Fox’s Christian Crusader Todd Starnes insisted he was concerned about threats of violence in the Cliven Bundy ranch conflict in Nevada that Fox News is so gaga over. Specifically, Starnes said he was disturbed by the Bundys’ militia-type supporters taunting the federal law enforcers. But in the same interview, Starnes also suggested they should be strung up for stealing cattle. Oh, and people should be fed up - because Benghazi.
Starnes’ comments were made during an April 15th radio interview with Alice Stewart.
Stewart set the tone at the beginning of the clip by mischaracterizing the conflict as, “The federal government trying to push Cliven Bundy and his cattle off his property.” Actually, it’s the federal government trying to evict his cattle from U.S. land – we, the people’s property – because Bundy refuses to pay his grazing fees or remove his cattle from public land.
But while Fox obsessively smears poor people using food stamps to buy food as "moochers," they can’t stop cheering this guy on, even to dangerous, reckless extremes.
Starnes said:
We do know that the feds returned some of the cattle that they had taken from the Bundy Ranch. What I find interesting, though, Alice, is don’t they still have laws on the books about cattle rustling out in Nevada? …Back in the day, they used to string folks up for stealing cattle. …Americans have really reached a boiling point here.
Starnes did say it’s a “complicated case” and that some of the behavior of “the militia-folks that were out there” supporting Bundy was “very disturbing” because they were “seeming to taunt the federal agents and I think that they need to be very careful about that.”
But then Starnes again suggested that threats of violence against the federal government were justified, or at least to be sympathized with:
But I will say this: that Americans have finally said, “You know what? We’re not gonna stand by and let the Constitution be trampled. We’ve put up with this through ObamaCare, through the NSA spying on our telephone calls, the TSA and their endeavors at the airport, to even the IRS” and I think that Americans are finally saying, “Enough is enough.”
And Alice, just think about this for a moment. Look at all the government firepower that was out there at that ranch. They had more guns there than they did at the consulate in Benghazi. I mean, if only Ambassador Stevens had been a protected tortoise.
Stewart replied, “Absolutely. ..Too bad we don’t have that kind of security at the border.”
Can you imagine if the feds moved so much law enforcement firepower overseas and to the border and left the heartland unprotected? Why, wouldn't that be little more than an open invitation for terrorists to attack? Starnes would be squealing like a stuck chickenhawk about Obama caring more about Libyans and Mexicans than Americans.
Audio below via Media Matters.