FYI, WHITE ISIS WANTS YOU TO KNOW THEY ARE NOT PROTESTORS

With news that the leader of the Oregon militia occupying a federal wildlife refuge was arrested last night, and another member killed in a confrontation with police, it’s worth taking a look back at how the media has described the crisis in the last few weeks.

The armed militia first seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon on January 2, and proclaimed early on that they were willing to kill and be killed if necessary. Since then, their occupation of the land, and their refusal to seriously negotiate with the FBI, has cost the U.S. government over $133,000 per day.

Regardless, much of mainstream media has continued to avoid labeling them as the occupying militia that they are. Rather, the go-to label for the armed group has been “protesters.”

Shortly after the militia first took over the refuge, the Associated Press also ran an article framing the crisis in Oregon as a “peaceful” gathering of protesters. After receiving criticism, the AP changed the original headline, but still did not note the potential for violence at the occupied government building.

Although seven other members of the militia have been arrested, and one has surrendered to authorities, remaining members plan to continue their occupation of the federal land. Jason Patrick, one of the remaining militants, compared the death of militia member Robert “LaVoy” Finicum to the police killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old carrying a toy gun. “The government can kill who they want for whatever reason they want with impunity,” Patrick said, according to VICE News.

But regardless of what Patrick thinks, the way law enforcement has interacted with the Oregon militia — and the way the militia have been portrayed in the media — makes the power of white privilege in the United States quite clear.

The media has labeled Black Lives Matter events a “threat,” and activists have even been accused of inciting violence “to the point of a hate crime“, despite the movement being largely peaceful. Police have repeatedly used excessive force against Black Lives Matter activists, deploying riot gear, tear gas, and smoke bombs on the unarmed activists protesting. And just last week, a Minnesota cop encouraged people to run over Black Lives Matter protesters. “Run them over,” Sergeant Jeffrey M. Rothecker wrote in a Facebook comment. “Keep traffic flowing and don’t slow down for any of these idiots who try and block the street.” He then advised drivers how they could use the law to justify running over protesters with their cars.

Some people who have picked up on this double standard have asked the media to begin calling the armed militia in Oregon domestic terrorists — a term fitting for anti-government extremists, willing to kill and be killed, who have taken over federal land — but it seems many outlets still prefer “protesters” instead.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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STAFF WRITER

WHITE ISIS RUNS INTO A FEW PROBLEMS

Six members of the militia occupying the Malheur National Refuge, including Ammon Bundy, were taken into custody Tuesday night following a shooting nearby, according to the FBI.

The Harney County District Hospital in Burns, Oregon is on lockdown, and a section of the highway is also closed. The altercation occurred at about 4:25 PM local time, when the militia was on its way to a meeting in John Day, a neighboring town.

The FBI released a statement confirming that one militant died in a shootout. Another militant sustained “non life-threatening” injuries and was taken to the hospital.

Bundy and his militia have been occupying the federal property since the beginning of January, and law enforcement has been hesitant to remove them. But conflicts with local residents have escalated recently; members of the occupation have torn down their fences and reportedly vandalized other property in the town. Locals have grown angrier at the lack of action to remove the militia.

Two other militia members were arrested last week when they stole federal vehicles to drive to Safeway. Meanwhile, the militia has been trying to convene their own justice system to attempt to arrest local officials.

There are reportedly still members of the militia at the refuge and it’s unclear what impact tonight’s events will have on the ongoing occupation.

[cross-posted from thinkprogress]

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STAFF WRITER

WACKADOODLE MILITIA MEN

On Real Time last night Bill Maher accused the militants holed up in an Oregon federal reserve of not being as tough as they like to portray themselves.

“How tough can you rugged individualists be when the first thing you did after storming the rest stop was to post an appeal online for supplies — a shopping list, really, that included such items as throw rugs, shampoo, foot warmers, and French vanilla coffee creamer. What, no scrunchies so you can braid each other’s hair?”

If they were so “ready to die,” Maher mocked, the country had plenty of wars available.

“You can go fight ISIS, ’cause what you’re doing isn’t saving the republic,” he said. “It’s more like when you’re a kid and you run away from home by hiding in the backyard.”

