I know Anne Laurie is working up a new post from checking the dashboard, but since we’ve got two aging posts and breaking news, this’ll do for both an open thread and a discussion of ongoing events until she finishes and hits publish.
Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan, another unnamed Bundy brother, Ryan Payne, and a number of other militia folks have now occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters buildings. The Bundys have stated that they are prepared to stay there for years and that they are prepared to use violence if any attempt is made to remove them. So we now have breaking and entering into a Federal facility, criminal trespass, and terroristic threats. (h/t Paul W and Kelly in comments).
Here’s the link to Oregon Live’s update. They’ve just updated at 9:15 PM local time with the following statement from the local sheriff:
“Statement from Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward: ‘After the peaceful rally was completed today, a group of outside militants drove to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, where they seized and occupied the refuge headquarters. A collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution. For the time being please stay away from that area. More information will be provided as it becomes available. Please maintain a peaceful and united front and allow us to work through this situation.'”
Here’s the link to what the Feds had to say about what the Hammonds were actually accused, tried, and convicted of.
Here’s John Ritzheimer’s Youtube video (h/t LGF commenter Backwoods Sleuth):
Anne Laurie
I pulled my post till tomorrow — it’ll keep. Thanks for checking; wouldn’t have hit the publish button if I knew you had just done so!
dr. bloor
“’I hope that
the young people won’t
keep being bumfuzzled
by Democrats,’
said Larry Trickle,
a 77-year-old”
Fixed.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: No need to do that on my account. If our loyal and dedicated commentariat can’t multitask, then I have little hope for the future.
Gin & Tonic
They’ll be pretty hungry in a couple of weeks.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Renie
The federal gov’t should have done something about the Bundys when they first started this crap at their own ranch. Now they think they can do anything they want.
JPL
Can the park rangers shut off the water and electricity? I just want to see how the Bundy crew can last without modern conveniences.
dr. bloor
“The Bundy’s have stated that they are prepared to stay there for years and that they are prepared to use violence if any attempt is made to remove them”
So, they’re going to imprison themselves, minus the $50K per year per head cost to the American taxpayer? Sounds good to me.
Baud
I wonder what they’ll do when they get horny.
max
The Bundy’s have stated that they are prepared to stay there for years and that they are prepared to use violence if any attempt is made to remove them. So we now have breaking and entering into a Federal facility, criminal trespass, and terroristic threats.
So, assign some rangers and some feds to watch over them, blockade the road, wait until they come out. No food, water, power or phone or any of that until they come out.
Roll up their credit cards, freeze their bank accounts and put warrants out on them. (‘Armed and dangerous.’)
When they get tired, they get arrested. Been through this drill.
max
[‘Although a sniper with incendiary rounds might have a good time picking on their generators.’]
Adam L Silverman
@dr. bloor: Crap, knew I should’ve used the Gone Galt category…
Capt. Seaweed
It’s -8 in Burns this evening. Cut off the power, internet, water, vehicle access. Maybe set up a few water cannons….
Baud
I wonder which GOP candidate will show up for a photo op.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Hungry? Shut off the utilities to start. Lets see how long they last without fresh water.
Adam L Silverman
@max: According to Mr. Trump, aren’t we supposed to go after their relatives, friends, and neighbors too?
Mike J
@Baud:
The same thing they do every night Pinky. Try to fuck over the world.
JPL
@Capt. Seaweed: I like your ideas.
Corner Stone
Ok, that post went south somewhere.
RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac
Every domestic terrorist in that building should be erased from the earth. No traces left behind. Vaporized.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Those are Patriots, not terrorists. Silly.
father pussbucket
@Capt. Seaweed:
Plus a nice 24/7 sound system?
Schlemazel
@max:
I’d just as soon the first shots fired did not come from the government.
My guess is that they came with a ton of MREs, I have no idea about water but certainly all utilities should be shut off & the building put under siege. But if there is shooting we need to make it clear it was THEIR choice, not the governments.
Remember the video making the rounds – that asshole Robertson was even pimping it – that purported to show the gov using a flame throwing tank in Waco? Turned out it was sun reflecting off foil faced insulation but if you cut just the right few seconds it looked like flames coming out of the ram. We need to minimize the opportunity for that as it was part of the lead up to OKC.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
That’s like the perpetual motion machine conundrum.
Botsplainer
@RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac:
I’m really wanting their denouement to be on Pay Per View cable, as a deficit reduction fund.
Some Dude
Stupid is as stupid does. Wonder if they realize a drone strike would give them their wings. We’ve done it in other places, why not there?
PaulW
Last I checked, nobody in the Burns community asked them to do this. The ranchers getting re-convicted – it’s a tricky legal situation and I do question how and why more years were getting tacked onto their sentences they’ve already served – were reportedly going to turn themselves in Monday without hassle, and I don’t think either of them are part of this terrorist seizing of a federal building.
This is looking like some twisted grand-standing effort by a group of wannabe Turner Diaries heroes frustrated that years of trying to goad the feds into attacking them weren’t taking the bait.
I just hope to hell there are no hostages/civilians trapped in the building with them – doesn’t sound like it – and that it’s a situation where they can get fenced off and starved out.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: Well, according to the TP article, patriarch Cliven Bundy has given his approval to the actions of his wayward sons. So sounds like a perfectly valid reason to arrest the old coot as an accessory to terrorist acts (not that he and his aren’t already responsible for plenty of their own previously). Not quite the TrumpenFuehrer’s.”Kill em all” policy, but hey we’re supposed to be the good guys over here.
Gravenstone
@father pussbucket: Wonder if they’d update the soundtrack from the old Panama days?
PaulW
I’m looking at a map, the refuge building looks like a settlement replica building so not sure what the facilities are like. It is near a river and a lake, so if the feds can fence off the building from the natural waterways, that could help.
Baud
This is actually the first time in a long time I’m glad the Feds didn’t bomb the Bundy Ranch. 130 people just made it easy on everyone but all going to one place to be rounded up.
Jay Noble
This one is not gonna end well. I’m all for starving them out but one of those idiots is going get an itchy trigger finger and kill a fed. The one thing Obama needs to do right now is put drones over the place and start broadcasting live 24/7. Surround them, cut them off but no aggressive moves and just broadcast the whole thing.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: No problem, I’m just fussy about spacing / timing here.
Your post is time-sensitive, while mine is not. I’d thought about holding it back till tomorrow anyways, but figured there should be a new Open Thread — which you’ve taken care of, thank you!
amk
@Baud: mike huckster?
time for kenyan to show no more fucks to give.
Brachiator
Are they waiting for Al and McGeorge to join them?
I suppose it might be moderately interesting to get the opinion of the GOP hopefuls about this. Barely into the new year and the nutjob crazification meter is already off the charts.
Villago Delenda Est
Too bad they’re not blah…the Feds could move in and slaughter them all and the wingnutosphere would cheer the Feds on.
GoBlue72
Send in SWAT. Heavily armed. Anyone resists – shoot them.
That’s what we do with terrorists. And anyone not white. Tamir Rice gets assassinated for playing in a park and these nuts get the red carpet? Fuck that noise.
I’m tired of treating these kinds of yokels with kid gloves. They reject the legitimacy of the Federal government? Fine. Let them learn exactly how legitimate the government of the United States really is – the hard way.
Adam L Silverman
@RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac: No. Due process exists for a reason. Its bad enough we have to constantly call for it to be extended to people of color in their ordinary and routine interactions with law enforcement. There is no reason to make it worse by doing away with it completely.
ksmiami
Drones; 3 am. Then pour the concrete. I am sick of right wing traitor terrorists who think their GUNZ can fend off the full arsenal of the US. These people are worthless POS’s. Treat them as such.
Capt. Seaweed
Armed seizure and occupation of Federal property. I’m thinking prison is in their near future…
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Then they’ll be awfully constipated after a very short period of time.
Roger Moore
So Bundy et. al. are coming in from out of state against the professed wishes of the locals to protest the way the government doesn’t listen to local views about how things should be run. They just don’t grasp irony, do they?
JPL
@Baud: So as President would you put up an electrified chain link fence to keep the militia contained? As President would you pipe in Gnarls Barkley 24/7?
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Irony, along with sanity, are among the things they do not grasp.
Steve from Antioch
Does anyone know if they are occupying the Wildlife Refuge office out by Malheur lake or is it the Forest Service Headquarters?
