Federal Land Grab

BLM police tase Cliven Bundy supporters armed with cell phone cameras.

The story of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy down in Nevada has become well known. It's about the struggle of a rancher and his cattle claiming prescriptive rights earned through generations of toil, investing in countless improvements to the land and continuing a hundred years of use, against the unrestrained power of the United States Government, and one of the eleven police forces armed and operated within its Department of Interior.

Now down in Texas, a yet larger land grab is being planned by Barack Obama, his yuppie Department of Interior head, Sally Jewel, and Harry Reid's henchman, Neil Kornze, installed as Interior's Bureau of Land Management chief.

Does the federal government plan to take control of 90,000 acres of Texas land along the Red River?

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is the latest state official asking that question in relation to a looming U.S. Bureau of Land Management decision about what to do with a swath of federal and American Indian land in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — including the acreage in Texas along a 116-mile stretch of the Red River.

The Red River of the South forms much of the border
between Texas and Oklahoma.

On Tuesday, Abbott sent a letter to Neil Kornze, BLM director, seeking information about the agency’s plans for the land, some of which North Texans have long considered theirs, using it for cattle grazing and growing crops. 

“Private landowners in Texas have owned, maintained, and cultivated this land for generations. Despite the long-settled expectations of these hard-working Texans along the Red River, the BLM appears to be threatening their private property rights by claiming ownership over this territory,” wrote Abbott, the Republican candidate for governor. “Yet, the BLM has failed to disclose either its full intentions or the legal justification for its proposed actions. Decisions of this magnitude must not be made inside a bureaucratic black box.”

Governor Rick Perry and the attorney general in Texas are fighting back.

On Tuesday, state Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running to replace Perry, raised the issue in a letter to the BLM director. He also told Breitbart.com he’s ready to “go to the Red River and raise a ‘Come and Take It’ flag to tell the feds to stay out of Texas.” 

Abbott reiterated his comments Wednesday night on "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren." 

"At a minimum, (the federal government is) overreaching, trying to grab land that belongs to Texans, or worse, they are violating due process rights by just claiming that this land suddenly belongs to the federal government, swiping it away from our Texans," said Abbott, who threatened court action. "This is just the latest symptom of what seems to be a federal government run amok that is messing in states’ rights and now messing in private property rights."

Perry told Fox News he stands with Abbott on this issue. 

“It’s not a dare, it’s a promise that we’re going to stand up for private property rights in the state of Texas,” Perry said, calling the federal government “out of control.”

The consolidation of power and riding roughshod over the rights of hard-working, dedicated private citizens comes as no surprise. Obama's Department of Interior police expropriated rights and shut down property not their own during the government shutdown. We reported last October:

I've been advising tourists to go down to Mount Vernon during the Federal Government shutdown. Mount Vernon is open and welcoming. It's privately owned and privately funded. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association is clear, stating that " Mount Vernon does not accept grants from federal, state or local governments, and no tax dollars are expended to support its purposes."

Barrycade at Mt. Vernon parking lot.

Well that's not enough to establish independence for the petulant, grubby, power mongering presidency of Barack Obama. The National Park Service (NPS) sent its jack booted rangers, U. S. Park Police, and burly maintenance workers down to Mount Vernon to shut down all the foundation owned parking -- Barrycades is what the barricades have come to be known. Barrycades appeared as if from nowhere to block off publicly accessible areas that are unstaffed and have never been shut down for any reason (including many previous government shutdowns). Obama's move is not only ridiculous.  It's lawless.

Mount Vernon is owned and operated as a public trust by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.

The Mount Vernon Ladies are a cooperative crowd. Their parking is open and available to all, including those looking for a place to anchor a hike or begin bike ride along at the southern terminus of NPS's Mount Vernon trail. Cooperativeness just makes them an easy target in the world of Obama. 

Confronted by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association the National Park Service has backed down, removing the saw horses and police tape from the entrances to all but a distant satellite lot that fills only during the heavy summer tourist season.  

The barricading of the parking lots at Mount Vernon comes at the same time the National Park Service has blocked off many other public monuments, memorials, and parks. They’ve even blocked off small parking lots that are otherwise unmanned. In fact, every parking lot along the George Washington Memorial Parkway has been barricaded.

Three space Barrycade on public road.

That includes a parking spur with a mere 3 spots located on the parkway between Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria.

At the moment there is no word on when the government shutdown will end, when the National Park Service will remove their barricades, or why the barricades were really necessary in the first place. Hopefully those answers will all become apparent soon.

Petulant twits carrying out Obama's will -- NPS, you are totally losing my respect dudes.

The creepy presidency continues.

Thugs are running the show. Good luck to all.