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Why won't conservatives utter the words "Radical Christian Terrorism?"
Dec 16, 2016 01:30:01 #
RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS ARE A BIGGER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN ISIS
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-militants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
Inside a storefront Chinese restaurant in upstate New York, neon light from a multicolored window sign glowed on the face of an extremist plotting mass murder. He had been seeking backing for his attack and, at this small establishment in Scotia, was meeting with a man who had agreed to take part in his scheme to build a radiation device, a weapon of mass destruction that would slowly and painfully k**l anyone who walked near it.
“Everything with respiration would be dead by morning,’’ the man who devised the attack told his confederate in tortured English. “How much sweeter could there be than a big stack of smelly bodies?”
But there would be no attack. The purported accomplice at Ming’s Flavor restaurant in June 2012 was an FBI informant, and the discussion had been recorded. In the months that followed, another man joined the plot. Finally, in June 2013, with the conspirators hard at work on their ghastly weapon, armed FBI agents swooped in, storming a warehouse in Schaghticoke and arresting them.Their names were Glen and Eric.
Clearly, these were not the typical “Islamic terrorists” described in the boogeyman stories of American politicians who exploit fear for v**es. Glendon Crawford, the industrial mechanic who conceived the plan, has all the panache of a Macy’s shoe salesman; Eric Feight, a software engineer who helped build the device, looks like a less impish version of Kurt Vonnegut. But their harmless appearance belies their beliefs—Crawford was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the plot he hatched with Feight involved k*****g scores of Muslims, as well as officials at the governor’s mansion in Albany, New York and at the White House.They and untold thousands like them are the extremists who hide among us, the right-wing militants who, since 2002, have k**led more people in the United States than jihadis have. In that time, according to New America, a Washington think tank, Islamists launched nine attacks that murdered 45, while the right-wing extremists struck 18 times, leaving 48 dead. These Americans thrive on h**e and conspiracy theories, many fed to them by politicians and commentators who blithely blather about government concentration camps and impending martial law and plans to seize guns and other dystopian gibberish, apparently unaware there are people listening who don’t know it’s all lies. These extremists turn to violence—against minorities, non-Christians, a******n providers, government officials—in what they believe is a fight to save America. And that potential for violence is escalating every day.
“Law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face,” the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reported this past June, based on surveys of 382 law enforcement groups.The problem is getting worse, although few outside of law enforcement know it. Multiple confidential sources notified the FBI last year that m*****a members have been conducting surveillance on Muslim schools, community centers and mosques in nine states for what one informant described as “operational purposes.” Informants also notified federal law enforcement that Mississippi m*****a extremists discussed kidnapping and beheading a Muslim, then posting a video of the decapitation on the Internet. The FBI also learned that right-wing extremists have created bogus law enforcement and diplomatic identifications, not because these radicals want to pretend to be police and ambassadors, but because they believe they hold those positions in a government they have created within the United States.The unusual—and often daffy—world view of some right-wing extremists was on daily display during the January armed takeover of federal facilities at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Expressing dismay that two ranchers convicted of arson were ordered to serve out the remainder of their mandatory minimum prison sentences, members of various m*****a groups occupied a building at the wildlife refuge, declaring their willingness to fight the government and, if necessary, die for their cause. They proclaimed that the federal government was tyrannical, that the Constitution is under siege.
The Malheur occupiers were belittled on late night talk shows and social media as “y’all-Qaeda” and “yee-haw-dists,” but what was unfolding in Oregon wasn’t funny—it was frightening. These people speak of martyrdom, bloodbaths and k*****gs, sentiments that can be heard on any Islamist recruitment video. And when law enforcement finally took action on January 26 in a mass arrest, one of the m*****a members, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum—who had proclaimed he would rather die than go to jail—was shot dead.
And while those right-wing m*****a members were occupying federal land, other extremists around the country were hard at work. Fliers seeking recruits for the KKK appeared on lawns and doors in Alabama, California, Georgia, New Jersey and Oklahoma. In Johannesburg, California, police discovered bombs and booby traps in the home of a man who threatened to blow up the Bureau of Land Management (B*M) and other federal buildings. In Colorado Springs, a w***e s*********t suspected of being connected to the 2013 murder of Colorado’s prison chief was shot and wounded in a firefight with police. In Lafayette, Louisiana, officials released the diary of the man who k**led two people at a movie theater this past summer—it was filled with rage against the federal government and praise for a r****t k**ler. In Oakdale, California, two honey farmers were charged with fraud involving a scheme by extremists who declare they are not bound by the laws of any government. And the day after the first arrests of the Malheur occupiers, a New Hampshire man who told an FBI informant he was part of a group that wanted to bring back “the original Constitution,” and had as much as $200,000 on hand for explosives and rockets, was taken into custody after he illegally purchased hand grenades.
Who are these right-wing militants? And what makes them believe Americans have to engage in armed combat with their own government rather than v**e, k**l their fellow citizens rather than tolerate differences, blow up buildings rather than just get a job? Billions of words have been written and spoken on violent Islamic extremists. The time has come to do the same for the good old-fashioned Americans who may pose the greatest threat to us all.A Fairy Tale of ViolenceThey aren’t all like Timothy McVeigh.McVeigh, the infamous anti-government extremist, murdered 168 people in 1995 when he detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. But not all of these violent right-wing radicals agree with McVeigh’s beliefs or have the capability to execute such a devastating attack. In fact, these militants are a surprisingly diverse lot. Experts say there are three distinct groups, including some factions that despise one another.
According to Arie Perliger, director of terrorism studies at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the three ideologies within the violent American far-right are r****t, anti-federalist and fundamentalist. Each has subgroups—the r****ts include w***e s*******y groups such as the KKK, neo-N**is and skinheads, which can differ in subtle ways. The anti-federalists include m*****as, self-defined “patriot” groups and what are so-called “sovereign citizens,’’ who hold that they are legally bound only by their personal interpretation of common law and are otherwise not subject to federal, state or local laws. The fundamentalists are primarily Christian identity groups that believe the biblical war of good vs. evil is between descendants of Anglo-Saxon nations and all other ethnic groups. Tangential to the fundamentalists are the anti-a******n attackers, who also invoke religion as a foundational motive for their violence. These disparate groups of people—violent and nonviolent—pine for different versions of a highly idealized past.The granddaddy of the three in the United States is the r****t movement, the modern iteration of which is usually traced to the formation of the KKK in 1865. The Christian Identity movement began a few decades later, with the emergence of believers who subscribed to the theology of John Wilson, a British man who argued that the lost tribes of Israel had settled in northern Europe. The anti-federalists are much younger, exploding onto the scene in the early 1990s with prominent groups such as the M*****a of Montana and the Michigan M*****a; many experts maintain that the movement was a product of the financial crisis for farms in the 1980s, rapid economic and cultural change, and the adoption of gun control and environmental protection laws. In recent years, an explosion in the number of m*****as has been linked by experts to the beginning of the Great Recession in December 2007 and the e******n of Barack Obama months later. In 2008, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 42 m*****a groups; today, there are 276.And although they are frequently dismissed as people with crazy beliefs, right-wing extremists often seem like the guy next door. While experts say many of these individuals are paranoid and narcissistic, with strong anti-democratic tendencies, “the most common trait among terrorists is normalcy,” says Perliger of West Point.What drives them, according to studies, is not so much ideology as their social network. When friends and associates all proclaim that the government is destroying freedom, or that all Muslims are terrorists, or that minorities are d**gging down the country, the social pressure to conform with that opinion is intense.
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-militants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-militants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
Inside a storefront Chinese restaurant in upstate New York, neon light from a multicolored window sign glowed on the face of an extremist plotting mass murder. He had been seeking backing for his attack and, at this small establishment in Scotia, was meeting with a man who had agreed to take part in his scheme to build a radiation device, a weapon of mass destruction that would slowly and painfully k**l anyone who walked near it.
