For those who have tracked this with at least a modicum of interest, this has all been puzzling. WeaponsMan has this to say about the death of Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum.
This whole mess began because a Federal prosecutor (like all of them an effete urbanite with many years in Eastern elite colleges) thought it would be amusing to make a felony out of some careless brush burnoffs by a couple of ranchers, and send the hayseeds to prison.
Amusing, you say? This all happened because someone wanted to be amused? Digging a little deeper, the original case was so weak that if something like this had happened around these parts, those responsible might have faced community service, a small to moderate fine and a stern talking-to by the judge. To explain just how bizarre this whole thing was to start out, and just how head-scratching the drama surrounding this was, I turn to none other than Western Livestock Journal, well before any of this ever happened.
BLM filed charges against the Hammonds back in 2012. The federal prosecutor chose to prosecute them under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Anti-terrorism Act).
The trial court’s 2012 findings can be summarized as follows: Dwight and Steven admitted to having started two fires, for which the court found them guilty. One of the fires was a prescribed burn in 2001 that, according the court record, accidentally spread onto 139 acres of BLM land. Those 139 acres happened to be located on one of the family’s federal grazing allotments. The other fire, from 2006, was a back-burn. Steven had set the fire on the family’s private property in order to protect their winter feed from a lightening fire that had started on adjacent BLM land. That fire accidentally spread to one acre of BLM land.
Those are the facts of the case. They aren’t any more complicated than that. This all has to do with some controlled burns that weren’t exactly controlled, and an agreement the Hammonds say they had with BLM that apparently they didn’t have in writing (big mistake). Continuing with the report.
The trial court sentenced Dwight and Steven Hammond, father and son, to a combined three months, one year and one day in prison. They served their time in 2013 and are now under three years’ “supervised release.” The court additionally revoked their firearms and Dwight lost his pilot’s license.
The Hammonds are also paying $400,000 as part of a separate settlement agreement with BLM.
They may be forced to sell part of their ranch to BLM to make the payment. BLM has additionally refused to renew the family’s federal grazing permits for two years running. This means Hammonds can use neither their BLM allotments nor thousands of their private acres, which are intermingled with BLM land. It should be noted that the civil settlement and the BLM’s refusal of Hammonds’ grazing permits are, technically, unrelated to the criminal case.
So this begins to get interesting, yes? A harsh settlement with the court, loss of weapons rights, huge fine, time in prison, and now (this is the interesting part) loss of grazing permits and possibly having to sell the ranch because of the huge fine. Remember, this is all stuff that was known well before anything with the so-called occupation ever occurred. Let’s continue.
… the federal government was unsatisfied with the less-than-five-year sentence handed down by the trial court, and decided to appeal.
In the first instance, why did the federal government choose to prosecute under an anti-terrorism statute? A reading of the court documents does not provide a clear answer. The Anti-terrorism Act was enacted following the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings in the 1990s. Legislative history shows the law’s purpose is to “deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes.” More specific purposes include authorizing federal courts to hear claims against “terrorist governments for acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens…” and revising criminal laws regarding “unlawful possession, use, transfer, and trafficking in nuclear materials and biological and chemical weapons.”
The government originally attempted to prosecute the father and son for nine violations of the Anti-terrorism Act. The trial court found Hammonds guilty on only two counts: for having started the 2001 prescribed burn and the 2006 back-burn. The guilty charges came under section 844(f) of the Act, which calls for a minimum of five years in prison for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property [of] the United States…” However, the judge and jury appeared to be conflicted over applying the Anti-terrorism Act’s full force. As noted by Judge Michael Hogan of the District Court, Hammonds’ fires likely rejuvenated and improved the federal range. Indeed, it would defy logic to expect Hammonds to purposefully and “maliciously” damage their own BLM allotments.
Of importance, too, was the trial court’s finding that no lives were endangered or harmed by the fires—which, under the Anti-terrorism Act, would have meant a minimum prison sentence of seven years.
You can read the rest for yourself. Now, to be sure, we can combine this ridiculous legal situation with problems of our own with the Bundy’s visit to Malheur. To begin with, if they had surrounded the Hammond’s home at their request and refused to allow him to be taken to prison, this might have ended differently, and would probably have had the support of most of the patriot community. Instead, they occupied an unrelated building in the middle of nowhere, without the Hammonds having requested it.
