#Coronavirus Conspiracies

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

President Donald Trump unveiled a brand new COVID-19 website on Friday, and it’s as unhinged as you’d expect. The homepage features Trump walking in between the words “Lab” and “Leak,” with the subtitle “The True Origins of Covid-19” beneath—a promotion of the debunked “Wuhan lab leak” conspiracy theory.  It’s the latest petty attack aimed at Dr. Anthony Fauci, who the GOP has used as a political distraction from Trump and other Republicans’ mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic that killed more than 1 million Americans. Researchers estimate that Trump’s incompetence alone may have contributed to a third of those deaths.  What follows is an evidence-free relitigation of the measures taken by U.S. and global health care officials, including attacks against Fauci and the World Health Organization. Everything from mask mandates to lockdowns is framed as part of some grand misinformation conspiracy to control MAGA. The Trump administration's pettiness is on full display, with direct accusations against public health officials who challenged the GOP’s failed COVID-19 strategies, which resulted in higher mortality rates in Republican-led areas.

Donald Trump’s COVID site on the White House website is a wet dream for COVID conspiracists.

See Also:

HuffPost: White House Replaces COVID-19 Information Site With ‘Lab Leak’ Theories

[justinssportscorner]

Sean Keeley at Awful Announcing:

“I think entitlement is a big part of our society that has been a cancer for us because people believe that their opinion is more important than somebody else’s opinion.” That’s a sentiment shared unironically by New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers in his recent sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson. The two bosom buddies (the interview is conducted at the table they ate dinner at the night before) got together for a wide-ranging discussion that included, what else, the COVID-19 vaccine, conspiracy theories, and RFK Jr’s offer to make Rodgers his vice-presidential running mate. As we are wont to do, we listened to the entire interview and culled some of the highlights below. And before we get started, we’ll just note that Rodgers used the word “canceled” or some derivation of it 18 times.

Compassion & Empathy

The interview begins with Rodgers offering up some circular and condescending thoughts about having “compassion” and empathy” for people on the other side of the COVID-19 vaccine discussion while also making it clear that they don’t really deserve it for the way the anti-vax crowd, the true victims, was treated. “I have a lot more compassion for them, actually, and empathy. I’ve been strong against the vax, against mandates, against lockdowns, against all of it,” said Rodgers. “I think the last few months, I’ve been looking at things a little bit differently, and I think it’s time for a lot us to maybe adjust some of the approach that we’re doing. I mean, it obviously hasn’t worked. We’ve been trying to wake people up, I think, with the studies that are out there now. All the time, with the articles, with the change in stances by everybody from Chris Cuomo on down who have either had vaccine injuries or side effects or just look at things differently.

“And it’s caused me to, I think, have a little bit more empathy and compassion for those people who had a ton of fear, thought they were doing the right thing for themselves, for their friends, for their families, and went through all the mass formation psychosis that we all did. It’s just full-court propaganda against us and are now going, ‘Oh, shit, maybe that wasn’t the best. Maybe they lied to us. Maybe they weren’t being truthful. Maybe this wasn’t safe.’ Even though they said from the beginning, 100% safe and effective. Everybody from Biden to the head of the FDA and on down, WHO. “I think it’s important for us to, if we want to make a difference, which I do, and I don’t necessarily want to be way a part of the conversation anymore, is, how do we call people forward with compassion and kindness that just come over to the side of being awake to what’s going on? Because I think we all need to come to the grips that this could happen again. “So how do we call these people forward in love and acceptance, not forgetting what happened, how we were treated, how we were canceled? Everybody from yourself to me, the Joe, the mutual friends that we have. But calling people forward to step into the truth, and that there isn’t shame and guilt on this side, which I think our side, justifiably at times, because the way we’re treated, feels It feels like we need to get some get back.

[...]

Domestic Enemies

Just like in his interview with conspiracy theorist Eddie Bravo, Rodgers shared a desire to see the United States military turn its focus on certain Americans. He also offered up a very specific definition of American patriotism. “I was at the Kentucky Derby this last weekend, and they were swearing in some new recruits to, I think, join the Army. And so they had them repeat after the sergeant or whatever who was swearing them in,” said Rodgers. “And I just was stuck with that one line that, ‘Protect against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ I said domestic out loud because I was like, are we forgetting that one? Because there’s a lot of domestic people in this country who actually don’t love America, who actually don’t want to see us thrive.

“I’m super patriotic. I think it’s because my grandpa fought in the Second World War, was a prisoner of war, believed in freedom and fought for it, and lost many friends. He was in the Air Force who were at Pearl Harbor, and flew many bombing missions over to try and liberate the French and Polish people there over in Europe, and almost lost his life for it, and lost a lot of friends, and believed in this country and the freedoms that he was willing to fight and die for. And so that’s where I grew up in, and I love this country, and I want to see it thrive. And I think there’s a lot of people that don’t give a shit about it.” Rodgers then tried to make a point by lumping together the war in Ukraine, the situation in Gaza, and…college campuses? “We’re spending billions of dollars Ukraine and billions of dollars to Israel, billions of dollars to these college campuses. There’s just a lot of issues right now that seem really un-American. And I think there’s a lot of red-blooded Americans. People are like, ‘How can Trump have such support?’ Well, people are fed up with it, and he speaks the rhetoric of taking back, making America great again, and stuff.

[...]

Vladimir Putin: Seems Like a Cool Dude

“You did one of the most controversial, somehow, not to me, most controversial interviews in the last, I don’t know how long, when you went to Russia and did Putin. How did it feel coming back? Because anybody who watched the interview was like, number one, it was fucking awesome. Number two, Putin came off as an interesting, thoughtful, smart individual. And if you’ve read 1984, the base game plan of government control is you have to have an enemy, and you have to slander that enemy regardless if you know anything about them. I think a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, Putin apologists are like, whitewashing all the stuff that he’s done to the different people.’ I was just like, no, I’d love to I’d love to see Joe Biden give an interview where he can speak on the history of the United States in the same way that Putin talked about the history of his country.” For the record, Carlson’s interview with Putin was widely criticized, and many of the things Putin said about Russia were deemed false or outright propaganda.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Not a Cool Dude

Even though Aaron Rodgers extolled the virtues of patriotism through the lens of the military and participation in war, he seemed downright offended by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appearance in green military fatigues before the U.S. Congress. “[You’re] being canceled by the people who have just bowed down and given interviews from their knees to the Zalinskys of the world,” Rodgers told Carlson. “Gargling as they interview, yes,” responded Carlson. “It’s wild. As this guy comes over in fucking an outfit you’d wear to the store on a Sunday morning to ask Congress for another 100 billion dollars, is fucking wild.”

RFK Jr. Would Beat Both Donald Trump & Joe Biden Head-to-Head, Apparently

In extolling the virtues of almost-running mate Robert Kennedy, Jr., Rodgers claims that internal polling shows that Bobby can beat Joe Biden or Donald Trump head-to-head. “Bobby recently came out and said, in the summer months, at some point, he wants to do a 50-state poll with like 20,000, I don’t know what the exact number is, votes in each of these states. And whoever polls lower between him and Joe Biden has to drop out of the race,” said Rodgers. “Because in his own analytics, he’s found out that if the three of them run, Trump is most likely to win. If he goes against Trump, he wins. If he goes against Biden, he wins. If Biden goes against Trump, Trump wins. “So in fact, he said, Hey, listen, I’ll drop out if you pull higher than me in these 50 states. But if I pull higher than you, you’re out.”

Appearing on the May 14th edition of Tucker Carlson Network’s The Tucker Carlson Show, Jets QB and conspiracy theorist tinfoil hatter Aaron Rodgers shared his admiration for scumbag Vladimir Putin and opposition to Volodymyr Zelensky, repeated more COVID quackery, and consideration to be RFK Jr.’s running mate.

From the 05.14.2024 edition of Tucker Carlson Network's The Tucker Carlson Show:

[covid-safer-hotties]

How covid conspiracy theories led to an alarming resurgence in AIDS denialism - Published Aug 7, 2024

Widespread distrust of our public health system is reviving long-debunked ideas on HIV and AIDS—and energizing a broad movement that questions the foundations of disease prevention.

Several million people were listening in February when Joe Rogan falsely declared that “party drugs” were an “important factor in AIDS.” His guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the former evolutionary biology professor turned contrarian podcaster Bret Weinstein, agreed with him: The “evidence” that AIDS is not caused by HIV is, he said, “surprisingly compelling.”

During the show, Rogan also asserted that AZT, the earliest drug used in the treatment of AIDS, killed people “quicker” than the disease itself—another claim that’s been widely repeated even though it is just as untrue.

Speaking to the biggest podcast audience in the world, the two men were promoting dangerous and false ideas—ideas that were in fact debunked and thoroughly disproved decades ago.

But it wasn’t just them. A few months later, the New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, four-time winner of the NFL’s MVP award, alleged that Anthony Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, had orchestrated the government's response to the AIDS crisis for personal gain and to promote AZT, which Rodgers also depicted as “killing people.” Though he was speaking to a much smaller audience, on a podcast hosted by a jujitsu fighter turned conspiracy theorist, a clip of the interview was re-shared on X, where it’s been viewed more than 13 million times.

Rodgers was repeating claims that appear in The Real Anthony Fauci, a 2021 book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a work that has renewed relevance as the anti-vaccine activist makes a long-shot but far-from-inconsequential run for the White House. The book, which depicts the elderly immunologist as a Machiavellian figure who used both the AIDS and covid pandemics for his own ends, has reportedly sold 1.3 million copies across all formats.

“When I hear [misinformation] like that, I just hope it doesn’t get traction,” says Seth Kalichman, a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut and the author of Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy.

But it already has. These comments and others like them add up to a small but unmistakable resurgence in AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.

The ideas here were initially promoted by a cadre of scientists from unrelated fields, as well as many science-adjacent figures and self-proclaimed investigative journalists, back in the 1980s and ’90s. But as more and more evidence stacked up against them, and as more people with HIV and AIDS started living longer lives thanks to effective new treatments, their claims largely fell out of favor.

At least until the coronavirus arrived.

Read the full article at either link! (the covidsafehotties archive is always free of annoying in-line ads, jsky!)

[tomorrowusa]

Dr. Anthony Fauci voluntarily testified before a House committee and debunked MAGA Republican conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Donald Trump and his lickspittles were telling Americans to drink bleach, take useless malaria pills, stick ultraviolet lights up their butts, and eat horse paste, Dr. Fauci headed an effort to develop vaccines for COVID-19.

A reminder to people with short memories who view the Trump administration as some sort of bucolic paradise: The last quarter of that administration included the worst government response to an infectious disease outbreak since 1920. Trumpsters who want us to ignore Trump's horribly botched response to the pandemic are like cruise-liner enthusiasts who want us to ignore the last 2% of the voyage of the Titanic.

Economic activity ground to a halt in 2020 as the US slid into a recession. I took this picture of a sign at a dollar store which had been completely closed for almost two months.

The whole Trump clan was disdainful of the sacrifices hundreds of millions of Americans were making.

Why has the U.S. COVID-19 response been so bad? Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair suggests.

At Times Square Jared and Ivanka's contemptuousness was made into an ad before Election Day.

If you are looking for the Original Sin of Trump's pandemic response, it was on January 22nd when he basically told CNBC's Joe Kernen that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about.

Of course it wasn't "just fine".

Trump did not declare a state of emergency for seven weeks. That gave the virus plenty of time for it to spread throughout the US.

Republicans know that their Dear Leader totally mishandled the pandemic response. That's why they repeatedly try to make Dr. Fauci a type of scapegoat for Trump's horrendous incompetence. Dr. Fauci has spent his entire career fighting disease. Donald Trump has spent his entire career narcissistically promoting himself.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying: "The Buck Stops Here!" If Trump had a sign on his Oval Office desk (which he seldom used except for photo ops) it would be: "It's Everybody's Fault But Mine!"

Don't be hesitant to remind people of how awful 2020 was. And point the finger of blame at the orange blob who was responsible for the catastrophe.

[cherryblossomshadow]

Ivermectin

Transcript:

The bizarre thing about people shouting either "IVERMECTIN IS HORSE DEWORMER" or "THE ELITES ARE HIDING THIS FROM US" is that both of those things are just obviously wrong.

We've looked at Ivermectin for a bunch of potential uses and it seems like there is a small chance that, at very high doses, it might help some people with certain cancers, but if it does help (which is unlikely) it probably won't help much. There's one trial recruiting patients to test it in combination with an immunotherapy drug right now.

The thing about ivermectin is that it isn't well-absorbed by mammals. This makes it very useful as an anti-parasitic because worms absorb it readily. So it poisons parasitic worms but not people.

But it is absorbed a bit and at high enough doses, it has a bunch of other effects on the human body, many of them negative.

Early in the pandemic, there were some studies in individual cells (rather than whole bodies) that showed it might help control the virus. When the "health influencer" space glommed onto that, we actually didn't know for sure whether it would be helpful or not. But because it was cheap and available, some people (lots, actually) really did started dosing themselves with veterinary ivermectin. By the time studies on the efficacy were published (which showed it wasn't at all effective) the damage had been done.

And so we ended up with ivermectin (a drug that real people take for real diseases) becoming a culture war signifier, which is FUCKING STUPID.

Now, Mel Gibson has friends who are in remission from cancer after taking ivermectin (and probably also the treatments recommended by their oncologists, as that is almost always how these stories go). And he and Joe Rogan, during their conversation, seem ASTOUNDED that people in cancer research are ignoring it. They seem to think that every elite knows that, if they so much as GLANCE at ivermectin, they're getting fucking fired.

Except that researchers have done tons of studies on whether ivermectin could possibly be useful in cancer treatment because, if it is, that would be really great! People seem to think that pharmaceutical companies are the only ones who do cancer research but actually they mostly just bring drugs to market. Most cancer research is funded by the government or done by universities.

As much as we've looked, it doesn't seem likely that ivermectin is a good cancer drug because, at the doses where it might have an effect on a cancer, it'll have all kinds of other nasty effects on the human body, like damage to the nervous system and brain.

But, despite that, we're looking, because for some people who are dying, it's worth checking to see if it would be useful in combination with other therapies.

Cancers are very hard to treat because cancer cells are very similar to /our/ cells. Trying to kill a parasite is relatively easy because worms are very different from people. Cancer cells are descended from us, they are human cells gone rogue, so it's hard to attack them without attacking the rest of the body. That's the whole reason why it's so much easier to kill parasites than it is to kill cancer cells.

Fenbendazole is an even weirder thing to get all excited about as an "alternative treatment" because we've studied it for cancer treatment because it acts on the microtubules that control cell replication. That's how a lot of chemotherapy drugs work (including one I took), targeting cells that replicate a lot. So fenbendazole's whole thing is that it might have been a good cancer treatment because it would be another option as a toxic cell-killing chemo drug.

But, because fenbendazole is (again) not very well absorbed by mammals, it is (again) a great drug for killing parasites and not a great drug for treating cancers.

I just…I kinda can't believe we are this incapable of just leaving cancer research to cancer researchers. Ivermectin is a medicine for humans. It's not a panacea. At low doses, it basically does nothing because it isn't easily absorbed by humans and, when it is, it hangs out almost entirely with fatty tissues.

It would be amazing if a cheap, well-understood drug were broadly useful in cancer treatment. Ivermectin just /isn't/.

I have a private theory that fenbendazole and ivermectin are so present in these conversations 100% because they are known to cure real diseases (parasitic infections) and they are easy to purchase extremely cheaply because they are available for animals.

That means people can actually take them, which creates both government warnings to NOT TAKE ANIMAL MEDICINES and many stories of people taking the animal medicines and (mostly) being just fine. That's just a tremendous mix for creating discourse and turning it into a culture war thing.

And look, if people are taking ivermectin WHILE taking the treatments their doctor recommends, that's stupid but unlikely to kill anyone.

But the way it was discussed on the JRE, it makes me think some people will ONLY take these medicines, and they will not take their drugs their doctors recommend, and those people will die. And that's fucked.

[lost-carcosa]

The Trump administration has replaced Covid.gov – a website that once provided Americans with access to information about free tests, vaccines, treatment and secondary conditions such as long Covid – with a treatise on the “lab leak” theory.

The site includes intense criticism of Dr Anthony Fauci, who helmed national Covid policies under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the World Health Organization (WHO) and state leadership in New York.

“This administration prioritizes transparency over all else,” according to a senior administration quoted in Fox News, in spite of evidence to the contrary. “The American people deserve to know the truth about the Covid pandemic and we will always find ways to reach communities with that message.”

The origin of the SARS-CoV2 virus has been hotly debated since the pandemic emerged from Wuhan, China, and swept the world in early 2020. At the heart of the debate is whether a lab that studied coronaviruses in Wuhan leaked the virus unintentionally, or if it was part of a natural “spillover” event that took place at a nearby market that sold produce, fish, meat and live exotic animals.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was funded in part by the US government through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a fact that has added to controversy. Joe Biden pardoned Fauci for fear he would be attacked during the incoming Trump administration.

Although definitive answers about the virus’s beginnings are elusive and may never be known, scientists have argued as recently as August 2024 in the Journal of Virology that, while they remain open-minded, the weight of evidence favors a spillover event.

Spillover events are thought to have started at least two other pandemics in recent human history, including the Sars-CoV-1 outbreak in China in 2003 and the 1918 influenza pandemic, which is believed to have started in the American midwest by human-pig contact. Notably, many scientists are concerned about H5N1 transmission among birds and dairy cows in the US because of its potential to infect humans.

Meanwhile, the “lab leak” theory has received high-profile support from pundits and in the media, particularly in right-leaning circles. It has become the subject of Republican-led hearings, rationale for punishing leaders such as Fauci and defunding scientific institutions such as the NIH.

“NIH’s procedures for funding and overseeing potentially dangerous research are deficient, unreliable, and pose a serious threat to both public health and national security,” the Trump administration’s new website argues.

“Further, NIH fostered an environment that promoted evading federal record keeping laws,” the website argues.

Messenger RNA technology, which powered Covid-19 vaccines and led to their swift development under the first Trump administration, has also come under attack. Many leading critics of the government’s initial approach to Covid-19 now have leadership roles in the new Trump administration – including the health secretary and longtime vaccine skeptic, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who now leads the NIH.

[sophsweet]

How the Gates Foundation Hijacks Global Health for Power and Profit

After much though and a continuing stream of new evidence coming to light, I am going to do this. This is a timeline of events leading up to and surrounding the coronavirus outbreak in late 2019. I still cannot prove that the long-lasting, breath-shortening cold many people caught in December 2019 was in anyway related to COVID-19. I also cannot find information – most likely because in 2013,…

[cipheroftheall-seeing]

[the--dark--side]

for the missing quote: "MRNA corona virus vaccine candidates developed and jointly owned by the NIAID and moderna." 'im sorry-....'

[1rakus]

i thought the media literacy problem was an online only thing but i keep replaying a conversation i recently had where someone asked me why i didnt like atla (after id said i didnt want to talk about it) and i said the very standard "two white men wrote a fantasy story where they made up fake asian countries and words and names and apparently made a parallel to an irl slaughter of a bunch of buddhist monks" and they spent altogether too long explaining to me the plot of atla and its morals then sat there staring at me as if they'd answered a question i had or something and somehow the two white men writing about fake asian countries had been sainted

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Damita Menezes at NewsNation:

(NewsNation) — A man who allegedly pointed an AK-47-style rifle through the fence at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach on Sunday, while the former president was golfing nearby, has been taken into custody, authorities say. The man, identified to NewsNation by a law enforcement source as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, is described as a white male. He is believed to be the suspect who was crouched in bushes near the golf club perimeter, armed with a weapon equipped with a scope. Two backpacks and a Go-Pro camera were also found with the firearm near the perimeter from which the suspect had fled. Local authorities said the gunman was about 400 yards to 500 yards away from Trump. Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, according to online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told NewsNation that the suspect was not previously on local law enforcement’s radar. Routh, who reportedly has ties to North Carolina and Hawaii, had made “bizarre” social media posts about Ukraine before the incident. Federal authorities have taken over the case, with Aronberg’s office standing down. The state attorney anticipates Routh will face charges related to domestic terrorism and weapons offenses, though specific charges have not been announced. At approximately 1:30 p.m. local time, authorities received a call reporting shots fired at the golf course where Trump was playing a round of golf. A witness told police the suspect fled the scene in a black Nissan and provided investigators with photos of the suspect’s license plate. Using that photo, authorities say they put out a “a very urgent BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for the suspect’s vehicle and plates. [...]

