TBR News June 20 ,2020

Jun 20 2020

The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. June 20, 2020: Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the
election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not
the place to discuss it
Comment for June 20, 2020: “The tide is beginning to turn against Trump and it is a sure bet he will react with public fury which will convince more and more voters to abandon him. He is trying to have rigged polling machines give out false information to get him elected but this time, unlike the last, he will fail. What will he do then? Barricade himself in the White House and shoot a rifle out the window at those who are about to force him out? It might make interesting press who now are doing the corona virus business to the point where it has no more meaning or public influenc.”

Trump Approval Rating

June 11-13
Abacus Data
Approve        Disapprove
38%           54%

The Table of Contents
• U.S. prosecutor who has investigated Trump lawyer refuses to resign
Bolton’s book makes it clear: Trump is the amoral charlatan we knew he was
• John Bolton: Judge rejects Trump bid to ban ex-adviser’s book
Elderly Black Lives Matter protester injured by police and trolled by Trump in hiding after death threats
• How Target, Google, Bank of America and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations
• The Encyclopedia of American Loons

U.S. prosecutor who has investigated Trump lawyer refuses to resign
June 19, 2020
by Nathan Layne and Sarah N. Lynch
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. federal prosecutor whose office has been investigating President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, on Friday refused to step down after the administration abruptly said it was replacing him.
The dramatic standoff marks the latest in series of unusual actions by Attorney General William Barr that critics say are meant to benefit Trump politically and undermine the independence of the Justice Department.
It also comes as Trump seeks to purge officials perceived as not fully supporting him. In recent weeks he has fired a series of agency watchdogs, including one who played a key role in Trump’s impeachment earlier this year.
Barr, in a surprise late-night announcement, said the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, was stepping down and that he would nominate Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to take Berman’s spot.
Berman, who leads a powerful office known for prosecuting high-profile terrorism cases, Wall Street financial crimes and government corruption, said he first learned of the move from Barr’s press release and would not go quietly.
“I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning my position,” Berman said in a statement. “I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption.”
A Justice Department official, asked about Berman’s refusal to leave the post until a successor is confirmed, told Reuters the “timeline remains the same” as Barr laid out in announcing the replacement.
Since being appointed in January 2018, Berman has not shied from taking on figures in Trump’s orbit. His office oversaw the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, indicted two Giuliani associates and launched a probe into Giuliani in connection with his efforts to dig up dirt on Trump’s political adversaries in Ukraine.
Prosecutors have not accused Giuliani of wrongdoing.
Berman’s abrupt attempted dismissal came as the Justice Department asks a federal court to block publication of a book by former National Security Adviser John Bolton, whose claims include an allegation Trump tried to interfere with a probe overseen by Berman’s office.
“This late Friday night dismissal reeks of potential corruption of the legal process,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, wrote on Twitter. “What is angering President Trump? A previous action by this U.S. Attorney or one that is ongoing?”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, also a Democrat, said he intends to invite Berman to testify.
TIMING
Berman replaced Preet Bharara, who was himself fired as U.S. Attorney in early 2017 soon after Trump became president. Bharara, an outspoken critic of the president, said the timing of the push to replace his successor was strange.
“Why does a president get rid of his own hand-picked US Attorney in SDNY on a Friday night, less than 5 months before the election?” Bharara wrote on Twitter, referring to the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November.
While the Senate considers Clayton’s nomination, Trump has appointed Craig Carpenito, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, as the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Barr said in his statement.
But it was not clear whether Barr can force Berman out.
Berman was never confirmed by the Senate, the usual process for appointing U.S. Attorneys, and was instead appointed by the judges of the district in accordance with a U.S. law that says he can serve until the vacancy is filled.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the vacancy needs to be filled by someone who is Senate-confirmed or chosen by a judge. Carpenito, Vladeck wrote on Twitter, is neither of those. But Vladeck also cited a conflicting law that gives the president the authority to remove U.S. Attorneys.
Before Clayton joined the SEC, he was a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions at Sullivan & Cromwell. He is seen as a bipartisan consensus-builder during his time leading the SEC.
The Justice Department official said Clayton, who had been planning to leave the administration and return to New York, “expressed interest” in the U.S. Attorney role in New York, and Barr “thought it was a good idea.”
Barr’s announcement comes less than a week before Nadler’s committee is set to hold a hearing where Justice Department officials are set to testify about political interference at the department.
Earlier this year, Barr intervened to scale back the sentencing recommendation for longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, prompting all four career prosecutors to withdraw from the case in protest.
Reporting by Nathan Layne, Sarah N. Lynch and Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Sandra Maler, Daniel Wallis, Michael Perry, Noeleen Walder and William Mallard

Bolton’s book makes it clear: Trump is the amoral charlatan we knew he was
The president has eroded norms, broken laws, and installed cronies who facilitate his corrupt reign. How much more can we take?
June 19, 2020
by Michael H Fuchs
The Guardian
John Bolton’s book is a reminder that, contrary to all of Trump’s claims to be “tough” on China, in reality Trump fawns over China’s president Xi Jinping, his China policies are counterproductive, and Trump has repeatedly sold out the American people to China to advance his own personal interests.
From encouraging Xi to continue ethnic cleansing against Uighurs to asking for China’s help in his 2020 re-election campaign, Trump’s actions make it clear why Chinese officials believe that Trump is good for the Chinese Communist party (CCP).
The revelations regarding China are just a handful of the many episodes in Bolton’s book illustrating Trump’s corruption and ineptitude that, in year four of Trump’s term, may not be surprising, but should still shock everyone.
Daily events highlight how dangerous Trump is to America and the world, from ignoring a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans to encouraging state violence against protestors and police brutality against African Americans.
There are no more surprises with Trump, just more death and destruction he leaves in his wake. But Bolton’s book helps illustrate two facts about the Trump administration: Trump is exactly who we know he is – an amoral charlatan using the most powerful office in the world to help himself at the expense of the American people; and those around Trump help him carry out his corrupt ends, despite what they may tell themselves to justify their complicity.
Trump’s approach to China, in particular, is illustrative. Bolton claims that Trump told Xi that he supported the ethnic cleansing against Uighurs and other ethnic minority groups on at least two occasions, telling Xi that building concentration camps was “exactly the right thing to do”. Trump’s lack of interest in human rights in China, his racist views towards Muslims and emulation of strongmen like Xi make this revelation abhorrent and yet completely unsurprising.
The book also recounts how Trump specifically asked Xi to buy American agricultural products – which was part of the eventual “phase one” trade deal signed in January 2020 – to help Trump win votes from certain constituencies in the 2020 election. We already knew that Trump had asked Xi to investigate Joe Biden, and so combined with Trump’s solicitation of campaign help from Russia and Ukraine this is yet another reaffirmation that Trump’s conversations with world leaders regularly include invitations to interfere in America’s elections.
At the end of the day, Bolton’s book tells us more of what we already know about Trump: the president is corrupt, incompetent, and partners with whomever he needs – including the world’s worst dictators – to advance his own personal interests.
But Bolton’s book also reinforces how the people around Trump enable the president’s destructive behavior. Despite claiming at the time to have information relevant to the inquiry, Bolton refused to testify before the Trump impeachment process, choosing instead to make money off of his knowledge of Trump’s impeachable conduct by waiting to sell a book. Bolton says that Matt Pottinger – now deputy national security advisor and someone who reportedly takes a hardline against the authoritarian CCP – heard Trump in 2017 encourage China’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Uighurs and yet (despite that and every other publicly known corrupt and impeachable act Trump has committed in office) Pottinger still works for Trump. Pompeo – one of Trump’s worst sycophants – thinks the president is “full of shit,” according to Bolton. Bolton and those around Trump deserve nothing except an infamous place in the dustbin of history alongside their boss.
Bolton’s book is merely the latest reminder that there are few guardrails mitigating the damage that Trump can inflict on the nation and the world. For more than three years Trump has eroded norms, broken laws, and installed cronies who facilitate his corrupt reign. Even impeachment by the House with a slam-dunk case could not convince Trump’s allies in the Senate to do their constitutional duties and remove Trump from office. And so officials like Bolton – who don’t have the courage to stand up to Trump when they are in positions of power – just get rich by selling their experiences to corporate boards and in memoirs.
Bolton has some serious gall to try to get rich by playing the role of Trump opponent at the same time America is grappling with the damage that Trump’s malignance inflicts on Americans by ignoring a deadly pandemic and fomenting violence and bigotry against those protesting structural racism.
Trump, Bolton’s book, the pandemic and the protests all illustrate that while stopping Trump’s actions is necessary to solve America’s problems, it will hardly be sufficient. To rid America of structural racism, to prevent the incompetent leadership at so many levels that could botch the response to a pandemic, to ensure that our elected leaders don’t corrupt our democratic norms, and to guarantee that the Boltons of the world cannot inflict damage on the American people and then profit off of their experiences, every American will need to pitch in.
Trump’s behavior and policies are America’s most acute obstacle to progress, but improving the lives of all Americans will require structural change from the bottom up and the top down.

