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There are creeps in every neighborhood, whether they live here or not. The church, jus’ around the corner from my home on Mercedes Drive in Spanish Springs, was vandalized by taggers who spray painted their ignorance all over the sanctuary.

The vandals left more than 40 tags on the exterior of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints, concentrating on the back of the church, away from street view and bright lights. It’s the second time in less than two month.

After seeing the damage, I offered to strap on my pistol and patrol the area overnight, but was told it wasn’t necessary. I was informed and rightly so, “We’re turning the other cheek.”

Sometimes, I’m not sure if I’m more of a Christ-follower or a Marine.

Las Vegas KSNV-TV anchor Jeff Gillan moderates a weekday program called, “What’s Your Point.”  The program features Senator Harry Reid’s son, Rory.

GILLAN: “By now, the BLM backed down and cancelled its roundup of Bundy’s so-called trespassed cattle worried about the potential for violence between its officers and Bundy’s supporters. So that leaves Bundy, the militia members, conservative lawmakers, and everybody else that came to his side, savoring victory today. The question is, what kind of victory? The BLM says it will pursue other action against him to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in grazing fees he’s refused to pay since 1993. You know, this thing escalated and we were all wondering what’s going to happen. You had guys with guns running around everywhere on both sides. What’s your take away on this?”

RORY: “Let’s talk about the winners and the losers.”

GILLAN: “OK.”

RORY: “Why don’t we start with the losers?”

GILLAN: “OK.”

RORY: “Let’s start with Cliven Bundy himself. He is not the victim and he is not a hero. The facts aren’t in dispute. He’s been using land that he doesn’t own for over 20 years and he didn’t pay. He broke the law. There are hundreds of ranchers throughout Nevada that conduct their profession honorably. There’s thousands of them throughout the country and when they have a dispute with the BLM they try to work it out.”

GILLAN: “Why is he not a winner? I mean, he gets his cattle; they backed off on the roundup. I mean, at first blush you say hey, he kind of exited here OK.”

RORY: “I think most people care about their reputation, and I think he’s been exposed as somebody who broke the law. The Nevada Cattleman’s Association — which is the trade organization that advocates for cattlemen in the state of Nevada — not even they support Cliven Bundy at this point. We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you can’t just ignore the laws that we don’t like. And I think clearly if state and local prosecutors look at this more closely, they’re going to find that he broke the law and he should be prosecuted.”

GILLAN: “Who else lost?”

RORY: “I think the BLM lost. The BLM shouldn’t have started this if they couldn’t develop a plan to finish it successfully. Now, I can understand why they suspended the operation; no trespassed cow is worth somebody getting hurt. But the First Amendment zones they created were ridiculous. They tried to block off too large of a piece of land. And they’ve successfully conducted these impoundments in three Nevada counties, in Elko, Eureka County in the past. But they just didn’t finish this one well.

GILLAN: “They also came in with a — well, what critics would say is a heavy-handed law enforcement presence here. You know, John Ralston did a good interview with Bob Abbey who is the former national director and state director of the BLM who felt the same thing, that look, I mean, he feels that the taxpayers are the ultimate losers because you’re not getting the grazing fees that you’re owed.”

RORY: “That’s true.”

GILLAN: “But the BLM really kind of overplayed their hand in this in some ways

RORY: “I don’t think there’s any way to look at this and say that they were a winner here. They were a loser.”

Meanwhile investigators are treating the site of a Bridgeville cabin fire as a crime scene after human remains were discovered in the charred wreckage. The property owner found a manmade pond, felled trees and a marijuana grow on his property along with the remains.

Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said the cause of death is “unknown at this point,” but they’re “treating it as a homicide investigation” until the coroner’s report is completed.

Deputy Coroner Charles Van Buskirk said it is “too premature at this point” to identify the gender of the victim, but said the remains belonged to an adult.

“We have someone we believe it is,” Van Buskirk said, “I have not spoken to the parents of the person who we think it is yet. It could take two to three months to test the DNA samples.”

The Nevada Republican party voted to remove its opposition to gay marriage and its pro-life stance from the party platform. State party Chairman Michael McDonald said he was pleased with the outcome of the vote.

“I think it was about inclusion, not exclusion,” he said about the platform. “This is where the party is going.”

