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The Nevada rancher in a fight with the federal government over grazing land his family has been using since the 1800s is revealing some of the damage he blames on the U.S. government: cattle shot and killed and then dumped into trenches and buried.
Cliven Bundy and his family members have been in a standoff with the federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management, for years over fees the government is charging them to use the same land on which their ancestors grazed cattle centuries ago.
It reached a flashpoint recently when the government moved in armed officers and started rounding up the family’s cattle – with the apparent intention of selling them off and taking the money.
However, hundreds of individuals the family has described as “patriots” also moved in, and rather than spark what could have been a pitched battle, the federal officers retreated temporarily, with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, promising that the government’s attack was not over.
The conflict, when federal agents controlled large portions of the grazing land for nearly a week, has resulted in damaged fences, damaged water troughs and dead cattle, the family charged.
Family members have created a website as well as a Facebook page where images have been posted online.
One of the images was accompanied by a note that said, “Digging up 1 of the HUGE holes where they threw the cows that they had ran to death or shot. I feel that this NEEDS to be put out for the public to see.”
On the Facebook page, accompanying another image of dead cattle, Cyndi Larson Hull noted, “There is your proof they were not using it to pay toward fees … it was outright tyranny and terrorism on the part of the BLM…”
The family also posted a note that people should check their information before spreading stories.
“We, the Bundys, are so overwhelmed with the wonderful support, love, and prayers. It is an amazing ride with the best people in America. We are trying to keep up with each and every one of you. We want you to know that we are safe. We are trying to return to a somewhat ‘normal’ lifestyle. Our message is that we still need out. We still need your support. If you do not get you[r] information from us personally or from this blog, it is our desire that you not pass it on.”
The family also announced a Friday, April 18, “Patriot Party” for fans and followers to bring a picnic and “play in the river” with music and entertainment through the evening.
And they have posted online a list of contacts for various state officials, for those who want to express their opinion in a public way.
Fox News earlier reported damage appearing on the grazing land now includes holes in water tanks, destroyed water lines, and broken-down fences.
“According to family friends, the bureau’s hired ‘cowboys’ also killed two prize bulls,” the report said.
“They had total control of this land for one week, and look at the destruction they did…,” family friend Corey Houston told Fox.
At the time, Fox reported BLM officials said they needed to destroy “illegal structures” such as water tanks and water lines, to “restore” the land. But Fox noted that a court order justifying the operation only granted permission to “seize and impound” cattle.
The plan, under which the BLM paid a Utah wrangler $966,000 to collect Bundy’s cattle and a Utah auctioneer to sell them, fell apart after Utah Gov. Gary Herbert refused to let Bundy cattle into his state.
“There are serious concerns about human safety and animal health and well-being, if these animals are shipped to and sold in Utah,” he wrote.
But the showdown remains far from over, with Sen. Reid describing the ranchers’ friends as “domestic terrorists,” and his assurance that, although federal agents retreated and released the cattle they had, the confrontation was not over.
A number of columnists have expressed concern about the attack on the family operation by the federal government.
Barbara Simpson wrote, “It wasn’t an innocent confrontation but a heavy-handed, one-sided overkill. … In a scene out of a tyrannical government playbook – hey gang, that’s U.S. – the government moved in with armored personnel vehicles and helicopters. Armed men equipped with the latest in weaponry and body armor surrounded the ranch house and outbuildings while comparably armed snipers took their places, at the ready, as they lined up their targets, just in case.
“The targets? Unarmed American citizens on their own land.”
She continued, “According to Harry Reid, disagreeing with the feds and standing up for your rights makes you a terrorist, and because of that, the feds have the right to blow you and your family away. … Sorry, Harry, that’s not America and despite what you say, Americans don’t use the military to enforce laws.”
Members of Congress have suggested Reid’s incendiary comments are only “liable to stir up” the issue.
And former Justice Department prosecutor Larry Klayman wrote about the start of what he called “the New American Revolution:”
“If the events in Nevada over the last week or so are any indication, where brave patriots, exercising their Second Amendment rights, stood down the tyranny of Obama’s Bureau of Land Management on behalf of the Bundy family and their cattle ranch, then indeed full-scale revolution is now in full swing in both the courts and through armed men on horseback. Here, militias from throughout the nation converged, along with other brave citizens, to show the government that we simply will not take their ‘horse manure’ anymore.”
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado said, “The Bundys have grazed cattle on that same land for 136 years, but nowadays, the desert tortoise has more rights than Bundy’s cattle. Bundy is the only local rancher who has not yet been driven out of business by federal land management policies.
“The issue here is bigger than the fate of rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle. The federal government continues to assert ownership not only of the land Bundy has been grazing his cattle on since 1877, but of 84.5 percent of all Nevada land. The federal government also owns 69 percent of Alaska, 57 percent of Utah, 53 percent of Oregon, 48 percent of Arizona, and 36 percent of Colorado. Indeed, the BLM alone owns 245,000,000 acres of land, an area half the size of Mexico and larger than 48 of our 50 states.”
He continued, “The narrow legal issue in the Bundy ranch controversy is his refusal to pay grazing fees to the Bureau of Land Management over the past 21 years. There is a court order telling him he must pay the fees, and many conservative commentators say he has no legal leg to stand on in that defiance. In terms of ‘settled case law,’ they are probably right. But, is that a good enough reason to abandon Cliven Bundy and his family? … Martin Luther King heard the same arguments when he protested segregated lunch counters in Birmingham, Ala. King chose to go to jail to challenge those ‘settled laws,’ and those laws were overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “
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