Oregon Standoff Reveals There Is No Adult Supervision of Federal Agencies in the West

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William Perry Pendley:

‘Over the past two decades . . . government officials, and perhaps [others], entered into a literal, intentional conspiracy to deprive [the family members] not only of their [grazing] permits but also of their vested water rights. This behavior shocks the conscience.” These are not the words of the embattled Hammond family in Harney County, Ore., nor their noisy defenders who made headlines with their illegal occupation of a few buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge — actions the Hammonds do not support — nor even conservatives who see another Sagebrush Rebellion spreading across the American West.

Instead, they are the thoughtful words of Nevada chief federal district-court judge Robert C. Jones in a painstakingly thorough 104-page decision in May 2013 following a 21-day trial held in 2012 in Reno. Judge Jones ruled in a lawsuit filed pro se by Wayne N. Hage, defending the estate of E. Wayne Hage, his father, against two huge federal land-management agencies — the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service — and their employees, all represented by scores of lawyers from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture. (The federal lawyers’ appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was argued last month.) As National Review’s David French has chronicled, the Hammond travails over the decades mirror the fearful path trod by the late Wayne Hage and his family, except for the substitution in the Hammonds’ case of yet another federal land-management agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the national wildlife refuge surrounding their ranch.

Unfortunately, federal agencies’ abuse of the citizenry is not uncommon. In 2007, a third of a continent away, but still within the vast expanse of America where federal land ownership predominates — reaching two-thirds and more of some states and over 90 percent of some rural counties (72 percent of Harney County is federally owned) — a similar battle raged in Wyoming. Unlike the Hammonds in Oregon or the Hages in Nevada, the case of Harvey Frank Robbins and a federal agency “run amuck,” in the words of a BLM employee, reached the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the BLM “made a careless error:” After obtaining an easement to use a private road across the ranch owned by Robbins’s predecessor, federal officials failed to record it. Thus, when Robbins bought the ranch, he did not know about the easement, and, under Wyoming law, he took title free of it. Thereupon, BLM officials, wrote Ginsburg, “demanded from Robbins an easement — for which they did not propose to pay — to replace the one they carelessly lost.” When Robbins offered to negotiate an agreement, they told him “the Federal Government does not negotiate” and “this is what you are going to do.” When he refused, he became, according to Ginsburg, the target of “a seven-year campaign of relentless harassment and intimidation to force [him] to give in.”

After two appearances each before the federal district court in Wyoming and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Robbins reached the Supreme Court in his effort to hold federal employees accountable for violating his constitutional rights to exclude them from his land and for trying to extort an easement from him. Sadly, Justice Ginsburg did not write the majority opinion; her outrage on Robbins’s behalf was a lonely dissent; instead, Justice David Souter, on behalf of the Court, held that Robbins had no cause of action. He admitted that Robbins had suffered a “death by a thousand cuts,” in “endless battling” that “depletes the spirit along with the purse,” but concluded that the rights of citizens to be protected from “illegitimate pressure” by “unduly zealous” bureaucrats was balanced against the government’s need for “zeal on the public’s behalf.” Fearing that granting Robbins relief “could well take the starch out of regulators who are supposed to bargain and press demands vigorously on behalf of the Government and the public,” the Court held Congress was in a “better position” to provide relief if it saw fit. In the years since the 2007 ruling, however, Congress has done nothing to protect citizens from “unduly zealous” — meaning “lawless” — bureaucrats and the taxpayer-funded lawyers who defend them.

It is not just Congress — which could conduct oversight hearings, investigate abuses, hold officials and lawyers accountable, and constrain budgetary authority — that did nothing. The abuses by bureaucrats in the field far from Washington — instigated, and aided and abetted, by environmental extremists, both local and national — of the Hammonds, the Hages, and Robbins occurred either knowingly or negligently during the administrations of Republican and Democrat presidents alike. For example, in 2005, a man who became a client of Mountain States Legal Foundation and prevailed after a nine-year battle before five federal courts was told by federal lawyers that his property rights and legal precedents were irrelevant. He had what they wanted and they would take the case to the Supreme Court to get it. They did but they lost.

As anyone who has the federal government as a neighbor knows — whether in northwestern Montana, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas — federal land managers and their lawyers make the worst people to have next door. The federal government, which owns a third of the country, acts not just as a landowner; it behaves as sovereign too, especially when it sends its lawyers into court. The Canons of Ethics purport to regulate the behavior of those lawyers, providing that: “A government lawyer . . . has the responsibility to seek justice . . . and he should not use . . . the economic power of the government to . . . bring about unjust settlements or results.” Moreover, Supreme Court justice George Sutherland, Utah’s only Supreme Court Justice, wrote, “The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest . . . is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.”

