1

Chapter 22: Fourth Generation Warfare and the “Battle of

Bunkerville”

This chapter delves into the deep background to the “Battle

of Bunkerville,” essentially the interactive and collaborative

role of multinational and American corporations and the Christian

Right in forming, promoting, and using the Wise Use movement to

batter the environmental movement in local fights (sometimes with

violent intimidation), increase corporate profits, delegitimize

the federal government, and polarize the electorates in western

states using private property rights as a cultural wedge issue,

in addition to patriotism and traditional family values.

The other part of the deep background that operated in the

1990s and currently is the American Legislative Exchange Council

(ALEC). In short, any analysis of the current Sagebrush

Rebellion III that ignores the financial interests of

multinational corporations and the ideological/theological

interests of the Christian Right is missing the larger, real

story, and more importantly, the unfolding of a Fourth Generation

Warfare campaign against the federal government vis-à-vis the

Bureau of Land Management and the federal government’s

2

constitutional right to own, protect and preserve, and regulate

hundreds of millions of acres of public land west of the

Mississippi River.

As discussed in Chapter 3, “The Corporate, GOP, and

Christian Right’s War on Science,” tobacco and energy

corporations, conservative and libertarian think tanks funded by

those same corporations and Christian donors, the Republican

Party, the Christian Right, New Apostolic Reformation groups, the

John Birch Society, the Christian Reconstructionist’s

Taxpayer/Constitution Party, the Patriot militia, and the larger

Patriot movement have cooperated and collaborated to differing

degrees to attack climate change. While corporations, think

tanks, and the Republican Party, framed their attack on science

in terms of opposing “junk science” (that is, real science), the

main narrative vehicle for the remaining segments of the right-

wing movement used opposition to the New World Order or its

closely linked affiliate narrative of Agenda21.

The deeper background to Sagebrush Rebellion III is that

multinational energy corporations, their conservative and

libertarian think tanks, the American Legislative Exchange

3

Council, the Christian Right, the American Lands Council, and the

larger Patriot movement are all promoting this massive resource

land grab. Not every segment may agree on all the particulars,

but this is not a bottom-up, cowboys-on-the-range, minding-their-

own-business, just-sticking-up-for-what’s-right kind of story.

Quite the contrary. The Cliven Bundy confrontation and the much

larger Sagebrush Rebellion III are the intended outcomes of

corporate machinations through the American Legislative Exchange

Council and its front group, the American Lands Council, led by

Utah state representative Ken Ivory, himself linked to networks

including the Christian Right, the Tea Party movement, Oath

Keepers, and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers

Association.

The “Battle of Bunkerville,” as Patriots call it, is really

Fourth Generation Warfare because at its root the battle was

about delegitimizing the federal government and an attempt to

drive federal law enforcement out of counties where Patriot-

inspired Republicans are engaged in the first steps of

nullification and secession.

Biblical Capitalism and the Real Corporate Raiders

4

When David Helvarg told the story in his 1994/1997 book, The

War Against the Greens, he did not start with William Potter Gale or

his Posse Comitatus (“power of the county”), or any other right-

wing personalities. In fact, neither merited inclusion in his

Index. His final chapter, “Bomb Throwers,” focused upon John

Trochmann’s Militia of Montana, Sam Sherwood’s U.S. Militia

Association, the Constitutional Militia of Arizona, and others

unknown who had perpetrated violence—though he did not claim that

the militia had engaged in violence—since the perpetrators were

unknown and some of the violence pre-dated the start of the

militia movement. But, there was an eventual linkage between the

anti-environmental Wise Use movement and the militias, as well as

increasing levels of intimidation and violence directed against

environmentalists and federal agencies like the Bureau of Land

Management and the U.S. Forest Service.1

In fact, the American Legislative Exchange Council’s

playbook of the 1990s would be repeated during the Sagebrush 1 Florence Williams, “Land-use plan disemboweled,” High Country News, December 26, 1994, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/26/743. Jon Christensen, “Forest Service bombed in Nevada,” High Country News, April 17, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/33/970. Shea Andersen, “Taking aim at the Forest Service,” High Country News, September 4, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/42/1277.

5

Rebellion III from mid-2010 onward. In the mid-1990s, close

observers of Sagebrush Rebellion II at High Country News noted that

“conservative state legislators, county commissioners and public-

land users” convened in 1995 at the third “Western Summit” to

express their anger and their objective of transferring federal

lands to Western states. The “so-called ‘Cowboy Caucus’” of the

Utah state legislature was at the forefront of the movement.

Utah congressman James Hansen told the 500 or so activists that

“‘I honestly feel that one of the most prudent things we could do

is to pass legislation that turns (over) the BLM lands to the

states... I can testify, and I believe with all my heart, that

the legislative bodies of the West absolutely can take as good

care of the ground as the federal government and do it cheaper

and better.’” The leader of Oregon’s House of Representatives,

Republican Ray Baum, claimed that western states wanted “the

right to set their own policies for environmental protection,

endangered species, welfare, and health care.” And, Charles

Cushman, a key founding member of the Wise Use movement linked to

Alan Gottlieb (and the Council for National Policy), emphasized

the economic dimension of the land grab when he led the crowd in

6

a chant that included the demand “‘What do we want? Mining!

When do we want it? Now!.’”2 After the Gingrich Revolution

victory of November 1994, environmental activists in the Pacific

Northwest were “demoralized” that “conservative Republicans

sympathetic to the wise-use agenda have seized the initiative”

and were proposing to “turn over federal lands to the states.”

In addition, in Oregon, “when the anti-gay-rights Oregon Citizens

Alliance branched out into Washington and Idaho it announced that

it supported family values and private property rights.”3

In other words, the Christian Right’s culture war agenda

included the Wise Use anti-environmental movement agenda. In the

Congress, “two Republicans introduced companion bills in Congress

calling for the Bureau of Land Management to offer nearly 270

million acres of public lands and all its minerals to the

states,” believed by environmentalists to be “the first step in

transferring the public’s resources into private hands.”4 One of

2 Jim Woolf, “Feds targeted by louder thunder from below,” High Country News, January 23, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/27/765.

3 Kathie Durbin, “Forest activists retrench and grope for support,” High Country News, February 20, 1995, at http://www.hcn.org/issues/29/827.

4 Jim Woolf, “How the West was won, and won, and…,” High Country News, October 16, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/45/1385.

7

the early Sagebrush II rebels, Nye County commissioner Dick

Carver, directly challenged the legitimacy of the federal

government’s (the American peoples) ownership of the public lands

west of the Mississippi River. According to Carver, “‘We get

called Sagebrush Rebels but we’re as far from the Sagebrush

Rebellion as you can get. They assumed the federal government

owned the land. (We say) the federal government has to prove

they own the land. And they can’t do it. We’re on the

offensive. We put the federal government on the defense.’”5 The

Elko County Commission could not even schedule meetings with the

Forest Service because the Elko County Grazing Task Force, a

group established by the county and coordinated by an anti-

environmentalist activist from the People for the West!, a Wise

Use group, “because the task force is part of an array of tactics

to seek county control of public land, if not ownership.” The

main issue in Elko County was a dispute between an armed rancher,

who along with his allies, posed a violent threat to the Forest

Service which had successfully prosecuted the rancher in court

5 Jon Christensen, “Nevada’s most rebellious,” High Country News, October 30, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/46/1410.

8

for illegally seizing water on public land. Even local opponents

of the Sagebrush Rebellion in Elko County felt intimidated to

speak out.6

Over time the Wise Use movement, particularly in Montana,

became enmeshed in the anti-Indian movement, especially over

tribal treaty rights regarding land and natural resources, that

was “racist to the core,” according to a Montana Human Rights

Network report. As the report stated in confronting the question

of racism, “Even if we set aside the racial epithets and

affiliations with white supremacist groups which plague anti-

Indian groups across the country, the movement is racist at its

core. Taken at face value, the anti-Indian movement is a

systematic effort to deny legally established rights to a group

of people who are identified on the basis of their shared

culture, history, religion and tradition. That makes it racist

by definition.” The report also noted that there was more than

“ideological similarity” that brought the anti-Indian and the

Wise Use movements together. They were organizationally linked

6 Jon Christensen, “Nevada’s ugly tug-of war: A visit to the heart of the Sagebrush Rebellion,” High Country News, October 30, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/46/1407.

9

through personnel and cooperation. And, the Coors-funded,

Christian Right-linked Mountain States Legal Foundation, deeply

engaged in Wise Use/property rights lawsuits, was also engaged in

a lawsuit to limit “Indian voting rights in Eastern Montana.”7

No, Helvarg’s first book chapter is called “Inside the

Beltway.” The real anti-environmental movement, the Wise Use

movement, was the coalition and coalescing of the Christian

Right, the Reagan administration, specific industry and trade

associations, and the network of conservative/libertarian think

tanks and conservative/Christian legal non-profit organizations

all making a concerted frontal assault on laws protecting our

collective water, air, and land rights—with the villains being

“radical environmentalists,” “liberal elites,” and a “tyrannical”

or “out of control” federal government. As discussed in Chapter

15, the Christian Right, the Wise Use movement, and the gun

rights absolutist movement (National Rifle Association, Gun

Owners of America, the Right To Keep And Bear Arms), and the

7 Montana Human Rights Network, Drumming Up Resentment: The Anti-Indian Movement in Montana, January 2000, at http://www.mhrn.org/publications/specialresearchreports/DrummingUp.pdf, pages 6 and 22-26. Robyn Morrison, “Montana’s anti-Indian movement multiplies,” High Country News, May 8, 2000, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/178/5788.

10

Patriot militia were intertwined through personnel,

organizations, and ideology. In some cases, the linkage between

the Christian Right’s Council for National Policy and the Wise

Use movement was essentially direct and mediated only Alan

Gottlieb and Ron Arnold’s Center for the Defense of Free

Enterprise. In many other cases, the linkages were more diffuse

and obtuse.

Helvarg noted that the anti-environmental movement had “deep

roots in the political Right,” was a “counter-revolutionary

movement,” and pushed “a more radical core agenda of ‘free-market

environmentalism,’ ‘privatization,’ and the deregulation of

industry,” and suggested, correctly, that “given the New

Right/Christian Right stranglehold on party policy that sees

environmentalism as both an infringement on the free market and a

pagan form of nature worship, the party of conservationist hero

Teddy Roosevelt is unlikely to see a green turnaround any time

soon.”8

In addition to the Sun Myong Moon-financed Washington Times

(the Fox News of its day), Helvarg identified the various power

8 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 6, 9, and 41.

11

centers of the anti-environmental movement,9 with my editorial

additions for clarification: the Christian Right’s (Paul Weyrich-

conceived Coors- and Koch-funded) Heritage Foundation10 which had

“taken a leading role in attacks on public resource agencies and

‘leftist’ (legislated) environmentalism;” in 1990, a Heritage

Foundation report equated Earth Day with the title of its report,

“Ecoterrorism;” the Paul Weyrich-formed American Legislative

Exchange Council, funded by the largest corporations in America,

including Koch Industries; the Koch-funded Cato Institute which

issued a 1993 book, Apocalypse Not, which argued that

environmentalism was an assault on “‘reason’” and “‘freedom;’”

the Moon-funded Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

9 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 19-42 and 63-89.

10 For a list of the major institutes and groups funded by the Koch family foundations see Source Watch, “Koch Family Foundations,” no date, accessed March 1, 2012, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Family_Foundations. A partial list includes: the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans For Prosperity (then known as Citizens For A Sound Economy), the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, Reason Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, Washington Legal Foundation, Capital Research Center, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, Defenders of Property Rights, the Heartland Institute, the National Environmental Policy Institute, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the State PolicyNetwork, and the Mackinac Institute at George Mason University. Other reportson Koch funding are provided elsewhere in Book 1 and Book 3.

12

at George Mason University; the SEPP employed Fred Singer, who

later turned up at the Koch-funded Heartland Institute dedicated

to promoting the idea that climate change is a hoax;11 not only

are the Cato Institute and the Heartland Institute funded in part

by Koch family money, but both Institutes and the then Koch-

funded Citizens For A Sound Economy, shared a common director in

David Padden; and, when all these institutes and astroturf groups

were forming, Ron Paul was the first director of Citizens For A

Sound Economy,12 now split off into the Koch-funded Americans For

Prosperity and the Steve Forbes-linked FreedomWorks Tea Party

groups; Defenders of Property Rights group founded by two former

Reagan officials from the Attorney General Meese’s office which

worked with the Koch-funded Federalist Society, the Koch-funded 11 Brad Johnson, “Internal Documents: The Secret, Corporate-Funded Plan To Teach Children That Climate Change Is A Hoax,” Think Progress, February 14, 2012, at http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/14/425354/internal-documents-climate-denier-heartland-institute-plans-global-warming-curriculum-for-k-12-schools/. Mark Ames, “Koch Whores: Radicals for Corporate Pollution: The KochCartel & The Heartland Institute,” Exiled OnLine, February 15, 2012, at http://exiledonline.com/radicals-for-corporate-pollution-the-koch-cartel-the-heartland-institute/.

12 Mark Ames, “Koch Whores: Radicals for Corporate Pollution: The Koch Cartel & The Heartland Institute,” Exiled OnLine, February 15, 2012, at http://exiledonline.com/radicals-for-corporate-pollution-the-koch-cartel-the-heartland-institute/. Steve Horn, “Heartland Institute: A Manifestation of the Kochtopus Empire,” DeSmog Blog, March 1, 2012, at http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-manifestation-kochtopus-empire.

13

Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Koch-funded Washington

Legal Foundation; Helvarg noted the network of “twenty-two pro-

business ‘public interest’ law firms” that provided the anti-

environmental movement with free legal advice, coordinated strategy

once per year at a Heritage Foundation-hosted meeting (emphasis added); the

National Rifle Association was deeply involved with the nascent

anti-environmental Wise Use movement; the American Farm Bureau

Federation, opposed to regulations regarding pesticides, studies

of their harmful effects, protecting wetlands, the Clean Water

Act, the Endangered Species Act, and for property rights; the

National Cattlemen’s Association which heads the “[anti]

Endangered Species Coalition along with the Forest Products

Association;” the Cattlemen’s Association was part of the Public

Lands Council, an “umbrella of the National Cattlemen’s

Association, the American Sheep Industry Association, and the

Association of National Grasslands;” Helvarg reported that the

formation of the anti-environmental movement in 1988 included the

American Petroleum Institute, American Mining Congress, the

National Rifle Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation,

the Coors-funded Mountain States Legal Foundation, mining and

14

timber associations, Exxon, DuPont, and other smaller

organizations; one plank of the new movement called for “opening

all public lands ‘including wilderness and national parks’ to

mining and energy development;” Helvarg also reported that the

late 1970s-early 1980s so-called Sagebrush Rebellion to transfer

federal public lands to the western states of Nevada, Utah,

Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and Alaska had the backing of the

“Cattlemen’s Association, Farm Bureau Federation, oil and gas

industry, coal industry, NRA, and western sports groups.” What

derailed the Sagebrush Rebellion is that the Heritage Foundation

and Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, the Coors-backed James

Watt, wanted to privatize federal lands by selling them off to

the highest private sector bidders—an idea loathed by private

sector corporations wanting to exploit federal lands at the

cheapest possible price they could browbeat or bribe state

governments into providing.13

13 Tarso Ramos, “Wise Use in the West: The Case of the Northwest Timber Industry,” pp. 82-118 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 83. Ramos listed funding sources for the Wise Use movement that appeared in Ron Arnold’s seminal book, The Wise Use Agenda: “Boise-Cascade, Du Pont, Exxon USA, Georgia Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific), various trade associations (e.g. Associated Logging Contractors of Idaho, National Association of Wheat Growers, Nevada Cattlemen’s Association, Nevada Miners & Prospectors Association, Timber Association of California, Washington Contract

15

John D. Echeverria and Raymond B. Eby, the general counsel

and staff member of the National Audubon Society, respectively,

published an edited book just after Helvarg’s book, that included

analyses by political scientists, lawyers, environmental

activists, and journalists that reached very similar conclusions.

It is important to stress that the Wise Use movement, the County

Rule movement, and the Private Property/Takings movement were

deeply embedded with the Christian Right, corporate interests,

and the Reagan administration.

Margaret Kriz, a staff correspondent for the National Journal,

pointed out that the two wings of the “land rights groups” fell

into two categories. East of the Mississippi River these groups

emphasized that “environmental activists and overzealous

government regulators have used federal laws and regulations to

take private land without adequately compensating property

owners.” West of the Mississippi River, but generally in the

northwestern United States and the West, the anti-environmental

Loggers Association, Western Forest Industries Association, Western Wood Products Association, the Williamette Forestry Council); and a number of right-wing groups, such as the National Center for Constitutional Studies.” It is important to remember that the latter is W. Cleon Skousen’s Mormon/John Birch Society book distributed throughout the right-wing from the 1980s to thepresent Tea Party groups.

16

movement “argues that the Clinton administration is threatening

their lifestyles by trying to restrict grazing, logging, mining,

recreation, and other activities on federal lands.” She noted

that the “land rights movement,” essentially her umbrella term

for the Wise Use, County Rule, and Takings movements, consisted

of “hundreds—maybe even thousands—of local, regional, and

national organizations.” These were supplemented by corporate-

linked or corporate-funded associations and coalitions including:

the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, the American

Land Rights Association, the National Inholders Association

(founded by Ron Arnold’s associate Charles Cushman), the Alliance

for America, the Blue Ribbon Coalition (off-road recreational

vehicles), the Oregon Lands Coalition (opposed endangered species

legislation and funded by “agricultural, ranching, and timber

interests”), and the Western States Public Lands Coalition/People

for the West! (“formed by mining companies….fighting efforts to

strengthen the 1872 Mining Act”).14

14 Margaret Kriz, “Land Mine,” pp. 27-35 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995.

17

Echeverria’s analysis of the “takings” part of the Wise Use

movement noted that the ideological basis came from the Reagan

administration, the Koch-funded Federalist Society, the Koch-

founded and funded Cato Institute, and the University of

Chicago’s law professor Richard Epstein—the very same Epstein who

appears in the Christian Reconstructionist’s Field Manual of the Free

Militia discussed in Chapter 16. Echeverria quoted from Charles

Fried, the former U.S. Solicitor General from 1985 to 1989 during

the second Reagan administration. According to Fried’s first-

hand account of the inner workings of the Reagan administration,

“‘Attorney General Meese and his young advisors—many drawn from

the ranks of the then fledgling Federalist Society and often

devotees of the extreme libertarian views of Chicago Law

Professor Richard Epstein—had a specific, aggressive, and, it

seemed to me, quite radical project in mind: to use the takings

clause of the Fifth Amendment as a severe brake upon federal and

state regulation of business and property. The grand plan was to

make the government pay compensation as for a taking or property

every time its regulations impinged too severely on a property

18

right…. If the government labored under so severe an obligation

there would be, to say the least, much less regulation.’”15

Tarso Ramos, a researcher with the Wise Use Public Exposure

Project, a joint effort of the Western States Center and the

Montana State AFL-CIO, noted that the “American Legislative

Exchange Council…. is largely responsible for the dissemination

of Wise Use ‘regulatory takings’ legislation as well as bills on

HIV and AIDS, anti-labor ‘right to work’ laws, and other pieces

of the New Right agenda.” Ramos noted that Ron Arnold had laid

out the strategy for the Wise Use movement during 1979-1980, and

joined Alan Gottlieb’s Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise

(CDFE) in 1980. With Gottlieb’s backing and political

connections (he was a member of the Christian Right’s Council for

National Policy), Arnold began further developing the Wise Use

strategy while using “the Center for the Defense of Free

Enterprise to build relationships with right-wing think tanks,

legal centers, and activist groups that today [1995] participate

in the Wise Use movement.” And, Ramos noted that the Wise Use

15 John D. Echeverria, “The Takings Issue,” pp. 143-150 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 147-8.

19

movement deliberately built upon and included lead elements of

the original 1970s Sagebrush Rebellion, but ultimately expanded

well beyond it. According to Ramos, “the Wise Use movement

involves a much broader coalition of ideological and economic

interests that stand to profit from the deregulation of industry

and the weakening of environmental regulations than did its older

cousin. More important, this coalition has tapped corporate

coffers to fund pro-industry community organizing…[that] has

spawned pro-business citizens groups in communities throughout

the West and the nation, has dominated local politics with an

industry agenda, and has built power at the state and national

levels.”16

Similarly, Marianne Lavelle, a staff lawyer for the National

Law Journal, noted that at least 26 states had introduced (three of

them had passed) legislation “that attempts to rein in

environmental regulation…. using a concept developed by the legal

theorists of the Reagan revolution—the idea that government

restrictions to protect land, air and water are tantamount to 16 Tarso Ramos, “Wise Use in the West: The Case of the Northwest Timber Industry,” pp. 82-118 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 105, 87, and 82.

20

condemnation” [takings under the Fifth Amendment]. She also

noted the impetus for introducing these pieces of legislation,

like the “‘The Private Property Rights Act,’” came from

Washington, D.C. Lavelle observed that the “seeds of this movement…

are being planted in a nationally coordinated way, with the help of…the American

Legislative Exchange Council and Defenders of Property Rights”17 (emphasis

added).

In other words, the Sagebrush Rebellion II which put the

focal point on highly visibly upset and well-armed ranchers was

the culminating point of a strategy conceived in Washington,

D.C., networked with multiple corporations through the American

Legislative Exchange Council to local public officials, and also

networked through Council for National Policy’s organizations to

the Wise Use, County Rule, and Patriot militia movements.

The other dimension of the Wise Use movement—a dimension

deliberately emphasized by the founders of the movement—is to

cast the contest between corporations, which want to profit from

using federal lands with much less regulation and adherence to 17 Marianne Lavelle, “The ‘Property Rights’ Revolt: Environmentalists Fret as States Pass Reagan-Style Takings Laws,” pp. 36-41 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 36-7.

21

laws protecting endangered species, water, air, and public land,

and the environmental movement in the emotionally-laden language

of a religious war.

Thomas Lewis reported that Ron Arnold had told The Baltimore

Sun that “‘This is a war’” and “‘We’re trying to destroy the

opposition.’” Charles Cushman, the executive director of the

National Inholders Group (they own property or facilities within

national parks) that this contest is “‘a holy war between

fundamentally different religions. The preservationists are like

a new pagan religion, worshipping trees and animals and

sacrificing people.’” Cushman was quoted by the Oregonian

newspaper “accusing environmentalists of ‘systematic, cultural

genocide of rural America,’”18 a charge that would re-emerge in

the Cliven Bundy confrontation by the John Birch Society and Oath

Keepers. Cushman was an early backer of Utah congresswoman Helen

Chenoweth, herself tightly linked to the Idaho Christian

Coalition, the Idaho Family Forum and the U.S. Militia

Association, who told a Wise Use Leadership Conference that “‘We

18 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 145.

22

are in a spiritual war of a proportion we have not seen before….A

war between those who believe that God put us on this earth and

those who believe that God is nature.’” Grant Gerber, founder of

the Wilderness Impact Research Foundation (which favors increased

grazing on public lands) “declared that preservationists are

anti-Christian and anti-scientific, that environmentalists are

‘pantheists, like the Druids,’ and that the Sierra Club practices

‘weird science and earth religions.”19 As noted in Chapter 3,

the Christian Right has thoroughly absorbed this religious war

rhetoric in its own war on science and opposition to all

environmental laws.

The emotional appeal, however, extends far beyond religious

warfare rhetoric and plays on real local fears rooted in a

changing global capitalist economy and a changing, challenging

threat of global climate change.

19 Thomas A. Lewis, “Cloaked in a Wise Disguise,” pp. 13-20 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 16. For Chenoweth’s comment see Tarso Ramos, “Wise Use in the West: The Case of the Northwest Timber Industry,” pp. 82-118 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond BoothEby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 104.

23

Janet Ellis, president of the Montana Audubon Council, noted

that while “corporate funders of the campaign are motivated by

profits, the grassroots members appear motivated by fear: fear of

the loss of their jobs, homes, and communities.” Ellis reported

that one attendee of the People for the West! conference in

preparation to oppose the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating

Committee’s ‘Vision Document,’ a plan to save the national park’s

multiple uses in an economically sustainable way, emphasized that

the plan “‘was to drive people off the public and private

lands.’” Ellis also noted that the Wise Use movement added to

their tactical repertoire of fear by “strategically… picking

fights that broaden their constituency” by using different issues

like wolves, water, or timber that appeal to different potential

conservative allies and funding sources, and, by “emphasizing

patriotism and traditional family values.”20

Similarly, Douglass North, an environmental leader for

saving rivers in Washington State, noted that the “Wise Use

appeal rests on four basic elements: fear of unknown regulations,20 Janet Ellis, “Taking on Anti-Environmentalists: Step by Step,” pp. 295-303 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 295-6 and 298.

24

fear of the government, fear of limitations on private-property

rights, and lies.”21 Robert Ekey, a former newspaper journalist

from Los Angeles and communications director for the Greater

Yellowstone Coalition, noted that People for the West! and the

Wyoming Heritage Society had distributed flyers in the winter of

1990-1991 claiming that the “‘Vision Document’” for Yellowstone

would result in “their rights to hunt, fish, and recreate on

national forests would be revoked, timber jobs would go down the

drain, and they might not be able to visit Yellowstone National

Park by car in the future.” Ekey also noted that Wise Use groups

are the media manipulators to hide the real corporate agenda—

which is essentially to rip-off the American taxpayers. He

reported that People for the West!, a group funded by mining

companies, used local groups to fight strengthening of the 1872

General Mining Law. For example, Chevron USA donated $45,000 to

People for the West!. Chevron had purchased 2,000 acres of land

for a mine at $5 per acre. Under the 19th century law, Chevron

USA would not have to pay any royalties to the federal government

21 Douglass North, “Countering the Resource Abuse Movement,” pp. 319-324 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use andthe Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 319.

25

for extracting platinum and palladium from the mine worth

“billions of dollars.”22

The 1872 General Mining Law would have provided a bonanza to

the world’s largest gold mining companies attempting to extract

gold from the Snake River Graben. Jeffrey St. Clair, a prolific

author and editor of CounterPunch, reported that the estimated one

“million ounces of gold [are] valued at nearly a billion

dollars.” St. Clair noted that under the 19th century law that a

global mining company “could patent these claims for a mere five

dollars per acre, pay no royalties on the value of the gold

removed and have no obligations to clean up their mess.”23 The

1872 General Mining Law also helps the federal government working

in cooperation with multinational gold mining companies to

illegally extract gold from lands belonging to the Western

Shoshone—“about 60 million acres throughout Nevada, California,

22 Robert Ekey, “Wise Use and the Greater Yellowstone Vision Document: LessonsLearned,” pp. 339-347 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 339 and 344.

23 Jeffrey St. Clair, “How to Beat a Mining Company: A Gold Goliath Throws in the Towel,” pp. 178-181 in Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair, editors, Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2008: 179.

26

Utah and Idaho—from the Snake River in Idaho down to Death

Valley, California.” This area, the Newe Sogobia, “is the second

largest gold producing area in the world.” According to Carrie

Dann, the executive director of the Western Shoshone Defense

Project, a group that successfully sued the U.S. government

before the United Nations over its ownership of the land

according to the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863—nine years before

the mining law was passed, but has yet to retake legal ownership

—“the U.S. government claims that according to the 1872 Mining

Law they cannot say no to a mine, even if it is a spiritual area,

even if there are burial sites and even if they will contaminate

our waters. They can only tell the mining company to ‘be

careful.’”24

The American Legislative Exchange Council and the 1990s Sagebrush

Rebellion

The American Legislative Exchange Council, part of the

triumvirate of organizations formed by Paul Weyrich with Coors

and other right-wing foundational money, from 1995 has pushed the24 Julie Fishel and Brenda Norrel, “Defending Western Shoshone Lands for the Seven Generations: Carrie Dann, Newe Sogobia, in Her Own Words,” pp. 227-235 in Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair, editors, Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2008: 231.

27

Sagebrush Rebellion and the transfer of federal lands owned by

the American people to lands owned by western states. The

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a hybrid

organization consisting of 300 corporate members who provide 98

percent of the organization’s funding, along with 2,000 state

legislature members; of the 104 legislators in a leadership

position, only one is a Democrat. The organization has nine task

forces and writes “model legislation” for state legislatures to

consider passing into law. In addition to corporate funding,

ALEC has been funded by the Koch-funded Charles G. Koch

Foundation and the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and

other right-wing foundations. Among its alumni are House Speaker

John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and former House

Speakers Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert, and current governors

Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and Jan Brewer (Arizona).25

In March 1995, a pipe bomb exploded at the offices of the

U.S. Forestry Service in Carson City, Nevada. In August 1995,

another bomb directed against the Carson City office blew up at a

25 ALEC Exposed, “What Is ALEC?,” The Center for Media and Democracy, no date,accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F#Who_funds_ALEC.3F.

28

U.S. Forestry Service’s district ranger’s home destroying his van

and part of his home where his wife and two children were

watching television.26 The Washington Post’s timeline of the Cliven

Bundy confrontation called the bombing the start of “Sagebrush

II” and noted that the “fight between the Bureau of Land

Management and the ranchers who want to use the federal land

without fees or oversight is growing more tense.”27

It was just prior and during this period of intense and

violent confrontations that the American Legislative Exchange

Council inserted itself into the Sagebrush II Rebellion. Blogger

Frederica Cade unearthed “an old [115-page] document…located in

the state of Nevada’s legislature” called “Background Paper 95-7:

State Sovereignty” written by Dana R. Bennett, then a senior

research analyst and historian with the Nevada’s legislature,

according to her LinkedIn page.28

26 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 426-7.

27 Jaime Fuller, “Everything you need to know about the long fight between Cliven Bundy and the federal government,” Washington Post, April 15, 2014, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/15/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-long-fight-between-cliven-bundy-and-the-federal-government/.

28 Frederica Cade, “Corporate, Republican, and Libertarian Sponsored, ALEC’s Plan for State Sovereignty Located in Nevada’s State Legislature,” Blog, February 4, 2013, at http://fredericacade.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/corporate-republican-and-libertarian-sponsored-alecs-plan-for-state-sovereignty-located-

29

Bennett’s factual review of “State Sovereignty” highlighted

the degree to which ALEC as of 1995 was involved in challenging

the authority of the federal government just short of secession.

She reported that six Bill Draft Requests known as a BDR in

legislative terminology had been introduced in 1995 in the Nevada

legislature, of which four were based on ALEC model legislation,

although, in reality, all six were based on ALEC model

legislation. These included BDR R-1118 “claiming state

sovereignty over all powers not granted to the Federal Government

in the U.S. Constitution;” BDR 17-1163 which “creates the

legislative committee on federal mandates;” and four ALEC-based

BDRs: the Constitutional Defense Council Act, the Resolution to

Restate State Sovereignty, the Joint Legislative Committee on

Federal Mandates Act, and the Federal Mandate/Federal

Encroachment on State Sovereignty Act. The Constitutional

Defense Council Act “would create a council that would be

empowered to examine and legally challenge, in the name of the

State or its citizens, federal mandates; federal authority; and in-nevadas-state-legislature/. Dana R. Bennett, “Background Paper 95-7: StateSovereignty,” Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, 1995, accessed May 5, 2014, at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0o8tsZdcANzenBJbTVGQ3gzTkk/edit.

30

any laws, regulations, and practices of the Federal Government.”

In other words, ALEC’s model legislation was proposing the

creation of a state-level body to nullify “any laws, regulations,

and practices” of the federal government—in effect, gutting the

Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and having the Tenth

Amendment trump the Fourteenth Amendment.

Bennett noted that, according to ALEC’s own research, “at

least 24 states considered some type of sovereignty legislation

during their 1994 legislative sessions,” some of which had been

based on ALEC’s model legislation. She noted that in 1994, ALEC

had created the Ad Hoc Committee on State Sovereignty. Bennett

included as Appendix K in her comprehensive legislative history

report, the minutes of this Ad Hoc meeting ALEC held in Tampa,

Florida, in August 1994.

The Ad Hoc committee agreed to change the original name of

the committee from the ALEC Board Committee on States

Constitutional Defense to ALEC Board Committee on State

Sovereignty. The minutes indicated that after considering nine

pieces of model legislation the Ad Hoc Committee adopted four

31

pieces of model legislative as part of its “State Sovereignty

Strategy” campaign.

The four model laws were: the Resolution to Restate State

Sovereignty, the Constitutional Defense Council Act, the Joint

Legislative Committee on Federal Mandates Act, and the Federal

Mandate/Federal Encroachment on State Sovereignty Auditor Act.

The ALEC document at Appendix K suggested three courses of action

to increase state sovereignty and gut the federal government’s

ability to use the Commerce Clause: a constitutional amendment,

judicial challenges, and a political offensive. The Ad Hoc

Committee had little confidence in a constitutional challenge

which entailed having the states call for a new constitutional

convention to amend the U.S. Constitution; the judicial strategy

envisioned “an aggressive legal strategy to raise public

awareness” and generate public opinion pressure on Congress “to

be more responsive to state sovereignty issues.” The political

leg of the strategy aimed to get a “simple majority of support in

both houses of Congress” to support the judicial strategy.

Interestingly, in the 1990s the Republicans only needed a “simple

majority” to pass anything. It should be clear, then, that the

32

“public opinion pressure on Congress” would come from the Wise

Use movement in cooperation with the Christian Coalition and the

Christian Right, as well as the soon-to-emerge Patriot militia

that would link up with the Wise Use movement.

Of even more importance was the document that the 1994

meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee considered but supposedly did not

include in its “State Sovereignty Strategy” for its ALEC 1995-1996

Source Book. The document, rather the model law, was called the

“Sagebrush Rebellion Act.” The expressed purpose of the

“Sagebrush Rebellion Act” was to “establish a mechanism for the

transfer of ownership of unappropriated lands from the federal

government to the states.” The proposed “Sagebrush Rebellion

Act” excluded a variety of private owned and public lands,

including “national parks, monuments, national forests or

wildlife refuges,” or lands held by the Department of Energy, or

lands “held in trust for Indian purposes or are Indian

reservations.” The real purpose of the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act”

was to “to permit ranching, mining and timber production and the

development, production and transmission of energy and other

public utility services under principles of multiple use which

33

provide the greatest benefit to the people of this state” and

ensure that “all public land in this state and all minerals not

previously appropriated are the property of this state and

subject to its jurisdiction and control.” In essence, major oil,

gas, coal, mining, timber, and ranching corporations involved in

ALEC wanted to make sure they were able to bribe, browbeat, or

threaten state legislatures and agencies lacking in funding and

expertise to give them the best deal possible on natural

resources actually belonging to all the American people, rather

than the federal government which has considerably greater

financial and technical resources.

Consider, for example, the eight states normally associated

with the Sagebrush Rebellion in the west in terms of total

population of the United States (308 million) in 2010: Arizona,

6.3 million, ranked 16th largest; Colorado, 5 million, ranked 22nd

largest; Utah, 2.7 million, ranked 34th largest; Nevada, 2.7

million, ranked 35th largest; New Mexico, 2 million, ranked 36th;

Idaho, 1.5 million, ranked 39th largest; Montana, .98 million,

ranked 44th largest; and, Wyoming, .56 million, ranked 51st

largest. There are multiple cities and counties in the United

34

States having greater populations than the western states. These

eight states represent seven percent of the U.S. total

population, yet have 16 percent of the U.S. Senate. Thus,

“capturing” these sixteen senators through a supposedly

“grassroots” rebellion represents a significant political gain

for energy, mining, and logging corporations.

And, consider what Exxon believed was the strategic

importance of the west in its apparent corporate planning. In

December 1982, an RJR Tobacco analyst wrote a “Confidential

Strategic Research Report” on the “Nine Nations of North

America.” The strategic report’s main idea was borrowed from a

1981 book by Joel Garreau—who has nothing to do with RJR’s

strategic report. The actual purpose of the RJR Tobacco report

was to examine geographical factors that could affect cigarette

sales. Of the nine regions of North America, of primary interest

here is the region called the “Empty Quarter.” While Exxon did

not specify what made this portion of the United States “empty,”

the clear indication is that people residing in the West were

essentially non-persons to be mobilized for the corporate agenda

and then discarded. This region, depicted on a map essentially

35

includes New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and

western Canada. The RJR Tobacco report provides quoted

information from a 1980 Exxon study on the strategic significance

of the region—which has nothing to do with preserving the

romantic notion of herding cattle. The Exxon study put

“‘recoverable reserves of coal and oil shale’” annually producing

15 billion barrels of synthetic fuels at an estimated one

trillion barrels of oil—enough for 175 years of consumption.

Getting the energy out would require importing water, but

creating a bonanza of jobs in mining, processing plants, and

construction. The Exxon report noted that the “vast majority of

the U.S. portion of the Empty Quarter is controlled by the

federal government. A movement by residents of the region,

called the Sagebrush Rebellion, is currently trying to regain of

resource-rich areas. Utah’s powerful Mormon population supports

the movement and the development of resources because it means

jobs.” The Exxon report concluded on a pessimistic note—

especially since massive resource extraction of coal and oil

shale would create severe political, economic, and ecological

conflicts. According to the report, “Enormous conflict is

36

anticipated over water supplies, electric power, pollution, and

physical destruction of national wilderness areas.” The report

noted that to produce one barrel of shale oil in the west

required between two and seven gallons of water in an area that

is arid most of the year.29

Thus, Exxon’s analysis suggests that in the “Empty Quarter,”

meaning relatively empty of people, people are important only in

so far as they support or promote the corporate agenda, in

essence, trading temporary jobs and income, for a worsening

quality of life, including the “physical destruction of national

wilderness areas”—areas belonging to the common heritage of all

Americans.

And, in fact, issues related to hydraulic fracturing (known

as fracking), a process of injecting a water, sand, and special

chemical mixtures into underground formations to release natural

gas, such as the actual or potential to contaminate underground

aquifers, confrontations over scarce water, levels of ozone in

rural areas exceeding ozone levels in urban New York and Los

29 Joan Whaley, “The Nine Nations of North America—A Study of Regional Forces Shaping Our Future,” Confidential Strategic Resources Report, RJR Tobacco Company, December 22, 1982, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/adm07j00/pdf.

37

Angeles, the right of local communities to ban fracking, the

right to information regarding chemicals injected underground,

and disputes over multi-use of public lands for fracking have

emerged as serious political disputes in several western states,

though not in Nevada which has a negligible fracking industry.30

Interestingly, the right-wing’s County Supremacy movement

has been strikingly silent on the issue of private homeowners

being able to protect their property from pollution and

30 Jack Healy, “Battle Over Fracking Poses Threat to Colorado Democrats,” New York Times, June 10, 2014, at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/us/battle-over-fracking-poses-threat-to-colorado-democrats.html. Source Watch, “Colorado andfracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Colorado_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Idaho and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Idaho_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Montana and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Montana_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Montana and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Montana_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Nevada and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nevada_and_fracking. Source Watch, “New Mexico and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_Mexico_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Utah and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Utah_and_fracking. Source Watch, “Wyoming and fracking,” no date, accessed June 10, 2014, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wyoming_and_fracking. James William Gibson, “A Texas-sized climate crisis: Water wars break out across state,” Salon, June 10, 2014, at http://www.salon.com/2014/06/10/a_texas_sized_climate_crisis_water_wars_break_out_across_state_partner/. James William Gibson, “Bombing North Dakota,” EarthIsland Journal, Winter 2013, at http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/bombing_north_dakota/.

38

environmental degradation. On the other hand, in Texas,

environmentalists have been able to create effective legal and

lobbying coalitions to challenge the Texas Water Development

Board in order to protect ranchers who will be flooded out if the

agency approves the Martin Nichols Reservoir that will provide

scarce water to Dallas-Fort Worth in order to engage in further

fracking that will contribute to an economic and population boom.

Environmentalist groups such as the Texas Living Waters Project

and Ducks Unlimited have teamed up with Colorado River-linked

businesses, hunters, and rice farmers to oppose efforts to

prevent the Lower Colorado River Authority and the Austin Water

Utility from raising the “trigger” on releasing reservoir to 1.4

million acre-feet from 850,000 acre-feet.31

Moreover, despite right-wing rhetoric about local control

and standing up for the “little guy” and “private property,”

state legislatures and Sagebrush law firms indirectly litigate on

behalf of the extractive corporations.

31 James William Gibson, “A Texas-sized climate crisis: Water wars break out across state,” Salon, June 10, 2014, at http://www.salon.com/2014/06/10/a_texas_sized_climate_crisis_water_wars_break_out_across_state_partner/.

39

For example, some state legislatures believing that local

actors are better decision makers than the far-off federal

government reversed themselves in order to deprive county

governments the right to regulate energy corporations. A

September 2002 article in High Country News observed that while the

federal government owned the oil and gas rights, state

governments regulated drilling. Both the Colorado Oil and Gas

Conservation Commission and the Montana Board of Oil and Gas

Conservation have granted “permits for wells with minimal

protection for the environment and little opportunity for public

input. Most of their leaders and staffers are tied to the

industry, a preference backed by the state legislatures.”

Somewhat ironically, the J.M Huber Corporation, an “oil and gas

giant,” when stymied by Montana’s Gallatin County planning

commission filed two lawsuits, “one in state court challenging

the county’s power, and another in federal court calling

the county’s denial an unconstitutional takings and seeking

monetary damages.” Even more ironically, it was the Greater

Yellowstone Coalition who helped fund the county’s lawyer.32

32 Ray Ring, “Backlash: Local governments tackle an in-your-face rush on coalbed methane,” High Country News, September 2, 2002, at

40

Similarly and ironically, in Utah counties are battling the

state government over the right to assess property values and set

tax rates on property—especially when the property crosses county

lines. In that instance, the state assesses the value and tax

rate. According to a May 2014 Salt Lake Tribune editorial, “County

officials say the state too often undervalues the big companies’

land, and there is research to back that up. So the counties

have been appealing those state assessments, and that has the big

companies fighting their tax battles once at the state level and

again at the county level.” Corporations have responded by

funding political action committees and legislators from both

political parties in order to “cut the counties out of the

appeals process.” The Republican chairman of the Utah House’s

Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee has sided with

corporations such as Questar and Union Pacific.33

A 2007 High Country News analysis of the primary Sagebrush

Rebellion law firms and lawyers like the Pacific Legal

https://www.hcn.org/issues/233/11371.

33 Salt Lake Tribune, “Editorial: Don’t let campaign cash drive tax assessments,” May 26, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/57989681-82/counties-state-companies-tax.html.csp.

41

Foundation, Mountain States Legal Foundation, the Institute for

Justice, Karen Budd-Falen, and Roger Mazzula suggested that they

tend not to litigate against corporations damaging private

citizens. Ray Ring noted that while these Sagebrush lawyers were

keen to litigate “regulatory horror stories” they also “ignore

some property-rights horror stories. They’ve filed very few

lawsuits on behalf of ranchers who are up against oil and gas

companies who drill on their land. The Sagebrush Rebel lawyers

also rarely represent people who say their property rights are

harmed by a new gravel pit or feedlot or megadairy or racetrack

next door.”34 A 2012 article in High Country News quoted an

environmental lawyer who observed, “‘Legislators say we need one-

size-fits-all regulation for oil and gas development at the state

level…Then they turn that same argument against the federal

government and say, ‘One size doesn’t fit all.’”35 Media Matters

reported that state legislatures in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio and

Illinois ignore complaints and pleas from constituents regarding 34 Ray Ring, “Rebels with a Lost Cause,” High Country News, December 10, 2007, athttps://www.hcn.org/issues/360/17399.

35 Jodi Peterson, “Western legislatures grab for control of public lands,” HighCountry News, May 14, 2012, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.8/western-legislatures-grab-for-control-of-public-lands.

42

pipeline companies and oil/gas companies exercising their right

of eminent domain to take private property against the wishes of

its owners. On-air Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity, who

is a shill for oil, gas, and pipeline companies and the transfer

of federal lands to the states, also ignores the plight of

ordinary Americans facing legal threats from these companies.

Media Matters noted that “conservative media figures…. have

turned a blind eye to the actual land grabs taking place across

the heartland of America at the hands of fossil fuel interests

and the Republican state legislators that have supported their

cause.”36 A separate Media Matters report noted that Sean

Hannity was indirectly funded by the Koch brothers and their

network of dark money organizations through the Heritage

Foundation and Tea Party Patriots, sponsors of his shows.37

36 Brian Powell, “Cliven Bundy And The Real Victimized Ranchers,” Media Matters, April 28, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/28/cliven-bundy-and-the-real-victimized-ranchers/199057.

37 Olivia Kittel, “The Money Behind Fox’s Promotion Of Cliven Bundy’s Battle With The Feds,” Media Matters, April 25, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/25/the-money-behind-foxs-promotion-of-cliven-bundy/199034. Matea Gold, “Tea party PACs reap money for midterms, butspend little on candidates,” Washington Post, April 26, 2014, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-pacs-reap-money-for-midterms-but-spend-little-on-candidates/2014/04/26/0e52919a-cbd6-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html. Kenneth P. Vogel and Mackenzie Weinger, “The tea party radio network,” Politico, April 17, 2014, at http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/tea-party-radio-network-105774.html.

43

According to the American Legislative Exchange Council’s

“1992 National Report,” the following energy companies were

financial contributors in alphabetical sequence: American

Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation, ARCO (Atlantic Richfield),

Ashland Oil, BP America, Chevron, Coeur d’Alene Mine Corporation

(Idaho), Crown Central Petroleum Corporation, Enron Corporation,

Exxon, Independence Mining Company, Koch Industries, Marathon

Petroleum Company, Mobil Oil, the National Coal Association,

Newmont Mining Company, Nevada Mining Association, Phillips

Petroleum, Shell Oil Company, Shell Oil Company Foundation,

Tenneco Gas, and Texaco.38

What makes ALEC’s “State Sovereignty Strategy” document

interesting is its timing. The August 1994 meeting in Tampa was

the second meeting in 1994 of the Ad Hoc Committee. The

Washington Post would not report until April 1995 that there was an

Kenneth P. Vogel and Lucy McCalmont, “Top radio talkers sell endorsements,” Politico, June 15, 2011, at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56997.html. Adele M. Stan, “Tea Party Inc.: The Big Money and Powerful Elites Behind the Right Wing’s Latest Uprising,” AlterNet, October 24, 2010, at http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.:_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right-wing's_latest_uprising.

38 American Legislative Exchange Council, “1992 Annual Report,” July 1993, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lcn47b00/pdf, pages 31-32.

44

outbreak of “Sagebrush Rebellion II.” Thus, while the outbreak

would appear to be a spontaneous, grassroots effort, the American

Legislative Exchange Council at least as early as January 1994,

was preparing legislation for the “Sagebrush Rebellion.” This

assumes that the Ad Hoc Committee was tasked with coming up with

proposals for 1995 in early 1994, if not late 1993, though the

latter year is not likely and there is no extant evidence

indicating that ALEC began working on “Sagebrush Rebellion” model

legislation in 1993.

However, the Koch-funded Heartland Institute promoted an

unsigned version of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s

“Sagebrush Rebellion Act” dated January 1, 1995. The source at

the bottom of the pdf document is “Volume II: Sourcebook of

American State Legislation 1995,” thus indicating that the

“Sagebrush Rebellion Act” had been agreed to in late 1994.39

This is entirely possible because ALEC’s “State Sovereignty

39 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “PolicyFax: Sagebrush Rebellion Act,” (The Heartland Institute), January 1, 1995, accessed April 22,2014, at http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6252.pdf. The Heartland Institute, “Sagebrush Rebellion Act, American Legislative Exchange Council (unsigned)—January 1, 1995, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://heartland.org/policy-documents/sagebrush-rebellion-act.

45

Strategy” paper detailed future decision making meetings of

ALEC’s board committee in August 1994; a North Carolina board

meeting in September 1994; a meeting with the expressed objective

of “consultation with potential coalition members” in October

1994; a board committee meeting of the National Orientation

Conference in December 1994 at which the board would “adopt a

model issue in which to organize multi-state resistance to

mandates;” and, a “Task Force Chair Meeting” in December 1994.

All of these meetings were preparatory for the launch in January

1995 of ALEC’s “State Sovereignty Day” and multi-state roll-out

of “Ad Hoc Committee-approved model State Sovereignty

legislation.”40

It is a confirmed fact that the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act”

was included in the 1995 Sourcebook of American Legislation Annotated Index

and the November 1996 Sourcebook of American Legislation Annotated Index

1995-96.41 On page 20, of the annotated 1995 version, ALEC simply

40 Dana R. Bennett, “Background Paper 95-7: State Sovereignty,” Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau, 1995, accessed May 5, 2014, at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0o8tsZdcANzenBJbTVGQ3gzTkk/edit.

41 American Legislative Exchange Council, Sourcebook of American State Legislation Annotated Index, January 1995, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/yef36b00/pdf. American Legislative Exchange Council, Sourcebook of American State Legislation Annotated Index 1995-96, November1996, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qek30g00/pdf.

46

states that the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act” is intended to

“establish a mechanism for the transfer of ownership of

unappropriated lands from the federal government to the states.”

The 1996 annotated version on page 18 noted that the “public

lands and minerals” in question were “specifically those

currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management.”

Specifically excluded were “national parks, monuments, forests,

and wildlife refuges.” Thus, while it is a coincidence that the

BLM also manages lands that is the focus of the ire of ranchers

and cattlemen’s associations, it is not a coincidence that any

transfer of federal land would also undermine the Bureau of Land

Management—the only major player capable of keeping major

corporations in check, other than the Department of the Interior

itself—though the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land

Management, and the Environmental Protection Agency should not be

considered “white knights” always on the side of the public.

Money talks in Washington, D.C., too.

But, we also know from the 1995-1996 annotated ALEC book

that “ALEC provides copies of its model legislation through

47

PolicyFax, a revolutionary ‘just-in-time’ information delivery

system from The Heartland Institute,” another Koch-funded so-

called “think tank.” Thus, documents from The Heartland

Institute distributed via PolicyFax are authoritative documents.

In the update for model legislation for 1996, ALEC trumpeted

the following legislation clearly supportive of nullification.

ALEC proposed the “Government of the People” amendment, proposing

“to establish a mechanism for nullification of federal laws and

regulations where the states determine that such laws or

regulations exceed the authority of the federal government under

the U.S. Constitution.” There were two other proposed

constitutional amendments, the “States’ Initiatives Amendment”

which would allow states to propose constitutional amendments and

the “Declaration of Sovereignty” which proposed “principles by

which the sovereignty of the states and of the people may he

restored to their original intention under the U.S.

Constitution.”42 ALEC’s “Endangered Species Resolution” called

for the states to have a greater voice in balancing “social and

42 American Legislative Exchange Council, Sourcebook of American State Legislation Annotated Index 1995-96, November 1996, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qek30g00/pdf.

48

economic needs of people and communities” and “environmental

protection.”43

We know from contemporaneous reporting from reliable

reporters who interviewed Alan Gottlieb in late 1994 that the

term “Sagebrush Rebellion II” was a “clunky sort of title,”

Gottlieb told Jim Halpin and Paul de Armond. Gottlieb preferred

to use the term “Wise Use” because it was easier to fit into a

newspaper headline. The authors revealed that in 1994 the

Council for National Policy was headed by Edwin Meese III,

Reagan’s former Attorney General who also supported the first

Sagebrush Rebellion along with James Watt, then Reagan’s

Secretary of the Interior; members of the CNP’s executive

committee included Howard Phillips, head of the then Christian

Reconstructionist’s U.S. Taxpayers Party now Constitution Party

that would be fundamental to the formation of the Patriot

militias in the 1994-1995; Edwin J. Fuelner, president of the

Koch-funded Heritage Foundation that would lead the ideological

43 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “PolicyFax: Endangered Species Resolution,” (The Heartland Institute), January 1995, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/6214.pdf.

49

attack on the federal government; Holland ‘Holly’ Coors, wife of

Christian Right funder Joseph Coors; and, the founder of the Wise

Use movement, Alan Gottlieb, was a member of the CNP’s inner

elite, the governing board.44 And, although CNP membership is

sketchy, between 1982 and 1988, at least one or two CNP members

were also on the board of the American Legislative Exchange

Council. Thus, it is safe to assume that the overall strategy of

the American Legislative Exchange Council for Sagebrush Rebellion

II was probably coordinated with a small planning cell inside the

Council for National Policy, namely its governing board.

Moreover, according to reports from ALEC, the 1992 Annual

Report issued in July 1993, listed the Coors Brewing Company as a

financial contributor, the Adolf Coors Foundation as a financial

contributor; Ambassador Holly Coors as an ALEC member; the Gun

Owners of America (headed by Larry Pratt) as a financial

contributor; and, the National Rifle Association as a financial

contributor.45 An undated ALEC prospectus (1994-95) for the 44 Jim Halpin and Paul de Armond, “The Merchant of Fear,” Public Good, October26, 1994, at http://www.publicgood.org/reports/merchant.htm.

45 American Legislative Exchange Council, “Winning the Debate in the States,” The American Legislative Exchange Council 1992 Annual Report, July 1993, accessed June 5, 2014, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lcn47b00/pdf?search=%22gun%20owners%20of%20america%20american%20legislative%20exchange

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private sector reported that the chairman of ALEC was from the

Coors Brewing Company and financial contributors included the

Coors Brewing Company, Gun Owners of America, and the National

Rifle Association.46

In other words, the leading organizations of the Christian

Right’s Council for National Policy responsible for the Wise

Use/County Supremacy movements were clearly linked to the

American Legislative Exchange Council. And, the two gun rights

absolutist organizations had been linked to the formation of the

Patriot militias.

Perhaps of particular interest is the American Legislative

Exchange Council’s August 1994 national meeting, its 21st, in

Tampa, Florida—the same meeting discussed earlier. Not only were

%20council%22. Document sourced from Brendan Fischer, “Not Just the NRA: Former ALEC Leader, the Head of Gun Owners of America, Sides With Shooter of Trayvon Martin,” The Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch, April 9, 2012,at http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11394/not-just-nra-former-alec-leader-head-gun-owners-america-sides-shooter-trayvon-mar.

46 American Legislative Exchange Council, “ALEC Prospectus 1994-95, Guide to Private Sector Membership,” no date, accessed June 5, 2014, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zyg39b00/pdf?search=%22gun%20owners%20of%20america%20american%20legislative%20exchange%20council%22. Document sourcedfrom Brendan Fischer, “Not Just the NRA: Former ALEC Leader, the Head of Gun Owners of America, Sides With Shooter of Trayvon Martin,” The Center for Mediaand Democracy’s PR Watch, April 9, 2012, at http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11394/not-just-nra-former-alec-leader-head-gun-owners-america-sides-shooter-trayvon-mar.

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they present at the meeting, and not only were they honored

guests, but their corporation was among the largest contributors.

Yes, yes, the Koch brothers, Charles and David, were receiving

ALEC’s “Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award.” The blurb for their

award mentioned their Citizens For A Sound Economy. One of the

directors of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board of Directors came

from Koch Industries. And, Koch Industries was a member of the

top contributing “Jefferson Club” of contributors. And, Wayne

LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association—

the gun rights absolutist organization that was instrumental in

creating the Wise Use movement and contributed to the formation

of Patriot militias—received an award for “Outstanding Private

Sector Members,” even though LaPierre does not work in the

“private sector,” but the non-profit sector.47 Oops.

In short, it was highly probable that Sagebrush Rebellion II

was actually conceived as a strategy from the inner sector of the

Council for National Policy with different organizations

fulfilling different operational roles. The Heritage Foundation

47 American Legislative Exchange Council, “ALEC’s 21st Annual Meeting,” Tampa, Florida, August 3-7, 1994, accessed June 6, 2014, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/x/b/n/xbn47b00/Sxbn47b00.pdf.

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would provide ideological propaganda inside Washington, D.C. and

to small town newspapers through op-ed pieces written by

ideological functionaries; the Taxpayers Party would network with

its own political party network which would network with militant

militia members; Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle

Association would stir up the gun rights absolutist membership

and their members who were so inclined would liaise or support

the militia movement; Alan Gottlieb would use his network of

anti-environmental organizations to liaise and stir up the Wise

Use and County Supremacy movements; and, the American Legislative

Exchange Council would network with and support state and county

level officials who wanted to join the ideological assault on the

federal government through legislation and judicial challenges.

Almost all of this was hinted at in the Tampa minutes on “State

Sovereignty Strategy.”

In fact, there is additional evidence suggesting that

Sagebrush Rebellion II was orchestrated by ALEC and the evidence

comes directly from ALEC bragging about it.

In the April 4, 1995, edition of the American Legislative

Exchange Council’s FYI newspaper distributed to members only,

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they carried an article called “A Sagebrush Rebel: Nevada Dean A.

Rhoads.” The sub-title of the article was: “Cattleman Has Been

Fighting Federal Government for Home Rule, Local Control Since

the Late 1970s.” According to ALEC, Rhoads had “spearheaded in

1979 what later became known as the “‘Sagebrush Rebellion.’”

Rhoads noted that the “‘mining industry’” in Nevada was

particularly concerned about “‘environmental regulations’” and he

argued that “‘environmental concerns should be under state

jurisdiction.’” Regarding “militant anti-government groups” in

Nevada, Rhoads stated that “federal authorities are overplaying

this issue” and that even the “‘very radical…have only been

expressing their constitutional rights.’” Rhoads was proud of

the fact that as a legislator in 1979 that he introduced the

original “Sagebrush Rebellion” law that was later adopted by five

other states. Rhoads noted that the 1979 law is still on the

books.

The FYI article also noted in its profile that Rhoads had

been president of the Nevada Public Lands Council—the same one

that Cliven Bundy was part of—and Rhoads was a “member of ALEC’s

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Board of Directors and has served ably for a number of years as

ALEC’s Nevada State Chair.”48

In other words, when “Sagebrush Rebellion II” broke out in

Nevada and other western states in the mid-1990s, one of ALEC’s

Board of Directors and its state chairman in Nevada, as well as

being a highly influential legislator, was in the driver’s seat.

And, ALEC itself was linked to the Christian Right and the gun

rights absolutist movements, and their sub-networks to the

Patriot militia and Wise Use/County Supremacy movements, as well

as to major energy and mining companies looking to get rich on

the transfer of lands containing up to a trillion barrels

equivalent of oil from the federal government to state

governments. Moreover, these state governments, like the one in

Nevada, were already politically and ethically compromised by

years of membership in ALEC.

Dennis McLane, the retired Deputy Chief of Law Enforcement

for the Bureau of Land Management, in his book on the history of

the bureau’s law enforcement efforts, noted that in the 1990s

48 American Legislative Exchange Council, FYI, “A Sagebrush Rebel: Nevada Senator Dean A. Rhoades,” pages 10-11, at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ibl64b00/pdf.

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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S.

Senate were deeply involved in promoting the Wise Use agenda.

Interestingly, there is no mention of the American Legislative

Exchange Council in his book, though McLane did observe that the

National Rifle Association and the Center for the Defense of Free

Enterprise were involved in the Wise Use movement. McLane noted

that the first of the anti-government movements was the Wise Use

movement which emerged in 1988. The County Supremacy movement

emerged in 1990, spreading from Catron County in New Mexico to up

to 70 other western counties. The legal theories of the County

Supremacy movement were developed by Wyoming attorney Karen Budd,

who had previously worked under Secretary of the Interior James

Watt during the Reagan administration and then worked at the

Coors-funded, Christian Right-linked Mountain States Legal

Foundation. Budd was the “godmother of the County Supremacy

movement,” according to McLane. Representative Helen Chenoweth

(see Chapter 15), the late and former Congresswoman from Idaho,

championed her “Civil Rights Act of 1995” that McLane observed

should have been called the “‘high sheriff supremacy bill.’” Her

“proposed bill had the intent of requiring Federal law

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enforcement agents to obtain written permission from the local

sheriff to conduct [any] law enforcement activities in that

county.” Both the Idaho Sheriff’s Association and the National

Sheriffs Association opposed the language of her bill and similar

bills introduced in various counties. When Chenoweth attempted

to undermine McLane’s updating and revising of BLM’s authorities

for criminal law enforcement, Chenoweth used Budd’s mistaken

analysis that was “distributed by FAX machines of the Wise Use

organizations” and published in many Wise Use organization’s

newsletters. Chenoweth and other Republicans then used this Wise

Use critique to require more information from the BLM in an

effort to sabotage the BLM’s law enforcement modernization effort

under the rubric of resisting expanding federal tyranny.

McLane also noted that the Wise Use movement had

considerable Republican support in the nation’s capital even

before the Gingrich Revolution of November 1994. A bill

“written” by Representatives Craig Thomas (Wyoming) had 25

Republican co-sponsors in March 1994, including Representative

Don Young from Alaska. The bill “required the Secretary of the

Interior to offer to transfer all Bureau of Land Management lands

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to the states…. It exempted lands that were designated wilderness

areas, wilderness study areas, and areas of critical

environmental concern. The bill did not mention national

conservation areas, national wild and scenic rivers, or other

special areas.” And, in December 1996, Senator Larry Craig

(Idaho) introduced a “land transfer bill” that would “allow the

states to apply to take over the management of Forest Service and

Bureau of Land Management lands.” McLane quoted an

environmentalist who characterized Senator Craig’s bill as

containing “‘[e]very last detail the Wise Use movement, the

timber industry and the extractive industries could come up with

is in there.’”49

Interestingly, in October 2013, the very same Representative

Don Young (Alaska) introduced H.R. 3294 the “State-Run Federal

Lands Act” that would “allow states to petition to take over

management of any federal lands within their jurisdictions,

including national parks,” according to Think Progress. The bill

described “qualifying Federal land” as lands “under the

49 Dennis McLane, Seldom Was Heard an Encouraging Word: A History of Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement, Guthrie, OK: Shoppe Foreman Publishing, 2011: 388, 392-4, 408-9, 421-2, 405, and 416.

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jurisdiction of” the “National Parks Service, including national

monuments and recreation areas; the Bureau of Land Management;

the Forest Service; [and] the United States Fish and Wildlife

Service, including wildlife refuges and preserves,” according to

the Thomas government website. Jessica Goad, the Think Progress

analyst, noted that progressive Congressman Raul Grijalva

indicated that the proposed legislation “would allow states to

manage federal lands and the resources they contain—including

through expanded mining and drilling—[while] federal taxpayers

would still assume all legal liabilities for the lands.”50

The totality of the evidence presented above—the development

of the Wise Use, County Supremacy and Property Rights/Takings

movements; their links to the Reagan administration and the

Christian Right’s Council for National Policy; their links to the

oil, gas, coal, mining and timber industries; and, the

concomitant links of those industries to the American Legislative

Exchange Council, and the Republican Party at the national and

state levels—makes it very difficult to believe that this entire 50 Jessica Goad, “House Republicans’ New Idea: States Should Manage The Grand Canyon And Other National Parks,” Think Progress, November 22, 2013, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/21/2980711/house-republicans-manage-national-parks/.

59

infrastructure, networks, agenda, and activities could have been

linked to and generated from the obscure William Gale’s Posse

Comitatus movement. It is only the superficial affinity of

county supremacy that provides the thinnest veneer of

correlation.

ALEC, Americans For Prosperity, and Sagebrush Rebellion III

If “Sagebrush Rebellion II” was centrally planned in

Washington, D.C. and de-centrally executed by various

organizations and networks and sub-networks, one can assume that

the Cliven Bundy confrontation, what amounts to “Sagebrush

Rebellion III,” had similar roots. In fact, we do not have to

assume. The preponderance of the evidence presented below

strongly supports the argument that Sagebrush Rebellion III is,

in fact, a land grab that will benefit the Koch brothers and all

extractive industries linked to the American Legislative Exchange

Council. Moreover, ALEC was active in promoting this land grab

at least four years before the “Battle of Bunkerville” featuring

Cliven Bundy and his Oath Keepers/militia buddies showed up at

his ranch. And, the trail of evidence again starts or leads from

the Christian Right’s Council for National Policy. Moreover,

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Sagebrush Rebellion III would essentially use the Sagebrush

Rebellion II playbook with some modifications—namely the

widespread propaganda machine of the State Policy Network, the

disinformation- and misinformation-spreading Fox News, and the

Americans For Prosperity’s Tea Party networks.

Jessica Goad noted in early 2012—two years before Bundy’s

own “land grab” of federal land, that the Koch-funded American

Legislative Exchange Council was responsible for quietly drafting

and promoting the model legislation originally designed by Utah

state representative Ken Ivory for use in other western states

besides Utah.51 Jodi Peterson, writing at High Country News in mid-

2012 observed that “rhetoric behind the measures is all about

states’ rights, but they would also boost corporate access to

Western natural resources” and identified ALEC as responsible for

the 1990s Sagebrush Rebellion legislation and the reignited

effort to transfer federal lands to the western states.52 Jeff

51 Jessica Goad, “Koch-Funded ALEC Behind State Attempts To ‘Reclaim’ Your Public Lands,” Think Progress, April 3, 2012, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/03/457463/koch-funded-alec-behind-state-attempts-to-reclaim-your-public-lands/.

52 Jodi Peterson, “Western legislatures grab for control of public lands,” HighCountry News, May 14, 2012, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.8/western-legislatures-grab-for-control-of-public-lands.

61

Welsch, the communication director for the Montana-based Greater

Yellowstone Coalition, noted in mid-2012 that this “Utah land

grab has traction” and is generating interest in Montana,

Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. Welsch opined that

“politicians want our lands so their financial backers can mine,

drill, pave and otherwise develop without having to deal with

such pesky matters as clean air, clean water and other health

safeguards.”53

We know for fact certain that according to the Council for

National Policy’s 2009 Form 990 filing with the Internal Revenue

Service that Kevin L. Gentry was one of 15 voting members with

“authority to act on behalf of the governing body.” Gentry, was

also the “director of strategic development for Koch Industries,

Inc., and vice president of the Charles G. Koch Foundation,”

according to the Philanthropy Roundtable. He had also been on

the CNP’s governing board since at least 2007, according to IRS

data reported by Americans United.54 Gentry is also deeply 53 Jeff Welsch, “Selling what’s priceless is the nuttiest idea of all,” High Country News, May 10, 2012, at https://www.hcn.org/wotr/selling-whats-priceless-is-the-nuttiest-idea-of-all.

54 Philanthropy Roundtable, ‟Kevin Gentry,” no date, accessed February 17, 2010, at http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/content.asp?contentid=516. Americans United, “Council for National Policy,” at

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involved in the Koch brothers efforts to raise and spend hundreds

of millions of dollars each election cycle from secret donors

through a bevy of organizations that are as bewildering in tax-

avoidance complexity as they are impenetrable to outside

observers.55 Chapter 5 detailed how the Koch brothers themselves

were personally extensively networked with leading members of the

elite Council for National Policy; the Koch-funded Americans For

Prosperity was deeply connected to the Council for National

http://www.au.org/resources/religious-right-research/.

55 Kenneth P. Vogel, “Koch World reboots,” Politico, February 20, 2013, at http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/koch-world-reboots-87834.html. Andy Kroll, “Meet Aegis Strategic, the latest affiliate of the Koch brothers’ political empire,” Mother Jones, January 17, 2014, at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/koch-brothers-candidate-training-recruiting-aegis-strategic.Kenneth P. Vogel, “Koch World 2014,” Politico, January 24, 2014, at http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/koch-brothers-2014-elections-102555.html. Andy Kroll and Daniel Schulman, “The Koch Brothers Left a Confidential Document at Their Last Donor Conference—Read It Here,” Mother Jones, February 5, 2014, at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/koch-brothers-palm-springs-donor-list. Kim Barker and Theodoric Meyer, “The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs’ Cash into Politics and Made Millions,” ProPublica, February 14, 2014, at http://www.propublica.org/article/the-dark-money-man-how-sean-noble-moved-the-kochs-cash-into-politics-and-ma. Kim Barket and Theodoric Meyer (ProPublica),“Who Controls the Kochs’ Political Network?,” TruthDig, March 18, 2014, at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/who_controls_the_kochs_political_network_20140318.Kenneth P. Vogel, “Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity plans $125 million spending spree,” Politico, May 9, 2014, at http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/koch-brothers-americans-for-prosperity-2014-elections-106520.html.

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Policy’s Conservative Action Project, and is a member of the

elite hybrid coalition, the Freedom Federation, which combines

the Christian Reconstructionist and New Apostolic Reformation

wings of the Christian Right; AFP is also extensively networked

with Tea Party groups throughout the United States. Thus, it is

highly likely that “Sagebrush Rebellion III” is also a centrally

planned, but de-centrally executed strategy.

Just as the American Legislative Exchange Council began

promoting model legislation promoting nullification and the

transfer of federal lands to the states in the 1990s ahead of the

actual physical manifestation of “grassroots” protests and

challenges by state legislatures in the western United States, so

too, ALEC began promoting similar legislation four years before

the Bundy confrontation erupted.

Between September 19, 2010 and January 28, 2013, the ALEC

Board of Directors approved five model laws challenging the

federal government’s right to own and manage public lands, as

well as other model laws or resolutions challenging the science

of environmental pollution, climate change science, or

criminalizing environmentalist activism.

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In September 2010, the ALEC Board of Directors approved

three model laws: “The State Sovereignty Through Local

Coordination,” “An Act Granting the Authority of Rural Counties

to Transition to Decentralized Land Use Regulation,” and, the

“Eminent Domain Authority for Federal Lands Act.”56

The “Eminent Domain Authority” act proposed that states be

authorized by law to “exercise eminent domain authority on

property possessed by the federal government unless the property

was acquired by the federal government with the consent of the

Legislature and in accordance with the United States Constitution

Article I, Section 8, and Clause 17.” As the Center for Media

and Democracy noted, the proposed ALEC legislation would

“authorize state governments to appropriate federal land, such as

national parks and wilderness areas belonging to the American

56 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “The State Sovereignty Through Local Coordination Act,” September 19, 2010, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/0/05/3H15-State_Sovereignty_through_Local_Coordination_Act_Exposed.pdf. ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “An Act Granting the Authority of Rural Counties to Transition to Decentralized Land Use Regulation,” September 19, 2010, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/d/df/3H4-Granting_the_Authority_of_Rural_Counties_to_Transition_to_Decentralized_Land_Use_Regulation_Exposed.pdf. ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “Eminent Domain Authority for Federal Lands Act,” September 19, 2010, accessedApril 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/a/aa/3G0-Eminent_Domain_Authority_for_Federal_Lands_Act_Exposed.pdf.

