Let’s Talk About the Oregon Stand Off

By CHERI ROBERTS, for Challenging the Rhetoric

If you have been paying attention to the so-called ‘stand-off’ by Ammon Bundy – son of Bundy Ranch’s Cliven Bundy, and his militia friends here in my beautiful state of Oregon, you may be interested in listening to my show tonight. My returning guest is D.C.’s “Super Lawyer”, National Security Attorney, Mark Zaid. We will be discussing the Constitution, the law, double jeopardy and the difference between a peaceful protest and an armed insurgency.

–> LISTEN HERE <–

It’s pretty bad when the rancher family you allege to be helping has publicly turned their back on you along with the ranchers associations … … the Oathkeepers … your own church … the town folk, and more. At what point do you accept that your 15-minutes of fame fizzled back in 2014 and your righteous cause has since been absorbed by your ego?

Hmm, I said it was “pretty bad”, but I guess it’s more aptly, just pretty damn sad.

What’s worse is their antics as they stand so far have done little for any cause except maybe the governments.  If anything escalates and violence breaks out moving forward few will sympathize with these militias and even less will listen to them after the fact. It will however lend itself to a great recruitment tool for others like them.

The BLM and other government entities do intimidate ranchers and other property owners, there is no doubt and yes “This land is our land, this land is your land, from California to the …” Yeh, I get it, but technically in all of Bundy’s demands for the land to be turned over to the ranchers, to “the People” as he says, he seems to forget the land is in spoken Treaty between the government and the tribal council and technically this land doesn’t belong to you or me after all. In fact, the very tribe in question is vehemently against what Bundy and his gang are doing saying they are desecrating sacred land.

If there is an actionable move that can be made on behalf of Dwight and Steven Hammond it will hinge on the fact they have served the time they were initially sentenced and have laid low throughout Bundy’s tantrum. Let’s not forget or negate that they were both legally found guilty and convicted of crimes. Clearly the initial judge saw the minimum time was too much for the crime committed by the Hammond’s and although they lost their appeal there are still processes that can still happen.

If Bundy actually cared about the Hammond’s and their plight versus establishing himself as some sort of renegade cowboy for hire he would  directly be doing things addressing double jeopardy and aimed at changing the law. That would certainly be more appropriate to the situation, but apparently relevance is not one of Bundy’s strong suits.

Tune-in tonight, Wednesday, January 6th at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT

–> LISTEN HERE <–