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Jeff Tiedrich's avatar

true story: when our daughter was a child, in the 1990s, we would regularly rent a house for a couple of weeks every summer in Hyannisport, a short walk down the beach from the Kennedy compound. shut up, I earned a decent living back when I was in advertising. anyway, one day Ms Spouse and daughter were walking on the beach when they ran into a couple of Kennedy children, who had a cormorant with a wounded wing with them. "Uncle Bobby found this," they said. "he has a lot of wounded birds."

so there you have it. wounded birds are a slippery slope that leads to chainsawed whale heads.

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celeste k.'s avatar

I think it's safe to say 'Uncle Bobby' tortured birds.

Now are people understanding why the Kennedy family warned the country and the Senate, 'DO NOT confirm this man'?

He's advancing to torturing people.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

According to Caroline Kennedy, her cousin, Bobby Jr., has always been an animal torturer.

https://people.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-alleged-troubling-history-with-animals-8782714

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rlritt's avatar
3hEdited

Psychologists say that sociopaths who have committed mass murder or abuse and kill children start out torturing and killing animals. I swear to one and all that there should be a special place in hell for people who torture animals.

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Abigail Norling's avatar

Jesus!

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Derek Smith's avatar

Blessed are the animal torturers for they shall inherit ... ah. Fuck It.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

Cursed are the animal torturers, for they shall burn in Hell forever.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Although I hate RFK junior with a right royal passion, I'm going to disagree. It is basically impossible to capture a healthy bird. I spent my entire childhood trying to catch a Robin, just because I wanted to take a really good look at it and pet it. I never succeeded. At most, he could capture damaged birds and make them worse. That is a possibility.

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Frank Nuts's avatar

The birds were probably healthy till he threw them into a cage with his pet hawks for sport. He paid someone to give him live birds to be tortured by his hawks. Bobby didn’t run around with a butterfly net trying to catch birds to torture. Who cares how he got the birds to torture—he got them and he tortured them. Listen to what the kids said. You didn’t trust what the kids said. Why are a lot of kids fucked up?—because adults like you don’t listen to what they say and then proceed to gaslight them.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

thank you

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

What exactly did the kids say? Can you give me a link. I would be love to have direct contact with what they said.

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Leu2500's avatar

Here’s a link to what Caroline said. I’m not finding what the rest of the family said, but it’s out there somewhere.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/caroline-kennedy-says-her-cousin-rfk-jr-is-a-predator-in-a-warning-letter-to-senators

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Thank you for the link.

“where he would also put baby chickens and mice in blenders to feed to his hawks.”

That's heartless, but it's something that all owners of predatory animals do. Snakes will only eat live prey, so their owners must put live mice and rats in their terrariums for them to devour. That's why pet shops sell white mice. Few people want to keep them as pets.

This is not the same as finding healthy or injured shore birds and further injuring them.

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Sue Pemberton's avatar

One person's experience does not necessarily correlate to all experiences.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Try catching any healthy bird alive without a mist net, which is the way ornithologists do it.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

I’ve caught a few that would fly into my screened porch while the door was open. I used a netted pool skimmer. Easy to catch, easy to release back outside.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

That's very interesting! No screened porches in my childhood.

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celeste k.'s avatar

I like that you assume he couldn't possibly capture birds, and that they must have been injured to begin with.

You were a child. He was an adult. Adult behaviors rarely change, and judging by his propensity to allow great damage to the health of humans of this country, I would not be so generous in explaining away 'lots of wounded birds'.

Of course there's a possibility. Of course.

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

With any injury antibiotics would be primary care and brainworms wouldn’t do it so a slow and painful death probably ensued.

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Itsy Bitsy Spider's avatar

Well that is certainly enough! Even more cruel to take a creature who is already in pain and add to that? Give me a break.

How does his wife Cheryl wahtshername stay with him let alone sleep with him?🤮

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

I’ve never heard him utter anything about eugenics yet Celeste, although with that voice, it’s difficult to tell what he’s saying!

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Chris Hierholzer's avatar

Is it possible to lie when your speaking in tongues? That kept running though my mind after watching him yesterday. I WANT ANSWERS!!!!

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PEACE, LOVE, RESIST's avatar

His voice sounds like he has gravel in his larynx paired with some horrible Covid related throat infection.

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Angie Longenecker's avatar

They need to continue warning— day and night.

