Chrissy Stroop on evangelicals and vaccine-refusal:

As many exvangelicals have been trying to get the American mainstream to understand for years now, evangelical subculture is essentially ground zero for America’s other pandemic—disinformation. Conservative, mostly white evangelicalism, which represents a fear-based, authoritarian outlook on a social scale, has constructed a parallel society, mediated through churches, Christian publishing, homeschooling, Christian schools, Christian colleges and universities, and numerous parachurch ministries, in which certain sacrosanct “truths” are never questioned. When reality contradicts the truths that define group membership, the evangelical community circles the wagons and puts the power and influence of its tight institutional network behind the assertion that, in fact, the emperor is wearing clothes, and anyone who says otherwise is a dirty godless liberal intent on persecuting Christians.

How do I justify such a frank, unflattering assertion? Well, I’m not only well-versed in the relevant data and literature, but I grew up in evangelical authoritarianism myself, with a Christian school education and participation in short-term youth mission trips. I have evangelical vaccine refusers among my close relatives, and I’ve now been writing commentary, journalism, and policy research on the Christian Right beat for six years. And I’m done with sugarcoating my assessment of what’s wrong with right-wing Christians, as I’m convinced that such coddling of Christian nationalists is a luxury that Americans can no longer afford if we hope to avert an even greater public health disaster and to have a democratic future.

I do quite hope for both of those items – no bigger public health disaster, and a democratic future. Yes, I think those are better than the alternatives. Wacky, I know.

While most secular Americans and most religious groups navigate pluralism just fine, there are other religious groups—white Christian groups in particular, but also including a significant proportion of Latinx Christians and some other Christians of color—whose overwhelmingly anti-pluralist, anti-democratic religious views are a key source of America’s critical problems. If we remain trapped in the older, unnuanced thinking about the supposedly intrinsic goodness of “religion” itself, whatever that is—a view that’s still far too widespread among America’s elite pundit class—we will never be able to effectively confront American authoritarianism. 

I think much of the pundit class doesn’t so much hold the view as fear being seen to reject the view.

The tragic fate of the…anti-masker.

Where is he watching children turn on parents? Is he, like, looking into people’s windows? Or what? Because normally that’s not something you can just “watch,” like a football game. I also doubt that friends quarrel with friends over it right in front of him. It sounds dramatic though, to say you’re “watching” it. Drama drama drama, there can never be enough.

“Dangerous vermin”; “unclean.” We’re meant to think it’s like Nazi Germany, and he’s The Jews.

No, we don’t think that, we think people are stupidly and/or selfishly refusing to wear masks, for stupid or selfish or just no real reasons, and thus helping the pandemic kill and harm more people. Do we think that’s a bad thing to do? Yes, of course. It’s nothing to do with vermin, or with “unclean” except in the sense that the virus is contagious – but a mask doesn’t make you “clean,” it just hinders transmission of the virus.

Ah that old festering wound – the fact that smoking around other people became unpopular. So unfair and unkind, isn’t it? To not want other people’s cigarette smoke in your face? It’s not at all that the custom of smoking around other people was always quite rude, no no, it’s the other way around – it’s people who don’t want to be around cigarette smoke who are unreasonable and cruel. Same with masks.

No, being able to compel people is not the goal, the goal is not getting the virus and not allowing the virus to spread. That’s it. We’d love it if everyone had good sense and just did what needs to be done without all this mewling and puking.

More on the Gaetz Gohmert Greene rebellion:

QAnon apostle Marjorie Taylor Greene, unsanctioned high school chaperone Matt Gaetz and the self-proclaimed “dumbest man in Congress” were forced to evacuate a press conference when their regularly scheduled bullshit parade turned into an all-out shitshow.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) scheduled a Tuesday press conference outside the Department of Justice in support of the detained Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Contrary to their usual stance on law and order, the elected officials wanted the world to know how unfair it was to punish violent thugs who did absolutely nothing wrong except attempt a violent overthrow of the government at Greene and Gaetz’s behest.

Injuring a lot of cops in the process, as we were reminded at the January 6 hearing.

Greene fled the site of the “intolerant left’s” refusal to allow government officials carry out their official duties at a press conference in support of people who wouldn’t let government officials carry out their official duties. It was totally unfair how the media harassed her in the manner that she harassed David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Holocaust victims.

…

The white nationalist saviors were there to support men like Proud Boy leader Joe Biggs, who has spent three months in jail for nothing more than leading a white supremacist gang on a cop-beating spree at the nation’s capital. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Biggs moaned and groaned about how the people at the jail are treating him like he’s in jail.

And like he’s…not white.

The ongoing coup.

I watched some longer clips from the January 6 hearing yesterday. Emotionally grueling, and necessary.

Mo is angrynotangry about those smutty little bikini pants at the Olympics.

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Tucker Carlson is now saying Fauci created the virus. That explains why I was seeing tweets saying Fauci should sue him for libel.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged vaccinated people to resume wearing masks under certain circumstances amid low vaccination rates and rising cases from the delta variant, Fox News host Tucker Carlson placed blame on Anthony S. Fauci for the changing mask guidelines.

Yes let’s blame someone for the fact that viruses change and knowledge changes. Let’s pretend that all knowledge is instantly available to all people and that no virus ever changes; that will make everything better overnight.

“Here’s the man who helped to create covid in the first place,” Carlson said.

The host doubled down on the baseless claim minutes later on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” when he cited a handful of “breakthrough” cases of vaccinated people still getting infected by the virus. Studies have shown the two-dose coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are about 95 percent effective at preventing infection, while Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine is 72 percent effective.

“They have been telling us for six months that this vaccine is perfect, but clearly, in some cases, it doesn’t always work,” Carlson said. “And that’s not our theory, by the way. Take it from the guy who created covid.”

No they haven’t. They’ve been telling us the opposite of that.

Carlson, who has described himself as “pretty pro-vaccine,” has regularly challenged the efficacy of vaccination against the coronavirus to his millions of viewers on his prime-time show. “Maybe it doesn’t work, and they’re simply not telling you that,” he said in April. The claim caused Fauci to rebut what he deemed a “crazy conspiracy theory.”

Why does Tucker Carlson do this? For money and fame and glory. He energetically makes the pandemic worse for his own personal gratification. There ought to be a Nuremberg-type trial just for him, starting now.

When asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta this month about how Carlson’s hostility toward the vaccine would have looked when the country was fighting polio or the measles, Fauci wondered what damage the pushback could have caused.

“If we had the pushback for vaccines the way we’re seeing on certain media, I don’t think it would’ve been possible at all to not only eradicate smallpox. We’d probably still have smallpox, and we’d probably still have polio in this country if we had the kind of false information that’s being spread now,” he said. “If we had that back decades ago, I’d be certain we’d still have polio in this country.”

But it would have been worth it because we would have been free people instead of sheep doing what we were told. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, right?! Defiance is better than not getting polio!

Despite the new CDC guidance, Carlson claimed without evidence that the new guidelines came from lawmakers trying to hold on to the “unprecedented levels of power” they have amassed in the past year.

“They’re going to keep ordering you around, regardless of the science,” Carlson said on his show. “And, of course, Tony Fauci is going to do his best to defend it all.”

Yeah! They’re so bossy! We just can’t stand that – we’re the people who threw the tea in the harbor. Don’t tread on us! Give us liberty and give us Covid! Don’t ever do what people tell you to do, not during a pandemic or a firestorm or a record-smashing heatwave or a drought or an invasion or any other emergency. Don’t do what you’re told! Do what occurs to you in the moment, however little you know about what’s happening a mile away! The ego is always right and the collective is the enemy. By the way while you’re out there could you grab me some vodka and tortilla chips at 7-11?

Another woman punished.

A teacher has been sacked after attempting to scupper the election hopes of a transgender candidate who wanted to be head girl. 

Susan Field told her tutor group she felt the pupil was not “representative” of the student body and that it was not an “appropriate” role for her, the teaching watchdog found.

Ms Field, a French teacher who was said to have previously enjoyed an “unblemished 35-year career”, was dismissed from Ash Manor School, in Surrey, for gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing into her remarks and subsequently lost her appeal.

I don’t know what being representative of the student body is supposed to mean, but as for a boy who calls himself a girl being head girl, I think that should be off the table. I don’t think boys should take girls’ prizes or jobs or offices or any other scarce commodity of that kind, no matter how they identify.

The student, referred to by the Teaching Regulation Agency as “Pupil I”, had publicly identified as a female student to the school since the start of the academic year.

Whatever. That doesn’t entitle him to take the head girl position away from a girl.

The disciplinary hearing in Coventry was told that, during the 10 to 15-minute conversation in May 2019, various pupils described Pupil I as “disgusting”. Other “hostile and derogatory language” was also used – which Ms Field failed to challenge, the panel said.

During the investigation, she admitted telling her tutor group that it is “not appropriate for a member of the LGBTQI to represent Ash Manor School”.

That complicates the picture, because it shouldn’t be the issue. A lesbian head girl would be a fine thing, it’s the boy as head girl that’s the problem.

They actually say it. Right out in the open! As if it makes perfect sense!

Yes, this is America, where dedicated researchers came up with effective vaccines for polio, to name one.

Here’s someone who would have been glad to have that vaccine available in 1921.

If the vaccine had been available, and mandated, then the people who died or were more or less paralyzed in the decades before it was developed would have benefited.

Of course the people who tell us to get the vax have a right to do so. It’s a matter of public health, and it saves countless lives.

Making sure we “still act free” by refusing to get an effective vaccination during a lethal pandemic is childish, murderous, and beneath contempt.

On the one hand boo vaccines, on the other hand yay ivermectin. Whaaat?

A contingent of Americans has embraced the anti-parasite drug ivermectin as a miracle cure for COVID-19 despite warnings from the American scientific community that little to no evidence exists of its efficacy.

At the same time, many Americans have rejected the COVID-19 vaccines in spite of enormous evidence supporting their efficacy.

No good reason to think ivermectin any use so let’s embrace it, but tons of reason to think the vaccines work so let’s refuse to get them.

I’m not seeing the reasoning here – not even the party or partisan or political reasoning. Your politics are kind of beside the point once you’re dead.

The persistent trust in ivermectin and hesitancy to take a widely-proven vaccine is a logical consequence of rejecting American institutions, and a consequence exacerbated by those who have politicized science.

Used to be, it was the left that was suspicious of institutions. At what point did conservatives say “Hold my beer, I’ll show you suspicious of institutions, you weakling”?

Despite this generally accepted commitment to the process of peer review, a subset of American physicians and politicians took the Egyptian pre-print and ran with it. They endorsed ivermectin in front of Congress, on cable news shows, and in viral social media posts.

We have seen this behavior before from irresponsible actors creating conspiracies about “big science” covering up the wonders of a supposed miracle drug. Playing into anti-vaccine fears, some went as far as to argue “there shouldn’t be vaccines that we’re administering” if ivermectin was so safe and effective.

The words of these “experts” have caused substantial harm by contributing to our current “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Which could mean we never get free of the virus and it just becomes a permanent risk. All because people play stupid games.

This is not a game. There are real lives at stake. And those who continue to push the idea that ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19 know exactly what they are doing.

Which is killing people.

Even Simone Biles can be a pretext for sadistic bullying from the Fox party.

On Fox, a growing cadre of white, male rightwing sports talking heads sharpened their claws, ignoring the racial and gendered nuance of Biles’ experience. On his Fox Sports radio show Doug Gottlieb claimed Biles hasn’t faced criticism in her career. “For years, women have said, all we want to be judged as is equal,” he opined. “Generally, we don’t have any sort of critique for our female sports teams. On one hand you want to be viewed, treated, and compensated the same as the men, but on the other hand whatever you do, just don’t be critical of us.”

On the one hand you want to be equals, but on the other hand you keep saying you have rights. What a puzzler, yeah?

Clay Travis has taken over many of the radio slots occupied by Rush Limbaugh since the conservative commentator’s death. On another Fox show, Travis also said that Biles has been held to a different standard and said she should apologize to her fellow gymnasts for quitting. “She wasn’t there for them, and that represents a fundamental breach of the most important aspect of team sports.” And uber-conservative pundit Charlie Kirk went even further on his podcast, calling Biles “selfish”, “immature”, “a shame to the country” and a “sociopath”. He added: “Simone Biles just showed the rest of the nation that when things get tough, you shatter into a million pieces.”

Then how did she win all those medals? If she shatters into a million pieces when things get tough, how on earth did she ever get so good at her sport?

Silly questions of course, because they don’t mean any of it, it’s just a performance. A stupid ugly sexist racist performance. No prize.

It’s an interesting idea, that a member of Congress should be able to encourage a violent attack on that same Congress because his team lost an election, and then get the government to act as his lawyer. The DoJ isn’t persuaded.

The Justice Department rejected a request by Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks for legal protection in court against a lawsuit linking him to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Brooks, former President Donald Trump and others were sued by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., earlier this year. Swalwell alleges that Brooks and others named in the lawsuit helped incite a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6 during a pro-Trump rally.

Swalwell alleges it and the rest of us watch clips of them doing it.

Lawmakers can, at times, receive legal protection as an “employee of the government.” That is allowed when their actions are considered to be done within the scope of their duties.

So, is trying to overthrow the government within the scope of their duties as a member of the government? I’m gonna go with no. The DoJ dressed it up as “he was engaging in a political campaign” but we get to just say Nope.

Why indeed?

Originally a comment by cluecat on A full wax.

