Monday Mule Pack – How the Anti-Vaxxers Are Winning
February 13, 2017
A weekly look at some of the more interesting articles from around the web.
How the Anti-Vaxxers Are Winning (New York Times)
It’s looking as if 2017 could become the year when the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States and we begin to see a reversal of several decades in steady public health gains. The first blow will be measles outbreaks in America.
Measles is one of the most contagious and most lethal of all human diseases. A single person infected with the virus can infect more than a dozen unvaccinated people, typically infants too young to have received their first measles shot. Such high levels of transmissibility mean that when the percentage of children in a community who have received the measles vaccine falls below 90 percent to 95 percent, we can start to see major outbreaks, as in the 1950s when four million Americans a year were infected and 450 died. Worldwide, measles still kills around 100,000 children each year.
The myth that vaccines like the one that prevents measles are connected to autism has persisted despite rock-solid proof to the contrary. Donald Trump has given credence to such views in tweets and during a Republican debate, but as president he has said nothing to support vaccination opponents, so there is reason to hope that his views are changing.
What was Mitch McConnell thinking? (Politico)
But politically Republicans played right into Democrats’ hands. While the nomination for Sessions was contentious, the result was preordained: another loss for the minority. A vote to silence one of the best-known Democratic senators and potential challenger to President Donald Trump in 2020 changed the entire dynamic.
“In a body that has far too few women, for a senator to say: … ‘The senator shall take her seat,’ should never be uttered,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). “It’s like from a different century. I think it was [because it was] Elizabeth Warren. I think if most other Democratic senators would have said the same words, they wouldn’t have invoked the rule.”
Here’s a great example of a liberal relationship to diversity: when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked how many women on the Supreme Court would be enough, she answered “When there are nine.” In response to the collective gasp of every conservative on earth, she elaborated. “For most of the country’s history, there were nine and they were all men. Nobody thought that was strange.”
Personally I’m not interested in a female president for the sake of “diversity.” Putting a woman in the white house in 2020 won’t mean that gender equality has arrived. We’ve had 43 presidents. It’s going to take 43 women serving as president before we even have a chance to reach parity.
…I have no interest in our universities being populated by people who think like me. But I do have an interest in them being populated with people who think.
All world views are not inherently equal. Conservative thinking is, by definition, bent on conserving the status quo. It is often regressive. A shrinking, a backward movement, a return to previous points in cultural, political, and intellectual development.
Universities aren’t bereft of conservatives and Evangelicals because of a vast left-wing conspiracy. They’re bereft of those people because people committed to those world views so rarely have anything to offer to an open-minded, inquiring, growing community. Universities are lacking in conservatives and fundamentalist Christians because the amount of education that it takes to become a professor is likely to expose Evangelicals and conservatives to enough good ideas that they’re no longer fundamentalist or conservative.
Trump’s energy plan doesn’t mention solar, an industry that just added 51,000 jobs (Washington Post)
“Every single one of the states that voted for President Trump, with the exception of Tennessee, had growth, and all battleground states, they all added substantially,” Luecke said. “We’re seeing solar jobs everywhere.”
The industry’s growth is not expected to be as fast in 2017, however — more like 10 percent. That may in part be because the industry will be losing some of its Obama-era exuberance and trying to figure out how to shift into the Trump years.
Help! My Constituents Are After Me! (New York Times)
That same evening in Tennessee, Representative Diane Black tried to answer only questions submitted in advance. This failed, as she was blasted by constituents over Republicans’ plan to kill Obamacare without a replacement.
“There are people now who have cancer that have that coverage, that have to have that coverage to make sure they don’t die,” said Mike Carlson of Antioch, Tenn. “How can I trust you to do anything that’s in our interest at all?”
………
Republicans are squirming from coast to coast. The biggest draw is the Affordable Care Act, whose supporters are following the Tea Party playbook and storming legislator meetings much as anti-Obamacare protesters did in 2009. It’s a harrowing turn of the screw for legislators who rode that fervor into office.
Jill Stein Is a Right-Wing Tool (The Stranger)
You don’t [build a viable third party] by trotting out the reanimated corpse of Ralph fucking Nader every four fucking years. Or his doppelgänger, whoever it is now, Jill Stein and some asshole-to-be-named four years from now. You start by running grassroots, local campaigns. And there’ve been—and I’m sure we’re going hear from lots of people out there listening—there have been a couple of Green Party candidates who’ve run in other races here and there across the country. But no sustained effort to build a Green Party nationally. Just this griping, bullshitty, grandstanding, fault-finding, purity-testing, holier than thou-ing, that we are all subjected to every four fucking years by the Green Party candidate.
Trump must stop lying or Americans will think he is nuts (Washington Post)
Trump’s unprecedented degree of out-and-out lying to the American people about things large (a conspiracy to cover up terrorist attacks) and small (crowd size) — especially stated in the presence of the intelligence community (as he did at CIA headquarters the day after his disappointing inauguration turnout) and the military — raises the legitimate concern that we cannot rely on the president’s words or assume his perceptions are accurate. The military and intelligence officers listening to his rants know he babbles nonsense. They surely are entitled to doubt the mental stability and trustworthiness of the commander in chief.
Melissa McCarthy on SNL shows the power comedians have under a Trump presidency (Washington Post)
Melissa McCarthy’s frustrated, unhinged parody of White House press secretary Sean Spicer on last weekend’s SNL unsettled the White House and bothered Trump, and her performance was seen as potentially hurting Spicer’s longevity in the job, Politico reported, citing people close to the president.
Yes, a late-night comedian’s performance could affect what Trump does as president — and this is exciting some anti-Trump comedians.
A Conservative Case for Climate Action (New York Times)
On-again-off-again regulation is a poor way to protect the environment. And by creating needless uncertainty for businesses that are planning long-term capital investments, it is also a poor way to promote robust economic growth.
MM: I’m skeptical of the conservative plan (because it doesn’t do enough), but at least some conservatives are smart and honest enough to realize it’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
But what was really unprecedented was Trump’s tweet on Hillary Clinton that included three misspellings in the space of 140 characters: “Hillary Clinton should not be given national security briefings in that she is a lose cannon with extraordinarily bad judgement & insticts.”
My insticts say Trump should enable auto-correct.
MM: It turns out Hillary Clinton really was a “lose” cannon.
To Reject Trump the Perverse, Poets Wage a Battle in Verse (New York Times)
Don’t fear all those women with signs on their backs
The straight and the queer, the whites and blacks
You can trivialize them with snide little cracks
And wash them away with alternative facts!
Tennessee Promise inspires national trend (Tennessean)
In 2014, Tennessee was the only state with a wide-reaching program that offered recent high school graduates the chance to go to community college without paying tuition.
Since then, several states — including Oregon, New York and Rhode Island — have followed that example, adopting or pursuing similar programs of their own. Former President Barack Obama pulled the issue into the national spotlight during a 2015 visit to Tennessee, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders thrust it into the heart of the presidential campaign.
Before you hyperventilate with concerns over carbon monoxide poisoning, the plan is to leave your car outside and trade for a seat in one of the classic cars set up inside to take you back to the drive-in experience of 1965. Guests will watch movies on the “largest non-IMAX screen in North America” while seated in one of the cars, theater seats, or a general admission-style “lawn” area for blankets and picnics. There will be a variety of dining areas, including “tree houses” for private events as well as a lounge. Entertainment will include first-run and other movies from various genres which may also include live actors for an “interactive” movie experience.
Five Whiskeys for your Special Lady on Valentine’s Day (The Whiskey Wash)
Hey guys. Woman here. I’m going to let you in on a secret: Most women don’t want stuffed animals, waxy chocolate, or cheap jewelry for Valentine’s Day. But whiskey? Whiskey always hits the spot.
-MM-
