#2313: Kelly Sutton

Kelly Sutton is a California-based MD who practices anthroposophic medicine, a branch of woo pretty much as quacky as it gets. According to her website, she “bases her diagnosis in part on conventional medicine,” but also asserts that “[s]ignificant understanding arises from listening to aspects of an individual’s biography, life purpose, the emotional context of illness and health, and understanding the level of vitality and strength of the life forces.” She then “treats acute and chronic illness using the least toxic effective treatment for the condition. Anthroposophic remedies (low potency homeopathic preparations and herbs), diet, nutritional supplements, healthy rhythm, warmth are some of the foundational principles she employs.” Not a doctor to consult if you suffer from acute illness, in other words, and yes: there will be homeopathy.

However, Sutton is probably more notable for having made a bit of a career as an ally of the antivaccine movement, for instance by offering webinars on how conspiracy-minded antivaccine parents can circumvent the requirements of California’s SB277 by seeking medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. For instance, her seminar “Step-by-step Program to Help Protect Your Child from the ‘One Size Fits All’ California Vaccine Mandate!” promises you the “tools and knowledge you need to protect your rights as a parent [yes: it’s all about the parents’ rights; the rights of children not to be medically neglected or protected from potentially life-threatening diseases rarely even cross these people’s minds] to choose the healthcare of your child” and to take you “from cornered to confident” for the meager sum of  $27 if you take advantage of the early bird special. She does claim that she is neither antivaccine nor pro-vaccine – her claim to take you from “cornered to confident” sort of suggests otherwise – but “pro-parent”: again, the child isn’t even on the radar. She also tells parents to trust themselves and that no one cares more or knows more, which is, of course, false, but an effective marketing gambit. The webinars are otherwise full of standard antivaccine misinformation and gambits, including “vaccines didn’t save us” and “Pasteur was wrong”. Kelly Sutton’s practices are, in other words, hardcore antivaccine; indeed, she even says that she sees “daily in my practice evidence of vaccine injury and I hear stories almost every day of families that vaccinate children and then decide not to vaccinate and the unvaccinated children within the same family are healthier, more socially adjusted and more capable academically even though their parents are older than the siblings who were born first and were fully vaccinated.” Which is what is otherwise known as confirmation bias – unless it’s lying, of course; perhaps her claim that she’s neither here nor there should be interpreted as not caring too much about whether she actually believes the claims she is making.

Fortunately the Medical Board of California was not impressed, and placed Sutton, together with fellow antivaccine-promoting doctors Bob Sears, Michael Fielding Allen, Ron Kennedy and Kenneth Stoller – yes, there is a whole cottage industry here – under investigation in 2019 (“We feel this doctor and perhaps her colleagues … are making easy money on these exemptions that are not based on true medical need and are actually putting children and other people in the community at risk for contracting and spreading serious infectious diseases,” stated the complaint, and a physician review of the exemptions found Sutton’s exemptions “either of questionable validity or patently without medical basis”). The court petition is here.

Diagnosis: Hard to tell whether she is insane or just spineless, but the two are not mutually exclusive. And the exemptions written by Sutton, Sears and some of their colleagues are actually increasing the likelihood of disease outbreaks that are likely to lead to deaths, which makes Sutton a genuine threat to public health and life. And just think about it: Sutton had the skills and perseverance needed to learn a trade where she could actually make the world a better place, yet this is what she ended up doing. What a waste of life and talent! It’s actually deeply tragic.

Hat-tip: Science-based medicine

#2312: Murray Susser

The Alliance for Natural Health USA, formerly the American Association for Health Freedom, is a lobbying organization founded by Julian Whitaker whose goal is to convince government of the validity of various types of quackery and dubious health claims through political influence (“health freedom”) rather than science. In particular, the group has lobbied energetically for passing the serially defeated federal Access to Medical Treatment act, which would allow quacks to prey freely on consumers, in particular people in difficult or desperate situations, and they have prepared several statements in favor of free marketing of fraudulent health products and methods, including emergency petitions to block the FDA from regulating or supporting regulations of dietary supplements (e.g. arguing against regulations of ephedra products such as ma huang, which contain dangerous drugs and have been associated with thousands of adverse events, including many deaths). The organization has also filed an amicus curiae brief supporting a California lawsuit in which parents of a child with brain cancer sought damages from an oncologist because he failed to recommend antineoplastons, Stanislaw Burzynski’s alternative cancer treatment supported by neither biology nor experimental evidence. Sponsors and contributors to the organization’s efforts, meanwhile, are primarily dietary supplement companies and commercial labs that market fraudulent tests such as hair analysis. The group’s board of directors include (or at least has included) such characters as Woodson Merrell, Jonathan Wright, Shari Lieberman, Al Czap, Bernie Siegel, John Robbins and Robert Rowen; none other than Sherri Tenpenny has been its vice president. 

