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Tag: Robert Kennedy Jr.

  • RFK Jr. breaks his promises about the CDC on vaccines and autism

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    Before voting to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R–La.) stated on the floor of the Senate that RFK Jr. had promised him that “he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems. If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes. CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”

    Every one of the main promises made to Cassidy has been broken. Eschewing the usual system of consultations with outside independent vaccine experts, RFK Jr. announced on X in May that “as of today the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.” This announcement makes it harder for expectant mothers to access the vaccines because some insurance companies are less likely to pay for them.

    In their lawsuit in response to RFK Jr.’s announcement, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, and the American Public Health Association argued that the secretary’s goal is “to undermine trust in vaccines and reduce the rate of vaccinations in this country.”

    What about his promise to maintain the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes? Nope. RFK Jr. fired all of the vaccine experts and loaded up the committee with anti-vaccination appointees.

    Finally, there is RFK Jr.’s promise that the CDC will not remove statements on its website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism. As of Wednesday, the CDC website states:

    • The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
    • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.
    • HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.

    After making these statements at the top of the webpage, the CDC website maintains a headline with an asterisk.

    A screenshot from the CDC website that says "Vaccines do not cause autism"
    cdc.gov

    Why the asterisk? A note at the bottom of the page explains:

    The header “Vaccines do not cause autism” has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.

    These changes are not merely dishonest; they are dangerous. All three of the new claims at the top of the CDC website are specious.

    First, evidence accumulated over numerous studies, including studies with millions of children, has found no link between vaccinations and autism.

    Second, in support of this claim that studies suggesting a link are ignored, the CDC gestures at reviews by the HHS’s own Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Scrounging through them for something that might suggest harm, RFK Jr.’s team found a minor note in a 2021 AHRQ report that observed the current evidence for childhood Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination is “insufficient to support or reject a causal relationship between those vaccines and autism.”

    The report found that with respect to vaccines recommended for children and adolescents, “we found either no new evidence of increased risk for key adverse events with varied [strength of evidence] or insufficient evidence.” The critical question is: “insufficient evidence” for what? The report explains: “There remains insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about some rare potential adverse events [emphasis added].” Certainly, RFK Jr.’s alleged “autism epidemic” caused by vaccines would not count among “rare potential adverse events.”

    It is worth noting that the cited 2021 AHRQ report is peppered throughout with findings that vaccines do not cause autism. The new CDC site also fails to mention that the report observed that prenatal Tdap vaccination is not associated with a higher risk of autism in children.

    Meanwhile, as a result of falling Tdap vaccination rates, the number of American children infected with whooping cough (pertussis) is surging.

    What about the third claim that HHS has launched a “comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism”? In April, RFK Jr. appointed anti-vaccination stalwart David Geier to head up that assessment. As I noted at the time, “Geier will doubtlessly and transparently get the answers that our new secretary of Health and Human Services thinks he already knows.” In September, RFK Jr. announced the dubious finding that taking the painkiller Tylenol during pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of autism in children.

    “We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted,” declares the Autism Science Foundation in a statement, “and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism.”

    That’s correct. This isn’t what the Senate—or the American people—were promised.

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    Ronald Bailey

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  • Vaccine skeptics said that COVID shots would cause mass death. We’re still here.

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    Millions, perhaps even billions of us who got ourselves vaccinated against COVID-19 should be dead by now, or if not yet, very soon. For years, prominent wellness influencers and other internet personalities have predicted that mRNA vaccines will lead to mass casualties. Infectious disease clinician Neil Stone has helpfully (and amusingly) compiled a number of such dire predictions.

    First up, enjoy health hustler David Wolfe’s graphic from 2021.

    Wolfe

    Stone jauntily observes: “5 billion of us got Covid vaccines. Apparently we all have 2 months left to live. Better make the most of it!”

    In 2021, Dolores Cahill, an immunologist at the School of Medicine of University College Dublin, notoriously asserted in an independent documentary that “everybody who has an mRNA injection will die within 3 to 5 years, even if they have had only one injection.” In August, Stone puckishly asked, “Anyone out there who got a Covid vaccine and is still alive?”

