Detractors Denounce, Fans Praise RFK Jr.'s Trump Endorsement

Ex-President Donald Trump, left, takes the stage with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Arizona on Aug. 23, 2024, hours after the independent candidate suspends his White House bid (Associated Press photo by Evan Vucci). Below is a statement by five of RFK Jr.’s siblings decrying his endorsement as a “betrayal.”

Independent U.S. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Republican Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump prompted a remarkable outpouring of comment pro and con, sampled below.

The drama reflected in the comments extends beyond normal politics. That’s partly because RFK Jr. (the candidate’s widely used nickname) seeks to  empower a new Trump Administration hostile to some of his and his family’s long-held liberal positions.

Also, RFK Jr. seeks to obtain a post in a new administration with the power to advance some of his highly controversial (some would say “anti-science,” “deranged” or even “con man”) views about health care. He seeks also from Trump the release of assassination records and other accountability for what RFK Jr. regards as government complicity and cover-up regarding the assassinations of his uncle, John F. Kennedy (JFK) in 1963, and of his father, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), in 1968.

The Guardian headlined the endorsement news as follows: RFK Jr suspends campaign and backs Trump, with these sub-headlines: “Trump accepts RFK Jr. endorsement and vows to release JFK assassination files; Ex-president takes stage with Kennedy in Arizona, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid.”

The newspaper further reported:

Hours after being endorsed by the third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump said he would release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F. Kennedy” if he were elected president in November as part of a proposed new commission on presidential assassination attempts, including the one that targeted him.

Speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Trump also pledged that, if elected, he would “establish a panel of top experts” that would work with Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, to investigate childhood health problems. The 13 July assassination attempt on Trump is already being officially investigated, including by the Secret Service and the FBI.

Kennedy, the scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic political dynasties, got a roar of approval from Republicans when he joined Trump onstage at a Republican campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona. “Bobby! Bobby!” the crowd chanted.

Yet five of Kennedy’s siblings responded with a statement decrying his Trump endorsement as a “betrayal” of the family legacy.

In a joint statement, The Guardian’s report continued, five of Kennedy’s siblings – Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Chris Kennedy and Rory Kennedy – called RFK’s endorsement of Trump “a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold” and “a sad ending to a sad story.” They said they were supporting the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

In March, President Biden, first row center, hosted more than three dozen members of the Kennedy family at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2024.

Prominent in the Biden-Harris administration have been two members of the Kennedy Family who are diplomats: One is U.S. Ambassador To Australia Caroline Kennedy, left, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 and the only surviving child of JFK and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The other is U.S. Special Envoy To Northern Ireland Joseph Kennedy III, below right (and shown also in the family photo above), a grandson of RFK and also a former congressman like his father, Joseph P. Kennedy II.

The comments below include those from experts who have been heavily focused through the years, as has the Justice Integrity Project’s editor, on documents withheld from public view regarding the JFK and RFK assassinations. This editor will moderate a panel on the topic of JFK records release that is scheduled for the annual conference of the group Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) to be held from Nov. 22 to 24 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dallas, TX.

The comments below are drawn from both published reports and emailed interviews by the Justice Integrity Project, include those pertaining both to RFK Jr.’s public career as an environmental lawyer and advocate and his notorious statements and actions. Among the issues are RFK Jr.’s vast money-making via his presidential campaign and his best-selling book, Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, denouncing conventional disease prevention via vaccines, as well as his controversial statements on Ukraine, Israel, NATO, women, immigration, among other topics.

Two former colleagues quoted below allege that he has become deranged and now represents a grave danger to the public, especially in terms of public health, national security and helping Trump return to the presidency. “If RFK Jr. gets his way on vaccines,” says domestic terrorism researcher and longtime school teacher Stuart Wexler, “it would probably contribute to more deaths over time than some recent wars.”

Others maintain that RFK Jr. is a good man traumatized by his father’s death, with talents and ideas that are widely misunderstood.

Contact the author Andrew Kreig

Related News Coverage

RFK Jr. at home in California.

Aug. 28

New York Times, “A terrible president”: Here’s a look at 12 times Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized Donald Trump, Tim Balk, Aug. 28, 2024. Mr. Kennedy’s recent alliance with Donald J. Trump represented a sharp reversal of a long-combative relationship.

The alliance between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former President Donald J. Trump, which was fortified on Tuesday with Mr. Kennedy’s appointment to Mr. Trump’s transition team, is a sharp turnabout in a long-combative relationship.

Mr. Kennedy had spent the better part of a decade lobbing attacks at Mr. Trump, portraying him as a buffoonish, anti-democratic bully who led a feckless administration.

“In many ways, he’s discredited the American experiment with self-governance,” Mr. Kennedy said of Mr. Trump in early 2020.

Mr. Kennedy set aside his criticisms when he suspended his long-shot independent presidential campaign last Friday, saying that he was backing Mr. Trump because he was “choosing to believe” that “this time” Mr. Trump would bring him into his administration — something that did not happen for Mr. Kennedy the last time around, after they met in 2017. Mr. Kennedy, reached for comment, pointed to the remarks he made Friday.

Mr. Kennedy acknowledged Friday that he and the former president “don’t agree on everything.” But he said that they had found common ground on certain issues, and he took a different, far more positive tone in front of a cheering crowd of Trump supporters in Glendale, Ariz.

“Don’t you want a president who’s going to protect America’s freedoms, and who’s going to protect us against totalitarianism?” Mr. Kennedy asked on Friday.

Six years earlier, he had accused Mr. Trump of “systematically” supporting totalitarian governments around the world.

Here’s a look back at 12 times Mr. Kennedy ridiculed Mr. Trump and his policies.

Salon, Commentary: Donald Trump’s embrace of RFK Jr. exposes the campaign’s QAnon strategy, Amanda Marcotte, The old MAGA conspiracy theory is still around — and may be sucking in people who’d otherwise dislike Trump.

Is Donald Trump wishing he could replace Sen. JD Vance of Ohio with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate?

That question jumped from the world of social media jokes to a serious inquiry on Monday, when the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and former presidential candidate told Tucker Carlson that he’s been hired to “pick the people who will be running the government” if Trump gets elected in November.

Since Kennedy dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump, the GOP candidate has fully embraced the black sheep of the famous Democratic clan.

Trump used to sneer that Kennedy was a “Radical Left Democrat,” which was false, and that he’s the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy clan, which is fair enough. After Kennedy endorsed him, however, Trump hugged Kennedy and declared, “He’s a great guy, respected by everybody.” (Fact check: Kennedy isn’t even respected by his family members, who are blanketing the airwaves to say his behavior is “obscene” and a betrayal of his father, a New York senator and presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1968.)

The imagery of the two men together spread far and wide, to the point where it seems that Kennedy is Trump’s running mate — not Vance.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign seems fine with this, since Kennedy’s presence only proves the “weird” accusations the campaign has blasted onto the Trump ticket. “In the four days since he endorsed Trump, RFK Jr. has spent his time tweeting about chemtrails and dodging questions about illegally sawing off a dead whale’s head,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement. “Normal candidates would run from a surrogate like this, but desperate men do desperate things.”

Trump has a stench of desperation to him, as Harris rises in the polls. Still, it’s not initially clear what an alliance with Kennedy does for Trump. Although he and Vance keep insisting they’re “normal” and “not weird,” here they are, lavishing attention on a man who claimed to have a brain worm and by his own account once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park. The choice is yet another indicator of how much the Trump campaign’s strategy depends on appealing to fringe constituencies in hopes that they turn out just enough creeps and conspiracy theorists to eke out a win in the swing states.

The number of Democrats espousing QAnon beliefs doubled after Trump left office, from 7% in 2021 to 14% in late 2023. Harris’ rise in the polls suggests she may be starting to get some of the drifters back.

Kennedy doesn’t just connect with the anti-vaccine community. He likely has special appeal to a group that isn’t mentioned as much in the mainstream media anymore, but whose bizarre ideas still hold power over millions: QAnon, a cult-like conspiracy community that believes Trump is a savior sent to stop an imaginary cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.

A popular belief in QAnon circles is that John F. Kennedy Jr., who was Robert Kennedy’s first cousin, did not actually die in a 1999 plane crash, but has been in hiding and will emerge as Trump’s running mate. Many have decided that Vince Fusca, a random Trump follower, is the dead son of President John F. Kennedy.

But why should they bother propping up this man who looks nothing like a Kennedy, when they have a verifiable Kennedy on board? Sure, he’s merely the son of the assassinated candidate, not the assassinated president, but still. The photos of RFK Jr. and Trump standing together are so close to what many QAnoners have long imagined. They’re not going to balk because he’s the “wrong” Kennedy son.

“Trump’s alliance with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be part of a pattern of Trump and his allies associating with those who spread conspiracy theories,” Alex Kaplan of Media Matters told Salon. “Trump has increasingly amplified accounts that have promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, doing so hundreds of times, and some of his advisers and associates have connected with those conspiracy theorists as well. It also speaks to how some conspiracy theory movements, like RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine movement, the election denial movement and the QAnon community, are now working more closely together.”

On Monday, Kennedy offered a perfect example. In response to a conspiracy theorist yelling about “chemtrails” on Twitter, Kennedy replied, “We’re going to stop this crime.” The account’s handle — “@BGatesIsaPyscho” — is a QAnon reference and the account heavily promotes the main QAnon theory that the world is secretly run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles. BGatesIsaPyscho has over half a million followers.

To be sure, Trump isn’t short on options. Huge numbers of voters who were down on Biden are telling pollsters they like Harris, especially younger voters, women and people of color. Most of these people will not be dissuaded from voting for her by ludicrous conspiracy theories, but if even a small percentage could be, that might flip major swing states to Trump. It’s not like he’s got better ideas. These voters don’t like his real-world policies. The best Trump can hope for is to distract enough of them long enough that they forget or ignore his dangerous real-life conspiracies, like Project 2025.

Aug. 27

New York Times, Trump to Put Kennedy and Gabbard on His Transition Team, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Aug. 27, 2024. Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Gabbard, who had been progressive Democrats for many years, will join the former president’s sons and Senator JD Vance, his running mate, as honorary co-chairs.

Donald J. Trump plans to name his former rival, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, a one-time Democrat, as honorary co-chairs of a presidential transition team that will help him select the policies and personnel of any second Trump administration, according to a campaign senior adviser.

Mr. Kennedy, who ended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Mr. Trump on Friday, described his transition role briefly in an interview that aired Monday.

“I’ve been asked to go on the transition team, you know, and to help pick the people who will be running the government,” Mr. Kennedy told Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, in an interview posted on X.

Both Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Gabbard spent most of their public life as progressive Democrats. Only four months ago, Mr. Trump was calling Mr. Kennedy a “Radical Left Lunatic” who was “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat.” Trump allies pushed stories about Mr. Kennedy’s record of supporting abortion rights and far-left environmentalism as they tried to make his independent candidacy less appealing to Trump voters.

Ms. Gabbard, right, a former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run and who endorsed Mr. Trump on Monday, has been helping with the informal debate preparation sessions Mr. Trump has held in recent weeks.

