Latest news with #ResistanceRangers
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
National Park Rangers rebel against queer erasure on Trans Day of Visibility
While the Trump administration continues its campaign to erase transgender people from public life—including from historic federal landmarks—those who once wore the National Park Service uniform are refusing to stay silent. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. On Monday, to mark Transgender Day of Visibility, a group of over 1,000 off-duty, fired, and retired National Park Service employees launched Rangers Uncensored, an online archive that restores and amplifies LGBTQ+ stories quietly scrubbed from government websites since President Donald Trump's second inauguration. The initiative is the latest move by the Resistance Rangers, a growing network of former federal workers turned grassroots watchdogs who say they're stepping in where federal agencies are falling silent. Related: No LGB without the T — queer community protests Trump's transgender erasure at Stonewall 'As America's storytellers, rangers have a duty to tell all Americans' stories,' one NPS historian, who spoke anonymously due to fear of retaliation, said in a statement. 'Attempts to rewrite the truth and erase Americans, their identities, and their impact on our country are unacceptable.' The website— deleted and altered pages from the National Park Service's online archives, including tributes to Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two trans women of color who helped ignite the 1969 Stonewall Uprising; a profile of Jack Bee Garland, a trans man who served as a medic in the Spanish-American War; and an exploration of two-spirit people from the Pimería Alta. The initiative follows a now-notorious update made on February 13, when the words 'transgender' and 'queer' were removed from the Stonewall National Monument website. The acronym 'LGBTQ+' was also replaced with 'LGB' in over 230 known instances across NPS webpages—rhetoric commonly used by the trans-exclusionary LGB Alliance. Ryan Grippi/DontEraseUs The edit sparked a Valentine's Day protest at the Stonewall Inn, with community leaders and LGBTQ+ organizations condemning what they called 'a deliberate attempt to erase our history.' The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative called it a 'blatant act of erasure' that dishonors 'the immense contributions of transgender individuals—especially transgender women of color—who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots.' The Resistance Rangers were watching. Related: 'Transgender' references erased from Stonewall National Monument website 'We are a community of off-duty, illegally fired, and former National Park Service employees,' the group says on its website. 'We are biologists and EMTs, budget techs and helicopter pilots, law enforcement rangers and trail crews. And we're united by one goal: to protect and preserve our shared history—especially when those in power try to erase it.' Ryan Grippi/DontEraseUs Their mission includes more than preserving digital archives. The group is also fighting for the reinstatement of wrongfully dismissed NPS staff, speaking out against the privatization of public lands, and shining a light on what they call the 'invisible labor' of public servants across the park system. By connecting with the public in ways current federal employees cannot, they aim to empower everyday people to push back. Alyssa Samek, associate professor of rhetorical studies at Cal State Fullerton, said the erasure of transgender, queer, and gender-expansive people from NPS stories 'silences and obscures folks who have long been here and queer, actively enriching our nation's history.' She added that these stories remind both straight and queer audiences that LGBTQ+ people 'have a long, fierce legacy of resistance to the forces of domination that persist today.' Samek said that is precisely why they're being targeted for deletion. 'There is no American history without queer history. Since time immemorial, queer people have been part of the land and its history. To hide these stories is to hide our shared history,' a current National Parks Service Ranger told The Advocate on condition of anonymity to speak freely without reprisal. 'This does not just disenfranchise and harm the marginalized; hiding history cheats everyone from their heritage as part of the American experience. Transgender people have always existed and always will exist, and their stories are all of our stories, deserving of being shared and treasured. No administration can take that away."
