Trump effectively destroys two national monuments in Utah
Once again, President Donald Trump has shown his total disregard for the will of the American people as he signed an executive order gutting the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah despite overwhelming public support for these two monuments. His order, which is of very questionable legality, reduced and , effectively destroying these two monuments.
Both these monuments were initially established to protect the irreplaceable cultural, ecological, and geological resources on our public lands. Furthermore, a number of indigenous communities were heavily involved in establishing and managing Bears Ears, a unique and long overdue approach to protecting and managing a national monument. Trump’s action opens these previously protected public lands to corporate use, including the oil and gas industry and totally disregards the view of Native Americans that these lands are sacred.
If you are upset by Trump’s executive order, you should contact the White House expressing your displeasure with the president’s action. You also contact your other elected officials, asking them to support the original monuments as well as consider supporting the conservation and native American organizations who will challenge the legality of Trump’s executive order.
Now is the time to speak out!
Gene Reetz, Denver
No sympathy for a man wanted in Belize
Re: “Locked inside ICE,” July 5 commentary.
I started reading the Brady Tillett piece in Sunday’s Perspective section with little more than a cursory interest and because of the subtitle alluding to his being inside an ICE facility for the past two years.
Was this an undercover journalist engaging in a deep dive into our immigration detention system? No, as it turns out. When I read his statement, “we should also remove the punitive policies that criminalize the very act of migration,” I thought he must be an American citizen who somehow has been improperly detained. The answer to that is no.
It turns out, Tillett is neither a journalist nor an American citizen. In his words, he was here seeking asylum, “fleeing persecution” from his home country of Belize. Never mind logic would dictate he seek asylum in other nearby nations such as Barbados, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where the citizens of Belize enjoy unfettered rights to travel, work, and reside.
Or, he could have sought asylum in neighboring Mexico or Guatemala, both bordering Belize. Did he not know to claim asylum at the U.S. border would result in mandatory federal detention? Regardless, there is a major issue with his claim for asylum; he’s one of the five “most wanted” fugitives in Belize. Authorities there say he is wanted on aggravated assault charges for allegedly providing a weapon used in an attempt on the life of Police Commissioner Chester Williams.
His current incarceration is due to attempts to have him extradited back to Belize, although Tillett would have us believe he is a victim of an unjust immigration system. One must wonder why The Denver Post Editorial Board would reprint such an article.
David Oyler, Canon City
The Exxon Summer is hot, dry and burning
“Exxon Summer” is here. As forest fires, extreme heat, and health harms, it is here because climate pollution is overheating our planet. Climate change-driven droughts and extreme heat events increase the drying of organic matter in forests, the material that burns and spreads wildfire. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of climate change. Petroleum producers profit while we pay the costs. To protect the people, the communities, and the nature we love, we must smoothly accelerate the current move to cleaner, more affordable and more reliable energy solutions. The saying about planting trees applies to acting on climate change as well: The best time to do it was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now. Later is too late.
Chris Hoffman, Boulder
Here we are facing a “heat dome” where high temperatures flirt with 100 degrees Fahrenheit for five consecutive days. Not that such conditions haven’t occurred before in Denver, but they are getting more frequent and hotter. Couple this with the lack of snow in the Rocky Mountains, and one doesn’t need to look beyond Colorado for evidence of global warming. Worldwide, the evidence of global warming is overwhelming.
A solution involves looking at the systemic cause: humans have been able to freely dump carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. For most of human existence, that hasn’t been a problem because of the vast atmosphere compared to the human population and their activities. But now there are 8 billion people on the planet, some of them enjoy a high standard of living supported by free emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, while the rest want to.
The answer is to tweak the free market by imposing a cost of emitting CO2. It doesn’t take a new global order, draconian regulation, or government spending money it doesn’t have. We need a carbon fee and dividend law. Such a law would impose a fee on major industries that directly or indirectly emit CO2. All the revenue from the fee would be returned to the people to offset the higher cost resulting from the fee. The fee would gradually rise over several years to allow industry to make investments that would reduce or eliminate CO2 emissions. The law would also have a border adjustment to keep domestic businesses competitive. Importing countries could avoid this adjustment by imposing similar laws.
Rich Griffin, Aurora
U.S. Supreme Court is a threat to our Constitution
Re: “How was birthright citizenship decision this close?” July 5 commentary.
Noah Feldman’s provocative column was extremely well thought out and echoed my feelings.
My first question is, how could the highest court in the country consider taking this case. It is a mystery to me. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution has been a settled law for many years, as was Roe vs Wade. Many of the new justices in their confirmation hearings reaffirmed in sworn testimony. Now, Roe vs Wade has been overturned, and birthright citizenship barely survived.
One must ask oneself if the Supreme Court should be term-limited and expanded so it can once again be representative of the Constitution of this country.
It has changed dramatically since Donald Trump came into office and appointed three Supreme Court justices. Now that he has been elected again, the decisions that are coming from the court continue to threaten the constitution of this country.
It is ironic that all of this is happening on the 250th anniversary of this great country. Greatness is not guaranteed, and I, for one, have never felt more threatened for the future of this country. The midterms could make January 6th look like nothing if the results threaten to take the House of
Representatives majority away from the Republicans.
This truly could be the most important election in my lifetime, and I am 75 years old.
David Shaw, Highlands Ranch
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