Free Republic

Security: In addition to stockpiling over a billion bullets and thousands of semiautomatic weapons the feds would deny U.S. citizens, the vehicle of choice for fighting the counterinsurgency war in Iraq is appearing on U.S. streets. The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles? And just who are they intended to be used against? This acquisition comes on top of the recent news of the stockpiling by DHS of more...

Federal Power: Homeland Security's procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer. Who or what are they shooting at? Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Thursday asked Nick Nayak, DHS' chief procurement officer, a question we and others have been asking: Why has the Department of Homeland Security been buying so much ammunition? Dismissed as a concern only of right-wing conspiracy theorists, the reported amounts as high as 2 billion rounds have varied and been explained not as a one-time purchase but a bulk buy...

Property Rights: Few have heard of Agenda 21, the U.N. plan for sustainable development that tosses property rights aside. But Alabama has, and it recently secured a victory as important as that over union power in Wisconsin. After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's stunning triumph over the excesses and abuses of public-sector unions, the London Telegraph's James Delingpole, an indefatigable opponent of global warming fraud, opined in a piece titled, "How Wisconsin And Alabama Helped Save The World," that we should take note of "an equally important but perhaps less well-publicized victory won in the Alabama House and Senate over the...

The rural Nevada showdown between federal government officials and militia members protecting rancher Cliven Bundy has evolved into a battle of government “tyranny,” with many newly arriving militiamen rolling in to draw a line in the dirt about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas. ... “This is a better education than being in school! I’m glad I brought you. I’m a good mom,” Ilona Ence, a 49-year-old mother from St. George and Bundy relative who brought her four teenage children to the ranch, told the Las Vegas Sun. “They’re learning about the Constitution.” Ence’s teenage sons posted up a sign...

It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who have nurtured it as BLM closes Vegas rescue center. LAS VEGAS — For decades, the vulnerable desert tortoise has led a sheltered existence. Developers have taken pains to keep the animal safe. It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. And wildlife officials have set the species up on a sprawling conservation reserve outside Las Vegas. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who...

By now you’re familiar with the standoff between the federal government, i.e. the Bureau of Land Management, and 67 year-old rancher Cliven Bundy. .. The BLM asserts their power through the expressed desire to protect the endangered desert tortoise, a tortoise so “endangered” that their population can no longer be contained by the refuge constructed for them so the government is closing it and euthanizing over a thousand tortoises. The tortoises, the excuse that BLM has given for violating claims to easements and running all but one lone rancher out of southern Nevada, is doing fine. In fact, the tortoise...

They’re almost like a hired gun’. Armed Rangers were brought in from out of state by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to assist in security surrounding the Bundy Ranch, according to the family. A heated confrontation on Wednesday resulted in Cliven Bundy’s son Ammon being tasered by BLM officials and a 57-year-old protester being shoved to the ground. Stetsy Bundy Cox, Cliven’s daughter, told the Washington Free Beacon that some of the rangers had Oregon and California license plates. “You know, some of these guys don’t even know why they’re here,” she said. “A few people have talked to...

WASHINGTON — Colorado officials warned a House committee Tuesday that a lack of transparency in the Obama administration’s efforts to protect the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens the scientific validity of the process. Rob Roy Ramey of Nederland, an independent biologist whose career has focused on species protection, told the House Natural Resources Committee that the process has been closed to the scientific community and that federal officials refuse to share certain data being used to make a final determination. “It can be like pulling teeth to try and obtain that data,” Ramey said. “The (information) is shared...

A decision pending with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could have huge ramifications for rural Kansans living in the western third of the state. In limbo is the question of whether the lesser prairie-chicken should be listed as a “threatened” species under provisions of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The species inhabits land spanning Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. ... Kansas, in cooperation with the four other states affected by the issue — a coalition known as the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies — has attempted to stave-off such a decision with the development of...

France's historically unpopular President, François Hollande was handed another embarrassment this week when the top constitutional authority partially struck down another one of his laws. That strike-out left Hollande as the holder of a record he won't be proud of. France’s Constitutional Council ruled on Thursday that a reform that would have allowed the government to fine companies that shut down profitable factories was unconstitutional. The reform was deemed by the council - France's highest constitutional authority - to be a violation of “a freedom of undertaking and private property rights.” ... The council's ruling is the 13th law to...

