What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Oregon Militia Takeover - Ammon Bundy arrested (4 Viewers)

TobiasFunke said:
fatness said:
fatness said:
"We are doing the same thing as Rosa Parks did," Bundy wrote. "We are standing up against bad laws which dehumanize us and destroy our freedom."
Click to expand...
:lmao:
Click to expand...
That was from a twitter account that an MSNBC reporter (linked below) now says is a fake account.

https://twitter.com/tonydokoupil
Click to expand...
That's a real disappointment. Now all we're left with are the "your daddy swore an oath" and "send snacks" memes.
Click to expand...
http://makeameme.org/meme/i-need-to-oc1uoa

 
fatness said:
fatness said:
In an unscheduled press appearance at the compound, occupier LaVoy Finicum, one of the group's more vocal members, appeared at the top of the main road entering the refuge headquarters, wielding a gun. He told reporters he believed arrest warrants had been issued against the militants.

Federal authorities have released no information to confirm or deny that claim.

Finicum pulled a chair out into the road, wielding his gun and eventually covering himself with a tarp, apparently waiting to meet authorities who never arrived.
Click to expand...
A guy. With a gun. In a chair. Covered with a tarp. In a road. At night. :lmao:
Click to expand...
The interview with Tarp Patriot. http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/armed-oregon-protester-talks-to-msnbc-596500035577?cid=sm_tw_lastword
Click to expand...
He strikes me as a basically likeable guy who has gotten his camo in a wad over government intrusion in people's lives, but has chosen a nonproductive way of demonstrating it. Wonder what caused him to veer this far over to the fringe? The echo chamber of listening to nothing but people confirming the thinking with no counterpoints allowed?

 
fatness said:
fatness said:
In an unscheduled press appearance at the compound, occupier LaVoy Finicum, one of the group's more vocal members, appeared at the top of the main road entering the refuge headquarters, wielding a gun. He told reporters he believed arrest warrants had been issued against the militants.

Federal authorities have released no information to confirm or deny that claim.

Finicum pulled a chair out into the road, wielding his gun and eventually covering himself with a tarp, apparently waiting to meet authorities who never arrived.
Click to expand...
A guy. With a gun. In a chair. Covered with a tarp. In a road. At night. :lmao:
Click to expand...
The interview with Tarp Patriot. http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/armed-oregon-protester-talks-to-msnbc-596500035577?cid=sm_tw_lastword
Click to expand...
:lol: I hope this never ends.

 
CBusAlex said:
TobiasFunke said:
"send snacks" memes.
Click to expand...
Reddit is sending them the infamous sugar-free gummy bears. :lmao:
Click to expand...
The reviews are pure :moneybag:


Most helpful critical review
See all 440 critical reviews›
50,408 of 51,351 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 starsJust don't. Unless it's a gift for someone you hate.
Click to expand...

4,787 of 5,320 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 starsDo not bring to sporting events!
BygregbAon January 18, 2014

The place: BMO Harris Bradley CenterThe event: Bucks VS Spurs

The snack: Satan's Diarrhea Hate Bears made by Haribo
Click to expand...
16,906 of 18,007 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 starsMy Dinner With Andrea
By@StuPurdueon November 21, 2013

I'm pretty sure Andrea (I'll call her) agreed to have dinner at my apartment only because I always spoke to her using nothing but my two-years-of-high-school German. Her English was perfect. Probably better than mine. But the fact that I could only ask her directions to the Autobahn or inquire about the health of her non-existent Tante Amelia, seemed to make me appealing to her in a sweet and non-threatening way.My intentions, however, were considerably less child-like. Which is why the shopping that night was done at one of those upscale groceries with an international flair. Moules Marinieres is as much of a panty-peeler as anything I can cook, and isn't that hard to pull off. But still, I was busy tracking the recipe in my head when I found myself in the sweets aisle. And that, to my great chagrin, is why I didn't immediately notice the difference between Haribo Normal Gummi Bears (which are designed for human enjoyment) and Haribo Sugarless Gummi Bears (which are designed for use in maximum security prisons as a way to punish uncooperative inmates).

