Racist cattle rustler, impressionist historian and de facto warlord Cliven Bundy emailed his faithful disciples this afternoon to inform them that even though the federal government is evil and terrible, they won't be suing the feds for not shooting him, because of some incoherent reasons:

The life of an ever-vigilant anti-government armed patriot is hard. And by hard, I mean dull and unproductive. Also, not very profitable. Maybe that's why all those guys hanging out cleaning their guns in Nevada are now begging hard-working Americans to please give them some money.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the armed crazy folks are still armed and crazy.

There are a lot of tough jobs in journalism. Like last Friday, when Antonio Castelan of News 3 Las Vegas ventured out to the Bundy Ranch to interview the old racist cowman himself, Cliven Bundy, and ended up getting interrogated by a right-wing radio host and 30 of his biggest friends.

The armed anti-government play-warriors who built a military force around a racist redneck rancher in Nevada have split into rival factions and are now at the brink of civil war, calling each other crazies and traitors and spreading rumors that Eric Holder planned a drone strike on them.

They came to defend an old cattleman and their principles of life, liberty, and property. But apparently other rightful property owners in rural Nevada don't feel terribly free under the security regime recently built around them by the militiamen protecting rancher Cliven Bundy.

"1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!" an unhinged Alex Jones once screamed at a slightly more-hinged Piers Morgan. Jonesies—who've gone all in for Cliven Bundy—love to cite America's founders to defend their gun caresses. Usually, they get it wrong.

Stephen Colbert, jealous that Sean Hannity beat him to the punch in befriending anti-government, pro-slavery rancher Cliven Bundy, decided to jump on the bandwagon by giving the conservative "folk hero" his own folk song.

Cliven Bundy is the racist gift that keeps giving: Not satisfied with his buffoonish press conference yesterday afternoon, the former conservative darling and idiot rancher spoke with CNN's Chris Cuomo this morning about dead cows, racism, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. It went about as well as you'd expect.

A simple, aw-shucks der-der-der cattleman with an arsenal and a drawl has captured the American conservative imagination. And vomited racist bile all over our dreams. But no worries, because he fixed it all with a Thursday afternoon press conference! Hear the man defend himself:

So... conservatives are distancing themselves from that grumpy racist Nevada rancher after his "negroes" rant, right? Not the dim-witted self-important overpaid violent maniac who compared him to Gandhi and Thoreau and now compares him to the dead guys at the Alamo in a new non-apology. But other conservatives, sure.

Funny, the way he pronounces it, it almost doesn't sound like "negro" at all. It sounds like... hmm...

Wait: Cliven Bundy, the freedom fighter who captured conservative hearts and almost started the Second American Revolution with his gun-toting coterie, is a racist bigot? Say it ain't so!

Bloodshed was averted and a bunch of freedom-loving, gut-hanging-over-the-brass-belt-buckle, self-styled militia men declared victory Monday in a major armed standoff with federal and local officials over one bubba's right to graze his cattle on taxpayer land in Nevada.