On the EDge: The search for enlightenment continues after standoff in the desert

OPINION – You cannot grow a lotus in the desert.

In Buddhist culture, the lotus is a symbol of enlightenment, rising and blooming above the muddy waters from which the delicate flower emerges.

There was little enlightenment in the desert southwest of us over the weekend as the so-called range war between rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management played out.

The 20-year-old beef between the rancher and BLM boiled over when Bundy became the poster boy for just about every anti-federal group in the western United States after the BLM came in, seized his cattle and threatened to ship them to market for illegally trespassing on federal grazing land. There was a contract between Bundy and the BLM at one time, but about 20 years ago, dissatisfied with the agency, the rancher “fired” it because he didn’t approve of how his fees were being used, he said.

Of course, none of us can “fire” a government agency we do not agree with, but for 20 years, they went back and forth until recently the BLM gave him 45 days to pay up or remove his cattle from the land.

It all quickly went south as camouflaged militia members and even a couple of vote-seeking politicians rushed to the little stretch of desert to show their contempt for the rule of law and BLM. Violence and bloodshed were in the air and the BLM, deciding on the side of humanity rather than gunplay, removed its agents from harm’s way.

Surrounding it all was a flurry of information and a storm of misinformation flooding the legitimate media, social media, and niche webzines that cater to the varying political factions. Most of it, of course, began with odes to “The Spirit of The West” and, of course, “We The People,” which have been corralled and held hostage by this group.

Just when it appeared as if the dispute was about to settle down, Bundy came forward with a victory speech, although he, in actuality, won nothing and, in fact, will wind up losing all in his battle with the feds.

“This is what we the people are going to demand this (Sat­urday) morning,” Bundy said, addressing the crowd from a podium set up on the fringes of the standoff. “You disarm those park service people. And take a pick-up and I want those arms. We want those arms hauled to Virgin Valley dis­posal. We want those arms de­livered right here under these flags in one hour.”

Of course, the BLM declined.

It was, in the finality of the moment, an indication that, of course, this was never about the BLM, it was never about cattle grazing, it was never about land rights. It was simply the flashpoint for a group of people who are angry at the federal government for reasons they don’t fully understand or have fabricated, wrapped themselves in the Constitution, which they claim was trampled, and rallied behind what will eventually be a losing cause.

The seeds of the BLM date back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which outlined the responsibility of the government to survey and settle the lands that were ceded to the federal government at the conclusion of the American Revolution. As more land was purchased or acquired, if you will, Congress ordered their exploration, that they become surveyed and settled. The Department of Treasury established the General Land Office in 1812 to manage these lands. There were a number of Constitutionally approved Congressional Acts that followed and a number of court cases over the years – including a decision by the 9th Circuit Court, that further affirmed that the United States government “owns and has broad authority to regulate federal lands in Nevada,” a fact lost on Bundy and his supporters who insist that particular stretch is owned by the State of Nevada.

Still what happened in that desert Saturday is viewed by many as a victory over the feds, even though the BLM left a calling card for Bundy, explaining that, well, the agency will see him in court.

It will cost Bundy a lot of money as he wades through the judicial system and tries to convince the court that his Constitutional rights have been violated, that he fired the BLM, that it had no authority over the land, that as public lands they belong to the people, and that he – and the rest of us, by extension – can darned sure do whatever we want on them.

And, he will lose.

These federal agencies, from the BLM to the IRS to the FDA, DEA, and all of the others, are well grounded in Constitutional law and there are no loopholes that will extricate Bundy from the hole he has just dug for himself.

But, even today, there are those proclaiming a victory over the feds. There is, as a matter of fact, a similar situation in Texas where the government is having a tussle with a local who is making similar claims.

No matter how many camouflaged militiamen show up, no matter how many claims of constitutional violations are leveled, no matter how many vote-hungry politicians he attracts, he will lose, just like Bundy will lose.

It is easy these days to be angry with the federal government. It is easy to point fingers at our elected officials for their lack of statesmanship, integrity, and capitulation to special interests, and, it cuts across all party lines – the Democrats are not innocent, the Republicans are not innocent, the Libertarians are not innocent, the Tea Party folks are not innocent. But this is not the stuff of revolution and violence. In fact, what we really have going on in Washington, D.C., our state capitols, and local governments is a fairly accurate reflection of what we have become ourselves – self-serving, greedy, individuals who have lost our sense of nation and community. We are an angry nation, looking for any excuse, however feeble or treasonous, to draw down on the federal government instead of participating in incidents of peaceful civil disobedience to make their political point; and make no mistake, this is all political, and has little to do with rights.

The confrontation in the desert is more symbolic of the de-evolution of this nation as it journeys backwards to means and methods of heavy-handed thugs who lived by the gun rather than common sense and peaceful resolution and rising above the mud and murk to achieve enlightenment, which is why you cannot grow a lotus in the desert.

No bad days!

 

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist. The opinions stated in this article are his and not representative of St. George News.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews, @EdKociela

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2014, all rights reserved.

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41 Comments

  • Bree April 15, 2014 at 9:33 am

    Why is Mr. Bundy above the law? What an outrage to see my tax dollars supporting his cattle when I don’t believe in grazing on BLM land in the first place. He’s not a hero or a good citizen. I hope the Federal Government gets him best wear it hurts the most, in his saddle sorry check book.

  • aja April 15, 2014 at 9:40 am

    What? has this newspaper been overrun by communists? Good grief!!!

    • Deb April 15, 2014 at 1:00 pm

      The only communists I see are those who feel that public land should be available for them to use without charge when they are making a profit like Mr. Bundy. Rather than stick up for the American capitalist system, where you earn and pay for what you get, he wants us the taxpayers to cover the costs of grazing animals on public land, while he reaps the rewards.

  • Dustin April 15, 2014 at 9:52 am

    Amazing. That is all there is to. I have felt this way the whole time. I’m going to share the crap out of this.

  • Matthew Sevald April 15, 2014 at 10:20 am

    “People angry at the federal government for reasons they don’t understand or have fabricated”…….how insulting.
    .
    Understand this video Ed.
    .
    http://scgnews.com/bundy-ranch-what-youre-not-being-told
    .
    And this was not a victory just yet. No, the fed machine is smarter than that and they are regrouping. This isn’t their first rodeo. They backed down to save face because they weren’t expecting us to respond as we did. Now they’ll come back harder, faster, with impunity the way any bully or military force overwhelms a target. This is even attested to by the great Patriot Ron Paul:
    .
    http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-warns-feds-could-launch-waco-style-assault-against-bundy/
    .
    Thomas Paine was dead-on when he wrote “The American Crisis”:
    .
    “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman…..Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
    .
    We require sustained effort, eternal vigilance. Americans by and large are beginning to withdraw their consent of being governed. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
    .
    “IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

    The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

    When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
    .
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”
    .
    It is not something that Americans are doing lightly or trivially. Our nation is corrupt and morally bankrupt. Many god-fearing, and freedom loving people who simply want to live their lives as they see fit – and allow others to do the same – are fed up with both the people in the system, and the inefficiency of the system. You advocate using peaceful civil disobedience. We can’t vote these clowns out. We can’t get these behemoth laws and alphabet agencies removed from the books. It’s impossible at this point because Leviathan is legion. The time for peaceful civil disobedience is past when the feds lay siege to citizens for corrupt reasons.
    .
    What is required now is Americans standing up to say “No more” to the abuses of the federal government and a return to states acting as loosely allied independent countries. This is beginning to happen. We must share Winston Churchill’s vigilance when he spoke of fighting Nazi Germany during the second World War:
    .
    “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
    .
    From now on, whenever the feds show up in force, en masse, with weapons then they must be met with numbers of people with weapons. We don’t need to shoot, but we need to be prepared. We need to say “enough is enough”. We need to be there to oppose them until they get the point that “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” They’ll either get tired of backing down and change, or they’ll be guilty of starting a modern day Boston Massacre when they fire on their own people.
    .
    We withdraw our consent to be governed by the people currently in office and their unelected, appointed cronies as they currently operate. We do not reject the founding documents of this nation, but how they have been interpreted, twisted, manipulated, and outright ignored for corrupt reasons and personal gain. This country needs a reset, and I pray that it is peaceful. But should it not be, then may God bless the New Patriots and lead us to victory over the Oppresors.

  • K. Browne-Vohs April 15, 2014 at 10:20 am

    Maybe if Bundy had offered some diseased blankets and a couple of barrels of Jack Daniels as fees, he could have kept the land. Isn’t that how it was obtained in the beginning?

  • ducks April 15, 2014 at 10:30 am

    LETS TELL THE TRUTH ED!
    (by Kit Daniels, Infowars.com) — “The Bureau of Land Management, whose Director was Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) former senior adviser, has purged documents from its web site stating that the agency wants Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle off of the land his family has worked for over 140 years in order to make way for solar panel power stations.

    Corrupt Democratic Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) working with the Chinese gov’t to take land from hard-working Americans.”

    • Deb April 15, 2014 at 1:15 pm

      That information is still available on the web, including on archived website databases. And yes, one of the reasons given for the impounding had to do with solar power plants (one of many reasons given I might add). This particular case has to do with the “Dry Lake Solar Zone,” which will include a solar plant north of Nellis Air Force Base (far from Bunkerville and where these cattle are). The Gold Butte area, where the cattle are trespassing, will be restored with money gained from the Dry Lake plant in a fee called mitigation. This will restore damage done by the Bundy Herd. That is the only connection between the cattle and power plants. They want the cattle out before they spend the money and do the restoration. I suggest you do a web search for information on the Dry Lake mitigation plan before continuing to spread inaccurate information. This has nothing to do with building solar plants were the cattle are currently, and in fact will help restore and protect the area from ever having a power plant on it.

  • Sean April 15, 2014 at 10:53 am

    Well said, Mr. Kociela. It’s sad that some cannot be reasond with.

  • DLR April 15, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    Mr Ed. Can you tell me about one “peaceful” act of civil disobedience that has accomplished anything in the past 20 years? please do so. We had occupy wall street, there were 10 times more people protesting then, they didnt use guns, they got beat and arrested by the police and not one thing changed. there were less people in some of the countries during the arab spring revolting, and we went and helped the smaller amount of people overthrow their own governments even if it meant giving Al Qaeda weapons and in theory supporting terrorism. This is all a continuation of the sagebrush rebellion. Which you i assume dont truly know about nor do you know that Nevada got equal footing when they became a state, but the equal footing was never granted to them. And thats why Ronald Reagan himself said “I happen to be one who cheers and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel.”. He would have been a “crazy deranged” militia member I guess…

    • Ed Kociela April 15, 2014 at 6:30 pm

      Just a historical footnote: The Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978 created the current system of charging rental fees for ranchers to use these acres to feed their private livestock, and was extended by President Ronald Reagan in a 1986 executive order.

      • tinman April 15, 2014 at 8:19 pm

        There is also a statutory requirement in every court, whether state or federal, to prosecute your case in a timely manner. The BLM could have prosecuted him in 1994, but waited 20 years, and at a time when there just so happens to be an interest in his Gold Butte allotment as a “mitigation area” for a solar energy project. Why don’t you do a little investigative journalism and find out why the BLM purged a document that incriminates them, as well as any politician in Nevada that has ties to the development of solar energy projects in Nevada, especially those developed by Foreign corporations? The google cache of the incriminating purged document is available to honest journalists. But back to the points of law that obviously were not argued by Bundy’s lawyers in federal court, I would have looked into a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute. And why, Ed, would the penalty on $300,000 accrued over 20 years be $700,000? You should be embarrassed painting Bundy as the bully, when the armed initiation followed by violence from the BLM was so over the top. Instead of spending $3 million in a botched mission to collect $300K and a specious $700k in fines, why didn’t your honorable government keep pursuing it in the courts via liens, etc.?

      • tinman April 15, 2014 at 10:39 pm

        Looks like it’s the BLM who are harming the poor desert tortoise. Looks like they thrive on cow dung. But dishonest liberal bombthrowers like Ed are selective in the facts they disseminate. This just doesn’t fit your narrative, does it Ed?:
        https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/10776/10049

      • DLR April 16, 2014 at 1:51 pm

        This is better.. Your using laws and facts. I appreciate this, and thanks for even responding regardless. Was the public rangelands improvements act of 1978 the purpose of the sagebrush rebellion? It was not. It was an extension of the older controversy of state vs. federal powers, Sagebrush Rebels wanted the federal government to give more control of federally owned Western lands to state and local authorities. This was meant to increase the growth of Western economies. So Reagan doing something contradictory of what he says to get elected is hardly a surprise sir, but he said what the american people wanted to hear. I also like how pick and choose arguments to refute based on your abilities to make things lean this or that way. The simple fact is civil disobedience is dead, I still invite you to show one time where it has worked in the past 20 years. To defend a government that spends triple the money collecting a debt that is owed to it is sad. Like they didnt think out the logistics, and ive heard they really at that point hadnt thought to put a lien on the cattle or his ranch. So picture all those people having just been there fighting blatant misuse of our tax money if you cant stomach a farmer wanting to pay the state instead of the federal government. Because both are true. One more footnote for you as well Mr Ed, what happens when land inst used for cattle to graze on around here? A it is prescribe burned to prevent fires, or b it starts on fire and burns out of control. Lets burn it all up in the atmosphere as opposed to letting animal that become food for americans eat it. Then cry about the environment. Things are not always black and white. and most often humans are walking contradictions.
        PS: you say “to show their contempt for the rule of law and BLM” . but the law takes place in courts, and when people break the law they go to jail. Or they get liens on the properties they own. So I would strongly disagree with your choice of words. This was an abuse of power of the law that cost more to collect then was owed, I as an american hope we arent that bad at math.

      • tinman April 16, 2014 at 4:05 pm

        So then, why do you live in the desert, Mr. Enlightened Lotus Flower?

      • Stonehenge April 20, 2014 at 8:23 pm

        My great grandfather, grandfather, father, and now myself have payed fees to graze cattle on federal land so this has been going on long before 1978. Not complaining, just letting you know.

  • COMBAT VET AND CONSERVATIVE April 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    “It is better to die as a free man….than a slave on my knees”. I refuse to be a slave to this government. I took an oath, twice, and it has NO expiration date on it.

    • Chris April 15, 2014 at 7:52 pm

      So, die then.

    • Carl April 16, 2014 at 4:57 pm

      I took that same oath 4 times. I regard the law. I don’t believe that one individual should be allowed to trespass on the allotment a of his neighbors. Yes, I have personally talked to one. They are honest rancgers trying to make a living and pay for their grazing only to bw overrun by a law breaker. I believe in the Constitution. ALL OF IT. Not just those parts that are easy. We are at a point in the US where we were 50 years ago. I was sent to Vietnam by Congress. I was ridiculed and assaulted upon my return. The federal officers also did not ask to go to enforce a LEGAL court order. We are about to send candidats for election. Our responsibility for our government is to search the record. We are about ro the the same candidates that were “do nothing” in the last Congress will be sent back instead of being replaced. We are the government. We need to send a message to Congress. If they refuse to do the job, they should not be rehired. Just an ooinion from an old vet and former livestockman

  • Deb April 15, 2014 at 1:05 pm

    Does Mr. Bundy believe this part of the US Constitution?

    Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2:
    “The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States”

    Since the property is federal (it became that after the Mexican-American War, and Nevada’s constitution reiterated that all land not claimed when it became a state in the 1860s was federal property; the Bundy family came in the 1870s) Congress has all power given to it by the Constitution to control this land. That includes the grazing acts passed in the 1930s, which Mr. Bundy has refused to recognize.

    • Chris April 15, 2014 at 7:54 pm

      It is clear that Bundy does not have a legal leg to stand on. He has lost every court case he has engaged in. The only law he respects is the one in his very confused mind.

      • COMBAT VET AND CONSERVATIVE April 16, 2014 at 10:43 am

        CHRIS….since you are a die-hard supporter of this lawless administration, tell us, where you present at the Bundy ranch or protest site, or at the BLM staging area actually supporting the feds/BLM?? I don’t recall seeing anyone at any of those sites with signs in support of BLM’s actions. Haha…maybe next time you should show up in support of your favorite alphabet federal agency and see how well that turns out for you. But as it goes with all liberals….you will sit home and use your keyboard express your feeble opinions.

