The Feds Are Coming For Your Gas Stove!

Panic raced thorough Fox News like a white-hot flame: Big Government is coming for your gas stove! The simmering discontent on the MAGA menu boiled over after U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) member Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg the agency was conducting a review of gas stove safety after studies indicated their use constributes to indoor air pollution, and disease, including childhood asthma.

So the CSPS is studying the matter. Nobody is talking about a gas stove ban, and safety measures are as simple as turning on the exhaust fan when you cook, but that didn’t stop Fox fearmongers and their outraged audience. Gas-happy MAGAheads will continue to stoke stove-ban outrage until they cook up their next spurious rage-and-resentment recipe.

More:

“Republicans turn up the heat on a new culture war target: gas stoves,” Alaina Demopoulos, The Guardian

“How the humble gas stove became the latest flash point in the culture wars,” Maxine Joselow, Washington Post

“Republicans Mocked Over Outraged Claims Government ‘Coming for’ Gas Stoves,”Aila Slisco, Newsweek

“5 myths about gas stoves, the latest culture war clash,” Rebecca Leber, Vox

Related:

“How the Fossil Fuel Industry Convinced Americans to Love Gas Stoves,” Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones

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Photo (Toy stove with pots and pans, left on the sidewalk for young aspiring chefs) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht,NotionsCapital.com

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Trump Embraces QAnon Conspiracy Theories

Donald Trump is, finally, openly embracing the wacko QAnon conspiracy theory. Tuesday, on his Truth Social platform, he reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming.” For QAnon looons, the “storm” refers to a Trump final victory, when he will regain power and his opponents will be tried (and probably executed) on live television.

At a JD Vance campaign rally on Saturday, Donald Trump spoke over QAnon-themed background music while his supporters raised their right index fingers to the sky in a creepy salute. Sure, it might mean “We’re Number 1” or “America First,” or signal the “One Way” of Christian Nationalism, but The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer, author of a forthcoming book on QAnon, tweeted that it could symbolize the QAnon rallying cry ‘Where we go one, we go all.’”

That rally music?  It was either the QAnon anthem “Wwg1wga” or a copyright-free clone of it. Trump had used it in a video on his Truth Social last month.

More:

“Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories,” David Klepper and Ali Swenson, Associated Press

“Trump asks QAnon to stand back and stand by,” Phillip Bump, Washington Post

“Trump’s Gone Full QAnon. There’s No Point in Denying It Anymore.” Jared Holt, Daily Beast

“What’s with the creepy one-fingered salute by Trump supporters?” Imogen Champagne, Crikey.com.au

“Is Trump fans’ ‘weird’ one-finger salute at rally a QAnon tribute?” Gustaf Kilander, The Independent via Yahoo News

“Trump’s Latest Rally Was Even Weirder Than Usual,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

“Trump’s New Recruits: He’s embracing the QAnon conspiracy theorists,” Tom Nichols, The Atlantic

Update:

“Trump Endorsed QAnon Because He’s Stuck,” Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic

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Image (“Trump Hat, 2022”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Rudy Lost His Law License

“Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor, has been suspended from practicing law in New York state for spreading lies about the election as a lawyer for former president Donald Trump.

In an order suspending Giuliani on Thursday, the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court that covers Manhattan wrote that it found ‘uncontroverted evidence’ that Giuliani ‘communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large’ to suggest that ‘victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client.’”

— “Rudy Giuliani Has Been Suspended From Practicing Law In New York”, Sarah Mimms, BuzzFeed News

More:

“Rudy Giuliani barred from practicing law in New York over election lies,” Sarah Betancourt, The Guardian

“Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in New York,” Zachary Basu, Axios

“Americans Shocked to Learn That Giuliani Had Law License,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

Updates:

“Rudy Giuliani Is Still a Member of the DC Bar,” Marisa M. Kashino, Washingtonian

“The Ruling Suspending Giuliani’s Law License Is Kind of Hilarious,” Jeremy Stahl, Slate

“Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in D.C. court,” Rachel Weiner, Washington Post

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Top image: Ad in the NYC subway. Download a copy here. 

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Democrats Focus on Marjorie Taylor Greene like a ‘Jewish Space Laser’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14), the congresswoman from QAnon, has denied the reality of the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings, so naturally her fellow Republicans have put her on the House Education Committee. She also also thinks California’s wildfires were caused by secret Jewish space lasers, so maybe Republicans will put her on the Forestry Subcommittee, too. Democrats, appalled by this and her other conspiracy beliefs about 9/11 and international Zionist plots, and her rabid racism and Islamophobia, are calling for a vote to expell Ms. Taylor Greene from the House. This is milder treatment than the congresswoman has suggested for Democrats: execution.

