The Daily Sentinel from Grand Junction, Colorado • 4

4A The Daily Sentinel Wednesday, May 17, 2017 Commentary Editorial Letters Contact Interior regarding Bears Ears Recently President Trump ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review all national monuments bigger than 100,000 acres designated since the Clinton era. Of particular concern at this time is Bears Ears Monument, which (notwithstanding Interior's press release) was the subject of extensive public comment. Guv should sign 1313 Mesa County officials aren't wrong to question the threshold that determines which set of rules local law enforcement authorities must abide by to receive proceeds from civil forfeiture actions stemming from multi-jurisdictional investigations involving federal agencies. Nevertheless, we encourage Gov. John Hickenlooper to sign House Bill 1313 containing the threshold provision as it reflects a grand bargain to bring more transparency into forfeiture activities and strengthen due process protections.

Under the bill, law enforcement will have to detail to the public when it uses the process known as "civil forfeiture" and detail what was seized and what was the ultimate disposition of the property. Law enforcement will also have to report if the person from whom the property was seized was ever charged or convicted of a crime. There will be a fine levied against those entities that fail to report. Mesa County officials say they don't have a problem with this aspect of the bill. But the bill also prohibits "seizing agencies" from receiving forfeiture proceeds from the federal government unless the value of the property and currency seized in the case is in excess of $50,000.

They'll have to follow the state's civil-forfeiture rules instead. Of the $2 million Mesa County received under a federal "equitable sharing" program between 2012 and 2016, more than half came from forfeitures of $50,000 or less. This is money the county uses for training and programs like CrimeStoppers, Alive at 25 and Sober Grad. As The Sentinel's Charles Ashby summarized in a story earlier this month, forfeiture laws were originally designed to help cripple large criminal organizations by taking away their means to operate. Since then, however, critics of the practice say it can lead to abuses as departments become reliant on seizures as a revenue source.

Bill sponsors say this is self-funding outside the normal appropriations process. The $50,000 threshold means local law enforcement officials can't bypass much tougher state-level restrictions and due process protections on asset forfeiture activity, thus making it easier for people never charged with a crime to get their property back. The bottom line is that more than three-quarters of state lawmakers want local law enforcement agencies to clear a higher bar to get a cut of the majority of busts arising from joint operations with the feds. According to bill sponsors, between 2000 and 2013, local law enforcement received more than $47 million from the Department of Justice alone, which amounts to more than three times the amount collected under state forfeiture laws. We're sympathetic to Mesa County officials' claims that this bill would hurt them financially.

They say the state process to get a cut of forfeiture actions is so cumbersome and expensive that it's not worth pursuing. Yet, it won't stop them from continuing to team with feds on drug interdiction along Interstate 70. The cost of these efforts will remain, but there will be no recompense. But if the governor vetoes HB1331 over concerns about the threshold there's no guarantee lawmakers could reach consensus on a future reform effort. Passing the bill with strong bipartisan support was no easy lift and the $50,000 threshold was a compromise that got it to the governor's desk.

Mesa County can still get money under state rules. Maybe not as much. But we agree with the majority of lawmakers who view civil forfeiture as too big a threat to property rights to let the status quo prevail. terrible emergency. Then, the hospital and doctors will probably receive no compensation at all.

The shameless lies are that ACA is all worth it to cover 20 million people. There are millions more that have no hope of coverage even though employers are struggling to give some coverage. Employees are trying to pay for insurance they can't use. Yes, Scott Tipton is trying to make health care better for Colorado like others in Washington. It is very difficult to back out of an entitlement that is complicated and a big tangle of regulation.

At least some are giving it a try. LOIS DUNN Grand Junction ACA's healthcare mandate and tax are unconstitutional One thing that has always bothered me about the (Un)Affordable Care Act is the mandate that you have to buy the insurance or pay an income surtax to the IRS. No one should be forced to buy anything by the federal government. In 2016, 8 million people had to pay $695-plus each to the feds. The Congressional Budget Office said that 69 percent of those 8 million people were solidly middle class.

Didn't Obama promise that if you made less than $250,000 annually, your taxes wouldn't increase? Colorado's economy does extremely well from the efforts of its middle class workers and families (those earning $250,000 or less). I still feel this mandate and tax are unconstitutional. As I understand it, the new American Health Care Act will not have this mandate or tax. Why hasn't the media told us this? SUSAN BENJAMIN Grand Junction Included was a trip by some Grand Junction locals to Bluff, Utah in 100-degree weather for a public hearing with then Secretary Sally Jewell. The effort to establish this monument was initiated by five tribal nations in a highly unusual collaboration.

The designation, made by President Obama, allowed current drilling and grazing to continue, as well as current hunting and gathering practices. But it benefited us all by preserving stunning country, including 100,000 (some of them personally viewed) amazing archaeological sites. Local economies in Bluff, Blanding and Monticello stand to benefit greatly from the tourist traffic this monument will generate. Bears Ears was federal land before it became a monument. It belongs to all U.S.

citizens, a point that can be driven home by your far-flung friends and relatives. But because it is so close, it appears that our comments will bear extra weight with this administration. Please write, call, or email the Department of the Interior before the comment period expires on May 26. You can find the contact information on the internet by searching for "DOI-2017-0002" at regulations.gov. We tend to doubt our efficacy, but the recent grassroots victory saving the federal methane regulation demonstrates the power our joint efforts can yield.

JOAN WOODWARD Grand Junction Mainstream media should cover outrageous hypocrisy Over the last week, every elected Democrat in D.C. who could rushed the cameras and talk shows to tell us the importance of the president selecting a new FBI director who is non-political and experienced. Over the weekend their leadership, Sen. Schumer, et al, rushed to the talk shows and threatened they will hold the FBI director's job hostage if they do not get what they want politically over outstanding matters. So far, I have seen or heard no mainstream media news commentator, news service, or left-leaning talking head question this logic.

And you wonder why the mainstream media is held in such low esteem? Do these people really think that the voters of this country are asleep and not noticing this outrageous hypocrisy? MS. J.C. SMITH Grand Junction Tipton is trying to make health care better for Coloradans Regarding the scorch to Congressman Tipton from Mr. Gustafson, formerly of Grand Junction, now at Harvard. Sorry, I agree with Scott Tipton.

Something must be done with the ACA. Sure the AHCA may not be perfect but it is a start that gets the Senate and House talking. The responsibility is to get help for all the people in the middle, the employers of companies under 100. I talked to one such employer. An employee makes $13 per hour.

His insurance is 25 percent of his wages ($1,000 a month) with a deductible of $7,500. Another part-time worker makes $320 per week. Her insurance is also 25 percent of her salary and she also has a $7,500 deductible. A friend is retired. Her insurance premium is $1,000 per month.

Her deductible is $6,000. This isn't "insurance." It is scaring or forcing people to pay for something in a so-called exchange, which they can never afford to use. The only possible care for these millions of people is the emergency room in case of a Celebrate Colorado Public Lands Day When the world is led by a child 7 BILL GRANT On May 20, 2016, Joey Bunch wrote in the Denver Post, "On this day a year from now, Coloradans will get to celebrate Colorado Public Lands Day, thanks to a bill that squeaked through the gridlocked legislature this year." That day has come. On Satur Day, to a vehicle for amendments based on grievances against the federal government and resentment of the regulations it imposes on public land. In opposition, conservation groups, environmental organizations, sportsmen, outdoor At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none ey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies. Third, by adulthood most people can perceive how others are thinking. For example, they learn subtle arts such as false modesty so they won't be perceived as obnoxious.

DAVID BROOKS day, May 20, 2017, Coloradans will celebrate Public Lands Day as an official state holiday recognizing the importance of 24 million acres of public land to the state's way of life and economy. The holiday will occur on the third Saturday in May each year, beginning this month. Colorado is the first state to declare a holiday to celebrate public lands. Grand Junction will be at the center of the statewide celebrations with a visit from Gov. John Hickenlooper who will speak about Public Lands Day at noon Saturday on the main stage of the Grand Junction Off-Road Bike Race on Main Street.

Vail Democrat Kerry Donovan sponsored the bill that created the nation's first, and only, Public Lands Day state holiday. Donovan was able to get her bill passed, Colorado Politics reports, "because Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling let it out of the committee, but then voted against it on the floor." Sen. Donovan introduced the bill to create Public Lands Day as a holiday on the first day of the 2016 legislative term. It awaited action for the entire four months of the session before being passed by a bipartisan majority on the final day of the term.

