diet supplements wt loss

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oops see nutrit suppl

see jones infowars

grift belated; 2ndary on grift and revenue stream for rw wackos RFK govt grifter calley means

magical thinking?

may repurpose this for diet scams that is wt loss

see hype, soc med, misinfo

aha distrust of norms/institutions [corps?]

all the talk radio and TV pundits pimp for, unregulated loophole that relies on magical, anti-science thinking? ethos of pundit?

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ACSH BS

:{Currently, New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman is investigating whether the companies have violated federal law by promoting these drinks as dietary supplements rather than as foods, given that supplements are much more loosely regulated.

Health advocates have expressed concern largely about the effect of the caffeine on those (typically college students) who drink these beverages along with alcohol. One concern is that caffeine can mask the effects of alcohol. Another concern is that regular consumption of these beverages may produce caffeine-induced cardiovascular complications. The caffeine content in these beverages ranges from 80 to 500 milligrams. Given that a 12-ounce soda has about 50 mg, and a 5-ounce coffee has about 100 mg, those who regularly down these energy drinks should probably be aware of the relative amounts of caffeine they contain, ACSH’s Dr. Ruth Kava notes.

But whether the labeling is a legal violation is dubious, saysACSH advisor Dr. Henry Manne.“Outright deception in advertising can usually be dealt with quickly and almost surgically by state law enforcement officials,” notes Dr. Manne, who is an emeritus dean at the George Mason University School of Law. “But if the campaign comes out of the blue without prior widespread complaints from the public and it has the earmarks of hype and publicity hounding, there probably is a hidden agenda.” In such instances, he says, “the general rule is ‘look for the competitors.’ Those are the ones most likely to complain about the new product’s danger for the community’s safety, welfare, or morality.”

context

MMA

Fox & Friends runs sponcon segment touting “Medical Emergency Kit” marketed to MAGA

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 05/12/26

Fox News ran a segment sponsored by The Wellness Company on Tuesday in which Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt and Dr. Peter McCullough — the lifestyle brand’s “chief scientific officer” and a one-time Fox regular — gushed over its “Medical Emergency Kit.”

“You are a genius,” Earhardt said after introducing McCullough, whose board certifications were apparently revoked over his false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. “You’re a cardiologist. And then you said during COVID we need a better way. We need a kit with all of these drugs so that we can have them at the ready.”

McCullough touted the kit’s pre-prescribed medications to treat “dozens” of “common infections” as well as Lyme disease without seeing a doctor and having them diagnose your symptoms.

Under Earhardt’s gentle prodding, McCullough highlighted the kit’s benefits for vacationers; offered it up as a solution for accessing drugs manufactured overseas “when the shipping lanes are uncertain”; directed viewers to the company’s website to purchase it; and touted its affordable price, saying it’s “way cheaper than going to an urgent care.”

“It’s amazing,” Earhardt said at one point, “You have that idea that we all are like, Why didn't I think of that?”

Video

Citation

From the May 12, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

If you weren’t paying close attention, it was easy to miss Fox News’ disclosure that it was running sponsored content. At the beginning of the Fox & Friends segment, small text at the bottom of the screen read, “This segment is made possible by our sponsor: The Wellness Company.”

Fox subsequently posted the segment on its website.

Fox & Friends has run sponcon segments over the years on subjects like The Museum of the Bible, the hats worn at the Kentucky Derby, and GMC’s Hummer EV. But in taking money from a lifestyle brand to help sell its medical products to network viewers, Fox seems to have entered new territory.

Indeed, Fox’s segment serves as a testament to the right-wing con culture in which propagandists use ideological, often paranoid, political coverage to build trust with the movement’s rank-and-file, then get paid by people looking to cash in on their audience.

The Wellness Company tries to cash in on the right’s ivermectin craze

The Wellness Company — like other pill mills that use MAGA-inflected marketing to sell their product — fits perfectly into that ecosystem. Its Earhardt-approved “Medical Emergency Kit” retails for $299.99, including a “Free Doctor Consult” with one of TWC’s prescribing “licensed providers.”

Notably, while the product website touts the kit’s “8 life-saving prescriptions” and remedies for “30+ illnesses,” it highlights one medicine in particular — ivermectin. That’s the antiparasitic drug that Fox hosts and other right-wing media figures recklessly promoted during the COVID-19 pandemic as an alternative to the vaccines they claimed were ineffective and unsafe. They were wrong about ivermectin, as numerous studies found — but their rhetoric helped drive down vaccination rates on the right and create demand for ivermectin as a COVID-19 therapy, with deadly results.

The Wellness Company website

McCullough, like Earhardt, is a familiar face for the Fox audience — and thus a key validator for The Wellness Company’s product. An internist and cardiologist, he became a frequent presence on Fox during the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, making at least 37 appearances on its weekday programs in 2021 and 2022.

McCullough used the network’s platform to undermine the public vaccination effort, tout the purported effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in treating the virus, and claim that an NFL player who was struck in the chest, collapsed on the field, and was diagnosed with cardiac arrest had suffered “vaccine-induced myocarditis.”

McCullough’s COVID-19 vaccine commentary made him an outcast in the medical community.

His former employer, Baylor Scott & White Health, filed a lawsuit against him in 2021, citing “irreparable reputational and business harm” caused by McCullough being identified with his former Baylor titles in interviews (the parties apparently reached a settlement in 2023).

Then in 2022, the credentialing committee of the American Board of Internal Medicine recommended stripping McCullough of his certifications over his vaccine claims. The Journal of Medicine reported in January 2025 that ABIM’s look-up tool identified McCullough’s certifications in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease as “Not Certified, Revoked,” which remains their current status.

But as The Daily Beast reported in a 2023 profile of The Wellness Company, McCullough became “a hero in anti-vaxx circles” — and thus an attractive business partner for Foster Coulson and Dave Lopez, the “Trumpworld-linked investors” who founded TWC that year. They were joined by other “disreputable medical professionals,” including TWC “Chief Epidemiologist” Dr. Harvey Risch, another veteran of Fox's crusade against the COVID-19 vaccine campaign.

As the Beast detailed, the group was “hawking a Goop-like lifestyle brand—complete with supplements, podcasts, telehealth, and even a dating service—to conservative audiences with the help of far-right influencers.”

The company has tried to tap into the right-wing fearmongering of the day. When conspiracy theorists warned in 2024 about a plan to kill off “excess population” through the hypothetical pathogen “Disease X,” The Wellness Company ran sponsored content at outlets like Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit pointing to its “Medical Emergency Kit” as a remedy.

Over the past few months, ads for TWC have also run on the right-wing podcast shows of Candace Owens and Jack Posobiec.

But now with a sponsored Fox & Friends segment, TWC is taking that act to a much bigger audience — one they are counting on to trust the testimonials from McCullough and Earhardt.

### Ivermectin and the right-wing media’s con culture

:{09/13/21

### The dishonest doctors who were Fox News’ most frequent medical guests in 2021

:{12/30/21

### Right-wing figures fearmonger and push conspiracy theories about “Disease X,” a hypothetical pathogen

01/18/24

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Calley Means

Identity: Calley Means is a healthcare reform advocate and a co-founder of the wellness company Truemed.
Political role: He has served as a special advisor to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and has been involved in the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) initiative.
Criticism of the healthcare system: Means is known for criticizing what he sees as a corrupt U.S. healthcare system that profits from treating illness rather than promoting wellness.

Truemed

Function: Truemed is a telehealth platform that helps users get "Letters of Medical Necessity" (LMNs) from licensed practitioners.
HSA/FSA use: The LMNs allow customers to use their pre-tax Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) or Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) to pay for "proactive health investments" and wellness products that normally wouldn't qualify as medical expenses, such as gym memberships, supplements, and fitness equipment.

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mma

TikTok Shop is selling supplements made by Plandemic filmmaker

For $29 on TikTok, you can buy a supplement to “bulletproof your immune system” and “surround it with piranhas” from a company that pushes medical misinformation

Written by Abbie Richards

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan

:{Published 09/25/25

On TikTok Shop, users can now purchase a supplement that will purportedly “bulletproof your immune system.” The product was “founded” by a group that includes Mikki Willis, who has falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” and said he has been “working with” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Willis is also known for creating the viral film Plandemic, which pushed conspiracy theories about COVID-19.

TikTok Shop’s policies prohibit the sale of “medicinal supplements,” including “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” But that isn’t stopping the creators of Fierce Immunity from selling their supplement on the platform and suggesting that people who take it “don’t get sick.”

Fierce Immunity is a supplement claiming to “supercharge your immune system”

Fierce Immunity is billed as “a synergistic blend of bioactive compounds, precision-engineered to supercharge your immune system” and “a powerful blend of Vitamin D, Zinc Ascorbate, Quercetin, Hesperidin, and L-Arginine designed to fortify your immune system, reduce inflammation, and support rapid recovery.”

The supplement was created by a group that includes medical misinformers, and it was reportedly formulated with an “AI technology,” known as Swarm Intelligence. Fierce Immunity is also the first item listed in parent company Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol.” As part of the protocol, Rebel Lion claims Fierce Immunity works as “both prevention and response in times of viral threat.”

Health care experts have said that while some people can benefit from a vitamin D supplement, most people do not need vitamin D supplements because they get sufficient vitamin D from their diet and lifestyle. And while zinc plays a role in immune health, supplements are usually necessary only for people with zinc deficiency. In fact, some experts say excessive zinc levels can actually be “dangerous to your health.”

In small print, Fierce Immunity's website admits, “Fierce Immunity is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. … You should not use the information contained herein for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication.”

Rebel Lion is selling and promoting Fierce Immunity on TikTok

Rebel Lion is selling Fierce Immunity on TikTok Shop, even though the platform prohibits the sale of “unlicensed medicines, herbal or homeopathic products, and those making health claims.” In fact, the company is selling the product on the platform at half of its usual price of $58 a bottle.

