It’s a crazy world but I have been here before. Yes, it was the same global involvement and worldwide attention but the events of last week have taken me back to January 2016 when patriots occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon.
As a quick reminder, Dwight and Stephen Hammond were sent back to prison because the Obama administration thought ranchers that burned 138 acres of federal land (with permission) to stop a wildfire should be in prison for five years as domestic terrorists. A small group of patriots went to the wildlife refuge to take a stand for the Hammonds and, quite frankly, for liberty itself.
On Jan. 8, 2016, I was asked to moderate a town hall meeting in Burns, Oregon, hosted by the Harney County Committee of Safety. There were about 400 people in attendance made up of about half local residents, mostly farmers and ranchers, and the other half global media. The meeting was productive, very respectful and very tense at the time. For nearly two hours I facilitated local folks taking the microphone and sharing their concerns. Clearly, the overwhelming sentiment expressed was “we have no concern about what Ammon Bundy and the patriots are doing out at the refuge but we are extremely concerned about what the federal government is doing to our town.”
So you can imagine my shock the next morning when I started reading major media accounts of the meeting. The overwhelming message they shared was something along the lines of “Burns residents tired of Bundy; want him to go home.” I was the moderator and that is not even close to the message the local residents sent. I remember at the time I was telling people that as I read those articles in the LA Times and other publications, it seemed to me that they were actually written by the federal government itself and not the journalists that were present.
I am now convinced that the articles were pre-written with only a few blanks left to fill in with a quote here and there to make it look legit. There was one more thing that later became public in the trial and we now see happening in real life all across the country. Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum may have led a small group of patriots, 12 on the first day if I remember right, to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge but in the trials that were held in Oregon, we learned that there were more FBI undercover agents and informants than there were actual Patriots inside the refuge.
A significant bit of information, proven at trial, was that the only brandishing of weapons came from the undercover folks trying to make it look like gun-toting rednecks had invaded and were ready to kill. The truth is that the patriots were exercising their constitutional right to bear arms as a means of protection. For the record, in this era of fact checking, these statements are all a matter of public record in the federal courts of Portland, Oregon.
Another bit of irony or not, I fully believe that the Hammonds became a target because they own land and lease the rights to permits for federal land that is in the same general area as one of the greatest supplies of uranium in the world.
At the end of the day folks, it seems evident that what happened in Oregon in 2016 is now happening throughout the entire nation. The story had been written that “Trump Supporters storm the nation’s Capital” before it even happened. They just needed a few names and photos to fill in the blanks and make it look legit. I believe that the next staged event is planned for Jan. 20, 2021. The media is promoting the belief that an armed protest will happen at every state capital on that day. If it does, it will be carried out by radicals and compensated actors, not patriots. I warn each of you: do not fall prey to their orchestrated chaos.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].