Oregon: Eight "Militia" Members Arrested, One Dead

One did not need to be clairvoyant to know that sooner or later the illegal seizure and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in rural Oregon would lead to violence and bloodshed. Yesterday, it happened as eight of the lunatic, sedition loving "militia" members were arrested and one other member was killed and yet another wounded.  Others remain at the refuge facilities.  Like so many right wing groups that want to subvert the government and make themselves above the law, this group had ridiculously called itself the "Citizens for Constitutional Freedom."  In fact, the group stood for lawlessness.  Sadly, few Republicans had the spines to condemn the group and its illegal actions, self-prostitution to extremists now being a hallmark of the GOP.  The New York Times has details on yesterday's long over due arrests.  Here are highlights:

Ammon Bundy, the leader of an armed seizure of a federal wildlife refuge in rural eastern Oregon, was arrested and one person was killed Tuesday afternoon in a traffic stop in rural Oregon, the F.B.I.

Seven other people, including Mr. Bundy’s brother Ryan Bundy, were arrested, the authorities said. Another person was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The authorities did not identify the man who was killed, but a member of the Nevada State Assembly, Michele Fiore, who has been a supporter of the Bundy family, said on Twitter that it was LaVoy Finicum. Mr. Finicum had become a de facto spokesman for the occupiers.

Community leaders demanded that the group leave, but several members were still occupying the refuge Tuesday night.

The F.B.I. and the Oregon State Police said that Mr. Bundy, his brother and three other people, including Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah, and Ryan Waylen Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., were arrested on a state highway, but they provided no further details. Ms. Cox and Mr. Payne were prominent in speaking for the refuge. Also arrested on the highway was Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nev.

The authorities said only that shots were fired during the course of the arrest. Two other people: Peter Santilli, 50, of Cincinnati, and Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Ariz., were arrested later in Burns, and John Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself in to the police in Peoria, Ariz., the authorities said. All of the defendants face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats.

Those arrested need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and the law breakers still at the refuge need to either leave immediately or be removed by force.  Watch to see if any of the GOP presidential candidates condemn the lawless behavior of the extremists who occupied the wildlife refuge.

 

The GOP’s Love Affair with Lawbreakers

The Republican Party likes to bill itself as the party that supports the rule of law and law and order, yet its base it increasingly made up of those that believe that they are above the law and that they can simply disregard and break laws that they do not like.  Such laws range from non-discrimination laws that the Christofascists break over disingenuous claims of "religious liberty" to the gun carrying lunatics and domestic terrorists that seized federal facilities in Oregon.  A column in the Washington Post rightly looks at the GOP's love affair with those who seek to break the law.  Here are highlights:

Ammon Bundy and the other armed militants occupying a federal facility at a wildlife refuge in Oregon have a beef with the administration — the Teddy Roosevelt administration.

[T] “taking of the people’s land,” the “overreach” that moved these rebels to take up arms, occurred 108 years ago, when Roosevelt — a Republican president and a great conservationist — established the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, one of 51 such refuges he set aside, “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.”

So why have the militants chosen this moment, more than a century after the fact, to “unwind all these unconstitutional land transactions,” as Bundy put it? Perhaps it’s because they think the political atmosphere now condones such anti-government activity. 

You can see why they might think so. Several of the Republican presidential candidates have been encouraging lawbreaking, winking at it or simply looking the other way.

A few months ago, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and others rushed to defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to obey federal law.  . . . . Cruz identified her jailing as “judicial tyranny” and said Davis was operating “under God’s authority.”

Donald Trump has put at the center of his campaign an extra-constitutional ban on admitting Muslims into the country. Marco Rubio said that if the law conflicts with the Gospel, “God’s rules always win,” and that “we are called to ignore” the government’s authority.

And, of course, there was the 2014 standoff in which Cliven Bundy, who refused to pay grazing fees for his use of federal land, got support or sympathy from Cruz, Trump, Huckabee, Rand Paul and Ben Carson. Cruz denounced the federal government for “using the jackboot of authoritarianism.”

