In Texas, every third person has a "ranch." There's some kind of tax break if you have like 3 cows on your property.
Welfare Queen mooching of the largesse of the federal government.
I'm loving the right wing reaction. They were really hoping someone would start shooting and they could hang the whole thing around Obama's neck.
I pass a lot of cows on my way to work, it's true. And goats.
1: I figured you all would have more interesting links than I did.
I'm withholding judgment until I hear what Laura Ingraham has to say about in on ABC's This Week.
That link in 1 was pretty interesting, legally, though you obviously don't need those state constitutional provisions to decide that this guy's case is a loser.
So so many years ago (sobering to contemplate how many) I was visiting Paris during or shortly after the resolution of some horrifying government/right wing loony standoff, and every dinner party I went to for like two weeks everyone quizzed me about how such things could happen. I'd go through some spiel about the proliferation of protestant sects, states rights and slavery, civil war yada yada yada, all of which never seemed to really help explain things much. One night I got fed up and just said they were all a bunch of fringe characters, of which we always have a lot, and the guy sitting next to me said "il y a peu de marges en France" which I thought was both true and yet not really as at the time he wad married to a woman collectively raised by a cell of Trotskyites.
I am a little bummed BLM caved and gave his cows back. I wouldn't want to see BLM getting into any sort of confrontation in the area, but given that they had his cows, I think they should have sold them and applied any profits to the guy's grazing fee debt.
Truly the French know nothing of armed resistance to their government.
Is this the winger thread? Great quote about Frazier Glenn Miller, the Kansas white supremacist shooter:
"Locally, he is known as an affable man, pretty much like anyone else, except for his views that Jews deserve extermination, and that the white race is, as he has written, "drowning literally in seas of colored mongrels."
Yep, affable!
9: Or invited him to negotiating dinner which featured steak from one of his own cows. To show they mean business!
I like Stormcrow's spirit and innovative thinking.
Am I missing a Clive Bowen/Cliven Bundy joke here?
Some enterprising Muslims in Dearborn should stop paying taxes and set up an armed compound, and see how that goes. As performance art, of course.
No, I just wrote the name wrong. whoops.
"drowning literally in seas of colored mongrels."
This sounds like the sort of thing a juvenile Duke of Clarence might have asked for. Drowning in puppies!
Does anyone have anything to say about the sculptor?
You're right. I didn't get that the cows were still on the property. Given that, driving off with them would be escalating and I can see why it isn't worth that. I still wish they had an enforcement mechanism to collect those grazing fees.
At least now I know who Clive Bowen is. Nice pottery.
A gigantic, free, barbecue on the property open to the public would have been provocative but awesome. We need a more creatively diabolical federal government.
I'm not sure who that is so I'll comment on Clive Owen instead: loved him in Children of Men and was totally turned on by the scene in Closer where he tells off whatsisname with the underbite.
10: they like their anti governmental violence to be more conformist. Relatedly, I have friends who have lived here for years and are still completely boggled by the concept of a store front church, that anyone can declare themselves bishop of the first church of whatever and get tax exempt status. They cannot wrap their minds around the governmental acknowledgement. Or the social acceptance.
It has been pointed out by roughly a million people, but the divergent right-wing reactions to this and OWS are instructive. Why, just imagine if the protesters had ringed Zuccotti Park with armed militia. Just for added fun, let's say Black Panthers.
I want to see a judgment for money damages -- which ought to be easy enough to get, given the court's order levying a penalty for each day of non-compliance -- a writ of attachment on the property the guy actually owns, and then a sale. If the armed wingnut nitwits want to buy the ranch at auction, let them.
20: No enforcement mechanism? Aside from the BLM rangers, he's in violation of a longstanding court order, so presumably they could bring in US Marshals or request other federal assistance, not just Las Vegas police, and would come in guns blazing and lock him up if he were black.
You don't need guns blazing to collect money if the guy has bank accounts. I don't know how you do it in Nevada, but if it's anything like NY, you get a judgment and send it to the guy's bank with a letter saying please give us everything in his accounts up to the amount of the judgment, and they do.
And yet, they're pansying around with cows and using some Las Vegas sheriff to negotiate. This is totally not worth a shoot-out, but it seems like they have few options short of one.
I'm sure many know this, but I was pretty overwhelmed when I learned in relation to this fracas just how low grazing fees are - in 2004 the BLM and Forest Service together subsidized ranchers by over $100 million in this way.
In Nevada it's the same thing, but after the banks hand over the money you have to put it on red 32 and you either get paid out at 35-1 or give it to the casino.
Or at least, they aren't yet willing to exercise the option of going directly to banks. Why start with the cows? To serve the double purpose of also ending the grazing?
Actually, now that I read about it more, isn't the current enforcement action about getting the cows off the land rather than collecting fees/fines? The latter is perhaps being pursued on a different track (or he's hidden assets).
The feds should slowly escalate, giving every militia moron plenty of time to get to the ranch. Among those arriving will be infiltrators who will plant the seed of secession. Once every nutjob in the country has arrived for the Second American Revolution, we let them secede, declare them a hostile power, and nuke them from space. The great thing about this happening in Nevada is that no one will notice.
The plan in 35 doesn't have enough free steak.
Exactly. No nukes! You'll ruin the meat.
Doesn't the military have sound cannons and laser weapons and shit that need testing?
I'm ok with 35 as long as Olivia Newton-John is given advanced warning.
Doesn't the military have sound cannons and
The military could play Van Halen's "Panama" at super loud volume over and over and over again, like we did when we were besieging Manuel Noriega in 1989 in Panama City. Also, not to repeat myself, but I think combining this plan with free steaks would be a very good idea. Signed, a taxpayer.
BLM's goal here is almost certainly primarily to get the cows off the land. The fees are so low as to be basically not worth it to aggressively pursue collection (would cost more than would be collected). The environmental damage done by ga
Grazing cows in the arid west, on the other hand, is considerable and the subject of wide-ranging longstanding disputes among BLM, ranchers and environmental activists.
(would cost more than would be collected)
It would carry punitive value, though. Retributive justice has its uses (see also: Wall Street).
I have done a lot of hiking in the American West. The amount of cow shit, cow-related erosion and damage to vegetation, and just general cow damage is mind-boggling. You would think that it would be a little trivial sideshow on the vast expanses of American public land. But it's not! They're hooved locusts. I endorse a giant barbeque.
35: Y'all need to read some mil-blogs. They're more likely to side with the ranchers and then roll tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Well it's mind boggling that this isn't a federal crime aggressively prosecuted and with significant jail time, given the number of other things that are federal crimes aggressively prosecuted with significant jail time. Which I guess is what everyone else is saying.
I'm on board with 35. I've long held that we should absolutely indulge those halfwits' fantasy of being oppressed by a tyrannical government. Oh, you thought having to pay taxes equated to slavery? Here, let me introduce you to roadside prison crew work.
I'm sure many know[...]how low grazing fees are
Oh unfogged, you peculiar internetical entity.
30: If you think the grazing fees are crazy low, you should look into the mining laws some time.
I haven't really been following this Bundy story, but assholes like him are certainly common in the rural West and cause all kinds of problems.
BLM is a truly interesting agency, given the % land managed by it across the west, and the fact that so many local staff come from, well, the local community. Would be fascinating to study coping mechanisms employed to deal with incarnating the demonic in isolated nowheresville NV, UT, WY, etc.
Too true alas re mining, teofilo.
42
BLM's goal here is almost certainly primarily to get the cows off the land. The fees are so low as to be basically not worth it to aggressively pursue collection (would cost more than would be collected).
If I remember the story I heard about this on NPR correctly, BLM says he owes about a million dollars, he says he "only" owes about $300,000. That might be a small figure compared to the federal budget, but it's a bigger fraction of the budget of the relevant branch of the BLS, and it's probably a lot of the rancher's income or net worth. (To be humorlessly clear, both of those would make pursuing it more of a good idea, not less.)
Yeah, I'm involved with pursuing debts for NY, and we get all excited by anything in six figures. (Tax will pursue you well under that, but it's worth significant effort at that level.)
Does anyone have a good explanation of the photo of the man aiming his rifle through a crack in a bridge side railing?
I'd sure like to think he was showing off for photographers and not really aiming a loaded weapon at federal officers, which would seem to me to be 1) some sort of a crime and 2) really, really, really stupid.
BLM is a truly interesting agency, given the % land managed by it across the west, and the fact that so many local staff come from, well, the local community.
It's also interesting because it doesn't really have a mission the way other federal agencies do; it just ended up with all the land the government didn't have another use for and couldn't give away to homesteaders. Among other things this makes it a lightning rod for controversy whenever it does something other interest groups don't like, because it's hard to make decisions in that context that don't seem either arbitrary or corrupt to whoever loses out.
The BLM was sort of our mortal enemy when we wanted to have illegal desert raves, but we didn't really hold that against them in the same way these people seem to.
FLPMA states an explicit mission all right but I'll say no more non-presidentially!
re whether or not to collect, sure in general they'd rather have the dees but in this specific instance they've been actively litigating with the dude for 10 years and for a good chunk of that time have likely known the whole mess was inches away from the national front pages. And not just from the rightward flank, so to speak, the agency gets significant pressure on the grazing issue from the environmental community as well. One million in fees looks smaller in that context is all I'm saying.
I'm waiting for the wingers going around complaining about the disparity between the fine and the enforcement cost to start saying the inner city youths who steal $300 from a convenience store shouldn't be prosecuted. Or even arrested, for that matter.
FLPMA states an explicit mission all right but I'll say no more non-presidentially!
Yes, fair enough, but it's an awfully broad one that can be interpreted many ways in particular instances. Hence, controversy.
The fees are so low as to be basically not worth it to aggressively pursue collection (would cost more than would be collected).
There's also the $300/head/day outstanding fines, though I imagine those wouldn't go to or be collected by BLM.
Re: having a big barbeque, I'm sure if the BLM outsourced this to the Philly police and told them Cliven Bundy was a black guy everyone's desires would be accommodated.
One would think that it would be possible to identify individuals who brandished weapons to prevent federal officers from doing their jobs, arrest them individually somewhere else, and let them spend the next several years as guests of Uncle Sam. This sort of shit is not OK.
Josh Marshall quotes an interesting e-mail arguing that standing down was the right move not just tactically but also strategically for the BLM, since it makes the national news story all about the crazy right-wing militia rather than about the Feds shooting them, and all this media coverage will tend to discredit Bundy's crazy ideas.
Oh god, of course it was the right move. The worst thing would be for this to turn into some sort of Waco disaster.
Well, I certainly agree, but coverage in some places seems to imply that this was an embarrassing defeat for the BLM.
Too bad, too, because the obvious right catchphrase would be Wacow, and it could be the new *-gate.
Have any charges been filed against the militiamen types for swarming in with guns and threatening violence? I'm sure nothing will be done about them, but it's still annoying.
the obvious right catchphrase would be Wacow
Remember the Alamoo!
This is disappointing. I was kind of hoping for drone strikes.
I was kind of hoping for drone strikes.
Don't tell anyone, but the feds have slipped a few of their new experimental robocow terminator droids into the guy's herd. Just you wait . . .
Comment threads are always fun to read, but the comment threads for right-wing articles about the Bundy issue are particularly fun. Drones coming. Elections being suspended. It is a true round-up of crazy.
