Going Feral: Looking for Nate Champion.

Going Feral: Looking for Nate Champion.: 

Looking for Nate Champion.

He which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

We would not die in that man's company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Shakespeare, Henry V.

The views of average Wyomingites, by a huge margin, are clear on public lands.  We want them to remain public.

And yet our Congressman voted to transfer 500,000 of FEderal land in Arizona and Utah over to private hands. It's clear that at least one of our Senators is okay with doing something similar in Teton County.

Wyomingites aren't in favor of this at all.  Indeed, one of the most rabid Trumpites I know actually expressed bewildered opposition to this.

So here's the problem, and the question.

Why are Wyomingites still supporting the people who support this?

Politics are varied and complicated.  The reasons that Wyoming has gone so far to the right in its recent politics are as well.  A lot of it has to do with social issues, abortion, transgenderism, immigration, and so on, and much of that, here, has to do with the death of the Democratic Party and there being, seemingly, no where else to go.

But at least on the local level there certainly is, and what Wyomingites are presently doing is not in their own best interest.

Much of what they're currently doing is, frankly, based on a host of lies.  Donald Trump was not the victim of a stolen election with Joe Biden won.  Joe Biden won.  Global warming is not a fib.  The long drift away from coal cannot be arrested.  The state's petroleum industry was never under any governmental assault (leases went up under Biden).  There is no war on the West.  The region's agricultural sector isn't under governmental attack, but rather under real estate developer attack.  The Democrats really weren't advancing gun control.  

But we've been bought off on a bunch of dramatic assertions designed to cause the rise up of what plaintiff's lawyers call our "lizard brain".

Well, now we have a whole host of legislators, many from out of state, who don't share local values at all, and a Congressional delegation that is more interested in supporting the agenda of the far right and its ostensible leader, a nearly 79 year old real estate developer suffering from dementia, than paying attention to what we actually believe.

And that's because that's exactly what we let them do.

In reality, those close to the inside know that John Barrasso doesn't believe  what he's supporting.  It's pretty clear from her past that Cynthia Lummis doesn't either.  Harriet Hageman, well she probably does, as she's a political family that has always had this set of views.  Having said that, and importantly, she intends to run for Governor next election and Chuck Gray, who is a Californian with very little connection to Wyoming, will run for House.

In the next election Wyomingites have a chance to make their views known, although they really need to start doing so right now.  That can have an impact.  John Barrasso, in the last election, adopted a whole host of new views he probably doesn't hold at all to hold off an attack from his right.  Lummis just quietly mostly didn't say what her views actually are the last time she ran, which she could do under the circumstances, and which leaves her room to maneuver.

Maneuvering will, it must be noted, need to occur.  In 2026 the House is going to be Democratic and the MAGA reign will be over, save for in Wyoming, where there's every reason to belive it will keep on keeping on.

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus of its day, the Johnson County invaders.

Much of this, we'd note, is perfectly consistent with Wyoming's history.  Early on Wyoming sent a solidly Republican group of legislatures to our solon in  Cheyenne in spite of its association with large outside agricultural interest which were oppressing local interest.  That didn't end until the invasion of Johnson County in 1892 which briefly swept the Republicans out of power, and brought Democrats into the legislature and which sent Governor Barber packing, although not until after he tried to actually remain as Governor a la Trump insurrection in a way.  That event, however, shows the electorate can react.  It also shows us that politicians can too, as Francis E. Warren managed to survive the event, career entact, when really she shouldn't have, by changing views.

And this is happening in Montana, which was a little in advance of Wyoming in tilting to the far right, right now.

Posted in

A new Montana majority defangs the far right

Just sitting and complaining "well that's not what we think" won't get much done.  

Politicians from any party ought to represent the views of their state.  They ought to also intelligently lead.  There's not much intelligence being manifested in the populist far right, which is mostly acting with a primitive response on a set of social issues combined with false beliefs, andy in Wyoming, with views they brought up from their own states which don't have much to do with us here.  We aren't Sweet Home Alabama.

But that won't happen unless Wyomingites educate themselves as to the truth, and what is truly going on, and how they're simply being fed raw meat for the dogs.  Until that occurs, we're going to go further into the abyss.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 70th Edition. Inside Wyoming Political Baseball

Gray and Hageman play political checkers.

Credible rumors have it that Harriet Hageman is going to run for Governor in 2026 and Chuck Gray for Congress.  A deal, it's rumored, has been worked out between them and their minions.

Hmmm. . . 

Well, it makes some sense.  Hageman ran for Governor before and lost, in part because the far right split between Hageman and Carpetbagger Mega Donor Foster Friese, who introduced the Dukes of Hazard style politics into the state, complete with freezing Daisy Dukes, unsuccessfully.  Now with the far right ascendant, Hageman can figure, with good reason, that she can achieve the Governor's office and eclipse her late father in Wyoming politics.  

And Gray, for his part, has no real connection with Wyoming whatsoever.  It'd make lots of sense that he'd prefer to relocate to Washington D.C. and plot his next move.  That move probably was a run at the Governor's mansion but there's enough uncertainty in that for him to hesitate if something else was available, and if this is correct, there is. That's place him at the eye of the populist hurricane, where he'd probably rather be, over being in the office he's currently in, which deals with a lot of very important, but fairly boring, stuff.

Of course, politics is fickle.  By 2026, if Trump is still in office, the public may be really mad over a major tariff caused recession, or perhaps whatever Putin has on Trump, if anything, is finally revealed as Putin and his bodyguard of dispossessed North Korean flunkies go down in flames in the Kremlin.  Or maybe age or dementia will have caught up with Trump and J. D. Vance will be in office such that real bonafide major social changes will have come into play such that comfortable right wing and pseudo right wing Wyomingites in Wyoming now a-bed shall come to hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks for a variety of reasons, including that certain conduct they hold themselves blameless for shall be anathematized.

More probably, a growing current rumble that out of state populists now running the show in Wyoming politics are out of touch with real Wyomingite's views on public land may spark a sagebrush level revolt and a legislature shift.  This has happened twice before in Wyoming's politics, once in the 1890s and once in the 1990s, in the first instance due to an attempt by the out of state megawealthy to drive out local small ranching and in the second time due to an effort, following the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1980s, to turn ownership of wildlife over to agricultural interests.  In the first instance the Democrats actually took control of the legislature and Governor's office, albeit only briefly, and Republicans who survived that change their tunes.  In the second instance there was a huge backlash against the GOP which very much hurt it, including arguably the career of Congressman Hageman's father.  Similar actions and impacts have been going on for the past several years in Utah.

What will occur, of course, is yet to be seen.  The ability of human beings to predict the future is notoriously bad, in politics as in everything else.  Just a few years ago the Republican Party was regarded as headed into inevitable oblivion and nobody could have seen the developments that rescued, and changed it.  Two years is a long time.

Nickel and Diming

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus puts its cards on the table in the form of its "five and dime" plan for the 2025 legislature, and unfortunate plan name as around here, an expense related slur is to "nickel and dime (something) to death.

Indeed, the agenda, which is frankly more modest than I would have expected for a group that's spent years calling everyone the "uniparty" and which has threatened to ride in like cossacks, burn villages, and save everyone's cats, doesn't seek to do all that much in context.

It's almost like now that they have to govern, they're reticent to try to much.

Thier agenda for the 2025 legislature is below:

ELECTION INTEGRITY: Require Proof of WY Residency & US Citizenship When Registering to Vote

- WHAT: Create clear statutory authority for the Wyoming Secretary of State to promulgate rules requiring voters to prove WY residency and to ensure that non-citizens cannot register to vote in WY.

- WHY: No requirement exists for voters to prove their WY residency or US citizenship status. This simple fix will better secure our elections and bolster confidence in our election system.

Not too surprisingly, this is sort of horseshit.  You have to verify your address, already, every time you vote. We've been doing it for years.  Now we have to present a photo ID as well.  

Oh, I'll do it.  I'll present piles of stuff showing that I'm an actual Wyomingites and didn't move in from somewhere as a Freedom Caucuser.

The real threat here is that the rules our Secretary of State (from California) comes up with are so onerous that it discourages voting.  The irony is that the "Wyoming" Freedom Caucus has, at least up until this year, pretty much been "I moved here form somewhere else and now nothing about Wyoming but I watched Gunsmoke on Me TV Caucus".  Some of  them might have a little bit of trouble proving residence.

IMMIGRATION ACCOUNTABILITY: Invalidate Driver Licenses Issued to Illegals by Other Jurisdictions

- WHAT: Invalidate driver licenses issued to illegal aliens present in WY.

- WHY: An estimated 9 million + illegal aliens have entered the US since 2021. Nineteen states and D.C. issue licenses to illegal immigrants– Wyoming does not. This simple bill will help WY crack down on illegal immigration and to ensure consistency in our statutes and rules.

Bill previously written (SF0120, 2024)

Wyoming has no legal authority to invalidate another state's driver's licenses, and the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution makes that illegal. 

People who have taken an oath to the Constitution, by the way, like the legislators, can't back this without violating their oath.

STOPPING THE WOKE AGENDA AT UW: Prohibiting D.E.I. in Higher Education

- WHAT: Prohibit the University of WY and Wyoming’s Community Colleges from engaging in discriminatory hiring or continuing education requirements that place moral, historical, or other blame on a person or group of people on the basis of immutable characteristics.

- WHY: It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of any immutable characteristic. As the Equality State, WY should be proud to codify additional protections against discrimination. With continually declining enrollment rates at UW, dumping “woke” DEI programming will attract the free thinking cowboys and cowgirls we want attending our university.

There isn't a "woke" agenda at UW.  That's insulting, and its not true.

For some reason, Freedom Caucusers really like to take shots at education.  The rise of home schooling in this same period is notable. Wyoming has excellent public schools that another one of these agenda items would wreck, but there's an obvious flat out distrust of education.

Indeed, the "woke" college thing has become a real populist whipping boy.  Most UW students are there as they're local or taking advantage of a good school that has a reasonable tuition.  The school is hardly "woke".

At some point, quite frankly, it will be worth asking members of the WFC what their education actually is.  I'd be interested in hearing it.  Anyone who is highly educated will encounter somebody at some point who just doesn't trust education.  If you become educated you'll learn, for example, that the Earth is billions of years old, that we evolved from other prior primates, and that none of this is a threat to a rational faith.  For some, that's threatening in the extreme.

