Daily Archives: April 11, 2014

04/11/14

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results – 04/11/14

The Watcher’s Council


We Stand With Cliven Bundy

Alea iacta est… the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

“In war, truth is the first casualty” – Aeschylus

“We maintain peace through our strength; appeasement only invites aggression” – President Ronald Reagan, 1983

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” – Jeremiah 8:11

This week’s winner was Joshuapundit’s Yes, The Peace Talks Are Dead – And An Opportunity For Real Peace Comes Alive. Here’s the real story of how things imploded and why, and how the Obama Administration set things up for failure. I attempt to wrap up the post mortum and show that there’s an opportunity for real peace here, what I think it would take and what it might look like. Here’s a slice:

While neither side has formally acknowledged it, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are dead, and even John Kerry has thrown in the towel.

The Obama Team would never admit it, but they’re fully aware that it was Palestine’s unelected dictator Mahmoud Abbas that pulled the trigger and ended the talks, and his own controlled Palestinian media proudly admits it. Both Palestinian and Israeli media outlets on Thursday night quoted Abbas as saying, “I would rather become a martyr” than rescind the applications he signed on Tuesday to join 15 UN and other international treaties and conventions.

Kerry and the rest of the Obama team managed to arm twist the Israelis into discussing a further release of convicted terrorists along with releasing the fourth batch provided Abbas rescinded the UN membership applications and agreed to extend the deadline of the talks.

Instead of agreeing to what amounted to another gimmee, Abbas came out with a whole new set of pre-conditions to continue talks, conditions he knew no Israeli government could accept. According to Abbas’ own Palestinian News Agency Ma’an, the new pre-conditions included formal Israeli recognition of the borders of ‘Palestine’ as the pre-67 lines with all of East Jerusalem as its capitol; the release of 1,200 Palestinian prisoners including convicted terrorist leaders Marwan Barghouti, Fuad Shweiki and Ahmad Saadat; a Israeli building freeze in East Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria; Israeli citizenship for 15,000 Palestinians under a ‘family reunification program’ essentially a recognition of a Palestinian ‘right of return’; the end of Israel’s blockade of Hamas in Gaza; the right of return for PLO terrorists who were exiled to European countries under an agreement between the EU and Israel after the 2002 Palestinian siege of the Church of the Nativity; forbidding the IDF to enter Area A, the part of Judea and Samaria under PA control which would essentially create an escape zone for terrorists after attacks on Israelis since the PA has never jailed anyone for murdering an Israeli; and Palestinian control of parts of Area C, the areas now under full Israeli sovereignty.

And that was just to continue listening to Abbas say no for another few months!

Kerry’s deputy Martin Indyk mediated a nine hour meeting between head Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Head of Palestinian intelligence Majid Faraj, and Israeli negotiators Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho and tried to cable together some semblance of a reasonable platform, but he was yelled down by the Palestinian negotiators and the entire meeting turned into a shouting match, with even the ever flexible Tzipi Livni unable to contain herself. At one point, Livni reportedly demanded of Erekat that Abbas rescind the applications to the 15 UN organizations and conventions he’d submitted in order to negotiate any other preconditions. Erekat flatly refused, and Livni announced the next day that Israel would definitely not release that fourth batch of convicted Palestinian terrorists.

When Indyk tried to reason with the Palestinians, saying that any agreement had to consider Israel’s security considerations, Faraj snapped back that the Palestinians weren’t there to discuss Israeli security, but to negotiate over a timetable to get all of their demands met.

Things went quickly downhill from there, with the Palestinians threatening to join even more international bodies and take prosecute Israel for ‘war crimes’ at the International Criminal Court and the Israelis promising retaliation if they did so.

Abbas never had any intention of actually negotiating. Even Saeb Erekat admitted earlier this month that Abbas was staying in the talks just to get the terrorist releases.

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Matt Walsh – Hey gay rights militants: your fascism is showing, submitted by Joshuapundit. It’s Walsh’s defiant blowback to the Gay Mafia and progressive fascism in general, and it makes for some stirring reading.

Okay, here are this week’s full results.

Council Winners

Non-Council Winners

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!

04/11/14

Senator Harry Reid: the cattle rustler

By: James Simpson
Examiner.com

This week, the Bureau of Land Management has been attempting to confiscate the cattle of Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Nevada’s Clark County. On Wednesday, BLM agents confronted the Bundy family and supporters, using attack dogs, tasers and stun guns. Bundy’s son was tased and his daughter thrown to the ground. Three others were injured. Bundy supporters eventually drove the BLM off, but not before they had taken some cattle.

The BLM claims the cattle are “tresspassing” on land designated for the endangered desert tortoise. This designation is a red flag that something else is going on. Desert tortoises have co-existed with cattle for over 100 years and the cattle offer no threat.

Sure enough, as Dana Loesch reports today in a great piece of investigative journalism, Senator Harry Reid, known as “Cleanface” by the Nevada mob, and named by Judicial Watch as one of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians,” has been using the BLM to seize rangeland on behalf of campaign contributors. One of Reid’s former senior advisors, Neil Kornze, was recently appointed to lead the BLM, but he has worked there since 2011, and been de facto leader for at least a year. According to Loesch, Reid even ordered BLM to alter boundaries of tortoise habitat to allow top contributor, Harvey Whittemore, to develop the land. Yet another compassionate Democrat concerned for the environment. Good old Cleanface.

All other ranchers have been driven out of the county, but Bundy refuses to bend. The BLM claims Bundy owes them grazing fees dating back to 1993, however, he says his grazing rights predate the BLM, his family has used the land since the 1800s and those rights should have been grandfathered in. Contrary to BLM’s accusations, Bundy has been paying grazing fees, but to the governmental entity he believes has true title to the land: Clark County, Nevada. Loesch relates:

The BLM arrived much later, changed the details of the setup without consulting with Bundy — or any other rancher — and then began systematically driving out cattle and ranchers. Bundy refused to pay BLM, especially after they demanded he reduce his heard’s head count down to a level that would not sustain his ranch.

The BLM may have authority under the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Bundy says that “public land” belongs to the citizens, but the court claimed that “the public lands in Nevada are the property of the United States because the United States has held title to those public lands since 1848, when Mexico ceded the land to the United States.” In justifying the seizure the court stated “Bundy’s cattle have caused and continue to cause damage to natural and cultural resources and pose a threat to public safety.” It would be interesting to see the justification for that claim. What “cultural resources” exist in that open, undeveloped, remote area, and what was the damage to natural resources? Certainly not the tortoise, which they used as an excuse to close the off the land in the first place. What they really want is the land.

The desert tortoise is so “endangered” in this area, that the government is planning to euthanize some of them. Furthermore, the tortoise was virtually extinct before people even settled the area. Ranchers actually improved its prospects by accessing springs and developing other water sources, according to Myron Ebell, Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Energy and Environment Center. But with the extreme environmentalists at the Interior Department no good deed goes unpunished, because they want the land, period.

The government’s agenda in this and many other land confiscation activities is actually motivated by Agenda 21’s “Rewilding” program, which advocates pushing humans out of rural areas entirely, and into densely packed urban zones. The idea was a brainchild of Dave Foreman, founder of EarthFirst! who popularized the use of tree-spiking to prevent logging. Read here how it’s working out in California. However, these environmental hypocrites have all shown their true color when these “precious lands” subsequently are sold, developed or otherwise used to benefit the politicians who fixed the deal.

The politicians who fixed this deal are Senator Harry Reid and his son, Rory. And they did so on behalf of the Communist Chinese who intend to build the largest solar energy complex in America. Reuters reports:

[Reid] and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert. Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada.

“His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.” (Emphasis added.)

So now we get the true picture. Likely Clark County political corruption going along with this. All for the tortoise, that will doubtless become completely extinct when this massive monstrosity blankets its ground. This issue needs to be fought at every level and Harry Reid & Co. need to be brought up on charges!

Bundy is getting some support. Sheriff Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Police Officers Association, is traveling to the ranch along with some fellow CSPOA members, and state representatives from Arizona and Nevada, as well as Nevada’s governor, Brian Sandoval, have issued criticisms.

Sandoval has taken a wait and see attitude. “Earlier this week, I advised the BLM not to limit or hinder the constitutional rights of Nevadans and be mindful of its conduct…” he said. Clearly the BLM has done neither. Will Sandoval let them get away with it? It is now clear what is happening. Will Sandoval allow this fraud to continue? Is he part of it? This is a telling moment for the Republican govenor. Will he do his job and honor his oath to “support and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic?” Right now it appears that we are lookng at enemies both foreign and domestic.

The legal issues on the land rights may be debatable, but the federal government’s increasingly despotic behavior toward defenseless citizens is completely without justification. Furthermore, its alleged reasoning is outrageous, given what we now know about the filthy handed, “Cleanface,” Harry Reid.

This is a defining issue and a defining moment in U.S. history, one that should be at the forefront of our nation’s attention today.

