Free Republic

None of us should ever rest in peace while authorities get away with calling incidents where ranchers, with whom they have ongoing disputes, cut down in a blaze of bullets, “routine traffic stops”. ..LaVoy Finicum was only one rancher, a citizen trying to eke out a living in a livelihood the government is making all but impossible with the smothering red tape of bureaucracy. And that’s why his death that came as he was standing knee-high in the Oregon snow is all the more unforgettably tragic. After being shot down in cold blood—as he was clearly signaling to armed federal...

"There's not a cowboy in this room that couldn't qualify for disability. We want to work. You're making us dependent upon the federal government for compensation. Our best direction to make a living is now in the form of compensation from the federal government. At the end of the day the only way money is generated is harvest the animal you grow. You're choppin' the legs out from under us. If we could make a living with wolves, there would still be wolves here. Not just cattle...elk and deer bring in money to the economy. But the wolf doesn't contribute....

Here is an emotional tribute to a good man who trusted in GOD, whose word was his bond and whose love of country could not be shaken. This slide journey traces the years of LaVoy Finicum's life as a child, teenager, father, grandfather and Christian Patriot. There aren't enough words...

Dead men walking toward a certain tragic end While 111.9 million viewers, making it the third most-watched television event in U.S. history, were watching the Super Bowl—a perfect captive audience for Beyonce’s halftime political tribute to Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panthers, this is what the strong arm of the government was doing. In the U.S. government agencies were getting ready to impose solitary confinement on all 16 participants in the Oregon standoff, held in custody with no criminal charges laid against them. Even most terrorists are spared solitary confinement. But Islamic terrorists have free reign over civilians,...

(Watch videos at link) For all those people who believe everything the one-sided, agenda-driven mainstream media has reported on this issue, please take a look at reality. The Oregon patriot militia takeover of the wildlife refuge began after ranchers were unfairly RE-sentenced under terrorism statutes for controlled burning of vegetation on federal land. Less than two weeks after the Hammonds were resentenced to five years -- that's sentenced twice for the same instance of the same "crime" they already did time for, just under different statutes -- the Bureau of Land Management was filmed setting uncontrolled, unmonitored fires to land...

Excerpted KANAB — Most of the people who came to the funeral of LaVoy Finicum didn't know the Arizona rancher personally. They came anyway, in trucks and campers and caravans, drawn either by kinship with the Finicum family or by sympathy for the cause that took him to rural Oregon. The Arizona rancher was one of the most recognizable faces of the armed standoff in Oregon, where a group of protesters seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in early January to protest what they said was federal overreach into Western rangelands. Finicum was shot dead by police on Jan. 26...

Political correctness has invaded our culture so thoroughly there are essentially two tiers of justice in this country. If you are a white, progressive, privileged hippy Millennial, or a Black Lives Matter activist, law enforcement and the legal system will bend over backward to accommodate your protests and acts of civil disobedience. The media will hype up any incident in your favor. In contrast, if you are a white, Christian, patriotic rural rancher raising cows for meat, you can expect to have the book thrown at you for the smallest infraction. If there is any media coverage, it will be...

If history holds true, the ranchers courageous enough to bring needed attention to land use rights being subverted by government regulation will be shackled, and the unjustifiable death of a good man will be overlooked Pathetic is the only word that could describe the skimmed over media treatment of the indiscriminate gunning down of a rancher in Oregon in favor of covering the non-news of Trump’s debate antics. A peaceful standoff in Harney County, Oregon, came to a violent end as a contingent of protesters were traveling to John Day, Oregon, to meet with the sheriff about resolving the Malheur...

Same practice landed ranchers in jail OKANOGAN, Wash. — It’s “outrageous and hypocritical” that the federal government imprisoned two Oregon ranchers for a backburn that got away from them and burned a little over 100 acres of public land while federal and state agencies backburned thousands of acres of private land in Okanogan County last summer and were not held accountable, the president of the Okanogan County Farm Bureau says.

Historic: Heavily Armed Idaho 3 Percenters Roll Up On FBI Compound (Pacific Patriot Network) This is the very first time in U.S. History that the Federal Bureau of Investigations has ever been confronted by heavily armed members of the Patriot community. The leadership team of the Pacific Patriot Network rolled up on the FBI compound with approximately 20 vehicles and entered into firm, but diplomatic dialogue with FBI agents. Again, to emphasize the significance of this historic event; the Constitutional Crisis at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is being peacefully resolved with direct intervention by the PPN. More updates, analysis...