Furthermore, this was tactically and logistically unsustainable, and lacked means of egress, evasion and escape. For me, there is also the problem that the occupation is intermingled with eschatological complexities of the LDS. Ammon Bundy claimed to be told by God to do this, and one occupier said “I’m Captain Moroni, from Utah.” This is important. If you do not understand the significance of this, then study it.
As for me and my theological views (give me a brief minute here, as this is related to the article), God doesn’t reveal Himself today (contra LDS, Pentecostal, or Roman Catholic with the pope speaking “ex cathedra”). He has revealed Himself, past tense. It’s closed – finished. See the Westminster Confession of Faith. I am to follow His laws for my life, and honor His guidelines and wisdom in my interactions. I don’t listen for “voices,” wait for visions or expect God to favor me with knowledge other men don’t have.
So if you tell me God said for you to do something or other, I’m more than likely going to say, “Thank you sir,” shake your hand and be on my way. The situation was a bad case for patriots, poorly planned, poorly thought out, and badly executed. But it is what it is, not perfect. Perhaps I couldn’t have done better.
And into the gap stepped Bundy, his friends and Mr. Robert ‘LaVoy’ Finicum. They may not have known what they were stumbling into, but it is dark, deep, and a sad commentary on the state of this pitiful nation. Let’s take a step further into the darkness, thanks to Jon Rappoport.
Is uranium at the heart of the Oregon Malheur federal-protestor standoff? That’s the question I’m asking. It isn’t a flippant question.
I realize there are many other issues swirling around this event. The Hammonds, the Bundys, militias, the feds, cattle grazing on federal lands, federal land grabs, and so on. This article isn’t meant to take apart those matters.
It’s meant to follow up on my previous article, in which I present a circumstantial case for the Clintons’ heavy involvement in a scheme that’s transferred 20% of US uranium production to Putin and Russia. And the key company in that piece is Uranium One. Remember the name. It’s apparently a major clue in what I’m about to discuss.
I also want to say, at the outset, that I don’t know how many independent news outlets and websites are covering the uranium question, or which outlet initiated this line of investigation. I’m relying on one provocative January 23 article at intellihub, by Shepard Ambellas:
“Clinton Foundation took massive payoffs, promised Hammond Ranch and other publicly owned lands to Russians, along with one-fifth of our uranium ore.”
Down in the body of that article, the author provides a link to a page at the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior.
On that BLM page (“National BLM > OR/WA > Energy > Uranium Energy”), in a section titled, “Uranium on BLM-Administered Lands in OR/WA,” [(image of webpage forthcoming)] is the following statement:
“In September 2011, a representative from Oregon Energy, L.L.C. (formally Uranium One), met with local citizens, and county and state officials, to discuss the possibility of opening a uranium oxide (‘yellowcake’) mine in southern Malheur County in southeastern Oregon. Oregon Energy is interested in developing a 17-Claim parcel of land known as the Aurora Project through an open pit mining method. Besides the mine, there would be a mill for processing. The claim area occupies about 450 acres and is also referred to as the ‘New U’ uranium claims.
“On May 7, 2012, Oregon Energy LLC made a presentation to the BLM outlining its plans for development for the mine.
“The Vale District has agreed to work with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on mitigation for the ‘New U’ uranium claims, which are located in core sage grouse habitat. Although the lands encompassing the claims have been designated core, the area is frequented by rockhounds and hunters, and has a crisscrossing of off-highway vehicle (OHV) roads and other significant land disturbance from the defunct Bretz Mercury Mine, abandoned in the 1960s.
“However, by the fall of 2012 the company said that it was putting its plans for the mine on hold until the uncertainty surrounding sage grouse issues was resolved.”
The first sentence in that BLM section ties together several key elements of the story: Uranium One; a uranium mine; southern Malheur County. Southern Malheur is the general area of the federal-protestor standoff. Let me give you that first sentence again:
“In September 2011, a representative from Oregon Energy, L.L.C. (formally Uranium One), met with local citizens, and county and state officials, to discuss the possibility of opening a uranium oxide (‘yellowcake’) mine in southern Malheur County in southeastern Oregon.”