The main target of the present entry, however, is the organization’s former president, Murray Susser. Now Susser is – or at least used to be – an MD. He also used to be chairman of the medical advisory board of Gero Vita International, an infamous supplement company whose claims were subject to a series of investigations by an impressive range of government bodies, including congressional hearings. His own practice, the Longevity Medical Center in Los Angeles, claimed to use “use Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Nutrition, Chelation Therapy, Heavy Metal Detoxification, Physical Therapy, Stress Management, Weight Management, Oxidative Therapies, and Detoxification Therapy.” Moreover, Susser’s ads more than suggest that he is a keeper of the secrets to halting the aging process and that he has “solved the mystery of chronic fatigue syndrome.” His website does not mention the fact that he has been disciplined several times by the California state medical board (1997 – Susser had e.g. failed to diagnose gallstones in one patient and colon cancer in two others, and had instead ordered inappropriate tests, failed to order appropriate tests, and prescribed vitamins and other inappropriate treatments – 2000, 2005, 2010, 2016, 2017 and 2018) e.g. for “unprofessional conduct, gross negligence, incompetence, repeated negligent acts, and excessive use of diagnostic procedures” and for “negligence and improper prescribing”, as well as by the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine and the New York Board for Professional Misconduct. Indeed, Susser seems to have finally lost his license in 2018. It is unclear whether that will stop him. (After all, he surrendered his New York license back in 1997, and that did not stop him.)

Susser’s primary target victims are (or were) people with complex or diffuse conditions – his website mentions “[l]yme disease, chronic fatigue” in particular – that will allow him to prescribe a number of expensive and completely ineffective treatment regimes and unsupported (and unsupportable) diagnoses. 

Susser is also a past-president of the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), the primary promoter of chelation therapy (which, given that it is as dangerous as it is useless, is a particular concern of medical boards). He has also been associated with the pseudoscience group ILADS.

Diagnosis: What is really instructive about Murray Susser is the position of authority he has managed to retain on the altmed scene, despite his obvious dishonesty (or incompetence). Hopefully neutralized, but you never know with this kind of people.

Hat-tip: Science-based medicine

#2311: Dennis M. Sullivan

Yes, another one: Dennis M. Sullivan is a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s inane petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, and a fairly typical specimen. Now, Sullivan is indeed nominally a Professor of Biology and Bioethics, but at Cedarville University, a fundamentalist Bible school that takes a literal reading of the Bible as a premise not to be disputed and where young-earth creationism (and complementarianism) is taught not only as fact but as something that is not open to discussion. Sullivan is not a biologist. Indeed, Sullivan has no background in science, but is an MD whose main qualification for his post at Cedarville seems to be having worked as a missionary for twelve years. Cedarville is, needless to say, not an institution where students actually learn anything remotely resembling science, critical thinking or facts, and a diploma should be regarded as the rough equivalent of any diploma you can purchase by following a link in a spam email. 

Sullivan is also signatory to the CMI list of scientists alive today who accept the biblical account of creation. He also runs a blog, Cedarethics, devoted to bioethics from a fundamentalist perspective, and has published extensively on such issues, primarily in religious magazines, and given numerous talks in churches and similar venues. Nothing indicates that he is involved in anything resembling science or scientific research, but no one interested in science or scientific research (and having even a cursory idea of what that involves) would ever consider having anything to do with Cedarville anyways.

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s fairly typical of the signatories on the Discovery Institute list, and that people like Sullivan appear on it is rather telling. 

#2310: David Stussy & Zena Xanders

The Big Brain Radio Show is (or was – we have no idea) a weekly broadcast on local radio stations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area hosted by two chiropractors, David Stussy and Zena Xanders, who seemed to fancy themselves as “Big Brains” – and yes, it’s Dunning Kruger: Stussy’s and Sanders’s lack of understanding of even elementary critical thinking or science was embarrassing to the level of physical pain. The show tried for the most part to cram as much woo and bullshit as possible into its time slot, typically peppering the nonsense with apparently random insertions of words like “quantum” and “healing”. As chiropractors Stussy and Xanders are definitely on the quackiest end possible, the types who think that chiropractic can heal everything – and yes, they call themselves “Dr. Stussy” and “Dr. Xanders”, but their degrees are from the Northwestern Chiropractic College and the Northwestern Health Sciences University, respectively and as such not something to be proud of. On their show, Stussy and Xanders would for instance promote The law of manifestation (yes: that one), The law of balance, and The law of appreciation.

