Free Republic

WASHINGTON – Sacramento attorney Damien Schiff will be carrying the conservative flame Monday when the Supreme Court considers what could become the year's hottest environmental case. For the 32-year-old Schiff, a senior staff attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, the hourlong oral argument marks a personal milestone. The Monday morning session will be his first appearance before the famously aggressive questioners of the nation's highest court. "There is a greater intensity of preparation," Schiff acknowledged Thursday, following a moot court session at Georgetown University Law Center. "Everyone knows that (an attorney) is lucky to have 30 seconds to make their...

Arizona lawmakers are hoping to raise around $50 million for border fencing with a new online public fundraising plan that launches Wednesday – despite skepticism from key stakeholders. Under legislation signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in April, the state would use inmate labor and money pulled in through the website to fence in some of the 82 miles of border between Arizona and Mexico that remain open. Despite support from top state officials, the initiative is already facing problems. Private land owners and county sheriffs are skeptical that fencing even works and don’t plan on contributing, while the federal...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — A federal judge dealt another setback to the J.R. Simplot Co. and other ranchers by reaffirming his late-February decision to halt grazing on 17 Bureau of Land Management allotments covering some 450,000 acres in southern Idaho. Western Watersheds Project director Jon Marvel said Winmill's decision will protect thousands of acres of critical sage grouse habitat from livestock grazing. Marvel's group aims to shut down grazing on public land in the West

Border Security on the Mexican border does not receive the attention it should. It must be considered a national security issue. American Thinker interviewed border ranchers and law enforcement to understand their views regarding threats and solutions to America's security problem. Many of the ranchers interviewed feel betrayed and abandoned. They cite instances of illegals using their homes and territory. Kelly Glenn-Kimbro, an Arizona rancher, told the story of a Mexican woman who had a baby in their ranch pasture and walked up to the house asking for help. Dr. Gary Thrasher relayed the story that one day after coming...

In Texas, nearly 8,200 farms and ranches back up to the Mexican border. The men and women who live and work on those properties say they’re under attack from the same drug cartels blamed for thousands of murders in Mexico. “It’s a war, make no mistake about it,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said. “And it’s happening on American soil.” Texas farmers and ranchers produce more cotton and more cattle than any other state, so Staples is concerned this war could eventually impact our food supply, and calls it a threat to our national security. “Farmers and ranchers are being...

Richard Cockle/The Oregonian/2008 Ken Brooks, a rancher in Grant County, takes a break from  feeding his cows to discuss a federal judge's decision on  steelhead that he says could force him to cut his herd from  450 cows to 150. JOHN DAY -- Rancher Ken Brooks is standing in his ranch yard near the ghost town of Fox , his eyes sweeping the timber-covered Malheur National Forest that holds the key to his future and that of 18 other Grant County ranching families. "They're all pretty angry," he said. "We're all in the same boat. We're unsure what we're...

<p>PHOENIX (AP) — Rancher Dan Bell has come face to face with drug smugglers on his southeastern Arizona cattle ranch, he has found the bodies of illegal immigrants who died of exposure on his property, and a Border Patrol agent was killed in December about 5 miles from his home.</p>

Environmental groups agreed to not fight the project in exchange for funds that could buy up grazing permits. A new sagebrush rebellion has spread across the West from Wyoming to Oregon. But this time the target is a big energy company, not the federal government. El Paso Corp., the owner of the nation's largest natural gas pipeline system, angered ranchers and county officials this summer when it agreed with two environmental groups to set up the funds. Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Association agreed not to challenge the pipeline in exchange for establishing two new nonprofit funds,...

Unbelievable. And, this is happening within our borders. Texas ranchers are forced to hire “gate keepers” to protect them. TV video report shows ranchers in Texas having to hire “gate guards”. This is an untenable situation. These people are coping as best as they can. They live in fear in their own homes. And, yet Barack Obama mocks those who speak out against this nightmare and says they’re anti-immigrant.

