I rarely advocate for guns but this might be a situation where self defense should be strongly considered.

The federal government defend native Americans against white ranchers? That'd be a change.

Unreal that Feds doing nothing.
Weird.

Not gonna happen. White morons with gunz gunz gunz. Freedom in Dumbfuckistan.

So now we can add them to the townspeople, the employees of the refuge and the Governor of Oregon asking the FBI for relief from those criminals.

If only one of that overarmed fake militia was a black preteen with a toy gun...

Special Agent in Charge of the FBI for Oregon is, you guessed it, Morman. He should recuse himself to avoid the appearance that he is doing nothing because he secretly agrees with them.

What's interesting: the local police are nowhere to be seen because they're protected in a barricade behind barbed wire.

Too bad the rest if the citizens in the community can't get that kind of protection -- including the refuge itself.

"In the meantime local police have largely disappeared from the streets of Burns. They are hunkered down in a fortified Harney County Courthouse surrounded by a hastily thrown-up chain-link fence, earthen berms and concrete barriers — the type of set-up to stop car-borne suicide bombers.

There and at the FBI outpost at the Burns airport, one armed guard carrying an automatic rifle and vest bulging with ammo intercepts visitors before they reach the checkpoint, with a second guard lagging back. It’s a type of protocol used to neutralize armed threats. At the courthouse they won’t say which law-enforcement agency they are with, but reportedly that is the bunker for the state police and county sheriffs." http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/bundys-e…

"The takeaway is that two sovereign nations are now formally involved with the Bundy occupation: the federal government and the Paiute."

I don't understand how the Paiute are a "sovereign nation." For that to apply, I thought you had to be under no one else's authority, provide all other government roles of collecting taxes, providing infrastructure and your own military, etc. The definitions I found here and here agree, as best I can understand it. I'm guessing there's a much more complicated definition that actually applies?

Probably safe to say by this point that law enforcement has neither the political support nor the firepower to end this seizure of public land. Interesting times. I'd be inclined to say we're at risk of edging into a new civil war, except that our side (you know, the ones who still believe in liberal democracy) seems largely content to cede both territory and influence. Might as well admit it: a few dozen, heavily armed rednecks fronted by their Stockholm syndrome wives and children as human shields could probably take any municipality in this country if they chose to do so. We might wanna be glad that they mostly just want to graze cattle without any regulations or fees.

@10:

Here's your answer.

@11:

I'm pretty sure the feds have more than sufficient firepower, but after Waco, Ruby Ridge, et al might be understandably reluctant to wield it. These yahoos are itching to become martyrs - why give them what they want?

knat; All federally recognized Native tribes are considered sovereign nations. In the case of tribes, the relationship is one of a domestic dependent nation. Tribes are recognized as continuous governments that existed prior to the United States. While tribes are not sovereign in the way, say Italy is, tribes are free to govern themselves and to pursue independent government-to-government relationships with other entities in the U.S., such as state agencies and state government. Tribes cannot negotiate with foreign governments though.

Tribes have been recognized as independent entities by England, France, Spain and then ultimately the US when the continent was organized as the U.S. Most tribes have treaties with the federal government and authority over those treaties are above that of say, the state of Oregon for tribes in Oregon or the state of Washington for the tribes located here. So the chair of the Burns Paiute Tribe is exercising her authority as the chair of the sovereign nation of the Burns Paiute to bypass the fuckwit feds with their collective thumbs up their collective asses and going straight to the top.

@11: Bah. I should have remembered the term "tribal sovereignty" from middle school US History class. Guess that information has been in the archives too long for me to recall it on my own. Thanks!

@13: Thank you for for the additional clarification!

Hmmmm a sovereign native American tribe in the pacific northwest....Oh Canada....