Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Long History of BLM's Aggressive Cattle Seizures

 
30 Apr 2014





 Every month, Raymond Yowell, the 84-year-old former chief of the Shoshone Indian Tribe in northeastern Nevada, has almost $200 garnished from his $1,150 Social Security check, and it all dates back to a 5:00am phone call on a Friday morning in 2002.

That morning, a government official from the Bureau of Land Management told him to come down to a seizure site where the 132 cattle he owned were about to be impounded.

When he arrived, men brandishing handguns told him he couldn't get any closer than 250 yards from his cattle. He watched from a distance as the government loaded the livestock onto stock trailers.

Within a week, the cattle had been sold at a private auction – for what Yowell estimated to be a quarter of their market price. The proceeds belonged to BLM, officials told him, paying a portion of the grazing fees he suddenly owed. It wasn't enough to cover the full debt, and BLM sent Yowell a bill for $180,000.
Yowell has been fighting the BLM in court ever since, but while the case moves its way through the system, his Social Security check takes a hit every month.

The story, ranchers in Nevada say, is far from unique. Beginning in the late 1980s, BLM adopted aggressive tactics in the West, leading to large-scale cattle seizures and a disruption of life for ranchers that had utilized public lands for decades prior.

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.”

Harvey Frank Robbins became a Wyoming dude ranch owner in 1994, after buying a piece of land in the state, but Robbins troubles began soon after his purchase. He told Live Stock Weekly, "The government — the Forest Service, the BLM and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department — were trying to buy the ranch," he explains. "They had these plans of grandeur of having this sanctuary of elk and trout fishing and all the things they could do. Then this guy from Alabama comes in at the last minute, not knowing any of this, and buys this ranch."

Robbins accused BLM employees of trying to force him to renew an easement to the point of almost putting him out of business. When Robbins refused to do so, according to his lawyer, Karen Budd Falen, BLM employees broke into his house and demanded to be allowed on to his property without a court order, among other things. While Robbins won victories in lower courts, a RICO case against the BLM employees eventually went before the Supreme Court in 2006, where the majority ruled the BLM agents were not liable for the alleged actions against Robbins.

Justice David Souter wrote opinion for the majority, stating, “Souter wrote that "we think [that] any damages remedy for actions by Government employees who push too hard for the Government's benefit may come better, if at all, through legislation."

Legislative changes could very well happen in the near future. New legislation to reform how much land the government does own could be headed to Capitol Hill. The meeting of western lawmakers in Utah last week signaled such a plan. Additionally, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced the Lone State’s plan to defend its own land from BLM seizures. 

Saturday, April 26, 2014

This Black Does Not Think Bundy is Racist

April 26, 2014
By Lloyd Marcus 

 Pick a card, any card.  Racist.  Sexist.  Homophobic.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before Democrats/liberals played one or more of their Big Three Cards to silence, intimidate, and crush opposition to their latest power-grab/tyrannical attack on our freedom.

With a majority of Americans taking rancher Cliven Bundy's side against Obama's BLM thugs, Democrat Harry Reid concluded that it was time to play the old tried-and-true race card.  As Gomer Pyle use to say, “surprise, surprise.”  We knew it was coming.

This is how the left rolls.  When America rallied around Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson after being targeted for destruction by the left, the left played a twofer on Robertson, accusing him of being homophobic and a racist.

Thank God it did not work.  Coming to Robertson's defense, conservatives played their ultimate trump card, which overruled all the left's lies, distortions, and evil intent.  Our ultimate weapon is the Truth & Righteousness Card.  I believe that boldly and confidently standing up for truth and righteousness always defeats evil.  And make no mistake about it: the Democrat, liberal, progressive, and socialist agenda is evil.

The left's vision for America is counter to the Will of God and the human spirit.  Their anti-God agenda places man on the throne as the ultimate power, able to fix everything – the environment, income inequality, equal outcomes, and everything under the sun via legislation.  The Bible says, “The fool says in his heart that there is no God.”

...Not to wander too far off-topic.  Back to the left's nonsensical allegation that Bundy is a racist.

Any decent, fair-minded human being would understand that Bundy was condemning the slavery of government dependency in his comments regarding negros.  The elderly gentleman is a rancher who is not media-savvy, nor is he schooled in the nuances of political correctness.

The left are not decent human beings.  Their bully minions went on high alert, viciously in pursuit of a “gotcha” comment to squelch Bundy's proven leadership and ability to inspire millions to push back against the Obama regime.

Prominent conservatives running for the tall grass to get away from or running to microphones to denounce Bundy is testimony to their fear of the left's high-tech lynching machine.  It truly sickens me.

I hate allowing jive-turkey leftist bullies to push us around.  Rather than conservatives fighting back, far too many cower in fear and allow the left to proclaim what is considered racist.  It reminds me of the schoolyard when I was a kid.  The only way to defeat bullies, or at least gain their respect, was to punch them in the face.

