Posted on 04/13/2014 2:17:43 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
The Bureau of Land Management vowed Saturday that it would continue its legal fight to remove illegal cattle from a rural Nevada range after ending a tense weeklong standoff with a rancher and his supporters.
"After 20 years and multiple court orders to remove the trespass cattle, [rancher Cliven] Bundy owes the American taxpayers in excess of $1 million. The BLM will continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially," a statement from the bureau said. "We ask that all parties in the area remain peaceful and law-abiding as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service work to end the operation in an orderly manner."
The BLM also announced that it was wrapping up its month-long operation to seize the 900 cattle roaming on federally owned land approximately 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas and would release the 400 head of Bundy's cattle it had already seized "in order to avoid violence and help restore order."
"Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public," the statement read.," the statement read.
Bureau officials had dismantled designated protest areas supporting Bundy, who they say refuses to comply with the "same laws that 16,000 public land ranchers do every year."
A group of about 1,000 supporting Bundy cheered and sang "The Star Spangled Banner" when BLM made its announcement.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
When you’re in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging.
Here, have another
http://heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-federal-ownership-public-lands
There is no doubt, the federal government owns public land, even when you write it in all caps.
I’m playing devils advocate here on this subject.
Several folks were nice enough to give me some good information, which is what i was looking for in the first place.
All news is tainted these days, so my tendencies are to disbelieve all, even on FR.
Another term for the land described here is unappropriated lands, those lands that came under the jurisdiction of the United States and were not appropriated by previous grants of private ownership, or owned by the states. The United States Government holds title to this land, always had as a sovereign right. There is no trust.
This argument, including the words you have posted, are used by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups to advance their agenda which aims to restrict all economic activities on public lands and provides preference to flora and fauna over citizens.
Oh good. I afraid I was “getting my heart blessed....” (ie, “Why, bless your heart!” a deep, deep insult in the South)
Peace,
When discussing politically charged topics, using Wikapedia as you have done is usually not a good idea. You don’t know who is editing that page and you don’t know if the page has been locked to exclude dissenting information.
This page has some useful information, but the language about U.S. trust lands is straight out of the Sierra Club playbook. The federal government granted trust lands to the states and some Indian lands are governed by trusts, but the federal lands displayed on that map are not trust lands. Federal land includes all public lands, the distinct being the purpose to which they are put as defined by the Congress. That purpose can be changed by law, but many argue that today those purposes are being changed by fiat by the BLM the Forest Service, and the NPS. I think that is what is happening here.
It’s not a question of ownership and yours is a distinction without a difference. It’s a question of public use as defined by law, by granting of use permits, and by historical precedence. Mr Bundy has paid for the grazing rights that he uses on federal land and he paid for the water rights to support it. The federal government has unreasonably raised his grazing fees and has refused to let him pay grazing fees until he agrees to all the terms and conditions which includes reducing his herd size to 150 head, a limit that puts him out of business.
If the federal government does not own land, how would you propose that we have and maintain military bases?
I doubt it. From a legal perspective, Bundy does not have much of a case. He has already lost two federal court rulings and the finding of facts in those cases go against Bundy. It is very difficult to get a court to review findings of fact of another court and even harder to overturn those findings.
Me too! I am too!
As I have mentioned before, the Constitution of the State of Nevada specifically disavows any control of, including any taxation of these lands.
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Const/NvConst.html
See ORDINANCE second paragraph, item three.
Not so much as breaking the law other than trespass. More like a renter not paying rent.
Any lawyer worth his salt will tell you that trying to overturn such a ruling of fact will be a heroic effort most likely to fail.
Looks like your boys the BFLM Feds got their Tacticool Gear-Queer tushies handed to them at the Battle of the Overpass, just like you got your tushie handed to you in the Battle of the tortoise-Fort.
US Constitution Article I section 8 and Article II section 2 via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago when ownership of the lands transferred from Mexico to the United States.
Further supported by the State Constitution of Nevada where in the section known as ORDINANCE the state disavows ownership and taxation of federal lands.
My skin crawls when I think of the things you are...
:^)
Bundy ATTEMPTED to pay the county but the county refused. They can not legally accept payment for something that the do not have a legal right to. Doing so is fraud.
