2y ago

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. condemned over false claims that COVID-19 was "ethnically targeted"

www.cbsnews.com

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is facing widespread criticism from political leaders and civil rights organizations after a video surfaced of him making false claims that COVID-19 was designed to attack certain ethnic groups while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people — a conspiracy theory that drew accusations of antisemitism and racism.

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Keep calling out this deranged motherfucker. He's responsible for countless deaths:
During the pandemic, Kennedy has become a near-ubiquitous source of false information about COVID-19 and vaccines. Earlier this year, Kennedy was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which says he and the Children’s Health Defense website are among the top spreaders of false information about vaccines online.
....note that the Children's Heath Defense organization is Kennedy's personal charity, and...
The AP found links to Children’s Health Defense articles all over Facebook. While many were shared as posts on the pages of fellow anti-vaccine activists, many more could be found in the comments sections on pages that people turn to for reliable information, including official government Facebook pages in all 50 states, and in health departments in nearly every state.
“The vaccine was not created to save us all from a pandemic. The pandemic was created to get us to take the vaccine and more,” one person wrote in February below a North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Facebook post.
Then, they linked to a January Children’s Health Defense article that claimed 329 deaths following the COVID-19 shot had been reported to VAERS, a federal vaccine safety surveillance system that has been misused by anti-vaccine activists.
“Every Friday, the true American hero Robert F Kennedy Jr. pulls the data from the VAERS report. Here is the latest up until 1/22,” the commenter wrote. Another user replied that the comment had been reported for dishonesty, but it was still up 10 months later.
...as a result:
Since January, 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 Indiana University’s Observatory on Social Media, which tracks COVID-19 vaccine-related content on Twitter. In some weeks, it found, CHD COVID-19 vaccine content was shared more often than that of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
AP Sauce
- Just out of curiosity, there wouldn't happen to be a Sirhan Sirhan Jr., would there...?
  
  You know what's really weird? RFK supported Sirhan Sirhan's release - went against his entire family to do so too. I think the guy has some dark daddy issues.
Remember when the Kennedy name was a mark of quality for politicians and not a surgeon general's warning? "Caution: May contain high levels of crazy."
And to think that phony "No Labels" organization actually supports this guy! How about we elect a politician that actually DOES stuff instead of spreading conspiracy theories and demonizing already disenfranchised groups of people? Denying a transgender person health care never put food on my table, just sayin'.
- Someone's last name should never be an indicator of quality. I'd like my politics dynasty-free, thank you.
How does someone like this even get near a mainstream party in the US? The closest I can think of in the UK was Andrew Bridgen but he was kicked out the Tories for spreading vaccine disinformation. Then anyone else with those views, like Piers Corbyn and Lawrence Fox were stuck in minor fringe groups to begin with.
- 💀
  
  Can't the Democrats do the equivilent of "taking the whip" like what happened to Andrew Bridgen in the UK? Distance themselves from him and not let him run for them?
  
  Do you have any sources that say republicans are supporting him to be a spoiler candidate?
- Are you kidding?
  This guy is just saying out loud what large parts of the population are thinking.
  I'm not Jewish, but antisemitism was pretty normalized in the south, but to be fair, they're pretty intolerant of anyone who isn't from their specific version of protestantism.
- How does someone like this even get near a mainstream party in the US?
  All it takes to be a Democrat is to check a box when you register to vote (same for any other party in the US). There is nothing stopping anyone who wants to from running for the Democratic nomination. Needless to say, he isn't endorsed by the Democratic Party and doesn't have any real popular support. As for why he wants to be known as a Democrat--I'm not an expert on the guy but I do know that he is one of the children of the Kennedy dynasty from the '60s; the Democratic Party is part of his brand, I suppose. He is not a serious candidate, he is almost certainly running specifically to raise his profile and increase the number of followers he has as a professional conspiracy grifter (which has been his occupation for decades now).
- How does someone like this even get near a mainstream party in the US?
  Because despite the media disliking him, he's reasonable if you watch his interviews and his interactions instead of reading headlines and determining your opinion of him by one bias sentence.
  
  Yes, how 'reasonable' of him to suggest COVID-19 was a bioweapon designed to spare Jews and Chinese people. That's the very definition of a reasonable position that is not in any way bigoted and fucking nuts.
this fuckwit is running for president yo.
- "His claim is insane, but it's right"?
  That's your defense?
  What he said sounds bad, especially when we just read the headlines and think we know the context, but he's just saying the virus doesn't affect every ethnicity the same.
  We know that. It's fact. You agree with it. So why is the claim insane?
What a shocking revelation, a guy who is drenched in conspiracy theories is also an anti-semite. This guy is the ID of America.
I mean... no shit? Dude's completely nuts.
He said because of some genetic differences that covid didn't affect some ethnicities as hard.
That's just fact. He didn't say it was created to do so, he said it's just the way the virus is.
- "is targeted to..." implies deliberate action, which is exactly the message he wanted to convey. It's just SSDD for this nutjob.
  
  No it doesn't.
  See you just made up an entire conspiracy theory and saying RFK Jr. believes in it.
  He did not say what you said he did. He said that it affects jews and asians different than black people. That's factual.
  Stop making up reasons to hate people you disagree with. Listen to them and argue against what they say, not the words you put in their mouth.
  Sickle cell targets african americans. Am I now saying there's a whole conspiracy against the black population by deliberately infecting them with sickle cell?
- covid didn’t affect some ethnicities as hard.
  That’s just fact.
  It was blood types and not race, right? Blood type predicted severity of symptoms ... or was it infection rate?
  Hmm. I guess it's also blood type: Not a big sample size, though.
Not my graph, but his comment reminded me of it so I went and found it on Reddit to share.
- No source?
  The big error bars on everything but Christian raises an eyebrow.
- I would be amazed if they weren't hit harder, many orthodox jews live in dense communities and there is a genetic disposition to immunodeficiency disorders.

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