Tag Archives: grazing fees

Making It Worse

Right-wing talk show host and tireless self-promoter Dana Loesch excuses Cliven Bundy’s appalling racism by arguing that he “isn’t media trained to express himself perfectly.”

But he did express himself perfectly!  We already knew he was a scamming criminal, now we know he’s also a rabid racist.

More on the Bundy Bizarreness

From “Deadbeat on the Range,” Timothy Egan, NYT:

“Imagine a vendor on the National Mall, selling burgers and dogs, who hasn’t paid his rent in 20 years.  He refuses to recognize his landlord, the National Park Service, as a legitimate entity.  Every court has ruled against him, and fines have piled up.

“Would an armed posse come to his defense, aiming their guns at the park police?  Would the lawbreaker get prime airtime on Fox News, breathless updates in the Drudge Report, a sympathetic ear from Tea Party Republicans?  No, of course not.

“Ranching is hard work.  Drought and market swings make it a tough go in many years.  That’s all the more reason to praise the 18,000 or so ranchers who pay their grazing fees on time and don’t go whining to Fox or summoning a herd of armed thugs when they renege on their contract.  You can understand why the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association wants no part of Bundy.”

To me the story here isn’t Bundy — this country is brimming with crazies — it’s the right-wing embrace of him as a martyr, not a mashugana.  It feels as if Fox has jumped the shark in a way that their customary Benghazi/IRS/Obamacare BS never achieved.

Comrade Bundy

“’We want freedom,’ [Cliven] Bundy said. I don’t know what freedom Bundy’s talking about. He does not own the land nor does he even pay the modest fees required to use it. Thousands of ranchers across the West pay fees for their businesses, but Bundy thinks he should get to use public resources to make a personal profit.  Cliven Bundy, far from being a patriot, is also clearly a straight-up communist.

“Bundy is using the language of freedom, patriotism and outright paranoia to further his business interests.”

Edwin Lyngar, “Fox News’ demented poster boy:  Why angry rancher Cliven Bundy is no patriot,” Salon

If Bundy Were Black

From “What If Bundy Ranch Were Owned By Black People?” Jamelle Bouie, Slate:

“First, this entire incident speaks to the continued power of right-wing mythology. For many of the protesters, this isn’t about a rogue rancher as much as it’s a stand against ‘tyranny’ personified in Barack Obama and his administration.

“Second, it won’t happen, but right-wing media ought to be condemned for their role in fanning the flames of this standoff. After years of decrying Obama’s ‘lawlessness’ and hyperventilating over faux scandals, it’s galling to watch conservatives applaud actual lawbreaking and violent threats to federal officials.

“Finally, I can’t help but wonder how conservatives would react if these were black farmers—or black anyone—defending ‘their’ land against federal officials. Would Fox News applaud black militiamen aiming their guns at white bureaucrats?

This Is Just Outrageous, Even for Fox

Sean Hannity gave two segments last night to Cliven Bundy, and he took the opportunity to refer to the U. S. as a “foreign government.”

Why is Fox News championing this delusional lunatic?  Put him in jail or in an insane asylum, but don’t put him on TV.

Sean also kept asking how Bundy could owe the feds a million dollars in grazing fees, saying cows can’t eat that much, either not knowing or pretending not to know that Bundy owes court-assessed daily penalties as well.

Why Are Conservatives Making a Crazy Criminal a Hero?

“Pretty soon, there was an armed standoff as men with guns assembled around the ranch. The BLM people wisely backed off, and there was a great cock-a-doodle-do’ing all over the right, because Cliven Bundy’s inalienable right to get something for nothing from the rest of us had been upheld with Second Amendment enthusiasm. Bear in mind that Bundy’s entire position is that he can not pay his bills, and that he can ignore a federal judge, because he feels the federal government is illegitimate. … This is conservatism — and, therefore, Republicanism — playing footsie with sedition. This is not the first time, either.

“Republican politicians, especially in the west, have slow-danced with the militia movement for quite some time. A Republican congresswoman named Helen Chenoweth was so close to the movement that, after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, she pronounced herself upset that the government had failed truly to understand the militia movement.

“In the states, the Republican party has embraced the traditional historical basis for this movement, having actively discussed — and, in some cases, tried to implement — the doctrine of nullification. This, of course, was the fundamental theoretical basis for the greatest act of sedition of all time, and one for which too many people seem overly nostalgic these days. The difference between the present moment, and the days when Helen Chenoweth was riding the range, of course, is the fact that there is a powerful and loud right-wing media infrastructure at the disposal of the people peddling this constitutional poison. Americans For Prosperity jumped right on the Bundy case. Of course, AFP — and the Koch brothers who fund it — isn’t in this for airy philosophical debates on the role of government. They’re in it to break the control of the federal government over the lands that they want to exploit for their own profit, and they are willing to help engage the single most destructive political theory in the country’s history to help them do it. It is reckless and dangerous, and anybody who gets used by these people is a sap. And useful idiots, like Sean Hannity and all the someones like him, are going to get somebody killed behind this stuff.”

“Range War in Nevada,” Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

I get party differences over abortion, gay marriage, taxing and spending, etc.  But why shouldn’t D’s and R’s agree that a man who refuses to pay his grazing fees is a criminal and should be punished, not celebrated?  I thought the GOP was supposed to be the “law and order” party.  Why are they all freaked out about food stamp fraud, but don’t want this guy to pay the million bucks he owes?

Quote of the Day

“I totally get the very correct desire to avoid violence. But allowing a bunch of militia freaks and gun-toting thugs to run off federal agents trying to act against a rancher who’s refused to pay grazing fees for using federal lands for 20 years seems like a very, very bad idea.”

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

Amen to that.  Fox News has really outdone themselves on this story.  Sean Hannity didn’t challenge Cliven Bundy when he claimed his cattle aren’t on federal land.  That’s because in Bundy’s alternative universe, there’s no such thing as federal ownership of land.  I doubt Sean would be so sympathetic if a bunch of  young African-Americans took over a federal building in New York City.  But when it’s an old white guy in a cowboy hat, Sean doesn’t call him out for the criminal he is.