A very good long article to read in preparation for the meeting called by Bundy for later today (assuming they find a place to hold the meeting).
The Crackpot Alternative Legal System That Threatens To Escalate The Oregon Standoff
Think Progress
BY ALAN PYKE JAN 15, 2016 11:09 AM
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/15/3739909/oregon-standoff-malheur-grand-jury-explainer/
A tiny snippet:
“The Bundy-led brigade hopes to replace Harney County’s elected leaders and sheriff with people who will operate the area according to the sovereign citizen movement’s interpretation of the law.
The occupation at the wildlife refuge is being spearheaded by a small group of people who support sovereign citizenship (and the Bundys have arguably become the most well-known faces of that movement). Individuals who identify as “sovereign citizens” believe they are not subject to the laws and orders of the United States government. In their view, the authority of local officials is moot if they follow those same government rules.
Now, the occupiers want to install a “lawful county government and a lawful sheriff” and make Harney County “the first constitutional county in the land.”
Who are they working with?
The militiamen have partnered with a man named Bruce Doucette, a self-proclaimed “Superior Court Judge.” Doucette appointed himself a judge last May under the legal system that sovereign citizens use. He’s intervened in local disputes before in Colorado, using his self-vested authority to try to order the arrest of a Colorado sheriff.
He is also a conspiracy theorist. Doucette believes the earth is actually flat — “But if you go outside place a globe on the ground and pour water on it dose it stay on the globe ???” — and that both the Boston Marathon bombing and 9/11 attacks were hoaxes perpetrated by the government.
“Their intentions and our intentions of what we wanted to do coming out here are exactly the same,” Doucette told supporters on a conference call Wednesday. “Not only do they want to give property back to the people and do that lawfully, but they also have a lot of information on the current county government and it could go all the way up to the White House.”
“People are gonna go to jail over this one,” he added.”