On its TikTok account, Rebel Lion has posted videos of people making some bold claims about Fierce Immunity, such as saying it will “bulletproof your immune system” and “lock it down, supercharge it, and surround it with piranhas,” “It shields my immunity. I don’t get sick,” and “Two years ago I began taking Fierce Immunity … and in that two years, I haven’t been sick, not even a sniffle.” In another video, a man is repeatedly hitting a tire in a gym with a voiceover saying, “After six weeks of constant gut issues, I tried Fierce Immunity and in just two days, my discomfort vanished.”

In Rebel Lion webinars on YouTube, the commentary about Fierce Immunity gets even wilder. In a webinar dedicated to the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak,” Rebel Lion co-founder Chris Roy said that “nobody that I know that’s taking Fierce Immunity is getting sick.” Roy also claimed that his friend’s sister “had breast cancer — stage four — and started taking Fierce Immunity and within about a month they said her tumors are shrinking.”

Fierce Immunity is being sold by a company led by medical misinformers

According to Rebel Lion's website, Fierce Immunity was “founded by Mikki Willis, Chris Roy, and JP Sears.” Willis and Sears both have histories of spreading medical misinformation.

Willis is the creator of the viral film Plandemic, which Wired reported was a “widely debunked pseudo-documentary” that “suggested Covid-19 was released to profit those in positions of authority and that vaccines were ineffectual.” During Rebel Lion's “The Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, he falsely claimed that measles is a “bioweapon” that has “been manipulated and targeted towards a community that is a threat because of their natural way of living.” In February, Willis also claimed that he had “been working with RFK Jr.” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “for over a decade.”

Willis is still sowing doubt and mistrust around the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. During the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis encouraged viewers to share an upcoming video with their friends and family who still trust vaccines and linked his father’s heart issues to vaccines:

MIKKI WILLIS: I was getting calls from these people that were severely injured. They were the first ones to line up for the COVID-19 vaccines. And they were manipulated and coerced into doing that for whatever reason. We’ve been following them on their journey of healing for the past four years. They went from perfectly healthy to confined to a wheelchair, having to have breathing apparatuses just so they can breathe, to having seizures every 30 minutes, some of them severely injured from being perfectly healthy.

And so we’ve witnessed that firsthand. And that movie, when it comes out, share it like crazy because I have been saying, that’s the movie that ends the debate. If you have family members, friends, whoever it is that are still in denial just because maybe they got vaccinated and they’re OK, which, thank God, so many people are. My father and mother-in-law both, I don’t know, two or three vaccines — they’re fine. My father, three vaccines, three heart attacks — I just put him in hospice care.

In the description of the “ Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Rebel Lion describes the video as an “urgent discussion … unpacking the latest measles outbreak in Texas and exposing what mainstream media refuses to report,” including questions like “Is this a mutated bioweapon?” and “Are vaccinated individuals more vulnerable?”

Journalists have described Sears as a “conservative, anti-vaccine comic” and “the clown prince of wellness.” In his comedy sketches, Sears has implied that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 boosters are intended to depopulate the world, and that mRNA vaccines are ineffective.

Roy, who owns the “Rebel Lion” trademark, doesn’t seem to have a significant history as a public persona online. Instead, he seems to bring the marketing expertise to the Rebel Lion project.

In May, Rebel Lion released a film that featured Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett, who have downplayed the threat of measles, and Pierre Kory, whose certification was revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine for his promotion of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.

Edwards reportedly treated measles patients in Texas, including children, with cod liver oil while reportedly having an active measles infection himself.

Bartlett has suggested that the measles vaccine could cause measles and that reporting on the rise in measles is a “misinformation, disinformation campaign to character-assassinate RFK and the Make America Healthy Again movement.” During the “Real Story Behind the Measles Outbreak” webinar, Willis asked Bartlett: “Should we stop all measles vaccines and let children get natural immunity?” Bartlett didn’t seem to answer the answer directly, but he said: “Parents deserve to know all the information. … We’re supposed to as doctors give informed consent. As far as vaccines, it’s again an individual decision. Traditional vaccines made with a live virus or a live weakened virus make sense to me. But there’s a risk. They’re live measles viruses. Live measles viruses cause measles.” He added that “every risk of measles can happen with the MR vaccine. And you’re not gonna hear that on CNN.”

During the May film, Kory argued that “measles is essentially just a rash. It was one of the most common childhood illnesses. It’s not lethal by any stretch of the imagination. Over 90% of kids with measles will suffer no complications. And the few that do, those complications are easily treatable.”

The Centers for Disease Control has been clear: Measles “isn't just a little rash.” In fact, the CDC says that 1 in 5 people who get measles will be hospitalized, and 1 in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia, which is “the most common cause of death from measles in young children.” A 2024 study also estimated that measles vaccines averted over 60 million deaths between 2000 and 2023.

Medical misinformers often sow doubt around vaccines and then profit from anxious consumers

Fierce Immunity offers something of a window into a larger industry in which grifters profit off fear and medical misinformation, seeding distrust in lifesaving vaccines while simultaneously selling bogus solutions.

Immediately after stoking fear about COVID-19 vaccines in the Rebel Lion webinar, Willis said, “This is why we created Fierce Immunity.” Roy added that when measles started breaking out, “that was the beginning of the conversation — was we were getting so many people asking us what they should do, what they should take, how should they build their immune system. Because we know … it all starts with the immune system.”

This sort of approach is also seen elsewhere in the medical misinformation space. For instance, a 2024 study from the University of Washington documented how wellness influencers leveraged anti-vaccine messaging for profit, using it to sell products including heavy metal detox sprays and supplements, homeschooling resources, and “off-grid” supplies. And during the pandemic, right-wing media figures and anti-vaccine activists peddled ivermectin as a miracle drug, even though it is ineffective at treating COVID-19.

Rebel Lion’s “Measles Protocol” also includes Budesonide, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has said is “not a recommended nor effective treatment for measles,” and an “antimicrobial oral rinse that reduces viral and bacterial load in the mouth.”

TikTok Shop is selling black market Ozempic, performance enhancement drugs, and cosmetic filler

10/22/24 2:04 PM EDT

### TikTok Shop is selling black market vapes to children … again

06/27/25 10:02 AM EDT

### Unregulated GLP-1 patches are exploding on TikTok Shop

09/09/25

---

---}:

an 2 25

Last fall, before being named the senior U.S. health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the Trump administration would liberate Americans from the FDA’s “aggressive suppression” of vitamins, dietary supplements, and other substances — ending the federal agency’s “war on public health,” as he put it.

In fact, the FDA can’t even require that supplements be effective before they are sold. When Congress, at the agency’s urging, last considered legislation to require makers of vitamins, herbal remedies, and other pills and potions to show proof of their safety and worth before marketing the products, it got more negative mail, phone calls, and telegrams than at any time since the Vietnam War, by some accounts. The backlash resulted in a 1994 law that enabled the dietary supplement industry to put its products on the market without testing and to tout unproven benefits, as long as the touting doesn’t include claims to treat or cure a disease. Annual industry revenues have grown from $4 billion to $70 billion since.

With Kennedy now in the driver’s seat, the industry will likely expect more: It aims to make bolder health claims for its products and even get the government, private insurers, and flexible spending accounts to pay for supplements, essentially putting them on an equal footing with FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.

On Feb. 13, the day Kennedy was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services, President Donald Trump issued a “Make America Healthy Again” agenda targeting alleged corruption in health regulatory agencies and instructing them to “ensure the availability of expanded treatment options and the flexibility for health insurance coverage to provide benefits that support beneficial lifestyle changes and disease prevention.”

Kennedy has said exercise, dietary supplements, and nutrition, rather than pharmaceutical products, are key to good health. Supplement makers want consumers to be able to use programs like health savings accounts, Medicare, and even benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to pay for such items as vitamins, fish oil, protein powders, and probiotics.

“Essentially they’re seeking a government subsidy,” said Pieter Cohen, a Harvard University physician who studies supplements.

As the Senate Finance Committee questioned Kennedy during his Jan. 29 confirmation hearing, supporters in the Alliance for Natural Health lunched on quinoa salad in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and crowed that the moment had finally arrived for their health freedom movement, which has combined libertarian capitalism and mistrust of the medical establishment to champion unregulated compounds since the 19th century.

“The greatest opportunity of our lifetimes is before us,” said Jonathan Emord, the group’s general counsel, who has brought many successful lawsuits against the FDA’s restrictions on unproven health claims. “RFK has dedicated his whole life to opposing the undue influence” of the pharmaceutical industry and “assuring that our interests triumph,” Emord said.

In speeches and in a pamphlet called “The MAHA Mandate,” Emord and alliance founder Robert Verkerk said Kennedy would free companies to make greater claims for their products’ alleged benefits. Emord said his group was preparing to sue the FDA to prevent it from restricting non-pharmaceutical production of substances like biopeptides — complex molecules related to drugs like Ozempic.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not respond to a request for comment on the agency’s plans vis-à-vis dietary supplements.

While the basic law governing the FDA establishes that a substance alleged to have treatment or curative effects is by definition a “drug,” and therefore comes under the agency’s requirements for high standards of scientific evidence, the new administration could reallocate money away from enforcement, said Mitch Zeller, former head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

As a Senate aide early in his career, Zeller investigated a tainted L-tryptophan supplement that killed at least 30 people and sickened thousands in the U.S. in 1989. The scandal led the FDA to seek heavier regulation of supplements, but a powerful backlash resulted in the relatively weak supplements law of 1994.

Even that law’s enforcement could be undercut with a stroke of the pen that would keep FDA inspectors out of the field, Zeller said.

Sweeping changes couldn’t come too soon for Nathan Jones, founder and CEO of Xlear, a company that makes products containing xylitol, an artificial sweetener. The Federal Trade Commission sued Xlear in 2021 for making what it called false claims that its nasal spray could prevent and treat covid.

Jones points to a handful of studies evaluating whether xylitol prevents cavities and infections, saying the FDA would require overly expensive studies to get xylitol approved as a drug. Meanwhile, he said, dentists have been bought out by “Big Toothpaste.”

One can hardly find any products “without fluoride for oral health,” he said. “Crest and Colgate don’t want it to happen,” he said.

