Pandemic threat? Anyone else concerned?
- Thread starter erkme73
- Start date
mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
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Indeed good point about the union skewing the data.
I'd check with the respective State health department and ask if they have open data on covid-19 and see what the data fields are.
Hopefully there is a work related field.
Epannyes
n3wb
Oceanslider
Known around here
Last edited:
They believe that this is just a 'Brushing scam' to boast vendors ratings by providing fake reviews.
Frankenscript
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beepsilver
Getting comfortable
Frankenscript
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Well, they are a bunch of nutbags to start with.
For example:
"One woman featured in the video, identified as Dr. Stella Immanuel, is a Houston-based physician and founder of the Fire Power Ministries church. On her website and in sermons posted on YouTube, Immanuel has made strange medical claims, including that sex with "tormenting spirits" are is responsible for gynecological problems, miscarriages, and impotence.
"Many women," she claimed in a sermon, "suffer from astral sex regularly. Astral sex is the ability to project one's spirit man into the victim's body and have intercourse with it."
According to the Texas Medical Board database, Immanuel received her medical degree from a university in Nigeria in 1990 and practices medicine at a clinic in Houston. On her Facebook page, Immanuel says she was born in Cameroon and describes herself as "God's battle axe and weapon of war."" (source)
Not somebody I'm going to listen to instead of Drs. Fauci, Birx, or Adams.
Also they are way overplaying the HQ card (it may have some benefit, sure, in some cases, but nothing like they are claiming). They are also latching on to the mask resistance idea, while masks are shown to be one of the most universally effective ways to combat the disease as shown and proven all over the world.
Here's a good FactCheck.org article on the video:
In Viral Video, Doctor Falsely Touts Hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 'Cure' - FactCheck.org
A widely shared video, featuring a doctor falsely claiming hydroxychloroquine is a “cure” for COVID-19, ignited an online storm that resulted in the video being pulled by social media platforms. There is no known cure for COVID-19, and current scientific evidence hasn't found that...
www.factcheck.org
Look, I know a lot of "front line doctors" (no capitalization, I am referring to real doctors mostly in the US but some outside the US, including democrats, republicans, and others from more sane countries) and none of them promote HQ for COVID-19. They are all open to evidence showing how/when it would work but the signals are small and usually from dubious sources. Even the Ford study recently made clear that the data didn't control for steroid use, and steroids are one of the biggest things in managing the disease right now. That study was the most bona-fide thing out there.
This is a fringe group seeking attention, and they got it. It peddles misinformation masquerading behind a veneer of respectability by the degrees some of the participants have. But dig into it, and it stinks.
Frankenscript
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Oh, here's another good reference from relatively conservative source The Hill:
thehill.com
OK, I'm out for a while. Busy work day.
Doctor retweeted by Trump has warned of alien DNA, sex with demons
A Houston doctor who made false statements about the coronavirus in a video that was removed from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube this week has previously made other unfounded claims about …
thehill.com
OK, I'm out for a while. Busy work day.
Oceanslider
Known around here
REPORT: New York City Spent $52 Million on Temporary Hospital that Treated 79 Coronavirus Patients
I wonder how many contractor friends of the NYC Democrat leadership got some sweet over inflated contracts setting up and taking down this temporary hospital
I wonder how many contractor friends of the NYC Democrat leadership got some sweet over inflated contracts setting up and taking down this temporary hospital
Oceanslider
Known around here
Oceanslider
Known around here
Ok, I admit it, this is totally beyond my comprehension. Why would any sane person think this is right?
A seemingly obscure Capitol Hill press conference by a fringe group of self-proclaimed medical experts quickly became on Monday the most widely seen propaganda video about the coronavirus after Breitbart News livestreamed it on Facebook. The post racked up tens of millions of views across social media in a matter of hours, far surpassing the traffic of the infamous “Plandemic” disinformation video. It grabbed the attention of President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr., who had his Twitter account partially suspended for sharing a link to the video.
The video featured a string of right-wing talking points that criticized lockdown measures, demonized public health officials, called for schools to reopen and urged Americans not to wear face masks. The speakers, who were all portrayed as doctors, often declared hydroxychloroquine a “cure” for COVID-19. (No legitimate medical organizations have recognized any “cure” for COVID-19, and multiple clinical trials have shown hydroxychloroquine is not beneficial in treating the virus.)
One of the main characters in the clip was a religious minister and pediatrician who has previously warned against having sex with demons — so at first glance, it would be easy to characterize the video as just another random conspiracy crank finding a massive audience thanks to Facebook.
But in fact, a conservative dark-money group was behind the press event that created this viral propaganda moment. The group featured in the video, “America’s Frontline Doctors,” sprang from nowhere only days ago and appears connected to groups involved in the Save Our Country Coalition, which was a driving force behind the “reopen” protests in April that lobbied for America’s rapid reopening, even as death tolls spike in hot spots across the country.
As Donald Trump’s reelection prospects dwindle amid his administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic, right-wing politicians and media figures have aggressively downplayed the threat of the virus and echoed Trump’s disproven claims about the efficacy of hydroxychloriquine, an anti-malarial drug. This week’s episode, bolstered by Republican operatives, recklessly amplified by social media giants and promoted by the president himself, is a flashing warning about their ability to disseminate dangerous propaganda quickly and widely.
The Save Our Country Coalition
Monday’s livestreamed event featuring the America’s Frontline Doctors group was organized by Tea Party Patriots, a wealthy Republican donor-backed nonprofit that, in partnership with FreedomWorks and other right-wing dark money groups, launched the Save Our Country Coalition in April to push for America’s rapid reopening. Jenny Beth Martin, TPP’s co-founder, spoke at the conference alongside the self-proclaimed frontline doctors, urging people to call their elected officials to demand access to hydroxychloroquine.
Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, has been a go-to source for Fox News on the so-called dangers of strict coronavirus measures and has spoken at several reopen rallies.
It’s not clear to what extent the Save Our Country Coalition was behind Monday’s press event; the America’s Frontline Doctors website discloses no affiliation to any other group, nor does it proclaim itself a 501(c) nonprofit.
But Tea Party Patriots is clearly involved in both efforts, and the Monday press conference was directly in line with SOC’s push to downplay the pandemic. FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One of the people spearheading SOC’s efforts is GOP operative and Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore, who last year withdrew from consideration for a job with the Federal Reserve and joined a group of entrepreneurs seeking to create a cryptocurrency central bank.
Moore had encouraged lockdown protests earlier this year, stating on a conservative YouTube program in mid-April that he heard from a “big donor in Wisconsin” who would pay the legal fees for anyone who gets arrested for rallying against stay-at-home orders at the State Capitol.
SOC’s honorary chairman is conservative economist Arthur Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to last year. Laffer has also mentored Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, reported Reuters.
The coalition’s groups have largely been funded by prominent billionaires, including oil and gas mogul Charles Koch ― who has donated to SOC group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ― and Richard Uihlein, a major donor to Tea Party Patriots. Uihlein also backed Roy Moore during his Senate run in Alabama even after he was accused of sexually assaulting underage girls.
Former ALEC staffer Jerry Taylor, a co-founder of the nonpartisan Niskanen Center, condemned SOC’s efforts to undermine leading public health officials last month.
“The political actors involved with these groups are united both in their hostility to mainstream science — which they consider a conspiratorial leftist plot to destroy free market capitalism — and their superficial understanding of economics,” Taylor told The Guardian. “Fully reopening the economy will not produce an economic recovery until the coronavirus is contained and can stay contained.”
A Strange Group Of Doctors
Many of the members of America’s Frontline Doctors have promoted fringe views that go against overwhelming medical evidence. The group includes a pro-Trump physician who has appeared on Fox News advocating against lockdowns and an evangelical Christian minister who has promoted bizarre claims about DNA from space aliens being used in medical treatment. Dr. Stella Immmanuel, a minister who operates a tiny walk-in medical clinic out of a strip mall in Texas, falsely claimed there was a “cure” for COVID-19 and suggested that people did not need to wear masks.
Immanuel is the author of several books which contain homophobic and extreme views, as well as writing that the “Harry Potter” series makes society “accept demonic activity and witchcraft as normal” and that “demonic music has penetrated the souls of our children and programmed them with an anti-Christ message.”
It is unclear how the group came together, but several have become popular in conservative circles for promoting views that align with Trump’s rhetoric on the pandemic.
Gold includes some vague details about her background in a bio on her website, which states that she “worked in Washington D.C. for the Surgeon General, as well as for the Chairman of the Labor & Human Resources Committee.”
But a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the Office of the Surgeon General, could not confirm that Gold worked in the office.
According to her LinkedIn page, Gold briefly served as a congressional fellow in 1997, in which she participated in “research and analysis of health policy issues” and wrote speeches for Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Republican chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at the time.
Gold did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine
Far-right website Breitbart News posted the video to Facebook on Monday, triggering its viral spread across other social media sites.
