"The Futility of the Oregon Armed Standoff"

 

from "In Defense of Rural America"

By Ron Ewart, President

© Copyright Sunday, February 7, 2016 - All Rights Reserved

 

The following article was published on Newswithviews, February 3, 2016

http://www.newswithviews.com/Ewart/ron237.htm

As advocates for the American rural landowner, (NARLO) we have great empathy for what landowners are having to endure at the hands of a heavy-handed government, the environmentalists that have infiltrated every nick and cranny of government and the Indians that are finding creative ways to seek revenge against the White Man with sympathetic courts, high-paid lawyers and ancient Indian treaties. The fact that the anger is rising in the landowners of the American West is as predictable as the Sun rising in the East.

 

There have been many confrontations between landowners and the government, environmentalists and the Indians and those confrontations are only going to grow. That rising anger has led to the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade in Northern Nevada near Elko, the Klamath Bucket Brigade in Southern Oregon, the infamous Wayne Hage lawsuit against the government and the Bundy standoff against heavily armed BLM agents in Southeastern Nevada and now the standoff at the Malheur Nature Preserve in Southeastern Oregon.

 

On the Indian front, besides Indian Casinos, little has been said or is known about the Boldt decision that gave the Indians 50% of the Salmon harvest every year, or the giant monetary award to the Puyallup Indians in Washington State ($162,000,000) over a land claim, or the Coeur d’Alene Indians trying to claim for the tribe all of Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, or the Flathead Indians taking control of all land, water and electricity rights in Western Montana, with the help of the federal and Montana State governments.

 

Then there is the dictatorial control and abuse by the Bureau of Land Management and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Agency in the management of federal lands that have spilled over into private land holdings with a vengeance.

 

All of these events directly affect the rural landowners of the Western United States and has lit a match to what could become a raging land war in the West.

 

The Western landowners have found themselves in the unrelenting grip of a giant bully known as the U. S. Federal Government. They have tried in numerous legal ways to fight that government, but with courts leaning in favor of the government and the radical environmental movement, the rural landowner has found little redress going the legal route. The hard truth is, you can’t fight the power of the federal government alone, which way too many landowners try.

 

A blaring case in point is the Wayne Hage family ranchers in Southeastern Nevada. They actually had won a court decree from the U. S. Court of Claims to the tune of $14,000,000 after fighting horrendous attempts by the federal government to thwart their every legal move. The elder Hage’s have since died and their son has had to pick up the fight. Some reports indicate that the Hage Family has spent over $2,000,000 in lawyers, court costs and expert witnesses. In over 20 years of that court case and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel by a favorable court award, the family’s hopes were dashed when the federal government took the case to the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reversed the lower court’s award and remanded the case back to the lower court with a new judge.

 

The younger Hage said in a telephone interview Monday that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would be difficult. "I don't know what the future has in store for us." We have been dealt a lot of ugly over the years. I'm not sure where it's going to go. It is a big disappointment, not just for my family but for the entire industry. They felt relief at the Jones decision. Ranchers' rights had been upheld but now it has all been overturned. It looks to me like the 9th Circuit just swelled the ranks of the militias." Hage said he is not involved with the militias but that he understands their frustrations with the federal government."

 

The 9th Circuit overturned the lower court’s ruling because the lower court judge allegedly harbored "animus" towards the federal agencies. Imagine that! Since the courts most always lean in favor of the government and against the citizens, that’s OK in the minds of the FEDS, but woe be to the judge who dares to lean in favor of citizen’s rights and the constitution.

 

Given this backdrop and the frustration of the landowners trying to fight an intransigent government, it is no wonder that some landowners decided to take matters into their own hands and confront the government with guns at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada where a blood bath was averted by cooler heads.

 

The Bundy standoff in 2014 has led to the current Oregon standoff where trigger happy Oregon State Patrol and FBI agents couldn’t wait to shoot one of the landowners at a traffic stop in what has been reported by eyewitness Victoria Sharps, who was in the white SUV, as, "red laser lights everywhere, shined on all of the occupants of the rancher’s car, and a hail of bullets from the FBI agents fired into our car where Ryan Bundy was wounded. It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed."

 

(See eyewitness video/audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wA18O_6dgw)

 

The apparent summary execution of Lavoy Finicum at the traffic stop was murder according to Ms. Sharps. She stated that Lavoy. 54, a Mormon and father of 11 children and 19 grandchildren, had his hands up when the FBI agents shot him several times and while he was laying on the ground, they shot him three more times. But let’s not forget that Lavoy Finicum tried to run a roadblock.

 

The FBI calls Ms. Sharps’ testimony false and has released a video of the event. The FBI claims Lavoy was reaching for a gun when they shot him. Couldn’t they have at least waited to see the gun before they shot him? The FBI video doesn’t mention or show the bullet-riddled SUV. Any investigation into the shooting will likely be a whitewash.

 

But this begs the question of why would a father of 11 children be at a place where he could be killed? That’s irresponsible. Who will take care of the children and his ranch now that he is gone ….. the government?

 

By the time this article is published, the Malheur Nature Preserve occupation will probably be over. The apparent leader of the ranchers, Ammon Bundy, from his jail cell, has strongly urged the other remaining ranchers to go home, if they can get out of there without being arrested, or shot. Hopefully, they will leave peacefully and no more blood shed will occur.

 

There were only two possible outcomes from the Oregon standoff. The first outcome is all of the ranchers would all be shot dead by government agents. The other outcome was that they would be arrested for breaking the law. Only one was shot dead and the rest have been, or probably will be, arrested. They could serve many years in jail.

 

What did the ranchers hope to accomplish? Yes, they obtained national news coverage, but that coverage labeled the ranchers as thugs and terrorists. What the ranchers wanted was the Hammond Father and Son Oregon ranchers to be released from prison for a trumped up arson charge by the government giving them a five-year sentence as terrorists. That sentence was obviously over-kill by the government and was and is a travesty of justice. Nevertheless, even after the standoff is over, the Hammonds will still be in prison. So there was no win on this demand.

 

The ranchers’ second demand was for the federal government to cede all federal lands to the states. That demand was never going to happen in the short term but several states are attempting to regain control of federal lands in their states. We see movement along these lines in Utah, Nevada and Idaho.

 

Even though we sympathize with the ranchers and their cause, the occupation was futility by any other name, driven by irrational anger and frustration. The news of the occupation will be dead in a week or two, drowned out by the Presidential race. The trials of those arrested might be covered but it won’t be front-page news. The press will crucify the ranchers and when the ranchers go to jail, no one will care. The ranchers will become nameless martyrs in a long war against rising government tyranny, even though the ranchers’ honorable goal was to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

 

What are the lessons learned from the Oregon occupation event? The first lesson is, you have to be smarter than the government and that shouldn’t be too hard given that government employees are intellectually challenged at best. What the ranchers did was not being smarter than the government.

 

The second lesson is that you don’t go up against a superior force with a handful of disorganized armed citizens. That’s not only folly it can be deadly and is in direct violation of the art of war. If Americans decide they want to challenge the military power of the federal government, they had better have no less than 10,000 heavily armed, dedicated citizens with a tight organization, strong leadership, adequately supplied and funded, a detailed plan and the commitment and courage to confront government no matter what the cost. Any outright war with the 10,000 would be perceived by the public as heavy handed and dictatorial and the mask of government tyranny would finally be removed for all to see. That is probably why the government backed down at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada in 2014 because of the adverse public opinion if civilian Americans started dying in the desert at the hands of BLM agents.

 

Anyone should know that the government can easily over power a smaller force as they did in Oregon and the smaller force will have gained nothing out of the confrontation. But a force of 10,000 or more raises the stakes to a whole new level where the government will think twice about a war where Americans are killing other Americans, albeit that didn’t stop them in the civil war.

 

Government could not ignore the demands of an army of 10,000 armed and dedicated civilians who intended to punctuate their demands with guns. However, as far as we know, there is no force of an organized group of 10,000 heavily armed citizens lurking in the shadows of America right now.

 

Consequently, the only other way is to legally challenge the government by using the courts, like the environmentalists do, even knowing that the courts and brainwashed juries lean in favor of the government and especially the environmentalists. Such a strategy requires a non-beatable legal team and tens of millions of dollars to fund the legal battle. Yes, we can take back America in the courts, with enough money.

 

If the 50,000,000 or so voters that voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election donated $10.00 per month for a year, a war chest of $500,000,000 would be raised each month (that’s $6 Billion Dollars in a year) to fight a legal battle. Even if 10% of that 50 million would donate $10.00, that would be enough. The giant legal firms would fall all over themselves to represent this group in that they would sue their own mother if there were enough money in it for them.

 

But until such a legal strategy is mounted and the funds raised, nothing will change in America. As we said in our last article entitled, "America’s Collapse Is A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy – UNLESS", "….. a critical mass of dedicated American citizens finally decide to resist government tyranny by acts of civil disobedience on a grand scale, punctuated by the threat of force if necessary." A Boston style tea party, or even a million-man march on Washington DC, or an armed occupation at a nature preserve in Oregon to seek a redress of grievances, just doesn’t cut it in today’s America. The corrupt "system" will just swallow them up and spit them out.

 

But we wonder who gets it, or even whose listening, or worse, who cares?

 

If you care, let us know HERE.