This has been an issue in a number of settings – particularly gymnastics and related sports. A number of us have taken the point deduction that comes with departing from uniform expectations in competitions. Those deductions can be substantial – going from a near-perfect score on technical grounds, to ending up placing last as a direct result of the clothing/appearance penalty. A penalty applied only to female athletes in these settings – the males rarely have points deducted on these grounds.

I have competed wearing leggings in some sets, and others have worn the “boy’s” uniforms – a vest or mens’ leo with shorts. We were all penalised for refusing to wear skimpy, impractical, undignified (and inevetably sexualised) clothing. There is no technical advantage to the high-leg leotards; it doesn’t help the gymnast in any way, or benefit any aspect of the performance – the whole reason for wearing the leotards is “that’s what female gymnasts wear”. There is literally no reason to prohibit wearing leggings or shorts.

Gymnasts are penalised for having bra-straps showing beneath a leotard, or any hint of underwear generally visible – this often results in gymnasts being unable to wear anything under the leo, and having to temporarily glue the thing in place for competitions to avoid extreme embarassment (plus further deductions of points). With this expectation of near-nudity comes the chance for predators to abuse their targets – it’s clearly related to the clothing limitations; predators see it as part of the excuse for their behaviour.

Finally a number of international competitors are refusing this indignity – the German team have been competing in full suits; basically the equivalent of long-sleeve leo and matched leggings. This is exactly what a lot of gymnasts would like to wear, given the choice. It’s much more dignified, and still shows the technical “lines” etc.

Also, if the guys can wear shorts and the judges are still able to tell if their routines meet the requirements, then what reason can possibly be offered for why the girls cannot wear the same? Apart from sexism, there’s nothing.

The very fact that these athletes keep having to insist that they are, in fact, athletes, not decorative things for gross dudes to drool over, is still infuriating. We should not be penalised by males for insisting on practical, dignified attire in which to perform our sports. Women are still fighting to be seen as Real People, not accessories for males, and access to sport is part of that.

How many girls have turned away from these chances to understand their own strength and capability because they face these demands to perform their incredible feats in ridiculous outfits?

How often are brilliant girls, demonstrating their hard work and dedication in magnificent performances, belittled and dismissed because stupid people want to focus on what the girls are wearing, and whether they look sufficiently doll-like and decorative, or whether they meet some other bizarre male fantasy?

Nobody expects the dudes to look decorative. They get to be sporting professionals and be recognised as such without having to fulfil anyone’s fantasies. Males get to be Real People by default.

So that’s a relief anyway.

And not just Mo Brooks…

No need to imagine, we’ve been watching it.

I saw a tweet by Amy Siskind saying the Pillsbury Dough Boy of Fox News is now mocking today’s January 6 hearing, and after I got my breath back I looked for more. Aaron Rupar, as so often, obliges.

And in case that’s not enough –

“Hysteria” and “grift” – yes it’s all just a big con game. The 611 thousand dead would confirm if they could still breathe.

From a comment by iknklast on How to threaten power.

There is a battle between faculty and administration right now, both of whom claim to support high standards, but who identify that differently. High standards to the faculty means that you actually educate the students in what they came to learn; high standards to the administration means they are happy. They are doing battle right now with English and Math because they are trying to remove basic competencies in reading and mathematics that we currently require for graduation; the administration says that held up several students from getting their degree on time. Yeah. It’s more important that they graduate than that they learn anything.

They’ve also made it possible for students to get their degree without ever taking a science class. They added Psych 101 to the science curriculum; it is full to overflowing every semester while hard science classes are slipping in numbers. They used to put students in my Environmental Science course for the “easy” science…until it became obvious that it is not, in fact, easy, at least not if it’s taught correctly. I do not hold hands and sing Kum Bay Yah with my students, and we don’t sit around all semester learning about recycling for the 2000th time. They get the science of how the environment works, and why you shouldn’t try to get all chemicals out of the environment, and so forth. No New Age silliness in my class, just science.

So the administration did what any self respecting educator would do…they multiplied awards by giving them some sort of certificate for almost anything. A certificate for this class, a diploma for a couple more classes, and then a degree at the end. A student could probably come out with a dozen or two “awards” for doing nothing more than taking classes.

Meanwhile I’m sitting through harrowing ‘training’ sessions that tell me we should not give students deadlines; it’s too much pressure. Yeah, right. So next Sunday A.D. is fine if that’s when they want to turn in the paper? After they’ve been graduated for twelve years, because we don’t want to hold up anyone’s graduation just because they can’t read or do basic arithmetic? And we should let the student select how they are assessed. The example they give is to allow a student to do interpretive dance to demonstrate their knowledge of mitosis. So the fuzzy subjective feel good nonsense from elsewhere will begin to pervade the sciences, and we no longer have anything that can live up to the name of education.

From a comment by Rob on Systemic v individual.

I’m not going to enumerate all the examples of serious cultural, institutional and systemic racism in western society. Any reasonable person just needs to open their eyes to see the ocean we swim in. CRT was initially adopted by law schools as a tool for analysing the effect of laws (past and present) and the way their application affected people coming into contact with the legal system (police, courts and prisons). Remember this isn’t just kumbaya-singing hippies at universities, but hard headed lawyers from a wide ranging political and social spectrum. You can find plenty of non-academic lawyers and prosecutors online who give meaningful and specific examples of current systemic racism in the ‘law’ and a number who write about the racist background of specific laws and classes of law that still exist, but were designed to target black people.

Let’s not get started shall we on on the number of States in the US that are actively gerrymandering their Districts to disadvantage black voters, and who are also changing their voting procedures to specifically disadvantage not all Democratic voters, but overwhelmingly those of black or latino background.

Even if, for arguments sake, we say that there is only historical racism, that still doesn’t remove the consequences of generations of past active racism. Multigenerational disadvantage and poverty – laws around redlining, the ability to work (or refuse work), violent destruction of black wealth, refusal to allow loans on an equal basis, underfunding of public utilities, healthcare and education. That’s what creates ‘black’ culture.

NZ, as I’ve said before, has its fair share of racists (and racism deniers), but as a society we have been making a conscious effort for the last generation to redress some of the inequalities that exist. That has included reparations to Iwi groups, some of whom have invested wisely and created employment and wealth for their people and some not. Recognition of language, incorporation of cultural values and consultation into Government policies. Even so, we still have much worse outcomes for health, education, housing, imprisonment for Maori compared to non-Maori. A recent large study of health outcomes found, as an example, that when a particular subset of patients’ case files were examined (late middle aged obese male smokers with heart conditions), if you were white you were more likely to be referred by your doctor for further tests, medication and treatment. if you were Maori you were more likely to be sent home and told to quite smoking and exercise more. Maori are more likely to rearrested, and imprisoned, for the same crime than white people. Dysfunctional Maori families are far more likely to have their children ‘uplifted’ than non-Maori similarly situated.

There are rays of sunshine. These things are part of national debate and there is wide acceptance at Government and within many professions that things need to change. Schools that have made even token changes to adopt elements of Maori language and culture have found that students become more engaged and outcomes improve.

The best evidence that there is a systemic issue is that when people do try to change the system, the very structures and practices themselves make shifting outcomes slow and difficult and easily eroded. I don’t believe that NZ is unique and I don’t believe we are the worst country in the world with respect to these issues.

Well. That takes some nerve.

Really?!

No.

Stefanik’s claim is that the Capitol police raised concerns about security and that Pelosi “prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety.” But there’s a catch: their safety is not Pelosi’s jurisdiction.

It should go without saying that the main person who bears responsibility for the violence that occurred on Jan. 6 is former President Donald Trump, whose lies about the election being stolen are what inspired a militant set of protesters to gather in Washington. He then directed that very group he convened to head to the Capitol and told them to “show strength.”

But as far as who was responsible for security vulnerabilities that day [is concerned], Pelosi again is far from the guilty party. Capitol security isn’t the speaker’s responsibility. It’s the duty of the Capitol Police, along with the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms.

You know who else didn’t do anything about Capitol security that day? Dolly Parton! Also Angela Merkel, also Meryl Streep.

Nor is the House speaker responsible for the Capitol Police’s shortcomings. As the president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, Jane Campbell, told CNN, “The speaker of the House does not oversee security of the U.S. Capitol, nor does this official oversee the Capitol Police Board.” Furthermore, the former Capitol Police chief has testified that Pelosi was not involved in decisions about the deployment of the National Guard in the run-up to Jan. 6.

But she should have been. Never mind that that’s not her job, she should have done it anyway. The whole thing is her fault.

Speaking of shorts on the men and tiny tiny underpants on the women, Gail Dines points out something I think of every time I see those damn photos and clips –

No discussion in mainstream media about the need for women athletes to have a full Brazilian wax to wear the hypersexualized, pornified skimpy outfits. Aside from the very painful procedure, women often bleed during the wax, get infections, and it hurts when the hair grows back. Could you imagine men having to wax their pubic area in order to compete in sports? And the mostly male coaches get to have a bird’s eye view of the women’s crotches, and we know that Larry Nassar is not just one bad apple!

Seriously. They can’t possibly wear those awful little rags without getting all their pubic hair yanked out, and they are forced to wear the awful little rags. It’s a god damn outrage.