Obama Makes Enormous Land Grab in California

Protected Land Cannot Be Used Productively

The huge tracts of land, all in California, essentially prevents the area from being used for more than hiking.  That may make Obama and the environmentalists feel good, but with the California economy still suffering from the deep recession, this is the last thing the government should be doing to help the recovery.

“In addition to permanently protecting incredible natural resources, wildlife habitat and unique historic and cultural sites, and providing recreational opportunities for a burgeoning region, the monuments will support climate resiliency in the region,” the White House said in a statement. However, the designation as monuments means that these newly “protected” areas will be off-limits to mining and mineral exploration, oil and gas drilling, grazing, timber harvest — and even to many of the current recreational uses such as camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, and off-road vehicle usage that the public previously has enjoyed. But that’s OK, because it’s all in the greater interest, allegedly, of “protecting” the environment and combating global warming, according to the president.

President Obama has repeatedly stated his intention to legislate by executive order from the Oval Office, if Congress doesn’t rubber-stamp his every whim as law. And he has proceeded to make good on that threat, issuing unconstitutional orders on illegal alien amnesty, temporary worker visas, gun control, draconian environmental regulations, and much more. Designating national monuments is a very important component of his plan for “audacious” executive action. “In his seven years in office, Obama has established 22 national monuments and expanded others to set aside more than 265 million acres of land and water,” noted the UPI news service on February 13.

And he’s not through yet. Among the additional targets in the federal crosshairs is the proposed mammoth Owyhee Canyonlands National Monument in eastern Oregon, encompassing much of the land where the recent conflict erupted that culminated in the shooting death of Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum by federal and state law enforcement on January 26 and the arrest of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons Ammon and Ryan. The Owyhee Canyonlands proposal would lock up 2.5 million acres, an enormous chunk of Oregon the size of Yellowstone National Park, and would effectively kill cattle ranching in the area, the only viable economic activity in the region since the federal government killed all the timber/wood products industries by closing down the national forests, using various specious environmental concerns. The gluttonous gobbling up of millions more acres and the hobbling of all means of livelihood for the people who live and work on or near the public lands is a guarantee of escalating conflict.

As we have noted in our recent article “The Federal Bootprint,” the federal agencies managing the national monument lands (National Park Service, BLM, Forest Service) are already grossly mismanaging the vast areas they currently hold and are $16 billion-21 billion behind in critical maintenance. With this record — along with their other atrocious mismanagement records — they have no business adding still more real estate to their portfolio, even if they had constitutional authority to do so — which they don’t.

The federal government was allowed to have a 10-mile square (100 square miles) for a seat of government [as stated in the Constitution]. Property for “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals,” etc., for national defense purposes, could be purchased from the states if the state legislatures consented. That’s it. Under Article IV, the federal government is allowed to acquire new territory, which is to be “disposed” of by turning it over to the new state government when the territory is admitted into statehood. Newly created states are to be admitted on an “equal footing” with the original 13 states, meaning with full sovereignty over their lands, not with a distant federal landlord controlling 30 percent, 50 percent, or 90 percent of their land and resources.The Obama administration and its “green” allies are pushing audaciously and relentlessly now because they are well aware of the mounting anger and resistance to tyrannical federal controls. This is most acutely felt — and emphatically expressed — in the Western states, where the federal boot-print is largest and heaviest, and where efforts are maturing to wrest the “public lands” from federal control and transfer them to the states, where, constitutionally, control belongs.

There is a new rebellion happening in Oregon and it has to do with ownership of property and exercise of power. The Federal governments seems to think that the citizens only own property by leave of the government, and in essence that is true.

The Constitutional attorney in the following video cites the Hammond case, but then goes on to instruct us on why it is only a small part of the huge overreach of the Federal government, as shown by the Constitutional limitations that the federal government has been ignoring.

It is time for the western states where the theft is most acutely felt, and for the citizens to rise up and reject this illegal taking of state lands. It has nothing to do with “preserving” land for the people, and everything to do with expanding federal power and control over the distant “colonies” or western states. Obama, his administration, and every legislator, be they Democrat or Republican, need to be thrown out of office for this outrageous action and the land returned to the states and the people.

In many respects the initial war with England was over property rights and a distant monarch who believed that he owned all that he could imagine. Perhaps the recent problems in Oregon are just the beginning of the push back, and people are finally waking up to the fact that they are losing their freedom and their rights from an aggressive and a greedy federal government. It is time to push back, it is time to take back our country.

Source: thenewamerican.com