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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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

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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STAFF WRITER

WHITE ISIS TYRANT RYAN BUNDY, NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED

WHITE ISIS TYRANT RYAN BUNDY

White ISIS, Y’all Qaeada, the “special” patriots who have taken over an Oregon nature preserve have bristled at suggestions that their armed demonstration is an act of domestic terror — but they apparently don’t understand the legal definition of the term.

One of the militants, Ryan Bundy, spoke Tuesday to blogger Shepard Ambellas of Intellihub about the ongoing occupation of the Malheur National Nature Preserve by self-described militia members.

Bundy, the son of scofflaw Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, complained that the mainstream media had portrayed the militants and his family — who took part in an armed confrontation with federal agents over their unpaid grazing fees on public lands — as terrorists.

“They labeled us terrorists several years ago, so that’s not new,” Bundy said. “You got to look at the definition of terror.”

Bundy asked the blogger to define terror, and Ambellas said he guessed it meant “something that scares someone.”

“Would you say that terror is extreme fear?” Bundy asked.

“I would say the word has a heightened sense of fear,” Ambellas said.

“All right, so extra fear,” Bundy said. “All right, so a terrorist is one that uses extreme fear to control a situation, to control a political situation or any particular situation — so that would define terrorism.”

Bundy, who was arrested last year following a courthouse brawl in Nevada, said terrorists used bombs and bomb threats to create “extreme terror to try to control or gain position or something,” citing the Boston Marathon bombing as an example.

“Terrorism is extreme fear to control the situation,” he said.

The militants have so far not been charged with any crimes, but the United States Code does include a legal definition of terrorism that is much more specific than the one outlined by Bundy and his interviewer.

The U.S. Code defines domestic terrorism as “activities that … appear to be intended … to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion and … occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

The sheriff of Harney County, where the nature preserve is located, said the militants had come from out of state to protest the sentencing of ranchers Dwight and Stephen Hammond on arson charges but then took over the government building in hopes of taking over the county government and sparking a nationwide revolution.

Sheriff David Ward said the FBI, which is overseeing the situation, has assured him the militants will face charges.

The sheriff didn’t specify which charges those might be, but the U.S. Code outlines a charge for seditious conspiracy whose elements strongly resemble the plot to take over and occupy the nature preserve.

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both,” the statute reads.

Bundy and his group, which calls itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, told reporters they want the Hammonds to be released from custody and they want the federal government to hand over land near their ranch to local control.

“The best possible outcome is that the ranchers that have been kicked out of the area … will come back and reclaim their land, and the wildlife refuge will be shut down forever and the federal government will relinquish such control,” Ryan Bundy said in another interview. “What we’re doing is not rebellious. What we’re doing is in accordance with the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.”

Bundy told Intellihub that Hammond was a victim of government terrorism because the rancher feared that federal authorities would “put a bullet in (his) head.”

“He reported to prison not out of duty, not out of respect for the government, not out of guilt for crime that they say he committed — it was simply out of fear of the oppressive government,” Bundy said.

“He was in fear of being shot in the head — he was fearful for his life, his family’s life,” Bundy said. “He was fearful of others around him. So who has been using those tactics against him? The government has. So who are the terrorists?”

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

WHEN GOP INSTANT HEROES TURN INTO DIPSHITS

Last nights episode of HBO's Real Time - New Rules segment- slammed Republican role models gone awry.

“Republicans have to stop being surprised when their instant heroes turn out to be embarrassments,” Maher said. “They’re so anxious to buddy-up to the forgotten good people that when a Kim Davis or a ‘Joe the Plumber’ or a Cliven Bundy come along, they rush to say ‘Now here’s a real American’ when they should be saying ‘What’s up with this asshole?'”

Maher then specifically turned his attention to Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, the woman who has refused to comply with federal law and issue same-sex marriage licenses.

“Kim Davis turned out to be everything conservatives hate,” said Maher. “She gave birth to two children out of wedlock and she’s been married four times. According to her, the answer to ‘What would Jesus do?’ is ‘everybody.'”

