While campaigning (for a huge loss to Donald Trump) in Nevada, Ted Cruz released a new ad for an old agenda—selling our federal lands to private interests. Uber-wealthy people like the Koch brothers have been quietly lobbying for the sell-off of public lands so they can further build their empire. They’ve enlisted (and paid) people like Utah Rep. Ken Ivory to build a “grassroots”-modeled movement, making it appear as if “we, the people” are screaming for federal lands to be logged and mined for the benefit of people who are already billionaires. They create front organizations like the American Lands Council:
Utah lawmaker Ken Ivory is leaving his post as the American Lands Council's founding president to take his public-lands message to a national stage with Federalism in Action a South Carolina-based group affiliated with organizations funded by the Koch brothers and other donors pushing right-wing causes.
Ivory, a Republican representing West Jordan in the Utah House, sponsored the 2012 bill that orders the federal government to transfer title to 31 million acres of public land to the state. He helped launch the American Lands Council (ALC) that year in a so-far-unsuccessful effort to accomplish the law's goals. In that role, Ivory earned $135,000 in 2014, with most of the money coming as membership dues from rural counties around the West.
Ted Cruz has been onboard with the Koch brothers’ mission to “free” the federal lands for some time now. In 2014, he lead the effort to sell of federal lands, including national parks:
After a busy few months trying to impeach Attorney General Eric Holder, increase carbon pollution, and wipe out limits on campaign contributions, Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is now working to sell off America’s national forests, parks, and other public lands.
On Tuesday, Cruz filed an amendment to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014 (S. 2363) to force the federal government to sell off a significant portion of the country’s most prized lands in the West. The amendment would prohibit the federal government from owning more than 50 percent of any land within one state, and requires the government to transfer the excess land to the states or sell it to the highest bidder.
In the ad below, he basically is conveying the same political message as the now-indicted Cliven Bundy, who had a standoff with federal agents at his ranch in 2014 and is charged with conspiracy to impede federal workers in the Oregon standoff (along with his son, Ammon Bundy and several people involved in both Bundy standoffs). In fact, while Cliven Bundy’s armed militants held off federal agents at gunpoint, Ted Cruz expressed sympathy for the militants:
Ted Cruz weighed in on the Cliven Bundy situation with Texas radio host Chad Hasty Tuesday, and he called the standoff between Bundy supporters (some armed) and federal agents a tragic situation, but one that was the “culmination” of how President Obama has been pushing for a bigger and more intrusive federal government.
Cruz said that since Obama took over, “we have seen our liberty under assault” from a government “hell-bent on expanding its authority over every aspect of our lives.”
The only people under assault at the Bundy ranch in 2014 were Bureau of Land Management employees trying to do their job. Cruz was so supportive of the militants that he met with them at a protest outside the gates of the White House. Here is Cruz posing with Blaine Cooper, who is now facing federal charges relating to both the standoffs:
With all that in mind, watch as Ted Cruz speaks directly to the (armed) minority of voters who want to take over federal lands for their own personal gain: