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Post by avordvet on Jan 27, 2016 5:33:30 GMT -5
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 27, 2016 12:18:50 GMT -5
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Post by avordvet on Jan 27, 2016 14:35:15 GMT -5
Deceased Militant LaVoy Finicum: Rancher, Patriarch, Bundy Believerby Amelia Templeton and Conrad Wilson OPB | Jan. 27, 2016 12:48 a.m. | Updated: Jan. 27, 2016 10:25 a.m. Robert LaVoy Finicum, who died Tuesday in a confrontation with FBI and state police on the highway between Burns and John Day, was a man whose life was transformed by the 2014 standoff between Cliven Bundy and federal officials in Nevada. Finicum was reportedly killed during an officer involved shooting with Oregon State Police while traveling with Ammon and Ryan Bundy to meet with ranchers and others in Grant County. According to police, the shooting took place around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday along Highway 395. At the occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Finicum stood out as one of the few ranchers in a crowd of army vets and anti-government activists. www.opb.org/news/article/robert-lavoy-finicum-dead-rancher-bundy-burns-oregon/
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Post by avordvet on Jan 28, 2016 6:03:49 GMT -5
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 28, 2016 9:06:55 GMT -5
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Post by smokeeater on Jan 28, 2016 10:31:57 GMT -5
Thank you for the link
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 28, 2016 12:48:07 GMT -5
ncrenegade.com/editorial/malheur-sitrep-0400l-28-jan-16/Malheur SITREP – 0400L 28 JAN 16by Sam Culper It’s been a very long 36 hours since yesterday’s events began unfolding. Avoidable tragedy struck Tuesday afternoon when LaVoy Finicum was shot and killed. Since then, there have been at least four different accounts of what happened. We’ve seen wild and inaccurate speculation about what’s going on at the Refuge, which has been contradictory to on the ground reporting. In these times, we need to focus on discerning facts from opinions, and separate what’s more likely to be true from what’s less likely to be true through a structured process. What follows is my personal account of following the situation, including talks with sources on the ground and on conference calls with Sergeant Major Joseph Santoro (U.S.A., Ret.), Stewart Rhodes, State Representative Matthew Shea (R-WA), Jason Van Tatenhove, and others. Here’s what we know. – Just before 5:00 pm local on Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Oregon State Police (OSP) made a felony stop on two vehicles carrying Ammon Bundy and six other individuals headed to a community meeting in John Day, Oregon, in neighboring Grant County. During the stop, which occurred on land that the federal government controls just inside the Malheur National Forest, law enforcement personnel fired shots, wounding Ryan Payne and killing LaVoy Finicum. Here’s a breakdown of the four known accounts.
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 28, 2016 22:12:36 GMT -5
Once the genie has been released from the bottle it is extremely hard to put him back in. I for one believe that we are seeing the country move closer and closer to total civil unrest. By design we are more divided than ever before in our history. The situation in Oregon is but one example of the that divide. I fully support the reason for the protests in Oregon even if I did not 100% support the methods they chose. But beyond that every group in this country is being played against another. Rule number 36 says if you feel like you are being played then you probably are. We all need to keep that in mind. In my opinion we all are being purposely herded into a box canyon where the divisions that have been cultivated among us will tear this country apart and lead to armed conflict. If that is to be then God help us all and may we all keep to our Faith when and if that happens. ncrenegade.com/editorial/what-do-i-want/ What Do I Want?1. I want to see the FBI video of Mr. Finicum’s death. 2. I want to see pictures of Mr. Finicum’s truck for bullet holes. 3. I want to hear from the other three people in Mr. Finicum’s truck. 4. I want to know why the media is still providing a false narrative of events. 5. I want to know why the sheriff was so troubled at the press conference while the FBI agent was talking. 6. I want to know if the invitation to attend the town meeting was a planned ambush on federal land. 7. I want to know when the Hammond’s will be released from prison. 8. I want to know why no politician is addressing this “action” during the so called pResidential debates. 9. I want to know why the “militia” is bad other than our rulers and media telling us it is. 10. I want to know why exercising our right to petition the government under the first amendment is now a felony and a possible death sentence. Feel free to comment on what you want to know. David DeGerolamo
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 28, 2016 22:19:53 GMT -5
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Post by brocktownsend on Jan 29, 2016 1:31:48 GMT -5
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Post by avordvet on Jan 29, 2016 5:00:03 GMT -5
POS Fed murderers, one day the shooters names will come out and hopefully they are delt with appropriately by family and/or friends.
Where was the so called 'militia' in the area that was supposed to be a "barrier' between the patriots and the bangers with badges? Boy they made a big show on arrival... but crickets started chirping from their side of the field when the bullets started flying.
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Post by avordvet on Jan 29, 2016 5:45:28 GMT -5
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 29, 2016 8:02:29 GMT -5
ncrenegade.com/editorial/lavoy-finicum-video-enhanced-and-zoomed/LaVoy Finicum Video – Enhanced and ZoomedFrom Sam Culper: I saw this new, enhanced video and it absolutely does appear that LaVoy was shot while gaining balance in the snow, trying to keep his hands in the air. And then shot again while holding his side, probably the wound. Make up your own mind
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Post by avordvet on Jan 29, 2016 15:00:49 GMT -5
Tyranny, Defiance, and the Death of LaVoy FinicumThursday, January 28, 2016 LaVoy Finicum, who was shot at a roadblock by Oregon State Troopers and left to bleed to death in the snow, was not a violent criminal. He and his colleagues from the group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom were traveling to John Day, Oregon to organize political resistance to federal control over lands in the western United States. After trying to run the roadblock, Finicum plowed his vehicle into a snowbank. He exited with his hands in the air, staggering in the snow before making a motion with his right hand that the FBI claims was an effort to grab a handgun. Another possibility is that Finicum, as some witnesses claim, was shot while his hands were raised in a posture of surrender, and that his subsequent movements were involuntary. freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2016/01/tyranny-defiance-and-death-of-lavoy.html
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Post by aronatbc on Jan 29, 2016 15:07:51 GMT -5
I've watched it over and over. It was murder. The Feds wanted an example made... Not too large, just big enough.
"Random traffic stop" my muscular arse. This was a straight up op.
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Post by avordvet on Jan 29, 2016 15:18:43 GMT -5
I've watched it over and over. It was murder. The Feds wanted an example made... Not too large, just big enough. "Random traffic stop" my muscular arse. This was a straight up op. Multiple TacTeams in play, Snipers in the treeline, Predators overhead... a heavily planned op, and unlike Benghazi, I'm sure obama stayed up to watch this one in real time.
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Post by aronatbc on Jan 29, 2016 17:05:35 GMT -5
You know... Up until yesterday, I actually had hope we could make it to next January and enact a peaceful solution to this Countries problems.
I think that delusion is at an end now.
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Post by brocktownsend on Jan 29, 2016 19:01:20 GMT -5
Finicum: "This whole takedown was very badly planned and executed, unless it was done to achieve this very effect" freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2016/01/finicum-this-whole-takedown-was-very.html "It was not necessary, and the group were on their way to a meeting they had arranged with a Constitutional Sheriff, which was a lie and a trap" "....... has anyone considered that 1) He has already been fired upon as he crashed the vehicle into the snowbank and 2) could he have in fact been injured in some way by one of those shots?" "......if he was shot before he was tasered, he had his hands up and basically was given no quarter." "I cannot see any justification for Finicums death" "You no longer live in the country that was created in 1781. That Constitutional Republic, based on rightful liberty and equality before the law, no longer exists. You live in a a lawless banana republic, where might is right and there will never be justice."
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Post by smokeeater on Jan 30, 2016 0:23:29 GMT -5
No one is talking about the gunfire on the pickup after Finicum was shot no one exited the truck or showed a weapon but was riddled with gunfire
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Post by brocktownsend on Jan 30, 2016 16:47:33 GMT -5
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Post by smokeeater on Jan 31, 2016 11:22:00 GMT -5
I saw the vid but why did they open up on the remaining people in the truck ??
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Post by brocktownsend on Jan 31, 2016 14:23:33 GMT -5
They wanted to kill them all and it's a miracle they weren't.
