Posted on 04/08/2014 6:00:09 PM PDT by Nachum
A two-decades-old battle between a Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has resulted in officials armed with machine guns surrounding the ranch and forcibly removing the owner’s cattle, according to the rancher’s family.
Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Clark County, Nev., has been fighting a “one-man range war” since 1993, when he decided to take a stand against the agency, refusing to pay fees for the right to graze on a ranch run by his family for centuries.
After years of court battles, the BLM secured a federal court order to have Bundy’s “trespass cattle” forcibly removed with heavy artillery, the family said.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
You do realize those states were created out of federal land, granted to the US after the war with Mexico?
Repeal the 17th. It was the beginning of the end of State sovereignty.
Jeff, you have any intell on this?
Limiting 1st Amendment rights... denying a rancher his rights that have lasted since before the BLM was created. If you don’t see the writing on the wall here, then shut up and kiss the country “good bye”. No amount of voting or litigation in court rooms can fix this country anymore. It’s way past that point.
Fourth Box.
Went back and reread the article, while biased it does point out a few interesting points. The family had been leasing from the BLM long before he ever stopped his lease payments. Hard to prove you own the land when you have over 50 years of lease payments proving you don’t. While I think shutting it down for grazing over a tortoise is a pretty weak excuse it is what it is. When you crawl in bed with the Fed’s your gonna get screwed. The fact that he stopped his payments 5 years before they shut it down doesn’t help his argument.
We have a rather large ranch for this area and lease out about 80% of it to cattle operation. We control the lease amount and how many head are run per section, a violation of either of those or a non lease payment gets you shut down immediately. He would have been in violation of our rules and he and his cattle would have been removed.
. .............
Environmentalists are praising the government’s forceful actions, which are being taken to protect the “desert tortoise.” “We’re heartened and thankful that the agencies are finally living up to their stewardship duty,” said Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Gold Butte area has been officially designated as critical habitat for threatened tortoises—meaning the area is essential to their long-term survival as a species.” “[Cliven] Bundy has long falsely believed that Gold Butte is his ranch,” added Terri Robertson, president of Friends of Sloan Canyon. The BLM designated 186,909 acres of the Gold Butte off-limits for the “critical desert tortoise” population in 1998. Bundy had already lost his grazing permit five years earlier for refusing to pay fees for the land, which his family has ranched since the 1870s. The “federal grazing fee” is $1.35 per “Animal Unit Month,” or the amount of forage needed per animal, each month. Bundy said he owes roughly $300,000 in back fees, while the BLM asserts he owes over $1 million. The BLM defended the removal because Bundy did not “voluntarily” give up his cattle.
YOUr miniscule amount is up to a million dollars accd.to the link.
Apparently the Democrats learned nothing from Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Sure they did. They learned they can get away with it...
Armed Conflict BUMP
Isn’t seizing cattle another name for rustling?
And isn’t cattle rustling an offense punishable by death?
Bundy is the modern-day equivalent of the cattle barons who gave the old west the Lincoln County War, the Pleasant Valley War, the Mason County War and the Johnson County Range War.
He wants to graze his cattle on somebody else's land.
The land belonged to the State of Nevada before the Bundy family began to graze their cattle there. Bundy admits that the Bundy family does not own the land. The Bundy family grazed its cattle on the land for free when that was the law, then grazed them while paying a grazing fee when that became the law. When the last grazing agreement expired, Bundy refused to sign a new agreement because he didn't like the terms or the increased grazing fee.
It's no different that if he were grazing his cattle on somebody else's private land.
His family never gained title by prescription or adverse possession. Under common law, adverse possession must be 'hostile,' meaning without permission of the lawful owner. The Bundy family's possession has never been hostile.
Under Nevada law, to gain ownership by adverse possession, a party must gain title under 'color of title,' such as a false deed. The Bundy family has none. Under Nevada law, a person cannot claim adverse possession unless all federal, state, and local taxes on the land have been paid since the time adverse possession began. The Bundys have not been paying taxes on the land since the late 19th century.
Bundy is a thief, trying to steal possession of someone else's land without consent or compensation. He's no different that the cattlemen in the Robert Duvall movie, Open Range.
This isn’t about land. It’s about water.
He ignored the last court order giving him a date to remove his cattle or face having them declared trespassing cattle subject to removal by the BLM.
Too bad the ranchers did not form their own defensive militia when this crap started. A couple of fed raiding parties taken out from ambush would have been a good start.
When 0 was elected, OfA actually used the words Organizing for Amerika.
You can’t find that anymore.
The Chinese want it, I bet.
‘Obama for America’ to morph into ‘Organizing for Action’
(one year ago)
Just like communism claiming the turtles vote communist and environment.
This operation is going to kill for sure the specie.
This is such arrogance.
And to see the media parading enviros praising and siding eith government every time there is such an issue is laughable.
The media is stupid and evil.
This rancher was the best stewardt we had, but corrupt idiotcrats in DC want is land, Zimbabwe Mugabe style.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.