Tag: advocacy
Viral Fury: Fourth Grader Puts RFK Jr. On Blast Over 'War On Autism'

Viral Fury: Fourth Grader Puts RFK Jr. On Blast Over 'War On Autism'

Advocacy groups are outraged over Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s war on Americans with autism.

They say Kennedy uses the disorder as a political tool and pushes damaging stereotypes that spread misinformation.

“The U.S. Secretary of Health, RFK Jr., made false comments about autism, like people with autism are broken, that autism is caused by vaccines, and that people with autism will never have jobs or families,” said Teddy, a fourth grader from New Jersey whose statement at a school board meeting went viral earlier this month.

“I have autism and I’m not broken,” Teddy said. “And I hope that nobody in Princeton Public Schools believes RFK Jr.'s lies.”

The New Jersey schoolkid and autism awareness groups felt the need to speak out after Kennedy’s vile comments last month about U.S. autism rates, where he repeated his false claim that autism is an epidemic that “destroys families.”

Kennedy also mischaracterized autism as a “preventable disease” and falsely asserted that 25% of autistic people are non-functioning—ridiculous notions that experts say are inaccurate.

“His comments were incorrect, but more to the point, they were eugenic,” Colin Killick, executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, told the Boston Globe. “Talking about autistic people as themselves being destroyed but also having destroyed their families is a horrific argument.”

“There’s an unscrupulous industry of alternative medicine providers who exploit families by charging them tens of thousands of dollars to ‘recover’ people with autism,” Ari Ne’eman, who is autistic and an assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NBC News. “The way that industry works is by terrifying families.”

David Mandell, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor and director of the Penn Center for Mental Health, told PBS News that Kennedy’s “fixed, myopic view” stems from needing to interface with parents of autistic children and scientists who work in the field.

Julie DeFilippo, a social worker with an autistic son, told the Boston Globe that “as a parent of an autistic kid, I get hundreds of moments of joy every day. That’s the easy part—being at home and supporting him.”

Kennedy’s characterization of autism as a preventable tragedy also appears connected to his notorious anti-vaccine crusade. In a recent interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, he repeated the vigorously debunked claim of a link between autism and vaccines.

“Many of the parents have reported that their kid, that their child, developed autism immediately after [childhood vaccinations],” Kennedy told the psychologist-turned-TV star.

Kennedy has used his position as America’s chief public health official to launch what he claims is a scientific study into the cause of autism, to be led by an anti-vaccine activist with heinous ideas about treatments for the condition that include experimenting with chemical castration drugs.

“I have seen a lot of people treat [Autism Spectrum Disorder] as some sort of disease that needs to be ‘cured,’ which is very offensive towards people like me,” John Trainor, a high school student, told the Boston Globe. ”We are normal people who have a much harder time socially.”

Kennedy has also announced plans to create an autism database, using the private medical information of millions of Americans, promising Trump in a surreal Cabinet meeting in April that he’d be able to identify the cause of autism by September.

Kennedy announced on May 7 that he intends to direct the National Institutes of Health to use Medicare and Medicaid insurance claims related to autism diagnoses to build his database.

Critics point out that Kennedy’s plan amounts to an autism registry, and experts add that Kennedy’s promises are unrealistic.

"If you just ask me, as a scientist, is it possible to get the answer that quickly? I don't see any possible way,” Dr. Peter Marks, a former top vaccine scientist for the FDA, said on Face the Nation last month.

Kennedy’s talk about investigating autism is extra hypocritical considering the Trump administration’s slashing of funds for scientific research and haphazard dismantling of America’s public health institutions.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Tulsi Gabbard

Kremlin Advocate Gabbard Will Plead For Senate Confirmation On Hill

Tulsi Gabbard is heading to Capitol Hill to beg senators for votes. Like so many of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, Gabbard has her work cut out for her.

