#2608: Mary Lou Bruner

Mary Lou Bruner has been described as the ‘looniest politician in Texas’ and (therefore) possibly in the entire US, at least prior to 2016. Bruner is a former schoolteacher, wingnut, anti-gay activist, creationist, Islamophobe, birther, conspiracy theorist and Confederate apologist – so much so that her views managed to stir up some controversy when she decided to run for the Republican nomination for an East Texas seat on the Texas Board of Education in 2016. Former chairman Don McLeroy called her “a great asset”, which really is all the information you need. She lost by a wide margin. Still.

 

Views on scientific issues: evolution and climate change

As a school board candidate – Texas has a long history of delusional crazies running for, and getting seats on, their board of education – Bruner got plenty of opportunities to lay out her views on science. (Remember that she is a former school teacher.)

 

A dyed-in-the-wool creationist, Bruner claims that the theory of evolution is a deliberate plot to promote godlessness – it “is a religious philosophy with propaganda supporting the religion of Atheism” – and school shootings are the direct result of evolution being taught in public schools; that’s why all terrorists and mass-murderers, according to Bruner, are liberals and Democrats. She has also claimed that scientists have actually proof of a young earth, but are colluding to cover up the evidence for some unspecified reason – presumably because Satan+demons (much of what happens in the world are, after all, controlled by the Illuminati, according to Bruner).

 

Here is a screenshot on Bruner’s theory of how the dinosaurs died out: dinosaurs, who according to her are the “behemoths” and “leviathans” of the Bible, were present on the Ark during the Global Flood, but died out afterwards. And though she sometimes recognizes that her views are, shall we say, out of touch with science, she has a straightforward explanation: “The Atheists just don’t want to admit it because if they admit that, they would admit that something in the Bible is true [??]. The Atheists cannot logically dispute these FACTS because the fossils exist [Bruner is otherwise no fan of the fossil record]. We have some Creationist Scientists who win every debate with Atheists over the origin of the earth [she provides no reference] because the Creation Scientists are right. The facts support creation rather than evolution. Anyone who debates knows that when two debaters are equally skilled, there is a decided advantage to being on the right side of any issue or argument.” We don’t know what is craziest here, but it certainly might actually be the insane naivety concerning how debates work. At least there is an obvious reason she has repeatedly claimed that the STEM subjects had gotten a too dominant position in Texas schools.

 

And of course she is a climate change denier. Bruner has called climate change a “ridiculous hoax” and tried to argue that the global warming story is a veil for the advancement of Communism in America – she even thinks the plot was initiated by none other than Karl Marx himself: “Climate change has nothing to do with weather or climate; it is all about system change from capitalism (free enterprise) to Socialism-Communism. The Climate Change HOAX was Karl Marx’s idea. It took some time to ‘condition’ the people so they would believe such a ridiculous HOAX.”

 

Views on scientific issues: history

Bruner is a firm defender of various branches of pseudohistory. In Bruner’s book – she’s a former school teacher running for the board of education, remember – the American Civil War was not about slavery at all but really about the railroad(!). (We can’t help but suspect the source of that one is some confusion over the Underground Railroad.) Now, “[t]he public schools and universities do not teach this information about the War Between the States,” for obvious reasons, but Bruner has her own explanation: You won’t find that in the history books because historians biased against the southern states rushed to rewrite history books once everyone alive during the Civil War had died. Accordingly, “Abraham Lincoln is not the heroic icon figure which history has made of him”; rather, Lincoln was “dishonest”. Then she promptly accused then-President Obama of taking a page out of Lincoln’s “playbook”.

 

She has also claimed that the Democratic Party was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy, as they preferred “socialist” Lyndon B. Johnson over “conservative” JFK. In particular: “Many people believe the Democrat Party had JFK killed because the socialists and Communists in the party did not want a conservative president. Remember who followed JFK as president – (LBJ). the exact opposite of Kennedy – a socialist and an unethical politician. It does seem like this might have been the master plan: They sneaked the bad guy (LBJ) into the administration on the coat-tail of a good guy (JFK). Then they got rid of the good guy; in the end, they got a socialist president which is what they originally wanted.”

 

Views on education in general

Bruner has stated that pre-kindergarten education is a plot by the “GLBTQ [sic] agenda” to indoctrinate children into homosexuality.

 

She also believes that the content of Texan state school textbooks is dictated by “Middle-Eastern” countries. Here is Bruner ranting incoherently about how Muslims are trying to take over the minds of American school children. And keep in mind that religious freedom doesn’t extend to Muslims: “Islam is [apparently as opposed to biology] not a religion. Islam is an inhumane totalitarian political ideology with radical religious rules and laws and barbaric punishments for breaking the religious rules.” Bruner promptly called for the U.S. to “ban Islam and stop all immigration from Muslim countries because Islam’s stated goal is to conquer the USA and kill the infidels (nonbelievers).”

 

As mentioned, and despite endorsements from e.g. McLeroy, wingnut education blogger Donna Garner (who once organized a boycott of Dr Pepper because they failed to sufficiently glorify God on their product) and Cherokee County Republican Party chairwoman Tammy Blair, Bruner lost the election – mostly, it seems, because she blatantly lied about basic facts regarding how the Texas school system is organized and how the children in Texas schools perform. 

 

She was also adamantly opposed to Texas’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), ostensibly because “I believe children belong to the parents, not the federal government” (just think about it!). And when arguing against ESSA, she helpfully explained her stance on expertise: “I do not agree with candidates who say subject matter experts, not partisan extremists, should decide what goes in textbooks.” Oh, yes. The reason, of course, is that “subject matter experts” are “liberal university professors, Washington bureaucrats in the Department of Education and liberal national teachers association leaders.”

 

We’ll include Bruner’s opinions of the boy scouts under this heading as well: “The new Boy Scouts organization might be called Rainbow Penguins,” wrote Bruner: “The Boy Scouts of America is now a Homosexual organization much like the Man-Boy Pedophile Organization” (she tends to add a ‘P’ for ‘pedophile’ to “LGBTQ”). Apparently “gay men prefer young people (children and teenagers) as sex partners.” She doesn’t like gay people: “You must tell your children to believe the Bible and the Bible says [homosexuality] is an ABOMINATION. ABOMINATION means that God Hates Homosexuality.”

 

Miscellaneous

On a national level, Bruner is best known for her famous and groundless claim that Barack Obama’s support for gay rights is a result of his work as a male prostitute in his early twenties in order to pay for drugs: “Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years he spent as a male prostitute in his twenties. That is how he paid for his drugs. He has admitted he was addicted to drugs when he was young, and he is sympathetic with homosexuals; but he hasn’t come out of the closet about his own homosexual/bisexual background.” Bruner cited “a reliable source”, though her capacity for determining reliability may be questioned (she also repeatedly emphasized that the claim was ‘accurate’). And she wasn’t done: “[Obama] hasn’t quite evolved that much! Since he supports gay marriage, he should be proud of his background as a homosexual/bisexual. He is against everything else Christians stand for, he might as well be for infidelity.” Bruner also referred to Obama as “Ahab the Arab” and said that the president “hates all white people and all wealthy people because to him wealthy means white.”

 

Hence, Obama is also “racist” – and he may have been elected with rigged voting machines (Bruner was before her times on that one). And as for her birther conspiracies: “The baby named Barak [sic] was an illegitimate son but his grandparents registered his birth in the Hawaii newspapers as if he were legitimate so he could be eligible for welfare,” wrote Bruner: “Would Obama have been elected president if he had appeared in public in Muslim attire or if he had admitted publicly he was born in Kenya or he is still a citizen of Indonesia? Just asking!” She is often “just asking”, e.g when she “asked” about Obama’s involvement in some evil scheme to get a Muslim boy in Texas arrested for bringing a clock to school to forward his Muslim agenda.

 

As for Native Americans and their historic mistreatment, Bruner also has ideas: “I am not saying the Native Americans deserved what happened to them but sometimes God removes his protection from people who worship pagan gods”.

 

Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act is ostensibly part of the United Nation’s Agenda 21 conspiracy to “do away” with 200 million people from the United States.

 

Unfortunately, she quickly discovered that people in high places (demons) were onto her, interfering with her technology: “This IPad was attacked last night,” wrote Bruner. “Every time I tried to strike a key an icon of a devil appeared on the comment line. All of this happened right after I said Obama was a sheikh and Congress, The Supreme Court, The Cabinet Members, the heads of government agencies, and the Obama Czars are his harem. That probably offended someone in a high place!!!!”

