Discendo Vox posted:

A Year After His Death, LaVoy Finicum's Widow Carries On His Mission.

The false neutrality of the coverage is sickening.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Eh, going after the grieving widow on the first anniversary of the death would be pretty low class. Grey-haired widows are hard to deal with no matter how loony, because if you are mean to them it will look like punching down.

This article won't change anyone's opinion. Being needlessly cruel to a grieving widow could change public opinion in favor of Lavoy.

quote:

Ryan Bundy goes on the attack during hearing in Las Vegas

Ryan Bundy, charged as a ringleader of the 2014 standoff at his family’s Bunkerville ranch, declared in sworn testimony Tuesday that Bureau of Land Management agents who tried to impound his father’s cattle were prepared to conduct battle on a group of peaceful American citizens.

Dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit, Bundy, who is representing himself, delivered a 90-minute statement before the court during which he invoked religion, compared himself to the Founding Fathers, and referenced nearly every Amendment in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The statement, which at times resembled more of a sermon, included repeated claims that the federal government did not have the authority to seize his father’s cattle in a court-ordered operation that resulted from decades of unpaid grazing fees.

“We are America, a union of sovereign states. We are not an empire of provinces under the control of a totalitarian government,” Bundy declared during a detention hearing Tuesday morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge George Foley in federal court in Las Vegas.

The hearing represents an opportunity for Bundy to challenge his incarceration pending trial on extortion, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, and other charges in the 16-count indictment. He used it to repeat claims that the authority of the county sheriff supersedes that of the federal government when it comes to land and water rights in Nevada. The standoff, he argued, represented an attack on a group of peaceful protesters whose actions were protected under the First and Second Amendments.


“This was a spontaneous public protest, a peaceful protest,” he said, mentioning that his family has been ranching on the land since 1877. “There was no assault, no threats on federal officers. … I did not refuse to obey orders.”

Bundy opened his statement with a prayer, followed by an “oath of truth” he took voluntarily. He later was formally sworn in by the court’s clerk after he agreed to testify under oath — which subjects him to cross-examination by Assistant United States Attorney Steven Myhre. The judge warned Bundy of the risks of testifying, to which Bundy replied:

“Everything I’m saying is already being used against me.”

Bundy repeatedly accused prosecutors of lying and cherry-picking evidence to portray him as dangerous. He charged that the BLM agents were the aggressors, and said his actions were defensible “to prevent the bloodshed that the BLM was about to pour down upon these people.”

He referenced one piece of video evidence that prosecutors say depicts him reaching into his coat for a gun, and said: “Perhaps I was reaching in for my cellphone, or a piece of jerky.”

Bundy resisted Foley’s instructions to be more expeditious in his testimony, saying sharply in response that he had been incarcerated for 370 days and that this was his one opportunity to argue his case for release on bail.

In cross-examination, Myhre questioned Bundy extensively about whether he thought the BLM had authority under the 2014 court order to seize the cattle. The line of questioning represented an attempt to prove to the court that Bundy does not respect court orders and thus should not be released on bail. The exchange became heated, and Bundy did little to hide his disdain for federal prosecutors as he rocked back in his chair and gave lengthy responses to yes or no questions.

“You’re telling me there’s some constitutional issues — I’m just trying to get you to answer the questions,” Myhre said at one point. Bundy replied that are many constitutional issues in a case that he, and others charged, maintain is about the overreach of federal power.

“I’m gonna have to object to this line of questioning,” he said at one point during cross-examination, which had not concluded when the court broke for lunch recess.


Before the break, Bundy told Foley it didn’t matter when the court took its recess.

“I am fasting, and I know that many of the folks here are fasting … we are not going to eat,” Bundy said in front of dozens of family members and other supporters who packed the small third-floor courtroom in the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse.

Many members of the audience, which included Bundy’s eight children, wore cowboy boots, flannel shirts and cowboy hats. Some had pamphlets sticking out of their pockets that bore images of the Founding Fathers. The group knelt in prayer outside the courtroom prior to entering the hearing.

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

I loving hate these assholes so much.

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

I loving hate these assholes so much.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

andrew smash posted:

I am a bad person but i can't shake the impression that Quick Draw McGraw slapped him and his face got stuck and he just needs to wait for the backhand

quote:

Nevada trial set for Ammon Bundy and Cliven Bundy

LAS VEGAS -- A judge has set a trio of trials for 17 men accused of conspiring together in an armed standoff against federal agents near Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's property in April 2014.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen, in a ruling Monday, reversed the order proposed by federal prosecutors who wanted to try Bundy, sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and two other defendants first. Instead, they'll go second.

The judge set trial to begin Feb. 6 in Las Vegas for six defendants the government has characterized as "followers and gunmen" and least responsible for planning the tense showdown that blocked a federal Bureau of Land Management round-up of Bundy cattle from public land.

