Crisis Magazine reports: As I scoured through Crisis Magazine’s archive, I noticed there was not even a single mention of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.). So I thought that, given his recent announcement of his bid for the leadership of the Democratic Party, a piece about him would be of interest to Crisis readers.  His uncle, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated in 1963. Five years later, in 1968, his father, Robert F. Kennedy, the former United States attorney general, who at the time was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, was also assassinated. His cousin, the son of JFK, also known as John-John or JFK Jr., who was an American attorney, journalist, and magazine publisher, tragically died in a plane crash in 1999. Needless to say, the Kennedy family has been marred by tragedy. So, who is RFK Jr., and why should American voters care? I’ll sketch out the main reasons as to why I believe RFK Jr. could be a strong candidate beyond partisan lines for those who are looking to vote for a person beyond the disappointment of two political parties. Read the full opinion piece here.If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The Hill reports: If the shocking 2016 presidential election of Donald J. Trump taught us anything, it should be that voters can still be unpredictable and unpollable, and that millions of them believe that the entrenched elites from both political parties no longer hear their voices or speak for them. Voters are continually seeking a new champion. Will Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. become such a champion? I believe so — at least as far as the Democratic primary process is concerned. Read the full opinion piece here.If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The Daily Telegraph reports:  The last time an RFK challenged the sitting US president in a Democratic primary, amid the backdrop of record low polls, civil unrest, and war, he was assassinated. While the parallels between Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and son, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in 2023 are eerily similar, the surviving scion of the Kennedy political dynasty isn’t deterred by the spectre of a deep state assassination becoming another uncanny resemblance.“It’s something that I’m aware of. You know, there are risks,” Kennedy said after announcing his candidacy and up-ending the 2024 election.“As far as I’m concerned, there are worse things than dying, a lot worse. And one of those is that my kids will grow up in a country, an America, that doesn’t have freedom of speech. Where constitutional rights are conditional.”Read the full article here and here (behind a paywall).If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The NY Post reports: If you happened to see pigs flying the other day, it’s because Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. visited the New York Post to discuss his challenge to President Joe Biden for the ’24 Democratic nomination. 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. Read the full article here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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Cointelegraph reports: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be the first presidential candidate in United States history to accept campaign donations in Bitcoin, he announced during his first appearance as a presidential candidate at the Bitcoin 2023 conference. He praised the cryptocurrency as a “symbol of democracy and freedom” during the event. “Today, we show the world the power and the durability and the flexibility of Bitcoin. [...] Almost everyone in this room is aware of the link between Bitcoin and democracy and freedom. [...] They’re passionate because of the deep representation of a deep need that we have for liberty and democracy and the promise that this innovation has to guarantee those virtues."   Read the full article here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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Bitcoin Magazine reports: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made his first public appearance as a presidential candidate at the Bitcoin 2023 conference today, sharing his own experiences with Bitcoin, warning about how technology is enabling government totalitarianism around the world, and describing how he would protect the rights of Bitcoiners if elected president. “As president, I will make sure that your right to hold and use bitcoin is inviolable,” Kennedy said. "I am an ardent defender and lifelong defender of civil liberties and Bitcoin is both an exercise and a guarantee of those freedoms.” Kennedy told the crowd that he was first inspired by Bitcoin as a critical freedom technology after learning about how it was used to circumvent financial restrictions during the Canadian trucker protest last year. “None of these lawful and peaceful protestors had violated any law… But suddenly, they found that they could not access their money, their bank accounts to pay their mortgages or feed their families,” he recalled. “When I witnessed this … devastating use of government repression, I realized for the first time how free money is as important as free expression.” Read the full article here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The Galveston Daily News reports: Before the “two Americas” of political ideals sink into yet more rage and mutual distrust, may we at least consider the possibility there is someone with the will, and the character, to approach our national malaise in a fundamentally different way? Are we doomed to ride this pale horse all the way down a course of enmity and destruction, or is it possible that the right person, in the right place, at the critical moment, can turn the tide of events and offer new possibilities? You are going to be hearing a lot about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. soon in his bid for the 2024 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency. Read the full opinion piece here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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CNN Politics reports: Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has selected former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich as his campaign manager. In a statement Thursday, Kennedy described Kucinich, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate himself, as someone who “knows how the system works from the inside out.” “Dennis Kucinich has brought invaluable electoral experience to our campaign,” Kennedy said. “[His] deep knowledge of issues and his personal integrity are fully aligned with the core values our campaign is bringing to American politics.” Read the full article here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The National Review reports: While Republican affairs can certainly get rough and unseemly at times, it’s usually the Democratic Party we can turn to for lessons in cold, unsentimental power politics. Consider, for instance, the reception accorded by the party establishment and like-minded reporters to an unexpected entrant into the 2024 presidential race, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man who rates, one might have supposed, the respect due a worthy contender and honest dissenter. After declaring his candidacy last month, RFK, Jr. immediately showed at 14 percent in polls. Mild alarm followed, among supporters of President Biden, when two weeks later the next round of polling gave Kennedy an average of 20 percent. You could tell this was a bit of a shock because, almost instantly, the Washington Post dismissed it as nothing, in a hurried item headlined “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Threat to Biden Is Inflated. Here’s Why.” As surely as any Kennedy could once expect to be fawned over by Post reporters, this Kennedy — especially if he starts drawing crowds and votes — is never to be spared condescension and rebuke. The “why,” in case you haven’t heard, is that RFK, Jr. has in recent years been airing “controversial,” “dangerous” views, and this makes him, says the Post, a “fringe figure” you needn’t take seriously. Among his many provocations: Kennedy claims that pandemic lockdowns were calamitous for working people and for children; that citizens should choose for themselves whether to receive vaccines; that corporate influences on government are pervasive and corrupting; and that censorship contrived by the state is intolerable. Worse even than these outrages, during the pandemic this man called into question the conduct and veracity of Anthony Fauci. And this offense — challenging Doctor Fauci! — is still regarded as the most shameful assault on science since the persecution of Galileo. It doesn’t matter that, point for point, RFK, Jr. makes a strong case and most everyone knows it. His problem is, the prohibition on saying such things has not been lifted.  Read the full opinion piece here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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International Business Times reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks that he would be able to beat President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president even without a debate. The nephew of former President John F. Kennedy told Fox News Digital that his privately-commissioned polling showed that he has more than a slim chance of beating Biden in the primary. "Yes, I can win," Kennedy confidently answered when asked if he can defeat Biden. "The public polls are showing me at 20% over for the Democrats, and our private polling is showing that I have very strong support among independents and even Republicans," he claimed. Read the full article here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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Counterpunch reports: If Joe Biden was hoping to sail through to renomination despite abysmal approval ratings, that’s not going to happen anymore, even if all the potential establishment candidates have backed out. Likewise, if the president still thinks he can avoid debating what I’m sure will be a serious challenger, backed up by rapidly rising poll numbers (RFK Jr. is already at 19%, within a few days of declaring), then he is sorely mistaken. Avoiding debate, and dismissing your opponent as beneath notice despite popularity, suggests a fatal flaw that will rear its ugly head at some point. When I heard his campaign declaration speech, I was touched even more than my enthusiasm at comparable moments in Ralph Nader’s 2000 candidacy or the early days of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign. Kennedy is picking up the baton from these earlier iterations of protest against extreme corporate power allied with state tyranny. To these he is adding a unique poetic calibration of his own, which comes from his unmatched personal experience as the nephew and son of a slain president and a possible future president respectively. I have never known him to play up his traumatic experience for cheap gain, and he is not likely to do so now. Rather, he appeals—like the older Nader in particular—because he speaks in a voice of reason harkening to a rhetorical style that has mostly passed from the American scene. I doubt that we have heard such eloquence and intelligence since the great charismatic leaders of the sixties, our latter-day politicians having spoken mostly in a narrowcasting language of transactionalism.  Read the full opinion piece here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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The Berkshire Eagle reports:  It has been 55 years since Sen. Robert F. Kennedy stepped onto the presidential nominating stage to try to mend the massive breach that had opened in American society. The country was torn asunder by the Vietnam War, racism, poverty, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the soon-to-be assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A great divide — between white and Black Americans, rich and poor, the working class and the upper class — was opening wide. The Tet Offensive had just ripped the face off the official lies about the course of the war in Vietnam and the emperor, President Lyndon Johnson, stood naked and would soon announce that he would not run again. On March 16, 1968, Sen. Kennedy declared his candidacy with these words: “I run to seek new policies — policies to end the bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities, policies to close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old, in this country and around the rest of the world.” By the end of 1968, a plague year if there ever were one, Richard Nixon and his goon squad prepared to occupy the White House, Vietnam raged on and everything King and Kennedy stood for seemed lost. Something died, all hope seemed lost and the perilous course RFK spoke of was never stopped. Today, hope is resurrected. Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president on April 19 in Boston. Read the full opinion piece here. If you resonate with this message please subscribe to our newsletter to learn more.

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