Biden Thinks He Can Shut Down Wyoming. How The Government Unconstitutionaly Acquired So Much U.S. Land

Through purposeful disregard of the Constitution and illegal deception, the camel has actually taken over the tent against the Founder's specific instructions.

Courtesy GISGeography

The federal government today claims to own or control the following percentages of the western states: Nevada – 86%, Arizona – 75%, Utah – 75%, Oregon – 75%, Idaho – 75%, Alaska – 71%, Wyoming – 65%, New Mexico – 60%, California – 55%, Colorado – 50%, Montana – 45%, Washington – 40%.

The Founder’s bad taste from “the divine right of kings”

Kings claimed, “they were installed by God” and claimed everything as theirs. Property, livestock, etc., even your body! The Founders were absolutely not going to create a system where the government could claim ownership of anything including land.

The Constitution regarding federal government ownership of land

Article I Section 8 Clause 17:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

The intent was that the federal government would have to ask existing states or new states created for specific parcels of land only for the above stated purposes. This was to head off the historical tendency of governments to seek more power and control by grabbing up everything including land.

From INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE. ORG by Rob Natelson:

* Under the Property Clause (Art. IV, Sec. 3, Cl. 2), land titled to the federal government and held outside state boundaries is “Territory.” Federal land held within state boundaries is “other Property.”

* The Property Clause gives Congress unconditional power to dispose of property and authority to regulate what is already held. It does not mention a power to acquire.

* Under the Treaty Clause (II-2-2; see also Article VI), the federal government may acquire land outside state boundaries. As long as the area is governed as a territory, the federal government may retain any land it deems best.

* As for acreage (“other Property”) within state boundaries: Under the Necessary and Proper Clause, the federal government may acquire and retain land necessary for carrying out its enumerated powers. This includes parcels for military bases, post offices, buildings to house federal employees undertaking enumerated functions, and the like. It is not necessary to form federal enclaves for these purposes.

Nowhere does the Constitution grant the federal government power to retain acreage inside states for unenumerated purposes, such as land for grazing, mineral development, agriculture, forests, or parks.

The “poison pill” Enababling Acts of the Western States

The Western States were first territories. They could apply for statehood by, among other things, creating a constitution subservient to the U.S. Constitution that is approved by Congress.

They also were subject to the Enabling Act. The first part consistent with the Constitution, the intent of the Founders and the Northwest Ordinance that new states would be on equal footing with the original thirteen states. The second, the poison pill. Using California as an example:

…That the State of California shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one, of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an Equal Footing with the original States in all respects whatever. And

…That the said State of California is admitted into the Union upon the express condition that the people of said State, through their legislature or otherwise, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of public lands within its limits, and shall pass no law and do no act whereby the title of the United States to, and right to dispose of, the same shall be impaired or questioned;…

The Forest Reserve Act of 1891

Not long after California in 1850 and Nevada in 1864 came into the Union the federal government decided to violate the Enabling Act and not dispose of land within the respective states but to “set aside” lands for other purposes. For example, Yellowstone was established in 1872 and Yosemite in 1890. Congress passed the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 which included “stroke of the pen” authority for the President to do just that, even though this was absolutely outside the boundary and authority of the Constitution. This act included a short rider to Section 24 which reads:

That the president of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any state or territory having public land bearing forest, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations; and the president shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservation and limits thereof.

The Antiquities Act of 1906

Signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the president of the United States the (unconstitutional) authority to, by presidential proclamation, create national monuments from federal lands to protect significant natural, cultural, or scientific features.

Notable “strokes of the pen” by recent Presidents

• President Jimmy Carter December 2, 1980

  • Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA)

    • Provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres. It was, and remains to date, the single largest expansion of protected lands in history and more than doubled the size of the National Park System.

• President Bill Clinton Sept. 18, 1996

  • Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Southern Utah, 1.7 million acres.

    • In doing so, he cleared the competition for his financial benefactor, Chinese linked Mochtar Riady, to supply the world with clean coal from Indonesia.

Clinton locked up the cleanest, most abundant, highest-BTU coal there is in the United States. - Escalante Mayor Jerry Taylor

Incidentally, Clinton should have actually been impeached for:

• Chinese campaign contributions.

