Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) claimed on Thursday that armed supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy are “domestic terrorists” and reckless individuals who put their families in danger.
Speaking at a Las Vegas Review-Journal event, Reid was clear: “They’re nothing more than domestic terrorists. I repeat: what happened there was domestic terrorism.”
The rhetoric certainly will do nothing to ease already-high tensions after the Bureau of Land Management prematurely shut down its operation to round up Bundy’s “trespass cattle” on Saturday. The federal agency cited fears of public safety after having run-ins with armed militia members who traveled to Bunkerville, Nev., to support the rancher.
Bundy reportedly owes the federal government roughly $1 million in grazing fees, an amount he accumulated after he “fired” the Bureau of Land Management in 1993 over its decision to turn public land into a protective habitat for the state’s desert tortoise.
There are two court orders that permit BLM to execute a roundup of 500 to 900 of Bundy’s “trespass cattle,” Reid reportedly said.
Reid, who recently said the situation is “not over,” revealed on Thursday there is a federal task force being assembled to handle to the tense situation.
“Clive Bundy does not recognize the United States,” Reid said. “The United States, he says, is a foreign government. He doesn’t pay his taxes. He doesn’t pay his fees. And he doesn’t follow the law. He continues to thumb his nose at authority.”
“It is an issue we cannot let go, just walk away from,” he added.
Many conservatives in the west HATE the BLM to start with. I know people who I know are Clive Bundy supporters without even asking them about it. These same folks also called Janet Reno a murderer in the aftermath of the Waco event with the Branch Davidians. They have similar feelings about Ruby Ridge.
Is Harry Reid correct? Are these supporters and Clive Bundy himself domestic terrorists? Do they fit the definition of terrorism?
From another perspective, dailymail.co.uk reported:
- Cliven Bundy said he expects officials with the Bureau of Land Management to make another attempt to seize his cattle
- Bundy, 67, won the first round of his fight with agents after they released hundreds of cows seized as part of a dispute over grazing rights in Nevada
- Fears of an armed confrontation with dozens of militia who’d camped out in a field leading to Bundy’s ranch led officials to call off their operation
Bundy should pay his bills. Why does he want to live off the federal government, free of charge? Why not keep his cattle on his own property? I can’t just go let my animals roam all over the National Battlefield a couple miles from me.
The Blaze seems to want to slam at Harry Reid For calling out a dangerous situation. Bundy’s rough-riders are acting like domestic terrorists when they attack the BLM agents.
Stay tuned….
He is absolutely right.
With the evidence of illegal damage, unwarranted attacks on a citizen, and threatening citizens with snipers, the agency truly acted as terrorists in service of corrupt government politicians that want the land for private business deals with China.
Oh….you mean that’s NOT what he meant?
What about that million dollars Bundy owes the taxpayers of the United States? (I personally HATE the word taxpayer–we are mostly all taxpayers in one form or another) Bundy needs to pay his rental. Now. He needs to send his “supporters” home.
This is a situation looking for a place to explode. It’s fairly hard to find neutrality on this one also. One of the least biased was The Blaze.
Clive Bundy took something that wasn’t his. He’s a grifter, a moocher, a taker. These are the words we should be using. He’s looking for a handout. He feels he’s entitled to something that belongs to someone else. If any of these phrases were used by Senator Reid, then Faux News would have refused to use the sound bite because it’s using their own rhetoric. Instead, he used the term ‘domestic terrorist’ and added fuel to the fire. When is someone going to teach Reid about messaging?
Bundy is a leftist socialist who seems to feel that the Government and we, the taxpayors, owe a cost-free living to him and his cattle. Fox should run that story line. It has the advantage of being accurate.
Good one, Scout!
I agree with Confused. Bundy is acting like the old cattle barons who thought any open land was theirs to use as they saw fit and the law of the land was the six-shooter and the rifle. Was the BLM correct in doing what they were attempting to do? I believe so but in this case prudence was the better choice–killing people over cattle is too reminiscent of Waco. He can be isolated and put out of business without firing one shot. To call him a, “leftist socialist” seem very ironic. He is a hard core conservative who doesn’t want the government involved in his business. To call him a, “domestic terrorist” is just plain NUTS. Reid did this to get attention and to apparently distract attention from some interest his son, and perhaps Reid, have in the area.