04/11/14

Standoff In Nevada – Ranchers, Patriots and Citizens vs. the Feds

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Please see these two posts concerning the standoff as well:

The standoff in Nevada is personal to me. It involves people who are my family and principles that I believe in with all my heart and soul. Nevada State Rep. Michele Fiore is on the ground there helping the Bundys and she is rallying State Reps from numerous states in the fight against the Feds and to protect Constitutional rights. Michele might as well by my sister — we have known each other for decades. She sat with me all night when my Dad passed away in 1999. A better friend, you could never ask for. Say a prayer that God watches over her and all the others on the ground in Nevada.

Cliven Bundy’s family has ranched on his property since the 1870s. He has about 900 head of cattle and as of yesterday, the Feds had seized about a third of them. Don’t believe everything you hear out there – hype is being spewed to disparage Bundy as some kind of freeloader which is just not true. He’s the last rancher there – over 50 others have been driven off by the government. He does pay fees to the county, what he contests is the racket of paying the government for grazing on open range land. 600,000 acres that the government simply deemed as theirs and then further decreed that Bundy had to pay or else. Well son… we have arrived at ‘or else.’

The Feds tasered, beat up and arrested one of his sons day before yesterday. Yesterday, they hit his sister, I believe, with a front loader. They tased another man three times, threw a 57 year-old woman who is a cancer survivor on the ground, hit a pregnant woman and used dogs on these people. They have arrested three – two of them for walking past a cattle area that was cordoned off. They were beaten up and accused of violence, which is not true. And this is just the beginning. Some of them did break out about 30 head of cattle yesterday. I don’t blame them, not in the least. Tempers and emotions are running high and they, at times, are confrontational… but they aren’t armed. The Feds however, are.

The BLM is bringing in armed Rangers from other states to fight this. They have heavy artillery there, machine guns and snipers. They are hired guns and many of them don’t even know why they are there. Well, they are beginning to figure it out:

Cox said she spoke with an out-of-state Ranger who was ashamed of his job.

“I actually went and talked to one, he was in the back, nobody was even talking to him. He didn’t say much,” she said. “He had a huge big gun on him, but he didn’t really even touch his gun.”

“I asked him, ‘What are you doing? Do you know what you’re doing? You’re stealing an old man’s cattle, his livelihood. He’s a poor man that doesn’t have anything,’” she said. “And I said, ‘You’re pushing baby cows’—I watched a baby cow not want to move and a helicopter swoop down and honk at him till he had to move.”

Cox said the Ranger said, “No, no, we don’t want that.”

“But I saw it,” she said.

“‘Well, well,’ and he goes, ‘I don’t even want to be here. Do you think my grandfather’s proud of me? You think I like this? You think this is fun for me?’”

“Then what are you doing here?” Cox asked him.

“He said, ‘It’s my job.’”

My friend, you need a new job… right now. You’re on the wrong side here. The Feds are removing the watering areas for the cattle. They will die of thirst and/or be driven to the river. It’s calving season – those calves will die. I hear that they are slaughtering the cows that they are taking from Bundy. The whole thing is beyond despicable. Government rustlers unite – in the old days you got hung for that. Now you get free healthcare.

Just how does everyone think this will end? Thousands of Oath Keepers and militia members are en route. They don’t want an armed confrontation, but they believe their large numbers will deter the government. I doubt it and I don’t see this ending well. If it fizzles out, that is almost as bad, as it is a win for the Feds. What the goons don’t get is these people are willing to go down for their land and families. On the other hand, maybe that is what the Feds want – it’s been a while since they’ve had a good slaughter. Is this the pivotal moment that lights fire to the confrontation the Progressives have wanted for so long? It could very well be and if it does, they’ll come down with all their might. If it is not this event, it’s not far off judging from how angry Americans are over this confrontation.

The politicians in Nevada are worried this will end badly as well:

Nevada state Sen. Peter Goicoechea (R.) expressed concern that the federal government was exacerbating the problem.

“This morning was the first I actually heard that there were military personnel there,” said Goicoechea, who is also a public land rancher. “If, in fact, we actually have military personnel down in that area because that equates to martial law.”

Goicoechea brought up the questionable handling of a previous case by armed BLM officers in the state two months ago.

“We have always challenged that BLM Rangers have no jurisdiction or police powers in the state of Nevada,” Goicoechea said. “They typically are an unsworn officer. And we had the case where a young man was shot a couple months ago at Red Rock by two BLM Rangers.”