Maher then recounted Cliven Bundy’s racist statements and George Zimmerman’s ongoing encounters with law enforcement, before setting his sights on Josh Duggar.

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Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

IDIOTS VS DUMBASSES

MILITIAMAN GETTING READY TO FEND OFF DRONES OR OATH KEEPERS.

It was the imminent drone attack that finally did it!

It's like "Threes Company" but with sweaty, heavily armed men and code names.


Paranoid rumors are not only common at gatherings of Patriots," they're practically the entire raison d’etre for them. So when a wild and paranoid rumor began circulating – that Attorney General Eric Holder was preparing a drone strike on the armed militiamen who gathered at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada – it unleashed a rift within the camp, which is brimming with fear, rage, testosterone and firearms.

Vicious infighting among those remaining at the camp – estimated at less than a hundred – broke out a little more than two weeks after heavily armed militiamen forced federal agents to back down from a planned roundup of Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle from public lands. After vowing to stay on and protect Bundy – who then stumbled on the national stage with an outpouring of racist commentary – the remaining “Patriots,” who have been raising fear levels among local residents, have begun feuding. And it has been revealing.

Apparently, someone within one of the major factions at the camp, the Oath Keepers, relayed word of the imminent drone attack to his leaders. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes responded by pulling his people out of what they called “the kill zone” (the area the supposed drone would be striking). When the other militiamen learned that the Oath Keepers had pulled out, they were outraged.

As you can see in the video above, the angry militiamen – led by a Montana “Patriot” named Ryan Payne, who has been acting as the spokesman for the militiamen at the ranch – held an impromptu gathering at the camp to discuss the situation. They openly talk about shooting Rhodes and other Oath Keepers leaders – because in their view, the Oath Keepers’ actions constituted “desertion” and “cowardice” – and describe how “the whole thing is falling apart over there.” At the end, they vote unanimously to oust the Oath Keepers, or at least its leadership, from the Bundy Ranch camp.

The Bundy Ranch terrorists are ready to shoot each over rumors of a drone strike you say, maybe these fucking nut jobs will take themselves out via a circular firing squad - and this problem now fixes itself. One can only hope.

NFTOS
Editor-In Chief

Roger West

COMITATUS

Rachel Maddow points out that Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s racist remarks are unsurprising in the context of his apparent adherence to the philosophy of the Posse Comitatus and Sovereign Citizen movements, rooted in post-Civil War reconstruction.




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief 

Roger West

"'ACTING IMPERIALISTICALLY"

Rick Perry is stumping for the Oath Keeper vote by claiming the Bundys were pushed into the position of using force because it's the Bureau of Land Management that's acting outside the law.

Rick Perry was on Fox News discussing the recent dustup between anti-federal government zealots and the BLM, including this unfounded report that the BLM is going to confiscate privately owned lands in Texas.

He's obviously looking to secure the Oath Keeper and Militia vote by claiming the Bundys were forced into the position of using force because it's the Bureau of Land Management that's acting outside the law.

Everyone knows that Bundy is lying about his claims of "ancestral rights" on his property since his family didn't own the land until 1948. And we also know that he's violating multiple court orders and has refused to pay grazing fees for decades while all the other ranchers are doing just that.

Rick Perry has no problem with armed militias running around with guns, threatening federal officials. Who knew?

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STAFF WRITER

Steve "Damn Nazi Liberal" Chevapravatdumrong

Harry Reid: 'If These People Are Patriots, We're In Trouble'

AMERICAN TERRORIST AIMING AT COPS AT BUNDY PROTEST

America's "American Taliban" in action.




Harry Reid will not stand down either, get em Harry!

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

BUNDY RANCH TERRORISTS

With the withdrawal of agents of the BLM and their contractors from Gold Butte and the release of the cattle already rounded up, the right wing “militia” supporters of Cliven Bundy have declared victory over the “tyrannical” U.S. government. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) however, disagrees.

“Well, it’s not over,” Reid told KRNV-TV on Monday. “We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over.”

While Reid declined to speculate further on the next move, BLM has said it will return to the courts, although that route has proven ineffective against this family, who for the last 20 years, have defied both the BLM and the courts.

Meanwhile, Cliven Bundy and his two sons, defiant as ever, appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity who asked Cliven for a response to Reid’s remarks

“I don’t have a response for Harry Reid, but I have a response for every county sheriff across the United States,” Bundy said. “Disarm the federal bureaucrats.”

There you have it, a true supporter of the Constitution, as are all of the thugs who traveled across the country to confront and intimidate law enforcement officers doing their job last week.

Bundy claimed that he and the “patriots” who supported him had so badly frightened the federal agents that they backed down.

“Let me tell you how they backed down,” he told Hannity. “They backed down, they run and got on the freeway and went to Mesquite and grabbed their stuff and moved out of the state, now, the state, towards the state of Utah. Utah county sheriffs finish this job that [Sheriff Douglas] Gillespie didn’t do, take the guns away from these federal bureaucrats.”

Cross-Posted from Crooks & Liars



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

GRAZING IN THE GRASS

“We provide armed response,” according to a Montana militia member named Jim Lordy. Lordy traveled to Nevada in order to support a local rancher for believes that he should not have to follow federal court orders. When he arrived there, he told a local reporter that “we need guns to protect ourselves from the tyrannical government.”

Lordy belongs to a militia group called Operation Mutual Aid, which provides “defense of public and private property, lives, and liberty to exercise God-given rights, seen plainly in the laws of Nature, and codified in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, at the request of such parties in need of such defense,” according to a website associated with the group. Although only three militia members had arrived at the Nevada ranch by late Wednesday, when the latest reports came out, other militia groups reportedly “inundated the rancher's household with calls and pledges to muster at the site.”

The Oath Keepers, a right-wing law enforcement organization that warns about the government “disarming the American people” and “blockading American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps,” also announced that it will send people to support the defiant rancher.

This conflict arises out of rancher Cliven Bundy’s many years of illegally grazing his cattle on federal lands. In 1998, a federal court ordered Bundy to cease grazing his livestock on an area of federal land known as the Bunkerville Allotment, and required him to pay the federal government $200 per day per head of cattle remaining on federal lands. Around the time it issued this order, the court also commented that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Fifteen years later, Bundy continued to defy this court order.

Last October, the federal government returned to court and obtained a new order, providing that “Bundy shall remove his livestock from the former Bunkerville Allotment within 45 days of the date hereof, and that the United States is entitled to seize and remove to impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass after 45 days of the date hereof.” A third federal court order issued the same year explains that Bundy did not simply refuse to stop trespassing on federal lands — he actually expanded the range of his trespassing. According to the third order, “Bundy’s cattle have moved beyond the boundaries of the Bunkerville Allotment and are now trespassing on a broad swath of additional federal land (the “New Trespass Lands”), including public lands within the Gold Butte area that are administered by the BLM, and National Park System land within the Overton Arm and Gold Butte areas of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.” The third order also authorizes the federal government to “impound any of Bundy’s cattle that remain in trespass.”

On Saturday of last week, the government hired wranglers to round up Bundy’s livestock. As of Wednesday, they’d impounded a total of 352 cattle. That’s when a tense standoff broke out between a group of Bundy’s supporters and federal rangers armed with stun guns and police dogs. In one video, a ranger tackles Bundy’s sister away from a moving vehicle (she later admitted that she was blocking the path of government trucks shortly before this incident). Another video shows rangers using a stun gun on a protester immediately after he kicks a police dog.




Bundy, for his part, claims that “our Constitution didn’t provide for anything like the federal government owning this land.” He’s wrong. The Constitution provides that “the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.”

Congratulations both oath keepers and Cliven Bundy, you are today's asshats of the day.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West