Legalectric

He’s still in jail and looking for public defender… how would he qualify?

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to remain jailed, asks for attorney

Here’s the Complaint:

Complaint-Cliven-Bundy-02112015

Remember Clive Bundy and his Nevada stand-off when the feds decided to evict him, and his cows, from BLM land they had leased but stopped paying the lease and owes over $1 million?

Now his son Ammon Bundy, from Phoenix, has organized his militia and gone up to Burns, Oregon (temp around 9 today!) for another stand-up/stand-off/stand-down over Dwight and Steven Hammond.  another federal land lease issue, where they were convicted of arson, burning the BLM land, and then a federal judge determined that their sentence was not sufficient, and ordered them to report back to prison this coming Monday.  Ammon Bundy has issued a “call to arms” which sounds a lot like inciting violence to me.  From what I’ve been reading, people are ignoring that this was LEASED land, they did not own it, it was not there, it is OURS, as in “we the people” ours!

Eastern Oregon Ranchers Convicted of Arson Resentenced …

When you check out the videos and photos, note the “111%” on T-shirts and signs.

Militia takes over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters

Thing is, Dwight and Steven Hammond want nothing to do with Bundy and his militia, the Community doesn’t want them around…  they “stand with the Hammonds” but Hammonds not so much…

Who Wants A Burns, Oregon Standoff? Not The Sheriff, The Ranchers, Or Even Cliven Bundy

Oregon ranching case spurs anti-government sentiment

The Hammonds have not welcomed the Bundys’ help.

“Neither Ammon Bundy nor anyone within his group/organization speak for the Hammond Family,” the Hammonds’ lawyer W. Alan Schroeder wrote to Sheriff David Ward. But Hammonds don’t have clean hands, going beyond the federal crimes for which they’ve been convicted and are now serving time:
Showdown in the Malheur marshes: the origins of rancher terrorism in Burns, Oregon

What if your militia showdown isn’t wanted?

A local resident organized a meeting to address the militia, learn about their plans:

Burns residents confront militia over fears of violence

… This was no government-led meeting. Brandy Mosher, a local resident worried about her community, arranged the meeting, promoting it on social media. On a frigid holiday evening, about 60 people showed up. She just wanted people to talk to each other instead of resorting to rumors.

There was a protest this afternoon in Burns, Oregon:

Militia holds march, rally in Burns

After the protest, Bundy brothers and other supporters took over the National Forest Reserve office, and they want to give it back to loggers, miners and the ranchers:

Armed militia, incl Bundy bros, occupy forest reserve HQ in Oregon, call ‘US patriots’ to arms

Armed militia, including Bundy brothers, occupy forest reserve HQ in Oregon, call “US patriots” to arms

Convoy takes off from Bend to protest ranchers’ convictions

Last post on this, Paul Krugman says it all.  Really…. well… probably…

In yesterday’s New York Times, Paul Krugman says very clearly what I’ve been trying to wrap my head around.  Cliven Bundy is a moocher, no doubt, I’ve called him a “welfare queen” too, but the hatred Bundy spews is… is… well, read what Krugman has to say, he puts it all together.

The anti-government mindset is indeed a problem.  Just Friday, I ran into it when a friend repeated the mantra, “You know what’s wrong, it’s the government, the government is too powerful,” when we were attending a hearing focused on utility power (“why do you think they call them power companies”), where it was a utility trying to take someone’s land.  HUH?  How is that an example of problem with “government?”  The landowner in the middle of the fray clearly stated her take, “It’s the utilities, the corporations have too much power.”  Yup, my take too.  How does it become an issue of “too much government?”  This highlights the failure of our individuals and schools to foster critical thinking compounded by the acceptance of the non-stop media regurgitation of false and twisted information.  But hey, that’s just another display of corporate power.

The only thing I’d change?  Where Krugman says it’s a perversion regarding “freedom of the wealthy,” I think it’s more freedom of ANYONE, and so I’d make this edit:

For at the heart of the standoff was a perversion of the concept of freedom, which for too much of the right has come to mean the freedom of the wealthy to do whatever they want, without regard to the consequences for others.

Here are Krugman’s thoughts:

High Plains Moochers

It is, in a way, too bad that Cliven Bundy — the rancher who became a right-wing hero after refusing to pay fees for grazing his animals on federal land, and bringing in armed men to support his defiance — has turned out to be a crude racist. Why? Because his ranting has given conservatives an easy out, a way to dissociate themselves from his actions without facing up to the terrible wrong turn their movement has taken.

For at the heart of the standoff was a perversion of the concept of freedom, which for too much of the right has come to mean the freedom of the wealthy to do whatever they want, without regard to the consequences for others.

Start with the narrow issue of land use. For historical reasons, the federal government owns a lot of land in the West; some of that land is open to ranching, mining and so on. Like any landowner, the Bureau of Land Management charges fees for the use of its property. The only difference from private ownership is that by all accounts the government charges too little — that is, it doesn’t collect as much money as it could, and in many cases doesn’t even charge enough to cover the costs that these private activities impose. In effect, the government is using its ownership of land to subsidize ranchers and mining companies at taxpayers’ expense.

It’s true that some of the people profiting from implicit taxpayer subsidies manage, all the same, to convince themselves and others that they are rugged individualists. But they’re actually welfare queens of the purple sage.

And this in turn means that treating Mr. Bundy as some kind of libertarian hero is, not to put too fine a point on it, crazy. Suppose he had been grazing his cattle on land belonging to one of his neighbors, and had refused to pay for the privilege. That would clearly have been theft — and brandishing guns when someone tried to stop the theft would have turned it into armed robbery. The fact that in this case the public owns the land shouldn’t make any difference.

So what were people like Sean Hannity of Fox News, who went all in on Mr. Bundy’s behalf, thinking? Partly, no doubt, it was the general demonization of government — if someone looks as if he is defying Washington, he’s a hero, never mind the details. Partly, one suspects, it was also about race — not Mr. Bundy’s blatant racism, but the general notion that government takes money from hard-working Americans and gives it to Those People. White people who wear cowboy hats while profiting from government subsidies just don’t fit the stereotype.

Most of all, however — or at least that’s how it seems to me — the Bundy fiasco was a byproduct of the dumbing down that seems ever more central to the way America’s right operates.

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