Charlie Pierce: Ammon Bundy's sympathizers in Congress are scarier than he is

[cali]

The Oregon Militia Is Stealing From All of Us
And they've got friends in Congress all too eager to help.


Enough is enough. I mean, really. It's time for federal law enforcement to, you know, enforce federal law.

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The people of Harney County are fed up. The governor of Oregon is fed up. A group of armed jamokes—some of them with long criminal histories outside of the crimes they are committing at the moment—has seized federal property on federal land and the only people who seem sanguine about the whole business are the federal authorities. The thieves have been allowed to come and go fairly at will. They've been allowed to state their case at town meetings. And they've been allowed to return to the scene of their current crimes over and over again. Enough. If the FBI is still gun-shy about Ruby Ridge and about Waco, it has had enough chances to arrest these people without storming their winter clown encampment.


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Can someone please explain to me why Ammon Bundy wasn't arrested as he sat in the bleachers? Or on the way to the meeting? Or on the way back to the land he is attempting to steal from the rest of us? If the FBI had been this tender about people's feelings throughout its history, John Dillinger would have died in his bed at the age of 103 and Fred Hampton might still be alive.

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Now, the notion of handing federal lands back to the states—and, I guarantee you, thence to the tender mercies of the extraction industries—is an article of conservative faith. While Ammon Bundy and his burlesque troop blitheles commit their crimes in Oregon, a serious movement is afoot in Congress to hijack the public lands with a pen, rather than a gun. The dreaded "Grand Bargain" rationale is being trotted out.



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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a41412/oregon-militia-federal-lands/