    In August 2024, vaccine naysayer Steve Kirsch snarkily posted that “25% of people who got the COVID shot regret it. The others are dead.” Stone snarked back, “Anyone out there who has had the Covid vaccine, is not dead, and does not regret it? I’ll start. Me.” Me, too.

    On August 23, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones expanded the amount of time that we vaccinated folks have left before we shuffle off this mortal coil when he posted that “27 peer reviewed Doctors stated that 100% of those who are vaccinated will die by 2028 due to the mRNA tech in the vaccine.” Stone drily observed, “Apparently 3 years left for me and 6 billion others. How shall we spend them?”

    And let’s not forget perhaps the most absurd claim, this time from our current Health and Human Services secretary, who in 2021 called the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

    Claims like these have been proven wrong time and again. Given the counterfactual nature of such estimates, it is hard to pin down just how many lives the COVID-19 vaccines globally saved. Estimates range from a high of about 20 million in the first year after vaccines became available to a low of around 2.5 million deaths averted by 2024.

    If mass vaccine deaths are imminent, it is not evident in the global life expectancy trends. Since the rollout of billions of mRNA shots beginning in 2021, global life expectancy has risen from 70.9 years to 73.2 years in 2024. (Life expectancy fell during the pandemic from 72.6 years in 2019 to 70.9 years in 2021.)

    Despite these dire warnings, President Donald Trump, who presided over Operation Warp Speed, the fastest vaccine rollout in history, got his COVID-19 booster shot earlier this month.

    Disclosure: I have had nine mRNA COVID-19 shots so far. 

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    Ronald Bailey

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  • Alcohol escapes a government crackdown—for now

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    Just over a year ago, I wrote about the bureaucratic machinations in the U.S. attempting to import an anti-alcohol agenda into the government’s 2025 Dietary Guidelines. Now, it appears that alcohol has officially escaped the government’s wrath—at least for another half-decade.

    The U.S. dietary guidelines are revised every five years, with the latest revision expected this year. The lead-up to the revision unfolds over several years, and recommendations for safe drinking levels are traditionally included alongside food in the final guidance. For decades, the guidelines have held that men can safely consume up to two alcoholic drinks a day and women one. But myriad sources from inside the federal government were reporting that the new guidelines were planning to include a declaration that “no amount of alcohol is acceptable for a healthy lifestyle.” (This was a standard imported from the World Health Organization, which declared in 2023 that “no amount of alcohol is safe”). 

    This news supercharged a long-simmering debate over whether alcohol is good or bad (or simply medium) for you. Researchers have become increasingly split over this issue, with some sharing evidence that moderate alcohol consumption reduces overall mortality rates, while others point to studies finding a link between alcohol and cancer. Regardless of the science, however, the process through which the government was attempting to arrive at a “no safe level” declaration for alcohol was deeply alarming.

    The dietary guidelines revisions are spearheaded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Biden-era HHS delegated the alcohol issue to the little-known Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD).

    ICCPUD’s marching orders were to issue a report on the health impacts of drinking, but it turned out ICCPUD had stacked its deck. Reports started coming out that at least half of the six-person research panel not only had well-publicized anti-alcohol stances but also didn’t even reside in the United States. The decision over whether alcohol would be deemed safe or not was being put in the hands of a group of biased international academics who were essentially accountable to no one. (Several commentators have also pointed out that ICCPUD, whose putative focus is supposed to be underage drinking, was being put in charge of determining adult drinking recommendations.)

    A potential “no safe level” declaration was particularly worrisome for the alcohol industry, since perceptions about the health impact of alcohol have already been trending negatively among younger demographics, a trend that would likely accelerate if the U.S. government were to state that no amount of alcohol is safe to drink. Attorney Sean O’Leary noted that such a declaration would also be likely to trigger a wave of Tobacco-style class action lawsuits against the drinks industry.

    Congress—surprisingly—reacted to this backdoor attempt to smuggle a neo-prohibitionist agenda into the American dietary guidelines by playing a decently effective watchdog role. It first tasked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to prepare a separate report on the health effects of drinking, which concluded that while moderate drinking raises the risk of certain types of cancer, it reduces all-cause mortality by decreasing the risk of heart disease.

    The remaining elephant in the room, however, was how President Donald Trump’s administration would handle the ICCPUD draft report that it inherited from the Biden administration. All eyes were on the new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., famously a teetotaler, but he was silent about how the 2025 Dietary Guidelines would address alcohol.

    At long last, in early September, the House Appropriations Committee announced it was planning to defund ICCPUD, followed by news that ICCPUD’s draft report would no longer play a role in the 2025 guidelines revisions. It now appears that the alternative NASEM report will inform the new guidelines, although it’s not even certain that the guidelines will mention alcohol at all anymore (RFK Jr. has previously suggested that the 2025 Guidelines would be a mere 4 pages long, down from 160 pages in 2020).

    In the end, this counts as a narrow escape for the alcohol industry and U.S. drinkers. The science of drinking will likely be debated for years to come, but at the very least, the process should be allowed to play out in public view.

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    C. Jarrett Dieterle

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  • Raw milk debates are turning sour in Florida

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    In the fall of 2024, I predicted that America might be on the brink of having its “raw milk moment” given now Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political elevation. Since then, hardly a week has passed without unpasteurized milk making headlines across the country. A recent bacterial outbreak in Florida has now heightened the controversy and further solidified raw milk’s central role in America’s broiling culture wars.

    The Florida Department of Health (DOH) issued a press release in early August detailing a campylobacter and E. coli outbreak in the Sunshine State. Officials alerted that “there have been 21 cases since January 24, 2025, including six children under the age of 10, and seven hospitalizations linked to consumption of raw milk.” The DOH explicitly identified Keely Farms Dairy, a small family farm, as the source of the outbreak.

    Weeks later, a Florida woman, represented by a self-described “national food poisoning law firm,” filed suit against Keely Farms, alleging that its raw milk caused her two-year-old son to contract a bacterial infection and fall ill. The woman further alleges that she fell ill herself and developed sepsis, which eventually led to the loss of her pregnancy.

    The details from the lawsuit are heartbreaking, but the more we learn about the situation surrounding Keely Farms, the more bizarre the story becomes. Despite DOH’s definitive declaration that Keely Farms was the source of the bacterial outbreak, it was later found that the agency had reached this conclusion despite not conducting a single test at the farm, nor alerting the farm that it was under investigation. In a Facebook post, Keely Farms said that the department’s press release “blindsided” them. (The DOH’s press release stated that it would “continue working with Keely Farms Dairy,” insinuating that the relevant parties had been working together throughout.)

    Confusing things further, Keely Farms was recently inspected by the Florida Department of Agriculture. “We passed, as always,” Keely Farms posted.

    Selling raw milk for human consumption is illegal in Florida. As a result, milk that has not been pasteurized—the process of heating the liquid to a specific temperature for five to 30 seconds to kill harmful bacteria—can only be sold for livestock feed. Keely Farms’ raw milk was appropriately labeled as “not for human consumption,” meaning that the 21 Floridians who allegedly drank the farm’s milk (and those who also gave it to their children) chose to do so despite this warning.

    It’s unclear how the current litigation involving Keely Farms will ultimately play out, although it’s likely that more follow-on suits will be filed, using the DOH’s press release as evidentiary fodder. 

    Politico recently noted that raw milk has gone from “the darling of the organic liberals, deserving of sympathetic coverage…to the conservative culture war signal that is a sweetheart of deep-red state legislatures.” This is on display in Florida. Despite the DOH targeting Keely Farms for its raw milk, Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo—an appointee of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the head of the DOH—recently expressed support for human consumption of raw milk in a social media post. 

    On the other hand, Florida’s agriculture commissioner, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, has encouraged Floridians to only drink pasteurized milk, citing the dangers of raw milk. This means that the head of the Florida agency that targeted Keely Farms’ raw milk products is unexpectedly pro-raw milk, while the head of the state agency that inspected and greenlighted Keely Farms’ operations is against raw milk.

    This confusion highlights how raw milk has become a political flashpoint. The state health agency blamed Keely Farms while skipping basic investigative steps, the agriculture department cleared the farm, and their leaders publicly contradicted their own agencies.

    When policy decisions are filtered through the lens of culture wars, the result is not clarity or safety but a muddle of mixed signals. Floridians are left unsure whether raw milk is a health risk, a personal freedom, or just another pawn in America’s endless red vs. blue standoff.

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    C. Jarrett Dieterle

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  • Robert Kennedy Jr. claims responsibility for dead bear found in Central Park in 2014

    Robert Kennedy Jr. claims responsibility for dead bear found in Central Park in 2014

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    Robert Kennedy Jr. claims responsibility for dead bear found in Central Park in 2014 – CBS News


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    There has been a bizarre development in a nearly decade-old mystery in Central Park, where a bear cub was discovered dead. Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has now confessed to putting it there.

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  • Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. are all anti-freedom

    Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. are all anti-freedom

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    Last week, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked me to moderate what he called “The Real Debate.”

    Kennedy was angry with CNN because it wouldn’t let him join its Trump-Biden debate.

    His people persuaded Elon Musk to carry his Real Debate on X, formerly Twitter. They asked me to give RFK Jr. the same questions, with the same time limits.

    I agreed, hoping to hear some good new ideas.

    I didn’t.

    As you know, President Joe Biden slept, and former President Donald Trump lied. Well, OK, Biden lied at least nine times, too, even by CNN’s count.

    Kennedy was better.

    But not much.

    He did acknowledge that our government’s deficit spending binge is horrible. He said he’d cut military spending. He criticized unscientific COVID-19 lockdowns and said nice words about school choice.

    But he, too, dodged questions, blathered on past time limits, and pushed big government nonsense like, “Every million dollars we spend on child care creates 22 jobs.”

    Give me a break.

    Independence Day is this week.

    As presidential candidates promise to subsidize flying cars (Trump), free community college tuition (Biden), and “affordable” housing via 3 percent government-backed bonds (Kennedy), I think about how bewildered and horrified the Founding Fathers would be by such promises.

    On the Fourth of July almost 250 years ago, they signed the Declaration of Independence, marking the birth of our nation.

    They did not want life dominated by politicians. They wanted a society made up of free individuals. They believed every human being has “unalienable rights” to life, liberty, and (justly acquired) property.

    The blueprints created by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution gradually created the freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world.

    Before 1776, people thought there was a “divine right” of kings and nobles to rule over them.

    America succeeded because the Founders rejected that belief.

    In the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason wrote, “All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.”

    By contrast, Kennedy and Biden make promises that resemble the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” U.N. bureaucrats say every person deserves “holidays with pay…clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

    The Founders made it clear that governments should be limited. They didn’t think we had a claim on our neighbor’s money. We shouldn’t try to force them to pay for our food, clothing, housing, prescription drugs, college tuition.

    They believe you have the right to be left alone to pursue happiness as you see fit.

    For a while, the U.S. government stayed modest. Politicians mostly let citizens decide our own paths, choose where to live, what jobs to take, and what to say.

    There were a small number of “public servants.” But they weren’t our bosses.

    Patrick Henry declared: “The governing persons are the servants of the people.”

    Yet now there are 23 million government employees. Some think they are in charge of everything.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), pushing her Green New Deal, declared herself “the boss.”

    The Biden administration wants to decide what kind of car you should drive.

    During the pandemic, politicians ordered people to stay home, schools to shut down and businesses to close.

    Then, as often happens in “Big Government World,” people harmed by government edicts ask politicians to compensate them.

    After governments banned Fourth of July fireworks, the American Pyrotechnics Association requested “relief in the next Senate Covid package to address the unique and specific costs to this industry,” reported The New York Times. “The industry hopes Congress will earmark $175 million for it in another stimulus bill.”

    Today the politically connected routinely lobby passionately to get bigger chunks of your money.

    For some of you, the last straw was when the administration demanded you inject a chemical into your body.

    When some resisted vaccinations, Biden warned, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

    His patience? Who does he think he is? My father? My king?

