Sure. Wendy Doesn't Know ANYTHING About QAnon

This was yesterday on Radio Karen:

Wendy Q. Bell does not liQE being held aQQountable by @Twitch for spreading Qanon Qonspiracy theories and Covid disinformation. pic.twitter.com/jyWx3ywvNZ

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) April 15, 2022

I'll step over her convenient ignorance of other RWNJ conspiracy theories (bleach and the vaccine microchips) for what she says at about 1:28

And finally that we were pushing QAnon theories.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me make this very clear to you. I'm busy managing my children and this business and just the business of life.

I can't even tell you what QAnon is, let alone their theories.

Sure, Wendy. Sure.

We'll start on January 5, 2021 - the day before Trump's attempted coup.

This was at a rally in Harrisburg - an attempt to get the Pennsylvania legislature to decertify the 2020 election results and Pennlive reports:

Radio personality Wendy Bell spoke near the end of the rally, telling the crowd “We are witnessing an amazing part of our history. Regardless of how it ends, this is the beginning of a great awakening.”

“A sleeping giant has awakened, and it’s called ‘serving us’ like they were elected to do. And we have awakened as well,” she said.

Did you hear the dog whistle? It's the QAnon phrase "great awakening" and as New York Times pointed out that January:

Followers of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, have spent weeks anticipating that Wednesday would be the “Great Awakening” — a day, long foretold in QAnon prophecy, when top Democrats would be arrested for running a global sex trafficking ring and President Trump would seize a second term in office.

Then there's this from Wendy herself on January 12, 2021:

This morning, I was watching Wendy's broadcast from yesterday at Radio Karen central, trying to track down the source of a video Wendy played about 6 minutes in.

I snagged a screen shot from the video:

Seems to me that Wendy's occasional reference to the phrase "Great Awakening" and now her use of the a video contains the phrase itself points to Wendy going full QAnon.

Then there's Wendy's participation in that QAnon rally in Beaver last summer. 

Sure Wendy. You have no idea what QAnon is. 

Sure.

So whatever happened to the rally's organizer? The QAnon spouting anti-vaxx crusader Robert David Steele?

He died of Covid in Florida

NOT A DOCTOR Wendy Bell Spreads Medical Misinformation. Again.

I heard that faced a little broadcasting issue yesterday.

Looks like they got bounced off of Twitch for pushing some medical misinformation.

Wendy's assistant Brock read the email from Twitch which mentions drinking bleach and the like - a charge The Angel of Death disputes.

Ok, fine. Let's let them have the denial of the bleach drinking.

But on the other hand, this was yesterday's bullshit board:

The minute you see Wendy "quoting" the CDC VAERS data you know she's pushing medical misinformation. 

Let's follow the trail of evidence.

Apparently, Wendy is getting her "information" from sources like this one:

The National Vaccine Information Center is anti-vax and has been for a long long time.

Among Vaccine Roulettes’ disciples was Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, which has spent decades trying to convince parents that vaccines are far more dangerous than the alternative, preventable diseases.

Anyway, see that red link in the image? It leads here - to the CDC disclaimer regarding the VAERS numbers:

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind. [Emphasis added.]

The thing is, you have to click on a "I have read and understood the disclaimer" box before getting to the CDC's VAERS numbers.

You do not have to do that to get to the data at the National Vaccine Information Center's website.

How many people at that anti-vax site even bother with the disclaimer?

That's a rhetorical question. We all know the answer. 

Does Wendy Bell ever mention anything from the disclaimer? For example this part:

VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness.

Another rhetorical question for which we already have an answer. Take a look at the BS board if you're unconvinced.

Rule: Whenever Wendy Bell (and/or her trusty sidekick Brock) mentions the VAERS data without emphasizing the CDC's disclaimer, she's pushing medical misinformation.

Plain and simple.

Remember:

PA State Senator Is STILL Pushing 2020 Election Fraud Hoax

From PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's FB page:

Senator Doug's caption:

Even when adjusted for population, Democrat counties recieved more grant money from Zuckerberg to influence voter turnout than Republican counties recieved in the 2020 election. There are no public records showing the amounts that all counties requested and any conditions that Zuckerberg's groups placed on the grants. I support legislation that bans "Zuck Bucks" and any private funds that could be used to influence an election. [All "i before e" misspellings in original.]

The only problem here is that no one has ever been able to show that those "Zuck Bucks" influenced the outcome of the 2020 election. More on that a little later.

Though it has become one of the many conspiracy theories Trump's GOP has been using to undermine the legitimacy of Biden's 2020 election win.

For example, the premiere of "Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump" at Mar-a-Lago only last week.

Kudos to Doug Mastriano on his fantastic timing! I am sure the twice-impeached orange vulgarity now hunkered down in his Florida bunker noticed your good efforts, Doug. I am sure of it!

Anyway, what was the funding for, anyway?

Some background from the Center for Tech and Civic Life website:

CTCL provided COVID-19 Response Grants to nearly 2,500 election departments across 49 states. In total, CTCL distributed approximately $350 million in grant funds.

All local election offices responsible for administering election activities covered by the CTCL COVID-19 Response Grant program were eligible to apply for grant funds. Every eligible election department that was verified as legitimate was approved for a grant.

 And from the groups Final Report we read:

The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a non-partisan organization backed by Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisan officials, grew rapidly in 2020 in response to an exceptionally challenging U.S. election year when a global pandemic and disinformation campaign threatened people’s ability to participate in the democratic process. In response, our country’s state and local election officials alongside pro-democracy organizations including foundations, corporations, and nonprofits, came together to overcome these challenges. As a result, 2020 was the most secure election in U.S. history and voter turnout soared.

