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Bundy Trial in Oregon

“All defendants found not guilty” was the update at The Oregonian regarding the trial of multiple defendants of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation. The Oregonian summed up the trial nicely:

Ammon Bundy and six-co-defendants are charged with conspiring to impede federal employees at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge through intimidation, threat or force stemming from the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Four of the seven defendants are charged with possessing guns in a federal facility. Two of the defendants each face an additional charge of theft of government property.

The jury put their heads together and found the government’s case lacking. We wrote about it when it first happened in January of this year.  It’s been a long year, but thankfully the verdicts came down as not guilty.

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109 COMMENTS

    • Sad but true, when you make your bureaucrats unaccountable. Sure, us taxpayers may eventually have to pay up, but the bureaucrats are set for life.

      • With all our phone calls, social media posts, and emails being collected and monitored by the NSA and Hilary as President, everyone who not just took part, but supported the Bundy’s and the protest will be relocated to “Tolerance Training Camps”

        • “Just climb into the boxcar, citizen. We have a really nice camp for you, with excellent shower facilities.”

  1. And the Bundy lawyer was tackled by 5 federal agents and is now in ‘Federal custody’ after engaging the judge in a heated ‘discussion’…

    “In an emotional climax to the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, Marcus Mumford, was tackled to the floor by U.S. marshals as he became involved in a heated verbal exchange with the judge over the terms of his client’s release.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oregon-standoff-refuge-not-guilty_us_5812858ce4b0990edc303679

    • ‘In an emotional climax to the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, Marcus Mumford, was tackled to the floor by U.S. marshals as he became involved in a heated verbal exchange with the judge over the terms of his client’s release.’

      If he was acquitted, exactly what ‘terms’ could there be to his release? Once you’re acquitted you’re free to go. Period. Thinking I smell a rat, but I wouldn’t expect Puff-Ho to spell it out.

      • If I understood it, one of the defendants is wanted in Nevada for another lands dispute. The argument was if the defendant should be released or if they should be held in custody for Nevada authorities.

        • Not really the locals from Nevada that want the brothers held. Nope, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management not Black Lives Matter) is still pissed off about loosing the standoff over the Bundy Ranch faceoff. The locals down there do not side with the feds and the judge is likely to hold the Bundy brothers because they helped their father standup to the BLM and the feds never let go of a grudge.

    • Clothed with a lifetime appointment, most federal judges have something of a god complex. Couple that with the almost infinite power of the federal government in these types of proceedings and it’s a wonder the defendants were acquitted. Thank God the right to a jury trial still exists.

    • I just read the comments over at huffpo, where nonsensicals gather to talk nonsense. Apparently they think all cases are determined not based on the facts of the case but of the race of the defendant.

      Bunch of racists.

  2. So, a jury pool from one of the most progressive areas of the country could not come up with enough votes to convict them. Oh, the progressives must be pissed. Sweet!

    • No, that would have been a hung jury and a mistrial. This was a case of one of the most progressive areas of the country producing a unanimous vote to acquit.

  3. I have not followed the trial, nor do I know enough about the event to comment on whether this was a “good” or a “bad” verdict. But it sure is a big defeat for the Obama group, and surely why the marshals roughed up Bundy and his lawyer. I looked the story up on OregonLive.com and the comments from the Portland liberal elements were enlightening. Most of them were demanding that the next time an occupation like this happens, the helicopters, machine guns and napalm should be brought in. They were bloodthirsty in a way that you don’t usually see in mainstream “conservative” or “gun oriented” blogs. More like the mobs in France, Germany, or the USSR after their various revolutions, Putsches, and coups. And they are the backbone of Hillary’s support.

    • Liberals are often found to be so bloodthirsty as cannot be believed, witness any thought of “saving lives” by going door-to-door confiscating firearms, if you suggest that tens of millions of people would be killed, they don’t care, the whole goal is to save lives, so killing millions is OK. I think the reason is that they are planning to sit at home and watch on TV either way, so all those people with guns killing each other to impose their will is just fine. That is why I am working on my personal response to civil war, should it arrive. I think I’ll be looking up those folks for a final interview.