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Post by avordvet on Jan 31, 2016 18:13:06 GMT -5
Hopefully names and addresses of the POS scumbag oath breakers are being compiled... Karma requires some payback on this one. The BLM dirtbags should be on the top of the lists. Second Eyewitness: Chronicling the Tragic Ambush and Murder of LaVoy Finicum Posted on Jan 31, 2016 In fact, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said yesterday that he and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley had met with FBI Director James Comey and talked about the protesters at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge only “a few hours” before the dramatic incident, and had expressed concerns that the standoff was “a situation where the virus was spreading” and action needed to be taken. The “virus” apparently, was protest and civil disobedience. In any event, action was taken, and not only did it lead to several arrests, it also brought about the violent death of LaVoy Finicum by state and local law enforcement. www.freecapitalist.com/2016/01/31/second-eyewitness-chronicling-the-tragic-ambush-and-murder-of-lavoy-finicum-video/
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Post by WARLOC on Jan 31, 2016 18:37:52 GMT -5
START WITH CLINTONS They sold us out to get rich THEY ARE THE REASON the BLM is kicking the PEOPLE off their land in OREGON Call it a conspiracy theory – or not. But a curious investigative reporter, Jon Rappoport, posted an interesting angle to the Oregon standoff between protesting ranchers and feds that left one of the former dead, with this headline: “The Clintons: Is the Oregon standoff really about uranium?”That article was, in fact, a followup to a previous story he wrote that was titled, “The Clintons: How Putin grabbed a fifth of all U.S. uranium.” And in the most recent, he simply looked at the information he presented in the first – how a deal approved under Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state transferred 20 percent of U.S. uranium production to Russia – and tied it to the geographical location of a proposed uranium mine in Oregon.Coincidentally, the mine development was proposed for the same general area of the widely reported standoff between protesters and federal and police forces, Rappoport wrote.First, a refresher on the Clinton-Russia deal, as Rappoport wrote: “On April 23, 2015, the NY Times ran a story under the headline, ‘Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal.’ The bare bones of the story: a Canadian company called Uranium One controls a great deal of uranium production in the U.S. It was sold to Russia (meaning Putin and his minions). So Putin now controls 20 percent of U.S. uranium production. From the Times: ‘…the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.'”The New York Times story goes on to report how leaders of the Canadian mining industry made several charitable donations to the various “endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family,” including a total of $31.3 million from mining financier Frank Giustra, and then sold the Russians a company later dubbed Uranium One. As the New York Times pointed, the sale of Uranium One to Putin required State Department approval, because uranium is considered a strategic asset – and then-Secretary Clinton gave it.David Limbaugh’s book chillingly documents the destructive “transformation” of the United States — get “The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic”As Rappoport summarized: “The U.S. State Dept. had to sign off on the deal giving Putin control over U.S. uranium. Hillary headed up the State Dept. Much money from Canadian mining executives, who obviously wanted the deal to go through, found its way into the Clinton Foundation. The Foundation concealed these donations.”Now fast-forward to today’s Oregon standoff and fatal shooting.“Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality” chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state, and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today!In his just-posted piece, Rappoport wrote: “Is uranium at the heart of the … standoff? That’s the question I’m asking. It isn’t a flippant question. I realize there are many other issue swirling around this event … This article isn’t meant to take apart those matters.”What he does point to, however, is a U.S. Bureau of Land Management notation that’s titled, “Uranium on BLM-Administered Lands in OR/WA,” that talks about a May 2012 presentation from Oregon Energy LLC to develop a uranium oxide mine, in concert with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, in “southern Malheur County in southeastern Oregon,” Rappoport wrote.The much-publicized standoff between Oregonian residents and law enforcement has taken place by the Mahleur National Wildlife Refuge.Judge Andrew P. Napolitano’s “The Freedom Answer Book” provides a clear vision of what your rights are and how you can protect them. Get your copy of this helpful guide to the Constitution today!Rappopport went on: “What does this have to do with Hillary and Bill Clinton? … The short version is: there’s a case to be made that they, through Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, facilitated the sale of Uranium One to Putin and the Russians. And if so, and if this area of Oregon is projected to be part of that uranium mining deal, then we are looking at a stunning ‘coincidence’: the U.S. federal government is coming down hard on a group of protesters who are occupying, for their own reasons, a very valuable piece of territory that goes far beyond the issue of private cattle grazing on government land.” www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/five-questions-about-the-clintons-and-a-uranium-companywww.uranium1.com/index.php/en/mining-operations/united-states
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Post by avordvet on Jan 31, 2016 18:47:16 GMT -5
Paragraphs are our friends...
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Post by avordvet on Jan 31, 2016 18:48:13 GMT -5
Killing of an Oregon wildlife refuge occupier has re-energized protestersBy Kevin Sullivan January 30 at 11:38 AM BURNS, Ore. — BJ Soper has never supported the nearly month-long occupation of a national wildlife refuge by armed anti-government activists. He sympathized with their frustrations about the federal government, but he thought calm negotiation was a better strategy. Then on Tuesday, an Oregon State Police trooper shot and killed LaVoy Finicum, a cowboy-hat-wearing grandfather who acted as the occupiers’ spokesman. Now Soper is furious, and he is calling for people from all over the country to come to Burns to show their outrage at the “ambush” of Finicum. www.washingtonpost.com/national/killing-of-an-oregon-wildlife-refuge-occupier-has-re-energized-protesters/2016/01/30/1dca4cd6-c6fb-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 31, 2016 18:53:14 GMT -5
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 31, 2016 18:59:25 GMT -5
h/t WRSA zerogov.com/?p=4659#more-4659Killing Cowboys: Death in the West by Bill Buppert“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” ◾Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 Robert LaVoy Finucum is dead, gunned down in the winter snows of Oregon. Max Alexander and and Hognose at WeaponsMan have provided the best early commentary yet on the shooting. Finicum unceremoniously joins an impressive corpse-pile sponsored by the law enforcement complex in the US. The FBI Orcs were kind enough to release a snuff film apparently showing his murder from a hovering aircraft. I leave it to other observers to examine the actual shooting footage and arrive at their own conclusions. All of this may be the whimpering dénouement to the ill-planned stand-off with the Feds at the allegedly Federal Malheur Wildlife Refuge created in 1908 by the progressive Teddy Roosevelt to protect bird plumage from being filched by hunters to provide for the men’s and women’s hat industry in turn of the century America. Not a big concern right now. The Feds, of course, never left as is their wont. Whether one reads the real history or watches the new crop of media such as Hell on Wheels which captured the bloodthirsty nature of all government in its outstanding fourth season. I would also recommend a viewing of my favorite Kirk Douglas movie, Lonely Are the Brave; penned by that curmudgeonly anarchist, Ed Abbey. As an aside most mid-century cinematic Westerns tend to be collectivist wet dreams that lionize the government and the gun. I’ve got no dog in the fight with ranchers; most Western ranchers (family owned and corporate) tend to get astounding below-market grazing leases that the rest of the booboise subsidizes for their cattle ranching operations. I’m sympathetic to their dissatisfaction with the disproportionate monopoly on Federal and state land in the Western US. As with everything, the government soils and dishonors whatever it touches and the casualties in the West are no different. A number of observers have started After Action Reviews on the activities of these dissident ranchers who took armed possession of empty government buildings. Good on them. There is much to be captured and learned from this experience for the festivities to come as the nation continues its unraveling during the coming Endarkenment. Scribble away but the preeminent observation is nothing new: the government will stop at nothing to include maiming and killing to maintain its stranglehold on the monopoly of initiated violence in the US and continue to wage a campaign on private defensive violence against their predations. The disparate “law enforcement” mechanisms from the Feds to the local Orcs will do what they are told to fulfill the political mission they are assigned. All law enforcement is simply the bloody end of the spear of all politics. It ain’t much simpler than that. When that police vehicle has pulled over a driver because the speedometer in the offender’s car didn’t match the government signage, the cops are pursuing revenue and always trying to expand the search for more lucrative offenses that ironically may put the cash cow in a cage where it can no longer produce any loot to be stolen by the legal system. One hears all the noise from the usual suspects in the media mewling about evil Mexican cartels in the illegal vegetation market and all of the necessary surrendering of rights and freedoms to ensure the safety of the subject Helots. Even worse as the inevitable blow-back from the American planetary imperial enterprise boomerangs back on an unsuspecting population. One can’t help but think there is a cosmic smile on the face of the government mandarins as they titter at the inefficient and “barbaric” (if not primitive) means the cartels employ to get their slice of the good life. The only difference between the criminal cartels and the government north and south of the border is the flags and awful music that attend the organized crime in DC and Mexico City. So back to MWR and the recent murder of the 56-year old rancher by the Feds. The video has caused much consternation and he said/she said as far as did he grab a gun or didn’t he. Who knows? I tend to always believe the opposite of law enforcement reports because the coproaches have a vested interest in spinning the narrative in a fashion that cements their “fear for their lives” and other such boilerplate that paints so few minutes of their fear-filled lives. How do you know a coproach is lying? Their mandibles are moving. I want you to draw two distinct and unassailable lessons from the latest tragedy regardless of the poor quality of the video footage or the varying reports from whatever quarter. Hell, the whole sordid enterprise cements two existential lessons bloody in tooth and claw. First, despite the fearsome noise and chest-thumping by any gun-owner in America and all the bloviating of the most heavily armed nation on Earth (accuracy be damned), the USA is a turnkey totalitarianism enterprise that has seen more and more freedom exsanguinated from its corpus than the last fifty years of the tottering and decaying USSR. Possibly never in the history of humanity has such heavily armed men ceded so much of their freedom willingly. I have the greatest certitude that legal compliance with weapons laws will be done by the majority of all weapons owners. Vast simpering compliance. Indeed, a large simpering acquiescence that will include ratting out the outliers by the Fudds and NRA fanboys. The Second Amendment is an empty promise gutted by the 1934 National Firearms Act (NRA supported), the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act and all the attendant nonsense to follow like NICS, the Assault Weapons Ban (more accurately a cosmetically offensive weapons ban) approved by both Busheviks and the Clintons. These are simply the highlights of a long and sordid weapons prohibition regime that any dictator would be fond of. In essence, the Supremes delivered another love letter to weapons prohibition with the “dangerous and unusual” nonsense in the DC v. Heller decision. I used this lengthy preamble to illustrate a simple but salient point: the government doesn’t give a shit about your gun “rights” and they consider any man with a gun in his hand when confronted by their million plus occupation army in the guise of the police to be a dead man walking. No questions asked by the thousands plus reported corpses in 2015 attend to this willingness to murder anyone with a weapon in hand (or no weapon). The cop who guns down a civilian whether justified or not stands a greater chance of being struck down by lightning than suffering the slightest rebuke for killing a Helot. Finicum may have had a gun and that was enough for the cops to start shooting him; and get away with it. If you grok anything, let that last sentence sink in.
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 31, 2016 19:21:19 GMT -5
h/t WRSA weaponsman.com/?p=29146The FBI Trickles Out Some Video from OregonThis is coming out selectively, and at a pace that indicates that they are basically happy with how this happened. However, the aerial video makes one thing clear: how eyewitnesses can claim that LeVoy Finicum was shot because he drew a gun, while other eyewitnesses can claim that he was shot while his hands were up. At different times in the video he has his hands up and appears to go for a gun, and it’s impossible to know — without information the FBI continues to withhold, if they have it — whether he decided to commit Suicide by Many Cops, or whether he drew his gun in desperate defense after they began shooting him. Again, without knowing who said what, when, it’s impossible to say whether he became compliant with their instructions, whether their instructions (as so often in a police encounter) contradicted one another, or who fired first. It’s a certainty that he and others in the truck were not, initially, compliant. Our tentative conclusion is that both “sides” of this one-sided gunfight will continue to feel wronged by the other guys. Our comments: 1.We have said several times before, when Officer Friendly decides you’re going downtown, you’re going downtown. Further resistance at that point is not only futile, it just means you’re going downtown with a few lumps at best, or at the worst, going downtown to the morgue instead of the jail — as Finicum does. 2.Without the audio, we can’t be sure who fired first. It could be any of three men in the video, or someone off screen. 3.We can’t be sure whether Finicum drew or moved to draw first, or whether he did that in reaction to being shot at or shot. 4.His hands were up at first, they went down it seems to keep his balance, and that seems to be when the officers lit him up, but we can’t be sure. (To the officers, at the time, this may have looked like he was going for a gun. In the overhead video it doesn’t look like that, but the guys on the scene didn’t have eyes on the overhead video, they had eyes on Finicum a mere three or four yards away. 5.We don’t know if Finicum fired, but it seems unlikely. Whether he took shots before he attempted to draw, once he starts he’s clearly taking hits. 6.We don’t know how many agents or officers fired, and how many shots. For reasons known only to the FBI, they’re sitting on that information. (most likely working out whether it’s better to bury it for good, or if it will be released, how to spin it. One of their concerns here will be the criminal cases against the truck passengers, and the jury pool. The jury pool’s probably not much of a concern, because they’ve set it up that the jurors will be predominantly from metro Portland). 