San Diego Lilac Fire: This fire started around 11AM and by 11PM it had burned over 4100 acres, destroyed over 100 structures, many of them homes, and is still only 15% contained this morning. More Santa Ana winds hitting today…we are praying it does not explode toward 5000 homes in it’s path.

Mississippi Civil Rights Museum: Congressmen Bernie Thomson and John Lewis, along with NAACP President Derrick Thompson skipped the opening ceremony of this historic museum because they essentially called President Trump a racist. Their race bating at such an important moment was typical of the NAACP as an organization. I might state the NAACP does not represent the majority of Americans of all races and ethnic groups. One question….had President Trump not attended this important ceremony what would they be saying? They would be calling him a racist for ignoring this Museum opening.

The National Parks…the rest of the story: The reduction in size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national parks has stirred the protests of many environmental supporters, including Patagonia and REI. Interior Secretary Ryan Zink stated that Bears Ears is still larger than Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks combined! Grand Staircase still retains about 1 million acres (about 1500 square miles) which is still very large.

President Obama Created Bears Ears:  The stories on President Trump’s reduction of lands leave out a little information claiming, “this is the largest elimination of protected land in American history”. What they fail to say in their articles is that President Obama just created the National Monument at Bears Ears, and in so doing designated an enormous 1.35 million acres of Southeast Utah to be protected park lands. So what President Trump did was simply reduce, to a reasonable size, the extreme number of acres set aside by President Obama.  President Trump supported the creation of this national monument by President Obama but he listened to the people of Utah in his reducing the size of these two parks.

Two Thirds of Utah Owned By Federal Government: The move was supported by the majority of the people of Utah. Senator Oran Hatch said the areas protected were unnecessarily vast, limiting the potential for economic growth, and increasing the control of state lands by the Federal Government. Two thirds of the land in Utah is already owned by the Federal Government!