Biden’s New National Monument Near the Grand Canyon Is a Big Freaking Deal

President Joe Biden designated a new national monument near the Grand Canyon on Tuesday, protecting almost one million acres from uranium mining in a massive win for his environmental agenda and Indigenous rights.

The new Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument protects lands that are sacred to Native Americans, after tribes were forced off the land in 1919 when the Grand Canyon National Park was established. The land contains some of the most biodiverse habitats in the region and is home to bighorn sheep, bison, and bald eagles. Many of the streams in the area contribute to the Colorado River, a critical water source for the Southwest that is at an all-time low due to climate change.

“Today I’m proud to use my authority under the Antiquities Act to protect almost one million acres of land around Grand Canyon National Park as a new national monument—to help right the wrongs of the past and conserve this land … for all future generations,” Biden said during the designation ceremony at Red Butte Airfield in Arizona.

Tribal nations and conservationists had been calling for years to designate the land as a national monument. This is the fifth national monument Biden has designated, after Alaska’s Bristol Bay, Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, and Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both of which he restored as national monuments after Donald Trump stripped their protective status.

Although existing uranium mining claims on the Arizona land will be allowed to continue, the new designation protects the land from any future mining claims. Native tribes will be able to use the land for religious ceremonies, as well as for hunting and gathering. The designation is also an important sign, not just for Indigenous people, but for everyone.

Native American history “is American history,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, said Monday. “Feeling seen means being appreciated for who we are: the original stewards of our shared lands and waters.”

Haaland on Tuesday highlighted the importance of protecting such sacred lands, while Biden stressed the significance of acknowledging all parts of history.

“At a time when some seek to ban books and bury history, we’re making it clear that we can’t just choose to learn only what we want to know. We should learn everything that’s good, bad, and the truth about who we are as a nation,” he said.

Biden also said he would invest $44 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to “strengthen climate resilience across our national park system.” Climate change is especially pertinent to Arizona, which has borne some of the worst parts of a heat wave that has boiled the Southwest. The heat finally broke (relatively speaking) last week in Phoenix, when the city’s high temperature was below 110 degrees for the first time in a month.

Ron DeSantis is trying to invigorate his flailing campaign by reshuffling staffing for a third time.

Campaign manager Generra Peck will now become chief strategist. She will be replaced by James Uthmeier, who served as DeSantis’s gubernatorial chief of staff. The changes will take place “ASAP,” Uthmeier told Politico Tuesday.

The move comes just a few weeks after DeSantis cut more than a third of campaign staff, including two senior-level advisers and about 10 people on the event-planning team. No word on whether he kept the staffers who made a video of DeSantis with a Nazi symbol in the background or an aggressively homophobic and transphobic ad attacking Donald Trump.

Peck and Uthmeier’s moves mark the third time DeSantis has tried to “reset” his struggling campaign. Before he announced he was running for president, DeSantis had positioned himself as the natural successor to Trump. But his campaign started on a whimper, not a bang, and has yet to pick up.

DeSantis is second to Trump in the polls, but by a massive margin. All of his attempts to galvanize his campaign have failed to pay off—literally. His super PAC is burning through cash, scaring off major donors, and yet he continues to slip in the polls.

Things aren’t helped by the fact that DeSantis himself is awkward and terrible at small talk. It remains to be seen whether the third time is truly the charm, but it’s not looking good so far for Team DeSantis.

Republicans are planning to begin an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden in the fall, despite there being no proof of any wrongdoing on his part.

The GOP has for months accused the president and his son Hunter Biden of corruption, although they have yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims. While the farthest-right Republicans have long been clamoring to impeach Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously hedged, saying they did not have a strong enough case yet.

But many House Republicans say that the inquiry will definitely happen in the fall, and could begin as soon as next month, CNN reported Tuesday. They are worried that if they don’t try to impeach him now, it will make it look like they have cleared him and Hunter of wrongdoing.

McCarthy has begun to compare Biden to Nixon, arguing that his actions alone merit an impeachment inquiry. He says that an inquiry is different from voting on articles of impeachment, because it would merely give House Republicans greater power to get access to documents or witnesses that could prove their case. (Although if they haven’t proven their case by now, the bigger question might be whether there is anything to prove.)

“That’s exactly what was played out during the Nixon administration in Congress. They voted to have an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told Fox News’s Sean Hannity Monday night. “I’ve raised it on this show not long ago, that because the actions of the Biden administration, withholding information, that that would rise to the level where we would need impeachment inquiry.”

“We will continue to follow the information and provide it to the American public,” McCarthy insisted. “The difference here is we don’t do it for political purposes. We follow the Constitution.”

Except, of course, all of the investigations into Biden are absolutely for political purposes. House Republicans have mobilized multiple committees to go after the Biden family. There has yet to be any proof of wrongdoing, but Republicans have used the investigations as excuses to trash Biden, attack policies they don’t like such as immigration, and share his son’s nude photos.