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people, likely to allow more oil, gas, and coal exploration to

benefit energy corporations.”57 In essence, ALEC’s major energy,

mining, timber, and ranching corporations would be allowed to

steal lands belonging to all the American people through their

stooges acting on their behalf in state legislatures. The cited

clause of the U.S. Constitution is one of the main talking points

of the broad-right wing which claims that the federal government

is limited to the purchase of lands for “Forts, Magazines,

Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.”

ALEC’s proposed “Decentralized Land Use Regulation” would

have state legislatures grant authority to rural county

governments to repeal all centralized zoning laws, which ALEC

claimed that state legislatures believe are “overly centralized,

restrictive, and politicized,” and replace it with a system of

“decentralized land use regulation consisting of restrictive

covenants and the common law of private nuisance.” The Center

for Media and Democracy (ALEC Exposed) explained that this

proposed law would “repeal ALL land use planning and zoning for

57 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “The State Sovereignty Through Local Coordination Act,” September 19, 2010, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/0/05/3H15-State_Sovereignty_through_Local_Coordination_Act_Exposed.pdf.

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‘rural’ counties by both county and state governments.”

Furthermore, the corporate-backed ALEC law would “take away local

democracy rights of citizens” and burden individuals with

“spending their own money to protect community interests in

channeling growth in a community or even in limiting certain

times of businesses near residences or schools, such as nude

dancing or bars.” It would also force individual property owners

to litigate to “protect their rights against nuisances, such as

the smells from factory farms, and would not be able to act

democratically to set rules for zoning in their towns.”58 If

those claims are true, perhaps the real purpose of the

“Decentralized Land Use Regulation” is to prevent local

communities, either towns, or cities, or counties, to pass any

legislation regulating anything within the entity’s geographical

limits.

The third proposed ALEC model legislation, the “State

Sovereignty Through Local Coordination Act” would require that

58 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “An Act Granting the Authority of Rural Counties to Transition to Decentralized Land Use Regulation,” September 19, 2010, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/d/df/3H4-Granting_the_Authority_of_Rural_Counties_to_Transition_to_Decentralized_Land_Use_Regulation_Exposed.pdf.

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federal or state regulations be brought down to the lowest common

denominator of what a “city, town, county, or special district”

had proposed. ALEC Exposed noted that the proposed law “attempts

to undermine traditional constitutional understandings of the

relationship between localities and the federal or state

government” and that it “reverses notions of federal or state

preemption of local laws.” Furthermore, “any taxpayer residing

or doing business within the jurisdiction of the relevant city or

town shall have standing to enforce the obligations created by

this statute,” according to the proposed legal text.59 While

ALEC Exposed did not further describe “any taxpayer,” it should

be clear that should this law be enacted, major corporations

would have standing to sue and enforce the weakest possible

regulations that a town or city might be able to enact. Of

course, if the state had already passed the “Decentralized Land

Use Law”, then there would be no local law or regulation and no

need to coordinate.

59 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “The State Sovereignty Through Local Coordination Act,” September 19, 2010, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/0/05/3H15-State_Sovereignty_through_Local_Coordination_Act_Exposed.pdf.

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These three proposed ALEC model laws, as ALEC Exposed

suggested, would give enormous legal power to major corporations

at the expense of the American people in general, local and state

governments, and ultimately the federal government. The clear

beneficiaries would be major oil, gas, coal and mining

corporations and their billionaire Wall Street banks and hedge

fund backers. The idea that these ALEC-proposed laws would

protect the family farm, or family ranch, or protect a western

way of life is ludicrous.

In December 2011, ALEC proposed a fourth piece of model

legislation called the “Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands

Act.”60 The Act, after 30 “Whereas” statements was, according to

an analysis by Brendan Fisher at Greenpeace Blogs, “modeled after

a Utah law from 2012 and is an updated version of the ALEC

‘Sagebrush Rebellion Act,’ where Western states assert control

over federal lands that are being protected as wilderness

preserves, in many cases to allow for resource extraction.” That

proposed ALEC law was just one of 77 proposed pieces of 60 ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “Disposal and Taxation ofPublic Lands Act,” December 2011, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/5/5c/Disposal_and_Taxation_of_Public_Lands_Act.pdf.

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legislation that ALEC had hoped to introduce into the states in

order to “oppose renewable energy standards, support fracking and

the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and otherwise undermine

environmental laws.” Fisher’s analysis also highlighted how the

Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity was the vehicle to take

messages from Koch-funded pseudo-think tanks like the Heartland

Institute and the Beacon Hill Institute, both part of the State

Policy Network, to the grassroots. ALEC’s task force on Energy,

Environment and Agriculture included TransCanada, the builder of

the XL pipeline, Shell Oil, British Petroleum, Peabody Energy,

Duke Energy, and, Koch Industries.61

And, in January 2013, the fifth piece of ALEC-proposed

legislation approved by their Board of Directors, was a

““Resolution Demanding that Congress Convey Title of Federal

Public Lands to the States.” It is important to stress that the

ALEC model legislation is a “demand,” not a request, for the land

61 Brendan Fisher, “Dirty Hands: 77 ALEC Bills in 2013 Advance A Big Oil, Big Ag Agenda,” Greenpeace Blogs, August 1, 2013, at http://greenpeaceblogs.org/2013/08/01/dirty-hands-77-alec-bills-in-2013-advance-a-big-oil-big-ag-agenda/. ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, “ALEC Polluter Agenda,” June 5, 2012, accessed April 22, 2014, at http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/c/c9/ALEC_on_the_Environment_Final_PDF.pdf.

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grab, suggesting an implied “or else.” After an a length list of

“Whereas” clauses, ALEC proposed that individual states “urges

Congress, the President and the federal agencies and

administration, in the most strenuous manner, to immediately

engage in good faith communication, cooperation, coordination,

and consultation with Utah, and each other willing Western State,

regarding the timely conveyance of federal public lands directly

to these States.” The purpose of this land grab transfer was to

“unleash the trillions of dollars of abundant resources locked up

on federally controlled lands, and with them American

independence and ingenuity, as the only solution big enough to

realistically and sustainably resolve national unemployment,

deficits, debts, unfunded obligations and environmental

degradation.”62

Ken Ivory, the drafter of the model legislation, head of the

American Lands Council and the front man for the American

Legislative Exchange Council, also acknowledged one year earlier

in 2012 that there were “trillions of dollars in mineral

62 American Legislative Exchange Council, “Resolution Demanding that Congress Convey Title of Federal Public Lands to the States,” January 28, 2013, accessed May 23, 2014, at http://www.slideshare.net/americanlandscouncil/alec-resolution-v13#.

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resources and millions of acres of our lands tied up by acts of

congress.”63 In a separate interview with a Wyoming newspaper in

June 2013, Ivory clearly stated that the goal of the land

transfer was greater and faster exploitation of natural

resources. According to the Casper Star-Tribune reporter, state

legislatures believe “they could turn the lands into a source of

revenue by either selling them and collecting yearly property

taxes from the new landowners or by keeping them but allowing

minerals extraction at a faster rate than the federal government,

Ivory said.”64

Note that once the ALEC/ALC land grab had succeeded in

transferring title of the land from the American people (the

federal government) to the people of whatever state was the

recipient, Ivory clearly had told the reporter that the western

state(s) could sell the land to the very multinational

63 Utah State Government, “Governor Herbert, Federal Delegation, and State Legislators Join Together to Demand Transfer of Public Lands to Utah,” March 23, 2012, at http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=6847.

64 Laura Hancock, “Wyoming wants other states to join fight for federal land,”Casper Star-Tribune (Wyoming), June 5, 2013, at http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-wants-other-states-to-join-fight-for-federal-land/article_46d25e79-f16e-5f7e-b7f4-a6ab81a474cc.html.

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corporations backing the ALEC proposal. Obviously, the largest

recipient of the purchase price would be the state governments—

which never had the right or the title to the land—and the

largest beneficiaries would be the top one percent of Americans

and oil, gas, coal, mining, timber, and other corporations. One

does not need to be an economist or accountant to figure out that

the property taxes collected on the now privatized land would not

match the revenues to be gained by collecting royalties and taxes

on the profits generated from the rampant exploitation of natural

resources.

The only difference between the version found on the ALEC

website and the version found at the American Lands Council

website is that the latter included Ken Ivory, with his

professional and personal email addresses provided as the point

of contact. In all other respects the documents are identical.

And, Utah is given primacy in both documents because the proposed

ALEC model legislation is “similar to the Utah Transfer of Public

Lands Act” which Ken Ivory played an instrumental role in

passing. The Associated Press reported that Ken Ivory, in fact,

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“helped draft model legislation for use in other states.”65 The

AP story did not disclose that ALEC had formally adopted Ivory’s

legislation and was providing the economic and ideological muscle

behind the effort.

In fact, the version posted on the American Lands Council

clearly states at the top of the document that the Act had been

approved by ALEC’s Board of Directors on January 28, 2013.66

What ALEC and Ken Ivory did not reveal, however, is that the

original Utah legislation that Ivory had introduced had actually

been approved by ALEC in 2011. Christopher Ketcham, reporting in

Utah’s Moab Sun News, revealed information from the ALEC watchdog

Center for Media and Democracy, that “‘Ken Ivory got the ALEC

stamp of approval before introducing the bill in his own state,

which is really a stamp of approval from industry,’ says Nick

Surgey, director of research at the Center for Media and 65 Associated Press, “Al Melvin, Arizona [State] Senator, Fights Federal Government For Disputed Land,” Huffington Post, March 7, 2012, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/al-melvin-arizona-federal-land_n_1325858.html.

66 American Lands Council, “Resolution Demanding that Congress Convey Title ofFederal Public Lands to the States,” January 28, 2013, accessed at http://americanlandscouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ALEC-Resolution-v.1.3.pdf. American Legislative Exchange Council, “Resolution Demanding that Congress Convey Title of Federal Public Lands to the States,” January 28, 2013, accessed May 23, 2014, at http://www.slideshare.net/americanlandscouncil/alec-resolution-v13#.

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Democracy.” According to Ketcham’s research, “Utah’s Transfer of

Public Lands Act is an updating of that old land-grabbing con

game that has characterized the West. And it has powerful

corporate backers. The legislation first made an appearance in a

2011 meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange

Council…. According to the records of its 2011 meeting, which

took place in Scottsdale, Arizona, Ken Ivory, the Republican

state representative from Utah’s district 47, sponsored the

public-lands transfer bill—then titled the Disposal and Taxation

of Public Lands Act—for a review and vote in ALEC’s Energy,

Environment, and Agriculture Task Force, whose voting members at

the time included representatives from Peabody Energy, the

American Gas Association, and the American Chemistry Council.”67

Thus, the connection between ALEC and Ken Ivory’s ALC is

direct and unambiguous. Moreover, Ken Ivory and his American

Lands Council are fronts for American Legislative Exchange

Council and its multinational corporations and billionaire

backers, the Koch brothers.

67 Christopher Ketcham, “Public lands in jeopardy,” Moab Sun News (Utah), March 5, 2014, at http://www.moabsunnews.com/opinion/article_48f0bece-a4dc-11e3-8c4b-0017a43b2370.html.

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Ken Ivory, the American Lands Council, ALEC, and Americans For

Prosperity

The American Lands Council is headed by Ken Ivory

(president), a Utah state representative, at the forefront of

pushing for the federal government to transfer western federal

lands to the western states. The American Lands Council was

founded by a “multi-state group of county commissioners,”

including Demar Dahl and Grant Gerber of Elko County, Nevada, and

Doug Heaton, Kane County, Utah.68 According to its website page

listing Gold, Silver, and Bronze members, the Koch-funded

Americans For Prosperity is a Bronze member. A Bronze business

member pays $500 per year for membership or $50 as an individual,

while a county/municipal Bronze members costs $1,000. A Silver

individual membership is $1,000, a business membership is $1,500,

and a county/municipal membership is $5,000. A Gold membership

costs $25,000. A Think Progress analysis in June 2014 calculated

that Ivory’s American Lands Council had collected “taxpayer money

from at least 42 counties in nine Western states to advance an 68 Demar Dahl, Doug Heaton, and Grant Gerber, “Ivory a man of integrity, and that’s why we chose him,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 30, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58007056-82/ivory-lands-rolly-council.html.csp.

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aggressive and coordinated campaign to seize America’s public

lands and national forests for drilling, mining, and logging.”

By August 2014, 45 counties had joined, with two counties having

a Gold membership, 30 a Silver membership, and 13 Bronze

membership. Think Progress ascertained that the ALC had

“collected contributions of taxpayer money from government

officials in 18 (up to 20) counties in Utah, 10 counties in

Nevada, four counties in Washington, three counties in Arizona,

two counties in Oregon, two counties in New Mexico, and one

county in Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming (up to 2)” in excess of

$200,000. Think Progress also obtained a fundraising email that

ALC was sending out to raise funds for a “Campaign Project” to

raise $100,000 “aimed at equipping candidates for federal, state,

and county office with ‘materials and resources to build broad

based Knowledge and Courage to compel Congress to honor its

promise to us and our children to transfer title to the public

lands….’” In addition to Americans For Prosperity Bronze

membership, Think Progress noted that “Mesa Exploration, a mining

company whose recent proposal to build a potash mine in an area

that the Donner Party crossed in 1846 was recently nixed by

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federal land managers, is also listed as a “Bronze Member” on

ALC’s website.”69

Thus, while the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity is

apparently a minor financial supporter based on what little

information the American Lands Council is willing to reveal (it

does not reveal its donors to the IRS), it is apparent that the

Americans Lands Council is actually the front group for the

American Legislative Exchange Council, and Utah state

representative Ken Ivory, the head of the American Lands Council,

is the front man for the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Ken Ivory’s relationship with the Koch-funded Americans For

Prosperity and his ideological affinity with the John Birch

Society and other groups date from at least 2010.

In September 2010, when Ivory was a neophyte candidate

running for Utah’s House of Representatives, he spoke at a

campaign conference organized by the John Birch Society, the

Christian Right’s Eagle Forum headed by Phyllis Schlafly, W.

Cleon Skousen’s National Center for Constitutional Studies, and 69 Matt Lee-Ashley, “How Politicians Are Using Taxpayer Money To Fund Their Campaign To Sell Off America’s Public Lands,” Think Progress, June 18, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/18/3450397/politicians-taxpayer-money-seize-public-lands/.

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the Utah Farm Bureau. The conference was entitled, “Utah’s

Freedom Conference: Reclaiming Our Constitutional Heritage.”

Again, the not-so subliminal message to white Christian

conservatives is that they have had their country stolen from

them and they need to “reclaim” it. The conference featured

workshops on “protecting state sovereignty.” The main speaker

was then Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle who had the

support of the Eagle Forum, the Tea Party Express, and the free

market fundamentalist group Club For Growth.70 Angle was an

extreme right-wing candidate also supported by Larry Pratt’s Gun

Owners of America. Angle thought that “‘rape’” was part of

“‘God’s plan,’” opposed abortion in the cases of rape or incest,

and believed undocumented immigrants were “‘illegal aliens.’”71

Sarah Posner noted that GOA’s support indicated “that her base of

70 Judy Fahys, “Harry Reid’s opponent addresses Utah crowd,” Salt Lake Tribune, September 20, 2010, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50311476-76/angle-reid-utah-conference.html.csp.

71 Jodi Jacobson, “The Tea Party Candidates Are Religious Extremists Obsessed With Sex, Abortion, Religion—Why Doesn’t the Media Get That?,” AlterNet, October 5, 2010, at http://www.alternet.org/story/148422/the_tea_party_candidates_are_religious_extremists_obsessed_with_sex,_abortion,_religion_--_why_doesn't_the_media_get_that. America’s Voice, “The 12 Most Outrageous Statements Politicos Have Made About Immigration During the 2010 Campaign,” AlterNet, October 30, 2010, at http://www.alternet.org/story/148671/the_12_most_outrageous_statements_politicos_have_made_about_immigration_during_the_2010_campaign.

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support comes not just from the tea parties, but from

religiously-motivated right-wing groups that coalesce with the

tea parties’ anti-government rhetoric.”72 One can surmise that

Ken Ivory shared that worldview and base of support. In fact,

Ivory voted in March 2011 with the majority in the Utah House of

Representatives of the Edwin Vieira-inspired bill to allow Utah

residents to use precious metals (gold and silver) to pay their

taxes at market value rates and exclude precious metals from a

variety of taxes, as well as mandating that the “the Revenue and

Taxation Committee ‘study the possibility of establishing an

alternative form of legal tender’ and ‘recommend whether an

alternative form of legal tender should be established.’”73 Utah

had the distinction of being the “first state in the country this

month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency.”74

72 Sarah Posner, “Gun Group That Promotes Militias Thrilled With O’Donnell Victory,” Religion Dispatches, September 16, 2010, at http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/3352/gun_group_that_promotes_militias_thrilled_with_o'donnell_victory/. Posner reported that Gun Owners of America had also supported Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio—thus the base of support extended to all four candidates.

73 Alex Newman, “Utah House Approves Gold, Silver as Legal Tender,” The New American, March 7, 2011, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/item/4512-utah-house-approves-gold-silver-as-legal-tender.

74 Josh Loftin (Associated Press), “Utah Legalizes Gold, Silver Coins As Currency,” Huffington Post, May 22, 2011, at

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In August 2012, with nearly two years in the Utah House

under his belt and Ivory the driving force behind Utah’s

“Transfer of Public Lands Act,” Ivory was identified as the

“Founder and President, American Lands Council,” and a

participant in an Americans For Prosperity’s “Defending The

American Dream” breakout session on “Property Rights Are

Essential For Prosperity.” Though held in Washington, D.C.,

Ivory undoubtedly had the opportunity to network with three

attending Americans For Prosperity state directors from Colorado,

New Mexico, and Washington State, though there may have been

other AFP directors present who were not identified as

panelists.75

In late September 2012, a R.K. Ross tweeted that “Ken Ivory

At Americans For Prosperity Conference in Eugene OR explains the

conflict of ideologies independence vs dependence.”76 In late

September 2012, the Oregon Media Watchdog reported that “I Spy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/utah-gold-standard-silver_n_865333.html.

75 Americans For Prosperity Headquarters, “Defending the American Dream Summit,” August 2-4, 2012, at http://www.scribd.com/doc/101856798/Defending-the-American-Dream-Summit-Agenda.

76 R.K. Ross, September 29, 2012, at https://twitter.com/RKRoss1/status/252097010944077826.

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Radio and Americans for Prosperity brought together four dynamic

speakers” including Ken Ivory and Ann McElhinney. McElhinney is

a “documentary” filmmaker, according to Wikipedia, who believes

the science of climate change is inconclusive and whose film Not

Evil Just Wrong was made to contradict Al Gore’s documentary An

Inconvenient Truth. She also made a “documentary” called FrackNation

to “address misinformation about the process of hydraulic

fracturing.” The Oregon report noted that she is a big backer of

hydraulic fracture or fracking, as is Ken Ivory.77 And, a Zvent

announcement properly noted that Ken Ivory, Ann McElhinney,

Randall O’Toole (from the Koch-funded Cato Institute), and James

Buchal, an attorney and author of The Great Salmon Hoax, were

jointly appearing at the “2nd Annual Basic American Rights

Seminar” hosted by Americans For Prosperity Oregon and I Spy in

Eugene.78

In March 2013, an Americans For Prosperity-linked group in

Oregon called the Coos County Watchdog promoted Ken Ivory’s 77 Oregon Media Watchdog, “The Wolf Pack,” 540 40 Or Fight, October 1, 2012, at http://5440fight.com/the-wolf-pack/.

78 Zvents, “2nd Annual Basic American Rights Seminar,” September 29, 2012, at http://www.zvents.com/eugene_or/events/show/271046447-2nd-annual-basic-american-rights-seminar.

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YouTube talk based on his 2011 book, Where’s the Line? How States Protect

the Constitution.79 Ivory’s book and his follow-up creation in 2012,

the American Lands Council, have become his “all-consuming

crusade” and money-making vocation as he travels the country

giving “tutorials targeting mostly tea party groups,” according

to Paul Rolly and Robert Gehrke. Gehrke’s profile of Ivory for

the Salt Lake Tribune noted that Ivory “has traveled the country,

speaking to county commissions, school boards, tea-party groups,

television hosts, state legislators and members of Congress

advocating for his goal.”80

In April 2013, Ivory was a featured guest at Americans For

Prosperity Colorado “Freedom Rally” in Grand Junction. The other

featured guest was David Justice. Justice was not only a

delegate at the Ron Paul Revolution-Constitution Party-

79 Coos County Watchdog (Oregon), “American Lands Council—Where’s the Line? Ken Ivory Part 1,” March 9, 2013, at http://www.cooscountywatchdog.com/blog/american-lands-council-wheres-the-line-ken-ivory-part-1.

80 Paul Rolly, “Lawmaker’s constitutional causes earn him money,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 24, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57980727-78/ivory-council-west-http.html.csp. Robert Gehrke, “Utah Rep. Ken Ivory’s quest for state control of public lands is all-consuming. Critics say when a cause becomes a source of income, it’s a conflict of interest,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 18, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57952776-90/ivory-lands-utah-state.html.csp.

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Libertarian Party self-styled “continental congress,” but,

according to his “continental congress” diary, had also been

present at the Estes Park meeting in Colorado in 1992 when the

Christian Reconstructionist’s Patriot militia plan was put into

action.81

In September 2013, Ivory was a featured speaker at a

Glendale Tea Party and Daisy Mountain Tea Party (Arizona)

meeting. According to the Tea Party group’s announcement

encouraging members to attend, it stated that “He [Ivory] has

spoken at CSPOA” and that “We have heard him speak on the latest

CSPOA DVD.” CSPOA, of course, is Richard Mack’s outfit, the

Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which is

the strategic partner of the Ron Paul-linked Oath Keepers headed

by Stewart Rhodes. And, the announcement also demonstrated who

the Tea Party groups were linked to ideologically: Americans For

Prosperity, the Arizona Citizens Defense League (a militia), the

Goldwater Institute (part of the Koch-funded State Policy 81 “Journals of the Continental Congress 2009,” at http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/1742876/journals-09-16-pdf-february-10-2010-4-58-pm-350k?dn=y. Americans For Prosperity Colorado, “Freedom Rally—Grand Junction,” April 13, 2013, at http://americansforprosperity.org/colorado/event/freedom-rally-grand-junction/.

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Network), and the Christian Reconstructionists’ Constitution

Party.82 The Tuscon, Arizona-based John Birch Society in April

2011 had hosted one of the four co-founders of the Arizona

Citizens Defense League.83

The presented evidence from Americans For Prosperity, Salt

Lake City journalistic sources, and other sources clearly

establishes that Ken Ivory has a close, collaborative working

relationship with the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity and

that he has plugged into existing networks of the Constitutional

Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Oath Keepers, and Tea

Party groups. In fact, as noted below, Ivory is openly

collaborating with Oath Keepers and Mack’s Constitutional

Sheriffs group to function as the “traveling evangelist”

spreading and networking the ALEC land grab narrative with state

and local officials, Tea Party groups, the Patriot movement’s

82 Glendale Tea Party (Arizona), “Event: Utah Representative, Ken Ivory, President of American Land Company (sic),” September 12, 2013, at http://grassrootsglendaleteaparty.com/event/utah-representative-ken-ivory-president-of-american-land-company/.

83 Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind, “Special Report: FreedomWorks and the John Birch Society Problem,” Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, June 20, 2011, at https://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-parties/19-news/85-freedomworks-and-the-john-birch-society-problem?.

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networks, and the widespread conspiracy theory of the New World

Order’s Agenda21.

The ALC and ALEC Land Grab at the State Level—The Same 1990s

Playbook

Even before the Bundy confrontation erupted in April 2014,

Ken Ivory and his American Lands Council had been heavily

involved in influencing developments in Arizona, New Mexico,

Nevada, Montana, in addition to his home state of Utah.

In Utah, state representatives Ken Ivory and Roger Barrus

spearheaded the drive to pass House Bill 148 known as the

“Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study.” It was

sponsored in the state senate by Wayne L. Niederhauser. Governor

Gary Herbert signed the legislation and the federal delegation of

Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee and Representative Rob Bishop

supported the Act. Hatch claimed proud membership as part of the

original Sagebrush Rebellion.84

A March 2013 report by Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy for the

Center for American Progress, noted that “seven western states 84 Utah State Government, “Governor Herbert, Federal Delegation, and State Legislators Join Together to Demand Transfer of Public Lands to Utah,” March 23, 2012, at http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=6847.

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(“Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and

Idaho”) have decided to embark on unconstitutional and quixotic

battles attempting to force the federal government to turn

millions of acres of public lands over to the states.” The

authors reported that these “state legislative efforts are

nothing more than corporate-backed messaging tools that can be

traced to conservative front groups such as the American

Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, and Americans for

Prosperity.” The report noted that Ken Ivory had been

“presenting the idea of turning federal land over to the states

at ALEC conferences.” In Utah, the report noted that Ivory’s

bill was forcing a constitutional showdown with the federal

government due to the state’s Transfer of Public Lands Act and

Related Study required the federal government to respond to the

state’s demand by December 31, 2014 or face a lawsuit to steal

claim nearly 20 million acres of state land. In Arizona, a bill

modeled on Ivory’s Utah legislation was vetoed by the state’s

conservative Republican governor and the electorate rejected by a

68 to 32 percent margin a ballot measure that called for turning

over natural resources, including the Grand Canyon, to the state.

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In Wyoming, a legislator who is also the CEO of a uranium mining

company introduced a bill in February 2013 called the Transfer of

Federal Lands Study based on Ivory’s Utah law—a bill Wyoming’s

Attorney General believed was unconstitutional. In New Mexico, a

state representative and a state senator introduced another

Ivory-derived piece of legislation “calling on the federal

government to turn 23 million acres of New Mexico’s public lands

over to the state by the end of 2015.” The bill was supported by

the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity. In Colorado, a state

representative and a state senator introduced in January 2013

another Ivory-derived bill with a “broad definition of

agricultural lands [that] certainly includes the more than 14

million acres of national forests in the state and likely

includes its Bureau of Land Management lands.” It died in

committee in February 2013. In Nevada, two members of the Nevada

legislature were planning to introduce another Ivory-based law

that would demand the federal government turn over public lands

by the end of June 2015. In fact, the Nevada legislature in 2013

created the “Nevada Public Land Management Task Force” to

“evaluate the feasibility of the state taking control of some of

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the federally controlled public lands in Nevada.”85 In Idaho, a

state representative was contemplating introducing an Ivory-

derived law.86 In 2013, the Idaho legislature did create an

“Interim Committee on Public Land” to explore transferring

federal public land to Idaho. The proposal was supported by “a

host of speakers for tea party groups in support of transferring

the federal land.”87

The John Birch Society’s The New American magazine reported that

Montana’s legislature had formed a “Federal Lands Study Group” to

which supports the transfer of federal land to the state. The

JBS reported that the chair of the Study Group, state senator

Jennifer Fielder, added the conspiratorial twist that the “‘With

85 Sean Whaley, “Report: Nevada would benefit from transfer of federal lands,”Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 22, 2014, at http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/report-nevada-would-benefit-transfer-federal-lands.

86 Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy, “State Efforts To ‘Reclaim’ Our Public Lands Traced To Koch-Fueled ALEC,” Think Progress, March 11, 2013, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/11/1698221/state-efforts-to-reclaim-our-public-lands-traced-to-alec/. Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy, “State Efforts To ‘Reclaim’ Our Public Lands Traced To Koch-Fueled ALEC,” Center for American Progress, March 11, 2013, at http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/GoadLandsReclaimBrief-1.pdf.

87 Rocky Barker, “Tea party groups support transfer of federal land to Idaho,”Idaho Statesman, December 5, 2013, at http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/12/05/2909000/tea-party-groups-support-transfer.html.

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the national government facing insurmountable debt, the threat of

the federal government selling our public lands to the highest

bidder is imminent…. They can sell public lands without our

input, and they are undoubtedly under pressure by foreign debt

holders to do so. That’s a big concern.’”88

After the Bundy and militia confrontation with the Bureau of

Land Management, two organizations began tracking what they

called “Bundy’s Buddies,” the Center for Western Priorities (CWP)

and the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF). The

Center for Western Priorities tracked federal and state officials

while the Center for American Progress tracked mainly candidates

for federal offices, though they included two Utah state

representatives on their list. The CWP tracked public officials

who “believe the U.S. government should not manage public lands

for the benefit of the public, and they should instead be seized

by the states or sold off to the highest bidder.” As of mid-

September 2014, the CWP had identified 36 names for inclusion on

88 William F. Jasper, “Hearings in Montana Legislature on Fedgov ‘Public Lands’ Transfer,” The New American (John Birch Society), May 14, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18256-hearings-in-montana-legislature-on-fedgov-public-lands-transfer.

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its list.89 The CAPAF used three criterions to identify its own

list of “Bundy’s Buddies”—criteria that matched Cliven Bundy’s

rhetoric and claims. The criteria for inclusion on their list

were: whether they “support the sell-off or state seizure of

federal lands;” whether they “dispute the U.S. government’s

authority over federal lands;” and, whether they had “defied or

encouraged defiance of federal law on public lands.” Over the

course of four reports, the CAPAF identified 24 individuals who

were “Bundy’s Buddies.”90 The two organizational lists, when

89 Bundy’s Buddies, “Who Agrees with Outlaw Rancher Cliven Bundy About Public Lands? Elected Officials That Support States Seizing Public Lands,” Project ofCenter for Western Priorities, no date, accessed May 10, 2014 and September 19, 2014, at http://www.bundysbuddies.com/#contentcontain.

90 Matt Lee-Ashley and Mari Hernandez, “Bundy’s Buddies: The Politicians and Pundits Who Share Cliven Bundy’s Radical Anti-Government Views and Want to Seize Federal Lands,” Center for American Progress Action Fund, May 9, 2014, at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2014/05/09/89406/bundys-buddies-the-politicians-and-pundits-who-share-cliven-bundys-radical-anti-government-views-and-want-to-seize-federal-lands/. Matt Lee-Ashley, “Bundy’s Buddies: The 15 Members of Congress Who Share Cliven Bundy’s Desire to Seize or Sell Off America’s Public Lands,” Center for American Progress Action Fund, May 22, 2014, at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2014/05/22/90206/bundys-buddies-the-15-members-of-congress-who-share-cliven-bundys-desire-to-seize-or-sell-off-americas-public-lands/. Claire Moser and Matt Lee-Ashley, “Bundy’s Buddies: 4 Candidates Who Just Won Their Party’s Nomination for Competitive November Elections and Want to Sell or Seize Public Lands,” Centerfor American Progress Action Fund, June 19, 2014, at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2014/06/19/92305/4-candidates-who-just-won-their-partys-nomination-for-competitive-november-elections-and-want-to-sell-or-seize-public-lands/. Claire Moser and Matt Lee-Ashley, “Bundy’s Buddies: The Members of Congress and Congressional Hopefuls Who Want to Sell or Seize Public Lands in Your State,” Center for American

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combined with additional reporting of officials who either

traveled to Bundy’s ranch to support his side of the dispute,91

who participated in the American Lands Council conference during

the Bundy confrontation,92 or who introduced legislation (with no

co-sponsors) in the U.S. Congress to transfer federal lands to

Progress Action Fund, September 3 2014, at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2014/09/03/96058/the-members-of-congress-and-congressional-hopefuls-who-want-to-sell-or-seize-public-lands-in-your-state/.

91 Arizona Republic, “Watercooler: Ranch Standoff,” April 15, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/15/capitol/7726397/. Laurie Roberts, “Arizona legislators see Cliven Bundy as a hero?,” The Arizona Republic, April 19, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurie-roberts/2014/04/19/bundy-livingston/7873813/. David Safier, “Republican Legislators Caravan To The Bundy Ranch,” Tuscon Weekly (Arizona), April 16, 2014, at http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/04/16/republican-legislators-caravan-to-the-bundy-ranch. Michelle Fiore and Mark Potok, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April 18, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55003531/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U1aOC_ldUjk. Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western State Legislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled Nevada Rancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

92 Amy Joi O’Donoghue, “Western states to feds: Turn over public lands,” DeseretNews (Utah), April 18, 2014, at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865601377/Western-states-to-feds-Turn-over-public-lands.html. Kristen Moulton (Salt Lake Tribune), “Western lawmakers GatherIn Utah To Talk Federal Land Takeover,” Oath Keepers, April 19, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/19/western-lawmakers-gather-in-utah-to-talk-federal-land-takeover/. Kristen Moulton, “Western lawmakers gather in Utah to talk federal land takeover,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 18, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57836973-90/utah-lands-lawmakers-federal.html.csp.

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the states yields a list of 54 public officials.93 This, of

course, is probably an under-count since it does not include the

large number of public officials in states who voted in favor of

legislation modeled on Utah’s legislation (for example, Nevada94)

or the large number (at least 42) of county organizations that

have joined the American Land Council.95

At least eight Republican figures made the list of those

who, for one ideological reason or another, believe that the

federal government should sell some federal lands on the open

market. They made the list because they support selling public

land based on a report submitted to Congress on May 27, 1997,

“pursuant to the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act

of 1996.” Various Republicans have since 2009 submitted

93 Jessica Goad, “House Republicans’ New Idea: States Should Manage The Grand Canyon And Other National Parks,” Think Progress, November 22, 2013, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/21/2980711/house-republicans-manage-national-parks/.

94 Todd Wynn, “Nevada Becomes 5th Western State to Explore the Transfer of Public Lands,” American Legislator (Forum of the American Legislative ExchangeCouncil), June 6, 2013, at http://www.americanlegislator.org/nevada-becomes-the-5th-western-state-to-explore-the-transfer-of-public-lands/.

95 Matt Lee-Ashley, “How Politicians Are Using Taxpayer Money To Fund Their Campaign To Sell Off America’s Public Lands,” Think Progress, June 18, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/18/3450397/politicians-taxpayer-money-seize-public-lands/.

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legislation called the “Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act”

based on the May 1997 report and the 1996 law. Bundy’s Buddies,

for example, a project of the Center for Western Priorities, had

identified the bill’s three conservative Republican sponsors of

the legislation— Senator John McCain (Arizona), Mike Lee (Utah)

and Representative Jason Chaffetz (Utah)—as promoters of those

who believe that public lands should be “sold off to the highest

bidder.” The Center for American Progress Action Fund had

identified additional Republican sponsors of H.R. 5339 and H.R.

1126 that also linked back to the same May 1997 report and 1996

legislation. A Fox News article Bundy’s Buddies linked to

reported that the amount of land in question that had been

identified for sale during the Clinton administration was “roughly 1

percent of all land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and

less than one half of 1 percent of all federal land.”96 A

summary of the bill by the non-partisan Congressional Research

Service (at https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-

bill/2657) indicated that the lands identified for sale had been 96 Fox News, “Republicans Seek to Sell Off Disposable Federal Real Estate to Help Pay Debt,” March 19, 2011, at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/19/republicans-seek-sell-disposable-federal-lands-help-pay-debt/.

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identified by Congress on May 27, 1997, “pursuant to the Federal

Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996.” An April 2014

summary of H.R. 2657 by the non-partisan Congressional Budget

Office (at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45241) indicated that

between 2000 and 2011, the Bureau of Land Management had sold

only 30,000 of the 3.4 million acres designated by Congress and

generated in excess of $100 million in revenue which went to

purchase more land under the Federal Land Transaction

Facilitation Act. The CBO expected the BLM to offer more land

for sale between 2014 and 2023.

Given that the original legislation to sell the excess

public land originated during the second Clinton administration

and the very limited amount of land in question, this is probably

the weakest ideological support for Cliven Bundy’s rhetoric. The

eight Republicans supporting selling excess public lands to the

highest bidder include: Senator John McCain, Arizona; Senator

Jeff Flake, Arizona; Representative Trent Franks, Arizona;

Representative Ken Calvert, California; Representative Tom

McClintock, California; Representative Dana Rohrabacher,

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California; Representative Jason Chaffetz, Utah; and,

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington.

Of the remaining 46 Republican officials, many either support

western states having the federal lands transferred to their

ownership because they presume the state is better able to manage

the lands on a multi-use basis, or, the state is able extract

more money from exploiting the land than the federal government.

This is an ideological position that does not necessarily call into

question the federal government’s ownership of the land. It is

difficult to quantify how many Republicans fall into this

position. In fact, many of these reasons came from quotes by

Republican state officials who attended the American Lands

Council conference during the Bundy confrontation, but they can

also be voiced by Republican officials who do not dispute the

federal government’s ownership of the public lands and want an

ideological fig leaf for the corporate land grab.

Then there are Republicans who dispute the federal

government’s ownership of the land, for example, Ken Ivory’s

American Lands Council and the western states who have passed

legislation modeled on Utah’s legislation. These Republicans

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have, in effect, taken a Fourth Generation Warfare stance towards

the federal government. While Ivory’s (and ALEC’s) position

sounds benign—that the federal government reneged on a promise to

return the lands to the western states—it is, in fact, a position

that assumes that the federal government’s ownership is

unconstitutional and is therefore illegitimate. The heart of 4GW

is to delegitimize the federal government. It is difficult to

quantify this position because it would require examining the

legislative votes in the western states passing such legislation.

Neither the Center for Western Priorities nor the Center for

American Progress Action Fund has done so for all the western

states.

However, using data from the Center for Western Priorities

and other reporting, at a minimum the following state-level

officials fall into the American Lands Council’s 4GW ideological

position: Utah: Governor Gary Herbert, Senator Orrin Hatch,

Senator Mike Lee, Representative Rob Bishop, Representative Chris

Stewart, state representative Ken Ivory, House Speaker Becky

Lockhart, state representative Mike Noll, and, state

representative Roger Barrus; Colorado: state representative Jerry

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Sonnenberg and state senator Scott Renfroe; Idaho: House Speaker

Scott Bedke, state representative Lawrence Denney, and state

senator Sheryl Nuxoll; Montana: House Speaker Mark Blasdal, state

senator Jessica Fielder, and state senator Matt Rosendale;

Nevada: state senator Mark Hutchinson, state representative John

Ellison, state senator Pete Goicoechea, county commissioner

Dernar Dahl, and Janine Hansen, the American Independent Party

candidate for Congress endorsed by the Elko County Tea Party;97

New Mexico: state representatives Steve Pearce and Yvette

Herrell; Oregon: county commissioner Tootie Smith who is running

for the U.S. Congress; and, Wyoming: state representative David

Miller and state senator Eli Bebout. Again, this list is quite

conservative because it does not include Republican officials at

the state and county levels of government who have personally

joined the American Lands Council or whose counties have joined.

97 Dylan Woolf Harris, “Local tea party backs third-party candidate for Congress,” Elko Daily Free Press (Nevada), September 13, 20134, at http://elkodaily.com/news/local-tea-party-backs-third-party-candidate-for-congress/article_6a6089d6-3ae6-11e4-9807-0f9c9e34fe6f.html. Elko Daily Free Press,“Bundy joins Independent American Party,” May 25, 2014, at http://elkodaily.com/news/bundy-joins-independent-american-party/article_17dff15a-e45c-11e3-98f2-0019bb2963f4.html.

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And then there are the Republican officials who, in the

midst of Cliven Bundy and the militiamen’s confrontation with the

Bureau of Land Management, openly sided with Bundy and his

militiamen.

Rand Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator, backed Cliven Bundy,

told a Kentucky radio station, “‘The federal government shouldn’t

violate the law, nor should we have 48 federal agencies carrying

weapons and having SWAT teams.’” While it is not at all clear

what law(s) the federal government broke—since the BLM was

enforcing a federal court order—Rand Paul, apparently oblivious

to the factual circumstances that had evolved over two decades,

then opined, “‘I hope it’ll go through a court,’ he said ‘But if

it were in a court, I would be siding and wanting to say that,

look, the states and the individuals in the state should own

these lands.’”98 Indicative of Rand Paul’s ideological outlook

and the right-wing base he seeks to appeal to, his own Rand Paul

Review website (as of April 18, 2014) featured a t-shirt stating,

98 Phillips Swarts, “Rand and Ron Paul ride to the rescue for Bundy in Nevada standoff with feds,” Washington Times, April 16, 2014, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/16/rand-paul-ron-paul-stick-rancher-nevada-standoff/.

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“Stand With the Bundy Ranch. Molon Labe.”99 Molon Labe, of course,

is the new battle cry of the Patriot movement promoted by

strategist Edwin Vieira and the Oath Keepers network with the

Patriot militia and constitutional sheriffs. The “Stand With the

Bundy Ranch” t-shirt disappeared sometime between April and

September 2014. As of September 2014, Rand Paul’s store featured

a Molon Labe t-shirt, a t-shirt stating, “Hey Obama Molon Labe,” a

t-shirt claiming “I hate it when I wake up in the morning and

Barack Hussain Øbama is president,” as well as a t-shirt with

Timothy McVeigh’s favorite Thomas Jefferson’s statement, “The

tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the

blood of patriots and tyrants.” Ron Paul also claimed that

Cliven Bundy “is a perfect example of why Americans are getting

increasingly angry at the federal government’s outrageous abuse

of power” while also railing against the “egregious nationwide

enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.”100

99 Rand Paul Review, “Conservative Store,” accessed April 18, 2014, at http://www.randpaulreview.com/store/.

100 Paul Joseph Watson, “Rand Paul: Bundy Siege is Why Americans Are Getting Angry With Federal Government,” InfoWars, April 22, 2014, at http://www.infowars.com/rand-paul-bundy-siege-is-why-americans-are-getting-angry-with-federal-government/.

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Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was silent while Rand Paul and

Mike Huckabee were supporting Bundy, but eventually Cruz accused

the Obama administration of being Nazi-like. According to Cruz’s

statement to a Texas radio station, “‘the reason this issue is

resonating…is that for five years, we have seen our liberty under

assault. We have seen our liberty under assault from a federal

government that seems hell-bent on expanding its authority over

every aspect of our lives…. We should have a federal government

protecting the liberty of the citizens, not using the jackboot of

authoritarianism to come against the citizens. And I think this

is the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that

President Obama has set the federal government upon.’”101 Cruz

then introduced an amendment to the “Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act

of 2014 that would prevent the federal government from owning

101 Timothy Cama, “GOP stars steer clear of ranch fight,” The Hill, April 17, 2014, at http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/203730-gop-stars-steer-clear-of-nevada-ranch-fight#ixzz2zFB0r7ua. Miranda Blue, “Ted Cruz: Bundy Ranch Standoff ‘Tragic Culmination’ Of Obama’s ‘Jackboot of Authoritarianism,’” Right Wing Watch, April 23, 2014, at http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-bundy-ranch-standoff-tragic-culmination-obamas-jackboot-authoritarianism.

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more than 50 percent of any state’s land and would require the

immediate sale or transfer of any excess land.”102

As radical and pro-corporation as Senator Cruz’s proposal

is, it is not as radical as the political platform of the Texas

Republican Party which promoted the Oath Keepers and Richard Mack

view of county sheriffs. The Texas GOP decided that the “FBI,

DEA, ATF, immigration officers—ANY federal enforcement activities

within Texas ‘must be conducted under the auspices of the county

sheriff with jurisdiction in that county.’” Moreover, the Texas

GOP called on “the Texas state legislature is to ‘ignore, oppose,

refuse, and nullify any federal mandated legislation which

infringes upon the states’ 10th Amendment Right.’” While the

Texas GOP did not address land ownership because Texas has no

public lands, the party proposed the “elimination of virtually

any federal authority” across the entire federal bureaucracy.103

102 Claire Moser and Matt Lee-Ashley, “Bundy’s Buddies: The Members of Congressand Congressional Hopefuls Who Want to Sell or Seize Public Lands in Your State,” Center for American Progress Action Fund, September 3 2014, at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2014/09/03/96058/the-members-of-congress-and-congressional-hopefuls-who-want-to-sell-or-seize-public-lands-in-your-state/.

103 Michael Winship, “Ayn Rand’s Fever Dream: Texas GOP Platform Crazier Than You Can Imagine,” AlterNet, July 29, 2014, at http://www.alternet.org/ayn-rands-fever-dream-texas-gop-platform-crazier-you-can-imagine.

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And finally, there were state-level officials who either

traveled to Cliven Bundy’s ranch as a demonstration of solidarity

and to protect him from the federal government, appeared with

Bundy or members of his family after the confrontation and his

racist remarks, or who openly encouraged citizens to defy federal

law and physically challenge the federal government. These

include the following Republicans: Arizona: state representatives

Bob Thorpe, Dave Livingston and Kelly Townsend, state senators

Judy Burges and Kelli Ward, U.S. Representative Paul Gosar, and

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne;104 Nevada representative

Michelle Fiore and Washington representative Matt Shea who were

actively linked to Oath Keepers at the Bundy ranch;105 and, San 104 Arizona Republic, “Watercooler: Ranch Standoff,” April 15, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/15/capitol/7726397/. Laurie Roberts, “Arizona legislators see Cliven Bundy as a hero?,” The Arizona Republic, April 19, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurie-roberts/2014/04/19/bundy-livingston/7873813/. David Safier, “Republican Legislators Caravan To The Bundy Ranch,” Tuscon Weekly (Arizona), April 16, 2014, at http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/04/16/republican-legislators-caravan-to-the-bundy-ranch. David Livingston (Arizona State Representative), “Federal mess at Bundy Ranch: Opposing View,” USA Today, July 13, 2014, at http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/13/cliven-bundy-ranch-cattle-sheriff-blm-editorials-debates/12604287/.

105 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-

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Juan county commissioner Phil Lyman (Utah) who organized an all-

terrain vehicle desecration of a Native American burial sites and

an archeological site to protest the BLM’s closure of a dirt road

to vehicular traffic protecting the site. While Lyman did not go

onto the sensitive land, Cliven Bundy’s son and accompanying

militiamen did ignore Lyman’s desire not to damage the site.106

The Colorado Independent identified three Republican primary

candidates for governor—Bob Beauprez, Mike Kopp, and Scott Gesler

(plus Tom Tancredo) that sided with Cliven Bundy and the militia

rather than the Bureau of Land Management.107 At the first

or-waco%E2%80%9D/. Michelle Fiore and Mark Potok, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April 18, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55003531/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U1aOC_ldUjk.

106 John M. Glionna, “Cliven Bundy II? Utah protesters prepare for new face-offwith feds,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2014, at http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-utah-blm-militia-bundy-20140509-story.html. Matt Lee-Ashley, “Saturday’s Illegal Cliven Bundy-Endorsed ATV Rally Runs Through Sacred American Indian Sites,” Think Progress, May 10, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/10/3436507/cliven-bundy-atv-ride-burial-sites/. Brian Maffly, “Dozens illegally ride ATVs into Utah canyon in lands fight rally,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 10, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57909181-78/amp-blm-canyon-lands.html.csp. Salt Lake Tribune, “Editorial: ATV riders do damage to a bad cause,” May 12, 2014,at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/57934191-82/cause-clearly-parks-ride.html.csp. Jonathan Thompson, “A reluctant rebellion in the Utah desert,”High Country News, May 13, 2014, at http://www.hcn.org/articles/is-san-juan-countys-phil-lyman-the-new-calvin-black.

107 Mike Littwin, “Winning the coveted Cliven Bundy vote,” Colorado Independent, April 25, 2014, at http://www.coloradoindependent.com/147207/littwin-winning-the-coveted-cliven-bundy-vote.

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gubernatorial debate between the Republican candidate Bob

Beauprez and Governor John Hickenlooper, Beauprez “went on the

record supporting the seizure of Colorado’s national parks,

forests and public lands by the state government, saying ‘this is

fight we have to wage,’” according to Claire Moser’s report for

Think Progress. Moser also quoted from Beauprez’s campaign

document that “lays out the former congressman’s plans to

‘reestablish state rights and duties,’ in part by ‘establish[ing]

a process for taking control over public lands back from the

federal government.’” Moser also observed that according to

Beauprez’s 2009 book, A Return to Values, Beauprez characterized

“climate change as ‘at best a grossly overhyped issue and at

worst a complete hoax foisted on most of the world.’” And,

consistent with the earlier Wise Use movement and the larger

Christian Right, Beauprez likened support for environmental

protection as “‘a religious revival or a spiritual experience,’”

implying that environmentalism is a false pagan religion.108 And,

in Montana, the group Montanans for Multiple Use handed out a 108 Claire Moser, “Colorado Gubernatorial Candidate Promises To Seize And Sell America’s National Parks, Forests And Public Lands,” Think Progress, September10, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/10/3565669/beauprez-seize-sell-public-lands/.

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flyer in mid-2014 produced by the American Lands Council

advocating the transfer of federal lands in Montana to the state

government, suggesting that land transfer has become a “new

litmus test and dividing line” in the state’s politics.109

Thus, it is a mistake to view the Cliven Bundy confrontation

as a causal variable generating Republican support for a

confrontation with the federal government over western lands.

Rather, the American Legislative Exchange Council working through

the American Lands Council had put together Sagebrush Rebellion

III, of which the Cliven Bundy confrontation played a small but

significant role as a symbol of this corporate and billionaire

land theft by sleight-of-hand. This can be seen in the other

replay from the 1990s, whereby multinational corporations teamed

up with the National Rifle Association, the most legitimate and

mainstream promoter of the Patriot militia ideology.

The National Rifle Association’s Corporate Energy Financial

Backers

109 Roger Sherman, “Multiple use and federal land transfer,” Flathead News Group (Montana), August 25, 2014, at http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/hungryhorsenews/multiple-use-and-federal-land-transfer/article_a0c97a08-2c74-11e4-8bce-0019bb2963f4.html.

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Just as the National Rifle Association had been an integral

organization in collaborating with major corporations and the

Christian Right to form the Wise Use/County Supremacy movements

that were given entrepreneurial networking by Christian Right-

linked Alan Gottlieb, Ron Arnold, Charles Cushman, and Floyd

Brown (eventual head of Citizens United) in the 1980s and 1990s,

the NRA has been subsidized by the oil and gas industry to help

in the effort to unconstitutionally claim land from the federal

government.

An April 2014 report from the Center for American Progress

by Matt Lee-Ashley noted that “since 2008 to bolster its lobbying

and political power, the oil and gas industry has steadily

expanded its contributions and influence over several major

conservative sportsmen’s organizations, including Safari Club

International, or SCI, the National Rifle Association, or NRA,

and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF). The first

two organizations have assumed an increasingly active and vocal

role in advancing energy industry priorities, even when those

positions are in apparent conflict with the interests of hunters

and anglers who are their rank-and-file members.” Essentially,

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the oil and gas industries want less protection for endangered

species, greater access to “roadless and wilderness study areas,”

and to “privatize public lands and wildlife.”110

The report noted that since 2008, the oil and gas industries had

spent $897 million to influence Congress, an increase of 127

percent over the $396 million spent between 2002 and 2007. In

2012, they spent $270 million on television advertising to elect

their favorite candidates, including $176 to defeat the

president. The American Petroleum Institute has spent even more

money on “branding” efforts. All of this spending is to “defeat

climate change legislation in Congress, preserve tax subsidies

for oil and gas companies, slow and weaken environmental

protection rules, and pressure federal officials to further

expand and accelerate oil and gas leasing on public lands.” The

Center for American Progress found that “at least 28 oil, gas,

110 Tom Kenworthy, “Why Is The Oil Industry Giving Millions To The NRA?,” ThinkProgress, April 29, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/29/3431955/oil-money-nra-sportsmen/. Matt Lee-Ashley, “Oil and Gas Industry Investments in the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International,” Center for American Progress, April 29, 2014, at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2014/04/29/88712/oil-and-gas-industry-investments-in-the-national-rifle-association-and-safari-club-international/.

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and energy companies have made financial investments in the NRA

and CSF since 2010.” The full extent of how much energy

corporations and associations have given to these three

organizations is difficult to determine because the entities do

not disclose their donors. But, the Center for American Progress

found through public records that these companies and

associations “are also closely connected to them through their

boards, consultants, lobbyists, and a revolving door of staff,

including former political appointees in the President George W.

Bush administration.”

The report noted at least “28.5 percent of the NRA’s

corporate giving program” came from six energy companies—Clayton

Williams Energy, J.L. Davis Gas Consulting, Kamps Propane,

Barrett Brothers Oil and Gas, Saulsbury Energy Services, and KS

Industries—that contributed between $1.3 million and $5.6

million, according to 2012 conference promotional materials. The

Clayton Williams Energy company is in the top five of NRA

corporate donors, according to the CAP report, and the company’s

“largest oil and gas reserves are in the Permian Basin in West

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Texas and Southeastern New Mexico.”111 An April 2011 report on

the NRA by the Violence Policy Center found that Clayton Williams

Energy donated between $1 million and 4.99 million, putting it in

the second tier, the Joe Foss level, of seven levels of corporate

contributions.112 Clayton Williams self-funded his own self-

destructing gubernatorial campaign in 1990 in Texas, according to

a Texas Freedom Network report.113 Clayton Williams gave $1

million to the NRA’s Freedom Action Foundation in 2010 and

planned to give another $1 million in 2012. In 2012, the Koch

brothers gave between $2 million and $3 million to the NRA’s

electoral efforts. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action

also received $600,000 from Karl Rove’s dark-money group

Crossroads GPS, while then NRA’s president “David Keene attended

111 Matt Lee-Ashley, “Oil and Gas Industry Investments in the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International: Reshaping American Energy, Land, and Wildlife Policy,” Center for American Progress, April 29, 2014, at http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/IndustryInfluenceReport.pdf.

112 Josh Sugarman and Marty Langley , Blood Money: How the Gun Industry Bankrolls the NRA,Violence Policy Center, April 2011, at http://www.vpc.org/studies/bloodmoney.pdf.

113 Texas Freedom Network, The Anatomy of Power—Texas and the Religious Right in 2006, at http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/SORR_06_ReportWEB.pdf?docID=222.

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strategy sessions hosted by” Rove’s super-PAC, American

Crossroads.114

The extant data revealed above demonstrate that essentially

the same playbook from the 1990s was at work in April 2014. The

American Legislative Exchange Council, the Koch-funded Americans

For Prosperity (the off-shoot of their Citizens For A Sound

Economy), energy corporations, and the National Rifle Association

were promoting the transfer of federal lands to the states with

the eventual privatization of said lands.

The Center for American Progress report linking energy

corporations’ funding for the National Rifle Association, Safari

Club International, and the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation

also revealed that since 1999 the Cato Institute, with Koch

money, had advocated the privatization of public lands based the

argument that the federal government mismanages the land. The

CAP report quoted from the Cato Institute article that “outlined

‘a blueprint for auctioning off all public lands over 20 to 40

years.’” The CAP study detected two different strategies for

114 Peter Stone, “Inside the NRA's Koch-Funded Dark-Money Campaign,” Mother Jones, April 2, 2013, at http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/nra-koch-brothers-karl-rove.

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seizing federal lands. One strategy is to engage in piecemeal

privatization of lands other than “‘national treasures worthy of

federal protection,’” specifically Representative Jason

Chaffetz’s effort that is linked to Representative Paul Ryan’s

budget proposals. The other strategy is the one pursued by ALEC,

AFP, and Ken Ivory’s American Lands Council.

Koch Money and Right-Wing Think Tanks Promote the Land Grab

The one additional element from the 1990s is more Koch money

and influence. The Center for Public Integrity called Koch

Industries the “the biggest oil company you have never heard of,”

a company “bigger than Microsoft, Merrill Lynch and AT&T.” The

2004 report noted that Koch Industries in 2004 was the “leading

campaign contributor among oil and gas companies” and since 1998

had ranked as the fourth largest campaign contributor. The

ideological power of Koch Industries “comes from a web of

interconnected, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups funded

by foundations controlled and supported by the two Koch brothers”

including “the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, Citizens

for a Sound Economy and the Federalist Society.” The political

campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and ideological capture

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of the Republican Party has enabled Koch Industries to escape

hefty fines for violating various environmental protection

statutes: $350 million in potential penalties under the Clinton

administration reduced to $20 million under the Bush

administration; facing up to $214 million in fines for 300

pipeline spills was reduced to $35 million in the waning days of

the Clinton administration; and additional $214 million in

penalties for stealing $170 million of oil from Native American

lands was settled for $25 million by the Bush administration. 115

After Koch Industries acquired the Georgia-Pacific logging

company in late 2005, analysts from the Center for Public

Integrity and Wild Wilderness commented that “Georgia-Pacific

does extensive logging on public lands…. Georgia-Pacific strip

lands bare, destroy vast acreages and pay only a small fee to the

federal government in proportion to what they take from the

public.” The analysts noted that despite their free-market

ideology, the Koch business model is “firmly committed to the

115 Kevin Bogardus, “Koch’s low profile belies political power,” Center for Public Integrity, July 15, 2004, at http://www.publicintegrity.org/2004/07/15/5967/kochs-low-profile-belies-political-power.

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ideal of enriching private interests at enormous direct cost to

the American taxpayer.”116

It should not be surprising then to learn that right-wing think

tanks, almost all of them part of the State Policy Network, the

secular-libertarian face of the Christian Right’s biblical

capitalism advocated by “think tanks” linked to the Family

Research Center, have promoted privatization of federal lands.

In November 2008, the Heritage Foundation opposed the

Omnibus Lands Bill promoted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

that would have formed ten new “heritage areas” and removed 3

million acres of land from energy exploration. The Heritage

Foundation complained that the bill “would result in a huge

expansion in government ownership of land in the United States…

restrict access to energy and limit economic opportunity…

restrict other commercial activities such as mining, timber

harvesting, and recreational activities, and it would continue

the federal assault on private property rights.”117 In March 116 Sam Husseini and David Zupan, “Scrutinizing the Koch Deal to Buy Georgia-Pacific,” Institute for Public Accuracy,” November 15, 2005, at http://www.accuracy.org/release/1169-scrutinizing-the-koch-deal-to-buy-georgia-pacific/.

117 Nicolas Loris, “Omnibus Lands Bill Restricts Energy Exploration,” WebMemo #2130 on Smart Growth, Heritage Foundation, November 14, 2008, at

114

2009, after the defeat of an omnibus federal lands bill because

it failed to reach a two-thirds majority in the House, but before

it was eventually passed and signed into law by President Obama,

the NCFPR objected that the proposed legislation—which had

gathered 282 yea votes—represented a “vast expansion of every

sort of federal land ownership, including new and expanded

National Parks, National Trails, National Heritage Areas,

National Monuments, National Conservation Areas, National

Preserves, National Historical Parks, National Historic Sites,

and more.” The analyst objected that it would create “82 new

Wild and Scenic Rivers” and “create millions of acres of new

Wilderness Areas.” But, the main objection was that it would

“lock up millions of acres of land at the height of an economic

recession and at a time the U.S. is struggling to improve energy

security” and “shut down cattle grazing, mining, timber harvest,

energy exploration and production and recreation.” Allegedly,

the omnibus bill “locked up” “[h]undreds of millions of barrels

of recoverable oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.”118

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/omnibus-lands-bill-restricts-energy-exploration.

118 David Almasi, “Statement of National Center for Public Policy Research Senior Fellow R.J. Smith on the Defeat of the Omnibus Public Land Management

115

According to the Clerk of the House, the Omnibus Public Land

Management Act of 2009, signed into law by President Obama on

March 30, 2009, passed the House by a 285-140 vote, with 38

Republicans voting “yea,” while the Senate had voted 77-20 in

favor of the bill.

In December 2010, the National Center For Public Policy

Research, a member of the State Policy Network, published an

essay on Amy Ridenour’s Blog opposing Senator Reid’s “federal

lands omnibus bill, which includes over 100 federal land-grab

bills the Democrats have not been able to pass into law this

legislative session.” The NCFPR essay objected that the bill

“would further extend the EPA’s and Interior’s authority over

state law; block many federal lands from oil and gas leasing,

hiking up energy costs for consumers; add to the federal

deficit; and in some cases, limit immigration border patrol on

border lands designated federal wilderness areas.”119

Act (S. 22) on the House Floor Wednesday,” National Center for Public Policy Research, March 12, 2009, at http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Omnibus_Lands031209.html.

119 Dana Gattuso, “High On America’s Christmas List: Get the Federal Governmentout of Managing our Lands,” Amy Ridenour’s Blog, National Center For Public Policy Research, December 6, 2010, at http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2010/12/6/high-on-americas-christmas-list-get-the-federal-government-o.html.

116

What is the supposedly “secular” National Center For Public

Policy Research (NCFPPR)? It is a very trusted ally of the

Christian Right.

In February 1999, the architect of the Christian Right, the

late Paul Weyrich, wrote to Amy Ridenour at the NCFPPR to explain

his pessimism regarding the Christian Right losing the culture

war and the need to re-think and re-tool the Christian Right’s

strategy. In Weyrich’s view, the “cultural Marxists” and their

philosophy of “Political Correctness” had succeeded to the point

that “the United States is very close to becoming a state totally

dominated by an alien ideology, an ideology bitterly hostile to

Western culture.”120 In 1999, the National Center For Public

Policy Research was in the top twenty of all organizations funded

by the Christian Right and its benefactors.121 The NCFPPR was an

“associate member” of the State Policy Network.122 The NCFPPR was

120 Paul Weyrich, “Letter dated February 16, 1999,” National Center for Public Policy Research, at http://www.nationalcenter.org/Weyrich299.html.

121 National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy, “$1 Billion for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s,” Commonweal Institute, 1999, at http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/print/330.

122 SourceWatch, “State Policy Network Member Think Tanks,” no date, accessed September 4, 2013, at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Members.

117

part of the Christian Right’s Health Care Freedom Coalition

opposed to the Affordable Care Act. Other stalwart Christian

Right members included Concerned Women For America, Eagle Forum,

Family Research Council Action, the anti-abortion Susan B.

Anthony List, the Christian Coalition, Tradition Family Property,

the Traditional Values Coalition, and Americans For Prosperity.123

The day after the American Legislative Exchange Council dropped

its task forces on Voter ID—nation-wide efforts to disenfranchise

the poor, students, elderly, and non-whites—and Stand Your Ground

—the National Rifle Association’s model legislation making the

killing of non-whites by whites on the flimsiest of grounds

perfectly legal (aka ‘Kill At Will’)—the National Center For

Public Policy Research picked up the efforts and carried on.124

123 Lee Fang, “Conservative Health Care Attack Group Hires Industry Lobbyist ToCoordinate Strategy On Killing Reform,” Think Progress, October 19, 2009, at http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/19/cpr-mcmanus-healthreform/.

124 Lisa Graves, “Backgrounder: the History of the NRA/ALEC Gun Agenda,” The Center For Media And Democracy’s PR Watch, December 15, 2012, at http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11908/nraalec-reactionary-gun-agenda. Heather Digby Parton, “Go ask ALEC,” Digby Blog, December 14, 2012, at http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/go-ask-alec.html. Alex Kane, “9 Horrible Gun Laws Backed by the Right Wing,” AlterNet, December 17, 2012, at http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/9-horrible-gun-laws-backed-right-wing. Timothy Johnson, “Teammates: NRA News Introduces ALEC’s Voter ID Successor Group,” Media Matters, May 25, 2012, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/05/25/teammates-nra-news-introduces-alecs-voter-id-su/163485. Joe Strupp, “Former NRA President: We Helped Draft Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law,” Media Matters, March 27, 2012, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/03/27/former-nra-president-we-helped-draft-

118

In June 2013, the Christian Right’s premier think tank with

a secular face, the Heritage Foundation, once again believed

“transferring the management of federal lands to state regulators

would encourage energy resource development on the federal estate

while maintaining a strong environmental record,” as a first step

towards the eventual goal of “privatizing some of that land.”

Heritage was stumping for Senator Inhofe’s “Federal Land Freedom

Act of 2013.”125 As discussed in Chapter 3, Inhofe believes

climate change is science is “‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated

on the American people.’” In other words, he is a bought-and-

paid for energy corporate stooge and Christian Right buffoon.

One month after the Bundy confrontation, a newspaper in

Wisconsin published a debate on the question of the federal

government returning western public lands to the states. Becky

Norton Dunlop, identified merely as the vice president of the

floridas-s/185254. Timothy Johnson, “National Rifle Association Proud Of Its Role In Enacting ‘Kill At Will’ Law,” Media Matters, October 16, 2012, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/10/16/national-rifle-association-proud-of-its-role-in/190669.

125 Nicolas Loris, “Energy Production on Federal Lands: Handing Keys Over to the States,” Issue Brief #3979 on Energy and Environment, Heritage Foundation,June 27, 2013, at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/06/energy-production-on-federal-lands-handing-keys-over-to-the-states.

119

Heritage Foundation, argued that those lands should be returned

to the states using ALEC and State Policy Network talking points.

She argued that “oil, gas, water, timber, minerals and grazing

forage” are “on the lands locked up in the federal estate;” that

state “officials are in a far better position than bureaucrats in

Washington to make site evaluations and situation-specific

decisions about appropriate uses…to make sure environmental and

resource-production objectives are done harmoniously;” that the

federal government should abide by “the terms under which they

applied for—and accepted—statehood;” and, she concluded her

article that it was time “time to return the lands of the bloated

federal estate to the states and to the people.”126

Of course, Dunlop is more than the vice president of the

Heritage Foundation. She is a key apparatchik in the Christian

Right’s Council for National Policy and its Conservative Action

Project (CNP/CAP). Jerry Markon’s Washington Post article in

February 2010 revealed that the Tea Party Patriots attended the

CNP/CAP weekly meeting to coordinate the Christian Right’s

126 Becky Norton Dunlop, “Pro: A turnover of federal lands would spur long-termprosperity,” Gazette Xtra (Walworth County, Wisconsin), May 22, 2014, at http://www.gazettextra.com/article/20140522/ARTICLES/140529877/1034.

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message with local Tea Party groups.127 Lee Fang’s research in

his 2013 book, The Machine, revealed that Dunlop sat on the boards

of “over half dozen other organizations,” in addition to the

Council for National Policy, the Conservative Action Project,

Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, the

Phillips Foundation, and, the Family Foundation of Virginia.

Fang noted that the Heritage Foundation’s “primary” role is

“coordinating the conservative movement…[and] set[ting] the

agenda for state-level conservative think tanks through the State

Policy Network,” as well as coordinating with right-wing bloggers

across the country on a weekly basis through its “Blogger

Briefing.”128 In October 2013, the New York Times reported that the

Council for National Policy’s Conservative Action Project, the

Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Action For America, Americans For

Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Club For Growth, and Tea Party Patriots

were working in very close collaboration with the secretly

funded, “deeply involved” Koch brothers vehicle Freedom Partners 127 Jerry Markon, “New media help conservatives get their anti-Obama message out,” Washington Post, February 1, 2010, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/31/AR2010013102860.html.

128 Lee Fang, The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right, New York: The New Press, 2013: 62-70.

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Chamber Of Commerce to plan strategy and actively work to

defund/undermine Obamacare and to shut down the federal

government.129

Given this amount of Koch and corporate funding and

networking promoting the idea that federal lands should be

transferred from the federal government to state governments and

then privatized, it should not be surprising that the Republican

Party also found this idea worthy of its support. The Republican

National Committee formally agreed in late January 2014 to

promote the transfer of federal lands to the states—effectively

making the Republican Party an extension of the American

Legislative Exchange Council.130 In fact, the Republican National

Committee’s resolution essentially repeated the bogus

129 Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mike McIntire, “A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning,” New York Times, October 6, 2013, at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html. Matt Kibbe, “Coalition Letter: Congress Must Honor Sequester Savings and Defund ObamaCare Before It Is Too Late,” FreedomWorks, February 14, 2013, at http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/ryanriebe/joint-letter-on-sequester-savings. Lee Fang, “Meet the Evangelical Cabal Orchestrating the Shutdown,” BillMoyers, October 9, 2013, at http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/09/meet-the-evangelical-cabal-orchestrating-the-shutdown/.

130 Bill Spence, “Republican National Committee supports public lands takeover,” Lewiston Tribune (Idaho), February 5, 2014, at http://lmtribune.com/blogs/political_theater/article_35897c2a-8edb-11e3-8f16-001a4bcf6878.html.

122

constitutional ALEC/ALC talking points, according to Jessica

Goad, an expert at Think Progress. The RNC’s resolution “‘calls

upon the federal government to honor to all willing western

states the same statehood promise to transfer title to the public

lands that it honored with all states east of Colorado; and …

calls upon all national and state leaders and representatives to

exert their utmost power and influence to urge the imminent

transfer of public lands to all willing western states for the

benefit of these western states and for the nation as a whole.’”

Goad noted that aside from the “thoroughly debunked

constitutional arguments to justify the seizure of federal lands,

the real goal of the effort appears to be to dramatically expand

drilling and mining of fossil fuels on federal lands—but without

federal environmental protections and with profits going

exclusively to corporations and states, rather than federal

taxpayers.”131 This announcement in January 2014—four months

before Cliven Bundy’s steadfast refused to obey federal court

decisions and brought Oath Keepers, Constitutional Sheriffs and 131 Jessica Goad, “The Republican Party Now Wants States To Seize Public Lands For Drilling And Mining,” Think Progress, February 11, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/11/3277571/republican-party-state-public-lands-drilling/.

123

Peace Officers, and Patriot militiamen to his ranch—helps explain

why Republicans flocked to his defense, more or less, and saw the

issue as “bigger than Bundy.”

But, the Republican National Committee’s embrace of the ALEC

land grab was presaged by a report published in September 2010

and finalized in April 2011 by the U.S. Senate and Congressional

Western Caucus entitled War on Western Jobs Report written by a

Wyoming Senator and a Utah Representative. The High Country News

article quoted from a Deseret News article which quoted Utah

Senator Orrin Hatch—one of the original Sagebrush Rebellion

backers—who claimed that the Department of the Interior’s

wilderness policy under President Obama “‘is a brazen attempt to

kowtow to radical environmental groups by locking up more public

lands in Utah and other states.’”132 And, the Republican Party-,

Christian Right-, and Tea Party-engineered shutdown of the

federal government, which also shutdown crucially needed revenue-

generating national parks in the West, spurred conservative

governors and legislatures in Utah, Arizona, and Colorado to use

132 Paul Larmer, “War on The West: The sequel,” High Country News, January 27, 2011, at https://www.hcn.org/wotr/war-on-the-west-the-sequel.

