Kirk Sigler
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In late 2016, an Oregon jury acquitted right-wing extremist Ammon Bundy for leading an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
After a standoff two years earlier on their Nevada ranch, the Bundys traveled to eastern Oregon to protest the jailing of two ranchers.
Western historian Patty Limerick recalls that many locals appreciated the attention given to their struggles with federal land managers, but most, including the jailed ranchers, told the Bundys to go home.
imposition of authority for people who are going to denounce arrogant impositions of authority in others, in land managers.
The tense 41-day standoff between the militants, Oregon State Police, and FBI left one dead Bundy supporter, LaVoy Finicum.
These bridge payments, as the administration is calling them, are meant to offset the effects of the president's trade war and tariffs that have left American soybeans here in the bins and not exported to China.
The aid is expected to arrive by early March, but farmers like John Kipley say they need the money right now.
Kipley says banks won't lend because they know farmers will still be in the red next season.
One estimate at a Farmers Union conference here showed that's the case for close to half of all the farms in South Dakota, where many family farms without capital could soon be out of business.
Kirk Sigler, NPR News, Huron, South Dakota.
Farmers have been ramping up the pressure on the White House after the harvest.
Millions of tons of soybeans are sitting in bins across the Midwest since China has been buying instead from Brazil amid a heated trade war.
At the president's cabinet meeting, Ag Secretary Brooke Rawlins told Trump that next week she'll announce, quote, bridge payments to farmers to keep them afloat as trade negotiations continue.
The White House says China has committed to buying 12 million tons of soybeans this year.
That's less than half of what they bought last year.
Whitefish Mountain Resort is about 60 miles from the Montana-British-Columbia border and historically upwards of a quarter of its guests have been Canadian.