“White-Trash TERRORISTS!”

[KTJ]

from the Los Angeles Times....

George Washington would not side with the West's sagebrush rebels

By DAVID HORSEY | 12:30PM PST - Tuesday, January 05, 2016



THE armed militants who have taken over a national wildlife refuge in southeast Oregon need to study their country's earliest history. They justify their actions with a bogus interpretation of American law rooted in ideas born in the Reconstruction-era South that essentially denies the authority of the federal government to do much of anything. These misguided sagebrush rebels need to learn that the issue of the central government's power was largely settled back when George Washington was president.

In order to help pay off the big national and state debts incurred during the American Revolution, Washington's treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, proposed a tax on whiskey and other distilled spirits that Congress approved in 1790. The reaction to the tax out on the Western frontier — which, in those days, was Kentucky and western Pennsylvania — was negative and violent. Militias were formed, tax collectors were tarred and feathered, supporters of the tax were driven out of communities and armed confrontations ended with property destroyed and people killed.

This insurrection came to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion and it did not die down until Washington sent in a federalized militia force numbering close to 13,000 men.

The grievances of the militants back then would not be unfamiliar to the people who have seized the government buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Westerners of the 1790s believed only local governments had the authority to tax and they owed nothing to the federal government (then located in not-so-far-off Philadelphia). They also resented Easterners imposing on them a fee that big distillers could easily pay but that was more onerous for farmers and people of lesser means who made their own whiskey and often used it as an alternative currency in their barter economy.

Many of today's rural Westerners resent the grazing fees and environmental restrictions placed on them by the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies. This Sagebrush Rebellion has been underway with varying degrees of intensity since the 1970s, when conservationists finally got the feds to institute programs to better protect and preserve endangered western lands and wildlife. While this made perfect sense to people in cities far away, the ranchers, farmers, miners and drillers who were used to doing whatever they wanted with the land were up in arms — figuratively and, now, literally.

Until this latest incident, the most notorious rebellion against federal authority was the armed standoff between federal agents and a ragtag band of cowboys and gun-toting militants defending Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's defiant, decades-long refusal to pay grazing fees to the BLM. Now, two years later, two of Bundy's sons, Ryan and Ammon, are ringleaders in the occupation of the wildlife refuge.

The Bundy boys and their confederates claim God is telling them what to do, but the voices they hear are coming from right-wing talk radio and from a variety of extremists with curious interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. They want the federal government to give up ownership of millions of acres of western lands and return those lands to “the people.” Of course, it can be argued that the land already belongs to the people — everyone from Malibu to Montauk — and that turning vast areas of the country over to local governments and private owners will only guarantee that big extraction industries and careless ranching operations will exploit and destroy the nation's physical legacy, just as was happening 115 years ago before Theodore Roosevelt and the federal government first began stepping in to protect and manage the land on behalf of all U.S. citizens.

That is not the way the Bundys see things, of course. Unelected and unschooled in legal precedents, they still claim to speak for everybody. “It's up to us, We the People, to restore and defend the Constitution,” Ammon Bundy said in a tweet on Monday.

George Washington, whose name is on that Constitution, would disagree.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related news stories:

• Battle lines hardening in Nevada cattle rancher standoff with feds

• Crackpot Cliven Bundy waves the flag and flouts the law

• Federal officials arrest son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy

• Cliven Bundy supporter pleads guilty to threatening federal official

• Protesters led by Cliven Bundy's son occupy a building at Oregon wildlife refuge

• Armed activists in Oregon challenge government over federal control of public land

• How Oregon ranchers unwittingly sparked an armed standoff

• Meet the cast of colorful characters in the Oregon standoff

• Editorial: The federal government should use caution not to turn Oregon protesters into martyrs

www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-george-washington-sagebrush-rebels-20160105-story.html

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Not punishing the Bundys for the Nevada standoff led to the occupation in Oregon

If authorities let anti-government protesters get away with breaking the law, they'll keep doing it.

By DAVID NEIWERT | Thursday, January 07,2016


Ryan Bundy outside the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters near Burns, Oregon. — Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

IT HAS become a familiar scene: a cluster of armed “patriots” gathered at a rural locale in the West, protesting federal land-use policies and disputing the legitimacy of the government back in Washington, while nearby, law enforcement officers act stunned into submission.

That all unfolded again this past week in Burns, Oregon, as a group of activists with guns seized a federal building on a wildlife refuge and demanded freedom for a couple of ranchers convicted of arson and sentenced to mandatory minimum prison terms, in what they claim is another example of extreme federal overreach.

The local school district shut down, since it couldn't guarantee the safety of children traveling to and from school. Burns residents expressed agitation and exasperation with the standoff, since most, if not all, of the participants appear to live outside Harney County. The sheriff requested that the two dozen or so men holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge pack up and leave town.

If the news from Oregon seemed like deja vu all over again, that’s because it was: At the head of the protest were Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. Back in April 2014, Cliven grabbed headlines by holding Bureau of Land Management officials at bay in an armed standoff on his ranch in which bloodshed was, by all accounts, only narrowly averted.

So why do federal officials once again find themselves in this position — awkwardly wringing their hands in hopes that the radicals' demands and willpower will erode with a little time and cold weather? And facing the same cast of characters who humiliated law enforcement officials less than two years ago?

The answer, to a large extent, lies in that Nevada canyon where Bundy's compatriots aimed their weapons at the federal agents and police officers who had come to enforce a court order requiring the confiscation of the ranch's cattle, after Bundy refused for years to pay federal grazing fees for using public lands. When those guns were brandished, multiple violations of federal and state law occurred: It is a felony to point a weapon at a law enforcement officer and a federal felony to take aim at a U.S. government agent.

And yet there were no arrests that day. Moreover, despite the FBI's assumption shortly afterward of the investigation into weapons use at the Bundy ranch — along with vows to hold the people responsible for the standoff fully accountable — no meaningful action has yet been taken against anyone involved.

That includes, of course, Cliven Bundy himself (who still hasn't paid the fees and fines he owes the government) and his sons — who have now turned up in Oregon, threatening again to take over public lands, in defiance of the local community and the wishes of the people on whose behalf they’re ostensibly protesting, all in pursuit of their campaign to destroy the federal government's ability to administer land policies.

Bundy explained his rationale, such as it is, in a press release shortly before the occupation began: “The United States Justice Department has NO jurisdiction or authority within the State of Oregon, County of Harney over this type of ranch management. These lands are not under U.S. treaties or commerce, they are not article 4 territories, and Congress does not have unlimited power.”

The men leading the protest believe in an arcane interpretation of the Constitution that radically limits the reach and scope of the federal government — in their alternate universe, the county sheriff is the highest authority, while the feds are limited to regulating overseas trade and waging war. Derived from the racist swamplands of far-right extremism, their version of “constitutionalism” reflects a paranoid culture in which government officials are believed to be trading away Americans' freedom on behalf of a nefarious New World Order that seeks to enslave all mankind.

If federal law enforcement authorities had taken their roles as stewards of the rule of law seriously, many of these players would be facing justice in federal courts right now, instead of opportunistically raising hell out in poverty-stricken rural areas. Certainly, there is no small irony in the fact that the tepid response from federal authorities demonstrates how little resemblance they have to the tyrannical thugs the Bundys say they are. But it also shows how just that accusation, when wielded by white conservatives, can cause federal law enforcement to back down.