It’s unclear what exactly she and Mr. Kennedy will do in their transition roles, but they will join Mr. Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as his running mate, Senator JD Vance, as honorary chairs of the transition.

Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said that they are “proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team. We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness.”

New York Times, Here’s how Democrats view Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsing Donald Trump: “A weirdo campaign just got weirder,” Nicholas Nehamas, Aug. 27, 2024. Democrats once seriously worried that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be a spoiler. Now, after his endorsement of Donald Trump, they see a political opportunity.

Democrats say they have a simple plan for discrediting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now that he has dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald J. Trump: calling him “weird.”

It’s a playground-style strategy that the Harris campaign has already deployed against Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, and the put-downs have proved popular with the Democratic base.

The party doesn’t have to look far for ammunition. Mr. Kennedy has recently made headlines for decapitating a dead whale with a chain saw and strapping its head to the family minivan, as well as dumping a deceased bear cub in Central Park. Now the Democrats want to attach his baggage to Mr. Trump.

On Friday, the Democratic National Committee unveiled billboards near the rally in Arizona where Mr. Kennedy, whose support once reached as high as 20 percent in some polls, endorsed the former president. The billboards showed an image of Mr. Trump flanked by Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Vance, with the text “Weird As Hell” in large type.

Democrats and their allies also plan to try to make Mr. Trump own some of Mr. Kennedy’s fringe positions and conspiratorial views, including his false statements about the dangers of vaccines and his brief call for a national abortion ban.

“A weirdo campaign just got weirder,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democratic think tank that has led efforts to stop independent and third-party candidates from siphoning votes from Democrats. “This campaign of freaks is not going to do Republicans any favors.”

And on Monday, after Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who has rebranded herself as a celebrity in the MAGA movement, endorsed Mr. Trump, the D.N.C. issued a news release with the headline: “Trump’s Circle of Weirdos Gets Even More Extreme.”

For months, Democrats worried that Mr. Kennedy’s third-party candidacy would cost them crucial swing voters in a close race against Mr. Trump.

But those fears eased as Mr. Kennedy’s support declined, and they have nearly evaporated since he endorsed Mr. Trump. Democrats believe that Mr. Kennedy’s exit from the race plays into their longstanding argument that he is essentially a right-wing stooge and that it bolsters their case that voters should see the election as a binary choice between Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

And they say Kennedy voters are too small in number and disconnected from politics to have anything more than a marginal impact in November.

“Democrats have always wanted this race to be a choice: a choice between Trump and Harris,” Mr. Bennet said. “Do they want four more years of Trump and all of his chaos, or do they want Harris? And giving them other options really makes that choice less clear.”

But Republicans point to Democrats’ efforts to weaken Mr. Kennedy — including support for legal challenges to his ballot access in several states and holding an event where Kennedy relatives repudiated him — as evidence that they are worried he could influence the race.

Tony Fabrizio, a pollster for the Trump campaign, wrote in a memo last week that Kennedy voters in the top seven battleground states could break for Mr. Trump over Ms. Harris in numbers large enough to sway the final outcome in a tight race.

“The Harris campaign is whining because they’re losing,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign. “And they know R.F.K. Jr. joining the winning team hurts their chances of defeating President Trump even more.”

For its part, the Harris campaign has adopted a conciliatory approach toward former Kennedy voters. Ms. Harris’s team has previously reached out to disaffected Republicans who voted for former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina in her primary race against Mr. Trump.

“Vice President Harris wants to earn your support,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, the Harris campaign chair, said in a statement about Mr. Kennedy’s departure from the race.

To many Democrats, it was hardly a surprise when Mr. Kennedy, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, endorsed Mr. Trump. The two had been playing political footsie for weeks, exchanging phone calls and negotiating behind the scenes. Last week, the former president said he would consider his former rival for a position in his administration. And the largest donor to a super PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy was the billionaire Timothy Mellon, who has also contributed extensively to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign has been seriously weakened in recent weeks.

Polling showed that his support from voters had fallen significantly over the last few months, with Democrats taking credit for messaging that drew attention to his record. That trend only continued when Ms. Harris replaced President Biden on the ticket. Some Kennedy supporters were so-called double haters — voters who disliked both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. His fund-raising had also all but dried up.

Before he dropped out, Mr. Kennedy was polling worse than Gary Johnson had in 2016 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket.

“Once around 15 percent, R.F.K. Jr.’s support has been in free fall — now under 5 percent — and he’s not positioned to deliver any electoral benefit to Trump,” Ramsey Reid, the Democratic National Committee’s campaign manager for its effort against third-party and independent candidates, wrote in a memo.

And many of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters were low-information voters with little track record of showing up on Election Day, meaning their support for any candidate was not guaranteed.

Rahna Epting, the executive director of the liberal activist group MoveOn — which invested heavily in attacking Mr. Kennedy — said he had gone from being a “dangerous” spoiler to a nonentity.

“He’s irrelevant,” Ms. Epting said, calling his campaign “opportunistic” and saying it was “solely driven to damage the Democrats’ chances of winning the White House,” as evidenced by his endorsement of Mr. Trump.

On Sunday, it also became clear how Republicans could be forced to defend Mr. Kennedy’s controversial views.

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Vance was asked about Mr. Kennedy’s statements about vaccines, antidepressants and the Sept. 11 attacks. The Ohio senator hedged and turned to attacking Ms. Harris before the host, Kristen Welker of NBC News, asked him if he agreed with Mr. Kennedy’s statement that he would not “take sides” on what happened on Sept. 11.

“Well, of course I don’t agree with that, Kristen,” Mr. Vance replied. “Now, to be clear, I don’t know what R.F.K. actually said there. Maybe there was additional context.”

Aug. 26

Meidas Touch Network, Commentary: Trump Launches Attack on Kennedy Family, J.D. Wolf, Aug. 26, 2024. RFK Jr’s endorsement invited Trump to Kennedy family drama.

On Truth Social Monday, Trump posted a viral attack on the Kennedy family from Fox News host Tammy Bruce. The screenshot Trump posted was of a tweet quoting and attacking Kerry Kennedy for denouncing her brother’s endorsement of Trump.

Trump remarked, “One of the GREATEST, Statements of the Year, from the Wonderful and Brilliant Tammy Bruce!” Bruce called the Kennedy family, “awful” a family with a “checkered past and horrible behavior,” and for doing “civil rights work and public service.”

Bruce also mentioned that the Kennedy family is unconcerned with the price of eggs. MAGA Republicans have been attacking the price of eggs, but many people in the country have noticed the price of groceries falling.

RFK Jr, despite his commitment to clean water and air, endorsed Trump last week. Apparently, that also now means he invited Trump to the family drama. Here is the part that Trump’s post cut off, the Twitter post from Kerry Kennedy rebuking her brother for endorsing Trump.

RFK Jr’s ambition is so strong that he is willing to endorse someone who stands against his clean water legacy and is willing to invite Trump, of all people, into his family drama.

Aug. 25

Politico, RFK Jr. says Trump endorsement not out of revenge, Mia McCarthy, Aug. 25, 2024. Kennedy also said he will be “campaigning actively” for Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Sunday his endorsement of Donald Trump is not out of revenge on Democrats and he plans to continue campaigning for the former president.

“I’m going to be campaigning actively,” Kennedy said in an interview with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think President Trump will make a series of announcements with other Democrats who are joining his campaign and I want to make America healthy again and so does President Trump.”

Kennedy, who has argued that Democrats effectively blocked him from seeking the nomination this year, also said he only plans to withdraw his name from the ballot in 10 swing states and will stay on about 30 state ballots where his candidacy is not likely to affect the outcome.

Kennedy said, “In the states where I would have been a spoiler, I’m going to get out. It’s about 10 states.”

While Kennedy said he still disagrees with Trump on some issues, he had talked to Trump after his assassination attempt and then had two extensive meetings with him after that.

“[Trump] invited me to form a unity government and we agreed to be able to continue to criticize each other on issues on which we don’t agree,” Kennedy said, adding Trump committed to helping him on issues like ending the war in Ukraine and ending censorship. “But these issues are so important for unifying our country, we need in this country to reach a point where we love our children more than we hate each other.”

Kennedy also said there have been no other talks of Cabinet positions in exchange for his endorsement with the Trump campaign.

As for Kennedy’s family — who have all endorsed Biden and now Harris — Kennedy said his family is “free to take their positions” but that “we all need to be able to disagree with each other and still love each other.” When asked about whether his endorsement was made out of revenge or anger with the Democratic Party, he said it had “zero” impact on his decision.

“In anything in my life, I don’t act out of anger or revenge or resentment. It’s a bad motivation, like swallowing poison hoping someone else will die,” Kennedy said. “So I don’t do it. I am very pragmatic and practical.”

Kerry Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister, released a statement with her siblings denouncing their brother’s endorsement of Trump. Speaking Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside With Jen Psaki,” she said she was “outraged and disgusted” by her brother’s embrace of Trump.

“If my dad [shown at left] were alive today, the real Robert Kennedy would have detested almost everything that Trump represents,” Kerry Kennedy said. “And I completely disavow and separate, dissociate myself from Robert Kennedy Jr. and his flagrant efforts to trample my father’s memory.”

JFK Facts, JFK Researchers React to RFK Jr.’s Withdrawal, Jefferson Morley, right, Aug. 25, 2024. Does his alliance with Trump help or hurt the cause of full JFK disclosure? You be the judge.

My report on Robert Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of former president Trump is generating strong reactions, especially in the JFK research community. For the record, I was not an RFK Jr. supporter.

A sampling:

Dan Alcorn, right, president of the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, DC. (AARC)

The truth of the matter is that both political parties have failed to release the JFK assassination records. Ex-President Trump had that opportunity in 2017 and was prevailed upon by persons unknown to keep the records secret. The Biden-Harris administration has had the power since 2021 to release them and instead has imposed secrecy while using the rhetoric of transparency. The Biden-Harris administration could release the records before the end of their term. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is to be commended for educating himself on the assassinations and calling for full disclosure. One hopes Ex-President Trump, President Biden and Vice-President Harris will follow this path.

Dr. Doug DeSalles wrote the following to listserve for JFK researchers: Repeat of the question asked: does anyone on this list believe that Trump will do what he pledges on the JFK records?

It has no doubt caught the attention of researchers (and any human who has paid attention) that DJT has a habit of saying one thing and doing another. This promise has zero value.

RFK Jr has his advocates on this forum. Now that he has crossed the line from self-serving scientific fraud to a full-fledged advocate for the worst president ever one hopes that those friendly to his antics will wake up and smell the coffee. Then call out this entitled, former heroin-abusing narcissist for trading on his family name for a health care post in a second Trump administration. The first one saw several hundred thousand extra American deaths from Covid thanks to idiotic medical advice/actions orchestrated by DJT. Adding a world class medical quack to Team Trump will definitely not stand us in better stead come 2025 should the worst happen on election day.

As for Harris taking positive action on the records — excellent suggestion Jeff. Let us hope she seizes the opportunity.

Robert Carlina commented:

I sincerely hope that you are not endorsing Trump based on his promise. His was a presidency based on broken promises and lies and what he says he plans for the future of our country will make meaningless anything that comes from full disclosure.

