Montana’s ‘Natural Man’ Defies Courts, Sets Up Another Rural ‘Patriot’ Showdown

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.] 


Ernie Wayne terTelgte likes to style himself as a Montana mountain man, dressing in buckskins, boots and tricornered hats and sometimes bearing an old muzzle-loading musket. He likes to elaborate upon his theories about so-called sovereign citizenship in a florid 18th-century style. But it isn’t a silly nostalgia act.

The Bozeman man has, in fact, been challenging Montana’s courts and legal system in the name of his extremist belief system all while adopting anachronistic clothing and calling himself the “Natural Man.”

Asked to explain why he was fishing without a license, terTeltge told a judge: “I was searching for something to put in my stomach as I am recognized to be allowed to do by universal law,” he said. “I am the living man and I have the right to forage for food when I am hungry.”

This all could be written off as the peculiar antics of another kook with convoluted legal ideas – something not unheard of in Montana – but for the fact that terTeltge has amassed supporters locally and regionally. His fight with the courts over what began as a simple fishing citation has become the latest cause célèbre among the far right in the Mountain West, including the region’s antigovernment “Patriots” and associated militias.

Some have gone so far as to begin organizing “citizen grand juries,” another tactic of the sovereign citizen movement, which purport to allow ordinary citizens to present cases to the local sheriff and sit in judgment of local government officials. Indeed, terTeltge himself has played a leading role in helping to organize these “juries” in the Bozeman area.

These activities have a long history in Montana, including the Montana Freemen of the 1990s, some of whom were from the Bozeman area and who practiced a similar kind of “sovereign citizenship” theory in promoting their illegal moneymaking schemes. Indeed, one of terTeltge’s cohorts in forming a “citizen grand jury”, a Bozeman man named Steve McNeil, was heavily involved with the Freemen and was arrested at one of their trials in Billings in 1996. Other extremists, such as neo-Nazi Karl Gharst, have used “citizen grand juries” to threaten the Montana Human Rights Network.

In recent years, these ideas have been spread widely in places such as Montana through the auspices of the Tea Party movement, in which old “Patriot” movement ideas have commingled freely with mainstream conservative politics, to the point that in many parts of the state Tea Party ideologues are nearly indistinguishable from the militiamen who got their start there in the 1990s.

Ernie terTeltge appears to have gotten his start that way. He first appeared on the region’s political scene in 2010, leading a contingent of Tea Party demonstrators as they protested efforts to pass health care reform outside the Gallatin County Courthouse. TerTeltge was wearing his trademark mountain man outfit.

Then, in August 2013, terTeltge was caught fishing without a license at the Three Forks Pond, a state-managed area, and refused to give the game warden his name. He was subsequently charged with resisting arrest.

TerTeltge began demonstrating in front of the courthouse in Three Forks in early November as his court proceedings began. A video shows him holding up a cardboard sign and explaining sovereign citizen ideology to passersby on the street.

Then, on Nov. 19, he made a court appearance on the resisting-arrest charge in Three Forks before City Judge Wanda Drusch. It did not go well. He yelled at the judge: “Do not tell me to shut up! I am the living, natural man, and my voice will be heard!”

He also pointed at the American flag in the corner and told the judge: “That is the Jolly Roger, that thing you call the American flag with the golf fringe around it is the Jolly Roger, and you are acting as one of its privateers!”

When Drusch got up to confer with law enforcement officers, terTeltge and his supporters peremptorily marched out of the courtroom, got in their vehicles and departed.

That tactic did not work for his next court appearance three days later, however. Once again, terTeltge tried to buffalo Judge Drusch with a flood of pseudo-legal language even as she warned him continuously that he would be found in contempt of court if he did not desist. Finally she ordered deputies to arrest him, and they did, handcuffing terTeltge as he protested: “I cannot give you recognition, I am constrained by the United States Constitution of 1789.”

Things got even stickier in January when he went before Justice of the Peace Rick West, who sent terTeltge back to jail, again for contempt, after he refused to remove his hat in the courtroom. This time, he had a larger crowd of supporters, but there were also over 30 law enforcement officers present to keep the peace. TerTeltge wound up spending 30 days in jail.

This incident threw local “Patriots” into a tizzy. One of terTeltge’s allies –William Wolf, a formerly homeless man who has been involved in efforts by Bozeman-area extremists to file for political office as Democrats – threatened to arrest Judge West as a “sovereign citizen,” setting local law enforcement even further on edge.

Then Wolf approached Gallatin County commissioners about forming a “citizens grand jury” to review claims of “human rights violations” in terTeltge’s case. The idea proved somewhat popular in Bozeman; one gathering attracted over 50 people to discuss forming what they saw as challenge to “corrupt government.”

At his most recent appearance in March, however, terTeltge was more contrite and cooperative. As a result, Judge West did not return him to jail, and he was freed until his trials begin. His fishing license trial is scheduled to begin next week.

“Patriot” movement leaders are watching the case closely. Chuck Baldwin, the former Constitution Party candidate now living in the Flathead Valley in hopes of creating a white homeland, recently returned from his visit to the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada and regaled an audience in Kalispell with tales of the militias’ exploits in Nevada. Then Baldwin urged his audience to pay similar attention to terTeltge’s case.

“I realize, we all recognize that everybody cannot up and leave and go a thousand miles away, depending on your schedule, your home responsibilities, et cetera. We understand that,” Baldwin said. “We still have to be watchful here in the state of Montana. We’ve got a situation in Bozeman, right here in our state, that we need to take care of, and we really need to rally around. You’ll be hearing more about that soon.”

All of this far-right activism concerns local government officials, who have become all too familiar with this brand of extremism in recent years in Montana. Jim Taylor, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, noted that there’s nothing legal about these theories.

“You can’t just make up law. Law is what it is,” Taylor said. “You can’t just say, ‘And we’re going to have a grand jury on my block.’ It doesn’t work that way.”

Back at the Bundy Ranch, It’s Oath Keepers vs. Militiamen as Wild Rumors Fly

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

It was the imminent drone attack that finally did it.

Paranoid rumors are not only common at gatherings of antigovernment “Patriots,” they’re practically the entire raison d’etre for them. So when a wild and paranoid rumor began circulating – that Attorney General Eric Holder was preparing a drone strike on the armed militiamen who gathered at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada – it unleashed a rift within the camp, which is brimming with fear, rage, testosterone and firearms.

Vicious infighting among those remaining at the camp – estimated at less than a hundred – broke out a little more than two weeks after heavily armed militiamen forced federal agents to back down from a planned roundup of Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle from public lands. After vowing to stay on and protect Bundy – who then stumbled on the national stage with an outpouring of racist commentary – the remaining “Patriots,” who have been raising fear levels among local residents, have begun feuding. And it has been revealing.

