||| FROM CHARLES BEADNALL, JOHN ROULAC, DR. JARED KOHLER, LISA PEDERSEN, LYDIA & JOHN MILLER |||
The 4th of July is a good time to reflect on our collective right to select the next leader of our constitutional republic. Nothing in our founding documents defined or constrained elections to a red and blue political party. It is ultimately our individual responsibility to evaluate candidates on the ballot to determine which can best steer our nation.
We have had eight years to fully evaluate the blue and the red options on the menu. Neither choice in this gerontocracy will result in a restoration of a government focused on the interests of American citizens. The many issues facing our citizens will continue to be relegated to donor interests that promote military, pharmaceutical and other corporate misadventures.
Neither of the two has heeded the wise farewell addresses of George Washington warning that political parties allow “unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people” or Dwight Eisenhower to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” We are at war with the world while failing to nurture our own children.
This election year, there is another option and one that has the greatest chance of electoral success since Teddy Roosevelt ran outside the two party system. Each of us must make up our own mind and live with our conscience, but making that decision requires intellectual honesty and curiosity, and not just relying on opinion makers from corporate partisan media. At 3pm Sunday July 21st at Seaview Theater we will be screening the 30 minute documentary “Who is Robert F. Kennedy Jr” and his State of the Union address with the producer, Jay Carson, a former communications director for the Clinton Foundation as well as press secretary and senior advisor for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Join us to learn about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his optimistic vision for America.
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RFK Jr is not only a sure loser in this election, he is a purveyor of conspiracy theories and a denier of the scientific method.
He has no experience as an elected official and no serious proposals to address the numerous crises that face this country.
He is such a laughable candidate that even the notoriously nutty Libertarian Party rejected his efforts to become their nominee.
Despite trading heavily on the Kennedy name, his own family rejected him as well. Over a dozen members of the Kennedy family have endorsed Joe Biden and warned that voting for “Bobby” would help Trump win the election.
RFK Jr is even being funded by donors who are also giving money to Trump, setting him up as a spoiler candidate to help put a convicted felon back in the White House.
Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr’s VP pick, is also a conspiracy theorist with zero elected experience. Her notoriety largely comes from being the divorcee of a Google founder. With a rumored post-divorce net worth of over $1 billion, Shanahan is spending millions of dollars to prop up her unqualified running mate.
These are not serious candidates. These are wealthy and privileged individuals who have spent too much time consuming conspiracy theory content online. They are people who will happily send Trump back to the White House if it benefits them personally. After the inevitable failure of their campaign, they will financially leverage their notoriety in the form of books, podcasts, branded merchandise, and paid speaking engagements.
These kooks want you to forget about the fact that abortion is now illegal in numerous states. They want to you forget that religious fundamentalists are slowly taking over the federal government. They want you to forget that fossil fuel companies are making record profits. Under the smokescreen of “independence” and “taking on the mainstream,” they want you to follow them down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and forget about the fact that the world is on fire.
Fortunately a vote for these fringe lunatics won’t make a difference in the election results of San Juan County or Washington state.
Because something has not happened in 100 years does not mean it is an impossibility. For the allegations of conspiracy theories I would encourage you to actually listen or read his positions directly and not what mainstream corporate media catastrophizes. Remember that 80% of advertising revenue for CNN or MSNBC comes from pharmaceutical companies and they are deeply incentivized to twist his words. He has been proven right numerous times on positions that a few seconds ago were considered conspiracy theories such as the lab leak theory of the COVID virus or government censorship of social media.
We have now had several presidents with minimal to no experience as elected officials.
If you find another candidate to be a fantastic option, good for you. If not, as you state ‘a vote for these fringe lunatics won’t make a difference’ why be closed minded about other options?
Such are the words of someone who’s been totally captured by online conspiracy theory content. It’s good to keep an open mind, as the saying goes, but not so open that your brain falls out. COVID lab leak theory? Vaccines and EMF causing autism? Next we should discuss alien abductions and hidden temples buried under the Denver International Airport. I saw RFK Jr speak at an event decades ago before he fell down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, and the “candidate” who is running today is not of sound mind and does not belong in any elected position.
This is a lazy rebuttal. Because RFK was an early proponent of the COVID lab leak theory—which the FBI now states is the most likely cause of the pandemic—you immediately associate every possible alien abduction conspiracy theory with him and anyone who might support him? It’s pretty clear who isn’t thinking rationally in this exchange.
“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident,” according to FBI Director Chris Wray. The proximal origins red herring of zoonotic evolution has been thoroughly documented to be a distraction generated by gain of function researchers fearful of having their funding restricted. I’d be happy to debate the details and this is not some fringe theory. If you’d like to insult Kennedy and his supporters as being weak-minded fools, perhaps you should consider the foolishness of associating them with alien abductions and other outlandish theories? You expose your own inability to debate specific issues by making such irresponsible and inaccurate claims.
The world is indeed on fire as Biden proves Robert Gates point “he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” We have sent hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine to fund their pensions and arm them with weapons, decimating the Ukrainian male population and risking nuclear war for no benefit to our national security. He has emboldened Israel to stoke a conflict in the Middle East which we appear certain to be dragged in to. He opened our southern border to unmanaged migration resulting in humanitarian and public safety crises in most of our large cities. His massive spending plans have stoked inflation to record levels, decimating the middle class.
In case you haven’t noticed abortion remains quite legal in Washington State.
Kennedy has proposed vaccines be subjected to randomized controlled trials (RCT), which is the gold standard scientific experiment method for clinical assessment. The current method of approving vaccines after a test on a handful of mice is the real denial of the scientific method, not RCTs.
You are poorly informed and your bleating of partisan talking points is indicative of the partisan media bubble you live in.
Nobody would be happier to read your misguided thoughts on Ukraine than Vladimir Putin. As for abortion, don’t you care about the women who live beyond the borders of Washington state? Anyway, the thread is about RFK Jr and his total lack of political experience, no need for personal insults.
Nobody would be happier to read your misguided thoughts on Ukraine than Xi Jinping. Xi knows even during the armaments peak of World War II the US could only fight one major regional conflict at a time. China can displace the United States as a global hegemon, Russia cannot.
You might want to reconsider which candidate you assess as laughable:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/27/biden-democrats-replacement-00165672
Biden had a rough night, but RFK Jr sounds rough every time he talks. Then there’s the brain worm thing… yikes!
There‘s a difference between non compos mentis and having a scratchy voice. Clearly your arguments around mental acuity are just a trope.
Do you honesty believe that Kennedy—an extremely successful trial lawyer and an inheritor of Kennedy clan billions—or Shanahan—an acknowledged billionaire—is doing this to parlay into branded merchandise and speaking fees? Come on, man. If there’s a conspiracy theorist here, it’s Mr. Bowman.
The current structure of the federal government essentially prevents any effective challenge to the continued dominance of the corporate political duopoly (Democrats & Republicans). Without serious congressional and judicial term limits nothing is going to change; there are simply too many entrenched interests in the existing system.
What we have is no longer working; it’s time for a constitutional convention.
We continue to compare every presidential election, and every decade from the lesser of evils perspective.
Comparatively speaking the world, including Americans, are less economically well off than they were 30 years ago.
The drug trade and human trafficking continues to abound worldwide. There are more genocides, and a larger population of homeless refugees now than at any time in modern history.
We continually put economy ahead of human rights and environment, we conflate self-defense with failed foreign policies that merely protect our “interests” at the expense of poor resource rich countries.
While we continue to make piecemeal efforts to thwart ecological overshoot and climate change, warming temperatures are killing us in record numbers, and there are more envirogees than at any time in history.
Government promoted fake news rules the day, and we remain entrenched by a dominant two-party system, both of which are totally controlled by corporations (think Citizens United), the Israeli lobby (think AIPAC), and wealthy elitists.
Thinking that we’re doing fine simply because we could be doing worse is a limited view that only ensures that things will continue to get worse. We live in a world of limited options… and people worldwide deserve better.
“Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible. This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and is not desirable.” Ways of seeing– John Berger
Like Trump, like Biden, like RFK, Jr.
Genocide is a bit like the old anti-tobacco commercial that stated, “Nothing else matters when you can’t catch your next breath.” It doesn’t get any worse than genocide.
“Amid Genocide Neither Trump nor Biden seem willing to address the root causes of the Palestinian struggle and regional instability.”
“The one thing that struck me when I listened to Biden and Trump is how totally unaware they are of how horrifying their actions — and the actions of the U.S. Congress — are to most of the world.”
“Biden’s refusal to force Israel to end its blockade and allow aid trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies to enter Gaza is one of the biggest failures of his presidency, especially in light of broad support among U.S. voters for a ceasefire that has only increased as the assault on Gaza has continued.”
“Peace can only happen when the Palestinians’ political demands — freedom, equality and justice — are addressed and resolved.”
First Debate Underscored Both Candidates’ Fealty to Israel
https://truthout.org/articles/first-debate-underscored-both-candidates-fealty-to-israel-amid-genocide/?utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons&fbclid=IwY2xjawDua7hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQlvl8sKbKYXVVuzXtnRAgESeBYayLbfoGXokrE5gP2OtyHLuSE0I6ncug_aem_8kZrjEhsh7BfmTTN5728dQ
Whatever the RFK Jr. folks would have us believe, this November we will face a binary choice–Biden (or his replacement) vs. Trump. Voting for a third-party candidate is the same as staying home and complaining.
It is our constitution right to vote for whomever we choose. An informed and engaged electorate is vital to our republic. If third party candidates only get 20% of the vote, it will be a clear message to the uniparty they must make changes or watch that percentage grow.
I believe the only candidate who will keep us out of WW3 is RFK Jr, & his platform and record are outstanding
WW3? Don’t fall for the hype.
His platform? Wishful thinking. A vote for him hands the White House and Congress to religious extremists, corporate cronies, and the fossil fuel fools who run the Republican Party.
His record? He’s never been elected to any public office. The last guy who went your Twitter the White House without any elected experience made quite the mess of the place, let’s not repeat that catastrophe again.
Voting for Kennedy hands the White House to religious conservatives?
Are you living under a rock?
Perhaps you didn‘t notice Biden is going to loose this election. He was going to loose before the debate, and now he—or the DNC replacement—will loose badly.
The only question is whether Trump or Kennedy will win.