Yea...That Nevada Thing.

The Trib dutifully offers up it's confused editorial support.

Why do I say confused?

Oh where do I begin?  Let's start at where Scaife's braintrust ends its argument:

This dispute should be settled administratively, in court, not at gunpoint in the desert. The price of such government bullying, even if it stops short of another Waco-style catastrophe, is too high to risk paying — for those endangered, for liberty and for the rule of law. [Emphasis added.]

I might be getting ahead of myself - perhaps some of my readers don't know what's going on in Nevada.  Mother Jones has a good summary:

On Saturday, a large group of anti-government protesters converged on a Bureau of Land Management base camp in rural Nevada to protest the federal government's seizure of Bundy's cows. Bundy had for years grazed hundreds of cattle on protected lands controlled by the federal government and refused to pay the resulting court-ordered fines. This month, after nearly 20 years of consistently beating Bundy in court, the BLM moved to confiscate his cattle. 

The braintrust is still pushing the idea that this dispute should be settled in court.  But it already has been to court.  And Bundy has consistently lost.  Take a look at this from a recent court order:

This case arises out of Bundy’s unauthorized and unlawful grazing of his livestock on property owned by the United States and administered by the Department of the Interior (“the DOI”) through the Bureau of Land Management (“the BLM”) and the National Park Service (“the NPS”). On November 3, 1998, the Court issued an Order permanently enjoining Bundy from grazing his livestock on the former Bunkerville Allotment (“the Allotment”), and ordering him to remove his livestock from the Allotment by no later than November 30, 1998, and pay damages to the United States in the amount of $200 per day per head for any remaining livestock on the Allotment after November 30, 1998. On September 17, 1999, after Bundy failed to comply with the Court’s first Order, the Court issued a second Order directing Bundy to comply with the 1998 Permanent Injunction and modifying the trespass damages owed to the United States. Notwithstanding the Court’s Orders, Bundy continues to graze his cattle on the Allotment. Thus, the United States seeks a third Order as follows: (1) declaring that Bundy has placed or allowed his livestock to graze on the Allotment in violation of the Court’s Orders; (2) directing Bundy to remove his livestock from the Allotment within 45 days of the Court’s Order; (3) explicitly authorizing the United States to seize and impound Bundy’s livestock if they have not been removed as directed; (4) instructing Bundy that he may not physically interfere with an impoundment operation authorized by the Court’s Order; and (5) authorizing the United States to seize and impound Bundy’s livestock should he continue to violate the Court’s Permanent Injunction in the future.

And so I have to ask my friends on the Braintrust: What part of this don't you understand?  Bundy has been breaking the law for 20 some odd years, taking advantage of public property, and ignoring Federal Court orders.  The BLM was confiscating his cattle to pay the fines he accrued by doing all that illegal stuff.

How is that guv'ment bullying?