Apparently, someone within one of the major factions at the camp, the Oath Keepers, relayed word of the imminent drone attack to his leaders. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes responded by pulling his people out of what they called “the kill zone” (the area the supposed drone would be striking). When the other militiamen learned that the Oath Keepers had pulled out, they were outraged.

As you can see in the video above, the angry militiamen – led by a Montana “Patriot” named Ryan Payne, who has been acting as the spokesman for the militiamen at the ranch – held an impromptu gathering at the camp to discuss the situation. They openly talk about shooting Rhodes and other Oath Keepers leaders – because in their view, the Oath Keepers’ actions constituted “desertion” and “cowardice” – and describe how “the whole thing is falling apart over there.” At the end, they vote unanimously to oust the Oath Keepers, or at least its leadership, from the Bundy Ranch camp.

PAYNE: We are open to gentlemanly conversation. But this man and the people that obeyed that order have violated my personal creed. You don’t fucking walk in and say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and you’re back in, brother. You can walk in and say you’re sorry, and you’re lucky that you’re not getting shot in the back. Because that’s what happens to deserters on the battlefield.

For his part, Rhodes and his fellow Oath Keepers are keeping a stiff upper lip about the rejection. Rhodes himself has returned to his Montana home, reportedly for a family birthday, and his underlings say he plans to return. Oath Keepers organizer Elias Alias (aka Franklin Shook) described the incident on the group’s website as an effort “to sabotage the Bundy stand against the government,” and reported that other “Patriot” movement leaders, including militiaman Mike Vanderboegh and Sheriff Richard Mack, remain firmly within their camp.

Alias also tried to explain the incoming-drone rumor:

Yes, it is true: Oath Keepers received a bizarre bit of leaked info which could not be verified but which also could not be ignored. Our contact is connected with the Department of Defense – or ‘was’. The info we received stated that Eric Holder of the Department of Justice had okayed a drone strike on the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville, Nevada, within a 48 hour period over the weekend of April 26/27, 2014.

That, fortunately, turned out to be ‘dis-info’ – a false rumor. And though it came from a trusted source, Oath Keepers could neither prove nor disprove it.

In the ensuing panic at the camp, “Oath Keepers advised people there to consider evacuation,” Alias said. He referred to the angry reaction of the militiamen as “backwash”.

He also admitted that there was a great deal of contention about how $40,000 raised on behalf of the Bundy family through the Oath Keepers was handled, since the organization wound up only writing the family a check for $12,500.

Another YouTube video, which has since been removed, but transcripts of which were posted at DailyKos, revealed the depths of the militiamen’s animus towards Rhodes and his organization. One of them – the nominal “head of security” for the Bundy family, a man nicknamed “Booda Bear” – rants angrily:

My guys sleep in the dirt out here, we’re on shifts for 14 hours a day and trying to make sure that this family stays safe and secure … and just so everybody knows, as Booda, head of security for the Bundy Family I can swear on the white skin that covers my ass there will not be an Oath Keeper — there WILL NOT BE AN OATH KEEPER allowed to set foot on the internal ranch property.

Alias responded to these slurs by suggesting that “Booda” and pals were actually FBI plants:

Some of the purported “leaders” of the militia at the ranch are doing exactly what any agent provocateur would do after having infiltrated the militia and claimed a role in leadership. Did you notice the massive ego about who is going to command who? Did you notice the drama in the tendency to speak of Oath Keepers as if we were a militia, which we are not. These militia “leaders” would judge us by battlefield standards even though there has not been a “battlefield” since April 12, 2014? They would shoot us for desertion? Really? That is amazing, and is the kind of bumbling consciousness which a conditioned and programmed special warfare officer or a federal agent would offer if he had to think on his feet of a sudden.

“Patriots” often talk about fighting what they see as a second Civil War in America soon. But as the militiamen at the Bundy Ranch are demonstrating, the civil wars they end up fighting are usually within their own ranks.

Ongoing Militia Presence Raises Fears Among Locals Near Bundy Ranch

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

People in rural southeastern Nevada and the surrounding area are not accustomed to being the center of national media attention, as they have increasingly been since their neighbor, rancher Cliven Bundy, began his notorious standoff with federal authorities. But what bothers them now is the threatening presence of armed militiamen who have taken up semi-permanent residency at Bundy’s ranch.

Some local residents, in fact, are complaining that the militiamen are setting up armed checkpoints and detaining people as they travel to their homes, asking for proof that they live nearby before allowing them to proceed. However, the militiamen themselves deny this, and investigating news crews have not found any evidence of it.

What these locals can say with certainty, though, is that the circus surrounding the standoff and the militias’ refusal to leave is not only disrupting their normally quiet lives, it is costing them money.

Congressman Steve Horsford of Las Vegas has been outspoken in criticizing the militiamen, charging that local residents have been confronted by militiamen who have set up armed checkpoints and demanded that they prove they live in the area before being allowed to pass. Horsford also says the militias have created a “persistent presence” along federal highways and state and county roads.

Horsford has demanded that Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie crack down on the outsiders, saying they make local residents feel unsafe.

“I am greatly concerned about the safety and well-being of my constituents after meeting with local community members this past week. I urge Sheriff Gillespie to investigate these reports, as this sort of intimidation cannot be tolerated,” Horsford said.

“We must respect individual constitutional liberties, but residents of and visitors to Clark County should not be expected to live under the persistent watch of an armed militia,” Horsford wrote in a letter to Gillespie. “Residents have expressed their desire to see these groups leave their community. I urge you to investigate these reports and to work with local leaders to ensure that their concerns are addressed in a manner that allows the community [to] move forward without incident.”

They aren’t the only residents who feel threatened. According to a report from KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, the militiamen have also threatened people who live in the nearby town of Mesquite, and businesses there claim they have lost over $100,000 because of their presence.

The station reported that a local hotel was forced to evacuate all of its clients one evening following a bomb threat. The hotel also received at least nine threatening calls after it permitted Bureau of Land Management rangers to stay there. The callers demanded the BLM rangers be kicked out or the hotel “would not be standing in the morning.”

One hotel worker told the news crew he had been told by an anonymous militia member that he would be “dragged out in the parking lot and shot”.

News crews were unable to find any armed checkpoints when they went out searching for them. A militia group spokesman named Ryan Payne denied to KVVU-TV that they were conducting such checks.

“We are not to set up checkpoints, we are not to pull over civilians, without, you know, reasonable cause,” Payne said. Of course, militiamen have no legal right to pull anyone over – with or without reasonable cause.

But local residents remain far from assured. “We are not a playground for armed militias,” Horsford said. “This unfortunate incident and the outside groups that have come for their own agenda are putting a black eye on this community.”

Kyle Hunt’s Easter Egg Idea Hatches Hate Messages in Virginia Neighborhood

Even on his way out the door, would-have-been white-supremacist movement leader Kyle Hunt – progenitor of the nationwide “White Man’s March” last month that drew a trickle of participants and a flood of derision – managed to demonstrate the contagiously vile nature of his politics.

Only a couple of weeks before penning his recent letter of resignation, Hunt also published a post urging his remaining followers to try out some creative means of spreading their message – namely, “Diversity = White Genocide,” the slogan shown at all of the March’s events. Hunt’s favorite idea: Put “pro-white” messages in Easter eggs  and spread them around neighborhoods.

Sure enough – as WRIC-TV reports, someone took him up on the idea. Easter eggs with racist messages were planted around a suburban Virginia neighborhood this weekend. And sure enough, the messages were precisely those promoting the White Man’s March ideology.

Parents, unsurprisingly, were shocked and appalled:

“We don't want other kids around here who can read being like, 'Hey mommy what's the million man white march or what's the genocide1 project?' Most of us don't want to explain genocide to our 6-year-olds,” said Jackie.

"It's disturbing knowing my son is walking around the yard a lot and finding that. It’s something he may find and have questions about that not necessarily at his age –I want to explain to him. That there are people in this world who don't think everyone is equal,” said Brandon Smith.

They found several more in people's yards, leaving residents in disbelief.

"Everybody's shocked. We are genuinely floored. Why would somebody do this? Why here?"

Of course, Hunt had promoted his idea with a disingenuous caveat: “Since we are not targeting children, think of some ways to get these eggs into the hands of adults.” Obviously, that did not work out so well.

Planting Easter eggs with white=supremacist messages in them where children can find them is actually not a new tactic or idea, though Hunt seemed to think it was. Neo-Nazis in Pekin, Ill., used a similar tactic back in 2009, and members of the Aryan Nations in Auburn, Mich., did likewise in 2010. Indeed, the idea dates back at least as far as 2006 when neo-Nazis in Olympia, Wash., mixed their white-supremacy messages with pornography for the kids to find.

Interview: On 'Ring of Fire' with Mike Papantonio, Talking About Cliven Bundy

Last week, Mike Papantonio interviewed me to discuss my post about how the Cliven Bundy standoff has not only drawn the Patriots out of the woodwork so that we can now see them in all their glory, but actually has emboldened them and empowered them by giving them -- at least in their own minds -- evidence of the rightness of their Bizarro Planet beliefs.

Notably, this interview took place before Bundy's ruminations about "the Negro" made the rounds -- but everything I said fit perfectly well into that context.

And I have some thoughts about the underlying motivations for the rush of the mainstream right to come to Bundy's defense. Yes, the Koch Brothers have a role there ...

Here's the entire episode. Thanks to Mike and his producer, Farron Cousins, for having me on.

Bundy Doubles Down on ‘Negro’ Talk, and Supporters Flee in Droves

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Cliven Bundy keeps doubling down on his observations about African Americans, and many of his erstwhile supports can’t run away quickly enough.

On Thursday, the New York Times published racially incendiary remarks by Bundy, who mused about the status of black people – “Are they better off as slaves?” he asked. Bundy’s support from mainstream conservatives and prominent Republicans essentially vanished. So he began making the media rounds again, trying to explain himself.

But Bundy didn’t apologize or back away from his remarks. Rather, he doubled down, emphasizing at a press conference that he thought he was right to ask such questions:

I've been wondering – Cliven Bundys are wondering about these people – now I’m talking about the black community. I’ve been wondering – are they better off with their young women aborting their children? Are they better off with their young men in prison? And are they better off with the older people on the sidewalks in front of their government-issued homes with a few children on them – are they better off, are they happier than they was when they was in the South, in front of their homes with their chickens and their gardens and their children around them, and their men having something to do?

He also went on CNN’s “New Day” program this morning and again doubled down, this time saying Martin Luther King hadn’t finished his job if black people were going to be offended by the things he said:

Maybe I sinned, maybe I need to ask forgiveness, and maybe I don’t know what I actually said. But when you talk about prejudice, we’re talking about not being able to exercise what we think and our feelings —  we don’t have freedom to say what we want. If I say ‘Negro’ or ‘black boy’ or ‘slave’ — I’m not — if those people cannot take those kinda words and not be offensive, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet.

The flight from support for Bundy continued apace, with Republican politicians and party officials continuing to assert that they have nothing to do with the Nevada rancher – who has been in a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management over his illegally grazing cattle.

However, the militiamen who showed up with weapons at Bundy’s ranch in Nevada say they continue to support him; indeed, they see the news stories as just another conspiracy. “It’s part of misinformation to maintain the divide,” one militiaman told the Las Vegas Sun. “Things like this will be put out there to discredit Bundy.”

Controversial black conservative Alan Keyes defended the remarks, saying they weren’t racist: “He wasn’t talking so much about black folks, but about the harm and damage that the leftist socialism has done to blacks.”

But the majority of Bundy’s mainstream backers have made clear that they want to talk about other cases of “government abuse” now, instead of Bundy’s. At Fox News, Bundy’s biggest on-air champion, Sean Hannity, also denounced Bundy, but seemed to blame it all on the “liberal media” as well.

Hannity devoted much of his show Thursday to simultaneously denouncing Bundy and the New York Times, as well as his critics:

HANNITY: All right, allow me to make myself abundantly clear. I believe those comments are downright racist. They are repugnant. They are bigoted. And it’s beyond disturbing. I find those comments to be deplorable, and I think it’s extremely unfortunate that Cliven Bundy holds those views.

Now, while I supported the Bundy ranch as they took a stand against the Bureau of Land Management, I was absolutely dismayed and frankly disappointed after reading the article and then hearing the commentary. However, I also want to say this. The ranch standoff that took place out in Nevada was not about a man named Cliven Bundy. At the heart of this issue was my belief that our government is simply out of control. Now, to me, this was about a federal agency’s dangerous response to a situation that could have resulted in a catastrophe, and that means people dying and people being shot, kind of comparable to what we saw in Waco, Texas.

