Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blamed the media for dragging his campaign Sunday, saying he has been slammed “even more than President Trump was slammed” by mainstream media outlets.
“I’ve been really, you know, slammed in a way that I think is unprecedented,” Kennedy said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who is running a longshot primary campaign against President Joe Biden, is more popular among Republicans than Democrats, according to polling.
The nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and the son of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, Kennedy Jr. has been hit with backlash for his stances on vaccines, particularly recent comments he made suggesting that the coronavirus could have been “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” while sparing Jewish and Chinese people. Kennedy denied allegations of racism and antisemitism, saying on Twitter: “I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews.”
“I mean, listen, if I believed the stuff that’s written about me in the papers and reported about me on the mainstream news sites, I would definitely not vote for me,” Kennedy told host Maria Bartiromo. “I would think I was a very despicable person.”
Although the media hit Trump really hard, the left-on-left violence seems pretty unprecedented.
It;s clear that the left knows that he’s not establishment, like Biden is, and that if he got a fair chance, he’d probably stomp Biden.
Where is exactly is the left in this fight? The media is hardly the left and RFK Jr. is an alt-right candidate using his family’s name as cover to masquerade as a Democrat.
Almost all TV media is left wing. Most online media is left wing. Social media is left wing.
Can you define alt-right?
Generally folks who are alt right aren’t willing to sign a gun ban, generally aren’t pro-choice, aren’t for college loan forgiveness, doesn’t champion trans rights, nor other LGBTQ rights, generally aren’t for nationalized drug recovery centers, aren’t anti-war, don’t fully condemn every white supremicist, anti-semite or anti asian rhetoric.
If you really think he’s alt-right, we have different depictions of what the ‘alt-right’ are.
lol he’s literally a chaos agent for Steve Bannon. The only person who would vote for him is a confused Democrat or a Republican would push him.
https://www.salon.com/2023/04/06/steve-bannon-spent-months-recruiting-anti-vaxxer-rfk-jr-to-run-against-biden-as-chaos-agent/
He’s an alt right astro turf.
“People familiar with the matter told the outlet that Bannon hoped Kennedy could serve as a “useful chaos agent” in the election while also spreading “anti-vaccine sentiment around the country,” according to CBS News’ Robert Costs.”
And oh wow, he’s doing just that.
You linked a salon article that says a private source says that bannon secretly tried to get someone to run.
Any, ya know, reliable sources?
Steve Bannon has actively supported RFK on his podcast War Room. Just go watch War Room live.
“Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has spent nearly two years promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his War Room podcast in a mutually beneficial relationship that could have disastrous public health consequences for the country and the world.”
Steve Bannon only pushes specific alt right candidates. So why would he suddenly push Rfk Jr. Because he’s suddenly benevolent? He has direct ties to Qanon. There is major incentive to push RFK Jr. from a chaos agent standpoint.
"Even relative to other right-wing media, Bannon’s podcast is a hotbed of conspiracy theories, many of which relate directly to COVID-19 and vaccines. He frequently pushes junk science from discredited charlatans like Naomi Wolf, has celebrated efforts to disrupt vaccine distribution, and claimed the pandemic was everything from a way to eradicate religion to a form of global war deliberately unleashed by China.
Given this feverish and paranoid atmosphere, it’s not surprising that Bannon amplified Kennedy’s longstanding efforts to discredit safe and effective vaccines, including those that protect against COVID-19, and has now latched onto his nascent campaign. Both are ecumenical and opportunistic in their conspiracism, including pushing QAnon messages and influencers."
https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-has-spent-years-promoting-rfk-jr-and-his-crackpot-anti-vaccine-theories
There are sources in each article. Or you could, ya know, just go watch Steve Bannon for a while and RFK talk, and research his links to all this.
Delusions as fuck. Media in this country is all run by the extremely wealthy. To call it left wing is laughable. Neo-liberalism (democrats) are borderline conservative and that’s who runs the media. Just cuz you’ve been brainwashed into thinking centerist big corporate politicians are “left wing” doesn’t make it true.
Almost all TV media and social media is run by corporations who only care about making money. That’s hardly left-wing.
and guess who gives out more money? That’s right, the democrats!
The guy who paid 45 billion dollars to lift bans on several infamous wingnut trolls like Catturd and turned a bird logo into an X for clout doesn’t seem like a Democrat to me. Neither is the billionaire oil baron who owns Fox News, Sky News, Fake News, etc., the former of which is the largest media company in America. You’re not an underdog.
He’s the opposite of how the former ownership ran twitter for the past 10 years. I didn’t hear you removed about it then.
And, having uniform/unbanning regardless of political affiliation is how I believe media should be. It shouldn’t be bias.
Fox news is the only right wing cable network. NBC, MSNBC, CNN ABC are all left
Literally none of this is true. The only universe this is true in is the one where anything left of fascism is “left wing.”
You make a great point here. It’s so common to boil one view down to a label, and then people use that label to extrapolate a whole set of views, many of which the individual may not ascribe to. Example: he’s anti vax which is an alt right viewpoint, therefore he is alt right. You tell someone that he is alt right and then that person thinks he is bigoted toward LGBTQ+, donates to the NRA, pickets outside of abortion clinics, etc.
I’m not saying any of this in support of RFK Jr at all, just that this concept is detrimental to all rational discourse. Labels are a helpful part of language in categorizing things, but they can also be really dangerous when you default to using them in every situation even if they don’t fit.
No it’s not, it’s traditionally fringe left - see hippies.
Agreed. You don’t perfectly fit into one box, and the fact that one side will trash you if you don’t perfectly align and vote how their party votes is absurd
A vaccine conspiracy theorist has no chance against any sane person
He wants vaccine testing similar to almost all of western europes. That’s not a conspiracy theory.
So…not biden?
If they weren’t nervous, they wouldn’t be trying everything they could to discredit, trash and suppress his voice.
Bullshit. He’s been peddling dangerous crackpot theories for decades:
Kennedy made his name in the anti-vaccine movement in 2005, when he published a story alleging a massive conspiracy regarding thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that had been removed from all childhood vaccines except for some variations of the flu vaccine in 2001. In his piece, Kennedy completely ignored an Institute of Medicine immunization safety review on thimerosal published the previous year; he’s also ignored the nine studies funded or conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that have taken place since 2003.
Coming from someone who read some of his fantastic environmental work from the Bush II era, I can honestly say he’s ventured so far into the deep end of paranoia he should be shunned everywhere he goes. Children are dying because of him.
I believe you’re arguing with a paid shill. Just call him out and move on.
You think Lemmy is big enough for a paid shill? Kinda cool if it is.
deleted by creator
Ribbit
Just don’t feed the trolls.
I have this conspiracy theory where he’s actually a genius who realized the world is overpopulated and is now on an evil genius plan to murder the world’s children to save the planet
But it’s obviously just a joke
He’s against mercury in the vaccines.
A lot have been removed since his initial push against it, because the vaccines we were pumping into everyone had them.
I thank him for his work to get poisonous amounts of mercury out of the vaccines
“Thiomersal (also spelled thimerosal, especially in the United States) is an organomercury compound used as a preservative in vaccines to prevent bacterial and fungal contamination.[9] Following a mandated review of mercury-containing food and drugs in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) determined that under the existing vaccination schedule “some children could be exposed to a cumulative level of mercury over the first 6 months of life that exceeds one of the federal guidelines on methyl mercury.”[20][21] They asked vaccine makers to remove thiomersal from vaccines as quickly as possible as a precautionary measure, and it was rapidly phased out of most US and EU vaccines,[22][23] but is still used in multi-dose vials of flu vaccines in the U.S.”
I’m pro-vaccine. So is RFK Jr. He has concerns with some of the testing and chemicals in some of the mandatory vaccines.
I’d rather have overly cautious studies when it comes to big pharma, their limited liability, their rich history in bribing US officials (including FDA members), pumping the country full of poison (see opioids) while lying to people about what is in their drugs.
Thiomersal is in almost no vaccines at this point, and you get more mercury from a can of tuna than you would from a vaccine with thiomersal in it.
So maybe start scaremongering about tuna salad sandwiches instead.
Do you know if Thiomersal was removed from most vaccines before or after the issue was brought up?
Why did you ignore the part of my comment about tuna?
I’m vegan.
Thanks to those who fought it!
And they recommend limited how much tuna one eats…because of…that’s right! Mercury!
Ethylmercury (C2H5Hg+) and methylmercury (CH3Hg+) are not the same thing. The former is a preservative that’s rapidly metabolized, and the latter is a bio-accumulative environmental toxicant. Huge difference between ethyl and methyl groups. It’s the same reason that ethanol (C₂H₆O) will get you drunk but methanol (CH3OH) will make you go blind.
God I hate when internet laypeople try to act like they understand chemistry. Have you literally ever taken a chemistry class? If not, please start here, and in the meantime shut the hell up before you get someone killed.
I know they aren’t the same thing.
I’m simply stating that due to thiomersal, there was questions of mercury poisoning. Most vaccines don’t have thiomersal anymore (since 1999), which most agree is a good thing.
What are you even arguing?
It’s amazing what happens when you don’t stop reading a source when you find something useful to lift out of context:
"Upon conclusion of their review, the FDA, in conjunction with the other members of the US Public Health Service (USPHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CDC and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), in a joint statement with the AAP in July 1999 concluded that there was “no evidence of harm caused by doses of thimerosal found in vaccines, except for local hypersensitivity reactions.”.
And more:
"The notion that thiomersal causes autism has led some parents to have their children treated with costly and potentially dangerous therapies such as chelation therapy, which is typically used to treat heavy metal poisoning, due to parental fears that autism is a form of “mercury poisoning”.[16] As many as 2 to 8% of autistic children in the U.S., numbering as many as several thousand children per year, receive mercury-chelating agents.
Your own source made my point for me. Why didn’t you read the whole thing?
So it can cause issues to some…why force it on 2 month olds?
I don’t get why you think this argues against me? I never said it caused autism, I don’t believe it does.
Local hypersensitivity reactions happen with all vaccines. That’s why they tell you to stay in the pharmacy for 15 minutes after you get a shot. It has nothing to do with thimerosol. The reason you accept that is that we take immunological advice from immunologists, not from partisan nincompoops who read something that sounds bad on the internet and go, “SeE!? WhY mAkE ShOt? iT hUrT bAbY1!!”
I’m reiterating why your “why not play it safe” shtick is a toxic mischaracterization and deflection that downplays the very real harm his JAQ conspiracy ideation has caused in the world. The answer to “why not play it safe?” is “you’re not playing it safe, your trolling and people are taking your megaphoned ignorance as gospel, often at the expense of their own children.”
You’re not making a great case to mandate over 30 vaccines for kids without proper testing.
Nobody is arguing that. But rigorous testing in line with most western nations, seems fair.
Yeah, I don’t like when the government forces every child to get a shot from a big pharma organization that pays the FDA to get through the testing with shitty made up science. I think there should be rigorous testing, which there are good trials, but just to be more in line with most of western europe, as opposed to safeguarding big pharma companies.
Shill much?
In what way?
Our childhood vaccines are documented to be safe. He is a conspiracy theorist who is assisting the murder of children.
Advocating for big pharma being more responsible for the drugs they pump into our system, while bribing FDA officials isn’t assisting the murder of children.
If anyone is against holding big pharma responsible for the opiod epidemic, and holding the FDA responsible for it, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.
You’re bad at trolling lol.
Either that or you REALLY don’t want to read RFK’s bio, even after another commenter linked to a source
I know RFK’s bio.
Do you know your favorite big pharma companies bio? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements
What’s funny is how many settlements there are, despite the federal government protecting them from the majority of lawsuits. Imagine getting sued this much, when the government makes it illegal hahaha
He’s concerned that some vaccines are unnecessary for kids that we require for every kid.
For example the NHS in the UK advises against the chickenpox vaccine.
I just looked it up and the NHS does not warn against it at all. They only administer it to certain people.
The NHS also doesn’t buy enough MRI machines, leading to long wait times. Does that mean they’re anti-MRI? No, they’re just frugal
You’re right, I apologize for my framing.
They only recommend it to a small minority of people.
So…they don’t recommend it to the majority of people.
Again, reread my comment about efficiency and cost-saving.
Or are you agreeing that it’s perfectly safe and we have no reason to doubt that?
Again, re-read my comment about RFK Jr. wanting our standards to be more in line with the rest of our peer countries.
Our FDA is bribed by big-pharma, who constantly lie to consumers and have no repurcussions, despite us know they lie to us. I’d rather break out of the system where big pharma runs our healthcare policies.
Shingles for everyone!
Not having the vaccine, and encouraging natural immunity actually reduces the effects of shingles.
When people get chickenpox, the virus remains in the body. This can then reactivate at a later date and cause shingles. Being exposed to chickenpox as an adult (for example, through contact with infected children) boosts your immunity to shingles. If you vaccinate children against chickenpox, you lose this natural boosting, so immunity in adults will drop and more shingles cases will occur.
Yeah, and being exposed to chickenpox as a child makes you more likely to have shingles as an adult. Most people encounter it as a child.
Most children don’t get shingles.
Holy fuck you’re a crazy GQP guy eh? This guy is a complete joke to every democrat/left wing/liberal person I know. No one will vote for him. His entire purpose is to try and get some of the crazy anti vax conspiracy weirdoes who are left in the Democratic party to not vote for Biden.
Depends, what’s GQP?
You must have a shitty circle. He’s seen more favorably than any other candidate, and has the lowest unfavorable ratings. Once you get away from the headlines from the MSM, and just watch a few interviews, you can see why. He’s for unity for the country, getting away from the power of the CIA and war mongerers.
Those headlines don’t make money, stopping the military industrial complex doesn’t make money, and fighting against a bloated executive branch isn’t good for the dems.
You’ve GOT to tell us how good that Kool-Aid is. Because for you to be that far up that walking misinformation campaign’s ass- it’s GOT to be amazing.
It’s crazy how you can spot the insano Q fuckers in like 2 sentences or less right?
Oh ya, totally. He’s going to take down the military industrial complex man. TRUMP DRAINED THE SWAMP SOOOO HARRRRRDDDDDD. I mean, he replaced the crocodiles with his toad ass children and son in law to grift up more than ever before, but he drained it first.
Ribbit