The destruction of everything is well underway.

The Interior Department on Wednesday adopted final management plans that allow for mining, drilling and other development on lands that the administration recently removed from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah.

Because it’s always better to destroy irreplaceable landscapes to make short-term money than it is to preserve them.

The resource management plans “mark an important moment in Utah’s history by providing certainty to local communities, business owners, permittees and the recreating public,” Casey Hammond, Interior’s acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said in a call with reporters. 

Yes, certainty that much of the two monuments will be permanently destroyed.

The Trump administration has said that shrinking the monuments was about reversing federal overreach and not aimed at boosting energy and mineral development, but reporting by The New York Times and other outlets found otherwise. The boundary of Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35 million-acre landscape named after a pair of buttes and home to thousands of Native American archeological and cultural sites, was shrunk roughly 85%. The 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the largest land national monument in the country, was cut roughly in half.

…

Conservation groups, including those currently suing the administration over the monument rollbacks, slammed Wednesday’s announcement.

“It’s the height of arrogance for Trump to rush through final decisions on what’s left of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante while we’re fighting his illegal evisceration of these national monuments in court,” Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Trump is eroding vital protections for these spectacular landscapes. We won’t rest until all of these public lands are safeguarded for future generations.” 

Trump has never seen a spectacular landscape he didn’t want to cover with Trump towers.

When things get bad, women get punished.

Climate-related crises in poorer countries increases violence and exploitation of women, says a recent report, and current attempts to address climate change fail to tackle this issue. This was the conclusion reached by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)…

“We found gender-based violence to be pervasive,” said Cate Owren, lead author of the report, to the publication, “and there is enough clear evidence to suggest that climate change is increasing gender-based violence.”

Naturally. When the situation worsens, the strong oppress the weak more than ever. Men are stronger than women.

The study found evidence that poorer countries struggle the most with handling events influenced by climate change — such as droughts, extreme natural disasters, and ecological changes that create food or water scarcity — and that the stress or struggle to manage these pressures can result in an increased rate of “gender-based violence.”

For the purposes of the study, “gender-based violence” included “domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, forced prostitution, forced marriage and child marriage, as well as other forms of exploitation of women.” These countries aren’t typically the largest contributors of carbon emissions in the world, but they face a disproportionate amount of harm from the climate crisis.

The rich countries do it to the poor countries, and the men in the poor countries do it to the women. Misery goes downward until the bottom is saturated.

Climate change can increase the frequency of disasters or make them more destructive, which hurts a community’s ability to bounce back. When this happens in a country where women already lack rights, the struggle to recover can lead to their exploitation. According to the study, nearly 12 million additional young girls are believed to be married off after natural disasters. And previous research by anti-slavery organizations have found that sex trafficking increases by 20-30 percent after a climate-related disaster.

It makes a kind of sense. Young girls get married off because that’s one less mouth to feed. Sex trafficking increases because it’s profitable and profit=more of the scarce resources.

Illegal activities, such as poaching and illegal resource extraction, also increase after climate-related devastation. These illegal activities, Owren found, are closely linked with the exploitation of women and young girls. In one example, the study detailed instances of fishermen in eastern and southern Africa who wouldn’t sell fish to women unless they paid with sex. Similar examples were found with illegal logging and charcoal industries in Congo as well as illegal mines in Colombia and Peru.

Never waste a woman, right?

Lookin’ good.

In other news –

Today, February 4, 2020, one of Africa’s most outstanding performers, the exceptional kora player from Mali, Ballaké Sissoko has just had his cherished, custom-made kora completely destroyed by USA Customs, without any justification.

Ballaké is a highly acclaimed, distinguished performer who travels around the world with his kora for concerts at top venues. His reputation is impeccable as both artist and human being. He has no criminal record. He is just a brilliant musician, a pacifist, a kind and gentle person, a magnificent and creative performer who manages to give African tradition a contemporary voice with total integrity.

The kora is a fragile, hand-crafted instrument, and Ballaké’s kora is tailor- made to his own specifications. It is an intrinsic part of his very special sound. Would US customs have dared to dismantle a Stradivarius? In its own way that is what has just happened to Ballaké. The neck of the kora has been removed. The strings, bridge and entire, delicate and complex sound system of amplification have been taken apart. The kora is in pieces. Even if all the components that have been dissembled were intact, it takes weeks before a kora of this calibre can return to its previous state of resonance. These kinds of custom-made koras are simply impossible to replace. They are certainly not available in shops.

Ballaké had just finished a two-week successful tour of the USA (LA, Berkeley, Miami, Chicago and NY) with his group 3MA, an innovative and unique trio that brings together string instruments from Mali, Morocco and Madagascar. Ballaké boarded his Air France plane to Paris on his way home from their final concert in New York. He checked in his kora, in its hard case, with its state-of-the-art amplification system, specially designed by sound engineer Julian Cooper.