"It made no sense to keep the least culpable in custody the longest," Todd Leventhal, attorney for Orville Scott Drexler, said Tuesday. Drexler is in the Feb. 6 group, with co-defendants Gregory Burleson, Todd Engel, Ricky Lovelien, Eric Parker and Steven Stewart.

Leventhal said he thought the judge may have been swayed by a request from Cliven Bundy, through his attorney Bret Whipple, to let other defendants stand trial first.

"My client was concerned that all those people who were being tried with him were being taken away from their families," Whipple said Tuesday.

Jury summonses have gone out saying trial could take up to five months. Meanwhile, the defendants remain in federal custody in southern Nevada.

Thirty days after the first trial ends, proceedings will begin for Cliven, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and co-defendants Peter Santilli and Ryan Payne, Leen said.

Federal prosecutors allege the Bundy family patriarch, now 70, and his two sons led the conspiracy, obstruction, weapon, threat and assault offenses against federal officers.

Santilli's lawyer, Chris Rasmussen, said his client wanted to be tried first and will challenge Leen's order.

The judge said trial for six alleged "mid-level" standoff leaders and organizers will start 30 days after the second trial ends. They are Bundy sons Dave and Mel Bundy, and co-defendants Brian Cavalier, Micah McGuire, Joseph O'Shaughnessy and Jason Woods.

quote:

Four of remaining 7 Oregon standoff defendants set to plead guilty to trespass

Four of the seven remaining Oregon standoff defendants who were set to go to trial Feb. 14 have decided to accept negotiated deals and are expected to change their pleas during hearings in federal court Monday.

Sean Anderson and his wife, Sandra Anderson -- among the last four holdouts during the 41-day occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last year -- as well as Dylan Anderson and Darryl Thorn are set to enter guilty pleas to a single misdemeanor trespass charge and have the remaining felony and misdemeanor charges dismissed.

They're expected to face one year of probation and each pay $1,000 in restitution under the plea agreements.

Dylan Anderson of Provo, Utah, is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown at 8:30 a.m. for a change of plea hearing.

Anderson was photographed guarding the refuge entrance with a rifle, prosecutors said. He was quoted telling a reporter, "I didn't come here to shoot. I came here to die,'' according to a federal court filing.

Sean and Sandra Anderson of Riggins, Idaho, will appear together before the judge at noon.

A video shows Sean Anderson urging people to come to the refuge and "fight for your country'' and suggesting that the "media has been waiting for a bloodbath.'' In another video, he describes the unfolding situation as a "free-for-all Armageddon,'' refers to law enforcement officers "who don't abide by their oath'' as the enemy and adds: "If they stop you from getting here, kill them.''

Sandra Anderson visited the refuge with her husband on four separate occasions before the final visit -- no longer than two nights each time -- to bring donations and other supplies to the protesters, her lawyer said.

Thorn of Marysville, Washington, has a 12:30 p.m. hearing.

He had been set in June to enter a plea to a conspiracy charge, but changed his mind.

The pleas will come just a week before their trial was set to begin. Prosecutors added misdemeanor charges, including trespass and tampering with vehicles and equipment, against many of the seven remaining defendants after a jury last fall acquitted Ammon Bundy, his older brother, Ryan Bundy, and five others of all felony charges at the end of a five-week trial.

A grand jury last year had indicted 26 people on felony charges of conspiracy to impede federal employees from doing their work at the refuge through intimidation, threats or force, and possession of firearms in a federal facility. Charges were dropped against one person, Peter Santilli. Eleven others already have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.

With Monday's pleas, three defendants remain, headed for trial in 11 days: Jason Patrick of Bonaire, Georgia, Duane Ehmer of Irrigon and Jake Ryan, of Plains, Montana.

Brown has ruled that a jury will deliberate only on the felony charges and she will issue a verdict on the misdemeanor charges.

That ruling may have been what persuaded some of the defendants to accept a plea on one misdemeanor charge and avoid prison time, legal experts said.

Thorn had faced two other misdemeanor charges -- two counts of tampering with a government vehicle, accused of using a government front-end loader and an ATV on the refuge.

Ehmer, often photographed riding his horse "Hellboy'' at the refuge and hoisting the American flag, has filed a motion asking Brown to be removed from presiding over the misdemeanor trial. That motion is pending.

Ammon Bundy, the occupation's leader, has said the refuge takeover was done to protest the return to federal prison of two Harney County ranchers and the federal control of public land.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

I think this is still the correct schedule:


http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/12/nevada_trial_set_for_ammon_bun.html

Casimir Radon posted:

Last time made me cross off Oregon in my list of acceptable places to live.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Just as well. You'd probably die of dysentery before you even arrived.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Just as well. You'd probably die of dysentery before you even arrived.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Just as well. You'd probably die of dysentery before you even arrived.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Just as well. You'd probably die of dysentery before you even arrived.

