FLHC Does A Bundy-like Takeover In Colorado

[The Observer]

The trial is moving forward:

MINUTE ORDER Plaintiff's Motion for Telephonic Status Conference (ECF No.20 ) is GRANTED. A telephonic Status Conference is set for February 4, 2025 at 9:30 a.m. PLEASE READ ATTACHED MINUTE ORDER. Entered by Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter on 1/22/2025.

Not sure if this is an event that the public can drop in on or if it is even worth attending.

[The Observer]

Well, as it turns out, the telephonic meeting for 2/4/2025 was neither public nor telephonic:

https://www.courthousenews.com/facing-f ... in-silver/

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... ver-court/

For those not interested in reading the linked articles, this is the summary version:

1) Pipkin and his buddy Hammon demanded that the judge provide an ambassador and that the court accept silver coins for payment of court costs associated with their filed counter-claim.

2) The judge, another patient jurist, explained to the two that there would be no ambassador and did not immediately accept the silver coins as payment, instead taking them into safekeeping with the courthouse safe when Pipkin refused to take them back. Judge Neureiter also advised that the filed counter-claim, 50 pages of handwritten arglebargle, was not acceptable and would have to be prepared properly. He pointed them towards the pro se clinic to learn how to submit a proper filing but gave them 3 weeks to resubmit or the government would be awarded a default judgment.

3) Plenty of sov lingo was tossed about. The FLHCers stated that they were "working in exclusive equity and jurisprudence,” that Pipkin asked to be referred to as "Patrick the man" and that they are under laws that are based on the 1560 Geneva Bible. I know this will come as a shock to that Canadian Paraclete, Belanger, that the FHLC believes that the KJV Bible-based laws only applies to citizens of the current United States. I am sure he would sincerely tell them otherwise and that they are making a serious mistake.

4) Pipkin is under the opinion that the private meeting will be held again and that it is a continuing meeting; he also told the press that there is a "lot more going on" than he has related. Apparently he believes that the 3 week deadline imposed by the judge has no meaning. He is also claiming that he is not looking for "remedy" from the court and that FLHC will create their own "remedy." Most likely this means that Pipkin is just going to prepare a packet of frontier gibberish, cover it repeatedly with seals, thumbprints, and feathers, and post it somewhere as a public document.

5) The point of paying with silver is based on Pipkin's idiotic theories that the word "The" and "the" mean two different governments, that FLHC is under the old government established by the Articles of Confederation and that the land in question is under the AoC and the silver is being tendered in observation of that contract.

So we will see what happens on or about February 25th.

[The Observer]

It was a surprise to me but Pipkin and Hammon managed to file their amended challenge with the court by the deadline date of February 25th. And by amended, I mean that the previous 50 pages of pseudolaw gibberish was reduced to 4 pages - 2 of those pages were entirely for Hammon affixing some sort of seal and stamp to make it pseudolegally acceptable. The Journal even provided a copy in their internet article. There was not a copy of Pipkin's separate filed challenge, presumable because he created an 11-page document.

Regardless of its brevity, the challenge is still based on sovrun arglebargle. The essence of Hammon's objection to the suit is that because the wrong government filed the suit and doesn't legally own the land of which Pipkin and his cohorts took control. And his proof is that any documents filed by "THE UNITED STATES", "United States", "United States of America", or "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" don't match the original deed that was made out to "The United States of America". All of those entities are just phony and cannot show any documentation showing that the property was deeded in those names. In addition, the US Forest Service is just a management agency and has never filed a deed either.

Of course, both of our wild and crazy kind of sovs knew that they had to trot out some sort of case law evidence. They cited the following:

Melo v. US 505 F2d 1026,
Lantana v. Hopper 102 F2d 188
Chicago v. New York, 37 F Supp 150
Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 171 P2d 8
Zeller v. Rankin 101 S.Ct. 2020, 451 US 939. 68 L.Ed. 2d 326

Hammon's copy only provides brief quotes from the citations and no explanation as to why these cases are on point or relevant to the argument that he is making. It would not come as any suprise to me that he is using dicta or that the cases have nothing to do with his challenge.

I would presume that Pipkin did the same. But in addition the article points out that Pipkin also quoted verses from the Bible interlaced with references to “Laws of Nature,” “divine principles of land inheritance,” and "Exclusive Equity Maxims and Exclusive Equity Principles". I have no idea what those two last terms mean or why they could have any possible relevance to justifying the FLHC takeover.

But the court has accepted the filings and they have been referred to a magistrate. Good luck to that jurist in trying to understand the nonsense that has been forwarded to him/her.

[morrand]

Of course, both of our wild and crazy kind of sovs knew that they had to trot out some sort of case law evidence. They cited the following:

Melo v. US 505 F2d 1026,
Lantana v. Hopper 102 F2d 188
Chicago v. New York, 37 F Supp 150
Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 171 P2d 8
Zeller v. Rankin 101 S.Ct. 2020, 451 US 939. 68 L.Ed. 2d 326

Hammon's copy only provides brief quotes from the citations and no explanation as to why these cases are on point or relevant to the argument that he is making. It would not come as any suprise to me that he is using dicta or that the cases have nothing to do with his challenge.

Sometimes fool's errands are more fun to go on than the regular kind, like buying milk or finding out what that banging noise in the basement is, and that's my only excuse.

Melo. v. U.S., 505 F.2d 1026. The quoted language doesn't quite appear in the decision (surprise, surprise) but the closest match I find makes the proper citation more like 505 F. 2d 1026, 1030. The 1976 case involved a car accident between a Post Office employee and a woman in Iowa. The appeals court sustained dismissal of the case on the grounds of failure to exhaust administrative remedies (i.e., failing to make the claim correctly).

Lantana v. Hopper, 102 F.2d 188 (1939). Appellee sued to recover on certain bond coupons and won, but defendant alleged chicanery was afoot to create jurisdiction where none existed (diversity of citizenship), neither side offered evidence either way, and the appeals court found error in the district court not holding the plaintiff to the burden of proving diversity of citizenship. The quoted language, "Court must prove on the record, all jurisdiction facts related to the jurisdiction asserted," does not appear in the decision and also doesn't sound accurate, given this decision held the plaintiff had to prove these things, rather than the court proving them.

Chicago v. New York, 37 F.Supp. 150. A 1941 case, or so, but Google Scholar can't find it and, based on how this is going, it's not worth the bus fare to go downtown to the law library and look it up.

Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 171 P2d 8. The citation here is wonky: the lead cite is to the case in the Supreme Court of California, but they also mingle in the U.S. Supreme Court citation as though it didn't really matter. It didn't, much: the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The Rescue Army sued to restrain the L.A. Municipal Court from trying one of their solicitors of donations. The citation they're attempting is more like 28 Cal.2d 460, 464, except they're lying. They have altered the quotation as indicated: "A court has no jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction, for a basic issue in any case before a tribunal is its power to act, and it a court must have the authority to decide that question in the first instance." That first alteration seems significant, although again, this is an odd proposition to cite to the court (as altered) if you want it to find it has no jurisdiction to do what it's been asked to do.

Rankin v. Howard, 633 F.2d 844. (Google Scholar knows about this one under the Supreme Court citation but, as mentioned in the filing, certiorari was denied.) The quoted language is at 849, basically as quoted: "But when a judge knows that he lacks jurisdiction, or acts in the face of clearly valid statutes or case law expressly depriving him of jurisdiction, judicial immunity is lost."

Obviously, none of these do much to argue the point that the United States court has no jurisdiction over the United States, which seems like an important point for Hammon to argue here. To be fair, they do seem to have at least a tenuous connection to the case, though perhaps not much more than a search of caselaw for "jurisdiction" would return.

Pipkin's filing is now on display in the Journal's article (the one Observer linked). It mostly cites a bunch of Bible verses but also gives the Exclusive Equity Maxims (things like, "Equity regards as done that which ought to be done") and the Exclusive Equity Principles By Joseph Story (things like, uh, "Equity regards that as done which ought to be done;" there is a lot of repetition in Pipkin's filing). What it does not give is the same case law citations as Hammon, but I guess if you have Bible citations, why would you even bother with the findings of a lower court?

[The Observer]

Thanks, morrand for running those cites down. Not too surprising that some of them were altered, had the wrong citations, and all of them not being on point.

I agree that Pipkin has essentially claiming that US courts have no jurisdiction over the US. Of course, Pipkin would tell us that we are conflating The United States with the United States and its variants. But he cannot explain or argue why it is legally significant that an upper case was not used. After all, this country has been around for almost 250 years and I can't recall any nation, including their various executive, legislative, and/or judicial departments, that thought they might be able to claim land merely because a deed was mislettered. I know, I know, Patrick is the one who did all of this hard research to discover this and the rest of the world never saw it coming.

...but I guess if you have Bible citations, why would you even bother with the findings of a lower court?

I guess Pipkin will be in for a surprise when the court advises him that because the Bible was never enacted as legislation in either The United States or the United States, the government's law suit will continue.