Here is a lesson for all of you guys who want more government oversight over our industry.
Nevada is over 90% federal land.
When the state was carved out right at the end of the civil war, Lincoln, (the worst constitutional president in our history prior to the current one) made sure that all the states entering would bow down to the the fed and our state constitution and the great amount of federal land reflects that.
Since most of the state is desert, ranchers have always had to use tremendous acreage to feed cattle here. Our state was brought into the union around 1865. Prior to that, and after that, up till 1934 ranchers had legal free reign to graze cattle with no restrictions. This was called forage rights.
In the 1930's the ranchers had arguments between themselves regarding territories. So a few of the larger ones got together and asked the fed if they could hire them, by paying minimal fees to "manage" the land and break it out into sections. This was made into the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934.
The fees are minimal. $1.74 per cow & calf per month. Ranchers had no problem paying that just to have disagreements settled.
Ranchers were also required to secure water rights and maintain and make improvements on the land. Mr. Bundy and his predecessors have always done that. No one is arguing that fact.
Bundy's ranch was established in 1877. His family purchased it later, in the 1880's. But when they did, they had to PAY for the water and forage rights.
After the 1934 act they continued to pay grazing fees and make improvements up until the 1990's.
Somewhere along the way the Bureau of Land Management was created. I don't know what year.
Around 1990 or so they told him that he could no longer graze more than 150 of his 600 or so head of cattle there.
He told them to pound sand and kept paying his fees and grazing his cattle.
Around 1994 they told him he could only graze them in the summer, fall and winter and said it was so that the cattle didn't disturb the Desert Tortoise. (more on that later)
He told them that they were HIRED by the Taylor Grazing act to MANAGE the land for the ranchers. So he FIRED them and started paying his fees to to the state of Nevada. Soon they didn't know where to put it so they quit taking payments.
Meanwhile they came at him from another angle. When they saw they weren't going to be able to force him off the land the BLM SOLD the rights to the land to the state of Nevada under the condition that the state RETIRE the grazing rights permanently. Nevada legislators, being idiots, did their bidding. That was around 1996 or so.
But the state left him alone and let him forage all those years.
A few years ago, due to Agenda 21, Ranchers around the nation were being shut down and either bought out (with a program that paid them a lump sum of YOUR taxpayer funds in exchange for quitting ranching.
A lot of them did. The program was touted as "optional" but they intimidated the ranchers with lawsuits ranging from environmental concerns to water concerns to endangered species.
Before all this there were 50 ranchers in Clark County Nevada. Now there is one. Cliven Bundy.
For 20 years they tried to remove another rancher, Mr Hage, from a neighboring county. The sheriff of that county came to his aid and told the feds to screw off. They threatened the sheriff with a swat team and he told them to bring it on, he had his own swat team. The feds screwed up with Mr Hage though. They made it a water rights issue and after 20 years, about a year after he died, they lost in court.
Now they don't play the water rights card anymore because it is too cut and dry. They now play the environmental card because they can make up the rules and change them whenever they like.
This is what they have done with Bundy. Everytime he gets where he can win, they change the laws and he loses in court.
So now it is about the Desert Tortoise. This is an animal the BLM had a habitat for, but when they ran out of money to run the habitat they slaughtered 1800 of them. Miraculously they now claim they have mysteriously found 3 million dollars that they are paying to round up and steal Bundy's cattle. They are paying the slimy for hire private cowboys 1 million of that.
So now they have a court order to take his cattle and auction them.
The sheriffs of nearby counties have stated that they will stop them along the way and make them produce a signed agreement from Bundy or they will confiscate the cattle and give them back. That only leaves them one route out, straight down through Clark County to Arizona or California. I believe they are already auctioning off any of the ones they found that were not branded even though it is common knowledge they are his because he is the only rancher there. There isn't much the sheriffs can do about that.
When this happened in neighboring counties and in other states the sheriffs backed the ranchers up. Our Sheriff is a spineless puss of a half-man and refuses to get involved. I assume the only way he will get involved is if he hears the BLM rangers shooting civilians and sends his guys up to help out of jealousy of all the fun they are having. We have the most corrupt and worthless police department in the country.
To make matters worse, I spoke to the lesser of two evils running for Sheriff this time around yesterday at a luncheon and asked him why they weren't helping. He answered that from his understanding Bundy was just a guy who wouldn't pay his fees and he didn't think they should get involved. He knew nothing of the Taylor Grazing act or any of the history of Bundy's rights to graze. Great, replacing a worthless bag of skin for sheriff with another worthless bag of skin. We can't win.
So now they are using helicopters to round up his cattle and try to take them to auction. He claims he has about 500 head, they say 900. Probably because they don't know that the Taylor Grazing act counts a cow and a calf as one head. They are stressing the cattle and some of them are dying in the chase. That is why they brought in backhoes and dump trucks.
The people in the video above were trying to block them on private land before they got to public lands and were tazed and thrown to the ground.
The BLM has set up "free speech zones" for people to protest. Two 50x50 pig pens for them to stand in. But they can only use one of them at a time.
Bundy's son was arrested day before yesterday when he pulled over on a STATE road where he could see the valley and take pictures of the way they were treating the cattle.
They threw him down to the ground, ground his head in the dirt with their boots, and took him to Henderson jail, then to the federal building. Eventually they gave him a ticket for protesting outside the "free speech zone" and "resisting arrest". They let him go 80 miles away in Las Vegas with no money. He had a credit card which he used to trade some gas at a gas station for use of a lady's cell phone, to get someone to pick him up.
Yesterday they arrested a few more protesters for being outside the "free speech zone".
Militias from all over the nation are being called up to come to Nevada. People are flying and driving in from everywhere. This is the first time in our history where men from all over the country have been willing to come together to fight against the federal government. If this had happened at Waco, our entire country would be different today.
Politicians are afraid to say much. The republicans don't want to say anything because he lost in federal court and that's all that matters to those scumbags. The Democrats don't care so much about the courts as they lavish in the idea that a fat rich rancher and destroyer of the environment is getting what he deserves.
The libertarians are all that's left. And he has a LOT of support from Sheriffs and Oath Keepers. (other than our bag of skin)
The bottom line is the Feds want all ranching stopped. They are doing it on federal lands first, then will do it on private lands based on the new definitions in the clean water act. It's an Agenda 21 implementation. It wouldn't matter if he paid fees from here to kingdom come, they want him shut down and they will try any angle they can. He stated that after reading their plans to retire all the land for grazing he refused to finance his own demise by giving them fees. I'm with him 100%. And apparently so are thousands of others willing to come here.
Here is the stance of former Gilbert AZ sheriff:
