Scofflaw skates?

The Southern Poverty Law Center is asking why no arrests have been made six months after the Cliven Bundy faceoff.

“Government officials promised accountability for those who broke the law by taking up arms against federal agents,” the SPLC said in a prepared statement. “It seems unfathomable, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Justice would allow a mob of antigovernment zealots to get away with using the threat of violence to block the enforcement of the law. But, as the months have dragged on, there has been no response. Not an arrest. Not an indictment. Nothing.”

In April, the Bureau of Land Management began gathering Bundy's cattle in payment of his unpaid bills. Bundy, an organic rancher, summoned followers to the scene with his blog (“Range war begins tomorrow at Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m.”) and they arrived from around the nation, many of them armed. Some were photographed on an overpass aiming weapons at crowds that included people from both sides.

The BLM finally called it quits and withdrew to avoid bloodshed.

The Clark County Sheriff's Office and the FBI have both been conducting investigations but nothing has been announced, so far. This raises concern because it was federal inertia that created the problem in the first place. The BLM allowed Bundy's unpaid fees to pile up for two decades, a delay that has never been explained.

The SPLC monitors activities of hate groups around the United States. In a July report, it said that extremists emboldened by the Bundy incident had been involved in a number of dangerous incidents, including a gunman allegedly pointing a handgun at a Utah BLM worker while holding a sign reading, “You need to die,” a BLM ranger and a California Highway Patrol officer shot and wounded near Nevada City, and two police officers and a bystander killed in Las Vegas by Bundy supporters.

Since the standoff, Bundy has been speaking to right wing groups and left the Republican Party to join Nevada's Independent American Party, formed in 1968 as a vehicle for George Wallace's presidential candidacy.