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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Late Night Reading Open Thread: RFK Jr, Chasing the Dragon of Celebrity

Late Night Reading Open Thread: RFK Jr, Chasing the Dragon of Celebrity

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It’s supposed to happen Tuesday, but who knows?

… Kennedy’s decision to unveil his vice-presidential pick next Tuesday shows a longevity to his bid that many Democrats hoped would have fizzled out by now. Announcing a running mate means the independent candidate has met a necessary benchmark required by two dozen states to be listed on the ballot, something that will bring even more attention to his campaign…

Team Kennedy’s search for a No. 2 has gotten noticed for the unconventional names it produced. While many believe Kennedy is likely to choose Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer and mega-donor, others have been privately mused about, with mixed reactions.

Kennedy has publicly talked up a number of people. He previously said that he was considering NFL star Aaron Rodgers, who shares much of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine outlook toward public health.

Rodgers fell into the background, however, after comments he made questioning the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School surfaced, sparking outrage. Known to look beyond the bounds of convention, Kennedy also expressed support for wrestler and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who each have nontraditional ideologies, as well as tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

As his event in Oakland, Calif., grew nearer, Shanahan became a front-runner. The West Coast lawyer, who has deep ties in Silicon Valley and is the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, would theoretically bring more money to put toward his ballot access effort…

Vulgar skeptics will express a certain schadenfreude for Cheryl Hines, but the woman knew what she was getting into when she married him.
 
The common clay of the new West!…

… Kennedy’s deep ties with anti-vaccine and environmental activism coupled with his campaign’s dedication to new media is engaging people like Michelle Frank, a yoga studio owner who is not registered to vote but has already chipped a few hundred dollars to Kennedy’s campaign.

“I haven’t voted in about over 15 to 20 years, actually,” Frank told POLITICO.

After hearing Kennedy on a podcast, Frank hosted an aerial yoga class for local Kennedy supporters at her studio outside of Austin, Texas, attracting a small group of fellow political neophytes. She said one attendee came to the event because of the Super Bowl ad, paid for by the super PAC American Values 2024, that aired the week before.

“Knowing that he has this great, this most pure intention like his uncle and his dad did. I feel like the purity and the intention is really what drew me to him,” she said…

Roughly 21,000 donors have given Kennedy’s campaign at least $200 since he declared his independent run in October, and a POLITICO analysis found that 74 percent of them did not make any political donations during the 2020 cycle. And interviews with numerous Kennedy backers reveal it’s made up of a powerful bloc of people not only drawn to Kennedy but turned off by the general election matchup…

 
Which reminded me — I’ve been meaning to post a link to this excellent read:


From Peter Jamison at the Washington Post, “How RFK Jr. hiring a bird smuggler threw his environmental group into turmoil” [gift link]:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived at a midtown Manhattan law firm’s office on a summer night in 2000 ready for a fight. His adversary was not one of the polluters he had spent years driving from the Hudson River. It was his mentor, friend and boss, the renowned environmentalist Robert H. Boyle.

Boyle had helped Kennedy rehabilitate himself, personally and professionally, after an arrest for heroin possession in 1983 at the age of 29. But now the two men were locked in a power struggle for control of Riverkeeper, the group that Boyle founded and where Kennedy had built a career as a crusading environmental attorney.

Their battle at that night’s board meeting was over Kennedy’s push to hire a staff scientist who had just been released from federal prison. His crime: running an international wildlife smuggling ring that prosecutors said had damaged rare bird populations.

Boyle argued that employing such a figure at one of New York’s premier environmental organizations was like hiring a robber as a bank teller. Kennedy was equally insistent that the man be brought on.

By the time Riverkeeper’s board adjourned that night, Kennedy had won, leading Boyle and seven other directors to resign. It was a pivotal moment for the group — whose board would henceforth be dominated by the faction of celebrities and socialites who had backed Kennedy — and for Boyle, who never recovered emotionally from what he saw as his former protégé’s betrayal, according to people close to him.

Above all it was a crucial victory for Kennedy, who for the next two decades would indelibly merge his public profile with that of Riverkeeper, eventually claiming — falsely — that he had co-founded the organization. He would frequently invoke his bona fides as a warrior for New York’s waterways as he took up anti-vaccine activism, the cause he is most associated with today…

Kennedy’s detractors often divide his career into two phases: a laudable period as a workhorse of the environmental movement and a swerve into the conspiracist worldview that defines his independent bid for the White House.