Kennedy’s desire to rid water supplies of fluoride because of its alleged impact on children’s IQ is welcome news, he said, and not only because it could highlight the value of his products. Jones stresses, as do many health freedom advocates, that clean air and water and unadulterated food do more to prevent and cure disease than vaccines and drugs. For example, he and other advocates claim, wrongly, that the United States eliminated the crippling disease polio through better sanitation, not vaccination.

The Alliance for Natural Health hopes that in lieu of strict FDA standards, Kennedy will enable companies to make expanded marketing claims based on evidence from non-FDA sources, Verkerk said, such as the National Institutes of Health’s nutritional information site, which describes the pros and cons of different supplements.

Kennedy has also called for relaxing the strictures on psychedelic drugs, which interest some veterans as potential remedies for such conditions as post-traumatic stress disorder. VETS, a San Diego-based organization, has paid for 1,000 veterans to get treatment with the powerful hallucinogen ibogaine at clinics in Mexico and other countries, said the group’s co-founder Amber Capone.

She got involved after her husband, a retired Navy SEAL, pulled out of a suicidal spiral after spending a week at an ibogaine clinic near Tijuana, Mexico, in 2017. She wants NIH, the Defense Department, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to fund research on the illegal substance — which can cause cardiac complications and is listed as a Schedule I drug, on par with heroin and LSD — so it can be made legally available when appropriate.

Coincidentally, the push for less onerous standards on supplements and psychedelics would come while Kennedy is demanding “gold-standard science” to review preservatives and other food additives that he has said could play a role in the country’s high rate of chronic diseases.

“Put aside the fact that there’s precious little evidence to support” that idea, said Stuart Pape, a former FDA food center attorney. “There’s been no indication they want the same rigor for supplements and nutraceuticals.”

Although most of these products don’t have major safety concerns, “we have no idea which products work, so in the best case people are throwing away a ton of money,” Zeller said. “The worst-case scenario is they are relying on unproven products to treat underlying conditions, and time is going by when they could have been using more effective FDA-authorized products for diseases.”

Supplement makers aren’t entirely unified. Groups such as the Consumer Healthcare Products Association and the Council for Responsible Nutrition have advocated for the FDA to crack down on products that are unsafe or falsely represented. The Alliance for Natural Health and the Natural Products Association, meanwhile, largely want the government to get out of the way.

“The time has come to embrace a radical shift — from reactive disease management to proactive health cultivation, from top-down public health diktats to personalized, individual-centric care,” Emord and Verkerk state in their “MAHA Mandate.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

MMA

These are the companies paying to advertise on RNC co-chair Lara Trump's podcast

WRITTEN BY JACINA HOLLINS-BORGES

PUBLISHED 06/18/24

On her podcast, RNC co-chair Lara Trump maintains a collection of conservative-branded utility, doomsday prep, and supplement company sponsors. Throughout her show, Trump has promoted election denial and conspiracy theories which claim that Democrats will try to steal the 2024 election.

In the 41 episodes between March 8, when she was elected co-chair, and June 12, Lara did ad reads for the following 8 sponsors: Association of Mature American Citizens, Patriot Mobile, MyPillow, Swiss America, Balance of Nature, ReadyWise, UpWellness, and Googipet.

The Association of Mature American Citizens — whose advocacy arm, AMAC Action, is a Project 2025 partner — publishes content to persuade members that the 2024 election will be stolen partially because of “universal mail-in voting,” a method that Trump has been trying to persuade skeptical Republican voters can now be trusted. Trump advertised for AMAC 16 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to AMAC logo

CitationScreenshot of the April 4, 2024, edition of The Right View

Patriot Mobile is a Christian nationalist cell phone service provider with ties to figures who promote the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” or “the belief that Christians are called on to dominate the seven key ‘mountains’ of American life, including business, media, government and education.” Trump advertised for Patriot Mobile in all episodes, or 41 times, in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to Patriot Mobile logo and above discount code

CitationScreenshot of the May 7, 2024, edition of The Right View

MyPillow is owned by election denier and Trump ally Mike Lindell, who is currently in the throes of two defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. Trump advertised for MyPillow 29 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to MyPillow logo

CitationScreenshot of the May 9, 2024, edition of The Right View

Swiss America is a gold and silver trading company, for which Trump promotes “The Secret War on Cash,” a report warning consumers about Democrat lawmakers supposedly pushing for a “digital dollar that could allow the government to tell us what we can and cannot buy,” and teaching them how to protect themselves from such “threats facing our freedom and your hard-earned money.” Trump advertised for Swiss America 27 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump above Swiss America logo

CitationScreenshot of the March 26, 2024, edition of The Right View

Balance of Nature is a supplement company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, advertising watchdog Truth in Advertising filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that the company was falsely claiming that its products could prevent coronavirus infection. Trump advertised for Balance of Nature 9 times in the allotted period.

Still of Lara Trump above the Balance of Nature logo

CitationScreenshot of the March 28, 2024, edition of The Right View

ReadyWise is an emergency food kit company. Trump advertised for it 12 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to ReadyWise logo and discount code

CitationScreenshot of the June 5, 2024, edition of The Right View

UpWellness is a supplement company. Trump advertised for it 11 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to UpWellness logo and discount code

CitationScreenshot of the May 29, 2024, edition of The Right View

Googipet is a dog-oriented supplement company. Trump advertised for it 17 times in this period.

Still of Lara Trump next to googipet logo

CitationScreenshot of the April 24, 2024, edition of The Right View

---

alternet-no lnx

Russian banker who loaned Trump’s Truth Social $8M reportedly has 'family links to Kremlin'

Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2019 (Creative Commons)

:{:{Alex HendersonApril 22, 2024}:

Even after X CEO Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump's @RealDonaldTrump account, the former president has continued to use his own Truth Social as his primary social media platform. Trump's last post on X was on August 24, 2023, but he uses Truth Social frequently.

Truth Social, launched in August 2022, is part of Trump Media and Technology Group — which is now publicly traded. One of Truth Social's backers was Anton Postolnikov, a 40-year-old Russian banker who loaned the outlet $8 million.

According to the Daily Beast, Postolnikov reportedly has "family links" to the Kremlin and made a lot of money with websites that sold "dodgy sex pills."

READ MORE:Putin, Trump and Netanyahu unveil the terrifying perils of strongman rule

"The flagship product sold by these sites, Vimax — which promises longer sex and a firmer erection — has prompted warnings from health regulators in the U.S. for containing hidden ingredients that may endanger health," journalists Matt Bernardini and Matei Rosca explain in an article published on April 22. "The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to buy the supposedly natural male enhancement supplements, and told anyone who had bought the tablets to throw them out."

The reporters add, "The sites where the pills were sold included vimaxtrialoffer.com, which was registered in the name of Anton Postolnikov, 40, according to public domain ownership records."

Postolnikov has a strong connection to MAGA politics.

In addition to helping Truth Social get started, he donated $30,000 to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, according to Bernardini and Rosca.

READ MORE: Wall Street is now betting on Trump’s Truth Social stock to fail

"In (2021), documents show that a company listing Postolnikov as its 'authorized person' owned two dwellings on Miami’s private Fisher Island worth $13 million," Bernardini and Rosca report. "The company that owns the luxury properties, 7812 Fisher Island LLC, is the subject of ongoing divorce proceedings in Florida where Postolnikov is splitting from Olga, a fellow native of St. Petersburg who describes herself as a photojournalist…. Before his alleged foray into Florida high finance, Postolnikov was involved in the selling of Vimax, which was sold via offshore companies in the U.S., Cyprus, and Mauritius, according to the products' websites."

READ MORE: Truth Social lost millions last year: SEC filing

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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an 1 23 raw

Because major advertisers are avoiding Donald Trump's Truth Social, users are instead being exposed to a flood of ads from what the New York Times characterizes as "miracle cures, scams and fake merchandise," as the platform is forced to take what it can in an effort to survive.

That, in turn, has led to complaints aimed at the former president in his comment sections for allowing the forum to turn into a cesspool of ads from scam artists.

As the Times is reporting, Truth Social is almost devoid of ads from large corporations for a multitude of reasons that include the toxic rhetoric on the site, its small reach due to few users and the fact that the predominant demographic is not one that advertisers are trying to reach.

As the Times' Stuart Thompson wrote,"Ads from major brands are nonexistent on the site. Instead, the ads on Truth Social are for alternative medicine, diet pills, gun accessories and Trump-themed trinkets, according to an analysis of hundreds of ads on the social network by The New York Times," before adding, "The ads reflect the difficulty that several far-right platforms, including Rumble and Gab, have faced in courting large brands, preventing the sites from tapping into some of the world’s largest ad budgets."

As the report notes, Truth Social was initially financed with $37 million from GOP donors, and is currently estimated to be burning through $1.7 million per month and money is running out because of problems with the Security Exchange Commission.

Upon its launch, Devin Nunes, the chief executive of Trump Media, announced major advertisers would flock to the site — which has not happened — and the gap has been filled by companies that are much less desirable.

Add to that, according to one advertiser, the money he has spent on Truth Social has gone nowhere when it comes to sales.

"Maxwell Finn, an online marketer, said in a YouTube video that he was one of Truth Social’s top advertisers, spending more than, including those for Trump-themed hats, shirts, coins and novelty bills. In the video, he called the ad platform 'frustrating' and 'bare bones,' adding that it lacked even basic functionality, forcing his company to manually track ad performance— a method that would prove impossible for advertisers with larger budgets," the report states with Finn explaining, "Do I think this is a platform where you can be spending tens of thousands of dollars a day, especially if you only have a few products? No, probably. The audience is just too small.”

As for those who are still advertising on the site, fans of the former president are furious that advertisers are not being vetted.

"Over time, the low-quality ads on Truth Social have irritated its own users, who have complained to Mr. Trump after repeatedly seeing the same disturbing images or after falling for misleading gimmicks," the Times is reporting before adding an example of one user complaining directly to Trump, "Can you not vet the ads on Truth? I’ve been scammed more than once.”

You can read more here.

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an 4 22

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Once he was elected, all that talk about term limits went away real fast. He was elected again and again, never seriously challenged by a Democrat. He defeated the mayor of Salt Lake City by 17 points in 1982 and then Frank Moss’ son Brian by 35 points in 1988.By this point, Utah was a full-on frothing rightwing cesspool. The state that once elected quite decent senators was now a place where Orrin Hatch could be seen as a relative moderate. He won reelection again in 1994, 2000, 2006 and 2012 without any real competition.

Hatch was a hired hack of the vitamin supplement industry. This might seem like a strange issue to be tied to. But the supplement industry is huge in Utah and Hatch had a lot of relatives involved.

So he did everything in his considerable power to protect this industry from any regulation at all, including revealing what is in them. When Hatch left the Senate, Michael Hiltzik’s farewell in the LA Times reminded us of how “his deadliest law will live on.”

This was the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. Effectively, this eliminated government supervision of the supplement industry, allowing hucksters and scammers to put whatever they wanted in these things. Specifically, it stopped the Food and Drug Administration from reviewing these supplements ahead of time.

The FDA could later pull a product if it was found to be poisonous but that would come only after such poison was proven. This was a massive perversion of the entire point of the FDA and also the near-prototype for how Republicans see the world and how they want to take America back to the Gilded Age.

As Hiltzik noted, this had hugely negative consequences in the real world, such as when a supplement sold in Hawaii sent 47 people to the hospital with liver problems, resulting in three liver transplants and one death. Finally, it was pulled off the market. That’s entirely on Orrin Hatch.

Of course, Hatch’s son worked as a supplement industry lobbyist and two of the largest three campaign donors for Hatch in 2010 were Herbalife and Xango LLC, a supplement marketing firm. And when John McCain introduced a bill to mandate reports of illnesses from supplements, Hatch backed him down.

So everytime you hear someone getting seriously ill or dying from supplements, you can thank Orrin Hatch.

Not as clean as you’d think

Almost every position taken by Hatch was horrible. He was the author of the vile Hatch Amendment, his idea for aconstitutional amendmentreading, “A right to abortion is not secured by this Constitution. The Congress and the several States shall have the concurrent power to restrict and prohibit abortions: Provided, That a law of a State which is more restrictive than a law of Congress shall govern.”...

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/instagrams-suggestion-algorithm-promoting-accounts-share-misinformation

no lnx many pix

Instagram’s suggestion algorithm is promoting accounts that share misinformation

WRITTEN BY SPENCER SILVA

PUBLISHED 10/20/21

An Instagram feature that recommends accounts for users is pushing them down the misinformation rabbit hole.

A Media Matters analysis found that Instagram’s “similar account suggestions” feature, a drop-down widget that appears on users’ profiles and suggests accounts to follow, reliably shepherds users who show an interest in anti-vaccine misinformation and other harmful content (some of which the platform claims to ban) toward similar types of content.

Like other algorithm-driven features designed by Facebook, which owns Instagram, the feature steers users toward content they’re likely to interact with — thus keeping them on the platform longer. If a user follows NBA superstar Lebron James, for instance, the feature will suggest following other basketball stars like Stephen Curry or entertainers like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or rapper Cardi B.

[pix]

Benign, right? Not so much.

In order to test how Instagram’s “similar account suggestions” works when users click on pages with less savory content, Media Matters created a new Instagram account and navigated to the pages of several well-known bad actors and scrutinized Instagram’s suggested follows. These bad actors included members of the “Disinformation Dozen,” influencers identified in a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate as the originators of an estimated 65% of vaccine misinformation spread on Facebook and Twitter.

The result: The platform’s algorithm repeatedly urged us to follow accounts spreading dangerous misinformation, including content that seems to violate Instagram’s stated policies against vaccine misinformation. It also led us to content it doesn't ban but supposedly does not promote, such as posts featuring exaggerated health claims.

For instance, when we demonstrated interest in anti-vaccine accounts by clicking on pages known to feature such content, Instagram suggested pages containing more anti-vaccine propaganda, including posts that the platform itself labeled as false. The same was true of pages hawking weight loss products and “natural cures for every disease.”

Instagram is recommending anti-vaccine accounts to its users

Despite Instagram chief Adam Mosseri’s claims that the company removes anti-vax content — “we just take it off the platform entirely,” he said in a July interview — Instagram remains awash in anti-vaccine misinformation.

Anti-vaccine merchandise is widely available via Instagram Shopping. Influencers spreading health misinformation boast hundreds of thousands of followers. And when the platform does take action against these accounts, they usually return within days.

What’s more, Instagram is not only allowing anti-vaccine content to remain on the platform, but also actively promoting it.

Take, for instance, the account of osteopathic physician and anti-vaccine advocate Sherri Tenpenny, who has been removed from Instagram several times for spreading vaccine misinformation and hawking other dangerous ideas. In just the past few weeks, she’s promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that Microsoft founder Bill Gates once proposed deadly vaccines as a way to reduce the global population. Tenpenny has also recently been fearmongering about toddlers dying from the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine — although the Pfizer vaccine isn't approved for children under 16.

When we followed her, the top recommended account was an anti-vaccine account that promotes any number of false claims about COVID-19 vaccines, including the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips at Gates’ behest.

Earlier this summer, Media Matters documented Instagram’s suggestions when we followed accounts associated with seven members of the “Disinformation Dozen.” The top three most-recommended accounts included an anti-vaccine influencer who’s been removed from the platform several times and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s organization, Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine activist organization that is now banned on Instagram.

The “similar accounts suggestions” feature is also enabling local chapters of global anti-vaccine activist organizations to recruit members and fundraise via Instagram. For example, if a user follows the page for Freedom Keepers United, a popular anti-vaccine organization that has planned rallies against mask and vaccine mandates, Instagram guides them to dozens of local chapters of the organization. Many of these chapters use link-curating services like Linktree to sell merchandise and organize against vaccine mandates and other state-level policies.

“Similar account suggestions” feature is leading users to diet and weight loss gimmicks

In addition to promoting anti-vaccine pages, the “similar account suggestions” feature is also leading users to diet and health misinformation.

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While most health misinformation isn’t explicitly banned from Instagram, the platform claims that it tries “to avoid recommending” “sensitive or low-quality content about Health or Finance.” This includes “content containing exaggerated health claims, such as ‘miracle cures’” and “content attempting to sell products or services based on health-related claims, such as promoting a supplement to help a person lose weight.”

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Media Matters has previously shown that the platform recommends weight loss gimmicks through the “Explore” page.When we followed accounts that fit Instagram’s description of pages publishing low-quality health content, the platform recommended several pages selling “natural cures for every disease.”

Compared to other features on Facebook platforms, it’s easy to fix Instagram’s suggestions feature: Just get rid of it. In fact, users can already opt out of the feature in the app’s settings, which makes it clear that suggesting similar accounts isn't an essential function of the platform. But as The Wall Street Journal’s reporting has shown, the company will always choose profits over curbing misinformation.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/qanon-2653524968/

Reporter Laura J. Nelson, in an article published by the Los Angeles Times on June 23, takes a look at Californians who have an unlikely combination of beliefs: they are into new age ideology, but are also QAnon supporters.

"A world that has long embraced love, light and acceptance is now making room for something else: QAnon," Nelson reports. "More commonly associated with right-wing groups, the conspiracy theory is spreading through yoga, meditation and other wellness circles. Friends and colleagues have watched with alarm as Instagram influencers and their New Age peers — yogis, energy healers, sound bathers, crystal practitioners, psychics, quantum magicians — embraced QAnon's conspiratorial worldview and sprayed it across social media."

QAnon is a far-right movement that promotes bizarre and outlandish conspiracy theories. According to QAnon, the United States' federal government has been taken over by an international cabal of pedophiles, child sex traffickers, Satanists and cannibals — and former President Donald Trump was put in the White House to fight the cabal. Well-known pro-QAnon extremists in the Republican Party include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

The fact that QAnon has made inroads with far-right Christian fundamentalist evangelicals isn't surprising; the Christian right has long been prone to conspiracy theorists. But the new age community in California seems an unlikely place for QAnon to make inroads.

Nelson, however, reports, "The health, wellness and spirituality world has always been primed for that worldview, followers say. Though largely filled with well-meaning people seeking spiritual or physical comfort, the $1.5-trillion industry can also be a hotbed for conspiracies, magical thinking, dietary supplements with dubious scientific claims and distrust of institutional healthcare, including vaccines."

Julian Walker, a Mar Vista yogi who hosts a podcast called "Conspirituality," told the Times, "It's always been the water we were swimming in. Now, we're seeing what happens when the water rises."

The violent insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6 included supporters of QAnon as well as members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other far-right Trump supporters. And some of those QAnon supporters, Nelson points out, embrace new age beliefs.

Nelson explains, "Several New Age spiritualists in Southern California interviewed by the Times said they knew a total of more than a dozen former friends and colleagues at the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol with ties to yoga, meditation, energy healing and dietary supplements hawked by multilevel marketing companies. Jake Angeli, whose face paint and horned headgear during the Capitol riot earned him the nickname'the QAnon Shaman,' carried a sign at earlier protests that read, 'Q Sent Me,' and successfully petitioned a federal judge on religious grounds to receive only organic food in jail. One of the best known of the rioters isAlan Hostetter, a ponytailed former police chief, yoga teacher and sound healer from Orange County who spoke at a QAnon conferenceand was indicted by federal officials this month."

Los Angeles-based yoga instructor Seane Corn, who co-founded the group Off the Mat, Into the World, has been warning others in the new age community that QAnon is dangerous.

"Corn was among the wellness leaders who shared a statement in September warning that QAnon's tactics resembled cult psychology and that the ideology would sow confusion, division and paranoia," Nelson reports. "Corn estimates she knows at least ten people who embraced 'hardcore QAnon,' including two people who participated in the attack on the Capitol — and is aware of more than 30 colleagues and peers who subscribe to some forms of the ideology, as well as a 'countless' number of yoga students. Corn said she has watched bots and real-life QAnon devotees try to harness her social media comment sections as a recruiting ground, using 'wellness language and nonviolent communication' in an attempt to lead her followers toward more conspiratorial thinking.

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