Category Archives: BLM

Idaho lawmakers to Sessions: Drop it already

Republican Idaho representative Dorothy Moon and more than one-third of the other legislators in her state sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions encouraging him to drop the charges against two Idaho men being charged in association with the April 2014 “Bundy standoff, to establish a fair bail for one, and to give one a “time served” sentence.

Eric Parker and O. Scott Drexler, both from Idaho, have been tried twice in US District Court under Judge Gloria Navarro. Both trials resulted in a hung jury, and the men were both acquitted of most charges in the second trial.

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Welcome to the Bundy administration

Stone, however, is far from the only friend of the Bundy family in the Trump administration. In 2014, as Bundy’s followers were pointing rifles at law enforcement officers from the Bureau of Land Management, the future president himself told Sean Hannity, “I like him, I like his spirit, his spunk and the people that are so loyal,” adding that Cliven Bundy “ought to go out and cut a great deal.”

Now Cliven Bundy’s own lawyer could be headed for a plum job in the Trump administration — overseeing the very agency she and her former client have spent a lifetime trying to undermine. Attorney Karen Budd-Falen is rumored to be at the top of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s list to run the Bureau of Land Management.

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Wild horse adoption event to feature Utah’s own Cedar Mountain and Sulphur horses

DELTA — The Bureau of Land Management and the Delta Wild Horse and Burro Facility will host an open house adoption Sept. 23 featuring wild horses gathered from the Cedar Mountain and Sulphur herd management areas in western Utah.

Approximately 180 horses, featuring Cedar Mountain weanlings and Sulphur yearling horses, will be available for adoption from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“I encourage anyone that is interested in adopting a beautifully colored weanling to come visit the facility,” Heath Weber, Delta Wild Horse and Burro Facility manager, said. “This is one of the nicest bunch of young horses we’ve had at the facility in a long time.”

Facility gates will open at 9 a.m., with viewing until 10 a.m. Competitive bidding will begin at 10 a.m. All remaining animals will be available on a first-come, first-served basis at 11 a.m. For qualified adopters, the adoption fee begins at $125, then Adopt-a-Buddy for $25.

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Plan to grow Las Vegas includes monument protection

Las Vegas officials have a new vision for developing a unique piece of land surrounded by sensitive land packed with environmental and cultural resources.

The plan sets out expectations for future development of 1,000 acres situated between the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, Paiute tribal lands and the Las Vegas Wash, a channel that drains water from the valley into Lake Mead.

The plan conceives of “villages” with pockets of development separated by open spaces with open wash corridors and connected by walking, bike and equestrian trails at the northwestern reaches of the city’s Ward 6.

“Please send your money immediately to Ward 6,” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman quipped last week, before the City Council approved the plan.

The city’s plan for the site establishes guidelines for future building in the quickly growing area, with green space buffers and open wash corridors, to curb the impact of development on the surrounding natural areas.

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REAL NEWS • David Knight (3rd HOUR) Wednesday 9/6/17: Shari Dovale: Bunkerville

REAL NEWS • David Knight (3rd HOUR) Wednesday 9/6/17: Shari Dovale: Bunkerville

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Why Is Sessions Allowing Obama Holdovers To Prosecute Bundys?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Recent developments have caused Trump supporters to ask why Attorney General Jeff Sessions is allowing Obama holdovers in the Department of Justice to continue prosecuting Bundy ranch cases, despite continuing set-backs.

On Thursday, Aug. 22, the Obama administration holdovers in the Department of Justice suffered a huge set-back in the trial of four defendants accused of various federal criminal charges over the 2014 Bundy ranch standoff ended with no convictions.

Two of the defendants were acquitted of all charges, while the remaining two defendants were acquitted of most charges.

With the “not guilty” verdict, the defendants Richard R. Lovelien and Stewart A. Stewart were acquitted of all charges, and released from federal prison in Nevada, after having been incarcerated without bail for some 18 months in federal prison awaiting trial.

The remaining two defendants, Eric Parker and Scott Drexler will be forced to endure yet a third trial, as the Obama administration holdover prosecutors decided to retry them yet a third trial on the remaining weapons charges on which no verdict was declared, reportedly because one of the 12 jurors in the second trial would not agree to a “not guilty” verdict.

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Despite varied opinions, Utah Wildlife Board votes to increase number of cougar hunting permits

ST. GEORGE — The Utah Wildlife Board voted Thursday to allow an additional 50 hunting permits for cougars to be issued in the upcoming 2017-18 hunting season.

The motion to increase the number of permits from 531 to 581, several of which include areas in Southern Utah, was approved unanimously in a public meeting in Salt Lake City by the board, which is composed of seven citizens appointed by the governor.

Thursday’s decision followed an extensive period of public comment during which the proposal received criticism from wildlife advocates and support from hunting associations and livestock industry representatives.

In a presentation at the meeting, Darren DeBloois, game mammals coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said the increase in hunting permits coincides with an observed increase in the cougar population as the state’s mule deer population also rises.

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Reveler who lept into the flames of blazing effigy in front of 70,000 stunned Burning Man festival-goers has DIED

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
The man who evaded several rangers and security guards to leap into the Burning Man effigy has died 
He was pulled from the burning structure and treated him on scene before he was airlifted to a burn center
Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen confirmed the death but said the man has not been identified publicly
Approximately 70,000 people from all over the world gathered for the festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Dese

A man rescued from the flames at the Burning Man festival’s signature burning of a towering effigy has died after being airlifted to a hospital.

Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said the man ran through a human-chain of security officers at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday during the Man Burn event at the counter-culture festival.

The sheriff said the man was rescued by firefighters and later died at the UC Davis hospital burn center in California.

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Bunkerville Was Never About The Cows

After seeing their God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights being trampled on by the over-reaching Federal alphabet agencies, people across the nation rallied to defend the rights our country was founded on.

(Pictured: Cliven Bundy walks by a first amendment area set up by the Bureau of Land Management near Bunkerville, Nev.)
Videos on network news stations and around the internet depicted an elderly woman being thrown to the ground by law enforcement, a man being tazed repeatedly, and a “first amendment zone” set up miles away for protesters to stay out of the way of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

These citizens rightfully feared another Waco or Ruby Ridge encounter, and believed that citizens showing up in force, with cameras to record and witnesses to confirm, would reign-in the out-of-control government.

The government came heavily armed with hundreds of officers. They carried military-grade weapons and dressed in Battle-ready uniforms. That side of the fence looked like a war zone from Afghanistan.

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BLM hands over land patent to Virgin’s ‘most scenic track’

VIRGIN — In a brief ceremony held at the Virgin BMX Track located at the foot of the Kolob Terrace section of Zion National Park Wednesday evening, the Bureau of Land Management officially handed over the land patent for the 10-acre parcel of land the track sits on to the town of Virgin.

Virgin BMX track operator Adam Pace (L) watches as Brian Tritle, St. George Field Office manager for the Bureau of Land Management, hands over the land patent for the land where the Virgin BMX Track sits to Virgin Mayor Bruce Densley, Virgin, Utah, Aug. 30, 2017 | Photo by Hollie Reina, St. George News
Originally leased to Virgin through the Recreation and Public Purposes Act, acquiring the land was the culmination of a dream which began about 15 years ago.

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Dept. of Interior investigators pen damning report on BLM’s Dan Love

Many remember Dan Love as the head law enforcement officer during the Cliven Bundy standoff in rural Nevada. In 2009, however, Love was part of Operation Cerebrus — a major law enforcement sweep targeting artifacts traffickers in the Four Corners region.

An investigative report released last week by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is now shedding light on what Love’s involvement might have been in missing Moqui marbles from the Moab, Monticello, and Blanding areas.

The OIG investigated several allegations against Love, a senior law enforcement officer with the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Office of Law Enforcement and Security (OLES). According to the report, Love mishandled evidence, in the form of spheroidal iron oxide marbles that were seized as part of the 2009 investigation.

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Gary Hunt: Burns Chronicles No 59 Ryan Bundy Holds the Key

On January 26, 2016, several people, in two private vehicles were on their way to a scheduled meeting John Day, Oregon.  While in a forested area, with extremely poor, if not non-existent, cell phone coverage, they were set upon by modern day highwaymen (highwaymen were people who stopped travelers and robbed them).  The driver and passengers of the second vehicle submitted to the demands of the heavily armed interlopers, at gunpoint, to leave the vehicle and sit on the side of the snow-covered roadway.

The driver second vehicle, a white pick-up truck, following the exit of one of the passengers, sped away, seeking the assistance of a peace officer, Sheriff Glenn Palmer, of Grant County, Oregon.  However, within a couple of miles they found that the highwaymen had set up a barricade across the road, barring passage.  The highwaymen, hidden behind their vehicles, began firing shots at the white truck.  This forced the truck off the road, where some rather adept driving may have saved one of the highwaymen’s life, by swerving, at the last moment.

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Changes coming to Nevada monuments, Heller confirms

The only specifics Heller offered concern Gold Butte in northeastern Clark County, where the monument’s northern boundary is expected to be moved to “carve out” six springs that represent the future water supply for the communities of Mesquite and Bunkerville.

Heller did not say what changes Zinke recommended for Basin and Range National Monument in remote Lincoln and Nye counties.

The Virgin Valley Water District requested the change to Gold Butte during Zinke’s July 30 tour of the two monuments.

Water District General Manager Kevin Brown has said that moving the monument’s northern boundary 5 or 6 miles to the south would cut about 24 square miles from the roughly 460-square-mile monument.

Monument advocates have threatened to sue over any changes made to Gold Butte or Basin and Range.

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BUNDY RANCH: Prosecutors Once Again Found Holding Back Information As Defense Attorney’s Prepare For Upcoming Trials

PROSECUTORS in Las Vegas got back to work on Monday, and in the case of USA vs Cliven Bundy et al — it was dirty “business as usual.”

It was revealed late Monday afternoon that Steven Myhre and the Department of Justice are refusing to hand over audio recordings they are suspected of  having in their possession containing radio transmissions the defense believes are recordings between Special Agent In Charge Daniel P. Love, BLM sniper teams, other tactical personnel, and possibly informants who were on the ground surveilling Bundy Ranch as far back as March in 2014.

These recordings are vital to the defense in that the indictment against rancher Cliven Bundy and his co-defendants specifically states that Mr. Bundy and several others told lies and exaggerated the situation between Bundy and the BLM for the purpose of recruiting gunmen to come and help get the rancher’s cattle back.  Up and until the first trial which began last February, the BLM denied the use of snipers and other tactical personnel during “Operation Gold Butte” the BLM’s official name for the Bundy Ranch cattle impoundment.

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Dan Love Will Not Be Prosecuted

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah declined to file criminal charges related to evidence mishandling against BLM Special Agent Daniel P. Love.

Though there were multiple scandalous allegations of breaking the law, including using his influence to get tickets to a sold-out Burning Man festival, telling an employee to delete some emails that contained bureau information requested by then-U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and telling a federal employee to take seized stones known as moqui marbles out of an evidence room so he could give them away as gifts.

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Yes, You Can Defend The First Amendment

Acting US Attorney Steven Myhre has been hit by the proverbial slap in the face and has begun to take everything surrounding the Bunkerville trials very personally.

You would think that this man could rise above the nastiness and keep his remarks professional, however, he proved himself to be a bit irrational when he made childish accusations towards the Bunkerville Retrial defendants last week.

The surprising verdicts announced last week, allowing the release of four men from custody in Nevada, have shined the light on Myhre’s lack of evidence against the entire group of political prisoners.

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Trump To Lift Military Gear Ban For Local Police

The Trump administration will unveil a new plan Monday to roll back limits on a controversial program that provides local law enforcement agencies with surplus military gear, marking the end of a policy implemented during the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order in 2015 prohibiting the transfer of a host of equipment, including armored vehicles, grenade launchers, high-caliber weapons and camouflage uniforms following controversy over the “militarization” of the police response to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there’s an occupying force as opposed to a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them,” Obama said at the time. “It can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message.”

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FBI Informants Break The Law So The FBI Can Make The Law

A terrorist, a drug trafficker, an armed robber, and a federal agent walk into a bar. The bartender takes one look at this crew and runs out the back door. So should you. Used to be only one of these had the massive power of the federal law enforcement complex behind him. Now they all do. And that’s a problem.

Somewhere between the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism, a smart federal employee realized there was an easier way. Old fashioned investigation is fine, and usually netted a criminal. But it’s hard. And time-consuming. So why not go straight to the source?

