Yes, you all read that headline correctly. One of the Malheur Federal Wildlife Refuge occupiers was arrested earlier today for unauthorized use of a (Federal) motor vehicle. The arrestee, Kenneth Medenbach of Crescent, Oregon was charged with a class C felony in Medford. Bail was set at $10,000. This is not Medenbach’s first run in with the Feds. Last November he was charged with illegally camping on Federal property. A condition of his release: not occupying Federal property. He has a long history of illegally trespassing on and/or occupying Federal land. Two vehicles in total were recovered. The other driver was not arrested as he had, apparently, made it into the safety of the Burns, Oregon Safeway.
In other standoff/occupation news, the planned Harney County Committee for Safety, the unelected and unaccountable shadow government set up by Ammon Bundy with about 40 Harney County residents, will not be having their announced Friday night meeting tonight. The actual Harney County officials, you know those elected by the people of Harney County and accountable to them, told them they couldn’t use the county fairgrounds. It is highly likely that this will be added to US Superior Court Judge of the Citizen’s Grand Jury of Harney list of charges against actual Harney County Judge Steve Grasty.
Earlier in the week Bundy and his followers tried to co-opt the sheriff of neighboring Grant County. To his credit Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer refused to get involved with the occupiers. He has informed Sheriff Ward of Harney County that he is staying out of the dispute, but will not come to Harney to shame the occupiers into leaving. This is important as Sheriff Palmer is reported to be sympathetic to the occupiers demands, as well as remarking that the Federal government was going to have to concede something to Ammon Bundy and his followers to bring the occupation to an end. Harney County Judge Grasty has also been trying to coordinate with other county officials in Eastern Oregon regarding the possibility that the armed (self appointed) militia presence could spread.
This brings an important and unfortunate reality to light, even as today marked the first arrest of the standoff/occupation. It is unclear to law enforcement, both Federal and local, who they can trust. Sheriff Ward asked Sheriff Palmer if he’d come and shame Bundy and followers into leaving and Palmer refused and expressed sympathy with Bundy’s goals. Bundy is on record that he has either reached out to sheriffs and other officials in neighboring counties or they’ve reached out to him. This makes any law enforcement action even more precarious. When you don’t know if you can even call for back up, let alone whether that back up might turn coat and target you instead of the actual law breakers, you’re going to proceed very, very cautiously.
Ruckus
This makes any law enforcement action even more precarious. When you don’t know if you can even call for back up, let alone whether that back up might turn coat and target you instead of the actual law breakers, you’re going to proceed very, very cautiously.
This is what I’ve been alluding to since this started.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I know, but this gave me the chance to use the phrase “turn coat” in a sentence. So its a win all around!
redshirt
The FBI has no allegiances other than to the Federal Government, yes?
Who’s actually in charge of this operation? Oregon State Police? County Sheriffs? Town cops?
Botsplainer
Governor needs to declare a state of emergency as well as martial law for that region of Oregon. Clearly, law enforcement is compromised in a local level and the legitimacy of civil government is threatened. If the occupiers are forced from Burns, the Feds can roll them up with little danger to innocents.
Fuck the notion of dead wingnuts – I don’t care anymore, their lives should be forfeit for their stupidity.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: The Feds have control over everything at the sanctuary. Off of Federal property they have to work through local law enforcement, so that’s Harney County Sheriff Ward. This is why his people took this guy into custody.
Botsplainer
@redshirt
Oregon State Police seem completely MIA on protecting the town; Trailer Daesh is expanding and consolidating territorial gains.
Botsplainer
By the way, that bond is pathetic. I’ve seen 20000 bonds set on young men of color who robbed convenience stores armed with a finger in the pocket
PhoenixRising
@Botsplainer:
Burns is a town with a Safeway.
Where this upstanding member of Yokel Haram was arrested…tee hee.
The distances here may be…outside your familiarity? It’s 30 miles from the standoff to the grocery which is why I’m so damn confused that they can freely stock up on Pampers in their own trucks.
TaMara (BHF)
We seem to have a traitorous streak running through the Sheriff’s departments around the country. Here in Colorado, many sheriffs have boldly stated they will not uphold any laws they disagree with – mostly gun laws, but not limited to that issue. And one county over from me, that brave sheriff takes his rants to facebook, because of course that’s where all patriots make their stand.
Adam L Silverman
@PhoenixRising: Does this means we now have sanctuary stores, not just cities? Has someone informed the GOP candidates for the next debate.
Cacti
@Adam L Silverman:
If it involves Federal charges, Federal LEOs can arrest you essentially anywhere in the US, or its territories and protectorates.
Baud
You had one job, Kenneth.
jl
I can’t find the link now, but I saw Ammon Bundy’s comments on Paiute claims, which were, basically: ha ha, sucks to be them, we have it now.
