I was going to start a thread about this a few days ago but I'm phenomenally lazy. This situation is so goddamn absurd.
1. Steal the use of federal land for your own cattle grazing purposes.
2. Do so for 20 years.
3. Rack up millions in rent and fines for doing so.
4. Claim that the land actually belongs to the state of Nevada instead of the federal government, as it somehow it would be less wrong to do what he's doing, even if it would be in fact less illegal. Nevermind that the title to the land clearly states US government and both the US government and the state of Nevada have come out and said, look bro, this is federal land.
5. Government is finally like, OK BRO, enough is enough, we've been battling you for two decades and you clearly don't give a ****. We're going to start rounding up your cattle that you're letting freely roam on LAND THAT ISN'T YOURS.
6. Claim government tyranny, get a right-wing militia shows up to fight this horrible government injustice against an innocent upstanding citizen.
The political support that this criminal has gotten has been absurd. We've got Rand Paul saying "this is cray cray bros why does the government have to show up with armed police and swat teams" ...never mind that the government backed off when they saw the bat**** insane right-wing militia that had gathered there undoubtedly ready for a legitimate firefight. Then there's Joe Walsh, being an opportunistic douchebag knowing that there's a faction out there who will totally appreciate him standing up for a federal criminal
You know that this is right-wing/libertarian crazy land when you see that this has gotten a lot of attention in Nebraska and super-conservative Nebraskans pretty much unanimously side with the federal government.