The felon-elect’s pick for director of national intelligence has drawn critical eyes as it has been revealed the former Democrat has a penchant for Russian propaganda.

Former Gabbard aides told ABC News last week that the Democrat-turned-MAGA apologist would regularly read and share stories from RT—a state-run media outlet formerly known as Russia Today.

Despite Democrats claiming Gabbard is a “Russian asset,” her former coworkers said that’s not quite the case. However, the ex-aides do think that the former Hawaii representative has adopted some more sympathetic viewpoints that align with the Kremlin due to her consumption of the pro-Russian media. Adding fuel to the fire, the aides released a memo, obtained by ABC, sent to them in 2017, which echoed this stance.

Gabbard pointed fingers at the U.S. and NATO for provoking Russian aggression, criticizing the U.S. for its “hostility towards Putin.”

“There certainly isn't any guarantee to Putin that we won't try to overthrow Russia's government,” she wrote. Gabbard added that she was “pretty sure” there were some “American politicians who would love to do that.”

She also drew ire for a controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who, as of this week, has reportedly been granted asylum in Russia after rebel forces seized control of Damascus.

Speculation aside, Gabbard’s reputation for commingling with dictators has drawn fierce criticism as she is poised to oversee U.S. spy agencies and would have a treasure trove of the country’s biggest secrets.

“Behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it’s not hyperbole,” one Republican Senate aide told The Hill, adding, “There are members of our conference who think she’s a [Russian] asset.”

But that hasn’t stopped Fox News from drumming up their own pro-Gabbard takes as well. The outlet has leaned on veterans and bashing Democrats as a means to prop up Gabbard. As Fox News writes, many other outlets have “attempted to paint Gabbard as a national security risk who is sympathetic to U.S. adversaries.”

However, instead of addressing the narrative further, Fox has only addressed these claims of dictator sympathy once. The Murdoch-owned outlet seemingly buried any information regarding the accusations at the bottom of a story bashing one Democrat for even suggesting Gabbard was associated with the likes of Putin or al-Assad.

As for Gabbard, she isn’t the only one of Trump’s picks on Capitol Hill this week vying for votes that may be stacked against them. Fox News’ Pete Hegseth is on the Hill pleading to senators as he tries to collect favorable votes—despite being an alcoholic with sexual assault allegations among a list of other offenses.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Short On Supporters, Fracking Group Turns To The Homeless

Short On Supporters, Fracking Group Turns To The Homeless

The North Carolina Energy Coalition couldn’t find enough people who actually supported fracking to show up at a state hearing last week on the topic, so — in a move reminiscent of then-Senator Scott Brown’s 2012 re-election campaign — they may have bused in homeless people instead.

The men, who reportedly has no idea what fracking is, were bused 200 miles to Cullowhee and given turquoise shirts and hats with sayings such as “Shale Yes,” “Energy Creates Jobs,” and “NCEnergyCoalition.com,” according to the Citizen-Times.

“They were clueless,” Bettie “Betsy” Ashby, a member of the Jackson County Coalition Against Fracking, told the Citizen-Times. “At least two of them I met definitely came from a homeless shelter. One of them even apologized to me and said, ‘I didn’t know they were trying to do this to me.’ One said, ‘I did it for the …’ and then he rubbed his fingers together like ‘for the money.’”

The North Carolina Energy Coalition’s website states that its mission “is to provide the public with factual information and offer an in-depth look into oil and gas industry in North Carolina.” It’s not supposed to “advocate on issues but instead, provide the facts to let the public, business community, and elected officials decide for themselves.”

But it also notes that it’s sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, a group that definitely advocates for the oil and gas industries.

North Carolina has a complicated history when it comes to fracking. It was first legalized in the state in 2012 when a state representative accidentally pressed the wrong button while casting the deciding vote. North Carolina law doesn’t allow representatives to change their votes if they’ll have an outcome on the verdict.