That young man was shot seven times by two BLM Rangers, who claimed he was going for a rifle in their vehicle. Listen, in a state where you can strip your clothes off, neatly fold them in your sports car, walk out into the desert, tie your hands behind your own back and then shoot yourself in the back of the head and it is ruled a ‘suicide,’ let’s just say I am suspicious of the BLM’s claims. By the way, the previous sentence is true and is a story for another time. Me thinketh the BLM is full of crap:

The BLM officers shot and killed an unarmed young man in February near the Red Rock National Conservation Area, just outside of Las Vegas.

A graphic video documented the encounter. BLM officers fought with the suspect, ultimately shooting him seven times when he attempted to get into a Nevada Highway Patrol vehicle and remove an AR-15 rifle from a locked compartment, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

“He was definitely disoriented, he was unarmed, and they were questioning him, along the state highway,” Goicoechea said. “And if you press for this they’ll tell you it’s still under investigation.”

“They shot him seven times, killed him dead,” he said. “They said, well, they thought he was trying to get—there was a highway patrolman there, and they said it looked like he was trying to get into the highway patrolman vehicle, and we were afraid he’d get the shotgun out of there. So they shot him. They killed him.”

These ranchers are homesteaders. I wish before people in the national media started just flatly condemning Bundy, that they would actually look into homesteading and how these disputes were handled in the past:

Since the 1800s ranchers have taken up homesteads and used land for their cattle herds. Ranchers abided by the “Three-mile Water Law,” which entitled them to grazing rights for land three miles around water the rancher owned or maintained. Disputes were settled amongst the ranchers themselves.

“There have been people shot through the last century over grazing disputes,” Goicoechea said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Until 1934, disagreements over the land were not adjudicated. The “Taylor Grazing Act,” signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, set up districts for grazing on public land, and issued permits to ranchers for a more orderly process.

However, those permits for the majority of Clark County—including the permit for the Bundy Ranch—were transferred in 1998 to the Habitat Conservation Plan to protect the desert tortoise.

So, one day the government used a tortoise for an excuse to seize land and because it was just a bunch of ranchers in Nevada, no one got riled up over it. Well, we better get angry over this. The government has seized (notice I did not say ‘owns’) 81 to 83% of the land out west. Out west where most of the food production is. You control the food, you control the people.

The ridiculous ‘First Amendment Areas’ have been ignored and basically taken down. But that is a huge indicator of the mindset of the government over this. More alarming is the fascist rhetoric coming from Dems in the state. Harry Reid is cheering the BLM on. Well, why wouldn’t he? They want those water and mineral rights. There is prime real estate along I-15 that they would love to sell for condos and green energy plants. Nothing new under the Nevada sun here. But I want you to hear the downright chilling statements of Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins – Democrat (although you have to look long and hard to find out his party affiliation). Collins is one classy Progressive Marxist:

Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins has caused outrage by remarking that Utahns planning to travel to Nevada to support Cliven Bundy in his standoff against the feds “better have funeral plans”.

The comments were revealed by Darin Bushman, a Piute County, Utah, commissioner after he spoke with Collins about Utah ranchers and his colleagues on the County Commission complaining about tactics used by Bureau of Land Management agents during their seizure of Bundy’s cattle in southern Nevada.

“I was just told by commissioner Collins of Clark County NV that all of us folks from Utah are a bunch of “inbred bastards” and if we are coming to Clark Cointy NV to support Cliven Bundy we all “better have funeral plans”. We should “turn our asses around on mind our own f-ing business”. Now there’s some classy leadership for you,” wrote Bushman on his official Facebook page.

After the story was picked up by the Las Vegas Review Journal, Bushman responded to the controversy by posting on Facebook, “I guess I’ve made an enemy in Las Vegas.” The commissioner also lambasted Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie as being, “too spineless to exercise his Jurisdiction”. Earlier this week, Cliven Bundy called on Sheriff Gillespie to start arresting BLM feds on charges of trespassing and theft.

Collins’ remarks were made in the context of him fearing that protests against the BLM could turn violent, which is ironic given that the only person invoking direct violence is Collins himself.

“I’m trying to do everything I can to discourage anybody who tells me they’re coming here with loaded guns,” Collins said. “I’m going to tell them not to come,” adding, “The Bundys want peace, they don’t want any violence going on so all these gun-packing folks just need to go home.”

Special, huh? This is the true face of the Democratic criminal party. Soon, the threats will get real, but they might not turn out quite the way Collins and Reid would like. The standoff in Nevada is where ranchers, patriots and citizens are drawing a line in the desert sand against federal overreach and control. I stand with them.