The Bundy Family purchased all of that land in 1877,
only to have it seized by the government in the 1930s. This violated
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution, known as the
Enclave Clause, which limits the Federal Government to owning land ONLY
for Federal Buildings and military installations, NOT seizing millions
of acres of private and public lands to be sold to corporations or
pledged as collateral on out-of-control government borrowing.
Then there is the Homestead law, which says
ownership of the land belongs to those who have lived on the land and
developed it, which the Bundys have done in an unbroken chain since
1887.
The BLM does not have legal jurisdiction as the land in question is actually under state control.
The reason behind the land grab is complex. The US
Government wants to sell fracking leases on that land but without
sharing the lease payments with the lands’ rightful owners. One of Harry
Reid’s major (illegal) donors is named Harry Whittemore, who has plans
to commercially develop that land once the BLM transfers that land from
public property to his private use. Harry Reid’s son, Rory, represents a
Chinese energy firm that plans to put up a solar power plant in the
area. They already acquired $38 million worth of public land for a mere
$4.5 million.
The rest of the land, and Obama is about to
grab another 10 million acres through Execute Order, is being used to
collateralize more government borrowing. This has been the norm since
Nixon ended gold convertibility in 1970, and the world realized that the
US did not have enough cold to cover all the loans. So Nixon created
the Environmental Protection Agency which had little to do with the
environment and everything to do with grabbing huge tracts of public
(and sometimes private) land and locking it away from the American
people to pledge (along with the mineral rights) as collateral for more
government borrowing. Almost 1/3 of US public lands, technically the
property of We The People, are now locked away and pledged as collateral
on US Government debt.
The incident at the Bundy Ranch has brought the issue of
government land-grabbing into the spotlight, but the problem is ongoing
and widespread, with hundreds of ranchers and farmers being forced from
their land over the last several years, often with no compensation for
their stolen property. Michael Rivero
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