Armed militia, Bundy brothers take over federal Wildlife Refuge building in Oregon

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521

The federal grazing program is a very small percentage of the grazing out there and it costs more to the government than grazing fees bring in. Even IF the Bundy’s paid their grazing fees properly, they would still be benefiting from a type of welfare since they are costing more than they are paying. Far more.

The federal government has a strong interest in the land being managed wisely and not over grazed to the point of it becoming a desert. The Bundy’s want to pay nothing to use land that belongs to all of us, possibly ruining it in the process, all for their “sovereign rights”. There is a logic processing part of their brains that must be missing!

522

he had no weapon in his hand and he was shot in the back …that is not even in dispute. you can not make up your own facts

let me guess this news story is fake (I will not hold my breath for you to acknowledge you were wrong )

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/03/oregon_standoff_fbi_agents_und.html

"The remarkable disclosure came as a team of local investigators released findings that two state troopers shot Finicum three times in the back during the chaotic scene at a police roadblock Jan. 26. One bullet pierced his heart, an autopsy showed.

A prosecutor ruled the fatal shooting was legally justified, saying state law allows use of deadly force when officers believe a person is about to seriously injure or kill someone. Finicum kept moving his hands toward a pocket that contained a loaded handgun. Although he was shot from behind, Finicum had a trooper in front of him armed with a Taser who was thought to be in danger."

the cops always say that…“he was reaching for something”…using that logic Philando Castile also had a handgun so…his murder was legit too?

as a civil libertarian I find it hard when people pick and choose who is a victim is and who is not based on their own personal beliefs and agenda.

523

@zobroward:
The use of deadly force under the law is justified if the office felt that their life was in danger, pure and simple. The cops knew finicum was armed (given that the whole bundy clan was, not surprising) and if there was a cop in front of him (who was unarmed other than a taser), and he was reaching for what they felt was a weapon, yes, they would have the right to shoot him under the law…

Trying to compare it to castile is ludicrous, it is a totally different situation. First of all, Castile unlike Finicum (who,by the way, stated to reporters he would 'never be taken alive) was sitting in his car, and he didn’t resist. Castile told the cop he was carrying a gun, that he had a permit, and the reason he told the cop that was so that when he reached for his wallet (and told the cop that), it was to indicate he wasn’t reaching for a gun, one of the things that black men learn or are taught is that when a cop pulls you over, you do everything deliberately. The other difference was the cop in the castile case was armed, he had the advantage, that even if castile was intending to shoot the cop, the cop could easily see him pulling a weapon and shoot him before he could even get it out, but the cop in that case, despite all that, shot and killed him simply because he reached for his wallet. With Finicum, you have someone who had made statements indicating he was armed, that he intended not to be taken alive, who had an unarmed cop in front of him that had the cops at his back not fired, likely could be shot by finicum before they could shoot him, you are comparing apples and oranges and trying to make a point.

BTW, the FBI agents were under investigation for potentially lying about the shots another FBI agent made (the article wasn’t clear) , they do know that the FBI agents bullets didn’t hit finicum, so likely the fbi agents either lied and said he didn’t shoot, or claimed he had shot finicum, or something like that.

524

also the feds most certainty unleashed dogs on protesters in nevada and used them on pregnant women. again, not in dispute or subject to filtering to fit your version of the truth.
I will not link the video because there is dirty language. but you can easily find it.
watch the video if you want.
I am sorry but either you stand against abuse of citizens in all cases or you do not. but always base what you say on the truth not what you choose to be “true”

525

you said “he wasn’t shot in the back” so was he??..you still did not correct that statement.
you say it was justified (because in this case you went threw an entire justification…were as in the castille case you went threw a diatribe of reasons it was not. again not the question,…I was not justifying either killing just pointing out how some people pick and choose their position based on their beliefs and prejudices. I think my point was made with your response.

so are you acknowledging that he was shot in the back? are you acknowledging he had no weapon in his hand? not asking for your justification of his killing or reasons that mr castille was not justified . the question is once again was he shot in the back? which you contend he was not and did he have a weapon in his hand?

526

“so white people always take race into account and every other group of people in a jury just look at the facts…??”

I encourage you to quote the language of the people you’re arguing with rather than making up straw man ideas to knock over.

527

not a straw man, nice try…just responding to all the people yourself included bringing up "white privilege "and white people and other race related reasons the jury used race to decide why they did what they did in Oregon and there is zero basis for these statements.and, talk about irrelevant straw man arguments …how you linked emmet til to this is so far beyond…words.

528

This disparity is backed up with the much excessive heavier-handed use of law enforcement and national guard troops on the North Dakota protests for weeks and the fact North Dakota’s state government is overwhelmingly supporting this heavy-handedness*. Comparatively speaking, the Bundys were handled with extreme kid gloves by the Feds and local law enforcement.

Ironic as the the protests was sparked because the pipeline is close enough to have a deleterious effect on the drinking water sources near the nearby reservation, threatens Native American heritage sites such as the burial mounds, allegations the energy company building the pipeline deliberately bulldozed some Native-American heritage sites cited as being threatened in the filed lawsuit against the pipeline construction, etc.

Also ironic, during the Bundy takeover, their supporters bulldozed some Native-American heritage sites to build a road as quoted from NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/27/499575873/oregon-occupation-unites-native-american-tribes-to-save-their-land

And yet, the Bundys were not only acquitted, they weren’t even charged for the violation of the Paiute Native-American sites/artifacts.

It’s disturbing that all the above could be reasonably seen by anyone who has done serious cursory study in 19th century US history that history seems to be repeating itself in 2016.

  • Heavyhandedness extended to attempts by the North Dakota authorities to silence the few newsmedia journalists covering the protests like Amy Goodman by indicting them for "rioting" when they were merely doing their job covering the events. An indictment which was fortunately dismissed by the Federal government for the blatant First-Amendment violation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/judge-rejects-riot-charge-against-amy-goodman-of-democracy-now-over-pipeline-protest.html

In this respect, the North Dakotan authorities behaved no differently from some tinpot totalitarian/authoritarian regimes or some historically extremely corrupt regional/local governments in the US.

529

kid gloves? mauling with dogs, beatings and shooting a man in the back and killing him is kid gloves? wow.
look I get the mentality of many on the CC website but are you serious?

in fact in ND the feds are not even helping where as in nevada it was federal aggression and civil rights violations against the bundys supporters…that caused the outrage.

has anyone been killed in ND? have the feds(sorry they are sitting this one out) mauled pregnant women with dogs?

are you ok with civil rights violations in one place but not the other? I am against the pipeline personally but I at least can see wrong is wrong.

so you are not against government abuse as long as the government is harming people you do not like or agree with.?
I understand human psychology and we try and justify things but this goes to protection of people in north dakota,nevada, orgeon etc…from the abuse and bullying by those in power.

530

@zobroward wrote, in response to @Hanna, “not a straw man, nice try”.

Um, @zobroward, you might want to try looking up the definition of “straw man”. Google can be your friend if you’re going to challenge based on definitions, seriously.

531

no point in trying to talk to people who will not admit there is more than one side to every story or their"truth" is off or toss in irrelevant cases from 1950’s, ignore reality…you guys win! stay stuck in the echo chamber it is cool with me. and I know what a straw man argument is…but nobody wants to talk facts. you just want to look for side issues . dfbfb…seriously. that is all you take away from the conversation.
how about what have I said that is not accurate ?
you are correct I should have called into question hanna’s relevancy of emit til and laughed off the straw man statement.

also kindly point out any spelling and grammar errors I have made…I know I make a lot.

532

@zobroward, are you really saying that history has no place in a discussion of something that’s the outgrowth of well over a century of conflict (on multiple issues)? Because if so, I’m starting to wonder about your motivation for weighing in on this at all.

533

this conservation is like a Rube Goldberg design as a logical thing. I told you win.

534

@zobroward, your wild and unsubstantiated statements about “corruption” in the DOJ, White House, and IRS are enough to disqualify any other conspiracy nonsense you spout in this thread, IMHO.

535

funny constolation I was thinking the same thing about you. if someone could actually state with a straight face…that no corruption on a massive scale has occurred at the IRS,White House or the DoJ that would disqualify you from sprouting nonsense(IMHO)

love to know which of things I said was conspiracy…do tell.

536

DOJ corruption: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/justice-department-urged-fbi-not-make-clinton-email-development-public-n675136

Most concerning quote:

537

But if they’d done the same in Detroit, not only would they have walked away, it wouldn’t even have made the news more than once or twice. In that respect, privilege is anything more remarkable than what your peers find out of bounds.

Will admit - I’ve never completely understood the phrase ‘jury of your peers’, whether it meant those who share your beliefs and predilections utterly or it just meant 12 of the law-abiding that prosecutors love. One acquits you, the other sends you to our reportedly overcrowded prisons. Big difference.

538

Federal aggression?

Last I checked, this case was really rooted in the Bundy’s effective 2 decade-long free-loading by grazing their cattle on Federal lands without paying grazing fees which were well below the rate charged by private landowners.

Their attempts to divert attention from that by saying the Federal government has no legal right to those lands has been settled by court rulings which basically nullified those dubious legal arguments by the Bundys.

The comparison between the Bundys treatment/acquittal and treatment of Native Americans at the North Dakota pipeline protests highlight another interesting issue.

It highlights another instance of how states rights advocates supporting the Bundy’s are either failing to realize or worse, don’t/never cared about the fact that in many cases when states rights are being called for it is often done on behalf of local White ruling elites and those they support and at the expense of the rights of minorities…including Native-Americans.

This is underscored in North Dakota State/local governments’ heavy-handed treatment of and continuing ignoring of affected Native Americans and their concerns. Not very different from the past whether we’re talking about the south in the era of Jim Crow or Western states’ local/state governments’ disparate treatment of Native-Americans and their concerns.

And the North Dakota state/local authorities added to this pattern by attempting to muzzle the few journalists covering the pipeline protests by indicting journalists like Amy Goodman for “rioting” for merely performing her duties as a journalist. Thankfully, a Federal judge saw the indictment for the blatant first-amendment violation it was and effectively tossed it out.

539

Don’t believe I even implied differently. What I posted was a contrast of outcomes. Both parties found innocent, but one by a judge, the other by a jury. Come to think of it… the only respect in which they are similar was in that both parties were convicted by the CC jury ages ago.

It was a suggestion that: when you (a non-specific you, musicparent) are calling a jury out for being either incompetent or in the tank for the defendants, you ought to remember that a black judge found multiple defendants not guilty of murdering a black man. Defendants that a black prosecutor and a predominant slice of CC would probably still insist are guilty as as the day is long. The sad fact is that the availability of a bench trial to the defendants is likely the only reason they went free.

Question: Is a judge expected to know the law better than 12 local citizens? If so, would it have been more just for the Baltimore defendents to have been been tried by a jury and found guilty?

And another: Would the prosecutor in the Baltimore case - a legal expert that evidently now favors jury trials over trial by another legal expert - agree with the thread opinion that the Bundy case is a miscarriage of justice?

540

@zobroward:
You were correct Finicum was shot in the back, but you make it seem like he had his back to the cops, and they just shot him. Finicum was facing a cop who was armed only with a taser, and his hand went toward a pocket where he was found to have a gun, it wasn’t like he had his hands in the air and they shot him, the cops saw him make a move towards a pocket, they knew he was armed (you of course totally ignore that the whole Bundy gang was armed, which makes them very different than the ND protestors, the whole bundy gang was heavily armed, including finicum, and there was nothing hidden about it), and he was facing a basically unarmed cop, they shot him because they felt ANOTHER cop was in danger. If finicum was walking away, if he had his hands in the air, then you would be correct, but Finicum was facing a cop who didn’t have a gun apparently, made a move according to the cops and other witnesses (and likely was also on video) towards his pocket when they had every reason to believe he was armed and likely was going to shoot it out, Finicum made statements that ‘he would never be taken alive’, you think maybe, just maybe, the cops were justified? You mentioned Castile, and then totally ignored when I pointed out that unlike Finicum, the cop had no justification, Castile told him he was armed, was very careful when he reached for his wallet that he was doing that, the cop was armed, and he blew away Castile when he had no reason, other than panicking that he had a black guy with a gun and assumed he was going to shoot him, very big difference.

As far as people bringing up the past, one of the things that makes history valuable is it establishes long term trends, short term fluctuations don’t mean anything, it is in the long term you see things, and there is a record going back many decades that when similar occupations/protests have happened when it involved blacks or native Americans, they were treated harshly and in court, mostly white juries sent them away for many years, whereas when it involves whites doing the same thing, they tend to either not convict them or they convict them on lesser chargers. The Bundys were not peaceful protesters, the fact they went in their armed meant they were armed insurrectionists, and either the National Guard or federal troops should have been called in, they were treated with kid gloves, and the jury basically bought into the myth that they were peaceful protestors, they weren’t.

As far as the Bundys and their followers go, they are as others have said, a bunch of typical yahoos, who are ‘anti government’ because they are looking for a free ride, they are the equivalent of the ‘welfare queen’ myth people like them throw around, when they are some of the biggest receivers of federal largesse there is, they are looking for a free ride when they and the other people who graze on federal land are heavily subsidized, the charge they have to pay is a tiny fraction of the cost of administering those lands. If they had to pay a private landholder for the right to graze and water, they would be paying many times more, yet that isn’t enough for them, they want it to be free with no restrictions (and of course, if allowed to do so, they would graze until the land was decimated, then cry and whine about how their business was ruined because of the ‘government’ allowing the land to be ruined; kind of like the fisherman who after the government put in a 200 mile limit, got the government to give them really cheap loans to expand their fleets and the overfishing caused the fishing stocks to collapse, then complained and moaned, to quote Billy Joel “they ain’t allowed to fish no more”).