Not much is happening. OregonLive is reporting that the local sheriff has stated that the couple of dozen extremists hold up at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge came to the area to overthrow both the local government and the national one. They’ve also reported that law enforcement is taking a very low key and quiet approach to resolving this. Though a command post will be set up by Monday. And local schools have been cancelled for the week as a precaution.
Jim Foolish Literalist provided us with this link to a local reporter’s twitter feed in comments to John’s earlier post.
Keep all your Internets tuned to Balloon Juice’s coverage of this very, slowly developing story…
Felonius Monk
These Bundy brothers –– they’re Al Bundy’s stupider bros, right?
MikeBoyScout
Unemployeds inhabit empty bird sanctuary; shout at clouds.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ve been very disappointed by two things I have seen from lefty types. First, the suggestion that because municipal police tend to shoot black people at the drop of a hat, the lack of hat-drop shooting here is a bad thing. No, the hat-drop shooting of black people is the problem. Second, the idea that this has to be solved immediately and violently.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Frustration. Over both the way law enforcement interacts with People of Color and with how folks like the Bundys and Ritzheimer never seem to suffer any consequences for their actions. Put them together and the Internet allows for a lot of venting.
Elizabelle
I read the NYTimes, WaPost and LA times stories. They seemed to be treating the militia-ranchers with deference, giving backstory on long-running conflicts between ranchers and Big Government. Mentions of The Sagebrush Rebellion, and that the Bundys and their type want to be able to log and run vehicles all over government land (which they think should be held more locally, not by the feds).
No mention of any poaching by the Hammonds, who are jail-bound (again); one story said the son had set a fire to protect the family’s store of winter corn for its cattle. That sounds more sympathetic to the average reader.
The LA Times was best at bringing up the “outside extremists showing up when locals didn’t need them to” aspect, even while it left impression the locals were pretty anti-government too.
All cut a clear line between the militia-ranchers and the Hammonds, who don’t support the standoff at the bird sanctuary and are reporting later today to prison in San Pedro, California (which is a bit of a haul from Oregon — San Pedro is south of Los Angeles, home to its seaport).
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I do understand that, but any rational analysis says solve without bloodshed and no one needs to hurry.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: The reporting sucks from the national outlets. They’re afraid if they accurately describe what is going on that they’ll get yelled at. I don’t think they realize that they’re going to get yelled at anyway.
Mike J
Disappointing Peacher insists on using the word “militia”, the way the traitors self identify,
Also too, everything OO said in number 3.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree. I don’t get this. I know the law is frequently an ass and a not insignificant percentage of cops shouldn’t be but we are still supposed to be a nation of laws, not old west cowboys with itchy trigger fingers. We don’t like how the cops work, we don’t attack them, we work to get things changed for the better. Granted that’s far more difficult in our current political climate but that’s still how it’s supposed to work.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: was that what was up with the numbers? I thought they’d resorted to cannibalism already.
GregB
Every conservative Republican worth their salt told us how important it was to respect authority and immediately comply with every request, even when on ones own property. At least that is what they said when it was a police officer dealing with Henry Louis Gates on his own porch.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Deaf on one side?
ThresherK (GPad)
@Elizabelle: Protect the,family store of corn?
A few more stories like that and these assholes will practically be cast as the Joads. I’m on high alert for the first Nitely noozer to use a clip from “The Grapes of Wrath” to illustrate this shindig.
Hungry Joe
@Omnes Omnibus: Agree. Right now they’re no threat to anyone, and as infuriating as their asshat behavior may be, they don’t deserve to be summarily blown away. Also, why put the lives of Federal authorities — the guys who would perform said blowing away — at risk if it’s not necessary? Cut off supply lines, seal the area, and when finally they come out, teeth a-chattering, make sure there are blankets and cups of hot soup in the paddy wagons.
Civilized treatment of the accused. Human kindness. Laws. All good concepts.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman:
Yesterday the occupiers provided the number 150. By last night, Oregon media was saying 10-15.
jl
I see in the news that various loon jobs involved have posted good by videos to their families as they go to die for their cause. Lordy. One guy is calling himself Captain Moroni, so I guess some apocalyptic Mormons involved, if there is such a thing.
