Hydroxychloroquine – The New “Vitajex” for “Vitality” (At Least For The “Wheels of Industry”)

by drfuture2013

The dubious characters behind the sudden emergence of hydroxychloroquine as “America’s chemical savior,” and their legacy of providing medical “expertise” to the American public and their real motives.

The events here in the U.S. of the last few days and weeks, around what arguably may be one of the most impactful events globally of the last century – the COVID pandemic – has caused me to reflect on what is one of my very favorite movies – and of the many whom I have introduced it to – and I believe to be one of the most consequential films ever produced, even if it is largely forgotten by the modern public. It is called A Face in the Crowd, directed by the iconic Elia Kazan, and released in 1957, and a film I believe was 50 years ahead of its time. I am not alone in this assessment; in 2008 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” features an 8.2 rating on IMDB, and introduced the world to a mesmerizing Andy Griffith as the title character “Lonesome” Rhodes (as well as the debut of a young Lee Remick), in a role many believe for which Griffith deserved an Oscar nomination, but not for the folksy homespun decent man he would become as Sheriff Taylor, but something far darker and more real. It was written by Budd Schulberg, a man of Jewish upbringing (like many in the entertainment business in earlier days) whose father was a Hollywood film producer, but who left his family when Budd was young. In World War II he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, and was one of the first soldiers to release Jewish inmates from German concentration camps, and later was a key investigator to gather evidence against German defendants in the Nuremberg trials, even arresting “Triumph of the Will” producer Leni Riefenstahl in her chalet to force her to identify Nazi collaborator suspects from her films. He also won an Academy Award for his screenplay for On the Waterfront.

A Face in the Crowd concerns itself with Patricia Neal playing a small-town Mississippi radio producer/host of a show introducing a “man on the street,” and who in the local jail finds a grumpy and rough character whom the other captives avoid, and Neal is somehow charmed by him when he sees an opportunity to enrapture her and get release from his drifter lifestyle and frequent jail stays by use of his homespun witticisms and on-the-spot folk songs on the guitar. Before long, he finds his criticism of the jailer over the air causes the listening town folk to publicly protest his opponent, and when he defies the mattress company show sponsor, resulting in the towns people burning their mattresses, an enterprising and ambitious company employee quickly gets the newly christened “Lonesome” Rhodes to sign papers making him his agent, and arranging for him to audition to host the Vitajex Hour national broadcast from New York. We quickly see how a street-wise scoundrel and con man that is ruthless and a master manipulator of endless rural towns is an ideal fit for the Madison Avenue con game run nationally over the television networks, and “once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel,” and that “a leopard doesn’t change his spots” even if cleaned up for mass media, and rather being only a more dangerous con man with greater reach – a lesson we have certainly learned by this time in our selection of influential public figures, have we not?

One of the most fascinating scenes of a film filled with iconic scenes is the subsequent board room of the Vitajex Hour television program in New York, filled with Vitajex and television program executives, for the company owned by a “General Hainesworth,” whose name was on the top of every “Vitajex” bottle. They were struggling with declining sales and television ratings. The old-school Madison Avenue marketing executive suggested more television program specials focusing on the detailed health benefits of the “Vitajex” nutritional supplement pills with experts. The research chemist expert was brought in to the marketing meeting, who showed that the Vitajex pill was comprised of ingredients like dextrose (sugar) and caffeine, and mostly inert ingredients, and thus it was hard to argue scientifically that it was truly worthwhile, and said, “frankly, we have nothing to sell!” – a comment the marketing executive asked to have stricken from the minutes. He also asked the chemist expert if there was “anything wrong” with the ingredients of Vitajex, to which he replied, “It won’t kill you, if that’s what you mean,” drawing a smattering to giggles, and compared it to old patent medicines. The television execs then said they wanted to bring in country bumpkin “Lonesome Roads,” which the “TV shop” recommended. He was brought in with his hillbilly persona, making fun of the pill and the executives. He first told them they needed to make the pills yellow to make them appear to “give fellas some get-up-and-go and sets them up solid with the ladies,” and shows how to get your “batteries charged” by swallowing a pill, then commencing to laugh maniacally, saying he is “in the mood” and undergoing a”personality change” and proceeded to chase the secretaries around the table, saying, “That’s what Vitajex does to me, and I haven’t even swallowed them yet!” He then shows his on-the-spot songwriting skills by singing an infectious tune, “Vitajex – whatcha’ doin’ to me…you fill me full of ecstasy”. The film then cuts away to the “Vitajex dancers” on stage, and a collage straight from 21st century filmmaking sophistication, full of daring sexual innuendo and psychological and subliminal marketing techniques, rockabilly and racuous behavior, along with the chants of the audience, a cartoon of sexually charged pigs, and sultry girls with giant-sized Vitajex bottles for their “boyfriends,” while General Hainsworth calls in and tells them he loves it, as the ratings and sales take off.

General Hainesworth subsequently invites bumpkin Rhodes to his estate, to use his innate skills in manipulating the public via television to help him sell a stodgy Republican candidate for the next presidential election – a figure he has invited to the estate and its guest house. Rhodes’ previous publisher/lover calls Sen. Fuller the “last of the isolationists,” to which General Hainesworth tells her “that is what they say in the left wing New York newspapers.” Hainsworth offers Rhodes to “take him under his wing and educate him,” and make him another Will Rogers to be an influential political force, and a “wielder of public opinion,” and says that “history taught him that in every great society the masses had to be guided by the strong hand of a responsible elite,” and with “TV we have the greatest instrument for mass persuasion in the history of the world,” and thus the General decides to get him on the cover of Time and Life. Soon he is christening ships and mountains named after him. Eventually Rhodes and his manager show General Hainsworth their new invention of an applause and laugh track machine, called a “reaction machine” activated by “pushing little levers,” called the “Lonesome Rhodes Automatic Reactor.” Many more sordid personal events ensue with Rhodes, including his elopement with a teen-aged baton twirler he met at a high school competition, and a racy and gaudy marriage reinactment with her on his television program.

The Senator is then subject to “Madison Avenue coaching” of his presidential campaign and demeanor by General Hainesworth and Lonesome Rhodes, who forcibly make him into what he is not – a folksy character with a dog and a fun nickname, to get the “common man” to identify with him. The General says he needs “glamour” and says that since the majority of people didn’t believe his political positions, they had to come up with a product they would “love,” as Rhodes says he “needs a whole new personality,” and even change how he holds his lips on TV; privately, Rhodes tells the General he must bankroll Rhodes’ new “Lonesome Rhodes Cracker Barrel” TV show to roll out his home-spun political thoughts and on social issues, even pressuring the high-powered figure and threatening to go elsewhere for support. The new show even brings on the new Republican candidate with his new identity. Rhodes began to pontificate with his old country general store friends on air to make fun of America’s British allies as global has-beens, and then asks the Senator about “people wanting more and more Social Security,” to which the Republican says that “people are obsessed with comfort and security, they want protection, from the cradle to the grave – I say that weakens the moral fiber. Daniel Boone wasn’t looking for unemployment insurance and old age pension! All he needed was his ax and his gun, and a chance to hew his living out of the forest with is own hands, that’s the spirit that built this country!”; meanwhile cagey and world-wise reporter Walter Matthau tells the jilted Patricia Neal that he is writing a book about Rhodes called, “Demogogue in Denim.” Eventually she has enough and leaves Rhodes’ microphone on while his cigarette commercial says it “cleans your tobacco without a filter,” letting the whole public hear his contempt for their gullibility and stupidity, as well as the Republican candidate he was promoting, leading the public to denounce him on the switchboard, while he is singing, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee.” After his demise, Matthau tells Neal that “he will be back on television after a cooling off period, in a cheaper form, after some of the people forget, in a smaller form it but won’t be quite the same, until new fellas come along to take his fans,” and they will then forget him, and tells the despondent Neal that “we all get taken in, but we get wise to them.”

Many commentators believe that the “Vitajex” nutritional product was an allusion to a popular nutritional substance of the early Twentieth Century known as “Hadacol.” Hadacol was known as a “patent medicine” invented by Louisiana State Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, in 1943 in New Orleans. He was not a doctor or a pharmacist, but known as a “master of self-promotion”; Time magazine said that he was a “stem-winding salesman who knows every razzle-dazzle switch in the pitchman’s trade.” He evidently back-engineered a liquid a doctor gave him for foot pain, which was loaded with B-vitamins, and made sure it had up to 12 percent alcohol as a “preservative,” which made it very popular in the “dry” counties of the South (many pharmacies would not dilute it as prescribed, but rather give people straight shots).

Wikipedia notes that LeBlanc’s “Hadacol Goodwill Caravan” touring shows (the last of the big-time “medicine shows”) brought in Hollywood celebrities such as Roy Acuff, Milton Berle, Lucille Ball, Minnie Pearl, Mickey Rooney, Bob Hope, Cesar Romero, Dorothy Lamour, Carmen Miranda, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Judy Garland, Jack Dempsey, Chico Marx, Hank Williams and James Cagney to help him market the product. He also sponsored a separate touring show featuring notable Jazz and Blues musicians to attract black customers. Admission to the Hadacol gala was two Hadacol boxtops for adults, one for children. Considering that the 8 ounce bottle cost $1.25 and the “family size” 24 ounce bottle cost $3.50 each during the late 1940s, this was not cheap (Adjusted for inflation, the prices would be around $10 and $30 in 2007). Sales of the tonic at the shows were brisk. One entertainer participant said that the only way you could get into that show was with a Hadacol boxtop, and they played to crowds of ten, twelve thousand people a night.

In a 15-month period ending in March 1951, LeBlanc sold more than $3,600,000 worth of the tonic. In another six months, after LeBlanc sold his interest of the LeBlanc Corporation (Hadacol’s parent company) to investors for $8,200,000, the enterprise collapsed under the weight of debtors. It was discovered all too late that LeBlanc was spending more for advertising by that point than he was taking in as receipts (turning its $3,600,000 profit into a $1,800,000 second-quarter loss), had concealed both $2,000,000 in unpaid bills and a $656,151 tax debt.

Wikipedia also notes that a two-page advertisement for Hadacol appeared in the centerfold of the 1951 edition of Grier’s Almanac, an annual publication marketed to farmers in the Southern USA. The ad’s headline read (in very large type):

  • Don’t Be Satisfied With Symptomatic Relief! It’s Possible to RELIEVE THE CAUSE OF YOUR AILMENTS When Lack Of Vitamins B1, B2, Iron and Niacin Cause Stomach Disturbances, Gas, Heartburn, Indigestion, Nagging Aches and Pains, and Certain Nervous Disorders.

The ad continued with testimonials and a glowing plug for Senator LeBlanc, stressing the curative powers of Hadacol for a number of ailments “…due to lack of Vitamins B1, B2, Iron and Niacin”. A capsule version of Hadacol was briefly produced, consisting solely of a B-Vitamin and mineral mixture. LeBlanc promoted the tonic as a “Dietary Supplement” instead of a medicine, stating that it was “…formulated as an Aid to Nature in rebuilding the Pep, Strength and Energy of Buoyant Health when the System is deficient in the Vitamins and Minerals found in this Tonic.” The American Medical Association said in an official press release in 1951 that “It is hoped that no doctor will be uncritical enough to join in the promotion of Hadacol. It is difficult to imagine how one could do himself or his profession greater harm from the standpoint of the abuse of the trust of a patient suffering from any condition. Hadacol is not a specific medication. It is not even a specific preventive measure.”

LeBlanc flooded the airwaves with testimonials to the powers of the seemingly miraculous (yet foul tasting) brown liquid and turned the jingle called “Hadacol Boogie” into a popular recording. Promotional items included various fliers, signs and clocks, a “Captain Hadacol” comic book, T-shirts, lipstick, an almanac, plastic thimbles printed with the Hadacol logo, water pistols and cowboy-style holsters. Martin Gardner’s In the Name of Science (1952) mentions an interview that LeBlanc gave on Groucho Marx’s radio program: When Groucho asked him what Hadacol was good for, LeBlanc gave an answer of startling honesty. “It was good,” the senator said, “for five million dollars for me last year.”

So how was Lonesome Rhodes able to turn a medical/nutritional product of dubious benefit as determined by the experts, into a national phenomenon and a springboard into political influence and mastery over the public? Well, watch a clip of this ingenious piece of writing and filmmaking yourself:

The only reason I had even waded in to this powder keg (amongst many social and political “powder kegs” these days) of the “hydroxychloroquine” matter, was that I was generously invited by an overseas Christian podcaster to appear on his show not long ago. Since I had not heard his show before and not familiar with his style of interviewing, right before my appearance I decided to listen to a show uploaded right before my appearance, which featured the guest “Dr. Simone Gold,” and the discussion of the drug strongly recommended by President Trump, hydroxychloroquine, which she was strongly promoting as the solution to COVID-19, and further insinuated a cover-up amongst the medical establishment to stymie its use. As I listened intently, there were a few flags then, as an old show host myself, investigator and all-round nosy person, that instinctively compelled me to look around online to find out more about her background, and the origins of her very unique position on hydroxychloroquine as a doctor, in contrast to the position of an overwhelming number of doctors and established medical organizations globally, and large clinical studies done since Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro of Brazil began pushing it hard in late spring.

Before I forget to mention, I much enjoyed my interview with my new friend, which will be linked (in its both parts) on my website www.mikebennettbooks.com very soon. I did give him a heads up as to the contents of my following research, and assured him that my interest was not an indictment on his having her as a guest or his interest in the merits of the drug, but merely an outgrowth of the “mind wheels turning” his interview and his guest generated in me, as I shared my following findings with him a day before posting this, and we are on good terms (if I could fault him for anything, it would be for the inconsiderate outrage of his having an interesting guest and timely topic on his show that I cannot resist chasing down as a new “shiny object” for me, apart from my intended subjects of focus).

