#2435: Dean Young

Dean Young was one of several Republican candidates running in a special election to replace Rep. Jo Bonner in Alabama’s first Congressional district in 2013, where he received some attention for his level of derangedness and hate, which was striking even for an Alabama candidate. One of the things he tried to do, was to get his fellow candidates to sign a pledge, the “Pledge to Oppose Gay Marriage”, to discriminate against gay people at all levels of society and affirm that they belonged to a church that officialle opposed marriage equality. Young claimed that a pledge like this was necessary because same-sex marriage is “a corruption which seeks to destroy the concept of the family” and there should be no place in his party for candidates who support “homosexuals pretending like they’re married.” 

Young tried to emphasize that he isn’t “anti-gay” and that his proposed pledge was rather morivated by solid moral and historical principles. After all, “[w]e’re very close to being at the end of our nation. If we don’t support the godly principles that made this nation great, then we’re going to lose this nation,” said Young. He had previously told any Alabama gay people to go back to California or Vermont or “wherever they came from” (yes, they’re all immigrants as well, who has no business in Alabama) and claimed that advocating against homosexuality was “no different than speaking against murder and other crimes.”

 

In his 2012 primary challenge to Bonner (which he lost), Young – who also pledged to introduce articles of impeachment against Obama – received more than 24% of the vote, as well as an endorsement from Roy Moore, which is something normal people would try their desperate best to hide. Instead, Young emerged as Moore’s own campaign strategist for Moore’s 2017 bid for Senate, where he once again argued that the Supreme Court decision that allow gay couples “to pretend to be married” was the worst ruling in American history – officially after Dred Scott, but probably in Young’s mind really the worst, we suspect. As Moore’s campaign strategist, Young continued to warn about how same-sex marriage would lead to the end of the nation and how, if Moore lost, “they’re going to come after your pastors, they’re going to come after your businesses.”

 

Oh, and Young is also a birther, having called President Obama’s country of origin “the $64,000 question.”

 

Diagnosis: Yet another deranged moron running for a position of power, and, like Moore, he turned out to be too deranged, hateful and incompetent even for Alabama – not that he didn’t receive quite a bit of support, though. We may not have seen the last of him.

#2434: Ted Yoho

Theodore Scott Yoho was the U.S. Representative from Florida’s 3rd congressional district from 2013 until his term limit in 2020 (his views on taxes and national debt is a likely reason he kept getting reelected).

Though it is unlikely that he himself actually bought into birther conspiracy theories, he has certainly promoted them, including backing legislation that would support a formal investigation into the matter and saying that he hoped the investigation would bring down the government: “They said if it is true, it’s illegal, he shouldn’t be there and we can get rid of everything he’s [Obama’s] done, and I said I agree with that.” One example of things that could be undone is, of course, Obamacare, which Yoho has denounced as “racist” because it taxes tanning beds, which means that if Yoho goes tanning he will be “disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin.” His concern over racism is charming indeed. Yoho also believes that the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional. He has also promoted the Bilderberg conspiracy theory.

 

Expressing skepticism about immigration reform, Yoho – who likes to present himself as some kind of anti-immigrant superhero – claimed that he believes the Hezbollah is smuggling potential terrorists over the Mexican border: “I talked to a guy that works with Hezbollah, they call him the 007 of Hezbollah, they call him and find out he’s brought over 1,500 people here illegally that don’t like us, they want to blow us up,” said Yoho. He didn’t name sources. As for foreign policy, Yoho has argued that we need God on our side in the fight against ISIS; after all, they have their God on their side, so we need a bigger and stronger one; and we certainly need to stop “taking God out of this country”. 

 

Yoho is opposed to same-sex marriage, ostensibly because marriage is “ordained by God” and shouldn’t be “redefined”. He has consistently voted against anything resembling LGBT rights. Indeed, he has claimed that gay marriage is a distraction pushed by Democrats to deflect attention away from the country’s larger problems. Instead of gay marriage, we should apparently focus on the War on Christmas.

 

And Yoho is, unsurprisingly, a climate change denialist. Though he admits that he’s “not smart enough” to determine the roots of climate change (true), he can nevertheless rule out the possibility that humans are largely responsible because phenomena like droughts are “a natural occurrence” and because climate science is “an agenda-driven science” that’s “not right.”

 

Diagnosis: In many ways your standard crazy-uncle-at-Thanksgiving wingnut figure, and as wingnuts in general, Yoho is heavily pushing conspiracy theories across the board. Congress has plenty of these, but that doesn’t – needless to say – make it any less frightening.