I was intending to be ironic, George. But Bundy’s impulses are completely Socialist, regardless of what he calls himself. He seems to think that the rest of us, and the Government as steward of our public lands, should feed him and his cattle at our expense. There’s nothing “conservative” about that. It’s just a hi-jacking of a “conservative” label for purposes of justifying mooching (to use Confused’s very apt term) from the public trough.
Hmmm…
Snipers to collect a debt.
Tasering people that are defending themselves.
Throwing a defenseless pregnant woman to the ground.
Bringing backhoes to a cattle “round up”
The BLM has done this before.
http://www.infowars.com/federal-judge-blm-engaged-in-a-criminal-conspiracy-against-ranchers/
And yes…while that is infowars…..the summary of the Hage case is quite good.
Funny how the mitigation zone for the tortoise was moved to cover his grazing area. You know..those tortoises that were actually moved out of the solar power plant area. Can’t stop progress because of a tortoise.
900 cattle on 500,000+ acres. Yep…that sure sounds like a problem.
Bundy has no problem paying his “taxes.” He tried to get the state to take them, even in escrow. Why should he pay an agency that uses that money to put him out of business?
Its been 20 years. Why didn’t they merely take the money out of his IRS returns, levy his cattle or property, etc? Why now? What changed?
The BLM acted thuggishly. The locals were worried about another WACO or Ruby Ridge. The government does have a reputation for killing people.
From videos I saw, that pregnant woman wasn’t so defenseless. What was she doing there in the first place? Why does Bundy think I should be supporting his cattle. Is he going to share his profits with me?
Are you telling me that the locals there support child sexual abuse? That was the main issue at Waco. Never mind, I am sure we will never agree on that one and you also are probably one of those people who called the former Attorney General “Janet Rhino.”
I’m not defending BLm’s tactical decisions, CS. This, Waco, Ruby Ridge all seem like situations where clever people could have found less heavy-handed ways to preserve order and uphold the law. (although this incident doesn’t come anywhere close to the carnage of those other examples).
The underlying point, however, is that Bundy is essentially someone who feels entitled to take benefits from the rest of us. I view that as an inherently leftist, collectivist instinct.
Entitled. Now why would he think that?
Could it be that he had preemptive rights? Could it be that he objected to the fact that the BLM wants him out of business and was using his own money to do it? He’d be happy to pay if the BLM held up their part of the bargain in managing the land for grazing.
Also…. under what authority did the BLM have the right to take private property without due process and plan to auction it off? Apparently, those actions also broke laws concerning the sale of the animals.
SHIREE BUNDY COX:
“I have had people ask me to explain my dad’s stance on this BLM fight. In as simple of terms as I can explain it. There is so much to it, but here it is in a nut shell.
My great grandpa bought the rights to the Bunkerville allotment back in 1887 around there. Then he sold them to my grandpa who then turned them over to my dad in 1972. These men bought and paid for their rights to the range and also built waters, fences and roads to assure the survival of their cattle, all with their own money, not with tax dollars.
These rights to the land use is called preemptive rights.
Some where down the line, to keep the cows from over grazing, came the bureau of land management. They were supposed to assist the ranchers in the management of their ranges while the ranchers paid a yearly allotment which was to be use to pay the BLM wages and to help with repairs and improvements of the ranches. My dad did pay his grazing fees for years to the BLM until they were no longer using his fees to help him and to improve.
Instead they began using these monies against the ranchers. They bought all the rest of the ranchers in the area out with their own grazing fees. When they offered to buy my dad out for a pittance, he said no thanks and then fired them because they weren’t doing their job. He quit paying the BLM but, tried giving his grazing fees to the county, which they turned down. So my dad just went on running his ranch and making his own improvements with his own equipment and his own money, not taxes.
In essence the BLM was managing my dad out of business. Well when buying him out didn’t work, they used the endangered species card. You’ve already heard about the desert tortoise. Well that didn’t work either, so then began the threats and the court orders, which my dad has proven to be unlawful for all these years.
Now their desperate. It’s come down to buying the brand inspector off and threatening the County Sheriff. Everything their doing at this point is illegal and totally against the Constitution of the United States of America.
Now you may be saying,” how sad, but what does this have to do with me?” Well, I’ll tell you. They will get rid of Cliven Bundy, the last man standing on the Bunkerville allotment and then they will close all the roads so no one can ever go on it again. Next, it’s Utah’s turn. Mark my words, Utah is next.