I shan't make that mistake again. (notice you can't spell SHAN'T without SHAT.)

Prior to Andrea's arrival, I sat in my living room, creating a playlist of make-out music and nervously binging on the Gummi Bears I had placed in a decorative bowl because I am fancy.

The doorbell rang, and within minutes we were standing in the kitchen, drinking beers and both of us probably worrying that we were about to exhaust my ability to communicate in her native tongue. But soon that would be the least of my worries. In the middle of trying to ask Andrea if she likes to dance to young people's music, I felt a flutter in my midsection, accompanied by a guttural pronouncement so loud it threatened to drown out my own voice.

Maybe it was because I was mentally refreshing my language lessons, but it suddenly struck me how much pre-diarrheal grumblings sound like German words.

"ENTSCHULDIGUNG!" was the next thing uttered by my rapidly clenching stomach. Appropriately, Andrea looked up in response.

"Sind Sie Kaffee machen?" she asked.

Am I making coffee?

I thought I must have mistranslated her at first, then finally I realized that yes, the loud, ominous gurgling coming from my gut could easily be mistaken for the percolating of some bachelor's crappy coffeemaker.

It's remarkable how quickly one knows that one is about to have a traumatic pottymaking experience. Maybe that's the body's way of buying you the precious seconds you need. I was already calculating the number of steps to the bathroom, speculating on whether I would have time to lift the lid to the toilet, when my own voice cried out loudly in my head.

She's going to hear EVERYTHING!

Thanks to an acoustical idiosyncrasy in my building, the hallway outside the bathroom works as an amplifier pointed straight at my living room-slash-kitchen. So that somehow even the gentlest tinkle sounds like I'm pouring lemonade out of a bucket.

With only half an idea of what I was doing, I grabbed Andrea's hand and pulled her roughly down onto my sofa. I must have looked like a madman as I booted up my iTunes playlist, plugged in the gigantic new headphones I had just bought to keep me looking young and hip, and clamped them down over her ears. (the sweat forming on my brow and upper lip couldn't have helped.) In response to her nervous expression, I kept shouting "You'll love this! You'll love this!"

I spun her around so that she was looking out the window. My "plan" was that she'd be so distracted by the modest 4th floor view, that it would allow me to pull my pants off while I sprinted down the hall, silently singing the praises of the noise-reducing quality of my new headphones. (this story will be reprinted in its entirety as a 5 star review on the Sony Beats Audio Amazon page.)

As I slammed the bathroom door shut, already half naked, it occurred to me that I had not been shouting "You'll love this!" at Andrea. I don't even know how to say that in German. In my desperation I had been saying "Ich Leibe Dich!" Repeatedly professing my love for her in a shaky and frantic voice. But maybe that was a good thing, because as I threw myself at the toilet, I figured the best I could hope for is that she would be so creeped-out that she would sneak out of the apartment, blissfully unaware of the carnage taking place in the next room.

What can I say about the ensuing white-knuckle bowel movement that hasn't been expressed in other reviews on this page? I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the adjective "Kafkaesque" used anywhere else.

By the end of Act One of this private little torture-porn movie, I was confessing to every unsolved crime in history. Praying I would stumble upon the one that would satisfy my invisible captors.

Quickly I realized that I had more than Andrea's sense of sound to worry about. Were she to get even the faintest whiff of the weapons-grade sluice that my ###### was angrily shouting into the porcelain, I would have to change my name and move to another city.

And so I flushed. And flushed. And flushed and flushed.

And then I flushed and nothing happened.

I have never looked down into a broken toilet with more horror in my entire life. And I once stopped up George Clooney's crapper! (a true story for another time.)

I reached for the plunger, but my hand froze and my heart seized when I saw it on the floor, broken in two and covered in what looked like teeth marks. Apparently I had used the wooden handle to keep from biting my tongue off and had chewed clean through it. When did that happen? It seems my mind had already started the process of repressing this entire event.

Amid the feverish, fruitless dance I did across my tiny bathroom floor, it dawned on me that it had been more than a minute since my last soul-wrenching anal tantrum. Dear Lord, is it over? I asked, quite possibly aloud.

I may have been light-headed and delusional, but I began to imagine a non-ignominious resolution to this ordeal. I just needed to get her the hell out of here. If Andrea hadn't fled the building, vomiting in terror, then I supposed I could pull up my trousers and make a cavalier exit. As long as I could get her off premises and as far away from this post-apocalyptic commode as humanly possible. Assuming that the Diarrhistas had retreated to the hills temporarily, maybe I could even whisk Andrea away to a candlelight dinner at Bernardo's. How impulsive!

My first few steps back toward the living room were tentative. And not just because my sphincter felt raw and tattered. It was a slow approach to the Moment of Truth, especially when I saw her figure still planted on my sofa. I knew any look on Andrea's face other than her mouth agape would constitute a miraculous victory. And when she smiled at me, the wash of relief that engulfed me was more glorious than any throes of ecstasy I might have wished for at the beginning of the night.

And then I saw it.

The decorative bowl sitting in her lap. Down to just the last few sugarless Gummi bears.

"Du hast Haribo!" she said to me. Accompanied by a satisfied smile. A big, beaming Hansel and Gretel smile, that slightly turned down in one corner at the sound we both suddenly heard. A low rumble from deep within her GI tract that sounded like Gefahrrrrr.

The German word for Danger.

Her eyes shot past mine and refocused on the bathroom door just down the hall behind me.
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
msommer said:
The comment "father of eleven" is pretty scary
Click to expand...
Did you watch the interview? I felt bad for the guy. He seems like a nice guy, not especially bright. I have no idea how he got mixed up in this mess, and I wonder if he does either. This dude strikes me as the typical American outdoorsman. In any other setting he'd be the first guy to come to your aid if you're in trouble. A family man who loves his land and country. Yet here he is. I hope for his sake he gets bored and goes home.

 
timschochet said:
msommer said:
The comment "father of eleven" is pretty scary
Click to expand...
Did you watch the interview? I felt bad for the guy. He seems like a nice guy, not especially bright. I have no idea how he got mixed up in this mess, and I wonder if he does either.This dude strikes me as the typical American outdoorsman. In any other setting he'd be the first guy to come to your aid if you're in trouble. A family man who loves his land and country. Yet here he is. I hope for his sake he gets bored and goes home.
Click to expand...
Bolded: I thought they were a dying breed. With eleven kids, not so much...

As for "He seems like a nice guy" - sitting in the middle of a road with his gun preparing to resist arrest violently, not to me he doesn't. Is he a Nobel prize winner type intellect, probably not. Is he a gun toting nutjob? Evidence points strongly in that direction. We probably need to stop romantizising that.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
timschochet said:
msommer said:
The comment "father of eleven" is pretty scary
Click to expand...
Did you watch the interview? I felt bad for the guy. He seems like a nice guy, not especially bright. I have no idea how he got mixed up in this mess, and I wonder if he does either. This dude strikes me as the typical American outdoorsman. In any other setting he'd be the first guy to come to your aid if you're in trouble. A family man who loves his land and country. Yet here he is. I hope for his sake he gets bored and goes home.
Click to expand...
I think they're already bored, and they won't be going home for a while. Guaranteed that they're arrested when they leave the refuge, and after that #### show in Arizona last year the Feds are going to throw the book at them.

 
“We read in Genesis where God gives the earth to man, he did not give it to government, he gave it to man to care and to cultivate, and that means to take care of it and to use it. That is necessary and that is what the Lord has done.”

Bundy went on to say that the government is violating “scriptural” precepts by controlling land, before arguing that his militia needed to use “shock and awe” to “remove the chains of tyranny and the chains of oppression so the people can regain a hope.”
Click to expand...
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ammon-bundy-bible-supports-militias-seizure-federal-land

"Shock and Awe" :lmao:

 
I wonder how these guys are reacting to the almost completely negative response that they're receiving. Certainly they'd expect it from tree-hugging pinkos like myself, but the best they really seem to be getting from other conservatives is stating that they're better than the BLM protests, say. Meanwhile, the Mormon church has denounced them, the Hammonds have said they don't have anything to do with them, no political candidate, even the GOP ones, really want anything to do with them.

I'm a big believer in the theory that, because the entire country doesn't get their news from basically the same few sources anymore, the schism between the two sides has widened politically, to the point now where one side considers the other side to be lunacy, and the political dialogue has gotten more coarse. I wonder if these dudes are kind of on one end of the spectrum, and would not really have any reason to believe that they wouldn't be more embraced along the political spectrum.

 
fatness said:
“We read in Genesis where God gives the earth to man, he did not give it to government, he gave it to man to care and to cultivate, and that means to take care of it and to use it. That is necessary and that is what the Lord has done.”

Bundy went on to say that the government is violating “scriptural” precepts by controlling land, before arguing that his militia needed to use “shock and awe” to “remove the chains of tyranny and the chains of oppression so the people can regain a hope.”
Click to expand...
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ammon-bundy-bible-supports-militias-seizure-federal-land

"Shock and Awe" :lmao:
Click to expand...
Wait, tell me again who's afraid of Sharia law?

 
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/01/militants_in_oregon_back_down.html#incart_big-photo
BURNS After a flare up of fear overnight that federal agents planned to raid their occupied compound, a group of armed militants determined that the information was false and relaxed Wednesday, one of the leaders said."It was all rumors and everything calmed down at about 3 a.m.," Jon Ritzheimer told The Oregonian/OregonLive.It's now "a battle of wits," Ritzheimer said. "I'm game. We all get to live and let's talk and engage each other."
Click to expand...
 
Humor possibilities here: http://www.peta.org/blog/vegan-jerky-to-be-hand-delivered-to-oregon-cattle-ranching-militia/

The militant cattle ranchers currently occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have appealed for snacks, and PETA is answering the call with a hand-delivered package of vegan jerky that contains more protein than beef does. The PETA staffers, who will bear signs reading, “The End (of Animal Agriculture) Is Nigh: Get Out Now!” are suggesting that militia members learn to raise crops, not cows—allowing the many species of wild animals the refuge was designed to protect to thrive.
Click to expand...
 
it is one hell of a revolution when you show up to save some dudes from jail and the dudes are like hey man we dont even know these aholes take us away jonny law and then the milita guys were all well what we meant is we are here to save you orgeon county and oregon county is like uh we hate you go away also get that dude out of the road i am trying to get to work also you all smell bad and we are pretty sure that bundy guy is prediabetic so basically this is just like one if by land two if by sea when you get down to it take that to the bank brolitia members

 
SWC said:
it is one hell of a revolution when you show up to save some dudes from jail and the dudes are like hey man we dont even know these aholes take us away jonny law and then the milita guys were all well what we meant is we are here to save you orgeon county and oregon county is like uh we hate you go away also get that dude out of the road i am trying to get to work also you all smell bad and we are pretty sure that bundy guy is prediabetic so basically this is just like one if by land two if by sea when you get down to it take that to the bank brolitia members
Click to expand...
SWC said:
'tis one hell of a revolution when thou showeth up to saveth some dudes from jaileth and the dudes art liketh ho maneth we dont yea knoweth these aholes taketh us aroint jonny law and then the milita guys w're all well what we meant is we art h're to saveth thou 'rgeon county and 'regon county is liketh uh we hateth thou goeth aroint also geteth that dude out of the road i am trying to geteth to w'rk also thou all smelleth bad and we art pretty sure that bundy guy is prediabetic so basically this is just liketh one if by landeth two if by flote when thou geteth down to it taketh that to the bank brolitia memb'rs
Click to expand...
Fyp
 
  • Smile
Reactions: SWC
i think if i went home and talked like that my old lady would have a gripper take that to the bank brohan thansk for the laugh

 
fatness said:
Humor possibilities here: http://www.peta.org/blog/vegan-jerky-to-be-hand-delivered-to-oregon-cattle-ranching-militia/

The militant cattle ranchers currently occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge have appealed for snacks, and PETA is answering the call with a hand-delivered package of vegan jerky that contains more protein than beef does. The PETA staffers, who will bear signs reading, “The End (of Animal Agriculture) Is Nigh: Get Out Now!” are suggesting that militia members learn to raise crops, not cows—allowing the many species of wild animals the refuge was designed to protect to thrive.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
:lol:

gotta live the fruitcake crowd

 
matuski said:
This awesome. They are so serious, and nobody is taking them seriously.
Click to expand...
See, that's sort of the unsettling thing about this whole scenario. Do these guys snap one day, because in their minds no one took them seriously and they needed to do something drastic in order to prove that they're not a joke?

 
ClownCausedChaos2 said:
matuski said:
This awesome. They are so serious, and nobody is taking them seriously.
Click to expand...
See, that's sort of the unsettling thing about this whole scenario. Do these guys snap one day, because in their minds no one took them seriously and they needed to do something drastic in order to prove that they're not a joke?
Click to expand...
Maybe. There are a couple of scenarios that could lead to this whole thing turning very unfunny. For example, there's a rising level of paranoia in the patriot movement (a pretty friggin paranoid group to start with) centered around the theory that paid provocateurs have infiltrated the group, and led them into this fiasco as a way to discredit the whole patriot movement. If that idea takes hold in the militia members in the refuge, and they feel compelled to stay due to arrest warrants awaiting them on the outside, it could turn into a lord of the flies fiasco.

The problem is that they're heavily armed, they're threatening to resist arrest, and they can't even articulate what they want. Waiting them out is the most prudent course of action.

 
ClownCausedChaos2 said:
matuski said:
This awesome. They are so serious, and nobody is taking them seriously.
Click to expand...
See, that's sort of the unsettling thing about this whole scenario. Do these guys snap one day, because in their minds no one took them seriously and they needed to do something drastic in order to prove that they're not a joke?
Click to expand...
First off, there are thousands of guys like this out there. Maybe tens of thousands. Many of them believe that some kind of "revolution" is imminent. They also believe that a large number of regular folk will ultimately join their side.What's most interesting about the current situation is that not only have the regular folk distanced themselves from the militia guys, but OTHER MILITIA GUYS have also distanced themselves.

Faced with this level of rejection, a normal person might stop, take stock, look inward, and eventually realize that maybe, just maybe, they've taken things a bit too far.

But these guys just seem to get crazier.

 
Ammon's getting hungry and wants to go home.

"There is a time to go home. We recognize that. We don't feel it's quite time yet," he said. "We feel like we need to make sure that the Hammonds are out of prison, or well on their way. We need to make sure that there is some teeth in these land transfers, and also that those who have committed crimes ... those are exposed as well."
Click to expand...
If you couldn't figure out what he meant there, this should clear it up:

When pressed by a reporter Wednesday on when protesters would leave, Bundy said, "Enough is enough when there's actual action that is happening. And when things are actually transpiring, and we'll know when that happens," he said.
Click to expand...
:lmao:

 
To further clear things up: http://koin.com/2016/01/05/militia-at-malheur-announce-vague-2-point-plan/

Speaking broadly, Bundy said the militia is “implementing this plan” in their effort to hold the federal government in check. Once the community is “strong enough,” he said they can “defend themselves and then we can go home.” But he did not address what their plan is, and Finicum only laid it out in vague terms.

Finicum — who said he’s “not militia, don’t intend to be militia, I’m just a rancher” from Arizona — said they have a 2-point plan:

They will look at land transaction records and once they find a particular land transaction they will begin restoring land to the owners.

“That is the broad plan,” Finicum said. “We are working on specifics.”
Click to expand...
You just keep thinking, Butch. That's what you're good at.

 
fatness said:
Ammon's getting hungry and wants to go home.