It was wrapped in language about the land belonging to those who could use it most productively, with what I thought were veiled references to right by conquest.
As I said in previous thread, the speed and simplicity of sovereign citizen justice is very satisfying if you can get what you want. I can see the attractions.
I suppose Bundy’s statement could be taken on their face since they are very straightforward trustworthy cowboys. They recognize the right of somebody to come in an conquest it from them, and then put it up to auction to the highest bidder.
Maybe if the US government could hire out the job to whatever Blackwater is called now (a private business and by Bundy precedent, they can set them selves up as sovereign citizens of Harney County simply by arriving with lots of weapons and ammo) and they have as much right to conquest as anyone else, I suppose.
Cacti
@PhoenixRising:
No kidding.
If it’s 30 miles to the nearest supplies, why not, you know, have some special agents waiting about 10 miles down the road every time these yokels head to town?
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (BHF): There’s been a concerted effort to identify, recruit, and then run candidates for sheriff that hold views that are either sympathetic to the Posse Comitatus concept or actually hold those views. This is why that former Arizona sheriff, Richard Mack, created his Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. If you can get what you want at the ballot box there is no need to either subvert someone or to fight them. And since in a lot of counties in the South and West, rural, not heavily populated, if you can stand these kind of folks for sheriff and get them elected, you basically control local law enforcement in large swaths of the country.
redshirt
I like to play a game called “What if Liberals did it?”
Imagine if liberals – some bone hitting PETA members – occupied a federal property during W’s administration. What do you think would be the response, and how would it differ from the current situation?
amk
“The other driver was not arrested as he had, apparently, made it into the safety of the Burns, Oregon Safeway.”
So, I am guessing the safeway is canadian territory?
wtf does that sentence even mean?
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: Yes, I’m aware. I’m also aware that when dealing with certain situations, like with people who don’t recognize anyone but sheriffs as valid law enforcement, they try to work through the locals.
Cacti
@amk:
I’ll hazard a guess that it means they didn’t want to provoke a potentially violent encounter inside of a grocery store full of innocent bystanders.
Otherwise, it makes no sense.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Here you go:
http://www.oregonlive.com/history/2016/01/oregon_standoff_feds_forcibly.html
jl
@redshirt: Article said the state police made the arrest and took possession of the stolen federal vehicle.
I read the sheriff, state and feds, and other local law enforcement split up various duties. Who made the arrest probably depended on who was patrolling what and was nearby. If this is a strategy, to opportunistically arrest them as they commit sundry and miscellaneous crimes, then can’t be fussy about waiting for the perfect authority to show up to make the arrest.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: He was in the store before law enforcement showed up. So they took the cars and the guy with them and decided not to try to snag the guy in the store. Odds are he was armed and they were looking to avoid a hostage situation or a violent confrontation.
Or Safeways, like Catholic Churches and San Francisco, are sanctuary sites.
Mike J
@amk:
As a guess, it’s a state highway running from birdland to Burns. No dispute over who has the right to arrest.
That’s just speculation.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. That’s how this “game” always ends.
The imbalance in our society is staggering, and growing increasingly frightening.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: I can’t understand why the Feds don’t put a lien on Bundy’s assets for the grazing fees he hasn’t paid. Simple, and he can’t do shit about it. I mean we basically put Iran’s nuts in a vise to the tune of $150B, it should take somebody about 5 minutes to freeze whatever Bundy’s got.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Not sure its growing. More like always been there, but we now have 24/7 access to it on the Internet.
amk
@Cacti:
so the guy is never gonna come out of the store again? the whole shitshow just reinforces the meme that gobinment is clueless.
PhoenixRising
@Cacti: Yeah, I pictured that the driver of the other truck was hiding behind the stall door in the ladies’ room, standing on the can & hoping no one needs to breast feed in there.
And then he had to call…a cab? one of the other YallQaedars?
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: It’s growing because we have 24/7 access to media/internet.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: If I’m recalling correctly the court order that issued Cliven Bundy’s arrest authorized the impoundment of the cattle was supposed to be in lieu of a lien. But for all I know there is one on his property.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Its heated, there’s food and beverages and restrooms cleaned every four hours. Why would he come out?
geg6
Doesn’t that make those other sheriffs co-conspirators? Is there a RICO violation or something those fucking traitors who are violating their oaths and the public trust can be charged with? WTF?????? I’m so over this when unarmed black men, boys and women are being killed needlessly under the authority of the law and in the name of us taxpayers!!!! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! I’m so fucking furious over this!!!!!!
Adam L Silverman
@PhoenixRising: Uber. Its what all rugged individualists use.
Oatler.
@redshirt: The police union is more powerful than Sheriff Fife. You can bet he’s not going rogue, he’s following standard procedure, which is to sanction it (because it’s not evil hippie eco-“terrorists” holed up here).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@jl: Seen on twitter:
The name Meal Team 6 was also used in a different tweet.
jl
@Adam L Silverman:
” Or Safeways, like Catholic Churches and San Francisco, are sanctuary sites. ”
Microaggression noted.
And San Francisco Safeways suck, worst Safeways I have seen anywhere.
Anyway, will the other guy live off five-finger discounts in Safeway until the security guard finds an opportunity to nab him, or will his buddies pick him up and give him a ride back the refuge I wonder.
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: Not sure they’re co-conspirators, I think its more that no one is sure who they can trust. Which I’m sure is what Bundy and company want. Even if every sheriff they talk to tells them to pound sand, by announcing that they’ve spoken with them they’ve placed enough doubt to make everyone suspicious of each other.
EJ
How is bail only ten grand? When this dude is a) already violating the terms of his previous release, and b) known to hold the entire criminal justice system in contempt? I get that the crime he was actually charged with isn’t particularly serious, but if anyone’s an obvious flight risk, it’s this guy.
graham
“The other driver was not arrested as he had, apparently, made it into the safety of the Burns, Oregon Safeway.”
Oh, Safeway? Shit, it all makes sense now.
Wt fucking f?
aarrgghh
@15: “if you can stand these kind of folks for sheriff and get them elected, you basically control local law enforcement in large swaths of the country.”
in theory.
in reality, the same paranoid devotion to rugged constitutional individualism jealously keeps the various chest-thumping tin-horn fiefdoms and franchises from wanting to have anything to do with each other.
Cacti
@Adam L Silverman:
As we speak, the other yokel is standing atop the Safeway like Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame and yelling:
“SANCTUARY!!!! SANCTUARY!!!”
Soylent Green
Ammon Bundy’s claims stem from his interpretation of fundy Mormonism.
From this week’s Willamette Week newspaper:
The refuge is on edge of the State of Deseret that Brigham Young founded, thus, says Ryan, the land’s history gives the militants power “from the ground up.”
amk
@jl:
“will his buddies pick him up and give him a ride back the refuge I wonder. ”
why not? the terrorists have had a free ride thus far because ‘they might be armed’. what’s one more freedumb ride?
Iowa Old Lady
SAFE-way. Don’t you get it? Safe! It’s right there in the name.
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
Even if every sheriff they talk to tells them to pound sand, …
the sheriffs coming out with those statements in public might help dispel the co-conspirators theory?
Adam L Silverman
@aarrgghh: This is also always a possibility too.
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: That’s excellent! Well done!
Soylent Green
@Cacti:
Good fucking question.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Yes, but… Its easy to sow the seeds of doubt and suspicion.
joes527
@Gin & Tonic: this.
No need to seize anything. Just make it clear to anyone who might buy bundy’s cows that the title to them isn’t clear.
No muss. No fuss. No showdown with the feds.
But Bundy wouldn’t be able to do anything with his cows.
jl
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
” Waiting for Y’allQaeda to get back home and find heavily armed Native americans living in the houses and refusing to leave ”
Just occurred to me that an irony of Ammon Bundy’s self-satisfied reference to his kind of people being rightful owners by conquest and ability to use it most productively by his own lights, is that ‘his people’ would not have the land if it were not for the feds.
The Paiute would have wiped out the whites in the area. they decisively beat the first local militias that they met in Northern Nevada, and were going to finish off the rest, except federal troops arrived in time. Then the Paiutes executed a series of very clever tactical retreats that kept the feds at bay and saved them from annihilation.
I guess Bundy could complain that it is only because of federal government incompetence that there are any Paiutes to make silly claims on the land today. That wold be very GOP of him.
Edit: in defense of the stolid NV militiamen, I’ve read that they assumed that the Paiutes were morons, and that a lot of the militia were drunk. So, it was not a fair fight. The whites concluded that sinister Mormons must be directing the Paiutes, who were obs too stupid to win a fair fight with a white man.
Mobil RoonieRoo
I’m almost to the point of wanting the government to sell the refuge to a private company, let them destroy it and/or charge exorbitant fees for grazing and screw the few towns peope, sheriff and govenor for supporting/not vociferously objecting to this occupation. That might be the most effective way of making sure the next town elects a sane sheriff.
Adam L Silverman
@joes527: What’s amazing is that the other ranchers in the area haven’t done something about him. By not paying his grazing fees he’s really cheating them. Of course he’s likely got a lot of them intimidated, but in practical terms the real victims are the other ranchers in the area that play by the rules.
Roger Moore
@TaMara (BHF):
Let me guess- Weld County?
C.V. Danes
@Botsplainer: Exactly.
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
Not if the public safety officers fucking come out and reassure the public. Like you know, they are supposed to do? At this point, your bending backwards why the law enforcement might not be doing their fucking jobs starts to sound redenculous.
BillinGlendaleCA
@amk:
Someone should ask Failgunner Ted in the next GOP debate.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cacti: Anyway the loon lost his ride.
Felonius Monk
I guess they’re pickin’ them off one by one:
(Source)
C.V. Danes
@jl: Since the land he’s talking about belongs to the American people, is he invoking something like reverse eminent domain?
Baud
All I’m saying is that Trader Joe’s would have kicked Kenneth’s ass
Adam L Silverman
@amk: I don’t condone it, I’m just trying to figure it out based on what’s being reported.
You’ve got a lot of people worked up on all sides of this. All of them are armed, some more than others. I’m a big believer that there are some folks that just need killing and that violence is a viable solution to some problems. But in this case its not my ass on the line and I don’t have all the information, so I’m analyzing on what I can see reported. And what I see is indicating that the Feds are looking to avoid previous screw ups and that the locals are outgunned and unsure who to trust.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman:
Not just that, but replicate previous successes.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: this too.
Roger Moore
@C.V. Danes:
Their claim is that the federal government can only own land for a limited set of purposes, i.e. military bases and government buildings. IOW, various government agencies that own large swathes of land, like NPS, BLM, NFS, etc., are unconstitutional. That means the government should have to give up the land, and the logical response is to give it to the people who are already ranching there. Shorter: they “deserve” to own the land they’re ranching, and fuck everybody else.
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, we all have seen that song and dance before, like since 2014? With all the federal might, if you haven’t had a plan in place to disarm a buncha gun toting yahoos even after two years , it’s either sheer incompetency or collusion. What? I am just analyzing.
Big R
@Adam L Silverman: OT, but your ’05 ARPS piece is assigned reading in my religion and politics seminar. So, you know, SOMEBODY is reading it.
redshirt
The government not stopping this actually favors the traitor’s points.
The Feds don’t own them, at least Democrats.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: American Review of Political Science? Is that the one with Ken Wald and Kevin Fridy?
Davebo
@amk:
I presume it would be impossible to prove he had driven the vehicle there.
Big R
@Adam L Silverman: That one, yeah.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: That’s fine, I’m not angry with what you’re writing or your take on this. I can only tell you what I think is happening and why I think its happening. Again: it doesn’t mean I condone this approach.
Mike J
200 BLM, NFS, etc employees attacked per year.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: Cool. What class, program, and school if I may ask? And who is the instructor?
trollhattan
@PhoenixRising:
Trying to keep track, I’ve seen the following :
Yokel Haram
Y’all Qaeda
Vanilla ISIS
Trailer Daesh
So hard to pick a favorite, like choosing among special needs children.
Big R
@Adam L Silverman: I’ll e-mail that info to you.
ETA: Lies and calumny, because I can’t find an e-mail addy for you.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: that’s fine, I understand not wanting to give that stuff out since it could possibly identify it.
Ken supervised the political science half of my doctorate (Ron Akers supervised the criminological part). Kevin was a doctoral student in the program at the time.
Did you like the article?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@trollhattan: Don’t forget Meal Team Six (which I only discovered today). And the YeeHawdists.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: use [email protected]. Its what I used when I wrote at my previous gig in case someone there needed to reach me. Once I get a message there, I will private message you back with my everyday email.
Adam L Silverman
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): That one is a keeper!
Big R
Haven’t gotten to it yet; just spotted your name on the syllabus. Just finished Durkheim’s Elementary Reflections on Religious Thought (or something like that), which is giving me ideas on starting a cult.
Felonius Monk
@trollhattan:
I’m partial to Stormin’ Mormons.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: I’m a big fan of Durkheim. The modern applications are in criminology: General Strain Theory and Institutional Anomie.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: And if everyone in the course likes it you can tell them you know me and enhance your cred! If they don’t like it feel free to pretend you have no idea who I am.
Big R
@Adam L Silverman: Oh I’m gonna drop your name all fuckin’ semester just to mess with the prof.
redshirt
@trollhattan: I really like “Trailer Daesh”.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: when you email me and tell me who it is, I’ll let you know if I know him or her.
jl
@Roger Moore: too bad their theory is contradicted by federal laws passed and executed by very people who wrote the Constitution early in the Republic.
Someone should send them a copy of this handy dandy report.
Federal Land Ownership: Constitutional Authority and the History of Acquisition, Disposal, and Retention
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL34267_12032007.pdf
But they will ignore it, it being the product of the bogus current federal government (CRS).