Ever since their April 2014 standoff, Bundy and his associated “patriots” in such movements as the far-right Oath Keepers have been attempting to force further armed showdowns over Western land policies. Last spring, they tried to organize a confrontation with BLM officials in southwestern Oregon over mining rights, but that effort eventually fizzled out. Another attempted showdown in Montana with the U.S. Forest Service, also over mining rights, wound up being overshadowed by the massive forest fires that hit the state this summer.

None of that should have been possible: There should have been a number of arrests after the nonsense at the Bundy ranch. That there were none not only emboldened these right-wing radicals — and encouraged them to believe that their bizarre misinterpretation of the Constitution has some legitimacy — but, in the case of the Bundy brothers, directly empowered them to carry on as they did before.

“We believe these armed extremists have been emboldened by what they saw as a clear victory at the Cliven Bundy ranch and the fact that no one was held accountable for taking up arms against agents of the federal government,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project.

The failure of federal law enforcement to adequately respond to this kind of threatening behavior has also become a source of low morale in agencies the Bundys and their ilk like to demonize, such as the BLM and the Forest Service. This is particularly the case among federal field employees, who, according to those I've spoken with, are encountering increasing incidents of radicalized (and armed) “patriots” claiming that the agencies have no jurisdiction on federal lands.

That's not to suggest that federal law enforcement should respond immediately with tactical units and guns blazing. That approach was attempted in the 1990s at two armed standoffs with far-right extremists — at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho and at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas — to disastrous effect. Those incidents inspired a fresh wave of far-right radicalism (including the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) and were seen by many on the right as omens of looming government oppression.

It's understandable that federal law enforcement might be reluctant to act precipitously after those disasters. A failure to act in any way whatsoever, though, invites more of the same and certain escalation, as the Oregon standoff demonstrates.

The brass back in Washington and agents in field offices throughout the West should look back to a different, less infamous siege from 20 years ago, one that offers a more helpful model for responding to these situations. In 1996, a group calling itself the Montana Freemen — which operated a number of money-making scams and made armed threats against county officials in Jordan, Montana — similarly defied the federal government in an attempt to create its own homeland out on the prairie.

It took 81 days to wait them out, during the harsh Montana winter and into the muddy Montana spring, but rather than rush in, as in Waco and Ruby Ridge, FBI negotiators eventually persuaded all the people inside the Freemen compound to surrender peacefully. Several of the chief perpetrators wound up doing extensive federal prison time for a variety of bank, wire and mail fraud charges, as well as for making threats against county and federal officials.

There can be a middle ground between the bloodshed of Ruby Ridge and Waco and the tacit acceptance of what's going on in Burns. We know from how the FBI handled the Freemen that federal authorities are perfectly capable of bringing extremists who brandish weapons and threaten government employees to justice without creating martyrs or worsening the situation. Somehow, in the intervening 20 years — and amid the changes in administrations along the way, not to mention personnel and law enforcement philosophies — that lesson got lost.

Federal authorities in the Justice Department and elsewhere have seemingly made a tactical decision to avoid confronting right-wing radicals, though their rationale has never been made clear. Maybe they fear backlash from a conservative media pack that has made efforts to track and confront right-wing extremist terrorism difficult, if not impossible, for federal law enforcement agencies (thanks in no small part to the nonsensical uproar that arose in 2009 over a Department of Homeland Security bulletin regarding recruitment and terrorist violence among right-wing extremists). But no one from any federal agency has come forward to explain their inaction, and in the meantime, people like the Bundys are taking exactly the wrong lessons from it.

What's become abundantly clear in Oregon is that federal agents made a horrific mistake in failing to enforce the law after the Bundy ranch showdown. They are paying the price for that failure now. Maybe it's time they remembered that it's possible to stand up for the rule of law without breaking it.

• David Neiwert is a freelance investigative journalist based in Seattle and the author of several books, including “And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border” He is also a correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Read more on this topic:

• The complicated history of who “owns” public land in Oregon

www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/07/not-punishing-the-bundys-for-the-nevada-standoff-led-to-the-occupation-in-oregon

[KTJ]

[KTJ]

[slartibartfast]

Zimmerman on the right.

[KTJ]

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

‘These buildings will never, ever return to the federal government’

By JOE HEIM | 6:29PM EST - Saturday, January 16, 2016


“It needs to be very clear that these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government,” said LaVoy Finicum, one of the leaders
of the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. — Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

BURNS, OREGON — The shout startles everyone: “Provocateur at the gate!”

A young man runs through the communal kitchen at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, two others fast behind. They are dressed in camouflage and pulling on military-style vests. All three wear black balaclavas as they rush outside and run to the front entrance of the headquarters that has been held by anti-government occupiers for the past two weeks.

The burst of turmoil interrupts an otherwise quiet afternoon. Several dozen armed men and women now control this federal facility in remote southeastern Oregon, a growing siege staged to protest the imprisonment of two local ranchers and a federal government that they say is out of control. They spend their days concocting strategies, meeting with reporters and well-wishers, and organizing mundane chore charts, all while remaining on hair-trigger alert to any effort to infiltrate their ranks or forcibly end the occupation.

There is no visible law enforcement presence for miles; the occupiers are free to come and go as they please. Still, the group's members are certain that their movements and communications are being monitored by police and the FBI. They listen for drones, stare down passing vehicles and keep a 360-degree watch from a 150-foot observation tower adjacent to the compound. They are on guard.

On this day, the threat quickly dissipates. “All stations be advised the provocateur is driven off,” a voice crackles over a hand-held radio a few minutes after the commotion in the kitchen.

But it's a brittle peace. LaVoy Finicum, a 54-year-old Arizona rancher and one of the group's leaders, says the siege will continue until the federal government cedes control of the 187,000-acre refuge to Harney County.

“It needs to be very clear that these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government,” says Finicum, who wears a cowboy hat and a Colt .45 pistol holstered on his hip.

Federal authorities have kept mum on the situation, but many of the 7,000 or so residents of this massive rural county aren't happy with the armed takeover of Malheur. Last week, Harney County Judge Steve E. Grasty, the county's top elected official, refused to permit the occupiers to use the fairgrounds or any other county facility to meet with people from the nearby town of Burns.

“We were not going to make a public facility available to any group connected with criminal activity,” Grasty said in an interview. “We have seen them take over public buildings before, so who's to say they wouldn't do that again?”

With no resolution in sight, people are growing increasingly apprehensive about how long all of this will last. And how all of this will end.

Flash point of frustration

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, sits in a vast high-desert basin circled by mountain ranges. Burns, a town of 2,800 and the county seat, is 30 miles away on a narrow, two-lane road. Covered in new snow, the beautiful, austere refuge feels as removed from civilization as the moon and almost as desolate.

How it came to be the site of the latest anti-government showdown is as much a story about the two imprisoned ranchers as it is a sign of long-standing frustration with the federal government’s land management in the West.

The ranchers, Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, were convicted in 2012 of arsons on federal land that they committed in 2001 and 2006. Both served prison time and were released. But last fall, a federal appellate judge ruled that their sentences were too lenient and ordered them back to jail.

The decision provoked a heated response from many in Harney County, who considered the Hammonds good neighbors who had already served their time. It also got the attention of Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose decades-long dispute over unpaid grazing fees escalated into a showdown between federal officials and armed protesters in 2014. Law enforcement officers eventually backed away; Cliven Bundy still refuses to pay the fees.