CTCL played a critical role in deploying various strategies to support election officials and the voting public in 2020. In addition to providing timely and relevant online training as well as accurate and trustworthy information to millions of voters, CTCL distributed nearly $350 million in grants to local election departments to administer safe elections.

CTCL is a publicly supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We’re proud to have a healthy mix of financial support from foundations, individual donors, and earned revenue.

But why was it necessary?

Axios gives a clue:

The private money was needed in part because the federal government hadn’t provided enough funding. Congress allocated $400 million in March for election services, but that was just a tenth of what some officials said was needed.

Ah. So if they thought they'd be strapped for cash, local election commissions could apply for a grant. CTRL has an answer for how much:

Your election office will be eligible to apply for a grant amount based on a formula that considers the citizen voting age population and other demographic data of your jurisdiction. Minimum grants will be $5,000. You may choose to receive less than the offered amount if your needs or eligible expenses do not reach that amount.

So the local election offices chose the amount?

Looks that way to me.

And Axios has some information regarding the question as to whether these grants influenced the outcome of the election:

In the weeks since the election, allies of President Trump have included the Center for Tech and Civic Life grants in their voter fraud conspiracy theories. They have challenged the legality and neutrality of the grants, claiming that the funding was aimed at boosting Democratic turnout. But an APM Reports analysis of voter registration and voter turnout in three of the five key swing states shows the grant funding had no clear impact on who turned out to vote. Turnout increased across the country from 2016. The APM Reports analysis found that counties in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona that received grants didn’t have consistently higher turnout rates than those that didn’t receive money.

So Doug should probably have educated himself a little better on that.

As well as this part:

There are no public records showing the amounts that all counties requested and any conditions that Zuckerberg's groups placed on the grants

This is the among CTRL's final report.  It's a Form 990 - the "Public Disclosure Copy, by the way and lo and behold it does list the amounts that the counties requested.

For example York County - part of which is in PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's legislative district:

The county received $321,600. Surely he can pick up a phone and find out how much was requested.

As far as the groups limitations on the grants, there's a whole page at CTRL's website devoted to that.

Here it is:

How much did Doug Mastriano get absolutely wrong with this?

PA GOP - Taking Credit For Something The GOP Stood Against

We've blogged on this before.

But now it's gone GOP-Statewide.

Take a look:

A joint press event will be held on Tuesday to announce police funding legislation, Senate Bill 1193, that will allocate $100 million in American Rescue Plan funds to create the “Law Enforcement Recovery Grant Program.”

For those not up-to-speed (or "in-the-know" or "well-versed" or "on top of things"), the American Rescue Plan was a bit of Biden legislation that made it through the US Congress with:

NO ONE BIT OF GOP SUPPORT AT ALL

And yet here's the Pennsylvania State Republicans broadcasting their bit of GOP legislation that's funded by the evil Demoncrat legislation.

So Ali Alexander (Of "Stop The Steal") Is Cooperating - Does Doug Mastriano Know?

On Friday, The New York Times posted this:

Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of pro-Trump events after the 2020 election, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation of the attack on the Capitol last year, the first high-profile political figure known to have offered assistance to the government’s newly expanded criminal inquiry.

And:

The grand jury subpoena Mr. Alexander received suggests that prosecutors have greatly widened the scope of their inquiry to include not only people who were at the Capitol, but also those who organized and spoke at pro-Trump events in November and December 2020 and on Jan. 6, 2021.

In an indication that the inquiry could reach into the Trump administration and its allies in Congress, the subpoena also seeks information about members of the executive and legislative branches who were involved in the events or who may have helped to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election.

Mr. Alexander took part in two so-called Stop the Steal rallies in Washington that preceded the former president’s event at the Ellipse, near the White House, on Jan. 6 — one on Nov. 14, 2020, and the other a few weeks later on Dec. 12 — as well as events in the key swing state of Georgia in December.

We've already seen that Mr Alexander has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee. In that committee's press release we find this:

According to documents provided to the Select Committee, an organization named “One Nation Under God” submitted a permit application in December 2020 to the U.S. Capitol Police for a rally about “the election fraud in the swing states” to be held on the U.S. Capitol Grounds on January 6th, 2021.

 And:

After the January 6th attack, Mr. Alexander released a statement acknowledging that Stop the Steal had obtained the rally permit “for our ‘One Nation Under God’ event.” Mr. Alexander explained that it was the intention of Stop the Steal to direct attendees of the rally on the Ellipse to march at the conclusion of that rally to Lot 8 on the U.S. Capitol Grounds, which is the location for which the Capitol Police granted the permit for the “One Nation Under God” rally. Yet the permit application estimated the event would have only 50 attendees.

Well, we found that permit. 

And guess whose name is listed on it?

Page 17 of the pdf has a list (as of December 30, 2020) of the speakers at that rally:

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano is on the list (marked "To be confirmed") of speakers.

Hey, do you see that Rose Tennent is also on that list? Does KDKA Radio know this?

Anyway, back to Ali and the DOJ.

The DOJ says that Mr Alexander was part of another "Stop The Steal" rally that took place on December 12, 2020.

Guess what?

Doug Mastriano spoke at that rally. C-Span has video.

So there's two rallies tied to both Ari Alexander (who's cooperating with the DOJ about Trump's attempted coup) and PA State Senator Doug Mastriano.

Senator, do any of these connections concern you at all? Are you concerned that your name might possibly come up in Mr Alexander's discussions with the DOJ?

The Times reported:

While it remains unclear what Mr. Alexander might tell the grand jury, he was intimately involved in the sprawling effort to mount political protests challenging the results of the election, and had contacts with other organizers, extremist groups, members of Congress and, according to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, White House officials during the period after Election Day.

Are you one of those contacts, Senator?

Did you ever meet Ari Alexander? Discuss the election with Ari Alexander? Discuss anything that had anything to do with the "Stop The Steal" rallies with Ari Alexander?

I am a Pennsylvanian and a voter and I'd like answers to these questions.

Wendy Bell Is Just Awful For So Many Reasons

Even when she's not exercising her duties as the (or at least an) Angel of Death, Wendy Bell is just an awful human being.

Case in point:

Wendy wonders where bullying of the LGBTQ community is happening (regular readers know the bullying is happening in a pretend studio in Greentree). Says she is friends with several gay couples and doesn’t see it…that the real bullying is happening to the 1/6 insurrectionists. pic.twitter.com/Dj0VwsOz79

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) April 9, 2022

We join Wendy mid-screed:

I've been paying attention of these of these trans, asexual, binary wha--. There's so many ridiculous things happening that are so nonsensical.

The crux of these people is that they've been bullied. Or that something terrible has happened to them and they are pushing back again--.

I don't know anybody who's been bullied. Certainly not that I know of and I am friends with several gay couples.

Like where is this terrible behavior happening? Who's being tortured? Who's being abused? Who's being emotionally compromised?

What's going on? Why is there such angst?

Where is this bullying?

The bullying is happening in prisons and in homes as Jerry Perna (sic) illustrated across America.

That's called bullying.

Not that you're a blue-haired multi-pierced tattooed person who's overweight and unhappy and probably needs a therapist more than they need special rights from Disney.

And yet, we're told that "these people" this particular box-checking campaign on the extreme left - this is where we need to pay our attention.

No. No it's not. Because there's actual palpable malfeasance and evil and wrong and bullying happening.

700 people face charges because of the 2 hours that were January 6.

People who walked into the Capitol Rotunda took some pictures within the velvet ropes and walked out and that was it.

Who face 20 years in prison!

There are two facets to Wendy's noxious ignorance showing here:

• The anti-LGBTQ bigotry
• The January 6 revisionism
  

Let's go in order.

Wendy Bell doubts the existence of anti-LGBTQ bullying because she's never seen any and she verifies her position by saying that she's friends with "several gay couples."

And as Stephen Colbert once said, "Global warming isn't real because I was cold today! Also great news: World hunger is over because I just ate!"

But let's look at some statistics for LGBTQ bullying. From the CDC:

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youths experience more violence victimization and suicide risk than heterosexual youths (1–3). In 2015, CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) added two new questions to the national questionnaire regarding sexual identity and sexual behavior. These questions facilitated the first nationally representative estimates of the health behaviors and experiences of sexual minority youths (students who identify as LGB or those who have sexual contact with persons of the same or both sexes) and affirmed the presence of substantial health disparities (i.e., differences in health outcomes between social groups driven by unequal social or environmental circumstances) in violence victimization and suicide risk between LGB and heterosexual youths . Findings from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) revealed that LGB high school students experienced more bullying at school (33% among LGB students and 17% among heterosexual students), more sexual dating violence by dating partners (LGB, 16%; heterosexual, 6%), and more suicide attempts (LGB, 23%; heterosexual, 5%) (3) than their heterosexual peers. [Emphasis added.]

There's your bullying, Wendy. You're free to scientifically refute it, of course. But in order to do that you'll have to produce something more substantial than "I've never seen it and I have gay friends." 

This is the difference between evidence that's anecdotal and evidence that's actual evidence.

If you can't produce actual evidence refuting the CDC's report then you have to accept the validity of the CDC report.

And then you'll have to admit that the bullying of the LGBTQ community is real and it is harmful.

Wendy then pivots from her anti-LGBTQ bigotry to January 6 revisionism by declaring the real bullying that's going in targets those in jail for participating in Trump's attempted coup.

She then references the story of Matthew (not Jerry) Perna.

Wendy couldn't even get his name right.

Anyway, this is Matthew Perna:

A Capitol rioter died by suicide as he was awaiting sentencing on charges of witness tampering, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and two counts of disorderly conduct, officials said.

“Matthew Lawrence Perna died on February 25, 2022 of a broken heart,” his family said in an obituary. “His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life.”

The Mercer County Coroner’s Office confirmed to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Perna, 37, of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, died by suicide. NBC News has reached out to the coroner for comment.

I am very sorry to learn that Perna committed suicide. The psychological pressure he was facing must have been overwhelming. I am sorry for the pain his family and friends must be feeling as a result of his suicide.

And of course if we can assume that Wendy is still talking about Perna at the end of that clip (and I think it's safe to do so) Wendy gets Perna's story wrong. 

He was not simply walking around the Rotunda taking pictures behind the velvet ropes and walking out.

This is among the charges he pled guilty to and for which he was awaiting sentencing:

The defendant knew at the time he entered the U.S. Capitol Building that that he did not have permission to enter the building and the defendant did so with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress.

 And:

The defendant knew at the time he entered the U.S. Capitol Building that he did not have permission to enter the building. The defendant, in concert with others, obstructed, influenced, and impeded an official proceeding, that is, a proceeding before Congress, specifically, Congress's certification of the Electoral College vote as set out in the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and 3 U.S.C. §§ 15-18.

Something a little more serious than taking pictures behind a velvet rope, doncha think, Wendy?

I am sorry Matthew Perna committed suicide. Wendy you should apologize to the LGBTQ community for the doubt you sewed about the very real bullying members of that community face every day.

But I know you won't.

PA State Senator Misleads His Constituents. Again.

From PA State Senator Mastriano's "News" page on his official website, we find this:

Sen. Doug Mastriano (PA-33) successfully offered an amendment to ensure timely removal of deceased registered voters from the SURE system.

This is all part of the "Pennsylvania has a broken election system" cloud of arguments. Doug's fan base so hated losing (by 79,000 votes or so) Pennsylvania to President Joe Biden during the 2020 election that so their solution is to claim a rigged election system here in PA.

That claim is a lie. A big lie. There's no evidence of a rigged election in PA (or accros the US for that matter). Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. That's reality. Claiming a rigged election is a lie.

Part of the lie is to undermine the credibility of Pennsylvania's election system and here we see an attack on the SURE system.

And Doug offers up some sure-fired "evidence" for how unreliable PA's election system is:

“In 2020 report, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) provided the Department of State with the names of at least 21,000 deceased registrants who remained on the voter rolls less than a month before the 2020 election,” said Sen. Mastriano. “We must avoid this kind of egregious error in the future. My amendment will allow counties to have the most up to date information to ensure registration records are accurate and that all deceased voters are removed from the rolls well before an election.”

Too bad the "fact" of "at least 21,000 deceased registrants" is itself unreliable.

Factcheck.org, uh, fact checked the number exactly a year ago today:

A misleading claim that more than 21,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania are dead is circulating online. The figure comes from a conservative group that failed to convince a federal judge in October that its list was accurate.

Specifically:

[T]he claim is misleading. It’s based on a lawsuit filed by a conservative organization called the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which regularly brings voting-related lawsuits against states.

The case was filed on Oct. 15, about two weeks before Election Day. It alleged that more than 21,000 voters registered in Pennsylvania were dead and asked that the court order the state to remove them from the rolls before the election.

The federal judge hearing the case declined to do so.

Instead, Judge John Jones III cited PILF’s questionable methodology in developing its purported list of ineligible voters, its decision to file the suit at the “eleventh hour,” and the fact that Pennsylvania’s system for stripping deceased voters from the rolls appears to work. [Emphasis added.]

This was posted a year ago. 

And yet Doug is shoveling this mislead to his constituents as if it were rock solid true. 

As we know, this is not the first time Doug has mislead his constituents. We've seen him previously mislead about ivermectin. In that instance he told them that ivermectin has had a "record of success" across the world in dealing with Covid-19 when it definitely has not had any success at that at all.

Presumably, he's been misleading for a while. Good for him, bearing false witness and all.

By the way, there's an interesting Mastriano coincidence when it comes to PILF - specifically its Board of Directors. 

Among the directors is John C Eastman, author of those infamous Eastman Memos.

John Eastman has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee.

And so has Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano!

He's yet to respond or even publicly acknowledge the subpoena.

Why is that, Doug?

What Is Rose Tennent Doing BACK ON KDKA??

We've got plague, we've got war, we've got ignorance tumors metastasizing across a once great political party and now this:

https://t.co/GIUMgyz8NP @numbah_6 pic.twitter.com/MmSpXj273f

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) April 8, 2022

Before I dive into that caldron of GOP family values that is Ted Nugent, let me just ask? 

Why on Earth would KDKA hire Rose Tennent?

But first, The Nuge.

For this family values sort of guy, the Dallas Morning News has this:

In a 1998 documentary on VH1 Behind the Music, Nugent admitted having affairs with several underage girls. "I was addicted to girls. It was hopeless. It was beautiful," he said.

He also said he had worked to charm their parents.

“I got the stamp of approval of their parents,” Nugent said on the video. “I guess they figured better Ted Nugent than some drug-infested punk in high school.”

And then there's this from Politico: 

“I was a wang-dang addict, I was addicted to girls. Addicted. It was hopeless,” he said in the video. “It was beautiful.”

By age 21, he had two children from two different women. By 30, after being married, having more kids and getting divorced, he was involved with a 17-year-old, for whom he assumed the mantle — with her parents’ permission — of legal guardian.

“It just really wasn’t a terribly appropriate situation in most people’s eyes,” said Pele Massa in the documentary, who said in the film that at 17 she became romantically involved with Nugent and was with him for nine years, though he wasn’t faithful to her during that period, she said. “And now, it would be criminal.”

Ted Nugent, family values crusader. (To be fair, he was never charged with any crime in his wang-dang addictions.)

Oh, one more thing. There's this from Rolling Stone:

Ted Nugent has apologized for referring to President Barack Obama as a “subhuman mongrel” last month. He did not, however, offer contrition to Obama. “I do apologize – not necessarily to the President – but on behalf of much better men than myself,” he said to radio host Ben Ferguson, according to CNN.  

I may not know much but I'm thinking calling any African-American a "subhuman mongrel" is pretty darn racist. And look at that "apology" for a second. Ted doesn't apologize to President Obama - just "on behalf of much better men" than Ted - which would be, uh, everyone else?

Does Dr Oz really want Ted Nugent's endorsement?

OF COURSE HE DOES! This is Donald Trump's GOP, where racism, sexism, and cruelty are exactly the point.

Now onto Rose Tennent.

Does KDKA know that Rose Tennent was at The Capitol on January 6?

Take a look at this from the NYTimes:

Then [Sean Hannity] took a call from an empathetic pro-Trump activist and regular guest, Rose Tennent, who was standing outside the Capitol as the situation escalated. “At some point, people break,” Ms. Tennent said, offering not a single harsh word about the violent protesters who had overtaken the Capitol Police.

“This is the hill they want to die on. This is a battle that is just as important to them as the Revolutionary War was,” she said, adding that these lawless demonstrators weren’t entirely to blame for their actions. “If you ask me, the Democrats and the media are responsible for this.”

Here's an interesting question for KDKA: Why was Rose Tennent there in the first place?

Take a look at this archived page from the now-defunct Wildprotest.com website. It lists the "Invited Speakers and Featured Guests" at the rally before Trump's attempted coup. Scroll down to see Rose's picture.

Presumably she was invited because of her involvement (as a member of the Advisory Council) for a group called "Moms for America" - one of the participants of the rally:

As of this writing, she's still on the council. Does KDKA know this?

What supercharges this association is the fact that the leader of Moms for America, Kimberly Fletcher, has been subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee. What does Rose Tennent think about that? Did anyone at KDKA ask her?

Of course what did she talk about when she sat in for Larry Richart on KDKA? It was her "gotcha" question, "What is a woman?"

Does KDKA know of Rose's involvement with the rally that preceded Trump's attempted coup? Have they discussed her birtherism when she was the "Rose" of Quinn and Rose? How about how she suggested that President Obama is the devil?

KDKA: Did you know any of this? If you did, why put her on the air?

If not, why the hell not?

Wendy Bell's Sponsors Must Be So Proud Of Her!

We'll start, as is tradition, with yesterday's BS Board:

As you can see, Wendy's Bullshit board is sponsored by Ireland Contracting (MOTTO: Ireland Contracting, come for the quality home remodeling, stay for the dangerous life-threatening medical misinformation!).

And Wendy immediately gives away the store with her habit of giving very specific numbers to "prove" her point.

It leads directly to an easy debunking.

Like this one.

(Trigger warning for Wendy and her lil buddy Brock: Now, I'm going to show you some fact-checking. I know you find these very scary and if it upsets you too much just remember that facts don't care about your feelings and so you should just get over it.)

Factcheck has a good intro:

A flurry of articles and videos online are now misinterpreting a Pfizer document released by the FDA as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The posts incorrectly claim that it shows the vaccine is unsafe and is evidence that this was hidden from the public.

They published this on March 18 so Wendy & Co. are only about two and a half weeks late. Did they miss this while researching this issue? Took me about 30 seconds to find it.

Anyway, Factcheck explains what Wendy failed to tell her adorings:

The document is an analysis of adverse events, or health issues reported following vaccination, regardless of whether they were caused by the vaccine. Tracking of such events is useful for companies and regulators to identify possible safety signals, particularly of rare events that would not have been possible to detect in clinical trials. [Emphasis added.]

And if you don't like Factcheck, how about the Australian AP:

Table 1 (page 7) of the report records 1223 fatalities reported as adverse events during that period. While there is fresh impetus among anti-vaccine groups following the release of the Pfizer documents, such as here, claims about the 1223 figure were first fact-checked in December 2021 following the initial release of documents by the FDA, such as here and here. Those checks point out that nowhere in the Pfizer report does it say the 1223 deaths were linked to the vaccine.

Jacques Raubenheimer a senior research fellow in biostatistics at University of Sydney who has written on vaccine misinformation and data misinterpretation, makes the same point. He told AAP FactCheck it was important to heed the report’s warning that an accumulation of adverse event reports did not necessarily indicate that a particular adverse event was caused by the drug.

Which leads to something else Wendy's crack team of researchers (is this you, Brock? You really need to do better, my friend) missed from the Pfizer report:

An accumulation of adverse event reports (AERs) does not necessarily indicate that a particular AE was caused by the drug; rather, the event may be due to an underlying disease or some other factor(s) such as past medical history or concomitant medication. (p 6)

Back to the AAP:

Professor Nigel McMillan, the director of the Infectious Diseases and Immunology Program at Griffith University Queensland, said the claim of 1223 deaths related to the vaccine’s first three month rollout was a common misuse of information.

“In any group of people we see deaths from all sorts of things like heart attacks and cancer (450 a day in Australia actually) and some of these people might have been vaccinated in the last month or so. It doesn’t mean those people died because of the vaccine. In Australia, regulator investigation have resulted in 12 vaccine-attributed deaths from 50 million doses given,” Prof McMillan said.

Or, if you're looking for something closer, how's'bout this from France:

Online articles shared on social media claim a document released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed more than 1,200 deaths related to Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine in a 90-day period. But the pharmaceutical giant says the document does not indicate the fatalities are linked to vaccination, and it concludes the shots are safe -- a finding supported by US health authorities as well as clinical research.

And:

The document cited in the articles contains nothing to indicate the vaccine was linked to deaths. The figure of 1,223 fatalities among 158,893 adverse effects reflect "spontaneous" reports from sources that include health officials in several countries, without any verification of the cause, among the millions of vaccinated people worldwide during that period, Pfizer spokeswoman Dervila Keane told AFP.

It does not indicate specific causes of death, and the fatalities may include people with "various illnesses" such as cancer or cardiovascular disease, she said.

Are you getting this, Wendy? Your entire BS board was, well, bullshit.

You're still pushing people away from the vaccines (which work) and you're still putting their lives at risk.

You're making them less safe, Wendy. You are.

Wendy Bell, The Angel of Death. 

PS Note to Wendy: You want me on your show? I have nothing more to say than what's in these blogposts. You want me on, read the blog post to your adorings.

Wendy Bell's Sponsors - Do They Know She's Spreading Russian Misinformation?

First some news.

This is a picture of a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine.

The European news service Euractiv reports that it's taken from the twitter account of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

The piece starts with this:

Global outrage at accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine mounted Sunday (3 April) with the discovery of mass graves and corpses in streets near Kyiv, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly blamed leaders in Moscow for the “torture” and “killings” of civilians.

Here is a picture of a mass killing as reported by The Associated Press:

The AP reports:

Bodies with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and signs of torture lay scattered in a city on the outskirts of Kyiv after Russian soldiers withdrew from the area. Ukrainian authorities on Sunday accused the departing forces of committing war crimes and leaving behind a “scene from a horror movie.”

As images of the bodies — of people whom residents said were killed indiscriminately — began to emerge from Bucha, a slew of European leaders condemned the atrocities and called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.

Yesterday, Wendy Bell publicly spread Russian misinformation about the above atrocities - spreading Russian doubt that the scenes may have been staged. By Ukraine.

Yep. That's what Wendy Bell did.

She had help - and I'm not talking about her lil' buddy, her sidekick Brock Schneider, either.

Go to the Sponsors page on her website to see the list of her financial helpers.

These are the businesses sponsoring Wendy Bell Radio:

• Body by AIM360 - the premier sponsor, according to the website
  
• Simkovich Concussion Institute
• The Disc Institute
• D'Onofrio Law Office
• West Penn Life and Health 
• Ireland Contracting 
• Morgainz Fitness 
• The Battle Grounds
• Piccadilly Chimney Sweeps 
• Nemocolin Country Club 
  

If I am understanding the verb "sponsoring" in this context, these businesses are trading something of value (probably money) and in exchange Wendy Bell is advertising for them on her website. She (and Brock) get paid from this cash and the sponsors see a rise in customers.

But let there be no mistake: each of them is sponsoring Wendy Bell's spreading of Russian misinformation. They each have a hand in sowing doubt among her adorings about the brutal reality in Ukraine. They're each making money off of it. They're each complicit in the misinformation.

But we still live in a free society where the 1st Amendment still holds sway. The owners of each of those business are completely free to express themselves as they see fit. Each is completely free to associate their business with Wendy Bell - the disgraced former journalist who now spreads Russian misinformation about Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Just as we are free to point out to the general public their association with Wendy Bell.

Do they know she's spreading Russian misinformation about Russian war crimes in Ukraine?

I wonder.

They should.

Wendy Bell Spreads Russian Disinformation (Again)

Let's check in on what Wendy Bell (and by extension her sponsors) are selling:

Free from the censorship of @newsmax, Comrade Wendy continues to spread Russian disinformation. First up, the #BuchaMassacre 1/2 pic.twitter.com/2j6aEFQXbX

— WENDY BELL WATCH (@JonInPGH) April 5, 2022

Here's What Moscow Wendy said:

Russia comes out - now they could be lying too.

Their defense minister says, hmm, they denied Ukraine's allegations, quote All the photographs and video material published by the Kyiv regime, allegedly showing some kinds of crimes by Russian military personnel in the town of Bucha, Kyiv region, are yet another provocation," The Ministry said April 3rd.

It's particularly concerning that all of the bodies of the people whose images were published by the Kyiv regime after at least four days have not stiffened, do not have characteristic spots on the cadavers and have fresh blood in their wounds, it added.

The Ministry said that the incident apparently involved bodies with staged by the Kyiv Regime for western media as is the fake news from the Mariupol maternity clinic.

We're being played, ladies and gentlemen. Somebody is playing us.

Why is the focus on the United States? Why is it that you are the one who has to pay the money to fund this?

Should you not be asking these questions: Why does Zelenskyy appear at the Grammys, asking for you to keep the story alive on your social media account?

Why?

We had social media during Afghanistan. This was never a thing then.

Are you not curious?

Are you not suspicious? Should you not be?

While Wendy hides behind her first statement:

Russia comes out - now they could be lying too.

Too?

But she then proceeds to cowardly spread the misinformation anyway.

The statement was published on Russia's "War on Fakes" Telegram channel.

Insider describes "War on Fakes" thusly:

A Russian Telegram channel with over 700,000 followers is spreading disinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine under the guise of providing "objective information" and fact-checking fake news. Its influence extends beyond the platform, with major Russian publications, government officials, and journalists citing the page's posts. 

The account, "War on Fakes," was created on February 24, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" and troops began invading Ukraine. The page is rife with disinformation, according to The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies digital extremism and published a report examining the channel.

The channel appears to be part of the broader information war that has developed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has paid Russian TikTok influencers to push propaganda, according to a Vice News investigation, while ProPublica found that fake Russian fact check videos had been viewed over a million times on Telegram. 

This is where Wendy Bell is getting her news about Ukraine, these days - from a Russian propaganda channel on Telegram.

Way to go, Wendy.

Turns out that what The Angel of Death spread from the Russian misinformation is easily debunked.

Let's join the BBC, debunking already in progress:

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted: "It is of particular worry that all the bodies of the people whose images have been published by the Kiev regime are not stiffened after at least four days."

According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians left in the early hours of 31 March. The Russians say they left on 30 March.

In the hours after death, bodies go through a process called rigor mortis where muscles contract and stiffen.

We asked a forensic pathologist for their opinion on whether a body would be expected to be "stiffened" after four days. One who has worked in places including Kosovo and Rwanda on war crimes investigations, who did not want to be named, told the BBC that by four days rigor mortis has "usually subsided".

And as far as the massacre is staged by the Ukrainians, the Beeb is on that too:

Satellite images of Bucha appear to show bodies lying in the street nearly two weeks before the Russians left the town.

An image from 19 March, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the BBC, directly contradicts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's claim that the footage of bodies that has emerged in recent days was "staged" after the Russians withdrew.

The image shows objects that appear to be bodies in the exact locations where they were subsequently found by Ukrainian forces when they regained control of the town north of Kyiv.[Bolding in original]

So who's got the better chance of getting the story right?

On the one hand there's The BBC News, a hundred years old and reportedly the largest news division on the planet, with access to all sorts of experts and then on the other the noxious Wendy Bell, fired for a racist FB post and then fired again later for a fascist radio rant, pushing Russian misinformation onto her many many adorings.

Oh and did you see how Wendy so blithly spread the Russian misinformation about the Mariupol maternity hospital?

That's been debunked, too:

On March 9, Ukrainian officials said a Russian airstrike destroyed Mariupol Hospital No. 3. The attack was verified by the World Health Organization’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared footage of the damage to Telegram. The Mariupol City Council also shared footage on the messaging app, saying Russian forces dropped "several bombs on a children’s hospital,” according to a Google translation.

Journalists with the Associated Press documented the aftermath and witnessed the damage firsthand, capturing footage of pregnant women fleeing, children crying and medics shouting. Maxar Technologies published before-and-after satellite images of the hospital showing extensive damage.

Wendy, I'm sorry (not sorry) that my posting of these fact checks so trigger you and your lil' buddy Brock but facts are facts. Facts don't care about your feelings, Wendy (and Brock).

These are the facts and you are siding with genocide.

Way to go.

 

This Weekend Wendy Bell Tried Her Hand At Trolling

An astute reader sent me this over the weekend:

And let me remind y'inz that I wasn't able to see The Angel of Death's tweet first hand because Wendy, that champion of free speech, that anti-cancel culture activist, she who invited me on her show a number of times, has, in her infinite wisdom on such matters, blocked me on Twitter.

Way to go Wendy. You're so wicked smaht.

Anyway back to Wendy's newbie-Trolling.

Before we continue let me point out that I don't speak for the AG.  I'm not affiliated with him in any way - not attached to his office nor his campaign nor am I a even member of his political party.

So where was AG Shapiro during Covid? 

Luckily last year he posted an answer about what he did for the state that first year:

More recently, there was this:

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced a settlement Friday with the founder and CEO of Philly Fighting COVID — the inexperienced organization whose failed coronavirus vaccine partnership with the city last year led to national embarrassment — banning him from working with charities in the commonwealth and requiring him to destroy any personal information he collected from those preregistering for the jab.

Shapiro is also seeking $30,000 in restitution from the organization and its founder, Andrei Doroshin. That money will be distributed to organizations providing COVID-19 testing and vaccination to disadvantaged communities in Philadelphia, Shapiro said in a news release. If Doroshin fails to pay the sum by Sept. 5, he will be charged an additional $30,000 in costs and penalties.

I found those after about 20 seconds of googling. So I'm guessing he did a lot during Covid.

And what did Wendy Bell do?

Wendy Bell declared Covid over in May of 2020:

...let's look at how Wendy Bell's still going to get some people killed. This was found yesterday on her Facebook page:

Covid is officially over. Signs on the floor are gone. Santized carts are no more. Limits on chicken, scratched.

Like the Israeli mathmetician said and our governor never heard... the cycle is 70 days. [Misspellings in original.]

Of course, she's completely and dangerously wrong.

Obviously, both Wendy and that mathematician were both wrong.  About 980,000 times wrong.

And as of this writing, that Facebook posting is still live.

Way to go. Wicked smaht.

Wendy Bell also repeatedly lied to her audience about the VAERS database and how Ivermectin was successfully used in India to treat Covid.

Some examples:

December 10, 2021 - the VAERS lie.

October 22, 2021 - the ivermectin in India lie.

Then there was this, general multipurpose list of lies about the vaccines, from April 23, 2021.

 

The lesson here is that every time she did this over the last few years, every time she lied about the virus or the vaccines she moved members of her audience away from taking them seriously.

And then, sadly, this happened:

A woman named Kay, who lived in Greene County with her husband of 37 years and who so approved the Wendy and Brock show that she linked to them daily when their show was still on Facebook, has died of Covid-19.

She died January 17.

As I said, this is immensely sad.  "I told you so" (if aimed at Kay) is not an option here. Let me say that again "I told you so" is not an option. A human being has died. A family is grieving. Chuckling at their grief is just cruel.

Yes she was on the wrong side of some very stupid choices. But would she have made them were it not for Wendy Bell's incessant crooning of Covid misinformation?

I think not.

 Wendy Bell, that's what you did during Covid.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano Is Doing It AGAIN

Recently on his Senator FB Page (as opposed to his campaign FB page) PA State Senator Doug Mastriano posted a link to this:

The text reads:

Pennsylvanians who incurred funeral expenses for a COVID-19-related death can apply for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) COVID-19 funeral assistance program to help ease the financial burden brought on by the pandemic.

The program will provide reimbursement for expenses incurred for funeral services, including but not limited to transportation to identify the deceased individual, the transfer of remains, a burial plot or cremation niche, a marker or headstone, clergy or officiant services, the use of funeral home equipment or staff, and cremation or interment costs.

Eligible applicants can apply for the funeral assistance program by calling FEMA’s COVID-19 Funeral Assistance Helpline at 1-844-684-6333 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday to begin the application process.

