It is time for the “pest control” to move in and smoke these rats out… Enough of this BS.
They want all federal land to go back to its previous owner. In that case the Paiutes would get Malheur, but under this scheme Russia and France are going to be pretty happy too.
From http://www.ktvz.com/news/oregon-sheriffs-association-defends-ward-in-harney-response/37436072
"Back in 1995, the Bureau of Land Management told Medenbach he had to leave his makeshift cabin on federal land in northern Klamath County that he claimed to own.
“I feel the Lord’s telling me to possess the land, and I can legally do it, because the U.S. Constitution says the government does not own the land,” said Medenbach, who described himself as a born-again Christian, according to an Associated Press story.
A 2002 book by Robert L. Snow called “Terrorists Among Us: The Militia Threat,” also included Medenbach, referring to him as “a member of the Oregon Militia” who had a number of confrontations with county officials regarding building codes on his five-acre property near La Pine. The book said Medenbach was building his dream home out of discarded refrigerators, water heaters and other such material."
The arrested guy sounds fairly mentally ill.
Enough. I’m sure other countries are happy to see how ineffective our government is in this situation. Why on earth are they adding more followers and going out for supplies?
I’ll be a Great Old Broad for Wilderness!
http://www.ktvz.com/news/antirefuge-takeover-protesters-stage-bend-rally-march/37460430
I just don’t get it… why are they allowed to continue when they say these kinds of things?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/‘these-buildings-will-never-ever-return-to-the-federal-government’/ar-BBohQPJ?li=BBnb7Kz
This article was posted two hours ago; not the day they started.
Ugh… the link won’t post to the article, only the webpage with links to articles about the situation. Believe me, it’s there.
This is beyond disgusting.
Arrest the terrorists and be done with this.
Or bomb it. (Even I’m not sure if I’m joking).
this story isn’t getting any coverage in DC anymore.
None on my google newsfeed either.
The more I hear about them the angrier I get. Did you know that the guy who had the tantrum about the packages of “marital aids” sent to them is on SS disability? Should he give that up since he believes the federal government is unconstitutional?
They are just playing. Like bad children playing a bad game, only they’re delusional adults with guns acting out their war fantasies. Honestly, if the Feds go all Commando on them I won’t complain.
Moochers.The vermin need to be removed from the Wildlife Refuge, so that normal people can go back to work, and normal people can go to enjoy our public lands.
Some online friends are planning an Eastern Oregon bikepacking trip in April. I hope that the feds have taken out the trash by then.
Well if they can’t get them on any other crimes, this one should nail the coffin shut:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oregon-militia-cameras-removed
We all know it’s just a matter of time, of the government’s choosing, when the FBI will go in. Let’s hope they get them all in one fell swoop. Go after their property, cattle, whatever. I don’t care.
What is really interesting about this situation is that those who are usually foaming at the mouth to ‘wipe them’ out and such, are amazingly silent, especially on the right. I saw a thing on Fox News about this, and basically what they made it seem like is some minor skirmish between two landowners. As others have said, if this had been Muslims, Blacks, Native Americans or some radical group, you would have heard from all quarters to ‘wipe them out’, but not with this.
As far as why the government hasn’t done anything, if anyone remembers Waco or Ruby Ridge, the political right/anti government types railed about those for years, Obama doesn’t want to turn this garbage into martyrs, to have various candidates use this to ‘prove’ that the government is this evil occupying force taking away rights, etc.
As far as the guy on SS disability wanting the government out of his life, well, that is the irony of most of the anti government types, they whine about the government interfering in their lives, but many of them are some of the biggest dependents on it. Among other things, those occupying this preserve are angry about rules limiting ranchers from grazing there, yet what they leave out is that ranchers are allowed to graze on federal land open to grazing at prices well below market prices, and that if the land reverted to private ownership, they likely would be paying a lot more. What these clowns actually want is for people to be able to graze their herds on the land for free, what they want to do is steal the land from government control and de facto steal it for themselves (the irony being that those occupying the land are not ranchers, and certainly are not local), wouldn’t be surprised if the government turned the land over, that the militia types would claim it was ‘theirs’ and start charging ranchers a lot more to graze there.
I keep hearing how the federal government ended up owning so much land in areas like this, and I seem to recall that one of the reasons they did it was based in the very history that the militia’s claim was ‘the good old days’, ie the wild west they seem to revere. The history of the west they don’t bother to learn were all about bloody fights over land, both for mineral rights and cattle, the wars between ranchers and the cattle barons who basically took the best grazing land for themselves, same with mineral rights, many of which were bloody. One of the reasons the federal government got into having so much land if I recall correctly was to allow the federal government to stop the bloodshed and more importantly, to stop a small group of people from controlling all the land in the west, that the government did it to allow fair land management that would allow ranchers and those seeking to work the land for mineral exploration a fair shot,including the ‘little guys’, it is why ranchers and mineral explorers can do so at pretty cheap prices. One of the biggest problems with that these clowns are doing, is that in the end, the freedom they think they are claiming would be illusory, if these lands reverted back to private control it is very likely that ‘the people’ , ranchers and those looking to do mineral exploration, would find the land owned by huge corporations who would gouge them to be able to use them, if they did at all.
The cameras they took down were put up by the power company. In one photo you can see a power substation right next to Joe Schmo. The government wanted our power grid protected from terrorist attack after 9/11 and encouraged power companies to put up these cameras. I guess they’ve been stacked by these bozos!
Even worse, they cut a new road on the wildlife refuge. They are just so stupid and destructive.
The people taking over these remote buildings and land are radicals. Some have a history of this behavior and run ins with the law over the same problems. If they were black or Muslim and had the same arguments and the same history of problems and the same background as the people currently entrenched there why are you so sure it would be handled differently?
How many Muslim or Black radical ranchers are there in this entire region? Or in the entire United States?
This is not the situation where the argument of those of a different race and/or religious affiliation being treated differently can be invoked. It makes absolutely no sense to me. None.
I was looking at a BLM web site. Apparently, it costs $34 million per year to manage the public grazing lands. They bring in $12-13 million so they are operating at a considerable loss. Private grazing lands charge about 6 times what the Feds charge. The difference in price between public and private rates has diverged steadily since the 1980’s. Less than 3% of grazing is on public lands so why aren’t they GRATEFUL that they get such a sweet deal from this public assistance program?
Because they’re spoiled, idiot children.
There were AA “squatters” who were forcibly removed from public land outside Savannah, GA in 1979. It turns out that they were Gullah people who had had their land taken by eminent domain and wanted it back. They had a legitimate beef. They were removed and jailed.
I still don’t get why they are allowed to come and go, and why more people are being allowed to join them. I’d be happy to have the National Guard called up to establish a tight perimeter.
They don’t want the lands “managed” because they don’t see the need for it. It is the natural order that they should be able to run an unlimited number of cattle through and damage riparian zones and eat the area down to nothing. There’s always more land, right? Just keep moving west when you graze your land into a dust bowl. They probably think it would save taxpayer dollars that are being wasted on high handed management practices.
In one of the videos I was viewing about the birders, they explained how there is a migratory path from Patagonia in South America all the way up to, I think Alaska called the Pacific Flyaway and how these migratory birds use this refuge as a stopping off place. If the lands are being destroyed by building roads, etc. these birds could be put at risk. It is a key landing place and resting place.
This is the video that explains the seriousness of interrupting this nesting spot (linked from greenwich’s post #308):
http://videos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2016/01/oregon_militant_opponents_rip.html