Nevada County Commissioner Implies a Death Threat Against Out-of-Staters Who Might Come to Support Cattle Rancher in His Fight with the Feds

I blogged the other day about a still-ongoing conflict in
Nevada, where the Bureau of Land Management is making good on a
long-time threat, and court orders, to begin
confiscating the cattle of a recalcitrant rancher, Cliven
Bundy.

Bundy insists he has old family rights to the land that predate
the BLM’s and thus refuses to pay their fees and continues to graze
his cattle on BLM land. His truculent refusal to stop grazing his
cattle allegedly represents a mortal threat to the endangered
desert tortoise (a tortoise so precious to the federal government
that it is happy to
kill hundreds of them when government is inconvenienced by
them).

Even Nevada’s Gov. Brian Sandoval
has spoken out against BLM:

my office has received numerous complaints of BLM misconduct,
road closures and other disturbances. I have recently met with
state legislators, county officials and concerned citizens to
listen to their concerns. I have expressed those concerns directly
to the BLM.”

“Most disturbing to me is the BLM’s establishment of a ‘First
Amendment Area’ that tramples upon Nevadans’ fundamental rights
under the U.S. Constitution. To that end, I have advised the BLM
that such conduct is offensive to me and countless others and that
the ‘First Amendment Area’ should be dismantled immediately. No cow
justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor
the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all
Nevadans.

Bundy has the kind of attitude toward the federal government–he
thinks it doesn’t have legitimate authority over him even where
state or local government might–that resonates with those who
still hold fealty to the old “militia movement,” so
rumors fly of allegedly hundreds of
citizen “militiamen” coming to his aid.

In response to this, Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins

got very, very verbally threatening indeed, in a conversation
with a Utah county commissioner name Darin Bushman, who:

called Collins about the Bureau
of Land Management roundup of Bundy’s cattle in the Gold Butte
area, about 80 miles east of Las Vegas. The cattle are being
seized after Bundy failed to pay grazing fees over 20 years. When
the conversation ended, Bushman posted on Facebook that Collins
said Utahns are “inbred bastards” and if they come to Clark County
to support Bundy they “better have funeral plans.”

Collins also told Bushman that they should mind their “own
(expletive) business.”….

In an interview, Collins downplayed Bushman’s elected office,
noting his county has only about 1,500 people. Census data shows
the tiny rural county has just 1,556 people.

“I’m trying to do everything I can to discourage anybody who
tells me they’re coming here with loaded guns,” Collins said. “I’m
going to tell them not to come.”….

Bushman said he told Collins he was heading to the protest and
expected some people from his county to be there, as the issue has
attracted the concerns of Utah ranchers.

“This guy was just off-the-hook weird,” Bushman said. “I’ve
never ran into a fellow commissioner who treated me like
that.”….

When asked if he had any regrets about what he told the county
commissioner from Utah, Collins said: “I’ve got no regrets about
what I said to that son of a bitch.”

Lots of local supporters already have come to protest the BLM in
person. Here’s an interesting video of federal authorities standing
off with citizens, including tasing them and throwing a woman to
the ground for standing in the way of one of their trucks: