Tag Archives: crank magnetism

I recently read Caroline Criado Pérez’ Invisible Women (review next weekend) and it’s a good reminder that destructive as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is to American healthcare, the system has plenty of problems. Particularly concerning women. Doctors who don’t listen to women talking about their pain. The lack of research on women (the assumption is the generic male body can stand for all human beings) and the lack of interest in research. Cutting off the clitoris because it’s useless (supposedly).

The trouble is, Kennedy ain’t interested in fixing any of that, any more than he is in improving access to healthcare. He’s in a tradition of crackpots and frauds going back to the colonial era — and at least back then, they had solid reasons for distrusting medicine (bleeding as a universal cure, anyone?). For all its flaws, medicine is light-years beyond that now and America is much, much healthier than it’s ever been. There are potential cures out there that could make us even healthier (for example. And another example. And another). The way to improve the system isn’t by going back to some non-existent golden age of health. It’s like the John Birch Society ranting that fluoridation is a communist plot: whatever problems fluoridated water may pose (I have heard people argue there are some), that is not one of them (as historian Richard Hofstadter put it many years ago). Similarly, RFK fighting vaccines and Dr. Oz yanking people off Obamacare are not going to fix any problems with American healthcare. They’re making things worse. And some MAHA voters are angry.

Writing on her substack and in Mother Jones, Jill Filipovic argues MAHA voters are far from a mindless anti-vax block, that their priorities aren’t anti-vax but “fewer ultraprocessed foods, food dyes, forever chemicals, microplastics, and pesticides, and more physical movement.” The Toddler administration’s support for deregulating pesticides, plans to repeal limits on forever chemicals in drinking water — these put MAHA women (the movement is predominantly women) votes up for grabs. Dems can seize them!

But can they? It was Biden’s administration that set the limits on forever chemicals Republicans want to repeal; that obviously didn’t help them. Filipovic sees MAHA as women with legit concerns about healthy food who got sucked down right-wing rabbit-holes. Perhaps she’s right and Dems can win them over by taking up Michelle Obama’s recommendation that kids should eat more fruits and vegetables. Or perhaps they’re too far down the rabbit-holes: NPR looks at one activist, Zen Honeycutt, who claims Girl Scout cookies have dangerous amounts of chemicals in them. The counter-argument is that the levels are too low to be a problem, and well within legal limits; Honeycutt replies the limits are too liberal.

While medical science can certainly be wrong, I’m inclined to trust the expert NPR interviewed over someone with no scientific credentials whose own organization sells Vaccine Detox Herbal Extract and who says the solution is to trust people we know who “have either used certain products or eaten certain foods and it’s worked for them. This is why we encourage in-person connections, and we should tune in to ourselves. Our bodies tell us what is not good for us. When you really tune in, when you eat something and it doesn’t work for you, you should trust that.”

Um, no. This is an argument I’ve seen elsewhere in various forms: “Fred Smith lived on junk food then axe-murdered 17 people, clear proof junk food makes you murderous” or “I knew a man lived to 105 eating nothing but pureed carrots!” A single example does not prove anything And people’s reactions to food can be heavily subjective. People’s bodies don’t warn them away from Girl Scout cookies — we love them. Some men obsess over eating a diet that’s as “manly” as possible (meat, glorious meat, it’s the food of warriors!). Lots of MAHA believers are convinced by people they know that raw milk is wonderful but the risks are vicious.

Honeycutt’s Vaccine Detox bilge raises another problem: MAHA voters who aren’t anti-vax per se may be perfectly willing to ally with them and support them — let’s face it, anyone who supports Kennedy supports an anti-vax agenda (Michael Hobbes makes the same point). I think there’s zero chance the health changes pro-vax MAHA wants will make up for the damage from that. He was always anti-vax, even when he lied to get his position (and he’s still lying). He and the Republican Party are also practicing eugenics. Their questioning of established science will not lead to miracle breakthroughs. If MAHA voters are okay with that stuff, I’m not sure they’re gettable, certainly not with policies that run in the opposite direction.

That said, I do think health reform would be good. Kamala Harris’ proposal to let Medicare cover home health care. Medicare for All or Medicare buy-in for all. Reversing Medicaid cuts that are shuttering maternity wards. Better research into women’s health. Criticizing industry-backed pharma or food research. Zohram Mamdani’s plans to open grocery stores in food deserts. These ideas are worth doing but like many good policies they may not convince voters to cross the aisle. Arguments they’re winnable voters are beginning to remind me of “if we just respect anti-abortion voters’ feelings, we can win them back for the Demnocrats!”

In other related news:

Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican nutjob, wonders if Anthony Fauci might be tied to the Russian disease outbreak.

The Toddler’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lies that 80 percent of pregnant women have a miscarriage after getting the covid vaccine. She’ll fit right in with the current White House staff.

“The Department of Health and Human Services informed congressional appropriators earlier this year that it was moving about $12 million from its Office of Minority Health to help cover the ballooning cost of security for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”

Republicans are cutting the money that provides healthcare for 9/11 survivors. And still claiming Covid is not terribly infectious. And it’s still worse than they admit.

Changes to the National Science Foundation under the Toddler don’t bode well for research.

Cheryl Rofer on crackpot science and media coverage of the same: “The holders are cultish enough that they don’t need no stinkin’ science. And reporters coddle them. I think this is partly because many reporters have only a tenuous hold on science themselves.”

RFK cuts grants for autism research. After all, he already “knows” it’s vaccines.

Casey DeSantis (wife of Ron) is pushing ivermectin for cancer research.

“A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.” And since that report, the flu has spread. Who could have predicted that? Well, anyone competent, which lets out the Toddler and Hegseth.

“At HHS, disability education would fall under the oversight of an agency head, Kennedy, who has spent decades spreading disinformation about autism and villainizing autistic people.”

“PEPFAR has provided over $8 billion to South Africa since its founding under President George W. Bush. South Africa has about 8 million people living with HIV, the most in the world.” The Toddler is killing the program. On top of which “states and health organizations are waiting for $211 million in grants to grow their 988 suicide hotline capacities, $75 million to build out global disease outbreak response, $3 million to build treatment centers for opioid addiction and $95 million for programs that “improve the overall performance of the public health system.” Thank the Toddler Administration’s new grant-review system.

“Measles running rampant, public health destroyed, a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid, inadequate physician payment, stupid immigration rules,” — why many American doctors want the AMA to stand up to Republicans.

“Republicans are calling on federal authorities to impose stringent regulations on the abortion drug mifepristone, citing the dangers posed by the drug’s largely unregulated use to Americans’ drinking water. A coalition of 15 red state attorneys general is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add mifepristone to the agency’s Contaminant Candidate List, which would likely trigger safety studies and potentially stricter regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act.” This is a bullshit excuse for regulating mifepristone — especially coming from the party that’s otherwise buddy-buddy with all polluters.

“there have been times where I’ve dropped these and, and caused panic because, you know, need to find the drug, because you’ve just dropped a thousand dollars that might be now behind a couch or, you know, down a drain or something like that.” — a look at how one cancer-drug manufacturer staved off generic versions so they could keep selling a 28 cent pill for $1,000.

“U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.” Like we should trust anyone in this administration with our personal info.

“FDA leaders under President Trump are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny.”

“We believe that 35% roughly of the people that are using the Affordable Care Act are not legit because they have never filed a claim.” — RFK’s fellow crackpot Mehmet Oz.

“The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine and gene therapy official resigned on Tuesday after a public campaign against him led by the right-wing influencer Laura Loomer” — another person who should have zero influence on public policy.

The Administration has good goals on paper about fighting addiction but accomplishing them “will be difficult in the face of the administration’s mass layoffs of federal employees, cancellation of research and community grants, attacks on organizations and practices that serve people who use drugs, and cuts to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people that is the largest payer for addiction and mental health care nationwide.

I suppose it’s no surprise the administration is also gutting HIV research.

“Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles” I imagine they’d like to do the same to studies that say the shingles vax can reduce the risk of dementia.

Covid vaccine has heart-health benefits too. However RFK Jr. is focused on the real threat to our health — the crimes of Dr. Fauci! Which are non-existent. And in this case some of his evidence is coming from crackpot ex-head of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who it now appears says whatever her cult leader tells her to. No, not the Toddler, a literal cult leader.

“The Trump administration is proposing to scrap a dozen quality measures for Medicare Advantage plans and not move forward with a Biden administration plan to reward insurers that improve the health of low-income and disabled enrollees” — I’m sure that will work as well as all the other anti-regulatory moves from Republicans over the decades.

RFK Jr. has announced a new podcast “to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health,” I imagine he won’t be admitting the Toddler and himself are prominent among such forces. Just look at what would happen if Kennedy gets his wish to eliminate vaccines. And CBS news head Bari Weiss is willing to help.

