Lies and Bad Advice

Ironically, the Republican nominee facing incumbent senator Robert Casey in Pennsylvania, executes decently a Harris cackle while ridiculing the Democratic presidential candidate:

McCormick: She says she wants the government to stop you all from eating red meat pic.twitter.com/B4bsHJW4Q8

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2024

A pox on both their houses. Yahoo News fact check recently indicated, Kamala

Harris has never supported “pass[ing] laws to outlaw red meat to stop climate change,” as Trump misleadingly told a North Carolina audience on July 24.

Nor is Harris plotting to “get rid of your cows” as Trump added on July 31 in Pennsylvania....

“Kamala can't have my guns, she can't have my gasoline engine — and she sure as hell can't have my steaks and cheeseburgers,” Cruz said last week on Fox News, where host Sean Hannity has also fixated on Harris’s nonexistent red-meat ban. “She is a radical California leftist.

The genesis of these remarks can be traced to 

when asked about the issue during a 2019 climate change forum on CNN, Harris said that she loves cheeseburgers — and that she thinks updating dietary recommendations to encourage healthy, environmentally friendly eating is a better approach than “banning certain behaviors.”

“Just to be very honest with you: I love cheeseburgers from time to time. Right? I mean, I just do,” Harris said. “But there has to be, also, what we do in terms of creating incentives that we will eat in a healthy way, that we will encourage moderation, and that we will be educated about the effects of our eating habits on our environment … and the government has to do a much better job of that.”

Following up, host Erin Burnett asked Harris if she would support changing the “food pyramid” — aka, the optimal daily nutrition guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Yes,” Harris replied.

“To reduce red meat specifically?” Burnett asked.

“Yes, I would,” Harris said. “I've always believed that we should, you know, expand what's on those cans of those things you buy in the grocery store. We should expand the list. And included in that should be a measure of the impact on the environment.

Harris' take on climate science was sound because

Environmentally, “about 40% of greenhouse gases come from agriculture, deforestation and other land-use changes,” according to Scientific American, with meat — particularly beef — driving climate change through cows’ methane emissions and the conversion of forests to grazing land.

Her take on nutrition science, however, is abysmal. On a micro level, an individual needs to eat what is best for his or her own body- or as the title of a chapter in a book authored by the late nutritionist Carlton Fredericks several decades ago, "The I in 'Diet and the Me in 'Menu.'"

With that proviso that everyone's needs is different, on a macro level, Harris is clearly elitist, suggesting the average American should bear the burden of preventing climate change. And she is and very likely wrong. The average American does not consume an excess of red meat, aside from the processed variety. He or she imbibes a significant excess of carbohydrates, especially of sugar and wheat-based products.

It would be lovely if, discouraged from eating red meat, the consumer would substitute fresh vegetables and nuts. Not going to happen. Take away a major source of fat, he or she would substitute sugary snacks, bread and other items which contain little or no protein and contribute mightily to the development of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and thousands of other physical illnesses- and probably of mental illness. It would be a bonanza for sickness. 

The wealthy Ms. Harris would not have to worry, though. Of course, she doesn't want to ban red meat. It would cut into her own, healthful lifestyle. As Yahoo noted

Harris said in May that her go-to McDonald’s order is the (not-so-radical) Quarter Pounder with Cheese (with a side of fries). She has been known to dine on D.C.’s Ghostburger with her boss. And as an avid cook and avowed foodie, then-Sen. Harris can be seen sharing her meatball recipe with Chef Tom Colicchio on an episode of her 2020 YouTube series “Cooking with Kamala.”

She would do just fine. Yet Republicans, ever allergic to the truth, can't say simply that the Democratic presidential candidate does not know whereof she speaks or wants Americans to suffer for some noble climate goal. Instead, they'll exaggerate grotesquely- even lie- about what she said, again demonstrating that when Kamala Harris goes low, they will go lower.

 

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