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Rick A.'s avatar

Jeff, I watched again the other day the video of the impassioned plea by Caroline Kennedy released BEFORE his confirmation hearing. It was amazing and so, so damning. RFK, Jr. is a sick, sick, perverse and frankly evil man. I could tell Ambassador Kennedy’s public plea was done from a genuine and heartfelt place of desperate concern and actual fear for our country. Then to see Cassidy and all the rest confirm him after that speaks to the absolute and total moral rot in our country. I wish that total moral bankruptcy was just Trump, or Kennedy or the rest of his “sewer clowns,” or even the terminal rot of our Republican elected officials. That decay is wide and deep in our people. 77 million voted for him AFTER watching him in action for 9 years. Most of them STILL are all in……. When even 35-40 percent of the country will tolerate, and most celebrate, all this depravity, we are in serious, serious trouble as a culture, a society, a country. I am truly terrified for our future. I have been waiting for all these supposed normal people I live around to wake up to the truth for ten years. Still do not see much evidence of sanity or decency or common sense. Help! When will the grownups return? When will we demand grownups?

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Sharon Senkiew's avatar

Sick, perverse and evil just about sums up the entire trump administration.

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Linda McCaughey's avatar

You forgot malignantly stupid and deliberately ignorant.

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Terri Nighswonger's avatar

I as thinking that very thing. Hitler, very much the same. These are evil and damaged people. They should NEVER be around others.

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Marlene Lerner-Bigley (CA)'s avatar

Caroline tried real hard to warn Congress with facts. The threatened Repubs didn’t listen, especially the one who could’ve saved us from this tyranny, Dr. Cassidy.

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Bonnie Council's avatar

They didn't listen because they didn't want to hear. They chose to remain in the trump quagmire of dangerous ignorance, lies and vindictiveness. For that alone they should all be impeached.

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rlritt's avatar

No, because they would never go against Trump. When and if Trump is gone from office, I hope that all the Republican leadership is voted out of office. And NEVER allowed to be in any leadership position again.

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Donald Lipkis's avatar

Yes, I also re-watched the Caroline Kennedy speech regarding her very sick cousin. With Trump, the old adage “the apple does not fall far from the tree” is true with his entire family, from his father down to his children. With Bobby Brain Worms, the apple fell so far from the tree that it is not even recognizable.

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Jane's avatar

more like applesauce

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Megan Ross's avatar

That's how Jeffrey Dahmer started out...

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

Dahmer's early life was pretty much an apocalyptic disaster.

His dad, Lionel, was a chemist who was barely around, always buried in his PhD work. His mother, Joyce, was a pill-popping mess dealing with her own mental illness - anxiety, depression, hypochondria, the whole psychiatric buffet. She'd supposedly take up to 27 pills a day while pregnant with Jeffrey's younger brother. Talk about the neglect , right?

Dahmer started collecting roadkill around age four or five. Not just poking dead animals with a stick like some kids do - this twisted little shit was fascinated by the bones and innards.

By his early teens, Dahmer was a full-blown alcoholic. We're talking about a 14-year-old.

That was as far into a bio of him that I could read before I had to stop reading it.

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Lin Talbot-Koehl's avatar

One of my old college friends was Dahmer's 9th grade English teacher. Yep, he drank vodka all day at school. He said it was his "medicine".

Even *more* disturbingly, when Dahmer's father found out he was mutilating animals out behind the house, he TAUGHT Jeffery HOW TO DISMEMBER THEM "PROPERLY", & DISSOLVE THE SOFT TISSUES W/ CHEMICALS. 🤔😱

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

There’s an apple that did not fall far from the tree.

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Charles Austin's avatar

🙄🤮🤮

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

Indeed Megan, torturing animals is a GOP specialty!

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Linda McCaughey's avatar

Also executing them, it seems.

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Dr J's Sanity Space's avatar

I wonder how much of a fuck up he was back then? Somehow, his daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has survived this. I thought she was a decent candidate back when she ran in Maryland.

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

Well, Ive read a few books about the Kennedy family, for Jr, it goes like this......The kid basically spiraled after his dad died. Started getting kicked out of schools left and right - and these weren't regular schools, these were fancy-ass prep schools where Kennedy kids were supposed to excel. He got booted from Millbrook School, then struggled at Palfrey Street School. The grief and rage had nowhere to go except into rebellion and self-destruction.

By his late teens and early twenties, Bobby was deep into drugs. We're not talking about smoking a little weed behind the gymnasium - this was serious substance abuse. Heroin, cocaine, you name it. He got arrested for marijuana possession in 1970, then busted for heroin possession on a plane in 1983 (though technically that's past 25, the addiction started way earlier). The golden Kennedy boy was shooting up in airplane bathrooms.

