#rfk jr can’t speak

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

These hearings going on now and RFK is trembling, shaking, stuttering, and flailing as he is being ripped to shreds. Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders are on fire exposing this fraud. He has an arrangement where he gets a cut of any successful lawsuit against medical companies and under questioning from Warren he refused to say he would stop profiting in this unscrupulous manner.

There’s something wrong with this guy that’s not being shared. The way he’s physically and audibly flailing is indicative of a serious medical condition. This man is grossly unqualified, deranged, and mentally ill. Decades of lifelong drug addiction have taken its toll. He makes Ozzy Osborne look like a model of good health.

👆

[mariacallous]

TEL AVIV — Ilana Decker, who moved from Israel to New York three years ago, says she doesn’t agree often with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Arguing, as he does, that the government should not make health mandates, she said, makes her “sound like an anti-vaxxer, which I’m not.”

But there is one issue, she said, where she and Kennedy do line up: The man whom Donald Trump has picked as the next secretary of health and human services has publicly floated ending the decades-long policy of encouraging cities to inject fluoride into the American water supply.

Decker supports the change — and she’s speaking from personal experience: Her former home, Israel, stopped fluoridating its water a decade ago.

“I hate to align with RFK Jr. in any way, shape, or form, but I really do agree that it should not be in the water,” she said. Citing concerns about the risk to children, she even switched her 4-year-old to fluoride-free toothpaste, though she didn’t rule out its use fully.

“I have a deep distrust in the government taking away individual health choices ‘for our own good,’” Decker said. “I can use toothpaste with fluoride, but I can’t decide to not drink the water coming out of my faucet.”

The nomination of Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist and harsh critic of government health agencies, has cast a spotlight on debates over the role the government should play in public health — and over the degree to which mounting distrust in science should guide policy-making.

Fluoridation offers a case study in those debates. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fluoridation in water has been shown to reduce cavities in children and adults by about 25% over a lifetime, with the organization dubbing it “one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”

Critics of fluoridation point to studies showing that very high levels of the mineral — beyond what is normally present in fluoridated water — are associated with developmental problems in children; they also cite an array of conspiracy theories, including that the government is seeking to control citizens through fluoride use.

Kennedy has called fluoride “an industrial waste” and “dangerous neurotoxin” and said that he would seek to end fluoridation on “day one” after taking office. (Water is managed locally, so the federal government can only advise and incentivize changes.) As with vaccines, he has said the use of fluoride should be up to individuals, not the government.

“I think fluoride is on its way out,” he said on NBC News shortly after Trump’s election last month. “I think the faster that it goes out, the better.”

Those same debates lay at the root of the decision in 2013 by Israel’s health minister to end water fluoridation. Now, Israel’s policy change could act as a case study for how defluoridation could affect Americans. And the discourse is ongoing, with Israeli public health experts and some parents agitating for fluoride to be reinserted in the water — citing worsening dental outcomes for children — at the very moment when the United States may move in the opposite direction.

“The success of water fluoridation serves as a beacon for public health in general, and by extension, opposition to it should serve as a warning,” said Shlomo Zusman, who served as Israel’s chief dental officer for over two decades and was a vocal critic of the 2014 policy change.

He said modern water purification methods mean that fluoridation is far from the only way the modern water supply is altered. In addition, he noted that because 75% of Israel’s potable water is desalinated, it has no natural fluoride levels at all.

“The idea that water without added fluoride is ‘natural,’ as if it comes straight from a spring, is mistaken – there’s no such thing, it’s all manipulated,” he said. Referring to a story in the Bible, he added, “The days of Rachel pumping water from the well are long gone.”

Israel began mandating fluoridation in nearly all municipalities decades ago, following the first local American fluoridation efforts. An Israeli Health Ministry webpage calls fluoridation “the most efficient, safest, simplest, cheapest, and most equal measure, by a significant margin, among all methods for preventing dental diseases in the general public.”

But in 2013, the health minister, Yael German, pledged to stop requiring fluoridation the following year, citing unnamed doctors who she said had personally told her that fluoridation presents risks to pregnant women, people with thyroid problems and the elderly. Like Kennedy and his followers, she also cited the importance of individual choice.

“All things considered, and balancing all the interests, I feel that continued massive fluoridation of 100% of the water was an incorrect act,” German wrote to an association of pediatricians that was one of several groups to publicly oppose her plan. “And many even believe it infringes on fundamental rights and freedom of choice.”

The government that succeeded German’s term in office pledged to reintroduce fluoride — prompting legal action from German — but it has not been mandated again in Israel.

Since discontinuing fluoride in tap water, Israeli dentists have observed a significant rise in children’s cavities and have urged its reinstatement, even as some parents remain firmly against the idea.

A study published in September found a significant increase in dental restorations and crowns among Israeli children ages 3 to 5, attributing the rise to fluoride’s absence. The researchers, from the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine, concluded that the results provided “further proof of the need to restore community water fluoridation in Israel.”

Another study, published in January 2022, analyzed six years of data from dental clinics affiliated with a national Israeli healthcare network, showing that children ages 3 to 12 required nearly double the number of restorative treatments compared to before fluoridation ended. Researchers emphasized that even Israel’s expansion of free dental care for all children failed to offset the worsening dental health.

With fluoridation the subject of widespread misinformation as well as ongoing research, Israel is not the only place to adjust its approach over time. Juneau, Alaska, saw pediatric dental health worsen after eliminating fluoride in 2007, according to a study that examined the cost and frequency of dental treatment for poor children. So did the Canadian city of Calgary, which recorded higher rates of cavity-related treatments under general anesthesia among children after it stopped adding fluoride to its water in 2011. Calgary has now decided to resume fluoridation. But dozens of municipalities across the United States have moved away from fluoride use in recent years, including some whose voters made the choice on Election Day last month.

Most of Europe, meanwhile, has either dropped fluoridation or never introduced it in drinking water. Many of those countries offer fluoridated salt and milk, mitigating the potential costs of not including the mineral in water.

Not everyone in Israel is convinced that reintroducing fluoride is a good idea. In one Israeli mothers’ group on Facebook, several women posited that the country’s cavity epidemic has less to do with the absence of fluoride in water and more to do with poor hygiene habits and children’s consumption of sweets and sugary snacks.

“Kids subsisting on white bread and chocolate spread isn’t helping,” wrote one, naming a popular Israeli snack.

Another, who identified herself as a teacher with 25 years of experience, agreed that there has been a significant decline in nutrition.

“I can say with 100% certainty that children’s diets have deteriorated immensely and it just so happens to coincide with the removal of fluoride,” she said.

Several cited a recent study from the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program that suggests that high levels of fluoride exposure may be linked to lower IQ in children. The report does not question the dental health benefits of fluoride.

The program reviewed more than 500 studies over nearly a decade and concluded with “moderate confidence” that fluoride exposure at concentrations above 1.5 parts per million is associated with reduced cognitive development in children. But the study, which drew criticism from the American Academy of Pediatrics, also noted that that number was far above the recommended fluoride level in U.S. drinking water of 0.7 parts per million.

Another study from May of this year found that prenatal exposure to fluoride was linked to behavioral problems, with children of mothers in areas with higher fluoride concentrations showing symptoms of autism, anxiety and other disorders by age 3, though the authors stopped short of establishing causation.

Zusman dismissed many of the concerns about health risks as a fad.

“There was a time when they claimed fluoridation caused hip fractures, then cancer, and later stunted growth in boys” caused by osteosarcoma, he said. “Now the fashion is ADHD and IQ, so they blame fluoridation on that.”

He said that just like parents who oppose fluoridation, the issue is personal to him, too.

“Believe me, if there were serious, professional studies showing harm, I’d be the first to say, stop fluoridating the water,” he said. “I have eight grandchildren to think of.”

[jangillman]

Posted by Wisconsin Right Now on FB...

I'm not sure who is going to win this, but I’d rather be #Trump right now than #HarrisWalz because he’s peaking at the right time, and the issues people rank highest (economy, border) favor him. He’s surging and it feels like she’s cratering.

But the Democrats have made so many mistakes this election season. James Carville can rant and rave all he wants, but that’s just a fact. The key mistakes include:

-Not reaching out to #Elon Musk, and instead unfairly villainizing a guy with $240B and making it clear that this election will be existential for him personally;

-Charging Trump criminally with a series of novel legal theories that pushed the envelope of the law. If you’re going to go after the king, you better not miss or he gets stronger and, in this case, they turned him into a martyr and the well-worn Hollywood archetype of the underdog fighting the system and elites. People don’t like it when people don’t play fair and criminally charging your political opponent over 94 (or whatever) half-baked accusations (at best) was not playing fair;

-Not admitting Biden’s severe cognitive issues earlier so there could be a competitive primary on the Democratic side rather than foisting an untested and clearly unserious VP on voters. They would have been better off choosing a nominee who could run against the Biden-Harris administration’s worst policies and promise a new course (probably a governor). Harris has had the unenviably impossible task of promising a new future when she’s part of the current administration. Minimally when the Hur report came out, they should have bailed on Biden. She can’t plausibly separate herself from Biden enough no matter how hard she tries.

-Choosing Walz as VP because Josh Shapiro wasn’t acceptable to the pro Gaza wing.

-Not ensuring Trump had adequate and effective secret service protection. The near misses of the 2 assassins (especially the first one) turned him into the aforementioned archetype all the more. And it was just wrong.

-Not reaching out to black and Hispanic male voters until the last minute, at which point it seems pandering and desperate. Having no plan to reach out to men, period, until the last minute and instead emphasizing the gender gap (ie turning Kamala into Hillary 2.0, pantsuit and all, talking about “reimagining masculinity,” the girls’ sports issue etc);

-Not giving even the slightest nod to parental rights. They’re underestimating the power of that issue.

-Not reaching out to RFK Jr and bringing him back into the fold (all they had to do was care about children’s health) and instead trying to destroy him through undemocratic lawfare and insults;

-Putting Harris on the media circuit after the debate. She’s clearly not up to it. As pathetic as it is, they would have been better off keeping her in bubble wrap.

All that being said, it’s amazing they’re still in it. And really the biggest challenge for them - all of the above aside - is the core fact that people believe they were better off four years ago. That’s “event memory” so to speak. No matter what you tell people in ads about their own lives, they know what they pay for groceries.

I miss anything? #trump #breaking #ElectionDay #Wisconsin

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Extremist commentator Christiane Northrup has promoted a pro-Nazi film that denies the Holocaust, encouraged people to check out the infamous antisemitic tract Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory that a secretive mafia is hiding behind Jewish identity to control world events. Still, Northrup has spoken twice at Trump’s Miami resort alongside Eric and Lara Trump and been featured in a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign video.  Northrup is a former OBGYN who initially gained fame as a self-help author who was praised by Oprah Winfrey. Since then, as The Washington Post reported in May 2022, Northrup has claimed COVID-19 “was part of a plot involving Deep State brainwashing and treacherous depopulation schemes” and she “encouraged fans to check out QAnon, called the Centers for Disease Control a ‘covid death cult,’ and described the vaccines as crimes against humanity.”  Northrup is listed as a “featured” speaker on the pro-Trump ReAwaken America Tour. She, along with Eric and Lara Trump — now the co-chair of the Republican National Committee — appeared on the tour’s stops at Trump Doral in Miami, Florida, in May and October 2023.

A poster for the tour’s next stop in Selma, North Carolina, in October lists Northrup, Eric Trump, and Lara Trump as scheduled speakers.  The tour has become a magnet for Hitler-promoting antisemites. Including Northrup, Media Matters has now identified at least five speakers who have shared antisemitic and pro-Hitler material. 

[...] Northrup has also repeatedly appeared on programs hosted by Children’s Health Defense — the conspiratorial group founded by Kennedy — and spoke at a 2021 anti-vaccine rally that was headlined by Kennedy.  Additionally, Kennedy’s book The Real Anthony Fauci touts a blurb from Northrup on its Skyhorse Publishing page. (Skyhorse is run by Kennedy ally Tony Lyons.)  Northrup has offered praise of both Trump and Kennedy. In May, for instance, Northrup said that she “can’t prove it" but her "opinion is that Trump and RFK Jr. are working together somehow behind the scenes to take down this entire satanic agenda.” 

ReAwaken America Tour loves to have fervent antisemites speak at their events, and anti-vaxxer extremist “Dr”. Christiane Northrup is the latest to be exposed.

[ailtrahq]

Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expressed his clear stance on figures such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.What Happened: Kennedy Jr. in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine published on Wednesday vowed to pardon them on his first day in office if elected as president. Additionally, he expressed interest in reviewing the case of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, to determine the fairness of his conviction and sentence.Former Central Intelligence Agency contractor Edward Snowden, a self-proclaimed whistleblower, as well as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, have been pursued by the U.S. government for years over accusations they leaked confidential and sensitive information.Kennedy Jr. stated, “Yeah, I will pardon Julian Assange on day one, and probably Snowden as well. And I will look at other cases… I’m gonna look at Ross Ulbricht's case, to see if he was justly convicted, or if he was being made an example of in order to discourage, you know, Bitcoin or the industry.”Ulbricht is serving a double life sentence for his role in creating the Silk Road marketplace on the dark web that allowed users to purchase almost anything, including illegal substances, with Bitcoin. The Silk Road website was created in 2011 and was eventually shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013.Kennedy Jr.’s interest in Bitcoin stems from witnessing the trucker strike and the government’s response to peaceful demonstrations. He explained, “I understood that we need a currency that is a freedom currency… independent and that can’t be controlled by the government.”When asked about concerns regarding government influence or restrictions on Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining, RFK Jr. expressed his worry about government attacks on the cryptocurrency. "I’m very concerned about all the government attacks on Bitcoin. You know, what I would like to do is to at least provide some issuance of treasury bills, that it’s backed by hard currency.He proposed issuing treasury bills backed by hard assets, including Bitcoin, platinum, gold, and silver, to provide greater stability and independence from government control.Will The SEC Finally Approve Long-Awaited Bitcoin Spot ETF? secure early bird discounted tickets now!A Stay At The Floating Palace From James Bond's ‘OctopussyWhy It Matters: However, he made it clear that he opposes central bank digital currencies, fearing they would become instruments of power and control, giving the government complete authority over people’s lives. He specifically mentioned events in China, where digital currencies were tied to social credit systems and obedience to government mandates.Kennedy Jr. continued, “I’m gonna make sure that Bitcoin is protected, that people can get their own wallets… and the current White House war on Bitcoin will be over. And I’ll look ultimately at treating it as a currency rather than a commodity, particularly for smaller Bitcoin owners.”Although Jr. provided a general direction for his approach, he acknowledged the need to consult with experts and industry specialists, such as Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones, to develop the best strategies that uphold individual freedoms and promote the reindustrialization of America, benefiting working Americans.He has publicly declared his support for Bitcoin. "I bought two Bitcoin for each of my seven children," Kennedy disclosed during an interview in July. He made this investment shortly after speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in May. Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $27,362.22, down 0.86% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro. Here’s How Much You Should Invest In Shiba Inu Today For A $1M Payday If SHIB Hits 1 Cent?

[emmabeverage]

DNC Fraud Lawsuit Lawyers SPEAK OUT! Why Marianne & RFK Jr. Can't WIN (I...

This country lost it’s government long before they murdered JFK, they just quit trying so hard to hide that fact from the public after they openly killed off all the leaders of that time. We have a murderous fascist mafia pretending to be a government. They will control you and scam you out of your money as long as you will let them. By the way that is real fascist as in Hitler fascist.

[jasontoddsmommyissues]

To add to this I want to clarify: this narrative that not voting for Kamala is the trade off for helping Palestinians is a big fat lie. Let’s get a few things straight here: Someone will win this election. Most third party candidates have trouble even getting certified to be on the ballot in every state let alone winning an election. Also, your choices are like Jill Stein who is a Russian asset and RFK Jr who literally had part of his brain eaten by a worm, so it’s not like they’re the kind of people you want in charge anyway. So, realistically, the only two outcomes are Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Historically speaking, the democrats do better with higher voter turnouts. That’s how Trump got into power in the first place. It’s not that a majority of people wanted Trump to win, it’s that too many of people on the opposing side weren’t willing to support Hilary. So if you as a non-Trump supporter don’t vote or vote third party, you are essentially granting Trump a vote. Because for every one of you oh so passionate leftists who can’t stomach voting for Kamala, there’s an insane Trump supporter who is gunning to get to the polls and vote for Glorious Leader Trump.

So, again, practically speaking, either Kamala or Trump will win, and if you choose not to vote, you are actively increasing the odds that Trump wins. So that leaves you with two options: live under Kamala or live under Trump. Now, you say you’re not willing to support Kamala Harris because of her policies on Palestine, and in your minds it’s worth sacrificing the rights of us marginalized Americans in order to free Palestine. But here’s the thing: Trump? He’s going to be even worse about Palestine. He is friends with fucking Netanyahu. He has talked about helping Israel “finish the job”. And I know in your minds we have to get to the absolute breaking point to foment this magical “revolution” that will fix everything. But here’s the thing: while things are worsening here, they’re also going to be getting worse for Palestine, and probably at a much faster rate. By the time we have this revolution, depose Trump and get a new government set up, it will likely be too late for the people of Palestine. On top of that, Trump has consistently shown to be extremely Islamophobic, and it showed in his rhetoric and policy. So, by letting Trump win, not only are the people in Palestine going to be suffering, the Palestinians who live here will also suffer (on top of that, good luck getting Trump to let in Palestinian refugees). If you are sacrificing the rights of us Americans for the “revolution”, you are also sacrificing the rights of Palestinians both at home and abroad. If you think the trade off is worth it, fine, but don’t pretend you’re doing it for Palestine. If you truly cared, you’d want to make sure Trump isn’t given access to the US military again.

This whole Kamala Harris debacle has shown me how many leftist talking points are coming from privileged people whose only connection to politics is the (usually surface level) theory they’ve looked up.

[bdj4kennedy]

AFTER BOBBY!

I can only imagine what it must of been like waking up the morning after June 5,1968.The air seemed thin waking from a terrible nightmare that you hoped didn’t happen.You go downstairs get a cup of coffee and then go outside and get your morning newspaper.And there you realize it wasn’t a nightmare for the front page read-ROBERT KENNEDY DEAD!

Nothing hit harder.

At that moment the country’s hopes seemed to rely on Kennedy’s election yet like his brother President John F.Kennedy and Dr.Martin Luther King Jr fate robbed him too.

For Senator Robert Kennedy had just figured out who he was and what he stood for-what he believed in.For he was trying to bring people together.Heal the nation.For a long time he kept hearing the whisper of his brother,”You have to decide who you are a politician or a leader.”

And perhaps he felt the shadow too,the burdens of his brother’s legacy.But the whisper kept telling him,”It’s not about me-not anymore!”

I recall reading the ending of a book on Robert Kennedy where his friend Jose Torres I believe his name was stood at RFK’s grave the night they buried him.He swore he could hear Bobby’s voice saying,”I tried Jose.But don’t worry someone will come.I know it I believe it.”It made him feel a little better.

But after Bobby the Democratic party changed far worse than the country did.It seemed rational men was replaced with irrational men,radical hateful men.No one would see right.They would just cling to their politics and special interests feeling the need power was more important than purpose.And in the process whether they knew or not kept people in poverty and kept division within the United States.

I am not convinced it will stay like this because good men need to appear regardless of party.There is another Bobby out there that believes in equality and the best of all Americans,on all sides.And who believes the hate that is displaying in America today whether it be for President Trump or someone else is no better than the hate that was displaying in the 1960s.

But I am convinced one thing will happen either we will emerge from this hate and remember who we are or hate if ignored will consume us and we will fall like Rome and never again know freedom’s blessings.

Those in the Democratic party that have #Walkaway it is the only beginning of the end if they don’t wake up to the deceit that’s taking them over.And remember once again the party that inspired idealism,inspired motivation to get things done.Debates like reasonable and rational and dynamic men.

For they must know you can’t honor an eternal flame and then keep blowing it out by hate and indifference.Either ideas live on or they don’t.And I think the party of Robert and John Kennedy died the minute they decided to turn away from those ideals.

Sen.Kennedy said this after his brother died.”What happens to this country,to this world depends on what we do with what others have left us.”It seems what the Kennedy brothers left us,what Dr.King left us and others who taught us to see the shiny city in America,the equality of brotherhood of all Americans matters and must always keep together.

But today it seems it doesn’t matter as it should.It’s I don’t care that’s affecting our vision.All lives matter,black lives,white lives,illegal or legal citizens,Asians,Muslims,Mexicans and all lives,but the way we act towards one another does it really matter?We need to reexamine our attitudes.

After Bobby the new frontiers,the dream so to speak doesn’t seem to be out there.And we can blame history,we can make excuses but I refuse to believe they no longer exist,there still out there.We know we have heroes,yet do we know we have pioneers?

NASA is an example of pioneers.In science and explorations to the stars.So I think in the final analysis is that if we remember who we are we’ll remember all of this and that we need to do as Bobby Kennedy said to do-make an effort.To tame the savageness of man and bring gentle of the life of this world.Til we do the chaos will continue.And we can be better than that.

[opedguy]

Sirhan Sirhan Granted Parole

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Aug. 27, 2021.--Granting parole to the 77-year-old assassin of former U.S. Atty. Gen. and Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, a two-person panel recommended releasing Sirhan after hearing testimony from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Douglas Kennedy two of RFK’s living sons.  Both Robert and Doug backed releasing Sirhan for different reasons. Robert said he wasn’t certain the Sirhan Sirhan actually pulled the trigger that killed his father June 6, 1968 at the now defunct Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  Sirhan Sirhan faced 16 parole hearings over his 53 years in prison, all of which failed to win him parole.  Sirhan’s release is not a done deal after the two-member panel urged his release be reviewed over the next 90 days by the full parole board.  If the parole board agrees with the two-person panel, it will then go to Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom—or someone wko replaces him--for final his approval.   Reasons given in the past 16 parole hearings reflected 

Sirhan Sirhan’s lack of remorse for killing the Democrat Party’s presumptive nominee in 1968.  Political assassinations care special circumstances for parolees as they present their cases for parole.  “I’m overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan’s face to face,” said Doug Kennedy.  “I think I’ve lived my life both in fear of him and his name in on way or another.  And  I am grateful today to see him as a human being worth of compassion and love,” Doug  said,  lending his approval to the assassin’s release.  Doug thinks Sirhan has remorse for killing his father but the 53-year inmate says he doesn’t remember killing Robert F. Kennedy.  Like 16 past parole boards’ found, it’s difficult for Sirahn to have remorse when he doesn’t recall killing RFK.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he doesn’t know if Sirhan actually killed his father.   

          Sirhan told the two-person panel that he would never do anything criminal again.  “ I would never put myself in jeopardy again,” Sirhan said.  “You have my pledge.  I will l will always look to safety and peace and non-violence,” saying all the rights things, except for the fact that he doesn’t admit to killing RFK. Sirhan’s statements, while appearing conciliatory, reflect questions bout his mental status.  Reports at the time of his trial revealed that he was schizophrenic, someone living in a delusional world, capable of committing new acts of violence.  “I would never put myself in jeopardy again,” Sirhan said, referring to what?  He says he doesn’t remember killing RFK, so how can he possibly say he wouldn’t put himself in “jeopardy again.”  Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton said he would consider all feedback before making any final recommendation to the governor.   

          Los Angeles County District Atty. George Gascon said he would not have a deputy district attorney speak to the parole board, believing it’s not his place to re-litigate the original case.  Gascon believes the parole board has more current information on which to make an informed decision on parole.  Sirhan, a Christian Palestinian, once told prosecutors, that he was angry about Bobby’s support of Israel.  While he doesn’t remember killing JFK at the Ambassador Hotel, he tells the parole panel, he wouldn’t put himself in “jeopardy again.”  What was Sirhan in jeopardy again if he has no recollection of the assassination?  Siran was asked by Barton at the parole hearing about the Mideast conflict.  Sirhan started sobbing and took time to compose himself.  “Take a few deep breaths,” Barton said.  Sirhan told Barton he doesn’t think about the conflict.  “The misery of those people are experiencing.  It’s painful,” said Sirhan.  

           So if he doesn’t pay attention to the Mideast conflict, why is he so emotional when it comes to the plight of refugees?  So again, there’s a disconnect between breaking down with emotion and saying he doesn’t pay attention to the Mideast conflict.  So if Sirhan doesn’t recall he killed RFK and doesn’t pay attention to the Mideast conflict, why did he break down in tears?  More evidence emerges that he suffers from either mental illness still, like what came out at his trial or some kind of dementia.  “We can’t change the past, but we was not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole,” said Sirhan’s attorney Angela Berry.  No, Sirhan was given the death penality because of the horrific special circumstance of political assassination.  Berry’s arguments were especially illogical, telling the two-member parole panel, that he deserves parole because he wasn’t given life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

            Whether or not capital punishment was outlawed in California in 1972, that’s no justification for parole in today’s hearing.  Parole board needs Sirhan evaluated for mental status because he makes zero sense.  Sirhan has told past parole hearings he remembers nothing about killing RFK but recalls going to a shooting range, visiting the hotel looking for a party and getting drunk on a Tom Collins.  He recalled drinking coffee in the Hotel pantry and talking with a woman with whom he was attracted.  Next he remembers being choked or held down.  He told his 2016 parole hearing he felt remorse for any crime victim but couldn’t take responsibility for the shooting.  When you ad up all Sirhan’s crazy statements, he doesn’t seem like someone you’d want released from prison.  Without a mental status evaluation, the parole board doesn’t know if he’s mentally ill or suffering from dementia.

 About the Author

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  

[mermaidsirennikita]

Have you seen the movie Jackie? What did you think of it?

This is about to get REAL nerdy up in here anon.  I had such a painfully obvious boner for Kennedy!history and legends for like... my last year of high school and most of freshman year of college that my mom gifted me with a first edition copy of Profiles in Courage by (but not rlly, he was too busy politicking to write a whole book) JFK for my birthday.  And like, that wasn’t even the only Kennedy-related birthday present I got that year.

I have seen it!  I think it could have been better as a story about Jackie and a Kennedy-oriented history fan (I hate myself for identifying with that) but as a movie it is a Work, imo.  And I mean that in a good way, there were bits of the movie where I was like yeah I’m watching something really intentionally artistic here and it’s pulling it off.

The thing is that while the movie is OVERALL accurate (I’ll expand on my criticisms of accuracy later lol) the history isn’t the point, aside from when it relates directly to our perception of Jackie vs. the Real Jackie, and though obviously I don’t know the woman and I wouldn’t say this movie covers her entire personality (it spans over just a few days, it can’t) it nails certain aspects of her that we don’t discuss often, imo.

Jackie is as iconic as Marilyn Monroe, exactly because she was the antithesis, or so it seemed, of Marilyn.  Marilyn was sex; Jackie was love (romantic love, maternal love, patriotic love).  Marilyn was dirty, but in a touchable way that made you want to touch her; Jackie was clean, but in a way that made you want to put her behind a pedestal and maybe never even get to know her because that might ruin the image you have in your head.  You don’t want her to be human.  You don’t want to fuck her.  You want to love her.

The thing is that just as with Marilyn, the image was really, mostly, a lie. Jackie actually had a lot in common with Marilyn--she probably wasn’t faithful to Jack, though he started it, I’m sure.  She struggled with loving a man who could never really open himself fully to her (Marilyn chased these types like craaaazy).  Hell, they both even had fertility issues (Jackie had multiple miscarriages and actually lost a two-day-old son less than a year before Jack died).  She was saddled with legacy, and like Marilyn she really couldn’t be herself.  Even their interviews, ESPECIALLY if you listen to them (as a MASSIVE DORK I really recommend listening to those, like, 18 hours of interviews with Jackie done after Jack died, which this movie definitely pulls from).  She was never as raw, imo, as she even is to the interviewer in the movie. More vulnerable than usual, maybe, but never Raw.  Like, the movie has her saw really honest shit and it’s probably what she was thinking but then she’s like--strike that from the record.  Imo, the real Jackie slipped up and struck things from the record, but she never slipped up and was as honest with a reporter as she is in the movie.

Listen, I’ve got issues with Natalie Portman, but she NAILS those aspects of Jackie Kennedy that the movie is interested in, and I don’t like her as a person but she was robbed of a second oscar tbh.  She wiped the floor with Emma Stone.  There is more nuance to a single scene of her in this movie (the one where she’s sort of drunkenly dancing about the white house, as one example) than Emma conveys in all of La La Land, case closed.

The Jackie in this movie is an inner part of Jackie that I am certain existed.  She’s constructing a legacy for Jack as soon as he dies, because he never got a chance to make that legacy for herself.  She understand the myth of this family, of her, and she’s making sure that the myth lives on because that’s all they’ll have.  He’ll never get to his second term, which some historians opine would have been much more groundbreaking than the first, as is often the case (first term presidents don’t want to offend because they’re thinking about reelection; second term presidents can lay it all out on the table).  She’s been indoctrinated into this myth of this family (and the movie never covers this, but she was apparently Joseph Kennedy Senior’s favorite daughter-in-law, and maybe he was just being a creep and thought she was hot but I think he recognized in her a similar ability to go along and play for the cameras that his wife possessed, except better--she elevated the family, the Bouvier blood was much bluer than that of the Kennedys at that time) but she’s also making it what she wants it to be, because this is her greatest act as First Lady.  As much as Jack and Joe Sr. and Bobby and Ted adored Jackie, she didn’t get along with the women of the family because I think tbh there was some intimidation going on within both sides and she never fit in, but damn, in this moment, she gets to MAKE the family.  

The movie also both embraces and shies away from Sentimental Jackie, which we so often see.  Jackie is usually either a bitch who didn’t really love her husband but is annoyed with his embarrassing infidelities and is in it for the glory, or a weepy messy who’s always on prescription drugs to dull the pain and going “Jaaaaaaack” whenever he comes home after fucking some lady.  This Jackie is ABSOLUTELY played as deeply in love with her husband, and in some ways more sure of his love for her than I think most fictionalized Jackies are, in a very period-appropriate way.  Sure, her husband has mistresses.  But he’s also a brilliant man  in her opinion, and he puts her on a pedestal and she’s the one he comes home to, she’s the First Lady, she’s the mother of his children, so...  The infidelities are painful, but not the end of the world.  There’s a line she says to a priest in possibly my favorite part of the movie where he sort of broaches another part of her pain they’ve only alluded to--the affairs.  And she fucking SNAPS, it’s one of the only times she really loses control, being like “I was the goddamn First Lady of the United States, don’t you dare pity me” and it’s GREAT.

Now.  If you’re looking for a biopic, this isn’t it.  It’s a study in grief (grief for a beloved husband, trauma over how he died which is very graphically portrayed, grief for everything that will never be) and a character study of Jackie.  The entire Kennedy story isn’t as delved into as it should have been.  And to be honest, the biggest gap here is Bobby Kennedy.  If you’re going to tell a story of Jackie Kennedy’s grief, you gotta feature more Bobby.  I mean lbr I’m fascinated with the relationship anyway, but they completely turned to each other immediately after Jack died.  Literally nobody else understood how they were feeling.  Jackie devoted her life to this man, giving up so much to make his dreams come true... and so did Bobby.  Shit, Bobby and Jackie could finish each other’s sentences, and both professionally and personally they were hugely codependent in the last years of Jack’s life.  And Bobby, like I said before, worshiped Jackie at one point in his life.  They were both into literature and poems (especially after Jack died, she got him into poetry to help him grieve) and they’d visit the graveside just them two.  Bobby’s first concern after Jack died was Jackie; he immediately took up a more paternal role with Caroline and JFK Jr.  But this wasn’t just because Jack died, they were genuinely best friends--when JFK was away on a yacht or something after Jackie’s first miscarriage, Bobby was in the hospital with her.  Whether they ever crossed that line is irrelevant; if you’re doing a good “Jackie grieves Jack” moment you have to have a good Bobby and vice versa.  This guy... has none of the literally insane grief Bobby had (people thought he was gonna lose it for real, including Jackie).  He isn’t as acquiescing to Jackie as he reportedly was irl after the shooting, and yes he did resist the massive funeral she wanted from what I’ve read, but this is played a bit less like Bobby Is Going Into Guilt-Driven Paranoia and Is Worried His Niece And Nephew Are Gonna Be Assassinated and more like... ooh, this man is trying to put Jackie down, but she’s gonna have a Feminist Moment and fight him on it.

