House Republicans pass bill gutting protections from toxic chemicals

The environmental correspondent, Tom Perkins, wrote the alarming piece in The Guardian called “Republican House bill guts laws protecting US consumers from toxic chemicals:
Bill limits type of science used to determine health risks and gives industry major role in chemical review process.” I have already shared my concern with my Republican Congressman asking for an explanation. Here are a few paragraphs:

“A new Republican House bill proposes sweeping changes to US toxic chemical laws that would gut protections for consumers, workers and the environment, public health advocates mobilizing against the legislation warn.

Among other changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), the bill would limit the type of science that is used to determine health risks, stop legally requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure chemicals won’t harm people, give industry a prominent role in chemical review processes, and make it more difficult legally for the agency to ban toxic substances.

Congress in 2016 strengthened TSCA and the bill, drafted by Republican Alabama congressman Gary Palmer, would reverse many of those changes. Industry has been attacking the law for the last nine years and is seizing an opportunity to attempt to gut it with the GOP fully in charge of the federal government, said Daniel Savery, an attorney with the Earthjustice legal nonprofit, which is among hundreds of groups organizing against the proposal.

‘Industry has said it has a ‘historic opportunity’ to revise TSCA, or gut it, as we believe it to be,’ Savery said. ‘It’ll be interesting to see what shade of lipstick they’re going to put on this pig to sell it to their constituents, who are rightly concerned about the prevalence of toxic chemicals in food, water, soil, and everywhere else.’

The legislative assault on TSCA coincides with a flurry of rule changes within the EPA that also seek to weaken chemical oversight. Donald Trump campaigned on cleaning up the nation’s water and food supply, a priority for the Robert F Kennedy Jr-led Maha movement that helped propel the president to office.”

To be brutally frank, the incumbent president ran as a populist president, but the only groups of people he favors are the oligarchy, the petro-chemical industry and his major funders. The common person matters very little to this incumbent. Sadly, this bill is a continuation of the incumbent president and his followers taking the teeth out of environmental restrictions. Coupling these kinds of laws with appointed judges who often rule against class action suits, and our families and children are at risk. Trump followers shout out MAGA and wear hats/ shirts with that saying, but the MAGA slogan truly applies only to the haves, not the have nots.

Untangling

The following was forwarded to me by a retired financial executive and gubernatorial business advisor back in the 1990s. The Tangle newsletter is one of the better reads, in my view. The following paragraph is in quotes as my friend wrote it.

“FYI. Interesting that this non-partisan site is losing Conservative AND Progressive subscribers because each think the info presented is TOO other-slanted . As business plans go that’s why media have taken the “safe” route and addressed their messages to either the Left OR the Right and not tried to inform both camps with the pure truth. In other words , media business plans are usually , ” Let’s give them the red meat THEY want ” . And thus the deepening divide in our great country .”

“A call for help
I’m writing with a special message.
By Isaac Saul • 10 Feb 2026


I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”


Dear readers,

I’ve been running this newsletter for over six years now, and I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced an environment like the one we are living through today.

Conservative readers unsubscribe over us “unfairly bashing President Trump” on the same days liberal readers say they’re leaving because we are “sanewashing Trump.” Our divisions are growing. Our shared realities are becoming narrower and narrower. Our distrust seems insurmountable.

During this period, something interesting has been happening at Tangle: Our overall audience continues to grow, but the number of paid subscribers has slowed, while the number of paid subscription cancellations has gone up. When those canceled subscribers respond to an automated message asking why they are leaving, the most common response from conservatives is “you’re too left,” from liberals is “you’re too right,” and from folks in the middle is “I’m exhausted and overwhelmed.” Simply put: The division, fractured realities, and distrust are now manifesting as a significant business challenge.

I’ve thought about the different ways we might respond to this challenge. That includes simple fixes, like putting more content behind a paywall or changing it in some way (like adding more “staff dissents”) to increase trust.

But it also occurred to me that I could do something even simpler: Inform readers of what is happening, and ask for their help.

If you’re receiving this email, it means you are on our free mailing list. According to our reader surveys, most people who haven’t yet become subscribers have waited because 1) They don’t think they should pay for news, 2) They’re not clear on what they get as a paid member, or 3) They’re not sure they’re ready to spend the money.