It was a night flight arriving in Paris the next morning – today, Feb 4. At the airport, Ballaké picked up his kora case, went back to his flat and slept. But when he woke up and opened the kora case, he was shocked and dismayed to find his kora in many pieces, with only a note from US customs – in Spanish, with the unfortunate motto: “Intelligent security saves time”.

–Lucy Durán

The TSA said they didn’t do it. The Guardian reports:

The TSA denied opening the instrument case. “It is most unfortunate that Mr Sissoko’s instrument was damaged in transport. However, after a thorough review of the claim, it was determined that TSA did not open the instrument case because it did not trigger an alarm when it was screened for possible explosives,” a TSA spokesperson told the Guardian in an email.

I don’t think I believe them.

CNN has more:

Vindman, a decorated veteran who was born in Ukraine, was escorted out of the White House by security and told his services were no longer needed, according to Vindman’s lawyer, David Pressman.

His twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a National Security Council attorney, was also fired and walked off the White House grounds alongside him.

Because Donald Trump is a crook and a thug.

Trump foreshadowed Vindman’s dismissal earlier Friday.

“Well, I’m not happy with him,” Trump said. “You think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m not.”

We don’t care whether you’re happy with him or not, asshole. You’re a lying crook and you’re committing more crimes by punishing witnesses. We don’t give a good god damn about your egomaniacal feefees.

Remember when Obama said he thought we were going to be all right?

He was wrong.

Disgust at the vindictive treatment of Vindman:

Seattle’s Representative:

I’m seeing tweets saying Trump fired Vindman’s twin brother too.

Tick tick tick

Antarctica has logged its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station thermometer reading 18.3C, beating the previous record by 0.8C.

The reading, taken at Esperanza on the northern tip of the continent’s peninsula, beats Antarctica’s previous record of 17.5C, set in March 2015. …

Antarctica’s peninsula – the area that points towards South America – is one of the fastest warming places on earth, heating by almost 3C over the past 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Almost all the region’s glaciers are melting.

Never mind that, let’s talk about how hot Lisa Page is.

The sewer gets deeper again.

Look especially at that Jezebel-y image – the man is sitting there like your basic G-man, foursquare, suit and tie, all business, got work to do, while the woman is a squirming crouching Sex Snare in sex clothes seducing him away from his work that he has to do. They’re not colleagues, they’re professional guy and slut whore.

Some unfortunate on the staff had to transcribe Trump’s words-vomit yesterday so that we could see the full horror without having to watch and listen to the sniffing gasping sneering poltroon.

Let’s have a sample or two.

And we did win.  It was one of the greatest wins of all time.  And they said, “Okay, he won.”  And, you know, I wrote this down because that was where a thing called the “insurance policy” — to me, when I saw the insurance policy — and that was done long before the election.  That was done when they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win.

And, by the way, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for millions — millions of dollars — the fake dossier.  And now Christopher Steele admits that it’s a fake because he got sued by rich people.  I should have sued him too.  But when you’re President, people don’t like suing.

That’s some joined-up thinking right there.

Fortunately, for all of us here today and for our country, we had transcripts.  We had transcribers — professional transcribers.  Then they said, “Oh, well, maybe the transcription is not correct.”  But Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and his twin brother — right? — we had some people that — really amazing.

But we did everything.  We said, “What’s wrong with it?”  “Well, they didn’t add this word or that one.”  It didn’t matter.  I said, “Add it.  They’re probably wrong, but add it.”

O…kay?

But in normal times — decades, you would call it; that was a little unusual time; it was for a very short period — the Republicans [sic] Party — Party’s poll numbers and Donald Trump’s poll numbers are the highest I’ve ever had them.  So maybe they were.  It’s no way to get your poll numbers up.  It’s not worth it — because from my family’s standpoint, it’s been very unfair for my family.  It’s been very unfair to the country.

Translated from the Venusian?

We get a shout-out to Lincoln.

And a lot of — actually, a lot of my guys went there.  They went to Iowa.  And a lot of friends went there, and we had tremendous — they say the spirit — the spirit for the Republican Party right now is stronger, I think, than it’s ever been in the history of our country.  I think it’s stronger than it’s ever been.  (Applause.)

And that includes Honest Abe Lincoln.  You know, a lot of people forget Abe Lincoln.  I wish he were here.  I’d give him one hell of an introduction.  Right?  (Laughter.)  But he was — he was a Republican.  Abe Lincoln.  Honest Abe.

Applause applause applause.

The BBC reports a startling new development:

Jameela Jamil has announced she is “queer” after receiving criticism for being cast in a new LGBT-interest show.

US broadcaster HBO announced on Tuesday that the actress and model would be a judge on its new unscripted voguing contest Legendary.

The news prompted an online backlash from people who said The Good Place star was not representative of the black LGBT community.