A party committee proposed a new party platform without a stance on the two social issues, after the Clark County, GOP voted to remove them earlier in April.

The old party platform in Nevada defined marriage as between a man and a woman and stated that the party was “pro-life,” both of which were removed from the official platform.

Nevada Republicans say they felt it was time for the party to step away from some social issues, especially after numerous court rulings striking down state bans on same-sex marriage.

“The issue was how can we back out of people’s personal lives,” Dave Hockaday, a member of the platform committee, said. “We need to focus on issues where we can have an impact.”

Las Vegas advanced another step on Wednesday in its bid to showcase the Republican Party and itself by hosting the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The Republican National Committee announced the Nevada city as one of six that have made the next cut as judged by a 13-member site selection committee that heard bidder presentations last month in Washington.

Besides Las Vegas, cities still in are Dallas, Kansas City, Denver, Cleveland and Cincinnati, officials said. Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio, were eliminated. The next step is for a scout team of Republican National Committee staffers to visit the selected cities later this month or early in May, part of what the party officials said will be a more in-depth and technical review of each city’s bid.

The staff will look at financing, proposed convention venues, hotels and media work space.

An announcement of which cities will receive formal site visits from the full site selection committee will be made after the party’s spring meeting May 6-10 in Memphis, Tenn. Site visits would take place later that month or in early June.

Republican officials said a site decision is expected in late summer or in the fall. The party is considering the weeks of June 27 or July 18 for the 2016 convention, which would bring up to 50,000 people to the chosen city as Republicans officially nominate their choice for president and seek to catapult that candidate into the fall.

While a major and complex undertaking, holding the national convention also is expected to produce a boon for the host city, with party officials estimating its value to the local economy about $400 million.

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki said Mickelson told him in a phone call that Las Vegas was still in the running and the Republicans want to take a closer look. No date has yet been set for the visit by evaluators nor how long they would spend in the city.

“They think enough of us to move us forward in the process, and we are delighted,” said Krolicki, chairman of the Nevada Host Committee. “I think they will understand when they have a chance to kick our tires how extraordinary this place will be should they wish to bring the Republican National Convention here in 2016.”

Bob List, a former governor and Republican National Committee member and senior adviser to the Las Vegas bid, said making the first cut will improve the city’s ability to lock down financial commitments for the convention.

“This confirms that we’re certainly in the hunt and we’ve made a significant step forward,” List said. “There’s still a ways to go, but I think we’re off to a good start with the committee.”

“I think we can win this on the merits,” List said. “We can raise the money and give the delegates a good experience.”

Las Vegas is considered one of the front-runners in the competition to win the 2016 convention, partly because the city routinely handles conventions of 50,000 to 150,000 participants.

Also, the Las Vegas convention team has expressed confidence the city can easily raise the $60 million required to hold the convention thanks to generous GOP donors such as Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson and casino mogul Steve Wynn.

The proposed site is the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is near McCarran International Airport and close to tens of thousands of hotel rooms on the city’s famous Strip. Other cities in contention might have greater transportation issues, requiring busing of convention goers from far-flung hotels.

On the other hand, Las Vegas officials who pitched the site selection panel on March 21 set aside a portion of their presentation to push back against the “Sin City” image that might prove uncomfortable with conservative elements of the Republican base. At the same time, some Las Vegas boosters say it might not hurt the Republicans, sometimes derided as the party of “old white guys,” to be associated with a city that markets its association with youth and vibrancy.

Nevada’s senior Senator, Harry Reid was in Reno, Monday speaking on the future of education and immigration reform in the state. Afterwards, he spoke to Reno’s KRNV News 4’s Samantha Boatman about his take on Cliven Bundy verses the Bureau of Land Management.

“Well, it’s not over.” Reid said. “We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over.”

Meanwhile, federal land managers are pledging to pursue efforts to resolve the conflict with Bundy, who has refused to pay grazing fees. The BLM revoked Bundy’s grazing rights after he stopped paying grazing fees and disregarded federal court orders to remove his animals.

BLM spokesman Craig Leff said Sunday, “the door isn’t closed” to resolving the matter involving rancher Bundy “administratively and judicially.”

Bundy told the Blaze that he has “no contract with the United States government,” and the federal government has “no jurisdiction or authority” on his grazing rights, water rights, access rights, ranch improvement rights or anything else that “belongs to ‘we the people’ of Clark County.”

Taking his argument back to 1864, the year Nevada joined the Union, Bundy points out the federal government did control the land as a territory. However, when the territory became a state, the government turned that land over to the sovereign state of Nevada, and so the federal government lacks the power to control it today.

“At the moment of statehood the people of the territory become (the) people of the United States with the Constitution, with equal footing to the original 13 states,” Bundy stated. “They had boundaries allowing them a state line. And that boundary was divided into 17 subdivisions, which were counties. Which I live in one of those counties — Clark County, Nevada.”

“As a citizen of that county, I abide by all the state laws,” he added during the final minutes of the Glenn Beck Radio Program, Monday morning.

The BLM released about 400 head of cattle on Saturday that it had seized from Bundy back to the range only hours after announcing a premature halt to the court-authorized roundup because of safety concerns. The operation, expected to take up to a month, ended after only a week.

Bundy is trying to determine whether the BLM damaged any of his cattle before releasing them says Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who fears some of the calves won’t survive.

“It’s going to take a lot to revive the calves that were nearly dead when they were returned to the Bundy Ranch because they had been separated from their mothers during the roundup,” Fiore writes on her website, “and a few most likely won’t make it.”

Environmentalists accused the federal agency of capitulating to threats of violence from armed Bundy supporters and urged them to pursue action against the rancher.

“The BLM has a sacred duty to manage our public lands in the public interest, to treat all users equally and fairly,” said Rob Mrowka, senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, tells CBS News. “Instead it is allowing a freeloading rancher and armed thugs to seize hundreds of thousands of acres of the people’s land as their own fiefdom.”

In April 2012, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice of intent to sue the BLM for canceling a planned roundup of Bundy’s cattle at the last minute. The suit ultimately triggered last week’s roundup dates to 1993, when the bureau cited concern for the federally protected desert tortoise in the region.

This is not the first time ranchers have had conflict with the federal government’s increasingly expansive control over government lands.

“The Sagebrush Rebellion during the 1970s and 1980s frequently pitted cattle ranchers against the BLM and environmental activists,” writes Christian Post Op-Ed Contributor Rachel Alexander. “No doubt many of these current land grabs are being done in order to force people out of rural areas and into the cities, as part of Agenda 21’s vague goals of making the earth more “sustainable.”

Nevada’s Gold Butte is rich in history.

Three separate American Indian cultures are known to have settled in the area; their petroglyph carvings, etched into the rocky hillsides. Mormons families settled the Bunkerville are in 1877 and Cliven Bundy’s family was a part of that early Nevada settlement.

That was then — this is now…

Bundy, the last remaining rancher in Clark County, is defying the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management as federal agents, including several snipers deployed near the rancher’s home in northeast Nevada. Bundy compares the situation to Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas.

The BLM has also started confiscating his cattle, claiming they’ve exhausted all other options. Agents have so far impounded around 400 of Bundy’s estimated 900 head of cattle.

News reports claim federal officials are considering auctioning the animals to buyers in Utah. However, a BLM spokeswoman says the agency has no plans to ship the impounded cattle off to auction, adding, “in the near future.”

The fight began when Bundy stopped paying the BLM’s grazing fee in 1993, arguing in court filings he had no obligation to pay the agency because his Mormon ancestors, long before the agency’s creation, had worked the land.

“Why should I pay BLM to manage me out of business?” Bundy asked the Las Vegas Review Journal rhetorically. “What I did is I fired the BLM.”

The land was finally declared off-limits for cattle in 1998 and became a designated habitat for the federally protected desert tortoise. That same year, a judge ordered Bundy to remove his cattle, which he refused to do.

“I’m protecting my rights as a rancher, and I’m also protecting the rights of all Clark County residents to access and policing power over this land,” Bundy says.

Yet in August of 2013, the BLM announced plans to kill hundreds of those same threatened desert tortoises it’s been caring for at Desert Tortoise Conservation Center. Federal officials blamed the mass euthanization on a lack of funds.

“It’s the lesser of two evils, but it’s still evil,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Desert Tortoise Recovery Coordinator Roy Averill-Murray told the Washington Post.

The BLM had been funding the conservation and research center with fees paid by those who disturb tortoise habitats. During the housing boom in the early 2000s, the conservation center had plenty of cash, since developers were often fined for disturbing such habitats.

