Free Republic

A group of Food and Drug Administration experts green lighting the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use... The coronavirus crackdown in Israel for the Purim holiday. On the first night of an overnight curfew more than 100 parties broken up and over 25-hundred citations issued... Rush Limbaugh laid to rest at a cemetery in St. Louis on Wednesday in a private ceremony ... The only deadly act of violence at the US Capitol on January 6th was by a US Capitol police officer who killed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.. "The new US administration should first and foremost...

The federal government (Trump Administration) will not appeal a judge's ruling that revoked a grazing permit for Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond..... The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, resigning. Berman to be replaced by Jay Clayton, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The US Attorney for New Jersey, Craig Carpentio, to take over as Acting US Attorney for Southern New York July 3rd..... Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said today that one of hte police officers involved in the March 13th killing of Breonna Taylor will be fired.... The Air Force Inspector General...

The United States imposing sanctions on four top generals from the country of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Those generals and their families banned from entering the USA because of the conflict in the predominately Buddhist country with the Rohingya Muslims. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blaming the generals for what are considered harsh policies against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country. The Myanmar government views the conflict a a fight with Islamic terrorism. A "partial preliminary injunction" from a federal judge against ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond in Oregon Tuesday.... The US House voting 240-187 to condemn President Trump for...

A death sentence from France's Court of Cassation for quadriplegic patient Vincent Lambert late Friday afternoon..... An attempt by the federal government to compromise with environmentalists failed Friday morning as three groups that want an injunction to stop Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond from using federal land for grazing rejected it..... They are arguably the most demonized leaders in the world and on Friday US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were together with President Trump in a jovial mood..... President Trump tweeting about his next stop following the G 20, South Korea.... At Gallargues-le-Monteux in southern...

His action makes right a heartless judicial excess - in keeping with the purpose of clemency For Immediate Release Date: July 10, 2018 Contact: Tanner Hanson Tanner.Hanson@mail.house.gov WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today,  Members of the Congressional Western Caucus including Chairman Paul Gosar (AZ-04), House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (UT-01), House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (OR-02), Chief Rules Officer Dan Newhouse (WA-04) and Western Caucus Member Doug LaMalfa (CA-01) issued statements following the announcement of President Trump's decision to issue full pardons for Dwight and Steven Hammond of Oregon:  Congressman Gosar stated, “Besides being a commendable application of the...

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon ranchers whose arson conviction became a focus for opponents of federal government land ownership. Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son Steven, 49, were convicted in 2012 and sent to prison on arson charges. They had set a series of fires on their ranch that spread to federal land. The Hammonds’ case became the inspiration for the 40-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The organizers wanted to protest federal land ownership. The Hammonds distanced themselves from the occupiers and didn't endorse the action. In a statement Tuesday...

Oregon Republican Congressman Greg Walden says President Trump called him late yesterday (Saturday June 30th) to say he is "seriously considering' a pardon for Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. Walden, who represents the Hammonds in Congress, said that he "again strongly urged the president to administer the justice that is long overdue" and blamed the prosecution of the Hammonds on the Obama Administration. But Ammon Bundy, who led the early 2016 Oregon Standoff protest centered at the Malheur Nationa Wildlife Refuge on the Hammonds, says more needs to be done than just releasing them from prison. In a Facebook...

The Oregon State Bar will move ahead with ethics charges against the state's former top federal prosecutor who lied about a sexual relationship with an underling. The agency's disciplinary board met Saturday to review the bar investigation into Amanda Marshall, who resigned in 2015 amid a federal inquiry into her relationship with an assistant prosecutor in her office. The panel determined there was probable cause to bring ethics charges against Marshall for violating rules dealing with honesty and trustworthiness. The case now advances to the trial phase. A panel will convene, likely sometime in the spring, to determine if Marshall...

