On August 27, 1991, the European Community recognized the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova after they had declared their independence from the USSR.
“I began this journey as a Democrat,” explained Robert Kennedy, Jr., stating that it was “the party of my father [the likely Democratic presidential nominee in 1968, when he was assassinated], my uncle [President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963], the party which I pledged my own allegiance to long before I was old enough to vote. I attended my first Democratic Convention at the age of six. . . .”
But last October, RFK, Jr., left the Democratic Party, arguing that Democrats have “departed so dramatically from the core values that” he “grew up with,” that it has “become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big Tech, big Ag, and big money.”
And he also acted out of necessity, when the party “abandoned democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president.”*
Kennedy bitterly complained about the efforts of Democrats to deny him a spot on state ballots, blasting “DNC-aligned judges” that threw him “and other candidates off the ballot — and” have attempted “to throw President Trump in jail.”
NBC News suggested that Kennedy sees Trump as “a partner — and a fellow victim.” Probably so, but RFKj specifically cited “Free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children” as “the principled causes that persuaded [him] to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw [his] support to President Trump.”
Kennedy Democrats for Trump?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* RFK, Jr., wondered aloud: “How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?”
NOTE: Mr. Trump reportedly promised Mr. Kennedy that, if elected, he would release all the classified material related to his uncle JFK’s assassination. A pledge Trump made in 2016 and did not keep.
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Only the dead have seen the end of war.
George Santayana, “Tipperary,” Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922).
On August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment to United States Constitution took effect, giving women the right to vote in every state of the union.
Prior to the passage of this amendment, 15 states allowed women to vote. Most of them were west of the Mississippi. The territory of Wyoming was the first to extend voting rights to women in 1869.
After the racial tensions over cops shooting black people became a big story with the Ferguson incidents, Paul Jacob worked on several citizen initiatives to require “body cams” on police officers in cities around the country. Resistance to the practice has come from several quarters, not infrequently the police themselves — despite the “cop cams’” utility being to protect cops as much as anyone.
But the strangest wrinkle to this ongoing story came recently. Consult Jacob Sullum at Reason, whose article “Albuquerque’s Police Chief Says Cops Have a 5th Amendment Right To Leave Their Body Cameras Off” tells the strange behavior of Police Chief Harold Medina, who got in a crash after driving by a homeless encampment on the way to a press conference, with his wife in the department-issued pickup truck. And yes, he pled the Fifth.
“Medina is suggesting that cops have a constitutional right to refrain from recording their interactions with the public whenever that evidence could be used against them,” explains Sullum. “By turning on their cameras in those situations, he argues, police could be incriminating themselves. That is the whole point.”
But read the whole article. It’s quite a story.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951), pp. 10-11.
For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image.
On August 25, 1945, the Cold War began (some say) when, ten days after World War II ended with the Japanese surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party killed Baptist missionary Capt. John Birch (1918-1845).
“This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes my wife and my children and my friends,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said on Friday. “But I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. And that certainty gives me internal peace, even in storms.”
What he was referring to was his decision to dissolve his campaign for the presidency and endorse Donald Trump. After holding a press conference on Friday, RFK appeared on stage at a Trump rally in Arizona.
There is a lot here to think about, and we are all chattering. But the BBC mentions something interesting: “Before welcoming RFK Jr to the stage on Friday, Trump promised, if elected, to release all remaining documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.”
It is worth mentioning that Donald Trump had promised to fully de-classify all the JFK assassination in his 2016 presidential campaign. But did not. Not fully.
Roger Stone, who has written a book on the subject, has discussed, many times, what we have learned so far from what Trump did release. (For instance, that Lee Oswald was an FBI informant who had gone to CIA language school to speak Russian.) But Trump did not release everything; “20 percent” he kept back. When Mr. Stone asked Trump why, Trump said he couldn’t. “It’s so horrible, you wouldn’t believe it,” is what Stone says Trump told him. (Judge Napolitano relates an almost identical explanation from Trump.)
Joe Biden, of course, did not release all of the remaining documents, as Stone relates. RFK Jr., now endorsing Trump, has a stake in the disclosures — his uncle being the subject of the whole issue, and his father (whom he believes was not killed by Sirhan Sirhan) was running for the presidency when he was himself assassinated, perhaps for being too close to obtaining information from The Files.
Maybe Bobby Kennedy’s deal with Trump was an assurance on full disclosure. After all, Trump — surviving a near miss from an assassin’s bullet — may now be more inclined to follow through. “So horrible” regardless.
We will see what happens.
See also past Common Sense columns on RFK Jr.:
Each civilization follows the path of a particular religion that represents it; turning to other religions, it loses the one it had, and ultimately loses them all.
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), The Book of Disquiet (Livro do Desassossego: Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guarda-livros na cidade de Lisboa; translated by Richard Zenith based on the 1998 Assírio & Alvim edition, edited by Richard Zenith), §306.
In 1814 on this day, British forces burnt down the White House. Unlike audience reaction to the 1996 movie Independence Day (pictured), there was no widespread cheering among Americans for the building’s destruction.
One year later, the modern Constitution of the Netherlands received its empowering signatures.
August 24 birthdays include that of British anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce (1759-1833), Argentine literary genius Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and French historian and author of a magisterial study of the rise of capitalism in Europe, Fernand Braudel (1902-1985).
On August 24, 1682, William Penn received an area of territory to add it to his colony of Pennsylvania. The area comprises, today, the state of Delaware.