Tag Archives: Cliven Bundy

Ammon Bundy is, and militias in general are, bad for America.

Not quite two years removed from Cliven Bundy’s moronic and dramatic showdown with the BLM (who were repo-ing his cattle for millions of dollars in unpaid fees, fines, and court ordered punitive damages) we find Cliven’s son Ammon forcing another showdown with government agents.  This time over some ranchers who did bad things and got busted for it.

ammon and hate groups
Ammon Bundy and some known white supremacists at a press conference earlier this month.

You have probably seen it splashed across your newsfeeds and made fun on of mercilessly on the late night comedy shows, but what does the showdown at a bathroom/gift shop at a remote wildlife refuge/bird sanctuary in the most desolate and sparsely populated region in the lower 48 have to do with anything (a well-sourced historical brief on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge)?  Well, I am going to explain it to you.

In 2001 Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46 were illegally hunting on protected federal land.  After making several kills of protected wildlife, “Steven Hammond handed out “Strike Anywhere” matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to “light up the whole country on fire.”  One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson.” According to court documents in the case.  Later, in 2006, the Hammonds then began a backfire in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge despite being told that there were BLM fire crews battling the fires in the path of the winds of any backfires and were explicitly informed not to do so.  Their problem was that those same BLM crews also bore witness to their crime

The Hammonds were convicted of arson on federal lands and given a short sentence.  The Federal Prosecutor in the case appealed the sentence because arson on federal lands carries a congressionally mandated 5-year sentence.  Upon appeal the 9th Circuit Court resentenced the Hammonds to 5 years minus time served.  The Hammonds were to report to prison on January 4th of 2016 and have done so… So why all the militia dudes in Oregon?

Now home to more racists than birders, for now...
Now home to more racists than birders, for now…

The militia dudes are there because they are angry about something but they have no clue as to what that something is and are using the Hammonds as an excuse to express their anger.  They claim that the Hammonds have been set up by the BLM so the federal government can take their land (which has a bearing of truth since it can happen if the Hammonds fail to pay some $200,000 in outstanding restitution owed for their criminal violations; the ranch is collateral on this fine).  The conspiracy surrounding this ranges from: “Those whacko liberal environmentalists don’t want anyone to eat beef!” to “Obama owes our Chinese creditors and Hammond ranch is rich in diamonds, gold, uranium, and natural gas so he is giving it to them.” Pretty much all of this is beyond moronic.

As all of you who are familiar with this blog know, I am an expert on laws regarding access to federal lands; I kind of have to be when my livelihood depends upon it.

First, nope, there is no natural gas in this region since there is no shale to be found.

Second, gold is found in about four locations all about 15-30 miles from the Hammond Ranch and all of it is in miniscule recreational quantities. (You’ll remember that I detailed this geologically boring region this past summer: “This stretch of Oregon is the absolute worst.  One giant, salty, flat, treeless, sun-baked, wasteland.  Everywhere along the route is half-finished ideas, and crumbling dreams.  Broken trailers here, roofless barns there…  Anyone thinking of living in this uninhabitable hell-scape needs to just fill their tank and drive until it runs out of gas.  Wherever you end up will be better than here.”)

Third, Uranium is so ubiquitous as to not even be interesting to anyone who needs it.  I can hop into my truck and drive to Nevada and claim a few million tons of yellow cake uranium ore out of the desert on already existing federal lands.  No one needs to steal the Hammonds land to gain access to significant uranium lodes.

Fourth, the rock here is just flood basalts.  Flood basalts are pretty much the most mineralogically undeveloped igneous rock on the planet.  If you’re lucky you will find some peridot (but not likely) and that is about it.  This means there is no Lamproite or Kimberlite from which one can get diamonds.  There are no diamond-bearing rocks in Oregon.  Period.  If there were diamonds in Oregon I would have staked claims there a long time ago (since I am the only person with commercial diamond claims in the lower 48, I am definitely the expert on this).

Fifth, it has been illegal for the federal government to sell public lands to mining interests since 1994 when it was found out that the feds sold some $50 billion (in today’s commodity prices) in mineral rights of ultra-rare beryllium to Brush-Wellman (now Materion) for $26,487.

Sixth, it is illegal for a foreign national or corporation to stake a claim on federal lands in the United States of America.  The only way for a non-citizen to stake a claim on federal land is for said resident alien to be a legal resident who has declared their intention to becoming a citizen of the United States.

Now that we have debunked all of these conspiracies, what is it that Ammon Bundy and his militia dudes are so bent out of shape about that they have taken over a visitors center and gift shop in the dead of winter?  As far as I can tell the Bundy-klan object to the feds owning land at all.  They do not believe the federal government should own any land of any kind.  Why? Beats me, federal lands are what this nation’s wealth is built on and for some reason the rightwing has been trying in recent years to liquidate our federal lands anyway they can.

racism with guns
Rance Harris on the left with some other “patriots” earlier this year during a standoff with the BLM at the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon.

Now lets look into the types of people who arm themselves and take over a bathroom outpost in the middle of nowhere when it is basically the most awful time of year to be there, or just like to join militias in general: these militias are comprised of men like Ryan Payne who claims to be a former Army Ranger, but who isnt; or Brian Cavalier who serves as Ammon Bundy’s personal body guard and who claims to be a former Marine and war veteran but isn’t either of those things (but is a convicted criminal).

Others who heed the call to militant action include or white supremacists and members of the Neo-Nazis and Aryan Brotherhood such as Rance Harris, a member of the “Oath Keepers” (a right wing paramilitary outfit who as a group made a show of force during the Bundy Ranch fiasco and who posed a threat to BLM employees this past Summer at the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon), whose arms and hands are covered in racist and Nazi tattoos (a friend of mine identified him from a news photo as a known white supremacist and I managed to hunt down his Facebook page and yup, a groovy heil Hitler “88” tattoo on his knuckles).

In general unregulated militias are largely populated by white supremacists and grew at previously unseen levels when Obama was elected president (Cavalier also has swastika tattoos on his eyelids, by the way [classy]).

racist piece of shit
Rance Harris with his “88” tattoo on his knuckles which stands for “Heil Hitler” as the letter ‘H’ is the 8th letter of the alphabet.

These men claim they want the US government to give their lands over to someone, but whom?  This I don’t know.  What I do know is that many of the men in this movement are also members of groups who advocate race wars, secession from the government, sedition, and outright revolution against our democracy.  These people are the worst of our society and I hope they become lily white frozen hate-cicles  on the plains of the Oregon Outback.

Cliven Bundy is an Idiot and Anyone who Supports him is an Asshole.

I try to keep this blog about the science of the Earth, and the adventure of discovery, but sometimes something just chaps my hide so much I have to get a little preachy.  That ‘something’?  A grand selfish asshole name Cliven Bundy. A greedy Rancher who has been stealing from the taxpayers for decades while pocketing millions in profits.

As an economic geologist I must follow certain laws when prospecting and staking claims on federal land.  These laws require enforcement, and the lands require maintenance.  For both myself and the public who owns the land to benefit, I am charged nominal fees to preserve the mineral rights to the claims I stake.  My incentive to pay for these fees is that the government will protect my rights to the minerals, and if I don’t pay the fees my rights to the land are revoked and someone else then has the right to stake a claim where mine once was.

The same can be said for federal range land.  Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution states:

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Basically, the feds reserve the right to tell us what we are, and are not, allowed to do on federal land.  This dates back to when the original thirteen colonies ceded the Western expanse of their territories to the federal government all the way to the Mississippi River.  This is further supported by the fact that the 5th and 14th Amendments outlay how the government can even tell you what you can and can’t do on your own land (think “due process”, “zoning regulations”, and “eminent domain”).

In 1909 the National Forest started charging ranchers grazing fees.  Later in 1934 the Bureau of Land Management followed suit.  The purpose was two fold: To stop the rapid degradation of federally owned lands, and to stop the perpetual anguish of range wars.  Without federal involvement ranchers were killing each other over who could graze their cattle where.  When the feds started charging for grazing that established a regulatory process that controlled whose cattle could graze when and where.  The federal lands improved in quality, and cowboys stopped dying stupid deaths.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cliven Bundy, he is an itchy little butthole who has become the selfish, greedy hero of Neo-Nazi affiliated militia assholes all over America.  When Bundy asked a bunch of them to show up in camouflage and jackboots to threaten federal officers who were mandated by the courts to confiscate Bundy’s cattle, the militia fools were glad to carpool for the first time in their lives.  You see, Bundy has been grazing his cattle on Federal land for decades and not paying his legally required grazing fees.  Fees that amount to $1.35 per head of cattle per month.  In essence Bundy is supposed to pay the Bureau of Land Management about $18.90 to feed each one of his head of cattle over the lifespan of said cattle.  $18.90 to feed an entire 1500lbs animal over the course of its life; an animal that Bundy will then sell for more than $2,000.  Bundy has never paid for grazing.  He refuses.  He owes the government at least $300,000 in back fees and another $1 million in taxes (over which a time Bundy has sold some $30,000,000+ in cattle all fattened on taxpayer-owned land).

Add to this, Bundy has been grazing his cattle on protected land illegally.  Land that is supposed to be free from cattle in order to protect the endangered desert tortoise.  What an asshole!

Assholes that like to wear pretend uniforms.
Cliven Bundy speaks to a bunch of fat, racist idiots in camouflage. America!

Bundy claims that his family has been grazing on the land for 140 years and has a special right to the range, but in the last 115 years there is no record of the Bundy clan ever paying a damned cent to the feds for grazing on our land.  People lose the rights to mineral claims all the time even though a mine may have been in the family for generations.  If they haven’t paid the BLM the $140 a year per claim it costs to maintain their rights to the minerals they will be shit out of luck when someone else poaches their claim out from under them.  Cliven Bundy has no legal precedent, the federal government does.

The feds have managed to repossess some of Bundy’s illegal herd, but have run into a problem when a bunch of fat dip shits in camo carrying assault rifles impeded federal agents from carting away the rest of the lawbreaker’s herd.  At this point in time the feds have backed down not wanting any bloodshed.  I say screw them.  Establish the Rule of Law and have the FBI go full Waco on this greedy piece of shit and his idiot followers.  I have no problem with a bunch of racist militia members losing at a game of war with the federal government.  Cliven Bundy is stealing from the American tax payers and making millions off of it.  If these morons want to lay their lives down for him then so be it.  Let them stand as an example of what happens when you steal from the taxpayers.

Grazing fees are no different than property taxes, or paying the license tabs on your car.  If you aren’t willing to pay, you don’t get to play.  It just pisses me off to no end when some greedy sack of crap breaks the law and a bunch of jerks with machine guns jump to his defense.  I hope they all end up in prison.