IT APPEARS THAT WE WON

[Oakview2]

STILL TRYING TO WADE THROUGH THIS DOCUMENT

 

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[ScottC]

Brandon, thank you for your perseverance, and your integrity for wanting the truth to be revealed and justice to prevail. I know there is more to come. And I will certainly be donating more to see justice prevail.

Regards
ScottC
Bucketdigger.com

 

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[Oakview2]

I agree totally with the exception that Judge Ochoa does cite South Dakota vs Lawerence county and that case went directly to federal preemption. The one stipulation in that the SB case ruled on the 2012 dredge regs, that will not allow the state to limit or lottery the amount of permits, as he considered this prohibition vs regulation. Thanks again Clay for spelling it out for those of us who are legally challenged. As much as I would love to get my dredge wet, I will not take a chance until this is vetted. It is too important to squander this opportunity. Now before the ruling was another story....

I promised to put in my 2 cents on this ruling. I'm not your lawyer and you shouldn't take any of this to be legal advice. I'll be basing all my comments on the facts. If you are offended by factual comments you might want to pass this by.

First it's very important to understand that the appeals court did not rule that federal mining laws preempt state regulations. What that appeals court did rule was that the lower court in Rinehart needs to consider the possibility that federal mining acts could preempt state dredge regulations to ensure that Brandon's rights were not violated by the dredge moratorium. There is a big difference between those two concepts.

Judge Ochoa, as the appeals court instructed, did consider the possibility of federal preemption in deciding one of the complaints in the combined cases. He ruled that on that single issue the State dredging regulation scheme was an obstruction of the federal intent. Judge Ochoa didn't, and couldn't, decide that for all times in all courts. His ruling only applies to the combined cases and only to the single complaint. There is a lot more to the combined cases than the preemption issue so that dog and pony show still has several more acts to play before it's over.

I think some people have gotten the incorrect idea that the 49ers, WMA or PLP somehow caused this win. The simple fact is that they had nothing to do with the preemption ruling. Brandon Rinehart brought the issue to the appeals court and that was the decision that caused Judge Ochoa to reach his decision.

Please note that Judge Ochoa ruled on the law after the parties had already agreed on the facts. Importantly he relied on the California Granite Rock decision rather than leaving his venue and relying on Spearfish or one of the other foreign judicial notices.

Judge Ochoa made sure his decision was sound and would not be easy to overturn on appeal in the state court system. Despite the sloppiness of both the dredgers complaint and the State's defense Judge Ochoa has kept the court proceedings direct, clean and on track.

It should be noted that it was Judge Ochoa that elicited the critical testimony by the State that they could not anticipate an end date for the moratorium. All his hints to the dredgers fell on deaf ears so he took the bull by the horns himself. It was the most important issue that was lost in all the distracting multiple complaints and lawyer conferences and motions.

My conclusions:

Brandon Rinehart and Judge Ochoa handed you this win. More than likely, in my opinion, all the other complaints in the consolidated dredging cases will be lost. Most were silly distractions from the beginning. Consolidating the cases had no advantage to anyone but the lawyer's billings.

If the Rinehart retrial is successful for Brandon and the verdict is upheld on appeal you will then have court precedence to rely on. Until then any dumazz can go dredging, get cited, argue takings or some other stupid defense and get a judgement against them that will give ammo to the opposition.

Dredge if you want, it's never been unlawful, but please be prepared to stand up like Brandon did and take the money and time hits to argue the single issue of federal preemption. Otherwise you are the fly in the soup and might just derail the whole train. If you really want this thing over and settled help Brandon succeed. His case has always been your best chance.

The consolidated cases will drag on until one side or the other gives up or the Judge gets tired of the nonsense. That will likely be after Brandon's upcoming win.

Any settlement agreement on the dredging regulations will be challenged by the greenies and probably a significant number of dredgers. It may take years to come up with workable dredging regulations. That dance will continue until the greenies all move to Colorado or the economy gets so bad the logic of letting people add gold and money to the economy overcomes the stupidity of the "mining is bad" nonsense taught in California schools and media.

Learn from this experience. There is no advantage to bringing multiple suits with many lawyers. A single winnable defense by a single committed individual will take down the State quicker and cheaper than all the lawyers and organizations in the State. It was always about the right to mine without undue interference. If you want it over and settled keep it simple.