  • pete April 15, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    Hey, the way I understand it Bundy hasn’t paid the government a cent for grazing his herd since he fired them. Hmmm. Wonder what would happen if we all did that for our taxes? Back to the covered wagon days.

    • tinman April 16, 2014 at 4:40 pm

      Pete, the desert tortoise actually feed and thrive on Cow …! So, the fact that Bundy is the last of 53 ranchers providing this vital protein nutrient to this poor desert species makes him a servant to society providing a valuable commodity to sustain an endangered species. I don’t see the gases you are expelling in your 8th grade level thought processes contributing much more than the flatulence that comes out of a cow’s ….
      Ed. ellipses.

  • JAR April 15, 2014 at 7:07 pm

    Some stupid questions I have;
    Does the disputed land belong to the state of Nevada or not? Who has the responsibility of that land? Can a Clark County Sheriff issue a ticket on that stretch of land? Can the Federal government or Nevada have a say if I want to bag a coyote in those parts? bottom line, who do I pay a hunting licence to? Anyone? Can the US government sell that land to anyone it chooses, say, China without a OK from from Nevada. If I accidentally shoot a cow on that property, or run over a turtle, who do I have to answer to? Does the BLM need to get the approval of the EPA to lease that land or streams to some hick rancher?

  • tinman April 15, 2014 at 8:20 pm

    How pathetic to read all of the MSM parrot comments from the small minds who are too lazy to think for themselves and do their own research about what is really behind this. The BLM or any other litigant in any court has an obligation to prosecute their case in a timely manner. They did not. For that, I would have filed a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute. The BLM also had obligations to assist Bundy with maintenance of this allotment, but did not. Therefore, Bundy very well may have a breach of contract claim against the BLM if he appeals the federal court ruling. But these are the small minded issues the MSM wants everybody to focus on–and sadly, that is precisely what the bulk of comments on here have indeed focused on. The real story is Harry Reid, the Mob Boss of Nevada, and his crony son Rory. Rory was a former Clark County Commissioner and got Clark County to sell a piece of land in Laughlin apparaised at $38 million for only $4 million. The property was to be used for a solar energy project by a CHINESE company Rory lobby’s for, ENN Energy. This is the same energy company Harry Reid has been trying to muscle into Nevada as an energy provider (huge conflict of interest). If that happened in Washington County, I would demand why our commissioners left $34 million on the table and why they were allowing a foreign corporation-instead of an American corp– to create a business on our soil. I would say an investigation into huge kickbacks is in order. What does that have to do with Bundy? The BLM (now headed by Harry Reids former senior adviser) recently purged a document from its website (huge red flag) that admits Bundy and his cattle are a nuisance standing in the way of using his Gold Butte allotment as a “mitigation area” for a solar energy project. No mention in this document of the poor desert tortoise, the whole pretext of this. So, if you want to talk about lawlessness and disobeying the rule of law, deal with the greater crimes being committed to the tune of billions, not the paltry $300K in grazing fees (the $700k in fines/penalties is B.S. and should be assessed at about 2% interest per annum). One fool on here actually parroted a DHS agenda to try and label Bundy a domestic terrorist. What a foolish, incendiary thing to say, and a very dangerous comment to make. Such comments and division will incite another civil war. The real terrorists are the political mobsters who run the state of Nevada for their own profit and are no different than the corrupt RINO’s in other states (e.g, John McCain inappropriately using eminent domain to try and muscle out property owners to make way for the Canamex highway system through Arizona). There are much bigger fish to fry than Ciiven Bundy. No one on this thread seems to have any respect for his family’s pioneering heritage ranching that land since 1877, which is a valid basis for claiming pre-emptive rights. But it is the hypocrisy of excoriating him while giving a pass to the absolutely unlawful administration presently in office that is really disturbing. There has been a relentless agenda to use class warfare, race baiting, and other divisive tactics by an Administration that openly admits to hatred for America as a Constitutional Republic (we are not a Democracy) and everything it stands for. That is the more disturbing lawlessness that needs to be prosecuted.

