Free Republic

President Donald Trump pardoned two Oregon ranchers forced back into prison in 2016 to serve out the rest of the mandatory minimum sentence required under an anti-terrorism law. “The Hammonds are multi-generation cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land,” the White House said in a statement. “The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges. Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted of committing arson on federal land in 2012 under an anti-terrorism...

A federal judge dismissed all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and another man on Monday after accusing prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited "flagrant prosecutorial misconduct" in her decision to dismiss all charges against the Nevada rancher and three others. "The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," Navarro said. “Either the government lied or [it’s actions were] so grossly negligent as to be tantamount to lying." - Judge Andrew Napolitano Bundy's supporters cheered as he walked out of court a free man, hugging...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A U.S. court has sided with a New Mexico ranching family in a decades-long battle over access to water on national forest land, providing more certainty that state law allows for the protection of water rights dating back more than a century. The case of the Goss family has been closely watched by thousands of ranchers who hold grazing permits across the West. Attorneys and others say the outcome could have ripple effects on ranchers and rural communities that have often complained about federal land managers trampling property rights. The Goss family claimed the federal government violated...

Bravo to the the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and the Oregonian for helping release the truth from that cage The truth will always out. The truth will always out even when top authorities squat on it for five long months in efforts to suppress it from ever finding sunlight. “An FBI agent has been indicted and accused of lying about firing shots at slain Oregon militia member LaVoy Finicum during a fatal roadside encounter, according to (a) report.” (NY Daily News, June 28, 2017)

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...

Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration's Waters of the U.S. rule WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump has signed another executive order that will impact farmers and ranchers. Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule. Senator Heitkamp says it’s time for Congress to act by giving the EPA direction on what water is jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act. Senator Hoeven says the rule was a regulatory overreach that...

There is no practical rationale behind any federal agency having a private army to bully, extort and ultimately endanger American citizens. When it comes to disparate groups of protesters who claim to value the land, the line is drawn definitively between the raucous, violent rabble that descended upon the Cannonball River in North Dakota and the orderly numbers that arrived at Malheur Wildlife Refuge and the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. Let’s list the differences, shall we?

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

The Environmental Protection Agency has violated the personal privacy of tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, according to a unanimous ruling issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The ruling in American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council vs. EPA concerned the federal agency's 2013 release to three environmental groups of a vast compilation of spreadsheets containing personal information about farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and poultry in 29 states. The case also related to similar personal information from farmers and ranchers in seven additional states that had yet to be...

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...

On Tuesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally announced the removal of the lesser prairie chicken from the endangered species protection list. They did not take this step voluntarily; FWS lost a court case last year which ordered the agency to remove the bird from the list. However, even as they complied with the court’s order, the FWS issued a threat that the agency’s land grab under the guise of conservation was not over. In the words of Director Dan Ashe, “Responding to this court ruling by removing the bird from the Federal List does not mean we are...

An animal rights group is up in arms after a study suggested that beef from cows that graze naturally outside has a higher environmental impact than beef from cows fattened on farms. The study, published by the Swiss federal government’s agricultural research body, Agroscope, last month, compared the environmental effect of cows raised on alpine pastures in the summer and those reared on farms complying with the Terra-Suisse label. The report found that, since cows reared on pastures graze on natural grasses, they take around 20 months to reach the required weight for slaughter, compared with 15 months for cows...

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-04) questions BLM Director Neil Kornze during a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing about the coordination between the White House and the BLM to lock up more public lands in Western states using the Antiquities Act.

B.J. Soper of Redmond, member of Pacific Patriots Network, and former Harney County fire official Chris Briels speak at Bend news conference Tuesday, one of four held around West refuting federal claims of millions in damage caused to Malheur Refuge during 41-day occupation BEND, Ore. - Supporters of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge occupiers who were arrested at the end of the 41-day takeover held four news conferences Tuesday at which they claimed it was the federal government -- not the occupiers -- who caused the damage in recently released photos. At the Bend event outside the Deschutes County Courthouse,...

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...