There are Judges with agendas and some decisions are made incorrectly. That is rare but it does happen. The vast majority of cases lost by miners are due to poorly argued cases resulting from poorly understood laws and court procedures. Blaming crooked judges or wasting time and money arguing the same bogus theories over and over again doesn't lead to wins. Stop blaming the system - learn the laws - educate yourself and prosper!

And last but certainly not least please understand:

Brandon Rinehart is the miner's hero. He is the one man that took the ticket, argued the single issue that mattered and won. Learn from that and sing his name in your miner's songs.

Heavy Pans

 

[fowledup]

You know Brandon -Your humility never ceases to amaze! Fate may have chosen you for this. but I tell ya what, if it was up to us and we had to pick someone to be the face and represent what we want others to see us miners as, we couldn't have picked a finer individual.

 

[chupacabra]

ON 12/17/12 I was cited and called Jerry Hobbs asking for help luckily Brandon got to them first LOL I went through 4 court appearances ready to fight if I had to on my own and I made it real clear to the DA through my public defender I wasn't backing down, I'd take it to trial. I had no clue how I was going to do it, with some luck the DA did not pursue my case mainly because of the GREAT public defender I had who had big balls telling him and the judge it was a ridiculous citation, the courts were full to the brim with worse cases then some mining citation and it was dropped. The whole time there was stress, 6-8 months worth or more, my dredging partner also was cited and he was sweating bullets because this could have effected his job, he was scared to death really, poor guy! fish and game gave him a citation for being there in a wet suit, he was not dredging I was.
So I know how it feels to go through the process and the stress it puts on a person and I admire Brandon for holding on and am eternally grateful for that. And like Brandon said it took an army for this to get this far.
I have donated no less then $800 or so dollars last year, I'm a small pea in the pond who's been trying to help finance this thing and I am AMAZED we've made it this far and have watched all the contributions by others, except for awhile back when I was the only one bidding on some ebay gold PLP had auctioning I got a little pissed about that. I'm not tooting my own horn here but theres been a lot of migrating to this whole thing and we all need pats on the backs for not giving up because a lot of people have, I know at least 3 people who took the court deals, payed the fines, did the probation and gave in and it pissed me off but i get it now, its not easy going through this **** for the average person.
Still a long ways to go, no doubt about that.

I'll be dredging again this year just like I have most years since the moratorium except for 2013 when my dredge burned up in a fire, I hate hide and seek but I'll say this much if I do get caught there not taking my gear unless they have me shackled to it and they're gonna have to drag my body and that dredge out together peace and becareful to all, be the square or be the round hole its up to you P

 

[Oakview2]

YOU are our HERO big guy. The first of the locals that I knew of that are constantly harassed by Fish and Shame. Sometimes a person is judged by his actions when the spotlight is not on him or her....

 

[dredgeman]

YOU are our HERO big guy. The first of the locals that are constantly harassed by Fish and Shame and did not bend over for them. The rest cowtowed to the pressure.

Jeff was the first to be dismissed in our area. Before his case the DA didnt know what mining law was. Greg was the only one to cave that I know of so far.

Pretty tough bunch of guys in this area. Roger still has to be caught.

 

[Oakview2]

It is not easy to face evil, with the threats of the green facist and the Fish and Shame, I don't mean to disparage anyone who takes the plea, none of us know what we would do when faced with the threats they make. Roger is like the wind:-)

 

[Molemann]

ON 12/17/12 I was cited and called Jerry Hobbs asking for help luckily Brandon got to them first LOL I went through 4 court appearances ready to fight if I had to on my own and I made it real clear to the DA through my public defender I wasn't backing down, I'd take it to trial. I had no clue how I was going to do it, with some luck the DA did not pursue my case mainly because of the GREAT public defender I had who had big balls telling him and the judge it was a ridiculous citation, the courts were full to the brim with worse cases then some mining citation and it was dropped. The whole time there was stress, 6-8 months worth or more, my dredging partner also was cited and he was sweating bullets because this could have effected his job, he was scared to death really, poor guy! fish and game gave him a citation for being there in a wet suit, he was not dredging I was.
So I know how it feels to go through the process and the stress it puts on a person and I admire Brandon for holding on and am eternally grateful for that. And like Brandon said it took an army for this to get this far.
I have donated no less then $800 or so dollars last year, I'm a small pea in the pond who's been trying to help finance this thing and I am AMAZED we've made it this far and have watched all the contributions by others, except for awhile back when I was the only one bidding on some ebay gold PLP had auctioning I got a little pissed about that. I'm not tooting my own horn here but theres been a lot of migrating to this whole thing and we all need pats on the backs for not giving up because a lot of people have, I know at least 3 people who took the court deals, payed the fines, did the probation and gave in and it pissed me off but i get it now, its not easy going through this **** for the average person.
Still a long ways to go, no doubt about that.

I'll be dredging again this year just like I have most years since the moratorium except for 2013 when my dredge burned up in a fire, I hate hide and seek but I'll say this much if I do get caught there not taking my gear unless they have me shackled to it and they're gonna have to drag my body and that dredge out together peace and becareful to all, be the square or be the round hole its up to you P

So what are u going to do the next time u r caught dredging? Go to court and fight? U can only put ur hand in the fire so many times before u burn it off.
Don't think ur defiance is going to do any good for any of the rest of us.
As far as stating that they will have to drag ur equipment off with u shackled to it. Be very careful what u wish for.
Just say'n.

 

[Oakview2]

The Chupacabra will take each challenge as it arises, fire, theft, harassament, he will prevail. Although I don't think you would want to see him in tights or a cape though

 

[augoldminer]

First the state will have to come up with new regs to allow dredging permits.

This will not happen quickly because there are people in the state government that do not want dredging.

Once the new permit rules get published then the greenies will file a lawsuit and a injunction.

Then there are other ways to stop dredging like putting say a $10,000 permit fee on it or requiring that the state safety people inspect all dredging operations and allowing the state inspectors to give high fines for safety violations like they do for job sites.

they also could ban gasoline powered dredges and require propane. and require bio safe oils in the engines. these have already been looked at for boats.

don't expect to dredge for at least 3 to 5 years.

 

[Oakview2]

Look for more challenge, but we will be meeting these challenges from the water. They must follow the law, which clearly states that can adminster reasonable regulations, but not prohibition. Going from a 35 dollar to a 10000 fee is not reasonable, nor is requiring special fuels or lubricants for miners and not for boaters. The court would easily find that discrimatory. They need to start finding money in the budget for the class action claims that are on the way for damages to dredgers over the past 5 plus years. Our next serious challenge if the supremes do no hear this case will come from the water board. JMHO

 

[goldenIrishman]

First the state will have to come up with new regs to allow dredging permits.

This will not happen quickly because there are people in the state government that do not want dredging.

Once the new permit rules get published then the greenies will file a lawsuit and a injunction.

Then there are other ways to stop dredging like putting say a $10,000 permit fee on it or requiring that the state safety people inspect all dredging operations and allowing the state inspectors to give high fines for safety violations like they do for job sites.

they also could ban gasoline powered dredges and require propane. and require bio safe oils in the engines. these have already been looked at for boats.

don't expect to dredge for at least 3 to 5 years.

I have to say here once again that we may have won this battle, but the war is far from over. However, the greenies are going to have to adapt their strategies as well. Their lawsuit will have to be worded in a different way since the courts frown on people doing "Summer re-runs" as it wastes the courts time. The $10,000 permit fee will not fly as noted above. I really doubt that OSHA is going to be running around the rivers and streams to make sure that everyone is working in a safe manner. They've already got enough to do with other industries as it is. They MIGHT check out a couple of operations that are closer to towns they're already doing inspections in, but I doubt they'll do even that. I've had dealings with OSHA in the past but that is a story for another time.

The state needs to also consider that since the courts found they were in fact banning dredging (even if it was in a sneaky way) that they have caused many people to loose income and that opens them up to class action suits. California is in dire enough financial straights as it is and if they're hit with having to pay damages because of the ban they imposed, they'll be in even worse shape.

Gas or propane? Who cares if it allows people back into the water? Bio safe oils are not a problem either in my mind. Small potatoes.

The main thing we are going to have to worry about will be the continuing attacks by the enviro-groups. What is needed is to find some way to pull their teeth once and for all. Their abuse of the legal system has been out of hand for years now and needs to be stopped in the worst way. Their abuse of the EAJA is a prime example. By getting the tax payers to pay for their legal actions it is hurting us all. If the leadership of these groups really wants to bring suit against the government, why don't they do it with donations from their members? ...or would that dig into their high salaries to much? The EAJA was set up to allow the little guy to have a fighting chance. Considering that the CBD alone boasts they have a membership of over 800,000 people, I don't think that qualifies them as "The little guy" any more. Other groups have even larger memberships. If the rank and file members of these groups want to start these fights, let THEM pay for it instead of the American tax payers! If we can make it so these groups can not profit from these lawsuits like they have in the past, most of them will fade away quickly since they've proven it's about the money they can make instead of saving the world anymore.

 

[Clay Diggins]

I've been fighting a bad cold or I would have responded earlier.

Thanks for clearing that up Brandon. I'm glad to hear that WMA, PLP and the 49ers did contribute to your expenses. I've been hoping for some comments from counsel as that is where the money was spent. Not a criticism but I had the thought that since this has been a miners effort the miners that contributed might get more direction on what their efforts produced. I can only comment on the known public facts that don't cost 50 cents a sheet to read. I appreciate any information beyond that.

I agree totally with the exception that Judge Ochoa does cite South Dakota vs Lawerence county and that case went directly to federal preemption.

Judge Ochoa did not cite South Dakota Mining in his Ruling. I probably wasn't clear enough about this in my previous post. The ruling itself only cites Granite Rock. I'm sorry if I wasn't more clear about the distinction Oakview.

The ruling and the dicta explaining the court's logic hold different weight when being considered on appeal or as precedence. My comment was meant to point out that Judge Ochoa did not rely on Spearfish (South Dakota Mining) in his Ruling. You are right that he did investigate the appeals court's take on South Dakota Mining in his dicta but that holding was only discussed in relation to the subjects covered in the appeals court.

These might seem like minor points but the habit of relying on a court's explanations as if they were a ruling has lead miners down unproductive paths before. When Judge Ochoa's ruling is appealed it will be the ruling itself that is being challenged. Here is his entire ruling:

Ruling
On its motions for summary adjudication, the Court finds there is no triable issue of
material fact on the issue of Federal Preemption and that as a matter of law and in
actual fact, that the State's extraordinary scheme of requiring permits and then refusing
to issue them whether and/or being unable to issue permits for years, stands "as an
obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress" under
Granite Rock and a de facto ban.

Judge Ochoa was wise to refer to the appeals court take on Spearfish as a reliance in forming the ruling. He was equally wise in leaving Spearfish out of the final ruling. As Judge Ochoa noted in his decision:

The Rinehart court distinguished its case from South Dakota Mining in that sections 5653 and 5653.1, read together or alone, do not expressly prohibit the issuance of suction dredge mining permits.

As the Rinehart case is still pending Judge Ochoa was careful to allow the appeals court to handle the implications of Spearfish and base his ruling on Granite Rock.

It's really nice to see miners discussing the big win. It's about time that miners get a grasp on the powerful laws supporting their prospecting and mining. Hopefully the doomsayers will learn something from this series of cases. We do have rights and they will be upheld in the courts when the rights are clearly expressed and pursued.

Mining is alive and well in good part thanks to Brandon and other tough miners before him. I hope Brandon's ordeal is over soon. Please continue to support him.

Thanks again Brandon.

Heavy Pans

 

[ratled]

So you won't have to pay for the 50 cent a sheet http://www.goldgold.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/113806-1-Ruling.pdf

For the most part I will stay out of the "who did what" aspect but I will say that it was the New 49ers, PLP UPI etc and ALL of the other organizations and individual miners who sent in over 500 letters ( talked with the poor clerk who had to enter them onto the record) to get Brandon's ruling from the 3rd published - no offense to Brandon whatsoever. Had this NOT happen, Judge Ochoa would not have been able to reference the decision in his ruling,.

It was also these same folks who sent in over 500 letters, many at a $20 overnight expense due to the short filing period, requesting the Supreme Court let stand the Appellate Court's ruling and publishing of the opinion.

It really is a BIG WIN for all of us miners

Now back to the regularly scheduled thread

ratled

 

[M.E.G.]

The main thing we are going to have to worry about will be the continuing attacks by the enviro-groups. What is needed is to find some way to pull their teeth once and for all. ....

Find their achilles heel and expose it. Here is an example of what members of Galice Mining District did in southern Oregon: KS Wild Truth - Environmentalism Exposed!

Here is (in partial) a copy of recent email correspondence going around:

Subject: Re: Ron Wyden will be hosting a Town Hall
Meeting

Was up
about the 15 mile marker....

Suzanne Nicole Savoie aka “India”(DOB:
~1977)

of Applegate, Oregon

Informant Status: Charged with arson at Superior
Lumber Co., in Glendale, OR. She was sentenced to more than
51 months in prison for her role in two arsons. She turned
self in to FBI agents in mid-January 2006. Savoie made
statements against Nathan Block and Joyanna Zacher in her plea
agreement and was given a sentence only 8 months less
than expected because of her cooperation with
investigators.

Current Information: Released in March 2011,
living with her husband in the Applegate Valley of southern
Oregon. She attended the April 2011 screening of “If a
Tree Falls” in Ashland and was heckled and harassed during
and after the showing. She claims her “innocence” as a
reluctant federal informant, and her husband has attempted
to rejoin the activist community.


On 1/16/2015 6:16
AM, Kerby [******] wrote:

Yeah, it's true that Georgie sent OSP to the door.
Or that was the "original plan", at least, because
once OSP saw the No Trespassing signs, they stayed in their
car. They called instead.

Georgie also called "the press".

Of course the big question out of both was
"What's the deal and will you stop?"

"The deal" was, we had called KS Wild out and
we identified George as a terrorist. Keep in mind, that
it's not necessary to fly planes into buildings or to
set up an improvised device on a roadside to blow up a
humvee to be a terrorist. You don't even need to spill
blood. You just need to terrorize people and adversely
effect their way of life. I know lots of miners who really
don't mine anymore for the simple fact that they are
afraid to. They are afraid of winding up like Cliff Tracy,
with their names in the newspaper and being labeled as
"outlaws" and "land rapers". I know lots
of farmers and loggers who've been wiped out because of
George and Friend's crap. We have dams that have been
ripped out and we have cancer clusters and polluted drinking
water downstream. As far as I'm concerned, it's a
form of terrorism and the people responsible are bigger
criminals than anyone they have in Gitmo.

That being said, contrary to what the press reported
and what Georgie told them, "the poster"
wasn't over mining. It was about him claiming to have
almost single-handedly destroyed the timber industry in this
region. The next time the county asks for more tax money to
fund public safety, remember, that's George's
fault because he's got BLM so spooked that they
won't cut a stick off the O & C Lands. No jobs
because the timber sector is destroyed - that's Georgie
too. He brags about it in his own biography.

George and his wife dramatically fled to the Upper
Applegate claiming that their lives were in danger, with
endangered baby and scared puppies in tow.

OSP suggested to me that I was probably in a position
to prevent a bunch of miners from kidnapping him and killing
him. I told them that if someone was actually going to
physically attack him, he would have been dead years ago.
The fact is, George has a long history of claiming that some
group or the next is intending to kill him. Back during the
Siskiyou Crest thing he told a writer that property owners
in the Upper Applegate had threatened to kill him, were
leaving effigies of him hanging from trees and that his life
was "very much in danger". And what a brave guy he
is to continue to do his work in light of so many people
out to get him. There was also the famous incident (mostly
courtesy of Ron Wyden, in fact) where Jamie Garner was
accused of threatening George with a sniper rifle, when in
fact, what Jamie actually said was that a bunch of enviros
traipsing off down Rogue River Canyon was probably a
disaster waiting to happen with all the people they had
pissed off knowing about it. Jamie didn't know anything
about the accusations until he was contacted by an Oregonian
reporter who said that he was following up on a letter
written by Wyden about a "criminal investigation"
into Jamie "threatening KS Wild". Personally, I
always felt that Ron Wyden should have been pursued over
this. And in fact, there never was a criminal investigation
into the incident, just Ron Wyden working with George &
Co. to make the miners look bad. As far as I'm
concerned, Wyden is a criminal and he ought to be tried for
attempting to help impose Agenda 21 and a number of other
internationalist agendas in this country. He can join
George in Gitmo and they can take Peter Defazio and John
Kitzhaber with them.

I told one reporter that it was pretty clear to me that
while George is pretty good at dishing things out, he's
kind of a bit of a little ***** when people fight back. They
decided not to print that quote, nor the one where we said
that our stated goal was to reduce him and his wife to
living in a cardboard box on a street corner to give them a
taste of what they've given others.

Both OSP and the reporters asked if we would
stop.

"No".

One of the reporters asked me if I had concerns about
being sued for libel and I told him that in reality, I would
welcome it, because I could verify everything that was on
that poster and that I would be most happy to see
that every shred of the evidence wound up on the record
during court. I told him to be sure to pass that message on
to KS Wild and suggested that he ought to do a story about
what they've done and most importantly, where their
money came from. Of course, they weren't too interested
in doing stories like that. It's all about miners who
want to kill the helpless enviros. The media cycle died
quickly, but not without us getting a few tasty quotes out
there that made it clear that this was really a war campaign
and that our goal was to destroy their organization.

We put out more posters, a slightly different version
this time, placing a Burger King crown on George's head
and surrounding him with a bunch of demented looking forest
critters. The poster was titled "The Madness of King
George". Hundreds of them went up in the Applegate
where George was supposedly hiding, as well as Gold Hill,
Grave Creek, Wolf Creek and Galice. KS Wild organized
"bulletin board committees" to take them down, but
they could not keep up. We considered it pretty cheap
entertainment to watch them devote all kinds of resources
over $20 of printer paper. In place of one poster removed at
Galice Creek, we actually found a note tacked up that
suggested that the anger of "resource extractors"
should actually be directed at the agencies instead of
environmentalists, who are "your neighbors, who will
help you get back to work in a responsible way". The
note trashed BLM and USFS. It was a pretty clear deflection
tactic to try to get us to focus on fighting the agencies
instead of them. We sent a copy to BLM and USFS instead and
ramped up the printers.

OSP called a few more times asking us to stop. The
detective seemed kind of irritated during the final call
and I told him that it seemed pretty clear to me that he
was obviously being leaned on by someone to get us to shut
up. He kind of himmed and hawed. I told him that we had no
intention of stopping and in fact, that we'd be going
the extra mile because they kept calling me.

Inside of 24 hours we had launched a poster campaign
against Joseph Vaile, who is actually the director of KS
Wild and we subsequently followed it up with a tell-all
blog powered by attention getting paid newspaper
advertising. The ads were no where near as agressive as we
wanted them to be because the firm we used was kind of
concerned about some of the content. "No, we can't
print swastikas with fish tails on them", but they were
pretty open unless we got really agressive with the
graphics. They even cheered us on a little, becoming
interested in learning about what these people were up to.
Those ads went out to 30,000 people in SW Oregon every time
we published an ad and a lot of those people went to the
website address on the ad where they could get access to
more information. Our allies in neighboring states attacked
them on social media and plastered posters up and down I-5.
They got heckled when they attended public meetings. At
one DSL meeting, Forrest English even erupted into a sort of
public temper tantrum after it was suggested that he should
be personally sued for his role in the removal of Gold Ray
and the resulting contamination of the Grants Pass water
supply. DSL had to tell him to calm down or they'd throw
him out. For the rest of the meeting, he just sat there
simmering and ineffective.

And then a funny thing happened ....

KS Wild got really quiet all of the sudden for quite
awhile and there were no more calls from OSP. What's
more, they made no efforts to retaliate or to even dispute
what was being published about them. Their social media
accounts, once very active, went into lockdown mode to
prevent people from coming on and attacking them. They just
sat and took the full brunt of the abuse. While the
effectiveness of their tactics cannot be disputed, it's
pretty clear that their Earth First! handbooks offered no
real advice about what to do when the enemy starts fighting
back. Appparently, the only thing in their bag of tricks was
to call the media and call the cops, but when that had
failed, they had nothing.

You see this also with Georgie calling Gil because
"Mark was bullying" him. But when that failed,
there was nothing left in the handbook.

You see this also in Rosa Koire's videos on how to
disrupt the Delphi Technique. They can't do anything
once they lose control.

We saw it at the Bundy Ranch too, with BLM being
unwilling to stand and fight when it was clear that a
resistance had been mounted.

The fact of the matter is, while their methods are very
effective, they are reliant on there being a weak opposition
who really aren't willing to fight back. They don't
have anything in the bag of tricks when you stand your
ground and in fact, if you make it hot for them, they do not
have much courage to stand and fight.

We can win. They only get away with it because we let
them.

 

[Oregon Viking]

You are dead on about KS wild. They destroy jobs, careers & small business. KS wild brags about the logging jobs they have destroyed, and the millions....yes millions.... of dollars they receive from donors. I hope their own ego's will cause them to self implode. I have long felt that someone needs to "join" these groups and cause a little "inside espionage"!

 

[Clay Diggins]

I disagree.

This win was not won by bullying on either side.
This win was not won by social media.
This win had nothing to do with posters.
This win had nothing to do with police.
This win had nothing to do with newspaper interviews.
This win had nothing to do with the number of supporters.
This win had nothing to do with group tactics.
This win had nothing to do with beating an opposition group.
This win had nothing to do with a "bag of tricks".
This win had nothing to do with consolidated cases.
This win had nothing to do with class actions.

This win was won by one man standing up for a single basic principle of mining law.
This win was about already existing rights being insisted on by one man.
The law was always there to be relied on. It just took one man to insist it be followed.

Rinehart, Tierny, McClure, Eno, Lex, Waggener. That's a proud history of single miners winning cases based on the simple rights granted a miner.

The mining grant is an individual right that is earned by individual miners. It is up to individual miners to enforce their rights.

Educate yourself and prosper!

Heavy Pans

 

[fowledup]

You are dead on about KS wild. They destroy jobs, careers & small business. KS wild brags about the logging jobs they have destroyed, and the millions....yes millions.... of dollars they receive from donors. I hope their own ego's will cause them to self implode. I have long felt that someone needs to "join" these groups and cause a little "inside espionage"!

The Sierra Fund, World Wildlife Organization, EPA, The Center for Biological Diviersity, ALF/ELF -different names same agenda.

 

[Mad Machinist]

The main thing we are going to have to worry about will be the continuing attacks by the enviro-groups. What is needed is to find some way to pull their teeth once and for all. Their abuse of the legal system has been out of hand for years now and needs to be stopped in the worst way. Their abuse of the EAJA is a prime example. By getting the tax payers to pay for their legal actions it is hurting us all. If the leadership of these groups really wants to bring suit against the government, why don't they do it with donations from their members? ...or would that dig into their high salaries to much? The EAJA was set up to allow the little guy to have a fighting chance. Considering that the CBD alone boasts they have a membership of over 800,000 people, I don't think that qualifies them as "The little guy" any more. Other groups have even larger memberships. If the rank and file members of these groups want to start these fights, let THEM pay for it instead of the American tax payers! If we can make it so these groups can not profit from these lawsuits like they have in the past, most of them will fade away quickly since they've proven it's about the money they can make instead of saving the world anymore.

The EAJA is being worked as we speak. The sticking point right now is at what level of income or net worth is the limit for reimbursement of costs. Right now the limits being discussed are between $1 and $5 million. Also being discussed is the fact that if a "nonprofit" with over a certain amount of members is eligible under the EAJA.

Since attorney fees can be written off as a under cost of doing business, there is a lot of question if "nonprofits" are eligible as they technically have no profits thus have no tax duty.

Like I said, much is being discussed in order to make the law as "bulletproof" as possible.

The ESA will also be coming under heavy review here shortly too.

 

[Mad Machinist]

One thing that needs to be watched in this is the definition of "in stream". It has been successfully argued that any activity taking place in the 100 year flood plain of a river is considered "in stream". There is plenty of case law to back this up.

SCOTUS has ruled on multiple times that the EPA CANNOT regulate in stream "pollutants".