Posted on 04/12/2014 11:09:47 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BUNKERVILLE (KSNV MyNews3.com) -- The gathering of rancher Cliven Bundy's cattle in northeast Clark County has been stopped by the director of the Bureau of Land Management.
The BLM announcement came as Bundy was meeting with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie about the week-long dispute.
The BLM had been using contract cowboys to round up Bundy's 900 head of cattle that have been grazing over 600,000 square acres in northeast Clark County for more than 20 years without his payment of grazing fees.
As of Friday they had secure 389 cattle from the Gold Butte area, nearly 90 percent of them marked with the Bundy Ranch brand.
New BLM Director Neil Kornze made the following statement this morning:
"As we have said from the beginning of the gather to remove illegal cattle from federal land consistent with court orders, a safe and peaceful operation is our number one priority. After one week, we have made progress in enforcing two recent court orders to remove the trespass cattle from public lands that belong to all Americans.
"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.
"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.
Ranching has always been an important part of our nation’s heritage and continues throughout the West on public lands that belong to all Americans. This is a matter of fairness and equity, and we remain disappointed that Cliven Bundy continues to not comply with the same laws that 16,000 public lands ranchers do every year. After 20 years and multiple court orders to remove the trespass cattle, Mr. Bundy owes the American taxpayers in excess of $1 million. The BLM will continue to work to resolve the matter administratively and judicially."
Gov. Brian Sandoval reacted to the BLM decision with a statement.
"The safety of all individuals involved in this matter has been my highest priority," the email said. "Given the circumstances, today's outcome is the best we could have hoped for. I appreciate that the Department of the Interior and the BLM were willing to listen to the concerns of the people of Nevada."
If you want to state an opinion and make an argument, you must begin with a set of facts. Mr Roger is providing facts in the law that have been in operation since the country was founded. My ancestors received federal land grants for Revolutionary War service in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. These lands were ceded to the Federal Government when these states entered the Union. The states did this in exchange for the Federal Government assuming our Revolutionary War debt. Sales of these lands helped retire that debt.
Stomping your feet is not going to change those facts. It’s all part of American history and anyone can learn about it.
Looks like Harry Reid beat him to it.
Bombshell: Harry Reid behind Bundy cattle ranch scandal, according to purged documents
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/04/12/bombshell-harry-reid-behind-bundy-cattle-ranch-scandal-according-to-purged-documents-112136
Jim is quite right. The BLM is a rogue agency in criminal league with the EPA, the Sierra Club, and greedy politicians. The original intent for shared use of public lands by everyone for economic purposes is long gone. The goals are now to reserve such use to the privileged elite who live in cities.
Such is the risk when government owns all the land. See the Magna Carta.
xzins, I had a long talk last night with my rancher friend, who was my college roommate in the 70s. He has lost 2 allotments outright in the last 6 months and is scrambling to find grazing anywhere. He said he was very sympathetic to Bundy because he’s tired of needing to kiss butt each year with the BLM and is beginning to think his sons will have nothing to inherit.
However, he also said that around 1990, there was a guy who went around telling ranchers that they didn’t need to pay grazing fees, and that the federal government could not own land and that people were citizens of states, but not of America. One of his close friends bought off on it and has spent 20 years refusing to pay income taxes, get a drivers license, etc.He’s sympathetic to his friend as well, but admits it sounds pretty crazy to most people.
Regardless of what one thinks about a law, I think it is important to at least be clear what the law currently is. Under current law, the US could sell much of the BLM land in Nevada to a Chinese investor to build whatever. The Chinese investor would probably soon learn what many settlers learned in the 1800s - that in the mountain west, land without water rights isn’t worth squat. That is why land was not given away during the 1800s: No one wanted it because it has no steady water. No water, no life. You cannot run a factory or a farm without water.
Water rights law might have made it possible for Bundy to make a case. But as it stands, his case is based on his not being an American. That won’t get him or us far in political debate. It will not get him anywhere in court.
It is completely reasonable to argue that the federal government should turn over most of its land to the states. I’d love to see that in Arizona. But I shouldn’t go around telling people that the feds have no authority in Arizona. If I drive to the north of Tucson and hike in the Catalina Mtns, and park along the road without paying, my car will get a ticket and they can collect that ticket in court. I’ll lose, and so will anyone who follows my example.
Agreed. Thanks, centurion 316.
During the months that I spent working for the Forest service in 79-80, the USFS lived by the rule of “multiple use”. I worked supporting timber sales and building campgrounds. We were looking at using timber sales to create fire breaks and open up land for grazing.
Those days are long gone. The USFS has gone preservationist, as has the BLM. The Park Service has always been that way. About 30 miles from where I’m sitting, they dug up paved roads that had been there for 50 years so they could call the land a ‘wilderness area’. It was completely and totally dishonest.
My concern is that I don’t know what one does when a society has become as dishonest as ours now is. What good does it do to pass a law if the President is free to ignore it or change it on his whims, and the GOP does nothing to stop him? If the GOP House won’t even hold his feet to the fire on changing Obamacare daily, what hope do we have? The Jr Senator from Arizona ran as a supposed Tea Party type conservative, then turned hard left immediately after winning - Jeff McFlake, buttboy to John McCain. If we cannot even get an honest conservative in Arizona, what hope is there?