Hannity then rambled through a number of other supposed examples of out-of-control government, including cases of veterans being given bad medical care and federal water-rights disputes in California, and then concluded by throwing Benghazi and Obamacare into the mix. According to Hannity, if anyone was to blame, it was more likely the New York Times (for their Benghazi coverage) and Jon Stewart (who has been mercilessly pillorying Hannity for his coverage of the Bundy standoff).

The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz satirically devised a statement by Fox News to deal with the controversy: “Cliven Bundy’s outrageous racist remarks undermine decades of progress in our effort to come up with cleverer ways of saying the same thing.”

Mainstream Supporters Scatter after Cliven Bundy Muses on ‘the Negro’ in the New York Times

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose showdown with federal authorities over cattle grazing rights has attracted a large contingent of antigovernment “Patriot” movement supporters – as well as fawning coverage from Fox News, and the open support of various mainstream conservative politicians – has discovered that openly spouting bigotry is a good way to lose your backers.

Bundy was quoted in a Wednesday New York Times piece spouting off at length about race relations, and it was not pretty:

I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.

Now Media Matters has posted footage of his remarks:





Immediately, one of Bundy’s more prominent political supporters – Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada – distanced himself from the rancher, telling the Times reporter that he “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”

Spokesmen at the offices of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, another prominent Bundy backer, did not offer the Times an immediate response. But today Paul denounced Bundy’s rant, saying: “His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who also has openly supported Bundy’s campaign, demurred when asked about the remarks, saying he hadn’t read them, and told “CBS This Morning” that the Bundy matter was only “a side story” in the larger picture regarding federal land use issues.

At Fox News, where the Bundy Ranch story has filled hours of airtime over the past two weeks and its hosts – particularly Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren – have openly championed Bundy’s cause, there was mostly silence. The network’s coverage of the scene at the ranch suddenly disappeared: Media Matters reports that “Fox had mentioned the rancher only twice, and never covered his racist comments.”

Occasional host and frequent guest Andrew Napolitano told viewers to “forget the battle in Nevada” and focus on events in Texas instead.

Van Susteren did speak out on her blog: “Let me make this plain: I condemn what Cliven Bundy said about African Americans.” Hannity so far has made no comment.

Some of Bundy’s media supporters, however, were content to make excuses for him. CNN’s Dana Loesch, a conservative pundit who has been among Bundy’s more avid supporters, commented:

I hope no one is surprised that an old man rancher isn’t media trained to express himself perfectly. He seems to be decrying what big government has done to the black family — which big government has negatively affected not just the black family, but all families regardless of ethnicity — so perhaps he included that in his remarks against big government?

Back at the Bundy Ranch: More Militiamen Gather, Things Get Crazier

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]
 
Armed militiamen are continuing to arrive in southeastern Nevada from around the nation with the aim of preventing the federal government from rounding up rancher Cliven Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle – and they don’t appear to be going away any time soon.

The Nevada standoff has emerged as the most significant gathering of antigovernment extremists since 1996, when supporters gathered briefly en masse outside the Montana ranch where a group of self-described “Freemen” engaged in an 81-day standoff with FBI agents who sought to arrest key members of their group.

The militiamen at the Bundy Ranch are from all over the United States. Only a few, however, are from militia groups large enough to be known quantities.

A Las Vegas Review-Journal report noted that one man from Philipsburg, Mont., claimed to represent the “West Mountain Rangers,” a group that has not popped up on anyone’s radar previously. A Utah man said he was from the People’s United Mobile Armed Services, whose Facebook page says that they are a “Revolutionary Movement for the Second American Revolution” but are otherwise almost completely unknown.

Indeed, most of the militias in attendance appear to have very small memberships, such as the Oklahoma militiamen who showed up hankering for a fight: “It’s up to the feds. The ball’s in their court! You can do this legally or if you want to try to do a land grab violently, you can do that. We’re going to resist you!” They make the dubious claim in their video that they are 50,000 strong.

These militiamen believe Oklahoma could be next for federal “tyranny”: “Just look around the country. They’re doing it everywhere. If they can do it in Nevada, they can do it in Colorado, they can do it in Texas. I mean, what’s to stop them from coming to Oklahoma? The only thing to stop them is We the People.”

Members of an outfit from the Idaho Panhandle turned up in Nevada, the Idaho Lightfoot Militia. They have been organizing for over five years now and are a known quantity back home. Their level of participation in Nevada is unclear, and their leader, Jeff Stankiewicz, was quoted saying he discouraged people from going.
Ed Komenda, a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, spent some up-close time with militiamen at the scene in Bunkerville, and what he found was especially eye-opening. His piece for the Sun revealed a high level of anger and testosterone, whipped up by conspiracist paranoia, that seems unlikely to level out any time soon.

One militiaman in particular, who was fond of dropping the F-bomb, rode with Komenda and other militiamen to a protest with an assault rifle and plenty of other weaponry, including a .338 Magnum rifle and a Marine-issue 7-inch knife:

Rapolla is prepared for a war with his government. His guns, he says, aren’t just a show of force. Not knowing what to expect when he rolled into town, he says he was ready to die — and, if he must, shoot a federal agent.

“Our pistols are shooting through my f****** window if there’s a roadblock, then we’re f****** getting out,” he said. “We’re gonna go to wherever the guns are blazing. We’re not gonna walk to a f****** bloody (battlefield).”

Komenda found that, to a man, these people were more focused on having an armed conflict with federal agents than on rescuing a cattle rancher from supposed tyranny:

In their view, the government’s goal was to exterminate the Bundys. As several militia members put it, they came to the Bundy ranch to prevent another Waco — the 1993 standoff between federal agents and David Koresh that left 76 men, women and children dead. That incident helped spawn the modern militia, which is not an official force but a collection of armed citizens who believe the government is out to destroy the nation and enslave the American people.

“You feel an obligation as an American,” DeLemus said, standing near his tent, wearing a water-filled hydration pack, full Army fatigues and loaded sidearm. “You’ve got an American family who is rightfully on property their family paid the grazing rights on over a hundred and some odd years ago and our government comes in and decides they want to change the rules on that, break the law, really, by changing those rules after a contract’s been signed with their great-great-grandfather — I believe it was — and then run them out? And then use force on their family? And then put the full weight of the American government on them? Shame on them.”

Potok on MSNBC: ‘Patriots’ at Bundy Standoff Not Quite ‘Domestic Terrorists’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]


Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada decried the antigovernment “Patriot” activists who rushed to southeastern Nevada to mount an armed defense of Cliven Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle as “nothing more than domestic terrorists.”