I hope it peters out like the Bundy Ranch fiasco did. So, I will watch relevant The Simpsons episodes in lieu of news about it and hope for the best. I’ll catch up after it winds down.
I don’t think the feds should try anything stupid. Try to wait them out. I do want names taken and all of them facing trial. But, it’s good thing this contry doesn’t have to fear totalitarian thugs like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, otherwise a column of humvees full of national guard troops would be rumbling towards the Malheur visitor center as we speak.
Edit: maybe not. maybe I exaggerate. Maybe Washington waited until the Whiskey Rebellion folks burned down a post office and beat up a revenooer or something. So, OK, if the loonbags eff up the visitor center plumbing, I say let the feds rip.
Mike J
BTW, Oregonian reporter Les Zaitz is using the term “self styled militia”. Soi-disant is prolly too snooty.
https://twitter.com/LesZaitzhttps://twitter.com/LesZaitz
Odie Hugh Manatee
Living here in Oregon I frequently use the ODOT TripCheck web site for weather and travel info. I just noted that Highway 78 (SE of Burns) has been closed in two places (south and west access). Closure reasons are listed as Crash/Hazard. This pretty much cuts off access to the wildlife preserve from the southeast and east.
Nothing on the news about it yet but it’s deadsville out there in Nowhere, Oregon…lol!
Ruckus
@Mike J:
That twitter link that Adam posted had some pics and there would have to be a lot more vehicles to have anywhere like 150 out there. Plus as some one said last night, the building is way too small for that many people. Their rally in town was supposed to be about 120-150 people, I think the morons think that all of them are going to go down shooting for the cause.
Omnes Omnibus
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Long time no see. How’s it hanging?
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed 100%. Other than the really important issue that police should avoid killing people at all costs, it’s a strategic bad move. I don’t want these assholes to become martyrs. I want them to become clowns.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Hungry Joe: Have Barack and Michele handing them hot food, like a Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen. Make those little men grovel to the big bad black Democrat, or they can just stay there at Camp Frost-Yer-Acorns and live off the and.
Oatler.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Wait for 11 PM news. (after long Mount Ashland publicity spot)
Ruckus
I’ve been in Burns, OR. Once. 43 yrs ago, drove through on vacation. That’s all I know about it.
jl
@Suzanne:
” I don’t want these assholes to become martyrs. ”
I don’t either. I do want every one of them to face trial for whatever crimes they have committed. The main disadvantage to the way the feds handled the Bundy Ranch mess was that the leniency could encourage copy cat episodes until all those involved could be brought to justice. And now we see that a Bundy kid thinks this kind of crap is his legacy. So, I hope it ends peacefully, but soon all involved need to be frogged marched with pics in the news into court to face trial, as an example to other gangs of loser idiots.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: I would guess that the feds took the same lesson from the first stand-off that we did.
jl
@ThresherK (GPad): I’m down with that. Can Obama serve them a subpoena with the bags of charity cheetos and gum drop flavored
kookkool aid and moon pies?Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: @Ruckus: Nah, they’re going to get yelled at by the same folks no matter what they do. And those folks aren’t usually on the left.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like a trumpet… ummm…lol! I hope you are well.
Mike J
Sara Benincasa @SaraJBenincasa 11h11 hours ago
I will pay $100 to anyone who turns on Grindr near that wildlife refuge.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: I’m tracking, was just being a smartass.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: The Bundys are Mormon.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the info. I either never knew that or forgot it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: She was hilarious on Ammon Bundy. A couple of hours of trying to flirt with/proposition him.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Ammon made a somewhat LDS apocalyptic video on Thursday.
Omnes Omnibus
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I am. And welcome back.
Elizabelle
@Hungry Joe: Completely agree with Hungry Joe’s comment.
Also, (cribbing my own comment from an earlier thread): re this coming Thursday night:
I’m liking the optics of knowing those Yosemite Sam Bolde Patriot idjits may be holed up with their weapons, holding themselves hostage in a federal bird sanctuary, while our very smart president discusses common sense gun safety initiatives at a Town Hall, broadcast to the nation and world.
Maybe the Bolde ones will have slunk away by then, but maybe not.
Great contrast, though: which America would YOU rather be part of?
jl
@Adam L Silverman:
” Ammon made a somewhat LDS apocalyptic video on Thursday. ”
Hoo…Kayyy….hmmm… Should I watch it? My mental state is not the most robust.
