Friday, February 24, 2017

EPA Union Urges Employees to Rally on Capitol Hill for ‘Respect’

Environmental Protection Agency employees are being urged to join a rally on Capitol Hill next month by a union representing the agency, according to an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280 sent an invitation to the rally on the EPA email system during work hours, encouraging employees to rally for "respect." "Please join NTEU members from across the country as we rally at the U.S. Capitol for fair pay, a secure retirement, and respect," the email, which was sent Wednesday, states. "We really need you to come for this," the union said. "Now, more than ever it's important that EPA employees stand together." The rally comes at a time when government bureaucrats, including career employees for the EPA, are vowing to resist the new Trump administration. In an unprecedented effort, EPA employees called their senators last week pressing them to vote against Scott Pruitt as the new EPA administrator. The New York Times called it "a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA." Pruitt was confirmed by a vote of 52-46. Other EPA employees were still crying at work more than two months after Hillary Clinton's election loss...more

Do they really think this is the way to gain the respect of Trump and others?...by being a pawn in the union's agenda?

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Rancher claims cartel activity captured on camera

A southern Arizona rancher is sharing video, he says, that shows cartel activity happening on his property. Jim Chilton has a 50,000-acre ranch in Arivaca. He claims game cameras mounted throughout the property captured various groups of drug smugglers in 2016. "Hundreds and hundreds," says Chilton. "The most obvious is the big 70 lb packs of marijuana." Chilton says border-crossers have cut through his ranch for years, but times have changed. "The number of people coming across who are just good people coming across as immigrants has decreased dramatically," says Chilton. "I think that it's mainly drug-packers now." Chilton says he communicates with the border patrol and fellow ranchers. He says the answer is a border wall with agents right behind it. "I would like to see Trump build a wall and put forward operation bases at the wall, not 80 miles in Tucson," says Chilton. "Get the border patrol off their wazoos in Tucson and out to the international boundary." Chilton provided video of the international boundary bordering his property. The video shows where the wall ends with parts of the border protected only with a barbed wire fence. Chilton is part of a coalition of ranchers urging Arizona congress members to get behind Trump’s immigration proposals, no matter the cost. "What's the social cost?” asks Chilton. “I mean hundreds of billions of dollars of social costs, people being on heroin, cocaine, we've got to eliminate as much as possible.”...more

Here is the TV news report

azfamily.com 3TV | Phoenix Breaking News, Weather, Sport

Ranchers criticize wilderness proposal by Udall, Heinrich

New Mexico’s two U.S. senators have introduced legislation they say has been years in the making to set aside tens of thousands of acres as wilderness on opposite ends of the state in areas already designated as national monuments. But ranchers from some rural communities fear the new designations will amount to another layer of bureaucracy aimed at pushing them from the land. Their concerns mark just the latest battle over public lands in the West, where the federal government already controls millions of acres. The Northern New Mexico Stockman’s Association has passed a resolution against future wilderness and monument designations, and its members, along with groups representing ranchers from elsewhere in the state, are standing up to the latest wilderness proposal. Dave Sanchez, vice president of the stockmen’s group, said wilderness designations have been used as a tool by the federal government to terminate grazing permits and suggested that as many as 80 percent of permits on national forest land have been lost over the years in the Southwest region alone. “The economy of rural New Mexico cannot afford any more wilderness designations,” Sanchez said. The association maintains that U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats who were advocates of efforts by the Obama administration to add more wilderness to the nation’s conservation system, are aware of the group’s opposition and that Heinrich declined a request for a meeting to discuss public land matters. While the legislation allows for existing grazing rights to be managed under the provisions of the federal Wilderness Act, ranchers say making the areas off limits to vehicles and other mechanized equipment would make their jobs more difficult. “This continues to put layer after layer of federal discretion over land that doesn’t do any more to protect it but places more constrains on the people who have been living off the land for generations,” said Caren Cowan, former executive director of the New Mexico Cattlegrowers’ Association. U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, the lone Republican in New Mexico’s congressional delegation, has been an outspoken critic of federal efforts to lock up more land in the West and is concerned about the legislation, said spokeswoman Keeley Christensen. “New Mexicans want more access to federal lands for recreation, hunting, grazing and economic opportunity for local communities,” she said. “This bill is out of step with our values and where we want to be going as a state.” ...more

West's challenge is still water scarcity, wet winter or not

by

Pioche, Nev.—The number of “For Sale” signs compete with “Open” in the storefronts along the main street in this hilly town, where fortunes evaporated with the silver and zinc mines that created it. There’s no bank or grocery store. Mining has mostly vacated the area, leaving a clutch of retirees, some county workers, and not too many others. But this part of Nevada still has one resource that residents to the south in glitzy Las Vegas desperately want and need – water. A controversial proposal would send a big chunk of this region’s water southward, through a 250-mile pipeline that, critics say, would dry up ranchers and farmers to supply a sprawling metropolis defined by its embrace of nightlife and all-day pool parties. “The people in Clark County want to put a pipeline in here to drain our water. We don’t want to give it away to them. We do just fine up here,” says Don Spaulding, a retiree in Pioche. But there’s a larger reality, too: Whatever happens with the pipeline, water has been getting harder to find for urban and rural residents alike. Even with big snows and rains across parts of the West this winter, aquifers and forests remain taxed. Long term, the water challenges of the American West look increasingly beyond the scale of traditional infrastructure projects to resolve. Lake Mead, a major reservoir serving the Southwest, has recently been at record lows, pressuring Las Vegas to look for water sources outside the Colorado River system. And here in Pioche, residents say a long drought has taken its toll. “We’re not getting as many tourists,” says Ann Mills inside her trinket shop called Rag Doll. “They come up for recreation, but even the lakes are low. Echo Lake gets really low. It’s not even good for fishing anymore. Eagle Valley is getting mossy and stinky.” A new era of water management Yet in the face of these challenges, residents of the West aren’t resigning themselves to a bleak future. Instead, states in the Colorado River basin have been turning a page toward a new era of water management. With climate change affecting water supplies that are already strained by urban growth, the region is being forced to innovate and adapt. •Cities are conserving through steps like encouraging desert landscapes, by prohibiting grass lawns for newly built homes, and paying people with existing lawns to abandon them. •Advancements in treatment technology are making it more possible to recycle water and harness rainfall for later use. •Farmers are shifting to drip irrigation and other methods to use less water.  •Increasingly farmers are trading water through formal and informal markets to use it more efficiently, shifting away from a system of use-it-or-lose-it allotments. •Water managers are making dams more efficient at serving both hydropower and irrigation needs.•And a pragmatic outlook is prompting states, cities, and rural areas to bargain over water, not just fight over it. Behind all this is a slow, cultural shift that recognizes conservation and scarcity – and the need for innovative and multi-layered responses.


Clarence "Yunk" Griffin, 1942-2017

Clarence "Yunk" Griffin of Snyder, Texas went to be with our Lord and Savior on February 18, 2017 in Lubbock, Texas after a series of health complications.

Yunk was born May 1, 1942 in Corona, NM to Clarence & Eileen Griffin. Growing up on a ranch, Yunk and his brothers had no choice but to be cowboys. After moving to Fort Hancock, TX, the Griffin boys began strenuous training with World Champion Trick Rider Dick Griffith, and became "The Four Little Men" and traveled to rodeos all over the US performing their stunts. Upon graduating from Moriarity High School in 1960, Yunk began working odd jobs until starting college at NMSU in 1963. He began saddle bronc riding and was a member of the NMSU rodeo team, where he won the Southwest Region twice. He graduated from NMSU in 1967 with his Bachelors in Ag Business. Yunk soon joined his dad and brothers in the family stone business where they worked alongside each other for forty years. Yunk married Patricia Abney on August 13, 1983. When he was 45 years old, Yunk accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, which was the most important decision he ever made. In 1998, he began New Heart Cowboy Church which he pastored until retiring and moving to Snyder, TX in 2011 to be closer to his grandkids. The last few years of his life were spent in Texas with his wife enjoying their grandkids.

Survivors include his wife, Patricia Griffin; daughter, Becky Collier and her husband, Bronc; son, Cody and his wife, Sara; son, Todd and his wife, Michelle; brothers, Pete and his wife, Susie; Cleve and his wife, Donna; grandchildren, Steeley and Clarence "CJ" Collier, Isaac Griffin, Caitlin Myers, and numerous nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his sister, Jean Duncan; brother, Garvin Griffin, and his parents.

Visitation will be Friday, February 24 from 9 to 10 am at New Heart Cowboy Church. The funeral service will follow at 10 am with Couy Griffin officiating. A meal will follow after the service. Burial will be at the Corona Cemetery following the meal.

Pallbearers include: Bronc Collier, Mac Griffin, Travis Griffin, Trey Griffin, Matt Griffin, Ty Griffin, Ross Griffin, Shawn Griffin, Ryan Griffin, and Scott Miller.

The Griffin family has entrusted their loved one to the care of Hamilton-O'Dell Funeral Home to direct the funeral services.

To sign the online register book, please visit www.hamiltonodell.com. -

Hatch tells state lawmakers Trump looking at Bears Ears, Grand Staircase

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told state lawmakers Wednesday that even though President Donald Trump may irritate some people, "in a lot of ways, we're taking on things that we've never been able to take on before." Hatch highlighted Trump's willingness to take a look at the designation of two national monuments in southern Utah by past presidents, the newly designated Bears Ears and the 20-year-old Grand Staircase-Escalante. He said he spent an hour in the Oval Office with the new Republican president discussing the state's efforts to rescind or at least reduce the size of the monuments, noting that the designation of Grand Staircase shut off a coal reserve. "I'd like to see us have access to that," Hatch said in the Utah Senate. Mining the clean-burning coal will help the state "taxwise and so forth. It will also help the country when we need that energy." Later, Hatch told reporters he's "very confident" Trump will rescind the Bears Ears National Monument designation made by President Barack Obama in the final days of his administration. The president "may very well rescind that, and we’ll work at doing it the way it should be done," Hatch said during the daily state Senate media availability, "in a way that will be just, right and in accordance with feelings of Utah." Utah's senior senator also said he believes Trump has the authority to create a route to the coal reserves within Grand Staircase by modifying the national monument. "He would be able legally to create the access to this great treasure that may save Utah and the country someday," Hatch said. The coal would not be mined "at the present time," he said, but instead be "a resource already ready." Such an action by Trump "certainly would right a wrong that occurred without any consideration," Hatch said, a reference to Clinton's surprise announcement of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument...more

Study on grazing in the West

On the 20th I linked to a column by Matthew Anderson, Grazing should be critical piece of lands management. The column referred to a new study released by the Coalition For Self-Government In The West, wherein they looked at the number of aum's and grazing permits authorized and issued by the BLM from 1949-2014.

The study, Dusty Trails: The Erosion of Grazing in the American West, is now available on their website. Data is available on the eleven Western states and for individual states. Westwide, the number of aum's authorized has declined from 14,572,272 to 7,160,432 and the number of permittees has gone from 21,081 to 10,187. In New Mexico, the number of aum's has declined by 46% and the number of permittees by a whopping 65%.

Many thanks to the author, Matthew Anderson, for sharing this information with The Westerner. Let's hope their next study will look at the Forest Service.


Two children burned after Dakota Access protesters set 20 fires during evacuation

Two children were burned, one of them severely, at the Dakota Access camp evacuation Wednesday after remaining activists set fire to about 20 shelters and a vehicle in what was described as a departure ceremony. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said a 17-year-old girl was airlifted to a hospital in Minneapolis, and that a seven-year-old boy was also hurt as most of the activists left the camp in compliance with a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers eviction order. Most of those remaining at the camp left peacefully, but 10 protesters were arrested after making their way onto Highway 1806 and refusing to disperse. “In the intentional burning of some of the buildings, which may have been ceremonial in nature … there was apparently either a fire out of control or an explosion,” said Mr. Burgum at a livestream press conference after the evacuation. “There was a 17-year-old woman who was severely burned.” The North Dakota Joint Information Center reported at least two explosions at the Oceti Sakowin camp, the largest of the pipeline protest camps located on federal land in a floodplain near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. “We’re sharing that because obviously it’s very sad for all the people involved,” the Republican governor said. Those arrested were charged with obstructing a government function, which is a misdemeanor, bringing the total number of arrests since August to about 720, said Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier. Mr. Burgum said that those who were arrested “really had to be trying to get it done.” “For someone to be arrested on the road today, they had to have interaction with law enforcement within the arrest zone with the intention of being arrested,” Mr. Burgum said. “In the true North Dakota way, they had every opportunity to walk away and not be arrested. So this is clearly a case where to be arrested today you really had to be trying to get it done because that was not part of our operational plan.” While most of the remaining 200-300 protesters exited the camp, some aided by free travel, food and hotel vouchers from the state, as many as 50 people remain, the smallest number since protest activity against the pipeline kicked into high gear in August...more

No home on the range - BLM, powerball, pzp & pine nuts

There are an estimated 100,000 wild horses in the Western United States, but only a little more than half of them actually live in the wild of the vast range lands. The rest are kept in corrals and long-term pastures run by the Bureau of Land Management—whose job it has been to manage wild horses since 1971. These numbers represent a real and growing problem... In 2015, the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program spent nearly two-thirds of its roughly $72 million annual budget on housing the horses it has taken out of the wild. And, as of August 2016, the agency estimated its holding facilities were nearly 80 percent full. What’s more, according to its figures, the number of horses left on the range is fully two times what’s ideal...In an email interview, BLM spokespersons Jenny Lesieutre and Jason Lutterman provided an update on what’s happened in the interim, noting that “the BLM has acquired more off-range pastures to reduce the number of horses in higher-cost corrals.”... An October article in South Dakota’s Butte County Post about one of these pasture acquisitions, reported a Powerball jackpot winner had agreed to let the BLM pasture a herd of 917 horses on roughly 50 square mile of privately owned grassland 75 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota—for a price of $2 per horse, per day. The BLM also puts some wild horses up for adoption and sale. According to Lesieutre and Lutterman, until the BLM has “better tools to manage wild horses on the range,” the agency has capped the number of horses that can be removed each year at 3,500, “about the same number that leave the system through adoption, sales and natural mortality.” In 2015, the BLM reported the roundup of 3,093 horses—nearly half from Nevada. The same year, 2,331 were sold or adopted. Pine Nut Wild Horse Advocates—a non-profit—began darting mares with PZP in 2012. In 2014, a pilot program to control the population of wild horses near the Pine Nut Mountains was officially established with the blessing of the Wild Horse and Burro Program’s Nevada office. The program was established at no cost to BLM. The Pine Nut group’s members use donated funds to pay for PZP training and certification from another nonprofit, the Science and Conservation Center in Billings, Montana. They also use fundraising to pay for the vaccines, which according to Deb Walker, the group’s president, cost about $25 per dose. A mare needs two doses in the first year, and one every year thereafter. But it has been almost a year since the group’s members have darted a mare. Their carbon dioxide powered dart guns—some on loan from the BLM—have sat unused, save for target practice, since another advocacy group threatened the BLM with a lawsuit. Friends of Animals cited concerns over alleged side effects of the treatment and a belief that the program violated a judge’s court order forbidding the roundup of horses from the area east of Gardnerville. Now, members of the Pine Nut group worry the PZP they’ve administered to 36 different mares from four bands is wearing off...more

Giffords promotes gun bills in NM Legislature


Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords – who barely survived an assassination attempt six years ago – joined the debate Wednesday over gun proposals moving through the New Mexico Legislature. Giffords, a Democrat who once represented a chunk of southern Arizona, visited the Roundhouse to lobby in favor of bills that aim to keep guns away from domestic abusers and require background checks on the sale of firearms at gun shows and in private transactions. She also announced the formation of a new coalition in New Mexico, including prosecutors, gun owners and others. The New Mexico Coalition for Common Sense, which Giffords announced Wednesday, includes Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III, 2nd Judicial District Attorney Raúl Torrez, at least two ranchers, a representative of the NAACP and others. Their goal is to advance policies that “help keep guns out of the wrong hands,” according to a news release. New Mexico is at the center of a national debate over gun control. Democrats reclaimed a majority in the state House and expanded their majority in the Senate ahead of this year’s session. Everytown for Gun Safety, a New York-based group, says it spent more than $250,000 on New Mexico campaigns last year...more

"New York-based group" means former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his rabid gun control agenda. Worth $33.7 billion, he's turned away from the Republican-controlled Congress and focused his efforts on various states. Lucky New Mexico. So far, it appears his $250,000 is paying off.

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1789

Today we have a fiddle tune by Chubby Wise: Stone's Rag. The tune is on his 1969 album Chubby Wise and His Fiddle (Nuff Said).  

https://youtu.be/WddqycapPfA

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Wyoming Farm Bureau Defeats EPA Wyoming Land Grab



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                 
Contact: William Perry Pendley, 303/292-2021, Ext. 30
Wyoming Farm Bureau Defeats EPA Wyoming Land Grab
February 22, 2017 – DENVER, CO. The Wyoming Farm Bureau today celebrated the 2-1 ruling of a three-judge panel of a Denver-based federal appeals court that struck down an edict from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the Northern Arapahoe Tribe and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe—of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont and Hot Springs Counties in west central Wyoming—have jurisdiction over 1.48 million acres of Wyoming. In early 2014, the group petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit contesting the EPA’s December of 2013 decision to grant “Tribe-as-State” status under the federal Clean Air Act. The Farm Bureau, some of whose members live, work, and own property in and near Riverton, argues that the EPA’s decision ignores more than one hundred years of actions by Congress, Wyoming, the Tribes, and various rulings by a host of federal and state courts including the Supreme Court of the United States. During arguments in November of 2015 the parties were asked to file supplement briefs on whether the withholding of Clean Air Act funds by the EPA mooted the lawsuit, which the Farm Bureau filed on December 1, 2015.
“We are thrilled with the ruling by the panel that 1.48 million acres of Wyoming are no longer considered ‘Indian country’ and therefore the subject of controversy and conflict over whether the Tribes have jurisdiction over non-Indians and non-reservation lands,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the Farm Bureau.
In December 2008, both Tribes sought Tribe-as-State status under §301(d)(2) of the Clean Air Act, which provides an “express congressional delegation” to tribes of the EPA’s authority to regulate air quality on fee lands located within the exterior boundaries of a reservation. The tribes expended 82 of their 87-page application arguing that they possessed jurisdiction over Riverton. Because their application ignored a host of federal statutes and federal and state court rulings, in 2009, the State of Wyoming, the Wyoming Farm Bureau, and other entities filed comments opposing the application.
The Reservation, which is shared by the Tribes, was established in 1868. In 1904, the Tribes signed an agreement with the federal government ceding 1,480,000 acres of land, which were to be opened for sale under the homestead, townsite, coal, and mineral land laws, which was entered into with the United States Indian Inspector in exchange for per capita payments to tribal members and capital improvement projects inside “the diminished reserve” or Reservation. In 1905, Congress ratified the 1904 agreement.
In 1906, the ceded lands were opened for settlement by a Presidential Proclamation and allotments were sold to non-Indians in an area that today makes up Riverton. In 1939, some unsold ceded lands were restored to the Reservation, but a significant portion was not. Riverton is located wholly on lands ceded in the 1904 agreement and never restored to the Tribes.
Mountain States Legal Foundation, created in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in suburban Denver, Colorado.


DuBois column


The Zinke hearings plus collaboratin’ compensatin’ and stickin’ it to stakeholders

Zinke hearings

The Senate hearings on Ryan Zinke’s nomination as Secretary of Interior was relatively uneventful, with the Montana Congressman surviving unscathed.

Zinke testified he was an “unapologetic admirer of Teddy Roosevelt” and believes Roosevelt “had it right” when he set aside “millions of acres of federal lands” for protection. It was on these lands where “my father taught me to fish and hunt and the Boy Scout’s taught me the principles of environmental stewardship,” he said.

Zinke also reiterated his opposition to the transfer of lands out of federal ownership. “I want to be clear on this point: I am absolutely against transfer or sale of public land. I can’t be any more clear,” he said.

There would be three immediate priorities, he said.  First would be to restore trust. Second would be to prioritize the $12.5 billion backlog in Park Service maintenance, including making that a part of a proposed infrastructure bill. And third is “to ensure the professionals on the front line, our rangers and field managers, have the right tools, right resources, and flexibility to make the right decisions that give a voice to the people they serve.”

Sounds like he’s planning on having plenty of money to spend.

Those who rely on federal lands remaining federal lined up to support the nominee.

"The Outdoor Recreation Industry Roundtable supports Secretary-designate Zinke and looks forward to working with him and his team at the Department of the Interior to advance the outdoor recreation sector, grow jobs in the U.S. and ensure that all Americans have access to healthy, active outdoor fun on their public lands and waters," said Derrick Crandall, President of the American Recreation Coalition.

"RVIA unwaveringly supports the nomination of Representative Ryan Zinke to serve as Secretary of the Interior," said Frank Hugelmeyer, President, Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.

"Because the Department of Interior oversees water management and its policies directly impact Americans' access to federally managed waterways and fisheries for recreation, the role of Secretary of the Interior is of critical importance to the U.S. recreational boating industry and its 35,000 marine businesses and 88 million boaters," notes Thom Dammrich, President of the National Marine Manufacturers Association. "We stand behind President-elect Trump's nomination of Ryan Zinke of Montana for Secretary of the Interior given his proven passion for and commitment to the outdoors.

Welcome to the New West. 

The livestock producers chimed in, with Tracy Brunner, NCBA president saying, “During his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Zinke has consistently advocated for our western communities, economies, and ranchers. He has demanded transparency and the inclusion of stakeholders when it comes to land management decisions, and has a strong understanding of the challenges that come with stewarding the West.” And PLC president Dave Eliason stating, “We are excited for Representative Zinke to refocus the agency’s efforts to their core mission, and to have someone in this role that understands the unique challenges we face in the West.”

As predicted, there were plenty of hosannas to collaboration and inclusion of all stakeholders. Zinke said he would be “working with rather than against” local communities and states by being “a listening advocate rather than a deaf adversary.”

Those are pretty words, but most of us will be more interested in what he does after listening.

And speaking of collaboration…

Collaborating and compensating?

On August 5, 2015, near Silverton, Colorado, EPA personnel and employees of an EPA contractor caused the release of wastewater and tailings, including toxic levels of lead and arsenic and other harmful elements.  The spill affected the waterways of municipalities in the states of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, as well as the Navajo Nation.   

The Animas River turned orange but the EPA didn’t notify New Mexico and Colorado until the next day after the spill. But hey, who said all this collaboration had to be quick.

The EPA initially set the spill at one million gallons. They lied. The USGS determined the spill was triple that size at over three million gallons. But hey, who said all this collaboration had to be accurate.

EPA administrator Gina McCarthy stated the agency accepted “full responsibility” for the spill. Well, cry me a polluted river if she didn’t lie. The EPA has just announced attorneys at EPA and the Justice Department have determined EPA can’t pay the over $1.2 billion in claims for damages because of sovereign immunity. But hey, who said all this collaboration had to be truthful.

Congress can waive sovereign immunity, and if they chose to collaborate with the states and the river users, they will do so. Congress should also pay these claims out of EPA’s budget.

This whole episode is a prime example of collaboratin’, compensatin’ and stickin’ it to the stakeholders.

BLM brown baggin’ with Bigfoot

The press has reported on a January BLM Brown Bag Lecture in Safford, Arizona. The event had a documentary on Bigfoot, and featured “a Bigfoot lookalike contest, door prizes, popcorn, Bigfoot cookies, and more.”

Brown baggin’ with Bigfoot, including Bigfoot cookies, at the BLM office. Nice to see their budget’s not in the dire straits they often claim.

I wonder what their February brown baggin’ will feature. A BLM Break with Big Bird?

Till next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

 Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

This column originally appeared in the February editions of New Mexico Stockman and the Livestock Market Digest.

Prosecutor: No formal agreement to conspire in refuge takeover, but a 'meeting of the minds'

A federal prosecutor told jurors that they won't hear evidence of a formal meeting, written contract or verbal agreement between four men on trial for allegedly conspiring to impede federal employees from carrying out their work at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, they'll be able to infer through the words and actions of defendants Jason Patrick, Duane Ehmer, Jake Ryan and Darryl Thorn that they used the federal property as their own last winter as a "platform for their cause,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow said. They raided the refuge headquarters Jan. 2, 2016, going building to building with guns and converted the refuge offices and bunkhouse into their own living quarters and meeting space, while keeping armed watch at the property's front gates and fire tower to control access to and from the site, Barrow said. "The defendants assumed complete control over the refuge, '' Barrow told 12 jurors and four alternates. "Circumstantial evidence will show there was a meeting of the minds to keep employees from doing their jobs.'' Defense lawyers countered that the defendants on trial weren't leaders or organizers, but followers who were drawn to the refuge for a smattering of reasons. They argued there was no organized conspiracy, but a spontaneous gathering of like-minded people. Ehmer thought the occupation was some sort of a "sit in,'' and that the refuge employees were on "seasonal layoffs until March,'' his lawyer told jurors. Thorn's lawyer characterized him as a "bit player swept up in a larger show,'' who was drawn by the Bundys' interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that he shared and "a desire to belong, to be part of something greater than himself.'' Ryan's lawyer described him as "just a theater kid from the country with strong beliefs'' about limited government who felt compelled to help out once Ammon Bundy issued a call for support...more

Farm sparks outrage with video of miniature horse eating from HIGHCHAIR

A video of a miniature horse sitting in a high chair like a baby has sparked outrage online - as people branded it animal abuse. The little pony was filmed eating carrots from a bowl while awkwardly sitting in the chair - usually used for humans rather than horses. Japan's Suetoshi Farm, which shared the clip on Instagram, has received a furious backlash since posting it last week. Hundreds of people slammed it as "abuse" saying it could seriously damage the horse's spine. One wrote: "What stupid f***er thought this was cute. ABUSE." Another wrote: "Cute but not good for their back" And another said: "It's not funny !!! It's stupid and cruel." But others seemed to love it, commenting under the original video: "You should see the uproar you've cause on Facebook - everyone says it's animal abuse. I think it's adorable personally. link

Here is the video

Nearly a quarter million horses call Idaho home

A new report from the University of Idaho says that the state has an estimated 221,000 equines, including riding horses, draft horses, ponies, miniature horses, donkeys, mules, and others of the species. The report is based on research carried out in 2015 by the Social Science Research Unit at the University of Idaho. It was paid for by the Idaho Horse Council and the Idaho Horse Board. The researchers said 14 percent of the households in Idaho own a horse of some type. Horse owners spent $122 million including $49 million on hay, straw and grain; $23 million for veterinary and farrier care, and $10 million in horse trailers. Thirty-eight percent of the Idaho horses are used for pleasure riding. The rest are used for packing or hunting (19 percent), ranch or farm work (12 percent), breeding (8 percent), endurance trail riding (8 percent) showing (3 percent), rodeo (3 percent) racing (2 percent) or other. The American Quarter Horse is the most popular breed of horse in Idaho, the report said. link

3 people injured after drone spooks horse in Colorado

SILVERTON, Colo. (KKTV) - Three people are recovering from injuries after a horse was spooked by a drone during a winter racing event in southwest Colorado. The incident happened Saturday at a skijoring race in Silverton. Skijoring is a race where horses pull cross-country skiers through a series of gates and jumps. San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad said he plans to ticket a drone pilot. The pilot allegedly flew his drone close to a horse at the race. The horse then ran into the crowd. Two women were hospitalized and a third man was given a bloody chin. The spectators were unable to escape the horse's path because of a large snowbank behind them. The drone pilot has not been identified. Event organizers say drones won't be allowed to fly over the event in the future.

 Can you visualize the animal rights folks at a rodeo, or....

USDA Is Targeting a Family Business. A Religious Liberty Organization Is Calling on Trump to Protect It.


A religious liberty organization is asking President Donald Trump to sign a proposed executive order that would protect the religious freedom of a family-owned business and others like it from the punitive actions of an executive agency.“The Vander Boons are at risk of having their plant shut down and their employees left jobless because of the [Department of Agriculture’s] unfair targeting of the Vander Boons for their religious beliefs,” wrote Michael Farris, the new president of legal defense organization Alliance Defending Freedom, in a letter sent to Trump Wednesday. The Vander Boons are facing closure due to the United States Department of Agriculture threatening to pull inspectors from reviewing their business. The department had made a decision that “prohibits [the] family-owned Michigan meatpacking facility from including religious literature concerning marriage on a break room table,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom...In 2015, Dr. Ryan Lundquist, the USDA site inspector for West Michigan Beef Company, found a religious tract about marriage that Donald Vander Boon placed on the break room table of the family-owned business, according to a press release from Alliance Defending Freedom. Lundquist took the article and reported it to Robert Becker, the USDA frontline supervisor, and Lundquist and Becker held a meeting with Vander Boon, “at which Becker threatened three times to remove USDA inspectors if Vander Boon didn’t agree to refrain from placing the article in the break room,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom. Karnail S. Mudahar, USDA deputy district manager, said Vander Boon violated a new “anti-harassment” policy that forbids written or spoken communications that USDA executives determine to be “disrespectful” or “insult[ing]” in regards to sexual orientation...more

Alamogordo ghost hunters investigate haunting in historic downtown

On Sunday, Feb. 19, Hidden Haunts Paran Before ormal investigated their first haunt in Historic Downtown Alamogordo. The group investigated vintage store Everything Outwest, 819 N. New York Ave., which was rumored to be haunted. the building on New York Avenue became Everything Outwest it was several other stores including the old JCPenney store. According to Brandt’s personal research, a hotel which was named the New Hotel Weigele was right across the street which was 822 N. New York Ave. The hotel was owned by Alamogordo pioneers George and Alma Weigele who settled in the community in 1903. The New Hotel Weigele was later sold to J.C. Wilborn and his sister M.M. Ward, the hotel was renamed the Wilward Hotel in 1945. The hotel mysteriously burned down in 1969 killing three people and injuring two others. Everything Outwest store owner Courtney Hewes said when she first opened business at the location she was told it was haunted right away by the previous store owners. “When we bought it they told us it was haunted and they later asked us if we’ve seen any ghosts yet. A plumber came in one time and said he experienced activity on the third floor, he was on a ladder and fell and felt somebody catch him,” Hewes said. “We hear huge, loud noises all the time and we run next door to see if our neighbors heard anything and they said they don’t hear anything. We’re nervous to be alone at night sometimes. If they weren’t friendly they would’ve scared us by now I think so we started saying hello to them.” Hewes said when she discovered there was a hotel in the area that burned down in a blaze she wondered if the spirits of the people who died were still around...more

There is a video at the link provided.

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1788

Here is some early Flatt & Scruggs with their 1951 recording of Cora Is Gone. 

https://youtu.be/dJkTaX2Li2I

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Note to readers

Its a slow week and other projects will take up most of my time for the next few days, so posts may be sparse.

EPA head's emails with energy companies to be released

The Oklahoma attorney general's office said Tuesday it is complying with a judge's order to surrender documents related to new Environmental Protection Agency leader Scott Pruitt's communications with energy companies while he served as the state's attorney general. The office had until 5 p.m. Tuesday to comply with District Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons's order to turn over emails and other documents to the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy, which requested the documents more than two years ago under Oklahoma's Open Records Act. A spokesman for the office, Lincoln Ferguson, said it turned over records related to the January 2015 request to the watchdog agency and that other records were turned over to the judge to determine if they are privileged and not subject to release under the law...more

Patagonia Launches Campaign to Defend Bears Ears from Utah Politicians

atagonia isn’t done in its fight with Utah politicians. The company led the charge to leverage the economic impact of the Outdoor Retailer trade show, which has long been held in Salt Lake City, to try to change the stance of Utah politicians towards public lands in general, and the newly-designated Bears Ears National Monument in particular. That effort failed, and the organizers of the trade show are pulling up stakes in Utah after this summer. But OR's departure doesn't mean that Patagonia is ready to leave Utah politicians alone. This morning they are launching a campaign to flood Utah Governor Gary Herbert's office with comments in favor of Bears Ears National Monument. The company is using Phone2Action, a site that allows organizations to connect supporters with elected officials. The company will use Facebook and Twitter to share a Phone2Action link which will supply followers with a brief set of talking points and then patch their phone call directly into the governor’s office. Patagonia hopes to generate thousands of calls from Utah citizens with the effort. (Though it also hopes non-Utahns will voice their support as well.) It’s not just Bears Ears that’s in jeopardy from Utah politicians, notes Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario. On Friday, February 17, just days after speaking with representatives from the Outdoor Industry Association in an attempt to keep OR in Utah, Governor Herbert signed a resolution that urges President Trump to shrink the boundaries of 20-year old Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. "It's not surprising that he would double down by trying to lift longstanding protections on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument," says Marcario. "It sure is disappointing, and not just for the outdoor companies driving an enormous economy in Utah based on protected public lands, but for the 122,000 Utahns whose jobs largely depend on the very places Herbert denigrates."...more

Population of Mexican wolves grows

Members of the Mexican wolf Interagency Field Team completed the annual year­end population survey, documenting a minimum of 113 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico at the end of 2016.  The tally compares with a minimum of 97 wild wolves in 2015.
The results from the aerial survey, coupled with the ground survey conducted by the IFT, confirmed:
  • There are a total of 21 packs, with a minimum of 50 wolves in New Mexico and 63 wolves in Arizona.
  • The 2016 minimum population count includes 50 wild­born pups that survived through the end of the year compared to 23 pups surviving in 2015. 
  • Six wolf pups were cross-fostered in 2016. Three are known to be alive, one of which is radio collared...more

Alaska's effort to peel off some ANWR land under review at Interior Department

The state's current dispute over the boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a place believed to have huge oil deposits, is partly based on a pilot for a defunct airline who came to believe long ago the U.S. government was enforcing an incorrect border. Andy Bachner, a Fairbanks investor in oil and gas leases, said his flights across Alaska's North Slope as a Wien Air Alaska pilot started during the early days of the oil rush in the 1960s. That brought him into contact with petroleum geologists who took particular interest in that area of the Slope, which later became the 19-million-acre national wildlife refuge. On his flights — sometimes at altitudes so low he could spot polar bears and whales — Bachner said he realized ANWR's northwest boundary, as enforced by federal officials, overshot the Canning River, the western boundary in the refuge's legal description, by far. The federal government says the boundary extends to the Staines River, which it describes as a channel of the Canning. The state, and Bachner, say the Staines, farther to the west, is a river in its own right and therefore outside the refuge...more

Backlash to Anti-Public Lands Policy Grows

A backlash against policy assaults on public land is growing, and now, a conference of outdoor retailers has decided to leave Utah over that state's position on the issue. The Outdoor Industry Association, which has held its giant trade shows in Salt Lake City for two decades, says it will seek a new home for its Outdoor Retailer shows in 2018. It's a direct response to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's opposition to the newly-created Bears Ears National Monument. Ron Hunter is the environmental activism manager for retailer Patagonia, a member company of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) that runs the conference. He said his company is pulling out of the next two OIA shows, still under contract to take place in Salt Lake City later this year. Hunter said Patagonia also objects to a proposal to shrink the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The new national monuments also are attracting more attention from travel buffs. Both Gold Butte in Nevada and Bears Ears in Utah have just been named destinations for "epic road trips" by Zipcar.com...more

'Power's War,' about Arizona's deadliest gunfight, available to stream

The gunfight at the OK Corral was not Arizona's deadliest gunfight. That happened decades later, in a remote canyon in southern Arizona, when four lawmen tried to arrest a couple of alleged draft dodgers. The story is not as well-known as the shootout in Tombstone, but it has been the subject of several books, and, more recently, a documentary by filmmaker Cameron Trejo. That film, "Power's War," is now available to stream on Amazon, or to purchase on iTunes or the filmmaker's website. Historians debate exactly when the frontier closed, but in 1918, the charac ter of rural Arizona was changing. The country was involved in a world war and called on young men to sign up for the draft. People like Jeff Power, a rancher and prospector who wanted to work his mining claim and be left alone, drew more attention than they may have before Arizona achieved statehood. When Power's sons, John and Tom, failed to sign up for the draft, four lawmen rode in to arrest them. The shooting began almost immediately and ended quickly. Three lawmen and Jeff Power wound up dead. A month-long manhunt for the Power boys and a ranch hand made headlines but answered few questions about what really happened, and why...more

Here is the official trailer for the documentary 

https://youtu.be/OKbk7kdNC3Q

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1787

From the CD MGM Hillbilly, Vol. 4, we have Your Way by Arthur Smith. 

https://youtu.be/wR5HLkW_q54

Monday, February 20, 2017

PLC and Legal Community Comment on the Range Allotment Owners Association

Ethan Lane, executive director of the Public Lands Council, today released the following statement and open letter regarding the Range Allotment Owners Association:

“The Public Lands Council is the only organization in Washington, DC, who solely represents the 22,000 ranchers who operate on public lands. Since 1968, PLC has had boots on the ground in the halls of Congress and the federal land management agencies, working to ensure that rancher’s voices are heard.

“Recently, a group has materialized, claiming to be the only organization that represents the public lands rancher. This group, called the Range Allotment Owners Association, is advancing a compelling but dangerous theory, that ranchers who hold grazing permits on public lands are not merely permittees, but allotment owners. While we at PLC fight every day for the preference and property rights of ranchers, we feel that this particular theory goes beyond our legal rights and could ultimately result in the loss of permits and subsequent destruction of family ranches.

“We are lucky in this industry to have a deep bench of legal talent that is focused on our issues and represent our interests in the courts. These assembled legal minds have released the following open letter on this general topic, which we present to you independent of our opinions and analysis. That so many of the names on the attached letter will be familiar to you is a testament to their commitment to our industry and their years of work on behalf of ranchers.”




I have embedded the open letter below:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Yd5M8kgeNtR2dZbzhWaktibkU/view?usp=sharing

Grazing should be critical piece of lands management

by Matthew Anderson

The cowboy is a quintessential part of American heritage. Today, this fixture of Western culture is under attack and, at the rate we’re going, it won’t be long until he becomes just another chapter in history.

But the disappearance of ranchers means much more than the loss of a cultural icon. The erosion of grazing across the American West has a profound and lasting impact on taxpayers, local economies, and perhaps most importantly, the environment.

In a new study released by the Coalition for Self-Government in the West, we found that from 1949 to 2014, the average number of grazing district Authorized Unit Months (AUMs) — a measurement that takes into account both the number of livestock and the amount of time they spend on public lands — approved by the BLM in the 11 contiguous Western states plunged from 14,572,272 to 7,160,432.

Some states, such as Utah, have seen a drop-off of more than 70 percent. During the same 65-year period, the number of operators and permittees/leases allowed to graze plummeted from 21,081 to 10,187.

