A MONUMENTAL DIVIDE

 (Updated Dec. 7) The Nov. 8 election closes a chapter in the four-year saga of Bears Ears activists Willie Grayeyes and Kenneth Maryboy as the first Native Americans in Utah to govern as a majority on a county commission. Kenneth Maryboy and Willie Grayeyes (Bill Keshlear) The two Democrats lost bids to keep their San Juan County (Utah) Commission seats –  tenures enabled in large part by a federal judge who in 2017 declared that the districts in San Juan County disenfranchised Native American voters and ordered them redrawn. The new lines were drawn to ensure Navajo majorities on the commission - or at least a fair chance at electing majorities. In addition, Maryboy and Grayeyes got a boost from  the powerful Navajo Nation Human Rights Council. And Salt Lake City-based Democrats poured in thousands of dollars, even creating and funding a nonprofit called Rural Utah Project, or RUP. It successfully ran what, in effect, was the candidates' 2018 campaign and was successful. It mo

  ( Redge Johnson is the executive director of the Governor’s Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office. As such, he is a public face of plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging President Biden and top-level land managers in an effort to scuttle the president’s ex­pansion of Bear's Ears National Monument bound­aries—a long-predicted tit-for-tat following lawsuits in 2017 that chal­lenged Trump’s ability to shrink Obama’s original designation. (Utah’s litigation alleges that the Biden administration violated the Antiquities Act in expanding Bears Ears, as the act stipulates that pro­tected areas be as small as pos­sible “compatible with proper care and management.” (“These public lands and sacred sites are a stewardship that none of us take lightly,” Utah’s governor, lieutenant governor, state auditor, legislative leaders, congressional delegation and U.S. senators—all Republicans—said in a joint state­ment announcing the state’s law­suit, which was filed in federal court in August 2022.

What the heck, why not contribute to the Bears Ears (or is it Shash Jaa') Speculation Fest? Bear's Ears country of southeast Utah (Bill Keshlear) Good for Yvon. Such a heroic sacrifice .    Good for Patagonia. An attaboy to themselves: "Hey, friends, we just gave our company to planet Earth."     There's no doubt their environmentalism was always about more than selling outdoor-branded – and very expensive – sweaters and pants. Right? At least that's the takeaway after reading this NYT article. I recall, if NYT doesn't, barefaced political dishonesty – "The President Stole Your Land" – as part of Yvon's Bear's Ears campaign and mainstream media's obsequious embrace of the storyline; I recall a new and cynical solidarity with Indigenous culture and spirituality by Yvon and his allies to further their environmental goals; I recall heavy-handed manipulation, if not total disregard, of the democratic process tha