ABC: Clinton’s “royal” baby
Good Morning America host Bianna Golodryga calls Clinton’s future child America’s “royal baby.” She says Americans can get excited about the birth of:
their own royal, or, rather, presidential baby
Ashburn: Pregnancy planned
Laura Ashburn, Fox News media analyst, says Clinton’s pregnancy may have been planned to make Hillary Clinton look more favorable in her possible run for president. Ashburn makes this speculation during a Fox News panel where she also says:
We have to realize that this is Hillary Clinton, she’s most likely running for president, it hasn’t been good for her. A lot of people say she’s too old. And so, there is coverage.
Writes Jason Collins’ testimonial
Clinton writes NBA player Jason Collins’s testimonial for TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.” She says about meeting him:
Not surprisingly, the first thing I noticed was his height…The second thing I noticed was his kindness off the court — and his fierceness on it. Kindness to his friends, his family and fans. Fierceness in his drive to win. Jason has always been focused on others, on what’s right for those he loves, and on helping those whose jersey is the same as his.
Horsford: Community wants militia out
Nevada congressman Steven Horsford says he wants Bundy’s armed supporters to leave. He says their presence is harming the economy, and businesses in the area report high profit losses. Horsford also says residents fear for their safety:
But when young kids don’t feel safe going to school, when moms don’t feel safe going to church on Sunday, and when law enforcement feels like their lives are at risk, then the general community’s rights have been violated
Documentary premiere
Clinton’s documentary short, “Of Many,” premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival. The short is about the friendship between Yahuda Sarna, a rabbi, and Khalid Latif, an imam, both religious leaders at NYU. Clinton is the executive producer of the documentary and has helped interview the two subjects of the film. Clinton says:
I’ve always known that documentaries are an important vehicle for education.
Latif adds:
[The documentary] essentially compelled others who viewed it to find themselves within the story.
Receives AJC award
Clinton is awarded, along with Linda Mills, the Interfaith Leadership Award from the American Jewish Committee. Clinton receives the award for co-founding the Of Many Institute at NYU, which provides courses, dialogue sessions, and other events to provide understanding about the many religions present at NYU. The inscription on the award reads:
Your visionary leadership in advancing interfaith partnerships in pursuit of the common good has paved a vital pathway for all who seek to build a world based on generosity and mutual respect
Receives PhD
Clinton receives a PhD in international relations from Oxford University. Her parents and husband, attend her graduation. This is the fourth degree she has earned.
Announces pregnancy
Clinton announces she and her husband are expecting their first child in the fall. Clinton makes the announcement at a meeting in Manhattan to discuss how the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation has affected the advancement of women and girls. Clinton says:
I certainly feel all the better whether it’s a girl or a boy that they’ll grow up in a world with so many strong female leaders.
BLM stops roundup, returns cattle
The BLM agrees to stop rounding up Bundy’s cattle, and to return the already-confiscated cattle. The agency says it is terminating the roundup because of safety concerns:
Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public. We ask that all parties in the area remain peaceful and law-abiding as the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service work to end the operation in an orderly manner.
The deal is brokered by Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, along with input from a number of state and local officials. BLM says the deal does not obviate Bundy’s financial responsibility for owed grazing fees and delinquent penalties. Assistant sheriff Joe Lombardo says:
We had a lot of fears. Individuals being shot, trampled. Individuals being run over on the highway. So it took a lot of resources, a lot of resources to associate with this.
Governor Brian Sandoval (R-NV) says of the BLM’s decision:
The safety of all individuals involved in this matter has been my highest priority. Given the circumstances, today’s outcome is the best we could have hoped for. I appreciate that the Department of the Interior and the BLM were willing to listen to the concerns of the people of Nevada.
Jack Kay, a professor and expert on militias, says the BLM made the correct call to step back from the conflict:
These things tend to escalate, someone looks like they’re going to pull the trigger and then something happens.
Shortly after the announcement, the BLM frees the nearly 400 cattle it had managed to round up, letting them back on the same contested area of federal land.
Bundy, supporters celebrate victory
Bundy and his supporters celebrate victory after the BLM decides to end the confiscation of his cattle. He addresses a crowd outside his ranch by shouting:
Good morning, America! Good morning, world! Isn’t it a beautiful day in Bunkerville? … We the people in this area have nothing to fear. We can carry our weapons if we like because we have Second Amendment rights, and those are God-given rights. Those Second Amendment rights are our rights. But, and I say ‘but,’ because we don’t have to carry them right now because we’re afraid. I’m telling you that right now. Because there’s been a lot of people who’ve been afraid, and I know that feeling. Just yesterday evening I was really afraid. … Today, we have been confirmed by our creator that we do not have to be afraid. This is his battle. This is his battle.
