The standoff at Bundy Ranch is over, but Cliven Bundy can’t quite let go of the limelight, so he is giving a daily press conference. If he has nothing to say, he’s got plenty of opinions to share with reporters.

New York Times:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Two things to remember about this. First, Rand Paul and Dean Heller think this guy is a patriot and a hero. Second, the United States Supreme Court thinks race is no longer an issue any of us need to worry about.

Having read Bundy’s remarks, is anyone at all surprised that he doesn’t recognize the federal government’s authority?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Also, a factcheck for the New York Times. This paragraph needs to be corrected:

Mr. Bundy, whose family has grazed cattle here since they homesteaded in the 1870s, owes the government more than $1 million in grazing fees. He stopped paying after the bureau ordered him to restrict the periods when his herd roamed the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area as part of an effort to protect the endangered desert tortoise.

You got taken for a ride, NYT. Bundy’s family didn’t buy that land until 1948 and didn’t start grazing their cattle on it until 1954.

Update: Rand Paul (predictably) distanced himself from Bundy’s remarks, saying “he completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”

However, let’s not forget that Rand Paul’s former social media director and book co-author Jack Hunter would be quite in agreement with Mr. Bundy. Senator Paul also supported doing away with the Civil Rights Act, and his former spokesperson Chris Hightower also posted racist remarks on Facebook. Sometimes actions speak louder than the strongest condemnation of someone else’s opinion.

Update 2: Waiting for Governor Rick Perry to walk back his praise for Mr. Bundy, too. I won’t hold my breath.