Posted on 04/10/2014 10:35:30 AM PDT by bimboeruption
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that two militia members from Montana and one from Utah have arrived at Cliven Bundy’s ranch.
“We need to be the barrier between the oppressed and the tyrants,” Ryan Payne of the West Mountain Rangers told the Review-Journal. “Expect to see a band of soldiers.”
Payne said that militias from New Hampshire, Texas and Florida are likely to join and stand with Bundy and stay at his ranch.
“They all tell me they are in the process of mobilizing as we speak,” Payne told the Review-Journal, adding that hundreds of militia members are expected.
The Review-Journal also reports that Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, was shot with a stun gun by law enforcement officers Wednesday and that the rancher’s sister, Margaret Houston, was pushed to the ground.
“I pulled the tasers out of him,” Cheryl Teerlink told the Review-Journal.
Lawmakers are adding their voices into the fray, criticizing the federal cattle roundup fought by Cliven Bundy who claims longstanding grazing rights on remote public rangeland about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said he told new U.S. Bureau of Land Management chief Neil Kornze in Washington, D.C., that law-abiding Nevadans shouldn’t be penalized by an “overreaching” agency.
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval pointed earlier to what he called “an atmosphere of intimidation,” resulting from the roundup and said he believed constitutional rights were being trampled.
Heller said he heard from local officials, residents and the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association and remained “extremely concerned about the size of this closure and disruptions with access to roads, water and electrical infrastructure.”
The federal government has shut down a scenic but windswept area about half the size of the state of Delaware to round up about 900 cattle it says are trespassing.
BLM and National Park Service officials didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to criticisms of the roundup that started Saturday and prompted the closure of the 1,200-square-mile area through May 12.
It’s seen by some as the latest battle over state and federal land rights in a state with deep roots in those disputes, including the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and ’80s. Nevada, where various federal agencies manage or control more than 80 percent of the land, is among several Western states where ranchers have challenged federal land ownership.
The current showdown pits Bundy’s claims of ancestral rights to graze his cows on open range against federal claims that the cattle are trespassing on arid and fragile habitat of the endangered desert tortoise. Bundy has said he owns about 500 branded cattle on the range and claims the other 400 targeted for roundup are his, too.
BLM and Park Service officials see threats in Bundy’s promise to “do whatever it takes” to protect his property and in his characterization that the dispute constitutes a “range war.”
U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, noted that BLM officials were enforcing federal court orders that Bundy remove his animals. The legal battle has been waged for decades.
Kornze, the new BLM chief, is familiar with the area. He’s a natural resource manager who grew up in Elko, Nev., and served previously as a senior adviser to Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Reid aide Kristen Orthman said her boss “hopes the trespassing cattle are rounded up safely so the issue can be resolved.”
Sandoval, a former state attorney general and federal district court judge, weighed in late Tuesday after several days of media coverage about blocked roads and armed federal agents fanning out around Bundy’s ranch while contractors using helicopters and vehicles herd cows into portable pens in rugged and remote areas.
“No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans,” the governor said in a statement.
Sandoval said he was most offended that armed federal officials have tried to corral people protesting the roundup into a fenced-in “First Amendment area” south of the resort city of Mesquite.
The site “tramples upon Nevadans’ fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution” and should be dismantled, Sandoval said.
BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon and Park Service spokeswoman Christie Vanover have told reporters during daily conference calls that free-speech areas were established so agents could ensure the safety of contractors, protesters, the rancher and his supporters.
The dispute between Bundy and the federal government dates to 1993, when land managers cited concern for the federally protected tortoise and capped his herd at 150 animals on a 250-square-mile rangeland allotment. Officials later revoked Bundy’s grazing rights completely.
Cannon said Bundy racked up more than $1.1 million in unpaid grazing fees over the years while disregarding several court orders to remove his animals.
Bundy estimates the unpaid fees total about $300,000. He notes that his Mormon family’s 19th century melon farm and ranch operation in surrounding areas predates creation of the BLM in 1946.
Since the cattle roundup began Saturday, there has been one arrest.
Bundy’s son, Dave Bundy, 37, was taken into custody Sunday as he watched the roundup from State Route 170. He was released Monday with bruises on his face and a citation accusing him of refusing to disperse and resisting arrest.
A court date has not been set.
His mother, Carol Bundy, alleged that her son was roughed up by BLM police.
Meanwhile, federal officials say 277 cows have been collected. Cannon said state veterinarian and brand identification officials will determine what becomes of the impounded cattle.
Correct, they are managing it.
I’d be looking sideways at the neighbors. I wonder if someone complained because they were paying the fees and this guy wasn’t.
Your facts are incorrect. See post #55. The U.S. has owned that land since 1848.
Quick! Has anyone called the Southern Poverty Law Center yet???
“Assume the resolution will be to sell the cattle off to pay for the grazing fees that are owed.”
The BLM has already tried to send 130 of those cattle to Utah for auction but the state of Utah has said no. Then they went another auctioneer in another neighboring state and he said no also.
“BLM does not own the land the US Government does.”>>>>>>>>>>> And the US Sheriff is?? Eric “MY PEOPLE” Holder??? /s
I have a hunch this is actually about driving this guy out and seizing his land for development. Fracking. Reid & gang.
I do not support Clive Bundy. He’s wrong.
However, to your point about tools, google Friends of Gold Butte.
all it is gonna take is 1 spark from some very stupid person on either side & we’ll have a shootin war
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I think we are at a point of near inevitability. If not here, someplace else.
Just a suggestion:
Why don’t the parties involved start a Kickstarter account to raise the needed funds to pay off the Feds?
With the high profile of this, that would diffuse the issue.
Keep trying. I'm sure they'll find one who will.
I’d like to see about 4,000 from Nevada with real attitudes show up in support.
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Don’t forget the 40,000 outside of Nevada who may pitch in if it goes that way. The feds can always mass at a location. When they do, they strip other areas bare.
Somewhere on a long ago thread, I read that the feds were supposed to relinquish most of the federal lands when the territories officially became states.
It’s amazing to me, that the feds are allowed to own more than 50% of the land in any state.
Seriously, people just want to be left alone to raise their kids, earn a living and save for retirement.
All big brother would have to do is negotiate a settlement of some sort, perhaps provide a partial waiver to allow more head on that land.
I suspect what uncle sugar really wants is for these ranchers to totally bow down and give up.
Family ranch since the 1800’s.....I say hell no! I hope they stick firm.
Precisely. The Feds are forbidden to own anything beyond “needful” buildings, land, etc. Read your Constitution!
I agree with him. Too bad he’s only had 1,290 views since it was posted 24 hours ago. He’s probably right, too, about “maybe a dozen, if they’re lucky” actually showing up.
Can we just call them undocumented cattle and let them be?
He’s not wrong. Read your Constitution, and understand that the Feds are in foreign territory and need to get the hell out.
It’s not lacking remorse about killing white people; it’s enjoying it, just like Himmler and the Jews.
Bookmark
The sheriff should arrest and jail the person that assaulted the rancher’s son with the stun gun.
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The fedcoats screwed up by beating him, but failing to arrest him for anything. It proves the beating was simple government terrorism. Brownshirt, Sturm Abteilung stuff.
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