James O’Keefe Interviews Robert Kennedy Jr

The interview between James O’Keefe and Robert Kennedy Jr is very interesting. O’Keefe is a good interviewer, with questions that are not ordinarily asked and generates a depth in response not often seen. The interview highlights the perspective of Robert Kennedy Jr as the candidate looks at the total administrative state now assembled in the U.S. government.



https://theconservativetreehou...nedy-jr/#more-249362

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Thanks for posting. RFK Jr is one of the more interesting candidates, far from a lunatic. There are those who consider him a fringe candidate even though he is polling at approx. 20%, and I can't argue the point too much, he doesn't have much of a chance. But in the same vein, Ron DeSantis' poll numbers slips each progressive week, now entering single digit territory in some recent ones, in addition to other problems. Kind of makes him a "fringe" candidate, 'eh?

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There are those who consider him a fringe candidate even though he is polling at approx. 20%, and I can't argue the point too much, he doesn't have much of a chance.

While I agree that he doesn't have much of a chance, I am glad that he puts himself out there. It expands the conversation.

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Same with me, like I said; after Trump, I find him to be the most interesting candidate.

^^^^^^^^^ However, we want to avoid a 3rd party scenario....
Ross Perot denied George H.W. Bush a second term in 1992, running on the Reform Party ticket and garnering 18.9% of the popular vote.

RFK, jr. and Trump's Achilles Heel
By Douglas Schwartz

History provides examples of third-party presidential candidates swinging elections. Ross Perot denied George H.W. Bush a second term in 1992, running on the Reform Party ticket and garnering 18.9% of the popular vote. Bill Clinton won with only 43.0%. In 1980, Congressman John Anderson ran an incoherent candidacy yet captured 6.6% of votes. Reagan prevailed over Carter 50.7% to 41.0%. It is unclear if Anderson’s bid was engineered by Reagan’s campaign to split votes from Carter. Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 third-party run split Republican votes, yielding Woodrow Wilson, the first progressive leftist president.

Now comes RFK Jr. with a platform exhibiting substantial overlap with the MAGA agenda. Kennedy's recent interview with James O'Keefe reveals his targeting of MAGA voters, especially younger ones unfamiliar with his family’s dark history.

44:30: I think because of my ability to attract Independents and many, many Republicans that I actually have probably a better chance of winning the election than any other Democratic candidate.

Trump’s Achilles heel was allowing himself to be bamboozled into supporting the COVID narrative of the pharmaceutical-medical-globalist complex. Because of his congenital reluctance to issue a mea culpa and admit that he was conned, Kennedy could potentially appeal to this large segment of the electorate. Perhaps Trump is banking a mea culpa for an October 2024 surprise.

For solid realpolitik reasons Trump avoids attacking Kennedy and is modestly complimentary. Many assume a Kennedy independent run would pull more Democrat than MAGA votes. This could be a fatal error.

https://www.americanthinker.co...s_achilles_heel.html

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Trump’s Achilles heel was allowing himself to be bamboozled into supporting the COVID narrative of the pharmaceutical-medical-globalist complex.

Trumps Achilles heel is picking his non-policy fights poorly. In other words, running his mouth over things that don't matter, poor impulse control.

On policy issues alone, especially quietly reforming the judiciary, he mostly did a good job, easily enough to get a less controversial person reelected.

https://twitter.com/RobertKenn...twcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

I’m still entertaining a hope that President Biden will allow me Secret Service protection. I am the first presidential candidate in history to whom the White House has denied a request for protection.

Hidden in the above Tweet:

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I’m still entertaining a hope that President Biden will allow me Secret Service protection. I am the first presidential candidate in history to whom the White House has denied a request for protection.

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Originally posted by 220-9er:
Trumps Achilles heel is picking his non-policy fights poorly. In other words, running his mouth over things that don't matter, poor impulse control.

On policy issues alone, especially quietly reforming the judiciary, he mostly did a good job, easily enough to get a less controversial person reelected.

That's not an Achilles heel at all. Trump fights every fight no matter how big or small we think an issue might be. He's an example to us all because the "pick your fights" mantra is bullshit - as evidenced by history where conservatives have given in or given up on something because "it's just a little thing" or "it doesn't matter". The inches given truly have become miles.

When will we learn and take to heart that the Left makes issue out of everything and every win emboldens them further while giving them additional credibility to convince weak-minded individuals of the Left's rightness.

Remember back when Trump was in office and people here would, like now, complain about how he shouldn't talk about this/that because it hurts his image - all the while he was getting a helluva lot of important shit done behind the scenes because the media and everyone else was focusing on how "mean" Trump was, or how he was getting involved in something that doesn't matter. Guys, as has been said before, the man is playing chess while others are playing checkers.

The lasts few years should have shown everyone here that the picking your fights stage with Leftists and letting have their "little" wins has been over for a very long time. Fight every fight - clean, dirty, or otherwise - and fight to win, because the Left surely surely is.

God bless President Trump!

He was posing as Federal Law Enforcement.

You'd think RFK Jr. would know enough to stay away from gatherings on Wilshire Blvd..

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Originally posted by 220-9er:

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Trump’s Achilles heel was allowing himself to be bamboozled into supporting the COVID narrative of the pharmaceutical-medical-globalist complex.

In other words, running his mouth over things that don't matter, poor impulse control.

Poor impulse control has been my biggest complaint with Trump . I guess that comes from being the boss and NOT being a career politician . Sometimes it's better to think it but not say it .He just can't do it .

Conservatives are discovering RFK’s less well-known policies now that he’s running as an independent. For example, the New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “RFK Jr. comes out in favor of reparations, carving out lane to Biden’s left.”

According to the Post, RFK’s campaign website pretty clearly advocates for reparations, which are deeply unpopular with Republicans and sane people. RFK’s website explained:

“During Jim Crow, Black banks, businesses, hospitals, schools, and farms were targeted for destruction. Racists knew that without these, the Black community had no chance of building wealth. We must set federal dollars aside to rebuild Black infrastructure.
These programs complement direct redress payments or tax credits to the descendants of the victims of Jim Crow and other victims of persecution. RFK Jr. will find ways to offer this redress that are legal, fair, and win the approval of Americans of all races.”

RFK is amazing on vaccines and medical freedom. Can conservatives can overlook his far-left policy positions? For me, I’m just glad RFK is in the race so the vaccine issue stays on the table.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...ack&utm_medium=email

DNC Files FEC Complaint Against RFK Jr. Alleging Illegal Super PAC Coordination

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...per-pac-coordination

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is accused of receiving an illegal contribution from the super PAC working to get him elected president, according to a Federal Election Commission complaint filed by the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is “in the process of accepting a $15 million unlawful in-kind contribution by coordinating their efforts to get him on the ballot,” DNC legal counsel Bob Lenhard said in a Feb. 9 call detailing the FEC complaint.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign “has acknowledged that it is time-consuming and expensive for a first-time candidate to get on the presidential ballot in all 50 states. Rather than doing that hard work itself, using money raised in compliance with the candidate contribution limits, the campaign is taking a shortcut outsourcing what is otherwise a core campaign function to a super PAC,” Mr. Lenhard added.

American Values 2024 is ignoring federal law, according to the complaint, Mr. Lenhard noted.

“The law does allow the super PAC to raise unlimited amounts of money from wealthy individuals, corporations, and unions for independent expenditures. But it remains illegal for a super PAC to provide goods and services directly to a campaign,” Mr. Lenhard said.

Mr. Kennedy announced in April 2023 that he would challenge President Biden for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He has generated wide-ranging support from conservatives, moderates, independents, and Libertarians throughout his campaign, although he hasn’t gained the same favor from many Democrats.

Campaign finance reports have shown that Mr. Kennedy is getting more support from Republican-leaning donors than from Democrats.

For months, Mr. Kennedy was confronted with roadblocks from the Democratic National Committee, which he said was “rigging” the primary process to favor President Joe Biden. On Oct. 9, he declared his candidacy for president as an independent.

American Values 2024 said late last year that it plans to spend as much as $15 million to help get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in multiple states deemed important to winning the election.

Mr. Kennedy has so far qualified to appear on the ballot in one state—Utah. Late last month, he reported that his campaign gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot in New Hampshire. Mr. Kennedy is traveling the country and holding voter rallies in his effort to get on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a feat he believes he will accomplish.

Mr. Kennedy noted that his favorability ratings were better than President Biden and President Trump, and he is ahead of both candidates among Americans under the age of 45 in six battleground states, and among independents, according to polls.

When asked if the DNC is concerned that Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy is a threat to President Biden’s reelection bid, DNC spokesperson Ramsey Reid called the alleged FEC violation a “scheme.”

Billionaire Tim Mellon, one of former President Trump’s largest donors, gave American Values 2024 “the exact $15 million paycheck, they said that they would need for ballot access.”

Mr. Reid called the move “an effort to subvert our election laws” and “prop up” Mr. Kennedy.

Campaign finance records indicate that Mr. Mellon gave American Values 2024 $15 million in 2023. Mr. Mellon also contributed $10 million to pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. last year, according to FEC filings.

Anthony Lyons, who is co-chairman of American Values 2024, said in a statement that the super PAC: “has been working independently from the campaign in accordance with FEC precedent to get Bobby Kennedy on the ballot in 12 states. Recent polling shows that as many as 40,000,000 Americans are prepared to vote for Kennedy in November of 2024. The DNC wants to deny millions of people their basic constitutional voting rights in a relentless onslaught against democracy.”

“The Biden administration and the DNC clearly find democracy inconvenient, want to stifle any dissenting opinions and don’t believe that their candidate can win a free, open and fair election. I don’t know if all of this amounts to election fraud,” Mr. Lyons added.

“This FEC complaint is just another desperate DNC tactic to defame Kennedy, vilify him, and drain his campaign funds. The American people are too smart to be fooled by these political games,” he said.

Mr. Kennedy responded to the complaint, alleging he’s being targeted for political reasons.

“The DNC is accusing my campaign of FEC violations in the form of secretive activity—activity that’s so secretive it’s on the Ballot Access HQ of my website,” Mr. Kennedy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“After the day they had yesterday, it’s understandable they’d want to put the focus on someone else. The DNC is in no position to assert morality over anyone—they refused to have a primary and have worked against the will of the people in the past few elections. It’s sad to see the party my family built crash and burn,” he added, referring to the special counsel report released yesterday that made damning findings about the president’s “poor” memory.

Mr. Kennedy has called ballot access laws for independent and third-party candidates “among the worst forms of voter suppression in America today” and said that state officials should work together to “streamline and standardize ballot access procedures.”

Ballot access restrictions “artificially prop up the two-party duopoly,” Mr. Kennedy added, noting that a Gallup poll conducted in September 2023 showed that 63 percent of American adults agree that “the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that another choice is needed.”

FEC Involvement
The DNC’s allegations mark the second time the FEC has become involved in matters regarding Mr. Kennedy.

Last month, the FEC asked Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to clarify salary payments made to a family member.

In a letter first obtained by CNBC, the FEC questioned whether payments made by the Kennedy campaign to the candidate’s daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, between July 1 and Sept. 30 exceeded “fair market value.”

The correspondence indicates that the Kennedy campaign must provide the FEC information regarding “payments to members of the candidate’s family that possibly constitute personal use of the committee’s campaign funds.”

The FEC threatened legal action against the campaign if the payments did not meet fair market value guidelines for legitimate campaign services.

According to financial disclosures, the Kennedy campaign reported paying Ms. Kennedy around $70,000 for administrative services.

Ms. Kennedy was not named in the FEC letter, but she was the only family member on the campaign payroll between July and September, according to CNBC.

A former undercover CIA agent who is married to Mr. Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy III, Ms. Kennedy joined the Kennedy campaign as digital director in May 2023, according to a statement from the campaign.

Last October, Ms. Kennedy was named campaign manager, replacing former Democrat Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who stepped down days after Mr. Kennedy announced that he would run for president as an independent.

“I asked Amaryllis to run my presidential campaign for the same reason my uncle, John F. Kennedy, asked his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, to run his campaign,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement. “There is nobody who could possibly be more effective in this position than Amaryllis Kennedy.”

“RFK Jr. has broadly complained against the weaponization of federal agencies, including the Secret Service, against his campaign. It’s curious that the FEC has the capacity to investigate this non-issue when legitimate complaints against top-level Democrats and Republicans have sat dormant for years,” the statement explained.

The FEC set a Feb. 13 deadline for the campaign to provide details on the payments.

Mr. Kennedy’s campaign has also been focusing on the findings of a 388-page report regarding Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur’s 13-month investigation that found President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

Citing a lack of sufficient evidence to establish his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” and how he would appear to a jury, Mr. Hur declined to pursue charges against the president.

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the special counsel wrote.

