Rancher +Militia vs BLM,trouble on the range.(OT)

Yesterday, a man and a woman shot two police officers in a Las Vegas restaurant after saying, “this is a revolution.” Then they draped their bodies in a Gadsden flag. According to reports now coming in, the couple (who later killed themselves) appear to have been white supremacists and told neighbors they had gone to join the protests in support of anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy. It was one more incident of right-wing terrorism that, while not exactly an epidemic, has become enough of a trend to raise some troubling questions.
What I’m about to say will raise some hackles, but we need to talk about it. It’s long past time for prominent conservatives and Republicans to do some introspection and ask whether they’re contributing to outbreaks of right-wing violence.
Before I go on, let me be clear about what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that Republican members of Congress bear direct responsibility for everything some disturbed person from the same side of the political spectrum as them might do. I’m not saying that they are explicitly encouraging violence. Nor am I saying that you can’t find examples of liberals using hyperbolic, irresponsible words.
But what I am saying is this: there are some particular features of conservative political rhetoric today that help create an atmosphere in which violence and terrorism can germinate.
The most obvious component is the fetishization of firearms and the constant warnings that government will soon be coming to take your guns. But that’s only part of it. Just as meaningful is the conspiracy theorizing that became utterly mainstream once Barack Obama took office. If you tuned into one of many national television and radio programs on the right, you heard over and over that Obama was imposing a totalitarian state upon us. You might hear that FEMA was building secret concentration camps (Glenn Beck, the propagator of that theory, later recanted it, though he has a long history of violent rhetoric), or that Obama is seeding the government with agents of the Muslim Brotherhood. You grandfather probably got an email offering proof that Obama is literally the antichrist.
Meanwhile, conservatives have become prone to taking the political disagreements of the moment and couching them in apocalyptic terms, encouraging people to think that if Democrats have their way on any given debate, that our country, or at the very least our liberty, might literally be destroyed.
To take just one of an innumerable number of examples, when GOP Senator Ron Johnson says that the Affordable Care Act is “the greatest assault on freedom in our lifetime,” and hopes that the Supreme Court will intervene to preserve our “last shred of freedom,” is it at all surprising that some people might be tempted to take up arms? After all, if he’s right, and the ACA really means that freedom is being destroyed, then violent revolution seems justified. Johnson might respond by saying, “Well, of course I didn’t mean that literally.” And I’m sure he didn’t — Johnson may be no rocket scientist, but he knows that despite the individual mandate going into effect, there are a few shreds of freedom remaining in America.
But the argument that no sane person could actually believe many of the things conservatives say shouldn’t absolve them of responsibility. When you broadcast every day that the government of the world’s oldest democracy is a totalitarian beast bent on turning America into a prison of oppression and fear, when you glorify lawbreakers like Cliven Bundy, when you say that your opponents would literally destroy the country if they could, you can’t profess surprise when some people decide that violence is the only means of forestalling the disaster you have warned them about.
To my conservative friends tempted to find outrageous things liberals have said in order to argue that both sides are equally to blame, I’d respond this way: Find me all the examples of people who shot up a church after reading books by Rachel Maddow and Paul Krugman, and then you’ll have a case.
In our recent history, every election of a Democratic president is followed by a rise in conspiracy-obsessed right-wing populism. In the 1960s it was the John Birch Society; in the 1990s it was the militia movement shouting about black UN helicopters, and during the Obama presidency it was the Tea Party. Some of those movements are ultimately harmless, but alongside and around them are people who take their rhetoric seriously and lash out in response. After these killings in Nevada, and the murders at a Jewish community center in Kansas, and the murders at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and multiple murders by members of the “sovereign citizens” movement in the last few years, it’s worth remembering that since 9/11, right-wing terrorism has killed many more Americans than al Qaeda terrorism.
And I promise you, these murders in Nevada will not be the last. It may be going too far to say that conservative politicians and media figures whose rhetoric has fed the deranged fantasies of terrorists and killers have blood on their hands. But they shouldn’t have a clear conscience, either.

In Jerad Miller's Facebook postings, he invoked the Bundy Ranch standoff while it was picking up steam in early April with a revolutionary fervor.

"Ranch war almost under way," he posted on April 9. "[W]e need to watch this closely, could be the next Waco and start of revolution."

Later the same day, Miller posted that he would be "supporting Clive Bundy and his family from Federal Government slaughter... We must do something. I will be doing something."

Al Jazeera America quoted someone named Jerad Miller in an April 22 report on the Bundy Ranch standoff, though it identified him as a "rancher."

"I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around or anything like that," he told the news outlet. "I really don't want violence toward them, but if they're gonna come bring violence to us, if that's the language they want to speak, we'll learn it."

In addition, television station KRNV in Reno aired a report on April 14 that included video from the Bundy Ranch site and an interview with a supporter identified as "Jarad Miller" and who gave a very similar quote that was given to Al Jazeera.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Investigators are looking into whether the husband and wife who shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers over the weekend had been at Cliven Bundy's Nevada ranch during a standoff earlier this year, police said Monday.

Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the two suspects, Jerad Miller and his wife, Amanda, had ideology that was along the lines of "militia and white supremacists" and that law enforcement was the "oppressor."

Jerad Miller, 31, was convicted of felony vehicle theft in Washington state, police said. He also had a criminal record in Indiana.

Bystander Joseph Robert Wilcox, 31, who was carrying a concealed weapon inside the store, spotted Jerad Miller and told a friend he would confront him, according to authorities. As he neared Jerad, he was shot in the ribs by Amanda and later died, McMahill said.

I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around or anything like that," he told the news outlet. "I really don't want violence toward them, but if they're gonna come bring violence to us

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. …

On the June 9 edition of The Alex Jones Show, Jones claimed "the country is being purposefully imploded right now," before calling the shootings "absolutely staged." Jones continued stating, "There is so much proof of this being staged yesterday, when I first read about it, and this morning, that my mind exploded with hundreds of data points, and quite frankly it's conclusive." He then claimed that the shooting bore out some of the "hundreds of predictions" that he had made "since the Bundy ranch situation," including a scenario where a shooting is blamed on the Tea Party. Towards the end of the segment, Jones named Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and referenced actions by the Obama administration in purporting to identify the actual parties responsible for the Las Vegas police ambush. He concluded, "I kept telling, they're getting ready to false flag, and it happens right in Harry Reid's district, right in his state, right in his city, with his police department":

He then claimed that the shooting bore out some of the "hundreds of predictions" that he had made "since the Bundy ranch situation,"

isolated act

police said Monday the two appeared to be working alone and not part of a larger plot.

After the shooting, the couple headed toward a nearby Wal-Mart, where Jerad Miller was confronted by Joseph Robert Wilcox, 31, of Las Vegas. Wilcox was legally carrying a concealed pistol. Wilcox was unaware that Amanda Miller, who was pushing a shopping cart, was involved in the incident and “lying in wait,” the official said.

She slipped behind Wilcox and shot him at close range.

Their bags also contained about 200 rounds of ammunition, knives, first aid supplies, camouflage clothing and military-issued rations known as MREs.

Ammon Bundy, one of Cliven Bundy’s sons, initially told The Associated Press that it is possible the Millers were at the ranch during the standoff with federal agents, but that “we have not found anybody that recognizes them.”

He later told AP that Jerad and Amanda Miller were there but were asked to leave after a few days because they were “very radical” and did not “align themselves” with the protest’s main issues.

“Not very many people were asked to leave,” Bundy said. “I think they may have been the only ones.”

Jerad Dwain Miller had a lengthy criminal history dating back at least to 2000 that saw him in and out of jail on felony and misdemeanor charges in both Washington and his home state of Indiana.

Jerad Miller also was no stranger to police in Benton County, Wash. District Court records there show he was convicted of obstructing a public officer and DUI in August 2002. In April of that year he was found guilty of assault with intent to cause injury.

In June 2001, he was convicted of third-degree malicious mischief. In February 2001 he was convicted of third-degree theft. In 2000, he was convicted of third-degree malicious mischief.

In 2001, he was convicted in Benton County Superior Court of taking a motor vehicle without permission and harassment.

They are not starting a revolution. They are pathetic, batsh*t crazy losers who want to play out their sick killing fantasies with the latest death-dealing technology they can get their hands on.

If they really want to protest they should try self-immolation and announce it ahead of time so we can all watch and bring the marshmallows.

Just put them all together on some island and they will eventually get so paranoid they will just wipe eachother out. Problem solved.

End of Rant...