Archive | August, 2024

Team Trump, ever classy, stigmatize people with mental illness to excuse their own bad behavior

28 Aug

NPR reports Trump campaign staff had altercation with official at Arlington National Cemetery. Apparently, members of Mr. Trump’s team chose to disrespect on of America’s most sacred places:

A source with knowledge of the incident said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members are authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.

Mr. Trump’s spokesperson, Stephen Cheung, gave NPR a statement:

“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony,” Cheung said in the statement.

Not only did Mr. Cheung try to deflect blame for the incident, he did so while blaming someone “clearly suffering a mental health episode”. I get politicians lying and trying to dodge blame. It’s what they do. And Mr. Trump never, ever, ever accepts blame or admits a mistake. I get that. I expect this from Mr. Trump. But, seriously, Mr. Cheung, why did you have to drag people with mental health issues into this story? Seriously, you can lie without stigmatizing people.

But first you should wake up and care about stigmatizing people, Mr. Cheung. I get it, you work for someone who has repeatedly mocked people with disabilities. On one notable occasion, he imitated the motion of a reporter with a physical disability. Mr. Trump’s supporters claim that Mr. Trump often uses such motions. Or, that he was “doing a standard retard“. Because always mocking people with disabilities is a good defense?

OK, Mr. Cheung. You work for a jerk. You have a choice, you know.

For people wondering about whether Mr. Trump’s team had the right to film what was obviously a campaign stop at Arlington, NPR reports:

“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” according to the statement. “Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants.”

The people in the disability communities, and by that I include people who love people with disabilities, vote. We may not have carried the day in 2016, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have an impact in 2024.
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By Matt Carey

Robert Kennedy dodges his support for the failed autism/vaccine link

25 Aug

I’ve been watching Robert Kennedy (RFK Jr.) for nearly 20 years now. Watching him closely. As I recently wrote: I’m an autism parent. No way I will vote for Robert Kennedy Jr.. He’s gutless. And now we have a new example of his lack of backbone.

In preparation for being absorbed into the Trump campaign, Mr. Kennedy posted a video on Instagram to show that he’s not extreme in his views on vaccines. Watch it. Then tell me how he addressed his stance on vaccines and autism. You know, the thing he’s been pushing for 20 years. He wrote a book about it. His organization (Children’s Health Defense) is the “expanded mission” of the World Mercury Project, an organization built on the failed idea that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines.

But, back to Mr. Kennedy’s video. He thinks people are “most confused about my stance on vaccines”. So he wants to go “point by point” into his “exact posture”.

Mr. Kennedy plays the game, “It’s controversial to say vaccines have side effects”. As in, “my position is only that there are side effects”. Nope. He believes, to this day, that mercury in vaccines cause autism. 20 years ago it was a weak hypothesis. Now it is an idea that has been demonstrably refuted. Over and over. But Mr. Kennedy has never accepted the data. He’s never apologized for the harm he caused by promoting an idea that autistic people are damaged.

He’s gutless. He’s a coward. He’s a politician who knows that saying what he believes will harm his chances to get elected. So he hides behind the idea that all he’s saying is that there are adverse effects to vaccines. And then he uses an old video of Bernadine Healy where she talks about vaccines and autism.

Grow a backbone, Mr. Kennedy. Say what you want to say.

He does throw out an old video of Bernadine Healy saying “no one studied the kids who got sick”. As an aside, being autistic isn’t “being sick”. It’s also an outdated statement. Way back in 2008 a study compared autistic children to non-autistic children to see if the MMR vaccine (one of the primary theories of the vaccines-cause-autism). They “studied the children who got sick”. What did they find? A “lack of association”. That’s science speak for, “there’s no connection”.

Another study looked at Mr. Kennedy’s favorite theory: mercury in vaccines cause autism. They found Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Lack of association is, again, science speak for there’s no connection. Case-control and cohort studies is science speak for “these studies looked at the children who got sick”.

So, Mr. Kennedy didn’t say what he thought out loud.

Mr. Kennedy hid behind Bernadine Healy, using an old interview to say what he thought. He neglected to tell his audience that Dr. Healy’s prime question is no longer valid.

The idea that vaccines cause autism was explored, in depth, in court. The Omnibus Autism Proceeding brought together the top experts on the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism to explain to a court their science. They lost. Badly. The court declared that the decision was “not close”. That was in 2010. I know Mr. Kennedy is well aware of the OAP.

Let me add, I listened in to the OAP hearings when they happened. I was listening every day. To say “this was not close” was charitable. The “experts” that were brought out to present the “science” behind the autism-vaccine link were, in a word, terrible. They would be laughable if the topic weren’t so serious. It was frankly embarrassing to see autism parents pinning their hopes, and being taken in, by that team of doctors and researchers. They were obviously wrong, and they were the experts Mr. Kennedy relied upon to support his failed ideas.

Frankly, Mr. Kennedy should have packed up his tent and left the autism-vaccine debate after the OAP. He should have before then, but when it was all laid out like that, there was no excuse for hanging on to a clearly failed hypothesis.

I know I’ve been going on a long while about this. After 20 years, believe me this is a brief discussion of how awful Mr. Kennedy is when it comes to his support of the autism-vaccine link. I haven’t even discussed the harm he has caused autistic people and their loved ones. I did some of that recently.

But just let me say again: the man is gutless. He didn’t address his primary issue: vaccines and autism. He dodged it. He’s just doing the usual bad politician gimmick of using code-phrases to keep his loyal followers in line while trying to not alienate other people. He tried to paint himself as just a guy asking important questions, when in reality he’s a guy whose questions have been answered, over and over (and over and over and over again), but he refuses to accept the answer. He knows his positions is extreme, so he hopes he can fool people into not looking closer.

He’s wrong. He’s extreme. If Donald Trump were a great guy in all other respects (he’s not even close), taking Mr. Kennedy on as part of his team would be enough to vote against him.

Or, to put it another way, it would take a lot to make Donald Trump an even worse candidate than he is. Mr. Trump found a way. He brought Mr. Kennedy into his tent.

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By Matt Carey