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Anti-vaccination America’s Frontline Doctors Group Implodes over founder Dr. Simone Gold's spending

essentialsaltes

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COVID-Denying Medical Group Implodes Over Founder’s Extravagant Spending

For months, AFLDS has been split between its board and Gold, the group’s charismatic founder and convicted Capitol rioter, over an internal audit into Gold’s personal spending. That dispute spilled into the open on Nov. 5, when the board sued Gold to try and force her to stop representing the organization, in a lawsuit first reported by Vice News. Now the lawsuit’s outcome could determine the fate of the group driving much of the medical disinformation on the pro-Trump right.

AFLDS is tearing itself apart in a fight over what Gold’s rivals describe as her extravagant spending using the group’s funds. The alleged purchases include $100,000 on a single private jet trip and $50,000 a month in Gold’s personal expenses. Much of the controversy has centered on AFLDS’s purchase of a $3.6 million mansion in Naples, Florida., where Gold lives with her boyfriend: a much younger underwear model and fellow Capitol rioter.

Gold ultimately pleaded guilty to one of her riot charges in June, and was sentenced to 60 days of incarceration. When she emerged from a federal prison in Miami this September, she was touted as a hero. As hard-right Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) welcomed her outside the facility, Gold made a heart sign with her hands.

But the good feelings from Gold’s homecoming were short-lived. Soon after she left prison, Gilbert took her aside. While Gold was gone, AFLDS’s board had launched an internal audit of her spending


Well, at least this grift didn't hurt anybod... oh, wait, that's right.

As AFLDS’s leadership squabbles, the group’s rank-and-file employees are struggling to fulfill the organization’s basic functions, like connecting their supporters with prescriptions for ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
 

Bradskii

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a much younger underwear model and fellow Capitol rioter.

Almost certainly the first time in the history of the English language that those words have been strung together in that combination.
 
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essentialsaltes

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Gene2memE

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America's Frontline Doctors was always a political group. It just happened to be formed from doctors. But there wasn't a proper medical purpose for their formation - it really was a contrarian/anti-establishment/anti-expertise political point scoring exercise from the get-go.

If you look at who's involved, you get the following:

Republican and Tea Party financial backers
MAGA adherents
Capitol riot participants
Christian Dominionists
Conspiracy theorists of all stripes (not just anti-COVID/anti-vax cranks)
Several convicted criminals
QAnon true believers

It's not really surprising then that it was all a grift and it's probably going to unravel thanks to internal squabbles over money.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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Wow, this one's a real piece of work

You mean a doctor-turned-lawyer (who did so to rebel against her father because she didn't want to be a doctor to begin with) and who tried to push bogus quack cures isn't on the up & up? I'm shocked.
 
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essentialsaltes

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It SHOULD be truly distressing to see how many grifters are targetting the right/alt right/far right faction of America. But strangely, many members of that group are impervious to it. Or don't seem to care.

Impervious? Don't care? The problem is that more than a few are downright eager.

1668707121412.png
 
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rambot

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Impervious? Don't care? The problem is that more than a few are downright eager.

View attachment 323393
I remember the show unsolved mysteries always had these sad stories of older folks and women who would get grifted by confidence men and they were so sad and embarrassed that they were duped. These folks seem to refuse to believe they are duped. Its like, the grift that keeps on grifting.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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It SHOULD be truly distressing to see how many grifters are targetting the right/alt right/far right faction of America. But strangely, many members of that group are impervious to it. Or don't seem to care.
It seems like certain types of disinformation are more appealing to certain factions based on their other underlying values...making them more receptive to hearing things that neatly fit into their world view and that they already wanted to hear in the first place.

e.g. - A person who already wanted to dislike George Bush for other reasons was more likely to gobble up the "Bush Did 9/11" conspiracies...and a person who's very distrustful of government was more likely to embrace the "moon landing was faked" conspiracies.


It just so happened to be that this particular vaccine in question was one where there was division down political lines/factions to the point where embracing/rejecting it became a liberal/conservative "badge of honor" so to speak.... Evidenced by people updating their social media profile pics to let everyone else in the world know that they had either gotten it, or were refusing to get it.

Prior to the covid vaccine, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories (the most prevalent being the MMR vaccine causes autism mumbo jumbo) was pretty evenly split down political lines... You could find some far right anti-authoritarian types who rejected them, but could also find plenty of RFK Jr. and Jenny McCarthy (or 'everything's gotta be from mother nature & organic') types on the left that were rejecting the MMR vaccines.
 
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rambot

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It seems like certain types of disinformation are more appealing to certain factions based on their other underlying values...making them more receptive to hearing things that neatly fit into their world view and that they already wanted to hear in the first place.

e.g. - A person who already wanted to dislike George Bush for other reasons was more likely to gobble up the "Bush Did 9/11" conspiracies...and a person who's very distrustful of government was more likely to embrace the "moon landing was faked" conspiracies.


It just so happened to be that this particular vaccine in question was one where there was division down political lines/factions to the point where embracing/rejecting it became a liberal/conservative "badge of honor" so to speak.... Evidenced by people updating their social media profile pics to let everyone else in the world know that they had either gotten it, or were refusing to get it.

Prior to the covid vaccine, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories (the most prevalent being the MMR vaccine causes autism mumbo jumbo) was pretty evenly split down political lines... You could find some far right anti-authoritarian types who rejected them, but could also find plenty of RFK Jr. and Jenny McCarthy (or 'everything's gotta be from mother nature & organic') types on the left that were rejecting the MMR vaccines.
Funny you say that. It's almost like it's a political circle now instead of a spectrum where the nutters at the extreme circle back on each other and meet.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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Funny you say that. It's almost like it's a political circle now instead of a spectrum where the nutters at the extreme circle back on each other and meet.
On certain issues, that's certainly true.

...but then on other issues some of those people may still be lightyears apart.

For instance RFK Jr and and the conservative anti-vaccine types are joined at the hip on that topic, but if the topic was switched to climate change, they'd literally have nothing in common as many anti-vaccine types on the conservative end think that climate change is a hoax, whereas RFK Jr. was so passionate about climate, that he was on Obama's short list to head up the EPA during his administration.

Maybe it's like the political equivalent of whatever that child's toy is with the bucket and the lid you dropped the shaped blocks through...

The circle and the square can both technically fit in the square hole, but the inverse wouldn't be true.
 
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