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

So, in a nut, RFK Jr. is a product and casualty of gun violence (his dad and uncle) and poor mental health care. His immediate family should go to court and take conservatorship of this lunatic but he's now an untouchable politician. And Congress won't demand his resignation, even to save lives.

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

I mean, you are EXACTLY correct.

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PEACE, LOVE, RESIST's avatar

This Congress is vehemently opposed to saving lives. They don’t care how you die, just so you hurry up and do it. Children are no exception. And old people apparently shouldn’t vote because they’re almost dead.

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Clint Opine's avatar

Once again, just clicking "like" doesn't seem quite right. We need a "sadly right" button to click.

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george  campbell's avatar

He bragged about being a heroin addict during his college years .

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

Isn't it funny? He used to dote on needles, and now...

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

Wendy, What a total train wreck.

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rlritt's avatar
3hEdited

It was tragic for the family when Bobby Kennedy was murdered, but another "problem" was why were there so many kids? 11 children. I know they were Catholic, but come on. I went to a Catholic school and only a few families had more than 5 kids. And many had only 3 or 4.

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Anastasia Pantsios's avatar

Why was that a "problem"? A few of his kids were a mess, but most have been productive citizens, and most don't support what their brother is doing.

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rlritt's avatar

But the more you have the more likely one or two will be nuts. And because of his name only, the crazy one was appointed to a position he was grossly unfit for.

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Anastasia Pantsios's avatar

Yes, with that many kids, you were sure to have a lot of different types of people. But there's no guarantee a single one won't be a mess too. There aren't any guarantees in life.

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Theresa Palmer's avatar

That explains a lot.

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Grace Kennedy's avatar

She’s his sister.

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Grace Kennedy's avatar

And I am of no relation:)

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

You may be a 10th cousin. I had a boyfriend once who was a tenth cousin of Princess Diana.

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George in Atlanta's avatar

Hell, everybody is a tenth cousin of everybody else.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

No. You have to have the same country of origin. I am a 9th cousin of Floyd Landis, the disgraced American cyclist. Our origins go back to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. Both our ancestors came from Switzerland and were Mennonites.

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Dr J's Sanity Space's avatar

Thanks for the correction Grace.

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Dr J's Sanity Space's avatar

Yes, living with looney tunes brother?

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

The pressure of that fucking Kennedy legacy didn't help either. Imagine trying to figure out who you are when your surname is basically American royalty, but it's also synonymous with tragedy and conspiracy theories. Every move you make is scrutinized, every failure magnified, and you're constantly measured against dead martyrs who can never disappoint anyone again.

Despite all this chaos, he somehow managed to drag himself through Harvard (graduating in '76) and then University of Virginia Law School. But even those achievements were tainted - he was a mess during much of it, struggling with addiction while trying to live up to impossible expectations.

The real bitch of it all? This was a kid who had everything - money, privilege, connections - but was absolutely hollowed out by loss and couldn't escape the shadow of violence that seemed to follow his family like a curse. Those early 25 years set the stage for a lifetime of controversy, addiction battles, and that particular brand of Kennedy dysfunction that money can't fix.

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

Not uncommon with morbidly rich, but some of this I find shocking.

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Anastasia Pantsios's avatar

Why weren't most of his siblings "hollowed out by loss"?

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rlritt's avatar

Screw that. They have gazillions of dollars. They had all the help they needed.

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Dr J's Sanity Space's avatar

Correction: sister?

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

His daughter was named Kick, or something like that IIRC. She added a few embarrassing moments to the whale head on their Minivan travels!

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Deborah Hunter's avatar

RFK Jr. had a sister Kathleen, nickname was Kick and I think she died in a plane crash during WWII age. He may have named his daughter after his dead sister. At least dad Joe hadn't done a lobotomy on Kathleen like he did Rosemary.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

It was John F Kennedy and Robert Kennedy who had a sister named Kathleen. Apparently, Robert Kennedy Senior named his daughter after his sister.

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

I saw his father once. What a great man he was. What a gabbling dipshit his son is.

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Susan Niemann's avatar

Ahhh...the old advertising days. It was fun once. They arent so great anymore. 🙄

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

Not much is great these days Susan, with exception to this daily read!

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kdsherpa's avatar

You probably read about his delight in putting live mice into his blender and feeding them to his snakes.

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

Sorry but I don't care about his past. I just want the Kennedy curse to pick up the pace. Sick of these sick, twisted assholes. Every school shooter, mass murderer, in this country had a fucked up chidhood and mental health issues. Put their heads on a pike in the public square and let the crows pluck out their eyes. There, that's their fame.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

If his past includes being a sadistic animal torturer, I want to know about it. It’s a huge fucking red flag.

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

It's a massive bloody red flag. His cousin Caroline begged the Senate not to confirm him for this exact reason. And yet here we are.

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arne link's avatar

I believe that a few public hangings would put a stop to mass murder pretty quickly.

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Susan Niemann's avatar

NOOOOOOO!!!! Really???

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kdsherpa's avatar

According to people who were there, yes. Just now, as I remembered this info which was made public prior to his Confirmation Hearing, I suddenly thought: is THAT why he's trying to destroy the vaccine work at CDC? To enjoy watching Americans die from measles, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough??

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Susan Niemann's avatar

Whoa! You have a very good point. This is the scariest!😳

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

I'm hoping like hell they were frozen dead mice, which is bad enough.

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kdsherpa's avatar

No. They were alive and struggling. He is a sadist, as various family members have stated. He brought friends (and cousins, I think) in to watch the torture.

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Claudia Montague Wheatley's avatar

"Uncle Bobby found this," they said. "he has a lot of wounded birds."

First thought: Bobby might've been trying to HEAL the wounded birds.

Second thought: Yeah right. Cousin Caroline says Bobby invited siblings and cousins to watch him put baby chicks and mice in a blender to make smoothies for his predatory birds.

Third thought: Are we sure the bird was already injured when Bobby "found" it?

The Secretary for Health and Human Services is a sociopath, my friends. And Donny Demento is, too.

We all need to stick together if we're going to survive those two.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Jeff, you have lived a life. I would pay big bucks for a tell all memoir! But I want all because I won't understand you without it.

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

Jeff, I am not gonna lie, you should write some of THOSE stories and publish them. Oral traditions are amazing, and passing on life stories (because you are a better writer than I am clearly), is an amazing thing to do.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

I second the motion, Wendy. Jeff has lived a life. I would pay big bucks for a tell all memoir! But I want all because I won't understand him without it.

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Jan Moon's avatar

Pulling wings off butterflies; torturing birds. It's a textbook lead-up to serial killing. And RFK has raised it to a new level. Kill 'em a bunch at a time and you don't even have to get your hands dirty. Except for the whale juice and the polluted stream where he takes his grandkids for a swim.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Could you give me a link to evidence that RFK Junior pulled the wings off butterflies?

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Hollie Rood's avatar

Everything starts with something/somewhere. Who knew🤷‍♀️

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Mary Sundberg's avatar

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.....

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Valerie's avatar

Lol! "Shut up, I earned a decent living back when I was in advertising." :) :) :)

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the real pambo's avatar

I’m familiar with the area of which you speak: When I was nannying for a family I knew from South Florida, in the mid-1980’s, we stayed in a rented home on the beach in Hyannisport. Once walking out to the beach near the water, we could see the Kennedy compound along the shore. We were that close! I was a high schooler then, but well aware of their family compound from the news. Seeing it in person felt like an episode of, “In Search Of”, with Leonard Nimoy narrating in the background, “Now that we know where it is located, we will finally unlock the secrets behind the Kennedy estate”. Fascinating.

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george  campbell's avatar

Would you agree that having crazy RFK Jr. out there actively ruining our health , the president is using a very effective distraction away from his own outrageous daily attacks on our culture ? Trump and the suck up senate put all these clowns in official governmental positions . They deflect attention away from the one who put them there .

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KP Johnson Austin, TX's avatar

Wounded birds: the gateway drug.

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

Mean while, Over in Washington, Kegseth DrunkBitch is conspiring to put into action, and I quote "By shifting from "defense" to "war," these ass-clowns are reprogramming our collective consciousness to embrace perpetual conflict as our natural state.”

https://thistleandmoss.com/p/when-fascist-fuckwits-fetishize-war

Always Uncle Jeff, Lkd/ReS/Qted/XPosted

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Kim Nesvig's avatar

In keeping with the declaration of that it is again the Department of War, then there RFKjr should be in Charge of the Dept of Premature Disabilty and Death. Kristi could be in charge of the Dept of Abduction.

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

Touché Kim!

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kdsherpa's avatar

That is an excellent point!

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kdsherpa's avatar

... and soldiers have become "warriors". No girls allowed.

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Wendy The Druid 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈's avatar

Soldiers are men (Toxic masculinity at work, right), Soldiers are not Trans, Girls, or Gay....they dont want critical thinking in their military. Just people that will take order and point and shoot.

Muscles

Are

Required

Intellgience

Not

Essential.

