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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Pry It From My Cold Dead Hands’: GOP Vows ‘Stove War’ Legislation, Doesn’t Want Feds ‘Coming After Kitchen Appliances’

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It seemed to start Monday morning at 7:00 AM with an article at Bloomberg News: “US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears.”

The hyperbolic headline did not hold up well, especially after its author two days later posted a “breaking” tweet: “The chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission says the agency has no plans to ban gas stoves after commissioner Richard Trumka’s remarks ignited a political firestorm.”

But the damage had been done the moment the article hit social media, and Republicans grabbed onto it as an example of Biden administration and liberal extremism, despite the facts in the article showing that “more than 12% of current childhood asthma cases in the US can be attributed to gas stove use.”

In reality, this is not news. Studies going back decades have shown gas stoves can be harmful to your health, and your children’s health, especially when there’s inadequate ventilation.

“There is about 50 years of health studies showing that gas stoves are bad for our health, and the strongest evidence is on children and children’s asthma,” the co-author of the study cited by Bloomberg says.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Far Dumber and Immoral and Ignorant and Lazy’ Than Staffers Knew Before They Worked for Him: Report

Just one week ago Yahoo News reported similar findings: “Gas stoves have given 650,000 U.S. children asthma, study finds.”

Instead of exploding in anger as Republicans are doing, Democrats quietly took action based on the report.

“Last month, eight senators and 12 members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats, signed a letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to take action to protect consumers from gas stove pollution,” that Yahoo News report noted. “The letter did not call for banning gas stoves, but instead asking for regulation to require ventilation and performance standards to limit leakage. CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said in a subsequent webinar that a ban on gas stoves would be a ‘real possibility.'”

That 650,000 children have asthma as a result of gas stoves had no discernible impact on conservatives or GOP lawmakers, who went on the warpath, just as they have with masks and vaccines to battle COVID-19, just as they have with countless other culture war conspiracies.

Dr. Ronny Jackson, the disgraced former White House Physician to the President who is now a Republican U.S. Congressman from Texas, was among the first to falsely claim Democrats are coming for your gas stoves.

“I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” he tweeted on Tuesday.

READ MORE: New Texts Show Staffer Allegedly Groped by Matt Schlapp Contacted Friend in Real Time: CNN

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to his outburst, tweeting, “Did you know that ongoing exposure to NO2 from gas stoves is linked to reduced cognitive performance.”

Jackson upped his anti-Biden assault.

“If that’s the case,” he tweeted, “the FIRST place they should ban gas stoves is at the White House! Biden can’t afford to lose ANY more of his cognitive abilities – he needs all the help he can get!!”

Many other Republicans have jumped on the pro-pollution bandwagon.

“Joe Biden is going after your gas stoves,” House Republican Caucus Chair Elise Stefanik of New York tweeted, which is provably false. “He is out-of-touch with hardworking Americans.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) weighed in, linking to an editorial from the right wing National Review.

“Imagine a world where all tortillas are heated in the microwave. We must take a stand against this insanity,” Congressman Garcia tweeted.

He vowed to use his powers as a lawmaker to protect gas stoves, adding, “I will be joining my colleagues this week to introduce legislation that stops this Stove War from happening.” Congressman Garcia’s spokesperson did not respond to an email requesting comment.

It’s important to note that the issue with gas stoves did not show up overnight. Just googling “gas stoves” turns up hundreds of articles, including one from 2014 from the federal government’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It offers nearly the same concerns as articles over the past week.

“Natural gas cooking appliances, which are used by a third of U.S. households, can contribute to poor indoor air quality, especially when used without an exhaust hood. Gas stoves emit nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and formaldehyde (HCHO), each of which can exacerbate various respiratory and other health ailments,” it reads.

READ MORE: McCarthy: Santos Will Get Committee Assignments Because He Hasn’t Been Criminally Charged

In fact, environmental, health, and consumer protections attorney and law professor Jack Lienke, the Regulatory Policy Director for NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity, points to a 1986 report that warned of health hazards from gas stoves.

GOP lawmakers nevertheless continued their fear-mongering.

U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, Republican of Tennessee, a pharmacist and businesswoman, appeared unaware of the existence of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which unlike most actually reports directly to Congress and to the President.

“The federal government should never be powerful enough to come after your kitchen appliances,” Congresswoman Harshberger said.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, created by Congress 50 years ago in a law signed by then-President Richard Nixon, a Republican, literally comes after your kitchen appliances, and many other products, when they are deemed unsafe or harmful.

One lawmaker who is aware of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who declared his opposition to banning gas stoves – which, again, is not happening.

“This is a recipe for disaster,” Sen. Manchin wrote. “The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.”

“If this is the greatest concern that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has for American consumers, I think we need to reevaluate the commission,” he threatened.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Wednesday night mocked conservatives’ lies about gas stoves.

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law

Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

Image via Shutterstock

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BIGOTRY

Texas to Investigate Anonymous Complaint Teachers Used Trans Student’s Pronouns

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After a Moms for Liberty member claimed that teachers at a Texas high school used a trans student’s new name and proper pronouns, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation.

On February 13, Denise Bell of the right wing, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, addressed the Houston Independent School Board. She read a statement that she said came from the parents of a trans student at Bellaire High School. The parents were upset that teachers used the student’s new name and pronouns, according to Erin in the Morning. The anonymous statement Bell read said that the change happened without parental consent, and “goes against our Christian faith, the advice of [their] therapist and quite frankly common sense.”

Bell then claimed that the school district was “purposely and secretively transitioning minors.”

READ MORE: GOP Candidate Complaining She Wasn’t Allowed to ‘Have Kids Laugh At’ Transgender Students in Viral Video Draws Rebuke

State Representative Steve Toth—who represents a different district than the school is in—informed Abbott of the complaint in a letter on February 26. Two weeks later, Abbott replied to Toth’s letter, revealing he told the Texas Education Agency to investigate the Bellaire High School, accusing the teachers of helping “to ‘socially transition’ a student—violating the express wishes of the child’s mother,” which Abbott called “inappropriate and potentially unlawful.”

Abbott directed the TEA to not just determine whether or not the teachers did indeed use the trans student’s name and pronouns, but also open a full investigation into the school. TEA was told to find out if the school had also violated “policies concerning sexual education curriculum, parental consent for communications with students, mental health services or guidance to students, and parent grievances”; if any school employees had “engaged in misconduct”; and whether any student “has been subjected to abuse or neglect.”

That last one has a footnote on “abuse or neglect,” referring to a statement from President Donald Trump’s March 4 speech in front of a joint session of Congress:

“A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns—‘they/them’ pronouns, actually—all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.”

This is not the first time Abbott and his administration have attacked the state’s trans community. In his “State of the State Address” this year, he said that teachers who discuss gender transition with students should be fired, according to KTRK-TV. Texas has also banned trans students from sports as well as the use of puberty blockers in cases of minors experiencing gender dysphoria, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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AMERICA FIRST?

Tim Walz: ‘Racism’ Motivates MAGA Movement to Pardon Derek Chauvin

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

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