Volume 16 , Issue 14

NW Okie's Journey

Our journey continues slowly on a good note as we await our three month checkup (mid-May) with our oncologist here in southwest Colorado.

We have been trying to eat right and get in our walking a mile a day while the sun shines in the rockies. Some days we do not feel like walking, so we just putter around the yard and watch things grow and the trees budding out.

Lately, as we read the news online, we have been shaking our head in aversion, distaste of the group of armed violent militia, unpatriotic domestic terrorists, who are camped out on Bundy's cattle ranch in Nevada.

Bundy tends his 900 cattle grazing on our taxpayer-owned public land. In Nevada 87% of the state is owned by the federal government with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) overseeing 245 million acres of the public land. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show explained it best and digested FOX, Hannity and Bundy in the following video:



The government began allowing the use of the land in 1877 to promote economic development of dry, difficult to cultivate desert areas. A version of the Desert Land Act of 1877 still exists, which allows ranchers to graze their cattle on public lands for a nominal rate, which is cheaper than what the rancher would pay the state or a private land owner. But the rancher has to share the land with the public. It is the balance between conservation and public use that is a major source of tension when overseeing government land. The BLM are good folks trying to do the best they can.

It was in 1993 that Bundy was ordered to remove his cattle from public lands for conservation purposes. Bundy refused to comply, racking up more than one million dollars in fines. Bundy has been called one of the most selfish and irresponsible users of public land. When one person like Bundy puts his own selfish interest above everyone else's, it hurts us all. The public lands in America belong to all of us.

Is Bundy one of those "welfare ranchers" living off the government?

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is working! Congress can keep their dirty hands off of my Medicare & Social Security!

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