“Everything with respiration would be dead by morning,’’ the man who devised the attack told his confederate in tortured English. “How much sweeter could there be than a big stack of smelly bodies?”
But there would be no attack. The purported accomplice at Ming’s Flavor restaurant in June 2012 was an FBI informant, and the discussion had been recorded. In the months that followed, another man joined the plot. Finally, in June 2013, with the conspirators hard at work on their ghastly weapon, armed FBI agents swooped in, storming a warehouse in Schaghticoke and arresting them.Their names were Glen and Eric.
Clearly, these were not the typical “Islamic terrorists” described in the boogeyman stories of American politicians who exploit fear for v**es. Glendon Crawford, the industrial mechanic who conceived the plan, has all the panache of a Macy’s shoe salesman; Eric Feight, a software engineer who helped build the device, looks like a less impish version of Kurt Vonnegut. But their harmless appearance belies their beliefs—Crawford was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the plot he hatched with Feight involved k*****g scores of Muslims, as well as officials at the governor’s mansion in Albany, New York and at the White House.They and untold thousands like them are the extremists who hide among us, the right-wing militants who, since 2002, have k**led more people in the United States than jihadis have. In that time, according to New America, a Washington think tank, Islamists launched nine attacks that murdered 45, while the right-wing extremists struck 18 times, leaving 48 dead. These Americans thrive on h**e and conspiracy theories, many fed to them by politicians and commentators who blithely blather about government concentration camps and impending martial law and plans to seize guns and other dystopian gibberish, apparently unaware there are people listening who don’t know it’s all lies. These extremists turn to violence—against minorities, non-Christians, a******n providers, government officials—in what they believe is a fight to save America. And that potential for violence is escalating every day.
“Law enforcement agencies in the United States consider anti-government violent extremists, not radicalized Muslims, to be the most severe threat of political violence that they face,” the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reported this past June, based on surveys of 382 law enforcement groups.The problem is getting worse, although few outside of law enforcement know it. Multiple confidential sources notified the FBI last year that m*****a members have been conducting surveillance on Muslim schools, community centers and mosques in nine states for what one informant described as “operational purposes.” Informants also notified federal law enforcement that Mississippi m*****a extremists discussed kidnapping and beheading a Muslim, then posting a video of the decapitation on the Internet. The FBI also learned that right-wing extremists have created bogus law enforcement and diplomatic identifications, not because these radicals want to pretend to be police and ambassadors, but because they believe they hold those positions in a government they have created within the United States.The unusual—and often daffy—world view of some right-wing extremists was on daily display during the January armed takeover of federal facilities at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Expressing dismay that two ranchers convicted of arson were ordered to serve out the remainder of their mandatory minimum prison sentences, members of various m*****a groups occupied a building at the wildlife refuge, declaring their willingness to fight the government and, if necessary, die for their cause. They proclaimed that the federal government was tyrannical, that the Constitution is under siege.
The Malheur occupiers were belittled on late night talk shows and social media as “y’all-Qaeda” and “yee-haw-dists,” but what was unfolding in Oregon wasn’t funny—it was frightening. These people speak of martyrdom, bloodbaths and k*****gs, sentiments that can be heard on any Islamist recruitment video. And when law enforcement finally took action on January 26 in a mass arrest, one of the m*****a members, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum—who had proclaimed he would rather die than go to jail—was shot dead.
And while those right-wing m*****a members were occupying federal land, other extremists around the country were hard at work. Fliers seeking recruits for the KKK appeared on lawns and doors in Alabama, California, Georgia, New Jersey and Oklahoma. In Johannesburg, California, police discovered bombs and booby traps in the home of a man who threatened to blow up the Bureau of Land Management (B*M) and other federal buildings. In Colorado Springs, a w***e s*********t suspected of being connected to the 2013 murder of Colorado’s prison chief was shot and wounded in a firefight with police. In Lafayette, Louisiana, officials released the diary of the man who k**led two people at a movie theater this past summer—it was filled with rage against the federal government and praise for a r****t k**ler. In Oakdale, California, two honey farmers were charged with fraud involving a scheme by extremists who declare they are not bound by the laws of any government. And the day after the first arrests of the Malheur occupiers, a New Hampshire man who told an FBI informant he was part of a group that wanted to bring back “the original Constitution,” and had as much as $200,000 on hand for explosives and rockets, was taken into custody after he illegally purchased hand grenades.
Who are these right-wing militants? And what makes them believe Americans have to engage in armed combat with their own government rather than v**e, k**l their fellow citizens rather than tolerate differences, blow up buildings rather than just get a job? Billions of words have been written and spoken on violent Islamic extremists. The time has come to do the same for the good old-fashioned Americans who may pose the greatest threat to us all.A Fairy Tale of ViolenceThey aren’t all like Timothy McVeigh.McVeigh, the infamous anti-government extremist, murdered 168 people in 1995 when he detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. But not all of these violent right-wing radicals agree with McVeigh’s beliefs or have the capability to execute such a devastating attack. In fact, these militants are a surprisingly diverse lot. Experts say there are three distinct groups, including some factions that despise one another.
According to Arie Perliger, director of terrorism studies at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the three ideologies within the violent American far-right are r****t, anti-federalist and fundamentalist. Each has subgroups—the r****ts include w***e s*******y groups such as the KKK, neo-N**is and skinheads, which can differ in subtle ways. The anti-federalists include m*****as, self-defined “patriot” groups and what are so-called “sovereign citizens,’’ who hold that they are legally bound only by their personal interpretation of common law and are otherwise not subject to federal, state or local laws. The fundamentalists are primarily Christian identity groups that believe the biblical war of good vs. evil is between descendants of Anglo-Saxon nations and all other ethnic groups. Tangential to the fundamentalists are the anti-a******n attackers, who also invoke religion as a foundational motive for their violence. These disparate groups of people—violent and nonviolent—pine for different versions of a highly idealized past.The granddaddy of the three in the United States is the r****t movement, the modern iteration of which is usually traced to the formation of the KKK in 1865. The Christian Identity movement began a few decades later, with the emergence of believers who subscribed to the theology of John Wilson, a British man who argued that the lost tribes of Israel had settled in northern Europe. The anti-federalists are much younger, exploding onto the scene in the early 1990s with prominent groups such as the M*****a of Montana and the Michigan M*****a; many experts maintain that the movement was a product of the financial crisis for farms in the 1980s, rapid economic and cultural change, and the adoption of gun control and environmental protection laws. In recent years, an explosion in the number of m*****as has been linked by experts to the beginning of the Great Recession in December 2007 and the e******n of Barack Obama months later. In 2008, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 42 m*****a groups; today, there are 276.And although they are frequently dismissed as people with crazy beliefs, right-wing extremists often seem like the guy next door. While experts say many of these individuals are paranoid and narcissistic, with strong anti-democratic tendencies, “the most common trait among terrorists is normalcy,” says Perliger of West Point.What drives them, according to studies, is not so much ideology as their social network. When friends and associates all proclaim that the government is destroying freedom, or that all Muslims are terrorists, or that minorities are d**gging down the country, the social pressure to conform with that opinion is intense.
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremists-militants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
Dec 16, 2016 05:05:06 #
No doubt there are quite a few loons out there including all those who think the world has come to an end because the ugly old b***h they backed wasn't elected Pres ! 
Dec 17, 2016 07:08:19 #
Keenan wrote:
RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS ARE A BIGGER THREAT TO AMERI... (show quote)
Just another flawed view from the Left Coast. You lost, time to get over it.
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Dec 17, 2016 14:13:22 #
ejrmaine wrote:
Just another flawed view from the Left Coast. You lost, time to get over it.
Just an empty ad hominem attack and hand waving dismissal. Try again. Address some specific points in the article, and then specify what they got wrong using evidence and facts.
Dec 17, 2016 14:21:00 #
ejrmaine wrote:
Just another flawed view from the Left Coast. You lost, time to get over it.
Good grief, this has nothing to do with who won the e******n. Are you really this dumb?
OF COURSE Trump form the Dump won. That has nothing to do with this post.
If you disagree with this article, then by all means state your points and use some facts to dispute it. This repeated parroting of "We won" or "You lost" is meaningless and incredibly stupid.
Dec 17, 2016 14:36:09 #
Is this an example of f**e news?
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
Dec 17, 2016 14:51:31 #
davefales wrote:
Is this an example of f**e news?
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
You can make the same argument about Islamic Terrorism. There is nothing in the Koran that advocates terrorism, any more than the Christian Bible advocates terrorism. Just a bunch of nutty extremists who claim they are righteously committing violence in the name of their god, in both cases.
Dec 17, 2016 18:53:37 #
You might read the Koran a little more closely. Islam means "submission". The Koran MANDATES that non-believers be converted, subjugated as dhimmis, or k**led. Sunnis and Shiites blow each other up regularly because of that last clause. And they have done it to Westerners.
Dec 17, 2016 18:58:42 #
davefales wrote:
You need to read the Koran a little more closely. Islam means "submission". The Koran MANDATES that non-believers be converted, subjugated as dhimmis, or k**led. Sunnis and Shiites blow each other up regularly because of that last clause. And they have done it to Westerners.
Oh, we have a Koran scholar here. That's great! I didn't know you were a Koran scholar, Dave. Then please, pray tell, quote the Koran and cite the page numbers where it advocates terrorism. Should be easy for you since you read the Koran (or so you pretend).
Dec 17, 2016 21:33:46 #
Dec 17, 2016 21:50:25 #
davefales wrote:
http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html
Just a naked link? Oh, so you haven't read the Koran then?
Why don't you state some claims, provide some arguments, or specify what the OP article got wrong, and then quote the relevant documents to evidence your arguments.
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Dec 17, 2016 22:22:22 #
I'm curious. Do you believe Sunnis and Shiites have been massacring each other for centuries?
Dec 18, 2016 01:28:43 #
Keenan,
You really ought to look more carefully at the entire story behind the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation.
I am not supporting their decision to occupy the refuge. However, there were two events that led up to that occupation where the government overstepped their authority and in both cases lied about what really happened.
The Bundy family had been ranching in Nevada for more than 100 years. When the Bureau of Land Management was founded the first B*M manager in that part of Nevada claimed that the land the Bundy's were ranching on was federal land. The Bundy's initially were going to go to court claiming that they they legally owned the land.
However, a local politician stepped in and mediated a settlement where the Bundy's gave up all claim to the land and the federal government agreed to lease the land to the Bundy's in perpetuity for $1 an acre. Approximately 25 years ago the federal government arbitrarily raised the lease price despite the agreement. The Bundy's attempted to sue. For years it was tied up in court. During that time the Bundy's continued to pay their $1 per acre. Then for some reason about 10 years ago the feds decided that even though the matter was still working it's way through the courts they would charge the Bundy's interest on the money that they hadn't paid for the new lease, even though they didn't owe any money. With the feds claiming that they owed millions of dollars the Bundy's then stopped paying the $1 an acre that they owed.
The feds immediately stepped in and tried to take the Bundy's cattle. Remember, it was the feds, not the Bundy's who broke the contract.
The second issue happened with the Hammon family who live adjacent to the wild life refuge.
They asked for and received permission from a former B*M manager on the Burns B*M section to burn a portion of Hammon land adjacent to the refuge, and include about an acre of B*M land to prevent the spread of an invasive weed.