John Bolton: Judge rejects Trump bid to ban ex-adviser’s book
June 20, 2020
BBC News
A US judge has rejected a request by the Trump administration to stop the publication of a memoir by former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
The justice department argued that the book had not been properly vetted.
The judge said Mr Bolton’s conduct raised “grave national security concerns”, but that an injunction was not an “appropriate remedy”.
Among several allegations, Mr Bolton wrote that Mr Trump had “pleaded” for help from China to win re-election.

Elderly Black Lives Matter protester injured by police and trolled by Trump in hiding after death threats
June 19, 2020
The Independent/UK
Martin Gugino, the protester shoved to the ground by Buffalo police officers during the George Floyd protests, is recuperating in a secret location due to threats he’s received.
Mr Gugino’s attorney said on Thursday that his client had received “concerning and threatening messages and one letter” since he was assaulted by police officers in Buffalo.
The 75-year activist was seen in a viral video being shoved by a police officer. After hitting the ground, Mr Gugino lay unmoving, blood seeping from his ear. The officers marched by and ignored him, even after becoming aware of the blood. At one point, one officer actively prevents another officer from stopping to help.
Days after the video began circulating online, President Donald Trump tweeted out a conspiracy theory that Mr Gugino could have been an “antifa provocateur” who was trying to “scan police communications in order to black out the equipment.”
The president’s tweet – as well as other conspiracy theories alleging that Mr Gugino, a Catholic peace activist, was a plant or he was faking his injuries – has made the elderly activist a target of the far right.
His lawyer said the seriousness of the threats was still being determined.
“It is not clear that these are credible death threats. In order to avoid the risk, Martin will be recovering in an undisclosed location when he is released from the hospital. We do not expect that to happen for a good week, so things could change,” Kelly Zarcone said.
Mr Gugino has been hospitalised since his injury, with recent reports suggesting he suffered a brain injury and hasn’t been able to walk.
The police officers who shoved him, Robert McCabe and Aaron Togalski, were suspended from the Buffalo police department and were charged with assault. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Following their suspension, 57 of their fellow officers resigned their assignments on the Buffalo police department’s emergency response team. Originally the resignations were publicised as an act of solidarity by the police union representing the department, but officers later refuted that claim, instead attributing the mass resignations to fears that the union wouldn’t cover their legal fees if they were sued over actions they took in the George Floyd protests.