I gotta dig up my Hughes and Cain Economic History of the US, it’s got a whole chapter on history of land tenure. The feds were keeping land for all sorts of reasons, for things that were absolutely not part of their pet list of OK things to do, right from the start.
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman: The locals know the feds will be gone after the occupation and they’ll be out there on their own. Grant county sheriff just north sounds very sympathetic to the wing nuts. Several Oregon sheriffs have made wing nutty statements about gun control during the Obama administration. It’s nutty out here in the Oregon hinterlands.
Adam L Silverman
@Big R: Got the email. I do not know your professor. I’ve not been to a polisci meeting since 2011 and he’s a pretty recent PhD.
geg6
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, bullshit. They are aiding and abetting at the very least. They are definitely violating their oaths and the public trust. They should be helping to take down these assholes, no excuses. Fuck them, fuck the Feds and tuck the state of Oregon. Send me the fuck out there. I have more balls than all of them put together and I’m a woman. I have no sympathy for their excuses at this point. None. If they can’t manage these fucking assholes, they can’t manage the drug war, terrorism, the mob or gangs or any other criminal activity. Oh wait. Haven’t noticed them managing any of those well either. Again, I reiterate, dead people of color everywhere you look, taken down by law enforcement regardless of guilt or innocence or collateral damage. White motherfuckers are allowed to commit sedition, threaten federal agents and employees, steal public land and property and everyone is afraid to not only arrest or shoot them but are worried about their tender feefees. Fuck that noise.
Adam L Silverman
@Kelly: Its nutty in a lot of places.
Sad_Dem
That librul 9th Circuit black-robed activist court is at it agin.
amk
@geg6:
But THEY ARE ARMED, so don’t tread on them, must be the stupidest argument one can think of.
Joel
What would Curt LeMay do?
Joel
@trollhattan: Clownshirts
Adam L Silverman
@Joel: Nukes!
Adam L Silverman
@geg6: @amk: So I’m going to put you two down for front row and center on the frontal assault to storm the wildlife sanctuary building.
graham
@geg6:
Yes. X eleventy million.
But I don’t want to lead the charge, Adam. But the power could be cut off, the roads blocked…something.
Heliopause
@amk:
Another possibility is that they are afraid of them. Not afraid of collateral injury, but literally afraid of them. As in, there are lots of sympathizers in the rural west, in law enforcement, in the military, and they’re literally afraid to stir them up. Our overseas Empire goes through a similar thing; we bitch about client regimes not taking sufficient responsibility for domestic security, without noting that non-trivial percentages of the native population are actively rooting for the other side. So I’m just throwing that out there as a remote possibility.
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
No, that’s what the law enforcement groups are paid for. See, another silly dodgy argument from you.
You have been spinning the same “analysis” since this has started without answering the simple logical questions like why are they allowed to come and go as they please, why are they allowed to swell their ranks, why are they being given access to the press freely, why the feds have not said anything about this thus far, why is papa bundy still out there in the open egging on his terrorist sons etc.
Adam L Silverman
@graham: I agree. I expected they’d have blocked the roads in and out and cut the power within 72 hours give or take a day to get personnel on site. Then set up a perimeter and made it clear no one comes in, no one goes out.
I’m as displeased as everyone else with the response so far and, despite what I think is happening and why its happening, perplexed as to why they don’t have the place locked down tight.
graham
The Cowliphate is my favorite.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: I don’t quite know who you think I am, but I’m not spinning anything. I wrote in the first post that I expected they’d have blocked the roads in and out and cut the power within 72 hours give or take a day to get personnel on site. Then set up a perimeter and made it clear no one comes in, no one goes out.
Am I happy with the response? No. Can I do anything about? Also no.
You want to be pissed off – knock yourself out. Not sure its going to solve anything unless you’re also working your way through FLEOTC.
Adam L Silverman
@graham: also a good one!
benw
The fairgrounds were all booked up for the big Stryper/Warrant/Ratt show.
amk
@Adam L Silverman:
So, no answers then? Just ‘stop being angry’? Then mebbe if you could stop with your speculations/excuses disguised as analysis?
trollhattan
@Sad_Dem:
Wow, p22, what a piece of work the district judge is. Are judges routinely singled out like this?
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan:
No.
Soylent Green
The authorities have screwed the pooch.
They could have contained this by blocking the roads after the first few days, before resnacking.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@amk: Maybe you could start with reading comprehension.
Anne Laurie
@amk: The rest of us find Adam’s posts here useful.
Keep in mind, it’s not his fault there’s a fustercluck in Oregon.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: All I can tell you is what I’ve been telling you: what I know they should have done initially and we now know they didn’t do and what it appears they are doing. And trying to provide some explanation for why this might be.