Charlies Sanders, attorney, said:

This is as vile a turn of events as I could have dreamed up. There are no words to adequately describe the desecration of American values that is taking place in the cause of keeping Donald Trump from having to meet justice. To use the JFK files, the release of which Trump refused to order for four years, as just another shiny object in his hall of mirrors in the ultimate indignity for the serious research and historical community. How many times can Lucy pull the football away from Charlie Brown? The answer is “infinity.”

Chad Nagle, attorney and JFK Facts contributor, said:

The toxic climate of polarization in U.S. politics right now will cause many to dismiss this new coalition with contempt. But Kennedy said he has “chosen to believe” Trump will honor their agreement, i.e., he’s trusting someone who’s perhaps never trusted anyone else in his life. Shut out of the Democratic Party, RFK Jr. decided to take a chance and do something instead of nothing. I think he’s done the right thing.

If Trump lets him down on his pledge to create a commission on the assassination, Bobby Kennedy has lost nothing. We don’t know what Trump saw in his first term, but we know what Andrew Napolitano said he told him about the JFK files. If Trump is re-elected, and Kennedy joins his administration, the two could look at them together and decide what they mean. It feels doubtful even the CIA can fully interpret them now.

Essentially, RFK Jr.’s massive campaign effort may have won him a ticket to the inner national security circle, to find out for all of us what is in the remaining withheld assassination records. It has the potential to be fascinating.

Mary Haverstick, author of A Woman I Know: Female Spies, Double Identities, and a New Story of the Kennedy Assassination, wrote on X:

When I was researching at the Kennedy Library, I asked about the Manchester int. Files, which will come out scores of years after the JFK kids are dead. But get this:  I was told they hold other files that ARE TO NEVER COME OUT!!!! EVER!!!!

Aug. 24

Washington Post, Trump vowed to release all remaining JFK files. What could they contain? Kyle Melnick, Aug. 24, 2024. Despite their differences about what they suspect happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, two prominent researchers agree the remaining files should be released.

After independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, the Republican nominee pledged that if he’s elected to the White House, he will release all the documents related to the 1963 assassination of Kennedy’s uncle.

“This is a tribute in honor of Bobby,” Trump said at a Friday evening rally in the Phoenix area. “I will establish a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts, and they will be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

For decades after the killing, many documents related to the event were withheld from the public, spurring conspiracy theories.

The Warren Commission, which was created a week after John F. Kennedy’s death in November 1963, said that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in Dallas. But others have continued to question whether Oswald worked with Soviet, Cuban or CIA agents. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a New York radio station last year that he believes the CIA was involved in his uncle’s murder.

Congress passed a law more than three decades ago intended to put to rest questions about the assassination by declassifying relevant records, but there remain more than 3,000 documents that still contain redactions, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, leaving some researchers puzzled.

The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 declared that all the documents about the assassination should be made publicly available by October 2017. However, the law allowed U.S. officials to postpone the release of documents if they thought national security and privacy concerns outweighed the public interest in disclosure.

Roughly 320,000 documents were identified and slated to be declassified after the law passed.

The law was signed the year after the release of director Oliver Stone’s political thriller JFK, a fictional portrayal of a New Orleans district attorney who found evidence of a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s death.

U.S. officials have cited privacy and national security concerns multiple times for postponing the release of some documents.

When he was president in 2017, Trump announced that he planned to publicly disclose the remaining documents but ultimately delayed the release of some files for national security reasons, saying they would be released by October 2021. In 2018, Trump authorized the disclosure of 19,045 documents, many of which contained redactions.

In October 2021, President Joe Biden also postponed the planned release of the documents, citing delays prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure,” Biden said at the time.

Biden released more than 13,000 documents in the following years, but in June 2023, he announced that he had made his “final certification” on files to be released, transferring his power to disclose documents to U.S. agencies.

Gerald Posner, left, who wrote the 1993 Kennedy assassination book Case Closed, said he isn’t sure whether Trump will follow through on his promise if he’s elected in November.

“You had an opportunity to do it, you said you were going to do it, and you didn’t do it,” Posner said about Trump. “Now, with the RFK Jr. endorsement, maybe that’s a quid pro quo, and maybe this time he’ll actually do it.”

Tens of thousands of documents were released between 2018 and last year. The last large batch of released documents came in December 2022, when Biden disclosed 13,173 documents.

Jefferson Morley, right, the editor of the JFK Facts newsletter, said a few revelations have arisen from those releases. The documents showed that some CIA employees didn’t believe Oswald acted alone, Morley said, and a counterintelligence official tried to “wait out” the Warren Commission’s investigation by denying it information about Oswald.

Posner, however, said that many of the recently released documents haven’t revealed a smoking gun, and he doubts the remaining documents will either.

“Some of the biggest headlines that have been pulled from the JFK files the last four or five years are what I call tabloid stories about stories that were actually old,” Posner said.

Morley and Posner said they believe the remaining documents might show that the CIA was aware of Oswald before the assassination.

Morley said the evidence released so far leads him to suspect Kennedy’s opponents in the CIA might’ve been working with Oswald and the remaining documents could prove or disprove that theory. Posner said he thinks Oswald acted alone and the remaining documents might show the CIA failed to report him to the FBI before the assassination.

A CIA spokesperson told The Washington Post in 2022 that the agency was not withholding information about Oswald or the assassination.

“CIA believes all substantive information known to be directly related to Oswald has been released,” the spokesperson said. “The few remaining redactions protect CIA employee names, sources, locations, and CIA tradecraft.”

Despite their differences about what they think happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, both Posner and Morley hope to see the records fully released.

“Is there a smoking gun in there? You know, this is not about a smoking gun,” Morley said. “This is about the law that says all of the government’s JFK records should be made public by October 2017. We’re seven years past that blown deadline.”

MeidasTouch Network, Commentary: RFK Jr Praised Kamala Harris’ Economic Plan Just Last Week, J.D. Wolf, Aug. 24, 2024. On Friday, RFK Jr. suspended his campaign sort of, and endorsed Trump in swing states. RFK Jr explained he will remain on the ballot in several states and potentially still has a path to win if Trump and Harris don’t reach enough electoral college votes to clinch the presidency.

However, just last week, RFK Jr praised Kamala Harris’ economic plan and singled out two proposals as “good ideas.”

The independent candidate said: “My take on VP Harris’s economic plan: it actually has some good ideas — help for first-time homebuyers, tax credit for parents of newborns.”

With the economy being many voters’ #1 issue, it is striking for any candidate to praise proposals from another candidate. Harris’ plan would help first time homebuyers with down payment assistance and increase the inventory of homes on the market to help lower costs.

Parents would also benefit from Harris’ proposed child tax credit, another policy highlighted by RFK Jr as a “good idea.”

RFK Jr has quite the social media history attacking Trump as being a danger to the planet and the country. His rhetoric towards the Democratic Party was generally less dire, yet he decided to back Trump. RFK Jr’s tweet demonstrates that even his own ambition can’t keep him from seeing the benefits of Kamala Harris proposals for Americans.

Washington Post, RFK Jr., environmental warrior, backs the ‘drill, baby, drill’ ticket, Peter Jamison, Aug. 24, 2024. As an activist and lawyer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent decades battling for environmental protections that Trump has worked to undo.

As he suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right, talked at length about the “many key issues” on which he claims that he and Trump are aligned. What he did not explain were their profound disagreements in the area that for many years was central to Kennedy’s career and public image: environmental protection..

Kennedy had promised to be “the best environmental president in American history.” For decades, as an attorney and celebrity activist, he urged more vigorous enforcement of federal regulations guaranteeing clean air and water.

Now he joins a campaign whose policies, according to critics, would scale back those regulations and weaken the agencies that uphold them.

His decision has left many of Kennedy’s former allies on environmental causes in shock, even those who had already broken with him over his anti-vaccine views or quixotic presidential bid. Some said the move undid any legacy Kennedy — named one of Time magazine’s “heroes of the planet” in 1999 — could still claim to have in the nation’s environmental movement.

Nicole Shanahan and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a rally in March. Ms. Shanahan suggested in a new interview that they might drop out of the race and throw their support to Donald J. Trump (AP photo by Eric Risberg, March 26, 2024).

New York Times, Election Live Updates: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Suspends Campaign and Endorses Trump, Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Jim Rutenberg, Aug. 24, 2024 (print ed.). Mr. Kennedy announced that he was pausing his troubled independent presidential bid during a news conference in Arizona, where Donald J. Trump will also host an event this evening. After accepting the Democratic nomination, Kamala Harris is looking to an intensive new phase of the race.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suspending his independent campaign for the presidency and endorsing Donald J. Trump, he said Friday at an event in Phoenix, the latest shift in a fast-evolving 2024 campaign.

Mr. Kennedy’s withdrawal is not expected to affect the race substantially; polls have diverged on whether he pulled more potential voters from Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris.

Aug. 23

Ex-President Donald Trump takes stage with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Arizona on Aug. 23, 2024, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid (Associated Press photo by Evan Vucci).

Old Goats with Jonathan Alter, Commentary: How Chicago foiled protesters and gave Kamala her bounce, Jonathan Alter, right, Aug. 25, 2024. The DNC Was a Party. Now for the Morning After.

I’ve attended 20 political conventions since 1976 — every Democratic convention and all but three Republican conventions (1984, 2004 and 2024) — and I have never seen more enthusiasm and unity.

Chicago ‘24 was also the best-run convention I’ve covered, not logistically (delays pushed Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Tim Walz out of primetime) but in terms of doing what it takes to win. This was clear in every theme (“freedom,” “patriotism,” “common sense,” “Do something!”“We’re not going back!”), every speech (on labor, reproductive rights, the border, and national security), and every video (I especially liked the ones on January 6th and Doug Emhoff). Democrats bedeviled in the past by identity politics and woke excesses united around a woman of blended ethnicity from a blended family whose mother told her: “Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.”

The aftermath of Chicago was slightly worrying. I have no idea what RFK Jr.’s endorsement of his fellow entitled liar will do to the race. My guess is, not much. Within a week or two, only addled conspiracists will remember Bobby, who will now become just another third party loser, though one with more problems than usual at the Christmas table. (I spoke to two Kennedys in Chicago who were appalled).

But before you stop paying attention to Kennedy altogether, read Kurt Andersen’s new Atlantic story about Bobby being his coke dealer when they were Harvard undergraduates. Trump has proposed executing drug dealers, though perhaps the statute of limitations has run on RFK Jr.’s years in the business, when he hooked his brother, David, on heroin, which led to a fatal overdose.

Bobby claimed the barbecued dog he is holding in a photo from South Korea — published in Vanity Fair — is really a barbecued goat. He’s lying. I’ve seen the email he sent with the photo, where he says it’s at a restaurant in South Korea that serves dog.

After accepting Kennedy’s endorsement, Trump showed why he remains such a threat. His speech in Glendale, Arizona offered a preview of what he will do in the debate on September 10. He’ll echo his ads by accusing Harris of being a liar and flip flopper. He’ll say she’s lying by saying that Trump wants to raise taxes and cut Social Security, when she’s the one who will do that; lying by denying that she let millions of illegal immigrants get benefits; lying by connecting Trump to Project 2025, which Trump insists he’s “never heard of”; lying by saying she never favored making illegal immigrants legal; flip-flopping on fracking, which Trump wrongly claims employs 500,000 people in Pennsylvania (the real number is 24,000); flip-flopping on Medicare, where he claims she cast the tie-breaking vote to cut $266 billion from “your Medicare”. And on and on — a firehose of accusations of lying while uttering dozens more lies himself.

WhoWhatWhy, Commentary: Kennedy Cements His Legacy — As a MAGA Tool, Jonathan D. Simon, Aug. 23, 2024. No real surprise that these two shoddybeings found each other.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as anticipated for several days, has “suspended” his presidential bid with an endorsement of Donald Trump and a plan to withdraw his own name from swing-state ballots only, so as to boost Trump’s prospects of winning the Electoral College.

In April 2023 Kennedy began one of the most bizarre and troubled campaigns in presidential history by seeking the Democratic nomination. Gaining little to no traction in that endeavor, in October he dropped that bid in order to run as an independent. In March of this year, he chose billionaire Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, and she has subsequently been the campaign’s principal funder, pouring in roughly $19 million to date. Kennedy had already burned through most of the $20 million given to his super-PAC by far-right Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon, who subsequently pitched Kennedy an additional $5 million, for a total of $25 million.

Without a party endorsement, the 70-year-old Kennedy struggled to get the state ballot access he would need to compete nationally but insisted throughout the year that he was in the race to stay and was offering voters a desirable alternative to the two very old and flawed presumptive major-party nominees, Trump and Joe Biden.

At the outset, Kennedy was polling in double figures — peaking at over 20 percent — and seemed to be pulling significantly more support from Biden than from Trump, a matter of serious concern for the Democratic Party. There had even been some loose talk — promoted by MAGA operatives including Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, and recently revived by none other than running mate Shanahan — of a Trump/Kennedy “unity” ticket. Steve Bannon, right, had for months reportedly encouraged Kennedy’s candidacy as a “useful chaos agent,” a report that Kennedy denied but that was bolstered by Mellon’s dual support of both Kennedy and Trump’s bids.

Kennedy, of course, had the heavyweight family legacy, a kind of automatic appeal to Democrats who had once venerated his father RFK and uncles JFK and Ted, as well as to younger voters for whom the name carried a more distant mystique.

A Slow-Sinking Lead Balloon

But as the year wore on and both his views and antics became better known, his overall support began dropping off and Democrats found little to admire in his positions or behaviors. His fervent embrace of a variety of extremist conspiracy theories, most prominently his radical anti-vax stance; his antisemitic and racist remarks; his anti-immigrant rhetoric; his all-over-the-lot statements on abortion; fresh accusations of sexual assault, to which he responded that he was “not a choir boy”; his brain worm and dead bear cub stunt; the Kennedy family’s strong opposition; the support of such as Joe Rogan; and his zig-zagging tack further and further right: All contributed to the erosion of enthusiasm for Kennedy among would-be Biden voters, and by July left him likely pulling more votes from Trump than from Biden — a reverse spoiler effect and hardly what Stone, Bannon, and Mellon had in mind.

He was already polling in single digits, and embraced mostly by MAGAs, when Biden dropped his candidacy and was replaced by his far younger and more energetic vice president, Kamala Harris. Trump cried foul, with zero legal basis for doing so, as he saw his lead disappear almost overnight and Harris’s momentum build; Kennedy, for his part, dropped under 4 percent — dismal, but enough to turn a tight election.

The panic in Trumpworld has been palpable and has only grown more intense as the Democrats pulled off a near flawless and broadly inspiring convention, going into the election’s bell lap with an acknowledged lead in both national and swing-state polls, unity, energy, and all-important momentum.

‘Lunatic’ Meet ‘Sociopath’

Meanwhile, first quiet and then louder efforts had been underway, led initially by Donald Trump Jr., left, to woo Kennedy and bring about today’s result. It remains unclear exactly what Kennedy has been promised by Trump but influence over health policy in a second Trump administration, perhaps even at the Cabinet level as head of Health and Human Services, has been mentioned by at least one highly placed go-between.

The courtship has been a tad awkward, given that Kennedy, amid other harsh criticisms, had called Trump “a terrible human being” and offered his opinion that the former president was “probably a sociopath” as recently as last month. Trump, for his part, had called Kennedy a “Radical Left Lunatic,” though, in a phone call leaked by Kennedy’s son, Trump bent over backwards to assure his quarry, with all the art-of-the-deal sincerity he could gin up, that he shared the whole schmear of Kennedy’s radical anti-vaxxer agenda.

Perhaps Kennedy was left unconvinced because 10 days ago it was reported that he sought a meeting with Harris to discuss a Cabinet position in her administration. I’m not sure why he thought that she would, even for a minute, give consideration to such an absurd proposal, which of course she didn’t. Perhaps it was just the due diligence of a bottom-feeder shopping himself to the highest bidder — leading to the “heart-wrenching decision” that Trump is “our best hope.”

But I think it shed light on the fundamental “qualities” that Kennedy and Trump have in common. They are both quintessentially unprincipled, entitled, lying, abusive, deeply troubled narcissists — transactional birds of a feather. Even more striking, they have both led shoddy lives.

Kennedy’s family has been all but united in urging him to end his bid for the presidency. They’ve finally gotten their wish, with the ugliest and least intended of twists, and they have been swift to react. Regardless of its consequence, Kennedy’s act, timed as it was for maximum-momentum shifting impact, is one of profound betrayal — of his legacy and, if it proves fruitful, of our democracy.

Jonathan D. Simon, JD, is a senior editor at WhoWhatWhy; a long-time proponent of public, observable vote counting; and author of CODE RED: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy.

The Guardian, RFK Jr suspends campaign and backs Trump, Lois Beckett, Aug. 23, 2024. Trump accepts RFK Jr endorsement and vows to release JFK assassination files; Ex-president takes stage with Kennedy in Arizona, hours after independent candidate suspends White House bid. 

Hours after being endorsed by the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump said he would release “all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of John F Kennedy” if he were elected president in November, as part of a proposed new commission on presidential assassination attempts, including the one that targeted him.

Speaking at a rally in Glendale, Arizona, Trump also pledged that, if elected, he would “establish a panel of top experts” that would work with Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, to investigate childhood health problems. The 13 July assassination attempt on Trump is already being officially investigated, including by the Secret Service and the FBI.

Kennedy, the scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic political dynasties, got a roar of approval from Republicans when he joined Trump onstage at a Republican campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona. “Bobby! Bobby!” the crowd chanted.

Kennedy had announced earlier on Friday that he was suspending his third-party campaign for president and endorsing Trump. Kennedy’s vice-presidential pick, Nicole Shanahan, had previously spoken out about the campaign’s belief that staying in the race would result in a victory for Harris, because “we draw votes from Trump”. Kennedy said he would remove himself from the ballots in swing states, where he might siphon electoral college votes from Trump, while staying on the ballot in other states.

In a brief speech at the rally, Kennedy said Trump would “make America healthy again” and that he would be a president “who is going to protect us against totalitarianism”.

In praising Kennedy for his support, Trump referenced Kennedy’s father, a Democratic US senator and attorney general, and his uncle, a Democratic president. “I know they are looking down right now and they are very, very proud of Bobby. I’m proud of Bobby,” Trump said.

Kerry Kennedy, one of RFK’s sisters, told a Washington Post reporter earlier in the day that her brother’s embrace of Trump was “obscene,” and said: “I think if he were alive today my father would have detested almost everything about Donald Trump.”

Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, left, has recently been linked to a conservative group that advocates repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an anti-discrimination law which was introduced by John F. Kennedy and became law after his assassination.

As temperatures exceeded 100F (38C) in Arizona, local news outlets reported that more than 100 people had been treated for heat exhaustion as they waited to get inside the Trump rally, with some getting medical treatment on site, and some being transported to a hospital.

Election officials in Arizona and Ohio confirmed that Kennedy’s name will not be on the ballot in their states, and he is also listed as withdrawn from the race on the Texas secretary of state’s website. Kennedy’s campaign has also reportedly filed paperwork to remove his name from the ballot in Pennsylvania.

But in key battleground states of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officials said it was too late for Kennedy to take his name off the ballot even if he wants to do so.

Trump’s suggestion that he would create a government panel of experts to work with Kennedy to investigate children’s health problems in the US is notable, given Kennedy’s track record.

In recent decades, Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has become “among the most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines” and “has traveled the world spreading false information about the pandemic,” the Associated Press reported. His Twitter account was named as “the top superspreader” of misinformation about Covid-19 by a medical journal article in 2022. The Associated Press has investigated the consequences of Kennedy’s advocacy on individual families and “how Kennedy had capitalized on the pandemic to build [Children’s Health Defense, his advocacy group] into a multimillion-dollar misinformation engine.”

Kennedy has for years falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism, and more recently he has made series of other lurid health claims, including that wifi causes “leaky brain”, school shootings might be linked to antidepressants, and that chemicals in water were making children transgender.

JFK Facts via Substack, Commentary: Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump and the Assassination of John F Kennedy, Jefferson Morley, right, Aug. 23, 2024. @KamalaHarris needs to head off this self-serving Trump initiative by replacing Biden’s order of June 2023 with a credible independent panel, along the lines of the ARRB to oversee the immediate release of the last of the JFK files. CIA won’t be happy but it will be popular.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Photo by Ringo Chiu via Shutterstock.com).

The Atlantic, Commentary: RFK Jr. Was My Drug Dealer, Kurt Andersen (the author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History), Aug. 23, 2024. Kennedy’s endorsement of Donald Trump raises an awkward question.

The leading third-party candidate for president—an environmental lawyer and activist, a son and nephew of legendary liberal Democratic politicians—just quit the race and announced that he is joining the campaign of the most anti-environment president and presidential nominee in recent history, the leader of a Republican Party he has turned into a right-wing, anti-democratic, protofascist personality cult.

I could go on and on and on, cataloging the contradictions and abandonment of principle, all gobsmacking.

But Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy—as I’ve referred to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since we met freshman year at Harvard—have always had many features in common as well. Both are entitled playboy sons of northeastern wealth; both (in Michelle Obama’s words) were “afforded the grace of failing forward” as misbehaving, underachieving adolescents admitted to Ivy League colleges thanks to “the affirmative action of generational wealth”; both were reckless lifelong adolescents, both attention-craving philanderers and liars, both jerks. And Kennedy’s hour-long speech today was nearly as meandering and filled with lies as any average hour of Trump.

Greg Palast Reports, First-Person Commentary: I was on the phone with RFK Jr. When he lost his mind, Greg Palast, Aug. 23, 2024. Greg Palast, above, (a contributor to Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary,The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His latest film is Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman.

My friend’s brain decayed in front of my eyes

This is painful. This is horrible and feels a bit like a betrayal. But I have no choice. Bobby Kennedy Jr. was my friend and co-author. We wrote stories together for Rolling Stone. Bobby introduced my New York Times bestseller and wrote a chapter for Billionaires and Ballot Bandits. And, with Jesse Jackson, we co-authored the Number 1 selling adult single issue comic book of all time, Steal Back Your Vote.

But then, Bobby lost his mind.

It was truly scary. In 2012, Bobby had arranged a press conference about the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Eleven oil rig workers were incinerated in the blow-out of a British Petroleum drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Palast investigations team discovered that, 17 months before that oil rig blew out in the Gulf, British Petroleum suffered an identical blow-out in the Caspian Sea. The oil company—with the connivance of then-Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice—covered it up.

It was a hell of a story, which I broadcast on prime time in Britain and Europe. I wrote a book about it, Vultures’ Picnic.

Here’s where Bobby comes in—and it gets weird. On the second anniversary of the blow-out, Bobby, a professor of environmental law, arranged for a major press conference to expose this story of BP’s blood-encrusted perfidy.

But then, Bobby cancelled the press conference, saying he heard the story had been told previously. Well, yes it had. You told it. Bobby, I was on the radio with you for an hour discussing the blow-out and its cover-up. Bobby had a national radio/TV show, Ring of Fire. He reviewed my book about the story. And strangest of all, Bobby was on my Democracy Now! Report about the blow-out. That Bobby had forgotten all these things was frightening—as if Leonardo DiCaprio had forgotten he was in a film about the Titanic.

Our investigator Leni Badpenny was listening in and she began making frantic cut-off gestures, to end a call with him. End it now! “Something’s wrong with him, or he’s just a jerk. I don’t know. But something’s really wrong and you don’t want your reputation destroyed by standing next to him when it goes wrong in public. Promise me we will never work with him, never see him again. I think he’s dangerous. I really do.”

[More...]

I admit, I feel terrible about revealing these things. But our democracy truly is in the balance. Bobby, as expected, dropped out of the race today in favor of Trump. Is it the brilliant environmental law professor who is endorsing Trump—or the worm?

Politico, The 7 weirdest moments from RFK Jr.’s long-shot campaign, Isabella Ramírez and Irie Sentner, Aug. 22, 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had an interesting run for president.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday he was suspending his presidential campaign — bringing to a close one of the strangest campaigns in recent memory.

The independent candidate, a son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, ran a conspiracy-filled, long-shot campaign. But despite consistently low polling, Kennedy still managed to frequently grab hold of the news cycle — often for bizarre reasons.

Here are seven of the weirdest moments of Kennedy’s campaign.

He said a worm ate his brain

The New York Times revealed in May that what Kennedy originally thought was a brain tumor might have been the work of a hungry parasite — at least, according to him.

During a 2012 deposition made during a contentious divorce from his second wife, Kennedy told attorneys that a doctor believed an abnormality in his brain scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” per the Times. He said he had been experiencing severe memory loss and mental fogginess, which he claimed had diminished his earning power.

The revelation captivated the internet, and even Kennedy himself had no choice but to lean into it.

“I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X.
He admitted to dumping a dead bear in Central Park

In an attempt to get ahead of a New Yorker article on the subject, Kennedy posted a video on social media earlier this month admitting to comedian Roseanne Barr that he left a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago. Kennedy says in the video that another driver had killed the bear, and he pulled over and put it in his car with plans to skin it and “put the meat in my refrigerator.”

Long story short, his explanation ends with the fact that he wasn’t going home and couldn’t leave the bear in his car, so naturally, he placed the carcass in Central Park and staged it to look like a bike accident. The circumstances surrounding the bear’s death had remained a mystery for years (and, coincidentally, Kennedy’s cousin Tatiana Schlossberg wrote a 2014 report about it for The New York Times).

The New Yorker published an article featuring the story alongside a photograph from 2014 of Kennedy putting his fingers in the bear’s bloody mouth with a comical expression on his face.

His response to the New Yorker’s report? “Maybe that’s where I got my brain worm,” he told the publication.

He denied eating a dog

Vanity Fair published a startling 2010 photo in July of Kennedy holding what appeared to be a whole barbequed animal — and not a pig. Kennedy had sent the image to a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested he go to a restaurant in Korea that served dog on its menu, implying the pictured animal was a dog, according to Vanity Fair.

In an interview with NewsNation, he denied the report and said the animal was a goat in Patagonia.

“I’m a very adventurous eater,” Kennedy said. “I’ll eat virtually anything. There’s two things I wouldn’t eat — well, three. I wouldn’t eat a human, I wouldn’t eat a monkey, and I wouldn’t eat a dog. I think I’d eat anything else.”

He said he ‘won’t take sides on 9/11’

Nobody asked, but Kennedy wrote in a post on X last month to assure the public that he “won’t take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates,” a move he said would “usher in a new era of transparency.”

Kennedy said the statement was motivated by a “60 Minutes” report looking into a long-held theory that the Saudi government had advance knowledge of the plot. The candidate, who has floated other conspiracy theories about vaccines, AIDS and the assassination of his uncle, added: “It’s hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t.”

He apologized to his family for a Super Bowl ad comparing him to JFK

The Super PAC supporting Kennedy’s candidacy aired a $7 million Super Bowl ad drawing direct parallels between him and the beloved former president. It used the same template as an ad John F. Kennedy had run in the 1960s and used the same jingle: “Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy.”

Members of the Kennedy clan — some of whom have denounced Kennedy’s candidacy — were furious. “My cousin’s Super Bowl ad used our uncle’s faces- and my Mother’s. She would be appalled by his deadly health care views,” Bobby Shriver, Kennedy’s cousin, wrote on X. Other family members piled on.

Aug. 22

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a photo posted on Instagram in July 2021, is joined by, from left, former Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn, anti-vaccine business owner Charlene Bollinger and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone (Associated Press file photo).

Lance’s Substack, Commentary: Nicole Shanahan Lets The Cat Out Of The Bag…The RFK Jr. Campaign Has Been A Trump Trojan Horse All Along, Lance F. Rosen, right, Aug. 22, 2024. In a statement which has mostly destroyed their campaign fundraising, Shanahan let slip their intention to “join forces with Donald Trump” in order to stop Harris-Walz.

She said they have two choices, one, to continue their third party campaign and risk taking votes away from Trump and helping the Harris campaign win, or two, dropping out in order to campaign for Trump.

RFK Jr. and Trump met at the RNC convention, have talked on the phone, and Trump offered a job in exchange for his endorsement. When Kennedy reached out to the DNC to speak with Kamala about a similar offer, her campaign issued a blistering denunciation and rejection calling him a Trump buddy and fringe candidate who they have no interest in speaking with.

So, Kennedy is selling himself to his fellow Russian agent like a five-dollar hooker working the attendees of a GOP prayer retreat, and he most certainly will fit right in just like one of their famous Fabergé nesting dolls. This, despite Trump saying only a couple of months ago the following about him, according to a May 11, 2024 AP wire story:

["Among the recent jabs, Trump this past week posted a roughly four-minute video online in which he called Kennedy “fake,” a “Democrat ‘Plant’” and “Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place” to help the Democratic president. Trump railed against Kennedy’s family as “a bunch of lunatics.”

“He is not a Republican so don’t think you’re going to vote for him and feel good,” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee told supporters in the Truth Social post."]

And also, according to a CNN report from May 10th, the following:

["Flash forward to May, and Trump has adopted a more aggressive stance toward his independent rival. He has repeatedly attacked Kennedy on Truth Social, including labeling him as “a Radical Left Lunatic” and calling him “the dumbest member of the Kennedy Clan,” as well as needling Kennedy’s positions on vaccines and environmental policy, among others."]

This seems to be a pattern. Some of Trump’s most obedient and loyal defenders and allies are people who either previously denounced him, or were publicly abused by him in the past. (including Steve Bannon who he fired and attacked as “nuts” after three months on the job. And of course there is Vance having compared him to Hitler) Yet despite this they are driven by such hatred for what Biden, Harris, Walz, and democracy itself stand for that they will degrade themselves, becoming Trump’s bone spur licking “subs” and crawl to him on their knees so he might resume their humiliation, stripping any remaining semblance of their dignity. That is, if they ever had any.

So, this is the seedy underside of how the political world of MAGA really works, where “issues and ideas” take a back seat to, well…kissing Donald Trump’s back seat.

It Is truly gross, but that is the culture of the grifters and fake Christians who orbit around this black hole of humanity, until they are sucked entirely in.

The reason Trump supporters are so immoral and nauseating in their conduct is that they fantasize about gaining power and wealth by becoming just like him. They become extensions of his malignant and obscene personality. He is like their lottery ticket. They think if they buy-in to him enough, they will hit the jackpot with him when he wins. Look at how many buy his shitty shoes, Bibles, even fake Trump cash, which they think will be redeemable some day and make them rich.

So now we have this widely circulated story below, where even a large component of RFK’s support base, which is mostly naive or cynical people who hate politics, and who have glommed on to a celebrity-named rageball populist so-called “outsider,”" should be aware of the duplicitous game in which they have been used. And they will be pissed at being played like a poker chip.

RFK Jr. ran a Potemkin Village fake Presidential campaign in order to hurt Biden-Harris-Walz, then was preparing to literally “sell” his activists and donors to Trump at the end in order to sink the Democratic candidate, first Biden, then Harris. That’s all he was, all along. And we tried to warn them, documenting RFK’s ties to Trumpworld figures such as Stone, Bannon, and Flynn, and his being funded by Trump mega-donor Timothy Mellon, right. Now, anyone who looks at it can see it, including his ex-donor base that has just today shut off the money spigot.

Aug. 20

New York Times, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate suggested they may drop out of the race and endorse Donald Trump, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Aug. 20, 2024. In an interview, Nicole Shanahan appeared to concede that their independent presidential bid was not likely to end in victory.

Aug. 13

New York Times, A judge ruled that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could not appear on New York’s ballot, saying he used a “sham” address, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Jesse McKinley and Jay Root, Aug. 13, 2024 (print ed.). The ruling was a blow to Mr. Kennedy’s independent campaign for president. The judge said that he had used a “sham” address to claim residency in New York.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign was dealt a blow on Monday when a judge ruled that his petition to get on New York’s ballot was invalid, saying Mr. Kennedy had used a “sham” address to maintain his New York residency.

The ruling, if it stands, would kick Mr. Kennedy, right, off the ballot in a state where he lived for much of his adult life, and could endanger his efforts to get on the ballot in all 50 states. He has three days to appeal the decision by a judge in Albany, N.Y.

His lawyer, William F. Savino, said in an email that Mr. Kennedy “always planned to appeal any adverse ruling.”

A group of New York residents — backed by Clear Choice, a Democrat-aligned political action committee — had challenged Mr. Kennedy’s New York residency, arguing that his campaign had used a false address on the tens of thousands of nominating petitions it circulated and submitted to get him on the ballot.

Representatives for the Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Saturday, the campaign sent an email describing the case as “a shameless bid to eliminate a strong contender from the race.”

Clear Choice said the ruling “makes clear that Mr. Kennedy lied about his residency and provided a false address on his filing papers and candidate petitions in New York, intentionally misleading election officials and betraying voters’ trust.”

The decision, by Justice Christina L. Ryba, a state Supreme Court judge, could lead to other challenges in states where Mr. Kennedy is on the ballot, because his campaign used the same address to gather signatures there.

March 26

New York Times, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, is expected to name Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, March 26, 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce on Tuesday that Nicole Shanahan, a Silicon Valley lawyer, investor and political neophyte, will be his running mate in his independent presidential bid, according to two people close to the campaign.

The formal announcement, set to take place in Oakland, Calif., ends a wide-ranging and eclectic search for a vice-presidential nominee. Even in the past few weeks, it had evolved as Mr. Kennedy and his advisers spoke with more than half a dozen prospective candidates.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy’s campaign declined to comment. Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Shanahan did not respond to requests for comment on Monday evening.

Ms. Shanahan, 38, was a late-breaking favorite in Mr. Kennedy’s search, according to the two people close to the campaign, though she has been publicly associated with his candidacy since she helped pay for a Super Bowl ad in support of him.

This month, The New York Times reported that Aaron Rodgers, the N.F.L. quarterback, and Jesse Ventura, the former Minnesota governor and onetime professional wrestler, were at the top of Mr. Kennedy’s list.

Mr. Kennedy confirmed those names in an interview at the time, adding that he had been in discussions with several others, including Scott Brown, the Republican former senator from Massachusetts; Tricia Lindsay, a lawyer who has fought vaccine mandates; and Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman from Hawaii and presidential candidate who left the Democratic Party to become an independent.

March 25

Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, son of the slain U.S. senator from New York, is shown at center in a 2020 ad promoting a political conference at the Trump Doral Hotel in Miami featuring also such right-wing Trump allies as Roger Stone, Dinesh D’Souza and Matt Gaetz. Below, Russ Baker, founder of the investigative site WhoWhatWhy and a best-selling author focused on presidential politics and assassinations, provides an open letter to Kennedy, left, urging him to drop his candidacy to protect the nation from Trump and his brand of insurrection and other democracy-destroying carnarge.

Going Deep with Russ B: Open Letter: ‘Bobby, Think It Over: Your Candidacy May Doom Democracy‘ Russ Baker, March 24-25, 2024. ‘Do the right thing; make your family and forebears proud.’

Dear Bobby,

According to your publicist, this Tuesday, March 26, you will announce your vice presidential pick.

I have a suggestion. Do something different instead: Announce you’re dropping your White House bid.

If you don’t, you may well deliver the country and the world to Donald Trump — that even more wild-eyed, exponentially more dangerous version of the disaster we saw with Trump, Act One.

“Drill, Drill, Drill,” “bloodbath,” and “dictator on day one.” Indeed, friend and fan of dictators everywhere. Divider of Americans, provoker of hate. Pathological narcissist.

Everyone, including you, knows without equivocation that it is totally impossible for you to win this presidential election, and honestly no one is sure what your end goal is.

Your chaotic “platform” appears to be a random selection of unrelated issues from across the entire political spectrum. That incoherence is evidenced even by the people you’re supposedly considering for roles in this fantasy cosplay operation that you are attempting to pass off as a presidential bid.

I mean, the depth and scope of this fiction is kind of amazing. I suppose you can claim that you are a uniter, since you’re the only person who could possibly have had both the leftist Dennis Kucinich, left, as your campaign manager — though he departed for some reason — and the nasty, hard-line rightist “Libertarian” Rand Paul, right, in your retinue. Exactly what color is the sky in your world that includes both Kucinich and Paul? I cannot imagine.

Voting for you would not even represent a comprehensible, conscientious protest vote.

***

I’ve spoken to folks who know you personally, and they tell me some of the things that matter to you.

Like ego. You love the attention. And money — apparently, that’s always been an issue, and this high-profile situation helps.

But now, it’s serious.

Besides tainting the important, ongoing investigative research into what really happened to your uncle and father — by tying into the general kookiness of your lunatic hodgepodge of issues — you’ve harmed science, and brought together a disparate basket of the aggrieved, misguided, and often plain crackpot. Now you’re poised, perhaps, to wreak havoc on your own country’s future.

You’re polling nationally around 10 percent of the vote (yes, yes, supposedly a plurality of independent voters, young voters, etc.), and in a key swing state or two, that’s enough — not for you to win, but for you to deliver the country to the demagogue, criminal, pathological narcissist, and instigator of violence, even lethal violence, Mr. Trump.

Of course, with your shocking rightward tack, you undoubtedly are pulling some folks who might otherwise vote for Trump, but the Trump campaign will paint you as a radical leftist and, unlike some of your detractors, I do not dismiss you as a non-factor.

I’ve seen the recent polling that shows your strength among young voters in particular — the very voters Trump is counting on you to siphon from Joe Biden. Not strong enough for you to win even a single state, but strong enough to hand Trump an Electoral College victory.

***

Most of us, like you, have problems with the “system.” We loathe the corporate monsters that have long had a stranglehold on the American state and society. Everyone knows there are deep problems with Big Pharma. But you’ve ruined any legitimate critique by trafficking recklessly in nonsense and fear in the same way the Holocaust-deniers, moon-landing deniers, and other ignorant fanatics ruin whatever cause they join.

What you’ve done has contributed, and continues to contribute, to the deaths of untold masses that could have been prevented by vaccination.

To your supporters, I say: Protest votes in the right circumstances can help advance a good cause. But not now. Not with what is at stake.

To you, I say: Enough is enough. Your own family has renounced you. They’re so worried — and, frankly, disgusted — that they traveled to the Biden White House on St. Patrick’s Day to make clear who they think ought to be president.

And for once in the history of this famously family-loyal clan, their preferred candidate in the race is not their own kinsman.

And with that, I beg you: Stand down.

Politico, Exclusive: RFK Jr.’s family trust earns thousands from an oil and gas company, Brittany Gibson, March 25, 2024. He is a longtime fossil fuel critic and anti-pollution activist.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who built his public profile as an environmental activist and crusader against polluters, earned tens of thousands of dollars from an oil and gas rights leasing company.

The independent presidential candidate reported the earnings on his financial disclosure form filed last June from Arctic Royalty Limited Partnership, which leases land for oil and gas extraction in Oklahoma, Texas and other states.

Arctic Royalty, which is part of a portfolio of investments from Kennedy’s family trust accounts, leases land to multiple companies that have been fined for pollution and regulatory infractions, as well as to the chemical subsidiary of the company that polluted East Palestine, Ohio, in the trail derailment last year.

Kennedy earned between $17,759 and $29,257 from Jan. 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, from Arctic Royalty — which is a significant portion of the possible earnings from his three family trust accounts. Those accounts produced an income between about $36,000 and $97,000, according to Kennedy’s form. Arctic Royalty has been registered as a business entity in numerous states since 1985.

Overall, however, his Arctic Royalty earnings are a relatively small fraction of his overall income, which he reported at about $9 million.

When POLITICO asked about his earnings, Kennedy said he sold most of his stake in Arctic Royalty last December after his candidate financial disclosure form became public. He did not share documentation confirming the sale.

“I sold all my stake in this company in December. I still indirectly own a very small interest in Arctic Royalty through my brother David’s estate. It generates approximately $1,000 per year. I own 1/10 of that estate. Because other family members are also owners, I have no power to sell off this investment,” he said in a statement.

On the campaign trail, Kennedy has centered his career as an environmental activist and anti-pollution litigator. He also criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the East Palestine cleanup in a campaign video, saying if he was president that “everybody involved, the corporate officials and the regulatory officials, would be held accountable, both criminally and civilly.”

As a candidate, Kennedy pledged to ban fracking last fall as part of a 10-point plan to “fix” plastics pollution. But four days later, he walked it back. The campaign said he wouldn’t ban fracking because that would harm the U.S. economy but instead would support “a gradual phase-out of the practice, starting with the removal of subsidies and a moratorium on new exploration,” in a statement to Fox News.

“Arctic Royalty was a legacy investment that my grandfather Joseph Kennedy made in the early 1950s. The stock is held by a Kennedy family partnership in which I inherited a small stake due to its inclusion in my grandfather’s 1957 trust instrument. The company does not do any drilling. It owns mineral rights and pays out royalties from companies that are exploiting oil reserves,” Kennedy said.

The Office of Government Ethics requires that candidates who own oil and gas companies specifically disclose the names of the companies leasing the land and its locations.

Kennedy, however, did not detail the companies that lease land for oil and gas procurement from Arctic Royalty in his financial disclosures. But his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, who filed the same report to become ambassador to Australia, did.

The complete and transparent disclosure of a candidate’s financial investments and holdings is a vital part of the public vetting process, experts say.

Politico, 2024 Elections: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. flirts with the Libertarian nomination, Brittany Gibson, March 25, 2024. The independent candidate has been in talks with the national party chair about pursuing the nomination.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in talks to run on the Libertarian Party presidential ticket — a move that could translate his popularity into becoming a near-guaranteed choice on ballots in all 50 states.

Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle spoke with Kennedy in recent weeks following his appearance at the California party convention at the end of February. The two have been in contact since last July about the third party’s nominating process, which is decided by unbound delegates at the national convention this May in Washington.

The party switch would ease his ballot access hurdles and buttress his campaign with an organized network of supporters.

Kennedy is not a libertarian — he started his presidential campaign as a Democrat — but the alliance would be mutually beneficial. The Libertarian Party has consistently made it on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the Libertarian ticket has performed better at the presidential level when it has a candidate with high name recognition.

“It’s go time, but if he whips — as we call it — whips for votes, then he could do it,” McArdle told POLITICO. “Kennedy is a real dark horse.”

McArdle encouraged Kennedy to attend a state convention if he was interested in seeking the nomination, and California has a large delegation for the national convention. Plans to attend another state function ahead of the national convention are still on the table.

Kennedy, for his part, seems open to the idea. “The Kennedy campaign is keeping all its options open,” campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear said in a statement.

The independent candidate appeals to many libertarians thanks to his activism against vaccine mandates following Covid-19. Kennedy also hosted a campaign rally with former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who considered running for president and vice president with the Libertarian Party in several election cycles. And in an interview with Reason magazine last summer, Kennedy said, “I’ve always been aligned with libertarians on most issues. I mean, there’s tweaks that I have.”

Other Commentaries

John Barbour, right, author, former Emmy Award-winning Los Angeles news anchor and Emmy Awarding-winning television star for his show Real People, and producer of two documentaries on the JFK assassination, The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) and The American Media And The Second Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (2017), both based on the JFK assassination investigation of the late New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.

Barbour wrote on Facebook this weekend:

A lot of my friends are either supporters of RFK Jr., who called Jim Garrison, right, a Kook, or Donald Trump. They are so enthused over Junior’s joining Trump because one of the first things Trump says he’s going to do is release all the CIA files regarding the murder of John Kennedy.

My response is this: when he was president Trump had the opportunity to do it and backed off. Worse than that, a researcher named Jefferson Morley for 10 years brought suit against the CIA just to get Garrison’s files released. While Trump was president the judge who heard Jefferson Morley’s arguments, but still ruled in favor of the CIA not even releasing Garrison’s files, was [Brett] Kavanaugh, whom Trump immediately put on the Supreme Court!!! Does that sound like a guy who is going to release the files?

It has been my experience that con artists are well-dressed and well-spoken. Trump is only well-dressed. If past is prologue, Trump is the ultimate con artist!!!!!!

