Monday, April 07, 2014

Rancher’s son describes arrest in protest of federal cattle roundup

A son of embattled Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy spoke to the media Monday about his arrest the day before in the ongoing federal roundup of his father’s so-called “trespass cattle” northeast of Las Vegas. Bureau of Land Management officers arrested Dave Bundy, 37, Sunday along state Route 170 near Mesquite. “They got on their loudspeaker and said that everyone needed to leave,” the younger Bundy said in an impromptu press conference Monday with his father outside a 7-Eleven convenience store along North Las Vegas Boulevard. “I stood there and continued to express my First Amendment right to protest and they approached me and said that if I didn’t leave, they’d arrest me.” Dave Bundy said he was taking photographs and protesting peacefully at the time. Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s office, said Bundy was released from custody and given a misdemeanor citation for “refusing to disperse and resisting issuance of a citation/arrest.” Earlier, BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said someone had been taken into custody to “protect public safety and maintain the peace,” but she declined to identify the person. “The Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service support the public’s right to express opinions peacefully and lawfully. However, if an individual threatens, intimidates or assaults another individual or impedes the impoundment, they may be arrested in accordance with local, state or Federal laws,” Cannon said in a written statement. Cliven Bundy, standing next to his son, viewed Dave Bundy’s arrest differently. “What’s happening is they had stole cattle from me and now they have taken their prisoner,” the father said. “Davy is a political prisoner. That’s what you want to call him — he’s a political prisoner.” Earlier Monday, more than 100 people gathered on private property in northeast Clark County after Cliven Bundy sent out an ominous announcement, promising a war and inviting the press to come cover it. So far, though, it’s been more rally than war. The group has made posters, heard speakers and plans to raise a huge banner near the Riverside bridge crossing the Virgin River. Their messages include that Bundy is being targeted, the federal government is overstepping its authority and trampling freedom. “They have cattle and now they have one of my boys,” said an email sent from Bundy’s address just after 9 p.m. Sunday. “Range War begins tomorrow at Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m.” Asked what that reference to a war entailed, the elder Bundy said the planned protest is part of that.  “We’re going to be stirred up a little more,” he said.
Dave Bundy said he was mistreated during his arrest, which came right after he told BLM officers he was exercising his First Amendment rights. “Without any further questions, two rangers surrounded and a third one approached me and they all jumped me, pulling different directions and then a couple other guys jumped in and they took me to the ground,” Bundy said, showing a Review-Journal reporter his scratched face and swollen, scratched hands. “… One ranger had had his knee on my spine and the other one was on my head with his knee on the side of my head and his other knee on the back of my neck.” In a conference call with reporters, federal officials, when asked about the allegations of law enforcement roughing up Bundy, pointed to the charges he faces under the citation. Bundy maintains his arrest was improper because he was along the side of a state highway in a state right-of-way. But BLM officials said he was in an area their agency had closed to the public...more

Then there is the mickey mouse Sheriff, who is either too ignorant or too chicken to do his job.


Cliven Bundy was in Las Vegas early Monday to meet with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, although it had nothing to do with his son’s arrest. Gillespie said their meeting was arranged on Saturday. Bundy wanted contact information for Metro supervisors in his area, Gillespie said, and the sheriff provided him the information. But Gillespie reiterated that his agency isn’t involved in the roundup. “This is strictly a federal operation,” he said.








Feds deploy snipers, arrest man for filming outside First Amendment area

On Sunday, the Logandale, Nev.-based Moapa Valley Progress reported that Dave Bundy, son of rancher Cliven Bundy, was arrested while taking photographs of his family’s cattle that are being rounded up by federal agents. According to the report, Bundy was violating an arbitrary "First Amendment" zone that had been established by federal agents. Worse yet, federal agents also deployed snipers against the man. “He was doing nothing but standing there and filming the landscape,” Ryan Bundy said of his brother Dave. “We were on the state highway, not even off of the right-of-way. Even if they want to call [the area that we were filming] federal land; which it’s not; we weren’t even on it. We were on the road.” None of the family members on the road were armed, but 11 BLM vehicles each with two agents arrived and surrounded him as he began filming the cattle, Paul Joseph Watson said at Infowars. “They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area,” Ryan added. Bundy also said federal agents told them they had no First Amendment rights except in the areas so marked. "The BLM has established two fenced areas near the City of Mesquite, that they have designated as free speech areas for members of the public to express their opinions," the Progress said. Officers ordered family members to leave immediately, but Bundy apparently didn't obey fast enough and was reportedly set upon by agents. “He was filming and talking on the phone, I don’t know to whom,” Ryan said. “It happened pretty fast. They came down on him hard and had a German Shepherd on him. And then they took him.” Ryan said he stayed and witnessed the entire incident. “I told them that I was not going to engage them and that I just wanted to take my brother with me. But they were pushing, pushing, pushing! So I did stay there long enough to witness the whole thing, about 10 feet away from me,” he told the Progress.

And nowhere to be found is the mickey mouse Sheriff.



Making matters worse, Bundy says the family has nowhere to go for assistance. “We don’t have any policing representation,” he said. “Our local police will not respond. The County Sheriff will not respond. NHP will not respond.” Bundy's father, Cliven, had reportedly called for help, but was told to get off the phone or face arrest, the Progress added.

One Of Bundy’s Sons Arrested In Roundup Incident

Dave Bundy, son of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy, was reportedly arrested by BLM officers while he was standing along the north side of State Route 170 between Bunkerville and Riverside, taking photographs of his family’s cattle that were grazing along the Virgin River down below. According to Dave’s brother, Ryan Bundy, several members of the family had gone out for a drive in several vehicles to try to monitor the ongoing federal action to remove their father’s cattle from the range. They were not travelling on recently restricted federal land, but were travelling along the state highway looking north across the valley for signs of cattle, Ryan Bundy said. A large number of BLM law enforcement officers have been dispatched to the area to assist and provide protection the contractors during the operation. BLM officials will not say just how many of these officers are on the ground. But they insist that these forces are necessary, given the tension in the area regarding this action. “Mr Bundy has created a larger burden to the taxpayers through his statements,” said National Park Service spokeswoman Christie Vanover during a press conference call held Sunday afternoon. “He has said that he will ‘do whatever it takes’ and that his response to the impound will ‘have to be more physical’. When threats are made that could jeopardize the safety of the American people, the contractors and our personnel; we have the responsibility to provide law enforcement to account for their safety. The greater the threats, the more security that is needed to provide public safety and the greater the cost to the American taxpayer. We are hopeful that lawful protests don’t escalate to illegal activity.” But Ryan Bundy insists that his brother’s behavior along the highway on Sunday afternoon was neither a protest nor had it escalated to illegal activity. “He was doing nothing but standing there and filming the landscape,” Bundy said. “We were on the state highway, not even off of the right-of-way. Even if they want to call [the area that we were filming] federal land; which it’s not; we weren’t even on it. We were on the road.” Bundy said that several of his family members had gone out in four different vehicles. They were parked along the north side of the road about 200 yards apart, he said. David Bundy had gotten out of his car to film the cattle grazing on the distant landscape below. Suddenly a large number of BLM vehicles came down and surrounded the area, Ryan Bundy said. “I counted, they had 11 vehicles all with at least two agents in each one, maybe more,” he said. “They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area.” None of the occupants in the four family vehicles were carrying any fire arms, Bundy said. Over their vehicle loudspeakers, the BLM officers ordered the family to leave the area, Bundy said. “They said that we had no first amendment rights except for up by the bridge where they had established an area for that,” Bundy said...more

Environmental groups comment on Bundy cattle roundup



“Again and again federal judges have said the BLM has the right and duty to remove cattle trespassing in the Gold Butte area to protect desert tortoises and other imperiled species,” said Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, which had filed a notice of intent to sue over the lack of action being taken by the federal agencies. “We’re heartened and thankful that the agencies are finally living up to their stewardship duty. The Gold Butte area has been officially designated as critical habitat for threatened tortoises — meaning the area is essential to their long-term survival as a species.” “Mr. Bundy has long falsely believed that Gold Butte is his ranch,” said Terri Robertson, long-time advocate for protecting the rich cultural and natural resources of Gold Butte and currently president of Friends of Sloan Canyon. “We all know that is not the reality, and it is time for him for obey the law.” “Mr. Bundy's defiance of the law and decades-long free grazing on public lands is a poke in the eye of every rancher who rightfully pays for their use of the public lands, and a further thumb of the nose to those responsible, progressive ranchers who graze sustainably, allowing for threatened species to survive on their allotments,” said Karen Boeger, a former BLM advisory committee member. “From the standpoint of wildlife, the springs and riparian areas in Gold Butte are vital,” said Red Rock Audubon’s conservation chairman John Hiatt. “The most immediate result of the removal of the trespass cattle will be the recovery of the vegetation around these water sources which will benefit all wildlife species.”...more

Confrontation between ranchers, federal officials ends in arrest

A tense encounter Sunday between federal officials and a southern Nevada ranching family ended in a violent arrest, family members who witnessed the incident alleged Sunday. At about 4 p.m., federal agents, some dressed in full military gear and wielding mounted sniper rifles, surrounded members of rancher Cliven Bundy’s family as they parked along State route 170 near Bunkerville, south of Mesquite, Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven’s sons, said. Four vehicles had approached the area, all with family members inside, intending to take photos and video of a cattle impoundment the agency ordered this week after a 25-year dispute over cattle grazing on public lands. “We were at the mouth of Sheep Trough Road trying to get pictures of the trucks that were hauling our cattle,” Ryan said. “All of sudden 11 other BLM vehicles came driving up and kind of surrounded us. Then two of the trucks drove up on the side of the hill and four guys got out and set up sniper posts; rifles, tripods, the whole bit.” The family was told to leave the area and instructed that they were only allowed in a designated “First Amendment Area” at a different section of the highway — the agency had closed to public access large sections of public lands in the area as a safety precaution while rounding up the cattle. Most of the family started to leave, but Dave Bundy, 37, stayed behind to continue taking video with an iPad, Ryan said. At that point some of the men from the BLM vehicles attacked Dave, Ryan said, tackling him to the ground. A German Shepherd dog was utilized in the attack. “I stayed there long enough to see him struggling on the ground before we drove away,” Ryan said. “We wasn’t doing nothing but filming. If that’s not a violation of our First Amendment rights I don’t know what is.” As of Sunday evening, Cliven Bundy said the family had still not seen or heard from Dave Bundy, nor were they aware of his whereabouts or his condition...more

How dare them take pictures of the federales!  It sounds like they were on a state road, not federal property.  Wonder how many attack dogs are in BLM's arsenal?


Poisoning Ravens to Help Sage Grouse?

Wildlife officials will spend as much as $100,000 over two years to poison ravens in three areas of Idaho, but officials don’t know whether that kill will permanently boost sage grouse populations as intended. Ravens are a main predator of sage grouse eggs, and their numbers have increased throughout Idaho and the West, said Ann Moser, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. Fish and Game hopes to kill the ravens by placing poisoned chicken eggs in strategic locations, which will be easier than trying to shoot them, Moser said. “We tried that, but ravens are very smart, and they are not easy to shoot,” she said. On orders from the Legislature, Fish and Game secured a permit to kill as many as 4,000 ravens over two years near Idaho National Laboratory in Arco, the Curlew National Grasslands and in Washington County near the Oregon border. Sage grouse populations have declined more steeply in those areas than elsewhere in the state, Fish and Game reports. The raven poisoning starts this spring. “We can’t directly say that (sage grouse population decline) is from ravens, because we don’t have that information,” Moser said. “There’s anecdotal information.” The human-related activities that have allowed ravens to expand their territory and populations numbers are the same factors that have contributed to the sage grouse’s demise, she said. Power lines, houses, windmills and water towers provide nesting areas for ravens, and they get sustenance from roadkill, dead livestock and agricultural water...more



Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

And wouldn't Poe have fun with these Game & Fish types.  In the long run, it will be the Ravens cawing and laughing at the gov't folks trying to fool with mother nature. And their eyes will have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming.

As Man Faces Off With Nature More Often, U.S. Agency Scrutinized

The mission of the Agriculture Department's Wildlife Service is to mitigate conflict between humans and wildlife. But critics say some of its activities are cruel to animals and that it should be more transparent. The USDA's inspector general is conducting an audit of the agency. Results are expected later this year. Wildlife Services has been around in some form since 1895. In a video on its website, a Wildlife Services biologist demonstrates one of its biggest jobs, chasing birds from airports. In this case the biologist uses pyrotechnics to scare them. USDA Administrator Kevin Shea says Wildlife Services' mandate is pretty simple. "Our role is to help when people and wildlife come into conflict," Shea says, "try to mitigate the damage while not endangering any species or the land." Those conflicts between people and wildlife have become increasingly common. Wildlife Services traps and kills invasive species like nutria, a possum-like rodent that tears up the wetlands around the Chesapeake Bay, and feral pigs, which are rapidly spreading across the U.S. Out West, Wildlife Services is engaged in its most controversial activities. "What Wildlife Services does is run around the country killing things like bears and mountain lions and coyotes and wolves and millions and millions of birds and other animals," says Andrew Wetzler, director of wildlife conservation for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The NRDC, along with other environmental groups, is a fierce critic of Wildlife Services. Wetzler says the agency is essentially an exterminating service for private ranchers, using tax dollars to kill predators...more

Grand Canyon wants to evict some bison

Bison are a rare sight for visitors and a handful of hunters just north of Grand Canyon National Park, but a growing blight for park managers. Even as their numbers swell, the bison are increasingly out of rifle range and on the hit list of biologists and archaeologists, who propose to force at least some of them to mosey along. The grazers seem to know they're safe inside the park, where hunting is prohibited, so their numbers have grown from 100 in the 1990s to 350 or more today. The herd is chewing grasses to the nubs, hurting upland lakes and trampling ancient American Indian dwellings, park Superintendent Dave Uberuaga said. "Just a bump can knock over a (dwelling) wall really easily," he said. "They're all really fragile." So, on Wednesday, the National Park Service announced that it will cooperate with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona Game and Fish Department on a plan to manage bison — ideally pushing many of them out of the park and into the Kaibab National Forest. The plan will require an environmental study, and, starting Friday, the agencies will spend two months gathering ideas from the public. Nothing specific is proposed, but ideas include occasionally hazing animals out of the park or fencing some boundary zones. Hunting is not allowed in the park, and is not under consideration. But outside the park, where the state and U.S. Forest Service have co-operated on a hunt for years, the goal is to maintain that opportunity. Arizona charges residents $1,095 for a lottery-drawn bison tag, and 20 hunters bought them for this year's spring hunt...more

Fox News Reporting Enemies Of The State - The Sagebrush Rebellion

For those who missed it:

http://youtu.be/67yR-Gj5u70 Part 1



http://youtu.be/4Fk9ZIiYUHM Part 2, starts at 5:30

Mustang whisperer could have answers for BLM’s horse dilemma

More than two decades ago, a South Dakota ranch hosted 1,500 unadopted mustangs on the first federally approved wild horse sanctuary. Owned by H. Alan Day, the ranch was unique for more than just the horses. Day, the brother of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, tried a “gentling” method he had used with wild cattle to get the horses to trust and follow humans. He thinks his experience with the mustangs could help the embattled Bureau of Land Management as the agency struggles to care for thousands of wild horses on drought-stricken Western rangelands and 50,000 more stuck in holding facilities. The trick is to think more like horses and less like people. In the end, Day said, changing the approach could save the agency money and grief. Day details the innovative method of working with mustang herds, and his seven decades of life with horses, in a new book, The Horse Lover (2014, University of Nebraska Press), written with Lynn Wiese Sneyd. He’ll be in Santa Fe and Albuquerque on Friday and Saturday to talk and sign copies of the book. People have spent more than a century trying to manage wild horses on Western lands. When a few horses escaped Spanish settlers in the 1500s and were joined over the ensuing decades by horses from other migrants, it wasn’t a big deal. But by the early 1900s, the wild horses were competing with livestock for forage and making ranchers mad. Ranchers and hunters began shooting the wild horses. Day thinks the success he and fellow rancher Dayton Hyde had with the mustangs on their ranches from 1988 to 1993 is one good idea. Day had successfully taught wild cattle at the Day family’s Lazy B Ranch in Arizona to bunch together and follow the lead of a single rider from pasture to pasture. “A typical cowboy’s answer to working with wild cattle is to get a faster horse. I decided no, lets work with them differently,” Day said. Day thought a similar approach could work with wild horses and set out to prove it. Day and Hyde formed the Institute of Range and the American Mustang shortly after Day bought a 35,000-acre ranch in South Dakota. The two men lobbied the BLM and Congress for a four-year contract to establish a wild horse sanctuary at Mustang Meadows Ranch. “What happens when government chases them all over with helicopters or whatever is they run like hell. That’s what we’ve taught them,” Day said. “We wanted to teach them with gentle slow action and kind words that we weren’t trying to scare them or hurt them.” It took as much training to change his cowboys’ approach to working with the horses as it did to change the horses minds about people. But, Day said, it worked. Within a month, it took only two to three riders — one in front and a couple behind — to move the horses from pasture to pasture or even lead them into chutes where they could be vaccinated and treated. The horses weren’t broken. They weren’t rideable. But they were cooperative. Day’s method is basically the same “horse whispering” technique used by a lot of trainers today, but he just applied it to a whole lot of horses at once...more

The Liberal Gulag

By Kevin D. Williamson

The word “liberal” has taken a beating over the last few days: A Mozilla executive was hounded out of his position at the firm he co-founded by left-wing campaigners resolved to punish him for having made a donation to a successful California ballot initiative that defined marriage in traditional terms; Adam Weinstein, whose downwardly mobile credibility has taken him from ABC to Gawker, called for literally imprisoning people with the wrong views about global warming, writing, “Those malcontents must be punished and stopped”; Mr. Weinstein himself was simply forwarding a dumbed-down-enough-for-Gawker version of the arguments of philosophy professor Lawrence Torcello; Katherine Timpf, a reporter for Campus Reform, faced a human barricade to keep her from asking questions of those attending a feminist leadership conference, whose organizers informed her that the group was “inclusive” and therefore she was “not welcome here”; Charles Murray, one of the most important social scientists of his generation, was denounced as a “known white supremacist” by Texas Democrats for holding heterodox views about education policy; national Democrats spent the week arguing for the anti-free-speech side of a landmark First Amendment case and the anti-religious-freedom side of a case involving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; Lois Lerner, the Left’s best friend at the IRS, faces contempt charges related to her role in the Democrats’ coopting the IRS as a weapon against their political enemies; Harry Reid, a liberal champion of campaign-finance reform, was caught channeling tens of thousands of dollars to his granddaughter while conspicuously omitting her surname, which is also his surname, from official documents, cloaking the transaction, while one of his California colleagues, a liberal champion of gun control, was indicted on charges of running guns to an organized-crime syndicate.

The convocation of clowns on the left screeched with one semi-literate and inchoate voice when my colleague Jonah Goldberg, borrowing the precise words of one of their own, titled a book Liberal Fascism. Most of them didn’t read it, but the ones who did apparently took what was intended as criticism and read it as a blueprint for political action.

Welcome to the Liberal Gulag.

That term may be perverse, but it is not an exaggeration. Mr. Weinstein specifically called for political activists, ranging from commentators to think-tank researchers, to be locked in cages as punishment for their political beliefs. “Those denialists should face jail,” he wrote. “You still can’t” — banality alert! — “yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. You shouldn’t be able to yell ‘balderdash’ at 10,883 scientific journal articles a year.” “Balderdash” — a felony. At the risk of being repetitious, let’s dwell on that for a minute: The Left is calling on people to be prosecuted for speaking their minds regarding their beliefs on an important public-policy question that is, as a political matter, the subject of hot dispute. That is the stuff of Soviet repression.

And we've got our own little Gulag going in southern Nevada.

Conservationists claim victory on new farm bill

Wildlife and environmental groups are claiming victory for conservation practices in the new farm bill, where two of their top priorities made it into law. Farmers will be required to use good conservation practices on highly erodible lands and protect wetlands to qualify for crop insurance subsidies. And the law requires “sodsaver” protections to discourage farmers from plowing up native grasslands in several Plains and Midwest states. “I think we’re going to get a quite a lot of bang for the buck on conservation compliance and sodsaver,” said Bill Wenzel, agriculture program director for the Izaak Walton League of America. It wasn’t a total victory. The $57.6 billion in the farm bill for conservation programs over the next 10 years is a net reduction of $4 billion. Sodsaver will apply to only six states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana and Nebraska — instead of nationwide. And the cap on acres in the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to take environmentally sensitive land out of production, was lowered from 32 million to 24 million. Conservationists say, though, they expect a limited impact from the lowered cap. It’s only slightly below last year’s total acres in the program, as enrollment has fallen because of higher crop prices...more

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1239

It's Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio. We lost Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith last week (http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2014/04/arthur-guitar-boogie-smith-who-also.html), so let's play the tune that is his namesake, Guitar Boogie.  The tune was recorded in 1945 and re-released by MGM in 1948.

http://youtu.be/zoZd1UiSu2c

Sunday, April 06, 2014

Rancher's son arrested while filming BLM agents, daughter "harassed"

A son of Mesquite rancher Cliven Bundy has been arrested by Bureau of Land Management rangers. Dave Bundy was arrested about 4:30 p.m. Sunday as he was in a car parked along State Route 170 near Mesquite. "He was there to do some filming when about 11 federal agents pulled up and arrested him," Bundy told News 3. "They said he was outside of the First Amendment area and they took him down. We don't know where he is now." The BLM confirmed the arrest in an emailed statement: "An individual is in custody in order to protect public safety and maintain the peace," BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon wrote. "The individual has rights and therefore details about the arrest will not be disclosed until and unless charges are filed." The First Amendment areas are designated by the government for people to express their free speech rights about the subject. Small protests were held Saturday morning on one of the areas and another was held in Mesquite. Earlier Saturday, one of Bundy's daughter's was "harassed" by five BLM rangers while she was parked along the same road. Bundy said they threatened to give Stephey Cox several tickets and take her to court. He said Cox told the BLM rangers they did not have jurisdictional or arrest powers. "But what was bad is there was a Nevada State Highway trooper within about a hundred feet of all this action and he didn't come to help her," Bundy said. "She said I will recognize his (the trooper's) jurisdictional authority if he would just come and tell me to move or whatever and he would not come and so they harassed her for quite awhile." Bundy told News 3 that he hopes that Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie will step in and end the dispute and confiscation of his cattle. "The federal government has no jurisdiction or authority here," Bundy said. "The sheriff has unlimited constitutional authority, arresting and policing powers and all he has to do is say no and this thing would be over. Those people would back out and move out of here." Bundy said he was considering a possible lawsuit as another course of action. He did not make any more physical threats such as he made Saturday, but he did compare the action to Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas, where citizens were killed in confrontations with the federal goverment. "They are the same agents who killed that kid over at Red Rocks," Bundy said, referring to the Feb. 14 fatal shooting of a 20-year-old by two BLM rangers...more

Feds start rounding up Bundy’s cattle in southeastern Clark County

Hundreds of federal officers, cowboys and helicopters descended on Cliven Bundy’s backyard Saturday, launching a roundup targeting about 500 head of cattle grazing on government land. Bundy, the embattled Bunkerville rancher who owes the federal government tens of thousands of dollars in grazing fees over two decades, said from his ranch house about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas that it only will hurt the “city folks” in Las Vegas who have come to depend on his cattle for their beef. Because of the government’s actions, Bundy said there’s going to be 500,000 fewer hamburgers per year from his cattle operation. “Anything is possible,” said the 67-year-old Bundy, speculating that it might even raise the price of beef. “When you take away a rancher’s 500 head of cattle, you’re taking away 500 calves each year, and that can’t be good for anybody. “But nobody is thinking about that. Why would they? They’re all thinking about the desert tortoise,” he said, referring to one inhabitant of the rangeland in and around Gold Butte that environmentalists say is being harmed by the cattle’s presence. “Hey, the tortoise is a fine creature. I like him. I have no problem with him. But taking another man’s cattle? It just doesn’t seem right.” The federal government plans to auction off Bundy’s cattle once the estimated 500 head are rounded up, a Herculean task that’s expected to last until mid-May The operation includes closing off more than a half-million acres of public land in Clark and Lincoln counties and using hundreds of federal agents, contract cowboys and low-flying aircraft. Agents started the operation Saturday morning, corralling 75 head of cattle into trailers and taking them south to an undisclosed compound along Interstate 15 just outside of Mesquite, Bundy said. There were no signs of Bundy supporters in the Bunkerville area Saturday, but that doesn’t mean none of them are coming in the days to come. Bundy’s story has grabbed the attention and support of other ranchers in Nevada and Utah. In all, federal officials say there are 900 head of cattle they have to round up, although Bundy said he only owns 500. He said each head of cattle that was seized Saturday is worth about $1,000. He called the government’s actions “pathetic.” “Or better yet, a form of trespassing, which they say I’ve been doing all these years,” he added. Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, whose police department is not participating in the roundup, talked and commiserated with Bundy but also encouraged him to work it out with the federal government so that no violence would erupt. A similar roundup was scheduled in 2012, but federal officials worried that it could lead to violence and backed off. Bundy said the land in question might not be his but he has inalienable rights to it. It’s more the state of Nevada’s than the federal government’s, he said. His family has been raising cattle on that land since 1877. “The rights were created for us,” Bundy said. “I have the right to use the forage. I have water rights. I have access rights. I have range improvement rights, and I claim all the other rights that the citizens of Nevada have, whether it’s to camp, to fish or to go off road.”...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy



I missed the Hand-wringing 101 class

by Julie Carter

There are some constants for survival that every country girl learns to utilize beyond feminine charm and tough grit.

In the years of hauling down the road – that’s rodeo talk for paying entry fees, driving hundreds of miles to perform in the rodeo arena for a few seconds and then driving home – I often found a need for basics in emergency management.

Three items consistently required for crisis control were duct tape, baling wire and WD-40. With those items you could fix anything short of an amputated limb.

The duct tape covered an assortment of ills ranging from the horse’s splint boot that wouldn’t stay fastened to the pickup tail light lens that refused to stay in place.

Duct tape could cover a split in a radiator hose, mark the rented stall as “taken” or pad a spot that was poking somewhere or something it shouldn’t. I was decades ahead of not-yet-invented Homeland Security in my use of duct tape to seal the ills of the world (road dust) out of the camper.

If the rodeo went badly, it was also adequate to stick the “For Sale” sign prominently across the rear end of the horse I shouldn’t have bought in the first place.

Baling wire is a generic term for any kind of wire of usable size to fix all those things you didn’t get around to replacing, welding or repairing in a proper manner. Sometimes called the “poor man’s welding rod,” no self-respecting horse trailer or pickup truck should be without it for emergency repairs of the wiring kind.

It works well for vehicle mechanical repair (tying up the muffler that just fell off), horse equipment repair (the headstall that broke as your name is being called to compete) and tying the dog to the trailer hitch because she slipped her collar and bit the rodeo clown.

WD-40 literally stands for water displacement, 40th attempt. That is the name straight out of the lab book used by the chemist who developed WD-40 1953 when he was trying to concoct a formula to prevent corrosion. The result was a multi-purpose problem solver that has thousands of uses and even comes with a medical warning for those that spray it on their body joints to treat arthritis.

Life is easier with WD-40 around and in those times when the handyman jack wouldn’t jack and the trailer hitch jack was immovable, nothing was more valuable than that yellow and blue can of magic.

Unless of course you were Barbara.

Barbara, my friend and hauling partner, didn’t need emergency backup for anything. Barbara was beautiful, very feminine with a smile and figure that stopped traffic. Perfectly coiffed at all times, she had long nails, little need for makeup, and a natural charm that emanated like sonar.

While I was cussing and beating the lug nuts off a flat horse trailer tire with all the brute strength I could muster, Barbara would step to the front of the rig and wring her lovely hands in distress. In a nano-second four linebacker-sized cowboys would appear and with a cowboy drawl say, “Can we help you out there little lady?”

Shoving me out of the way like a pest would be dismissed, they would bodily lift the trailer, fix the tire and leave for the rodeo dance with Barbara on their arm like a prize trophy.

I'd simply watch in amazement as I put the jack, WD-40 and duct tape back into the tack compartment of the trailer.

A thousand times since I have wondered when I missed the "Hand Wringing 101" class.