It didn’t take long for Obama to use the race card and blame Americans for his own failures, this time Arizona for enforcing immigration law to protect its people and our nation’s borders. Governor Brewer: "We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. but decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.” This is a perfectly legitimate action by state government that Obama called “misguided” as he instructed the ‘justice’ department to “see if its legal”. Obama said that the federal government should reform immigration at the national level–or “leave...

President Obama used a naturalization ceremony in the Rose Garden to lash out at the Arizona Legislature for passing a bill requiring proof of legal status and empowering state and local police to stop people based on a suspicion of being illegal immigrants. Obama called for comprehensive immigration reform and said Washington's failure to act has bred a climate of fear and retribution in some border states. He singled out the Arizona bill - which would make it crime to be in the state without documentation - now before Republican Gov. Janice Brewer. The governor has until Saturday to decide...

Ranchers in Southern Arizona have been asking for beefed-up border patrol for years. This week, they'll take their fight to Arizona's Capitol. On Sunday morning, there was another home invasion near the Arizona-Mexico border. According to the Arizona Cattleman's Association, border patrol agents were able to catch the suspected illegal immigrants believed to be responsible, but it's got the people who live there on edge. "I've been concerned lately, with some of the types of people that are coming across, for sure," rancher Bill McDonald said. "They're different than they used to be." "This isn't future landscapers, or people that...

DEMING — The shock waves from Saturday's unsolved slaying of a southeast Arizona rancher continued to be felt this week as the Luna County Sheriff's Office told a gathering of 100 ranchers and residents to be alert and take precautions when in remote areas. Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos called Thursday's informational meeting in response to the fatal shooting of 58-year-old Robert Krentz, a Cochise County, Ariz., rancher well-known to New Mexico ranchers in the state's bootheel in southern Hidalgo County. A suspect in the slaying has not been identified, but the Cochise County sheriff's office has said footprints led...

KPHO-TV: Robert Krentz, 58, was a third generation rancher who was inducted into the Arizona Farming and Ranching Hall of Fame one year ago.

Mark Potok and the SPLC Think YOU ARE A RACIST! Read The New Report "Hate And Slander For Profit" An Exclusive From Digger's Realm Border Rancher Rob Krentz And Dog Found Shot To Death After Aiding Illegal Alien By Digger The body of Rancher Rob Krentz and his dog were found shot to death on his ranch. Krentz, who always was good-natured and willing to help people, had called in that he had found an illegal alien at one of his watering holes and was assisting him. That was the last that was heard from him before his body was...

Robert Krentz, an Arizona rancher with ties to New Mexico, on Saturday was found shot on his ranch. Carol Capas, public information officer for the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, said there were no details available about the killing of Krentz, 58, on Sunday evening. She said Krentz's ranch is about 35 miles northeast of Douglas, Ariz. Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, said she grew up with Krentz's family in Arizona and counted Krentz as a member of the association. She said he joined in order to collaborate with New Mexico ranchers on issues such...

EPA says it is confident it will prevail in court By Tim Hearden Capital Press A national beef group is invoking the so-called "Climategate" controversy as it challenges a recent U.S. government ruling on climate change. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has filed a petition to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. to overturn the EPA's recent greenhouse gas "endangerment" ruling. The ruling states that gases believed to cause global warming pose a human health risk and is the first step toward their regulation by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. The NCBA and other producer...

When the new West is won, will there be cowboys? In light of what her neighbors are up to, Double O Ranch owner Vicki Olson isn’t so sure. “I guess the point that I keep hammering at is that if they succeed, that means all of us third- and fourth-generation ranchers are gone,” Olson said. She is the average Montana rancher, 56 going on 70, working a spread gouged from the pebbly soil by her grandparents 100 years ago. Her neighbor, the nonprofit American Prairie Foundation, is methodically acquiring ranches and crafting a 3.5-million-acre wildlife reserve out of private property...

"A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and law enforcement investigators mystified. Four calves have been found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed. But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion . Usually predators leave pools or blood or drag marks...