I simply think these people are full of sh!t.
This isn’t the wild west.
Don’t get me wrong…
My objections are not to enforcing the law. My objections are to the heavy handed approach by the BLM using tactics like snipers and aggressive cops that can’t control their dogs.
There are ways to do this.
I keep seeing reports of “feral cattle.” Well, if said cattle are out of the grazing areas….. and have no identifying brands…… BBQ them.
If a steer is endangering people or blocking roads…or causing trouble…..same thing. If a cow is seen damaging crops……simple solution. Free BBQ.
And again…why has the BLM suddenly decided after 20 years to go after his cattle? Complaints about Bundy having the cattle go into non-Bunkerville allotment areas….. those would be fair game.
Lawless, disgusting behavior, all the way around. They should wait until this guy goes to the grocery store one afternoon, then handcuff him and hold him on contempt charges (at the very least). The people who organized and agitated an armed mob should be investigated and prosecuted if appropriate. Likewise, whomever made the call to send in BLM SWAT teams should be hoisted on their own petard. The government should act like any other litigant. Swear out a warrant for Bundy and pick him up.
Longer term, I’d like them to take a hard look at exactly why the government owns upwards of 80% of the land in Nevada. This seems excessive.
Harry Reid is as crooked as they come, so as long as we have investigators in the field perhaps send a few crawling up his nether region to probe exactly what financial interests of his might have been in play here.
I just love Fox and Hannity on this very topic. Rule of Law – except when it suits them. Rule of Law for other people, just not for me. And then he is a Patriot for standing up to the Fed’s.
The courts have repeatedly decided against him. The Facts are not on his side. He does not own the land. He has not paid for grazing rights. He is a freeloader.
+1 Confused.
Most people who gravitate towards “rule of law” tend to make it vey situational, I have found.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/19/msnbc-host-debates-michele-fiore-on-bundy-ranch-does-not-fare-well/
Excerpt:
Hayes tries his very best to repeatedly get Fiore to agree that Bundy is a criminal of one sort or another and goes the extra mile in slyly trying to get the Assemblywoman to say she agrees with Bundy that the federal government has no authority. She’s having none of it, and drives the conversation back to a few key points like a jackhammer.
– Why is the federal government sending men with guns to collect a debt, assuming one is owed?
– How much, if anything does Bundy actually owe? Liberals have been throwing around the figure of A MILLION DOLLARS for some time now, but then backed off to possibly only being a couple hundred thousand.
– Why is Harry Reid so heavily involved when something definitely looks “suspicious” about that?
It’s a pretty great interview, so take a look.
———————————-
Haven’t actually watched it. In the middle of writing a 10 page poli/sci paper comparing the Chinese and Indian Carrier programs and naval policy.
But I needed a short break.
There have been many court hearings. Bundy is already in contempt of court. Not sure how they do things down Richmond way but our Sheriff’s department goes armed to do its business. So do our police.
What moron would go meet a group of vigilantes unarmed?
Absolutely brilliant move by the BLM. In the middle of a midterm election year with the US Senate in play, in an era when things go so frequently viral on the internet, they send a heavily armed SWAT to round up the cattle of a lone Nevada rancher. The whole country gets to see the guns and the dogs facing off against Joe and Josephine Sixpack from the Far West. Then the SWAT backs off — likely on orders from the political PR types in Washington. And old Harry Reid opens his mouth and becomes the grumping heavy. Whoever wrote this Washington script ought to be canned.
So you assume that most people watching agree with you? Most people I have talked to are fairly horrified at Joe and Josephine and their vigilante posse.
This situation is very volatile. Those vigilantes on horseback and pickup truck blocked a major interstate around the Nevada/AZ border. That tends to get everyone’s attention.
Yep. A lot of people in this country are concerned to begin with about the seeming “militarization” of local police forces these days. Add to that all the ammo the USG civilian agencies have been buying of late. It has given people pause. Then they see a federal SWAT with weapons, dogs, and combat uniforms up against ordinary American citizens in Nevada. Whoever in Washington came up with that idea is an idiot. If Bundy was in violation of a court order, he should have been arrested per SOP. But, no, they had to make a big circus out of it by trying to round up his cattle on the range and were stupid enough not to realize that it would go very public in this tech age. Another black eye for Washington. Much citizen unhappiness about our law enforcement agencies …even though I suspect most of those guys didn’t want to be there doing that in that way.
