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Our show will open with Mathew Fogg, and Tom Devine, to discuss the new police reform bill. Marcel Reid will join in to update on the status of the 2020 Whistleblower’s Summit.
The women of Forestry are back! with Lesa Donnelly
The physical assault on Denice Rice by the Deputy Forest Supervisor was met with management’s failure to act on it, and then retaliation against Denice for reporting it by proposing she be suspended. Denise will also expose the exodus of people from fire on the Eldorado NF.
Shannon Reed is being harassed at her home by the Forestry Service.
The Coalition had a recent ZOOM meeting with Biden’s staff, while at the same time, The Women’s Working Group (WWG) never received any followup from the August 2019 meeting with the Chief and Weldon’s recent email based on complaints to the Secretary about it.
We will cover the failure of the agency to develop and establish a plan to address work place abuses. How Forestry Service does not believe Black Lives Matter because of the way they treat African American employees.
PRESS RELEASE: Rep. Maloney Demands Reinstatement of USFS Employee Fired in Retribution for Reporting Sexual Assault
WASHINGTON, DC – Following yesterday’s hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with United States Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Rep. Maloney requested a written response from Chief Christiansen on how the USFS will change and make better its system for handling workplace sexual assault and harassment.
In her letter, the Congresswoman points out that Shannon Reed was fired in retaliation to lodging a complaint of sexual harassment. The Congresswoman therefore requested in her letter to Chief Christiansen that “as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.”
Once upon a time, some years ago I lived in Paradise, CA. which was a beautiful town. I remember that many times I walked the flume along the Feather River which had been built slightly above the river by the electric company. And since the Camp Fire just went through the town I wonder if that portion of the forest had also vanished. The fire is one of the saddest burns ever, displacing so many people. The property, much of what is private, was covered with thousands upon thousands of evergreen trees. Because of the devastation of the burn, there now needs to be a total reassessment of how forested public lands are managed and now we must forge ahead with a new vision of how lands and people must be protected from fire. The previous forestry blueprint laid the groundwork for seasonal fires to move dramatically and rapidly to where they would not only burn uncontrollably, they would also burn for months until the rains came. The infernos, then and now were still part of a policy that did not lend itself to proper preventative fire management which would include protective firebreaks and the thinning of trees, whether it be on public or private property.
Around the year 2010 I interviewed the Tahoe National Forest supervisor who has since retired and he then shared how the management of the federal forests was actually an “experiment.” So, there is no real science going on here, and with 300 million people in America at risk, previous policies which allowed fires to burn naturally from lightning strikes does not consider the risks involved and the safety of the people.More
Rep. Maloney Demands Reinstatement of USFS Employee Fired in Retribution for Reporting Sexual Assault
WASHINGTON, DC – Following yesterday’s hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with United States Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Rep. Maloney requested a written response from Chief Christiansen on how the USFS will change and make better its system for handling workplace sexual assault and harassment.
In her letter, the Congresswoman points out that Shannon Reed was fired in retaliation to lodging a complaint of sexual harassment. The Congresswoman therefore requested in her letter to Chief Christiansen that “as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.”
Full text of the letter is below and a PDF can be found here.
Dear Chief Christiansen,
Thank you for your testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today about the systemic mistreatment of women at the U.S. Forest Service. As this hearing made clear, for many women, the US Forest Service has not been a safe place to work. Women have been sexually assaulted by their coworkers or superiors, and then retaliated against for reporting the assault. That is intolerable, and even more so because that it is happening at a federal agency. It is incumbent upon you to rectify this situation as quickly as possible.
At the hearing, you committed to providing me a written response when asked for your thoughts about the concerns raised by Ms. Reed and more than 50 other women in a letter to you dated Nov 9, 2018. A copy of that letter is enclosed. The letter details horrific allegations of harassment, retaliation and injustice at the US Forest Service and I am eager to see your response to it.
Additionally, as you work to correct these problems at the US Forest Service, I strongly urge you to consider restoring Ms. Reed’s employment, if that is what she desires. It was made clear at the hearing today that Ms. Reed was forced out of her position unjustly and prematurely. Furthermore, having been a victim of both sexual harassment and the dysfunctional process after the fact, Ms. Reed is in a unique position to prevent other women from suffering the same abuse to which she was subjected.
Your prompt attention to this matter is appreciated. Thank you.
