Note the date on this tweet:
OH: “RFK is a shitcoin VC’s can pump, it’s not more complicated than that.”
— Conor Sen (@conorsen) June 21, 2023
(Translation — Overheard: ‘RFK Jr is a venture capitalist’s meat puppet for a pump & dump scheme involving a nonviable / imaginary bitcoin.’)
And the following one:
NEW: @RobertKennedyJr told the biggest #bitcoin conference that he was not an investor into the cryptocurrency and then called on people to give to his campaign in bitcoin
His financial disclosure says he and his family are bitcoin investors- up to $250k.https://t.co/QOaRZrDSsA— Brian Schwartz (@schwartzbCNBC) July 7, 2023
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic candidate for president, stood at the world’s biggest bitcoin conference in Miami in May and told the crowd, “I am not an investor and I am not here to give investment advice.” Then he announced he would be accepting campaign donations in bitcoin.
What Kennedy didn’t tell the crowd was that his family had invested in bitcoin recently, according to a financial disclosure form he filed June 30. On the twelfth page of the report, Kennedy lists a brokerage account that held between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of bitcoin. Hours after publication of this story, Kennedy’s campaign manager, former Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, told CNBC that the bitcoin purchase was made after the speech in Miami and before the June 30 filing deadline…
It’s complicated!…
NEWS: File this under “you got to be kidding me”
Now the @RobertKennedyJr campaign is telling me they were “mistaken” in their last statement and the over $100,000 #bitcoin investment is held by Kennedy himself, not @CherylHines.
Happy Friday! https://t.co/QOaRZrDSsA https://t.co/LlYJnbQXo7
— Brian Schwartz (@schwartzbCNBC) July 7, 2023
He just… the product sold itself, if you understand his mindset…
… After Kennedy’s appearance in May at the Miami conference, CNBC inquired whether Kennedy had any crypto holdings. “Mr. Kennedy has no crypto holdings,” a spokeswoman for the campaign said at the time.
Kennedy said at the conference that if he were to become president he would “make sure that your right to hold and use bitcoin is inviolable.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has waged an aggressive fight in regards to cryptocurrencies. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler told CNBC in June “we don’t need more digital currency” after the SEC sued crypto exchange Coinbase for allegedly acting as an unregistered broker and exchange…
Kennedy’s pro-bitcoin stance has aligned him with several top tech investors, such as billionaire and bitcoin enthusiast Jack Dorsey, with several of them offering support for his presidential run. Others include David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya and Omeed Malik…
Yeah, that certainly tracks.
Kennedy, who has come under fire for spreading misinformation about vaccines at large, has a history of boosting bitcoin. His nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, also has an interest in cryptocurrencies.
Their 2021 tax records shows under the “investments” section that the group had crypto valued at over $78,000. A spokeswoman for CHD, which reportedly played a key role in pushing back on Covid vaccines and helping elevate Kennedy’s profile before he ran for president, previously told CNBC that the cryptocurrencies listed were not “investments” but, in fact, “donations.” The CHD website shows that bitcoin is one of the accepted cryptocurrencies to donate toward the nonprofit group…
Like Lori Smith, the ‘303 Creative‘ using her non-existent website-design business with a non-existent client to punish actual existent LGBTQ+ individuals, about certain things RFK Jr is very religious.
Other RFJ Jr stories worth perusing:
Ed Kilgore, at NYMag — “Democrats Shouldn’t Ignore RFK Jr. They Should Expose Him”:
… [I]gnoring RFK Jr. won’t starve his candidacy to death. But exposing him for what he is — not a real Democrat — could effectively cap his vote while forcing the mainstream media to stop treating him as a legitimate Democratic candidate. He should be regarded as a pest doing the bidding of the opposing party.
That means constantly calling out Kennedy for the abovementioned coziness with conservative-media figures and for his substantive points of agreement with the less savory elements of the American right. RFK Jr. is set to address Moms for Liberty, the extremist “parental rights” group, at an event next week along with Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and an assortment of hard-core right-wing conspiracy theorists…
The man’s views simply aren’t those of a Democrat’s circa 2024. Even Democratic primary voters unhappy with Biden do not want to help produce a Trump or DeSantis presidency in 2024. Democratic messaging should make it clear that every vote for Kennedy generates smiles in Tallahassee, the fever swamps of the right-wing internet, and at Mar-a-Lago.