Before a leftist hack accuses me of advocating violence, I am talking about “politically” delivering a hard left hook to the left's jaw by standing up for Bundy.

Mr. Bundy spoke the truth about cradle-to-grave government dependency wreaking havoc in the black community.  We all know this.  But any white person who dares to acknowledge the huge elephant in the black community's living room is vilified and branded a racist – Bill O'Reilly, Congressman Paul Ryan, and now Cliven Bundy.  Meanwhile, black families continue to suffer and vote monolithically for Democrats who vow to fix their problems but never do.

Black relatives of mine (several died young) lived wasted lives because they were addicted to government dependency.  They were Democratic Party slaves, enslaved with chains far more powerful than steel.  They suffered mental and emotional slavery.  My relatives were robbed of the self-esteem, pride, and joy of individual achievement and earning one's way.

Democrats and liberal media, I trump your race card against Bundy with my Truth & Righteousness card. 

 You lose!  Go peddle your despicable, divisive, and evil crap elsewhere.

I am a black conservative whose admiration and respect for Cliven Bundy remains unwavering.  Mr. Bundy, 

I along with millions of good, decent Americans have your back.  Hang in there, my patriot brother.  God bless.

Eye-opening black Marine letter makes powerful case for why Bundy is not a racist

April 26, 2014
by

Charlie Delta with Bundy

 Now that the dust has cleared over Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s “Blacks would be better off as slaves” remark, how does the conservative black community feel?

Kevin Jackson, editor of The Black Sphere, published this eye-opening letter from a black Marine using the name Charlie Delta, which when distilled to its essentials, says Bundy is no racist. It reads:
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 who can see through the smoke.
Semper Fidelis
Bundy isn’t exactly a man of letters, nor of tact. But he’s become a symbol of liberty against a tyrannical government.

Bizpac

Wayne LaPierre at NRA Forum: Expect 'Bare-Knuckled Street Fight' for American Freedom


26 Apr 2014

Watch the entire video of Wayne LaPierre below.


 INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana—Wayne LaPierre, the long-serving CEO of the National Rifle Association of America, rallied the troops on Friday with a broad-based liberty theme that made gun rights the centerpiece of what makes America the greatest nation on earth, telling NRA members to gird their loins for a “bare-knuckled street fight.” The NRA is known for focusing on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms—and with it, every aspect of America's firearms heritage. The NRA’s strength in political battles comes in large part from its ability to hold together a broad coalition of hunters, competitors, political activists, and others from both political parties and independents.



Yet at Friday’s Leadership Forum for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) in Indianapolis, LaPierre tied the Second Amendment to other American rights and the values that set America apart on the world stage. At one of the first events of the NRA’s 143rd Annual Meeting—which should draw over 70,000 NRA members to the Hoosier state—he touched upon First Amendment rights and constitutional limits on government, speaking of threats to “our right to speak, our right to gather, our right to privacy." He spoke, too, of "the freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families as we see fit.”

Citing a litany of conservative grievances over the past couple years, LaPierre denounced a wide range of policies of the Obama administration.
 “They try to regulate our religion. They collect our cell phone and email data. They give us Solyndra, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, massive unemployment, a debt that will choke our grandchildren, and one executive order on top of another,” he said.

“The IRS is now a weapon,” LaPierre added, pivoting to a number of recent government abuses. “It’s why a majority of Americans, in poll after poll, say we don’t trust the White House, we don’t trust Congress, we don’t trust either national party. And we sure as heck don’t trust the national news media!”

But back in his wheelhouse of gun rights, LaPierre showcased his characteristic style of unyielding support for the Second Amendment. Speaking of “the God-given right of good people to protect themselves,” LaPierre promised, “the NRA stands unflinching and unapologetic and in defense of our freedom. NRA’s 5 million members and America’s 100 million gun owners will not back down—not now, not ever!”

He warned that the upcoming elections would be a no-holds-barred melee, a “bare-knuckled street fight” in which NRA members needed to fully engage. As one of the most successful political field generals in America, LaPierre is known for a hard-hitting style more suited to hand-to-hand combat leading up to Election Day.

LaPierre acknowledged that NRA members face a pitched battle against well-funded opponents who enjoyed the full backing of President Barack Obama and his administration. He also said that all this is part of “laying the groundwork to put a Clinton back in the White House.”
In the face of the Left’s resources, LaPierre vowed to the crowd at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, “But mark my words: The NRA will not go quietly into the night. We will fight.”

Ken Klukowski is senior legal analyst for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.

Big Government

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Unmasking the Imperial Presidency

 
22 Apr 2014


 "Imperial Presidency" perfectly describes what the Obama administration has become as it increasingly violates the limits on its power defined by the U.S. Constitution. Criticisms of how President Obama is overstepping his authority are now being heard from all sides of the political spectrum. A remarkable 33-page report posted on the Internet by the Majority Leader of the House, Eric Cantor, proves how imperial the Obama administration has become. This easy-to-read report, which can be downloaded by anyone, details dozens of examples of how the current occupant of the White House is exercising powers the Constitution doesn't give him.