United States Representative Greg Walden of Oregon has been a lone advocate for the rural interests of his state amid a forest of progressive politicians and radical special interest groups. During the so-called Oregon Standoff, when a group of ranchers protested the convictions of Dwayne and Steven Hammond under federal terrorism statutes in late 2015, Representative Walden took a courageous stand for property rights and balance in cases such as that of the Hammonds. The Oregon Standoff was not some random, ‘anti-government’ riot by right-wing extremists. It was a public demonstration against the unjust, overreaching, and cruel treatment of the...

As I was writing today’s previous article on the Bundy Ranch case and asking whether or not the government hid the Inspector General’s report that found a Bureau of Land Management agent, allegedly Daniel P. Love, guilty of misconduct, I referenced what the prosecution wanted to shield the court from seeing and hearing. So, I thought I would take the things they wanted to keep the court from seeing and hearing and expose them in this article. We’ll take each of these one at a time and you tell me if you can see why they would like to have...

It was a rough morning for U.S. attorneys arguing the federal government’s case against Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and six other defendants accused of conspiring to occupy an Oregon wildlife refuge. A visibly frustrated Judge Anna Brown struck from the record a previous ruling that effectively allowed evidence from defendants’ Facebook accounts into next month’s trial. Despite calling an assistant U.S. attorney, two legal assistants and an FBI agent as witnesses, prosecutors weren’t able to explain to the court how protected information from 11 Facebook accounts used by defendants ended up being shared as part of discovery. Judge Brown ordered...

The Harassment of the Hammonds Upon examination of the government’s trail of paperwork spanning a period of nearly two decades , between the Hammonds and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR), it is apparent that they were being persecuted by the federal government for simply insisting upon exercising their historical right to trail cattle. This began long before the controlled burn in 2002 and the backfire in 2006 that resulted in them being sentenced to five years in federal prison. What is plainly “a long train of abuses” has been well documented...

Forget China, guns or immigration. Donald Trump is taking on a new issue: federal land ownership. In a new op-ed for the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Republican presidential front-runner rails against the "draconian rule" of the Bureau of Land Management and the Obama administration's "land grab" in the western United States. "The BLM controls over 85 percent of the land in Nevada," Trump explains. "In the rural areas, those who for decades have had access to public lands for ranching, mining, logging and energy development are forced to deal with arbitrary and capricious rules that are influenced by special interests that...

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.

Well, well, well ....

Ammon Bundy on Monday night responded to allegations that he and a group of armed individuals occupying a federal building in Oregon are "terrorists." "There’s been a lot of social media discussion about what you all are doing out here," a CNN reporter told Bundy. "They've used words like 'Ya'll Qaeda' and 'Vanilla ISIS.' And while they sound like funny names, they are basically calling you terrorists. How do you respond to these kinds of accusations?'

Here is the 9th Circuit Appeals Court decision on the Hammond case. It cites the law under which they were sentenced. It also details the "arsons" which include damage of one acre by fire of BLM land in two occasions plus the escape of the fire that burned the 139 acres. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/02/07/12-30337.pdf Section 844(f) which they were sentenced under was amended on April 24, 1996, by the Antiterrorism Act of 1996, to exclude Federal jurisdiction for offenses against institutions or organizations receiving Federal assistance. Additionally, the subsection was subdivided and a system of tiered penalties created according to the type...

Embattled Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy told OPB that approximately 150 militiamen have occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Building on Saturday evening. The militiamen are in Burns, Oregon to support Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond. They're ranchers convicted of arson, who are due to report to prison on Monday. The militiamen broke in to the federal building with supplies, including food and a generator. Cliven Bundy spoke to his son, Ammon Bundy, on the phone after they occupied the building. "He told me that they were there for the long run. I guess they figured they're going to be...

Three of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's sons and what they claim are 150 militia members have occupied a federal building in eastern Oregon in order to keep two local ranchers out of prison, according to local reports. The group is believed to be heavily-armed. According to The Oregonian, the group seized the headquarters building at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge about 50 miles outside Burns, Ore. The remote facility was closed and unoccupied at the time. Bundy and his supporters were in Oregon after two men were scheduled to go to prison on Monday for setting fires on federal land, according...