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an 4 26

In recent months, President Donald Trump has received growing criticism from podcaster Joe Rogan due to a combination of the former's policies and dissatisfaction with the wider MAGA movement. Now, reports Axios, the White House is working “aggressively” to bring Rogan back into Trump’s corner.

Rogan’s last-minute endorsement of Trump in the final hours of the 2024 election is often cited as a key factor in determining the outcome, as the host’s podcast is not only the most popular in the world, but has particular sway among young men — a vital bloc in the president’s winning coalition. But in January, Rogan began criticizing Trump for the violent tactics of ICE, questions about the Epstein files, and the decision to launch war against Iran. This came as Rogan was also attacking MAGA in general, saying it is comprised of “weird,” “unintelligent dorks.” None of this bodes well for GOP electoral hopes with the midterms approaching fast.

In an attempt to win Rogan back, the White House has not only been maintaining contact behind the scenes, but has begun pushing policies the podcaster is particularly interested in.

Efforts to “build bridges” with Rogan have involved repeated visits from top administration officials. Vice President JD Vance met Rogan during an RNC fundraising stop in Austin, while Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his advisor Calley Means have appeared on the podcast and maintained contact.

Then on Saturday, Rogan joined the president in the Oval Office for the signing of an executive order that will speed the federal review of psychedelic drugs used to treat severe mental illness. Rogan has been a major proponent of psychedelic therapy over the past decade, and while research and legalization efforts have gained traction in recent years, the executive order was a direct attempt by the administration to woo Rogan back to Trump’s favor.

In recent months, Trump has fallen out with many of his most high-profile, longest-running backers, such as Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones. As MAGA support erodes fast, maintaining Rogan as an ally may prove essential to holding on to the administration’s rapidly dwindling support.

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no lnx

alternet

Trump's Cabinet of horrors exposes his totalitarian drift

President Donald Trump and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard embrace, joined by Tucker Carlson on stage at a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Donald Trump nominated an alleged rapist and sex trafficker to be attorney general. He picked a Russian asset to be director of national intelligence. He chose a religious fanatic and Kremlin stooge to be secretary of defense. And for secretary of health and human resources, he selected an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who once had a literal brain worm, and who habitually takes (“legal”) steroids to maintain, at the age of 70, the appearance of a physique of a man half his age.

There are the obvious things to say about this motley crew. Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F Kennedy Jr are not qualified, respectively, to lead the agencies they have been chosen to lead. None has managed anything larger than an office. None has the expertise required. Gaetz has never worked in law enforcement, Gabbard in intelligence, Hegseth in military leadership or Kennedy in public health. Their only qualification is their loyalty to the man who picked them, and how they look to him when they are on television.

Right now, the discussion seems to be concentrated on the Senate Republicans, who will have majority control of that chamber in January. They will be responsible ultimately for vetting Trump’s cabinet picks. The question is whether they will find the courage to restrain the president-elect or roll over, either by approving them or by letting Trump have what he wants through recess appointments.

Among liberals, the discussion seems to be limited to the absurdities each of these people brings to governance as well as the dangers they pose. “Yes, shake your head at the seeming absurdity of these picks,” wrote MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “But don’t stop there. These choices aren’t just controversial; they require us to stay vigilant about how each potential new Cabinet member could negatively affect our lives.”

But I think we’re missing the bigger picture. These nominations signal the totalitarian drift that’s coming to Washington and the country. Yes, that’s right. No, I’m not exaggerating. It’s time to start using that word.

Totalitarianism seeks dominion over the individual to the point where individuality is erased. That’s what happened to the Republican Party. Individuals have looked the same, talked the same, acted the same and thought the same for a long time. (The men sometimes literally dress the same as Donald Trump, with a blue suit, a long red tie.) After the election, however, Republican behavior has finally been totalized.

As one GOP congressman said, Trump “is the leader of our party. … His goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads.”

The objective is forcing the rest of America to conform the way the Republican Party has conformed. This can be seen in the anger expressed by some magas. It wasn’t enough to win. Losers must now shut up and get in line, too. As a Trump attorney said recently: “You’ve got to own when you lose and say: this is America. We have to stand behind President Trump.” Senate Republicans are likely to approve his picks, no matter how bad, because the losers must be taught a lesson.

Totalitarianism also seeks to dominate the individual’s mind by going to war against facts, reason, science and any useful meaning of the word “proof.” In normal times, pre-Trump, we could expect in the Senate a spirited debate over a president-elect’s cabinet nominations, beginning with whether they’re qualified. Such debate is going to be impossible now, because “being qualified” is a meaningless term.

It is a stone-cold fact that Kennedy’s views on vaccines are not only insane, but in direct opposition to the moral principles of public health. But that fact won’t be accepted as fact. It will be taken as evidence of Trump’s enemies trying to sabotage his presidency. And there’s no way to break through this conspiracist mindset, as Lindsay Beyerstein calls it. It is impervious, she said. “When scientists or the government or journalists come forward with evidence that vaccines save millions of lives and prevent untold suffering, the conspiracist answer is: Well, that’s what conspirators to kill our children would say.”

Because there’s no empirical anchor to conspiratorial thinking, totalitarians can make reality into whatever they want. Up is down, left is right – or in the words of the totalitarian regime in George Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Therefore, the Republicans are likely to see nothing wrong with his picks. His nominee for the law is anti-law. His nominee for national intelligence is anti-intelligence. His nominee for national defense is anti-defense. His nominee for science is anti-science. But there’s no dissonance in the world of conspiratorial thinking. Up is the new down, and the only measure of morality is whether it pleases the dear leader.

The drift toward conformity and away from individualism isn’t limited to the GOP. Thanks to the rightwing media apparatus, which is global in scale, totalizing groupthink has also been growing in the culture at large. The trick is that it comes disguised as subversive individualism.

During his interview with Trump, popular podcaster Joe Rogan said “the rebels are Republicans now. They’re like, you want to be a rebel? You want to be punk rock? You want to, like, buck the system? You’re a conservative now. That's how crazy. And then the liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They’re pro-censorship online. They’re talking about regulating free speech and regulating the First Amendment.”

If you are listening to liberals directly, you know there are no such efforts. But if you are listening the rightwing media apparatus, or if you just feel the conspiratorial ambiance that it generates, it’s possible to cast yourself as a man who’s bucking the system, as if the party of billionaires is the party of the common man, as if people who look the same, talk the same, act the same and think the same are punk rock.

But the strongest evidence of totalitarian drift is the plain awfulness of Trump’s cabinet picks. They have not earned the right to be called on. They haven’t studied or mastered their disciplines. They haven’t built reputations among leaders, peers and professionals in their fields. They haven’t overcome adversity and hardship. They haven’t reached high and achieved. They certainly haven’t followed the road toward the American dream, which asks us to work hard and play by the rules.

And that’s the point. Totalitarians fear individual excellence, first because they can’t understand it, and second because excellence threatens their goal of totalizing conformity. They are not humble enough to admit that they are mediocre people but they are arrogant enough to believe they can force the rest of us down to their level.

With this cabinet, Trump can pick up where his second campaign left off, which is movement toward “the consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity …” as Hannah Arendt once wrote.

“Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable,” she said. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty” (my italics).

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an 10 24

sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) recently sat down with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, and one particular exchange is turning heads on social media.

While Rogan and Vance were discussing how the Supreme Court's 2022 overturning of the *Roe v. Wade* decision could impact next week's presidential election, the comedian and Ultimate Fighting Championship commentator observed that the "concept and the zeitgeist is that abortion had always been, you know, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, and then all of a sudden that was taken away and you have these religious men trying to dictate what women can and can't do with their bodies."

Vance responded that he understood "the pushback against that," but countered that "you could go with so many other issues." He opined that "you can go way too far about it."

"It becomes trying to celebrate something that at the very best, if you grant, I think, every argument of the pro-choice side, it is a neutral thing, not something to be celebrated," Vance added.

"I think there's very few people that are celebrating, though," Rogan responded.

The exchange is somewhat surprising, given that Rogan's podcast is known for its long-winded, hours-long episodes in which Rogan allows his guests to speak at length and rarely challenges them. He's also a political wild card, having voted for neither former President Donald Trump nor President Joe Biden in 2020. Newsweek reported that Rogan voted for libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen, though he admitted she "didn't have a shot" of winning in California, where he was registered at the time (Rogan now lives in Austin, Texas).

Despite his popularity among young men who are predominantly supporters of Trump and Vance, Rogan wasn't shy about expressing his admiration for Vice President Kamala Harris in a September episode of his podcast that aired after Harris and Trump's ABC News debate in September. While talking to comedian Tom Segura, Rogan opined that Harris was "nailing it."

READ MORE:['Something is afoot': Joe Rogan joins pro-MAGA influencers in ditching Trump campaign

“They did an amazing job from the moment Biden drops out, forcing Biden to drop out, whatever they’re doing, whoever’s writing those speeches, getting her to deliver them, coaching her, she’s nailing it,” Rogan said. "The difference in that debate was not a difference in who’s going to have better policies, who’s going to be better for the country. The difference in the debate, in my opinion, was who was better prepared.”

Watch the video of Rogan's exchange with Vance below, or by clicking this link.

IFrame Content

READ MORE:['Huge problem for Trump': Joe Rogan gushes over Kamala Harris

an badash 10 24

Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver her “Closing Argument” speech Tuesday evening at the Ellipse—the same Washington, D.C. park where Donald Trump held his “Save America” rally telling supporters to march to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, ahead of the insurrection.

Before her 7:30 PM ET event, the Vice President will be giving five interviews, according to campaign spokesperson Ian Sams: “Battleground TV interviews in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh + Spanish radio in Pennsylvania to reach Latinos, including Puerto Ricans.”

Not included in her interviews Tuesday is podcaster Joe Rogan, with whom the campaign has been in talks.

Overnight, Rogan explained on social media that those talks are ongoing, despite there being just one week until Election Day.

Just before that, Rogan had posted his three-hour interview with Donald Trump, which aired Friday, to Elon Musk’s social media site X. He then shared this statement:

“Also, for the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin. My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”

Some political experts say an interview with Rogan, the nation’s top podcaster whose largely male audience (he reportedly has 14 million followers on Spotify, and 18 million on YouTube), could help Harris, who is hoping to get more male voters to cast their ballot for her. But a former Harris campaign senior advisor offered this:

“Hot take—Rogan needs the Harris interview more than @KamalaHQ does. The exposure with a new audience who is deeply skeptical of him after years of out of context clips would be huge. He could pull in a lot of new people who have never listened to a full episode before, and even if he retained a fraction of that audience it would move him more into the mainstream.”

Some critics are blasting Rogan.

“Is this a podcast host saying he’s unwilling to travel to interview the sitting vice president for an hour?” asked Zeteo News media columnist Justin Baragona.

“I think Joe Rogan is afraid to interview Kamala Harris because that would require a great deal of research and preparation that he is not equipped to do,” responded award-winning investigative journalist Lisa Guerrero.

“Come on @joerogan. It’s the last week of the campaign! She’s a little busier than you. Get on a (private) plane and do the interview, even if just for an hour. Americans want to hear it,” exclaimed professor of political science and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

“If I could have interviewed the a person who is potentially the future president, I would have canceled everything in my calendar. Unless you were burying a close friend or relative, you weren’t committed to the interview,” remarked professor of law Darren Hutchinson.

“Demanding a VP come to you in final week of campaign sort of says it all,” commented The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, a top Republican political strategist, appearing to suggest Rogan has a “feeling of self-importance and omnipotence.”

“So the sitting Vice President and likely the next President of the United States should fly over to see you? Respect for the office of VP as well as the fact that she has a competitive race to run, suggests you get your ass on a plane and talk to her wherever [she] is,” commented Alexander Vindman, the former Director for European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC).

“Just off-the-charts arrogance,” remarked investigative journalist and founder of Popular Information Judd Legum.

an 9 24

populist podcaster Joe Rogan, the highly-influential commentator whose audience reflects a strong segment of Donald Trump’s MAGA base gushed over Vice President Kamala Harris in his latest episode.

“She’s nailing it,” exclaimed Rogan, who has 14.5 million followers on Spotify.

A “dudebro” with a predominantly male audience in the 25-44 range that spans the partisan divide, Rogan heaped praise on Harris’s team.

“Whoever’s helping her. Whoever’s coaching her. Whoever’s the puppet master running the strings…” he said, serving up a “chef’s kiss” gesture, as NJ.com reported.

“The difference in that debate was not a difference in who’s going to have better policies, who’s going to be better for the country,” Rogan observed. “The difference in the debate, in my opinion, was who was better prepared.”

Rogan did not quite endorse Donald Trump in 2020, although he did tell listeners he would rather vote for Trump than Joe Biden.

“There’s a moment here when Rogan imitates Trump in the most cartoonish way imaginable, and that, I think, tells you a lot. For many people, Trump made them laugh at politics. But now they’re laughing at him,” remarked John Stoehr of the Editorial Board.

“This is a huge problem for Donald Trump,” commented digital marketing strategist and Obama campaign operative Tim Fullerton. “If Joe Rogan turns on him and starts praising Kamala Harris like he is here – Trump is toast.”

Watch below or at this link.

an 8 24

Joe Rogan, the “king of podcasting,” who recently signed a new, $250 million deal with Spotify – after his 2022 $200 million Spotify agreement – isn’t a “MAGA influencer,” but he comes close. Or he did, until now.

Thursday night Rogan, who reportedly has 14.5 million followers on Spotify alone, endorsed RFK Jr. for President.

Rogan, who at times has praised Donald Trump, was defended by him and told to not apologize in the wake of controversy surrounding his use of the “n” word and racist language. Ron DeSantis in 2022 also defended Rogan for using the “n” word.

Last year Rogan announced he would support the Florida GOP governor’s presidential campaign instead of “a dead man as a president,” referring to President Joe Biden. Back in 2020 Rogan supported Bernie Sanders for President.

But Rogan’s also hosted top MAGA influencers, far-right extremists, and billionaire bros on his show. Some of his best-known guests include conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, white nationalism-promoting Tucker Carlson, and billionaire Elon Musk (who reportedly has turned X into a pro-Trump/pro-MAGA platform.)

In a 2022 CNN opinion column, Peniel E. Joseph talked “about exposing who Rogan really is and admitting that his brand of conversation, which at times traffics in conspiracy theories, cultural intolerance and blatant racism, attracts millions of avid listeners and corporate sponsors hungry to advertise their wares to such followers. Rogan is, in fact, an agent of these social ills, which he packages and sends out to his audience clothed in the language of moderation and moral equivalence.”

“Rogan has horribly and deliberately misgendered a trans MMA fighter. He’s discouragedyoung people from getting the Covid-19 vaccine, hosted guests who question its validity and given a platform to climate skepticism from controversial clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson.”

In that light Rogan’s endorsement of RFK Jr. over Trump makes sense despite declaring less than two weeks ago, “She’s gonna win,” referring to Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid.

Rogan isn’t alone.

On Friday, The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, who tracks extremism and global trends, observed: “Joe Rogan, Tim Pool, and Nick Fuentes have made public statements against Trump today. Something is afoot.”

Pool is a right-wing podcaster. In what appears to now have been deleted, Pool also wrote, according to NJ.com: ““I think trump is on track to lose and this is why Dems are a cult, will march in lockstep MAGA die hards can’t form alliances properly Independents / post libs will say fuck that. Registered dems outnumber GOP by almost 12m. … There’s a reason they can’t get a Rogan endorsement and it’s exactly this behavior The top podcast, markedly independent, fair and honest And they decide to go to war with it instead of trying to ally with it.”

Minutes later, Troy wrote: “Pool now claims to be walking back his comment. But he had to know it would result in a firestorm. Watch this space. I stand by the assertion that something is afoot. What exactly remains to be seen.”

Earlier Friday, The New Republic reported, “White supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes shockingly revoked his support from Donald Trump’s campaign early Friday, announcing on social media that he and his allies believed that the presidential bid is headed for a ‘catastrophic loss.’”

Fuentes, along with Kanye West (“Ye”) notably dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago right after announcing his 2024 campaign.

Meanwhile, another MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, “is sounding the alarm about former President Donald Trump’s campaign,” as Raw Story reports.

“President Trump needs to make some serious changes in his campaign ASAP,” Loomer posted on X. “The ground game is not sufficient. The offense is lacking. The communication is dismal. The momentum is crashing. Why are people who want to assist being pushed away instead of being embraced? 89 days left. You need a lot more than just ‘Vibes.’ God only knows how many opportunities have been missed. Sad to see talent go to waste.”

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newsweek

Joe Rogan Fact Checks Himself Over His Hillary Clinton Remark

Published May 24, 2024 at 1:42 PM EDTUpdated May 24, 2024 at 5:25 PM EDT

Joe Rogan Rips New York Governor Over Black People Remark

By Shannon Power

Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter

Joe Rogan decided to tread with caution during a recent episode of his podcast when he made an accusation against former presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

He was discussing politics and corruption with his guest and comedian Dave Smith when he referenced the "Steele Dossier" that alleged her 2016 presidential opponent Donald Trump had nefarious links to the Russian government. The opposition research report has largely been discredited.

In the conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience, the podcaster alleged that research for the dossier had been paid for by Clinton herself. Newsweek has contacted Rogan's podcast via email.

"How about the fact that Clinton funded the Steele Dossier?" asked Rogan as he laughed. But before continuing with the conversation, Rogan asked his producer to check. "Let's confirm that the Clinton campaign funded the Steele Dossier."

A few minutes later, Rogan's producer pulls up an Associated Press story from March 31, 2022. Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee agreed to pay $113,000 to settle a Federal Election Commission investigation into whether they violated campaign finance law by misreporting spending on research that eventually became the dossier, the AP reported.

The Steele Dossier was released in January 2017, days before Trump was sworn in and alleged that Russia had been cultivating him for years. The dossier also alleged that Trump campaign figures worked with Russian officials to find damaging information about his opponent. Large portions of the report have not been substantiated.

It was an unfinished report compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele and published by Buzzfeed News. Steele was hired by Washington political research firm Fusion GPS after it was reportedly employed by an unknown GOP client during the primary.

Fusion GPS was also hired to investigate Trump's ties to Russia by law firm Perkins Coie, which was engaged by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Joe Rogan keeps platforming conspiracy theorists and skeptics of human-caused climate change, driving misinformation

In the January 18 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host brought up “the Adam and Eve” theory and asked Corsetti, “How much of that is agreed upon, that there could be a time where the magnetic poles actually shift?”

Corsetti replied that “This is science,” explaining, “The Adam and Eve Story", the theory on that is that it happens in cycles of 6,500 years and that it’s a 90-degree flip, but six days later, around the seventh day, it corrects itself.” He continued to describe “a planet flip, 90 degrees, and that because of it the Earth essentially does a standstill, the sun will be direct — will basically stay in the same spot, causing heating like we’ve never experienced — and that the wind and the waters continue with their momentum, because essentially the wind travels at approximately 1,000 miles an hour at the equator, so the theory is that when that event happens it’s going to be cataclysmic.:

[vid]

corsetti’s nonsensical explanation was widely shared on TikTok, with one viral clip receiving nearly 11 million views.

In reality, NASA reports that pole reversals, when Earth’s North and South Poles swap locations — which “take place over hundreds to thousands of years,” not a mere seven days— have occurred “183 times in the last 83 million years, and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years.” Notably:

Plant and animal fossils from the period of the last major pole reversal don’t show any big changes. Deep ocean sediment samples indicate glacial activity was stable. In fact, geologic and fossil records from previous reversals show nothing remarkable, such as doomsday events or major extinctions.

Additionally, there's “no evidence” that any magnetic excursion event (periods of “shorter-lived but significant changes in the magnetic field’s intensity”) has impacted the Earth’s climate within the last 2.8 million years. Scientists aren’t sure when the next pole reversal will occur, but a recent study suggests that won’t be anytime soon. And if it is, a doomsday scenario is unlikely.

Corsetti acknowledged this but claimed that scientists “don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Rogan has previously drawn criticism for leveraging his massive reach and influence to amplify climate denial, and his podcast has catered to guests such as Michael Shellenberger and Bjorn Lomborg, who use cherry-picked and decontextualized talking points to downplay the devastating impacts of climate change and to attack climate solutions.He has also hosted figures who downright deny the fact that fossil fuel consumption is driving climate change, such as Steve Koonin, Jordan Peterson, and Randall Carlson, who has appeared on the podcast at least six times and said that and that actions.

In their discussion of The Adam and Eve Story, Rogan and his guests also downplayed the impacts of climate change that millions of people are experiencing and praised Donald Trump for suggesting that the Earth is actually cooling.

“Right now we should be grateful that it’s nice and cozy because we can live when it’s warm,” Corsetti said.

Rogan then cited r Carlson, saying, “Global warming’s not scary. It’s global cooling, that’s what’s really scary.” The host further suggested that climate change is “ this narrative that just gets repeated over and over and over and this fearmongering and everyone gets freaked out. It’s not to say that we aren’t polluting, we certainly are, and it’s not to say that we shouldn’t improve, we certainly should, but if the fucking magnetic poles might shift and we might get hit by a giant rock from space, we might have bigger problems. If we’re going to be concentrating on nonsense, which is really par for the course with human beings, we’re going to be concentrating on these things we’re really not going to fix over the short-term, when something might happen that makes all of it a moot point.”

Media Matters also identified two viral clips of this exchange on TikTok with 2 million and 2.6 million views, respectively.

What is The Adam and Eve Story?

The book was written in 1965 by Chan Thomas, who worked in the aerospace industry and claimed to be a psychic. The book was not available to the public until 2013, however, when 57 pages were released by the CIA, and this censorship has captured the imaginations of conspiracy theorists. Since its declassification, The Adam and Eve Story has worked its way into the broader conspiracy theory ecosystem.

Thomas argued that the Earth’s magnetic poles shift every several thousand years, causing cataclysmic events such as tsunamis that destroy civilizations and drastically alter Earth’s geology — one example he used was the flood in the Noah’s Ark narrative in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Chan predicted that such an event would occur in the near future, and some are now framing increasingly extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts as evidence that the next cataclysm is approaching.

A TikTok account for a podcast called No Regulars posted a March 1 video that has been viewed nearly 18 million times in which host Darris Watkins says that the book’s explanation of cataclysmic magnetic pole shifts actually “makes sense” in describing climate change and “explains a lot” because “the Sahara desert used to be green and like Antarctica used to have forests … So now like some places turn cold, some places turn hot.[pix?]

the popularity of these conspiracy theories among TikTok users may indicate one way that climate misinformation is evolving to reach young people.

Climate misinformation disguised as ancient civilization conspiracy theories

At the time Thomas wrote The Adam and Eve Story, the public at large was not informed of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Despite fossil fuel companies being aware of the potential for human-caused global warming as early as the 1950s, people weren’t yet experiencing the ecological effects of increasing temperatures. But when the book was declassified in 2013, it was released into a world grappling with the dire effects of climate change.

While it was not written to provide an alternative explanation for climate change, The Adam and Eve Story provides a framework for interpreting its effects outside of an anthropogenic explanation. This narrative, which shifts blame away from our fossil fuel economy onto planetary forces beyond human control, can serve as climate misinformation.

Rogan’s guests and other proponents of this conspiracy theory purport to be interested in its ramifications for scientific understanding of ancient civilizations, but climate misinformation often serves as a backdrop for their discussions. At one point in their interview, Rogan suggested “that there was incredibly sophisticated technology that existed and … was wiped out. And that we’re talking about a really advanced civilization that lived a long time ago that’s more advanced than we are today but moved in a different direction, like we moved in the direction of combustion engines and electronics and they moved in some other direction but achieved maybe many thousands of years more sophistication in that direction than we have with our internal combustion engines.”

While climate change may not take center stage in these speculations, the implications that humans are not having any influence over our warming planet and that near-apocalyptic events are always inevitable as a result of natural cycles in the Earth’s magnetic field are nonetheless harmful misinformation that lets politicians and fossil fuel companies off the hook for their role in the climate crisis. (Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies just raked in record first-quarter profits.)

Cataclysm narratives as climate sedatives

Narratives that frame climate change as an inevitable disaster caused by forces beyond our control are a key argument of climate denial: If climate change is caused by changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, then there is no point in implementing sweeping action to curtail fossil fuel emissions. In the past, the Earth’s orbit, the sun, and cosmic rays have all similarly been used to provide alternative explanations for climate change.

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels. The only way to avert increasing social, political, and ecological effects of climate change is by transitioning away from a fossil fuel economy.

Despite its appearance as a conspiracy theory about ancient civilizations,The Adam and Eve Story is being used to undermine the scientific consensus regarding the cause of climate change. As TikTok ramps up the enforcement of its new climate misinformation policy, the platform should account for the ways climate denial is often incorporated into seemingly harmless conspiracy theories.

Finally, Spotify still has no clear policy regarding the promotion of climate misinformation on its platform. Spotify reportedly paid $200 million for exclusive rights to Rogan’s show, which was the top podcaston its platform in 2022. As Rogan’s contract is expected to expire in 2023, Spotify will have to decide whether platforming his misinformation and hate speech is worth the profit.

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GERALDO RIVERA (CO-HOST): Jeanine, why would George Soros -- Joe Rogan is so popular, he has millions of followers -- he says, "Why would George Soros want cities to fall apart and crime to flourish?"

...

JEANINE PIRRO (CO-HOST): What I can tell you, is that he is absolutely behind the destruction of law and order in America, which is creating chaos and anarchy.

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In a recent speech, Former Democratic congresswoman turned Fox News contributor Tulsi Gabbard reminded her audience, lest they forget, that she is “an independent thinker.” Joe Rogan’s entire brand is being a “free thinker,” his mind is so gapingly wide open it might be mistaken for a wind tunnel.[rogan]

### [Joe Rogan’s ‘I’m a Moron’ Defense Is a Cop-Out

CLOWN NOSE ON

Anthony L. Fisher]

TEXT CAPT

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ntbcw seth rogen actor?

html Conover

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bunch of deflective desperate twtstorms?

Former President Donald Trump on Monday called for a redo of the 2020 election in an angry rant on his financially imperiled Twitter knockoff app Truth Social.

At 11:39 a.m., Trump stated that he should be declared the winner of the contest that he lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden:

So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, 'Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.' This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!

Trump's outrage stemmed from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's revelation to podcaster Joe Rogan last Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Zuckerberg that articles relating to Hunter Biden's laptop were pieces of Russian propaganda. Facebook then suppressed posts about the president's son and his computer.

READ MORE: Donald Trump ends his weekend by insulting NASA

The FBI said in a statement after Zuckerberg's interview with Rogan that it "routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats."

The FBI also told Fox Business that "foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors."

READ MORE: Donald Trump's lawyer falsely claims FBI searched Mar-a-Lago because Liz Cheney lost her primary

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/hugs-from-brazil-brazils-far-right-president-jair-bolsonaro-offers-support-to-joe-rogan/

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The Worst Possible Candidate for Governor

BY AMY WESTERVELT – 30 MAR 2022 – Today a new episode of The Joe Rogan Experience drops featuring climate delay grifter extraordinaire Michael Shellenberger, who apparently is now running for governor. The phrase "high on his own supply" comes to mind.

At any rate, it reminded me of a piece I commissioned for Drilled over a year ago from investigative journalist Paul Thacker on Shellenberger and the Breakthrough Institute he co-founded, and why the media continuously gives both unearned credit. Niether Shellenberger nor his co-founder Ted Nordhause would talk to Paul because he'd written pieces that were critical of them in the past, but I didn't think we could ethically run the story without speaking to them both, so I did. Spent about two hours on each conversation and came away feeling like Shellenberger was unstable and Nordhaus was nowhere near as smart as he clearly thought he was. At the time, I opted not to run the piece. Neither Shellenberger nor BTI seemed that powerful, so it felt more like gossip than like information the public needed to hear.

Now the math has changed. If Shellenberger was on Rogan for three hours spouting his particular brand of cherry-picked data and debate-me bro nonsense as part of his campaign for governor, I think the public—and Californians in particular—need to know what they're dealing with here. The piece is below, and there will be a bonus podcast episode tomorrow with my interview with Shellenberger for subscribers. You can upgrade to a paid subscription via the button below if you're not already.

===

see spygate sussman

https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/spotifys-joe-rogan-lies-durham-filing-shows-clinton-campaign-planted-evidence

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an 3 22

slate?

it was a March Wednesday in 2019 and I was sitting in a green room in the San Fernando Valley. Across from me, a middle-aged man tapped at his phone. His face was tan and indistinct. In his lap he was holding a pile of red folders. We were both, it seemed, waiting for Joe Rogan.

Rogan's podcast, on which I was scheduled to appear, was supposed to go live at noon. Already it was 12:10.

"He'll be here," Jeff, the on-site manager, assured me. "Eventually."

The studio was an enormous, multi-purpose facility. It opened back on itself, torus-shaped, to include an MMA gym, an indoor archery range and even a sensory deprivation tank. The entrance to the recording booth was positioned off to the side, opposite from where I sat. It was there, in a narrow, nondescript, soundproof space about the size of a small school bus, that "The Joe Rogan Experience" had grown over the last decade into the most popular show in the country.

Today, an average episode reaches an audience of nearly 11 million. More than 200 million users download the podcast each month. In 2019 alone, Rogan was reportedly paid $30 million, twice as much as his closest competitor, and that was before he signed on with Spotify, last May, for nearly $200 million over a four-year span. And while his listeners are predominantly male—as much as 71 percent of them — they're also, according to a survey by Media Monitors, "largely representative of the majority of podcast listenership," a demographic that also enjoys shows like "Serial," The Daily" and "This American Life."

To some, Rogan is a conman, selling bigotry beneath an awe-shucks veneer. Or he represents the torrid heights of faux-intellectualism unleashed by Trumpism. Or, conversely, his fault is that he's just too normal. Or the problem is that he means well but, in generously welcoming back the Alex Joneses of the world, he's shed whatever capacity for empathy and moral judgment he once maintained. The takes go on and on — he's the new Walter Cronkite! He's an insurrectionist precipitating civil war! — with varying extremity.

But this essay isn't about whether you should condemn or contextualize Joe Rogan. Instead, my goal is to try and convey, through a personal lens, what it is about Rogan as a podcaster that helps to explain why he's so popular — something inherent to his style that goes beyond his demographic appeal.

* * *

I was there that afternoon to talk about my new book, "Freak Kingdom," a chronicle of the countercultural journalist Hunter S. Thompson's political writing and activism in the 1960s and early '70s. Apparently Rogan was a huge Thompson fan, and his show was the final stop on a months-long publicity tour I'd waged between weekdays and off-days from the university where I teach. I was exhausted, the book hadn't done as well as I'd hoped, and my marriage of 15 years was coming to an end.

I had listened to a few episodes to prepare, but what I knew about Joe Rogan was cursory. How different could he be from, say, Terry Gross?

The minutes ticked past noon with still no sign from the host. I tapped my foot. I counted the ceiling tiles. I was reminded of Joan Didion's essay "The White Album," in which she had resigned herself to counting the console knobs in a Sunset Boulevard recording studio while waiting, along with the rest of the Doors, for Jim Morrison. ("There were seventy-six.")

I counted the files in the lap of the stranger across from me. Why not? It seemed to help. I was first diagnosed with ADHD at the age of six and I've been receiving treatment for it, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember. Lately, moments like the one I was experiencing now had been coming on with startling frequency, and my usual approach at management, which included regular exercise, psychotherapy and medication, seemed woefully inadequate.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, which was already powered down — the prospect of it going off in front of an audience of millions seemed all too plausible — and stared at the empty screen. A few more minutes passed. Now it was nearly 12:30. At last Joe Rogan arrived.

He walked into the green room, I stood up, and we quickly shook hands. Then he took a seat next to the man across from me, who passed him the stack of documents.

Rogan was stout and muscular, dressed in a tight long-sleeve shirt he'd unbuttoned at his neck. His balding head was cleanly shaved. His jaw was sharp with stubble. He read through the contents of the folders carefully, pen in hand. Every few pages he'd scribble something on the documents and pass them to the guy alongside, who'd do the same. His posture was like that of a student athlete, reminding me of a boxer.

But he wasn't young. He was 51. There was a tightness to his squint that broke up the smoothness of his face. The hair at his temples, what was left of it, had grayed. Each time he moved the pen across a paper, the skin at the back of his hand corded and creased.

He finished signing papers. I was still watching him. He glanced at the man alongside, then at me, and shrugged. "He's my notary," he said. And he got up and headed to the recording room. There was no indication he wanted me to follow. I stood there not sure what to do.

His notary gathered up the documents and departed. His manager Jeff wanted to know if I'd like anything to drink.

"Is it too early for whiskey?"

In the recording studio, as I tried to settle in, Jeff brought me a glass with ice and filled it to the top. Rogan was sitting opposite. Things were finally about to start.

But there was a technical issue. The software for the live video feed kept crashing.

As we waited for his producer to iron things out I tried to introduce myself. Coming in, I'd known that this was probably the largest audience I was likely to appear before in my lifetime, but now, the nervousness in my voice shocked me. I was speaking quickly but somehow I could barely get the words out.

Rogan held up a hand. "Let's save it," he said, "for the show."

* * *

The episode we recorded that afternoon has been available to download for almost three years. Millions of people have done so in the time since. I've never been able to listen to it, let alone watch the video feed. It was only recently that I finally sat down and went through it again.

For an hour and a half, Rogan and I talked about, among other things, Hunter S. Thompson. Or to be more accurate, I talked. At a feverish pace. He hardly had a chance to break in. And when he did, I kept bringing everything back, without fail, to Donald Trump's presidency; again and again I connected our current political moment to the past, regardless of context. I sounded like I'd been handed a set of talking points.

"Joe's interviews are informal and conversational in nature," his producer had emailed me beforehand, "and generally run between two and three hours in length." Nevertheless, I'd gone in expecting an interview with questions prepared ahead of time.

Rogan wanted to discuss Thompson in a personal way. He talked about a visit he took to Woody Creek, the small town outside Aspen where Thompson had spent much of his life, with his children. And he told a story from his childhood — what it was like to watch his favorite athlete, Muhammad Ali, fight on television for the first time. "My parents were hippies," he said. "My parents never watched TV, and they definitely never watched boxing. And they sat in front of the TV to watch that … I just remember thinking, I can't believe my parents want to watch a boxing match. And that's when it sunk in at an early age that this guy was not just this heavyweight boxer. He was a cultural icon. He was a storied figure."

About an hour into our episode the conversation turned to stimulants. Hunter Thompson, during his most productive stretch of writing and reporting, had taken Dexedrine, which is similar to Adderall.

"There's a weird tradition in journalism right now to destroy your body while creating art," Rogan said. "There's a big problem with Adderall today. Have you done it?"

My first book, "Hyper," was a memoir and cultural history of ADHD that included my personal experiences with different treatments for the disorder. It was published in 2014. I mentioned it to Rogan quickly, assuming he already knew about it. (He did not.) "I take 30 milligrams a day," I said." I also brought up, as an aside, a moment from the opening to "Hyper": an extreme response I had to Ritalin at the age of six. This only seemed to confuse matters further.

"I mean," he responded, "you don't have an issue that you need to take it for?"

t was a straightforward question: He was asking me to clarify what I'd been talking about — an opportunity to discuss my ADHD and why I was prescribed stimulants. I literally wrote a book on the topic. But I froze.

Five years earlier, after "Hyper" was released, I'd been invited by the council for Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) to talk about promotional opportunities. At their headquarters in Maryland I met with the executive board. I'd packed my pens and notebooks the night before. I arrived 30 minutes early. My shirt was pressed and tucked, my tie was straight. I was just another neurotypical, I told myself — I was together. I spoke slowly and did not move my hands. I tilted my head thoughtfully and listened when others spoke. Afterward, walking out, I was elated. Then I caught my reflection in the elevator door. My fly had been down the entire time.

Here I was now, on the largest stage of my life; I'd been found out. Maybe the zipper to my pants wasn't down, but I'd hijacked a freewheeling podcast and, at a rapid clip, gone from discussing Trump's totalitarian impulses to inviting the show's host to discuss my shortcomings — along with the psychotropic medication I was prescribed in order to deal with them. I wanted to get back to talking about other subjects — about Thompson, about politics, about America, about anything else — even though I understood that the way in which I was coming across on the show precluded the possibility of leaving this question behind.

"The world," I replied at last to Rogan, "is incredibly painful." That's it. I refused to simply say: I have ADHD.

He shook his head. "Wow," he said. "Fuck. It's crazy that we're talking about this."

* * *

Rogan had asked a personal, difficult question. He was curious and engaging. It was up to me, however, to go further. I wouldn't. I was the one making assumptions. We talked together for a half-hour longer before, mercifully, wrapping up.

Rogan's talent, during conversations with strangers like myself — with people who are often very different from him — is to isolate points of complexity without derailing the discussion in the service of correcting or contradicting.

That's why, in my opinion at least, so many people listen. And that's also at the heart of the recent controversy over COVID misinformation: Rogan's failure to challenge his guest Robert Malone, in the moment, over the latter's bogus vaccine claims. "If I were Joe Rogan," John Oliver said in response, "I would employ a search department if I want to confidently say things and not just sit with a laptop next to me fucking Googling stuff as it occurs to me. I would be mortified if I passed on bad information."

But to expect him to correct his guests is to take away what makes the show — and makes him — so appealing.

Take my experience: By refusing at that moment to say that I had been diagnosed and was being treated for ADHD, I seemed to be admitting that I was consuming the drug illegally. Another host would no doubt have pursued that fact. (Some of his listeners certainly did, threatening in direct messages to report my "drug abuse" to my employer and law enforcement.) But Rogan let it stand.

My appearance would turn out to be one of the shortest in his catalog of episodes. By the time we finished up it was just after 2 p.m. I walked out of the small studio, buzzing from the whiskey, with the California sun brightening the windows along the wall.

Rogan was waiting to say goodbye. He smiled and, reaching out, shook my hand vigorously, a far cry from our introduction in the green room, when he'd walked in to find me panicked and restless with anticipation.

"I hope you sell a million books," he said, "and everyone is talking about what you wrote."

Neither would turn out to be true. I had a feeling, at the time, that this was the case. Still, his gesture felt sincere.

"I really enjoyed our conversation," he added. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I believed him. I still do.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/defenses-of-joe-rogan-arent-about-free-speech-theyre-right-wing-solidarity/

no lnx

Defenses of Joe Rogan aren’t about free speech -- they’re right-wing solidarity

[Here's the real reason grifters are pushing a dodgy 'cure' for Covid — instead of the vaccines

Joe Rogan, screengrab]

Ari Paul and FAIR February 14, 2022

Fox News: Free speech advocates, journalists defend Joe Rogan from calls for censorship

These “free speech advocates” (Fox News, 2/2/22) were conspicuously silent when people actually lost their jobs for criticizing cops.

For right-wing and libertarian media, Joe Rogan, host of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, has become a symbol of resistance to censorship (New York Post, 2/2/22; Fox News, 2/2/22; Reason, 2/2/22; The Hill, 2/1/22).

Musician Neil Young had given the streaming service Spotify, which paid a reported $100 million for exclusive rights to Rogan’s show, an ultimatum: either cut Rogan and his constant misinformation about Covid-19, or lose Young’s music. Spotify—a corporate media service that has been accused of exploiting musicians financially (Guardian, 7/29/13)―chose Rogan.

Contrary to his media defenders, Rogan has not been threatened with censorship. His free speech rights were never in any kind of jeopardy. Young has not crossed into some kind of pro-deep state censorship mode; rather, he left Spotify because he disagreed with its policies, taking his business elsewhere because he has the right to do that.

Young’s departure has cost Spotify $2 billion in market value (Variety, 1/29/22), as other notable musicians, like Joni Mitchell, followed suit (Fortune, 2/3/22). Grammy Award–winning singer/songwriter India Arie made matters worse for Rogan “by sharing resurfaced footage to social media showing Rogan using the N-word” (Hollywood Reporter, 2/4/22).

Both Rogan and Spotify have responded to the outrage, as “Rogan apologized…for his use of a racial slur in past episodes,” and the streaming service removed dozens of his show’s episodes (New York Times, 2/5/22). Such pressure against right-wing, corporate media shock jocks has yielded results in the past: CBS fired Don Imus due to a public backlash against racist and sexist comments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team (CBS, 4/12/07; Extra!, 5–6/07). Sometimes it doesn’t, as two dozen advertisers left Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show after he made anti-immigrant comments (Hollywood Reporter, 12/17/18), and he still enjoys top ratings (AdWeek, 1/3/22).

Artists and media consumers free to engage in media activism like leaving a streaming service (a form of voting with one’s dollars and property, supposedly a democratic feature of the free market) or protesting a media company over its content. But these articles imply that the mere discussion of Rogan’s ability to spread misinformation about Covid is an affront to his constitutional right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Fox News (2/3/22) paraphrased former Mumford & Sons banjo player Winston Marshall saying that “the state of music censorship in the Soviet Union in 1984” was comparable “to the conditions that Spotify is facing today as calls for it to pull Rogan’s work mount.”

Speech limits for everyday workers

NY Post: LI woman with same name as Jacqueline Guzman, actress fired for NYPD funeral rant, makes tearful plea

The New York Post (2/1/22) expressed no sympathy for a woman fired for criticizing police–she was “widely condemned for her shameful online rant”–but does feel bad for someone with the same name who was mistakenly subjected to abuse.

Meanwhile, regular, everyday workers live with limits to their “work mount” and their free speech rights because they are at-will employees. And unlike Rogan, who still has the support of Spotify’s boss (New York Post, 2/7/22), these workers are treated as disposable.

A few recent examples: A Catholic high school teacher was fired for a private tweet that apparently questioned her school’s efforts to commemorate two murdered NYPD officers (Daily News, 2/4/22).

Related to the public funeral of one of these slain NYPD cops, a New York City “actress was fired this weekend after backlash over her viral TikTok complaint that the city didn’t need to be shut down for ‘one f—— cop’” (Fox News, 1/30/22). And someone who shares her name with that actor says she has “been harassed and threatened by people confusing her with the woman who made the vile rant” (New York Post, 2/1/22).

In Tennessee, Starbucks fired unionizing employees who had “allowed members of the media into the store as part of the public launch of their unionization effort” (CNN, 2/8/22). For unionists, these terminations aren’t just an immoral violation of labor rights, but an affront to the First Amendment freedom of assembly and, in this case, these workers’ right to publicize their organizing against an enormous and well-known company in the free press.

These are examples of the real predations on free speech in this country, and yet instances like these don’t seem to elicit the same hand-wringing about censorship from right-wing media.

Controversy as sellable brand

Atlantic: Why Is Joe Rogan So Popular?

Devin Gordon (Atlantic, 8/19/19): “If you look past the jokes themselves and focus on the targets he’s choosing, the same patterns emerge. Hillary, the #MeToo movement, why it sucks that he can’t call things ‘gay,’ vegan bullies, sexism.”

Rogan has been immune to this kind of pressure, largely because his controversial statements are exactly what makes his media brand sellable; the Atlantic (8/19/19) said in 2019 that his show has “been the No. 2 most-downloaded podcast on iTunes for two years running,” and “his YouTube channel…has 6 million subscribers.” LGBTQ groups like GLAAD (Twitter, 7/22/20) have criticized the host for promoting anti-trans viewpoints, but Rogan is protected from his critics because by all metrics, he’s a benefit for the corporate services like YouTube: The Hill (2/1/22) argues that with 11 million listeners, “Rogan’s popularity is precisely due to the fact that he is uncensored in what he says.”

That is a very different story for the 99 Percent, who can become victims of a very real cancel culture, because things like being critical of the police at the wrong time can be seen as beyond the bounds of free discourse. Corporate media haven’t focused on them as victims; in fact, the tabloids and Murdoch-owned media have painted them as extremists who got what was coming to them.

And libertarians haven’t made them a cause, either. That’s because these pieces that treat Rogan as a free speech warrior aren’t honest. Their defense of Rogan, who said he would vote for Donald Trump in the last election (Guardian, 4/20/20), is not about the sacredness of free speech; while he is facing a lot of public criticism, he is not being regulated or stifled as a result. In fact, these articles celebrate the degree to which protests by musicians haven’t actually silenced him, an admission that his speech was never really under threat.

These pieces, instead, are a political defense of Covid-19 misinformation and bro jock racism. Robust public health measures to control the pandemic are seen by the right as left-wing government overreach, and therefore someone who criticizes them, however inaccurately, is on their team.

The Rogan affair is a spectacle by right-wing media to paint an advocate for a right-wing political cause as a victim. Meanwhile, right-wing tabloid vitriol has celebrated the punishment of speech by regular working people.

===

https://www.desmog.com/2022/01/28/jordan-petersons-climate-expert-is-science-denier-funded-by-oil-backed-think-tank/

the source for author Jordan Peterson’s recent claim that climate change cannot be modelled was a climate science denier who received money from a libertarian think tank funded by oil companies.

The Canadian psychologist was widely criticised for spreading climate misinformation this week after telling the popular Joe Rogan podcast’s 11 million subscribers that climate models were full of errors that increase over time, and that climate is too complicated to model accurately.

Peterson responded to the criticism on Thursday in tweets to his 2.2 million followers citing a book called “Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate” by S Fred Singer.

Singer, an American atmospheric physicist who died in 2020, argued that climate change was natural and not increased by human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. He argued that warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions was “trivial”.

In 1990 he founded the Science and Environment Policy Project (SEPP) that expounded these views. In 2014 DeSmog revealed that Singer received $5,000 a month from US right-wing think tank the Heartland Institute, which has taken donations from oil interests including ExxonMobil and the Koch family. Singer was a speaker at a 2012 Heartland conference where sponsors received $67 million from Exxon, Koch and the Scaife Family Foundations.

Singer frequently criticised climate modelling by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the peer-reviewed authority on climate science made up of hundreds of climate scientists.

In a 2016 article for American Thinker, Singer wrote: “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has to provide proof for significant human-caused climate change; yet their climate models have never been validated and are rapidly diverging from actual observations.

“The real threat to humanity comes not from any (trivial) greenhouse warming but from cooling periods creating food shortages and famines."

twt]

"The Scientists Were Right’

Dr Simon Evans, policy editor at Carbon Brief, told DeSmog: “Back in the early 1970s, scientists were building simple climate models and they hypothesised that rising greenhouse gas emissions would warm the planet.

“Well, the results are in, and those scientists were right. Not only that, those models – and other more recent ones – have been pretty accurate in estimating how much warming we would get.”

Peterson is known for his self-help books and opposition to “identity politics”, but has increasingly been spreading climate science misinformation. In his Joe Rogan interview, Peterson advocated hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas – known as fracking – and dismissed the idea that greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced to net zero by 2050.

In an appearance on BBC Question Time in November, Peterson criticised the COP26 UN climate summit and said developing countries should not be encouraged to control their CO2 emissions.

Last week Peterson shared a tweet from Net Zero Watch, a rebranding of the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Forum, which questioned whether wind power is a “reliable, efficient and in-demand technology”. Peterson’s tweet added, regarding net zero targets: “Any “policy maker” who aims at zero anything has instantly demonstrated his or her incompetence.”

Jennie King, head of civic action and education at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank, said: “This latest episode reveals a growing trend, whereby ‘non-climate influencers’ are becoming central nodes of mis- and disinformation for a mainstream public and exposing them to views which either deny the reality and impacts of climate change, or explicitly undermine trust in the science and institutions working to marshal a response.

“There are absolutely things to be debated and agreed around climate action, governance, timelines and finance, but the fundamental bases that Peterson calls into question are entirely ill-informed and do not move the conversation forward,” she added.

===

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/hugs-from-brazil-brazils-far-right-president-jair-bolsonaro-offers-support-to-joe-rogan/

rww

brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wants to let Joe Rogan—the podcast host and former mixed martial artist currently embroiled in a scandal for spreading COVID-19 misinformation on Spotify—know that he has his back.

“I’m not sure what @joerogan thinks about me or about my government, but it doesn’t matter. If freedom of speech means anything, it means that people should be free to say what they think, no matter if they agree or disagree with us. Stand your ground! Hugs from Brazil,” the far-right president tweeted Tuesday night. [twt

why in the world is the president of Brazil taking time to weigh in on Rogan and his critics?

Andre Pagliarini, an assistant professor of history at Hampden Sydney College who often writes on U.S.-Brazil relations, says the show of support was yet another example of the “Bolsonaro clan dragging U.S.-style culture wars into the very different world of Brazilian politics and media landscape.” Whether Bolsonaro’s social media slam on the moderation of misinformation in the name of fighting “Big Tech censorship” works in his favor will become more apparent when Brazil holds national elections in October.

Bolsonaro has himself spread misinformation about COVID-19. The so-called “Trump of the Tropics” has also suggested that the only way he could lose the upcoming presidential election is if the vote is rigged, and he has aligned himself closely with the police and military—all while signaling a need for a “quite probable and necessary countercoup” should he lose. Trump has endorsed Bolsonaro’s reelection bid.

Bolsonaro became an ally to the Trump administration as soon as he assumed office in 2019. His son, Brazilian congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, frequently traveled to the U.S. to engage with members of Donald Trump’s inner circle. The younger Bolsonaro even traveled to Washington, D.C., ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection to meet with figures like Mike Lindell and Jared Kushner, as detailed in a recent report by the nonprofit research organization Advance Democracy, Inc.

There are other parallels between the politics of Trump and Bolsonaro. Like Trump, Bolsonaro had the support of MAGA strategist Steve Bannon and U.S. Christian right leaders during his 2018 campaign and his presidency.

And like their conservative counterparts in the U.S., right-wing politicians in Brazil have made “tech censorship” a campaign issue.

During Brazil’s 2018 presidential campaign, disinformation flooded WhatsApp—used by about 120 million Brazilians at the time—with the vast majority of false information favoring Bolsonaro. (If it sounds a bit like Facebook’s role in the 2016 U.S. election, may we remind you that WhatsApp’s parent company is, you guessed it, Facebook.) In October, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, which had conducted an inquiry into accusations that the 2018 Bolsonaro campaign coordinated disinformation on WhatsApp, acquitted Bolsonaro for lack of evidence.

But a member of the country’s Federal Supreme Court reiterated its message that “if there is a repetition of what was done in 2018, [politicians’] registrations will be revoked, and those who do so will go to jail for attacking Brazil’s elections and democracy.” Meanwhile, the country’s Supreme Electoral Court is considering banning Telegram, another source of disinformation, ahead of the October 2022 election.

Such measures to prevent the spread of misinformation in Brazil does not bode well for Bolsonaro. That may explain why in September, the far-right president moved to temporarily ban social media companies from taking down certain posts, including claims that the only way Bolsonaro will lose in October is by voter fraud. Here’s where the Rogan controversy comes into play.

“Making an issue of the Rogan thing can be seen as a preemptive move to invoke tech censorship throughout Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign,” Pagliarini told Right Wing Watch.

For years, Rogan—who is also a UFC commentator—has invited MMA fighters, fringe health experts, far-right figures, and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones onto his Spotify-exclusive podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, his podcast has spread misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, prompting 270 health experts to call on Spotify in January to moderate misinformation. The calls for moderation have grown. Last week, musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell asked Spotify to pull their music from the platform as long as Rogan’s podcast remained.

by inserting himself into the conversation, Bolsonaro can also highlight his popularity among MMA celebrities—another thing he happens to have in common with Trump—and encourage them to further spread his message of tech censorship.

MMA is the second or third most popular sport in the Brazil, and Jair Bolsonaro has basked in the endorsements of MMA fighters like Darren Till who, as my former colleague Karim Zidan reported for Bloody Elbow, used his speech after a UFC fight in 2017 to tell viewers, “Lula in jail and Bolsonaro 2018!” (Lula is a reference to former leftist Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.) Zidan highlighted the dozens of fighters who have offered their support to Bolsonaro—many of whom are friendly with Rogan—including Brazilians Wanderlei Silva, Anderson Silva, Royce Gracie, and Renzo Gracie, who have between hundreds of thousands of followers to millions of followers each on social media.

Even with disinformation, the religious right, and MMA celebrities on Bolsonaro’s side, the Brazilian president appears to face an uphill battle to reelection. Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic, which has led to 629,000 deaths and counting, and its effects on the economy don’t bode well in the race against the popular former leftist Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Polls show if the election were held today, Lula could win by as many as 11 percentage points.

Tags: Eduardo Bolsonaro Jair Bolsonaro Joe Rogan Brazil Coronavirus COVID-19 Disinformation Misinformation Voter Fraud

===

just weeks after broadcasting Jordan Peterson's bizarre climate views to his 11 million listeners, Joe Rogan hosted another climate change skeptic, Randall Carlson. Rogan has been at the center of climate-related controversies in recent years, and recently activists called on Spotify – which exclusively broadcasts Rogan’s podcast – to take action against his COVID-19 misinformation. Carlson’s main beat is lost civilizations, hidden mathematics, and a unique brand of climate conspiracy and skepticism.

Sierra Club, a national environmental organization, highlighted its concerns about Carlson’s frequent appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience in an article published last September. According to climate journalist and founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network Amy Westervelt:

The Joe Rogan Experience, with its millions of listeners, has hosted Randall Carlson more than once to talk for hours on end about how Earth's natural cycles (and sunspots, volcanoes, etc., etc.) are really to blame for climate change while "the so-called consensus view" on climate is driven by politics. Rather than press him for evidence, Rogan gifted Carlson with the quip "that's the real inconvenient truth."

Carlson has appeared at least six times on the podcast since 2014. In those appearances, he has asserted that carbon dioxide is not driving global warming and that “natural factors” are driving climate change more than human factors. During his latest appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Carlson expressed skepticism about sea level rise and stated, “The sun was actually a much more important factor in climate change than had been acknowledged."

[2/5 vid]

despite the tepid assurances of Rogan’s guest, in the last year alone, we’ve seen blistering heat waves that killed hundreds of people in the U.S. and Canada, destructive wildfires, droughts that triggered the first ever water shortage in the country’s largest reservoir, and Hurricane Ida, which pummeled the South and unleashed “catastrophic” rains across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic region.

Globally, the flooding that devastated Europe last summer was the most expensive disaster in the continent’s history. Summer flooding in China resulted in the third most expensive disaster in Asian history. 2021 was one of the seven hottest years on record, and “since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one,” according to the World Meteorological Organization.

To make matters more urgent, the window for meaningful climate action is rapidly closing. The warming detailed in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report – and experienced by tens of millions of people in America alone – represents a “code red” for humanity, according to the United Nations. Each degree of additional warming poses increasingly existential risks for humanity in terms of public health, economic well-being, and social cohesion. Staving off climate change’s worst consequences will require rapid decarbonization and an immediate transition to renewable energy. Considering that the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action, the time to act is now.

Yet Rogan is providing a massive platform to climate deniers and skeptics during a time when meaningful climate action remains tenuous at best. Hosting these voices also aids the fossil fuel industry’s billion-dollar campaign to erode the public consensus on climate change and thwart basic climate action.

The majority of Americans, and likely many in Rogan's audience, want the government to take action on climate change. His insistence on hosting climate skeptics serves no one, except perhaps fossil fuel executives.

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/jordan-peterson-put-master-class-climate-denial-joe-rogans-podcast

jordan p more ppl die solar; left wing set forest fires; spotify ceo slippery slope

===

dont apologize many n words

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/joe-rogan-2656597762/

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/spotifys-joe-rogan-and-guest-jordan-peterson-suggest-trans-people-are-sign

of civ collapse

===

good pt hard to filter deplat if no text 20 intimacy --> trust

an 1 22

Rogan's controversial interview with anti-vaccination virologist Dr. Robert Malone caused such an uproar that more than scientists, doctors, and other health professionals signed an open letter to Spotify as a petition for his podcast to be removed from the platform.

While Rogan's spread of misinformation is quite alarming, a new analysis published by NPR's Shannon Bond explains how the controversy surrounding his situation underscores a bigger problem; one that appears to be a bit more difficult to regulate. In the open letter, health professionals and members of the scientific community argue that online platforms like Spotify have enabled right-wing figures who have become adept at spreading misinformation.

"We are in a global health emergency, and streaming platforms like Spotify that provide content to the public have a responsibility not to add to the problem," said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Public Health.

"Their friends and family were sending it to them as evidence that the vaccines are dangerous and that they shouldn't get it," she said. "It provides a sense of false balance, like there's two sides to the scientific evidence when, really, there is not. The overwhelming evidence is that the vaccines are safe and that they're effective."

Researchers specializing in the study of misinformation have suggested that it was inevitable for podcasts to become a point of contention. Like social media platforms, Bond notes that podcasts give individuals the ability to reach build large audiences. But despite the long reach, podcasts have not faced the type of scrutiny social media platforms have. So, why is that? Podcasts give influencers the ability to spread misinformation by way of audio.

Evelyn Douek, a research fellow for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, explained why podcasts are far more difficult to regulate as it becomes a matter of words compared to audio.

"Wherever you have users generating content, you're going to have all of the same content moderation issues and controversies that you have in any other space," said Douek.

According to Bond, Douek also noted that "it's also harder to ferret out falsehoods and hate speech in podcasts compared with posts written on Facebook and Twitter."

Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at the Brookings Institution, also weighed in with a similar perspective noting the distinction of audio and the potential problem it poses in the podcast world. "Audio can be a powerful way to spread misinformation because of all the qualities that make the format so compelling to listeners," said Wirtschafter.

Wirtschafter also stressed the importance of scrutinizing audio in the same manner written social media posts are.

===

1 22 mma O

n the December 31 edition of his Spotify podcast, Joe Rogan invited scientist and COVID-19 misinformer Robert Malone to promote the upcoming Defeat The Mandates D.C. rally, which aims “to end the vaccine mandates” and other public health measures implemented during the pandemic.

Malone has repeatedly spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, including falsely claiming that “it's the unvaccinated that are at risk from the vaccinated.” Rogan has repeatedly spread lies about the coronavirus and vaccines on his Spotify podcast.

The Defeat The Mandates D.C. rally’s sponsors include Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and The Unity Project, whose leadership board includes a veritable array of COVID-19 misinformers, including Peter McCullough, Paul Alexander, Tess Lawrie, and Pierre Kory.

Notably, Rogan invited Malone back to promote the anti-vaccine rally after the two had already concluded the podcast episode, with Rogan stating, “So, folks, we actually went outside and talked, and Robert realized that he had forgot to tell everybody about this rally.” Malone then shared details of the rally and stated, “Our objective is to end the vaccine mandates. And also, no vaccine passports. No vaccination for healthy children.”

Interestingly, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) entered the podcast episode’s transcript into the Congressional Record but did not include the final section of the transcript when Rogan and Malone promoted the anti-vaccine rally. [vid]

ROGAN (HOST): Thanks for everything. Bye everybody.

…

So, folks, we actually went outside and talked, and Robert realized that he had forgot to tell everybody about this rally – and then I picked up Snoop, who’s with me now. So there is a rally, January 23, where is it? You want to give us the details?

ROBERT MALONE: Washington, D.C., between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. So this is the “Defeat the Mandates: An American Homecoming Rally.” And thanks a lot for letting me put the plug in. The website is www.defeatthemandatesdc.com. So this is not about being anti-vaccines. It's about being anti-mandates, and our hope is that we bring people together. I know that’s one of your core messages. People from every walk of life, every party, every religion, every ethnic background, Democrat, Republican, vaccinated, unvaccinated. A thing that we can agree on is personal liberty and the right of people to make their own choice. And that’s what this rally is about is to resist these mandates of the vaccine, whether you believe in it or don’t believe in it, I hope that you believe in the integrity and freedom of your fellow man and woman to make their own bodily choices.

So this is going to be part of a same-day, worldwide rally for freedom that’s going to come across the entire world.This is in Australia, in Europe, in U.K., and in the United States for the first time. So we ask that you join us. We’re asking – our objective is to end the vaccine mandates. And also, no vaccine passports. No vaccination for healthy children. No to censorship. No to limits on reasonable debate and this censorship and propaganda that we’re constantly bombarded with. We believe in the power of natural immunity. We believe and insist on informed consent. And we insist on allowing doctors and patients making decisions without interference together. So, Joe, thank you for allowing me to correct my grievous error here.

ROGAN: No worries, we realized it.

Rogan’s podcast is broadcast exclusively on Spotify and was the most popular podcast on the platform in 2021 and 2020. As The Washington Post has noted, “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan reaches nearly four times as many people as prime-time cable hosts such as Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.”

Despite Rogan repeatedly espousing misinformation and bigotry to his large audience, Spotify has refused to take any action to quell Rogan’s sexist, racist, and harmful commentary.

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/joe-rogan-wrapped-year-covid-19-misinformation-right-wing-myths-and-anti-trans

say what you want we on spotify"

throughout his first full year streaming exclusively on Spotify, host Joe Rogan has repeatedly used his podcast to broadcast conspiracy theories, COVID-19 misinformation, and anti-trans rhetoric to millions of listeners across the globe. One year into his contract, it’s clear that Spotify’s $100 million paycheck to Rogan is funding increasingly dangerous and bigoted content.

Media Matters monitored over 350 hours of The Joe Rogan Experience over the past year and found that the show is grounded in misinformation and bigotry. To coincide with Spotify’s 2021 Wrapped -- an annual summary of the trends on the streaming platform -- we compiled some of the worst examples of Rogan’s sexist, racist, and harmful commentary over the past year -- all paid for by Spotify.

Rogan is a veritable megaphone of right-wing lies, and when he is called out for peddling dangerous rhetoric, he shields himself from any accountability by claiming he should not be considered a “respected source of information.” He has also repeatedly praised Spotify for being a safe space for him as the platform has refused to do anything to quell the misinformation and hate on his show; Rogan once told a guest that anti-trans attacks are acceptable on his show, saying, “You can say whatever you want. We’re on Spotify.”

The Joe Rogan Experience is broadcast exclusively on Spotify and was the most popular podcast on the platform in 2021 and 2020. As The Washington Post noted in May, “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, Rogan reaches nearly four times as many people as prime-time cable hosts such as Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.”

COVID-19 misinformation

On April 23, Rogan encouraged “healthy” young people not to get a COVID-19 vaccine, saying, “If you're like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I'll go no.” According to The Verge, Spotify reviewed these comments but did not find them in violation of any policies, thus leaving the episode live. Public health experts and White House officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci condemned Rogan's comments.

On April 28, Rogan falsely claimed that any lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 “makes things worse,” saying, “It’s worse. It makes things worse, you know why -- because people go inside. They are trapped inside and that's where it spreads.”

On May 14, he falsely claimed that far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was “right” about “actual microchips being injected into your arm to see if you have COVID-19.”

On June 22, Rogan dedicated an entire episode of his podcast to promoting ivermectin as a prophylactic and therapeutic for COVID-19, even though it’s an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment for the disease. During the podcast, guest Bret Weinstein claimed that a study showed “ivermectin alone, if properly utilized, is capable of driving this pathogen to extinction,” and Rogan made unsubstantiated claims about its use for prevention of COVID-19, saying, “All it means is to take the drug to anticipate that you may get it, so if you’re in a high-risk area you take it and it’ll protect you from infection.”

On July 20, Rogan promoted the right-wing lie that the government was planning to monitor private citizens’ text messages for anti-vaccine misinformation, saying, “Have you seen the new thing about SMS text messages to stop COVID vaccine misinformation? ... Saagar [Enjeti] from Breaking Points sent me this. We were talking about this recently. They are monitoring SMS texts for dangerous misinformation about COVID vaccines.”

On August 6, Rogan fearmongered that vaccine passports would move the U.S. “one step closer to dictatorship” and lied that getting the coronavirus vaccine is not effective in preventing the disease, saying, “All you hear is take this vaccine that doesn't even prevent you from getting the disease, or you can’t go to the sauna or wherever the fuck you want to go. … If it was a vaccine -- it’s more of a treatment than it is a vaccine, really, if you look at it.”

On August 12, Rogan promoted the baseless right-wing narrative fearmongering that immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were causing a surge in COVID-19 cases, saying, “They are letting in -- so Greg Abbott, the governor, the great governor of the state of Texas, was correct -- they are letting in thousands and thousands of people who are positive with COVID.”

On August 20, he falsely asserted that mRNA coronavirus vaccines are “really gene therapy” and lied that it is “not logical, it’s not rational, and it's not supported by science” to advise people with natural immunity to get a coronavirus vaccine. Notably, Rogan has made the same false claim that mRNA vaccines are a form of “gene therapy” on August 18, September 21, November 8, and November 10.

On September 23, Rogan fearmongered that vaccine passports will lead to a “social credit system similar to what they have in China.”

On September 30, Rogan baselessly suggested that President Joe Biden did not actually receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot, falsely claiming that it would be unsafe and potentially deadly to do so on live TV.

On November 10, he repeatedly spread the baseless claim that the Biden administration is trying to stop people from receiving monoclonal antibodies, a COVID-19 treatment, “because it discourages people from getting vaccinated.” Rogan repeated this claim on the November 26 edition of his show, asserting that the treatment is being withheld because “they don't want there to be a very clear path where you don't have to be vaccinated but if you get sick you’re going to be fine.”

On November 22, Rogan falsely asserted that children do not need to get a COVID-19 vaccine, saying, “They’re trying to say that children need it when they don't. They don't need it.”

Later in that episode, Rogan baselessly claimed that use of ivermectin “essentially cured COVID” in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Anti-trans rhetoric

On June 25, Rogan lied that “there’s not a lot of overwhelming, overt discrimination against people who are trans, like, publicly other than the sports thing” and prisons.

On July 3, Rogan mocked and misgendered a young person who came out as trans to his friends. He also said that “it’s fashionable” to be nonbinary, later claiming, “It’s going to get worse.” He also asserted, “I think people are going to be transracial. I think in the next few years transracialism is going to be, like, fully embraced. And then we're going to have Black folks on our side, because they're going to go hey, ... this is crazy. All this stuff about trans women competing in the Olympics, that wasn't as bothersome.”

On August 12, Rogan agreed with his guest Andrew Schulz’s comments when Schulz used an anti-trans slur and compared trans people to QAnon conspiracy theorists, asserting, “QAnon is just like conservative t-----s. That’s really all they are.” Rogan also claimed that being nonbinary is “very, very self-indulgent,” and said that trans people are “not experiencing real adversity or, you know, real discrimination, so you create discrimination against yourself.”

On August 20, Rogan asserted that “men transitioning to women use male tactics and male behavior as they invade feminist spaces,” “tend to be more assertive,” and “dominate whenever possible if left unchecked.” He also said that trans women “use male tactics and male behavior as they invade feminist spaces” and “dominate them like men do.”

Later in that episode, Rogan derided an unnamed trans woman, saying she had a “terrorist beard” and that “there’s no way you’re a woman.” Rogan continued, “There are definitely people with legitimate gender dysphoria that want to be a woman, and they’re biologically male. And then there’s grifters. There’s crazy people. There’s people who have locked on to this movement.”

On November 3, Rogan used an anti-trans slur, lamenting, “You can’t say t----y,” before his guest repeatedly used the slur. He also mocked the idea of a comedian using they/them pronouns, saying, “Imagine if there is a comic who gave into that.”

Right-wing misinformation and bigotry

On January 30, Rogan commented on actor Angelina Jolie’s genitals, saying, “Crazy pussy is the best pussy. … She’s clearly crazy.” He also demeaned Jolie for developing Bell’s palsy, saying, “That’s the problem with crazy is crazy comes with all sorts of neurotic shit.”

On May 13, Rogan lamented the so-called effects of “woke culture,” saying, “It keeps going further and further down the line and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk, because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history."

On July 3, Rogan imitated people who speak Mandarin and questioned, “Is that racist to do that, to imitate a sound?” He also imitated an Asian accent on the November 3 edition of his show.

On July 29, Rogan claimed that journalist Lauren Sanchez is an “alpha predator female” and agreed with his guest’s claim that her “puss puss is probably incredible because girls like that, you got to respect they know that that’s their job.”

On August 8, Rogan used an anti-Chinese slur, complaining, “You can’t say Chinaman."

On October 6, Rogan called people who had criticized his guest on TikTok “retarded.” After his guest replied “you can’t say that,” Rogan said, “But I’m on Spotify. You can get away with it.” He also said the word on November 26 edition of his show and claimed that the word means “you’ve been held back in learning because you’ve applied the wrong kind of thinking to things. It does not mean someone with Down syndrome, and this idea that those two are ... the same thing and it’s a slur or it’s a terrible thing to say, that's not true. It's not right.”

On November 3, Rogan pushed the right-wing lie that Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Health funded “experiments on these beagle puppies and they put their heads in cages and filled the cages with sand flies where the sand flies were literally eating the beagles alive.”

On November 26, Rogan claimed that the Democratic establishment will “kill people on purpose that are causing problems” and said, “You have this organization that's based on this sort of cronyism and [House Majority Leader] Nancy Pelosi is the head witch.”

In that same episode, Rogan spread the right-wing lie that Biden called Kyle Rittenhouse -- the teenager who killed two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year and was later acquitted -- a “white supremacist.”

Spotify's Joe Rogan claims the Democratic establishment will “kill people on purpose that are causing problems”

11/30/21 3:13 PM EST

Joe Rogan pushes debunked conspiracy theory about wildfires and “left-wing people”

09/17/20 5:56 PM EDT

Spotify’s Joe Rogan encourages “healthy” 21-year-olds not to get a coronavirus vaccine

04/27/21 12:11 PM EDT

===

200 million downloads?!

constant dribble of anti trans? thus macho?

===

no lnx twt

Joe Rogan calls out right-wing media for cherry-picking clips of interview with CNN's Sanjay Gupta

Joe Rogan, screengrab

Salon October 17, 2021

Joe Rogan doesn't appreciate it when media outlets cherry-pick his lengthy interviews for confrontational moments.

