Speaking of Trump’s assertive racism, and Bears Ears / Escalante, wait there’s more –

While the Ancestral Puebloan people of the Southwest were building citadels like Chaco Canyon, the Fremont people were carving mysterious petroglyphs depicting horned, broad-shouldered triangular men and sweeping carvings of desert snakes. Nowhere is their legacy more apparent than in eastern Utah’s Molen Reef. Fremont artifacts dominate this cultural heritage site, but its rock art ranges from 3,000-year-old panels from the Barrier Canyon tradition to etchings by Mormon pioneers crossing the Utah desert.

They aren’t easy to see, but that’s not a bad thing. You won’t find these cultural treasures on a map, and Jonathan Bailey, a Ferron, Utah-based photographer and author of Rock Art: A Vision of a Vanishing Cultural Landscape, thinks it should stay that way. “There are hundreds of rock art panels in the Molen Reef, and maybe a dozen are known,” he says. “They are mostly pristine, unexcavated sites that have very little vandalism.”

So far.

Bailey worries about the resources being compromised by human activity before they can be cataloged and protected. But the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has different plans for the area. In January 2018, the agency approved the leasing of 32,000 acres for mineral exploration between the San Rafael Swell and Molen Reef—just as it has in many other places in Utah.

Because which is more important – some old cave art? Or the ability to drive the SUV to Costco and back?

In the past, Orr, Bailey, and other rock art enthusiasts have been able to persuade the BLM to defer leasing while they conduct field work to document petroglyphs, habitation sites, and geoglyphs that might be impacted by development. But in 2018, guided by the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” agenda, the BLM’s Price field office has overruled URARA’s protests.

“This is the first year we have not been able to withdraw these leases,” says Bailey.

The BLM this time says it won’t be a problem.

Federal law obligates the BLM to analyze lands nominated for leasing and offer them at auction if it determines that leasing will not harm non-energy resources. Despite the determination of his two predecessors that leasing could damage the rock art, current BLM state director Ed Roberson concluded it would not.

“BLM conducts additional site specific analysis before any surface disturbing activities can occur,” maintains Heather O’Hanlon, BLM’s Utah information officer, in an email. “Strong stipulations . . . give us confidence that we can protect the cultural resources entrusted under our care.”

The rock art army is not reassured. Though O’Hanlon claims that “the BLM-Utah completed the most intensive pre-lease inventory survey that we have ever done,” Bailey says that the agency has yet to inventory many rock art sites around Molen Reef. “They have not inventoried a good chunk of this land, so they can’t judge the impacts,” he says.

But they have very good instincts, just like Trump.

The normalization continues apace.

Ron Paul, for instance.

Former politician and presidential candidate Ron Paul shared a racist political cartoon featuring stereotypical caricatures of people of multiple races Monday morning — only to delete it minutes later.

“Are you stunned by what has become of American culture?” Paul’s tweet read. “Well, it’s not an accident. You’ve probably heard of ‘Cultural Marxism,’ but do you know what it means?”

Attached to the original tweet was a Ben Garrison political cartoon featuring racist caricatures of Jewish, Asian, Latino and black people with their arms melding together into a single red fist emblazoned with the communist hammer and sickle. The arm is seen punching Uncle Sam, and above it is a speech bubble coming from the four caricatures saying “cultural Marxism.”

Not “people” as Raw Story twice says, but men. Racist caricature PLUS erasure of women.

Not normal.

Not ok.

Not acceptable.

Updating to add: it’s not a Ben Garrison cartoon but a modification of one. I read somewhere that there’s a Reddit group dedicated to doing that.

Jeffrey Toobin says it’s important to spell out what Trump’s next Supreme Court pick is going to mean, because they won’t spell it out for us.

As with Gorsuch, the nominee will be supported with meaningless buzz phrases: he or she will be opposed to “legislating from the bench” and in favor of “judicial restraint.” Like Gorsuch, the nominee will rely on airy generalities rather than on specific examples. It’s all the more important, then, to articulate in plain English what, if such a nominee is confirmed, a new majority will do.

It will overrule Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortions and to criminally prosecute any physicians and nurses who perform them. It will allow shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and hotel owners to refuse service to gay customers on religious grounds. It will guarantee that fewer African-American and Latino students attend élite universities. It will approve laws designed to hinder voting rights. It will sanction execution by grotesque means. It will invoke the Second Amendment to prohibit states from engaging in gun control, including the regulation of machine guns and bump stocks.

