Donald Trump seems to be developing a penchant for botany and is encouraging the FDA to consider the oleander plant as a “dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19,” according to an Axios report. The report continues, “The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It’s embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell.” Oleandrin must truly be a miracle drug if it can bring together a pillow mogul and Ben Can’t-Stay-Awake-Through-His-Own-Speeches Carson.
Much like chloroquine, there is no evidence to support oleandrin’s effectiveness as a cure. But evidence, shmevidence! If pillow man and the HUD secretary say it’s good then it must be good. Certainly, the fact that Mike Lindell is an investor in a company that manufactures oleandrin has nothing to do with anything. Happy coincidence.
A New York Times investigation has found that the “Trump administration has been using major hotel chains to detain children and families taken into custody at the border” and that these detentions are being overseen by a private security company. Many of the detainees being held in hotels are unaccompanied minors who are being “swiftly expelled” from the United States as a result of stricter border policies triggered by the coronavirus.
While hotels may seem more comfortable than an ICE holding cell, these locations are not held to the same strict policies as federal detention centers. “Parents and lawyers have no way of finding the children or monitoring their well-being while they are in custody,” the Times writes. The report includes some of the hotels being used to house children and adults in custody which include, an Econolodge, a Best Western, and a Hampton Inn and Suites. What time will #AbolishBestWestern be trending?
- Somehow there is going to be an election this year and some folks in North Carolina have been encouraged to request mail-in ballots by Donald Trump and his face. [Twitter]
- Jared Kushner will happily sacrifice his children to the coronavirus if it means getting them out of the house and into a school, any school really, just as long as he doesn’t have to deal with them. [The Guardian]
- Cardi B and Joe Biden aka Joey B sit down for a Zoome conversation on taxes and Birkin bags. [Elle]
- Speaking of Joey B, word on the street is that he and his wife Dr. Jill Biden had an affair before Jill was divorced according to her ex-husband. [New York Post]
- Governor Wanda Vazquez of Puerto Rico has lost the primary election of Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood party. Good riddance or as they say in Puerto Rico, vete pa carajo. [NBC News]
- Jacinda Ardern, the poster woman for effective leadership, has postponed New Zealand’s upcoming election over concerns of covid-19. [Vice]
- Bernie Sanders DID NOT sign a petition to get Kanye West onto the ballot in Wisconsin so please stop asking him and vote for a real candidate. [The Hill]