So for future reference, when you see activists suing government agencies, consider the possibility that the plaintiff and the defendant are after the same outcome.
If has always been common practice in Brazil to have government lawyers defend the government in salary disputes with government employees in courts that have employees who sue the judicial branch in salary disputes while being represented by lawyers who are both lawyers for both parties while representing themselves, as lawyers, while representing the government, or employees, or both, but not simultaneously, unless permitted by statute, which is usually generally allowed when discretion is permitted by appellate courts, themselves subject to arbitration rules they themselves establish for themselves and for everybody else. It´s a great system where everybody wins and nobody losses, except the nobodies.
Makes you wonder whether the FBI may have encouraged Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to sue the FBI, so that Merrick Garland's DOJ could award them the $2 million settlement they sought. What a crock.
This is just the latest take on the nefarious “sue and settle” scheme created by Obama to bypass the regulatory process. A judge lets the Government give away in “settlement” what it could never do by regulation, even binding the Executive branch for all time.
The idea that the governmental owner of land expresses “no opinion” on the use of that land is outrageous.
A close to home and documented case of NGOs working hand in glove to do the dirty work gov't agencies cannot. The USAID exposed a lot of this in theory but this one hits home.
Pisses me off as I donated to Nature Conservancy in the past. Argh.
I always thought of NC as a good activist group. They didn’t use Law-fare to support their cause. They were an outlet for concerned land owners who wanted to do something with their property to protect the environment. Seems to be another case of a group that started with good intentions , Greenpeace, Sierra Club and others who later morphed into an aggressive predator against private property and now public property. They appear to have a great ally in this effort. The stewards of our property, our government.
My, the rot went deep in the NPS. The whole situation is an absolute tragedy. My heart goes out to all the ranchers, & I wish the fleas of a thousand camels upon the government liars. Thank you for searching out the truth, Chris.
They have gotten so accustomed to hiding their collusion in plain sight. Great job exposing this conspiracy. Is it technically a conspiracy, perhaps to defraud the ranchers and the public?
It is a taking no matter how you look at it. What government wants, government gets. Farming is a business and when it becomes impossible to hand that business down to your family or to sell it to someone who shares your vision, you eventually give in to the least personally damaging outcome.
I don't have any problem with people openly disagreeing with...whatever...and airing their ideas, no matter how bazonkers. And remember, sometimes the "bazonkers" ideas turn out to be correct. (Covid stabs killing people...OH THAT CAN'T BE.)
What I certainly DO have a problem with is this sort of conspiratorial behind-the-scenes machination that this story represents. People on the same side, posing as being on opposite sides, using taxpayer-thieved funds by the truckload to keep their public jobs funded, their causes paid for, and zero sunlight and air on the process.
If there is merit in the GHG thing, I want to hear it. If there is no merit, I want to hear it.
But what I do NOT want are these reindeer games where the "public sector" robs every household to pay for their sinecures and their cabals.
I have suspected something like this has gone on when arrested activists have sued for how they were (mis?)treated by the NYPD, most recently post-George Floyd, and gotten very generous settlements from NYC.
I remember finding out that the EPA funded an environmental group’s lawsuit against the EPA resulting in a settlement that required the EPA to do what it could not do by statute.
I suspect closing USAID was insufficient. There’s more graft, corruption, money laundering, and hidden funding yet to find.
It is using the judicial branch to inflict legislative or executive remedies that could not be secured through proper/constitutional/statutorial use of those branches' powers.
This all feels very "peace pipes and glass beads"-like to me. Ranchers get some compensation, but the lose the land. Odds are 1:1 that this will repeat again and again, every time bratty rich people and activists and government drones decide that farmers are in the way of their "vision".
It is a very old-fashioned and conservatie attitude they are displaying; not present-day American political meaning of conserative, but the old-old one:
The 14th century Feudal lord moving his serfs around on his lands, according to his whims.
If you all want to bring this to President Trump's attention, Viva Frie was at the Whitehouse recently, spoke with one of Trump's close advisors, or something like, and he said, Trump reads the comments to his own Truth Social posts. Might be a backdoor way to flag him?
I have modest private channels to the Trump folks, and a good private channel to Doug Burgum. They know. The interesting thing in all of this is that the ranchers signed a settlement agreement on January 8, 2025. I have a theory about that, but the decision between them was made privately. They could have held on until Trump was inaugurated, and they chose not to.
There is talk of selling government lands. Maybe with an easement that follows the land that only ranching can be done on the property and allowing for some public access.
They won't say. They had private discussions as a group, and aren't sharing the content of those discussions. But there have been some hints that the environmental groups signaled to them that they would never go on running ranches at Point Reyes without more lawsuits. Basically, you can survive this lawsuit, but will you survive the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one? So Trump saves you today, but what happens during the next Democratic administration?
My impression -- not something I can prove -- is that the ranchers were offered a choice between leaving and being bankrupted by never-ending litigation.
> the ranchers were offered a choice between leaving and being bankrupted by never-ending litigation.
There is way more of this going on than 99% of people have any idea, Chris. And now that "journalism" is entirely captive, there is no danger of sunlight shining from that corner.
I'm all over making sure that ranchers aren't despoiling...whatever. I'm of the view that not every acre of land should be domesticated for profit, and I'm more of Western Hunter Gatherer than Steppe Herder ancestry/roots myself.
But the use of legal action to create pressure and inflict torture, rather than to examine, weigh, and adjudicate what is just/fair is what chaps my glutes.
I saw what Monsanto did to small, intelligent dairy farmers who resisted rBGH stabs in the '90s.
I saw what other corporations did to other farmers who were just trying to get the word out about something(s) of concern to them (pesticides, e.g.).
I've owned a ranch for 20 yrs now in eastern Oregon. It's been a wake-up call for me, seeing how Federal and State agencies grind everyone down to get what they want. Like the wind turbine projects on both sides of our property, for example. If I - as an individual actor - did to the hawk and eagle population what those turbines are doing, I'd be in prison for years (and for good cause). But they happily waive requirements and regulations that allow for the same damage to raptor populations. Here in eastern Oregon, when the "hearings" and "public input" sessions reach your town, the matter is already settled, the issue decided, and those turbines are going to go in.
Glad you thought to file a FOIA request on the NPS. Pretty quick response, compared to what I've seen...I wonder if they're feeling any heat from the WH, or if - having won the day - they don't care. Or maybe they're just diligent people.
I think, among other things, that they can't overcome the private agreement signed by the ranchers. They can't just set aside a contract signed by other people.
The late, great Vaclav Havel, who grew up under communism and later became president of the Czech Republic, observed that "the environmentalists were the new communists". As you have pointed out, the bureaucrats have been very quiet about all this, assuming a benevolent, neutral stance. But they want to take that land for the State, then only they, and a small group of leftists can use it, rather than have private owners control it and use it. Most all environmental laws end up exactly where Point Reyes is: with less private ownership, more government control, of land that only a small part of the population able to enjoy. And it means that the land will deteriorate over time, just like in all socialist countries.
I'm fine with locking the masses out of a lot of places. I've seen what antswarms of tourists do to nature. Eff that, and eff anybody who thinks every acre of land's best use is making money for tourist attractions.
You don’t use it you lose it. Wild fires are the result of land that is not used or managed. Wild fires harm the environment. Just had to add that because there are idiots who believe forest and wildfires are helpful.
As the owner of a forested property, I do a lot to protect the land, water, and air along with all the creatures that inhabit it. As a result, I am proud that my property produces wood for family homes, furniture, and many other products. I wasn’t around then before man on earth, but perhaps you were there and watched the dinosaurs die off. Was it wildfires that made the planet uninhabitable for them? 🤣 You seem to know a lot about stuff.
There was a time when conspiring with the Feds to screw citizens out of their livelihood might have resulted in those conspirators swinging from a rope. Ah… the good ol days.
my shocked face, let me show it to you. NPS has been manned by watermelons since the 70s. They never met a human they liked or an animal that they hated (unless it's "invasive" and sometimes not then.) I worked in high school for the forest service, which is just as bad...
So for future reference, when you see activists suing government agencies, consider the possibility that the plaintiff and the defendant are after the same outcome.
And most likely receiving funds from the same source.
Us, the taxpayers.
It’s infuriating, isn’t it?
“Non-governmental” organizations, right?
These days it’s reasonable to assume the government paid for both sides of the lawsuit.
Are you suggesting that they paid for the ranchers' representation?
The government probably paid the Nature Conservancy’s legal fees.
That goes without saying.
That is how the game is played.
If has always been common practice in Brazil to have government lawyers defend the government in salary disputes with government employees in courts that have employees who sue the judicial branch in salary disputes while being represented by lawyers who are both lawyers for both parties while representing themselves, as lawyers, while representing the government, or employees, or both, but not simultaneously, unless permitted by statute, which is usually generally allowed when discretion is permitted by appellate courts, themselves subject to arbitration rules they themselves establish for themselves and for everybody else. It´s a great system where everybody wins and nobody losses, except the nobodies.
Makes you wonder whether the FBI may have encouraged Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to sue the FBI, so that Merrick Garland's DOJ could award them the $2 million settlement they sought. What a crock.
And the reporters covering the lawsuit want that same outcome as well.
If you're looking for more information, The Federalist has written about this topic more than once. The slang for the tactic is "sue & settle."
(one example: https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/07/bidens-swamp-brings-back-sue-and-settle-to-hide-behind-courts-as-it-stomps-out-fossil-fuels/)
This is just the latest take on the nefarious “sue and settle” scheme created by Obama to bypass the regulatory process. A judge lets the Government give away in “settlement” what it could never do by regulation, even binding the Executive branch for all time.
The idea that the governmental owner of land expresses “no opinion” on the use of that land is outrageous.
Paging Judge Boasberg!
AKA Lurch!
A close to home and documented case of NGOs working hand in glove to do the dirty work gov't agencies cannot. The USAID exposed a lot of this in theory but this one hits home.
Pisses me off as I donated to Nature Conservancy in the past. Argh.
I always thought of NC as a good activist group. They didn’t use Law-fare to support their cause. They were an outlet for concerned land owners who wanted to do something with their property to protect the environment. Seems to be another case of a group that started with good intentions , Greenpeace, Sierra Club and others who later morphed into an aggressive predator against private property and now public property. They appear to have a great ally in this effort. The stewards of our property, our government.
It´s all about some damned cow wandering into the shot when you´re trying to take that perfect photo.
My, the rot went deep in the NPS. The whole situation is an absolute tragedy. My heart goes out to all the ranchers, & I wish the fleas of a thousand camels upon the government liars. Thank you for searching out the truth, Chris.
Those of a cynical bent could almost imagine that the NPS and the “environmental activists”were working hand in glove.
"Those of a cynical bent"
Or almost anyone who is involved in ranching or farming.
They have gotten so accustomed to hiding their collusion in plain sight. Great job exposing this conspiracy. Is it technically a conspiracy, perhaps to defraud the ranchers and the public?
It is a taking no matter how you look at it. What government wants, government gets. Farming is a business and when it becomes impossible to hand that business down to your family or to sell it to someone who shares your vision, you eventually give in to the least personally damaging outcome.
This article from Range Magazine may give some helpful background as to how cattle ranching is being attacked by radical environmentalists. https://www.rangemagazine.com/features/spring-25/range-sp25-greenhouse_gas_guru.pdf
I don't have any problem with people openly disagreeing with...whatever...and airing their ideas, no matter how bazonkers. And remember, sometimes the "bazonkers" ideas turn out to be correct. (Covid stabs killing people...OH THAT CAN'T BE.)
What I certainly DO have a problem with is this sort of conspiratorial behind-the-scenes machination that this story represents. People on the same side, posing as being on opposite sides, using taxpayer-thieved funds by the truckload to keep their public jobs funded, their causes paid for, and zero sunlight and air on the process.
If there is merit in the GHG thing, I want to hear it. If there is no merit, I want to hear it.
But what I do NOT want are these reindeer games where the "public sector" robs every household to pay for their sinecures and their cabals.
I have suspected something like this has gone on when arrested activists have sued for how they were (mis?)treated by the NYPD, most recently post-George Floyd, and gotten very generous settlements from NYC.
I remember finding out that the EPA funded an environmental group’s lawsuit against the EPA resulting in a settlement that required the EPA to do what it could not do by statute.
I suspect closing USAID was insufficient. There’s more graft, corruption, money laundering, and hidden funding yet to find.
You put your queenly forefinger right on it.
It is using the judicial branch to inflict legislative or executive remedies that could not be secured through proper/constitutional/statutorial use of those branches' powers.
There is so much stench coming off this I can smell it from here. Sickening.
This all feels very "peace pipes and glass beads"-like to me. Ranchers get some compensation, but the lose the land. Odds are 1:1 that this will repeat again and again, every time bratty rich people and activists and government drones decide that farmers are in the way of their "vision".
It is a very old-fashioned and conservatie attitude they are displaying; not present-day American political meaning of conserative, but the old-old one:
The 14th century Feudal lord moving his serfs around on his lands, according to his whims.
There’s a substack called Neoliberal Feudalism
Jonah Goldberg said it all his tome LIBERAL FASCISM over a decade ago before TDS ate his brain
All the federal lands should be repatriated to the states
More like typical communism.
If you all want to bring this to President Trump's attention, Viva Frie was at the Whitehouse recently, spoke with one of Trump's close advisors, or something like, and he said, Trump reads the comments to his own Truth Social posts. Might be a backdoor way to flag him?
