RFK's campaign (will run as independent/third-party) (1 Viewer)

[samiam5211]

It looks like he's going to be on the ticket in November. I think he should get his own thread. He's about to become well funded, and it's going to be a professionally run campaign no doubt. I don't think it's out of the question that he get's Perot like numbers, and even if he get's 1/4 of that it could be a disaster for the Biden campaign that is probably looking at a few thousand votes in a few states turning the election anyway.

There is going to be money behind this campaign from all sorts of angles. No matter what anyone thinks about RFK, it would be a terrible mistake to not take this campaign seriously. He might take some from Trump for sure, but he's going to take more of the anti Trump vote from Biden, and Biden can't really spare any votes. Not all people who were going to vote for Biden would disagree with the things RFK has said about vaccines, and he's not going to be spending his time campaigning on just vaccine skepticism.

There are many more people voting for Biden who aren't enthusiastic about Biden than there are on the other side.

MSN

Asuper PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has begun polling his support as an Independent, one of the strongest indications to date that the long-shot Democrat is set to announce a party affiliation switch.

The poll, conducted by the firm John Zogby Strategies and commissioned by the American Values 2024 PAC, comes amid growing speculation — fueled by Kennedy himself — that he will leave the Democratic Party in the upcoming weeks.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has received intense public scrutiny for promoting an array of unconventional theories, from claiming that vaccines are behind an "epidemic" of diseases in America to insisting that the CIA was directly involved in the assassination of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.

But one recurring conspiracy theory has garnered relatively little notice: his persistent assertion that major U.S. media outlets are being run by undercover CIA operatives or are controlled in some other way by the CIA, as part of a secret government plot to manipulate Americans' minds.

"The new head of NPR is a CIA agent," Kennedy declared at a New York campaign fundraiser in April, drawing gasps from some of his supporters.

He was specifically referring to Katherine Maher, who nearly two months earlier became NPR's CEO and president after a long career in international development and digital advocacy. At the fundraiser, Kennedy said Maher's hiring at NPR was just the latest salvo in the CIA's "systematic takeover of the American press, particularly the liberal media."

Kennedy continues to amplify such claims at campaign events, in media interviews, and on social media, supporting them with what experts described to ABC News as "half-truths," "intimations," misinterpretations of law, and twisted historical anecdotes. He often cites widespread -- but utterly unsubstantiated -- allegations that a CIA program supposedly called "Operation Mockingbird" secretly recruited journalists decades ago to help brainwash Americans............

On campaign trail, RFK Jr. pushes 'bonkers' theory about CIA's 'takeover of the American press'

Conspiracy theories pushed by Robert Kennedy Jr. claiming that major U.S. media outlets are controlled by the CIA are "classic techniques of propaganda," an expert says.

abcnews.go.com

 

[SaintForLife]

Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has received intense public scrutiny for promoting an array of unconventional theories, from claiming that vaccines are behind an "epidemic" of diseases in America to insisting that the CIA was directly involved in the assassination of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.

But one recurring conspiracy theory has garnered relatively little notice: his persistent assertion that major U.S. media outlets are being run by undercover CIA operatives or are controlled in some other way by the CIA, as part of a secret government plot to manipulate Americans' minds.

"The new head of NPR is a CIA agent," Kennedy declared at a New York campaign fundraiser in April, drawing gasps from some of his supporters.

He was specifically referring to Katherine Maher, who nearly two months earlier became NPR's CEO and president after a long career in international development and digital advocacy. At the fundraiser, Kennedy said Maher's hiring at NPR was just the latest salvo in the CIA's "systematic takeover of the American press, particularly the liberal media."

Kennedy continues to amplify such claims at campaign events, in media interviews, and on social media, supporting them with what experts described to ABC News as "half-truths," "intimations," misinterpretations of law, and twisted historical anecdotes. He often cites widespread -- but utterly unsubstantiated -- allegations that a CIA program supposedly called "Operation Mockingbird" secretly recruited journalists decades ago to help brainwash Americans............

On campaign trail, RFK Jr. pushes 'bonkers' theory about CIA's 'takeover of the American press'

Conspiracy theories pushed by Robert Kennedy Jr. claiming that major U.S. media outlets are controlled by the CIA are "classic techniques of propaganda," an expert says.

abcnews.go.com

Yeah it's not like the CIA has done anything like that before/sarcasm off.

Operation Mockingbird:

THE CIA AND THE MEDIA
How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

BY CARL BERNSTEIN

The CIA And The Media — Carl Bernstein

www.carlbernstein.com

2013:

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences.

foreignpolicy.com

 

[SaintForLife]

On Maher:





I had already posted the batshit crazy tweets she made in the past.

 

[MT15]

This guy is just as dangerous of a lunatic as Trump.

 

[bird]

This guy is just as dangerous of a lunatic as Trump.

He is a complete loon, period.

 

[bird]

On Maher:





I had already posted the batshit crazy tweets she made in the past.

And?

 

[MT15]

As a reminder, Benz utilized an anonymous account for years that posted the most vile racist and anti-Semitic content imaginable. He’s probably filled with self-loathing and could be mentally ill.

This anti-censorship crusader appears to have buried something himself: A secret alt-right past

Frame Game, the pseudonym of an alt-right internet personality, hid his face while pushing racist conspiracy theories. Inadvertent slips revealed details about his identity.

www.nbcnews.com

“The pseudonym, Frame Game, posted videos and participated in podcasts and livestreams during the rise of the alt-right following Donald Trump’s election. Frame Game avoided showing his face in his videos or appearances, during which he pushed a variety of far-right narratives including the “Great Replacement Theory” that posits the white race is being eradicated in America for politics and profits. In others, Frame Game said he was a white identitarian, railed against the idea of diversity and made montages urging white viewers to unite under the banner of race.

In interviews with white nationalists, Frame Game blamed Jews for “controlling the media” and for the decline of the white race. “If you were to remove the Jewish influence on the West,” he said in one video, “white people would not face the threat of white genocide that they currently do.””

 

[CoolBrees]

As a reminder, Benz utilized an anonymous account for years that posted the most vile racist and anti-Semitic content imaginable. He’s probably filled with self-loathing and could be mentally ill.

This anti-censorship crusader appears to have buried something himself: A secret alt-right past

Frame Game, the pseudonym of an alt-right internet personality, hid his face while pushing racist conspiracy theories. Inadvertent slips revealed details about his identity.

www.nbcnews.com

There was a South Park where the chief of police posed as a hooker for like 40 years and married the pimp etc. and said the whole time it was for the case.

That is as close to an example I can think of, that is as much of a bullshirt "I was undercover" excuse.

 

[MT15]

This could easily have gone into the media thread, because this appeared in the NYT:

 

[Optimus Prime]

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta. But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.

In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.

“The American people want leaders who trust them to make up their own minds,” Kennedy said. “Instead, our last two presidents are restricting voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars from the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the one candidate who can hold them to account.”


Kennedy’s anger and frustration at what he describes as his exclusion despite six qualifying polls and confirmed ballot access in five states – with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five more, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.

“RFK Jr was recruited to run by Maga Republicans, is being propped up by Trump’s largest donor, and his own campaign staff has said their goal is to hurt President Biden,” Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, told CBS News.

Corridoni said Kennedy had “no real grassroots support, no pathway to 270 electoral votes, and his campaign is resorting to a pattern of deception and shortcuts to circumvent state rules for independent candidate ballot access”.…….

RFK Jr claims Republicans, Democrats and CNN conspired to exclude him from debate

Independent candidate is polling at about 8%, but could be a spoiler in November contest between Trump and Biden

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta. But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.

In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.

“The American people want leaders who trust them to make up their own minds,” Kennedy said. “Instead, our last two presidents are restricting voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars from the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the one candidate who can hold them to account.”


Kennedy’s anger and frustration at what he describes as his exclusion despite six qualifying polls and confirmed ballot access in five states – with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five more, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.

“RFK Jr was recruited to run by Maga Republicans, is being propped up by Trump’s largest donor, and his own campaign staff has said their goal is to hurt President Biden,” Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, told CBS News.

Corridoni said Kennedy had “no real grassroots support, no pathway to 270 electoral votes, and his campaign is resorting to a pattern of deception and shortcuts to circumvent state rules for independent candidate ballot access”.…….

RFK Jr claims Republicans, Democrats and CNN conspired to exclude him from debate

Independent candidate is polling at about 8%, but could be a spoiler in November contest between Trump and Biden

www.theguardian.com

He’s just like Trump-malignant narcissist, pathological liar, perennial victim, gaslighting SOB.

 

[Optimus Prime]

RFK Jr denies being ‘lunatic’ anti-vaxxer and compares Biden to a ‘5-year-old’

Robert F Kennedy, Jr, sat down for in-depth interview with Dr Phil about independent campaign ahead of first Biden-Trump presidential debate

www.independent.co.uk

 

[MT15]

RFK Jr denies being ‘lunatic’ anti-vaxxer and compares Biden to a ‘5-year-old’

Robert F Kennedy, Jr, sat down for in-depth interview with Dr Phil about independent campaign ahead of first Biden-Trump presidential debate

www.independent.co.uk

He’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel by talking to Phil. Plus the audience will be Trump supporters rather than Biden supporters. So how does this help him at all?

And he’s on record as a lunatic anti-vaxxer. Too late to start denying it now.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Robert F Kennedy Jr has responded to an allegation that he sexually assaulted an employee by stating: “I am not a church boy,” as scrutiny grows over his long-shot run for the presidency.

The independent candidate, who is seen as a threat by both the Biden and Trump campaigns, made the statement after his former babysitter told Vanity Fair that Kennedy assaulted her at his home in 1998.

Eliza Cooney, who worked for Kennedy and his then wife as a live-in nanny at the family’s home in Mount Kisco, New York, said Kennedy touched her leg at a business meeting and later appeared shirtless in her bedroom before asking her to rub lotion on his back.


A few months later, Kennedy blocked Cooney in the kitchen “and began groping her”, Vanity Fair reported. Cooney told the magazine that Kennedy touched her inappropriately.

“My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me,” Cooney said.

“I was frozen. Shocked.”

The assault was interrupted, Cooney said, when a male worker entered the kitchen.

Asked about the sexual assault allegation on the Breaking Points podcast, Kennedy said: “The [Vanity Fair] article is a lot of garbage.”

He added: “Listen, I have said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that.


“I said in my … I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.

“So, you know, Vanity Fair is recycling 30-year-old stories. And, I’m not, you know, going to comment on the details of any of them. But it’s, you know, I am who I am.”

Asked if he was denying that he assaulted Cooney, Kennedy said: “I’m not going to comment on it.”…….

Robert F Kennedy Jr brushes off sexual assault allegation: ‘I am who I am’

Independent candidate says ‘I am not a church boy’ after ex-nanny tells Vanity Fair he assaulted her at his home in 1998

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

From book about all the kennedy men and their treatment of women
==============

……..Most topically, the book features John F Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, currently running as an independent candidate for president with a female running mate, Nicole Shanahan.

It questions why he has been criticised for his anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and antisemitic statements “but not for his lifelong mistreatment of women”.

Ask Not tells how Mary Richardson, a talented architect with looks evocative of Jackie Kennedy, married Robert in 1994 and had four children with him. She loved the idea of being a Kennedy but found her husband rarely present: his job did not require travel but he travelled all the time.

“Gaslit. That’s how Mary felt,” Callahan writes. “The more pain she was in, the worse Bobby treated her. Some days he wanted a divorce; others, he wanted to bring another woman into their bed, an idea that left her humiliated. She rejected him outright……

“There were so many – astronomical numbers, Mary said, and she knew a lot of them: The celebrated actress who came to their house and went on vacations with her family. The older model who was always around. The socialite whose husband was one of Bobby’s good friends. A gorgeous royal. The wife of a very famous man. A lawyer. A doctor. An environmental activist. All these beautiful, accomplished women. How could Mary compete?”

Mary became distraught, weeping and drinking and struggling to get out of bed, the book says. Robert tried to forcibly hospitalise her, telling her that she would be “better off dead”. Callahan interviewed Mary’s therapist, Sheenah Hankin. When Robert asked for Mary to be diagnosed as mentally ill, Hankin refused, telling him: “Your wife isn’t mentally ill. She is angry and depressed, but she is not ill.”

Robert began dating the actor Cheryl Hines, who played Larry David’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He cut off Mary’s credit card and access to cash. Broke, she had to ask other mothers for an extra $20 so she could buy petrol and groceries.

Finally, she hanged herself at home. The book recounts how Mary had put on her yoga clothes and sandals, and walked out to her barn. “When she was found that afternoon, Mary’s fingers were stuck inside the rope around her neck. She had changed her mind. She had tried to save herself.”


Mary’s siblings insisted that her depression had been a direct result of her husband’s cheating and neglect, his threats to take the children and leave her with nothing, “bringing the full weight of the Kennedy family to bear against her”.……..

‘They always got away with it’: new book reveals Kennedys’ shocking treatment of women

Maureen Callahan’s eye-opening exposé looks back at the Kennedy men and the women they ‘destroyed’, digging into a long and grisly history

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

From book about all the kennedy men and their treatment of women
==============

……..Most topically, the book features John F Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, currently running as an independent candidate for president with a female running mate, Nicole Shanahan.

It questions why he has been criticised for his anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and antisemitic statements “but not for his lifelong mistreatment of women”.

Ask Not tells how Mary Richardson, a talented architect with looks evocative of Jackie Kennedy, married Robert in 1994 and had four children with him. She loved the idea of being a Kennedy but found her husband rarely present: his job did not require travel but he travelled all the time.

“Gaslit. That’s how Mary felt,” Callahan writes. “The more pain she was in, the worse Bobby treated her. Some days he wanted a divorce; others, he wanted to bring another woman into their bed, an idea that left her humiliated. She rejected him outright……

“There were so many – astronomical numbers, Mary said, and she knew a lot of them: The celebrated actress who came to their house and went on vacations with her family. The older model who was always around. The socialite whose husband was one of Bobby’s good friends. A gorgeous royal. The wife of a very famous man. A lawyer. A doctor. An environmental activist. All these beautiful, accomplished women. How could Mary compete?”

Mary became distraught, weeping and drinking and struggling to get out of bed, the book says. Robert tried to forcibly hospitalise her, telling her that she would be “better off dead”. Callahan interviewed Mary’s therapist, Sheenah Hankin. When Robert asked for Mary to be diagnosed as mentally ill, Hankin refused, telling him: “Your wife isn’t mentally ill. She is angry and depressed, but she is not ill.”

Robert began dating the actor Cheryl Hines, who played Larry David’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He cut off Mary’s credit card and access to cash. Broke, she had to ask other mothers for an extra $20 so she could buy petrol and groceries.

Finally, she hanged herself at home. The book recounts how Mary had put on her yoga clothes and sandals, and walked out to her barn. “When she was found that afternoon, Mary’s fingers were stuck inside the rope around her neck. She had changed her mind. She had tried to save herself.”


Mary’s siblings insisted that her depression had been a direct result of her husband’s cheating and neglect, his threats to take the children and leave her with nothing, “bringing the full weight of the Kennedy family to bear against her”.……..

‘They always got away with it’: new book reveals Kennedys’ shocking treatment of women

Maureen Callahan’s eye-opening exposé looks back at the Kennedy men and the women they ‘destroyed’, digging into a long and grisly history

www.theguardian.com

What an absolute monster.

 

[MT15]

Oh, and he may have gotten his brain worm from eating dogs.

 

[Incumbent]

Oh, and he may have gotten his brain worm from eating dogs.

Oh, so the dog-eating might actually be true? I saw a picture on Threads of him, a woman at his side with her face partially censored, about to take a bite of a splayed, grilled, medium dog-sized animal but thought it was likely shopped or mislabeled.

Perhaps he should have picked Noem as his running mate?

The sexual assault allegation wasn’t surprising.