Midday open thread: GOP bills would loosen federal control over public lands for private benefit

• Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is I’m an iPhone, I’m the government:

• GOP lawmakers want to open up millions more acres of public land to logging, mining and other commercial activity: Two Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources—Don Young of Alaska and Raúl Labrador of Idaho—would loosen federal control over the 600 million acres the government administers—more than a fourth of the total U.S. land mass. Young’s bill would allow governors to give the green light to lease up to 2 million acres of national forest land in their states for “timber production.” The Idaho representative’s bill would allow governors to set aside up to 4 million acres in each state for “forest demonstration areas” where federal restrictions protecting air, water, and endangered species would be waived. You know, just ignore environmental laws altogether. 

• Fourth quarter growth in GDP revised slightly upward from first report: In its second report on the fourth quarter of 2015, the Commerce Department announced Friday that annualized growth in inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1 percent, up from the 0.7 percent estimated in its first report issued last month. A third report will be issued at the end of March. Revisions are based on better data made available as time goes on. The bad news is that the increase in GDP was based on larger inventories, reduced imports and a slightly lower increase in consumer spending at 2 percent than the 2.2 percent originally reported. The department reported no change in the 2.4 percent growth in real GDP for all of 2015. That’s the same as it was in 2014, making last year the 10th in a row in which the economy did not reach 3 percent growth. Most economists predict that growth in 2016 will be much the same.

• Rebel Miss America—Yolande Betbeze Fox—dies at 87:

Before she was an alluring mainstay of Washington’s watusi-era salons and soirees, Yolande Betbeze Fox was a rebellious, ­convent-educated, Alabama-born beauty queen. As Miss America of 1951, she alarmed organizers when she refused to squeeze into a bathing suit for cheesecake photos, publicly lambasted the pageant for excluding minorities, and picketed for civil rights. [...]

In 1966, when she contemplated running for Congress in an Alabama district that included her home town of Mobile, her then-paramour, the architect Edward Durrell Stone, observed that she would dramatically improve her chances if she renounced her membership in the NAACP.

• Documentary focuses on Johnny Cash’s little-known censorship of album on American Indians: 

In1964, Johnny Cash released a Native American-themed concept album, “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.” In an incredible but little-known story, Cash faced censorship and backlash for speaking out on behalf of native people — and he fought back.

A new documentary airing this month on PBS, “Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears,” tells the story of the controversy. For the album’s 50th anniversary, it was re-recorded with contributions from musicians including Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris, and the documentary also chronicles the making of the new album.

ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Stephen Pevar, author of “The Rights of Indians and Tribes,” had a chance to ask writer/director Antonino D’Ambrosio about the film.

• Seven-year-old Israeli boy finds 3,400-year-old figurine: On a day trip to an archeological site, Ori Greenhut was climbing the Tel Rehov mound in Israel when he discovered the clay figurine of a woman. The Greenhut family turned the figure over to the Israel Antiquities Authority. “We explained to him this is an ancient artifact and that archaeological finds belong to the state," said Moriya Greenhut, Ori's mother. The expedition director of the dig at Tel Rehov said the figurine, made by pressing clay into a mold, may depict a real woman or the fertility goddess Astarte. It is typical of Canaanite culture of the time. Tel Rehov is one of the largest ancient city mounds in Israel, and major Iron Age finds have been made during excavations since 1997. Among them, based on ancient, intact  beehives found there, the site had a well-developed honey-making industry 3,000 years ago.

• Antonin Scalia was quite the traveler on other people’s dime: The late Supreme Court justice died while on an expenses-paid hunting trip, but was just one of 258 subsidized trips he took from 2004 to 2014. Eric Lipton at The New York Times reports that Scalia “went on at least 23 privately funded trips in 2014 alone to places like Hawaii, Ireland and Switzerland, giving speeches, participating in moot court events or teaching classes. Other justices also take free trips, though none doing so as often as Scalia. Some observers say this is no big deal while others say the trips can create the appearance of conflicts of interest. 

• How long until Peabody Energy declares bankruptcy? The world’s largest public coal company has been on the precipice for two years.

• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: More conservative airport #GunFAIL. Cruz jumps out of the way of Flint aid. Gop & its Trump crisis. Sanders’ single-payer plan put through the wringer. TX militia here to tell you how to use your property & what religions are OK. Fired Yelp minion fires back.

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