BLOGJanuary 09, 2018

3 Things to Learn From How the Government Mishandled the Bundy Standoff

What happened?

Cliven Bundy and sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy of Nevada have been vindicated in federal court after being involved in an armed standoff with the government over federal land in 2014.

On Monday in Las Vegas, Judge Gloria M. Navarro of Federal District Court dismissed charges against the three men, saying that the government’s mistakes during the case were so serious that the indictment against the Bundy family members should be dismissed.

Remind me:

The Bundy family case has been pointed to as an example of government overreach in recent years. The standoff happened in 2014 after the Bureau of Land Management seized cattle from Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Nevada.

Oregon Proves We Are No Longer a Nation of Laws, But of Men

Officials had demanded payment for years of back fees for letting his cattle graze on federal land, but Cliven Bundy contended that he had water rights to the land. Hundreds of activists came out to support the Bundy family members – many of them armed – at the peak of the standoff.

How did the judge decide the case?

Navarro said that prosecutors withheld key evidence, including video footage, and threw out the case based on these failures.

Glenn’s take:

“Although the outcome for the Bundy family turned out happy, the story is troubling for three different reasons,” Glenn said on today’s show, listing these three objections:

The Bundy family members and supporters enabled the situation getting out of control; it should never have escalated to the point of a standoff.

The government massively overreacted by bringing in a surveillance program and then tried to cover up their mistakes.

The federal government has “zero business managing public land” in the first place.

Tell us your thoughts on this ruling in the comment section below.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So it all went down four years ago, and we all remember it. Cliven Bundy and his sons refused to pay federal grazing fees and then stared down the government agents as they attempted to confiscate their cattle. It kicked off an armed standoff with many people fearing outcomes like Ruby Ridge. After the situation cooled, Cliven and his two sons and a militia member were arrested, and in the words of Cliven Bundy, they were political prisoners ever since.

Yesterday, a federal judge threw out the government's case against the Bundys and set them all free.

The judge used the words flagrant and reckless, not for the Bundys. Those were the words she described -- she used to describe the government and the way they withheld evidence from the defense. It turns out the information the federal agents were withholding were information regarding records about surveillance at the Bundy ranch, maps about the government's surveillance, records about the presence of government snipers, FBI logs about activities at the ranch leading up to the standoff, a 2012 law enforcement assessment that found that the Bundys posed no threat, and internal affairs reports about misconduct by BLM agents.

Holy cow!

Imagine, if we went to war with a country, and our soldiers misbehaved, we did all kinds of research on it, we had all kinds of facts that showed none of this was really true, and the people that we went after, there were reports that said they weren't really a threat to us! And then the CIA tried to cover it all up.

Well, that's exactly what this sounds like. Although the outcome for the Bundy family turned out happy, the story is troubling for three different reasons.

#1, the Bundys and everyone involved in the standoff enabled them to escalate way out of control. It should have never gotten as far as it did.

But #2, the government likewise went off the rails with this -- in the way that they behaved is insane for America. A massive surveillance operation? Snipers, out of control BLM agents, and then trying to lie to cover it all up?

And #3. This is the most important. This story is much larger than the Bundys. The misconduct of the federal agents, and most of the other headlines that you're going to see about this story, it's bigger than this. The story really is about one thing: The federal government has zero business managing public land. Period. Judge Navarro called the government's actions in handling the Bundy case, quote, a reckless disregard for Constitutional obligations, end quote.

Yes! Somebody who's actually a judge used the word Constitution in their ruling in an appropriate way!

But I contend the entire premise for the government seizing land and then charging private citizens to work on it is also a reckless disregard for Constitutional obligations.

Here's a notice to Washington, D.C.: You have no right meddling or managing public land. The people who live around the land are much more qualified, and they care much more.

It belongs to the 321 million people that live here in America. And quite honestly, as somebody who has a piece of land that is surrounded by public land, we don't want your help. Nor do we need it.

RADIO

This AI could change EVERYTHING by next year

With Elon Musk’s announcement of Grok 4, humanity is closer than ever before to creating AGI – artificial general intelligence – which would change everything. Glenn Beck breaks down what’s coming in the next year with AI, which even Elon Musk called “terrifying.”

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Let me tell you the biggest story of the day.

And I think it is the biggest story possibly of all mankind, as of today.

It's going to change rapidly.

I don't know if anybody -- did either of you guys watch the Elon Musk thing last night?

STU: No, I did watch a few minutes of it.

GLENN: Okay. Did you, Jason?

JASON: No. I sure didn't.

GLENN: Okay. So the xAI team was there to unveil Grok 4. This is the latest intelligence, and let me be very, very clear.

Last night was not your typical tech launch. This is a moment that demands everyone's full attention.

We are now at the crossroads, where promise and peril are going to collide. Okay?

I have explained to you, for years, AGI.
AI. AGI. And ASI. Narrow intelligence is what we've always had.

General intelligence is the next step. And that is, it's better that man, one -- one, you know, like Grok. Can do everything. That you can do.

Better that you can do.

Okay?

And then there's super intelligence. ASI.

Artificial super intelligence.

That's when things get really, really creepy.

When you hit AGI, the road to ASI could be overnight.

Okay?

We need to understand what's at stake here. Because Grok four brought us closer to that second stage, than ever before.

Grok four is a powerhouse. They demonstrated it last night.

It surpasses the expertise of Ph.D.-level sailors in all fields.

It can get 100 percent on any -- any test for any field, mathematics, physics. Engineering.

You name it.

This is not a search engine.

This is a system that tackles problems, so intricate, they -- they go beyond our existing knowledge base.

Okay?

Let's say there is -- let's say, we have a fusion reactor. And the magnetic containment system goes down. I don't even know what I'm talking about at this point.

But it goes down.

And the top minds all on earth are like, I don't know what to do. Grok 4 can step in, model the physics, design new material, stabilize the system, and avert catastrophe. And it can do it about that fast. Now, this is the capability, that Musk says is just around the corner.

Mark my words. You know, how many -- how many years did I say, between 2027 and 2030, we would start to see this?

STU: Oh, a million times.

That was always --

GLENN: For years. Right? Yeah, always the window.

And everybody, even Ray Kurzweil said, oh, that's way too optimistic. We may be 2050.

And then people started going, 2040, 2030.

Grok shows us 2026 or 2027 is when we're going to hit it. This is the last year, that we have, before things get really weird.

Okay?

Last night, Elon Musk is touting this -- this AI.

And all of the solutions.

And then he says.

Hmm. Probably three times.

Something like this.

And I'm quoting. This is one of them.

It's somewhat unnerving to have created intelligence that's greater than our own.

He then goes on to call it terrifying, twice.

Now, this is a man who has launched rockets, you know, into orbit.

Going to Mars.

And he says, twice!

You know, after he sees the results of it. He says, you know, it's really -- in a way, quite terrifying to see what it's doing.

But we just have to make sure that it remains good!

Oh, okay.

All right. Sure.

Now, the key point in the announcement was the mention of ARC-AGI.

I had never heard of ARC-AGI. I had no idea what it was. But I noticed AGI. And I went, uh-oh. That sounds important. So this is the gold standard. The bench mark testing for artificial general intelligence.

Okay.

As I've said before, AGI. Artificial General Intelligence is a machine that matches all human cognition, across all domains.

Reasoning, creativity.

Problem solving. Not just specialized tasks like playing Go or analyzing x-rays. Everything. For instance, Musk said by mid-next year to the latest end of next year, it will be able to create a full length movie, just from a text prompt.
And do it all at once!

So, in other words, it will say, create a movie, and you just explain the Godfather.

It will do the casting. It will do the writing. It will do the filming, if you will. It will -- score the music, and it will happen that fast.

Almost in realtime. We are nowhere near the computational power now, to do that separately.

But this will do it all at once. It will make a movie with all of it, simultaneously.

So the arc AGI system is the benchmark on how close we are to AGI. Remember, scary things happen at AGI.

Terrifying things happen at ASI. ASI could be a matter of hours, or days after we hit AGI.

Grok 4 scored 16.2 percent on the ARC-AGI scale.

Why is that important? You're like, well, only 16 percent away.

Because last time, it barely broke 8 percent.

And that -- they took that test, last time with Grok three.

And it took us forever to get to 8 percent.

Now, what is it? A year later.

We're at 16 percent. Remember, these things are not linear. The next time, we could be at 32, we might be at 64.

We are on the verge. This is the last year of -- I can't believe I'm saying this. Of normalcy. Okay?

This year is -- we're going to look back at this year, probably two years ago, gosh, remember the good old days, when everything was normal.

And you could understand everything.

This is how close we are!

Everything you and I talked about last night, Stu, about what we're doing in January, make -- put -- does it make it even more critical that that happens like, oh, I don't know.

Right now.

STU: Yeah. For sure.

GLENN: You are going to need to know your values, your ethics, your rights.

You are going to need to know absolutely everything.

Now, Grok 4 is not true AGI yet.

It lacks the full autonomy and the generalized reasoning of a human mind. But it is the closest that we've come.

It's a system that can adapt, innovate, at a level that outpaces specialized AIs by a wide margin.

This is a milestone. This is not a destination, but it's something that should jolt everybody awake. So here's what's coming over the next six months. By December 2025, that's this Christmas!

December 2025, he believes, Musk, that Grok 4, will drive breakthroughs in material sciences.

So, in other words, imagine a new -- brand-new alloy, that is lighter than aluminum. Stronger than steel.

And it revolutionizes aerospace and everything else, or a drug that halts Alzheimer's progression, tailored to a person's DNA.

Grok will drive breakthroughs through material science. So brand-new materials that nobody has ever thought of.

Pharmaceuticals that we never thought could be made.

And chemical engineering, putting together chemicals that no man has ever thought.

That's going for happen by December.

Imagine a chemical compound that makes carbon capture, economically viable. The climate change stuff, that's over.

It will be over.

Because this will solve that! These are not fantasies.

This is Grok 4.

Musk said something that he never thought. He believes that within the next year, by 2027, Grok 4 will uncover new physical laws.

So that will rewrite the understanding -- our understanding of the entire universe.

That there will come -- like there's gravity. Hey, you know what, there's another law here that you never thought of. Wait. What?

That, he says, will come by 2027. This is going to accelerate human discovery, at an unprecedented scale.

I told you, at some point. I said, by 2030. It might be a little earlier than that.

Things will be happening at such a fast rate, you won't be able to keep up with them.

And it will accelerate to the point to where you won't even understand what all of this means.

Or what the ramifications are!

Are you there yet?

In six months, Grok 4 could evolve into a system, that dwarfs human expertise in economics, defense, all of it.

Now, again, it's a bit terrifying to quote Elon Musk. Why?

Because we don't know, what else comes with this.

This is like an alien life form.

We have no idea, what to predict. What it will be capable of.

How it will view us, when we are ants, to its intellect.

Okay?

It is a tool, but it is also Pandora's box.

If Grok 4 is the biggest step towards AGI.

And maybe one of the last steps to AGI.

My feeling is: What I've been saying forever.

2027 to 2030, I'm leaning more toward the 2027 now.

Because of this announcement last night.

We are on the verge of AGI.

And everything in human existence changing overnight.

And as Musk said himself, two times, it's terrifying!

We should act like it is terrifying.

Or risk losing the control of the future, that we're all trying to build. That's the biggest story of the day.

I think! In my opinion.

RADIO

Bill O'Reilly reveals how Trump can END Epstein files nightmare overnight!

Bill O'Reilly joins Glenn Beck with his plan for how the Trump administration can fix the Epstein Files fallout "overnight." Plus, he explains why he believes there's only one way that former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan get indicted by a grand jury.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. Bill O'Reilly.

Welcome to the program, sir! How are you?

BILL: Welcome. (inaudible)

And right off the bat, I have to correct you.

GLENN: Yeah. You're not alive. What know.

BILL: I mean, you know -- you don't know that?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah. No. I -- I thought you were dead. Anyway --

BILL: You were dead to me, oh!
(laughter)
I --

GLENN: I get it.

