Whenever I see “tax-evaders” and “compund” in the same headline, I tend to pay attention. CNN has an article on Ed and Elaine Brown. They are a couple in Plainfield, New Hampshire who have been convicted of “conspiring to evade taxes on nearly $1.9 million in Elaine Brown’s income and of plotting to disguise large financial transactions.”
So, naturally, they did what any sane American would do. They locked themselves inside their “110 acre hilltop compound.”
From behind the 8-inch concrete walls of their 110-acre hilltop compound, the couple taunt police and SWAT teams and play to reporters and government-haters with references to past standoffs that turned deadly.
Residents want the Browns’ circus to end before their small town along the Connecticut River becomes the next Ruby Ridge or Waco.
The Browns raised the specter of the first case, the 1992 shootout at an Idaho property called Ruby Ridge, by holding a news conference Monday with Randy Weaver, whose wife and child were killed there along with a deputy U.S. marshal.
Ed Brown warned authorities they wouldn’t take him alive: “We either walk out of here free or we die.”
Lovely. This standoff has caught the attention of the far right wing in America and they have apprently flocked to Plainfield. The citizens of Plainfield are more than happy to welcome these fine people to their hometown. Er, not so much.
The people of Plainfield feel the whole thing has been mismanaged from the get-go,” says Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield native who is state agriculture commissioner. “He’s got this band of loonies up there right now. There’s this constant traffic and helicopters overhead and everything. [explative deleted] crazies.”
Too bad they are not here illegally. They could just get amnesty.
I hope this thing ends without a shot being fired, but the rhetoric is heating up and the government’s patience is growing thin.
Full story.
