RFK Jr’s Snake Oil Brand Is Still Snake OIl
“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
He is the son of an American icon, with a family name long associated with politics, mostly of the liberal persuasion. He’s an environmental lawyer, once considered for the position of administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, an accomplished author, and a candidate for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2024.
Robert F Kennedy, Jr is considered a key figure in the anti-vaccine movement. His Children’s Health Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine-related posts were shared more frequently on Twitter than links to vaccine content on mainstream sites including CNN, Fox News, NPR and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a December, 2021 Associated Press article.
Kennedy’s journey into health related issues dates back to the late 1990s when he and then-wife Mary Kathleen Richardson were among the cofounders of the Food Allergy Initiative.
His Children’s Health Defense, became a major disinformation hub during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than doubling its revenue in 2020. The group started out raising doubts about the inclusion of mercury in vaccines, and shifted its focus to “just asking questions” about a link between vaccines and autism.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate placed RFK Jr in second place on its Disinformation Dozen, identifying the sources of nearly two thirds of misinformation and conspiracy purveyors of COVID-19 deception.
Researchers identified CHD as the single leading source of anti-vax ads on Facebook in 2019. Social media claims about COVID vaccines by RFK Jr included misinformation about pregnant women, Hank Aaron’s death, and deaths supposedly related to vaccination.
Meta, Facebook’s corporate parent, banned the group from Facebook and Instagram in 2022 after the Children’s Health Defense celebrated the spread of poliovirus in New York, mocking health officials spreading awareness that polio is vaccine-preventable.
Kennedy has a track record of litigation aimed at media and entities challenging his credibility; his win-loss ratio would put him near the bottom if standings for such endeavors existed. When platforms like YouTube ban his group, he cries about “censorship,” playing to low-information audiences who haven’t learned that censorship is government removing or banning content.
What CHD has experienced are private entities making business decisions. That’s why CHD’s lawsuit against the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Facebook, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that Politifact censored a truthful public health statement about vaccines through its fact checking was dismissed for failure to state an actionable claim. (They are appealing…)
I get it, that the guy sees various entities as bad guys. And he’s right (sorta) for all the wrong reasons. When it comes to actually taking on these windmills in his landscape, he’s short on details unless you believe (like Trump) that Presidents have a magic wand instead of Congress and the courts to deal with.
He’s got a plethora of enemies and causes and one of those characters whose fame (or wealth) has misled him into thinking he has a message for the world..
Here’s a sampling of RFK Jr’s musings via Popular Information:
Kennedy also tweeted in May that the CIA controls top liberal media outlets, including the Daily Beast, Daily Kos, Rolling Stone, and Salon. As proof, Kennedy cites an article published by his own non-profit, Children's Health Defense. That article focuses on negative stories about Kennedy run by those publications and asserts "that Pharma and Gates have a powerful clandestine partner that has made the medical-industrial complex’s media hegemony airtight through their apparent penetration of leading liberal online news sites." But there is absolutely no evidence presented to back that claim. For example, the article claims that Daily Beast is controlled by the CIA because its then-editor, John Avlon, "has all the credentials of the CIA’s iconic gentleman spy, including an old moneyed family with military pedigrees, a Yale education, and a missionary globalist zeal toward foreign policy and international affairs." Also Avlon is friends with another journalist who once worked as a military intelligence officer.
Kennedy claims that 5G, a communications network that powers many mobile phones, is a plot by the government "to harvest our data and control our behavior." He has previously said that 5G technology "damages human DNA [and] causes cancer." But there is "no evidence to support concerns about cancer fears or damage to immune systems."
RFK Jr made news recently following an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, a sensationalist whose commentary –much of the time– runs closer to bluster at a fake wrestling match than reality. He gets paid big bucks for doing his schtick by Spotify (they’ve slapped a content advisory on the show) and really does have a following. It’s infotainment for smart alecks.
