Obama's New Plan- DeConstruct America

The newest little talked about Obama scheme is the deconstructing of America. The obot disinformation machine went into overdrive a few months ago when an article was published about an unpublicized Obama plan that was leaked, call Agenda 21. The obamaists squealed it was nothing more than land for monuments, parks and statues.

Now the smoke screen is beginning to lift, it is about reparations. Obama and his UN buddies have a new plan for the world and it does not include America.

I've recently listened to talk radio calling this the deconstruction of America with land and small towns being turned back over to the "indigenous population"-the Native Americans or Indians if you will.

Pigford I and Pigford II was a first step in reparations, following it, is Agenda 21, which is designed to scoop up swaths of land and designate it as federal property. Giving it back to "the rightful owners" is the next step in the sequence.

Got ancestral slave papers, get some money. Obama and his crew must lay awake nights dreaming of ways to redistribute the wealth. For those who think Obama may move to the center-HA ! He is as looney left as ever.


Steve
+++++++++++++++++++


Obama's Reversal on 'Indigenous Peoples' Rights Stirs Concern Over Legal Claims
By Judson Berger

Published December 25, 2010
| FoxNews.com


AP

President Obama speaks at the White House Tribal Nations Conference Dec. 16 at the Interior Department.

President Obama's decision last week to reverse U.S. policy and back a U.N. declaration on the rights of "indigenous peoples" has touched off a debate on whether the move could boost American Indian legal claims over the ills they suffered dating back to the colonial period.

The president announced his decision at the White House Tribal Nations Conference last week, making the United States the last nation to endorse the statement -- the Bush administration had opposed it since it was adopted in 2007. American Indian advocacy groups cheered the move, finalized after a months-long administration review.

But John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the "abstract" document -- which in several sections discusses the "right to redress" -- will probably be used to fuel new legal claims. And he predicted the issue would complicate those cases more than it would help either side actually resolve them.

"It's a kind of feel-good document that has so many unclear phrases in it that nobody's really sure what it means when you agree to it," Bolton told FoxNews.com. "It's wrong and potentially dangerous to sign onto a document that you don't fully understand the implications of."

The non-binding U.N. document includes dozens of provisions but generally states that indigenous people should not be discriminated against, should be able to sustain their own political and social systems, and have rights to the "lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned" or used.

Those concepts are not radically new. Americans Indians, as demonstrated by a spate of recent settlements, have legal rights to pursue discrimination and other claims against the government. Plus Obama's support for the document follows his signing of a congressional resolution last year that officially apologized to "native peoples" for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted on them by U.S. citizens.

However, that resolution included explicit language to ensure it could not be used in the courts. A disclaimer at the end declared that "nothing" in the resolution would authorize or support claims against the United States.

By contrast, several sections in the U.N. document explicitly outline those rights. One article in the middle of the declaration states that indigenous peoples can be entitled to "restitution" for land and resources that were damaged or confiscated from them. The document says compensation "shall take" the form of land or resources or even money.

Bolton said plaintiffs will surely try to use this document in court, though it's not supposed to carry the weight of law.

"Hopefully most judges will say it's not binding," he said. "But there are enough judges who couldn't care less about strictly applying the law."

The administration has not glossed over that aspect of the declaration.

A detailed document released by the State Department underscored the importance of the "redress provisions," saying the government would continue to work with American Indians to accommodate their territorial rights.

"While the declaration is not legally binding, it carries considerable moral and political force," the State Department said in a written statement last week.

The U.S. consented to the document after Australia, Canada and New Zealand -- the other lingering hold-outs -- similarly dropped their opposition. Amnesty International called Obama's announcement a "tremendous and long-overdue victory for American Indians in the U.S."

Armstrong Wiggins, director of the Indian Law Resource Center's Washington, D.C., office, said the declaration has been in the works since the early '80s. He described it as an important "moral statement" meant to improve relationships between indigenous communities and their government.

"We're still struggling to overcome our marginalization," Wiggins told FoxNews.com, explaining how governments and companies over the decades have taken from them both their resources and their environment.

He said compensation may still be in order as the tribes negotiate with the government, given that their rights to land and resources are of paramount concern. "We are not saying that native people are going to take back New York City," Wiggins added.

The Obama administration, though, has demonstrated an interest in settling claims from American Indians and other groups when possible. On top of the so-called Pigford settlement, which recently awarded $1.2 billion to black farmers who claimed they were cheated out of loans by the Agriculture Department, Obama earlier this month signed a law authorizing $3.4 billion to address American Indian claims in a case known as Cobell.

In that case, the plaintiffs had accused the Interior Department of bilking 300,000 American Indians out of revenue from oil, gas and other resources. Obama noted last week that the settlement fund also includes money to "put more land in the hands of tribes to manage or otherwise benefit their members."

