Anti Agenda 21 Platform

FA Note:  The fol­low­ing Alame­da Coun­ty Repub­li­can Par­ty Plat­form ban­ning Agen­da 21 was draft­ed by Free­dom Advo­cates and is intend­ed for use by Demo­c­rat and Repub­li­can Cen­tral Com­mit­tees around the coun­try. Is your county’s polit­i­cal activism com­mit­ted to Amer­i­ca or to polit­i­cal glob­al­ism? Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans most like­ly will answer that ques­tion sim­i­lar­ly! Both par­ties […]

Pentagon directive authorizes military forces against civilians – Was considered for use in Bundy standoff

Frank DuBois. A 2010 Pen­ta­gon direc­tive on mil­i­tary sup­port to civil­ian author­i­ties details what crit­ics say is a trou­bling pol­i­cy that envi­sions the Oba­ma administration’s poten­tial use of mil­i­tary force against Amer­i­cans. The direc­tive con­tains non­con­tro­ver­sial pro­vi­sions on sup­port to civil­ian fire and emer­gency ser­vices, spe­cial events and the domes­tic use of the Army Corps […]

NPS Ecological Mismanagement at Point Reyes: By Design?

Tule Elk at Point Reyes Nation­al Seashore The Nation­al Park Ser­vice (NPS) was able to shut down Drakes Bay Oys­ter Com­pa­ny at Point Reyes Nation­al Seashore by fal­si­fy­ing data about envi­ron­men­tal dam­age it claimed the oys­ter com­pa­ny caused. Now NPS is tar­get­ing ranch­ers for removal from Point Reyes. Here is the lat­est update on the NPS […]

Will A Four-Decade Old Law Limit Obama’s Land Powers?

A “Sage­brush Rebel­lion” like the one that pro­pelled Ronald Rea­gan (“Count me in as a [sage­brush] rebel.”) into the Oval Office is mak­ing nation­al news because Pres­i­dent Oba­ma gov­erns like Pres­i­dent Carter.  Obama’s Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary, for exam­ple, threat­ens more uni­lat­er­al land lock­up decrees if west­ern­ers do not embrace leg­is­la­tion putting vast areas off-lim­its to “mul­ti­ple […]

Oyster Farmer: ‘We Are Terrified’ Of The Government

Two cus­tomers enjoy oys­ters out­side the oys­ter shack at Drakes Bay Oys­ter Com­pa­ny in Inver­ness, Cal­i­for­nia July 31, 2014. REUTERS/Stephen Lam Drakes Bay Oys­ter Com­pa­ny oper­at­ed in Point Reyes for decades until Nation­al Park Ser­vice offi­cials used fal­si­fied data to force Kevin Lunny’s fam­i­ly-run oys­ter farm to shut down. The expe­ri­ence has left its mark […]

A Modern Paul Revere

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service The fol­low­ing is a recent let­ter from Mr. Jett Fere­bee of North Car­oli­na to the Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or (Jew­ell) and the Direc­tor of the US Fish & Wildlife Ser­vice (Ashe).   Mr. Fere­bee and his asso­ciates in North Car­oli­na […]

Armed Oregon Protesters Gather at Bureau of Land Management Office Over Mine Dispute, Report Says

FA Note — Courts have long rec­og­nized the Act of July 26, 1866, and May 10, 1872 as amend­ed, where­by Con­gress abdi­cat­ed its author­i­ty and juris­dic­tion over the min­er­al estate, grant­i­ng it as an absolute gift with­out con­di­tion or lim­i­ta­tion to all citizens. More than 100 demon­stra­tors, some of them armed, report­ed­ly sur­round­ed the Bureau […]

Moose Calf Mystery Solved: Too Many Wolves

Mech study shows a steep increase in wolf numbers coincided with a sharp decline in moose calf survival Some­times, no mat­ter how hard you try to avoid it, the answer to your ques­tion is star­ing you in the face. And it appears that could well be the case as it relates to the declin­ing moose […]

Floodplain Executive Order: Latest Obama Power Grab

Another illegal action unlikely to be challenged in court? Mil­lions of Amer­i­cans liv­ing and work­ing in flood­plains and oth­er low-lying areas are at acute risk of being inun­dat­ed – not by ris­ing water, but by a tidal wave of fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions – cour­tesy of the Oba­ma Administration. With pub­lic atten­tion riv­et­ed on the chaot­ic devel­op­ments in […]

Environmental Shakedown Through Bastardized Application of Science, Policy, and Education

Disgruntled ex-federal employees found a way to bilk taxpayers out of millions of dollars using the flawed Endangered Species Act Over a 3‑year peri­od, 2009–2012, Depart­ment of Jus­tice data show Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers foot­ed the bill for more than $53 mil­lion in so-called envi­ron­men­tal groups’ legal fees—and the actu­al num­ber could be much high­er. The real […]

House Bill Would Give Land Trusts Power Over Private Forestlands

Unsuspecting property owners may find themselves on the outside looking in A seem­ing­ly innocu­ous, bipar­ti­san House bill intro­duced in late March could sub­ject unsus­pect­ing landown­ers to the whims of pow­er-hun­gry envi­ron­men­tal groups, eager to usurp the prop­er­ty rights of those who fall into their clutches. At risk are own­ers of pri­vate forest­lands, who may soon […]

