RFK Jr.

[dneal]

Listen to him on YouTube? Or some other unfiltered source?

At least Wikipedia is peer-edited.

You don't really grasp how Orwellian that is, do you? You don't want information unless it's been "filtered" or "peer-edited" by members of the Ministry of Truth? You think "peers" are editing wikipedia?

A real-life journalist interviewed RFK Jr, recorded the conversation, and published it. The journalist even made that recording available for free on her own site. I linked it in post #14, but here it is again (unformatted, since "blind" links seem to scare you - presumably because you haven't figured out how to hover your cursor over it and look at the bottom of your browser to inspect it):

https://www.honestlypod.com/podcast/...e-explains-why

Once the page loads, you can click the "play" icon. You'll hear voices (they'll sound different than the ones in your head). Those are the two people talking to each other.

Since this seems to be new concept to you, here's how an interview actually works:

In an interview, the interviewer asks questions and the interviewee answers. Some people call that a dialogue. You can hear each person speak for themselves - directly! Imagine that! Their own words from their own mouth.

The journalist is Bari Weiss. A Jewish-liberal-cis-woman-lesbian. Hopefully she's not too much of a RWW for you.

Alternatively, I'll save you the trouble and LINK HER WIKIPEDIA PAGE HERE; so you can begin crafting your deflections, like the "hur-dur... Unfiltered YouTube..." above.

[dneal]

For the serious members, here’s the ‘teaser’ for the interview.

The Free Press|6/20/2023

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. is the rare Kennedy who hasn’t yet joined the family business. But at age 69—after a long career as an environmental lawyer and activist, and many years advocating against lifesaving public health programs like childhood vaccinations on the unproven claim that they cause autism—he has decided to run for President of the United States.

Many voices in the mainstream have dismissed RFK Jr. as a distraction. The New York Times called him a “crank” and a “high-profile circus act.” But the polls don’t seem to agree. RFK Jr. is polling as high as 20 percent among Democratic-leaning voters. And according to one recent poll from The Economist and YouGov, RFK Jr. has the highest favorability rating among all major candidates, including Trump and Biden.

A challenger to the incumbent has never won the primaries in modern political history, and RFK Jr. doesn’t seem poised to break that historical precedent. But that he’s doing this well so early tells us a lot about the current state of American politics. Namely, people are dissatisfied with the options on the table—especially Democrats, who are desperate for a Biden alternative.

It also tells us something deeper about American culture right now, and what fits into the realm of acceptable conversation. RFK Jr. says things—whether about vaccines causing autism, SSRIs leading to school shootings, or the CIA killing his dad and uncle—that are described by mainstream media as disinformation and ideas that are simply beyond the pale. But his high polling suggests that many Americans are tuning in to what he has to say. And perhaps they think that we have drawn the lines of debate too narrowly.

Last week, I went to Mr. Kennedy’s house to ask him why he thinks he has hit a nerve among American voters, and how he thinks he can win the nomination, and ultimately, the presidency—all without any political experience and while hanging on to the kooky opinions.

[Chip]

[dneal]

Science denier.

https://www.who.int/news-room/questi...rks-and-health

[Chip]

I won't post on any blind link you cough up, Dilbert.

Given Google tracking, that means I'll get ads for weird-ass websites, tax-avoidance scams, and auctions of Nazi regalia.

[dneal]

“Weird ass website”.

I’d like to argue with the characterization, but it is the World Health Organization’s website. In this case describing the risk of 5g and need for further study.

[welch]

Some of RFK Jr's craziness:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/u...act-check.html

I don't want him as the Democratic nominee, and Republicans should not want him on their ticket, either. (He talks with Republican grandees, like Hannity, as if he wants to be the Republican VP candidate)

5 Noteworthy Falsehoods Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has Promoted
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Mr. Kennedy is leaning heavily on misinformation as he mounts a long-shot 2024 campaign.

Give this article


256
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands at a lectern as supporters in the background hold up “Kennedy 2024” signs.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in April that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination. He has garnered an unusual amount of support during a re-election campaign for a sitting president.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

Anjali Huynh
By Anjali Huynh
July 6, 2023
He has promoted a conspiracy theory that coronavirus vaccines were developed to control people via microchips. He has endorsed the false notion that antidepressants are linked to school shootings. And he has pushed the decades-old theory that the C.I.A. killed his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, is a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories who has leaned heavily on misinformation as he mounts his long-shot 2024 campaign for the Democratic nomination.

But as voters express discontentment at a likely rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Kennedy has garnered as much as 20 percent of the vote in recent Democratic primary polling.

Mr. Biden and the Democratic National Committee have not publicly acknowledged Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy and have declined to comment on his campaign. Nevertheless, the public scrutiny that accompanies a White House bid has highlighted other questionable beliefs and statements Mr. Kennedy has elevated over the years.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Here are five of the many baseless claims Mr. Kennedy has peddled on the campaign trail and beyond.

He has falsely linked vaccines to various medical conditions.

Mr. Kennedy has promoted many false, specious or unproven claims that center on public health and the pharmaceutical industry — most notably, the scientifically discredited belief that childhood vaccines cause autism.

[JW: That was discussed earlier. RFK Jr. says that in 1989 autism diagnoses jumped enormously, ignoring the plan fact that the psychiatric profession widened the notion of autism from a single set of symptoms to a "spectrum". Thus, people who would not have been diagnosed under the old rules, the rules established in 1940, are now said to be "on the spectrum". Yet RFK Jr still points to 1989 and howls that vaccines caused an increase in autism]

That notion has been rejected by more than a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies across multiple countries. The National Academy of Medicine reviewed eight vaccines for children and adults and found that with rare exceptions, the vaccines are very safe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Seen by many as the face of the vaccine resistance movement, Mr. Kennedy has asserted that he is “not anti-vaccine” and seeks to make vaccines more safe. But he has advertised misleading information about vaccine ingredients and circulated retracted studies linking vaccines to various medical conditions.

At a rally in Washington last year, he compared the vaccination records some called “vaccine passports” to life in Germany during the Holocaust, a statement he later apologized for. And he falsely told Louisiana lawmakers in 2021 that the coronavirus vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”


Children’s Health Defense, an organization Mr. Kennedy originally founded as the World Mercury Project, has frequently campaigned against vaccines. Facebook and Instagram removed the group’s accounts last year for espousing vaccine misinformation, and Mr. Kennedy has often lamented the perils of “censorship” in campaign speeches since.

He has made baseless claims about a connection between gender dysphoria and chemical exposure.

In an interview last month with Jordan Peterson, a conservative Canadian psychologist and public speaker, Mr. Kennedy falsely linked chemicals present in water sources to transgender identity.

“A lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing,” he said. He referred to research on an herbicide, atrazine, in which scientists found that it “induces complete feminization and chemical castration” in certain frogs.

But no evidence exists to indicate that the chemical, typically used on farms to kill weeds, causes the same effects in humans, let alone gender dysphoria. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Most people are not exposed to atrazine on a regular basis.”

He has falsely linked antidepressants to school shootings.

Drawing on longstanding dubious claims, Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly endorsed the idea that mass shootings have increased because of heightened use of antidepressants.


“Kids always had access to guns, and there was no time in American history or human history where kids were going to schools and shooting their classmates,” he told the comedian Bill Maher on a recent episode of the podcast, “Club Random With Bill Maher.” “It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs.”

While both antidepressant use and mass shooting occurrences have increased in the last several decades, the scientific community has found “no biological plausibility” to back a link between the two, according to Ragy Girgis, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.

Antidepressants often have warnings that reference suicidal thoughts, Mr. Girgis said. But those warnings refer to the possibility that people who already experience suicidal ideation might share pre-existing beliefs aloud once they take the medicine as part of their treatment.

Mr. Kennedy, however, has pointed to such warnings as evidence of the false notion that the drugs might induce “homicidal tendencies.”

Several high-profile figures, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have amplified similar claims following recent mass shootings.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Most school shooters were not prescribed with psychotropic medications before committing acts of violence, a 2019 study found. And even when they were, researchers wrote, “no direct or causal association was found.”

Mr. Kennedy has long promoted a conspiracy theory that the C.I.A. killed his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

He claimed, without evidence, during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity in May that Allen W. Dulles, a C.I.A. director fired by President Kennedy, helped cover up evidence of the organization’s involvement when he served on the Warren Commission, convened in 1963 to investigate the Kennedy assassination.

Referencing a House committee inquiry in 1976, he said: “Most of the people in that investigation believed it was the C.I.A. that was behind it because the evidence was so overwhelming to them.”

ADVERTISEMENT

But even that investigation, which found that President Kennedy was “probably” the victim of a conspiracy of some kind, flatly concluded that the C.I.A. was “not involved.”

The Warren Commission found that the killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone and was not connected to any governmental agency.

And he has said that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election.
Mr. Kennedy told The Washington Post in June that he still believed that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, had won the 2004 presidential election.

Mr. Kennedy first promoted that idea in a 2006 article in Rolling Stone, asserting that Republicans had “mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people” and assure the re-election of President George W. Bush. He claimed that their efforts “prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted.”

But it is one thing to complain of vote suppression; it is another thing to demonstrate that Mr. Kerry won more of the votes cast.

Mr. Bush defeated Mr. Kerry by a margin of 35 electoral college votes nationally; he carried Ohio and its 20 electoral votes by more than 118,000 ballots.

The Times reported in 2004 that a glitch in an electronic Ohio voting machine added 3,893 votes to Mr. Bush’s tally. That error was caught in preliminary vote counts, officials said. But the event, alongside other voting controversies nationwide, spurred widespread questions about election integrity that caught traction with people like Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kerry, however, conceded the race a day after the election.

[dneal]

The NYT carries so much water they ought to get the Kipling ‘Gunga Din’ award.

[TSherbs]

Some of RFK Jr's craziness:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/u...act-check.html

I don't want him as the Democratic nominee, and Republicans should not want him on their ticket, either. (He talks with Republican grandees, like Hannity, as if he wants to be the Republican VP candidate)

5 Noteworthy Falsehoods Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has Promoted
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Mr. Kennedy is leaning heavily on misinformation as he mounts a long-shot 2024 campaign.

Give this article


256
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands at a lectern as supporters in the background hold up “Kennedy 2024” signs.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in April that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination. He has garnered an unusual amount of support during a re-election campaign for a sitting president.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

Anjali Huynh
By Anjali Huynh
July 6, 2023
He has promoted a conspiracy theory that coronavirus vaccines were developed to control people via microchips. He has endorsed the false notion that antidepressants are linked to school shootings. And he has pushed the decades-old theory that the C.I.A. killed his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, is a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories who has leaned heavily on misinformation as he mounts his long-shot 2024 campaign for the Democratic nomination.

But as voters express discontentment at a likely rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Kennedy has garnered as much as 20 percent of the vote in recent Democratic primary polling.

Mr. Biden and the Democratic National Committee have not publicly acknowledged Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy and have declined to comment on his campaign. Nevertheless, the public scrutiny that accompanies a White House bid has highlighted other questionable beliefs and statements Mr. Kennedy has elevated over the years.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Here are five of the many baseless claims Mr. Kennedy has peddled on the campaign trail and beyond.

He has falsely linked vaccines to various medical conditions.

Mr. Kennedy has promoted many false, specious or unproven claims that center on public health and the pharmaceutical industry — most notably, the scientifically discredited belief that childhood vaccines cause autism.

[JW: That was discussed earlier. RFK Jr. says that in 1989 autism diagnoses jumped enormously, ignoring the plan fact that the psychiatric profession widened the notion of autism from a single set of symptoms to a "spectrum". Thus, people who would not have been diagnosed under the old rules, the rules established in 1940, are now said to be "on the spectrum". Yet RFK Jr still points to 1989 and howls that vaccines caused an increase in autism]

That notion has been rejected by more than a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies across multiple countries. The National Academy of Medicine reviewed eight vaccines for children and adults and found that with rare exceptions, the vaccines are very safe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Seen by many as the face of the vaccine resistance movement, Mr. Kennedy has asserted that he is “not anti-vaccine” and seeks to make vaccines more safe. But he has advertised misleading information about vaccine ingredients and circulated retracted studies linking vaccines to various medical conditions.

At a rally in Washington last year, he compared the vaccination records some called “vaccine passports” to life in Germany during the Holocaust, a statement he later apologized for. And he falsely told Louisiana lawmakers in 2021 that the coronavirus vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”


Children’s Health Defense, an organization Mr. Kennedy originally founded as the World Mercury Project, has frequently campaigned against vaccines. Facebook and Instagram removed the group’s accounts last year for espousing vaccine misinformation, and Mr. Kennedy has often lamented the perils of “censorship” in campaign speeches since.

He has made baseless claims about a connection between gender dysphoria and chemical exposure.

In an interview last month with Jordan Peterson, a conservative Canadian psychologist and public speaker, Mr. Kennedy falsely linked chemicals present in water sources to transgender identity.

“A lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated how much of that is coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing,” he said. He referred to research on an herbicide, atrazine, in which scientists found that it “induces complete feminization and chemical castration” in certain frogs.

But no evidence exists to indicate that the chemical, typically used on farms to kill weeds, causes the same effects in humans, let alone gender dysphoria. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Most people are not exposed to atrazine on a regular basis.”

He has falsely linked antidepressants to school shootings.

Drawing on longstanding dubious claims, Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly endorsed the idea that mass shootings have increased because of heightened use of antidepressants.


“Kids always had access to guns, and there was no time in American history or human history where kids were going to schools and shooting their classmates,” he told the comedian Bill Maher on a recent episode of the podcast, “Club Random With Bill Maher.” “It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs.”

While both antidepressant use and mass shooting occurrences have increased in the last several decades, the scientific community has found “no biological plausibility” to back a link between the two, according to Ragy Girgis, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.

Antidepressants often have warnings that reference suicidal thoughts, Mr. Girgis said. But those warnings refer to the possibility that people who already experience suicidal ideation might share pre-existing beliefs aloud once they take the medicine as part of their treatment.

Mr. Kennedy, however, has pointed to such warnings as evidence of the false notion that the drugs might induce “homicidal tendencies.”

Several high-profile figures, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have amplified similar claims following recent mass shootings.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Most school shooters were not prescribed with psychotropic medications before committing acts of violence, a 2019 study found. And even when they were, researchers wrote, “no direct or causal association was found.”

Mr. Kennedy has long promoted a conspiracy theory that the C.I.A. killed his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.

He claimed, without evidence, during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity in May that Allen W. Dulles, a C.I.A. director fired by President Kennedy, helped cover up evidence of the organization’s involvement when he served on the Warren Commission, convened in 1963 to investigate the Kennedy assassination.

Referencing a House committee inquiry in 1976, he said: “Most of the people in that investigation believed it was the C.I.A. that was behind it because the evidence was so overwhelming to them.”

ADVERTISEMENT

But even that investigation, which found that President Kennedy was “probably” the victim of a conspiracy of some kind, flatly concluded that the C.I.A. was “not involved.”

The Warren Commission found that the killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone and was not connected to any governmental agency.

And he has said that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election.
Mr. Kennedy told The Washington Post in June that he still believed that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, had won the 2004 presidential election.

Mr. Kennedy first promoted that idea in a 2006 article in Rolling Stone, asserting that Republicans had “mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people” and assure the re-election of President George W. Bush. He claimed that their efforts “prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted.”

But it is one thing to complain of vote suppression; it is another thing to demonstrate that Mr. Kerry won more of the votes cast.

Mr. Bush defeated Mr. Kerry by a margin of 35 electoral college votes nationally; he carried Ohio and its 20 electoral votes by more than 118,000 ballots.

The Times reported in 2004 that a glitch in an electronic Ohio voting machine added 3,893 votes to Mr. Bush’s tally. That error was caught in preliminary vote counts, officials said. But the event, alongside other voting controversies nationwide, spurred widespread questions about election integrity that caught traction with people like Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kerry, however, conceded the race a day after the election.

Thanks for the article, welch.

I'm not sure what RFKs endgame is. He's free to run and try to raise money. We'll see where any of it leads. I am not impressed yet, certainly not yet enough to pull my vote from Biden. We'll see how things are by next November.

[dneal]

If you’re waiting for the legacy media to publish an op ed that will impress you, it will be a while

It amazes me how many of you will parrot whatever the NYT or WashPost will say, but will spend no time or effort examining a candidate based on their own words.

Still no one sees the shades of Orwell in the behavior.

[TSherbs]

If you’re waiting for the legacy media to publish an op ed that will impress you, it will be a while

It amazes me how many of you will parrot whatever the NYT or WashPost will say, but will spend no time or effort examining a candidate based on their own words.

Still no one sees the shades of Orwell in the behavior.

Oh just shut the fuck up, dneal. You don't know what you're talking about. I have not been sharing here what I have watched and read about this man. You continually mistake lack of engagement with *you* as lack of interest in the topics. I have had multiple conversations with actual humans whose names I know about RFK. I have watched portions of three interviews, going back 5 or so years. I have also read most of the pieces linked here.

Just fuck off already with your misinformed criticisms of members here who are mostly just sick of you.

[dneal]

Mr. F*uckety McF*ckface is triggered again.

[TSherbs]

Someone has to tell you straight. Might as well be me.

[dneal]

If it soothes your troubled soul, feel free.

I can take it. You can’t.

[Rin Tin Pen]

I don't think Biden will be the Dem nominee for 2024. But there is a whole swath of lib Dems that I cannot see getting behind RFKjr. But if it comes down to Trump or RFKjr, I'm going to vote for the biggest disruptor, whichever candidate that is. RFKjr outright says the CIA was intricately involved in the murder of his father. Trump boasts he will drain the swamp like nobody else. From what I understand, however, neither RFKjr nor Trump will (or dares to) denounce Israel's history of violence. That would be the first step toward getting some credibility in terms of being a change agent. At this point, I see DeSantis terminally fading.

[TSherbs]

You da tough guy! I haven't seen that kind of "bragging" in an adult in a long time... Maybe not since the last time you told us how mean you are....So, not so long since, after all ...

[dneal]

I don't think Biden will be the Dem nominee for 2024. But there is a whole swath of lib Dems that I cannot see getting behind RFKjr. But if it comes down to Trump or RFKjr, I'm going to vote for the biggest disruptor, whichever candidate that is. RFKjr outright says the CIA was intricately involved in the murder of his father. Trump boasts he will drain the swamp like nobody else. From what I understand, however, neither RFKjr nor Trump will (or dares to) denounce Israel's history of violence. That would be the first step toward getting some credibility in terms of being a change agent. At this point, I see DeSantis terminally fading.

I agree. His dementia, Hunter and the high possibility they identify the last "Biden" in the Burisma/Russia/China bribery schemes as him? No way. Rumor is Newsom will replace him.

The animosity of the left toward RFKjr, the censoring on social media, and the incessant "he's a looney conspiracy theorist" narrative is telling. At the least, it's another indicator of how far left the Democrat party has become.

The 3 letter agencies are out of control. The DOD is obvious and long-storied, from Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" to Eisenhower's warning. The NSA hoovering up everyone's data, FISA courts, the FBI lying to FISA judges. The CIA's history (what we do know) is insane. When you glamorize "black" ops, working outside the law, plausible deniability, etc... and instutionalize it - you have a big problem. See Whitney Webb's two-volume mountain of documentation in "One Nation Under Blackmail".

RFKjr likely won't get the nomination, because he isn't far enough left; and the DNC still rigs their nomination with superdelegates. That's a shame, because he's actually a reasonable Democrat and his demeanor alone would be good for the nation. On the R side, Vivek Ramaswamy is a better candidate who also doesn't stand a chance.

RFKjr's biggest problem is campaigning in a primary for liberal Democrats, and then trying to move to the center. For all the "MAGA FOLKS LOVE RFK!!!" nonsense, they're also not happy with his stance on the 2A (among others). I think he's the best Dem to beat Trump.

That brings us to RFKjr's stance on Israel. No one will win the U.S. Presidency without publicly stating their support. RFKjr is much more nuanced than the legacy media would have you believe. His "anti-vax" stance, for example, is simply that we need better testing. I suspect he'll say he support's Israel, but has issues with the occupied territories. It is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva. You can occupy with troops, but you can't move your civilians there (e.g.: settlements).

An example of RFKjr's "nuanced stance" (he doesn't really say anything specific here though): Jewish Journal: Israel and Antisemitism - My Conversation with Presidential Candidate RFK Jr.

[dneal]

You da tough guy! I haven't seen that kind of "bragging" in an adult in a long time... Maybe not since the last time you told us how mean you are....So, not so long since, after all ...

Stating fact isn't bragging. You can't troll me. You can't get under my skin. I can be much more mean than you, there's just no need. You don't have the emotional maturity to even handle jokes about English majors - let alone actual criticism. Why you think you can vacillate between expletives and faux moral outrage (not to mention hall monitor) with any credibility left intact just demonstrates your lack of grasp on reality.

Now go ahead and proclaim how you're putting me on ignore, like a petulant toddler, again.

"If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument." - Emerson

You're predictable.

[dneal]

RFK Jr's positions, from his campaign website.

Reclaim Democracy: We will end the forever wars, clean up government, increase wealth for all, and tell Americans the truth.

Honest Government: A democratic government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. But government institutions have betrayed our trust. The intelligence agencies spy on our own people. Government and tech platforms conspire to surveil and censor the public. Regulatory agencies have been captured by those they are supposed to regulate: Wall Street controls the SEC. Polluters and extractive industries dominate the EPA and BLM. Pharma controls the CDC, NIH, and FDA. Big Ag controls the USDA. Big Tech has captured the FTC. No wonder trust in government is at all-time lows. It’s time to earn it back.

From his long experience and familiarity with systems of power, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. understands that most people in corporations and government are perfectly decent human beings. They play the game, but a lot of them are fed up with its phoniness, and cynical about the paralysis of the system. They feel trapped in it. Clean government isn’t just about removing corrupt individuals. It is about changing a system in which perfectly decent people become agents of corruption without even knowing it.

We are going to remake public institutions to serve the public. We will roll back the secrecy and make government transparent. We will protect whistleblowers and prosecute officials who abuse the public trust. We will rein in the lobbyists and slam shut the revolving door that shunts people from government agencies to lucrative positions in the companies they were supposed to regulate, and back again. We will get money out of politics. We will open our institutions to real citizen involvement. We will restore integrity to government.

Reconciliation. Heal the Divide: America is more polarized and divided now than at any time in living memory. Both sides seem to agree that the basic problem is the horrible people on the other side. Both sides are wrong. The basic problem is the division itself. A divided public lacks the strength to resist exploitation or to overcome the inertia of the status quo. The classic American can-do spirit exhausts itself in endless battles. So let’s heal the divide.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has clear positions on most of today’s divisive trigger issues like abortion, guns, and immigration, but he knows that both sides have legitimate concerns and legitimate moral positions. No one is deplorable. Furthermore, most of the disagreements obscure deeper shared values. Everyone wants their children to be safe. Few relish the thought of dead fetuses, nor do they want to force women to have unwanted babies. Everyone wants safe streets, yet few wish for millions of people to languish in prison. Robert F. Kennedy will draw on the broad moral agreements beneath our divisions. He will model careful listening, and create conditions where each group can hear the stories of the other. He will lead the way toward national reconciliation, respectful dialog, and willingness to change, to grow, and to forgive.

In the case of race relations, reconciliation includes repairing the damage caused by centuries of bigotry. Our administration will take racial healing seriously through a program of Targeted Community Repair. Our operating principle is not guilt for the sins of one’s ancestors, but rather compassion. We will invoke the authentic desire in all Americans, white and black, liberal and conservative, to improve the condition of our Black and Native brothers and sisters.

These commitments to respect and unity start right now, in the campaign. In Kennedy's own words, “Every nation, like every individual, has a darker side and a lighter side. The easiest thing for a politician to do is to appeal to our greed, to our anger, to our fear, to our xenophobia, our bigotry, all of the alchemies of tribalism. I will appeal instead to our generosity as a people, our goodness, our kindness, and our courage.”

Environment. Clean it Up: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was instrumental in transforming the Hudson from a dead river to one of America’s cleanest today. He did it by uniting liberal environmentalists with conservative rod-and-gun folks who shared a desire for a clean, healthy environment. As President, he will bring the same commitment and coalition-building to address the most pressing environmental problems in America and beyond.

Recent years have seen one environmental disaster after another: floods and droughts, fires, and toxic spills. Our soils are depleted, the weather is wacky, trees are dying, and the water in many places is toxic. Chronic disease is at an all-time high. We’re going to address these problems at their root causes. First, we will shift agricultural subsidies so as to encourage regenerative practices. Today, a new generation of farmers and ranchers is building soil, replenishing groundwater, and detoxifying land, all while producing just as much food as conventional farmers and earning a decent livelihood.

Secondly, we will incentivize the transition of industry to zero-waste cycles and clean energy sources, and forge agreements with other countries to implement these policies throughout the global supply chain. These first two policies will vastly reduce the toxic waste, industrial poisons, and pesticides that make people and ecosystems sick.

Finally, we will protect wild lands from further development, by curbing mining, logging, oil drilling, and suburban sprawl. We will become a global advocate for rainforest preservation and marine restoration. We will rethink development policies that promised economic growth while ignoring ecological sustainability, and ended up delivering neither.

Revitalization. Turn it Around: The time has come to reverse America’s economic decline, decades in the making. Our country faces a widening wealth gap (the most unequal since the 1920s), rampant debt, decaying infrastructure, and a hollowed-out industrial base. Every night, tens of millions of American children go to bed hungry. Millions of Americans must choose between food and medicine; millions more are living on the edge, just a single car repair away from disaster. And these problems are even worse for Black, Native, and other minority populations.

Government assistance to the nation’s most vulnerable is a high priority, but even more important is to reverse the policies that have led to such poverty in the first place. We will rebuild the industrial infrastructure, ruined by forty years of off-shoring and misguided “free trade” schemes. We will enact policies that favor small and medium businesses, which are the nation’s real job creators and the dynamos of American enterprise. We will support labor in reclaiming its fair share of American prosperity. We will break up “too-big-to-fail” banks and monopolies, and when crisis strikes, bail out the homeowners, debtors, and small business owners instead.

Global developments, particularly the end of the US dollar’s status as the world’s unchallenged reserve currency, portend turbulent economic conditions ahead. Yet at the same time, we know that America is fundamentally a wealthy nation, blessed with vast lands, rich resources, and a creative population. That is the vitality we will tap into to turn this country around.

Another key aspect of American revitalization is our healthcare system, which consumes nearly one-fifth of GDP. It isn’t just a matter of shifting the burden of who pays. The problem is much deeper. Healthcare spending per capita has increased twelve-fold since 1960. Are we twelve times healthier? Quite the contrary: We face today a terrible pandemic—not of Covid, but of chronic disease. Autoimmunity, allergies, diabetes, obesity, addiction, anxiety, and depression afflict two-thirds of the population, up from a few percent in our grandparents’ time. A Kennedy administration will go beyond making existing modalities available to all, to include low-cost alternative and holistic therapies that have been marginalized in a pharma-dominated system. We will move from a sick care system to a wellness society.

Peace. Bring it Home: In the long term, a nation’s strength does not come from its armies. America spends as much on weaponry as the next nine nations combined, yet the country has grown weaker, not stronger, over the last 30 years. Even as its military technology has reigned supreme, America has been hollowing out from the inside. We cannot be a strong or secure nation when our infrastructure, industry, society, and economy are infirm.

A high priority of a Kennedy administration will be to make America strong again. When a body is sick, it withdraws its energy from the extremities in order to nourish the vital organs. It is time to end the imperial project and attend to all that has been neglected: the crumbling cities, the antiquated railways, the failing water systems, the decaying infrastructure, the ailing economy. Annual defense-related spending is close to one trillion dollars. We maintain 800 military bases around the world. The peace dividend that was supposed to come after the Berlin Wall fell was never redeemed. Now we have another chance.

As President, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will start the process of unwinding empire. We will bring the troops home. We will stop racking up unpayable debt to fight one war after another. The military will return to its proper role of defending our country. We will end the proxy wars, bombing campaigns, covert operations, coups, paramilitaries, and everything else that has become so normal most people don’t know it’s happening. But it is happening, a constant drain on our strength. It’s time to come home and restore this country.

In Ukraine, the most important priority is to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, victims of a brutal Russian invasion, and also victims of American geopolitical machinations going back at least to 2014. We must first get clear: Is our mission to help the brave Ukrainians defend their sovereignty? Or is it to use Ukraine as a pawn to weaken Russia? Robert F. Kennedy will choose the first. He will find a diplomatic solution that brings peace to Ukraine and brings our resources back where they belong. We will offer to withdraw our troops and nuclear-capable missiles from Russia's borders. Russia will withdraw its troops from Ukraine and guarantee its freedom and independence. UN peacekeepers will guarantee peace to the Russian-speaking eastern regions. We will put an end to this war. We will put an end to the suffering of the Ukranian people. That will be the start of a broader program of demilitarization of all countries.

We have to stop seeing the world in terms of enemies and adversaries. As John Quincy Adams wrote, “Americans go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Robert F. Kennedy will revive a lost thread of American foreign policy thinking, the one championed by his uncle, John F. Kennedy who, over his 1000 days in office, had become a firm anti-imperialist. He wanted to exit Vietnam. He defied the Joint Chiefs of Staff and refused to bomb Cuba, thus saving us from nuclear Armageddon. He wanted to reverse the imperialistic policies of Truman and Eisenhower, rein in the CIA, and support freedom movements around the world. He wanted to revive Roosevelt’s impulse to dissolve the British empire rather than take it over.

John F. Kennedy’s vision was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet. But now we have another chance. The country is ailing, yes, but underneath there is vitality still. America is a land rich in resources, creativity, and intelligence. We just need to get serious about healing our society, to become strong again from the inside.

America was once an inspiration to the world, a beacon of freedom and democracy. Our priority will be nothing less than to restore our moral leadership. We will lead by example. When a warlike imperial nation disarms of its own accord, it sets a template for peace everywhere. It is not too late for us to voluntarily let go of empire and serve peace instead, as a strong and healthy nation.

Civil Liberties. Restore our Rights: Our administration will make it a top priority to protect and restore the fundamental civil liberties, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that hold the essence of what America can be. These liberties have endured constant assault for over twenty years, starting with the Bush/Cheney War on Terror, and accelerating in the era of Covid lockdowns.

Freedom of speech is the capstone of all other rights and freedoms. Once a government has the power to silence its opponents, no other right is safe. We will therefore dismantle the censorship-industrial complex, in which Big Tech censors, deplatforms, shadowbans, and algorithmically suppresses any person or opinion the government asks them to. We will respect the right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, by ending mass surveillance of American citizens and the abuse of civil asset forfeiture. We will make sure that the Covid-era suspension of the right to assembly, trial by jury, and freedom of worship will never happen again. The same for the right to property. During Covid, 3.4 million business were forced to close. Many of them, including 60% of Black-owned businesses, will never reopen.

A Kennedy administration will respect American citizens and stop treating them like suspects and schoolchildren. We will stop manipulating the public with propaganda and targeted leaks. We will never weaponize the law against political opponents, nor hold our own officials above the law. We will return the intelligence agencies to their proper role as protectors not violators of liberty.

We will also take special care to ensure the civil liberties of minorities and the poor. We will end the failed War on Drugs and grant amnesty to nonviolent drug offenders. We will shut the school-to-prison pipeline, and transition prisons away from a punishment paradigm to a rehabilitation paradigm. Prisons will be an intervention in a life gone wrong, and a way to prevent offenders from harming others again.

Instead of defunding the police, we will transform the police. We will incentivize them to prevent violence, not make unnecessary arrests. We will train them in deescalation and mediation skills and partner them with neighborhood organizations. No longer will their relationship to the public be adversarial. They will focus their attention on serious crimes, not harassing ordinary people.

[724Seney]

You da tough guy! I haven't seen that kind of "bragging" in an adult in a long time... Maybe not since the last time you told us how mean you are....So, not so long since, after all ...

Stating fact isn't bragging. You can't troll me. You can't get under my skin. I can be much more mean than you, there's just no need. You don't have the emotional maturity to even handle jokes about English majors - let alone actual criticism. Why you think you can vacillate between expletives and faux moral outrage (not to mention hall monitor) with any credibility left intact just demonstrates your lack of grasp on reality.

Now go ahead and proclaim how you're putting me on ignore, like a petulant toddler, again.

"If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument." - Emerson

You're predictable.

AMEN!