Free Republic

GOP rallies around meat industry in response to attack by Colorado's Jared Polis... The red meat wars have hit America. Republican governors representing heartland states are uniting in support of the cattle industry in response to calls from Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, to move his state away from eating meat. The herd of Republican governors of Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, and Montana has taken issue with Polis's call for Saturday, March 20, to be observed as "MeatOut Day," during which residents are asked to replace meat with a plant-based alternative. All four Republican governors issued proclamations in response,...

CPW is now accepting applications for membership in the Stakeholder Advisory Group for wolf reintroduction and management in Colorado. Stakeholder Advisory Group Application.. Applications for membership in the Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) for wolf reintroduction and management in Colorado are being accepted and must be received no later than March 31, 2021. The application link includes instructions for applying as well as the application itself. Download the Stakeholder Advisory Group Application. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is charged with restoring and managing gray wolves in Colorado no later than December 31, 2023. Based on public feedback and Colorado Parks...

VALENTINE, Neb. – “Land: see Snatch.” On first look, the Biden Administration’s “30 x 30” plan looks like a scheme cooked up by Hedley Lamarr, the main villain from Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” However, far from the comedic genius of the late Harvey Korman, the new Federal land grab is a serious threat to private property owners in the United States. And it’s moving fast.. Just a few days into office, President Joe Biden released a flurry of executive orders, among them being through Executive Order 14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” (86 Fed. Reg. 7,619), which...

Bill Clinton’s land management rules and other liberal policies paved the way for future debilitating wildfires ... Zybach warned of potential disastrous wildfires shortly after Clinton signed a slate of rules in the mid-1990s that drastically reduced logging and road creation on federal lands. ... Shortly before leaving office in 2001, Clinton limited the ability of the United States Forest Service to thin out a dense thicket of foliage and downed trees on federal land... created a ticking time bomb ... “If you don’t start managing these forests, then they are going to start burning up. Thirty years later, they...

FAIRFIELD, Idaho — Great Pyrenees dogs that are working to protect flocks of sheep in the southern Idaho wilderness keep getting “rescued” by people who think the dogs are lost. Flat Top sheep rancher Cory Peavey is frustrated because he is spending a lot of time picking up his expensive dogs that he uses to protect his herd from shelters or people’s homes. There are many sheep ranchers in Idaho, and many use Great Pyrenees dogs, something that might look out of the ordinary in the woods to someone camping. Peavy understands that it might be strange to see a...

A 29-mile convoy through southern Oregon, followed by a rally, followed by a direct appeal to the White House, and a decision by the Department of the Interior. That’s what it took to open up irrigation water for farmers in southern Oregon last week. It all started with one of the biggest protests you probably didn’t even notice. In a June 9 press release, the Bureau of Reclamation announced that it had restored the 140,000-acre-feet of water originally promised to farmers in the Klamath Basin at the beginning of the season: Today, the Bureau of Reclamation confirmed the 2020 water...

Roosevelt Room 11:33 A.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  We’re here this morning to announce dramatic action to support our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and growers as we work to safely re-open America.  And it’s happening very fast — much faster and with much better numbers than anybody would have thought.I want to begin by expressing our profound gratitude to everyone here today, and the farmers and producers across the country, who have kept our nation fed and nourished as we have battled the invisible enemy.  It is an invisible enemy.  It’s tough, but we’re going to win, and we’re going to win...

Wolf depredations on livestock in Idaho reached a record level during the past fiscal year, which ended June 30. From July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019, Idaho Wildlife Services conducted 264 depredation investigations related to wolf complaints from 136 livestock producers in 17 counties. Of those 264 investigations, 175 involved confirmed wolf depredations, said Todd Grimm, the Idaho state director of Wildlife Services, which is a federal agency that helps solve conflicts between humans and animals. “Last year we had a pretty busy year,” he said during the Idaho Wolf Depredation Control Board’s Aug. 21 meeting. “The cattle guys...

President Donald Trump pardoned two men on Tuesday who were involved in a dispute with federal authorities over federal land usage that sparked the takeover of a wildlife refuge in Oregon. Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven Hammond were granted executive grants of clemency by Trump, according to a White House statement. The father-son duo are cattle ranchers and were convicted in 2012 of committing arson on federal lands in Oregon. "Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency," the statement read....