#2433: Charmaine Yoest

Charmaine Yoest is a writer, political commentator, former president and CEO of the anti-abortion group the Americans United for Life, and a policy analyst and later vice president of the fundamentalist hate group the Family Research Council, as well as senior fellow at Gary Bauer’s organization American Values, a prominent figure in the Council for National Policy and vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Family, Community. In April 2017, she was also selected by Trump to serve in the United States Department of Health and Human Services as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs. She is a major figure, in other words. She is the daughter of Janice Shaw Crouse. 

Yoest’s official position is that the role of government is to “get out of the way” of families, except for families that aren’t organized the way Yoest thinks they should be or do things she doesn’t fancy, such as single parents or gay couples (Yoest is of course a firm opponent of same-sex marriage and “homosexualist activism”), in which case the government should definitely interfere and break them up.

Yoest is perhaps best known, however, as a fervent and frenetic defender of the thoroughly debunked claim that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. Indeed, as head of Americans United for Life Yoest helped develop the strategy for a Texas statute that would put up multiple obstacles to abortion services, precisely in the guise of protections for women’s health, a statute that was promptly struck down by the Supreme Court due to the fact that it relied on patently false claims. Of course, Yoest is often reminded that there is a vast scientific literature, and enormous amounts of data, showing that her proposed link simply isn’t there, but any data that goes against what Yoest already believes can be swiftly dismissed, given that the scientific establishment “is under the control of the abortion lobby.” You’ll look in vain for details about what lobby she could possibly be talking about or explanation of how they control or conceivably could control the scientific establishment. 

She is almost as vigorously opposed to contraception as she is to abortion, and does not hesitate to lie to (attempt to) bolster her case (nor does she hesitate to pretend to be shocked and outraged and cry “oppression” when attention is drawn to the dishonest tactics she and her organizations use to pressure politicians and organizations to do what she wants – calling it “lack of self-awareness” is far, far too charitable). She has claimed for instance that condoms do not protect against HIV or other sexually transmitted infections (it does), and asserted that contraception does not reduce the number of abortions, saying that to accept this argument “would be, frankly, carrying water for the other side to allow them to re-define the issue in that way”. 

Of course, abortion opponents like Yoest see enemies everywhere. The media, for instance – in 2013 Americans United for Life was part of a “March on the Media” to protest perceived pro-choice bias in the media. As an example, Yoest claimed that the media displayed a pro-choice bias in its coverage of Kate Middleton’s pregnancy, because they referred to the future prince as “the royal baby” rather than “the royal fetus.” It’s downright nefarious, but luckily Yoest is paranoid enough to connect the dots and see the patterns. A similar threat is courts coming to decisions she doesn’t like, something that she, like many wingnuts, calls “judicial activism” and interprets as a personal attack. 

Yoest is apparently willing to engage in whatever levels of whataboutism it takes to defend Trump. For instance, with regard to the “grab them by the pussy” comment, Yoest said that although she didn’t appreciate Trump’s comments, liberals are being hypocrites for criticizing Trump and not “Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who have lyrics that are replete with this kind of vulgarity.” Yes, she actually thought that what people reacted to was the use of naughty words, and that itself is pretty telling.

There are decent Charmaine Yoest resources here and here.

Diagnosis: Hateful, delusional and fundamentally intellectually bankrupt Taliban-style (and even more obviously: Gilead-style) fundie. Yoest, however, is also something of a star on the religious right, and her amount of influence and power is frightening, especially given the boost she got as a result of president Trump’s need to appeal to the religious right.

#2432: Chao Hsing Yeh

“Tooth fairy science” is a term coined by Harriet Hall to denote clinical trials and studies done on the properties of a phenomenon before it has been established that the phenomenon exists. Of course, the results of such studies are really pure noise, but with a bit of ingenuity and lots of bias and p-hacking, you may still be able to produce outcomes that look like they are statistically significant. Many alternative therapies, and in particular TCM and acupuncture, are subject to massive amounts of tooth fairy science. 

 

Chao Hsing Yeh may certainly look like a real scientist affiliated with Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and she does ostensibly have training in science. But Yeh is also a significant promoter of pseudoscience, especially auricular point acupuncture (APA), and she buys into all the prescientific, vitalistic nonsense associated with it: Apparently, APA is “based on a concept called the meridian theory. It proposes that how you feel is governed by the flow of energy, or qi, through a network of invisible pathways that connect different organs in the body. Specific points on the ear correspond to specific areas of the brain, and these areas have a reflex connection with specific parts of the body. Stimulating the ear points can signal the brain to prompt reactions in the body to relieve symptoms, such as breast cancer-related pain.” This is pseudotheological gibberish, of course, and neither meridians nor qi have the remotest connection to reality. Nevertheless, Yeh “can always find a point on the ear to deliver treatment” if she tries, and did you know that the magic apparently works in part because the ear represents an “inverted fetus”?

 

Her 2015 study on APA in breast cancer patients, sadly funded by the American Cancer Society, is anyways a splendid example of tooth fairy science. It is discussed here. And yes, most of the typical trappings of tooth fairy science is there: a tiny sample, vaguely defined protocols (apparently the auricular points are not defined but vary with the whims of the patients and practitioners), an obscure methods sections, and, not the least, there is no evidence of blinding. And that should really tell you everything you need to know, since blinding would be really, really easy to do, and you are really allowed to wonder why the researchers dropped it. And to clinch it: in the results section, Yeh provides percentages supposed to show that the patients who received “genuine” APA experienced improvement, measured in percentages, whereas the control group experienced “moderate improvement” – no, we don’t actually get the specific figures. You can, however, derive them from some complex charts. As expected, it turns out that most of the differences were not statistically significant; a few were borderline significant, but with 18 different measures examined, apparently without corrections being made for multiple comparisons, you have a prime case of p-hacking. In short: this is a negative result. The study provides significant evidence that APA doesn’t work. This is not how Yeh spins the results.

 

Diagnosis: Not a wild-eyed New Age conspiracy theorist with a homepage and a youtube channel, perhaps, but given her academic affiliations the nonsense pseudoscience pushed by Yeh is all the more disturbing – and nonsensical pseudoscience it is, even if Yeh is able to describe it using scientific terms and something that only superficially looks like real studies.

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

#2431: Matt Wykoff

Matt Wykoff is an internet crank and Catholic extremist who sends emails to people he disagrees with demanding that they shut down their blogs and websites or suffer the wrath of the One True Church. According to Wykoff “[h]eliocentrism is a myth” – even an “evolutionist myth” (no, he doesn’t have a clue: What did you expect?) – and “[s]cience disproved heliocentricism centuries ago and decades ago and continues to do”, whatever that means. Of course, by “science” Wykoff doesn’t mean science: It is, in fact, very unclear what Wykoff means by “science”, given that he refers to all real scientists in quotation marks (sometimes) or as “the pagans” (usually). General relativity, too, is a myth: it says a lot of silly things that “are totally unproven too”; moreover, general relativity is “just a theory”: “That’s why it’s still called the ‘theory’ of general relativity because none of this has been proven. It has been debunked.” Furthermore, science is always changing and thus clearly inferior to Wykoff’s own mind, which is locked in deranged fundie-mode and completely impervious to evidence, reality or reason. If you wish to look at the absolutely abysmally deranged details, you can do so here. This is Time Cube territory. (Remember Time Cube?)

 

What if you, upon Wykoff issuing his demands, fail to close your blog or website? Well, here is his response to noncompliance: “I hereby declare- your organization to be – – an unlawful assembly. I order all those assembled to immediately disperse. I repeat- to immediately disperse. I order all your activity to immediately cease. I repeat-to immediately cease. It is not in accord with the ordinances of Canon Law [… lots of blather …] you are therefore ordered to discontinue your illegal profession. Failure to do so will result in proactive, responsive, and co-active measures [… more blather …] You may be arrested and or subject to other police action. It has so been declared: It is declared that all non-Catholic government exists in a state of in authenticity. It is thenceforth declared that all modern constitutional states lack canonical legitimacy. It has therefore been thenceforth declared that their existence is an offense to the Divine Majesty and a crime against humanity. The aforesaid Freemasonic corporations are hereby declared anachronical to true human progress. It is decided in order for modern constitutional states to gain authenticity they must recognize the Supreme Jurisdiction of the Papacy and all Papal Dogmas.” You will also risk smiting by God and be burned and so on. Also, “[l]ibertarianism (and the constitution) are simply tyrannical failures and instruments that lead to false flag attacks and government-run pedophilia through their Manual (and Visual) Body-Cavity Searches of Juvenile Hall youth. A Catholic Monarchy simply is the answer to today’s varied and many problems.” So, ok, it’s starting to go downhill from an already impossibly low position. If you have a perverse wish to see how far down Wykoff is prepared to go, here is your chance: “The united states is a kosher certified and privately owned judeophile corporation. It is the Whore of Babylon …” is just the start of one of the most fascinatingly incoherent anti-semitic, birtherist, anti-gay stream-of-consciousness tirades ever to grace the Internet (a high bar).

