UPDATE: The Kennedy campaign is disowning their own comment on Jan. 6 “activists”
“That statement was an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views. It was inserted by a new marketing contractor and slipped through the normal approval process.” https://t.co/hXnllmv1YT https://t.co/YaCQU0MxQO
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) April 4, 2024
The campaign of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent out with a fundraising email Thursday referring to Jan. 6 defendants as “activists” who have been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties,” echoing former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
In the appeal sent to supporters, signed by “Team Kennedy,” the campaign called for the exoneration of “political prisoner Julian Assange,” the founder of WikiLeaks, suggesting he and Jan. 6 defendants are victims of prosecutorial abuse.
“This is the reality that every American Citizen faces — from Ed Snowden, to Julian Assange to the J6 activists sitting in a Washington DC jail cell stripped of their Constitutional liberties. Please help our campaign call out the illiberal actions of our very own government,” the fundraising email read…
After publication of this piece, Kennedy spokesperson Stephanie Spear told NBC News that the language was an “error.”
“That statement was an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views. It was inserted by a new marketing contractor and slipped through the normal approval process,” she said…
As NBC News reported, there are just 15 Jan. 6 defendants who are currently being held in pretrial detention.
Most of them are credibly accused of violence against law enforcement officials…
(I’ve actually been working on a post about the Jan6 ‘hostages’, but it’s been a very busy week… )
so their story is that the Trump guys running the RFKjr campaign forgot to switch accounts. https://t.co/GOvcrodhIa
— zeddy (@Zeddary) April 4, 2024
Worth noting: Del Bigtree, the vaccine activist who is now working for RFK's campaign, spoke at a pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6: "I wish I could tell you that Tony Fauci cares about your safety… I wish I could believe that voting machines worked…” https://t.co/EgC1FmLylw
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) April 4, 2024
Bobby Ratf*cker has made the same ‘promise’ in earlier news interviews, incidentally:
— Adam Nicotera (@adamnicotera) April 4, 2024
Baud
The falcon did it!
SpaceUnit
He’s trump’s problem, not ours.
Gin & Tonic
Snowden? Snowden!? GTFO.
Marcopolo
Christ what an asshole…
Have always wanted to say that & can’t imagine a better circumstance.
Wishing everyone a lovely pre-eclipse Friday evening!
WaterGirl
“I accept full responsibility.”“It wasn’t my fault. We didn’t mean it. The dog ate my homework. It was autocorrect. My grandma died. It was some new guy, and he didn’t know we aren’t supposed to say that out loud.”
schrodingers_cat
@SpaceUnit: Also looks like he has borrowed some of Trump’s makeup.
Jackie
I watched CNN’s Erin Burnett’s interview with RFK jr, and since he doesn’t believe in legal vaccinations, he was definitely hopped up on something(s) illegal! He made Bing, Bing, Bing Ricochet Rabbit seem tranquil! Erin was masterful in repeatedly reining him in.
Mr. Bemused Senior
[ETA, in the voice of Anna Russell, I’m not making this up you know.]
Bill Arnold
What felt like an aftershock, similar to the early Jersey quake this morning, a few minutes ago. (mid Hudson Valley, NY). Never felt that on the East coast before.
Jay
LMAO.
Even up here, Campaigns run “loyalty tests” on staff and contractors, to ensure that they “stay on message” and arn’t “ratfuckers”.
Dippers hire/contract fellow Dippers,
Libs hire/contract fellow Libs,
Cons hire/contract Conmen
Greens hire/contract Hippies.
So you know that everything the “marketing contractor” allegedly wrote, is something that RFK Jr and his entire staff believe.
frosty
@WaterGirl: ”Honest… I ran out of gas. I… I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. It wasn’t my fault. I swear to god!”
SpaceUnit
@schrodingers_cat:
He should probably use a little more. That’s a weird looking dude.
Rocks
@WaterGirl: You left out “Supply chain issues.”
Ten Bears
LOL ~ Blame it on the new guy (who will in all likelihood keep their job)
zhena gogolia
@Bill Arnold: I didn’t feel it in CT. Looks as if it was less widespread than this morning. (Although I didn’t feel that either, but I was focused on teaching. My students had to tell me.)
Baud
So Snowden and Assange are not errors?
dr. bloor
Ohman’s cartoon is good, but historical accuracy demands that Joe Sr. be drawn in behind the national darlings.
Jay
@Baud:
nope. RFK jr is going for the Tankie vote.
RaflW
Oh, g-d. Assange, Snowden and the J6ers. What a pathetic collection. Can Brazilian shitposter & Fox darling Glennn G. be far behind? Gack.
trollhattan
Del Bigtree? That his Only Fans account name?
Melancholy Jaques
It’s not like RFK Jr was popular before this, but now he’s really despised and ridiculed.
He must not have any friends who could have talked him out of this.
Geminid
Right now it seems that RFK Jr. takes more votes from Trump. He can change that some by targeting potential Democratic voters with his social media and TV and radio advertising. Still, I think it will be a “wash.” Someone who is upset about Snowden and Assange is probably not going to vote for Joe Biden anyway. The RFK Jr. campaign has some broader, thematic appeals that might get a little traction.
Democrats are going to hit RFK Jr. hard anyway. I see the story of his second wife’s suicide is being brought up now, and that could be a very damaging line of attack. Democrats will keep it in circulation.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
This one (a 4.0) was a bit closer to Trump Bedminster, the estimated center about 2 miles away according to the initial usgs map:
M 4.0 – 7 km SW of Gladstone, New Jersey – 2024-04-05 21:59:13 (UTC)
dr. bloor
@Melancholy Jaques:
It’s surprisingly difficult to talk someone out of a delusion, particularly of the self-aggrandizing variety.
Baud
@Bill Arnold:
The worm from Tremors is heading home.
Jay
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/05/kristi-noem-south-dakota-governor-banned-reservation
WaterGirl
@frosty: I was channeling that as I wrote! :-)
Baud
@Jay:
👍
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
I forget; do Tankies currently approve of Mike Flynn and Roger Stone?
lollipopguild
@Melancholy Jaques: I would guess that his extra large ego would not allow him to be talked out of it.
JPL
@Bill Arnold: From the NYTimes
Aftershocks are expected for some time following an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.8, said Kishor S. Jaiswal, a research structural engineer with the U.S. Geological Survey. The aftershocks will likely “continue for several days and even a week,” he said Friday evening. There is also a small chance that an earthquake of similar or even larger magnitude could occur during such a sequence, he said.
JPL
@Geminid: He’s appealing to Latinos in states that Biden needs, such as Nevada.
WaterGirl
Alexandra Petri has outdone herself today.
I was laughing out loud all the way through.
Jay
War Criminal identified,
That’s the guy running Lavender, Gospel and I’m Home Daddy, that combined with the Israel’s ROE, allows for over 1.6 million Gazans to be “collateral damage” when there are less than 820,000 people still alive in Gaza.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/top-israeli-spy-chief-exposes-his-true-identity-in-online-security-lapse
mrmoshpotato
MSNBC’s The Beat was just talking with Molly Jong-Fast (Vanity Fair) and Susie Banikarim (documentary filmmaker of “Enemies of the People”) about how they’re covering Dump.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
Maybe it’s powerful political activists. In “The Broken Earth Trilogy”, there are “orogenes, a race of humans able to reach into the earth and control/manage seismic events. orogenes are feared and hated by the mass of society, disowned or even killed by their families despite the fact that their skills are necessary for civilization to exist.”
(That’s quoted from an Amazon review.)
schrodingers_cat
@SpaceUnit: Better still, not be seen on my TV or interwebs.
topclimber
@Baud: Only earthquake I felt hereabouts was about a decade ago when PA and other nearby states were trying to frack their way to an oil bonanza.
Geminid
@JPL: I do not dismiss RFK Jr. as a threat, because the election could be decided by close margins in a few swing states. That’s why I’m glad Democratic groups will take a pro-active approach to blunting his appeal.
Geminid
@Jay: Are you sure about the figure of 820,000 people still alive in Gaza.? My understanding is that the population of the Gaza Strip is over 2 million.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
800K is the population of Gaza, a city in the Gaza strip. The full strip is more like 2.2 million, minus dead and those who’ve fled.
ETA And those interested, please read the The Guardian piece that Jay linked; it is very good.
JaneE
And the guy who thinks he can be president of the United States doesn’t even bother to read his speech before he opens his mouth?
I have misread stuff and thought it said something other than it did, but I would have a hard time confusing “stripped of their constitutional liberties” for something other than that. He apparently didn’t hear what he said, either. When reading a prepared text, I will hear what I just said, think that isn’t right, and look at it again. If I do still disagree with it I will tell my listeners that I think that last part was in error, and probably explain why.
But I am not and never will be a politician.
Josie
@Geminid:
I hope that they also touch on the many affairs he had that he wrote about in his diary. Somehow I don’t get the impression that he has a ton of respect for women. That needs to be pointed out.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Gives me chills Mentioned this a thousand times, but I still remember the day, someone I know and respected praised MTG.
that was when she was running in my district. The local republican party convinced her to take Rome.
Baud
@Jay:
The only thing more embarrassing for him would be if the information in his book could be traced to his OnlyFans account.
Geminid
@Josie: I think Democrats will lay out all the elements of this tragic story. RFK Jr.’s followers are already crying that these attacks are below the belt, but my attitude is, “Belt? What belt?.”
Jay
@Geminid:
Googled Gaza a few days ago population came back at 860,000, did not note that it was Gaza City, was doing quick back of the envelope maths, so, I did not double check.
2.083 million, now down to less than 2.08 million.
So Israel will meet it’s “allowance” for “collateral damage” when the population of the Gaza Strip is a bit more than 400,000.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Yikes.
smith
@Josie: I saw somewhere recently that he’s opposed to child support, so, yeah, he’s really after the women’s vote.
db11
@Jay: Where did you come up with theses numbers? The 2022 estimate of Gazan population was over 2.3 million people. Are you suggesting that a million and a half Gazans have been killed in this war?
Normally I give your arguments and reported facts credence, but either I’m missing part of your argument or you are way off in your numbers.
ETA. OK just saw your post at 47… 860K for Gaza City. Might behoove you to be a little more rigorous in making your arguments.
Martin
@Baud: It’s DEI. Black Jesus can’t find California.
Rusty
@frosty: It makes me so happy there is another jackal that loves Jake and Elwood.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
It’s the explicit Israeli policy of family extermination that especially troubles me. Waiting until “Daddy” (i.e. “Daddy’s phone”) walks through the door to destroy the family home and kill all inside it, because it is a somewhat reliable kill method when using high explosives for killing, is evil.
There is a punishment that should be openly talked about (though not actually considered) for those who perpetrate this evil – nine familial exterminations. Traditional, and very very rare, for treason, in the China area.
Betty
@JaneE: Nicole Wallace ran a series of similar comments he has made in various appearances. This was not done in error. Someone just realized how bad it sounded and tried backtracking.
Craig
@WaterGirl: she’s a wicked genius. I love reading her stuff.
Kay
We’re in Sacramento visiting friends and they had to work this AM so we toured the CA statehouse. Very nice – great guide. However, the tour is first come first served so we got on the list but there was some screw up so they attached us to a school tour. So this woman with the school group approached me and asked if I knew I was with the school group. I told her yes, they tacked us onto it. So I say “are you the teacher?” – I don’t care, just being polite- and she says she is not – that it is a homeschooling group. She then asks me my name, a little odd, but I give her my first name and she is clearly waiting for my surname, which she’s not getting because why – am I a security threat or something – so I just look back at her and say nothing further and she walks away.
Weird.
Jeffro
I’m good with RFK Jr running on an anti-vax, pro-J6 platform.
More than good, actually.
Jay
@db11:
As I noted at #47, I googled “population of Gaza” and the search returned the population of Gaza City, with out noteing that it was Gaza City only, not the Gaza Strip.
Sapphire, Israel’s AI target identification system identified , just over 37,000 targets as Hamas “terrorists”.
Current Israeli policy allows up to 100 people as ” acceptable collateral damage” if the target is a ranking Hamas “commander”., so that’s around 11,000 people.
So 1,100,000 people are considered “acceptable collateral damage” in exchange for Hamas “commanders”
Current Israeli policy allows up to 10 people as “acceptable collateral damage” if it’s just a Hamas “grunt”, so around 26,000 people.
So 260,000 people are considered “acceptable collateral damage” in exchange for Hamas “grunts”,
Then there is the “Daddy’s Home” AI, which identifies when a Hamas “target” has returned home, but there is lag in the system, so according to IDF/IAF soldiers who have served in Gaza, roughly 1/3rd of strikes happen after the “target” has left the building. So everybody in the building is killed, but no “Hamas”.
“Sapphire” also has an upper “limit” of 10 people per apartment/house/family. However, “Sapphire” doesn’t take into account the damage already done where often 60 people are living in one space because it’s the only place with a roof.
Also in the ROE, is that “smart munitions” are only used on “high value targets”, dumb munitions are used on low value targets, often requiring 3 or more strikes in the same area to hit the one house/apartment that is the target.
Also in the ROE, is that Israel no longer “door knocks”. They used to call/text/drop a small pyrotechnic to let all the occupants in a house/hospital/apartment building that the place was going to be bombed/shelled in 3,2,1.
So, an “acceptable collateral damage” figure of 1.6 million is actually quite conservative, before you add in starvation and lack of medical care.
And then there are the undeclared “Kill Zones”, where anyone entering into the area, armed or not, is killed. That’s how the escaped hostages were killed. Waving white flags, shirtless and yelling in Hebrew, they entered a kill zone trying to make contact with Israeli troops and were shot on sight.
Jeffro
@Jay: Noem had up some video about this on Twitter, and regardless of what she had to say, whew, she looked to be trying out HARD for the role of Melania II.
a LOT of makeup and big hoops for anyone outside of a nightclub, is all I’m saying. much less a Gov.
Then again, Glenn Youngkin is my governor, so what would I know?
Geminid
@Kay: Paranoid. I guess the woman sensed you were a threat to her charges’ isolation. She probably told them to stay away from the scary woman.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Gin & Tonic: He’s bringing back every dubious hero and hot conspiracy, going back to the Obama administration, natch.
MagdaInBlack
@Jeffro: I have not seen her lately. Has she gotten the required “blow-up doll” lips yet?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I used to work with a pharmacist who frequently…let’s say promoted his anti-vaccination materials to me. I was not impressed.
Granted, it didn’t bother me the way it would when she would demonstrate reluctance if someone presented for a flu shot.
Her other podcast crush? Alex Jones.
rikyrah
DrJackBrown 🌊 (@DrGJackBrown) posted at 4:19 PM on Fri, Apr 05, 2024:
BREAKING: Letitia James has rejected Donald Trump’s $175M bond. She wants answers from and casts doubt upon KSIC insurance company, that provided it.
(https://x.com/DrGJackBrown/status/1776359049128559000?s=02)
Kay
@Geminid:
That’s what it felt like – hostile and suspicious, but unexpected in that situation so it took me a bit to catch on.
Jerry Brown’s portrait is wild – vaguely Cubist.
Narya
@MagdaInBlack: yes
Jeffro
@MagdaInBlack: Narya beat me to it, but yes. Ridiculously so.
The fake eyelashes and hoops are also reaching MAL proportions.
smith
@rikyrah: When the bond was first turned back for incomplete documents, a lot of people, myself included, thought, well, it’s just a simple paperwork mistake, can happen to anyone, they can just file the rest of the papers and that will be that. That’ll teach me to apply any normal expectations to anything TFG does.
It seems now that the ommission of the company’s financial statement was no innocent oopsie, but more likely an attempt to hide the fact that they don’t have enough liquid assets to cover the bond. They then had the chutzpah to claim that since they’re not based in NY they don’t have to follow NY legal requirements for posting a bond in NY.
My guess is unless this company can come up with substantially more cash before Engoron’s hearing later this month, the bond will be rejected entirely and TFG will have to go looking for another loan shark while Tish James starts appropriating his property.
MagdaInBlack
@Narya: Yish.
dr. bloor
@rikyrah:
Damn. I’m going to devote the rest of my life to staying on that woman’s good side.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@dr. bloor: Just don’t crime.
RaflW
@smith: The Washington Post, which is supposed to be paying attention to, oh I dunno, the GOP nominee for preznit, appears to have not written a story on Trump’s bond since April 2nd.
So nothing about the filing failures or James’ rejection.
What a g.d. ridiculous media environment.
WaterGirl
@Craig: Me, too.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: Wow, that is bad.
kalakal
@smith: They’re a bunch of clowns living on credit.
UncleEbeneezer
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: What a list of fucking traitors.
Timill
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Be reasonable now: pick actual options…
K488
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Ah! Wagner! The only woman Siegfried had met who wasn’t his aunt!
Villago Delenda Est
Bobby the Lesser keeps shrinking.
Villago Delenda Est
@frosty: And my wife is…Morgan Fairchild! Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: On the single biggest wedge issue splitting the Democratic coalition right now (Israel/Palestine), RFK Jr. is running to the *right* of Biden, basically on the pro-Likud line, so he won’t be attractive to left dissenters.
Though if Biden cuts Israel off and pro-Israel Democrats get upset… he might peel off some of those? I doubt he’ll get many, though.
Another Scott
@rikyrah:
There may be several things going on there.
ProPublica.org:
Sounds like another guy from the “you just tell them and they believe; they just do” school of communications who is finding out that in court you actually have to be able to back up the things you say.
ETTD, part MCMXLVIII.
James and all the rest of the prosecutors in these cases are going to be busy…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Melancholy Jaques:
He must not have any friends.
You could have stopped here…..
The Lodger
@JPL: She’s a Visigoth?