Unfortunately for the Hammon's there was nothing in writing. However, during the first court case the former B*M manager testified in the Hammon's defense saying that he did indeed give them permission. The federal policy is to not fight that kind of fire until it reaches private land. The Hammon's found that to be unacceptable since their ranch buildings are approximately 400 yards from the refuge border. After calling and asking for fire help for two days they finally set a back fire around three sides of their property. That fire burnt about 100 yards of refuge land. That was a very small amount since the wildfire burned thousands of acres. However, the B*M then charged the Hammon's with arson.
During the first time the case went to court the Hammon's were found guilty, but the judge gave them only probation. An overzealous federal prosecutor then pointed out that arson on federal property required a minimum five year prison sentence, and the feds somehow convinced the courts to have a new trial. This time the former B*M supervisor was not allowed to testify, nor were the Hammon's allowed to testify about why they set the fire because the judge ruled that they had already admitted to setting the fire, therefore, the reason didn't matter.
They then called a witness that claimed that the Hammon's had set the fire to cover poaching. The witness was a Hammon relative who had been put in a mental institution and written out of the Hammon will.
Poaching is common in Eastern Oregon, but setting fires to cover up poaching, especially on your own property would be ridiculous. Nevertheless the judge then sentenced two of the Hammons to five years in jail.
Ammon Bundy foolishly went through all the paperwork in the refuge headquarters looking for the proof that the Hammon's had legally set the two fires. He was unsuccessful. Several of the other occupiers were i***ts, however when the Portland jury heard the whole story they found the first seven defendants not guilty.
When that happened federal marshals immediately grabbed Bundy, tazed his attorney, and moved him to Nevada to stand trial for that. Keep in mind that they could have arrested him at any time in Nevada since he had a job, not on the ranch. Hopefully you can recognize that the government has treated both families unfairly.
It is happening all over the rural west. We have a family in town which lost 1,000 cattle because the feds let a wild fire burn in a wilderness area over the objection of the family. When it broke out onto private land the feds were ineffectual in putting out the fire. The land owner eventually drove his cat through the federal barricade and put the fire out.
For the past six years he has been attempting to get the value of the cattle and timber he lost from the feds in court. Meanwhile the feds have threatened him with prosecution for driving his cat into the wilderness area while putting out the fire. No court has been willing to take the case so far so the landowner is out several 100 acres of timber and all the cattle.
That kind of federal behavior is why so many people went to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge when the Hammons were sent to jail. One final point, the Hammons asked that they did not occupy the refuge, but were ignored.
If you talk to people in Burns some of them say that they were fearful of the occupiers, but far more say that they were fearful of what the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were doing in town then they were ever afraid of the occupiers. Should they have occupied federal land? No, but at some point in time what do you expect from land owners that are being abused by federal authorities.
You really ought to look more carefully at the entire story behind the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation.
I am not supporting their decision to occupy the refuge. However, there were two events that led up to that occupation where the government overstepped their authority and in both cases lied about what really happened.
The Bundy family had been ranching in Nevada for more than 100 years. When the Bureau of Land Management was founded the first B*M manager in that part of Nevada claimed that the land the Bundy's were ranching on was federal land. The Bundy's initially were going to go to court claiming that they they legally owned the land.
However, a local politician stepped in and mediated a settlement where the Bundy's gave up all claim to the land and the federal government agreed to lease the land to the Bundy's in perpetuity for $1 an acre. Approximately 25 years ago the federal government arbitrarily raised the lease price despite the agreement. The Bundy's attempted to sue. For years it was tied up in court. During that time the Bundy's continued to pay their $1 per acre. Then for some reason about 10 years ago the feds decided that even though the matter was still working it's way through the courts they would charge the Bundy's interest on the money that they hadn't paid for the new lease, even though they didn't owe any money. With the feds claiming that they owed millions of dollars the Bundy's then stopped paying the $1 an acre that they owed.
The feds immediately stepped in and tried to take the Bundy's cattle. Remember, it was the feds, not the Bundy's who broke the contract.
The second issue happened with the Hammon family who live adjacent to the wild life refuge.
