Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
It appears that the militia groups who arrived in Nevada to support Cliven Bundy with his standoff against the Bureau of Land Management have become a cause of concern for some residents, workers, and businesses in the area surrounding Bunkerville.
Horsford talks Bunkerville militia presence with Rachel Maddow
KLAS-TV/News NOW (Las Vegas) reported on April 29th that hotels in Mesquite had suffered financial losses of more than $100,000 due to concerns about armed militia groups patrolling in the area. News NOW learned that Mesquite police were investigating death threats made to hotel workers following a bomb threat earlier in April.
Evidently, the threats multiplied as armed militia groups continued to pour into the area surrounding Cliven Bundy’s ranch. One city leader in Mesquite said that “the entire Holiday Inn Express was evacuated for hours following a bomb threat related to the Bundy saga…” News NOW obtained a police report which showed that the Holiday Inn Express had received at least nine threatening telephone calls after the hotel allowed BLM rangers to stay there. Hotel workers were told to kick out the BLM or they “would not be standing in the morning.” One hotel worker, who refused to go on camera, claimed that he was told by an anonymous militia member that he would be “dragged out in the parking lot and shot”.
“We are not a playground for armed militias,” Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said during a meeting with area leaders about the militia. Horsford said that he had been contacted by residents of his district who were concerned about the armed militia groups from out of state who were still present in their area. Horsford was told by residents that militia groups had set up checkpoints where residents must prove they live in the area before they are allowed to pass…” He was also told that they had set up a “persistent presence” along federal highways, and state and county roads.
Rep. Horsford wrote a letter to the Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie asking him “to look into complaints that militiamen had been present in Bunkerville-area schools and churches and had set up armed checkpoints on state, federal and county roads, seeking proof of residency from motorists.” Horsford said in his letter, “We must respect individual constitutional liberties, but residents of and visitors to Clark County should not be expected to live under the persistent watch of an armed militia. Residents have expressed their desire to see these groups leave their community.” Horsford added that his constituents were being forced to “‘live under the persistent watch of an armed militia,’ that answers to no particular authority other than its own, and is accountable to no one.” He urged the sheriff “to work with local leaders to ensure that their concerns are addressed in a manner that allows the community to move forward without incident.”
Note: A News NOW crew that was in Bunkerville last Tuesday said it did not find any roadblocks in the area “with militia members checking on people trying to pass.”
The StarTribune reported that Bundy’s neighbors and local authorities have grown weary of the Nevada rancher’s unresolved dispute with the BLM. Bundy has denied that any militia members had set up checkpoints on public property. A group of militia members, however, was reported to have stopped a neighboring rancher who was trucking cattle to Arizona. Bundy said the milita members were just helping his son. “They wanted to ensure that Bundy cattle weren’t being rustled.”
Militias’ Ongoing Presence in Nevada Creates Fear and Friction
Cliven Bundy’s Home on the Range (A Mark Fiore Video)
SOURCES
Concerns growing about militia members at Bundy ranch (KLAS-TV)
Businesses lose thousands in Bundy ordeal (KLAS-TV)
Congressman: Bundy Militia Has Set Up Road ‘Checkpoints’ In Nevada (Talking Points Memo)
Bundy Ranch ‘Militia’ Considered Using Women As Human Shield (Talking Points Memo)
Businesses lose thousands in Bundy ordeal (KLAS-TV/News NOW)
Neighbors grow weary of ‘militia’ remaining with Nevada cattle rancher in federal land dispute (StarTribune)
Nevada Congressman Seeks Probe Of Armed Militia Operations At Cliven Bundy Ranch (Reuters/Huffington Post)
Sheriff urged to clamp down on armed militiamen around Bundy ranch (Las Vegas Sun)
Bundy’s ”Militia” Is Lawlessness of a Different Color (Truth-Out)
Ongoing Militia Presence Raises Fears Among Locals Near Bundy Ranch (Southern Poverty Law Center)
NV lawmaker presses sheriff to probe Bundy militiamen (FOX 5/KVVU-TV)
Nevada lawmaker: Cliven Bundy supporters are setting up ‘checkpoints’ against residents (Raw Story)
The Dark Side Of Cliven Bundy’s Conservative Media-Approved Militia (Media Matters)
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
To ignore that important thread is “a tell.”