A separate $760 million settlement closed a discrimination case against the Agriculture Department similar in nature to the Pigford case. According to the State Department, the Obama administration has so far picked up more than 34,000 acres of land "in trust" for Indian tribes.

That land can be used for housing and other purposes.

The Obama administration maintains that it is bringing some closure to longstanding injustices and trying to strengthen tribal communities in the process. But some worry where the litigation and settlements will end -- on the heels of the Pigford and Cobell cases, a separate pair of discrimination cases filed by Hispanic and female farmers is working its way through the courts.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has suggested he wants to "close the chapter" on them as well.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who has been particularly critical of the Pigford claims process, expressed concern about the potential implications of the U.N. document on indigenous peoples. He said he's curious what "special rights" the document could convey.

Carl Horowitz, a project manager with the National Legal and Policy Center who follows discrimination cases against the federal government, used the r-word -- reparations -- to describe those implications.

"It reflects a global egalitarianism," he said. "It's a shakedown."

And this article


Republicans Plan to Challenge Obama's Reversal of Bush Wilderness Policy

Published December 25, 2010
| FoxNews.com



Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar watches geese fly overhead as Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey speaks about an initiative that would the BLM to designate and protect wilderness areas on Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010 outside of REI in Denver. (AP)

The Obama administration's decision this week to reverse a Bush-era policy and restore eligibility for federal wilderness protection to millions of undeveloped acres of land has outraged Republicans who plan to challenge the move once they take control of the House next month.

"We all love surprises at Christmas time, but I am pretty sure this is not what any of us had in mind," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who says that more than two-thirds of his congressional district is owned or controlled by the federal government.

"I am deeply disappointed in the administration's actions," he said in a written statement. "It has proven once again that it has a tin ear when it comes to our public lands."

Chaffetz said he and his colleagues on the House Natural Resources Committee and in the Congressional Western Caucus will "demand an accounting."

The Interior Department is replacing the 2003 policy adopted under former Interior Secretary Gale Norton. That policy -- derided by some as the "No More Wilderness" policy -- stated that new areas could not be recommended for wilderness protection by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and it opened millions of acres to potential commercial development.

That policy "frankly never should have happened and was wrong in the first place," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday during the announcement of the policy change.

Environmental activists have been pushing for the Obama administration to restore protections for potential wilderness areas.

Salazar said the agency will review some 220 million acres of BLM land that's not currently under wilderness protection to see which should be given a "Wild Lands" designation -- a new first step for land awaiting a wilderness decision. Congress would decide whether those lands should be permanently protected, Salazar said.

But Republicans pounced on the "Wild Lands" announcement as an attempt by the Obama administration to close land to development without congressional approval.

"This backdoor approach is intended to circumvent both the people who will be directly affected and Congress," said Washington Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican tapped to lead the House Natural Resources Committee starting next month.

The Congressional Western Caucus, an all-Republican group, also blasted the decision.

"This is little more than an early Christmas present to the far left extremists who oppose the multiple use of our nation's public lands," Utah Rep. Rob Bishop said in a statement.

BLM Director Bob Abbey said it hasn't been decided how many acres are expected to be designated as "Wild Lands" and whether those acres will be off-limits to motorized recreation or commercial development while under congressional review. It's also unclear whether there will be a time limit on how long acres can be managed as "Wild Lands" before a decision is made on their future.

The BLM has six months to submit a plan for those new wilderness evaluations.

These "Wild Lands" would be separate from Wilderness Study Areas that must be authorized by Congress. Wild Lands can be designated by the BLM after a public planning process and would be managed with protective measures detailed in a land use plan.

Ranchers, oil men and others have been suspicious of federal plans to lock up land in the West, worrying that taking the BLM land out of production would kill rural economies that rely on ranchers and the oil and gas business.

Their suspicions have been heightened since memos leaked in February revealed the Obama administration was considering 14 sites in nine states for possible presidential monument declarations.

That included 2.5 million acres of northeastern Montana prairie land proposed as a possible bison range, along with sites in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.

The 2003 policy was an out-of-court deal struck between Norton and then-Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt to remove protections for some 2.6 million acres of public land in that state.

The policy allowed drilling, mining and other commercial uses on land under consideration as wilderness areas.

Salazar's reversal doesn't affect about 8.7 million acres already designated as wilderness areas.

Conservationists praised the reversal, though there has been grumbling that it took the Obama administration nearly two years to overturn the Bush-era policy.

"Washington D.C. always takes longer than you want, but we're glad we've gotten here," said Suzanne Jones, regional director for The Wilderness Society.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.