Routh’s social media posts

Social media posts allegedly belonging to Routh indicate he was a believer in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and he had posted that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but was disappointed with him after the fact, expressing support for Tulsi Gabbard in various posts. Records show Routh moved in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.

In June 2020, he made a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally. Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.

Routh’s Ukrainian ties

The New York Times said it interviewed him for a feature on pro-Ukrainian foreign fighters last year. The Times said Routh traveled to Ukraine in 2022 to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for the embattled nation. Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion.

The 2nd Trump assassination attempt shooter was Ryan Wesley Routh.

Routh has expressed political views across the spectrum, such as COVID conspiracies, support for Ukraine and Taiwan, and backing of Donald Trump in 2016 before turning against him in favor of Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 and this year, a Vivek Ramaswamy/Nikki Haley unity ticket.

See Also:

HuffPost: Authorities Begin Probing Life Of Suspect In Apparent Assassination Attempt Against Trump

The Guardian: Who is the man reportedly detained in the Trump ‘assassination attempt’?

Axios: What we know about the suspect in the Trump golf club shooting incident

[justinssportscorner]

Reed McMaster at MMFA:

So far in 2024, New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has appeared on multiple right-wing podcasts where he has promoted conspiracy theories. What began publicly as a hesitancy to get vaccinated for COVID-19 appears to have devolved, with the athlete now spewing absurd conspiracy theories and bigoted misinformation on right-wing platforms.

Rodgers has been a repeat guest on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show for years. Rodgers has had a long-running deal with The Pat McAfee Show, making regular weekly appearances during the NFL season as part of “Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays.” According to The Pat McAfee Show’s YouTube channel, Rodgers has made at least 68 appearances since September 18, 2019. [YouTube, accessed on 5/20/24; Forbes, 10/12/23]��

In 2021, Rodgers revealed on The Pat McAfee Show that he was unvaccinated for COVID-19 after claiming earlier in that year that he was “immunized.” Rodgers defended his decision not to get vaccinated and claimed he was not being dishonest by insisting he was “immunized” earlier that year. He also complained that a “woke mob” was trying to “cancel” him because he’s unvaccinated against COVID-19. [NBC, 11/5/21]

New York Jets QB and Pat McAfee Show regular Aaron Rodgers has become infamously known for spewing bonkers conspiracy theories in recent years.

[ryukisgod]

[flipocrite]

Remember too that a video format is highly conducive to spreading misinformation because the rapid-fire lies come too quickly to engage one’s critical thinking abilities – no matter how strong they are. This applies to YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok, as well as Fox News.

[cipheroftheall-seeing]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

A central premise of Donald Trump's candidacy is that he and his Republican allies are champions of free speech. In a 2022 video, Trump claimed that "a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American People." In nearly every campaign rally, Trump pledged to "restore free speech."  Trump and his supporters seemed most upset about a brief effort by Twitter and other social media platforms to prevent the spread of stories based on the content of Hunter Biden's laptop. This effort, which was always futile, was quickly abandoned. The original story in the New York Post spread widely on social media before the 2020 election.  The week the New York Post story was published, it was the dominant story on social media. The second biggest story, ironically, was social media companies' "censorship" of the story.

The "deep state" did not "censor" the Hunter Biden story.   In the video, Trump also claimed that a left-wing cabal censored "vital information on… public health." During the Biden administration, public health officials encouraged social media platforms to limit the spread of inaccurate information about COVID-19. Social media companies could accept or ignore these recommendations. But misinformation about COVID-19 spread widely. The conservative Supreme Court threw out a lawsuit challenging the government's conduct. 

Judd Legum wrote in Popular Information expertly debunking the right’s phony claims about “supporting free speech.” In reality, it is the right that suppresses freedom of speech (see Florida under DeSantis).