The rancher lost much of his support when he delivered a racist rant. But not all of it:

Flirting with extremists helps conservative candidates harness the prodigious anger in the electorate. A poll released this weekend by NBC, Esquire and Survey Monkey found anger is particularly intense among Republicans: Seventy-seven percent said the news makes them angry at least once a day . . . .

So when some very angry people led by Ammon Bundy took over the (unoccupied) compound at the wildlife preserve over the weekend, the Republican presidential candidates reacted mostly with silence. A scan of tweets from Republican lawmakers also found nary a peep about the armed takeover of the federal facility.

Cruz also released a TV ad Monday protesting inadequate enforcement of the border. “The rule of law,” he says in the ad, “wasn’t meant to be broken.” That’s a fine sentiment. But to live under the rule of law we must follow all laws — not just those we like. 

Armed Extremists Vow to Continue to Occupy Federal Property

Extremists once again hiding behind the American flag

The lunacy - and some would say treason - on display in Oregon is the logical outcome of the contempt for government authority and the laws that apply to everyone that has become a hallmark of the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the Republican Party.  A mindset that has been only encouraged by the demagoguery of GOP candidates and their willingness to prostitute themselves to these ugly elements of the party base.  The good of the country seeming rarely factors into the GOP's partisanship priorities.  The irony, as noted by many on social media, is that if 150 blacks tried anything remotely comparable, the military or swat teams would have already moved in.  White extremist continue to get a pass from both the police and the media.  The New York Times looks at the unfolding saga.  Here are highlights:

The protesters arrived in this old lumber town to support a 73-year-old rancher and his son who had been sentenced to prison for setting fires that spread to federal lands. It was billed as a peaceful demonstration, but after “Amazing Grace” was sung and hugs were exchanged, a small, armed contingent declared outside a supermarket that it was taking a stand and asked who wanted to join.

So began the latest armed flare-up in a decades-long struggle between federal officials and local landowners and ranchers over how to manage the Western range. The armed anti-government group seized empty administrative buildings on a federal refuge for wildlife about 30 miles away through the snowy sagebrush, and by Sunday night, had hunkered down for what they vowed would be an indefinite standoff with the government.

“We will be here for as long as it takes,” said Ryan Payne, an Army veteran who characterized the group’s action as a liberation of public lands.

The Harney County sheriff, David M. Ward, said in a statement on Sunday, “These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers, when in reality these men had alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.”

The group was led by Ammon Bundy, a rancher whose family became a symbol of antigovernment sentiment in 2014 when his father, Cliven Bundy, inspired a standoff between armed local antigovernment activists and federal officials seeking to confiscate cattle grazing illegally on federal land in Nevada. 

Residents expressed sympathy with the underlying complaints, but elected officials criticized the armed protesters as an outsider militia group whose actions had thrown their community into a harsh national glare.

“The battle was brought to us,” said Dan Nichols, a county commissioner who is a neighbor of the Hammond family. “This county isn’t supportive of what’s being done here at all. Once again, it’s a bunch of those who live without the county telling us what we need to do, how we need to be doing it and the repercussions if we don’t.” 

The Hammonds each served sentences for the arson charges, but they were ordered to report to a prison in California on Monday after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served were not long enough under federal law. Ms. Hammond said her husband and son would surrender themselves as ordered.

The case caused a local uproar, but it also touched a nerve with far-right groups like the one headed by Mr. Bundy. The Bundys have been organizing opposition to the government case against the Hammonds on social media in recent weeks. They described the case as a tyrannical use of federal authority.

Mr. Payne, the veteran who is also at the site, said the group was not violent. But he also said members had discussed the possibility that the standoff could turn violent.

Referring to the federal government, he added, “If they think that’s worth bringing their armies in here and harming or fouling that endeavor, we’ll just have to read the Constitution and look at our Bibles and see who’s on the right side.”

Note the reference to the Bible, the cause of so much death and horrors over the centuries.   These people are dangerous and need to be prosecuted for what they are doing.