Tag: Trump conspiracy theories

Oleandrin is a deadly plant poison, not a COVID-19 cure

With COVID-19 cases and deaths rising in the U.S. and globally, identifying new therapies to prevent and combat the virus is a top priority. Natural products from plants are an attractive option in the search for a cure. Approximately 374,000 plant species are on Earth; humans have used more than 28,000 of them as a form of medicine. 

But not all that is natural is necessarily safe. Scientists have not yet explored most of these species for their chemical makeup or therapeutic potential. 

As a medical ethnobotanist, I study the traditional uses of medicinal plants to discover promising leads for new drugs to fight infectious diseases. It’s vital to consider both the potential benefits and risks of plant extracts in such research. I am concerned by recent reports that a chemical found in the oleander plant is being touted as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Continue reading.

Here’s the real reason so many on the right are terrified of Antifa

AlterNet logoWith his tweet suggesting that Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old man who was violently shoved to the ground by Buffalo police during a protest last week, may have been an antifa super-ninja, Trump’s ooga-booga about anti-fascist activists descended into farce. And he isn’t alone. Locals on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state terrorized a multiracial family of four who were just out for a nice camping trip because they decided they were antifa activists. The Verge reports that “mythical buses full of bloodthirsty antifa protesters are causing panic in rural counties throughout the country,” leading small towns to board up shop windows and shut down their main streets. And this week, the Turkish regime under Recep Erdoğan blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party for training antifa units to commit acts of violence in the United States.

The reality, as you may know if you’re not a Fox News fan, is that while there are some local organized antifa groups, antifa is a philosophy, and a loose network of activists, rather than an organization. In its current iteration in the US, the movement arose from the punk scene, and some antifa activists engage in street fights with the Proud Boys and similar far-right groups. There has long been a debate on the left about the utility of those tactics (which I’ve written about).

But one thing that many mainstream commenters don’t acknowledge is that most antifa activism has nothing to do with physical confrontation. As Caroline Orr wrote at Medium, “antifascist activity is incredibly diverse, encompassing everything from , , and , to  and subverting them .” Continue reading.

As health experts sound the alarm, Trump fights coronavirus with alternative facts

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s governing strategy is on a collision course with a novel foe. Can alternative facts stop a pandemic?

Some of the nation’s leading public-health experts assembled before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning with some worrisome warnings: The dangerous Wuhan novel coronavirus is probably already in the United States in greater numbers than we know and should show itself in clusters in the coming weeks. There’s reason to doubt its spread will die down when the weather warms. And it could ultimately affect hundreds of thousands of Americans.

But Trump has never been one to embrace expert opinion, whether on climate change or on windmill cancer.

Trump will rely on an apocalyptic story of conspiracy as Democrats press for the rule of law

AlterNet logoThe presidential impeachment battle moves to a new stage on Wednesday, when the House will conduct the first public, televised testimony.

The nation is divided: Although a majority of Americans believe that Trump should cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, the public is not yet sure if Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses.

The impeachment battle will occur in Congress. But it will also play out on the national stage as the two sides compete to frame how the public thinks about the legitimacy of the inquiry.

View the complete November 13 article from Jennifer Mercieca from Texas A&M University and the Conversation on the AlterNet website here.

How a Fringe Theory About Ukraine Took Root in the White House

New York Times logoIn an April 2017 interview with The Associated Press, President Trump suddenly began talking about the hack of the Democratic National Committee a year earlier, complaining that the F.B.I. had not physically examined the compromised server.

“They brought in another company that I hear is Ukrainian-based,” the president said.

“CrowdStrike?” the surprised reporter asked, referring to the California cybersecurity company that investigated how Russian government hackers had stolen and leaked Democratic emails, disrupting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

View the complete October 3 article by Scott Shane on The New York Times website here.

Giuliani says State Dept vowed to investigate after he gave Ukraine docs to Pompeo

Democrats who saw the documents dismissed them as “propaganda and disinformation spreading conspiracy theories.”

WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that he personally gave Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a file of documents with unproven allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and was told that the State Department would take up an investigation of those claims.

Some of those documents are contained in the 79-page packet that the State Department’s inspector general handed over to Congress Wednesday, which were obtained by NBC News. The documents, combined with Giuliani’s version of events, raise new questions about what was done with the files after they were delivered to the State Department and whether an investigation into the allegations contained in them was ever launched.

Also included in the packet are nearly 20 pages of communications between State Department employees working to push back against the “fake narrative” that Giuliani was pushing.

View the complete October 4 article by Leigh Ann Caldwell, Kristen Welker, Heidi Przybyla, Josh Lederman and Abigail Williams on the NBC News website here.

Trump says administration “will take a look” at Peter Thiel’s Google allegations

Axios logoPresident Trump tweeted Tuesday that his administration “will take a look” at billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel’s statement over the weekend that Google should be federally investigated for allegedly aiding the Chinese military.

Why it matters, per Axios’ David McCabe: Thiel is the tech industry’s highest-profile Trump supporter, and one of the most powerful players in Silicon Valley.

  • Thiel provided no evidence to back up his claims when pressed on Monday, stating that he was just “raising questions,” per Recode’s Teddy Schleifer.
  • Trump said in his tweet that Thiel is “a great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone.”
  • Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow brushed off Thiel’s allegations during a Fox Business interview on Monday: “I’m just not sure where he’s going with this.”

What Thiel said on Sunday, requesting that the following questions “need to be asked by the FBI, by the CIA”: