INTRODUCTION
“Over the last half century alone, the losses have been extraordinary. Millions of acres of forest logged, much of it old growth; tens of millions of animals slaughtered by Wildlife Services; every year more than 155 million acres of BLM land and 100 million acres of national forests destructively grazed; hundreds of thousands of miles of new roads blazed, some 2.8 million roadless acres in our forests gone; tens of thousands of acres drilled for oil and gas or mined for precious metals and ores; the sage grouse headed for extinction, the last of the wild bison trapped in a tiny national park, the grizzly bear and the wolf clinging to vestiges of the wild. .... The country has operated under both parties in accordance with ‘the one true faith, the mad faith that says the economy must grow always bigger and at a faster pace on a planet of finite resources that can’t handle the growth.’ .... Grazing is today the most widespread single use of the public domain, occurring on 270 million acres of national forest and BLM land. The grazing of privately owned cattle on public lands has polluted streams, decimated native plants, and turned a biologically diverse ecosystem into a monoculture of grassland.” Christopher Ketcham, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West, 2019
djt signs the EO that sells out or precious
heritage to MAGA kleptocrats, grifters and thugs
Thinking about and writing this literally brings tears to my eyes. Literally. It makes me think about what we are on the verge of irretrievably losing to a bunch of morally rotted, arrogant, cruel, lying, MAGA kleptocrat thugs. I cannot adequately describe how bad this makes me feel. (now can you see why I posted a warning about resort to violence 2 days ago? -- emotions are running high)
Despite me consciously walling-off the moral rot and insulting outrages of djt and MAGA elites, this bit really gets to me. Not sure why. But I just cannot wall this horror off.
This is one of the saddest and most demoralizing of all the posts I’ve ever written. In Nov. of 2023, I wrote two posts about a 2019 book by Christopher Ketcham, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West (post 1, post 2). Those two come fairly close to how I felt about writing and posting this.
A simple three-step MAGA plan explains the staggering scope and arrogance of what djt and elite MAGA kleptocrats plan to do, in my opinion: 1) First they establish an American sovereign wealth fund. 2) Then they fund it by selling public property. 3) Finally, they loot the sovereign fund as much as they can get away with. Anyone caught stealing will be pardoned by djt, who in turn will receive a legal gratuity, formerly known as an illegal kickback.
Public land amounts to about 28% of the US, about 640 million acres or ~1 million sq mi. Most of that land is west of state borders from Minnesota south to Louisiana and stretches from the Canada border to the Mexico border. Maps of public land are below.
BLOG POST
American Progress reports that on Feb. 3, 2025, djt signed an executive order to create a US sovereign wealth fund. To fund it, MAGA implicitly proposes selling off some or all land the US owns and manages. American Progress writes, seriously understating the gravity of the situation:
President Donald Trump’s executive order to create a sovereign wealth fund requires that the United States come up with heaps of cash quickly, which may make selling out and selling off public lands irresistible.
On February 3, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a sovereign wealth fund (SWF), saying the United States will have one of the largest funds in the world. That requires raising trillions of dollars very quickly. For context, Norway’s fund is currently worth $1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. Sovereign wealth funds are typically financed with surplus revenue from trade or natural resource development. Given that the United States is roughly $36 trillion in debt, experts question where the money would come from. The Trump administration seems to be signaling that selling out and selling off the nation’s public lands to the highest bidder might provide the necessary funding. Selling federal public lands would turn America’s treasured places into a financial asset for the Trump administration without the need for surplus revenue, making it a potentially** enticing idea for the administration.
** Potentially my ass. Public land is the target that MAGA kleptocrats intend to loot, and nobody and nothing is going to stop them.
At the signing ceremony, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained where some of the money might come from: “We are going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people. We are going to put the assets to work.”
What exactly does this mean? Doug Burgum, President Trump’s secretary of the interior, explained that the nation’s parks, public lands, and natural resources—including timber, fossil fuels, and minerals—are assets on “the nation’s balance sheet.” Burgum speculated in his confirmation hearing that federal lands could be worth as much as $200 trillion {a number that the shameless MAGA liar Burgum pulled out of his morally rotted MAGA backside -- total value is ~$2.67 to ~$4.5 trillion [1]}.
The US has no budget surplus! Duh. All those MAGA and radical right tax cuts for rich and powerful people and corporations still have not paid for themselves. And they never will. That was known to everyone. But that is just an inconvenient truth for government haters and MAGA to lie about and rationalize into non-existence.
Bottom line: djt and MAGA elites are on the verge of setting up the biggest theft of anything and everyone in all of human history. This is going to be at or near the top whopper among the few biggest whoppers ever.
Yabbut, whaddabout the rule of law?? That’ll stop the theft!
Gosh, I so much wish that was true. But it ain’t. It just ain’t. Let’s just get straight to the ghastly point.
A cornucopia of corruption, theft and sleaze is on the near horizon. Next 12-18 months will be very interesting, assuming the MSM has not been shut down before then. If djt and MAGA elites manage to finish shutting down the MSM, we’re probably not gonna know what the hell is going on. djt’s and elite MAGA’s kleptocratic intent is crystal clear. Can they pull it off? Maybe. My guess, they have about a 60% chance of doing the dirty deep, done dirt cheap.
Q: The usual -- is Germaine off his meds or his rocker, or is he maybe making a valid, troubling point or two?
Update! Germaine’s now solidly entrenched state of mind: I’m absolutely done with entertaining the idea that djt and his cadre of elite MAGA thugs are messy but survivable aberrations or otherwise not much to worry about.[2] They are true authoritarians. djt is our hypocritical, deeply corrupt, morally rotted dictator, MAGA billionaires are our hypocritical, deeply corrupt, morally rotted plutocrat thugs, and MAGA Christian nationalists are our hypocritical, deeply corrupt, morally rotted sharia law theocrat thugs. We are undeniably in a state of full-blown war on democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties, honest, pluralistic governance, the public interest, the environment, and inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning. This is full blow war, not a tempest in a teapot. Not a little or moderate kerfuffle. Full-blown war to the death of democracy if the thugs can pull it off.
Footnote:
1. Data sources:
2. Like with climate science deniers, I won't engage with American authoritarianism and corrupt dictatorship deniers any more. For climate science deniers, I just respectfully tell them (i) we disagree, (ii) give them links to climate science experts, (iii) tell them to convince the actual experts are wrong, and (iv) say that once they have convinced the experts they are wrong, I will change my mind accordingly. Henceforth, the same will apply to anyone who tells me that djt and MAGA are not authoritarian or kleptocratic. I am 100% done with that nonsense. Time for debate is over. Time for desperate defense is now.