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon ranchers whose arson conviction became a focus for opponents of federal government land ownership. Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son Steven, 49, were convicted in 2012 and sent to prison on arson charges. They had set a series of fires on their ranch that spread to federal land. The Hammonds’ case became the inspiration for the 40-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The organizers wanted to protest federal land ownership. The Hammonds distanced themselves from the occupiers and didn't endorse the action. In a statement Tuesday...

President Donald Trump pardoned two Oregon ranchers forced back into prison in 2016 to serve out the rest of the mandatory minimum sentence required under an anti-terrorism law. “The Hammonds are multi-generation cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land,” the White House said in a statement. “The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges. Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted of committing arson on federal land in 2012 under an anti-terrorism...

A federal judge dismissed all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and another man on Monday after accusing prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited "flagrant prosecutorial misconduct" in her decision to dismiss all charges against the Nevada rancher and three others. "The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," Navarro said. “Either the government lied or [it’s actions were] so grossly negligent as to be tantamount to lying." - Judge Andrew Napolitano Bundy's supporters cheered as he walked out of court a free man, hugging...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A U.S. court has sided with a New Mexico ranching family in a decades-long battle over access to water on national forest land, providing more certainty that state law allows for the protection of water rights dating back more than a century. The case of the Goss family has been closely watched by thousands of ranchers who hold grazing permits across the West. Attorneys and others say the outcome could have ripple effects on ranchers and rural communities that have often complained about federal land managers trampling property rights. The Goss family claimed the federal government violated...

Bravo to the the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and the Oregonian for helping release the truth from that cage The truth will always out. The truth will always out even when top authorities squat on it for five long months in efforts to suppress it from ever finding sunlight. “An FBI agent has been indicted and accused of lying about firing shots at slain Oregon militia member LaVoy Finicum during a fatal roadside encounter, according to (a) report.” (NY Daily News, June 28, 2017)

If only the Trump administration would step in and demand fairness from the Bureau of Land Management for ranchers and farmers in memory of the late LaVoy Finicum No rancher’s cattle straying away to graze the grass on land the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers their own will ever get away with it. While seven ranchers still languish in jail awaiting trial from incidents connected to the 2016 Malheur National Forest Standoff where rancher LaVoy Finicum was shot down under questionable circumstances, up to 30,000 aimless hangers on to the Rainbow Family of Living Light have outfoxed he BLM...

Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration's Waters of the U.S. rule WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump has signed another executive order that will impact farmers and ranchers. Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule. Senator Heitkamp says it’s time for Congress to act by giving the EPA direction on what water is jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act. Senator Hoeven says the rule was a regulatory overreach that...

There is no practical rationale behind any federal agency having a private army to bully, extort and ultimately endanger American citizens. When it comes to disparate groups of protesters who claim to value the land, the line is drawn definitively between the raucous, violent rabble that descended upon the Cannonball River in North Dakota and the orderly numbers that arrived at Malheur Wildlife Refuge and the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. Let’s list the differences, shall we?

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

The Environmental Protection Agency has violated the personal privacy of tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, according to a unanimous ruling issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The ruling in American Farm Bureau Federation and National Pork Producers Council vs. EPA concerned the federal agency's 2013 release to three environmental groups of a vast compilation of spreadsheets containing personal information about farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and poultry in 29 states. The case also related to similar personal information from farmers and ranchers in seven additional states that had yet to be...

It was a rough morning for U.S. attorneys arguing the federal government’s case against Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and six other defendants accused of conspiring to occupy an Oregon wildlife refuge. A visibly frustrated Judge Anna Brown struck from the record a previous ruling that effectively allowed evidence from defendants’ Facebook accounts into next month’s trial. Despite calling an assistant U.S. attorney, two legal assistants and an FBI agent as witnesses, prosecutors weren’t able to explain to the court how protected information from 11 Facebook accounts used by defendants ended up being shared as part of discovery. Judge Brown ordered...