Also, if you are a BLM warden (or Fish and Wildlife or Reclamation) armed stand-offs are not really part of the job. I can't imagine there's a boss anywhere in Interior who would say to get into a shoot-out over cows or a canal gate chained open or an illegal diversion. Walk away, dudes. You're hired to ride ATVs around, check fishing permits, and take the occasional lip at the coffee shop.
and take the occasional lip at the coffee shop
Is that like collecting scalps? Jack-booted thugs collecting the body parts of hard-working sovereign citizens? Figures.
73: Did you see that it's all a plot by Harry Reid to steal land to give to his son for a solar farm? That one's nice. Not as nice as FEMA concentration camps, but nice nonetheless.
It's amusing that the teaist articles on the subject seem very frequently to talk about the Enclave Clause of the Constitution, which enables the federal government to purchase land from states and exercise exclusive jurisdiction, which obviously is not the origin of western public lands, and also makes no particular restraint on this power anyway.
They also quote Elbridge Gerry at the Convention warning that this power could enable the federal government to snap up lots of the country and tyrannize; when I looked up this statement it was in fact followed by the Convention agreeing with him and inserting language making enclave purchases subject to state consent.
Comment threads are always fun to read
This is so wrong.
I have done a lot of hiking in the American West. The amount of cow shit, cow-related erosion and damage to vegetation, and just general cow damage is mind-boggling. You would think that it would be a little trivial sideshow on the vast expanses of American public land. But it's not! They're hooved locusts.
People have been denied Swiss citizenship for those sorts of subversive attitudes. Though the climate is rather different in the Alps, making cows a lot less ecologically disruptive, and indeed some worry that the decline in herding will disrupt millenia old ecosystems in the high meadows. Still tons of cow shit everywhere, and stinging nettles.
No, they're right. Both the Louisiana Purchase and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were unconstitutional, and so the land involved has to be given back to France and Mexico, respectively.
Sort of OT: VSP idiocy. The Pew Forum has a big piece on the "Next America", i.e. generational change. It ends it with an explanation of the 'unsustainable' retirement system, noting first that both Social Security and Medicare have overwhelming support among all generations, but then explaining that drastic reductions in cost are necessary because back in 1950 the ratio of workers to retirees was 16:1 and now it is 3:1. There own fucking graphic shows that by 1960 the ratio was 5:1 and by 1980 it was... 3:1. Fucking bullshit.
81: And productivity per worker has gone through the fucking roof in the meantime, without a corresponding increase in wages. There's plenty of meat on the bone, it's just distributed badly.
60: I'm waiting for the wingers going around complaining about the disparity between the fine and the enforcement cost to start saying the inner city youths who steal $300 from a convenience store shouldn't be prosecuted. Or even arrested, for that matter.
An example of this from the Florida recount that still makes me furious* was the difference in press treatment of the "Brooks Brothers riot" and the mere possibility that Jesse Jackson was going to lead some protests. White men violently interfering with the actual electoral process--a big fucking joke, black people talking about exercising their right to assembly, OMFG, lock the doors!
Perhaps I overstate, if 20th century history taught us anything, it's that unruly mobs of white men would never engage in meaningful political violence.
*Actually, everything about the recount still makes me furious.
everything about the recount including the need for it still makes me furious
teraz, your Switzerland comment reminded me of the C'est Pas Sorcier episode about goats I think, maybe sheep, with a lovely explanation of how the transhumance is necessary to maintaining the ecosystem that has evolved in the mountains. I miss that show, my son has outgrown it.
I will give my daughter credit for a great tweet on the ranch thing: "All these ranchers w/a chip on their shoulder from a century-old injustice.White people have such rage.They'll never integrate into society." She also pointed out how his claims of pre-US Gov't rights must sound to Native Americans.
79: I spent a chunk of last week talking to people in northerly eastern central California about the timing and effects of cattle grazing on vernal pool prairies. We suspect it's novel. For one thing, modern (USian?) cattle are Very Big Indeed, and make big deep pits when they choose to stand in mud. Even so, grazing preserves more of the native flora than leaving it to the small mammals.
I'd been given to understand that Swiss grazing was pretty carefully managed.