I really don’t consider quoting the Constitution to be stomping my feet, but if that’s what you think it is, then so be it. In fact, I thought the post was fairly well reasoned and polite.
Now, as to the arrangement you mentioned, it is also mentioned in the Northwest Ordinance. I imagine that same understanding is what encouraged states to cede territory to the Confederate government operating under the articles of Confederation. I say that because the Ordinance preceded the US Constitution.
I’d be curious about dating all of this about Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia.
Nonetheless, it still is not reasonable to see the Federal Government as the property owner of all unclaimed land. They are stewards of it on behalf of the people, the first branch of our government.
“We the People of the United (sovereign nation-)States in order to form a more perfect union “
First branch of Government: the People
Second branch of Government: the States
http://www.doi.gov/whoweare/blm-dir.cfm
“Kornze was a key player in the development of the Western Solar Plan and the agency's successful authorization of more than 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy, surpassing a congressionally-established goal 3 years ahead of schedule. He has also been active in tribal consultation, especially as it relates to oil and gas and renewable energy development.
Before coming to the BLM, Kornze worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.”
Given the mixed signals that came out of this Bundy issue, I really don’t care if my analysis below is not even in ballpark.
Harry Reid is in cahoots with a Chinese solar company that wanted to set up shop on the land that Bundy is using for cattle grazing. And since nobody knows that the feds actually have no constitutional control over the land because since the feds evidently never purchased it through the Constitution’s Clause 17 of Section 8 of Article I, or the eminent domain clause of the 5th Amendment, dirty Harry abuses constitutionally nonexistant federal powers by sicking the BLM on Bundy to try to kick him off the land.
But after details of who actually owns the land gets leaked, not that we can actually trust when Obama guard dog Hanity indicates that that State of Nevada own the land, then dirty Harry aborts his BLM plan so the dirt (pun intended) doesn’t get traced back to him.
But also note that since Bundy doesn’t own the land, then he’s always going to have problems with it. You need to own the land that you use.
I’ve not heard Bundy say he is not a US Citizen. On the other hand, I’ve not heard him say he is a Nevada citizen. I have heard (or read? it all blends together sometimes) him say that he owes to Nevada or the county, iirc.
So, is it appropriate for Nevada to claim sovereignty over all the land within its borders and assert that it has first ownership to the land in the state?
That would be dispute decided between a state and the Fed, and I’d like to see the result, because it would have to be decided by the Scotus according to the Constitution.
I think the “dispose of” clause is the clincher argument. If they can dispose of Nevada contrary to the wishes of Nevada, then Nevada is not a sovereign state.
The BLM and the gov’mint say these are “public lands.” There is nothing public about it when the imperial federal government can say what the rules are and the public has no say so. The government is about TOTAL CONTROL over EVERYTHING, every aspect of our daily lives. From the moment we are born until they drop you in the grave. Every waking minute of the day, hour after hour, day after day, etc. The United States Government is now the new Soviet Union. They run the Republic like Stalin ran the USSR. The only thing missing is the murder of citizens by the millions and the gulags. But those are just over the hill and coming at us as fast as a rocket. America as a free nation, a nation of the people, by the people and for the people. That is now just a cliche to the feds. In Sodom on the Potomac there about 1,000 or so people who RULE the nation. We are being more and more under their thumb every day. And more is to come. What we were, what we had, what we wish we could go back too, is gone. We will fall man by man, woman by woman. Eventually a man called Antichrist will rule. Then the real crap begins. Time grows short. The Lord is coming back and only HE can fix this mess. And HE WILL.
I guess if Harry Reid has the cunning to attempt something like this, his Alzheimer’s must be in the early stages.
I think that it’s very useful to have a discussion about federal land policy and how it has been warped in the past 20 years. But, such a discussion ought to begin with an understanding of the evolution of that policy and legal and historical roots.
This incident offers an opportunity to do something about the corruption that has taken hold and to put law and regulation back into their proper role. You’ll have to bone up on it on your own, however, the media and much of the commentary here won’t help much.
The county to the south of mine is 90% government land. It will never develop economically. There will never be much employment. Having the government hold unused land is a huge injury to the people living there.
I agree with you. The Harry Reid angle on this, and the BLM land grabs elsewhere (Red River, Texas) means there’s more to this entire mess than meets the eye.
I also agree that discussion of policy over the years is helpful. I’m not above nullification, though, if it violates the Constitution. It wouldn’t be the first set of laws and judgments that were simply wrong.
The Court says it’s ok to kill babies.
You are quite right about how it used to be. In the seventies I had almost unhindered access to Forest Service land as did everyone else. You had to share it with loggers and ranchers, but it wasn’t hard to stay out of one another’s way.
Many of the Forest Rangers were WWII and Korean War II vets, outsdoorsmen who jumped at the chance for a job doing what they loved. They were friendly, gave good advice, and if they thought that you might need a little firearm protection, they made sure that you got that advice.
They are all gone now, replaced by the tree huggers who think that it all belongs to them.
Indeed, if it belongs to the Federal Government, then they could give it to Arizona or Mexico. If Nevada only has authority over 20% of its territory, then it is not a state. It is still a territory.
It seems that Harry Reid is attempting to arrange a sale of a chunk of Nevada to China.
Bump
Yeh, their safety. They were hiding behind their vehicles with a thousand people and 100 mounted cowboys advancing on them.
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