Jay Noble
@PaulW: Their original minimum sentence was 5 years. That was some how lowered but the Fed District court said you can’t go lower than the minimum and SCOTUS agreed. So they were resentenced to the original 5 years minus time served
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: The cheese. Dear god, the cheese.
jame
You won’t be needing that apostrophe to show the plural of Bundy.
It’s “Bundys”.
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Unfortunately that was given credence because two military personnel were actually at Waco as consultants/advisors to the DOJ lead on site. One was now LTG (ret) Boykin and the other was then GEN Schoomaker. This led to numerous conspiracy theories.
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
As if they are not full of shit already?
Adam L Silverman
@Some Dude: Due process. We haven’t declared martial law or habeas corpus. That’s why. Will a surveillance drone likely be used? If I was a betting man I’d say yes.
FlyingToaster
@JPL: Nickelback. At 110 decibels.
Steve from Antioch
Re John Ritzheimer’s video – it looks like it was filmed in the cab of a truck. Any bets on whether he is running a 12 inch or 18 inch lift kit on that puppy?
Baud
@JPL:
Audio recordings of the Collective Speeches of President Barack Obama.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulW: The original sentencing judge ignored the required minimum sentencing guidelines. So on appeal it was ordered that they be resentenced inline with the required minimums. The defense asked for, and was granted, credit for time served. And it was decided that father and son would serve their terms in the same facility in California.
Gravenstone
@efgoldman: Hey now, crimes against humanity are not called for here.
FlyingToaster
@Adam L Silverman: You mean suspending habeas corpus, right? IIRC, that’s only allowed for an insurrection, which this certainly seems to be…
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster: Eighth Amendment issues.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: The issue is going to be getting to Bundy the elder. As long as he won’t leave his property, I’m not sure anyone is going to risk the shootout that going to get him would entail.
Anne Laurie
@RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac: Bad optics. I prefer the blockade method — fence the property off, cut the utilities, keep them under polite but obvious surveillance (including drones, which the idiots will inevitably try to shoot down). There’ll be a rush of RWNJ publicity for a week or two, some cable channels will do live feeds, and then… if Freedumb’s Bolde Defenders don’t start watering the tree of liberty with each other’s blood, accidentally or intentionally, there will be some other more newsworthy Giant Honking Outrage. At which point, the FBDs have the choice of quietly slipping out one by one and giving themselves up, or they can sit in their bunker and sulk.
The “squash them like bugs” strategy only draws more attention. You have to treat these jagoffs like three-year-olds throwing a group tantrum. Shut the door on their playroom, leave ’em to wear themselves out. Anything more proactive, the authorities (shorthand: That Black Man in the White House) will be accused of totalitarian bullying by well-meaning bystanders!
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: No worries. Happy to help.
Botsplainer
@Adam L Silverman:
You don’t have a constitutional right to an armed standoff, and militia fucks confuse forbearance for a right. Give them a chance to surrender, then send in massive, trigger-happy force as a lesson.
Jay Noble
@Anne Laurie: Exactly.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster: This is far too small to justify suspending habeas corpus.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve from Antioch: It was reported as the Malheur Wildlife Refuge headquarters building. They also claimed to be sending a group to occupy a firefighting substation that is closed during the winter. Not sure if anyone made it there.
max
@Schlemazel: I’d just as soon the first shots fired did not come from the government.
Not sure it’s going to matter. The main thing is not to off anybody. It isn’t worth it.
My guess is that they came with a ton of MREs, I have no idea about water but certainly all utilities should be shut off & the building put under siege. But if there is shooting we need to make it clear it was THEIR choice, not the governments.
They need water for MRE’s. Like all the water. They may also be bluffing where ‘for years’ = ‘for weeks’. As for the shooting, taking out their generators, slowly, one generator at a time is not going to be a big deal.
Remember the video making the rounds – that asshole Robertson was even pimping it – that purported to show the gov using a flame throwing tank in Waco? Turned out it was sun reflecting off foil faced insulation but if you cut just the right few seconds it looked like flames coming out of the ram. We need to minimize the opportunity for that as it was part of the lead up to OKC.
For the record, I think both Waco and Ruby Ridge were badly conducted operations (as was the Philadelphia operation against MOVE). Putting up a fence and letting the Waco people rot would have gone fine. Shoving in armor was overkill.
Likewise, assaulting the HQ building would be silly, but taking out their generators/fuel storage is a no-brainer, as long as you have a clean shot. (I still think they should’ve just started shooting Bundy’s cows.)
There’s a difference between avoiding unnecessary killing, and just sort of la-la-laing it. Roughly speaking, it isn’t worth blowing these two goons heads off over an occupied NPS HQ. It IS worth blowing away their generators, just to speed things up.
max
[‘Or so I say.’]
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
I guess Bush already used the Geneva Convention as toilet paper, so why not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Isn’t Boykin the nutter who disgraced the uniform by making Somalia all about my God is better than your God? When it’s the same God?
danielx
So….surround the place with razor wire and play Nicklesuck for them at sonic volumes 24/7. They’ll be begging to be taken into custody in a week.
kc
Why wouldn’t they do this? There have been zero consequences to the Bundys or their supporters for their lawless acts in Nevada.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I was always partial to the enchiladas in green chile sauce.
But the cheese and cracker or the peanut butter and crackers will bind you up lickety split. I was convinced that the little bottles of Texas Pete hot sauce were there as a stool softener.
FlyingToaster
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m providing ear protection to law enforcement.
I like the “It’s a Small World” idea.
We should make up the playlist for the soundcannon. Include Einstürtzende Neubauten and Fiorello LaGuardia reading the comics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer:
Bullshit. Feds would get killed. The don’t need to be. Cut the place off and keep them pinned down. Odds are they surrender. If not, they start the shooting and it is obviously on them. I am not in favor of killing fi it can be avoided.
JPL
@Baud: All of them, Katie… Just all of them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Why would this not be doable? Tweeter (staff writer with the New Yorker) doesn’t explain
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
Ah, the venerable “Due process”.
Wish the “other” folks get to see that elusive one at least once.
Adam L Silverman
@jame: Fixed.
Heliopause
I am going to bed pretty soon here on the left coast and will be very curious to learn where this is all going in the AM. Honest to god, I have no idea what the Feds might be contemplating in response this time.
PaulW
@Jay Noble:
thank you for the explanation, Jay. And it sounds like the ranchers accepted the Supreme Court decision as well.
I still don’t think either of them are part of this takeover either, which shows they are more patriotic than the gun-nuts acting up like they’re badass revolutionaries.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Let it Go. Not only an ear worm, but given the weather, also a thematically appropriate selection.
PaulW
@kc:
They want to force another Waco, another rallying cry against an Obama/Democratic government.
max
@Adam L Silverman: According to Mr. Trump, aren’t we supposed to go after their relatives, friends, and neighbors too?
Yes. And I see no reason to that, unless their friends, relatives and neighbors show up armed, in which case, never mind.
max
[‘Silly business.’]
PaulW
@danielx:
These guys might be fans of Nickelback.
Play rap music instead.
Gravenstone
@efgoldman: Just to be extra safe, maybe srv should join his computer in the Dumpster as well.
Heliopause
@FlyingToaster:
They might like that. Maybe hip hop, or a Muslim call to prayer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Enchiladas did not exist in my day, nor was hot sauce provided. I was told early on that a good soldier always brings Tabasco and TP. I was in a heavy Arty unit, so weight wasn’t an issue.
PaulW
@Roger Moore:
to be fair, we used The Clash on driving Manuel Noriega out of the Vatican embassy during the Panama Invasion. The Clash – who were opposing to American imperialism in Central America – were not amused.
Adam L Silverman
@FlyingToaster: yep, just fixed the spelling. Yes its an insurrection, but its manageable without suspending the rule of law. Now if stuff starts blowing up at BLM, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, and Federal courthouses or members of those organizations, Federal judges or prosecutors start being targeted, or anyone else for that matter at the state and local level, then it might be another matter. I’m a big fan of using ordinary power for ordinary things and, a la Sun Tzu, saving extraordinary power for extraordinary things. These guys aren’t extraordinary things.
cain
The best thing to do is ignore them, those people are not resisting arrest, they are going to quietly go back to jail. Meanwhile those assholes will probably make a nuisance of themselves and hopefully the community will complain to the local sheriff and then maybe they’ll get arrested when they come to get groceries. Once they have to face the local population they are going to leave. They want to start a fight with the federal govt not the local community.
I have a feeling that tolerance for these guys are not going to be very high for the locals. Besides, it’s going to get buttfuck cold out there… just get the local folks to refuse to sell them anything.
Alternatively, start sending reporters and tourists and take pictures of them like they were some tourist attraction. Some mocking.. it’s not like they can kick them out or anything, it’s public land. Hell ,a bunch of poeple talking pictures AND open carrying.. hah, that would rock.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Turn off your computer and be sure it powers down.
Drop it in a 43 foot hole in the ground.
Bury it completely; rocks and boulders should be fine.
Then burn any clothes you may have worn any time you were online.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: Like perhaps Tamir Rice? Or Michael Brown?
GoBlue72
@Botsplainer: Precisely. You don’t have a constitutional right to resist arrest afrwr you’ve broken into Federal property, armed, barricaded and refuse to leave.
If you resist arrest and fire on law enforcement, there is nothing unconstitutional about law enforcement responding with a bullet between your eyes.
The police can break into an old lady’s house on a faulty drug tip and blast away (as long as she’s black). This is so far beyond that already.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Feds here. Not local police.
West of the Cascades
@Steve from Antioch: According to Oregonlive, it sounds like the Refuge headquarters out by the lake — about 30 miles south of Burns. I don’t know if this link will work but this is the location on Google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Malheur+National+Wildlife+Refuge/@43.2651332,-118.8452436,294m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x54b0cc82b05d2dff:0x3bad40bd36367dfd!6m1!1e1
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Yes. From what some of his contemporaries have explained to me he was a great example of someone who was an excellent operator, but should never have been promoted up to strategic level rank or positions.
cain
@PaulW:
Enya, or maybe old 80s geritol commercials.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Concur. As much as it would be pleasing to see their heads on pikes, it would not solve anything.
Besiege them and wait it out. Let their worthless asses freeze.
Adam L Silverman
@Botsplainer: I don’t disagree with your premise, but storming the place, unless absolutely necessary, isn’t going to make anything better. Tactically achievable and satisfying. Strategically counterproductive.
Schlemazel
@efgoldman:
Sound advice for you srv – please do so as quickly as you can for your own safety.
Botsplainer
I don’t know why “The Night Chicago Died” and “Afternoon Delight”!stopped being valid earworms.
dogwood
This is comical. These guys are essentially holding themselves hostage in a federal facility. And they are going to stay there for years (or until they get real cold and hungry) because Barack Obama is not the boss of them.
Hope the Feds don’t get heavy handed. There’s nowhere for these guys to go. They’re not even worthy of wingnut martyrdom.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Not sure it was Somalia. He gave a guest sermon at an Evangelical Church (he’s always been very religious) while in uniform. It was caught on film and including him talking about how his god was stronger than that of Muslims.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Its not only doable, but I’d be highly surprised its not at least underway if not already done.
Brachiator
@max:
Uh, no. There were children there. Would you have let then rot along with the adults?
Unfortunately, stuff like this rarely ends well. The chief actors are working from an irrational premise. Their subsequent behavior is likely to become more irrational and unpredictable. This will make it difficult to avoid a bad outcome.
Renie
@srv: LOL Thanks for the laugh. LOL
Omnes Omnibus
@dogwood:
This.
burnspbesq
@FlyingToaster:
Metal Machine Music. And “Free Form Guitar,” from the very first Chicago album.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
re: the video.
I just watched it with CC turned on.
He seems sincere, but it seems clear to me that he has a terribly distorted view of what the Constitution means and the role of the Federal Government. I’ve heard similar statements from an old high school friend (who told me he took a motorcycle trip out to Bundy’s ranch). It’s not that uncommon.
I’m not sure how you counter such views though I strongly disagree with them. There has to be a way to build from a common understanding, but how is the problem.
I think saying something like, “Well, he certainly seems passionate about his views. But we don’t let people who are passionate about their views violate the law just because they’re passionate.” may be a start, but probably not.
I remember watching the Waco disaster on CNN at work. Why didn’t they have firetrucks there? Why did they think that raiding the place to save the children was a sensible idea? It seemed to be doomed from the start, even if they didn’t think that Koresh would torch the place…
I agree having drones up is a good idea. I agree that securing the perimeter and waiting them out is a good idea. But the most important thing is to have a plan with contingencies, and to not let the brainwashed yahoos who think they are Saving the People and the Constitution from the Tyrannical Federal Government determine how this plays out…
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: That’s two of us, and from what I can gather, the vast, vast majority of everyone else here at Balloon Juice. But taking it away completely, for something that can be dealt with through ordinary measures, isn’t going to secure it for people of color or the mentally ill.
dogwood
Also too, when the wingnuts you are trying to liberate tell you to get lost, you really are pathetic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Botsplainer: K-Tel’s new Siege Collection? Billy, Don’t Be A Hero… Seasons in the Sun…. The Pina Colada Song…. One Tin Soldier… Uncle Albert…
Steeplejack
Test.
ETA: Hmm, FYWP was not accepting my comments.
@srv:
You needed “sheeple” in there to really sell it.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: The times they are a constantly changing. I was fortunate in that unless I was working off of COP Carver or Cahill or PB Assassins, I had access to regular Dining Facilities on FOB Hammer and COP Cashe South. When out doing engagements with the locals, I almost always ate local food with them. Though in the latter case I’d either drink from my camelback or bottled water we kept in the trucks or tea and coffee if it was provided. Any local water that wasn’t boiled I wasn’t touching.
Omnes Omnibus
@kc: Not true. The trigger for this was a re-sentencing of people who were involved in the stand-off. The feds have been rather quietly pursuing these people.
Schlemazel
@Brachiator:
In fact the wakos at Waco set fire to their building because the Feds were not coming to get them. They only ran the heavy equipment in there in an attempt to save the kids.
Steeplejack
@srv:
You needed “sheeple” in there to really sell it.
Botsplainer
@Adam L Silverman:
I just enjoy the thought of XXXL bubbas in XXL camo getting killed over their stupid shit while being horrendously environmentally uncomfortable.
Honus
@max: there were a lot of children in the compound at Waco. So they couldn’t just let them rot.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Oh…All of them Katie.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: You’re up on the net.
Roger Moore
@Heliopause:
The Ring Cycle on endless repeat- which it clearly ought to be, given the nature of the story.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I know the right play is to starve them out, but it’s really tempting to let Omnes’ buddies have some target practice.
Botsplainer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Shannon…
Steve from Antioch
@West of the Cascades:
If so then that is a very bad place to pick for a standoff with the gubmint. I’ve been there. It’s just lonesome high desert out there for the most part. Only a couple of roads in/out. The “headquarters” is about the size of a small suburban house. A lake and wetlands on one side, some trees and outbuildings nearby to provide a nice staging area for an entry team. Very easy to cut power/water/heat and wait them out.
I am starting to suspect that these occupiers may not be sharpest tools in the shed. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, though.
I should add though that last time I was up there was before the dought had its full effects so now there might be a way to get out across the lake/wetlands if they need to beat a retreat.
Adam L Silverman
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: It is a completely alternate/different understanding of American history, politics, and society.
Schlemazel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Phil Ochs, Joan Baez. Pete Seeger. Woody Guthrie. Every lefty singer they can find!
dogwood
@srv:
Sing it Liberty bro. This is another false flag operation just like Sandy Hook.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: “Daddy was a cop….”
Adam L Silverman
@Honus: That was what forced the decision. For whatever reason the DOJ had determined that the children were being abused by Koresh (child brides), but that they were in ongoing abusive situations and in imminent danger.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like One Tin Soldier.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Ha!
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemazel: Billy Bragg.
Schlemazel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
A fuel air explosive
That would be my first choice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Dear fucking god.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: Sorry, I was aiming for the early 70s in general.
How ’bout “All By Myself”? “Baby, Ima Want You”?
Schlemazel
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Anything by the BeeGees
Emerald
@Schlemazel: But that stuff is good music! Surely we don’t want to give them anything enjoyable.
I wouldn’t even do the music. Just let ’em get thirsty and hungry and bored until they surrender, one by one. And don’t make it a big story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:”Billy, Don’t be a Hero” seems to fit here for some reason.
dr. luba
The Bundy Ranch has a FB page where the patriarch just posted a statement. The responses were mostly God Blesses and crazy anti-guvmint talk. Mine?
“Freeloaders and arsonists of the world unite! Throw off your chains! Occupy Malher because, after all, nothing says “oppressive federal tyranny” like a birdwatching park established by Teddy Roosevelt. ”
I suspect it may get deleted……..
muddy
“One episode in particular has upset the community.
The sheriff said three militiamen and one woman, one with a gun strapped to his hip, engaged his 74-year-old mother and 78-year-old father at a yard sale being held at the American Legion. When the men criticized the sheriff, his mother bristled, and said she didn’t need their protection from the government.
Later, the men showed up at the sheriff’s office to complain about the exchange involving his mother.
She had, they said, threatened them.”
AnotherBruce
I don’t know how often this has been stated, but this is a goddamn wildlife refuge headquarters. I’ve been several times to the Malhuer and it’s a beautiful place. It’s also a very wet place full of insects and that’s why ducks, warblers, sandhill cranes, white faced Ibis, great egrets,and all matter of birds and birders go there. That’s basically what the building called the wildlife refuge is. A place where thousands of birders talk to rangers about birding and the local sites. These shitheads have taken over a place beloved by birders! It’s not like there’s very much rangeland around that intermediate area. These people are too goddamned stupid to invade a place that’s even remotely related to their “cause’. And for that reason alone. I’ll bet the people that live in Burns. (And make a significant amount of money off of the tourism.) Are piping mad at these six fingered shitheads.
Schlemazel
@Emerald:
I don’t think they would find the music agreeable, but you are right it is too good for them.
OTOH I’d give up my whole battalion as well as the location of the Maltese falcon and the suitcase full of Nazi diamonds rather than listen to the BeeGees.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Cease and Detest letter.
Fixed it for you.
Botsplainer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nobody from Paper Lace must’ve been from Chicago – nobody from there would have said “East Side of Chicago” like is in the lyric.
Anne Laurie
Of course, these yahoos probably consider the whole ‘bird refuge’ idea another form of Big Gubmint Takes Our Stuff Away, Gives It to Bird-Hugging Preverts.
danielx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think even the Feds would inflict that sort of gratuitous cruelty.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “All By Myself”?
I think we have a winner.
IIRC, J had an upstairs neighbor when she was in school that would play that over and over… It nearly drove her to a murderous rage.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Also, if anymore of their ilk show up to support them, just frisk them to make sure they don’t have any food on them and send them in. The more the merrier.
Roger Moore
@Schlemazel:
I think this calls for a drum circle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: Lake Shore Drive and Navy Pier. I assume they check in on the Shedd occasionally.
J R in WV
Sadly, the wildlife refuge appears to be right beside a big lake, so it may be difficult to cut these bozos off from a water supply. Maybe drop a big bunch of yellow dye in the lake? What’s that called… the geologists use it to track underground water flows. Fluorescent dye would make it hard to drink.
Listening to the AZ State – WVU football game, WVU ahead, but AZ State has the ball, serious injury to WVU player, 29 seconds in the first half… Quite a contrast, football and revolutionary right-wing nutjobs…
I’m not going to worry about it, President Obama has this covered, with no fucks to give.
benw
One of the great ironies of life is that the only thing keeping these assholes from eventually freezing to death is global warming.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Botsplainer: Similarly, no one from Journey was from Detroit. Anyone from “South Detroit” either breathes water or their native language is Canadian.
mclaren
@max:
Exactly. Just wait these dufoids out. They’ll run out of water and food and start negotiating. Eventually they’ll give up.
I still do think the Federal prosecutor wildly overreached in charging the Hammonds with a felony for just doing a clearcut burn to avoid danger of a wildfire. C’mon, guys, this is not “terrorism,” this is just ranchers doing a small preventive burn to safeguard their outbuildings and livestock.
Don’t know what the hell is going on with federal prosecutors. They seem to have gone nuts. This sounds like the same crazy overreaching as the case where that federal prosecutor filed charges against Aaron Swartz. Neither the Hammonds nor Swartz did anything even remotely terroristic or criminal. Federal prosecutors should have a lot more common sense than this. Just leave the people alone. No reason at all to file these kinds of amped-up terrorism charges against people who are doing truly innocuous things.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: IASWA, the songs you mentioned, Vincent, Nickelback, Creed, and some Neil Diamond for more earworms. Loudly. Plus some vintage NWA. Some New Order might offend them as well. That and no power out to force them out.
It’s critical, in my view, that surrender be achieved without any government armament use. If they start a gunfight, fuck, it’s already sideways 6x worse than expected, but the feds must absolutely be patient.
These are unstable, angry, and probably heavily armed hotheads, with manufactured grievances. Wounded Knee it ain’t.
Gravenstone
@Botsplainer: Considering they are an English band, probably not surprising. What is surprising is that their wiki page claims they’re still active.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t want to hear it all the time, but every so often its okay.
How about Mandy? Though I still think Let it Go and Do You Want to Build a Snowman would be good played over and over and over on a loop.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: If one has a sniper who can put a warning shot very near anyone who moves toward the lake, water will be an issue. I bet the feds have a couple of people who can do things like that.
Emerald
@J R in WV: Don’t mess with the lake! The birds and other wildlife need the lake.
But someone above said he knew the place and that it was easy to cut off the water supply. So let’s hope the building is far enough away from natural water that they can’t get to it.
Adam L Silverman
@dr. luba: Apparently Ammon made a somewhat LDS apocalyptic video and posted it on Thursday about how he was being called by god to do this. Self fulfilling prophecies for everyone.
Satby
@Botsplainer: @Omnes Omnibus: Pardon me, but we have an East Side
jay s
Build a wall, rededicate it as a Ronald Reagan federal penitentiary. Job done.
Satby
@Satby: something borked my link
Omnes Omnibus
@Satby: Not according to your link.
SIA
@muddy: “Don’t mess with mama”….
Adam L Silverman
@mclaren: Actually the first arson was set to cover taking deer without tags/poaching. One of their cousins turned and testified against them. The control burn was a cover story to cover up the poaching. Since several other hunters lives were endangered in this fire, its not inappropriate.
Satby
@Omnes Omnibus: fixed it
Eolirin
@mclaren: As far as I can tell, absolutely no one has accused the Hammonds of terrorism. Nor were they arrested or tried for innocuous clearcut burning. Read the link, felony arson was definitely appropriate if you accept the witness statements.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: And the fact that the lake is frozen.
Bobby D
First you blockade all entrance/egress starting 5mi out and working inward. Then you cut utilities. Next, snipers take out the tires on all their vehicles. Then roll in the armored personnel carriers, and crank up the 120dB audio “cannons” and pump rounds of teargas through the windows. Windows now shattered, and building filling with teargas, water cannons through the windows.
As they flee the building, water cannons knock them on their asses. Over and done in 12hrs. Put me in charge of this clusterfk and there will be no deaths, and all these Johnny Galt fkstiks in prison by COB on Mon.
dogwood
Glad the president got a good two weeks in Hawaii before this nonsense began.
J R in WV
This story is on Google News now.
That lake behind the buildings would make it hard to cut them off from water, I wonder how potable it is?
Ruckus
@muddy:
Armed defenders of the constitution are afraid of a 74 yr old grandmother? And report her to the sheriff because she was mean to them? The sheriff that they detest because he’s not on their side? What a bunch of heroes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I come from a place where people ice fish. Using an ice auger to make a hole is simple. OTOH, no one leaves the building without surrendering is fairly easy to do.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: the lake that is at a low level and is frozen? Not going to be much help.
SIA
@jay s: “Like”
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I understand the concept, but I’d be surprised if these guys brought an ice augur with them.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mclaren: Dunno.
The law in question seems pretty clear that if you commit arson against federal property and are convicted, you’re looking at a 5 year sentence. It doesn’t seem terribly draconian to me, at least not compared to other laws we could think of.
If you read the link from AS with the prosecutor’s statement, it seems clear that the original conviction wasn’t just for a back-burn that got out of control.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: I still like the idea of arguable auditory violations of the Geneva Convention, but I can be a right bitch about this kind of shit. I’m thinking of the birds, who deserve better.
