Free Republic

Summary: Major environmental organizations such as the Nature Conservancy are working closely with the federal government to buy large tracts of private land, frequently at the expense of private property owners’ rights. These environmental organizations often then sell the land to the government -- at a profit. Most disturbing, land purchases reflect the long-term goal of some green groups to turn up to fifty percent of U.S. land into wilderness. My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse," Michael Corleone tells his girlfriend Kay in perhaps the most famous line from "The Godfather." Three decades after Mario Puzo’s fictional saga ...

Sometimes I think the whole business of news coverage is just a shell game. You have to keep your eye on things or you'll get fooled every time. It's happening again. Last week I wrote about the outrageous, murderous and racist land grab going on in Zimbabwe, but at least that story is occasionally reported. There is, however, a land grab going on under our noses that the media ignores. It's happening in this country and the government is doing it. The direct victims are ranchers and farmers. The indirect victims are the rest of us. This has nothing ...

Private property epidemic? © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com In 1976, the United Nations adopted its policy on private property, which says, essentially, that there should be none. Apparently, this U.N. decree outweighs the U.S. Constitution in the mind of at least one professor who is teaching college students. In an article prepared for Environment News Service, Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D., says "private ownership … has reached epidemic proportions." The professor says that "discussions of private property go astray," when they include the U.S. Constitution and the words of James Madison and John Adams. He contends that it is their attitude which insured that ...

News - Sierra Times.com NRA: Heroes and Zeroes By Mike Hardiman - American Land Rights Association 11.08.01 The National Rifle Association's Board of Directors met on November 3 and placed new restrictions and qualifications on its support for the "CARA" Land Grab bill. Below is what various Board Directors and others had to say about CARA. CARA is HR 701, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. But our nickname for it is CARA - the Condemnation and Relocation Act, since it provides over one billion dollars per year for state and federal government agents to condemn private property. IMPORTANT: The ...

Barring The People From the Land By Vin Suprynowicz 07.08.01 Who could be against "protection"? Parents are expected to "protect" their children. Everyone wants to "protect" a litter of helpless puppies. But the word can have other meanings. If the head of the household has died and the property tax payments aren't being made, the authorities may eventually decide to "protect the asset" on which they have filed their liens. Such a gentle way to describe the process of evicting the tearful widow and her kids, setting their belongings on the public sidewalk, changing the locks and securing the ...

Federal land-use planning in the works? Property rights group rallies opposition to Clinton-era project -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Sarah Foster © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON – Bob Harrison couldn't believe what he was hearing. Even when his visitor, "John Smith," placed the document on his desk and said, "Look at this," Harrison wasn't convinced. As director of public policy for the Defenders of Property Rights, a non-profit legal group based in Washington, D.C., Harrison had heard of many outrageous schemes that would impact the rights of property owners, but what Smith – a business owner and member of DPR – was telling him ...

eco-logic ---- on-line ---- A HUGE Victory for Local Governments By Karen Budd Falen We have a great victory for local land use planning advocates in the federal land planning process. On September 1, 2001, a Federal Court Judge in the District of Utah ruled that based upon the existence of a local land use plan, the Plaintiffs, Uintah County, Utah and the Ute Indian Tribe had standing to challenge a Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") environmental assessment ("EA") releasing wild horses into a certain area in the County. The Court found that based upon the County land use plan ...

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Thursday upheld President Clinton's decision to protect federal land in four Western states, saying Clinton acted properly under a 1906 law when he created six new national monuments. Clinton's use of the Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to act without congressional approval to safeguard objects of historic and scientific interest, had led to a legal fight by Mountain States Legal Defense Fund of Denver. The conservative organization challenged the constitutionality of the law and contended that Clinton overstepped his authority when he created monuments in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. U.S. District Judge Paul ...