What’s a poor Republican Presidential candidate to do?
None of the Republican presidential candidates have weighed in on the rapidly escalating situation, which is certain to become a point of discussion in a heated 2016 election season. However, several current candidates did weigh in on Cliven Bundy’s actions in Nevada: Most condemned Bundy after he was quoted saying African Americans are better off as slaves, but only after initially rushing to his defense during his standoff with the federal government.
It was less than two years ago that Republican Presidential Candidates Ted Cruz and Rand Paul trotted out their awesome, razor-sharp rhetoric and lent their full-throated support to the “racist rancher,” Cliven Bundy, and his militant terror cell of armed thug supporters:.
In 2014, during the Bundy ranch standoff, Paul and Cruz initially argued that an important principle was at stake. Candidates Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump also have expressed sympathy or support for Bundy.
“We have seen liberty under assault from a federal government that seems hell-bent on expanding its authority over every aspect of our lives,” Cruz told a conservative radio host. “It is in that context that people are viewing this battle with the federal government. We should have a federal government protecting the liberty of the citizens, not using the jackboot of authoritarianism to come against the citizens.”
Of course that was before Cliven Bundy instantly became a political pariah by opening his mouth once too often. For a brief moment, however, this was a time of noble rhetoric and loudly-proclaimed Constitutional principles for several of the current GOP candidates as their erstwhile hero stood boldly against the evil forces of government. It was during those heady, halcyon days that Bundy claims to have had a private, lengthy “heart-to heart” with Rand Paul, a claim Paul’s campaign now denies.
The stand-off is still young, but it’s curious we haven’t seen the Republican standardbearers rush to the defense of Bundy’s son and his compatriots. Much like Paul’s, the notorious mouth of Ted Cruz has also fallen unusually silent, in stark contrast to the heartfelt feelings he expressed during last year’s debacle. For his part, the Canadian-born Presidential hopeful claimed to have had an epiphany about the American public land use issues at the center of the Bundy’s “rebellion’ while “bonding” with (now) fellow GOP Senator Mike Lee of Utah:
In his 2015 memoir “A Time for Truth,” Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) described how he and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) bonded over the issue before Cruz began running for the Senate.
“There is no reason for the federal government to own huge portions of any state,” Cruz recalled. “Mike pointed out to me that the value of all that federal land was roughly $14 trillion. At the time, the national debt also happened to be $14 trillion. That suggested to us an obvious and elegant solution for eliminating the debt and moving as much land as possible — other than national parks — into private hands.”
And there, ladies and gentleman, lies the true meaning of this Libertarian ,”freedom-and-liberty” chest beating, gun-toting charade masquerading as what currently passes for patriotism on the right. It all comes down to pure, unadulterated greed.
You see, the “federal land” that Mr. Cruz and Mr. Lee and all the Mayberry militia folks holed up in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge headquarters are whining about right now-- the same Federal land Mr. Dwight and Mr. Steven Hammond (the convicted felons whom they support) decided to torch to hide the fact that they’d been hunting on it illegally, happens to belong to you and me. It’s our land. Not theirs, ours. Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and Nevada agreed to disclaim all legal right and title to unappropriated public lands within their borders as a condition for joining the Union. It’s uses are to be determined, at least in theory, by an elected government for the benefit of all of the people in that Union. Burning it (for whatever reason, but most certainly to hide poaching) is therefore illegal, not to mention extremely dangerous, and the Hammonds rightly went to jail for it.
But this isn’t really about the Hammonds, as these terrorists who’ve taken over public property with force of arms have helpfully demonstrated through their rhetoric. They just don’t like the idea of Federal ownership of lands at all—period:.
At Sunday’s news conference, Ammon Bundy said the refuge’s creation was “an unconstitutional act,” one that removed local ranchers from their lands, thrusting the county into an economic depression.
In a video interview with reporters on Saturday that was posted on his Facebook page, Ammon Bundy said the group is standing up against government “overreach” because “the people have been abused long enough.”
Nothing about Mr. Hammond and son in that speech. Nope, they’ve been clean forgotten. Now it’s all about the gubmint.
There are a lot of people who want you to forget that you own that land. Mostly they’re mining and oil companies looking to loot it for profit, and people like Cliven Bundy and his son Ammon are simply their useful idiots towards that end:
[W]ithin a year, after big Republican gains in the midterm elections, Bundy emerged as a lobbyist for a Nevada bill to begin studying the sale of land.
As it happens The “Nevada Bill” Bundy lobbied for was similar to 37 other Bills that have been floated by Western state Republican legislators:
At issue is Nevada's AB 408, introduced by Republican state Assemblywoman Michele Fiore. It's the latest of a slew of anti-Uncle Sam bills put forth across the West that have caught the attention of land and water advocacy groups.
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Similar state legislation elsewhere has called for studies of state-controlled lands and even demanded the BLM relinquish all management to the state. Nevada's goes even further, insisting Washington "has no say in any land and water rights discussion," Goad said.
Whenever you see the phrase “similar state legislation elsewhere,” your ears should perk up. In the case of these land-use bills percolating (like the one Cliven Bundy lobbied for in Nevada) through the state legislatures, most can trace their genesis back to a Republican state legislator named Ken Ivory who formed, with the help of taxpayer-funds solicited through county commissions, corporate contributions and the Koch Brothers front group, Americans For Prosperity, something called the “American Lands Council.”
The land-grab effort is being goosed along by the American Lands Council, run by Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory (R-West Jordan). Ivory barnstorms the West proclaiming that the feds have no right to manage public land, and whooping it up for state takeover. The Campaign for Accountability has filed complaints with the attorneys general of Utah, Arizona and Montana, requesting an investigation of Ivory for engaging in “an illegal scheme to defraud local government officials out of taxpayer funds [by] falsely claiming the federal government can be forced to transfer public lands to the states.” The Campaign reports that “more than 50 percent of the organization’s most recent budget was spent enriching Rep. Ivory and his wife. ”The states are well aware that their land-grab bills can’t trump federal law, but that was never the purpose. The Center for American Progress accurately defines them as “corporate-backed messaging tools that can be traced to conservative front groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council and Americans for Prosperity.” In the newly conservative Congress, those messages are being heard.
In addition to being an Unconstitutional Scam (the Nevada bill championed by Bundy was declared “Constitutionally invalid') , these attempts to “land-grab” are designed to benefit a fossil-fuel industry that considers them their birthright:
ALEC and Americans for Prosperity have been fanning the fire under these efforts to “reclaim” federal public lands. ALEC is a conservative corporate front group funded by fossil-fuel interests such as the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil that develops model legislation for state legislators to introduce in their legislatures, and it has endorsed many of the bills turning public lands over to the states. As the Associated Press reported, “Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that advocates conservative ideals, and they expect it to eventually be introduced in other Western states.”
But in the end, the Silence of the Republicans may have more to do with the character of the people involved in the current standoff. One of the self-styled militiamen currently occupying the Refuge buildings is self-styled “anti-Muslim" activist Jon Ritzheimer, currently one of the FBI’s “most fascinating persons":
Ritzheimer has a long history of dishing out anti-Muslim vitriol and making threats. He is well known for staging the anti-Muslim rallies like the "Draw Muhammad" cartoon competition in Phoenix. TPM reported earlier this year that Ritzheimer launched a $10 million fundraising campaign after that rally to protect his family or else run against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). He also made threats to arrest Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) "for treason" because she supported the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. His plan was to arrest any lawmaker who voted for the bill.
(All links are from the original source)
Or it may just be that the prevailing sentiment among Americans thus far to this “takeover” has been sheer ridicule:
While news organizations were initially using #OregonUnderAttack to talk about the standoff, Twitter users started using some less-neutral terms to refer to the "militia." The primary hashtag Twitter users began employing was #YallQaeda, clearly likening the Oregon group to Al Qaeda.