On the Friday edition of “All In” on MSNBC, host Chris Hayes asked the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok if that was the right term to use. He explained that Reid was not far off:

POTOK: Well, they’re not quite domestic terrorists, not yet. But you know, I’ve seen the pictures, they weren’t merely sitting up overlooking law enforcement officers with their sniper rifles, they had them trained – scoped rifles trained on the heads of law enforcement officials. I mean, you know, they were a split second away from real bloodshed, and bloodshed that was entirely provoked by the Bundys and the Bundys’ supporters.

Earlier in the segment, Hayes hosted Nevada Republican Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, a Bundy ally and one of the mainstream political figures who has been on the scene in Nevada, supporting the “Patriots” in defiance of federal authorities. Hayes tried to pin Fiore down on whether she believed federal authorities had the right to confiscate Bundy’s cattle, considering they had a court order in hand – Bundy has been adamant that he does not recognize the federal government as a legitimate entity – but Fiore was evasive on the point, claiming instead that the feds had mishandled the situation by coming in with guns after Bundy threatened a “range war.”

HAYES: Do you agree with that stance? Do you recognize the authority of the federal government?

FIORE: I recognize our federal government overstepped and overreached in our state of Nevada. That’s what I recognize. I recognize we have a lot of issues to conclude. We also have the spotlight on Nevada right now, looking at the way BLM had zero stewardship in herding cattle, slaughtering cattle. That’s what I’m recognizing.

I’m recognizing what I’ve seen. This is my sixth day on the ground here in Bunkerville, and I’m recognizing that this was handled totally incompetent, I’m questioning the BLM and I’m also going to request either a resignation or termination of the person that had ordered this to be done.

HAYES: But that’s a distinct question. I mean, I understand your point. You think that the way that the law has been enforced the BLM has been heavy handed. That`s a distinct question from lines of legal authority. I’m just asking you a simple yes or no question — do you recognize the authority of the federal government?

FIORE: Oh, I recognize the authority that they’ve — they believe that they have. I just question it.

HAYES: So you do not — you agree with Cliven Bundy the federal government does not have authority over the land and over the taxpayers of Nevada.

FIORE: No. Chris, don`t put words in my mouth. I’m not saying I agree with Cliven Bundy. What I’m saying is the way this was handled is really suspicious. When in the heck do we send our federal government with arms to collect a bill? When do we do that?

Fiore told Hayes that the message Bundy’s supporters sent to the government was: “Don’t come here with guns and expect the American people not to fire back.”
Hayes asked Potok about Fiore’s perspective.

HAYES: What do you say to the argument that the BLM basically provoked this entire thing?

POTOK: Well, I don`t think it’s true. I think we`re talking about a man who is a thief, a man who has
stolen a million dollars or whatever the precise amount might be from the American people, from his fellow ranchers, all the ranchers all over this country who actually do pay their fees.

You know, something else to respond to something the assemblywoman said, you know, in fact the jails, the prisons are full of people who have refused to pay their taxes for one reason or another.

So, you know, yes, I think the optics were bad. I think coming in there with helicopters and police dogs was almost guaranteed to provoke this kind of reaction, especially because the whole operation was dragging on day after day after day.

But, you know, at the end of the day, what these people are proposing is that we are not a nation of laws, that stealing money from other Americans is somehow a defense of the Constitution and liberty. You know, this whole idea of county supremacy truth be told is directly descended from groups like Posse Comitatus, you know, racist, anti-Semitic violent groups. That’s where this whole ideology is coming from.

In the meantime, Sen. Reid continues to stand behind his remarks: “These people think they’re patriots, they’re not,” he said on CNN. “If they’re patriots, we’re in very big trouble.”

Originator of ‘White Man’s March’ Hangs It Up, Saying Idea Will Live On

It wasn’t the flood of scorn and derision, which Kyle Hunt says he fully expected last month when he announced his nationwide “White Man’s March” – in which small clusters of white supremacists popped up in various locales bearing banners with the slogan “Diversity = White Genocide” – that most discouraged him. No, it was the astonishingly vicious reaction by his would-be allies within the white power movement that really rocked his world.

Either way, Hunt announced this weekend at the White Man’s March blog that he was handing off the reins of the “White Man’s March” to…no one in particular. He’s just resigning:

Of course animosity was to be expected from the anti-White media, but sadly many alleged pro-Whites have been launching vicious assaults upon me, trying to discredit the message and methodology of the White Man March by attacking my character and reputation. Sure, the aspersions are being cast by cowards and incompetents, but such tactics still help to discourage others from joining the cause. At this point, I consider having myself as a “leader” to be more of a hindrance to our cause than a help. I do not want to be a liability. I previously wrote that this is not an organization and there is no leader and now I am just making it official.

It’s not clear how, but Hunt apparently believes the concept will now continue anyway:

Now that the White Man March has taken off, you really do not need me anymore. You are your own leader. I look forward to seeing all of the things that you will accomplish.

Hunt is right about one thing: His ex-Google-guy-with-a-ponytail schtick went over like Malcolm X at a cross burning among the longtime white supremacist factions to whom he was a complete newcomer and stranger. One leading white power activist, who himself claims credit for the “Diversity” banner, called Hunt’s campaign “a hijack,” and numerous white nationalists denounced his efforts as a sideshow.

Kyle Hunt’s illustration for spreading his ideas in Easter eggs

None of that seemed to have bothered Hunt until very recently, as far as we can tell. Earlier this month he published a long, cheery post titled “Game Planning for Future Marches” that included, among other bright ideas, invading children’s Easter celebrations by planting white supremacist messages in their plastic eggs: “You could buy some of those really cheap plastic Easter eggs, maybe put in something for a little bit of weight, and include a small strip of paper in there with some of our material printed on one side, with your favorite websites printed on the back.”

Hunt does make a disclaimer of sorts – “Since we are not targeting children, think of some ways to get these eggs into the hands of adults” – that overlooks the fact that Easter eggs are in fact targeted to children.

Retirement was probably a good idea for Kyle Hunt.

Limbaugh, Right-Wing Pundits Try to Blame Max Blumenthal for Kansas Rampage

White supremacists began pointing fingers almost immediately after the lethal rampage at two Jewish community centers in Kansas by longtime white supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller (aka Frazier Glenn Cross). Some supported Miller or blamed Jews for the attack, while others disavowed him.

Meanwhile on the mainstream right, several leading conservatives attempted to blame liberals for the massacre. Specifically, they pinned the blame on a single liberal journalist, Max Blumenthal, because Miller on a handful of occasions praised Blumenthal’s against-the-grain reporting on the right wing in Israel. From there, they blamed liberal organizations more broadly for the incident, including one for whom Blumenthal has not worked for since 2009.

Leading the charge was Rush Limbaugh, who on his widely syndicated radio show Monday cited a column by Ron Radosh at PJ Media – headlined: “Who Inspired the Nazi Klan Leader’s Actions in Kansas? The Answer Here” – that detailed a handful of Miller’s characteristcally expletive and hate-filled rants that approvingly cited Blumenthal’s criticism of Israeli policies.

Working off Radosh’s piece, Limbaugh attacked not just Blumenthal and his well-known father (Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal) but also Media Matters, the liberal organization that monitors right-wing media:

LIMBAUGH: Max Blumenthal is the son of Sidney Blumenthal, who is, of course, Hillary Clinton’s confidant.  But Max Blumenthal, if I’m not mistaken, works at Media Matters for America.  And Max Blumenthal is one of a cabal of left-wing journalists that despise Israel, and this guy found his way to things that these people had written, and he was inspired. He admits he was inspired by all this, and that’s why he took action against the three Jewish people in Kansas City.

This is preposterous and blatantly false. Where to begin?

Blumenthal, who is of Jewish descent and has spent years off and on in Israel, does not “despise” Israel. Blumenthal has written a number of articles that criticize Israeli policies, just as Rush Limbaugh regularly criticizes the policies of the United States. Does that mean Limbaugh “despises” America? Of course not.
What’s more, there is no indication whatsoever that anything Blumenthal wrote “inspired” Miller.

As Limbaugh’s rant progressed, the distortion deepened:

At any rate, this guy, Glenn Miller, is a former KKK member.  He once ran for office as a Democrat. All the KKK are Democrats.  They always have been.  He’s an anti-Semite, obviously, and he did shout “Heil Hitler” when he was arrested, and this is what has been posted by him. These are apparently some really wacko extremist, pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic websites, and this guy’s posted plenty there where he identifies the people who inspire him.  He mentioned the name Max Blumenthal.

Limbaugh wrapped up the episode with this: “You got a former KKK member, literally insane, run for office as a Democrat, inspired by some people at Media Matters.”

Limbaugh, speaking on Monday, was wrong at just about every turn. He said that Miller stabbed three people, but everyone knew by Sunday night that three people had been shot to death. He claimed that Miller was a “huge Democrat” – in reality, he ran for office as a Democrat and a Republican and had no connections or success in either party. And Blumenthal does not work for Media Matters – he was a staff writer there from 2008-9.

Notwithstanding Radosh and Limbaugh’s lies and distortions, their attacks on Blumenthal spread quickly throughout the right-wing echo chamber, especially at neoconservative websites where Blumenthal is the subject of frequent attacks for his criticism of Israel (particularly his book-length expose of the Israeli right, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel). At the the Washington Free Beacon, an unbylined story headlined “Kansas KKK Shooter Cited Max Blumenthal” claimed that it found “over 300” references to Blumenthal at VNN.

Max Blumenthal

Even liberal, pro-Israeli publications such as Haaretz ran with the smear. That paper published an article headlined “Kansas Murderer Admires Prominent Israeli Critic” and citied the Free Beacon piece, though it was eventually taken down by the editors of the paper due to its dubious claims.
In reality, as we have detailed at Hatewatch extensively, Miller was inspired by the far-right, white supremacist ideology he adopted in the 1970s, which included racial and ethnic hatred, homophobia and a emphasis on violence (as he explained last fall to the Southern Poverty Law Center). Miller was willing to appropriate any piece of information from any source that might help prove a point he wanted to make, and that included various “liberal media” and “Jew reporters,” as he typically referred to Blumenthal.

Miller had a history of violence and was ginned up by the ceaseless drumbeat of racial hatred that he bathed in daily at the Vanguard News Network. Any attempt to characterize his motives as deriving from “liberal” sources is an attempt to turn public understanding of the wellsprings of this kind of violence on its head.

Blumenthal is anything but a revered or celebrated figure on the far right, considering he spent many years writing exposes of far-right American extremists before turning his attention to their counterparts in Israel. In fact, he is widely reviled by users of VNN and related hate sites.

Alex Kane and Phan Nguyen at Mondoweiss performed a search of the various references to Blumenthal at these sites and found that the following descriptions were far more typical:

    “Jew Max Blumenthal”

    “Kike Max Blumenthal”

    “Jewish propagandists including … Max Blumenthal”

    “an avowed queer like Max Blumenthal”

    “Max Blumenthal … a flamboyant, exhibitionistic anti-racist”

    “that douche bag sodomite Max Blumenthal”

Kane and Nguyen also examined the Free Beacon claim that VNN referenced Blumenthal over 300 times and quickly ascertained that the references actually numbered closer to 40. And the vast majority of these, in fact, were viciously disparaging references such as those above.

Moreover, picking Blumenthal out of the literally thousands of various people and organizations who Miller cited over the course of his many years of hatemongering is mostly an exercise in selective blame-laying, considering that Miller was far more likely to approvingly cite the works of ostensibly mainstream conservatives. These include such neoconservatives as FrontPage.com editor David Horowitz, a close associate of Ron Radosh’s. In one post, Miller describes Horowitz as ”one of those jewish (sic) neocon ‘new friends’ of the White man who actually throws Whitey journalistic bones from time to time, such as his book ‘Hatin Whitey.’”

Perhaps Radosh should denounce Horowitz for inspiring Miller’s murderous rampage?

Indeed, Horowitz’s publication has apparently condoned Miller’s behavior in the past – notably, his role in the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, in which Klan members shot and killed five protest marchers. Miller was a leader of that massacre and did no prison time. A 2004 FrontPage review of a book about the incident blamed the victims for the massacre because they were Communists, and ultimately praised the KKK and neo-Nazi perpetrators: “In this war they were the patriots fighting an anti-American threat that was global in scope.”

Ironically, a recent FrontPage article not only blames Blumenthal for the Kansas shootings – once, again, because Miller had cited him – but concludes that his greatest dream was realized by the killing of Jews (though in fact no Jews were killed in the incident). It does not mention that David Horowitz was cited and praised even more fulsomely by Miller. And Haaretz, as Kane and Nguyen note, was cited 11,500 times at VNN.

Federal Retreat in Nevada ‘Range War’ Gives Green Light to Extremists

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]


The antigovernment “Patriots” and heavily armed militia members backing Cliven Bundy in his “range war” with the Bureau of Land Management were thrilled by the apparent confusion and retreat by federal agents at the scene of the roundup. At least momentarily, they smell victory.

The blog “Bearing Arms” summed up the sentiment on the far right: “It is now a virtual certainty that Obamite acts of tyranny will be resisted, by hundreds, even thousands, and if necessary, by force.”