Ms. Taylor Greene

More:

“Parents of Sandy Hook victims slam Taylor Greene’s appointment to Education Committee,” Lexi Lonas, The Hill

“GOP Congresswoman Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space Laser,” Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine

“How Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, promoter of QAnon’s baseless theories, rose with support from key Republicans,” Michael Kranish, Reis Thebault and Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post

“The Republican establishment’s long dalliance with the conspiracist right,” Zack Beauchamp, Vox

“QAnon Fears That Greene’s Obsession with Jewish Space Lasers Is Distracting Her from Battling Baby-Eating Cannibals,’ Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

Update:

“McConnell says ‘loony lies’ spread by Marjorie Taylor Greene are a ‘cancer’ on G.O.P.,” Catie Edmondson, New York Times

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Ginni Thomas, Spy Hunter!

Rightwing lobbyist, Supreme spouse, and Tea Party cultist Ginni Thomas is making a list, checking it twice, and ridding the Trump White House of spies, snakes and traitors, those professional civil servants more devoted to the Constitution than personal loyalty to Donald Trump. That sounds better to conspiracy nuts when they call the Civil Service the “Deep State.”

Since 2013 Ginni Thomas has been part of the ad hoc Groundswell group, a rightwing cabal opposed to GOP centrists as much as liberal Democrats. In January she and other Tea Party survivors met with President Trump in the White House with a belated Christmas gift, their Naughty/Nice List. The Goundswell goons called for the firing of qualified federal government professionals and the hiring of Trump toadies, hard right wingnuts, Fox News talking heads, and other incompetents in their stead.

After getting her fringe-group friends into high White House places, Ms. Thomas plans to defend the Trump-archy in the 2020 election through her own MAGA-supporting PAC.

More:

“Trump’s ‘Deep State’ hit list,” Jonathan Swan, Axios

“Among Those Pressing Trump to Weed Out Disloyalty: Clarence Thomas’s Wife,” Maggie Haberman, New York Times

“Clarence Thomas’ Wife Is Helping Trump Purge ‘Snakes’ From the White House — and Replace Them With Fox News Regulars,” Travis Gettys, The New Civil Rights Movement

“Ginni Thomas’ White House Meeting Was Just Another Grift,” Mark Joseph Stern, Salon

Updates:

“Trump acknowledges lists of disloyal government officials to oust,” Jacob Knutson, Axios

“Trump Claims Purging Officials Who Are ‘Disloyal’ To Him Is Good For America,” Cristina Cabrera, TalkingPointsMemo

“Baby-faced assassin: the 29-year old at the heart of Trump’s ‘deep state’ purge,” Tom McCarthy, The Guardian (also “A new senior leader at the White House personnel office: A college senior,” Daniel Lippman and Meridith McGraw, Politico).

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Image (“Ginni Thomas, Spy Hunter!”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Girls! Roy Moore Is Back.

He’s back! Shopping mall romeo, twice-defrocked Alabama judge and gun-slinging theocratic racist homophobe Roy Moore wants to be Alabama’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2020. Sure, he lost his 2017 bid due to some pesky talk about hitting on teenyboppers, but Mr. Moore reasons that if Brett Kavanaugh could get through his Supreme Court hearing last year, he can get to the Senate this time.

More:

“Roy Moore, Accused Child Molester, Announces Second Senate Run,” Scott Bixby, Daily Beast

“Roy Moore announces 2020 Senate run, vows to ‘make more personal contact with people,'” The Week

“‘This place has enough creepy old men’: GOP vows to crush Roy Moore,” Burgess Everett, Politico

“Roy Moore is running for Senate again, and there’s nothing Washington Republicans can do about it,” Amber Phillips, Washington Post

“Donald Trump Jr. mocks Roy Moore after campaign announcement, reigniting criticism,” Sam Dorman, Fox News

“How Roy Moore Could Actually Win Alabama’s Republican Senate Primary,” Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight

Related:

“Roy Moore’s lawyer Trenton Garmon arrested on drug charges,” Ivana Hrynkiw, AI.com

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Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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A dating site for conspiracy nuts. Or is it?

Looking for that “special someone” who shares your belief about alien abductions, Obama’s birthplace, or grassy knolls? There’s a new dating site for you: Awake Dating. And it’s not controlled by the Illuminati, like those other dating sites!

“There is a dense air of suspicion and contempt around Awake Dating. The nature of the site almost requires it: At the core of these people’s identity is skepticism, not to mention the belief that the awakened understand things the majority population does not. And those feelings are double-downed the more the general public dismisses what they believe to be ‘crazy talk.’ It’s not hard to see how that can make it difficult not just to date, but to connect to anyone at all.”

— “Awake Dating is the hot new website for conspiracy theorists,” Jaya Saxena, The Daily Dot