The title comes from Stephen Vincent Benet’s mid-1930s poem “Litany for Dictatorships,” a grim assessment that humanity was not living up to its potential:

“We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.”

Living in the oh-so-red-state Florida Panhandle and through the Reagan Years, I’ve never been under the delusion that the light was guaranteed to increase. Letters to the local paper back in the 1980s made it quite obvious lots of people stewed with resentment that women had life choices other than “stay at home mom.” They hated that Christianity — their brand, of course — wasn’t allowed to dictate the law of the land.People weren’t as open about being antisemites or racists but I saw some of that too. Homophobia reared its head later, as did Islamophobia.

Despite all that, it’s horrifying how quickly how many people embrace old hatreds now that the Republican Party leaders are saying its okay. Case in point, a lawsuit from multiple Republican AGs fighting against the Biden administration classifying gender dysphoria as a disability ended when the Toddler undid the rule. Some of the AGs turned it into a different suit, demanding the federal government drop a requirement that states have to provide disabled individuals with services in the community whenever possible, rather than institutionalizing them.

The AGs are staying silent about the reasons for this suit, probably because “I want to lock those stinking freaks away” isn’t a popular position. I’m sure if pressed they’ll eventually spout some bullshit about states’ rights, federal overreach, blahblahblah. They’re lying; nobody pushes a lawsuit like this unless they want disabled people locked away.

Republicans are also pushing to eliminate a federal program that pays family members to care for a loved one at home. Here they offer an argument there’s too much fraud, but rather than investigate (or offer examples) they simply want the program gone. Which could lead to more disabled being institutionalized.

I know people who are only alive because they’re on antidepressants but RFK Jr. opposes them too. And wants to ban them. He’s not unique in this: when Obama said people with mental illness should seek treatment and not be stigmatized, right-winger Neil Munro said, yes they should be stigmatized — people who seek therapy instead of just working through it are weak! Which fits with RFK Jr.’s conviction that a healthy, pure body won’t get sick or the ideas of other Toddler officials that covid would only cull the weaker members of our society, herd immunity would save the rest.

It’s not just about making bigotry against the disabled fashionable again. The religious right has grumbled for years that “freedom of religion” means freedom of their religion and they’re still at it: disbarred Toddler lawyer Jenna Ellis says “We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work” and does not protect anyone else. Which is wrong, and also evil: nobody making this argument is advocating “even though we could shut down Islam in America, we’ll tolerate them” (some good discussion of all this on Baptist News). They want Muslims gone. This is particularly about Muslims right now but trust me, the Jews and the “wrong” Christians will get it eventually if the Religious Right’s dream of a Christian state becomes a reality. As witness one New Hampshire Republican wants to teach Holocaust denial in schools.

And, of course, there’s racism. The Biden administration wanted to help poor blacks in Alabama who desperately needed new septic systems. The Toddler killed the project. Red states are jumping on gerrymandering black Americans out of political power now that the Supreme Court has given them the A-OK. And when black state legislators in Tennessee objected, the Republicans retaliated. How dare they speak up to the master race? And Republicans continue calling for an end to the Fourteenth Amendment — which as Kevin Leman says at the link means they’re either ignorant or white supremacist. As others have observed, stripping black Americans of legal rights isn’t about the rationale, it’s about stripping them of legal rights. And then there’s the racist alleged murderer who’s getting thousands in donations since allegedly gunning down a black man in a hate crime. Or that the one type of refugee Republicans believe in bringing to this country — even spending money on it — is white South Africans.

And there’s homophobia and transphobia (e.g., here and here) too, and some Republicans declaring that no matter how bad the Toddler is, they still support him as the alternative to Biden daring to declare Transgender Visibility Day. As Rick Pidcock says, “nobody dies from Transgender Visibility Day.”

Benet ends his poem with the lines “our fathers and ourselves sewed dragon’s teeth/our children know and suffer the armed men.” The dragon’s teeth in this case being the rights blacks, women, gays and the disabled won for themselves in the last century, which then spawned the opposition of pissed-off, resentful people who can’t stand to share “their” country. That works both ways, though. Just as hatred didn’t die with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the ADA and Obergefell, the push for equality and the knowledge that it’s possible won’t die either. We can be dragon’s teeth. We can give birth to a better America. Women, blacks and gays fought for their rights when they had none, when the law actively denied them rights. It will be a very long struggle and many people will suffer unjustly and die before it ends but we can eventually bend the arc of the universe back towards justice.