 

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Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column, "In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) an advocate and consultant for urban and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State.  He can be reached for comment at: info@narlo.org.

 

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Trumping Hydrocarbon Fuels and Consumers

By Paul Driessen

Too many presidential candidates court corporate cash by promoting ethanol

Donald Trump loves to tout his poll numbers. But if he’s doing so well, why does he pander to Iowa’s ethanol interests?

The gambit might garner a few caucus votes among corn growers and ethanol producers. It certainly brings plaudits from renewable energy lobbyists and their political enablers. But it could (and should) cost him votes in many other quarters – beyond the Corn Ethanol Belt and even in Iowa.

The fact is, the 14.5-million-gallon-per-year ethanol mandate prolongs policies that are bad for consumers and the environment. And yet many presidential candidates and other politicians support it. 

The ethanol mandate forces refiners to blend ethanol into gasoline. It’s the epitome of feel-good government programs run amok. Congress enacted the steadily expanding ethanol blending requirement to stave off the “imminent” depletion of crude oil worldwide, decrease US imports of oil whose price was “only going to increase,” reduce gasoline costs for motorists, and prevent manmade climate change.

We now know all these concerns were misplaced. In fact, the ethanol mandate fails every economic and environmental test.

The “fracking revolution” (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) has unleashed a gusher of US oil and gas production. Domestic oil production in 2014 reached its highest level in 114 years, and the United States is now the world’s biggest hydrocarbon producer. Global crude and American gasoline prices have plummeted. Fracking technology can be applied to shale deposits anywhere in the world, and even to conventional oil fields, ensuring that the world has at least another century of oil and natural gas supplies – and ample time to develop new energy technologies that we cannot even conceive of today.

Since ethanol gets a third less mileage than pure gasoline, adding ethanol to fuel actually increases fuel costs per tank, especially when crude oil fetches less than $30 per barrel and regular gasoline is under $2 per gallon in most states. For motorists driving 15,000 miles a year, $1.85-per-gallon gas means $1,200 in savings, compared to April 2012 prices. Ending the ethanol mandate would save them even more.

As to climate change, numerous studies demonstrate that there is no credible evidence that manmade carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming. Moreover, rising CO2 emissions from China, India and other rapidly developing nations overwhelm any imaginable US reductions.

The ethanol mandate has devolved into a black hole that sucks hard-earned cash from consumers’ wallets, while padding the pockets of special interests and their political patrons. Poor, minority, middle class and blue-collar families are especially hard hit.

Devoting 40% of America’s corn crop to ethanol production has significantly increased corn prices and thus the price of all foods that utilize the grain: beef, milk, pork, chicken, eggs, farm-raised fish, and countless products that include corn syrup. The corn converted into biofuel each year could feed more than 400,000,000 malnourished people in impoverished and war-torn countries.

Ethanol is corrosive and mixes easily with water, resulting in serious damage to gaskets and engines. Consumers have spent billions “degunking” and repairing cars, trucks, boats, snowmobiles, chain saws and other small engine equipment, to prevent (or in the aftermath of) fuel leaks, engine failures and even fires. Vehicle, outdoor equipment and marine engine manufacturers warn against using gasoline blends containing more than 10% ethanol.

The mandate raised fuel costs nationwide by an estimated $83 billion between 2007 and 2014. In New England it is expected to cost the economy $20 billion, reduce labor income by $7.3 billion, and eliminate more than 7,000 jobs annually between 2005 and 2024. It has cost Californians $13.1 billion in higher fuel costs since 2005, and could inflict $28.8 billion in additional costs there by 2025.

Corn ethanol’s ecological impacts have convinced the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Working Group (EWG) and other organizations to oppose further extensions of the mandate. More than 35,000,000 acres (an area larger than Iowa) are now devoted to growing corn for ethanol, and the EWG says the mandate encourages farmers to convert extensive wetlands and grasslands into cornfields.

Growing corn, turning it into ethanol and trucking it to refineries (since it attracts water, it cannot be carried by pipeline) also requires vast amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, diesel fuel and natural gas. Only a tiny fraction of that acreage, water and fuel is required to produce far more energy via fracking.

Contrary to Environmental Protection Agency claims that ethanol helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions, those lands released an additional 27,000,000 tons of CO2 in 2014, the EWG calculates. In fact, the group says, corn ethanol results in more carbon dioxide emissions than estimated for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The United States also imports sugarcane ethanol from Brazil. The American Energy Alliance says the EPA does not account for the associated greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, EPA calls sugarcane ethanol an “advanced” fuel, even though it has been around since the 1920s.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) set expectations for biofuel development based on aspirations, not reality. It assumed switch-grass and wood waste could be converted into advanced cellulosic fuels, but the process has proven very costly and difficult. In an effort to hide this inconvenient truth, EPA now defines even some kinds of liquefied natural gas, compressed natural gas and electricity as derived from cellulosic fuels, in an effort to meet the mandate – even though none of these fuels can be blended into gasoline.