There will be an oversight hearing Thur. Nov. 15th 10:00 am Eastern regarding misconduct in the Forestry Service. I would encourage you to share this and watch the hearing either live or archived via this link.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy has asked the Department of Agriculture for extensive documents related to sexual harassment and misconduct at the Forest Service, citing persistent reports of such conduct and retaliation against employees who report it.
In an Oct. 22 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen, Gowdy (R-S.C.) requested all communications regarding anti-harassment policies sent or received by top officials overseeing the Forest Service and all regional foresters since Dec. 2, 2016.
He also asked for information including the number of employees disciplined or terminated in relation to anti-harassment policies since that date, as well as an accounting of penalties imposed. And he asked for all personnel actions associated with employees who filed complaints or reported sexual misconduct or harassment since Jan. 1, 2016.
Gowdy asked the department to comply by Nov. 5. As of this morning, the committee hadn’t received a response, a spokeswoman said.
His letter comes on the heels of several Forest Service initiatives to combat a history of sexual misconduct and harassment in the agency, particularly in firefighting crews. Christiansen took over earlier this year after Tony Tooke resigned as Forest Service chief, following backlash over his own past conduct — a relationship he had a decade earlier with a lower-ranking Forest Service employee when he was a regional forester.
Addressing sexual misconduct is a top priority, USDA Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment James Hubbard has said. He oversees the Forest Service (E&E Daily, July 25).More
With the new 2016 fire season upon the west, wildfires are in full swing again. And just one year ago the U.S. Forest Service said that for the first time in its 110 year history it spends more than 50% of its annual budget fighting fires at the expense of other programs. So no longer do we have a real forest service agency fulfilling its core mission. It has become the fire department.
While there is much talk every year about the expenses and the causes and the effects of forest and range fires, those very same state and federal agencies who are paid to protect the land, only offer us smoke and mirrors. They never talk about solutions on how to save at least 10 million pristine acres from being charred every year. Yet, all the while, management offers excuses such as “climate change”, “drought”, growing development or budget issues that hide the real problems. Where are their solutions? They are present but the government and the mainstream media backs away from the full story. More
Tate township has lost 75000 trees since the 2011 discovery of the Asian Longhorned Beetle in this small farming community. The USDA preferred treatment for this infestation is to remove the infested trees and treat and/or monitor the uninfested healthy trees. Instead, they insist on spending tax $$ and valuable time killing healthy trees that might have a beetle in them some day, and bypassing the known infested trees. Of those 75000 trees killed by the USDA, only 16000 of them actually had infestation. They have been in Worcester since 2008, and are hardly any closer to a declaration of eradication.
They will be here in S/W Ohio for ten years, and most likely still have not taken down enough trees to please themselves. They are convincing these property owners to allow full host removal (all 13 tree genera) by offering them deals that they can’t pass up, like additional culvert pipes into the fields, removal of fencerows, new driveways, total land clearing for further development, and anything else they can bargain to get property owners’ permission to kill the healthy trees.
Pictured above is a typical example of the USDA work. There were 24 known infested trees on this 69 acre parcel of land previously known as H– Woods. The USDA spent 3 months and hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to destroy 2400 trees on this property. They wasted this valuable time while thousands of known infested trees were bypassed on other properties. They could have accomplished the removal of those 24 known infested trees in less than 2 days, saving not only 2300 plus healthy trees, but also those hundreds of thousands of tax dollars that were spent stretching this abomination into a 3 month ordeal.
There are dozens of other similar examples. The current USDA focus on destroying healthy trees while ignoring infested trees needs to stop.
The Southwest is the area where Canadian and Mexican wolves mostly likely will meet and crossbreed. According to USFWS documents, the Mexican wolf’s inbreeding contributes to small litter sizes and low pup-survival rates. Cross-breeding with the non-native Canadian wolves would “solve” the Mexican wolf’s gene pool problem. Call it a “nonessential experimental Mexican wolf subspecies.” Or call it what it is—a bigger crossbred “Mexican” gray wolf.
Matt Cronin, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks and research professor of animal genetics, addressed USFWS officials at their Public Hearing Concerning Mexican Wolves in Arizona on December 3, 2013. He told the panel:
“. . . Mexican wolves went through a very large bottleneck. They don’t represent the original population. They came from a small Canis population. Assessing the subspecies is somewhat futile in that respect.
“. . . subspecies, in general, are basically a subjective category. They are not a hard scientifically blank category.
