From David Codrea, there is this.

The 8 News NOW I-Team has learned that FBI agents have started an investigation into the events surrounding a potentially deadly showdown one month ago surrounding rancher Cliven Bundy.

It is one thing for Cliven Bundy and his supporters to square off against an assortment of Bureau of Land Management employees. It is quite another when the FBI enters the picture, and that is exactly what has happened.

The I-Team has confirmed that FBI agents have launched a formal investigation into alleged death threats, intimidation and possible weapons violations that culminated with a dangerous showdown on April 12, and the first people to be interviewed by FBI agents are Metro Police, starting with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillispie.

Federal employees suspended their roundup of Cliven Bundy’s cattle, following a confrontation outside the BLM compound near Bunkerville. At the urging of Metro Police, Bundy’s cattle were released, but BLM’s new director announced the matter wasn’t over and would be resolved, one way or another. 

Last week, the I-Team talked with Metro officers who intervened to protect the lives of federal employees from the 400 or so Bundy supporters and armed militia members. Officers told the I-Team they feared for their lives that day because of the assembled firepower, and because many in the crowd had pointed weapons at officers, taunted them, told them they should be ready to die.

I don’t know about the details at the last of the report I cited, but it’s important that this issue be gotten right.  My readers know my views.  I believe that the federal government has two legitimate functions: (1) the common defense, and (2) building (only) the necessary roads and bridges to enable interstate commerce.  Beyond this, everything is unconstitutional and not approved by the wise founders.

But there is an audience who doesn’t think like me.  If the FBI is successful, some men may stand before a “jury of peers” for pointing weapons at BLM agents.  Since many juries are nothing more than a collection of imbeciles pooling their ignorance, discussions of the constitutional provisions or lack thereof for what the BLM did is a bridge too far.  Lives are at stake, and thus a simple and compelling argument needs to be pressed.

Fortunately, there is such an argument.  First of all, all men regardless of station in life are justified in self defense, and moreover, are duty bound to preserve life to the best of their ability.  This is a moral obligation on par with the most basic and important of God’s expectations for man.

There is also an equally simple and compelling legal argument for pointing weapons at BLM agents.  The irony is that it was given to us by the Supreme Court of the U.S., that other collection of imbeciles in Washington.  In Tennessee vesus Garner, we learned that even the Supreme Court believes that certain uses of firearms by LEOs is immoral.  Guns can only be used by law enforcement officers for the exact same reason that they may be used by civilians, i.e., for self defense.

This doesn’t mean that LEOs across America actually abide by Tennessee v. Garner, or that courts uphold the constitution.  But it does mean that right is on our side.  It is the BLM who came in pointing weapons at men, women and children.  If they are going to do this, it is not an unreasonable thing to expect that overwatch and security would point weapons back at the perpetrators to ensure their own safety.

There are those who may say that Cliven Bundy was a criminal, and some jurors might be in that very pool.  I disagree, but that’s not the point.  The men, women and children who were there were engaged in peaceful protests, and nothing more.  The objection rings hollow.

When the conversations get complicated, when the lawyers cite regulation until the faces of jurors are confused, when the media is perplexed or going along with the administration talking points, and when perhaps even your own folk become disillisioned and confused, we need to keep pressing this simple, compelling, morally upstanding position.  Weapons were pointed at BLM agents because the men there had to protect the lives of the people under their charge.  God approves, and even the stolid Supreme Court has recognized this fundamental right.

No backing up, no surrender, no losing focus on the point.  Say it again and again, indefatigable as it were, and without rest for your opponents.  The legal defense doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.  We (and the lawyers defending these men) just need to be disciplined enough to pull it off.

Communist Harry Reid:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says “something is going to happen” to get Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to stop letting his cattle graze on federal land.

“It’s obvious that you can’t just walk away from this. And we can speculate all we want to speculate to what’s going to happen next,” Reid told KSNV-TV. “But I don’t think it’s going to be tomorrow that something is going to happen, but something will happen. We are a nation of laws, not of men and women.”

Reid called militias staying at Bundy’s Bunkerville ranch “domestic violent terrorist-wannabes.

