Free Republic

If only the Trump administration would step in and demand fairness from the Bureau of Land Management for ranchers and farmers in memory of the late LaVoy Finicum No rancher’s cattle straying away to graze the grass on land the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers their own will ever get away with it. While seven ranchers still languish in jail awaiting trial from incidents connected to the 2016 Malheur National Forest Standoff where rancher LaVoy Finicum was shot down under questionable circumstances, up to 30,000 aimless hangers on to the Rainbow Family of Living Light have outfoxed he BLM...

Concern is growing in a conservative, remote corner of Oregon as people start arriving in a national forest for a Rainbow Family of Living Light annual gathering, a counter-culture get-together expected to draw thousands. Officials with the Malheur National Forest said this week that around 600 Rainbow Family members are already camped at a gathering site near Flagtail Meadow and that between 10,000 and 30,000 are likely arriving by July 4, when the multi-day event peaks with a prayer for world peace. People with small children, those with disabilities and senior citizens were among those who wrote to the event's...

James Swan parked his old Dodge alongside the South Dakota visitor center, where grungy hippies were sprawled on a lawn and passing around a feather. The two-dozen vagabonds are planning to unleash thousands of their brethren into the Black Hills for prayer and free thinking. But Swan wasn’t feeling the peace and love. “We don’t want you here. You have no f—king respect for Lakota people!” the 54-year-old Native American yelled into a mic attached to his truck. His T-shirt bore another message: portraits of warriors who had shellacked the U.S. Army in the Battle of Little Bighorn, alongside the...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Authorities are preparing for the nudity and free-spiritedness they expect to take over a corner of national forest about 40 miles east of Salt Lake City. The first revelers are setting up camp this week at the annual Rainbow Family gathering in northern Utah, and attendance is expected to total about 10,000. They have begun building kitchens and pitching tents in advance of their July 4 celebration. The group has already crashed a nearby wedding reception, raiding platters and forgoing any effort to blend in, members of the party reported to the Wasatch County police.

Marijuana and psychedelic drugs abound ...Around 3,500 people were already camping out in the Skookum Meadows area -- and organizers said the number would likely triple the population of Skamania Co. Skamania County Sheriff Dave Brown said his department has used the past two weeks to prepare for the influx of as many as 20,000 visitors. “We're obviously a small county and our resources are limited. We have a small jail that's two-thirds full right now and we could fill that up over the next week,” Brown said. “Yeah, I'm concerned about that and I'm concerned the taxpayers in this...

Police Charge Campers With Trespassing, Illegal Camping. Seven people have been arrested after they were found sleeping on the roof of the Boulder Public Library. The Rainbow Family is also known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light...

The Rainbow Gathering and the U.S. Forest Service continue to trade charges over the festival that is expected to draw 10,000 people to a Northern New Mexico forest by Independence Day. More than 200 people so far have had to travel 240 miles round-trip from the site in the Santa Fe National Forest near Cuba, N.M., to Albuquerque to see U.S. Chief Magistrate Lorenzo Garcia ... Forest Service spokeswoman Denise Ottaviano said only six of the arrests have been for felonies — assault on a federal officer, theft of government property, damage to government property and conspiracy. Seized drugs, she...

Authorities have recorded more than 370 incidents, including 120 violation notices, in the past week as people flock to the Santa Fe National Forest ... between 10,000 and 12,000 people are expected to attend the gathering from July 1-7. Forest Service spokesman Lawrence Lujan says most of the violation notices handed out since June 14 are related to alcohol, and drug and traffic violations. Some of the people who were issued notices were required to appear Monday in federal court in Albuquerque.

Between 5,000 and 10,000 people are expected to attend July 1-7. The gathering will be 22 road miles northeast of Cuba and southeast of the San Pedro Parks Wilderness.

Members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America who had to change their service project plans in Wyoming when the U.S. Forest Service instead allowed the Rainbow Family hippie group to use a location the Scouts had sought now are helping the federal agency fight a forest fire in the state. According to a report in the Casper Star-Tribune the Scouts, some of an estimated 1,000 members of the Order of the Arrow in the state, have "stepped in" to help firefighters in the Bridger-Teton National Forest fight the New Fork Lakes fire, about 19 miles north...

Five members of the “Rainbow Family” — a loose-knit band of hippies that preaches love, tolerance and peace and is best known for its large gatherings every July — were arrested Tuesday night by Boulder County sheriff’s deputies after a violent brawl broke out at the group’s campsite near Ward. at a fight had broken out among a group of a dozen people camping out in the area of Ruby Gulch, located on state Forest Service property ... When deputies arrived, witnesses reported that one man, a Nederland resident aged 34 or 35, was hit in the back of the...

National Forest Service officials, surrounded and attacked yesterday in Wyoming with sticks and stones by 400 members of the Rainbow Family, were given reason to regret their decision to cancel a long-planned national service project by the Boy Scouts of America in favor of the unorganized annual gathering of hippies, anarchists and "free spirits" who commune with nature and each other. According to a statement released by the Forest Service's Incident Command Team in Rock Springs, Wyo., officers patrolling the main meadow of the seven-day event held near Sandy Springs made contact with a man who fled and was later...

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses. "They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident. "People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show." About 7,000 people have arrived at the gathering near Big Sandy in the Wind River Mountains for the annual Gathering of the Tribes, a seven-day event...

By CHRIS MERRILL Star-Tribune environment reporter Tuesday, June 24, 2008 > LANDER -- Since Rainbow Family participants have chosen to stay put at Big Sandy in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, leaders with the Boy Scouts of America have decided to alter plans for a major service project that had been scheduled to take place in the same general area. > > Leaders with the Boy Scouts' Order of the Arrow have decided to cancel a long-planned forest restoration project near Dutch Joe Guard Station in the Wind Rivers, said Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman with the Bridger-Teton National Forest. > > The...

Biggest concern is human and dog waste contained in a trench, Forest Service says... Between 300 and 500 people remain in Big Red Park this week after the mass exodus of people from the Rainbow Gathering in Medicine Bow/Routt County National Forest. The Forest Service is working with these people this week to develop the environmental rehabilitation process, after an estimated 15,000 people attended the annual event. So far, approximately 600 citations have been distributed by the Forest Service for camping and parking violations. The Forest Service’s biggest concern regarding the rehabilitation is the human and dog waste, which is...

The Yampa Valley Medical Center will have provided more than $100,000 in medical care that probably won't be repaid. The Routt County Humane Society scrambled to vaccinate dozens of dogs after an outbreak of the deadly parvovirus, and officials fear there could be as many as 200 pets abandoned. And the Forest Service, which spent nearly $800,000 just for its incident-management team, will be left with the task of rehabilitating the land. Numerous Rainbows are staying behind to help with site recovery, but it could take years for Big Red Park to look normal again.

Now that the Rainbow Family is wrapping up its annual return to nature, the U.S. Forest Service is examining what it will take to return their campsite to its natural state. -snip- "It's shocking," Ottaviano said. "Now there's just this enormous trail system" in a previously pristine area.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - A request for a permit for what's often described as a huge gathering of hippies was denied Thursday as U.S. Forest Service officials expressed concern over wildfire danger and frustration at trying to work with the group. About 2,000 people have showed up at the Rainbow Family's gathering spot on Routt National Forest land about 30 miles northeast of here. The weeklong July 4th event is expected to draw between 15,000 and 20,000 people to the forest. "The group showed up without any coordination with the forest service, even after numerous attempts," forest Supervisor Mary Peterson said...

Morgantown, W.Va. -- The U.S. Forest Service has turned dozens of campers away from a Rainbow Family gathering in the Monongahela National Forest, saying the counterculture group has not signed a group-use permit for the event. Although the gathering does not officially begin until June 25, campers have already begun streaming into West Virginia. The Rainbows estimate as many as 17,000 people could attend the event. On Wednesday, a team of Forest Service officers began turning campers away, citing a noncommercial use permit for the park that is required for groups of 75 or more.