Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

T R E 4 5 O N

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

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

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Not all heroes wear capes.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Petty moves from a petty man.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

So very ready.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Balloon Juice Bunker Standoff Update Day 36: Odds and Ends

Balloon Juice Bunker Standoff Update Day 36: Odds and Ends

by | 108 Comments

This post is in: 

With an emphasis on the odds…

The missing Blaine Cooper has surfaced. He was at LaVoy Finicum’s funeral where he was interviewed by Carli Brousseau of the Oregonian. He told her he did not know why he wasn’t indicted and that he doesn’t need to be armed to make his point. Also, he has a felony conviction that prohibits him from lawfully owning firearms. That’s why you can see him armed in this photo standing behind the guy leaning in on the left. That is a handgun at a fifteen degree cant on his right hip above the hip bag.

cooper_armed*

According to Amelia Templeton of Oregon Public Broadcasting, Cliven Bundy gave a talk to a dozen people from Harney County that travelled to attend Finicum’s funeral. JJ McNabb, on her twitter feed, is also reporting that the militia meet up in Halfway is cancelled because the Lion’s Club returned the rental fee for their facility. She’s also reporting that a call has gone out to liberate Harney County from the Constitutional Enemy Forces by a leader of the III%ers. And the Harney County of Committee of Safety has called for 2,500 men to secure the committee while they work up indictments of Federal, state, and local officials from harassment from those officials.

Susan Hennessy at Lawfare** has some deeper analysis of the DOJ activities in the Reuters report I put in the comments last night about DOJ rethinking the material support to terrorism statutes.

And in good news for Betty Cracker’s school age daughter, as well as Floridians everywhere, a Florida State Supreme Court Justice has gotten the state’s civic’s education program to stop distributing the Cleon Skousen annotated pocket constitutions they bought from his and his surviving family members’ constitutional research institute. I’m sure that with just several months of deprogramming BettyC juniorella will be back to normal and will stop trying to muster and drill the chickens in the use of the AR-15 in case the Man comes and attempts to round them up and move them to a FEMA trailer or something.

Finally, something good has come out of all of the hubub in Harney County. One local resident showed up at a counterprotest last week and did this (h/t JJ McNaab):

daughter1

Apparently someone at the FBI noticed leading to this:

daughter2

Yep, that’s the single and smiling daughter standing with Dad and the FBI. Just in time for Valentine’s Day…

* Image found here.

** Full disclosure: I’m acquainted with Robert Chesney the founder of Lawfare though we haven’t been in touch for several years.

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  3. 3.

    Central Planning

    I’m trying to wrap my head around what he means with that sign, besides the fact that she is single.

    Does he want a young FBI agent to ask her out? Does he think the FBI will take her _because_ she is single? Will her single-ness keep the FBI away from him (and/or her)?

    ETA – Now I get it. I couldn’t see the FBI insignia on them. I thought it was some group of III%ers or Bundy supporters.

  4. 4.

    Patricia Kayden

    So isn’t it obvious that Cooper is an FBI plant? Or perhaps I’m just being too conspiratorial. Seems strange that he hasn’t been indicted like the rest of Goons.

  7. 7.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    There’s nothing like having them paranoid about each other to make the FBI’s job easier.

    What do you think about the odds that anyone will actually show up and do anything in Harney County? So far, this hasn’t exactly been the dramatic battle for liberty that militia members crave.

  8. 8.

    BruceFromOhio

    I’m sure that with just several months of deprogramming BettyC juniorella will be back to normal and will stop trying to muster and drill the chickens in the use of the AR-15 in case the Man comes and attempts to round them up and move them to a FEMA trailer or something.

    Adam, you win for most unusual sentence on this site in quite some time. And there have been a LOT of unusual sentences on this site.

  9. 9.

    jl

    What did poor Harney County ever do to deserve all this bullshit?

    And, I am surprised that there is a Skousen annotated Constitution that can fit in a pocket of any kind. How big are they?

  13. 13.

    Gimlet

    OT – We are poisoning ourselves with our waste.

    theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/06/new-york-city-groundwater-radioactivity-investigation-indian-poi…

    Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered a review after saying that “alarming levels of radioactivity” were found at monitoring wells at the Indian Point energy center in Buchanan, 40 miles north of Manhattan.

    In a letter to health and environmental officials, he said tritium had leaked into the groundwater, with plant operator Entergy reporting an increase of almost 65,000% in one case.

    Officials said the contamination has remained contained to the site and there’s no risk to the public.

    The plant provides about 30% of New York City’s energy, and was the subject of an investigation in December after several unexpected shutdowns.

    “This is not the first such release of radioactive water at Indian Point, nor is this the first time that Indian Point has experienced significant failure in its operation and maintenance,” Cuomo wrote. “This failure continues to demonstrate that Indian Point cannot continue to operate in a manner that is protective of public health and the environment.”

  14. 14.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Gimlet: “This failure continues to demonstrate that Indian Point cannot continue to operate in a manner that is protective of public health and the environment.”

    What are the odds that this sternly worded statement will be the extent of remediation undertaken?

    Edited to add: html fail. Don’t care.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gimlet: @Steve in the ATL: on a temporary duty visit to West Point I was told that anyone assigned there for longer than two weeks was issued anti-radiation (iodine) pills just in case of a meltdown. Interestingly I was assigned at Carlisle Barracks for over four years, which is within about 25 miles of 3 Mile Island, and no one was issued anti-radiation pills.

  17. 17.

    lgerard

    I don’t get the shofar, you would think a fife would be more appropriate.

    I guess that this is the guy’s thing now…..show up at wingnut gatherings and blow his horn.

    There is just no understanding some of the idiotic things people will devote their time to.

  22. 22.

    J R in WV

    OT:

    I’ve been getting several emails a day from the Hillary campaign, all begging for money, or if not openly begging, they ask me to sign a bogus petition, and THEN beg for money. So, at the bottom of all these emails there’s a link to click for fewer emails, and another link to unsubscribe altogether.

    So earlier today I gave up and clicked on the “Send me fewer emails, please” link, and instantly received an email thanking me for setting my email preferences. Not happy! Who does that? Sends an email in response to someone asking for fewer emails.

    Then a couple of hours later I get a standard begging email, ostensibly from Chelsea. Please, please, we’re behind in everything in New Hampster, please won’t you give us $75????

    So I go again to the “Please, please, send me fewer emails!!” link and enter my email address, and click the DONE button.

    They send me TWO emails thanking me for setting my email preferences!!!

    Is there no human being in charge of normalcy in the Clinton campaign? Are they all aliens from a place where words mean something different from what’s in the English dictionaries?

    I mean, REALLY people. Just STOP!

    If anyone knows a direct phone number or email address for some human being with the Clinton campaign, please ask them to stop sending people multiple begging emails EVERY FUCKING DAY!!! It’s making me crazy, and I’m a diehard progressive Democrat since forever. I can’t imagine how it helps with anyone, or how anyone could imagine it would raise more money than asking, say, once a week.

    Thanks for your patience with my little rant.

  24. 24.

    Big R

    @Villago Delenda Est: Easy: stop using the e-mail address GOS has for you.

    Unfortunately, if you were naive about signing up for e-mail lists in the early 2000s (ahem), you may be stuck where you don’t want to give up that e-mail address. You could always mark everything coming from them as spam….

  26. 26.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @J R in WV:

    It isn’t just the Hillary campaign. I’ve gone through similar with Bernie, Emily’s List, all the various DNC-type lists, OFA — really, just about any and every liberal-lefty group you can imagine. Same on the state level during and after the Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter campaigns of 2014.

    (I am, mercifully, not on any GOP or right-wing lists, but there is no doubt at all in my mind that it’s the same with them, because both sides do it, right?)

  27. 27.

    Luthe

    @Gimlet: Finding a politically acceptable way to get that stuff transported to a safe and permanent storage facility is near impossible. First you’ve got the opposition to the storage facility (though Harry Reid retiring might change that). Then you’ve got the transport issues. You can’t fly it and there’s too much to truck. The storage facility isn’t near any navigable water. So you need to put it on a train. No one wants a train full of nuclear waste going through their town and if it has to they want to be prepared for an emergency. But you can’t announce what’s on the train because then it’s terrorist bait. So how do we square the circle?

  28. 28.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    And most of them ask for one dollar. Hope that isn’t how much they think the campaign is worth. But I’m with you. Ask too much, ask too often and my wallet snaps shut. Don’t really know why but it’s always been that way. OTOH we dislike candidates getting big money from rich people (even if it is through a super pac) so little donations should be the way to go. Hummm…..

  31. 31.

    Mike J

    @Luthe:

    First you’ve got the opposition to the storage facility (though Harry Reid retiring might change that).

    Because people in Nevada are all of a sudden going to want nuclear waste trucked through their neighborhoods on its way to a earthquake fault once Reid gets out of the way?

  32. 32.

    dr. bloor

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    What do you think about the odds that anyone will actually show up and do anything in Harney County?

    Slim to none. That paste ain’t going to eat itself, and the porn ain’t gonna download itself neither.

  33. 33.

    Gimlet

    WP Opinion Page
    Colbert King

    The Hillary Clinton email issue is developing into a real whodunit, complete with Clintonesque legal semantics. “I never sent or received any material marked classified,” she said with respect to the discovery of classified information on her private, unclassified email server. That surface denial nearly rivals Bill Clinton’s classic: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

    It’s chilling to think of what a breach of Clinton’s email account might mean to national security.

    Presidential election year or not, the Clinton email issue must be resolved. Just a thought: As a precaution, the manager in the White House dugout might consider telling the bullpen to start warming up Joe Biden.

  34. 34.

    Bg

    Justice Lewis’ Justice Teaching program is great – brings the law to life for school kids. I hope this blip doesn’t hurt it.
    He a smart man and a fundamentally decent human being. Glad he has put a stop to this.

  35. 35.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: I’m still getting e-mails from the 19 or so people I gave to as part of the “Red to Blue” campaign a few years ago. I don’t know why they expect people to be giving them campaign contributions a year before an election (as many of them were).

    I really enjoy the “thank you so much for putting us over the top in our recent funding goal!!11” e-mails when I didn’t send them anything recently.

    If someone can figure out what normal humans like when it comes to political fundraising, they’ll become the next Bloomberg billionaire. Here are a few hints:

    1) Include an actual “reply-to” field that humans will read and potentially respond to. If you want my money, be willing to listen to my brief comments (not some bogus survey with pre-filled in multiple choice answers).

    2) Respect replies that as to get fewer e-mails or no e-mails. Don’t reset the spam flood if someone gives you a contribution – that doesn’t mean they’ve changed their minds about getting spam from you.

    3) Make an effort to recognize that not all donors come from your state or your district. Asking someone 1000 miles away to come to your kickoff rally or fundraiser is a waste of bits and time.

    4) Don’t scream doom and gloom every 3 days about how the world will end if you don’t get money from us.

    5) Don’t insult our intelligence that you “only need 3 more contributions from zip code 12345!!11” We get it – you know our zip code because we sent it to you before. Woo hoo.

    6) Don’t attempt to fundraise about something that has already happened but hasn’t actually changed anything. The fact that the House voted for the eleventy-seventh time to repeal Obamacare doesn’t mean that I need to send you more money now.

    Why is this so hard? Why can’t ActBlue and the DCCC and DSCC and DNC figure this out? Are they all too busy with their proverbial hookers and blow to know this??

    :-/

    -Rant-off

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (To be fair, re #4, I unloaded on one of those outfits that was sending the “World Will End!!!” “Failure!!1” e-mails late last year when I finally unsubscribed on their web page and told them why. I haven’t received anything from them since, but figure they’ll start up again in a few months once I start donating to candidates again.)

  38. 38.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mike J:

    Because people in Nevada are all of a sudden going to want nuclear waste trucked through their neighborhoods on its way to a earthquake fault once Reid gets out of the way?

    Because people in Nevada are all of a sudden not going to have to have the power to stop unwanted nuclear waste from being trucked through their neighborhoods on its way to a earthquake fault once Reid gets out of the way.

  39. 39.

    Weaselone

    @Gimlet:

    It would mean that the Chinese or Russians would get to reread the New Times articles that were forwarded to Hillary’s email account?

  42. 42.

    Kropadope

    And in good news for Betty Cracker’s school age daughter, as well as Floridians everywhere, aFlorida State Supreme Court Justice has gotten the state’s civic’s education program to stop distributing the Cleon Skousen annotated pocket constitutions they bought from his and his surviving family members’ constitutional research institute.

    Oh, so Republicans used their control of the Florida government to indoctrinate students with a Republican-oriented understanding of the Constitution? Once again going to show that pretty much every paranoid fantasy Republicans have about Democrats is some form of projection.

  44. 44.

    Keith P.

    @Gimlet: Let’s withhold judgement until we know if any superheroes will be created from this leaking tritium. We will need him/her to battle the supermonster that is soon to rise out of the Flint River.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Gimlet: They have nothing.

    Nothing.

    It’s all bullshit. Everyone involved in perpetuating this fraud should be gathered together and put on a rocket ship to the sun.

  46. 46.

    Bg

    @Kropadope: Justice Lewis is not a Republican & does not share the beliefs of those crackpots. Rick Scott has been trying to get rid of him for years; Scott tried to get him criminally prosecuted for having a court employee notarize something; Scott is trying to amend the Fla constitution to term limit him.

  50. 50.

