MAGA pseudoscience update: Deceit that kills

The faces of evil

 

Jamie Hall

Ryan Anderson

A NYT editorial board opinion discusses a fake science paper, The Abortion Pill Harms Women, that the EPCC (Ethics & Public Policy Center) published. It claims that medical abortions by mifepristone are not safe. Currently, mifepristone is widely used to induce abortions. It is safe and effective. The EPCC is a radical theocratic Catholic think tank. It explicitly describes itself as applying "Judeo-Christian moral tradition" to public policy issues. Since February 2021, its president has been Ryan T. Anderson, who previously worked at the MAGA authoritarian Heritage Foundation, the source of Project 2025.

The EPCC receives substantial funding from Leonard Leo's theocratic Christian nationalist network. Its fake mifepristone science advances religiously motivated abortion restrictions. That shows moral rot to prioritize theocratic religious dogma over empirical evidence. The EPCC's screed is theocratic anti-abortion demagoguery, not research. This propaganda has been debunked. Its flaws include the facts that (i) it is not peer-reviewed, (ii) there is no data transparency (insurance claims sources are not disclosed -- there is no evidence that they didn't just make this up), (iii) it asserts a misleading categorization of emergency room visits as "serious adverse events", (iv) it counts conditions unrelated to mifepristone as "complications", and (v) it contradicts over 100 peer-reviewed studies showing that mifepristone medication abortions are safe. 

What is galling is that 22 Republican state attorneys cited this stupid paper in pressing the FDA to restrict mifepristone. In response, Dr. Brainworm (RFK Jr) said that he would conduct a review. As with vaccines, this signals that Brainworm won't let real science get in the way of policy that will harm many innocents and kill some.

In response to this evil research, and as part of my ongoing fight against the rising tide of cynical, cruel MAGA authoritarianism, I fired off this letter (lightly edited) to the EPCC, Hall and Anderson:

To the EPCC, Jamie Hall and Ryan Anderson, 

As you know full well, some people believe and act on misinformation. Demagogues have known that for centuries, if not millennia. Sometimes people's actions based on misinformation lead to harm or deaths of those deceived. Sometimes others are harmed or killed by behaviors based on actions by deceived people. An obvious example is people who believe lies about COVID vaccines being harmful or ineffective. Some of those people refuse to be vaccinated. Some of those deceived unvaccinated people get infected and are seriously harmed by long COVID. A few die. Some of the deceived get infected and infect others who are then killed or suffer serious long COVID.

Most or all of the moral responsibility for all of the unnecessary harm rests with the deceivers. When their deceit harms or kills others, they are responsible.

The same logic applies to people who spread misinformation about medical abortions. Obviously, this applies to the EPCC, Jamie Hall and Ryan Anderson. Medical abortions are safe and effective. Despite that truth, you spread contrary misinformation. You deceive innocent people. Your bad faith and pseudoscience will lead some people to be harmed. A few will be killed because of you. Moral responsibility for that is on you.

Clearly, your anti-abortion arguments are too weak to convince people on the merits that they should not get abortions. Many people still want and get abortions despite your beliefs and unpersuasive arguments. You are losers on that point. Given that fact, you resort to knowingly and cynically deceiving innocent people. That is not merely moral cowardice and moral rot. When avoidable harms or deaths occur, you are evil.

Some introspection and humility on your part is more than warranted. However, given your brazed disregard for scientific truth, the welfare of other innocent people, and your arrogant self-righteousness, sincere introspection and honest humility seems highly unlikely. Evil is arrogant. It does not introspect. That's your failing, not that of anyone else.

Sincerely,
My real name, PhD, JD
San Diego, CA

Q: Is the criticism of "evil" unreasonably hyperbolic, wrong, or otherwise not rationally reasonably defensible?

NLT Bible

The Democrats cave.

 I have had enough of the Democrats. They have NO balls. 

Several Senate Democrats crossed the aisle despite getting no guaranteed deal on Obamacare subsidies

That means that Senate Democrats effectively caved with little to show for their healthcare push, save for the guarantee of a vote on the subsidies from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., which was reflected in the updated CR. 

Senate Democrats are caving on the shutdown.

They’re getting a promise of a vote on ACA subsidies in the Senate, which will easily go down in defeat. Not to mention, Speaker Mike Johnson has said he’ll never even bring the matter up for a vote in the House. 