 

And according to herself, she didn’t lose the school board election because she was wrong, but because she was “smeared” by the Establishment – according to herself, she ran to expose the ‘evil’ actions of ‘cock-roaches’. Unfortunatly, because good Christians™ were not ‘vigilant’, advocates ‘for a One World Order controlled by socialist and Communist nations of the United Nations’ could employ their ‘plan right out of Saul Alinsky’s book’ to ‘destroy conservative candidate’s [sic] reputation and keep them from getting elected’.

 

She lost to Keven Ellis, a chiropractor. Ellis is also a creationist, who explicitly argues, following the Discovery Institute’s recommended strategy, that “students should discuss the strengths and weaknesses of evolution” now that the courts have prevented schools from teaching creationism.

 

Diagnosis: In an interview at the time, Bruner stated that “I don’t know why I’m getting so much attention. I’m just saying what I believe.” In other words, Bruner has basic trouble with even the absolute fundamentals of how things hang together (beliefs and evidence, for instance). Add to that a fundamental inability to grasp distinctions (between fantasy and fact, for instance), and add some paranoia (a natural consequence of utter failure to grasp connections and distinctions), and you may get something resembling the scattered mind of Mary Lou Bruner.

 

Hat-tip: rationalwiki

#2607: David Brownstein

Though he’s got genuine credentials, David Brownstein, MD, is a Michigan-based holistic medicine practitioner specializing in thyroid health, arthritis and other chronic conditions, which he falsely believes can be overcome through magic diet. He is also an anti-vaccine activist. Given that he has genuine medical credentials – though no discernible background in relevant research or science  – he is heavily pushed by the anti-vaccine brigade, who will take anyone or anything that looks like it could lend them some credibility (here is a useful list). Brownstein has for instance been featured as a vaccine ‘expert’ in various anti-vaccine documentaries, including conspiracy theorist Ty Bollinger’s The Truth about Vaccines, and is a frequent speaker at antivaccine conferences.

 

A graduate of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University School of Medicine, Brownstein runs a quack website with a prominent store, and has written a number of books (no gooddarn journals and their accountability-based gatekeeping for him) and published numerous videos (like Drugs That Don’t Work and Natural Therapies That Do, The Miracle of Natural Hormones, or The Statin Disaster) and infomercials. In his various publications, which are characterized by incessant sales pitches, he offers numerous ‘controversial’ views on a variety of health topics, falsely claiming among other things that flu vaccines are “worthless”, acetaminophen is “dangerous” and that GMO foods lead to cancer (presumably based on this one).

 

For a fine criticism of Brownstein’s antivaccine rantings, you may look at this (or this one). Brownstein more or less regurgitates all the bullshit he can find in the antivaccine playbook, including appealing to Big Pharma conspiracies, complaining about “neurotoxins like mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde”, promoting common anti-vaccine misinformation about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and falsely claiming that there has been no safety studies – “[a]s far as I am aware, there are zero – ZERO – safety studies on injecting a neurotoxin into a living being”, says Brownstein, revealing quite a bit about his level of awareness (there are, of course, numerous big studies on the safety of, say, thimerosal). Brownstein also throws in the laughable CDC whistleblower conspiracy, as well as invoking the myth of the autism epidemic, the “epidemic” of chronic illnesses and even vaccine “shedding” nonsense for rhetorical flourish.

 

He has also pushed antivaccine misinformation about the shingles vaccine (possibly the most desperately inane attempt to misuse statistics in the history of statistics misuse), been a keynote speaker at antivaccine conferences around Michigan, and attacked the New York Times for a pro-vaccine editorial by trying to employ the old antivaccine delusional and easily falsified conspiracy claim that “vaccines didn’t save us; better hygiene did” as well as equally easily falsified antivcaccine favorites like the “no true placebo”-used-in-the-clinical-trial of HPV gambit (which at least tellingly shows that Brownstein doesn’t have the faintest clue about how clinical trials work), the Hannah Poling case, calls for a “vaccinated versus unvaccinated” trial – of which, of course, there are already plenty; they just don’t show what antivaxxers like Brownstein want them to show – and the Brady Bunch gambit to try to argue that measles isn’t dangerous. No, really: He did.