The Texas Department of Transportation is pulling the last plug on the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's embattled plan to build a toll-road network across the state. The agency said earlier this year it was scaling down the project and dropping the name "Trans-Texas Corridor." Now, transportation officials say it's fully dead. Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of the decision in a report posted online Tuesday. The news comes a day after Perry's Republican primary opponent, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, secured the coveted endorsement of the powerful Texas Farm Bureau — a vocal opponent of the...

Frank Gwozdz says coyotes have made a meal out of his livestock so often in the past several months that the farmer is thinking of leaving agriculture. “They are wiping me out,’’ Gwozdz said ...from his 110-acre farm in Dartmouth in Southeastern Massachusetts. In the past several months, Gwozdz said, coyotes have killed two cows, four calves, 14 goats, two lambs, two sheep, and numerous geese, ducks, and chickens. “They are getting bolder and bolder,’’ Gwozdz said of the coyotes... Gwozdz said he and his family have tried to deter the animals, sometimes by standing guard into the early morning...

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

HORSE SPRINGS, N.M. — Wranglers at the Platt ranch were marking calves the old-fashioned way last week, roping them from horseback and burning a brand onto their haunches. What they were emphatically not doing, said Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, was abiding by a federally recommended livestock identification plan, intended to speed the tracing of animal diseases, that has caused an uproar among ranchers. They were not attaching the recommended tags with microchips that would allow the computerized recording of livestock movements from birth to the slaughterhouse. “This plan is expensive, it’s intrusive, and there’s no need...

Ranchers in the Lemhi Valley of Idaho have suffered increased losses from wolf depredation, as wolf numbers expand. Allen Bodenhamer, who raises cattle near Baker, ID lost three calves this past spring. At first he thought the kills were made by coyotes, then realized he was dealing with wolves. “When coyotes kill a calf they get hold of the back of the neck and basically strangle it. They usually don’t start eating on it while it is still alive. A wolf grabs it by the top of the back or just in front of the hips and is eating on...

The state’s largest farm organization is in favor of legislation that would terminate the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in both name and concept. Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke expressed support for HB 11 by State Rep. David McQuade Leibowitz (D-San Antonio), which repeals the authority for the establishment and operation of the massive transportation project. “We hope you will agree with us that it is finally time to kill the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Dierschke testified before the House Transportation Committee on April 21. Although the farm organization recognizes the need to build and maintain Texas’ infrastructure, Dierschke said Texas Farm Bureau...

Bandera local farmers and rancher charge that the I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor Tier One Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has failed to meet important environmental standards. Barbara Mazurek, Bandera County Farm Bureau President says that these failures are indicative of the problems that exist with the entire Tran-Texas Corridor (TTC). “Because these environmental standards have not been met, the Texas Department of Transportation should seriously consider alternatives to its current model,” Mazurek said. According to Mazurek, there are three main reasons that the DEIS is flawed. • It limits its analysis to alternatives that fit the TTC “vision” of a multimodal...

California's worst drought in decades is forcing the state's cattle ranchers to downsize their herds because two years of poor rainfall have ravaged millions of acres of rangeland used to feed their cows and calves. --snip-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought in May after the state recorded two years of below-average rainfall, a sharp reduction in Sierra Nevada snowpack and its driest spring on record. Late last month, state water officials warned local agencies that their water deliveries could be cut by as much as 85 percent next year. The drought has drained many reservoirs, left lawns and...

State highway officials said Wednesday that the first step in carrying out their decision to build a controversial toll road along the present U.S. 59, and not through farm and ranch land, is to get federal approval. Although no federal funding has been sought for the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, the Texas Department of Transportation is bound by federal environmental law. The project has generated thick volumes about its likely impact on the natural environment and the communities in its path. The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is expected to undergo public review late this year and then get sent to...

