The Federal Government Owns 61 Percent Of Idaho, 64 Percent Of Utah And 84 Percent Of Nevada

Did you know that the federal government owns 28 percent of all land in the United States?  Today, the feds control approximately 640 million acres of land, and after decades of very poor management, many are calling on the states to take a larger role.  This is particularly true in the 11 western states where the federal government collectively owns 47 percent of all land.  East of the Mississippi River, the feds only own 4 percent of all land, and there is no reason for such a disparity to exist.  In Connecticut and Iowa, the federal government only owns 0.3 percent of all land.  Such an arrangement seems to work very well for those states, and so why can’t we dramatically reduce federal land ownership in the western states as well?

Of course the federal government will always need a very small amount of land for certain national purposes, and nobody is disputing that.  According to the Heritage Foundation, the following are the primary purposes that federal land is being used for…

These holdings include national parks, national forests, recreation areas, wildlife refuges, vast tracts of range and wasteland managed by the Bureau of Land Management, reservations held in trust for Native American tribes, military bases, and ordinary federal buildings and installations.

We will always need to have some land set aside for those purposes.

But does the Bureau Of Land Management really need more than 247 million acres?

Does the Forest Service really need more than 192 million acres?

Does the Fish and Wildlife Service really need more than 89 million acres?

If the feds were doing a good job, that would be one thing, but in so many instances federal land managers have gotten an extremely bad reputation.  The following comes from an article by Sue Lani Madsen

For example, federal land is exempt from state noxious weed control laws, and lack of weed control has earned federal land a reputation as a bad neighbor. Frustrated local federal land managers are hindered by layers of internal regulations and restricted funding that make timely response to weed outbreaks difficult.

And thanks to mismanagement by the feds, wildfires tend to spread very rapidly in many areas owned and controlled by the federal government.  At this point more than 2.6 million acres of land have already burned in 2017, and that is close to 30 percent ahead of last year’s pace.

If you have never lived in a western state, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how frustrating it is to have the federal government in control of vast stretches of your state.  In so many cases the feds simply do not care about local issues or concerns, and when they drop the ball there is often very little that can be done about it.

According to Ballotpedia, the federal government owns more than 28 percent of the land in 12 different western states…

Washington: 28.5 percent

Montana: 29.0 percent

New Mexico: 34.7 percent

Colorado: 35.9 percent

Arizona: 38.6 percent

California: 45.8 percent

Wyoming: 48.1 percent

Oregon: 52.9 percent

Alaska: 61.2 percent

Idaho: 61.6 percent

Utah: 64.9 percent

Nevada: 84.9 percent

Here in Idaho, we are glad to have so much public land because it is a wonderful thing for hunters, fishers, hikers and those that enjoy other outdoor activities.

So we want to continue our tradition of having wide open spaces that are owned by the public – we just want the federal government to hand over the keys and leave.

We believe that Idaho land should be owned by the people of Idaho, and we believe that Idaho’s natural resources should be managed by the people of Idaho.

Those that are against transferring ownership of federal land to the states often argue that it would be too expensive for the states to handle

Paying for wildfire protection alone—it accounts for about half of the U.S. Forest Service’s annual budget of $6.5 billion—would burden Western taxpayers, says the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group.

States would be forced to raise taxes or sell off iconic national properties to developers or other private investors in order to pay for everything the federal government does now—from complicated tasks like enforcing environmental regulations and maintaining cultural and historic resources to simple ones like putting up road and trail signs.

But one study found that it is actually profitable for states to manage their own public lands.  Here is more from Sue Lani Madsen

A 2015 study by the Property and Environment Research Center, a free-market environmental think tank, consistently found state-managed land provided a return on every dollar spent while federal lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management cost more to operate than they return in revenue.

At the end of the day, this is just another area where we need to readjust the balance of power between the states and the federal government.  Our founders intended to create a system where the states had much more power than the central government, but instead that has become totally flipped around.

Today, it is almost as if the 10th Amendment does not even exist.  Most of the time the federal government treats state governments as little more than puppets, and very few state governments have the backbone to stand up for themselves.

As conservatives, we need to start standing up against the costly federal mandates that are imposing such a financial burden on our state governments.  We want control of our own laws and our own budgets.

It is also time for the feds to get off the backs of our farmers, our miners, our loggers and our ranchers.  Some of the most abusive federal agencies, such as the EPA, need to be shut down entirely.

And if our local communities do not want to take Islamic refugees from the Middle East, they should not be forced to do so by the federal government.  Here in Idaho, three young Islamic refugees raped a 5-year-old girl, and yet the federal government does not seem to care about our outrage.

Recently, I have been talking to so many people that just want the federal government to leave us alone.  Instead of solving our problems, most of the time the federal government is the problem, and things would be so much better if the feds would just stay out of our business.

Why Is Obama Flooding Small Towns In The Most Conservative Parts Of America With Refugees?

Refugees Welcome - Public DomainWhy are small towns in conservative states being specifically targeted for refugee resettlement?  Of course the Obama administration will never publicly admit that this is happening, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is going on.  Just look at the uproar that refugee resettlement is now causing in small communities in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Kansas.  The Obama administration has deemed large cities such as Washington D.C. to be “too expensive” for the refugees, and so large numbers of them are being dispersed throughout smaller communities all over the nation.  If you drop a few hundred refugees into a major city of several million people, it isn’t going to make much of a difference.  But if you drop a few hundred refugees into a small town that has only a few thousand people living there, you can start to fundamentally alter the character of the whole area.  Could it be possible that this is yet another way that Barack Obama is attempting to “fundamentally transform” America?

