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

________________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CUs

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

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

9th Grader Handcuffed and Arrested for Bringing a Clock to School

Last weekend a proud 9th Grader constructed an electronic clock at home, and he brought it to school on Monday. Naturally, he was handcuffed and arrested. That’s natural in Irving Texas, anyway — if the student’s name is something like Ahmed Mohamed.

14-year-old Ahmed showed his clock to a teacher who decided it was a bomb and called the principal, who called the police; they put Ahmed in handcuffs, took him in and fingerprinted him. Now they’re saying they arrested Ahmed for staging a bomb hoax; clearly they should have arrested his teacher and principal for that. All charges against Ahmed have been dropped; we can expect civil suits against Irving’s government and school district.

The city of Irving, part of the DFW Metroplex, brags about the large high-tech firms located within its limits. There may be more welcoming places for those multinational companies and their culturally- diverse workforces, towns where those employees and their families would not be regarded with hate and suspicion.

Quick! Vote GOP Or Zombies Will Attack America!!!

The Republican Party that has paralyzed the federal government and the Nation has a clear message for midterm voters: Like how we didn’t pass any bills in the House? Give us the Senate too! Or else …. uh, or else Ebola-bearing ISIS Zombie terrorists will sneak across the Mexican border and … and brainwash your kids with Common Core standards and veggie school lunches, and force you to have good health insurance and higher wages and cheap gasoline! Vote now before it’s too late!

More:

“7 instances of blatant GOP fearmongering this election cycle,” Evan McMurray, Alternet via Salon

“Chicken Little Politics,” Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly blog

“Why We Are So Easily Manipulated by the Politics of Fear,” David Ropeik, Huffington Post

“Republicans bank on fear in this election,” Rachel Maddow, Washington Post

“Fear of Ebola Could Make People More Likely to Vote Conservative,” Alice Robb, New Republic

“Republican ISIL fear-mongering amplifies extremists’ message, experts say,” Joshua Eaton, Al Jazeera America

“Midterm Anxieties,” Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker

Related: 

“America’s Long History of Immigrant Scaremongering,” Jamelle Bouie, Slate

__________________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-k7F

Image ( “Der Schrei der Medien, after Edvard Munch”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Healthcare Reform & Jobs

Will “ObamaCare” kill jobs? The new Affordable Care Act healthcare reform law is modeled after the Massachusetts healthcare law, “RomneyCare,” and the Urban Institute recently studied the situation there. So has RomneyCare killed jobs in Massachusetts?

No.

“Will the Affordable Care Act Be a Job Killer?” Lisa Dubay, John Holahan, Sharon K. Long, and Emily Lawton, Urban Institute Health Policy Center

But beware. ObamaCare will affect your job if your boss is a lunatic, right-wing, GOP ideologue:

Mitt Romney’s ‘Death Panel’ Nostalgia

“Obamacare ‘puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.’ Romney is reviving Sarah Palin’s old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.”

— from “The First Debate: Mitt Romney’s Five Biggest Lies,” Tim Dickenson, Rolling Stone
“The truth behind that $5 trillion tax cut, pre-existing conditions and more”

Read more actual, reality-based facts here.

___________________

Short Link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-ekj

Image (“Paula Abdul Appointed to Obama Death Panel”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Mitt Romney: ‘Death Panels! Death Panels!’

“Just what to do with the nation’s healthcare system has been argued time and again – but it always seems to come back to the ‘death panels.’

Such was the case at the debate in Denver on Wednesday night, when moderator Jim Lehrer asked the candidates whether Obamacare, one of the most contentious issues this election season, should be repealed.

Bachmann Eyes Muslim Spies

Noted religious persecutor and Tea Party Loon Rep. Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann (R, MN-6) has called on government agencies to reveal how many Muslim Brotherhood spies have infiltrated their departments. She was joined by Rep. Trent “Better Under Slavery” Franks (R, AZ-2), Louie “Terrorist Babies! ” Gohmert (R, TX-1), Tom “Jail Alien Kids” Rooney (R, FL-16), and Lynn “Uppity” Westmoreland (R, GA-3). According to their trusted source, Muslim Brotherhood spies have infiltrated the highest levels of US government —  even Grover Norquist’s marriage bed!

If you needed proof that Islamophobia is the new McCarthyism, here it is.

So how many Muslim Brotherhood spies are there in the government? Um … 57. Yeah, that’s it. Exactly 57.

Tea Party Vacation Bible School

Summer’s here, time for Vacation Bible School. This year, Evangelist and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R, MN- 6) will lead the classes (the Lord told her to, no doubt). Courses include:

How Jan Brewer Won

How Jan Brewer won —

Four words: Sun City  sympathy vote.

  

 

Related:

“The GOP’s Senior Moment,” Andrew Romano, Newsweek.

 

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

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Mice With Human Brains!

 

Christine O’Donnell, Delaware Republican Senate candidate, meat-eater, and recovering witch, is also a scientific expert. In 2007 she reported on genetic engineering on Fox News:

“American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”

Where the heck did that come from? Michael Fumento presents this hypothesis: