Speaking of Cliven Bundy and Reconstruction…Rachel Maddow offered a fascinating segment last night showing the connections between Bundy’s resistance to federal authority and the Posse Comitatus Movement, rooted in Reconstruction-era efforts to remove federal military authority from the South. It’s a long segment, but it’s Friday and all, so if you have time give it a gander:
In passing Maddow cited a 2008 Washington Monthly piece by Kevin Carey retailing the history of the Posse Comitatus movement, whose exotic legal theories were being used, ironically, by African-American drug dealers accused of murder in Baltimore.
Bundy is standing on a long and disreputable tradition.
