Thursday Update: Infomercial King Ron Popeil Dies, Geraldo Calls Unvaccinated ‘Selfish, Reckless,’ Piers Morgan Slams Simone Biles Olympics Exit As ‘Nothing Heroic,’ Discriminating Against Pitbulls Is ‘Racist’

We’re tracking the conservative culture clash with woke Hollywood hypocrites to keep you up to date on who’s winning and who we hate. 

 Here’s what happened today:

Reckless

Geraldo Rivera said he “thinks less of people who are not vaccinated” during “The Five’s” Wednesday broadcast.

“I think it’s an arrogant, selfish, reckless act,” he said. “I have five grandchildren, all under the age of 12, who are susceptible to someone sneezing on them. I think it is absolutely so selfish, that it is appalling.”

He argued that sometimes the government needs to tell rather than ask people to do certain things, and getting vaccinated is one of those things. “I want people to have to show, when I go to the bar, I want to know everybody is vaccinated. Or have the test,” he said.

When cohost Katie Pavlich asked what other health things the government should mandate, he replied that forced inoculations should be extended to the measles and smallpox vaccines.  

Simone Biles

Piers Morgan said there was “nothing heroic or brave” about the gymnastics GOAT leaving “her team to fight on without their leader and supreme motivational champion,” after she pulled out of the Olympics team final competition on Tuesday and all-around final two days later, citing her mental health.

“You’re not just at these Games for yourself, Simone,” Morgan admonished. “You are part of Team USA, representing the United States of America, and hundreds of millions of American people watching back home, not to mention all the sponsors who’ve paid huge sums to support you. And when you quit, you were performing as part of a gymnastics team, not yourself.”    

Biles explained in a late-night press conference that she experienced the “twisties,” which is described as a mental block where a gymnast loses their spatial awareness in the middle of complex aerial skills like Biles performs on the vault apparatus.  

But Morgan didn’t buy into her reasoning. “The Olympics are the pinnacle of sport – the ultimate test of any athlete. They’re supposed to be very hard and very tough, physically, mentally, and any other way you care to name,” he remarked.

Ugly

Chinese officials called out Reuters for using a photo of the country’s female weightlifting gold-winner that they deemed “ugly.” 

Hou Zhihui, 24, won the women’s 49kg event after lifting 210kg to take the competition on the opening day of the Tokyo Games, but the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka was not pleased with the look on their champion’s face in the photo.

“Among all the photos of the game, @Reuters has chosen this one, which only shows how ugly they are,” the Embassy tweeted. “Don’t put politics and ideologies above sports, and call yourself an unbiased media organization. Shameless.”  

When a Twitter commenter said that the photo was well captured and conveyed the message that “nothing in life comes easy,” the Embassy account responded with four different athlete’s images published by Reuters.

“Same day, same Olympics, same @Reuters, different faces. Maybe it’s because everything good in life comes easier for the white westerners?” They shot back.  

Same day, same Olympics, same @Reuters , different faces. Maybe it's because everything good in life comes easier for the white westerners?

We said that these biased MSM are ugly. Never the athletes. They're beautiful, no matter their colors and nationalities. https://t.co/1QTE888uYP pic.twitter.com/KTUjfrdeCi

— Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka (@ChinaEmbSL) July 24, 2021

RIP

Infomercial king Ron Popeil, who created Hair in a Can and the “Chop-o-Matic, died on Wednesday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a severe medical emergency the day prior.  

Popeil became a household name by hawking food dehydrators and pasta makers on television, in the 1960s and frequented airwaves for more than three decades with his iconic catchphrases “Set it and forget it” and “But Wait There’s More.” 

He broke QVC records with his most successful invention, the Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ, which grossed over $1 billion in domestic sales, amassing an estimated personal fortune of $200,000,000.  

He died at the age of 86 and is survived by his wife and four daughters.    

“Sopranos” actor Rick Aiello, the son of late “Moonstruck” star Danny Aiello, died on Monday at the age of 65 after battling pancreatic cancer. 

The “Do the Right Thing” and “Sex and the City” actor lost his older brother, Hollywood stuntman Danny Aiello III, to the same disease in 2010 at the age of 53.  

“After losing his brother and then his Dad, he continued to show such courage and strength throughout his own battle with cancer,” said his wife Arlene. ”For eighteen and a half months he just fought so hard.”

Pitbulls

If you’re scared when you see a pit bull, two academics suggest that it might not be because the breed is aggressive, but because you’re racist.

A legislative policy fellow with Harvard Law, wrote a paper about Pitbulls called “The Black Man’s Dog” which asserts that the canines have been unfairly correlated to “gang violence by urban youths, as well as the hip-hop music scene.” An associate professor at Emory University wrote that Pitbulls are a “perceived threat to normative whiteness” in her publication.  

Both papers were cited by the Animal Farm Foundation (AFF) when they announced a project to “end exclusionary dog breed restrictions in the housing insurance industry,” which they claim is “often used as a way to discriminate against individuals based on their class or race,” as pitbulls are typically targeted by those restrictions.  

“Dog breed-restrictions in the insurance industry are steeped in discrimination against the people society associates with the targeted dogs,” AFF stated. “In many areas of the country, this means lower-income Black and Brown people.”

“By ending these exclusionary breed restrictions, we will chip away at the long-time practice of big insurance justifying reasons not to ensure the consumers they call “high risk” which often just codes for race or class discrimination,” remarked AFF Executive Director Stacey Coleman.  

In Jeopardy!

“Star Trek: The Next Generation” LeVar Burton campaigned to take over for the late Alec Trebek as the host of daytime quiz show “Jeopardy!” for months, and a fan petition for the “Reading Rainbow” star to get the nod garnered more than 250,000 signatures.

Burton finally got his shot to guest host, but his debut episode on Monday will go down in “Jeopardy!” history for all the wrong reasons. Contestant Patrick Pearce became the new record holder for the lowest score ever recorded on the show.  

Pearce started off poorly by finishing the first round with a -200, but things headed far South in Double Jeopardy! The contestant completed the round with -$7,400, breaking the previous record of -$6,800 set in March 2015.  

He scored so poorly that he was not allowed to advance to the final round, where contestant Matt Amodio went on to win for a fourth day for a total of $122,400 in winnings.  

condolences to the new recordholder for worst day ever on Jeopardy, Patrick Pearce pic.twitter.com/JecMLYjQms

— Dan Kois (@dankois) July 27, 2021

Marie Finn