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These are extraordinary times. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, and political polarization is radicalizing minds everywhere. In the midst of this maelstrom, we’re trying to do something special: Bring people of different political persuasions under one roof for a shared set of arguments, facts, and analysis, all while engaging in good-faith debate and trying to better understand differing views.

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As an independent, let me say that there are many MAGA fans that think the incumbent president can do nothing wrong and his only shortcoming is he is rough around the edges. On the highly progressive side, they see the incumbent president on the wrong side of so many issues and is very untruthful and a bully. As an independent of 18 or so years, a Republican for 25 or so years and a Democrat for 5 or so years, I have rubbed many MAGA fans and more than a few progressives the wrong way.

For MAGA fans, saying the incumbent president has done no wrong is not a very accurate read on his performance. I find he is on the wrong side of too many issues and creates many of our problems. For this purpose, let me leave it at just that. As for progressives, I feel they are for the most part correct in speaking to the poor decisions made by the incumbent president. Where I get push back is when I speak of costs and debt as major concerns. I also think progressives should focus on kitchen table economics, civil rights and our global standing moreso than more micro-social issues. To me, those latter issues are more of a distraction lapped up by opposition who have less of a story to tell on the bigger issues.

Dr. Oz contradicts boss pleading for Measles vaccines

Whether one likes Dr. Mehmet Oz or his politics, he is a real life doctor of medicine. In an article in The Guardian by Marina Dunbar called “‘Take the vaccine, please,’ Dr Oz urges amid rising measles cases in US” he makes a straightforward request.
The subtitle adds context: “Health official’s endorsement comes as South Carolina faces hundreds of cases and US risks losing elimination status.” It should be noted that last winter, Texas alsi had a measles outbreak.

Here are a few paragraphs: “A senior US public health official called on Americans to get vaccinated against measles as outbreaks continue in multiple states and concerns grow that the country could lose its measles elimination designation. Dr Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, spoke in support on Sunday of the measles vaccine.

‘Take the vaccine, please,’ said Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. ‘We have a solution for our problem.’

‘Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,’ he told CNN’s State of the Union. ‘But measles is one you should get your vaccine.’

His boss, health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has a long history of questioning both the safety and necessity of vaccines.

The remarks come as South Carolina is experiencing an outbreak involving hundreds of cases, exceeding the number recorded in Texas’ measles outbreak earlier in 2025. Another outbreak has been identified along the Utah-Arizona border, and several additional states have reported confirmed cases this year. Children have been the most affected.”

Measles was pretty much eradicated in the US for many years until the anti-vaxxers blew up data points to paint a much riskier image. Folks like RFK, Jr. used his name to push this overstated risk. No vaccine is perfect. None. But, the number of bad outcomes is quite small relative to the great number of exposures.

Kennedy Center – another death by Trump?

Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist, wrote a best selling book called “Everything Trump touches dies.” One of the more visible deaths may be the Kennedy Center. David Smith penned an article in The Guardian called “Seized, subverted, shuttered: a year in Trump’s assault on the Kennedy Center” that is a sad story about this American institution.*

Here are a few paragraphs from the piece starting with its subtitle:

“Since a presidential post on Truth Social the Washington DC arts hub has lost its leadership, had its name changed and will now be closed for years.

The Brentano String Quartet had finished their performance when a special guest dropped in backstage: the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ‘We thanked her for everything she had done for our country,’ recalls violinist Mark Steinberg. ‘It was a nice moment.’

The year was 2016 and the place was the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Fast forward a decade and old certainties have been shaken: Ginsburg is dead, Donald Trump is president and the Kennedy Center has become a case study in how a seemingly solid American institution can quickly unravel.

The Brentano String Quartet were due to perform there last week but cancelled their show, citing Trump’s hostile takeover of the complex. Steinberg explained: ‘I would have felt ashamed to walk out on stage there. I can’t quite bring myself to go into the building at this point.

‘It would be such a luxury to make art in a vacuum and that’s what I yearn for but that’s not possible right now. Had we appeared there, in my eyes, that would be a way of condoning everything that’s happening and I couldn’t stomach that.’

…. During Trump’s first term, he ignored the proudly non-partisan complex and did not attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors. But, as in so many other ways, his second term is very different. His takeover of the centre began, perhaps inevitably, with a Truth Social post one year ago, on 7 February 2025.

Trump wrote that he was immediately terminating ‘multiple individuals’ from the center’s board of trustees ‘who do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.’ He said he would soon announce a new board, ‘with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!’

He also criticized the centre’s past programming. ‘Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth – THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!’”

Many artists have been voting with their feet, in essence, telling the “amazing “Chairman “no thank you.” Given their artistic nature and collaborative bent, entertainers tend to be more accepting of diversity. So, they do not like the anti-diversity thinking wielded by the incumbent president. And, when you cannot schedule the best talent, there is not much of a show to watch.

********
* Per an AI search summary: “As of February 2026, the Kennedy Center has not yet been shuttered, but President Trump announced on February 1, 2026, that it will close for two years starting July 4, 2026. The planned closure is for, in his words, a ‘Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding’ of the venue into a new entertainment complex.”

 Note: This two year close came as a surprise to the Board as the institution has been scheduling acts.

Europeans’ opinion of the US sours

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/06/western-europeans-turning-against-us-after-greenland-threat-poll-finds

Rather than paste in the various graphics from the above article, just click on the link and peruse the lowering opinion of the US by European countries. The gist of the article is captured in the opening three paragraphs:

”Western Europeans prize Europe’s autonomy and values over transatlantic ties and will not give them up to placate Donald Trump, according to a poll suggesting opinions of the US have plunged to their lowest since YouGov began tracking them a decade ago.

The US president’s attempted Greenland grabhas succeeded in turning Europeans solidly against his country, the pollster’s latest survey found. Large majorities in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Great Britain all declared an unfavourable opinion.

The figures (unfavourable opinion), ranging from 62% in France to 84% in Denmark – of which Greenland is a self-governing territory – mark a further steep rise in negative perceptions of the US even since November, when the range was between 49% and 70%.”

This is not a surprise. In my view, we have gone from being a pariah with Trump’s tariffs and denigrating manner to being a rogue nation after the Venezuela aggression and Greenland posturing. Why would anyone trust the US with Trump as the president? I sure don’t.

Job openings sour

Per The Guardian, the news on jobs soured in December. Here are a few paragraphs and the headline that tell the tough news:

“US job openings dropped to a five-year low in December 2025, report shows – Data from November 2025 was also revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of the year.

US job openings dropped to the lowest level in more than five years in December and data for the prior month was revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of 2025.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, decreased by 386,000 to 6.542m by the last day of December, the lowest level since September 2020, the labor department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or Jolts report, on Thursday.

Data for November was revised down to show 6.928m job openings instead of the previously reported 7.146m. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 7.20m unfilled jobs. Hiring increased by 172,000 positions to a still-low 5.293m in December.

The data came as other numbers showed a larger-than-expected increase in Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a stable labor market.”

In short, companies are hiring less and unemployment applications are up. Rather than draw conclusions, we need to see if this souring trend continues or if it is seasonal.

When a female reporter speaks up

Since the incumbent president likes to brag on things he did not do and also likes to denigrate female reporters as he did recently with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, let’s marry those two issues and remember a put down by CBS’ Paula Reid. Per an AI search summary:

”In August 2020, then-CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid challenged President Donald Trump during a press conference regarding his repeated false claims that he passed the Veterans Choice program.

The Claim: President Trump frequently claimed he was responsible for creating the Veterans Choice program, often stating he achieved it after others failed for “50 years”.

The Confrontation: During a press conference at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, Reid confronted Trump, asking, “Why do you keep saying that you passed Veterans Choice? It was passed in 2014…it was a false statement, sir”.

The Facts: The Veterans Choice program was signed into law in 2014 by President Barack Obama, not Trump. While Trump signed the VA MISSION Act in 2018, which expanded and modified the existing program, he did not create it.

The Reaction: When pressed by Reid, Trump attempted to call on another reporter, but she persisted with the correction. Trump then abruptly ended the press conference.

This incident was widely noted as a direct challenge by a reporter to a false statement made by the President regarding legislative accomplishments. “

I guess she did not smile enough for him using one of his criticisms of Ms. Collins.

Only smiling women allowed

Let’s all give a smile to the courageous CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins who was ridiculed by he-who-shall-not-be-named for asking him questions about the Epstein files. Among his denigrating comments he implied he never saw her smile so she must be lying. He was demeaning a woman who had the temerity to ask him questions about his demeaning of women and girls. Of course his accusing someone of lying is funny in its own right.

Per The New York Times, here is more of the story:

”President Trump laced into the CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office on Tuesday, calling her ‘the worst reporter’ and scolding her for not smiling as she tried to ask about the latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

‘She’s a young woman — I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile,’ Mr. Trump said in a sarcastic tone, while sitting at the Resolute Desk. ‘I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.’

Ms. Collins noted that she was asking the president about Mr. Epstein’s sexual assault victims, but Mr. Trump interrupted her. ‘You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth,’ he said.

Mr. Trump has often singled out female journalists for attacks and insults; last year, he cut off a Bloomberg News reporter by barking, ‘Quiet! Quiet, piggy.’”

Just to set the record straight, in the eyes of he-who-shall-not-be-named, it is OK to grope and kiss a woman without her permission (his words), it is OK to befriend a registered sex offender and attend his parties with underage girls and young women, it is OK to intentionally walk in on partially nude beauty pageant contestants (including teens) as he shared on Howard Stern, and it is OK to denigrate women for just about anything – asking questions, their looks, their demeanor, etc. We should consider the source of such denigration. He-who-shall-not-be-named.

14 US attorneys have left Minnesota’s office

An article in The Minnesota Star Tribune by Jeffrey Meitrodt, Sarah Nelson and Deena Winter offers evidence that Homeland Security and the Justice Department are getting in each others’ way with their heavy and ham handedness. The title and subtitle are as follows: “Another wave of departures in Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney’s Office – 14 attorneys have left this year, which prosecutors are calling unprecedented.”

Here are a few paragraphs that highlight the story: “Another eight lawyers have left or announced their intentions to leave the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation.

The departures add turmoil to an office already reeling from last month’s mass resignation of six veteran prosecutors because of recent directives from the U.S. Department of Justice.

That included the department’s refusal to initiate a civil rights investigation into the killing of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross. They have been asked to defend immigration enforcement actions that are growing unpopular with the public.

Former government lawyers said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota has never lost 14 attorneys in the span of a single month before. Since 2022, more than 40 assistant U.S. attorneys have quit or retired, bringing total staffing in the criminal division to fewer than 20 attorneys, according to an analysis of the office’s staffing totals by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

In prior years, people familiar with the office’s operations said, there were often at least 50 attorneys working on criminal cases.”

To me, this shows clearly that he-who-shall-not-be-named has put in motion poorly thought out and executed tactics led by not the most competent or trained personnel. No due process, rash and belligerent actions, and masking of identities – what could go wrong? Top that off with yes-people doing the bidding of a person who does not care about the law like he should or promised. With his track record, high turnover has long been a part of the equation.

Call me crazy…

It is seems almost daily that some inane, mean-spirited or inappropriate statement comes out of the White House. With all the real problems we have to deal with, we have to pay attention to the blatherings of he-who-shall-not-be-named. This individual even gets credit for backing away from an earlier statement. Now, that is power.

So, call me crazy to ask…

-why is the person’s name and picture with a pedophile pimp (let’s call him what he is) peppered throughout the Epstein files? Others may also have questions to answer for, but clearly so does he-who-shall-not-be-named.

-why is he-who-shall-not-be-named wanting to nationalize elections in fifteen states? He still harps on his bogus election fraud claims, even though Fox News admitted in court documents with multiple emails that they knew he could not prove said claims. About $1.1 billion later in two court defamation settlements, you would think he-who-shall-not-be-named would just shut up.

-why does someone try to tell people what happened before it is even investigated? Do you think he and his sycophants want to steer the story? His and other loud voices offered a same day version of why and how Alex Pretti was shot, getting many things wrong.

-why would any rational person believe much of anything that comes out of the mouth or fingertips of he-who-shall-not-be-named?

Call me crazy, but I don’t.