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.
Nope!
Not as long as there are mortgages, cars, trucks and boat payments to be made as well as the soccer, baseball, hockey and football practices that have to be attended......
Maybe next month......
Unfortunately there will be no revolution.......
Yes, I am agreement with you as you post it here.
There is always a revolution, eventually.
And cows don’t file lawsuits.
To take it? Absolutely not. To buy it from another country? Yes.
Article 1, Section 8 item 17:
17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;(there’s an and here that leads into the next item)
The 10 mile square IS the District of Columbia. One is allowed as the national seat of government.
The ONLY other land ownership legal for the fed gov is:
Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings.
Is this land under discussion a fort? no.
Is this land under discussion a magazine for the storage of military munitions? no.
Is the land under discussion a dock-yard? no.
Is this land under discussion an “other needful building”? no.
So, how is it legal to demand rent on land that can not be legally owned by the authority demanding the rent?
“would make the last civil war look like a church choir practice!”
Humans have perfect the art of bringing pain, death, and misery since then.
Of course, to buy it from another country, but for what purpose?
To incorporate it into the United States of America. First as a territory, then as a state. Once statehood is achieved, all rules, limits and obligations become limited to ONLY what the Constitution allows the fed gov.
The fed gov originally taking possession of the land by purchase, rather than conquest, makes no difference what-so-ever.
The fed gov is limited by The Constitution and any acts, actions or possessions that lay outside the restraints placed upon the fed gov by The Constitution are illegal and illegitimate.
It is not only our right, but our duty as citizens to force the fed gov, by whatever means necessary, to keep its damned self within the limits set by The Constitution.
“Again, we can debate all manner of things including the ridiculous rules about closing land to grazing in order to “protect” lizards or prairie chickens or whatever the fake “endangered species” du jour is, and certainly we can debate the existence of the BLM itself”
Here’s something to think about. We have debated, won elections, been lied to by our pols. We’re debating while our rights are being taken by brute force. Maybe this guy unilaterally decided to take out the stinking trash that no one else would touch.
I agree with the text and your discussion in this post - thanks. But I would like some clarification.
You have also stated that “The FedZilla can and has bought lands... which become territories.”
But you have also quoted Article 1, Section 8 item 17, “The ONLY other land ownership legal for the fed gov is: Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings.”
Here is my disconnect (and others.) Article 1, Section 8 item 17 states clearly what land FedZilla can own. But we also know that FedZilla can own other land, which we call territories.
Is it your premise that once FedZilla turns those territories into states, that “the limits on land ownership by the fed gov come into play,” are now specifically governed in Article 1, Section 8 item 17?
“exercise exclusive Legislation” is legally interchangeable with “own”?
I don’t know.
Oops, my post 211 was during your post 209, which you have answered my question.
“That being said, this thing stinks. It screams of a set up. You don’t graze for free on BLM land for 20 years. Back home they come looking for you if you are 30 days late on a payment.”
****************
It is quite bizarre. Look at the Harry Reid - Neil Kornze involvement here:
http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/obama-picks-neil-kornze-as-next-blm-head
http://www.doi.gov/whoweare/blm-dir.cfm
These people are neighbors of sorts. I bet this thing has deep and old roots.
Agreed. This is tinderbox. Imagine if the Katrina gun confiscation happened now.
the territory aspect is in another article... 4 I think. It was quoted earlier by another poster.
The original poster of that article claims it means territory in general. My contention is that it means areas possessed by the US but are not states. Otherwise, there’d be zero reason to list those things allowed specifically in Art 1, Sec 8, Item 17.
“exercise exclusive Legislation” is legally interchangeable with “own”?
The exclusive legislation is in ref to the 10 mile square, ceded by other state(s) in which the seat of federal governance is located. Ie: Wash DC.
Thanks..
Your premise is strong. If we assume it be correct, then they way in which FedZilla created the state of Nevada is certainly unconstitutional - there should have been no strings attached, no continuing FedZilla authority within the state. And those that agreed with the creation should not have!
But they did.. and now, as you “It is not only our right, but our duty as citizens to force the fed gov, by whatever means necessary, to keep its damned self within the limits set by The Constitution.” Which I always agree with!
Nah. Probably kicked in the teeth a few times, but you'll heal. Heh.
(I so far agree with BuckeyeTexan.)
Now yer playin' with fire. ;p
I think he may be right. Not sure we need “the court of public opinion.” Public opinion elected Obama. He lacks vision. If the Feds continue to escalate, this won’t be Waco or Ruby ridge (if the feds play the child abuser white supremacist card, we know it’s on). Patriots in this country won’t allow 10-30 other patriots to be slaughtered, whether they agree with the Bundy’s or not. Others will join the fray and 30 dead will turn into 100, then it’ll go into autopilot, and we’ll have a full scale civil war withing a month. If the feds back off, one inch, we’ll learn something very valuable about them.
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