Mark S. Zaid, right, an American attorney, based in Washington, D.C., with a practice focused on national security law, freedom of speech constitutional claims, and government accountability. In 1998 he founded the James Madison Project, an organization dedicated to reducing government secrecy.

Not sure why anyone would believe Trump would release the remaining files, of which there is not much and little deals with November 22nd directly. Trump was the one who originally declined to release them in 2017 per [Mike] Pompeo’s instructions when he was CIA Director. He had a chance, and he refused.

Nothing changed from Trump’s Administration to Biden’s that would conceivably make a difference to justify withholding, i.e., if anyone was going to release them, it was Trump, especially with conspiracy theorist Roger Stone shouting in his ear.

Dick Russell, right, RFK Jr.’s biographer and collaborator (as illustrated by a book cover above), and author of several books about the JFK assassination and also an expert consultant for an investigative podcast produced on the JFK assassination by producer and actor Rob Reiner.

Given how the Democratic Party and allied media have done everything they could to sabotage his campaign, RFK Jr. did what he felt he to do.

I am not a fan of Donald Trump, and he did not follow through on his promise to release the still-withheld files on the JFK assassination back in 2017. If indeed his discussions with RFK Jr. have led him to renew that commitment should he win in November, this could still be very important in exposing the cover-up of what happened on November 22, 1963. Especially if the files on George Joannides that the CIA has long fought to keep secret would finally see the light of day.

Stuart Wexler, right, is an author who investigates domestic terrorism and radical religious activities, and has been an award-winning school teacher in New Jersey.

On just one issue: if RFK Jr. gets his way on vaccines it would probably contribute to more deaths over time than some recent wars. It may sound like an exaggeration, but vaccine hesitancy on covid alone is estimated to have cost 230,000 lives. Eliminating mandates for schools is insane.

Mark Robinowitz, right, writer and researcher on ecology, energy, public health and political assassinations.

I endorse the endorsement of RFK Jr. [of Trump] because it shows that he is a stooge for the Republicans, as he has been for the entire campaign. And this removes any illusions that that’s what’s going on — and that anyone who believes Trump’s promises on anything is a total fool. I remember when Trump was President his first and hopefully his only time: He did not release all the documents.

We basically know what happened [about the JFK assassination]. We just don’t have all the details, which is not an argument against releasing all the documents that might remain. But it’s really not all that relevant.

One other thing: The story about Ivan Raiklin, Gen. Michael Flynn’s deputy who wants to round up Donald’s “Enemies List,” including Jan. 6 investigation committee members, journalists, leaders of FBI, CIA and others. 1933 Germany?

THAT is a primary reason to vote for Harris / Walz despite not agreeing with them completely.

Assassinated 1960s civil rights leaders, from left: President John F. Kennedy, Attorney Gen. Robert F. Kennedy (JFK’s brother), the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and preacher and activist Malcolm X (photo graphic from the site “Kennedys and King”)

Jim DiEugenio, right, editor of the website Kennedys and King, author, screenwriter, and collaborator of filmmaker Oliver Stone. 

In my opinion, Bobby did this in order to salvage something from his candidacy since it was pretty much sabotaged by a combination of the DNC and the MSM. He would have never done this if he had been given a fair shot at running. He and Nicole Shanahan made I think a pretty good team.

If Trump is serious about the records, then I think there will be something good that comes out of this. The other point Bobby wants is an end to the war in Ukraine. Which is another good point.

Saying all that, I will not vote for Trump or Harris. I will probably vote Green.

Bill Simpich, right, attorney and author of the webzine series State Secret (shown above).

I see this entire situation as based on post-traumatic stress, both for RFK, Jr. and the American public.

RFK Jr. has endured it throughout his lifetime. He has suffered from addiction much of his life, in what I would call an effort to self-medicate from the trauma of the assassinations of the sixties. The worldviews of all Americans have been shaken by “shock events” such as these assassinations, 9/11, drug wars, and various bombing and shooting events that have distorted our view of reality and how to achieve effective political change.

What is not so well known is the post-traumatic stress that RFK Jr. has gone through as a public advocate fighting toxic torts. As a civil rights attorney who has done it myself, I know the emotional impact on everyone involved. He did great work helping to clean up the rivers and fighting toxic herbicide giants like Monsanto.

Along the way, you meet a lot of people with loved ones suffering from autism and other not-well-understood illnesses. It is well-known that many rare diseases are caused by toxic exposures. Kennedy has said that his concern about autism and vaccines has stemmed from many people turning to him and asking, “Can you help us?”

Kennedy has thrown himself into the fight to make the world better for everyone across the political spectrum. Although I profoundly disagree with him on the efficacy of the covid vaccines, it is important to question the efficacy of certain vaccines that only serve the financial interests of Big Pharma and not the health of the people. Did you know that there is a Vaccine Court in the federal courts, where plaintiffs do not have the right to a jury trial?

Similarly, although I completely disagree with Kennedy about Donald Trump, I don’t question Kennedy’s passion for a better world.

We need all the documents released in the cases of JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, 9/11 and many other important cases. Both Trump and Biden have refused to do what it takes to obtain the release of these critical documents, and nothing they say at this point should change our mind on where they stand. Let’s challenge our federal, state and local leaders to summon the political will to get it done.

Wayne Madsen, left, editor of the Wayne Madsen Report, author of 24 books, commentator and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer who has published opeds appearing hundreds of times in mainstream U.S. newspapers as well as investigative books that reveal disturbing patterns and practices among U.S. and global elites, including cover-ups involving the JFK assassination.

Just because someone’s name is “Kennedy” doesn’t mean he can’t be a grifter or fascist. RFK’s grandfather, Joe Kennedy, had precisely those traits and so it’s no surprise those traits might pop up again at least once, this time in the ambitions of the delusionary, greedy, celebrity sell-out RFK, Jr.

RFK Jr. has been involved in a number of idiotic, offensive or dangerous schemes and habits — including walking around barefoot on an airplane floor (shown above) or barefoot in an airport waiting room. This flouts basic personal health protection — and now he wants to be a leader at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department?

More broadly: Activism on a scale even greater than that of the 1930s and ’40s is needed to protect American democracy from the likes of Trump, JD Vance, Thiel, Musk, and the others who want to bring about an Orwellian techno-fascist dictatorship that will usher into being a neo-feudalistic society where only the upper one percent have access to cryptocurrency, resources, information, and technology.

Hitler documented his plan for a “thousand year” Third Reich in his book Mein Kampf. Today, the plans for an American fascist dictatorship are contained in the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, known simply as Project 2025.

From Project 2025, Donald Trump, America’s modern-day Hitler, has culled the main objectives for his Agenda 47. As if Project 2025 is not enough of a slap in the face of democracy, the Heritage Foundation is re-writing history by suggesting that the pro-Nazi Germany America First Committee and Hermann Goering friend Charles Lindbergh were correct in their appeasement of Nazi Germany all along.

Lawrence Schnapf, right, RFK Jr. elector in New York, environmental law attorney, longtime litigant to release JFK assassination records, and longtime New York Your University adjunct professor in environmental law.

As a NY elector for RFK2, I saw first hand the extent DNC dirty ops campaign. It was appalling to experience how they fought his independent candidacy with lawfare and planted articles distorting his environmental record. I have worked on presidential campaigns since 1972, I have never been more discouraged about how the political parties have distorted our democracy by limiting the choices of the voters.

If the DNC had run a real primary, Bobby would have run and lost, and then endorsed the nominee. Even after Trump offered him HHS and a chance to work on policy that was most important to him, Bobby reached out to DNC and they ignored him. They completely misplayed his candidacy and now have created an enemy.

Bobby made the calculation that at this point in his life, this opportunity outweighed the other policy disagreements he had with Trump. He also would be in a position to ensure that Trump completes the work required under the JFK Records Act and perhaps obtain a pardon for Sirhan. Since the latter two issues are the most important issues to me, I can’t disagree with his choice.

John Simkin, right, United Kingdom-based author and founder of the Education Forum, a web-based encyclopedia.

I live in England and so I probably see events in the United States slightly different from most of the people on this list. Like most of my friends, I am concerned that Donald Trump is going to become president again. We seriously fear that democracy will not survive if he is elected for a second time. If that happens, we fear that it will undermine democracies in Europe. We suffer the same problems as you do in the United States. Fears over immigration in Europe has resulted in a surge of support for far-right political parties. Since the financial crash in 2008 the growth in inequality has increased dramatically. Even the middle-classes are struggling in a cost-of-living crisis. Politicians find it convenient to blame this problem on immigration rather than their own actions.

In Europe the politically aware looked on in horror as it seemed Joe Biden would be the Democratic Party candidate in the presidential election. Although Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is best known in the UK for his views on Covid and vaccinations and not his progressive political opinions, at least he was recognising the fact that Biden would probably lose to Trump.

The polls showed that Kennedy was gaining the support of both left-leading progressives and vaccine conspiracy theorists. It was suggested that by standing he made it easier for Trump to win the election. This theory was reinforced when it was disclosed that Timothy Mellon, donated $5 million to Kennedy’s campaign, making him Kennedy’s largest single donor. This is the same Timothy Mellon, who gave $15 million to Donald Trump’s campaign and $50 million to “Make America Great Again Inc.”

However, once Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party candidate, support for Kennedy dramatically declined. It is claimed that Kennedy’s aides contacted Harris and sought a cabinet post and the release of CIA files in the Kennedy assassination, in exchange for an endorsement. Harris reportedly rebuffed Kennedy’s approach.

News Of The Weird

Aug. 23

The Guardian, As the independent candidate suspends his campaign and endorses Trump, an endlessly bizarre run comes to an end, Adam Gabbatt, Aug. 23, 2024. The decision by Robert F Kennedy Jr to suspend his presidential campaign brings to an end one of the most bizarre campaigns of recent times.

Kennedy, who introduced the general public to the concept of “leaky brain” and the idea that chemicals in water were making children transgender, initially ran for the Democratic nomination but launched an independent campaign in October 2023.

His efforts failed to gain traction but left the public with some unusual, and some unsavory, memories.

1. The bear cub. In early August, Kennedy had a problem. The New Yorker magazine had got hold of a story about his exploits with a dead bear cub 10 years earlier. Kennedy decided to get ahead of the New Yorker’s scoop, and tell the story himself in a video posted on Twitter.

And what a story it was. It emerged that Kennedy had found a dead bear cub on the side of the road, loaded it in the back of his car, taken a photo with the corpse, left to do some falconing, had a steak dinner, then staged the decomposing bear’s death to look like a bicycle hit-and-run incident in a local park before heading to the airport.

2. The sexual assault allegations. 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, told Vanity Fair in July that Kennedy sexually assaulted her at the home in 1998. Cooney alleged that 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 “began groping” Cooney in the kitchen, Vanity Fair reported. Kennedy’s response was hardly an apology. Asked about the sexual assault allegation, Kennedy described the Vanity Fair article as “a lot of garbage,” before adding: “I am not a church boy.” Kennedy later said that he had texted Cooney to apologize.

