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| Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast |
"The new [Endangered Species Act] rules also give the government significant discretion in deciding what is meant by the term “foreseeable future."
—The New York Times, August 12, 2019
The Administration has announced that the following are no longer to be considered part of the “foreseeable future:”
Ice for polar bears to stand on
Safe and legal abortions
The concept of objective facts
Efforts to reduce the burning of fossil fuels
An act of political independence by any Republican member of Congress
Revulsion against separating immigrant children from their mothers and imprisoning them
Glaciers in Glacier National Park
Condemnation of white nationalism by the President of the United States
Any evidence of compassion or empathy from the President of the United States
Elephants
Nuclear arms control
The languid flight of monarch butterflies over a summer meadow
The survival of human civilization
However, the White House assures anxious Americans that the following can still be relied upon:
Inaction on gun control
Unrestricted influence of money on politics
Uncontrolled corporate power
Be sure to visit this site for regular updates
Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.