Saturday, September 21, 2013

New Rules On Power Plants Will Kill Coal Industry

The administration finally has released its rules for curbing CO2 emissions from U.S. power plants. Far from being a plan to clean up the environment, it is in fact a road map to de-industrialization and poverty. The tough new rules that will limit carbon dioxide output from new power plants immediately drew protests from the power industry. No surprise. But if Americans really understood what Obama is doing, they'd be up in arms, too. Far from being an economically sensible plan to reduce U.S. pollution, this proposal will sharply raise the cost of energy to all Americans, while doing little to improve our environment. Last year, the Institute for Energy Research estimated that the administration's "regulatory assault" on power plants would eliminate 35 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity — or 10% of all U.S. power. The new EPA rules will make that even worse. If you wonder why Obama has the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, look no further. "We know this is not just about melting glaciers," said Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy in announcing the rules Friday. She linked climate change to a host of spurious public health threats. Yet just one day earlier, appearing before a congressional committee, McCarthy admitted that even though the EPA already has extensive rules in place to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, she had no evidence that they had done anything to halt global warming. This is a stunning admission that these regulations aren't about climate change at all, but rather part of an ideologically driven fight to tear the capitalist heart out of western civilization — plentiful energy, source of our highest-ever standard of living...more

An Unhappy Birthday: Keystone XL Application Turns 5

It has now been five years since TransCanada made its first permit application to the U.S. State Department to build the Keystone XL. Under the permit, the firm would construct a cross-border pipeline to carry about 830,000 barrels of Canada-produced oil per day down to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Most of that oil would be mined from the tar sands of Alberta. No decision has been reached on the current permit application—or rather, no decision has been announced. It’s fate is still guarded by the State Department and President Obama. Now, all manner of protests over the “dirty oil” coming from the Canadian tar sands are being held, with protesters supergluing their hands together in a human chain in TransCanada’s corporate offices, getting arrested in front of the White House, marching on Washington, and all number of other attention-grabbing stunts. A prominent slogan is that the Keystone XL’s approval would mean “game over for climate change.” This is overblown hype. But apparently it has President Obama’s attention. He even went out of his way to mention the Keystone XL pipeline in his speech this summer laying out his Climate Action Plan...more

Friday, September 20, 2013

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1106

Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons (1955)

http://youtu.be/NluVWgH_iUo

Nearly 40 percent of Rim Fire land a moonscape

    A fire that raged in forest land in and around Yosemite National Park has left a barren moonscape in the Sierra Nevada mountains that experts say is larger than any burned there in centuries.
    The fire has consumed about 400 square miles, and within that footprint are a solid 60 square miles that burned so intensely that everything is dead, researchers said.
     “In other words, it’s nuked,” said Jay Miller, senior wildland fire ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “If you asked most of the fire ecologists working in the Sierra Nevada, they would call this unprecedented.”
Smaller pockets inside the fire’s footprint also burned hot enough to wipe out trees and other vegetation.
In total, Miller estimates that almost 40 percent of the area inside the fire’s boundary is nothing but charred land. Other areas that burned left trees scarred but alive...
    Miller says a fire has not left such a contiguous moonscape in the Sierra since before the Little Ice Age, which began in 1350.
     In the decades before humans began controlling fire in forests, the Sierra would burn every 10 to 20 years, clearing understory growth on the ground and opening up clearings for new tree growth. Modern-day practices of fire suppression, combined with cutbacks in forest service budgets and a desire to reduce smoke impacts in the polluted San Joaquin Valley, have combined to create tinderboxes, experts say.
Drought, and dryness associated with a warming climate also have contributed to the intensity of fires this year, researchers say...
    Some areas of the Stanislaus National Forest ravaged by the Rim Fire had not burned in 100 years. Most of the land that now resembles a moonscape burned on Aug. 21 and Aug. 22, when the fire jumped to canopies and was spreading the fastest...
    The Rim Fire started Aug. 17, when a hunter’s fire spread, and continues to burn. It is named for a ridge near the location where the fire started — The Rim of the World, an overlook above a gorge carved by the Tuolumne River. The area that burned in 1987 and again in 1996 was filled with chaparral.By the time the Rim Fire ripped through the canyon, it developed its own weather system that pushed it to consume up to 50,000 acres in a day...
    While the landscape has been ravaged, the soil that determines the amount of post-fire erosion that might occur when winter storms hit didn’t suffer as badly as scientists feared.Severe soil damage occurred on just 7 percent of the land inside the fire’s footprint, said officials with the federal Burned Area Environmental Response team. Fire can destroy soil and make it susceptible to erosion by either burning the fine roots and other organic matter that holds it together, or by burning chaparral that releases oils that create an impervious barrier preventing rainwater from being absorbed.

You no longer have to work at NASA to see a moonscape...the enviros and the federal land management agencies can give you a tour right here on mother earth...just gallop on down to Gaia Gulch.

Unfortunately, if current legislation and management practices are unchanged, we'll have a Gaia Gallery all around us.



Wyoming train traffic spikes as Colorado flooding reroutes trains

About eight more coal trains a day are rumbling through Wyoming as rail cars continue to be diverted from flood-damaged tracks in Colorado, a Union Pacific Railroad spokesman said Wednesday. Mark Davis said the UP line between Grand Junction, Colo., and Denver is out of service 30 miles west of Colorado’s capital city. As a result, northern Colorado coal traffic that normally would take that route is being diverted to Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, via the main UP line that comes through Cheyenne, he said. “That’s about a 600-mile detour,” Davis said. “It takes about an additional 72 hours to move that traffic.” The flooding in Colorado also forced the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad to reroute two lines between Wyoming and Colorado to the east through Nebraska, BNSF spokesman Matt Jones said. The two lines go through Cheyenne. “The disruptions are in Colorado, not in Wyoming, but it is disrupting some of the traffic in Wyoming,” Jones said...more

Earlier this week Sue Krentz told me that while traveling from Las Cruces to her home in Az. she saw an unbelievable number if trains along I-10, and wondered if it had something to do with the floods.  She was right.


Thursday, September 19, 2013

U.S. pilot scares off Iranians with ‘Top Gun’-worthy stunt

The U.S. Air Force has a message for Iran: Don’t mess with our drones. In what only can be described as a scene out of Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force chief of staff, describes how F-22 stealth jets scared off Iranian jets from a U.S. drone flying in international airspace. The Aviationist reports that in March a U.S. MQ-1 drone came close to being intercepted by an Iranian F-4 Phantom combat plane, but the Iranian aircraft stopped short after a warning by an American pilot. “He [the Raptor pilot] flew under their aircraft [the F-4s] to check out their weapons load without them knowing that he was there, and then pulled up on their left wing and then called them and said ‘you really ought to go home,’” Gen. Welsh said.

8 Scary Sinkhole Videos From Around the Country

Go here to see the videos from Florida, Ca., Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, West Virginia, Louisiana and Illinois.

Sen. Thune: End Obama’s green auto loan program

South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune is calling for the Senate to end the Obama administration’s controversial green vehicle loan program in the wake of news that the Department of Energy is selling off the $168 million loan it gave to financially troubled Fisker Automotive. “The Obama administration has gotten into the business of picking winners and losers at a significant cost to taxpayers,” said Thune in a statement. “From Fisker and Vehicle Production Group, to the Chinese-owned A123, this administration should not be making questionable investments with the American people’s hard-earned money.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz recently hinted that the Obama administration may revive the dormant loan program that lent out millions of taxpayer dollars to Fisker and the Vehicle Production Group, both of which are financially troubled. To counter that, Thune has put forward an amendment to the bipartisan Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill that would eliminate the Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program. The Energy Department has announced that they will sell off their $168 million loan to Fisker Automotive early next month. The company was given a loan guarantee to sell their luxury hybrid Fisker Karmas, which sold for $109,000. But taxpayers will likely take a huge hit on the loan sale, as potential buyers are offering as little as 15 cents on the dollar for the troubled green automaker, The Wall Street Journal reports. Selling the loan for that little would mean taxpayers only recover about $25 million — a loss of $143 million...more

Study: Livestock antibiotics hurt human treatments

A new study provides the clearest evidence to date that the heavy use of antibiotics in livestock is undermining the use of antibiotics to treat sick humans, based on the way government scientists are touting their report. CDC officials don’t typically make declarative or bold political statements about the meaning of their research. However, Robert Tauxe, deputy director of CDC’s foodborne, waterborne and environmental disease division, said the study, recently completed by a team of 12 researchers from the CDC, Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Ontario Veterinary College and a public health consultant from Atlanta, “shows how the resistance to an important antibiotic can flow from the agricultural sector through food and it’s not theoretical at all.”  The meat and poultry industry remains unimpressed. “The study was not designed nor does it directly link animal or human antibiotic use to a specific foodborne illness,” Betsy Booren, chief scientist for the American Meat Institute Foundation, observes in an email to POLITICO. To complete their study, the government and university researchers say they collected thousands of bacteria samples from cattle, swine, turkeys, processed meat and people in the U.S. and Canada over a five-year period. They tracked the same antibiotic-resistant genes in animals directly to the meat sold in grocery stores and to the people who ate the meat. The gene allows several types of the Salmonella bacteria to be resistant to treatment by cephalosporins, a key class of antibiotics used to fight infections in children. The results showed that 5 percent of the samples taken from people, 16 percent from retail meat and 11 percent from livestock were resistant to cephalosporins. The study was released quietly and with little fanfare in June but CDC officials began highlighting it this month when they published a separate, 114-page report on the overall dangers of antibiotic resistance. Expect to hear more about the study soon as certain lawmakers look to resume their argument for legislation that would limit the use of antibiotic drugs in livestock. One such lawmaker you can expect to hear from is Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who commented to POLITICO that she has “carried legislation that would preserve eight classes of antibiotics for human health — while allowing for the treatment of sick animals — for the last four terms, and it has been ignored.”...more

Solar activity drops to 100-year low, puzzling scientists

Predictions that 2013 would see an upsurge in solar activity and geomagnetic storms disrupting power grids and communications systems have proved to be a false alarm. Instead, the current peak in the solar cycle is the weakest for a century. Subdued solar activity has prompted controversial comparisons with the Maunder Minimum, which occurred between 1645 and 1715, when a prolonged absence of sunspots and other indicators of solar activity coincided with the coldest period in the last millennium. The comparisons have sparked a furious exchange of views between observers who believe the planet could be on the brink of another period of cooling, and scientists who insist there is no evidence that temperatures are about to fall. New Scientist magazine blasted those who predicted a mini ice age, opening a recent article on the surprising lack of sunspots this year with the bold declaration: "Those hoping that the sun could save us from climate change look set for disappointment". "The recent lapse in solar activity is not the beginning of a decades-long absence of sunspots, a dip that might have cooled the climate. Instead it represents a shorter, less pronounced downturn that happens every century or so," ("Sun's quiet spell not the start of a mini ice age" July 12). The unusually low number of sunspots in recent years "is not an indication that we are going into a Maunder Minimum" according to Giuliana DeToma, a solar scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Colorado. But DeToma admitted "we will do not know how or why the Maunder Minimum started, so we cannot predict the next one." Many solar experts think the downturn is linked a different phenomenon, the Gleissberg cycle, which predicts a period of weaker solar activity every century or so. If that turns out to be true, the sun could remain unusually quiet through the middle of the 2020s. But since the scientists still do not understand why the Gleissberg cycle takes place, the evidence is inconclusive. The bottom line is that the sun has gone unusually quiet and no one really knows why or how it will last...more

You Can't Hand Out the Constitution Without a Permit, Says Modesto Junior College

Happy Constitution Day, kids of Modesto Junior College! Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports on the latest from the world of "Free Speech Zones" in the U.S. of A:
Modesto Junior College in California told a student that he could not pass out copies of the United States Constitution outside the student center on September 17, 2013—Constitution Day. Captured on video, college police and administrators demanded that Robert Van Tuinen stop passing out Constitution pamphlets and told him that he would only be allowed to pass them out in the college’s tiny free speech zone, and only after scheduling it several days or weeks ahead of time.
It is a very, very old document, not relevant to the circumstances of today, so we are told. The student wants to start a Young Americans for Liberty group on campus.

