Connecting the dots within a vast right-wing network of militia members, state and local politicians, and others.
Public lands
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
The rise of the Sagebrush Sheriffs
How rural ‘constitutional’ peace officers are joining the war against the feds.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Latest: Ranching family whose battles with the feds preceded the Bundys’ loses in court
So ends the legal saga of Wayne Hage and Wayne Hage Jr., who argued that their historical water rights gave them grazing rights, as well.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Rep. Rob Bishop is chipping away at Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy
Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop is using his position as chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee to wage a war on the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, our Republican president from 1901-1909. The latest front in this war is Bishop’s plan to mangle the mission of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The fund helps […]
Posted inArticles
FBI veteran gives authorities high marks for Malheur crackdown
Occupier who was killed showed signs of ‘suicide-by-cop mentality.’
Posted inArticles
Grand Canyon park’s 15-year failure on sexual harassment
Interior Department investigation shows a history of harassment, hostility and retaliation.
Posted inArticles
Want public access to private land? There’s an app for that.
Not a day goes by without someone bemoaning the lack of public access to private lands in the West. Gone are the good old days, some say, when landowners welcomed visitors. Today, it often seems like there are “NO TRESPASSING” signs across every gate and orange paint on every fence post, blocking public access to […]
Posted inArticles
Authorities closing in on Oregon’s Malheur occupation
FBI calls for removal of occupiers following eight arrests and the death of one man late Tuesday.
Posted inArticles
Malheur occupation could set conservation efforts back years
Invasive carp may recolonize areas they were once eradicated from, depending on how long the occupation lasts.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Modern sagebrush rebels recycle old Western fantasies
Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of scofflaw Nevada rancher Clive Bundy, appear to have made an ambitious New Year’s resolution: Force the federal government, which has managed more than half of the American West’s lands for the past century, to relinquish them, at gun point if necessary, to the locals. Over the weekend, the Bundy […]
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Photos: A protest over imprisoned ranchers becomes an occupation of a wildlife refuge
In eastern Oregon, the latest iteration of the Sagebrush Rebellion.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Wildlife Services and its eternal war on predators
The federal agency has been researching nonlethal means to protect livestock for decades. So why is it still killing so many carnivores?
Posted inArticles
BLM proposes rules for oil and gas methane emissions
The rule will help conserve natural gas and mitigate pollution, targeting 100,000 existing wells.
Posted inArticles
Rob Bishop’s long-awaited ‘grand bargain’ for Utah public lands
After decades of stalemate, the new bill gets mixed reactions.
Posted inArticles
The folly of “taking back” the West
Do 700 million acres of national parks, national monuments, national forests, national wildlife refuges and Bureau of Land Management units belong to you and your fellow Americans? No, according to the increasingly popular notion in the West that it’s time for states to “take back” federal land. “Taking back” property that belongs to Alaskans and […]
Posted inArticles
West Obsessed: Behind the Malheur occupation
Our editors discuss the lead-up to the stand-off in Oregon.
Posted inArticles
Justice in the West has a double standard for protesters
In Boston over 200 years ago, a group of American patriots dressed and painted like Indians smashed crates and dumped tea into the city’s harbor. In today’s American West, protesters ride their ATVs into publicly owned canyons to protest federal restriction of motorized access, and more recently, grazing-fee opponents forcibly “occupy” the desks of wildlife […]
Posted inArticles
The first Sagebrush Rebellion: What sparked it and how it ended
Today’s movement is a radical, perverted version of the 1970s-80s rebellion.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: The anti-ranching, misinformed discourse around Malheur
The federal grazing system doesn’t support good management.
Posted inArticles
Former BLM chief: Bundys ‘pursuing an agenda’ on public land
Bob Abbey was Bureau of Land Management chief from 2009 to 2012 and Nevada state director from 1997 to 2005. In a recent interview with High Country News, he discusses the BLM’s response to ranchers, including Cliven Bundy in Nevada, who broke federal laws, as well as the importance of collaborating with local law enforcement when it comes […]