Ammon Bundy, 40, runs a business near Phoenix. He met with the Hammonds in December and led a January 2nd march to protest both their impending imprisonment and overreach by the federal government. An hour before the march, the Bundy brothers and others hatched a plan to seize the Malheur refuge and encourage others to join them.

Two weeks later, Ammon Bundy sits at a desk in a refuge administrative office. A documentary crew working on a film about Western land use is peppering him with questions. He is soft-spoken, articulate, impassioned and certain of his positions.

After the crew leaves, he admits that he is tired. Asked if he wishes things had unfolded differently, he sits up and leans forward.

“Everything is happening just like it’s supposed to,” he says. “That's what you have when you have divine guidance that is assisting. The right people come. The right words are said.”

While there is some local support for the occupation, many attempts to win public sympathy have backfired. The occupiers tore down part of a fence separating the refuge from the property of a local rancher, who told the Oregonian newspaper that he did not approve of the action.

Birders, hunters and fisherman have joined forces on social media under the hashtag #takebackMalheur.

When occupiers put out a call for supplies to get them through the winter, opponents sent nail polish, pedicure socks and a 55-gallon drum of “passion” lubricant — courtesy of a co-creator of the popular Cards Against Humanity game, Esquire magazine reported. Meanwhile, the Burns Paiute Tribe, which considers the reserve part of its ancestral territory, is urging the federal government to prosecute the occupiers for trampling ancient burial grounds and potentially looting sacred artifacts, some as much as 10,000 years old.


Armed occupiers take lookout duty in this watchtower at the Malheur refuge near Burns, Oregon.
— Photograph: Rick Bowmer/Associated Press.

On Friday, one of the protesters was arrested in Burns and charged with theft of federal property after he drove a refuge pickup truck into town. It was the first arrest since the occupation began.

Ammon Bundy dismisses concerns that he and the other occupiers could face criminal charges for the takeover. In his view, the federal government has no legal authority to act because Washington had no constitutional authority to establish the refuge in the first place. But he also says he has no idea how or when the siege will end.

“Our desire is for this to be a peaceful effort to restore rights,” he said. “But no one should stand by and let their rights be taken when it comes to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

A growing occupation

With each passing day, more gun-toting people arrive, from Alabama, Utah, North Carolina, Georgia. The vast majority are white men, but others are coming, too.

A woman from California, who would identify herself only as a mom, said she came to be on the right side of history.

And Brendan Dowd, who is black, drove from Colorado Springs to “fight against all the negative things the federal government is doing.” Dowd, 31, said it was “time for the people to stand up and take control.”

As the occupation grows, the refuge is being transformed into a hive of revolutionary rhetoric and frantic homemaking. What was an exercise room is now a massive pantry, brimming with such staples as flour, eggs and beef, and such non-staples as Swiss Miss instant cocoa, Cheetos and Cheez-Its.

A large American flag hangs on the wall of a communal meeting room, a larger flat-screen TV below it. Nearby, a whiteboard is crammed with inspirational messages: “The loudest person in the room is usually the weakest in the room”; “Truth Has No Agenda — It's The Truth!” In the hallway leading to the bunk rooms another sign is posted: “Quiet please. Don't slam doors! Men and women sleeping.”

Jason Patrick, a former roofer from Georgia, arrived in December. Like many occupiers, he carries a copy of the Constitution in his pocket and refers frequently to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, which he says limits federal authority to the District of Columbia and lands purchased with consent of the states.

Patrick, 43, has a graying beard and wears a camouflage baseball cap with an upside down American flag insignia — a logo adopted by anti-government activists as a symbol of a nation in distress. He's sitting at the wheel of a beat-up Chevy pickup truck and smoking a Marlboro Light. The Great Recession hit him hard, he says, and he became increasingly fed up with what he thinks is an oppressive government that no longer answers to the people.

“We have anarchy now, but it's the government that practices it,” Patrick says. “They can say and do whatever they want, with no accountability.”

Deep criticism of the federal government exists outside the compound, as well. Residents of Harney County, one of the poorest in the state, say that it is hard to find a job and harder still to find one that pays well. Many share a general sense that the federal government overregulates the vast stretches of Western land under its control. But the local and federal governments are also among the county's biggest employers. It is not easy to find a family without some connection to a government job.

While the occupiers have won support from some county residents, others are fiercely opposed, and the rift is testing the bonds of friendship. One local business owner, who declined to be identified for fear of escalating the conflict, said he told his employees to stop talking about the occupation at work because it was causing too much friction.

“I hate it,” said Grasty, the Harney County judge. “This place is full of good people. It's my home. But this is tearing us apart. I've lost friends.”

For now, the protesters remain firmly in place. The FBI has established a command center in Burns at the small city-owned airport outside of the town center, but law enforcement continues to maintain a low profile. And a resolution feels very far away.

On Thursday, a supporter drove to the refuge from neighboring Nevada to drop off 180 pounds of frozen meat. The occupiers are hunkering down, ready for whatever.

Near the refuge entrance, Corey Lequieu sits on an ATV with an AR-15 rifle slung across his lap.

The 45-year-old Army veteran from Nevada has just finished a four-hour shift in the observation tower. If the feds come, he says, he'll be ready.

“What's the worst they can do — kill me?”

Back in Burns, a clerk at one of the town's few motels said the FBI has booked rooms through March.

• Joe Heim joined The Washington Post in 1999. He is currently a staff writer for the Metro section's Local Enterprise team. He also writes Just Asking, a weekly Q&A column in the Sunday magazine and is the paper's resident Downton Abbey expert.

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More on this topic:

• PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What it looks like at the armed occupation at a wildlife refuge in Oregon

• The Oregon standoff and America's double standards on race and religion

• Oregon sheriff meets with armed group occupying wildlife refuge and asks them to leave

• The government closed its offices in Oregon days before the armed takeover due to fears of violence

www.washingtonpost.com/local/these-buildings-will-never-ever-return-to-the-federal-government/2016/01/16/101cb8f2-bbe4-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html

[KTJ]

The Feds need to grow some balls and send in a couple of heavily-armed SWAT teams to sort-out those “white-trash terrorists” once and for all.

And in the meantime, before the SWAT teams go in, they need to blockade all roads into the occupied reserve and cut off all supplies going in.

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Federal Diary: Feds face harassment from extremists related to Oregon takeover

By JOE DAVIDSON | Sunday, January 17, 2016


An occupier stands on a road at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns on Monday, January 4th, 2016.
— Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters.

AS scandalous as it is that federal employees have been kept from their workplaces because armed intruders have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, now those staffers are being warned they might be victimized by “paper terrorism”.

An email sent to agency leaders Friday warned that self-appointed judges associated with the right-wing sovereign citizen movement might “try to issue indictments, serve papers, or arrest local officials and/or federal employees.” Those papers would have no legal authority, but would serve to bully workers.

Federal workers in the area also have been harassed while shopping, and their personal information at the refuge has been breached.

The email from the Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service in Portland said there are “concerns about the potential for ‘paper terrorism’, where these individuals might attempt to file liens on property belonging to local officials or federal employees.” The information was meant for dissemination to area Forest Service employees, those with the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the refuge.

So far, there have been no reports of paper or violent terrorism against federal employees, but they have been targets of intimidation in Burns, Oregon, where some employees live. Nearby federal offices, in addition to the refuge, have been closed as a precaution.

“As this issue has developed over the past week, our employees and their loved ones have reported a number of uncomfortable incidences in which unknown individuals from outside the Burns community have driven slowly past or idled in front of their homes, observing the residents and their activities,” said Megan Nagel, a FWS spokeswoman. “In addition, self-identified militia members have tried to engage employees and family members in debates about their status as federal employees. Many of these confrontations are taking place as our employees are grocery shopping, running errands with their families and trying to lead their day-to-day lives. While not direct physical threats, these activities are clearly designed to intimidate.”

Nagel also said the trespassers “have broken into locked files containing personal information, such as names and addresses, of employees, volunteers and businesses that have worked with the Refuge in the past 10 years.”

A sovereign citizen representative could not be located. LaVoy Finicum, one of the Malheur interlopers, said they had no connection to the movement. “There are no sovereign citizens here that I know of at all,” he said by telephone.

The intruders have been allowed to come and go as they please, while law enforcement has made no attempt to evict them, not even making them uncomfortable by cutting utilities.

A 2010 statement from the FBI defines the sovereign movement as a domestic terrorism threat. Sovereign citizens don't believe they must “answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.” Yet they “clog up the court system with frivolous lawsuits and liens against public officials to harass them,” according to the FBI. The sovereign citizens also create their own make-believe courts that issue warrants against public officials.

Last year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general issued a warning about scams in which HUD-owned residential buildings are illegally occupied by sovereign citizens who deed the property to themselves. They claim a “right to arrest or sue employees of the ‘illegitimate government’,” the warning said. “They are known for filing nuisance lawsuits or liens against individuals who try to stop their schemes, which have involved in lender, credit card, tax, and loan frauds.”

Although the FBI makes a distinction between armed militias and what it calls the sovereign citizen extremist movement, the inspector general and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, say Terry Nichols, a convicted co-conspirator in the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building, was linked to the sovereign citizen movement.

Meanwhile, the two-week standoff continues, with law enforcement officers refusing to comment on calls for them to take action.

Saying “this hostile occupation is a clear act of sedition,” National Federation of Federal Employees President William R. Dougan said federal authorities have “enabled lawlessness to go unchecked in the eyes of the nation and emboldened additional militia sympathizers to descend on the area. Enough is enough. The militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge must be arrested.”

One of the intruders, bold enough to drive a government truck into town, was arrested for stealing it. But the invaders remain untouched in a building on the refuge, cozy with the utilities the government has not turned off.

This makes no sense to Representative Peter A. DeFazio (Democrat-Oregon), who blasted authorities on the House floor Friday.

“Well, the lights and the heat are on at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, illegally occupied by ultra-right-wing, anti-government extremists,” he said. “But you have to wonder if the lights are on or anybody is home down there at the Justice Department…. It is time for the Justice Department to take some action. Wake up down there.”

• Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about federal government and workplace issues that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.

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Read more on this topic:

• Wildlife refuge takeover shows dangers confronting feds

• Threats, hostility preceded Oregon refuge occupation

www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2016/01/17/feds-face-harassment-from-extremists-related-to-oregon-takeover

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Conservation groups demand end to refuge occupation

By TERRENCE PETTY - Associated Press | Tuesday, January 19, 2016


Demonstrators, including environmentalists, bird watchers and sportsmen, gather in front the Statehouse in Boise, Idaho
on Tuesday, January 19th, 2016 to protest against the recent occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in
southeastern Oregon by group of armed activists. More than 100 protesters gathered calling for the arrest and
prosecution of the group for taking over public land. — Photograph: Kimberlee Kruesi/Associated Press.

PORTLAND, OREGON — With the armed takeover of a national wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon in its third week, Ammon Bundy and his group are still trying to muster up broad community support — so far without much luck.

Bundy has drawn a lot of attention to the dissatisfaction of ranchers and local townsfolk with federal land-use policies in the West. But the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has also begun to result in pushback from others who use public lands — birders, hunters and hikers, among others.

Here are some things to know about how conservation groups are trying to rally public pressure on Bundy to leave, and what Bundy is doing to try to win more sympathizers.

GROWING PUSHBACK AGAINST THE OCCUPATION

On Tuesday, several hundred people rallied in Portland — about 300 miles north of the remote refuge in southeastern Oregon — to demand Bundy end the occupation and to point out that federal management makes it possible for all kinds of people to enjoy public lands.

Protesters chanted “Birds, Not Bullies,” a reference to the Malheur refuge's creation in 1908 as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds. The rally was organized by Oregon Wild, Portland Audubon and the Center for Biological Diversity.

“This occupation represents a threat to public lands,” said Bob Sallinger with the Audubon Society. “These are not political statements. These are crimes.”

In Boise, more than 100 people attended a similar protest Tuesday in front of the Idaho Capitol. Ann Finley, a member of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness, said that the refuge is a special place.

“I love our free lands, and we're out here today stepping out and saying those lands should remain public,” Finley said.

Conservation groups have also shown up at the refuge itself to demand that Bundy and his followers leave, and last weekend got into a shouting match with Bundy's group.

BUNDY'S COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Bundy has had trouble winning many friends who aren't militants, or even finding a place where he could spell out his views to people living near the refuge. His plans to hold a community meeting at the local fairground tanked when Harney County said he couldn't hold it there.

Still, Bundy isn't giving up. On Monday night, Bundy held a meeting at a hot springs resort near Crane, Oregon, where he tried to persuade 30 or so ranchers to stop paying the federal government to graze their cattle on public lands. It does not appear he persuaded many to follow his advice.

WILL PUSHBACK BY CONSERVATION GROUPS HAVE ANY IMPACT?

Bundy's most fervent supporters — those holed up inside headquarters of the wildlife refuge — continue to be militants from outside Oregon. Bundy has demanded federal lands in Harney County be handed over to locals. While many local residents want Bundy and his group to leave, they also back his views on federal land policies. Bundy's game plan may be to continue to try to win local support and to draw as much attention as possible to his complaints against the federal government.

The small, armed group Bundy leads has said repeatedly that local people should control federal lands. Bundy has repeatedly told reporters the group would leave when there was a plan in place to turn over federal lands to locals — a common refrain in a decades-long fight over public lands in the West. At a Tuesday news conference, Bundy said “we're not going anywhere” until his group gets its goals accomplished.

WHAT'S LAW ENFORCEMENT DOING ABOUT THIS?

The situation at the refuge is being carefully monitored by FBI agents sent to the area, by Oregon State Police and by the local sheriff. Last week, the first arrest related to the occupation came when a militant driving a vehicle belonging to the refuge drove 30 miles into Burns to buy groceries. He was arrested on probable cause for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Bundy's group has been using federal vehicles on the refuge. If they drive them off the refuge, they can probably count on being arrested.

• Associated Press reporters Gosia Wozniacka in Portland and Kimberlee Kruesi in Boise contributed to this report.

www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/conservation-groups-demand-end-to-refuge-occupation/2016/01/19/bb83a94e-beff-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html

[pim]

Jan 17, 2016 15:43:30 GMT 10 KTJ said:

The Feds need to grow some balls and send in a couple of heavily-armed SWAT teams to sort-out those “white-trash terrorists” once and for all.

And in the meantime, before the SWAT teams go in, they need to blockade all roads into the occupied reserve and cut off all supplies going in.

Usual KTJ spam overkill so I'll just respond to the only post of his where he says what he thinks. KTJ I think you spam the thread to dominate the topic. Certainly I expect that rather than allow people like me to contribute to the thread you'll "respond" to this post by spamming it with half a dozen more cut & pastes complete with photographs that take up so much space that this post will be spammed to oblivion and nobody will be able to see it in order to respond to it without scrolling and scrolling back ... back ...