Source


White House threatens veto of bill to increase Oregon federal timber harvests

By Jeff Mapes | jmapes@oregonian.com 

White House budget officials threatened a veto for a bill nearing the House floor that would expand timber harvests on federal lands scattered throughout western Oregon.

Cheered by environmental groups, Wednesday's veto threat presents another hurdle for rural counties seeking an economic boost from Oregon & California Railroad grant lands that were once a major source of lumber.

The White House action raised the visibility of the latest round in the long-running timber wars in Oregon. Several heavily forested counties south of the Willamette Valley have slashed their law enforcement and other services as their federal timber receipts have disappeared and their local economies have lagged.

At the same time, environmental groups say the legislation threatens a return to industrial clearcuts on federal lands that will damage the hillsides, muddy streams and threaten wildlife.

In a statement, the Office of Management and Budget said that it would recommend that President Barack Obama veto the bill if it reached his desk in its current form. The statement criticized not only the O&C provisions in the bill but also other parts of the legislation that the agency said would conflict with environmental laws and harm federal forests and range lands.

The White House budget office said the Oregon provisions "would undermine appropriate management and stewardship of these lands" while compromising habitat for endangered and threatened species. The statement said the bill "also contains seriously objectionable limitations on the President's existing authority" to create national monuments in areas with O&C lands.

The bill, H.R. 1526, received final approval Wednesday from the House Rules Committee to go the full House, where debate could begin as early as Thursday.

Reps. Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, both D-Ore., and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., drafted the Oregon provisions. It calls for placing about 1.6 million acres of the 2.8 million acres covered by the bill in a state-managed trust focused on timber production.

The measure also would temporarily extend a program providing federal timber payments to counties to help pay for local services.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is drafting his own legislation and has indicated that he intends to try to negotiate a deal with the House. Wyden's aides declined comment Wednesday on the veto threat.

Walden called the White House statement "disappointing."

"They're living in the '90s," he said. "They don't realize what's happened in the West...You've got counties literally going broke...and you've got these raging fires.

"I'm actually surprised by the tone and the force" of the letter, he said, although he added that he didn't think the veto threat would hinder House passage.



Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1105

Continuing with Country Classics week, here's Cowboy Copas - Alabam (1960)

http://youtu.be/G3IG-Ibf4xQ

Global warming report could backfire on environmentalists

 by Byron York

Talk about bad timing. Last month, environmental activists launched a well-funded new attack on Republican “climate change deniers” in hopes of making global warming a big issue in 2014. But as the campaign gets underway, a new report from the world’s leading climate scientists could leave environmentalists on the defensive, and the “deniers” more confident and assertive.

“HOLDING CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS ACCOUNTABLE” read the headline of a League of Conservation Voters press release announcing a $2 million barrage of ads aimed at Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, as well as GOP Reps. Mike Coffman, Dan Benishek and Rodney Davis. “We’re changing the terms of the climate change debate,” said an LCV spokesman. “It’s no longer acceptable to be a member of Congress and deny basic science.”

Organizing for Action, the permanent arm of the Obama campaign, joined in, staging events and running an ad — “CALL OUT THE CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS” — targeting House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Marco Rubio,among others.

The goal is to place opposition to the global warming agenda — heavy environmental regulation, a cap-and-trade or carbon tax program, massive “green energy” expenditures, huge international wealth transfers — outside the realm of polite discussion. But the discussion is about to change.

On Sept. 27, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its fifth report on global warming. Earlier IPCC assessments — the most recent was in 2007 — were the foundation for reams of alarmist reporting. For example, after a 2009 update, the Washington Post ran a story headlined “New Analysis Brings Dire Forecast,” reporting that a predicted 6.3-degree Fahrenheit increase in world temperatures “is nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change.”

That was then. Now, the new IPCC document will “dial back the alarm,” in the words of a Wall Street Journal preview. According to the Journal, the report will state that “the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPCC thought in 2007.” The computer forecasts used to produce those forecasts, it turns out, were wrong.

The effect could be enormous. If scientists now predict that the earth will warm less, and less quickly, than earlier thought — and also concede that the planet has not warmed at all in the last decade or so — the position of the environmental activists, and groups like Organizing for Action, will be significantly weaker. They’ll have a harder time arguing for drastic and immediate action.

The downgrading of the warming threat, writes the Journal, “points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.” It will be hard to argue for a doomsday scenario on the basis of that.


Agency Protects Two Texas Plants

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the Texas golden gladecress as endangered and the Neches River rose-mallow as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and designated more than 1500 acres of critical habitat for them. The listing was prompted by a 2011 court settlement between the USFWS and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) that resulted in a court-approved five-year workplan requiring the agency to speed protection decisions for hundreds of species across the country, according to a CBD press release. The gladecress faces threats from quarrying, gas and oil development, nonnative species, pine tree plantings near occupied glades, herbicides, and the installation of utility lines. These threats are worsened by climate change and low population numbers, the listing stated. The rose mallow, a Hibiscus family perennial, grows to 7.5 feet tall, has large white flowers and grows in water-saturated soils. Each plant can have hundreds of flowers in the summer. The agency determined that the mallow's habitat is lost or degraded due nonnative species, herbicide use, livestock trampling, road construction and seasonal flooding due to the alteration of natural water flows. Climate change and inadequate regulatory mechanisms add to the threat level, the agency said...more

You humans are really terrible, wanting energy and power for your homes and businesses, roads to travel on and meat on the table.  You're the primary cause of global warming too.  But "inadequate regulatory mechanisms"?  They've got to be kidding.  Oh, wait a minute, I'll bet that's aimed at Texas.  Its run by Republicans don't you know.

Feds fine city $12K in plover death

The town of Scarborough has been hit with a $12,000 fine by the federal government for a civil violation of the Endangered Species Act following the July 15 killing of a piping plover on Pine Point Beach. The town has 45 days to answer the notice. Options laid out by Andrew Tittler, acting assistant regional solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior, include paying the fine, negotiating a settlement, filing a petition for relief, or doing nothing and waiting for judgment. Tittler’s Sept. 11 Notice of Violation claims the town “did knowingly cause” the plover’s death because its Animal Control Ordinance allows dogs to run off leash on municipal beaches from sunrise until 9 a.m. during the plover nesting season if “under voice control.” “Voice control over dogs is ineffective,” wrote Tittler, noting that officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked Scarborough to strengthen its leash law three times between May 2001 and April 2004...more  

Oh, so that's what inadequate regulatory mechanisms are. 

I do believe they've got it bass ackwards. If a dog killed the plover, then fine the dog owner, not the city. If a farmer's mule kicked a plover to death, would they fine the county gov't? I don't think so.

Petition asks to make Waco Mammoth Site national monument

Backers of the Waco Mammoth Site hope an online petition can do what years of lobbying have so far failed to do — get a national monument designation for the site. City of Waco officials, who oversee the mammoth site, don’t know who started the petition, but they are now promoting it through press releases and social media. For several years, the city has been seeking national monument status for the site, and the National Park Service has recommended that status. The city opened the 100-acre site to the public in late 2009, giving visitors a glimpse of Central Texas life some 70,000 years ago. An enclosed archaeological dig displays the bones of at least 23 mammoths...more

If Texas didn't have inadequate regulatory mechanisms, those mammoth's would still be with us.  Would that be good?  You bet.  Mammoths love to feast on feral hogs and wolves, especially the Mexican type.

Mount Charleston blue butterfly placed on endangered species list

It's one of Nevada's rarest species, and it's in trouble, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Mount Charleston blue butterfly on Wednesday was given Endangered Species Act protection, for fear the species could disappear completely. The blue butterfly is limited to Mount Charleston's upper elevations and is threatened by fire suppression efforts, fuel reduction activities and recreational development. "The beautiful Mount Charleston blue butterfly is in desperate need of help and we've got to move quickly," said  Nevada-based ecologist Rob Mrowka. "Even before prime areas of habitat were severely damaged by this summer's Carpenter 1 wildfire, there were very few of these butterflies left in the world." The Mount Charleston blue is a subspecies of the Shasta blue butterfly. First identified in 1928, it is less than an inch long. Males are blue and gray, while females are a subdued brown and gray. "If the Mount Charleston blue is to have any chance at survival, it will need quick action on the part of the Forest Service to ensure its habitat is maintained and restored," Mrowka said. "We sure hope that surveys conducted next year will find the survivors needed to rebuild the population." Source

Let's see. Prime areas of habitat were "severely damaged" by wildfire, but its threatened by fire suppression and fuel reduction. Makes sense, right?  And then there's the big threat from development.  So no fuel reduction, fire suppression or development in the "wildland urban interface", and then we can...watch it burn and burn hot.

Protection Is Finalized for Two Midwest Mussels

Endangered Species Act protections have been finalized for two freshwater mussels, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife action. The listings of the Neosho mucket mussel as an endangered species and the rabbitsfoot mussel as a threatened species are part of a 2011 court-approved settlement between the USFWS and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) that resulted in a five-year workplan to speed listings for hundreds of species across the country, according to the CBD's press release. The Neosho mucket, a four-inch round mussel found in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, has lost 62 percent of its historic range with only nine of 16 historic populations still in existence. The rabbitsfoot, a six-inch long rectangular mussel found in 13 states, has lost 64 percent of its historic range, and only 11 of the existing 51 populations are viable, the agency noted in its statement. "The Neosho mucket and rabbitsfoot mussels live on the bottom of streams and rivers and have suffered drastic declines because of water pollution and dams. Mussels reproduce by making a lure that looks like a young fish; when larger fish try to prey on the lure, the mussels release their fertilized eggs onto the fish's gills. In dirty water the fish cannot see the mussel's lure, so the mussel can't reproduce," the CBD said. Although the USFWS noted that industrial, agricultural, municipal and mining contaminants have harmful effects on the mussels, especially in early life stages, it is the combination of impoundments, channelization, sedimentation, chemical contaminants, mining, and oil and natural gas development that present ongoing threats that are expected to continue into the future, according to the action...more  

Midwest Mussels: sounds like either a rock band or 2 Chicago mobsters. 

Who knew snails were such wimps. 

They got it bass ackwards again. Instead of listing the snails, they need to breed them fish for better eyesight.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Cat Herders - video

An oldie but a goodie.

http://youtu.be/1SmgLtg1Izw

Dems push climate controls to combat extreme weather

House Democrats are calling for strong new climate regulations to battle the extreme weather that has affected communities across the country. Wildfires in California, flooding in Colorado and devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy should be proof enough that the federal government needs to act, lawmakers said Tuesday. “We spend billions of dollars to respond to each disaster and rebuild in the aftermath,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). “Unfortunately many members of Congress continue to deny that climate change is even happening.” Waxman is head of the new 28-member Safe Climate Caucus that was formed this year to raise awareness about climate change and push back on Republican opposition to new environmental rules. On Tuesday, the caucus heard from ranchers, farmers and others affected by recent wildfires, droughts and storms across the country. Members on the panel expressed concern that Congress has not been acting strongly enough to protect Americans affected by the extreme weather events...more

Third Arrest Made in Fast and Furious Murder of Brian Terry

Mexican police in Sinaloa reportedly have arrested a third suspect wanted by the FBI in the 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Ivan Soto-Barraza was among five bandits involved in a shootout with elite BORTAC agents who were patrolling an area near Nogales, Ariz., in search of drug ripoff crews on Dec. 14, 2010, according to a federal grand-jury indictment. Prosecutors allege the gunmen entered the country illegally in a conspiracy to ambush marijuana smugglers and steal their loads under cover of darkness, but ran into the Border Patrol agents instead. The incident sparked a national controversy when whistle-blowers disclosed that two assault-type rifles discovered at the scene were part of a Phoenix-based gun-running investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The probe, known as Operation Fast and Furious, allowed weapons to be acquired by straw buyers, purportedly so that agents could trace the smuggling to crime bosses in Mexico. Instead, hundreds of guns wound up going south, into the hands of criminals, with virtually no tracking. The ensuing scandal led to a condemnation of Fast and Furious by President Barack Obama and the resignation of Dennis Burke, former U.S. attorney for Arizona. Bill Newell, then Arizona’s ATF special agent in charge, was reassigned, and others involved were disciplined as Republican congressional investigators sought to hold Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder accountable. Meanwhile, the FBI issued a reward of $1 million for information leading to the arrests of five suspects, all of them Mexican nationals, on charges of murder, assault, attempted robbery and weapons violations...more

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1104

Country Classics...Carl Smith - Hey Joe! (1953)

http://youtu.be/DHv0-i-42ZA

Environmental groups downplay wolf attacks

by William Perry Pendley

Sixteen-year-old Noah Graham of Solway is lucky to be alive after being attacked without warning by a wolf while sitting at a campfire with friends last month on Lake Winnibigoshish near the town of Bemidji in far northern Minnesota.

“I had to reach behind me and jerk my head out of its mouth,” he reported, after which he leaped to his feet and fought back until the wolf fled. He suffered a four-inch gash on his scalp, closed with 17 staples — “the worst pain of my life” — and required a series of rabies shots. Meanwhile, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials, who called Noah’s experience the first documented serious-injury wolf attack on a human in Minnesota, jumped to the wolf’s defense asserting that a wolf killed nearby — it may not be the attacking wolf — had a “jaw deformity.”

Defenders of Wildlife (DOW), which might as well call itself Defenders of Wolves — they even have a statue of one outside their headquarters — said it was “surprised” by the attack. DOW went further than the DNR noting not only that the wolf “had some malformation of its jaw” but also that it was “reportedly habituated to humans.” But DOW downplayed the incident contending that “only two known deaths have occurred from wild wolf attacks across all of North America in modern history.” That is a bit of an understatement and far from a full and accurate accounting of the dangers to mankind from wolves, but DOW has come a long way in truth telling about the wolf since the 1990s...

Notwithstanding DOW’s disclaimer, how likely was it that in the half a millennium since Europeans arrived in North America, a wolf had never attacked a human being? A quick check revealed the truth: not likely at all. Renowned painter John James Audubon reported a wolf attack upon two men — one of whom was killed — in Kentucky in about 1830. Noted historian George B. Grinnell investigated and confirmed a wolf attack on an 18-year old girl in 1881 in northwestern Colorado. A North Dakota newspaper reported an attack by wolves that killed a father and son near New Rockford in 1888. In 1942, a section foreman for the Canadian Pacific Railway was attacked by a wolf as reported by an Investigator Crichton, a conservation officer. In 1987, a 16-year-old girl was bitten by a wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. Then, in 1996, a family was attacked by a wolf; the family’s 12-year old son had his face torn open and permanently disfigured, despite four hours of surgery and 80 stitches.

Confronted with this evidence, DOW defended its disclaimer by asserting that all attacks by wolves on humans in North American had not been “scientifically” documented; were the result of attacks by “tame” wolves; were not “attacks” since DOW “did not characterize” instances where people had been bitten by wolves as “attacks” or were not “serious” attacks. In addition, DOW presumed both that an attacking wolf was not healthy unless its health was documented “scientifically” and that an attacking wolf was not wild unless documentation exists that it was never in captivity...

After a wolf attacked and repeatedly bit a 6-year old boy in April of 2000 near Icy Bay, Alaska, the State of Alaska began a study of 80 wolf-human contacts in Alaska and Canada, which it published in 2002. Since then, the reports continue to pile up. In November of 2008, in an episode called by one expert, the “best investigated case to date,” a 22-year old honors and scholarship student, Kenton Joel Carnegie, was killed in northern Saskatchewan by a pack of wolves. In March of 2008, Candice Berner of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, a special education teacher in Perryville, Alaska, was killed near Chignik Lake by at least two wolves. In October of 2011, a North Idaho grandmother on a hunting trip for elk was attacked by a 100-pound wolf; she unholstered the .44 Magnum on her hip and shot and killed the animal. In December of 2012, a wolf attacked a trapper riding a snowmobile near Tok, Alaska; Lance Grangaard fought back but sustained a three inch gash on his arm and underwent rabies inoculations. And so on and so on and so on...

Pendley is the President of the Mountain States Legal Foundation and the author of the recently released Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan's Battle With Environmental Extremists And Why It Matters Today.

Last man standing: Range wars in Nevada - video

Squinting into the morning light, Cliven Bundy lifted the brim of his western hat and watched his youngest son, who sat silently in the saddle of a mixed-breed horse he named Turbo. The 67-year-old Bundy, a father of 14, said the boy reminds him of himself, his own father and grandfather — generations of Bundys who have ranched and muscled this unforgiving landscape along the Virgin River since the 1880s. Bundy believes big government is trying to sabotage his plans to one day hand over the ranch's reins to his son, by stripping Bundy of land-use rights his family spent a century earning. He says overregulation has already driven scores of fellow ranchers out of business in sprawling Clark County, leaving him as the last man standing. For two decades, Bundy has waged a one-man range war with federal officials over his cattle's grazing on 150 square miles of scrub desert overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Since 1993, he's refused to pay BLM grazing fees. He claims he "fired the BLM," vowing not to give one dime to an agency that's plotting his demise. The back fees exceed $300,000, he said. Now a showdown looms, one with a hint of possible violence. Officials say Bundy and his son are illegally running cattle in the 500,000-acre Gold Butte area, a habitat of the protected desert tortoise. In July, U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George ruled that if Bundy did not remove his cattle by Aug. 23, they could be seized by the BLM. That hasn't happened — yet — and the rancher insists his cattle aren't going anywhere. He acknowledges that he keeps firearms at his ranch and has vowed to do "whatever it takes" to defend his animals from seizure. "I've got to protect my property," Bundy said as Arden steered several cattle inside an elongated pen. "If people come to monkey with what's mine, I'll call the county sheriff. If that don't work, I'll gather my friends and kids and we'll try to stop it. I abide by all state laws. But I abide by almost zero federal laws." The face-off is the second time Bundy has challenged federal officials. In 1998, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the white-haired rancher, ordering his cattle off the land. Representing himself, Bundy lost his appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A simple man in a plaid shirt and denims, he's handled his legal battle from his Nevada ranch house, arguing in mailed-off court filings that his Mormon ancestors worked the land long before the BLM was even formed, giving him rights that predate federal involvement. Despite the court order, he refused to pull one head of cattle off BLM land...more 

Here's the L.A. Times video:

 

Critter under controversy: should lesser prairie chicken be "threatened"?

Listing the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species could protect its habitat and save the bird from extinction, say supporters. And that’s their side. Opponents of the proposal, on the other hand, fear infringement of property rights. One of them, Evertt Harrel, ranches cattle on a Yoakum County farm that’s belonged to his family for about 100 years. He told A-J Media he’s concerned about what would happen to the property if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moves forward with the proposal. “We could possibly go out of business,” he said. “If it’s listed as threatened, we won’t have that authority anymore. It would seriously diminish our ability to operate as we have.” The service will make a final decision in March as to whether to list the species as threatened, said Lesli Gray, a spokeswoman for the agency. The lesser prairie chicken has been described as a candidate for the listing since 1998, meaning officials are eyeing its numbers and considering advancing it to “threatened” status. Under the Endangered Species Act, threatened species are in less immediate danger of extinction than those with “endangered” status. Their populations are dwindling rapidly enough, however, to warrant some extra attention than non-threatened species. “Based on what we have observed, it’s a species that’s likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future,” Gray said. A decision was originally scheduled for December, but a recently granted six-month extension will prolong it. Along with Texas, its range occupies portions of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Jay Adams, who maintains about 500 acres in Yoakum County, said he feels land restrictions on the bird’s territory would be government overreach. He compared the lesser prairie chicken to the Northern spotted owl, whose “threatened” status in the 1990s hindered logging practices in its Pacific Northwest habitat. “That these people would take this so far as to impoverish an entire region is reality,” he said. “...The spotted owl thing didn’t end well. The whole Northwest was impoverished, and then we found out it was going away anyway because of a natural predator.”...more

Gas Leaks in Fracking Disputed in Study

Drilling for shale gas through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, appears to cause smaller leaks of the greenhouse gas methane than the federal government had estimated, and considerably smaller than some critics of shale gas had feared, according to a peer-reviewed study released on Monday. The study, conducted by the University of Texas and sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund and nine petroleum companies, bolsters the contention by advocates of fracking — and some environmental groups as well — that shale gas is cleaner and better than coal, at least until more renewable-energy sources are developed. More than 500 wells were analyzed. The Texas study concluded that while the total amount of escaped methane from shale-gas operations was substantial — more than one million tons annually — it was probably less than the Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2011.  In particular, it indicated that containment measures captured 99 percent of methane that escaped from new wells being prepared for production, a process known as completion. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun to require drillers to control leaks during completions, which are believed to be one of the major sources of methane losses at fracking wells. Although controls will not be required until January 2015, a number of companies already capture escaped gases at wells being prepared for production. The report comes at a time when shale-gas drilling is growing at a breakneck pace — production, now 30 percent of all United States natural gas, is expected to reach 50 percent by 2040 — but also when the industry is beset by controversy. The Texas study is the most comprehensive look to date at a contentious issue in the debate over fracking: the extent to which methane leaks during drilling and production offset the environmental benefits of the clean-burning natural gas the wells produce...more

PETA elk ad emphasizes bloody payback for Utah hunters

"Payback is hell." That is the message that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants to send with a new billboard the group plans to erect near Vernal. The words accompany a picture of an elk with bloodied antlers, along with the more direct anti-hunting message to "Leave animals alone." The billboard offers no explanation for the imagery, but a post on a PETA blog references a hunter who earlier this month nearly died after he accidentally punctured his neck on the antler of an elk he had just killed in Uintah County. "PETA is bringing attention to the fact that hunting draws blood on both sides," the organization posted on its blog. Bradley Greenwood, 51, killed a large bull elk the morning of Sept. 7 in the Davenport Draw area of Diamond Mountain, east of Vernal. Greenwood, of Lehi, tried to roll the elk, but the elk was bigger than he thought — about 600 to 700 pounds, Undersheriff John Laursen estimated at the time. One of the antlers plunged into his face behind his jaw, stabbing downward into his neck. Greenwood called 911 for help, saying his neck was swelling and he was struggling to breathe. Laursen said the wound likely had become inflamed. Rescuers found Greenwood and flew him to Ashley Regional Medical Center to be stabilized. Medics placed a tube into his trachea to keep it open, Laursen said; nurses have reported the procedure likely saved Greenwood’s life...more

Media groups tell NV judge BLM violating 1st Amendment with limits on mustang roundup access

RENO, Nevada — The Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press says the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is using safety concerns as an excuse to limit media access to wild horse roundups in violation of the First Amendment. The National Press Photographers Association and more than a dozen newspapers joined the committee in a friend-of-the-court brief backing an advocacy group waging a series of legal battles over mustang roundups in Nevada. The media groups say journalists routinely face far more dangerous assignments than covering horses. They say reporters should enjoy a minimum of the same unrestricted access to public rangeland as they do to battlefields around the world. The 9th Circuit sent the case back to U.S. Judge Larry Hicks in Reno last year to determine if the BLM limits are constitutional. AP

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1103

Its Country Classics week.  Today's tune is Eddy Arnold's 1948 recording of Bouquet of Roses.

http://youtu.be/1_6886o3KJ0

Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country

Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country
Jedediah S. Rogers
242 pages, hardcover: $39.95.
University of Utah Press, 2013.

Some fear that we will saddle our children with trillions of dollars in federal debt. That would be too bad, but it would be a minor inconvenience compared to what our forefathers cursed us with: the 1866 federal law known as R.S. 2477.  Like other such gifts -- including the 1872 Mining Law -- R.S. 2477 lays a heavy, destructive, expensive hand on the present.

The statute's 19 words said that anyone who wished to could build a public "highway" across the West's public land. That highway could not be extinguished by the later creation of a homestead, a national park or even a wilderness.

R.S. 2477 was repealed in 1976, but its highways -- sometimes nothing more than rough trails made by cowboys herding cattle -- are still being fought over in the West. That is especially true in Utah, where the state has launched 30 federal lawsuits to establish 36,000 miles of mechanized rights of way through existing wilderness, national parks and monuments, and wilderness study areas.

Into this expensive, litigious mess bravely comes the young historian Jedediah S. Rogers. With Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country, Rogers attempts to connect two warring ways of life. He asks us to look at roads not only as physical structures but as symbols of culture and history. In Rogers' telling, the Mormons of southern Utah regard the primitive roads their ancestors pioneered as comparable to the naves of medieval cathedrals. To interfere with the public's ability to travel them amounts to sacrilege. But to those who favor wilderness, the sacrilege is motorized travel through red-rock canyons and riparian areas.



Flood weary New Mexico keeps eyes on rivers

New Mexicans remained on high alert Monday to possible flash flooding as rain was expected to continue during the next few days, adding more runoff to already swollen rivers and streams. The tiny community of Mogollon in southwestern New Mexico was isolated after weekend rains destroyed the paved road leading to it. About 16 residents live permanently in the former mining town nestled in the mountains. "The water washed away the road and pretty much made it a creek bed," said Joe Tafoya, a state Department of Transportation supervisor in nearby Cliff. Authorities were trying to get a bulldozer "to get a road at least scraped off to see if people want to come out," he said. Food, water and sanitary supplies will be airlifted to the community on Tuesday, according to Enrique Knell, a spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez. Details of the mission were being worked out, he said. The governor traveled to several communities Monday to inspect damage from the flooding since last week when heavy rains inundated what had been a drought-parched state. In eastern New Mexico, Martinez was to stop in Santa Rosa, a community with a population of 2,800. Local officials are seeking a disaster declaration because flooding washed out roads and buckled pavement last week. "It felt like the storm of the century for the second time this year," interim City Administrator Raymond Mondragon said in a telephone interview before the governor's visit. Heavy hail pounded the city earlier in the summer, damaging roofs that are now leaking, he said. Officials warned of the potential of flooding because even moderate rainfall can push swollen rivers out of their banks and normally dry washes quickly fill with fast-moving water. But parts of the state should get a breather as rains Tuesday were expected mostly in the north-central mountains and eastern portions of the state, said Christopher Luckett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. "Comparing this week with last week, we're definitely going to be quieting down," Luckett said. In the west-central community of Grants, two schools were closed early as a precaution in case roads in low-lying areas become water-covered, Grants Police Lt. John Castaneda said. Many students travel to and from school by bus. Runoff is high from rains that have pounded the area since Friday. "The water is getting into the sewers now. We're having a lot of backup from that," Castaneda said. In southwestern New Mexico, the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument remained closed. Heavy rains raised the Gila River by 15 feet Sunday, prompting the closure of a road to the monument. The monument's acting superintendent, Rodney Sauter, said the river near the monument had dropped but power to the visitor center was knocked out after a tree fell across an electrical distribution line. He said trees and other debris littered the river bank. "We're still dealing with a flash flood watch. It's better now but we've had multiple surges since last week," Sauter said. However, he said the 700-year-old cliff dwellings aren't threatened because they're about 180 feet above the flood plain. Some areas have received close to 10 inches of rain since last Tuesday. More than 4 inches fell in parts of Albuquerque, marking the wettest September on record for the state's most populous city. So far, one person has died in the flooding. The body of a 53-year-old man was found over the weekend in southern New Mexico's Sierra County. Authorities say Steven Elsley of Phoenix died after his car was washed into a ravine and carried away...AP

Monday, September 16, 2013

How House can defund Obamacare

Dan Holler


In just two weeks, millions of Americans will become eligible to sign up for the Obamacare exchanges. It will mark the first time millions of voters will have the opportunity to opt into Obamacare, and they will do so with the expectation of receiving benefits in a few short months. Opponents of President Obama’s health care regime can argue about the quality and cost of that care, but entitlement programs are notoriously difficult to unravel once the money starts flowing.

To date, there is just one legislative strategy on the table that is geared toward stopping Obamacare before the exchanges open on October 1st — defund Obamacare on the year-end spending bill. The strategy is supported by Senators like Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), Congressmen like Justin Amash (R-MI) and Mark Meadows (R-NC), and conservative voters all across the country.

First, it is important to understand what conservatives mean by “defunding Obamacare.”

Defunding Obamacare means attaching a legislative rider (think of the Hyde Amendment) to the year-end spending bill, which will be considered by September 30, the day before the Obamacare exchanges open for enrollment. The rider would prohibit any funds from being spent on any activities to implement or enforce Obamacare, rescind unspent balances that have already been appropriated and turn off the exchange subsidy and new Medicaid spending, the so-called mandatory spending. Fortunately, the language described already exists in the form of the Defund Obamacare Act of 2013 introduced by Cruz and Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA).
Second, it is important to understand defunding Obamacare is not a new idea.

In 2011, after Republicans took control of the House thanks to the tea party wave, they included a defunding provision on their  continuing resolution when it first passed the House. Obviously the provision was jettisoned in  subsequent negotiations, but they were not afraid to pursue defunding.

Third, it is important to understand what this is not.

It is not an effort, as some have suggested, to defund Obamacare by shutting down the government.  Most folks understand that shutting down the government would not defund Obamacare (though it is unclear how much slush fund money the administration has on hand). Conservatives who are pushing to defund Obamacare are the same ones pushing to fund the government.

Fourth, it is important to understand how the defund effort can succeed, even with Barack Obama occupying the Oval Office.

In 2010, no one would have predicted the Obama administration would unilaterally delay the employer mandate months before it was scheduled to go into effect. Similarly, the administration has delayed electronic notices for Medicaid, scaled back oversight of income eligibility and eliminated insurance verification. In short, Obamacare is not sacrosanct.

Given the alignment of Obamacare enrollment and the need to pass a government funding bill, it is  entirely appropriate for conservatives in Congress to wage a real fight to defund a law that is destroying jobs, increasing costs and coming between patients and their doctors. If the Republican House wages this fight — as opposed to a fight against conservatives — they can win the national argument.




AZ Border Ranchers: “It’s Not Our Country Anymore, We’re Living By The Law of The Cartel” and Border Sheriffs Say D.C. Not Taking Border Seriously


by Rachel Pulaski

Border Sheriffs, frustrated with D.C. politicians, are once again speaking out.  They say Congress is not listening and their ideas are not enough.  Border Sheriffs, including Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and Doña Ana County, N.M., Sheriff Todd Garrison, are fed up and want better security for their borders.

WLTX reported:

Dannels’ complaints about the lack of Border Patrol agents along the border suggests he supports a Senate plan to flood the Southwest border with 20,000 new agents. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t think border security proposals in the House will do much, either.


“The people in my county are very frustrated,” Dannels says, looking at the lush green of a valley that will soon shrivel to brown in the desert sun. “They feel border security hasn’t been taken seriously.”


Congress returned from recess this week facing a busy schedule, featuring debates over Syria, health care and the debt limit.


But Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said they also will find time to dive into immigration.


The Senate and House have spent months crafting their own versions of overhauls to the nation’s immigration laws. Yet Dannels is among more than a dozen sheriffs interviewed by USA TODAY who police the border from California to Texas and say the plans from Washington will do little to secure the border.


They say they have proposals that will work – more prosecutions of border crossers, closer screening of people going through border crossings, putting pressure on Mexico to do its part. But they feel they’ve been shoved aside by a Congress more interested in cutting a deal than finding solutions.


They’ve had every organization up there except law enforcement. I just don’t understand that,” said Doña Ana County, N.M., Sheriff Todd Garrison. “If we just had a seat at the table and could express our concerns, it would at least shed some light on these issues.”

Arizona ranchers living along the Mexican border are fearful of the drug cartel and say the U.S. is “borderless”.  The Arizona ranchers are speaking out to The Blaze and airing a special on the “For the Record” show this evening.  The show promises to provide “never-before-seen surveillance videos taken from their ranches: proof that their ranches are being seized by drug traffickers and nefarious groups that use the cover of darkness to cross into the United States.”

The Blaze reported:

Mary, an Arizona rancher who spoke to TheBlaze on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the drug cartels, warned, “it’s not our country anymore.”


“We may be bound to the laws of our country,” she said. “But we’re living by the law of the cartels.”

Like Mary, many of the ranchers chose to speak on condition that they not be named out of fear for their lives but their stories are all similar. They say the U.S. is “borderless.”


Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who works closely with the ranchers living along his county’s 83-mile border with Mexico, told TheBlaze the increased violence along his community’s southern border is an example that the federal government is failing when it comes to border security.


“Border security should be a primary issue even before we talk about immigration reform,” said Dannels, who has spent more than 25 years in law enforcement along the border. “The biggest change from 1984 until current is the violence on the border.”

Originally posted at Gateway Pundit.

By: Rachel Pulaski
By: Rachel Pulaski
By: Rachel Pulaski
Border Sheriffs, frustrated with D.C. politicians, are once again speaking out.  They say Congress is not listening and their ideas are not enough.  Border Sheriffs, including Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels and Doña Ana County, N.M., Sheriff Todd Garrison, are fed up and want better security for their borders.
WLTX reported:
Dannels’ complaints about the lack of Border Patrol agents along the border suggests he supports a Senate plan to flood the Southwest border with 20,000 new agents. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t think border security proposals in the House will do much, either.
“The people in my county are very frustrated,” Dannels says, looking at the lush green of a valley that will soon shrivel to brown in the desert sun. “They feel border security hasn’t been taken seriously.”
Congress returned from recess this week facing a busy schedule, featuring debates over Syria, health care and the debt limit.
But Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said they also will find time to dive into immigration.
The Senate and House have spent months crafting their own versions of overhauls to the nation’s immigration laws. Yet Dannels is among more than a dozen sheriffs interviewed by USA TODAY who police the border from California to Texas and say the plans from Washington will do little to secure the border.
They say they have proposals that will work – more prosecutions of border crossers, closer screening of people going through border crossings, putting pressure on Mexico to do its part. But they feel they’ve been shoved aside by a Congress more interested in cutting a deal than finding solutions.
They’ve had every organization up there except law enforcement. I just don’t understand that,” said Doña Ana County, N.M., Sheriff Todd Garrison. “If we just had a seat at the table and could express our concerns, it would at least shed some light on these issues.”
Arizona ranchers living along the Mexican border are fearful of the drug cartel and say the U.S. is “borderless”.  The Arizona ranchers are speaking out to The Blaze and airing a special on the “For the Record” show this evening.  The show promises to provide “never-before-seen surveillance videos taken from their ranches: proof that their ranches are being seized by drug traffickers and nefarious groups that use the cover of darkness to cross into the United States.”
The Blaze reported:
Mary, an Arizona rancher who spoke to TheBlaze on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the drug cartels, warned, “it’s not our country anymore.”
“We may be bound to the laws of our country,” she said. “But we’re living by the law of the cartels.”
Like Mary, many of the ranchers chose to speak on condition that they not be named out of fear for their lives but their stories are all similar. They say the U.S. is “borderless.”
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who works closely with the ranchers living along his county’s 83-mile border with Mexico, told TheBlaze the increased violence along his community’s southern border is an example that the federal government is failing when it comes to border security.
“Border security should be a primary issue even before we talk about immigration reform,” said Dannels, who has spent more than 25 years in law enforcement along the border. “The biggest change from 1984 until current is the violence on the border.”
- See more at: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/09/az-border-ranchersits-not-our-country-anymore-were-living-by-the-law-of-the-cartel-and-border-sheriffs-say-d-c-not-taking-border-seriously/#sthash.nNJdoMzL.dpuf
By: Rachel Pulaski