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO



Maher singled out Arizona anti-Islam activist John Ritzheimer, playing footage from his heavily-derided “Daddy swore an oath” video and mocking him for going to such lengths to avoid his family for the holidays.

At the same time, however, he compared Ritzheimer to a Yale University student who loudly protested a school official’s email suggesting that the college not discipline students who dress in culturally-appropriative costumes for Halloween.

“If it is a micro-aggression, shouldn’t it just make you micro-angry?” Maher said of the Yale controversy, arguing that if she really wanted to protest oppressive outfits, she should start with Muslim burqas.

“It’s interesting that this Yale student and this hammerhead in the woods think they’re political opposites,” he said. “Really they’re the same person: martyrs without a cause, whipping themselves up into a lather for issues that would better be addressed with Xanax.”

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

Y’ALL QAEDA SAYS THEY WILL ARREST THOSE WHO HUMILIATE THEM

Y’all Qaeda, white angry militants who have taken over an Oregon wildlife refuge appear to be moving toward “indicting” county officials who they say mocked them by threatening to impose a $70,000-a-day bill for their ongoing occupation.

Ammon Bundy said a bogus “grand jury” set up by the militants had served notices of intent Wednesday to various Harney County officials who had refused to support their armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Preserve.

The militant leader suggested that Judge Steven Grasty, the chief elected county official, should be arrested for treason because he made fun of the out-of-state militia members who are trying to overthrow the county government and demanding that federal lands be turned over to their control.

“It appears that he must be trying to hide something because he’s getting very belligerent towards the Committee of Safety and, of course, towards us,” Bundy said.

The militant leader complained that Grasty would not allow the Committee of Safety, which is made up of six local residents selected by Bundy himself as a shadow government, to hold a meeting Friday evening on county property.

“He’s completely biased, he’s also threatened the Committee of Safety, he’s intimidated them, he’s tried to belittle them and really acting strange,” Bundy said, with a copy of the U.S. Constitution conspicuously poking out of his shirt pocket.

Chris Briels, the county’s volunteer fire chief, resigned his unpaid post after Grasty asked him to step down from the unelected Committee of Safety.

“I’ve been told that we don’t know what we’re doing,” Briels said Wednesday, with Bundy standing beside him. “I’ve been told that my life is in danger. I’ve been told all kinds of things. I will not be told what to do. I have my own mind, and I will use my own mind, not somebody else’s.”

Grasty has been strongly critical of the militants — who he calls “armed thugs” — and their plot to take over the county government, even as he complains about the same federal land use issues that drew the outsiders to Harney County.

The sheriff of neighboring Grant County claims he was unwittingly invited to a lunch meeting Wednesday with some of the militants — who asked him to travel to Harney County and join their siege.

Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer, who is admired among the right-wing Oath Keepers gun group, said he would not undermine the authority of Harney County Sheriff David Ward — but he also would not comply with his neighbor’s lone request.

“About the only thing he really told me is I’m welcome to come down there if I would shame and humiliate them into giving up, and I said, ‘No, I won’t do that,’” Palmer said. “I’m not in the business of denouncing or shaming or humiliating anybody.”

Palmer said he would not join the militants in Harney County, but he urged the federal government to comply with the armed outsiders’ demands.

“I believe the government is going to have to concede to something,” Palmer said. “I don’t think these guys are going to give up without knowing that they’ve done something that benefits the people of our country or our region.”

Grasty’s counterpart, Grant County Court Judge Scott Myers, said the Harney County judge had warned him that militants might be trying to take over the government in that county, as well.

A self-appointed judge who will oversee the bogus legal proceedings against Harney County officials said the militants would likely repeat their tactics in other states — and he admitted the group’s goal was to overthrow the elected government and replace it with one they believe was more “constitutional.”

“Ammon Bundy is not leaving until we have a lawful county government and the BLM and FBI are completely out of here,” said Bruce Doucette, who calls himself a “United States at Superior Court Judge.”

Doucette said he will oversee a “grand jury” made up of 25 community members who will meet in secret, but he said the results of their extralegal proceedings will be publicly released.

