Inside the new Department of the Inferior

            Renaming federal departments is nothing new.

            The Defense Department was the War Department. The State Department was Foreign Affairs.

            And in 2016 the nation's steward of public lands became the Department of the Inferior. And with it the Environmental Pillaging Agency.

            Take bad science, add ethically malformed leaders, and draw up policy sculpted by industrial marauders. That's our approach to public lands and natural resources under Donald Trump.

            Or in the words of Michael Hiltzik, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the Los Angeles Times and covers our Inferior Department: What was founded to be "a steward of America's natural patrimony" has been transformed "into an agent of plunder."

            This is not what Ryan Zinke said he was going to create when chosen by Trump to head the department. In confirmation hearings, Zinke mouthed words that sounded like an environmentalist.

            Zinke said he wanted to follow in Theodore Roosevelt's tradition in protecting and bolstering the nation's public lands. This caused an environmental eminence like National Wildlife Federation CEO Collin O'Mara to support him.

            However, upon Zinke's recent resignation, O'Mara wrote, "Zinke's dogged pursuit of unfettered fossil-fuel extraction makes James Watt's disastrous tenure look timid."

            It was a testimonial to the Trump-Zinke approach to public lands that three-fourths of the members of the National Parks Board resigned in protest of Inferior policies that were fashioned almost entirely to the whims of industry.

            Consider a proposal by Inferior to limit Freedom of Information Act requests by average citizens. Rest assured, no such request by industry will be shuffled to the bottom of the stack.

            How to explain this? Easy. Under Trump, the Department of the Inferior is no longer a public entity but a private one, for-profit, proprietary. "Government run like a business."

            One thing that industry has demonstrated is its commitment to never let science in the public interest get in the way of private interests.

            In Trump's Department of the Inferior, the best scientific minds have been chased away or shuffled into positions where they can't be seen or heard.

            Under Zinke, a page on Inferior's website which once served as a go-to location for facts about climate change was remove.

            Meanwhile, all science grants of more than $50,000 given by the department have been vetted by a high school football teammate of Zinke who has no science background.

            The Union of Concerned Scientists, in a report on the "monumental disaster" facing scientific pursuits in the department, tells of upper-level ideologues "freezing out advice from science committees; restricting DOI scientists from communicating about their work; removing, reassigning, or intimidating scientists; and creating a climate of fear and intimidation."

            Lest anyone think things might change without Zinke, who bailed just ahead of a Congress inclined to probe a raft of ethics charges against him, backward "progress" likely will continue.

            His successor, David Bernhardt, is a former lobbyist for mining and energy interests. Whereas Zinke tried to lip-sync Teddy Roosevelt in his confirmation, Bernhardt no doubt will be mouthing the lines of oil cutthroat Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood."

            The Washington Post depicts Bernhardt as the strategy guy behind much of what's happened in the Inferior Department – the opening of 17 million acres of federal lands for oil leases (some as cheaply as $1.50 an acre), and efforts to tunnel under the Endangered Species Act, per industry demands.

            "We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received," Teddy Roosevelt said of our natural areas. "Each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune."

            If we are to read the intentions of Trump, that "good fortune" was really meant for an elite club of investors.

            By the way, that quote is up on the National Parks System web site. Watch for it to be purged by sundown.

          Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

Trump Nation can't see out its own windows

            Fifty years ago, just before he became the first man to plant his feet on an astral plane, Neil Armstrong wrote that from space, one perceives "a much bigger universe than we can normally see from the front porch."

            "Perhaps going to the moon and back isn't that important," he wrote. "But it is a big enough step to give people a new dimension in their thinking – a sort of enlightenment."

            From space, all that is petty and provincial becomes microscopic. Southern California and South Carolina are of the same kernel. A big, beautiful border wall wouldn't rival a cat's whisker.

            As we enter a new year, more Americans understand that to yield to the petty is not what we as a nation are about. Not that the national mood is reflected in a cloistered chief executive holding the government as his very own hostage.

            Make America great again? What Donald Trump makes America out to be isn't that. Rather than the brawny hero of the downtrodden, his America is cramped, crouched and crochety.

            Forget Liberty's lamp. What Trump and his supporters envision is dimly lit: bars over opaque windows, narrow rows of limited goods inside, a faded '60s-vintage sign above the cash register pronouncing, "We reserve the right to refuse service."

            The America of Ellis Island embraced opportunity and diversity. The driving impetus of Trump's America is to plant a boot on an immigrant's hind side.

            Trump believes he speaks for America on these matters. Not even close. A solid majority of Americans – 58 percent according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll -- opposes his shutting down government to get funds for his border wall.

            It's curious to ponder those who think the wall is worth national paralysis. Who are they? Most are detached from a world of difference, living in rural areas and least likely to encounter "illegals."

            Look at the reds and blues of the presidential map and see that the most Trump supporters are where the least people are. Hmmm.

            They may be remote-minded, but they can still get Fox News on their satellite dishes and Rush Limbaugh on their A.M. dials. They live the very same drum-drum fear-beat that caused Trump to backtrack on a unanimous Senate resolution to fund government before the end of the year.

            The other day Trump and the Fox News fear merchants found something to justify their pitch: the tragic slaying of a California police officer, the suspect having fled Mexico.

           Imagine how much safer we might be if Republicans showed as much concern about the legally armed monsters who have cut down so many in schools, churches, synagogues, concert venues and more. But in the narrow rows of the cloistered shop that is Trump's America, the sale of firearms is always robust.

            The Limbaughs, the Laura Ingrahams, the Tucker Carlsons of the broadcast world want you to fear immigrants. Sorry, but all I can think of is the Spanish-chattering fellows hired by the roofing company to spend sweltering hours on my Texas roof one storm season as they worked to keep the next rain off my brow.

            Fifty years ago, with the space program, Americans had the opportunity to think bigger than this. Neil Armstrong hoped for a future of loftier intentions.

            "Hopefully, by getting a little farther away, both in the real sense and the figurative sense, we'll be able to make people step back and consider their mission in the universe."

             His musings had the ring of songwriter Julie Gold's "From a Distance":

            "From a distance there is harmony and it echoes through the land. And it's the hope of hopes; it's the love of loves; it's the heart of every man."

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

How Russian trolls toiled for Trump

            This certainly gives a new definition to "red state."

            A Senate report on Russia's pro-Donald Trump disinformation campaign reveals something so vast that its tentacles reached into places where, seemingly, no slimy caress was necessary.

            Like Texas.

            Submitted: A Russian-created Facebook page named "Heart of Texas" to facilitate foment among angry Texans, and to plug Vladimir Putin's favorite presidential candidate.

            That was just one parcel in a stunning social media tour de force whose influence spread from sea to shining sea.

            We speak of the Russian spawn called the Russian Internet Agency. The Senate report details how the troll factory set out, even before Donald Trump was nominated, to make him our president.

            No small enterprise: Try more than a thousand employees and a budget of $25 million.

            The Senate report details efforts aimed at encouraging Trump supporters to vote through a vast array of social media schemes, while discouraging and disillusioning others, particularly black voters.

            This included calculated posts to make on-the-fences voters think twice about supporting Trump's opponents, or voting at all. African-Americans were a key target.

            Whatever the cause, Trump had this to say about that about black voters:

            "They didn't come out. They didn't come out to vote for Hillary. And that was big."

            So, how did the trolls help? They created dozens of apparent African-American web sites and populated them with messages to encourage black voters to stay away from the polls.

            Meanwhile, says the Senate report, the Russians provided online messaging aimed at motivating progressives to vote for the third-party mirage that was Jill Stein. The trolls did not miss a trick.

            The report shows that the Russians' propaganda efforts floated past the eyes of some 120 million Facebook users

            Just as important were the 20 million Gen X, Y and Z users of Instagram it reached, according to the report. We'll never know to what extent guileful geopolitical players got young Americans to "vote for nobody" with messaging meant to tie their brains in knots.

            For those who might think the Russians sided with Trump only after he became their vessel to challenge Clinton, the report points to efforts to others in the GOP primary.

            A trademark meme of this effort was several posts identifying then-Trump rival for the GOP nod, Ted Cruz, as a "Trojan horse of the establishment."

            Oh, and the Russian trolls didn't stop their efforts after Putin's man was elected president. As soon as Robert Mueller set out to investigate Trump's connections to the Mother Country, the Russian Internet Agency set out to use its means to discredit him.

            This included bogus accounts that Mueller had ties to radical Islam (whoo, boy) and the Democratic Party, which is some trick, because Mueller is a Republican.

            Yes, this is what one calls actual, bona fide, certifiable fake news, as opposed to what Putin's choice, the Electoral College king, deems it.

            Back to the Russian trolls' involvement in things Texan: It's a little hard to figure out. As Texas Monthly's R.G. Ratcliffe explains, apparently the Russians thought that Texas was in play in 2016. Not exactly. But with that budget, why not?

            Regardless, the Russians mastered the language of Texas conservatives even before the 2016 campaign, with "Heart of Texas" calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants and the Texas' secession from the Land of Obama.

            As to why Russia sided with Trump to such a degree, and vice versa, maybe Robert Mueller can help us understand.

            Regardless, as Ratcliffe writes, the whole of the trolls' effort was to "reinforce tribalism, to polarize and divide, and to normalize points of view strategically advantageous to the Russian government."

            To this let us say, "Mission accomplished." In Russian: "Missiya vypolnena."

             Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.