 

 

 

In addition to books and DVDs, Brownstein’s website also sells supplements like Celtic Sea Salt (he’s got a book, Salt Your Way To Health, too – apparently his salt will help remedy fatigue, adrenal disorders, immune system function, thyroid disorders, headaches,  cholesterol levels, and blood pressure: it’s some seriously amazing salt) , and Iodoral, an iodine/potassium supplement that can be purchased for a significant sum of money together with his book/DVD entitled Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It. Apparently, Brownstein seems to think – because he’s got supplements to sell – that iodine deficiency is the source of more or less any health issue. “Over 96% of my patients are iodine-deficient and most are severely deficient,” says Brownstein, adding that “conventionally-trained doctors” are unaware of this problem. They certainly are, since there is, firstly, no test to confirm whether you are iodine deficient and iodine deficiency is, if you rely on facts, not really an issue in most parts of the world even if it was an issue in parts of the Midwest up until the 1920s. Brownstein has also pushed CherryJuicePower and homeopathic remedies.

 

Describing his practices as being unaligned with accepted best-practices in medicine would be an understatement, something Brownstein is of course aware of. In 2016, he gnashed his teeth over the difficulties he experienced trying to recertify for his family practice given that none of the board questions concerned woo and quackery: “nutritional therapies”, “natural treatments”, or the various kinds of quackery he promotes: acupuncture, emotional freedom technique, intravenous vitamin and minerals or elimination diets. Why wouldn’t the board just accept his diploma from the Desert Institute School of Classical Homeopathy and the claims about nutrition he pulls directly out of his own ass, and give him a pass?

 

Like so many people in his line of business, Brownstein was relatively quick to seize upon the opportunities offered by COVID-19. His “Brownstein protocol” is an unproven protocol involving vitamins, nebulized hydrogen peroxide and iodine, and intravenous ozone to treat COVID-19. The protocol was promoted by Joseph Mercola (tit-for-tat, one presumes). There is, of course, no evidence or plausibility that the treatment has any beneficial effects, at least not beyond a worthless case series (of judicially selected patients from his own practice – no controls, blinding or randomization, of course) that he managed to publish in a … medical policy and law journal rather than a medical journal, and later in a book endorsed by Robert Kennedy jr., augmented with anecdotes. There is truly no evidence whatsoever. He did get into some trouble with the FTC for his attempts to profit off of COVID-19 with pseudoscience and quackery, though.

 

Diagnosis: Hardcore quack and antivaccine conspiracy theorist who promotes any and all antivaccine nonsense and conspiracy theories he comes across, regardless of how silly they are. And since he is, indeed, an MD, people listen to even his most transparent bullshit. A vile person. Dangerous.

 

Hat-tip: respectful insolence, David Gorski @ sciencebasedmedicine, Peter Lipson @sciencebasedmedicine, wafflesatnoon

#2606: Joe Brown

Joe Brown is an Arizona-based naturopath who specializes in cancer treatments, e.g. by “educating patients like Dr Oz on their condition and providing them choices on their treatment plan”. His advice consists of undiluted nonsense, but basically he is “[u]sing an Integrative model, by combining Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Acupuncture, DMSO, Ozone, Graviola, Natural Remedies and Alternative Medicine unlike cancer centers of America, using Naturopathic modalities with the latest scientific research, giving you, the patient, the treatment options you need a Holistic Doctor who provides treatments”. Yes, there are some grammar issues in that passage, and we suspect that they are intended to help sift potential customers by turning away those not potentially in his intended target group.

 

And yes, he claims to be able to treat cancer and be a genuine alternative to conventional treatment – though he admits that his “list of different therapies that are used around the world and maybe discussed with Dr. Brown” contains suggestions that “can only be administered outside of the United States” because the US has at least some standards in place to help protect people in difficult situations from predatory charlatans. The list includes e.g. laetrile, infrared saunas, cranio-sacral therapies and homeopathy, as well as, well, more or less any piece of cancer quackery you may have come across. He also recommends products to “boost the immune system” because of course he does.