PROTECTING OUR CORE INDUSTRIES: Ban woke investment strategies for the State of Wyoming’s trust fund.

- WHAT:: Prohibit the State of Wyoming from investing in funds that prioritize “environmental, social, or governance” standards over funds promising the highest financial rate of return.

- WHY: Wyoming should not invest tax dollars with entities who do not seek the highest rate of return and who are out to destroy and eliminate our core industries.

Bill previously written (SF0172, 2023)

Investing in the "highest rate of return" means you will invest in things that aren't necessary in line with our core industries, some of which are a bad economic bet right now.

The "environmental" aspect of this relates to something set out immediately above.  Lots of industries, with staffs of educated men and women, are concerned about environmental matters including global warming.  The WFC tends to believe that Wyoming's economy is and always will be based on coal, and therefore climate change is a big fib.

CUTTING TAXES: Real Property Tax Relief

- WHAT: Provide a 25% property tax cut to residential property owners with a backfill to local governments.

- WHY: The people of WY have been crushed by years of skyrocketing property taxes.

Bill previously written (SF0054, 2024)

Populism in Wyoming is heavily populated by out of staters who moved in here, causing property taxes to rise.  Now they're going to cut what they caused, with no way to pay for anything. 

Property taxes fund schools and local government.  There's real reason to believe that WFC members don't care that much about schools, which teach nasty stuff like evolution, and given that there are so many members of the WFC that moved in from somewhere else, some have a "I got mine" view.

This bill, if it passes, would gut schools and demolish local improvements and services.

A better strategy would be to impose a tax on the value of the last house you sold, no matter where you sold it, and leave the current property taxes alone.  So if you sold your house in California for $1M and moved here, perhaps we ought to get $250,000 of that here, in part just for putting up with your presence.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 69th Edition. TDS, Vance in the wings. Our geriatric oligarchy. Immigration spats. Banning puberty blockers. Mjuk flicka and the Mantilla Girls.

Labels: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J. D. Vance, mehr Mensch sein, National Conservatism, Old Age, Populism, The rich and the poor, The roles of men and women, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Zeitgeist

"How can you represent. . . "

Elk Mountain.

Every lawyer has been asked that question at some point.  Usually it's "how can you represent somebody you know is guilty?"

Usually, amongst lawyers, it's regarded as kind of an eye rolling "oh how naive" type of question.  For lawyers who have a philosophical or introspective bent, and I'd submit that's a distance minority, they may have an answer that's based on, basically, defending a system that defends us all.  Maybe they have something even more sophisticated, such as something along the lines of St. Thomas More's statement in A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More : Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

That's about the best answer that there may be, and frankly the only one that applies to civil litigation.  We can console ourselves that in representing the interests of the potentially liable, we protect the interest of everyone.

But what about plaintiff's lawyers?

Frankly, the excuse is wearing thin.  

I.e., I don't believe it for a second.  It's all about cash.

And this is a real problem.

The question is what to do about it.

Well, frankly, the average person can't do much.  But you don't really have to accept it, either.

Shunning has a bad name in our culture.  Indeed, one English language European source states:

More specifically, shunning or ostracising is a form of abuse. It is discrimination and silent bullying. Unfortunately, often people who have been shunned also face other forms of abuse, ranging from death threats and physical assaults to murder.

And there's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, it was and is something that is often practiced to varying degrees in religious communities.  Indeed, up until the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, Catholic excommunications were of two types, vitandus and toleratus, with vitandus requiring the Faithful to cease all normal connections with the excommunicated.  It was very rare, but it could happen. Since 1983 that distinction does not exist.  Some Amish, however, still have such a practice, and they are not alone.

Realizing this is extreme, I also realize, as I've seen pointed out twice, that land locking rich magnates cannot do it without local help. They always hire somebody, I've heard them referred to as "goons" to be their enforcer, and when they need legal help, they hire a Wyoming licensed attorney.  Indeed, in this instance, remarkably, the plaintiff did not use a Denver attorney, which I thought they likely would have. 

And this has always been the case.  Wyoming Stock Growers Association stock detectives were sometimes enforcers back in the late 19th Century, and they were hired men.  In the trial of the Invaders, a local Cheyenne attorney was used, but then again, that was a criminal case, which I do feel differently about.

Elk Mountain is basically mid-way, and out of the way, between Laramie, Rawlins and Saratoga.  People working for Iron Bar Holdings have to go to one of those places for goods and services.  There's really no reason the excluded locals need to sell them anything.  Keep people off. . .drive to Colorado for services.

And on legal services?  I don't know the lawyers involved, so I'm unlikely to every run into them. But I'm not buying them lunch as we often do as a courtesy while on the road, and if I were a local rancher, and keep in mind that outfits like Iron Bar Holdings don't help local ranchers keep on keeping on, I'd tell that person, if they stopped in to ask to go fishing or hunting, to pound sand.

If this sounds extreme, and it actually is, this is what happened with some of the law firms representing Donald Trump in his effort to steal the election.  They backed out after partners in their firms basically, it seems, told Trump's lawyers to chose Trump or the firm.