I have modest private channels to the Trump folks, and a good private channel to Doug Burgum. They know. The interesting thing in all of this is that the ranchers signed a settlement agreement on January 8, 2025. I have a theory about that, but the decision between them was made privately. They could have held on until Trump was inaugurated, and they chose not to.
There is talk of selling government lands. Maybe with an easement that follows the land that only ranching can be done on the property and allowing for some public access.
Interesting! Thanks for the info 😁
What were their reasons?
They won't say. They had private discussions as a group, and aren't sharing the content of those discussions. But there have been some hints that the environmental groups signaled to them that they would never go on running ranches at Point Reyes without more lawsuits. Basically, you can survive this lawsuit, but will you survive the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one? So Trump saves you today, but what happens during the next Democratic administration?
My impression -- not something I can prove -- is that the ranchers were offered a choice between leaving and being bankrupted by never-ending litigation.
> the ranchers were offered a choice between leaving and being bankrupted by never-ending litigation.
There is way more of this going on than 99% of people have any idea, Chris. And now that "journalism" is entirely captive, there is no danger of sunlight shining from that corner.
I'm all over making sure that ranchers aren't despoiling...whatever. I'm of the view that not every acre of land should be domesticated for profit, and I'm more of Western Hunter Gatherer than Steppe Herder ancestry/roots myself.
But the use of legal action to create pressure and inflict torture, rather than to examine, weigh, and adjudicate what is just/fair is what chaps my glutes.
I saw what Monsanto did to small, intelligent dairy farmers who resisted rBGH stabs in the '90s.
I saw what other corporations did to other farmers who were just trying to get the word out about something(s) of concern to them (pesticides, e.g.).
I am sick of anyone who uses Justice as a whore.
2 Henry VI, iv:2.73.
so much corruption
"Stop the lawfare now or endure it unto death" kind of thing, eh?
I've owned a ranch for 20 yrs now in eastern Oregon. It's been a wake-up call for me, seeing how Federal and State agencies grind everyone down to get what they want. Like the wind turbine projects on both sides of our property, for example. If I - as an individual actor - did to the hawk and eagle population what those turbines are doing, I'd be in prison for years (and for good cause). But they happily waive requirements and regulations that allow for the same damage to raptor populations. Here in eastern Oregon, when the "hearings" and "public input" sessions reach your town, the matter is already settled, the issue decided, and those turbines are going to go in.
Glad you thought to file a FOIA request on the NPS. Pretty quick response, compared to what I've seen...I wonder if they're feeling any heat from the WH, or if - having won the day - they don't care. Or maybe they're just diligent people.
Strangely quick response.
That's the same question I had! @Chris Bray?
Maybe they just really don't care.
I think, among other things, that they can't overcome the private agreement signed by the ranchers. They can't just set aside a contract signed by other people.
Could the Ranchers say they signed under duress?
The late, great Vaclav Havel, who grew up under communism and later became president of the Czech Republic, observed that "the environmentalists were the new communists". As you have pointed out, the bureaucrats have been very quiet about all this, assuming a benevolent, neutral stance. But they want to take that land for the State, then only they, and a small group of leftists can use it, rather than have private owners control it and use it. Most all environmental laws end up exactly where Point Reyes is: with less private ownership, more government control, of land that only a small part of the population able to enjoy. And it means that the land will deteriorate over time, just like in all socialist countries.
Danny Huckabee
I'm fine with locking the masses out of a lot of places. I've seen what antswarms of tourists do to nature. Eff that, and eff anybody who thinks every acre of land's best use is making money for tourist attractions.
You don’t use it you lose it. Wild fires are the result of land that is not used or managed. Wild fires harm the environment. Just had to add that because there are idiots who believe forest and wildfires are helpful.
So you're saying that before there were humans, all wild land was constantly on fire?
As the owner of a forested property, I do a lot to protect the land, water, and air along with all the creatures that inhabit it. As a result, I am proud that my property produces wood for family homes, furniture, and many other products. I wasn’t around then before man on earth, but perhaps you were there and watched the dinosaurs die off. Was it wildfires that made the planet uninhabitable for them? 🤣 You seem to know a lot about stuff.
There was a time when conspiring with the Feds to screw citizens out of their livelihood might have resulted in those conspirators swinging from a rope. Ah… the good ol days.
Now all you need to do is find the grant (from the govt) to the activists that funded the lawsuit against the govt.
Hello Elon
my shocked face, let me show it to you. NPS has been manned by watermelons since the 70s. They never met a human they liked or an animal that they hated (unless it's "invasive" and sometimes not then.) I worked in high school for the forest service, which is just as bad...