Free Republic

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s decades-long battle against the federal government over grazing rights has heated to the point where militia groups have joined in and taken up spots against the feds who’ve circled his land — and talk is, they’re not afraid to open fire. A spokesman for the one of the militia groups said as much to local 8 News Now: I’m not “afraid to shoot,” he said. Margaret Houston, Mr. Bundy’s sister and a cancer survivor, said at a town hall gathering this week that the situation “was like a war zone” and that she felt “like I...

BLANDING, Utah (AP) -- Laminated sheets of paper held in place by rocks rest inside ancient cliff dwellings nestled underneath a spectacular red rock overhang in southeastern Utah. "Don't erase the traces of America's past," the signs read. "Please do not enter interior rooms." The weathered signs and a similar warning at the trailhead are the only protections in place for these easily accessible ruins along a canyon hiking path. -snip- Opponents agree the area is a natural treasure worth preserving but fear a federal designation would create restrictions on oil and gas development as well residents' ability to camp,...

A rural New Mexico county has voted to defy the federal government and give a rancher's cattle access to a watering hole fenced off by the Forest Service in the latest dispute over federal control of public land in the U.S. West. Commissioners in Otero County voted 2-0 on Monday night to authorize Sheriff Benny House to open a gate allowing nearly 200 head of cattle into the 23-acre area despite Forest Service restrictions. A third commissioner was out of town for the vote. "We are reacting to the infringement of the U.S. Forest Service on the water rights of...

Long before Cliven Bundy faced down federal agents in his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights, fellow Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell, an 84-year-old former Shoshone chief, watched as the BLM seized his herd. Adding to that, since 2008 they've taken his money as well -- in the form of a piece of his Social Security checks. Yowell's 132 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until 2002, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- the same agency at odds with Bundy -- seized them....

Like everyone else, Gavin McInnes has weighed in on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's observations on "the Negro". Mr McInnes concludes:This isn't about some old guy's views on slavery. It's about government control. We're not saying Bundy is the messiah and we accept him as our personal savior. We're saying the government is wrong. Let's stipulate that Cliven Bundy is a racist. Let's also assume, if only to save time, that he's Islamophobic, homophobic and transphobic. So what? Does that make criticizing the Bureau of Land Management "racist" or "homophobic"?

The Nevada cattle rancher at the center of a land dispute with the federal government should not have to surrender his property, an Arizona official says, because he has been acting within the boundaries of the law. Barry Weller, vice chairman of the Apache County Board of Supervisors, told J.D. Hayworth and John Bachman on "America's Forum" Monday on Newsmax TV that he thinks Cliven Bundy was right in standing up to the Bureau of Land Management, which sought to seize his ranch. Bundy says his family has homesteaded since 1877 on the land, which the federal government says belongs...

When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed – one way or the other. Other Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property. Laney was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground confrontation...

ENTERPRISE - Buffalo are again roaming the wilderness in Eastern Oregon. The shaggy beasts are indigenous to the state but are now classified as domestic livestock, not wildlife, under animal and health statutes that govern their importation into Oregon. But that hasn't kept them confined to fenced pastures. Ranchers are raising an estimated 2,000 of the naturally migratory animals, and several herds have escaped. Their presence is a headache for private landowners and public land managers - and a hairy surprise for some hikers - across Eastern Oregon. Yet some ranchers advocate setting more bison free as a natural solution...