Several of the militia members who have seized an Oregon wildlife refuge headquarters to protest the prison sentences of two Oregon ranchers for arson (who, incidentally, have said they’d rather not have the militia group’s help) are from Arizona, including dumbass John Ritzheimer, who has been widely mocked for his “Daddy-swore-an-oath” explanation of why he abandoned his children at Christmas for this occupation nonsense.
Another one of the militia members is an Arizona rancher who evidently draws most of his income from raising foster kids at his Chino Valley ranch. But now Arizona officials are removing foster kids from his ranch, threatening his livelihood.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reports:
Robert “LaVoy” Finicum and his wife Jeanette were foster care parents for troubled boys. Finicum estimates that over the past decade, more than 50 boys came through their ranch near Chino Valley, Arizona. The boys often landed there from mental hospitals, drug rehabs and group homes for emotionally distressed youth.
“My ranch has been a great tool for these boys,” Finicum said. “It has done a lot of good.”
Jeanette Finicum cared for the four children while her husband traveled between the refuge in southeastern Oregon and Utah, as part of a press tour in support of the militants’ occupation.
Finicum offers the implausible argument that federal officials have convinced Gov. Doug Ducey to act on their behalf:
The removals coincided with Finicum’s involvement in the occupation of the refuge, outside of Burns. He blamed the removals on “pressure from the feds.”
“They were ripped from my wife,” Finicum said. “We are very successful (foster parents). Our track records are good, it’s been a good relationship. (Federal authorities) must have gotten to the governor, who told the state to get them out of there.”
Ducey spokesman Daniel Scarpinato told The Range today that Ducey had no role in the decision to remove the children from Finicum’s ranch.
“This is absolutely false,” Scarpinato said. “The governor is not involved in individual foster child placement decisions. Those are left to professionals at DCS and charity programs and the courts. And all of the decisions that are made through our agencies with the filter of what is in the best interest of the child and their safety.”
Whatever reason the Arizona authorities had to remove the kids from Finicum’s ranch, it’s very hard to believe that the Obama administration somehow forced Ducey’s hand.
TPM’s Josh Marshall makes two points:
First, having one parent away from the home for a significant period of time committing a number of high profile federal crimes would seem like at least a plausible reason to remove the children. This doesn’t seem to occur to Finicum.
The second point comes further down in the article. From a mix of tabulations by Oregon Public Broadcasting and Finicum’s own account, Finicum and his wife apparently get almost all or all of their income from being foster parents. His ranch in Chino Valley, Arizona is break even at best and appears to generate no income.
Marshall concludes:
It’s certainly possible that Finicum and his wife provide a great experience and place of emotional support for these boys. That’s what he says and maybe he’s right. But participation in anti-government extremist activity and various federal crimes seems to merit at least a close look at whether this is a healthy environment for these children, especially if they are taking in as many as 8 or 10 at a time and it’s their only source of income.
Regardless, Finicum’s claim that this is another example of the government persecution of him – removing foster children, who come with state subsidies which are his only source of income, because he has abandoned them to go commit crimes against the federal government in another state – just illustrates painfully and comically what a nonsense bubble these jokers live in.
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2016.
I wonder how much longer the government will go on just letting these militant nut jobs occupy the Oregon refuge. They should cut the electric power to the site and block the road access at the very least. High Country News had a good article yesterday about the lack of consistency in the enforcement of laws in similar cases.. http://www.hcn.org/articles/justice-in-the…
I feel awful for those kids.
Where were you when the left stopped hiding the fact that they support totalitarianism and the BLM?
Nice hit piece, almost as fair and balanced as a certain network you enjoy ridiculing.
So, what are the charges other than the man’s political beliefs that he is an unfit father? Were they abused or neglected in any way. Any interviews from foster children who lived at the ranch (of course not, that would involve ethical journalism)
Imagine if children were removed from a foster home because the parents protested for abortion rights, gay rights or gun control or whatever the state chooses to be subversive.
Where were you when the media became the propaganda wing of the state?
Go ahead and dislike my comment, I am sure the NSA will notify your state’s child protective services to add a “good boy point” to your file should you choose to foster a child in the future.
Rancher Finicum was receiving over $120,000 per year in foster care payments from the State of AZ and free farm-hand labor from all the adolescent boys who he was teaching a lesson about good hard work to. He really knew how to work the system. He’s the kind of white trash that we really don’t need to support here in Arizona.
I am not a fan of CPS involvement 90% of the time, but this maniac certainly shouldn’t have children under his care, his own or anyone else’s.
There is a need for specific factual data to make this story clear. How much per kid does AZ pay for foster kids? Per month/per year. How many kids has this guy claimed on his income taxes for how many years? How many kids does he have at any given time — fewest to most? How long has each kid stayed and why did the kid leave? Was it a case of aging out after years of living there? Or were there additional issues? Abandoning the kids to the wife’s care while he is engaging in a federal crime is abundant reason for them to be removed. How soon after he left were they removed? How can he have no other source of income? Lots of holes to be filled here before this is a real news story.
In response to gcb1 about all of the holes in this story. I have read more complete stories about him on the web, including that his 2009 IRS forms indicate that in that year alone he received more than $115,000.00 in foster care payments, and that all of his foster children have been adolescent boys who he utilizes as unpaid nearly full-time ranch hands “to teach them a lesson about good hard work.”
I find it amazing that he is comfortable stating that they are his main source of income. In the state of Arizona to be a foster parent, you are required to show proof that you can and do support yourself without the foster parent stipend. That money is NOT to support yourself on. It’s to be used in providing for the children everything that they need. This man is disgusting.
The kids should be pulled from his care because he’s a criminal, but I might be the only person who thinks it’s a shame. Finding foster homes is tough.
http://aviewfromthebubble.com/2016/01/20/militant-loses-foster-kids-and-for-good-reason/
Another example of white folks getting welfare from the government… another failed rancher getting bailed out by the government he rails against.
So, putting foster kids to work on a ranch is a crime? Are you people sane? How many stories have we read about child abuse, sexual abuse here in Arizona – and you soft bleeding hearts are worried about the children living on a RANCH – open air and out of the city, WORKING ON A RANCH?
Has anyone interviewed any of the children who used to work at the ranch? Were they being abuse?
You people truly are sheeple, you ask no questions and immediately congregate into group think, social signalling each other with each inane post.
Self hating white people foaming at the mouth to take pot shots at other white people, “See it’s not only black and browns getting welfare, hate this white person too, in fact hate him more, death to whitey – white people are worse!” Says the white reader here at the Range.
You seriously make me sick, what happened in you life to make you hate yourself and your people so much?
What if the children were black and Hispanic and liked working there and are happy? What if they consider their fellow foster children as brothers?
They will all now be shoved into a substandard orphanage and then separated and dispersed into the system.
But please, keep wringing your hands in joy as a white rancher is punished by the government for thinking a different way than they want him to.
The point is, Old Pueblo Veteran, Mr. Finicum (along with fellow Arizonan Mr. Ritzheimer) have abandoned their households for a number of weeks with the purpose of committing Federal felonies in Oregon. Based on this alone, Mr. Finicum should be made ineligible to receive foster care funds and Mr. Ritheimer should be investigated as to whether any of his own under-age children should be removed from his household. This is at the core of it.
Steve makes a good point but to me (and the reason I directed people to other reporting on this story), the idea that Doug Ducey is jumping at the command to crack down on Mr. Finicum at the behest of the Obama administration is fundamentally absurd. If you buy that, you are out of touch with reality.
So then, Old Pueblo Veteran does support the continued placement of foster care children with an individual who is in the process of committing high-profile Federal felonies? And who openly reported to the press that he derives the majority, if not all, of his income from State of Arizona foster care payments, which is a violation of Arizona state law?
I’d like to add a non judgemental inquiry about facts. Considering how Mr. Finicum spoke recently, would an inquiry into his health records reveal anything? He was a Mormon (I read) and appeared to be thin? Could he have had a condition promoting suicide by cop?
The purpose of fostering children is NOT so that you can make money, which from his comments is why Mr. Finnicum did it, but it’s also not to have free ranch hands. The state didn’t remove these kids because they were getting too much fresh air.
Well, at least Rancher Finicum, thanks to his own propensity to draw a gun against authorities, no longer plagues the State of Arizona. I wish the best of his widow. She should get her profile up on WhereWhitePeopleMeet.com ASAP to find a new hubby, so that they can start fostering and exploiting children again.
If all else doesn’t get through, this is the nuts and bolts of it: the fostering process requires fostering parents to have sufficient money before fostering kids for the very purpose of making sure kids are not exploited. It is an absolute necessity so kids are not used, and thought of, and treated like, workers and was put in place because it had been happening so much. I am also truly surprised that Mr. Finicum stated to the press that these boys (and, to my understanding, they were always boys), that they were most of their income. I have heard, though have not yet verified, that a clandestine investigation to all parties has begun, so hopefully that will shed some light on the situation.
You bootlickers praise the cops when it suits your anti-gun and apparently now, anti-white agendas.
When cops clamp down on BLM the cops are in the wrong and the evil white cops are suppressing democracy.
The outright celebration of this person’s death highlights the ultimate hypocrisy of “your” side.
Remember, today bearing arms and occupying Federal Land in protest is a felony, and you rejoiced the government oppression.
Tomorrow, when the next Occupy protest happens, who will be around to rejoice when your children are taken away due to illegal felonious protest?
You need to get your facts straight. LaVoy and his wife lived in the community of Cane Beds. It is on the Arizona Strip north of the Colorado River and south of St. George, Utah. It is between the town of Colorado City and Moccasin. Finicum loved his ranch and his cattle even though he made very little from ranching. But then, I don’t know of any small cattleranchers who ar rolling in anything green except manure.
As for the children, I suspect many of them were from Colorado City families where the split-off LDS Fundamentalists live as though it was still 1890, and that Child Protective Services had probably removed them, but they were still close enough for their parents to visit them with supervision. So where do you think they are now???? Yes they received money for providing for the kids that were in the Foster program, but they had already raised their own children many years ago, and just like the IRS deductions for children, it is a long way for fullfilling all of a child’s need. And when you are almost 100 miles from a Safeway or Wal-Mart, just going shopping for anything is expensive.
But I know of nowhere that Foster parents are required to have a certain amount of income. Obviously they probably had some Social Security and a stable home environment is required. I fully expected the children to be split up and shipped off to somewhere else. You can qall feel a sense of accomplishment now.