An unprecedented collaboration between various government agencies, animal welfare groups and ranchers has created a plan aimed at finally bringing the wild horse and burro population on the Western range under control.
The disparate groups include the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, the Humane Society of the United States, the American Farm Bureau, American Mustang Foundation, the Public Lands Council and others.
The plan calls for removing 15,000 to 20,000 wild horses a year from the range in the next three years, drastically increasing the use of temporary and permanent sterilization, moving horses to cheaper cost-effective private grazing land and promoting adoptions. The removal number would drop drastically as fertility control takes effect.
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The primary objective of this proposal is to develop an economically and environmentally viable, humane, non-lethal, and feasible long-term management plan for wild horses and burros in the American West. The current program is unsustainable and needs redirection.As of March, the Bureau of Land Management estimated that the population of wild horses and burros on federal lands is more than 81,951 — more than three times 26,690 the agency believes the range can sustain — and that population can grow 18 percent a year, the plan warns. Meanwhile, the BLM maintains 36,906 wild horses and burros in large pasture facilities, and 14,029 horses and burros in corral facilities at a cost of $50 million a year.
The plan calls from increasing the BLM’s total wild horse and burro management budget from the current $80 million a year to $130 million initially, but with cost declining as fertility control cuts population growth and horses and burros are adopted. The goal is to sterilize 90 percent of the animals on the range.
Nancy Perry, ASPCA’s senior vice president, told The Associated Press, “Not every advocate wants to engage with or work with those that they have been in battle with over the years. But BLM’s current polices are ineffective. If they continue on the road they’re on now, it means disaster.”
In fact, the AP reported that the plan has ignited fierce opposition from the American Wild Horse Campaign and Friends of Animals, groups that are already challenging in the courts earlier horse round-ups.
The American Wild Horse Campaign was quoted as saying, “The groups promoting this plan have been co-opted into supporting the livestock industry’s agenda for wild horses by the BLM’s vague promise to utilize undefined ‘population growth suppression’ methods. By mandating the removal of a startling 15,000 to 20,000 wild horses a year, the plan will result in the reduction of America’s wild herds to extinction levels.”
Despite the hysteria from the horse huggers, the plan is at least putting forward a rational effort to control the horse and burro population on the range. The plan estimates it will take 10 years to reach the population that the BLM says is sustainable. Currently the animals in many herd management areas are so overpopulated that they are starving and damaging water resources. Grazing land needed by cattle and other wild animals is depleted.
The plan also addresses the cost of keeping wild horses off the range.
“Every day, the BLM spends $1.82 per horse in long term holding pastures and an average of $4.99 per horse in corral facilities,” the plan notes. “A shortage of pasture facilities has forced the agency to use corral facilities for long term purposes — at more than twice the expense. … The agency estimates that each of those horses costs approximately $46,000 over the course of their lifetime. We propose that the BLM relocate corralled horses and burros, along with any additional removed horses and burros, to more cost-effective private pastures.”
The status quo is not acceptable. Give this plan a chance.
Editors Comment: Identity Politics? Because of a group of people being involved or participating in an event does not make the event about that group.
This article misrepresents many constitutionalist and every day, people as members of a Sovereign Movement. The particular type of activities that this bill is trying to make criminal are related to the Common Law movement and involves self-proclaimed Common Law Grand Jurys and Judges. It also addresses documents created and used from or by these entities.
Most self-identifying Sovereign Citizens, are not about creating, filing or using common law legal documents as if they are real. They are about just being a free person and believing that the Federal Government has abandoned the constitution and its original intent.
Because many people who also have similar feelings that do not self proclaim this and comply with laws and government regulations are being identified as something they are not.
Identity Politics are the new civil rights issue of this century. It promotes prejudice and discrimination by grouping people as if they are members of Identity-based groups that they are not, based only on the fact that they have participated in political or social events where there were people that are also participating.
This is and will continue to be the number one cause of division and decent in the next decade unless we as a society can stand up unnormalize this attitude and behavior.
It is my personal belief that the issue of the creation and use of documents as if they mean the same thing as one produced and filed via a legally recognized court of law is wrong and should have legal consequences for those trying to use them.