How Target, Google, Bank of America and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations
More than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations, new report says
June 18, 2020
by Kari Paul
The Guardian
Protests over police violence and racism have amplified calls to re-examine police budgets in the United States, with several large companies announcing they are re-evaluating their commercial ties with police departments.
But a new report sheds light on the myriad other ways corporations engage with police forces, including by donating to police foundations that don’t face the same scrutiny as police departments.
The report was released on Thursday by the Public Accountability Initiative, a non-profit corporate and government accountability research institute, and its research database project LittleSis. It details how more than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations – industry groups designated as non-profits that provide additional funds to police forces.
Police proponents say the foundations have emerged as police departments face budget cuts and are a means to supplement the force with top-of-the-line technology and weaponry. But critics argue police departments are already overfunded – they receive 20% to 45% of discretionary funds in cities across the US – and that funding through foundations allows police to operate with little oversight. Foundations, according to a 2014 report from ProPublica, “can be a way for wealthy donors and corporations to influence law enforcement agencies’ priorities”.
Legally, police budgets are typically public documents that must be approved by elected officials. But designated as private charities, police foundations are not subject to the same public information laws that apply to law enforcement agencies.
These foundations receive millions of dollars a year from private and corporate donors, according to the report, and are able to use the funds to purchase equipment and weapons with little public input. The analysis notes, for example, how the Los Angeles police department in 2007 used foundation funding to purchase surveillance software from controversial technology firm Palantir. Buying the technology with private foundation funding rather than its public budget allowed the department to bypass requirements to hold public meetings and gain approval from the city council.
The Houston police foundation has purchased for the local police department a variety of equipment, including Swat equipment, sound equipment and dogs for the K-9 unit, according to the report. The Philadelphia police foundation purchased for its police force long guns, drones and ballistic helmets, and the Atlanta police foundation helped fund a major surveillance network of over 12,000 cameras.
In addition to weaponry, foundation funding can also go toward specialized training and support programs that complement the department’s policing strategies, according to one police foundation.
“Not a lot of people are aware of this public-private partnership where corporations and wealthy donors are able to siphon money into police forces with little to no oversight,” said Gin Armstrong, a senior research analyst at LittleSis.
A variety of companies – including financial institutions, technology companies, retailers, local universities and sports teams, provide funding to police foundations. Donations may be, in part, to curry favor with a force that exists primarily to protect property and capital, the report said.
“Police foundations are a key space for orchestrating, normalizing and celebrating the collaboration between corporate power and the police,” the LittleSis report said.
Among the companies with ties to police is Amazon. The online giant last week implemented a one-year moratorium on the use of its artificial intelligence software Rekognition by police departments after extended criticism from human rights groups.
But the company still has a number of less-direct connections to the police, according to the LittleSis report. A representative of the company currently sits on the executive committee of the Seattle police foundation’s board and Amazon has been an official partner to the police foundation, donating at least $5,000 according to the foundation website.
It also donates to police foundations across the US through its charitable program, AmazonSmile and still partners with more than 1,000 police forces through its smart doorbell product Ring.
Amazon declined to comment on its continued ties with police and police foundations.
Bank of America has seats on both the Chicago and New York City police foundation boards. According to tax filings examined by LittleSis, it has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to police foundations, including $200,000 to the NYC police foundation, $51,250 to the Atlanta police foundation, $25,000 to the Boston police foundation, $10,000 to the Los Angeles police foundation, as well as smaller donations to police foundations in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; Sarasota, Florida; Abilene, Texas; Duluth, Minnesota; Bellevue, Washington; and Sacramento and Glendale, California.
Bank of America announced on 2 June a four-year commitment to support economic opportunity initiatives to combat racial inequality accelerated by the global pandemic.
Seattle-based Starbucks is an active donor to the Seattle police foundation and has a representative on its board, according to the report. The Starbucks Foundation, the retailer’s non-profit arm, also recently donated $25,000 to the NYC police foundation.
Bank of America did not respond to request for comment.
Target has made major contributions to police foundations across the country, according to the report, including the NYC, Atlanta and Seattle police foundations. A $200,000 donation from Target in 2007 helped the LA police foundation purchase sophisticated surveillance equipment for the LAPD, the report found.
Currently, Target is a sponsor of the Washington DC police foundation and has a representative on the board, the report notes. In addition to funding police foundations, Target offers additional funding to local agencies through its “public safety grant” program.
A spokesman for Target said the donation to police foundations is a “very small portion of the 5% of annual profits Target gives back to the community”.
Facebook, Google and Microsoft are also all partners and donors to the Seattle police foundation, and Microsoft sits on the foundation’s board, the report found. Microsoft and Facebook declined to comment on their donations to police foundations. Google did not respond to request for comment.
Microsoft has publicly stated it will ban police from using its facial recognition technology.
Evan Greer, the deputy director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, said the report highlights companies can’t claim to stand for human rights while funding government agencies accused of violating them. “Corporations who cozy up to police, build surveillance software to them, or funnel them money through shady donations are actively propping up systemic racist violence and oppression.”

