Hage first sued in 1991 - after 2 terms of Ronald Reagan and during the term of Bush Sr. At that point, Republican Presidents had been in charge of the BLM & USFS for 10 full years without interruption.
As the judge noted, the whole thing started when Hage added a note to his application saying he was not surrendering any rights he was entitled to, and the government used that EXCUSE to deny him a grazing permit that was in all other ways reasonable.
It is depressing to think that after 10 straight years of Republican administrations, the federal government was acting in a way that “shocks the conscience of the Court”!
You make it sound like the courts are charged to uphold the policy of the current power regime and not the law.
Gosh, that can’t be, can it?