OK, so this guy has a ranch and has his cows grazing on public land but hasn't been paying the grazing fees for something like 20 yrs and allegedly owes $1m in taxes/fees. Sounds like he's trying to play the 'sovereign citizen' angle but on the other side the BLM/Harry Reid seem like they're intentionally driving ranchers out for their own benefit as Harry seems to have connections to Chinese land developers. The excuse however being to save some desert tortoises of which a bunch have been euthanized anyway.
So the BLM spends tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars hiring people and sending in gear to round up this guys' cattle also allegedly causing thousands of dollars in damage to private property and destroying more tortoise homes. Meanwhile, Al Sharpton, who owes close to $2m in taxes gets invited to the White House for fundraisers and Harry Reid ups the rhetoric war by calling supporters of the ranchers, many of whom are armed, 'Domestic Terrorists'. A move either deliberately or stupidly done to inflame the issue even more.
In Illinois, politicos are going on about how the state is billions in debt and we need to suck it up and accept more fee/tax increases along w/ deal w/ the tens of millions of dollars in cuts to school districts. So let's earmark $100m for the Obama presidential library, normally funded through private donations and spend more millions pretty-fying the capitol building but not fix the elevators.
For a double dose of hypocrisy, Soros funded MediaMatters/ThinkProgress are touting the millions of dollars that Bloomberg is dumping to buy votes while decrying the millions spent by the Koch brothers to buy votes and, while demanding 'card check' voting (iow open ballot) for union organizing, have demanded secret ballots for their own employees over unionization.
3 comments:
You should know better than to just absorb the MSM's statement of the facts without looking into the issue yourself. The Bundys and other NV ranchers have essentially been run out of business by the Feds and the BLM. These ranchers have lived in NV and ranched for multiple generations. What really went down is akin to the way developers run folks out of a particular area of properties (think Kelo).
The BLM attempted to buy out many of the ranchers out of their grazing rights. Make them reasonable offers that many took and retired their ranching business. Bundy didn't feel like hanging up his cowboy boots, so he turned down the BLM's offer. What happened next is that with the stroke of a pen, the BLM tried to limit Bundy's herd size from 1000 heads to 100. Nevermind that the Bundys had spent millions over the years buying water rights and improving the land pursuant to their grazing rights agreement.
So what Bundy did when the BLM did that is to stop paying the BLM fees and he instead paid the state of NV his grazing fees. The state didn't know what to do with that money, so after a few years, it sent it back to Bundy. This is absolutely NOT a case of a free-loading rancher who just wanted to use the land because he is a sovereign citizen. Would you do business with someone who wants to put you out of business? Does not make much sense to me.
So when they couldn't get Bundy to reduce his herd size (which would effectively kill his cattle business anyways), they used the Desert Tortoise to get him kicked off the land. The BLM and the feds are acting like a bunch of Mafia thugs who just want the land for Harry Reid's sweetheart solar deal with the Chinese, and the waters rights so they can sell those to California.
There is a reason that he has so much support locally. That's because the BLM used these tactics on all the other ranchers to get them to quit. Most people threw in the towel. Bundy is the last one left.
Everyone in this country should be appalled at the Feds' behavior. We own this land. What petty bureaucrat got to decide that the best use was to sell it to the Chinese and to use the water for Californians? Not an elected one, that's for sure.
Are the Bundys legally in the wrong? Sure. But so are every other municipalities who use blight designations to kick people out of their homes to create sweetheart development deals with connected crony capitalists. I expect more from you. Don't regurgitate everything they feed you. Do your own research.
To be fair, I may have been a bit harsh on you with my response. I just hate the fact that the MSM has pounced on the Bundys as some deadbeats who didn't pay fees and were free-loading. Nothing is further from the truth. The problem is that most people who just superficially see this story think of the Bundys as a bunch of cooks. It just irks me that the MSM's message is so effective. Edwards Bernays would be proud.
This is a good breakdown:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/why-you-should-be-sympathetic-toward-cliven-bundy.php
Thirdpower,
What the previous commenter said is true; one thing not mentioned is the BLM's legal wrangling; in order pay the fees, the lessee has to agree to the terms and conditions of the agreement.
That agreement is what changed as earlier stated. The BLM did re-draw the borders of the desert tortoise habit arbitrarily and that did reduce the grazing ability, etc
You are right in pointing out the hypocrisy -- just like many people are pointing out that if the cows were illegal aliens no one would be bothering them.
Of course the BLM hasn't shown the desert tortoise has been harmed either....really make me wonder why things changed.
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