Law enforcement has quickly figured out the laziest easiest way to catch a criminal is to use another criminal. Birds of a feather…whatever. You know how it works. Use a criminal to catch another criminal. Then prosecute the second criminal. And the first criminal. Except the first criminal gets a sweet deal. So one criminal gets hammered and one criminal gets not hammered. And you are a whole lot safer. From the second criminal, at least.

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EDITORIAL: National monuments survive Trump administration review – Las Vegas Review Journal

Members of the environmental lobby should be ecstatic that the Interior Department’s review of 27 national monuments resulted in minimal changes. But in today’s world of all-or-nothing politics, they’re instead speed-dialing their attorneys and wringing their hands because a handful of these nature reserves may still be partially downsized.

Oh, the horror!

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke completed the review last week. He recommended that no designation be rescinded. But a spokesman said he has also proposed border modifications for a handful of monuments. The department has yet to name those areas, but they could include Nevada’s Gold Butte and Basin and Range.

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Federal investigators say an embattled Bureau of Land Management agent took valuable stones held as evidence and handed them out “like candy” to colleagues and contractors.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Bureau of Land Management agent who has been scrutinized for past behavior took valuable stones held as evidence and handed them out “like candy” to colleagues and a contractor, federal investigators said in a report made public Thursday.

Daniel Love played a command role in an April 2014 standoff involving backers of Nevada rancher and states’ rights figure Cliven Bundy. It pitted weapon-toting Bundy supporters against heavily armed BLM agents who, in the end, gave up efforts to collect Bundy cattle for nonpayment of grazing fees.

Love was previously faulted for using his influence to get tickets to a sold-out Burning Man counterculture festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that he was helping oversee security for and manipulating a job search for a friend.

U.S. Department of Interior investigators also found Love told an employee to delete some emails that contained bureau information requested by then-U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz. Though the report does not name Love, Chaffetz confirmed Thursday that his request had been directed to Love. Chaffetz did not specify the nature of the request.

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*** NOT GUILTY *** Bunkerville Retrial

Celebrations are dominant throughout the Patriot community tonight. The four men on trial for the second time in Las Vegas, Nevada are being released.

Eric Parker, Scott Drexler, Steven Stewart and Ricky Lovelein heard the jury return 34 Not Guilty verdicts today, out of 40 charges.

Each Defendant was charged with 10 separate charges, with 3 possibilities of additional enhancements. They were facing possibilities of spending the rest of their lives in prison.

For the past several weeks, the prosecution painted as damaging a picture as they could, aided by Judge Gloria Navarro. She shut down these men from putting on any kind of a defense.

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Zinke’s monument recommendations at the White House for president’s review

ST. GEORGE – The future of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments was left unknown Thursday when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke sent recommendations for 27 national monuments under federal review to the White House but did not make the report public.

Zinke announced Thursday morning to the Associated Press he won’t seek to rescind any national monuments carved from the wilderness and oceans by past presidents. But he said he will press for some boundary changes.

Zinke did not directly answer whether any monuments would be newly opened to energy development, mining and other industries the U.S. president has championed.

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Jury in Bunkerville standoff case to resume deliberations Monday

After more than two days of deliberation, jurors are expected to return Monday in the retrial of four men facing federal charges in the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville.

On Tuesday, the panel of six women and six men started deliberating the charges against Idaho men Steven Stewart, Scott Drexler and Eric Parker, and Montana resident Ricky Lovelien. Jurors were sent home at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday and are expected to resume deliberations Monday morning, defense attorneys said.

During closing arguments this week, prosecutors pointed to social media posts in which the men discussed the activities in the rural Nevada town, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. On a video played for jurors, rancher Cliven Bundy spoke to a crowd outside his ranch, encouraging his followers to do what they needed to do to retrieve his cattle from the Bureau of Land Management.

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Bunkerville defendant says he didn’t intend threat

By David Ferrara Las Vegas Review-Journal August 14, 2017 Scott Drexler tucked the butt of his AR-15 into his shoulder and slipped the barrel through a crack in a wall along a northbound Interstate 15 bridge in Bunkerville. Under the southbound lanes, less than a couple of hundred yards away, Bureau of Land Management agents stood behind white trucks on the other side of a cattle fence. Dozens of people moved toward the agents in the midst of the 2014 standoff. And on Monday, the day before attorneys were scheduled to give closing arguments in the retrial of four men […]

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