Free Republic

Tensions between states’ rights supporters and the federal government remain high after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) retreated last week at the Bundy Ranch after a tense standoff with hundreds of supporters, many of whom were armed. The Bundy Ranch situation has escalated little over the course of 20 years, but finally, the BLM stepped too far when they claimed dominion over thousands of acres of land in Nevada and began seizing Cliven Bundy’s cattle. The response by patriots throughout the country was swift and awe-inspiring as citizens flocked to the middle of nowhere to support the rancher, including...

The Arizona Senate has approved a bill that would allow cities and towns to enter restricted federal land without permission in emergencies. ... Republican bill sponsor Rep. Kelly Townsend of Mesa says she was inspired by the battle between the city of Tombstone and the federal government over access to repair its water supply system in the Coronado National Forest. She says local authorities should have the right to go in where needed without being granted approval first in cases of emergency.

The Arizona House of Representatives has approved a Senate bill allowing ranchers to kill endangered wolves in self-defense. Senate Bill 1211 would allow livestock owners to kill a Mexican gray wolf if one was caught attacking livestock or a person. Wildlife activists say the bill violates the federal Endangered Species Act. But a staff attorney says the bill has been watered down and now meets constitutional requirements.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell announced Monday that the state will sue the Obama administration to allow construction of a 10-mile road to give residents of a remote fishing village access to emergency medical flights at an all-weather airport. Residents of King Cove, Alaska, were outraged in December when Interior Secretary Sally Jewell nixed a plan for a land swap that would have allowed the building of an unpaved road between the small town and the airport at Cold Bay. ... Since Ms. Jewell rejected the land swap, which would have given the refuge 43,093 acres of state land and 13,300...

A bird native to Arizona and other western states could be listed as a threatened species by the federal government. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo lives along the Verde, Colorado and San Pedro Rivers in Arizona. It also can be found at the Gila River and Rio Grande in New Mexico and the Sacramento and Kern Rivers in California. Federal officials said the bird’s habitat is shrinking because of dams and other construction projects on the rivers, plus cattle grazing.

Policing: The Dallas County Sheriff's Office gets an MRAP tactical military vehicle, used for counterinsurgency fighting in Iraq, as law enforcement becomes a collection of SWAT teams pursuing not-always-guilty Americans. In early August, a SWAT team broke through the gates of a 3.5-acre farm in Arlington, Texas, that promotes a sustainable lifestyle and did a 10-hour search of the property. Residents were handcuffed and held at gunpoint as police looked for nonexistent marijuana plants and various city code violations. As the owners watched, 10 tons of their private property was hauled off in trucks — dangerous items such as blackberry...

Security: In addition to stockpiling over a billion bullets and thousands of semiautomatic weapons the feds would deny U.S. citizens, the vehicle of choice for fighting the counterinsurgency war in Iraq is appearing on U.S. streets. The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles? And just who are they intended to be used against? This acquisition comes on top of the recent news of the stockpiling by DHS of more...

Federal Power: Homeland Security's procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer. Who or what are they shooting at? Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Thursday asked Nick Nayak, DHS' chief procurement officer, a question we and others have been asking: Why has the Department of Homeland Security been buying so much ammunition? Dismissed as a concern only of right-wing conspiracy theorists, the reported amounts as high as 2 billion rounds have varied and been explained not as a one-time purchase but a bulk buy...

Property Rights: Few have heard of Agenda 21, the U.N. plan for sustainable development that tosses property rights aside. But Alabama has, and it recently secured a victory as important as that over union power in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's stunning triumph over the excesses and abuses of public-sector unions, the London Telegraph's James Delingpole, an indefatigable opponent of global warming fraud, opined in a piece titled, "How Wisconsin And Alabama Helped Save The World," that we should take note of "an equally important but perhaps less well-publicized victory won in the Alabama House and Senate over the...

The rural Nevada showdown between federal government officials and militia members protecting rancher Cliven Bundy has evolved into a battle of government “tyranny,” with many newly arriving militiamen rolling in to draw a line in the dirt about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas. ... “This is a better education than being in school! I’m glad I brought you. I’m a good mom,” Ilona Ence, a 49-year-old mother from St. George and Bundy relative who brought her four teenage children to the ranch, told the Las Vegas Sun. “They’re learning about the Constitution.” Ence’s teenage sons posted up a sign...