Ok, here is some legal and historical background:
At the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexico and the U.S. signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which granted title to that land to the U.S., for which the U.S. paid Mexico $15 million.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a super-majority of the United States Senate. Upon the signing of the treaty, the US government took ownership and title of the land.
March 3, 1849 Creation of the Home Department consolidating the General Land Office (Department of the Treasury), the Patent Office (Department of State), the Indian Affairs Office (War Department) and the military pension offices (War and Navy Departments). This is what we call the Department of the Interior.
Sixteen years later in 1864, Nevada became a state. A provision of the Nevada Statehood Act of 1864 promised that Nevada would disclaim all rights to the unappropriated public lands lying within its boundaries, and that such land would remain at the sole disposition of the United States. Again, at this point in time the US is the owner of the land. See the constitution of the state of Nevada for conformation.
1873 Congress transferred territorial oversight from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Interior.
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934[1] (P.L. 73-482) is a United States federal law that provides for the regulation of grazing on the public lands (excluding Alaska) to improve range land conditions and regulate their use. Note that this was before Bundy was even born.
1946 Interiors General Land Office and Grazing Service are merged into the Bureau of Land Management.
In 1993 after paying grazing fees for many years, the BLM decided to reduce the size of the grazing allotment to about 150 head. At this time Bundy decided to refuse to pay his grazing fees as required by law.
At no time has the US government sold or transferred title to Bundy or any other person for the land in question. The US government owns the land.
1. he represented himself. (this let the government lawyers walk all over him and his claims)
2. ALL his appeal time has lapsed. It is very rare for the apelate courts to waive it, in particular the 9th circus which has no problem endorsing all communist plans.
"From a legal perspective, Bundy does not have much of a case. He has already lost two federal court rulings and the finding of facts in those cases go against Bundy."
That's because the BFLM (Bumpkins of Feudal Land Mismanagement) keeps changing the law on him:
Take aways from the ongoing Bundyranch situation
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/22ntn8/take_aways_from_the_ongoing_bundyranch_situation/cgoyftl
Before all this there were 50 ranchers in Clark County Nevada. Now there is one. Cliven Bundy.
For 20 years they tried to remove another rancher, Mr Hage, from a neighboring county. The sheriff of that county came to his aid and told the feds to screw off. They threatened the sheriff with a swat team and he told them to bring it on, he had his own swat team. The feds screwed up with Mr Hage though. They made it a water rights issue and after 20 years, about a year after he died, they lost in court.
Now they don't play the water rights card anymore because it is too cut and dry. They now play the environmental card because they can make up the rules and change them whenever they like.
This is what they have done with Bundy. Everytime he gets where he can win, they change the laws and he loses in court.
====================
Read the whole article, and this one, too:
Hello all, native from that area here.
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/22xbf6/feds_end_roundup_release_cattle_after_tense/cgrqo1p
BTW, taxcontrol, you don't need to work so hard smearing Cliven Bundy with the BLM's (Big Load of Manure) disinfo.
CBS and the rest of the mainstream media are doing a fine job of that themselves.
SeeBS's recap of the event mentioned several times that CIVILIANS (gasp!) had HANDGUNS (GASP! x 2) when supporting peasant Bundy.
Of course, SeeBS (former home of newshack Danny Rather and that fine REAL journalist Sharyl Attkisson) failed to mention the dozens of machine-gun toting Fedcoat Gear Queers, and the supporting Fedcoat snipers.
SeeBS smear job: Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy: "The citizens of America" got my cattle back
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-the-citizens-of-america-got-my-cattle-back/
Real journalist Sharyl Attkisson
http://www.sharylattkisson.com/
Hello all, native from that area here.
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/22xbf6/feds_end_roundup_release_cattle_after_tense/cgrqo1p
Over the last 30 years, the BLM has taken more and more land, locking off more and more public space, and becoming more and more aggressive and less interested in conservation.
This is part of Bundy's point. Some people are claiming that he is raping the land and refusing to pay his way. It is far more complicated than that. As for raping the land, we covered that. His tax bill is another matter. The fees he was paying were supposed to go toward conservation. This wasn't occurring, as promised by the BLM. What was happening was that they were trying to put him out of business. He was paying them and they were working against him. He only stopped paying the fees to the BLM when it was clear to him that they weren't living up to their obligations. He appealed to the state and even sent checks for the fees to the state, which refused to take them. This was about taxation without representation, not tax evasion.
