water to roughly 33,000 acres to create wetlands and breeding grounds for the more than 130 species of migratory birds that stop by during their vernal travels.
”Spring migration starts in early January,” Karges said. ”You don't start putting water out the day the birds show up. We're trying to set the table.”
That ”table” is a series of wetlands with native grasses filled with bugs, insects and other delicacies to satiate the traveling birds.
But opponents of the water right application seem unlikely to budge.
”We are talking about a lot of water, and if they get this water right, it would without a question preclude any future development,” said Brad Harper, executive director of Water for Life.
That development for Harney County could be water storage ponds, or reservoirs, for livestock grazing on Steens Mountain, or it could include ”the entire universe of things,” Harper said.
Critics also take issue with how the refuge plans to use the water it diverts - both in the summer and in the winter. The refuge wants to transfer the official use of their water to a designation called ”wildlife refuge management,” which would be a broad, all-encompassing use that would include irrigation, dust and fire control, wetlands development and more.
Because officials are asking for flexibility within the definition of their water right, they also want the ability to move water around onto different lands. Typically, the water right is attached to a specific piece of land and must be applied on that property.
Under the refuge's transfer application, the water right could be moved anywhere on the refuge, depending on what refuge employees wanted to use the water for.
Critics of the refuge argue that wildlife refuge management is a waste of water and does not constitute a beneficial use.
”The highest input into the Harney County economy is cattle,” Hammond said. ”For the refuge to continuously negatively effect the cattle industry, for the refuge to not produce a beneficial crop on the best farm land in the valley is a crime.”
Under state law, beneficial uses may include irrigation for crop growing, fire and dust control, and more, said Adam Sussman, senior policy analyst at the Oregon Water Resources Department.
But critics say refuge officials want special treatment. They say it is not fair for the refuge to get more flexibility - the ability to irrigate any land so long as it is within refuge boundaries - when ranchers don't have that same flexibility.
Refuge officials say growing habitat for waterfowl is a complicated process that involves rotating irrigation of certain fields and moving water around, which is why they want more flexibility with their water.
”The way we irrigate is not typical for agriculture,” refuge biologist Rick Roy said. ”We grow ducks, not hay. We need flexibility.”
But the critics have little empathy for the federal government.
Stacy Davies is the ranch manager at Roaring Springs Ranch, a major livestock producer in Harney County. From 1997 to 2002, the ranch had permission to graze cattle on the refuge through a conservation agreement with the refuge.
Davies said the refuge will be receiving special treatment if the state allows officials to transfer the water away from the specific parcels of land to which it is assigned.
”If water resources will allow people to file for a ranch management water right to do what the refuge wants to do, I could support it (the refuge's application),” Davies said. ”But I think this is special treatment for the refuge.”
Sussman, of the water resources department, said officials would review a request if a rancher wanted to change the use of his water right from irrigation to ”ranch management.” However, the agency has not received any application like that, and officials would have to study it.
Refuge officials acknowledge that some people in the community resent the federal agency.
But Karges and refuge biologist Roy say they are working to meet with Harney County residents, help farmers with projects on their lands, develop better communication and essentially improve relationships.
”The dispute over water rights is just one part of the story,” Roy said during a recent early morning tour of the refuge. ”Steens is beautiful, the refuge is too. We're tired of the animosity. We have a job to do and we're not for one minute proposing to sacrifice the refuge to get along with anyone. That said, there are lots of ways to work together.”
Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, offered kudos to the refuge for trying to find solutions to the winter water question. He said he is trying to negotiate a compromise that will help secure some water for possible future development.
Pressed further, though, he offered the following insight into the Harney County citizens' sentiments.
”The ranching community today is under the same type of attack the Native Americans were a century ago,” he said. ”They lost everything, and now we feel like we're going to lose everything.”
In the high arid country of Harney County, ”water is everything,” rancher Davies said.
But federal officials warn against exaggerating the scope of the refuge's request for the wintertime water.
”That is not a huge amount of water,” said Michael Eberle, chief of the water resources branch for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon and Washington. ”We're taking it out at 10 different places and spreading it over 33,000 acres.”
Karges and Roy of the refuge have been introducing Harney County residents to a collaborative, problem solving process that originated in Montana. Known as the Blackfoot Challenge, the process relies on a group of land owners to coordinate management of the natural resources Blackfoot River, involving local, state and federal government officials.
Karges said such a process could help local residents work with the federal government to ensure that all sides were represented when it came to finding common ground with natural resource management.
”We're trying to get more resolution locally,” Karges said. ”If you want to protect wildlife, you protect the rural lifestyle.”
Whether local residents heed their call for cooperation remains to be seen.
”The history of the refuge is not good,” Rancher Davies said. ”But there are opportunities to change that. I would really like to see the refuge pursue opportunities to build real strong relationships with its neighbors, and they could.”
Looks like the timeline of events from the bundy blog checks out.
Let me guess: "I think they're idiots but here are a lot of takes from places like breitbart, inforwars, and far right pundits that supports their cause."
Sophist is as sophist does. Stupid is as stupid does.
Looks like there was a school shooting in Arizona. Time for you to pivot for a few days.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
You were just given non partisan sources and now you don't want to discuss it anymore? :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Looks like a murder/suicide or double suicide, will be a non-story tomorrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Time to ban machetes
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Police shot and killed a suspect after he stabbed several people at a restaurant in Columbus.
According to NBC 4, the incident happened at Nazareth Restaurant.
Police cornered the suspect after the attack and he was shot shortly after he was caught.
One victim died and at least five people were injured and taken to local hospitals.
Stick with Fox 8 and Fox8.com for updates as they become available.
http://fox8.com/2016/02/11/suspect-killed-by-police-after-stabbing-multiple-people-with-machete-in-columbus/
Wait, so your walls of text are just there to say the timeline of the source you are ashamed to cite is correct?
lol
Ultimately you have a problem with the US legal system. They were found guilty by a jury and sentenced according to the laws after the judge's mistake in not following mandatory sentences was corrected on appeal.
He's been hoping for audio to exonerate them from the beginning. But he think's they're idiots. . .
What do you call a shill that doesn't get paid? Minion?
Ultimately you have a problem following the discussion as I am not discussing the arson charges.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
What discussion?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
You've just been pastebotting walls of texts after getting busted trying to hide your source.
Hey stupid fuck, if you are going to have someone on ignore it'd be wise not guess what is being discussed to keep yourself from looking like an even stupider fuck.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees it for what it does. It's like Darrin in that it knows its sources are shit but still regurgitates them anyway. Unlike Darrin, he spas when he gets butthurt and seeing him quote me again, I have little doubt the asshurt continues.
You ask some stupid fucking questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
Not at all. After you rage-pasted four walls of text because you got rightfully mocked for being ashamed of your source, now you're trying to be indignant that people aren't "following" your "discussion."Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
I'm following your meltdown; you're not discussing much at all.
:lol ashamed of a factual sourceQuote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
I've read at least two of those walls of text, and other than opinion from certain individuals there's zero "facts" in there about government misconduct, other than the fact that there's laws that some people don't agree with.
That doesn't give them a license to break them. There's a whole "civil disobedience" angle to all this, but it doesn't really work IRL. We moved to a court system and lawyers a long ass time ago, and that's where you go get results.
Some people might not like that in itself, but c'est la vie. The world isn't waiting for you to adapt.
Also, this goes to the core of what I was posting on the other thread about taxes. We face a lot of times decisions that might be legal but some deem unjust.
That's a perfectly valid opinion, even if it's just that.
For those allergic to reading.
You're the one who refused to link it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Why did you constantly refuse to link it?
lol factual
Instead of crying about a link missing from a post from over a month ago why don't you actually try rebutting the claims from the post itself? You keep lol'ing at the source yet you've provided zero evidence to prove any of the actions by the BLM and FWS against the Hammonds false. Articles on the flooding and fence building have already been posted. If I really cared enough I'm sure I could verify every claim in there but there's no point in wasting my time with you refusing to even discuss the topic.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
Did the BLM do anything illegal?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Does something have to be illegal to be wrong?Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
No. So what did the BLM do that was wrong in your opinion? All of the sources you have linked are from a very emotional and one sided point of view.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
Yeah, but why did you refuse to link it every time you posted it?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
It was important enough for you to post multiple times, but for some reason you were ashamed to link it.
I'm sorry my asking about it bothers you so much, but just about everyone noticed your circumspection here.
Oregon officials want feds and militants to pay for costly Malheur occupation
The cost of the six-week standoff in rural Oregon that ended peacefully on Thursday will likely cost millions of dollars, with local and state agencies looking to the federal government – and the arrested occupiers – to shoulder the bulk of the bills.The total outlay may not be known for weeks or months, but the remote location of the occupation, at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the eastern part of the state, combined with the complexity of the law enforcement response, suggest a costly operation, said Brian Levin, a criminal justice expert at California State University San Bernardino.
“When you have an unpredictable occupation like this you have to free up a lot of personnel assets and resources,” Levin said. “The cost of maintaining a multi-agency task force can get very expensive.”
The protest over federal control of Western lands began in early January and ended Thursday when the final four holdouts surrendered.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown is seeking up to $1 million from the state legislature to offset expenditures by counties and towns, and said the state in turn would seek reimbursement from the federal government.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/oreg...e+Raw+Story%29
Bundy's Inglorious Basterds are so fucked :lol
I never refused to link it dipshit. Post #577 was the very first time I posted it and it was linked. I obviously missed copying the link the next time and re-quoted that same post.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChumpDumper
Now that your ashamed link line of questioning well has dried up why don't you actually try rebutting the claims from the post itself. You keep lol'ing at the source yet you've provided zero evidence to prove any of the actions by the BLM and FWS against the Hammonds false. Articles on the flooding and fence building have already been posted.
Already answered and if you are so curious and don't like what was given do your own researchQuote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
"Just an oversight."Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
lol
Now I want to know why you stonewalled for so long. Just seems really stupid.Quote:
Now that your ashamed link line of questioning well has dried up why don't you actually try rebutting the claims from the post itself.
If the Hammonds broke their agreements with those entities and had their rights revoked because of that, what is your argument?Quote:
You keep lol'ing at the source yet you've provided zero evidence to prove any of the actions by the BLM and FWS against the Hammonds false. Articles on the flooding and fence building have already been posted.
As for the flooding, the article says that's an ACoE issue. If you have evidence of collusion between them and the other two entities you are bitching about, post it.
And link it.
You haven't really said what the BLM did that was wrong. You just said they've been fucking with the the family for 50 years and then copy pasted a slew of partisan appeals to emotion. I am just trying to separate facts from stories (which you're quite to prone to) as you've clearly established yourself as on of the more emotional men on this site.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSanityAnnex
What is the motive of the BLM land grab? I just don't buy it. I think there are other factors at play here that you're refusing to acknowledge because they don't fit into your preconceived conclusion that the federal government is the bad guy.
Cliven Bundy denied bail as a “danger to the community”
http://redgreenandblue.org/2016/02/1...the-community/
:lmao
:lmao
Holy shit :rollinQuote:
Originally Posted by ElNono
Wish they'd have made one of brother Droopy.
Oregon militant accuses feds of committing ‘works of the devil’ in $666 :lol billion lawsuit
http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpen...00-800x430.jpg
Shawna Cox, who was arrested last month during the militant takeover at a federal reserve in Oregon, sued federal officials on Wednesday, accusing them of victimizing herself and her compatriots.“I am asking for criminal and civil penalties for the perpetrators that subjected me and my witnesses to the crimes I have identified herein,” the lawsuit stated. “I Claim I and the others involved in these actions have suffered damages from the works of the devil in excess of $666,666,666,666.66.”
Cox makes reference in the suit to her current indictment on federal conspiracy charges following her Jan. 26 arrest, stating that she intends to ask jurors to pursue criminal and civil charges against state and federal officials who were “involved in the ambush that attempted to execute myself and others and executed Lavoy Finicum.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/oreg...e+Raw+Story%29
No doubt shithead Shawna has plenty of supporters right here on STP.
Still less than Bush gave the banks
Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Tha REAL RedSkins
*since 1492
You do much better at fake black then fake mexican.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quetzal-X
The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding The Bundy Land Seizure Agenda
The political network of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch signaled last week that it is expanding its financial and organizational support for a coalition of anti-government activists and militants who are working to seize and sell America’s national forests, monuments, and other public lands.
The disclosure, made through emails sent by the American Lands Council and Koch-backed group Federalism in Action to their members, comes as the 40-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is winding to an end.
Though ClimateProgress has previously uncovered and reported on the dark money that the Kochs have provided for political efforts to seize and sell public lands, recent organizational changes reveal that the Koch network is providing direct support to the ringleader of the land grab movement, Utah state representative Ken Ivory, and has forged an alliance with groups and individuals who have militia ties and share extreme anti-government ideologies.
The expanded window into the Koch network’s support for the land transfer movement opened on February 3, 2016, when the American Lands Council (ALC) (a group whose goal is to pass state-level legislation demanding that the federal government turn over publicly owned national forests and other public lands) announced that Ivory would be stepping down as its president to join a South Carolina-based group called Federalism in Action (FIA).
At ALC, Ivory had risen to be the most prominent and active voice in the land seizure movement, but his tenure as president was plagued by evidence that the group violated state lobbying laws, was tied to the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and used taxpayer money to fund their campaigns to seize public lands.
Though he will continue to serve as an unpaid member of the American Lands Council executive committee, Ivory is joining the FIA’s “Free the Lands” project, a joint initiative between Federalism in Action and The American Lands Council Foundation.
This new “Free the Lands” project sits at the confluence of Koch funding, anti-government ideology, and land seizure activists and militants. The graphic below illustrates this web of funding, resources, and staff.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...-bundy-agenda/
Free the Lands to be raped by rapacious resource extractors.