If you want to be mad, be mad. If you don’t want to read my posts, don’t read them.
That’s all I got.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Its fine. I understand the frustration. I also have discerned (Gin and Tonic, SiubhanDuinne, Steeplejack: did I spell/use that correctly?) that playing it straight, trying humor, or even snark isn’t going to satisfy amk. That’s fine too. Its a free country, so to speak.
Punchy
@trollhattan: Meal Team 6 wins, hands down.
Cheryl Rofer
This is disturbing.
Those guys look like the kind that would take the maps and dig up the archaeological sites, long after the occupation. Pots and stuff are worth money. Archaeologists have had to become more and more secretive about locations. Same with fossil locations.
A local National Monument site used to have pottery shards all over the ground, along the path. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints. Somehow those shards are all gone now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I think you are missing a “not.”
amk
@Anne Laurie: Not saying it is his fault. Only questioning his analysis/explanations.
@Adam L Silverman: It is your explanation part, I have problems with. Nothing personal. You can read that as getting mad. Shrug.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Have come to the same conclusion.
C.V. Danes
@Roger Moore: Except that the land is not owned by the government. It’s owned by the public trust.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
OPB today:
Is it a bad approach? Maybe, but there is some logic to it.
This thing is going to be dissected eleventy-million ways when it is over. There’s no reason to rush in before they have a plan and the resources they need to implement it. And contingencies when things don’t go according to plan.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Soylent Green: Serious question.
And then what?
So the Sheriff and deputies block the roads. The few dozen law enforcement people in the county (with help from outside) block the roads. What happens if/when a few dozen heavily armed people inside or outside decide they don’t want to be stopped? Etc.
The people on the law-and-order side have to think several steps ahead. And they need to be able to enforce any decisions they make. As bad as it is now, it will be much worse if they have to back down…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Fixed. It was not there…
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I haven’t been in a Safeway for years. And even then it was there Philadelphia/NJ variant Genuardi’s or however you spell it. Down here I shop at Publix. When I was in Carlisle it was the Giant or Wegman’s.
sukabi
@amk: I’m thinking they didn’t want a shootout, hostage situation in the store. Jackass has to find another ride back to the refuge. Hopefully the feds towed the truck away.
Heliopause
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Think about what you’re asking for a second. We’re wondering how to deal with “a few dozen heavily armed” right wing extremists. In the United States of America.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Passive aggressive ad hominem? Meh.
ThresherK (GPad)
@BillinGlendaleCA: Study question: Is a Tim Horton’s kiosk in a Safeway considered Canadian soil?
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Huh? Either you’re suggesting I’ve personally insulted you by telling Omnes I fixed my omitted word and making a pun about it or you’re upset about telling efgoldman where I buy my groceries. Either way I don’t get what your problem is or what you’re complaining about.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThresherK (GPad): I would think that a kiosk would be more like a consulate than an embassy.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Law enforcement seized both of the stolen vehicles.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Some people confuse analysis with advocacy or support. IOW It’s Chinatown, Jake.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: good.
Adam L Silverman
@Heliopause: This is the paradox here. You’re dealing with a ten to twenty people at the refuge, but they’ve got at least 40 sympathizers in town. And there are lots of sympathizers in other places in Oregon, neighboring states, and across the country. I cannot prove it, but I think that part of the reticence we’re seeing is rooted in the concern that these folks understand reality very differently than the rest of us, are heavily armed, are angry, and are willing to direct violence against anyone they believe has directly or indirectly wronged them. And that they have the right to do so. As someone indicated in a comment upthread, there were 200 attacks against BLM personnel last year. Again, I can’t prove it and I may very well be wrong, but I think they don’t want to set something off that could get out of hand not just in Harney County, but in a lot of other places.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: good I’d like an order of special chow fun and General Tso’s shrimp please?
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Mebbe you should reread your own words… OTOH, never mind. Life is too short.
Jack the Second
I wonder if ISIS was this silly when it started.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: This is what your reply linked to: “@Omnes Omnibus: Fixed. It was not there…”
So explain to me where the ad hominem attack is or where in there I’m being passive aggressive. If you accidentally linked to the wrong thing in your reply, just direct me to the one you meant. Because right now I have no idea what you’re on about.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Omnes Omnibus: Now all I can picture is a Tim Norton’s kiosk Mountie who explains, “I first came to Safeway on the trail of my father’s killers.”
