Armed Feds Prepare For Showdown With Nevada Cattle Rancher

[Oldrotorhead]

I think this is a pretty reasonable view of Bundy and puts his racism in perspective.


http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson...inglepage=true

Cliven Bundy spouted off racist generalizations the other day as reported by a New York Times journalist, stereotyping blacks in negative fashion, with unhinged referencing to slavery — and after that in an ad hoc talk generalizing about Mexican immigrants in positive condescension.

Does that outburst prove Bundy’s resistance to a bullying Bureau of Land Management is racially driven? Or that his cattleman’s existence on the Western range is now tainted?

What are the general rules about assessing issues when the involved parties voice odious creeds?

The difference between a private life and a public career matters. If cowboy Cliven Bundy were organizing a formal resistance to the federal government by emphasizing racist doctrines, then he would be dangerous in the way Rev. Jeremiah Wright was scary in spouting racist diatribes to thousands in his congregation and on his CDs — including to the future president of the United States.

Bundy’s racist pop-theorizing is odious, but not integral to his argument over grazing rights with the federal government. A bit different was the racial hate-mongering of Rev. Wright that seemed to underpin his efforts to build and expand a church and its affiliated community-organizing movements — and drew prominent Chicagoans into his church.

If Bundy’s racism is his own, it is still regrettable and loses him personal sympathy on moral grounds. But his bigotry does not necessarily affect the issues at hand of a cattle rancher being singled out by a federal bureaucracy, in an example of selective, overreaching, and dangerous enforcement.

Last week, a cab driver in Los Angeles did a marvelous job in navigating me through traffic on the congested 405 freeway. That he shared with me (the tip was prepaid), in a well-articulated thesis, his crackpot ideas about evil conspiratorial whites creating the AIDS virus to infect blacks of the inner city was racist to the core, but his bias did not change the fact that he was one of the most skilled and savvy drivers I have encountered. I could see no connection between his Farrakhan-like racism and either his driving skill or treatment of his passenger.

There is some difference between word and deed. Does Bundy spout off repugnant nonsense, and then act on it in fact by denying African-Americans a chance to work for him? So far there is no evidence of that. Bad talk is bad; bad concrete behavior that derives from bad talk is dangerous to a society. Sometimes the two are inseparable; sometimes public actions and distasteful private sentiment can remain distinct. (See Joe Biden below).

I abhor Bundy’s views on race to the extent his ramblings were even coherent, but I also do not think he is in a position to do much about his crackpot ideas even if he wished, especially once his notoriety fades. He certainly is not analogous to L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whose anti-black racist rants are nefarious, given that he is in a position, as an owner in the NBA, to do a lot of harm to black players, coaches, and fans, and in the past has been condemned for such bias.

Bundy also clearly does not have the permanent audience of a Chris Rock (on the 4th of July, 2012: “Happy white peoples’ independence day”), Jamie Foxx (on his role in Django Unchained: “I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?”), or Jay-Z (sporting a medallion of the racist Five Percent Nation).

Few of Bundy’s present critics say much about the racist drivel of a Jamie Foxx or Chris Rock, and won’t when it surely resurfaces in the future. Their racist banter will reach far more people than Bundy’s, in that they were all in the last five years highly politicized public figures with substantial followings.

Also quite different from private cowboy Bundy’s low-brow rants are the racist stupidities of Vice President Joe Biden (on Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”), or Senate Majority Harry Reid (on Obama: “a ‘light-skinned’ African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”), or, for that matter, Justice Ginsburg (“Frankly I had thought that at the time [Roe v. Wade] was decided there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of”), or, yes, President Barack Obama (of his grandmother: “typical white person”; and advice to Latinos: “punish our enemies”) . These racialist assertions fall into the Earl Butz category of racist buffoonery of public officials, whose racialist indiscretions reflect a far greater potential to affect our collective lives by virtue of the vast power of the offices they hold.

Then there is also the larger, more convoluted matter of history and ideas, or to what degree do we discount ideas, careers, and issues because those involved embrace odious views. We can certainly agree that the minor deconstructionist Paul de Man was a creepy fraud, given that he was a pro-Nazi activist journalist during World War II, a bigamist, a liar, and a cheat. But as much as I dismiss his nihilist criticism, I mostly despise it because it is self-indulgent, incoherent, obtuse, and ultimately meaningless — not because the author was a thoroughly repugnant person.

