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The shrinking in size of two national monuments in Utah by President Trump through executive order was a long overdue rebuke to federal land grabs that have given federal control to vast swaths of American land, particularly in the West. As the New York Times noted in 2016: The United States government owns 47 percent of all land in the West. In some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nevada, the majority of land is owned by the federal government. Of course, it used to own nearly all of it... East of the Mississippi…the federal government owns only 4 percent of...

WASHINGTON - When two Russian immigrants and their American financial backer needed marketing help for their innovative electric motor, they turned to a merchant banker at one of the nation's largest investment houses - retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark. The meeting at the Washington office of Stephens Inc. in late 2001 proved fortuitous for both Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and the principals in WaveCrest Laboratories, at the time a small research and development company in Dulles, Va. "They hit it off pretty much right away," said WaveCrest spokesman Tom McMahon. Clark signed on as a consultant...

A federal judge handed a landmark victory to Kane County and the state of Utah on Wednesday in a years-long dispute with the federal government over whether some rural routes should remain in use as roads, or if they should be closed to the public. In two decisions, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups found he had jurisdiction to hear Kane County's claim, gave parameters for "reasonable" right-of-way widths on some routes and determined that 12 of 15 routes in dispute were roads and therefore accessible by the public. The distinction hinged on an 1866 law through which Congress sought to...

The Utah Coal Lockup: A trillion dollar Lippo payoff? By: Sarah Foster When the President signed the Executive Order designating 1.7 million acres of land in southwest Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, his action placed the area off limits to mineral extraction and development. The New York Times reported that the monument encloses the largest coal field in the nation, the Kaiparowitz Plateau, which contains at least 7 billion tons of coal worth over $1 TRILLION. Kentucky-based company Andalux Resources, which holds leases on 3,400 acres in the area, was planning to open a huge operation (underground, not...

** EXCERPT ** With a large charitable donation in hand, Indonesian businessman Mochtar Riady flew to Little Rock to dine with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at a 1993 gala honoring her as an "Arkansan of the Year" at a time his company, a multibillion dollar banking conglomerate, was seeking an end to a 30-year trade embargo with Vietnam. Five days after the March 4, 1993, dinner at the Excelsior Hotel, Mr. Riady took the embargo question directly to President Clinton, saying in a four-page letter that its demise would bring political reforms in that communist country. By that time,...

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The Hillary Clinton Accountability Project will shortly launch its fundraising drive to raise $500,000 to support the most important citizen’s legal initiative of 2008. The landmark civil fraud suit of Paul v Clinton et al which the California Supreme Court ordered to proceed against the Clintons, Grammys Producer Gary Smith and Clinton agent Jim Levin, will be set for trial and a discovery schedule at a special conference to be held in Los Angeles Superior Court on February 21, 2008. The first law suit in American history to bring a President and a Senator to court for defrauding the Senator’s...

[Bill Clinton's 1996 declaration of] 1.7 million Utah acres as a national monument, thereby depriving an energy-starved U.S. up to 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low-sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion and minable with minimal surface impact, was a political payoff to the family of James Riady. He's the son of Lippo Group owner Mochtar Riady. James was found guilty of — and paid a multimillion dollar fine for — funneling more than $1 million in illegal political contributions through Lippo Bank into various American political campaigns, including Bill Clinton's presidential run in 1992. Clinton took off the world market...

Scandals: Hillary Clinton calls President Bush's talks with the Saudis about increasing oil output "pathetic." But it's not as pathetic as her co-president husband locking up billions of tons of clean coal in exchange for political contributions.As Bush wrapped up his Middle East trip, Sen. Clinton commented: "President Bush is over in the Gulf now begging the Saudis and others to drop the price of oil. How pathetic." A large part of America's energy dependence on foreign sources can be traced to Sept. 18, 1996, when President Bill Clinton stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona...

As American banks go hat in hand to foreign financial institutions and governments, begging for capital to help them get out of the mess into which their subprime loans have landed them, the question arises as to whether the United States should permit nations like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the banks they control to acquire part ownership of our leading banks. The presidential candidates discussed this issue in their Nevada debate and Hillary was asked about it in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the FOX Business Network yesterday. She replied that she would not...

NASHUA – A top Clinton adviser faces charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated after city police caught him speeding through Greeley Park a day before the state primary. Sidney Blumenthal, longtime friend and senior adviser to presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. was allegedly driving a rented car north on Concord Street at a speed of 70 mph when Nashua Police Sgt. Mike Masella decided to stop it at about 12:30 a.m. Monday. -snip- Blumenthal was arrested after completing the test and taken to the police department where he refused to take a breath test and was booked on...

Every time there’s another story about Brittany Spears’ infantile, self-destructive behavior, I condemn the American press for covering that subject like a horse blanket. And I watch as the national I.Q. drops two points in a day because the Brittany story is everywhere, on all channels. But the performances of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail and in presidential “debates” in Iowa and New Hampshire, demonstrate parallels between Brittany and Hillary. The comparisons are in favor of the singer, not the lecturer. The most incredible thing that Hillary has said, in front of God and everybody, is this, “I have...

Hillary Clinton has been playing a dangerous game with China. After over a decade of illegal contributions to the Democratic party and special favors by the Clintons, Hillary has turned on her old Chinese friends and sold them out in a desperate bid to win in 2008. The American dollar and economy have suffered collateral damage in this Clinton double cross with China. "Chinagate" was the name for numerous illegal campaign contributions from the PRC to the Democrats that helped them to win the 1996 elections. As you may remember back in 1996, the Clinton administration's apparently traded missile secrets...

Hillary Clinton's campaign, anticipating probable defeat here in New Hampshire on January 8, is gearing up for an extended trench-warfare battle against Barack Obama. The former First Lady is planning to fight Obama in South Carolina on January 26, and in the gargantuan nationwide primary on Tuesday, February 5 -- with contests in 19 states, including New York, California, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Colorado. If she remains competitive, Clinton's plan is to continue to compete in Louisiana on February 9, in Virginia and Maryland on February 12, in Wisconsin on February 19, in Ohio on March 4 --...

The Tyranny of Super-Delegates Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa was also a good night for our democracy. The turnout broke records and young people – who were mobilized and organized – participated in unprecedented numbers. And now that Iowans have spoken – the first citizens in the nation to do so – here's the Democratic delegate count for the top three candidates (2,025 delegates are needed to secure the nomination): Clinton – 169 Obama – 66 Edwards – 47 "Huh?" you say. "vanden Heuvel, you made a MAJOR typo." In fact, those numbers are correct: the third-place finishing Sen....

It is hard not to feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. She is, in so many ways, the perfect presidential candidate for the Democrats. She has the brains and the name, the money and the machine. (snip) And yet, when actual voters are given the chance to seal the deal, too many of them balk, as they did in Iowa this week. Coming third in Iowa, with more than two-thirds of the voters choosing other candidates, is a shocking blow to the Clinton campaign. Yet the pollsters have always known what her problem is. Her problem is that a lot of...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been in career-threatening scrapes before, but never quite like the one they face in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, when nothing less than their would-be dynasty will be on the line. In trying to battle back from her loss in the Iowa caucuses to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, Mrs. Clinton is recalibrating her message in hopes of producing Comeback Kid: The Sequel — achieving the reversal of fortune her husband pulled off with his second-place finish here in the Democratic nomination contest in 1992. Mrs. Clinton, after arriving here...

IOWA ANTHEM Oh, Hillary, oh, Hillary...you thought you'd make history Oh, Hillary, oh, Hillary...you are evil as can be We saw right through your phoniness Your crimes it's time that you confess Oh, Hillary, oh, Hillary...go away now, quietly

As the presidential candidates engage in furious pre-caucus spin, one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's most prominent Iowa supporters said Wednesday that she's already accomplished what she needs to in Iowa, and can declare success even if she finishes in third place. Asked if the order of finish matters, Former governor Tom Vilsack, D-Iowa, deflected the question. "She absolutely had to be competitive and she's accomplished that," he said. "Obviously everybody's interested in winning, and I think we're going to do well. It's tight. There's no question about that." In May, Vilsack was quoted in the Washington Post, saying, "There's...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details. But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot." In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf's party...