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Strike that pose, please, Madonna. (Image via Sire & Instagram)

Obviously, I'm a huge Madonna fan. Hold your fat jokes.

I've written two books about her and blog about her often. She means a lot to me as an artist and as a pop cultural touchstone, as a figure who has been with me on most of my life's journey, from 1983 (when I first heard “Holiday” on my family's car radio on my way back from a D&D session) until now.

That said, and even though I may like more things about Madonna than some (too many people have bashed her for things that say more about themselves than about Madonna; she is right to feel unfairly singled out at times), I've also been a critic. I guess I would say I stan with eyes wide open — I defend her when she's dismissed for not acting her age (because acting one's age is social construct that has aged far worse than Madonna), I support her new music (it's fucking good, especially when you accept it for what it is — new work from an artist in the game for almost 40 years, whose most comparable peers aren't even still alive), and I deflect ad hominem attacks more interested in dragging her for indulging in cosmetic enhancements or for being an unabashed leftist or for being a white woman of great privilege who, to be sure, is sometimes in need of light spanking on such topics as how the world works vs. how the world has miraculously worked for her.

So fans of my writing about Madonna know that I have taken her to task when necessary, even as I have tried to see to it that she is taken to task in proportion. When she commits a minor faux pas, she does not need to be burned at the stake, and when she creates work that is challenging and even offputting, that is sometimes the point, meaning she doesn't deserve to be opportunistically slammed for it at all, simply either enjoyed or ignored.

Yesterday, though, Madonna did something truly extraordinarily stupid and wrong, something that repulses me, and that deeply wounds my ability to enthusiastically cheer her on in general, when she shared a widely discredited video starring quack Dr. Stella Immanuel saying that masks are not needed during COVID-19, that the virus has been cured by hydroxychloroquine and other lies.

Immanuel — who runs her deeply homophobic and religion-based pediatrics practice from a Houston strip mall — says in the video:

Trump and his not-ready-for-hydroxychorline players (Images via video still)

Overnight, Trump went on a tweeting rampage, and — most troubling — he retweeted and endorsed the conspiracy theories of quack Dr. Simone Gold, who believes all you need to treat COVID-19 are hydroxychloroquine, zinc and Zithromax. Her methodology has been totally discredited, but it suits Trump to embrace her so he can claim that the COVID-19 disaster is being enhanced artificially to hurt him in November.

Via Newsweek on hydroxychloroquine:

There is mixed evidence about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 and studies are ongoing. Most have so far shown it offers little or no benefit, though some suggest it could be beneficial if used early and in certain circumstances. Concerns have also been raised over hydroxychloroquine's safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Hardly a ringing endorsement, and hardly the type of drug a sitting POTUS should (1) endorse or (2) use as a political tool

Right on time, a misspelled hashtag for hydroxychloroquine trended on Twitter — and by right on time, I mean 9 a.m. Russian time.

Oh look, #hydrochloroquineWorks is trending and all the posts are from exactly 4 hours ago.

4 hours ago in USA = 1am
4 hours ago in Russia = 9am

— Morgan Freeman Narrates (@MorganNarrates) July 28, 2020

These crazed doctors have formed a propaganda group, dubbing themselves America's Frontline Doctors, and the poison they're pushing is so out of the mainstream that Twitter and Facebook have stripped much of it from their platforms; Donald Trump Jr. has been partially banned on Twitter for sharing the disinformation, and it was even stripped from Trump's feed.

One of the doctors Trump is retweeting is Houston-based Dr. Stella Immanuel, who is an anti-masker and pediatrician and, um, minister who believes:

√ alien DNA is currently used in medicines

√ any upcoming COVID-19 vaccine is meant to make people irreligious

√ via Daily Beast: common ailments like cysts and impotence are due to sex with spirit husbands and wives and demon sperm

√ reptiles are partly running the U.S. government

Frighteningly, this clearly insane woman — who runs her so-called medical practice from a strip mall — racked up over 10 million views of her quackery, and has been embraced by the leader of the free world as an expert.

Nice A (Image by Blake Yelavich for Walking Jack)

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