• Allowing Chinese spies into Los Alamos to steal nuclear secrets.

• Giving China missile guidance systems through the Loral company.

Like releasing the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz”, agencies were created to unconstitutionally manage lands

The current regime of federal land management is blatantly unconstitutional. The Founding Fathers never intended to create a Republic where the feds could impose draconian fees on peaceful individuals and force them from the land. As a matter of fact, that is exactly the arrangement that the Constitution was written to prevent, as it clearly violates the principles of fiduciary government, sympathy and independence.

Agencies were created with absolute national authority over resources that were to be managed at the state and local level. Without regard and with total disdain for Americans at the state and local level who will have to live with and/or suffer under their decisions.

• U.S. Department of Interior - March 3, 1849

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - February 9, 1871

• U.S. Forest Service - 1905

• National Park Service - August 25, 1916

• Tennessee Valley Authority - May 18, 1933

• Bureau of Land Management - 1946

These agencies are of course populated by “experts”. I wrote three different essays on “experts”:

Examples how “experts” at these agencies blew it and their total disregard for Americans at the local level

The “controlled burns” that went out of control even burning whole towns

The claim is only 1 or 2% go out of control. It certainly sucks to be you if this happens to your property or your town. This is just New Mexico:

• Ute Park Fire - May 31, 2018

  • destroyed 14 buildings and threatened over 750 structures.

  • 36,740 acres

• Cerro Grande Fire - Started May 4, 2000. Out of control by May 10, 2000

  • Roared into Los Alamos, destroying 235 homes and displacing more than 400 people. More than 20,000 people were evacuated.

  • 43,000 acres and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.

• Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire - April, 2022

  • The merger of two separate wildfires: April 6, the Hermits Peak Fire when the U.S. Forest Service lost control of a prescribed burn. The Calf Canyon Fire on April 9 from an improperly extinguished Forest Service pile burn operation from January.

  • 903 buildings destroyed and 85 damaged while threatening more than 12,000 with $2.5 billion in damages. The largest and most destructive in that state’s history at 341,471 acres.

The Spotted Owl scam

Back when we lived in Pennsylvania, I believe it was on America's Voice News, we saw a secretly recorded video of a Sierra Club meeting where they were desperately trying to come up with an animal to use as the reason to shut down logging in the Northwest. They came up with the Spotted Owl.

• It was declared endangered in 1990.

• U.S. Forest Service, BLM and outrageously, private land logging was shut down on millions of acres since supposedly the owl needed “old growth forest” to survive.

• When it was spotted nesting in Kmart signs, fence posts, etc., that was said to be an anomaly.

• The Forest Service admitted it was discovered that actually the larger and more aggressive Barred Owl are decimating the Spotted Owl. However, logging was still on hold, too bad.

• Meanwhile, generations of loggers were forced out of business and lost their homes. Whole vibrant towns supported by logging dried up and died. We saw these towns when we were coming west. All over a clever scam.

“Saving” the Greater Sage Grouse

• The Greater Sage Grouse is actually only on the “near threatened species list”.

• However, the proven method of grazing cattle on grasslands controlled by BLM, for example, to reduce fire hazard and intensity is being prevented because cattle are supposedly a threat to nesting.

• Consequently, hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of acres of tall grassland burn every year. No habitat or Greater Sage Grouse left. Hmmm.

The wild horse scandal

Bureau of Land Management, (BLM), is supposed to manage the wild horse population on its controlled lands.

• We knew a man that ran the BLM facility in Burns, Oregon who has since retired. Horses were humanely rounded up and were gentled and trained for adoption. They were fine animals well cared for.

• However, recently in a two-part Nevada round up of 1698 horses, a total of 21 have died:

  • 10 were “acute” deaths — many resulting from injuries during the roundups.

  • Causes of death included four horses with broken necks, three with broken legs, two foals with colic and one dehydration death.

Note: I believe species should be preserved. My problem is the orders from Washington overlords with little or no input from the people who will have to live with the implications of decisions.

