Busted

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Better late than never.

A federal grand jury in Nevada indicted Cliven Bundy and four others on 16 charges related to an armed standoff near his ranch in 2014 over unpaid grazing fees.

Sounds like ol’ Cliven shoulda stayed home on the ranch.

Cliven Bundy is accused of leading “a massive armed assault” of 200 followers to stop federal law agents who were rounding up about 400 of Bundy’s cattle on federal lands in April 2014, according to documents filed by U.S. attorneys Wednesday.

Upon learning of the roundup, Bundy said he was “ready to do battle,” with the Bureau of Land Management and that he would “do whatever it takes” to protect his property, according to documents.

The others allegedly organized and recruited followers and acted as leaders in the incident.

Meanwhile, back at the bird sanctuary — it’s going to be a sad spring for Oregon birdwatchers, as forensic examination and cleanup of the Malheur Wildlife Preserve is expected to take several weeks.  Among the weirder discoveries, the occupiers left a “trench of human feces” on or adjacent to a Native American burial ground.

Also, excellent read: Can We Make Sense of the Malheur Mess?

Also: Why was Bundy arrested two years later?

40 thoughts on “Busted”

  1. Hey, dontcha know that the first thing you do in the Army when you set up camp in the field is dig a latrine?

    Wonder if they had separate facilities for officers and enlisted men.

  2. No, no, when you are playing soldier, you don’t use flush toilets! You set up your perimeter and you eat C-rations and have your weapons at the ready and you wait for the pretend enemy to attack. Otherwise, what is the point of being in the militia?

    Maybe you ask your wife or your mommy to send cookies but apart from that you are training for the balloon to go up.

  4. “No, no, when you are playing soldier, you don’t use flush toilets”

    Really? I was in the Army and if there was a stool available we used it. I’d wager none of these f#cksticks ever served in the military, they’re just a bunch of militia wannabee keyboard warriors with shiny new guns and teeny tiny little peens!

  5. And the ‘mocking-bird’s’ cried out, “Dumb-shits! Dumb-shit’s!! Dumb-shits!!!
    LOL!!!

  6. From what I can tell, the Bundy Ranch was an armed camp after the 2014 standoff. Obviously, the feds could have taken it down, but probably not without loss of life on Bundy property which is exactly what Bundys wanted.

    The Bundy Boys got bored and went out to pick a fight in Oregon and the gov’t showed 40 days of restraint. This time they were not on their own turf, and had no right to take the land they were on, In terms of popular perception, there were no cows with the Bundy brand on their butts involved, this wasn’t a fight Bundy property – it’s been a lot harder for Bundy & Company to spin the response of the Feds to an occupation of federal land as an act of aggression. (though they try.)

    The Bird Farm takeover has played well with the anti-federalist crowd. Those who were sold before, are still sold. How has it played beyond the fringe lunatic crowd? Even when there was a bloody body in the snow, this was ultimately a PR war. Neither the Bundys nor the FBI give a damn about the bird farm. I don’t see new recruits signing up for the Bundy Army.

    For the Bundy Army, this was about expanding the base with a new narrative. For the Feds it was about shutting down the movement with a show of force without giving the Tea Party a victory or even a battle. If the legal system prevails with convictions across the board, there will be bitching and moaning for a decade, but no more armed confrontations.

  8. Yes, as usual, Doug summed it up beautifully.

    Once again the social media came into play as our times demand. The men of Fort Bird Sanctuary wanted their courage, insight and love of country put out on display for like minded souls to see, and find inspiration. There will always be like minded souls, but to most of us, they just seemed off balance and ridiculous. In the end, I think the slow measures response was correct and successful. I suppose that I believe that most criminals have mental health issues. That may just be my limitation.

    I’d much rather see them grow into old crackpots with felonies on their records, ranting to their last breaths, than “mouldering in the cold ground.” Now, if we can just find a way to extend the same professional treatment to, let’s say, twelve year old African American kids with toy guns, we’ll be getting somewhere.

    Lately, I tend to look at people and their beliefs in terms of what they gain adopting their beliefs. You can believe some pretty outlandish things if the narrative that surrounds the believe makes you into something admirable, if it offsets your personal failings. These men desperately wanted to make heroes of themselves, and that desperation led them into Bizarro World. I suppose the prisons will have mental health services and we may learn something from the, after all.

  9. After Cliven does his stretch in the Nevada State Penitentiary his statement of” Let me tell you about the negro” will have a lot more credence.

  10. Swami,

    I’m thinking his sentence is going to be longer than old Cliven has left on the clock! Though I’m sure he’ll get some “feedback” about that comment at some point during his federal career!

  11. Swami – I’m curious about the venue. Will the case be tried with a Nevada jury or an Oregon jury?

    Also, saw an article today that law enforcement is being warned to take seriously threats by the friends of Bundy. Of all the most inept PR moves they could make, random violence against cops is the worst. Hopefully it’s just hotheads venting but I could be wrong about how the militia types will react when juries start sending their ‘patriots’ to jail.