But a close examination of Kennedy’s early years as a lawyer in the Hudson Valley shows that the same qualities that today inspire his supporters and alarm his critics — obstinacy, an itch to challenge authority, a mastery of scientific minutiae that is paradoxically coupled with a loose allegiance to facts — were causing controversy long before he trained his sights on Bill Gates or Anthony S. Fauci…

In March 2017, Kennedy resigned from Riverkeeper, citing the toll on his family by his cross-country commute from California and the demands of his work with World Mercury Project, the anti-vaccine group that would soon become Children’s Health Defense. Under Kennedy’s leadership, the annual revenue of Children’s Health Defense would balloon from a half-million dollars to more than $23 million, placing it in the vanguard of anti-vaccination advocacy groups.

In a resignation letter that was published on Riverkeeper’s website, Kennedy made claims that appear to be at odds with the historical record. The man who had discovered an already successful environmental group while doing court-imposed community service now falsely claimed to have founded Riverkeeper, which he said had “a budget of zero” before he arrived.

“It is extraordinarily difficult to leave the organization which I co-founded thirty-three years ago, built from the ground up and to which I’ve devoted most of my career,” Kennedy wrote.

In an interview with The Post, Kennedy said his resignation letter “was certainly accurate as to what I believed at that time.”

He added, “I have no memory of writing that letter, and I have no memory of anybody disputing anything that I said about my role at Riverkeeper.”…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr is not, and apparently never has been, a trustworthy person. Of course his defenders are comparing him to Hunter Biden — but Hunter is not running for President

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  1. 1.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    Among all the fundraising emails I got a couple of days ago was my first from RFK Jr. Unsubscribed immediately, just as I had done with Dean Phillips. Go away!

  2. 2.

    SpaceUnit

    I was driving to the local Safeway on Friday and found myself behind an SUV with an enormous JKF 2024 sticker on its back window.   First one I’ve seen.

    I just laughed.  Figured there’s one moron who’s monetary donations and vote won’t be going to trump this year.  Please continue Mr. Kennedy.

     

    ETA:  Also it’s great to see Flynn and Stone grinning like idiots while shooting their mission in the dick.

  3. 3.

    HumboldtBlue

    I can say clearly and honestly that I will not be named as a running mate to anyone anytime, anywhere.

    Unless that means running with my homie, Salad.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    Roughly 21,000 donors have given Kennedy’s campaign at least $200 since he declared his independent run in October, and a POLITICO analysis found that 74 percent of them did not make any political donations during the 2020 cycle. And interviews with numerous Kennedy backers reveal it’s made up of a powerful bloc of people not only drawn to Kennedy but turned off by the general election matchup…

    Is this the activation of the tail end of the lunatic fringe?

    I do not understand what these people want. Their dissatisfaction is unhinged from reality. Shouldn’t they be looking for some spaceship to take them to another dimension?

  5. 5.

    Shalimar

    @Brachiator: I was pleased that the portion of his voters that would generally call themselves leftists mostly don’t vote at all.  It won’t cost Biden many voters if they choose to vote this time.  Whereas Kennedy’s anti-vax supporters might include a lot of Trump voters who are mad at him for claiming credit for the evil vaccine.

  7. 7.

    SpaceUnit

    @Brachiator:

    All they’re going to do is bleed off the Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and QAnon followers.  And the photograph cracks me up.  It’s four underpants gnomes believing their game is top level.

  9. 9.

    Tehanu

    I’d like to cut Jr. some slack because of his traumatic childhood and because his father was, and still is, my political hero.  But I can’t forgive him pushing his antivaxx crap that is going to get children paralyzed and blinded and dead.

  10. 10.

    SpaceUnit

    @eclare:

    I don’t know, actually.

    Pretty sure I’ve seen her face before, but I don’t know who she is.  The company she keeps speaks volumes.

  11. 11.

    Tony Jay

    I think Unconventional Ideologies supported Beyond The Bounds Of Convention at the Hut Hut Daaah Festival (sponsored by Cudlip’s Cream Cheese) on Long Island in 1968, but you’d have to ask Raven to confirm it. Either way, that was a bad year for political progress, American democracy and people called Kennedy. Let’s not repeat… most of that.

    That first article reads like the writers took a side-bet on how many synonyms for ‘Weirdo’ they could cram into the smallest number of paragraphs.

    Really Fucking Kooky 3 should crawl back into the crypt, it needs its Keeper back.

  13. 13.

    Sebastian

    Rumors are (according to Dem internet pros) he picked Tulsi Gabbard. The domain kennedygabbard.com is no longer available.

    fwiw

  16. 16.

    West of the Rockies

    Weirdo announces selection of second weirdo.  More than a dozen uninformed conspiracy theorists in 47 states consider switching their political allegiance.

    This is great news for Trump!  And Biden should consider folding immediately or replacing himself and Harris with a dishrag and a non-black woman (for reasons that have nothing to do with race, you guys–jeez!).

  18. 18.

    West of the Rockies

    Why isn’t the homely hobgoblin Stone not in prison or dead of terminal repulsiveness yet? Is he awaiting trial for anything?

  20. 20.

    Baud

    Known to look beyond the bounds of convention, Kennedy also expressed support for wrestler and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who each have nontraditional ideologies, as well as tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang

    If you oppose Dems, the media will act as your press office.

  22. 22.

    Jay

    @Baud:

    Hey, don’t diss it. I am the Burquitlam Champion in TiddlyWinks and Pickleball, in the over 55 category, 5 years in a row, now.

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    @Baud: ​ Thank you for that. Reddit always reminds me why threaded comments are ebil.

    EDIT: first day back at work tomorrow! Or later this morning anyway.

  28. 28.

    Birdie

    Not religious, but I wish I was, so I could believe RFK would eventually get what he so richly deserves.

    That poor guy who had his life’s work taken away from him. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    Politico just put up a timely article titled, “Robert F. Kennedy flirts with Libertarian nomination.”

    The candidate has been talking with Libertarian head Angela McCardle and addressed the Party’s recent California convention. The LP nominee will be determined by a convention of “unbound” delegates in May, and can expect to make the ballot in all 50 states.

  31. 31.

    satby

    @NotMax: Hoping I’d see you, wanted to mention a new series I started watching on Prime, the Madame Blanc mysteries. “An homage” to the old series Lovejoy, according to the star and creator of the series. I’m finding it pretty enjoyable. It’s on Roku and Acorn too, a 4th season is apparently in the works.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I figure Libertarian Party leadership might see this as a means of enhancing their Party’s reach and power. If they nominate one of their own they’ll only bring out their base voters, but RFK Jr. can bring in plenty of new voters and maybe they could hang on to some of them. There might be some jobs in it too.

  36. 36.

    Torrey

    “Knowing that he has this great, this most pure intention like his uncle and his dad did. I feel like the purity and the intention is really what drew me to him,” she said…

    If he’s drawing supporters with that kind of focused, laser-like, high-level thinking, along with that ability to make their case clearly, concisely and with impeccable logic, well it’s just hard to see how he can lose.

  37. 37.

    Hoodie

    @Baud:    Even if you had won a legitimate tournament, no normal, functioning human would post something like that.  The tone of the Biden tweet strikes the proper attitude of gentle concern for Trump’s mental health.

    Trump seems to be progressively losing the ability to hide his mental illness.  I bet that really comes out in his long, rambling appearances, but the sound bites the media puts out may not fully bring out the madness and lead to useless discussions about what he actually means when he says something ominous or weird.  The bigger reality is that he is mentally ill and that would probably be more apparent if you sit through one of his soliloquies.  Makes wonder if his absence from Twitter and the news semi-blackout of Trump appearances is keeping the normies from seeing how demented he is.  Extended coverage of his public remarks during the Covid crisis probably soured a lot of folks on him in 2020, but some seem to have forgotten the ridiculous press conferences and other insanity.

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Torrey: FACTS AND LOGIC

    I think one of the things that draws people into cults is that feeling of “purity of intention”, that this person has it alllll figured out and it turns out that right action is actually very simple.

  40. 40.

    Another Scott

    @eclare:

    This tweet says she’s Charlene Bollinger.

    AP has more.

    Bono declined to say whether Kennedy agrees with the Bollingers’ support of the insurrection or whether he regrets aligning himself with the couple, but said that Kennedy has “chosen peaceful and thoughtful methods of providing information” to lawmakers and others. Children’s Health Defense, she said, “doesn’t condone any lawbreaking or violence of any kind.”

    Bono told the AP that she didn’t think Children’s Health Defense had ever received a donation from the United Medical Freedom Super PAC, saying “I’ve never heard of it.”

    One person it has supported is Roger Stone. United Medical Freedom paid the conservative political consultant, lobbyist and adviser to then-President Donald Trump more than $11,000 on Dec. 18. Stone told the AP that the money was for an appearance he made at a rally in Nashville in October.

    If I were conspiracy minded, I might think that there’s a conspiracy lurking in all these connections…

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    Bill Arnold

    @eclare:
    The woman in that photo has been identified as “anti-vaccine business owner Charlene Bollinger”.
    From a caption for the photo:
    “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.”

    This is a representative sample of the company that RFK Jr keeps.

  42. 42.

    kindness

    Wait…. an Austin yoga studio owner who hasn’t voted in 15 or 20 years?  There is a reason Texas keeps electing right wing nut cases.  Too many ‘progressives’ don’t vote.

    Screw them and the tiger they rode in on.

  43. 43.

    Captain C

    @Baud: I think the Mises Caucus takeover has driven out many of the party members who see themselves as more than just standing for IGMFY.  Maybe they think the anti-vax people can help them rebuild their donor base.

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