Introduction of the Gray or Timber Wolf

• Out of the ecosystem for almost 100 years.

• Introduced back into Yellowstone in 1995 from Western Canada.

  • When we traveled through Yellowstone, there was numerous wildlife of all types. Friends who went there five years ago did not see any.

  • Wolves will kill for the fun of it. In 2009, three wolves massacred 120 sheep in Dillon, Montana:

“We went up there the next day and tried to count them, but there were too many to count,” (rancher Jon) Konen recalled. “I had tears in my eyes, not only for myself but for what my stock had to go through,” he added. “They were running, getting chewed on, bit and piled into a corner. They were bit on the neck, on the back, on the back of the hind leg.

“They’d cripple them, then rip their sides open.”

• 15, and then 20 more wolves were introduced into Idaho in 1995. In just three years there were 100 wolves.

  • As of 2021, there were an estimated 1,556 wolves in Idaho. Between decimating the elk herd and livestock, hunting laws were introduced to reduce the population back down to 15 packs and 150 wolves.

• The federal government and state are adamant claiming wolves were never introduced into Washington. They just came on their own.

Washington Department Fish and Wildlife The cluster of Wolf packs in my neck of the woods.

• Notice there are none west of the Cascades. We keep trying to share, but then they wouldn't be endangered anymore.

  • Wolves are intelligent and ferocious wild animals, and like coyotes, will kill your dogs, cats, goats, chickens and anything else if they get the chance.

  • Ranchers have to go through elaborate measures to “exist with their new neighbors, the wolves”.

    • Putting out blinking red lights to “scare” the wolves.

    • Hiring extra help to ride with the cattle on the range 24/7.

    • Lastly, bring their cattle in and spend money on hay and feed.

    • The state wildlife agency is allowed to kill wolves after three attacks on livestock in 30 days, or four in 10 months. The cattle are not always found dead. Some are found still alive with their back legs chewed off.

Interesting fact: Wolves have become so numerous in Washington that cougars are actually killing them for encroaching on their habitat.

Introducing Grizzly bears into Eastern Washington

For years now, U.S. Fish and Wildlife has been trying to bring Grizzly bears, that have been out of the ecosystem for about 60 years, back to the North Cascades over the adamant objection of citizens who actually live there.

• Grizzly bears which can be more aggressive than Black bears already live in Northeast Washington and Canada and conceivably could migrate south into the Cascades all by themselves.

• Disturbing fact: Grizzly bears are actually wandering into neighborhoods in British Columbia.

• At a town meeting for public input, my wife noticed on the Fish and Wildlife pamphlet their concerns about safety were in this order:

  • Safety for Grizzly bears.

  • Safety for the general public.

  • Safety for Fish and Wildlife personnel.

• Recently, under Biden, U.S. Fish and Wildlife has drafted a plan to introduce the Grizzly into the Cascades despite continued opposition.

Back to Biden's 1,350-page proposal for managing 3.6 million acres of federal land in Southwest Wyoming

• It blocks energy development on nearly half that land, or 1.6 million acres.

• It will also restrict mining and some grazing on areas that include petroglyphs dating back 200 years, migration corridors in the Red Desert for Bighorn sheep, Mule deer, Elk and North America’s largest sand dunes. Wyoming is the nation’s top coal-producing state, holding about 40 percent of all reserves in the country.

All in violation of the narrow authority given to the federal government to own land in the states.

What should have been done and can still be done?

Again From INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE. ORG by Rob Natelson:

* Once a state is created and is thereby no longer a territory, the federal government has a duty to dispose of tracts not used for enumerated purposes.

* In the process of disposal, the federal government must follow the rules of public trust. It would be a breach of fiduciary duty for the feds to simply grant all of its surplus property to state governments. Each tract must be disposed of in accordance with the best interest of the American people. For example, natural wonders and environmentally sensitive areas (such as those now encompassed by the national parks) might be conveyed under strict conditions to state park authorities or (as in Britain) to perpetual environmental trusts. Land useful only for grazing, mining, or agriculture should be sold or homesteaded, with or without restrictions. The restrictions might include environmental protections, public easements, and protection for hunters and anglers.

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