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Monuments, Shmonuments!
While Trump signs an executive order threatening protesters with up to ten years in prison for vandalizing statues, his administration relentlessly pursues resource extraction and other industrial development on a different class of National Monuments at Grand Escalante Staircase, Giant Sequoia and Bears Ears, where the National Resources Defense Council reports, “As of June 9, 2020, briefing on the summary judgment motions is complete and we are awaiting the court’s decision. While the cases are pending, there is a real risk of harm to the lands excised from Bears Ears. The court has therefore ordered the federal government to provide plaintiffs with timely notice before beginning a range of potentially harmful developments within these now-vulnerable lands….”
All this as Trump, citing the Veterans Memorial Preservation Act of 2003, warned protesters who tried to pull down the statue of Andrew Jackson that neighbors the White House in Lafayette Park that they face fines and/or ten years imprisonment for anyone who “willfully injures or destroys, or attempts to injure or destroy, any structure, plaque, statue or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States.” It remains to be seen if that preservation will now extend to those who took up arms against the United States.