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longtimebirdwatcher's avatar

I don't think the Viet Cong and NVA thought that way. Or the Russian army in WWII.

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george  campbell's avatar

Queen Elizabeth was a trained jeep mechanic during WW Two .

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Stranger Than Friction's avatar

Yeah, y'all should read a little history on the "Secretary of War" title and this latest nonsense from Secretary Kegsbreath: https://www.thelongmemo.com/p/the-secretary-of-jackassery

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Nancy's avatar

Excellent piece! Thank you for sharing it, Stranger Than Fiction.

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Lynn Van Haren's avatar

That’s part of their 1984 strategy. Double speak, Ministry of Truth, & perpetual war between east Asia & Eurasia

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rlritt's avatar
2hEdited

He was probably sober enough to invest in weapons and war supplies manufacturing companies. These people are not warriors, they just know how to use their power in gov't to make money. So what if people die as long as they get rich.

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Charles Austin's avatar

1984 anyone?

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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

It’s hard to say who the worst character in this admin might be. They’re all just dreadful, loathsome. But that mug will kill people. Hundreds, thousands, millions. The policies of the admin around the world have already killed thousands. Millions will suffer even more and millions will die.

I used to think this country had the ability to course correct. I guess I still have to think it. But it ain’t been none too easy of late.

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Jeff Tiedrich's avatar

the earliest draft of this post started off with something like "who would you guess is the deadliest person in this administration?"

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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

It’s what we all ask ourselves every day.

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Bob's avatar

Well, the deadliest nonhuman creature is the mosquito. Maybe Bobby Brainworm is Lord of the Skeeters.

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

I would have said "Brainworms," immediately. It may not be a man's fault that he has a brain parasite, but when he told the world under oath that he had one just as a method of trying to Christian-down his alimony payment....

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george  campbell's avatar

Well , it's situational . At some point on any given day , any of the senate confirmed clowns can step up to do their own unique damage . How about Bondi ?

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Dr J's Sanity Space's avatar

Neal-that is the part that really gets to me. The reputation that the US has now created by these unbelievably destructive and ignorant people will take a looooong time to turn around.

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Megan Ross's avatar

I'm slowly sinking into that hopeless abyss and I'm normally a fighter. It's tough to keep hoping when the future looks so bleek...

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

Remember, always--they WANT you to feel hopeless. They want you to roll over so they can do Jebus' sacred work.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

Please read this. Steve Vladeck wrote a dynamite post yesterday gaging how the courts have reined in the Trump administration to a significant, but limited degree. He allowed me to restack the post on my Substack where you can read it for free:

Bonus 176: Law, Lawlessness, and Doomerism

Guest post by Professor Steve Vladeck

https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/bonus-176-law-lawlessness-and-doomerism

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

It’s easy to do. I feel this way about every other day. Deep breathing and taking a break from the constant shitstorm of news helps.

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

Megan,I listened to music this weekend not depressing shit, you know it helps.

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Stranger Than Friction's avatar

It's like Trump off-loaded the responsibility for the well being of this nation's citizens to RatFK, Jr. and the buck now stops with Bobby Brainworms! Remember the flack Trump 1.0 caught for telling people to drink bleach to defeat Covid-19? Well the next mass deaths epidemic/pandemic in this country is going to fall like a ton of bricks on ol' Beef Jerky. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy!

.

As to whether we ever get out of this in time before the accelerating and massive hit that climate change is going to be by mid-century, we are going to need all hands on deck, folks. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT. However, fascism/authoritarianism will be in its early days.

.

The Democratic leadership is weak, sad, poop, beholden to their donors, listening to fools' recommendations about how to take on the Grand Old Fascist party. As voters, as citizens, please find a way to communicate with your Congress critters about this. We must apply pressure to them to do the right things. One of the rumors swirling right now is that the Dems plan to push for the extension of Obamacare coverage and benefits until after the midterm elections, in exchange for signing on to the next budget. WRONG MOVE. Don't let the repugnicans get away with any bi-partisanship on healthcare. The pain must be felt BEFORE the midterms to help voters understand why they should not vote for repugnicans. I'm not talking about MAGAts and other lost causes. There's a low-information mushy middle out there whose votes are needed, people. BE the voices of democracy NOW!

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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

He had doctors managing that crisis. Despair, man, that’s the new viral infection.

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Margaret's avatar

MsNicky and Neal, yeah, despair is viral. I'm fighting it off with copious doses of Jeff, mystery novels, and making art. Not enough art.

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arne link's avatar

I'm overeating. We do what we can to stay sane.

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

Schumer and Jeffries are polishing their butter knives in preparation for the budget war zone. They should both resign, are too weak to lead, have admitted to having zero leverage against the GOP's fascism, just pen delicate but strongly worded letters.

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

Where is the real Sharon, & what have you done to her ?! 😳 Bashing Dems ,

is a MAGA hobby.

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

Kristy, We need good lawyers and both are leave them right where they are. The ones you never hear from could be looked at.

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

I appreciate Marc Elias.

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

Health starts at home. We're going to die as a party until the Dems get better than woke.

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

Not all homes are healthy, psychologically or physically. I have faith in the Democrats, WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS.

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

It will course correct, Neal

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Cathy 98280's avatar

I doubt within my lifetime. (Goin’ on 79 …)

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Cyndi's avatar

My mom is 85, my dad is 86. She is helping lead our local Indivisible group, and we're all three headed out to protest on Saturday.

Age is less important than attitude. Hang in there!

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Kathleen Weber's avatar

I'm 75. Keep doing what your doctor tells you!

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kdsherpa's avatar

YES!!! (72)

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

There's something you're really going to want to see, and it won't be long from the looks of Trump. Hold on if you can.

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

True dat Neal!

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rlritt's avatar

And dumber than Trump. That's a prerequisite.

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Becky Love's avatar

I was left with one major question:

Why is no one really delving into the root aim of those seeking to change the vaccine schedule? It’s money.

Insurers can refuse to pay for vaccines that are not on the CDC recommended list. Sure, parents will be free to have their children vaccinated, but they won’t be able to afford ones that insurers doesnt cover because they are no longer recommended. Insurers will require PAs for doctors and patients who insist on vaccines under the real science and they will use the pseudo-science that charlatans used to overturn the CDC recommendations to deny those PA appeals. Senator Warner got close to this point but let it drop without landing that part home after Sec Kennedy interrupted rudely and profusely to draw him away from it. 

It’s the same tactic as the current DHHS drive to remove recommended screenings and treatments from the US Preventative Services Task Force guidelines. Insurers won’t have to pay for any that are not on the list.

Kennedy’s motivation is not an overwhelming obsession with anti-vaccine pseudo-science for the good of mankind. (That’s the infected thinking they are spreading to people to get support in covering up the real agenda.) Kennedy is making a living off of hocus-pocus. He has an active conflict of interest with his job in pending lawsuits that blame vaccines for unproven harms. How many of such lawsuits settle out of court and never have the light of true knowledge shine upon the charges to disprove them and remove them from our collective awareness?

Changing the vaccine schedule is the goldmine. Those bringing this to pass will be personally handsomely rewarded, if not now while in office, later and for the rest of their lives, by healthcare corporations stealing from taxpayers.

That’s fraud. Trump supported Kennedy in this fraud after his disastrous and disgraceful performance yesterday. It’s plain to see that both are elected officials seeking and gaining personal enrichment through the auspices of their office as public servants. It’s another stage of the gargantuan grift that Trump has been abetted by Congress to foist upon us. Combine the revision of the vaccine schedule and USPTF Guidelines with the prior authorization and pharmacy benefit management systems vertically integrated within exclusive networks and anyone can see that our healthcare system is the biggest scam in history. 

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Nancy's avatar

Thank you, Becky. Great explanation!

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Becky Love's avatar

Getting the GOP to do something about it is a tall order. Economic benefits from policies only trickle down so far. Getting them off the honey pot will take some doing. But maybe some will be sensitive to their culpability for the suffering and deaths of millions, especially if this ploy is exposed for what it really is. They don’t care about children or elderly people.

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arne link's avatar

Over a million Americans died of Covid under Trump 1. People still voted him back in, with some help from Putin and Musk. That election should not have even been close.

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kdsherpa's avatar

"He has an active conflict of interest with his job in pending lawsuits that blame vaccines for unproven harms. How many of such lawsuits settle out of court and never have the light of true knowledge shine upon the charges to disprove them and remove them from our collective awareness?" Apparently he stands to make billions.

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Becky Love's avatar

Their audacity is dumbfounding!

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Ellen H's avatar
6hEdited

indeed! Follow the money

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Mingo's avatar

I've had the same thought, follow the money. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare as the MAGATS call it was passed, routine vaccinations were to be covered by insurance as one of the tenets. That's when we had a HHS secretary that was a normal person who relied on evidence based medicine and scientific data to make decisions. Now we have a paranoid, conspiracy theory junkie that wants to destroy the availability of vaccines. Insurance companies don't make money off healthy people.

