November 28, 2017

Trump to visit Salt Lake City on Monday, will announce a smaller Bears Ears and Grand Staircase

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

President Donald Trump will fly into Utah on Monday to announce that he’ll shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, sources familiar with the trip confirmed to The Salt Lake Tribune. Trump will travel to Salt Lake City for the announcement to change the boundaries of the two monuments but will not visit them, the sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the trip.

The White House said last month the president would travel to Utah to make an announcement on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations to change the monuments. Trump had ordered a review of all monuments designated under the Antiquities Act going back to 1996, a time period that included President Bill Clinton’s naming of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Sen. Orrin Hatch and other Utah officials have pressed for changes to the monuments, which cover large swaths of federal lands in the southern portion of the state. Environmentalists and tribes have said they will seek legal action to stop any changes, which they don’t believe are authorized under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

“The tribes view this as an affront to themselves and their own self determination,” said Natalie Landreth, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. “All of us, all five tribes will be suing jointly the day he makes an announcement.”

Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/11/28/trump-to-visit-salt-lake-city-on-monday-will-announce-a-smaller-bears-ears-and-grand-staircase/

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This is a shame. These monuments are priceless pieces of our shared land, and sacred to many whose roots go very deep there.

I am quite sure that Liddle Donnie Bone-Spur could really use a good, long dose of wilderness a la Teddy Roosevelt; such solitude is healing and rejuvenating for most people, but I doubt that the grouchy, disapproving daddy's voice in dotard's head would quiet down long enough for all the wild landscapes in the world to get through to him. SAD!

November 7, 2017

Shout Out to Dem Voters in Utah's Third!!

I know it is one of the reddest districts in the country, and that Kathie Allen is a long shot to take the seat Chapped-Ass vacated in such a cowardly fashion. Still: Please Get Out there today (unless, of course, you voted early)!!

THANK YOU!!

P.S. I lived in UT County nearly 20 years (raised three non-Mo kids there), and now live in a wonderfully blue county in NV (we don't have a thing on the ballot today).