This morning, Axios offers a strong contender for the “Republicans Pounce” Hall of Fame.
Despite official insistence that fears of a ban are unfounded, conservatives are suddenly championing gas stoves in a new culture war.https://t.co/wE4COctSJR
— Axios (@axios) January 12, 2023
Those fears of a ban didn’t come out of nowhere! Look at the Bloomberg interview that set all this off!
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.”
When a member of a federal commission says “any option is on the table” and “products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” you cannot say that “fears of a ban are unfounded.” I’m sorry, there’s no way to make this not sound like a deliberate pun, but no, really, this is indeed gaslighting!
Elsewhere at Axios, the usually reliable Josh Kraushaar and Alexi McCammond look at the recent spate of transportation crises as a series of unfortunate events that could unfairly derail the future ambitions of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Buttigieg has in several cases been the victim of circumstances that predated his time in office — such as the ancient computers and infrastructure that appeared to contribute to the FAA disaster.”
Okay, except some of Buttigieg’s problems are a consequence of his own actions and statements. He accepted the job, made the decision to go on paternity leave for two months as the backlog at West Coast ports worsened, chose to fly on private jets as the nation’s airports experienced a summer of delays, chose to travel to a sports event in the Netherlands with his husband on a chartered military jet, and chose to do a series of public events and television appearances that sounded more like an extension of his presidential campaign than the usual low-profile secretary of transportation schedule.
Nobody made Buttigieg appear on James Corden’s Late Late Show last September to discuss air-travel delays, where he pledged to the host, “I think it’s going to get better by the holidays.”
Why is Buttigieg getting so much grief for air travel not getting better? Because he went on national television and pledged it was going to get better! And it’s not just conservatives and Republicans who are saying he’s underqualified for the job and flopping in his duties.
As I wrote last September, U.S. secretaries of transportation are a bit like brake lines, offensive lines, and power lines — you only pay much attention to them when they don’t work.