Having more than enough to do myself in promoting my book and its subject matter, and not needing to raise any further controversies in a world replete with them these days, nevertheless my curiosity drove me to recklessly pursue another very time-consuming rabbit trail in a quest to alienate more readers, including some supportive close friends who have strong opinions on the matter of masks and such. I just pass on this information for your general consideration and contemplation, and let you draw your own conclusions. I found a number of interesting stories that detailed Dr. Gold’s interesting background. During this early time near the first part of July, I found a particular story that caused me to look further into this a little, and then drop it after the interview (not needing new windmills to tilt at) until a friend (who most of you would know) prodded me to look further into this matter in the last week. Since this is another of my long-winded posts, and I expect most people’s eyes to glaze over while wading through it, I have highlighted some of the most important (in my view) names and phrases in bold, so as to help you not scan past it – I hope it is not an irritant. This first story I found from mid-May gives some hints and some organizations that might be assisting her in this unique mission. The report, back on May 19 by the Associated Press, suggests that even then there were efforts by Republication lobbying groups such as the Council on National Policy to push in the media pro-hydroxychloroquine doctors soon to help with Trump’s reelection campaign. They begin by writing that

“Republican political operatives are recruiting “pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. A leaked recording of the hour-long call was provided to The Associated Press by the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group. CNP Action is part of the Save Our Country Coalition, an alliance of conservative think tanks and political committees formed in late April to end state lockdowns implemented in response to the pandemic. Other members of the coalition include the FreedomWorks Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and Tea Party Patriots. A resurgent economy is seen as critical to boosting President Donald Trump’s reelection hopes and has become a growing focus of the White House coronavirus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence. Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director, confirmed to AP that an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president is underway, but declined to say when the initiative would be rolled out. ‘Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted,’ Murtaugh said Monday. ‘And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes.…The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible.‘” They add that

“‘Our job at the campaign is to reflect President Trump’s point of view,’ Murtaugh said. ‘We are his campaign. There is no difference between us and him.’ On the May 11 call, Nancy Schulze, a GOP activist who is married to former Rep. Dick Schulze, R-Pa., said she had given the campaign a list of 27 doctors prepared to defend Trump’s reopening push. ‘There is a coalition of doctors who are extremely pro-Trump that have been preparing and coming together for the war ahead in the campaign on health care,” Schulze said on the call. ‘And we have doctors that are … in the trenches, that are saying ‘It’s time to reopen.’ The idea quickly gained support from Mercedes Schlapp, a Trump campaign senior adviser who previously served two years as the president’s director of strategic communications. ‘“Those are the types of guys that we should want to get out on TV and radio to help push out the message,” Schlapp said on the call. ‘They’ve already been vetted. But they need to be put on the screens,’ Schulze replied…Matt Schlapp is chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference attended by conservative luminaries. ‘The president’s going to get tagged by the fake news media as being irresponsible and not listening to doctors,’ Matt Schlapp said on the call. ‘And so we have to gird his loins with a lot of other people. So I think what Nancy’s talking about … this is the critical juncture that we highlight them.’ Matt Schlapp told AP on Monday that he stood behind what he said on the leaked call…’It’s important to get the message out there that most people recover from corona. Most people are not in mortal danger with corona and that we can safely open up the economy.’…after the AP contacted the Trump campaign seeking comment for this story, a Washington public relations firm that frequently works for conservative groups distributed an open letter to Trump signed by more than 400 doctors calling the state coronavirus lockdowns a ‘mass casualty event’ causing ‘millions of casualties’ from alcoholism, homelessness, suicide and other causes.”

“The first signature on the letter was Dr. Simone Gold, an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles who is listed as a member of the Save Our Country Coalition on the group’s website. She has recently appeared on conservative talk radio and podcast programs to advocate for the use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that Trump says he is taking because he believes it can prevent COVID-19, even though no research has shown it to be effective. Gold said she has prescribed the drug to two of her patients with good results. The Food and Drug Administration warned health professionals last month that the drug should not be used to treat COVID-19 outside of hospital or research settings due to sometimes fatal side effects. Gold told AP on Tuesday she started speaking out against shelter-in-place and other infection control measures because there was ‘no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned’ about COVID-19. Like the president, she is advocating for a fast reopening, and argues that because the majority of deaths so far have been the elderly and people with preexisting conditions, younger people should be working. Gold denied she was coordinating her efforts with Trump’s reelection campaign. ‘But put this in there: I’m honored to be considered,’ she said.

The Non-Profit Quarterly writes that this scheme to force the re-opening of the economy goes all the way back to April, before we even knew what we were getting into long-term with this pandemic. They write that

“In April, several leading conservative free-market nonprofits, including the FreedomWorks Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Tea Party Patriots, and Committee to Unleash Prosperity formed a ‘partnership with a coalition of several conservative organizations and prominent individuals and launched the Save Our Country Coalition.’ Their goal is to ‘bring about a quick, safe and responsible reopening of US society. This coalition will exist until it is clear that the US economy has once again stabilized.’ According to David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy…the real agenda of the Coalition was to attack government interventions and push for rapid reopening despite the enactment of stay-at-home orders by many states after coronavirus cases skyrocketed. Neither public health and safety was their priority. Organizations within the Coalition have tapped their mailing lists to generate turnouts for rallies to pressure governors and mayors to ease lockdowns and lessen requirements for social distancing. Using social media as a vehicle, the SOCC has also worked to amplify voices ready to discredit the scientific basis for a vigorous public health response to the virus. According to the Guardian, at a time when more than 1.5 million Americans had contracted the disease, the Coalition was featuring the views of Dr. Simone Gold, who told the Associated Press there was ‘no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned about COVID-19’ and used talk radio to tout the efficacy of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine against the virus despite all the evidence that taking it carries health risks.”

“Leading the way is the has been the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee and worth almost $900 million. According to the Guardian, the Bradleys’ foundation has recently granted more than $1.275 million to the Coalition and its member organizations. Bradley and foundations like it are also supporting local efforts to fight the public health response. According to Common Dreams, Bradley supported a lawsuit that challenged the power of Wisconsin’s governor to impose stay-at-home and other public safety orders: GOP legislative leaders filed a legal challenge to the state’s April 16 ‘Safer at Home’ order resulting in 4–3 State Supreme Court ruling on May 13 striking it down. A number of Bradley-funded groups backed the GOP’s legal maneuver, by filing amicus briefs, including…Charles Koch’s Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin…Following the Supreme Court decision, confusion ensued as people flocked to Wisconsin’s bars and pubs, and counties and cities scrambled to set their own rules to replace the state’s order. Since then, the seven-day average number of coronavirus cases in Wisconsin has more than doubled, from 286 on May 13, 2020, to 755 on July 13.”

Indeed, the UK-based Guardian did expose the big business-Republican political operations behind the hydroxychloroquine/antimask-antilockdown movements back on the the first of June. They write that

“A powerful conservative coalition whose key members have strong Trump administration ties, is seeking to raise $5m to back hundreds of doctors pressing states to open rapidly and to build support for new tax cuts and curbing pandemic spending, say its leaders. The Save Our Country (SOC) coalition was launched in April by veteran advocates of small government policies who lead right wing groups like FreedomWorks Foundation, Tea Party Patriots and the shadowy state policy network the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec)…But the Tea Party Patriots have spearheaded a drive, in radio and TV interviews, to mobilize doctors urging states to move faster. It is now attracting broader financial support from right wing donors and groups in the shape of the SOC. Doctors in the group have also pushed unscientific theories about the pandemic in ways that have sparked anger and criticism. The Tea Party leader Jenny Beth Martin said the group has about 800 members and its mission is to “educate the American public about the unintended side-effects” of the shutdown…The coalition’s key groups are dark money non-profits that historically have been funded by a mix of wealthy donors, corporations and conservative foundations. One leading figure in the loose-knit coalition is the FreedomWorks economic adviser and free markets advocate Stephen Moore…Brandon said the SOS coalition has raised just over $800,000 towards a $5m goal for projects including new ad efforts – online, radio and print – to rev up grassroots pressure to reopen states faster, plus curtail more federal spending and promote business-favored tax cuts.”

“Los Angeles-based Dr Simone Gold, who has been prominent in the doctors’ drive, was featured over Memorial Day weekend at a rally in Los Angeles which drew the conservative radio host Dennis Prager. According to the Associated Press, the Council for National Policy Action, another SOS member, on 11 May held a call about the doctors’ effort with Trump campaign officials who indicated they plan to launch a similar drive soon…Gold has also used talk radio to tout the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine – which Trump has taken in hopes of blocking Covid-19 – despite growing scientific evidence it carries big health risks…Brandon said the coalition recently spent $50,000 for videos on Facebook, Hulu and Twitter targeting independents and Republicans with the message that Covid-19 mostly hits the elderly to minimize risks for others. FreedomWorks, which boasts an arm whose tax status permits lobbying, has also been prodding the Senate “to pump the brakes on new spending”…Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks have tapped their email lists and social media to mobilize activists to join “liberate” demonstrations in more than 10 states including North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia and Michigan, with the latter attracting some gun-toting activists. Key groups in the SOC coalition, which has 200 members, have been funded by prominent billionaires, including some who have been active in the sprawling big-money network led by the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch…Charles Koch, whose net worth Forbes last month pegged at $46.5bn, has been an Alec funder. The Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, whose net worth in February was $6.5bn…also belongs to the coalition. The coalition and some member groups have held strategy conference calls that include some wealthy donors and underscore White House ties. FreedomWorks and Brandon hosted one such call on May 21 with Vice-President Mike Pence and Moore.”

On May 21 the Washington Beltway newspaper The Hill also had an article on the letter sent to President Trump. They write that

“…The letter was spearheaded by Simone Gold, a California emergency medical specialist. Jenny Beth Martin, the cofounder of Tea Party Patriots, helped organize the letter and get it to the White House. It was released as the Trump campaign has been actively soliciting the support of pro-Trump physicians, according to The Associated Press. Gold wrote the shutdown has adversely impacted Americans due to missed cancer screenings, canceled dental appointments and spikes in mental health problems…Neither Gold nor Beth Martin have been in touch with the Trump campaign about the effort, they said in separate interviews…Gold said in an interview with The Hill she doesn’t want to be seen as political, and is merely concerned about the negative medical impacts of the shutdown. Gold described it as a ‘grassroots’ effort and rejected characterizations of it as a ‘political movement.’…Some of the doctors who signed onto the letter are aligned with a small right-wing medical organization called the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) that has promoted discredited medical theories, and opposes Medicare. The group opposes mandatory vaccines, has questioned that HIV is the cause of AIDS, and has asserted that former President Obama used ‘a covert form of hypnosis’ to attract support for his 2008 campaign. At one time, its membership included Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Gold said she does not belong to the group, but many of their members share her views about a fast reopening. AAPS said it was not formally associated with Gold’s effort.”

The UK Daily Mail newspaper adds a few more details:

“Dr Simone Gold, an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles, was the lead signature on the letter – from the One Doctor A Day group…The group appears to have been set up with the assistance of a Republican public relations firm in Washington D.C. which distributed the letter. Gold is a member of the ‘Save Our Country’ coalition which is led by another Trump ally, Art Laffer, the conservative economist who has also spoken out against lockdown…The letter was published by Fox News and shared online. Gold teamed up with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons – a conservative group – to obtain the signatures….Dr. Gold has recently appeared on conservative talk radio and podcast programs to advocate for the use of hydroxychloroquine, which she says she has prescribed to two of her patients with good results. Gold told AP on Tuesday…there was ‘no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned’ about COVID-19.”

Back on May 15 the Center for Media and Democracy wrote that this initiative was one of a much wider one planned behind the scenes to organize protests to “open society” across the country, involving more conservative groups:

“Working alongside close allies that have helped coordinate the protests, including Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks, Council for National Policy Action (CNP Action) has been hosting conference calls and publishing action memos around reopening states’ economies. CNP Action is the 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliate of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a coalition of far-right political advocacy and think tank figures that has worked largely behind the scenes since its founding in 1981…Trump allies, including senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and former chief adviser Steve Bannon, were CNP members as of 2014. Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow has also been a member, according to a recently published book by Anne Nelson. Since last month, CNP Action has hosted weekly conference calls to coordinate coronavirus response tactics. The first call featured Moore, who founded the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation’s Ed Meese, and Al Regnery, chairman of CNP’s Conservative Action Project and the cousin of prominent white nationalist William Regnery. Moore has called the lockdown protesters “the modern-day Rosa Parks” for “protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.”

“The email announcing the second call, which featured ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson and State Policy Network CEO Tracie Sharp, links to information about an April 21 car protest at the Alabama Capitol Building in Montgomery, organized by the anti-LGBTQ group Eagle Forum…several current staffers are part of the CNP-connected “Save Our Country Task Force.” The announcement directed readers to the private Facebook page of the group ReOpen PA, which was one of three groups that organized an April 20 lockdown protest at the Pennsylvania state capitol. The other two groups’ Facebook pages have been deactivated.”

“In an announcement of the third call, CNP Action directs allies to send links to op-eds, articles, and social media posts to a TeaPartyPatriots.org email address…’The Save Our Country Task Force will send it out for others in the coalition to share and cross-promote for a multiplying effect,’ the announcement says…The Save Our Country Task Force is an overlapping group, tied closely to ALEC, that’s chaired by Trump economic adviser Art Laffer and includes Moore and CNP’s president Bill Walton, a trustee of the Heritage Foundation, in its leadership…Last year, Trump gave Laffer, a former Ronald Reagan adviser and a supply-side economics evangelist, a Presidential Medal of Freedom. On the May 4 call, Robert Alt of the Charles Koch-funded Buckeye Institute spoke, and his remarks were posted online.”

“An announcement for the fourth weekly CNP Action call links to the ReOpen PA Facebook page as well as to a ‘Zoom Grassroots Briefing on #ReOpenAmerica with Steve Moore and [conservative pollster] Scott Rasmussen.’ Moore and FreedomWorks have been helping coordinate on-the-ground lockdown protests. The announcement links to the Open the States website, a project of Convention of States Action, which has also helped coordinate protests. The call took place on May 11 and featured Mercedes Schlapp, a lobbyist and senior advisor to Donald Trump’s campaign, and her husband, Matt Schlapp, a lobbyist.”