You should have sympathy for the Hammond family. You should have sympathy for Steven and Dwight Hammond because they are, by all accounts, decent and generous community members attempting to survive as ranchers in the face of a massive federal bureaucracy violating their rights. Here's everything you need to know about the Hammond family and why they're now at the center of a national firestorm.

I was up half the night watching the Pete Santilli feed from the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. At one point, Santilli recorded Tony Dokoupil (pronounced "dook-ville," or perhaps more appropriately, "douche-ville") of MSNBC interviewing Ammon Bundy. Bundy gave a very long, patient interview, talking over loud diesel trucks in the background for a good 8-9 minutes. At the very end, Dokoupil said something like, "Your father, Cliven Bundy, made some racially divisive remarks. How do you feel about black people?" I'm screaming at the screen "That's irrelevant! Don't answer that! Walk away!" Bundy again made a very patient, soft-spoken answer defending...

The prosecutor that U.S. Attorney for Oregon Amanda Marshall is accused of stalking was at the time under 24-hour-a-day armed protective guard because of a contract Mexican drug dealers placed on his life. That news adds a bizarre turn in a situation that appears to have cost Marshall, the top federal prosecutor in Oregon, her job.

BURNS – The strangers carrying the whisper of danger arrived in the vast territory of the Harney Basin just before the holidays. Ammon Bundy once helped his father repulse the government in an armed showdown on a Nevada desert. He was Tasered for his effort. Ryan Payne, an electrician from Montana, joined that same standoff and boasted of organizing civilians into sniper squads that drew a bead on federal agents. And not long ago, Jon Ritzheimer worried the FBI with his threatening rants against Muslims in Arizona and elsewhere, according to press reports. Now, the men say, they are in...

The strangers carrying the whisper of danger arrived in the vast territory of the Harney Basin just before the holidays. Ammon Bundy once helped his father repulse the government in an armed showdown on a Nevada desert. He was Tasered for his effort. Ryan Payne, an electrician from Montana, joined that same standoff and boasted of organizing civilians into sniper squads that drew a bead on federal agents. And not long ago, Jon Ritzheimer worried the FBI with his threatening rants against Muslims in Arizona and elsewhere. Now, the men say, they are in Burns to help Dwight and Steven...

A growing number of state organizations seek to remedy what they consider negligent policies and shoddy oversight of public land on the part of federal agencies. Under the umbrella name Transfer of Public Lands, the movement offers a solution to the problem that is simple in concept: transfer ownership and management of public lands administered by federal agencies to equivalent state agencies. These agencies, being accountable to governors, state legislators and citizens, will manage the public lands in a more conscientious, cost-effective way. ... Unlike states east of the Continental Divide, public lands in Western states such as Washington and...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

Today two Oregon ranchers were sentenced to five years in federal prison under terrorism statutes for setting preventative fires on their own land. We are gravely disappointed at this outcome. “Elderly Harney County rancher Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, a former OFB Board member and Harney County Farm Bureau president, have already served time in federal prison for their mistakes and paid their debt to society for the less-than-140 acres of BLM land that was accidentally impacted by the fires. “This is an example of gross government overreach, and the public should be outraged. “Today’s verdict is also hypocritical...

Two allotments delayed pending more studies. A coalition of environmental groups have forced public land managers to delay a grazing permit decision on Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. Grand Canyon Trust, Western Watershed Project, Wild Earth Guardians, National Resource Defense Council, Wildlands Defense, the Sierra Club and Durango-based Great Old Broads for Wilderness collectively filed a 27-page protest against the proposed Flodine and Yellow Jacket grazing allotments on the monument ... they want the two allotments permanently closed to grazing ... The groups challenged a recent decision plan by the BLM to issue 10-year terms for the allotments, located...

Despite a long process involving collaboration between local officials the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Western Colorado, the federal land agency is proceeding with the closure of roads that have been traveled for 50 or more years. The road closures comprise a portion of the BLM’s Resource Management Plan (RMP) for Mesa County, of which, 73 percent is controlled by the federal government . ... public roads, used by off-roaders, hunters, farmers, ranchers and, during wildfire season, firefighting crews. ... Jody Green, a member of Public Lands Access Association and long-time activist working to preserve access into federally-managed lands,...