According to Stussy and Xanders, the BBR show “is meant to be a catalog for large/small scale observers of the organized complexities of the universe, which express the natural laws of authentic interacting of energies, radiation, and light. And how the human mind, discovering these – the interaction between the physical and metaphysical – creates higher and higher possibilities for the survival and expansion of the human species, or what other form we may take.” They also offer insights like “[t]he universe is a training center. It just depends on what we want to learn. When you pay attention, you create intention. The future will be based on knowledge and know-how and energy.” Indeed.

As for science, it “is only science when it’s on the leading edge ... Scientists are really kinda the people that prove the points. Somebody will come up with an idea or a theory, it’s not really proven yet, and then scientists will go about proving it …”, according to Stussy and Xanders. No, they don’t have the most tenuous grasp on anything. 

But science isn’t everything. The world also operates on other principles, inaccessible to science, reason or coherence: “The universe and the brain operate on the physical and metaphysical principles. Metaphysical principles are those that have always been there and always work, such as electricity. Man didn’t discover that, it was already there [?]. But it is metaphysical in the sense that it doesn’t have weight or form, but it has affect. These metaphysical insights are discovered by the metaphysical brain; some might call it the mind – we call it the BigBrain. Everybody is a BigBrain and our purpose for being in existence is to discover the metaphysical principles and have them be physically manifested.” Yeah: those are the intellectual standards here. You might think Stussy and Xanders would be in for a shock if they took a philosophy class on metaphysics at a legitimate educational institution (or an elementary school class on electricity), but we suspect they lack the cognitive capacity to even recognize their own intellectual shortcomings in such scenarios. 

Diagnosis: Complete nonsense, and the idea that people like Stussy and Xanders are allowed near people with real health problems is profoundly frightening.

Hat-tip: Rationalwiki

#2309: Christopher Earl Strunk

Birtherism might be getting old, but since the central players are unlikely to be up to anything good these days either, we think it’s worth reminding people of who they were. Christopher Earl Strunk is a guy who files a lot of lawsuits (there is an interesting list here), including suing the New York State Board of Elections and others in 2011 to prevent President Obama from appearing on the 2012 presidential ballot. Strunk apparently alleged that Obama was connected to a massive conspiracy involving hundreds of people at behest of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Jesuits. Judge Arthur Schack said of the case that “if the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code.’” Strunk was fined some $177,000 in costs and penalties for filing “a frivolous” suit and wasting the court’s time. There are some absolutely fascinating details here.

Perhaps Strunk’s most recent suit is a 2019 lawsuit challenging New York’s new abortion law. To get a sense of where it is coming from – and possibly its likelihood of winning (update: it didn’t) – you can consult the part of the suit that contains Strunk’s thoughts on how fluoride lowers IQ. 

Apart from filing lawsuits, Strunk also writes books, including Soul Envy: SCOTUS in between the I.R.S. and Antioch Ministries (apparently a deranged take on some court case, written with Ronald Dean Joling and Eric Jon Phelps, whom we have encountered before), Jesuit Social Justice versus Le droit des Gens: The Global Estate versus Nation States, and Loose Nukes: The Kursk’s Unregistered Missiles (with Phelps, one Anatoly Miranovsky and Michael Shrimpton, the former British barrister and conspiracy theorist who was convicted in 2014 for falsely reporting that Germany was planning a nuclear attack on the 2012 Summer Olympics.) In 2016 he apparently also tried to run for President. It is unclear if anyone noticed.

Diagnosis: Colorful nuisance, mostly. But it remains staggering how many of these people there are, and how many fans they’ve actually got.