That prompted her to issue a statement addressing her sexuality.

But this identity “queer” is not at all a label of convenience for when people think you’re just another boring cis straight woman who as a cis straight woman is obviously not marginalized or oppressed in any way.

Opening with “Twitter is brutal”, she explained that she identified “as queer” and had previously struggled to discuss the topic because “it’s not easy within the south Asian community to be accepted”.

She mentioned that nobody in her family was “openly out” and that “it’s also scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you’re already a brown female in your thirties”.

I’m not getting the “in your thirties” part. Why does that make it especially scary?

But more to the point, what is “queer” even supposed to mean? What does she mean by it? What does she expect the world to understand her to mean by it? Just…special? Hip? Woke? Honorary lesbian? A trans man?

The term queer is both embraced and frowned upon. Having been seen as derogatory, it is being reclaimed by some non-heterosexual people who say they don’t identify with more traditional categories of gender identity and sexual orientation.

But what does that mean? Here’s a news flash: those horrible feminist women that everyone hates also don’t “identify with” more traditional categories of gender identity, which is what “feminist” means. Is Jamil just saying she’s a feminist? Probably not, since she isn’t.

With Jamil trending on Twitter, reactions to her statement appeared to be more negative than positive, with many criticising her for coming out as queer while being in a relationship with musician James Blake.

But “queer” doesn’t mean “not in a relationship with James Blake,” it means…special, interesting, sparkly.

This is bad. This is very bad.

Barr is Barr. Barr is a wholly owned enforcer for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is now free to steal the next election eleven ways from Sunday and no one will be able to stop him.

Remember this guy?

This “hi would you unfollow this person?” guy? I decided to take a look at his tweets to see if he says that kind of thing a lot.

That kind of thing, maybe not, but that thing itself, yes. Downright weirdly a lot.

C’mon folks yourself, dude.

Meanwhile, in the entirely unimportant world of foreign policy…

Lana Marks is a successful fashion designer and member of U.S. President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Though she has no prior diplomatic experience, Marks is also Trump’s ambassador to South Africa, and last month she forced out her second in command, the veteran career foreign service officer David Young. According to multiple current and former officials familiar with the matter, the issue arose following Marks’s attempts to elevate her son to a senior role in the embassy, an apparent violation of State Department rules.

That’s great, isn’t it? Wholly unqualified rando kicks out experienced foreign service officer apparently because he didn’t applaud her corrupt effort to give her own kid a top job in the embassy.

To be fair the part about appointing random friends or donors to be ambassadors is not original to Trump. But does he do more of it? Of course.

The incident illustrated a growing trend in the Trump administration. Already, several of Trump’s political allies-turned-ambassadors—he has appointed a higher percentage than most previous presidents—have sacked their deputies amid a culture of mistrust between politically appointed and career State Department officials.

Marks has also faced other criticism within the State Department over how she manages the embassy in Pretoria. Apart from her attempts to give her son a job with elevated responsibilities at the embassy, other embassy staff have been pushed out, including officials who worked on foreign aid and health programs in a country that is a major recipient of U.S. funds to tackle HIV and AIDS, according to several State Department officials familiar with the matter.

Let me guess. Trump would prefer more people to die of AIDS? He doesn’t see why we should help other people’s health programs?

[Trump’s] politically appointed ambassadors are sacking their deputy chiefs of mission—an embassy’s second-in-command post held by foreign service officers—in unusually high numbers, officials say. 

Along with South Africa, Trump’s envoys in Canada, France, Iceland, Romania, and the United Kingdom have all removed their deputy chiefs of mission, some ambassadors doing so just shortly before or after arriving at their new posts.

I wonder if that’s out of an explicit, conscious intention to get rid of people who have expertise in foreign policy and replace them with ignorant hacks who are in it for the money.

“We are deeply concerned by the number of removals of deputy chiefs of mission overseas, which are happening at way above the normal pace,” said Eric Rubin, a senior foreign service officer currently serving as president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats. “It’s generally very rare for a DCM to be removed by the ambassador. It does happen. Sometimes it happens for a good cause. But it’s rare. And it is now becoming an epidemic.” 

Which is not surprising in a Trump regime, in a way, because he is so grossly and obviously unqualified for the job he’s doing that he has to try to undermine the whole idea that qualification is necessary.

He must live in a world where nothing relates to anything. Stuff just happens. If you don’t need to know anything to do any job, then there must not be anything to know, and we’re all lost in a cartoon that has no end.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have carried out the practice of tapping campaign donors for ambassador posts, which has sometimes—though not always—sowed mismanagement and morale issues at U.S. embassies abroad. (Indeed, several Obama administration donors-turned-ambassadors were quietly sacked over allegations of mismanagement.) The United States is one of the only countries in the world with a practice of giving ambassador posts to high-end political donors.

Not a distinction to be proud of.