Bundy’s son Ammon claims that the hills around the ranch were filled with federal snipers, but, “We sent them packing.” He adds, “We won the battle,” referencing others’ description of the standoff as the “Battle of Bunkerville,” comparing to the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Bunker Hill. Cattle rancher Brent Mackelprang of Arizon says the decision to seize Bundy’s cattle had nothing to do with “the supposedly endangered” desert tortoise and was instead an excuse “to go in and grab land from the people.” The government’s entire conservativation efforts are “nothing but a lie,” he says:
It’s not about the turtle or the cactus or the spotted owl. This is all about the federal government overstepping its bounds like it always does and thinking it owns the world. Well, we’re here to say that it doesn’t. But if you’re a rancher and you’re living on the Colorado Plateau, then you’re going to need some luck to make a living.
Six cattle die in roundup
Six cattle die in the roundup to move them off of government land according to the BLM. Four of the cattle, two of which have Bundy brands, are euthanized. One of these cattle is euthanized after injuring its spine from running into a fence panel. The BLM does not say how the other two cattle died.
Calls for Times to retract quotes, restates stance
Bundy, appearing on the Alex Jones radio show, demands that the New York Times retract its quotes of him making what are considered by many to be racist remarks about African-Americans. In the interview, he reiterates his views that blacks may have been better off as slaves. Bundy says he wants to tell “the black community” that he has “gained more respect and more love for you in the last few weeks than I ever had.” He then says:
Put it this way, I said I’m wondering, I’m wondering if you’re better off. The young women are having abortions, and the young men are being thrown in jail, and your older women are sitting out on the sidewalk with your children and grandchildren and they don’t seem to be happy. And what I’m wondering is are you better off in this type of slavery than when you were home with your family unit with your gardens, with your chickens, with your men working and your family life. Are you better off now or were you better off then? I’m a-wondering these things. … [I]t seems to me like maybe they were happier, maybe they did have better families,and their family structure was better [under slavery].
Jones attempts to explain Bundy’s comments by saying that blacks have “traded a new form of slavery for an old form of slavery,” and says that Bundy’s position is the same “libertarian, conservative refrain that I’ve heard from every libertarian and conservative black leader I’ve had on this show.” Bundy says the Times is “totally wrong” for labeling his remarks as racist, and says the Times misquoted him. In a separate interview, he apologizes for his comments:
I hope I didn’t offend anybody. If I did, I ask for your forgiveness…But I meant what I said. It comes from the heart.
FBI investigating threats, weapons violations
The FBI launches an investigation into the events of April 12, where militia members threatened BLM and law enforcement officials with firearms. The investigation also encompasses allegations of death threats, intimidation, and weapons violations surrounding the standoff. The investigation begins with FBI agents interviewing local law enforcement officials. Militia members and Bundy supporters claim they never pointed guns at anyone, and all of the weapons violations were committed by BLM agents. Sergeant Tom Jenkins of the Las Vegas Metro Police, who has already spoken with FBI investigators, says otherwise:
It is not a rumor. When we first got out there and made a left to divide I-15, that is all you saw. You saw kids and women and horses in the backdrop and then men with guns, laying on the ground, in the back of pickup trucks. We’re going, ‘wow, this would never happen in Las Vegas,’ But it was there. That is not a rumor. It is reality and I saw it with my own eyes.
Bundy supporter and Nevada militia member Brand Thornton challenges that assertion, and says that Jenkins and the other police officers are lying. He admits to carrying an AK-47 to the April 12 standoff, but says neither he nor anyone else pointed their weapons at police or BLM agents. He says that none of the copious number of photographs of militia members pointing their weapons at police and BLM officials prove anything, saying of one photo:
He could have been easily aiming 30 feet over their heads so how are you going to prove that?
Senators condemn Bundy’s remarks
Shortly after Bundy’s remarks about African-Americans being better off as slaves, US Senator Dean Heller (R-NV), who previously has stated his support for Bundy, says through a spokesperson that he
completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.
Another supporter, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who like Heller has expressed his support for Bundy, now states:
His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him.
Additionally, the conservative organization Americans for Prosperity Nevada deletes all of its material posted in support of Bundy from its Facebook and Twitter accounts.
US Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who has called Bundy and his followers “domestic terrorists,” slams Bundy for his allegedly racist remarks and his position on grazing fees:
I used to live in North Las Vegas and it is home to some of the hardest-working people I have ever met — men and women who embody the American dream by working hard every day to build a better life for themselves and their families. By contrast, Cliven Bundy has spent decades profiting off government land while refusing to pay the same fair use fees as his fellow ranchers. Today, Bundy revealed himself to be a hateful racist. But by denigrating people who work hard and play by the rules while he mooches off public land he also revealed himself to be a hypocrite.
Bundy: Are blacks better off as slaves?
In a speech praising his supporters, Bundy makes controversial remarks about African-Americans:
I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro…they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.