I believe that if we are to restore our constitution to our republic we must do it within the system that is currently in place. It will be hard but it can be done with appropriate persistence.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
CARSON CITY — The loosely affiliated anti-government extremists known commonly as sovereign citizens are the “largest terroristic threat” facing Nevada, according to Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford.
From the Bundy standoff to a plot to kidnap and execute a police officer, law enforcement in Southern Nevada is no stranger to dealing with those who follow the sovereign citizens’ ideology: They don’t believe in federal or state laws, paying taxes, often espouse hatred of police and elected officials — all factors that have led the FBI to deem those in the movement domestic terrorists.
In Clark County alone, there are roughly 500 people who the Metropolitan Police Department says are affiliated with the movement, Detective Ken Mead said Thursday while presenting a bill under consideration by the Legislature that would give law enforcement more tools to prosecute sovereign citizens.
Aaron Ford speaks to the Review-Journal's reader panel about his platform going into the 2018 midterm elections in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Caroline Brehman/Las Vegas Review-Journal @carolinebrehman
And interactions between police and those within the movement are becoming increasingly contentious, Mead said.
“I can confidently say that we have seen an increase in this in the last eight years with their level of activity, their level of aggressiveness,” said Mead, who has spent the last eight years working on domestic terrorism matters for the department while assigned to the Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center.
Mead has seen those increases from both a professional level and a personal one.
During an investigation into a scam targeting the elderly in Nevada, Mead became the target himself of a common tactic used by sovereign citizens. They began filing fake court documents in the case from a nonexistent court, claiming that the police officers who made the arrest were in contempt of the court they created, and ordered them to pay $500.
Those filings got more threatening over time. The $500 demand became $1,000. The group started issuing fake indictments and arrest warrants against the officers and prosecutors in the case. Eventually those documents claimed that Mead and his peers were engaged in treasonous activity and “the penalty for treason was death,” Mead said.
The documents could seem real to the untrained eye, Mead said, with official-looking stamps and raised seals.
Then those documents started showing up at his house, and he soon realized that those same people were watching his home, which caused him to have to take “alternative measures” to protect himself and his family, Mead said.
That’s where the bill up for discussion Thursday, Assembly Bill 15 — proposed by the attorney general’s office — comes in.
The seriousness of the threat posed by sovereign citizens came to Ford’s attention last spring while attending a law enforcement summit in Mesquite hosted by then-Attorney General Adam Laxalt. It was there that Ford was told by local and federal law enforcement that “the largest terroristic threat here in our state is sovereign citizens.”
AB15 goes after one of sovereign citizens’ key tactics by making it illegal to create fake judgments, summons, complaints or most other court documents. Under the proposal, doing so would be a class D felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.
The Senate committee took no action on the bill Thursday. It was previously approved by the full Assembly on a 36-4 vote, with four rural Republican assemblymen voting against it.
Clark County commissioners open to gun restrictions on Strip
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Some Clark County commissioners have voiced general support for considering firearm restrictions on the Las Vegas Strip if Nevada lawmakers give them the power to create stricter gun laws.
The county would be given such power under the omnibus AB291gun bill moving through the Democrat-controlled Legislature despite widespread opposition from Republicans and gun rights groups.
Some commissioners say state law prevented the body from enacting gun regulations following the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The gunman attacked a 2017 Las Vegas music festival and used bump stocks to mimic the firing rate of an automatic firearm.
AB291 - Revises provisions relating to public safety. (BDR 15-759) Captured from nellis - 4-29-2019 6:35 pm
"As a large metropolitan area, we simply face different law enforcement challenges than other places in the state," said Commissioner Justin Jones at a bill hearing, mentioning the millions of tourists who visit Las Vegas each year. He also said declaring the Las Vegas Strip a gun-free zone on major holidays would be a common-sense gun measure.
Jones said in an interview that he expects there to be interest on firearm restrictions for the Las Vegas Strip, if the Nevada bill passes.
Commissioner Tick Segerblom says he would go further.
Segerblom said he's not only in support of those restrictions, but wants a discussion over adding an assault weapons ban, handgun registrations and ammunition limitations.
Giving counties the ability to dictate gun laws allows the conversation over firearm issues to extend past the state's biennial legislative session, he said.
Nevada is one of the few states in which the Legislature meets every other year.
Jones and Segerblom are former state lawmakers who have backed gun bills in the past.
Commission Chairman Marilyn Kirkpatrick expressed support for considering gun regulations for the Strip corridor, but cautioned that the commission would have to consider the impact on large hunting shows.
The amended Nevada bill handily passed the Assembly with no Republican support. The Nevada bill would also ban bump stocks and lower the alcohol limit for legally possessing a firearm outside a person's home.
Unlike the original bill, the amended legislation would not allow cities and towns to enact stricter firearm laws. Yet the changes to the bill have not blunted criticism.
Don Turner, president of the Nevada Firearms Coalition, said the group remains in strong opposition to the amended bill and is most concerned with provisions giving counties the ability to create stricter firearm laws, arguing that it's easier to pass a local ordinance than a state law.
Assemblyman Tom Roberts, a Republican who voted against the amended bill, said he is in support of the bump stock ban, but disagreed with giving counties the power to create more stringent firearm laws. He argued it would create a patchwork of laws.
"It's not something I believe that we should be giving up to the county commissions, when we have such a large and diverse state with huge differences of opinion on this issue," he said.
Availible to be purchased 9am to Midnight on May 7th 2019 - NCW.LiveNation.com.
How far can $20 take you in Las Vegas? Concert-booking behemoth Live Nation is about to find out.
How far can $20 take you in VegasVille? Concert-booking behemoth Live Nation is about to find out.
From Wednesday through May 7, fans can snap up tickets for $20 — including fees — to dozens of Live Nation concerts and events in Las Vegas. The widespread discount is part of the company’s fifth annual National Concert Week campaign. Tickets at the $20 price are available from 9 a.m. Wednesday through 11:59 p.m. May 7 at NCW.LiveNation.com.
The deal covers a wide swath of events, including Lady Antebellum at Pearl Concert Theater, Janet Jackson at Park Theater, Juanes at Mandalay Bay Beach, Judas Priest at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and Pitbull at Zappos Theater and Trevor Noah at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Even the Bill & Hill show — President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at Park Theater — is on this list.
The full NCW lineup, as provided by Live Nation:
May 5 – An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (Park Theater at Park MGM)
May 10, 11, 15, 17 & 18; Aug. 23, 24, 28, 30 & 31 – Lady Antebellum OUR KIND OF VEGAS (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
May 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 22, 24 & 25 – Pitbull “Time of Our Lives” (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort)
May 17 – Florence + The Machine (T-Mobile Arena)
May 17, 18, 21, 22, 25 & 26; July 24, 26, 27 & 31; Aug. 2, 3, 7, 9 & 10 – Janet Jackson Metamorphosis (Park Theater at Park MGM)
May 25 – New Kids on the Block (Mandalay Bay Events Center)
May 26 – Juanes (Mandalay Bay Beach)
May 31; June 1, 5, 7, 8, 13, 15 & 16; Sept. 20, 21, 24, 27 & 28; Oct. 2, 4 & 5 – Christina Aguilera: The Xperience (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort)
June 7 – Enanitos Verdes & Hombres G (The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel)
June 15 – Jennifer Lopez (T-Mobile Arena)
June 21 – Rob Thomas (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort)
June 22 – Hootie & The Blowfish (T-Mobile Arena)
June 28 – Coheed and Cambria (The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel)
June 29 – Judas Priest (The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel)
June 30 – Trevor Noah (The Colosseum at Caesars Palace)
July 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 24 & 26; Oct. 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26 & 30: Nov. 1 & 2 – “Gwen Stefani – Just A Girl” (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood)
July 6 – Pentatonix (Mandalay Bay Events Center)
July 12 – Hammer’s House Party (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
July 13 – Gary Owen (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
July 19 – Beck and Cage the Elephant (Park Theater at Park MGM)
July 20 – Why Don’t We (Park Theater at Park MGM)
Aug. 2 – Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
Aug. 11 – Prettymuch (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
Aug. 16 – Young the Giant & Fitz and the Tantrums (Downtown Las Vegas Events Center)
Aug. 16 – Lynyrd Skynyrd (T-Mobile Arena)
Aug. 17 – Chris Young (MGM Grand Garden Arena)
Aug.t 24 – Iration (Mandalay Bay Beach)
Sept. 1 – Papa Roach (Downtown Las Vegas Events Center)
Sept. 14 – Gloria Trevi (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort)
Oct.r 4, 5, 9, 11 & 12 – Billy Idol (Pearl Concert Theater inside the Palms)
Nov. 6, 8, 9 & 12 – Florida Georgia Line (Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort)
Nov. 12 – Sara Bareilles (Mandalay Bay Events Center)
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The full list of Live Nation shows can be found at livenation.com.
Despite all the evidence that it will do more harm than good, a bill to raise the minimum wage in Nevada is still wending its way through the halls of the Legislature in Carson City.
Assembly Bill 456 would raise the minimum wage 75 cents per hour each year as it climbs from the current $7.25 per hour for those receiving company health insurance and $8.25 for those not insured until it reaches $11 or $12 per hour.
In his State of the State speech, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak called for raising the minimum wage and declared, “It’s impossible for an individual, let alone a family, to live on $7.25 an hour,” ignoring the fact almost no one “lives” on minimum wage. Fewer than 3 percent of workers are paid the minimum wage and most of them are under age 25 and working part-time. Most are supplementing family income rather than being self-supporting.
In fact, raising the minimum wage often results in jobs being cut and/or working hours reduced. One study found the average low-wage worker in Seattle lost $125 a month because the minimum wage was raised to $15 an hour.
Now, a recent study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that raising the minimum wage can harm even those who are not being paid the minimum wage.
Using national crime data from 1998 to 2016, the study found “robust evidence that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16- to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind.”
The study projects that raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour nationally would result in approximately 231,000 additional property crimes, costing the nation $1.3 billion. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would generate over 410,000 additional property crimes and $2.4 billion per year in additional crime costs.
“We conclude that increasing the minimum wage will at best be ineffective at deterring crime and at worst will have unintended consequences that increase property crime among young adults,” the study authors concluded. They said that previous studies that projected a decrease in crime due to raising the minimum wage ignored the possibility of hours being cut and jobs being lost.
Don’t ignore the costs imposed on everyone when the minimum wage is hiked. A Cato Institute analysis in 2012 found that a “comprehensive review of more than 20 minimum wage studies looking at price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the U.S. minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent and overall prices by up to 0.4 percent.”
The Congressional Budget Office in 2014 estimated that if the federal minimum wage were increased to $10.10 an hour — as proposed by President Obama and others — up to a million workers would lose their jobs.
According to the American Enterprise Institute, when the minimum wage rose 41 percent between 2007 and 2009, the jobless rate for 16- to 19-year-olds increased by 10 percentage points, from about 16 percent in 2007 to more than 26 percent in 2009 — even higher for minorities.
Without those entry level jobs younger Americans cannot build the skills needed to earn higher pay for a lifetime.
Still another Heritage study reported that every dollar increase in minimum wage really only raises take-home pay by 20 cents once welfare benefits are reduced and taxes are increased.
It’s the immutable law of unintended consequences. Lawmakers should abandon their support for this bill, which would cause more harm than good.
The Nevada Assembly voted 23-17 this past week to cut the impact of your presidential vote by at least a third.
Assembly Bill 186 would have Nevada join something called the “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.” Instead of awarding Nevada’s six electoral votes — one for each representative and senator in Congress — according to how Nevadans vote, those six electoral votes would be awarded to the president and vice president team that wins the popular vote nationally.
One could say this cuts the value of Nevada’s votes from six to four, since the votes nationwide would be proportional to population. Or one could say it negates our votes entirely since it matters not how we vote.
Not a single Assembly Republican voted for the bill and five Democrats had the good sense to reject this attempt to emasculate the federalist system on which this country was founded.
If only three state Senate Democrats have the temerity to buck their party leadership and reject AB186 it would fail.
An email to Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office asking whether he would sign or veto the bill should it pass did not garner a response.
Backers say the compact would become a reality if it is adopted by states possessing a combined 270 electoral votes, or a majority of the 538 electoral votes. A similar bill passed in Colorado earlier this year, giving the proposal 181 electoral votes, just 89 votes short of becoming binding.
A similar measure passed the Nevada Assembly in 2009 on a party-line vote but failed to come up for a vote in the state Senate.
The instigation for the current push is the fact that in 2016 Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by 304 to 227, though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million.