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


Democrat War on Food



The emerging debacle
Democrat War on Food
Lost Customs and Culture
By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            War drums are beating in the sagebrush flats of Nevada.
            In a state where nine out of ten acres are owned by some form of government, private enterprise remains robust only in the glow, or, more appropriately, the soft afterglow of neon lights. To be more specific, the economic health of Nevada aside from the infusion of federal dollars is best characterized by none other than Elko’s adopted native son from Canada, Ian Tyson. Ian, in either of his voices, sets forth the premise he is still in love with old corrals and sagebrush and ponderosa pines … pretty girls in pickup trucks and California wine.
            In this discussion, two of those definitely add to the gross annual product of the Silver State while three others are long suffering from overregulated diminishment.
You array the choices.
Cliven Bundy
Anybody with the name Cliven Bundy must be interesting.
Mr. Bundy is in the crosshairs of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as they get set to fuel helicopters, ATVs, blacked out Suburbans, diesel Powerwagons and Powerstrokes attached to gooseneck trailers, bobtails, 18 wheelers, and pilotless drones to gather his cattle. At issue are as many as nine hundred head of cattle that chain back through a herd that has run on Bundy homelands since the 1880s.
The dustup is the conflict that Bundy has with the agency. The press reports the Bundy family has not paid grazing fees since the ‘90s. There may be other issues, and they may be worthy of support or condemnation, but the appearance of the government lined up against an American land steward of long standing just isn’t becoming. In fact, it represents failure. If Bundy is the culprit they represent, the current and long line of former officials responsible for the ongoing problem should be stood up and hired back so they can be disciplined and fired. Anything that has gone on this long has too many black holes to lay all the blame in one direction.  In fact, if Bundy has existed this long under the withering and continuing harassment and subjugation of federal attack, maybe it is time to give him more than the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his fortitude and commitment to self preservation alone are worthy of review and … our respect.
Democrat War on Food
While the BLM is posturing to spend more than a million dollars (over four times the total uncollected Bundy grazing fees) to round up and make example of Bundy and his cattle, they are on track to spend over $60 million this year on their own noncompliance shortcomings in the feral horse business. Just across the Utah border in Iron County alone, they are overstocked, according to their own agreement, a similar number of horses equating to the Bundy herd yet they are defiant to do anything about it. Since there is no policing action of higher authority, range degradation will continue. The hypocrisy is stifling. The Clive Bundy’s of the world will face eventual ruin and certain death before any resolution of their case is concluded, but agency officials will retire and live in relative comfort.
Something else is dreadfully wrong, and this particular trail must be tracked back to 1999 when ranching allotments northeast of Las Vegas were targeted for closure because of a desert tortoise. Grazing and the fallout from the Endangered Species Act are not mutually exclusive, and, as Clive Bundy has long known, there is a back story in this whole nightmare that isn’t told.
It isn’t, though, just an assault on Clive Bundy’s sagebrush, old corrals, and ponderosa pines. The common thread is much more extensive.
With only name changes, the same story is being repeated with accelerating frequency across the West. The California water wars, the avalanche of wilderness and national monument designations, the expansion of endangered species listings, the designation of critical habitat, the war on coal, the road block on the Keystone XL pipeline, and the signal the feds are going to manage methane emissions in cattle are all acts within the same dreary stage production.
This might be a collection of causes that have niceties of correctness, but it has become the Democrat War on Food. The symptoms are spreading.
Those who watched the grain markets recently didn’t wait long to see the reaction to the intention of reducing planted corn acreage by 3.67 million acres from 2013. That, along with more robust ethanol production expectations, ran the corn futures up like a 1955 bottle rocket. Grain and soybean markets followed before a pause took place with sales from profit taking.
And, the assault goes on … diesel stocks in the Midwest were down for the third week in a row as corn planting accelerated, the prairie chicken was listed as endangered, and the outlook for the producers like Mr. Bundy only diminished.
What this is affecting is the price of food. The CRB spot foodstuff index is up 19.4% since December 1. That increase does not represent a futures market. It represents actual food prices. That is an astounding peace time rate of increase.
Going Green
Not too long ago ‘going green’ took the form of adopting socialism as the in crowd cause. Over the last several years that has taken a back seat as the stimuli of choice of the liberal intelligentsia has gravitated to flaming environmentalism. If those who oppose Mr. Bundy are the same folks who oppose the aforementioned Keystone Pipeline, they have now been identified and quantified. The two major groups opposed to construction of the pipeline are Democrats who make over $100,000 per year and Democrats with college and advanced graduate degrees. Of the latter, over 50% oppose the construction of the pipeline.
That result stands in juxtaposition to citizenry outside such ranks who support the construction on the basis of two to one.
Wealthy, college graduated liberals are driving the green wagon which is driving policy that is starting to dramatically impact the food chain. It shouldn’t surprise anybody that this will eventually impact the very citizenry that have so long been the nominal focus of the social causes … the poor.
Across the nation last weekend there was a Sunday insert blitz regarding retirement. How to figure out what you want to do the rest of your life read the headline. The stated goal was to come up with a mission statement for the rest of retirement life. There were seven components of the process leading up to retirement life’s mission restatement. That included leisure, volunteerism, travel, engaging new work, entrepreneurship, creativity, and learning.
The more I read the more incredulous, feigned, and elitist the pretext became. It was a menu to select a cause for advocacy. What is alarming was to see the actual statistics that are driving critical infrastructure decisions. The elephant that has finally breached the low cost food chain is a collection of folks who have enough time, discretionary income, and frivolous condescension to negatively impact the customs and culture of the fragile rural society of the West.
Their tryst is turning deadly.
Purveyors of tyranny
A mission without negative implications or consequences must be a nice place to park a cause, but even King George ultimately paid a price. His lifestyle didn’t suffer, but he lost the colonies.
Few will likely know or care what happens in the upcoming “big gather” in Nevada. If there is a comparison, however, it has to be the other “Big Gather” that took place in Texas following the Civil War. In that event, cowmen began the process of putting lives back together following the conflict. Already wild by their nature, the Texas cattle were gathered, claims were made, and the road to recovery began. The result was an industry of huge proportions, multitudes of producers, and an interconnecting network of support services and commerce.
That industry became a segment of a food production revolution that the world had never witnessed. Risk was spread by the multitude of producers each managing his production unit. That model is in decline. Each contraction of industry participation is characterized by fewer price negotiators and more expensive inputs. Barriers to entry are greater, and risk of systemic failure increases.
Those who think the elimination of Mr. Bundy or any of his colleagues is a worthy goal are grossly misinformed. The loss of individual producers only accelerates consolidation of the industry. Somebody is going to produce the product and that production will continue to be held in fewer and fewer hands.
That equates to higher prices and even the wealthy educated Democratic environmentalists might find that inconvenient.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Ranches like the Bundy’s that span back into the 19th Century under the same ownership now represent one percent of all ranches. Section 102 of FLPMA says the public lands will be managed to, among other things, provide food and habitat for domestic animals and for human occupancy and use."