Cliven Bundy has a good legal case



The BLM has assumed complete control of a swath of land out West, forbidding any and all from stepping foot on it without BLM permission. It sent troops to enforce a court order to Bundy to pay what the BLM claimed he owed, and also to collect what one can only guess it treated as collateral, Bundy's cattle. The BLM, along with the Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, had banded together to put 52 other ranches out of business in that area. Bundy is the "last man standing."

Laron Fred Woods, a resident of Utah, supplied this brief history of the land under dispute:

    "When Nevada became a state in 1864, the state had control of its land because of its sovereignty. The federal government started taking control back in the 1930's. Until then, the General Land Office managed public lands. Even though the GLO was a national agency, it was administered locally. After the Taylor Grazing act of 1934, passed under Franklin D. Roosevelt, a "U.S. Grazing Service" office was created. The "U.S. Grazing Service" office was merged with the General Land Office in 1946 (under Harry S. Truman) and the BLM (Bureau Of Land Management) was created. They then assumed control of all "public" lands and took over management from the state. Cliven Bundy's Grandfather purchased grazing rights from the General Land Office in the 1880's. Note: He PURCHASED those rights. Not the land, just the grazing rights.

    After the BLM took over management, they [the BLM] no longer recognized as legitimate those actions of purchasing grazing rights. Right or wrong, they still refuse to recognize the purchased grazing rights from the Bundy's."

Two BLM sites carry the same official history.

The "roundup" of Bundy's cattle by the feds, given the context in which Bundy is acting, is simply a naked seizure of his property, under the guise of protecting the habitat of the desert tortoise. But even that pretext was exploded when it was learned that the BLM was actually euthanizing these tortoises.

Of course, if the government needn't recognize the right to property secured over a century ago, never mind property secured within the last half century, the last decade, the last year. Private property rights of any kind, whether prescriptive or outright or common law, have been drowned in an avalanche of fiat law and legalized theft under the rubric of the "public" or "common good" or the "public interest."

Freedom Outpost's Ben Swann reveals the cluelessness of the BLM in his April 16th article, "BLM: We Were Worried Cliven Bundy Might Have Prescriptive Rights and He Might Use that Defense in Court." He asks:

    "Why this year, spend nearly $1,000,000 of taxpayer money to round up 400 cattle that ultimately have to be returned? Why didn't the BLM just place a lien on the cattle rather than attempting to take them by force and then auction them off? The Bureau of Land Management has suffered a huge black eye this week because of their response to the Bundy situation. Perhaps though, there is a reason the BLM chose force over the courts."

Swann contacted Montana cattleman Todd Devlin, who is also County Commissioner in Prairie County, Montana. Devlin made his own enquiries about the BLM's ham-fisted, Gestapo-like behavior towards Bundy.

    "Among the questions Devlin asked of the BLM, "Is it possible that this guy (Cliven Bundy) has prescriptive rights?" The response from top officials at the BLM, "We are worried that he might, and he might use that defense."

    So what exactly are prescriptive rights? Prescriptive right to property is an easement that gives some one the right to use land owned by someone else for a particular purpose. An example is using a path through Party A's land to get to your land; a prescriptive easement is allowed which gives the user the right to get to his land through A's property."

Swann explained that if no one, even a government agency, challenges a prescriptive right in five years, then the right is secured and trespass cannot be legally claimed.

Swann concludes his article:

    "Finally, Devlin says instead of allowing the situation with Bundy's cattle to grow completely out of control, the BLM could have simply placed a lien on the cattle in the first place. Of course, that lien might have been rejected in court if Bundy were able to demonstrate those prescriptive rights. Then again, the courts so far have sided with the government; therefore, it is even more baffling why the lien wasn't placed on the livestock.

    Days after the BLM has claimed they will stand down, they are now reportedly considering a lien on the cattle, "I asked why you didn't put a lien against the cattle?" Devlin asked the BLM. "They hadn't thought about that, but they are considering it now."

DUH!!!! But then, those with a congenital, larcenous state of mind and method of doing things, don't usually, as a matter of habit, think ahead, do they? Their first impulse is to initiate force.

The New Energy News site, which is pro-"renewable," features a map of where the BLM and the federal government plan to implement solar, wind, and geothermal power projects. It also has a link to a map of the all the states with the percentage of federally-owned land in each state, published by the General Services Administration under the title, "Who Owns the West?" About 86% of Nevada is federal land.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal article featured an excerpt of the Nevada Constitution, only partly quoting from it, allowing Harry Reid to slip a mickey into his two-faced taqiyya.

    "Nevada's 1864 Constitution, however, cedes rights to the vast stretches of public land to the federal government.

    "The people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States," the state Constitution says in the ordinance section. Reid noted many of the protesters care deeply about the Constitution, both state and federal.

    "Nevada's Constitution sets out very clearly the situation," Reid said.

One reader of that article, named Hilda, went to the trouble in her comments to educate the writer and Nevadans by citing that part of the Nevada Constitution:

    "Reid says, "Nevada's 1864 Constitution, however, cedes rights to the vast stretches of public land to the federal government." Reid fails to mention that despite that, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of all western states to have all the land returned to them under the "equal footing" doctrine. Also, the US Constitution allows for the federal government to own property only for "Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings." No other ownership of land is permitted by the government for a reason. The Founding Fathers wanted to ensure limits on the federal government precisely to prevent the abuse of federal power we are witnessing now."

Federally-owned land was never intended to be space for the government to experiment with its preferred "energy" projects, with the hands of corrupt politicians and companies doing the experimenting

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Republicans say U.S. headed toward ‘armed revolution'

A survey of Republicans found nearly half agreed that “an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be necessary in the next few years.”

The poll, from Farleigh Dickinson University’s Public Mind, surveyed a random sampling of 863 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus-minus 3.4 percentage points.

It found 44 percent of registered Republicans believed an armed rebellion could come in the next few years. But only 18 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of independents agreed.

Moreover, only 24 percent of Republicans believed new gun laws were necessary — compared to 73 percent of Democrats. Bipartisan legislation on gun control is not likely in the coming days, one political science professor at Farleigh Dickinson said, in a press release on the poll.

“If there was a bipartisan moment after Sandy Hook to pass gun control legislation, it’s past,” Dan Cassino said. “Partisan views have strongly reasserted themselves, and there’s no sign that they’ll get any weaker.”

The difference in views is due to partisan differences in beliefs about what guns are for, Mr. Cassino said.

“If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons, and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away,” Mr. Cassino said.

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Charles Murray on allegations of racism

Since the flap about Paul Ryan’s remarks last week, elements of the blogosphere, and now Paul Krugman in The New York Times, have stated that I tried to prove the genetic inferiority of blacks in The Bell Curve.

The position that Richard Herrnstein and I took about the role of race, IQ and genes in The Bell Curve is contained in a single paragraph in an 800-page book. It is found on page 311, and consists in its entirety of the following text:

If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not justify an estimate.

That’s it. The four pages following that quote argue that the hysteria about race and genes is misplaced. I think our concluding paragraph (page 315) is important enough to repeat here:

In sum: If tomorrow you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the cognitive differences between races were 100 percent genetic in origin, nothing of any significance should change. The knowledge would give you no reason to treat individuals differently than if ethnic differences were 100 percent environmental. By the same token, knowing that the differences are 100 percent environmental in origin would not suggest a single program or policy that is not already being tried. It would justify no optimism about the time it will take to narrow the existing gaps. It would not even justify confidence that genetically based differences will not be upon us within a few generations. The impulse to think that environmental sources of differences are less threatening than genetic ones is natural but illusory.

Our sin was to openly discuss the issue, not to advocate a position. But for the last 40 years, that’s been sin enough.

I’ll be happy to respond at more length to allegations of racism made by anyone who can buttress them with a direct quote from anything I’ve written. I’ll leave you with this thought: in all the critiques of The Bell Curve in particular and my work more generally, no one ever accompanies their charges with direct quotes of what I’ve actually said. There’s a reason for that.

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Over 40,000 People Are Registered to Vote in Both Virginia and Maryland

As midterm elections quickly approach, many are starting to think about voting and potential fraud at the polls. And once again, we find that there is cause to be worried about voter fraud here in the U.S. It appears in a new report that 44,000 people are registered to vote in both Virginia and Maryland.

A vote-integrity group crosschecked the voter rolls in the two states and found far too many people registered in both states. The group, known as The Virginia Voters Alliance, is going to expand their research into surrounding states like Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Georgia.

The group found that the number of voters who actually cast ballots in both states was only 164 in 2012, but that is still far too many. And the problem of potentially having thousands of people casting multiple ballots is the real issue.

The Virginia Voters Alliance also worked with the Privileges and Elections committees of the state House and Senate. They found 31,000 dead voters through the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. The president of the organization said that dead voter registration is a prime target for voter fraud.

A simple solution for this issue is a voter ID law. Not only should people be required to show ID at the polls, but voter registrations should be cross checked more frequently. Hiring an outside group to do this, not only will help with voter fraud, but provides business to a non-governmental group. These numbers need to be greatly reduced before November.

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