Source : Think Progress
By : Casey Quinlan
Category : DUI Attorney Matthews Bark of SeminoleCounty, Matthew Bark
By : Casey Quinlan
Category : DUI Attorney Matthews Bark of SeminoleCounty, Matthew Bark
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| Armed Oregon Militia Creates Kangaroo Court To Indict Government |
An
armed group that has taken over a national wildlife refuge to protest
federal land use policies continues to escalate the situation by
introducing a common law grand jury, which has no actual legal standing.
They have chosen Joaquin Mariano DeMoreta-Folch, St. Augustine Tea
Party government accountability chairman and a longtime proponent of
convening secret citizens’ panels to indict government officials to be
their common law judge and at a recent event held at the refuge a New
Mexico rancher, Adrian Sewell of Grant County, New Mexico, renounced his
federal grazing contract from the U.S. Forest Service.
Oregon officials
want the militia to leave, saying it’s been far past time for the
occupation to end. But it doesn’t look like the leader of the militia,
Ammon Bundy, is ready to end the stand-off. Bundy walked out of a
private meeting with a federal agent on Friday after the agent refused
to speak in the presence of media, according to the Associated Press.
Bundy also questioned the FBI authority, telling an agent, “If you
haven’t got sanction from the sheriff, there’s no reason to be talking
to you.”
On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said the occupation
was costly to taxpayers and sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey
and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch telling them to end the
occupation of federal land “as safely and as quickly as possible.”
Earlier this month, Oregon Sheriff Dave Ward met Ammon Bundy in a near
the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Ward encouraged Bundy to leave
town and told Bundy he would offer “safe escort out.” Bundy and the
group of armed men he leads have treated to kill law enforcement if they
try to intervene, so this offer, while intended to spare human lives,
is fairly extraordinary when compared to other protests.
Yet,
Bundy lectured the sheriff on the constitution and said the armed men
would stay there indefinitely. According to OregonLive, Bundy told the
sheriff, “Until we can see that there is a great momentum and the people
can get doing that themselves, then we will remain … That could be a
week, that could be a year.” After their discussion, the group bulldozed
a fence that divided private ranchlands from public land and damaged
Native American archeological sites. Last week, two members of the
militia were arrested after driving two federal vehicles to a local
Safeway.
It doesn’t look like the situation will deescalate soon
considering what the armed group that has been occupying federal land
for a few weeks are asking for. The militia, which has partnered with a
well-known conspiracy theorist, wants to create an alternative legal
system in the region that would replace Harney County’s elected leaders
and sheriff with those who support the sovereign citizen movement. The
movement is a group of people who believe they are not subject to the
laws and orders of the federal government. If local officials govern
closely to federal government rules their authority is moot, according
to the movement’s ideology.
Read more : thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/24/3742263/common-law-tea-party-activist/
