Why the Bundys and Their Heavily Armed Supporters Keep Getting Away with It

Ideologues look forward to their court dates. A trial is a good place to make a case. When a far-right movement first began to coalesce around the Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, in 2014, it seemed to be designed as bait for prosecutors, so flagrant and direct were its violations. Bundy had stopped paying the federal government for a grazing lease in 1994, so he had been illegally grazing his cows there for two decades—according to the Feds, he owed a million dollars in back fees, which made him by a vast margin the most delinquent rancher in the country. When the Bureau of Land Management arranged an operation to remove Bundy’s trespassing cattle, the allies who came to his aid, many of them militiamen, set up sniper positions and aimed their rifles down at the Bureau’s officials. An extremist married couple from Indiana who came to town to support Bundy ambushed and killed two Las Vegas police officers, covering the cops’ bodies with the Gadsden flag, a Libertarian symbol, before officers shot the husband and the wife committed suicide.

Ryan Bundy goes on the attack during hearing in Las Vegas

Ryan Bundy, accused of leading the 2014 standoff near his father’s ranch in Bunkerville, testified Tuesday that the charges detailed in the 16-count indictment against him describe the actions of federal agents who tried to impound his father’s cattle.

“The wrong people are in jail,” Bundy testified during an unusual, six-hour detention hearing at which the rancher’s son, who has been incarcerated for a year, argued for his release pending trial on extortion, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, and other charges resulting from the April 2014 confrontation.

America’s real terror threat: Domestic extremists pose a greater danger than ISIS ever will

Take America back from those who have stolen it.

Protect America from those who want to destroy it.

Restore the principles that these usurpers betrayed.

These are the messages that have defined the GOP presidential race. They have been used for the past eight years to justify obstruction of the Obama administration, and are now being used to paint the democratic candidates as dangerous. In the late stages of the GOP primary as the rhetoric became increasingly xenophobic, they were applied to increasingly broad swaths of the American population as well.

Feds Fighting To Keep Oregon Standoff Evidence Secret

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government is pushing to keep some evidence in the criminal case against militants who occupied federal property in Oregon secret from people who are not directly involved, including the press. Federal prosecutors claim releasing this information will endanger witnesses.

More than two dozen people face felony conspiracy charges for their role in the 41-day occupation of a remote federal wildlife refuge near Burns. Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada "rancher" Cliven Bundy, who is dealing with his own charges related to a 2014 standoff, led the effort. The armed militants seized the facility to protest the imprisonment of two local ranchers and the federal government's control of public land. The standoff, which ended last month, resulted in numerous arrests and the death of one prominent occupier, LaVoy Finicum, who was shot dead by authorities in January.

The Oregon Standoff and the ALEC-Backed Push to Put States in Control of Public Land

After a six-week takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, Ammon Bundy and seven other members of his ragtag militia were in a Portland jail facing criminal proceedings. And Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, inspired to join the occupation following an earlier armed resistance by Bundy's father, was dead - shot by police officers after attempting to avoid a traffic stop on the highway north of the city of Burns.

The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding The Bundy Land Seizure Agenda

The political network of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch signaled last week that it is expanding its financial and organizational support for a coalition of anti-government activists and militants who are working to seize and sell America’s national forests, monuments, and other public lands.

The disclosure, made through emails sent by the American Lands Council and Koch-backed group Federalism in Action to their members, comes as the 40-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is winding to an end.

Ammon Bundy Arrested, Follower Killed, During Confrontation With Law Enforcement In Oregon

Ammon Bundy, leader of the month-long militant occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, was arrested Tuesday in a highway confrontation with law enforcement that killed one of his followers and wounded another, according to the FBI.

Armed Oregon Militia Creates Kangaroo Court To Indict Government

An armed group that has taken over a national wildlife refuge to protest federal land use policies continues to escalate the situation by introducing a common law grand jury, which has no actual legal standing. They have chosen Joaquin Mariano DeMoreta-Folch, St. Augustine Tea Party government accountability chairman and a longtime proponent of convening secret citizens’ panels to indict government officials to be their common law judge and at a recent event held at the refuge a New Mexico rancher, Adrian Sewell of Grant County, New Mexico, renounced his federal grazing contract from the U.S. Forest Service.

Militia Says It Will Take Up Arms To Defend Flint If Necessary

A group of vigilantes has vowed to take up arms to defend the city’s residents. During a rally in front of City Hall, an executive officer for the Genesee County Volunteer Militia announced the group is “not going to allow [the government] to step on the people of Flint any longer.”