Different perceptions rom different people with different political agendas.
I expect those people traveling along the major N/S interstate who were blocked for hours felt a little different than those anarchists you described.
Bundy is a moocher who is getting rich off the land that he does not own nor does he pay rent on.
Those yahoos looked like they were having a fine time, jumping around, shooting off their mouths and packing heat.
I watched a show the other day about Washington in the 60’s. One scene showed the anti war protestors trying to get in the Justice Department. According to Pat Buchanan, the guards had been told to machine gun them if they got through. Maybe the yahoos should be glad that lawlessness is treated a little gentler now than it was in my youth.
I doubt the decisions are being made in Washington. The BLM is more of a western bureaucracy than an eastern one. They are more autonomous than most.
That federal “SWAT” didn’t “go meet a group of vigilantes.” The “SWAT” got there first, shut down the area, and started their cattle roundup circus. The “vigilantes,” as you call them, came in response to the “SWAT” actions and in sympathy for Bundy. The “SWAT” presence was pure banana republic to begin with. Shameful.
You can document that? BLM, according to most sources, didn’t shut down I 15. The vigilantes did.
Doesn’t make any difference whether the BLM may be more “western” than “eastern.” It is still Washington. If that fiasco in Nevada happened without an imprimatur from Washington, the BLM “decider” should lose his job. However, it is getting mighty suspicious that Washington is trying to scapegoat the lower levels so often — Benghazi at the State assistant secretary level; Fast and Furious at the ATF base level in Arizona; the tech company assigned to the ACA rollout; and the IRS Cincinnati crew in the IRS scandal. So many federal “rogues” out there and and so many top dogs in Washington who claim they were never told. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Yea, those really looked like “suits” to me getting out of those BLM vehicles. NOT.
That leftist rag, The New York Times, had this to say about the moocher and his stand-off. What’s in dispute?
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/the-pretend-complexity-of-the-nevada-cattle-grazing-dispute/?_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
Sounds much like tea bagger bullying.
Don’t leave out the middle eastern practice of the men shielding themselves with women and children.
I was sympathetic at first to the little guy taking on the leviathan federal government. But as I learned more about the situation, it became clear that the situation is complicated. Both parties are aggrieved. Bundy’s argument that the Feds arbitrarily changed the rules has merit, but he lost credibility by refusing to pay grazing fees.
On the other hand, after living out West, it is well known that the BLM is universally despised.
Yes it is despised. Some of that is because people want something for nothing. For example, I know someone who bitched unmercifully about having to go to Lowes or Home Depot for fence posts. He used to be able to just go cut them down on public lands.
Well, what if everyone had that sense of entitlement. Soon nothing would be left at all.
Hit submit too soon ….
The BLM is universally despised because of its failure to be consistent and even-handed. Why was this allowed to drag on for more than 15 years? When the BLM finally did take action, why was its response so heavy-handed? Was it not possible to simply levy a fine for the amount owed plus a penalty or to sue Bundy in court?
The BLM is likely aggrieved that its authority is under attack, but the question of whether its over-reaction resulted from pressure to support Harry Reid’s green initiative lurks in the background.
The response of the citizenry could be viewed as the unorganized militia stepping in to push back against the federal government. The response was impressive in that it prevented the BLM from violently imposing its will and avoided any overt threats that could have caused the situation to spiral out of control. The citizens that showed resolve without overtly over-reacting as the BLM has done.
It seems clear that this dispute needs to be settled in the Courts. Bundy will not get off scot-free since he has failed to pay grazing fees, but the authority of the BLM and its power to change regulations without grandfathering existing ranchers needs to be evaluated. The limits of the power of federal agencies needs to be clarified.
How many times does something need to go to court?
Additionally, people came from all over the country, just itching for a fight.
@Cato the Elder
I’m with you 100% in your first paragraph.
The handling of this was absolutely inept.
I would think that, after the IRS squabble, all the Snowden revelations, and the dust stirred up subsequently by accusations that the NSA has been collecting the communications records of American citizens, it would have occurred to somebody in authority in Washington that sending a federal “SWAT” to Nevada to make nationwide YouTube and media video appearances confiscating a private citizen’s cattle might be a PR no-no. But I guess that is the disconnect of contemporary Washington.
