Yes, heaping mounds of bullshit.
Item 1:
Last month, The Hill reported that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will begin considering health risks associated with gas stoves:
The U.S. agency in charge of making sure the country’s consumer products are safe will weigh regulations on new gas stoves, one of the board’s commissioners said on Wednesday.
Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said during a virtual webinar on Wednesday that the commission will put out a formal request by March for information on hazards associated with gas stoves and possible solutions.
“This public request for information is the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” he said.
Trumpka is one of five commissioners who oversee the CPSC. He is the newest and least experienced commissioner, having served for only 13 months.
A reporter for Bloomberg News followed up with Mr. Trumpka a few days ago:
A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems.
“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society. Consumer Reports, in October, urged consumers planning to buy a new range to consider going electric after tests conducted by the group found high levels of nitrogen oxide gases from gas stoves.
Mr. Trumpka’s remarks set off the usual wave of outrage from right-wing politicians and commentators, which can be paraphrased as “Those damn liberal bureaucrats will take away my gas stove over my cold, dead body”.
From the Los Angeles Times, yesterday morning:
The head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said the agency isn’t planning a ban on gas stoves, days after one of his colleagues said a ban was one option under consideration — comments that ignited a political firestorm.
“I am not looking to ban gas stoves, and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” Alexander Hoehn-Saric said in a statement Wednesday.
The commission is researching emissions from the appliances and looking for ways to reduce related indoor air-quality hazards, he said.
Trumpka made a statement that is technically true — the sale of new gas stoves could conceivably be halted in future years — although it’s much more likely the agency will issue regulations on their performance, sometime in the distant future. If you hear something to the effect that the government is going to ban gas stoves, consider the source and move on.
Item 2: The Washington Post summarized what we know about the classified documents found at a Biden office and at one of his homes:
A White House statement first said that “a small number of documents with classified markings” — said to be about 10 — were discovered on Nov. 2 by the president’s personal attorneys while vacating office space used by Biden from mid-2017, shortly after his vice presidency ended, to early 2020. They were found in files in a locked closet. The statement said the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives that same day. The Archives took possession of the documents the following morning.
Then Biden’s lawyers conducted a search of Biden’s Delaware residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach. The White House said on Jan. 12 that a “small number” of additional documents with classified markings were found in the garage of the Wilmington residence; one page was found “among stored materials in an adjacent room.” No documents were found in Rehoboth Beach. All were turned over to the Justice Department, the White House said. Garland said the documents were found in the garage on Dec. 20 and the additional page was discovered on Jan. 12.
We don’t know what the documents were or what level of classification they had (“confidential”, “secret”, “top secret” or what amounts to top top secret, “special access”). We don’t know Biden’s personal involvement with the documents. What we do know is that so far there is no indication that anybody involved is at risk of prosecution.
Yet, Republican politicians and their media associates claim to be outraged. From U.S. News:
Rep. Andy Biggs, Texas Republican, said on Twitter that Biden “stole” the documents. “Biden stole classified documents and stored them at his think tank while he was VP…. And this “think tank” received $54 million in funding from the CCP,” Biggs said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “The Biden family highly concerns me. Joe, Hunter, and even ‘Dr.’ Jill. They are compromised and must be investigated.”
The news of the classified documents was featured prominently on prime-time conservative television. “So the question is, were those donors peering at the classified documents, the national security secrets that Joe Biden had been stashing at the fake think tank that [the University of Pennsylvania] set up for him?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his show Monday night in a long segment about the disclosure.
“When will the FBI raid his home?” Rep. Troy Nehls, Texas Republican, asked on Twitter, referring to Biden.
From the Post article:
Do classified documents often show up in someone’s possession improperly? It happens all the time, according to Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer who defends people who have committed security violations. Someone retires or leaves a job, he or she packs up boxes — and then sometimes years later they discover they accidentally stored a classified document in their garage or attic. What happens next depends on how the person deals with the discovery.
In the vast majority of cases, Zaid said, the matter is handled administratively — security clearance is suspended, for example — especially if the incident was quickly reported, investigators determine no one else saw the documents, and the amount of lifted materials was not massive. He said “hoarders” — people without authorization who take a lot of classified documents — are the ones who get in trouble [but also people who resist giving them back].
In the T___ case, the Archives initially contacted the former president in May 2021 about missing documents. T___ resisted returning them. Then, when some boxes were returned a year ago, Archives officials discovered documents clearly marked classified, some at the [“special access”] level. The classified documents were intermingled with printouts of news articles, mementos and other items. That triggered an investigation into possible mishandling of classified information.
The FBI, in seeking a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago for more documents, says the boxes contained 184 documents with classification markings: 67 marked confidential, 92 marked secret and 25 documents marked top secret.
In August [2022], when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, they seized more than 100 additional documents marked classified, from the confidential to the top secret level. While most were found in a storage room, some were found in desk drawers in T____’s office….
Zaid said that if T____ had returned all the missing documents when the Archives first requested them, that would have been the end of the matter. It became a criminal matter “only because T____ and his lawyers delayed at first and then obstructed,” he said.
But doesn’t the appointment of a special counsel imply that this new development is a very serious matter?
No, the Department of Justice is supposed to appoint a special counsel if the “investigation … is warranted and that investigation … would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances”. Some observers don’t think a special counsel is appropriate, but given the political context and news media interest in the case, perhaps it’s just as well that it’s being treated seriously. And there is an obvious conflict of interest between President Biden and a government department for which he is responsible. Given that the former president is being investigated for actual criminal behavior regarding classified documents, the circumstances also seem rather extraordinary.
Harry Frankfurt, a Columbia philosophy professor, once defined “bullshit” as “speech intended to persuade without regard to the truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn’t care if what they say is true or false, but cares only whether the listener is persuaded [Wikipedia].
Mounds of bullshit. We should not be persuaded.
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 