    I’m guessing that the feds have these groups well-infiltrated. That means the warnings are serious. I’m guessing LaVoy knew he was gonna die and he didn’t care – the question is, how many more are that suicidal, and how much damage are they willing to do in domestic terrorism? There’s an abundance of anger on the right, but suicide tends not to be a mainstream tactic. Or so I hoe.

  12. Doug…I’ve read where he’s already been shipped back to Nevada, or will be arriving there very shortly. Where he’s going to end up doing his time is anybody’s guess..Primarily Federal,I’d guess, but there might be some offences he’s committed against the State. I did read that he’s facing fines of 3 million dollars..So I assume his ranch will be history. His grazing days are over.
    This one goes out to Cliven from the Frogman….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBsHyMwpIjo

    uncledad…I think you’re right. He’s looking at 50 years if they give him the full package. Even if he gets 1/4 of his just deserts he’ll be completely done as rabble rouser if or when they cut him loose.

  13. Although none of us can really know what went on in the head of LaVoy or any of the others, my guess is that LaVoy never thought he would really die. All that talk was just bravado. They got away with that crap in Nevada and because the Feds left them alone for awhile in Oregon, they were confident they could do whatever they wanted to. Now that he’s dead and Bundy is going away, maybe all the followers will have second thoughts. I hope so.
    The thing about the toilets, they probably stopped them up with all their s… So they had to go and dig trenches.

  14. “my guess is that LaVoy never thought he would really die.”

    Maybe it’s just the only way I can make sense of it, but, I get the same feeling. Regardless, the rest have gotten themselves in a fix that even rich people can’t walk away from.

    Great song, Swami. For a minute there, I really thought that was a frog singing. It fools me every time.

  15. goatherd..I was a little premature in posting that song. After giving it some consideration I realized that Cliven does a home..Not an ideal home. It will be an ever so humble home when he can lay his head for his remaining years.. Here’s a song that is more fitting to Cliven’s new reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUg-FpnweRM

  17. Well,
    On the plus side, now my Mom won’t have to remember how to spell -J-e-b (WTF?), since the easiest way to spell his name, is t-o-a-s-t!

    FUCK ‘EM!!!!
    Two Bush’s too many…

  19. Both great songs, Swami, and appropriate. The man in black does a great job as always. That brought me back to the versions I knew better. “Into the Purple Valley” was one of those life changing events, although i never got into the slide or slack key thing, and it’s too late now.

    My room mate worked in a library. One day he found a pile of old 78s that had been discarded, and fished them out of the dumpster, …

    https://youtu.be/CVivEeORtuc

  20. Swami, this may sound cryptic to some, but you are right, Cliven won’t be “ringin’ them yallo women’s doorbells” anymore. I don’t think they’ll miss him much.

  21. The best name I’ve heard for that bunch is “The Branch Stupidians”.
    The stupid is strong in that bunch!

  23. “The stupid is strong in that bunch!”

    It is an amusing phenomenon that whacko groups seize upon, or invent a set of arcane “facts” to justify their beliefs and actions. There are often some outliers who help them along, Willard Cleon Skousen is a pretty good example. (Personally, I blame his parents for forcing him to go through life with a name like “Willard.” It didn’t do much for Romney either.) The outlier instantly becomes an undervalued luminary, misunderstood or unappreciated by the others in his/her field, that is, by people who might actually know something about the subject at hand. Maha linked to an article by Charles Pierce (IIRC) reviewing the long, insufferable drone of a letter written by one of the Malheur occupation forces, self appointed “judges.” He summed it up perfectly as “Blackstone’s Law meets The Turner Diaries.”

    It illustrates that, given the proper motivation, people in the whacko community are capable of reading and assimilating, oppressively detailed, relentlessly boring and logically hideous material. In short, they all might have done better in high school, if someone like Glen Beck had been their teacher. No wonder they hate Common Core.

    This makes sense in the end, because if information gives the impression of being arcana, it gains verisimilitude and it has enhanced potential as a device to disarm and defeat people who disagree with them. The only epistemological requirement is that it supports their side in all its harebrained, paranoid glory. The information is also injected into minds where there isn’t a sufficient body of knowledge to serve as context, so it’s force is undiminished, there is no device to judge its scale or importance.

    I have a right wing friend who, after observing her considerable ability to weave talking points and dog whistles into a tapestry of division, concluded that Sarah Palin was “the smartest woman in the world.” That speaks for itself.

    Here endeth the rant.

  25. goatherd,
    I guess for some people, insanity is a hobby!

    You don’t need any special skills, and best of all, it’s free!!!

  26. Maha, it’s been almost 24 hours and we haven’t seen you dance on Jeb!s grave yet. Are you ok? Do you need help?

  27. Syskill – Your comment reminds me of the story about the drill sergeant who gets in a recruit’s face with the accusation that he (the recruit) is waiting for the chance to pee on his (the drill sergeant’s) grave. To which the recruit surprised the drill master with the reply, “No, sir – after I get out of the Army, I’m never gonna stand in line again.”

    I’ve read the autopsy report on Bush. “Humpty-Dumptey sat on a wall. Humpty-Dumptey had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men (not to mention $150 in superPAC money) couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

  29. Some of us are slower on the uptake, but, it does seem likely that Maha may have had a relapse of the flu. I hope not. On the other hand, she may have found something more important to do beyond the borders of cyberworld. If what I have heard is true, things do happen in the real world. Let’s hope it’s something good.

    Thanks, Uncle, sometimes I think the peace and quiet of the country is starting to affect my mind.

  30. At the risk of making complete horse’s ass out of myself, (Too late for that! — rimshot.) I noticed only the other day that there was some discussion of Swami’s image of the shadow of his life being cast to the east. Granny had some questions about the image. I think I can explain it, simply, at least the way I see it.

    A gnomen is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow on its dial. (I gather it’s also the plural of gnome, but, lets step away from that at the moment.) When the sun is rising in the east the shadow is cast to the west, in the afternoon, as the day progresses towards its end, the shadow is cast further to the east. So, when Swami described the shadow of his life being cast to the east, he was saying that he was progressing towards the later part of his life, as most of us seem to be doing. Maha does seem to attract commenters of a “certain age.”

    But, the most successful part of the metaphor lies in looking at the abstraction of one’s life “casting a shadow” in the events of the world and measuring out the temporal expanse of a one’s lifetime.

    As a youth, I wanted to write poetry. I learned the hard way that this sort of image can’t be forced. Such images bubble up from some deeper level of our minds. Each one is a gift.

    Okay, complete horse’s ass, I know. (Now let’s take the image of the horse’s ass. What do we mean by it? Well, let’s start with …)

  31. goatherd…That metaphor is not original to me. I picked it up somewhere in my readings. But, like you, I saw the beauty in the poetry..So I filed it away for when opportunity presented itself to share it with others. I’m glad you appreciated it.

  32. “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Swami. But, that allows us to borrow from our experiences and influences to bring color to our conversations, like Ry Cooder and Johnny Cash did with Leadbelly’s “On a Monday.” Leadbelly probably “found” that song somewhere too, whole, or in pieces.

    I hope I didn’t burden you with unwanted attention, my apologies if I did, and of course to those innocent bystanders who suffered in silence.

    By the way, I had a devil of a time understanding what Leadbelly was singing at the end of the chorus. When a friend offered the “yallo women’s doorbells” line, I was skeptical, but wrong.

  33. South Carolina drove a stake into the heart of the Bush Dynasty. Good bye and good riddance!
    When I saw the picture of Jeb’s pistol posted on Twitter with the caption “America ” posted beneath it. I was left with a sinking feeling that someone who expected to be worthy to claim the highest office in the land would resort to such a base and childish behaviour. Is this what we’ve come to in determining fitness for our Presidency?
    I’m sure that Jeb is thinking his defeat is a result of his brother’s screw up, but when he came out from behind the myth of being perceived as the smarter brother he showed the world that he was a pampered moron whose intellect was neck and neck with his idiot brother.
    I don’t know whether it is nurture or nature that is responsible for the degenerate character of the Bush boys…But I glad to see them wiped from the American political scene.

  34. Goatherd: I finally figured out the metaphor of the shadow being cast to the east. I also looked up gnomen which I had never heard of before .I do appreciate your help in explaining it. Also, the phrase Swami used about wading in the Jordan got me. I’m not a Bible expert. Swami provided a link to urban dictionary which explained the phrase. What really got to me was a quote at the bottom which said: “I know you have been heavily wounded but crossing Jordan is not an option”. I took that personally since I am of the opinion that “God” is speaking to me all the time and I just need to pay attention. Also, Swami had said in an earlier post that God speaks to us in strange ways. Now this practice of listening as if it is God speaking can get out of hand as we know in the case of psychosis. That’s why it is important for me to keep my feet firmly planted in the earth so I can maintain a balance. The Egyptians believed that humans were the connection between Heaven and Earth.
    The concept of a “shadow” has been coming up in my life recently. One day when I was walking in the park, I had this feeling I was being followed. I looked to my left and say my whole shadow being cast. I am aware of Jung’s meaning of the shadow and the Egyptians felt the shadow was part of the soul. So, I haven’t figured out yet what this means in my life but I will just keep walking and if it’s important, it will be revealed to me, perhaps with the help of my friends here.

  35. Goatherd: As far as the peace and quiet of the country affecting your mind, I am reminded of a case when I worked at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. A young woman was admitted complaining of hearing voices. She lived in the Malibu hills, was married with no children. Her husband was gone a lot because of his work. So she was alone in the peace and quiet of nature. The doctors did all the appropriate tests, of course, and determined that she was not mentally ill. They said that when the mind does not get stimuli from the “real” world, it creates its own. I think they suggested that she get out and socialize more. You have your goats and other animals which will keep you grounded. They are very earthy. Just enjoy your peace and quiet.

  38. I like the metapor of the shadow. I occasionally observe that in order to be middle-aged, I now have to live to 124. 🙂

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