#2308: Kimberlie Struiksma

Kimberlie Struiksma is a Washington-based wingnut. Now, we don’t know much else about her, but in 2009 she proposed an initiative to be voted on by referendum in that state, namely the Washington State Defense of Liberty and the Existence of a Higher Power Act. Though Struiksma has apparently heard about the First Amendment, her suggested act reveals, well, we’ll give you the text itself: “Respecting no establishment of religion, yet with respect to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, whose existence has been declared in the preamble to the Constitution of the state of Washington, the state shall make no appropriation for nor apply any public moneys or property in support of anything, specifically including but not limited to, any display, exercise, instruction, scientific endeavor, circulated document, or research project which denies or attempts to refute the existence of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.” Or, in short, though government should respect no establishment of religion, if we allow contradictions, it still could, and we could then effectively prevent religion from being criticized. The whole proposal is here. By “scientific endeavor”, Struiksma “means any act, idea, theory, intervention, conference, organization, or individual having to do with science.” In short, no university would be allowed to pay a salary to, say, any employee who criticized or questioned religion, or engaged in scientific investigations that could be used to question aspects of religion.

Diagnosis: Of course, Struiksma enjoyed little success with her proposal, and both it and her have apparently receded from view after 2009. Still.

#2307: Eliyzabeth Strong-Anderson

Eliyzabeth Yanne Strong-Anderson is a fundamentalist that managed to become something of an internet sensation when she released her self-published book BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN‼ in 2008. Selling for $150 on amazon, the 648-page book is written in all-caps, presumably since God is in Heaven and Heaven is really far away, so God has to scream really loudly for Strong-Anderson to hear him here on Earth. It is also seemingly utterly unconcerned with tense, grammar or punctuation. The first sentence, “"YES: GOD KNOWS YOU HEART AND GOD KNOWS YOUR INTENTIONS: BUT>>: THE VERY ACT AND THOUGHT OF BIRTH CONTROLING> IN A CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE: HAS ROBB GOD AND THE CHURCH OF MANY PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN: **CHILDREN RAISED IN THE LOVE OF JESUS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TRUTH AND A KEY TO FUTURE AND PROSPERITY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEAVEN. **”, really sums up the whole book. 

According to her amazon bio, Ms. Strong-Anderson is a “CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST SPEAKER: AND A CHRISTIAN HOLY BIBLE WRITER/TEACHER: CHOSEN AND CALLED BY THE HOLYSPIRIT GOD: MS. ELIYZABETH STARTED TWO CHRISTIAN CABLE TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS IN 1996: CALLED: CHRISTIAN POWER! HEALTH PROSPERITY AND SOUL!! AND > ALSO A: > TEENAGER AND KIDS TELEVISION PRODUCTION CALLED:> CHILDREN RAISED IN THE LOVE OF JESUS. *SHE ALSO STARTED A CHRISTIAN BASE MILITARY CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORES AND MALL CART BUSINESS DURING IN 1991.” Not only that, she apparently “ALSO HAS A 1ST DEGREE BLACK BELT IN TAEJUKENPO KARATE”. According to herself, her book is (apparently) written by God: “THIS IS A HOLYSPIRIT MANUSCRIPT BOOK: WHEN YOU BUY THIS BOOK YOU WILL BE READING A HOLYSPIRIT DIRECTED BOOK FROM GOD; & *CHRIST JESUS. THIS BOOK IS GODS HOLYSPIRIT VOICE:”.

To complete this entry we will just provide a few representative excerpts.  

“*THIS WOMEN: ELIYEZABETH YANSTRONG>ANDRESON IS THE WOMEN THAT IS ON TELVISISION. **SHE RECIEVE THE IMAGE FROM GOD: WHEN HE APPEARS AT HER ON HER DREAMS.>> SINCE THEN: SHE HAS: BECOME A CLEAN TEACHER COMFORTER AGAINST THE EVIL BIRTH CONTROL METHDODS AND EVIL CITY MAYORS.***THIS BOOK TEACHED ME MANY>>THINGS AND MY LIFE IS VERY SILMILAR TO HERS LIFE.”

Strong-Anderson on education and science:

“*THE TRUTH IS> MY DAUTHERS GO TO SCHOOL AND HAVE A EVIL TEACHERS:> THEY MAKE THEM DO HOMMWORK. **WHY?? BECAUSE THEY ARE TEACHING THE EVIL WORKS OF DARWIN. **BUT THE TEACHRERS ARE NOT FILL OF THE: HOLYSPIRIT. THEY DONOT KNOW THAT THE TRUE REASON DARWIN WAS MAKING THE THOERIES OF EVULULTION. **HE BELIVED THE TRYANNROSARUS RIX WALKED AT> EARTH ONE MILION YEARS AGO. **THIS IS A LYE. **TAYRENROSUARAS RAX WAS SATAN IN DISGIUSE AS A DINESAUR:>> GOD SAY THE SERPANTS WAS THE EVIL LUCIFER AND LO I AM HERE TO SAVE YOU FROM THEM. ***DARWIN WAS THE SATAN: DISCIPLE. **HE WAS ALSO RACIST. **I TOOK MY DAUTHER OUT OF THE SCHOOL BECAUSE OF THIS EVIL!! **ITS NOT THE WAY OF GOD: AND NOT: THE GOOD WAY OF EDUCATION SUCCESS!! **THE DEVIL IS JEALOUS OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE AGAIN!! **”

