I’m actually rather impressed with how disciplined the feds have been so far. Agree or disagree with the strategy*, there hasn’t been a crack so far that I’ve seen. You can’t even get them to offer a comment about the situation. Whoever the local fed agent in charge is, s/he’s got a lock on the agents.
*I think they are gloriously self-destructing, and showing to any mildly-sympathetic types in the national audience that Yokel Haram is really just a bunch of confused, unprepared, uncoordinated, slackwits who like to play dress-up as either GI Joe or Cowboy Bob. Oh, and of course one ISIS-sympathizer IT geek.
Since anything the feds do, the wingnuts and all the GOP presidential candidates will be howling “Tyranny!” and will try to get political millage as they can (not to mention gun sales); whatever the Administration decides to do has to ensure that it does not deliver the next election to the GOP.
Until several prominent republicans start denouncing the militias (and so far none of the candidates has) and demanding the federal government to act, the best course is to wait.
Meanwhile the citizens of Harney County (who happen to include many wingnuts among them) will have to put up with their soulmates.
Ummmmm, does the FBI write your speeding tickets? It’s a federal property and enforcing federal law is up to the federal authorities. Has war broken out? Did the levee break? There is no need for the Oregon National Guard to be involved.
Only the feds have legal jurisdiction over the federal property where the criminals are holed up. No one else, no sheriff, no governor, no national guard, can exercise judicial rights and issue indict / arrest warrants. The sheriff has his own jurisdiction, the governor, the city police, all have their own turf, much of which overlaps by agreement. But, in this case, the sheriff and police have no power legally, on the federal property. On the land, in the building. The FBI should act with passive aggressive attacks like full time sounds / sirens / airport landing lights on them / etc. With passive aggressive sleep deprivation waged against them, they’d die fighting each other eventually, or run for their lives right up to the FBI officer and plead: " … please, arrest me and get me outta here. I need your help!"
No, the FBI doesn’t write speeding tickets even on interstate freeways. I wasn’t advocating she send the Guard on to the federal property.
But, if there are issues/costs the people of the state are facing outside of the federal property then she certainly could use guard or local LEO. Clearly Oregon’s alleged costs have nothing to do with what’s going on within the reserve, so the governor should/could see to the state’s interests if they are real.
I don’t disagree with your points on jurisdiction. I also don’t understand why the feds haven’t cut off all water and electricity to the property, but whatever.
My point was that if there are actually state costs/interests those could/should be addressed by the governor. The state isn’t paying for anything within the reserve as far as it has been reported. If there are real issues away from the reserve, the governor and local LEO have responsibilities and responses they could use, should the wish to do so, I would think.
No need. The County Sheriff and the Oregon State Police are on top of the situation. Did you read last week about the OSP arresting two of the protesters when they drove into town with stolen Fish and Wildlife vehicles? They were all over them. It’s been relatively peaceful there in Burns, which is a huge relief, partly because nobody rushed in with troops to clear the militants out of the refuge. Y’all Qaeda will disperse due to lack of interest in them staying–or when they run out of snacks. Then federal LEOs can arrest them individually without turning the refuge into another Waco.
After Waco and Ruby Ridge, it’s refreshing to see folks angry at the feds for not doing enough rather than for doing too much. I don’t have any insight into the feds thinking and don’t know what’s the right thing to do. But it’s still good better to see the fed getting grief for underreacting rather than for overreacting.
So, basically, the governor is carping from the sidelines, not willing to do anything herself but complain. Why doesn’t she run around in circles waving her hands in the air and yell “Do something”; it would be more amusing and just as effective.
Governor Brown is expressing the frustration felt by most of us in Oregon. We want those seditious twits to stop playing cowboy on our lawn and go back to Nevada and Arizona and wherever else the came from. Ryan Bundy’s sense of majority opinion is as wrong as his interpretation of the Constitution. Harney County, like the rest of the state, wants them gone.
OmAhHum : Your first comment is correct and should be the first method tried.
The rest of what you wrote is silly. Torture is only used for propaganda purposes. Torture does nothing other than to create a martyr.
If she wants help from the federal government, doesn’t she have to request it? How about a simple signing ceremony, showing the public that she has requested that the federal government act, and taking her share of the blame for whatever follows.
Yes, I knew that. I read the story with interest several times, from several sources. Only one vehicle thief was arrested at the Safeway parking lot. I read the Sheriff say in another story (that I cannot seem to find at the moment) that another person was arrested on a weapons charge (not the border militia “commander”). The way I read the story, it was the other militant that had earlier eluded the OSP, but perhaps it was another, unrelated incident.
What’s the big emergency? Just close down all entrances to the fed property. Install permanent barricades and leave these anarchists to the wolves. You don’t even have to monitor them. The locals will shoot them if they get anger enough. There is no reason to have state troopers there.
Forcing these idiots to sit there dying of boredom all winter long while the bears and other wildlife hibernate is the best way to end this squatters’ “protest.” They already turned off the electricity and jammed communications, so they must now resort to listening to their own BS all day and night.
By the first sign of spring, they will be more than happy to escape each other…or the bears will get them.
