Posted by Tina
The Big Brother hoopla going on in Nevada is not just an abuse of power, it’s an abuse of power that oversteps a court ruling from 2013. The New American reports:
In an historic 104-page ruling, Chief Judge Robert C. Jones of the Federal District Court of Nevada has struck a major blow for property rights and, at the same time, has smacked down federal agencies that have been riding roughshod over Western ranchers and property owners. The long-awaited ruling, which had been expected before the end of last year, was finally issued at the end of May. The court case, U.S. v. Hage, has been keenly watched by legal analysts and constitutional scholars — but has been completely ignored by the major media.
As we reported last November (“Judge Blasts Federal Conspiracy; Ranch Family Vindicated — Again!”), in June 2012, Judge Jones had issued a scorching preliminary bench ruling that charged federal officials of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with an ongoing series of illegal actions against Nevada rancher E. Wayne Hage (shown on left) that the judge described as “abhorrent” and a literal, criminal conspiracy.
Judge Jones said he found that “the government and the agents of the government in that locale, sometime in the ’70s and ’80s, entered into a conspiracy, a literal, intentional conspiracy, to deprive the Hages of not only their permit grazing rights, for whatever reason, but also to deprive them of their vested property rights under the takings clause, and I find that that’s a sufficient basis to hold that there is irreparable harm if I don’t … restrain the government from continuing in that conduct.”
In fact, Judge Jones accused the federal bureaucrats of racketeering under the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations) statute, and accused them as well of extortion, mail fraud, and fraud, in an effort “to kill the business of Mr. Hage.”
The Hage family has waged a heroic decades-long legal battle against these abusive agencies, in a David vs. Goliath contest against the combined might of the U.S. Department of Justice and the BLM/USFS legal teams. Precious few individual citizens are willing to undertake such a seemingly hopeless and costly effort as to challenge the formidable power and bottomless resources of the federal government. Wayne Hage and his wife Jean did so repeatedly, winning judgements only to have them endlessly appealed by the taxpayer-funded agencies. Jean Hage died in 1996. Wayne Hage and his second wife, former U.S. Congresswoman of Idaho Helen Chenoweth Hage, both died in 2006.
The Hages’ son, Wayne N. Hage (shown next to father), and other family members have continued ranching and have continued the legal fight. Hage hailed Judge Jones’ May 24 decision as a landmark ruling for property rights, which the American Founding Fathers recognized as the bedrock of liberty and an essential security against tyrannical government.
The government’s harassment and taking of the Bundy’s cattle is yet another example of this administration’s un-American vision for America. The Land of the Free is being fundamentally transformed in big and small ways on a daily basis. It is up to you and me to resist and begin to set America back on her true path in November.
The Feds claiming their actions are to protect the desert turtle is just another lie. The Feds have been killing the turtles that can no longer survive in the wild.
Bundy has paid his state and local taxes and fees, but not federal taxes he believes he legally does not owe. Those federal taxes/fees dropped drastically when the economy declined.
The reported federal cost to round-up the Bundy cattle is $3 million and he owes $300.000 for fees and a total of $1 million with fines and penalties.
Another example of government efficiency?
“Bundy says he has “fired” the BLM, whose so-called experts said he would be permitted to run his cattle on the range only from mid-summer through winter. As a rancher, Bundy knows that spring is the only time cattle fatten up, but the BLM was concerned that cows might step on baby tortoises when they emerge in the spring, and as everyone knows, the desert tortoise is an “endangered species”.
Range biologists demonstrated years ago that desert tortoises actually do better on land that’s being grazed by cattle and managed by ranchers. People who have lived in Southern Nevada awhile know that this business of “protecting the desert tortoise” is an example of government interference at its worst. In the 1990s, the feds insisted that tortoises were in danger of extinction. They blocked off huge areas of land from development, and charged exorbitant fees to developers, which were used to establish a Desert Tortoise Conservation Center. You may have read recently that the center was so overcrowded with tortoises that they had to euthanize many of them. They couldn’t release them into the wild because that would cause overcrowding in the native population. How can an endangered animal population be overcrowded? That’s government logic for you.
Cliven Bundy may be on the wrong side of the law according to the courts, but to my way of thinking, we need more citizens like him to stand up to the federal government instead of giving in to their insatiable power grabbing. Let the cattle graze and the cowboys ride the range, and if they occasionally step on a tortoise, that’s a small price to pay for living free.”