Roger Moore
@AnotherBruce:
Actually, it is related to their cause. They claim that the Constitution (specifically Article I, Section 8, Clause 17) limits the land the government can own and exercise jurisdiction over, which means federal ownership of anything other than “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings” is unconstitutional. That would presumably include just about everything owned by BLM (their interest) as well as the Forest Service and the Park Service, like wildlife refuges.
Of course, their argument has a huge flaw. “other needful Buildings” covers an enormous range of things that the government is allowed to own, and historically the courts have deferred to Congress about what things are and aren’t needful. If Congress decided to buy a bunch of land, the courts are going to allow Congress to decide what to do with it, especially if they set it aside for a specific purpose, e.g. setting up a wildlife sanctuary.
dogwood
Actually, none of the remedies or strategies we or the Feds come up with matter a whit. Well know the right path when Donald Trump reveals it on Twitter.
Roger Moore
@J R in WV:
It might make it unappealing, but anything that actually makes the water bad to drink is going to mess with the function of the place as a wildlife refuge.
J R in WV
@mclaren:
Arson is arson, and the Federal code mandates a minimum sentence of 5 years. They started one fire near a group of firefighters camped out to rest, those people could have been killed.
I have a cousin who was a firefighter for the Feds, volunteered for a hot shot team, carried a 36 inch chainsaw up a ridge running from a wildfire. By the time they got over the ridgetop, which saved their lives, her boot heels were melted.
So screw you about how innocent those rancher arsonists are. They are guilty of a serious felony, they could have killed people. If your house catches on fire, best of luck, stupid. Fire is a killer. I was a firefighter in the Navy, trained to fight fires in little metal passages with fuel and wiring burning. Again, you don’t know what you are talking about. You stupidity is shining like a beacon. Again!
Bobby Thomson
Sherman wept.
This is what happens when you coddle seditious traitors. All y’all sayin’ they would just wilt in the desert sun, how’d that work out?
Adam L Silverman
Just updated up top with the local sheriff’s statement from 9:15 local time:
“Statement from Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward: “After the peaceful rally was completed today, a group of outside militants drove to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, where they seized and occupied the refuge headquarters. A collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution. For the time being please stay away from that area. More information will be provided as it becomes available. Please maintain a peaceful and united front and allow us to work through this situation.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: What’s your solution and how would it be better than the soft pedaling that happened? Going in hard? Who dies?
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
Something is wrong!! This makes good common sense, how can this be?
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: Its sad that we are now surprised by professionalism.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Roger Moore: Excellent. Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve from Antioch
@Adam L Silverman: Semper paratus, yo.
ninedragonspot
“The Malheur Mishimas”.
Adam L Silverman
Alright, its time for me to rack out. You all play nice. I’ll update this with a follow on thread sometime later today/tomorrow depending on what new news comes out.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
Actually that was snark, I do expect professionalism. Looking good so far. Early days, tho.
muddy
@SIA: @Ruckus: I liked that they went up and harassed the old woman in the first place. “Hey, lady, yer son sucks, hurhur whatcha think about that?”
Lucky they didn’t get bit.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@ninedragonspot: It does have a Mishima vibe, doesn’t it?
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
SIA
@muddy: it’s hilarious they snitched on grandma to the sheriff. They’re gonna take down the Feds, but Granny was mean to them. Heh.
PhoenixRising
@muddy: oh yeah.
Put those knuckleheads on PPV telling my 73yo mom about patriotism. (She was a Freedom Rider in her day.) somebody gonna learn something about loving America. Guaranteed.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Nothing quite brings life into sharp focus like being in a small metal room with a petroleum fire burning and you have to put it out or die is there?
max
@Brachiator: Uh, no. There were children there. Would you have let then rot along with the adults?
Yes. The reason is, is because they were with their parents. Now you can argue they should be taken away but it’s hard to take them away when they’re with a bunch of heavily armed people. Everyone on the ground at the time (including Molly Ivins) thought that the Feds were being embarrassed on national TV and they wanted to show off their big swinging dicks. Net result: all those children they were supposedly concerned for got killed.
There is a word for that, and that word is: stupid. (Same situation with MOVE, BTW.)
If you (the general ‘you’) want to go on about your concern for children, you can start by not doing things that will get them killed, such as toning down your ‘when to shoot’ policies so little kids are not getting blown away in parks. Or in standoffs with religious fruitcakes over enforcement of relatively trivial laws.
I could criticize Ruby Ridge for exactly the same reason: they wanted to bust the dude over a shotgun sawed off too far below the legal limit. So the dude holes up and they surround the place (fine) and then… they issue shoot to kill orders to a sniper. That’s just wrong-headed.
In this situation, the nuts have decided to bad together and hole up out in the middle of nowhere, in effect putting themselves in their very own makeshift jail. Well, OK then. That’s 150 crazies not loose on the streets. So they can just stay there and rot til they get tired of it and then come out and get arrested. Woo.
Right now it’s just trespassing, dick waving and assorted outstanding warrants. It can be kept that way, and yet when they get arrested (which will happen, sooner or late) they’ll still be doing serious time! And you can dun them for time wasted on this nonsense.
This one is cheap and easy.
max
[‘Really dude.’]
Anne Laurie
@muddy:
Or kicked in the goolies. Very tiny targets, admittedly!
Ruckus
@muddy:
Lucky they didn’t get the shit kicked out of them. She sounds like a pretty tough ole bird.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe she thought that just being them was punishment enough.
ETA She may also know more about the overall situation than they do. Which is of course not all that high a bar.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
dick_nixon weighs in.
Well said.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Poaching “King Obama’s” deer — no wonder Freedumb’s Bolde Defenders got their tighty-whities wadded up! Bad Robin Hood Analogy Theatre is about their level of historical understanding.
I am forcibly reminded of Mark Twain’s discourses on the severely negative effect Walter Scott’s ‘chivalric’ fantasies had on the antebellum Southrun plantation owners & wanna-bes…
mclaren
@efgoldman:
So you think a rancher doing a backburn on his own land is “terrorism”?
Are you drunk? Or brain-damaged? Or whacked out on hard drugs?
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: His own land?
dogwood
@max
You are absolutely right. Randy Weaver was oftenseen in Sandpoint buying supplies. They could have waited him out. Waco was a disaster from the get go.
amk
@mclaren: what his own land? #idjit
Helen
So at 4pm I turn off the computer thinking – I’ll stay offline; Politics and the world and the internet can wait. Dad can text me if he needs me. Had a great night having drinks and dinner and then drinks again with real good friends. Wonderful night.
I come back to find out – wait, what? A buncha old, white Christian men are holed up cuz the government won’t give them FREE STUFF??
NO WAY. Also, too. LOL. Assholes.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Holy crap, you’re really pushing it with this internet-lawyer bullshit. You know exactly what I mean, and what I said is substantively correct. The land the ranchers were leasing from the Federal government and had a perfect right to be on and to graze their cattle on and do backburns on to protect their buildings and their cattle.
Fer fuck’s sake, next you’ll tell me the land my house is on isn’t “my land” because if I fail to pay property taxes the city can take it back. Die in a fire with your nitpicking legal solecisims, you nit-brained slubberdegullion.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Honestly, you should drink less before posting.
ninedragonspot
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: ossia, “The Redneck Raskolniki“
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: a bunch of assholes who have it coming. Fuck em.
ETA: or how’s about something more than fuck all? Because if there are never any consequences for this we don’t have a nation state anymore, just rule by warlord. I don’t care to live in Somalia.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: What about due process?
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t worry about it, I am going to bed.
Bobby D
@mclaren:
Uh, no you are not “substantially” correct, or any other kind of correct. He don’t own the land. Period. Full stop. FEDERAL. Not his. No deed in his name, not his, don’t pay taxes on it. Getting it yet?
Arson, on my stove? Yes, because it burns…natural gas? Versus burning property? The only thing that burns around here is the stupid you bring, boy does it ever burn.
dogwood
@Omnes Omnibus:
McClaren is clueless about this case. And has no idea how dangerous and destructive wildfires are out West. Climate change has essentially ended summer as we always knew it in the valley where I live. Once the wildfires start in mid July, you’re living in a prison. There were some days last August, when I could barely see my neighbors house across the street. And I live a a couple of hundred miles from the Oregan fire that was the source. Doesn’t look like there is going to be enough run off to save us next summer either.
Brachiator
@jay s:
And I know a certain GOP presidential candidate who claims that he can get a wall built in no time at all.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: people who are forcibly occupying federal installations don’t get “due process.” They can leave or suffer the consequences.
