Friday Open Thread

7 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. Today is National Oatmeal Cookie Day 

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   1. There must be raisins in them

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2. Amber McReynolds is one step closer to being on the Board of Governors for the US Postal Service.

   A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday approved President Joe Biden’s three nominees to the governing board of the U.S. Postal Service, including the former head of the Denver Elections Division, Amber McReynolds.

   No announced schedule for a floor debate or confirmation vote, as far as I can read. 

   One discouraging comment from Government Executive's article on the committee approval:

   Their confirmation is unlikely to spur an immediate change in leadership at USPS, however, as none of the appointees during their nomination hearing last week directly criticized or said they would seek to remove Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. It would give Democrat-aligned members a majority among the Senate-confirmed members of the board, but existing Democratic governors Ron Bloom and Lee Moak have expressed support for DeJoy's vision.

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3. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Useful Idiot)

   The FBI last summer also gave what is known as a defensive briefing to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who ahead of the election used his perch as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to investigate Biden’s dealings with Ukraine while he was vice president and his son Hunter Biden held a lucrative seat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

   Defensive briefings are given to people to alert them that they are being targeted by foreign governments for malign purposes, former officials said. But they’re also used “to see how they respond to that,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official. “They’re now on notice.”

   As part of his committee’s investigation, Johnson and two Republican colleagues considered subpoenaing Telizhenko to testify. At Senate Democrats’ request, the FBI in March 2020 briefed Johnson’s panel and two other committees on Telizhenko’s background and motives. As a result, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers urged Johnson to refrain from issuing the subpoena.

    

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4. Hard-right rooted group has made inroads in Colorado opposing Biden’s vision for public lands

   One Colorado county the American Stewards group has been wooing is still on the fence because of a delicate-balance quandary. The Mesa County commissioners are holding off as they wait and see on another public land-impacting matter:  the future of the location of the Bureau of Land Management’s national headquarters, which was relocated to Grand Junction last summer.

   New Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland expressed her opposition to that move in her former role as a U.S. Representative from New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. The commissioners fear that coming out in opposition to the 30×30 initiative that Haaland supports might tip the BLM headquarters decision out of their favor.

   “We are waiting with some trepidation as to what that report is going to look like. We also want to make sure the BLM is going to stay here,” said Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis, a Republican who was elected in November. “We don’t really know at this point what 30×30 is going to mean.”

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   1. Davis hasn't learned the standard RWNJ jargon common around here. Occasionally he says something that is true.

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      1. Not to worry. The local Borg will finish assimilating him soon.

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