NYT - Crackpots In Cowboy Hats, And Their Bestest Friends In Congress
EDIT
The leader, Ammon Bundy, is the son of Cliven Bundy, the deadbeat rancher and Fox News hero who still owes more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees. The elder Bundy says he doesn’t recognize the government. The younger Bundy recognized it enough to get a federal loan guarantee for his fleet repair business in the rugged sprawl of Phoenix.
Ammon Bundy says God drove him to break into the offices of an agency that works on behalf of pileated woodpeckers, yellow warblers and other avian wonders. Bundy’s not leaving, he says, until land that we own — that is, every American citizen — is taken from us and given to some unnamed private entity.
EDIT
The goal of Labrador and other far-right politicians from the West is similar to the demands of the Bundy gang. Earlier this year a group led by Representative Rob Bishop, the Utah Republican who is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, announced plans to “develop a legislative framework for transferring public land to local ownership and control.” Bishop said he wanted to find a way “to return these lands back to their rightful owners.” It’s the identical language used by the militants. “We have research teams finding out who this land was taken from and who it needs to be sent back to,” said one of the occupiers, Jon Rizheimer.
Um, the Indians? Well, yes, Paiutes had been living on the well-watered desert sanctuary for at least 6,000 years, until whites kicked them off. This week the Paiutes told the Bundy gang to go away, and said they looked to the federal government as protectors of their cultural artifacts.
EDIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/opinion/crackpots-in-cowboy-hats-and-in-congress.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
