Free Republic

70 year old Shoshone Tribal Elder describes Harry Reid and the BLM's 30 year-long GRAB for her family's ancestral lands. In the early nineties, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Government set it sights on another tract of land in Nevada… The target this time was the ANCESTRAL tribal land of two elderly, Native American sisters from the Dann band of Western Shoshones, Mary and Carrie Dann. In a case that sounds familiar to the Bundy family’s plight, the BLM charged that the Dann sisters' livestock was trespassing on federal land. The BLM first planned to round...

Readers of USA TODAY: Some have asked why didn't my father pay the grazing fee. This can be understood in two ways. One is founded on preemptive rights and the other upon state rights or state sovereignty. When my family rolled into this country in the 1800's they began to tame the land and use it for survival, settling this land the same as the rest of the United States. Each family claimed their stake and developed the area. Others respected the area and understood as long as the family was using the resources or land it was the families...

'Remember, this is the 19th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing' CUPP: "I'd be reluctant to compare Bundy to Timothy McVeigh. I think what Harry Reid said was despicable. But I agree with Bill. There's a role for civil disobedience. I'm not sure this is the best quality example of it. This is a guy who didn't start out to start a revolution, he just wanted to pay his grazing fees, and there are better ways to go about it." ANCHOR: "'Just didn't want to pay his grazing fees' -- about a million dollars in grazing fees." CUPP: "No, that's...

The federal government seized Raymond Yowell’s cattle — all 132 head — and hauled them across the state and sold them at auction. Then the U.S. Bureau of Land Management sent Yowell a bill for $180,000 for back grazing fees and penalties, and later garnished part of his Social Security benefits. Now, nearly a decade later, the 81-year-old former chief of the Western Shoshone National Council is fighting back. He’s suing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Treasury Department and others for $30 million. Yowell claims the government violated his constitutional rights, broke an 1863 treaty and saddled him...