And these are just the issues that draw the most attention. In many respects, the most important right-wing agenda item for the judiciary is the undermining of the regulatory state. In the rush of conservative rulings at the end of this term, one of the most important received relatively little notice. In Janus v. afscme, a 5–4 majority (including Kennedy) said that public employees who receive the benefits of union-negotiated contracts can excuse themselves from paying union dues.

Them that’s got will get even more, them that’s not will lose even more.

More on the Portland street brawls yesterday.

From CBS:

Two opposing protest groups — Patriot Prayer and antifa —  clashed in downtown Portland Saturday, CBS Portland affiliate KOIN reports. Portland police said failure to leave the area could leave to arrests, calling the demonstration a riot.

More than 100 members of Patriot Prayer group gathered at Terry Schrunk Plaza for a “freedom rally,” while more than 100 counter protesters with an antifa group gathered across the street at Chapman Square for rallies before a march. Police revoked Patriot Prayer’s permit for the rally after the two groups began to clash.

From NPR:

What began in downtown Portland Saturday as a permitted march by the far-right group Patriot Prayer was quickly declared a riot and halted by police after altercations with anti-fascist counter-protesters escalated, with reports of projectiles causing several injuries.

…

Supporters of Patriot Prayer, led by its incendiary leader Joey Gibson, who is also running for a U.S. Senate seat in Washington state, began to assemble in parks along Third Avenue in downtown Portland early Saturday afternoon.

Far-left antifa protesters congregated in similar or greater numbers nearby.

The two groups lobbed insults at each other across a heavy law enforcement presence, clad in riot gear, there to keep the two sides apart and screen for weapons.

…

Around 6 p.m. local time, Patriot Prayer initiated its permitted march, working its way along Third Avenue. But projectiles quickly began flying. Police then cancelled the permit, used bullhorns to declare the situation a riot and deployed flash bangs and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.

Portland police have officially declared a riot and are ordering people to leave immediately. pic.twitter.com/yIJKOq1s93

— Scott Bourque (@sdbourque1) July 1, 2018

Many fine people on both sides.

In light of the slaughter of journalists in Annapolis the other day, this promo by the National Rifle Association’s Dana Loesch hasn’t worn well.

H/t Asha Rangappa

You literally made a video for the NRA called "We are coming for you, New York Times." https://t.co/JukE2p9d8p

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) June 29, 2018

Trump on June 27:

HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS THE STRONG BUT FAIR IMMIGRATION BILL, KNOWN AS GOODLATTE II, IN THEIR AFTERNOON VOTE TODAY, EVEN THOUGH THE DEMS WON’T LET IT PASS IN THE SENATE. PASSAGE WILL SHOW THAT WE WANT STRONG BORDERS & SECURITY WHILE THE DEMS WANT OPEN BORDERS = CRIME. WIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2018

Trump on June 30:

I never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the Immigration Bill, either GOODLATTE 1 or 2, because it could never have gotten enough Democrats as long as there is the 60 vote threshold. I released many prior to the vote knowing we need more Republicans to win in Nov.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018

“REPUBLICANS SHOULD PASS GOODLATTE II” and “I never pushed the Republicans to vote for Goodlatte II.” He’s such a cheerful unrepentant liar that he doesn’t even delete his own tweet before contradicting it.

Yesterday in Portland (the Oregon one not the Maine one):

For the first time in more than a year of street brawling, Portland police today deemed a march by Proud Boys and other right-wing protesters too violent to continue.

Marchers with the right-wing protest group Patriot Prayer beat antifascist protesters with wooden and PVC pipe flag poles that federal police had allowed the group to keep.

Portland police policy is to confiscate all possible weapons, and they did not allow the antifascist protesters to have flag poles. At least one protester was severely injured in the brawl and lay motionless on the ground after police broke up the altercation.

This one’s a jaw-dropper.

A Trump administration appointee to the State Department tore into standard UN documents that condemn racism as a threat to democracy.

The deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration, a foreign service officer promoted by the White House to an unusually senior position for his rank, disputed the idea that leaders have a “duty” to condemn hate speech and incitement, and repeatedly rejected use of the words nationalism, populism, and xenophobia.

“The drafters say ‘populism and nationalism’ as if these are dirty words,” wrote Andrew Veprek, the deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration, in documents obtained exclusively by CNN. “There are millions of Americans who likely would describe themselves as adhering to these concepts. (Maybe even the President.). So are we looking to here condemn our fellow-citizens, those who pay our salaries?”

If they’re racists and xenophobes we should be condemning their racism and xenophobia, yes. Hell yes. Hell yes times a thousand.

It may be theoretically possible to be a populist and/or nationalist without being racist and xenophobic, but that’s looking a lot more theoretical than actual at this historical moment.