Adam L Silverman
@Jack the Second: A lot of the AQI guys were of varying degrees of competent. Some where just local guys trying to be power brokers. Others were put out as stalking horses for more powerful members of their tribes. Basically if they were successful then the tribe was working both sides and profiting. If they weren’t, well they were expendable anyway and the real powers in the tribe had deniability.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK (GPad): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEzcFpjakpQ
ThresherK (GPad)
@Adam L Silverman: Cool. I own both the soundtrack CDs and Love the cross-castings between Due South and the Red Green Show. Plus my wife has a bit of a crush on Paul Gross, but then, that’s no surprise.
Adam L Silverman
@ThresherK (GPad): I loved the show. And have the theme in iTunes.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Heliopause: It takes time for the United States of America to have enough people on hand, and to develop a plan, to handle (what is it, 150?) heavily armed people who are acting counter to the law. The Refuge is in the middle of nowhere.
A handful of deputies in the county (from a force of 10) aren’t going to do it. A couple of dozen sheriffs and deputies borrowed from local counties aren’t going to do it.
It’s not like the federal officials have said to Bundy, “Ok, you can have it.” They’re being patient.
Did you see Adam’s link at 20?
The image of the newspaper clipping indicates it took 5 days (Friday April 27 to Wednesday May 2) from the beginning of the “camp-in” to the arrests. It’s only been something like 13 days in Oregon…
Patience is a virtue.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Even if it’s not 150 people, and instead is 10-20 people, it’s 10-20 heavily armed people.
Cheers,
Scott.
Satby
@geg6: you go girl.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: OPB estimates 30 people at the Refuge now.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Eric U.
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, I love your posts but you don’t owe everyone an answer to every aggro post. The pie filter is a wonderful thing.
a different chris
Apologies for jumping straight to the comment box, but I had to stop reading when I got to:
What the fuck.
No, seriously. A lousy $10k, for a repeat offender? Some unspecified number of years ago I got busted with some weed, squeaky clean record, never anything more than speeding tickets (all paid on time, BTW), and MY bail was $20k. (And I’m not even black! If I were any whiter I’d be transparent.)
This is insane. So for a cash bond of 10% of $10k this fking gomer gets to skip on back to the Fight Against Tyranny ’16 Weenie Roast? You know, I think I did myself a favor by not reading any further than the first 4 sentences. I think I’ll leave it like that and go find something else to do.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
I saw “Branch Stupidians” somewhere.
Soylent Green
Yes, they are heavily armed. And there may one or two among them who want to go out like Butch and Sundance. But most of them are, as has been noted, cosplayers who have no intention of dying for their cause. The guns are a key part of the costume. It makes them look tough, but in reality they are posers. They are not going to shoot their way out. They are all hat and no cattle.
The Bundys took the refuge to win support for their anti-public lands movement, and have largely achieved that aim.
I don’t advocate a direct attack, and I realize it can take time for the feds to mount a logistically sound response. That response should be to say Boys, the party’s over. No more freedom to come and go, no more media stardom. Establish a perimeter and wait. Now that they have been allowed to stock up for months, the wait could be a long one.
But my conviction is that the FBI plans to let them have the refuge until their celebrity fades and they get bored and leave. Not to engage them in any way. Possibly not even charge them later.
In the meantime, the known perps, in small groups or alone, can check into Burns motels, chow down in Burns restaurants, go shopping, go home and come back, and NOT be arrested. That’s just ridiculous.
Soylent Green
@Steeplejack: And Ranch Davidians.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
“Old Judge Jones.”
Steeplejack
@ThresherK (GPad):
Okay, I LOL’d.
Emily68
I live in Okanogan County, Washington, which is in eastern Washington and very rural, conservative, etc. I called up the county Sheriff yesterday when I got to wondering in there was any plan about what to do if the “militias” got it into their heads to liberate and Forest Service buildings or something. I was pleasantly surprised when the Sheriff told me that, yes, they had thought about this and were making plans, just in case. He said if you want to protest the government, it’s fine with him, but these guys are criminals.
Bartholomew
It is good that one person made himself too inconvenient not to arrest, but the whole situation seems more a staged play than a serious ‘takeover’ … which is actually more serious. Very hard to know what’s really going on.
LOL at what Redshirt said: “Imagine if liberals – some bone hitting PETA members …”
????????????????? lol ???????????????????
Peta is not ‘liberal’ in context, principles, tactics, goals, approach, meaning, or methods of fundraising.
They are LEFTISTS, I grant you.
Ella in New Mexico
@amk:
Ok, enough with punishing the messenger. Stop being a dick.
@Adam L Silverman:
Your posts have been truly helpful, given the almost complete news blackout on this issue. You’re as stumped as anyone as to what the Hell the Feds plans are. Just keep on doing what you’ve been doing and stop feeding the trolls who lurk here.
Lurker
Why is it that the heat and electricity have not yet been turned off at the refuge’s headquarters? That would send the yahoos scurrying off like cockroaches.