Supporters: media misrepresents Bundy
Bundy supporters say the media has taken Bundy’s comments about slavery out of context. They provide further comments made during the interview that the New York Times left out:
We’ve progressed quite a bit from that day until now, and sure don’t want to go back; we sure don’t want the colored people to go back to that point; we sure don’t want the Mexican people to go back to that point; and we can make a difference right now by taking care of some of these bureaucracies, and do it in a peaceful way.
They say that taken in the full context, Bundy’s comments come across as “pro-black and pro-Mexican” and anti-federal government for not providing adequate assistance to minorities.
Receives warning about cattle
A federal court judge rules that Bundy’s cattle may be removed if he does not move them himself and pay the $300,000 he owes in grazing fees. Bundy’s cattle are grazing on the habitat of the desert tortoise, which is protected by the Bureau of Land Management. Bundy has declined to pay grazing fees since 1993 and has received multiple warnings, but he says that he has rights to the land over the BLM because his Mormon ancestors worked the land before the BLM was formed.
Residents split over militia presence
Some of the area residents say they are tired of the militia members still “patrolling” the area. Residents and travelers are calling the Mesquite police in record numbers, expressing worry about their safety from the hundreds of armed militia members who have stationed themselves alongside the highway. Bunkerville resident John Booth says:
Most of our neighbors have about the same opinions we have. They don’t like it. But they’re not really going to say anything about it.
Militia members have vowed to remain with Bundy to protect him from government attacks, though no imminent threat presents itself. Militia leader Jerry DeLemus says, “We haven’t been told by the Bundys that they’re ready for us to go.” Bundy explains why armed militia members are seen with him even at church:
The militia have been going with me everywhere. When I got to church, I said, ‘Leave your weapons in the car.’ They did. I guess there could have been weapons in the parking lot, but there were no weapons in the church house.
Some Bunkerville residents and civic leaders praise Bundy and the militia at a town hall meeting. They say the local police department did not do enough to to keep their citizens safe from the BLM, and express their concern for the amount of force they believe the BLM has used in attempts to convince Bundy to pay his grazing fees.
Bundy son arrested
Bundy’s 37-year old son Dave, a rancher, is arrested by federal authorities outside Bundy’s ranch. He is released shortly thereafter. Bundy’s explanation is that he was exercising his constitutional rights on a state highway outside the Bundy ranch, taking photographs of the roundup and peacefully protesting, when he was “roughed up” and arrested. Natalie Collins of the US Attorney’s office says he was cited on misdemeanor charges of refusing to disperse and resisting arrest. BLM spokesperson Kirsten Cannon says Dave Bundy was detained in order to “protect public safety and maintain the peace.” Cannon elaborates:
The Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service support the public’s right to express opinions peacefully and lawfully. However, if an individual threatens, intimidates or assaults another individual or impedes the impoundment, they may be arrested in accordance with local, state or Federal laws.
Dave Bundy explains:
They got on their loudspeaker and said that everyone needed to leave. I stood there and continued to express my First Amendment right to protest, and they approached me and said that if I didn’t leave, they’d arrest me. … Without any further questions, two rangers surrounded and a third one approached me, and they all jumped me, pulling different directions. And then a couple other guys jumped in, and they took me to the ground. One ranger had had his knee on my spine, and the other one was on my head with his knee on the side of my head and his other knee on the back of my neck.
Later, Dave Bundy expands his story to claim that he was “beaten” by the rangers. Bundy’s daughter Bailey Bundy Logue says “martial law” has been imposed:
Wake up America. Look what our ancestors fought for and we need to stand up for that. We need to realize what’s happening. They are taking everything away from us. This isn’t only about one family. This is about everyone’s family. This is martial law and it’s in America and so what are you going to do to have it stay out of America?
BLM agrees not to sell cattle in Utah
Federal officials agree not to auction Bundy’s cattle at a Richfield, Utah auction house after Utah lawmakers oppose the plan. Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R-UT) has previously asked the BLM to keep the Bundy dispute from spilling over into his state. Washington County, Utah Commissioner Alan Gardner says:
We don’t have a dog in this fight, and that’s why we want them to stay in Nevada.
Sevier County, Utah Sheriff Nathan Curtis says he worries about a public outcry if Bundy’s confiscated cattle are sold in Utah. Some of Bundy’s cattle have wandered on the range for so long without proper care or attention that they should be considered “feral,” says Washington County Commissioner Jim Eardley, and pose a health risk to Utah ranchers’ cattle. According to a resolution passed by Eardly and his fellow commissioners:
Feral cattle do not receive proper immunizations or other veterinary care. Feral cattle are likely to interbreed, and interbreeding of cattle creates numerous problems with maintaining a healthy and vibrant herd.
The resolution also asks county residents “to remain peaceful and abide by the law in any protest activities they may engage in regarding this or any other issue.”