What does this have to do with Hillary and Bill Clinton? I’ll reprint my previous article so you can read the details, but the short version is: there’s a case to be made that they, through Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, facilitated the sale of Uranium One to Putin and the Russians. And if so, and if this area of Oregon is projected to be part of that uranium mining deal, then we are looking at a stunning “coincidence”: the US federal government is coming down hard on a group of protestors who are occupying, for their own reasons, a very valuable piece of territory that goes far beyond the issue of private cattle grazing on government land.
It comes under the heading of those old familiar lines: you have no idea what you’re involved in; you have no idea who you’re messing with; this is way over your head; you just stepped into the middle of something that’s bigger than you can imagine.
Not only is an awful lot of Uranium at stake, but the company to which he refers is very interested in Gold as well. And right in the area of the fields of weeds in Malheur. This observation isn’t limited to a blogger, however good he has proven to be. Bloomberg has noted that since 2013, “the nuclear energy arm of the Russian state has controlled 20 percent of America’s uranium production capacity.” And USA Today notes that this all comes back to a huge donation to the Clinton Foundation.
This is a good summary of the situation.
This is an update to my previous article Constitutional Shake Down in Burns Oregon.
I stated in my previous article that the Chinese wanted the uranium under Harney county but it turns out it was the Russians that wanted the uranium. David Ward the sheriff it turns out, used to work for BLM and testified against the Hammonds. It has also been revealed that the Clintons under their reign made a deal with Russia to let them mine uranium under Harney County. The Clinton money laundering Foundation received approximately 2.5 million dollars in four payments from the Russian mining company now known as Uranium One that was bought from a Canadian firm.
This would explain why state officials were nervously trying to end this and why the sheriff gave his permission for the FBI to come into the county at the behest of the governor now as 200 fed vehicles come to Harney County. This governor Kate Brown is a Clinton brown nose supporter
This corruption goes all the way to the top of the Clinton white house, the justice dept, BLM, the forestry dept. and includes the sheriff playing his role in the theft of the Hammonds freedom and land by lying on the stand to convict the Hammonds as a BLM thug. The conflict of interest alone should free the Hammonds on the basis of a mistrial.
Just like the Bundy experience, which was all related to a corrupt deal by Harry Reid to enrich the Chinese communists and his own son with the Bundy land, this is related to land, how valuable it is, and the value of its minerals. If you think that this land is for you, if you think that you can just do anything you wish with government owned land, if you like to sing “this land is your land, this land is my land, from …,” then you’re a moron and you belong at a Bernie Sanders rally. No one except other rubes believes that anything about federal lands is yours. Federal land is capital. It is power. It is largesse. It allows gifts to those in power. It catalyzes corruption. It is quid pro quo, the stuff of powerful men and women who want to rule the world, the currency of graft.
The video the FBI released was purported to show, in the words of FBI special agent Greg Bretzing, “On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic handgun in that pocket.” First of all, without the wife or daughters producing a proof of sales for a 9 mm pocket pistol, I don’t believe them. Furthermore, it looks to me like he stumbled.
Additionally, even if he had a pocket pistol, no one with two brain cells (and I believe that Mr. Finicum had >> two brain cells) would present or produce a 9mm pocket pistol to engage in combat with multiple operators equipped with rifles, optics and body armor. I don’t believe it. If this video is the best they can do, they failed. It proves nothing. Whoever decided to release this video as evidence of Mr. Finicum’s decision to engage in combat is a moron. It’s a video of a mad, but pitiful old man stumbling in the snow. And you can’t prove that it’s anything but that.
Here we are with Mr. Finicum dead, a good man by all accounts, especially those who knew him best, his friends and family, and yet the evil goes much deeper. The divisions are becoming more pronounced, and they will not be healed. As for the shooters, Oregon police, or *.gov federal agents, whomever you are, this is what we know. You knew that this mess needed to be closed out quickly. Thus you did what you did. Congratulations. You killed Mr. Finicum so that Hillary Clinton could become enriched by selling the rights to American Uranium and Gold to a Russian communist.
