What Vlad wants from his Trumpty Puppet Vlad gets. In this case it’s being able to undo the ban created during the Biden administration limiting asbestos use in the United States. Although Brazil is the world’s largest supplier of the known to be deadly carcinogen Russia has 25% of the market share. Trumpty would of course waive tariffs on newly UN-banned asbestos shipments from Russia and provided his Master with some much needed cash. Ergo Trumpty’s telling the EPA to ‘reconsider’ the matter.
There’s a short article from Alternet telling us about this latest gambit. It’s part of a larger, comprehensive effort by Trump to roll back all manner of regulations including health related ones. The deregulation spree includes rescinding controls on ‘forever chemicals’ and weakening greenhouse gas emissions, coal ash etc. And you know all the stuff RFK Jr. wants to eliminate, adding up to a ‘the public health be damned’ general policy.
As for asbestos we know how deadly it is and have for a long time. That’s why so much effort went into limiting its use. Interestingly, as the linked article tells us Trump opposed regulating asbestos and strictly regulating its use decades ago:
“Strangely enough,” Fast Company also reported, “Trump himself wrote in his 1997 book Art of the Comeback that he believed asbestos bans were a conspiracy ‘led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal.’”
Keep in mind Trumpty was a mere real-estate guy back then. He bought or sometimes built buildings and asbestos was a cheap and effective insulation material. Also great for tiles/panels in suspended ceilings. Using other materials, and worse getting rid of existing asbestos wasn’t cheap. No wonder Trump didn’t want use limited! Except of course in his own precious Trump Tower I’m sure!
Getting back on point, Trump wants asbestos use to become common again. And he’s “got a guy” ready to supply it to us. “Reconsider” existing asbestos regulation? We all know what he means is it will be back to the bad old days. He doesn’t care one bit about the death and suffering – only the money he can save on real estate projects and more importantly keeping Vlad happy. At least this isn’t going unnoticed so maybe there’s some hope. Lots of conservatives are well off but not rich like Trump has suddenly become and they might not like this deadly substance becoming ubiquitous again.
So people are speaking up and kind of raising hell:
“The Trump administration isn’t just going after ‘regulations,’ they’re going after your health. Who benefits from bringing back cancer-causing asbestos? Russia,” noted U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM).
“It’s another pro-Putin policy from Trump. Russia is a major asbestos producer,” wrote Courier Newsroom correspondent Allan Piper.
“What is this—Make Asbestos Great Again?” snarked former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein wrote simply, “Pro-death.”
With apologies to any ketchup bottles within his reach I hope someone shows/tells Trump what Hillary Clinton said. His reaction (and he WILL learn about her statement) will be epic. Make ASBESTOS Great Again. If the whole situation wasn’t so dangerous to so many people’s health and lives I’d be laughing my butt off over Clinton’s zinger. For now it’s yet another reminder of our responsibility to resist as much as we can.
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Well, it’s generally accepted that Donny is a flaming asshole. It’s known that Donny wears diapers. He’s probably unhappy that he can no longer get asbestos-lined diapers to protect furniture from his flaming emissions.