The Forest Service says it's trying to protect resources by ordering a 30 percent reduction in cattle grazing on grasslands in southwestern North Dakota. Some ranchers were surprised by the order. Doug Pope is the president of the Little Missouri Grazing Association. He says the Medora District has had more than 4 inches of rain this spring. He says a lot of people thought Forest Service letter ordering the cuts was unwarranted. The Forest Service manages grazing on about 1 million public acres on the National Grasslands. Ron Jablonski is the Forest Service ranger for the Medora District. He says...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to build a big highway through the Lone Star State. No, make that a really big highway, as in a monstrously big highway. The exact route hasn't been determined. The mega-highway would run roughly from Laredo on the Rio Grande River through the Hill Country and the Piney Woods and then through Texarkana in that tiny portion of the state that borders Arkansas. Imagine for a moment if that thoroughfare would be pointed in the other direction - from the Valley, through the South Plains and then through the heart of the Panhandle, right past...

While Gov. Rick Perry was in Johnson Coliseum addressing SFA graduates, on the other side of campus a group of citizens were not so happy about his appearance in Nacogdoches. In the free-speech area of campus, near North Street and Vista Drive, many farmers, property owners and concerned citizens gathered for a Citizens Against the Trans-Texas Corridor Rally. Holding protest signs and using a tractor as a symbol of the farming community, those who gathered wanted to make their cause heard by the governor, as well as the community. Many vehicles traveling on North Street honked in support of the...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

Minutes south of Interstate 10 and Sealy, the pastures along FM 1458 are their own silent world in the morning. Mists lift to reveal black cattle, brown and spotted horses, snow-white egrets underfoot in lush green grass. Then a concrete mixer comes churning down the blacktop. Just up the road is a small subdivision. More are sure to come as city dwellers, including weekenders and retirees, move out in search of a quieter, simpler life — and relief from city traffic. Although the gradual influx may bring greater changes in the long run, what disturbs residents most is the planned...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, April 14, 2008 – Government veterinary officials in Afghanistan’s Farah province, assisted by coalition forces, treated animals and taught local shepherds how to care for their livestock at an event at Farah Fire Base. Dr. Gulam, provincial veterinarian for Afghanistan’s Farah province, teaches a goat shepherd how to de-worm his livestock during a mission at the Farah Fire Base, April 2, 2008. The local coalition civil affairs team, along with Gulam, organized and coordinated with local shepherds to have them come to the firebase to treat their animals. Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Militant supporters of President Robert Mugabe targeted whites Monday, forcing about a dozen ranchers and farmers off their land as Zimbabwe's longtime ruler fanned racial tensions amid fears he will turn to violence to hold on to power. Mugabe's opponents pressed a lawsuit seeking to compel the publication of results of the March 29 presidential election that they say Morgan Tsvangirai won. The opposition leader urged the international community to persuade Mugabe to step down. "Major powers here, such as South Africa, the U.S. and Britain, must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe's suicidal reign...

In comments filed with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Texas Farm Bureau said the Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) for the proposed I-69 corridor “would not withstand judicial scrutiny.” Under the terms of the National Environmental Policy Act, these detailed environmental studies are conducted under rules developed by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). According to the farm organization’s comments, the failure of the DEIS to consider the environmental impact of using existing rights-of-way–rather than a single minded focus on building a completely new route–means the study could not hold up in...

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business. It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but it's something that could be happening in your own backyard. These were just a few of the topics addressed in the "How to fight the TTC" workshop, held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference served as an informational meeting aimed at informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project....

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

Topic: Globalism The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is planning on building a new super highway system called the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). The Trans-Texas Corridor will not be just another interstate and will it will be used by more than just automobiles. It will include 10 lanes for traffic, two high speed rail tracks, four standard rail tracks, utility lines, oil pipelines, and gas pipelines. The Trans-Texas Corridor will consist of many corridors segments that are 1,200 feet wide, with each mile consuming 146 acres of land. This land is currently ranch and farm land that is being taken by...

