Today, Ammon Bundy the leader of Snack Team Six, appeared in court wearing his prison scrubs to make the point that he is a political prisoner.
“Mr. Bundy desires to appear as he is, a political prisoner not free to dress as if presumed innocent,” attorney J. Morgan Philpot said, reading his client’s statement. “He would prefer to drop the facade and appear as the political prisoner he has been made.”
U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown asked Bundy to stand. She inquired whether it was his choice to appear in jail attire, and if anyone took his suit away.
“Your honor, I have no comment,” he replied.
The judge told him she must know if his decision was voluntary.
“I have no comment,” he repeated.
Philpot interjected, “Mr. Bundy feels he really has no choice — that that’s been taken from him.”
It appears that Mr. Bundy and the rest of Snack Team 6 seem intent on turning Judge Brown’s court into a circus to suit their own purposes. It remains to be seen just how successful they will be.
Adam L Silverman
Every elite team deserves a unit crest!
Feebog
They really love playing the victim, don’t they? Tough guys when armed, not so much when faced with the consequences of their actions.
Keith P.
They’re probably banking on a Trump group pardon.
LAO
?
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: happy?
Ruckus
@LAO:
Does it hurt to laugh that much?
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: @Ruckus: yes, to both questions.
Patricia Kayden
Rachel Maddow just said that Trump is now refusing to say that President Obama was born in the US. More Black outreach, I guess.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: He’s off his leash now that the polls look good for a few days.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-doubles-down-on-birtherism
LAO
I understand Mumford moved for a mistrial at the end of the day based on his cross examination of the director of the refugee. Judge wouldn’t let him cross on adverse possession. This is really insane.
CZanne
@srv: Is he broke already?
Comrade Scrutinizer
“Though your brother’s bound and gagged, and they’ve chained him to a chair”
Maybe the Bundy Bunch figures that if it worked for the Chicago
EightSeven, it will work for them.piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: you know, I kind of like chocolate chip cookies, can I humbly suggest that we replace it with a cheezit? for some reason, I think that would be entirely appropriate….
Paul T
Maybe it is time for more dildos in the mail.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman: I updated the unit crest with a Latin motto, which is appropriate for this type of special force and elite unit.
Redshift
Federal judges don’t take any crap. Not do they care if slapping wingnuts with contempt of court citations makes them heroes in the eyes of their wackadoodle brethren.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: Everyone is an art critic!
LAO
@Redshift: Judge Brown has displayed remarkable judicial restraint.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Sic Semper. . . .nevermind!
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I thought about it. Unfortunately that would be “ita ut semper laborum” So “munch hard” seemed appropriate.
piratedan
@Adam L Silverman: well tbh, I think cheezits are kinda nasty, and with this crowd on trial, nasty seems appropriate, but ymmv. Thank you for tracking this, it IS important.
Miss Bianca
Oh, the FUG is up with these clowns – I feel like Malvolio:
My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do you make an alehouse of my lady’s house, that you squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?
Did da bwave liddle martyr at least get to wear his cowboy boots with his orange jumpsuit? Cuz, you know, that really makes a statement, there.
ETA: Did you design their crest? Nice!
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
You forgot the peni$-shaped pasta sent by their internet fans, but I suppose this is a family blog, of sorts. Especially since WordPress blocks the word “peni$.”
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I forgot nothing. I went through a number of possible images: cake, banana split, fries, potato chips, Cookie Monster, dessert fork. I spent over a 1/2 hour on that crest. It is bespoke. The kind of attention to detail everyone should come to Balloon Juice for!
Soylent Green
Everything about the Bundy gang is 50 percent cosplay. They think they are starring in a John Wayne movie.
I’m still working in the federal building a block away. Every day this week there’s been a handful of Bundy supporters across the street, waving flags. Some are dressed in cowboy duds. One of them has a horse with him. From time to time, he gallops down the street past the courthouse.