124

state and private funds to re-open some of the national parks.

This state bailout of the federal government played directly into

the hands of Republican legislators who argued that “‘states and

localities may be able to manage the properties better than the

federal government’” because the “‘federal government is

dysfunctional.’”133 Of course, the federal government is

dysfunctional precisely because the Republican Party in the House

and Senate works diligently every day to make it so.

Almost immediately after the confrontation between the

Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy, Ken Ivory and his

American Lands Council were organizing conferences for state

legislators and Tea Party/Patriot groups to mobilize politically

to take public lands from the federal government.

ALEC and American Lands Council Go Regional and Operational

On April 18, 2014, just five days before Cliven Bundy would

reveal his white supremacist attitudes about “‘one more thing I

know about the Negro,’” about 50 legislators from nine western

states—Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon,133 Emily Guerin, “States pay to re-open national parks and fuel anti-feds fire,” High Country News, October 15, 2013, at https://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/states-pay-to-re-open-national-parks-and-fuel-states-rights-fire.

125

Washington, and Wyoming—met in Salt Lake City to plan and

operationalize their endeavor to transfer federal lands to the

western states. Demar Dahl, an Elko County commissioner from

Nevada and chairman of the American Lands Council told a local

paper that the purpose of the conference was about planning

strategy and coordinating mutually-reinforcing political and

legal efforts—essentially the same type of strategy that ALEC had

discussed in Tampa more than two decades before. The one-day

conference was called the “Legislative Summit on the Transfer of

Public Lands.” Dahl told the local paper that the conference

discussed the virtues of “‘the value of having legal effort

driving the political effort and vice versa.’”134

The meeting was co-organized by Utah state representative Ken

Ivory and Montana state senator Jennifer Fielder, but featured

key legislative leaders including Utah House Speaker Becky

Lockhart, Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke, Montana House Speaker

Mark Blasdell, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee (Utah) who gave a

luncheon address. Essentially, the legislative coalition and 134 Dylan Woolf Harris, “Elko Commissioner attends land transfer summit,” Elko Daily Free Press (Nevada), April 23, 2014, at http://elkodaily.com/news/elko-commissioner-attends-land-transfer-summit/article_584ffb80-ca86-11e3-bc7d-001a4bcf887a.html.

126

their ideological allies from the National Center for Public

Policy Research, the Cato Institute, and the Reason Foundation

were suggesting the land transfer was necessary to protect “‘our

freedoms,’” that the states were better able than the federal

government to manage the land, and that the federal government’s

budget woes exacerbated environmental and land management

problems in the West—the latter point apparently oblivious to the

obvious retort that it is the Republican Party in Congress

responsible for the budget woes. For example, among the many

complaints that proponents of the land transfer cite is the

inability of the federal government due to budget constraints to

fight wildfires or manage environmental pests in the West.135

But, Think Progress researchers reported in July 2014 that House

135 Jennifer Fielder, “Who still thinks the Feds should control Montana Land?,”PolyMontana, April 24, 2014, at http://polymontana.com/still-thinks-feds-control-montana-land/. Kristen Moulton, “Western lawmakers gather in Utah to talk federal land takeover,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 18, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57836973-90/utah-lands-lawmakers-federal.html.csp. Alex Newman, “Western States Want Feds to Surrender ‘Federal’ Land,” The New American (John Birch Society), April 22, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18104-western-states-want-feds-to-surrender-federal-land. Dan Bell, “Cliven Bundy was wrong, but he raised the right issue,” Arizona Republic, May 23, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/05/23/cliven-bundy-federal-land-management/9451931/. Rob Nikolewski, “This Land Is Whose Land? Debate Over Federal Acres Heats Up,” NewsMax, April 23, 2014, at http://www.newsmax.com/US/western-land-debate-federal/2014/04/23/id/567296/.

127

Democrats were attempting to force the majority of House

Republicans to pass the “Wildfire Disaster Funding Act” that had

bipartisan support from its champions Senator Ron Wyden (D-

Colorado) and Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). House Democrats on

the Natural Resources Committee released a report that found that

“between 2008 and 2012 the U.S. Forest Service had to spend $1.6

billion ‘fighting the worst 1 percent of American wildfires,

accounting for 30 percent of the agency’s total firefighting

costs.’” Additionally, due to drought and climate change, fire

season in the Southwest is longer (going from 60 days to 80 days

since the 1980s) and more intense, with the amount of acreage

burned doubling to seven million acres. The Forest Service,

which has exceeded its congressional budget allocation for

fighting fires in seven of the last twelve years, has forced the

Forest Service to “cut its general staff by almost a third while

doubling the number of firefighters on its payroll” while

simultaneously “pulling funds away from regular thinning of

forest and brush as well as controlled burns that reduce the

number and severity of wildfires.” Instead of funding the Forest

Service to deal with these large-scale forest fires, House

128

Republicans were “expected to vote on a bill that would waive at

least 14 environmental laws within 100 miles of the southern U.S.

border, and has already spent time voting on legislation to

weaken the Endangered Species Act.”136

Similarly, Republicans in the U.S. Congress, as well as in

state legislatures and county offices have put forth a litany of

complaints about the Bureau of Land Management’s interactions

with local sheriffs, other county officials, and trade

associations as a smokescreen to justify the transfer of federal

lands to western states and corporate land grab for the party’s

funders.137

136 Claire Moser and Matt Lee-Ashley, “House Republicans Fiddle While Forest Service Runs Out Of Money To Fight Wildfires,” Think Progress, July 30, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/30/3465759/house-forest-service-money-wildfires/. Jeff Pross, “The National Budget For Fighting Wildfires Is $400 Million Short,” Think Progress, May 2, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/02/3433590/wildfires-more-expensive/.

137 Peter Marcus, “Tipton slams federal land managers,” Durango Herald (Colorado), July 24, 2014, at http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20140724/NEWS01/140729783/Tipton-slams-fed-land-managers—. Steve Tetreault, “Lawmaker says BLM was ‘completely insane’ on Bundy standoff,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 24, 2014, at http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/lawmaker-says-blm-was-completely-insane-bundy-standoff. Thomas Burr, “‘Gestapo’ BLM officers decried in House hearing,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/58221221-90/blm-county-federal-law.html.csp. John M. Glionna, “BLM, local law enforcement tensions near breaking point in the West,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2014, at http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-blm-critics-20140805-story.html. Phil Taylor, “Public Lands: Sheriffs are key to BLM mission, but local politics intrude,” Energy & Environment News, July 17, 2014, at

129

But, what was clearly the objective of the conference was

securing for the states and corporations access to natural

resources without oversight or restrictions from the federal

government—plunder for private profit with socialized

environmental costs and consequences.http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060003061. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, PartII,” July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=388164. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony by James D. Perkins, Sheriff, Garland County, Utah, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/perkinstestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Leland Pollock, Garfield County Commissioner, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pollocktestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Grant A. Gerber, Elko County Commissioner, Nevada, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/gerbertestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Ronny Rardin, Otero County Commissioner, New Mexico, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rardintestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Garrett O. VeneKlasen, executive director, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/garretttestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Jose Varela Lopez, New Mexico Cattlegrowers’ Association, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/lopeztestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental

130

The conservative Deseret News noted that for pro-transfer

proponents “federal land ownership has been an enduring complaint

they say locks up access to mineral resources, strips them of

revenue and shreds their autonomy when it comes to control of

their own house.”138 The Salt Lake Tribune observed that the

“political leaders from nine states convened for the first time

to talk about their joint goal: wresting control of oil-, timber

-and mineral-rich lands away from the feds.”139

The John Birch Society’s New American magazine’s interview

with Ken Ivory again revealed that it is access to unfathomable

Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Blair Dunn, Lawyer, NewMexico, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/dunntestimony7-24-14.pdf. U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation, “Oversight Hearing on ‘Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Managing Agencies, Part II,” testimony of Michael Lucero, Rancher, New Mexico, July 24, 2014, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/lucerotestimony7-24-14.pdf.

138 Amy Joi O’Donoghue, “Western states to feds: Turn over public lands,” Deseret News (Utah), April 18, 2014, at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865601377/Western-states-to-feds-Turn-over-public-lands.html.

139 Kristen Moulton, “Western lawmakers gather in Utah to talk federal land takeover,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 18, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57836973-90/utah-lands-lawmakers-federal.html.csp. Kristen Moulton (Salt Lake Tribune), “Western lawmakers Gather In Utah To Talk Federal Land Takeover,” Oath Keepers, April 19, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/19/western-lawmakers-gather-in-utah-to-talk-federal-land-takeover/.

131

natural resource wealth that is driving this state and corporate

agenda. The John Birch Society reported that Ivory told them

“that there is an estimated $150 trillion in mineral resources

‘locked up in federal lands’ across the West—wealth that is

desperately needed by struggling American families in a flailing

economy.” The Birch Society writer noted that “land purportedly

under federal jurisdiction contains extremely valuable resources:

oil, timber, coal, minerals, water, and more. If it was under

state or private control, the people of the American West would

be able to benefit from that vast wealth much more directly.”

For the John Birch Society writer, “private control” of a huge

amount of wealth belonging rightly to all the American people was

perfectly acceptable. Another valuable insight into the thinking

of ALEC, ALC, and state legislators thinking along the same lines

as those in Utah, was that “state policymakers are preparing for

a future where Utah will have to become financially independent

of a federal behemoth that is drowning the public in debts.” It

is unclear what Constitution the John Birch Society is reading,

but there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution about states

“becoming financially independent of the federal government,”

132

unless, of course, they are thinking about seceding. However, as

discussed in previous chapters, that is certainly consistent with

the strategic writings of Gary North, Edwin Vieira, and William

S. Lind. In keeping with the ALEC/ALC talking points, the Birch

Society writer claimed “the federal government’s purported claims

of jurisdiction over an estimated one-third of America’s landmass

are brazenly unconstitutional,”140 which is based upon cherry-

picking one clause in the entire Constitution and omitting the

more relevant clauses giving Congress the right to do whatever it

damn well pleases.

The managing editor of Reason opined that “what started as a

simmering problem over the control of land and resources has only

been fueled by the growing prosperity and sophistication of

westerners. They see little reason to leave their fate in the

hands of a stumbling federal government that can’t balance its

books.”141 Thus, for the Koch-funded Reason magazine, westerners

140 Alex Newman, “Western States Want Feds to Surrender ‘Federal’ Land,” The New American (John Birch Society), April 22, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18104-western-states-want-feds-to-surrender-federal-land.

141 J.D. Tuccille, “Battle Over Western Lands is Far Bigger Than the Bundy Controversy,” Reason, April 21, 2014, at http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/21/battle-over-western-lands-is-far-bigger.

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are at least psychologically distancing themselves from the

federal government in order to facilitate their eventually

physical secession.

A senior fellow at the National Center For Public Policy

Research was more straightforward in his comments to the

conservative NewsMax webservice. He claimed that what is

“‘really driving the frustration now out West is that we know

there are enormous natural resources on these lands, and with the

federal ownership, it is the government bureaucrats—who are not

without a political agenda—who are making the decisions on how to

extract.’” Another senior fellow at the National Center claimed

it was also an ideological battle to combat what the alleged

“Founding Fathers” opposed—federal land ownership that made the

federal government into a monarchy. According to the senior

fellow, “‘I would say the last thing you want is the federal

government’s ownership of lands…. That’s what the Founding

Fathers were trying to escape—the king’s house, the king’s land,

the king’s everything.’” The president of the Mountain States

Legal Foundation told NewsMax that “the federal government

becomes emboldened with each land grab and land purchase it’s

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allowed to take, setting the stage for more Bundy-like showdowns

between the private sector and Washington, D.C.” But a senior

fellow at the Cato Institute told NewsMax that the transfer of

public land from the federal government to the states made very

little financial sense, since it cost the federal government $8

billion to administer the lands—a cost the states would have to

bear.142 That senior fellow apparently missed the memo.

Washington State representative Matt Shea, who hunkered down

with Cliven Bundy as part of a “human shield” of right-wing

Republican legislators protecting him from the federal

government, and is operationally very close to Oath Keepers and

the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (see

Chapter 21), claimed he had formed a new coalition called

Coalition of Western States United Against Tyranny (COWS, yuck

yuck) consisting of an initial batch of unidentified 25 lawmakers

who may or may not exist—since the only mention is in the JBS

article and right-wingers who link to the JBS article.

Nevertheless, COWS was advocating a five-step process starting

142 Cheryl K. Chumley, “Western States Seek Control of Federal Lands,” NewsMax,April 21, 2014, at http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Cliven-Bundy-Western-federal-lands/2014/04/21/id/566804/.

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with the ALEC-originated and Patriot militia-copied county

coordination with the federal government and ending up with the

transfer of federal land to the western states and “disarm[ing]

federal bureaucrats.” The John Birch Society article noted that

Shea/COWS were following the “excellent, proven process for

transferring federally managed lands into state control…laid out

by the American Lands Council and others.”143 While “others” was

not further defined, it is obvious the John Birch Society was

referring to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Matt

Shea’s effort may be a method of forging ALEC/ALC links with

state legislators who are closer to the Patriot conspiracy

culture of the New World Order/Agenda21 than Ken Ivory.

More interestingly, Matt Shea, like Ken Ivory before him,

revealed that the real goal was to privatize federal lands that

the western states would acquire. Shea’s understanding of basic

facts in American history and the U.S. Constitution, which is the

basis for his advocacy of transferring federal land to the

states, is as flawed as his Christian Right thinking on the 143 Alex Newman, “Lawmakers Unveil Plan to Liberate Western Lands and Evict Feds,” The New American (John Birch Society), April 23, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18114-lawmakers-unveil-plan-to-liberate-western-lands-and-evict-feds.

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existence of FEMA death camps and climate change as a hoax. Like

Ivory, Shea believes the federal government has reneged on its

(non-existent) promise to transfer control of the federal lands

once the territories became states. Shea also believes—contrary

to the actual language in the various western enabling acts—that

“in the long term, some of the land wrested from the federal

government should be sold off to private parties ‘as required in

the enabling acts of most of the states,’ Rep. Shea continued,”

according to the John Birch Society article.144 Again, Shea like

Ivory, completely chose to ignore the actual language of the

various enabling acts in which the states forever disclaim any

right to title of the federal lands within their state

boundaries. Moreover, nowhere in the enabling acts does it

require the land to be sold off. Usually, proceeds from those

public lands are used to fund education.

Westerners Reject the ALEC/ALC Land Transfer Agenda

None of these activities by the American Legislative

Exchange Council and the American Lands Council have gone 144 Alex Newman, “Lawmakers Unveil Plan to Liberate Western Lands and Evict Feds,” The New American (John Birch Society), April 23, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18114-lawmakers-unveil-plan-to-liberate-western-lands-and-evict-feds.

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unnoticed by progressive analysts and Western newspapers.

Jessica Goad, writing for the Center for Western Priorities,

noted that “it’s worth remembering that Bundy’s fringe ideas are

mirrored by current efforts in many Western states to seize

federal lands.” She also noted that state legislators had taken

to social media with the Twitter hashtag “biggerthanbundy.” She

quoted from a Los Angeles Times editorial, “‘There might be a

legitimate political question as to whether the federal

government has done a good job of owning and managing so much

land. But these reborn Sagebrush Rebellion efforts are a waste of

time and taxpayer money and are steeped more in a reactionary

embrace of states’ rights than civic leadership. The courts, and

the voters, should stand firmly against these expensive

distractions.’”145

The editorial board of the Arizona Central opined, “Bundy now

qualifies as an unofficial god-king of the new Sagebrush

Rebellion—the always smoldering, sometimes simmering resistance

in the Southwest to federal land ownership. He also has become 145 Jessica Goad, “Yes, It’s #BiggerThanBundy—Efforts to Seize Your Public Lands Have Only Just Begun,” Center for Western Priorities, April 29, 2014, athttp://westernpriorities.org/2014/04/29/yes-its-biggerthanbundy-efforts-to-seize-your-public-lands-have-only-just-begun/.

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the patron saint of a substantial portion of the Arizona

Legislature…. The top priority at the capitol this entire session

has not been about doing the state’s business, but about striking

utterly meaningless blows at the feds…. Or as in past sessions,

attempting to wrest federal forest land to state control.”146

The editorial board of the Star Tribune in Wyoming was equally

scathing in its assessment of the renewed Sagebrush Rebellion

undertaken by Wyoming’s state legislature calling it a “ceaseless

and pointless crusade.” The paper took direct aim at the

ideological underpinning of the American Lands Council: “We

consider this continual fool’s errand an embarrassment, and we

are left incredulous by the rationale that we hear for it…. To

achieve statehood, Wyoming had to relinquish claims to federal

land, as did the other states whose lawmakers have joined the

Sagebrush Rebellion. The terms are spelled out quite clearly in

the state constitution, and committee members’ attempts to claim

otherwise defy belief.”147

146 Editorial Board, “Arizona lawmakers pointlessly charge Bunkerville Hill,” Arizona Central, April 15, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/04/15/az-lawmakers-charge-bunkerville-hill/7755113/.

147 Star Tribune (Wyoming), “Editorial board: We’re brushing off the Sagebrush Rebellion,” April 10, 2014, at http://trib.com/opinion/editorial/we-re-

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And, Utah’s Salt Lake Tribune, which has examined Utah

representative Ken Ivory’s American Lands Council close-up and at

length and understands its wider appeal in the West called his

effort a “public land scam” and an effort to “bamboozle Utah

voters and county officials” in an effort to garner votes,

campaign contributions, and dues for his ALC. According to the

conservative newspaper, “Actually, the issue is quite simple.

All that land belongs, lock, stock and title, to the people of

the United States of America. Even if the phrase in the Utah

Enabling Act really means that the public land in the state must

be sold, the fact that it hasn’t been sold to private interests

does not mean that Congress is now obligated to give—give—that

land to the tender mercies of a state government that is clearly

much more likely to have it grazed, drilled, mined and excavated

than its current managers are now authorizing.”148

Not only have major newspapers viewed the Republican effort to

force the federal government to relinquish public lands to

brushing-off-this-rebellion/article_7d901adb-d721-582e-8b90-be06dccfb258.html.

148 Salt Lake Tribune, “Editorial: Political groups pursue a public land scam,” June 4, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58027221-82/utah-state-lands-http.html.csp.

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Western states and then to multinational corporations, but large

majorities of Western publics reject this approach.

As early as 2011, an article in the Denver Post by researchers

with the State of the Rockies Project noted that although the

federal government owned 39 percent of the total land in

Colorado, or 37.4 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land

Management, that Republicans were “out of sync with Coloradans

and other Westerners.” House Republicans wanted to reduce

“environmental restrictions and demand that more land be opened

for mining, timber, and oil companies.” Walter Hecox and Mark

Barna reported the results of a bipartisan poll of 2,200

registered voters in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and

Wyoming. Among their findings, they reported that as of January

2011, 77 percent “believe that stringent environmental standards

and a strong economy can co-exist” and that 81 percent “believe

environmental laws should not be relaxed for oil, gas, and mining

companies.” And, 75 percent “view wind and solar power as job

creators and better energy sources than fossil fuels.” Public

support for protecting the environment in the five Western states

was quite strong regarding specific measures. Between 72 and 79

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percent believed that “environmental protections should be

maintained;” between 56 and 70 percent believed that the “EPA

should closely regulate carbon emissions;” and, between 80 and 87

percent believe that “even with state budget problems, money can

still be found to protect the environment.”149

The January 2014 public opinion survey in Arizona, Colorado,

Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming150 again found strong

support for protecting the environment and favorable views of the

federal government’s main agencies for managing public lands in

the West, though support for the Bureau of Land Management (52 to

23 percent approve/disapprove) is the lowest among the four main

agencies, the National Park Service (84 to 9 percent), the U.S.

Forest Service (73 to 13 percent), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service (69 to 10 percent). Those who were sportsmen, self-

identified conservationists, those who visit public lands, and

149 Walter E. Hecox and Mark Barna, “Western Values,” Denver Post, April 17, 2011, at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/other/stateoftherockies/conservationinthewest/2011/2011CWPDP.pdf.

150 Colorado College, State of the Rockies Project, Conservation in the West Executive Summary, January 2014, at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/other/stateoftherockies/conservationinthewest/2014/14CWPExecSummary.pdf.

142

Latino voters were most supportive. Even self-identified Tea

Party members had favorable views of the four federal agencies:

National Park Service (76 to 17 percent), Fish and Wildlife

Service (64 to 19 percent), Forest Service (61 to 24 percent),

and the Bureau of Land Management (45 to 32 percent). By an

overwhelming 83 to 13 percent margin, publics in these states

believed that “Funding for national parks, national forests and

other public lands should not be cut, as it provides a big return

for a small investment.”151

Consistent with the findings of the 2011 survey published in

the Denver Post, majorities in the six Western states favor

restrictions on oil and gas drilling on public lands and support

the Bureau of Land Management’s “Master Leasing Planning” tool.

In 2013, 56 percent, and in 2014, 52 percent, believed “Some

public lands should be drilled, while environmentally sensitive

places should be permanently protected.” By contrast, 25 percent

(2013) and 26 percent (2014) believed “Oil and gas drilling

should be strictly limited.” Just under 20 percent in both years

151 Colorado College, State of the Rockies Project, Governance of Conservation, January 2014, at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/22c30ba6-3f14-44f3-ab31-81887d8ec68e.pdf.

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endorsed the Koch-funded campaigns of “Drill, Baby, Drill,” that

is, believing “Public lands should generally be open to oil and

gas drilling.” The BLM’s “Master Leasing Plan” is a tool that

designates some areas for oil and gas exploration and “create[s]

protections where needed for wildlife, water, and historical

sites.” In every state surveyed, support for the BLM’s plan

never dipped below 62 percent (Colorado) and opposition did not

rise above 25 percent (Arizona). The researchers found that

support for the BLM’s MLP “extends across virtually all sub-

groups—including Tea Party supporters.”152

The 2013 and 2014 public opinion surveys of those six states also

found strong opposition to selling public lands to pay off or pay

down “the deficit.” In 2013, a 67 to 27 percent majority opposed

selling public lands for this purpose and in 2014, the same

position was held by an even larger majority, 74 to 19 percent,

with 58 percent strongly opposing selling public lands.

Opposition to selling public lands cut across party lines with 64

percent of Republicans, 74 percent of Independents, and 85

152 Colorado College, State of the Rockies Project, Oil and Gas Development, January 2014, at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/525b80a5-f29b-4587-a1c8-16d1dd0cff46.pdf.

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percent of Democrats opposed. And, when provided summaries of

the arguments for and against selling public lands, 71 percent of

all respondents opposed selling public lands to reduce the

deficit. Strong support for protecting federal public lands was

associated with visiting these natural areas and believing that

having these federal lands open to the public was good for small

businesses and community economies.153

A bipartisan survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies

and FM3 of 1,600 landline and cell phone interviews in eight

states—Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah

and Wyoming—found a strong majority opposing the sale of public

lands. The researchers reported that the “survey finds that

voters in these states—including among all key demographic sub-

groups and across the partisan spectrum—are likely to reject a

proposal to have state government assume full control of and the

costs associated with managing public lands currently managed by

national government agencies. This preference grows stronger

after voters hear viewpoints on both sides of this issue. Their

153 Colorado College, State of the Rockies Project, Public Lands, January 2014, at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/f0d3d63c-aad8-477e-bfdc-fa7d780a1d53.pdf.

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position may in part be grounded in the vast majority’s

perception of these places more as ‘American places,’ than as

places for their state.” The study also found that the surveyed

Western publics had favorable views of the federal agencies

managing the public lands but “they tend to disapprove of the job

the ‘federal government’ is doing generically.”154

For the entire sample, a majority, 52 to 42 percent, oppose

having all the federal lands and financial responsibilities for

those lands transferred to their state. The most passionate are

those who strongly oppose (31 percent) rather than strongly

support (19 percent). Majorities in six of the states oppose,

while Wyoming is divided and a “bare majority” (52 percent) in

Utah support the land and financial transfer. That makes sense

because the Republican-dominated Utah has passed legislation

demanding that the federal government turn over the land. All

political sub-groups, with the exception of conservative

Republicans, oppose transferring the land and responsibilities to

154 FM3 and Public Opinion Strategies, “Western Voter Attitudes Toward Management of Public Lands,” Center for American Progress, September 23, 2014,at http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-Western-Voter-Attitudes-Toward-Management-of-Public-Lands_analysis.pdf.

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the states: 67 percent of moderate to liberal Democrats, 50

percent of conservative Democrats, and 53 percent of Independents

and moderate to liberal Republicans. Conservative Republicans by

a 54 to 38 percent margin support the land transfer. However,

after hearing arguments used by proponents and opponents of the

land transfer, opposition to the land transfer grows to a 59 to

35 percent majority. After hearing arguments for and against,

opposition to the land transfer among sub-groups is: conservative

Democrats, 67 percent, and increase of 17 percentage points;

moderates, 67 percent, an increase of 14 points; women under 45

years of age, 65 percent, an increase of 15 points; suburban

voters, 65 percent, an increase of 11 points; Latino voters, 58

percent, an increase of 11 points; and, men under 45 years of

age, 57 percent, an increase of 14 points.155 Clare Moser, a

researcher who follows the public lands issue for the Center for

Western Priorities and Think Progress, noted that the 59 to 35

percent majority that opposes the land transfer does so because

they believe “that state efforts to take over America’s public 155 FM3 and Public Opinion Strategies, “Western Voter Attitudes Toward Management of Public Lands,” Center for American Progress, September 23, 2014,at http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-Western-Voter-Attitudes-Toward-Management-of-Public-Lands_analysis.pdf.

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lands would be unfair to taxpayers, resulting in increased taxes,

reduced access for recreation and a high risk of the lands being

sold off to the highest bidder.” Moser quoted the president of

FM3 polling firm that the results show that “‘rather than

supporting land transfer proposals, voters say their top

priorities are to ensure public lands are protected for future

generations and that the rangers and land managers have the

resources they need to do their jobs.’”156

Thus, given the findings of public opinion polls over the past

four years, it is not surprising that the American Legislative

Exchange Council’s front man and corporate stooge, Utah

representative Ken Ivory, has turned to motivating conservative

Christians and conservative Republicans in the Tea Party movement

and the Patriot movement.

Ken Ivory and American Lands Council Network with the Patriot

Movement

With the one-day land grab strategy conference for state

legislators in Salt Lake City over, Ken Ivory’s American Lands 156 Claire Moser, “New Poll: Westerners Oppose Right-Wing Efforts To Seize And Sell National Parks, Forests And Public Lands,” Think Progress, September 25, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/25/3572341/westerners-oppose-seizing-public-lands/.

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Council apparently grew in paid membership157 and Ivory began more

openly cooperating with Stewart Rhodes’ Oath Keepers and Richard

Mack’s Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, as

well as hobnobbing with proponents of the Agenda21 conspiracy

theory. While Ivory is not known to be a proponent of the

NWO/Agenda21 conspiracy theory, his presence lends credence to it

and further energizes a different segment of the right-wing in

favor of its plutocratic, corporate agenda. Thus, the American

Legislative Exchange Council, the American Lands Council, and

Americans For Prosperity through Utah and Washington state

representatives Ken Ivory and Matt Shea, respectively, were

networking with the Patriot movement.

Another example is the interlocking relationship between

Mack’s CSPOA and Peggy Littleton, El Paso County (Colorado)

county commissioner, who sits on CSPOA’s advisory board.

157 Penny Preston, “Park County Commissioners Vote To Help Acquire Federal Lands,” Wyoming Public Media, May 7, 2014, at http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/park-county-commissioners-vote-help-acquire-federal-lands. Steve Browne, “County pays $5K to join ‘Sagebrush 2,’”Cody Enterprise (Wyoming), May 12, 2014, at http://www.codyenterprise.com/news/local/article_7b614a72-da15-11e3-99d3-0019bb2963f4.html. Matt Lee-Ashley, “How Politicians Are Using Taxpayer MoneyTo Fund Their Campaign To Sell Off America’s Public Lands,” Think Progress, June 18, 2014, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/18/3450397/politicians-taxpayer-money-seize-public-lands/.

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Littleton has networked with the Christian Right’s Eagle Forum

and worked with Oath Keepers to promote a Second Amendment

resolution at the county level—an effort that both CSPOA and Oath

Keepers have promoted. Littleton has spoken at two CSPOA

national conventions and “she agrees with Mack that the

Constitution makes the sheriff the highest law in the land.”158

Littleton homeschooled her three children, and was on the faculty

at the Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy and Colorado Springs

Christian School. She pushed the conspiracy theory “that

jihadist charter schools were being set up across the United

States” with assistance from President Obama. She supports

abstinence-only sex education and raised money for a group

promoting the execution of gays in Uganda. She is a paid member

of the Heartland Institute which promotes climate change

denialism.159

158 J. Adrian Stanley, “Fed up! Her link to a group at an armed Nevada protest puts Peggy Littleton at the anti-fed forefront,” Colorado Springs Independent, July23-29, 2014, at http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/her-link-to-a-group-at-an-armed-nevada-protest-puts-peggy-littleton-at-the-anti-fed-forefront/Content?oid=2916194.

159 J. Adrian Stanley, “Here’s Peggy,” Colorado Springs Independent, July 23, 2014, at http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/those-who-have-followed-peggy-littletons-career-shouldnt-be-too-surprised-at-how-well-she-aligns-with-people-like-richard-mack-or-others-on/Content?oid=2916198.

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On May 4, 2014, Ken Ivory made his way to an “American

Freedom Alliance” conference in Los Angeles that featured a bevy

of Agenda21 conspiracy theorists and Richard Mack, the traveling

evangelist link to the Tea Party and Patriot movements, as well

as the Oath Keepers director for Southern California, and a

prominent Tea Party Patriots speaker formerly with the nativist

anti-immigrant white nationalist movement. The conference was

sponsored by Americans For Prosperity, Oath Keepers, and the Tea

Party Coalition.160 This is the clearest and most direct link

between the plutocratic/corporate agenda (Americans For

Prosperity) and the Patriot movement with its links into

mainstream conservatives in the military (Oath Keepers) and law

enforcement (Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers

Association), as well as the Christian Right’s Patriot militias.

The ostensible purpose of the conference was to save water

for California’s “Central Valley farmers [who] are under siege”

because the drought has reduced their available water by 40

percent while “water, vital to the sustenance of crops, is

160 American Freedom Alliance (California), “California Land and Water Wars: The Green Agenda to Destroy Your Property Rights,” May 4, 2014, at http://www.americanfreedomalliance.org/lectureseries-californialandandwaterwars.jsp.

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currently being siphoned off to protect certain fish species

believed to be endangered. The emphasis on saving wildlife at

the expense of human need…” According to a Reuters report on the

ruling by Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, a

“consistent conservative” appointee of President George W. Bush,

Bybee upheld the scientific judgment of the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service to reduce water flowing from Northern California

into the Central Valley and Southern California. Judge Bybee

stated that the intent of Congress to save endangered species was

clear, even though congressional intent would have “‘enormous

practical implications.’”161

Joining Richard Mack at the Los Angeles conference were the

comedian Paul Rodriguez who’s mother’s farm was “sequestrated

illegally,” whatever that means; Debbi Bacigalupi, a self-

described “modern day Paul Revere” who while galloping through

libraries as an “avid researcher for truth” also works tirelessly

“exposing the details of United Nations Agenda21 and its

exhaustive web;” Michael Coffman, a steady participant in the

161 Dan Levine (Reuters), “In drought-stricken California, court rules smelt fish get water,” News Yahoo, March 13, 2014, at http://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-rules-against-california-growers-over-delta-171127349--finance.html.

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Christian Right-linked Freedom21 conferences (see Chapter 3),

billed as “an original expert regarding the land use component of

Agenda21;” David Spady, the California state director for

Americans For Prosperity and the director of government

communications for the Salem Communications Corporation; separate

reporting indicates that the president of Salem Communications,

Edward Atsinger, has been since at least 1993 a member of the

Council for National Policy and was involved in promoting in

Intelligent Design as a culture wedge issue;162 Spady, according

to the conference’s biographical blurb, stated he had produced a

documentary film on “how the Endangered Species Act places the

interests of wild animals above those of mankind;” also at the

conference was Tim Donnelly, a member of the California Assembly

from San Bernardino and founder of “the largest Minuteman chapter

162 Skipp Porteus, “Council for National Policy members hold cloistered sessionin Saint Louis,” Institute for First Amendment Studies/Political Research Associates, January 1994, at http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9401/cnp.html. Institute for First Amendment Studies, “Sampling of CNP Members,” Political Research Associates January-February 1996, at http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9601/members.html. Institute for First Amendment Studies, “1998 CNP membership by name,” SeekGod, no date, accessed May 7, 2009, at http://www.seekgod.ca/1998cnp.htm. The Yurica Report, ‟The Wedge Strategy: How to Win the Scientific War Against Evolution,” Discovery Institute memo leaked, at http://www.yuricareport.com/Strategies_Propaganda/TheWedgeStrategy.html. Wikipedia, ‟Arlington Group,” no date, accessed February 24, 2012, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_Group.

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in California;” separate reporting indicates that Donnelly is a

member of the State Legislators for Legal Immigration coalition

which works in partnership with the white nationalist Federation

for American Immigration Reform to undermine the guarantee of

U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment;163 Donnelly was

also part of the metamorphosis of the hardline anti-immigration

movement into the Tea Party movement;164 also at the conference

was Piedada (actually spelled Piedad) Ayala, a central valley

farmer supposedly under “merciless attack” from several federal

and state agencies “for attempting to launch a grass-roots 163 Southern Poverty Law Center, “SPLC Report Examines Extremist Views of Lawmakers Attacking 14th Amendment,” March 9, 2011, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-report-examines-extremist-views-of-lawmakers-attacking-14th-amendment. Heidi Beirich, “Attacking the Constitution: State Legislators for Legal Immigration & the Anti-Immigrant Movement,” Southern Poverty Law Center, March 2011, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/attacking-the-constitution-slli-and-the-anti-immigrant-movement. Heidi Beirich, Attacking the Constitution: StateLegislators for Legal Immigration, Southern Poverty Law Center, March 2011, at http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/Attacking-the-Constitution.pdf.

164 Gaitra Bahadur, “Nativist Militias Get A Tea-Party Makeover,” The Nation, October 28, 2010, at http://www.thenation.com/article/155641/nativist-militias-get-tea-party-makeover. David Holthouse, “Dangerous Levels of Overlap Between Xenophobic ‘Minuteman’ Movement and Tea Party,” AlterNet, May 30, 2011, at http://www.alternet.org/story/151070/dangerous_levels_of_overlap_between_xenophobic_%27minuteman%27_movement_and_tea_party. Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind, “Beyond FAIR: The Decline of the Established Anti-Immigrant Organizations and the Rise of Tea Party Nativism,” Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, January 17, 2012 at http://irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/beyond-fair-report.