3. The brain worm. It emerged in April that Kennedy believed part of his brain had been eaten by a worm. The New York Times reported that Kennedy had made the claim during a deposition for his divorce in 2012. In the deposition Kennedy told lawyers: “I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”

Kennedy underwent brain scans of his head and subsequently discovered that the health issue “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”

4. The dog. Another animal-related controversy. In July, Vanity Fair reported that in 2023 Kennedy sent a photograph of him “with the barbecued remains of what he suggested to the friend was a dog”. The picture showed an animal carcass, which had apparently been cooked on a spit. Kennedy said the carcass in the picture was a goat.

The friend who received the text told Vanity Fair that Kennedy “sent me the picture with a recommendation to visit the best dog restaurant in Seoul, so he was certainly representing that this was a dog and not a goat. In any case, it’s grotesque.”

5. The dubious claims. In 2023, while still running as a Democrat, Kennedy appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast. There, Kennedy announced that wifi radiation caused something called “leaky brain”, which in turn causes cancer. Politifact spoke to scientific experts who disagreed, one of whom said there was no “clear evidence” for Kennedy’s claims.

Another claim from Kennedy, in June 2023, that chemicals in drinking water were causing children to become transgender, appears to come from a study which showed certain chemicals could cause some male frogs to become female. CNN’s KFile spoke to an expert who pointed out that sex in frogs is based on environmental factors, including temperature, whereas the sex of humans is not.

July 8

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (left) poses with what appears to be a barbecued dog carcass. Obtained by Vanity Fair.

Hollywood Reporter, Man Bites Dog: RFK Jr. Learns the Hard Way How White House Ambitions Can Be Undone by a Pooch, Benjamin Svetkey, July 8, 2024. The carcass has 13 pairs of ribs – including a tell-tale “floating rib” that suggests it is in fact a canine, a veterinarian told the magazine.

But Kennedy on Tuesday claimed the animal was a goat as he downplayed the report.

“It’s of me at a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River, eating a goat, which is what we eat down there,” he told Fox News.

Kennedy shared the snap with a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested that the pal would enjoy a restaurant in Korea that had dogs on the menu — raising more speculation the 2024 candidate once ate a pooch, according to the report.

Did he really eat a canine in Korea? Or was it a goat in Patagonia? It hardly matters. Because the fringe candidate has just stepped on the true third rail of American politics — never diss a dog.

An unsettling, newly unearthed photo shows Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posing with a barbecued carcass of an animal — and while a veterinarian reportedly said it was a dog, the independent presidential candidate insists it’s not.

Kennedy, 70, texted the shocking photo of himself and an unidentified woman posing with the charred four-legged animal to a friend last year, according to a Vanity Fair report.

The Kennedy family scion is seen clutching the barbequed remains on a big metal spit and pretending to take a big bite out of the ribs.

The carcass has 13 pairs of ribs – including a tell-tale “floating rib” that suggests it is in fact a canine, a veterinarian told the magazine.

But Kennedy on Tuesday claimed the animal was a goat as he downplayed the report.

“It’s of me at a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River, eating a goat, which is what we eat down there,” he told Fox News.

Kennedy shared the snap with a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested that the pal would enjoy a restaurant in Korea that had dogs on the menu — raising more speculation the 2024 candidate once ate a pooch, according to the report.

The recipient, however, thought the image was insensitive for how it made light of animal cruelty, the magazine added.

The friend also expressed concern that it appeared to mock Korean culture and put the reputations of Kennedy and his famous family on the line.

The photo’s metadata dates it to 2010 – the same year Kennedy was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain.

During his 2012 divorce proceedings, the 70-year-old claimed he may have contracted the parasite during a trip to South Asia.

Kennedy’s family, however, generally believed that his cognitive issues stemmed from his 14 years as a heroin user, Vanity Fair reported.

When RFK Jr was married to his second wife, Mary Richardson, he supposedly sent nude photos of women to his friends.

The Vanity Fair report also alleged that during his marriage to the late Mary Richardson, Kennedy was known for sending his friends photos of naked women.

Kennedy’s heroin addiction reportedly started when he was 15 – one year after his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated – and continued through his 20s when he started his legal career at the Manhattan DA’s office.

The bombshell report also alleged that during his marriage to the late Mary Richardson, Kennedy was known for sending his friends photos of naked women.

The friends reportedly assumed that Kennedy had taken the photos but did not know whether the subjects had consented to be photographed — or to have the images shared.

There are many, many reasons why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will never be president.

For starters, his claim that a parasitic worm ate part of his brain is likely a deal breaker for a large segment of the American electorate, even if it does explain some of Kennedy’s wackier conspiracy theories, like the one about anti-depressants causing school shootings, or COVID-19 being a lab-created bioweapon “designed to target Caucasians and Black people” (while sparing Jews and Chinese). His head-scratching contention that Palestinians are “the most pampered people… in the history of the world” is also bound to turn off to a lot of voters, as is his assertion that industrial chemicals are causing “gender confusion” among today’s teenagers.

But the No. 1 reason that RFK Jr. will never sit behind the Resolute Desk has nothing to do with any of the above. It’s that he supposedly once ate a dog.

He denies it, of course — he insists it was a goat. But the story is out there, anyway, in a July 2 Vanity Fair article that unearthed a 2010 photo of Kennedy and an unidentified woman chomping into the barbequed remains of what sure looks like a dog. According to the magazine, last year Kennedy texted that picture to a friend who was traveling to Korea, suggesting he try a restaurant there that served canine. Vanity Fair went so far as to consult a veterinarian, who confirmed that the carcass in the picture did indeed appear to be a dog. But even if the magazine screwed the pooch on the facts — even if the vet was wrong and it really was a goat, not a dog, that he had eaten during a trip to South America, not Korea, as Kennedy contends — it doesn’t matter. Because the damage has been done.

In American politics, there is no greater sin than malice toward Fido. This, by the way, is true of Hollywood, as well; Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino can slaughter as many Homo sapiens as they please on the screen — and often do — but they both know better than to ever kill a puppy in a movie. Audiences simply won’t tolerate it. Just as the electorate will never abide animal brutality in a candidate. Nobody wants Cruella De Vil for president. Or even vice president.

The most recent politician to learn this lesson was South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, who for a hot second last spring looked like a powerful contender as Donald Trump’s 2024 VP pick. But then Noem published her memoir, shown at left, which included a jaw-dropping yarn about how she once shot and killed a rambunctious 14-month-old wirehair pointer because it was “less than worthless… as a hunting dog.” Noem included the chilling anecdote in her book to illustrate her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” that needed to get done, which she clearly assumed would be interpreted by MAGA voters as a winning personality trait. She’d have been better off — at least politically — if she’d confessed to being the Zodiac Killer.

Mitt Romney never murdered a dog — at least that we know of — but he did admit to stuffing his Irish Setter in a carrier and strapping it to the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour family road trip. That revelation — or “Crate Gate,” as it came to be known — quickly overwhelmed his 2012 campaign against Barack Obama, sparking “Dogs Against Romney” protests outside the Westminster dog show and inspiring New York Times columnist Gail Collins to write no fewer than 50 stories on the scandal. Who can say if that was the thing that ultimately lost Romney the election, but all that fur-flying clearly didn’t help.

July 2

The Vanity Fair report also alleged that during his marriage to the late Mary Richardson, above right, Kennedy was known for sending his friends photos of naked women. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

New York Post, Unsettling photo appears to show RFK Jr. with barbequed carcass of dog, Olivia Land and David Propper, July 2, 2024. When RFK Jr was married to his second wife, Mary Richardson, he supposedly sent nude photos of women to his friends.

An unsettling, newly unearthed photo shows Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posing with a barbecued carcass of an animal — and while a veterinarian reportedly said it was a dog, the independent presidential candidate insists it’s not.

Kennedy, 70, texted the shocking photo of himself and an unidentified woman posing with the charred four-legged animal to a friend last year, according to a Vanity Fair report.

The Kennedy family scion is seen clutching the barbequed remains on a big metal spit and pretending to take a big bite out of the ribs.

The carcass has 13 pairs of ribs – including a tell-tale “floating rib” that suggests it is in fact a canine, a veterinarian told the magazine.

But Kennedy on Tuesday claimed the animal was a goat as he downplayed the report.

“It’s of me at a campfire in Patagonia on the Futaleufu River, eating a goat, which is what we eat down there,” he told Fox News.

Kennedy shared the snap with a friend who was traveling to Asia and suggested that the pal would enjoy a restaurant in Korea that had dogs on the menu — raising more speculation the 2024 candidate once ate a pooch, according to the report.

The recipient, however, thought the image was insensitive for how it made light of animal cruelty, the magazine added.

The friend also expressed concern that it appeared to mock Korean culture and put the reputations of Kennedy and his famous family on the line.The photo’s metadata dates it to 2010 – the same year Kennedy was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain. During his 2012 divorce proceedings, the 70-year-old claimed he may have contracted the parasite during a trip to South Asia.

Kennedy’s family, however, generally believed that his cognitive issues stemmed from his 14 years as a heroin user, Vanity Fair reported.

Kennedy’s heroin addiction reportedly started when he was 15 – one year after his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated – and continued through his 20s when he started his legal career at the Manhattan DA’s office.

The bombshell report also alleged that during his marriage to the late Mary Richardson, Kennedy was known for sending his friends photos of naked women.

The friends reportedly assumed that Kennedy had taken the photos but did not know whether the subjects had consented to be photographed — or to have the images shared.

Town & Country Magazine, Camelot Continued: Kick Kennedy’s Private Tour of the Family Compound, Hudson Morgan, Dec. 25, 2012. RFK’s granddaughter, committed environmentalist, budding actress: Kennedy is shaking up the compound with laughter and her own sense of purpose. America’s greatest family saga may have just found a fresh new start.

“Ooohhh, you know what we should do?” Kick Kennedy asks. Whenever Kick says this, it usually involves: a) an adventure, b) her dogs, or c) a combination thereof. Today that means we’re scrambling out on the breakwater near the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port with her dachshund Cupid to plant a JOE KENNEDY FOR CONGRESS sign at the very end. It will probably be visible only to passing boats, but hey, every vote counts.

This is as about as openly political as it gets for the 24-year-old granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Kick prefers mountaintops to photo ops, pool tables to podiums, and high-fives to handshakes. Sure, she’ll pinch-hit for family and friends, but for the past few years she has devoted the bulk of her energy — and she has a lot of it — to two main acts: activism and acting. Her big thing is clean water, a cause she inherited from her dad, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Blood is thicker than water, but water in your blood is the thickest of all.)

The real Kick Kennedy revealed herself early — very early. Born to Bobby and his first wife, Emily Black, in Westchester County in 1988, Kick escaped her crib when she was only 18 months old and managed to climb all the way to the top of her older brother’s bunk bed. “I hadn’t even learned to walk yet, and my dad found me leaning over the top of the bed saying, ‘Dangerous. Dangerous.’ Other than ‘Dada,’ that was my first word.”

Kick’s taste for the extreme was fed by her dad’s eccentric environmentalism. Exhibit A: When she was six, word got out that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Bobby — who likes to study animal skulls and skeletons — ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York. “Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick recalls. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

Source: http://www.justice-integrity.org/2070-detractors-denounce-fans-praise-rfk-jr-s-trump-endorsement