A sample from their conference call:

WALTON, introducing a caller’s question: We’re now discovering, as the science rolls out, that there are tens of millions more people infected with this virus than previously imagined…. It’s decidedly reduced the lethality of it.

MERCEDES SCHLAPP: …I think that the reality is, is that when they looked at the modeling…it depends what assumptions you put into the modeling to see, and so I think the thing is, let’s go from millions of deaths to having more like, if you can get it down to not millions of deaths we’re in better position.

MATT SCHLAPP: …Even if you’re in some of these really, really serious demographic categories, the survival rate is so high, so we should feel optimistic about it instead of pessimistic.

“The call largely revolved around what the Trump campaign is doing to win the election in the face of the current crisis.”

“The Southern Poverty Law Center published a leaked full roster of CNP from 2014, [including] the neo-Confederate League of the South; and the anti-Muslim Center for Security Policy. On the board of governors was Michael Peroutka, who was on the board of League of the South…conspiracy theorists Jerome Corsi, who was investigated in the Trump-Russia probe, and Joseph Farah. The recent CNP Action announcements link to a Liberty Counsel initiative led by Mat Staver called ReOpen Church. CNP’s founders include multiple members of the conspiracist John Birch Society…Richard DeVos, the father-in-law of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is a former president of CNP, and his family foundation has funded the group. DeVos’s parents’ family charity, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation [father and mother of Blackwater founder Erik Prince], are regular donors, having given money in the 2018 fiscal year, the most recent on record.

This past Tuesday (I believe) I was sent a link to a video of a press conference of the “Front Line Doctors” outside the Supreme Court building, by a good friend and popular podcaster, and watched it before it was taken down. Within the day it was forcibly taken down on various media venues, for reasons described below. Here are some pertinent articles I found on what happened as a result of this handful of doctors there and their announcements to put away masks and social distancing, and rely solely on hydroxychloroquine, and one of the most prominent doctors that appeared alongside Dr. Gold, including this first story by mainstream business news site CNBC:

“A video containing misleading information on the coronavirus clocked up millions of views before it was pulled from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The video was created by right-wing media outlet Breitbart. It depicts a group of people dressed in white lab coats — who call themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” — staging a press conference outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. Those in the video claim that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is ‘a cure for Covid’ and ‘you don’t need a mask’ to slow the spread of coronavirus.

‘This virus has a cure, it’s called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax,’ one of the women in the video claims. ‘You don’t need masks, there is a cure.’ The claims are in contrast to the advice from public health officials to prevent the spread of the virus. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it had ended the emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, saying the drugs were ‘unlikely to be effective in treating Covid-19.’…By late Monday, the video had racked up 20 million views on Facebook, according to NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny. President Donald Trump shared several versions of the video with his 84 million Twitter followers before they were taken down, even though his own administration has recommended people wear masks. A Facebook spokesperson said: ‘We’ve removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for Covid-19.’ Facebook has been battling coronavirus misinformation on its platform since January but there are now several instances of disinformation going viral before they’re removed. A Twitter spokesperson said tweets containing the video violate its Covid-19 misinformation policy and that it is taking action. YouTube said the video met the bar for removal because it claimed a guaranteed cure of Covid-19. ″From the very beginning of the pandemic, we’ve had clear policies against Covid-19 misinformation and are committed to continue providing timely and helpful information at this critical time,’ a spokesperson said.

“America’s Frontline Doctors started a website on July 15. The group is composed of some doctors and some who are part of the anti-vaccination movement. Dr. Simone Gold, the group’s leader, is reportedly a Trump supporter who has advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine on conservative talk radio and podcasts. Gold has also spoken out against shelter-in-place measures and other measures designed to slow the spread of Covid-19 because there was ‘no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned’ about when it comes to the coronavirus.”

This mild restriction also impacted the twitter account of Donald Trump Jr., who tends to be even more aggressive than his father in passing on such information (such as his knowing excitement of obtaining information about Hillary Clinton knowingly passed on from the Russian government):

“Social media giant Twitter suspended the account of Donald Trump Jr. after he shared a video of doctors talking about the controversial anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. A message from the company said that some features of Trump Jr.’s account were ‘temporarily limited’ after he violated the company’s rules — specifically, a policy on ‘spreading misleading and potentially harmful misinformation’ related to the coronavirus. A spokesperson for the company said that the account was not suspended, but that ‘some’ account features would be limited for 12 hours because of the rule violation.”

Some of the biggest information regarding the press announcement of “America’s Frontline doctors” was Dr. Gold’s co-host at the announcement and video – Dr. Stella Immanuel, who seems to have gotten most of the press conference talking time and subsequent coverage on the event:

“A Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus has become a star on the right-wing internet, garnering tens of millions of views on Facebook on Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Stella Immanuel a ‘must watch,’ while Donald Trump himself retweeted the video. Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens. Immanuel gave her viral speech on the steps of the Supreme Court at the “White Coat Summit,” a gathering of a handful of doctors who call themselves America’s Frontline Doctors and dispute the medical consensus on the novel coronavirus. The event was organized by the right-wing group Tea Party Patriots, which is backed by wealthy Republican donors. In her speech, Immanuel alleges that she has successfully treated hundreds of patients with hydroxychloroquine…’Nobody needs to get sick,’ Immanuel said. ‘This virus has a cure.’…footage of the speech captured by Breitbart was a hit online, becoming a top video on Facebook and amassing roughly 13 million views—significantly more than “Plandemic,” another coronavirus disinformation video that became a viral hit online in May, when it amassed roughly 8 million Facebook views. ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ trended on Twitter, as Immanuel’s video was embraced by the Trumps, conservative student group Turning Point USA, and pro-Trump personalities like Diamond & Silk. But both Facebook and Twitter eventually deleted videos of Immanuel’s speech from their sites…Immanuel responded in her own way, declaring that Jesus Christ would destroy Facebook’s servers if her videos weren’t restored to the platform. ‘Hello Facebook put back my profile page and videos up or your computers with start crashing till you do,’ she tweeted. ‘You are not bigger that God. I promise you. If my page is not back up face book will be down in Jesus name.’ Immanuel is a registered physician in Texas, according to a Texas Medical Board database, and operates a medical clinic out of a strip mall next to her church, Firepower Ministries. Immanuel was born in Cameroon and received her medical degree in Nigeria. In a GoFundMe legal defense fund, which swelled from just $90 to $1,616 hours after her speech, Immanuel claims without offering any proof that members of a Houston networking group for women physicians are scheming to take her medical license away over her support for hydroxychloroquine.”