However, a ban on fracking permits was put into place until regulations were written to protect the environment. The Mining and Energy Commission worked on writing these regulations. But Greenpeace uncovered controversial emails between the commission and fracking companies, such as America’s Gas Alliance and Halliburton. For example, the commission had originally proposed requiring fracking companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking fluid. But Halliburton convinced them not to.

North Carolina governor Pat McCrory (R) has also faced criticism for his close ties to Duke Energy, where he worked for 30 years. The Associated Pressfound that his administration had blocked three lawsuits against Duke Energy and instead intervened, only making the company pay “modest fines” for its toxic waste ponds instead of requiring it to clean them up.

The state director of Environmental North Carolina, Elizabeth Ouzts, said that the regulations the Mining and Energy Commission has proposed so far are “inadequate,” as they don’t address air pollution and allow wastewater to be stored in pits, which could lead to leaks.

The Mining and Energy Commission is supposed to finish writing its regulations by January, and is holding public hearings (including the one last week) to discuss the rules. McCrory already signed a law in June lifting the state’s ban on fracking. Permits will be issued as soon as next spring.

Below is a video of Ms. Ashby talking to the men wearing pro-fracking shirts, taken by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

Photo: danielfoster437 via Flickr

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Activists Protest Campbell Brown’s ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance

Activists Protest Campbell Brown’s ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance

While fans waited to get into Thursday’s taping of The Colbert Report, a small but dedicated group stood outside the studio, protesting Campbell Brown’s appearance on the Comedy Central show that night.

Brown, a former television journalist turned education reformer, announced on Monday that her group, the Partnership for Educational Justice, is helping seven families with a lawsuit against New York State’s tenure laws for teachers. Brown argues that tenure protections make it very difficult to fire incompetent teachers, and that her team is working to fight the cronyism in education.

“We’re under no illusions that this is[n’t] going to be incredibly challenging … when you’re trying to change a system like this, when you’re trying to fight powers that have been fighting to maintain the status quo for as long as they have,” she said at a press conference. “Do you think it’s going to be easy? Of course it’s not.”

The protesters, comprised of about 10 advocates from the Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change, and a few parents and teachers, could not disagree more. They argue that tenure is an essential protection for teachers.

“Due process is a very important process for our teachers,” Elzora Cleveland, a public school parent and member of New York Communities for Change and the Alliance for Quality Education, told The National Memo. “We want our teachers to be able to teach without worrying about their jobs. It allows them to be more creative, more focused. They can really spend their creative time zooming in on moving children forward in their education as opposed to worrying about whether they’ll have a job tomorrow.”

Cleveland doesn’t think that Brown should be speaking for parents and teachers, especially since she didn’t go to public school herself and her children attend private schools.

“If Campbell Brown is not publicly educated … what could she understand about this process?” Cleveland said. “I believe it is a political stunt.”

Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, agrees. She says that if Brown wants to improve the education system, then she should be focused on funding, and ensuring that students and teachers have access to the resources that they need. She finds it suspicious that this is the issue on which Brown’s chosen to focus.

“I believe the parents’ concerns are real but I don’t believe [Brown’s] intent to support them are real,” she told The National Memo. “The one percent is running around this country shuttering public education.”

Ansari also thinks that tenure is important because it allows so teachers to fight for funding and better opportunities for their students without fearing for their jobs.

“What would happen to those teachers if they didn’t have … the right to due process?” she said.

The group stood outside the studio for about an hour, holding signs such as “Campbell Brown Doesn’t Speak 4 Me,” and chanting, “Campbell, Campbell, who funds you, hedge funds and Wall Street, isn’t that true?”

Maureen Gephardt, a Colbert fan waiting on line to enter the studio, thought that Colbert was a great person to interview Brown because he would “challenge” her.

“I think public education needs to have advocates all over and they should be able to be here,” she told us.

Video of Brown’s interview with Colbert can be seen below, via Comedy Central:

Photo: The National Memo/Rachel Witkin

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