My Government, My Election System, and My Kitchen

 

Charles C.W. Cooke, writing in today’s National Review about the Biden Administration’s plan to ban gas stoves, quoted the apparatchik in charge of the relevant agency as making the following, remarkably stupid, statement:

Justifying the administration’s proposed move, CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. explained that “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” What, I wonder, would be excluded from that definition?

Very good question, Charles.  A few years ago one of my elderly patients was parking her car at a grocery store and bonked into something.  She said she was barely moving, but her airbag deployed, breaking her arm.  So airbags are dangerous, right?  Well, yes they are, but they can also save your life.  But since they “can’t be made safe” we should ban them, right, Comrade Trumka Jr?

Richard Trumka Jr. was appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission by President Biden.  You might think that Mr. Trumka Jr. might be uncomfortable with tyrannical power structures, controlling people through the threat of force.  You would be mistaken.  His father, Richard Trumka Sr., was the president of The United Mine Workers, and later he was president of the AFL-CIO.  So it runs in the family, I guess.

Which means that a Democrat president owed a favor to a union thug who helped him get elected, so now I have to change how I cook supper.

Our government is simply out of control.

Just imagine what our founders would think of this.  Heck, imagine what FDR would think of this.  This is bonkers.

Our government is so insane that it’s hard to envision what it was before, or how we got here.

This is absolutely bonkers.

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  1. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    cdor (View Comment):
    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    Mr. Trumpka doesn’t need data. He has an agenda. Data would only get in his way.

    • #91
  2. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Vance Richards (View Comment):
    So, they are concerned about our lungs? With cigarettes they just added a label. And now I see governors actively encouraging pot smoking because they want the revenue.

    Very, very good point.

    • #92
  3. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    It’s not about finding “clean energy” and letting us use that. It’s about not letting us use any energy. All energy is bad.

    • #93
  4. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Percival (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):
    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    Mr. Trumpka doesn’t need data. He has an agenda. Data would only get in his way.

    How could I do that? Thanks for the reality check, Percival. For one second I actually took a government official for his word, rather than knowing that there was an underlying alternate agenda to what they were saying.

    • #94
  5. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    cdor (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):
    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    Mr. Trumpka doesn’t need data. He has an agenda. Data would only get in his way.

    How could I do that? Thanks for the reality check, Percival. For one second I actually took a government official for his word, rather than knowing that there was an underlying alternate agenda to what they were saying.

    There is always a progressive agenda at work in every government action.

    • #95
  6. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

     

    From the same thread

    Image

    • #96
  7. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    cdor (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Federal Government has no business doing this, any more than it had with lightbulbs.

    Apparently, for some, if it is legal is is OK.

    That is morally, and ethically wrong.

    I don’t care what the laws say, I don’t care what the Supreme Court has said. The Constitution most certainly was not written to give the Federal Government these level of powers.

    They should not have them, even though they do.

    Right and Wrong transcend the courts.

    When George W. Bush and his Republican congress banned incandescent light bulbs, I bought a gross (144) of 100-watt incandescent bulbs. I still have about 75 or 80 of them. First, the ban only lasted about a year, and second, LED bulbs became so good, with the ability to dim and choose the warmth of the color and the length of time that they last and the inexpensive initial cost and the lower cost of use, I don’t even want to use those incandescent bulbs. I don’t see that happening with gas ranges. I much prefer cooking with my gas cooktop. But way back in the mid-1050’s when my parents built a new house, my mother installed electric ovens in her new kitchen because they baked with more even heat, but she still used a gas cooktop.

    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    LED lightbulbs have a different spectrum than incandescent.  And many, if not all, are heavy in the blue or blue-green range, which is conducive to setting your body to keeping you awake.  Incandescents are in the red-yellow range which is conducive to sleep.  If you’re using the blue-range bulbs in the evening or night, it prevents you from getting drowsy and going to sleep.  Not healthy.  That’s what I’ve read at least.

    • #97
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    kedavis (View Comment):

    To be even more clear, he said CAN be banned, not SHOULD be banned.

    But they’re still idiots. Him, and Biden.

    And Newsom who is pioneering this. 

    Of Note: banning gas means that we will all be that much more dependent on our power companies, you know, the ones that keep failing when it gets too hot or cold. It is hard not to think that the government wants to do to utilities what they’ve done to ‘health care’. 

    • #98
  9. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    DrewInWisconsin, Oik (View Comment):

    It’s not about finding “clean energy” and letting us use that. It’s about not letting us use any energy. All energy is bad.

    I still like the meme, “Cooking with Wind” but I’m not sure which wind they’re talking about.

    • #99
  10. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    I suspect they are going to get far more resistance to this than they anticipate. A lot of streaming shows are cooking shows and people who watch them aspire to greater kitchens themselves. That includes all manner of gas ovens, stoves, and variants. 

    • #100
  11. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    TBA (View Comment):

    I suspect they are going to get far more resistance to this than they anticipate. A lot of streaming shows are cooking shows and people who watch them aspire to greater kitchens themselves. That includes all manner of gas ovens, stoves, and variants.

    Manchin just called it out as stupid. So . . . there’s that.

    • #101
  12. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Federal Government has no business doing this, any more than it had with lightbulbs.

    Apparently, for some, if it is legal is is OK.

    That is morally, and ethically wrong.

    I don’t care what the laws say, I don’t care what the Supreme Court has said. The Constitution most certainly was not written to give the Federal Government these level of powers.

    They should not have them, even though they do.

    Right and Wrong transcend the courts.

    Of Note: Those early corkscrew bulbs had mercury in them. Our government essentially mandated we store poison in the thinnest of glass containers all throughout our living space. 

    • #102
  13. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    TBA (View Comment):

    Of Note: Those early corkscrew bulbs had mercury in them. Our government essentially mandated we store poison in the thinnest of glass containers all throughout our living space.

    Heck, they’ve spent two years mandating we store poison in our own bodies.

    • #103
  14. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    I think I found the “experts” who helped Trumka Jr. figure this all out:

    • #104
  15. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Red Herring (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    In this debate over gas stoves the last few days, I was surprised to learn that only 40% of Americans have gas stoves. That strikes me as awfully low. Of all the people I know, there is only one that does not have a gas stove, my sister in Ohio and she does have electric. Does 40% seem low to others as well? How many people here do not use a gas stove in their homes?

    I have a flat cooktop. Oldest daughter has gas and claims it is better.

    It is better. In contrast to electrics, gas stoves don’t waste fuel warming up and they don’t stay dangerously hot very long after the burners are turned off. 

    • #105
  16. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    In this debate over gas stoves the last few days, I was surprised to learn that only 40% of Americans have gas stoves. That strikes me as awfully low. Of all the people I know, there is only one that does not have a gas stove, my sister in Ohio and she does have electric. Does 40% seem low to others as well? How many people here do not use a gas stove in their homes?

    My hunch is that in our area about 50% cook on a gas stove. 25% on an electric range. 10% only use a microwave. 15% never cook at home.

    Wonder how these guys vote. 

    • #106
  17. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    I wonder if wood stoves, fireplaces, barbecues, and patio fire rings are next.

    California frequently tells people they can’t burn because of ‘air quality’. 

    • #107
  18. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Flicker (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

     

    From the same thread

    Image

    Hmm, well maybe there is something to that brain damage claim.

    • #108
  19. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Flicker (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Federal Government has no business doing this, any more than it had with lightbulbs.

    Apparently, for some, if it is legal is is OK.

    That is morally, and ethically wrong.

    I don’t care what the laws say, I don’t care what the Supreme Court has said. The Constitution most certainly was not written to give the Federal Government these level of powers.

    They should not have them, even though they do.

    Right and Wrong transcend the courts.

    When George W. Bush and his Republican congress banned incandescent light bulbs, I bought a gross (144) of 100-watt incandescent bulbs. I still have about 75 or 80 of them. First, the ban only lasted about a year, and second, LED bulbs became so good, with the ability to dim and choose the warmth of the color and the length of time that they last and the inexpensive initial cost and the lower cost of use, I don’t even want to use those incandescent bulbs. I don’t see that happening with gas ranges. I much prefer cooking with my gas cooktop. But way back in the mid-1050’s when my parents built a new house, my mother installed electric ovens in her new kitchen because they baked with more even heat, but she still used a gas cooktop.

