BLM controversy in Southern Utah

[Glenn]

Beep...beep...beep...

The sound of those Tea Party Republicans who were calling this guy a hero...

[Glenn]

I really didn't want to wade into this cow pie conversation but now that you requested my presence in the mire ....I'm not sure Mr. Bundy would like me too much since my first rule with a client is for the client to exercise his/her 5th Amendment right to shut up and let me do the talking. I'm pretty good at pulling people out of a hole but the first rule of getting out of a hole is to stop digging it deeper. "Let go of the shovel and let me help," I tell them. Most do just that. Again, Mr. Bundy and I may butt heads because from the little I have read, he seems to want to keep digging, by word and by action. Also, the media attention tends to mess with people a lot by way of clouding their better judgment because of the attention.
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Wow... Bundy's latest statements amount to more of a backhoe than a shovel, eh Scott?

[Scott Card]

Wow... Bundy's latest statements amount to more of a backhoe than a shovel, eh Scott?

My experience tells me that the most dangerous enemy an individual has is almost always him/herself.

[Iceaxe]

[Iceaxe]

[Iceaxe]

[ratagonia]

The latest from my buddies at SLANT:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...son_needs.html


Cliven Bundy Is Not a "Welfare Queen"

by Amanda Marcotte

Taking a swipe at Cliven Bundy by calling him a "welfare queen" made the leap from social media snarking to cable news on Thursday, when CNN anchor Bill Weir brought it up in an interview with Bundy. "You are writing off a whole class of people, African-Americans, as sort of dangerously dependent because they get government assistance," Weir stated. "At the same time, you’re grazing your cows on public land for free. So, how are you not sort of a welfare queen in a cowboy hat?"

Weir's analogy is deeply unfair to people on welfare in so many ways, starting with the myth that people on welfare are defrauding the government in the same way that Bundy is doing. While there are people who lie on food-stamp applications and there was that one lady who ran a major welfare fraud scheme four decades ago, the overwhelming majority of people who apply for government assistance are honest people who are just trying to survive. The rate of food-stamp fraud—which includes people lying on applications and selling food stamps for cash—is low, about a penny on every dollar spent on the program. Plus, people who do commit food-stamp fraud generally go to jail for it. They don't hole up in their homes with an illegal army of gun nuts while the right-wing media champions them for their anti-government activities.

Also, let's be clear that the difference in scale here is massive. Bundy owes the federal government more than $1 million in grazing fees, fines, and other penalties. If he was cheating the government by lying on a food-stamp application, it would take him about 8,100 months to bilk the government for as much, at the Nevada allowance of $123.57 a month.

But really, the sexist and racially tinged stereotype of the "welfare queen" has expanded in the decades since Ronald Reagan first uttered the phrase in the '70s. Back then, he was using the phrase to imply that welfare fraud is more common than it is. Now, it tends to be used more to imply that there's a class of people, mostly women, who subsist on welfare throughout their lives to avoid working. But this simply isn't true. Food stamps are largely a program for working people who are temporarily unemployed. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP—and more than 80 percent work in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP."

Even for people who need more help and have to turn to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the myth that they are lazy and dependent simply isn't the reality. Or if they are, it's because they are children and, as a civilized nation, we have banned child labor. Nearly half of families that receive TANF have no adult recipients, according to data collected by the Office of Family Assistance. Of the adults, three out of five are required to have paid employment in order to receive their benefits. Most of the rest are exempt for a very good reason, either because of disability or because they are single parents with babies under 12 months old.

Weir no doubt meant well, but by invoking the image of the "welfare queen," he inadvertently reinforced the myth that people who turn to welfare are criminal, lazy, and dependent. You know, the exact myth that Bundy was leaning on to justify his insinuation that black people were better off under slavery. Government benefits are set up by the citizenry as a safety net we can all depend on if we fall down on our luck. Cliven Bundy, on the other hand, comes up with half-baked rationalizations for his desire to profit off stealing from the taxpayers. As fun as it may be to play gotcha with Bundy, surely there's a way to do it without signing off on his offensive and frankly untrue remarks about people who receive legal government benefits.

[Scott P]

I just found out that the Bundy's are family members of mine, related to my mom's side of the family.

[Scott Card]

I just found out that the Bundy's are family members of mine, related to my mom's side of the family.

Hurry, quick, put everything in your wife's name.

[Scott P]

Hurry, quick, put everything in your wife's name.

Or I should buy a herd of cattle and take it down to the Bundy Ranch and let them know that I also have ancestral grazing rights. It's some of the same family members that the Bundy's are claiming that they inherited rights from. I wonder how that would go over?

[ratagonia]

I just found out that the Bundy's are family members of mine, related to my mom's side of the family.

Scott - you're a Bundy! A sovereign individual. No more Federal taxes!!!

T

[Scott P]

Scott - you're a Bundy!

Well, not really since the relation is with my mother's side and thus the name Bundy wasn't involved. The Bundy's are claiming grazing right's from their mother's side.

According to the Bundy's, their grandmother "inherited" grazing rights from her side of the family from the the Abbot, Levitt, and Adams families. (The Bundy family left the area several times before coming back and buying the ranch land in 1948 and starting to graze the land in 1954). Since my mother came from the Adams of the same region, it's almost surely the same family line. The Adams did indeed settle the Virgin River Valley, but also Kanab and then later, Delta (the one in Utah). Incidentally, and for history buffs, the Levitt family in the region is who Juanita Brooks descended from is the famous historian who chronicled the Mountain Meadows Massacre (the Levitts have supposed ties to the massacre) in her book as well as other Mormon history related to polygamy.

Anyway, if the Bundy's "inherited" the rights to the land from the Adams, would it seem that I would have the same claim to the land?

[cchoc]

Somebody posted a link to this on FB today, looks like the gov strategy may pay off when the various militia 'patriots' kill each other off.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/05/mi...s-drew-weapons

[Byron]

Given this cattle controversy involving Utah, this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. deserves to be repeated. “ I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Somebody beat ya to it.

[double moo]

Given this cattle controversy involving Utah, this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. deserves to be repeated. “ I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Definitely Platinum Level quote right there....

[Scott P]

The Bundy sons led a militia that just took over a National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-no...ith_quiet.html

[BruteForce]

The Bundy sons led a militia that just took over a National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-no...ith_quiet.html

That "headquarters" is nothing more than an unoccupied cabin. I love how the media is making it sound like some huge occupied campus..

[Scott P]

...

[Scott P]

A photo of the headquarters buildings. Yes, not that big.



Apparently the county is concerned enough that all schools are closed for the week.

[Glenn]

A photo of the headquarters buildings. Yes, not that big.



Apparently the county is concerned enough that all schools are closed for the week.

Did I miss a sarcasm tag somewhere? Because that looks like a lot more than an "unoccupied cabin."