The 11th Republican presidential debate comes as the FBI arrested a Donald Trump campaigner and 11 other people on charges related to the 2014 standoff at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada. Jerry DeLemus is the co-chair of Veterans for Donald Trump in New Hampshire. He’s been indicted on nine federal felony charges, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, assault on a federal officer and several firearms charges. Two of Cliven Bundy’s sons were also arrested in the FBI sweep, meaning that a total of five Bundy family members are now in jail awaiting trial.
The armed militia occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon said they would surrender to the FBI in front of the world’s media on Thursday, after several hours of tense and at times frantic negotiations that were broadcast live on YouTube.
[...]
“We are not surrendering, we’re turning ourselves in,” Sean Anderson, one of the remaining militia members at the site near Burns, Oregon, said on a phone call with mediators, which was live-streamed on YouTube on Wednesday.
“It goes against everything we believe in, but we’re going to do it.”
If you can't stand up for everything you believe in, how do you expect other people to join or support you? Probably won't be a next time, will there?
A federal grand jury recently indicted the four holdouts on conspiracy charges, which carry possible six-year sentences.
[...]
Fear of another fatal confrontation was clear in the phone calls that were broadcast live on the internet earlier on Wednesday after the FBI effectively squeezed the noose around the remaining members of the militia.
David Fry, a 27-year-old anti-government protester at the standoff, began screaming on a phone call with a conservative activist from Washington at 5pm. In a frantic status update, the activist on the other end of the line, Gavin Seim, told his 20,000 followers on Facebook that Fry was on the line, sharing a frightening message with him.
“He says a armored vehicles have surrounded them and are demanding they surrender but they will not,” he posted on social media at 5.03pm. “The FBI is on loudspeakers and asking them if they want to see their family again.
That David Fry is a screamer, isn't he? Jail will be interesting. (UPDATE: 2/11/16 - I appear to have he wrong guy. This is David Fry.)
Seim’s phone call with the occupiers, broadcast live, provided a dramatic and at times surreal window into the deliberations ongoing at the site, as the militia debated the merits of surrender.
[...]
As word of the live broadcast spread, the FBI confirmed in a statement that it had moved in on the occupation after militia members were seen driving outside the grounds. The FBI signaled it had run out of patience with the militia on their 40th day occupying the federal building.
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The negotiation that led to the shaky agreement to bring the occupation to an end on Thursday was a roller coaster of screaming matches, prayers, constitutional debates, desperate pleas for helps and occasional breakouts in Christian song.
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”In another dramatic twist late on Wednesday, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose 2014 standoff with the federal government inspired the occupation in Oregon, was arrested, apparently en route to Burns. The FBI said Bundy was taken into federal custody in Portland but declined to disclose the charges.
Shortly before setting off to Oregon, Bundy, 69, had told the Guardian in a phone interview that he was heading to the standoff to protect the holdouts. “I hope I save some lives,” he said. “I guess if they wanted to murder somebody tonight, that’d be a good way to do it.”
Ammon Bundy's lawyer, Mike Arnold, said Cliven Bundy was considering joining Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore at a news conference that had been planned Thursday morning in Portland to talk about the refuge takeover. Almost immediately after she arrived in Portland, Fiore started talking to the last occupiers by phone and left in a car for the six-hour drive to Burns to help work out their surrender.
The negotiation settlement may have come about in part due to the remaining four running out of food. When asked by Fiore if they'd eaten dinner last night, one of them said no, but they had snacks - "a thousand granola bars."
UPDATE: 7:45 pm
Apparently, they had food.
Seim played host to it all, leading prayers and giving quickie history lessons involving Lexington and Concord.
“I bet you could use a good steak,” Seim said at one point.
“We’ve got steaks,” Sandy said. “We got pork. We’ve got everything. We just had pork fried rice for lunch. We had bacon and eggs and sausage for breakfast.”
“Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” Seim said.
“Exactly,” Sandy said. “That’s why I know God said we should be here. If He didn’t want us here fighting, He would’ve made it difficult.”
Federal authorities are planning to cut off the power of the wildlife refuge in Oregon that has been taken over by militia, exposing the armed occupiers to sub-zero temperatures in an effort to flush them out.
Yeah, but I remember reading somewhere that they'd taken a generator with them.
Reached by phone around 10.30pm on Monday, Ammon Bundy, a key member of the 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.”
[…]
“After they shut off the power, they’ll kill the phone service,” the government official added. “Then they’ll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they’ve done.”
Yeah, two things: 1) Do they have cell phone service up there? Surely a federal installation would have. 2) If they really have supporters, they may not need roads. Utes and snowmobiles, horses even.
Bundy has repeatedly said the group is prepared for the long-haul. However during a tour of the site on 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.
We can forgive the Guardian reporter who probably isn't a wilderness or militia guru. But, if there's any wildlife on that wildlife refuge, the guys with guns, who are probably wise to the ways of hunting, can supplement that stash. And, if they have people who can bring more supplies in avoiding the blocked roads...well, there. And, if not, as long as they can build a fire, they can melt snow to drink if they need more water. If there are any streams on the land, there's another plus.
Cliven Bundy said that as far as he knew, his sons weren’t armed. He said that if any violence takes place at the standoff, it will come because of an overzealous government reaction.
Hmmmmm.
That certainly looks like a gun to me.
As does this:
Not to mention the audio where two of these guys tell people to come join them and "bring your arms." I don't think they're talking about upper appendages.
In addition, check out this Harpers article from the original Cliven Bundy showdown.
I had planned to ask Bundy why he was complaining about a government that had been so patient with his shenanigans, one that subsidized ranchers like him with enormous largesse. This was a government, I wanted to remind him, that had set the federal grazing fee at $1.35 a month per cow-calf pair when the market rate on private land averaged $11.90, and it was spending at least $500 million annually in direct and indirect subsidies for public-lands ranchers. (In an essay for this magazine that was published in 1986, Edward Abbey called Western cattlemen “welfare parasites.”)
"That other movement." Can't bring himself to say "Black Lives Matter". If he weren't so busy fighting against the Bureau, I have no doubt he'd be fighting "that other movement."
And indeed, that's what they've been getting for more than a century.
Armed protesters. We usually call that a coup or at least a takeover.
A group of armed protesters have taken over a building in a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, accusing officials of unfairly punishing ranchers who refused to sell their land, a spokesman for the group told CNN.
The protesters occupied part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns after a march supporting Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers who are convicted of arson [and scheduled to go to prison for a second time - after an appellate judge said they should serve more time - tomorrow].
Prosecutors said the Hammonds set the fire, which burned about 130 acres in 2001, to cover up poaching. The father and son were sentenced to five years in prison.
Oh. Criminals, then. (Is that five years the original sentence or the appellate decision?)
The Hammonds said they lit the fire to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires.
Oh. Controlled, prtotective/preventive practitioners. (Wait. Is it their land or federal property?)
After the march Saturday, the armed protesters broke into the refuge's unoccupied building and refused to leave.
Gee. I hope we aren't seeing another Waco fiasco. Maybe the feds will back down like they did with that armed Nevada rancher. What was his name?
"We will be here as long as it takes," said Ammon Bundy, a spokesman for the group. "We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves."
Bundy?
Bundy is the 40-year-old son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who drew national attention last year after staging a standoff with federal authorities over a Bureau of Land Management dispute.
Yeah! Bundy.
Ammon Bundy said the group in Oregon was armed, but said he would not describe it as a militia. Bundy declined to say how many people were occupying the building.
"We are not terrorists," he said.
Can't be. They're white.
When asked what it would take for the armed protesters to leave, Bundy did not offer specifics.
"We are using the wildlife refuge as a place for individuals across the United States to come and assist in helping the people of Harney County claim back their lands and resources," he said.
"The people will need to be able to use the land and resources without fear as free men and women. We know it will take some time."
Oh boy. Sounds like the Bundys are forming "armed protests" for other people now. That could be a considered a challenge by the feds. They've even got a Twitter post up "calling all freedom loving people" to join them in Oregon.
Ball's in the feds' court, and these are not a lone, odd family (Ruby Ridge), religious culters (Waco) or American Indians (Pine Ridge).
That was such a confusing story.
As reported at Vox:
A militia protesting the "tyranny" of the federal government seized the headquarters of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Saturday and in a video posted to Facebook, called on "patriots" from all over the country to come to the refuge with their guns to join their fight.
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[T]he men involved in the takeover — including Ammon Bundy, Ammon's brother Ryan, Jon Ritzheimer, Blaine Cooper, and Ryan Payne — are not locals. Rather, they are a small group of individuals who travel around the country attaching themselves to various local fights against the federal government, usually over land rights.
[...]
On the surface, this is about a father and son from Oregon who were ordered by the court to return to prison to serve additional time for a 2012 arson on federal land. But, as with Cliven Bundy's standoff, the anti-government militiamen who are driving this crisis believe it's about standing up to a tyrannical federal government.
Hoooo doggies. And they were successful in Nevada. Are the feds sorry they let them? Were they hoping for a better logistical fight? I'm pretty sure they didn't figure it would end there.
Bundy and his fellow militiamen have seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge — located in a remote area some 50 miles southeast of the city of Burns — in hopes of creating a "base" where "patriots" like themselves can come — with their guns — to live and make their stand against the "tyrannical" federal government.
Yeah. Supply lines, dudes. Supply lines.
At first, according to the Oregonian, the Hammonds "accepted the militia's offer of help to avoid prison." But they "changed their minds after being warned by federal prosecutors to stop communicating with the militia" and have now "professed through their attorneys that they had no interest in ignoring the order to report for prison."
Ammon also tried to recruit residents from the surrounding area, reportedly meeting with 10 or so locals, but they all turned him down.
The feds can be pretty persuasive.
The Oregonian interviewed some locals who expressed sympathy for the Hammonds and for the militia's "constitutional arguments," but ultimately rejected the militia for its extremism.
And its likelihood of being killed or imprisoned for life, no doubt.
It is unclear, as of the time of this writing, exactly how many militia members are inside the occupied building and what kind of weapons they may have.
Not nearly enough for a standoff with the feds Although, they are white.
Here's a video from an ex-Marine and father of two who's gone up there expecting to die. It may not be available long.
Who radicalized him? The "oppressive, tyrannical government" he talks about?
The local sheriff calls them "outside militants".
The Bundy family of Nevada joined with hard-core militiamen Saturday to take over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, vowing to occupy the remote federal outpost 30 miles southeast of Burns for years.
The occupation came shortly after an estimated 300 marchers — militia and local citizens both — paraded through Burns to protest the prosecution of two Harney County ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, who are to report to prison on Monday.
It doesn't say how many of the marchers joined the "occupiers", but reports are that the militia claim about 100.
Ammon Bundy posted a video on his Facebook page calling on patriots from across the country to report to the refuge – with their weapons.
Yeah. And the local authorities and feds are going to just let them pass? Not much of a strategic plan, Ammon. I think you may have not thought this through.
Oh, and...
Brandon Curtiss, a militia leader from Idaho, told The Oregonian/OregonLive he knew nothing about the occupation. He helped organize Saturday's protest and was at the Harney County Fairgrounds with dozens of other militia for a post-parade function. Another militia leader, BJ Soper, took to Facebook to denounce the occupation.
Most of these "militias" aren't eager to die.
Among those joining Bundy in the occupation are Ryan Payne, U.S. Army veteran, and Blaine Cooper. Payne has claimed to have helped organize militia snipers to target federal agents in a standoff last year in Nevada. He told one news organization the federal agents would have been killed had they made the wrong move.
And he's not in prison? Why? Because he's white?
The militiamen told OregonLive there were about 150 of them, but a couple who delivered food to the refuge HQ estimated that there were just 15.
Another report noted about a dozen cars. Maybe a well-armed militia, but not much of one.
Supporters of the Hammonds believe they were treated unconstitutionally because the two were convicted of arson under a provision of an expansive federal law punishing terrorism.
Oh. White terrorists.
The controversial case demonstrates a problem with a 1996 law, which was introduced to punish domestic terrorists, according to Barry Bushue, the longtime president of the Oregon Farm Bureau.
“I find it incredible that the government would want to try these ranchers as terrorists,” Bushue told The Pete Santilli Show. “Now is where the rubber meets the road. Right now is when the public should absolutely be incensed. And the public, I think, should be fearful.”
Agreed. Except for one thing. If any of these guys really is "prepared" and "willing" to die, when they run out of food and water, somebody's going to start shooting.