Due process. Gimme a fuckin’ break.
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d go for suggesting he drink more. Maybe a full fifth of Everclear. Acute alcohol poisoning might just solve a world of problems here.
dogwood
@efgoldman:
I always thought McClaren was a woman.
Bobby D
I live in southern California where wildfire season is now all year. I have two close friends who’ve lost homes in fires in the last 3 years, both arson started. I have wilderness areas that I frequented that are now burned out, unstable and subject to mudslides that will kill many people if/when they slide. It’s not a game, it;s not inconsequential. It’s a big effin deal.
I’d love you to come down here and tell us how some scoflaw asshole has the right to set fires to cover his other crimes. You’d be lucky to escape with all your limbs still affixed to your body and your skull in one piece.
Brachiator
@max:
Neither this statement, nor the rest of your post, makes any sense.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Even better, he could pour it on himself and light it on fire, because that’s definitely not arson.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
How bout that god awful song with all the numbers from Rent sung by overly dramatic middle schoolers and their chorus teachers. That should do the trick.
jose
@Baud: Livestock. People wonder why those guys get so worked up about keeping their cattle…
dogwood
@efgoldman:
I think I’ll just start open burning in my back yard. And when the cops and firemen show up I’ll just refer them to BJ’s resident know- it -all to set them straight about what I can do on my own property.
Ridnik Chrome
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “The Playground In My Mind”
Marilynd..so
@dogwood: Don’t forget the freaky winds that carried smoke into the valley from fcking Siberian forest fires last winter/spring!! I lived in a cave for almost 6 weeks with bronchial issues. I only went out for essentials ..aka wine/Pepsi..
aarrgghh
pipe in every speech by obama starting with his 2008 inauguration. see how long they last.
BillinGlendaleCA
@dogwood: He said he’s a dude, Mnemo pressed the issue one night.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: True, but the question was asked.
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, it’s worse than that.
Boykin was front and center at a LOT of disasters – including the failed hostage rescue in Iran and Black Hawk Down in Somalia – and was largely responsible for the abuses and horrors at Abu Ghraib, having gone over to Iraq to “gitmo-ize” our prisons there. Thus creating Al Quaeda in Iraq, which morphed into ISIS.
Boykin is kinda like Bill Kristol, only the military version – always thoroughly, spectacularly wrong and a total strategic and tactical failure.
But his God is tough, I hear – so there’s that –
max
@Brachiator: Neither this statement, nor the rest of your post, makes any sense.
I can’t help it if you in the below 50% part of the population.
max
[‘Sorry dude.’]
Mike J
ScanBC @ScanBC 1h1 hour ago
#NorthVancouver #RCMP are responding to Highland Blvd for a report of 5 kids running around scaring people.
dogwood
@Bobby D:
I empathize. with you. We do get the winter off. You can’t tell the story of the American West without understanding how the lack of rainfall has shaped the region. I was at the local airport one day in August and a planes were landing with hundreds of firefighters deplaning. By mid September they gave up. They had contained it as best they could but could do no more. The plan was to come back in December and give it another go if there wasn’t enough rain in the fall to put it out.
Anne Laurie
New Open Thread up top, anybody wants to discuss other topics, some of them contentious.
TooManyJens
By the way, various people who have actually been to the area taken over by the militia claim that they only have about 12-15 people there, not the 100-150 they were claiming. In case you were wondering whether Bundy & Co are pathetic wankers.
Steve from Antioch
@TooManyJens: @TooManyJens: I don’t think you could fit 150 people in that building, unless they were standing at all times. Maybe they could sleep one on top of the other – you know tactical spooning.
dogwood
@Marilynd..so:
I hear ya. I don’t think people like McClaren have the capacity to imagine what it’s like to live in a place where at times you are surrounded by millions of acres going up in smoke.
Ruckus
I’d like to know why some of the commenters here don’t want to be any better than the assholes we are talking about?
We have jurists on the supreme court who seem to understand the constitution less than these assholes, we have 30-40% or so of the republicans will to elect a total racist/misogynistic buffoon, and we have to remind our side of the rule of law?
Are we really that fucked as a nation?
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
@Anne Laurie:
oh, I LOVE that Twain quote – in life on the Mississippi
“He did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good part of these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South they flourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a generation ago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and wholesome civilization of the nineteenth century is curiously confused and commingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization; and so you have practical, common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressive works; mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune romanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought to be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the Southerner– or Southron, according to Sir Walter`s starchier way of phrasing it– would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval mixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than it is” –
Brachiator
@max:
And this sentence doesn’t even make grammatical sense.
Have a nice evening.
mike in dc
Cut off the power, water, etc. Then give them a deadline to surrender. Then, instead of entering the building, make things worse by imposing some other hardship. Then give them another deadline. Then seize their bank accounts, restrict the movements of their families, etc. Then give them another deadline. Then move in, weeks later, when they’re hungry, tired and demoralized.
Peale
@efgoldman: yeah. And we know that if these were members of Greenpeace taking over a Wildlife refuge, we’d have to apologize for their actions for the next 40 years, even if we were born again baptists with an infinite capacity for self-forgiveness.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Yes. I knew a kid like that in high school. Not that much of a hopped up car but then anything in his hands had too much. HS graduation night he was cruising around the HS and saw a cop. As he was an idiot he had gotten caught being an idiot and thought he’d lose his license. So he ran. Made it 3 blocks before he hit the curb and tore up the front suspension. Police called dad and asked him to come down and get the kid, this being Friday night by now. Dad, not being the dumbest adult that I knew at the time asked how long he’d have to stay in if he didn’t come down. Monday. He’s all yours. Still don’t think the kid learned anything.
Still, a number of seemingly intelligent people have made comments that reflect poorly on my judgement that they may in fact be intelligent. Certainly not thoughtful but only reactionary. I want better. It ain’t that hard to think this through, hell people have brought up federal showdowns that went wrong because of the shoot first, sort it out later mentality.
Steve from Antioch
Here’s a pic of the visitor center, er, headquarters: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/MalheurNWRHeadquarters.jpg/300px-MalheurNWRHeadquarters.jpg
Seanly
Asshole. The land isn’t just there to exploit. It is held by the federal government for all people. Not every fucking parcel of fucking land should be fucking mined, or fucking ranched, or fucking farmed, or fucking turned into a fucking subdivision.
Let these assholes be a bunch of fucking martyrs for another generation of fucking idiots. I’m tired of conservative idiots setting the tone and setting the narrative for everything.
EDIT: WTF? This is isn’t on CNN at all.
EthylEster
@Adam L Silverman: you mentioned Boykin. Is that the wacko who made questionable statements while in uniform at the start of the war in Iraq?
sm*t cl*de
@ninedragonspot:
The whole Seppuku routine requires too much concept of honour and obligation.
@mclaren:
Apparently in mclarenland, when you pay for the right to use a property, you are free to set fire to it on a whim. I wish someone had informed me of this legal principle back when I was a student; it would have made my relationship with landlords and law-enforcement agencies far less fraught.
MomSense
@mike in dc:
I’m thinking just cutting the power and water will create a hygiene hardship. Can you imagine the freedom stench after a week of no showers for all those militia men crowded in a little building?
dogwood
@MomSense:
Ah, the sweet smell of Liberty.
sm*t cl*de
Given the level of Republican support for Donald Trump, I should not be surprised that Bundy can find a handful of bootlicking shitweasels willing to lay down their lives for the noble cause of taking publicly-owned assets and sharing them out among plutocrats.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: And suspending habeas corpus requires an act of Congress. Even Lincoln knew he’d get one if Congress were in session; Obama would not.
Elizabelle
Wow. One of the benefits of never tuning in cable news. Had no idea this was going on. The NY Times just put up a story about 45 minutes ago.
From Adam’s update to his original post:
Laughing. I envision NO conjugal visits, and the Bundys having just self-incarcerated. Also, whoever brought up no fresh water or hygiene or supplies …
This is just in time for the Sunday morning gasbag politico shows, isn’t it? How inconvenient for the GOP candidates. I wait breathlessly to hear what frontrunner Trump has to say about this.
GoBlue72
Storm the place and bring out the corpses. Because right now, there’s clearly two kinds of “justice” – the kind for persons of color where it’s shoot first, ask questions later if never – and the kind for white whackos where it’s “let’s all be patient and wait them out” (or grab a Twinkie for the white supremacist who shot up a black church.)
