Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 6:52am

The Feds Give Us Another Reason Not To Trust Them

I have always looked askance at black helicopters paranoia regarding the Federal government.  Then minions of that government work overtime to make such critics seem reasonable and sane:

The Justice Department was caught in another high-profile travesty last month that continues to reverberate through the western states. On Dec. 20, federal judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and others after prosecutors were caught withholding massive amounts of evidence undermining federal charges. This is the latest in a long series of federal law enforcement debacles that have spurred vast distrust of Washington.

Bundy, a 71-year old Nevadan rancher, and his sons and supporters were involved in an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) beginning in 2014 stemming from decades of unpaid cattle grazing fees and restrictions. The Bundys have long claimed the feds were on a vendetta against them, and 3,300 pages of documents the Justice Department wrongfully concealed from their lawyers provides smoking guns that buttress their case.

A whistleblowing memo by BLM chief investigator Larry Wooten charges that BLM chose “the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic trespass cattle (seizure) possible” against Bundy. He also cited a “widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations” by BLM officials in the case. BLM agents even “bragged about roughing up Dave Bundy, grinding his face into the ground and Dave Bundy having little bits of gravel stuck in his face” while he was videotaping federal agents. Wooten also stated that anti-Mormon prejudice pervaded BLM’s crackdown.

 

Go here to read the appalling rest.  Such conduct by the Feds makes a joke of government of the people, by the people and for the people.  Those involved in this criminal conspiracy need to be prosecuted and the federal prosecutors who hid these documents need to lose their law licenses.

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Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, January 5, AD 2018 1:29pm

Bundy’s hardly alone.

Not sure if it’s bureaucratic sclerosis, cronyism or the end result of the Democrat’s efforts to alternately weaponize the executive branch (when they’re in power) or erect revanchist redoubts (when they’re out). Probably a combination of all three.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Friday, January 5, AD 2018 1:50pm

I harbor a suspicion that the evolution of the culture of prosecutors (especially federal prosecutors) has been such that a certain minority of them are incapable of admitting error and that another minority among them are sociopaths. See Glenn Reynolds: judges and prosecutors have concocted legal doctrines which prevent them from ever being held accountable for anything. I doubt this crew will get so much as a slap on the wrist.

While we’re at it, why is the federal government in the business of leasing grazing land? Buy back the bloody grazing permits and put the land on the auction bloc. (BTW, 12% of the land area of the United States is federally owned and under BLM management).

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Friday, January 5, AD 2018 3:20pm

Most of the land in the Western states is owned by the Federal Government. According to the enviro-whackos, that isn’t enough.

Foxfier
Admin
Friday, January 5, AD 2018 7:36pm

Hopefully some house-cleaning is going on– I find it hopeful that they found out about it from a leaker, and I heard from some folks on the ground that the idiot heads were trying to give illegal orders to shoot the guys on the ranch.
It might be one of those “grew in telling” stories, but supposedly one of the armed guys turned to the guy trying to give the illegal order and said something like “I know you can’t possibly be giving the order it sounds like, because that would be an illegal order on the magnitude where I would have to shoot you. Can I get it in writing, please, and clear up this misunderstanding?”

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 2:36am

My guess is the BLM is full of environmental whackos. Both BLM and EPA need to be cleansed of the Progressive fanatics. Easiest thing is to abolish these agencies.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 6:35am

The Bureau of Land Management is simply another government bureaucracy, just like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, etc. The late Dr. Jerry Pournelle (who died this last September – a Catholic, may God rest his soul in peace) formulated a law about these kinds of agencies and bureaus. It is called the Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

“…in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.”

And here we are. Michael Dowd is correct: “Both BLM and EPA need to be cleansed of the Progressive fanatics. Easiest thing is to abolish these agencies.” I will add the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to that list. Obama and the Democrats during the previous 8 years have stacked the Commission with anti-nuke activists; the result is the abandonment of new construction at VC Summer and the bankruptcy of Westinghouse. That’s what happens when an advanced reactor design like AP-1000 is approved & licensed, but then anti-nuke kook Gregory Jackzo whom Obama appointed as Chairman demands containment redesign for the aircraft rule. Does anybody know what it’s like to re-design a huge reactor containment with walls six feet thick and rebar the diameter of your thigh when concrete pour is about to begin and after the government gave you a license but then pulls the rug out from under you?

