The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The good:

Three U.S. senators wrote to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday to urge an investigation into "elevated and volatile" prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Senators Maria Cantwell, Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden, all Democrats from the U.S. West Coast, urged the agency to focus on trading practices that set benchmark prices that may have affected prices of fuel sold in California, Oregon and Washington.

"We are concerned that current prices borne by consumers at the pump are disproportionate to the rise and subsequent decline in the price of crude oil over the past month and cannot be fully explained by supply and demand fundamentals," they wrote in the letter.  (See more background here.)

The bad:

The Oklahoma House on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly for a Republican bill that would make performing an abortion illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The vote was 70 to 14 after lawmakers added it to the agenda Monday night, catching some by surprise. There was little discussion or debate.

The bill, which passed the Senate last year, would make performing an abortion a felony. Anyone convicted would face up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. The measure heads to Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who has signaled his openness to signing antiabortion legislation into law.

The ugly:

A new two-minute short film about coming out, collaboratively produced by Oreo and PFLAG, has predictably gotten under the skin of conservatives. Already, Greg Kelly and Ben Shapiro are among the right-wing talking heads vowing to boycott "gay cookies" following Oreo's public display of LGBTQ allyship.

"The Note," which was directed by Alice Wu ("Saving Face" and "The Half of It"), depicts a young Chinese-American man practicing a coming-out speech before a few close family members. Before the young man shares his truth with his grandmother, his mom slips him a note. "She might be my mother," it reads, "but you are my son."

The video ends with a message for viewers to pay it forward. "Coming out doesn't happen just once," it says. "Be a lifelong ally."  [snip]

"COOKIE!" Newsmax host Greg Kelly wrote on Twitter above a photo of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster. "I love COOKIES. C is for COOKIE. COOKIE IS FOR ME. I do NOT like GAY COOKIES. 'Sexuality' has NOTHING TO DO with the Cookie experience. Cookies are for ALL! Basically Cookies are 'asexual'---why is the WOKE LEFT messing around with OREOS?!?! STOP THE INSANITY." (our emphasis)

When Nabisco (Mondelez International), 2021 net income $4.3 billion = "WOKE LEFT," it might be time to find a new paradigm for egregious homophobia.