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.
The case law would seem to indicate that Congress was granted the power to act as it sees fit regarding these lands, and divestiture would be possible only by legislation.
Fascinating body of court decisions stretching back to
our treaties with Spain, France and Mexico govern land sovereignty, and I’ve wasted several hours looking at
court decisions.
I did find a nice article on the Property Clause of the Constitution on the Heritage website.
http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/4/essays/126/property-clause
Another essay:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL34267_12032007.pdf
I am here at the center of it all at the Clark County Fair. Last night there was a special session of the town council. whatever the members of FR think, the community supports Clive Bundy. The mood here is an underlying tension of ugliness. Everyone seems to be waiting for the balloon to go up. The know the militia are on the way. The younger citizens of the area seem hot for action.
it is a battle of the eastern federal government with the western way of live.
Whatever you think of Bundy paying or not paying his grazing fees, the locals know why he stopped paying and support his position.
This ends my report for now. The action is literally over the hill just behind me.
Abigkahuna
I am here at the center of it all at the Clark County Fair. Last night there was a special session of the town council. whatever the members of FR think, the community supports Clive Bundy. The mood here is an underlying tension of ugliness. Everyone seems to be waiting for the balloon to go up. The know the militia are on the way. The younger citizens of the area seem hot for action.
it is a battle of the eastern federal government with the western way of live.
Whatever you think of Bundy paying or not paying his grazing fees, the locals know why he stopped paying and support his position.
This ends my report for now. The action is literally over the hill just behind me.
Abigkahuna
All of that land was available to be homesteaded well into the 20th Century. No one wanted it, at least enough to fulfill the homestead provisions.
Hope so.
I read a lot of comments from claimed locals at this site today both for and against Bundy. http://letstalknevada.com/category/gold-butte/
I will take your word about the community’s support for Bundy.
I do not doubt that the mood is ugly. I think this situation is way more complicated than it needed to be. I hope it does not escalate and that there is no loss of life.
marked, and good luck everyone there is gonna need it.
We’ll I understand, on the internet, no one knows if you are a dog or not. I am talking with folks that stop by our booth.
900 Steers would be about 900,000 pounds anyway. At 135 a hundred hoof weight, that’s about a million two they’re taking from Bundy.
It is a very interesting legal case and Bundy appears to be in the wrong. However, the tremendous show of force is unconscionable. It’s hard to argue against Bundy when the feds won’t lift a finger to remove illegal alien trespassers from land that doesn’t belong to them but use such force against freeping cows.
Please do keep us posted about the responses you get first hand.
Bump
Right behind me the PCRA rodeo has started. the stands are full of presumed Clive Bundy supporters. It is currently dusk turning to nightfall here in this desert region. The hills surrounding the area are devoid of any meaningful vegetation. The fair itself is held on a scratched piece of earth. ‘Most years the spring winds blow at 40mph, a spring breeze around here.
Today though, the winds are unseasonably calm, the temps in the low 90s. People walk about holding and ear of corn, or enjoying the sweetness of a funnel cake. Such as it is tonight at the Clark County Fair in Logandale, Nevada.
IIRC, isn't there a section in the bill of Rights which prohibits the government from taking a man's property without JUST compensation?
If these steers were the property of a cabal of illegal aliens, the BLM would probably assist them in rounding them up and transporting them to the black market where they could be sold to unlicensed butchers in East LA.
It would be an act of love.
But since this guy is just an evil white red-neck, they will send in snipers to take out the steers and when they are done, they'll just take out Bundy.
BTW since when has the BLM had an army?
How about authorized “first amendment zones” then?<<
What really pisses me off is that this sign posted on the first amendment area was not some hand drawn poster board.
This was a professionally manufactured placard. These SOB’s have planned to coral us WAY in advance of this incident. This is something they've had stored away for times such as these.
The gubbamint sees American citizens as the enemy.
Yesterday? Somebody is going to die. Someone in a high position of power wants Bundy’s land. And if they have to eliminate the Bundy’s to get it, so be it. It won’t be the first time it has happened.
Remember what Ahab (led by Jezebel) did to Naboth to get his vineyard?
Fixed it.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear Jeff!
Well I hate to think they were scared of Clinton & the press. I hate to think they were scared of anything. I knew they didn’t go away, but I also remember that Bush’s presence calmed things down until Obama. I’m really surprised we haven’t heard for them until now.
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