Victims of the Federal Bootprint

corpsWilliam F. Jasper – America’s farmers and ranchers, the people who grow the food that magically appears on our grocery store shelves, are under siege. Like swarms of locusts, federal regulators from the EPA, BLM, USFS, etc. are driving these hardworking producers who feed America into the ground. A relentless bombardment of threats, fines, regulatory takings, lawsuits, and other means of perpetual harassment is killing what remains of our family-owned farms. It is not only America’s food supply that is imperiled by this onslaught; equally important (if not more so) is the threat that these rogue federal regulators pose to justice, to the rule of law, to the very idea of limited government, and to the freedom of each and every one of us. The profiles of the victims provided here represent only a tiny sample of the thousands of our fellow citizens who have heroically fought, or are currently fighting, against a federal leviathan that is trampling their rights and taking their property.

John Duarte — Plow Your Field, Go to Jail

In December of 2012, John Duarte did what thousands of other farmers do: He planted wheat. Specifically, he planted wheat on 450 acres he owns in California’s central valley near Red Bluff, a couple hours north of Sacramento. Little did he know that this simple act would place him in jeopardy of fines as high as $50,000 per day and a possible prison sentence. Matthew Kelley, an employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, happened to drive by and take notice of the plowing activity on Duarte’s land in preparation for the planting. Kelley reported to his superiors that Duarte’s plowing operations were a “big violation” of the federal Clean Water Act, in that they were, allegedly, destroying a “wetland.” Continue reading