Wait them out? Are you serious? What kind of message does that send?
I’ll tell you what kind – the kind where white terrorists get kids gloves and a leash that never ends and fretting over “due process” – and one where black lives are worthless as shit.
dogwood
@Elizabelle:
I don’t have cable either, but after perusing a few blogs last night, it seems that cable news wasn’t covering it.
Elizabelle
@dogwood: Hmmm. Holiday weekend, maybe. It is going to be interesting how much play this gets.
Still have to read the thread. Did listen to Ritzheimer’s video (above), and these people have been marinating in their own radicalism. They’ve forced this confrontation.
One interesting point he raised: that the BLM folks were college-educated know-nothings, in his view, who were out telling people who had ranched and farmed — for years — what to do.
I think you’re going to see more of that. Am thinking of the farmers in Fresno, CA area who have dry fields. Lot of people whom climate change is going to deal with, very harshly, and they will see the ugly hand of big government when really it’s that their livelihood is no longer sustainable, for environmental or economic reasons.
The Bundys are ridiculous, insisting on ranching — for free — on government land that cannot support as many cattle as the Bundys run. It’s a skirmish in the water wars, too.
Elizabelle
Little bit OT, but here’s a great article from The Guardian on water shortages in California agriculture. The farmers/Big Ag have collapsed the water table; even El Nino rains may not replenish as much as hoped because a layer of clay underlies the region; once its water has been pumped out, the clay just compacts.
The Central Valley is sinking: drought forces farmers to ponder the abyss.
They’ll blame the egghead Feds. Government not doing anything right. (In this case, it’s California’s legislature in the pocket of Big Ag.) Can never look at profligate water use. Marc Reisner wrote Cadillac Desert in 1986. That’s a generation ago.
sukabi
@efgoldman: that and the wheels on the bus go round and round…followed by jesus loves me, rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
Villago Delenda Est
@mclaren: You are too stupid to be allowed to continue to breathe.
worn
@J R in WV: This region is the northwesternmost bounds of ancient inland sea. The surrounding hills drain into the desert floor but not into rivers (ie, the ‘Great Basin’). There are a lot of shallow, seasonal – and most importantly alkali lakes – that dot the region. Definitely not potable, however. It’s harsh, unforgiving country.
Davebo
Send in the local Sheriff and to tell them they have an hour to be out of the county.
If they’re still there in an hour one Hellfire from a Predator should solve the problem. Don’t waste a dime putting federal agents on the ground. It’s what they want.
PIGL
@MomSense: oh, wait. I got one: Jesus Christ Superstar…done by a 70s junior high school cast.
Keith G
There are a lot of good comments above, & a couple of crazy ass ones (eg GoBlue). I’m in the camp that would advocate using a couple concentric rings of concertina wire and letting them rot there.
I imagine it would be possible to acquire some armored vehicles of sufficient quality to drag the fencing right up close to the building, thus giving these bozos a very small space to inhabit for as many months as it takes.
Davebo
@Keith G: There are at least 11 buildings making up the facility though the largest is only around 80′ long.
Keith G
@Davebo: Well then, if they are occupying all the buildings there would be a larger interior perimeter to fence off. Concertina wire is rather cheap. There could be an executive order temporarily renaming that site the Donner Pass.
Once the adrenaline surge of being occupying patriots gets converted into the dull realization that they are long term lab rats, I suspect there might be a change in their psychology.
Davebo
@Keith G: We’ve already humored their delusions of patriotic grandeur once and where did it get us?
Every single on of these “martyrs” needs to do at least some jail time as well has having stiff fines imposed.
When have you ever heard of the DEA fencing off a meth lab and “waiting them out”?
Peale
O.k. Trying to get the facts straight. The Hammonds were convicted of setting a fire to cover up poaching. The reason it was arson was that it was a fire meant to cover up a crime. While they contend that they had a right to set the fire, the judge or jury were not convinced by this claim. I suppose I could say that I have a right to burn down my house, but I can’t say I have a right to cover up a crime.
The contentious issue appears to be that they are being sent back to jail after serving time. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m assuming that they were convicted in some other court that gave a light sentence but a federal court issued a longer sentence. I have no idea (thanks media).
The issue of the wildlife refuge doesn’t appear to have anything to do with anything, except that media hog bundy’s were upset that a protest favoring arson as a means to cover up crimes shouod be peaceful.
Sloane Ranger
@Roger Moore: This is the bit I don’t understand. I thought the Constitution made the Supreme Court the final arbiter for interpreting what the Constitution means so, as people claiming to love said Constitution, shouldn’t they defer to the Supreme Court’s judgement?
If the Supreme Court hasn’t actually ruled, then shouldn’t they be putting their energies into instructing lawyers to take a case to the Court?
I’m British so have I got this wrong?
Elizabelle
These Freedumb’s Bolde Defenders ** remind me a lot less of patriots and a lot more of those motorcycle gangs that mixed it up in a Texas breastaurant parking lot.
Those guys were still sitting in jail a long time after the event. The arc of justice — can be damn slow, when needed. They didn’t get bonded out quickly, and might not have been that missed.
** Good one, Anne Laurie. The extra e on Bolde makes me laugh.
Also: Here’s a GQ story on the Twin Peaks shooting that left 9 bikers dead. Cautionary tale. (Per GQ, one of the bikers arrested was a United Airlines pilot who lost his career.)
The Untold Story of the Texas Biker Gang Shoot-Out.
Davebo
@Peale:
The crime carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years. The initial judge decided to ignore the minimum and give a lighter sentence (I believe 15 months). The states attorney appealed and the circuit court agreed and applied the minimum mandatory sentence.
Though none of this has anything at all to do with the yahoos this post concerns and their own crimes.
Zinsky
@Baud: “I wonder what they will do when they get horny?”
The sheep are nervous….
DissidentFish
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: In Gypsies, Tramps, and Theives, Cher “picked up a boy just south of Mobile.” She must’ve been a good swimmer…
PaulW
@efgoldman:
I think they did. This was Bush the Elder, the letter was apparently ignored.
PaulW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
K-Tel got bought out by NOW That’s What I Call (Insert Genre Here).
So we’re looking for the playlist for NOW That’s What I Call A Siege!
PaulW
@Zinsky:
They planned ahead and brought sheep?
Ultraviolet Thunder
@PIGL:
Make then listen to Ted Nugent over and over on repeat. Poetic justice.
Steeplejack
@DissidentFish:
Eh, there’s a good swath of Mobile County below Mobile: Theodore, Bayou la Batre, Coden.
/former resident
jparente
@danielx: How about a 24/7 Force Feeding of every sugary, sanctimonious, pale assed, soul less, ostentatiously pious Hymn they can get their hands on? Played at an upeakably loud voulme.
After 10 minutes of this, I know I would see the errors of “patriotic” ways. Either that of drink bleach.
Kent
So now that these yahoos have all locked themselves up in the remotest corner of Oregon, I would think this is the perfect time for the BLM to roll into the Bundy Ranch and scoop up all their illegal cattle.
The Other Chuck
@RobertDSC-Quad Intel Mac: That’s wingnut posturing talk. I’m happy with them being tried and convicted like any other criminal.
Adam L Silverman
@EthylEster: yes, he was giving a guest sermon. The context of the remarks was how he knew he’d survive Somalia.
Uncle Cosmo
@Botsplainer:
FTR those are not & never were “earworms.”
Tapeworms. 8-track tapeworms…
MomSense
@PIGL:
I resemble that remark!
jon
Have a drone deliver well-labeled cyanide pills to the holdouts. Then hold the perimeter and block all cell signals and other forms of communication. Don’t allow them to communicate. Don’t allow anyone to aid or abet them. And have the President formally ask the Congress to declare war on the rebels. I bet Paul Ryan would love that.
frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc
@GoBlue72:
Precedent: That’s what George Washington did with the Whiskey Rebellion.
Uncle Cosmo
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
OTOH not saying something like that could kindasorta be the beginning of the final slide into the abyss.
A couple of examples from post-WW1 when “passion” in supposedly “patriotic” views was allowed to mitigate the consequences of armed rebellion:
1. As “punishment” for leading the attempted revolt bka The Beer Hall Putsch, a certain Austrian blowhard was awarded 264 days in the Hotel-Garni Landsberg-Festungshaft, complete with flowers in his room & a beetlebrowed amanuensis to turn his rantings into a manuscript.
2. In the May 15 (1932) Incident, a failed coup instigated by “reactionary elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy” resulted in the assassination of the Prime Minister by 11 young naval officers, whose subsequent trial
And we all know how that turned out. At least the steadily diminishing number of all us Homo saps with any knowledge of 20th century history…
DissidentFish
@Steeplejack: Correction appreciated. I still like the song better if Cher was hooking up with Aquaman
Mr. Poopy Butthole
At some point the authorities should do the math. Is the building worth the cost of all the law enforcement required to police these idiots? Is any work getting done in the building? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to drop two bombs and level the buildings.
That way there is no need to put law enforcement lives on the line in order to clear out these mouth breathing right wing terrorists. Bomb the building and rebuild it.
dr. bloor
@Steve from Antioch: Defending a building made of Lincoln Logs is going to be a tough job, but I’m sure our revolutionary heroes are up for it.
Corner Stone
@Kent:
What in the world would #BlackLivesMatter do with a bunch of cattle? They’re activists, not ranchers!
RaflW
I generally do a pretty good job of keeping my own violent urges in check (I’m human, the urge to escalate is part of our limbic brains). But these fvkers should be droned.
*Not really, but that’s how much these ‘liberty’ ammosexual idiots piss me off.
Jamey
@Heliopause: President Obama singing “Amazing Grace.”
Heliopause
I might be a little more sympathetic to their cause if it wasn’t for the fact that one of the most massive ethnic cleansings in history, followed by one of the most massive government-subsidized infrastructure projects in history, is why they can live there in the first place. In other words, my level of sympathy is somewhere south of zero.
Davebo
It looks like the Bird Refuge just got an influx of Human Loons.
LanceThruster
But, but, but…Occupy Wall Street means that ‘both sides do it!’
/s
Keith G
Bomb them, shoot them, drone them?
Thus spake a handful of $0.02 Ted Cruz knockoffs.
fidelio
@Adam L Silverman: George Clinton and the various iterations of Parliament-Funkadelic.
Barry
@Adam L Silverman: ” One was now LTG (ret) Boykin ”
You mean right-wing whackjob f*ck-up Boykin.
sigaba
@muddy: ”
She had, they said, threatened them.”
When a white guy with an assault rifle tells you he feels “threatened,” what he’s really saying is “I have the pretext to kill you whenever I want.” (We might call this Zimmerman’s Gambit.)
Thoughtful Today
“The Armed Domestic Terrorists in Oregon Should Be Treated Just as ISIS Terrorists Would Be.” -By David Atkins
Kent
@Corner Stone:
Sorry….BLM = Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Agency that the Bundy’s first defied in Nevada.
apocalipstick
@FlyingToaster:
Dear God, man, have you no sense of decency?
Feathers
@FlyingToaster: My sister worked at Disney World, on the It’s a Small World ride. She’d always be asked if the song drove her (and the rest of her co-workers) nuts. She said actually, no, it wasn’t that bothersome. The one they all hated and earwormed them and creeped them the fuck out was the song that played in the lobby of the Magic Journeys film. I actually got a CD that included it and would prank her by calling and playing it onto her answering machine. Always got an I Hate You! call back.
So my music recommendation is: The Sherman Brothers performing Magic Journeys AKA officially a worse song to have in your head than It’s a Small World. And not having heard it for probably 15+ years, I now hate myself.
ETA: It turns out this Makin’ Memories was the actual lobby song, not the movie song, which is what I pranked her with. Makin’ Memories is what I will play to kill anyone’s 80s nostalgia.
feebog
I can’t believe the number of commenters who think it would be appropriate to forcibly remove these Yahoos from the Nature Center. First, it’s my building (and yours), I would like to see as little damage as possible to it (none would be ideal). Second, there are at most 30 to 40 morons occupying the building (not 150 as breathlessly reported by the MSM). I base that on the eyewitness account of a local reporter, who counted about a dozen vehicles parked in the lot. Third, how hard will it be to shut off water and power, and then just wait them out? We don’t need to risk the lives of law enforcement here. Wait until they are thirsty, hungry and cold enough to give up. Charge them with every damn thing you can pull out of the books, and then try them. I think the local folks around there would be quite eager to see justice done. And finally, maximum sentences when they are convicted.
Ella in New Mexico
@feebog:
Agreed. But if by ignoring them and creating a void, there’s a danger of making them look like this is just a peaceful “sit in” if the truth of the story doesn’t get out.
All news reports on this event need to include the fact that the convicted men were poaching deer on Federal Land and set off a large, dangerous wildfire to cover their tracks. This, in the Western US where wildfires are a huge threat to the safety of all of us, as well as a huge cost for states and the Feds to battle. And then, to make it worse, the dumbasses went even further to set up a fake “backfire” scenario to make it look like they were protecting their land. If one BLM or local fire fighter had lost his or her life in that blaze, they’d be looking at homicide charges right now, not a few months in Federal Prison with good time.
Also, the fact that the people who seized the refuge have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this particular event needs to be broadcasted wide and far because it means that the Bundy family is now in the business of conducting violent activities against the United States. They are essentially now a terrorist group.
The PR campaign by the Feds needs to start now, or by tomorrow we’ll see Sean Hannity interviewing Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin in front of the gates of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
buford puser
I think it important that the authorities respond appropriately, not necessarily with Bataclan-level anti-terrorist intervention, or even Tamir Rice-level, but in a way that summarily ends their hijinx.
Given expected weather there, it seems to me that water cannons (shooting non-potable water) knocking out all widows, and getting all inside very very wet, and also knocking down anyone without fingers laced behind head with same water-cannons, would both deny them their desired dignity as “warriors”, and get these Pillsbury-doughboys-with-ARs to surrender promptly.
buford puser
Just to get another line of discussion going, after the Malheur terrorists are abstracted from the bird sanctuary, i assume all reasonable persons would agree that, in addition to whatever charges relating to seizing a closed Federal building may accrue, the top charge should be treason, & conspiracy to commit treason, in that they have “levy[ed] War against” the United States Federal government? IAAL, BTW.
SW
You put concertina wire around the god damn place and rename it the Malheur Federal Minimum Security Prison. You block the road out which I assume is a single dirt road, and prevent their SUVs from leaving unless they wish to go to a different jail. They can stay there ‘for years’ if they wish. And when they try to leave they go to an even better jail.
buford puser
The problem with the “wait them out” plan is that bird-watchers would then be deprived of a resource the US Congress has made available to them for as long as the “militia” oafs care to create a media spectacle.
Additionally, this would establish a precedent that obese middle-aged white traitors who intend the armed overthrow of the US government may, at will, occupy the taxpayers’ property in furtherance of their treasonous ends, in a country where everyone knows that black 12 year-olds may expect to be shot dead for playing wth toys. It is impossible to say more without getting Godwin-ed.
buford puser
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/us/armed-group-vows-to-hold-federal-wildlife-office-in-oregon-for-years.html
Music to my ears.
The Lodger
@AnotherBruce:ducks, warblers, sandhill cranes, white faced Ibis, great egrets,and all matter of birds :
Sounds like they plan to live off the land while they’re there. The hell with MREs.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
After the first week it isn’t all that bad and after two you don’t really notice each others, odor. Actually that should be stench. After a couple more weeks it’s not a problem at all.
However…..
It’s not really the stench that’s the issue. It’s how you feel that’s the problem. And you feel slimy. To say the least.
I know all of this first hand but this is a story for no other time.
The Lodger
@AnotherBruce:ducks, warblers, sandhill cranes, white faced Ibis, great egrets,and all matter of birds :
Sounds like they plan to live off the land while they’re there. The hell with MREs.@The Lodger: Also, that building is certainly remote enough to have its own water supply. The authorities couldnt shut it off, and if they wanted to use water cannon, they’d need tanker trucks.
Huberta Humphrey
@Schlemazel: They don’t have anything worthwhile to survive off of in their cars – if they knew what they were doing, they would have them packed to the top! This also helps with the getting shot at thing. I don’t see a shred of the arctic gear, clothing, or the amount of food that they will need for nights that are often -20 or colder.
They are idiot suburbanites who don’t have a clue what they are doing. Shut off water and power and they will be in deep doo doo.