Y'all Qaeda

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Mothra
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Y'all Qaeda

Postby Mothra » Sun Jan 03, 2016 2:06 pm

Armed militia group led by Cliven Bundy's son occupies federal building in Oregon:

Ron Gainer estimated he counted about 15 people, a half dozen vehicles and a trailer at the headquarters. The Bundy family had previously told OPB around 150 people had joined their cause at the refuge.

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, occupied by the Bundys and their supporters, lies roughly a half-hour south of Burns. It was established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and is a popular place for birdwatching in the spring.

The occupiers draped an American flag over the welcome sign outside the refuge headquarters, and a pick-up blocked the road.

As the sun set Saturday, the temperature fell to 10 degrees. A group of five men bundled in coats and scarves fed sagebrush branches into a campfire. Only Ammon spoke to the media, but a few of the men quietly identified themselves as longtime residents of the Burns area and supporters of the Hammonds.

“We are not hurting anybody or damaging any property. We would expect that they understand that we have given them no reason to use lethal force upon us or any other force,” Bundy said.

Bundy said the men intend to use as little force as possible if law enforcement attempts to remove them from the site.

“We hope that they don’t try to do that. We are here and this is the people’s facility. It has been abused. This facility has been a tool to destroy ranchers and loggers and miners and many other individual’s rights. If they try to come and force that issue, then they make it about a building and facility and lives could be lost because of that,” he said.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Thad » Sun Jan 03, 2016 2:44 pm

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As alarming as this is (and it is fucking alarming), that's actually a perfectly reasonable thing to protest.

There's an article at Oregon Live from last October called Controversial Oregon ranchers in court Wednesday, likely headed back to prison in arson case; I think it leans too much to advocacy for the Hammonds but it's got a pretty good rundown of the case, and why the feds' use of an antiterorrism law is pretty appalling:

The convictions were punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which followed the Oklahoma City bombing and other deadly acts of domestic terrorism. But on Oct. 30, 2012, U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan, presiding in his last sentencing before leaving the bench, said the Hammonds' conduct wasn't in keeping with the intentions of the law.

That law might apply, Hogan said, if someone intentionally burned sagebrush in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where fire can burn up ravines to houses.

"Out in the wilderness here, I don't think that's what Congress intended," the judge said. "I am not supposed to use the word 'fairness' in criminal law. I know that I had a criminal law professor a long time ago yell at me for doing that. And I don't do that. But this – it would be a sentence that would shock the conscience to me."


I don't have a problem with putting people in prison for setting (multiple) fires that spread to federal land. I don't even have a problem with the five-year sentence. But I do have a problem with prosecuting it under an antiterrorism law.

Course, if you want to make that point, maybe engaging in actual terrorism isn't your most effective option.

And yeah, breaking into a federal building with guns sure sounds like domestic terrorism to me. Even without Bundy's "If they try to come and force that issue, [...] lives could be lost because of that" comment.

There's another pretty great piece at OPB, Who Wants A Burns Standoff? Not The Sheriff, The Ranchers, Or Even Cliven Bundy.

The prospect of hundreds of out-of-towners who openly carry firearms concerns some residents in Burns.

Fliers with the message “Militia go home” hang on signposts downtown.

Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said he received death threat emails from people in other states after he told militia organizers he would not create a safe haven for the Hammonds to stay in Harney County.

“I haven’t slept a full night in close to two months now. I have a lot of anxiety,” he said. But Sheriff Ward wants to protect his county.

“What we’ve been threatened with here is civil unrest and the insinuations of armed rebellion,” said Sheriff Ward.

Cliven Bundy said if Sheriff Ward wanted to keep the protests away, he should have worked harder to get the Hammonds’ sentences reduced or vacated. “I believe that the local governments have failed these people,” Bundy said. “The sheriff, he has the duty to protect the life, liberty and property of his citizens. And I believe he has failed, totally here.”

Bundy told OPB the protest is meant to draw attention to the expanding power of federal and state governments, and that his sons are going, “for a good purpose.”

Even Bundy is unsure whether the protest is a good idea, and whether it’s proper for his family’s supporters to get involved. “I don’t quite understand how much they’re going to accomplish,” Bundy said. “I think of it this way: what business does the Bundy family have in Harney County, Oregon?”

“In one sense, I believe very much in local government, and local control, and local authority,” Sheriff Ward said. To him, the militiamen are welcome to protest. But he doesn’t want to see the rally escalate. “We cannot have what happened at the Bundy Ranch here,” Ward said. “I won’t allow it from law enforcement and I won’t have it from citizens.”


Sounds like it's a powder keg and things could get really ugly fast. On the other hand, it sounds like law enforcement is ready to wait and see and give things a chance to de-escalate, because, y'know, white people.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby IGNORE ME » Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:07 pm

I can't believe we're doing the "How dare you call me violent? I'll kill you!" joke for realsies.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Büge » Sun Jan 03, 2016 7:17 pm

Of course, the softball response to these terrorist acts reveals a glaring double standard.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Blossom » Sun Jan 03, 2016 10:06 pm

Yeah, city and state cops are generally really racist and and really incompetent. The feds might not be significantly less racist, but they're at least a lot smarter about it. Don't want to fuel the people looking to repeat Waco.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Thad » Mon Jan 04, 2016 12:36 am

I'm trying to find the Daily Show video where a policeman encounters an angry, drunken white man waving a rifle around, then the man proceeds to whip his dick out and start waving it at the policeman, whose reaction is...to speak calmly with the man and sit him down for a chat.

Speaking of The Daily Show, Noah's back from vacation tomorrow, and so are Colbert and Wilmore. I expect they will be giving this story much better coverage than the news media have.

Meanwhile, good piece over at Oregon Live again (linked from Buge's link): Militia takes over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters

It's got a little bit more detail on what the Bundys have said, which...yeah, about what you'd expect. Unreasonable demands that are clearly not going to be met (they want the federal government to surrender the wildlife refuge), threats to keep up the occupation for years, and, yes, more veiled threats that they're ready for a standoff.

I like this bit in particular:

Ammon Bundy met with Dwight Hammond and his wife in November, seeking a way to keep the elderly rancher from having to surrender for prison. The Hammonds professed through their attorneys that they had no interest in ignoring the order to report for prison.

Ammon Bundy said the goal is to turn over federal land to local ranchers, loggers and miners. He said he met with 10 or so residents in Burns on Friday to try to recruit them, but they declined.
Burns Protest Marchers including militia and local residents Saturday head for the Harney County Courthouse as part of a protest against government.

"We went to the local communities and presented it many times and to many different people," he said. "They were not strong enough to make the stand. So many individuals across the United States and in Oregon are making this stand. We hope they will grab onto this and realize that it's been happening."


Motherfucker, the people who actually live there want nothing to do with you. Including the specific people you actually claim to be advocating for.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Cait » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:04 pm

The OregonLive article Thad linked rather curiously neglected to mention one of the other charges against the Hammonds for the 2001 arson was that it was knowingly set to conceal poaching activity.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Mazian » Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:16 pm

Also just the latest in a lifelong string of Hammond assholery.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:13 pm

New Yorker bein' all saucy:

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“We’re not terrorists; we just want what any true patriot wants: to take down the United States of America.”
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Thad » Tue Jan 05, 2016 2:59 pm

Cait wrote:The OregonLive article Thad linked rather curiously neglected to mention one of the other charges against the Hammonds for the 2001 arson was that it was knowingly set to conceal poaching activity.


Thanks for the link; I'd seen Doctorow mention those allegations (and that's what I was alluding to with my "leans too much to advocacy for the Hammonds" remark) but I hadn't seen a source so I didn't bring it up.

Again, I've got no problem with putting these guys away, but I DO have a problem with the federal government's misuse* of anti-terror laws, and with minimum sentences on principle. These things are threats to everybody, not just assholes.

* I suspect that Ken White would interject, at this point, that this is not misuse at all, that the laws are being used for their intended purpose, but that the government likes to put "anti-terror", "anti-drug", or "protecting children" in front of laws that it actually intends to use for other purposes.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby sei » Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:18 pm

the government likes to put "anti-terror", "anti-drug", or "protecting children" in front of laws that it actually intends to use for other purposes


Yeah, so idiots will vote on overreaching legislation for fear of looking "weak" on one of those issues and presumably losing their base.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Thad » Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:51 pm

Or so the public won't notice that it's overreaching legislation because it says it's for fighting terrorists/drugs/protecting children.

The two things are not mutually exclusive, of course. The easiest way to get the public to willingly give more power to the government is to identify something the public is afraid of, and say that this law will help protect them from that scary thing.

Drugs worked pretty well from the 1970's through the 1990's. Terrorism became the go-to excuse in 2001, for obvious reasons. (The 1996 act would have been in response to homegrown terrorists like McVeigh and Kaczynski, of course, rather than the organized foreign terror groups that are today's boogeyman.)

I guess the good news is that people are finally starting to wise up about the Drug War. I'll take what I can get.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Esperath » Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:28 pm

pisa katto

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pisa katto

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Büge
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Büge » Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:17 am

A friend in Norway suggested sending them some surströmming.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Grath » Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:57 am

Oooh, we should send them Durian. To quote Sir David Attenborough: "I have to say. The smell, to my nostrils at any rate, is fairly disgusting. An open sewer with just a dash of coal gas would be a fair description."

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:25 am

SHARE UPDATE BURNS OREGON! CHRISTIANS THE BATTLE TRUMPET HAS BEEN SOUNDED TIME TO RISE! CALL TO ACTION SEND IN THE TROOPS TO STAND WITH US IN BURNS OREGON!




Bonus fun: Turns out those horns are actually traditional Jewish horns blown for Rosh Hashanah. XD
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Spooky Skeleton » Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:09 am

Yeah, David Wain's silly "sexy Israeli" character in Wet Hot American Summer had one.

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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Mongrel » Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:30 am

Well, the inevitable happened and some idiots started shooting. One dead, eight arrested after these nutjobs went apeshit at a traffic stop.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby beatbandito » Wed Jan 27, 2016 7:56 am

That's a good story to test perspective / bias on. Sure, it was an armed anti-government militia group and the FBI, not local cops. But I was positive I knew the story before I even clicked the link, but there's still a chance it may have been the cops that fired first.
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Re: Y'all Qaeda

Postby Thad » Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:24 pm

Sad to hear about the loss of life, but relieved that it wasn't worse.

It still could be, depending on how the remaining occupiers react to this news.

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