Anime Schoolgirl posted:

this is unironically the reason why they're hellbent on repealing the ACA, they want dysentery to be great again

quote:

First of 3 trials in Bunkerville standoff case starts Monday in Las Vegas


Gunfire wasn’t exchanged during an armed confrontation in Bunkerville three years ago, but the opposing sides will finally head to battle this week when the first trial opens in the case against rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters.

The case pits the federal government against a group of men who view its agents as foreign invaders on their land, and the venue change, from open range to federal court, has done little to civilize that hostile dynamic. The clashes are expected to be just as fiery in the confines of a courtroom as they were on the sandy banks of Toquop Wash, where in April 2014 Bundy and his supporters were engaged in a dramatic standoff against Bureau of Land management agents who tried to round up the rancher’s cattle.

Bundy and the 16 others facing trial on charges in the 15-count indictment maintain they were exercising their First and Second Amendment rights to freely assemble and to bear arms. Federal prosecutors accuse them of staging a massive and unprecedented assault against law enforcement.

A jury will decide whose version of events to believe after a trial that is expected to be just as untamed as the plains of Southern Nevada where the trouble first began.


“It’s a political fight and a philosophical fight as much as it’s a legal fight,” said longtime Las Vegas defense attorney Tom Pitaro, who is not involved in the case.

A federal grand jury indicted the defendants on identical charges — including extortion, threats and assault — but prosecutors decided to try them in three groups: gunmen, leaders and midlevel organizers.

The six gunmen, considered the least culpable, are up first in what some lawyers consider to be the biggest Southern Nevada case in recent memory. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in federal court in Las Vegas.

“Courtrooms are tough places to play out political theory,” Pitaro said. “Is this going to be a trial, or is this going to be political theater on either side?”

The stakes are particularly high for both sides, as nearly all of the defendants decided to force the government to prove its case at trial — increasing the cost of prosecution and risking longer prison sentences than they might have received if they reached a plea deal with the government.

UNIFIED DEFENDANTS

The internet’s ability to draw impassioned, libertarian supporters — to what was framed as a protest against federal overreach — roped in several people who did not previously know the Bundys and had no stake in the core dispute over cattle grazing fees. All six of the defendants in the first trial traveled to Bunkerville from out-of-state, guns in tow, because they feared their rights were being threatened.

Now, every day, for as much time as they’re granted, the 17 men awaiting trial head to the law library at Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump and pore over the voluminous evidence the government has turned over to them in the case. They claim that when they receive their day in court, they will offer the public a different version of what transpired in Bunkerville three years ago.

“We are here, we’re unified, which is something that they underestimated,” Ammon Bundy, one of the rancher’s sons, said in a recent phone interview from jail. He and his brother Ryan both contend they are victims rather than perpetrators of a mass assault.


A court-ordered seal has prevented the public from accessing much of the evidence the government gathered in its investigation. But under federal law, prosecutors are required to turn over all evidence that could help a defendant prove his innocence, and Ammon Bundy — fresh off an acquittal in a similar case in Oregon – says he has plenty of material.

“When you see the evidence — it was an absolute lie that there was a whole bunch of guns and pointed at them,” Ammon Bundy said, referring to the federal agents.

He said the evidence instead includes recordings of BLM agents making statements such as, “I’ve got 110 rounds, and I’ll use every one of them.”

Prosecutors’ evidence includes pictures, made public in court filings, of two of the men in the first trial group pointing long guns through a crack in the jersey barrier on a highway bridge. Prosecutors are expected to argue that the position of these gunmen on higher ground served to escalate the situation and put the federal agents in fear for their lives.

The Bundys, both on principle and as a defense strategy, argue that the federal government does not have jurisdiction over the Bunkerville grazing allotment.

But those jurisdictional arguments are unlikely to take center stage in the first trial. Rather, defense attorneys are expected to focus on constitutional issues as they try to portray Richard Lovelin, Todd Engel, Gregory Burleson, Eric Parker, Scott Drexler and Steven Stewart as peaceful protesters. They are expected to attack, for example, the “First Amendment Area” federal officials cordoned off for protesters.

BURDEN ON RESOURCES

Preparation for the Bundy trials has effectively halted much other federal court business in Las Vegas as defense attorneys cannot adequately prepare for this case and others simultaneously.

A judge in another case recently described the Bundy trials as a “great burden on all defense resources in this district.”

The case similarly has presented a burden on prosecutorial resources. It was triggered by $1 million in unpaid fees Bundy owed the BLM for his use of the grazing allotment in Bunkerville. The government spent close to $1 million in contracting with cowboys for the cattle roundup alone. Overtime, investigative and prosecution costs are expected to significantly increase that figure.

