Livestock “The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it.” – JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL MAY 15, 2010 •
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Digest I Volume 52 • No. 5
Second Class Citizens by Lee Pitts ust like a parent who denies he or she has a favorite offspring, our federal government claims not to play favorites. Pardon our skepticism, but there is mounting evidence that not only does Uncle Sam play favorites, he doesn’t even seem to like his western relations very much at all. The feds seem more interested in public spankings than they are in understanding Westerner’s needs and wishes. Now, two of those stepchildren have rebelled and have taken matters into their own hands. First we had the Sagebrush Rebellion which, like a tumbleweed, blew across the landscape without altering it. Then there was the county rights movement which protested the unequal treatment by the feds. While this may have added to our own selfesteem, there are still no important courtroom decisions on the books that address the usurpation of the county’s power by agencies of our federal government. Now we have a mini-Civil War on our hands, only this time it’s between the East and West, not the North and South. This skirmish promises to be even more confrontational than the Sagebrush Rebellion or the County Movement, but that’s what happens when the fed’s actions, or lack of them, get peo-
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“Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain Dance.” ple killed. The murder of Rob Krentz, a well-liked rancher, living in our dangerous borderlands, not only highlighted the government’s failed immigration policy, it raises the question, “Can we count on our federal government to do anything right anymore?”
More Equal “Why does the federal government own 65 percent of all the land west of Denver and less than two percent of the land east of Denver?” asks Henry Lamb, a staunch defender of states’ rights. We’ve all heard the numbers. The feds claim ownership of over 98 percent of Alaska and
nearly 90 percent of Nevada. They own 66 percent of Utah, 63 percent of Idaho and Oregon, and 52 percent of California is claimed by the feds. It all adds up to 350 million acres of land in the 11 continental western states. Most of it is ruled over by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Department of Forest Fires, otherwise known as the Forest Service, and a plethora of environmental groups in cahoots with the feds to shut down what they call “resource extraction,” but what you and I call our “life.” Yet, the feds own so little of the land in eastern and Midwest states, this despite the fact that
all states were to be admitted to the Union with equal rights and powers. It says so right there in the U.S. Constitution, Article IV Section 3. It’s called the Doctrine Of The Equality Of States, or the “Equal Footing Doctrine” which is supposed to insure that all states were equal in their sovereign power. The 10th Amendment goes even further stating that all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government were retained by the states and the people. “Where, then, is the equality for the states west of the 100th meridian?” asks Henry Lamb. Despite the intentions of our founders and the clear intent of the Equal Footing Doctrine, “the states east of the 100th meridian are vastly “more equal” than the states to the west.”
Refusing To Stand Down Our federal government not only dictates how western land will be used, it also dictates how the law will be enforced. So we have officers of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) confiscating cows while the county sheriffs who were elected by the residents have to stand down. One continued on page two
Double Monuments? by KAREN BUDD-FALEN, Attorney, Cheyenne, Wyo.
n April 16, 2010, the Obama administration held a White House conference as a first step in its plans for the America’s Great Outdoors initiative. While this conference was touted as providing a chance for all viewpoints to be voiced in order to create a comprehensive conservation plan for public lands in the United States, an Interior Department document leaked on February 14, 2010 shows that the Obama Administration is also seeking to limit access and use to over 10 million acres of land in the West, by possibly designating 14 new National Monuments under the Antiquities Act. While the designation of National Monuments is technically supposed to only include the minimum amount of land necessary to preserve America’s “antiquities,” in reality, in recent years these designations have been significantly larger and have had a severe negative impact on the tax base on many West-
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ern communities and counties. But because National Monuments are designated under the Antiquities Act pursuant to an Executive Order by the President, there is not much legal recourse in opposing the designations themselves in federal court. Even without Obama’s proposed designations, currently there are 100 National Monuments across the Nation, located in 27 states. President Teddy Roosevelt established the first National Monument, Devils Tower in Wyoming in 1906. President Bill Clinton created the most National Monuments, 19 plus the expansion of three existing monuments. Only Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did not create any new monuments under the Antiquities Act. Over 12,091,930 acres are included in these 100 existing Monuments; President Obama’s proposal would add 10,000,000 acres more to that total. The question is what can be done by local continued on page three
by LEE PITTS
Going Global
don’t fly on the airlines any more but when I did I always tried to avoid talking with my fellow sufferers. I tried to do something more constructive, like biting my fingernails, searching the skies for birds or other airplanes, and praying we landed safely. But in this case I couldn’t help but wonder what job the man next to me had that would require so many electronic devices. “What do you do for a living?” I asked. “I’m an offshore broker,” he said. “You launder money!” I said in disbelief, surprised that anyone would admit it. “No. I arrange for businesses to contract with foreign firms for services.” “I’ve read about people like you. You make people lose their jobs in this country.” “We prefer to say that we make our clients aware of the many and varied opportunities offshore and then help them make the strategic decision to outsource.” “Thank goodness you can’t offshore my job.” “Oh, what is it that you do?” “I’m a humor columnist, or at least I like to think I am,” I said, as I shared a copy of one of my books with him. He read a passage or two, obviously not very impressed and replied, “There are some wonderful opportunities in India now to outsource writing.” “I don’t think it would work. You see, I write a lot about cows and I understand that the good folks in India have a different opinion about cattle than we do.” “Yes, I can see where that might be a problem. They aren’t really into eating cows. But India is passé anyway. For outsourcing, China is the new India. I am able to find even cheaper labor in China now than anywhere else on earth. Many of the laborers in China that I contract to American companies are paid less than $2.00 per day.” “That much huh?” I replied. “That’s more than I make. Maybe I should consider offshoring myself to China.” “There are many other benefits to offshoring,” said continued on page six
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