What the good Senator has decided not to reveal to his constituents can be found in this paragraph at WESA:

The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 earmarked $2 billion to cover funeral costs for COVID-related deaths. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 also provided FEMA $50 billion to spend on disaster relief

By the way, Julia Zenkevich started the piece by saying this:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided $104 million in funeral assistance funds to Pennsylvanians who lost loved ones to COVID-19, the agency announced this week.

To be more specific, Doug Mastriano decided not to tell his constituents that a large chunk of this FEMA funding comes from a piece of legislation that got absolutely no GOP support in Congress. 

That money would simply not be available had the GOP succeeded in voting down the legislation.

Simply on principle alone he should be instructing his constituents to avoid this guv'ment intrusion into their lives.

Yea, he left that part out.

Also, can I bring up a rather uncomfortable matter?

Setting aside all the deaths from Covid pre-vaccines and all the deaths from those who can't benefit from the vaccines because, for example, they're immuno-compromised.

This is not about those deaths. This is about these deaths:

79 percent of COVID-19-related deaths among individuals who had an infection date between Jan 1, 2021 and Mar 7, 2022 were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.

That page goes on to say that about 20,000 Pennsylvanians have died since January 1, 2021.

If something close to 80% of those deaths are those who were unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated, then we're talking about something like 16,000 un- (or under-) vaccinated Pennsylvanians dead from Covid-19.

How many of those were in sympathy with what Mastriano reportedly said said at a recent "Walk as a Free People" rally:

Mastriano urged attendees to back his efforts to support a Pennsylvania audit, as well as his bill banning the state or local governments, including school districts, from mandating any vaccines.

“We need to walk as free people,” Mastriano told the crowd.”You’re sovereign over your own body.”

If Mastriano's followers are demanding the freedom to walk through Pennsylvania unsullied by any guv'ment mandated vaccine, then they should accept the responsibility for their actions and of any event that should occur because of that exercise in their freedom. Freedom!

Which is to say, they shouldn't expect the Federal Government to bail their family out of any Covid funeral expenses just because Doug (or someone else pushing this stupid argument) stroked their body sovereignty hard-on regarding the vaccines.

So why is PA State Senator Doug Mastriano telling them about a federal assistance program they shouldn't want in the first place?

This is of course not to say that the Federal Government shouldn't be offering this program. 

Of course it should. 

I am sure there are many vaccinated members of many conflicted families in Pennsylvania who've lost an unvaccinated MAGA member (or two) to the virus and now face the funeral costs of burying them. This blog post is not about those Pennsylvanians.

Those Pennsylvanians deserve a double dose of sympathy.

My point is that Doug Mastriano is being hypocritical in pushing a program that his followers shouldn't want in the first place.

He can't have it both ways. He can't scream "body sovereignty!" one moment and then in another assure the free walking people not to worry about the funeral expenses that would arise if they die from Covid the invited by not being vaccinated.

Doug Mastriano, you're a hypocrite.

IVERMECTIN FOLLOW-UP (Spoilers: It STILL Doesn't Work Against Covid-19)

Think back, my children. Think back to the 20th of March of this year when I blogged thusly:

NEWSFLASH! IVERMECTIN DID NOT WORK AGAINST COVID-19! (Does Doug Mastriano Know This??)

Well, the science has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is what they did:

We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, adaptive platform trial involving symptomatic SARS-CoV-2–positive adults recruited from 12 public health clinics in Brazil. Patients who had had symptoms of Covid-19 for up to 7 days and had at least one risk factor for disease progression were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin (400 μg per kilogram of body weight) once daily for 3 days or placebo. (The trial also involved other interventions that are not reported here.) The primary composite outcome was hospitalization due to Covid-19 within 28 days after randomization or an emergency department visit due to clinical worsening of Covid-19 (defined as the participant remaining under observation for >6 hours) within 28 days after randomization.

And this is what they found:

Treatment with ivermectin did not result in a lower incidence of medical admission to a hospital due to progression of Covid-19 or of prolonged emergency department observation among outpatients with an early diagnosis of Covid-19.

And:

We did not find a significantly or clinically meaningful lower risk of medical admission to a hospital or prolonged emergency department observation (primary composite outcome) with ivermectin administered for 3 days at a dose of 400 μg per kilogram per day than with placebo. We found no important effects of treatment with ivermectin on the secondary outcomes.

So when PA State Senator Doug Mastriano uses "a record of success in other parts of the world" to support his latest "Medical Freedom" legislation we now know this to be factually incorrect.

And when he writes:

Another peer reviewed study conducted by physicians in Brazil found that those who took Ivermectin (compared to those who did not) had a 56% reduction in hospitalization and a 68% reduction in death...

We also know that this is incorrect as well:

An article shared on Facebook about an ivermectin study out of Brazil states that the "large, peer-reviewed research study proves ivermectin works." The article is being promoted by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a group that promotes the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Two of the study’s authors are members of the group.

The study, one of its authors said, does not definitively prove that ivermectin works as a prevention or treatment for COVID-19.

Experts not involved in the study pointed out serious flaws in the study and conflicts of interest with its authors. The FDA and WHO have not changed their positions on the use of ivermectin outside of clinical trials.

We rate this claim False.

As The New York Times points out:

The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which has surged in popularity as an alternative treatment for Covid-19 despite a lack of strong research to back it up, showed no sign of alleviating the disease, according to results of a large clinical trial published on Wednesday.

The study, which compared more than 1,300 people infected with the coronavirus in Brazil who received either ivermectin or a placebo, effectively ruled out the drug as a treatment for Covid, the study’s authors said.

“There’s really no sign of any benefit,” said Dr. David Boulware, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Minnesota.

Any comment, Senator?