 

 

The Encyclopedia of American Loons

Michael Rivero

What Really Happened (WRH) is a website run by one Michael Rivero. The website, which sports the tagline “Putting America First, Second, And Third!” claims to be telling you “what really happened,” which is rarely what really happened. Rivero credulously endorses more or less any conspiracy theory he comes across, and the website is particularly heavy on 9/11 conspiracy theories, Jewish banker conspiracies, JFK assassination conspiracies, Bin-Laden-is-alive conspiracy theories, the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory, global warming conspiracy theories (dominated by a large number of links to articles about days with cold weather and snow), as well as a range of conspiracy theories and nonsense related to various types of pseudohistory and survivalism. He also has a podcast – until recently on a shortwave radio and carried by the Genesis Communications Network – and a wiki.
As for his climate change denialism, Rivero thinks you should take his collection of weather reports seriously since “I come from a science background myself” (he does not), and knows that science is corrupt and arrogant. “Why should you not trust science?” Well, according to Rivero, science was wrong before: “Alchemy, for one [which is decidedly pre-scientific]. Phlogiston Chemistry, for another.” Moreover, “[p]rior to the 14th Century Astronomers thought the Earth was the center of the universe, because, well, that’s what the church wanted,” which would count as an instance of the science-was-wrong-before fallacy only if you count church-appointed theologians living before the discovery of scientific methodology as “scientists” (one would think that Rivero, an unrelenting atheist, would be observant of that difference). Indeed, “18th Century Geologists thought the Earth was 6000,” which they did not, and “[P]rior to the 1950s, scientists thought proteins carried our heredity,” until the hypothesis was falsified by … independent conspiracy theorists? In any case, the main gist is that because science is wrong you should reject the scientific consensus about climate change because Rivero can show you news articles about cold days in North Carolina and climategate.
Rivero claims to have started the website as well as his radio show as a result of wondering (i.e. blindly endorsing a conspiracy perspective on) what happened to Vince Foster. Of course, Foster was not the only troublesome character assassinated by the Clintons, and WRH website dutifully keeps records.
Diagnosis: At least his rants tend to be grammatical and internally mostly coherent. Which is more than one can say about a lot of people pushing the kind of nonsense Rivero pushes. His website has been called “a poor man’s version of Infowars, which sums it up pretty well.