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
National park layoffs assailed by off-duty rangers and community members in SoCal protests
Hundreds of people gathered at national park sites in Southern California on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's mass firing of federal employees and to voice fears about the future of America's public lands. "I don't want a McDonald's popping up in Yosemite," said Marla Stultz, 59, of Victorville as she waved an American flag near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, where a crowd of about 200 people had gathered by mid-morning. "I don't want condos with a view looking into Sequoia National Park." Passing drivers leaned on their horns to show support. At King Gillette Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles filmmaker Cris Graves led a group of more than 100 protesters in chants and then asked the crowd to gather in small groups to share why public lands mattered to them. Attendees shared both memories and fears, including whether public lands will be opened up for oil and gas drilling and other industrial uses. Omar Pichardo, a field organizer with Council of Mexican Federations in North America, attended the protest to raise awareness of the group's fear that undocumented residents could be threatened by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while trying to visit federal parks. 'People are not going to be feeling safe in the parks anymore, and so that's our biggest concern, right? People are not feeling welcome in these spaces anymore when people used to feel welcome and safe,' Pichardo said. Some protesters moved outside the park to a nearby street corner, where one attendee booed as a Tesla Cybertruck rolled past. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency initiative that is spearheading attempts to cut federal spending and downsize the federal government. The Southern California protests were among those staged at roughly 140 national park sites around the country Saturday by Resistance Rangers, a group of about 700 off-duty park rangers with a stated mission to save public lands and protect civil servants. About 15 protests were planned at California public lands, with another planned Wednesday at Ventura Harbor to support Channel Islands National Park. 'This is just the beginning,' said an organizer with Resistance Rangers who helped stage the Joshua Tree protest. 'We're trying to get the word out, trying to make some sort of movement and change.' "One of the things park rangers do best is organizing and spreading education, and that's what we've been doing," added the organizer, who asked to remain anonymous over concerns of retaliation. Heather Felix was clad in a butterfly cape as she jogged between intersections with her 3 year-old goldendoodle Hazelnut, who sported matching wings and a pink mohawk. The 42-year-old engineer, who lives in the San Bernardino Mountains, said she believes federal workers were fired illegally and wanted to show them they have the community's support. "It's important to be vocal," she said. "You can't just sit behind and let the billionaires, the oligarchs take over." The protests come after many federal agencies fired nearly all their probationary employees last month as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to dramatically shrink the federal workforce. Those probationary employees included both workers who were relatively new to federal employment, as well as some longer-tenured employees who had recently changed jobs. Roughly 1,000 National Park Service workers were fired. Among them were six employees of Joshua Tree National Park, which is now operating at a 30% vacancy rate because it had many job openings to begin with, said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager at the National Parks Conservation Assn. Those lost included fee collectors who also help direct traffic and respond to incidents, he said. 'My understanding is that the fire station is currently vacant, which is a huge concern considering the fuel load in the park,' he added. Officials also fired about eight staffers from the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, including workers focused on archaeology, wildlife research and emergency medical response, according to Deanna Armbruster, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund. Several of those workers attended the protest at King Gillette Ranch, including Katie Preston, a park ranger who until Feb. 14 worked as an archaeological technician, surveying the land for natural and cultural resources. Preston grew up in Thousand Oaks, so the Santa Monica Mountains were her backyard. She came frequently with her family and, once an employee, realized she was surveying areas she'd visited as a child. 'I really, really loved being a park ranger,' Preston said. Preston's colleague Kallie Martinez, a park ranger who worked in special park use and park safety, was also at the protest. Martinez had been working in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2020, but started with the park service in March. She was considered probationary because her most recent position started in June. Martinez learned she'd been fired in the last four minutes of her shift on Feb. 14. She had spent the day in an EMT class, paid for by the park service so that she could take over emergency medical services at the park. She got home from the class and found the email telling her she'd been terminated 'based on performance.' Martinez's supervisors, she said, had told her she was doing great work and well above her pay grade. Martinez lived in park service housing and now has 60 days to move out. She loses her health insurance 30 days from her firing date. Martinez was one of only two federal workers at Santa Monica Mountains responding to emergencies, like lost hikers and injured climbers. Although L.A. County emergency workers or sheriff's deputies can respond, they do not know the park like Martinez and her supervisor, she said. Plus, they don't have keys to open gates. 'I know this park better than I know my hometown,' said Martinez, who is originally from Twentynine Palms. 'I just want to be able to help people. I care about this park, and I care about the visitors that visit this park and the experience that they have, and I just really wanted to enhance that experience for people.' Both Preston and Martinez said it meant a lot to see so many protesters at the park. That included L.A. resident Noemi Arias, 12, who made her own sign for the protest, which read 'Protect public lands' and included a drawing of Smokey Bear. 'Rehire Smokey and friends,' the sign demanded. 'So many kids have magical experiences at national parks, and we need to protect them for future generations,' she said. A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday found that the mass firings of probationary government employees were likely unlawful, ruling that the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to order other agencies to fire employees. U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted temporary relief to a coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups that had sued to stop the terminations and ordered the OPM to notify federal agencies of his ruling. But the decision did not immediately reinstate fired employees or guarantee that more terminations won't take place in the future. The National Park Service didn't respond to questions about the implications of the ruling, but said in a statement that it is hiring seasonal workers 'as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.' The agency last week received approval to hire 7,700 seasonal employees in a reversal of an earlier plan to eliminate thousands of those workers. The White House and Office of Personnel Management didn't respond to messages seeking comment on the judge's ruling and the rationale behind the firings. President Trump has previously said the cuts were needed to rein in the federal deficit, which hit $1.8 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year. 'We're cutting down the size of government. We have to,' Trump said this week during his first Cabinet meeting. 'We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job.' More terminations are expected in the weeks ahead, per a Feb. 11 executive order from Trump that instructed agency heads to undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force. A memo from the federal budget and personnel offices providing additional guidance on the order directed agencies to develop reorganization plans by March 13. Already, some national parks have been forced to cut hours or curtail services. Yosemite National Park suspended the sale of summer online reservations for its most popular campgrounds. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado announced it would close Mondays and Tuesdays. Saguaro National Park in Arizona and Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas said their visitor centers would be shuttered one to two days a week. The city of Twentynine Palms on Tuesday took a precautionary step to avoid similar impacts to the Joshua Tree National Park visitor's center near the park's north entrance. Its City Council voted to amend the center's lease to transfer some of its obligations from the Park Service to the Joshua Tree National Park Assn. the park's main nonprofit partner. That will ensure the center stays open in the event that the Park Service is forced to suspend visitor's center operations more broadly, said city manager Stone James. 'The center's closure would harm our downtown,' James said. 'It would also prevent visitors from receiving important information on where to go within the national park and, most importantly, on how to stay safe.' At the Joshua Tree rally, multiple community members noted the national park's importance as a tourism draw that helps sustain the local economy. "Just look at the businesses, the farmer's market," said Jim Fitzsimmons, 71. "That thing's packed every Saturday." Others pointed to the need for protected natural areas to provide clean water and fresh air. "When we ruin the lands, then we suffer as a species," said Mary Mackley, 62, as she perched on a lawn chair beside her sister Michelle Mackley, 59. "I never go out and protest anything — I sit at home in front of my TV, watch it all on the news," Michelle added. "Today, I could not sit inside. It's gone too far. I could not stay home and watch our nation go down the toilet." Wigglesworth reported from Joshua Tree, Cosgrove from Calabasas. Times staff writer Jack Dolan contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'We work for the people': Dozens rally at Arizona national parks to protest federal cuts
Dozens of protesters showed up at Grand Canyon National Park and Saguaro National Park on Saturday as part of a series of nationwide rallies on public lands. At least five national parks, monuments and forests in Arizona were expected to see protesters. The list also included Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument and Devil's Bridge in the Sedona-Coconino National Forest, according to a protest list created by Resistance Rangers, a coalition of more than 650 national park and forest workers. Videos posted to social media showed groups of protesters at some of the state's most iconic viewpoints. John Hockaday, an organizer of the protest at the Grand Canyon, said about 100 people turned out for the rally and were spread out among four protest sites on the South Rim. The protests come in response to recent budget cuts at federal agencies, which led to mass layoffs of national park and forest rangers. Roughly 1,000 National Park Service employees and 3,400 Forest Service employees were terminated on Feb. 14. Many of those employees were in probationary periods — the final step in the competitive federal hiring process. An earlier executive order forced the agency to rescind more than 2,000 seasonal and permanent job offers. President Donald Trump's order, which came during the first hours of his second term in office, directed a hiring freeze on all federal civilian positions. Hockaday, 33, said both actions had huge impacts in Grand Canyon Village, where he and his partner have lived for three years. His partner is a full-time employee at the park, and Hockaday works as a seasonal park ranger. "Honestly, we're all on edge," Hockaday said. "We don't know if my partner's job is safe or if she's going to be next. A lot of people she knows have been terminated. It's definitely been a big thing for us." Others are worried that they may not be able to get hired for seasonal roles that they've held year after year. Sean Adams, 29, of Flagstaff, said he has twice worked as a lead biological technician on the "fish crew" at the Grand Canyon, which works to remove invasive trout and conduct conservation research on native fishes. "My two seasons here with the fish crew have been highlights of my whole life," Adams said, adding that he hopes to "come back for more." Arizona is particularly hard hit by the cuts. More than 10 million visitors annually flock to the state's iconic national parks, spending an estimated $1.2 billion and supporting about 17,300 jobs. Saguaro National Park announced last week that it would close both its visitor centers one day a week "until further notice." The park's statement did not list a reason for the cutback, but commenters speculated the reduction in service was related to the recent mass firings. Meanwhile, Grand Canyon National Park — the state's oldest and most popular — saw long entrance lines over President's Day weekend, attracting national attention. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said Friday that she would not use state money to ease the wait times. "I certainly am not interested in bailing out the Trump administration for dumb decisions they make, like cutting off funding and staff for one of the largest tourist attractions in the country," Hobbs said. Hockaday said he and other protesters spoke with park visitors on Saturday. They were largely met with support, he said. "I think people who come here realize how special the Grand Canyon is and how important it is to protect this place," he said. "It takes park rangers to make parks run, and we work for the people, not the billionaires." Arizona Republic reporters John Leos, Stacey Barchenger and Michael Salerno contributed to this article. This is a developing story. Return to for updates. Pushback: Gov. Hobbs won't use state dollars at Grand Canyon for 'bailing out' Trump This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: National parks protest: Dozens rally at Grand Canyon, other AZ sites
CBS News
01-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Protesters gather at Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park as part of nationwide "Protect Your Parks Protest"
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday to oppose the recent firings of approximately 1,000 National Park Service and over 3,000 U.S. Forest Service employees nationwide. This comes as Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency continue to lay off federal employees to cut federal spending. The protest is one of 433 at national parks across the country organized by the Resistance Rangers. The rangers called for a nationwide day of action on March 1, encouraging protesters to hand out flyers to cars, put signs in front of webcams, hang banners, hang American flags upside down as a signal of distress, march in gateway towns, rally inside parks and picket around park signs. According to their website, the National Park Service Rangers are a "community of 700+ off-duty park rangers rallying to save public lands." The rangers encouraged local protesters to meet at 10 a.m. at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center in Estes Park with protest signs and trash bags to clean up while at the site. In February, hundreds of protesters gathered at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, carrying signs, chanting "Save our park" and cheering for NPS staff as they passed. In a previous interview with CBS Colorado, Estes Park Mayor Gary Hall expressed concerns about how the layoffs will not only affect the park but also the communities that rely on them for employment. He said the community's businesses rely heavily on tourism from the park and he's concerned about safety risks to park staff and visitors. "Estes Park is joined at the hip, heart, and soul of Rocky Mountain National Park," Hall said. "The health of Rocky Mountain National Park is the health of Estes Park to a great degree." Hall told CBS Colorado that he's working with Colorado congressional leadership to advocate for the reinstatement of all Rocky Mountain National Park staff. Resistance Rangers said those fired included rangers, scientists, wildland firefighters, first responders, trail crews, maintenance crews, and other mission critical staff. Although the U.S. federal government is the nation's largest employer, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the federal workforce has grown little since 1980. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said "Most of this recorded spending growth is due to the rising cost of interest payments on the national debt and non-health, non-Social Security mandatory spending."
Los Angeles Times
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
National park layoffs assailed by off-duty rangers and community members in SoCal protests
Hundreds of people gathered at national park sites in Southern California on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's mass firing of federal employees and to voice fears about the future of America's public lands. 'I don't want a McDonald's popping up in Yosemite,' said Marla Stultz, 59, of Victorville as she waved an American flag near the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, where a crowd of about 200 people had gathered by mid-morning. 'I don't want condos with a view looking into Sequoia National Park.' Passing drivers leaned on their horns to show support. At King Gillette Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles filmmaker Cris Graves led a group of more than 100 protesters in chants and then asked the crowd to gather in small groups to share why public lands mattered to them. Attendees shared both memories and fears, including whether public lands will be opened up for oil and gas drilling and other industrial uses. Omar Pichardo, a field organizer with Council of Mexican Federations in North America, attended the protest to raise awareness of the group's fear that undocumented residents could be threatened by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while trying to visit federal parks. 'People are not going to be feeling safe in the parks anymore, and so that's our biggest concern, right? People are not feeling welcome in these spaces anymore when people used to feel welcome and safe,' Pichardo said. Some protesters moved outside the park to a nearby street corner, where one attendee booed as a Tesla Cybertruck rolled past. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency initiative that is spearheading attempts to cut federal spending and downsize the federal government. The Southern California protests were among those staged at roughly 140 national park sites around the country Saturday by Resistance Rangers, a group of about 700 off-duty park rangers with a stated mission to save public lands and protect civil servants. About 15 protests were planned at California public lands, with another planned Wednesday at Ventura Harbor to support Channel Islands National Park. 'This is just the beginning,' said an organizer with Resistance Rangers who helped stage the Joshua Tree protest. 'We're trying to get the word out, trying to make some sort of movement and change.' 'One of the things park rangers do best is organizing and spreading education, and that's what we've been doing,' added the organizer, who asked to remain anonymous over concerns of retaliation. Heather Felix was clad in a butterfly cape as she jogged between intersections with her 3 year-old goldendoodle Hazelnut, who sported matching wings and a pink mohawk. The 42-year-old engineer, who lives in the San Bernardino Mountains, said she believes federal workers were fired illegally and wanted to show them they have the community's support. 'It's important to be vocal,' she said. 'You can't just sit behind and let the billionaires, the oligarchs take over.' The protests come after many federal agencies fired nearly all their probationary employees last month as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to dramatically shrink the federal workforce. Those probationary employees included both workers who were relatively new to federal employment, as well as some longer-tenured employees who had recently changed jobs. Roughly 1,000 National Park Service workers were fired. Among them were six employees of Joshua Tree National Park, which is now operating at a 30% vacancy rate because it had many job openings to begin with, said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager at the National Parks Conservation Assn. Those lost included fee collectors who also help direct traffic and respond to incidents, he said. 'My understanding is that the fire station is currently vacant, which is a huge concern considering the fuel load in the park,' he added. Officials also fired about eight staffers from the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, including workers focused on archaeology, wildlife research and emergency medical response, according to Deanna Armbruster, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Fund. Several of those workers attended the protest at King Gillette Ranch, including Katie Preston, a park ranger who until Feb. 14 worked as an archaeological technician, surveying the land for natural and cultural resources. Preston grew up in Thousand Oaks, so the Santa Monica Mountains were her backyard. She came frequently with her family and, once an employee, realized she was surveying areas she'd visited as a child. 