Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.
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A series of polls released this week show Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s quixotic candidacy might attract more Republican-leaning voters in 2024 than Democrats. That may have been what prompted former President Donald Trump to release a three-post screed attacking him.
On Friday night, the 45th president of the United States set his sights on RFK Jr., insisting to his millions of followers that the independent presidential candidate is actually a "Radical Left Liberal" who was secretly working to help President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. He even attempted to assign Kennedy one of his patented nicknames: "Junior,'" notably with an unexplained apostrophe that he repeated throughout all three posts.
"A Vote for Junior' would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him," Trump wrote.
"I lived with RFK Jr. in New York and watched him convince Governor Cuomo to make Environmental moves that were outright NASTY," he continued. "I’d even take Biden over Junior’, because our Country would last a year or two longer prior to collapse - But it would be dead either way."
"His Views on Vaccines are FAKE, as is everything else about his Candidacy," he added. "Let the Democrats have RFK Jr. They deserve him!"
The ex-president's rage toward RFK Jr. may be due to a new Quinnipiac poll that suggests his candidacy is more attractive to prospective Trump voters than Biden voters. That poll shows that while Trump is still slightly ahead of Biden in swing states, the two are in a dead heat nationally. And when RFK Jr. is thrown into the mix, Trump's vote share diminishes.
According to Axios, while Biden and Trump are tied in a head-to-head matchup with Kennedy on the ballot, Trump's share of votes is significantly larger when RFK Jr. isn't an option. This means that the independent's 2024 campaign could siphon off enough votes from Trump to push Biden over the edge in a close contest.
"That dynamic is consistent with two other polls — a Marist survey on Monday and a NBC News one on Sunday — that show Biden's margin increasing when RFK and other third party candidates are included," Axios reporter Hans Nichols wrote.
RFK Jr.'s appeal to Trump's base may be due to the conspiratorial tone of his campaign. Kennedy became well-known in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic as a vaccine skeptic. In the past, Kennedy has said he is personally "pro-vaccine" and that he's had all of his children vaccinated, but he sang a different tune on a 2021 podcast. CNN reported that in an episode of the "Health Freedom for Humanity" podcast, RFK Jr. encouraged parents to tell strangers to not vaccinate their kids.
"For many, many years, I think parents were so gaslighted, and they were scapegoated, and they were vilified and marginalized, so that even parents of kids who were very, very badly injured, knew what happened to their kid, but they were just reluctant to talk about it," he said. "And I think now those days are over."
Kennedy has also repeated Republican talking points about gun violence. In 2023, he told NewsNation that he viewed the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as reason to believe that gun control was a moot point, and added "I'm not going to take people's guns away."
"Anybody who tells you that they’re going to be able to reduce gun violence through gun control at this point I don’t think is being realistic," Kennedy said.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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With a net worth of nearly $20 billion, far-right media mogul Rupert Murdoch has deep enough pockets to settle with virtually any litigant — except one. And a failure to settle in this particular case could result in the 93-year-old being forced to testify under oath.
The Daily Beast recently reported that Prince Harry — also known as the Duke of Sussex — is still proceeding with his lawsuit against Murdoch over his alleged knowledge of a hacking and cover-up scandal involving News Group Newspapers (NGN), which is Murdoch's family of UK-based tabloids. Harry has so far refused to settle with Murdoch, meaning the suit could lead to a potentially humiliating public trial for Murdoch should plaintiffs prove he knew about illegal hacking practices.
"If true, these allegations would establish very serious, deliberate wrongdoing at NGN, conducted on an institutional basis on a large scale," presiding judge Mr. Justice Fancourt (the stylized title of English High Court judge Sir Timothy Fancourt) said. He added that proceedings could "establish a concerted effort to conceal wrongdoing."
Beast correspondent Clive Irving reported last year on the depth of the cover-up at former NGN publication News of the World, which Harry's lawyers uncovered during the discovery process. The Duke of Sussex's attorneys found that "[NGN] executives had wiped a trail of emails, destroyed hard drives and removed many boxes full of documents" relating to the hacking scandal.
The same lawyers representing Prince Harry in the suit also represented actor Hugh Grant, who, unlike Harry, settled out of court for what he referred to as an "enormous sum" with NGN. He emphasized that he "would love to see all the allegations they deny tested in court." However, he added that "the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides."
"Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive," Grant said. "So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence."
Harry's refusal to settle with Murdoch's tabloid empire could be a deliberate attempt to force the media mogul to testify, as the British royal has previously agreed to settle other lawsuits with publications involved in the hacking scandal. The Associated Press (AP) reported in February that Prince Harry settled with Mirror Group Newspapers over its own hacking practices.
"Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when scoop-hungry journalists regularly phoned the numbers of royals, celebrities, politicians and sports stars and, when prompted to leave a message, punched in default passcodes to eavesdrop on voicemails," the AP explained. "The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was revealed to have intercepted messages of a murdered girl, relatives of dead soldiers and victims of a bombing. Murdoch closed the paper, and a former News of the World editor was jailed."
Prince Harry's lawsuit may not be the only one that results in a public trial with Murdoch on the witness stand. Earlier this year, a judge allowed voting software company Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News to proceed, which is now in the discovery process. While Fox News was able to settle with Dominion Voting Systems last year for $787 million, Smartmatic attorney Erik Connolly said in 2023 he is "looking to take this case through trial" and that his clients want "the vindication of a jury verdict in their favor."
"We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025," a Fox News spokesperson said last year.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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