    Gimlet

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Perception says the respectable “liberal” WP, not Fox News, thinks Hillary is damaged goods and should step down letting the perceived as respectable and good-buddy of Obama, Biden take her place.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: It can really be maddening. Did you look at the fine print after you pressed unsubscribe? Many times that says something like “okay, you’ll be removed in 10 days”.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    The Huffpo reports that Martin Shkreli is endorsing the Jebbush. Story doesn’t mention what happened when Pharmabro endorsed Bernie not long ago: Bernie refused his endorsement and gave his campaign donation away.

  53. 53.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Gimlet: I once heard a guy blathering about how the problem with this country was too many women in congress. I went home and donated to EMILY’s List in his name. I trust he’s still getting their mailings.

  54. 54.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @schrodinger’s cat: A guy showed up at the refuge with a shofar, a horn made from a ram’s horn that most of us gentiles know only from cheesy illustrations in our old Bible stories books. Igerard is thinking a fife, a piccolo-like instrument associated with Revolution-era armies, would be more thematically appropriate with some of the other elements of their LARP.

    (I’m not sure which part needed translating, so I tried to be complete. Assume infinite intelligence and complete ignorance, etc.)

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    Team Hot Ginger!

    Anyone watching the freak (not in a good way) show? Poor Jeb? hasn’t spoken yet.

    Loving this Christie trolling of Rubio telling the audience to look out for the 25 second memorized blurb.

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: not watching but from twitter this seems to be a pretty typical reaction:

    daveweigel ‏@ daveweigel 2m2 minutes ago
    Christie went Richie Aprile on Rubio

    So Christie could have gone all the way to Ralph Cifaretto but didn’t, or does Dave Wiegel have a poor understanding of the hierarchy of Sopranos bad guys?

    ETA: stupid word press

  61. 61.

    Mary G

    Marco Rubio is a bit like a Chatty Cathy doll, isn’t he? Pull the string in jis back and one of a few pre-recorded messages come out? He has said that Obama knows exactly what he is doing like three times already.

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    @Mary G:

    I’m picturing him standing in front of his bathroom mirror practicing these lines over and over and over again.

  64. 64.

    lgerard

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The story about Blaine Cooper also referenced some of the other unindicted occupiers, including Brand Thorton, the “shofar guy”

    The shofar seems to me to be an odd symbol for the “Bundy Revolution” given that they are always waving around copies of the Constitution, not the Talmud.

    A more appropriate instrument might be a fife, as seen in The Spirit of 76, and witnessed by myself on numerous occasions during the many American Revolutionary celebrations I seem to have run across in MA (helpful hint: do not stand near a fife player unless you have ear plugs)

    The “shofar guy” seems to travel around to a lot of these gatherings to blow his horn, he was at Finicum’s funeral, at the bird place and at the Bundy Ranch, as well as a few others I seem to dimly recall.

    I think that this is an odd way for an adult to spend his time, or maybe its just me

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: and the hand gestures. Somebody helps him develop the hand gestures. At least one guy, and his top aide are in the bathroom with him.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): He’s been suspected of 1) Stolen valor, which is in fact the case and 2) of being a government informant, which has not. Payne has also been accused of both. In the former he misrepresented his service: he was an Intel Scout not a Ranger – not even Ranger tabbed, in the latter he’s also been accused of being a government informant.

  76. 76.

    Zinsky

    I am not watching the debates, but need to vent about Rubio. They said Obama had almost no experience when he became president, but he had at least a few real world jobs. Look at Rubio’s life history on Wikipedia. He has had no discernible work history, other than going right to work for political campaigns right out of law school. The man is a complete failure.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Zinsky: He’s also going to eventually get seriously hit with the rumors that he was a teenage rent boy. And I’m not saying or insinuating he was. But there is a persistent low level rumor about this right now and I would expect that if he continues to either outperform expectations, be built up by the media as the moderate alternative and great GOP hope, or both that some of the other campaigns will begin using it.

  78. 78.

    billb

    Adam, thanks for the great coverage of my State’s situation. Real Oregonians are like the guy with the sign, and his lovely daughter. We like our cops, and firefighters. We have coffee with them, we would be honored to marry our kid to them. I love the lads in the pic, good serious Feds. AND they would have wiped the floor of the invading mormon Bundy-Clan. But they showed intelligence and restraint.
    Good Show FBI !!

