In a final thumbing of his nose at the American public President Bush put up 360,000 acres of land in Southern Utah for bidding, to lease to oil companies for drilling. Due to political pressure it was trimmed down to 149,000 acres..
According to The Salt Lake Tribune today, Tim DeChristopher, a 27 year old Sugarhouse resident, went to the auction this week to join a protest. Instead he went in to the offices and signed up to join the auction itself. He won bids on 10 out of the 116 parcels that were auctioned off, for a total of about $1.8 million, which he doesn't have. They also say he upped the bidding on other parcels he didn't win by as much as $500,000. DeChristopher said, about the possibility of going to jail for his actions, "If that's what it takes."
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They will reauction the parcels he won and anyone who wants to argue that their bid was illegally upped can petition for a rebidding. Here's the beautiful part; rebidding will not take place until February - AFTER Obama takes office. Legally, they say, Obama can't disolve legally signed leases, but he can cancel the rebidding after taking office. DeChristopher effectively prevent the leasing of those 10 parcels of land, and caused other winners to pay more or give up their lease; to argue your bid was illegally increased is to put it back on the chopping block where Obama can cancel it. Ha!
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Our forefathers firmly beleived in Civil Disobedience in the face of an amoral tyrant. Adams, Hancock, Jefferson and Franklin will be smiling as Tim DeChristopher is lead off to jail.
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