Kerri Rivera

The Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) is, essentially, industrial strength bleach (28% sodium chlorite) that, when diluted in acidic juices, results in the formation of chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment. As a treatment for medical conditions (and other things) MMS should rank as among the most dangerous and delusional pieces of quackery out there, yet according to proponents, MMS can cure almost anything from cancer to AIDS and anything in between and beyond. There is no biological plausibility to any of these claims, and no evidence, either preclinical or clinical, that MMS can do what its proponents claim it can do. According to Kerri Rivera, one of the most dangerous and insane people on the planet, MMS can – in particular – cure autism, and her abhorrent insanity has unsurprisingly made significant inroads in already severely reality-challenged antivaxx communities, whose members, demonstrably mistakenly, still think that vaccines cause autism. Rivera was for instance invited to talk at the 2012 Autism One Quackfest to convince parents to torture their autistic children by giving them painful bleach enemas. As Rivera sees it, “autism means that your child has virus, bacteria, Candida, inflammation, heavy metals and food allergies … [this is, hopefully needless to say, insane nonsense],”therefore these children take (her) poison, which would do nothing to address these issues if they had anything to do with autism, which they don’t. At the conference, Rivera boasted about 38 children who purportedly recovered in 20 months (by 2018 the number is allegedly in the hundreds, and if you need proof that her numbers are nonsense, here it is).
Needless to say, her presentation was short on documentation but rich on paper-trail-less anecdotes. Among the attendees it seems to have been sufficiently popular to get her reinvited in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Indeed, media attention to her dangerous nonsense prompted the Illinois attorney general to send agents to her presentation at the 2015 conference and serve her with a subpoena; unable to present evidence for MMS’s benefits, Rivera was forced to sign an agreement barring her from further promoting MMS or appearing at conferences in the state of Illinois. Rivera has since announced that she will no longer do MMS consultations for autistic kids. MMS remains popular in antivaxx communities, however, and central players like Julie Obradovic and JB Handley quickly ran to Rivera’s defense when she was “attacked” by skeptics. Rivera herself addressed critics by telling them that “You have your science all wrong. The websites that you site are incorrect.” Short and sweet, in other words.
Rivera runs, or at least used to run, a clinic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, called AutismO2 Clinica Hyperbarica (Rivera is also fond of hyberbaric oxygen therapy), where she would expose autistic children to MMS by mouth and enema – at her AutismOne presentation she also discussed “recent protocol developments around MMS and Autism, such as loading the dose, the baby bottle, the baking soda mix, enemas, baths, and how to handle a fever.” One would think that parents bathing their babies in bleach and putting bleach in their bottles would face some social condemnation. Occasionally, Rivera uses the letters “D Hom” after her name. D Hom is not a real degree. But as a homeopath, perhaps Rivera could at least dilute her bleach to the point where there is not a molecule left before serving it to children? According to homeopathic theory doing so shouldn’t decrease its effectiveness, quite the reverse.
Apparently, children undergoing the therapy she recommends will often experience diarrhea (which is “good” since it is a “detox diarrhea”) and fever, which according to Rivera is also good since it is “waking up the immune system” to realize that there’s “autism in the house.” This is, hopefully needless to say, not how this works. And what do you think is her evidence that the regime has any benefits? Nothing, of course – Rivera has some undocumented anecdotes, which really, really means nothing. She also has leaflets and handouts with the fake Schopenhauer quote about truth “passing through three stages”, which is, of course, false but a surefire sign that we are dealing with a quack. There is a horrifying account of one of her clients undergoing her treatment regime here, and a good takedown of her dangerous nonsense here. A response from (insane) MMS and Rivera apologist Adam Abraham is discussed here.
Ultimately, and as mentioned above, attaining good health is (apparently), according to Rivera, mostly a matter of getting rid of toxins and parasites. As described in her book Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism, “[a]lmost all of the people with autism have high levels of pathogens; virus, bacteria, parasites and heavy metals. Chlorine dioxide kills pathogens and helps the body to detoxify itself. It is considered safe at doses we use for weight.” It is not considered safe, and Rivera has no remotely reliable test for “levels of pathogens” beyond the a priori, of course. But this is really a matter of religion – what she is promoting is a cleansing ritual – not evidence, truth or reality; indeed, seeing how no player in the antivaxx community can bring themselves to criticize even feeding bleach to kids with autismshould really, really illustrate how much of a cult the antivaccine movement has become (unity against criticism from the outside is a familiar hallmark of cults).) None of the parasites in question actually exist, of course, which is good, since MMS would presumably not have had helped deal with them anyways – the rationale behind MMS is that bleach unsurprisingly can kill microbes in petri dishes; therefore it can kill them in the body, too, without harm; and therefore all disease, also autism, is caused by microbes. Needless to say, none of those steps in that piece of reasoning are anything but idiotic. There is a good resource on Rivera and her crazy here.
Currently, Rivera also runs CD Autism, a “grassroots movement” devoted to marketing and selling her products and services. More recently, she has also launched ketokerri™, a company selling supplements (particularly targeted at kids with autism who have already suffered through her bleach enemas) supposed to aid with “natural healing processes.” Apparently she is enjoying both recognition and influence in a variety of quackery group. And her MMS insanity continues to be used, despite demonstrably causing irrevocable harm to children.
Diagnosis: As sane and scientific as the flat earth movement, but far more harmful. Now, Rivera’s base is in Mexico, and we cannot say with any confidence that she’s actually American. But she has at least enjoyed plenty of popularity in the US, and what really matters is presumably ultimately that her insanity – and the cult that has grown up around her and her crazy – is exposed.

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