Cut Off Their Power, Cut Off Their Voice, Then Cut Off Their Freedom

what eye thynk:   A ragtag bunch of right wing nut jobs have joined three rich white ranchers and taken over a government building in Oregon.  So far, it's been pretty much a stare-down, but while we're spending time in wait and watch mode, ask yourself, what if those militants where black, or Hispanic, or Muslim?  It wouldn't take long to hear screaming from the right about the un-American lawbreakers and calls for deportation.  Congress would be holding special votes calling for the National Guard to be sent in with tanks and heavy artillery.  Republican congressman would be standing on the steps of the Capital expounding on how this is all President Obama's fault.

Instead of a press conference at the entrance to the park, law enforcement would be coping with hundreds of well-armed, open-carry supporters threatening death and mayhem.  And Ammon Bundy and his brothers would be on the other side of the dividing line.  Instead...

Eye Recommend:

AUTHORITIES PLAN TO CUT OFF POWER TO MILITIA AT OCCUPIED OREGON REFUGE, by John M. Glionna and Jason Wilson.

Ammon Bundy (center) speaks to the media in Oregon

Federal authorities are planning to cut off the power of the wildlife refuge in Oregon that was been taken over by militia, exposing the armed occupiers to sub-zero temperatures in an effort to flush them out... 

...Any such move would mark a significant escalation in the crisis.  The local sheriff, FBI and other law enforcement officials have so far held back from confronting the militia, who are heavily armed and have lookouts on a watchtower... 

...The militia, numbering few more than a dozen, have been building fires to stay warm and have been sleeping in the building usually used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the refuge for wild birds. 

Reached by phone around 10:30pm on Monday, Ammon Bundy, a key member of the militia, said electricity in the refuge building was still functioning.  He added: 'We're ready and waiting if the power should be shut down." 

Bundy has repeatedly said the group is prepared for the long-haul.  However during a tour of the site earlier in the day, the Guardian was shown a food storage room that did not look like it could sustain a dozen men for more than a few weeks. 

It included a cardboard box of apples and oranges, a few dozen pots of instant ramen, 24 cans of chicken noodle soup, a similar number of cans of sweetcorn, peas, beans and chili, and 20 boxes of macaroni and cheese... 

...Calling themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, the militia appears to be led by Ammon Bundy, who has been joined at the refuge by his two brothers, Mel and Ryan.  The trio are sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy who was at the heart of a similar standoff with authorities in 2014. 

Constitutionalists, militia and rightwing zealots flocked to the Bundy ranch and stayed to defend him from the federal Bureau of Land Management...which wanted to seize his cows over $1.2M in unpaid fees for grazing on federal land over two decades.

Cliven Bundy has yet to pay those fees, apparently emerging victorious from his head-to-head clash with federal authorities cautious to avoid an armed conflict. 

Not wanting another Waco or Ruby Ridge is fine and dandy.  But this is 2016, two years after Cliven Bundy defied federal authorities.  It is impossible to believe that there hasn't been an opportunity to put him in handcuffs for theft of federal property in all the intervening months.  It's not like he is hiding behind armed guards any longer.  

The Hammonds are in jail.  Why is Cliven Bundy any different?

The dispute in Oregon relates to two local ranchers, father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond, who were convicted of arson on federal land (they say they were clearing the land of invasive species to graze their cattle.)

The Hammonds surrendered to federal authorities on Monday for the start of an extended prison term...

...Cliven Bundy said that he is largely in the dark about the circumstances of the ongoing occupation...

...(He) said that as far as he knew, his sons weren't armed.  

Oh, please.

He said that if any violence takes place at the standoff, it will come because of an overzealous government reaction.

"This is a peaceful protest," he said.  "It's our first amendment right to peaceful assembly and protest.  And my boys have done that.  They haven't destroyed any property.  They haven not infringed upon anyone's rights."

What about the rights of people who would normally be getting paid for working in that building?  What about the citizens who would normally be free to enjoy that land?  Their rights don't count?

The Bundy brothers--and Ammon Bundy, in particular--are known to have spent weeks in Burns in the lead-up to the protest in an attempt to drum-up support for a hardline protest, with limited success.

There is little evidence of locals joining their occupation.  Instead, they appear to have drawn a motley crowd of rightwingers.

They say they're standing up for the Hammonds. What they're really doing is attempting to force everyone to believe in their cause--the cause of Daddy Bundy's right to graze his cattle on federal land without paying for it.   It's as if they've taken a page out of the Middle East handbook and formed their own Y'all Qaeda movement with cowboy hats instead of a keffiyahs. If you don't believe in the Bundy brand of ranching, you are the enemy; and we will come into your home and force you to conform to our cause, our beliefs, our system. 

The Hammonds have already accepted their sentences and have voluntarily returned to jail.  Locals, despite Ammon Bundy's attempt to whip up support, remain largely unmoved.  So this protest has nothing to do with the Hammonds and everything to do with Bundy ego and the fulfillment of hate-fueled dreams of the type the Republican Party loves to feed.

Their demands for no-cost use of federal land is bullsh*t...that's MY land and YOUR land.  The same conservative mindset that will rant against giving a hundred dollars to a family in need will support giving these wealthy ranchers unrestricted no-cost use of land worth millions.  And they will call it "freedom."

The powers that be can't cut the phone and power off soon enough for me.  With no phone and no way to charge their cells, we won't have to hear their blathering.  Let's move the media out of range too.  

Then let 'em eat Ramen noodles made with snow they've melted by holding it in their arm pits and see how long they last.  When they start burning the furniture to keep warm, the feds can put all of them in jail for destroying federal property.  The Hammonds will be home on their ranch before the Bundys are.

And none of this would be happening if the federal government had taken care of Clive Bundy and his land grab in 2014.   I fault the Obama administration for the mistake of letting people like this think they are above the law.  Illegal activity should have consequences...even if you're rich, white, and own a nifty cowboy hat.

You can read the entire article here

Oregon Rancher Tells Bundy: Get Lost!

Harney County rancher Georgia Marshall on Wednesday

The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge being led by Ammon Bundy and a few dozen cowboys continues, even though the people of Harney County don't want anything to do with them or their "cause."

At first, the occupiers said they were there to support the Hammonds who are serving jail time for arson on federal lands.  The Hammonds, through their attorney, have made it clear they do not support the Bundy Brigade.

The latest from Mr. Bundy is that he will not 'go home' until local ranchers begin to assert their rights over federal lands.

On Wednesday evening, rancher Georgia Marshall made it clear what she thinks of the armed jerks who have moved into her county and who want to tell her how to live.  

She spoke of the progress local ranchers have made through an organization called the High Desert Partnership.

"We are the poster child of the ranching community, of the environmental community, of the government community!  Have we ever had anybody put together a refuge plan in this god d*mn nation? Hell, no. we haven't!  But it happened here and it happened in Harney County... (Don't) destroy everything we're doing because we have to make a stand for everything in the god d*mn past."

"This is our time now!  It is not what we did 100 years ago or 60 years ago or 30 years ago!  It's our moment right now.  We don't know our future, but I'll tell you what, it's better than what we had.  Let's try to keep going...I'm proud to be a rancher and I'm not going to let some other people be my face!  I am me!  This is my home!"

what eye thynk:  Ammon Bundy's promise to stay until Harney County ranchers assert what he and his family sees as their rights just backs up the opinion I voiced yesterday when I wrote: "What they're really doing is attempting to force everyone to believe in their cause--they're fight for Daddy Bundy's right to graze his cattle on federal land without paying for it."

According to Harney County residents, Ammon Bundy spent a good deal of time in their area recently trying to gain support for his crusade to assert their rights.  They weren't interested then and, if Ms. Marshall is any indication, they aren't interested now.  It has been reported that most of the people holed up in the wildlife refuge, including Mr. Bundy and his two brothers, are from outside the area.  No matter what the occupiers claim, this is not a civil protest against the treatment of the Hammonds or for the ranchers of Harney County.  The Bundys are there for themselves, the joiners are there to play cowboy...period.

Imagine if Georgia Marshall and a couple dozen Harney County out-of-towners showed up at the Bundy ranch in Nevada and vowed to stay until Clive Bundy paid his overdue $1.2 million bill to Washington.  Now that would be a civil protest I could get behind.  

Oregon Militia Has Its Very Own "Official" Superior Court Judge

what eye thynk:  Delusions of grandeur seem to be spreading like a nasty virus out there in Oregon.  What's next, a Trump rally?

Eye Recommend:

Bruce Doucette

SELF-APPOINTED 'JUDGE' ARRIVES IN BURNS TO ASK LOCAL RESIDENTS TO CHARGE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WITH CRIMES, by Betsy Hammond

A self-proclaimed "U.S. Superior Court judge" who has been involved in past property rights protests in other states arrived Tuesday in Burns with plans to convene an extra-legal "citizens grand jury" that he said will review evidence that public officials may have committed crimes. 

Bruce Doucette, a 54-year-old owner of a computer design and repair shop in suburban Denver, told The Oregoinian/Oregon Live that...he met with the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to hear their evidence, which he called "significant," that government officials have committed crimes... 

..."The grand jury will convene in private and make its decisions in private," Doucette said.  "The role of superior court judge is not very glorified.  All we do is write up" what the local citizens decide, he said.

Local citizens like the Bundys who actually live in Nevada?  Or maybe he means their computer expert--who used refuge computers to build an occupation website, but without, as Ammon Bundy claims, anyone ever actually touching the computers--who hails from near Cincinnati, Ohio?

Coucette's entry into the fray and claim to special Constitutional powers is the latest in an 11-day drama that has drawn a series of attention-seeking, Constitution-citing characters who say they can help Harney County residents solve their problems with federal restrictions on use of public lands.

Help that the residents don't seem to want. 
(Story here, and also here, and story #2 here )

Ammon Bundy and other organizers of the occupation have said...they believe that lawyers in the U.S. attorney's office, federal court judges and leaders of the Bureau of Land Management, among others, have broken laws and violated the Constitution in their treatment of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond.

Ranchers, who, incidentally, also want nothing to do with Bundy or his militia.

In Bundy's view...restrictions on use of federal resources and using the courts to punish the Hammonds for burning 139 acres of federal rangeland represented unconstitutional overreach by federal officials.  And the failure of the state and local officials, including Sheriff Dave Ward, are also guilty, for failing to protect their citizens from those federal actions.

What really gets my "fairness" gene jangling is that Bundy and his ilk, just because they're rich enough to own thousands of acres next to federal land, think they have the right to free use of that federal land too.  You or I don't have that right, just them.  

Imagine if you or I were to buy into their claim that federal land is free and should be available for the people to use as they see fit.  And then imagine if we, as "the people," decided we wanted to move to Oregon, or Nevada, or wherever and showed up with a moving van full of furniture and the lumber to build a house on this free public property.  The Bundy Bunch would have a rifle waving militia in place quicker than spit, screaming that we were trespassing on their property.  Because, you see, that's what they believe--the land is theirs, not yours or mine, THEIRS.

Doucette would easily reach the same conclusion since the leader of the movement under which he was declared a judge insists that the BLM is a private corporation, not a government agency, and the federal government ceased operating under the Constitution in the 1860s.

#1 Whoo, boy. 

#2 So the Constitution that these public officials have violated really doesn't exist?  How is charging them with violating a non-existent document going to work exactly?

Bundy, in a "redress of grievance" to Harney County and Oregon leaders that he posted last month, said evidence of government officials' crimes should be heard and decided in public by a hearing board of Harney residents.

Doucette, by contrast, said 25 local residents would hear testimony and make decisions in private.  But both said the conclusions would be put in writing and made public.

There is no evidence to date that a legal determination by a self-styled judge associated with the sovereign citizen movement would have any effect, other than to excite people already allied with that fringe view.  

Maybe because the rest of us have functioning brains? 

In late November, Anna Maria Riezinger, an Alaska woman who claims to be Judge Anna von Reitz under the same inaccurate reading of the Constitution that Doucette uses, ruled that members of Congress, the president and the U.S. treasury secretary all committed crimes and directed U.S. marshals and FBI agents to arrest them.

They're like grown-ups who somehow got stuck in pretend cowboys and Indians mode.

Last week, Riezinger issued a statement about the Harney occupation.  In it, she wrote that "The Hammonds and the Bundy Family are Priority Creditors of all the (government agencies) which are now or which have operated in this country in the past. ...They and their countrymen are owed the patent to all land within the geographically defined boundaries of their respective states, free and clear of liens, encumbrances, or other presumptions." 

Even the most bellicose satirists would hesitate before going this far.

Hundreds of people who have used similar sovereign citizen arguments to justify failing to pay federal income taxes, getting drivers licenses or other government requirements have never prevailed in any court.

Gee, I wonder why? 

You can read Ms. Hammond's entire article here.

Oregon Occupation - the Unraveling Begins

Kenneth Medenbach

"The standoff with armed militia in Oregon escalated on Friday after police swooped in on one of the protesters to make the first arrest in connection with the two-week occupation of a federal wildlife refuge.

Kenneth Medenbach...was arrested for unauthorized use of a government vehicle...

...He appears to have driven from the occupied compound to a local supermarket in a vehicle allegedly stolen from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the refuge.  The sheriff's office statement said that law enforcement officers recovered 'two vehicles stolen from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.'...

...According to one local report, the two vehicles, one a pickup truck and one a passenger van, bore door signs reading 'Harney County Resource Center'--the new name occupiers have given to the sanctuary.  The man police suspected of driving the second government vehicle into town already had gone into the grocery store before police arrived, the report said."

eye'm thynkin':  Bet it was long, hard walk back to join his militia buddies, what with having to carry all those snacks and all.

"Armed militia have been seen driving the government vehicles around the refuge ever since they took over the site in protest over federal land management policies earlier this month.  Legal experts told the Guardian that occupiers could face hefty fines and more than 10 years of imprisonment.

It would not upset me to see the Hammonds at home watching the sun set over their land while these jerks are sitting in a jail cell.

A USFWS spokesperson Megan Nagel said: 'The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is grateful for the quick actions from law enforcement.  We will continue to work with law enforcement to recover vehicles bought and paid fo by the American people to care for their national wildlife refuge.'

It was unclear Friday whether the scheduled 7pm meeting between the militia and local residents would go ahead. The militia leaders had said they planned to speak directly with residents and explain their plans to leave he federal land.  Officials in rural Harney County, who have become increasingly outspoken against the militia, have denied them access to public buildings, saying they refuse to host a group that suports the illegal takeover of government property.

On Thursday, Bundy was expressing doubts about whether the meeting would happen at all if the militia couldn't find a venue."

Did these illegal occupiers really expect the county to give them free access to another government building, allowing them the opportunity to take over that facility too?  

I have seen no reports that the meeting took place; but, I guarantee that if Bundy canceled, there is a Republican somewhere blaming it on Obama.

Read more at the Guardian