My bosses have put us all on security alert, but the flag wavers are not gun-toting, outside agitating militia types. They are just a few local rednecks who are playing the part of extras in the Bundy movie.
Gin & Tonic
@Miss Bianca: Not sure where you got FUG in there, so here’s the real thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Soylent Green: I thought they arrested the horse guy at the refuge. Or is this a different horse guy?
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: Ah, The Fugs…heh. For some reason, they didn’t get a lot of airplay back in the day.
Oh, Ammon was wearing blue today, evidently, not orange. A much wiser cosplaying choice – I’m not sure orange would suit his complexion.
ThresherK (GPad)
Wonderful work, Adam.
Soylent Green
This is some local guy, with his horse saddled up all day. The other day I was lucky enough to see his daily gallop down the street when I went out for lunch. He has mounted a flag bracket to the saddle so his horse can spare him the task of holding up a big flag all day. I’ll try to get a photo tomorrow.
James E Powell
In the United States, the government, including the courts, has a long history of bending over backwards to be accommodating to right wing interests. After all, their only fault is that they love American too much.
Bill
J. Morgan Philpot?
Really?
divF
@Gin & Tonic:
“Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday and Thursday, nothing…”
Schlemazel
@srv:
He should be forced to paint a portrait of every soldier that died in Iraq and then one of their family. He should have to live with those eyes looking at him every day of his ugly little life.
Mnemosyne
@Bill:
One does expect to hear the lawyer speaking in the voice of W.C. Fields, doesn’t one? Or Groucho Marx.
Pogonip
@Adam L Silverman: No cheetos?
Felonius Monk
The Execution of Snack Team Six.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Ruckus: I think I bruised a couple of ribs laughing at the leader of Snack Team Six for that bullshit. Then I got pissed; motherucker’s never even heard of Leonard Peltier and yet has the nerve to call himself a political prisoner. I am not thinking kind – or even civilized – thoughts about Ammo, crown prince of Y’all Quaeda.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@LAO: Shit, she’s shown saintly levels of tolerance for those idiots.
daves09
@Adam L Silverman: J.Morgan Philpot-is this a Marx bros. movie?
Seriously, they seem like such frauds that it’s hard to believe that they really believe. But good lord, they do.
chopper
the motto should be “semper fudge”.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
luckily for us election nerds FYWP doesn’t block “wang”.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: That should read “in his private jet, that he rents to the campaign” (probably for above market rates).
J R in WV
How are we so beloved of FSM to have a Balloon-Juice commenter working right down the street from the clown circus judiciarat??
I’ve been juror at capital murder cases, state criminal court in a rural county. Never attended a Federal court case, although Mrs J has been to many of them. None of the cases either of us has attended has ever been close to as theater of the absurd as this looks to be.
Really, no one here is accused of murder, only of criminal conspiracies of the absurd. The idea that the District of Columbia is the only ground the Federal Government is allowed to own is too foolish. Where would they test those atom bombs, build those air force bases, manage that fleet of air craft carriers?? Next to the White House?
I hope the real occasion for laughter is after these yahoo-quaida nuts are convicted and sent away for a long time, while also attending their trial for more serious crimes down in Clitus [sic] Bundy’s fortress of stupidity country.
Keep up the jolly fun, Adam! I really think the crest needs at least one – oh, uh, well, frankly, and to be exact, a big ole dildo, rampant. With Studly white horse, also rampant. Maybe Betty Cracker could help…
Chris
@Soylent Green:
That seems to be the nature of the militia movement: 90% of them are just posturing tough guys winding each other up about all the badass things they’re totally GONNA do WHEN the government finally goes too far… whenever that is. Any minute now…
Most of the violence seems to be lone wolves of very tiny groups of people.
Epicurus
Methinks Bundy should lay in a good stock of those jumpsuits. He’s going to need them where he’s going.
BruceFromOhio
It is my choice to decide that my right to choose has been taken away!
Mike E
@Schlemazel:
Make it so.
Adam L Silverman
@chopper: That’s a good one too.
Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: Tell it to Josh Marshall, I was just quoting him.
Villago Delenda Est
Tack on 10 years to the maggot’s sentence.
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman:
This is why I gladly pay full price for this site.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Please retain your receipt. Also, in case of return there will be a 20% restocking charge for putting me back on my shelf.
Sandia Blanca
@Adam L Silverman: It is a most noble crest.
MobiusKlein
@Schlemazel: Bush should paint portraits of every dead Iraqi child, mother, and soldier killed.
Not sure there is enough oil in the world for that. Perhaps in the next.
trnc
It’s after 11pm. Can we say Dildo Team Six yet?
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman:
Marshall errs here. Drumpf isn’t making the slightest effort to appeal to voters outside his base. He knows the MSM will not make a big deal about this, but he does know it further inflames the rabble that supports him, and, most importantly, they’ll give him the feedback he craves, that he lives for, at his rallies.
burnspbesq
@LAO:
zealous advocacy. Stupid, but zealous.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: My take is Trump has decided since the polls are showing a virtual tie and that gave him the confidence to knuckle his advisors and slip their lead. As long as the polling is like this he will be off the lead. Of course that is going to bring the numbers back down. And given that the polling has switched to likely voter models and those have some interesting assumptions for the initial runs last week and this week, based on the sample assumptions they’ll stay tight for another week and then the polling outlets will begin to tweak the model to more accurately capture what the 2016 electorate will likely look like rather than the 2004, 2008, or 2012 electorates they’re basing their sampling on now. Until then I expect Trump to be Trump. Additionally, there have been news reports that Lewandowski is once again on site with Trump at events and seems to be giving instructions to campaign staffers. He is the creator and greatest advocate of the “Let Trump Be Trump” strategy. He is, essentially, Trump’s Trump. If he’s gotten Trump’s ear again, then this could get very, very interesting.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
Truly, it is! Awesome!!
JAFD
Being one of those who “studied Latin in high school, many decades ago…”, that heraldic motto sent me to the dictionary. Found, from the Wiktionary,
“Adjective
lacteus m (feminine lactea, neuter lacteum); first/second declension
Of or pertaining to milk; milky.
(poetic) Full of milk.
Milk-drinking, suckling.
Milk-white.
(figuratively) Pure.”
and, with ‘durum’ usually translated as ‘hard’, came up with the colloquial translation, “tough titty”
Anyway, recently acquired a small army of mounted warriers of the Medieval era, Real Soon Now will get them painted and based and organized, paint the Snack Team Six Crest upon their shields, and send them into battle with Mozart playing in the background…
joel hanes
@LAO:
Judge Brown has displayed remarkable judicial restraint.
So far.
I have a feeling that the judgments and sentencing memoranda in this case will be delicious reading for connoisseurs of a particular flavor of shadenfreude.
Treating a Federal court as a stage on which to act out your problems is seldom a winning tactic.
SRW1
@trnc:
Strike Force
DeltaDildoCheryl from Maryland
@Mike E: Please no! I work for a federal collection of museums involved with traveling exhibitions. We’ve already managed to escape a suggestion that we travel that “art”.
Cheryl from Maryland
Adam, sorry to be so late to this convo, but your magnificent heraldic design needs tweaking. My understanding of the rules for coats of arms is that a quartered shield has to be at least two colors. Your shield is only the metal silver(aka white). Two of those quarters need to be red, blue, yellow, or green.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Adam L Silverman: I damn near puked laughing. Hell of a great way to start my day.
Durum Lacteum – you’re slaying me here.
Humboldtblue
Speaking of wheat, I picked up a loaf of bread at the co-op last Sunday because I had no idea what “spelt” was. Turns out that “spelt” wheat — triticum spelta — is an old-timey wheat that was pretty much replaced by the modern bread-making wheat and is now making a comeback. I didn’t notice a huge difference in flavor or texture but it did toast up wonderfully.
jon
@Adam L Silverman: I was hoping for ROMANES EUNT DOMUS, but that’s okay.