This report accurately explains that "there is no excuse for this continuous disregard of legislative authority and the Constitutionally-required separation of powers." Yet President Obama and some Democrats even brag about their Imperial Presidency: "the President has proudly acknowledged that he has acted without Congress, contending that he has no other alternative."

Examples of Obama overstepping congressional authority include his creation of new laws outside of the legislative process. In direct violation of the fact that the Constitution vests "all" federal legislative powers in Congress, Obama has attempted to impose onerous, new global warming regulations on businesses costing billions of dollars and many lost jobs, despite the widespread discrediting of liberal hysteria claiming a global warming crisis.

Rep. Cantor's online report also explains how President Obama has been "ignoring the plain letter of the law and failing to faithfully execute the laws." In direct violation of the successful, bipartisan 1996 Welfare Reform Act, Obama unconstitutionally waived the modest work requirements for people who receive welfare handouts.

The work requirement in the federal law is an essential protection against abuse of the welfare system, but Obama simply ignored the law and removed the work requirement on his own say-so. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the lead perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing, was reportedly supported by state welfare benefits even though he was trained to be a terrorist intent on murdering Americans.

Eric Cantor's report describes how Barack Obama has repeatedly violated immigration law. Obama acted "systematically, on an ongoing basis, [to] block illegal aliens from being placed into removal proceedings, stop already-initiated removal proceedings, and end deportations for potentially large numbers of criminal aliens."

For years Obama refused to stand up for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the important bipartisan federal protection for traditional marriage that was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. Then he instructed Attorney General Holder not to defend DOMA in court even though the Constitution makes it the duty of the President to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The Obama administration has adopted a new kind of imperial presidency known as Government by Waiver. Obama issued numerous waivers of statutory provisions in Obamacare in an attempt to get the Democrats past the next election.

Obama has already issued waivers to at least 35 states from the impossible-to-meet targets of the now-expired No Child Left Behind law on condition that the states adopt the hated Common Core standards.

Without any constitutional authority, the Democrat-controlled Congress created "super agencies" in 2010 whose immense powers are exempt from Congressional or judicial oversight. The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a "death panel" with the power to decide which health care services will be reimbursed by Medicare, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has power to "withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Reserve to support its operations."

As solutions to the problem of the Imperial Presidency, Cantor's online report offers two new laws: the Faithful Execution of the Law Act (H.R.3973) and the ENFORCE the Law Act (H.R.4138). The first would require federal officials who refuse to enforce a federal law to inform Congress and provide a reason; the second would enable the House or Senate to sue the Obama administration to compel it to faithfully implement the law, with expedited review by the courts.

These measures are a good first step, but the House needs to more effectively use its constitutional control of the purse-strings and its exclusive power to propose revenue-raising laws. The House can hold hearings so Americans will know how the Imperial Presidency is using taxpayers' money to violate the Constitution and advance a leftwing agenda.

The House can also pass more bills to reduce funding for specific federal operations. Such actions by the House can lay the groundwork for the election of a Republican Senate in the fall so a new Congress will be positioned to halt more dangerous erosion of the Constitution by the Imperial Presidency.

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom. She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@eagleforum.org. To find out more about Phyllis Schlafly and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Website at www.creators.com.

Big Government

Monday, April 14, 2014

Shiree Bundy Cox on the Bundy Family Allotment That Was “Bought”:

04/14/2014                                                                                                                                                

“I have had people ask me to explain my dad’s stance on this BLM fight. Here it is in as simple of terms as I can explain it. There is so much to it, but here it s in a nut shell.

My great grandpa bought the rights to the Bunkerville allotment back in 1887 around there. Then he sold them to my grandpa who then turned them over to my dad in 1972. These men bought and paid for their rights to the range and also built waters, fences and roads to assure the survival of their cattle, all with their own money, not with tax dollars.

The rights to the land use are called preemptive rights. [which Cliven Bundy has cited.]

Some where down the line, to keep the cows from over grazing, came the Bureau of Land Management. They were supposed to assist the ranchers in the management of their ranges while the ranchers paid a yearly allotment which was to be use to pay the BLM wages and to help with repairs and improvements of the ranches. My dad did pay his grazing fees for years to the BLM until they were no longer using his fees to help him and to improve.

Instead they began using these monies against the ranchers. They bought all the rest of the ranchers in the area out with they’re own grazing fees. When they offered to buy my dad out for a penance he said no thanks and then fired them because they weren’t doing their job. He quit paying the BLM and tried giving his grazing fees to the county, which they turned down.

So my dad just went on running his ranch and making his own improvements with his own equipment and his own money, not taxes.

In essence the BLM was managing my dad out of business. Well when buying him out didn’t work, they used the endangered species card. You’ve already heard about the desert tortoise.

Well that didn’t work either, so then began the threats and the court orders, which my dad has proven to be unlawful for all these years. Now they’re desperate. It’s come down to buying the brand inspector off and threatening the County Sheriff.

Everything their doing at this point is illegal and totally against the Constitution of the United States of America.

Then there’s the issue of the cattle that are at this moment being stolen. See even if dad hasn’t paid them, those cattle belong to him, regardless of where they are they are my father’s property. His herd has been part of that range for over a hundred years, long before the BLM even existed.

Now the Feds think they can just come in and remove them and sell them without a legal brand inspection or without my dad’s signature on it. They think they can take them over two borders, which is illegal, ask any trucker.

Then they plan to take them to the Richfield Auction and sell them. All this with our tax money. They have paid off the contract cowboys and the auction owner as well as the Nevada brand inspector with our tax dollars. See how slick they are? Well, this is it in a nut shell. Thanks”

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Why The Feds Chickened Out On A Nevada Ranch

Kevin McCullough | Apr 13, 2014


Let me obliterate a bit of confusion here: the Obama administration attempted to go to war with a rancher in Nevada. Let me amplify a little bit of truth: They tucked tail and have returned home. And let me add a bit of clarity: they had no choice!
As the nation began to become familiar with the plight of the family of Cliven Bundy, many of us harkened back to another standoff in which the Federal government attempted to bully it's outcome: Waco, Texas and the Branch Davidian massacre.
It is telling that in the Nevada case the feds pulled out so quickly, given all they had indicated they were willing to do to resolve the matter to their satisfaction. They had set up a perimeter around the Bundy's family land, ranch, and home. They had brought in extra artillery, dogs, and snipers. They were beginning the process of stealing more than 300 head of cattle that did not belong to them.
They did so--or so we were told--for the reason of protecting the desert tortoise. But then it was revealed that the Bureau of Land Management had shot far more desert tortoises than the Bundy cattle had even possibly destroyed. We were told they did it because the Bundys had broken federal laws by not paying what amounted to retroactive grazing fees to the federal government. But the Governor of the state of Nevada told us that Bundy had paid every ounce of state tax, met the state requirements, and their family had been improving the property more than 100 years previous.
Finally we were allowed to know the connection between a communist Chinese wind/solar power plant and its connection to that senator named Harry Reid. Evidently a plan had been hatched to use the Bundy property for a solar farm and instead of paying the Bundys, someone, somewhere in the administration believed it was easier to just take what they wanted.
That approach is at least consistent with the readily documented abuse of eminent domain where the government for any number of reasons--few of them valid--have taken to taking what doesn't belong to them. Americans then watch as it gets handed over to some multi-national corporation for the "cause" of the "greater good."
There were a few specific reasons why the feds chickened out in the Nevada desert though.
1. Technology - As the Bundy family members were abused, cameras captured it. Not television network cameras, but dozens of cell phone video devices that gave witness to a Bundy aunt being shoved to the ground, and a Bundy son being tazed. All of this while threatening protestors with dogs, brandished weapons and vehicles was captured, uploaded and made viral to the watching world.
2. States' Rights - As the drama unfolded it became clear that the Governor of Nevada, and the Sheriff of Clark County knew that Cliven Bundy's family had not only not broken any state law regarding the land, but that they had gone to the enth degree to insure compliance with Nevada laws on the property. The Governor and the Sheriff, to their credit, did not favor the feds as a more powerful party in the conflict. Though there must have been pressure from Senator Reid's office, the administration via the Bureau of Land Management, and local officials who were bought and sold like the Clark County Commissioner who told those coming to support the Bundys to have "funeral plans in place."
3. Grassroots Response - As other incidents have transpired in the past, the amount of time it took honest information to reach the grassroots and thus the response to the action came to slow. In the massacre in Waco, most of the nation had been sold a single narrative from the limited media outlets covering the events. Similarly the events surrounding the abduction of Elian Gonzales from his family in Florida and deportation to Cuba took place in such a response vacuum that by the time Americans knew the real story, the damage was done. With the Bundy ranch, internet outlets by the dozen had competing information with the limited "official news" being released by the networks, and in most cases the alternative sources had it correct and usually a full day or so ahead of the news cycle. By the time afternoon drive hit, when the network news rooms in New York were preparing their first stories, talk radio audiences had already been dialing their elected officials in Washington demanding action.
The majority of Americans saw through the efforts to spin the story in Nevada. Couple that with the leadership failures that the American people view the administration responsible for, from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act, all it took was the unedited video of federal agents tazing Bundy's son, followed by his pulling the wires from his chest and continuing to stand his ground for there to be comparisons made to the American revolution.
It's also important to note that merely pulling back from the Bundy property hasn't settled the matter for the American people either.
The feds have stolen 352 head of cattle, and will not confirm or deny if they euthanized some or all of them. Recompense must be made. And to be candid, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see if a few ambitious law firms don't try to convince the Bundy family of the validity of litigation.
Fortunately for the American people, the feds were not able to ultimately bully a simple rancher, not for a tortoise, a solar power plant, or a dirty Senator and his administration.
We owe the Bundy family a great deal of thanks for standing tall.
For if the federal government is allowed to do it with one, then there will be nothing stopping them from doing it again.

Historic! Feds Forced to Surrender to American Citizens


Saturday, April 5, 2014

You Can’t Spell “Progressive” without an “S.S.”

By Tim Dunkin

Sinclair Lewis was wrong—when fascism came to America, it was actually wrapped in a rainbow flag and wearing an ascot.

How else can one describe the ongoing left-wing commitment to the stamping out of free speech, whenever that speech contradicts the gay agenda, as well as other parts of the “progressive” platform? With the resignation of newly minted Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, the “progressive” Left, especially its social wing, has once again shown itself to be the enforcers a political correctness in speech and thought that ought to be chilling to any person who actually cares about individual liberty.

It’s time to come right out and say it—the gay “rights” movement is the biggest threat to American freedom in existence today. Bigger than Islamic terrorism. Bigger than Russian revanchism. Bigger even than ObamaCare and our continuing out-of-control spending.

Yet, this is only one small part of the “progressive” movement in America which is quickly taking on shades of 1933. Under Barack Obama, the radical Left has apparently felt that its time has come, and its movement toward open totalitarianism has accelerated. The recent displays of homofascism are but the tip of the iceberg in the Left’s attempts to create an all encompassing control of your lives, your words, and even your thoughts. There is not a single area in your lives or mine that the Left would not like to domineer so as to force compliance. Indeed, anyone who has been paying any attention knows that the left-wing agenda is characterized by this. There is not a single aspect of their agenda that cannot be accurately described by one of the following terms: coerce, regulate, control, punish, socially engineer, mandate, confiscate, or dominate.

This is doubly ironic because the Left has spent decades trying to convince Americans that “the Religious Right” and other bogeymen are the ones who really want to control your lives. Despite the overwhelming lack of actual evidence for this proposition, the Left has nevertheless managed to convince a sizeable share of mind-numbed drones in this country of it. So, while half a country full of useful idiots is running around worrying that the “Republicans” or “Tea Partiers” are going to take away their condoms or something, the movers and shakers in the leftist movement are busy worming their way into every facet of our lives with a view to forcing us to live by their dictates.

It’s easy to understand the Left once you start understanding them through the lens of fascism. How else do you explain their drive for gun control? It certainly isn’t from any evidence that gun control “cuts crime”—in fact, just the opposite is the case as we see looser and looser regulations on firearms ownership and use leading to less crime. But, see, fascists don’t believe private individuals should have guns, but only the police and the military should, so you and I should have them taken away from us regardless.

How do you explain the left-wing obsession with global warming, despite the fact that every major prediction they have made to date has failed to come to pass, and that we are in fact in the midst of a 17-year-long pause in warming? Yet, you have wacko left-wingers who want to imprison people for being “climate deniers.” Why? Because, when you get to the root of it, “global warming” serves as an excellent cover story for taking control of and destroying the industries, and therefore the high standard of living that has allowed Americans and other Westerners to live lives free from “needing” to be provided for by all-encompassing government.

The left-wing hatred for free speech I’ve covered previously.  What’s funny is that, without a trace of irony, you had people writing in the comments about that article trying to defend the notion that people ought to “pay” for saying things that liberals disagree with, and were apparently doing so with a straight face.

Even the freedom-unfriendly aspects of the so-called “War on Terror” put into place during Bush’s administration, such as TSA harassment at airports, warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans’ communications, and laws that allow citizens to be “indefinitely detained” for “suspicion of terrorism” have all been continued and expanded under the Obama administration, and are now defended by those on the Left.

In fact, you can go right down the line and compare the radical Left in America today with totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union, and (just to make it fun) the dystopic nation of Oceania depicted in George Orwell’s 1984:

The American LeftTotalitarian Regimes
  • Oppose private gun ownership, only police and the military should have guns
  • Outlawed private gun ownership, only police and the military had guns
  • Oppose homeschooling and other alternatives to public skoolz
  • Outlawed any form of alternative education systems not completely controlled by the state
  • Encourage children to inform on their parents about guns in the home, lack of support for gay and environmentalist agendas
  • Recruited children to turn their parents in for unapproved opinions or opposition to government policies
  • Enforce political correctness and other social and political efforts to discourage wrong opinions
  • Employed propaganda and punishment to discourage “thought crime” that consisted of holding to wrong opinions
  • Support the breakdown of the nuclear family because it reinforces anti-progressive values
  • Tried to break down the nuclear family because it was a source of “heterodox” loyalties (i.e. to something other than the state)
  • Support abortion and do not recognize the right to life of all individuals, especially those with congenital disorders
  • Employed abortion (and post-birth murder) to “weed out” dysgenic individuals or those who were “unwanted”
  • Oppose economic freedom for businesses by mandating executive wages, directing production, and denying the right to hire or fire who they will
  • Business was either state-run or else was forced into “corporatistic” public-private partnerships that mandates executive pay, production, and employment practices
  • Support welfare and other give-away programs that work to encourage individual dependence on government
  • Used government to coerce citizens into dependence upon state support for daily necessities

And the list could go on and on.

The problem is that once the Left realizes that there is a limit to how far they can get with their agenda merely by lying to people and using smokescreens, they’re going to have to try to get the rest of the way there through outright violence and open intimidation. That’s when things will get really ugly. That’s when the progressive “S.S.” will go from mere rhetoric to being a reality.

So, what can we do about all of this?

Well, for the time being, we need to do everything within our power to oppose the further advancement of their agenda at a demotic level. This means directly disobeying everything the Left wants to push through. They don’t want us to own guns? Go out and buy as many guns with as much ammunition, as you can reasonably afford, learn how to use them, and have the resolve to use them against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. And under no circumstances should we ever register these guns. Ever. The Left tries to shut us up? Just get louder and louder. Vent your opinions on every blog, comments section, and forum you can find. Overwhelm them with free speech. Hound them across the internet until they finally shut the thing down, and then hound them with pamphlets in the streets and soapboxes on the corners if we have to. They want to force us to put our kids in public skools where they can get at them with propa-gay-nda and Common Core nonsense? Pull your kids out of the system and homeschool or put them into private or religious schools. Starve the beast. Start educational coops to help each other out. Long story short—double down on opposing everything they’re trying to do. 

Don’t continue to let them do what they want unhindered while ducking your head down and “minding your own business.” If there ever was a time for conservatives and liberty-lovers to relearn the virtue of public-spiritedness (which is not the same thing as socialism, by the way, reread your Tocqueville), it is now.


May come a time when opposing the Left’s cultural and political coup in America may involve more than just words


But also—and let’s be very serious here—understand that there may come a time when opposing the Left’s cultural and political coup in America may involve more than just words. The Left will not be content until they control us all completely. If they can’t do it by deceit and guile and dependency, they will try it by other means. There may well come a day when the left-wingers actually do try to put “climate deniers” in prison for opposing the party line. When that happens, be prepared to shoot back. If they try to come and take our guns away, be prepared to make them pay a high price for each one. If they come to take our children away, be prepared to show them what being a “Papa Bear” is really all about. And know that if this type of situation ever does come to pass, it is WE, not they, who are in the right. It is WE who have inalienable rights that no government and no social cadre can ever rightly or justly infringe. Shooting back will not be an act of rebellion, but an act of preservation of our constitutional government from terroristic interlopers seeking to overturn it by revolution. THEY are the revolutionaries, the traitors, the terrorists.

I know this all sounds “radical,” but is it really? Our country was born through the fire and blood of men who felt the exact same way as I’ve expressed above, men who were actually engaging in the defense of their rights and liberties as Englishmen, predicated upon the natural law foundation that was as old as our civilization, and even before. They actually went to war for far fewer offences than we have endured—we’ve been remarkably long-suffering in putting up with the antics of the Left for as long as we have. Nobody wants to see our society reach the point where actual shooting is involved—which is why we need to take every step we can to stop those who hate our Constitution and our society NOW, rather than continuing to let the situation grow worse unimpeded. The line in the sand must be drawn now.

Teach Common Sense not Common Core

By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh 



“Common Core will be raising good little socialists, who are in tune with their feelings, not so much their critical thinking skills.”  - Author unknown


I have seen many educational fads come and go, trying to replace teaching methodology in our public schools with something so revolutionary and never tried before that would make teaching a “science” instead of an art and to place all children into a national standardized one mold fits all in spite of the human variability in intelligence, talent, aptitude, ability, and the desire to learn. All these fads were driven by the Department of Education’s intention to fund new research that justified its existence and the college professors of education who were under the threat of “publish or perish” when it came to obtaining the very sought-after tenure - life employment without dismissal for cause. Education grew more and more liberal, infusing non-science subjects with Chavezism, Castroism, Maoism, Stalinism, feminism, racism, socialism, and communism.

Why are we then sending our kids to college, borrowing the money we don’t have, knowing that the kids won’t be able to pay it back when they can’t find a job because the jobs don’t exist, the economy is in shambles? Why are we allowing these degenerate college professors many of whom hate America and what it stands for to destroy the minds of our children and reshape them in the vision of their professors’ ideology?

