The Trump virus (no, the real one) may be about to strike

At least as good of an argument could be made that Garrett Foster was attempting to protect innocent people from an armed crackpot who had just driven his car into the midst of a line of protesters blowing his horn, when there was clearly plenty of open space to drive around them and turn off at the intersection.

Maybe he can plead stupidity. The average IQ in the United States is now 98. We’re tied with several other nations for 24th place. We can probably assume this unidentified shooter was a Trump supporter without even being told.

@Nathan Blue: A college professor hell no I picture him as some 400 lb glob in tights ,bra and a tutu he is the only one that can make sense of this from ABC “protesters in California set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration</em> intensified.”

@Nathan Blue, #103:

Please show me all your scientific data on how Democrat voters are on average smarter than Republican voters please.

Most Democrats could readily answer, if asked What’s wrong with this picture?

When told that Portland is under siege, Democrats also understand that the area outlined in red is the only area affected, while the surrounding area—which is only part of the rest of the city—is not.

The Trump administration seems more interested in mounting a response to protests than to a pandemic that has thus far killed nearly 146,000 Americans.

I don’t need “scientific data” to draw certain practical conclusions about stupidity. Forrest Gump’s famous observation sized things up pretty well.

@Greg:

I don’t need “scientific data” to draw certain practical conclusions about stupidity.

So none, then. Just bigotted stereotypes…and then a bunch of prattle.

Stupid is as stupid does, indeed

When told that Portland is under siege, Democrats also understand that the area outlined in red is the only area affected, while the surrounding area—which is only part of the rest of the city—is not.

You got that, people? Comrade Greggie seems to think it is OK to burn down part of a city as long as the rest of the city is not being burned down. He is so stupid that he doesn’t seem to realize that the mob will never be sated and once it has destroyed one section of the city, they will move on to another section.

The Trump administration seems more interested in mounting a response to protests than to a pandemic that has thus far killed nearly 146,000 Americans.

The police in Portland, Seattle and other cities cannot control the rioters, looters and arsonists but Comrade Greggie seems to think that President Trump can control the actions of over 300 million people.

I don’t need “scientific data”

You see, no proof is needed to support Comrade Greggie’s opinions. His opinion is all he needs.

Yeah, thanks, liberal take-over of the education system.

Liberals aren’t responsible for this, Bub.

@Greg: Liberals are responsible for replacing education with indoctrination.

I think ilk might be another of those your-thumb-is-showing-through-the-sock indicators.

Fed up citizen might take matters into their own hands, rightly so.

They’re going to, I assure you. At the ballot boxes in November, in accordance with the Constitution.

Why is joe biden a segregationist?

July 28, 2020 – How Conspiracy Theorists Have Tapped Into Race and Racism to Further Their Message

The claim making the rounds was false: That Barack Obama, elected in 2008 as America’s first Black president, had not in fact been born in the United States.

That didn’t stop the smear from gaining traction, in an effort fueled by people including hard-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of InfoWars — and by future president Donald Trump himself, who fanned the “birther” flames in 2011 as he advanced in the political arena.

According to Trump’s longtime associate Roger Stone, it was an effective strategy: “Trump understands among Republicans there’s a very substantial majority who have questions about Obama’s origins and how he just pops up out of nowhere to become a national figure and whether he was, in fact, eligible to serve as president,” Stone told FRONTLINE in 2016.

Jones, Stone and Trump have all vigorously denied allegations of racism, with Jones saying he has protested against the KKK; Trump saying, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!”; and Stone pointing among other things to his opposition of “the racist war on drugs.”

But the success of the false theory embraced by Jones and Trump has been found to be correlated to racial grievance. One academic study found that “among white Americans, birther beliefs are uniquely associated with racial animus”; another indicated that belief in “birtherism” is “a function of both partisanship and racial resentment.”