In the Senate it passed 28-7, and in the House by 39-26. As the Durango Herald's Peter Marcus explained on an NPR interview, "The bill was introduced on the very first day of the legislative session, and didn't make its way out until the very end of the legislative session. And the reason why is because there's a lot of controversy that is swirling around just the issue of public lands. And so that controversy kind of spilled over into the Legislature, where what was a seemingly non-controversial bill to create a public lands day was bogged down in all of this discussion on whether or not the federal government is truly the best to regulate our public lands." As Marcus explains, as the bill evolved through various committees, it changed from a simple proposal to name a Public Lands enthusiasts and others objected to transferring "millions of acres of federal lands to the state's authority," Marcus said. "The state doesn't have the money to manage it.

The state won't have any resources really to deal with this." Their fear is that those lands would close to the public because of the state's inability to manage them. These extraneous considerations were minimized when Sonnenberg dropped them from the bill and returned it to its original issue of simply naming the third Saturday in May as Public Lands Day. It passed in that form. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, meantime, has been visiting national monuments greater than 100,000 acres established since 1996 with orders from Donald Trump to recommend which monuments should be retained and which should be modified or eliminated. In Colorado, the Canyon of the Ancients could be threatened by Zinke's review.

"The national politics have changed, certainly since the election in November," Pete Maysmith of Conservation Colorado told Colorado Politics. "When we see things like national monuments, the Canyon of the Ancients and others here in Colorado and nationally, that are at risk of being rolled back or undone, that doesn't make any sense at all." As inhabitants of the first state in the nation to establish its own public lands day, Coloradans should celebrate the occasion on May 20 by participating in one of the planned activities or special events at state parks, or just make it a point to get outside on a favorite trail to enjoy the special places we celebrate on Public Lands Day. Meantime, we should prepare to resist efforts by the Trump administration to reduce protections on the public lands that make Colorado a special place to live, work and play. Bill Grant lives in Grand Junction. He can be reached at william.grant99gail.com.

But Trump seems to have not yet developed a theory of mind. Other people are black boxes that supply either affirmation or disapproval. As a result, he is weirdly transparent. He wants people to love him, so he is constantly telling interviewers that he is widely loved. In Trump's telling, every meeting was scheduled for 15 minutes but his guests stayed two hours because they liked him so much.

Which brings us to the reports that Trump betrayed an intelligence source and leaked secrets to his Russian visitors. From all we know so far, Trump didn't do it because he is a Russian agent, or for any malevolent intent. He did it because he is sloppy, because he lacks all impulse control, and above all because he is a 9-year-old boy desperate for the approval of those he admires. The Russian leak story reveals one other thing, the dangerousness of a hollow man. Our institutions depend on people who have enough engraved character traits to fulfill their assigned duties.

But there is perpetually less to Trump than it appears. When we analyze a president's utterances we tend to assume that there is some substantive process behind the words, that it's part of some strategic intent. But Trump's statements don't necessarily come from anywhere, lead anywhere or have a permanent reality beyond his wish to be liked at any given instant. We've got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar. "We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him," David Roberts writes in Vox.

"It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there's nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?" And out of that void comes a carelessness that quite possibly betrayed an intelligence source, and endangered a country. New York Times of these things. At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25.

Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif. First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. Trump's answers in these interviews are not very long 200 words at the high end but he will typically flit through four or five topics before ending up with how unfair the press is to him.

His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work. Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits.

But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself. "In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care," he told Time. "A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber," he told The Associated Press, referring to his joint session speech. By Trump's own account, he knows more about aircraft carrier technology than the Navy. According to his interview with The Economist, he invented the phrase "priming the pump" (even though it was famous by 1933).

Trump is not only trying to deceive others. His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself. He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought he'd be celebrated for firing James Com- Editorial Board JAY SEATONPublisher ANDY SMITHEditorial Page Editor BUD WINSLOWOperations Director MIKE WIGGINSManaging Editor SANDRA ROGERSHuman Resources Director LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We prefer letters be emailed to lettersgjsentinel.com or submitted via the "Submit a letter to the editor" link at GJSentinel.com. Letters may also be mailed to: The Dally SENTINEL i'GRJlllDJUNCriON.

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