BILL: That's just another brick in your wall, Beck.
(laughter)

GLENN: It's good to talk to you, Bill.

Tell me -- you had a conversation with -- with President Trump, what, a couple of months ago, and I talked about --

BILL: Yeah. St. Patrick's Day, he invited me to sit on a cabinet meeting, which he does sometimes.

And he said, look, we've got files, Kennedy, King, Epstein -- what do you think? And I said, well, first Kennedy you've got to put out pretty much everything, which he did. King, he didn't. I don't know why. Because that's important too.

And then on Epstein I said, you have to be careful here, because this is now being used in political precincts. Both sides want to destroy anybody that was associated with Epstein. And the problem is that a federal investigation. They don't make a determination whether you had a -- what kind of relationship you had with Epstein. They just said, so-and-so had lunch with him.

Or maybe so-and-so had -- saw him at a party. And I said, any name of a human being associated with Epstein, in any way, that person is going to be destroyed. Because you know, the press is not going to put anything into context.

So I said, but it's very important that the Justice Department tell the folks what they know.

And you don't have to get specific with anything.

But you have to say, this is the information that we've compiled. And that's not hard.

And I don't know why the Trump administration is not doing that.

GLENN: Wow!

So, first of all, it's your fault, that we're not getting any names. We learned a lot here.

BILL: Probably my fault, but the president --

GLENN: You know what, I think you're right. I don't want all the names of the people. I want to know --

BILL: And I don't either.

GLENN: Right! I want to know the Justice Department has sorted through the things, and then have gone through. And said, this is criminal. This is not. These people are being indicted, et cetera, et cetera. But to come out and say, there is nothing there, I mean, it's -- it's at least --

BILL: It's ridiculous.

GLENN: It's mass incompetence, at least from Pam Bondi. How could she come out and say, it's all sitting on my desk?

And then when she doesn't release it, she says, well, that's because the FBI in New York is thwarting this process. There are people up there, that are trying to keep this from me.

And then she makes no arrests on that. We never hear about that again.

And then now all of a sudden, there's nothing to see.

BILL: Well, listen, Pam Bondi does not make decisions on her own.

No cabinet member does.

All the decisions come out of the West Wing.

So what I believed happened was, Trump was so obsessed with the big bill, with Iran, with Putin, with China.

That this -- they didn't even think about this. Okay?

GLENN: I believe that.

BILL: And it slowly began to unravel. And then I caught it by surprise.

But this is the easiest fix. Somewhere so easy.

BILL: So if I'm in charge, and that would be a great thing for everyone, except you, Beck -- but every other American, if I were in charge, tremendous. You would be in Botswana. Right.

GLENN: Right. Oh, I know.

Yeah. Yeah. I would be the ambassador of the white farmers in -- in South Africa if it were up to you. I know. I know.

BILL: No. You would be wandering around going, I am Glenn Beck. And they would go, who? That's what you'd be doing.

GLENN: That's every day.

BILL: So this could happen within the hour. Pam Bondi announces a press conference for tomorrow.

At that press conference, sitting next to her, is Merrick Garland, everyone.

You had this stuff for four years! Now, I understand that Mr. Garland has gone native and is living in a -- well, we can find him. We can pull him out of there, and have him and Pam, sit there and answer questions in a general way about what evidence the Justice Department of the United States has compiled.

GLENN: Not going to happen.

BILL: That's it!

Well, if it's not going to happen, then President Trump is going to take a hit.

But he's calculating that this will say that it's that night important.

But I don't know why you would not do it.

I just don't know. And I'm usually pretty good at predicting what the president does or does not do.

GLENN: So here's the thing, Bill.

I think he keeps focusing on Epstein. It's not that big of a deal.

It's not about Epstein. It's about justice.

It's about, can we trust the people -- correct!

It's all about credibility and justice.

And he's not seeing that. And I don't know how he's missing that. Because I agree with you.

He's been so busy on so many other things.

BILL: That's right. That's right.

GLENN: This is not at the top of his priority list.

But he did campaign on it.

BILL: Right.

And I don't know if there's anybody inside the White House.

He looks to be annoyed, when this subject comes up.

GLENN: Oh, I know.

BILL: And here's the -- what works -- you have to understand.

A guy like Donald Trump runs it all.

If he's annoyed, nobody will want to annoy him more. Okay?

GLENN: Oh, I know.

BILL: That's how it works. The older arch is, because Epstein got favorable treatment.

By the feds, in the first go around in Florida, that there's a deep suspicion about this case.

But if you break it down, if the Biden administration had any dirt on any Republican associated with Epstein. It would have been out.

And vice-versa.

If the Republicans had any dirt on any Democrats. Now, we know that former president Clinton, was involved with Epstein to some extent.

I don't know if that was a factor, okay? I don't know.

But your right for once. You're right. It's about credibility. It's about the American people trusting that we do have equal justice for all!

So what do you -- what do you make of now the Russia gate thing, coming out, today. Or yesterday.

The FISA court.

The fact that they're now saying, hey.

You know, we need to hold Brennan accountable.

We're like five or six days away.

Weeks away from him, you know, slipping past the -- the statute of limitations.

I mean, all these things are out today.

There's that. There is also the -- let's see here.

The Secret Service -- I think this happened a year ago.

But it's being reported as if it's news.

Secret Service suspends six agents assigned to protect Trump during a Butler assassination attempt. I mean, all these things are coming out. Like, look, we're busy on all these things. And I do believe they're busy on these things.

But it's like the Keystone Cops are in charge of the PR on this. It's bad.

BILL: Well, there's a lot of politics involved in both of those cases. Number one, in order to get Comey and Brennan to get indicted by a grand jury. Federal grand jury, and that's the only passage, you would have to have a whistle-blower, saying, yeah, these guys abused their power. I worked for them. And they absolutely wanted to get Trump.

And they knew the Russia dossier was phony.

And they did it anyway.

If I have that Justice Department.

Then you can get those guys.

If you don't have it, they will not be even indicted by a grand jury.

GLENN: So how is it that we do not have that Justice Department?

How do we not have that Justice Department?

BILL: Well, look. I don't know whether they have a whistle-blower or not, okay?

And if they have a whistle-blower, I want the case to go forward.

I want those two men indicted.

You can't do that, at that level.

As far as the Secret Service is concerned, monumental screw up. Everybody knows it. They fired the morons in charge of it. That woman -- I was embarrassed listening to her, trying to explain.

They didn't know what the deuce was going on. But this was across-the-board, in the Biden administration.

You know, it was a year ago Sunday, this upcoming Sunday.

GLENN: Right.

BILL: And it's just another example of how the Biden administration was the second worst administration in the history of this country. People have no idea how bad it was.

Every single agency was chaotic. Nothing worked. And this is just part of that. And we'll have a slew of stuff on Sunday. Nothing really meaningful.

I mean, they suspended the Secret Service agents, as they should have. They fired the director as they should have. The guy was a nut.

I don't know if there was anything more to that. I doubt it.

I'm more interested in the guy in the bushes. Because they don't know anything about him. I would like to know a little bit about him.

But again, the federal government, it doesn't really matter. It's the government. They never want to tell us stuff, Beck, never.

We always have to pull it out of them. It's almost like Russia or something. Come on!

GLENN: Right. Yeah. Let me ask you, let me take you back again to the Epstein thing.

I noticed yesterday, there were these people who were on the left. Who were taking tweets of mine. That say, look. These things don't make sense. On the Epstein thing. And they just have to be answered. And not anti-Trump at all.

And yet, the anti-Trump people were retweeting that, and they're trying to -- they're trying to get the right to fight against itself again and split people away from Donald Trump, where I don't think this Epstein thing is -- is splitting people from Donald Trump, at least at this point.

And I -- you know, I -- my wife stopped me from answering some of those tweets, yesterday.

Because it's never good, when you -- when I tweet in anger. Which I did.

But -- or was going to. What did you think about how this is being used against the right to try to separate us even more?

BILL: Everything is political. Everybody knows that for you.

