On day three of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge "takeover" by a bunch of yahoos posing as patriots, one of the out-of-state ring leaders of the group promised they'd leave if they weren't wanted.
Ryan Bundy of the so-called Bundy Militia tells OPB that he and the other men occupying federal buildings in Harney County, Oregon, will leave peacefully if the people of the community want them to. […]
"This is their county—we can't be here and force this on them," Bundy told OPB Monday. "If they don't want to retrieve their rights, and if the county people tell us to leave, we'll leave."
Wednesday night, the people of Harney County spoke.
[A] majority of speakers said they would like the refuge occupiers to leave. Early in the meeting, Harney County Sheriff David Ward asked for a straw poll of who would like the militants to peacefully return to their homes. Nearly every hand in the room shot up. […]
"Someone from Harney County, or a group of us, needs to tell them we recognize what you've done, but it's time for you to go home to your families," said county resident Rob Frank.
Undoubtedly, Frank and the majority of the folks at the meeting Wednesday night will be dismissed by the Bundy crew as people who "don't want to retrieve their rights," and thus won't count. Oh, and about those "rights":
Improbably, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on exactly that question, specifically regarding the lands of the original Malheur national refuge—twice.
Those rulings by the nation's highest court, in 1902 and in 1935, found that the federal government has an incontrovertible claim to the refuge's wetlands and lakebeds, dating back to the 1840s, when Oregon was still a territory.
The Supreme Court? That's pretty constitutional. Not that it will make a difference to #YallQuaeda.