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applegrove

Here’s What Happened When Black People Tried Armed Occupation

(Think Progress) And 30 years ago, a similar standoff between police and a black anti-government group in Philadelphia played out very differently. Armed members of a fringe liberation group called MOVE were bombed and burned alive for directing their weapons at police. The bombing highlighted the stark contrast in the way cops treat black and white radicals.

Members of the liberation group sought a natural lifestyle, free of government control, law enforcement, and technology. They lived together in a barricaded house, protested for animal rights, and ate raw foods. Similar to Bundy’s supporters, they believed the federal government violated their constitutional rights. And with a cache of weapons in their possession, they also advocated armed defense if targeted by the city’s authorities.

Quixote1818

The Armed Oregon Ranchers Who Want Free Land Are Already Getting A 93 Percent Discount

TalkingDog

If the nuts in Oregon want to actually return the land to the people, there's a map for that.

MrWendel

Bill Clinton Elegantly Massacres Donald Trump’s Credibility As A Presidential Candidate

(Politicus USA) While campaigning for his wife in New Hampshire, former president Clinton never mentioned Trump by name, but he didn’t have to. With one simple slice, Clinton went after Trump’s credibility as a presidential candidate.

Clinton said, “Every presidential election, people run. And believe it or not, it’s kind of scary this year, but believe it or not, most everybody actually tries to do what they say they’re gonna do when they’re running. They are telling you what they believe. And, so you gotta take ’em seriously, but you also have to take seriously whether they have any chance of doing what they say they’re gonna do or any record of doing it.”

MohRokTah

So that footage in the Trump ad of people running across the border? Comes from MOROCCO

(TPM) In Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s first TV ad, released Monday, the candidate renewed his promise to secure the U.S. border with Mexico – making his case using footage of people sprinting across the border in Morocco.

Politifact traced the footage, which is paired with narration promising Trump would “stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for,” to 2014 video of Moroccans crossing over the border into Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa.

SHRED

The difference between a militiaman and a terrorist

n2doc

Krugman: Elections Have Consequences

(NYT) You have to be seriously geeky to get excited when the Internal Revenue Service releases a new batch of statistics. Well, I’m a big geek; like quite a few other people who work on policy issues, I was eagerly awaiting the I.R.S.’s tax tables for 2013, which were released last week.

99th_Monkey

Audubon Society: Statement on Armed Bundy Terrorists' Malheur Occupation

The occupation of Malheur by armed, out of state militia groups puts one of America’s most important wildlife refuges at risk. It violates the most basic principles of the Public Trust Doctrine and holds hostage public lands and public resources to serve the very narrow political agenda of the occupiers. The occupiers have used the flimsiest of pretexts to justify their actions—the conviction of two local ranchers in a case involving arson and poaching on public lands. Notably, neither the local community or the individuals convicted have requested or endorsed the occupation or the assistance of militia groups.

kpete

CNN: White militiamen aren’t a threat like black protesters because ‘they’re not looting anything'

(Raw Story) Stelter pointed out that many activists had complained if the militia members were “Black Lives Matter protesters or if these were peaceful Muslim Americans then they would be treated very differently by law enforcement.”

“This is a very rural area,” Roderick replied. “It is out in the middle of nowhere. What are they actually doing? They’re not destroying property, they’re not looting anything.”

IDemo

GOP candidates stay quiet on Oregon standoff

(Washington Post) Republican presidential candidates are staying mum as an armed group has taken over part of a national wildlife refuge in rural Oregon — even those who supported the father of at least one of its leaders, who had his own standoff with the government in 2014, and have called for limits on federal control over Western land.

Some of the issues involved in the standoff — Constitutional rights, allegations of federal government overreach and individual liberties — have come to the fore in the GOP primary race. And as Western states are poised to play a larger role in the contest, so has the issue of property rights in a region where the federal government controls about half of the land.