[Oldrotorhead]

Page 2


I don’t read Ezra Pound’s Cantos, not just because he was a fascist propagandist and traitor, but also because his poems are often sloppy and pretentious in their half-educated referencing of classical themes and quotes. Long ago, I once tried reading the Nazi sympathizer and opportunist Martin Heidegger, but to the degree that one can decipher his prose, his point seems to be largely a dressed-up relativism without the edge or historical insight of either Nietzsche or Hegel. Enoch Powell edited a handy lexicon to Herodotus; I still use it, despite Powell’s racialist views. His revised Greek text of the older Stuart-Jones OCT of Thucydides’ Greek remains valuable.

There were no better early astute assessments of the dangers of Stalinist expansionism than the essay “Sources of Soviet Conduct” authored by “X”, in reality the wizened diplomat George Kennan. Nonetheless, Kennan revealed himself in his diaries to be an inveterate racist and unapologetic anti-Semite. Take away his Atlantic coast inflections and polished prose, give him a gut and cowboy hat, and Keenan’s bigotries would appear even more extreme than Bundy’s. Does that mean his famous “X” essay is now flawed? Should we try to connect Kennan’s racist dismissals of Latinos with some sort of universal prejudice against Russians that might explain why his “X” essay now must be seen as dangerous? Maybe — but not likely.

Given that Kennan’s diaries are again in the news, do highbrows on NPR and PBS remind us what a racist and anti-Semite Keenan really was — and thus warn us of the larger dangers of sloppily identifying with ideas of Kennan’s blue-blood aristocracy known for its class and racial prejudices?


Were the achievements of Earl Warren, the McClatchy papers, and FDR all to be discounted, given that the trio also cooked up the forced internment of Japanese — the majority of those rounded up being U.S. citizens? These are complex questions that transcend both those at Fox News who now offer a disingenuous sort of “I warned you about Bundy” and the liberal chorus of something like “there these Tea Party racists go again.”

I can appreciate both Cliven Bundy’s ability to carve out a cattle ranching career in the unforgiving Nevada desert, in the fashion of a lost generation of past Americans, and his argument that whatever disagreement he has with the federal government does not warrant an army of SWAT police descending on his cattle — without being responsible for his racist views of blacks and cotton picking.

I don’t think that those who sympathize with Bundy’s argument against an overweening federal government (with the necessary caveat, as I posted last week, that he has an unconvincing legal case and when it is finally adjudicated should pay any fines incurred) agree with, or care about, his world views to the extent they are even known.

What Bundy rants about solar power, gay marriage, or transgendered restrooms is of no interest to me, in regard to the issues of land use, the federal government’s ownership of 82% of Nevada, and selective enforcement of the law. The proper course is to deplore what Bundy said, but to have enough sense to appreciate that what he said does not affect the larger contradictions he raised.

Again, what is disappointing are Bundy’s former supporters who now feel betrayed and shocked by Bundy’s racist rantings, and thus also quickly seek to distance themselves from the issues he raised — without recognition that the matter was never the sayings of Cliven Bundy, but a disappearing cowboy’s dispute over grazing rights against a federal government intent on destroying his livelihood over the pretense of a tortoise in a way not commensurate with its other applications of law enforcement.

And his critics? Most make the usual necessary ideological adjustments. Al Sharpton — former FBI informant, provocateur of lethal rioting, homophobe, anti-Semite, character assassin, deadbeat tax delinquent — is not shunned, although his bigotry is central to his career, but rather embraced by Hillary Clinton and given his own MSNBC show. The NAACP is slated in May to recognize Sharpton with a “Person of the Year” award — and had planned to give Donald Sterling a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” When public servants in positions of vast power like the attorney general reference blacks as “my people” or a Supreme Court justice spouts off neo-eugenicist riffs, they must be contextualized and explained as off-the-cuff musings not comparable to the felonious biases of an obscure private cowboy on the Nevada range.

Spare us the bottled piety.

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Based upon my posts in this thread and elsewhere on this BB, members of PS.COM can judge for themselves my grasp of contemporary political issues and the impact of race upon them.

You’re absolutely correct – members of PS.com can make that judgment for themselves. A compare and contrast between our respective views should be easy and entertaining; we’ve both posted enough opinion that it shouldn’t even take that long. Personally, I refuse to compromise my principles and advance a Democrat Lite agenda so we can continue down the Republicrat path. I’m not interested in being “under the circus tent” and I’m not interested in wasting resources to recruit groups whose core values are diametrically opposed to mine for no discernable gain. The numbers WRT political affiliation and voting patterns don’t lie. The individuals in those groups who do share my values are already going to vote the least of the available evils. They see the same things I do and I’m happy to stand beside them – and it’s not just because we all know there aren’t any better options for either of us.

Originally Posted by Sigaba

In my experience, blacks and Latinos "compare notes" IRT the way Republicans talk about both. In my experience, non white voters will agree with many of the GOPs core values but when the discussion turns to how Republicans and other conservatives talk about and treat those same groups, the conversation stops cold. I think this highly controversial statement speaks for itself.

We have different experiences to draw on when forming our respective opinions. In my experience – there’s no consensus WRT core values in your hypothetical “non-white” voter block. And around here, they don’t discuss much politics between the two groups; too much heated competition on an un-level playing field.

When it comes to progressives, excepting the fact that they all hate conservatives, I can’t find enough commonality of purpose among any of the various sub-groups that make up the Democratic Party to keep their circus tent of disparate interests from collapsing. I have to admire the Democratic leadership’s ability to focus their supporters’ hatred of conservatives and America in general to the point that those supporters are oblivious of the glaring inconsistencies in the progressive platform. (E.g., everyone deserves an above average standard of living and we’re going to give it to you by destroying the system that makes it possible for individuals to realize their potential.)

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Sir, with respect, you are wrong.
"Across the street," BTDTs who are not "race baiters" have expressed concerns similar to mine. At last month's CPAC, there was a panel that addressed the same issues I raised in my post <<LINK>>.

I’m sorry, I forgot one other group when I made my “overly-broad generalization” – professional politicians who live or die by tenths of a percentage point in the media manipulated public opinion polls. And I think Oldrotorhead’s PJ Media find is the best of the recent opinion pieces available WRT Mr. Bundy’s “tempest in a teakettle”. A pity politicians generally lack the moral courage to stand their ground on the principle when it’s occasionally necessary to separate themselves from some inconsequential but distasteful aspect of the individual whose cause they originally supported.

Originally Posted by Sigaba

In response, I will pose a rhetorical question. Why do some hector blacks for "whining" about slavery but say nothing about whites who lament the "lost cause"?

Maybe because the ones lamenting the “lost cause” aren’t seeking reparations or discriminatory laws, rules, regulations, quotas, etc while blaming their current fortunes on something settled 150 years ago. And to the best of my knowledge, the “Jim Crow” laws are largely history too. BTW - When was the last time a law was passed giving preferential treatment to whites “lamenting a lost cause”?

Before you deride “lost causes”, you ought to use your history degree to look objectively at why so many non-slave owners took up arms in defense of the Confederacy. Yes, plantation owners held a significant portion of the political power and yes, they did see to it that slavery was codified in the various documents; however, they were a minor part of the population. The “yeoman” class provided the body of the Southern Armies, they did most of the fighting, bleeding, and dying, and they initially did it as volunteers – usually to significant personal hardship. Maybe - just maybe - there was more to the War of Northern Aggression than freeing slaves despite current PC biases. A little light reading to get started with: http://www.civilwarhome.com/gordoncauses.htm.

Personally, I’m still LMAO that the pundits have labeled the US Supreme Court racist for upholding the Michigan voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution in 2006 that forbids the state's public colleges to make race, gender, ethnicity or national origin a factor in college admissions. About damn time somebody restored a level playing field where individual merit is the deciding factor. Maybe that ought to be the law everywhere – no more discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity or national origin anywhere taxpayer money is used. (Sorry, forgot to include sexual orientation since that’s popular this week.) Novel concept, huh?

[orion5]

It seems there are 20 sides to every story these days......here's another perspective on Cliven Bundy, from one of his black friends.


LINK

Incendiary Image of the Day: Don’t Believe Everything You Read in the Papers Edition
April 28, 2014


By Courtney Daniels

The media distorts information to the point of social division. This is a photo of myself and the resilient, often charismatic, and maybe not so tactful Cliven Bundy. He’s a cowboy and a helluva family man, not an orator. One thing he definitely isn’t — a racist . . .

I found his comments to not only be NOT racist, but his own view of his experiences. Who the heck are we to determine another man’s perspective on the world around him?! Just because Picasso’s view of the world was abstract, does it negate the fact that his art was genuine?

Furthermore, if you take the time to do your own research, you’ll find that his statements about some black Americans actually hold weight. He posed a hypothetical question. He said, “I wonder if….” Hell, I’m black and I often wonder about the same about the decline of the black family.

Bottom line is that we are all slaves in this waning republic, no matter our skin color. Mr. Bundy could have used any racial demographic as an example: Native Americans on reservations, whites in trailer parks, etc. He noticed the crippling effects of receiving government “assistance” and the long term result of accepting handouts. It’s not progress at all.

I challenge Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, and others to read my comment and reconsider their position in this matter. Individual liberties are at stake here, yours and mine. THAT is the issue. Don’t let the liberal media and ignoramuses like Glenn Beck and that weasel Harry Reid make you lose sight of the real issue here: The federal government is a burgeoning behemoth and a bully on a once constitutional playground.

I sincerely hope you real patriots out there can see through the smoke.

Semper Fidelis

[PSM]

THE LONG HISTORY OF BLM'S AGGRESSIVE CATTLE SEIZURES

by KERRY PICKET 30 Apr 2014, 7:47 AM PDT

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...attle-Seizures

Excerpt:

While the press has showered attention on Cliven Bundy, a polarizing man who prompted a tense standoff between Bundy's well-armed militia supporters and federal police, the struggle between ranchers and the BLM is much broader.

In 1994, Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt rushed through a total overhaul of cattle and sheep grazing regulations on over 260 million acres of land that was managed by the BLM and Agriculture Department's U.S. Forest Service, The Washington Post reported.

The 1994 “Rangeland Reform” regulations included doubling the current fees charged to ranchers for public forage and further environmental rules to prevent “overgrazing.” Opponents noted that in the runup to the new regulations, the National Academy of Scientists – a preeminent scientific authority on which federal agencies rely for expert analysis – had issued a report concluding so little was known about the condition of U.S. range lands that the new standards were essentially a shot in the dark. But Babbit forged ahead anyway.

At the time, former-Sen. Pete Domenici ripped the plan, a version of which he had defeated in Congress when it was a legislative proposal the year before. "The last thing we should do is hurry decisions that have far-reaching effects on western states," he said.

Underlying the move to raise fees was BLM's view that the fees on public lands were too low – much lower than fees to graze on private land, for example.

But as Heather Smith Thomas, an Idaho rancher, noted in a 1994 article in Rangelands, a peer-reviewed academic journal, the private grazing fees were artificially high because the government owns so much land in the West.

“What many people do not understand is that the ‘low’ fee is just one small portion of the rancher's many costs in using public land. The total costs amount to much more than renting private pasture, yet the rancher is locked into this situation, totally dependent on the public range. He can't just walk away if the fee gets too high, and rent pasture elsewhere; there is not sufficient private pasture available,” Thomas wrote.

The new fees imposed upon ranchers in the 90’s were skewed, according to Thomas, because the fee was based on private land lease rates, but private lease rates were high due to the scarce availability of private land and the lack of regulations on private land compared to federally owned land.

Thomas noted the“BLM states that "land treatment solely oriented toward meeting livestock forage requirements will be discontinued". Additionally the reforms have less emphasis on grazing, “yet the BLM wants to charge the rancher more for something that is being made much more difficult to use.”
Before the Babbit rule, fees were based on a formula that reflected annual changes in the costs of production.

“All the legislative history involving FS and BLM fees show that grazing fees were intended to be based on the rancher's ability to pay, not on some arbitrary value of forage or budget needs of the administrative bureau,” Thomas said of the 1978 legislation.

Ranchers found themselves in court for years fighting the BLM immediately following 1994 regulations.

Idaho Republican Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage and her husband Wayne Hage, lost their grazing permit on their Nevada ranch property for federal lands in 1991, when the federal government refused to renew it. This incident started a 20-year battle with the BLM. The government also denied access to the Hage family’s water rights, which pre-dated the implementation of the 1934 Taylor Act’s grazing permit requirement, by not allowing access to streams and wells. Eventually, the agency built fences around any water source, so the cattle could not drink. The BLM seized Hage’s cattle and filed a civil trespass action against Hage.

A little over twenty years later, however, seven years after Hage and his wife died, Hage’s children, Wayne Jr. and Ramona Morrison Hage won a victory for the family in court.

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Jones ruled that “the government and the agents of the government in that locale, sometime in the ’70s and ’80s, entered into a conspiracy, a literal, intentional conspiracy, to deprive the Hages of not only their permit grazing rights, for whatever reason, but also to deprive them of their vested property rights under the takings clause, and I find that that’s a sufficient basis to hold that there is irreparable harm if I don’t … restrain the government from continuing in that conduct.”

