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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:16am PT
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healeyje, what you say is true so long as the military backs the government. It is my experience however, that the military are much more versed in the Constitution than the civilian world and would be reluctant to do that. They are after all, sworn to defend the Constitution, not the government or the President and they know the difference between lawful and unlawful orders.
It's also true, that our political leaders in order to conquer our people would have to give up any pretense of being democratic which they would be reluctant to do, especially when faced with a long drawn out guerilla war.
The greatest danger to our country is public apathy.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:17am PT
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Chief, please don't attempt to equate native amormocan and Native American claims and histories as it's both insulting and makes you look like an idiot.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:20am PT
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Meanwhile guys, there's a lunar eclipse going on. The moon is about half covered now in the clear sky of Colorado.
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John M
climber
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:28am PT
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The BLM took the land and sold it for mining money.
Last time you said it was for solar. So which is it? Do you have proof of this? What is your source?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:30am PT
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Someone here posed the question about Oath Keepers; I may not have this entirely right since I'm not affiliated with them.
The first act upon joining the Military of the United States involves taking "The Oath."
The Oath is: I do solemnly swear to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States against All enemies both Foreign AND DOMESTIC, and to obey the Lawful Orders of those appointed over me, so help me God.
Oath keepers realize that those of us who have served Honorably have never been released or relieved form that Oath.
Another key word is Lawful as in lawful Orders. Lawful has a specific legal meaning "in strict accordance to the Constitution." Any order which is based on a possibly Unconstitutional Statute is thereby Null and Void.
What this entire discussion has done is remind me that I've never been relieved of my Oath, either.
United States Army 21 September 1961 to 26 August 1964. DD 214.
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John M
climber
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:37am PT
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Any order which is based on a possibly Unconstitutional Statute in thereby Null and Void.
lots of leeway in that statement. Is it really a defense if these guys start shooting and claim they were defending someone from something that was unconstitutional?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:39am PT
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More, so much more will be revealed there in Nevada. No there isn't. And if there's a 'bad guy' here it isn't the Federal Government, the courts, or the BLM - it's exactly the Clark County Bundy keeps talking up. They're the ones who picked up his leases and retired them to mitigate its own development plans.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:41am PT
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I don't know the answer to that question John, but I'm betting this case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, funded by the Koch brothers, and it will be really interesting to see what a conservative majority on the court does with it.
And part of the complaint here Bruce is that the BLM is not a justice institution. It is an administrative institution, with visions of law enforcement grandeur.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:43am PT
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It certainly would be a defense for any Military man who has taken the oath to NOT fire on a crowd of civilians if ordered to do so...
These BLM Rangers have never taken that sort of oath
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:46am PT
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The Chief has his own reality, which makes him feel good about himself.
Meantimes that lunar eclipse -----eclipses this bull-schisters thread.
Leave your keyboards ------and check it out.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:47am PT
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The Lunar eclipse is nearing totality and will be there in about 5 minutes.
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John M
climber
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:48am PT
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Again: do you so hate and deem corrupt your justice institutions so much that you prefer to be able to shoot them when they conduct their duty?
I would say most do not hate them entirely . But there has been seemingly a lot of police officers committing what appear to be egregious acts and getting away with them.
I believe that part of what ails america is that many people feel like their government no longer represents them and in some ways has become a bully. Healyje posted above about how some in the right wing have been helping to foster this feeling. That you can't trust the government. There is a lot of divisiveness in this country right now. Its not good. I still believe that the average American is good, but even good people can do crazy things if you push them enough.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:49am PT
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Hey some of us can type and then run outside for a look and then back in again. It's too cold in Colorado to spend much time out there anyway.
And very well put John.
Probably more powerful in the end than citizens with guns will be citizens with video cameras.
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hashbro
Trad climber
Mental Physics........
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Apr 15, 2014 - 02:57am PT
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http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/the-irony-of-cliven-bundys-unconstitutional-stand/360587/
Twenty-one years ago, rancher Cliven Bundy stopped paying his grazing fees.
Bundy does not recognize federal authority over land where his ancestors first settled in the 1880s, which he claims belongs to the state of Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management disagreed and took him to federal court, which first ruled in favor of the BLM in 1998. After years of attempts at a negotiated settlement over the $1.2 million Bundy owes in fees failed, federal land agents began seizing hundreds of his cattle illegally grazing on public land last week.
But after footage of a BLM agent using a stun gun on Bundy's adult son went viral in far-right circles, hundreds of armed militia supporters from neighboring states flocked to Bundy's ranch to defend him from the BLM agents enforcing the court order. The states'-rights groups, in echoes of Ruby Ridge and Waco, came armed and prepared for violence. "I'm ready to pull the trigger if fired upon," one of the anti-government activists told Reuters. Not eager to spill blood over cattle, the BLM backed down Sunday and started returning the livestock it had confiscated. The agency says it won't drop the matter and will "continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially."
Federalism—genuine states' rights—is perhaps more familiar to Nevadans than to any other state's denizens. To boost the state's ailing economy in the early 20th century, Nevada exploited the federal architecture of American law to create uniquely permissive laws on divorce, gambling, and prostitution, bringing in much-needed tourism revenue and giving the state a distinctive libertarian character. Just this weekend, the state Republican Party dropped statements opposing abortion and same-sex marriage from its platform at their convention, bucking the party's national stance.
But Bundy's understanding of states' rights is far different. As he told Sean Hannity in an interview last week (emphasis added):
Well, you know, my cattle is only one issue—that the United States courts has ordered that the government can seize my cattle. But what they have done is seized Nevada statehood, Nevada law, Clark County public land, access to the land, and have seized access to all of the other rights of Clark County people that like to go hunting and fishing. They've closed all those things down, and we're here to protest that action. And we are after freedom. We're after liberty. That's what we want.
Bundy's claim that the land belongs to Nevada or Clark County didn't hold up in court, nor did his claim of inheriting an ancestral right to use the land that pre-empts the BLM's role. "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," Bundy told his supporters, according to The Guardian.
His personal grievance with federal authority doesn't stop with the BLM, though. "I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada," Bundy said in a radio interview last Thursday. "I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing." Ironically, this position directly contradicts Article 1, Section 2 of the Nevada Constitution:
All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it. But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.
The paramount-allegiance clause, a product of the era in which Nevada gained statehood, originated in Nevada's first (and unofficial) constitutional convention of 1863. Some 3,000 miles to the east, the Civil War raged between the federal government in the North and West and the rebellion that had swallowed the South. In early 1864, Abraham Lincoln—who wanted more pro-Union states in Congress so as to pass the amendment to abolish slavery, and a few more electoral votes to guarantee his reelection that fall—signed a bill authorizing Nevada to convene an official constitutional convention for statehood. The state constitution's framers, who were overwhelmingly Unionist, retained the clause in solidarity with the Union when they gathered in July 1864.
Nevada isn't the only state with a paramount-allegiance clause. Republicans added similar clauses to Reconstruction-era state constitutions throughout the South, although few survived subsequent revisions after federal troops departed. Even the states that retain the phrase "paramount allegiance" today, like North Carolina and Mississippi, don't share Nevada's explicit constitutional openness toward armed federal intervention to enforce it.
That pro-federal sentiment also guided Nevada's first congressional delegation when it arrived in the nation's capital in early 1865. William Stewart, the Silver State's first senator, proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865 that would've enshrined a weaker form of the paramount allegiance clause at the federal level:
First—The Union of the States, under this constitution, is indissoluble, and no State can absolve its citizens from the obligation of paramount allegiance to the United States.
Second—No engagement made, or obligation incurred by any State, or by any number of States, or by any county, city, or any other municipal corporation to subvert, impair, or resist the authority of the United States, or to support or aid any legislative convention or body in hostility to such authority, shall ever be held, voted, or be assumed or sustained, in whole or part, by any State or by the United States.
This proposed amendment—which would have resolved secession's constitutionality for all time—did not succeed. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White in 1869 that secession had been unconstitutional and that "the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible states." Stewart nevertheless left his mark on the Constitution the same year as White, when he wrote what would become the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black suffrage.
Two decades after Nevada's founders proclaimed unswerving obedience to federal authority, Cliven Bundy's family first settled the land where he and his supporters now make their heavily armed stand against federal power. It's doubtful even the Nevada Constitution will change their minds—if legal and constitutional arguments could persuade the militia movement, there might not be a militia movement.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Apr 15, 2014 - 03:09am PT
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Here's a shot just taken moments ago. near totality then, and dark as I write this.
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philo
Trad climber
Is that light the end of the tunnel or a train?
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Apr 15, 2014 - 03:15am PT
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TheOath is: I do solemnly swear to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States against All enemies both Foreign AND DOMESTIC, and to obey the Lawful Orders of those appointed over me, so help me God.
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philo
Trad climber
Is that light the end of the tunnel or a train?
