Because of Pete Santilli’s investigative reporting, we learned that the local schools were closed so that at least one school could be used as a staging area for law enforcement in their preparation to retake the Malheur Headquarters. The curious thing was that it seemed to be the local Sheriff who had his panties in a wad about Occupy Malheur more so than federal officials. The rumor was that federal officials were trying to keep a lid on the situation while the Sheriff is trying to escalate the situation unnecessarily.
The Sheriff has made himself scarce through all of this. Word was that he was scared which seemed odd but if one looks at how federal money flows into the counties, it’s not odd at all. Ammon Bundy’s attempt to organize ranchers to reclaim their county property and county government from federal control is rocking boats in places that are not obvious.
During the Lyndon Baines Johnson Great Society era, organizational structures established to accept federal anti-poverty money were public-private associations. The public-private associations are the funnels through which the federal money flows. In Idaho, the regional association is called the Idaho Association of Counties. This morning I found the Oregon Association of Counties and it’s the same structure.
The formation is a system of cross-jurisdictional associations that effectively become the shadow government. Funding from the Feds flows to the shadows. What this system of funding has done is to effectively buy our local county officials (because they dance to the money tune) to implement agendas coming from the federal government.
Ironically, it incentivizes poverty creation at the local level because federal money comes to alleviate poverty. More importantly, it turns local county officials into advocates and operatives for the federal government while dis-empowering state government. It’s a private club system that is inherently corrupt.
The federal money flowing into the counties provides the incentives for county officials to put the interests of the citizens of the country second place to the federal government. The smoking gun that I found this morning in the archives of the Oregon Association of Counties is an initiative proposed by the Western Interstate Regional association (WIR) (emphasis added):
The WIR Board of Directors appointed a subcommittee to study the legislative concept of combining all federal county payment programs into one to be funded out of the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The subcommittee is charged with researching the LWCF, identifying allies and potential allies, becoming familiar with the federal appropriations and budgeting processes, exploring how to shift priorities of the LWCF from merely land acquisition and payment of the national debt to becoming a permanent funding source for county payments, and identifying obstacles to success.
WIR President John Martin, Garfield County, Colorado, facilitated the first of a planned series of informal discussions on the ESA, which as expected was civil but inconclusive. Representatives of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service explained the country’s history of retention of lands by the federal government. During the conference sessions there was no discussion of the Utah legislation to force the federal government to transfer much of federally held land in Utah to the state.
WIR will now be staffed by Tom Wolf, who was introduced at the conference as the new NACo associate legislative director for public lands. Tom replaces the talented Ryan Yates, who moved to the National Farm Bureau.
For Oregon commissioners and judges curious about WIR, the next annual meeting will be held in the County of Kaua’i, Hawaii.
It should be perfectly obvious how this initiative is a realignment of incentives and more importantly – loyalties – for county officials. It’s not known if representatives moved on this agenda item, but it’s a safe bet that they will because all the incentives deem it so.
Understanding the organizational structure through which federal money flows to the counties explains why county officials have more loyalty to the federal government than they do to their own citizens and that is the reason for the Committee of Safety.
The objective of establishing a Committee of Safety is to then convene a People’s Common Law Grand Jury. Once that is done, the people of Harney county then have the power to investigate the corrupt system that has been established to flow federal money into the county. This is the necessary process for the people to begin to reclaim their county government.