I will trust you for the news, and, as I indicated, watch relevant The Siimpsons episodes for background info, which will probably have as much relationship to reality as anything else.
Edit: for BJ legal flying wedge: someone on one of the Twitter streams complained that their birdwatching trip had to be cancelled. Can they sue?
Felonius Monk
I think it’s highly unlikely they brought enough toilet paper.
Hungry Joe
@ThresherK (GPad): Brilliant. That image is already playing in a continuous loop in my head. Now for some dialog …
Obama: White meat or dark?
Asshat (shivering, mumbling): White.
Obama: White, then. Of course. Dressing or mashed potatoes? Or both?
Asshat: Both.
Obama: Here you go!
Michele: Looks like you could use some gravy with that. One scoop or two?
Omnes Omnibus
@Felonius Monk: Or Tabasco. Trust me. It matters.
Elizabelle
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Wingnut Hazard.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Anyone can sue.
Felonius Monk
@Omnes Omnibus:
These wusses don’t strike me as Tabasco types and their salsa probably comes from New York City.
Suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: Only Mormons name their kids Ammon.
Usually, the LDS are all about following the law. The Church is not really pro-civil-disobedience, historically.
ThresherK (GPad)
@jl: Deputize specal guest Eric Holder to serve the warrants, the way an athlete on the cusp of retirement signs a ceremonial one-day contract with his original team. I think that’s how Jerry Rice officially retired as a 49Dr,for one instance.
Elizabelle
@Felonius Monk: For the TMI department, I think Officer Omnes was hinting at the intestinal aid provided by Tabasco. Came up in a discussion of MREs, some of which sound (unintentionally) constipating.
dogwood
Somewhere today I saw some version of this on Twitter. “If the militia men martyr themselves will they each get 72 first cousins?
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: I think we should start calling the Bundy kid Mammon.
It’s damn close.
Ammo works too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: No. Tabasco was there to either provide or disguise flavor.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Mine was supposed to be somewhat of a joke. You know, liberal media and all that.
GregB
Scamming.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: LOLOLOL. Sounds great. I vote for Ammo.
max
@Adam L Silverman: was that what was up with the numbers? I thought they’d resorted to cannibalism already.
They claimed to have a 150 which was unreported uncritically and (stupid me) I relayed the uncritically reported number. Feh.
@efgoldman: I think by the end of last night (wee small hours, about the time the last bowl game ended) a BJ consensus developed that surround ’em,. cut off the water and power, and wait ’em out was the way to go.
1) Everything they’ve done so far is noxious and deserves some jail time, but nothing they’ve done warrants the death penalty. (It should go without saying, but doesn’t, that Tamar Rice (and Brown and a lot of other (black, mostly) people) didn’t deserve the death penalty either.)
2) There have been two big standoffs in the 20 years that I can think of (besides the Bundy loons) – the ongoing standoff with the John Joe Gray family and the Republic of Texas standoff with Richard Lance McClaren, which lasted a week. The latter group got many years behind bars (but they kidnapped somebody). The former has basically been living off the land for 12 years.
Both cases better handled than Waco.
max
[‘So woo.’]
Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
Isn’t Ammon a variant of Amon, the first name of the SS officer who commanded the concentration camp where Oskar Schindler’s Jewish workers were incarcerated?
Felonius Monk
@Elizabelle: @Omnes Omnibus: Are Mormons even allowed to eat/drink Tabasco?
amk
@Omnes Omnibus:
“this has to be solved immediately and violently”.
Yeah. If only we waited for more than a year for these terrorists to get some jail time …. oh, that’s right.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh. Thank you. Totally misunderstood that.
Hot sauce covers a lot of flaws. Am a Sriracha girl, myself.
nutella
@jl:
Or he doesn’t know how to spell m-o-r-o-n.
Soylent Green
A few pertinent facts:
The headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is smack in the middle of nowhere, in Oregon’s empty high-desert quarter. Burns, Oregon, county seat of Harney County, has a population of a whopping 2,700 people. The county population is about 7,500, and the county covers over 10,000 square miles. Population density: 0.7 people per square mile. Nobody lives out where the refuge HQ is; its staff commutes the 60 miles from Burns. The brave constitution-defending Bundy party bravely conquered a small, unoccupied building that was shut down for the holidays. Its staff consists of a handful of administrators and biologists.
The refuge is not a “bird sanctuary” visited only by birdwatchers like the ones you saw on Portlandia. It’s a typical Fish and Wildlife Service refuge, with portions of it open to hunting. So plenty of good old boys visit the refuge to shoot upland birds. As do some of the tourists on their way to visit Steens Mountain to the south. Snowmelt from Steens feeds a shallow set of lakes (Malheur Lake is the largest) that attract migratory waterfowl and these lakes form the refuge. The refuge is there because in some years more than half the birds in the Pacific Flyway (all the migrating birds moving from Canada to Central America and back again), stop at the refuge, the only open water to be found in many hundreds of miles of high desert.
Malheur Lake is a couple of miles from the occupied HQ building, and it’s the middle of winter. The birds are all gone. So the occupiers are not going to be drinking lake water or eating waterfowl. The appropriate response will be to seal them in, and wait them out.
This bunch of yahoos believes that the federal government possesses no ownership rights to the nation’s public lands. The ranchers among them have been subsidized for generations by very cheap fees to graze their cattle on national forests and public range. If the range were in private hands, the fees to graze them would be four or five times higher (market value). Their objection to paying Bureau of Land Management grazing fees is in the same vein as wingnuts wanting the government to get its hands off their Medicare.
Each of you owns the same share of these public lands as each of these ranchers.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: You want people to go in hot right now? Why?
Adam L Silverman
@Suzanne: I didn’t say they were good Mormons.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: They’re designed to be constipating.
sm*t cl*de
@Elizabelle:
Violent white people with guns, so they must have some sort of legitimate grievance.
jl
LGM blog has a post with an indication of how our ace corporate press will cover this.
A sophisticated standard of journalism
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/01/a-sophisticated-standard-of-journalism
Which would be scary if these people were not loser weirdos. From the LGM link to the CNN story:
‘ When asked what it would take for the protesters to leave, Bundy did not offer specifics. He said he and those with him are prepared to stay put for days or weeks or “as long as necessary.” ‘
So, they seem to have no demands, other than some generalized sense that the feds should go away, but they damn well with stay until they get what they want.
jl
@sm*t cl*de: CNN too. Like I said, if these people were not ;such losers, it would be dangerous.
I am a sad gullible mark for federal government propaganda, so I went to the official fed site for Malheur Wildlife Refuge and read the section on the site’s history. The Refuge contains mainly two large ranches that their owners voluntarily sold to the feds in the 1930s and early 1940s. The only history of dissatisfaction and turmoil mentioned were water, range and border problems between a bunch of little ranchers in the area with property bordering the two big ranchers.
But, of course, that is what the feds would say….
Edit: anyway, the Bundy kid sounds like he is nuts.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
So NOT kosher!!
Or am I wrong here?
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: The things one learns on this blog!
Also, totally concur with you re the media slant (in initial reporting).
jl
@jl: Which reminds me that, IIRC, one of the Whiskey Rebellion plotters was pardoned by Washington on the grounds that he was an imbecile who had no clue about the significance of what he was doing. That might be a precedent for some of this brave militia.
RandomMonster
These guys are doing this with the singular purpose of forcing a confrontation. Who says things like “I’m willing to die here” if not for that?
amk
@Omnes Omnibus:
and you want to take it real slow, why?
also. too. nice of you to dodge my question. how & what did the bundys pay for their last year’s act of terrorism ?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks but I’m not really back as I never left, I just have a lot less to say nowadays. I thought that tidbit about the road closures was interesting and I thought I would post it here since this thread is about it.
Back to lurking… :)
Amir Khalid
@amk:
It seems to me that Omnes agrees with the consensus here in preferring to avoid needless bloodshed, even of unpleasant people.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks gents for the entree that I needed on “not an open thread” to introduce a great piece that follows after this comment:
My ex – who worked at a very tremendous and luxurious high-level with a lot of classy people as an executive compensation consultant – always pointed out that you reward the behavior that you want to foster.
In local policing, it’s a top-down political structure, one which in the end relies on votes that respond to public fears, and it has become beyond toxic as they rack up arrest records and convictions of “the other” vs creating a safer community. In federal policing, it’s a different sort of politics that – having learned a few lessons (Ruby Ridge) – is geared towards keeping the shit from hitting the fan, and dialing it back whenever possible – so as not to start an armed insurrention that jumps around the country like wildfire among the gun-toting crazy white folks – of whom there are more than plenty.
Here’s your link to an ex Baltimore cop describing the cop culture there.
Worth watching for so many reasons, not the least of which is the former cop explaining why so many cops are afraid – reference to felines is involved.
seaboogie
Also, I just realized that the crazy Bundy folk meant Bureau of Land Management, and not Black Lives Matter with their BLM acronym. Makes more sense now. Also glad that my first instinct was an actual issue for real people.
JustRuss
A friend of mine used to hang out at the Malheur Refuge in the 70s and was friends with the director. According to him, local ranchers hated the place back in the day, and it wasn’t unusual for the director to get into fist fights with some of them. This crap goes way back.
dogwood
@Soylent Green:
Thanks for the info on Haney County. There’s going to be some impatience, especially among the media, for a quick response. I don’t think a lot of people recognize the vastness of so many of these western counties. They are larger than some state and countries. I’m not that familiar with Harney County, but I live adjacent to a county slightly smaller in area , and a bit larger in population. If kooks were holed up on federal land somewhere in Idaho county, it would take days for LE to get coordinated especially in the winter. Ruby Ridge was nowhere near as remote and inaccessible as this current location.
Ruckus
@amk:
Have the Bundys gotten away with anything? Has everything been forgotten? It doesn’t sound like it from some of the comments last night. It sounds like the feds are doing exactly what people thought they should, back away, let things simmer down and take people out of circulation one by one. It’s less deadly and has the added benefit of being better policy than just shooting the fuck out of everything. That’s exactly what we want cops on the street to do, stop shooting the fuck out of everything and everybody. This isn’t the OK Corral, we aren’t in the wild, wild west any more we are supposed to be an actual civilized society. Granted we are at best taking baby steps in that direction but that’s far better than many places in the world.
seaboogie
@Ruckus: See my post at 79 and hit the “link” (prolly should have highlighted more of the phrase to make it obvious) – I think you’ll appreciate the linked vid. Would that this cop – who is young and off the force because of an injury – become a major voice and force for reform in policing.
Thoughtful Today
…
Yes… hard to imagine.
drkrick
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ruckus
Just got off of FB. An acquaintance liked a morons post about how the Hammonds were tried twice and that’s against the law, several bits of which he posted. I like how all of these morons can quote the law and think that the government is making a mockery of it by doing exactly what they are supposed to do. He thinks that they were tried twice. Has no idea how the courts work, the law works or the fact that the arsonists are turning themselves in to serve their time. I hate fucking morons. Now I realize that there is a dumber half of the population but if they know how to cut and paste, shouldn’t they know how to read and at least have some level of comprehension?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@seaboogie:
I don’t need it. One thing about being a white security guard is that the cops you interact with just assume that you’re on their side when it comes to these issues. So I’ve listened to Minneapolis cops let their freak flag fly. They totally have the occupying army mentality. (As do, unfortunately, a lot of my fellow security officers; statistically, the cops are correct to think that the white security guards are their allies. In me, they got the outlier.) Minneapolis cops are easily the worst group of assholes I’ve ever dealt with.
Minnesota state troopers, on the other hand, have always been personable and professional in my presence. They also share some of my views about Minneapolis cops.
dogwood
@Ruckus:
Keep it up. You are a valuable voice of reason on this. I would be surprised if the President signed off on any spectacular maneuvers. Waco, Ruby Ridge, even the heavy handed Elion Gonzales situation came at a time when democrats were always frightened of looking “soft on crime”. Obama has been pretty good at trying to turn things in a different direction. republicans didn’t even put up much of a hissy fit over him comuting the sentences of some non violent drug offenders.
Origuy
Ammon, like Moroni, is a figure in Mormon symbology. Oregon Public Broadcasting has an article on the Bundys’ take on Mormonism.
seaboogie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: If you have a disgust of cops, I especially encourage you to view that. It will give you some empathy and a lot of insight into how they become as they are – way too much get along to go along, civilian casualties be damned in that story – it’s pretty tragic on every level.
