Bundy Gang Get Their Day In Court, As If 'Courts' Have Any Jurisdiction On Bundy Gang
Poor cow
Say! It has been a while since we checked in with Friends of Wonkette the Bundys, the gun totin’, pocket-constitution-waving, cow-farming poop-trench-fillers. How are they doing in federal custody while awaiting trial for shenanigans in two states?
Not that well! Cliven’s boys Ammon and Ryan, along with three other pals, were arraigned in Nevada Friday for their role in the armed standoff two years ago with the Bureau of Land Management. Despite their best sovereign-citizen legalomancy attempts, they were not set free and commended for patriotism. Weird!
Instead, Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr. entered not guilty pleas for all five men after they refused to do so (among the many dumb things that sovereign citizens believe is that they can evade court authority by not saying certain phrases). Then everyone had to sit around for an hour and a half listening to the 16-count indictment being read, at the defendants’ insistence.
But not all was tedious stupidity. There was some entertaining stupidity, too. While Ryan is acting as his own lawyer (lol) in Nevada, Ammon’s attorney from Oregon was in court until he got himself thrown out for using his cell phone while the indictment was being read. Hey, it was boring! Also, too, attorney Michael Arnold said, the Bundys are being simultaneously tried for crimes in two different federal courts, in Las Vegas and Portland, which meant he had to telework.
We are not convinced he doesn’t kinda have a point, but we are not criminal lawyers, nor criminals of any sort. Lawyer types are invited to tell us in the comments (which are not allowed) how common it is for a defendant, no matter how annoying and risible, to face trials in two federal jurisdictions at once. Jury selection in Oregon begins in September, so they’re kind of on the clock there while more preliminary stuff happens in Nevada.
The Oregon charges, of course, are related to the 41-day standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, blazened forever in history for random misuse of construction equipment and the immortal flaming barrel of dildos.
Fellow goofballs Blaine Cooper, Ryan Payne and Brian Cavalier (aren’t those great porn names?) had the same complaints for Judge Foley. Then they added some SovCit nonsense about proper jurisdiction, and tossed a pocket constitution onto the prosecutor’s table. This isn’t your normal pocket constitution, btw; part of the mystique of the Branch Dildonians is their fetishization of an insane annotated version by John Bircher and all around loon W. Cleon Skousen.
So now all 19 of the jerks who pointed guns at the BLM (ALLEGEDLY) have been indicted for their 2014 gun-pointing, while seven face trial in Oregon (including these five).
Meanwhile, the poor cows who are the cause of all the trouble continue to suffer because Cliven Bundy is no better at ranching than he is at constitutional law. Hundreds of the half-starved, completely undomesticated beasts are still wandering untended on federal land, destroying tortoise habitats, because the feds are still ascared of starting a shooting war with Bundy’s remaining unarrested fans if they round them up.
Maybe we can get Jon Stewart to adopt them (the cows, not the Bundys, screw them).