I despise, loathe, abhor, detest and hold in utter disdain and contempt all things liberal and progressive and environmentalist. Time for govt to go on a severe diet. We the people are sovereign and govt functionaries are the servants of we the people.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 6:36am

Easiest thing is to abolish these agencies.

I doubt you’ve got many Earth First! types working for BLM. The problem with BLM is in its implicit conception: that having contrived status tenures over grazing land is an improvement on straightforward fee simple tenures. EPA has a jumble of functions that ought to be separated. It distributes patronage to state and local governments (a function you can eliminate); administers environmental works projects (site clean-ups, &c, a function that might be allocated to a dedicated agency in the Interior department, it regulates pollutants injurious to people (a function which belongs in a department devoted to health-and-safety regulation); and it regulates activity meant to promote aesthetics (a public function you might largely if not entirely devolve, and, in any case, separate from health-and-safety regulation). For a great long time, its exclusive focus was the imposition of command-and-control regulations when other means (excises, tradedable permits) might have been more apposite to the task at hand. (Congress is largely to blame for that).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 6:42am

I despise, loathe, abhor, detest and hold in utter disdain and contempt all things liberal and progressive and environmentalist. Time for govt to go on a severe diet. We the people are sovereign and govt functionaries are the servants of we the people.

I think when you’ve just argued yourself into anarchism, you need to take stock to find the flaw in your reasoning.

Mary De Voe
Mary De Voe
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 9:35am

All free public land and waterways belong to the people, each and every person in joint and common tenancy. SEE: INDWELLERS. The Court said that people who lived in the public parks had a right to live there. (The unibomber was one.), Indwellers were being force to evacuate the public areas to allow government complete control over the land. Bill Clinton wrote executive orders to place all free land and waterways under the chief executive…himself.
I have heard and this is hearsay that Cliven Bundy’s cattle land was supposed to be sold by Harry Reid’s son in law to some Arab. The money would then go into the son in law’s purse. There were several parcels of public land that were in fact sold to non citizens which would give the non citizens right to enter America without passport or vetting as this Arab would also have. When the people, the real owners of the public land learned of these shenanigans they put a stop to it with tar and feathers. Bill Clinton also tried to give our Statue of Liberty to the United Nations except that the State of Liberty is not his to give away. Again when the people learned of this mishandling of public property the tar and feathers came out.
The BLM as was the Dept. of the Interior before them charged with securing the public land for the government , the administrative state. People were to be driven OUT.
However, the Homestead Act is still on the books having not be repealed. Squat on public land, improve public land. Then the option to buy that piece of land is yours. For a while the Act was not online nor would the Library of Congress provide a copy of the law during Clinton’s presidency. (Whitewater?)
Cliven Bundy was reimbursing the people for the use of our land as in rent. The BLM was strong arming and bullying Bundy for their purpose of taking the land from the people and giving it into the government control and disposal.
Obama’s executive order 13575 Rural Councils administered by every one of Obama’s czars, dictated that these czars had the authority to invade your private farm without being welcomed or admitted. If the czars did not approve of the way the farm was being run, the czars could confiscate your private farmland. Invasion of private property by the government. The same may be said for the other cases of police action against the people in land management, and there are many cases.
Government against the people.

Foxfier
Admin
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 10:23am

I doubt you’ve got many Earth First! types working for BLM.
Er…the nickname for one of the grazing managers I know of is “the bird b***h.”
All other uses of the land were secondary to promoting songbird habitat, on the short-term.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Saturday, January 6, AD 2018 11:24pm

Sometimes people working in a position that gives them some modicum of authority translate it to a real power trip.

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