Well Ms. Elaine,
All due respect, I have never seen someone on a blog try and tell commentors what they can say. Now, I have heard of paid bloggers that have a main purpose and that’s to disrupt blogging on subjects that they are paid to do. I am not saying that’s the case here, but I find it amazing that this is the second thread I have read where it’s of great importance to the GOP/tea party and then they realize that they’ve been had and they try and detail the subject matter at hand.
Keebler – you are dodging the bigger issue on the Obama administraton’s connection to contract fraud.
260 girls kidnapped by Islamic terrorists is not “hotdogs or merry-go -rounds” and to imply that is deplorable.
well I dont know about the rest of you but I have an assault rifle and at least 1000 rounds of ammo for it. A fine piece too, used by the British to assault Tobruk in WWII.
I am ready for the apocalypse!
The British took Tobruk from the Italians but lost to the Germans. I used to have a fine German assault rifle as well, sold that one though.
Enfield or Mauser, now that is a toss up.
Mr Keebler,
I guess some people find posts about squirrels, hot dogs, and merry-go-rounds to be of greater import than this “tempest in a teapot” tale.
😉
Is this an invitation to cease commenting on this site Nick? I didn’t realize that Jonathan left you in charge of what folks may comment on or not.
Just because you don’t like the way the thread is playing out is not a justification to quit commenting.
I think Clive is in a while bunch of trouble. He’s a thief that the right wing embraced until they found out the facts.
As I have said several times, the MSM and this blog, has been fixated on a tempest in a teapot. One of the many problems of obsessing on something, is the important topics are ignored. Jonathan did post about the kidnapping of 260 girls in Nigeria. It’s a good post and interesting thread, worthy of more attention.
Context Matters: The Cliven Bundy Standoff — Part 3
JJ MccNab
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2014/05/06/context-matters-the-cliven-bundy-standoff-part-3/
Excerpt:
On Friday, three of Cliven Bundy’s sons, two of his sisters, and seventeen supporters filed Criminal Reports with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their list of complaints was extensive:
On Friday, three of Cliven Bundy’s sons, two of his sisters, and seventeen supporters filed Criminal Reports with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their list of complaints was extensive:
“Men blocking access to public land
Men blocking public roads
Men harassing people for taking photos
Men impersonating Police officers
Men claiming to be a police officer and refusing to show valid identification
Men threatening to use Tasers
Men threatening to fire upon unarmed civilians
Men using attack dogs
Men pointing weapons
Assault
We believe that the BLM men who pointed guns at over 1,000 people on April 12th near the I-15 freeway south of Mesquite committed a criminal act and that the Clark County Sheriffs [sic] office should be required to investigate.” (Source: Bundy Website, May 1, 2014)
Despite the obvious irony of these complaints being levied by a group that dresses in paramilitary uniforms, sets up illegal checkpoints on public roads, aims their many weapons at both law enforcement and civilian contractors, and threatens to bomb and kill people at local businesses, there’s something even more sinister behind these Criminal Reports.
There is an implied “or else” in these demands to the local Sheriff to do their bidding.
The County Sheriff
For years, Cliven Bundy has been demanding that Clark County Sheriff Gillespie protect his cattle from the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of the Interior agency tasked with managing federal land. Like most Sovereigns, Bundy believes that the County Sheriff is the most powerful law enforcement officer in the entire country, with unlimited authority that trumps that of any federal agent, elected official, local police officer, or perceived enemy.
Bundy routinely invokes the U.S. Constitution when making these claims. The phrases “We the People” from the Preamble, and “life, liberty, and property” from the 14th Amendment are usually present.
