#Coronavirus Conspiracies

[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show Routh moved in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.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]

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.

[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,…

[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

[ryukisgod]

[thehiddenworld]

Covid 19 wasn't enough

 Covid 19 wasn't enough so besides the train derailments contaminating water, factories burning down they now invented a fungal that is not curable by antibiotics or any kind of medication. 

The fungal is called Candida auris or C. Auris. They are saying it is a yeast type of fungus that is spreading through health care facilities.

 Apparently it was only in 3 states back in 2016 but has spread to 20-27 states in 2022 but now is in 30 states.

 Why are they just now sharing this? Why are they just now talking about it now that the Covid has died down and no longer causing a panic?

This is probably to lead to another panic and pandemic as if the train derailments, the factories burning down and everything else going on in the world is not enough.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[paladinguy]

The Lab Leak Hypothesis: Wrong AND Dangerous

[ontheroadofknowledge]

How to identify a fake news?

Case Study: “Overhyped Corona virus weaponized against Trump”, by The Rush Limbaugh Show.

A fake news can be constructed by two different dimensions: a factual inaccuracy of the information and the author’s intent to deceive. Actually, fake news can challenge on how we share information, and it can influence our perception of the world, because it is possible to notice that a large number of people are relying on fake news. This idea leads a human intervention to verify information veracity (Figueira & Oliveira, 2017, 820).

“A genre that mimics the style of traditional news while using irony and humor to offer implicit critiques of politics and social issues” (Young, 2018)

This leads us, as readers, to wonder how to identify fake news. To illustrate this point, I've chosen to study the article “Overhyped Corona virus weaponized against Trump”.

Concerning the presentation, the photo in the introduction is a linguistic practice in online fake news. It is used to catch reader’s attention, even more with the use of the colour red for the pictures and the word “Corona virus” is the first thing visible for the eyes.

The content is familiar and unformal with the use of “folks” to address the reader. There is a use of familiar language, “this corona virus thing”. There is an emotional and persuasive language, the intent of the publisher is to make sure that the reader understands.

There are a lot of repetitions in the article, as if the journalist was speaking, and wants to be sure that the reader follows the “reflection”, “not true, not true”. There is a use of expressive syntax with the ellipsis, this sequence of three dots and exclamative points with interjections such as “pft!!!”. The fact that these exclamation points are presented three together shows an emotion.

For the truth value of this article, lots of statistics are given but there are no proper sources.

One of the sources is a dialogue between a caller and the journalist but is not reliable. Even more, there is an indifference to logical reasoning because there is just a list of arguments and speculations.

Consequently, it has the appearance of a one-sided argumentation, polarizing and devilizing the subject.

The distribution channel seems to be a speculative content, satiric, but with a list of awards.

The intention is to scare people, it is about conspiracy against Russia because their relationship with United States is complicated. This news is presented on an American website, not verified and conservative-oriented. The journalist presents himself as “doctor of democracy”. It is supposed to be satirical, but it is disinformation, intentional.

To conclude, this fake news has effects on society such as a decline in social capital and shifting values, growing inequalities, increasing polarization, declining trust in science, politically asymmetric credulity, and evolution of the media landscape (Søe, 2021). These effects lead us to a post-truth world, with a public tolerance of inaccurate information.

And you, Reader, do you consider yourself as trusting to fake news?

[ace-king]

This reminds me if a spider was trying to take over the world 

Stupid is timeless.

[scientificinquirer-blog]

DAILY DOSE: Biden signs executive order on AI; #DiedSuddenly sinks its claws into Matthew Perry.

WHITE HOUSE MAKES ITS AI MOVE. President Biden has signed an executive order on artificial intelligence, which mandates companies to report on AI risks that could aid in creating weapons of mass destruction and seeks to mitigate the dangers of deep fakes. The order, limited in reach, aims to set the U.S. as a leader in AI regulation, complementing Europe’s own efforts. It addresses safety,…

[diveintomydream]

Most conspiracy theorists are saying so much bullshit and believe in so much nonsense. Most conspiracy theorists have no knowledge of science. The reason is often religion