Press Release from the Center for Biological Diversity
“Ammon Bundy and his fanatical followers are on a road show to incite division and hatred for our public lands…”
MODESTO, Calif.— Anti-government militant Ammon Bundy and other proponents of seizing federal public land from public ownership are scheduled to speak Saturday at Modesto Junior College as part of the annual Range Rights Symposium. Local residents will join members of the Center for Biological Diversity to rally for public lands during the event.
“Ammon Bundy and his fanatical followers are on a road show to incite division and hatred for our public lands,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Bundys are trying to grow a menacing fringe group that wraps itself in flags and cowboy hats to fool people into believing deranged and dangerous conspiracy theories. They’ve shown they’re willing to use force and intimidation to take what doesn’t belong to them.”
What: Rally outside Range Rights Symposium
When: 3 p.m., Saturday, April 21
Where: In front of the Ag Pavilion, Modesto Junior College — West Campus, Modesto, Calif.
Background
In 1998 and again in 2013, courts ruled that hundreds of the Bundy family’s livestock had been illegally roaming 750,000 acres of sensitive public land near the Nevada-Arizona line. The courts ordered that the cows be removed.
But when federal authorities attempted to remove the cows in 2014, the Bundys organized a dangerous armed standoff and intimidated the government into halting the operation.
Today much of the land the Bundy’s cows continue to occupy is protected as Gold Butte National Monument. Cliven Bundy, the patriarch of the family, owes more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees and fines, according to federal officials.
In January a federal judge in Nevada dismissed all charges against him and his sons related to the 2014 Bunkerville standoff.
In 2016 Ammon Bundy led an armed takeover and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, which did significant damage to the refuge and divided the local community. Ammon Bundy and six co-defendants were acquitted by a jury in October 2016.
The Bundys and their followers have been emboldened by these recent court victories. They’re making appearances throughout the West to foment anti-public-lands sentiment and spread misinformation in an attempt to wrest control of public lands from the American people. The animals, plants and communities that rely on and cherish public lands are threatened if the Bundys’ radical ideology spreads.
| Contacts: | Ryan Beam, (928) 853-9929, rbeam@biologicaldiversity.org Patrick Donnelly, (702) 483-0449, pdonnelly@biologicaldiversity.org |
Categories: Uncategorized, Wild Burros, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
They got out by the skin of their teeth, so keep track of images, videos, and their mayhem and observe as the Federal Government, the FBI, AND OR BUREAU won’t mess up the case Next time. I think Doink played a role in the Hammonds case and a delusional role in the Bundys, so I think the Government should be really keeping close eyes on their “rebellion In delusional thoughts”. They will screw up again and go to far and a different set of charges will be filed and then it will get stopped. Remember the Bundys are running for Govenor too!
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So if the one Bundy wins the Governors mansion (never happen) then it will be the Un-State of the State Address. Free roaming cows for All, no fences anywhere and I bet they take over border States LANDS to and declare them their ranch as well!
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Written 4 years ago…
$200 Per Day Per Head of Cattle since 1998. On November 3, 1998, United States District Judge (USDJ) Johnnie B. Rawlinson “permanently enjoined (Bundy) from grazing his livestock within the Bunkerville Allotment (‘The Allotment’), and shall remove his livestock from this allotment on or before November 30, 1998… (and) ordered that Plaintiff shall be entitled to trespass damages from Bundy in the amount of $200.00 per day per head for any livestock belonging to Bundy remaining on the Bunkerville Allotment after November 30, 1998
I did some quick math – could this possibly be correct?
900 cattle times $200 per day = $180,000 per day times 365 days = $65,700,000 per year times 25 years = $1,642,500,000 that Bundy owes you and me plus interest and fines and court costs. I want him to pay … NOW.
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Isnt it downright amazing how forceful the BLM is in removing wild horses – who have an actual RIGHT to live on the land and what a bunch of wimps they are when it comes to removing trespass livestock?
I’m with you – I think Bundy should start paying – after all, from what I’ve read, hes a millionaire – should at least make a “good faith” effort to pay what he owes!
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Are there any reports surfacing yet from this event?
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One report:
https://www.hcn.org/articles/sagebrush-rebellion-range-rights-gathering-the-press-was-in-the-crosshairs?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
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We should all be fighting on the same side…against the real enemy…. CORPORATE take-over of America’s Public Lands.
Counterpunch
Here’s the Beef: How NAFTA Kissed the West Goodbye
April 15, 2016
In the two years following the enactment of NAFTA, the price of beef dropped by as much as 50 percent. If hamburger eaters exulted at the news, they should have also been aware that with this fall in beef prices has come a crisis for the nation’s small ranchers as grave as that which put 80,000 of them out of business in the early 1980s.
As the small ranches go under, their land is either picked up by agribusiness giants like J.R. Simplot or billionaires playing cowboy like David Packard, or subdivided for the dreary ranchettes that disfigure southern Colorado.
Blame NAFTA. With the signing of the trade agreement came truckloads of Mexican calves, headed for the feedlots and slaughterhouses north of the border. The influx of these Mexican calves produced a meat glut in the United States, driving the prices down to levels disastrous for marginal operations on the arid grasslands of the Interior West.
The value of the ranch–and hence the approval of the bank or insurance company financing his mortgage–depends entirely on his access to publicly owned grass and water. Even if the rancher wants to reduce the number of cattle he’s running to ease the stress on the grasslands, the banks will insist that he continue with the highest stocking rates permitted by the feds, since he will thus be a better risk. This is a primary reason America’s rangelands are in such an impoverished ecological condition.
When the feds have tried to reduce the number of cattle on the public range to protect fragile riparian habitat for endangered trout and salmon, the U.S. government has been sued for breach of contract by the banks, notably the Farm Credit Bank of Texas, which holds half a billion dollars in loans that are tied to federal grazing permits.
Watching the impending ruin of many small ranchers with a keen anticipation are the mining companies. As the fortunes of the ranchers decline, those of the gold companies are on the rise.
Ironically, ranchers, under assault from environmentalists for destructive grazing practices, reflexively aligned themselves with some of the more vicious incarnations of the property rights movement, such as the Colorado-based People for the West!, long funded by mining and oil interests.
Some of the big environmental groups are also cheering. Anything that does down a rancher is okay with them. That’s one of the reasons groups like the National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council shilled for NAFTA–they said the agreement would push inefficient industries out of business. Let them wait until the Interior West vanishes under ranchette driveways, toxic cyanide piles from heap-leach gold mining, or ends up in the hands of J.R. Simplot Company.
So the bills for NAFTA are finally coming due. Under its stipulations polychlorinated biphenyls
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