They will tell you it is because he's ruining the land or taking advantage of the system. The real reason is that the area is rich in mineral wealth that various state and local politicians have been using to get rich for decades, the latest and greatest of which is Senator Harry Reid. And now, his son Rory is getting in on the game as well.
Reid is probably involved in two deals currently. One, with the Chinese, to build a huge solar farm in the area. And the other with various oil and gas companies, who have been drilling exploratory wells in the area recently. It seems that fracking is on its way to Nevada and Reid intends to be the wheel that gets greased.
Bundy is in the way of this. Every other cattle rancher in the area has been bribed, intimidated, or both, until they have given up and quit.
Here's the REAL DEAL on the Taylor Grazing Act, and the BLM's games:
Take aways from the ongoing Bundyranch situation
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/22ntn8/take_aways_from_the_ongoing_bundyranch_situation/cgoyftl
Nevada is over 90% federal land.
When the state was carved out right at the end of the civil war, Lincoln, (the worst constitutional president in our history prior to the current one) made sure that all the states entering would bow down to the the fed and our state constitution and the great amount of federal land reflects that.
Since most of the state is desert, ranchers have always had to use tremendous acreage to feed cattle here. Our state was brought into the union around 1865. Prior to that, and after that, up till 1934 ranchers had legal free reign to graze cattle with no restrictions. This was called forage rights.
In the 1930's the ranchers had arguments between themselves regarding territories. So a few of the larger ones got together and asked the fed if they could hire them, by paying minimal fees to "manage" the land and break it out into sections. This was made into the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934.
The fees are minimal. $1.74 per cow & calf per month. Ranchers had no problem paying that just to have disagreements settled.
Ranchers were also required to secure water rights and maintain and make improvements on the land. Mr. Bundy and his predecessors have always done that. No one is arguing that fact.
Bundy's ranch was established in 1877. His family purchased it later, in the 1880's. But when they did, they had to PAY for the water and forage rights.
After the 1934 act they continued to pay grazing fees and make improvements up until the 1990's.
Somewhere along the way the Bureau of Land Management was created. I don't know what year.
Around 1990 or so they told him that he could no longer graze more than 150 of his 600 or so head of cattle there.
He told them to pound sand and kept paying his fees and grazing his cattle.
Around 1994 they told him he could only graze them in the summer, fall and winter and said it was so that the cattle didn't disturb the Desert Tortoise. (more on that later)
He told them that they were HIRED by the Taylor Grazing act to MANAGE the land for the ranchers. So he FIRED them and started paying his fees to to the state of Nevada. Soon they didn't know where to put it so they quit taking payments.
Meanwhile they came at him from another angle. When they saw they weren't going to be able to force him off the land the BLM SOLD the rights to the land to the state of Nevada under the condition that the state RETIRE the grazing rights permanently. Nevada legislators, being idiots, did their bidding. That was around 1996 or so.
But the state left him alone and let him forage all those years.
A few years ago, due to Agenda 21, Ranchers around the nation were being shut down and either bought out (with a program that paid them a lump sum of YOUR taxpayer funds in exchange for quitting ranching.
A lot of them did. The program was touted as "optional" but they intimidated the ranchers with lawsuits ranging from environmental concerns to water concerns to endangered species.
Before all this there were 50 ranchers in Clark County Nevada. Now there is one. Cliven Bundy.
For 20 years they tried to remove another rancher, Mr Hage, from a neighboring county. The sheriff of that county came to his aid and told the feds to screw off. They threatened the sheriff with a swat team and he told them to bring it on, he had his own swat team. The feds screwed up with Mr Hage though. They made it a water rights issue and after 20 years, about a year after he died, they lost in court.
Now they don't play the water rights card anymore because it is too cut and dry. They now play the environmental card because they can make up the rules and change them whenever they like.
This is what they have done with Bundy. Everytime he gets where he can win, they change the laws and he loses in court.
So now it is about the Desert Tortoise. This is an animal the BLM had a habitat for, but when they ran out of money to run the habitat they slaughtered 1800 of them. Miraculously they now claim they have mysteriously found 3 million dollars that they are paying to round up and steal Bundy's cattle. They are paying the slimy for hire private cowboys 1 million of that.
Note that the Bundys PAID for the water rights, which the Bungling Feudal Land Mismanagers are trying to steal (they brought a backhoe to a "cattle roundup")...
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.