Free Republic

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...

What was initially conceived as a ride involving a handful of Blanding residents in Recapture Canyon could grow into a massive statement against the federal government. San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman has called for the May 10 ATV ride on public land in the canyon, located just east of Blanding city limits. Lyman said he has lost patience with the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which “temporarily” closed the area to vehicular traffic in 2007 and has yet to reopen it. Lyman said the ride is to make a statement regarding local jurisdiction. However, because of the timing...

A startling decision on government wrongdoing by a federal court in U.S. v. Estate of E. Wayne Hage gives credence to those who say that the federal government is engaging in a “war on the West” that is hurting rural communities. It is a stark reminder of how powerful our federal government is today and how it can ruin the lives and businesses of American citizens.The 104-page opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Jones on May 23 in Nevada tells a sordid and infuriating tale of a two-decades-long conspiracy among federal employees of the Bureau of Land Management...

This interview was conducted with Wayne Hage at the Pine Creek Ranch in Nevada. One of America's largest ranches, it stretches over 1100 square miles (approx. 760,00 acres). From the time Hage and his family bought the ranch in June 1978 until 2009, they battled the US Government and various environmental agencies over the grazing and water rights, ultimately prevailing at the US Supreme Court level.

The Hage family last Thursday filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, appealing a claims court judgment that stripped away part of their $14 million award in a suit against the U.S. Forest Service over grazing rights in Monitor Valley. Nye County Commissioner Lorinda Wichman said Tuesday she’s afraid the ruling by a court of appeals for the federal circuit overturning part of the judgment in the Wayne Hage case — that only hand tools are allowed to be used to maintain roads in the national forest — could jeopardize the $250,000 the county spent on the...

A 75-year-old lawyer who fought private property rights battles alongside Idaho U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth and her Nevada rancher husband Wayne Hage in the 1990s is still cultivating the Sagebrush Rebellion's roots. Fred Kelly Grant has been slowed by age and heart surgery, but he's in demand from counties — and tea partyers who attend his $150-per-person seminars — as conservative elements in the West's continue to clash with the federal government. California's Siskiyou County is paying Grant $10,000 to help block removal of four Klamath River dams. Montana and Idaho counties have enlisted him to trim hated wolf populations...

A judge awarded more than $4.2 million to a late Nevada rancher's estate after finding that the U.S. Forest Service engaged in an unconstitutional "taking" of water rights out of hostility to the rancher, a property rights activist. The decision ... involved the Fifth Amendment clause against private property being taken for public use without just compensation. The rancher, Wayne Hage, bought the sprawling Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada in 1978. the taking occurred when the Forest Service made it impossible for Hage to maintain irrigation ditches, which deprived the ranch of water and made it unviable. The government...

Nearly 100 ranchers gathered in Farmington, N.M., last weekend to listen to Wayne Hage and his wife, former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage, explain how the "public" land on which their cattle graze may not be "public" at all. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found, in Hage v. United States, that the ranchers, not the federal government, may be the true owners of the property referred to as "public" land. Environmental organizations, and agencies of the federal government, have been trying to rid the West of cattle for decades. The Hage decision demonstrates that the "ownership" of the forage, water and...

Dear Members, I am sorry to deliver this news to you, but early this afternoon, my good friend and the great man we all admired and supported, Wayne Hage, passed away peacefully at his home on Pine Creek Ranch. A few weeks ago, Margaret showed him the many letters and notes all of you had sent to him, and he was overwhelmed at the warm thoughts and prayers that were within these. They gave him great comfort in his final days. The family wanted to make sure you knew how much these were appreciated by him. Funeral arrangements are being...

From Julie Smithson : Wayne Hage is ill with cancer and both he and his entire family are in great need of your prayers. Not just a Nye County, Nevada, rancher, Wayne is also one of the greatest property rights warriors to ever live. He and his beloved wife, Helen, and children Wayne, Ruthe, Ramona, and Laura, along with his late wife, Jean, have fought long and hard, not only for their own property rights and freedom, but for everyone else's, as well. Please pray for this family! From Wayne's Daughter, via the Klamath Basin Crisis Web Site: May 2006...