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @billb: I’d like to say its my pleasure, but I’ll go with you’re welcome. This is what happens when you do the first post on something like this, you kind of get stuck with the entire series.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Yes, but no one who is talking can. I have a feeling, and its just a SWAG, that by involving himself in the Malheur standoff now that his son’s have been arrested that he may have tipped things from inaction/way and see/look for a good spot to do something to doing something. But we will have to wait and see what happens.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I think the funeral was either in AZ or Nevada. My understanding is that Finicum’s ranch is close to Arizona’s northern border. But it was unclear to me if the mourners went to see him or he ventured out. My understanding is he hasn’t left his property since the standoff. So basically he’s placed himself under house arrest.

  87. 87.

    a different chris

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, if they’re going to do it they need to do it before Trump picks him as his VP. Once that happens they won’t be able to touch him, because politics.

  88. 88.

    Soylent Green

    The funeral was in Kanab, Utah, on the Arizona border. I’ve been there because it’s on the way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was about a two-hour drive for Cliven to reach it from his home.

  91. 91.

    lgerard

    How come when Christie keeps talking about taking responsibility no one mentions the Bridge in the room?

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Her Dad showed up at a protest by the militia guys/Bundy supporters last week in Burns, insinuated himself in with them, and then held up his sign. This was reported as a counter protest and even more amusing because the protesters never really read/looked at his sign. Apparently someone from the FBI team in Burns saw it and arranged the second photo opportunity.

  101. 101.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Tacticool. When SF deploys they get relaxed grooming standards to fit in. Its seeped over into some of the law enforcement tactical response elements.

  103. 103.

    Aleta

    Hi Adam, If you’re still around, and care to comment, what do you make of David Fry’s new voice message — for starters, how would he have sent it ? (Hiking somewhere where he could use a hotspot to link to a cell tower?) He seems to be trying to debunk some misinformation that he thinks is public, although he seems misinformed about the existence of this misinformation….

    Being cut off would surely accelerate his paranoia. I’m hoping the FBI negotiators are skilled and lucky enough to keep tabs on that, and have other good options if needed. It seems like it would be hard for them to accurately assess mood swings over the phone. It must be extremely stressful for the negotiators, trying to safely get out four people whose moods are influencing each other. Sean Anderson seems to go through extremes.

    Do you think the PPN is offering to assist negotiators in getting them to leave? Supposedly PPN offered to go into the refuge a few days ago but weren’t allowed. I think that was before the indictments of Fry etc. became public. Would the PPN now refuse to work with negotiators (assuming they were invited), since Soper might consider the indictments “unlawful”? I wonder how much responsibility Soper feels for the lives of the four. Initially he defined his role as providing a buffer of safety between LEO and militants.

    Anyway, Fry now believes that the PPN has been compromised by infiltrators (based on his own misinformation).

  104. 104.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: But how did the symmetry of both sides (militia and LE responders) using conditioner on their beards come about?

    Also, I could swear I heard Jon R use the word “hygiening.” Is this military vocabulary? (I thought it was food processing terminology.)

  105. 105.

    lgerard

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Hmmm

    I just figured that he picked it up at a garage sale somewhere and his wife wouldn’t let him play it around the house, so he had to find other venues.

    He doesn’t have the same profile as the other participants in these gatherings

  106. 106.

    rawhide rawlins

    Screw all of those assholes. The guy that needs to be reigned in is Cliven. He’s their Guru. What is UP with this guy and his deal?

  107. 107.

    Amir Khalid

    I thought FBI agents dressed in business suits all the time. They certainly did when they were being played on TV by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and even by Duchovny and Anderson.
    Speaking of Zimbalist, I remember reading that J Edgar insisted he pass the background vetting for real FBI agents before Hoover would let him play one on TV. Did he really?

  108. 108.

    Aleta

    In the last 24 hours David Fry has gone from sending one hurried, secretive voice message out (for someone else to post for him), to now posting video after video on his youtube site (called defendyourbase). Some of the people in my extended family have bipolar; a couple are paranoid; one develops either schitz or psychotic breaks if the stress level gets too high. (A heavily armed libertarian turned sovereign citizen in the mix, too, quick to lock into aggressive anger.)

    From them I’ve learned that frustration, stress, isolation, anger, fatigue can trigger states of mind that don’t easily return to equilibrium on their own. Methods that I assume the FBI is using to convince Fry and friends to surrender — isolation, stress — seem especially delicate to use with Fry and friends. I keep wondering if Fry or Anderson is going to break in a way that won’t work in the effort to get them out without injury.

    Now Fry’s videos are getting increasingly frequent and angry. (Also, I hope they remember not to smoke around all the hay they have scattered around, with propane tanks and gas containers in the mix, too.) I hate what they are doing to a sacred place, and at the same time I think they have been badly and callously used.

    An article from N Geographic about what happens when the brain reaches a breaking point and aggressive anger takes over.

Comments are closed.