Common Core, the brainchild and work of 30 individuals under the aegis of the Governors’ Association and the almost $200 million sponsorship of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is something else. It is the tool to achieve the “fundamental transformation” of our society as promised in 2008. It is nationalized education “standards” that require students to find another way to reach an answer, particularly in math, even if the answer is wrong, justifying the incorrect answer as the path to help students learn to think critically. This would probably happen right after the student is turned off to math or he/she reaches the right developmental age to think analytically and critically.

A simple addition, 17+25=42, elicited the following response from a second grader in San Jose who was using the GO Math! Curriculum of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, aligned with the Common Core standards, “I got the assignment by talking in my brain and I agreed of the answer that my brain got.”

Here is another simple math problem that a third grader should be able to solve immediately, 26+17=43. In the Common Core new, perplexing, and convoluted way of thinking, the problem is resolved this way
:
“Add 26+17 by breaking apart numbers to make a 10.
Use a number that adds with the 6 in 26 to make a 10.
Since 6+4=10, use 4.
Think: 17=4+13
Add 26+4=30
Add 30+13=43
So, 26+17= 43”
If you are dumbfounded by this kind of stressful and irrational logic, you are not alone.
A simple subtraction, 243-87=156 done quickly “the old fashioned way,” turns into a complicated solution that requires strange logic and drawing a graph such as the one illustrated below:
Can we imagine now studying calculus and differential equations under such contorted thinking? But it gets much worse in reading, writing, government, and history.

A Common Core kindergarten problem instructs, “In each cube stick, color some cubes blue and the rest of the cubes red. Draw the cubes you colored in the number bond. Show the hidden partners on your fingers to an adult. Color the fingers you showed.” Aside from the fact that the problem is almost impossible for an adult to comprehend, it involves “cube sticks,” “number bonds” and “hidden partners.” The worksheet further urges children to impose this math concept on an adult.

Another example from the Go Math! Common Core aligned math curriculum involves Mina Boyd’s kindergarten child who was given the worksheet to Count and Write 20, presumably 20 apples that looked curiously like bombs. There were actually only 19. Was it a printing mistake or were the publishers having difficulty with this “transformational” math? One reader described the assignment beyond brainwashing - a form of Pavlov’s dog conditioned response, “neuro-linguistic programming, and otherwise known as hypnosis.”

A fourth grade reading assignment asks students to describe adultery, a highly inappropriate topic for elementary school.

Sixth grade students in Arkansas were given in 2013 the assignment to “revise” the “outdated” Bill of Rights, “suggesting that the government can grant and remove inalienable rights.” Middle School students were also told that the Second Amendment requires gun registration.
According to the workbook, “This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison.”

It gets even more interesting. The USDA is now in the business of nudging grandparents to use ChooseMyPlate.gov to help their grandkids eat healthier, and giving instructions to offer their grandchildren “hugs” instead of treats and to “read government bedtime stories.”

People like Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee have constantly pushed the Common Core standards. If implemented, they are “designed to make the United States more competitive with the rest of the world.” How exactly would a dumbed down curriculum make children more competitive? Were we not competitive enough before Common Core? Was American higher education not the envy of the world? Why must we now destroy it?

Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education is running Common Core ads non-stop. Parents are waking up and garnering the support of some teachers. But there are powerful groups who are pushing Common Core because there is a lot of money at stake. Common Core standards are not a grass-roots, nor state-led initiative.  It is the Obama administration Race to the Top competition bribing schools with billions of dollars if they adopt Common Core. It is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it is Pearson, the billion dollar educational publishing and testing conglomerate, the Center for American Progress, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and recipients of Bill Gates Foundation money who continue to propagandize Common Core.
U.S. News and World Report quoted Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (1.5 million members), who stated that the Common Core implementation is ‘far worse’ than ObamaCare.

Money is no object when it comes to sending school administrators to a luxurious hotel and spa ($38,000) in order to discuss strategies for implementing Common Core standards at schools in the Inglewood, California impoverished school district that had to be bailed out in 2012 to the tune of $55 million.

The Daily Caller assembled a list of complicated, dreadful math problems and worksheets that are glaring evidence that Common Core standards are not really trying to improve our children’s education, but are hurting their education.

Common Core math standards are based on the theory of Constructivism. This theory rejects the drilling of children on basic arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication). Instead, children are taught to “construct” their own way of figuring out an answer. An incorrect answer is acceptable as long as the child explains how he/she got the wrong answer.

The reading found in the English literature selections is not chosen for the joy of reading and learning, but instead, they are to be “analyzed and discussed by students using leftwing norms” of morality and behavior. This unproven theory of education is called New Criticism Literary Analysis.

Moral ambiguity, acceptance of perverse and aberrant behavior presented as courage, overt sexuality, adultery, and even pornography are some of the themes chosen for young and older students. For example, schools in North Carolina who adopted the Common Core standards are requiring the reading of the sexually explicit book, The House of Spirits.