Also, I get that “local” v more global of city cops v state troopers. I think that the performance metrics that drive them are different.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@dogwood:
Ruby Ridge occurred while G.H.W. Bush was in office, while most of the shoddy investigative groundwork that led to the siege at Waco- which began about a month after Clinton took office- was done under the elder Bush, too. The ATF was the prime bad actor in each case. The GOP executive branch controlled the ATF for 12 years, and let them run amok like kids playing cowboy. Clinton inherited the nightmare.
Ruckus
@seaboogie:
It used to be this was with the CHP here in CA. They rarely did anything but traffic. So not as much busting heads at the local liquor store, gangs, etc. Second they had the history of C. Chessman who wore the uniform and stopped women and raped/murdered them. That was a very big deal for them then and they mostly took it to heart to be very professional. But that was decades ago. A HS friend retired just over a decade ago, a Sgt after 30 yrs and he told me that it has gone down hill over his last 20 yrs. So now not really much different than most other big forces. Same type of hiring, supervisory positions are filled with people 10-20 yrs in so after the hiring changes. He said that was one of the big changes, the people and what is expected of them. Now my experience is that most state forces are still better than small town or urban cops, mainly because they work for the state and the money from tickets goes into a states general fund, their job is not directly connected to writing tickets.
Ruckus
@dogwood:
Thanks.
I try to be an adult in the room. I’ve lived long enough I should have figured out how by now.
Peale
@ThresherK (GPad): yep. If only there had been a trial or something to determine what happened? Oh wait! There was a trail and the story of the innocent Hammonds was found lacking in truthfulness. But now that the militia is involved, it’s as if the Hammonds failed defense is now gospel.
dogwood
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
I know Ruby Ridge occurred near the end of HW’s term. And I also know that Clinton wasn’t responsible for the culture of the ATF. The point I was trying to make, obviously ineffectively, was that in the nineties elected dems were skittish about criticizing law enforcement and therefore didn’t push back hard enough. I think today, there are more on our side willing to make some noise.
seaboogie
@Ruckus: Exactly this. And also why Ferguson became such a hot mess. Local forces wringing whatever blood they could from poor stones. It is a tragedy. On the plus side, I just read that black student activists have gotten the UC system to divest their interest in for-profit prisons. Small dollars in the great grand scheme of things, and a major moral victory.
gene108
@efgoldman:
They will still get yelled at by right-wingers. Right-wingers have been wired for decades to view the MSM – WaPo, NYT, etc. – as not only biased towards liberals, but as the vanguard of the COMINTERN to impose communism, socialism and fascism on American soil.
The fact MSM is not praising these whack-a-loons for defending the Constitution and demanding Federal land be given* back to the locals is proof of MSM’s hatred of Freedom.
* Yes I mean “given” to whoever the militia types dream worthy to own the land, because there’s no way locals are going to outbid the big money in this country in a competitive bidding process.
Cacti
Best nickname I’ve seen on the intertubes for this group of losers:
Vanilla ISIS
Goblue72
If these terrorists were brown skinned guys named Abdul or Akmed, they’d all be dead by now.
Wake me up when all the “we have to be patient – no need to make them into martyrs” arguments stops sounding like such complete horseshit.
These guys have a perfectly safe option available to themselves – stop resisting arrest.
Or is the use of force in response to resisting arrest only saved for POCs?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@seaboogie: I’ve wondered if the state patrol attracts a different sort of applicant. City cops want to exercise their authoritarian nature; state troopers just want to drive really fast.
pea
@Omnes Omnibus: 1) i am a “lefty” type and a major supporter of “lack of hat drop shooting” and note that law enforcement is less inclined to draw arms on the armed than the unarmed (if one is over the age of 18)
2) am hoping that if these atavist gunslingers are ignored they’ll disappear up their own assholes…
3) i am impressed by the brilliance and humor of bj commenters…not one of whom has advocated “shoot ’em up NOW!”
seaboogie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: You have a point there….pretty legit, I think.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I just had a similar discussion with a guy who started his Fb post by saying he didn’t know anything about the background story, but that the Hammonds had served their time, blah blah blah.
I told him what they had done, but the idiot can’t wrap his brain around the fact that the trial judge does not have the power to change the minimum sentence so his sentencing was in error.
opiejeanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: CHP on motorcycles knew how they looked in those boots and tight pants. Oh yeah.
