Summary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused Bernie Sanders of taking millions from Big Pharma during a heated exchange, but Sanders refuted the claim, stating his donations came from workers, not corporate PACs.

Kennedy repeatedly insisted Sanders was the top recipient of pharmaceutical money in 2020, but financial data shows no corporate PAC contributions to Sanders.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has profited from anti-vaccine activism, earning millions from lawsuits and speaking fees.

The debate ended without Kennedy answering whether he would guarantee health care for all as HHS secretary.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    Questioning Sanders’ integrity would be the last thing I’d want to do; especially if I were as ill-advised as RFK.

    • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
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      23 days ago

      RFK believes that he is above reproach. He is the delusional you get when you are born into massive wealth and privilege and think that you personally hit a home run. Completely surrounded by yes men his entire life. Trumpesk even.

          • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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            22 days ago

            You should, or the point you make is we shouldn’t listen to your point because you are barely literate 🤷?

            Any machine you can write a lemmy comment on can also spell check. Not checking means you don’t give a shit about what you write, so why should anyone else?

            • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
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              22 days ago

              Point out the flaw in my argument? The whole point of writing is communication. If my message is received it did its job. I especially don’t give a shit about spelling on here because this is an anonymous account that I just shoot the breeze from.

              But on a larger point codified grammar, spelling, etc are all just class signifiers that have literally nothing to do with clear communication or intelligence. Language is fluid by its very nature and spelling is as well. It behooves the reader to ignore things you find unintelligent based on superficial nonsense. Trying to understand a writers point based on their arguments is a much better strategy.

              • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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                21 days ago

                None of what you say is untrue, but if you don’t conform to codified grammar, then you’ll get harangued by a bunch of grammar apes that freak out as soon as you misspell something relatively minor, like -esque to -esk. Or you’ll even just find yourself getting hit with a bunch of clarifying questions about what your specific spelling actually was. So oftentimes it’s actually more fluid, and more clear, to use language that’s more codified.

              • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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                22 days ago

                No no no.

                I didn’t read your comment or your argument. I won’t because I don’t give a shit for one, and for two if you don’t give a shit enough to proofread it it’s obviously not worth the time.

                You can descriptive grammar yourself right to the downvotes and don’t give a shit pile. Sorry bout ya. It’s “dumbesk”.

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Yes, and in my personal experience, I’ve found people who feel they are never wrong to be the most uninformed and unintelligent of all people. It’s so sad that these people also are the ones that somehow rise to power and influence.

      • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        We really need to stop thinking the Kennedy family are in any way special other than Joe who IRL is a nice guy who tries to stop people from freezing to death.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          Yep one should never generalize anything that broad. Joe and maybe caroline. She at least sees the writing on the wall and has no desire to get involved with politics. Just living her own life

            • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              I can’t say I know a ton about her either. But I seem to remember in the early aughts there were some pushing for her to get involved in politics. And I know she’s come out against Robert Jr etc. And that’s at least two decent decisions. But Joe definitely sounds like a pretty stand-up guy.

    • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      We’re talking about a guy who, I shit you not. picked up roadkill – specifically a dead bear – and kept it in his car all day. He was planning on eating it but got busy. Eventually, it ceased to be fresh enough even for his palate so he decided to dump it in central park. He staged it with an old bike he had in his car so that it looked like a bicyclist rode into it and killed it. This is the quality of decision making we’re talking about here.

      • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        One thing I really do not understand. How can a bear be roadkill? What does your car look like after you hit a bear?

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              One of the companies that makes bullbars is called Ranch Hand.

              This is massively off topic, but the subject never comes up. I wonder if I could trouble you for independent confirmation that their logo looks like a Ferengi.

            • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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              21 days ago

              I dunno, I tend to see that shit way more often on lifted pavement princess f-150’s and dodge rams than on, say, your classic rural 1990’s nissan shitbox truck, or your classic ford ranger. Though the lines do become blurred, when your private ranchers are naturally also multi-millionaires. In any case, bullbars are somewhat sensible maybe for encountering, say, a bull, or if you’re a police vehicle with a specific application, but more generally they’re horrible for ensuring pedestrian safety, ensuring crash safety when met with a stationary barrier like a bollard or a tree or a concrete barricade, or a storefront, and they’re obviously much worse in a crash with any other car. There are bullbars which try to get around these issues with more thoughtful integration with the frame of the car or the choice of material, but the vast majority I’ve seen are just tube steel.

              • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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                21 days ago

                Huh? I said they’re somewhat common in rural areas. Pavement princesses are also common in rural areas. But I also see bull bars on Jeeps, SUVs, etc. so I wouldn’t automatically associate them with the pavement princess crowd.

                You mention ranchers and police, but didn’t mention anything about large wildlife which is what this thread is about. Not sure what pedestrian safety has to do with it, but it think it’s obvious from looking at them that a plastic bumper would hurt less.

                • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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                  21 days ago

                  My point is only that bull bars sort of, have a different cultural association and collective cost-benefit than, say, cowcatchers on rural freight rail, and my only point in pointing that out, is really just to sort of, educate people about a series of fun facts, or things they may not have previously considered very much. i.e. if you live in suburbia, or if you find yourself driving to walmart once or twice a week, you should maybe not have bull bars on your car. Sort of also plays into the idea of like, larger cars, or even lifted cars, being overly tall in their hood height, meaning they’ll dump most pedestrians face flat onto the ground and potentially under the car, rather than tipping them onto the hood of the vehicle, and bull bars can serve to potentially exacerbate that problem. Which also ties into the jeeps and SUVs thing. I dunno.

                  Ranchers were sort of who I was thinking of when I was thinking of someone who would be extremely rural, and who on occasion will commute into a probably very small town with only one or two big box stores, gas stations, maybe a motel 6, and other highway-exit popups. There’s not much out in the boonies outside of agriculture, and like, maybe forestry or things of that nature.

                  There’s sort of, a weird kind of stereotyping around rurality on the internet, where it’s all seen as being sort of, extreme poverty, or, people living entirely disconnected from society, maybe working occasionally for some soulless big corporate farm that has no local upper management, and so everything there is sort of, supposed to be put upon, but also be noble in poverty, and be authentic, agreeable, and agree with me in all the ways that matter, especially politically. That’s the sort of like, idiot stereotype of rurality. That wealth gap is real, sure, you’ll drive through and see a bunch of millionaire plots of land flanked by like, random trailers that haven’t really been updated or maintained since the 70’s, that part is true enough. But basically, the idea that small trucks are the true sign of the working class ranchhand, and the large truck is always, always, some sort of like, pavement princess owned by an IT worker in san-francisco, that’s obviously false, and people don’t think about it at all. Obviously things aren’t as clear cut, plenty of people working what are otherwise blue collar jobs have big trucks, live in actual rurality, and have an at least somewhat justified reason for owning the kinds of vehicles they own.

                  I dunno, I’m just, making a lot of conversation, you know? I saw bull bars brought up and I decided to bring up more shit about them. Cultural context, pedestrian safety, shit like that.

        • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          Depends on the kind of bear. A black bear cub like this would be like hitting a dog, I suspect. An adult would fuck your car up good.

          • teft@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            Black bears in general aren’t very big bears. They weigh about 100 kilos on average and are about the height of a person if they are standing but only a meter tall on all fours. I’ve ran across them a few times while out hunting deer and it always surprises me how small they are.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        so that it looked like a bicyclist rode into it and killed it

        That’s how the Internet still helps my mental health sometimes.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    “And by the way, Bernie, the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies. It’s in Congress too,” Kennedy said. “Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”

    “Oh, no, no, no, no,” Sanders said, raising his hand to quiet the applause that erupted from the gallery. “I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives; not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry. They came from the workers.”

    RFK just kept saying it over and over again like Sanders didn’t address it. 1.5 million of the 200 million raised for his presidential campaign came from health care workers. And he still didn’t answer the question, only for Sanders to be told he’s battering the witness.

    Fucking hate this time line.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Keep saying it as if it was never addressed because that’s what works.

