The Bundy Standoff: Is It All About Solar Energy Contracts for Obama’s Cronies?

“ON LAST RESORT”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Apr. 17, 2014) — Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and one of his sons will be guests on Dr. Kate’s Revolution Radio on Thursday evening beginning at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

Karl Lentz, a common law scholar, will also be a guest.

The Bundy family was catapulted to international headlines last weekend after agents from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had begun to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle, which the BLM claims were “trespassing” on federal land.  Bundy claims that his family has used the land since 1877 and retains grazing rights.

Mr. Bundy has interviewed with Dana Loesch, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, among others, since the standoff on April 12.  On Monday, he gave a press conference during which Bundy stated that he was attempting to return the ranch to “normal” conditions.

The Bundy ranch has a Facebook page and a YouTube channel on which Cliven speaks of federalism and other constitutional topics.

The government claims that it needs to protect the desert tortoise, which is considered “threatened,” but last August, it was reported that “federal and state budget restraints” necessitated the euthanizing of approximately 700 tortoises and the closure of the “Desert Tortoise Conservation Center” this year.

On Thursday, Rep. Steve Stockman wrote on his website that “A favorite tactic is to use junk science and strong-arm tactics to get species that are not threatened or endangered listed as “threatened” or “endangered” to shut down agriculture, homebuilding, energy and timber development and other job-creating activities in targeted areas.”

The Bundy family has a website describing how the saga began as well as current events.  An all-day picnic termed a “Patriot Party” is scheduled for Friday which invites “everyone” to come to share friendship and music.

Dave Bundy, the son who will be appearing this evening, was arrested on April 6 and released the following day with visible scrapes on his face.  He said upon his release that he was exercising his “First Amendment rights” (1:57) in observing the agents as they attempted to round up his father’s cattle and impound them.

Some Bundy cattle reportedly died or were killed (see video at bottom) during or after they were taken by the BLM to an impound area.

The remaining cattle were released on Saturday afternoon after the BLM announced that it would discontinue its efforts to capture Bundy’s cattle “because of our grave concern about the safety of employees and members of the public” after hundreds of armed volunteers descended on the ranch to defend the Bundy ranch.  One former Marine from New Hampshire said he traveled to Nevada knowing that “We came risking never coming home,” showing visible emotion when he spoke of his wife of many years.

Before last weekend, Sheriff Richard Mack, head of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), told Gary Franchi of the NextNewsNetwork that Clark County, NV Sheriff Douglas Gillespie should have told the BLM agents to leave.  “Sheriff Gillespie just has no clue as to what he’s doing,” (2:27) Mack said.  “The sheriffs can stop this sort of abuse immediately, and it’s really regrettable that he’s allowed this to escalate to this point.  He’s not doing his job…” Mack said.  Mack urged CSPOA members and other concerned citizens to “help the Bundys” while “keeping it peaceful.”

Bundy claims that if he paid “grazing fees” to the federal government, the money would not be used for the public benefit.  He also said that the U.S. government does not own any land in the state of Nevada.  “I would be happy to pay my grazing fees, if I owed grazing fees, to the proper government, which I would say the proper government would have to be Clark County, Nevada,” he said in  YouTube video published on April 12.  He said that the government needs to show him how it “owns this land,” invoking the Founders and the U.S. Constitution.  “It was not the United States that created the Constitution; it was We the People of those 13 individual nations that created the Constitution,” he said.  Bundy asserted that only the “ten square miles” encompassing Washington, DC was given to the federal government by the states for its operations.

The BLM now “is the largest administrator of public lands in the West.”

The U.S. Constitution declared that the concept of federalism would prevail in dealings between the federal government and the states.  However, over more than two centuries, and particularly during the last century, the federal government has expanded exponentially, gaining more power over the states and their people.

On Wednesday, James Simpson, writing at WND, reported that Sen. Harry Reid was involved in a plan to use the area where the Bundy cattle are grazing for solar projects.  On Monday, Simpson stated that a Chinese company, ENN, which had reportedly wished to build a solar panel plant in the area with Reid’s help and that of his son, Rory, withdrew its plan last June.  However, Simpson reported that “the BLM’s library of renewable energy projects revealed it was only one of more than 50 solar, wind and geothermal projects planned for Nevada, California, Arizona and other Western states.  Reid was focused on at least one, and maybe more, of the projects, much closer to the Bundy ranch.”

Bundy is the last rancher standing after a reported 52 others closed under federal pressure.

A similar struggle between Nevada rancher Wayne Hage and federal agencies “over the grazing and water rights” which began in 2005 ended in the U.S. Supreme Court affirming Hage’s rights to the land in a decision described as “one of America’s landmark property rights cases [and is] studied in law schools today.”

In 2009, the BLM announced that approval for the “Silver State North Solar Project” was being sought, and in the fall of 2010, that the “first-ever solar project [had been] approved on public lands in Nevada.”  The project was to be operated by First Solar, Inc., which Simpson identified as being “a who’s who of Democratic insiders, including major Obama campaign donors.”  First Solar was reported in 2012 to have been “an early green investment of Goldman Sachs—which gave more than $1 million to the 2008 Obama campaign.”

In November 2010, a second solar energy project, the Amargosa Farm Road Solar Project, was approved to be built “on U.S. public lands in Nevada.”

Taxpayers lost $535 million when Solyndra, a solar energy company which declared bankruptcy after receiving a federal loan, was the first such company to receive federal funds under Obama.  One of Solyndra’s “main investors” was an Obama bundler.

As reported by CBS journalist Mark Knoller on Twitter, the White House is hosting a “solar program” today which will allocate “$15 million program to help state, local and tribal governments build solar panels and other infrastructure to fight climate change.”

In an interview with Ben Swann on Monday, Mack claimed that sources within the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), of which Sheriff Gillespie is the head, and sources within the BLM, have stated that “a raid” could be carried out on the Bundy ranch and his children’s adjacent properties.  More Bundy family supporters have indicated that they will go to the ranch to defend it from “evil” federal government overreach.

Oathkeepers have called for continued support for the Bundys in the forms of “boots on the ground,” monetary donations, food and water to “oppose the idiocy of the BLM/federal government.”

“Militia” members are continuing to defend the ranch.  A speaker at the Bundy press conference on Monday stated that a militia “is a volunteer army of the people…and we use them on last resort.”