You would think that there would be more employment opportunities, cultural attractions and government services available for refugees in major metropolitan areas.  So it would seem natural to resettle them in those areas.  But instead, there seems to be a major push to resettle large numbers of them in small towns.

Needless to say, this is creating a huge uproar in many areas.  In fact, on Monday there is a major protest planned in Missoula, Montana.  The following comes from Leo Hohmann of WND

Another big battle is brewing over Syrian “refugees” sweeping into small-town America.

Rural folks in Montana are pushing back against plans by urban elites to plant hundreds of Muslims from the Third World into Helena and Missoula. They plan a protest rally at 10 a.m. Monday in front of the county courthouse in Missoula. And if the pattern holds of similar rallies in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Fargo, North Dakota, a contingent of pro-refugee people will show up to counter protest.

Well funded pro-immigrant NGOs have been searching out local politicians that are willing to work with them to invite the Obama administration to resettle large numbers of Islamic refugees in their areas.  Unfortunately for residents of Missoula, politicians there seem quite willing to open the door

Here in “Big Sky Country” local politicians in Missoula, working with pro-immigrant NGOs, are inviting the federal government to begin sending Syrians, comparing them to the Hmong refugees who fled Vietnam’s communists in the late 1970s. They have not been deterred by the fact that 98 percent of Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims, the vast majority of whom FBI Director James Comey admits are impossible to vet for ties to terrorism.

Despite Comey’s warnings, the Missoula Board of County Commissioners sent a letter on Jan. 13 to the U.S. State Department requesting Syrian refuges. “We look forward to seeing approximately 100 refugees per year resettled in Missoula,” the letter states.

“Missoula is an ideal city for resettling refugees,” the letter continues. “Our community enjoys good schools, incredible natural beauty, and a low unemployment rate, among other factors.”

We have all seen the chaos that has erupted in Europe as massive waves of Islamic immigrants have been allowed in and resettled in large numbers in small communities.  Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the epidemic of rape that is sweeping across formerly peaceful countries like Norway and Sweden.

And I am sure most of you have already read about the extremely alarming sexual crimes that Germany is dealing with now.  But many of us don’t seem to be connecting the dots.  What is happening over there could someday happen to our own wives and daughters.

Fortunately, there are some communities that are still willing to step up and take a stand against what the social engineers in Washington D.C. are trying to do.  One of those communities is Sandpoint, Idaho

Sandpoint City Council members voted Wednesday night to withdraw a resolution supporting refugee resettlement, bringing an end to a heated, month-long controversy.

Cheers erupted from the audience when newly elected Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad asked the council to withdraw the resolution from consideration. A measure meant to counter statements from Bonner County commissioners and Sheriff Darryl Wheeler opposing the resettlement of refugees, the resolution was intended to restate Sandpoint’s commitments to human rights, according to Rognstad.

“This resolution has only served to divide us and this community,” said Rognstad, as he requested the withdrawal. “That saddens me.”

Once again, anti-refugee activists turned out in force to oppose the resolution and, once again, the council meeting procedure was punctured by applause and shouts. When Rognstad called for order, the crowd responded with catcalls.

But other small communities in Idaho are not so fortunate.

Just consider what is happening in Twin Falls

Beginning the next fiscal year (October 1), some 300 Muslim refugees, primarily from Syria, will arrive in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Twin Falls Times reports.

But this miniature exodus from the Middle East to the small southern Idaho town of 45,000 people is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg, according to WND, which indicates that many more refugees from Iraq, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and likely Syria, are on their way. The conservative news site received reports that community leaders were told at a recent Boise State University conference held for “stakeholders” — including church groups and social service providers — that a couple thousand refugees are planned to a arrive statewide soon.

Look, I am all for assisting people that need our help.

In particular, I would love for our country to take in Christians from Iraq and Syria.  The things that ISIS has been doing to those that believe in Jesus Christ are almost too horrible to put into words, and yet Barack Obama has been almost totally silent on the matter.

Instead of taking in persecuted Christians, it has been estimated that well over 90 percent of the refugees from Syria are Sunni Muslims, and surveys have found that a significant percentage of them actually have a favorable view of ISIS.

In the mainstream media, we are told quite often that the number of refugees being brought in is 10,000 a year.  But that simply is not accurate.  In a previous article, I documented the fact that the White House has admitted that the number of refugees being resettled in this country has been increased to 100,000 per year.  The following is a message that was tweeted by the official White House Twitter account on September 28th…

100000 Refugees

I don’t see how there could be any confusion.  Barack Obama himself says that we are bringing in 100,000 refugees a year for the next two years.

Not all of these refugees are coming from Syria, but the vast majority of them are coming from countries where a radical version of Sunni Islam is practiced as a way of life.

When large numbers of refugees are injected into a small community, the character of that community can be fundamentally altered.  And at this point, it appears that there is a concentrated effort to funnel large numbers of these refugees into small towns in some of the most conservative states in the country.

If you are concerned about what is going on in places like Missoula, Sandpoint and Twin Falls, you might want to check on what your own local politicians are doing.

An insidious agenda is at work, and I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg.