In a press release yesterday, freshman GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert spoke out with her usual eloquence and tastefulness (if you’re new here, this is sarcasm) on a subject that’s apparently been vexing her greatly–to say nothing about her husband’s employers in the oil and gas industry flooding the family bank accounts with questionable amounts of money. The enemy today is a bird found in areas of the American West including the fossil fuel-producing regions of Western Colorado, the protection of which has been a major headache for energy companies to include Jayson Boebert’s own Terra Energy Partners.
Given the financial stakes involved for Team Boebert (the family, not the campaign), maybe it’s not so unusual that Boebert has a deeply personal opinion about the sage-grouse:
Vice-Chairwoman Lauren Boebert joined Chairman of the Western Caucus Dan Newhouse, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Natural Resources Bruce Westerman, and 20 additional Members of Congress in sending a letter to Interior Secretary Haaland urging an extension of the public comment period to ensure local stakeholders have a voice in any amendments the Biden regime attempts to make to the bipartisan, state-driven land use plans for greater sage-grouse conservation adopted by the Trump administration.
Rep. Lauren Boebert stated: “The Biden regime’s sage-grouse landgrab policies are not about saving a mediocre bird [Pols emphasis] that is legally hunted in 7 states, rather, they are about locking up tens of millions of acres of land in the West, closing off mineral and energy development, expanding the federal government’s power over rural Colorado, and destroying American jobs…”
Rep. Lauren Boebert as Cruella de Vil for Halloween 2021.
So, we’ve heard the part about Joe Biden’s nefarious scheme to make Americans freeze in the dark.
But can somebody take a stab at explaining what exactly it is that makes the sage-grouse a “mediocre bird?” We actually find them pretty interesting as birds go, and we’re guessing the sage-grouse themselves would object if they had brains larger than the pit of a small tree fruit to know how Boebert feels about them. Would the sage-grouse be less “mediocre” if it flew more gracefully? Had more meat? Or maybe just didn’t get in the way of oil and gas drilling?
If there’s a moral here it’s don’t gratuitously bully people or defenseless animals, that will just make kind-hearted people find new things to love about them. If the goal was sympathy for the sage-grouse we didn’t have before she called them “mediocre” for no good reason, Lauren Boebert succeeded.
If you're a patriot like Lauren Boebert, the only bird you are concerned about is the bald eagle, because it's the only one that can secure our American freedumbs. Look it up in the constitution, which by the way, doesn't evolve.
Betty, . . .
. . . here's another letter for the Boebert file.
The O&G industry hates the sage grouse because the birds have the nerve to live where the industry wants to drill. Boobert’s husband is well-paid by the industry. QED.
What “local stakeholders” is she referring to? There was an in-depth, locally driven, collaborative effort in each Western state having sage grouse populations during the Obama administration.
Trump and Ryan Zinke promptly threw all the plans out in early 2017 because they didn’t have “local input,” which was b.s. I distinctly recall the Republican governor of Wyoming complaining about all the work that had been wasted.
And her complaints about “land grab policies” is just more Boebert b.s. since virtually all the land in question is already federal land.
I did some contract work on this issue in 2014 for the Western Values Project. It was a great experience then, like you said, Zinke threw it all out.
And the upshot of Trump's action is that the local collaboration will be replaced by even stronger protection measures because lawsuits and such.
Well, they're both grouses, right? Must be the narcissism of small differences.
Frank Sinatra used to say "How's your bird baby?" But he was talking about a bird of a different feather.