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Andrew Anglin
Daily Stormer
January 5, 2016
The rancher occupation of the Oregon wildlife center is ongoing.
I’m warming up to their issues a bit more. They do seem like good guys.
But they seem to be pushing for some type of shootout. The men they are protesting for have already turned themselves in, so now they are calling for their release from custody. There is no possible way this will happen.
So the only thing they could be aiming for is a shootout.
An armed occupation of a federally owned wildlife outpost in remote Oregon rolled into its fourth day Tuesday, even after the two men at the center of the unrest disavowed the protest.
The group, which calls itself the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday. It was empty at the time because of the holidays.
They have been calling for the release of Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven, 46, two ranchers who were convicted of setting fires that spread to government land. The occupiers have also vowed to remain in the building until federally owned land is returned “back to the people.”
The ringleaders are Ammon and Ryan Bundy — sons of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher known for another standoff with the federal government in 2014.
The FBI, which is leading the response, said Sunday night it wants a “peaceful” end to the standoff. Law enforcement officials have not attempted to take back the isolated building but local schools have shut their doors until next week and residents have been warned to keep their distance.
The protesters have remained at the reserve even after the Hammonds, who turned themselves in at the federal prison in San Pedro, California, on Monday afternoon, appeared to disavow the occupation.
The Hammonds’ lawyers said they plan to appeal to President Barack Obama for executive clemency, but stated that “neither Ammon Bundy nor anyone within his group/organization speak for the Hammond family.”
This sentiment was reinforced Monday by the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, which said that while it supported the Hammonds “via avenues that are in accordance with the law,” the association did “not support illegal activity taken against the government,” referencing the Bundys’ occupation.
Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said that the occupiers were no longer welcome in the community.
“The Hammonds have turned themselves in,” he said. “It is time for you to leave our community. Go home, be with your own families and end this peacefully.”
Ammon Bundy told NBC’s TODAY on Monday that the occupiers have no intention of committing violence unless the government intervenes.
“The only violence that, if it comes our way, will be because government is wanting their building back,” he said. “We’re putting nobody in harm’s way. We are not threatening anybody. We’re 30 miles out of the closest town.”
Could turn into a level 3 Happening at any moment.
I do wish they were protesting these new Obama gun control measures, rather than cattle-grazing rights.
Here’s a YouTube gun guy talking about it.
Wikipedia has a page on it giving some pretty detailed background.
On January 2, 2016, armed members of several rump militias occupied the headquarters building at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in protest of the pending imprisonment of Harney County, Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond. Ammon Bundy, the leader of the group, said he had led the action after receiving a divine message from God ordering him to do so. Following the start of the occupation, the occupiers announced they had organized themselves into a new group called Citizens for Constitutional Freedom.
Despite their imprisonment being the stated casus belli of the dispute, the Hammonds have repeatedly rejected the intervention of militias with the wife of Dwight Hammond stating “I don’t really know the purpose of the guys who are out there.”
Some of the militia members stated that they were ready to “kill and be killed”. The takeover sparked a debate on the meaning of the word “terrorist”.
…
Origins of dispute
Dwight Hammond, a cattle rancher in Harney County, owns 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) of land, much of which abuts public land. In 1994, Hammond and his son Steve obstructed the construction of a fence to delineate the boundary between the two parcels of property, prompting their arrest by federal agents. According to federal officials, construction of the fence was needed to stop the Hammond cattle from moving along a cattle trail that intersected public land after the Hammonds had repeatedly violated the terms of their permit, which limited when they could move their cows across refuge property. Officials also reported Hammond had made threats against them in 1986 and 1988, including telling one public lands manager that he was going to “tear off his head and shit down his neck”. They also contended Steve Hammond had called them “assholes”. The Hammonds, however, countered by noting that the cattle trail in question was a historic route that had been continuously used since 1871. Following their release from jail on recognizance, a rally attended by 500 other cattle ranchers was held in support of the Hammonds in Burns, and then-congressman Robert Freeman Smith wrote a letter of protest to the United States Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt. Voters successfully recalled two members of the Harney County Court in anger that it had not intervened on the Hammonds’ behalf. Charges against the Hammonds were later dropped.
In 1999, Steve Hammond started a fire with the intent of burning off juniper trees and sagebrush, but the fire escaped onto BLM land. The agency reminded Hammond of the required burn permit and that if the fires continued, there would be legal consequences. Both Dwight and Steve Hammond would later on set two additional fires that would lead to arson convictions.
Hammond arson case
Dwight and Steve Hammond were convicted of arson by their peers in 2012 for setting fires on federal land adjacent to their property near Burns in 2001 and 2006. In 2001, according to Probation Officer Robb, hunters in the area witnessed the Hammonds illegally shooting deer and shortly afterwards a fire forced them to leave the area. Later, Steve’s nephew Dusty Hammond claimed under testimony that his uncle told him to start lighting matches and “light the whole countryside on fire.” Dusty also testified that he was “almost burned up in the fire” and had to flee for his life and was later abused by Steve. According to the Hammonds, they set the fire to stop invasive plants from growing onto their grazing fields. The 2006 fire was an illegal backburn set under the cover of night knowing beforehand that a firefighting camp was on the slopes above. According to the indictment, the fire threatened to trap four BLM firefighters, one of whom later confronted Dwight Hammond at the fire scene after having moved his crews to avoid the threat.
Following their conviction, federal prosecutors requested a five-year sentence for each of the Hammonds as provided for under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The AEDPA provides that arson on federal land carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. U.S. District Judge Michael Robert Hogan determined sentences of that length “would shock the conscience” and would violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Hogan instead sentenced Dwight Hammond to three months’ imprisonment and Steve Hammond to a year and a day’s imprisonment, which both men served. Federal prosecutors successfully appealed the sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the mandatory-minimum law, writing that “given the seriousness of arson, a five-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to the offense.” The court vacated the original sentence and remanded for resentencing. The Hammonds filed petitions for certiorari with the Supreme Court, which the court rejected in March 2015. In October 2015, Chief Judge Ann Aiken re-sentenced the pair to five years in prison (with credit for time served), ordering that they return to prison on January 4, 2016. Both of the Hammonds reported to prison in California on January 4th in accordance with the law.
In a separate 2014 civil judgment, the Hammonds were ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to the U.S. government for the related arson fires. The pair paid half the amount immediately and the remaining $200,000 in December 2015.
Here’s Stephan Molyneux on the issue – video is packed with facts.