 

Indeed, Brown has his own line of supplements, which are as expensive as they are quacky. But he’s got testimonials. And a list of scans of diplomas and awards he has received, not all of which are … equally impressive (we haven’t bothered to try to check what “The Imperial Council of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” is, for instance). Apparently he’s also “Princeton’s Top Doctor”; it is unclear, to say the least, who, exactly, awarded him that title.

 

Diagnosis: Fairly typical, really, and we don’t remember how or why we took note of him, but good grief: people should be aware he’s out there, with others like him, providing a genuine threat to humanity.

#2605: Steve Brouard

We don’t know much else about him, but Steve Brouard is an Iowa-based creationist affiliated with the Quad-City Creation Science Association, and a representative specimen of local creationist clown, it seems. Brouard appears to hold the common creationist view that the theory of evolution is a ‘theory in crisis’; referring to court cases like Kitzmiller v. Dover and McLean v. Arkansas Board ofEducation, Brouard asks “why does a scientific theory hide behind judges and the threats of lawsuits to justify itself? Free and open debate is what advances science and learning, by discussing the meaning of available evidence.” That it is creationists who are trying to legislate creationism into places like public schools is something he conveniently overlooks – and although science precisely is about “free and open debate” and assessment of evidence, what people like Brouard want is precisely not open scientific discussion of the evidence among people competent to understand it, but to foist religion on children in public schools.

 

Otherwise, Brouard promotes standard creationist talking points: that lots of scientists in the 18^th and 19^th centuries were religious, for instance. He also invokes the claim that junk DNA is a myth (presumably referring to and misunderstanding the discussion surrounding ENCODE, or to Jonathan Wells’s ramblings) and claims that homology is “circular reasoning” – he doesn’t provide an explanation, rather strongly suggesting that he is repeating a claim he has read but don’t quite understand.

 

And of course: evolution is religion! It is “a basis for theology – the religion of atheism. By faith, atheists believe the first cell popped into existence by itself and a jellyfish-like creature morphed into a T-Rex. There is no science for these beliefs – only speculation” because it costs nothing to just deny the science, even if it stares you in the face. Then he challenges defenders of science to a debate. No really. With Eric Hovind.

 

Diagnosis: Very, very standard fare, and very, very dense and dumb. Probably minimal influence, but whatever influence he has certainly isn’t to the benefit of humanity.

 

Hat-tip: Sensuous Curmudgeon

#2604: Mo Brooks

“Alabama wingnut” doesn’t have a particularly sympathetic ring to it, and Mo Brooks delivers precisely what you expect. Morris Jackson “Mo” Brooks Jr. is a major promoter of conspiracy theories, a wingnut, white supremacy apologist, Trump sycophant and, until 2023, member of the House of Representatives from Alabama. That is on top of being the kind of person who is opposed to government-funded healthcare or restrictions on insurance companies when it comes to charging more for people with pre-existing conditions because, as he says, people who lead “good lives” don’t tend to have pre-existing conditions.

 

Brooks was a central figure in making false claims about voter fraud in the period between the election and January 6. Dimly aware that his role in the riots (urging the crowds to “fight” just prior: “today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass”) could reflect badly on himself, he was quick to claim that Antifa was responsible (he later had to recant). His January 6. speech to primarily self-declared Nazis consisted largely of Christian nationalist talking points, and claiming, without any indication of evidence, that over one million illegal immigrants voted for Biden in the 2020 election (he specifically objected to counting Arizona’s electoral votes on that basis) – “if only lawful votes by eligible American citizens were cast, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a significant margin”, said Brooks, after having done an intuitive calculation on his PIDOOMA numbers; “in my judgment, the evidence is overwhelming and compelling that the Dec. 3, 2020 elections were the most voter fraud and election theft riddled of any election in United States history,” says Brooks and goes on to completely fail to elaborate on the nature of or even provide any shred of indication of the existence of the evidence he refers to.

 

According to Brooks, Biden promised to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants in order to get their votes. He also sought a Presidential pardon in the waning days of the Trump administrations, which was not granted – just in case. He nevertheless went on to defend Trump’s election lies, repeating Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and alleging that socialists were taking over the government. Trump endorsed Brooks in April 2021, but when Brooks announced his candidacy for the US Senate seat being vacated, Trump rescinded his endorsement in March 2022 because Brooks refused to “immediately” remove Biden from office and illegally hold a new presidential election. Brooks subsequently lost the primary. It is hard to fathom, even taking how his mind works into consideration, that Brooks could have failed to foresee that this would inevitably be the outcome of the strategy he was choosing.

 

In August 2021, after a Trump supporter made a bomb threat against Capitol Hill, Brooks put out a defense: “generally speaking, I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society. The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 elections. I strongly encourage patriotic Americans to do exactly that more so than ever before. Bluntly stated, America’s future is at risk.” Yes, he defends terrorism. Explicitly.

 

Brooks is a climate change denialist. In 2018, during a hearning of the House Science, Space, and Technology Commitee, Brooks not only repeated the tired denialist claim that the Antarctic ice cap is actually growing, but added his own take: that rising sea levels are caused by rocks falling into the sea: “Now you have got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up”, explained Brooks. He wasn’t nominated for a Nobel Prize that year either.

 

Brooks is opposed to immigration, nominally because “illegal aliens give America drug-resistant tuberculosis and other diseases that threaten all of us.” He has also said that immigration reform is part of a “war on whites” – even Laura Ingraham was uncomfortable with that quote, but Brooks was presumably primarily addressing his Alabama voter base.

 

Oh, yeah – and Brooks has more recently been pushing anti-vaccine talking points, e.g. calling the COVID vaccines “experimental” in July 2021 – that is a talking point you have gotten from organized antivaxx groups. He also claimed that some masks “help spread COVID-19” and that “time will reveal that masks [yes, it’s the I will have evidence in the future gambit]… endanger the health of those who wear them,” suggesting that they increase risk of heat stroke, oxygen loss and cancer. He was as careful as he usually is when it comes to providing evidence for these easily debunked claims.

 

Diagnosis: A cartoon character of deranged wingnuttery and conspiracy mongering, and any reasonable person would recognize him as such from a mile away. He remains popular with his voter base, though.

#2603: Sonia Broglin et al.

Finding silly scam products on the Internet is not difficult, but the Luminas Pain Relief Patches are so silly that one would expect even the dimmest wits to be able to see through it. But apparently, they don’t. There is a fine takedown of the product here. The patches – a cousin to Gwyneth Paltrow’s energy patches – promise to cure virtually anything through what they call “energy”, by which they mean, of course, not energy as understood by anyone caring about the real world, but rather shimmering ghostly spirit stuff – basically what New Age guru-types mean when they talk about ‘quantum physics’.

 

And indeed doesn’t the advertisement for the Luminas patches! The patches ostensibly take advantage of “revolutions in quantum physics,” and are charged with the “energetic signatures of natural remedies known for centuries to reduce inflammation” – “… energy that your body inherently knows how to absorb and use with absolutely no side effects.” So it goes. For obvious reasons, they do not attempt to explain how “scientists and doctors” are able “to store the energetic signatures of hundreds of pain- and inflammation-relieving remedies on a single patch”, nor what an “energetic signature” means, nor what revolutions in quantum physics they are talking about – nor, for that matter, how any of it is supposed to work to provide health benefits – unless you count some impressively handwavy word salads like this:

 

“For the geeks and scientists among us: Each patch contains 5.2 x 10^19 molecular structures, each with 2 oxygen polar bonding areas capable of holding a targeted, host electron, creating a total possible charging capacity equal to 10.4 x 10^19 host electrons. After considering the average transmission field voltage of humans (200 micro volts) we can calculate the relative capacity, per square inch of patch, at 333 Pico Farads.”

 

You don’t exactly need a degree in chemistry to recognize that … there are some gaps in that story. Fortunately, there are no scientists among the “us” at Luminas, nor in their target audience.

 

Sonia Broglin is the amazing genius behind the nonsense, and she is, naturally, the director of product development at Luminas. She is also a certified EnergyTouch® practitioner who graduated from the EnergyTouch® School of Advanced Healing. Energy touch is apparently “an off-the-body multidimensional healing process that allows the Energy Touch® Practitioner to access outer levels of the human energy field” – look, it’s multidimensional” and a registered trademark. This is serious New Age magic, and you can pay for study to a diploma in the technique by visiting an online page through a link in your spam folder.

 

Broglin is, perhaps surprisingly, not alone in this obvious scam. With her on her team, she’s got:

 

-       Craig Davies, who is a “Pro Sports Doctor.” If you ask “doctor of what?” you are probably not in the target audience for this amazing product (he’s a chiropractor)

-       Dr. Ara Suppiah, who seems to have some legitimate training but is currently pushing the quackery known as “functional sports medicine”.

-       Ashley Anderson, a nurse practitioner affiliated with Athena Health and Wellness, a women’s health (and wellness) practice that mixes real health treatments with “integrative medicine” quackery

 

Apparently, the product has had some “astounding results” – not any real evidence, of course, but they have some testimonials. They also have a hilariously silly series of imagings of patients using thermography (basically, it seems, just thermographic imagings of patients with and without patches, with no control of environmental factors or anything else).

 

Diagnosis: It’s hard to imagine anyone being a true believer in anything as profoundly nonsensical and obviously scammy as the Luminas pain patches, but we’ll charitably (?) assume that Broglin and her team are. And you wonder how New Age dimwits go on to believe Qanon nonsense!

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

#2602: Ted Broer

More wingnut conspiracy theories! And whereas last post’s David Brody, say, at least make an attempt to appear reasonable to those who don’t know better, Qanon conspiracy theorist Ted Broer is unconcerned with such airhead fripperies. According to Broer, America has been “duped” by its corrupt and compromised elected representatives; indeed, explains Broer, most members of Congress have been “compromised” by their involvement in things like pedophilia and human sacrifice and have indirectly handed control of the country over to Lucifer. “Over 50 percent of Congress – in my opinion, probably closer to 70 percent – has been compromised or is being controlled in one way or the other.” If you feel that he missed an opportunity to provide sources for his estimate, you have sort of misunderstood how the minds of people like Ted Broer work.

 

“They have basically given control of the government to the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. They have, in turn, taken this military industrial complex and they have given it over to the CIA. The CIA has given it over to the Sabbatean Kabbalists … These are the Druids, these are the ones that were taught the ancient forms of worship by the fallen angels. These are the bad guys that run the planet and they, in turn, have given over their control to Lucifer to control the energy field around the planet.” Yeah, those darn druids. One may wonder about the unnecessary middlemen, though – why not give control right over to the druids? That, we suspect, is one of the questions Broer wouldn’t quite understand the point of. “It’s all to control the thoughts and the minds of everybody on the planet,” concludes Broer, who has at least determined to avoid such a fate by ensuring that his mind is completely isolated from any part of reality.

 

Also, fluoridation is really a Nazi mind-control program.

 

Now, we haven’t bothered to actually listen to the radio show he runs with Austin Broer (presumably a relative or husband), but we’ll include the blurb for the latest episode we could find – it probably gives you the flavor:

 

“Episode 1830 - Who are the weirdos supporting Biden? Pseudo President gets massive blowback due to speech from Hell. Modern Psychiatry is demonic! AR 15’s vs F 16? Think Afghanistan. An excellent open letter to Biden. How the media was censored. The schools are perversion indoctrination centers! California power grid is a mess. Country Star dropped due to his wife’s correct anti-woke comments. Plus much more. High energy must listen show.”

 

We’re assuming that Ted Broer is identical to the nutritionist and health-and-supplement woo author who has published a number of books on weight loss, appeals to nature and GMO conspiracy theories. In any case: don’t listen to any of the nonsense that falls out of nutritionist-Broer’s mouth either. Insofar as they are the same, they seem to have walked a long journey from faddish but boring food pseudoscience to zeh-lizard-people-are-trying-to-use-nanobots-to-5G-charge-my-precious-bodily-fluids, but it is a pretty natural development – there was never any affinity for reality in any of his thoughts anyways. It really isn’t that surprising that Qanon, white supremacy views and unhinged pizzagate nonsense are to a large extent promoted by self-declared nutritionists, yoga teachers and weightloss gurus these days.

 

Diagnosis: Relatively minor, we suppose, but he makes a lot of noise. He is really a rather sad figure – at least the Qanon people at the top, like the Watkinses or Coleman Rogers, get to produce the bullshit. Think how sad it is to be a consumer of it … then again, it’s clear that Broer actively uses his imagination freely to add color and fluff.