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  • 🇺🇸 A Kennedy Hears a Calling

🇺🇸 A Kennedy Hears a Calling

Plus, these are the 16 people that will pick the next president…

June 06, 2023

The Flag

Good morning, and happy Tuesday. A climber on Mt. Everest is home alive and safe after being found clinging to a rope and almost freezing to death near the mountain's summit. A Sherpa stopped his ascent up the world's tallest mountain and helped the climber down to safety.

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Left: How Republicans turned on the FBI Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

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2024

RFK Jr. Runs

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office in 1961

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, took part in a “Twitter Spaces” interview yesterday with CEO Elon Musk. This is similar to the event Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used to announce his candidacy on the Republican side.

From The Flag: The son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, RFK Jr. is an environmental lawyer and writer. He’s a noted critic of some vaccines, including the COVID-19 shot. Polling suggests he’s the Democrat running closest to the incumbent President Joe Biden. Here’s more from both sides.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Biden Should Keep a Close Eye on Kennedy Jr.

  • RFK Jr. needs to explain how climate hysteria is different from COVID — or he’ll risk being another presidential campaign footnote.

  • Kennedy Jr. is a viable challenger for the Democratic nomination, given his stance on things like the southern border and pandemic response.

  • Disaffected Democratic voters who feel generally blasé about the party as a whole seem to be gravitating toward RFK Jr.

What RFK Jr. Needs to Do to Be Taken Seriously Jack Cashill, American Thinker: "As much I respect Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stand on Big Science and suppression of speech... just nine years ago (he) championed both. In September 2014, Kennedy joined the chaotic throngs marching through the still viable Manhattan in their Sisyphean protest against climate change. In speaking of politicians who challenged conventional warming wisdom -- 'contemptible human beings' to a person -- Kennedy wished out loud that 'there were a law they could be punished under.' ... To be taken seriously, Kennedy (must) hash out who really are the deniers -- the climate skeptics or the progressive herds eager to sacrifice every last freedom just as they did with COVID. Oh yeah, and one more thing, a big one: Kennedy needs to explain how the founder of Children’s Health Defense can ignore the annual slaughter of America’s most defenseless children. Until then, he’s Dennis Kucinich 2.0."

Biden’s a fool to ignore the RFK Jr. challenge Editorial Board, New York Post: "It’ll be a serious challenge, if the Democratic establishment and its media allies can’t quash him. Kennedy has real conviction and charisma, and he’s fiercely independent of many of the party’s reigning pieties — all of which should appeal. For example, he vows, 'I would seal the border' as the current policy has created a 'humanitarian deathtrap' and: 'You can’t have a country if you can’t protect your borders.' Yet he remains very much a man of the left, who would expand legal immigration. He’s equally clear that wildly 'printing money' (as both parties have been doing) creates 'the illusion that there’s no cost to' massive federal spending but is, in the end, a gift to the rich and a bane on the middle and lower classes. And that the nation’s COVID response entailed an 'assault on constitutional rights' lacking 'any kind of scientific citation or democratic process' — all backed by government censorship on social media."

One more opinion piece from the Right: Why Are RFK Jr. Voters Backing RFK Jr.? Noah Rothman, National Review

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

RFK Jr. Is Really Kind of Like a Trump From the Left

  • RFK Jr. is similar to Trump in many ways — so much so he even felt the need to clarify he’d never agree to be his running mate.

  • By taking anti-establishment positions and embracing unconventional ideas, RFK Jr. has stood out amid other left-leaning activists.

  • RFK Jr. is taking up the fight against corporate power allied with state tyranny, similar to Ralph Nader and Senator Bernie Sanders.

His name is Kennedy. His campaign is pure Trump. Matt Bai, The Washington Post Opinion: "It doesn’t surprise me at all that a Trumpian candidate would emerge inside the Democratic Party, someone trying to run for president with the same cynical mix of star power and misinformation that fueled a nationalist uprising in 2016. It was inevitable from the moment Donald Trump showed us how easy it was to unmake a party in the age of social media. What I would not have predicted is that the Trumpian challenge on the left would be waged by someone named Kennedy. RFK Jr. would no doubt object to the comparison. He’s an environmental lawyer, a Hollywood fixture, a man who I’m sure harbors not a speck of white-nationalist sentiment. ... The similarities have little to do with policy, though there is some overlap there. Rather, what makes Kennedy profoundly Trumpian is a dark strand of populism mixed with self-grandeur and self-created reality."

RFK Jr. Was Always a Crackpot, He Just Switched Political Tribes Matt Lewis, Daily Beast: “While it seems highly unlikely that Kennedy... will play a decisive role in the 2024 election, he could potentially embarrass the president... The obvious reason for Kennedy’s success is simple: his name. But in 2023, that only gets you so far. The Kennedy dynasty may be famous, but it’s also ancient. ... But while the quintessentially establishment Kennedy dynasty is old and musty, an anti-establishment, unconventional ethos has always had a certain perverse appeal. And if that was true in the past, it is certainly true in 2023. Enter RFK Jr. ... There are a lot of left-wing activists who toil in obscurity, but Kennedy’s idiot activism—and his fame—were both boosted by a mainstream liberal media that spent years elevating him (in this regard, Kennedy is similar to Donald Trump) and his crackpot ideas.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Should the Left Give RFK, Jr. a Chance? Anis, Shivani, The Counterpunch

FLAG THIS

RFK Jr.’s Pesky Support Is a Pain for the President

Polling data from late last month shows RFK Jr. is backed by 16% of Democratic voters, while author Marianne Williamson checked in at 8%.

President Biden was preferred by 62% of respondents. The president’s numbers have held steady in this regard since April (Fox News).

In a separate poll, six in ten said they support Biden. That’s compared with 20% for RFK Jr., 8% for Williamson, and 8% for an “unnamed someone else” (CNN).

Will President Biden be the Democratic nominee for President in 2024?

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FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

D-Day, Creating a Career Back-Up Plan, A Random Pyramid in Germany

Into the Jaws of Death

On June 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for the largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of northern France, commonly known as D-Day.

Today I Learned there is a pyramid being built in Germany that is scheduled to be completed in 3183. It consists of 7-ton concrete blocks placed every 10 years, with the fourth block to be placed on September 9 2023.

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