DECEMBER 2022 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Kanye West. Professional conspiracy promoter Alex Jones invited Kanye West onto his show today, one week after the rapper and anti-Semite, West arranged a Mir-a-Lago dinner meeting with Donald Trump that included notorious white nationalist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. That meeting roiled the Republican Party, as there are few names more synonymous with America's antisemitic far right than Fuentes. Meanwhile. Fuentes and others on the far right were giddy with their propaganda victory.

Jones presumably invited West and Fuentes onto his show as a bit of self-promotion. It immediately collapsed into antisemitic rants, praise for Adolf Hitler, and praise for Hitler's Nazi Party.

West claimed at one point that "300 Zionists" are in control of the media and the government, speculated on pedophilia and the Talmud, and ranted bafflingly about Israeli political figure Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was his repeated and explicit praise for Hitler and Hitler's Nazi movement that gained the most attention. "I see good things about Hitler also," West said, … We have to stop dissing the Nazis all the time." …"The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world."

West has also said:

"I don't like the word evil next to Nazis. [...] I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis."

"Woke culture is controlled by the Zionist media."

The sickest thing about West’s comments is that they accurately represent prevailing sentiment in the far right.

NOVEMBER 2022 IGNOMINIOUS ABUSRDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Ohio State Rep Bill Dean. According to Dean, there is “No great risk of dying from pregnancy.” People really need to stick to speaking about their expertise, and in some cases, not speak at all. Republicans across the country are speaking loudly and wrongly about reproductive health and, in at least one case, even body-shaming everyone who opposes the right wing’s ideas about bodily autonomy while doing so.

Dean doubled down on recent comments, calling rising U.S. maternal mortality rates a “myth” by blaming high maternal mortality on “lifestyle choices to do with abortions and weight.”

“I’m not a physician,” Dean began and should have stopped. “But,” he continued, “I would imagine, a lot of times, it’s the lifestyle of the lady that’s having the pregnancy,” he told the Dayton Daily News. “We also have the most obese people in the whole world. It’s just individual cases.”

The comments follow earlier ones in which Dean told the Dayton Daily News that “there’s no great risk of dying from pregnancy,” adding that ectopic pregnancy “doesn’t count.” Ectopic pregnancies, which account for about 2% of pregnancies, are the leading cause of maternal mortality during the first trimester. They occur when the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. While Dean believes there’s no death risk associated with pregnancy, the reality is the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy nations.

What's worse is that 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable. According to the CDC, these deaths are a result of high costs and limited access available to health care. Race plays a role in access to health care and disparities—Black people are three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts, and American Indian maternal mortality is also “disproportionately high” compared to their share of the population.

The stats are horrific, and the fact that a public official currently tasked with legislating the parameters of medical decisions is ignorant of them is even worse.

When asked by the Dayton Daily News about his stances on abortion last week, Dean defended them and said: “Pregnancy is a natural thing that women are made for. That’s the way God made them.”

He added: “The myth is that it is dangerous; it’s no more dangerous than living every day.”

Clearly, Dean has no idea what he’s talking about, I mean, he even admitted that he’s not a physician. So essentially, Dean believes that while there is no risk associated with pregnancy, the mortality rate of pregnant people is due to lifestyle choices and obesity.

While obesity does often impact health, there is no correlation between obesity and maternal mortality rates. Dean, who is no expert on the matter, is clearly making such claims to distract from the problem at hand and his lack of knowledge on the topic.

Dean also claimed that a majority of abortions are done for convenience, a claim his competitor, Democratic Ohio Statehouse candidate Jim Duffee, who is a doctor, pushed back against.

“Late trimester gestational abortions are almost never by convenience,” Duffee said. “They’re almost always related to life-threatening conditions for the mother or the baby, or severe chromosomal and genetic malformation that places mother and baby in danger.”

Would the general public approval of a woman’s right to choose, and understanding of health risks in pregnancy, turn the tide in Dean’s reelection bid against Duffie? Nah! Not in his red Ohio district. Duffie got swamped.