As Motherboard’s Anna Merlan described it:
The conversation was an orgy of unchecked vaccine misinformation, some conspiracy-mongering about 5G technology and wifi, and, of course, Rogan once again praising ivermectin, an ineffective faux COVID treatment. As RFK began his campaign by downplaying his anti-vaccine activism, the conversation represented a bit of a return to form. But the episode also conclusively demonstrates that Spotify, the platform that reportedly paid more than $200 million to host Rogan’s show, has completely given up on addressing his relentless torrent of medical misinformation, except in the most pallid and surface-level ways.
What made the news about the (three hour!) Kennedy interview was Rogan’s response to critical social media posts by Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD, a Professor of Pediatrics Molecular Virology. He offered Hotez $100,000 to come on his show and debate RFK Jr. (Hotez has previously appeared on the program.)
All kinds of nutballs (e.g., Elon Musk) thought this was a good idea, forgetting George Bernard Shaw’s maxim about wrestling with pigs:
“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
Fox News which is desperate for any possible disruption to President Biden’s reelection campaign, ran with the ultimate nod to conspiracy theory credibility:
Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he has to "be careful" that the CIA doesn’t take him out.
Kennedy told podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan that he thinks he would be assassinated by the CIA if elected president — as he has claimed the agency was involved in the assassination of his uncle, the late President John F. Kennedy.
"I gotta be careful," Kennedy said. "I’m aware of that, you know, I’m aware of that danger. I don’t live in fear of it at all."
Robert F Kennedy’s campaign, even without his outlier thinking, is about inducing chaos into the 2024 election. Despite some standard liberal causes mentioned in his campaign speeches, where RFK Jr is really getting the love is from the likes of the freaky fringes on the far right.
Some of those people qualify as part of the “Tech Bros” in Silicon Valley. Here’s a snip from an article in KFF Health News (an independent outlet that grew of out the Kaiser family foundation):
“Tearing down all these institutions of power. It gives me glee,” said one of his boosters in tech, Chamath Palihapitiya, a garrulous former Facebook executive, nearly two hours into a May episode of the popular “All-In” podcast he co-hosts with other tech luminaries. The person who might help with the demolition was the show’s guest, Kennedy himself.
“Me too,” responded David Sacks, Palihapitiya’s co-host on the podcast, an early investor in Facebook and Uber. Sacks and Palihapitiya said they would host a fundraiser for Kennedy, which, according to the Puck news outlet, was set for June 15.
Kennedy’s newfound friends in Silicon Valley were mostly loud supporters of vaccines early in the pandemic, but they have proven more than willing to let him expound on his anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories as he promotes his presidential bid. During a two-hour forum on Twitter, hosted by company owner Elon Musk and Sacks, Kennedy raised a range of themes, but returned to the subject he’s become famous for in recent years: his skepticism about vaccines and the pharmaceutical companies that sell them.
At the top of a list of questionable righties is former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who The Daily Beast and CBS News reported, was encouraging Kennedy to run for months prior to his declaration.
The modern day stand-in for Rasputin has told people he believes Kennedy could be both a useful chaos agent in the 2024 race and a big name who could help stoke anti-vaccine sentiment around the country.
Bannon used his podcast to suggest RFK Jr could be an excellent addition to the 2024 race as a Vice Presidential candidate for Trump.
From NBC News:
Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, on Friday tweeted, “I am really starting to like this presidential candidate’s attitude.”
Turning Point USA head Charlie Kirk on April 6 called Kennedy “one of the most articulate and thoughtful political activists going after the administrative state.”
A day earlier, conservative talk show host Steve Deace posted a picture with Kennedy on Twitter saying, “As long as he doesn’t go trans, a man with high character and courage like RFK Jr will be tempting.” And QAnon influencer Jordan Sather posted to Trump’s Truth Social platform saying he hopes to see “RFK Jr. redpilling the hell out of libs on the vaccine.”
Kennedy has disavowed any association with Bannon.
However he hasn’t separated himself from an appearance at an event organized by ReAwaken America, Michael Flynn’s group described by PBS as:
…a traveling roadshow and recruiting tool for an ascendant Christian nationalist movement that’s wrapped itself in God, patriotism and politics and has grown in power and influence inside the Republican Party.
Here’s the thing about RFK Jr: he’s a slippery character. While the world thinks of him as a leader in the anti-vax movement, he’ll tell interviewers that he’s not anti-vaccination. He’s one of those instigators who’s “just asking questions” if cornered on the discredited studies and assertions that are the fabric of his performance.
He’s not running for President as an anti-vaxxer; he’s already got that audience nailed down.
Here’s a good description of his campaign from a story at Vice:
In all, the campaign promises to be a melange of his usual covid-skeptical talking points, shaped into a slightly more mainstream-friendly form, with a noticeable hole where the vaccine stuff usually goes, and combined with heavy ruminations about his political legacy. There are signs that Kennedy expects this to be a long campaign: in an email to supporters earlier this month, Children’s Health Defense announced that Kennedy is “on leave” from his position as chairman of the board, and that Mary Holland, the organization’s general counsel and president, a longtime anti-vaccine activist in her own right, had also gone on leave to join his campaign.
Despite what RFK Jr says on the campaign trail, there’s no escaping the fact the guy’s only connection to the actual workings of government is the historical aura surrounding his family.
I guess that gives him a commonality with the former president. Policies aside, there can be no doubt that Trump's role as a leader was primarily as a vehicle for vocal gibberish. The revolving door at the White House during his administration should be all the proof you need.
Kennedy as Vice President? Nah, he’s not subservient enough for such a big ego. On the other hand, RFK Jr as a disruptive force in the Democratic party, could end up being just the ticket for an election returning Trump to the White House.
As the World Spins
The right-wing media's shameful history of defending pedophilia and sexualizing children Via Media Matters. Doesn't it seem like every accusation is actually a confession from these guys?
The right-wing fixation with pedophilia dates back decades and has been a central facet in dangerous right-wing conspiracy theories including Pizzagate and QAnon, both of which have led to real-world violence. Baseless pedophilia accusations have been used by the right to discredit and attack the LGBTQ rights movement and any figure or symbol that they disagree with — from Elmo and public libraries to a plethora of businesses and organizations.
The moral panic behind these accusations puts the real lives of LGBTQ people at risk. These groundless allegations have led to neo-Nazi encroachment at Pride events and calls for violence against pro-LGBTQ people and organizations, including children’s hospitals.
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DeSantis claimed Dodgers stadium was 'virtually empty' after Pride backlash, but the game actually had higher attendance than normal Via Business Insider.
"The virtually empty stadium for the game itself was a powerful image," DeSantis said in his tweet. "Americans are fed up with the nonsense and are fighting back."
In reality, Friday's game surpassed the team's average attendance of 47,800 people, according to Forbes.
"Our paid attendance on Friday night was 49,074," Joe Jareck, senior director of public relations for the Dodgers, told Insider in a comment.
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Homelessness is proof of our failed economic system Via the Jesuit’s America Review. This seems relevant to recent events in San Diego.
Despite repeatedly being struck down by the courts, anti-homeless laws remain a popular mechanism to “disappear” homeless people by restricting their movement, rest, freedom of association and even their belongings. The National Homelessness Law Center tracked these laws in 187 cities from 2006 to 2019 and found increases in citywide bans on camping (92 percent), “sitting or lying down in public” (78 percent), loitering (103 percent), and living in vehicles (213 percent). These bans are proliferating even as the nation’s housing crisis worsens for all renters. Last June, for example, rent increased at its fastest monthly rate since 1986. And as of 2021, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there were only 33 affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low-income households.
Rather than closing this gap, legislatures in red and blue states alike are following the lead of municipal governments in “solving” homelessness by criminalizing homeless people. According to a 2021 supplement to the N.H.L.C.’s report on cities, 48 states have some statewide restrictions on behaviors that directly affect homeless people. Restrictions on camping or sleeping in public seem to be most popular, even though the Supreme Court has upheld the ruling of a lower court that it is cruel and unusual punishment for police to issue fines to homeless people for sleeping in public if the need for shelter beds exceeds the available stock.
Homelessness is visible proof of the failures of our economic system. And the spread of anti-homeless laws should provoke solidarity among all working-class people, many of whom are now living on the edge of economic security. Anti-homeless laws are part of a cruel sleight of hand in which politicians only appear to do something, anything, to solve our problems.
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