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Becky Love's avatar

I’m sure that is the motivation and the objective. As a primary care physician who has lost more and more time to the prior authorization process, I can see how they are setting this up. They are using the conflict and lack of large scale controlled testing evidence about COVID-19, developed as an EMERGENCY response, to hang all the other vaccines with years of evidence of benefits far greater than risks. Insurers will get out of paying for vaccines or make it more difficult to extract payments from them. They count on wearing us down—people and their physicians will give up, like they have on tests and medications and procedures their doctors know and can prove are necessary. And lawyers forevermore will have a heyday with the “evidence” accepted by the Bobby Kennedy Jr Anecdotal Team.

The pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines have programs to make reparations to people negatively affected by proven but RARE adverse reactions to vaccines. There is risk in everything we do. These businesses accept the rewards from their work but also the responsibility for proven harm. Kennedy is trying to claim harm from unproven stories of associations and hearsay. He uses the weakest kind of evidence.

Looking at Covid-19 cases snd deaths, day by day as I did during the pandemic, and in a look back from now on the totals, one can definitely see that the vaccine reduced illnesses and deaths. There was a dramatic slowing of cases and reduction in deaths in counties that had good vaccine acceptance, while rates of cases and deaths remained high in those that didn’t. I checked yesterday on total deaths in the world and in the US. In the multiple years since we crossed 1 million deaths, the US and world total deaths have added only minimally each year to that total. While only smaller numbers of people receive the booster. That is the ongoing benefit of the initial vaccinations and survival of people who had milder cases successively boosting immunity and helping devekoping more widespread immunity, even with fewer people accepting boosters. There are people suffering long covid and we are trying to learn more about that.

The CDC can’t be blamed for the chaos that came from a worldwide pandemic that we haven’t seen the likes of since the 1300-1500s. I saw that they were already politicized by Trump at the time of the pandemic when they refused to trace cases that occurred early in a rural community, before any other outbreaks in this state, that spread from a cult of Trump supporters who continued congregate gatherings.

Yes, some people had problems that seemed to stem directly from the vaccine. That would have been expected, but impossible to predict. My personal risk assessment, after I had watched so many people in my community get terribly sick and die or remain in nursing homes for weeks to barely recover, was that the vaccine was worth the risk. I have treated people that had adverse events related to unusual clotting that could have been from the vaccine or could have been from COVID or some coincidence. People here didn’t “believe” in the virus thanks to Trump and wouldn’t test, would deny symptoms, so it was often impossible to tell for sure. But even those who blamed the vaccine were grateful to be alive and not dead like some people they knew.

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rlritt's avatar

Exactly. Wealthy parents will pay for vaccines, but the children of the poor and ignorant will go unprotected.

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Melinda's avatar

Guido!

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HI2thDoc's avatar

Floriduh's elimination of school vaccine mandates are an invitation to epidemics. If this happens, will the MAHAs learn anything? Also, seen yesterday on Substack: a MAHA woman rants that why are all these vaccines so important when she's never even heard of the diseases they are for? Such a level of dumbassery is seldom seen. I actually laughed out loud.

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Irascible Ink's avatar

Right up there with the Butler assasination attempt denier who said elsewhere in here that the noise of getting shot in the ear should have made Trump deaf in that ear. Ponder that utter lack of critical thinking for a moment...

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rlritt's avatar

If he was hit with anything it was either a piece of plastic or press board that shattered when the bullet hit the wall.

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arne link's avatar

Ach! I think the whole thing was a set up. Did you see how he jumped up for his photo op? Fake, fake, fake.

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rlritt's avatar

Yep. Of course it was a fake. We live in country where the media tells you what is fake is real and what is true is false.1984 said that totalitarian would torture to make you believe 2+2 =5. But the reality is they dress up the liars in nice clothes, with beautiful faces and lustrous hair, and then play you like a game show contestant.

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Mingo's avatar

Doc, when are you going to realize MAGA is functionally illiterate.

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HI2thDoc's avatar

And immune to logic and common sense, apparently

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Charles Austin's avatar

That's some SERIOUS stupid, Doc.

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HI2thDoc's avatar

And here we are

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Kay-El's avatar

1. I can’t repost this enough:

Oregon, Washington, California form health care alliance to protect vaccine access

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/03/vaccines-oregon-washington-california-cdc/

2. Not like this stupid state:

Florida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates

https://apnews.com/article/florida-childhood-vaccines-mandate-eliminate-desantis-363323dcdd3811ca9ad7def5f9a30fb2

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the real pambo's avatar

I’m in CA and SO grateful for news of a vaccine alliance. We should offer the CDC a west coast hub.

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Douglas Paul Truhlar's avatar

Kay, hey don’t forget MN we have our own Medicare even.

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Kay-El's avatar

Good to hear!

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Fastball Fredo's avatar

Jeff, no vax mandate in Florida..let’s see how many kids die from preventable diseases.. No vax…no problem in Florida.. Now let’s examine the number visitors to Florida, let’s examine how many visitors to Disney World, domestic and foreign.. I bet those numbers will be drawn down just like today’s jobs report, as more folks say no to visiting Florida, they don’t want their kids to be exposed to all kinds of diseases.. it’s almost like these anti science folks want people to die, it’s almost like Florida officials want their economy to tank because..owning the libs.. Best to All

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

It’s not “almost like.” These people actively WANT as many of us as possible to die. It’s part of their game plan.

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rlritt's avatar

Especially the poor and non white.

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MzNicky in East Jesus, TN's avatar

and the elderly, the disabled, anyone who’s a drag on the system.

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Charles Austin's avatar

Indeed

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

Thanks to governor De Sadist.

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Mary Sundberg's avatar

Loved"hope trump takes all of his medical advice from rfk"

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Susan Niemann's avatar

"Donny Convict’s Secretary of Dying of a Preventable Disease"

Man, thats the truth. Everything is so incredulously insane right now. Luckily I can get the latest Covid vaccine in Pennsylvania where I spend so much of my time. They really do want us all to die. 🤦‍♀️

Europe is looking better and better.

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rlritt's avatar

Just got a several vaccinations including flu before going on a cruise in Vancouver. Better living through chemistry.

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Charles Austin's avatar

I'll find out in October in Ohio. That's when the updated booster will be out. If I can't, I'm going to raise pure Hell!

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Derek Smith's avatar

He is ugly in thought, word and deed. What a disappointment for the storied Kennedy family.

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Richard Von Busack's avatar

Well, the USA is learning a lesson Europe learned centuries ago. Hereditary royalty is a bad idea.

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

They're so inbred ,they're shit sandwiches.

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Megan Ross's avatar

TRump's entire Clown Car Cabinet just needs to die. TRump, too.#bye

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Gina's avatar

[thinking I could outsmart dumb twitter, I posted yesterday that RFK should dye already...but they caught me and I'm silenced for a week...{meanwhile I reported a ghastly racist post directed right at a person present and twitter replied that it was well within their guidelines...}]

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rlritt's avatar

Never, ever have I posted to Twitter.

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Irascible Ink's avatar

As always, these hearings leave me in a rage at the inability for any of these fuckwads in the hot seat to SHUT THE FUCK UP WHILE THE OTHER PERSON IS SPEAKING TO YOU. 😡

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Kristy Kanen's avatar

He thinks that's his privilege, because of random birth , he didn't actually choose his parents, so . . .

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Joe Witkowski's avatar

A 400-level graduate course in exponential stupidity

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Jennifer's avatar

"...it’s not your standard talk, I would say, and that has to do with medical..."

This is a thing the president said. And it's so normal that no one even blinks an eye anymore.

Also, my grandmother had polio, and if she were still alive today, I'm sure she would have some thoughts about what Florida is doing and none of them would be, "Yes, get rid of Polio vaccines, because let me tell you, losing function in my legs was super fun and I was one of the lucky ones because I could breathe on my own."

JFC they should all be in jail. ALL of them.

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Charles Austin's avatar

I was thinking Hell.😈

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Jennifer's avatar

This works for me.

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Terri Nighswonger's avatar

This is the best!!! 🥳🤗😃🩷😝😍😎

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SethTriggs's avatar

The Dems comported themselves well in their vivisection of Mengele-without-a-medical degree. And that was cute of the Republicans to defeat having this crackpot under oath. It's kinda like Maladministration 2.0 is staffed by lying liar ideologues and cranks. Dunno why he is worried, no penalties exist for a Maladministration 2.0 figure lying.

Remember, accountability is only for Democrats!

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Jennifer's avatar

Hey, yep. RFK is Mengele, Stephen Miller is Goebbels, Trump is Hitler, and that makes Vance the chodiest Goring ever.

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Melinda's avatar
5hEdited

Josef Mengele got nothing on Bobby Kennedy Junior, except that he never sat in front of a Senate panel wheezing like a defiant Darth Vader

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Sharon Hudnall's avatar

Bullseye.

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arne link's avatar

Why is he wheezing and gargling, anyway? Anyone know? I don't care enough to look it up, I'm just curious.

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