House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is probing Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry’s secretive negotiations with his Chinese counterparts.
Comer informed Kerry in a letter sent Thursday afternoon that the committee, under his leadership, has opened an investigation into Kerry’s role in the Biden administration and, in particular, his high-level climate negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To date, Kerry has ignored information and document requests from Comer and other committee Republicans sent when they were in the minority.
“To date, you have failed to respond to any of our requests,” Comer wrote to Kerry. “Yet, you continue to engage in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”
Absolutely. You know, I think this was about revenge. This was about petty politics. But also, I think it’s also important to state that this was not just about Republicans trying to feed a base that they have already primed for years under Donald Trump with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, Islamophobia, but also it represents a stripping of an important perspective on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that Ilhan Omar as a refugee, as an immigrant, as the only Hijabi woman in the United States Congress presents, and that perspective is critical in terms of American foreign policy.
America isn’t perfect but it’s the best place in the world to live. That belief wasn’t shared by racist ABC co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin who were triggered Thursday after members of Congress were asked to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz sent the racist duo into a tailspin because he wanted the House Judiciary Committee to recite the pledge before they began their proceedings when they convened.
“I also want to point out that Congress has already been saying the Pledge of Allegiance at work every day since 1988,” Goldberg shouted at the top of the show, calling the pledge a “waste of time.” She went on to suggest that “a better show of patriotism to be working on issues like police violence, mass shootings, [and] prison reform.”
The Department of Energy revealed a proposed rule Wednesday that would set a new “energy conservation standard” for gas stoves and electric cooking equipment, according to an announcement.
The DOE’s proposed rule-making would create energy efficiency standards for newly manufactured gas stoves, but wouldn’t cap consumers’ usage of them, according to the rule. In January, a commissioner at the Consumer Product Safety Commission told Bloomberg that the Biden administration was considering a nationwide ban on gas stoves, citing a December 2022 study claiming the stoves account for roughly 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S.
However, the study itself was partially funded by two nonprofits that are pushing for American households to use electric stoves. A separate 2013 study found that there was “no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis” after sampling 500,000 children worldwide.
A group of Hispanic Democrats in the state of Connecticut introduced a bill to ban the woke term “Latinx” from state communications.
The bill was authored by five Democratic members
of the state House of Representatives, all of whom are of Hispanic descent. The bill was at least partly inspired by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ move to ban the term “Latinx” from state government. The move also comes amid broad distaste for the word among Latinos.
The text of the bill reads:
[T]he general statutes [shall] be amended to prohibit any state agency, or state employee on behalf of a state agency, from using the term “Latinx” on any official communications or forms of the state agency.
Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler shut down Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s request to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before the House Judiciary Committee during a Wednesday hearing.
During the first Judiciary hearing with the new GOP-led Congress, Gaetz put forward an amendment to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each hearing, to which Nadler responded, saying, “I would oppose it simply on the grounds that, as members know, we pledge allegiance every day on the floor and I don’t know why we should pledge allegiance twice in the same day, to show how patriotic we are.” Gaetz mentioned he thought it would be a unifying and patriotic act.
Gaetz responded to Nadler’s opposition exclusively to the Daily Caller, saying, “Standing for the American flag isn’t controversial. Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance isn’t a waste of time. Democrats are so outraged at the idea of a daily dose of patriotism that they spent 30 minutes ranting and raving in opposition. Congress cannot expect the American people to believe they are fighting for their values when they don’t even care to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”