“Where our problem is is right here at home. I wonder where our Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie’s been … He is the man that has constitutional jurisdiction and authority, he has policing power here in Clark County, Nevada, and he has arresting power, so we elected him and we pay him, what do we pay him to do? Don’t we pay him to protect our life, liberty and property?” (Source: Moapa Valley Town Hall Meeting, April 9, 2014)
The 14th Amendment, which guaranteed state and federal citizenship for freed slaves after the Civil War, holds a special place in Sovereign mythology. They claim that the Amendment covertly introduced a new type of citizen – the U.S. citizen – when only state citizenship existed prior to the Amendment. The federal government then tricked Americans into this structure by having them enter into contracts such as licenses, permits, birth certificates, and so on. Traces of these theories can be found sprinkled throughout Bundy’s statements.
Feynman:
I suspect the 500 Internal Error with the scroll bar might have been caused by the following, and this is just an educated guess:
When your web browser requested to bring up this webpage, the wordpress server allocated a block of pixles/lines to embed Chuck’s YouTube video in its http response to your browser’s request. When it was compiling the response it then went to call up the YouTube but this hanged a few moments. Your browser then displayed the resulting webpage. When the wordpress server went to fetch the video either YouTube’s server, or wordpress’ server suffered an internal error in retrieving or rendering the video and failed and returned the 500 error response to your browser. Since the embedded video was to be encapsulated into a defined space, such as in a division or type of frame (as was allocated by the original http response) it likely was that this html-ized 500 response was too large to be displayed in that box so some text was hidden below or to the side of the box. The web browser’s programming is to call a scroll bar whenver text is positioned outside the display window. So the scroll bar object was called to allow you, the reader, to be able to access the unseen part of the 500 response message and that was why you saw it.
At least, that I what I suspect might have happened.
Paul.
I think there wasn’t clarity in the helicopter issue. Chuck wrote the helicopter was involved in a search and went to land next to a person the pilot thought might be of help in the search. When the pilot attempted to land in order to talk with this man, the man unexpectedly opened up on him with a long gun. The pilot was close enough this represented a risk to his life.
In that situation, the pilot did not have access to a standard issue handgun even available to him, which I doubt it was, he wouldn’t have been able to use it. The pedestrian could have shot the pilot through the windshield.
In any ordinary civilian law enforcement situation I would agree with you that bringing a mini-gun to the scene is over the top but in this situation with the helicopter pilot he had to use what was available to him to protect himself.
On an anecdotal side I had another deputy I worked with who about thirty years ago who needed to arrest someone in a hardware store one winter (I forget what the incident was as it was a long time ago). He found the guy and went to take him into custody when the guy pulled a knife on him. The deputy grabbed what was immediately available to him, a flexible flyer runner sled, and bashed the guy with it until he got the knife away from him. In this case the deputy used something immediately available to him to save his life.
Darren – you do not send a helicopter with a loaded Gatling gun on a search mission. And my understanding is that most Air Force pilots are strapped as part of their flying gear.
been there/done that,
Welfare Queens in Cowboy Hats
Apr 18, 2014
By James Greiff
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-18/welfare-queens-in-cowboy-hats
Excerpt:
The tale of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher, had all the elements of a certain type of political theater, making it inevitable that he would become a hero in the conservative blogosphere and a fixture on Fox News.
The story line, as told in those forums, went something like this: Heavy-handed federal bureaucrats, having seized Bundy’s cattle, were forced to back down after being confronted by cowboys on horseback toting nothing more than their side arms and an unshakable faith in the U.S. Constitution. (A little-told detail: A sniper or two were concurrently taking aim at the federal agents.)
Bundy was painted as a man being “squeezed” by the federal government, and deserving of our sympathy. Or, more profoundly, he was cast in the same mold as Mohandas Gandhi and George Washington, men who disobeyed unjust laws to bring about revolutionary change. The word “tyranny” was used so often it became background noise in the news coverage.
Let’s dispense with niceties: Bundy is a freeloading scofflaw, a welfare queen in a Stetson who claimed what wasn’t his. He took subsidies from U.S. taxpayers and refused to pay the $1.2 million he owed for using federal — make that our — land.
Bundy has neither history nor law on his side in his long-running dispute with the U.S. government. He asserts that his grazing rights were established in 1880 when his ancestors settled the land where his ranch sits. By some reasoning understood only by him and his range-war sympathizers, the federal government has no constitutional right to interfere with his grazing cattle.There is a gaping flaw with this argument. As several writers have noted, the Nevada constitution, adopted in 1864 as a condition of statehood, trumps Bundy’s right to graze on public land. It says:
“That the people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States.”
Bundy no doubt is pining for the days, which he never actually experienced, when cattlemen could let their herds roam at will on public lands. That changed in 1934 when federal control of grazing was formalized under a law designed to prevent overuse and degradation of the range. The legislation was backed by ranchers (it was drafted by a rancher turned congressman), in part because it made it that much harder for newcomers to get into the business.
The law, the Taylor Grazing Act, gave existing ranchers permits allowing them to run their herds on federal land. In turn, ranchers paid user fees, which were lower than what most private landowners would have charged. Because those fees capture only a bit of the costs of the grazing program, it amounts to a taxpayer subsidy to ranchers of as much as $1 billion a year. Subsequent court rulings clearly established that the law didn’t grant ownership rights to ranchers who used federal land.
been there/done that,
Lots of ranchers use public lands to graze their cattle. The ranchers pay fees for the use of those public lands. Bundy’s parents bought their ranch in Bunkerville in1948.That would make Bundy a second generation cattle rancher on that land.
*****
I-Team: Bundy’s ‘ancestral rights’ come under scrutiny
Posted: Apr 21, 2014/Updated: Apr 23, 2014
By Nathan Baca, Investigative Reporter
ttp://www.8newsnow.com/story/25301551/bundys-ancestral-rights-come-under-scrutiny
Excerpt:
Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy’s parents bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt.
Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn’t start grazing on that land until 1954.
The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born.
A license for use can be revoked at anytime. He hasn’t honored his commitment. Any improvements were for bundys benefit. He should be required to restore it to its original condition or each day it remains is a trespass.
Sorry Elaine, it was allowed by the govt. for his family to use it for generations suddenly BLM was supposed to be a land management group and they were going to make improvements on it for a fee, but the only improvements were done by Bundy. Why should Bundy pay a company that does not honor the agreement. This should have been a court case. Not a land grab with the fire power like the Russian take over. Girl this is America not Europe where they have always been at war. Sorry, you are at best mistaken. This should have been a court case.
“I wonder how all those people who are complaining would react if the government came to them and announced they were taking their property.
It’s not Bundy’s property. It’s public land.
Trained monkeys are better that these trolls Annie.
Things are gettin’ strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call? Not the tech guys this time. Um, yes, nice chat.
Get your coffee girl, I have already had mine. I read your 12:13 comment over again and find only that a certain democratic congressman that may have had his shorts in a wad because of Bundy’s less than silver tongue speech about the ………..you know………..(you seem like a somewhat smart person so you get my reference I do hope. Anyway, I am sure he has enough followers to make all those complaints and stir up some concern within the community with his propaganda. Plus, he has all the Dem drones who are great at being parrots to do the job for him. Read something, and believe half of it and you will have the story. Therefore, I take all those complaints that have Rep. Horsford’s approval all over them as a political thing and indeed a defensive maneuver to get everyone to turn against their neighbor Thus making the land grab possibly a little less of a hassle for them.
I wonder how all those people who are complaining would react if the government came to them and announced they were taking their property. Some may be smart mouthed but believe me I have more confidence in my neighbors than I have in King Harry’s illegal militia that came AKA’s in hand and pushed, shoved, and used stun guns on the ranchers, stole his cattle and killed many of the herd. There is a better way to settle this problem and they brought the guns first. Girl get the true facts, not the democratic slanted ones. This is a land grab and if King Harry is involved you can bet it goes all the way to the top.
Oops, regarding the “500 server error tech guys”, thanks for sharing that. I majored in Philosophy, Religion and Psychology (not in English) but I married a historian. I am sure they had a ball with the errors in my writing as I am not one who is considered a writer. HOWEVER, by Gad I believe I get my point across. Thank them for cleaning it up for me. Nice chatting with you.
Any more questions? I gotta get my coffee first though.
Oops, that would be the 500 Server Error tech guys. 😳