  4. So you can break a dozen laws on national television for six weeks, for what grand and allegedly noble purpose I’m still not clear on, and you walk? What the hell kind of B.S. is that?

    These hick absolutists, I swear, they always pick the wrong poster children. Yet another case of kooks that’ll be used to discredit anyone later on who actually has a legitimate dispute with the government. Did the prosecution not seek a change of venue from the sticks to civilization?

    • Coming from what is obviously a follower of the great American Socialist Party, your strong arm plot hasn’t worked… yet. (I’m certain that you, and your kind will never stop trying)! The Left’s harassment tactics are legendary. You’ll come back to reassert that the Government is the solution to everything, they always do. (Ask Pol Pot, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Kruschev, et. al.).

      • You’ve made some pretty big, and false, assumptions about Jonathan in Houston’s position. He was pretty clear when this whole thing went down that his ire was that these folks hurt the cause of liberty and provided an example of why tyranny is warranted to most Americans. They didn’t have a clear and stated goal, and they were provided every opportunity to promote whatever it was that they wanted. Since they didn’t do that, most of America saw what the feds wanted them to see, a bunch of armed hicks stealing land scaring people. America then got to see thousands of keyboard commando’s declare that this was the start of a revolution, and that Finnicum would become the first martyr of a new America, only to, of course, still just sit on their ass and do absolutely nothing.

    • Peaceful protest on public land, no laws were broken, jury just said so. Back in your closet angry socialist. Why is it the people screaming so loud how dangerous we “constitutionalists” (Like that’s a bad thing???) are are the ones that advocate violence to get rid of us?

    • Fuck You. Jonathan in houston. You think that nullification of charges by a jury of their peers is a bad thing apparently. I hope you never have to protest federal gov overreach and have your right to do so put on trial.

    • For Jonathan-Houston .. Wait…a minute. Aren’t you the same guy who said I was gender shaming when I called Ralphie out on his misogynist joke about the 19th amendment. It would really help your credibility if you would take a few minutes to actually read some of this stuff you write, before you hit the Post Comment button.

    • For Jonathan-Houston. Wait…a minute. Aren’t you the same guy who said I was gender shaming when I called Ralphie out on his misogynist joke about the 19th amendment. It would really help your credibility if you would take a few minutes to actually read some of this stuff you write, before you hit the Post Comment button.

  5. I’m a ‘hick absolutist’ and deplorable too boot . I applaud another step in taking back America for Americans . Oh , and GET OFF MY LAWN !

  6. Did anything ever come of LaVoy Finicum, who was shot and killed? Seems like that has just been swept under the rug.

      • Yeah… How dare he demand that the government respect the limited authority of its founding documents. Fuck off. Finnicum was murdered on camera, as far as I am concerned, the cunts that killed him need to be strung up.

        • Finnicum was murdered on camera and when the discovery is complete the feds will be forced to hide the killers like they always do. The discovery in this trial killed the prosecution. Many tapes were heard by the jury where feds were debating which protester to shoot first. The same will occur in the Finnicum murder trial. Nothing turns a jury off faster than a bully federal agent.

      • He sacrificed himself in the service of others. If you read any of the story of our revolutionary war, people that acted as he did were commonly referred to as heroes. He may have made some mistakes, he may have played into the evil king’s hands, but he was still murdered in a trap on a blind downhill corner with a group of sharpshooters hidden in the trees.

  7. I would appreciate it if someone more familiar with this case could explain how these individuals could possibly be not guilty of some of their charges. They were on national television with firearms in these federal facilities. It seems pretty cut-and-dry that they would be at least guilty of that.