  • grandma mary April 15, 2014 at 9:37 pm

    My opinion is that Mr. Bundy is a freeloading loudmouth coward that put innocent people in harms way to further his agenda. He just blew through over three million of my tax dollars and he should pay for this by loosing his land, all his cattle, his ill-gotten gain and bankrupt his children too. This recent imagined “empowerment” isn’t going to last very long. Those armed camouflaged thugs won’t stick around much longer to support him because he is going down and they know it. Seriously, does he really believe the Lord heard and answered their prayers?

    • tinman April 16, 2014 at 4:44 pm

      Granny, Mr. Bundy didn’t put anybody in harms way. Everyone who showed up to aid and defend him did so of their own free will and with full awareness of the danger THEY put themselves in. And Mr. Bundy is not the one who caused you and I to spend $3 million on a botched operation. The incompetent federal government (historically known to hold up a dollar to save a nickel) chose to spend what they did of our tax dollars.

  • tinman April 15, 2014 at 10:41 pm

    Grandma Mary, you know what they say about opinions? It was the Federal Government who just blew $3 million of our tax dollars on a botched operation rather than continuing it in the courts. Stop drinking the Kool Aid!

  • tinman April 15, 2014 at 10:44 pm

    Looks like it’s actually the BLM who are harming the poor desert tortoise. According to the study below, they thrive on cow dung. But dishonest liberal bombthrowers like Ed Kociela are selective in the facts they disseminate. This just doesn’t fit their lotus flower narrative:
    https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/10776/10049

  • tinman April 15, 2014 at 11:22 pm

    “The science of range ecology predicts that excluding cattle will reduce the tortoise population and they will become rare.” From:
    https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/rangelands/article/viewFile/10776/10049
    journals.uair.arizona.edu

  • Melissa April 16, 2014 at 5:54 am

    Great article!

    • tinman April 16, 2014 at 8:34 am

      Melissa, you would like an article that is filled with subjective opinion and half truths. Ed Kociela is intellectually dishonest, as you are, and refuses to answer challenges from source documents which don’t fit his liberal narrative.

  • tinman April 16, 2014 at 8:47 am

    It’s amazing to read all of the hypocritical liberal comments about Bundy not paying his grazing fees; yet these same bleeding heart fools will exempt ILLEGAL immigrants who dodge paying taxes and sponge public resources like parasites. But that’s just liberal logic 101.

  • MrRedNeckParadise April 16, 2014 at 9:04 am

    The author may want to do a bit more research.

    Here are some facts, proofs evidence and documents for your consideration…plus, a video showing even more documents. Let’s hear both sides of the story, please.

    Note: When Common Dreams has a clue…
    https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14

    So does Princeton:
    http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf

    Plus, an eleven minute video on the issue that is worth your time. Promise.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFiosLqjoQQ

  • COMBAT VET AND CONSERVATIVE April 16, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    Hummm….the Dallas Hyland and Ed Kociela should start their own radio show like Brian Hyde and Kate Dalley have. I doubt the Hyland-Kociela radio show would last a week. Everyone putting down the militias that have shown up at Bundy’s ranch, should remember that 90% of those in these militias are combat experienced military veterans. They are trained and experienced to a higher degree than those wanna be combat hardened BLM play soldiers. The real reason they stood down Saturday was because they were scared out of their wits by real military trained combat vets. They went to their hotel rooms in Mesquite and changed their underwear and got out of dodge pronto. Running to daddy Harry Reid whining about being outgunned and outmanned. Yeah, some say they will return in larger numbers and better “equipped”. But so will the militia. Stay tuned. Stuff is about to get real.

    • combat vet and true jedi warrior April 17, 2014 at 2:04 am

      you read my mind

      • COMBAT VET AND CONSERVATIVE April 17, 2014 at 8:47 am

        COMBAT VET AND JEDI WARRIOR……thank you for your service. And thank you for protecting our universe. Make certain you keep fresh batteries for you light saber. Stay safe and vigilant.

  • Matthew Sevald April 17, 2014 at 2:29 pm

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/144609491/United-States-v-Estate-of-Hage-No-2-07-cv-01154-RCJ-VCF-Findings-of-Fact-Conclusions-of-Law-and-Injunction-D-Nev-May-24-2013

    At least one federal judge believes that the BLM and the federal government are working together to actively attack and destroy ranchers’ ways of life. The Hage case is very much tied to the Bundy case.

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