But what does this decline mean for the health and vitality of our public lands? Like your lawn, which needs trimming and mowing, rangelands need attention or they die. Harvesting the annually renewing forage on our public lands maintains the health of these ecosystems by reducing fuel loads that could otherwise lead to catastrophic wildfires. Cattle, sheep and other grazing animals are constantly on the clock helping prevent the devastating effects of out-of-control wildfires.
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Letter seeking wider probe of BLM agent

Several days ago I posted the article concerning the Congressional request for a wider probe of BLM agent Love's activities. For those interested, the letter referred to is embedded below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Yd5M8kgeNtVVhXQ2VvRmpEUW8/view?usp=sharing

U.S. House Votes to Lift Ban on ‘Predator Control’ Hunting Practices in Alaska

In a party-line vote overriding the objections of the Sierra Club, the Humane Society, and Alaska wildlife protection groups, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on 16 February 2017 nullifying Obama-era Department of Interior regulations that prohibit the use of such tactics as baiting, spotlighting, and aerial spotting to hunt predatory animals on national preserve lands in Alaska. If passed by the Senate and signed by President Trump, H.J. Res. 69 will hand jurisdiction over the hunting of bears, wolves, and coyotes on Alaska’s 20 million acres of federally-protected national preserves back to the state, which, since 1994, has had “predator control” laws on the books aimed at maximizing wild game populations for recreational hunting. After years of disputing the legality of some of these practices, the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implemented new rules in 2015 and 2016 permanently banning them in national preserves. The rules, which do not apply to subsistence hunting nor to lands not under the protection of the federal government, prohibit the following:
  • Taking black or brown bear cubs or sows with cubs (exception allowed for resident hunters to take black bear cubs or sows with cubs under customary and traditional use activities at a den site October 15 – April 30 in specific game management units in accordance with State law);
  • Taking brown bears over bait;
  • Taking of bears using traps or snares;
  • Taking wolves and coyotes during the denning season (May 1 – August 9); and
  • Taking bears from an aircraft or on the same day as air travel has occurred. The take of wolves or wolverines from an aircraft or on the same day as air travel has occurred is already prohibited under current refuge regulations.
Despite support from scientific, environmental, and animal welfare advocacy groups, the regulations have been unpopular with many Alaskans. In January 2017, Alaska officials filed a lawsuit contending that the regulations amount to federal overreach and will have an adverse impact on the ecosystem and citizens of the state. In February 2017, with the support of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Safari Club International, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced H.J. Res. 69 to redress what he termed a “wrongful seizure of authority” by the federal government...more

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1786

Its Swingin' Monday and here are the Midnight Cattle Callers with Ramblin' Cat. The tune is on their self-titled 2011CD. This should be right down A-10's alley.

https://youtu.be/3q2fIBVbhLc

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Zinke's a no-show in U.S. House while waiting for cabinet confirmation

Montana’s lone voice in the U.S. House of Representatives has been silent for more than six weeks. Republican Ryan Zinke was still hanging around the Capitol last week -- one Huffington Post reporter tweeted on Thursday that Zinke was “spotted wearing jeans in the Senate,” an hour or so after another noted he was “hanging around the House floor, without a tie, living, if not his best life, at least a better life.” In a process that looks like it’ll stretch into March (see related story), Zinke awaits Senate confirmation to become President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Interior. His last vote on the floor of the House came on Jan. 5, the third day of the Congressional session. That comes as a surprise to Pat Williams of Missoula, a Democrat who served in the U.S. House from 1979 to 1997. “Entirely,” Williams said Friday. “He’s no doubt working on his acquaintances and interests at the department, and he’s certainly got a lot of work to do there. But I can’t imagine him missing all the votes. Montana then has no vote in the House.” Zinke, who was elected to a second at-large term in November with 56 percent of the Montana vote, has remained active on at least two Facebook accounts. He has tweeted or retweeted on occasion since the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved his nomination by a 16-6 vote on Jan. 17. But he has issued no press releases since mid-December. (Heather Swift, his communications director in Washington, has already moved over to the Department of Interior, as has Micah Chambers, Zinke’s deputy chief of staff.)...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

The joys of birthing babies in the mud

by Julie Carter

Not enough credit is given to the little woman who pulls her half of the load during calving season. It doesn’t always get done quite as punchy as by the head cowboy, but by golly, it gets done. Recently a tale related to me brought that point home.

The weather had been blessing the ranch with lots of moisture in combinations of rain and then piles of snow followed by enough warmth in the day to make mud the challenge. The cowgirl was making her check through the expecting heifers and saw one in the snowy bottom of the pasture with the tell-tale tail wringing going on. Knowing she was in labor, she eased the first-time momma-to-be up to the prepared straw beds under the protection of the trees. The heifer was kicking at her belly and quite agitated, so she knew labor was in full swing.

Standing back where she could watch, she waited. The heifer bedded down and labor progressed. Soon one hoof was out but after much more work on the heifer’s part, nothing more happened. Too far to walk her to the pens, the cowgirl knew she was going to have to help, making do with what she had.

She pulled off her shirt, used the sleeve to cinch down on the exposed foot of the calf. Soon with two feet out and working them back and forth, she “walked” the calf out of the womb. All this while she was laying, sitting and slipping around in the mud that was beneath the straw.

With a live baby calf in her lap, her heart was happy. Standing up she realized the shirt was not wearable, and while it was a nice day, standing in 45 degree temps in her bra wasn’t quite the sunbathing experience she had in mind. Just another matter-a-fact day for the season.

In much a similar situation, I once found myself in corrals that were knee-deep in mud covered by a deceivingly benign-looking white blanket of snow. The underlying mush would suck off your boots and hindered any kind of movement other than a determined trudge.

I was on heifer-calving duty while the head cowboy was somewhere else. The weather dictated frequent checks to make sure some new, wet, steaming baby calf wasn’t born in a mud hole and chilled down before he ever got a chance at life.

Heifers by their very youth and nature are stupid, skittish and determined to be contrary. I cut laboring heifers out of the “OB” corral and penned them in warm stalls as they neared the birthing moment. I was in packer boots, every warm piece of clothing I owned, and looked like the Michelin man in a dance competition. Moving fast to cut off a heifer as she tried to cut back was not a pretty sight.

In all this, there was one heifer on the very far end of the corrals, a long alleyway from the barn, that decided to lay down and have her calf in the mud and snow in spite of my efforts. By the time I got to her, she was well into the business of pushing him out into a puddle of ice-cold mush.

She got up the minute she saw me and came at me with definite intent to harm. I deftly jumped (OK, that may be an exaggeration) behind the gate I had just come through. I let her run through the gate opening, preferable to running over the top of me. I quickly shut the gate behind her for safekeeping while I rescued the slimy newborn that was blinking and sputtering trying to get his first breaths.

The calf weighed more than he should have for a first-calf and was long, wet and slippery. I lifted him up by his front end, hugging his back to me, my grip tight around his body just behind his front legs. His back legs still touched the ground and I knew all I could do was walk backwards and drag him up the alley to the barn.

In no particular order, I tugged and trudged and grunted and pulled. About 10 feet from the barn door, I went down. My foot had pulled out of my boot and my sock was fast soaking up freezing wet corral muck. I was sitting on my frozen backside with a slimy calf in my lap, trying to figure out how to get out from underneath him, get my boot and start over.

As perfect as timing could be, it was then the head cowboy came around the corner of the barn.
He first grinned and then with decidedly poor judgment, he laughed. He rescued the calf off my lap while asking, “Was this all you got done today?” It was probably a week after the snow was gone before things thawed out at the ranch house.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com

Frederick Douglass

Create Your Own Path
Frederick Douglass
Vastly Higher Ground
By Stephen L. Wilmeth


            As the pen of red Angus calves flowed down the alley toward us, I couldn’t suppress the pride in what I was witnessing. Those calves represented much more than just the sum total of their numbers. They started as a concept and a goal many, many years ago.
            In truth, their existence was the culmination of what started as early boyhood dreams and wound their way toward reality through a hurricane of barriers and impossible obstacles that offered little to no chance of success. I not only liked what I saw I was struck by the notion that two or three inspirational role models of my past would have approved as well. They would have heralded a personal, “laudable pursuit” of six decades.
            I got to spend another hour with those bright red calves before the sorted heifers were loaded and on their way to Texas as herd replacements and the steers were headed to Iowa to be grown on summer grass before going into a farmer/feeder operation for finishing. The bigger heifer calves were left in the feedlot to grow before they come home to become our own 2017 replacement heifers.
They will serve as the next step toward something very important … our future.
Frederick Douglass
I’m not alone in believing our American experiment is not just remarkable it is “pure, natural, and noble”.
That quoted subphrase came from a man who grew to love America for its principles and its promise. His birth provided every reason to take an opposite stand and fight to overturn and denigrate his homeland, but he didn’t allow spite to rule his life. Rather, by reflection and conscientious study, Frederick Douglass, set a different course.
           We know Douglass was a slave by birth, but he escaped those bonds to become a great American thinker and true emancipator. In the crosswinds of our youth and educational processes, few of us grasped the importance of this man, but reassessment has a way of altering initial impressions and lessons dimmed by time and teachers as uninformed as we were. Douglass is a model that deserves to be heralded.
What makes his life more remarkable is the fact he was influenced by mentors who rejected the Constitution as a proslavery “covenant with death”. They called for free states to secede from the Union and go their own way. At that time in his life, he was constantly under that tutelage. In the end, Douglass rejected those radical, progressive teachings and became a messenger of a different promise for America.
               Douglas trumpeted America in a Fourth of July speech he gave in 1852. In it, he praised the Constitution as a “glorious liberty document”. In his mind, the Founders were great men who put their lives on a course toward oblivion if their bet and their resolve failed. Theirs was a “glorious example” of what separates the American model from all the rest.
            From that realization, Douglas found his own distinctive promise in his America, but, from there, the lesson deepens.
            Certainly slavery was a contradiction of any premise of constitutional equality, but its resolution was sealed through the blood of 750,000 Americans in the Civil War. Beyond that blight on our history, Douglass came to assign the prevailing interpretation of inequity toward his surroundings as the natural failure of men and their imposed translation obf the document and not the Constitution itself. Racial uplift, reconciliation, and integration were matters that transcended slavery but the fixes certainly didn’t get resolved with the collective graves of est those Americans. The true doctrine was to be found in the simple premise that barriers were treated by casting out all racial identities rather than elevating them into federal policy importance.
            Douglass agreed wholeheartedly with the Lincoln suggestion that the best way to elevate the condition of men was to set in motion universal freedoms to “clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all”.
            “The true doctrine,” Douglass wrote, “is one nation, one country, one citizenship, and one law for ALL the people.”
            Just before he died, he warned what he had to say would “be more useful than palatable” but it needed saying.
 “We hear, since emancipation, much said in commendation of race pride, race love, race effort, race superiority, race men, and the like,” he counseled. “(but, we) make a great mistake in saying so much of race and color.”
“I would place myself, and I would place you … upon grounds vastly higher and broader than any founded upon race or color … not (various races as we are addressed), but as men,” were his words. “God and nature speak to our manhood, and to our manhood alone.”
Consider the immensity of those words and align them in juxtaposition to how our federal government and our society have treated race and classification of citizenry. Since the Civil War, and, continued relentlessly today, the opposite has taken place. Since the ‘60s, it has become an entire industry, but all the racial uplift and equality has actually created differential states of citizenry and emancipation. It has not solved problems. It has promoted sectionalism and fundamental divide.
We are where Douglass warned us not to go.
Vastly Higher Ground
 Where does the “vastly higher grounds” of Douglass’ vision exist today?
The truth of the matter is much easier arrayed where such conditions don’t exist. The hellholes of urban centers where radical, racially divisive leadership prevails and triumphs like Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis and Los Angeles are diametrically opposed examples of the Douglass model. It is there the race industries have set up shop and spread their tentacles of oppression and hate, but those centers aren’t the only battlegrounds.
From Victor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers, we can begin to realize entire states and, indeed, entire regions are on the cusp of the same dire dilemma. California is on center stage. Hanson notes that in “eery irony” California is in a headlong descent toward the catastrophe of the Old South in the days leading up to the Civil War. All of a sudden that liberal leadership is promoting the ideas of “states rights” it has so blatantly disregarded and promoted on a general basis. What it projects as “cool” is actually the epitome of a permanent society of haves and have nots. “King Cotton” of the old South is alive and well in Silicon Valley where trillion dollar companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and others are a world unto their own. Huge estates surrounded by impoverished shacks of servants are duplicated by mostly poor communities like Pixley or Redwood City living in squalor next to places like Atherton and Woodside. The state has become a reactionary two tiered state of masters and serfs no different from the antebellum South.
The emergence of full view self-righteous preening, though, has existed across the West in full view for nearly two centuries. Indian Reservations are institutional locker plants of suppression whereby proper rights to human beings much less American citizens don’t even exist. They are differential states akin to zoos where emancipation never came and racial degradation and disintegration are permanent. Those people may as well wear T shirts proclaiming “We are Stupid and We Can’t be Trusted with Private Property Rights!” The fact is they are not trusted by federal policy and they are heaped into a permanent state of despair and underachievement.
The story doesn’t end there.
The illumination of a permanent class of exclusions who are being effectively condemned to a covenant with death is growing. They are a collection of men who are not judged on their respective merits, but with regards to their antecedents in direct contradiction to the Constitution.
It is little wonder that there is a growing rejection of the suggestion of “one nation, one country, one citizenship, and one law for one people”. These Americans have either been uninvited to the party or they are being excluded in starts and stops by artificial regulatory weights added to their shoulders. In all cases, the two tiered system has continued its diabolical advance. Its governing doctrine of permanence does not align itself with the vision of Douglass. It is not a Lincolnesque “laudable pursuit for all”. Rather, it is defined inequality that pits one element of America against another. The management philosophy is now arrayed by classification.  Navajo, Miner, Apache, Lumberman, Cheyenne, Rancher, Black, White, Comanche, Farmer, Mexican American, illegal Alien, Urban, Rural, and the continuing myriad of racial and societal demarcations that divide us rather than what God and nature speak to … our manhood alone.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I will guarantee you that if Indian Reservations were offered to homesteading by their resident internees their support for national monuments and other environmental “Wunderlands” would be dramatically altered. There would be subsequent starts and stops, but eventually American flags would be flying where they never have.”