If the National Popular Vote had been in force in 2000 Nevada’s then four electoral votes would have been enough to flip the election to Al Gore, even though George W. Bush won the popular vote in Nevada by 49.5 percent to 46 percent, winning every county except Clark. Bush won the electoral vote 271 to 266, but lost the popular vote by 540,000.
Janine Hansen, state president of the Nevada Families for Freedom, mentioned just such a scenario in testimony opposing AB186.
“There are three dangers I’d like to mention with the National Popular Vote,” Hansen testified. “One is the National Popular Vote will potentially betray the voters of our own state. If our state voted for candidate A and the National Popular Vote winner was candidate B, our votes would be stolen from our desire and given to the National Popular Vote winner, betraying the voters in this state. I think there would be a lot of angry voters if they found out that that’s what happened.”
Hansen also noted there is no national authority for determining the accuracy of the National Popular Vote.
In his testimony, Jim DeGraffenreid, vice chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, pointed out Nevada is currently a battleground state, getting significant attention from national candidates. He said the state’s first-in-the-West caucuses provide opportunities for all Nevadans to participate.
“The Electoral College exists because the Framers of the Constitution believed that each state should matter in selecting the president,” DeGraffenreid testified. “It is designed to protect the smaller states like Nevada. To suggest that a state should disregard its own voters and instead follow the will of voters in some other state is the exact opposite of what the Framers intended.”
He said the bill could make Nevada voters irrelevant.
The Founders created the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate to assure the smaller populated states were not relegated to powerlessness in a one person-one vote system. The states were meant to be sovereign and to hold the powers not specifically delegated to the federal government.
The National Review pointed out in a recent article that using 2016’s turnout stats a candidate could have won 54 percent of the vote in 48 states, losing only California, New York and D.C., but if an opponent won 75 percent of the vote in just those three locales, a 451 to 87 electoral vote landslide would have turned into a popular-vote defeat to 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent — even though the voters in 48 states rejected that candidate.
Should Nevada surrender its presidential votes to California and New York?
Nevada residents who don’t identify with a specific gender now have the option to remain gender-neutral on state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards.
The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles announced Monday that residents can choose gender “X” on their IDs, marking the final step in a year’s long effort to update policies toward transgender residents and those who don’t identify as either male or female sexes.
“The DMV is committed to being inclusive and realizes some people don’t want to be forced to identify as either male or female,” said Julie Butler, DMV director in a statement. “We would like to thank the Nevada community groups who brought these issues to our attention and worked with us to bring about the changes.”
A gender change to a license or ID must be completed in person at a DMV office. Applicants can also identify male by choosing “M” and female my picking “F,” according to the DMV.
Last year, the department changed its regulations to allow applicants to self-certify the gender on their ID with no further documentation required. The DMV completed the computer programming required to enable the “X” designation to be printed on the license and shared to outside agencies such as law enforcement and courts.
The DMV has worked to be in line with other agencies, including the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, which changed its rules in 2016, allowing people to change the gender on their birth certificate.
In 2011 the Legislature added gender identity as a protected category in employment discrimination.
Nevada is the 10th U.S. jurisdiction to offer a gender-neutral designation on IDs, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Arkansas, California, the District of Columbia, Minnesota and Oregon allow self-certification, like Nevada. Colorado, Indiana, Maine and Vermont require documentation.
Maryland is slated to begin offering Gender X later this year.
The Equality Act admirably sets out to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include “sexual orientation and gender identity” as protected from discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
It is sponsored in the House by all but one Democrat — including Nevada Reps. Dina Titus, Steven Horsford and Susie Lee. A companion bill in the Senate is sponsored by all but one Democrat — including Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen.
Unfortunately, the bill would curtail free speech rights, religious freedoms and gender privacy for the vast majority of Americans.
As the Heritage Foundation points out the Equality Act would force schools, churches, hospitals, businesses and others to accommodate anyone’s “chosen gender” instead of their actual “biological sex.” This would mean that females would be forced to share bathrooms, locker rooms and dormitories with males who “identify” as women.
It also would mean such males who “identify” as females would be allowed to compete in athletics against biological females, even though biological males tend to be faster and stronger than biological females.
There are already a number of cases across the nation in which males have won championships in various sports at the expense of actual women and girls. Might males snatch athletic scholarships from females? Is that equality?
Heritage further notes, “Medical professionals would be pressured to provide gender-affirming treatments like puberty blockers and hormones — these are irreversible decisions that have not been shown to help mental health while creating a litany of permanent physical health problems. Subjecting children to such radical procedures is even more dubious when one considers that 80 to 95 percent of children with gender dysphoria no longer feel distressed by their bodies after puberty.”
Julia Beck of the liberal Women’s Liberation Front has declared that as written the Equality Act is a violation of basic human rights. “Every person in the country will lose our right to single sex sports, shelters, grants and loans. … We will no longer be able to distinguish between women and men,” she argues.
Beck testified before a House committee that the Equality Act would require admitting male rapists into female prisons, males would have to be allowed into shelters for abused women, men could dominate women’s sports and much more.
Beck told the committee she had no problem with protecting against discrimination due to sexual orientation, but asked that the gender identity portion be struck.
Gender is immutable. It is fundamental down to the chromosomes. To declare otherwise is delusional. To force the vast majority to surrender modesty and safety for the sake of accommodating a tiny deluded minority is just wrong. Separate accommodations for those with gender dysphoria, perhaps, but not access to properly gender segregated facilities and activities.
Our representatives in the House and Senate should rethink this drastic reshaping of social norms.
SCOTUS overturned decision upholding Robertson’s conviction and remanded the case so that the indictment could be dismissed and the lien cancelled
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned a lower court decision affirming the conviction of Joseph Robertson, a 78-year-old veteran now deceased who was sentenced to prison for digging ditches on his rural Montana property to protect the area surrounding his home from wildfires. Judicial Watch had filed an amicus curiae brief jointly with the Allied Educational Foundation supporting Robertson and urging Supreme Court review and reversal of the lower court decision. Robertson served 18 months in prison and died while serving probation. He was also fined $130,000, a liability inherited by his estate.
The Supreme Court also remanded Robertson’s conviction to the lower court so the indictment can be dismissed and the lien can be cancelled.
Judicial Watch and the AEF had asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that upheld Robertson’s conviction, because that decision “affirmed illegal agency actions in prosecuting Joseph Robertson based on a misreading of federal law. The Court should take this opportunity to correct the confusion in overbroad interpretations of the Clear Water Act, which have led to unjust prosecutions and federal intrusions into both state authority and individual liberty.”
The brief was filed in the case of Robertson v. United States, Case No. 18-609, 587 U.S. __ (2019). This was an appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision in United States v. Robertson, 875 F.3d 1281, 1285 (9th Cir. 2017).
Judicial Watch asserted in its filing that the ditches Robertson dug “sat on what a federal agency defines as wetlands and were situated on or near a small downhill water flow of about three garden hoses in volume. Mr. Robertson was not engaged in manufacturing or any other industrial activity which would release chemicals or waste into the water, but under the federal Clean Water Act even turning the soil with a shovel can be considered to be releasing a ‘pollutant’ into water.”
In their brief, JW and the AEF suggest that the issue is larger than Robertson’s personal plight, that it also involves the separation of powers among Congress, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court.
Judicial Watch and AEF also note that the Supreme Court itself has introduced confusion into the issue of “adjacent wetlands,” “point source,” and “navigable waters.
Also, matters like those involving Robertson properly belong with the state, not the federal government.
The brief argues that the Congress has been all too willing to forego its Constitutional duty and defer to federal agencies.
[It was not foreseen that] the judiciary could eventually aid and abet the complete sacrificing of power by one of those two branches, effectively leaving a one-branch government where the founders intended three. When the Court goes too far in reading statutes as broadly assigning sweeping interpretative power to agencies, this allows Congress to give up power altogether and to stop the necessary work of revising and repealing statutes. Congress has proven itself either willing to give up those powers or unable to stop itself from doing so, preferring to ask the executive branch to reinterpret or reimagine statutes in ever more creative ways while sparing members of Congress the pain of accountability for national policy. The Court should not countenance this upending of the constitutional order.
“The Supreme Court has granted a victory against an overreaching government bureaucracy,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The government should not be allowed to regulate every drop of water in America, and the Supreme Court was right to brush back the radical bureaucrats. Mr. Robertson, a veteran, died before he was vindicated but his fight has protected the constitutional freedoms of other Americans.”
The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in a number of projects, which include, but are not limited to, educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with Judicial Watch to fight government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the nation’s public life.
A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — 
