RegularFodder

From the article:

As the son of Robert Kennedy and nephew to John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is unusually well-positioned to attract attention in his almost certainly doomed challenge to Biden. But Kennedy can benefit from even a failed campaign by selling more books and raising the profile of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization he founded.

Bannon likewise benefits from hyping Kennedy’s run. He can use Kennedy to sow chaos in the Democratic primary and push vaccine denialism as a tool to further undermine what he refers to as the “administrative state,” a longstanding goal which would result in a collapse of public capacity to address future pandemics, among other consequences. And although Bannon has provided a platform for Kennedy, it would be a mistake to give him too much credit for the candidate’s larger purchase in the political ecosystem. As is often the case with Bannon, he’s bodysurfing a wave and mistaking himself for Poseidon.

Unsurprisingly, right-wing spoiler candidate RFK Jr. is not making friends among Democrats, with most of his support coming from far right figures.

This piece highlights how RFK Jr's positive media coverage mostly come from disreputable sources, such as Steve Bannon, Breitbart, etc.

In 2019, an user on Daily Kos observed that RFK Jr. attended a far right event in Germany attended by neo-nazis and other far right organizations. After that article was published, RFK Jr. had decided to sue to reveal the identity of the user that posted truthful observations.

This article mirrors my present sentiments towards the RFK Jr. primary bid. He is already being pushed and flattered by far right media, so ignoring him until his campaign fades into obscurity is not an option. His positions, his persona, his allies and enemies, must all be brought into the limelight. Truth and reality are anathema to his political aspirations.

Of note, RFK Jr's planned meeting will feature at least three of the disinformation dozen, a group responsible for over half of the vaccine misinformation on social media.

From the article:

In Kennedy’s conspiracy-laden fantasy world, a shadowy cabal conspires to hide the risks of vaccination. In the real world, U.S. public health agencies take vaccine safety extremely seriously and approach it with great transparency. After millions of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine were given, just 6 cases of an unusual pattern of blood clots were enough to trigger a pause on vaccine—eventually a preferential recommendation for mRNA vaccines was issued because of the seriousness of this very rare condition, one that does not occur from mRNA vaccines. A safety signal for the bivalent Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for strokes in older adults was immediately communicated when it was identified even though subsequent data suggests that this finding is a statistical artefact.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/176030

I have posted this here for its particular relevance to the current awfulness of a plethora of far right crackpots bullying a vaccine scientist in an attempt to force him into a farce of a debate.

The nearest analogy I can come up with is putting a researcher in a room with a monkey. Then, tell the researcher that to win, he has to convince the monkey of his research. Then, tell the monkey that to win it has to completely smear the researcher with fecal matter.

These farcical calls for debate are a sham, designed only to keep quacks, cranks, and charlatans in the spotlight, to continue to give them a platform with which to spread their brand of snake oil. While rigorous debate can be an useful tool to find truth and meaning, it has its limits. For a debate to be a tool of truth, it requires at a bare minimum that the parties involved are acting in good faith, and that both parties share a common ground in that they have a healthy respect for empirical truth. RFK Jr. has neither good faith or an interest in truth. He just wants more opportunity to spread his metaphysical cancer to more, to convince people to willingly forego their faculties of logic and reason.

I have posted this here for its particular relevance to the current awfulness of a plethora of far right crackpots bullying a vaccine scientist in an attempt to force him into a farce of a debate.

The nearest analogy I can come up with is putting a researcher in a room with a monkey. Then, tell the researcher that to win, he has to convince the monkey of his research. Then, tell the monkey that to win it has to completely smear the researcher with fecal matter.

These farcical calls for debate are a sham, designed only to keep quacks, cranks, and charlatans in the spotlight, to continue to give them a platform with which to spread their brand of snake oil. While rigorous debate can be an useful tool to find truth and meaning, it has its limits. For a debate to be a tool of truth, it requires at a bare minimum that the parties involved are acting in good faith, and that both parties share a common ground in that they have a healthy respect for empirical truth. RFK Jr. has neither good faith or an interest in truth. He just wants more opportunity to spread his metaphysical cancer to more, to convince people to willingly forego their faculties of logic and reason.

This well written post is a break down of some of the claims made by RFK Jr on the recent Joe Rogan podcast. Notably, the author tackles RFK Jr's anti-vaccine claims, Ivermectin support, RFK Jr's quote mining of the Simpsonwood conference, and the claim that thousands of athletes are dropping dead from vaccines.

Furthermore, the author also notes how Rogan, Musk, RFK Jr pushed to bully a vaccine scientist into a faux debate, an act that has so far led to the scientist being stalked outside his own home by fanatics.

This is the article that Joe Rogan does not want you to see. Vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez posted this article on Twitter, which resulted in him being lambasted from Rogan for posting this (expletive) article. This article briefly covers the interview of RFK Jr done by Joe Rogan, and analyzes some of the misinformation therein.