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campaign against Agenda21 and the water shut-offs to his lands”

which started after “he was on Fox News with Sean Hannity and

organized the march up highway 5 to the main water pump station

to demand they turn the water on;” while the conference published

the wrong website address for his farm, he is a “farmer” in the

sense that he raises “bloodline” horses; another participant at

the conference was John Oetken, the co-director of Oath Keepers

in Orange County and the director of Oath Keepers for Southern

California; the final participant at the conference was Marc

Harris, identified in the conference biography as “a very active

political advocate, blogger, speaker, and organizer whose focus

is on educating the public on the facts associated with the false

and biased junk-science presented by the far-left to advance a

purely political agenda.” An investigative report by Charles

Tanner for the Institute for Research and Education on Human

Rights reported that Harris was the “coordinator of the Tea Party

of Northern Orange County and 9-12 West,” while a Tea Party

Patriot page described him as an “‘active member of Tea Party

Patriots since March 2008 [sic].’” The Tea Party group’s

speakers bureau page also described Harris’ political motivation

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as developing from his interest in “‘Agenda21 and the significant

degree to which the UN, Marxists, and other socialist/globalist

forces have infiltrated American government;’” Harris has

publicly supported the “Queen Bee” birther Orly Taitz.165

After the Los Angeles conference sponsored by Americans For

Prosperity and Oath Keepers, Ken Ivory showed up in Virginia

City, Montana where he was hosted by the Madison County Tea

Party. Elias Alias, the national editor of the Oath Keepers

blog, called all Oath Keepers in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to

attend. Alias claimed “Americans are learning about what is

behind the deliberate mismanagement of our lands—the Green

movement in general, operating under the umbrella of the United

Nations’ ‘Agenda21’ program.”166

From Montana, Ken Ivory travelled to Josephine County,

Oregon, where he was hosted by a Richard Mack-linked

165 Charles Tanner, Jr., “White, Far Right and Armed: Tea Party and Militias Mobilize to Defend Nevada County Supremacy Activist,” Institute for Research on Education and Human Rights, April 17, 2014, at http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/item/553-bundy-standoff.166 Elias Alias (editor), “Utah Rep. Ken Ivory At Virginia City Montana This Week,” Oath Keepers, May 19, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/05/19/utah-rep-ken-ivory-at-virginia-city-montana-this-week/.

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constitutional sheriff named Gil Gilbertson and a group called

VACATE, the initials standing for “Valiantly Affirming

Constitutional Authority Through Education.” The local newspaper

article noted that one of “Ivory’s handouts stated that $150

trillion worth of minerals were locked up in those lands.” The

John Birch Society and “Paul Walter had a table set up to

publicize his newswithviews.com website.”167 The VACATE group,

also known as “The Liberators” advertised that “Attorney and Utah

State Representative Ken Ivory, one of the authors and architects

of Utah’s Statehood Bill, will talk about solutions that can

be put in place now and SAVE our forests, wildlife, plant life,

fish, water and most importantly, OUR LIVELIHOOD!” (emphasis in

original).168 While the flier made no mention of the American

Lands Council, Ivory’s presentation featured its signature map

showing federal control of lands west of the Mississippi. In his

presentation, Ivory told the audience of about 100 that the

167 Shaun Hall, “Rally calls for end to federal government control of lands,” Blue Mountain Eagle/Grants Pass Daily Courier (Oregon), June 9, 2014, at http://www.bluemountaineagle.com/rally-calls-for-end-to-federal-government-control-of-lands-publish2_ap_a03f8f2c5cd2d2af5629d447f1027b27#.U5iQCvldUjk.

168 The Liberators—V.A.C.A.T.E., “Solution Revolution Flier,” no date, accessedAugust 8, 2014, at http://liberators2004.org/gpage4.html.

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American Lands Council was formed by local county commissioners

and conveyed the impression that this effort was about local

control and grassroots efforts, never mentioning at the start of

his presentation that the American Legislative Exchange Council

had pre-approved his Utah legislation and that he was,

essentially, the front man for ALEC. He did mention that there

was $150 trillion dollars’ worth of wealth embedded in the

federal lands that western states and communities needed to get

to. The VACATE group is a Patriot group supporting

constitutional originalism and sheriff supremacy.

Sheriff Gilbertson is closely linked to Richard Mack’s

organization. In 2011, Gilbertson posted articles at the News

With Views website, which just happened to be where Edwin Vieira

published his lengthy articles supporting the revival of the

militia, the return to the gold standard, the evils of the

Federal Reserve System, the growing national security police

state apparatus, and the coming economic collapse of the United

States that would lead the Christian Right into power.

Gilbertson came to the attention of Oath Keepers via a News With

Views article in which he protested against the Forest Service’s

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“illegal road closures, grazing, logging, minerals, taking land

under the auspices of ‘Monument’ status, citizen complaints

against your LEO [law enforcement officers] agents, high

unemployment and other socio-economic issues we all face today;

coupled with the uncooperative nature presented by the USFS are

causing me great concern about our relationship and future

cooperation.”169

In January 2012, Sheriff Gilbertson, who was on the board of

directors of CSPOA, was joined by five other “constitutional

sheriffs” at the first annual convention of Mack’s Constitutional

Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association along with Sheriff Tony

DeMeo (Nye County, NV), Sheriff Jon Lopey (Siskiyou County, CA),

Sheriff Glenn Palmer (Grant County, OR), Sheriff Jim Alderden

(Larimer County, CO), and Sheriff Brad Rogers (Elkhart County,

IN). This is the same convention discussed in Chapter 19 which

featured key Christian Right and Patriot speakers such as Stewart

Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers; Larry Pratt, head of Gun Owners

of America and the key link between the Christian Right and the 169 Sarah Foster (News With Views), “Oregon Sheriff Stands Up To USFS With Class,” Oath Keepers, July 13, 2011, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/07/13/oregon-sheriff-stands-up-to-usfs-with-class/.

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formation of Patriot militias in the 1990s; Thomas Woods, a close

Ron Paul collaborator and major Catholic/neo-Confederate advocate

of nullification; Michael Badnarik, the president of the Ron Paul

Campaign for Liberty’s, Constitution Party’s, and Libertarian

Party’s self-styled “continental congress” that re-launched the

Patriot militia and its larger Patriot movement; and, Tom

DeWeese, the right-wing’s major “expert” and proponent of the

Agenda21 conspiracy theory.170

Ken Ivory and his American Lands Council function as the

mouthpiece and front man for the American Legislative Exchange

Council and the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity. He can

easily make presentations to state legislatures and mingle with

state legislators and corporate chieftains. Ivory also serves to

spread the message to the right-wing grassroots spanning the Tea

Party movement and the Patriot movement. He is as comfortable

spreading his bogus interpretations of the U.S. Constitution and

the enabling acts of western states as he is mingling and sharing

ideas with New World Order/Agenda21 conspiracy theorists. In 170 Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association, “Stand Up for the 10th

Amendment & Attend the Constitutional Sheriffs Convention Jan 30!,” no date, accessed January 27, 2014, at http://www.countysheriffproject.org/CSPOA_Invitation_Dec29.2011.pdf.

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fact, his seeming ability to straddle both sides of the right-

wing—the mainstream political world of Republican legislatures

and corporate chieftains, the Christian Right and the Tea Party

movement, and the further segments of the Patriot movement—serve

to legitimize and reinforce these conspiracy theories and draw

the Patriot movement closer to conservative mainstream activism

in support of a plutocratic/corporate agenda. Analyses that

focus solely on the Patriot movement miss this key element: the

ideas of the fringe are merely reproducing what is emanating from

the Republican mainstream. This can be seen when we turn to the

rhetoric of the John Birch Society and the Tenth Amendment Center

regarding the federal transfer of land to the western states.

Oath Keepers and CSPOA as Agents of Influence for ALEC

The link of Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and

Peace Officers Association with the ALEC corporate land grab was

integral to the overall strategy.

In Chapter 18 we established that Edwin Vieira’s strategic

writings and thinking had been incorporated into Oath Keepers.

One aspect of Vieira’s thinking bears noting again—his view that

lands owned by the federal government should be transferred to

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the states and then privatized in order to pay off or pay down

the national debt. In part 4 of his four-part “Cross of Debt”

article published in February 2012, in the midst of the American

Legislative Exchange Council’s propaganda and policy revival of

the Sagebrush Rebellion III and its “demand” for Congress to

transfer such lands to the states, Vieira wrote, “this method of

paying off the public debt would liquidate the vast holdings of

territory for which the United States lack any constitutional

sanction, and return ownership, use, and regulatory authority

over these lands to the States and private parties, where they

belong.”171

Oath Keepers followed suit during the Cliven Bundy stiff-arm

of the federal courts and federal law enforcement.

An April 10, 2014, press release issued by Oath Keepers

(Stewart Rhodes), the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers

Association (Richard Mack), and the Coalition of Western State

Legislators (Matt Shea) called on members and/or like-minded

ideological partisans to “stand in defense of hardworking rural

171 Edwin Vieira, Jr., “A Cross of Debt, Part 4 of 4,” News With Views, February 10, 2012, at http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin244.htm.

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Americans who are under assault by a runaway federal government.”

Their explicit purpose was to “stand vigil at the Bundy ranch to

prevent Federal Government provocation of violence resulting in

another Ruby Ridge or Waco type incident” in order to prompt the

local sheriff and Nevada’s governor “to honor their oaths of

office by taking real action to defend the rights of the Bundy

family, the rights of all Nevadans, and the sovereignty of the

State of Nevada.”172

The Rhodes-Mack-Shea press release reiterated the talking

points previously made by ALEC, the Heritage Foundation, and the

National Center For Public Policy Research that the federal

government was depriving western residents of the states the full

and rapid exploitation of natural resources, with an added hint

of the Agenda21 conspiracy theory. According to the three

leaders, “It’s about a systemic power grab and abuse of power by

the federal government as it runs roughshod over the rights of

172 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

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honest, hard-working rural Americans and over the rights of all

the Western states…. It is but the latest in a long train of

abuses aimed at subjecting rural Americans to absolute despotism

while destroying the property rights, economy, and independence

of the rural West, in particular, and eventually wiping out all

of rural America…. It is also mining, farming, logging, fishing,

oil and gas, and any other industry that uses natural resources

or the land.   This is a full spectrum, frontal assault on the

rural West.   Ultimately, it is about bankrupting and

impoverishing independent rural Americans to bring on a planned

depopulation of the West.”173 As we will see below, this idea

that federal policy is to “depopulate” or “cleanse” the West of

ranchers is widespread among the right-wing.

While the “depopulation of the West” alluded to the Agenda21

conspiracy theory, the three leaders then re-emphasized that

point to make the reference more explicit to those aware of

173 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

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right-wing rhetoric. They wrote that unless they took action

“the domestic enemies of the Constitution will not stop until the

West is a land of ghost towns, devoid of people, and we are all

crammed into city slums, totally dependent and weak, with no

protection of our rights, like third-world urbanized peons under

the arbitrary and capricious control of corrupt dictators.”174

And, they concluded their article by coming in full support

of the Christian Right’s position (ALEC, Heritage Foundation)

that Nevada owned the land, not the federal government. The

three leaders asked, “When did the Federal government purchase

the millions of acres in Nevada it claims to own? When did the

legislature of Nevada ever consent to it? Where are the forts,

magazine, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings on

that land? Where in the Constitution does it say the federal

government can keep 80% of a state when it is admitted into the

Union? Nowhere. And yet the federal government totally ignores

the limited powers of Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, doctrine 174 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

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of equal footing, whereby new states admitted to the Union were

to enter it on an equal footing with the original states.”175

Actually, the answers to their questions are quite basic and

rooted in an easily accessible history. The Nevada lands came

from the defeat of Mexico—thus there was no purchase. But, if

there is a rightful owner, then surely it is the local Native

American tribes who should have the lands transferred to them.

As Vicky Meretsky and Robert Fischman, professors of

environmental policy and law, respectively, at Indiana University

wrote in response to Becky Norton’s essay, “Given the history of

land ownership in the West, any ceding of land should, in

fairness, go to the Indian tribes that originally occupied the

lands; the events that brought those lands into federal ownership

were hardly shining examples of honest dealing.” And, they

noted, “The United States acquired the land by war or

negotiations with tribes and colonizing European nations. Newly

175 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

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created states relinquished claims to federal lands in exchange

for generous land grants supporting public schools and other

government functions.”176

The Salt Lake Tribune conducted a debate between proponents of the

transfer of federal land to the state of Utah, state

representative Ken Ivory (Utah) and Utah House Speaker Rebecca

Lockhart, and opponents, Dan McCool, a professor of political

science at the University of Utah, and former director of the

Bureau of Land Management during the Clinton administration, Pat

Shea. McCool directly rebutted the common charge that the

federal government had broken its promise to turn the land over

to Utah by quoting from the state’s Enabling Act passed by

Congress in 1894, which admitted Utah to the Union: “That the

people inhabiting said proposed State do agree and declare that

they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated

public lands lying within the boundaries thereof.”177 In a 176 Vicky J. Meretsky and Robert L. Fischman, “Con: Ceding land to states is short-sighted economically; historically and legally wrong,” Gazette Extra (Walworth County, Wisconsin), May 22, 2014, at http://www.gazettextra.com/article/20140522/ARTICLES/140529878.

177 Brian Maffly, “Panel debates who is best suited to manage Utah’s public lands,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 14, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57942898-90/utah-ivory-lands-federal.html.csp.

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subsequent article published in the Salt Lake Tribune, McCool argued

against three myths that Ivory and his American Lands Council

perpetrated. It was not true “that the federal government made a

promise to give public lands to states.” The U.S. Constitution

gives Congress the sole power to determine what shall be done

with public lands and there are no U.S. Supreme Court decisions

supporting that myth, according to McCool. The second myth is

that when a territory became a state that the federal government

would transfer public land to the state. McCool again pointed

out that Utah’s Enabling Act specifically waived all claims to

federal lands within the state as a condition of being admitted

to the Union. And, the third myth is that Utah’s legislation

which was written and championed by Ivory would “‘get back’ these

lands for Utah.” McCool explained that the federal lands in

question had been seized from Mexico and from American Indian

tribes. In other words, the federal lands in question had never

belonged to Utah, and by logical extension to any other western

state. McCool argued that the “real issue is whether the

American people (314 million of them) want to give, for free,

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trillions of dollars of land and resources to the state of

Utah.”178 Identical or similar language can be found in the

enabling acts of Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada,

and Idaho.179

Finally, the three Patriot leaders re-stated what is Christian

Reconstructionist and Mormon Constitutional doctrine—not Posse

Comitatus ideology: “It is vital that the Western States stand

up now for the rights of their people and in defense of their

state sovereignty…. it is the duty of the states—all three

branches of the state, and at every level, from the Governor down

to the local dog catcher—to nullify and interpose to protect the

rights of the people and to defend the dual-sovereignty design of

this Republic.”180

178 Dan McCool, “Op-ed: 3 myths power effort to give federal lands to Utah,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 3, 2014, at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58143192-82/lands-state-utah-federal.html.csp.

179 Jessica Goad and Tom Kenworthy, “State Efforts To ‘Reclaim’ Our Public Lands Traced To Koch-Fueled ALEC,” Think Progress, March 11, 2013, at http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/11/1698221/state-efforts-to-reclaim-our-public-lands-traced-to-alec/.

180 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

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The doctrine is specifically not Posse Comitatus ideology

because it calls for nullification of unconstitutional acts and

the interposition of “lesser magistrates” from the “Governor down

to the local dog catcher” between the federal government and

local citizens. Frederick Clarkson, one of the country’s top

experts on Christian Reconstructionist ideology, explained in a

1998 article for the Southern Poverty Law Center the

“Reconstructionist justification for revolution under ‘lesser

magistrates’—a doctrine under which biblical rebels need only

enlist lower-level government officials in order to win divine

sanction for political insurrection against government.”181 In a

2014 article at Talk to Action, Clarkson further explained that

Christian Reconstructionists promulgate a doctrine that can be

clearly discerned influencing Oath Keepers, the CSPOA, and the

larger Patriot movement. These Christian Right and Patriot

movement strategists and operators “believe that holding local

office empowers them to defy state and federal law under the

rubric of an ancient concept called The Doctrine of the Lower 181 Frederick Clarkson, “Anti-Abortion Extremists: ‘Patriots’ and racists converge,” Intelligence Report Summer 1998, Southern Poverty Law Center, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/1998/summer/anti-abortion-extremists.

170

Civil Magistrate…. The Doctrine of the Lesser Civil Magistrate...

[which] justifies their view of the nullification-role of county

sheriffs and councilors, has been adopted by conservative

Christian leaders who are opposed to religious pluralism and

separation of church and state, as well as such matters as

abortion, LGBTQ rights, taxes, public education and gun control

laws—roles they say are empowered to overthrow ‘tyrannical

government.’”182

Thus, that is the reason why Rhodes, Mack, and Shea wanted

to prompt the local sheriff and the Nevada governor to take

action to protect Cliven Bundy. Neither the rhetoric nor the

proposed actions are consistent with Posse Comitatus ideology

which allows for the local citizens to call out the Posse, if the

sheriff does not, and to have a “citizens jury” condemn the

sheriff to hang if he does not act in accordance with their

wishes.

Consistent with this call for “lesser magistrates” to

interpose themselves between Cliven Bundy and his militia allies 182 Frederick Clarkson, “GOP Voters In Maryland Face Dilemma As Theocrats Win Party Primaries,” Political Research Associates, July 8, 2014, at http://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/07/08/gop-voters-in-maryland-face-dilemma-as-theocrats-win-party-primaries/.

171

at the ranch and the Bureau of Land Management’s law enforcement

officers, were the state legislators that came to Bundy’s

defense.

The Rhodes-Mack-Shea press release stated that the first “vigil”

at the Cliven Bundy ranch would be taken by Michele Fiore, a

Nevada assembly member. Fiore stated that “‘we are here because

the Governor is not.’  And she will remain there until Governor

Sandoval steps up to do his job, by defending the Constitution of

the United States and the Constitution of the State of Nevada, as

he swore to do when he took office,” according to the press

release.183 In a subsequent interview on MSNBC with Chris Hayes,

Fiore defended vigorously Bundy while stating as fact what were

clearly inaccurate statements. She claimed the Bundy family “‘do

not owe the government a million dollars.’” She then claimed

that if “‘he owes the bill he’s willing to pay it’”—which, of

course, he was not because he did not recognize the federal

183 Stewart Rhodes and Richard Mack, “Press Release: Coalition of Western StateLegislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled NevadaRancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco,’” Oath Keepers, April 10, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/10/coalition-of-western-state-legislators-sheriffs-and-veterans-stand-vigil-in-support-of-embattled-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-%E2%80%98to-prevent-another-ruby-ridge-or-waco%E2%80%9D/.

172

government. Fiore finally came to her main ideological point

regarding the land, namely, “‘I recognize our federal government

overstepped and overreached in our state of Nevada…. We also have

the spotlight on Nevada right now, looking at the way BLM had

zero stewardship in herding cattle, slaughtering cattle.’” While

Fiore was difficult to pin down, at one point she stated, ‘I’m

not saying I agree with Cliven Bundy,’” and she recognized the

authority of the federal government—which Bundy does not—her

other point was that she was there to interpose herself, while

claiming that ordinary Americans can defend themselves against

federal law enforcement. She told Chris Hayes, “‘So, Nevada and

Nevadans and people across America stood together and basically

made a loud and clear statement that we will not allow

governance by gunpoint, ever.’” She essentially closed her

interview on a dangerous note: “‘Great, lien the cows, lien

the property, don’t come here with guns and expect the American

people not to fire back.’”184

184 Michelle Fiore and Mark Potok, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April 18, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55003531/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U1aOC_ldUjk.

173

Mack stated in his newsletter (some bloggers called it a

personal email) that Bundy had substantial support among Arizona

lawmakers. According to the newsletter of his Constitutional

Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Mack claimed that nine

Arizona lawmakers would travel to the Bundy ranch “to support the

movement for freedom there with the Cliven Bundy family.” Of the

nine, two were in leadership positions—Andy Biggs, head of the

state senate, and Dave Livingston, speaker of the Arizona House.

However, of the nine Mack believed would attend based on

information he received from a blogger at the Patriot Action

Network, only three others actually showed up in addition to

Livingston: state senator Kelli Ward and state representatives

Bob Thorpe and Kelly Townsend. Two others not on Mack’s list

also attended: U.S. Representative Paul Gosar and state senator

Judy Burges. Livingston is a true believer, according to the

Arizona Republic which reported that “if he is re-elected, he plans

to introduce legislation in 2015 that would assert the primacy of

county sheriffs in enforcing the law in their counties.”185 It 185 Douglas V. Gibbs, “Constitutional Sheriffs and Oath Keepers Stand With Nevada Rancher,” Political Pisatachio, April 11, 2014, at http://politicalpistachio.blogspot.com/2014/04/constitutional-sheriffs-and-oath.html. Arizona Republic, “Watercooler: Ranch Standoff,” April 15, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/15/capitol/7726397/.

174

appears that the only county sheriff to come to protect Bundy was

the Elkhart County sheriff from Indiana, Brad Rogers. The

DailyKos blogger Merlin1963 reported that Rogers claimed he was

“‘on a peacekeeping mission to keep people from getting killed.’”

He is also a member of Oath Keepers.186 Like other Oath Keepers

and CSPOA members, Rogers believes that the local sheriff is

supreme in his county and should intervene to prevent “‘a Waco or

a Ruby Ridge all over again’” and “‘sometimes we have to step in

and protect you from government.’” Rogers is also a supporter of

Vanderboegh’s Three Percenters. Rogers’ visit resulted in

negative reactions in his home county.187

It is not just Oath Keepers and Mack’s sheriff’s group that

are the front men for the American Legislative Exchange Council. David Safier, “Republican Legislators Caravan To The Bundy Ranch,” Tuscon Weekly(Arizona), April 16, 2014, at http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/04/16/republican-legislators-caravan-to-the-bundy-ranch. Laurie Roberts, “Arizona legislators see Cliven Bundy as a hero?,” The Arizona Republic, April 19, 2014, at http://www.azcentral.com/story/laurie-roberts/2014/04/19/bundy-livingston/7873813/.

186 Merlin1963, “Indiana County Sheriff Big Fan of Cliven Bundy,” Daily Kos, April 30, 2014, at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/30/1296008/-Indiana-County-Sheriff-Big-Fan-of-Cliven-Bundy.

187 David Neiwert, “Indiana Sheriff with Antigovernment Views Creates Stir by Traveling to Bundy Ranch,” Hate Watch, Southern Poverty Law Center, May 7, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/05/07/indiana-sheriff-with-antigovernment-views-creates-stir-by-traveling-to-bundy-ranch/.

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The John Birch Society and the Tenth Amendment Center are strong

ideological advocates of the ALEC land theft.

From ALEC to the John Birch Society and the Tenth Amendment

Center

The Oath Keepers website re-posted an article written by

Michael Lotfi, the executive director of the Tenth Amendment

Center and columnist at the Washington Times. Lofti makes a big

deal at the top of his article that he graduated in the top five

percent from the obscure private Christian Belmont University in

Tennessee. However, his LinkedIn page shows that he received his

BS in Nursing—a wonderful preparation for understanding U.S.

history and constitutional law. Lofti argued that the federal

government had no legal right to own the hundreds of millions of

acres the American people as a whole through the federal

government actually own. According to Lofti’s unique, but all-

too-common right-wing interpretation of the Constitution’s

Property Clause and the Northwest Ordinance, plus another bogus

interpretation regarding the sovereignty of the states, Lofti

claimed, “Once a state is formed and accepted in the union, the

federal government no longer has control over land within the

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state’s borders. From this moment, such land is considered

property of the sovereign state. The continental United States is

now formed of fifty independent, sovereign states.”188 Thus, the

Lofti the nurse completely ignores the legal language of all the

Western states’ enabling acts.

Now, the federal system provides that there is dual

sovereignty between the federal governments and the states, but

it is delusional to argue that the United States consists of

“fifty, independent, sovereign states,” when it is only Congress

under the Constitution that can “coin Money,” “declare War,”

“raise and support Armies,” while Article I Section 10 declares

that “No state shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance or

Confederation,” or otherwise “lay any Imposts or Duties on

Imports or Exports,” or “lay any Duty of Tonnage.” In other

words, no state or any possible combination of states has any

characteristics that legal scholars and political scientists

would recognize as an “independent sovereign state.” That

Stewart Rhodes, a Yale-trained lawyer would allow such drivel to 188 Michael Lotfi (Tenth Amendment Center), “Who Actually ‘Owns’ America’s Land? A Deeper Look At The Bundy Ranch Crisis,” Oath Keepers, April 16, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/16/lotfi-who-actually-%E2%80%9Cowns%E2%80%9D-america%E2%80%99s-land-a-deeper-look-at-the-bundy-ranch-crisis/.

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be posted on the Oath Keepers website would be remarkable, if

only that were the only drivel and dross posted on the website.

But, that is not the case.

The longer version of Lofti’s article claimed that the federal

government was entitled only to land under the “Enclave Clause,”

which discusses the federal government acquiring land from the

surrounding states to form the District of Columbia, as well as

the federal government acquiring land from the states in order to

erect forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and “other needful

Buildings.”189

The John Birch Society’s The New American magazine, which was

perhaps one of the strongest proponents of the Agenda21

conspiracy theory (see Chapter 3), was also a key proponent of

the Bundy ranch confrontation with the federal government and of

the ALEC/ALC land grab proposal. In fact, the Birch Society’s

articles written by three different authors were a hodgepodge of

using any legal claim or hocus pocus rhetoric they could in an

189 Michael Lofti, “Who actually ‘owns’ America’s land? A deeper look at the Bundy Ranch crisis,” BenSwann, April 12, 2014, at http://benswann.com/lofti-who-actually-owns-americas-land-a-deeper-look-at-the-bundy-ranch-crisis/.

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attempt to delegitimize the federal government’s right to own the

land in question.

William Jasper, a senior editor of The New American, suggested

in an April 2014 article during confrontation that all federal

government explanations for moving against Cliven Bundy were

bogus because the “Bundy…family has been ranching in the area

since the 1800s,” a claim demonstrably and proven false by local

investigative reporters. Moreover, Jasper argued that “the show

of force is necessary to remove Cliven Bundy’s cattle from

‘public lands’ where they are, allegedly, damaging the ‘fragile’

habitat of the protected desert tortoise.”190

Joe Wolverton wrote articles claiming that the federal

government’s claim to lands in Nevada were “unconstitutional.”

While Wolverton would certainly put forth numerous other reasons

for Bundy and/or Nevada owning the land in question rather than

the federal government, in January 2013—at least fifteen months

before the Bundy confrontation, Wolverton accepted the argument

put forward by Ken Ivory that the federal government had reneged 190 William F. Jasper, “Last Man Standing: Nevada Ranch Family in Fedgov Face-off,” The New American, April 11, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18030-last-man-standing-nevada-ranch-family-in-fedgov-face-off.

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on its alleged “promise” to return federal land to the state of

Utah.

Wolverton noted in his January 2013 article that the

“Transfer of Public Lands Act,” (TPLA) which Ivory had pre-

approved and pre-coordinated with ALEC and was signed into law by

the Utah governor in 2012, that “Utah claims that the federal

government has reneged on promises made to Utah at the time of

its entry into the Union…. despite commitments to return that

land to the control of the state government in a timely manner.”

Wolverton based his own acceptance of this argument on Ivory’s

own analysis and an analysis from a Koch-funded “Federal Society

White Paper.” According to Wolverton, Ivory “claims that federal

failure to relinquish title to this real estate as promised has

deprived Utah of its cut of the money made from the sale of the

land and the property tax that would be collected after the

property was purchased by individuals or corporations.” Again,

it is important to emphasize that the transfer of federal land to

the Western states, as envisioned by ALEC and Ken Ivory and

backed by the John Birch Society, is merely a transit point with

a final destination of privatizing a vast treasure and resource

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currently owned by the American people. Wolverton quoted from

the White Paper, which in circular fashion essentially re-states

what Utah’s Transfer of Public Lands Act put forth, but in no way

independently supports: “‘claims that the TPLA simply enforces a

promise made when Utah became a state that the federal government

has heretofore seemed unwilling to completely honor and

fulfill.’”191 A Federalist Society biography of the author of the

White Paper, law professor Donald J. Kochan, indicates that he is

funded by the right-wing Olin Foundation. In the 2003-2004

academic year, he was an Olin Fellow at the University of

Virginia Law School and while at Cornell Law School receiving his

law degree he was a “John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics.”

Wolverton’s and the John Birch Society’s acceptance of

Ivory’s specious arguments, is the background from which they

accepted Bundy’s claims and sought to delegitimize the federal

government’s own claims to the land and the right of the federal

government to take legal actions against Bundy.

191 Joe Wolverton, “Utah City Councilman Joins Fight to Defend State Sovereignty,” The New American, January 26, 2013, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14329-utah-city-councilman-joins-fight-to-defend-state-sovereignty.

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To make the claim that Bundy owned the land rather the

federal government, Wolverton had to repeat Bundy’s lie that the

“Cliven Bundy’s family has lived on this land for nearly 140

years.” The rest of his article was a mishmash of quoting from

the Federalist Papers and an irrelevant discussion of natural law

from The Law by Frederic Bastiat. But, Wolverton’s secondary

objections were that Senator Reid would finagle protection of the

desert tortoise to help a campaign donor and that Reid’s former

“senior adviser” was now the head of the BLM.192 Wolverton’s

analysis of natural law giving Cliven Bundy a “God-given” right

to defend his property is just pixy dust to obscure the real

issues in law.

In a follow-up article published the next day, Wolverton

argued that “it was the federal government and not his cattle

that trespassed on the land where his cattle grazed. In fact,

Bundy argues, the public land in question does not belong to the

federal government but to the sovereign state of Nevada.” To

buttress this flawed argument, Wolverton resorted to quoting the 192 Joe Wolverton, “BLM’s Seizure of Nevada Rancher’s Land Rights Unconstitutional,” The New American, April 12, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18032-blm-s-seizure-of-nevada-rancher-s-land-rights-unconstitutional.

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anti-Federalist Patrick Henry, while Wolverton claimed that the

federal government had reneged on the promise that Nevada, and

other western states, would be admitted to the Union on an “equal

footing”—a specious claim borrowed directly from Ken Ivory.

Wolverton was suggesting that the “equal footing” principle

required the federal government to transfer all public lands to

the western states. Wolverton closed his article with a

conclusion that not a single elected state official in Nevada (or

the West), including Bundy’s own local county sheriff, agrees

with: “The bottom line, then, is that Nevada owns the land where

Cliven Bundy’s cattle fed, and Bundy—who has preemptive rights

for his cattle to feed there—has faithfully and fully paid that

landlord the rent he owed it.”193

However, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie in an exclusive

interview with the local Las Vegas Sun nearly two months after the

confrontation told its editorial board about what he told Cliven

Bundy two years before the confrontation: “‘My counsel (to him)

was: You have no legal standing; you choose not to go to federal 193 Joe Wolverton, “Bundy’s Case: Feds Do Not Own the Land Where His Cattle Graze,” The New American, April 13, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18038-bundy-s-case-feds-do-not-own-the-land-where-his-cattle-graze.

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court and argue your case,’ said Gillespie, who noted he even

took Bundy to meet with two attorneys so he could get some legal

advice. ‘But he would not recognize the federal government. So

dealing with him wasn’t making a lot of success.’”194

In May 2014, William Jasper, the senior editor for The New

American, completely changed the John Birch Society’s legal focus

from the bizarre (the federal government does not own the land)

to the surreal—land ownership is split four ways and Bundy owns

part of it. After conceding that “Bundy may be wrong in some

important particulars and some of his political/legal theories

may not be completely sound,” Jasper then claimed “the federal

government is not ‘the landowner’ of the ‘public lands’ and

Cliven Bundy is not a ‘tenant’ or ‘freeloader.’” This claim was

based on his analysis of what he called the “‘split estate,’”

that is, different owners have different rights depending upon

what they supposedly own. Jasper argued that regarding the

public lands in the West, “The federal government owns the

subsurface rights…. State governments own the wildlife. Timber

194 Joe Schoenmann, “Exclusive: Sheriff breaks silence, says BLM, Bundy share blame for near-catastrophe,” Las Vegas Sun, July 2, 2014, at http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/jul/02/sheriff-breaks-silence-says-blm-bundy-share-blame-/.

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and mining companies own forest and mineral rights, and ranchers

own forage and water rights.” Accordingly, Bundy “owns range

rights that were bought and paid for and/or inherited” (emphasis

in original).195

However, Jon Rousch, the president of The Wilderness Society

explained that people and corporations who want to use public

lands require permission from the federal government. As Rousch

put it, “Ranchers want to protect grazing rights on public

lands…. Loggers, miners, oil companies, and recreational-vehicle

people…want to open public lands to logging, mineral and energy

production, and motorized vehicles.”196 A desire to “open public

lands” does not remotely sound like “mining companies own…mineral

rights,” except in John Birch Society propaganda.

William Jasper participated in the ideological fray with two

articles in April 2014 in keeping with the Republican’s and 195 William F. Jasper, “Showdown on the Range,” The New American (John Birch Society), May 2, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/18176-showdown-on-the-range. William F. Jasper (The New American/John Birch Society),“Showdown On The Range,” Oath Keepers, May 23, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/05/23/the-new-american-showdown-on-the-range/.

196 Jon Rousch, “Introduction: Freedom and Responsibility: What We Can Learn from the Wise Use Movement,” pp. 1-10 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 3-4.

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ALEC’s “war on the West” theme197 and the dangerous idea that the

federal government and the environmental movement were engaged

“ethnic cleansing” of ranchers. Jim Woolf in a 1995 High Country

News article observed that “war on the West” rhetoric and

political demands to return federal lands to the western states

had erupted during 1929-1930, 1945-1947, 1979-1980, and 1994-

1995. During the 1994-1995 outburst, Utah representative Jim

Hansen and Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas proposed, in the uproar

over increased grazing fees, legislation “calling for the Bureau

of Land Management to offer nearly 270 million acres of public

lands and all its minerals to the states.” Woolf noted that

former head of the Utah Southern Wilderness Alliance suggested

that “giving BLM lands to the states would be the first step in

transferring the public’s resources into private hands.”198

Jasper’s first article, “War on the West” in The New American

cast the federal government’s actions near Bundy’s ranch as

“rogue agencies and their corporate/NGO partners attempt to

197 Paul Larmer, “War on The West: The sequel,” High Country News, January 27, 2011, at https://www.hcn.org/wotr/war-on-the-west-the-sequel.

198 Jim Woolf, “How the West was won, and won, and…,” High Country News, October 16, 1995, at https://www.hcn.org/issues/45/1385.

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‘cleanse’ the West of ranchers, farmers, miners, loggers, and

other determined property owners.” The John Birch Society

article claimed the Obama administration was “unconstitutionally

taking millions more acres in the Western states, under the

pretext of protecting ‘endangered species.’” The John Birch

Society, echoing the claims of Ken Ivory, wrote that “Our

Founding Fathers did not intend for new territories that would be

admitted to statehood in the future to be unfairly shackled by

the central government.” Part of Jasper’s argument also came

from Richard Mack, longtime favorite of the John Birch Society.