Veprek also pushed to soften language about fighting racism and about racism in politics in his proposed amendments to a UN Human Rights Council resolution titled “The Incompatibility between Democracy and Racism” that is adopted without a vote, with much of the same language, every few years.

In response to one section that says national leaders have a responsibility to condemn hate speech, Veprek writes, “‘[d]uty to condemn’ goes too far. Our public figures can’t be obliged to police every intolerant thought out their [sic] at the risk of being condemned for intolerance themselves.”

He’s not even literate. “At the risk of” is not the phrase he’s looking for.

And he repeatedly argues against using the word “xenophobia,” or the fear of foreigners, writing in side notes that he has concerns over “the malleability of the term now and in the future.”

“[W]hat real or perceived offense is next to be considered ‘xenophobic?'” he writes. “How does that square with our historic respect for the right of free expression? The drafters need to focus on behavior and actions – which states can control – rather than attitudes and states of mind.”

It’s not clear that his scribbles have any force, but it’s telling that the deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration thinks this way.

Rob Berschinski, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights and member of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, called Veprek’s changes to the documents “explosive.”

“It seems clear (Veprek) feels the UN language is targeted at the Trump administration, when it mentions racism in political circles,” Berschinski told CNN. “Clearly, he is making these edits to reduce the power of the resolution, as relates to racism in politics.”

…

Berschinski, now senior vice president for policy with Human Rights First, said that by eliminating references to terms like “populism and nationalism,” “xenophobia” and “the rise in racism,” the edits seem to suggest an administration that feels targeted by what are otherwise fairly anodyne diplomatic documents.

“Not being able to support this kind of language is indicative of an administration that has to defend a President who has said that Mexicans are rapists, white nationalists are ‘fine people,’ and that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to travel to America,” Berschinksi said.

Basically Veprek is saying “This is all about Trump, isn’t it!!” and crossing it out for that reason.

H/t Dave Ricks

Women don’t exist any more, apparently. Only “egg producers.”

Asking egg-producers:

Have you ever been denied a sterilization procedure?

— Leah Torres, MD (@LeahNTorres) June 28, 2018

Without the question about sterilization one would think she was talking to farmers.

Now he’s talking about eradication. Literally. Using that word.

To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements. So brave! The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2018

To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements. So brave! The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!

To the surprise of no one…

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The intelligence assessment, which has not previously been reported, seems to counter the sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after his historic June 12 summit with Kim that “there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

Analysts at the CIA and other intelligence agencies don’t see it that way, according to more than a dozen American officials who are familiar with their assessments and spoke on the condition of anonymity. They see a regime positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration — while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival.

And, luckily for them, Trump is both a moron and a preening narcissist, so it’s a doddle for them to bullshit him into granting concessions all over the place while getting nothing.

While the North Koreans have stopped missile and nuclear tests, “there’s no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production,” said one U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence. “There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the U.S.”

Four other officials familiar with the intelligence assessment also said North Korea intended to deceive the U.S.

U.S. intelligence agencies have stepped up their collection against North Korea in recent years, and it appears to be paying off with greater insights into a country that has long been the world’s hardest spying target, officials say. NBC News agreed to withhold some details of the latest intelligence assessment that officials said could put sources at risk.

“There are lots of things that we know that North Korea has tried to hide from us for a long time,” a U.S. intelligence official said.

But Trump got his photo op.

Have a good rant:

According to new research from Queen’s University Belfast, narcissists are some of the most successful people in the world. If you spend your life marauding around with a bellyful of unearned self-worth, it’s claimed, you’ll soon develop a mental toughness that will drive you to beat your more humble peers in education, work and romance.

That may be, but I’d rather live under a toadstool than spend my life marauding around with a bellyful of unearned self-worth. I can’t stand people like that and I would never want to be one.

Everywhere you look, it’s perfectly clear that the narcissists won long ago. Social media drips with wrongheaded opinion masquerading as violent certainty. The buzziest television programme of the day, Love Island, is essentially just a petri dish of obnoxious self-adoration. Untalented colleagues get promoted above you because they are unafraid to gelatinously network. The world’s sole remaining superpower, for crying out loud, is run by a man who looks like the cartoon you’d draw for a monkey to make it understand the basic concept of narcissism.

Ah that’s good. Well done.

It’s telling that Dr Kostas Papageorgiou, whose brainchild this new research was, had to pretzel himself into all sorts of contortions just to make narcissists seem even remotely decent people. “Narcissism is considered as a socially malevolent trait,” he said. However, he added that things would be so much different if only “we could abandon conventional social morality, and just focus on what is successful”.

