Oregon update: "militants in high spirits, ready for long wait at refuge, supporter says"

[Takket]

28. Southern Poverty calls this what is is

Today's occupation is essentially "the spill over from the Bundy stand-off" in Nevada, according to Heidi Beirich, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"What we're really seeing is a continuation of what started in April 2014, of militia folks and anti-government folks deciding that they're not going to accept federal authorities over federal lands," Beirich told ABC News today.

"At the Bundy ranch, the federal government stood down. They had absolute cause to take Bundy's cattle. The Bundys were able -- at the point of a gun -- to drive the federal government and its representatives ... off the land," she said.

"Bundy is still a free man. He hasn't paid his money, and it's emboldened the entire movement to basically think, 'We don't have to follow the rules,'" Beirich said, explaining that that is what's happening now in Oregon.

The Bundy incident in 2014, as well as another incident in Oregon last year, "enlivened" the militias, she said, because they made them feel successful.

"They made the federal government back down from enforcing the law," she said. "And that has emboldened all these people, giving life to the movement."

source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/militia-family-cliven-bundy-federal-land-national-wildlife/story?id=36064909