Will Obama use two small birds to limit oil drilling in the West? Almost half the land west of the Mississippi belongs to the federal government, including 48% of California, 62% of Idaho and 81% of Nevada. No surprise that the Obama Administration wants to control more. But the result could be to suppress the country's booming oil and gas development. In partnership with green activists, the Department of Interior may attempt one of the largest federal land grabs in modern times, using a familiar vehicle—the Endangered Species Act (ESA). A record 757 new species could be added to the...

The Environmental Protection Agency today unveiled its proposed rule to bring natural and man-made bodies of water big and tiny under the purview of the Clean Water Act, sparking accusations that the administration has embarked on an unprecedented breach of private property rights without scientific basis. This launches a “robust outreach effort” to gather input in shaping a final rule over the next 90 days, the EPA said, maintaining that the rulemaking isn’t groundbreaking but a clarification effort needed to clearly define streams and wetlands protection after Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006. […] Senate Environment and Public Works...

Wyoming has spent $7.9 million on sage grouse conservation since 2005. That was the finding of a new report by the Western Governors Association, which inventoried the efforts of 11 western states to protect the bird and its habitat. The report comes in advance of an expected 2015 ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to add the species to the endangered species list. The sage grouse's listing could curtail energy development throughout the West. ... Utah, by comparison, spent $8.8 million on improvements to sage grouse habitat in 2013 alone.

...... they decided to rewrite the rules to more clearly define exactly what bodies of water are within their regulatory power — and a bunch of lawmakers, lobbies, businesses, and private citizens are worried that the end result is going to be yet another massive EPA power grab that will make big government an even more pervasive and retarding for in commercial activity and on private property.

Federal wildlife officials are setting aside nearly 1,200 square miles in the American Southwest as critical habitat for the jaguar... Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in Arizona and Hidalgo County in New Mexico ... The critical designation means anyone developing federal land in the area needs to consult the service to ensure it will not hurt the jaguar’s habitat

Federal designation of the Greater Sage-grouse as threatened or endangered could result in the withdrawal of over 17 million acres from mining ... Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service of making an unprecedented attempted to limit multiple use on public lands through use of “the Spotted Owl on Steroids”—the Greater Sage-Grouse. ... BLM and Forest Service’s real purpose “is NOT sage-grouse conservation.” “Rather, the so-called conservation measures are designed to: Find another way to implement the draconian land use restrictions in the aborted Wild Lands Policy and Secretarial Order 3310; Dramatically reduce and even prevent mining, energy...

The sage grouse's potential addition to the endangered species list is a problem of epic economic consequences to states in the West, with Herbert explaining that the impact in lost economic development in Utah tops $41 billion for the oil and gas industry alone. "The negative impacts are not acceptable to me and should not be acceptable to anyone here," Herbert told the crowd. The event at the Utah Department of Natural Resources' auditorium is actually a precursor to a national summit that will be held in Salt Lake City this fall. ... a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision...

Time out. This time around, I don't want to talk about airlines, airports or airplanes. I want to talk about trees. That's right, trees. Specifically, I want to talk about the decision made by a Somerville neighbor of mine to fell an old, beautiful, and perfectly healthy tree because it was "in the way" of his backyard improvement project -- in the process adversely affecting the quality of life for me and several of my neighbors. Is it crazy or un-American to suggest that, at a certain point, a tree is no longer one person's private property per se, and...

As if you needed another reason not to wear your dumb Google Glass in public—or ever, actually—an Ohio man claims he was yanked out of a movie theater and interrogated by federal agents, who believed he was illegally filming the movie with his face computer. The man’s full account is posted on The Gadgeteer, but we’ll summarize it here so you can get the gist of it before you’re engulfed forever in this ghastly winter storm. Last Saturday, our Glass-wearing protagonist and his wife went to a showing of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit at an AMC in Columbus, Ohio. About...

Lucas St. Clair pulled up to an overlook in Maine’s North Woods to a stunning vista of Mount Katahdin, the state’s highest peak and the endpoint of the Appalachian Trail. Stretched out below was a vast green carpet of pine and spruce flecked with golden aspens and blazing red maples; Millinocket Lake glistened in the distance.“I think it’s national-park worthy,” he said.This was not an idle observation. Mr. St. Clair and his mother, Roxanne Quimby, who owns the land, have been trying for years to turn these woods into a national park. But ferocious opposition has stalled their plan, partly...