Blue Galangal
@Soylent Green: Yeah, it’s about looking tough. I work on a college campus and the other day a colleague and I were walking to the student union. On our way back there were a couple of guys standing stock still in the middle of the street. Didn’t think too much about it; traffic was flowing around them. But as we approached them, one of them made eye contact with me and stared at me. Kept staring as I kept walking, and then moved to intercept me. I raised an eye brow and walked around him and at that point realised they must have been some of those open carry guys (had a big gun slung on his right side that I couldn’t see before). And he was clearly trying to provoke me, and the other people who were walking around him. The funniest part was (if it wasn’t so sick) is how completely everyone ignored him and his buddy.
Heliopause
@Adam L Silverman:
As I have commented several times, local law enforcement has no capability of resolving this swiftly. As I have commented several times, they are relying on local sympathy for both supplies and “moral support.” Just about everybody gets that the feds are taking a cautious approach. But there is a base fact that we can’t just explain away: regardless of how this ends and what consequences they face, they’ve been allowed to do whatever the hell they want to do for at least several weeks. Anything. They come and go freely, they gather supplies, they go to church, they recruit new members including women and children, they steal personal information, they alter the landscape, they vandalize property, they desecrate native land and artifacts, they hold press conferences. They’ve set up their own little mini-state. They’re basically ISIS except, fortunately, there hasn’t been any bloodshed yet.
As I’ve also commented, I also understand the feds being tight-lipped. But there is one thing I would really appreciate being communicated to me. I would like to be told that, in spite of appearances, there is not a different set of rules for the ultra-right in this country. If there is a different set of rules I would appreciate being told that as well.
Heliopause
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I really hope that’s not true. Since it’s a poorly kept secret that the far right has been growing in number, armaments, and boldness over the past few years I really would have hoped that they already had some sort of plan in place.
Yes. Have you been reading the reporting of Amanda Peacher and others? They are stocked for months and one of the few things the authorities have said is that they have no plans to push for a speedy resolution. They are adding people to the compound. Even if Bundy and some of the core people decided to leave tomorrow there are now so many nutjobs from all over the country on the premises that there are bound to be at least a few who are crazy enough to stay until the bitter end.
How quickly this will be resolved, what consequences they will face, and what the long term effects on our civil society will be from allowing them to do this are still wide open questions.
graham
@Heliopause: Exactly
I know that these Cowliphate guys aren’t serious, but I remember that Occupy Protest at that college campus in California where that guy comes and just SOAKS the hell out of a bunch of poor bastards with Mace, all the while there is a damned platoon of armed police SWAT guys menacing the fuck out of everyone else.
I could write a million words about how in my opinion this used to be a serious country until the Birchers and Goldwater and Reagan assholes started spewing their gibberish. Now it’s just send in the clowns and 45% of the country think that is just fine. It is dee-pressing. Fuck it, it’s a beautiful day, there’s food and music and life to monger.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Heliopause: Amanda’s reporting has been a fixed tab in my browsers since I became aware of this.
Yup. We’ll see.
I don’t think they’ll get what they want, though:
They are the perfect example of how RW talk radio and the like rots the brain.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Heliopause
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Their formal demands are plainly absurd, but the positive publicity and recruitment are a good consolation prize.
Heywood J.
What Heliopause has been saying. There’s being patient, and there’s being foolishly prudent. There are plenty of things the feds can do short of violent confrontation, starting with cutting electrical power. These posers thrive on their social media jabber, grooming their beards and big hats whilst fomenting a wider-spread insurrection. There should be no mistaking what these guys are about, snarky nicknames aside.
Now environmental activists are confronting the yeehadis, in part because their own gubmint doesn’t seem to have the fucking balls to do even the simplest of things. Maybe when one of the goofballs snaps and kills a hippie the feebs will step up and do their jobs. Until then, we wait and watch, and they wait and watch, and grow bolder, knowing that their government is afraid of them.
They’ve already been winning — old man Bundy got away with his standoff with the BLM, no charges filed against anyone, no tax liens that I could find any record or reference of, no payment of fines owed for more than a generation, cattle still overgrazing public land for absolutely free. These people operate with impunity, why the hell should they suddenly worry that anyone’s going to step in and enforce the (heh indeedy) “law”? That shit’s for the coloreds; cracker galoots with guns do whatever the hell they please.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
This is what is scaring me a little. In Chaffee County (CO) we actually had a Democrat as Sheriff. Sadly, he’s not going to run again. I wonder if it’s because he’s been feeling the crazy heat from his fellow “law enforcers” and just decided it’s not worth it. He is one of the few Sheriffs who stated that he had no problem with following the laws of the state wrt gun legislation.