Freeloading rancher and expert on "the negro" Cliven Bundy along with four of his compatriots have been formally indicted in the state of Nevada on a wide range of charges.
The men were arrested in Oregon last week and now face 16 charges handed down by a federal grand jury.
Ammon Bundy, of Idaho, Ryan Bundy, of Nevada, Ryan Payne, of Montana, and Peter Santilli of Ohio, were also indicted by the Nevada grand jury Wednesday.
The charges against them and Cliven Bundy include: conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, weapon use and possession, assault on a federal officer, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, obstruction, extortion to interfere with commerce, and interstate travel in aid of extortion.
Cliven Bundy is accused of leading "a massive armed assault" of 200 followers to stop federal law agents who were rounding up about 400 of Bundy's cattle on federal lands in April 2014, according to documents filed by U.S. attorneys Wednesday.
I and many others across the entire mediasphere have to take responsibility for unquestioningly referring to Cliven Bundy as a legitimate "rancher" because, according to the federal indictment, he is anything but.
The details of his so-called ranching business are disturbing, to say the least, and it makes the case against him stronger than ever.
This is how the federal indictment describes his operation:
While Bundy claims he is a cattle rancher, his ranching operation – to the extent it can be called that – is unconventional if not bizarre. Rather than manage and control his cattle, he lets them run wild on the public lands with little, if any, human interaction until such time when he traps them and hauls them off to be sold or slaughtered for his own consumption. He does not vaccinate or treat his cattle for disease; does not employ cowboys to control and herd them; does not manage or control breeding; has no knowledge of where all the cattle are located at any given time; rarely brands them before he captures them; and has to bait them into traps in order to gather them.
Nor does he bring his cattle off the public lands in the off-season to feed them when the already sparse food supply in the desert is even scarcer. Raised in the wild, Bundy’s cattle are left to fend for themselves year-round, fighting off predators and scrounging for the meager amounts of food and water available in the difficult and arid terrain that comprises the public lands in that area of the country. Bereft of human interaction, his cattle that manage to survive are wild, mean and ornery. At the time of the events giving rise to the charges, Bundy’s cattle numbered over 1,000 head, straying as far as 50 miles from his ranch and into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area (“LMNRA”), getting stuck in mud, wandering onto golf courses, straying onto the freeway (causing accidents on occasion) – foraging aimlessly and wildly, roaming in small groups over hundreds of thousands of acres.
Cliven Bundy is no rancher.
You can read the full indictment here.