Central Planning
@Ruckus:
The sound bite on the local news just now was some moron claiming the Bundys don’t have to go to jail because of double jeopardy. I’m disappointed but not surprised that is the sound bite being played.
Wag
@Hungry Joe:
Nobody here disagrees with this comment. What is infuriating is that the police seldom use this approach with those in this country with a darker complexion. Pointing out that the police action would have been different if a group of BLM activists had done this in Missouri is not a call to arms to kill these militia wannabes. It is a call for restraint on the part of cops in their dealings with all citizens.
Ryan
So they want to overthrow both the local and national government. While I understand one has to start somewhere, your local fish and wildlife reserve is not exactly the ideal.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Wag: A large part of the difference in treatment is the fact that this is a federal issue rather than a local one. It’s also a case where there wasn’t any instance of a cop being directly confronted by a the person they were interested in. No split second decisions.
There are all sorts of reasons why this scenario really does not analogize well to the various instances in which young black males get shot by the police.
J R in WV
When the Loons Return to Malheur. . . . .
That’s the title of this movie!
Or maybe “When the Loons Return to the Bird Sanctuary”? That’s more accurate, but the first one rings better.
@Central Planning:
The Bundys aren’t involved (yet) with going to jail for actions in Oregon – that’s a father-son pair of brilliant ranchers named Hammond, convicted of arson of Federal property with a minimum penalty of 5 years. The first judge was convinced not to follow the required sentence, and was overruled by the Circuit on appeal, and then by the Supremes as well. All as according to legal requirements for any criminal trial.
I understand you are probably just quoting an uninformed reporter talking on the radio or something like that, so I’m not slamming you, just trying to get the facts straight right here.
It would still have been illegal if they had owned the property, instead of leasing grazing rights (Grazing rights! Not setting it on fire rights!) from the government. Setting fires in high desert is stone illegal, even when the Forest Service does it they sometimes have trouble containing the “controlled burns”. The Hammonds didn’t have any idea of controlling their burns, either.
I think the Bundys are now eligible for the same experience in federal court in Oregon, as well as at home in Nevada. But so far not for arson of federal property, other things, sure, but not arson. Not yet. We’ll see how the Malheur facilities fare under these geniuses’ control.
C.V. Danes
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the issue here is that if the insurrectionists had been black, what we would be talking about right now is how quickly the government moved in and how, unfortunately, there were no survivors.
That this is being handled peacefully is a good thing. Many of us merely wish that angry blacks would get the same deference.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Soylent Green: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
imonlylurking
There is one good thing about this whole mess. I now have one more place on my ‘birding trip’ list.
Davebo
As of this morning there are no LEO’s on site, the “patriots” are free to come and go as they please and there’s been no indication that action such as shutting off electricity and water has been taken.
I agree, a hellfire from a predator would be drastic but can’t they at least take a baby step or two to show they are aware a crime is being committed?
Goblue72
@Davebo: And there is why all this talk of “let’s all be patient” is so much horseshit.
sigaba
@C.V. Danes: Under such a circumstance I don’t think the government would move in. Not the federal government, not on BLM activists or Panthers or anyone else.
What WOULD happen is a 24-7 tirade from all establishment media that the sky was falling because the Muslim Brotherhood/American ISIS had seized a government “asset.”
And everyone in congress, including a lot of Democrats, would be rushing into session to debate PATRIOT II, while any counsel of non-violent de-escalation or “waiting them out” would be attacked as weak or giving in to terrorists. Trump would be tweeting how happy he’d be to blow them all away, “just like Putin,” and his would be the mainstream Republican, not to say mainstream American, sentiment.
The Lodger
@Davebo: Everything I’ve seen indicates the refuge is 60 miles from the nearest town. There’s no municipal water supply to be shut off. If you don’t see power lines going to the building, it’s probably running off local generators.
JustRuss
@Davebo: So guess who’s paying for their water and electricity? I don’t want to martyr these idiots, but there’s no reason for them to be occupying on my dime. Moochers.
misterpuff
@Hungry Joe: Urserper give me turkee!
beasley
@Mike J: It’s 10-15 people and the people of harney County–most of them–want the nutters to leave. I’ve been to the Malheur Bird Refuge. It’s remote, but it’s a tourist attraction. Which is more than these intruders are.