And then there is the update we would, on balance, prefer to not give a damn about:
Anti-government militants who seized a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon earlier this year conspired to intimidate government workers and steal property, a heavily armed invasion that was not protected by the U.S. Constitution, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow told a packed courtroom in downtown Portland that during the January takeover, the conspirators, many wearing camouflage and toting rifles, practiced shooting drills and hand-to-hand combat at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. They also had a stockpile of some 15,000 rounds of ammunition.
“We all have a right to bear arms,” Barrow said. “This is a case about what the defendants did with those firearms.”
(Sherwood)
Something, something, proverbial, downhill … right, you get the picture:
Marcus Mumford, a lawyer for Ammon Bundy, told the court the peaceful demonstration was an effort to draw attention to the federal government’s illegal control and mismanagement of public lands. He said Bundy was attempting to invoke a provision of the law known as adverse possession to retake land improperly seized by the federal government many decades ago.
U.S. District Judge Anna Brown told Mumford arguments over adverse possession were not relevant to the case and similarly rejected Ryan Bundy’s request to hand each member of the jury a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution.
“The jurors may not have your pocket Constitution,” Brown said. “You may alert the jury to what the evidence will show as to your state of mind.”
There is an argument worth having whether or not prison will actually help anyone; it might well be more constructive to remand these defendants as psychiatric patients. It’s rather quite easy to feel sorry for people when they are unwell, and come on, tell me LaVoy Finicum was healthy―I dare you.
Write this lot up as the incompetent boobnuts they really are, pack them off to a psych ward, and leave their names to the infamy of not being able to help themselves, neither intelligent nor mature enough to not utterly humiliate themselves while refusing to participate in decent society.
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Image note: Clockwise from top left: Ryan Bundy, Ammon Bundy, Brian Cavalier, Peter Santilli, Shawna Cox, Ryan Payne and Joseph O’Shaughnessy, insurrectionists who participated in the forty-one day occupation at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in booking photos released 27 January 2016, by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
Sherwood, Courtney. “Anti-government militants conspired in Oregon refuge standoff―prosecutors”. Reutes. 13 September 2016.
This Is 