Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

We won’t go back.

The willow is too close to the house.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Books are my comfort food!

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

I was promised a recession.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

In after Baud. Damn.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Sunday Evening Open Thread: RFK Jr Goes Mask-Off

Sunday Evening Open Thread: RFK Jr Goes Mask-Off

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Open Thread: RFK Jr Goes Mask-Off

Steve Bannon has been having, by his debased standards, a very good run of late… and the conspiracy-fueled right-wing embrace of RFK Jr. is another ‘win’ for right-wing chaos agents.

NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny reports as “RFK Jr. comes ‘home’ to his anti-vaccine group, commits to ‘a break’ for U.S. infectious disease research”:

At an anti-vaccine conference in Georgia on Friday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed his commitment to the cause and spoke to his base about how he, as president, would serve the movement he built.

“I feel like I’ve come home today,” he said to a standing ovation, crediting the assembled audience with his candidacy.

He then laid out his vision for a Kennedy presidency, which would include telling the National Institutes of Health to take “a break” from studying infectious diseases, like Covid-19 and measles, and pivoting the agency to the study of chronic diseases, like diabetes and obesity. Kennedy has suggested without evidence that researchers and pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit to neglect such chronic conditions and invest in ineffective and even harmful treatments; he includes vaccines among them.

“I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all,” Kennedy said. “Thank you for public service. We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.”

Kennedy’s remarks came at the end of the first day of a conference for the country’s largest anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense. Kennedy signed on with Children’s Health Defense in 2015 and served as its chairman and chief litigation counsel until April, when he announced he would go on leave to run for president…

Kennedy has mostly shied away from anti-vaccine advocacy on the campaign trail and has said, despite years of public statements to the contrary, that he is not opposed to vaccines. This spring, he told NBC News vaccines were “not an issue that I’m leading with.”…

In addition to his proposed moves at NIH, Kennedy said that as president, he’d appoint a like-minded attorney general, “maybe Aaron Siri,” he said. Siri is a lawyer who has done millions of dollars of work for leading anti-vaccination groups, including a recent case that opened up religious exemptions for childhood vaccines in Mississippi. The crowd erupted in applause.

He said he would use the power of that attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals and force them to publish studies that had been retracted (he often cites the retracted studies saying ivermectin, a parasite drug, is an effective treatment for Covid). “We’re gonna say we’re fixing to file some racketeering lawsuits if you don’t start telling the truth in your journals.”…

RatF*cker Jr, friend to all the best modern plagues, including ‘religious’ grifters and lawyers.

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  1. 1.

    SpaceUnit

    This guy ate paint chips as a child.

    And he’s clearly going to peel away more Qanon types than Dems.  Knock yourself out Bobby.

  4. 4.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I’m reading what passes for news today and everything I am seeing from the usual players has become Idiocracy-like in the content and the way it is presented to the readers. There is no informing people anymore, it’s all about bullshit that causes controversy, angst, anger, hatred, despair and every other negative emotion/response there is. I find myself caring less and less about a free press that does little more than sow misinformation, discord, dissent and hatred. Biden’s old, young kids are angry at him and threatening to sit the election out, Trump is ascending and unstoppable… all of it is just a wave of complete bullshit.

    It’s the tail wagging the dog news and it’s killing us.

  6. 6.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Yeah, I’m with @SpaceUnit. This does not sound like a guy whose 3rd party run would drain more Democrats than Republicans.

    I think that’s a problem built into the ‘get someone to run 3rd party’ ratfuckers.  They support Republicans, so they assume that what most Democrats want is Republicanism with a different label.

  7. 7.

    BellyCat

    @SpaceUnit: And he’s clearly going to peel away more Qanon types than Dems.

    Truth. My MAGA friend, who believes Fauci is a criminal, is cooling on Trump and very RFK-curious.

  9. 9.

    Kay

    My only concern is idiot “sporadic voters” recognize the famous name and just hit the box. They’re really careless people.

  10. 10.

    piratedan

    @Frankensteinbeck: it does give you some pause when you think about all of these anti’s….

    anti gun control

    anti women’s reproductive choices

    anti gender self determination

    anti climate change…

    it’s like that old Stephen King novella “The Mist” and the entire GOP has gone Mrs. Cromarty… something dark and feral and with the slightest encouragement will be sacrificing virgins and non-virgins alike.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    I’ve come to really loathe anti vaxxers. It’s a whole set of behaviors now, an arrogant mindset, where they think they know how to do everyone elses job. Everyone is incompetent or crooked or bought and paid for except for the scolding bores of the anti vaxx “movement”.