Anticipating a high-profile trial, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro issued an order last week to keep jurors’ identities private. Court officials are preparing for a circus, as routine hearings in the case have attracted flocks of Bundy family members. Last week, at a pretrial hearing for Ryan Bundy, protesters stood outside the courthouse holding an American flag and the Gadsden flag — a symbol of the movement the Bundys and their associates espouse.

The Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse was abuzz last week in preparation, with officials reviewing safety procedures and discussing the possibility of a safety drill prior to the trial.

Members of the media and attorneys will be required to display special credentials, and a second security detector may be erected outside the courtroom. The trial will be held in the largest courtroom, on the seventh floor of the courthouse. Jury selection is expected to last several days.

Discendo Vox posted:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/review-journal-seeks-access-jurors-names-bundy-trial

They better loving lose.

quote:

“There is no valid reason to seal juror names during voir dire and trial in this case,” Review-Journal lawyer Maggie McLetchie wrote in the filing. “To do so would be inimical to this Country’s and this Court’s long tradition of open trials, guaranteed by both the First Amendment and common law - a right of access that is always important, but particularly critical in this case.”

Discendo Vox posted:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/review-journal-seeks-access-jurors-names-bundy-trial

They better loving lose.

Evil Fluffy posted:

Also keep in mind that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is the newspaper that was bought by billionaire human garbage Sheldon Adelson. There is nothing noble in the paper's desire for the names of jurors.

Discendo Vox posted:

Perhaps I shouldn't have trusted a source from SA user I would blow Dane Cook.

chitoryu12 posted:

Have the Bundys been released on bail or have they been spending the past year in jail?

Facebook Aunt posted:

Locked up. For some reason federal judges don't trust them.

quote:

1st Trial Over Nevada Standoff Begins For Cliven Bundy Followers

Supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy camp near his ranch on in Bunkerville, Nev., in April 2014. Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management have been locked in a decades-long dispute after Bundy stopped paying grazing fees, which led to an armed standoff against the U.S. government in 2014.

The federal conspiracy trials against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his followers is beginning on Monday, with jury selection for the trial of six of Bundy's supporters.

The cases, stemming from a 2014 armed standoff against federal agents in Nevada, are unfolding in several stages. Bundy and his four sons are among the 17 total defendants but won't be immediately entering the courtroom.

Instead, the first phase involves six of Bundy's followers, each facing up to 101 years in prison, according to The Associated Press.

The six men — from Idaho, Arizona and Oklahoma — have been "characterized as the least culpable 'followers and gunmen' among the 19 men arrested a year ago," the AP writes. (Two of the men arrested already pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the news service explains; the other 17 men are the defendants in the current case.)

"They're not the Bundys," an attorney for one of the men tells the AP. "But realistically, this is a Bundy case. The outcome of this trial affects the other two."

The underlying conflict that led to the armed standoff in Nevada goes back decades. Since the '90s, Bundy had refused to pay required grazing permits and fees to the U.S. government — the government says he owes about a million dollars, all told.

A court ordered him to remove his cattle from federal lands. NPR's Kirk Siegler explains what came next:

"It all boiled over in April of 2014 when federal agents came to round up hundreds of his cows near his ranch in the Nevada desert.

"They were met by the the armed Bundy militia, some on horseback, waving American flags. Interstate 15 was blocked. Guns were drawn and things got extremely tense. Federal agents in military-style combat fatigues eventually stood down. ... Cliven Bundy wasn't arrested until almost two years later."

Bundy's arrest early last year came about because of another high-profile, Bundy-led armed standoff between anti-federalist militants and the U.S. government.

Two of his sons, Ammon and Ryan, were leading an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in early 2016. Cliven Bundy flew up to join them, and was arrested in Portland, Ore.

In the months since, the Malheur occupiers surrendered — and then, in a surprising court decision, several occupiers were acquitted of charges that they conspired to keep federal employees from doing their jobs.

The result emboldened the Bundy militia in Oregon, as Kirk reported at the time.

And it may have prosecutors on the Cliven Bundy cases rethinking their strategy, Kirk reports. He spoke with Rick Pocker, former U.S. attorney for Nevada, who said, "The pressure is really on the government.

"If there's two straight acquittals, of individuals who engage in pretty much the same conduct and it's very confrontational, that could embolden a lot of folks on the right wing of the ideological spectrum," Pocker told Kirk.

And there's another wrinkle in the cases, the AP reports:

"The government may also have to overcome a potentially damaging new BLM inspector general ethics and conduct report, made public this week.

"It said the Salt Lake City-based land management supervisory agent who headed the Bundy cattle roundup misused his position during the 2015 Burning Man festival in northern Nevada, and manipulated a hiring process so a friend could get a bureau job."

In general, jury selection will be important in this case as a whole, Kirk reports; sentiments on the federal government and land issues can vary widely between rural and urban communities.

Jury selection is expected to take several days.