Posted on 04/14/2015 2:40:52 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Most of you probably remember the saga of Cliven Bundy from last year. The Nevada Rancher was in a legal battle with the federal government and the state of Nevada over grazing fees and property rights which turned into a standoff between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and a literal army of Bundy’s supporters. Cliven’s cattle had been rustled out from under him and parts of his land blocked off. After some tense moments in the confrontation the BLM blinked first, packed their things and left. They vowed at the time that Bundy hadn’t heard the last of them, but as NPR reports, Bundy is still there and nothing noticeable has changed.
Bundy owes more than $1 million in delinquent cattle grazing fees and penalties, but the BLM has stayed quiet in the year since the showdown, and Bundy’s supporters marked the anniversary by throwing a party.
For Robert Crooks, founder of the Mountain Minutemen, it was part reunion and part victory celebration.
“What you’re seeing here are the people that were here in the beginning, and will be here in the end,” Crooks said. “We’re gonna stand our ground.”
The event was billed as a “Liberty Celebration,” with a barbecue featuring Bundy-raised beef, patriotic music, cowboy poetry, off-roading and shooting. Crooks proudly carried his semi-automatic handgun on his hip. He spent a good deal of the past year camped out in his RV near the driveway that leads to Bundy’s ranch house.
According to the NPR update above, the BLM has pretty given up on patrolling a huge section of the southeastern corner of the state where Bundy lives. The court action seems to have stalled as well. But that doesn’t mean that nothing at all has changed. The showdown at the Bundy ranch caught the attention of many state lawmakers and they’ve begun working on new legislation which would return control of the land to the state and its residents rather than Uncle Sam.
Nevada’s bill, sponsored by Republican state Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, has some momentum behind it. Speaking on a show she hosts on a Las Vegas conservative news talk station, Fiore said the effort was about getting “our land back in the hands of the people, where it belongs.”
Like other sections of the mountain west, the federal government controls more than three quarters of Nevada’s land. This has set up conditions where Washington has been charging taxes and fees on residents completely outside of state control since before Nevada was even a state, and little has changed to this day. The residents are obviously are getting fed up with it and have begun pushing back.
One wonders how much this current battle reflects on the President’s widely discussed plans to block off even more lands as monuments or protected wilderness areas without the cooperation of the states. In nearby Colorado, that battle has been going on for some time and resulted in more than a little backlash. We seem to be living in a renewed era of states rights battles where people seek to reassert local control rather than leaving everything under the thumb of Washington. It’s a rather refreshing change.
Maybe that’s who gave slimeball Harry Reid the attitude adjustment.
Glenn Beck is deeply saddened.
Watching that event unfold was pretty much hard to believe. All over fees, taxes and government control. People are being pushed hard and in this case pushed back. I’m a bit surprised this didn’t end with dead bodies everywhere under that freeway overpass where the cattle was confiscated.
It was Beck’s failure to support Bundy that caused his company in Texas to go into its death spiral. He chose to expand into moviemaking just as he insulted his base of subscribers.
Surprised the feds haven’t tracked down all the participants yet and made their lives hell.
“I’m a bit surprised this didn’t end with dead bodies everywhere under that freeway overpass ...”
That it didn’t is the best indication that the gov’t was worried THEY’D be well numbered among the dead.
I suspect the Feds sadly discovered they had picked on some people the quit school on account of recess, they do not play.
One would figure that the boy king would love to send “his troops” to go deal with these uppity subjects.
Reid also placed his former Chief of Staff as the BLM director. Yeah it does appear dirty Reid has received BLM land around Vegas for little or no charge, and then sold the land to developers for profit.
we had the high ground and snipers
That is a really good point The Federal Government has no business asking Clive Bundy to pay until Al Sharpton has paid.
That said the real issue is not about money but rather who owns and is aggressively cutting off access to the land and resources of the western States.
Washington should not be hording the western lands. Western States should have as much right to buy and control that land which makes up their state as the Eastern States did. But Washington Cut off the west in the 1970’s stunting their ability to grow that is unfair and untenable.
Worse still under increasingly aggressive administration’s like Obama Washington is cutting off even access to the lands thou national monument declarations and various other red tape. This of course puts in asperity the economic future of the west, which is depended upon having access to a comparable share of the State’s land and resources.
I’m afraid as Washington’s environmental wackos get ever more aggressive federal control over the majority of the western territory is going to become an ever more economically important issue to the west.
That is a really good point The Federal Government has no business asking Clive Bundy to pay until Al Sharpton has paid.
That said the real issue is not about money but rather who owns and is aggressively cutting off access to the land and resources of the western States.
Washington should not be hording the western lands. Western States should have as much right to buy and control that land which makes up their state as the Eastern States did. But Washington Cut off the west in the 1970’s stunting their ability to grow that is unfair and untenable.
Worse still under increasingly aggressive administration’s like Obama Washington is cutting off even access to the lands thou national monument declarations and various other red tape. This of course puts in asperity the economic future of the west, which is depended upon having access to a comparable share of the State’s land and resources.
I’m afraid as Washington’s environmental wackos get ever more aggressive federal control over the majority of the western territory is going to become an ever more economically important issue to the west.
What would you do if you thought you were a clever dick and found a unit of former SOF behind you with weapons? You would up and let them take your bolts from your weapons and walk you down the hill. When a unit has flanked you and has you in a kill box it’s best to give up if you want to live. By only the Grace of G_D blood was not spilled that day and CW II did not kick off.
“his troops” had a different thought, like living.
Remeber the photos of patriots on the overpass pointing their rifles at the BLM thugs?
Law enforcement has been trying to I.D. them so as to prosecute them.
Always cover your face, and don’t talk to the press.
I guess some writers just can't help themselves...
The Second Amendment worked well that day and not a shot was fired.
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