The threats are coming from INSIDE the legislature

Oregon’s one of those funny states with a reputation for granola hats and peace-loving recycle bins, but the reality is that it has a big share of right-wing god-n-guns types. Apparently they have seized the state legislature.

Oregon’s statehouse shut down for safety concerns on Saturday. But the threats weren’t coming from anonymous trolls or foreign fighters—they were coming from the state’s Republican senators, who have teamed up with right-wing militias to threaten violence over a climate change bill.

Eleven of Oregon’s Senate Republicans fled the state this week to avoid a vote on a bill that would cap greenhouse emissions. The group, believed to be hiding in Idaho, left the state senate with too few lawmakers to hold a vote. But the move is more than a legislative maneuver. The missing senators have partnered with right-wing paramilitary groups to threaten violence, should they be brought back to Oregon.

I’ve thought of a better plan. How about they make peace with the legislature, and instead team up with paramilitary groups to fight the environment? Right? Wouldn’t that be a great idea? It would keep them busy and harness all that rage, and there’s at least a chance that they would win and the environment would surrender and stop being all climate changey.

The state senate had scheduled sessions on Saturday, but cancelled them after reports of several militias’ two-day “Rally to Take the Capitol” this weekend.

“Oregon State Police has recommended that the Capitol be closed tomorrow due to a possible militia threat,” a spokesperson for the senate president told the Associated Press on Friday night.

A rally to take the Capitol. So we’re in the actual junta stage now? Dave Andress has a tweet about how all this rage and violence is at bottom about the doom of climate change. I’ll go find it…

Found it.

There have been walkouts in Oregon before, from both parties, but they didn’t include threats.

Multiple senators are believed to have fled to Idaho, with right-wing militias flocking to their aid. While leaving the statehouse before the walkout, Republican Sen. Brian Boquist implied that police officers who pursued them should be ready to die. “Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Boquist warned police in a televised interview shortly before his walkout. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”

State police said they were aware of Boquist’s remarks, but were not commenting on them. Boquist and his colleagues are supported by several right-wing militias that made more explicit threats.

After Oregon Gov. Kate Brown called on state troopers to return the lawmakers to the capital, the paramilitary group the Oath Keepers suggested violence against her.

“Gov. Brown, you want a civil war, because this is how you get a civil war,” the Oath Keepers wrote on their public Facebook page. Beneath the post, Oath Keeper fans suggesting hanging, arresting, or taking up arms against Brown.

Bumpy night.

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