It’s encouraging that EPA’s Inspector General wants the agency’s pro-ethanol rhetoric investigated.

Many consumers are rejecting ethanol-blended fuels, and sales of straight gasoline have climbed from just over 3% of total US gasoline demand in 2012 to nearly 7% in 2014. 

Simply put, the ethanol mandate is a disaster. When the government writes fuel recipes and meddles in the free market system, everyone loses except ethanol special interests. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is right: ethanol mandates and energy subsidies should all be terminated. Let biofuel, wind and solar power compete on their own merits, instead of being force-fed to consumers and taxpayers.

However, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has made support for ethanol a litmus test for the February 1 presidential caucuses. He wants Senator Cruz defeated for opposing the ethanol mandate. The governor’s stance also reflects the fact his son heads up the pro-ethanol America’s Energy Future lobbying group, and ethanol interests have contributed sizable amounts to the six-term Republican governor’s reelection campaigns.

There’s even a pro-ethanol van following Mr. Cruz around Iowa, to change recent polling results that found half of Iowa voters do not care much or at all about preserving the federal corn ethanol mandate.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump still thinks the mandate should be increased from this year’s 14.5 billion gallons to the full 15 billion gallons allowed under the antiquated RFS law. Jeb Bush and Chris Christy also support ethanol coercion. While this position might be politically expedient in Iowa, its affect on voters beyond the Hawkeye State is likely negative.

Mr. Trump and other candidates often say they will surround themselves with experts who know their stuff on important issues. Their pro-ethanol stance makes you wonder which wunderkinds are advising them right now. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, by contrast, share Senator Cruz’s disdain for energy mandates and subsidies.

The issue is a small but important indication of what’s at stake in the 2016 presidential election.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death. © January 2016

First Sacrifice of Rancher Blood Has Been Spilt.

by Ramona Morrison

The first sacrifice of rancher blood has been spilt.

For everyone who comes from ranches comprised of only private land, the western rancher has been at the tip of the spear in an effort by federal agencies to clear title to the so called public lands.  As Angus teaches so well, we are not squatters or welfare ranchers who simply want to avoid paying grazing fees to the government.  We have private vested rights, protected by the laws of Congress, dating back to the first settlers which the Feds are attempting to eradicate.

Private land ranchers better take note of how the BLM and USFS use their administrative powers to target and destroy ranchers by loading a grazing permit with impossible and arbitrary conditions not based in law.  Or they take on the powers of a prosecutor by issuing administrative decisions based on mere unsubstantiated allegations which the rancher then has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend and disprove in their kangaroo court of administrative appeals, or worse in federal district court.  These are the tactics and weapons the EPA is preparing to employ on the rest of agriculture who have been missing out on our little war in the west.  And when you all walk a 1,000 miles in our shoes and give up the bulk of your spare time sitting in bureaucrat meetings trying to talk bureaucrats into respecting your property rights, then come lecture us in the West how to handle these issues.

I for one disagreed with the armed refuge take over, although it turned out to be a peaceful act of civil disobedience.  However, I totally empathize with the reason for it and admire their amazing courage and faith.  When you see 200 BLM snipers who have no authority to be playing cops, no police powers, surround one family's ranch, as we did in NV, it changes things.  Don't forget, EPA, which also has no police powers, is pretty good at running raids too.  In the end, we better remember who was pointing the guns and doing the shooting.  It wasn't the protestors.  I have a friend in the white collar crimes unit in Nevada who said he saw pictures of the protestors at Bunkerville in 2014 with red laser dots on them.  The BLM had orders to shoot to kill.  Remember the protestors and militia showed up AFTER the BLM surrounded the Bundy's with 200 snipers!

I recommend the rest of agriculture pay very close attention to what is happening in the west because federal Administrative tyranny is coming your way.  I have long advocated we do everything lawful thing in our power in the public arena to put these bureaucrats back into their proper role.  So far, the courts, the castrated Congress, and certainly any president since Jimmy Carter has been unable or unwilling to do so.   We don't need the laws such as ESA and CWA reformed as much as we need federal employees to actually follow the law!  If the next president doesn't significantly reign in his army of lawless employees, I am very concerned about where all this will lead.  The first sacrifice of rancher blood has been spilt.

Ramona Hage Morrison

Base Policies on Reality, Not Deceit

A tribute to Dr. Bob Carter

 

Dr. Bob Carter understood that climate frequently changes, and we must prepare to adapt.