    • Jury nullification is pretty much the only answer.
      Because juries judge the law and the case, you can be totally “guilty” of a law, and if twelve of your peers decide that the law was either not applied properly, or not appropriate in your case, you can walk off scot free.
      Pretty rare- and the legal system doesn’t actually recognize jury nullification, but there’s no recourse for when it happens.

      http://youtu.be/uqH_Y1TupoQ
      Short vid from CCP GREY on jury nullification

      • It’s also usually illegal for a lawyer to suggest or even mention nullification to a jury (can’t even tell them they techincally do have the ability to find a man not guilty despite evidence/etc on moral grounds). Ironic considering nullification is basically the ‘jury box’ Lincoln once referenced (it was being used to nuke convictions under the Fugitive Slave Act, IIRC)

      • That jury showed real courage. Most people don’t realize that juries are legally constituted, independent, entities. Judges and prosecutors like to treat nullification as though it was somehow an improper, in not illegal act subject to court sanctions. In fact, nullification is entirely within the legal purview of juries.

      • Thanks Jake, I understand jury nullification, but do we know if that’s what actually happened here, or are you just guessing?
        Was this an example of the jury being fully aware that what they did was illegal and providing a not guilty verdict because they felt the act was right and moral despite the illegality of it, or did the jury find that they had not, in fact, broken the law?

        • Jury nullification comes into play when the jury believes the law is wrong. The person may be guilty of the law as written but the jury says the law is invalid. It needs to be used more than it is in this country and I believe it should be included in jury instructions.
          What laws did these guys violate? We have the right to assemble peacefully. We have the right to bear arms. I don’t see anything in the second amendment about the right to bear arms not applying if your on land the federal government has seized control of. Federal officers were armed. As far as I’m concerned they are our employees and have no more right to carry firearms than we do. I also believe we have every right to own and acquire any and all small arms that they have access to tax free.

    • Prosecution obviously failed to prove it was a crime to carry firearms in federal facilities, in reality it is not in most cases, even though you may be told differently. Or the facility, which means the buildings, were not properly posted. Note that Oregon IS an open carry state, though apparently you have to have a CHL to carry within 1000 feet of a school? Dumb.

      Note the phrase “Other lawful purposes” below which to me means self defense, right?

      Title 18, SS930 excerpts:
      (a) Except as provided in subsection (d), whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.

      (d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to—
      3) the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.

      (g) As used in this section:
      (1) The term “Federal facility” means a building or part thereof owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties.

      (h) Notice of the provisions of subsections (a) and (b) shall be posted conspicuously at each public entrance to each Federal facility, and notice of subsection (e) shall be posted conspicuously at each public entrance to each Federal court facility, and no person shall be convicted of an offense under subsection (a) or (e) with respect to a Federal facility if such notice is not so posted at such facility, unless such person had actual notice of subsection (a) or (e), as the case may be.

      • That 1000 foot crap is one of the most unconstitutional laws ever. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional and Congress put a line in there stating it was without actually changing the substance. Read it sometime.

      • That 1000 foot crap is one of the most unconstitutional laws ever. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional and Congress put a line in there stating it was without actually changing the substance. Read it sometime.

      • That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Did the prosecution fail to prove it’s case that the defendants committed an illegal act, or did the jury feel that their actions were appropriate despite the legal code and provided an acquittal on those grounds?

        • The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a hunting area, it’s legal to carry firearms in that area, nor does it meet the legal criteria of being a Federal Office from which work duties are performed as required by the law.

          Nor did the Bundys use force to keep people away from the facility, that was done by law enforcement.

    • “They were on national television with firearms in these federal facilities.”

      I saw that, too! How DARE they? BTW, the second Amendment to the US Constitution says that any law prohibiting that is *UNCONSTITUTIONAL*!!! Just FYI, I gather you were unaware.

    • Good luck with that. We all know this is not a “not guilty” outcome because of evidence or misapplication of the law, but rather because the jury (perhaps rightfully) sympathizes with these folks and did not believe they should be destroyed further, solely for crimes against the bureaucracy. It frankly has little bearing on the shooting death, which would hinge on actual facts & evidence, and not feelings (at least hopefully). Fact was the man was uncooperative & already fleeing a checkpoint, known to be armed (and implicitly dangerous), clearly uncooperative & belligerent while carrying said firearm once confronted by a second group of armed officers. Authorities had a legit need/reason to apprehend him, he clearly presented an aggressive threat to them, at least one of them opened fire. None of the politics or feels comes into play.

      This whole affair was a massive cluster, and the literal epitome of “a stupid hill to die on.” Had he surrendered to authorities at the first checkpoint (since at that point he was clearly going to be arrested) he’d have survived to reach today’s acquittal and been able to continue his ostensibly noble struggle (highly debatable) as a vindicated free man. But you can’t do anything when you’re dead.

      • However in that case, two of the agents are under investigation for lying about whether or not they fired any shots, and I believe for trying to hide evidence of spent rifle casings.

        So it hasn’t finished shaking out yet.

      • Yeah, given eyewitness reports that they took fire at that first “checkpoint” I would not have stuck around either. It was nothing less than a cold blooded murder carried out by out government against an innocent American citizen. The people responsible need to be strung up in public.

    • It may be filed but it will go nowhere. A jury (nullification) finding of ‘not guilty’ does not equate to false arrest or negate the justification of use of force. Effectively, nothing has been changed by this verdict… except that if he hadn’t ran the roadblock and then reached for the gun in his pocket, he’d be free right now.

      Fighting it in the courtroom would have worked out much better.

      • He didn’t “run the roadblock”… His vehicle took fire and he took off.

        … and yes. A Not Guilty verdict is prima-facie evidence that no crime took place. That means that the use of lethal force by the police was inherently unjustified.

        • No, it isn’t. So because OJ was found ‘not guilty’ you think no crime took place?

          Better go back to Google Law School.

  8. Reason and some other websites have a lot of coverage including that at least 15 of the occupiers were paid FBI informants.

    I’m only familiar with the case via media but I imagine they will all be audited every year plus any other charges government can think of

    • And here we see the *real* reason armed militia resistances are a really stupid idea at this point. They are so few & far between, with so few members, that the feds easily have the resources to thoroughly infiltrate every last one of them. At that point you at best have spies relaying sensitive data about your operation, at worse agents provocateurs inciting your worst elements to reckless action (or even instigating it themselves) and destroying any semblance of control or discipline in your efforts.

        • FLAME DELETED He has a very valid point, proven by history. An unorganized, but willing to act force of citizens is far more powerful and dangerous than the current groups that are easy to infiltrate and take over. Take a look at the British intelligence model with the IRA for an example.

        • “Leftist troll” –yeah, that’s it. Please enlighten me as to what you think conservatism is actually about, without bringing up the names of your heroic politicians. The reason I wrote what I did, is because I studied history, and pondered the potential for exactly what your describe for a good while (since we all have to admit it carries a certain brutal appeal to the gorilla inside each of us). I came to conclude it is a poor tactic, for the wrong strategy, and will only lead to absolute ruin at best, and unending slavery at worst. You wanna take out DC by force, you’d best start looking outside our borders for help (just like we did with the French during the Revolution, and the South during the Civil War).

          “Take a look at the British intelligence model with the IRA for an example.”
          And that’s with an insular, distinct, and geographically isolated populace far more close knit than anything seen in America on the same scale. Still the Brits learned (over the centuries) how to infiltrate and largely neuter the IRA’s ability to acquire arms and conduct organized operations, leading to the sustained and blood but limited-scale of The Troubles.

    • Reminds me of the old joke that KKK rallies now consist of a bunch of undercover ATF and FBI agents trying to catch each other since they make up about half the membership…

  9. Now when do we put the Federal Agents, the trained killers, who were just so ready to start popping heads off with their taxpayer funded sniper rifles at the Bundy Ranch protest on trial? When can we put those monsters, those deplorable SS wannabes, in the electric chair and listen to their brains get fried?

      • No, but just the act of preparing to kill protestors, who were in no violation of the law, is deplorable and those who were ready to shoot on orders deserve to fry, or hang. Hanging has a lower carbon footprint.

  10. Good ol’ jury nullification. Too bad the Feds are unlikely to let this go. This government employee definitely won’t be siding with the Feds on this one.

    Man, I hope Trump gets in and cleans house at the Federal level. I’m going to donate more money to his campaign.

  11. Well at least they put one of them in the ground. To bad none of them went to jail. Weren’t half you morons supposed to be getting ready for a big uprising or something when that happened? Pwrdouche? weren’t you supposed to be raising an insurrectionist army or something? What a joke. These C***suckers get off scott free after attempting to steal public land.

    • “These C***suckers get off scott free after attempting to steal public land.” – Please provide evidence that the theft of land was their goal. I would have thought they would need a whole lot more people to even attempt to control such a large area.
      I have no idea what they actually wanted. I’ve tried to figure that out but they never had any kind of real actionable point. But the idea that they were there to take land for themselves is pretty ridiculous.

      • Well, a group’s message tends to get pretty muddled when a large cohort of the membership are FBI infiltrators.

      • I will add this:

        Most of the keyboard commandos who want these types of group of citizens gunned down, arrested, whatever – have no clue – not even a scintilla of a clue – what it is like to deal with the federal land management agencies. Most people have no idea how mendacious, how incompetent, how arbitrary and capricious they are.

        I’ll give two examples from personal experience.

        I’m out hunting in central Nevada. A BLM rangerette comes up to me and demands to see my hunting license and ID.

        I should add, in our BLM district, we got lots of women from eastern colleges and universities with Very Important Sounding Degrees, but what these women were was horse-obsessed. They wanted to come out to where all “the pretty mustangs are.” They didn’t know jack about squat, and invariably they’d be in Nevada for two to three years, discover that most of the mustangs weren’t all that pretty, then disappear elsewhere in the Dep’t of Interior.

        My response to the rangerette went about like this: “Well, sorry there princess, but the BLM has no authority to enforce Nevada hunting laws. None.” . She then tried to intimidate me into producing ID by saying she was a “law enforcement official,” and I needed to present ID upon demand by such.

        I asked her if she had POST certification, in Nevada or elsewhere. She said “What are you talking about?” I then explained what POST is, and pointed out that in Nevada, you’re not considered to be “law enforcement” unless you’ve passed POST.

        She stomped off, bluff called, very agitated, and intent on harassing the next hunter she met. She pissed off a dozen more hunters that day, from what I heard later.

        I told my county sheriff that if the BLM wanted to push this sort of BS, I was perfectly fine with getting arrested (the season’s harvesting was done, the machinery all put up, I was kicking back and enjoying life) – which would then have meant I would be tossed into our county jail, whereupon the legal fireworks would start.

        Next example, a couple of years later: Another BLM ranger is making traffic stops on a dirt county road. The county road is not their jurisdiction (again), but now they’re shaking down people for “fix-it” tickets – stuff like telling ranchers checking their water troughs that their ranch pickup had a taillight out, bad brakes, etc. Of course it does – that’s why it’s a ranch pickup, not a “go to the town dance” pickup.

        That day, I didn’t have the patience to put up with their BS and I just blew through their checkpoint – with the result that two other cars behind me followed suit.

        The next day, that particular ranger was in town, he complained to the sheriff that I (we) had (cue Cartman here) disrespected his “authority.” The sheriff asked “What authority? What were you doing?” The greasy dissembling began, apparently. The sheriff knew from the ranger’s description of the pickup to call me in. I ambled into town, met with the sheriff (who, BTW, was no fan of the feds) and told the sheriff that the BLM appeared to be conducting a traffic checkpoint on a county road – where they had no jurisdiction – and since I didn’t see a sheriff’s deputy in attendance at the stop, I blew it off.

