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.
to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be,The land (or territory, if you will) in question was not purchased by the consent of the legislature of Nevada because Nevada did not become a state until sixteen years after the U.S. purchased the land by treaty with Mexico. IMHO, A1S8 does not apply to the Bunkerville Allotment of the Gold Butte.
It’s amazing how quickly my opinion on this story has done a 180. At this point, it might not matter who the feds were picking or why.
If Lois Lerner shows up in the Free Speech Area, look out.
The BATFE and FBI are there as well...
I understand that “exercise exclusive Legislation” is in reference to DC but does the phrase “exercise exclusive Legislation” legally interchange with “own”?
I own my land, but I don’t know if I could say that I “exercise exclusive Legislation” in all matters concerning my land.
“He can’t just decide he isn’t getting a good deal from the government and quit paying. Hell, we’d all be doing that.”
Are you saying people shouldn’t do that in protest to an out of control government? One that we’re guilty of not controlling? Well, he did it.
The part you quoted (to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be,) refers directly and only to those uses listed in Art 1, Sect 8, Item 17.
The fact that the fed bought the land from a foreign power, rather than gained the land by conquest, has no bearing on this issue, what-so-ever.
The uses for which the fed gov can own land are limited to only those uses listed.
You keep getting hung up on the “bought it” angle. That means nothing other than the lands were bought in order that they’d (the lands) be incorporated into the US of A, first as territories which the fed gov does manage directly, then, once the proper hoops were jumped through, as states. Once states, only those items listed can be owned as property by the fed gov.
>>Unfortunately there will be no revolution<<
I dunno....history is full of’em.
not sure if exclusive legislation translates to ownership in the common sense of the term. But, for all intents and purposes, it’s the same thing when we’re talking about a city ceded expressly for the purpose of a seat of federal governance.
I know. That was quoted from a post by someone else.
If you want to fulfill the prophesy, yes.
“Nah. Probably kicked in the teeth a few times, but you’ll heal. Heh.”
I do hope I haven’t been guilty of that. If so, it wasn’t intended.
I gotta be guilty of something though...
Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.
keeps toggling on and off on my comment making page.
At least it’s not the Loose Lips Sink Ships thing anymore. I wonder how I earned that one?
What you said is correct, but that doesn’t make the feds correct. The Declaration was written after emotions had already escalated into shooting. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” was delivered long after the Boston Massacre and less than a month before Lexington and Concord.
The BATFE and FBI are there as well...
*****************
They intend murder then.
I hope they’re bringing NVG and .50 cal sniper rifles. They’re going to need long-range counter-snipers, because you can bet Lon Horiuchi’s apprentices will be there for the Feds.
What entitled Mexico to sell this land in 1848? And who did they purchase it from?
I think we're down to the core issue of our disagreement. Where does the Constitution or any SCOTUS decision state, imply, or suggest that all land acquired by the federal government be used only for the purposes listed?
The Constitution grants specific powers to the federal government and it prohibits specific powers to the states. Everything else is reserved for the states.
Nevada disclaimed all right to the land (and authority over it) when it became a state. It gave authority over that land to the federal government and, to my knowledge, it has not since claimed any authority over the land. Are you suggesting that Nevada did/does not have that right? (Not argumentative. Sincere question.)
I am most assuredly not a history buff, but I believe Mexico acquired the land by conquest from Indians, as did we acquire most of the U.S.
Yes, I was at Klamath and very heavily involved there for months.
Let me say a thing or two here.
1st, when I went to Klamath, I emailed several contacts I had in various militias from the Clinton years (Montana, Texas, Ohio, etc.)and told them I was going unarmed and for them not to send anyone down there unless the Federal government committed violence against us. They never did...but it was close on several occassions and there was a lot of talk at night about fighting. I could not blame them....their livelihood and property was being destroyed and taken from them by people who were in their face and using a preposterous reason to do so...that the Sucker Fish...trash fish...in their particular eco-system were endagenered. Anyhow, we were blessed to have been able to get through that back then and get the water turned back on for the farmers at that time for the next season.
2nd, this rancher’s case is not as clean as the farmers in Klamath. He paid a lease to the Federal government for years and years, and then stopped. I understand that the Federal Government should not control or own that land in the first place, but they defacto do, and when you go along with it and lend them legitimacy by paying their lease...you put yourself in a much harder position, both leglally and from a public relations standpoint.
3rd, I believe the thing that may turn this is that the BLM LEOs have started perptrating violence against citizen protestors. I saw the video of the tazing and that is not going to play well. That will bring (and probably already is bringing them) other people from around th country into it, like the militias, who will come down there with a bit in their mouth...who are already spoiling for a fight because ot the unbelievable travesties of this administration...which are more direct and in your face than even the Clintons were.
So...it is a very dangerous situation. If it goes down, and a bunch of people somehow get through over there to stand with the rancher (and you can bet that the feds are already putting in place assets to keep that from happening, including drones, surveillance, and all sort of technology to identify armed people heading that way and stop them...but, as I say, if enough people get around that and in place, you could easily see it spin out of control, go over the edge, and turn into a very seripous armed conflict between citizens and the feds which will force people to choose sides.
God guide us...God give us the wisdom to get through this according to His will and not our own. And God bless and preserve the Constitution and our liberty.
The tree is thirsty in any case, and is due for a watering. Let it be in God’s time.
America at the Crossroads
http://www.jeffhead.com/crossroads.htm
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