What Reid didn’t tell you is that he is gaming the system to line his own pockets and those of his son, Rory Reid, who is also a communist.  They want their crony who now heads the BLM to forcibly evict Bundy so they can use the land to spend stimulus money on Chinese communist “green” projects.  Reid didn’t exactly say that, did he?

No, because he is liar.  He comes across as a sniveling, pitiful, effete little worm.  In reality, he is an evil, rotten, despicable, loathsome, horrible, terrible, thieving, conniving, scheming, scurrilous, vulgar, opprobrious, offensive, dreadful monster and criminal who has hardened his soul so that he is no longer moved by differences between right and wrong.

There is only him.  Such is the final state of the wicked man.  And I do not believe that he is a product of the state, but rather, that the state we now live in is a function and product of men like him.

Newsmax:

Ron Paul is happy that the standoff between a Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management ended peacefully last week, but he fears the federal government may return in larger force.

“Governments don’t give up their power easily, and they may well come back with a lot more force like they did at Waco with the Davidians,” the former Republican congressman and presidential candidate said Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

If it happens, that’s not the way it will happen.  It will be in the dead of night, 0200 hours or 0300 hours, with SWAT team members wearing hoods so that they can’t be identified – cowards that they are.

The doors to the home will be smashed in, rifles will be pointed at men, women and children, obscenities will be screamed by SWAT team members, and the helicopters used will be brought in without a filed flight plan.  Cliven Bundy will be sent off to debtors prison, and the land he is on will then be used by the Chinese communists to build “green” projects using American stimulus dollars while Rory Reid gets rich from it all.

That’s how it will go down.

NRO Corner:

Like Rich, I deeply respect the rule of law. As an attorney who practices in federal courts across the nation, I respect the rulings of those courts (indeed, much of my career is spent securing rulings from federal courts to protect individual liberties) and — having reviewed the pleadings in Bundy’s case — I do not fault the courts’ orders. John Hinderaker is right, “Legally, Bundy doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

While rural America literally sustains life for urban America, many urbanites dislike large-scale farming (this parody is worth seeing), would like to see the rest of the country essentially transformed into a nature preserve, and argue that to the extent land is “used,” it should be used for selectively-defined “renewable” purposes, like solar energy or wind farms. The result — when urban regions become dominant — has been amply chronicled by Victor Davis Hanson and many others: rural regions increasingly serve urban ones and do so under comprehensive urban regulatory schemes that disrupt lives, destroy livelihoods, and lead to widespread frustration and despair.

And all of it is legal.

With few options left within conventional politics, rural Americans are beginning to contemplate more dramatic measures, such as the state secession movements building in Colorado, Maryland, California, and elsewhere. The more viable state secession movements aim to limit urban control by literally removing rural counties from their states and forming new states around geographic regions of common interests.

But until there’s a long-term solution, we may very well see more Bundy Ranch moments, where individual Americans (and their allies) simply refuse to consent to laws that destroy their way of life for the sake of regulations that provide no perceivable benefit to others. (I can only imagine my frustration if I had to end a more-than-century-old family lifestyle, arguably for the sake of a turtle that no one will see).

The long-term solution is simple to conceptualize but difficult to accomplish: de-escalate the stakes of our political disputes by limiting the power of government over American lives. Americans have always had profound differences, and we live together with those differences when victory for one side doesn’t mean inflicting real harm on the losers. But when victory for one side means the end of a way of life for the losers, instability can and will result.

I hope and pray that the dangerous standoff at Bundy Ranch was an aberration and not a harbinger, but until we can limit government’s power, I fear that respect for law will increasingly give way to contempt for the lawmakers.

French has missed the mark, attributing the event to differences in way of life to urban versus rural paradigms, instability due to the intransigence of the courts, and so on.  The reality is far bleaker than that.

The notion that federal agents should be armed is only a recent phenomenon in American history, and the idea would have been anathema to our wise founders, who would have considered them to be a standing army of occupiers.

But with Bundy we had agents dressed as “tactical operators,” who were prepared to raid the Bundy ranch for the sake of a corrupt deal between Harry Reid, his son Rory, and the Chinese communists, all funded by the taxpayer in the form of stimulus money.  Let’s consider that one more time.  Agents of the federal government were preparing to shoot civilians for the sake of crony interests and enrichment of communists.

And David French is concerned about the “rule of law.”  The comments to David’s article show how out of touch he is from readers, but this isn’t the main point.  French has elevated the law to a social religion, even if it’s majority vote or crony, corrupt judges in bed with the politicians.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such hand wringing and gutless commentary from an alleged “conservative” publication, but it does go to show that the divide between progressive and conservative isn’t that large after all.  Both sides want to game the system for what they see as the right beliefs, while the founders want to prevent gaming the system altogether.

As to the issue of an aberration and not a harbinger, as I’ve said before, this wasn’t even the first shot of the first volley of the first engagement of what is to come.  Gird your loins, because most people, despite your best efforts, don’t even understand what this is all about.  There is much more to come, and it’s all just getting started.

Prior:

Rory Reid: Liar And Traitor

Bureau Of Land Management Followup: It’s Not Over

Bureau Of Land Management Versus Cliven Bundy Post-Mortem

Real Clear Politics:

RORY REID, SON OF SEN. HARRY REID: We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you can’t just ignore the laws we don’t like. I think clearly if state and local prosecutors look at this more closely, they’re going to find that he broke the law and he should be prosecuted.

REID: He is not a victim and he’s not a hero. He’s been using that he doesn’t own for over 20 years and he didn’t pay. He broke the law. There are hundreds of ranchers throughout Nevada that conduct their profession honorably. There’s thousands of them throughout the country and when they have a dispute with the BLM they try to work it out. (source: KSVN-TV)

You’d like to make this about “the rule of law,” wouldn’t you?  Anything but your own immoral behavior.  It’s called a misdirect, and we have discussed this before.  This all has nothing to do with Mr. Bundy.

It’s about you, your own greed, your own theft, your own corruption, and your own ugliness.  It’s about your taking my tax money by the power of a badge and gun, and using it for your own enrichment and pleasure.  You don’t want him prosecuted, and you don’t want to reach an agreement.  You want his land, and to top it all off, the largesse you have taken from me and my people will go to Chinese communists.

You are a liar and traitor, and you deserve a traitor’s fate.

Prior: Bureau Of Land Management Versus Cliven Bundy Post Mortem

I had previously said that it isn’t over.  Harry Reid says the same thing.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid hasn’t been very vocal about the cattle battle showdown in recent days, but says “it’s not over.”

Reid tells News4’s Samantha Boatman his take on the so-called cattle battle in southern Las Vegas. “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over,” Reid said.

He spoke truth.  Then again, even Balaam’s ass managed to do that, and here I am probably insulting the ass by comparing him to Harry Reid.

The empire will strike back.  We didn’t witness even the first shot of the first volley of the first skirmish of the coming events.  It was merely a sign of things to come.  Posturing, if you will.

In other news, we learn that there is favoritism and cronyism at the BLM:

The Bureau of Land Management is headed by former longtime Reid aide Neil Kornze, who was confirmed by the Senate as BLM director on Tuesday, just as federal authorities descended on the cattle ranch outside Mesquite, Nevada.  Mr. Kornze issued a statement Saturday saying that the bureau would return the cattle and withdraw its agents from the ranch as a result of safety concerns after clashes between law enforcement and the Bundy family’s growing legion of supporters.

As with all tyranny and totalitarianism, this gets darker the longer you look at it.  But let’s examine for a moment what Reid said regarding what people can and can’t do.

“Violate the law and then just walk away from it.”  Here Reid is indignant that there was resistance, but it is resistance to the very agency that he funds, the very agency that his crony leads, and justified by decisions from judges that are often in bed with the politicians and police.  So in other words, he is saying that you can’t violate his will and then just walk away, or said more simply, “I am god and there is no other like me.”  I make the law, decide how it will be enforced, and ensure that the laws are best suited for my family and friends.

Is it any wonder that the BLM met resistance from hard working Americans?  As for future engagements of this or any other sort, some commenters have ridiculed by advocacy for nullification of federal statutes, saying that it cannot be done.  Who’s laughing now?  Of course it can be done, and it will be done.

Cliven Bundy was just interviewed on Fox News, where he said that he apparently has lost cattle since he has around 27 calves that have no cow, and they are trying to nurse them and keep them alive.  He further said that he is placing his faith in his local Sheriff that the BLM will be disarmed and kept away from the Bundy ranch.

