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View Full Version : Cliven Bundy. News round up June, 2015.




phill4paul
06-25-2015, 03:35 PM
Cliven Bundy will be held accountable, Interior secretary says


Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy will be held accountable for the federal land grazing fees and penalties he owes, a top federal official said.


Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, whose department includes the BLM, says Bundy will eventually have to answer for what he owes the federal government, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“Cliven Bundy has had multiple court orders to remove his cattle from federal public lands and he has not paid his grazing fees and he has not abided by the law,” Jewell told the Review-Journal Wednesday on a visit to Incline Village, Nev., where she spoke at a Western Governors’ Association event.

“We will continue to pursue that,” she said.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/246103-cliven-bundy-will-be-held-accountable-interior-secretary-says

Cliven Bundy says he met Gold Butte surveyors but didn’t menace them


Rancher Cliven Bundy says he and his son had a brief conversation with government contractors in the Gold Butte area on June 5, but he had nothing to do with shots being fired near the group’s campsite later that night.

In a phone interview Friday afternoon, the embattled Bunkerville rancher said the first he heard about the gunfire was when he read about it in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

He said the newspaper story prompted him to call Las Vegas police first thing Friday morning so he could tell them what he knew.

Bundy said he and his son, Ryan, were hauling hay to some cattle west of the Virgin Mountains at Dudd Spring when they came across an unmarked truck parked on the remote road. He said there was a man and a woman near the vehicle and another woman up the canyon a ways.

“I did question what they were doing there,” Bundy said. “But they were friendly, and I was friendly. I just figured they were camping like they told me.”

They were actually a survey crew from the Nevada-based Great Basin Institute, there for a week collecting data for the Bureau of Land Management on springs, seeps and cattle troughs in the area about 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

They would later tell Metro and the FBI about meeting the two ranchers, describing the men as “very cordial.”

But a few hours after the ranchers left, the trio reported hearing a vehicle on the road and then three gun shots followed about an hour later by three more shots. The surveyors packed their gear in the dark and returned to Las Vegas. The incident remains under investigation.

Bundy said the story doesn’t make much sense to him. He said doesn’t know who would have been shooting in that area at that time of night, and he couldn’t find any sign of the other vehicle the surveyors heard when he went back up there Friday with a Metro sergeant from Moapa Valley.

But Bundy stopped short of accusing the government contractors of making it up.

“I don’t know why they would. I don’t want to speculate,” he said. “I can’t say they’re wrong.”


The rancher said he wasn’t happy when he read in the newspaper that the survey crew was there to take stock of the water sources he uses for his cattle — water sources he considers to be his “personal, private property.”

He said he probably wouldn’t have treated the surveyors any differently had he known what they were up to, but he might have called Metro if he thought they were damaging his water lines or troughs.

“That’s not my job to deal with them,” Bundy said.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/bundy-blm/cliven-bundy-says-he-met-gold-butte-surveyors-didn-t-menace-them

It’s time to hold Bundy accountable for standoff


The Obama administration is often criticized by conservatives for selectively enforcing, or failing to enforce, the law. These complaints most often arise in relation to immigration or drug laws that the president disagrees with, but this administration’s law enforcement failures go beyond those issues.

One of the most perplexing is its failure to hold Cliven Bundy accountable for the armed standoff he incited more than a year ago — along with his illegal cattle grazing, violation of court orders and refusal to pay more than $1 million in fines.

The administration’s actions, from abandoning its effort to remove Bundy’s cattle, to avoiding the area, to failing to arrest those who threatened federal law enforcement agents, has served only to embolden Bundy and encourage further lawlessness and intimidation.

It came as little surprise that researchers collecting data from federal public lands near where Bundy illegally grazes his cattle recently came under gunfire. This after they were approached earlier in the day by Bundy and his son. Although Bundy denies having anything to do with the incident, he acknowledged in the press, “We don’t like them here bothering us.”

Whether Bundy is responsible for the gunfire or not, his actions and comments make it pretty clear that he is asserting control over land he does not own. Is this the new normal in the West, where any anti-government bully can use intimidation to carve his own personal fiefdom out of land that actually belongs to all of us?

Interfering with researchers or government employees is bad enough, but what happens if a Bundy or one of his followers becomes bothered by tourists on a camping trip, a rancher with a valid grazing permit, or even an energy project?

The Bureau of Land Management which is supposed to manage the public land Bundy is riding herd over, seems to still be in full appeasement mode. So far, its response to the shots being fired near the researchers appears limited to telling its personnel and contractors not to work in the Gold Butte area.


David Jenkins is president of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/it-s-time-hold-bundy-accountable-standoff