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Apr 15, 2014 - 03:25am PT
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HmmmImagine that Rong and the Chuff are wrong.
Right wing disinformation: Bundy’s Land Is NOT Solar Farm for Harry Reid
by RALPH MAUGHAN on APRIL 13, 2014 · 80 COMMENTS · in B.L.M., CATTLE, GRAZING AND LIVESTOCK, NEVADA, POLITICS
Right wing seizes on Bundy trespass to go after Harry Reid-
When a local issue goes national, it is often warped into other political agendas. We see that clearly with Cliven Bundy’s 20 years of public land cattle trespass coming to a head.
A cursory search shows a sudden explosion of articles claiming Nevada’s senior senator, Harry Reid, wants Bundy’s land (all Bundy actually owns is a melon farm) to build a solar plant to enrich himself and his son. Since Reid is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, the radical right has every incentive to harm him by making this false claim. Such a blatant lie needs to be exposed.
Bundy has been trespassing over 750,000 acres of U.S. public land to the south of Mesquite and Bunkerville, Nevada. Bundy’s actual private property is his melon farm at Bunkerville, which looks like maybe 100 acres on Google Earth. There is a solar farm. But it is not on the huge swath of land Bundy is trespassing on. The solar facility is actually under construction near the Moapa Indian Reservation about ten miles closer to Las Vegas.
The Wildlife News has been critical of many solar farms in the desert because of the massive destruction of wildlife habitat, but this farm under construction is not one of the dangerous mirror farms like Ivanpah near Primm, Nevada/California. It is a photovoltaic farm and it is being built to allow decommissioning of the Reid Gardner coal generation station nearby. Reid Gardner is one of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation. In addition, the new solar plant will also help the tribe which has been badly abused in the past, being left with only a 1000 acre reservation. No, the plant is not on the reservation. See the local newspaper: Reid Helps Moapa Band Break Ground On Solar Project. Moapa Valley Progress. March 26, 2014.
The Reid Gardner coal generation station. Copyright Ralph Maughan
It is amazing that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones would actually publish a map showing the location of the project. Anyone with the least geographic information can see it is not on the land where Bundy has been stealing the public’s grass for a generation.
There is also a solar farm proposal near Laughlin, Nevada, at the very southern tip of the state. Some of the right wing news outlets also confuses this with the trespass land near Mesquite. Here is an earlier story about the Laughlin project. The Chinese Try to Harness the Nevada Sun. Regarding this plant, back on April 5, Bloomberg Businessweek tried to work a negative Chinese angle. Now it too has been morphed onto the public land where Bundy has no right to graze and where he has threatened violence if not allowed to continue his illegal activity.
The only thing that has been proposed for the public land where Bundy’s cows continue to trespass is some kind of protective classification like a scenic area, recreation area, national monument.
The right wing media is using the unfortunate ignorance of Nevada geography to make the attack by the armed mob on the BLM into a political point against Senator Reid. Though it is doubtful Bundy knew what would happen, his cause has already been picked up by the Koch Brothers who really do want our public land — all of it. Their Americans for Prosperity front group is trumpeting Bundy’s cause. The animosity between Senator Reid and the Koch brothers is well known. The Kochs have already spent perhaps 50-million dollars in attack ads trying to win a Republican senate majority this fall. Some Republicans worry these energy and chemical barons are trying to build a parallel political party.
Together the Kochs have 100-billion dollars to play with, the 5th and 6th richest men on the planet. They can now spend as much as they want on American elections, courtesy of the Supreme Court. They can, and probably will spend more in 2014 than was spent in the entire 2012 campaign. They could fund it many times over.
Some folks must really dig sucking Koch.
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John M
climber
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Apr 15, 2014 - 03:29am PT
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If they are getting away with it prosecute them. It is the civil way. The other way is vigilantism.
what happens when the people believe that the courts have broken down and the government no longer represents them? What recourse do you have then?
I do agree that this case is not the best case, but as Jan says, this feeling is running strong in some parts of this country.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Apr 15, 2014 - 03:37am PT
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I do agree that this case is not the best case, but as Jan says, this feeling is running strong in some parts of this country.
And again, that didn't happen by accident, it was a deliberate, forty-year campaign of hate and fear which, in the end, was even more successful than it's creators anticipated. Now those same folks are trying to disown the Tea Party, far-right nutjobs, and all the other unintended (but entirely predictable) consequences of their own actions. It's not at all unlike the right now trying to distance themselves from the neocons - hypocritical in the extreme.
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