But the MAGA people, from the mail I get. And I get a voluminous amount of mail. They're not happy.

GLENN: Oh, I agree. I'm not happy.

BILL: Now, are they going to throw President Trump under the cliché-ridden bus? No. Because to them, the greater good is being served by a fair tax bill.

Trying to cut waste.

Dealing with Iran effectively. And hopefully dealing with Putin.

That's another thing, that's on Trump's plate.

He has to deal with Putin now.

Has to. And that will be the next big story.

GLENN: How is he going to deal with it?

BILL: Lavrov and Rubio, are in Indonesia, as we speak.

And I assume that Rubio is delivering a message. That you either stop, or we're going to just absolutely crush you economically. Which the United States can do. By saying. No bank does business with Moscow.

And if you do business, no matter what bank you are, we're going to put you out of business.

Okay?

GLENN: Yeah. I've only got a couple of seconds. But didn't we already do that under Biden?

BILL: No! We didn't do the banks. We did the sanctions. And the sanctions they can always get around, because China is going to buy as much oil from Russia as possible.

You stop the banks, from doing all business with Moscow? Who is going --

GLENN: Isn't that what the SWIFT thing was all about?

When we kicked them off of SWIFT, wasn't that what that was all about?

BILL: No! Because they can still do a huge business with countries buying their oil.

And they got to pay Putin and Russia for the oil, and that has to go through the banking system.

If you stop the banking system, he can't get paid.

GLENN: Hmm, it's amazing. I'm glad I'm not the president right now. I think he's made some very brave decisions, and he is walking a tightrope. I mean, the world is on edge. And I pray for --

BILL: He looks very tired to me. Very tired. I haven't talked to him in a while, which is unusual. But you're right. You're absolutely right. That's the second time you've been right in this conversation. My God!

GLENN: I know. It's crazy.

BILL: What in the world.

GLENN: I was wrong about you being dead.

BILL: What is happening?

GLENN: It's good -- it's good to talk to you, my friend. Is everything okay? Is everything going well?

BILL: Everything is all right, Beck. We are not only successful, but that's old news. We've been that way for 50 years, but I appreciate you having me on your fine program.

GLENN: Okay. I love you.

BILL: Stu is still breathing.

GLENN: Hmm.

BILL: So that's good. Right.

But I've got a big book called Confronting Evil. Of course, we sent it, and of course you denied getting it. That comes out September 9th, so put me on a dance card.

GLENN: Well, we'll have you on. And you can also find Bill and his YouTube page. YouTube.com/BillOReilly. Or is it The Walking Dead?
(laughter)
He's not even laughing. Maybe he hung up. Bill O'Reilly, great to have him on.

FLASHBACK: Kash Patel says FBI Director has Epstein's "Black Book!"

During a 2023 interview with Glenn Beck, now-FBI Director Kash Patel adamantly proclaims that the FBI and specifically the FBI Director is in direct control of Jeffrey Epstein's "Black Book" of clients. So now given the most recent claims by Patel and DOJ Attorney General Pam Bondi, what has changed from his perspective since taking this role? What do YOU think is the explanation for this change in tune by Kash Patel?

Watch Glenn Beck's Extended Interview with Kash Patel from 2023 HERE

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Are Epstein's "Blackmail Videos" Being Used for Leverage RIGHT NOW?

What was Jeffrey Epstein's operation all about. If he was at the center of a massive blackmail operation to compromise those in positions of power, who is in possession of that information now? Glenn Beck and ATF Whistleblower John Dodson analyze the details of this situation and give their thoughts on what is the most likely reality surrounding Epstein.

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with ATF Whistleblower John Dodson HERE

Glenn's Show Prep

3 Things to Learn From How the Government Mishandled the Bundy Standoff

Oregon Proves We Are No Longer a Nation of Laws, But of Men

This AI could change EVERYTHING by next year

Transcript

Bill O'Reilly reveals how Trump can END Epstein files nightmare overnight!

Transcript

FLASHBACK: Kash Patel says FBI Director has Epstein's "Black Book!"

Are Epstein's "Blackmail Videos" Being Used for Leverage RIGHT NOW?