Between August 2012 and the announcement, the BLM had only accumulated $290,000 in federal mitigation fees forced from developers. The Centers operating budget is about a million dollars annually.

The agency quickly back-peddled on its euthanization plan, claiming it would adopt-out some tortoises through the Humane Society, with the rest, if healthy, to be released into the wild. The San Diego Zoo currently manages the center under a 2009 partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies.

Meanwhile, Bundy says he owes roughly $300,000 in back fees, but the federal government claims it’s more than that. In addition, the cost of removing the rancher’s cattle from the public land will cost taxpayers roughly $3 million, according to initial estimates.

As tensions mounted, their son, Dave Bundy, while filming agents near a spot designated “First Amendment Area,” was roughed, arrested and held overnight.  Officials cited him for refusing to disperse and resisting arrest.

“It was really just unreal to experience it,” Dave Bundy told Salt Lake City’s FOX13 News. “They believe that they can exercise unlimited authority, unlimited power upon its citizens, upon the citizens of our free America.”

Further violence was narrowly avoided, after a BLM agent tasered Ammon Bundy during a heated confrontation. That confrontation started after BLM agent knocked Cliven Bundy’s sister, Margaret Houston to the ground.

The incident, captured on video, is on YouTube.

Now several ‘Minute Men’ groups have arrived at the ranch. They say they are ready armed confrontation, but insist they will not start the shooting.

Both the BLM and National Park Service released a statement confirming a Bundy’s tasering. The agencies say the incident began when “a BLM truck driven by a non-law enforcement civilian employee assisting with gather operations was struck by a protester on an ATV, and the truck’s exit from the area was blocked by a group of individuals who gathered around the vehicle.”

As the stand-off continues, BLM Acting Deputy Director Neil Kornze, a former advisor to Senator Harry Reid, removed at least three reports from the agency’s website, BLM.gov. One of those documents, entitled “Cattle Trespass Impacts,” claims Bundy’s cows are impacting the building of “utility-scale solar power generation facilities” on “public lands.”

“Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development,” the document states, “and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle.”

Another BLM report, “Regional Mitigation Strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone (BLM Technical Note 444)” reveals the land in question is within the “Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone and surrounding area” and part of a U.S. Department of Energy program for “Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States” on land “managed” by the agency.

“In 2012, the BLM and the U.S. Department of Energy published the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States,” the report reads. “The Final Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement assessed the impact of utility-scale solar energy development on public lands in the six southwestern states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.”

“The Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments/Record of Decision (ROD) for Solar Energy Development in Six Southwestern States implemented a comprehensive solar energy program for public lands in those states and incorporated land use allocations and programmatic and SEZ-specific design features into land use plans in the six-state study area.”

Furthermore, Harry Reid’s son, Rory Reid, is the chief representative for Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, which is planning to build a $5-billion solar power and panel manufacturing plant on public land near Laughlin, Nevada.

As  reported by Reuter’s  in August 2012, “Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.”

Breitbart News Service discredits the Reid connection, calling it ‘myth busting.’

“Despite the obvious partisan gain to be had if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s son Rory (a failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate) had somehow been involved in a “land grab” affecting the Bundy family ranch operation — the facts just do not pan out as such. Indeed, Rory Reid did in fact have a hand in plans to reclassify federal lands for renewable energy developments. Just northeast of Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base, plans were drawn by Reid allies to potentially develop 5,717 acres of land for such use. While it would be fair to claim that such activity was in Bundy’s relative neighborhood, the federal lands once leased by the family were more than 20 miles away, east of Overton, Nevada. Contrasting maps offered by InfoWars and those entered into federal court record prove such a theory to be a stretch.”

And as the stand-off appears to be winding down, many on the ground are fearing that a “Black Flag Operation,” is now taking place. This comes after officials created a “No Fly Zone,” over the area, power to cell-phones towers being temporarily cut, the building of a ‘Forward Operating Base,’ in an adjacent valley and confiscation of personal weapons from Patriots.

Instead of de-escalation — a secretive plan to escalate the situation is in effect. According to the source, the government plans to take back ‘their land,” fulfilling international obligations, demonize any patriotic resistance and create a situation that will also advance the agenda of gun control and confiscation.

According to another source, the BLM wants to proceed with the sale of the cattle already gathered during the roundup but is reportedly willing to share the revenue from the sale with Bundy. Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie has been negotiating with Bundy behind the scenes for months reached a tentative agreement, though Bundy insisted the sheriff come to his ranch to finalize the arrangement face-to-face.

While being questioned about the Justice Department’s reluctance to hand over documents related to the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas-based Islamic charity that was shut down by the government for funding Hamas, Congressman Louie Gohmert brought up how the House held U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress in 2012 over the Fast and Furious gun running scandal.

“I realize that contempt is not a big deal to our attorney general, but it is important that we have proper oversight,” Gohmert said.

Holder snapped back: “You don’t want to go there buddy, all right? You don’t want to go there, OK?”

“I don’t want to go there?” Gohmert responded.

“No,” insisted Holder.

“About the contempt?” Gohmert asked. “You should not assume that this is not a big deal to me. I think that it was inappropriate. I think it was unjust. But never think that that was not a big deal to me. Don’t ever think that.”

“Well I’m just looking for evidence. And normally we’re known by our fruits,” Gohmert added. “And there have been no indications that it was a big deal, because your department has still not been forthcoming in producing the documents that were the subject of the contempt.”

The Texas Congressman shouldn’t be surprised — after all Holder recently told a House appropriations subcommittee that law abiding citizens should be tracked by the government when carrying a firearm.

“By making them either through finger print identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear,” Holder told lawmakers, “how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon.”

The Justice Department has requested $382.1 million in increased spending for its fiscal year 2014 budget for “gun safety.” Included in the proposal is $2 million for “Gun Safety Technology” grants, which would award prizes for technologies that are “proven to be reliable and effective.”

A charter bus and a FedEx semi-truck collided on Interstate 5 north of Highway 32 near Orland Thursday afternoon leaving both drivers and seven high school students dead with another 32 injured. The two vehicles also caught fire leaving charred hulks on the side of the road.

The California Highway Patrol says the driver of the semi-truck was heading south when the vehicle crossed the center divider, crashing head on into the bus. There were 46 passengers, all students from the Southern California area heading to Humboldt State University in Arcata for the schools April 12th Spring Preview Day.

Investigators say the truck driver may have been trying to avoid a Nissan Altima that was also involved in the crash. The bus belonged to Silverado Stages, a tour bus company based out of San Luis Obispo.

Parents and family members of students who were on the bus may contact university police for more information at 707-826-5555. They can also visit the American Red Cross website to search for loved ones.

UPDATE 04/11/2014: CHP says ten people died including the two drivers, five students and three chaperones.

“The war on drugs brought in more drugs and the war on terror brought in more terrorists. Maybe next year we can have a war on money and jobs and see where that goes,” writes Occupy Portland.

Their premise is in error.

The federal government has not done a good job in ending drugs entry into the U.S. because it will not seal the borders. As for terrorists — again the fed’s are treating them as an organization and not an ideology — battling as if it were a war of attrition.

The only war the federal government has fought correctly is the one on money and jobs. Jus’ look at how weak the U.S. economy has been since 2007.

Hillary Clinton was ready with a quip after a woman threw a shoe at her as she took the stage for a Las Vegas speech.

Security at the Mandalay Bay casino resort ushered out the woman, who is now in federal custody after the incident at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries meeting.

“My goodness, I didn’t know that solid waste management was so controversial,” Clinton said. “Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.”

Clinton dodged the object, which sailed past her head.

Mark Carpenter, a spokesman for the recycling institute, said the woman was not affiliated with the organization nor credentialed for the event.

“Our staff denied her access before she later rushed past security,” Carpenter said in a statement. “An ISRI staffer then stopped her as she approached the stage. She was then handed over to law enforcement.”

Jerry Simms, the outgoing chairman of the recycling institute, offered a “deepest apology for that crude interruption.”

The organization represents more than 1,700 companies that process, broker and industrially consume metals, paper, plastics, glass, rubber, electronics and textiles. Both Clinton and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak spoke at the meeting.

Clinton, who has said she’s thinking about running for president in 2016, has been making paid speeches and is finishing a new book about her State Department days that will be released June 10. She’s on a three-state swing of the West Coast.

The Clinton incident evokes a 2008 event in which an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President George Bush in Baghdad.