        What I didn’t know was that one of the other people this ranger had tried to intimidate the previous day was the county road & parks manager – ie, the guy in charge of actually maintaining that very road. He had already filed a formal complaint with the county DA. The sheriff just called me in to buttress the road manager’s case, and he had me fill out an affidavit.

        The sheriff warned the ranger that they were indeed out of their jurisdiction, and the following week, the county DA wrote a letter about that incident to the state BLM director, warning the BLM about pretending to authority they did not have, trying to enforce laws outside their jurisdiction, etc. We heard nothing back, of course.

        Last story about the BLM:

        One day, a BLM rangerette comes snorting and stomping into the local diner. It’s winter. She’s got her big, official looking BLM jacket on over her uniform. I’m eating breakfast with a bunch of buddies, and the sheriff is eating breakfast with his wife at the next table over.

        As the BLM rangerette is coming in, I notice she’s got a Glock on her hip. Back then, if you didn’t have a CCW and were not a cop, you could not carry concealed in Nevada, and the penalty for doing so was pretty harsh – upgraded from a misdemeanor to a minor felony when the “shall-issue” law went into effect in the 90’s. The rangerette was standing near our table and I asked the sheriff in an overly obvious voice: “Sheriff, if memory serves, most BLM employees aren’t POST certified, correct?”

        The sheriff says “Yes… (heavy sigh) Where you going with this today?”

        “Well, we’ve got a BLM employee here with a concealed weapon on her belt. I’m going to wager she doesn’t have a CCW, and probably is not POST certified. I think we’ve got a potential felon in our midst, sheriff.”

        The sheriff sat up, looked at her, looked at me, and said “You could be right. Let me finish my breakfast and I’ll investigate this potential felony.” Our sheriff had a sense of humor as well as being a very humane and fair man.

        The rangerette cleared out in a hurry, and came back in, sans Glock and with a scowl. The sheriff smiles. My table laughed at her.

        Many of the people in the land management agencies in the Great Basin are jerks. Many are also also incompetent. There are grazing districts in the west with offices in really run-down towns with no social life, no attractions whatsoever (eg, N-6 in Nevada, where the offices are in Battle Mountain, NV) where the Dep’t of Interior deliberately sends “problem” employees to get rid of them – ie, it is a deliberate and planned staffing decision by the BLM and DOI to haze problem employees out of the agency by putting them into districts in central Nevada, eastern OR, etc.

        • So many BLM employees are pompous jerks who sometimes overstep their bounds, and the Bundys are thugs who trashed a wildlife reserve headquarters after invading it at gunpoint.

          I see no incompatibility with those two viewpoints.

        • DG, I rarely have to deal with the BLM, but I do so on occasion. In fact, I just finished providing the emergency services for an off road rally from Lake Tahoe down to Mexicali, 1,600 miles in about a week, mostly on BLM land.
          Over that week, I watched different district directors argue with each other over policy, harass the staff, impede emegency services and I even watched a shouting match between BLM rescue personell and a BLM district manager. All in one week. The incompetence was astounding. And in all of that, I watched one decent and good district manager from Nevada just beside himself with all the BS going on with the other districts. If it weren’t for him, the whole thing would have collapsed. And of course, he retires this year.

      • “I have no idea what they actually wanted”
        This was my takeaway. No one involved knew what they were doing, least of all the Agency pukes enforcing their bosses’ commands. The Bundys’ have no right to be there, the feds have no right to kick them off, and there was no pressing reason for either side to force the issue as they did. The only real lesson, is that this is exactly what we have deeds and property law for; so we don’t have some yokels claiming access to property solely because “it’s always been this way” while the feds try to force them off land that has no lease or rental agreement to break or violate so as to justify eviction. American Indians learned this the very hard way, that treaties and gentlemens’ agreements with the feds are the worst kind of bad-faith negotiation, and only exist to be re-defined by the feds at a later date.

        The stupidest of stupid hills to die on.