7.It appears that two or three agents or officers engaged Finicum: one with a pistol who had been on the flank, one with a shoulder weapon who had come up onto the snow, and possibly one who was at the fender of one of the roadblock trucks. Others may have fired as well, but these three are the closest. 8.The left-handed officer who had been on the flank and fired down the hill fired directly towards his own guys. This may have caused the guys at the truck to think Finicum was engaging them, and they were taking incoming. (Well, they were taking incoming, albeit from their own guy. Which they might or might not have noticed). 9.The same officer fired from the move — in deep snow — with no attempt to take up a stance. Some may interpret that as reckless, but it could also be that he could see he was threatened and needed to react immediately. 10.In the case of perceived threats, there are certain psychophysiological reactions, including a narrowing of perceptual field both in breadth and depth. Thus, for the uphill officer, the friendlies behind Finicum might have been functionally invisible. 11.Because of the angle of the helicopter’s video, the carbine-shooting officer is sometimes masked by trees and sometimes has his back to the video viewpoint. From this video alone, you can’t see what he’s doing. 12.Several officers move towards Finicum as he appears to be trying to escape with his hands up. In retrospect they might have held their positions, as they had him surrounded. But once again, we don’t know what was said here. Finicum could have been screaming, “Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!” — or worse — for all we know. 13.When Finicum goes down, he doesn’t move subsequently. It seems clear from the overhead video that he was DRT. 14.Like the Soviets with Maj. Nicholson, the FBI makes no attempt to medically assess or aid LaVoy Finicum for well over ten minutes after he was shot. This is probably because they still had unknown persons in the truck and an unsecure scene, and possibly because or also because they could see he had unsurvivable, immediately fatal wounds, but it looks bad, and can be spun by conspiracy theorists. If you see a claim like that, remember the FBI’s probable reasons for holding their doc back. 15.After the others all exit the truck, one at a time, hands up, and are taken into custody, agents move forward cautiously and clear the truck. 16.Then, as a K9 comes forward to further check the truck, an FBI medic moves to Finicum and kneels beside him. It’s not possible to tell what he’s doing, if anything, but he stays there for some time. This could have gone another way entirely. Our impression is that the lack of further shooting after Finicum goes down is an indicator of restraint on both sides
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Post by Michael Downing on Jan 31, 2016 21:53:48 GMT -5
Many may disagree with the following which I picked up from WRSA. So it goes. A pastor and Chaplain for a group I belonged to some time ago once counseled me, "Choose carefully which hill you will die on." Read it all... raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2016/01/hey-monkeys-general-giap-sez-hi.htmlHey, Monkeys! General Giap Sez "Hi!" Lessons that should be learned, in no particular rank or order: 1. Hanging around with jackholes who don't know what they're doing, and have no plan for doing it, and no intelligent way to get that message out to the greater public despite 20+ days of time to do so, will get you killed. Avoid those groups and situations, or update your estate planning. 2. When you instigate an armed takeover of nominally federal property, to cause a stink, don't act shocked and surprised when the clean-up crew arrives with both machineguns and handcuffs, and is happy to use either one of them on you, at their discretion, depending on how you behave when they tell you to surrender. This is how it works under Big Boy Rules, and if you really didn't know that, or expected anything else, you're far too stupid to be playing in this arena. 3. Occupying anything, unless you have a tactically sound position, and sufficient personnel and resources, is an Alamo, and you're Col Travis. The Malheur @$$clowns had neither the manpower, the resources, nor any sort of tactically defensible position. Go to Google Earth if you doubt me, and tell me how many men and what resources you'd need to position there to hold it against anything more ferocious than a troop of cub scouts with slingshots. (Frankly, putting a troop of cub scouts with slingshots there to hold it would have been much better guerrilla theatre for the occupiers, and made the feds look like true goons no matter what they did.) 4. Gallivanting around the countryside after the arrival of said feds is asininely stupid beyond words. There is NO excuse whatsoever for it which avails. 5. Having said that, if you're still that stupid, there's no excuse for putting all your command leadership in one vehicle, unaccompanied, and driving through what should be regarded as "enemy territory", without comms, route reconnaissance, a larger transport convoy, and a Quick Reaction Force. Yet again, having NONE of this in place (nor, evidently, even contemplated) shows this to be a bunch of amateur jackasses of the highest order, without any excuse whatsoever. There are only about 200,000 former PFCs and Spec4s with time in the sandbox over the last decade with more convoy common sense than that, some of them with no more education than a GED. 6. The lack of any forethought to what to do in this instance was also glaringly evident. No plan, no procedures, no escape and evasion thoughts, no nothing. WTF. Don't be those guys. Just a bunch of yahoos playing ding dong ditch with grizzly bears. 7. As a self-styled guerrilla, pissing off the entire surrounding community, to the point they boo and catcall you and tell you to GTFO, is probably not going to get you any longevity, no matter WHAT your nominal cause is. Since 40-80% of anyone just wants to be left alone to get on with their lives, you'll just turn up the heat on the kettle you're sitting in, and they'll start agitating for TPTB to take you out, or they'll do it themselves. 8. Having no control or way to vett those who join you is a great way to let the other side in on every level of your operations, introduce spies, agents provocateur, saboteurs, disinformationists, and so on. When they can tell outsiders that you've done something as stupid as #4 and #5 above pretty much insures you'll be needing #6, and ultimately, won't be around long to do much of anything. As the KKK found out when it turned out 2 out of 3 were federal CIs, and they were largely sued out of existence. Hint: There are no shortage of posers in the federal correctional system who'd sell their mothers to get out of prison, or on probation who want to never go back. They will be drawn to you like moths to a flame the minute you go active, and some of the brighter ones will find you far earlier. 9. So it's probably a better idea to a) vet your people before you do anything, and b) gain the support and trust of the or a community before you do anything. Trying to shortcut that leads to 20-50 years in prison, or dead, which is surprising to no one with an IQ above room temperature. Ask Che about that. Jeebus crispies, the relevant texts and military doctrine for guerrilla warfare - and counter-guerrilla warfare - have been out for nearly a century; don't half-ass this. 10. If a mature appraisal of your chances in light of #1-10 leads you to determine that you can't take over an exposed, isolated, and utterly pointless cluster of Forest Service buildings in BFEgypt, maybe start looking at what you can accomplish. 11. Nota bene that doing things a la EarthFirst and fictional characters from Abbey's Monkeywrench Gang may be highly effective in some ways. They are (Duh!) also highly illegal, in a federal penitentiary sort of way, or a dead sort of way, just like they were for the SLA or the Weathermen. In the current environment, they will also get you on a terrorist hot sheet, and if you want to know how that works out, ask Osama bin Laden, or any 43 former AQ deputies who took a Hellfire up the ass. We (or They, if you prefer) have gotten pretty damned good at taking out the trash. 12. Looking at that, a mature appraisal might be that the thing to do now, while it's legal, is to organize, recruit, gather intelligence, train, build up logistics and infrastructure, while swaying more people to a more reasonable and far more constitutional viewpoint and material support of your outlook and efforts (wow, just like a military S-1/S-2/S-3/S-4/S-5 would! Who'd'a thunk??) and avoid direct confrontations until you're either too strong to stop, or desperate and have no other choices. Option A looks like 1975 in Vietnam, Option B looks like Tet 1968. Choose wisely. 13. If you decide to go off half-assed and half-cocked anyways, despite the above, "Have fun storming the castle!" 14. The rest of us will at least have the satisfaction of using you as object lessons, and for drawing out and observing the actions of Leviathan in response, because when you're serious and reasonably intelligent, that's what you do. Sorry if the laughter coming from the conference room hurts your pride and rubs salt into your wounds. I expect one day there's going to be justified provocation, and the feds are going to bump into some serious people with some proficiency and a righteous case of Pissed Off. I'll bet they know that too. But this wasn't that day.
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