    At least Kennedy doesn’t say things like that. But he does say absurd things. In a few weeks I’ll release my sit-down interview with him, and you can decide for yourself whether he’s a good candidate.

    This Fourth of July, remember Milton Friedman’s question: “How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?”

    COPYRIGHT 2024 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

    The post Biden, Trump, and RFK Jr. Are All Anti-Freedom appeared first on Reason.com.

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    John Stossel

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  • Third-Party 2024 Candidates Can’t Win, But They Can Help Trump

    Third-Party 2024 Candidates Can’t Win, But They Can Help Trump

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    This man isn’t going to be president, but he may help Trump or Biden win this November.
    Photo: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

    There’s no telling what the 2024 presidential general election is going to look like after what will probably seem like an endless campaign between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But both the early polls and recent history suggest that the contest will be close, just like six of the last seven presidential elections. Thanks to widespread disgruntlement with this choice, the odds are also high that the non-major-party vote will be relatively high (more like 2016’s 5.7 percent than 2020’s 1.9 percent) — and that may decide the election.

    But as Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times points out in an important column, the one thing we know for sure is that none of these third-party or independent candidates is going to win:

    [T]o have any hope of fulfilling the constitutional requirement to win a majority of electoral votes, a third-party candidate would need at least a plurality of voters in a huge number of states. The party would need, on a state-by-state basis, to outcompete one of the other two parties, so that it could notch electors under the winner-take-all rules that apply in most states.

    This, unfortunately for anyone with third-party dreams, has never happened. 

    Yes, there is an argument (being suggested most recently by the No Labels crowd, which is seeking ballot access for a yet-to-be-identified presidential candidacy) that a non-major-party candidate can crucially influence the direction of the nation by picking off a few states and deadlocking the Electoral College, thereby gaining massive leverage in the resolution of that deadlock in Congress. But to do that you need a very big regional base of support, as Bouie notes:

     In 1948, with Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as its candidate, the States’ Rights Democratic Party — better known as the Dixiecrats — won four states and 39 electoral votes despite gaining just 2.4 percent of the national popular vote. Twenty years later, George Wallace and the American Independent Party won 46 electoral votes and 13.5 percent of the popular vote.

    What both results suggest is that under the Electoral College, the next best alternative to a large and well-distributed national constituency is to have a small and intense regional one. It is, it seems, the only other way to win electoral votes as a third party. 

    Both those efforts failed, of course. And if you scan the list of likely non-major-party candidates in 2024 — independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West; Green Party aspirant Jill Stein; whoever the Libertarians choose to run; and the “centrist” worthies under consideration by No Labels — there’s no one with the kind of regional base Thurmond or Wallace (or Teddy Roosevelt in his Bull Moose run of 1912) enjoyed. There is a nascent argument that Kennedy might augment his already-significant but highly diffused support (13 percent in the national RealClearPolitics averages in a five-way race) by winning the Libertarian nomination. That’s a bit of a reach given Kennedy’s lefty background and erratic views; he’s just not the sort of person you can imagine as a hero in an Ayn Rand novel, and his support for strong environmental policies might be a deal-breaker for the Libertarian Party, which has plenty of true believers from whom to choose. In any event, whatever RFK Jr. might gain from the easy ballot access Libertarians might offer would be offset by the number of voters who are decidedly non-libertarian.

    As for No Labels, the group may back away from its threat to run a “unity ticket” thanks to internal dissension and the fury of former allies who think the whole effort would just guarantee a Trump victory. But even No Labels’ own highly dubious polling shows any foreseeable candidate would struggle to win electoral votes. To cite one example, the West Virginia voters whose antipathy to Joe Manchin led him to give up his Senate seat aren’t going to back him for president against Donald Trump.

    What all of this suggests is that non-major-party candidacies should be viewed by voters and pundits alike strictly in the context of how they affect the Biden-Trump binary choice. Sure, there are ideological reasons some voters might pull the lever for the candidates of parties like the Libertarians and the Greens; those voters may believe that in the broader scheme of things it really just doesn’t matter whether Biden or Trump is the 46th president. For everyone else, the choice to go independent or third-party isn’t really a choice of that candidate, but of either Biden or Trump.

    Things could change by November, of course, and the implications of non-party candidacies may depend on how many of them there are and who they are. But current polling shows that the current five-way race we are contemplating will likely help Trump defeat Biden, which makes sense when you consider the cohesiveness of Trump’s MAGA base and his inability to win a popular-vote majority. As Bouie puts it: “If Americans want different choices, they will need a different system.” But let’s not accept the premise that those who vote for Kennedy or Stein or Mapstead or Manchin or West are “choosing” any of these people to take office. Like it or not, the only real choice is binary.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • I used ChatGPT to make Pokémon versions of Trump, Biden, and RFK Jr.

    I used ChatGPT to make Pokémon versions of Trump, Biden, and RFK Jr.

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    Earlier this week, I used ChatGPT and its image generator DALL-E to create Pokémon-style characters of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and independent character Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

    My actual prompts (bad spelling and all, I was on my phone): “Using dall-e please create pokémon characters based on joe biden and donald trump” and “What would a Pokémon based on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. act and look like?”

    Here’s what I got, which seems to be an object lesson in both the creativity and definite limits of this sort of process right now.

    Joe Biden

    (Nick Gillespie, ChatGPT/Dall-E)

    Democraflux

    Type: Water/Psychic

    Description: Democraflux is a wise and experienced Pokémon known for its calm demeanor and strong sense of unity. Its flowing blue robes and white hair give it a presidential appearance. It has the power to create peaceful waves and use psychic abilities to heal and soothe others. Its signature move is “Unity Aura,” which brings opponents closer together, reducing their aggression and promoting cooperation.

    Donald Trump

    (Nick Gillespie, ChatGPT/Dall-E)

    Trumpertantrum

    Type: Fire/Normal

    Description: Trumpertantrum is a Pokémon known for its fiery temperament and loud voice. Its bright orange and gold plumage resembles a flamboyant hairstyle. This Pokemon is known for its extravagant and boastful demeanor. It has the ability to create fiery explosions with moves like “Trumpet Burst” and “Gold Rush,” which can temporarily increase its strength but also make it unpredictable in battle.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    (Nick Gillespie, ChatGPT/Dall-E)

    Justicarion

    Type: Fighting/Flying

    Description: Justicarion is a Pokémon that embodies the spirit of advocacy and environmentalism, reflecting aspects of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s career. It has a majestic, eagle-like appearance, symbolizing freedom and a commitment to protecting nature. Its feathers are a mix of earthy tones and deep greens, representing its connection to the Earth and environmental causes. Justicarion is known for its strong sense of justice and unwavering determination. It’s a Pokémon that champions fairness and fights vigorously against those who threaten the balance of its habitat.

    The bias seems pretty clear, though not in ways I would have expected. The single most distinguishing characteristic of Joe Biden—his age—is missing completely. And what’s with this “Unity Aura” B.S.? This is a guy whose career is studded with incredibly incendiary statements, such as his 2012 comment to black voters when he and Barack Obama were running for reelection that Mitt Romney and Republicans were “going to put y’all back in chains.“

    The Trumpertantrum character is genuinely clever and gets at something fundamental about The Donald. The description and image are playful too. Yet the vague whiff of dismissiveness gets stronger in relation to the two other creations, doesn’t it?

    The RFK Jr. character—Justicarion, for chrissakes!—is ridiculous to anyone conversant with either the tone or substance of the man’s campaign (here’s 82 minutes of him talking to me and Reason‘s Zach Weissmueller) or longer career, which is filled with authoritarian calls to lock up people he disagrees with and him imputing the worst motives to his critics. ChatGPT seems to have the greatest robotic crush on him since HAL 9000 first set eyes on Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    Virtually every interaction with ChatGPT reminds the user that the system is far from perfect, often flat-out wrong, and capable of “hallucinating” answers when it isn’t sure of something.

    This little exercise drives home the need to always be checking our premises, whether we’re using a machine to do the work or our own minds.

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    Nick Gillespie

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