Who rides with me?
Solid reading comprehension Ethilrist. Thanks.
Which does not address the question posed in the OP at all, just like Waymore’s post did not: it only addresses the standoff and not an arrest happening since the standoff ended.
Doesn’t saying “I don’t think there will ever be an arrest” answer the question in the OP?
Similarly, don’t you think killing the guy would make it difficult to arrest him? Leaving him alive leaves the possibility for potential prosecution on the table.
(post shortened)
Clout. Who else can pressure a federal agency to drop an investigation, or not enforce a court order?
Normally, a federal agency is granted regulatory power to control some situation or area. In this case it’s the BLM. The BLM changes the rules concerning grazing cattle. That seems to have pissed off a lot of ranchers, voters, legislators, and governors. Bundy makes the case that the federal government is stealing state land. He seems to have his supporters. Several courts rule against Bundy. Federal officers are ordered to deal with the cattle, and Bundy, if it comes to that.
However, the end result is that court orders are not carried out. Federal officers do not remove the cattle, or arrest Bundy.
There is obviously some outside influence(s) that allows Bundy to ignore court orders, and armed federal officials.
Governors, state legislators, and federal legislators carry a lot of clout with government agencies.
I have no idea what the term “fuck-all” means.
Do you think if the armed militias stood down and went home that Bundy would still have his cattle?
Heh. That sounds a lot like the plot of Robert Sheckley’s story, The People Trap!
I think he would. I also think he would have paid the fine the court has already ordered him to pay. He made a big enough show of Sticking It To The Man that they backed off rather than escalate it into a shooting match. I’m still not sure why they haven’t found a way to get their money in the past year, though…
No, I don’t.
However, I suspect that some very influential somebodies prevented the armed federal agents from coming back with many, many, more armed federal agents.
There are more players here than just Bundy and the BLM as noted upthread. IMO, Bundy and his friends having guns is the least important thing about this story. The Feds apparently didn’t consider shooting anybody at the time and aren’t pressing any gun-related charges against anybody right now, anyway.
The interesting question is who are the powerful and influential people who are apparently siding with Bundy and aiding him out of the public eye? If the Feds wanted him, his money, or his cattle, they would take them and a few civilians with rifles would not dissuade them. Federal LE has all manner of wonderful toys that they are not the least bit shy about using. They are handling Bundy this way because of his politically powerful backers not because they are afraid of a handful of yokels with rifles.
IOW, you’ve got nothin’. Rather wordy way of saying it, though.
But thanks for the list of traitors, because that’s what they are. They are people who are defending the notion that a piece of Nevada is outside Federal jurisdiction.
We fought a frickin’ war about that, 150 years ago. Time to send in the troops again, I guess. 
The Feds did take his cattle. They didn’t release them until armed militias showed up and demanded their release.
It was 100% a few civilians with rifles that prompted them to hand the cattle back over.
He has no interesting in paying a fine. They’re going to have to seize his assets, and last time they tried that the militias showed up.
Who are these influential somebodies that have sway over the federal government?
The BLM gave the cattle back because they didn’t want to risk a shootout. Bringing in many, many, more armed federal agents would not have reduced that risk.
That is an excellent question. Wish I had asked that. Even if we stipulate that the Feds backed off from the militia, a dubious stipulation, that was over a year ago. Bundy still walks free, still has his ranch, and (as far as I know) hasn’t had any of his assets seized. Are you seriously suggesting that that is the case because the Feds are that afraid of his “militia?”
Yes.
Obviously the federal government could seize the cattle again if it really wanted to, but there’s a very good chance that blood would be shed in the process. They don’t want that.
People say, “Surely by this point they would have figured out how to do it quietly without any of the Bundys noticing,” but nobody has offered up a viable scenario. Rounding up several hundred head of cattle and transporting them to a cow market has to be hard to do discretely, and as soon as they do it, militias will show up and stand in the way.
I thought I listed a few of them earlier.
Do you believe the field agents decided to stop the operation, and return the cattle? Or would it have been someone higher up in the agency?
After the “militia” incident, they needn’t bother trying to round up the cattle. They have all the pretext they need to snatch up Bundy himself. Is Bundy holed up in a Pablo Escobar-style compound and guarded by his “militia?” IIRC they had all drifted off to other places by mid-summer of last year. I expect now a US Marshalls SWAT team could have him in custody most rikki-tik without anybody being killed. Yet that hasn’t happened.
You listed state officials; if you continue to think that state legislators have any influence over the executive branch of the federal government, we’re done here.
Why do you keep using scare quotes? They are militias; that is how they describe themselves, and that’s the manner in which they’re operating.
I’m not convinced that the feds have grounds to arrest Bundy himself. Maybe trespassing, but that’s not much of a charge. Possibly some of his family members for inciting a rebellion, but is that even a charge? Even if it is, it’d be a tough sell, since the militias could claim (somewhat reasonably) that they were operating independently. The feds could identify and arrest the individual militia members who were brandishing their weapons, and frankly I’m disappointed that they didn’t.