Monday, January 4, 2016

Starting the New Year off with a whimper on the right, Oregon goes round the bend


So, we have the crazy Bundy bunch (nothing like the wholesome Brady bunch) out in Oregon, making asses of themselves to start out the new year. Think Progress has the best review of the details, here.  It is NOTHING like what the right would have you believe.  Here is the essential element omitted in most of the recent media coverage:
The Hammonds set a fire in 2001 that ultimately burned 139 acres of BLM land. The ranchers say they began it on their own land with agency approval, but prosecutors say they were in fact seeking to cover up illegal deer hunting on the BLM acreage near their property. A second, much smaller fire in 2006 burned another acre of BLM land during a “burn ban” imposed to allow agency firefighters to combat a blaze caused by lightning.

What a bunch of maroons, who apparently are more likely to be turning blue with cold than any shade of red soon.

I liked the way the STrib described these losers in the location they chose to occupy.
"...the refuge area, which is remote even by rural Oregon standards."
So far, it doesn't seem as if anyone cares, at least not in a positive way. As noted on FB by comedian Andy Borowitz, who has equally sharp wits and tongue:
OK, by now I've heard a lot of great names for the Oregon gang: "y'all-qaeda," "yee-hawdists," "yokel haram." But I think my favorite is "fucking idiots." http://bit.ly/1ODXgOG
And all hope of practical support seems to have failed from the right wing nut job militia sector; for example the Oathkeepers, who ran away scared from daddy Cliven Bundy, are actively discouraging their members and others from supporting Bundy Jr. aka Bundy light(in the sense department) by calling this latest farce the opposite of the Bundy Ranch, per the ever-vigilant (as distinct from vigilante right wing nuts), Right Wing Watch noted:

Oath Keepers Urge Members To Back Off Oregon Standoff: 'This Is The Opposite Of The Bundy Ranch'
After sons of rancher Cliven Bundy led armed militia members in occupying a federal building in Oregon in protest of a federal court ruling regarding two ranchers who were sentenced to jail time for arson on federal lands, at least one “Patriot” group is urging its members to “stay out of” the situation: The Oath Keepers.
The leader of the extremist Oath Keepers, one of the biggest players in the standoff at the Bundy ranch in Nevada, thinks that the Bundy brothers have gone too far. In a statement issued on New Year’s Day, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes said that although he’s sympathetic to Dwight and Steven Hammond, the ranchers convicted of arson, he wants no part in the Bundy sons’ takeover of a federal wildlife refuge because the Hammonds had not asked for help.
In a video statement, Rhodes said that the Oregon situation is “exactly the opposite of the Bundy ranch,” claiming that while militia groups “went to Bundy ranch to prevent that family from being Waco’d,” the current standoff is being “manufactured by potheads who want a fight” and is no longer a “peaceful protest.” He added that the Hammonds “were found guilty by a jury of their peers.”
It is a distinction without meaning or merit; the Bundy's have been properly found guilty plenty of times and are equally deserving of being behind bars for their lawlessness and looting of federal land too, which takes away valued resources out of ALL our pockets. A jury of peers is just as legitimate, neither more nor less, than any other court in the country. The notion put forward by the Bundy's and the rest of the unraveling lunatic fringe is that they are entitled to something that does not belong to them, but rather belongs to US to YOU AND ME, as citizens and residents of these United States. The government is all of us; the people they are attempting to screw over are the rest of us, who are not holed up as trespassers and vandals indulging delusions of relevance.

Time for a good yawn, and for these morons to get a good kick in the seat of their pants, which appears to be the part of their anatomy they use to attempt thought, (a failed aspiration).

1 comment:

  1. You know, if they had staged an unarmed sit-in, the situation would have likely turned in their favor, with local support. Instead, they have made this into an armed circus show with guns and melodramatic cries to be shot as martyrs, making the whole affair laughable and pitiful, even by the standards of other pro-gun groups. Either they end up shooting first and getting themselves killed, or, more likely, they come out limp and frozen like the schmucks they are.

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