RFK Jr and his petition to Open the Files

[Leslie Sharp]

@Paul Brancato I’m convinced that holding the center during the most serious threat to democracy since its founding is our only option. Think of democracy on life support; is that the time to have elective surgery? We do not have the luxury Trump appeasers and apologists suggest here. An RFK Jr. candidacy is only exacerbating the crisis. 
 

A silver lining may be that traditional Democrats, including Kennedy Dems have realized our complacency and naïveté — trusting our fellow Americans on the Right loved our Constitution and norms as much as we do — helped enable the rise of Trump. We were caught off guard, assuming the rational thinkers within the GOP would manage their fringe. Turns out this proto-Facism has been smoldering beneath the surface for more than four score. Trump merely lifted the veil. 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

@Benjamin Cole  Mutt and Jeff shops? Did you read the list?  Leo just received a $1.6 billion contribution (largest political donation in US history) toward sealing the deal for full control over our the Supreme Court and judicial system. Heritage Foundation pulls in untold sums from the military industrial complex. (Heritage  drafted Project 2025 with Trump in mind.) CPAC likewise. Alliance for Defense of Freedom circulates $9 billion through a spiderweb of Christian Nationalist non-profits. The NRA lobby (ILA) which handed Trump $30 million for his 2016 campaign is the largest of its kind in the country pulling in tens and multiple millions and is currently under indictment in NYC.
 

If you’re still listening, I was talking to a lifetime member of the NRA this evening, a retired Boston PI who said he has received the NRA magazine every month since 1975 and he has never seen an article on the Mannlicher Carcano or the assassination of President Kennedy. Let’s demand release of their files ... see what Harlon B. Carter, SW Region Commissioner in 1963 covered up on Nov 22. He soon left INS for an executive role at NRA and by the mid-‘70s he had executed a house coup to restructure the association into the arms industry lobby it is today. Fast forward to 2015: NRA executive trip to Russia, $30,000,000 to Trump, Jan. 6 orchestrated attempt to overthrow the 2020 election..... It’s all there, Ben. 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Benjamin Cole  Mutt and Jeff shops? Did you read the list?  Leo just received a $1.2 billion contribution toward sealing the deal for full control over our the Supreme Court and judicial system. Heritage Foundation pulls in untold sums from the military industrial complex. (Heritage  drafted Project 2025 with Trump in mind), CPAC likewise. Alliance for Defense of Freedom circulates $9 billion through a spiderweb of Christian Nationalist non-profits. The NRA lobby which gave Trump $30 million for his 2016 campaign is the largest of its kind in the country pulling in tens and multiple millions and is currently under indictment in NYC.
 

If you’re still listening, I was talking to a lifetime member of the NRA this evening, a retired Boston PI who said he has received the NRA magazine every month since 1975 and he has never seen an article on the Mannlicher Carcano or the assassination of President Kennedy. Let’s demand release of their files ... see what Harlon B. Carter, SW Region Commissioner in 1963 covered up on Nov 22. He soon left INS for an executive role at NRA and by the mid-‘70s he executed a house coup to restructure the association into the arms industry lobby it is today. Fast forward to 2015: NRA executive trip to Russia, $30;000,000 to Trump, attempted overthrow of the 2020 election..... It’s all there, Ben. 

Relax. 

Just one Biden-backer company I mentioned, BlackRock, has $10 trillion under management. Yes, with a 't." 

Apple has a market cap of $3 trillion (see the "t.") 

Have you heard of the Pentagon and the Deep State? Oh, maybe a little bit of power there, no? 

Really? You think this rump-group of poseurs and cranks around Trump amounts to much?

Are you afraid of Mr. Buffalo Horns? (mysteriously and peacefully ushered around the Capitol by the Capitol Police, first to the Senate Floor and then the Senate viewing gallery).  

Even if Trump is elected (I put at less than 20% odds, maybe even lower than 10%) it won't matter much. 

You saw what legacy media, weaponized prosecutions and the Donks did to Trump last time. Look for a repeat. 

Let's see if RFK2 lives, and if he can win. And if he can stay alive. 

Speaking of racism and anti-semitism, Ms Rashida Tliab, Donk-Michigan, has repeated the Hamas' death-cry, "Free Palestine from the river to the sea," which is a call for the destruction of Israel and the population therein. 

Only 20 House Donks voted to censure Tliab, and all the 'Phants.  

Why is there so much anti-semitism in the "woke" American left, and tolerated by the Donks?   

You want to vote for either of these two major parties? Why? 

Are you ready to wear a keffiyah for your party?  

[Joe Bauer]

No American voter who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 (74.3 million of them) will ever switch their votes to RFK Jr. in a future election.

Conversely, huge numbers of what Democrats traditionally considered their locked in voters are responding to polls saying they would consider voting for RFK Jr. as an independent party candidate.

If they do...those 74.3 million locked in Trump voters would bring Trump a huge win in the 2024 election.

It's that simple. No need to waste time debating otherwise.

Arch conservative independent candidate Ross Perot swung the 1992 presidential election to Clinton.

He pulled way more votes away from Bush than he did Clinton.

A mathematical look at the voting numbers in the 1992 presidential election reveals that Bush would have had to win 12.55% of Perot's 18.91% of the vote, 66.36% of Perot's support base, to earn a majority of the vote, and would have needed to win nearly every state Clinton won by less than five percentage points. 

Even though Clinton could not even get a majority of votes ( he won by a plurality number only ) independent candidate Perot took enough votes away from the Republicans to make that happen.

An independent candidate run by RFK Jr. would do the same for the Republicans in 2024.

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Leslie Sharp]

@Benjamin Cole“It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead.” — Thomas Jefferson

 

I’m actually sorry for whatever circumstances or influences that may have interfered with your reasoning and discernment.

adieu.

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Benjamin Cole]

2 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

No American voter who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 (74.3 million of them) will ever switch their votes to RFK Jr. in a future election.

Conversely, huge numbers of what Democrats traditionally considered their locked in voters are responding to polls saying they would consider voting for RFK Jr. as an independent party candidate.

If they do...those 74.3 million locked in Trump voters would bring Trump a huge win in the 2024 election.

It's that simple. No need to waste time debating otherwise.

Arch conservative independent candidate Ross Perot swung the 1992 presidential election to Clinton.

He pulled way more votes away from Bush than he did Clinton.

A mathematical look at the voting numbers in the 1992 presidential election reveals that Bush would have had to win 12.55% of Perot's 18.91% of the vote, 66.36% of Perot's support base, to earn a majority of the vote, and would have needed to win nearly every state Clinton won by less than five percentage points. 

Even though Clinton could not even get a majority of votes ( he won by a plurality number only )

Independent Perot took enough votes away from the Republicans to make that happen.

An independent candidate run by RFK Jr. will do the same for the Republicans.

 

JB-

I think some recent polls have showed RFK2 would draw votes away from independent voters, who now support Trump. 

Well, I feel about this Presidential race the way I used to feel when I went to Santa Anita racetrack, many moons ago, and watched a "cheap claiming race": 

"I don't see how any of these nags can win. I am sure they will all lose." 

BTW, not many people are talking about three "sleeper issues."

Abortion. The 'Phants are making a mistake on this issue, I suspect. 

Global terrorism: The left's idolization of Hamas, and Tliab's genocidal battle cry to wash Israel away "from the river to the sea" does not sit well---with all opponents of brutal terrorism and atrocities, not just certain religious groups. If you see keffiyahs worn in Donk rallies...and you will. Maybe at the Donk convention, keffiyahs. Then  what? 

Housing: First the West Coast, now all of America has unaffordable housing. 

RFK2 has a battle ahead to unlock the RFK Records. Hold on tight! 

 

[Joe Bauer]

5 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

JB-

I think some recent polls have showed RFK2 would draw votes away from independent voters, who now support Trump. 

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-v…

How Groups Voted in 2020 | Roper Center for Public 

[Paul Brancato]

Joe - polling suggests otherwise. Liberal media and the Dems have demonized RFK Jr. 

[Joe Bauer]

BC...I haven't found the "exact numbers" of independents who voted for Trump in 2020 however I don't think the amount of them who might switch to RFK Jr. would be significant at all in effecting Trump's election chances.

Notice in the figures stated in the Roper link that Trump won the overall "white" ethnic vote by 17%.

That is a huge margin.

If only white Americans voted in the 2020 election Trump would have won in a landslide. 

Trying to understand or predict how Americans would vote in an election with 81 year old Biden/ 78 year old Trump and the uppity upstart blue jeans wearing James Dean rebellious youth vote favorite "young punk" 70 year old RFK Jr. among them will be a mind twisting challenge for even our most accredited pollster analysts.

I've been following presidential elections since 1960 and voting in them since I turned 21 in Sept. 1972.

I'm no degreed mathematics, statistics nor social behavioralist major person.

I'm just a guy who barely graduated high school and was a junky old truck, lawn mower, weed eater and gas blower one-man team private yard and estate gardener most of his adult life. And I never made more than $10 an hour doing so.

Anyway, in those thirty plus years of quiet outdoor isolation I did a lot of thinking and musing. Not just about soil, plants, water, air, sunlight, trees, birds, bugs, etc.

I've always had a natural bent toward social behavior contemplation as well.

I almost can't help myself in mentally obsessing too much about things of that nature. Plus the order ( structure ) of things politically in managing, controlling and influencing the huge machines of large population societies like our own.

American society is simply one of the most fascinating ( and now scary) in its make up. 

Contant  ( almost too much ) flux and fluidity, especially since the 1950's and 60's until today.

Due to so many influencing dynamic changes such as massive illegal immigration increases, dramatic economic ups and downs, wars, incredibly diverse religious followings with competing agendas and values, extreme wealth combined with extreme poverty diversity with one percent owning 85 percent of the entire national wealth. A Dwight Eisenhower warning "MIC" power and control accumulation situation for sure as well.

The two to three year long Covid virus stressed the entire nation ( and world ) and set us all back socially and economically beyond anything we could have imagined.

Where am I going with all this 72 year old, 10% brain shrinkage old Chauncy Gardener blather?

Heck, even I'm not sure. The reality of where we are as a society and nation and where we are going is just as unsure, especially come this next presidential election in November of next year.

Will this next presidential election be our crossing of the Rubicon?

The first major weakening of our constitutional Democracy foundation?

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 11/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, Paul Brancato said:

Thanks. I see no responses. Does it not worry you that very few members here support RFK JR? 

This is so telling. This was 4 hours after Jim's posting. There would have been some people who just signed the petition  and not  "shouted out ' but Paul was worried and needed the validation and reinforcement of some "virtue signaling." *

On 11/28/2023 at 7:27 AM, Paul Brancato said:

There are worse things than Trump, but my liberal friends, nearly all of them, are blinded by fear of what he would do if he was re-elected. 

Blinded? What a pompous, presumptuous statement. But when I asked to substantiate. Paul is above having to answer to his arrogance. I've seldom gotten any answer to any question  from Paul yet on numerous times, he can't refrain from  trying  to pile on and ask me 6 questions at once trying to enforce his hegemon forum dogma, which he is as wedded to as anyone here.. . DO YOU BELIEVE IN TALBOT? I wish he i could remember some of the other silly questions. It's just a mask for intolerance.

Paul has shown to have no knowledge of issues. He just has faith that in the supreme goodness of RK and the Kennedy blood line , and living so long in a conspiracy bubble just can't see that anyone would disagree with him.

Then in response to Leslie, Paul, who sees so much more than the rest of us, goes off on a litany of everything wrong and evil in  the world as if we have no idea about any of it..

Mart, when you wrote that this shouldn't be divisive, I agreed, then I went to the site. I have to check a lot of boxes to not be put on an RK mailing lists and the give a phony phone number?. Why wouldn't  anyone think this is not just a tacky RK campaign  recruitment tool?

Ok, I hope this isn't just one of these petitions I never hear about again and has some effect on something.

Thank God, we have some mods here, or Jim's next post would be to invite us to RK's next speech at the Brentwood High School Gym.

heh heh

 

 

 

* Ben might have reassured Paul, but he was asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Kirk Gallaway

[W. Niederhut]

Since these promotional forum threads about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy necessarily raise questions about the two major party 2024 candidates, public misperceptions about Trump and Biden are relevant to our discussion here.

To the bizarre denial of Trump's J6 crimes by a substantial proportion of the electorate-- including at least one EF forum member-- we can add these bizarre public misperceptions about Trump's historically disastrous Presidential tenure.

Too Many Americans Have Forgotten

November 29, 2023 at 8:04 am EST By Taegan Goddard 

Dan Pfeiffer: “The American attention span has shrunk since Al Gore invented the Internet, and the pandemic disrupted the time-space continuum. Our memories are foggy, but it’s still stunning that large swaths of the populace — including those who cover politics for a living — have forgotten what life was like with Donald J. Trump in the White House.”