Middle school readings include the complete United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the complete United Nations Millennium Declaration with the main theme being global diversity and global citizenship. Stories include head scarves of Muslims in France, an American teenager punished in Singapore, an arranged marriage in India, learning Japanese, an African novel, and articles promoting global warming as settled science. The readings indicate the progressives’ love affair with third world societies which they deem superior to our own.
Centuries of European and American civilization and culture are glossed over. The few stories devoted to American culture include a kid who tries to avoid parental punishment for breaking curfew, Halloween, and a controversy over sea lions in Oregon.

The Eagle Forum described some of the reading materials aligned with Common Core. The common denominators are anti-Americanism, sexuality, porn, and global warming:
  • Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (10th grade reading, anti-American and sexually explicit)
  • Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (9th grade, a 13-year old boy describing his father’s genitals and a sex act)
  • Wind Power (k-1, telling children their electricity comes from wind mills)
  • Ted the Fly Guy (k-1, cartoon characters with large eyes)
  • Where Do Polar Bears Live? by Sarah Thomson (2nd and 3rd graders, global warming, climate change, carbon foot print)
  • Sorry, Wrong Number by Lucille Fletcher (4th and 5th graders, woman learns of her own murder plot when phone wires get crossed; is this the kind of reading appropriate for 9 and 10 year olds?)
  • English language arts lesson plans for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders based on the book, Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, portray President Obama as a “messianic figure,” clearly a propaganda effort to align ideology with Common Core
  • Common Core Anti-American teaching guides produced by Zaner-Bloser company
  1. Two-week lesson for 4th graders using the book The Jacket indoctrinates children into the concept of racism and white privilege; the left-wing concept that the values of
  2. American society are designed to benefit white people to the exclusion of black people
  3. Another Zaner-Bloser guide uses the book Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, to indoctrinate 2nd graders into the founder of the United Farm Workers union and “equality.” The conditions of the farmers and the landowners are presented on opposite pages, instructing teachers to say, “Fairness and equality exist when the scales are balanced” and “unfairness and inequality exist when the scales are weighted heavily on one side and are out of balance.” Do 7 year olds understand economics and property rights? Do they understand that first generation Americans came to this country with the clothes on their backs to escape poverty and religious persecution, worked very hard and made a better life for themselves and their children? (EAGNews.org, 10-17-13 and 10-21-13)
“These lesson plans will indoctrinate students against the same American opportunities that allowed millions of immigrants to arrive here penniless, work hard, and achieve the American dream.”
Phyllis Schlafly explained that parents also object to Common Core for its massive data collection on every student in the United States, in-depth longitudinal studies from birth to college, an invasion of privacy, and the mark of a totalitarian state.

To make the Common Core more acceptable, some states are changing the name. Iowa calls it the Iowa Core. Florida found a more euphemistic name, Next Generation Sunshine State Standards. Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed an executive order to erase the name Common Core.

“Even under a different name, the Common Core Standards are still mediocre, at best, and continue to put American students at a significant disadvantage to their international peers,” Glyn Wright, executive director of the Eagle Forum.”

Should parents question the Common Core standards that are unproven and untested, they might experience what happened to the father who showed up at a school board meeting in Towson, Maryland, asking questions the board had not picked – he was forcibly escorted out of the meeting by a hired security guard and arrested.

The latest Common Core outrage comes from California. The Mark Twain School in Sacramento has suspended Katherine Duran, the mother of a 12-year old student, for 14 days in her home for “disrupting the school.” Duran’s son, Christopher, distributed Common Core opt-out forms to other students to take home to their parents. The principal confiscated the forms. Mrs. Duran visited the school and confronted the principal who then called the police. She was served with the two-week suspension order. According to the Blaze, the principal “sent police with a chilling note that contained notice of the two-week ‘Withdrawal of Consent’ as well as a threat of arrest should she violate the order,” including the legalese, “The District will seek reimbursement for attorney costs the courts may impose.”

In light of the recent developments in Scotland where a bill was passed that appoints a health worker to act as a “named person” for every child until the age of five, then to a council with teachers until the child reaches 18, parents should be concerned.  Conservatives tried to argue that such measures should have been taken only when the well-being or safety of a child was at stake. A Christian charity promised to take court action to overturn the law because it violates parental rights. The law was passed under the guise of identifying children with developmental difficulties and potential cases of abuse.

Michael Ramey, of ParentalRights.org, writing to his supporters, pointed out that “the legislation was specifically aimed at compliance with the radical U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Where are the rights of the parents vis-à-vis excessive government intrusion?

American parents should better wise up before it is too late and they too will lose their parental rights because the government deems that it is better positioned to be mommy and daddy.
Note:  Michelle Malkin is informing parents that there is a Common Core opt-out form, courtesy of Truth in American Education. “You can exercise your parental rights to protect your children from the nationalized Common Core.”

Watch the recently released documentary on Common Core by Ian A. Reid, Building the Machine.