Denver hosted a big motorcycle expo yesterday:
“The largest motorcycle show & swap in the Rocky Mountain Region with antiques, custom motorcycles- live music auction- much, much more!”
Naturally, a biker brawl erupted; leaving one shot to death, another stabbed, and "multiple other victims". Today's continuation of the expo has been cancelled.
Back here in Oregon, four people are still holed up out at the refuge, and the Portland Lefties are claiming in comments that the Bundy gang are "right-wing Republicans" and yadda yadda. In Harney County, somebody's placed a large wooden cross at the site where LaVoy managed to get himself shot to death.
Singer Jordan Page posted “The Ballad of LaVoy Finicum” on YouTube.
And more out-of-staters are heading into Burns, where they've been protesting Finicum's death in front of the county courthouse and last night did a "rolling protest" thing in which they drove around town; an impromptu parade of protest, apparently. A bunch calling themselves "3% of Idaho" have reportedly decided to hold a rally outside the courthouse tomorrow.
It'd be nice if all these folks would just go back to wherever they came from; their schtick has gone really stale, and they really aren't wanted. What's particularly galling is that Harney County is really sort of a success story, in that ranchers, government agencies, and others have a history of collaboration; even the generally authoritarian BLM has been on board:
But some are frustrated that Bundy's misadventure created the impression there is no hope for the government to work with ranchers, environmentalists and others. They point out that it was just such a collection that hammered out the tough agreement to preserve Steens Mountain, a stunning feature that juts out of the flat desert 70 miles or so south of Burns. They remind that ranchers, environmentalists, local government and federal agencies together drew up plans to enhance the wildlife refuge. Another collaborative effort bore results last year, when voluntary steps spared the desert from otherwise harsh new limitations on public land use to spare the sage grouse.
The Hammonds, the father-and-son ranchers now back in federal prison because the 9th US Circus Court of Appeals decided that they should be re-sentenced after they'd served their respective sentences (a development that ostensibly triggered the Bundy boys in the first place, although the Hammonds opposed their tactics), were actually outliers; their history was one of non-cooperation with anybody. They just kind of did their own thing, such as letting their cattle hang out in the refuge rather than herding them across it to permitted grazing areas - something that other ranchers managed to accomplish in a day or less.
But to their credit, they accepted the re-sentencing and disavowed activities such as the Bundy boys and the other out-of-staters.
