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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGuess who’s funding the Bundys’ crazy land-grab movement? The Koch brothers
Surprise, surprise! </gomer-pyle>
http://grist.org/living/guess-whos-funding-the-bundys-crazy-land-grab-movement-the-koch-brothers/
ThinkProgress reports:
The political network of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch signaled last week that it is expanding its financial and organizational support for a coalition of anti-government activists and militants who are working to seize and sell Americas national forests, monuments, and other public lands....
In early February, it was announced that Ivory would be stepping down as head of the American Lands Council and joining the South Carolinabased group Federalism in Action specifically, its Free the Lands project, a collaboration between the American Lands Council Foundation and Federalism in Action. And thats where the Koch money comes in: Federalism in Action is a member of the State Policy Network, a Koch brotherfunded network of more than 50 right-wing think tanks and libertarian groups focusing on state policy.
Despite the fact that the push to transfer federal lands to state control is a fringe movement, deeply unpopular with most Americans including those in Western states Koch money could make it move to the mainstream as politicians court their vast donations. As ThinkProgress points out, last week, Ted Cruz promised to be vigorously committed to transferring as much federal land as humanly possible back to the states. In other words, Cruz wants that Koch money no matter the consequences for those lands, the national interest, or the rest of us.
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)Any chance they will be heading to that big bank in the sky before they co-opt the entire country?
Just damn!
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)I wonder where the $$$ will go once they, as Rush the OxyMoron says, "assume room temperature".
think
(11,641 posts)Initech
(100,102 posts)Just find some abandoned remote federal lands near you, set up shop, forget crucial items like snacks and working toilets. Post a few videos online about how you swore an oath to the Constitution, and bring lots of guns and ammo. The feds will leave you alone while the media frenzy begins. Boom! That sweet, sweet Koch cash will start rolling in!
ThoughtCriminal
(14,049 posts)Land that belongs to all of us become huge no-trespassing zones.
After it is transferred to the states, it gets sold in multi-million acre lots to billionaires who will then sub-divide sell at huge profit or leased at much higher rates. The more scenic portions become mega private resorts (ranches for "tax purposes" for the ultra-wealthy and their business friends, upper-tier Congressional servants and certain Supreme Court Justices.
The militia imbeciles end up as share-croppers and ranch-hands.