The War On The West: Why More Bundy Standoffs Are Coming

The War On The West: Why More Bundy Standoffs Are Coming William F. Jasper thenewamerican.com April 16, 2014

The federal government’s over-the-top police action against the Bundy family ranch is an ominous portent of more to come, as rogue agencies and their corporate/NGO partners attempt to “cleanse” the West of ranchers, farmers, miners, loggers, and other determined property owners.

On Saturday, April 12, the federal bureaucrats backed down. Faced with hundreds of men and women on horseback and on foot who were armed with firearms and video cameras — as well as local television broadcast stations and independent media streaming live video and radio feeds across America — the Obama administration called off the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) operation to confiscate hundreds of cattle belonging to Cliven Bundy, the current patriarch of a respected pioneer family that has been ranching in Nevada’s Clark County since the 1800s.

Supporters from all across the United States had converged on the Bunkerville, Nevada, area in support of Bundy, who is the “last rancher standing” in Clark County, due to a decades-long campaign by federal agencies and allied enviro-activists to drive all ranchers off of the range. After a tense standoff, orders came down from above for the surrounded and outnumbered federal agents to “stand down” and turn loose the Bundy cattle that had been corralled.

On Saturday, before the resolution of the standoff, The New American talked to Richard Mack, the former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, and founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), as he headed from a meeting of public officials to a press conference at the Bundy Ranch. He was very grave and worried at the time that the situation could spin out of control, and that federal agents might open fire on citizens. He also expressed his exasperation at Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Clark County Sheriff Douglass Gillespie. “If Governor

Sandoval and Sheriff Gillespie were doing the jobs they were elected to do, they would have stopped this from getting to a dangerous point,” Sheriff Mack said. “There are lots of things they could have done to defuse this situation, including telling the Feds to ‘stand down,’ and to assert their own jurisdiction and force the federal authorities to obey the law, including the Constitution and the laws of the state of Nevada,” he noted. “I have a very bad feeling about this,” he continued, adding that he hoped the tensions would be deescalated and a peaceful outcome negotiated.

Fortunately, most likely due to the national attention that the Bundy situation was receiving, federal officials backed off, the demonstrators and supporters remained peaceful, and a violent confrontation was averted. However, that does not end the affair. Members of the Bundy family and supporters, such as Sheriff Mack, expressed concerns that the evacuation of the federal police force might be a feint, and that there may be plans for them to return the following day, or as soon as the supporters and television crews had departed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose personal financial stake in the Bundy eviction has been called into question, let it be known that he wants to see the matter pursued.

“Well, it’s not over,” Reid told NBC’s Nevada affiliate KRNV on Monday, April 14. “We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over.”

Senator Reid, Nevada’s senior senator, is very incensed when the American people, i.e., ordinary citizens, “violate the law” — as he puts it — but he says nothing about the more serious violations of the laws and the Constitution by public officials, such as himself or the BLM officials.

This is the same federal BLM that Chief Judge Robert C. Jones of the Federal District Court of Nevada last year ruled had been engaged in a decades-long criminal “conspiracy” against the Wayne Hage family, fellow ranchers and friends of the Bundys. Among other things, 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.” In fact, the government’s actions were so malicious, said the judge, as to “shock the conscience of the Court.” Judge Jones granted an injunction against the agencies and referred area BLM and Forest Service managers to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Has Attorney General Eric Holder prosecuted any federal officials for criminal activity and violation of the Hage family’s constitutionally protected rights? No. Has Sen. Harry Reid denounced this lawlessness and criminal activity by government officials and call upon President Obama and Attorney General Holder to protect the citizens of his state from the depredations of federal officials under their command? No. Huge Federal Footprint: And a Boot on Every Neck With attitudes such as those expressed above by Sen. Harry Reid, it is almost a certainty that the recently defused Bundy Ranch standoff will be replayed again — and in the not-too-distant future. And the outcome could be much less amicable for all concerned.

And this is but one of many incidents that can be expected, because the Bundy family are not the only victims in the federal crosshairs. The BLM, U.S. Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and other federal agencies own and/or control hundreds of millions of acres of the 12 western states. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not as large a landlord as some of these bigger agencies, but it exercises enormous regulatory clout over both private and public lands, air, and water. And while the EPA’s draconian, arbitrary, and costly regulations affect the entire country, they fall especially hard on the states in the West, where the federal impact is already massive due to the outsized footprint of the federal agencies.

As the accompanying map graphically demonstrates, there is a striking difference between the federal government’s claim to physical real estate in the states of East and the Midwest versus those of the West. In Maine, for instance, federal agencies occupy only 1.1 percent of the state’s land area; in New York it’s a mere 0.8 percent. The federal government claims only 1.8 percent of Indiana, 1.6 percent of Alabama, and 1.7 percent of Ohio. But in the Western states, the federal footprint covers from nearly one-third to over four-fifths of the area of the states.

Here are the ugly facts of the federal government’s ownership of the lands in the Western states: Nevada: 84.5 percent Alaska: 69.1 percent Utah: 57.4 percent Oregon: 53.1 percent Idaho: 50.2 percent Arizona: 48.1 percent California: 45.3 percent Wyoming: 42.4 percent New Mexico: 41.8 percent Colorado: 36.6 percent Washington: 30.3 percent Montana: 29.9 percent These and many more relevant statistics can be found in Federal Real Property Report for Fiscal Year 2012 (the latest available) from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). For instance, in addition to its enormous real estate portfolio, the U.S. Department of Interior (home to BLM, NPS, USFWS) boasts 43,554 buildings covering more than 107.1 million square feet. These agencies, together with the Forest Service, exercise an enormous — and harmful — impact on the economies, livelihoods, and politics of the Western states. And, contrary to the claims of the federal advocates, federal policies are also taking a devastating toll on the environment of the West, most especially as manifested in the destruction of millions of acres of national forests through mismanagement, which has led to immense insect infestations and super-nova wildfires.

Yet, President Obama is following the example of his predecessors and unconstitutionally taking millions more acres in the Western states, under the pretext of protecting “endangered species.” (See:

“Specious Endangerment: Obama Awards Spotted Owls 9.6 Million Acres” and “Obama Using ‘Endangered’ Species to Kill Economy, Push Extreme Agenda.”)

Because this has been the “normal” status of things for generations, the enormity and significance of this picture often passes unnoticed and unconsidered by most Americans. But in our current economic crisis, and with mounting friction caused by imperial edicts emanating from federal agencies, many citizens and state and local governments are being forced to reevaluate our unbalanced federal relationship.

Our Founding Fathers did not intend for new territories that would be admitted to statehood in the future to be unfairly shackled by the central government; they would not have countenanced that the people of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Alaska, for instance, would be groveling under the thumbs of politicians from New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. As Joe Wolverton noted in a recent article for The New American, they intended for future states to be admitted into the Union on a “equal footing” with the existing states. They most certainly did not intend for politicians of the Eastern states and federal bureaucrats to enjoy a stranglehold on the lifeblood of the people of the Western states.

And as those politicians and bureaucrats continue to tighten their chokehold on the people who own and work the land, there will inevitably be conflict. Even peaceful, law-abiding people will not stand idly by while their own life’s work and that of their forebears is being taken by lawless officials. The solution is for the American public to put pressure on all their elected officials — state, local, and federal — to stop strangling our fellow citizens. Ultimately, that means decentralizing, and dramatically downsizing (and then abolishing) many of these agencies and returning the land to the states and the people. The people of the Western states must be allowed to determine their own futures, to enjoy the blessings of liberty, just as Americans in all the other states have experienced.

Cliven Bundy, Federal Bureaucracy And The State’s Monopoly Of Violence Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com April 16, 2014

Liberals celebrate state violence over the individual John Amato and the liberals over at Crooks and Liars are outraged. Cliven Bundy went on Fox News and said he would like to see all federal bureaucrats disarmed. For liberals who adore the state and support the unprecedented militarization of federal bureaucrats, including but hardly limited to the Post Office, this massive arming and militarization is a natural and welcome occurrence.

For progressive socialists who love the state, the rapid growth of government into all facets of life is an evolutionary process. The founders, who liberals routinely dismiss as evil white property owners and slaveholders, knew government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master. The original government bureaucracy was infinitesimally small compared to the bloated Leviathan we face today – it consisted of three tiny departments: State, Treasury, and War. All of this changed when the revered patron saint of the liberals, Abraham Lincoln, grew the government exponentially. The administration of Franklin Roosevelt, under the socialist New Deal supposedly in response to an economic depression created by the banker-controlled Federal Reserve (itself masquerading as a government bureaucracy), expanded government to a new and previously unrealized degree.

A bloated control freak state, enriched with confiscated wealth and obsessed with exercising authority over all aspects of life, will invariably seek a monopoly of violence and will use that violence against perceived domestic enemies. In order to maintain that monopoly, the Department of Homeland Security has hoarded 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. The state’s war machine has doled out military hardware – armored vehicles, grenade launchers, M-16 assault rifles and more – to police departments far and wide.

For the metrosexual urbanite lovers of state power over the individual and natural law, fellow Americans outraged over the growth of a control freak criminal government are the enemy. They believe a rural Mormon cattle rancher espousing “revolutionary talk” harking back to Jefferson and Madison should be arrested, prosecuted and, if necessary, slaughtered.

“These state’s rights lunatics are getting more dangerous by the second and I’m afraid some real violence is going to be instigated by them shortly as they feel emboldened with the help of Fox News, Sean Hannity, Drudge and the Alex Jones fanatics,” Amato writes.

The “real violence,” of course, is exercised by the state, not a Nevada rancher and a handful supporters, a number armed in response to BLM paramilitaries. The state, Murray Rothbard has noted, is essentially a criminal band and has two fundamental properties: the use of violence, and territory.

“Indeed, not only is the state made up of a body of people who claim the right to use coercive violence, but their claim to violence is, more typically, endemic to the territory over which they rule,” writes Matt Palmer.

Amato and crew, spurred on by the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center, enthusiastically celebrate state violence over the individual and proudly uphold the worst psychotic behavior.

“The man or woman who is prepared to initiate an act of punishment to compel obedience to a governmental mandate easily segues into the SWAT team member or police brute or one who tortures another. It is the appetite for ultimate power over others that drives such people,” writes Butler Shaffer.

“No more than we would expect Mother Theresa to operate a brothel can we imagine advocates of peace and liberty to be welcomed into the management of the state.”

Thus it is a natural response for cheerleaders for state violence against the individual to anticipate and even encourage mass murder – from Syria and Afghanistan to the desert of Nevada. Liberals outraged by the audacity of Cliven Bundy expect a repeat of the Waco massacre and will, if such a horrific act occurs in Nevada, instinctively blame the victims.

Incidentally, Amato’s Crooks and Liars blog was voted one of the 25 best blogs of 2009 by Time Magazine, which is entirely appropriate considering the blog’s role in promoting the continued distractions of the false left-right paradigm and rationalizing state violence.

Time’s founder, Henry Luce, worked closely with the national security state and routinely pulled “chestnuts out of the fire for the CIA” and dutifully served the political establishment as it controlled media under Operation Mockingbird.

Cliven Bundy, Federal Bureaucracy and the State’s Monopoly of Violence VIDEO BELOW http://www.infowars.com/cliven-bundy-federal

New York State Gun Owners Shred Registration Forms On Deadline Day Steve Watson Infowars.com April 16, 2014

Protests as gun control legislation comes into law In an act of defiance, New York State gun owners came together in downtown Buffalo and shredded gun registration forms yesterday, on the day that the so called SAFE Act gun control legislation came into law.

The demonstrators had initially planned to burn the forms, an act previously carried out by Second Amendment supporters in Saratoga Springs last month. However, they were advised that open burning is illegal in Buffalo, so instead they decided to shred the forms, symbolic of how state lawmakers have shredded their Constitutional rights.

The bill requires all firearms deemed by the state to be “assault weapons” to be “grand fathered” into the law, that is registered, or permanently modified.

Critics note that the controversial law essentially redefines almost any semi-automatic weapon as an “assault weapon”. Guns with detachable magazines, a telescoping stock, or long guns with a pistol grip all now come under the description.

News station WIVB-TV captured footage of the protests in Buffalo, where demonstrators noted that “historically, registration has always led to confiscation.”

“We will not register our firearms, any firearms whatsoever,” one gun owner told reporters. Refusal to register such weapons could now lead to prosecution on a misdemeanor charge, with the possibility of a further felony charge for “illegal possession” of an “assault weapon.”

The protests have been led by the NY2A Grassroots Coalition, a pro Second Amendment group that has been encouraging non-compliance at educational forums across the state.

“Our goal is to keep the registration numbers as low as possible,” NY2A co-founder Lisa Donovan has noted. “84 percent of the counties of NY passed non-binding resolutions protesting the SAFE Act and the manner in which it was passed,” Donovan has also highlighted. “One of our major messages is that registration is confiscation,” Donovan has said. “The way the law is written, you can not pass these guns down after you die.”

Gun control advocates have denied that there are plans for confiscation. However, rejected proposals from early drafts of the bill included such provisions. In 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo openly expressed support for confiscation, and said that the option was still on the table.

Confiscation has also taken place within New York city, as police have issued notices to registered gun owners demanding that they give up their firearms.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has this week pledged to spend $50 million on combating pro-gun groups, including the National Rifle Association. “We’ve got to make them afraid of us,” Bloomberg stated, bizarrely adding “I have earned my place in heaven.” Bloomberg is a cofounder of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, which bases its entire agenda around the confiscation of law-abiding citizens’ firearms.

Many New York gun owners will likely ignore the legislation, just as thousands did in Connecticut where a similar law was recently passed.

The legislation required residents to register ammunition magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds with state police by Jan. 1, 2014. However, weeks after the deadline, authorities admitted that only around 38,000 out of 2.4 million high-capacity magazines and just over 50,000 out of hundreds of thousands of semi-automatic rifles were registered with the state.

NEWS: Watch Citizens in Buffalo, NY Shred Gun Registration Forms on Registration Deadline Day VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVIna2HzA54

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