State Representative Jim McReynolds previewed the 2009 legislative session at Friday's First Friday Chamber luncheon, with the hot topics going into the biennial madhouse listed as the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor, the growing issue of water supply, and the battle over the top 10 percent rule that allows Texas high school students to be admitted to any state college if they graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. According to McReynolds, the legislators are "not too happy" with the Texas Department of Transportation, which has been under fire for its proposed I-69/TTC plans. "This (the I-69/TTC) is something we never...

Texas spirit was alive and well at the Navasota DEIS public hearing on Feb. 28. Opposition groups, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, came from as far as Washington, D.C. to give recorded testimony, and get a first hand look at TxDOT process procedures. Assistant Director of Communications, Leigh Strope, who attended the meeting on behalf of the 34,000 Texas Teamsters Union members, says, “Teamsters want to stop the dangerous trend of selling our roads and bridges to foreign investors so they can slap tolls on the driving public. We are also concerned because the Trans-Texas Corridor would form...

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...

The proposed Trans Texas Corridor did not find any fans, or any support, in Fort Bend County this week. At public meetings hosted by the Texas Department of Transportation in both Katy and Rosenberg, speaker after speaker, many in emotional tones, voiced their opposition to the proposed transportation corridor. No one spoke up in support of the proposal at either meeting. The Tuesday night session took place at Katy High School’s Performing Arts Center with over 200 residents in attendance. The evening before at the Rosenberg Civic and Convention Center, a similar crowd showed up to voice their opinions. In...

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state's existing highway system is heating up More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the "NAFTA superhighway." It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report) Terry Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. "They're taking huge swaths of land, up...

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

TYLER - Heated debates are cropping up in rural East Texas communities as the Texas Department of Transportation hold hearings on the proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor. It's the first construction project of it's kind in the country. The Texas Department of Transportation says they want it to make room for a growing state. "A thousand people a day move to texas," says spokesman Larry Krantz,"where are these people going to drive? The population in Texas is going to explode by 60% in the year 2030." Their plans involve moving commercial trucks off existing interstate highways and onto one of two...

AUSTIN - When it comes to road improvement and maintenance, by most accounts, the South Plains and Panhandle are fortunate. Despite a $1.1 billion accounting error, the Texas Department of Transportation recently reported no projects in the region have been canceled or delayed while cities like Dallas, Houston and Laredo had at least a half dozen highway projects delayed. But the $1.1 billion-error, which occurred because TxDOT inadvertently counted some bond money twice and consequently allocated more funding than it had, is just the latest problem plaguing the beleaguered agency. For months, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz and other transportation...

NACOGDOCHES — The rows of extra chairs brought into the The Fredonia's biggest meeting room Thursday night were not enough to accommodate more than 750 people who attended an open house and public hearing on the proposed TTC-69 highway. Texas Department of Transportation officials heard hours of public testimony that continued late into the night overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new roadways through East Texas. Applause throughout the hours-long meeting never swelled as loudly as it did when the first speaker of the night, state Rep. Wayne Christian, told TxDOT representatives emphatically that "our answer is 'no' on the...

A Waller County organization opposing a massive highway project is planning two informational meetings to help citizens prepare for upcoming hearings. Citizens for a Better Waller County (CBWC) says it will hold meetings to prepare residents for Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) hearings in Waller County. The hearings will be to discuss an environmental impact statement on the proposed Trans Texas Corridor’s route that could bring it through Waller, Austin and Washington counties. CBWC’s meetings will be held next Tuesday at the Waller High School cafeteria in Waller and Monday, Feb. 25 at the Brookshire Convention Center in Brookshire. Both...

HOUSTON -- It did not take long Tuesday for the Texas Department of Transportation to find out what the Houstonians at a public hearing thought about the proposed 600-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, KPRC Local 2 reported. "George Washington, Sam Houston would vomit on you people," one attendee said. Chris Zora, who opposes the plan, attended the hearing at the Arabia Shrine Center in Southwest Houston. "I'd like to see a show of hands here of anybody that approves of this corridor," Zora said. "Is there anyone in this room who approves of this corridor? Raise your hands if you approve of...