What Do Michigan Farmers and Ranchers Think About Cliven Bundy?

I know we have a lot of dairy farms and some beef ranchers listening to WITL every day, so I was interested to see what everybody thinks about this story.

If you haven't heard the story, in Clark County, Nevada, a rancher named Cliven Bundy had 400 of his 900 cattle seized by the federal government as partial payment for what they say is the 1 million dollars he owes the Bureau of Land Management for grazing fees. Bundy says the his family has run cattle on that land since the 1870's and that the land belongs to the State of Nevada and not the federal government, so he won't pay anything to the federal government. The federal government also wants Bundy's cattle removed to protect the desert tortoise that lives in the same area. An estimated 200 armed federal agents showed up to remove his cattle. When Bundy's son, Ammon, started taking pictures of the agents, he was tasered and arrested. This standoff went on for days. Soon protesters supporting Bundy started showing up. People showed up from all over the U.S. to support the Bundy family. Many, maybe hundreds of them, were armed. Some of the protesters were confined, by law enforcement, to a fenced-in "First Amendment Area".

This past weekend, the BLM says, "escalating tensions" led them to release all 400 head of cattle they had rounded up on public land. The federal government says they still want their money, but they'll now go after it in the courts. Here's the full story from CBS News.

So, what do YOU think? Is Cliven Bundy a deadbeat who should pay up, or a patriot, fighting for his and the State of Nevada's rights?

Banana Don and Stephanie McCoy amuse and thrill you every morning from 5:30 – 10AM on the radio at 100.7 WITL.

Banana Don can be reached via email at don.jefferson@townsquaremedia.com and on Twitter at @WITLBananaDon and @WITLFM. Also, Facebook friend Banana Don and Stephanie at Facebook.com/BananaStephanie and Facebook.com/WITLFM.