Politics
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The national wilderness preservation system would be strengthened- Taking a long trip into the backcountry during winter doesn’t appeal to some people. That’s understandable. But I enjoy it, and it’s something I try to do a few times a year. Winter backpacking is very different, and more challenging, compared to strapping on the pack during…
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Effort to turn ranchers into scofflaws nets just one so far- Ammon Bundy has been trying to recruit livestock operators who have grazing permits on U.S. public lands to stop paying the rental (grazing fees) for their grazing allotment. He finally recruited one, or at least one showed up Saturday to renounce paying his grazing…
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Dwight Hammond and his son Steve, the ranchers who sparked the recent Harney County protests, were characterized as “responsible ranchers” by Congressman Greg Walden in a speech before Congress. Walden sought to minimize the crimes the Hammonds have committed by suggesting they merely burned a bit more than a hundred acres, something that he tried…
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By Josh Osher and Andy Kerr The Sheriff of Harney County, OR met with the leader of the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and offered a way to end the takeover fiasco. The Sheriff offered a “safe escort” out of the increasingly untenable situation. Congress should follow the Sheriff’s pragmatic gesture and offer…
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The standoff in Harney County Oregon highlights one of the great ironies of the rural West. More than any other people, western rural residents are more heavily dependent on government (read taxpayer) largesse than any other part of America. Yet the average rural resident sees himself/herself as a “rugged and independent” individual and by…
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Public Employees for Environment Responsibility (PEER) news release “Federal Inaction for 19 Months on Bundy Spawns More Militia Confrontations” Washington, DC —This week’s armed seize of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by self-styled “militia” stems from the lack of a coherent response to earlier confrontations with anti-government extremists, according to Public Employees for…
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They were almost charged with a felony in 1994- Today Dwight and Steve Hammond are said to be reporting back to prison to finish their resentenced terms. There is a debate in the media whether their two convicted arsons were all that serious. It turns out that is not the entire history of the Hammonds…
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Irregular militia followers claim to be supporting the prison-bound Hammonds- They began to filter into Burns, Oregon about a week ago. Participants in what was to become a protest parade through Burns and later seizure of a national wildlife refuge headquarters, numbered from about 150 to 300, according to several reports and statements on Saturday.…