 

Here is his irrefutable proof of God and proof that all of science is bunk. A central component is apparently the Shroud of Turin, which “proves that the Majesty and Ineffeble works of God are awe inspiring. There is 3 dimensional information on a 2 dimensional object. This is physically impossible, and is therefore a miracle on the Holy Shroud.” Well, then.

 

Diagnosis: So it may be a bit mean to include someone like Mike Wykoff in our Encyclopedia, but he really tries his hardest to put himself out there – utterly feebly incompetent attempts, of course, but still.

#2430: Ryan Wyatt

No, we really cannot be bothered to write up an entry on Samuel “Joe the plumber” Wurzelbacher (who is not a plumber and whose name is not “Joe”), despite the profound stupidity, nonsense and many ridiculous conspiracy theories he’s been known to be pushing. 

 

Ryan Wyatt is at least not quite as boring. Wyatt is pastor of Abiding Glory Church, a staunch dominionist, and a proponent of what he calls “Governmental Dominion.” During a Spiritual Warfare conference at Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries, Wyatt explained the position, calling on his followers to “infiltrate” the “seven mountains” of influence, especially the government mountain, in order to attain “preparatory dominion” for the return of Jesus. Jesus won’t come back, said Wyatt, until God sees that there is a “mature, overcoming bride” who is “operating at the same level” as Jesus (yes, you are allowed to speculate wildly about other aspects of Wyatt’s work and personal life on the basis of his choice of metaphor). When there is such a bride, however, not only will Jesus return, but Christians “will work with Jesus to rule and reign.” In Wyatt’s dreams, “we are to rule, reign, govern, expand, advance and establish the government of God on the earth” since “this is about world domination.” 

 

He has apparently also written a book, School of the Supernatural: Live the Supernatural Life That God Created You to Live. It does not, contrary to what the title suggest, seem to be a New Age-inspired kids show on the Cartoon Network. Otherwise, Wyatt occasionally goes into trances (“[a] trance is like a Holy Ghost anesthesia”) to receive commands and prophecies.

Diagnosis: It is, admittedly, difficult to separate the literal from the metaphorical when people like this are talking, but there is little doubt that Wyatt is a firm dominionist and a representative of the belligerent arm of the American Taliban. Not a central figure, perhaps, but worth watching.

#2429: Jack Wu

Jack Wu is a computer programmer, religious fundamentalist and young-earth creationist, and a 2012 candidate for the Kansas Board of Education. Wu’s stated reason for running was that Kansas is “perverse” and that public schools were preparing students to be “liars, crooks, thieves, murderers, and perverts.” Part of the means for achieving those outcomes, according to Wu, is the fact that schools teach evolution. Opposition to teaching evolution was accordingly the centerpiece of Wu’s campaign. According to Wu, evolution is “Satanic lies”. In his own words: “My mission, in running for the Kansas State Board of Education, is to throw out the crap that teachers are feeding their students and replace it with healthy good for the soul knowledge from the holy scriptures. Let’s be specific. Evolution should never be taught in public schools as science. Evolution is false science! God made the heaven and the earth and created humans from the dust of the earth! The very bad teachers that teach that men descended from apes via evolution need to have their teaching licenses revoked. Yes, students should be taught that God created everything.” Removing the teaching of evolution from the schools can ostensibly be defended on secular grounds, too: “Evolution is like a deadly and vile disease, so it would be a cost-saving measure to get rid of the disease spreaders.” (Do notice that Wu talks about getting rid of the disease spreaders, not just the disease.)

 

Even though this is Kansas, Wu didn’t win. An important reason for that was probably Wu’s affiliation with Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church, which is internationally famous for picketing funerals with deranged anti-gay slogans and proclaiming that American soldiers’ deaths are God’s punishment for the tolerance of homosexuality in the US – Wu apparently attended such picketings, even listing it as his “community involvement” experience in the voter’s guide. Indeed, Wu moved to Kansas from California precisely to attend the church.

 

During his campaign, Wu also asserted that Topeka is evil, that Harry Potter promotes witchcraft, that Christmas trees are pagan idols, and that cancer is a judgment from God. Wu also lambasted then-governor Sam Brownback for being “a vile Catholic”, and showed himself to be proudly stupid and inept in general.

 

Apparently, Wu was too extreme even for creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research.

 

Diagnosis: A genuine, wannabe comic book villain. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the rest of us, he is as feeble, inept and incompetent as he is vile and wicked.