Odd things are happening. Armed people who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon and who never denied doing it, were eventually arrested and tried. See an Associated Press story at Yahoo News.
Those seven people - who occupied the federal wild life sanctuary for 41 days - have been acquitted of charges of felony conspiracy by a jury. The armed group actually never attacked anyone so the alternative would have been misdemeanor trespass charges - no big deal, county jail time at worst.
Since most of the trespassers were from out of state, conspiracy is certainly likely but the jury found the prosecution hadn't proven a case against the seven. This story is very populist in tone, very anti-establishment. I'm wondering what it portends downstream?
Two of the perps are the sons of rancher Cliven Bundy in Nevada who engaged in an armed standoff with BLM enforcers in 2014 over grazing rights on BLM land. The Bundys are part of a grassroots movement which holds the federal government owns too much land in the West, crowding out westerners who want to use it..
