Now that I'm somewhat interested, I looked into things even more last night.
What, exactly, is Bundy's ranch is somewhat obscured. I didn't look real hard, but I think it's pretty clear that it is the large place downriver from where 170 hooks back to I-15. Nice spread! Swimming pool, tennis court, private lake with an island, etc. A true oasis in the desert! The junkyard to the northeast seems to be where the ag work happens, and it looks like that is as close as militia clown-central is allowed to the heart of Bundy's estate which itself seems to have professional security outside of the gate.
Bundy's Melon patch (?)Bundy's progeny maintain blogs to document their success at enlarging the herd. The several of them that I ran across almost by accident are:
http://bundychompings.blogspot.com/ daughter-in-law, Ryans wife
http://joshandbay.blogspot.com/ daughter
There are various photos of Cliven himself and his spread scattered among other typical family pics. And fun little stories about how the Devil backed up the family's sewer and such-like.
I was interested to find out of Bundy was a fundy Mormon. There are arguments both ways, but at this point I find the strongest argument to be that he and his fam are not. I estimate that they are typical Mormons and like typical Mormons having boat-loads of kids is an important part of their existence. That does NOT in and of itself make them polygamists or whatever.
In an interview with Ryan, he relayed a story about when he was a kid, Cliven purchased 1000 head of cattle from Mexico. Since he was planning to run them on some of the worst land in the world (which was not even his in the first place) he, unsurprisingly, lost his ass and couldn't even afford to send his kids to school with lunch. Ryan claims that Cliven dumped Ryan's mom because she wanted 'welfare' for her kids to eat. I suspect that it might have something to do with the fact that the old heifer was throwing freaks and Cliven decided to get a new one, but of course it's hard to know.
Cliven's fortunes seem to have changed when he switched from accepting welfare in the form of highly subsidized land and started to just trespass and steal resources outright. It is often said that all the other ranchers were run out by the evil government. It s seems highly possible that other ranchers who were not comfortable stealing found it hard to compete with the Bundy clan and the Bundys themselves are a big part of the problem.
Ryan's argument is that the 'fees' charged by the BLM are not fees for the actual vegetation and water, but are rather 'ranch management' fees and the family does not need the Govt to tell him how to run a ranch so they didn't 'sign a contract'. This is obviously absurd. True, Bundy seems to have learned that running 1000 cattle on the BLM land makes them starve and cost him money and he lowered his head-count somewhat. The fact is, though, that it's the BLM's land and THEY get to decide what the head-count per area unit is. Again, that's what happens when one owns something. Sad day for Bundy.
Some people have produced info that appears to implicate Reid in various land dealings in the immediate area. Notwithstanding that a lot of this kind of 'conspiracy theory' stuff from the likes of Breightbart are complete rubbish, it would not surprise me in the least. It looks to me like this might be a dick measuring contest between a couple of rich old Mormon guys who are _both_ effectively puppets of Koch brothers and their own interests. That anyone should personally sacrifice anything for either of them demonstrates what idiots some people are.
- edit: Koch, maps link, + minor