acquittal

[grower]

"The Jury has spoken" is absolutely the best thing he can say from ANY point of view. It sticks with his "law and order" ideas, in which our criminal cases are ultimately decided in OUR system by the jury, it respects the power of the jury, and it completely avoids the issue of governmental overreach until after he's elected. Just because he's not a politician does not mean he has to be stupid. Whether you think the verdict in this case was right or wrong is not the issue. The ultimate power of the people to judge the case, the law, and it's application is the issue.

I agree completely.
Point being, the "government overreach," or corruption, or tyranny...whatever you want to call it....can be corrected if there is new blood in the White House. I would like to see Trump given the chance. In the meantime, saying "the Jury has spoken" gives anyone reading that a moment to think about the concept of jury nullification. It's a powerful tool of the people.

[BluesStringer]

"The Jury has spoken" is absolutely the best thing he can say from ANY point of view. It sticks with his "law and order" ideas, in which our criminal cases are ultimately decided in OUR system by the jury, it respects the power of the jury, and it completely avoids the issue of governmental overreach until after he's elected. Just because he's not a politician does not mean he has to be stupid. Whether you think the verdict in this case was right or wrong is not the issue. The ultimate power of the people to judge the case, the law, and it's application is the issue.

I agree completely.
Point being, the "government overreach," or corruption, or tyranny...whatever you want to call it....can be corrected if there is new blood in the White House. I would like to see Trump given the chance. In the meantime, saying "the Jury has spoken" gives anyone reading that a moment to think about the concept of jury nullification. It's a powerful tool of the people.

This Trump-centric sub-thread started when I highlighted what Trump had to say about the Bundys specifically to the NY Times in January of this year.

“You cannot let people take over federal property,” Mr. Trump said.

No, but apparently Mr. Trump, you can let government force private citizens out of their own property through eminent domain so that you can increase the holdings of your private enterprise.

“You can’t, because once you do that, you don’t have a government anymore."

You've got it backasswards, Mr. Trump. Under our constitutional republic system, the government and everything it holds within the United States is in Trust for The People. Government "owns" nothing, The People own everything. Constitutionally, Mr. Trump, government has authority to control minimum amounts of land for very heavily-restricted purposes, but just like the government itself, the land is owned by The People. Here are government's only two constitutional references to control lands within the states:

1)

Article I, Section VIII, Clause 17: To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings....

And 2)

Article IV, Section III, Clause 2: The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

What these two clauses of our Constitution mean regarding under what circumstances it can legitimately be claimed that we "don't have a government anymore," Mr. Trump, is that The People, represented by the Bundys et al at Malheur Wildlife Refuge, were (and still are) the only group upholding the rule of constitutional law when they attempted to deny government access to lands that it has no constitutional authority to control.

A decent study of valid conclusions that can be drawn from those two clauses of the Constitution can be found here, and some of them are as follows, Mr. Trump. I hope they will serve to inform your impression that land-grabs by government can ever be considered a valid definition of government's existence for the ignorant asshattery that it is:

* Under the Property Clause (Art. IV, Sec. 3, Cl. 2), land titled to the federal government and held outside state boundaries is “Territory.” Federal land held within state boundaries is “other Property.”

* If the host state agrees, the federal government can acquire an “enclave” within the state under the Enclave Clause (I-8-17). This grants governmental jurisdiction to the federal government, but the federal government has to acquire title separately. Washington, D.C. (the most important enclave), for example, is under federal jurisdiction, but much of the land is held by other parties, including individuals.

* The Property Clause gives Congress unconditional power to dispose of property and authority to regulate what is already held. It does not mention a power to acquire.

* Under the Treaty Clause (II-2-2; see also Article VI), the federal government may acquire land outside state boundaries. As long as the area is governed as a territory, the federal government may retain any land it deems best.

* As for acreage (“other Property”) within state boundaries: Under the Necessary and Proper Clause, the federal government may acquire and retain land necessary for carrying out its enumerate powers. This includes parcels for military bases, post offices, buildings to house federal employees undertaking enumerated functions, and the like. It is not necessary to form federal enclaves for these purposes.

* But within state boundaries the Constitution grants no authority to retain acreage for unenumerated purposes, such as land for grazing, mineral development, agriculture, forests, or parks.

* Once a state is created and is thereby no longer a territory, the federal government has a duty to dispose of tracts not used for enumerated purposes.

* In the process of disposal, the federal government must follow the rules of public trust. It would be a breach of fiduciary duty for the feds to simply grant all of its surplus property to state governments. Each tract must be disposed of in accordance with the best interest of the American people. For example, natural wonders and environmentally sensitive areas (such as those now encompassed by the national parks) might be conveyed under strict conditions to state park authorities or (as in Britain) to perpetual environmental trusts. Land useful only for grazing, mining, or agriculture should be sold or homesteaded, with or without restrictions. The restrictions might include environmental protections, public easements, and protection for hunters and anglers.