  13. 13.

    Alison Rose

    “I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all,” Kennedy said.

    God doesn’t want anything to do with your ass, you swamp-brained gym weasel.

  14. 14.

    Almost Retired

    @Kay:  I find it helpful when people I meet – or potential legal clients – express anti-vaccination views.  I can immediately peg them as someone I have no interest in interacting with any further.  A helpful shortcut to determine that someone is irredeemably crazy.  I’m thinking about putting a vaccination question on my client intake form to simplify the screening process.

  15. 15.

    Josie

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: ​
     This is exactly how I’m feeling. I read the headlines at Political Wire this morning and decided to quit looking at news altogether. I spent the day doing household chores and then reading a couple of vacuous novels. I plan to do more of the same tomorrow. No more news for me for a while.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    More creepy stuff about Speaker Johnson (Rolling Stone):

    During a conversation on the “War on Technology” at Benton, Louisiana’s Cypress Baptist Church — unearthed by X user Receipt Maven last week — the Louisiana representative talked about how he installed “accountability software” called Covenant Eyes on his devices in order to abstain from internet porn and other unsavory websites.

    “It scans all the activity on your phone, or your devices, your laptop, what have you; we do all of it,” Johnson told the panel about the app.

    “It sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17.

    Eww.

    Also, “Covenant Eyes”? Is this dude a Margaret Atwood character?

  17. 17.

    hueyplong

    I’m not sure RFK Jr takes votes from Trump (who would simply ape his positions if such a threat were to materialize), but I am sure Kennedy the Lesser would take some from another GOP nominee if Trump were to stroke out during one of his trials.

  21. 21.

    SpaceUnit

    I know we shouldn’t criticize people for their appearance but the dude looks creepy as fuck.  Imagine him standing in your yard with an axe.

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    Good evening BJ!

    Today is my BornDay!!!

    This is 47: https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/172124718339008967

    Spent 3 days last week on a solo trip to San Fran.  From San Fran to Vegas for my birthday weekend, which started off yesterday seeing Usher’s Vegas Residency (he was fan-fuqn-tastic!  Can’t wait to see what he does at SB), and ends today with dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.  Then back to NOLA tomorrow for a couple of days off and going to see the tourng company of the MJ Musical, before going back to work.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @Almost Retired: Reminds me of a quote from a nurse I read who said that asking a patient who is president used to be a cognitive orientation test but now it’s a psych eval too.

  29. 29.

    JaySinWA

    @Betty Cracker: His 17 year old son is going to hold him accountable? More likely checking out all his daddies porn flagged sites from an unfettered phone/laptop, just to be sure. Or maybe they will revisit them together.

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @Almost Retired:

     I’m thinking about putting a vaccination question on my client intake form to simplify the screening process.

    lol. My youngest son was born with a bad left eye. We took him to U of M childrens to a fancy eye specialist. I had some questions about the surgery and the surgeon started with “we don’t really know how the eye works with the brain”. I LOVE that. I could have hugged him.

    I am so, so sick of these snake oil salesman and how CERTAIN they are of everything, despite no experience or education in any of these health/science fields.

    He fixed the eye, btw, so they know some things :)

  34. 34.

    kalakal

    I hope he contracts a non lethal but highly uncomfortable case of an infectious disease, preferably one with highly visible symptoms. Chicken Pox would fit the bill

  37. 37.

    BellyCat

    @SiubhanDuinne: Unstated, but almost certainly the case, is that Johnson is also his 17 year old son’s “accountability partner” so as to exert maximum parental oversight and control.

    Of course, they both are likely sharing print material stashed under a sofa cushion.

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @Alison Rose: All this tells me is that he really really wants to look at porn.

    Fortunately, he has an underage boy to keep his lustful desires in check. Though I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to work — is the son supposed to tell his mother that dad’s downloaded a bunch of porn?

  40. 40.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ken:

    I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to work

    His son regularly holds up the list of websites checked to Johnson’s wife to prove that Johnson is Pure.  Note the actual cleverness of getting the son to do it, as a witness who may not keep his mouth shut.  Proof to the outside world.

    While Johnson views porn on some other device.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @Betty Cracker: They at least claim to believe that watching porn is evidence of deep moral failures and a descent into sin.

    Demographic viewership statistics compiled by, you know, the porn industry suggests that if that’s the case, there are an awful lot of evangelicals descending that slippery slope into damnation.

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: The publishers understand dollars.  Vote with your dollars.

    Support ProPublica and similar news outfits.

    Subscribe to a reputable science news organization like AAAS ($125/year, Science magazine weekly), ScienceNews (online $30/year, biweekly), etc.

    Read lots of news online – Reuters, AlJazeera, DW, etc.  Find a local news outlet and subscribe.

    But always, always be a skeptical reader.

    There have never been more choices for people to get news.  We don’t have to accept what the plutocratic publishers push to us anymore.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    JaySinWA

    @Ken: No, his son is supposed to conspire with Dad in keeping his secrets.

    OTOH It seems like Covenant Eyes would have some handy blackmail material if he isn’t getting his porn from other devices or sources. I wonder if they are hacking targets?

    ETA he wants to convince someone that he doesn’t view porn.

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @JaySinWA: From that Rolling Stone article,

    Outside of the creepy Big Brother-ness of it all, Receipt Maven also aired concerns about whether Covenant Eyes — which is still a working subscription-based service — might “compromise” Johnson’s devices, if he’s still actively seeking accountability.
    “A US Congressman is allowing a 3rd Party tech company to scan ALL of his electronic devices daily and then uploading reports to his son about what he’s watching or not watching….,” Receipt Maven wrote. “I mean, who else is accessing that data?”

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BellyCat:

    My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17.

    “Jack, do you like movies about gladiators?”

    ”Jack, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”

  53. 53.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Another Scott:

    I understand all of that and tht’s not my point. I’m talking about what the public is being fed to lead them in the direction that the reporting wants lead them. They are not going to do anything that you recommend because they don’t care to. Instead they will suck up the stupid shit they are fed and end up angry, misinformed and voting against their interests.

    Tail wagging the dog news will be our road to disaster, but at least they will make money while it all burns.

  54. 54.

    Geminid

    @JaySinWA: Virginia Republicans are worried that Democratic House of Delegates candidate Susanna Gibson might win the 57th District race. She’s the one whose past internet activities made the news some weeks ago. So they sent out a few thousand mailers detailing her on-camera exploits. The envelope is printed “WARNING….DO NOT OPEN IF YOU ARE UNDER 18.”

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker: This is all too weird.

    A guy who wrote articles at Covenant Eyes is a guy named Michael Johnson.

    Michael Johnson (MJ) is co-founder and Dean of Dating at Future Marriage University, where he has a blast sharing practical, passionate Biblical truth about sex, dating, and relationships with college students, youth, and young adults. He also video blogs with his wife, Julie (and sometimes his kids). If you like his writing, you’ll love him live. That’s what his mom says, anyway.

    Could the Rolling Stone writer be mixing up Michael Johnsons??

    Does Speaker Johnson have a second wife (“Julie”) on the side??

    “Dean of Dating”??!?

    Let’s assume he is same guy for the moment. If so, that seems to mean that he’s using “Covenant Eyes” on his phone as part of an Amway-like pyramid scam (“Talk up our product, and you’ll get more!!”).

    Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have any assets in a bank??

    This is all really weird, but if it’s the same guy then someone should do some more digging to see what else is there.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    Nelle

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: The Washington Post had the most error ridden article I’ve ever seen a day or two ago.  Ostensibly, it was about getting ready for the end of daylight saving time.  But it asserted that the world was all going to fall back to standard time, as it has always done, on the first Sunday in November.  Europe changed two weeks ago.  But it also noted that New Zealand and Australia would fall back.  Nope, they went ON to daylight saving time a bit ago.  They are heading into summer.  This was so bad one couldn’t even believe that AI wrote it.  And my daughter, with a Master’s in Journalism, couldn’t get a decent journalism job.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: How many people read the daily paper or watch the evening news on the big-three networks any more? We stopped getting the WaPo sometime in the mid-2000s.

    People are voting with their feet, to some degree – they probably should do it more.

    I understand your criticism and share some of it.  But people have choices and are exercising them.