    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    LED lightbulbs have a different spectrum than incandescent. And many, if not all, are heavy in the blue or blue-green range, which is conducive to setting your body to keeping you awake. Incandescent s are in the red-yellow range which is conducive to sleep. If you’re using the blue-range bulbs in the evening or night, it prevents you from getting drowsy and going to sleep. Not healthy. That’s what I’ve read at least.

    Get “warm” color temperature LED bulbs. 

    • #109
  20. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Now that New York Governor Hochul has added her idiotic intent to ban all natural gas appliances, I wanted to pile onto Comment #68 above by @marcin that powering everything with a single energy source (electricity) is risky. With gas, a resident has options.

    In places like most of New York state, which has actual weather that sometimes gets violent, electric supply lines fail. We lived in western New York for 18 years. Although our neighborhood’s electric supply lines were underground (safe from weather), the feeder lines to our neighborhood were above ground, and failed during some weather events. Many parts of town had the combination of mature trees and above-ground electric lines that made for frequent power outages. Many of our friends and neighbors had natural gas powered generators for those eventualities. For a few people those gas powered generators had been installed to run critical medical equipment. 

    As Marci notes, with a gas stove you can at least cook some food when the power fails (including the food in the refrigerator that would otherwise spoil while the power’s out). Although our gas furnace depended on electricity to ignite and to run its fan, we could use the gas fireplace for heat when the electric power was out.

    We now live in Texas, in a house that is all-electric. There is no retail natural gas available in the subdivision (though ironically there are several lots at the corner of the subdivision that will always remain empty because a high volume natural gas transport pipeline runs under them). I would have liked gas in the house, but the other features of the house and the neighborhood left this house as the best overall option in the balancing of trade-offs (see Dr. Thomas Sowell – there are no solutions, only trade-offs). We have adjusted to cooking on the glass top electric stove, and Mrs. Tabby does like the easy cleaning of the smooth glass cooktop.

    • #110
  21. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

     

    From the same thread

    Image

    Hmm, well maybe there is something to that brain damage claim.

    Yes.  Cooking a salad?

    • #111
  22. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    The Federal Government has no business doing this, any more than it had with lightbulbs.

    Apparently, for some, if it is legal is is OK.

    That is morally, and ethically wrong.

    I don’t care what the laws say, I don’t care what the Supreme Court has said. The Constitution most certainly was not written to give the Federal Government these level of powers.

    They should not have them, even though they do.

    Right and Wrong transcend the courts.

    When George W. Bush and his Republican congress banned incandescent light bulbs, I bought a gross (144) of 100-watt incandescent bulbs. I still have about 75 or 80 of them. First, the ban only lasted about a year, and second, LED bulbs became so good, with the ability to dim and choose the warmth of the color and the length of time that they last and the inexpensive initial cost and the lower cost of use, I don’t even want to use those incandescent bulbs. I don’t see that happening with gas ranges. I much prefer cooking with my gas cooktop. But way back in the mid-1050’s when my parents built a new house, my mother installed electric ovens in her new kitchen because they baked with more even heat, but she still used a gas cooktop.

    In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.

    LED lightbulbs have a different spectrum than incandescent. And many, if not all, are heavy in the blue or blue-green range, which is conducive to setting your body to keeping you awake. Incandescent s are in the red-yellow range which is conducive to sleep. If you’re using the blue-range bulbs in the evening or night, it prevents you from getting drowsy and going to sleep. Not healthy. That’s what I’ve read at least.

    Get “warm” color temperature LED bulbs.

    Do they make them?  And what does warm mean?  I know that my wife has been putting modern lightbulbs in the kitchen and all the meat looks dark and brownish because they have so little of the red spectrum.

    • #112
  23. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Mrs. Tabby was showing me earlier today an interview with a restaurant owner who claimed that having to cook on electric stoves significantly cut his kitchen productivity relative to cooking on gas stoves. He didn’t fully explain it, but I’m guessing the additional time for an electric burner to get to cooking temperature as compared to the instant response of a gas burner, while a small inconvenience to the home cook, becomes a big issue for restaurant cooks who have to deal with it hundreds of times a day. 

    • #113
  24. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Do they make them? 

    Yes.

    Flicker (View Comment):
    And what does warm mean? 

    https://www.lumens.com/the-edit/the-guides/understanding-kelvin-color-temperature/

     

     

    • #114
  25. Justin Other Lawyer Coolidge
    Justin Other Lawyer
    @DouglasMyers

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Back to the main point, though. Trumka is quoted as saying: “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” That’s a bit unsophisticated, but is a pretty good point. To put it better, one might say that “products that can’t be made reasonably safe can be banned.”

    I find it odd that you are willing to supply “reasonably” to the quotation on one side of this argument, but that you’re unwilling to be similarly generous to Charlie Cooke.  I’ve read much of Cooke’s writing, and I can assure you that he is well aware of Commerce Clause jurisprudence and that he understands what the Court has ruled over the years.  But he’s also an opinion writer, and he makes a compelling argument that the proposal from Mr. Trumka was not based on some reasonableness standard of safety.  Rather, it was a colossally stupid idea that should be nowhere near a properly functioning government’s regulatory priorities.  Just because a law might pass (legitimate) constitutional muster does not make it any more wise or any less oppressive.

    • #115
  26. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Justin Other Lawyer (View Comment):
    Rather, it was a colossally stupid idea that should be nowhere near a properly functioning government’s regulatory priorities.  Just because a law might pass (legitimate) constitutional muster does not make it any more wise or any less oppressive.

    Perhaps this was just a trial balloon. They wanted to see how we’d react. To see if they could get away with this. Don’t think they won’t try similarly stupid things. It’s all about control and turning us into a weaker nation.

    • #116
  27. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    I’m OK with the LEDs. The whole thing was totally insane and wrong when they were using those stupid fluorescent lights. So the government forced it and maybe it worked out. 

    There is one other factor about this though. I read an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about these lights. One of the things they don’t know because it’s impossible to do decent experiments about it is, what about the heat given off by the incandescent lights in the winter? You use light more in the winter, so they know that the furnace is going to come on more when you use non-incandescents. So you have to subtract a certain amount off of what is saved from the LED, but they don’t know what that amount is.

    • #117
  28. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    The Creepy Cult Surrounding the Gas Stove Panic Gets Exposed

    . . . it’s worth asking where this is all coming from, right? Why did Democrats all start moving in lockstep to ban gas stoves, seemingly with no prior concern at all? And sure enough, with a little digging, it’s been revealed that this isn’t just idle science taking place.

    The company behind the study is called “Carbon-Free Buildings.” That company is a partner of the World Economic Forum and has a true-believer CEO who wants to rid the world of all carbon emissions (which is impossible and would lead to mass extinction).

    Now, it’s all starting to make sense. Is this moral panic over gas stoves really about children and asthma? Of course, it’s not. Rather, it is yet more nonsense from the WEF and its like-minded corporate underlings regarding climate change. It’s obvious, in my view, that the citation of health risks being bandied about currently is just a convenient cover to try to force more people off forms of energy that rely on fossil fuels (i.e. natural gas).

    That’s why no one was talking about this previously. The climate change cult is just using this “study,” which I wouldn’t trust as far as I can throw it, to accomplish its ultimate goal. But what’s scary here is how quickly they were able to mobilize. A study gets put out, Ocasio-Cortez and others run with it, and suddenly the federal government is trying to tell you what stove you can cook on. There’s a certain psychotic efficiency to the modern left, and it shouldn’t be brushed aside.

     

    • #118
  29. Painter Jean Moderator
    Painter Jean
    @PainterJean

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

     

    From the same thread

    Image

    Hmm, well maybe there is something to that brain damage claim.

    Yes. Cooking a salad?

    Well, in fairness, she could be sauteeing spinach…

    • #119
  30. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    If items that are unsafe should be banned, why do we still drive cars (any deaths from motor vehicles?), sky dive (any deaths there?), use ladders (has anybody fallen off and died?, swim (any drownings last year) or work in blue collar jobs?

    Perhaps the Dems should ban life because it always ends in death . . .

    • #120
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