There is a deep infection that has rooted itself in the Republican party that's just as powerful as when an Xenomorph wraps its tentacles around your throat and bleeds acid if you try to disengage it.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, instead of trying to stop more Bundy-like takeovers of federal lands by anarchists they do not own, is making it much easier for them to skirt the law by dis-empowering the federal agencies that police them.
With dozens of anti-government extremists facing criminal charges over their roles in the two high-profile Bundy showdowns over public lands, Republicans in Congress have rolled out proposed legislation that would diminish the authority of federal agencies to enforce federal public lands law.
The bill, the Local Enforcement for Local Lands Act of 2016, was introduced last week by Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) along with the rest of Utah's Republican delegation: Reps. Mia Love, Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart. It would strip officials in the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of their authority to enforce laws regulating federal land. Rather, local and state authorities would be provided with a block grant to enforce the laws instead.
Speaking to Deseret News earlier this month, Chaffetz accused those federal officials of being “more Rambo and less Andy Griffith than I would like.”The GOP bill comes a little more than a month after the precarious conclusion of a tense showdown between anti-government extremists and authorities over public land use that left one extremist dead, a small Oregon town terrorized for weeks, and federal employees allegedly harassed and threatened.
I'm speechless. It's the psychos that believe they are not bound by any federal law who are acting like an army of Rambos.
