How MAGA is Dishonoring Charlie Kirk's Legacy

Charlie Kirk's assassination has shocked the nation. While I do not agree with his views on many things, I believe the vast majority of us would agree that we do not wish him death, or even maimed. We can agree to disagree on many things. While his death will silence him, his ideas will live on, and you can't silence an idea. 

However, MAGA's current clumsy attempt to maximize the propaganda value of Kirk's death by trying to venerate him, and the various overreaction to anything about Kirk that's NOT complimentary (posters of Kirk as a "saint", Trump floated the idea of giving Kirk a posthumous Medal of Freedom, FCC bullied Disney into suspending Jimmy Kimmel for a joke about Kirk, WaPo fired a black female reporter who cited an uncomplimentary quote by Kirk on black females for "endangering colleagues"...), IMHO, is dishonoring Kirk's legacy. 

You don't get it? Let me walk you through this. 

Why did Kirk's assassin do it? 

To stop Kirk from speaking out, right? 

So how does MAGA and those organizations kowtowing to MAGA (such as Disney, WaPo, etc.) react? 

By stopping anything that's not "nice" about Kirk from being aired or even spoken on public media. 

MAGA used the death of an outspoken man... as an excuse to CENSOR other people! 

Oh, the irony. 

More COVIDiocy: Nicki Minaj the Twitter Liar?

 Nicki Minaj made news when she posted why she's "doing my own research" regarding COVID vaccines and chose not to attend the Met gala because it requires all celebrities to be vaccinated. Then she really stepped in it when she tweeted that her cousin's friend had swollen balls from vaccine and his fiance called off the wedding. 

COVID experts all over the world replied "no way", and "my cousin's friend" became the latest meme to hit the Internet. 

Now even her home country (Trinidad) Health Minister came out to refute the story. Yes, they spent a whole day trying to run the story down. It's global news. It even got a hashtag #ballgate

https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1438194219269689352?s=20

Strike one. 

Then Nicki Minaj posted that the White House invited her to have a chat. 

Which was immediately debunked by CNN... Apparently White House offered her a chance to talk to one of their doctors to explain COVID and the COVID vaccine. 

https://twitter.com/donlemon/status/1438296212172640257?s=20

Strike two. 

Now, Nicki claims that she can't Tweet anymore because Twitter had blocked her. A screenshot of what appears to be Instagram was shared. 

There has been no verification from Twitter. However, Vulture reported that a spokesperson for Twitter said "Twitter did not take any enforcement action on the account referenced". 

https://twitter.com/vulture/status/1438291904307806209?s=20

Oh-oh... Strike three. 

What's far more likely is her manager and agent, seeing what sort of PR disaster she had gotten herself into, took away her account access, but that's just a theory. 

Anyone who got on Tucker Carlson Show, without checking what sort of person Tucker Carlson is, is not someone I would follow or respect. Carlson is famous for using his show to tell people "CDC is lying to you" mainly by dumpster-diving VAERS. And guess who got invited to the Carlson show? Yep, Nicki Minaj. The two aligned only because of their COVID vaccine denialism. 

Let's not forget that Carlson believed that #blacklivesmatter was NOT about black lives, but rather an excuse to come after your rights... It lead to such a backlash that a dozen advertising sponsors quit. Carlson was one of the few people who believed that the January 6th Insurrection was a false-flag operation by the FBI. He's basically Alex Jones with half the craziness. Not to mention he believed just about every conspiracy theory that hurts the GOP in some way or makes the Dems look good, of which there are way too many to list. 

But that's enough ranting about two people I don't give a flying f*** about. 

Don't be a COVIDiot, like these two. 

Today I Learned: The War with No Guns Between China and the World

In recent months, China and India have skirmished with casualties on both sides. Yes, I mean deaths and serious injuries, deep in the Himalayas. But because both sides have abided by 1966 treaties that prohibited firearms near the border, the skirmishes were fought with sticks. 

The border is between China and Indian-Administered Kashmir. And the conflict had been ongoing for months. A clash back in June 2020 is believed to have left over 20 Indian soldiers DEAD. China does not release its casualty figures until recently. 

Also keep in mind that China has nearly complete control over Weibo (Chinese Twitter) and WeChat and even accounts of foreign diplomats and heads of state, including Indian Prime Minister Modi, can and had been censored before. Modi's statement regarding the border conflict back in 2020 was wiped from WeChat. Similarly, the British Embassy in China's rebuttal of the Chinese "explanation" of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong was wiped out as well. 

In contrast, Chinese diplomatic officials serving in the West are known to spread disinformation about ANYTHING that could potentially make China look bad, from the border skirmish with India to suppression of protest in Hong Kong, to suppression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. One official spokesperson for foreign affairs went as far as claiming on Twitter that COVID was really an American bio-war experiment. They are often jokingly called "Wolf Warriors", after the Chinese military adventure movie series. 

So basically, China can say WHATEVER IT WANTS to its own citizens, and suppress anyone who dares to contradict them, even foreign leaders and diplomats. A Chinese Netizen was apparently banned by Weibo for a year then arrested by police for "insulting heroes", by merely questioning the number of Chinese casualties in the border conflict (banned 2/20, arrested 2/21 Chinese time). And an app, called "Clubhouse" was banned after briefly enjoyed a surge of popularity as a chat platform in China to discuss such issues. And nobody can do anything about it. 

It's the war against truth as you know it. If it's inconvenient for China, it ain't true (to China). 

It's a war of information. And we are playing by THEIR rules. 

Herbalife "managed" critical lab study with legal threats, scientific journal caved

Herbalife decided to silence scientists who published a study that may put their products in a bad light by first sending bogus claims from their scientists, then when that failed, sent in their lawyers with multiple threats against the journal, and the journal caved and removed access to the study. 

As reported by BehindMLM, medical researchers in India had published a research paper detailing their findings of heavy metal in Herbalife products sold in India.  At first, Herbalife sent in their own "toxicologists" from Brazil disputing the paper. Science was reviewed by the journal's panel, and found to be correct, and thus, the paper was definitely NOT retracted. However, it appears that Herbalife, realizing it cannot challenge the science of the study, decided to send legal threats to the medical researchers of the study, but also directly to the journal's staff, journal's editorial panel and the publisher, Elsevier. 

And despite the editorial panel concluding that there was no cause for retraction as per COPE guidelines, the publisher and the journal pulled the paper ANYWAY, without consent of the authors. 

And furthermore, retracted studies are usually kept available for access in order to provide a reference on what not to do. This was not done. The entire study simply disappeared. 

Two thoughts on this: 

A) Why isn't there an anti-SLAPP equivalent for scientific studies? SLAPP, or "strategic lawsuit against public participation", is a tactic a person or organization is being sued to prevent it from publicizing some information that the public deserves to know. What Herbalife did here is a SLAPP to prevent the study from being publicized. 

B) With the high cost being charged by Elsevier to "publish" those journals (we're talking about a couple hundred dollars to read ONE article, sometimes), you'd think Elsevier would actually have a team of lawyers to defend such. 

But this cannot stand. It's time to make Herbalife realize they can't get away with this behavior.