'Making this deal is malpractice.' It's Democrat vs. Democrat as shutdown nears end

The eight Democratic defectors who joined Republicans to reopen the government are facing widespread criticism from within their party.

Make no mistake: This is Schumer caving.

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced.  If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

Supreme Court games: A counterintuitive move

The three pro-democracy and pro-rule of law dems left on the USSC have little power. For the most part, they mostly write scathing dissents that authoritarian MAGA Republican judges blithely blow off. One of the dems, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, just pulled a sneaky move to try to defend the public interest. The lawsuit is about a lower federal court forcing Trump to pay SNAP food stamp benefits to poor people and Trump wanting to starve recipients a little (or maybe a lot). The detailed legal analysis by Trump critic and lawyer Steve Vladeck is at this link.

Germaine's summary of the legal analysis

Justice Brown Jackson issued a temporary pause on a court order requiring the Trump administration to fully fund food assistance during a government shutdown. That seems counterintuitive on its face, because that lets Trump block federal payments. But the unique conditions she imposed on her court order makes sense for someone who wants SNAP benefits paid out ASAP.

When the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court asking for a pause on tht lower court order to pay the food benefits, the request went to Justice Jackson because she oversees cases from that federal court region. Jackson, the most vocal critic among the three dem justices about how the Court handles Trump emergency requests, faced a difficult choice: either grant the pause herself or be overruled by the six MAGA judges who would delay the case until people died of starvation.

To take away the power of the six MAGA freaks to delay, Jackson granted the temporary pause. But she added strict time limits and detailed instructions to her order. Her order automatically expires 48 hours after the appeals court rules. She explicitly told that court to rule quickly. If the full Court had issued the pause instead, it could have been open-ended with no deadline, potentially freezing food assistance indefinitely. By handling it herself with tight deadlines, Jackson forced everyone, the appeals court and the USSC itself, to resolve the issue within days rather than the weeks, months or years that similar cases have taken.

Jackson chose a strategic brief pause that she controlled the timing of over a much longer indefinite pause that MAGA judges would have imposed. This ensures the question of whether November food benefits will be decided quickly, even though it meant temporarily blocking the lower court order to pay the benefits. 

Of course, the real problem here is that Trump could simply choose to pay these benefits without any court order, but he refuses because, in his boundless cruelty and sadism, he likes to see people suffer.

Q: Is Germaine's summary at least a wee smidge over the top hyperbolic, or is he a good boy? Who's a good boy? Yeah, you're a good boy! 

@apa4dogs Who’s a good boy? 🐾💙 #blinddog #rescuedog #pitbull #dogtrainer #dogtraining #heyarnoldray #beachday #whosagoodboy #happydog ♬ Prancing - Kitruh

MAGA wealth & power politics: Take from the non-rich and give to the rich

The NYT reports (not paywalled) that Trump is, quietly as possible, handing out tax cuts worth hundreds of billions of dollars to some of the most profitable companies and wealthiest investors. When he was in office, the Dems passed a tax law that Biden signed in 2022. That law provided for a minimum tax of 15% on profits that large, highly profitable corporations make. This gift to the rich and powerful comes on top of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich and powerful that were included in the Trump-GOP budget law that passed this last summer. MAGA!!

The idea behind the law was to ensure that some of the country’s most profitable corporations pay at least some federal income tax. The law was a corporate alternative minimum tax that plugged some existing tax loopholes. The law was projected to raise $222 billion over a decade from companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Johnson & Johnson. That is a paltry $22 billion/year from corporations that make hundreds of billions/year in profits. 

For context, the Fortune 500 companies made $1.87 trillion in profits in 2024 and $1.7 trillion in 2023. Companies don't even want to pay that puny sum. They're greedy and callous. Corporations are there to make profit, not to make the world a better place or to save our democracy from tyranny or our environment from collapse.*

* Or sea level from rising 15 feet

Meanwhile, the official federal debt approaches $40 trillion and existing unfunded obligations (debt) as measured today** approaches Dog only knows what. Maybe $80 trillion in 25 years? Social Security and Medicare alone face approximately $73 trillion in unfunded obligations over the next 75 years.

** Or stated as unfunded obligations as assessed in year 2050

This governance by MAGA is irresponsible, cynical and profoundly corrupt. But, that is what voters voted for. That is what they are getting. And they are getting it good and hard.  

Q: Is the Reverse Robin Hood Party a reasonable alt-name for the Republican Party?