“Anyone who has listened to a focus group in the last couple of years knows that there is a real nostalgia for the pre-pandemic economy — even though that’s the economy Barack Obama and Joe Biden built and Donald Trump destroyed by mismanaging the pandemic. This sentiment may be misguided. Yet, it is understandable as people navigate higher prices and higher interest rates. The misplaced nostalgia doesn’t stop there. In a September Wall Street Journal poll, 52% of voters believe former president Trump ‘has a strong record of accomplishments’ compared to only 40% for Biden. Once again, this is an incorrect assessment of Trump’s presidency. This foggy memory helps explain the declining share of Americans with concerns about Trump’s mental fitness and temperament — two things that were top concerns only a few years ago.”

“This forgetfulness is frustrating to the folks who continue to believe Trump is an existential threat.”

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

7 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Since these promotional forum threads about RFK, Jr.'s 2024 candidacy necessarily raise questions about the two major party 2024 candidates, public misperceptions about Trump and Biden are relevant to our discussion here.

To the bizarre denial of Trump's J6 crimes by a substantial proportion of the electorate-- including at least one EF forum member-- we can add these bizarre public misperceptions about Trump's historically disastrous Presidential tenure.

Too Many Americans Have Forgotten

November 29, 2023 at 8:04 am EST By Taegan Goddard 

Dan Pfeiffer: “The American attention span has shrunk since Al Gore invented the Internet, and the pandemic disrupted the time-space continuum. Our memories are foggy, but it’s still stunning that large swaths of the populace — including those who cover politics for a living — have forgotten what life was like with Donald J. Trump in the White House.”

“Anyone who has listened to a focus group in the last couple of years knows that there is a real nostalgia for the pre-pandemic economy — even though that’s the economy Barack Obama and Joe Biden built and Donald Trump destroyed by mismanaging the pandemic. This sentiment may be misguided. Yet, it is understandable as people navigate higher prices and higher interest rates. The misplaced nostalgia doesn’t stop there. In a September Wall Street Journal poll, 52% of voters believe former president Trump ‘has a strong record of accomplishments’ compared to only 40% for Biden. Once again, this is an incorrect assessment of Trump’s presidency. This foggy memory helps explain the declining share of Americans with concerns about Trump’s mental fitness and temperament — two things that were top concerns only a few years ago.”

“This forgetfulness is frustrating to the folks who continue to believe Trump is an existential threat.”

 

You're right W. Yes there is a lot of misperception. The chief issue is really inflation. But it's a worldwide problem brought on by the scarce years of the pandemic. It's considerably worse in Europe than the U.S. There's been a lot of talk about getting inflation under control  and people took that to mean that prices would come down. But these new price levels regretfully are here to stay. The only situation by which prices will come down considerably would be a massive recession, and then we'd have a whole new set of big problems.

After time, people become use to the new reality. Unfortunately that's what Biden has to depend on.

The economy is like a big locomotive.It's a fallacy to think that any President's policies  has any effect on the economy for at the very least 2 years. The biggest tools that are used on the economy are by the Fed and their control of interest rates, and purchasing of bonds, and many can disagree that they should have such power as they've been behind the curve and made serious mistakes in the past. Such a mistake was made by the current Fed chief Powell who was appointed by Trump. Trump fired Janet Yellin as he said she was too small  and appointed the tallest he interviewed Jerome Powell. heh heh heh.   Ok, I'm just telling you what Trump said!

You could trash on Trump for appointing Powell who waited too long to raise interest rates, but that' really wouldn't be fair, because inflation has been going on everywhere in the world.

Up to now the sort of elitist wisdom when inflation occurs is for the Fed to strangle the economy with  higher interest rates which often increases unemployment, and is not at all fair to working people. But some of the traditional wisdom has been turned on it's head as there has been some control on inflation, but the economy and employment remain very strong..

There is some disagreement if the Fed draconian raising of interest rates will end up in a "hard landing" which would result in a recession, or  we'd escape a recession and the economy would have a "soft landing". Many people a year ago were predicting a recession in 2023, and it never happened!