"There is a time to go home. We recognize that. We don't feel it's quite time yet," he said. "We feel like we need to make sure that the Hammonds are out of prison, or well on their way. We need to make sure that there is some teeth in these land transfers, and also that those who have committed crimes ... those are exposed as well."
Click to expand...
If you couldn't figure out what he meant there, this should clear it up:

When pressed by a reporter Wednesday on when protesters would leave, Bundy said, "Enough is enough when there's actual action that is happening. And when things are actually transpiring, and we'll know when that happens," he said.
Click to expand...
:lmao:
Click to expand...
he missed his calling as a press spokesperson
 
fatness said:
Ammon's getting hungry and wants to go home.

"There is a time to go home. We recognize that. We don't feel it's quite time yet," he said. "We feel like we need to make sure that the Hammonds are out of prison, or well on their way. We need to make sure that there is some teeth in these land transfers, and also that those who have committed crimes ... those are exposed as well."
Click to expand...
If you couldn't figure out what he meant there, this should clear it up:

When pressed by a reporter Wednesday on when protesters would leave, Bundy said, "Enough is enough when there's actual action that is happening. And when things are actually transpiring, and we'll know when that happens," he said.
Click to expand...
:lmao:
Click to expand...
They'll know

 
Here's the guy behind the Rosa Parks tweet from a fake Ammon Bundy account: https://twitter.com/TheSaintNegro29

Twitter user @TheSaintNegro29 has now claimed responsibility for the trolling, mocking the mainstream media (“MSM”) who failed to exercise proper Twitter caution. They also photoshopped what appears to be an offensive mask over Ammon Bundy’s face in the account profile pic — and made the same image their own profile picture. From the Ammon Bundy parody account, “The Saint” mocked fooled reporters and the media and told followers to follow their other account, @TheSaintNegro29, where their recent feed is full of retweets mocking the mainstream and “liberal media” for falling for the troll. Unlike the newly created @ammon_bundy account, it’s an established account of 4,000+ tweets.

The hoaxer also conducted interviews with reporters over IM as Ammon Bundy, and gave an interview published in Jacobin — which Jacobin has now taken down, saying that it is the magazine’s first ever retraction.
Click to expand...
 
fatness said:
Community meeting at the Harney County Fairgrounds tonight about the Bundy militia.

Still, a majority of speakers said they would like the refuge occupiers to leave. Early in the meeting, Harney County Sheriff David Ward asked for a straw poll of who would like the militants to peacefully return to their homes. Nearly every hand in the room shot up.
Click to expand...
Complete with awesome picture.

http://www.opb.org/images/upload/c_limit,g_north,h_730,q_90,w_940/AP_141913466732_a94xgu.jpg
Click to expand...
Nazi rally there trying to kick out the peacekeepers in the bird sanctuary.
 
JerseyToughGuys said:
Good Posting Judge said:
#bundyeroticfanfic is awesome.
Click to expand...
Colin Meloy from Decemberist is writing some good ones.
Click to expand...
:wub:

Fanfic

@colinmeloy "Ammon&Jeb moaned in ecstasy,their heavy breathing synchronizing with the chirps of the animatronic Western Medowlark display"
Click to expand...
'I love you......Lady Liberty!' Ammon sighed as he came hard, one hand filled w/ Constitution, the other w/ his barrel. #bundyeroticfanfic
Click to expand...
 
Fennis said:
I feel bad for the people of Burns. They don't want this nonsense in their town. from a bunch of out of town trouble makers.
Click to expand...
Oregon sheriff has received numerous death threats since militia takeover

The local sheriff policing the occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon said he has received numerous death threats since armed militia took over the remote government outpost over the weekend.Harney County sheriff David Ward told local residents on Wednesday that his wife had left town for her safety after strangers followed her home one night and someone slit her car tire. He said he had received anonymous letters with numerous misspellings that included death threats.

Worse still, the sheriff said, strangers had come to town to harass his elderly parents.

“Mom and Dad, stand up,” he said at the packed meeting. He introduced his parents, saying they were both in their 70s with heart issues and pacemakers and that they were scared. “You can’t just come into our community and intimidate our elderly,” Ward said to a round of applause.


For days Ammon Bundy and his band of armed militia have laid claim to the federal land by arguing they have the support of the nearby community.

Yet that claim received a formidable rebuke on Wednesday night when, one by one, residents of Oregon’s rural Harney County stood before a microphone at the county fairgrounds to denounce the occupation on their doorstep.

Some 500 working-class men and women who packed into the memorial hall expressed an overwhelming consensus. It’s time, they said, for Bundy and his anti-government rabble-rousers to pack up and go home.

“This county is a united family and we don’t need people to come here from someplace else and tell us how to live our lives,” Ward said to a standing ovation.

The meeting was a collective response from a community who for weeks has endured the presence of out-of-state militia members who arrived to show support for two ranchers they believe had been unjustly convicted of arson.

Then, this weekend, following a rally for two jailed local ranchers, father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond, two dozen militia discreetly took over a scattering of buildings at the nearby Malheur national wildlife refuge, refusing to leave until federal authorities accede to a list of demands that includes releasing the ranchers and relinquishing control of Oregon’s open country to state and local interests.

On Wednesday evening, Ward received a throaty standing ovation from residents who over-packed the meeting hall built for a capacity of 400. His voice often breaking with emotion, Ward told his friends, neighbors and constituents the twin towns of Burns and Hines, located closest to the occupied US Fish and Wildlife Service refuge, were under siege.

For an hour before the meeting started, county residents poured into the meeting hall. One man said he’d never before seen so many people there, even during the popular county fair.

One woman turned from her seat to survey the crowd: “I think the whole town is here.” The meeting began only after men removed their farm hats and Stetsons to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

Another man said he estimated the standing-room-only crowd to be well over 500 people. “At least that many,” said retiree Jim Campbell. “As a guy who counts sheep, I know. You just got to clump them in groups.”

Rich Mingus and his wife Deborah were two of the first to arrive. Mingus, 66, a nomadic helicopter fueling technician for the US Forest Service, admitted that he shared some of the frustrations with an overbearing federal government voiced by the militia.


Mingus, who sat holding his wife’s hand, said he had to leave Deborah at home and travel the country to find work. He’d rather stay right here in southern Oregon, but there aren’t enough jobs – because the US government won’t let state residents log their forests or harvest the land around them, he says.

“Those Bundys had some good points, but they went about them the wrong way,” he said. “Our government hasn’t been listening to us rural people for a long time – we all know that.”

He said Harney County, the state’s biggest, should be better off. “We’re not getting any of the money,” he added.

“You need to talk to the environmentalists about that,” his wife added.

But both are afraid now – over the specter of violence that has happened in similar armed standoffs between militia types and federal law enforcement in the past.

“These Bundys have put fear in our community,” Deborah says. “All it takes is one crazy ... ” Her husband finished her sentence: “ … to light it up.”.

In a rambling speech, Ward told the audience that he wanted the outsiders to go home and let the country solve its own problems.

One gray-haired man in a white Stetson stood up.

“Sheriff, why don’t you go out there tomorrow morning and tell those people that,” he said as the crowd applauded. “If you want, I’ll go out there with ya.”

Then local resident Mitch Stegner stood before the microphone to surface an alternative view.

He said he had been out to the protest site and that the men and women there were polite. He invited others to go there as well.

The Bundys, Stegner said, had given Harney County the best gift it has ever received.

“Whether you agree with them or not, those Bundys have given us our biggest and best platform to get our message to the federal government that they have to pay attention to us.”

A murmur passed through the room as residents considered the point. Some of them seemed to agree.

Not long after, the sherif took a straw poll. “How many people want these people to leave?” he asked.

The response was almost unanimous. “Go home!” many people shouted. From the back, however, there was the voice of dissent. “Let ’em stay!”
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The nice folks over at Gawker have sent them a care package. Among the contents:

Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Charlie Steiner
In honor of MLK day
Replies
5
Views
389
rockaction
rockaction
tom22406
Racist rancher,feds at a standoff.Drone strike looming!
17 18 19
Replies
931
Views
19K
Doug B
Doug B
[icon]
IBEROSTAR Mexican Resort serving tainted/drugged booze?
Replies
42
Views
4K
E-Z Glider
E-Z Glider

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 5 (members: 0, guests: 5)
Top