By Bob Gaydos 

Senator Alex Padilla is grabbed by federal security agents and removed from a public meeting.

Trying to monitor how the No Kings protests are going but a thought prompted by social media posts the past couple of days keeps bugging me: The utter hypocrisy of the MAGA crowd.

No, it’s not a new thought. I’ve been thinking and saying it for years, but it just struck me again in seeing MAGA reaction to two separate events.

The first was the outrageous and unlawful treatment of Senator Alex Padilla at a public event in Los Angeles. Padilla, a Democrat and the son of Mexican immigrants, represents California. He went, escorted by Trump-ordered National Guardsmen, to hear a public statement by Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem about the handling of immigration protests in Los Angeles.

When he identified himself as a senator (he was actually wearing a shirt with the US Senate logo on it) and said he had a question for Noem, he was immediately grabbed by her security detail, manhandled, dragged into a hallway, forced down to his knees and handcuffed behind his back. A United States Senator. Representing his constituents.

When video of the incident appeared on social media, there was immediate outrage among non-MAGA cultists. How dare they!? Noem could’ve stopped the manhandling at any time since Padilla is the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee which oversees issues regarding the border. She has to know who he is. Instead, her office first tried to claim Padilla was lunging at her. The video shows otherwise.

The point here, though, is that when that video showed up on social media, many MAGAnuts were quick to throw likes on it, indicating approval of the rough treatment of Padilla, regardless of the facts. Hey, it wasn’t their senator. It was California’s Senator. Shut him up. Rough him up.

For his part, their leader, Trump, when told of the incident, said, “He looks like an illegal.” Case closed.

The second “event” was a statement from Trump signaling a change in immigration policy: “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. …

“Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe.

“We can’t do that to our farmers and leisure, too, hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

Sensible Americans simply saw this as a reasonable and inevitable change in policy, whenever it actually comes about.

It’s also a very un-Trump-like comment demonstrating common sense, compassion and a grasp of reality. Since he’s big in the hospitality business, however, there’s also some self-serving. Still, it’s a significant change from the current process. Go after actual criminals. Yet his staff hates it and so do many non-farmer MAGAnuts who like the unwarranted roundups of “illegal” looking people. They said so on social media.

But my point here is that  farmers, hotel and hospitality business people, many of whom are Trump supporters, were also fine with grabbing “illegals” off the street and sending them away somewhere. But when it came to their own bread and butter, it was a different story. They didn’t vote for that, they said. They didn’t like it and, coincidentally, the polls showed it and Trump needs their support. So much for common sense and compassion.

Apparently it does matter whose ox is being gored.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Who uses more pesticide, farmers or homeowners? According to a recent Virginia Tech study, homeowners commonly use up to ten times as much chemicals as farmers. According to the study, the pesticide application rates for farmers is 2.7 pounds per acre, while homeowners (and lawn care companies) slather on 3.2 to 9.8 pounds per acre.

Each year, homeowners apply an astonishing 90 million pounds of pesticides — at least — to their lawns and gardens, according to the Boston-based Toxics Action Center. In fact, homeowners represent the only growth sector of the U.S. pesticide market, as agricultural uses of these chemicals are declining. This market trend was started by the pesticide industry in an attempt to establish new markets for old products. That’s because most lawn pesticides were registered before 1972, and were never tested for many human health hazards like carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, and environmental dangers.

Lawn chemical companies are still not required to list all the ingredients on their containers, which means risks still exist for home gardeners. Many toxins are hidden on the product label by being classified as “inert.” Inert does not mean “inactive” and in the case of benzene and xylene, can be even more toxic than the listed chemicals. Some of the listed chemicals include components of defoliants such as Agent Orange, nerve-gas type insecticides, and artificial hormones.

The blue meanies of lawn chemicals are 2,4-D, Captan, Diazinon, Dursban, Dacthal, Dicamba, and Mecocrop. These chemicals were registered without a full safety screening. A combination of several of these toxins is usually found on store shelves. 2,4-D is a hormone disruptor, Dursban concentrates in the environment, and Diazinon is an organophosphate which damages the nervous system.

Some of these chemicals have been banned for use on golf courses and sod farms due to massive water bird deaths, but are still widely used on lawns and gardens.

To be clear: Pesticides applied on lawns can be harmful to humans who inhale them, ingest them, or absorb them through skin contact. These chemicals also get tracked into our houses on our shoes and pets. An Environmental Protection Agency study found outdoor pesticide loads build up in carpets and can remain there for years, where they do not degrade from exposure to sunlight or rain.

This leaves our pets and children most vulnerable, as they most frequently play on lawns and carpets, and breathe in toxins. The Toxic Action Center report notes that “children’s internal organs are still developing and maturing and their enzymatic, metabolic, and immune systems provide less natural protection than those of an adult.” Researchers caution that children are most vulnerable in the fetal and adolescent stages when “chemical exposures can permanently alter future development.”

The EPA’s risk assessments indicate that home lawn care products account for 96 percent of the risk associated with using this chemical for women of childbearing age, and that anticipated doses are “very close to the level of concern.” EPA studies found that rats exposed to the most common lawn chemical (2,4-D) in utero showed an increased incidence of skeletal abnormalities, such as extra ribs and malformed ribcages. In rabbits, 2,4-D and its diethanolamine salt caused abortion, skeletal abnormalities, as well as developmental neurotoxicity and endocrine disruption.

Even though many lawn chemicals are legal, and widely available, that doesn’t equal “safe,” even though some lawn chemicals may advertise “safe” on the label. The EPA fined Dow Elanco for “failing to report to the agency information on adverse health effects (to humans) over the past decade involving a number of pesticides,” including Dursban.

The concern that certain widely used lawn chemicals can cause birth defects has prompted California to require that consumers are informed about these risks. California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment announced its intention to list the herbicide 2,4-D and related compounds as developmental toxicants under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. Ontario and other Canadian governments have moved to similarly ban toxic lawn chemicals.

How can you help avoid the risks?

• Participate in the National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat program. www.nwf.org/backyard/
• Learn to love tall grasses, wildflowers, butterflies, and birds, creating habitats that are the aesthetic match of any manicured lawn. www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticidefreelawns/
• Visit http://www.RefuseToUseChemLawn.org/ for a copy of their report and to sign the Refuse to Use ChemLawn pledge.
• Try Integrated Pest Management strategies offer alternatives that work better and have less harmful effects. www.epa.gov

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com