This week, it was right-wing media the popular podcast host appeared to be calling out, after a number of prominent conservative outlets shared snippets from Rogan's more than three-hour discussion with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

In particular, several publications seized on a contentious back-and-forth over Rogan's personal use of the anti-parasite drug ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment — an unproven use which the FDA has discouraged.

At one point, Rogan even accused CNN of "lying" about his use of the drug, after at least one anchor said he was taking "horse de-wormer." Rogan maintains that he was prescribed ivermectin — the human version — by a doctor.

"I can afford human drugs, motherf***er," he added at one point.

The clip spread like wildfire across social media — thanks to headlines from Fox News, Breitbart and a number of other conservative outlets — though Rogan clearly doesn't see the incident as representative of his entire conversation with Gupta.

"If you've only seen clips online you would think that @drsanjaygupta and I had a tense and uncomfortable encounter when we sat down for 3 hours," he wrote on his Instagram account. "The reality is that disagreement was a very small part of what was overall a very enjoyable conversation."

"Sanjay is a really nice person and I like him a lot. After our time together I consider him a friend," Rogan continued. "People on network TV don't have anything remotely similar to the kind of freedom I enjoy doing the podcast. For him to dive into my world and have an open form conversation with no restrictions took real courage, and I appreciate it very much."

According to Gupta, the major headline to come out of the interview was that Rogan claimed he almost got vaccinated, but didn't due to "logistical hurdles."

Going into the interview, Gupta had hoped he would be able to change Rogan's mind about COVID-19 vaccination. Despite his efforts ultimately proving unsuccessful, he wrote at CNN: "Truth is though, I am still glad I did it."

===

i forgot that he came out of MMA. cf BTB

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/ivermectin-conspiracy-theories/

Proponents of ivermectin as a treatment for covid are now in damage-control mode after a series of stories about people overdosing on horse paste and sheep drench from feed stores.

Such luminaries as Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Brett Weinstein and United States Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) stoked demand for the dewormer, only to have the craze blow up in the faces when the ginned-up demand outstripped the pharmaceutical supply and people started self-medicating with horse paste.

The zeal of the ivermectin prophets was self-defeating. The whole point of being an Ivermectin Guy is that you can indulge in antivaxx conspiracy theories while sounding smarter than the Microchip Guys. That's why they get so mad when you call it "horse paste."

Internet tough guy Joe Rogan will have you know that the ivermectin he (supposedly) took for his (supposed) covid was (supposedly) from a doctor. "Bro, do I have to sue CNN?" Rogan grumbled. "They're making shit up. They keep saying I'm taking horse dewormer." It's an image thing: Rooting for Team Horse Paste pushes you over the line from "bold independent thinker" to "utter crackpot."

The Basic Ivermectin Conspiracy Theory goes like this: There's a cheap cure for covid but Big Pharma doesn't want you to have it, because it's a generic drug. A more elaborate version, shared by the host of the aptly-named Dark Horse podcast on Tucker Carlson's show, posits that the government is refusing to acknowledge ivermectin as a safe and effective treatment for covid because to do so would somehow undercut the Emergency Use Authorizations for covid vaccines.

This makes no sense, given the government is funding an ivermectin trial. But it's not about the logic. It's about feeding the anti-vaxx fantasy that vaccine mandates will evaporate if we go all in on ivermectin. Human prescriptions for ivermectin soared from fewer than 4,000 a week pre-pandemic to nearly 90,000 a week in August.

Surging demand has caused shortages in pharmacies and feed stores alike. Docs and vets worry the fad will keep the drug out of the hands and off the hides of the creatures who really need it.

The hype beasts of the Intellectual Dark Web dangle a miracle cure in front of their credulous audience and pretend to be shocked when they hit up the feed store. Ivermectin boosters know that ethical doctors won't prescribe ivermectin for covid because there's no evidence it's a safe or effective against the virus. Indeed, the American Medical Association strongly advises against prescribing ivermectin for covid outside of a clinical trial.[so does mfgr]

Ivermectin kills the covid virus in a Petri dish, but only at concentrations that will never be matched in the human body — even if you take enough to choke a horse. The most famous clinical trial purporting to show benefit in humans was withdrawn after it was determined the authors plagiarized the text from pro-ivermectin press releases and fabricated their data. The data are so implausible some experts question whether the trial ever happened. Pro-ivermectin trials have a funny habit of appearing as pre-prints making fantastical claims before being retracted amid allegations of fraud or conflict of interest.

Ivermectin has a good safety record when it's prescribed by a doctor or a vet to treat parasites, but ivermectin-related calls to the nation's poison control centers have quintupled, because people are guesstimating doses of livestock meds. It's a fool's game. No safe or effective dosage has been established for covid because there's no good evidence it works. Ivermectin partisans are always reminding us that some guys won a Nobel Prize for using ivermectin to treat something else. They're showing their ignorance of medicine. The drug, the dose, and the diagnosis actually matter.

However, the real harm of the ivermectin craze is not the relatively rare—though completely pointless—horse paste ODs. It's the much larger group of people who are using ivermectin as an excuse not to get vaccinated, whether they're currently taking the drug or not. If you're on the fence about vaccination, the myth that ivermectin cures covid makes it easier to skip your shot.

Some pundits have chided irreverent commentators for poking fun at people who eschew a free, safe and effective vaccine and pay for animal drugs that won't cure covid. Americans aren't eating horse paste because it's a noble rural tradition to self-medicate from the tractor supply. Grifters played on people's hopes for a quick covid fix and their fear of vaccines, and now their fans are paying the price.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/joe-rogan/

ivermectin horse dewormer

===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ron-johnson-vaccines/

no lnx

"Go get vaccinated, America," the president urged the nation last Wednesday in his State of the Union address. Joe Biden had a lot of good news to report to the US Congress on the COVID vaccination effort: 220 million shots have been administered in his first 100 days in office, everyone over 16 is eligible and 90 percent of Americans now live within five miles of a vaccination site. Vaccine manufacturing is booming. Supply will soon no longer be a limiting factor. Yet even as eligibility has expanded, demand has plateaued across the country and vaccination rates have dipped from their peak.

Time is of the essence. More transmissible variants of the virus mean a higher percentage of the population must be immunized to reach herd immunity. We're in a race between the finest that human civilization has to offer and venal dumbassery.

In one corner is science, bolstered by billions in public investment. Eighteen months ago, there were no vaccines for human coronaviruses. Today, there are multiple safe, highly-effective COVID shots. Better yet, thanks to wise public policy and all-hands-on-deck roll-out, they're available for free to any American adult. The president even announced tax credits to reimburse small- and mid-sized businesses that give their employees paid time off to get vaccinated and to recover from vaccine side effects.

In the opposite corner are demagogues, clout-chasers and magical thinkers. These operators think they can gain political power, attention and, in some cases, money by undermining vaccinations against a disease that has killed more than 588,000 people.

Power-hungry Republicans like United States Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin are positioning themselves as heirs to Donald Trump by opposing vaccinations. Johnson recently told a conservative radio host that distribution should have been limited to the truly vulnerable and he questioned the need for broad-based vaccination.

Johnson also attacked the civic-minded values behind the push for herd immunity. "What is it to you? You have got a vaccine and science is telling you it's very, very effective," Johnson asked, "So, why is this big push to make sure everybody gets a vaccine?" The answer is obviously herd immunity, which offers protection for those who can't get vaccinated or whose immune systems can't respond to the vaccine.

It's a shrewd bet. Forty-two percent of Republicans say they probably or definitely wouldn't get a shot, even if it's shown to be safe. The "even if shown to be safe" proviso speaks volumes. Some Republicans claim to be against vaccination as a matter of personal liberty, but nobody's forcing them to get vaccinated. It's all rationalization.

Vaccine refusal is a tribal touchstone, even as vaccine hesitancy ebbs generally. Indeed, last summer's heavily armed anti-lockdown sieges of state legislatures were the dress rehearsals for the January 6 insurgency. Rejecting vaccines is about values, not facts. These right-wingers reject vaccines because vaccines represent science, the welfare state and the common good, which are antithetical to everything they hold dear.

Johnson isn't the only Republican riding anti-vaccine paranoia. Perhaps the perfect example of how vaccine denialism furthers extreme right-wing political ambition is Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano, who freely mixes anti-government and anti-vaccine sentiment. Mastriano beat the rush and came out against the COVID vaccine before it existed. He was also a central player in the bid to steal the election for Trump. (He actually had to be pulled out of a meeting with then-president Trump because he was found to be suffering from COVID.) But he recovered enough to organize bus transportation for the January 6 insurrection. Mastriano's antics have transformed him from an obscure legislator to a gubernatorial hopeful.

State legislators in 40 states have introduced bills that would undermine vaccine mandates. These bills are to legislating what vaccine denialism is to science. Few will become law, but they are potent messaging designed to further politicize vaccination.

Some entertainers are also milking COVID denialism for ratings and notoriety. Podcaster Joe Rogan, a UFC commentator better known for his takes on elk meat and DMT, and his willingness to host conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, opined that, "If you're, like, 21 years old, and you say to me, 'Should I get vaccinated?' I'll go no."

Rogan has 11 million listeners, many of them young. Predictably, Fox host Tucker Carlson defended Rogan's attempt to poison public understanding of vaccinations. Even Sean Hannity, who claims he's not anti-vaxx, flirted with vaccine denialism Tuesday, falsely suggesting there might not be any science behind the vaccine.

In a desperate bid to become Twitter's main character, a D-list Republican pundit gave the game away: "My primary reason for refusing the vaccine is much simpler: I dislike the people who want me to take it, and it makes them mad when they hear about my refusal. That, in turn, makes me happy." He's a troll, but he speaks the truth.

We're not just dealing with garden-variety vaccine hesitancy anymore. We're up against a cynical campaign to turn vaccination into a referendum on science, the welfare state and social solidarity. If that's how they want to play it, fine.

Vaccines are the greatest triumph of medicine. Public health is a crowning achievement of the welfare state. What we have done together to battle COVID is a testament to our love for ourselves, our neighbors and our country. Those are our values. The Republicans have called the question. Which side are you on?

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