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.
Whenever a situation arises, someone finds something that makes a individuals case in one way or another impure. Certainly we musy be careful as to what “cart” to hitch our “horse” to, but at what point do we say “enough” to Authoritarian tyranny in this country. The BLM goons are supposed to be our servants, not the other way around.
As Scooby Doo would say, “Ruh roh...”
If Cass Sunstein had his way, they would.
You know that 'if we have to go house-to-house, we will' stuff? Do you think they know that crap works both ways?
Those BLM G-men and their sniper teams had best be walking very lightly, using force very, very judiciously. Sir, now is not the time to be making enemies of your neighbors!
I’d say you nailed it.
FReegards!
Reminds me of a ‘cartoon’ I saw years and years ago.
The scene is inside a living room in a home. There’s a man at the window, peeking out the curtains to the outside.
Next frame, it shows what’s going on outside the home. There’s a bunch of thugs dragging a family out of the house across the street and beating them.
Last frame, the man has turned and is addressing his wife, sitting nervously on the couch in the room.
man says “Don’t worry, Mildred, they’re not in our yard, yet”.
The Cult of Cowardice did a lot of propaganda under the guise of “polite discourse” over the decades. If you confront the destructionists, you’re just as bad as they are, you know.
Note that the 9th Circuit ruled in United States v. Gardner that the Equal Footing Doctrine did not apply to Nevada. Also note that 9th Circuit decisions are overturned ... like a lot.
(Courtesty ping to Dead Corpse who made an argument similar to Grimmy's on a related thread.)
Here’s a song appropriate for the times, I think.
NSFW
Mutiny by William Elliott Whitmore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9axGUdvV2c
Deal.
Thanks for the info.
They went dark after the OKC bombing. They never went away, but were intimidated by smear of Clintoon and the press. I saw and remember it.
We shall choose the moment and it will be their time to Go To Jail.
Very good find... Thanks.
The federal government won’t enforce immigration laws, won’t hold anyone accountable for the IRS attacking private citizens based on their political beliefs, but will take this guy’s property for chewing on government grass...
Jeff - I’m uneasy about this one too... Thanks for the update.
This could turn into the next Ruby Ridge. The feds are overstepping their bounds over a minor matter.
They need to remember that video will be more powerful than guns
is it just a coincidence that dead fed rhymes? Dear NSA this is just an inquiry no harm to anyone is implied or endorsed, so go suck an egg, and just curious are you responsible for the backdoor hack to Open SSL? aka Heartbleed?
The governor talks a lot. He should call up the NG and send them out. At least do more than talk. Right now he’s doing the same thing Harry Reid is doing. Nothing!
The sheriff has told the feds their swat team can go up against his swat team. I hope he stands his ground.
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