“We’re here to defend this community,” said Matthew Krol, who was joined by approximately 30 supporters. The Detroit Free Press reported that the group carried “Don’t Tread On Me” signs and some of its members had pistols. “We’re not going to allow (the government) to step on the people of Flint any longer.”

Novelist Obliterates The Bundy Militia — And Oregon’s Largest Newspaper — In 194 Words

Award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin has lived in Oregon for more than half a century, and has regularly visited the region surrounding the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for 45 years. Ever since armed militants took over the refuge in a dispute over ranching fees on public lands, Le Guin has “been following the situation very closely,” she said in an email to ThinkProgress.

So when she saw an article titled “Effort to free federal lands” in the Sunday Oregonian, she did what any self-respecting, world-renowned author would do.

The Crackpot Alternative Legal System That Threatens To Escalate The Oregon Standoff

Events in Harney County, Oregon, seem to be taking a turn toward escalation.

Armed men have been occupying a wildlife refuge for two weeks by now, saying they’re taking a stand against the federal government’s management of public land. They’ve recently stepped up their acts of protest: Earlier this week, they used a federal bulldozer to tear down a fence dividing private ranchlands from the public’s terrain at one edge of the refuge, which represents a more direct flouting of the law than even the occupation itself.

The Oregon Militia Is Picking the Wrong Beef With the Feds

On January 2, a band of armed militants—led by Cliven Bundy's son Ammon—stormed Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, seizing the visitor center both to protest the tangled legal plight of two local ranchers convicted of arson on public land, and to defy the federal government's oversight of vast landholdings in the West. (You might remember that Cliven launched his own successful revolt against federal authorities in 2014 to avoid paying grazing fees on public land in Nevada.)

The Daily Cost Of The Bundy Occupation

Although the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge facility may seem to have done little more than camp out with guns and demand snacks, their continuing occupation is costing taxpayers dearly.

Local and federal government facilities have had to be closed, keeping public employees unable to complete their work. Harney County, which houses the preserve, schools were closed last week, adding teachers to the list of employees on paid leave and preventing students from learning. Police and security have been brought in to protect the townspeople from the armed militiamen — who have threatened law enforcement and other county officials. The occupied reserve, a valuable tourist attraction for the area, is closed to recreators. All of those costs and losses add up.

How The Bundy Standoff Endangers Local Ranchers’ Interests

The dry prairies of Southeast Oregon have been the backdrop for land disputes for centuries — long before armed men decided to set up shop in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, demanding land sovereignty and snacks.

Anti-government militiamen have occupied the refuge’s headquarters since last week in response to sentences leveled against two local ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, for intentionally setting fires on federal land. Led by the sons of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher with a history of federal standoffs, the group occupying the refuge is also calling for a broader federal surrender of land they believe belongs to ranchers.

The Dumb and the Restless

First of all, when did it become OK for cowboys to cry in public?

The coolest thing about the Gary Cooper-Clint Eastwood-James Coburn-Yul Brynner-style cowboys is that they never said a damned thing. They walked slow, asses sore from all that riding, and kept things to a syllable or two if they could manage it: "Whiskey." "Bath." "Draw."

Ammon Bundy Rejects Sheriff's Offer To End Oregon Standoff

BURNS, Ore., Jan 7 (Reuters) - The leader of a group of armed protesters occupying the headquarters of a U.S. wildlife refuge in rural southeastern Oregon on Thursday rejected a sheriff's offer of passage out of the state to end the standoff.

During a meeting at a neutral site, Harney County Sheriff David Ward offered to escort Ammon Bundy and his group of occupiers out of Oregon, but Bundy declined.

Bundy met the sheriff on a roadside after leaving the compound with other occupiers in two vehicles.

Inside The Backwards Ideology Driving The Right-Wing Militiamen Who Captured A Federal Building

Two interlocking issues drove what appears to be slightly more than a dozen armed men to seize control of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service building in Oregon on Saturday evening. The first was the incarceration, release and eventual reincarceration of two men convicted of arson by a federal court. The second is a much broader dispute over whether ranchers are free to encroach upon federal lands without interference by the federal government itself.

As The Bundy Brothers Occupy A Federal Building, Here Are The GOP Candidates Who Supported Their Dad

On Saturday, a large group of armed militia members took over a federal building in rural Oregon, claiming the property to protest the conviction of two local ranchers found guilty of setting fire to government land. The protesters — many of whom openly brandish firearms — say they are “planning on staying…for years,” and have not ruled out violently defending themselves against any attempt to expel them.