Today In Wisconsin Republican Duck-Fuckery

Funny, he doesn't look like an utter halfwit here.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Wisconsin state senator Glenn Grothman (R-Lead Industry). Why is he the duck-fucker of today, you ask? Simple. Just look here:

The bill, introduced only last week, is moving at breakneck speed, getting a hastily scheduled public hearing on Thursday. Introduced by Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, the proposal also apparently has the blessing of Republican leadership. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has signed on as a co-sponsor.

"When a court does something that's as outrageous as (the Thomas ruling), when they retroactively tell businesses that were producing paint in 1900 or 1910 that not only can you be liable for damages ... but you have to be liable for any paint produced by any paint company in the United States in 1900, obviously you can't operate commerce with that type of decision made," Grothman said at the hearing.

Business interests were also enraged by the Thomas decision when it came out in 2005. In fact, they launched a successful electoral crusade to tilt the liberal court toward the conservative side. In 2008 the author of the Thomas decision, former Justice Louis Butler, lost his bid for reelection after business interests spent millions to back Michael Gableman, an obscure, conservative circuit court judge.

Grothman said Thursday that the pending lead paint cases were "filed at the last minute" to beat last year's Feb. 1 enactment of the state's "tort reform" bill, but Earle said he filed his cases before the law was even proposed, some as early as 2006.

Grothman didn't restrict his comments to the bill. He questioned the notion, which has been well-documented over decades, that paint in the home can cause lead poisoning.

"Quite frankly, it's scandalous that lawyers are leading people to believe that the lead paint in these houses is responsible for the increases in the (lead) levels in their blood," he said.

That's right. This man just turned his back on a century of research that says that lead paint is--and I understand this is a stretch here--bad for human physiology and child development.

Just take a second to drink that in.

You know, I understand that industries like buying legislators and having paid mouthpieces. But if I were looking to buy some influence in the state legislature, I'd want better shills than this.

Here's some actual evidence (other than the link provided in the Cap Times piece).  An excerpt from the "Historical setting" section of that article:

Although the audience for this journal is generally aware of the history of lead toxicity, it bears repeating from the perspective of the current debate about lead exposure standards and, indeed, exposure standards for other neurotoxicants. Lead appears to have been first discovered and mined in Turkey in 6500 BCE. Its low melting point and malleability earned it recognition for its utility even at this early stage in human history. Those properties are also the reasons for its extensive exploitation and resulting deposition in the environment. The Romans widely mined and smelted lead from 500 BCE to 300 CE, which resulted in a spike in atmospheric lead release that was not eclipsed until the industrial revolution. Greek physicians provided the first clinical description of the health effects of lead in 100 BCE.

Widespread commercial use of lead soared with the recognition that lead-based paint was both highly protective and durable. The hazardous properties of lead pigments did not go unrecognized, however (Table 3). In 1887 a U.S. medical report documented childhood lead poisoning that, in 1904, was linked to lead-based paint. European governments moved to ban lead-based paints in the early 1900s, culminating in a ban by the League of Nations in 1922. Despite reports of childhood deaths related to consumption of leaded paint on cribs, the U.S. did not begin officially to phase out lead-based paint until 1971, with the passage of the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act. The gradual elimination of lead-based paint inventories meant that houses painted before 1978 may contain lead-based paint. Confronted by the publicity about the health hazards of lead, the paint industry aggressively promoted lead-based paint products including using children in their advertisements (Markowitz and Rosner, 2000a,b). Dismayingly, lead-based paint continues to be a major source of lead exposure in children.

So there you have it. Your Wisconsin GOP, people: Objectively pro-child poisoning.

Is that hyperbolic? Doesn't seem like it to me. This jackass just said that lead paint in houses isn't responsible for higher concentrations of lead in people's blood. He also lied about the timing of the lawsuits in question. He's a schmuck through and through. And that's what you can expect from the modern GOP--distortion and dissembling.

Well, enough of this shit. That's all I can think on this shit for one evening.

Comments

[Sue]

Grothman has always behaved as though he spent his childhood gnawing on flaking windowsills and reaping the intellectual benefits. This is absolutely not out of character for him.

[PWL]

Well, all this proves is that there is no depth to which a Repub will not sink when money is involved.

[Interrobang]

To be fair to the lead industry shill, it's fair to say that now lead paint is the biggest lead problem, but a lot of the serum lead in people born in North America between 1920 and 1996 comes from tetra-ethyl lead, the "leaded gasoline" antiknock agent. The people who implemented TEL as an antiknock agent knew damn well it was toxic as hell, knew that car exhaust would spray particulate lead all over areas full of people (turns out it pretty well leaded the entire planet; you can find TEL residues on Mount Everest), knew even then that it wasn't really necessary...and did it anyway. Places in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East still haven't banned leaded gasoline, by the way.

Which is to say that lead paint is still dangerous and neurotoxic and all that, but it's pretty well objectively true that most of us got our lead exposure primarily from car exhaust, and only secondarily from paint and plumbing and stuff.

[Jude]

Yes, Thomas Midgely was a fucking ghoul of the highest order. But seeing as how we're talking about kids who are affected by lead paint, and how leaded gasoline, though not fully banned in the USA until 1995, was not widely available after the late 1980's, well, Grothman is a dick.