Many of the leading “Patriot” and antigovernment conspiracist figures were ecstatic over the “victory,” which they said proves the legitimacy of their view that the federal government is a fraudulent entity with no legitimate power.

Leading the parade was noted militia figure Mike Vanderboegh, who wrote that the “feds were routed”:

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the victory won in the desert today. While the behind-the-scenes details are not clear yet, it is obvious that something unprecedented in the war on the west that has been waged by the imperial federal government has, against all odds, happened. The feds were routed — routed. There is no other word that applies. Courage is contagious, defiance is contagious, victory is contagious. Yet the war is not over. The empire, you may be assured, WILL strike back. This will be the subject of angry words at an Obama cabinet meeting on Monday. Someone in federal government will want blood, rest assured. The feds, having lost the Mandate of Heaven and demonstrated their impotence in this case, will not want to repeat it lest the peasants get the right idea — that they are not as omnipotent as they claim to be.

Vanderboegh, who spoke by phone with Cliven Bundy’s son, saw the event – as did most of his far-right brethren – as truly historic:

I congratulated Ammon and told him that this was perhaps a pivotal moment in American history. He also agreed with me that it is impossible not to see the hand of God in all of this. I told him that it was my opinion that the empire would surely strike back, but that they would likely come at the Bundys and their supporters sideways next time. Still, it was a great victory, a pivotal moment, in the relationship between the federal government and the American people. Nothing will be quite the same after this, mostly because it has demonstrated to those whom the government would victimize that they only require someone with the guts to stand up to leviathan — and the armed friends to back them up in the argument.

That was the sentiment at Alex Jones’ InfoWars site, where the headline proclaimed: “Historic! Feds Forced to Surrender to American Citizens”. The site also featured an article from Ron Paul himself who warned that federal agents might be planning a lethal raid against that Bundys as retaliation.

In the meantime, Sheriff Richard Mack – who appeared at the scene and helped craft a strategy to women as human shields – also weighed in at InfoWars and similarly warned against a coming raid.

On his daily show at InfoWars, Alex Jones himself warned that there would be many more such incidents.

It’s a very special time to be alive. And the victory that you saw at that event? There’s going to be more of that as people push back, as they see victory. And the feds, if they miscalculate, and start shooting people, at another Lexington or Concord, are going to set a revolution off in our favor.

At the slightly more mainstream TownHall.com, financial columnist John Ransom declared that the “War on Federal Bureaucrats Opens at the Bundy Ranch.”

Meanwhile, the Oath Keepers – the conspiracist “Patriot” group that linked up with Mack and his “constitutional sheriffs” at the standoff site to provide the protesters much of their manpower over the weekend – has not only vowed to keep up its presence at Bundy’s ranch but has sent out a national call to make their way to Nevada over the next week.


Oath Keepers president Stewart Rhodes noted that they were “concerned that the domestic enemies of the Constitution that infest the federal government might try to take advantage of folks going home, and attempt to make a move on the Bundy family.” So to prevent any raid, they were “calling on all Oath Keepers who can possibly get here to come to the Bundy Ranch to serve as volunteers on an ongoing, rotating watch.”

“I am urging each and every Oath Keepers member who can, to get here and spend a bit of time to ensure that the Bundys are not alone,” Rhodes added. “We need boots on the ground. We want you here, standing watch, which is appropriate for us Oath Keepers since our motto is ‘Not on Our Watch’.”

Rhodes also appeared on an Internet radio program for the NorthWest Liberty News in which he said that a number of leading far-right figures – including Chuck Baldwin, whose Montana-based Liberty Fellowship is a hotbed of “Patriot” radicalism – were making their way to the scene in Nevada this week, along with a number of far-right legislators who were lending their names to the cause, including Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane, Wash.

Rhodes called for his fellow Oath Keepers to gird their loins and head for Nevada:

This is an ongoing fight, so I also encourage you to get ready, prepare yourselves, get geared up and get your logistics secured away, and be here next week. Because I think what’s going to happen is – I haven’t got a crystal ball, but my suspicion is they’re going to regroup and then come back even more. They’re going to double down, and so we need to be ready to do the same thing. So we’ll need a lot more folks here.

In Nevada, local opinion makers are decidedly less enthusiastic. At the conservative Las Vegas Review-Journal, columnist Steve Sebelius noted that the court orders and numerous rulings requiring the federal government to remove Bundy’s cows remained intact:

About the only thing that’s different is that a bunch of armed would-be insurrectionists have gotten the message that if they show up with tough talk and loaded long guns, there’s a good chance the government will back down. And that’s not a very good message to send.

However, as Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress observes, the story is far from over. Many of these activists, in fact, could find themselves behind bars soon for having broken various laws, including the threatening behavior that was directed at federal agents, as well having crossed state lines with various weapons and wielded them in Nevada “in furtherance of a civil disorder” – also a federal crime.

Bundy Supporters Reportedly Harass Conservationists, BLM Workers over Nevada ‘Range War’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]


Apparently Cliven Bundy’s supporters in his showdown with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over cattle grazing rights aren’t satisfied with having forced the government to end its roundup operation. Now some of them are bent on punishing the people they blame for the creating the situation.

Rob Mrowka of Las Vegas, who heads up the Center for Biological Diversity – the Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental organization whose lawsuits over the desert tortoise forced the BLM’s hand in rounding up Bundy’s cattle, which had been grazing for free on public lands that comprised the animal’s habitat – says he started getting calls about three days before the right-wing Bundy media blitz. And then it became a deluge.

“It kind of started out with a phone call from a guy in Mississippi who called, and myself and someone in the Tucson office picked up and talked to him,” Mrowka said, adding that a third colleague did not pick up, and for him, he “left a disturbing voice message. That was just the start of it.”

The message the man left on the voicemail was similar to what he told Mrowka and his colleague in person: “I am holding you personally responsible for every one of Cliven Bundy’s cattle that is confiscated. For his son David, who’s in jail, and for anything that happens to them in the future. And since I am holding you responsible, I plan on making you pay. There’s no need for you to call me back. This is your notice. You’ve been fighting a war against us for awhile, we’re gonna start fightin’ back.”

“Since then, there’s been about a hundred emails, most of them very hateful and vulgar and intimidating – ‘You’re going to be held responsible,’ that sort of thing,” Mrowka said. He’s spoken with various law enforcement authorities about it, including the FBI, but so far none of the messages have reached the level of a direct threat.

“The thing that’s been frustrating is that we’re the only ones speaking out about this, and it’s really not in our wheelhouse,” he noted. “We’re about speaking up for endangered species. We don’t know that much about sovereign citizens and their theories.”

Mrowka said he has been forced to get up to speed what his harassers are talking about when they use obscure pseudo-legal language to make outlandish claims that the federal government has no authority over the lands where Bundy’s cattle graze – classic hallmarks of antigovernment “Patriot” movement ideology in action. He said that sharing information with his colleagues about sovereign citizens has helped all of them get a better handle on the level of radicalism they’re up against.

Federal employees are also in the sights of the “Patriots” in the wake of the Bundy “range war.” “I can’t speak firsthand, but I have received some confidential information that federal employees are receiving harassment similar to what I have been receiving,” Mrowka. “In fact, one of the Twitter links that is attacking me also posted the pictures, names, addresses and maps of some of the BLM officers that have been involved. And I understand that the BLM offices are just being inundated. As are those of the Clark County Commission.”

Hatewatch independently confirmed that BLM employees are enduring personal harassment.

Richard Mack Explains Nevada ‘Range War’ Strategy: ‘Put All the Women Up in the Front’

[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]


As part of Fox News’ eager coverage of the recent “range war” showdown over Cliven Bundy’s cattle grazing rights in Nevada, the network broadcast a segment from the scene Monday that was remarkable both for the reporters’ seeming embrace of the far-right antigovernment “Patriot” movement and for its subjects’ startling clarity on their strategy for confronting federal agents: using women as human shields.
Richard Mack, the erstwhile Arizona sheriff and longtime figure in the Patriot movement, was at the scene. He told Fox reporter William LaJeunesse that the people who gathered there to stop law enforcement from rounding up the illegally grazing cattle – which had grown to hundreds by the time the Bureau of Land Management caved in and returned many of the cattle – were prepared to lay their lives on the line in standing up to the government. Or more precisely:

We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front. If they’re going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.

Mack’s radical Posse-Comitatus-based ideology, which claims that county sheriffs are the higest constitutional level of law enforcement, lines up nicely with Cliven Bundy’s antigovernment views. That explains why Mack has taken a lead role in helping promote Bundy’s cause in far-right media circles.

Monday’s Fox News segment, hosted by Gretchen Carlson, was also noteworthy for LaJeunesse’s characterization of the situation, which seemed to embrace the Patriot ideology:

And you know, it was those protesters and sympathizers, self-described Patriots, who provided Cliven Bundy the leverage he needed to get his cattle back, and to get the BLM to back off. Indeed, they were also backed up by many Second Amendment supporters, who were a well-armed militia, with assault rifles and handguns, who were prepared to respond to any assault or use of force, if you will, by BLM agents.

So you had the tensions mounting when these protesters went to I-15, closed down the road. When cowboys went down and tried to get the cattle back, they surrounded these BLM agents, confronting them, who were guarding the cattle inside holding pens. Now, above and around were marksmen in sniper positions. A retired Arizona sheriff worried about what was going to happen next.

LaJeunesse also explained to his audience: “Bundy says that he doesn’t recognize federal authority here, that his grazing rights predate and preclude federal authority in this area.”

However, he neglected to mention that Bundy has tested those claims in multiple court cases and has lost at every step, leading to the court order authorizing BLM to round up his trespassing cattle on federal lands.

Hannity's Bullying Isn't A Persuasive Argument For Sea World

Memo to SeaWorld: Having Sean Hannity champion your cause does not exactly advance your argument that you deeply care about the animals in your keep. Rather the opposite.

Hannity hosted a segment last week purportedly to debate a proposed new law in California that would ban performances by orcas in the state and require marine parks to begin the work of returning wild-born orcas to their native waters. We say "purportedly" because, as with all things Hannity, this wasn't a debate. It was another piece of sexist bullying masquerading a right-wing performance art.

Hannity invited two women on to debate the subject: former Sea World trainer Bridgette Pirtle Davis, and Lisa Lange of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the latter of whom probably came on thinking she might get a chance at a fair shot to air her views on Hannity's show. Hah. It wasn't long before she realized that no such shot existed.

After interviewing Pirtle Davis, who now defends SeaWorld after having been at one time part of the group of ex-trainers who appeared in the documentary 'Blackfish' before her appearances were edited out, Hannity turned to Lange and before she could even say a word, handed her a turd of an opening remark:

HANNITY: Does PETA really stand for People Eating Tasty Animals?

It quickly went downhill from there. Hannity quickly made it clear he wasn't interested in discussion the details and core issues of orca captivity. No. All he really wanted to do was get someone from PETA on so that he could attack the people who proposed the legislation as a bunch of kooks. Because he then set out to make sure that everyone knew that PETA as an organization has taken a lot of stands on animal rights that people will consider nutty.

There's a problem with this: PETA is not involved in the California legislation at all. The Animal Welfare Institute, in fact, is the organization that is providing the primary guidance for the legislators writing this bill, and those efforts are being overseen by a genuine orca scientist with deep knowledge of both wild and captive orcas, Naomi Rose.

But then, Rose probably knew better than to ever appear on Fox, and evidently no one warned poor Lisa Lange.

Just interesting, perhaps, is the appearance of Pirtle Davis on Hannity's show as a critic of the legislation, who ignorantly (and falsely) accused the advocates of the legislation of wanting to simply turn the animals loose in the sea. (This is a baldfaced lie.)

She also defended her former boss now, completing her circuitous transformation into a complete circle, having once been a severe critic of SeaWorld.

"I didn't feel the animals were mistreated," she told Hannity

Well, here's what Pertl told an interviewer back when she was part of the 'Blackfish' team and before she found she could reap more attention by going on Fox and attacking SeaWorld's critics:

Had I allowed myself to take in the bigger picture of orcas and marine life parks, maybe ten years spent coming to this realization that captivity is immoral would have been spent creating change soon enough to prevent lives like Alexis and Dawn being lost.

... Ultimately, the same concerns voiced as a result of Dawn's accident had been voiced after incidents in the past. Lessons not learned and continually disregarded. Many of those taking care of the animals are fighting for less responsibility to be placed upon their ever-drooping dorsal fins.

Show schedules, public interactions, and dining obligations create a strain on animals already in a highly stressed environment. They are proudly introduced as "ambassadors" but they are simply work horses for a profit hungry industry desperate to remain relevant in a society that has already begun to recognize we have moved past such a trite necessity.

Now Pirtl Davis -- whose interviews in 'Blackfish' were left on the cutting-room floor -- has found that she can get more media time by turning back and re-embracing that profit-hungry industry. We wish her lots of luck with that. And we hope she really enjoys being in the company of Sean Hannity and his nasty, bullying ilk. Serves her right.

Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.