Oh stupid conventional social morality, why are you always getting in the way of success? Can’t you see all these subclinical narcissists desperate to gobble up the world and fart it out for their own stupid means? Look into their eyes, and see what your basic expectation for them to be even superficially pleasant people is doing to them. You’re draining them of their life force.

Hooray for conventional social morality subhead treating other people decently.

H/t Lady Mondegreen

It turns out Rosenstein was not happy about that whole fire-Comey memo setup.

In the days after the F.B.I. director James B. Comey was fired last year, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, repeatedly expressed anger about how the White House used him to rationalize the firing, saying the experience damaged his reputation, according to four people familiar with his outbursts.

In public, Mr. Rosenstein has shown no hint that he had second thoughts about his role — writing a memo about Mr. Comey’s performance that the White House used to justify firing him. “I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it,” Mr. Rosenstein said to Congress last year.

But in meetings with law enforcement officials in the chaotic days immediately after Mr. Comey’s dismissal, and in subsequent conversations with colleagues and friends, Mr. Rosenstein appeared conflicted, according to the four people.

He alternately defended his involvement, expressed remorse at the tumult it unleashed, said the White House had manipulated him, fumed how the news media had portrayed the events and said the full story would vindicate him, said the people, who in recent weeks described the previously undisclosed episodes.

Soooo I wonder why he accepted the job in the first place. Everybody already knew Trump is a very bad man – it’s not as if he’s ever kept it a secret.

In the months since, Mr. Rosenstein has reached out to people — including in late-night texts — to discuss how his reputation has fared and his frustrations with the White House and members of Congress who have targeted him, according to people who spoke to him.

…

Mr. Rosenstein’s conversations last spring offer new insights into the tumultuous week that followed Mr. Comey’s firing.

In a series of meetings at the Justice Department, senior F.B.I. officials argued for Mr. Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to run the Russia investigation and investigate Mr. Comey’s firing, according to people briefed on the matter. Some of Mr. Rosenstein’s own allies turned on him, accusing him of sullying his reputation by allowing himself to be used by the president.

What I’m saying. You agree to work for Trump, you take the chance of being flung into a pit of muck.

On the afternoon that Mr. Mueller’s appointment was announced, Mr. Sessions was in the Oval Office with the president discussing candidates to be F.B.I. director when they both learned that Mr. Rosenstein had made his decision. Mr. Trump erupted in anger, saying he needed someone overseeing the investigation who would be loyal to him. Mr. Sessions offered to resign.

Trump is more of a mob boss than a president. I know we’ve all been saying that all along, but still that’s striking – “Trump erupted in anger, saying he needed someone overseeing the investigation who would be loyal to him.” That’s not how investigations are supposed to work, unless the mob has taken over.

More recently, Mr. Rosenstein has emerged as one of the chief interlocutors for House Republicans seeking sensitive information about the open investigation. Citing their oversight authority, Republicans close to Mr. Trump have peppered the department with increasingly bold demands and congressional subpoenas; when the Justice Department or F.B.I. has balked, Republicans have threatened Mr. Rosenstein’s job and, in some cases, called for him to step down.

In a hearing on Thursday, Mr. Rosenstein angrily pushed back on House members who questioned his integrity. “You should believe me because I’m telling the truth and I’m under oath,” he said.

Democrats say Republicans are merely picking fights to give the president cause or cover to fire Mr. Rosenstein and replace him with someone who will undercut the Russia investigation.

Not how any of this is supposed to work.

A press release from Leo Igwe:

The Humanist Association of Nigeria (HAN) is deeply concerned over the persistent violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Central Nigeria. The association condemns very strongly the killings in Plateau state over the weekend that left over 100 people dead and several hundreds injured. It urges that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

HAN deplores the poor and ineffective handling of the herdsmen/farmers crisis by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari especially the government’s apparent inability to take strong measures to stop the killings by herdsmen in central Nigeria and beyond. HAN calls on the Buhari government to rise to the challenge of protecting the lives and property of all Nigerians and of enforcing of the rule of law without ethnic and religious fear or favour. We demand an overhauling of the state security, policing and intelligence agencies so that they can fulfill their constitutional duties without bias. HAN urges herdsmen, farmers and others in the affected regions to explore peaceful and non-violent means of resolving their differences.

Leo Igwe (Ibadan) Mubarak Bala (Kano) Zacham Bayei (Kaduna) Andrew Nandip Paul (Jos).

For the Humanist Association of Nigeria.