Tag: hollywood

Biden Administration Tried to Place ‘Trusted Messenger’ on Joe Rogan Podcast to Promote Covid Vaccine

The Biden administration sought to place a “trusted messenger” on Joe Rogan’s podcast to promote Covid-19 vaccines, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch.

The conservative watchdog group published 249 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) outlining the agency’s plans to push the Covid-19 vaccine via various media sources.

A public education campaign plan dated April 19 to May 31, 2021 suggested the agency could “Place a trusted messenger on the Joe Rogan Show and Barstool Sports to promote vaccination (work with outside expert to identify who will be most effective).”

Asked about the documents and whether HHS has been successful in placing a messenger on Rogan’s show, a spokesperson for the agency said: “As has been reported previously, HHS, in both the Trump and Biden Administrations, has done regular engagements to ensure Americans know about COVID-19 and the resources that they have to protect themselves.”

The Trump administration launched its own $250 million Building Vaccine Confidence campaign to encourage Americans to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which also included the use of paid and earned media.

“The ‘We Can Do This’ public education campaign under the Biden Administration has worked hard when it comes to reaching communities across the U.S. where they are, and informing them about safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines through paid and digital media, influencer engagement, and partnership outreach,” the spokesperson added. “Through ‘We Can Do This’ and other efforts, HHS will continue to encourage people to get the updated COVID-19 vaccine and fight vaccine misinformation.”

Rogan’s pandemic-related conversations with guests on his podcast oftentimes diverged from medical and scientific consensus, causing him to become a prominent voice of vaccine skepticism.

Rogan’s podcasts on Covid-19 and vaccination led to a campaign by several celebrity singers to have him deplatformed by Spotify in January 2022 over his spreading of alleged disinformation. Rogan has a licensing deal with Spotify worth more than $100 million.

Neil Young told Spotify it must deplatform Rogan or he would pull his music. Joni Mitchell later made a similar threat but Spotify did not cave.

Spotify responded to the criticism by agreeing to add a content advisory to any podcast episode that involved discussion about Covid-19, directing listeners to Covid-19 hub that links out to “trusted sources.”

In April 2021, HHS publicly announced it was launching a “nationwide, grassroots network of local voices and trusted community leaders to encourage vaccinations, with more than 275 founding member organizations that have the ability to reach millions of Americans.”

“This effort will mobilize health professionals, scientists, community organizations, faith leaders, businesses, rural stakeholders, civil rights organizations, sports leagues and athletes, and Americans from all walks of life to become leaders within their own communities to help get friends, family, and neighbors vaccinated,” the agency said in a press release at the time.

The HHS documents obtained by Judicial Watch included a number of paths the agency could potentially use to promote the vaccine, including to request a vaccination special on Christian Broadcast Network featuring Evangelic leaders, to request that major TV entertainment feature hosts get vaccinated on air, and to convene an editorial meeting with the publishers of Catholic newspaper and newsletters across the country, including America Magazine, Florida Catholic, The Catholic Spirit, and The Tablet.

Other objectives on the list included requesting that “the TV morning and daytime talk shows feature special vaccination reunion moments with everyday Americans talking about what this means to them (ex: hugging grandma for the first time)” and requesting vaccination specials with BET, The Undefeated, Desus & Mero, and Hot Ones.

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Anti-Historical ‘The Woman King’ Lies About Africa’s Slave Trade

“The Woman King,” a new “historical action epic” starring Viola Davis, has been treated to laudatory reviews by the corporate press. It has been called “indelible and truly inspiring” in an ABC News review which features the subhead “Black women only — no white saviors need apply.” The Daily Beast labeled it “an absolute blast of a cinematic experience,” praising its “thick layers of history.”

Set in 1823 in the West African kingdom of Dahomey (modern Benin), the movie pits the innocent Dahomans, protected by the elite all-female Agojie army, against the evil Oyo Empire, which operates as a brutal arm of the European slave trade and wishes to force Dahomey into providing slaves. Dahomey is portrayed as a kingdom that only wishes for peace and autonomy, whose king, Ghezo (John Boyega), is looking for alternatives to the awful trade in which his tribe has been reluctantly forced to participate. Besides manfully defending the citizens and king of Dahomey, the Agojie, under their leader Nanisca (Davis), are also proponents of ending the slave trade and replacing it with the cultivation of palm oil.

Throughout the film, Dahomey is presented as a small, put-upon kingdom that only seeks harmony and desires the destruction of the evil trade in human bodies — led by greedy Europeans — which plagued the region. In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “The Woman King” is an “incredible true story” about “this amazing group of female soldiers who caused such an act of resistance that slavery paused for a time.”

The problem? Almost none of this is true.

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Private Jet-Flying Climate Activist Harrison Ford Exposed For Eco-Hypocrisy

Harrison Ford, a famous Hollywood actor, has frequently traveled via private jet in recent months despite his well-known climate change activism.

Ford’s private jet, a multimillion-dollar Cessna Citation Sovereign, has made at least eight trips stretching roughly 5,284 miles and emitting about 35 metric tons of carbon dioxide in less than two months, according to data from ADS-B Exchange and Celebrity Jets. [bold, links added]

Ford, however, has made regular appearances at global climate conferences, calling upon individuals and government leaders to support efforts to reduce emissions and prevent disastrous global warming.

“It’s hard to read the headlines — floods, fires, famines, plagues — and tell your children that everything is alright,” he remarked at a conservation summit in France last year.

“It’s not alright. Damn it, it’s not alright. It’s alright to feel frustration, anxiety, grief, but don’t run away from it. Cry out for justice, justice for mother nature.”

“The Earth has irreplaceable ecosystems rich in carbon and biodiversity,” he continued. “By preserving just a small fraction of these wetlands, tropical forests, and mangroves, we can protect our wildlife, our air, water, food jobs, and climate.”

Ford added that a younger generation of climate activists has the energy and conscience to do “what we have not yet been able to do.”

“If we don’t stop the destruction of the natural world, nothing else will matter,” Ford said during a separate speech at the 2020 Global Climate Action Summit.

But Ford’s jet has emitted more carbon into the environment in less than two months than the average American burns every two years and the average person worldwide burns every nine years.

The average carbon footprint of an American is 16 tons a year while the average person worldwide burns about 4 tons a year, according to The Nature Conservancy.

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QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Are Going Bonkers Over Anne Heche’s Death

Last week, the actress Anne Heche died at the age of 53 after a devastating car crash in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Heche was a celebrated actor with film credits like Six Days, Seven Nights and Donnie Brasco under her belt, and had also turned in acclaimed performances in shows like Men in Trees and Hung. Yet her accomplishments had consistently been overshadowed by two things: her three-year relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s; her struggles with substance abuse and mental illness; and her erratic behavior, such as an interview she gave to Barbra Walters about embodying an alien named Celestia, often garnering headlines.

From what we know thus far about Heche’s death, it seems that she continued to struggle up to the last moments of her life. Footage from the accident shows that she had been driving at high speeds at the time of the crash, and a blood test taken shortly afterward found the presence of drugs in her system. The story of her life and death seems like a tragic yet clear-cut case of an explosive talent struggling with addiction and mental illness, who ultimately succumbed to her demons.

Yet conspiracy theorists on the internet did not see it that way. Instead, they saw the death of Anne Heche as proof of something else: that she had been murdered to cover up the crimes of Hollywood power players and “elites” like Jeffrey Epstein and Amber Heard.

Shortly after Heche died, a post started circulating on Twitter that garnered about 4,000 shares before it was deleted. The post read: “So actress Anne Heche, who died in a fiery car crash, was working on a movie titled The Girl In Room 13 about the Jeffrey Epstein ring.” The claim also circulated on Facebook, where many speculated that Heche had been murdered to cover up the truth about the disgraced billionaire financier, whose 2020 death by hanging in a New York prison has been ruled a suicide.

There was one problem with the claim: The Girl In Room 13, which is set to air on Lifetime in October, is not about Epstein, as a network spokesperson later confirmed. According to an IMDB synopsis, the film is about sex trafficking in general, as it tells the story of a woman (Heche’s daughter in the film) being held captive in a hotel room for the purpose of being sold for sex. But it’s not at all clear that the story is based on him (there is no evidence, for instance, that Epstein ever held a woman in a motel room against her will).

The Epstein rumor is not the only one surrounding Heche’s passing. QAnon influencer Liz Crokin, who has promoted the claim that Chrissy Teigen is connected to Pizzagate as well as the ludicrous idea that John F. Kennedy, Jr. faked his own death, recently posted that at the time of her death, Heche was working on the HBO show The Idol, which is produced by the Weeknd and is rumored to be inspired by Britney Spears (a prominent figure in the QAnon ecosystem). Crokin then baselessly speculated that Heche — who had publicly spoken in support of Heard’s ex and her former costar Johnny Depp earlier this year — was killed days after online rumors had started circulating that Heard used to throw Satanic sex parties in the apartment she’d shared with Depp. “What did Anne know?” Crokin’s post ominously concluded.

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Climate-activist celebrities ‘wasting thousands of gallons of water’ amid California drought

Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Kevin Hart are among several celebrities being accused of wasting over a million gallons of water in May and June in violation of California’s drought restrictions, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Kardashians, Hart, Sylvester Stallone and former NBA star Dwyane Wade used an excess of 1.4 million gallons of water in the months of May and June and received notices from Las Virgenes Municipal Water District concerning the excess usage, according to the Times’ review of documents it acquired through the California Public Records Act. The Kardashians and Hart are among celebrities who have previously pushed to combat climate change, a phenomenon that may be exacerbating California’s drought, according to the state’s Department of Water Resources.

Two properties in the Hidden Hills neighborhood listed under a trust associated with Kim Kardashian received notices that the properties were in violation of their June water allowance by about 232,000 gallons, according to the Times. Kourtney Kardashian’s 1.86-acre property in Calabasas also allegedly exceeded its water limits by roughly 101,000 gallons.

The Kardashians have previously supported actions to stop climate change such as promoting veganism or ending the use of plastic bottles. Kim Kardashian praised Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2019, calling climate change a “serious problem,” Reuters reported.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District called for a 50% use reduction attempt in response to California’s drought and restricted watering lawns and plants to one day each week, according to the district’s website.

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Steven Spielberg’s private jet has burned $116,000 worth of jet fuel in two months

A private jet belonging to Steven Spielberg has burned more than $116,000 worth of jet fuel since June despite the famous Hollywood director’s past warnings about global warming, according to a flight tracking database.

Spielberg’s plane, a Gulfstream G650, has burned at least $116,159 worth of jet fuel over the course of 16 trips spanning nearly 17,000 miles since June 23, according to flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange and compiled by the database Celebrity Jets. The figures are likely an underestimate since the database didn’t calculate fuel and distance metrics of at least three trips made by Spielberg’s jet.

However, Spielberg has previously stated that global warming “terrified” him and ripped people who “go blithely through life” without caring about their impact on the environment.

“I’m terrified of [global warming],” Spielberg remarked during a 2018 interview for his film Ready Player One. “Global warming is a scientific reality. It’s not a political trick. It’s a true piece of real, measurable, quantifiable science.”

“People have to come around to believing that this is — we are going to have to have a kind of confrontation with destiny unless we do something about it today,” Spielberg said.

He added that “everybody has to be held responsible” for their role in climate change.

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