  12. This group is no more innocent than OJ Simpson or others on trial with a biased jury. If Hitlerary is put on trial for her corruption and faces a jury of her fellow crooks and found not guilty everyone of us will scream it’s unfair, which it would be. Time to step back and look at it from the general public’s view, those people were not the ones we want representing firearm owners.
    Funny how the “Feds” are all lumped together, what about the employees at the Veteran Administration? DoD civilian employees, both groups tend to be veterans that were able to keep serving their nation after leaving the military, they are “Feds”.
    There is more than one way to skin a cat, this was criminal court, wait till they are hit with civil cases for the damages they caused while they were camping there.
    Let me go find my flame suit, I think it’s right next to my uniform I wore for most of my adult life protecting this nation, so feel free to say what you want, the 1st Amendment allows it, I spent years away from home protecting your right, enjoy exercising it.

  13. The fix is in, the jury was gotten to but it is not over. The Bundy’s still owe the government $20,000,000 is back grazing fees. The Bundy’s are still thugs

    • thugs…yes. They think they own land they were never deeded and let their animals ruin the habitat, keep the hunting for themselves and for profit of their family alone. Nope, if no party is going to pay for the land, i’d prefer it be made public land for us all to enjoy/hunt/camp on, and not just these self rightous self appointed thugs. Cattle grazing and farming destroys habitat and native specie (i purchased and own 600 acres of farmland, where profit rules over native critters) so if you do it on public land, you should pay for that right, and follow rules that benefit all the public for generations to come.

      • The notion of “public land” is where the mendacity of the federal land management agencies begins.

        What most people don’t understand about western “public lands” is how little of it is actually “public” land. Most of the western public lands are controlled by split estates and a patchwork quilt of rights – mineral rights, grazing leases, logging leases, water rights, etc.

        In Nevada, and especially in southern Nevada, there are ranches with water rights and grazing rights that were grants from the King of Spain, and these were recognized in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago, prior to the state of Nevada being incorporated into the Union. Since treaties trump the US Constitution, there’s a little interesting legal question of whether or not the federal land management agencies have any claim to those lands. Further, when the state of Nevada records a water right (eg, on a spring used for cattle grazing), and the land management agencies try to eliminate grazing in those areas, it would cause the loss of those property rights after five years of non-use. A water right in southern Nevada is quite valuable (running probably at least $25K/acre-foot) and I would not put it above the corruption of Harry Reid and his land developer buddies to pull strings to get someone’s grazing lease pulled or reduced to cause them to forfeit a water right, which would then be pulled by the State Engineer’s office upon complain by another potential user of said water, and the State Engineer’s office would then turn around and re-allocate the water to the next claimant with the ‘highest and best use,’ chief among which would be residential development.

        • You’re both right; the ‘arrangement’ the Bundys’ had (quasi-sole access to land they did not themselves own) was basically squatting/subsistence ranching (and they aren’t a freaking Indian tribe given consideration and a place to do so officially), and the reason the issue came to a head and they just had to be forced off the land was so it could be effectively sold by the BLM to one of Harry Reid’s backers (another solar boondoggle, if memory serves). So it’s corrupt mobsters are throwing sleazy bums out of their shanty-town to build a casino.

  14. We have a corrupt Government that is no longer for the people, unless you are a minion of the Democratic party like Lois Lerner, The land management boss, and most precious C**t Hillery!, and a democratic party that is more Anti American that ISIS, also bought and sold by George Soros , Micheal Bloomberg and others! Sell your soul too the Democratic Party and reap the benefits, this repeal of the second amendment, use of Illegal assumed king powers
    circumvention of the rules of law or the outright corruption of the Justice Department, is leading us into a civil war
    Non Sibi Sed Patriae

  15. I never heard in any of the talk about the fedthugs tackling the attorney whether or not the judge asked them to do so. If the judge did not, then the fedthugs belong in prison and should have to cough up a very large fine from their personal funds for disturbing the proceedeings of a courtroom.

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