And there are many other examples.  Lawyers bear no social costs at all for whom they represent in civil suits.  People who regard abortion as murder will sit right down with lawyers representing abortionists, people seeking a radical social change will hire lawyers to advance the change, and the lawyers fellows feel no pressure as a result of that at all.

Maybe they should.

Or is that view fundamentally wrong?

Saturday, April 24, 1943. Departures.

Today In Wyoming's History: April 24: 1943  John Osborne, Wyoming's governor from 1893 to 1895, died.

Osborne, a physician by trade, had been Governor from 1893 to 1895, in the wake of the Johnson County War.  He became Wyoming's Congressman in 1897, and occupied that position until 1899.  He later was an Assistant Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.

While Governor, he eccentrically chose a state seal for the state which did not comport with the one that the legislature thought it had, and in fact it caused consternation for featuring a topless allegorical female figure, something not uncommon on seals at the time.

The New York Fire Department saved the port from blowing up after the munitions ship El Estero caught fire, by towing the vessel out some distance and pouring so much water on it that it sank.  Had it exploded, the chain reaction explosions would have been devastating.

Gen. Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord died of cancer.  The former commander of the Reichswehr and briefly a commander during World War Two was an outright undisguised opponent of Hitler's who had resigned early during Hitler's administration, but who was recalled to service upon the invasion of Poland.  He invited Hitler to his base on the Polish border with the intent of assisting him, but Hitler never took up the invitation.  He was retired a second time on September 21, 1939, and was active in the German resistance.

Admiral Kenneth Whiting, former submariner and the American "father of the aircraft carrier", died of a heart attack while suffering from pneumonia.  He was 61.

Franklin Roosevelt issued the following Executive Order:

Executive Order 9337—AUTHORIZING THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR TO WITHDRAW AND RESERVE LANDS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND OTHER LANDS OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY THE UNITED STATES

April 24, 1943

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9337

AUTHORIZING THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR TO WITHDRAW AND RESERVE LANDS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND OTHER LANDS OWNED OR CONTROLLED BY THE UNITED STATES

April 24, 1943

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the act of June 25, 1910, ch. 421, 36 Stat. 847, and as President of the United States, it is ordered as follows:

Section 1. The Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to withdraw or reserve lands of the public domain and other lands owned or controlled by the United States to the same extent that such lands might be withdrawn or reserved by the President, and also, to the same extent, to modify or revoke withdrawals or reservations of such lands: Provided, That all orders of the Secretary of the Interior issued under the authority of this order shall have the prior approval of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget and the Attorney General, as now required with respect to proposed Executive orders by Executive Order No. 7298 of February 18, 1936, and shall be submitted to the Division of the Federal Register for filing and publication: Provided, further, That no such order which affects lands under the administrative jurisdiction of any executive department or agency of the Government, other than the Department of the Interior, shall be issued by the Secretary of the Interior without the prior concurrence of the head of the department or agency concerned.

Section 2. This order supersedes Executive Order No. 9146 of April 24, 1942, entitled 'Authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to Withdraw and Reserve Public Lands'.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

THE WHITE HOUSE,

April 24, 1943.

Exec. Order No. 9337, 8 FR 5516, 1943 WL 4090 (Pres.)

This mortar crew was photographed at Camp Carson, Colorado.

These troops are equipped with M1 Carbines, the first carbine issued to American troops since the M1903 Springfield, a short rifle, was first introduced.  Even the appearance of these carbines show that they are brand new.

I don't know the first combat use date for the carbine.  They were already common by the invasion of Sicily, so logic would presume that they saw action in North Africa as well.  Having said that, many artillerymen and mortar men in North Africa carried the M1917 Enfield rifle, so the carbine had not yet taken over its wide role that it later would.

Designed to equip troops other than infantrymen who might still require a firearm, the carbine would end up having enormous production, with more of them being produced than any other American small arm in World War Two.  For many years it was the most mass-produced American arm of all time, but with the long service life of the AR's, that's likely no longer true.  It saw service into the 1970s, in the M2 variant, in reserve units.

Live by the sword. Some legislators propose to take us back to 1889 once again.

Then Jesus saith to him: Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Douay-Rheims Bible, Matthew 26:52.

The Invaders.  Back again after 130 years.

It would seem that some old wars which seemingly were behind us are not.  

Once again, the forces of "property" wish to exclude. . . violently.

And once again, they have the legislature behind them.

We recently posted on this item:

 HOUSE BILL NO. HB0126

Trespass-removal of trespasser.

Sponsored by: Representative(s) Crago and Washut and Senator(s) Kinskey and Landen

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to crimes and offenses; providing for the use of physical force against a trespasser as specified; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 6‑3‑303 by creating new subsections (d) and (e) is amended to read:

6‑3‑303.  Criminal trespass; penalties; justification.

(d)  A person who is the owner or legal occupant of land or a premises upon which a criminal trespass is occurring, or their agent, is justified in using reasonable and appropriate physical force upon another person when and to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to terminate what the owner, occupant or agent reasonably believes to be the commission of a criminal trespass by the other person in or upon the land or premises.

(e)  Section (d) of this section does not supersede or add to the responsibilities applicable to the defense of self or another as provided by law. 

Section 2.  This act is effective July 1, 2023.

Frankly, as this bill is based on what one “reasonably believes”, basically authorizes murder, or could, and probably will be, read that way.

I know Washut who due to his prior career as a policeman ought to know better.  I don't know the remainder of them.

This bill, if passed, will get somebody killed.

Let's start with this. What is criminal trespass?

Well, under Wyoming's law, it's the following:

TITLE 6 - CRIMES AND OFFENSES

CHAPTER 3 - OFFENSES AGAINST PROPERTY

6-3-303. Criminal trespass; penalties.

(a) A person is guilty of criminal trespass if he enters or remains on or in the land or premises of another person, knowing he is not authorized to do so, or after being notified to depart or to not trespass. For purposes of this section, notice is given by:

(i) Personal communication to the person by the owner or occupant, or his agent, or by a peace officer; or

(ii) Posting of signs reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.

(b) Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than six (6) months, a fine of not more than seven hundred fifty dollars ($750.00), or both.

(c) This section does not supersede W.S. 1-21-1003.

So, under Wyoming's law, if a person comes up to you, and says "you are trespassing", and you remain, and you really are trespassing, you are guilty of criminal trespass. 

And, under the proposed amendment to the law, this would be added to it:

(d)  A person who is the owner or legal occupant of land or a premises upon which a criminal trespass is occurring, or their agent, is justified in using reasonable and appropriate physical force upon another person when and to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to terminate what the owner, occupant or agent reasonably believes to be the commission of a criminal trespass by the other person in or upon the land or premises.

(e)  Section (d) of this section does not supersede or add to the responsibilities applicable to the defense of self or another as provided by law. 

So the new law would be such that Landowner or Landowner's agent could come up to you and say, "get off", and if they didn't, they could use "reasonable and appropriate physical force" to remove you when they "reasonably believe" that you are criminally trespassing.

Seriously, "reasonably believed"?

What if their reasonable belief was wrong?

Several years ago I was on public lands when a couple of goons for a large Natrona County landowner approached me and informed me that I had to leave as I was trespassing.  I had a GPS, and I knew I wasn't.

I was also deer hunting and carrying a rifle and a handgun.

Did the goons believe that I was trespassing?  I don't know.  It's hard to penetrate the minds of saps who take jobs as regulators.  Their belief may have been based on what their employer told them.  Mine was based on the United States Geological Survey.  

I didn't want to bother with it, and I cleared off.

I frankly wouldn't now.  Now, I would have told them to pound sand, particularly as they warned me it was a $10,000 fine is I stayed, which was bullshit.

I got my revenge, I guess, by voting against the guy, a long with a lot of other locals, when he stood for reelection for a local office he was also holding.

But back to the scenario.  I'm armed.  If they were too, and they believed I was "criminally trespassing", and had invoked the element by telling me I was, could they then draw down on me?  Would that be reasonable force, as I was armed?

And if I did, would I have been justified in blowing them away in self defense?  I wasn't trespassing, and now I'm in danger of my life.

I probably wouldn't. . . but if I were with my son, wife, or daughter and felt they actually might use the weapons?  A scared person resorts to violence quickly, and men protecting their families do as well.  

And if that happened, would I be found to have acted in self-defense?

This scenario, if this bill passes, will play out just this way.

Now it'll be incumbent upon anyone going afield to pack heat, least some hired moron tries to drive them off land they believe they have a right to be on.  And sooner or later some asshole, probably a landowner on public land, or some out of state landowner's hired flunky, will challenge a fisherman, hunter, or hiker and get gunned down, dying for a moronic belief in the absolute nature of property rights that are, in fact, not absolute, never have been, and never will be.

What about the corner crossing case?  Even the Game Warden couldn't tell if it was a trespass or not.  The landowner's hired traitor to the state believed it was.  Would he have drawn down on them?

Those guys were gentlemen in the whole affair.  Most people are.  I've known of at least one friend of mine who was confronted in such a fashion and kept a rifle on the jerk confronting him, as he was armed.  The armed jerk didn't realize that he was about to meet the business end of a .30-30 if he went too far.

Life preserved by a clam reactant.

Not everyone is calm, and not everyone cares either.   Some asshat is going to tell somebody to get off some land, and that person is going to stand their ground. Somebody will probably get killed, and it'll probably be the person yelling "get off my land".

Lots of people now days imagine themselves to be Matt Quigly in the final scene of Quigly Down Under, gunning down the baddy. Some have even taken up carrying all the time so that they can affect the visage of Pistol Pete or maybe Yoesimite Sam.  Take our recent wholly unqualified interim Secretary of State, Karl Allred, who packed heat on to the UW campus as he wanted to make a point.

Direct link to WyoFile, "Uinta County committeeman Karl Allred reviews documents at a Wyoming Republican Party Central Committee meeting in Riverton in September 2022. Gov. Mark Gordon appointed Allred as secretary of state. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile)"

Mr. Allred, seen packing here complete with a handgun that has an extra magazine, may imagine himself freedom's brave sentinel. but if he had to draw that, let's be honest, he'd be lucky to get it around his gut.

Being fat is no crime, but frankly not one person in fifty knows how to use a handgun in combat, and a lot of those are people who would have the high side of the fight if confronted by a good.  Pistol Packing Regulators may imagine that they can draw down on a whole passel of criminal trespasser, but the result is far from certain, particularly if they aren't trespassing.

Think that guy can outdraw and gun down a 20-year-old carrying a .357?  I don't think it bloody likely.

And FWIW, there's a whole lot of people now who are packing for self-defense, including a lot of young, agile, men, and women, who actually don't have enormous waste lines to clear, and who the goons aren't going to know are packing.

What the crap has gotten into people?

Wyoming was built on go where you want, when you want.  The last time somebody tried to change this, it went badly.

But we're right back at that point once again. Property rights, real or imagined, enforced at the barrel of a gun.  Indeed, when we fought that battle before, the legislature was on the wrong side of it then as well.

Moreover, any property, including your very own house, that you own, you are merely renting for, at most, the extraordinary short period of your life.  You don't really have a moral right to go around bullying trespassers on the open range or fishing stream. Yes, you can call law enforcement, but do that.  That's their job in a civil society.

And let's be honest, if we're returning to that day, equitably, turnabout can be argued to be fair play.

The Invaders

The Invaders, 1893.  Some history repeating going on.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie

The property owner, let's not pretend he's a rancher as that would imply that he makes his money from chiefly from agriculture, who owns the Elk Mountain Ranch has claimed that allowing corner crossing would devalue the property by $3,100,000 to $7,000,000, or so newspaper reports hold.  The press further reports that it was shown this information by a "confidential" source.

More likely his legal representation claimed that.

Okay, let's break this down.

This is the story, as we'll recall, of three out-of-state hunters who hunted on the Elk Mountain Ranch's leased public lands, with Elk Mountain Ranch owned by Iron Bar Holdings, and ended up being tried for trespassing in Carbon County.  According to the Wyoming Secretary of State's website, Iron Bar Holdings is a North Carolina limited liability company registered to do business in Wyoming.

North Carolina?

Well, yes, that's where Fred Eshelman lives.

Eshelman is a pharmacist by training who has done very well, economically, in that field. So well that North Carolina's school of pharmacy, which he donates to, has named that school after him.  His bio appears on their site:

Fred Eshelman, PharmD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fred Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC, an investment company primarily interested in private health-care companies. Previously he founded and served as CEO and executive chairman of Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPDI, NASDAQ) prior to the sale of the company to private equity interests.

After PPD he served as the founding chairman and largest shareholder of Furiex Pharmaceuticals (FURX, NASDAQ), a company which licensed and rapidly developed new medicines. Furiex was sold to Forest Labs/Actavis in July, 2014.

His career has also included positions as senior vice president (development) and board member of the former Glaxo, Inc., as well as various management positions with Beecham Laboratories and Boehringer Mannheim Pharmaceuticals.

Eshelman has served on the executive committee of the Medical Foundation of North Carolina, was on the board of trustees for UNC-W and in 2011 was appointed by the NC General Assembly to serve on the Board of Governors for the state’s multicampus university system as well as the NC Biotechnology Center. In addition, he chairs the board of visitors for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the top pharmacy programs in the United States. In May 2008 the School was named for Eshelman in recognition of his many contributions to the school and the profession.

Eshelman has received many awards including the Davie and Distinguished Service Awards from UNC and Outstanding Alumnus from both the UNC and University of Cincinnati schools of pharmacy, as well as the N.C. Entrepreneur Hall of Fame Award. He earned a B.S. in pharmacy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,  received his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, and completed a residency at Cincinnati General Hospital. He is a graduate of the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Indeed, the fact that Eshelman is very wealthy apparently was referenced by one of his employees in the initial confrontation with the Missouri hunters, which isn't a very wise thing to do as it looks bad.  Indeed, it looks bad right away, and then again in court.

So, Iron Bar Holdings is Fred Eshelman, very wealthy pharmaceutical personality.

The Missouri hunters, by all accounts, went to great pains to avoid touching the ground on Elk Mountain.  They brought ladders of some sort to step over the corners.  They were detected by the ranch employees who called the authorities, who frankly weren't really sure what to do, and they declined to issue citations.  Ultimately, this matter was somehow prosecuted in Carbon County, where the jury found there was no trespass.

During this time frame, a civil lawsuit was brought in the state's Second Judicial District. For reasons that aren't clear to me, as I wouldn't have filed it, the Missouri hunters had the case removed to Federal Court, no doubt on jurisdictional grounds.  Also for reasons that aren't clear to me, as I would have thought Iron Bar would have preferred the case to be in Federal Court, Iron Bar sought to have that reversed, unsuccessfully, claiming the Federal Court lacked jurisdiction, a claim that seem pretty stretched given the pretty obvious diversity jurisdiction here.

I wonder if both sides regret their decisions now, given the results of the Carbon County jury trial.  I have to think if the 2nd Judicial District in Rawlins had a jury that said "no trespass" once, they'd have that happen again.