“In sermons posted on YouTube and articles on her website, Immanuel claims that medical issues like endometriosis, cysts, infertility, and impotence are caused by sex with “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives”—a phenomenon Immanuel describes essentially as witches and demons having sex with people in a dreamworld. ‘“They are responsible for serious gynecological problems,’ Immanuel said. ‘We call them all kinds of names—endometriosis, we call them molar pregnancies, we call them fibroids, we call them cysts, but most of them are evil deposits from the spirit husband,’ Immanuel said of the medical issues in a 2013 sermon. ‘They are responsible for miscarriages, impotence—men that can’t get it up.’ In her sermon, Immanuel offers a sort of demonology of ‘nephilim,’ the biblical characters she claims exist as demonic spirits and lust after dream sex with humans, causing all matter of real health problems and financial ruin. Immanuel claims real-life ailments such as fibroid tumors and cysts stem from the demonic sperm after demon dream sex, an activity she claims affects ‘many women.’ ‘They turn into a woman and then they sleep with the man and collect his sperm,’ Immanuel said in her sermon. ‘Then they turn into the man and they sleep with a woman and deposit the sperm and reproduce more of themselves.’ According to Immanuel, people can tell if they have taken a demonic spirit husband or spirit wife if they have a sex dream about someone they know or a celebrity, wake up aroused, stop getting along with their real-world spouse, lose money, or generally experience any hardship. Alternately, they could just be having dream-sex with a human witch instead of a demon, she posits. ‘There are those that are called astral sex,’ Immanuel said in the sermon. ‘That means this person is not really a demon being or a nephilim. It’s just a human being that’s a witch, and they astral project and sleep with people.’ Immanuel’s bizarre medical ideas don’t stop with demon sex in dreams. In a 2015 sermon that laid out a supposed Illuminati plan hatched by ‘a witch’ to destroy the world using abortion, gay marriage, and children’s toys, among other things, Immanuel claimed that DNA from space aliens is currently being used in medicine. ‘They’re using all kinds of DNA, even alien DNA, to treat people,’ Immanuel said. Immanuel’s website offers a prayer to remove a generational curse originally received from an ancestor but transmitted, in Immanuel’s telling, through placenta. Immanuel claimed in another 2015 sermon posted that scientists had plans to install microchips in people, and develop a ‘vaccine’ to make it impossible to become religious. ‘They found the gene in somebody’s mind that makes you religious, so they can vaccinate against it,’ Immanuel said. Immanuel elaborated on her fascination with witchcraft in her 2015 Illuminati sermon, claiming that witches were intent on seizing control of children. In her 2015 sermon on the Illuminati’s supposed agenda to bring down the United States, Immanuel argues that a wide variety of toys, books, and TV shows, from Pokémon—which she declares ‘Eastern demons’—to Harry Potter and the Disney Channel shows Wizards of Waverly Place and That’s So Raven were all part of a scheme to introduce children to spirits and witches. Immanuel warned that the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana was a gateway to evil, because its character had an ‘alter ego.’ She has claimed that schools teach children to meditate so they can ‘meet with demons.’ In the sermon, Immanuel preserved special vitriol for the Magic 8-Ball, a toy that can be shaken up to ‘reveal’ any answer. Immanuel claims the otherwise innocuous Magic 8-Ball was in fact a scheme to get children used to witchcraft. ‘The 8-Ball was a psychic,’ she said. Immanuel’s oddball claims about the world extend to politics. She didn’t bring up this allegation publicly in Washington, but she has claimed that the American government is run in part by non-human reptilians. ‘There are people that are ruling this nation that are not even human,’ Immanuel said in her 2015 Illuminati sermon, before launching into a conversation she had with a ‘reptilian spirit’ she described as ‘half-human, half-ET.’”

Even Dr. Gold’s own website server shut down their website:

[Dr. Simone Gold, @drsimonegold, Jul 28]: “WOW: Our website host @Squarespace has just completely and arbitrarily shut down our website, claiming a violation of their terms of service.”

To try to learn a little bit more about Dr. Gold and her background, I looked at her Linked In page:

There it says that from 2012 to the present, she worked as a “concierge physician,” and she says that “I offer clients the same high level of information and guidance that C-level executives expect in other areas of their lives. I work the same way as a highly effective Fortune 100 CEO,” so as to “find the best answer for each client-situation.” It appears that her other job for the last decade is to answer for her clients, “Which states have passed anti-BDS laws?” (I think this pertains to organizations who divert from investments in the State of Israel). It also says that in 2009 Simone Gold “Assisted [State of Israel] Ambassador [to the U.S.] Michael Oren with research, writing, editing on various assignments, including the Wall StreetJournal and The New Republic“. She also lists the publication “All Roads Lead to Damascus,” which appears to be an article written by ambassador Oren that was published in the Wall Street Journal, that gives her credit for her assistance.

Dr. Gold’s Facebook page also has some interesting, related clues:

Just a few posts down form the most recent one, is one in which Dr. Gold writes that “Antisemite Linda Sarsour with some of the antisemites (Congresswomen) of the Democrat Party,” and showing someone wearing a hajib, and holding a map with the Middle East, with a Post-It with “Palestine” written on it to denote its location, and the congressman in the picture as well (the commenters there mention that the name of Rep. Linda Sarsour is translated as “cockroach” in Arabic). The post immediately below that is of Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the United Nations, and the post before that is of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and her December 2016 post concludes when she states that “Israel is the solution to the problems of the Middle East.” Just three posts before the “antisemite” post of Gold’s is a post about “Fleccas Talks”, as she says “Fleccas Talks is telling the stories the MSM ignores”; this website on Facebook seems to be all about selling Donald Trump gear, and promoting people like Trump’s press secretary and Rep. Jim Jordan giving it to Dr. Fauci. A keyword search of “Israel” on Dr. Gold’s Facebook page turns up a large portion of her posts on her site, including her visits there and political issues in Israel.

In her blog, “The Gold Opinion“, she writes that in the op-ed she wrote of USA Today for June 24, she wrote that “The Covid virus was supposed to be contained in the kind of lab where people wear astronaut suits and go through triple sealed doors. It is a con of massive proportion to assert that now, having escaped those environs, a bandana will magically do the trick…The mask has become the most visible symbol of #socialconditioning to Americans determined to preserve individual freedom.” I don’t know if she is insinuating that COVID must of been produced as an engineered virus in a Chinese lab, and if so, what is her evidence, or what.

She explains what is “C-Suite Medicine” that her business provides, on her website:

“Across the globe, medical decisions rarely occur in a free marketplace. It is unusual for the buyer (the patient) to pay the seller (the expert) for the item he wants (the best medical advice.) The separation of the free-market relationship between buyer and seller has created an environment where buyers who are willing to purchase the very best advice often can’t even find a seller. But when a potentially serious health issues arises, taking the right steps, and avoiding the missteps, can mean the difference between forever living with a serious impairment, a shortened life expectancy, or enjoying good health. Not obtaining excellent medical advice can, and often does, have dire consequences. In America, “concierge medicine” has become increasingly popular as an alternative way for patients to have better access to quality physicians, and in turn, obtain higher quality medical advice. In a concierge practice, patients directly pay their concierge doctor $20,000-$50,000 annually. Because the financial pressure ​is lifted, concierge physicians can work more closely with their patients to have better results. This is a free-market solution that works well for clients who are willing to pay to ensure ongoing care with their preferred physician…As a C-Suite Physician, Dr. Gold works the same way as a highly effective Fortune 100 CEO.”

One can see why “high rollers” that financed Dr Gold’s “Front Line Doctors” ad-hoc group would support her (and her definition of “free markets” that only the rich can exploit), and as someone who would aggressively fight against a health care system where both the rich and poor obtained similar levels of care, and otherwise could not “buy” themselves additional longevity – a mindset consistent with those robber barons I show that bankrolled the Religious Right early in their formative years, in my Two Masters and Two Gospels book.

On July 29, The Huffington Post added some additional details:

“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.”

“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.”

“Trump first mentioned hydroxychloroquine after two cryptocurrency investors created a widely circulated file on Google Docs touting the drug while falsely claiming to be associated with Stanford University School of Medicine and other medical institutions. Google removed the document for violating its policies, but not before its creators gained widespread media attention and appeared on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show to share false claims they had found a ‘cure’ for the virus. One of the cryptocurrency investors ― James Todaro, who also trained as an ophthalmologist ― is now a member of the “frontline doctors” group.”

These two woman were not the only doctors whose assertions are being critiqued; another male physician, Dr. Jeff Barke, who made similar claims at a California lockout protest, was similarly debunked in his similar claims by Politifact.

On July 29, the day after their ridiculed “press conference,” The Beltway media source The Hill also gave details concerning these doctors and their meeting with Vice President Pence after their controversial “press conference”:

“Vice President Pence on Tuesday met with doctors from the viral video that social media platforms have removed for spreading misleading information about coronavirus. The doctors, who are members of the group America’s Frontline Doctors, posted on Twitter promoting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which has not been proven to effectively treat COVID-19, to Pence during a meeting. Pence’s meeting with the doctors came after the group’s physicians spoke in a Monday video in front of the Supreme Court building, claiming that masks are not needed to prevent COVID-19 spread, and that hydroxychloroquine was a cure. Simone Gold, the leader of America’s Frontline Doctors, tweeted that the doctors were requesting the administration help in ’empowering doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without political obstruction.’ ‘We also discussed the recent censorship of doctors on social media platforms,’ she added…Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, the group that promoted Monday’s press conference, also confirmed the meeting on Twitter. The vice president’s schedule listed the meeting as a session with “practicing physicians on COVID-19,” CNN reported…Both the Tea Party Patriots and America’s Frontline Doctors are advocating against any additional economic shutdowns to prevent coronavirus spread…The president has defended his use of the drug and his sharing of the video, telling reporters Wednesday that he was “very impressed” with one of the doctors, appearing to refer to Immanuel. Top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci called the video that Trump retweeted “a bunch of people spouting something that isn’t true.”

The website of the Tea Party Patriots, funded by billionaires of a big-business agenda, make a blatant statement on their website that are actively involved in organizing resistance events to all lockdowns in all states, regardless of the severity of the COVID infection rates there, to keep the “wheels of big business rolling” (in my perception), under the April 17 article title, “Tea Party Patriots Action Supports Lockdown Protests, Opposes Michigan Governor and Others Abusing Power”:

“Even in a public health emergency, there are defined limits on government power, and it’s unacceptable that governors and local elected officials are abusing that power.  Spirited protests in Michigan, Kentucky, Virginia, and other states show that Americans value their liberties and will defend them. Politicians in every state should read this message loud and clear: We are still a people that values freedom above a false sense of government-imposed security. We will resist abuses.  And we will not treat this as a ‘new normal’ once the pandemic is over.”

FreedomWorks, the organization that spawned the supposed “grass roots” “Tea Party” and is the primary brainchild of the two richest men in America, the energy tycoons the Koch Brothers, spell out their whole agenda back in April 27 for all these initiatives, as follows:

“FreedomWorks Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council, Tea Party Patriots and Committee to Unleash Prosperity in partnership with a coalition of conservative organizations and prominent individuals, today launched the Save Our Country Coalition. Led by honorary national chairman Dr. Art Laffer, the Save Our Country Coalition aims to educate and inform elected officials and policymakers at all levels of government in an effort to bring about a quick, safe and responsible reopening of US society. This coalition will exist until it is clear that the US economy has once again stabilized.

Stephen Moore, Co-Founder of The Committee To Unleash Prosperity, commented:

“30 million Americans are now out of work as a result of the ongoing economic shutdown sweeping the country. This number will rise considerably in the coming days and risks causing greater damage than the coronavirus pandemic itself. We have formed the Save Our Country Coalition because it is our responsibility to get Americans back to work and put our economy back on track.”

“Lisa Nelson, CEO of American Legislative Exchange Council commented:”

“For the first time in American history, a national crisis is being addressed through decentralization—with a focus on federalism. One size does not fit all, and America’s state legislators are looking to each other and celebrating ALEC’s role in policy formulation and legislator education as part of the Save Our Country Coalition. As they should, every state will have a different solution and approach to reopening, and ALEC will support legislators in these efforts.”

“Jenny Beth Martin, President of Tea Party Patriots Foundation, commented”:

“The long-term consequences of a prolonged societal shutdown outweigh the damage done by the coronavirus itself.”

“The Save Our Country Coalition has outlined five key principles to abide by in order to reopen US society and preserve the American way of life:”

“I. Immediately reopen the economy, while implementing the best workplace practices to protect the health of our citizens”

“II. Restore the essential principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility by stopping the trillions of dollars of federal spending that is imperiling America’s economic future and dangerously escalating our national debt”

“III. Incentivize the rapid rebuilding of our economy through proven formulas: tax cuts, deregulation, and lawsuit reform”

“IV. Preserve federalism within the rule of law and respect the rights of the states in dealing with crises such as the coronavirus pandemic”

“V. Protect the individual liberties of our citizens from unconstitutional power grabs by the federal, state and local governments.”

Translated: Big Business agendas of preserving corporate profits come first, and individual safety takes a back seat, but we can pay PR guys and media spokesmen huge sums to spin it and divert it to be perceived in a different framework, as we always do, so as to not appear so blatant in our agenda.

The “Tea Party Citizens Patriot Fund” is listed itself as a “SuperPAC,” and is modestly funded with only $14 million spent in the 2014 election cycle, and millions in 2016 and 2018, and gearing up with just $1.2 million so far in 2020.Before I knew all these above-cited articles, when my friend tipped me off to the aforementioned “Front Line Doctors” press conference video, I merely just called the Council for National Policy (which many refer to as the secretive (no mention of the discussions held inside their meetings can ever be released) Religious Right “Council on Foreign Relations”, and I bet many of you have encountered that group and viewpoint before), asking for information on hydroxychoroquine, and they said that the head of the CNP Action group would contact me, which she did the next day with an email (see below), giving Jenny Beth Martin’s name, as leader of the Tea Party Patriots group and organizer of the press conference with America’s Frontline Doctors, and mentioned she was the creator of the Second Opinion Project.

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Sherri Francescon <sherri@cfnpaction.org>
To: jmichaelbennett@yahoo.com <jmichaelbennett@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020, 11:41:09 AM CDT
Subject: Hydroxychloroquine

“Dr. Bennett:

Thank you for reaching out. I believe the best person to talk about hydroxychloroquine and the efforts being made is Ms. Jenny Beth Martin. Her cell phone number is (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

She leads Tea Party Patriots and organized yesterday’s press conference in D.C. with America’s Frontline Doctors. She also created the Second Opinion Project.

ICYMI – The Washington Examiner published this article last week, Yale Epidemiologist Says Hydroxychloroquine Could Save Up to 100K Lives if Used for Coronavirus.

Hopefully, this is helpful.

Thank you for all you do!

Sherri”

Sherri Francescon| Managing Director

CNP Action,Inc.

o: (202) 207-0171 • c: (XXX) XXX-XXXX • www.cfnp.org

444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 830

Washington, DC 20001

In summary, unless I was “born yesterday,” there are several things that seem to be apparent to me about all this:

1. President Trump is desperate in his poll ratings slide, and perceived terrible handling of the COVID epidemic by approximately two-thirds of the public,

2.  His only shot is to try to engineer a super-quick economic bounce back, with the economy being the only thing he feels he could try to make a success story,

3. He needs very quick “success stories” to take away the rising COVID numbers, and recitations of his calling the COVID crisis a “hoax by the Democrats” in late February, as he hesitated producing testing supplies and masks and localized shutdowns to quickly isolate the virus, as Japan and South Korea successfully did and opened up their economies back long ago, as a country (USA) with 4.5% of the world’s population has almost 25% of its COVID cases and its related deaths, are stories that need to be taken off of the headlines,

4. His “leadership” of disparaging Fauci and all the global epidemiology experts (as he has declared that he knew more about Afghanistan than all the generals, and his expertise as a self-proclaimed status as a “very stable genius” multiple times in other specialized fields asserted his superior knowledge in them as well), recommending hydroxychloroquine and injecting bleach-like substances or internal UV light did not meet with success, 

5. He must get big economic numbers up quickly if he has any chance to win, and the immediate threat to people’s health and lives is of no concern to him apart from his personal “winning,” much as his efforts to remove health care from many people, and in particularly those with pre-existing conditions, or the political prisoners of Central America he has turned away, or the untold number of loyal career officials he has ruined in their careers to save his face,

6. Big Business, through the Koch Brothers, Bradleys and other allies through their arms FreedomWorks and their “Tea Party” initiative, have every incentive to push the economy open, even if many of the “little people” workers have to die, as they have in their mines and factories over the years, 

7. They are willing to create a civil war with armed protesters storming the state capitols so they can keep their barber shops open, and even organize and bankroll it, as we have seen, as the same guys did with the Business Plot in 1933-34, and union massacres, etc.

8. They are willing to destroy the reputations of the majority of common-sense doctors and virus research and epidemiology experts, who have toiled away in the dark in conferences, writing peer-reviewed journal papers and long hours without sleep for decades, just so they could save many lives in this period of crisis, only to be rejected and held suspect by people with no such education, credentials or track record or work in the field in the public and media,

9. Conservatives, and in particular the Religious Right, now turn to doctors that say their main job is to provide quality health care at a high income to themselves only for the rich, or preoccupied with the well-being of a non-American nation (like Dr. Gold), or focused on fighting “astral sex” and Nephilim sex causing female gynecological problems (not to mention the main menace of the “Magic 8 Ball” to children), as her main colleague asserts – paid for with millions of dollars of hidden funds by people with another agenda.

I know in my “olden days” of doing Future Quake, I had on a number of controversial purveyors of conspiracy theories, some of which I now see in hindsight as ridiculous or unsupported, or if I had questions or skepticism already about them, I liked to just hear them out. However, I always expected any defendant of any alternative theories to the establishment narrative on any subject to put up at least comparable evidence to that of the establishment line, or questions that could not be answered otherwise. Some alternative theories have history and newly-released and unclassified documents to bolster their cases, and dispense with the cover stories previously fed to the public, and I always want to remain open minded to new such discoveries as the years go by.

However, it appears to me that in recent years within the Religious Right circles of which I am around, everyone has gone “hard core” into “all conspiracies, all the time” (or just totally nuts), with negligible evidence to support any of it. All it takes is a Youtube video by a stranger, or a Facebook post or 4Chan or 8Chan forum post to convince everyone of the most outlandish and laughable theories, be they an underground peodophile ring under a Washington pizza parlor, or a mythical “Q-Anon” like John Bunyan, who people form into any legend or belief system they want to. I predict that in decades ahead and beyond, along with their full identification with Donald Trump, whatever few Religious Right evangelicals that will be left will be painfully embarrassed by being reminded of what they publicly said they believed in these days of lunacy and irrationality, while they had attacked those who have real competence and are here to help. Those who have gone full-bore hydroxychloroquine, without a doctor’s help to discreetly prevent someone from accidentally killing or harming themselves with it (as doctors had to do with Donald Trump), sadly will end up like many others who have died from taking it in an unapproved manner, not knowing what they are doing (about anything evidently). Of course, I have seen my fellow Christians rely on snake oil, nutritional substances and quack ideas for generations, while distrusting their local trained doctor, and the graves are full of them too. I’m not sure their “faith” will grant them any special privileges on the other side.

My fellow Religious Right Christians are starting to look more like the “Manson Girls,” who skipped around and carved swastikas on their foreheads because their leader Charles Manson was the only one they trusted to listen to, and the evidence provided by all the other experts was just labeled “fake news.” It makes it even sadder that their leader sold them out too, making them take the rap for the murders and blaming them for his demise – just like today. In recent generations we had Jim Jones and his religious followers who swallowed the liquid because he told them to, and to distrust the experts outside, and the followers of David Koresh thought the same. It is just painful to watch it on my watch, and how gullible these “Spirit filled,” “discerning” Christians are for the latest “Lonesome Rhodes,” and wanting to feel the special status that his “Vitajex” provides them – or what it symbolizes to them. 

ADDENDUM

The latest updates from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) up to July 2020 “cautions against use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine for COVID-19 outside of the hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems,” while it still recognizes “FDA-approved uses for malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.” On July 1 it states that “A summary of the FDA review of safety issues with the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat hospitalized patients with COVID-19 is now available. This includes reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.” On June 15 they wrote that “Based on ongoing analysis and emerging scientific data, FDA has revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) to use hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19 in certain hospitalized patients when a clinical trial is unavailable or participation is not feasible. We made this determination based on recent results from a large, randomized clinical trial in hospitalized patients that found these medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery. This outcome was consistent with other new data, including those showing the suggested dosing for these medicines are unlikely to kill or inhibit the virus that causes COVID-19. As a result, we determined that the legal criteria for the EUA are no longer met.” They added that “We have reviewed case reports in the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System database, the published medical literature, and the American Association of Poison Control Centers National Poison Data System concerning serious heart-related adverse events and death in patients with COVID-19 receiving hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, either alone or combined with azithromycin or other QT prolonging medicines. These adverse events were reported from the hospital and outpatient settings for treating or preventing COVID-19, and included QT interval prolongation, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation, and in some cases death.”