It even offers health advice:

“THE TRUTH OF INSULINS COMING FROM DOGS OR PIG FLUIDS: IS THE CONSPIRACY TO DEFILE THE HOLY PERSON OR A AFRICAN PERSON. **CAUSING THEM TO TAKE ON A : ABOMINATION OF A UNCLEAN ANIMAL. **THIS IS TRULY THE WITCH DOCTORS WORK. **NOT A GOOD DOCTORS WORK. **INSULIN ALSO CAUSING CRIPPLING DISEASES. **AND TRULY I KNOW IT IS BECAUSE THE INJECTION OF PIG OR DOG INSULIN IS >EVIL AND FROM THE DEVIL. *IT IS NOT OF GOD. **AND THE PEOPLE WHO STARTED DOG AND PIG INSULINS SHOULD GET BLAME FOR MANY BAD CRIPPLING DISEASES THAT DIABETICS GET.”

She does seem to have had to deal with adversity herself:

“EVRY DAY> I ASK TO GOD: WHY I WAS ATTACKED BY THE LASER GUNS WHEN I GREW UP?? **THE ORGANIZED RULER OF DARKNESS: THE EVIL CITY MAYOR: WAS KEEPING RACISM IN THE > STREETS AND IT KEEP ME FROM BEING EMPLOY FOR 10 YEARS!! **THE LASER GUNS OF LUCIFAR!! **BUT IM THE HOLYSPIRIT DISCIPEL: I STAY STRONG FOR MY DAUTHERS> SO THEY DONT GROW UP TO BE DEMONIC DISCIPPLE. **THE SWORD OF GODS MOUTH WILL CRUSH:>>>THE NONBELIVERS.”

The main theme of the book is birth control:

“*BIRTH CONTROLS STOLED THE LIFES OF >THE: FUTURE BABBIES. THERE IS NOT GOING BACK TO THE FUTURE FOR BABYS WHEN: SATAN EVIL DEEDS ARE IN THE DOMINATION. **TRULY WE MUST REMOVE THE ERROR!! **GOD SAYS IT FOR TOMORROW!!>> GENESIS 5&10.**”

And you really need this book:

“AS YOU CAN SEE WHY THIS BOOK IS IMPOTANT FOR EVERY: ONE TO READ. **TEH LORD JUSES DEMANDS ITS TO BE SO!! **OVER A ONE-HUNDRED DOLARS IS CHEAP FOR THIS AMONT OF HOLY INFNORMATON. **YOU WANT TO BE A COMPENTANT HOLYSPIRIT PRACTITIONER DONT YOU?? *GET NOW OR BURN IN HELLFUR!!**”

Diagnosis: Well, we feel just a tiny bit bad about including here, but she really wants to be heard, and she did manage to become something of an Internet sensation back in the days. 

#2306: Doug Stringer

Doug Stringer is a Texas ‘Apostle’ and (for instance) National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator for The Response, a series of “apolitical” prayer rallies that were first arranged in early Republican primary states during the run up to the 2012 presidential election – its apolitical nature underscored by featuring Rick Perry and being hosted by Bobby Jindal (there are informative reports on that particular event, and the level of deranged, fanatical lunacy it featured, here and here). The Response rallies have been arranged numerous times since then, consistently as an allegedly “apolitical” Biblical defense of wingnut politics. Stringer has taken part in and helped arrange a number of other prayer rallies as well, such as the America for Jesus prayer rally in Philadelphia.

A rather central figure on the more extreme end of the religious right, in other words, Stringer is a relentless theocrat and an unapologetic promoter of Seven Mountains dominionism, the idea that the right kind of Christians are meant to control every sphere – or “mountain” – of cultural influence: business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family, and religion. His endorsement of Perry and/or Jindal should be seen in this light, as should his endorsement (e.g.) of former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory; Stringer said to McCrory that the Bible makes clear “that all authority, kingdom’s authorities, principalities and rulerships are subject to you, but your intention to give it to the church and through the church.”

