Here's the history of the Bundy mess

[cali]

<snip>
The land to which Cliven Bundy claims ancestral rights was originally inhabited by the Moapa Paiute People.[20] In 1848, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States purchased from Mexico land that is now the southwestern region of the United States. Since then, the government has continuously owned land in what is now Nevada, including the Bunkerville Allotment.[3][21] The Nevada Territory, which was partitioned in 1861 from the Utah Territory, became a state in 1864. The original settlers in the 1840s and 1850s were Mormons from Utah and southern small-time farmers and ranchers from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. After the end of the American Civil War, much of the land was settled by rural farmers, squatters and small-time cattle ranchers from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas, escaping from the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the associated violence and displacement.[citation needed] Since 1934 federal rangelands in Nevada have been managed principally by either the Bureau of Land Management or its predecessor, the United States Grazing Service, or the United States Forest Service. As of 2010, 47.8 million acres[22] (more than two-thirds of Nevada's 70.3 million acres) were managed by the BLM. Throughout the nation, the BLM manages nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases,[23] of which about 700 are in Nevada.[24] The season of use and the details of forage are stipulated in permits and leases; thus federal control can be exerted on the land used for grazing.[23]

Permits Edit
Under Bureau of Land Management permits first issued in 1954, Bundy grazed his cattle legally and paid his grazing fees on the Bunkerville Allotment until 1993. In that year, as a protest, Bundy did not pay to renew his permit, and it was canceled in 1994.[25] Though the agency made several attempts to have Bundy renew the permit, the rancher declared that he no longer recognized the BLM's authority to regulate his grazing and he asserted that he had "vested rights" to graze cattle on the land.[3] Federal courts have consistently ruled against Bundy, finding that he is a trespasser with no right to graze on federal land and authorizing the BLM to remove his cattle and levy damages for unauthorized use.[3][4]

Bundy has since accumulated more than $1 million of unpaid grazing fees and court-ordered fines.[12][26] The Portland Oregonian newspaper reported in May 2014 that the amount that Bundy owed stood in "stark contrast" to the situation in Oregon, where just 45 of the state's roughly 1,100 grazing permit holders collectively owed $18,759 in past-due payments to the BLM.[27] Excluding Bundy's unpaid fees, the total of all late grazing fees owed nationwide to the BLM was only $237,000, the newspaper said.[28]

Bundy's worldview Edit
Bundy has said he does not recognize and will not submit to federal police power over land that he believes belongs to the "sovereign state of Nevada."[29] He said: "I abide by all Nevada state laws. But I don't recognize the United States government as even existing."[29][30] Bundy also denied the jurisdiction of the federal court system over Nevada land, and he filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the Bureau of Land Management case against him by claiming the federal courts have no jurisdiction because he is a "citizen of Nevada, not the territory of Nevada".[30] Bundy also believes that federally owned land in Nevada actually belongs to the state.[31][32] According to The Guardian, Bundy told his supporters that "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," and in interviews he used the language of the sovereign citizen movement, thereby gaining the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia and the Praetorian Guard militias.[33] Followers of the sovereign citizen movement generally believe that the U.S. government is illegitimate.[34] The movement is considered by the FBI as the nation’s top domestic terrorism threat.[35][36]

J. J. MacNab, who writes for Forbes about anti-government extremism, has described Bundy’s views as inspired by the sovereign citizen movement, whose adherents believe that the county sheriff is the most powerful law-enforcement officer in the country, with authority superior to that of any federal agent, local law-enforcement agency or any other elected official.[37] On April 12, 2014, Bundy "ordered" Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie to confront the federal agents, disarm them and deliver their arms to Bundy within an hour of his demand. He later expressed disappointment that Gillespie did not comply, and he said that the demand had applied to all sheriffs in the country.[37][38]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Bundy's views as closely aligned with those of the Posse Comitatus organization, and it has also asserted that such self-described "patriot" groups were focused on secession, nullification, state sovereignty and the principles of the Tenther movement.[39][40]

<snip>

Much more at link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff

[drm604]

1. In other words, he's a loon.

[cali]

2. Lol. That about sums it up, and he's not the only one.

[rjsquirrel]

6. Just like

many of our local DU loony conspiracy theorists.

There's about a degree of separation between this shit and people who believe in secret oligarchic cabals.

Good old paranoid style.

[busterbrown]

3. And a Black Man Becoming President of

these United States.. I betcha that really pissed him off..

[MiniMe]

8. This started in 1994, way before Obama was on the scene

Bundy is just a fruit loop

[busterbrown]

10. Their group is filled with racists.

Yes I know it started in the 90s..but you can bet everyone of The White Mountain Militia, Oath keepers etc. are all straight out racists..

[MiniMe]

11. No doubt

But was replying to your response about the black President.

[davidpdx]

4. Very interesting

Thank you for the history lesson.

[Coolest Ranger]

5. where is the media on this

why aren't they giving wall to wall coverage? Oh I know why but I want to see what everyone says

[Igel]

7. Because most people don't care.

Most don't distinguish between BLM movement and BLM lands.

Most of the US population don't much care about BLM lands. At one point back in the '80s there was some change in BLM rules that affected how a lot of people treated them. It's one thing to have a few state parks. It's another when almost any place you go involves dealing with BLM lands--going through them, having them abut your back yard or be just a couple of miles away.

The new rules were promulgated by people that lived in large cities in states with no BLM lands who did it for "the people," mostly in keeping with the views of the people living in the large cities that rim the continent, not the people who actually used and enjoyed the land. In fact, during that discussion the general attitude among the urban deciders was that the uneducated backwards bumpkins in fly-over country and in the boonies really shouldn't have much say. They should just eat their peas as prescribed by the superior, wiser experts who probably hadn't even stepped foot in the state, much less visited the lands being regulated.

Regardless of what a lot of DUers need, there's no good racial angle here--and that's one of the things raising the incident's profile here. The various picayune militias scattered in a lot of these areas aren't new news but old news. Nobody's been shot or killed. In fact, if the building occupied by the "militia" had never existed nobody would care about it in the least. The land is in the middle of nowhere and this time of year not the most hospitable--those who use it can probably continue to use it.

Another reason for the incident being noticed here is that it's anti-government. There's money involved that could go to the government, and government regulatory and legal power that's at play. (I figure that if nothing's done to arrest or punish them nobody's going to defend "prosecutorial discretion" ... Pointing to another cause.)

The only remaining angle is that these are white, fairly uneducated men who are conservatives if not out-and-out racist. Anything done to crush such is a mitzvah, presumably. We fear this kind of person. Not sure why, but we fear them. Personally, I fear chikungunya more, and that only crosses my mind a few times a year.

[csziggy]

9. So for almost forty years he paid the fees to the BLM

But in 1993 once a Democrat got into the White House suddenly he decided that the federal government had no jurisdiction?

Paying the fees for decades would indicate that he had no objection to the Federal government's claims to the land or to leasing the land. Anything he and his right wing cronies have invented since would seem to have been rendered moot by his previous acceptance of that jurisdiction.