Shakeup at Virginia Land Trust Makes Waves

Now the fox is in charge of the henhouse! The abrupt depar­ture of a high-rank­ing offi­cial from the Pied­mont Envi­ron­men­tal Coun­cil (PEC) is fuel­ing spec­u­la­tion that the con­tro­ver­sial land trust is feel­ing the heat from rev­e­la­tions of its trans­gres­sions against a Vir­ginia farmer. Heather Richards Heather Richards joined the PEC in Sep­tem­ber 2006, ini­tial­ly serv­ing […]

How California Went Dry

CBS San Fran­cis­co, 5KPIX video — Despite Drought, Plen­ty of Gal­lons Need­ed to Grow Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Crops Gov. Jer­ry Brown of Cal­i­for­nia is fired up about nail­ing his cit­i­zens to the wall, should they dare to use more than their allot­ted amount of water. On Sun­day, Brown said that those who did not take short­er show­ers would […]

News from North Carolina

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service I just received this attach­ment and the e‑mail that fol­lows my note here from the men in North Car­oli­na who are giv­ing their all to rid North Car­oli­na of the “red” wolves that have always been no more than hybrid […]

Buffalo as Metaphors

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (METAPHOR, n. a fig­ure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to some­thing to which it is not lit­er­al­ly applic­a­ble, in order to sug­gest a resem­blance, as “A mighty fortress is our God”.) I have just fin­ished […]

‘Bird nursery’ at risk unless half of Canada’s boreal forest preserved

Nature groups urge bird­ers to join cam­paign to ensure untouched for­est stays that way Lead­ing bird and nature groups are try­ing to save what they call North Amer­i­ca’s “bird nursery.” They want the Cana­di­an and U.S. gov­ern­ments to pro­tect at least half of the con­ti­nen­t’s bore­al for­est from indus­tri­al development. The bore­al for­est is a vast […]

Supreme Court weighs review of Army Corps’ jurisdiction decisions

The Supreme Court may decide as soon as Mon­day to review a high-pro­file case on whether an Army Corps of Engi­neers deter­mi­na­tion that prop­er­ty qual­i­fies for Clean Water Act pro­tec­tions can be chal­lenged in court. In Kent Recy­cling Ser­vices LLC v. Army Corps of Engi­neers, the jus­tices are pre­sent­ed with the ques­tion of whether a corps […]

Wildlife agencies plan to restore grizzlies in Washington

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, the Nation­al Park Ser­vice and Wash­ing­ton state agen­cies are plan­ning to restore griz­zly bears to the North Cascades. The Everett Dai­ly Her­ald reports the agen­cies plan to hold pub­lic meet­ings next month in six cities. The input will help the agen­cies decide how to bring […]

Ecosystems are Like the Tides

When I entered the US Navy in 1963 I took an exten­sive class in Nav­i­ga­tion.  One of the major sub­jects with­in the class was, “Tides”. Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service In addi­tion to “high tide” and “low tide”; and spring tides and neap tides, our […]

Superior Court (Alameda County) Rules in Favor of ABAG and One Bay Area

Lit­i­ga­tion Seeks to Pro­tect the Amer­i­can Form of Government In a result ori­ent­ed deci­sion, Alame­da Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Eve­lio Gril­lo ruled against Free­dom Advo­cates and oth­ers in the war over pro­tect­ing Cities and Coun­ties from a trans­for­ma­tion of local gov­ern­ment (One Bay Area). The new form of gov­ern­ment in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area […]

Wolf Lessons from North Carolina

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Last Fri­day, 30 Jan­u­ary, I wrote a piece, Kudos to North Car­oli­na and Her Wolves that Nev­er Were, com­pli­ment­ing the recent suc­cess of some men in North Car­oli­na regard­ing how to stand up to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and the Endan­gered […]

Watch Out for That Puddle, Soon It Could Be Federally Regulated

FA Note:  This Op-Ed appeared in the Wall Street Jour­nal Decem­ber 7, 2014. The authors are Reed Hop­per and Todd Gaziano, with Pacif­ic Legal Foundation.  The EPA wants to rede­fine ‘the waters of the Unit­ed States’ to mean vir­tu­al­ly any wet spot in the country. Get­ty Images Ear­li­er this year the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and […]

“They Never”, “They Always”

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service A pack of “five to six” coy­otes just killed a full grown horse, iron­i­cal­ly owned by the Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment, in a pad­dock between Detroit and Flint, Michi­gan.  The local “wildlife tech­ni­cian” said he “can count on zero fin­gers the […]

Kudos to North Carolina and Her Wolves that Never Were

Jim Beers, retired Refuge Man­ag­er, Spe­cial Agent, & Wildlife Biol­o­gist U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service As some­one with a long involve­ment in US and Euro­pean wolf deba­cles of the past three-plus decades, it is with admi­ra­tion and a wry sense of amuse­ment that I have fol­lowed the sor­did his­to­ry of fed­er­al red wolf impo­si­tions on […]