Stringer believes that America only had itself to blame for the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 because the country rejected God and His protection: “We asked God not to be in our schools, not to be in our public venues, not to be the lord of our lives any more except in image. Yet we want to blame God when things like this happen?” (no, the separation of church and state is far, far from Doug Stringer’s radar). Then he sort of blamed God: “This is not an act of judgment, it’s a wake-up call. God is longing to be in the midst of His people again.” It’s hard to imagine how Stringer thought that clarification makes anything significantly better. “The Response” prayer rallies Stringer organized for Jindal and Perry also featured prayer guides blaming Hurricane Katrina and deadly tornadoes on abortion rights and gay marriage. He has also blamed “earthquakes, floods, fires, and an escalation of natural disasters across the country and the world” on “the continued moral failures of our leaders.”

According to Stringer “there are three primary things in Scripture that are so disheartening to God that they cause Him to be ill, and they ultimately cause His presence to depart from His people: 1. Ritual or temple prostitution; 2. The shedding of innocent blood on the altar; 3. Licentiousness or moral looseness to the degree that it is ‘in your face,’ including homosexuality”. Yes, being gay is for all practical purposes equivalent to child sacrifice.

Stringer is also founder of the fundie non-profit organization Somebody Cares America.

Diagnosis: Completely insane, rabidly deranged theocrat. It is a grave concern that people like Doug Stringer wield the political power they do, but yes: Stringer does have serious political influence.

#2305: Shannon Strayhorn

The Thinking Moms’ Revolution is a website devoted to mothers who like to try their hand at what they characterize as thinking but also unfortunately lack any comprehension of what critical thinking could possibly involve (yes, it’s hard: It must be learned), how to evaluate evidence or in general many of the topics they choose to write about. The result is, of course, rampant pseudoscience, new age bullshittery and denialism – anti-vaccine views are for instance regularly promoted – and their conclusions are based not so much on thinking as on feeling their way to their own gut reaction, guided by carefully selected and framed anecdotes.

Shannon Strayhorn, for instance, is one of the “THINKERS”. She is not very good at it. (Perhaps nagging doubt is why they felt the need to put “THINKERS” in capital letters.) Instead, she tries to compensate with a large dose of self-righteousness and sense of self-importance. Strayhorn appears to consider herself as something of a modern-day, anti-vaccine Sun Tzu in her post “If You Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself …”. She fails miserably on that second part, of course, and, indeed, equally miserably on the first. When she signed up for Paul Offit’s free online course on vaccines at CHOP, for instance, Strayhorn “didn’t sign up to learn something about vaccines, as I have been studying that for years” (yes, the University of Google); she “signed up to learn about the opposition.” Yes, the result is a brilliant display of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Hat-tip: Refutations of Anti-Vaccine Memes

It wasn’t the first time Strayhorn signed up for such a course, and her previous antics in a course on vaccine clinical trials offered by Johns Hopkins University is telling: Instead of trying to learn anything, Strayhorn rather went directly to the student discussion boards to spread antivaccine misinformation and anecdotes (she has, for instance, weighed in on the so-called “CDC whistleblower” conspiracy theory with, well, conspiracy mongering (“mainstream media isn’t covering it”)). The other students were, predictably, not particularly impressed with her contributions, and it is worth quoting Strayhorn’s reaction to being rebuffed by the other students in full, since it gives such a fascinating and telling glimpse of where she is coming from: “I kindly said while I am soooooo impressed with their degrees and careers that I find it scary that someone so educated could in fact get to that point considering they couldn’t even be bothered to read the science, and couldn’t counter one little mom like myself. I asked if it was necessary to post my resume too? I was told we are just parents who are so clueless and don’t understand what the difference is between causation and correlation, that the discussion was going to be stopped because it was off topic, and that it wasn’t necessary to counter what I shared because the science was in and definite. Definitely in. Bahahaha....oh it is in....but it is clearly not showing what they want!” Yes, that’s the kind of person we are talking about. You know the kind.

According to Strayhorn, however, there is no need to learn because the issue is settled: “We don’t need to combat the same old nonsense. We have the information. We moved the goal posts. We won’t be dragged into ridiculous debates from ten years ago. There is no debate. We are not going to allow the same old tactics.” Well, they certainly moved the goal posts, but their tactics are precisely the same they were ten years ago – what Strayhorn means is of course that she is going to continue to disregard the obvious responses to her tactics and talking points provided ten years ago and ever since.

Diagnosis: Yes, a regular antivaccine troll, nothing more, but Strayhorn does her trolling with a level of self-righteousness and sense of self-importance that is truly dazzling, even for her ilk. Probably one of the best examples of Dunning-Kruger and Mount Stupid in our Encyclopedia.

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

#2304: Steve Strang

Stephen Strang is the head of the Charisma publishing empire, which, in particular, publishes Charisma magazine, a magazine aimed at Pentecostals who see American politics enveloped as just one aspect of a spiritual warfare between believers and demons. Charisma is, of course, best known for vigorously promoting more or less any deranged, paranoid wingnut conspiracy theory that comes its way and, currently, for its ardent support for President Trump. Steve Strang himself is one of the most unhinged fanatics in the US. 

For instance, Strang thinks that the level of partisan hostility in the current political climate is not really about a fight between right and left, but between a worldview based on God and “Judeo-Christian values” and an anti-God worldview with man at the center of everything; in other words, “a battle against good and evil, between light and darkness.” According to Strang the Democrats are paving the way for the Antichrist: “The battle for this nation isn’t Republican versus Democrat or black versus white; it’s a spiritual battle. Now is the time for Spirit-filled believers to rise up, intercede and vote.” He has also tried his hand at prophecy.

Politics and the “miracle” of Trump

Meanwhile, Strang has likened Christians who refuse to support President Trump to the Pharisees who attacked Jesus: “Here he was, the promised Messiah, and these are the people who practice Jewish law better than anyone else and they just had a mindset against him and couldn’t see the truth.” (To those who might harbor concerns about Trump’s moral compass – it is perhaps worth noting that Strang himself thinks that sexual assault and rape are just “nickel and dime” stuff that doesn’t matter – Strang insisted that Trump has been deeply transformed by his Christian faith, his concern with facts or evidence being about what you’d expect from him and his publications.) Strang has even written a couple of book-length paeans to Trump, including God and Donald Trump, which was heavily promoted by his magazine and which depicted Trump’s election as a miracle, citing the many visions and prophesies that charismatic Christians had about God using Trump to save America; and Trump Aftershock, which even included a section on “500 accomplishments in the first 500 days of the Trump presidency.” The purpose of the book was to “help readers to better understand the political, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the election that brought us such a complex, unpredictable, and conspicuously gifted leader,” portraying Trump as God’s instrument in His battle against the evil forces of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros (while George Soros is not the Antichrist, “it’s obvious he operates in the spirit of the Antichrist”), “fake news” from the secular media, swamp-dwellers, and the deep state. (Charisma heavily promoted Jerome Corsi’s deep state conspiracy theory book, for instance.) 

Strang has also defended Trump from accusations of tax fraud, insisting that he had been “forced” to engage in massive tax fraud because the tax laws are “so unfair.” He is also convinced that Trump is a genius. And religious (“a champion for the church” at “a time when the left is waging an attack on Christianity”). And he has no trouble with Trump’s tweeting and is not offended by anything he tweets because Trump has “cleaned up his act a lot.” Indeed, Strang has even claimed that Trump is “humble”.

As for Obama, Strang claimed, for instance in 2012, that Obama is (was) just like Adolf Hitler: “The man has an agenda” (Strang is a bit short on the details of the parallel), and it is not only Obama’s agenda: “if you don’t believe it Google the Humanist Manifesto, which was written in 1921 [it wasn’t], and also the Homosexual Manifesto, which was written in 1987 [that seems to refer to a satirical article that, perhaps ironically, satirizes bigoted wingnut paranoia], and see what these people want to do and what is happening before our very eyes. What Jim Garlow says is true, the way of life that we have is over if Barack Obama is elected again.” Strang thinks that gay rights threaten the freedoms of speech, religion and the press, and that the Obama administration gave the “homosexual agenda” the “red-carpet treatment.”

Strang on other issues

Strang’s commentaries on the ills of society are not limited to (outright) politics, however. In 2019, Charisma ran a campaign warning about the dangers of Halloween, with Strang saying that Halloween isn’t harmless fun, but “indicative of spiritual warfare” … before praising the efforts of fundies to pray “every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump, let it be broken.”

A climate change denialist (of course), Strang has suggested that climate change is the “Trojan Horse that has booted the door for the government to control everything” and just another attempt by the Democrats to advance their agenda of socialism in the US. Conspiracy theories are in his backbone. He also thought it was curious that Andrew Breitbart “attacked the Clintons and now he’s dead.”

Defending Kenneth Copeland’s comment that he needs a private jet because commercial planes are nothing more than “a long tube with a bunch of demons”, Strang claimed it was hyperbole but immediately pointed out that “there are people in those airplanes who are not spiritual,” and that “there are demonic activities” and an atmosphere of “oppression” on commercial flights that someone like Copeland simply shouldn’t have to endure as he travels the world spreading the Gospel.

Strang is also round-handed with helpful, if unsolicited, advice. He has for instance advised the black community to get over slavery and to look to the Jewish community on how to do it: “There is no concept in the Jewish community that they’re ex-slaves. They have moved on.”

Diagnosis: What kind of delusions do you have to have to be Steve Strang and genuinely believe that you are, somehow, on the good side? The belief that he, himself, has any kind of moral compass is, given what he actually believes and does, sufficient on its own to qualify him for an entry. But Strang is also an extremely powerful force on the religious right – as publisher of Charisma many fundies cannot really afford to do anything but sing his praises. Strang is, ultimately, probably something like what Donald Trump would have looked like if he were remotely religious. 

#2303: Ronda Storms

Ronda R. Storms is a former Florida State Senator (10th District) from 2006 to 2012 – she lost her comeback attempt in 2018 – and something of a legend for her deranged lunacy. Prior to serving in the Senate, Storms enjoyed an eight-year tenure on the Hillsborough County Commission (1998-2006). 

Adventures in science denial

Storms is probably most famous for her role in promoting the teaching of intelligent design creationism in public school science classrooms. In 2008, Storms introduced an academic freedom bill (co-sponsors were Stephen R. Wise and Carey Baker) modelled on the recommendations of the Discovery Institute, which would give teachers the right to teach the controversy (the bill’s sponsor in the House, Alan Hays, arranged for a private screening of the creationist promotion film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed for legislators who were to vote on the bill, just to make sure they understood the purpose). The bill underwent substantial revisions, but ended up requiring the intelligent design lesson plan “Critical Analysis of Evolution” (which does not involve critical analysis) to be taught, before ultimately dying in committee. Though she ostensibly only wished to promote critical thinking about science – according to Storms the bill was not about letting religion into classrooms but about protecting the rights of students and teachers who don’t agree with the science behind Darwinian evolution (she curiously didn’t seem care about students and teachers who don’t agree with the spherical Earth theory or the germ theory of disease) – it is worth mentioning that when a proposal to have similar protections extended to sex-education were introduced, Storms voted against them. For more background on the bill, this is useful and this one is very good.

In connection with the bill Storms claimed that she was contacted by multiple teachers who had been disciplined for speaking of alternative theories. She wasn’t able to name any, though. Indeed, according to the Department of Education, there has never been a case in Florida where a public school teacher or public school student has claimed that they have been discriminated against based on their science teaching or science course work. Storms is, in other words, more or less as honest as you’d expect a fundie in a position of power and influence to be.

Storms is also a critic of the Dewey Decimal System, primarily because libraries tend to categorize books about creation and creationism with numbers associated with “religion” rather than “science”. According to Storms the system was, therefore, “too confusing” for her.

Storms has made other efforts to favor religion, provide financial support for organizations that work to introduce faith-based initiatives in public schools, introduce school prayers and generally break down the separation between church and state, too.

Yes, there is anti-gay stuff

In 2005, Storms was responsible for introducing a bill that banned displays of books celebrating gay and lesbian pride in county libraries, and indeed for the Commission to “adopt a policy that Hillsborough County government abstain from acknowledging, promoting or participating in gay pride recognition and events” of any kind. The motion passed. Then, because conditions were favorable, she got an addendum placed upon the bill that it cannot be repealed without a super majority vote of at least 5-2 and a public hearing. (It was nevertheless repealed in 2013.) Similarly, when she led a successful effort to block a statute which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the workplace, she also managed to raise the number of votes needed from commissioners to place the issue on direct referendum to county voters from four commissioners to five.

As an opponent of gay adoption – “I don't support putting at-risk children in homes that I think are at-risk themselves” – Storms was ostensibly surprised by criticisms from the gay community, complaining that she had experienced “all sorts of threats and horrible things said and done to me” despite the (alleged) fact that “I’ve never attacked anybody’s appearance”; indeed, according to herself, she had even worked with homosexuals and “have never done anything but treat them with dignity and respect in my personal working relationship with them.” You should probably stress the part after “in”. 

Diagnosis: Industrious and zealous, and precisely as honest and reasonable as you’d expect from a deranged fundamentalist in a State Senate. Hopefully neutralized, but she was never alone in her efforts, and there are plenty of similar loons to take her place.