OREGON STANDOFF:  TWO YEARS AGO TODAY AND HOW IT CONNECTS TO BUNKERVILLE

When Ammon Bundy was conducting the Oregon Standoff protest starting two years ago today (January 2, 2016), the media had it all figured out.    This was an "armed standoff"  conducted by "militants".     The "militia" was involved.  It was an "armed occupation" etc. etc. etc.

As Bundy tried to explain the notion that he came to "love thy neighbor" in the name of the ranchers (Dwight and Steven Hammond)  sent back to prison to serve mandatory "terrorism" sentences and compared himself to Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, the media either wasn't listening or listening in disbelief.

But the truth is that the system of federal control of land in the West had become as entrenched and oppressive to the relatively small community of farmers and ranchers in the 50 plus years since the Bureau of Land Management was established (1960) as the Jim Crow racist system was to millions in the South.

That system began to emerge in the 1880's and became solid and firm across the South by 1900 but there was a strengthening of resistance in the 1950's.      Rosa Parks and Dr. King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott were on the table, but there was an NAACP leader in North Carolina who did advocate an armed African-American population in the South as a deterrent to racism.

His ideas were opposed by MLK and faded into the background as non-violent unarmed resistance came to the forefront.

Ammon Bundy was exercising his First Amendment right in Oregon, supported by others exercising their Second Amendment right remembering the federal agents and snipers that confronted many of these same people at Bunkerville in 2014.    We now know the full extent of that since the tsunami of hidden evidence has been released.

Bundy himself carried no weapon during the protest and was arrested unarmed while the FBI informant driving  the vehicle he was riding in, Mark McConnell, was armed.

Now that I know so much more about Oregon and Bunkerville that I didn't know before, I've reached the conclusion that the Bundy's are people who talk like "Billy Jack" from those movies 50 years ago but act like Martin Luther King or Gandhi in the end.

In fact, the four threat assessments prepared by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in connection with 2014's Bunkerville Standoff near Bundy Ranch came to pretty much the same conclusion.   The Bundy's would "get in you face" but they were not prone to violence.

To the extent there was a spirit of fear or "militancy", it came from outside forces some of them just troubled people like Jon Ritzheimer, a combat veteran with PTSD related issues.

Weird things like firing off ammunition at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were advocated and led by folks like FBI informant Fabio Minoggio (his undercover name "John Killman").

At the end of the protest when the last four protesters were surrounded at their tent in the parking lot by FBI armored vehicles with agents shouting "put down you weapons" from them, there were no guns.    David Fry with his issues and all, whose father served in the US Marine Corps as a gunnery sergeant, had unloaded the chambers of any guns and put them in a car long before their heavily armed assault.

Its no wonder that David Fry and Ammon Bundy and five others dubbed "leaders" of the protest were found not guilty by a jury on October 27, 2016.

Misdemeanors were tacked onto felonies for the second trial  of lesser defendants, defense witnesses were limited and a jury decided felonies while the judge decided misdemeanors.

The rigging of the second trial in Oregon is important because it was blazing the trail of a rigged process that emerged full force in Nevada with the first two Bunkerville trials.    The judge limiting defense witnesses and defense arguments at the insistence of the prosecution.    The prosecutors engaged in as the judge has ruled along with a mistrial in the third trial a "willful" withholding of evidence.

Behind prosecution operations of the US Attorney's office in Oregon was Billy Williams, designated Acting US Attorney by the Obama Administration in December 2015.   

Now the same Billy Williams has been nominated in the name of President Donald J. Trump to be permanent US Attorney in Oregon with the endorsement of Democrat Oregon US Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.  

Also in support of the nomination is the Oregon State Sheriff's Association, which came out with a statement, personnel and equipment for the violent and aggressive actions taken against the non-violent Oregon protesters.  (LaVoy Finicum killed and Ryan Bundy injured during the "felony traffic stop" of January 26th, 2016).

One sheriff wanted a negotiated solution to the protest and the release of the Hammonds, Sheriff Glenn Palmer of Grant County, Oregon.

He posted something on "Facebook" a few weeks ago (December 22nd) that's worth repeating:

"You may not support the Occupiers for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge or the Bundy Standoff and that is a personal choice or decision made by each of us as an individual.  At this point, these issues should be moot with all of us.

The underlying issue and concern I have is how far our representative government has gone to fudge, lie, cheat, manipulate, falsify, withhold, deny, cover up, doctored, abuse and misuse their positions at our expense and go so far to see that they broke not only the rules but the public trust.    When our government goes as far as they did to do whatever it took to see these people imprisoned  and jailed for literally two years......."

BLOG POST ON SHERIFF PALMER'S FACEBOOK POST 12/28/2017