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.
"In obedience to the requirements of an act of the Congress of the United States, approved March twenty-first, A.D. eighteen hundred and sixty-four, to enable the people of Nevada to form a constitution and state government, this convention, elected and convened in obedience to said enabling act, do ordain as follows, and this ordinance shall be irrevocable, without the consent of the United States and the people of the State of Nevada:
. . .
Third. That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States; and that lands belonging to citizens of the United States, residing without the said state, shall never be taxed higher than the land belonging to the residents thereof; and that no taxes shall be imposed by said state on lands or property therein belonging to, or which may hereafter be purchased by, the United States, unless otherwise provided by the congress of the United States.
I've conducted a minimal search and have found no statehood document requiring the feds to give more of the land to the state.
Can we find a Presidential candidate with the guts to run on that platform?
"In obedience to the requirements of an act of the Congress of the United States, approved March twenty-first, A.D. eighteen hundred and sixty-four, to enable the people of Nevada to form a constitution and state government, this convention, elected and convened in obedience to said enabling act, do ordain as follows, and this ordinance shall be irrevocable, without the consent of the United States and the people of the State of Nevada:
. . .
Third. That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States; and that lands belonging to citizens of the United States, residing without the said state, shall never be taxed higher than the land belonging to the residents thereof; and that no taxes shall be imposed by said state on lands or property therein belonging to, or which may hereafter be purchased by, the United States, unless otherwise provided by the congress of the United States.
I've conducted a minimal search and have found no statehood document requiring the feds to give more of the land to the state.
Can we find a Presidential candidate with the guts to run on that platform?
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) working with the Chinese gov’t to take land from hard-working Americans.
Hmmmm...
Maybe I wasn't too far off the mark.
Jeff, God is already in charge of this. How many of us have asked on our knees for His help. I pray that no one gets hurt, but I also pray that America wakes up to what is happening.
Agree .....lots of martial law fodder / low hanging fruit events available to Precedent Erkel Mugabe ......
... Stay safe !
Actually, in 1993 - notice the time frame - the Nevada Legislature passed an amendment eliminating the phrase: “[they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States; and that]”
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Statutes/67th/Stats1993R01.html#FIz189_zSJRz27
How valid it is to amend the document you entered the Union under, in which you DID “forever disclaim all right and title”, is open to question. Generally speaking, a contract between two parties cannot be changed without the consent of both parties.
Just saw this footnote - the amendment becomes “effective on the date Congress consents to amendment or a legal determination is made that such consent is not necessary.”
Article 1, Section 8 very specifically lays out what land the federal government can legally own.
10 square miles for seat of federal government (Wash DC), and plots or sites necessary for forts, arsenals, dry-docks and needful BUILDINGS.
There is not one thing in The Constitution which gives the fed gov legal authority to own large tracts of land just to own them.
Also, the deal between Nevada and the fed gov at the time of statehood is completely non op and non legit by any reasonable reading of Art 1, Sec 8.
Lets not forget that corrupt politics and bad judgements from courts isn’t a recent invention.
That complies with the prefix to the Nevada State Constitution, which requires Congressional consent to amendment of the provision forever ceding federal public lands in Nevada to the United States.
What was your take? I recall at the time it was a big deal on this forum. I would be interested in your input on how the “law” was acting at ground zero (so to speak)..
I spent a Saturday there. There were about six Marshalls there. They were just sitting around. Nobody was afraid on either side, it was peacful. There was a fence and a canal between the two sides, about 25yards apart.
And just to mention the fact that the US Government has “given” promises to China for land ownership in exchange for debts.
So in my view this is ultimately a war against the Chinese, as its them who are awaiting down the road to take possession of property in America.
I for one do not like the idea anything i own is being taken away and given to a foreign power.
Jeff I miss your wisdom. I am so blessed by your impact on my life Sir.
God guided those at the Bundy Ranch last weekend...and I pray He continues to support them and confound these enemies we have running the country.
But, when you have a criminal mobster like Reid in control, where his chosen man at the BLM was just embarrassed, there is no telling how far he will push it or when.
We (and they) must remain ever vigilant.
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