A cycle of right-wing actors spreading misinformation, then playing the role of free speech martyr, was in full effect on Tuesday morning, as multiple pro-Trump media outlets and activists promoted the video’s claims and condemned its removal. Far-right One America News Network pundits, right-wing website PragerU, prominent conservative radio host Mark Levin, Trump endorsers Diamond and Silk, Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell and other conservative influencers all tweeted about the video. At least 10 Republican congressional candidates and local GOP Facebook pages also shared it, according to an analysis by First Draft, an organization that monitors misinformation.
By early Tuesday, the president and his eldest son also shared now-deleted clips on Twitter, where the video trended.
The video’s rapid growth reflected the speed at which misinformation can travel when powerful far-right media outlets and politicians amplify it, as well as the glaring inadequacies of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to stop the spread before it reaches mass audiences.
A seemingly obscure Capitol Hill press conference by a fringe group of self-proclaimed medical experts quickly became on Monday the most widely seen propaganda video about the coronavirus after Breitbart News livestreamed it on Facebook. The post racked up tens of millions of views across social media in a matter of hours, far surpassing the traffic of the infamous “Plandemic” disinformation video. It grabbed the attention of President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr., who had his Twitter account partially suspended for sharing a link to the video.
The video featured a string of right-wing talking points that criticized lockdown measures, demonized public health officials, called for schools to reopen and urged Americans not to wear face masks. The speakers, who were all portrayed as doctors, often declared hydroxychloroquine a “cure” for COVID-19. (No legitimate medical organizations have recognized any “cure” for COVID-19, and multiple clinical trials have shown hydroxychloroquine is not beneficial in treating the virus.)
One of the main characters in the clip was a religious minister and pediatrician who has previously warned against having sex with demons — so at first glance, it would be easy to characterize the video as just another random conspiracy crank finding a massive audience thanks to Facebook.
But in fact, a conservative dark-money group was behind the press event that created this viral propaganda moment. The group featured in the video, “America’s Frontline Doctors,” sprang from nowhere only days ago and appears connected to groups involved in the Save Our Country Coalition, which was a driving force behind the “reopen” protests in April that lobbied for America’s rapid reopening, even as death tolls spike in hot spots across the country.
As Donald Trump’s reelection prospects dwindle amid his administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic, right-wing politicians and media figures have aggressively downplayed the threat of the virus and echoed Trump’s disproven claims about the efficacy of hydroxychloriquine, an anti-malarial drug. This week’s episode, bolstered by Republican operatives, recklessly amplified by social media giants and promoted by the president himself, is a flashing warning about their ability to disseminate dangerous propaganda quickly and widely.
The Save Our Country Coalition
Monday’s livestreamed event featuring the America’s Frontline Doctors group was organized by Tea Party Patriots, a wealthy Republican donor-backed nonprofit that, in partnership with FreedomWorks and other right-wing dark money groups, launched the Save Our Country Coalition in April to push for America’s rapid reopening. Jenny Beth Martin, TPP’s co-founder, spoke at the conference alongside the self-proclaimed frontline doctors, urging people to call their elected officials to demand access to hydroxychloroquine.
Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, has been a go-to source for Fox News on the so-called dangers of strict coronavirus measures and has spoken at several reopen rallies.
It’s not clear to what extent the Save Our Country Coalition was behind Monday’s press event; the America’s Frontline Doctors website discloses no affiliation to any other group, nor does it proclaim itself a 501(c) nonprofit.
But Tea Party Patriots is clearly involved in both efforts, and the Monday press conference was directly in line with SOC’s push to downplay the pandemic. FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One of the people spearheading SOC’s efforts is GOP operative and Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore, who last year withdrew from consideration for a job with the Federal Reserve and joined a group of entrepreneurs seeking to create a cryptocurrency central bank.
Moore had encouraged lockdown protests earlier this year, stating on a conservative YouTube program in mid-April that he heard from a “big donor in Wisconsin” who would pay the legal fees for anyone who gets arrested for rallying against stay-at-home orders at the State Capitol.
SOC’s honorary chairman is conservative economist Arthur Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to last year. Laffer has also mentored Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, reported Reuters.
The coalition’s groups have largely been funded by prominent billionaires, including oil and gas mogul Charles Koch ― who has donated to SOC group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ― and Richard Uihlein, a major donor to Tea Party Patriots. Uihlein also backed Roy Moore during his Senate run in Alabama even after he was accused of sexually assaulting underage girls.
Former ALEC staffer Jerry Taylor, a co-founder of the nonpartisan Niskanen Center, condemned SOC’s efforts to undermine leading public health officials last month.
“The political actors involved with these groups are united both in their hostility to mainstream science — which they consider a conspiratorial leftist plot to destroy free market capitalism — and their superficial understanding of economics,” Taylor told The Guardian. “Fully reopening the economy will not produce an economic recovery until the coronavirus is contained and can stay contained.”
A Strange Group Of Doctors
Many of the members of America’s Frontline Doctors have promoted fringe views that go against overwhelming medical evidence. The group includes a pro-Trump physician who has appeared on Fox News advocating against lockdowns and an evangelical Christian minister who has promoted bizarre claims about DNA from space aliens being used in medical treatment. Dr. Stella Immmanuel, a minister who operates a tiny walk-in medical clinic out of a strip mall in Texas, falsely claimed there was a “cure” for COVID-19 and suggested that people did not need to wear masks.
Immanuel is the author of several books which contain homophobic and extreme views, as well as writing that the “Harry Potter” series makes society “accept demonic activity and witchcraft as normal” and that “demonic music has penetrated the souls of our children and programmed them with an anti-Christ message.”
It is unclear how the group came together, but several have become popular in conservative circles for promoting views that align with Trump’s rhetoric on the pandemic.
Gold includes some vague details about her background in a bio on her website, which states that she “worked in Washington D.C. for the Surgeon General, as well as for the Chairman of the Labor & Human Resources Committee.”
But a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the Office of the Surgeon General, could not confirm that Gold worked in the office.
According to her LinkedIn page, Gold briefly served as a congressional fellow in 1997, in which she participated in “research and analysis of health policy issues” and wrote speeches for Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Republican chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at the time.
Gold did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine
Far-right website Breitbart News posted the video to Facebook on Monday, triggering its viral spread across other social media sites.
A cycle of right-wing actors spreading misinformation, then playing the role of free speech martyr, was in full effect on Tuesday morning, as multiple pro-Trump media outlets and activists promoted the video’s claims and condemned its removal. Far-right One America News Network pundits, right-wing website PragerU, prominent conservative radio host Mark Levin, Trump endorsers Diamond and Silk, Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell and other conservative influencers all tweeted about the video. At least 10 Republican congressional candidates and local GOP Facebook pages also shared it, according to an analysis by First Draft, an organization that monitors misinformation.
By early Tuesday, the president and his eldest son also shared now-deleted clips on Twitter, where the video trended.
The video’s rapid growth reflected the speed at which misinformation can travel when powerful far-right media outlets and politicians amplify it, as well as the glaring inadequacies of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to stop the spread before it reaches mass audiences.
Frankenscript
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Well, Dr. Stella Immanuel may be right on one front:
"A Houston doctor who praised hydroxychloroquine as a miracle coronavirus cure in a viral video retweeted by President Donald Trump blames gynaecological problems on sex with evil spirits and believes the US government is run by “reptilians”. '
This is among her most plausible beliefs.
I mean seriously, remember the cult-classic TV show from the 80's, "V" where aliens came and took over. Only, the human-appearance of the Aliens was a lie, they hid their reptilian nature underneath a fake skin:
Actually that guy sorta looks like Trump, albeit with a more natural skin tone.
@ctgoldwing what was the source for your thorough debunking article? I'd like to cite it elsewhere.
"A Houston doctor who praised hydroxychloroquine as a miracle coronavirus cure in a viral video retweeted by President Donald Trump blames gynaecological problems on sex with evil spirits and believes the US government is run by “reptilians”. '
This is among her most plausible beliefs.
I mean seriously, remember the cult-classic TV show from the 80's, "V" where aliens came and took over. Only, the human-appearance of the Aliens was a lie, they hid their reptilian nature underneath a fake skin:
Actually that guy sorta looks like Trump, albeit with a more natural skin tone.
@ctgoldwing what was the source for your thorough debunking article? I'd like to cite it elsewhere.
bigredfish
Known around here
What dirt will you dig up on this guy?
The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It
Contrary to what you hear, there is clear-cut medical evidence for the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine.
www.newsweek.com
Q™
IPCT Contributor
Personally, I try to avoid having sex with demons...although exorcising Sally Spagel back in the 70's took the best efforts of a priest and lots of gonorrhea medication.
Save Our Country Coalition may well be Russians, North Koreans, or the Chinese...because who else would want to damage America with such nonsense?...besides the president and his family of course.
Tune in tomorrow to find out. The political left needs the crisis to continue, and big pharma can't allow anything anything that doesn't bring them a lot of money.What dirt will you dig up on this guy?
The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It
Contrary to what you hear, there is clear-cut medical evidence for the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine.
Jessie.slimer
BIT Beta Team
Everyone needs to listen to everything this guy says about mask wearing.
