‘Expect To See A Band Of Soldiers’: Militia Members Arrive At Nevada Ranch

CBS Las Vegas ^ | 4-10-2014 | Unknown to me

[AllAmericanGirl44]

I understand your analogy and would ask, if that were to happen, what are the chances that you or I or anybody, could get 150 agents to come to my ‘rescue’.

My point being, wth do they need ALL those agents for?
Is there nobody involved who can employ some common sense and basic decency to resolve this?

The free speech zone is just the icing on the cake. How that doesn’t enrage others is a mystery to me.

Thanks for your succinct posts on this matter.

[Scoutmaster]

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.

I agree with you, Jeff, which isn't unusual at all.

The federal Taylor Grazing Act was passed in 1934, and required grazing contracts and the payment of grazing fees for use of federally owned land. In 1934, the first year it was required, the Bundy family entered into a grazing contract and paid grazing fees for the old Bunkerville allotment. This is inconsistent with a claim that a great-grandfather purchased permanent grazing rights to the Bunkerville allotment in the 1880s.

The Taylor Grazing Act contracts had ten-year terms.

The first contract expired in 1943, and subsequent contracts expired in 1953, 1963, 1973, 1983, and 1993. The Bundy family entered into each new contract and paid the grazing fee.

In 1993, the BLM changed the terms of the new grazing contract it offered Cliven Bundy. That's when he quit paying grazing fees. As long as the family agreed with the terms, they paid the grazing fee.

[Scoutmaster]

Thank you. I’ve sent that photo to Walgreen’s and will hang it in my home office.

[ridesthemiles]

250 Square Miles ==160,000 acres. With only 150 cows, that is OVER 1000 acres per cow. That allotment is ludicrous.

Their reduction numbers at the Federal level create an instant bankruptcy for any farmer/rancher.

People who never have ranched are not qualified to make such allotments.

This is also driven by the Enviro greenies who want to remove all of everything from over 50% of the land mas of the USA.

[Scoutmaster]

Gardner, which he cited, says Pollard’s Lessee does not apply to Nevada and limits Pollard’s Lessee to states that were sovereign before becoming states.

[Scoutmaster]

Gardner, which he cited, says Pollard’s Lessee does not apply to Nevada and limits Pollard’s Lessee to states that were sovereign before becoming states.

[Scoutmaster]

The support is a reasoned argument the Nevada legislature adopted. It reads:

NRS 321.596  Legislative findings.  The Legislature finds that:

1.  The State of Nevada has a strong moral claim upon the public land retained by the Federal Government within Nevada’s borders because:

(a) On October 31, 1864, the Territory of Nevada was admitted to statehood on the condition that it forever disclaim all right and title to unappropriated public land within its boundaries;

(b) From 1850 to 1894, newly admitted states received 2 sections of each township for the benefit of common schools, which in Nevada amounted to 3.9 million acres;

(c) In 1880 Nevada agreed to exchange its 3.9-million-acre school grant for 2 million acres of its own selection from public land in Nevada held by the Federal Government;

(d) At the time the exchange was deemed necessary because of an immediate need for public school revenues and because the majority of the original federal land grant for common schools remained unsurveyed and unsold;

(e) Unlike certain other states, such as New Mexico, Nevada received no land grants from the Federal Government when Nevada was a territory;

(f) Nevada received no land grants for insane asylums, schools of mines, schools for the blind and deaf and dumb, normal schools, miners’ hospitals or a governor’s residence as did states such as New Mexico; and

(g) Nevada thus received the least amount of land, 2,572,478 acres, and the smallest percentage of its total area, 3.9 percent, of the land grant states in the Far West admitted after 1864, while states of comparable location and soil, namely Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, received approximately 11 percent of their total area in federal land grants.

2.  The State of Nevada has a legal claim to the public land retained by the Federal Government within Nevada’s borders because:

(a) In the case of the State of Alabama, a renunciation of any claim to unappropriated lands similar to that contained in the ordinance adopted by the Nevada constitutional convention was held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be “void and inoperative” because it denied to Alabama “an equal footing with the original states” in Pollard v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212 (1845);

(b) The State of Texas, when admitted to the Union in 1845, retained ownership of all unappropriated land within its borders, setting a further precedent which inured to the benefit of all states admitted later “on an equal footing”; and

(c) The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, adopted into the Constitution of the United States by the reference of Article VI to prior engagements of the Confederation, first proclaimed the “equal footing” doctrine, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which the territory including Nevada was acquired from Mexico and which is “the supreme law of the land” by virtue of Article VI, affirms it expressly as to the new states to be organized therein.

3.  The exercise of broader control by the State of Nevada over the public lands within its borders would be of great public benefit because:

(a) Federal holdings in the State of Nevada constitute 86.7 percent of the area of the State, and in Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye and White Pine counties the Federal Government controls from 97 to 99 percent of the land;

(b) Federal jurisdiction over the public domain is shared among 17 federal agencies or departments which adds to problems of proper management of land and disrupts the normal relationship between a state, its residents and its property;

(c) None of the federal lands in Nevada are taxable and Federal Government activities are extensive and create a tax burden for the private property owners of Nevada who must meet the needs of children of Federal Government employees, as well as provide other public services;

(d) Under general land laws only 2.1 percent of federal lands in Nevada have moved from federal control to private ownership;

(e) Federal administration of the retained public lands, which are vital to the livestock and mining industries of the State and essential to meet the recreational and other various uses of its citizens, has been of uneven quality and sometimes arbitrary and capricious; and

(f) Federal administration of the retained public lands has not been consistent with the public interest of the people of Nevada because the Federal Government has used those lands for armament and nuclear testing thereby rendering many parts of the land unusable and unsuited for other uses and endangering the public health and welfare.

4.  The intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States was to guarantee to each of the states sovereignty over all matters within its boundaries except for those powers specifically granted to the United States as agent of the states.

5.  The attempted imposition upon the State of Nevada by the Congress of the United States of a requirement in the enabling act that Nevada “disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory,” as a condition precedent to acceptance of Nevada into the Union, was an act beyond the power of the Congress of the United States and is thus void.

6.  The purported right of ownership and control of the public lands within the State of Nevada by the United States is without foundation and violates the clear intent of the Constitution of the United States.

7.  The exercise of such dominion and control of the public lands within the State of Nevada by the United States works a severe, continuous and debilitating hardship upon the people of the State of Nevada.

* * * * * Some of this is an equitable argument. Some of this was rejected by Gardner, and I need to Shepardize Gardner to see if the USSC passed on it on appeal. Some of this has never been raised before a court, to my knowledge.

[BuckeyeTexan]

* * * * * Some of this is an equitable argument. Some of this was rejected by Gardner, and I need to Shepardize Gardner to see if the USSC passed on it on appeal. Some of this has never been raised before a court, to my knowledge.

Let me know what you find out about Gardner, will you? I've read a few comments on other sites that PPL Montana, LLC v. Montana (SCOTUS) is pertinent to this issue because it was brought under the Equal Footing Doctrine, but it doesn't appear relevant to me. IANAL though.

[kiryandil]

And in this case the government has repeatedly gone to the courts allowing Bundy to state his case. Bundy has repeatedly lost his case because he does not have a legal leg to stand on.

Pull the other one.

John Stossel informs us that the BLM itself has ignored court orders in this matter.

Of course, the difference is that Cliven Bundy doesn't have hundreds of gunthugs dressed in Magic Costumes, nor does he have a bottomless checkbook funded by money stolen from the taxpeasants at gunpoint.

[kiryandil]

Then he makes the point that if the desert tortoise has rights so do the calves.

Someone else posted that the tortoises actually feed on the cowpoop, which makes sense to me.

[SpeakerToAnimals]

BLM has gun thugs. Obama has a pen and a phone. The sheeple are beginning to sense danger.

What frightens me the most is the fact that not one FLEO has said "What we are doing is morally wrong. I will not follow unlawful orders." Enforcing a "free speech pen" is violating the Constitution these goons swore an oath to defend from Enemies Foreign And Domestic.

[Ray76]

>> Is BLM borrowing an army from homeland security...

Yeah I was wondering about that. The BLM has snipers? Really?

[longtermmemmory]

only Two?

[Paladin2]

Is that a Concentration Camping Site?

[Roman_War_Criminal]

That day may be closer than you think—this isn’t going to end peacefully by any means. Feds don’t have the man power to stop what they will start. Clark County is the tip of the iceberg with gov’t over-reach.

Keep these activists/militia’s in your prayers!

[taxcontrol]

Please, if you have information about how the BLM has ignored court orders in this case, share your sources so that we can discuss that as well.

[xzins]

Of course, the difference is that Cliven Bundy doesn't have ...a bottomless checkbook funded by money stolen from the tax peasants at gunpoint.

Excellent point. The easiest way to win a lawsuit is simply to outspend them, and with average Americans that isn't hard at all. At best, the average guy would have a couple thousand he could fight with.

I am more focused than ever on the fact that Bundy made improvements to the property and no one reimbursed him or even thought to.

[miserare]

Are they taking advice from Janet Reno?

[greeneyes]

Granted, but what did the documents regarding statehood say about the fed’s land ownership? Wasn’t there some sort of provision where the feds were supposed to give more of the land to the state?

I just can’t remember exactly, but I thought I read something to that effect, and that the feds had never fulfilled their part of that agreement.

[Paladin2]

Apparently Nevada had to forever relinquish the gov’t land to the Feds.