Left-Wing Civil Disobedience Often Goes Unpenalized, Says Group

The influential National Center for Public Policy Research says law enforcement, media, AND left-wing and environmental groups share blame for fatal Oregon Wildlife Refuge shooting. Here's why.

The Center, a nationally recognized group that takes a conservative stand on national issues and digs deep to find unreported parts of stories, says environmental groups have occupied the Malheur County Wildlife Refuge a number of times in the past.

The Policy Center reports Kieran Suckling, the Executive Director for the controversial Center for Biological Diversity, has himself been arrested and found himself in court for trespassing illegally and staging occupying protests on private lands, as recently as 2014. But instead of landing in jail under the same laws being used to prosecute the Ammon Bundy 7, Suckling is free, running around the country, organizing similar events.

On several occasions, Suckling has even condemned the ranchers who occupied the Wildlife Refuge, even though he and the Bundy 7 actually are both protesting essentially the same federal policies, according to the Policy Center.

It's case of 'do as I say, not as a I do' says David Ridenour, who is the president of the Policy Center.  In fact, Suckling's group often uses federal grant money for it's legal proceedings against the government and private entities when they sue over environmental issues.

Ridenour says often times, environmentalists are subject to what he calls "fake arrests," that are staged to make it look like the protestors are getting in trouble-when in reality they are released from jail, maybe pay a fine, and they're gone. A far cry from the FBI strong-hand tactics used on Bundy and his supporters.

Ridenour reports the government is even full of officials who've been arrested for controversial environmental causes, but never did jail time. James Hansen, who ran NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies before he recently retired, was repeatedly and intentionally arrested for his role in environmental protests.  Ridenour says this is a clear violation of federal law. High-ranking officials are not allowed to participate in such activities or have a criminal record, yet Hansen was never fired.

While the Policy center doesn't condone violence and has not endorsed the Malheur occupation one way or another, they say the two-faced way it's been handled is wrong.

The Policy Center says law enforcement came down heavy-handed on the Bundy protestors, while giving other environmentalists a slap on the wrist.  The Center also says news media have also slanted coverage towards environmental groups, tending to portray them as protesting for the good of the planet, instead of the law-breaking criminals they are who break local, state and federal laws.