By Paul Driessen

Dangerous manmade global cooling, global warming, climate change and extreme weather claims continue to justify what has become a $1.5-trillion-per-year industry: tens of billions spent annually on one-sided research and hundreds of billions sent to crony corporatists to subsidize replacing dependable, affordable carbon-based fuels with unreliable, expensive “renewable” energy.

Some 50 million acres of US crop and habitat land (equal to Wyoming) have been turned into corn-for-ethanol farms, biofuel plantations, and wind and solar installations. American forests are being converted to fuel for British power plants. Towering turbines butcher birds and bats, while Big Wind is exempted from endangered species rules that would cost fossil fuel companies billions in fines and send their execs to jail for such carnage. (But if you're saving the planet, what’s a few million birds and bats a year?)

Climate chaos is likewise the foundation for endless, punitive government policies and regulations intended to keep oil, gas and coal “in the ground.” Crony politicians pass laws and unelected bureaucrats impose rules that transfer taxpayer and consumer wealth, decide which companies, industries and workers win or lose, and control people’s lives, livelihoods, liberties and living standards.

Research and ruling classes benefit, while poor, minority and blue-collar families suffer – and Africans are told they must be content with wind and solar energy because, as President Obama put it, “if everybody has got a car” and air conditioning and a big house, “the planet will boil over.”

Climate Crisis, Inc. jealously guards this power and money train. The IPCC, EPA and NOAA spend billions in tax dollars to publish horror stories about runaway temperatures and looming disasters. Mike Mann sues anyone who disparages him or his work. Sheldon Whitehouse and Jagedish Shukla demand that anyone who disputes manmade disaster claims be prosecuted for “climate denial.”

Now a new Paris climate treaty says the “ultimate goal” is to stabilize atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations at levels that will “prevent dangerous [human] interference with the climate system” – under the assumption that CO2 now drives climate change and weather events.

The Paris accord stipulates that developed nations must reduce their emissions, regardless of impacts on economies, employment or families. This means they must de-carbonize, de-industrialize and de-develop – while they give trillions of dollars in cash and free technology to developing countries like Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, for climate “reparation” and “mitigation.”

Developing countries need try to reach their voluntary goals only if now-wealthy nations make those wealth transfers – and if reducing their emissions will not interfere with their “first and overriding priorities” of eradicating poverty, malnutrition and disease, and improving living standards and life spans.

This means fossil fuel use and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue to climb – and US, EU, Canadian and Australian sacrifices will have no effect on stabilizing atmospheric CO2 levels, much less controlling Earth’s ever-changing climate or weather, again assuming CO2 does determine climate.

But what if this dynasty is built on a foundation of errors, miscalculations and exaggerations – or worse: on manipulation, fabrication and fraud? The house of cards would tumble down, the catechism of climate cataclysm would go the way of other vanished religions, and the power and money train would derail.

Before his untimely death January 19, Dr. Robert M. Carter, former director of James Cook University’s Marine Geophysical Laboratory and expert on historic and prehistoric climate change, offered succinct analyses of climate forces, fears and realities, underscoring how fragile the climate chaos claims are.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, he always emphasized. It is a plant-fertilizing trace gas (400 ppm or 0.04% of the atmosphere), essential for photosynthesis and life on Earth. Rising CO2 levels are increasing crop, forest and grassland growth, improving ecosystems and wildlife, and feeding more people. In fact, the 50 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 between 1981 and 2010 fertilized an 11% boost in plant cover worldwide. Moreover, current carbon dioxide levels are quite low relative to their levels across geological time, meaning terrestrial, fresh water and oceanic plant life is currently starved for CO2 by comparison.

The real scientific debate, Professor Carter noted in his book Climate: the Counter Consensus and other works, is about the direction and magnitude of global human effects, and their likely significance in the context of natural climate change – which has been occurring ever since Earth developed its oceans, atmosphere and climate. Indeed, modern temperatures are not unusually warm, compared to many previous periods in the historic and geologic record. My friend’s other insights are equally important.

* The primary temperature records relied on by the IPCC and EPA are far too short to be a useful tool for policy making and are inadequately corrected for the urban heat island effect and other errors. One analysis of these records found errors of 1-5 degrees C (1.8-9.0 F) for 1969 data in certain regions, when the claimed warming for the entire twentieth century was only 0.7 deg C (1.3 F); errors for records in the early century are likely even greater. Reliance on these records is thus misplaced

* Recent warming trends in Greenland and the Arctic are not alarming in rate or magnitude compared to other similar and totally natural warming periods over the past 250 to 10,000 years, as recorded in explorers’ log books and geological evidence.

* When we consider those climate records, the positive feedback effects of rising carbon dioxide levels (such as enhanced water vapor in the atmosphere), negative feedback effects (more low level heat-reflecting clouds, for instance), significant natural sources of more atmospheric CO2, and the declining “greenhouse” effect of each additional CO2 molecule, it is unlikely that conceivable human carbon dioxide emissions will cause “dangerous” warming or other climate changes in the future.

* The rate and magnitude of the reported 1979-2000 warming are not outside normal natural variability, nor are they unusual compared to earlier periods in Earth and human history. There is likewise no unambiguous evidence that humans have caused adverse changes such as melting ice, rising sea levels, rainfall or droughts, or “extreme weather” over the past 50 years.

* Moderate warming will reduce human mortality, whereas colder weather will increase suffering and deaths, especially if energy and climate policies make heating homes less affordable. 

* IPCC computer climate models have thus far not been able to predict warming or other climate changes accurately for even short 10-year periods. It is therefore highly unlikely that they can do so for 100 years in the future. Therefore, they should not be used as the basis for energy and economic policies.

* The IPCC does not even study climate change in its entirety, or all the complex, interrelated forces that cause periodic warming, cooling and other changes. It analyzes only variations allegedly caused by humans, and assumes that all recent and future changes are human-caused and dangerous. Its analyses, conclusions and recommendations therefore do not form a credible basis for public policies.

Carter’s ultimate policy recommendation was that climate hazards are overwhelmingly natural problems, and should be dealt with by preparing for them in advance, and adapting to them when they occur.

Whether the threats are short-term (hurricanes, floods and blizzards), intermediate (droughts) or long-term (warm or cool eras), preparation must be specific and regional in scale, for the perils vary widely by geographic location and a nation’s state of technological advancement. If governments prepare properly for natural hazards, their countries and communities will also be ready for human-caused climate disruptions, should they ever occur.

Professor Carter’s jovial Aussie persona will be sorely missed, but his insights and legacy will live on.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death. © January 2016

 

Hammonds were imprisoned for a crime they did not commit.

 

Senator Jerry Moran
361 Russell Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

 

Dear Senator Moran,                                                                              January 19, 2016

 

It was a pleasure meeting you at the National Western Stock Show this past Saturday. Hope you enjoyed the rodeo!

To follow up on my comment, “The reason the Hammonds are in prison is because of two uninformed people. One being the Hammonds attorney, and the other – a former attorney now judge who sentenced them.”

Here’s the statute that wholly exempts the Hammonds:

“Whoever, willfully and without authority, sets on fire any timber, underbrush, or grass or other inflammable material upon the public domain or upon any lands owned or leased by or under the partial, concurrent, or exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, or under contract for purchase or for the acquisition of which condemnation proceedings have been instituted, or upon any Indian reservation or lands belonging to or occupied by any tribe or group of Indians under authority of the United States, or upon any Indian allotment while the title to the same shall be held in trust by the Government, or while the same shall remain inalienable by the allottee without the consent of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section shall not apply in the case of a fire set by an allottee in the reasonable exercise of his proprietary rights in the allotment.”

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 788; Pub. L. 100–690, title VI, § 6254(j), Nov. 18, 1988, 102 Stat. 4368.)

The Hammonds were imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. I strongly urge you to lead your colleagues to a full Congressional investigation of Dwight and Steven Hammond’s unjust conviction.

Thank you,

 

Charles W. Sylvester

Retired General Manager National Western Livestock Show and Rodeo

 Cc: Senator’s Bennet, Barrasso, Enzi, Gardner, Merkley and Wyden

 Enclosed: Equal Standing Bill

________________________________________________________________

Equal Standing Bill

Equal Protection from Personal Attack (Malicious Deprivation of Constitutional Rights) Act by Federal Employee

Please Note: This can be modified to incorporate any existing constitutional rights protection law; and re-adapted to any and all domestic resource production.  

Whereas the Legislature finds that the Livestock Sector of the Agriculture Industry of the State is a critical and significant portion of the Agriculture Industry of the State and necessary for the continued health, prosperity and well-being of the people of the State, and,

Whereas a significant number of Livestock within the State spend a significant part of their lives on Federal Range lands, and,

Whereas the US Supreme Court has held that Stockwater Rights, Range Rights, Right-of-Ways, and Improvements, appurtenant to or associated with Range Allotments are Property Rights protected under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, and,

Whereas Federal Employees are required by the Fifth Amendment and Executive Order 12630 to consider the Takings Implications of their decisions and actions on the Property Rights of Ranch or Range Allotment Owners before taking those actions,

Therefore, be it resolved that whenever any Federal Employee acting under Color of Law, takes any action harmful to any Ranch or Range Allotment Owner in the State that deprives that Owner of any property rights without first giving due consideration to those rights by:

1) accessing property with permission,

2) conducting a thorough Takings Implication Assessment,

3) giving the Owner due process, and

4) paying just compensation as required by law,

that Federal Employee shall be deemed to be in violation of the Constitutional Rights of the Ranch or Allotment Owner and acting outside the scope of any federally delegated authority, and therefore, outside the protection of any federal immunity from prosecution and therefore guilty of the crime of Malicious Deprivation of Constitutional Rights and shall be subject to both civil and criminal punishment under the Laws of the State.  The violation of this Law shall be punishable as a Felony carrying a fine of up to $500,000 dollars and 5 years in prison for each separate offense. 

FBI, Quit Posing! - by Ramona Morrison

FBI, Quit Posing!
By Ramona Morrison

The FBI should quit posing as militia in Burns, OR, 30 miles from the refuge, apparently to facilitate the BLM narrative of imminent danger to the public and to selectively investigate private citizens. If the FBI doesn't smell a rat in the BLM's conduct and the facts surrounding the Hammond case, maybe they should look into a new career.
The FBI instead should focus its resources to investigate the widely reported suspicious activities surrounding the BLM manager who is m...arried to the USFWS Wildlife Refuge manager, and their push to resentence the Hammonds. They need to investigate allegations of the BLM/USFWS engaging in a decades long conspiracy to force the Hammonds to sell their ranch. They need to investigate allegations of multiple fires being started by the BLM and USFS which have burned private property and federal lands. Including in the Hammond case. They need to investigate allegations of collusion and conspiracy between federal bureaucrats and environmental NGO's. And based on the reported very strange conduct of the Harney Co. Sheriff and Judge, perhaps the FBI should investigate them too.

The FBI should recognize that the civil disobedience occurring at the refuge is a symptom of a long standing and worsening problem of abuse of power by federal bureaucrats in the West.
I fully agree that ranchers and protestors need to follow the law. But so do federal bureaucrats and county officials. Those charged with upholding the law have an even greater moral obligation to be above reproach. Unfortunately for the last many years in the West they have more often than not been lawless tyrants.
Currently, the only lawful relief the private citizen has from federal abuse of power is to attempt to seek redress in the courts. The bureaucrats count on the fact that most ranchers will lose. For my family who has won a number of important rulings recognizing our property rights on federally administered lands, the government has attempted to destroy us with punitive administrative decisions and by suing us civilly and criminally in federal court attempting to derail our positive court rulings. Nearly 40 years later we are still standing by the hand of God. But to most westerners watching, our saga does not seem like justice. The government is banking on the fact few want to follow our path in the courts.
If tyranny is the objective of our federal government employees, they are succeeding. The western rancher just happens to be on the front line in the war of the West, since the USFS has successfully destroyed the western logger.
Apparently federal land management policy is not to harvest timber or utilize God's lawn mowers to graze the range. Instead, they chose to let the West burn, sometimes with the assistance of Molotov cocktails.
Ramona Hage Morrison

Instruments of Violent Death in America

This article is also available on our website at:

http://www.narlo.org/idarchives/011016.html

 

Instruments of Violent Death In America

By Ron Arnold

Every time a gun is used in an accidental shooting, a crime, a murder, or terrorist attack in the United States, whether it be a handgun, rifle, AK-47, M-15, or machine pistol, the Democrats and especially President Obama, immediately call for more gun control, magazine limits, or outright confiscation of guns from lawful Americans, in spite of an all-powerful constitutional amendment and U. S. Supreme Court decisions that give authority to all legal citizens to own firearms. Each single event becomes a news story that runs for days, if not weeks or months. The liberal news media gleefully promotes and champions the Democrat’s plea. It makes no difference to the Democrats that most of the crimes, lone wolf, or terrorist attacks would not have been stopped by more gun control.

 

Humans, by their very nature, tend to be violent in certain circumstances. So let’s put gun violence in perspective with other forms of human violence.

 

Just recently, a homeless black woman in her twenties, with an infant in the back seat of her car, took to the sidewalk in Las Vegas and killed one person and seriously injured over 30 other people. Apparently, she did it on purpose. So she used her car as a weapon to kill.

 

Not too long before the Las Vegas incident, there was another similar case at a University of Oklahoma Homecoming parade where a woman purposely drove her car into the crowds of people watching the parade. Four people were killed, including an infant and at least 33 people were injured, some quite seriously.

 

Then there is the case of the drunk teenager who wiped out, no killed, four people and the corrupt court came up with a new legal term "affluenza" to get rich people off from heinous crimes. How many people are killed by cars operated by drunk drivers? According to the CDC, 10,076 people were killed in 2014 by alcohol-impaired drivers. Alcohol related deaths with cars account for almost one third of all traffic deaths. God knows how many are killed by the now legalized marijuana in four states.

 

These are just recent cases that rapidly disappeared from the news cycle. There are many more we could relate where a car is accidently or purposely used to kill people.

 

Terrorists have not only used airplanes to kill people in America and other parts of the world, but they have also used cars, knives and explosives. Just ask an Israeli.

 

In the United States cars are heavily regulated in their manufacture and operation and people require licenses to drive them. Road signage and traffic controls are everywhere. Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that cars are deadly weapons and kill people. From the Democrat’s rationale, there should be more car control and maybe even there should be a new law to confiscate cars from dangerous people, or maybe cars should be taken away from everyone because they are so deadly. But alas, the Democrats are and have been silent on the issue of deaths by car. Only deaths by guns activate their adrenalin.

 

According to the FBI for homicides in 2011, 8,583 people died by firearms. In 2013 32,719 people died from car crashes and over 2,000,000 were injured. In that same year of 2013, 1,694 people died by knife stab wounds and 496 people died by blunt objects like baseball bats and hammers. 728 people died by the use of hands and feet. If deaths or injuries were the rationale to pass laws, it is obvious that government should pass laws outlawing guns, cars, baseball bats, knives, hands, feet and even swimming pools.

 

But there is a much larger issue here that transcends outlawing knives, guns and cars. From the observations of this author and many others who use their intellect instead of their emotions, it is clear that Democrats are the party of excessive controls, regulation and "TAKE AWAYS." Democrats want to take away our guns. They want to take away our money for welfare, social justice, environmental protection, legal and illegal immigration and climate change to control us, regulate us and buy votes. But they don’t want to spend any money on maintaining a strong military. There are so few votes in the military industrial complex.

 

Democrats now control or excessively regulate our land, our food, our water, our money, our energy, our cars, our guns, our businesses, our schools, our health care and every other aspect of our lives. Except for a few instances in the last 100 years, Democrats have unilaterally controlled the American political process, along with the help of the unions, public schools, academia and the news media. Democrats have taken over America like the Communist Party tried to take over the movie industry in the mid 1940’s. But the Democrats managed to take over the movie industry instead. One man’s Democrat is another man’s Communist or Socialist. The movie industry is a powerful tool for propaganda, mind control and political money for Democrats and have been used extensively for such Democrat purposes.

 

Apparently, Democrats don’t think that Americans are smart enough to take care of themselves and yet the Democrats have shown us that they aren’t even capable of managing anything they touch, including domestic and foreign policy. Under Democrat control, states and cities have, or are going broke. Under Democrats, the national debt has risen exponentially to the point that it may be virtually impossible to ever pay back. Under Democrats, the economy is barely functioning, with tepid growth at best due to Democrat-sponsored massive regulations.

 

Under this Democrat President, the national debt has almost doubled since he took office seven years ago. Think about it. Obama, a Democrat, has doubled the national debt in seven years that it took over 200 years to build. Under Democrats and especially this Obama Democrat President, our position in the world has dropped precipitously. Our enemies don’t fear us and our friends don’t trust us.

 

Of course, the only reason that people would vote for a Democrat is because Democrats TAKE AWAY money from everyone else, money Democrats have no right to, and unconstitutionally hand it over to those who vote for Democrats. Those voters are now in the majority and by keeping the Democrats in power, they allow Democrats to control us, regulate us and TAKE AWAY our money and other things from us, you know, like our freedom. The hard truth is, Democrats want you to pay for their compassion so that Democrats can buy votes to stay in power.

 

The Democrats have been so successful over the last 100 years they even have the Republicans joining them so that Republicans can remain a viable political party but devoid of principle and honor. The current Republican House and Senate leaders are no different than the Democrats and in fact are aiding and abetting the Democrats and this President.

 

The single answer to this Democrat-Republican control dilemma can only come from the people themselves and the people show no signs of wanting to change anything. Except for a few million of us, most of the people like it just the way it is with their hands deep in the public till. One day they will be forced to pay a horrendous price and that price might very well come in the form of mass starvation, slavery, or may be even conquered by a foreign power. The Biblical phrase that says the meek shall inherit the earth is a myth. The meek are nothing but collateral, slaves and conscripts for the powerful and always have been. Only the courageous and the strong, in mind, spirit and body, will prevail in the long run. The strong always carry the weak on their backs, either out of compassion, or out of necessity.

 

Outlawing knives, baseball bats and cars, as we suggested in the title of this article, will not change anything, whether the Democrats do it, or the Republicans do it. Nor will more gun controls change anything. Americans will still be heavily regulated and controlled by an Absolute Democrat Monarchy and American sovereignty and freedom are, have been and will continue to be the losers.

 

Tell us what you think about this article at: comment@narlo.org.

 

 

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Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column, "In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) an advocate and consultant for urban and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State.  He can be reached for comment at: info@narlo.org.

 

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