Mr. Kennedy told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo that “we’ve reached a time where it’s no longer character assassination to ask legitimate questions about his (President Biden’s) competency.”

American citizens have a right to know if their president is capable of making decisions that require complex levels of thinking, Mr. Kennedy said.

“There are entrenched interests and special interests in government that actually benefit from having a president who is not completely competent. Their power increases as a president’s power decreases,” Mr. Kennedy continued, adding that President Biden should participate in general election debates.

RFK Jr. Destroys His Candidacy With VP Pick

Authored by Roger L. Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

I interviewed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Epoch TV’s “Roller Coaster” series and also attended one of his birthday parties. In both instances, I liked the man, found him to be intelligent and personable, and also unafraid to take stands against the über-conformist Democratic Party, notably on health care and, to some degree, on the dangers of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Although I have been an unabashed Donald Trump supporter since he came down the escalator and continue to be so, I would not have been disappointed, even pleased, had former President Trump chosen Mr. Kennedy as his vice-presidential candidate.

Unlikely as it may have been, it could have helped bring our fractured country together.

No longer.

If reports are true—and, in that regard, the website name www.kennedyshanahan.com was reportedly registered by one of his campaign operatives on March 13—Mr. Kennedy has chosen attorney Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

I find this bizarre, to say the least, not to mention disappointing.

Whatever his intentions, such a ticket would drive this country even further apart because Ms. Shanahan is a self-described “progressive.” But that’s only the tip of a disturbing iceberg I will get to in a minute.

Let’s start with this. Mr. Kennedy, of all people, should know that the basic requirement for a vice presidential candidate, now more than ever, is that a person be qualified to assume the presidency at a moment’s notice.

We have had disasters in that regard, dodging several bullets, including vice presidents Spiro Agnew, Mike Pence, and (for now, holding one’s breath) Kamala Harris.

Mr. Trump has made clear that qualification for the presidency is now his first consideration, as it should be.

What do we know of Ms. Shanahan?

Not much, except that she is a philanthropist to largely progressive causes and that she is very rich.

She reportedly helped pay for Mr. Kennedy’s Super Bowl ad to the tune of $4 million via a Super PAC. The ad got mixed reviews and ended up with the candidate apologizing to his family

How rich Ms. Shanahan really is is unclear, but it is clear the bulk of her money comes from her divorce from Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and, depending on the source, the ninth richest man on the planet.

RFK Jr’s campaign had been luffing and needed a boost. He looked to the financial. It’s hard to blame him, because that’s the putrid state of American politics. But if you’re trying to run an honest broker campaign against corrupt traditional parties, it’s not the best approach. It’s actually a turn-off.

This is rather sad because of the optimism and excitement he initially engendered.

It was said that much of RFK Jr’s appeal was with the more libertarian right, not the increasingly leftist Democrats. I thought that was accurate. I would imagine that unfortunately those days are over if the nomination of the “progressive” Ms. Shanahan is real. Who will RFK Jr. appeal to now?

Of course the candidate is not confirming this nomination until March 26. We shall see.

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...is-candidacy-vp-pick

That's funny, chellim. Very well done, sir!
EDIT: I am speaking of your original post.

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He knew he never had a chance in the first place. This is just icing on the cake.

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Originally posted by chellim1:
RFK Jr. Destroys His Candidacy With VP Pick

Here's one possible, albeit maybe far-fetched, idea. Maybe RFK, Jr is falling on his sword to save this country. In picking a left-winger, he is going to fracture the Dem's voting base, and almost assuredly going to turn off any libertarian-leaning conservative voters who may have abandoned Trump for RFK's duplicitous song and dance.

I think he is possibly a bit off his rocker, but I do think he truly loves this country and he is smart. And, even if he isn't doing this on purpose, he may save the Republic.

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Here's one possible, albeit maybe far-fetched, idea. Maybe RFK, Jr is falling on his sword to save this country. In picking a left-winger, he is going to fracture the Dem's voting base, and almost assuredly going to turn off any libertarian-leaning conservative voters who may have abandoned Trump for RFK's duplicitous song and dance.

Yes...

This is good news. He will be a spoiler against Biden not Trump.

I fully support this move, if true. RFK will make it clear to anyone ocnsidering his candidacy that no right-leaning voters need apply. That's good.

And that he will be more leftist than Joe Biden. And that's EVEN BETTER.

He could hardly do the country a bigger service than this.