      If you say something enough times it is reality to the majority of the voter base in the US.

      If you ignore all refutes logic or facts and simply steam ahead with your word being the only right word then that will become reality

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      RFK just kept saying it over and over again like Sanders didn’t address it.

      Sanders is used to this sort of treatment. Though not from Republicans.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      22 days ago

      Yup. When I make a donation, one of the lines is “Who do you work for?” But just because I donated doesn’t mean my employer or business category were the ones donating.

  • Veedem@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    Sanders is one person that I wouldn’t question the integrity of. Malicious dopes, would, but I wouldn’t.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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    22 days ago

    Could they take any other photo of him for the article? They are ridiculing him, making him look like an angry old monkey, completely in the line with what this Corpsefucker Jr wanted to achieve. With Musk suing Waltz for a sieg heil callout at the same time, I believe, it’s a planned crusade against the last two guys who could have got everyone’s respect if not support, and both attacks look nothing like boxing, but more like pissing down from the top of the ladder while having an idiotic laughter and cheering oneself for how it’s top comedy. They may not feel threatened by these two old white dudes with a stellar rep, but they want to hammer everything that’s left on the table and still moving.

    And, well, the more infuriating thing than what these inbreds do is that they don’t target Harris, because since the failed elections she is nowhere to be seen after being a VP and nearly a president, and that just shows how bad of the pick she was if even Bush Jr of all people had a media coverage, and she just didn’t.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      22 days ago

      What the fuck do you want Harris to do? She’s not President, Donald Trump is President. A big reason for that is people constantly needing to blame Democrats for everything. You got it so bad you’re right now blaming an unemployed Democrat for the bad things that are happening while the GOP is controlling all branches of government.

      The bad things that are happening are because people didn’t vote for Harris. If you didn’t vote for Harris, you’re a part of the reason why bad things are happening. She ran a good campaign, was obviously the better choice for President, but not enough people voted for her because they’re stupid. You have the government the American people voted for, or allowed to happen by not voting.

      • witten@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        A big reason for that is people constantly needing to blame Democrats for everything.

        Yeah those people blaming Democrats are everywhere… even in your comment!

        If you didn’t vote for Harris, you’re a part of the reason why bad things are happening.

      • iamtrashman1312@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Small point of order here; Harris ran a terrible campaign. Her campaign was, in fact, so bad that she did not win the election. Many people that voted for her did so entirely due to her being the person the Democrats put to oppose Trump as opposed to any enthusiasm for or belief in her. I would hazard a guess and say more than half of her voters were of those ilk.

        I don’t think anyone that wasn’t actively part of planning the Dem campaign thinks it was done well. I have not met or spoken with such a person. Do you sincerely think she ran a good campaign? Why?

        • Kage520@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          Her campaign was… Fine. It could have used more things like podcasts and such, but I don’t know that could have gotten her what she needed. Her issues were more that the media was stacked against her, and we had insane voter suppression this time around. If she had maybe 6 months instead of 3 to get her name out there, maybe her traditional methods could have worked. She was packing out the venues she was visiting, so there was excitement for her.

          She just couldn’t compete with the entire media and voter suppression.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    It’s silly to think Bernie is corrupt, you can’t be corrupt if you don’t have any power.

  • sumguyonline@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    It’s so badly obvious, Trumps whole team is still using the “alternate truths” platform. Accuse the otherside of doing what you are actually guilty of doing. Sanders is pretty transparent about his elections and actions, the only thing he isn’t transparent about… Using the same coat! The man bought 1 and was given 1 of the exact same winter coats… That’s right! 2 coats!!! 2 coats hanging in a house of LIES!

        • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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          21 days ago

          Oh my god, imagine being you, thinking you’ve got it all figured out and smugly laying it out in the most laughable way against maybe the most lefty, grassroots senator in Congress. It reads as so mind numbingly dumb. It’s exhausting just to read it.

          You “ain’t got no” reasonable perspective here my friend. I don’t know what I would expect from someone who typos their own username though. Whatever that expectation should be, you came up short.

          Edit: Americans are awake, and feel attacked XD.