That’s a very odd definition of “safety”

I’m sure exactly zero people need to be reminded of the sheer volume of misdirection coming out of the White House, but Joe Sands has a pretty on-point review comparing Sean Spicer/Trump’s statements regarding safety to the regulations the Republicans are about to strip.

Contrast Trump:

We’re going to put the safety of Americans first, we’re not going to wait and react, as I said in the statement, the president is going to be very proactive in protecting this country.

With Trump’s plan:

We have Superfund sites that have been operating for years, decades even, where the entire mission is to clean up the downstream pollutants. Superfund sites are reactionary. Much like disallowing visas from Saudi Arabia would be, after the attack on September 11, 2001. A mining company comes in, legally pollutes the land and waterways, and then leaves or goes bankrupt, and the government (the EPA) is left holding the bag. The citizenry of the United States pays billions of dollars a year to clean up the environmental damage to our water and land.

Much like the current administration states that the “extreme vetting” refugee rules are proactive, rather than reactive, an argument that can be proven (and debated) on its merits, they also say that the “mission of the EPA is to protect (should be read: proactively) our air and water.”

But Congress is now using the Congressional Review Act to completely eliminate that rule, rolling back the proactive protections of our environment, going back to only worrying about the permitted areas, or at least removing the protections from regulatory oversight, making it easier for a mining company to circumvent responsibility for polluting our downstream waterways.

If your sanity can handle it, read more here.

-Shiv

Parents for Choice in Education endorse fundagelical jackass

In a move that I’m sure SHOCKED the regulars of my blag, Parents for Choice in Education (my all time favourite buddies and lobby group) signal boosted a hate preacher who despises the humanity of anyone who is not a straight, cis, white man!

Thus, under the heading, “Self-seen czar of the school system is out to mould a new Alberta,” Mr. Byfield accuses Mr. Eggen of “incomprehensible arrogance” and suggests he was being secretive about not stating the names of the people directly involved in the government’s extensive curriculum reform consultation.

“The minister gave three answers in a row,” Mr. Byfield wrote of a public forum on the review, clearly aiming for the impression Mr. Eggen intended to obfuscate. “First, there are ‘three hundred individuals’ involved in this revision. He could hardly name them all, and anyway some of them might not want to be publicly identified with it. Second, about a minute later: Actually ‘thousands’ of people were involved in it. Third, a minute after that, ‘thirty-two thousand’ people were involved in the revision, says the minister.” (I have taken the liberty of correcting a small typographical error in the original.)

Mr. Eggen may well have said something like this for the simple reason, without the Byfield spin, the numbers reflect the facts. To wit: About 300 people serve on the Alberta Education’s curriculum review panels. Most are teachers, although a significant number come from First Nations and other jurisdictions that use Alberta curriculum. In addition, approximately 32,000 Albertans have filled out the government’s curriculum, survey.

As for Mr. Eggen’s concern about the privacy of the individuals involved, this seems entirely justified on two counts: First, naming them is probably illegal under the privacy legislation the NDP inherited from the Conservative dynasty that ran Alberta for more than four decades. Second, participants in such a review risk being assailed by the unsleeping army of cross-border alt-right trolls that serves the same cause as Mr. Byfield.

Yes, apparently an anti-facts hate group clearly needs the support of an anti-facts hate preacher.

Obviously.

-Shiv

A Nazi’s guide to not getting punched in the face

Andrea Grimes published a tips guide for Nazis on How to Not Get Punched in the Face.

Of course, it’s not fair that Nazis should have to change anything about their behavior or beliefs just to avoid being punched in the face, but if I knew a Nazi personally, I would hope they would heed this advice. You wouldn’t leave an expensive watch sitting on your driver’s seat and abandon your car, unlocked, on a dark street, would you? And then come up shocked to find the watch gone and your car vandalized? I mean, you can’t go around doing, saying, and believing racist things—like quoting Nazi propaganda and Hitler himself—and then express surprise when someone clocks you in the gourd for it. Not that there is anything inherently unconscionable with doing, saying, and believing racist things!

Sounds legit.

-Shiv