Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

White supremacy is terrorism.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

T R E 4 5 O N

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Late Night Open Thread: Meanwhile, at the Malheur Loon Refuge…

Late Night Open Thread: Meanwhile, at the Malheur Loon Refuge…

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The Oregonian, just after 11pm EST:

The ragtag remnants of the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge started to give up their ground Wednesday after calls from supporters, Congress members and even their arrested leader to abandon the 26-day takeover.

Confusion reigned at the windswept bird sanctuary that has served as the hub of an anti-government protest that captivated the country 30 miles outside this high desert town…

Jason Patrick, a former roofer from Georgia, had stepped in to organize the estimated 10 or so people who remained at the federal reserve after the arrest the day before of leaders Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne and the killing of occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum…

Patrick said people in the compound met overnight to vote on whether to abandon the refuge or stay, and the majority voted to stay. He spent time on the phone with “Chris,” the negotiator who had spoken with Bundy, and insisted the “redress of grievance” that the occupiers had submitted must be addressed.

But Patrick was among those who apparently were on their way out Wednesday evening, supporters said. His departure couldn’t be independently confirmed. He didn’t answer calls to his cellphone…

More details (and probably updates) at the link.

Previously…

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Open Thread? Goody.

    Couple of definitely not great but more WTF? films coming ’round on TCM this week.

    Thursday, 11:30 p.m. (Eastern) – The Whip Hand. Melange of beat the viewer (Commies!) over the head (Commies!) with propaganda (Commies!) muddled with tenuous science fiction.

    For the B movie crowd.

    Oh, did I mention there are Commies? Not your run of the mill ones, either. These are former Nazis who are now Commies!

    Saturday, 7:30 a.m. (Eastern) – The Iron Pettocoat. The nadir, IMHO, of Katherine Hepburn films. She co-stars with Bob Hope in a dismal Cold War ‘comedy’ that excruciatingly limps its way across the screen. Chock full of laugh (singular intended).

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: The fact that they are not being arrested now does not preclude someone from stopping by and arresting them quietly at home later.

  5. 5.

    Redshift

    @efgoldman:

    Why aren’t the rest of them under arrest?
    I thought (incorrectly?) the feds had the road in/out blocked.

    The statement I read about the blockade said that no one else would be allowed in, and called on them to leave peacefully now. I presume the thinking is that if they said anyone coming out would be arrested (or started doing that), then it would become a siege.

    It’s been frustrating, but they’ve arrested the ringleaders, and only created one martyr in the process, so I’m inclined to accept at this point that they have a plan.

  6. 6.

    jay s

    FBI announces 3 more arrests Wednesday.
    Additional Arrests in the Occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge – 01/27/16
    In the early morning hours of January 27, 2016, the FBI and Oregon State Police (OSP) established a series of checkpoints at major roads in and out of the refuge. In the hours prior to the checkpoints, several vehicles are known to have left the area. Since the establishment of checkpoints, a total of eight people have left the refuge. Of those, the FBI released five and arrested three.

    At approximately 3:30 pm, the FBI made probable cause arrests of Duane Leo Ehmer, age 45, of Irrigon, Oregon, and Dylan Wade Anderson, age 34, of Provo, Utah. At approximately, 7:40 pm, agents made a probable cause arrest of Jason S. Patrick, age 43, of Bonaire, Georgia. All were in contact with the FBI, and each chose to turn himself into agents at a checkpoint outside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The arrests were without incident.

    Each man faces one federal felony count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372.

    All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

  7. 7.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    these people should have just brought a red sports car like everyone else going through a mid-life crisis

  9. 9.

    lgerard

    I can’t believe that they let Blaine Cooper go. He is not only a whack job and a career criminal, but he seems highly dangerous. He will end up killing someone at some point.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    These are former Nazis who are now Commies!

    A year or so before he died, my dad trapped G and I at the kitchen table and went into a long, rambling “explanation” of how fascism was really communism because Mussolini started off as a communist.

    I had always thought that he got it from Fox News, but maybe he fell asleep in front of TCM one night.

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: Okay yeah, the Feds are fucking up the whole thing. Jesus fuck. They are de-escalating the whole situation. How is this bad? Aside from the satisfaction of seeing the assholes being publicly humiliated. I want no deaths more than I want satisfaction.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Originally the film’s villains were supposed to be just expatriate Nazis. Howard Hughes dictated it be reshot as needed to make them ex-Nazi Commies.

    Because Nazi Germany had such an affectionate relationship with the Soviets at the end of the war. (snark)

  15. 15.