    Hearst and Pulitzer:

    The two newspaper owners credited with developing the journalistic style of yellow journalism were William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. These two were fighting a circulation battle in New York City. Pulitzer owned the New York World, and Hearst the New York Journal. Through their disregard for responsible journalism, the two men are commonly credited with leading the USA into the Spanish–American War. Their stories swayed US public opinion to believe that the Cuban people were being unjustly persecuted by the Spanish, and that the only way for them to gain their independence was through American intervention. Hearst and Pulitzer made their stories credible by self-assertion and providing false names, dates, and locations of skirmishes and atrocities committed by the Spanish. Papers also claimed that their facts could be substantiated by the government.

    People have to pay attention or they will be led around where the plutocrats want them to go…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    it’s time for leeches and bloodletting to make a comeback.

  61. 61.

    Almost Retired

    @Betty Cracker:  Ha!  I can’t remember where I read this -and it may have been a joke – but someone reported taking their elderly father to a mental competency evaluation in 2019 and the psychiatrist asked “who is the current President”?  And he answered “you don’t want to know.”

  62. 62.

    Jinchi

    I still think RFK Jr. missed his best shot, running as a Republican in the primary, with the hopes that Trump either flames out or selects him as his VP.

  67. 67.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Kay: Oh, I’ve loathed them for a very long time. Thankfully, some of my anti-vax curious, woo liberal friends snapped out of it during the pandemic. Nothing focuses the mind like city hospitals filling up with the unvaccinated.

  71. 71.

    Roberto el oso

    If Johnson ever takes his kid to show him where Daddy works he better make sure that Lauren Boebert is not nearby.

  73. 73.

    CaseyL

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:   US broadcast “news” consists of indoctrination channels for not-very-bright children.  The newspapers are somewhat better – but by that, I mean the actual news stories; the editorial pages are mostly godawful.

    The US has dumbed itself down very badly.

  75. 75.

    Central Planning

    @Jinchi: Any kid with a tiny bit of knowledge or friends will get a $5 USB stick and boot linux off of that and go to whatever websites they want.

    Maybe I should start a business selling that…  “Blind Covenant” or something like that.

  77. 77.

    wjca

    @kalakal: I hope he contracts a non lethal but highly uncomfortable case of an infectious disease, preferably one with highly visible symptoms. Chicken Pox would fit the bill.

    Preferably with timing so as to be maximally infectious while attending an anti-vaxx convention.  So as to share the wealth.

  79. 79.

    Anne Laurie

    @Betty Cracker: Also, “Covenant Eyes”? Is this dude a Margaret Atwood character?

    Very ‘Traditional’, like the Victorian fancywork samplers : Thou God Watches Me Always.

    MAGA Mike wanted to know what pr0n his teenage son was watching (after all, the kids are hip to all the *best* dirty websites), and the ‘Covent Eyes’ program gave him a suitably smarmy community-approved method of monitoring Junior.  (Protestants practically invented the concept of helicopter parenting: Raise up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it… is an ancient tradition, but as I understand it, Martin Luther was a big proponent of community monitoring.)

    Also, extra points with his church group / donors for public piety, which is the best kind of  piety!

  80. 80.

    Citizen Alan

    @CaseyL: If newspapers are better than Tv, it is only because by definition, they limit themselves to the fifty percent of the u s population that can read above the sixth grade level.

  81. 81.

    Anne Laurie

    @SpaceUnit: I know we shouldn’t criticize people for their appearance but the dude looks creepy as fuck. Imagine him standing in your yard with an axe.

    Hell, imagine him standing in your yard… with a hand down his pants, and his phone recording video in the other hand.

    Also, most of the ‘creepy‘ in his appearance is the result of his personal choices — too much bad surgical / chemical intervention.

  83. 83.

    Anne Laurie

    @kalakal: I hope he contracts a non lethal but highly uncomfortable case of an infectious disease, preferably one with highly visible symptoms. Chicken Pox would fit the bill

    I’m sure his parents vaccinated RFK Jr, but IIRC the chicken pox vaccine wasn’t available until he was an adult.  So he could get shingles… unless he’s a lying liar as well as a crank, and got the shingles vaxx (after Doing His Own Research, of course).

  84. 84.

    Tehanu

    telling the National Institutes of Health to take “a break” from studying infectious diseases, like Covid-19 and measles,

    Would it be unkind to hope that this disgrace to his father’s memory gets shingles all over his body? At the same time that he gets TB, scarlet fever, and cholera?

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @SpaceUnit:

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You are both correct, there is no other possible explanation for this amount of total stupidity. The paint chips made him insane. OK there might be other reasons, but the insanity still holds.

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