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

That we had inflation for a couple years (which has largely subsided now, but leaves us with higher prices... and higher wages) is not a big surprise.  It occurred because of Biden's plan to prevent another Great Recession

Remember all those businesses that had to close down, and the jobs lost, because of the pandemic? Economist knew that that was going to destroy the economy, leading us into an deep recession with even more closings and job losses. Congress and Biden created a number of programs designed to prevent that from happening. Remember all those stimulus checks we all received to help us pay our bills? (My family received a whopping $12,000, which is an enormous amount for a low-income household.)

 Businesses also received money, in the form of incentives to retain employees.

The potential downside to all this stimulus was the potential for overshooting the goal, thus creating inflation. (Inflation is roughly the opposite of recession.)

In hindsight, we know that the stimulus did indeed lead to inflation. But it was a relatively mild case of it. And a far, far better outcome than allowing a deep recession to occur.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

2 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Remember all those stimulus checks we all received to help us pay our bills?

 

In all fairness to Donald Trump, I think it was under his presidency that the first stimulus checks were sent out. Had the presidency belonged to another Republican, the law instituting stimulus checks may well have been vetoed. As we know, Republicans aren't fond of the federal government giving money to average joes.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

BC...I haven't found the "exact numbers" of independents who voted for Trump in 2020 however I don't think the amount of them who might switch to RFK Jr. would be significant at all in effecting Trump's election chances.

Notice in the figures stated in the Roper link that Trump won the overall "white" ethnic vote by 17%.

That is a huge margin.

If only white Americans voted in the 2020 election Trump would have won in a landslide. 

Trying to understand or predict how Americans would vote in an election with 81 year old Biden/ 78 year old Trump and the uppity upstart blue jeans wearing James Dean rebellious youth vote favorite "young punk" 70 year old RFK Jr. among them will be a mind twisting challenge for even our most accredited pollster analysts.

I've been following presidential elections since 1960 and voting in them since I turned 21 in Sept. 1972.

I'm no degreed mathematics, statistics nor social behavioralist major person.

I'm just a guy who barely graduated high school and was a junky old truck, lawn mower, weed eater and gas blower one-man team private yard and estate gardener most of his adult life. And I never made more than $10 an hour doing so.

Anyway, in those thirty plus years of quiet outdoor isolation I did a lot of thinking and musing. Not just about soil, plants, water, air, sunlight, trees, birds, bugs, etc.

I've always had a natural bent toward social behavior contemplation as well.

I almost can't help myself in mentally obsessing too much about things of that nature. Plus the order ( structure ) of things politically in managing, controlling and influencing the huge machines of large population societies like our own.

American society is simply one of the most fascinating ( and now scary) in its make up. 

Contant  ( almost too much ) flux and fluidity, especially since the 1950's and 60's until today.

Due to so many influencing dynamic changes such as massive illegal immigration increases, dramatic economic ups and downs, wars, incredibly diverse religious followings with competing agendas and values, extreme wealth combined with extreme poverty diversity with one percent owning 85 percent of the entire national wealth. A Dwight Eisenhower warning "MIC" power and control accumulation situation for sure as well.

The two to three year long Covid virus stressed the entire nation ( and world ) and set us all back socially and economically beyond anything we could have imagined.

Where am I going with all this 72 year old, 10% brain shrinkage old Chauncy Gardener blather?

Heck, even I'm not sure. The reality of where we are as a society and nation and where we are going is just as unsure, especially come this next presidential election in November of next year.

Will this next presidential election be our crossing of the Rubicon?

The first major weakening of our constitutional Democracy foundation?

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I spent a long stretch building furniture, and sanding by hand is another activity that will lend itself to mind-wandering contemplation. Now, I plant a lot of trees. Same deal, but one has the illusion of productivity. I am fighting global warming! 

This 2024 US election is a house 'o fire. 

As I said, it may turn on a sleeper issue like too many people at the Donk convention wearing keffiyehs, or the 'Phants thundering about outlawing abortion. If keffiyehs are seen prominently at Donk rallies....

BTW, I regard people as guilty of a crime, only after they have been convicted in public court by their peers, and the appeals process exhausted. 

One could posit the Bidens have been outright bribed by Ukrainians and the Chinese  Communist Party (CCP). But they have not been convicted of anything, and the charges might not hold up.  

So it goes. 

This innocent until proven guilty standard is dispensable to partisan maniacs....  

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Benjamin Cole