I never even use this thing anymore but I’m just really upset right now and I needed to put it out there. I hate feeling like somethings happening and I’m completely not apart of it or even in the know of its existence except for the outside layer of somethingness that’s there and seems tangiable but not passable in understanding.
That probably doesn’t make any sense but I don’t care it’s okay because it makes sense to me.
President Trump is announcing plans to scale back two sprawling national monuments in Utah, responding to what he has condemned as a "massive federal land grab" by the government.
While the actions of trump today are not a surprise, it’s still traumatic to realize that the reactionary impulses that are ruling the country (hopefully, temporarily) have the power to destroy. Sure, oil wells are not being drilled today and holes are not being dug in the ground today to haul out coal and uranium, but the rules affecting the land going forward have shifted dramatically toward permitting those drills and those mines.
I know that the lawsuits will be numerous, vicious and loud, but they are necessary to protect this land from those who see it as dirt to be exploited for personal gain.
Excerpt:
Trump’s declaration sets the stage for a court battle over presidential authority to rescind the boundaries of a national monument. Legal scholars assert that neither the Antiquities Act nor the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act allow such striking changes to national monuments by a president. That authority, they assert, rests solely with Congress.
The Inter Tribal Coalition, a Native American group, said it would file a lawsuit immediately to protect Bears Ears. Patagonia, the outdoor clothing manufacturer, is joining Friends of Cedar Mesa, Utah Dine Bikeyah and Archaeology Southwest in a Bears Ears suit to be filed later this week.
Ten national and regional environmental groups said they were filing a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington to protect Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
“The president lacks the authority under the Antiquities Act to repeal national monuments like he tried today,” said Steve Bloch, the legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group in Salt Lake City. “We argue that when Congress passed the Antiquities Act it delegated to the president the authority to establish national monuments, not to repeal or rescind them The president is trying to take more authority than Congress has granted him.”
One of the motivations for changing the boundaries is improving access to coal, oil, natural gas and uranium.
An analysis by Bloch’s group of the potential for resource development found that revoking the original boundaries and establishing smaller monuments opens Grand Staircase-Escalante’s coal reserves to development. Uranium and oil and gas reserves become much easier beyond the boundaries of the much smaller Bears Ears monument.
Concept: you’ve been married to your wife for 3 years. You wake up in your bed before she does, your nose cold but your body warm. Careful not to wake her, you get out of bed and your toes curl when your feet hit the cold floor. You brew a pot of coffee and take a cup, making sure to leave enough for her. You pull on a big sweater and walk out onto your deck, sitting in a big wood chair to look out over the forest. The leaves are orange and edged with frost. All is quiet as the sun rises over the trees. You hear the door opening behind you and your wife sits down next to you, wrapping the comforter from your bed around both of you shoulders. You sit there like that until the sun is well up and your coffee cups are empty.
If you’re an extravert, it can be harder for people to know when you’re depressed. Studies show outgoing, agreeable, and fun-loving people are not only harder to diagnose with depression, they also find it more difficult to recognize the signs in themselves. Researchers say this is because extraverts often try to hide it if they’re feeling down, and their behavior becomes inconsistent with what others expect depression to look like. Source Source 2