It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who have nurtured it as BLM closes Vegas rescue center. LAS VEGAS — For decades, the vulnerable desert tortoise has led a sheltered existence. Developers have taken pains to keep the animal safe. It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. And wildlife officials have set the species up on a sprawling conservation reserve outside Las Vegas. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who...

By now you’re familiar with the standoff between the federal government, i.e. the Bureau of Land Management, and 67 year-old rancher Cliven Bundy. .. The BLM asserts their power through the expressed desire to protect the endangered desert tortoise, a tortoise so “endangered” that their population can no longer be contained by the refuge constructed for them so the government is closing it and euthanizing over a thousand tortoises. The tortoises, the excuse that BLM has given for violating claims to easements and running all but one lone rancher out of southern Nevada, is doing fine. In fact, the tortoise...

They’re almost like a hired gun’. Armed Rangers were brought in from out of state by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to assist in security surrounding the Bundy Ranch, according to the family. A heated confrontation on Wednesday resulted in Cliven Bundy’s son Ammon being tasered by BLM officials and a 57-year-old protester being shoved to the ground. Stetsy Bundy Cox, Cliven’s daughter, told the Washington Free Beacon that some of the rangers had Oregon and California license plates. “You know, some of these guys don’t even know why they’re here,” she said. “A few people have talked to...

WASHINGTON — Colorado officials warned a House committee Tuesday that a lack of transparency in the Obama administration’s efforts to protect the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens the scientific validity of the process. Rob Roy Ramey of Nederland, an independent biologist whose career has focused on species protection, told the House Natural Resources Committee that the process has been closed to the scientific community and that federal officials refuse to share certain data being used to make a final determination. “It can be like pulling teeth to try and obtain that data,” Ramey said. “The (information) is shared...

A decision pending with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could have huge ramifications for rural Kansans living in the western third of the state. In limbo is the question of whether the lesser prairie-chicken should be listed as a “threatened” species under provisions of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The species inhabits land spanning Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. ... Kansas, in cooperation with the four other states affected by the issue — a coalition known as the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies — has attempted to stave-off such a decision with the development of...

France's historically unpopular President, François Hollande was handed another embarrassment this week when the top constitutional authority partially struck down another one of his laws. That strike-out left Hollande as the holder of a record he won't be proud of. France’s Constitutional Council ruled on Thursday that a reform that would have allowed the government to fine companies that shut down profitable factories was unconstitutional. The reform was deemed by the council - France's highest constitutional authority - to be a violation of “a freedom of undertaking and private property rights.” ... The council's ruling is the 13th law to...

Will Obama use two small birds to limit oil drilling in the West? Almost half the land west of the Mississippi belongs to the federal government, including 48% of California, 62% of Idaho and 81% of Nevada. No surprise that the Obama Administration wants to control more. But the result could be to suppress the country's booming oil and gas development. In partnership with green activists, the Department of Interior may attempt one of the largest federal land grabs in modern times, using a familiar vehicle—the Endangered Species Act (ESA). A record 757 new species could be added to the...

The Environmental Protection Agency today unveiled its proposed rule to bring natural and man-made bodies of water big and tiny under the purview of the Clean Water Act, sparking accusations that the administration has embarked on an unprecedented breach of private property rights without scientific basis. This launches a “robust outreach effort” to gather input in shaping a final rule over the next 90 days, the EPA said, maintaining that the rulemaking isn’t groundbreaking but a clarification effort needed to clearly define streams and wetlands protection after Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006. […] Senate Environment and Public Works...

Wyoming has spent $7.9 million on sage grouse conservation since 2005. That was the finding of a new report by the Western Governors Association, which inventoried the efforts of 11 western states to protect the bird and its habitat. The report comes in advance of an expected 2015 ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to add the species to the endangered species list. The sage grouse's listing could curtail energy development throughout the West. ... Utah, by comparison, spent $8.8 million on improvements to sage grouse habitat in 2013 alone.

...... they decided to rewrite the rules to more clearly define exactly what bodies of water are within their regulatory power — and a bunch of lawmakers, lobbies, businesses, and private citizens are worried that the end result is going to be yet another massive EPA power grab that will make big government an even more pervasive and retarding for in commercial activity and on private property.