They asked for and received permission from a former B*M manager on the Burns B*M section to burn a portion of Hammon land adjacent to the refuge, and include about an acre of B*M land to prevent the spread of an invasive weed.
Unfortunately for the Hammon's there was nothing in writing. However, during the first court case the former B*M manager testified in the Hammon's defense saying that he did indeed give them permission. The federal policy is to not fight that kind of fire until it reaches private land. The Hammon's found that to be unacceptable since their ranch buildings are approximately 400 yards from the refuge border. After calling and asking for fire help for two days they finally set a back fire around three sides of their property. That fire burnt about 100 yards of refuge land. That was a very small amount since the wildfire burned thousands of acres. However, the B*M then charged the Hammon's with arson.
During the first time the case went to court the Hammon's were found guilty, but the judge gave them only probation. An overzealous federal prosecutor then pointed out that arson on federal property required a minimum five year prison sentence, and the feds somehow convinced the courts to have a new trial. This time the former B*M supervisor was not allowed to testify, nor were the Hammon's allowed to testify about why they set the fire because the judge ruled that they had already admitted to setting the fire, therefore, the reason didn't matter.
They then called a witness that claimed that the Hammon's had set the fire to cover poaching. The witness was a Hammon relative who had been put in a mental institution and written out of the Hammon will.
Poaching is common in Eastern Oregon, but setting fires to cover up poaching, especially on your own property would be ridiculous. Nevertheless the judge then sentenced two of the Hammons to five years in jail.
Ammon Bundy foolishly went through all the paperwork in the refuge headquarters looking for the proof that the Hammon's had legally set the two fires. He was unsuccessful. Several of the other occupiers were i***ts, however when the Portland jury heard the whole story they found the first seven defendants not guilty.
When that happened federal marshals immediately grabbed Bundy, tazed his attorney, and moved him to Nevada to stand trial for that. Keep in mind that they could have arrested him at any time in Nevada since he had a job, not on the ranch. Hopefully you can recognize that the government has treated both families unfairly.
It is happening all over the rural west. We have a family in town which lost 1,000 cattle because the feds let a wild fire burn in a wilderness area over the objection of the family. When it broke out onto private land the feds were ineffectual in putting out the fire. The land owner eventually drove his cat through the federal barricade and put the fire out.
For the past six years he has been attempting to get the value of the cattle and timber he lost from the feds in court. Meanwhile the feds have threatened him with prosecution for driving his cat into the wilderness area while putting out the fire. No court has been willing to take the case so far so the landowner is out several 100 acres of timber and all the cattle.
That kind of federal behavior is why so many people went to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge when the Hammons were sent to jail. One final point, the Hammons asked that they did not occupy the refuge, but were ignored.
If you talk to people in Burns some of them say that they were fearful of the occupiers, but far more say that they were fearful of what the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were doing in town then they were ever afraid of the occupiers. Should they have occupied federal land? No, but at some point in time what do you expect from land owners that are being abused by federal authorities.
Dec 18, 2016 03:34:23 #
davefales wrote:
Is this an example of f**e news?
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
Can someone cite hard evidence of violent attacks in the U.S. because of Christian religious belief during the past 20 years? Just being a Christian does not count.
This article is all over the place and basically saying US Extremist groups are more danger than Islamic Extremists, and then goes further to try and say all US Extremist & Anti Govt. individuals and groups are right wing--blatantly not true, not even close.
Their mentioning of the Oklahoma bombing is also interesting, at least they didn't try to say it was a Radical Christian Attack, as I've heard said many times in the media, even the Right wing label is a bit of a reach. McVeigh was all about Anti-Government.
Dec 18, 2016 04:38:37 #
WNYShooter wrote:
This article is all over the place and basically s... (show quote)
You are fighting a losing battle arguing with the left posted articles or posts.....they will probably lump in Wounded Knee and the the present Indian dispute with the pipeline as extreme right activism if they could.
As a Gold prospector I have learned not to argue with anything called B*M....just prospect discretely and try to not get caught with a shovel in hand when they come around asking questions !
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