“In ‘birtherism,’ what you see is a group of Americans who resent the fact that there is an African American president in the White House,” reporter Yamiche Alcindor of PBS NewsHour says in the FRONTLINE documentary United States of Conspiracy. “And Alex Jones and all sorts of other people hand them this excuse that it’s, well, he wasn’t born in this country, this is really all a lie, and he is actually not who he says he is.”

Anna Merlan, a journalist who has covered conspiracy theories and misinformation for years, is blunt. “The conspiracy caught fire because people were uncomfortable with the idea of a Black president, and they were eager to believe any number of racist smears against him,” says the author of Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power. “I mean just plainly, it was racism.”

“Birtherism” would not be the first or last time conspiracy theorists like Jones — whether wittingly or not — tapped into aspects of race or racism to further their message. Described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America,” Jones has at times stoked fears about racial conflict and the spread of Islam while making his primary argument that global “elites” are part of a secret conspiracy that controls the world. Jones has also made false claims about the LGBTQ community.

Additionally, critics say Jones has fanned anti-Semitic flames as part of his conspiratorial worldview. He has tapped into stereotypes about Jewish people, though he denies that he is an anti-Semite. The term “globalist,” heard often on his programs, has complex roots and has been described in some use cases as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

“He’s been able to mobilize people based on their fears. And based on — for some, for many — their ignorance,” says Christina Greer, author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream.

Sometimes, Jones has been forced to apologize. That’s what happened as part of a settlement after he published a video that falsely said the yogurt maker Chobani, which makes a point of employing refugees, had been “caught importing migrant rapists.” But Jones’ claims have found an audience.

“I think that Alex Jones is able to tap in to some real deep, dark fears that white Americans explicitly have about the future of their country, who’s in it, who’s controlling it, and their placement in it,” Greer says.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, Jones and InfoWars have pushed conspiratorial narratives warning that Black people are violently targeting white people. Another InfoWars host, Owen Shroyer, described the “Floyd circus” as a “total hoax of police brutality, and then riots and protests, and then an empty casket.” Jones has denied that he is racist. He also claims that the media, leftists and Black Lives Matter are stoking racial tensions as part of a George Soros-funded plot to control humanity.

On his July 13 show, he said, “I don’t sit here and say that I care about brown people, Black people, pink people, polka-dotted people, speckled people — humans — because I’m some virtue signaler. I genuinely want to see humanity work together. I genuinely want to see us all use our skills together to go to the stars and beyond. I hate watching the really Satanic, pedophile Satanists at the top play us off against each other, and I’m really tired of it.”

In the same episode, Jones claimed that when he was younger, he “got in over 100 fights with Black people, and almost every time, they initiated it,” and said that, “I guarantee you, there’s no Black people out there that have ever had 100 white people start fights with them.”

The conspiratorial worldview promoted by Jones has served as a “gateway drug” and an “entry point” for the radicalization of white supremacists, Reveal reported in 2018. That’s in part because “seeing the whole world as a massive conspiracy is a foundational part of the white nationalist mindset,” Reveal’s Aaron Sankin and Will Carless wrote. The story Jones tells his audience about the world and their place in it “requires an oppositional ‘other’ and, often, that ‘other’ is defined by racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” they wrote.

In an interview conducted with FRONTLINE during the making of United States of Conspiracy, a former InfoWars staffer spoke out about his experience working with Jones. Josh Owens, a former InfoWars video editor, says he was sent by the host to report on a community of Muslims in the U.S. that Jones believed was training extremists — and that when Owens found nothing sinister, he felt pressured to post a false story anyway.

“We posted headlines that were made up, that Sharia law was in America, that this was a training camp, that these people were extremists,” Owens said. “And none of it was true; it was all fabricated, it was all made up … it was built on a foundation of Islamophobia.”

Calling it “wrong” and “reprehensible,” Owens said that experience was part of what spurred him to eventually leave InfoWars. “I will probably carry that guilt with me the rest of my life. So there is no excuse for it. And Jones is not to blame for that entirely; I’m also to blame because I was the one there doing it.”

