{"id":204700,"date":"2021-03-09T15:15:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T20:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=204700"},"modified":"2021-03-09T15:15:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T20:15:14","slug":"dribbler-shuts-up-lebron-james-refuses-to-use-powerful-voice-to-promote-covid-19-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dribbler-shuts-up-lebron-james-refuses-to-use-powerful-voice-to-promote-covid-19-vaccine\/","title":{"rendered":"Dribbler Shuts Up: LeBron James Refuses to Use \u2018Powerful Voice\u2019 to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdribbler-shuts-up-lebron-james-refuses-to-use-powerful-voice-to-promote-covid-19-vaccine%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=204700&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/lebron-fauci.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>LeBron James, a senior employee of the pro-China sports league commonly known as the National Basketball Association (NBA), is refusing to use his platform as a global celebrity to promote the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n<p>James, who&nbsp;has consistently asserted his obligation to speak out &#8220;on everything that&#8217;s going on around this country and around the world,&#8221; declined to answer a reporter&#8217;s question over the weekend about whether he intended to get vaccinated. &#8220;That&#8217;s a conversation that my family and I will have,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Pretty much keep that to a private thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"posts-content__category-widget md:hidden -ml-4 -mr-4 my-8 px-4 py-6 bg-gray-100\">\n<h4 class=\"mt-0 text-red-600 font-medium font-sans uppercase\">Recent Stories in Satire<\/h4>\n<ul class=\"list-none p-0\">\n<li class><a class=\"text-black block mb-3 pb-3 border-b border-white\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/satire\/lebron-james-vaccine-truth\/\"><strong>Dribbler Shuts Up: LeBron James Refuses to Use \u2018Powerful Voice&#8217; to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li class><a class=\"text-black block mb-3 pb-3 border-b border-white\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/report-former-msnbc-wunderkind-luke-russert-wages-war-on-childhood-wonder\/\"><strong>Report: Former MSNBC Wunderkind Luke Russert Wages War on Childhood Wonder<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li class><a class=\"text-black block mb-3 pb-3 border-b border-white\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/satire\/democrats-add-bill-clintons-wife-to-womens-history-month-collage-after-critics-complain\/\"><strong>Democrats Add Bill Clinton&#8217;s Wife to Women&#8217;s History Month Collage After Critics Complain<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>The NBA star&#8217;s refusal to speak out and encourage others to take the vaccine is a huge blow to the scientific community and to all who believe in science. Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others, has expressed &#8220;extreme confidence&#8221; in the <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/fauci-receives-vaccine-extremely-confident-effective\/story?id=74859728\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">safety<\/a> of the FDA-approved vaccines, and has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/02\/28\/fauci-all-three-covid-vaccines-highly-effective-urges-people-to-take-available-shot.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">urged<\/a> every American to &#8220;get vaccinated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>James&#8217;s insistence that believing in science (or not) is a &#8220;private thing&#8221; runs contrary to his recent response to criticism of his political activism. Last month, Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/03\/01\/politics\/lebron-james-zlatan-ibrahimovic-politics\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">argued<\/a>&nbsp;that James and other famous athletes should &#8220;do what you&#8217;re good at&#8221; and avoid getting involved in politics. The soccer star&#8217;s critique echoed an infamous line from Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who in 2018 suggested James and other NBA activists should &#8220;shut up and dribble.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would never shut up about things that are wrong,&#8221; James <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/sports\/lebron-james-responds-zlatan-ibrahimovic-telling-him-stay-out-politics-n1259068\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> last month when asked about Ibrahimovic&#8217;s comments.&nbsp;&#8220;I&#8217;ll use my platform to continue to shed light on everything that&#8217;s going on around this country and around the world. There&#8217;s no way I would ever just stick to sports, because I understand how powerful this platform and my voice is.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to a <em>Washington<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Free Beacon<\/em> fact-checking analysis, the COVID-19 vaccine appears to fall into the category of &#8220;everything that&#8217;s going on around this country and around the world.&#8221; The same is true of the Chinese government&#8217;s authoritarian crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, as well as the genocidal atrocities being perpetrated against China&#8217;s population of Uighur Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>James was one of the NBA&#8217;s most <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/issues\/lebron-james-houston-rockets-gm-was-not-educated-on-hong-kong\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">outspoken critics<\/a> of former Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who in December 2019 tweeted his support for Hong Kong&#8217;s pro-democracy protesters. After Beijing threatened financial repercussions in response to Morey&#8217;s support for democracy, James slammed the league executive as &#8220;misinformed or not really educated on the situation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>James has a $1 billion sneaker contract with Nike, a company that relies on Chinese manufacturing and is heavily invested in the Chinese market. He argued that &#8220;many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually&#8221; as a result of Morey&#8217;s implicit critique of Chinese authoritarianism. &#8220;Yes, we do have freedom of speech,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In October 2020, Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz became the first NBA player to publicly denounce China&#8217;s treatment of its Uighur population. &#8220;Wrong is wrong,&#8221; the French national <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/jazzs-rudy-gobert-admits-the-truth-on-chinese-atrocities-wrong-is-wrong\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a> in response to an Instagram post about the plight of Uighur Muslims, millions of whom are &#8220;detained and tortured in concentration camps in China.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James has yet to weigh in. Maybe it&#8217;s a private thing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-8 hide-print\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1526555381173-4\" class=\"mobile-250 desktop-90\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LeBron James, a senior employee of the pro-China sports league commonly known as the National Basketball Association (NBA), is refusing to use his platform as a global celebrity to promote &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2310376,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/lebron-fauci.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Dribbler Shuts Up: LeBron James Refuses to Use \u2018Powerful Voice\u2019 to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/lebron-fauci.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Dribbler Shuts Up: LeBron James Refuses to Use \u2018Powerful Voice\u2019 to Promote COVID-19 Vaccine","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}