    Debbie(aussie)

    Not being a legal person nor a US citizen, can someone please direct me to a simple rundown of charges against these mighty heroes of freedom. Many thanks in advance.
    In case Mighty Trowel is hanging around, we would love to have you become one of us.(we need all the help we can get come the election, truffles is still in his honeymoon period and he has changed nothing!)

  16. 16.

    Soylent Green

    Good news for law enforcement: future criminals will eagerly incriminate themselves via social media.

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    Also, too, “The Iron Petticoat” sounds like an attempt at remaking “Ninotchka” but changing just enough of the plot not to get sued for plagiarism. But Bob Hope is no Melvyn Douglas.

  20. 20.

    Fred Fnord

    @Omnes Omnibus: You want to bet? I bet we see the argument, ‘Hey, if we arrest them after letting them go then the NEXT group won’t surrender peaceably.’

    (Edit: Which is, incidentally, why we’ll see some of the same people in the next one of these… and the next… and the next…)

  21. 21.

    Soylent Green

    The FBI’s criminal complaint shows that they have been doing their homework. I was frustrated earlier by how long this took, but commend their work thus far.

  24. 24.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @NotMax: A lot of high level officials and military officers of Nazi Germany who got caught east of the Elbe went on to become high level officials and military officers of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Over there, they didn’t even go through the not entirely thorough de-Nazification process that occurred in the Bundesrepublik.

    The phenomenon of Germans accepting responsibility for the Nazi crimes was exclusively a West German thing. Under Soviet ideology, Nazism was purely a class based phenomenon, and so individuals who were not upper class didn’t have anything to apologize for, and they weeded out all of the incorrigible ones, so anyone they left in power had, ipso facto, overcome their past.

    So, ex-Nazi communists really were a thing. That in no way excuses The Whip Hand, though. It really is a terrible movie.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    I checked IMDb and MGM produced both films about 20 years apart. It wasn’t uncommon for studios to plagiarize themselves in those days.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    Don’t forget MGM’s musical version of Ninotchka – Silk Stockings, in ’57.

    Hear Peter Lorre attempt to sing! See Peter Lorre attempt to dance!

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: I am sorry. I don’t have access to that database. I am also sorry that the federal response doesn’t match your personal desires. It sounds like they are ending it. If it doesn’t match your opinion of how it should have been handled, call your Congressperson and complain. It ain’t my prob.

  29. 29.

    seaboogie

    @efgoldman:

    But I damned sure want arrests, indictments, and prosecutions.

    To the best of my recollection, nobody died in the first Bundy stand-off, even though there were armaments aplenty, held in the hands of true believers.

    So – are you not a little bit like the Bundy gang – demanding justice? Situation is defused, not escalated. Maybe the feds decided to let the fire die out, rather than feed it with prosecutions that would have drawn the armed crazy nutjobs out of the woodwork in spades. In this analogy, the latest Bundy uprising has drawn a lot of press, fewer arrivals, and a lot of mockery.

    Bundy Pere lost his Fox mouthpiece saying blacks were happier under slavery, and Bundy junior gets sent a bag of salted dicks after asking for snacks. Seems like the system is working.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    @NotMax:

    According to IMDb, Lorre’s singing was dubbed, so you’ll have to blame the director, who chose the dubber.

    Astaire is a pretty good substitute for Douglas. Much better than Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra being swapped in for Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart in High Society.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @Mnemosyne

    The rock ‘n’ roll number added in to the score of the original musical play for Astaire to perform is painful to watch.

    Little wonder the film was a box office loser.

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    @NotMax:

    Uh-uh. No martyr.

    Use of their terminology validates it and whatever else he may have been, he was not that.

    Fine, only one person they will claim is a martyr. Clearly they were hoping for a lot.

    I thought that would have been clear enough from the context, but yeah, scare quotes around “martyrs” might have made it clearer.

  35. 35.

    sigaba

    @Mnemosyne: If it was Ninotchka the voice actor was almost certainly cast by Arthur Freed. At MGM mere directors weren’t trusted to make such important decisions as who sang in heir movie! :)

  38. 38.

    Aleta

    Will it ever dawn on the Camp Bundy remainders that those wonderful friends who’ve all inexplicably vanished need blood shed by innocent martyrs to recruit, raise money, and energize elections?

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @sigaba:

    Not the original “Ninotchka,” the musical remake, “Silk Stockings.” I’m assuming it probably was Freed since it was 1957.

    An aside: I get to attend a lunch with Richard Sherman tomorrow (along with about 20 other people) for a work event. Super excited!

    (Not the football player, obviously, the other one. :-)

  42. 42.

    joel hanes

    @efgoldman:

    I damned sure want arrests, indictments, and prosecutions.

    course of justice grinds fine but slowly etc.

    These jamokes are in for a world of sorrow for the rest of their natural lives.
    Count on it.

    You and I wiill not live to see the full accounting for their karmic burden, but they are already in a living hell of their own creation

  43. 43.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, but we got to see Bing and Frank together. “Well Did You Evah” is a gem full of the affable charm each person has, just for starters.

    If that doesn’t seem like much, I submit the one number in the clip show The Ziegfeld Follies in which Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire performed together. That this was it, for two stars like that in the genre for so long, both of.whom spent a chunk of time at the same studio, makes me wonder what was missed.

  44. 44.

    raven

    Wounded Warriors anyone?

    “About 40 percent of the organization’s donations in 2014 were spent on its overhead, or about $124 million, according to the charity-rating group Charity Navigator. While that percentage, which includes administrative expenses and marketing costs, is not as much as for some groups, it is far more than for many veterans charities, including the Semper Fi Fund, a wounded-veterans group that spent about 8 percent of donations on overhead. As a result, some philanthropic watchdog groups have criticized the Wounded Warrior Project for spending too heavily on itself.”

  45. 45.

    Keith G

    @joel hanes: Indeed it will happen. One of my very best friends from high school (a very long time ago) recently did some things that put him into the crosshairs of the FBI and other federal law enforcement. His life became a very horrific shitstorm shortly thereafter – wave after wave of woe.

  46. 46.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: they do have it blocked off. The FBI SSAC for Oregon stated they could come out and leave, but they would have to go through an identification process with the FBI at the checkpoint at the blockade on the road out from the refuge. My guess is they’ve got warrants ready to go and are looking to make sure they have the right names in them. They can serve the warrants whenever and wherever they like. My guess is they also don’t want to waste time prosecuting the small fry, but are using this as a way to verify the network they’re building for analysis purposes.

  49. 49.

    Keith G

    @Adam L Silverman: The damage and the death set aside, I imagine that federal law enforcement has been quite happy to gather in a lot more network information from the communications going back and forth during the last several weeks.

  50. 50.

    Oatler.

    Sounds like a bunch of carpetbaggers from New Dixie wanted to stir up the natives. But we Oregonians revolt when WE want to, not those Mardi Gras cowboys.My family supports me in this case, they know I’m always revolting.

  51. 51.

    Patricia Kayden

    The movie will be a hoot! Clown Terrorists take over bird sanctuary and then embarrass the hell out of themselves.

  52. 52.

    WereBear

    It has to be this way. The Republicans have to devolve into their lowest form amid general mockery.

    It’s like a horror film where nothing else has worked to kill the monster.

  55. 55.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Debbie(aussie): Here’s a tl;dr of the criminal complaint and my guess at how things may go.

    The charge in the complaint is harassing federal employees and preventing them from doing their jobs. That’s a felony.The federal employees in question are the staff at the refuge. There is an example in the complaint of Ritzheimer harassing an employee in the supermarket. There is a bunch of other stuff about the armed takeover and calls for reinforcements. I am not a lawyer, but it looks like that other stuff is broader than the charge.

    Once the feds can get into the refuge, they will assess the damage that has been done there. The fence that was cut apparently was fixed, but they obviously were doing some digging with the earth-moving machines. Also, there has been a carp eradication program for the lakes that needed action over the past month that didn’t get done. There are questions about whether the occupiers accessed personal information on refuge computers and whether they sold Indiian artifacts.

    All that could be a basis for further charges.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Keith G: that’s the paradix/rub with these things. If you’ve got an identifiable network under observation, with clearly defined individual nodes, how long do you leave it undisturbed as you try to get a comprehensive understanding of the network versus starting to remove pieces of it, which then negatively impacts your ability to observe, identify, define, and track the network, it’s component individuals and groups, and their connections.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: exactly, they’ll add charges as they go. Moreover, they’ll try to specifically avoid the political seeming charges like sedition or domestic terrorism unless the last holdouts or their supporters do something really, really stupid.

  58. 58.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes. It’s clear from his statement after arrest that Ammon Bundy wants to make any trial about his interpretation of the Constitution, so the feds will avoid anything that can lead to that. Plenty of other charges available.

  62. 62.

    wvng

    @Cheryl Rofer: “It’s clear from his statement after arrest that Ammon Bundy wants to make any trial about his interpretation of the Constitution, so the feds will avoid anything that can lead to that.” I think it would be vastly entertaining to see a lawyer for Bundy make those specious arguments in court. I suspect it would last for all of five minutes, after which the judge would shut it down as legally absurd. And it would be helpful if the media widely covered such an event.

  63. 63.

    El Caganer

    @raven: 40% overhead is obscene for a social services nonprofit; 10-12% is more like it. I’m puzzled why Charity Navigator gives them a three-star rating, which is actually pretty good.

  64. 64.

    Tripod

    Just a guess:

    Grazing rights are small potatoes, and the majority of these petty criminals don’t show up because FREEDUM! They are paid provocateurs. Things turned to shit when Obama announced he was re-writing coal mining regulations on BLM land. Their patrons (ALEC, Koch, whatever) went wobbly and cut them off. That’s why all the reinforcements assholes that showed up at the Bundy Ranch melted away or never arrived.

    I’d also hazard a guess that Ammon knew he was getting picked up that night. I wonder if the “I’ve been ratfucked” light bulb went on for Finicum, and he make a stupid move that got hisself shot dead.

  67. 67.

    feebog

    @wvng:

    I suspect it would last for all of five minutes, after which the judge would shut it down as legally absurd.

    More like 5 seconds. No judge is going to let overtly irrelevant questions be asked.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @Tripod: Interesting theory about Ammon knowing about the pickup and maybe betraying the others. Now what’s the best way to spread that far and wide in a way that makes the other nuts believe it?

  69. 69.

    Racer X

    I’d stay until the beer was all gone too. I don’t think they’re going to be able to do that the next place the’re going.

  70. 70.

    J R in WV

    I’m hoping they get slammed with all the various charges that bulldozing archaeological sites can bring, as well as tampering with ancient artifacts that were kept at the Refuge. The heritage of the Natives of the area was deliberately destroyed, if it is true that they did anything but exert the utmost respect and care for those artifacts and the known ancient sites.

    Of course, such charges have to await examination of the evidence by experts.

    The 32-page affidavit linked to above just allows the participants to convict themselves in large part, through their participation in on-line media, by holding “press conferences” to talk about their goals and intentions. Still photos extracted from their Youtube feeds are scattered through the document. People spell their names out to assist the agents in getting the details of their charges correct.

    The only formal charge in the 23-page affidavit is the conspiracy to interfere with federal officers in conducting their work. Evidently all the other charges will follow after Oregon LEOs and FBI and other federal LEOs have access to the property where most of the illegal activity occurred,

    It’s pretty sad that these people thought it was advantageous for them to walk up to Federal civilian employees in public and make hair-brained threats, to follow civilian employees in identifiable trucks in a threatening way, state that they planned to burn down the house of a civilian employee of BLM. Stupid, bullying, serious felonies all over the place.

    They talk about getting the communists out of the government, deluded to the extreme. Don’t actually know what communism is, evidently. Amazing display of group think ignorance.

  71. 71.

    Soylent Green

    I’m hoping they get slammed with all the various charges that bulldozing archaeological sites can bring, as well as tampering with ancient artifacts that were kept at the Refuge. The heritage of the Natives of the area was deliberately destroyed, if it is true that they did anything but exert the utmost respect and care for those artifacts and the known ancient sites.

    I don’t think there’s much actionable material here — the FBI threw this element into the mix while toting up all the possible charges they could bring. The occupiers have done some earthmoving here and there in the compound, but it’s not as though they actively destroyed a working archeological dig. And I think the artifacts in question are the ones in the visitor center, or were in the possession of the scientists working there — maybe some of those will turn up missing. The Paiute tribe has protested the occupation as an insult to lands that they regard as sacred, but I don’t see how this translates into a criminal charge. Possibly the authorities will find something in the laws regarding artifacts that will stick, but it will be among the lesser charges.

  73. 73.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Soylent Green: I thought I had read something about the seditionists damaging pioneer graves with their bulldozing, but I can’t find it now.

  74. 74.

    Aleta

    Livestock might be almost over, but it’ll live on as the utopian highpoint in some lives, and soon folks will start believing they were there.

  75. 75.

    Aleta

    One of the things that seriously disturb me about this attack on democracy is the similarity of the actions to, for example, ISIS. Provoke with outrageous acts until there is a response from the powerful side that will excite new recruits. Make a martyr out of Finicum, of course. (Scary that even the Washington Post and the OPB published immediate articles about a caring family man. No mention that he tried to manslaughter an 18 yr old and 3 of his friends during his suicide.)

    Like the Taliban and militants in Iraq, they threatened community leaders and their families and people who worked for the ‘other side.’ They intentionally worked to divide the community, as a political goal, to create ‘the other side’ as a force to be used against itself in propaganda. Other communities were/are part of the operation goal.

    Until now, I guess I didn’t realize that small town sheriffs and judges could be targeted — stealth candidates would be easy in my area — to such great effect on environmental issues already decided by the federal government.

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