Supercharging those investigations via impeachment inquiry would be nothing more than Republican retaliation for Donald Trump’s two impeachments. But the move also could be highly unpopular—especially for those 18 Republicans representing districts Biden won in 2020. Several Republicans have expressed skepticism at the idea of impeachment, and CNN reported that some Republican donors are worried that an impeachment inquiry would not be a smart move.

There’s also the risk that impeachment proceedings would backfire completely. Republicans would be forced to lay out everything they have—which is really not that much.

A Trump-appointed Texas judge has ordered three senior Southwest Airlines lawyers to take eight hours of “religious-liberty training” from the far-right Christian hate group Alliance Defending Freedom.

In his late Monday ruling, U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr specifically mandated the lawyers take the training as part of court-ordered sanctions for religious discrimination. He described ADF as one of several “esteemed non-profit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated ADF as an extremist hate group.

The mandated hate-group training is the latest phase of a lawsuit brought by flight attendant Charlene Carter, who sued Southwest for firing her in 2017 after she sent confrontational anti-abortion messages to her union’s former president. Carter argued she had been discriminated against based on her religious beliefs, and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr sided with her in December, ordering she be reinstated.

Starr, who was appointed by Donald Trump in 2019, also ordered Southwest to issue a statement telling its employees that the airline “may not” engage in religious discrimination against them. Instead, Southwest said that it “does not” do so, prompting Carter to demand additional sanctions against the company.

Carter had made no request for Southwest to undergo religious liberty training. ADF is not representing Carter, nor is it otherwise related to the case at all, so it’s unclear why Starr felt the need to involve the group.

It’s hard to overstate ADF’s role in rolling back civil liberties. One of its lead lawyers is Erin Hawley, who is married to far-right Senator Josh Hawley. ADF helped overturn Roe v. Wade and then sued to remove mifepristone, one of the drugs used in medication abortions, from the national market. That case is still in limbo, as the Fifth Circuit Court has yet to issue a ruling.

ADF also represented the plaintiff in the recent Supreme Court case 303 Creative v. Elenis. Web designer Lorie Smith was suing to have the right to refuse services to LGBTQ people. The design request she claims she received that prompted her suit appears to have been entirely fabricated.

Andrew Cuomo’s sister helped coordinate a campaign attacking the women who accused the former New York governor of sexual misconduct.

Cuomo resigned in August 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. A report by New York State Attorney General Letitia James found that Cuomo sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, through unwanted touching and inappropriate comments. Cuomo and his aides also allegedly unlawfully retaliated against at least one of his accusers for going public with her complaints.

Many of Cuomo’s accusers faced vicious abuse online. Much of that abuse was due to Cuomo’s sister Madeline Cuomo, working in coordination with a pro-Cuomo grassroots group, The New York Times reported Monday.

Madeline Cuomo worked with a group called We Decide New York, whose members mostly consisted of women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies. The group rallied behind Andrew Cuomo, galvanized to loyalty by how he had handled the Covid pandemic, in the spring of 2021 as more accounts of his sexual misconduct came to light.

More than 4,000 texts, emails, and voice memos acquired by the Times show just how much influence Madeline Cuomo wielded over the group and its social media presence. She helped WDNY plan social media posts and fed group members talking points for when reporters asked questions, but she insisted that her involvement be kept secret.

Madeline Cuomo regularly bashed her brother’s accusers, slut-shaming them and describing them as “despicable” and “unsophisticated.” Other choice words she used included “home wrecker,” “unauthentic,” and “bimbo photos.” The group followed her cues, often repeating her attacks word for word publicly. Last August, she told the group that two of Andrew Cuomo’s accusers “need to be frightened into shutting up right now.”

The group began to grow uncomfortable with Madeline Cuomo’s aggressive tactics, which would eventually lead to an irreparable rift. Members started to push back in September, after one of Andrew Cuomo’s accusers, Charlotte Bennett, sued him. “Even a slut has right to not be sexually harassed,” WDNY founding president Sandy Behan texted Madeline Cuomo.

The women compromised by sharing a photo of Bennett wearing lingerie at a bar. “No respectable woman would EVER pose like that,” Madeline Cuomo said over text.

Also in the spring of 2021, Madeline Cuomo got WDNY to hype up her younger brother Chris Cuomo when he filed an arbitration demand against CNN. Chris Cuomo was fired from the network for helping Andrew navigate the sexual harassment accusations, a violation of journalistic ethics.

Madeline Cuomo said she had worked with WDNY, but not recently, and that Andrew Cuomo was not involved at all. But the messages shared with the Times show Madeline Cuomo repeatedly said she kept her brother updated on the group’s work and that he appreciated all their efforts.

Andrew Cuomo gained national attention and praise for how he handled the Covid pandemic. But as the sexual harassment allegations came to light, it was also revealed that he had suppressed the number of Covid-related deaths in New York to make himself look better. He resigned in disgrace.