Any campaign to expose and discredit RFK Jr. should focus on a particular risk: that he could win, or at least put up headline-grabbing numbers, in a rogue New Hampshire primary that won’t include Biden. New Hampshire law traps Democrats into a first-in-the-nation primary date that defies the national party’s plan to start the 2024 nomination process in South Carolina. Without question, the president and party leader who created the new calendar cannot appear on the New Hampshire ballot or campaign there. So the key thing for Democrats nationally is to relentlessly pound away at the assertion that the nominating contest begins in whatever state’s primary Biden first enters (probably South Carolina’s). Fox News may celebrate a Kennedy win or near win in the Granite State. That should be regarded as spin or the kind of conspiracy RFK Jr. often embraces.
I hope Democrats & Independents are smart enough to see through this GOP ploy to peel off a few votes from Joe Biden. Don’t be fooled. This is a cynical joke, not a serious candidate. Of Course the Right Has Welcomed RFK Jr. With Open Arms | Vanity Fair https://t.co/SOiFL3xSpA
— Jeanne Mann (@Jeanne_Mann) June 21, 2023
Molly Jong-Fast, for Vanity Fair — “Of Course the Right Has Welcomed RFK Jr. With Open Arms”:
… For years RFK Jr. has lurked in the shadows as the anti-vaxxer Kennedy; now his politics not only have a base among the MAGA right—he’s proving politically expedient for Republicans as well.
In an April profile, reporter Brandy Zadrozny asks the nepo-candidate, “So why not run as a Republican?”
“Because I’m a Democrat,” he says.
“But maybe you’re not?” I say.
Kennedy looks annoyed. He says the swell in right-wing support is evidence that not he, but his party, has changed.
It’s peculiar logic; shouldn’t having right-wing support indicate that he is in fact a right-winger—not that the right wing is the true Democratic Party? His campaign manager, former Ohio representative Dennis Kucinich, goes on to explain the fringe support as a feature, not a bug—if he can win all the people on the margins both on the left and the right of the political spectrum, maybe he can scrape something together, Kucinich suggests. Maybe not, but perhaps—as Republicans appear to be hoping for—he can spoil the race for Biden.
His candidacy in the Democratic primary has already been declared a “headache” for Biden…
[By the FTFNYTimes, of course.]
Republicans are worried; they know that indictments don’t help grow the electorate. They know that as the chasm between the mainstream and the primary voters grows, so do the chances of a Biden reelection. There are few options left to help pump up their guy. RFK Jr. is one.
SiubhanDuinne
Look, I know he’s declared as a Democratic candidate, but are we morally or legally obliged to take him?
Baud
No one has any love-hate for Marianne Williamson for some reason.
On another note, you punks convinced me to try Mastodon. I’m at @[email protected]. I have zero content up.
I’m still not sure about leaving the boat, but if you follow me, I’ll follow you back. Or leave your address in the comments.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
No. Any fool can register as a Dem. We don’t have to accept anyone.
Cameron
Who is RFJ?
Nukular Biskits
TIL that Dennis Kucinich is RFK Jr’s campaign manager.
<smh>
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I signed up for Mastodon as well … and have nothing more than a “Hello, World!” post.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
I’m not sure the world deserves a greeting.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Any fool apparently did.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
What’s your handle?
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
LOL!
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
@NukularBiskits
But I have yet to figure out how to navigate the Mastodonverse. I’ve only signed up to follow a couple of local media outlets … which haven’t put much there.
My impression is that folks have created accounts there as a hedge, just in case Twitter augers into the ground.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Followed.
I tried Twitter years ago, but I couldn’t get into it for some reason. We’ll see how this works out.
ETA: I’ve found a handful of Juicers to follow.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nukular Biskits: I don’t care for Mastodon. I got an invitation to Bluesky a couple of weeks ago, and I am liking it there.
Nukular Biskits
@Omnes Omnibus:
There was a good pro/con on that recently by … (can’t remember without going back and looking).
My problem is that I’m a creature of habit and am loathe to change.
Plus, I primarily use social media (primarily Twitter, although I still have a Facebook account that I seldom ever access) to follow/interact with elected officials and local/state media. Not many of those on the other platforms.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I wonder how BlueSky will fare with Threads dominating the news now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: The lack of a chronological timeline option rules Threads out for me.
Mousebumples
I’ve got a Mastodon (@[email protected]), and I’m willing to create another account… But I don’t want another 4 or 5 accounts. When one of the bunch seems to be Best, I’ll think about joining.
But I don’t trust Zuckerberg, so I’m reluctant to join Threads. Also my pseudo-anonymouse Twitter/Mastodon preference doesn’t match with my more Real Me Facebook/Instagram. If I need to figure out a workaround, I can. Just don’t want to if I don’t have to.
Mousebumples
@Omnes Omnibus: Theres also Spoutible (I think WaterGirl is a fan?), Spill (seeing some traction from my #BlackTwitter follows), Post (does anyone use that?), and… Probably more.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Given Facebook’s history with user data, I’m not inclined to jump on the Threads train yet.
But, then, every other social media platform hoovers up your personal data as well.
“When the product is free, you’re the product.”
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think they rushed it out. I’d imagine there will be more features coming. But I don’t have an Instagram account, so I haven’t signed up for Threads.
@Mousebumples:
I think I just followed you.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Aside from Google, I don’t give social media companies much data. I suppose Microsoft has some data on me too, but that’s not from social media.
Mousebumples
@Baud: Yup, and I did the same to you. (and @NukularBiskits, too)
Baud
@Mousebumples:
👍
Omnes Omnibus
@Mousebumples: I joined Spoutible as well. The only people I really found over there were Balloon Juice peeps. I am looking for a wider pool of engagement than that. I can find that here. Right now, for me, Bluesky is providing more of what I am looking for than any of the other options. We’ll see how it all plays out.
hells littlest angel
RFK Jr is the one right-wing crook active today who will be one day legitimately pleading an insanity defense.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Given Zuck’s history on FB with people trying to avoid the algorithm, I am not sure they will do it.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
My FB account is under a “protonmail” account and I sign on only via private browsing via VPN.
Not paranoid, still pissed about them giving all that data to “conservatives” back in 2016.
And, if you have an Android phone, Google will email you your “timeline” for the past month showing all the places you’ve been.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
He’s supposed to make it compatible with Mastodon. I’m curious to see how that all works out.
@Nukular Biskits:
Honestly, I can’t say I’m aware of any harm that’s come to me from data mining. I try not to be reckless, but also to not worry too much about it.
Citizen Alan
I still maintain that one of al gore’s biggest tactical mistakes, other than sidelining Clinton and picking joe fucking lieberman as his running mate, was in refusing to engage ralph nader and expose him as an unserious charlatan he was. My own personal and deeply regretted decision to vote for nader in 2000 arose from the terrible optics of nader being physically removed from a Bush Gore debate that he had purchased a ticket to attend while Bush and Gore both sat up on the stage together, watching impassively. I wonder if that moment pissed off at least 600 democrats in florida enough to do the same
Ivan X
It still bothers me that Cheryl Hines married that ass.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Agreed.
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
My impression is that folks have created accounts there as a hedge, just in case Twitter augers into the ground.
That’s why I’m there. I’ve spent maybe 1/2 hr on mastodon since I signed up the day after dipshit bought twit.
Ruckus
@Mousebumples:
I also signed up for a Spoutible account but not a big fan for why I don’t know.
So I have accounts on:
Twitter
Spoutible
Mastodon
Since SFB Jr bought twitter my time spent on any of these sites has plummeted, or remained extremely close to non-existent.
Baud
@Ruckus:
Do you want to share your Mastodon address?
different-church-lady
Crackpot believes in crackpot things? Who would have guessed?
Nukular Biskits
@Ruckus:
I created mine when Twitter didn’t pay its server bill and Musk decided to limit tweet views.
I figured the end was nigh.
SpaceUnit
That photo at the top makes me think that RFK Jr is using trump’s shitty orange face paint.
Also, Kucinich is a flake.
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Baud: Followed.
@[email protected]
Baud
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️:
Awesome.
columbusqueen
@SpaceUnit: Yeah, Dennis is a freak & general PITA. The fact he’s anti-choice is the cherry on the shit sundae.
schrodingers_cat
Does anyone have any guesses why Avivek Cringeswamy gets some much attention in the press? We know that he is not going to win a single primary.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Who’s covering him?
Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@schrodingers_cat: He’s brown, and lets the usual suspects play the usual card. Not much more to it than that.
MattF
Mastodon is missing various ease-of-use features, the one I collided with was a lack of ways to manage your lists. Mastodon List Manager is the tool that fixes that.
I’m actually pretty happy with Mastodon. I have an account on a mathematics-oriented instance, mathstodon.xyz. I see all the follows on my own feed. The two other ‘standard’ feeds, ‘local’ and ‘federated’ satisfy my needs for random scrolling.You can slow down the federated feed’s ‘firehose‘ effect by choosing the slow mode in your preferences.
SpaceUnit
@columbusqueen:
I was in his house years ago. The dude had a copy of that famous painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps on his wall, only it was freaking enormous. Must have been 20 x 25 feet. Freud woulda puked all over the place. I just laughed.
Chetan Murthy
@Ben Cisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: ding ding ding! He’s the latest iteration of Hermann “999” Cain. Or is that Hermann “Uz-becki-becki-becki-stan” Cain?
Baud
@MattF:
What’s your handle?
Gin & Tonic
Mixing this thread with Adam’s downstairs, it is interesting that Conor Kennedy, RFKJr’s son, fought in the international legion in Ukraine. This has been known for some time, but he was careful about publicizing that info. By all accounts, he was (and I assume still is) a committed supporter of Ukraine.
Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall very close to the tree at all.
MattF
@Baud: @[email protected]
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
That is interesting.
@MattF:
Thanks.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: NYT is the latest.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Figures.
Jackie
@hells littlest angel: And, he’s listed as a “low” possible TIFG VP. Saying you’re a Democrat doesn’t mean you’re a Democrat.
Jackie
@Gin & Tonic: It sounds like Conor Kennedy is his grandpa’s son.
Shalimar
@Baud: I read several of Marianne Williamson’s books decades ago. For a new age spiritual type, she really doesn’t inspire any emotions. She’s just bleh. I can’t even imagine taking a self-help course from her, let alone giving her a vote for leading the entire country.
Lapassionara
@Citizen Alan: not to worry. Al Gore did win Florida, and he would have won it convincingly if not for the butterfly ballot in Brevard County.
SpaceUnit
I just can’t imagine RFK Jr getting much traction. He comes off too weird and untethered. This will be a vanity campaign and nothing more.
Ishmael
@Baud:I haven’t commented either, but I followed you.
I’ll be here til the lights go out, then follow the jackal herd wherever we go.
@[email protected]
@Baud:
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
It is the 5G chip in the vaccine.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
There’s also the issue that Threads entirely excludes Europe because they don’t want to comply with the GDPR. I’m not willing to engage with a platform that excludes 750 million members of the Western world.
And that Threads is a walled (hell-)garden.
FWIW, I have seen instructions for making an anonymous Threads account. If true, that would mean that it would be possible for activists who want or need to remain (truly) anonymous to do so.
Betsy
Wait. Stop —
Dennis Kucinich — OUR Dennis Kucinich — is RFK Jr’s campaign manager?
Chetan Murthy
@Betsy: i know right? Back in 2004 (IIRC), he was sort of cute on the presidential campaign. And I don’t remember him having any horrific positions in that campaign. Maybe I’m misremembering. But now? Boy howdy, he’s cozying up to a Fascist? holey moley.
Betsy
@Chetan Murthy: Exactly! He had some great positions, and talked logic and shit.
What is it with these lefties who go righty? Why the fascist tendencies with the Mariannes, and the Bernies, and the Dennises and the RFKs?
Shit, I’m-o be watching Elizabeth Warren rull hard. 😳
BR
@Baud: Followed. I think you will like the beige.party folks:
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
And of course Lisa Melton who boosts a lot of good stuff:
@[email protected]
Tip: add https://mastodon.social/ in front of any of those to make a clickable link.
BR
@Betsy:
Warren is too sensible. The ones who fit the horseshoe theory always had a bit of a “I’m a contrarian who’s smarter than the rest of you” going for them. So now they have nowhere else to go to be contrarian so they flip on everything they once said they believed in. I hope.
artem1s
welp that explains a lot. Dennis is a serious asshole who earned the nickname Denice the Menace. He’s NOT OUR Dennis Betsy. He hasn’t been for decades. I was overjoyed when the party finally wised up and kicked his ass to the curb. He hasn’t live in the state since he got involved in the Portland woo scene. He never gave a shit about Ohio and never brought a dime into his district. He figured out long before Trump that he could make a lot of money running a perpetual presidential campaign. And now he’s got a fucking Kennedy to use to grift with – shit, we’ll never get rid of that asshole now.
Betsy
@BR: That theory sounds like it could have good explanatory value. I’ll have to keep that in mind. Yes, Warren is not in it for the look-at-me factor. It’s about genuine concern for people – she is extremely sincere (and that, in an age where irony is sickeningly dominant).
Betsy
@artem1s: Wow. Guess I missed all of that.
I hate that our perpetual-campaign / campaign-finance system generates this crap, the same way that gerrymandering tends to elect extremist lunatics.
The system seems broken in so many crucial places.
theturtlemoves
@Baud:
Microsoft has a ton of information on me but they sort of need it in order to deposit my paychecks. I am sadly not on the team that controls thoughts and / or the weather.
steve g
The FTFNYTimes calling RFKJr a “headache for Biden” is ridiculous wishful thinking on their part. He is no such thing, and too bad for them if the RFKJr story remains a lame one.
***
The Vanity Fair article says “They [Republicans] know that as the chasm between the mainstream and the primary voters grows, so do the chances of a Biden reelection.” I know all the words in that sentence, but I can’t quite parse out what it means.
What is this growing chasm between the mainstream and primary voters? Do they not see eye to eye? Are they not on speaking terms? Are their respective heads in entirely different places? What is this chasm, and why does its growth increase the chance of a Biden win?
Chetan Murthy
@steve g: not having read either article, perhaps what they mean is that the primary voters in the Republican primary are The Base, and the general election voters are very different from that. After all, Trump’s base is rabid right wing nut job, right?
steve g
@Chetan Murthy: Hmm, so not Dem primary voters, since there won’t be a national Dem primary, just the GOP primary voters, versus everyone else. That makes sense, but why is it a growing chasm? More GOP base voters are at long last waking up and giving up on TFG?
Chetan Murthy
@steve g: Other way around, I would think. There’s a term I learned over at LG&M: “cumulative radicalization”. It describes how, over time, GrOPer base voters are radicalized more-and-more, and this is done by GrOPer politicians as a way of getting them to vote. That is to say, as the GrOPer base shrinks demographically, they need to achieve greater levels of turnout, and to do that, they gin up more and more anger and hatred in their base. Voila, the GrOPer primary electorate is …. getting more and more rabid.
Meanwhile, the general electorate is …. well, it’s not doing *that*
ETA: So for instance, remember Todd Akin? Or that other one who had to state that she wasn’t a witch? Those candidates were the results of this radicalization of the GrOPer base, eh? And of course, today Todd Akin would be milquetoast.
Martin
@steve g: To add to the other observations, it’s important to recognize that primary voters are not the party’s general election voters.
If general election voters are the most motivated part of the entire electorate, primary voters are the most motivated part of the party.
A pretty good presidential primary turnout is 15%, and 10% is more common, where the general election turnout is 50% – over 60% in 2020. So if the 15% your primary election is drawing are all fucking lunatics, and they as a result nominate a fucking lunatic, the party can’t expect those GOP voters that aren’t so engaged to show up for the primary to carry them over the finish line in the general. Odds are, they won’t bother to show up because they don’t want to vote for the fucking lunatic that the other part of the party nominated, and they don’t want to vote for the other party.
Meanwhile, the fucking lunatic turns out the opposing party like crazy because, well, you nominated a fucking lunatic and we’re going to stop them by voting for our guy.
Now, guys like McConnell understand this dynamic.
Democrats don’t have this cycle that nominates fringe candidates, because Democrats have this problem of trying to appeal to a VERY broad coalition of voters, and you need an Obama to pull that off. But this is codependent on how the GOP works. The only reason the Democrats have this broad coalition is because the GOP is definitionally this white christian nationalist group that throws out *all* other people and with only two parties, the Democrats best electoral strategy is to catch *all* other people. Meanwhile the GOP being this very identity defined group is sort of pre-wired to find the true scotsman which very naturally leads them down this authoritarian path, which leads them to candidates that increasingly look like lunatics to the other party.
So democrats challenge in the primary is to get a broad enough representation from the electorate to pick a candidate that appeals to all parts of the coalition (observe Biden being too centrist, too old, too pro-cop, too pro-bank – all criticisms from different factions of the party). There is no naturally more intense faction – that’s situational. Women because of Dobbs, etc.
Republican’s challenge in the primary is that the don’t really have a coalition – they have a monoculture that ranges from ‘let’s preserve the social hierarchy’ to ‘lets throw Jews in ovens’, and the latter being the naturally more intense faction, making sure they don’t get to nominate a candidate whose platform is ‘throw Jews in ovens’.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I would but right now I’d likely never see a comment. I have accounts but I think I’ve lost interest in the concept of all of them. I don’t really check any of them any more. Maybe if one of them takes over when elon has finished crapping all over twit.
Princess
Facebook and Instagram feel more and more like the same site with a different visual format, and from what people say, Threads sounds like the same.
on RFKjr: he will have an appeal but more in the Ron Paul demographic than the Bernie one (apart from where there is overlap). Not exactly our voters though in open primaries, he will get votes and the media will jump all over it.
BellyCat
@Martin: Good explainer.