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A report cited by The Intercept that was released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general shows that Trump administration officials withheld information about carcinogenic pollution from Illinois communities.
"Bill Wehrum, who served as assistant administrator of the office of Air and Radiation until 2019, kept information from residents of Willowbrook, Illinois, about results of air monitoring that showed they had an elevated risk of cancer due to ethylene oxide from a local sterilizing plant, according to the report, 'EPA Delayed Risk Communication and Issued Instructions Hindering Region 5's Ability to Address Ethylene Oxide Emissions,' which was produced in response to a request from Congress," The Intercept's Sharon Lerner reports.
Measurements of ethylene oxide around the since-closed plant were conducted in 2018 and showed an elevated risk of cancer due to the gas. In June, the regional administrator responsible for the area was shown the elevated cancer risk and was preparing to release the information to the public.
"But Wehrum, who was not mentioned by name but referred to as 'then-assistant administrator for air and radiation,' directed the regional administrator not to release the results to the public, according to the report," Lerner writes. "Before serving as head of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, Wehrum was a lobbyist who represented chemical and oil companies."
Read the full report over at The Intercept.
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WATCH: Michigan parents try to pound their way into school board meeting to demand mask-free classrooms
April 16, 2021
More than 50 parents showed up for a Michigan school board meeting demanding an end to mask rules inside classrooms despite a statewide surge in new coronavirus infections.
The parents began banging on the doors to the auditorium where the Hudsonville Board of Education meeting was held Thursday evening after many of them were denied entrance due to social distancing requirements, and one mother said she didn't understand why parents weren't allowed into school buildings, reported MLive.
"The fact that there's no parents keeping an eye on teachers and what's going on, there's so much potential for wrong things to happen," said Jeanette Schuiteman.
"It doesn't make any sense to me," Schuiteman added. "Students are coming into contact with us and coming into contact with all the other students, so it's as if I were already coming into contact with the students because my students are in the school. So it seems like a silly rule that doesn't make a lot of sense."
Schuiteman, who has five children in district schools, saids she believes masks are "physically not healthy" and the decision to wear them should be left up to individual families.
"I think that's a decision that a parent should be able to make given the harmful side effects that might occur because of it," she said. "There is not really any scientific evidence to back up the effectiveness of masks for transmitting a virus."
Michigan leads the nation in COVID-19 cases, and officials say school outbreaks and new cases in young people are helping to drive the surge.
"Our parents' voices are extremely important for us to understand the pulse of the community, but right now it's not enough for us to get rid of masks," said superintendent Doug VanderJagt. "As soon as it becomes an option, that's a different conversation, but right now it's not."
Parents chanted "let us in" after they were locked out of the capacity meeting until security guards asked them to go outside, and VanderJagt said he regretted the scheduling.
"If we knew there was going to be 400 people that wanted to get in here, we'd have just had the meeting online," he said. "We didn't know how many to expect, otherwise we could have had a bigger venue and gone outside or virtual."
Hudsonville parents urge school officials to make masks optional www.youtube.com
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Press Secretary Jen Psaki brilliantly smacks down Newsmax reporter trying to get Black UN Ambassador fired
April 16, 2021
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to a reporter from the right wing website Newsmax who asked if President Joe Biden will fire the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield joined the U.S. Foreign Service four decades ago, in 1982. Her extensive resume includes serving as United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Director General of the United States Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, United States Ambassador to Liberia, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, among others.
She was confirmed for her current post by a highly partisan U.S. Senate in a strongly bipartisan 78–20 vote.
Newsmax White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson suggested President Joe Biden should bow down to any criticism or attacks from China, telling Psaki that Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield "essentially said that white supremacy is woven into our founding documents and principles."
"This statement," Robinson claimed, "is getting widely criticized as essentially parroting Chinese Communist Party talking points. So is the President going to remove her from her position as the representative before that body to promote United States values?"
Psaki, calmly, told her no.
"Is the President going to remove an African American woman with decades of experience in the Foreign Service who is widely respected around the world from her position as Ambassador to the UN? He is not," Psaki replied. "He is proud to have her in that position. She is not only qualified, he believes she is exactly the right person in that role at this moment in time. I have not seen her comments, I will say that there's no question that there has been a history of institutional racism in this country, and that doesn't require the UN ambassador to confirm that."
Robinson, apparently trying to shape U.S. foreign policy from the press briefing room, complained thast Ambassador Robinson's remarks are "essentially the same lecture though that the Chinese delegation gave Secretary Blinken in Alaska last month. So does the President think our founding documents are racist?"
Undeterred, Psaki again responded, saying: "I would say that, I will, I will leave my comments to speak for themselves, and certainly I think most people recognize the history of systemic racism in our country, and she was speaking to that."
As most Americans known, the founding documents are inherently racist, including but hardly limited to allowing slavery and counting slaves as only three-fifths of a person.
Watch:
"Is POTUS going to remove an African American woman w/ decades of experience in the foreign service who's widely re… https://t.co/QnJTcunoff— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1618587851.0
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