“Common law grand juries,” which are based on nonsensical “sovereign citizen” legal theories, typically indict public officials on only one charge: treason — for which the penalty is death.

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BUNDY TO BE BILLED FOR OCCUPATION OF FEDERAL LAND

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 has 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 re-creators. All of those costs and losses add up.


Cost to the County: $70,000 Per Day

Harney County Judge Steve Grasty told outraged community members that he’d send the Bundys a bill for what they’d cost the county — which he estimates to be “$60,000 to $70,000 a day” for the closed schools and government offices and the drastic ramp-up in security.

Despite Judge Grasty’s threats, he doesn’t seem optimistic about actually recouping their losses. He reiterated the threat to the New York Daily News, but clarified that he doesn’t expect Mr. Bundy to pony up: “Will he pay it? No.”

These estimates for security don’t include the additional cost of the FBI presence and support, just the cost to the rural community around the reserve — which is bearing the brunt of the economic fallout.


Cost to the Federal Taxpayer: $23,400 Per Day

Along with the occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge facility, three buildings maintained by the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have also shut down because of the security threat to employees. The Bureau of Land Management’s district office in Burns, Oregon alone employs nearly 120 employees — most of who are now on paid administrative leave. The weekly cost of those workers — who now are unable to work — is about $117,000 per week, or $23,400 per day.

Not included in this cost are the 50 additional employees at at the refuge center or the Forest Service’s Emigrant Creek Ranger District office. Many of these workers are also on paid leave, which means the actual cost may be even greater.


Cost in Lost Tourism: $40,000 Per Day

The economic impact of birders, hunters, anglers, and other outdoor recreationalists is no joke. Nationally, these groups contribute some $140 billion and hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economy each year – a strong economic force for many small businesses, towns, and counties like Harney.

The Malheur Wildlife Refuge is no exception. It attracts 119,000 recreational visitors a year, who come to see its 190 thousand acres of prime wildlife habitat, housing 320 species of birds, 58 mammals and 10 species of native fish. These visitors spend around $15 million each year, according to a 2013 report from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

$15 million a year averages down to over $40,000 a day, meaning Harney County has lost, as an estimate, a staggering $360,000 in recreation dollars since the armed takeover began.


Total Cost: $133,400 Per Day

$70,000 in security costs and closed schools. $23,400 in federal salaries. $40,000 a day lost in recreation dollars. The cost of the nine-day takeover adds up to roughly $1,200,600. Each additional day adds $133,400 to the total, and for the beleaguered Harney county, there’s no end in sight.

[h/t thinkprogess]

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Roger West

Jon Ritzheimer Is White ISIS

Vanilla ISIS militant member who seizing an Oregon wildlife refuge said in a video released on Friday that the movement was bigger than their own individual pasts — after insulting another member of the group.

Jon Ritzheimer opened the video by criticizing “anti-violence patriot” Lewis Arthur in the wake of a confrontation between Arthur and “Blaine Cooper” — the name used by multiple-time felon Stanley Blaine Hicks. The 14-minute statement was posted on Cooper’s Facebook page.

“I’m questioning whether or not this Lewis Arthur is perhaps a homeless person and has found a way to develop this guise using the name ‘veteran’ for Veterans on Patrol to get people to sympathize with him and donate to them so that he can have shelters and food and everything brought to him,” Ritzheimer said. “So, again, people, if you just think you know Lewis Arthur from social media, you do not know Lewis Arthur.”

Arthur, who has identified himself as the leader of the Veterans on Patrol group, was accused of seeking “a couple seconds of fame” after saying that he was attacked by Cooper while attempting to remove women and children from the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, as well as Ryan Bundy, who took part in the federal standoff with Cliven Bundy in 2014 and boasted about setting up sniper teams during that encounter.

At one point in the video, someone can be heard whispering the line, “We need to stop fighting with each other,” which Ritzheimer repeats. Later, he asked viewers not to focus on the background of any individual in the group.

“Maybe there is a felon here,” he said. “Let he who’s out there without sin cast the first stone. Yes, Blaine Cooper may have an ugly past, but that man stood by my side when we thought there was certain death headed our way.”

Ritzheimer did not mention that “Cooper’s” past includes felony charges for assault with and without a deadly weapon, as well as alcohol- and traffic-related offenses. The Oath Keepers militia group has described Cooper’s position within the group as “the first sign that nothing good was going to come” from their action backing up Ammon and Ryan Bundy’s taking of the facility.

For his part, Ritzheimer first attracted national attention last year after boasting about making t-shirts saying “Fuck Islam” and organizing armed protests against mosques in Arizona. He subsequently gained the attention of the FBI after threatening to attack a small, majority-Muslim community in New York state.

On Friday he described the taking of the refuge as a sacrifice he and his cohorts were willing to undertake for the good of the country

“A lot of people here are losing work — they’re not able to go home and provide for their families. I am one of them,” he argued. “But I’m making that pledge to these men to know that as long as the greater good for America comes from all of this, what’s mine is yours.”

However, Ritzheimer did not mention that he actually relies on his veterans’ disability pay as well as “a wife that works.”

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CLOWNSTICK OFFICIAL CAMPS OUT WITH WHITE ISIS

The co-chairman of Fuckface Von Clownstick[ Donald Trump’s} New Hampshire “Veterans for Trump” group has arrived in Burns, Oregon, to assist the small cadre of armed men who are seeking to provoke a standoff with federal officials there.

That not-quite-standoff began over the weekend when a handful of men led by Ammon Bundy decided to turn a much larger peaceful protest over a decision to send two ranchers back to jail for arson into an armed struggle. The group’s numbers are small – especially compared to the 300 who reportedly joined the peaceful protest of the re-sentencing – but they have now been reinforced by Jerry DeLemus, a former United States Marine living on the opposite side of the country.

Clownstick himself has said little about the situation in Oregon, following the pattern of most of the GOP primary candidates. But on Tuesday he seemed to tell The Hill it was time for the Bundy crew to pack it in and go home. “You have to maintain law and order, no matter what,” he said.

It is at least the second time DeLemus has ridden to the physical aid of a Bundy. When Ammon’s father Cliven had his cattle impounded by the Bureau of Land Management in 2014 over more than $1 million in unpaid fines and fees for his use of public lands, DeLemus and his son drove 41 hours in three days to come help.

The impromptu militia DeLemus helped lead in Bunkerville, NV, eventually pushed the agency to return Bundy’s cattle under threat of violence. “If they made one wrong move, every single BLM agent in that camp would’ve died,” another leader of the group named Ryan Payne bragged to the Missoula Independent later. “We had counter-sniper positions on their sniper positions. We had at least one guy – sometimes two guys – per BLM agent in there.”

DeLemus’ job in Bunkerville was “chief of security,” according to RawStory, which reports he was personally responsible for dismissing the members of the Bundy brigade who later went on to kill two police in Las Vegas before being killed themselves by other officers. He says he’s come to Oregon to help ensure the younger Bundys and their adherents find a peaceful resolution and leave the refuge safely.

In a Facebook post explaining his decision, he also warned that a military psychological operation was taking place. “We must be level headed and remember there is a psyops war happening as well and all who were at Bunkerville know well what I’m talking about,” DeLemus wrote.

When a GQ reporter asked the Granite State man in 2014 how he thought the Bunkerville standoff might end, he said there was a “good chance” that federal agents would return and kill every member of Bundy’s brigade, promising his crew would shoot back if it came to it. “And I’ll tell you what, they’ll have a bloody nose, and I’ll tell you what: the American people will rise up,” he said. “Go ahead.”

DeLemus told reporters from the conspiracy theory-driven Next News Network at the time that “there’s great risk we may not come home” from Bunkerville. And a year earlier in New Hampshire, he told a crowd of Tea Party types that “We are in a similar position our Founding Fathers found themselves in and their decision to stand was equally difficult.”

He also believes President Obama is secretly Muslim, according to a June 2014 Facebook post about the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after five years as a captive of the Taliban. (The opening sequence of the podcast Serial’s current run of episodes on Bergdahl features Trump’s voice saying, “Y’know in the old days deserters were shot,” to raucous applause.) “You are a race baiter and a sure sign of how little time America has left,” he wrote to the president in another post.

[h/t thinkprogress]

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