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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 2021)
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2021 A3 TODAY It’s Sunday, Jan. 10, the 10th day of 2021. There are 355 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: In 1776, Thomas Paine anony- mously published his influential pamphlet, “Common Sense,” which argued for American in- dependence from British rule. In 1860, the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, collapsed and caught fire, killing up to 145 people, mostly female workers from Scotland and Ireland. In 1861, Florida became the third state to secede from the Union. In 1863, the London Under- ground had its beginnings as the Metropolitan, the world’s first underground passenger railway, opened to the public with service between Padding- ton and Farringdon Street. In 1901, the Spindletop oil field in Beaumont, Texas, produced the Lucas Gusher, heralding the start of the Texas oil boom. In 1917, legendary Western fron- tiersman and showman William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody died at his sister’s home in Denver at 70. In 1920, the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect. In 1984, the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century. In 2002, Marines began flying hundreds of al-Qaida prisoners in Afghanistan to a U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2007, President George W. Bush said he took responsibility for any mistakes in Iraq and announced an increase in U.S. troops there to quell violence. The Democratic-controlled House voted 315-116 to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. In 2016, David Bowie, the chameleon-like star who trans- formed the sound — and the look — of rock with his auda- cious creativity and his sexually ambiguous makeup and cos- tumes, died in New York. Ten years ago: The nation got its first look at Jared Loughner, the accused assailant of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as a federal judge in Phoenix ordered the 22-year-old suspect held with- out bail. Five years ago: At the Golden Globes, “The Revenant” won best motion picture drama while “The Martian” was recog- nized as best comedy film. One year ago: The Trump administration announced a new wave of sanctions on Iran following the missile strikes ear- lier in the week from Iran against U.S. bases in Iraq. Today’s Birthdays: Rock sing- er-musician Ronnie Hawkins is 86. Movie director Walter Hill is 81. Singer Rod Stewart is 76. Boxing Hall of Famer and en- trepreneur George Foreman is 72. Roots rock singer Alejandro Escovedo is 70. Rock musician Scott Thurston (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) is 69. Singer Pat Benatar is 68. Hall of Fame race car driver and team owner Bobby Rahal is 68. Singer Shawn Colvin is 65. Actor Evan Handler is 60. Rapper Chris Smith (Kris Kross) is 42. Presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is 40. American roots singer Valerie June is 39. — Associated Press LOCAL, STATE & REGION BEFORE THE U.S. CAPITOL RIOT Extremist watchdogs call occupation of Malheur refuge a ‘dress rehearsal’ BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN The Oregonian Five years ago this month, Ammon Bundy led an armed 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after protesting the re- turn to federal prison of two Oregon ranchers convicted of setting fire to public land. Bundy was acquitted of all charges after his arrest on al- legations of conspiracy and impeding federal employees through intimidation, threat or force. On Wednesday, the extraor- dinary images of a violent mob of Trump supporters storming the nation’s Capitol, incited by a president who refused to ac- cept the 2020 election results, were no surprise to groups that have tracked extremists in the West. Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for West- ern Priorities, called the 2016 refuge occupation a “dress re- hearsal for what we saw at the Capitol.” The center, based in Denver, advocates for land and water conservation in the West. “The extremist ideologies and tactics that led to the vio- lent occupation of public lands in Oregon are the same ideolo- gies that President Trump has stoked among his supporters,” she said in a statement Thurs- day. “You can draw a straight line from the Bundy Ranch standoff and Malheur takeover to the Trump insurrection in Washington,” she said. Before Malheur, Ammon Bundy, father Cliven Bundy and brother Ryan Bundy were accused of rallying militia members and armed support- ers to stop federal officers in April 2014 from impounding Bundy Ranch cattle in Nevada. Cliven Bundy owed more than $1 million in grazing fees and penalties that he refused to pay for two decades after federal authorities moved to limit his cattle’s access to public land. Their federal prosecution in Nevada was dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct. On the family’s Bundy Ranch Facebook page, a post with Cliven Bundy’s name un- der it cited support for the in- surrection at the Capitol. The post Wednesday read: “You can’t clean the swamp by standing off at a distance and smelling it. At Bundy Ranch we had a job to do, go get it done, and We the People went forward and finished the job.” It also praised Donald Trump: “Today President Trump had hundreds of thou- Rick Bowmer/AP file photos Members of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters near Burns stand guard in January 2016. Burns resident Steve Atkins, left, talks with Ammon Bundy, center, one of the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, following a news conference at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. sands of people and he pointed the way — pointed towards congress and nodded his head go get the job done. We the People did clear the cham- bers of Congress and 100,000 should have spent the night in the halls and 100,000 should have protected them.” What happened in Washing- ton, D.C., was just the latest in violent clashes and standoffs by right-wing extremist groups, according to watchdog organi- zations. Erik Molvar, executive di- rector of the advocacy group Western Watersheds Proj- ect, said the mob mayhem in Washington was a “direct re- sult of a growing movement of domestic terrorists within the United States, paired with a systematic failure by law en- forcement to bring them to justice.” The nonprofit conservation group has sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to chal- lenge the return of a grazing permit to the Oregon ranch- ers whose prison sentences sparked the refuge occupation. Trump administration par- doned father Dwight Ham- mond Jr. and son Steven Ham- mond in 2018. Ammon Bundy, reached Thursday, said he was in the mountains and wasn’t tracking what occurred at the Capitol, yet Bundy had urged people to attend Thursday’s rally in Washington, D.C. and “stand for a constitutional republic” through a video posted last month by a group he’s helped form called People’s Right. “Don’t wear a mask and stand for freedom,” he urged on the video. On Thursday, he told The Oregonian he believes leg- islators meet behind closed doors without public oversight, constituting a “deliberate at- tack on personal liberty.” He was arrested twice in two days in August for protests at the Idaho Legislature and in Octo- ber caused the cancellation of an Idaho high school football game after he refused to wear a mask or leave school grounds. “It’s dangerous to all of us for officials in a government capacity to claim rights that be- long to the individual, whether it’s travel, what you wear over your face, or when you can go to church,” said Bundy, who has been protesting coronavi- rus emergency safeguards. “I also don’t believe a republican representative form of govern- ment should make decisions without public oversight and without the participation of the people.” Greg Magarian, a law professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis., said there’s a significant difference between what the nation witnessed in Washing- ton this week and racial and social justice protests in the last year. “When a group violently at- tacks other people or attacks a public place in a way that puts other people’s lives or safety in jeopardy, that’s a severe crime. It’s a violent riot, an attack,” he wrote Thursday for an in- house university publication. “When a group violently at- tacks a government institution in an effort to change the law- ful governmental order, that’s insurrection. It’s terrorism.” As other examples of insur- rection, he cited the Malheur “When a group violently attacks other people or attacks a public place in a way that puts other people’s lives or safety in jeopardy, that’s a severe crime. It’s a violent riot, an attack. When a group violently attacks a government institution in an effort to change the lawful governmental order, that’s insurrection. It’s terrorism.” — Greg Magarian, a law professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis takeover, the militia takeover of the Michigan state Capitol in April and the militia-backed shutdown of Oregon’s Capitol in June 2019. “The takeover of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, incited by the president of the United States and his agents, was ter- rorism, insurrection and an attempted violent coup,” he wrote. In an interview Thursday, Magarian also discussed sim- ilarities between the Malheur refuge occupation and the siege of the U.S. Capitol. “These are both instances where people essentially tres- passed on federal property, overwhelmed law enforcement and seized federal institutions by force,” he said.