Mack had explained to Jasper as part of this “taking back

America” that the Nevada governor and Sheriff Gillespie should

have told “‘the Feds to ‘stand down,’ and to assert their own

jurisdiction and force the federal authorities to obey the law,

including the Constitution and the laws of the state of Nevada.’”

Of course, neither Nevada nor the local sheriff had jurisdiction

on federal lands and nothing in the Nevada constitution pertained

to the Bureau of Land Management, except the language of the

enabling act in which Nevada forever declaimed right to the land

in question. The libertarian, small government John Birch

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Society’s solution was “decentralizing, and dramatically

downsizing (and then abolishing) many of these agencies and

returning the land to the states and the people.”199 More

realistically, they meant selling the land to the corporations.

The next day, Jaspers wrote in The New American that a cabal

of “Big Government, Big Green, and Big Media” was in cahoots in

an existential war against “Homo Ranchero” whom he said “wealthy

green urban militants” portrayed as a “big, bad invasive

species.” According to the John Birch Society, in the “1980s, a

broad coalition of the major enviro-activist groups targeted

cattle ranching for extinction. Specifically, they initiated a

multi-pronged, long-term plan to evict livestock from the vast

‘public lands’ of the Western states. They planned to drive out

all the ranchers by 1993, thus their slogan at the time: ‘Cattle

Free by ’93.’”200

199 William F. Jasper, “War on the West: Why More Bundy Standoffs Are Coming,” The New American (Birch Society), April 15, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18056-war-on-the-west-why-more-bundy-standoffs-are-coming.

200 William F. Jasper, “Bundy Ranch Family vs. Big Gov., Big Green, Big Media,”The New American (John Birch Society), April 16, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/18068-bundy-ranch-family-vs-big-gov-big-green-big-media.

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The “cleanse” concept used by the John Birch Society was

their way of suggesting that the federal government was engaged

in the war crime of “ethnic cleansing,” a term that arose during

Serbia’s and Croatia’s illegal war against Bosnia-Herzegovina’s

Muslims.201

Interestingly, the phrase “Cattle Free in 1993” appears to

be more half-truth or myth than any actual policy of the Clinton

administration. But, this phrase is common in right-wing

discourse. William Pendley, writing for the James Watts’ and

Coors-funded right-wing legal organization, the Mountain States

Legal Foundation, used the phrase as the “objective” of “radical

201 Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’, College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. Robert J. Donia and John V.A. Fine, Jr., Bosnia & Herzegovina: A Tradition Betrayed, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Josip Glaurdic, “Inside the Serbian War Machine: The Milosevic Telephone Intercepts, 1991-1992,” East European Politics & Societies, Volume 23 Number 1, February 2009: 86-104. Warren Zimmerman, Origins of a Catastrophe, New York: TimesBooks, 1999: 181-2. Nebojša Popov, editor, The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis, Budapest, Hungary: Central European Press, 2000. Marija Obradovic, “The Ruling Party,” pp. 425-448 in Nebojša Popov, editor, The Road to War in Serbia:Trauma and Catharsis, Budapest, Hungary: Central European Press, 2000. Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia, revised edition, London: Penguin Group and BBC, 1995. Norman Cigar, Branka Magaš, and Ivo Žanić, “Introduction,” pp. xxi-xxxi in Branka Magaš and Ivo Žanić, editors, The War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991-1995, London: Frank Cass, 2001. Branka Magaš, The Destruction of Yugoslavia, London: Verso, 1993. Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, The Denial of Bosnia, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. United Nations Security Council, “Final Report of the Commission of Experts,” S/1994/674—27 May 1994, at http://www.his.com/~twarrick/commxyu4.htm#IV.A.6. United Nations Security Council, “Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts, Annex III.A, Special Forces,” December 28, 1994, at http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/anx/III-A.htm#II.

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environmental groups.” While the Clinton administration’s

changes in rules related to grazing under the National

Environmental Protection Act were upheld by the U.S. Supreme

Court, environmentalists “shifted to litigation by environmental

groups to compel even more regulation of grazing.”202 A July 1999

article in The Atlantic claimed that “Cattle Free in ’93” was “the

cry” of “the environmental movement and in Washington, D.C.”

Perri Knize also noted that environmental groups resorted to

litigation against the federal government to restrict grazing

rights.203 Philip Brick, a political scientist, noted that

“Environmental radicals…vow to make the West ‘cattle free in

’93.’”204 And, the Las Vegas Review-Journal in August 2012 stated

Bundy had told them, “‘No more moo in ’92 and cattle-free in

’93,’ he recalled ranchers saying of BLM policy.”205 Bundy was

202 William Perry Pendley, “War On Western Grazing Returns To Federal Court,” Mountain States Legal Foundation, October 1, 2010, at http://www.mountainstateslegal.org/news-updates/summary-judgment/2013/02/07/war-on-western-grazing-returns-to-federal-court#.U44nz_ldUjk.

203 Perri Knize, “Winning the War for the West,” The Atlantic, July 1999, at http://www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/99jul/9907ranchers.htm.

204 Philip Brick, “Taking Back the Rural West,” pp. 61-5 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 61.

205 Keith Rogers, “BLM warns it will round up rancher’s cattle from public land,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 11, 2012, at

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wrong. It was not Bureau of Land Management policy under

presidents Clinton, Bush or Obama.

It may have been the long-range objective of environmental

groups to reduce grazing in the West through litigation against

the federal government to enforce federal laws protecting

endangered species or fragile ecosystems. However, aside from

the adjective “radical” there is not one mention of or citation

to a specific, credible, mainstream environmental organization

linked to a policy proposal to make the West “cattle-free” in the

literature or to drive all ranchers out of business.

Dan Whipple, who covered environmental issues on a daily basis in

Washington, D.C. told a story about former Senator Malcolm Wallop

(R-Montana) telling him in 1992 that “there was a movement that

styled itself ‘Cattle-free in ’93,’ urging the elimination of

grazing from public lands.” Whipple wrote, “I had never heard

any legitimate environmental group call for the elimination of

grazing on public lands…. Even when the greens took power in

the Clinton administration, they didn’t broach the subject of a

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-and-west/blm-warns-it-will-round-ranchers-cattle-public-land.

191

cattle-free West.”206 John Barton, who teaches a history of Utah

course at Utah State University, wrote in a footnote to an

unpublished paper that the phrases “No Moo in ’92” and “Cattle

Free in ’93” were “catch phrases used by lobbyists’ attempts to

bring legislation to rid federal lands of cattle grazing in those

years.”207 And, Lisa Jones wrote that the phrase “Cattle Free in

’93” was a bumper sticker slogan.208 Thus, the claim by the

right-wing that the Clinton administration and/or major

environmental groups wanted to turn the west into a cattle-free

zone appears to be an effort to depict themselves as being

persecuted to the point of extinction—contrary to all the facts.

The reality is that there was no Clinton administration

policy geared towards “Cattle Free in ’93”—which even a Mountain

States Legal Foundation article agrees with. From Clinton to

206 Dan Whipple, “A Discouraging Word is Heard on the Range,” Western Watersheds, Fall 2002, at https://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_fall/article10.htm.

207 John D. Barton, “Whose Land?,” Department of History, Open Course Ware, Utah State University, no date, accessed June 3, 2014, at http://ocw.usu.edu/History/History_of_Utah/Utah_History__Whose_Land.pdf.

208 Lisa Jones, “Ed Marston to the West: Grow up!,” from High Country News, University of Colorado, American Studies, November 25, 2002, at http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/west/growup.pdf.

192

Bush through to Obama, there is no federal policy to eliminate or

“‘cleanse’” the West of cattle and cattle ranchers.

David Helvarg in his 1997 updated book, The War Against the

Greens, noted that two months after Clinton was sworn in January

1993, he completely capitulated to Montana Senator Max Baucus on

increasing fees for logging, mining, and grazing. Helvarg noted,

compared to Clinton’s efforts on free trade, deficit reduction

and health care, “Clinton proved unwilling to take similar risks

for the environment during his first years in office.”209 In

other words, by March 1993, however popular the phrase “cattle-

free in 1993” may have been with environmentalists or right-wing

ideologues, it was dead as federal government policy.

The other reality is that small ranchers are not the

dominant force in ranching—large corporations are. Helvarg used

reporting from the New York Times to state that “the top ten

percent of grazing permit holders control half the public grazing

lands. Numbered among this elite are the Metropolitan Life

Insurance Company, the Mormon Church, the Japanese-owned Zenchiku

Corporation, Computer titans Bill Hewlett and the late David

209 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 429-30.

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Packard, and various oil and mining companies.”210 Dan Whipple,

who wrote in the Western Watersheds newsletter, a group opposed to

cattle grazing, that only “about 2 percent of U.S. cattle

producers use western public lands” and that 89 percent “of all

the nation’s cattle producers are located east of the 100th

meridian, which splits the Dakotas, Nebraska and Texas roughly

down the middle, takes the western third of Kansas and lops off

Oklahoma’s panhandle.”211 What western ranchers who use public

lands for grazing produce in terms of beef appears to be trivial

to the national market. Thus, what appears to be at stake is

something much more valuable than the right to graze on public

lands.

Other parts of the right-wing propaganda apparatus further

to the right than the John Birch Society also jumped into the

fray claiming that the federal government’s claim to western

lands was illegitimate.

210 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 425-6.

211 Dan Whipple, “A Discouraging Word is Heard on the Range,” Western Watersheds, Fall 2002, at https://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_fall/article10.htm.

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Kurt Nimmo, writing at Alex Jones’ conspiracy central

website InfoWars, claimed that the U.S. Constitution’s Enclave

Clause, specifically Article 1 Section 8 Clause 17, severely

restricted the federal government’s ownership of land. Nimmo

opined, “The federal government does not have the constitutional

authority to own land, beyond what is stipulated in the Enclave

Clause, and its seizure of land, under the obviously fallacious

pretense of protecting a tortoise, is a serious violation of the

Constitution.” The confrontation in Bunkerville, according to

InfoWars, was a battle of “states’ rights and, ultimately, the

right of sovereign individuals.”212

Another aspect of delegitimizing federal ownership of the

land next to Bundy’s ranch was the conspiracy theory that Senate

Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) and his son, Rory,

an attorney that represented a Chinese energy firm interested in

building a solar power plant in Nevada, and, Neil Kornze, a

former Reid advisor who is now head of the Bureau of Land

Management, had conspired to remove Bundy’s cattle from the

212 Kurt Nimmo, “BLM Action in Nevada is Unconstitutional, Here’s Why,” InfoWars, April 11, 2014, at http://www.infowars.com/blm-action-in-nevada-is-unconstitutional-heres-why/.

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federal lands in order to build the solar power plant. While the

conspiracy theory appears to have originated at the Alex Jones

InfoWars website or at the Godfather’s Politics blog, Fox News

legal correspondent Bob Massi shameless plugged the conspiracy

theory with the caveat, “‘whether it’s true or not, we have to

wait and see.’”213 Media Matters reported that the Drudge Report,

a major hub in the right-wing echo chamber, was promoting an

article from Alex Jones “that suggests BLM and Sen. Harry Reid

(D-NV) are working together to take over the ranch so the Chinese

government can turn it into a solar farm.”214

To reinforce its image and the message of the Agenda21

conspiracy theory, the John Birch Society’s The New American

published an article by the right-wing’s “traveling evangelist”

for the conspiracy theory, Tom DeWeese. The title of DeWeese’s

213 Brian Powell, “Spurious Cattle Conspiracy Dodges Facts But Still Lands On Fox News,” Media Matters, April 14, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/14/spurious-cattle-conspiracy-dodges-facts-but-sti/198880. Karoun Demirjian, “Facts that disprove conspiracy theory about Harry Reid, Cliven Bundy and solar power,” Las Vegas Sun, April 17,2014, at http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/17/facts-disprove-conspiracy-theory-about-sen-harry-r/.

214 Timothy Johnson, “Drudge Report Recklessly Hypes Confrontation Between Rancher And Federal Government,” Media Matters, April 11, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/11/drudge-report-recklessly-hypes-confrontation-be/198859.

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article, “Is the U.S. Being Colonized by Communist China?,” was

published at the latter stage of the Bundy confrontation.

DeWeese raised the specter that “China has literally surrounded

the United States” by establishing “relationships and bases in

several South and Central American nations.” Moreover, Chinese

business immigrants account for more than two-thirds of

foreigners using the EB-5 visa program to establish EB-5

“Immigrant Investor Regional Centers.” DeWeese reported that

under the EB-5 program “applicants must invest $1,000,000 in a

U.S. business or at least $500,000 if the business is in an area

of high unemployment or rural area. That investment must create

or preserve 10 full-time American jobs. In exchange, the

immigrant will initially gain legal residency and U.S. Green

Cards for their entire family. If the enterprise continues and

jobs are created, then the applicant can apply for permanent

residence.”

What were the Chinese immigrants doing with all that loot they

were bringing into the United States to create jobs? According

to DeWeese, they were “buying up dairy farms, cattle ranches,

meat packing plants, and other sources of American food supplies”

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and the Chinese government, operating through their proxy Chinese

immigrants, was “fast becoming the largest land owner in

America.”

And what did that have to do with Cliven Bundy and his

failure to pay his grazing fees and penalty fees? Everything,

according to DeWeese, who wrote that Senator Reid’s son, Rory,

“represents” ENN Energy Group, a Chinese corporation which is

“using the EB-5 program…. to build a $5 billion dollar solar farm

in the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, on which Bundy’s farm is

located.” In other words, the “near massacre in the Nevada

desert as rancher Cliven Bundy stood his ground against an army

of government agents from the Bureau of Land Management” may not

have been about saving the “turtles” or Bundy’s moral and legal

failures as a citizen. Rather, the BLM may have been operating

“as the private enforcement machine of a corrupt Senator seeking

to fill his pockets with cash.” DeWeese was, of course, rather

coy, in that his speculations were couched in the form of a

question, you know, inquiring minds want to know and were just

askin.’ But, for DeWeese, it was all like the “invasion of the

body snatchers” whereby the Bundy confrontation was part of a set

198

piece of a “well-devised strategic plan to literally colonize the

once great United States of America—without ever firing a

shot.”215

The right-wing Breitbart website examined the InfoWars and

other similar claims and concluded “the facts just do not pan out

as such…. Contrasting maps offered by InfoWars and those entered

into federal court record prove such a theory to be a stretch.”216

The Las Vegas Sun investigated the Chinese solar power plant

conspiracy theory, but they attributed the source to a blog

called Godfather Politics, though they noted that the Washington

Times and NewsMax had picked up the story and promoted it. The

Sun concluded that while it is true that Senator Reid’s son had

worked on a solar project in Nevada, “based on the facts, the

rest of the theory doesn’t pass the smell test.” The solar

project Reid’s son worked on was a three-hour drive from the

Bundy ranch and “simply not in the same part of the state.” The

215 Tom DeWeese, “Is the U.S. Being Colonized By Communist China?,” The New American (John Birch Society), April 29, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/18152-is-the-us-being-colonized-by-communist-china.

216 Logan Churchwell and Brandon Darby, “The Saga of Bundy Ranch—Federal Power,Rule of Law, and Averting Potential Bloodshed,” Breitbart, April 12, 2014, at http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/12/The-Saga-of-Bundy-Ranch.

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Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, was closer to the Bundy ranch, but

the Chinese energy company was not interested in that area.

There was land very close to the Bundy ranch that Senator Reid

was trying to designate for wilderness protection, but the Sun

noted that “it’s near impossible to green light a solar project

on conservation land.” The Sun concluded, “there is no massive

Chinese-backed solar project in the works and certainly not one

that requires the removal of Bundy’s cows.” And, it noted the

timelines of everything did not add up. The confrontation with

Bundy began in 1993; the Chinese energy project was discussed

between 2011 and 2013 when it ended; and, Kornze did not become

head of the BLM until three days after the BLM had started the

Bundy ranch operation, which itself had started with two years’

worth of court cases.217 However, plotting on a map Bundy’s

ranch, the proposed site of the Chinese solar power plant, and

the land the BLM was considering for a solar power plant revealed

that they were too far apart geographically to sustain the

217 Karoun Demirjian, “Facts that disprove conspiracy theory about Harry Reid, Cliven Bundy and solar power,” Las Vegas Sun, April 17, 2014, at http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/17/facts-disprove-conspiracy-theory-about-sen-harry-r/.

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conspiracy theory, according to Media Matters.218 Jon Ralston, an

influential political blogger and analyst in Nevada, noted that

“‘the land for a solar plant…they’re talking about is 200 miles

away’” from Cliven Bundy’s ranch.219 Rory Reid, son of Senate

Majority Leader Harry Reid and 2010 Democratic candidate for

governor, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that “It’s ridiculous. That

would be a great story, if it were true. I don’t represent

anybody, Chinese or otherwise, who has an interest in developing

anything on that land.”220

The idea that the Chinese were behind-the-scenes actors in

the Bundy confrontation with the federal government was part of

the propaganda effort to delegitimize the federal government’s

ownership of public lands in Western states. This conspiracy

theory, like the Agenda21 conspiracy theory, is employed as an

218 Brian Powell, “Spurious Cattle Conspiracy Dodges Facts But Still Lands On Fox News,” Media Matters, April 14, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/14/spurious-cattle-conspiracy-dodges-facts-but-sti/198880.

219 Eric Boehlert, Jon Ralston, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April14, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/54966887/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U07iivldUjk.

220 Rory Reid, Michelle Goldberg, and Michael Eric Dyson, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April 21, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55010817/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U1a7VvldUjk.

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explanatory and motivational narrative, and only towards specific

segments of the right-wing. The main Fourth Generation Warfare

attack on the federal government’s ownership of public lands is

from the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Christian

Right’s network of think tanks, as well as Fox News and other

right-wing propaganda outfits. But, this Chinese conspiracy

theory was a powerful motivating tool for enticing the militia to

Bundy’s ranch and was completely incorporated into the Oath

Keepers’ messaging related to Bundy.

For example, in May 2014, Montana state senator Jennifer

Fielder’s concern that the federal government would sell public

land was premised on the belief she expressed to the John Birch

Society that they “‘can sell public lands without our input, and

they are undoubtedly under pressure by foreign debt holders to do

so. That’s a big concern.’”221

There were at least three Patriot militiamen, some of whom were

Oath Keepers members, who expressed their belief that the Chinese

government was involved in the Bundy ranch confrontation. The 221 William F. Jasper, “Hearings in Montana Legislature on Fedgov ‘Public Lands’ Transfer,” The New American (John Birch Society), May 14, 2014, at http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/18256-hearings-in-montana-legislature-on-fedgov-public-lands-transfer.

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idea that the federal government is working with the Chinese

government in various public land confrontations appears to be

widespread among the Patriot militia. The Southern Poverty Law

Center reported that when in 2010 the U.S. Forest Service reduced

vehicular access to San Juan National Forest in Colorado that

“[m]ilitia members and sympathizers mounted an armed protest

outside Forest Service offices. Many made the kinds of wild

claims the militia movement is known for—that the government was

leveraging Colorado’s public lands against U.S. debt to China,

that the closures were somehow preparatory to the imposition of

martial law, and that the United Nations was secretly involved in

events.”222

Caty Enders, a journalist who visited the Bundy ranch, spoke

to a “militia member with the group Oath Keepers named Mark.”

Mark told her, “‘The assumption is that the BLM is part of the

federal government. But we need to check the facts on that one.

The BLM doesn’t work for the government: they work for the United

Nations. They might as well be wearing blue helmets. If we find

222 Southern Poverty Law Center, “Backgrounding Bundy: The Movement,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/War-in-the-West-Backgrounding-Bundy-The-Movement.

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out there’s money being exchanged between Harry Reid and the

Chinese government, no one should be surprised.’” Enders wrote

that a “self-trained lawyer tells me the same.” And, Nevada

Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, who came to guard Bundy, darkly

opined coyly that the Bundy confrontation ‘is a lot deeper than

what’s coming out in the media.’”223

Marc Harris, the Tea Party Patriot speaker who appeared at

the joint Oath Keepers and Americans For Prosperity conference in

Los Angeles that featured American Lands Council president Ken

Ivory, wrote that the Bundy confrontation involved the Chinese

government. According to Charles Tanner’s research, “Harris

links the Bundy standoff to recent drought-related water shutoffs

in Northern California, declaring that both amount Democratic

Party efforts at ‘lining their pockets’ and selling lands to the

‘Chinese at pennies on the dollar.’” Tanner also reported that

the “New Hampshire Tea Party implied that U.S. Senator Harry Reid

was seeking to confiscate land on behalf of a Chinese company.”224

223 Caty Enders, “Life At The Bundy Ranch, Uncensored,” Esquire, April 25, 2014,at http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bundy-ranch-uncensored.

224 Charles Tanner, Jr., “White, Far Right and Armed: Tea Party and Militias Mobilize to Defend Nevada County Supremacy Activist,” Institute for Research on Education and Human Rights, April 17, 2014, at http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/item/553-bundy-

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The Missoula Independent News of Montana interviewed Ryan Payne,

a former member of the 18th Airborne Corps’ Long Range

Surveillance Company; he also founded the West Mountain Rangers

(militia) in 2012 and Operation Mutual Aid in 2013, described by

the local reporter as a “a loose coalition of militias and

sympathetic individuals from across the United States…. as a

mechanism for using the power of the nation’s hundreds of

disparate militias to defend all oppressed Americans. If anyone

made a request for OMA’s aid, the organization would alert its

members, who would, if they desired, act together to defend that

individual’s rights.” However, Payne’s personal belief system,

which is a labyrinth of conspiracy theories, motivated him to go

to Bundy’s ranch. According to an interview with the local

Montana paper, Payne “came to believe when a newborn child’s

footprint is made on a birth certificate, that child is

effectively entering a life of servitude to the U.S. government,

which borrows money from China based on that child's estimated

lifetime earning potential.” Payne “came to believe that slavery

never really existed in the United States and that African

standoff.

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Americans in the antebellum South ‘didn’t view themselves as

slaves.’ He came to believe in ‘an effort by some Jews to

control the world.’ He came to believe the founders of the

United States intended for the states to act as sovereign

countries. He came to believe taxes are a form of ‘legal

plunder’…. He came to believe that ‘in most states you have the

lawful authority to kill a police officer that is unlawfully

trying to arrest you.’”225

Aaron Penberthy is the self-described “founder and state

commanding officer” of the Missouri Citizen Militia, founded in

2010, and a militia group allegedly “made up of U.S. veterans,

sheriff’s deputies, police, firefighters and everyday citizens”

that supposedly has a membership of over 1,000 people divided

into 37 zones across Missouri. Penberthy apparently has no

military experience. Penberthy claimed he made several trips to

and from Nevada and he claimed he had been “rotating different

MCM units since it all happened.” Penberthy believed that saving

an endangered species and grazing fees were not the real reasons

225 Ted McDermott, “Freedom Fighter,” Missoula Independent News (Montana), June 12,2014, at http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/freedom-fighter/.

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for the BLM seizing Bundy’s cattle. He also believed that the

media took Bundy’s racist comments “‘out of context to try to

make you believe he is a crazy racist person to weaken his

support.’” According to Penberthy’s analysis, “‘I can tell you

personally from being there that this is either about something

on the land or because of the deal with the Chinese—because

honestly, it’s nothing but desert. There is nothing on it. I

can tell you even at night while patrolling with thermal imaging

that there is nothing out there.’”226

The Christian Right’s theocratic political party, the

Constitution Party, especially its Nevada branch, helped

promulgate the view that Chinese corporations were behind the

Cliven Bundy confrontation. After arguing that the Enclave

Clause precluded the Unites States government from owning land in

the West, the Constitution Party of Nevada argued that the

limited scope of federal ownership also implied no “protection of

an endangered tortoise as federal government authority now

insists is part of the reason for the seizure of Mr. Bundy’s 226 Kevin R. Jenkins, “County resident continues work to build strong militia,”Daily Journal Online, June 30, 2014, at http://dailyjournalonline.com/news/local/county-resident-continues-work-to-build-strong-militia/article_d23a17d7-2ea3-5291-b6ee-cca221f64ed7.html.

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cattle.  It does not include selling so-called public lands to

Chinese corporations for the building of solar energy plants as

has been alleged.”227 The Constitution Party of Nevada

recommended that readers consult the Constitution Party’s

platform on the environment and federal ownership of western

lands. The Constitution Party’s 2012-2016 platform on the

“Environment” specifically rejected global climate change science

on the grounds it had “been refuted by a large number of

scientists” and was being used by “globalists…to gain more

control via worldwide sustainable development,” a reference to

the Agenda21 conspiracy theory. The Constitution Party, whose

president was a long-time member of the Council for National

Policy, has a policy platform entirely consistent with the

American Legislative Exchange Council. Specifically, the party

advocates that the federal government “return to the states and

to the people all lands which are held by the federal government

without authorization by the Constitution,” “repeal of federal

wetlands legislation and the federal Endangered Species Act….

227 Constitution Party of Nevada, “Land, Livestock, and Liberty: Who Owns Nevada?,” April 2014, accessed May 15, 2014, at http://www.constitutionparty.com/land-livestock-and-liberty-who-owns-nevada/.

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[and] we oppose any attempt to designate private or public

property as United Nations World Heritage sites or Biosphere

reserves,” and oppose environmental treaties and conventions such

as the Biodiversity Treaty, the Convention on Climate Control,

and Agenda 21.”228

The Constitution Party’s platform of 2002 was also firmly

aligned with the corporate agenda of the American Legislative

Exchange Council. Its 2002 resolution declared that the

“Constitution Party supports and encourages State and local

efforts to reestablish State and Constitutional control over

lands within all sovereign States of the Union,” “calls upon the

Federal government to cease and desist its unconstitutional

usurpation and control of the lands in the sovereign states,” and

“calls upon the Federal government to limit its authority to

lands defined by the Constitution, including Washington, D.C.,

territories, forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards and other

needful buildings which are purchased with the consent of the

State legislatures.”229

228 Constitution Party, “Environment,” from the 2012-2016 Platform, no date, accessed May 15, 2014, at http://www.constitutionparty.com/environment/.

229 Constitution Party, “Property Rights, Land, and State Sovereignty Resolution,” March 2002, accessed May 15, 2014, at

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And, during Cliven Bundy’s confrontation with the Bureau of

Land Management up to his infamous “‘I want to tell you one more

thing I know about the Negro’” moment that the Koch-funded

Americans For Prosperity chapters in Nevada and Colorado strongly

supported Cliven Bundy and then removed traces of that support

from various social media platforms.230

Thus, there is virtually a seamless line of propaganda from

the American Legislative Exchange Council, the American Lands

Council, the Republican Party and some of its state affiliates,

the Christian Right and its (so-called secular) think tanks, the

Tea Party movement, the Constitution Party, the John Birch

Society, Oath Keepers, InfoWars, and the Patriot militia all

involved in delegitimizing the federal government’s ownership of

public lands in Western states. That there are more or less

bizarre variants of this propaganda barrage does not negate the

http://cpwp.swehes.com/property-rights-land-and-state-sovereignty/.

230 Oliver Willis, “‘Feds Turn From Landlords To Warlords’: Koch Groups Back Rancher Making Violent Threats Against Federal Gov’t,” Media Matters, April 11, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/04/11/feds-turn-from-landlords-to-warlords-koch-group/198857. Sam Stein, “Koch Brothers Group Wipes Cliven Bundy Support From Social Media Accounts,” Huffington Post, April 25, 2014, athttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/koch-brothers-cliven-bundy_n_5213481.html.

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very strong ideological affinities among all the versions. This

is what Fourth Generation Warfare looks like and this is how it

is waged. But, it can only be perceived when examining the whole

rather than the individual parts.

Oath Keepers Use Conspiracy Theories to Motivate Militiamen

The ideas of key militiamen that responded to Cliven Bundy’s

call to action are not isolated beliefs. In addition to some of

the sources discussed above, Oath Keepers was a major proponent

of the Agenda21 conspiracy theory and the involvement of the

Chinese behind the scenes to wreck the American economy, sell our

natural resources to the Chinese, and generally diminish American

workers vis-à-vis Chinese corporations—in collaboration with

America’s political elites in both parties.

Elias Alias, the national editor of the Oath Keepers’ blog,

wrote enthusiastically: “That video will feature Stewart himself

in powerful expressions of the principles on which Cliven Bundy

stands, and the direness of the hour in our Republic’s history,

and the need to overcome the UN’s Agenda 21 domestic usurpations

carried via now-stolen ‘federal agencies and departments’ such as

the Forest Service and the BLM. The BLM’s policy is mirrored in

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Agenda 21, and the entire Bundy Ranch affair traces back to

corruption in internationalist-federal deal-making in the name of

the People’s government. Chinese management of Nevada land is at

the bottom of this, as Alex Jones exposed Senator Reid’s

connections with a Chinese firm wanting to operate a solar energy

farm on land related to the eco-plans for developing that site,

which included moving a population of desert tortoise from that

site to the area where Bundy’s cows graze—and that was a problem

for EPA as well as the Endangered Species Act, which caused

seriously-armed federal force to move in to make sure that the

Bundy cattle were removed from the new home of the tortoise—

correct me if I’m wrong. This is United Nations covert activity

inside the United States and it involves the planet’s largest

Communist nation, China. The Bundy connection connects also the

relationship of the BLM to the Reid family. It is deep stuff.”231

Deep stuff, indeed.

Shorty Dawkins, the associate editor of the Oath Keepers’

national blog, proposed to go deeper (“Let’s go deeper, shall

231 Elias Alias (editor), “Bundy Ranch Advisory for April 29 2014,” Oath Keepers, April 29, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/29/bundy-ranch-advisory-for-april-29-2014/.

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we?”) and reveal the innermost secrets of the Cliven Bundy

confrontation to members in law enforcement and the military.

According to Dawkins, the “something deeper” that is “happening

all over the West, and to a lesser extent in the Eastern United

States,…. is Agenda 21.” Dawkins recommended that members and

the curious watch four videos by G.W. Griffin, Glenn Beck,

conspiracy theorist David Icke, and Rosa Koire, described as a

“very liberal, lesbian Democrat…ardently opposed to Agenda 21,

and speaks before many Tea Party groups.” According to Dawkins,

“If you have watched the videos, you can readily see the

insidious nature of Agenda 21. Yes, it is a means of exerting

total control over the World’s population.”232

The Chinese also figure in other conspiracy theories derived

from other sources but passed through the national Oath Keepers

blog. In April 2014, Shorty Dawkins opined at the start of an

article reprinted from the Iranian PressTV regarding the

International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights that there

was no real conflict between Russia and China and the United

232 Shorty Dawkins (Associate Editor), “What Is Behind The Bundy Ranch Siege?,”Oath Keepers, April 18, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/18/what-is-behind-the-bundy-ranch-siege/.

213

States. As Dawkins put it, the Iranian “article would have you

believe there is a sharp division to be made between the US and

its dollar supporters, and Russia and China—where, if you look

closely, they are two sides of the same coin.” The main point of

the article was that the “US military [is] the armed wing of the

international banking cartel.” This international banking cartel

“consists of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and

Wells Fargo along with Deutsche Bank, BNP and Barclays. Eight

families reportedly control the IBC: the Goldman Sachs,

Rockefellers, Lehmans, Kuhn Loebs, Rothschilds, Warburgs, Lazards

and the Israel Moses Seifs. Besides owning the US oil behemoths

Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco, IBC member

institutions are among the top ten shareholders of nearly every

Fortune 500 company.”233 In other words, Oath Keepers was

essentially promoting a sanitized version, but fairly transparent

version of the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

233 Yuram Abdullah Weiler (Press TV—Iran), “How The International Banking Cartel Controls The World Through U.S. Military And Economic Sabotage,” Oath Keepers, April 7, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/04/07/how-the-international-banking-cartel-controls-the-world-through-the-u-s-military-and-economic-sabotage/.

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One of the leading purveyors of the conspiracy theory that

China could be involved, wittingly or not, in subversion of the

U.S. economy by the banking elite is Brandon Smith, founder of

the Alternative Market blog and a strategic partner of Oath

Keepers who frequently has his articles re-posted at the national

Oath Keepers blog. Smith has suggested that because the U.S.

economy is “now entirely fiat driven, with very little or no true

economy left,” that though any international or even national

economic crisis could “be blamed for the breakdown, it was

international banks, the Federal Reserve, and elements of our own

government that made the domino effect possible.”234 In August

2013, Smith suggested that “The dollar is entirely reliant on its

own world reserve status in order to hold its value on the global

market. As is evident, countries like China are already dumping

the greenback in trade with particular nations…. All that is left

is for a cover crisis to be conjured.”235 Smith has suggested

234 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market), “The U.S. Economy Is Now Dangerously Detached From Reality,” Oath Keepers, February 8, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/02/08/the-u-s-economy-is-now-dangerously-detached-from-reality/.

235 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market), “Get Ready For The Death Of The Petrodollar,” Oath Keepers, August 22, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/08/22/get-ready-for-the-death-of-the-petrodollar/.

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that in the case of a U.S. default on its foreign debt that a

“call for a dump of U.S. treasury bonds by China, for example, in

the face of a U.S. default, would immediately result in a global

chain reaction ending in the destruction of the dollar as the

world reserve currency.  This is not speculation, this is

mathematical fact.”236 In the midst of the Republican Party-

Christian Right-Tea Party-engineered shutdown and potential

default, Smith again suggested that China’s “desire to end the

U.S. dollar’s dominance as the world reserve currency, and build

a ‘New World Order’ was now “openly announced” declaratory

policy.237 In late November 2013, Smith again warned that “China

has pushed forward with massive physical gold purchases despite

all arguments by skeptics that gold is no longer necessary or

prudent as a safe haven investment. Apparently, the Chinese know

236 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market), “Government Shutdown: The Next Step In The Collapse Of The Dollar?,” Oath Keepers, September 30, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/09/30/government-shutdown-the-next-step-in-the-collapse-of-the-dollar/.

237 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market, and Associate Editor), “Just As We Warned—China Calls For End Of The Dollar,” Oath Keepers, October 14, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/10/14/just-as-we-warned-china-calls-for-end-of-the-dollar/.

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something they do not.  China is on pace to become the largest

holder of gold in the world as early as 2014.”238

And, in the midst of Cliven Bundy confrontation, Brandon

Smith wrote an article published on the Oath Keepers national

blog in May 2014 suggesting that Brazil, Russia, China and India

(the BRIC countries) are part of a global conspiracy including

Belgium acting as the front man for the European Union’s Group of

Ten and an intermediary company called Euroclear acting as a

proxy buyer of U.S. debt to destroy the U.S. dollar, in apparent

collaboration with J.P. Morgan and the “banking elite.” Their

aim is “the complete dissolution of economic sovereignty, and the

acceptance by the masses of global financial governance. The

elites don’t want to hide behind the curtain anymore. They want

recognition. They want to be worshiped. And, it all begins with

the secret buyout of America, the implosion of our debt markets,

and the annihilation of our way of life.”239

238 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market), “Expect Devastating Global Economic Changes In 2014,” Oath Keepers, November 28, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/11/28/expect-devastating-global-economic-changes-in-2014/.

239 Brandon Smith (Alt-Market), “Who Is The New Secret Buyer Of U.S. Debt?,” Oath Keepers, May 23, 2014, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2014/05/23/who-is-the-new-secret-buyer-of-u-s-debt/.

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The Oath Keeper focus on China was not limited to its

economic machinations aligned, wittingly or unwittingly, with the

globalist elite attempting to establish a New World Order.

Indeed, Oath Keepers published an article by frequent contributor

to its national blog, Michael Snyder, who suggested in June 2013

that American workers were being bought by Chinese corporations.

Snyder warned, “Are you ready for a future where China will

employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of

small communities all over the United States?  Such a future

would be unimaginable to many Americans, but the truth is that it

is already starting to happen.  Chinese acquisition of U.S.

businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace

to absolutely shatter that record this year.  Meanwhile, China is

voraciously gobbling up real estate and is establishing economic

beachheads all over America.  If China continues to build

economic power inside the United States, it will eventually

become the dominant economic force in thousands of small

communities all over the nation.” Snyder suggested that,

according to the Chinese, there were no real differences between

the “government” and “business,” since “43 percent of all profits

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in China [in 2011] were produced by companies that the Chinese

government had a controlling interest in.” Moreover, the Chinese

corporations were buying America’s “oil and natural gas”

resources in Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma,

Texas, Wyoming, and the Gulf of Mexico. And, Snyder suggested

that China may be planning to build its very own “‘China City’”

in America. Snyder’s conclusion was that America’s elites, both

Republicans and Democrats, were traitorous in that both “major

political parties seem to be fully convinced that merging our

economy with the economy of communist China is a great idea.”

Snyder’s advice to Oath Keepers, “Learn to speak Chinese.”240

And, in November 2013, The Daily Sheeple writer published a

conspiratorial article on the national Oath Keepers blog

regarding the arrival of Chinese ground troops for “disaster

relief exercises” in Hawaii. The Daily Sheeple writer asked,

“Why would the United States of America allow the military from a

nation known for its suppression of human rights learn to assist

240 Michael Snyder (Economic Collapse Blog), “Meet Your New Boss: Buying Large Employers Will Enable China To Dominate 1000s Of U.S. Communities,” Oath Keepers, June 8, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/06/08/meet-your-new-boss-buying-large-employers-will-enable-china-to-dominate-1000s-of-u-s-communities/.

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the American people when it tramples over the rights of its own

citizens?.... There is more to this than meets the eye…far

more.”241 The “far more” was left to the reader’s fervent

imagination.

The emphasis on China and various foreign policy crises

escalating or leading to a catastrophic economic crisis is not

only consistent with William S. Lind’s strategic assessments (see

Chapters 17 and 18), but were integral to the Oath Keepers “going

operational” in October 2013 using the “Civilization Preservation

Team” concept (see Chapter 19). Rhodes made the linkage between

Brandon Smith’s analyses and the necessity of Oath Keepers “going

operational” explicit when he wrote in the national blog post

revealing the new strategic campaign: “we now add Brandon Smith’s

insight that with a war in Syria, the elites can trigger an

economic collapse with a war—with Russia and China using

economics as a weapon in retaliation. All China would have to do

is dump US treasuries and refuse to trade with US dollars. That

would begin the final death-spiral of the dollar. The Chinese 241 The Daily Sheeple, “Chinese Soldiers Arrive In USA For ‘Disaster Relief Exercises’ During Grid Ex II,” Oath Keepers, November 18, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/11/18/chinese-soldiers-arrive-in-usa-for-%E2%80%98disaster-relief-exercises%E2%80%99-during-grid-ex-ii/.

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would be blamed for the collapse, rather than the banksters.

‘They’ would tell the American people that the evil Chinese are

to blame for the death of the dollar, and anyone who resists the

‘emergency measures’ by the US government would be accused of

aiding the enemy. They would say ‘domestic extremists took

advantage of the Chinese economic attack on us to push their own

racist and extremist anti-government agenda, making the collapse

worse by attacking peace-keepers and international relief

volunteers, and by attacking and resisting US officials who were

trying to restore law and order.’”242

The previous day Rhodes shared the new operational message

and its underlying economic collapse premise with conspiracy

theory purveyor Alex Jones and his audience. Rhodes told Jones,

“I think they will try to pull the plug on the economy—it’s all

they have left. They have their Armageddon option of the

economic neutron bomb—collapsing the dollar, kill the dollar,

blame it on the Chinese, especially under the cover of a war with

Syria—they could say, ‘Hey, we entered Syria to get rid of 242 Stewart Rhodes, “Oath Keepers is Going ‘Operational’ by Forming Special ‘Civilization Preservation’ Teams,” Oath Keepers, October 21, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/10/21/oath-keepers-is-going-operational-by-forming-special-civilization-preservation-teams/.

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chemical weapons and the Russians and Chinese retaliated

economically.’”243

But, conspiracy theories involving the Chinese government

and a U.S. economic collapse are not restricted to Oath Keepers

and InfoWars. These ideas are common in the right-wing movement,

including segments close to the Republican Party.

In February 2014, a few months before Cliven Bundy’s

confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management, Joseph Farrah’s

Western Journalism Center in cooperation with Floyd Brown

(Citizens United and Willy Horton infamy) was the “main

organizer” of the “Western Conservative Conference,” formerly

known for years as the Western Conservative Political Action

Conference linked to the Christian Right’s American Conservative

Union. It is unclear why the conference changed its name. The

2014 conference was a conservative love-fest for the hardline

Sheriff Joe Arpaio featuring a slew of speakers making racist

jokes about Latinos and Asians. Among the lineup of speakers

were Bundy sympathizer Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne; the

243 Oath Keepers, “Stewart Rhodes Goes Operational With Alex Jones,” October 20, 2013, at http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/10/20/stewart-rhodes-goes-operational-with-alex-jones/.

222

re-called state senator Russell Pearce, author of Arizona’s

“documents please” S.B. 1070 and “documented fondness for neo-

Nazi websites;” state representative John Kavanagh; and live or

video appearances by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Texas Governor Rick

Perry, and the National Rifle Association’s bigoted board member

Ted Nugent. Heritage Action and the Leadership Institute sent

representatives to conduct training for grassroots organizing.

The Friday night keynote speaker, Trevor Louden from New Zealand,

told the 1,000 or so attendees that “‘98 percent of the

Democratic Party’ is far-left, anti-American, and actively

working toward an economic collapse to allow communism ‘a second

chance.’” On Saturday morning, according to Alexander Zaitchik’s

report on the conference, Floyd “Brown hosted a breakout session

entitled, ‘Is An Economic Collapse Coming?’” Zaitchik astutely

observed that “it’s unlikely anyone in the room found the

subject, or its gold-dealer sponsor, out of place” and noted that

the National Rifle Association’s “annual meeting now offers

seminars on buying gold as a form of ‘economic self-defense.’”

Loudon, a participant on the panel, gave the familiar

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conservative warning244 about “looming hyperinflation and economic

cataclysm.” Loudon then described a fantastic nightmare of

economic collapse and invasion by the Russians, Chinese, and

Latinos. According to Zaitchik’s description of Loudon’s talk at

the panel discussion, after discussing the economic collapse

Loudon stated, “‘The bad guys of this planet—Russia, China, Iran,

Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, North Korea and their Islamic allies—

are going to come here, folks. The Chinese have every aquifer in

the U.S. mapped out. They know that some of them flush out

nuclear radiation very quickly, and some of them hold them for a

long time. They need to know where they can settle their people….

The big regret of the U.S.S.R. is that they didn’t take out the

U.S. during the Great Depression—a former KGB agent told me this—

and this time they have a plan. They will invade Alaska and

parts of Canada. Then the Chinese will send their people across

the Pacific in wave after wave. Their friends in Latin America

will be invited up into the southern United States for looting 244 Nathaniel Popper, “Gold, Long a Secure Investment, Loses Its Luster,” New York Times, April 11, 2013, at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/business/gold-long-a-secure-investment-loses-its-luster.html. Paul Krugman, “Lust for Gold,” New York Times, April 12, 2013, at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/opinion/krugman-lust-for-gold.html. Paul Krugman, “Hawks Crying Wolf,” New York Times, August 21, 2014, at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/opinion/paul-krugman-hawks-crying-wolf.html.

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rights. The left will welcome this, which is why 90 percent of

Obama’s cuts are to the U.S. military, the only thing keeping the

world together.’”245

The National Rifle Association’s luncheon for the Western

Conservative Conference featured a prayer containing elements

familiar to Christian Right and Patriot militia members: “‘Even

today, Hussein Obama is sending millions of dollars to the Muslim

Brotherhood and Al Qaeda with the result that they will go after

Christians. If you don’t have a gun, Jesus admonishes you, in

Luke 22:36, to run around naked from the top up, but make sure

you got a gun. We are to defend the body of Christ worldwide.

We call on every Christian to follow your admonition to sell our

shirts and buy a gun. And if any tyrant tries to pry our gun

from our hand, you strike them dumb and blind.’”246

245 Alexander Zaitchik, “Joe Arpaio’s Racist Roast And Other Stories From The Western Conservative Conference,” Media Matters, February 28, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/28/joe-arpaios-racist-roast-and-other-stories-from/198268.

246 Alexander Zaitchik, “Joe Arpaio’s Racist Roast And Other Stories From The Western Conservative Conference,” Media Matters, February 28, 2014, at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/28/joe-arpaios-racist-roast-and-other-stories-from/198268.

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Of course, the articles published on the national website of

Oath Keepers and the panel discussions at right-wing conferences

sound nutty, but they serve a purpose. The underlying message is

always about delegitimizing the federal government. Looking at

all the propaganda messages across the different movement

segments by different delivery persons, the message is never

intended to be a fact-based explanation that engages the mind

intellectually. While they use “facts,” their factual assertions

are almost always easily debunked and shown to be fabricated

disinformation or misinformation. It is an emotional argument

using widely held assumptions and easily discredited though

widely-believed conspiracy theories. The purpose is always to

delegitimize the federal government using a common narrative

structure and rhetoric that will appeal to the target audience—

while allowing different speakers addressing different movement

segments to tailor the specific nouns and adjectives to the

audience.

Conclusion

It is unfortunate that when progressive analysts examine and

explain the roots of Cliven Bundy’s confrontation with the

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federal government’s Bureau of Land Management that they focus

almost exclusively on the idea that “county supremacy” is derived

from the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity religion.247

There is, of course, an ideological affinity between the

Wise Use movement’s promotion of “county supremacy” and Christian

Identity’s promotion of the “county supremacy” of the sheriff

(see Chapter 11). But, W. Cleon Skousen, the Mormon and John

Birch Society Christian nationalist who founded the National

Center for Constitutional Studies, also promoted “county

247 David Neiwert, “Richard Mack Explains Nevada ‘Range War’ Strategy: ‘Put Allthe Women Up in the Front,’” Hate Watch, Southern Poverty Law Center, April 15, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/04/15/richard-mack-explains-nevada-range-war-strategy-put-all-the-women-up-in-the-front/. Michelle Fiore and Mark Potok, guests, “All In With Chris Hayes,” MSNBC, April 18, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55003531/ns/msnbc-all_in_with_chris_hayes/#.U1aOC_ldUjk. Rachel Maddow, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” MSNBC, April 24, 2014, at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55035005/ns/msnbc-rachel_maddow_show/#.U1_iefldUjk. JJ MacNab, “Context Matters: the Cliven Bundy Standoff—Part 1,” Forbes, April 30, 2014, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2014/04/30/context-matters-the-cliven-bundy-standoff-part-1/. For example, Mark Potok, the senior analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Stanley, “‘I don’t accuse Mack or CSPOA of being racist or anti-Semitic, but the fact is that this notion of county supremacy originates in violently racist and anti-Semitic groups.’” see J. Adrian Stanley, “Fed up! Her link to a group at an armed Nevada protest puts Peggy Littleton at the anti-fed forefront,” Colorado Springs Independent, July 23-29, 2014, at http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/her-link-to-a-group-at-an-armed-nevada-protest-puts-peggy-littleton-at-the-anti-fed-forefront/Content?oid=2916194. Paul Rosenberg’s commentary on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s July 2014 report on the Bundy confrontation focused almost exclusively on the influence of the Posse Comitatus movement. See Paul Rosenberg, “Right-Wing Militias Are Thriving—and the Media Won’t TalkAbout It,” AlterNet, July 22, 2014, at http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/right-wing-militias-thrive-post-bundy-and-media-wont-talk-about-it.

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supremacy.” Cliven Bundy carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution

produced by Skousen’s organization.248 Even J.J. MacNab, the

expert on the Sovereign Citizen movement which is ideologically

close to the Posse Comitatus movement, who attributed Bundy’s

constitutional ideas to the Posse Comituatus ideology, pointed

out that Bundy’s racist remarks were rooted in “ignorance”

derived from an “‘alternative’ history” of slavery offered by W.

Cleon Skousen.249 Of course, both Cliven Bundy and Richard Mack,

who have been friends for at least two decades, are fellow

Mormons—not Christian Identity adherents. And, the Christian

Reconstructionists had the most developed theology and ideology

regarding “county supremacy” in their theory that “lesser

magistrates,” meaning from the state governor to the lowest local

official, was responsible interposing himself between the citizen

and the “tyrannical federal government.”

248 News Corpse, “Exposed: The Source Of Cliven Bundy’s Crackpot Constitutionalism,” Daily Kos, April 20, 2014, at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/20/1293342/-EXPOSED-The-Source-Of-Cliven-Bundy-s-Crackpot-Constitutionalism.

249 J.J. MacNab, “What Las Vegas Police Killings Show About Evolving Sovereign Movement,” Forbes, June 13, 2014, at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjmacnab/2014/06/13/what-las-vegas-police-killings-show-about-evolving-sovereign-movement/.

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Obscured by this myopic focus is the fact the Bundy

confrontation is part of a much larger effort by extractive

industries, plutocratic billionaires, the American Legislative

Exchange Council, and the Christian Right to transfer public

lands owned by all of the American people to Western states and

then to sell them to oil, gas, coal, mining, and ranching

corporations.

For example, in mid-July 2014, the Southern Poverty Law

Center published an extensive report on the Bundy confrontation

that did not mention the American Legislative Exchange Council,

the American Lands Council, Ken Ivory, or any of the Koch-funded

think tanks promoting the larger issue of transferring public

lands to the Western states and then selling those lands to the

“highest bidder”—which is what the real “War in the West” is all

about. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Fall 2014

Intelligence Report article, “War in the West,” did not mention ALEC,

ALC, Ken Ivory, or the larger effort to transfer federal public

lands to the Western states.250 Thus, the SPLC was explicitly 250 Ryan Lenz, “War in the West,” Intelligence Report Fall 2014, Southern Poverty Law Center, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2014/fall/War-in-the-west.

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limiting its focus to the least important, but most visible,

aspect of the real “War on the West.”

In the opening editorial, Mark Potok stated, “The Bundy

ranch standoff was… a well-organized, military-type action that

reflects the potential for violence from a much larger and more

dangerous movement.”251 The larger report that Potok referenced,

“War in the West: The Bundy Ranch Standoff and the American

Radical Right,” suggested that current “disputes with federal

authority, many long simmering, are an extension of the earlier

right-wing Sagebrush Rebellion, Wise Use and ‘county supremacy’

movements.”252 In another article published as part of the larger

report, the SPLC claimed, “For antigovernment zealots like Bundy,

the county sheriff is the highest-ranking and really only

legitimate law enforcement officer. The concept came out of the

251 Southern Poverty Law Center, “Bundy ranch standoff was highly coordinated, reflecting threat of larger far-right militia movement,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-report-bundy-ranch-standoff-was-highly-coordinated-reflecting-threat-of-large.

252 Southern Poverty Law Center, “War in the West: The Bundy Ranch Standoff andthe American Radical Right,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/War-in-the-West-The-Bundy-Ranch-Standoff-and-the-American-Radical-Right.

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anti-Semitic and racist Posse Comitatus movement of the 1970s and

is often referred to as the ‘county supremacy movement.’”253

The Southern Poverty Law Center then claimed that the Wise

Use movement essentially became part of the racist and anti-

Semitic Posse Comitatus movement. In an article on the

background of the right-wing movement backing Cliven Bundy, the

SPLC quite smartly asked: “Where did these ideas come from? How

did the radical right come to take on issues pitting local use of

the nation’s rural lands against the government?” The SPLC’s

answer would obscure more than it revealed.

According the SPLC’s analysis, “But the militia movement

also drew from, and exploited, two more mainstream movements….

These were the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s and the

Wise Use movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The

militias also drew on the burgeoning county supremacy movement of

the ’90s…. The Wise Use movement was essentially an extension of

the [Reagan-backed] Sagebrush Rebellion…. Although its primary

aim was to expand private property rights and reduce

253 Southern Poverty Law Center, “Guns of April: The Bundy Standoff,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/War-in-the-West-Guns-of-April-The-Bundy-Standoff.

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environmental regulation of public lands, the movement in many

places essentially melded into the county supremacy movement

first popularized by the Posse Comitatus.”254

The SPLC’s report quoted above even quoted from an analysis

by Tarso Ramos published in the mid-1990s to the effect that the

“‘While the Wise Use Movement remains distinct from white

supremacist and paramilitary groups like the militia, they are

linked by crossover leaders, an increasingly overlapping

constituency, and some common ideological views—most notably

belief in the illegitimacy of the federal government and

assertion of state and county ‘rights’ over federal

authority.’”255

To be fair to the SPLC, Ramos also wrote in his 1995 report,

“The Wise Use and militia movements developed separately and

mostly function independently of one another…. Many militia

groups believe county boards of commissioners to be the most

254 Southern Poverty Law Center, “Backgrounding Bundy: The Movement,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/War-in-the-West-Backgrounding-Bundy-The-Movement.

255 Southern Poverty Law Center, “Backgrounding Bundy: The Movement,” July 10, 2014, at http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/War-in-the-West-Backgrounding-Bundy-The-Movement.

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legitimate governmental bodies (and the local sheriff to be the

highest law enforcement officer in the land…. These views derive

from the Posse Comitatus (literally, ‘power of the county’),

forerunner to the Christian Patriots and Northwest militia

groups.”256

But, there are three important caveats about Ramos’s

excellent work on the anti-environmental movement. First, Ramos

puts considerable emphasis on the corporate backers of the anti-

environmental movement. Second, Ramos tied anti-environmental

movement leaders like Ron Arnold, Mark Pollot, Wayne Hage, and

Charles Cushman to other extremist groups like the Patriot

militia and Posse Comitatus through an ideological affinity that

they appeared at conferences with them. Third, the County

Supremacy movement that Ramos emphasized tied this movement to

Ron Arnold and to the key idea of transferring federal lands to

the Western states. The “county supremacy” movement that the

SPLC referenced is strictly about the supremacy of the county

sheriff, which is a small sub-set idea, not the main idea. And 256 Tarso Ramos, “The Wise Use Radicals: Violence Finds New Bedfellows,” Western States Center, Fall 1995, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990421175530/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/wuviolen.html.

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lastly, Ramos was not aware of the Christian Reconstructionists’

doctrine of the “lesser magistrates,” though he was certainly

aware of the Religious Right’s ties to the Wise Use movement.

The writing(s) of Tarso Ramos that the SPLC referred to

emphasized the influence of corporations. In his 1995 article

regarding the county supremacy being derived from the Posse

Comitatus ideology, Ramos also pointed out that the “Wise Use

Movement is driven by two main motors: corporations and right-

wing ideologues. Natural resource, property development and

other business interests expect to profit from new laws promoting

private exploitation of public resources, and weakening or

eliminating environmental and other government regulations.”257

In his 1997 article, Ramos pointed out the grand coalition of the

Wise Use movement that was created through the entrepreneurial

efforts of Ron Arnold included “Boise-Cascade, Du Pont, Exxon,

Georgia Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific, Nevada Cattlemen's

Association, Washington Contract Loggers Association, and Western

Forest Industries Association…[and] activist groups, such as the 257 Tarso Ramos, “The Wise Use Radicals: Violence Finds New Bedfellows,” Western States Center, Fall 1995, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990421175530/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/wuviolen.html.

234

National Center for Constitutional Studies, which seeks to

institute biblical law in the United States, and the American

Freedom Coalition, a Unification Church front group in which

Arnold was deeply involved.”258 And, in his 1995 book article,

Ramos connected the Wise Use movement and the American

Legislative Exchange Council noting that “Wise Use legislative

efforts are promoted by the American Legislative Exchange

Council.”259

In terms of right-wing ideologues that promoted the Wise Use

movement, Ramos pointed to the “the New Right media and think

tank networks of Paul Weyrich, and elements of the religious

right,” as well as the John Birch Society.260 Of course, Paul

Weyrich and the John Birch Society were deeply involved in the

258 Tarso Ramos, “Extremists and the Anti-Environmental Lobby: Activities SinceOklahoma City,” Western States Center, 1997, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990225123142/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/extreme.html.

259 Tarso Ramos, “Wise Use in the West: The Case of the Northwest Timber Industry,” pp. 82-118 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 105.

260 Tarso Ramos, “The Wise Use Radicals: Violence Finds New Bedfellows,” Western States Center, Fall 1995, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990421175530/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/wuviolen.html.

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formation of the Council for National Policy, and, Weyrich was

instrumental in bringing corporate and foundation funds to create

the core architecture of the Christian Right—think tanks, media

watchdogs, and parachurch mobilization organizations, and the

initial right-wing television propaganda platform, the Television

News Incorporated (TVN) in the early 1970s and National

Empowerment Television, the forerunner to Fox News in the early

1990s.261

Ramos’s 1995 article pointed out that Gottlieb’s Center for

the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE) that employed Ron Arnold,

also employed “property rights guru Mark Pollot and Nevada public

lands rancher Wayne Hage.” In fact, Pollot, a former Reagan

administration lawyer, represented Hage in his lawsuit against

the U.S. Forest Service and had written the Reagan

administration’s Executive Order 12630, “requiring the attorney

general to certify that all government regulations were in

compliance with private property rights as defined by Professor

Epstein.”262 Hage also had as his lawyer Karen Budd, a former 261 Kerwin Swint, Dark Genius: The Influential Career of Legendary Political Operative and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes, New York: Union Square Press, 2008: 59-75.

262 David Helvarg, The War Against the Greens, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, (1994) 1997: 316-9.

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Reagan administration lawyer in James Watts’ Department of

Interior, who just happened to write the “anti-regulation

ordinances in Catron’s model plan.”263 In other words, the

central organization of the Wise Use movement, the Center for the

Defense of Free Enterprise, was linked directly to the former

Reagan administration and key Christian Right foundations and

their money.

However, Ramos made clear that the term “county supremacy”

is really only an “ideological bridge” between at least two

social movements. Ramos explained that the “assertion of county

rights to federal powers provides an ideological bridge between

Wise Use and the far right”—the “far right” meaning Posse

Comitatus and Christian Identity movements. The personnel,

ideological, and organizational linkages between the Center for

the Defense of Free Enterprise and the National Federal Lands

Council helped created this “ideological bridge.” The NFLC

“promotes the Wise Use county rule campaign through seminars

conducted around the West and the nation”—a function now served

263 Florence Williams, “Sagebrush Rebellion II,” pp. 130-5 in John D. Echeverria and Raymond Booth Eby (editors), Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1995: 132.

237

by Ken Ivory and his American Lands Council. These seminars,

usually given as part of much larger Wise Use conferences, were

called “The Power and Authority of County Government”—a theme

that would fit very well into Richard Mack’s talks to Patriot

groups. As early as 1993, the NFLC was networking with anti-

Semitic tax protesters and by October 1994 was openly promoting

the establishment of Patriot militias which, in turn, used such

issues as “‘land use, property rights, anti-Indian organizing—all

issues associated with the Wise Use Movement’” as the entry point

into local community organizing.264

Ramos also pointed out that the “cornerstone of the county

rule effort is model ordinances sold by the NFLC that promise to

confer upon counties authority over federal lands within their

boundaries.”265

And, in Ramos’s 1997 article it is clear that the meaning of

“county supremacy” is radically different from the Southern

264 Tarso Ramos, “The Wise Use Radicals: Violence Finds New Bedfellows,” Western States Center, Fall 1995, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990421175530/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/wuviolen.html.

265 Tarso Ramos, “The Wise Use Radicals: Violence Finds New Bedfellows,” Western States Center, Fall 1995, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990421175530/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/wuviolen.html.

238

Poverty Law Center’s use of the term to equate what Cliven Bundy,

Stewart Rhodes, and Richard Mack advocated—the transfer of

federal land to the states—to Posse Comitatus and Christian

Identity. Ramos explained that the term “‘‘County supremacy

movement’ describes a faction of the anti-environmental lobby

that leads the efforts by dozens of counties across the West and

the country to assume control over National Forests and other

federal lands within their boundaries. The object of this

endeavor is to circumvent environmental protections on the public

lands. The most popular strategy involves passing a set of local

ordinances that claim to confer management authority on county

government.”266

Dennis McLane, the former Bureau of Land Management’s deputy

chief of law enforcement explained, the Catron County ordinances,

drafted by Karen Budd—the former Department of the Interior

lawyer under James Watt and lawyer at the Mountain States Legal

Foundation—“granted commissioners unilateral power to veto

Federal endangered species and wilderness regulations. They 266 Tarso Ramos, “Extremists and the Anti-Environmental Lobby: Activities SinceOklahoma City,” Western States Center, 1997, at http://web.archive.org/web/19990225123142/http://www.epn.org/westernstates/extreme.html.

239

could also make timber and mining decisions. They defined public

grazing permits as ‘private property rights.’ They authorized

the county sheriff to arrest any Federal or state official who

attempted to enforce the despised Federal statutes.”267 This is

the agenda promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council

through its various pieces of model legislation in the 1990s and

currently.

Contrast the expansive meaning of “county supremacy”—an

unconstitutional attempt to transfer federal land to control by

the county to what Daniel Levitas, arguably the country’s top

expert on the Posse Comitatus movement wrote on “county

supremacy.” According to Levitas, under William Potter Gale’s

founding definition of Posse Comitatus (“power of the county”),

“anyone could call out the Posse, not just the sheriff, and if

government officials attempted to enforce ‘unlawful’ legislation

the Posse could arrest them and put them on trial with a

‘citizens jury’….[and] hang public officials at ‘high noon.’”268

267 Dennis McLane, Seldom Was Heard an Encouraging Word: A History of Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement, Guthrie, OK: Shoppe Foreman Publishing, 2011: 388.

268 Daniel Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002: 2 and 114.

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Even the sheriff was not immune to the unconstitutional power of

the ‘citizens jury’ or the posse.

And, contrast that explanation of “county supremacy” by

Levitas with the brief mention of the “doctrine of the lower

magistrate” in Frederick Clarkson’s seminal work on the Christian

Reconstructionist movement, Eternal Hostility. Clarkson asked Herb

Titus, then the vice presidential candidate on the U.S. Taxpayers

Party—which advocated the formation of Patriot militias (see

Chapter 16)—how this doctrine related to opposition to Roe v. Wade.

Titus explained, “‘You can read the Declaration of Independence

and you will find the doctrine of the lower magistrate. That’s

the very foundation, it’s the very legitimacy of this nation.’”

Titus continued to explain that resistance could also come “by

lower magistrates.”269 Clarkson explained in a 1998 SPLC article

that under this Christian Reconstructionist doctrine “biblical

rebels need only enlist lower-level government officials in order

to win divine sanction for political insurrection against

government.”270 But, the definitive statement on the doctrine of 269 Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1997: 118.

270 Frederick Clarkson, “Anti-Abortion Extremists: ‘Patriots’ and racists converge,” Intelligence Report Summer 1998, Southern Poverty Law Center, at

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lesser magistrates comes from Michael Gilstrap’s essay, “John

Calvin’s Theology of Resistance,” in Gary North’s 1983 edited

volume of Christian Reconstruction strategy, The Theology of Christian

Resistance.”

Gilstrap concluded his examination of Calvin’s writings on

the “grounds for disobedience” and the “agents of resistance”

thusly: “Calvin sees no place for the private citizen actively to

resist the duly ordained authorities. Rather he calls upon those

officials whose constitutional power compels them to protect the

established order against a usurper or tyrant. It is the duty of

these officials to resist lawfully, using resistance to bring

order back to the country, and to restore the nation to the

constitutional status quo…. If the time ever comes, and there is

the need for armed, active resistance against a tyrannical

federal government, then that resistance must come about as a

result of the leadership of lesser magistrates.”271

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/1998/summer/anti-abortion-extremists.

271 Michael R. Gilstrap, “John Calvin’s Theology of Resistance,” pp. 180-217 inGary North, editor, The Theology of Christian Resistance, Tyler, Texas: Geneva DivinitySchool Press, 1983: 215-6.

242

In Gilstrap’s analysis we see all the major propaganda

themes that create the theological narrative for Christian

resistance, rightly understood—the federal government is

tyrannical, Obama is a king or dictator, the federal

bureaucracies are out of control, the federal government has

reneged on its promises to the states, much of the federal

government’s departments and actions are unconstitutional, the

federal government is worshipped as a god, and, the federal

government constitutes an existential threat to Christians and

patriots. All of these themes were present in form or another in

the Cliven Bundy confrontation—which was part of a larger

corporate, Christian Right, Tea Party, and Patriot movement

effort fundamentally designed to question the legitimacy of the

federal government’s ownership of vast tracts of land west of the

Mississippi River. Even the actions of Bundy, the Patriot

militia, Oath Keepers, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace

Officers Association, and the Republican legislators who went to

Bundy’s assistance advocated that the local county sheriff and

Nevada’s governor protect Bundy and his rights. The ideology and

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behavior of the participants at the “Battle of Bunkerville” are

not even remotely close to the ideology of Posse Comitatus.

But, if we invert the federal government as a triangle

resting on its point and its base in the air, where the point

meets the ground, as it were, is where the Bureau of Land

Management and U.S. Forest Service law enforcement and management

officials meet the local county sheriff.

Dennis McLane, the former BLM law enforcement official,

explained that the “BLM maintains relationships with well over

200 county sheriff offices throughout the Western states.” Most

sheriffs, according to McLane, were “either supportive or

indifferent to the BLM law enforcement program.” Counties which

sheriffs had very little problems with the Bureau of Land

Management were those with large urban populations, counties

where the BLM had to take the lead in anti-marijuana enforcement

due to local sensitivities, counties with reimbursable law

enforcement agreements, and rural counties with mixed

constituencies, meaning that the public lands were designated for

multiple users—mining, ranching, timber, and recreation. In

these counties, the BLM essentially uses federal dollars “through

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reimbursable law enforcement agreements with little or no

performance standards in an effort to buy favor. These type of

agreements have been commonly referred to as “‘we will pay you to

like us agreements.’” Counties which caused the greatest concern

to BLM were counties where “commissioners and local populace are

hostile to BLM activities.” In these counties, sheriffs as

elected officials had to “at least mimic this attitude.” Many of

these sheriffs do not believe in county supremacy and pay lip

service to local forces. And then there are the counties where

there are “sheriffs that have not only bought into the County

Supremacy mind-set but also readily accept the Constitutionalist

belief that the ‘high sheriff’ of the county should be the only

law enforcement authority in the county.” While these sheriffs

will gladly accept BLM money, provided the BLM does not law

enforcement within the county, these sheriffs “make their

position known in written documents, some voice it in public

rhetoric, and some have carried out specific acts of opposition

to the BLM.”272

272 Dennis McLane, Seldom Was Heard an Encouraging Word: A History of Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement, Guthrie, OK: Shoppe Foreman Publishing, 2011: 390-2.

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A post-Cliven Bundy article on the relationship between the

BLM and local sheriffs revealed just how critical support from

local sheriffs is to the federal government. The BLM has “225 or

so law enforcement rangers and 70 special agents” which are

responsible for protecting “wildlife, habitats, minerals, timber

and archaeological treasures across a massive 250-million-acre

estate. That works out to more than 1 million acres per ranger.”

The BLM can only manage by coordinating with local, state, and

other federal law enforcement agencies. But, local sheriffs, who

are elected officials, are caught in the middle between

cooperating with the BLM and being elected by a citizenry that

may be aroused and mobilized to oppose the BLM specifically or

the federal government in general.273 The Los Angeles Times reported

that in counties where relations between the BLM and local

officials and populace are most contentious that “BLM workers

have felt so threatened that they patrol in unmarked vehicles,

without uniforms.”274

273 Phil Taylor, “Public Lands: Sheriffs are key to BLM mission, but local politics intrude,” Energy & Environment News, July 17, 2014, at http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060003061.

274 John M. Glionna, “BLM, local law enforcement tensions near breaking point in the West,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2014, at http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-blm-critics-20140805-story.html.

246

Thus, part of the Christian Right’s Fourth Generation

Warfare strategy is to sour relations between the Bureau of Land

Management and local county sheriffs—the point where BLM and

federal law enforcement cooperation is most critical—in order to

drive the federal government off public lands.

This is a strategy that apparently has been coordinated or

could have been coordinated within a very small planning cell

within the Christian Right’s Council for National Policy working

in cooperation with the Koch brothers—themselves fully linked

into the top strategic planning cell of the CNP—and the American

Legislative Exchange Council, which was created by the architect

of the Christian Right, and which operates in the land theft

campaign through Ken Ivory and the American Lands Council. All

of these efforts were able to come together in the Cliven Bundy

confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management. The head of

Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, and the head of the Constitutional

Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Richard Mack, had been

developing the narrative and the organizational networking to

assist this larger strategic effort.

247

An analysis that focuses exclusively upon the local

confrontation and ignores the much larger strategic planning,

ideological narrative development and dissemination,

organizational growth, and the spread of networks across

different segments of the right-wing using “traveling

evangelists” and a common “narrative structure” is bound to

mislead the American public and lead to a catastrophic

intelligence failure. The Cliven Bundy confrontation—especially

the larger and more sophisticated effort pushed by the Christian

Right and the American Legislative Exchange Council—is Fourth

Generation Warfare that will only get better, especially as the

closest watchers of the right-wing fail to notice the strategy

and its implementation.

The only way to perceive and comprehend a Fourth Generation

Warfare attack is to understand that the Christian Right and its

corporate backers are waging a 4GW attack on the legitimacy of

the federal government; that the 4GW propaganda attack is almost

always multi-dimensional and involves multiple delivery

platforms; the 4GW attack is best understood by examining the

attack as a whole—not only in terms of propaganda platforms, but

248

strategic and operational linkages, cross-linking personnel, and

network interactions. If a progressive analyst arbitrarily

limits her or his analysis to the far right on the spectrum, you

actually miss the attack; an analyst cannot assume that an

ideological affinity of an ideological bridge concept means the

same thing across different movement segments; an analyst cannot

give undue causal weight to movements like the Posse Comitatus or

Christian Identity which are a spent force; and, an analyst

cannot neglect the strategic writings of the Christian Right and

their five-billion dollar infrastructure. Finally, to believe

that the federal government as a whole, or key federal agencies

like the Bureau of Land Management, Department of Homeland

Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, can perceive

an ongoing Fourth Generation Warfare attack is to engage in

magical thinking.