The order of things should be as follows for any future presence of BLM personnel in Arizona if the Sheriffs there have any balls.  First, I have no problem with killing cattle just like I have no problem killing deer, although I like venison a little less than beef, and always like beef fat mixed with my venison.  But the killing must be done humanely and quickly, which is why shots while hunting must be ethical shots.

BLM personnel should be forced to stand in court on charges of cruelty to animals because of the lack of necessity of starving the calves.  They didn’t have to do it.  It was a choice.  Next, BLM should be forced to surrender their weapons at the state line, and arrested and thrown in with the general prison population for failure to comply.

Cliven Bundy said that the Sheriffs boys should get up from behind their desks next time and protect him.  Local LEOs may or may be be reliable allies in the coming struggles.  But every LEO must make a choice.  It is unavoidable, it is coming to their doorsteps – each and every one of them, individually.  Eternity hangs in the balance.  Here’s an important note to LEOs: choose wisely.

I had previously mentioned that I would not weigh in on Cliven Bundy.  I usually like to read my homework very carefully.  I don’t know Cliven Bundy and he doesn’t know me.  I know little about his family and his history, but fortunately for us, this has all been made very easy.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with tortoises or grazing fees.  Dana Loesch has done a good job of explaining it, and by now it has made its way to several other venues.  It has to do with evil, greed, cronyism, nepotism, and malfeasance in office.

There are several takeaways from this affair.  First of all, the main stream media is dead.  The reports of conditions on the ground were given to us by blogs, alternative media, email and social media like Facebook and Twitter.  The main stream media still hasn’t caught up.  Perhaps in a month of two some large news publication like The New York Times or The Chicago Tribune will come out with an expose on Harry Reid’s evil in this affair, but don’t bet on it, and even if they do, it will be a month too late.

This death has been a long time coming, but it is finally here.  The only thing anyone needs the main stream media for now is to cite their ridiculous editorials for the purpose of ridicule.  The collectivists and the press have been like two ticks and no dog – both of them parasites.  Eventually parasites have to perish.  Unfortunately for us, many more parasites are in cahoots with the collectivists, but that’s for another time.  Right now, don’t lament the death of the main stream media.  They deserve it.  Good riddance.  You can write their obituary and bid them farewell.  They’re done.

Next, Mike Vanderboegh has harped on a theme, that being “We won’t fire the first shot.  We will shoot in self defense.”  Sure enough, it almost came to that, but not quite.  The militia who did show up held their composure and did remarkably well.  No one took wild shots, no one escalated the situation, but a strong message was sent.

That said, this is far from over.  The BLM is still very active, and for those who are of like mind, i.e., the notion that the federal government owns land is morally abominable, there are many miles to go before we rest.  In fact, this wasn’t even a skirmish.  It was a prelude to coming attractions if the federal government doesn’t check its own power (something not likely to happen).  There are many federal agencies (DOJ, ATF, EPA, BLM, DHS, DEA, etc.), and together they can successfully trample rights just about anywhere over just about anything they wish.

Next, while I do like my AR-15, for the men who were providing overwatch and security for the protesters, I wondered if I was in that position which weapon I would want?  My answer?  My scoped, bolt action rifle.  Leave the squad rushes and advance through fields of fire to the U.S. Marines on base at Camps Lejeune and Pendleton.  Such would have been folly in a situation like this.  One commenter remarked concerning a previous article that a sniper is anyone firing from a clandestine position.  I don’t buy it.  If that’s true, I can arm my mother and stick here in a hole and call her a sniper.  Skilled shooting would have been at a premium if this had escalated to an engagement.

Finally (and there will be many more observations we will be able to make as this all sinks in), since the roots of this are so easily explained, the judgment is just as simple.  Tyrants wish to usurp God’s authority.  Thus their lusts and desires for rule over others runs antithetical to the economy and administration of the Almighty.

The halls of tyranny are the abode of demons and haters of God.  But God will not be mocked.  Tyrants and those who enable them will lose their souls, but even before that, time isn’t on their side.  Tyrants will be held accountable both in time and eternity.

Every high thing must come down
Every stronghold shall be broken
He wears the Victor’s crown
He shall overcome
He shall overcome

Be of strong heart and good cheer.  You are not on the losing side.