GOP Platform Proposes To Get Rid Of National Parks And National Forests

[L. Coyote]

GOP Platform Proposes To Get Rid Of National Parks And National Forests

The Republican platform committee met this week to draft the document that defines the party’s official principles and policies. Along with provisions on pornography and LGBT “conversion therapy” is an amendment calling for the indiscriminate and immediate disposal of national public lands.

The inclusion of this provision in the Republican Party’s platform reflects the growing influence of and ideological alliance between several anti-park members of the GOP and anti-government extremists, led by Cliven Bundy, who dispute the federal government’s authority over national public lands.

“Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states,” reads the adopted language. “We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified.”

The provision calls for an immediate full-scale disposal of “certain” public lands, without defining which lands it would apply to, leaving national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, and national forests apparently up for grabs and vulnerable to development, privatization, or transfer to state ownership.

...........

The Koch Brothers Are Now Funding The Bundy Land Seizure Agenda

[RKP5637]

1. The GOP could simplify their platform to: "We want to destroy the US, all living things and earth!"

[L. Coyote]

2. New Utah Lands Bill Includes Massive Gifts To The Cliven Bundy Land Seizure Movement

New Utah Lands Bill Includes Massive Gifts To The Cliven Bundy Land Seizure Movement

A controversial legislative proposal released Thursday by Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) would transfer all federally-owned energy and mineral resources in southern Utah to state control, paving the way for massive new uranium, coal, and oil extraction across the area’s national forests, redrock canyons, and other public lands.

The bill, known as the Public Lands Initiative, seeks to achieve this unprecedented transfer of federal energy and minerals by simultaneously designating new wilderness areas in southern Utah, which has been a longstanding goal of conservation advocates in Utah.

Conservationists in the state, however, immediately rejected the bill as a nonstarter. .............

[Mendocino]

7. What these pocket constitution waving rubes always

seem to forget is The Property Clause. Rulings dating back to 1840 establish the Federal Government as the owner and arbiter of US public property. To change it would take an amendment and that will never happen. So they make their futile proposals so they look good to the Bundyites back home.

[Darb]

3. They are Confederates.

It is time we started calling them by their real name.

[L. Coyote]

8. That is certainly a part of the broader political faction.

There is also a Western element to the rebel militias, part Mormon fundamentalism and part gunslinger. Their racism is a huge part of the idealogy. One element is certainly the separation of races, and parts of the West are almost all white relative to the national demographic.

[Darb]

9. Agreed.

A great many rebels headed west as I am sure that you know. UNLV Runnin' Rebels are one such group.

[exboyfil]

4. This could be a great ad

Showing loggers cutting down the largest sequoias, placing a burger stand in Mt. Rushmore, hunters being violently escorted off of formerly public land, the hot springs being turned into a brothel...

You get the idea.

[Eleanors38]

5. Hunters and fishers are in the front lines against GOPer extremism...

It is unfortunate that a significant short-circuiting occurs when some interest groups supporting "animal welfare" choose to spend resources to tie down activist hunters and fishers with campaigns and lawsuits so that these outdoor groups cannot do their vital work. I have in mind HSUS.

[HuckleB]

6. .

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. K&R