However, it's what you do and you probably can't help yourself. That's not a sympathetic attempt at empathy on my part, more a reflection on your immaturity in the way you take what is actually a serious topic and cherry pick it to skim off the sensational bits. To treat it as tabloid "porn".


But there is one little nugget among all your dross and that's the piece from the Washington Post with the headline Not punishing the Bundys for the Nevada standoff led to the occupation in Oregon which completely contradicts and gives the opposite message to your gung ho "send in the SWAT team". You obviously don't read all your own spam. Or if you do you don't understand it.

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Leaders of occupation at refuge in Oregon arrested;
1 killed, another wounded in highway confrontation

By SARAH KAPLAN | 5:43AM EST - Wednesday, January 27, 2016


An Oregon State Police officer stands in front of a roadblock. — Photograph: Associated Press.

AFTER an exchange of gunfire that left one man dead and another injured, the two brothers who orchestrated the armed occupation of a remote central Oregon wildlife refuge were taken into custody along with six of their followers ON Tuesday.

Meanwhile, The Oregonian reported that police had set up roadblocks around the occupied refuge and were urging those inside to leave. It appeared that few took up the offer, the Oregon paper reported: as of midnight Pacific Time, the lights were still on.

The encounter with police on a frozen stretch of highway north of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where a small cast of gun-toting, cowboy hat and camouflage-wearing anti-government activists had been camped out for weeks, was a dramatic break in the the tense, three-week standoff with local and federal authorities — at least, for leaders Ammon and Ryan Bundy.

Other participants in the siege remained at the refuge, even as they received word that their de facto spokesperson, LaVoy Finicum, had been killed in the confrontation with police and that eight other occupiers were either arrested or turned themselves in. Authorities did not release the names of man killed or the other wounded, reported by The Oregonian to be Ryan Bundy.

The standoff in Oregon aroused passion and controversy across the country, in part because the government took little action to stop it, reportedly fearing a repeat of the heavy loss of life when federal agents broke up a siege at a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993, resulting in the deaths of four federal officers and 82 civilians.

So the stalemate persisted. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the Bundys and several other occupiers reportedly left the refuge to attend a community meeting 100 miles away in John Day, Oregon. About halfway to their destination, they were ordered to stop by the FBI and Oregon State Police.

Authorities did not describe what happened next, though The Oregonian reported that Ryan Bundy and Finicum resisted orders to surrender. Ultimately, gunfire broke out.

The end result was a terse announcement from the FBI in Oregon: Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho; Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nevada; Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada; Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah and Ryan Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Montana had been arrested and faced federal felony charges of conspiracy to impede officers. A sixth person, who authorities did not name, had died in the encounter.

Arianna Finicum Brown, the daughter of LaVoy Finicum, told The Oregonian on Tuesday that her father was the man killed during the exchange of gunfire.

“My dad was such a good, good man, through and through,” Brown told the Oregon paper. “He would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.”

In addition, multiple sources told The Washington Post that Ryan Bundy was shot in the arm during the arrest. The FBI statement said that one individual had been injured during the shooting and was treated at a local hospital before being taken into police custody.

The initial arrests, around 4:25 local time, seemed to set off a chain reaction. About an hour and a half after the first encounter, Oregon State Police apprehended Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, a 45-year-old occupier from Cottonwood, Arizona known as “Captain”, during a separate event in Burns. Soon after that, Peter Santilli — a 50-year-old from Cincinnati known for his live streams of refuge events — was also arrested in Burns, which is the Harney County seat.

Meanwhile in Peoria, Arizona, Jon Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself into the local police department. Ritzheimer, an outspoken participant in the takeover, was also wanted on a federal conspiracy charge.

But Jason Patrick, an occupier who remained at the Malheur refuge Tuesday night, told The Washington Post that the arrests don't change his group's demands. He wouldn't say how many people remain at the refuge, or who else was with him, but said they don't plan to pick up and leave because of the day's events.

“Right now, we're doing fine,” he told The Post by phone. “We're just trying to figure out how a dead cowboy equals peaceful resolution.”

Patrick and another occupier both told The Post that Finicum was the man who died. And on Tuesday night, the Facebook page for Bundy Ranch — the site of a confrontation between the Bundy brothers' father, Cliven, and the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 — posted a statement condemning what they described as Finicum's “murder”.

The 54-year-old rancher from Cane Beds, Arizona, had previously told NBC News that he'd rather die than be arrested. On Wednesday his followers were portraying him as a martyr “who stood for your children's liberty.”


Lavoy Finicum (top), Ammon Bundy (left) and Ryan Bundy. — Photographs montage: Associated Press.

Finicum was a prominent public figure and something of a spokesperson for the occupiers at the Malheur Refuge — a remote expanse of windswept wetland known mostly as a mecca for birders before it became the site of the latest showdown over land use, government overreach, community and the Constitution.

Talking to The Washington Post in mid-January, Finicum explained that the armed group planned to remain at the wildlife refuge, which is operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, until all 187,000 acres of it were “returned” to Harney County and private ownership.

“It needs to be very clear that these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government,” he said at the time, a white cowboy hat perched atop his head, a Colt .45 pistol holstered at his hip.

The takeover of the Malheur Refuge had begun two weeks earlier, after a January 2nd march in Burns to protest the imprisonment of local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. The father and son had been convicted of committing arson on public land in 2012, and last fall a federal judge ruled that their sentences had been too lenient and ordered them back to jail.

The Hammonds' case provoked a heated response in Harney County, and caught the attention of a wide swath of anti-government activists far outside of it. Among the hundreds who flocked to Burns to express their outrage over the decision were Ammon and Ryan Bundy. The brothers knew a thing or two about land disputes — their father, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, was at the center of an armed confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees back in 2014.

After the rally, Ammon Bundy, a 40-year-old from Idaho, issued an impassioned call to arms to his fellow protesters.

“Those who want to go take a hard stand,” he declared, according to people in attendance, “get in your trucks and follow me!”

A small splinter group drove to the refuge, located about 30 miles south of Burns, and a rotating cast of occupiers have remained holed up there ever since.

The group, which comprises anti-government activists from around the country, have been living and holding meetings in the vacant Malheur Refuge headquarters. Oregon Governor Kate Brown (Democrat) said the occupiers' presence there cost taxpayers some half a million dollars. They were also accused of destroying government property and harassing law enforcement and Burns residents.

Meanwhile, a wide-ranging debate has raged nationally over the causes of the occupation, the nature of its participants, the role of government, the purpose of public land, the appropriate response to an armed takeover of a federal building, the meaning of the word “terrorist” and whether it was okay to send sex toys to the occupiers after they asked the public to donate “supplies and snacks”.

But at the center of it all is a long-running conflict over land use in the West, where huge swaths of the landscape are publicly owned.

“We're out here because the people have been abused long enough, their lands and their resources have been taken from them to the point that it is putting them literally into poverty,” Ammon Bundy, clad in a brown rancher hat and thick flannel coat, told reporters the morning after he and his fellow occupiers moved into the Malheur headquarters. He announced that the occupiers aimed to help ranchers, loggers and others who wanted to use the previously protected land, which the Bundys believe should never have been controlled by the federal government in the first place.

“We will be here as a unified body of people that understand the principles of the Constitution,” he said.

In Oregon, more than half the land in the state is federally controlled. The government issues permits for grazing, mining and logging — major sources of income in the rural part of the state where the Malheur Refuge sits. But it also lays down environmental regulations and restrictions to protect wildlife, threatening the livelihoods of actual people, some in Oregon say.

“What people in Western states are dealing with is the destruction of their way of life,” B.J. Soper, a father of four from Bend, Oregon who was once a professional rodeo rider, told The Post in early January. “When frustration builds up, people lash out.”

The rally in defense of the Hammonds was largely the outcome of that frustration. But even people who had attended the march were dismayed by the Bundy brother's next move.

“It's anarchy… What we have here is old-style thinking, that might is right,” said Len Vohs, who was mayor of Burns from 2008 to 2010. Pointing out that the Bundys and most other occupiers weren't even from Burns, he added, “the majority of us support the Hammonds, but we don't need outsiders telling us what to do.”



On January 4th, two days into the Malheur takeover, the Hammonds turned themselves into federal custody without incident. In a news conference that afternoon, Harney County Sheriff David Ward told the occupiers it was time to leave.

“To the people at the wildlife refuge: You said you were here to help the citizens of Harney County. That help ended when a peaceful protest became an armed occupation,” he said. “The Hammonds have turned themselves in. It's time for you to leave our community, go home to your families and end this peacefully.”

Criticism of the takeover made for strange bedfellows: Oregon's Democratic governor, conservationists and members of the Paiute tribe (who consider the area of the refuge sacred ancestral land) issued calls to end the occupation of the refuge. But so did a so-called patriot movement known as the “Three Percenters”, which pledges armed resistance to anything that infringes on the Constitution.

The standoff prompted mockery from some corners — people sent the occupiers glitter bombs and sex toys — and sympathy from others. It also sparked a debate about how the occupiers would be treated if they were African American or Muslim, rather than white.

Meanwhile, federal authorities did little to dislodge the Bundys and their followers as the occupation stretched into days and then weeks. On January 4th, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said that the takeover was a “local law enforcement matter,” although the FBI was monitoring the situation.

But Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association foundation, said that Earnest was mistaken.

“We are entrusted with protection of federal buildings,” he told The Post on January 7th. “It is primarily our responsibility.”

Some worried that the prolonged success of armed standoffs like those at Malheur and Cliven Bundy’s ranch in 2014 would only encourage further showdowns. Governor Brown and local officials in Burns demanded to know why U.S. officials hadn't taken action.

Last Thursday, Brown sent a letter to the FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking them “to end the unlawful occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as safely and as quickly as possible.”

But federal authorities took a largely hands-off approach, saying they wanted to reach a peaceful resolution. That caution likely reflected concerns that a direct confrontation could end in violence, like those that occurred in Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho in the 1990s.

Last week Bundy began participating in talks with the FBI, according to the Associated Press. But he balked when federal authorities said they wanted to conduct the conversations in private.

It's not clear how far the talks with the FBI got before the arrests.

Like Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the rest of those arrested on Tuesday came from all across the West and as far east as Ohio. Payne, an army veteran from Montana, had participated in Cliven Bundy's protest in 2014 and drove to Oregon from his home in Montana for the Malheur takeover. Cox, who sometimes spoke on behalf of the occupiers, had come from Utah, while Ritzheimer — a Marine Corps veteran known nationally before the occupation for organizing protests and selling profane t-shirts denouncing Islam — visited from Arizona.

The news of the arrests was met with relief from conservationists and public officials. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (Democrat) applauded the law enforcement response in a statement on Tuesday night.

“I am pleased that the FBI has listened to the concerns of the local community and responded to the illegal activity occurring in Harney County by outside extremists,” he said in a statement. “The leaders of this group are now in custody and I hope that the remaining individuals occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge will peacefully surrender so this community can begin to heal the deep wounds that this illegal activity has created over the last month.”

Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Tuscon-based Center for Biological Diversity, has spent the past two weeks in Burns following the occupation. He also issued a statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting on Tuesday after hearing the news.

“I'm saddened to see this standoff culminating in violence,” it said. “But the Bundys and their followers showed up armed to the teeth and took over lands that belong to all American people. We hope and pray those remaining at the compound surrender peacefully and immediately. Here's hoping cooler heads now prevail in southeastern Oregon and we can return to a semblance of peace and civility.”


Ammon Bundy, one of the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, arrives for a news conference at Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge near Burns, Oregon, on Wednesday, January 6th, 2016. — Photograph: Rick Bowmer/Associated Press.

But an image posted on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page condemned the violent outcome.

“Tonight peaceful patriots were attacked on a remote road for supporting the constitution. One was killed,” it read. “Who are the terrorists?”

Ammon Bundy, 40, has lived in Arizona and Idaho. His brother Ryan, 43, runs a construction company in Cedar City, Utah. In 2014, their father Cliven Bundy spearheaded an armed standoff with federal agents in Nevada.

In a video posted on New Year's Day, Ammon Bundy described the occupation as a “righteous cause” that he and others were obligated to take on.

“I began to understand how the Lord felt about Harney County and about this country, and I clearly understood that the Lord was not pleased,” he said.

The occupation at the Malheur refuge has also attracted anti-government activists from across the West.

Ryan Payne, an army veteran from Montana and one of the six people arrested on Tuesday, had participated in Cliven Bundy's standoff in Nevada in 2014, according to The Oregonian. After reading about the family's dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees, he drove 12 hours overnight to their ranch, an act that reportedly impressed Bundy.

Payne has been a fixture in the standoff since the beginning. As protesters gathered in Burns late last month, just before the beginning of the occupation, Payne told The Oregonian that the “militia” would defend Harney County residents if they decided to defy law enforcement and establish a sanctuary for the Hammonds.

“We're sending the message: We will protect you,” Payne said.

Cox, another of the arrested occupiers, spoke to Fox about the occupation in early January. A resident of southern Utah, she read aloud a letter on behalf of the group of occupiers, who call themselves “Citizens for Constitutional Freedom”.

The letter demanded that the Hammonds' case be reviewed by an “independent evidential hearing board.”

Ritzheimer, who surrendered to officials in Peoria, Arizona on Tuesday, was recognized nationally before the Oregon standoff for organizing protests and selling profane t-shirts denouncing Islam. This month, the Marine from Arizona became better known for an online video he posted complaining about the delivery of sex toys sent to the refuge to mock the occupiers.

The occupation of the refuge has been condemned by local and federal officials, who say that the takeover has cost taxpayers some half a million dollars.

Meanwhile, an image posted on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page condemned the violent outcome.

“Tonight peaceful patriots were attacked on a remote road for supporting the constitution. One was killed,” it read. “Who are the terrorists?”

Armed occupier Jason Patrick, who was at the Malheur refuge on Tuesday, said that the arrests don't change his group's demands. He wouldn't say how many people remain at the refuge, or who else was with him, but said they don't plan to pick up and leave because of Tuesday's events.

“Right now, we're doing fine,” he told The Washington Post by phone. “We're just trying to figure out how a dead cowboy equals peaceful resolution.”

• Sarah Kaplan is a reporter for The Washington Post's Morning Mix.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

• What we know about the occupied federal building in rural Oregon

• ‘These buildings will never, ever return to the federal government’

• The Oregon refuge occupied by Bundy is one of the first wildlife sanctuaries in the U.S.

• Armed activists in Oregon touch off unpredictable chapter in land-use feud

• Why veterans look at the Oregon occupation and see ‘loose cannon clowns’

• ‘Who knows what they're stomping on?’: Tribe worried about Oregon refuge artifacts

• The mysterious fires that led to the Bundy clan's Oregon standoff

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/26/five-oregon-occupiers-arrested-one-person-killed-in-confrontation-with-police

[KTJ]

Yeah, well....the confrontation between gun-toting right-wing extremist nutters and the Feds in Oregon was always going to end badly.

[KTJ]

Here are the police mugshots of a bunch of “white-trash” TERRORISTS who are now in police custody in Oregon…



Top row of composite image shows Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Ryan Waylen Payne and Brian Cavalier. The bottom row shows
Peter Santilli, Joseph Donald O'Shaughnessy and Shawna Cox. — Mugshots: Multnomah County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images.



Read more about this topic…


• LaVoy Finicum, Oregon occupier who said he'd rather die than go to jail, did just that

By MICHAEL E. MILLER | 8:29AM EST - Wednesday, January 27, 2016



• What we know about the Oregon occupiers who are now in federal custody

By SARAH LARIMER and NIRAJ CHOKSHI | 3:39PM EST - Wednesday, January 27, 2016



• Family: Rancher killed in Oregon hated federal ‘tyranny’, loved kids

By MICHAEL E. MILLER, SANDHYA SOMASHEKHAR and WILLIAM WAN | 6:26PM EST - Wednesday, January 27, 2016



• FBI blockades Oregon wildlife refuge after arrests and urges remaining occupiers to leave

By SARAH KAPLAN, ADAM GOLDMAN and MARK BERMAN | 6:47PM EST - Wednesday, January 27, 2016

[KTJ]

from the Los Angeles Times....

Rebel rancher is a pitiful casualty in a ludicrous cause

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PST - Thursday, January 28, 2016



THE DEATH of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, the 54-year-old Arizona rancher who headed north to “liberate” an Oregon wildlife refuge from the United States government, is sad and pitiful. Some of the self-appointed vigilantes who are challenging the right of federal authorities to manage Western rangelands and resources appear to be the type of imbecilic, right-wing blowhards that can be found at the end of the bar in saloons from Pensacola to Stockton. Finicum, on the other hand, seemed deeply deluded but decent, an American intent on doing his patriotic duty who had allowed himself to be misled by really bad information and a barrage of lies.

I am probably being too generous to him because he is now deceased, but Finicum reminds me of hardworking, independent-minded ranchers I've gotten to know during forays into Montana cattle country. Most of them are pretty well convinced that they know how to manage their land better than anyone from federal, state, county or local government. I know that sometimes they are right and, also, that sometimes they fail to recognize the greater good in having the nation's natural heritage guarded by prudent laws and outside regulators. Nevertheless, none of the ranchers I know have careened off the deep end into armed rebellion the way Finicum and his compatriots have done.

For nearly a month, Finicum and other armed civilians have been holed up in a government building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a remote section of eastern Oregon. They came to protest the jailing of two ranchers who were convicted of setting fires on federal land, then stayed to occupy the refuge and demand that it be turned over to “the people”.

They appeared free to come and go from the refuge without interference from the FBI, state police or the local sheriff until Tuesday, when the leaders of the group were stopped on a remote highway as they were traveling to a town meeting. Finicum was reportedly driving one of the two vehicles carrying the protesters. According to the most credible story so far, he tried to elude the cops in his truck and, when the truck was stopped, he stepped out with gun in hand. Shots were fired and Finicum is dead.

Back in the first days of the occupation, Finicum told reporters, “I'm not going to end up in prison. I would rather die than be caged. And I've lived a good life.” Despite his stated readiness to be taken out with his boots on, rather than be hauled off to jail, Finicum, who became the primary spokesman for the band of scofflaws, said he hoped for a peaceful resolution to the standoff. That did not happen and now Finicum has become an instant martyr to the militia movement, to anti-government extremists and to the conspiracy mongers in the darker reaches of the right-wing blogosphere. But challenging police by defying their authority and brandishing a gun is not heroic — it is stupid. And that applies whether you are on the streets of Chicago or the high plains of the West.

Harney County Sheriff David M. Ward barely contained his emotions in a news briefing the morning after Finicum was killed. For weeks, Ward had been trying hard to convince the protesters to disperse and leave his community in peace before someone got hurt.

“There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community,” Ward said. “We have issues with the way things are going in our government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner. We don't arm up — we don't arm up and rebel. We work through the appropriate channels. This can't happen anymore. This can't happen in America, and this can't happen in Harney County.”

The sheriff is right; it shouldn't happen. Despite what extremist agitators claim, there are no internment camps being readied to lock up patriots, no black helicopters flying in to destroy national sovereignty, no government agents massing to close churches and confiscate guns, no reason for citizens to take up arms. But because there are earnest-but-gullible citizens who take such lies to heart, Finicum may not be the final martyr for a ridiculous cause.

www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-rebel-rancher-casualty-20160127-story.html

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

The Post's View: The Oregon occupation didn't have to end this way

EDITORIAL | 7:11PM EST - Friday, January 29, 2016


A law enforcement checkpoint blocks the road at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 28th near Burns, Oregon.
— Photograph: Matt Mills Mcknight/Getty Images.

AFTER a traffic stop to end the unlawful occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon took a deadly turn, local sheriff Dave Ward was visibly upset when he appeared at a news briefing. He talked about the efforts to end the standoff peacefully and the work of multiple agencies to devise the best tactical plan, and he lamented the death of one of the armed occupiers. But he also stressed that “I'm here to uphold the law.” Any examination of the handling of these events must not overlook that important point — that authorities had a responsibility to take action against lawbreakers who were posing an increasing threat to the community.

Investigation into Tuesday's fatal shooting of LaVoy Finicum by an Oregon state trooper is ongoing, so it's premature to make a definitive judgment about whether authorities acted appropriately. However, a surveillance video released by the FBI appears to show Mr. Finicum reaching for a loaded handgun before he was shot. “On at least two occasions, Finicum reaches his right hand toward a pocket on the left inside portion of his jacket. He did have a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun in that pocket,” said FBI agent Greg Bretzing. Mr. Finicum — who previously had said he would rather die than be arrested — had, moments earlier, attempted to barrel through a police barricade, nearly hitting an FBI agent.

The 26-minute video may be open to interpretation, but it clearly debunks claims by apologists for the armed occupation that Mr. Finicum was ambushed and shot down in cold blood. Five other people were arrested without incident in Tuesday's police operation, so it seems reasonable to suppose, in the absence of clear contrary evidence, that Mr. Finicum's death would have been averted if he had behaved differently. “Actions,” as Mr. Bretzing said, “have consequences.”

The takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which began on January 2nd, seems to be nearing an end, with only a few holdouts after the death of Mr. Finicum and the call by the group's leader to disband. Those who conducted it now will have to answer for their actions; so far, 11 people are facing federal charges. That they wanted to call attention to their dissatisfaction with the federal government's management of public land didn't give them the right to flout the law, disrupt a community and terrorize its citizens.

Mr. Ward said it best: “There doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community. If we have issues with the way things are going in our government, we have a responsibility as citizens to act on those in an appropriate manner. We don't arm up. We don't arm up and rebel. We work through the appropriate channels.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

• Eugene Robinson: The Oregon standoff and America's double standards on race and religion

• The Post's View: The occupation in Oregon is lawless — and pointless

• Dana Milbank: From Kim Davis to Oregon, the GOP's love affair with lawbreakers

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-dont-arm-up-and-rebel-the-oregon-occupation-didnt-have-to-end-this-way/2016/01/29/bafe7f4e-c6ca-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Judge orders continued detention for five men in Oregon standoff

By KEVIN SULLIVAN and LEAH SOTTILE | 11:05PM EST - Friday, January 20, 2016


Ammon Bundy, leader of an armed anti-government militia, speaking at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters near Burns, Oregon,
before his arrest. — Photograph: Rob Kerr/AFP/Getty Images.

PORTLAND, OREGON — A federal judge on Friday ordered the continued detention of five men who were key players in the nearly month-long armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, rejecting arguments that the occupation was similar to the Boston Tea Party or civil rights era protests.

“From Day One they were breaking the law — they made no secret they were breaking the law,” said U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman. “I reject the argument that this was a peaceful operation based on freedom of speech.”

Beckerman denied release to Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Jason Patrick, Ryan Payne and Dylan Anderson, all of whom were central players in the occupation of the wildlife refuge that began on January 2nd.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, were the leaders of the occupation, which started as a defense of two jailed ranchers but turned into a larger protest over the role of the federal government in people's lives.

They were both arrested on Tuesday in an operation that also resulted in the death of LaVoy Finicum, one of the occupation's chief spokesmen, who was shot to death by an Oregon State Trooper.

In court Friday, Ammon Bundy described himself as a “federalist”.

“I believe federal government has a role and it is to protect people from the outside world,” he said. “I do love this country very much. … This was never about an armed standoff — this is about protecting individual rights.”

Lisa Hay, an attorney for Ryan Payne, told the court that “This country has a long and revered history of political protest … there is a history of civil disobedience … some forms of political protest require a law to be broken. … There are times when radical notions gain acceptance in a courtroom.”

She drew comparisons between the occupation to lunch-counter protests during the civil rights movement and and the Boston Tea Party.

“I take issues with lunch counter sit-ins or the Boston Tea Party,” Beckerman said. “Those were peaceful protests … this was so far beyond a peaceful protest.”

• Kevin Sullivan is a Washington Post senior correspondent. He is a longtime foreign correspondent who has been based in Tokyo, Mexico City and London, and also served as the Post's Sunday and Features Editor.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

• In Oregon siege, troubling signs of a movement on the offensive

• Arrested in Oregon, Ammon Bundy and others in standoff cited their Mormon faith as inspiration

• ‘I take care of beans, bullets, boots and blankets’: The arrested Oregon occupiers

• ‘We're the grunts that get stuck behind’: The final holdouts of the Oregon occupation

www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/29/judge-orders-continued-detention-for-five-men-in-oregon-standoff

[Deleted]

John Wayne has a lot to answer for...

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Remaining occupiers release defiant videos mocking FBI

By TERRENCE PETTY - Associated Press | 8:50PM EST - Monday, February 08, 2016


Tony Atencio holds a photo of rancher Robert “LaVoy” Finicum at a rally protesting against the federal government
in Burns, Oregon. The funeral for Finicum, killed by law enforcement during the armed occupation of an Oregon
wildlife refuge was expected to draw supporters Friday, February 5th, from around the West to a small Utah town.
— Photograph: Nicholas K. Geranios/Associated Press.

PORTLAND, OREGON — The last four occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge have posted a series of defiant videos in which one of them calls FBI agents losers, shows a defensive perimeter they have built and takes a joyride in a government vehicle.

The videos were posted during Sunday on a YouTube channel called Defend Your Base, which the armed group has been using to give live updates. The holdouts are among 16 people charged with conspiracy to interfere with federal workers in the armed standoff over federal land policy that has surpassed five weeks.

In one of the new videos, occupier David Fry says the FBI told him he faces additional charges because of defensive barricades the four have built.

“We just got done talking with the FBI,” said the 27-year-old Blanchester, Ohio, resident. “They consider fortifying a crime.”

Fry said he, Jeff Banta of Nevada, and husband and wife Sean and Sandy Anderson of Idaho have “every right” to defend themselves from the “oncoming onslaught of people with fully automatic rifles (and) armored vehicles.”

“I'm tired of you guys telling us what we can and can't do,” he says.

Then Fry shows government vehicles they have been using without permission. He walks up to a white truck and says, “I think I'm going to take it on a little joyride.”

“Now you've got another charge on me FBI. I'm driving your vehicle.”

FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said the agency had no comment on the videos.

The four have refused to leave the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon since the compound nearly emptied out after the January 26th arrests of group leader Ammon Bundy and other main figures. The group seized the property on January 2nd, demanding federal lands be turned over to locals.

The traffic stop on a remote road outside the refuge also led police to shoot and kill Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. The FBI says the Arizona rancher was reaching for a pistol in his pocket, but Finicum's family and Bundy's followers dispute that and say his death was not justified.

Authorities surrounded the refuge after the arrests. The FBI has been negotiating, but the holdouts have said they won't go home without assurances they won't be arrested.

In another video posted on Sunday, Sean and Sandy Anderson are sitting together and the husband says they feel like hostages because they can't leave without being arrested.

“What are they to do with us?” Sean Anderson says. “They either let us go, drop all charges because we're good people, or they come in and kill us. How's that going to set with America?”

Meanwhile, Ammon Bundy's attorneys on Monday released an audio recording in which the jailed occupation leader called on elected officials in eight states to visit arrested occupiers from those states and show support for their rights to free speech, assembly and civil disobedience.

While federal authorities say the refuge occupation is illegal and Bundy’s followers had threatened violence and intimidated federal employees, Bundy contends the takeover was a peaceful protest.

A Nevada state Assembly member who is sympathetic to Bundy's cause, Michelle Fiore, said on Monday she and lawmakers from several other states plan to meet in Portland this week to protest the jailing of Bundy and his followers. She said the lawmakers are members of a group called the Coalition of Western States, which opposes federal management of Western lands.

“My folks are prisoners for exercising political free speech. That is not OK,” the Republican lawmaker told the Associated Press.

• Associated Press writer Ken Ritter contributed to this report from Las Vegas, Nevada.

www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/remaining-occupiers-release-defiant-videos-mocking-fbi/2016/02/08/75e43888-cecf-11e5-90d3-34c2c42653ac_story.html

[KTJ]

I see America's national terrorist organisation (the NRA) is at it again, trying to stomp on the rights of citizens of a state to decide on gun-control measures for their state…

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from The Seattle Times…

Semi-automatic rifle ban for teens is a win for sanity

One provision of the new state ban on rifles for teens that especially maddens the gun
enthusiasts is the ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles to anyone under the age of 21.

By DAVID HORSEY | 10:42AM PST — Friday, January 11, 2019



BY A wide margin, state voters approved a gun-control initiative in the last election. Now that the law has gone into effect, it is being challenged in court by the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation in the hope of annulling the will of the people of Washington.

One provision of the new law that especially maddens the gun enthusiasts is the ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles to anyone under the age of 21. It is that part of Initiative 1639, however, that was key to winning the support of a majority of voters. That majority had seen too many troubled teenage boys with hidden grudges and powerful weapons walk into schools to gun down innocent students and teachers. To them, a ban seemed like the sanest thing to do, while unrestricted access to firearms looked like lunacy, not liberty.

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• See more of David Horsey's cartoons at The Seattle Times HERE.

www.seattletimes.com/opinion/semi-automatic-rifle-ban-for-teens-is-a-win-sanity