From Nevada Business:
http://www.nevadabusiness.com/2013/11/home-home-range-desert-tortoises-roam/
Before Nevada Cattle Rancher Standoff, BLM Killed Off Hundreds of Endangered Tortoises:
http://www.infowars.com/before-nevada-cattle-rancher-dispute-blm-was-euthanizing-endangered-desert-tortoise/
Rancher speaks on behalf of Cliven -snipers surround his ranch- is this STILL AMERICA?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMNaYyu-ci0
The plot thickens or should I say the hidden agenda is being uncovered.
Nevada Land Grab, Is Sen. Reid in Bed w/ Chinese?:
By SFC Drake
There are many rumors and speculations surfacing about what is taking place at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. The last speculation is that Sen Harry Reid is working with China to build solar farms on the land where Bundy’s cattle graze. Typically, we stay far away from the rumor mills, but in this case we’re going out on a limb because something isn’t right in Nevada. The entire situation is strange.
One rumor that continues to surface claims 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. Word floating around the web is that a BLM document entitled “Cattle Trespass Impacts” directly states that Bundy’s cattle “impacts” solar development, more specifically the construction of “utility-scale solar power generation facilities” on “public lands.”
“Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle,” the document states.
Another rumor is chasing a BLM report entitled Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone (BLM Technical Note 444). Apparently, it reveals that Bundy’s land in question is within the “Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone and surrounding area” which is part of a broad U.S. Department of Energy program for “Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States”. If any of this information can be confirmed we will try to be the first to let you know. Right now it is complete speculation, we cannot emphasize this enough.
Read more at http://www.dmldaily.com/land-grab-is-sen-reid-in-bed-with-the-chinese/#Z8ikp1kSKU6ExQDE.99
More dirty tricks from Dirty Harry. Is this the real reason cattle are being run off of grazing land granted to ranchers over 100 years ago? It just keeps getting worse, folks.
U.S. Senator Reid, son combine for China firm’s desert plant:
By Marcus Stern
Aug 31, 2012
(Reuters) – U.S. Senator Harry Reid recognized nine years ago that connections between his official duties and the lobbying activities of his relatives could lead to ethical questions.
In 2003, the Nevada Democrat publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after newspaper reports showed that Nevada industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid’s sons or son-in-law for representation.
Now, questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert.
Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.
To advance the Nevada project, ENN retained the state’s largest and most prestigious law firm – Lionel Sawyer & Collins, where Rory Reid works. It is headed by Richard Bryan, a former Nevada attorney general, governor and member of the U.S. Senate.
Rory Reid faced a one-year cooling off period from lobbying the Clark County commission after leaving his post in January 2011, and Bryan took the lead on ENN’s negotiations with the county.
Since the one-year ban expired, Rory Reid has been ENN’s primary representative before the county, according to Steve Sisolak, the board’s vice chairman.
Rory Reid acknowledged representing ENN at both the county and state levels since January. He declined to discuss the project otherwise.
Two months after Harry Reid’s China trip, Lionel Sawyer registered ENN Mohave Energy LLC as an American subsidiary of the Chinese company. The firm negotiated with the county to buy the land rather than lease it, as the county’s staff had recommended.
In December, Clark County commissioners voted unanimously to sell up to 9,000 acres of public land to the subsidiary at pennies on the dollar.
The deal spurred local controversy. Separate appraisals valued the land at $29.6 million and $38.6 million. The commission agreed to sell it to ENN for $4.5 million.
The county did build in certain conditions before the project could begin, including milestones for jobs creation and investment. ENN also must assure the county that it has a power company willing to commit to buying energy from the solar farm. But in the eight months since the commissioners approved the deal, no utility has signed a power purchase agreement.
However, Harry Reid stepped up again.
The Democrat recently used an online discussion related to his annual energy summit for an as-yet unsuccessful effort to pressure Nevada’s largest power company, NV Energy, to sign up as ENN’s first customer.
In the July 30 discussion, Reid said the project “would start tomorrow if NV Energy would purchase the power.” The utility controls “95 percent of all of the electricity that is produced in Nevada and they should go along with this.” Reid’s online comments were first reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The power company responded by saying it had exceeded its minimum renewable energy requirements both last year and this year, though it would consider buying power from ENN in the future. A spokesman for NV Energy declined to discuss the matter further.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/us-usa-china-reid-solar-idUSBRE87U06D20120831
And our clown AG just got a judicial slapdown for attempting to change sentencing guidelines without the authority to do so. Lawlessness seems to be rampant throughout the Fed bureaucracy.
Hello, States???? Time to step up and protect your residents from the Foolish Feds! It’s either that, or a mass replacement of goofernment bureaucrats and elected clowns.
This is the kind of government overreach our forefathers fought a revolution to end. The government in this case are bureaucrats that are forcing a confrontation for highly suspicious reasons. These bureaucrats seem incapable of thinking of backing down, even if it would avoid a bloody confrontation. Because to them being right and showing folks who’s the boss is more important than peoples lives. This is where the President needs to step in and tell them, this whole thing is getting out of hand – stand down. They need to put a moratorium on any action for the next five years, no legal actions, nothing…just let it cool down. Reason will prevail as long as people aren’t forced into doing something rash on either side.
The BLM has backed down for now, but expect them to regroup and come after Bundy again.
Talked to my brother last night who is at the Nevada GOP convention, who said several attendees were going out to join the protesters at the ranch and the protest taking place at the sheriff’s headquarters.
I’m disappointed but not surprised the news is not picking up on the Reid’s connection to the China solar power plant and the timing that has lead up to the Bundy standoff that began with Reid’s visit to the solar plant years ago in China and his son Rory’s involvement in coordinating supplying Nevada’s power through contracts with the state.
Our government forced the Indians off of their land because they wanted it for the railroads and for the settlers. The Indians at Wounded Knee were slaughtered for their land, and now this same government that also forced the Japanese into interment camps after taking away their property is doing the same to ranchers for the same reasons.
I don’t want anyone hurt, but I hope people will realize what is going on so in the future our children’s children will not be reading about the horrible thing this country did again to the ranchers equal to what it did to the Indians and Japanese.
Note the “Silence of the lames”
Well … the first thing that sticks out a mile is that leased BLM land is not YOUR land, so I’m wondering what “property” rights have been infringed upon. I will have to look further into this particular situation.
But I did already know that 1) the BLM has a lot of trouble with ranchers over-grazing and perpetrating other varieties of pollution and 2) that the BLM is thinking they should be getting more revenue from these leases anyway.
The most obvious property grab was the cattle.
Jude Napalitano points out that the usual procedure for the type of infraction is a lien on the property. Armed confiscaton of property is never the response.
Jus as with WACO, Ruby Ridge, and the taking of Elian Gonzales, the left has here picked the most Jack booted thug approach when something much more civil should have been the remedy.
I suspect Harry Reid wants the greens to know he’ll go the extra mile for their cause. He wanted high profile and proved it today saying, “It’s not over”.
Reid says we can’t have people breaking the law…he should know. Jesse Jackson went to jail…Harry Reid has escaped the long arm of the law.
Peggy: “I don’t want anyone hurt, but I hope people will realize what is going on so in the future our children’s children will not be reading about the horrible thing this country did again to the ranchers equal to what it did to the Indians and Japanese.”
Some day Republicans will regret encouraging this type of insane, asinine statements.
““I don’t want anyone hurt, but I hope people will realize what is going on so in the future our children’s children will not be reading about the horrible thing this country did again to the ranchers equal to what it did to the Indians and Japanese.”
And I fondly remember poor Junior Soprano, who pissed off the judge with this sort of hyperbole.
According to one militia member involved in the dispute, the plan was to use women as human shields:
Former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack revealed on Monday that he and other organizers who traveled to Clark County, Nev., to support Cliven Bundy during his land dispute with the feds planned to put women on the front lines in case the “rogue federal officers” started shooting.
Mack made the chilling revelation on Fox News’ “The Real Story” Monday, two days after the tense standoff between Bundy and the federal government came to a peaceful end.
“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” he said. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
Watch the clip below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZd61_9hofE
Disgusting. Still support these freaks?
So I guess he is the duly elected spokesperson for the entire Bundy group and not just one angry person making ridiculous threats they never intended, nor could they, carry out?
Forgot the link:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/14/former-arizona-sheriff-reveals-chilling-strategy-to-put-women-up-at-the-front-during-bundy-ranch-standoff/