Judge Jones found the government’s demand for trespass fines and damages from innocent ranchers to be “abhorrent to the Court and I express on the record my offense of my own conscience in that conduct. That’s not just simply following the law and pursuing your management right, it evidences an actual intent to destroy their water rights, to get them off the public lands.”

Jones went further and accused federal government personnel of racketeering under the federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations) statute, and accused them of extortion, mail fraud, and fraud, in an attempt “to kill the business of Mr. Hage.”

Morrison Hage, a member of the Nevada Agriculture Board, told Breitbart News that “In the west our governors almost conduct themselves as if they’re a colonial governor and as if they’re only governor over the private land, adding “They take their hands off the steering wheel even though all state power emerge from the state. They take their hands off the steering whenever there’s anything to do with federal land management.”

As to states bowing to the feds over land usage, when we bought our property here in SE AZ, ADOT demanded that we build an asphalt turnout, to their specifications (estimated at $6,000), off the highway before they would give permission for the county to give us an address, without which we could not begin building. When I pointed out that the road was on BLM land and we only had an easement for the right-of-way, the ADOT guy I had been wrestling with for 3 or 4 months finally admitted that they wanted us to do it because he didn't want to contact BLM about it. I had contacted our state representatives and they could not find any law that would require us to build the turnout.

Turns out, ADOT claimed that it was their "policy" to require it. They have since learned that policy is not law. We have no asphalt turnout.

Pat

[mojaveman]

The BLM left weeks ago, but the militia is sticking around so no one gets any funny ideas. That means Bunkerville residents now have to deal with a bunch of armed people around it's roads, schools and churches. Some are understandably scared. Also, the militia have set up checkpoints on the roads, where residents have to prove they live there before being allowed to drive on. That's just inconvenient. Bunkerville wants them out.

I bet Bundy's neighbors aren't very happy with him right now.

As I stated earlier, I'm divided on this issue.

http://news.yahoo.com/bundy-ranch-mi...000700594.html

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by mojaveman

The BLM left weeks ago, but the militia is sticking around so no one gets any funny ideas. That means Bunkerville residents now have to deal with a bunch of armed people around it's roads, schools and churches. Some are understandably scared. Also, the militia have set up checkpoints on the roads, where residents have to prove they live there before being allowed to drive on. That's just inconvenient.

Bunkerville wants them out.

I bet Bundy's neighbors aren't very happy with him right now. As I stated earlier, I'm divided on this issue.

http://news.yahoo.com/bundy-ranch-mi...000700594.html

Funny, I spent most of my adult life surrounded by men carrying guns and I felt very safe....... Sheeple will be sheeple.

[ddoering]

They have to discredit them before they can take them down.

[atticus finch]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Exactly

Are there any photos or videos of these supposed road blocks? I would like to see an interview with some people that are complaining. How about a photo or video of these supposed thugs doing something illegal in town. Some evidence other than a politician making claims on the internet and at his convention. With all the cell phones, video cameras and other secret squirrel gear out there surely they could find some footage of these roadblocks and high handed use of firearms.

So far no evidence towards this claim of any real basis, and I doubt there will be any of such.
Seems like the same old story, run the 'big lie' until it sticks by whatever means. That whole racism thing seems to have failed, evidently this is the next attempt.

[awisewon]

Harry Reid an his sons law firm are neck deep in the Bundy Ranch mess along with a Company from China they want to Build Solar an wind power of course there is different stories being told. Also this Ryan Payne seems to be not who he says and appears to be a fraud not a Army Ranger he claimed to be and so far by the looks of it has Cliven Bundy fooled which that is what liars do fool people and its this Patne dude and his side Kick Buda or whatever they call him that seem to be provoking more than defusing anything so its anyones guess how this is going to turn out,

[pcfixer]

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2014/...gement-agents/

The I-Team has confirmed that FBI agents have launched a formal investigation into alleged death threats, intimidation and possible weapons violations that culminated with a dangerous showdown on April 12, and the first people to be interviewed by FBI agents are Metro Police, starting with Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillispie.

Are BLM agents complicit in pointing weapons?

[Richard]

And so it goes...

Richard

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by awisewon

Harry Reid an his sons law firm are neck deep in the Bundy Ranch mess along with a Company from China they want to Build Solar an wind power of course there is different stories being told. Also this Ryan Payne seems to be not who he says and appears to be a fraud not a Army Ranger he claimed to be and so far by the looks of it has Cliven Bundy fooled which that is what liars do fool people and its this Patne dude and his side Kick Buda or whatever they call him that seem to be provoking more than defusing anything so its anyones guess how this is going to turn out,

Do us a favor and don't post anything concerning snopes on this websites. They themselves are nothing but a couple of old farts that sell their opinion as fact.

[pcfixer]

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/content...g-Bundy-Ranch&

Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oathkeepers, was right about federal gov't attacking Bundy Ranch.

<snip>

They go on to discuss how every department is becoming militarized, for example, the ag department has its own SWAT team, as well as highlighting certain phrases in the memo regarding the “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” directive no. 3025.18
Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary
to protect the federal property or functions.

Gertz then makes this comment:

"I was told by a U.S. official that there was consideration in using military force under this directive in the recent standoff in Nevada with rancher Cliven Bundy, who was in dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing, but apparently cooler heads prevailed and they decided not to call out the military in that case."


Doocy: You mean they were considering taking him out with a drone?

Gertz: No, I think they were going to use military forces to somehow deal with the protests that had risen up over that.

Doocy: Well I’m glad someone talked them out of that, that would have been crazy.

[PSM]

Charges against rancher Cliven Bundy, three others are dismissed

A federal judge dismissed all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and another man on Monday after accusing prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited "flagrant prosecutorial misconduct" in her decision to dismiss all charges against the Nevada rancher and three others.

"The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," Navarro said.

“Either the government lied or [it’s actions were] so grossly negligent as to be tantamount to lying."- Judge Andrew Napolitano

Bundy's supporters cheered as he walked out of court a free man, hugging his wife. He said he'd been jailed for 700 days as a "political prisoner" for refusing to acknowledge federal authority over the land around his cattle ranch.

On Dec. 20, Navarro declared a mistrial in the high-profile Bundy case. It was only the latest, stunning development in the saga of the Nevada rancher, who led a tense, armed standoff with federal officials trying to take over his land. The clash served as a public repudiation of the federal government.

The Brady rule, named after the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case known as Brady vs. Maryland, holds that failure to disclose such evidence violates a defendant’s right to due process.

“In this case the failures to comply with Brady were exquisite, extraordinary,” said Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. “The judge exercised tremendous patience.”

The 71-year-old Bundy’s battle with the federal government eventually led to what became known as the Bundy standoff of 2014. But it began long before that.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. government limited grazing rights on federal lands in order to protect the desert tortoise habitat. In 1993, Bundy, in protest, refused to renew his permit for cattle grazing, and continued grazing his livestock on these public lands. He didn’t recognize the authority of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the sovereign state of Nevada.

The federal courts sided with the BLM, and Bundy didn’t seem to have a legal leg to stand on. Nevertheless, the rancher and the government continued this dispute for 20 years, and Bundy ended up owing over $1 million in fees and fines.

Things came to a head in 2014, when officials planned to capture and impound cattle trespassing on government land. Protesters, many armed, tried to block the authorities, which led to a standoff. For a time, they even shut down a portion of I-15, the main interstate highway running through Southern Nevada.

Tensions escalated until officials, fearing for the general safety, announced they would return Bundy’s cattle and suspend the roundup.

Afterward, Bundy continued to graze his cattle and not pay fees. He and his fellow protesters were heroes to some, but criminals to the federal government. Bundy, along with others seen as leaders of the standoff, including sons Ammon and Ryan and militia member Ryan Payne, were charged with numerous felonies, including conspiracy, assault on a federal officer and using a firearm in a violent crime. They faced many years in prison.

The Bundy case finally went to trial last October. But just two months later, it ended with Navarro angry, the feds humiliated and Bundy – at least to his supporters – vindicated.

Navarro had suspended the trial earlier and warned of a mistrial when prosecutors released information after a discovery deadline. Overall, the government was late in handing over more than 3,300 pages of documents. Further, some defense requests for information that ultimately came to light had been ridiculed by prosecutors as “fantastical” and a “fishing expedition.”

“Either the government lied or [its actions were] so grossly negligent as to be tantamount to lying,” Napolitano said. “This happened over and over again.”

Navarro said Monday it was clear the FBI was involved in the prosecution and it was not a coincidence that most of the evidence that was held back – which would have worked in Bundy’s favor – came from the FBI, AZCentral reported.

The newspaper said after the courtroom doors opened following Navarro’s ruling, a huge cheer went up from a crowd of spectators that had gathered outside.

Fox News’ Greg Norman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/08...dismissed.html

Hasn't been a good year for the FBI.