'I really, really loved being a park ranger,' Preston said. Preston's colleague Kallie Martinez, a park ranger who worked in special park use and park safety, was also at the protest. Martinez had been working in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2020, but started with the park service in March. She was considered probationary because her most recent position started in June. Martinez learned she'd been fired in the last four minutes of her shift on Feb. 14. She had spent the day in an EMT class, paid for by the park service so that she could take over emergency medical services at the park. She got home from the class and found the email telling her she'd been terminated 'based on performance.' Martinez's supervisors, she said, had told her she was doing great work and well above her pay grade. Martinez lived in park service housing and now has 60 days to move out. She loses her health insurance 30 days from her firing date. Martinez was one of only two federal workers at Santa Monica Mountains responding to emergencies, like lost hikers and injured climbers. Although L.A. County emergency workers or sheriff's deputies can respond, they do not know the park like Martinez and her supervisor, she said. Plus, they don't have keys to open gates. 'I know this park better than I know my hometown,' said Martinez, who is originally from Twentynine Palms. 'I just want to be able to help people. I care about this park, and I care about the visitors that visit this park and the experience that they have, and I just really wanted to enhance that experience for people.' Both Preston and Martinez said it meant a lot to see so many protesters at the park. That included L.A. resident Noemi Arias, 12, who made her own sign for the protest, which read 'Protect public lands' and included a drawing of Smokey Bear. 'Rehire Smokey and friends,' the sign demanded. 'So many kids have magical experiences at national parks, and we need to protect them for future generations,' she said. A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday found that the mass firings of probationary government employees were likely unlawful, ruling that the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to order other agencies to fire employees. U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted temporary relief to a coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups that had sued to stop the terminations and ordered the OPM to notify federal agencies of his ruling. But the decision did not immediately reinstate fired employees or guarantee that more terminations won't take place in the future. The National Park Service didn't respond to questions about the implications of the ruling, but said in a statement that it is hiring seasonal workers 'as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.' The agency last week received approval to hire 7,700 seasonal employees in a reversal of an earlier plan to eliminate thousands of those workers. The White House and Office of Personnel Management didn't respond to messages seeking comment on the judge's ruling and the rationale behind the firings. President Trump has previously said the cuts were needed to rein in the federal deficit, which hit $1.8 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year. 'We're cutting down the size of government. We have to,' Trump said this week during his first Cabinet meeting. 'We're bloated. We're sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren't doing their job.' More terminations are expected in the weeks ahead, per a Feb. 11 executive order from Trump that instructed agency heads to undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force. A memo from the federal budget and personnel offices providing additional guidance on the order directed agencies to develop reorganization plans by March 13. Already, some national parks have been forced to cut hours or curtail services. Yosemite National Park suspended the sale of summer online reservations for its most popular campgrounds. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado announced it would close Mondays and Tuesdays. Saguaro National Park in Arizona and Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas said their visitor centers would be shuttered one to two days a week. The city of Twentynine Palms on Tuesday took a precautionary step to avoid similar impacts to the Joshua Tree National Park visitor's center near the park's north entrance. Its City Council voted to amend the center's lease to transfer some of its obligations from the Park Service to the Joshua Tree National Park Assn. the park's main nonprofit partner. That will ensure the center stays open in the event that the Park Service is forced to suspend visitor's center operations more broadly, said city manager Stone James. 'The center's closure would harm our downtown,' James said. 'It would also prevent visitors from receiving important information on where to go within the national park and, most importantly, on how to stay safe.' At the Joshua Tree rally, multiple community members noted the national park's importance as a tourism draw that helps sustain the local economy. 'Just look at the businesses, the farmer's market,' said Jim Fitzsimmons, 71. 'That thing's packed every Saturday.' Others pointed to the need for protected natural areas to provide clean water and fresh air. 'When we ruin the lands, then we suffer as a species,' said Mary Mackley, 62, as she perched on a lawn chair beside her sister Michelle Mackley, 59. 'I never go out and protest anything — I sit at home in front of my TV, watch it all on the news,' Michelle added. 'Today, I could not sit inside. It's gone too far. I could not stay home and watch our nation go down the toilet.' Wigglesworth reported from Joshua Tree, Cosgrove from Calabasas. Times staff writer Jack Dolan contributed to this report.