#26 — ???????????
Have you read about what has been going on? Do you really think that anyone has the right to ignore their leasing bills for a decade? Do you think people can just not pay their bills?
I do not think popular opinion is on your side.
The bigger question is whether the federal agencies should have powers of enforcement to seize property and employ violent, possibly deadly, force. It is well accepted that the Departments of Justice and Treasury have these powers, but should the other departments? How soon before the FDA sends a SWAT team to someone’s home for neglecting vegetables at dinner?
“Have you read about what has been going on?”
In the late 19th century, the USG opened up federal lands in the West for grazing in order to get people to settle the area. That is when the Bundy family started their ranch. That went on for over 100 years until the law was negated in 1993 under the Clinton administration. That’s when the dispute started and the Bundy ranch stopped paying its grazing fees. Around this blog they are called “moochers” when the family had been paying those grazing fees to the US Treasury for a century. Since 1993, the USG has squeezed every rancher out of Clark County except Bundy. And Bundy was being told that he had to reduce his own herd to uneconomic levels or else. Bullshit about poor management of the range (that’s a laugh) and then a turtle preservation thing has been tossed about by BLM. However, since Neil Kornze of BLM has always been a big pusher of solar, I am willing to bet that the talk about a solar panel deal in that area (17 areas have been selected) was pretty darn close to the real truth. Bullshit about back grazing fees.
Bundy has been fighting a lonely battle for a long time against a government leviathan with all the money and the lawyers and the guns and the enmity of Dirty Harry in the US Senate, for whom Neil Kornze was once the Senior Policy Advisor. For the love of effing Mike, the man is trying to save his ranch, and people here call him names and cheer on a government “SWAT” operation acting like banana republic thugs. And, damn it, Kelly is right. Not long ago, a family was awakened in the middle of the night at gunpoint in California. Believe it or not, a “SWAT” from the US Department of Education. Kornze and Jewell screwed up bigtime and have a whole basket of eggs on their faces, assuming that Sally Jewell signed off on the operation.
And yes, the office of the Neil Kornze and all his deputies and high level BLM managers, including the office of the BLM Director of Law Enforcement and Security are located in Washngton D.C. at 1849 C Street. What’s this about BLM being more “western” than “eastern”? The “suits” are headquartered in Washington. Let us talk no more about who is reading or not.
@Moon-howler
“Are you telling me that the locals there support child sexual abuse? That was the main issue at Waco.”
Actually, the Waco incident had nothing to do with child abuse when the ATF showed up. They were after weapons that they thought the cultists had. The alleged child abuse was brought up afterwards. So…they killed the kids to save the kids……great. What the locals in Nevada didn’t want was for an agency to kill the people involved and then bulldoze the evidence.
How many of the attendant Teabaggers and gunslingers had an actual beef in this fight – i.e. cattle grazing on government land? This just seems to me to be another excuse for a bunch of paunchy old white guys to strap on their favorite tool and play weekend militia. And then they want to hide behind their women’s skirts and cry bloody murder if the distaff side is shot! Exactly what I’d expect of these conspiracy theory spouting misfits. Quit sponging off the rest of us, go to court if you have a beef, and give the Foxies and their geezer audience something else to fret about.
Ha, ha. Going all out as a troll tonight, Censored? Sugar high from all those Easter peeps?
Bizarro. American women advocate for women’s rights and the smashing of glass ceilings and equality of pay and reproductive rights and women in the military, even in combat roles if they so desire. But, when some Western women with guts get out and make a stand right beside their men, the Eastern liberal city slickers start yacking about men hiding behind their women’s skirts. Pshaaw! Snicker.
Rasmussen national poll (15-16 April 2014) of 1000 likely voters:
54% said the federal government DOES NOT protect our individual liberties.
22% said the federal government DOES protect our individual liberties.
The rest are undecided.
37% said they FEARED the federal government.
47% said they DID NOT FEAR the federal government.
The rest are undecided.
I’ve never seen that kind of number break out in all my years. It was hardly the time to send out federal SWAT troopers to perform for a national audience against a single ranch family in Nevada. Kornze is a Nevadan himself. He should have known better.
Once again, it is all Obama’s fault. It’s the Democrats fault.
Why didn’t Bundy clear all this up while Bush was in office for 8 years – all the while BLM suits in Washington were pursuing the court cases.
@Pat.Herve
Which administration sent out snipers to collect a debt again? Which Senator is calling HIS constituents “domestic terrorists” because their resistance upset his family’s business dealings?
Wasn’t under Bush.
Yessireee Bob! That’s how Americans should be settling court cases they don’t win. They must be dreamin’ of a shoot it out at the O-K Corral scenario.
Who sets the grazing fees and the environmental standards and what oversight / accountability is there that the fees reflect short or long term costs?
If going to a Federal court means going before a judge to argue over whether BLM has the legal and self-written regulatory authority to change the law and the reglations – the 100 year contract – without review or negotiation, what judicial review really exists?
This is nothing more than a federal property taking – and a property that has been improved by the Bundys. BLM forced / bought off the others – out of their contracts. The problem here is that Clive would not sell — and yet I have not heard BLM assert the right to Eminemt Domain either.
Curious.
What planet are you on? Bundy has improved the property? Bwaaahahahahahahahahaha. Since when does BS improve property?
You are reading right wing BS. You have proven nothing.
Bundy owes the money and needs to pay up. Even if the govt cheated him, that isn’t how you settle it. Obviously they didn’t. Censored is right. Geezers and the marginals of life takin’ on the feds. Every anarchist’s dream. Saddling and holstering up, grabbing your rifle or AR-15 and riding off to defend some other free loader’s supposed property rights. (forget that it isn’t HIS property.)
Who else among the gunslingers had a beef in this fight? Literally.
Whose money creates a situation where a bunch of marginally employed old geezers and their wannabe cowboy friends can be whipped up into a mass to defend a deadbeat who owes the government (i.e. the rest of us taxpayers) a million bucks? Where do all these low info peeps originate who can be counted on build straw men to be shot down? Many are the same old mediocre guys who educated their children at public expense, enjoyed the public parks, commuted on public roads, live on Social Security benefits, but now hate to pay their fair share of the public expense.
What differentiates these guys from anarchists?
Can anyone say with straight face that a SWAT team would have been sent had only Bundy’s family been involved and no violence threatened?
How long will we have to listen to the democratic majority leaderships effort to change the subject – on almost any subject? This is like saying the guys who through the tea into the Bostom harbor were just common criminals and there was no larger picture. And here we have a lease, with contractual obligations and improvements which include roads, fencing and wells dug at private expense that need to be adjusted for.
As a decendent of a man who fought at Concord and a line of DAR members, I have often wondered what it must have been like to be a British Tory arguing for big government taxation and military enforcement of criminal much less tax law.
I see no similarities between the Bundy Bunch and the Boston Tea Party. That is a huge stretch.
Why do you think he should get to graze his cattle on public lands for free?
I can also cite my DAR creds but I doubt if anyone gives a rat’s ass.
@Moon-howler
Bundy improved the property with fences and water access.
Similar to the Hage case.
You’re worried about private citizens saddling up, but don’t seem concerned about the massive BLM presence, including snipers, to take his property without court order and to threaten his family.
@Censored bybvbl
A) The only people saying that Bundy owes a million is the press. Its more like $250-300K.
B) The SWAT showed up FIRST. Then the protestors.
They hate to pay their fair share….. yet they paid their taxes when doing all the things that you state….and continue to do so. Please…tell us….what is this “fair” share? It has never been defined.
Bundy has been losing court battles repeatedly for over 20 years. Last fall, he was told he had 45 days to remove any of his cattle. BLM hired cowboys to round of any remaining cattle from the area. The area in dispute – does not belong to Bundy.
He has a right to fight – but after repeatedly losing in court and losing all he appeals – Rule Of Law should stand and he should obey the law. But instead, he is egged on by cowards like Hannity to stand and fight. There was even a strategy to put woman on the front line – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZd61_9hofE – for dramatic effect. Cowards.
@Pat.Herve
That part I agree with. Ex-Sheriff Mack should have been tossed aside like a rag for suggesting the use of women. Notice…his suggestion got nowhere.
The big picture is that the rules were changed to run the ranches out of business.
Actually, you don’t know why the rules were changed. Perhaps they were antiquated and served only a few people rather than all.
This is the best time line I have been able to find –
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/15/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-long-fight-between-cliven-bundy-and-the-federal-government/
plenty of warning of what was to happen.
@Cargosquid
After reading the WaPo article linked by Pat.Herve, why would you doubt there was reason for the SWAT team?
I love this… the same people who speak about ‘rule of law’ only seem to want it applied in certain cases. Immigration, not so much… Drug laws, not so much…
Some rancher in Nevada, absolutely when it comes to taxes. But oddly enough, don’t seem to care about tax cheats such as Tim Geitner, hell, what about Al Sharpton? He has owed $1.8 million in back taxes for years. Does he get armed federal agents at his door? No, he get the president singing his praises at his NAN event last week. Too funny…
Peterson, you were doing well for a while, now you are getting troll-ish again.
Geitner doesn’t owe back taxes. Sharpton. I have no idea. He should pay if he owes them.
This whole argument is a big sham anyway. This entire ordeal is about two old, rich white guys getting hired militia men with guns to intimidate others so that they can get their way. It’s disgusting and something the left use to hate.
Why don’t they hate it now? Because the two old, rich white guys in this case are Harry Reid and his son. The BLM for one, doesn’t have that many agents, and two, are not armed for the most part. Look back at the video and pics, one a very few ‘BLM’ agents even had BLM uniforms. The BLM hired these thugs, armed them and sent them to intimidate and confiscate on request from Harry Reid. The real domestic terrorist cowards are Dingy Harry Reid and his son for hiring mercenaries to do their dirty work.
@Peterson
I would like for Immigration to be fixed. I would like every employer to use E-Verify. I would like all paychecks to be checks and not cash. But fixing Immigration is not what the D’s Nor R’s want. The Chamber of Commerce wants cheap labor. Status Quo is what is wanted.
In the mean time, good middle class jobs have been reduced to off the books wages – carpentry, plumbing, labor, etc.
Harry Reids involvement – I have no clue.
With the liberals it always seems to come down to “old geezers” and “paunchy old white guys.” Maybe conservatives should start using expressions like “liberal crones with turkey necks and sagging boobs and butts and motor mouths.” Tit for tat, no pun intended. How does that strike ya, ladies?
“Wannabe cowboys”! Surely you jest. The Bundy people are in the process of digging up mass graves where the wannabe cowboys of BLM killed some of the cattle because they couldn’t rope them or drive them to a holding pen. You city slickers are a hoot.
When are you people going to get it through you heads that this case is not really about delinquent grazing fees? The 1993 legal change was designed to get the ranchers off federal land so it could be used to protect endangered species. The desert tortoise (and solar power, most likely) is now more important than the ability of the Bundy family to make a living by having adequate acreage per head of cattle. It apparently doesn’t matter that the pioneering Bundy family in good faith settled that country under the 1870 grazing law and paid their grazing fees for a century or more. To hell, with them now. BLM does not just want Bundy’s cash. They want him off that federal land and gone from the local cattle business, just like all the rest of the ranchers in Clark County. Don’t tell me about how the liberals are for the little guy.
New theme song for the Bureau of Land Management:
I’m an old cowhand from the Rio Grande
But my legs ain’t bowed and my cheeks ain’t tan.
Well I’m a cowboy who never saw a cow
Never roped a steer cause I don’t know how………
LOL
Ha ha. Some peeps are easily roped in – every time.
Clive Bundy is a squatter. He gets cowboy welfare.
Heh, heh, got a bit of a sag here and there, Censored?
@Censored bybvbl
They were STILL wrong to bring snipers to collect a bill. Put liens on the property.
@Wolve
Protect endangered wildlife? You mean the tortoises that the government euthanized by the thousands and didn’t care about heavy equipment destroying for solar plants? THOSE tortoises?
Maybe the remaining tortoises should file a lawsuit against BLM.
@Wolve
Heh….Bundy could organize it.
Jon Stewart Rips Hannity For Making Glenn Beck The Voice Of Reason On
Bundy Ranch Madness
http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2014/04/jon-stewart-rips-hannity-
making-glenn
Bundy’s ‘Ancestral Rights’ Story A Load Of Crap
KLAS in Las Vegas debunks some of the facts surrounding Cliven Bundy’s
‘ancestral rights’ malarkey. Court records show cattle started grazing
on that land in 1954.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/04/bundys-ancestral-rights-story-load-
crap