Trump's Yosemite Land Deal and the Assault on the American West

A developer named Kingsbarn wants to build an upscale development of cabins and homes on 83 acres it owns right next to Yosemite National Park. The problem: there's no convenient way for wealthy guests to reach Yosemite Valley from the property—it's an hour-and-a-half drive. The developer's proposed solution, backed by the Interior Department's top political leadership, is to trade some other land to the Park Service in exchange for a private access road cutting through public land. This would give the development "exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests," according to reporting from NOTUS. As Jim Acosta put it on Pod Save America, "If Obama did this or if Joe Biden did this, it would be pitchforks and torture time."

The Kleptocracy Pattern