“. . . this phenomenon of naming species and subspecies has been termed by the broad scientific community as inflation, splitting things into groups with the intent of granting conservation, again. The entire scientific community outside of the wildlife is recognizing this. And it’s very important that we realize that subspecies as a scientific category is subjective. It’s not definitive. The scientific community agrees on it.
“ . . . I suggest you use the entire body of science and the recent discrediting of subspecies that have been listed and reconsider the science. . .” More
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is delisting and relinquishing management of gray wolves back to state wildlife officials while simultaneously proposing “new rules”1 to “save” the Mexican gray wolf. The proposals include:
► Keeping the Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) on the endangered list as a subspecies. A conundrum. The Mexican wolf is a gray wolf that breeds with other gray wolves and is not a subspecies. A grizzly and a black bear are subspecies. A horse and donkey are subspecies that produce sterile offspring.
►Issuing permits to private landowners to kill wolves killing livestock on their property based on the number of Mexican gray wolves that exist in the wild, not immediate or continuing wolf depredations.
►Handling Mexican wolves killing livestock on private lands are not included in the USFWS’s new ‘problem’ wolf proposals. Mexican wolves killing livestock on private land are problem wolves. More
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On April 7, 2001, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ignored state and federal law in the name of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and stopped water to more than 200,000 acres and some 1,400 canal-irrigated family farms near Klamath Falls, Oregon, plunging the community toward bankruptcy and devastating families.
Why? Because the bureau said two species of bottom-feeding suckerfish and a Coho salmon, in a reservoir the farmers depended upon might be “affected” if water was released during the current drought.
The ESA had already been used to cut off water to a group of California farmers, causing their crops to dry up.
In Colorado, the forest service threatened another agricultural operation with a by-pass flow that would have resulted in an 80-percent loss of the dry-year water supply from a key reservoir, with a direct economic loss of between $5 and $17 million.
They also attempted to impose a “by-pass flow” that would have taken some 50 percent of the dry-year water supply provided from a Colorado municipal water storage facility.
In Idaho, a federal permittee was told he would have to bypass water to protect aquatic species or obtain an alternate source of water at a cost of $120,000.
In Arizona, where state law requires water rights be held by the person making the beneficial use of the water, the regional forester had demanded that water rights owned by grazing permittees be transferred to the feds – rights long established under state law for livestock purposes.
Federal agencies—at the direction of the EPA—are using the ESA nationwide to try and override established water rights, state laws, and the McCarran Act.
Under the Water Rights Act of 1952 (McCarran Amendment) it’s illegal for anyone – federal agency or citizen, without exception – to force water bypasses or withhold water along natural flowing streams, rivers, and their tributaries. More
Tonight’s guest is R.T. Fitch, President of Wild Horse Freedom Federation and author of the much acclaimed book “Straight from the Horse’s Heart: A Spiritual Ride through Love, Loss and Hope.” R.T. also runs the blog “Straight from the Horse’s Heart,” which posts current news and information and gives a comprehensive education to the public on issues in connection with wild horses & burros, public lands and the activities of the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service.
Wild Horse Wednesdays is co-hosted by Debbie Coffey, Director of Wild Horse Affairs at Wild Horse Freedom Federation and Marti Oakley, PPJ Gazette. This series of radio shows on Wednesday nights will feature upcoming guests including Elizabeth Lovegrove of Wild Horses Kimberly in Australia and Ginger Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation. _______________________________________________________________________________ To contact us: ppj1@hush.com, or call 320-281-0585
LISTEN TO ARCHIVED WILD HORSE WEDNESDAYS SHOWS:
11/6/13 – John Holland, President of Equine Welfare Alliance discussing the latest in horse slaughter issues. Click HERE.
11/13/13 – Marjorie Farabee, Director of Wild Burro Affairs for Wild Horse Freedom Federation and founder of Wild Burro Protection League (under Todd Mission Rescue) and Carl Mrozak, videographer (Eagle Eye Media), with work appearing on CBS, PBS, the Discovery Channel, the Weather Channel and other networks. Click HERE.
11/20/13 – Simone Netherlands, Natural Horsemanship Trainer, founder of respect 4 horses Organization, and director & producer of the documentary “America’s Wild Horses.” Listen HERE.
While we have been diverted with the governments plan to disarm us, that fine collection of corporatists, new world order advocates and United Nations servants have been busy using the federal register to implement United Nations Bio-regions within the United States. While these land and resource thefts will be accompanied by some fluffy scripts about how they are saving the planet for future generations and how the federal government and the United Nations are the only ones able and willing to protect these vast resource rich areas, the fact is, the plans they have for these areas are have nothing to do with preservation or protection. This is all about money and stealing from the states and their communities any and all resources that can be sold to corporations for massive profits.
Operating under the direction of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Forestry Service has begun to establish bio-regions in accordance with United Nations demands, focused now on vast areas of forests in the Pacific Southwest. These are forests that the government has made off-limits to local timber industry’s except for favored contractors, including timber stands located on private property, decimating many local communities and economies. It has also initiated the closing off of public access roads.
All of this was done supposedly to protect natural resources and prevent exploitation of the forests. Yet if you read the Federal Land Management policy, you can clearly see that preserving the forests or the land is not even an issue. This is land and resource theft from the states themselves, to profit a federally created and unlawful agency that has no real authority to do any of the things it does do.
Exchanges permit great flexibility to trade anything that is an interest in real property. The Forest Service can trade land, timber, oil, gas, minerals, road rights-of-way, scenic easements or development rights, buildings, power line rights-of-way, and/or other real property rights, including leasehold interests. More
The Forestry Service, another of those autonomous privately owned federal corporations appears intent upon depriving the people of Tombstone, Arizona, of their water supply. A recent forest fire devasted the area around Tombstone which effectively wiped out native wildlife and at the same time wreaked havoc on spring water pipelines which provided the city of Tombstone with its useable water supply.
In another instance of eco-terrorism perpetrated by federal corporations, the Forestry Service claims that Tombstone workers may only use horses and hand tools to re-establish water supply lines. No mechanized tools may be used as the Forestry Service claims it would be too much of an overload on the environment. Supposedly, they are trying to save the Mexican spotted owl, a butterfly and a frog from harm that might be caused from mechanical tools. As the fire effectively laid waste to any natural habitat, one has to wonder just how looney the eco-terrorists in the Forestry Service are going to become before someone in Arizona moves to revoke their corporate charter and runs this corporation, which can only be described as an eco-terrorist organization, out of the state.
We can only hope that the local sheriff stands his ground and refuses to allow the Forestry Service to act against the people of Tombstone. With the feds beginning their assault on Western States water rights and are beginning to lay claim to all water supplies while rendering senior water rights and vested water rights held for generations by private property owners as void, Tombstone will be the testing ground for just how much federal corporations operating under fraud as [public service] will be allowed to get away with.
The rights of the State of Arizona to protect its citizens even from federal aggression is well established in the 10th Amendment. Unfortunatley for the citizens of Tombstone, it appears that not only does their sheriff have no cajones, but neither do any of their state representatives or senators. Apparently the fire not only laid waste to any and all forested areas, but also rendered all the public officials mute.
“The Town Too Tough to Die” is in a standoff with the federal government — one that jeopardizes their very survival. The Goldwater Institute has joined with the historic community to help them assert their constitutional rights. Fox Business host John Stossel interviews Goldwater CEO Darcy Olsen about this landmark case.
Labeled as “tin foil” conspiracy theorists, called crazy and lambasted for the inclusion of Tea Party property rights activists and repeatedly told that they were imagining things, California property rights advocates may not be so crazy after all. The continual maligning of opponents who have exposed the ongoing implementation of Agenda 21 sustainability, smart growth, ICLEI, stack & pack housing, non-human habitat zoning and the effective end to property rights, are and have been right all along.
Conspiracy [theories] are theories only so long as you have no facts, only assumptions. Having facts to back up your suspicions does not lessen the conspiratorial act. It simply affirms the fact that the conspiracy does exist and this group of activists has that proof.
In the case of the attempts by UN Agenda 21 supporters and promoters who had for years successfully painted anyone who opposed their intentions to surrender portions of California (and the entire US) to UN Agenda 21 stack & pack housing and the ending of rural property rights, these characterizations mentioned above were quite successful. Those who opposed handing any portion of the state over to UN controlled regionalism were [tin foil hat conspiracy theorists]. They were simply right-wing extremists, violent liberals (depending on which side of the political spectrum was under fire at the moment), wing nuts, and a host of other commonly used metaphors to describe anyone who does not voluntarily submit and comply to the United Nations plan to deconstruct the United States.
According to promoters of Agenda 21, the 1992 agreement signed by Bush 1, did not mean anything. These same promoters claimed that Agenda 21 was an [old] obscure document and that efforts to highlight the link between this insidious agreement and the current trend of forcing rural/agricultural property owners off their land, particularly in Northern California was simply not true. More
“the ultimate opportunity for ranchers-selling their public land grazing permits on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management administered public lands with the caveat that their allotments will never again be used for livestock grazing.”
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While this video is a bit hard to hear, it is excellent! Thanks Erin and Louise.
Note the gun toting wardens at the front of the public meeting in the video–these guys are afraid of old gals and guys coming to public meetings in serene rural Redding, CA.
In the YouTube video, the balding (like me) gentleman at the right-corner of the table is Gary Cadd who was on the National Marine Fisheries Service-dominated North Pacific Fishery Management Council that meets in Alaska. He is a goldmine of information on the corruption of bycatch of coho and Chinook salmon in the Gulf of Alaska affecting our fish populations in California and Oregon.
He spoke with many “observers” on the airplane in trips he took to Council meetings between Anchorage and Seattle, and learned first-hand that the NMFS-employed lay-public observers are kept below deck on ocean trawlers so the bycatch (coho and Chinook salmon) are pitched overboard before the observers are allowed above deck to see the fish being retrieved out of the trawl nets–the Chinook contain coded wire tags needed to document the origin of the fish (see below) and the coho have marks allowing them to be associated with their hatchery origin.
Fishing would have to stop if the excessive bycatch limits were observed on deck. The observers during debriefing, before being swept back to Seattle, are discouraged in their reporting of illegal activity of Chinook and coho salmon bycatch–I have a friend and former student who has personally experienced this corruption in debriefing by NMFS or other government agents. More
New Mexico just proved that State law trumps unconstitutional federal regulations and that the power of the sheriff is superior over federal agencies. This is the power of the Tenth Amendment! More
Marti Oakley (c)copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved
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“we have a system of privileged corporations using the congresses, the presidents and all the alphabet soup agencies to enact and enforce oppressive legislation, regulations, rules, and other enforcement instruments to drive independent competitors from the markets,”
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I had to look up the definition of capitalism just to make sure my understanding of that concept was accurate. It was.
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
While I hear one politician or another extolling the virtues of free markets and while these same corporate hiney huggers along with successive presidents admonishes us that we must participate in the global economy, I find myself wondering just how bad the negative effects of the global economy have to become before someone cries “uncle”! As in “Sam!”
“Mack cited a Supreme Court case in which Justice Scalia wrote a ruling for the majority that stated “The Federal Government may not compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.”
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Where?
COLORADO – (3/27/11, Denverpost.com)
“Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell is waiting for his conscience to tell him: Should he start handing out tickets this week to U.S. Forest Service agents who are closing backcountry roads? Should he cut locks on gates that shut off access to public lands?
The fact that a county sheriff is considering such actions against the federal government is a good indication that more than a run-of-the-mill dustup over road and trail closures on public lands is erupting in the far southwest corner of the state…
In recent weeks, protesters have marched on the local Forest Service and BLM office located between Cortez and Dolores, calling Forest Service officials “government pukes.”
OREGON – (3/2/11, by Sara Foster, NewsWithViews.com) “Josephine County, Oregon -When Gil Gilbertson was sworn in as Sheriff of Josephine County, a rural county in southwest Oregon, in 2007, he had 30 years of law enforcement experience behind him, both in the United States and with various military missions overseas. More
Live Link: Morphcity
By Cassandra Anderson
July 28, 2010
Thirty states will be encroached upon by Obama’s Executive Order establishing the National Ocean Council for control over America’s oceans, coastlines and the Great Lakes. Under this new council, states’ coastal jurisdictions will be subject to the United Nations’ Law Of Sea Treaty (LOST) in this UN Agenda 21 program. America’a oceans and coastlines will be broken into 9 regions that include the North East, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, the Gulf Coast, West Coast, the Great Lakes, Alaska, the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii) and the Caribbean. More
The Forestry Service works hand in hand with the Bureau of Land Management. All over the western states both agencies are working to industrialize actual monument areas and areas seized by theft for industrailized purposes; in this case the Sequoia Forest. More
The PPJ Gazette 