Anyhow, it's in Federal Court. The docket sheet for the case reads as follows:

U.S. District Court
District of Wyoming (Cheyenne)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 2:22-cv-00067-SWS

Iron Bar Holdings LLC v. Cape et al Assigned to: Honorable Scott W Skavdahl Referred to: Honorable Kelly H Rankin Case in other court:  Second Judicial District - Carbon County, Wyoming, Civil Act. No. 22-00034 Cause: 28:1441 Petition for Removal

Date Filed: 03/22/2022 Jury Demand: Both Nature of Suit: 890 Other Statutory Actions Jurisdiction: Federal Question

Plaintiff
Iron Bar Holdings LLC a North Carolina limited liability company registered to do business in Wyoming	represented by	M Gregory Weisz PENCE & MACMILLAN LLC 1720 Carey Avenue, Suite 600 PO Box 765 Cheyenne, WY 82003 307/638-0386 Fax: 307/634-0336 Email: gweisz@penceandmac.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
V.
Movant
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers TERMINATED: 08/31/2022	represented by	Eric B Hanson KEKER, VAN NEST & PETERS 633 Battery St. San Francisco, CA 94111 415-676-2349 Email: ehanson@keker.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE Patrick Lewallen CHAPMAN VALDEZ & LANSING 125 West 2nd Street PO Box 2710 Casper, WY 82601 307/237-1983 Email: plewallen@bslo.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY Trevor James Schenk CHAPMAN VALDEZ & LANSING 125 W. 2nd Street PO Box 2710 Casper, WY 82602 307-259-3797 Email: tschenk@bslo.com TERMINATED: 08/31/2022 LEAD ATTORNEY
V.
Defendant
Bradley H Cape	represented by	Ryan A Semerad THE FULLER LAW FIRM 242 South Grant Street Casper, WY 82609 307-265-3455 Fax: 307-265-2859 Email: semerad@thefullerlawyers.com ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
Zachary M Smith	represented by	Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
Phillip G Yeomans	represented by	Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Defendant
John W Slowensky	represented by	Ryan A Semerad (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Amicus
Wyoming Stockgrowers Association	represented by	Karen J Budd-Falen BUDD-FALEN LAW OFFICES 300 East 18th Street P O Box 346 Cheyenne, WY 82003 307/632-5105 Fax: 307/637-3891 Email: karen@buddfalen.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Amicus
Wyoming Wool Growers Association	represented by	Karen J Budd-Falen (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

What does this tell us?

Well, not much, really, other than that Back Country Hunters & Anglers tried to intervene in the action, no doubt in support of the Missouri hunters, but weren't allowed in.  It also tells us that the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association and the Wyoming Wool Growers Association (which at one time were headed for a merger, but which must not have completed that process) are going to be allowed to file "friend of the court" briefs in this matter.  Those briefs will no doubt be on the side of Iron Bar.¹

Which presents our first historical observation. 

The Wyoming Stockgrowers Association was instrumental in bringing about the Johnson County War and the assassination campaign that was associated with it.  I'm not saying that they organized it, but they were pretty close to the large, and often foreign owned, cattleman part of the extra judicial war against the small ranchers of Natrona and Johnson Counties of the 1890s.

I'm also not saying that they're somehow involved in such efforts today.

I'm am noting that history rhymes, if not repeats, as they say.

So what did Iron Bar's lawsuit claim? Well, see for yourself:

In litigation, under a rule called FRCP 26, parties are required to disclose certain information, including their calculation of damages.  Piecing the news stories together, and reading between the lines, what this probably means is that somehow a reporter got access to a FRCP "self executing" disclosure.  

Normally, these aren't public, but they aren't secret either.  I obviously don't know who this cat got out of the bag, but it was riding around with its head and front feet out of the bag anyhow, and at some point it was going to get out.

Further, what this really means is that Iron Bar is asserting that if corner crossing is allowed, it'll devalue the value of the property as he can't lock up the Federal domain.

Well, hopefully that's exactly what the court rules. I.e., you can cross the corners.

Before we go on, let's note that the argument here is deeply flawed. What's apparently being stated by the plaintiff is that if the court rules that corner crossing isn't illegal, the value of the land drops, as he can't lock people out and charge people for access. 

But if it's illegal, he can't do that, and never could. Being wrong about the law doesn't entitle you to reimbursement.

You can't claim that you'll lose money as something is illegal. That's like arguing if I can't personally close the road and charge people tolls for using it, even though it isn't mine, I'll lose money.  I had no right to do that in the first place.  It doesn't matter if I thought I could.

On the other hand, if he's right, and he can close the corners, it's not like he's arguing that the value of crossing the corner is $3.1M to $7M.

You only get the actual reasonable trespassing fee, which traditionally has been the damage to the land.

Either way you look at it, the damages are pretty low.

This, by the way, is why I didn't vote for Rob Hendry, the ranching Natrona County Commissioner, in the last election.

A lot of other people didn't too, so he's on his way out, but my reason is probably unique.  Some goons of his stopped my son and I and tossed us off public land, or more accuratley deterred us from going where we were going, claiming that if we trespassed there'd be a $10,000 fine.

That's bullshit.

Anyhow, we don't know what will come out of this litigation, and the results are far from guaranteed, but this gets into the topic of the Homestead Acts, the Taylor Grazing Act, and frankly Distributism and Localism.

What Iron Bar is doing here, shouldn't be allowed to do is to lock up public land that it doesn't own. That is what the hunters were accessing.  How does that devalue the land?  As noted, if there is no right, it doesn't.  If the landowner does have that right, it doesn't devalue anything.  The damages claimed here are out of whack.

Moreover, if the purpose of the original homestead acts and the Taylor Grazing Act are kept in mind, we shouldn't even be having this conversation.

The original homestead acts, which is likely how this ranch was started at some point, were intended to induce agriculturalists into lands that were regarded as poor prospects.  The United States at that time, and indeed American culture at that time, regarded development as a good thing and had the concept that development only occurred where agriculture first entered.  The very first homestead act was designed for farmers, and farmers alone, and had that express goal.  As homesteaders moved into the West, however, livestock grazing became the common agricultural pursuit and the homestead act were modified to accommodate that.  By this point, a different sort of development, much less intense than that East of the Mississippi was envisioned, which was cattle centric.

But the law always allowed for other uses of land.  Miners actually had the superior use, their use being so extensive that they could come on land where the agriculturalist owned the surface, and the Federal Government the subsurface, and mine it anyway.

And on the Federal lands, what the agricultural user got was the right to use it, and nothing else whatsoever.

You could also buy Federal lands, of course, and you could simply run cattle on the public domain, free of charge until 1934. That fact came to be hugely significant and led directly to the Johnson County War.  By that time a fairly formal, and extralegal, system of controlling the public lands had developed which favored large landowners, and which was administered by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.  Indeed, the WSGA did it partially under color of law.  

And, as we know, it ultimately came to war, if private war.  The large cattlemen felt the small ones were all rustler and thieves, and more than that, they were trespassing on an implied right of the large interests to control the land, title or not.  The small cattlemen, on the other hand, were largely compliant with the law, had a right to homestead, and were trying just to get by.

The small cattlemen won the Johnson County War on the field, but weren't able to put the offenders behind bars, for reasons we'll deal with elsewhere. Their defense of their ground, however, did put an end to the threat of the large cattlemen snuffing out homesteading.  It didn't completely end the violence, however, which went on, including in evolved forms with evolved causes, into the 20th Century.  In southwestern Wyoming it effectively came to an end with the hanging of Tom Horn for the crime of killing Willie Nickell, and in central Wyoming it came to an end in 1909 with the prosecution of the killers of the Spring Creek Raid.

But some portions of the old contest remain, with all the questions that existed in some form still remaining.  Some of them are existential.

To note a few, to what extent are the uberwealthy entitled to use ground at all, when their vast resources mean that the ranching aspect of ranch land is a mere incidental to their ownership?

To what extent is any human being entitled to keep others off land they aren't directly using at the time, or aren't using in a means that's contrary to the non owning entrants use?

Is it just that land that was acquired by a government agricultural land distribution program, a sort of social welfare for agriculturalist, is now owned by people who are not in that category in some fashion?

Isn't hunting more elemental than anything else, with accordingly superior rights in every existential and environmental fashion.

If you aren't touching the ground, are you really trespassing?

I'll note that I'm not saying that Fred Eschelman is a bad person.  According to what little I've read on him, he's donated major conservation easements on lands he's held in Wyoming, which is a very good thing to do.  Some of his statements make him appear to be a conservationist of the Nature Conservancy type.  An argument can be made that, in 2022, but for people like Eschelman, large blocks of land would bet all chopped up.

An argument can also be made, however, that agricultural land ought not to be owned by people who do not have some sort of direct role, participation, or interest in agriculture, or at least in the community, which at Eschelman's economic level is pretty difficult to do.  Having vast, vast amounts of money, more than the regular rich, so to speak, puts a person in a category all of its own and it's a problematic one.  The fact that levels of wealth like that are allowed to even occur suggest a certain deficiency in our economy.  And that deficiency allows a person to view people like the Missouri hunters differently than a regular rancher can, or even a regular wealthy local landowner can.

I'm also not saying that rich people shouldn't own land either.  But there is the question of what is "rich", and what is super rich.  It's one thing making money in your community and then entering agriculture, a story that's fairly common and has been for a long time.  It's another making money far, far away, and then coming into the country you are not from, are not part of, and are not of, and buying that land up.  

Indeed, an argument could be made that's a sort of colonialism.

I.e, if I had lots of money (I don't) and bought ranchland in my home state, well, I'm from there and have to live there and people can and will give me an earful at the gas station or cafe, or whatever.  But if I made piles of money and then bought up farm ground in North Carolina, and hired people to run it for me, and stopped in from time to time, I wouldn't really have any signficant connection with the community where my ground was at all.  Indeed, I don't know what people in North Carolina think, and by and large, on most days, I don't care all that much about it either. They aren't going to give me an earful at the gas station.

No wonder, therefore, the jury reacted the way it did in Carbon County.  That jury didn't want to be told that they had to bow to somebody in North Carolina.

Footnotes:

1. This is a classic case of finding yourself in a fight in a time and place not of your choosing.  This legal issue has been around for years, and has come up at least once before, but now its back in a major way, with the standard bearor for the agricultural organizations being an out of stater. The Stockgrowers and the Woolgrowers have to enter the contest or feel comfortable with no voice at all, but they sure wouldn't have wanted it to come up this way.

Related Threads:

Lex Anteinternet: "This land is my land, but shouldn't be your land"...

"This land is my land, but shouldn't be your land". Misbegotten hostilitiy to ranchers using the public lands