They were seizing the cattle when this kicked off, fwiw. The bigger point is how to collect given he showed up with a bunch of terrorists who were planning to kill the federal heroes when taking federal property away. They already have court orders to seize property or proceeds, hence the stand off.

What I'd have done is order the feds to shoot the cattle dead, mount the heads and leave the meat there to rot as a message. This will save long term given the next operation will cost a million plus and you deny him the property.

People loling Obama are ridiculous. Getting into a firefight with morons over cows wandering around in the desert is the worst of all solutions. Lol Phil going scorched earth warfare against an idiot rancher

A morbid part of me wants to see this play out in the worst way possible, if only so that all those dudes clinging to the 2nd Amendment because they need to be able to stand up to the government discover just how futile those efforts would be. Push ever comes to shove, you have guns, they have tanks and bombs. Crank it up ****ers.

The BLM deescalating the situation was clearly the correct play.

A FoxNews reporter got hold of a calculator and decided this amount is actually $640 million:
My first impulse was "lol FoxNews" but now I'm not so sure this is an inaccurate reading of the court order. On the other hand, I haven't heard anybody from the gov't claiming this much is owed.

Was driving an insane amount this week across the country and had a chance to catch some right wing AM radio. Boy have they taken the ball with this one and run. Very short on facts obviously but pretty much it's the standard "patriots good, obama bad, something something Benghazi" for hours on end.

Probably the funniest part of the story, btw, was how so much of the right including some who want to be president were calling the property the Feds were confiscating to pay his fine "stolen". They were literally running the talking point that the feds were stealing his property ignoring that the rancher stole from the government and the cattle was being taken by court order to settle his debt.

Thank god I can unsubscribe from the PU thread.

It's great how this, as it inevitably does, has turned into a "free speech" and "second amendment!" issue for the crazy right-wingers.

They literally claimed government tyranny because the feds closed a road.

By the way, the title text for that comic is pretty much the truest words ever spoken. "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express"

Good spectator sport, especially from across the pond.

They should have just shot all his cattle and sent him a bill for the bullets.

My new 2nd favorite outcome for this. The first is obviously a slow death for this guy in court/federal pen.

When did this turn into the Government Exercise of Power Erotic Fanfic thread?

Oh come on bobman. Why do you have to go all libertarian on our asses in a thread with the word "hilarity" in the title? Why can't you just grab a beer and sit down with us and laugh at this kook? We're not so different.

Have you ever,in a conflict situtation, feigned retreat to gain a future advantage towards a better desired outcome?

Harry Reid seems like he's having a lot of fun with this.

Harry's troll game is severely underrated. Remember the RMoney tax smack?

They didn't want to mess with PETA.

Shooting the cattle might have been more politically damaging then shooting the people.

Cliven is the man. I'm gonna go build my 6000 sq ft dream house in Yellowstone! Come on guys! Take the lands back!

Question for the thread.

When Reid calls the supporters of the rancher domestic terrorists, is he:
1, right
2, hilarious and right
3, lolmerica
4, WAAF
5, shall not be infringed

WAAF is always correct in these situations.

6, irrelevant

Stupid Nevada rancher and friends aren't brown and aren't part of a religious minority. Nobody will take the terrorist label seriously even if they met a reasonable definition of terrorist.

and 7, wrong

Attacking civilians is a pretty important element of being a terrorist. One might even call it a defining element.

Out of curiosity, which actual federal govt agency do you believe the armed personnel belonged to including the swat teams and snipers? Pretty funny you mocking people who complain about a tyrannical federal govt when that same federal govt shows up with a para military force. The irony is just too much.

No, not really.