Everything preceding this paragraph could just as easily and justifiably be addressed to the Clintons, almost any and all members of Congress, the courts both low and high, and the many ambivalent people who shrug their shoulders over this outrageous level of constitutional usurpation that the Bundys et al and the incidents at Malheur and their ranch in Bunkerville, NV would expose if even a modicum of interest in peeling back the layers of the onion was employed. This is only addressed to Trump because it goes without saying on this website that Clinton and other government hacks and their civilian lackeys don't care at all what the Constitution says if abiding by it would decrease in any way government's all-encompassing authority to force its will on The People. Ostensibly, according to his supporters here, Trump is different, but I don't hear any difference in the way he spoke (in Jan. of this year) about the Malheur occupation. A little more from that interview:

Mr. Trump said he wasn’t necessarily suggesting a large-scale military action, but that “at a certain point you have to do something and you have to be firm and you have to be strong, you have to be a government.”

The Jury has spoken Mr. Trump, and you are as wrong as wrong can be. Do you have the requisite humility to admit it, Mr. Trump? Will this verdict even warrant a passing mention by you of the righteously lawful nature of the positions of the occupiers? Does "being a government" mean that Marshals of that government should torture attorneys of defendants who simply demand the paperwork necessary to establish the court's authority to continue to hold them against their will after they are acquitted?

Am I the only one who makes decisions about who to support or not to support based on their long-standing public records regarding their commitment and adherence to founding principles, or are principles of any sort too passé to stand on because the only consideration that counts is the opponent of the candidate one is supporting?

Blues

In a subsequent post I linked to a Field & Stream article where he had a bunch more to say about the Bundys and about "public lands" in general. He's already staked out positions against their side on exactly what the Bundys were persecuted for. He wasn't shy about staking out those positions pre-trial, and he should be questioned about whether the verdict influences his current views on the subject now. So should Billary. So should all the Congress-critters who ever spoke of the Bundys as law-breakers, and they should also all be questioned about the constitutional issues raised by both Bundy-led civil disobedience actions in NV and OR, and they should all be questioned about what they think of the jury who acquitted them, because all of them who stated positions against the Bundys and in support of huge percentages of government "owned" lands up to above 80% in NV, have now been rebuked by that jury.

People have a right to know what their candidates think about any given subject, even if it's a subject that holds political land mines that make the politicians squirm, and even if it's a subject that comes up at inopportune times like during an election season. Especially during an election season is the precise time The People need to know their positions the most.

It is Donald Trump correctly saying out loud in front of every single microphone capable of picking up his voice that the system is rigged against everyday people. The Bundys are just such everyday people that he took firm positions against, and took strong positions in favor of the government that a jury of their peers has now said were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. Many of you like to make it out to be my duty to participate in this wholly usurped and corrupt system of elections, but bristle and obfuscate at the notion that Trump supporters have even more duty to question him when legitimate issues of constitutionalism and originalism, like in this case, arise.

His supporters want him to avoid that subject until after the election. I'm of the strong opinion that all citizens paying attention in any way to what's going/already gone wrong with this country should be demanding answers beyond just "the jury has spoken" because that jury spoke in direct contradiction to the positions Trump already put out there.

I suffer from no illusions though. His supporters will cover his backside even if he went out and shot someone on 5th Avenue, just like he himself said pretty early in the campaign. Yay political expediency! Yay avoidance!

Blues

[willowlady]

His supporters want him to avoid that subject until after the election. I'm of the strong opinion that all citizens paying attention in any way to what's going/already gone wrong with this country should be demanding answers beyond just "the jury has spoken" because that jury spoke in direct contradiction to the positions Trump already put out there.

At this time, "the jury has spoken" is appropriate. I get your concerns about his prior position, which is a direct result of his "law and order" ideas. What you maybe don't get is this: He listens to the people. The verdict of the jury in this matter is a quintessential statement of how the people view the abuses of federal power. Which is also something he wants to reform. I'm willing to roll the dice and hope he is who he says he is, which is someone malleable enough to adjust his views. At least it's a new set of dice.

[Lenno]

Malheur Informants and 3UP Exposed: Today’s WTF Moment

by Kit Perez | Oct 28, 2016 | Editorials | 7 comments
A lot of folks are celebrating today after the Malheur defendants were found not guilty yesterday. I am well aware that I’ll probably catch some serious flak for saying what I’m about to say, but that’s okay. I’m not the only one saying it, at least about Malheur. I’ll get to the 3UP fiasco in a moment.
With the infiltration rate at the refuge being what it was, what are the odds that at least some of the defendants were actually informants and/or even undercover agents? If you’ve got someone running a long game, why blow it by outing them when you can run them through a trial–thereby giving them even more credibility in the ‘movement’ when they’re ‘vindicated’? According to the information that’s been released, there were 15 assets/informants involved with the refuge, and only 3 have been officially identified:

• The lady doing the cooking
• The guy running the firearm range
• The guy who was driving the second vehicle on the ill-fated day of LaVoy Finicum’s death

See the pattern yet? The word “facilitator” comes to mind, as do the words “completely and utterly infiltrated and even controlled by the same feds who claimed to not want them there.”
Now look at who’s still in jail, who’s pled guilty, who’s trying to change their plea, etc. Where are all the players? Who are they? What’s their history? How many of them lied about their military service? How many of them have ties to other shady characters? What position or function did they hold in the refuge? Stop with the emotion and just LOOK at the facts. They’re right there in front of anyone who wants to see them. The information is all out there, for better or for worse. I would bet good money that some of the folks who were found not guilty ARE guilty—of spending a lot of time and effort helping to make that entire ruckus what it was.
Anyone who knows me knows that I think the entire thing was poorly planned, poorly executed and just a general cluster, as Mike would say. If you want to dismiss everything else I’m saying because of that fact, you’re certainly entitled to do so. But let’s be realistic. There are 12 more informants from that situation–at least–who have not been identified. There’s only one reason why they don’t want to identify them—because they’re still active. They’re still IN. Mark McConnell served his function; he got the leaders right where the feds wanted them. Terri Linnell also served the function she was meant for, and now that she’s not only been identified but tried to explain it all away, God knows no one with two brain cells to rub together would allow her near them again. The third guy? Also a single use asset. Each of them were used for a very specific niche purpose, and there’s no reason to keep them around anymore, so the feds went ahead and let them get outed. It’s not like the feds somehow care about their well-being, or even think the outed sources are in danger from reprisals (and they aren’t).
But the other 12? That’s a different story. They are not finished performing their function. They still need their cover, because they are still in the mix—and anyone near them is in danger. Will they be found? Probably not, because no one wants to truly believe that the nice, solid, trustworthy people they think they know are playing them, and people desperately need to feel like they’ve got people in the proverbial foxhole with them. That brings to me to the second half of today’s WTF moment—-the ‘national’ group called 3% United Patriots, or 3UP. (Never mind that the entire concept of the 3% was never intended to be national ANYTHING, because that part will be the least of the issues by the time you get to the end of this.)
First, you should swallow really hard and go read this entire article. A lefty reporter for Mother Jones infiltrated 3% United Patriots at the border. He then proceeded to lay out everything he saw with his trusty body cam in a pretty in-depth piece (which, by the way, no one from the community is reading because they’re too mad about it all, or they refuse to read lefty sites, which means any potential for lessons learned is about as nonexistent as their personnel security apparently is.) For the record, that article should be REQUIRED reading for everyone who claims membership in 3UP or any other ‘national’ group, and anyone with a modicum of sense won’t be after seeing how easily and completely they were infiltrated by an untrained journalist. Not to mention…some of the stuff that is going on down there just defies any reason. Interestingly enough, his description of how he got into this Super Secret Operation(tm) is pretty much exactly the type of thing I’ve warned against for quite some time.

Becoming a militia member began with opening a new Facebook account. I used my real name, but the only personal information I divulged on my profile was that I was married and that I had held jobs as a welder and a prison guard for the Corrections Corporation of America. A “Don’t Tread on Me” flag was my avatar. I found and “liked” militia pages: Three Percenter Nation, Patriotic Warriors, Arizona State Militia. Then Facebook generated endless suggestions of other militia pages, and I “liked” those too. To keep my page active, I shared other people’s posts: blogs about President Barack Obama trying to declare martial law, and threats of Syrians crossing the border. I posted memes about American flags and police lives mattering. Then I sent dozens of friend requests to people who belonged to militia-related Facebook groups. Some were suspicious of me: “Kinda have a veg profile, so I got to ask why you want to be my friend????” one messaged. Many, however, accepted my friend requests automatically. Within a couple of days, I had more than 100 friends, and virtually any militia member who looked at my page would likely find that we had at least one friend in common.

Once he had established himself as being ‘in the movement,’ he managed to get into a secret group, where they were openly talking about their operations.

Then I came across the Three Percent United Patriots’ private “Operation Spring Break” Facebook group. I requested access, and when it was granted I saw a post asking who was coming to the operation in April. I replied, “Yes.” The purpose of the operation wasn’t posted anywhere because it was understood implicitly—to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Eventually, the coordinates for the forward operating base inside Arizona’s San Rafael Ranch State Park were posted. No one asked me anything about myself. All I had to do was show up. The list of required equipment was extensive, including weapons, medical supplies, and body cameras. The idea was that video footage would disprove anyone making false accusations against the militiamen. I used my body cam to capture what I saw and heard. No one raised an eyebrow.

The wry irony of it all is that there’s a good chance one of the good ol’ boys that he ended up hanging out with down at the border, who told him all about their “SERE school,” (in which they claim to hit students with cattle prods, put them in stress boxes and make them suck on habanero-coated sex toys), was an undercover federal agent himself, by sheer arithmetic. What are the odds? By the way, I’d like to drop this little gem in the mix as well.

When I asked Fifty Cal [National “Commander” Mike Morris] to comment on the training, he wrote back, “Stories of SERE are greatly exaggerated. Yes, we have a version of SERE; it’s more of a gauge of mental awareness than anything to do with torture.”

So let me get this straight. In one part of the country, we’ve got Malheur, which was so incredibly infiltrated that they had to risk a total acquittal rather than expose the rest of the assets they still have out in the ranks or sitting at the defense table. It’s not that big a risk, however, because the big dogs they really want are just going to Nevada now, where the feds get a whole ‘nother round at bat. They don’t care about the minor players (I think most folks understand that as long as David Fry gets his pizza and his weed, he’d be fine).
Meanwhile, down on the border, we’ve got people running their own version of SERE school with *****s and hot sauce, all the while talking about how hard-training they are and how ‘secure’ they need to ensure things are—to a reporter from Mother freaking Jones, who infiltrated their super secret operation all the way up to direct commander access by simply hanging out on Facebook.
Those are two of the more well-known facets of the so-called ‘patriot movement.’ Think about that for a good long while.
Ready to detach from the ‘patriot Matrix’ and go local yet?
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[Lenno]

U.S. prosecutors regroup for second trial in Oregon occupation




By Scott Bransford

October 28, 2016



By Scott Bransford
PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Friday regrouped to strategize for their next trial of armed militants who occupied a wildlife center in Oregon the day after seven others at a related trial were surprisingly acquitted of all charges.
The group's leader, Ammon Bundy, and six others were declared not guilty on Thursday of conspiracy charges stemming from their role in the armed takeover and 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
The stinging defeat left federal prosecutors scrambling as they prepare to try in February seven others who were part of the same occupation.
The criminal counts brought against them, which include conspiracy to impede federal officers, are similar to the charges on which Bundy and other were acquitted.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland abruptly canceled a news conference to discuss Thursday's verdict.
"We're just regrouping with our trial team for pending litigation," said Kevin Sonoff, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon.
Bundy and his brother, Ryan, still face assault, conspiracy and other charges from a separate armed standoff in 2014 in Nevada.
The acquittal on criminal conspiracy counts and weapons charges delivered in federal court in Portland on Thursday also encouraged the group's supporters.
Bundy and others cast the occupation of the wildlife refuge as a patriotic act of civil disobedience. Prosecutors called it a lawless scheme to seize federal property by force.
The relative silence of U.S. prosecutors on Friday gave little indication of how they will proceed with the trial against the Bundys in Nevada and the case against the second group of defendants in the Oregon occupation.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden in Nevada in a statement on Friday said the criminal case in that state is proceeding as planned with trial set for February, the same month as the second trial in Oregon.
"The Oregon case and charges are separate and unrelated to the Nevada case and charges," Bogden said.
The Nevada case stems from a face-off the Bundy brothers and their supporters had near the Nevada ranch of their father, Cliven Bundy, with federal agents who had seized his cattle for his failure to pay grazing fees for his use of public land.
The Bundy brothers and their father remain jailed while awaiting trial in Nevada.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax in New York, Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

[BluesStringer]

Commentary that I can enthusiastically sign onto in whole from Gavin Seim, recorded on 10/27, same day of the verdicts I do believe.




Amen.

[Lenno]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXq7a0WVkJ8



Published on Oct 27, 2016
Incredible. Ammon Bundy's attorney, Marcus Mumford, was jumped and tasered by Federal Marshalls INSIDE the Federal Courthouse just after it was announced that Ammon Bundy and all of the other defendants were not guilty of all charges. Mumford stated Ammon was a free man and the Oregon court no longer had jurisdiction over Mr. Bundy. Mumford requested paperwork from the Government to prove authorization of Federal Marshalls to hold Ammon. That's when it got bad.