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This administration is pushing people to the point where armed resistance is necessary.

@Bill: Sorry to say this administration did not start this it began way way back, Regan had the abuses dampened but that was only temporary. There are so many Federal agencies all with the power to control, fine and harass with backing from the courts unlimited resources. Policies that make no sense at all, Ranchers must fence cattle off federal land, the fences happen to block Antelope migration routes as the will not leap over them, so rather than asking them to remove the fences they need to acquire the land the migration route is 300 miles long. The policy controlling wild horse population is worse http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/federal-government-busted-for-illegally-se
or
http://www.wildhorsepreservation.org/government%25E2%2580%2599s-fa

Robert C. Jones tends to make “painstaking” rulings that don’t hold up to the scrutiny of higher courts. He upheld Nevada’s ban on gay marriage, asserting that “a meaningful percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into it less frequently.”

It’s not clear whether he was concerned that there could be a decline in the revolving door of heterosexual divorces and remarriages, which has traditionally resulted in a lot of out-of-state tourism to Nevada, or that official recognition might cause many ostensibly heterosexual republican males to suddenly turn gay, or develop erectile dysfunction.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously threw out his decision and ordered him to enjoin the state of Nevada from preventing otherwise qualified gay couples from marrying. Jones then recused himself from the case rather than complying, based on an admitted lack of impartiality. This is an interesting admission, given that this lack of impartiality hadn’t prevented him from making an official ruling on the case to begin with.

@Greg: The voters of that state voted down gay marriage a conservative Judge certainly would uphold the will of the people. Liberals can never leave things the majority want alone and then they are such sore winners after they get the right to marry they have to rub peoples noses in their filth by insisting that they bake them cakes take photos ect ect ect if they refuse, file suit. Do as you will but leave me out of it. Liberal Judges do not dispense justice they force minority opinion agendas.
Seems the Judge was not impartial in forcing a judgement onto those who did not want it.
Sorry off thread topic

@kitt, #4:

Liberals can never leave things the majority want alone and then they are such sore winners after they get the right to marry they have to rub peoples noses in their filth by insisting that they bake them cakes take photos ect ect ect if they refuse, file suit.

Actually, a majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage. The most recent court rulings do, in fact, comply with majority views, which are leaning more toward a “live and let live” sort of attitude.

You kind of tipped your hand when you threw in the word “filth.”

@Greg:

Robert C. Jones tends to make “painstaking” rulings that don’t hold up to the scrutiny of higher courts. He upheld Nevada’s ban on gay marriage, asserting that “a meaningful percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into it less frequently.”

Simply because they are challenged and not upheld by today’s activist, revisionist, law-morphing judges does not indicate that his original ruling was wrong by any means.

You kind of tipped your hand when you threw in the word “filth.”

Just because we accept or have to accept someone’s choices, practices or lifestyles does not mean we have to approve of them. It may come as a surprise to you, but some people other than liberals get to have their own values and opinions and, as kitt said, being poor winners (even if the game was rigged) does not endear these people to anyone.

@Bill: LOL I was trying to offend Greg he tossed in some reference to erectile dysfunction so I just chucked filth in there to poke the resident troll

@Greg: Actually just because there was a ruling by liberal judges does not make a majority in favor, just as with abortion not a majority in favor of that. Just means it can be done.
Didnt like the word filth …tough you dont have a right NOT to be offended. lol

Seems a county campground in northern Wisc is much better managed, free hot showers, flush potties, pay laundry facilities, in a very well maintained, clean building, , potable water stations and dump facilities, electric, nice picnic table and firepit at every site all for 20 bucks a night. For those that wish a more rustic experience there are pit crappers that are scattered around the park, and they dont even stink (one was closer than the flusher it was dark and something a wolf or coyote was howling not too far away or I would’nt have known, no carrying my 9mm in a public campground it stays back at camp)
http://www.perc.org/articles/let-s-fix-our-national-parks-not-add-more The feds have issues

A message from Teddy Roosevelt.

He probably would have sent in troops.

@Greg: He probably would not be screwing ranchers out of the ranches and livelihoods.

@Greg: HISTORY: The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle. These RANCHERS developed a state of the art irrigated system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north.

In 1908 President Theodor Roosevelt, in a political scheme, create an “Indian reservation” around the Malheur, Mud & Harney Lakes and declared it “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds”. Later this “Indian reservation” (without Indians) became the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

It was the ranchers that set up the irrigation system to improve the land and form a place fit for wildlife and cattle. So Teddy waltzes in 40 years after it was settled and declares a reservation. The tribe was later compensated 50 cents an acre for a reserve that was not ever occupied by them. They had been driven out of the basin before that time.
Teddy would have mounted his horse and led the charge himself.
But with all the federal controls on land and water today this bird watcher mecca as it is described could never be created it would still be a high desert basin not a migratory bird stop over.

Seems these bad assess are escaping the cold staying at the local motel and getting wasted

@Greg:

You kind of tipped your hand when you threw in the word “filth.”

when you are talking about gay lifestyle, you are talking about filth.

@kitt: Greg can believe what he chooses, but there will never be a ‘majority’ that support ‘gay’ marriage. There will always be a market for sex.

@Richard Wheeler: Well Richie, tell us about your trip to Italy. Bet it smelled much better than Africa.

footnote: I notice your guy, the harem owner is thinking about re’casting his hat into the ring. I’ve heard it depends on whether he can get a majority of his harem to support him.

@Richard Wheeler: Any thoughts on how the federal government has been harassing, abusing ranchers and driving them off of THEIR land?

Nah, that’s OK because Obama says it’s OK.

What I would like to protest is the fees to get into and see the National parks is not kept on site to maintain the parks, seems it is sent to DC to pay lawyers to harass and drive the Ranchers off their land. Lowering the amount collected for grazing fees, increasing the cost of our beef. The Liberals just dont see the huge cost there is in keeping roads, facilities, Ranger Ricks all going. What they need is a real good Manager for each Park, keep the fees collected in the park make them live on that budget, Fees would need to increase for camping, and entrance, guided tours no longer free limit the size of the nature trails, hikers that want to free range will need to pay for their own rescue if they get lost or hurt. I know fellow conservatives, unicorns farting skittles, the liberal lawyers would never let common sense rule.

@Redteam:Yeah Southern Italy was beautiful. African trip was fantastic earlier in the year Now, as you know, New Orleans at Mardi Gras–some exotic smells–a hedonist’s delight. How are the bayous at low tide?
Re Webb’s 2 exes. Not likely he can pay them the big bucks Trump has paid his two exes. We know Trump was sleeping with #2 to be Marla while married to #1 Ivana. You got any dirt on Webb?
Happy New Year, Be Well

@Bill: I’m against the Feds harassing anybody. Cruz would abolish the IRS–Prefer a “fair tax.”

@Richard Wheeler:

Now, as you know, New Orleans at Mardi Gras–some exotic smells–a hedonist’s delight

Mostly true. New Orleans is a fun place at times.

How are the bayous at low tide?

Most bayous are not affected by tides.
“You got any dirt on Webb?” Actually no. I don’t consider having a harem as scandalous, it’s quite common in the middle east. Here’s a little note I found about a cruise I took:

On 9 March 1960, the destroyer, in company with Ault (DD- 698), transited the Bosporus, and the two became the first U.S. warships to enter the Black Sea since 1945 On the same cruise she rendezvoused with Triton at the end of the nuclear powered submarine’s cruise round the world.

the ‘destroyer referred to is the J W Weeks. http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/destroy/dd701txt.htm

The liberals that would rage against a guy that owns real estate and rents it out then refuses to maintain it dont seem to have the same feelings about a government that rents land and refuses to maintain it. Allowing invasive plants to flourish, and refusing to allow the tenant to remove them is like allowing rats into a building and not allowing the tenants to get rid of them. As rental units should be maintained to a livable level, so land leased for grazing should be maintained, and it was until the feds took it over. Where 300K head of cattle used to graze and the land was healthy enough for wild life now a few thousand are said to ruin it.
The standoff in Oregon continues and nothing in the news. Guys hanging out in a remote area not killing anyone, looting or burning is too boring.

@Redteam, #14:

Since there are judgmental types who might proclaim the same about certain relatively common heterosexual behaviors, what makes your own pronouncement any different?

There are undoubtedly gay people who are far more committed to their monogamous relationships than many heterosexuals are to their conventional heterosexual relationships. On what Constitutional basis should they be denied the right to marry who they wish?

The Supreme Court has determined that there is no such Constitutional basis. The poll result cited in post #5 suggests that a majority of Americans now support the right of gay people to marry. All considered, it’s pretty much a settled issue, at least so far as the law is concerned.

@Greg: When a gay married couple has a child, then it will be a marriage. Two people living together does not make a marriage. So far, to my knowledge, no two women or two men have been able to produce a child.

@Redteam, #24:

Would you consider childless heterosexual marriages to be insincere, valueless, and devoid of any meaning?

@Redteam: Greg doesn’t want to keep to the thread subject, just deflect from the un-elected zealots that are abusing hard working taxpayers. Why he wants to drag this thread in this direction, because there was never hope for change under Obamas thumb. Common Greggie control the ADD.