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State Watch
Land Grabs and Buffalo Visions
Enviros team up with the feds to drive out ranchers and create a vast eco-theme park.
Three days before George W. Bush took office in January 2001, President Bill Clinton, with the stroke of a pen, created eight new national monuments that amounted to more than a million acres of land. One of these was the half-million acre Missouri Breaks National Monument in northeastern Montana. Now it appears that groundwork is being laid for more of the same here in Big Sky Country, perhaps during the waning days of President Obama’s second term.
National monuments were originally intended to be, well, monuments — small places of historical or geological significance such as Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Jewel Cave in South Dakota, or the Statue of Liberty. But that didn’t stop President Clinton and his advisors in the environmentalist community from thinking big, and they did.
The vast national monuments are generally comprised of acreage that was already public land, and usually land that is under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Why does reclassification matter? Because BLM land is public land, but legally designated as “multiple use.” This allows for commercial leases to be issued: for grazing by ranchers, mineral extraction by mining companies, drilling by oil companies, and recreation by hunters, anglers, hikers, horseback riders, and others. Once land is declared a national monument, however, all bets are off on the degree of restriction on commercial activities that can go into effect.
This is likely the backdrop to a subtle land grab that we saw begin in northeastern Montana, one that went largely unnoticed during the hubbub of the recent presidential election. The size of the grab, however, is not subtle – a 150,000-acre ranch is the latest piece to be moved on this particular chessboard and the real prize is the size of the state of Connecticut. The way it is all happening, however, is very subtle. Oozy, even.
The players in the story: First, agencies of the federal government that control the vast Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (“the CMR”) plus additional public lands surrounding it — hundreds of thousands of acres around the massive Ft. Peck Reservoir, a large inland lake created by the damming of the Missouri River in eastern Montana. Second, the adjacent historic “South Ranch” of the famed Etchart ranching family, who built one of the state’s largest family livestock operations in a physically remote and harsh corner of the state. Third, the American Prairie Reserve, a private environmentalist group whose vision is to “assemble a multi-million acre wildlife park” in northeastern Montana. The ranch in question — made up both of deeded private land and public land leases attached to the deeded land — was, last fall, sold voluntarily by the ranching family to the American Prairie Reserve.
“Voluntary,” “sold,” and “private” aren’t words usually found in the same paragraph as “land grab.” But that’s where the “subtle” part comes in. In reading a statement released by family representative Steve Page, one learns that they had been made an offer they couldn’t refuse, so to speak. While the statement has been excerpted in various news stories, it has only been published in its entirety on the website of the regionally influential and agriculturally based Northern News Network. To read Page’s stark and unembellished account of the ranch’s history over the last several decades is to experience how ranching families are being gradually worn down by the federal government, until giving up and selling the ranch to environmentalists seems like the only good option.
Page notes that his family and their predecessors have “dealt with… land-use issues over a long period of time.” He goes on to state that they “have concluded that traditional ranching operations on public land [around the CMR Wildlife Refuge] are in jeopardy of becoming history in the not so distant future.”
According to environmentalists, this sale was part of a “market approach” that is ostensibly a win-win for everyone. For many of us with roots in the ranching culture, however, it provoked a sinking feeling, and was yet another reminder that a lot of people outside of the West — people with deep pockets (in this case, billionaire heirs to the Mars candy fortune) — are deadly serious about converting large swaths of traditional ranching country into a giant federal wildlife preserve.
If a casual visitor goes to the part of Montana in question, he might be tempted to wonder, “What’s the fuss?” Compared to the vast majority of the American subcontinent, it already is a vast wilderness area. Deer, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, coyotes, waterfowl, upland game birds, and wildlife of every description are more plentiful than at any time since Lewis and Clark first explored the region, and they share the landscape peacefully with ranchers and their herds of cattle and sheep. It really is a paradise — or at least we think so out here. But not paradise enough, it seems, to suit the environmentalist groups that covet it. As is so often the case, the reason comes down to a single species, one that ironically isn’t even endangered: the American bison, hundreds of thousands of which can be found across the American West on ranches and in wilder settings like national and state parks. Bison have already returned to the Great Plains to an extent that would astound a time-traveler from even 50 years ago, and they have emerged in an organic fashion that melds with the existing economy and culture of ranching in the West.
What is missing, say bison purists, is a large range where truly wild bison can truly range across a vast, human-free habitat. To create what the purists want — huge, free-ranging herds of wild bison wandering the Great Plains — millions of acres would need to be returned to the state they were in 150 years ago. Unfortunately, pretty much all of the land on the Great Plains has been part of someone’s ranch for more than a century, whether by direct ownership or time-honored leases so settled and prescriptive that they would set an old-school Burkean heart aflutter. (Why they need to start with a part of Montana the size of Connecticut, and can’t just use Connecticut itself, we are never told.)
Carving out national parks, national monuments, and national wilderness areas has always been surrounded by controversy. Every time it’s done, existing ranching, logging, and mining operations have been shut down, and families have been displaced from their traditional homes. Even in as beloved a place as Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, one doesn’t have to dig far beneath the surface to unearth bitter memories of the secrecy, shell games, half-truths, and outright manipulation by the informal “private-public” partnership between John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and the federal government that led up to its creation in 1950. Ranchers around Jackson who sold their land at the time thought they were selling to other ranching operations, and most had no idea that they were participants in eliminating the area’s ranching culture forever.
The same can’t be said this time, which is part of why the Page statement is important. It sets forth, for the benefit of friends, neighbors, and other Montanans, the compelling case that this time the final outcome has already been determined by others, and the family is bowing to that reality. The sale has been unpopular with many Montanans, but at the same time, most who read the story understand that this sale was far from “voluntary,” in the truest sense of the word. It was the family’s one and perhaps only shot at recouping the real value of their land, giving future generations a chance to start again elsewhere.
Is anywhere completely safe, though? At one time, those of us who grew up ranching on the rough ridges and vast openness of the high plains thought we would be very safe. The ranchers being bought, bribed, and muscled out of their operations have long tended to be those whose forebears had settled in physically harsh but breathtakingly beautiful mountain valleys like Jackson Hole. While we thought our family lands on the high plains were equally beautiful in their own way, we knew they weren’t sexy enough for environmentalists or developers ever to covet them. We hadn’t anticipated, however, the intensely priapic effect that visions of wild bison can apparently induce.
This vision is that of the “buffalo commons,” an idea first articulated by a pair of academics — Frank and Deborah Popper — and tirelessly marketed by them and their acolytes ever since. In their imagining of the future of the West, the natural decrease in rural populations on the Great Plains should be sped along by having the government buy out farmers and ranchers, turning the land into a grand buffalo theme park stretching from Canada to Mexico, largely empty of people and full of bison. People will of course visit this theme park, and the future eco-tourists will be far more spiritually attuned to nature than, say, mere ranching families that have lived and worked on the land for generations.
It is a long way from the recent sale of a ranch in northeastern Montana to the creation of a vast “buffalo commons,” with tens of millions of acres emptied of permanent residents. It is, however, a clear step, and neither the fact that it is “voluntary” nor the fact that it is touted as a “market-based” solution can change the fact that we are watching a “public-private partnership” between deep-pocketed conservation groups and the federal government.
Roger Scruton, in his recent and excellent book How to Think Seriously About the Planet, asserts that “wise government… should not have a goal beyond that of reconciling, as best it can, the goals of its citizens.” What ranchers throughout the West have been discovering, however, is that the government is not trying to reconcile anything, but is rather picking winners and losers. When environmentalists want what ranchers have, ranchers are consistently finding that it is they who are the designated losers.
Image courtesy Ceasol. Photo above: Wikimedia Commons.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (103) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.22.13 @ 6:51AM
But I thought being an Eco Theme Park was the purpose of CANADA! If the USA builds its own ETP on its own land, what will Canada do?
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:05PM
The Land Grab by The Rapist was a Gift, from The Rapist, to Mr. Raidi, and HIS Coal Mines in Indonesia. Ditto, giving the Democrat's BIGGEST DONOUR - Bernard Scwartz - a Waiver to sell Top Secret Missile Guidance Systems to the Red Chinese Army, which now enable them to Target Our Cities with their ICBMs, despite his own Attorney General, his own FBI, his own CIA, his own NSA, his own Joint Chiefs, and his own DOD advising him Not To Do It.
A great man once said, after the Collapse of the Evil Empire, that the Environmental Groups were the New Home of Communism. Hence the term: Watermelon. "Green on the outside. Red on the inside."
Government Ownership of Land, is right there in The Communist Manifesto, along with a Progressive Income Tax, the Confiscation of Inheritence, and Control of the Means of Production - ie - The EPA, The Energy Dept. The NLRB, The Justice Dept. and all of the Thousands of New Regulations that President No Jobs has been heaping on Business since Day 1.
It's no more complicated than that.
Unless you're Anal Arnie.
And, then "It's all Bush' fault".
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:00PM
You misspelled therapist.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:14PM
You crack me up, markenoff.
BL in AK| 2.23.13 @ 2:38PM
Already have. It's called Alaska. They have succeeded in locking up the tremendous natural resources for the sake of eco-tourism. Most of it is not accessible by auto though. We have only 5 highways in our state, no interstates, and one train track.
BL in AK| 2.23.13 @ 2:41PM
Oh and by the way, that train track is mostly used to haul low sulfur coal to Asia. It hauls tourists and aggregate from May to September between the coal runs.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:16PM
You spelled "Aggravate" wrong, ya dumb Eskimo.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:17PM
And, so did I.
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 12:04AM
You spelt Nanook and APE wroing
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:47PM
Thank You for noticing.
Pecos Pete| 2.24.13 @ 8:37AM
BL: Don't forget the 2,459.3 sled dogs that pull the 213 dog sleds.
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 1:14PM
Pesco: or the 100 snomachines going 2,000 miles to break the trail for the doggies from Big Lake to Nome to Fairbanks. Doggies only go Wasilla to Nome 1100 or so miles depending on the north or south route. Fur Rendezvous (Rondy) started this weekend doggies are racing through the streets of Anchortown as we speak.
cheerz
BL
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:48PM
Did you subtract the ones he ate?
And, I know: I spelled "Eight" wrong.
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 7:32AM
This buffalo reserve is a wonderful idea. American conservatives used to care about wildlife and the environment. I wish they would rediscover their roots, instead of praising and chasing profits 24/7. It would be great if buffalo numbers really could make a huge comeback. They are naturally more adapted to the terrain of the plains and hardier than our European bovine. Plus, the meat is good, and they help replenish the prairies.
Also, I have no idea where there writer gets this info from "Deer, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, coyotes, waterfowl, upland game birds, and wildlife of every description are more plentiful than at any time since Lewis and Clark first explored the region".
This is highly unlikely, but if many animals are back, it is probably due to some hunting restrictions and the national parks. Plus, there still are a lot less wolves, buffalo, and bears across the West than there used to be....Not exactly the West of the early 1800s.
Otis, my man!| 2.22.13 @ 9:38AM
Arnie,
The vast herds of buffalo, elk, deer and antelope that existed in Lewis and Clark's day only existed because Indians hadn't been hunting them (until a few years before Lewis and Clark got there).
Here's why: The Indians never invented the wheel, and until the White man introduced the horse, had no way to "pack out" the meat from large game animals from any hunt that went far afield from the Indian's dwelling places.
So for thousands of years, the Indians of the plains had lived in villages along the main rivers (Missouri, Mississipi) which were primarily agricultural communities.
When the Sioux were driven West out of the forests of Minnesota by Eastern tribes in the late 18th century, they were saved by the discovery of wild horses, which they learned to domesticate for their own purposes. Thus was born the great Indian horse culture of the Northern plains.
Once the Indians had the horse, they could follow the herds of the plains and use the horses as pack animals. They had not yet had time to decimate those vast herds that Lewis and Clark observed during their exploration.
Hunting by both Indians and Whites drove those herds from the plains and into the mountains during the 19th century. The herds have only begun to move back onto the plains in recent times.
But once the Enviro's get their bison herds back to the way they want them, expect George Soros to figure out some way to make money partnering with the government to sell buffalo meat.
Bob K| 2.22.13 @ 9:50AM
Otis, my man,
I suggest we ignore Arnie, the half wit.
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 9:54AM
Otis, I'm glad you take so much interest in the West.
You are partly right. The railroad, and big game hunters with sharps rifles did a lot of damage of the Bison population. The new settlers, and the major hunting opportunists in fact killed them at a much higher rate than the Indians were.
But anyhow, I was only responding to the ridiculous statement that somehow all these populations of wildlife are returning to the Lewis and Clark days. That's completely impossible. The Plains were covered by tallgrass as high as men. Whole species of animal and plant life have been puched to the fringes in an environment almost completely devoted to ranching and agriculture. I'm not saying we have to return the plains back to its natural state. I'm only saying that this article is highly misleading about the health of those wildlife populations of the West.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:15PM
We've got people Eating out of Dumpsters, in Staten Island.
We've got Cities - like Detroit - starting to look like the Cities on the show - The World Without People, as Mother Nature starts Reclaiming the Land.
Homelessness it at Historic Numbers.
The number of Americans living AT, or BELOW the Poverty Line, are at Record Levels.
People on Government Assistance is at an All Time High.
The % of working age Americans, that are Working, is at an All Time Low.
But, Arnie is so happy that the Buffaloes are doing good.
Idiot.
Moe Blotz| 2.22.13 @ 7:25PM
He also misspelled "their".
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:02PM
The horse is an invasive species. We should kill all the wild ones to help return the US to its pre white man state.
Crassus| 2.23.13 @ 5:37PM
Junior, they're not buffalo. They're bison.
Pecos Pete| 2.22.13 @ 7:38AM
Environmentalists won't be happy until everyone west of the Mississippi River and east of the Pacific Ocean are living in cities. They tend to overlook the importance of food to the populace. Of course, all necessities of life, including water, will be produced by green technology.
Then there is sequestration which King O says will cause millions of workers to become unemployed.
King O says spending is not a problem, thus it is so.
King O says the national debt is not a problem, thus it is so.
Common Sense says failure to produce food, energy and sound money will result in chaos. When chaos happens, the environmentalist/progressive/democrat/RINO will plead for help from the GOVERNMENT, and thus it shall be so.
And to help GOVERNMENT do a better job of overcoming chaos, remove guns from the people.
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 7:43AM
Pete, I consider myself an environmentalist, and I have no idea what you mean by this comment,
"Environmentalists won't be happy until everyone west of the Mississippi River and east of the Pacific Ocean are living in cities. They tend to overlook the importance of food to the populace. Of course, all necessities of life, including water, will be produced by green technology."
SUBVET| 2.22.13 @ 10:43AM
Arnie............"we all consider you a moron" we have no idea what you mean by your comments.
Find another sand box.........
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:17PM
Preferably, a sandbox full of Cat Shitt.
Sixgun| 2.23.13 @ 9:08AM
When are you "environmentalists" going to stop pushing your theocracy on the rest of the country, always pushing your radical left-wing religion and trying to pass your version of moral laws forcing the rest of us to live under your version of religion, which isn't new at all, it's been around for thousands of years. Pantheism has been with us since the fall of the tower of Babel. Go pedal your false religion at Mother Earth News.
Nancy in NC| 2.22.13 @ 8:34AM
So much for the "pursuit of happiness". This smacks of Agenda 21 and the desire of the UN and many in our own government to control where we live and how we live. So much for freedom. When did bisons become more important than people? Probably about the same time as the spotted owl became more important than people being able to make a living.
Thanks to idiots like the arnies of the world we are losing our freedom. The arnies of the world are so worried that someone may have more than them...it's just not fair...they throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's all fine and dandy until the arnies get their ox gored. By that time it will be too late for the rest of us.
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 8:51AM
You guys are right. We should just rape the land completely and just kill all those pesky creatures because we need even fatter 400 lb Americans chomping on bear meat, and wearing wolf hats. After all the Bible says all these creatures should be for our taking, and we all know the Bible is 100% correct!!
Idiots!!
P.S. to Nancy. People can actually make a living off of ranching with buffaloes versus cattler. Get it? I doubt it, because your comments show you to a be non critical thinking reactionary.
Tom Kyba| 2.22.13 @ 12:31PM
You call repliers idiots, and this is preceded by the infantile and unfortunately, typical other end of the spectrum enviro screed inferring that those who disagree with you want to rape the land and kill everything. So far, that's the only idiotic comment I've read.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:20PM
Make up your mind.
Do you want'em Living Free on the Plains?
Or, do you want'em Cooking on The Grill?
Again: Idiot.
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 12:06AM
grill baby grill
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:50PM
You spelled "Girl" wrong.
BL in AK| 2.25.13 @ 1:42AM
You wrong spelt the girl
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:10PM
Arnie is an expert in setting up strawmen.
So Arnie, you can't make a living of of ranching with "cattler" but you can with "buffaloes"? Didn't know you were such an expert. This is interesting to me because every time I go to the grocery store there is "cattler" for sale but no "buffaloes". I guess it's in such high demand it never makes it down to us hoi polloi.
And where can I get one of thos wolf hats? Are they like the one Ten Bears' buddy wears in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"?
Sixgun| 2.23.13 @ 9:11AM
True.... the Bible is 100% correct, try reading it some time. It never says all creatures are for our taking, but they have been put here to help provide us with food.
Von Mises Jr| 2.22.13 @ 10:53AM
I believe our nation has more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq combined and we are awash in natural gas. Yet our gas prices are going up as the price of a barrel is dropping since we have engineered bottlenecks and restricted refining. It takes 7-10 years to get a permit for rare earth minerals and one was just released yesterday in Montana. China controls 97% of the rare earth minerals that are critical for electronics, smart phones, electric car batteries and solar panels. But yet our regressives won't let us drill for them.
You are correct Nancy that it is all part of Agenda21 and our children have been targeted as slaves by the regressives.
Arnie is a horse’s ass. I wouldn't even bother reading his comments. It is probably Perp anyway who is a half-educated fool.
Arnie can be understood if you watched Hannity last night with the new Contributor Herman Cain. In a face-off with Juan Williams, Juan resorted in every case to the liberal talking points. Herman congratulated him for graduating summa cum laude in liberal talking points without ever learning a lick of truth. Forget Arnie and Perp.
Nancy in NC| 2.22.13 @ 11:56AM
Good advise, Von. You will notice that, like obama, I refuse to capitalize these dimwitted characters.
I saw Cain take Juan to the woodshed last night, and in such a nice, friendly way too. I loved his attitude, and think Romney should have employed it to mock obama. If they were not so dangerous, they would really be laughable.
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:12PM
Truth?!?!?! Liberals can't handle the truth!
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 12:09AM
Col Jessup: "You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall"
Al Adab| 2.22.13 @ 8:41AM
The mexican gray wolf and spotted owl are other examples of this same action- reaction system of conservation. Environmentalism is not conservation and every reintroduction of an endangered species into critical habitat results in such a land grab by the federal government.
Why is so much of western land in federal hands? Why are those states treated differently with different regulations than others?
Otis, my man!| 2.22.13 @ 10:06AM
Al Adab,
Because those states don't have the populations and thus the political clout that Eastern and Left-coast states do.
As a result the Blue states make Federal policy for the Western Red States. Unfortunately, when a Western Red state like Colorado gets a lot of Blue state immigration, the liberal cancer metastatizes to that state. So an increase in population doesn't necessarily help.
Only Texas still stands strong - for now.
Al Adab| 2.22.13 @ 12:05PM
Good point Otis:
I know of a Congresswoman from Conn who was a great advocate of saving the forests, the animals etc. She was asked by a western Congressman to visit his state which she did. They flew about for some hours in a private plane, looked over the landscape of forests, plains, deserts and so on never leaving the state. Most of the counties they covered were larger than her state and much less populated. It helped her gain a better perspective on the issue and, even though a Dem, to moderate her position on such issues. Lesson learned.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:24PM
Years ago, there was an Asian LEGAL IMMIGRANT, who was Ordered to Abandone his Farm, because of a Kangaroo Rat that he ran over with his Tractor.
You can't make this Shitt up.
Nancy in NC| 2.22.13 @ 12:01PM
Just think, they used our money to buy someone's land that really didn't want to sell.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:25PM
Kelo vs The City of New London.
Look it up!
SUBVET| 2.22.13 @ 5:43PM
Tim......here is one better......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G3pWVzkAQE
Bob K| 2.22.13 @ 9:00AM
Mr Anderson,
I went to your blog and read your December article about how useful U. S. Senators, with the power the Senate gives them, can be to small states like Montana.
Now you have two Democrats representing Montana in the US Senate. Senator Baucus, is the rich scion of a wealthy ranching family and Senator Tester grew up on a farm in Big Sandy which can't be too far from this place as Montana miles go.
What did these 2 Democrats elected by Montana voters do in this regard? Were either of them of any use whatsoever in this matter of private ownership? Baucus already "got his" so I doubt it. But how about Tester who does not come from Montana Aristocracy?
Also, has there been any mention of what will become of the mineral rights under this land? This is always an issue in our age of technological wonders. There is money to be made here by the crony capitalists connected to the right party!
The image of endless herds of Bison feeding amongst fracked oil and gas wells with Windfarms and Sunfarms generating electricity in the background is an easy one to bring up! Imagine all those environmentalists driving hundreds of miles to see it in their hybrid cars fueled by natural gas!
Bradley Anderson | 2.22.13 @ 12:44PM
Bob, part of the point to the article is that all of this takes place outside of the legislative process.
Government bureaucrats write regulations regarding public lands, federal courts back them up when they are challenged, and environmentalist groups with billionaire patrons buy up private land and eventually donate it to the government to help create National Monuments that the President can create with the stroke of a pen.
U.S. Senators are indeed a powerful force for protecting the interests of small states, but their powers have limits, as is proper. I would obviously prefer Republican Senators, and Sen. Tester in particular has a reputation for not looking out for farmers and ranchers in this state, but there is nothing that U.S. Senators can directly do about any of the above.
Bob K| 2.22.13 @ 1:47PM
Mr. Anderson,
I understand this. But in reality it did start in the Legislative Process.
It is an inevitable part of what has become the "Elective Monarchy" which John Lukacs wrote about in Chapter 7 of his "A New Republic--A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century."
What we have now is a law making body which makes the laws, throws them at the President and tells him to enforce them and gives him the power to do that by writing the regulations with a bureaucracy answerable only to himself. I don't think that this is kind of self limitation on congressional powers is what the founding fathers contemplated.
One political party that allows this to happen faster than the other and is the Democratic party. And the voters of Montana have elected 2 of them.
These two Senators, since they are Democrats dealing with a Democratic "Monarchy" have enough power along with other western Senators to hold up other legislation so that something like this need not happen.
That is if they really did not want it to happen!
It's not as if Montana has the economic complexities of Texas or California.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:28PM
The image these people wanna recreate out West, is The Donner Party.
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:13PM
You misspelled dinner
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:21PM
No. I mispelled "Recreation" wrong, Mr. Wisenheimer.
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 12:12AM
You spelt hefewiezen wrong
Pecos Pete| 2.24.13 @ 8:41AM
You spelt KA ni LB wrong.
BL in AK| 2.24.13 @ 1:15PM
You spelt elohxof wrong
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:52PM
You spelled "Dyslexic" wrong.
BL in AK| 2.25.13 @ 1:44AM
Euphoria you wrong spelt
bustunloose| 2.23.13 @ 11:00AM
The people out west can only blame themselves for voting dem. For six years we haad Bush and both houses. Nothing was done to challenge these executive orders. The 9-11 attack and preoccupation with war , sure. Why ?
darcy| 2.23.13 @ 12:43PM
Like others, I see Agenda21 written all over this land grab. And while the feds are at it they can control the mineral rights to ensure that the US is permanently dependent on imported oil, which keeps America's enemies well-funded to continue its civilizational jihad against us. And speaking of Jackson Hole, has anyone noticed the 2012 election map of Wyoming -- a very red state? Jackson Hole's country went blue. I wonder why? It seems to me the left has figured out a strategy to subvert rural red-America.
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 9:39AM
Seriously, so far, all you guys have made comments so stupid that it's simply impossible to have a rational discussion with you.
No wonder only 22% of the population calls themselves Republicans. No one wants to be associated with the party of stupid.
c. j. acworth| 2.22.13 @ 10:54AM
Since it is impossible to have a rtational conversation with the posters on this site, I guess you'll be taking your words of wisdom elsewhere. Why cast your pearls before swine, eh?
Arnie| 2.22.13 @ 11:27AM
You're right C. J.
MOST of these dim-witted, not even true conservatives, get a healthy dose of mad packed misleading information from the likes of retards like Rush, Glenn Beck, and Hannity. Reality to them is what is told to them through the boob tube or radio speaker. Most of them are goose stepping Republican die hards that don't even know what conservatism or liberalism means, yet pretend to care about a country when all they care about are their selfish needs, and getting their myopic world view implemented. Theocrats, reactionaries, racists, greedy children, scared and paranoid adults, militaristic imperilists with no regard for humanity, crusaders, gun nuts, anti clean environment types, anti-social types, and just plain dumb fuck southerners. Oh, and they love to have Washington spend time and money, for THEIR causes.
Many have their heads filled with notions of fear and propaganda.
The problem is that the Republicans used to shun such idiocy like the John Birch Society.
Now the John Birch Society has taken over the Republican party.
Anyway, I lived out in the world. I've lived in 4 countries, and several states in the U.S. I speak 3 languages, and have had friends from all over the world. And I worked on everything from a farm, to a kitchen, to a construction site, to high end I.T. I can tell you, this current crop of Republicans are on the wrong side of history and are destined to lose.
They better change, or they'll go the way of the Dodo bird.
Bob K| 2.22.13 @ 11:52AM
Which language are you literate in?
Anthony| 2.22.13 @ 1:05PM
Ah, Bob K is making inquiry of Arnie the troll. Good luck with that Bob.
Arnie only speaks the language of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Hence, his being laughed off of TAS the other day when deriding Palin about his fevered thoughts about her use of campaign money for $500 shoes, when Jessie Jackson Jr. and wifey were being indicted for misuse of $750K in campaign contributions.
In lefty nation, of which Arnie is a permanent resident, the Dodo bird is their national symbol and Chicago is their capitol.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:30PM
Which language is he literate in?
Gobbledygook.
Anthony| 2.22.13 @ 3:02PM
Arnie, Woodstock Nation, Red Sox Nation, Tribal Nation, and the Nation of Islam, do not constitute 4 countires that you claim to have lived in.
In addition, the states of confusion and intoxication do not qualify as several states in the U.S.
Jibberish, Esperanto, and Newspeak do not quality you as being multi lingual.
Butcher, baker and candlestick maker do qualify you for 2 years of unemployment under Obozo's shovel ready jobs program.
As to your many friends, yes we hear them all come to your defense at TAS. chirp.... chirp.... chirp....
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:14PM
Pig latin does not count as a language.
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:54PM
You spelled "igpay atinlay" wrong you Ass Dumb.
Fred the Cockatoo| 2.24.13 @ 12:25PM
“Anyway, I lived out in the world. I've lived in 4 countries, and several states in the U.S. I speak 3 languages, and have had friends from all over the world. And I worked on everything from a farm, to a kitchen, to a construction site, to high end I.T.”
You have all of those skills and experience, yet here you are toiling away part time each day from 6 am til 1230 am Monday through Friday for $9-11 per hour for progressiveUSAvoters.org (they have to limit your hours, otherwise the Obama administration would have to grant them a waiver from paying for your health insurance).
For all of what you claim you have done, you have learned so little, but I think I can translate into several languages what we all recognize that you are when we read what you have to write:
En Espanol: el Losero
Auf Deutsch: ein Verlierer
Italiano: il Loseri
Francais: le Losier
Russki: Loserski
Polska: Loserska
Mad Dog Mike| 2.22.13 @ 11:14AM
Being that I live in Montana..this is a very hot issue. Just this week I learned that the 1300 member Billings Rod and Gun Club has pulled its support and membership to the Mt Wildlife group, who is an affiliate with the National Wildlife Federation, due to this push to re-introduce free roaming buffs. Many of the hi-line ranchers, along Hwy 2, in northern MT are threatening to shut their ranches off to public, block management hunting over this forced issue. But remember, the dems get a ton of money fron the enviro groups, and we all know those groups prefer animals over human needs, so what do you expect from now ex-Gov. Schweitzer, who is slowly being touted as a runner against Baucus?? It never ends with the dems. They talk oil/gas/ranching/logging/mining/grazing..but when the rubber hits the road..it is bad. We are in big trouble.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:32PM
Enviro Groups aka Watermelons.
Green on the outside, and Red on the inside.
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 11:41AM
Collectivist don't believe in private ownership of land, and since these zany Candy-bar heirs and their uber-wealthy compatriots have the dough to spread around, who are we of the unwashed masses, to question their good intentions...
This "buffalo commons" experiment has been underway for a couple of decades, in no. N.M./so. CO., where Ted Turner has bought up vast swaths of ranchlend, torn out the cross-fencing and set free bison, and who knows what other wildlife species?
Three hundred miles to the southeast we've begun to have sightings of black panthers. After studying the habits/range of that animal, it is clear that they are probably visiting our animal rich area (cattle feeding facilities and dairies) from his direction. We can surmise panthers prefer feasting on newborn bovine, to fighting a mad momma buffalo for her tasty offspring.
If my neighbor farmer/rancher brought in a cage full of wild big "cats" and set them free to feast on my livestock, would I have any recourse? I could at least find him to give him a cussing out, or whup his azz... but Ted seems to do as he pleases, with the blessing and help of the U.S. F&W Svs, while we "the little people" are expected to be too ignorant to put two and two together. After all, Turner is only attempting to restore "the natural order". I have no doubt Ted's holdings in the Mountain West will eventually become a part of the utopian haven the author reports as being envisioned from Montana.
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 12:03PM
Meanwhile, slightly west of Turners dreamland, in the once beautiful high mountain forest of no. N.M., the U.S. Forrest Service has allowed a bark beetle to run rampant, killing tens of thousands of acres of trees, in and around quaint, sleepy resort villages I have frequented for over thirty years. WHY? Could it be to allow Mother Nature to eliminate the very reasons "rich" Texans from the hot barren prairies wish to own property there?
Being from an agricultural background, I understand quite well that the beetle could have been fought off, with the application of aerially applies insecticides, some of which are quite "green". Watching the slow decline of the beautiful forest has sent me on a twenty year roller-coaster ride from arm-waving outrage to despair, and everything in between. Now it is too late. In a strange twist of an old saying, the people weren't able to see the dying trees, for the forest...
Every time I hear my latest "new" N.M. neighbor, who has usually just invested half a million bucks in a house on the side of a mountain, recite their "research" and quote the U.S. Forest Svs prediction that the bark beetle is receding , I can only bite my tongue (hard), lest their first impression of me lead them to label me as that loony anti-environmentalist gal, with the little shack down by the river.
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 12:26PM
Al Gore said it, and we who are awake in the hinterlands see the Left's agenda slowly oozing our way... "our food can be produced more economically abroad". I never thought the American consumer would fall for it, but that's exactly where are. Read the labels.
The Left's idea that the U.S. Great Plains should be returned to the wild state of 150 years ago is coming to fruition, because they have long-range strategic plans, supported by an array of hundreds small, as well as a few deep-pocketed subversive groups (Sierra Club, et al), who successfully market themselves, in a non-threatening way, to the American consumer, lobbying our own federal government to act against private property owner rights.
We, on the other hand, believers in individual liberty, freedom and rule of law, fight to survive their barrages alone,one by one, because we think like capitalist, and are too busy practicing our ideal to see them coming, until we are blindsided. It is not our nature to collectivize our personal agenda, thus we have been and will continue to be sitting ducks. IMOptimisticO, there is no good scenario for how this will ultimately play out.
I apologize for not being more eloquent on the topic. Hopefully you can understand how hard it was to throw this together while in a state of total rage.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:34PM
Go Reread your Communist Manifesto.
"The Government Ownership of all Land."
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 3:02PM
T... read my first eight words.
(x_x)... this is me, with my eyes crossed.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 3:26PM
I'm agreeing with you.
Mad Dog Mike| 2.22.13 @ 2:23PM
You want to see forests being loved to death via enviro lawsuits..come to Montana..they would much rather throw 100's of millions of dollars "managing" forest fires...but God forbid harvesting a tree for human use..
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:35PM
Or, clearing out all of the Dead Wood.
Or, building Roads, so that Firetrucks can get to the Fires.
It's a Mental Disorder.
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 4:33PM
I figure I can match you, story for story, MDM.
Over the past 15 yrs I have watched the tree-huggers manipulate the N.M. legislature and the Fed forestry bureaucracy to close several post WW2 built jeep trails to moto traffic. Nothing allowed but hikers and horseback. Some of these trails lead to exquisitely serene mountaintop lakes we had visited for years, that now are only accessible to those able to walk ten miles, at 10 K feet. Thankfully I can, but there are many people in the area who lost access. It is sad to see a poor old man, who had been fishing a mountaintop lake since boyhood, cry when he realizes he will never view his favorite fishing hole again.
To avoid a confrontation with, the tree-huggers work quietly on the N.M. legislature, manipulating them to withhold money for road maintenance to the mountain counties. The jeep trails need to be reworked every 2 to 4 years, thus are often impassible and unsafe within 5 or 6, offering the U.S. Forest Svs a good excuse to close them to moto traffic.
Recreational users are told, the road will be repaired "next year" (never happens), due to lack of funding. When a group of out-of-state part-time residents offered to pool money to rent equipment and hire the jeep trails repaired, we were treated like red-headed stepchildren. Although those of us who own property in the area pay our property taxes, being out-of-state residents offers us very little influence in Santa Fe, thus we are just plain screwed.
N8tivTxn| 2.22.13 @ 4:42PM
Due to the bark beetle kills, many of the half million dollar homes I mentioned above, will soon fall victim to huge falling trees, all around them. Why on earth slickers can't look at an eighty foot tree and realize it is dying, is beyond my ability to comprehend.
On the positive side, the little logging boom in no. N.M. should be wild and wooly, once the tree-huggers, the ignorant part-timers from Dallas and Houston, and the N.M. legislature finally grasp that dead trees don't stand forever.
Once I resigned myself to the ultimate fate of my little haven, I have quite a good time riding around every spring, observing the cabins that are smashed. So far I've seen no damage that wasn't repairable, but every year the chances grow. My camera is always ready.
Don the surfer guy | 2.23.13 @ 8:59PM
You're wrong about spraying: This from UC Davis article on bark beetles:
"Except for general cultural practices that improve tree vigor, little can be done to control most bark beetles once trees have been attacked. Because the beetles live in the protected habitat beneath the bark, it is difficult to control them with insecticides. If trees or shrubs are infested, prune and dispose of bark beetle-infested limbs. If the main trunk is extensively attacked by bark beetles, the entire tree or shrub should be removed. Unless infested trees are cut and infested materials are quickly removed, burned, or chipped on site, large numbers of beetles can emerge and kill nearby host trees, especially if live, unattacked trees nearby are weakened or stressed by other factors. Never pile infested material adjacent to a live tree or shrub."
cite: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG.....n7421.html
N8tivTxn| 2.24.13 @ 8:03PM
NO Don, I ain't wrong.
Over the last fifteen years I have witnessed a combo of insecticide spraying and insertion of pellets just under the cambium layer effectively protecting trees, surrounded with bark beetle infestation, on private property in the area.
So whom should I believe? Your UC Davis, eco-commie Liberal indoctrination i-net gobbledy-gook info, or my own eyes.
How many times do I have to say this, don't believe everything you read on the i-net.
Pecos Pete| 2.24.13 @ 8:59AM
N8tivTxn: I live in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains year around. I can attest to the death of the forests both in the mountains and in the foothills. The forests have too many trees, way overgrown, thus creating unhealthy conditions for all types of plant life. Plus, the forests are a huge fire bomb waiting to explode.
The elimination of logging and mining has eliminated jobs and reduced the rural areas to essentially living in poverty, or close to it.
Cutting of firewood for heating and cooking is highly limited and regulated, thinning of forests is virtually non-existent. Fire roads are being closed because those God awful ATVs and motorcyclists make too much noise; and, because roads create water pollution. Can't have cows, sheep or horses in the mountains because they pee and crap in the springs, creeks and rivers; but, it is wonderful to have thousands of deer and elk peeing and crapping in these same streams because their bodily wastes are pure and clean.
The government has lots of money for land buys but no money to maintain the land after they acquire it. Unbelievable.
I could go on forever, but won't.
TLP| 2.24.13 @ 3:57PM
Thank You.
And, you spelled "want" wrong.
N8tivTxn| 2.24.13 @ 9:20PM
Yes Pete, from reading your comments, I suspected that you reside in the S-d-C Mtn range.
I reckon the two of us could put on a clinic about government ineptitude and overreach, but who would listen?
One minor thing I would add to your statement that "the forests are overgrown". It is true, however it is due to the fact that many of the species present, have reached their max life-span. When we have a hot, dry summer with threat of fire at the top everyone's mind, in order to prove they are indispensable, the forest service is motivated to hire the local reprobate populace to chop down and haul out all the young trees that would fill in where the dead and dying ones should have been selectively logged out. This has gone on for so many decades that there is really no good way to handle it at this point. Clear-cutting in the areas where the trees are dead will eventually be the only recourse. I wonder what that will do for property values? My N.M. cabin is my IRA/401K...
With the necessary logging that we know is inevitable, will come a whole new set of problems, terrible erosion, avalanche et.c.
It will be ugly. This could have been prevented with sound forest management practice, but N.M. is a backward little state, which is why it holds some quaint charm, and why people like me, who understand that all this ugliness we face could have been handled much better, are sickened. It's a love-hate relationship.
Petronius| 2.22.13 @ 11:59AM
This shit started when Teddy Roosevelt began locking up land on the east coast over a century ago. Duck hunting on most of the eastern flyway became the private preserve of him and his friends. Now the EPA is simply taking the baton passed by Ted Turner who bought up land in that state just to post it off limits to hunting. He even blocked roads that crossed his holdings because there is no easement law. So this deal is a triple crown loss for Normal citizens. Private property gets confiscated through forced sale because the EPA can regulate the owners into bankruptcy if they refuse to "sell". Then the NO Hunting signs go up and the guides are out of business. Last but not least, meat prices rise as ranching shrinks. So Moochelle is happy too.
Bob K| 2.23.13 @ 11:22AM
Amen Petronius!
There was a big article in my morning paper today about "Pinnacles National Park: Obama helps save a national treasure." By Dayton Duncan who used 1/2 the article to praise Teddy Roosevelt. (This is the same Teddy Roosevelt who spent decades campaigning to get a Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Cuba! After 20 years or so he did get it but he cheapened it greatly in doing so.)
Here is the article:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201.....-good.html
Duncan is an "expert" on national parks. Writes and produces lots of stuff on them.
http://www.pbs.org/nationalpar.....on-duncan/
Bob K| 2.23.13 @ 11:25AM
We are "protecting it for future generations" and those future generations are coming in from below our southern borders by the millions and they see it as land to exploit! What the hell will they care about it?
The Duncan's of the world are fools.
Don the surfer guy | 2.23.13 @ 8:52PM
um... isn't it a good thing when Ted Turner buys up land and makes it private? If the government makes our land off-limits to certain activities, it's a bad thing. But Ted owns the land and he ought to be able to do whatever he wants, whether he just fences it off, or opens it to any use by anyone, or burns everything to the ground and plows salt into the soil, it's his to do with as he sees fit - without any interference whatsoever from government or anyone else.
cicero| 2.22.13 @ 1:28PM
This is what happens when a culture loses its wits. For some reason, this culture seems to think that no one was managing the environment before they arrived on the scene. The native Americans managed the environement as well as they could. The conducted controlled burns of the forest lands every year. That kept the floor of the forests clear of debris, and made it much less likely that a lightening strike fire would burn everything, including their crops.
Undder current mismanagement, all one has to do is drive through a national or state forest to see the disaster waiting to happen. How many run away forest fires do we have to read about, costing lives, homes, and millions of acres of destroyed forest, before we stop caving in to these foos
ls, and take our resources back?
cicero| 2.22.13 @ 2:02PM
If these guys are successful in making the great plains into a buffalo park, how are they intending to control the herds? Or are we looking at unlimited numbers of buffs eating everything in sight, including the wheat, rhye, oats, corn . . . Maybe they will reintroduce the wolves, lions, and painted indian on spotted ponies who can chase them over the cliffs, and cut out the tongues for a meal. Once that is completed, they can start on the eastern forests, the southwestern grasslands, the California (oops, maybe that is a little too far), the Great Lakes, and the north east. They could even give Manhattan back to the original folks, selling it back of those beads (maybe that is a little far, too). Then we can all go back to where we came from, and the world will be a better place. And they can sit in circles and chant, and tell one another just how wonderful and enlightened they are. How they will feed themselves is another question. But given enough time, I'm sure they will come up with a bright, progressive idea for that, too.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 2:38PM
Don't ask us.
Ask all of the people who've had Wolves, and Mountain Lions "Reintroduced into the Wild" where they live, how that's working for them.
Bill8472| 2.22.13 @ 8:23PM
Like in Yellowstone, the buffalo go over the line, they get shot.
cicero| 2.22.13 @ 2:51PM
My favorite was when they stopped the hunting of mojuntain lions in California. It wasn't too long before a woman joger was attacked and killed in Golden Gate Park. Too much natural history seems to be taken from Disney.
Petronius| 2.22.13 @ 5:18PM
Right on c
The 1st commandment of the religion of Disney is, "All Animals are Pets." The infantile sentiments echoed in Bambi is Gospel. We all watched his personified menagerie when we were kids with the desire that someday it would all become real. It never will be but that won't stop the enviroweenies from making it happen.
RonRonDoRon| 2.22.13 @ 8:02PM
"hundreds of thousands of acres around the massive Ft. Peck Reservoir, a large inland lake created by the damming of the Missouri River in eastern Montana"
Seems like that huge lake is a horribly unnatural feature imposed on the formerly pristine landscape. Hmmm - are the people pushing this buffalo reserve going to be consistent and propose the demolition of that dam? It probably would help to wipe out farming and ranching in the area - not to mention raising electricity prices.
I wonder how that would sit with the residents of Montana.
Bill8472| 2.22.13 @ 8:20PM
On the "Buffalo Commons" issue: if people make a free and voluntary choice to sell their land in "buffalo territory" to the U.S. government, why is that wrong?
As one who has lived half his life in the Far West, I find the idea of a "buffalo commons" kind of appealing, and I think that if people make an unconstrained, knowing decision to sell land in North or South Dakota or Nebraska to the government for a large block of land in which the buffalo herds can be rebuilt, I kind of like that.
If people think that government ownership of that land is somehow wrong, consider that once all that land DID belong to the government, who sold it to the railroads and to farmers under the Homestead Act. Now that the high plains have finally proved that it's not farm land, but grazing land, why not put a big piece of it aside to rebuild the buffalo herds?
Hell, if the Indians want to get back on horseback and resume their nomadic plains life hunting the buffalo on the Buffalo Common N.M., I'm pretty much OK with that too.
Bill8472| 2.22.13 @ 8:26PM
By the way, government selling all that land over about a century or so was the way that the federal government obtained funding without an income tax. Now they can charge a fee for admission, and make some legitimate money by selling to voluntary buyers instead of just stealing it from us.
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:55PM
You make a good point thought you don't realize it. The federal government is $16,000,000,000,000 in debt. Instead of buying land the federal government should be selling ladn or at least leasing it to generate revenue. Of course, with this administration that would just mean that major bundlers to Obama's campaign would pay pennies on the acre for federal land so maybe not a good idea.
markenoff| 2.22.13 @ 9:19PM
Apparently you did not catch the point of the article: it was not a free and voluntary choice. And if we want the Indians to revert to their way of life pre-white man take away their horses. We brought them.
Bill8472| 2.23.13 @ 1:29PM
I'm good with that, although before they used horses to pull their travois, they used dogs. Seems a bit unkind to dogs.
Michele San Pietro| 2.24.13 @ 8:05AM
That's the umpteenth attempt from the crazy Obama administration to punish hard-working people and favor goldbricks.