Conspiracy theories have long existed. “They help disenfranchised ordinary people talk about systems of power that exclude them,” Anna Merlan says. But as the FRONTLINE documentary United States of Conspiracy explores, conspiracy theorist thought made fresh inroads into the American political mainstream when Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative, began appearing on Jones’ show — and when he brokered an appearance by then-candidate Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, Stone himself came under fire for appearing to dismissively refer to a Black radio show host who was pressing him on President Trump’s commutation of his prison sentence as a “Negro” with whom he didn’t feel like arguing. Though it was heard live, Stone denied making the remark, said there had been technical audio difficulties, and said in a statement that any person who knows him “knows I despise racism!” He has used the term in connection with insults of other Black figures in the past, for which he has apologized.

As conspiracy theories — some reflecting bigotry — have spread, the internet and social media have helped to fan the flames.

“We all know of conspiracy theorists from the days before Twitter or Facebook. And those people were sort of isolated and shunned, and everybody felt like they had their number,” Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times tells FRONTLINE. “But with social media and the internet, they find each other. And they push that message to millions of people.”

Though Jones and InfoWars have been banned from platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, he has still successfully harnessed the internet’s power to unite people who have a shared “anti-elite” ideology that sometimes intersects with — and thrives on — bigotry.

“The interesting thing about the Internet is that it builds community” — for good or for ill, Greer says. “And so, you can find support groups if you’ve been through a tragic situation. You can also find people who feed in to your negativity or your fears or your bigotry. You can become radicalized because you can find a community … who can groom you in a lot of ways to sit in your feelings where you believe that they are correct and that they are okay. And so, that’s what Alex Jones has been able to do.”

Who really cares what Alex Jones says or thinks?

You do, actually. You just don’t seem to realize that he’s the source of much of the dangerous nonsense Donald Trump and his enablers have exploited, and continue to exploit.

The banning of Jones’s bullshit by many social media sites is even behind Trump’s claims that “conservative” views are being censored. They’re both full of it.

@Greg: Ya, Alex Jones, what ever, never was a fan but he too has a right to free speech. Fewer conspiracy theories than Wrecthed Madcow and company.

@Greg:

Who really cares what Alex Jones says or thinks?

You do, actually.

Actually, no, I don’t. He was a fruitcake in 2001 and nothing has changed.

You just don’t seem to realize that he’s the source of much of the dangerous nonsense Donald Trump and his enablers have exploited, and continue to exploit.

Prove that claim and not with the radically left wing PBS b/s.

And I’m sure that Alex Jones appreciates your obsession with him. There is an old adage: bad publicity is still good publicity. You just help him with your click bait.

The banning of Jones’s bullshit by many social media sites is even behind Trump’s claims that “conservative” views are being censored.

Why was Jones “banned” by any social media site? Does Bezos, et al, not subscribe to the First Amendment? Obviously you don’t either since you did not complain about Jones being banned. I guess only speech you approve of is permissible. Good thing not everyone feels that way or you would have been relegated to the dust bin of history here at FA a long time ago.

@Greg: Alex Jones is no worse and probably more truthful than CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT and WaPo.

@Greg:

The documentary devotes nearly 55 minutes to providing all of evidence anyone could possibly need

I do not intend to give PBS any more clicks that it deserves. If that is all you can come up with better luck next time. PBS should be taken off the air as it would not report anything conservative if it was written on the director’s forearm.

Try to avoid taking a cup of the proffered Kool-Aid,

You swallow the left wing bullshit faster than a ship channel hooker, Comrade Greggie.

@Greg:

Then stop yapping at me to collect present what has already been collected and presented in a far better fashion than I could ever manage.

If what PBS (PureBullShit) claims is so documented, then it will be available from other sources that you seem unwilling to provide. Why is that?

I’ll take that as an tacit acknowledgement that you’re too much of a chickenshit to risk having your goofball preconceptions challenged by exposing them to documented facts—which, of course, is exactly what it is.

Oh, now that’s funny becalled chickenshit by a guy who continually refuses to answer questions. You really are a hypocritical bastid, aren’t you, Comrade Greggie?

How far south in Texas do you live? We might want to consider giving that part back to Mexico.

No, I’d rather send you to Cuba on a one way ticket. Let you experience the wonders of Socialism that you promote day after day.

@Greg:

There is a difference between a visitor and a migrant.

Don’t you think you would be much happier in a Socialist nation? I just would love to help you get there.

BTW, it didn’t go unnoticed that you did not provide another source beside PureBullShit for all those “documented” facts you claim they provided.

You’re pure ship channel hooker, Comrade Greggie.

The United States of Conspiracy is now available on YouTube. It’s hard to believe this lunatic has pocketed over $10 million by filling impressionable heads up with bizarre conspiracy theories.

Over 100,000 lives would have been saved if Hydroxychloroquine had been used early on for the wuhan red death news studies show.

The doctor from Africa has treated 350+ patients. Racist fauci has not treated a patient since the civi war…

So?

Fascist fauci tells everyone to ignore the wuhan red death. Tell everyone to wear a mask and then he doesn’t

@Greg: STFU you racist, sexist, xenophobic pig.
Perhaps 100,000 would be alive without the stinking attack politics.

@Greg:

Why are you slandering the only black female physician that was in that group?

Showing your racism there, Comrade Greggie.

@Greg: What has that to do with a dozen doctors saying the therapy works and they have experienced it? Was she the only one they could attack so they did. There are people that think we evolved from Apes. There has never been any proof for it, they lean on a “missing link”.
The alien dna theory isnt so far fetched with the recent disclosures, and crisper technology is it?
Just because it is on her website does not mean she actually believes these things sometimes its just to spark conversation or draw people to a website. Ever hear of David Icke?

@Deplorable Me, #147:

Rep. Waters’ statement is accurate. No drug has yet been found that is highly effective against COVID-19. Remdisivir is the only drug appears to have some specific effect against the virus. In a recent study, a 5-day course of treatment with Remdisivir appeared to shorten recovery time somewhat; extending the treatment to 10 days didn’t produce any further benefit. Other medications used to treat the COVID-19 infection only deal with the particular symptoms that the infection produces, not with the virus that’s causing them. Recovery depends on a patient’s immune system finally overcoming the virus. Successful treatment keeps people alive until that happens.

Jim Jordan’s attack on Dr. Fauci was a cringe worthy embarrassment. He’s certainly doing the GOP no good.

@Greg: #148 Pushing big pharma franken drug that has very little positive effect and unknown long term effects.
Pharma and all its allies and minions and whores are focusing on a jackpot bonanza for COVID treatment: vaccines and new antiviral drugs. Pharma does not want competition. It definitely does not want to see a landscape in which all sorts of alternative treatments for COVID (or any purported disease) are rampant and free-wheeling.

We are seeing multiple censorship actions across platforms, when people, including doctors, speak positively about HCQ.

Fauci is very much in the pro-Pharma camp, of course. He and Gates want an RNA vaccine to come to market, by any means necessary. They also want antiviral drugs to dominate COVID treatment.

A very sharp reader spelled out the Pharma-anticipated future for these new (toxic) antiviral medicines. And not just for COVID. Up to now, there has been very little mainstream progress in getting drugs specifically designed to treat viruses into the marketplace. This is Pharma’s big opportunity. They envision a trillion-dollar operation that will elevate antivirals (for treating any viruses) to the level of, say, antibiotics, which are used against bacteria. COVID would simply be the first major “breakthrough.”

So we have a war going on. HCQ and other alternative modalities vs. vaccines and antivirals. Pharma does want to lose this one. It would be financially disastrous.
credit Jon Rappoport @ no more fake news.
Fauchi is a big pharma gigolo.