It’s the one big weak point of the movie, ESPECIALLY SINCE HE ISN’T DOING THE ACCENT AAAAAGH THE ACCENT EMBODIES THE FAMILY LINGUISTS HAVE STUDIED IT AND IT’S SO INDIVIDUALIZED THAT NOBODY ELSE REALLY EVER HAD IT THAT’S HOW RICH AND “YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US” THEY WERE.  This is especially glaring because JFK doesn’t have an accent for his little speaking role either which could be fine bc he’s barely alive in the movie but theeeeeen Natalie is WRECKING the Jackie voice, she got it just right.  Like fuck, I know this is a Portman Project but you’d think someone would want to not phone it in and maybe get some best supporting actor noms because Bobby Kennedy is a meaty role.  Look at Barry Pepper, he was in a legit not great at all miniseries but he killed the role of Bobby and did the accent so well (and I admit Bobby’s is apparently harder to do bc his voice was also super distinct without the accent) and the awards just came rushing in.

Basically: this is a very, very good movie that should have won Natalie Portman an oscar, I think it got so much right about Jackie but it wasn’t quiiiiiite as fucking nerdy as I’d like.  Also, I say this as someone whose favorite Kennedy is very obviously RFK (he was shady AF like all of them but he had good ideas and was viciously effective when he wanted to be, tbh his assassination is one of the great “what could have beens” of American history imo).  But yeah, I think this is a really impressive, well-directed movie if not necessarily the movie I would have made about the family.   

[deadpresidents]

i have few questions 1.what your thought on ted Kennedy? do you think another Kennedy will be president ? 3. can a former president or former vice president run for mayor and win ? 4. can or will there ever be a vice or co mayor for a city ? 5. can former president run for president in different country ? or diffident position in Washington dc ?

1. As I’ve written before, while Ted Kennedy will never be remembered in the same way as JFK or RFK, I believe Ted Kennedy actually accomplished more tangible results for his Massachusetts constituents and the American people during his long Senate career than either of his brothers did in their respective careers. Of course, JFK and RFK were robbed of time by the assassins who killed them and cut their careers short, but Ted Kennedy’s work in the Senate affected more people in realistic ways on a day-to-day basis than his two brothers. I mean, Ted Kennedy’s Senate service lasted longer than the lives of JFK (46 years old) and RFK (42 years old), so I don’t think that there’s any doubt that he achieved more on behalf of the American people than his two iconic brothers.

2. It’s hard to say whether another Kennedy will be President. There aren’t many Kennedys in politics right now that seem like they have that potential, in my opinion. The Kennedy recently getting most of the attention politically has been RFK’s son, Chris Kennedy, who is running for Governor of Illinois in 2018. However, the only Kennedy in politics right now that intrigues me is Ted Kennedy, Jr., who is getting a pretty late start in electoral politics at the age of 55 and is just a Connecticut State Senator (and only since 2015), but I’ve been impressed any time I’ve seen him speak.

3. Is a former President or Vice President allowed to run for Mayor? They are allowed to run for anything they want as long as they meet that particular office’s eligibility requirements. The only eligibility restrictions that a former President or Vice President would face are the eligibility requirements for the Presidency and Vice Presidency. But serving as President or Vice President wouldn’t disqualify someone from any other political position.

4. I’m not sure what you’re asking there.

5. Like I said, a former President can run for whatever they want as long as they are eligible in that jurisdiction for that particular position. Being President doesn’t automatically disqualify someone from other jobs. It’s highly unlikely that a former President of the United States would run for President in another country, but there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit them from doing so. They’d have to meet the eligibility requirements of whatever country they might be seeking office in. Unfortunately, I don’t know the Presidential eligibility requirements for every other country in the world, so I can’t really give a definitive answer on that one. But I’ll say this again: a former two-term President would only be prohibited from running again for President or Vice President of the United States. It doesn’t prevent them from doing anything else.

5. I don’t know what that question is, either.  

[wisepodcast]

#22 - MAKE TODAY COUNT w/ Cooper Brunner & Kirsten McCallum

Today’s guests are Cooper Brunner & Kirsten McCallum, co-hosts of the Cooper Brunner Podcast. Cooper is a former college baseball player and fitness coach. Kirsten is a former college volleyball player and overcame two back surgeries to become a women’s physique competitor. We’re talking training, diet, and ways to MAKE TODAY COUNT with episode 22!

Episode Timestamps

Wise-Eats.com/Episode22 for the show notes and YouTube video (0:00)

Speech from Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 announcing the assassination of MLK, Jr. (0:00)

Intro! Talking health and fitness amidst economic and political turmoil (1:00)

Introducing Cooper Brunner & Kirsten McCallum (2:00)

Off to a great start when I mispronounce Kirsten’s name 😊 (2:45)

Talking COVID-19 life in Oregon and Michigan (3:30)

Working out at home during COVID-19 (5:20)

Check out the Cooper Brunner Podcast at com (7:00)

How Cooper and Kirsten started podcasting and became co-hosts (7:15)

Overcoming getting fat after being a division one athlete (9:45)

How Cooper differentiates himself from other coaches and relates to clients (10:30)

Kirsten’s fitness journey – Volleyball, weight lifting and physique competing (11:40)

When did you first become passionate about health and fitness? (13:00)

Lowest and highest moments of their athletic careers? (15:50)

How Kirsten overcame multiple back surgeries and being bedridden for 9 months (16:10)

How Cooper’s baseball career came to an end (18:00)

How Cooper uses his baseball experience to inspire others (19:00)

Kirsten’s weight lifting routine since having back surgery (20:40)

What attracted Kirsten to weight lifting (22:00)

Advice for women who are reluctant to get into weight lifting? (23:00)

Advice for someone who is interested in bodybuilding / physique competition? (24:40)

Biggest difference between training for physique and training for general health? (25:30)

Your training regimens on a typical day? (26:50)

Cooper’s philosophy of “High Intensity Body Building” HIBB (27:25)

Inspiration from Ryan Fischer and German volume training (27:25)

Why Kirsten prefers to lift weights in the evenings (28:30)

The body parts Kirsten likes to focus on in the gym (Spoiler alert: No chest day!) (28:50)

Lots of volume and heavy lifting! (29:40)

What are your current health and fitness goals (30:50)

Encouraging others to be active at com (31:05)

Transitioning from competition to normal, healthy life for Kirsten (31:50)

What does a typical diet day look like for you? (33:00)

Intermittent fasting, warrior diet, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Macros, My Fitness Pal (33:00)

Kirsten LOVES food: Her diet routine (35:45)

How she uses carbs to fuel her workouts (36:50)

Quick Bites! Rapid Fire Questions (38:00)

What was the biggest single factor holding you back from starting your healthy lifestyle? (38:15)

What is your favorite exercise routine or program? (38:45)

Favorite specific lift? (39:15)

One healthy food you can’t live without? (39:30)

What is your favorite muscle-building recipe? (39:40)

Favorite un-wise food choice? (39:50)

One thing you’ve been successful in because of your dedication to fitness? (40:00)

What is one item in your kitchen you can’t live without? (40:25)

What book are you reading now? (40:50)

Think and Grow Rice by Napoleon Hill and The Law of Attraction by Mike Losier (40:50)

What podcasts do you listen to? (42:00)

The Mindset Mentor, MFCEO, Gary Vee, Joe Rogan, Ed Mylett Max Out (42:00)

What is your favorite thing to listen to when working out? (43:20)

Neffex, 2Pac, Biggie Smalls, Green Day, AC/DC (43:20)

One song you refuse to take off your workout mix? (44:20)

Win by Tee Grizzley, Rumors by Neffex (44:20)

Something that you’re passionate about right now? (45:00)

Replace SR Endurance Products (45:00)

Kirsten getting refocused on training and her professional life (45:45)

Will we see a professional baseball game in 2020? (46:15)

One last piece of advice for listeners looking to improve their health/fitness? (46:30)

Be knowledgeable about nutrition. Training is easy, dieting is hard (46:30)

Find a plan, stick to the plan, surround yourself with positivity (47:00)

@cbrunner37 @kirsten_m1320  com MAKE TODAY COUNT (47:40)

Wise-Eats.com/Episode22 for show notes, pictures, transcript, and more! (49 :00)

  Website Link: Wise-Eats.com/Episode22

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/E1e97noscWY

Podcast Webpage: Wise-Eats.com/Podcast

Instagram Wes Wise: @weswisefitness

Instagram Cooper Brunner: @cbrunner37

Instagram Kirsten McCallum: @kirsten_m1320

E-Mail: wiseeatspodcast@gmail.com

E-Mail: mailto:cooperbrunnerfitness@gmail.com

Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/wiseeatspodcast

  Articles/Brands/Products Mentioned in This Episode:

Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 Speech

RFK Speaks After MLK Killed | Flashback | History

com

Cooper Brunner Podcast Episode 16 – Cooper & Kirsten’s first show together

Replace SR Endurance Products

Ryan Fischer Performance Training

German Volume Training

Kirsten Book Recommendation: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Cooper Book Recommendation: Law of Attraction by Michael Losier

Kirsten Podcast Recommendation: The Mindset Mentor

Cooper Podcast Recommendation: The MFCEO Andy Frisella, GaryVee Audio Experience, Joe Rogan Experience, Ed Mylett Max Out

Kirsten Song Recommendation: Rumors by Neffex

Cooper Song Recommendation: Win by Tee Grizzley

  Wise Eats Healthy Recipes: Wise-Eats.com/Recipes

Website Design Thank You: DoeringDesign.com

Logo Design Thank You’s: @this_show, MGSignsDesign.com

Editing Animations Thank You: Darin Roberts aka Misteredit1 on YouTube

  The Wise Eats Podcast is written, filmed, edited, produced by Wesley Wise, and shared by YOU. Your support is greatly appreciated!

  Submit questions, comments, feedback to WiseEatsPodcast@gmail.com or to @weswisefitness on Instagram. Thanks for watching, listening, reviewing, liking, subscribing, and sharing. Be good to yourself, be good to others, and make wise choices!

Check out this episode!

[castyourpodtothewind]

CYPTTW Review #7 - Crimetown

Who the hell are you?! Hi! I’m Taylor and I recently dived headfirst into podcasts! I have since binged on several of them and decided to make reviews of the ones that really stood out. These are not going to be big, professional reviews (I’m lazy) but they should hopefully contain information to help you get into some great new listens!

Where do you listen to your podcasts? My personal recommendation for listening to podcasts is the Pocket Casts app, available for Android or iPhone. It costs $3.99 to buy, but I think it's super worth it, since it has a lot of great features and zero in-app ads, which to me is worth every penny. But if you like free apps or just don't have the scratch right now, my runner up is Podcast Addict. It's free and has some (but not all) of the features Pocket Casts has, plus you have to deal with the ads. But if you don't like either of those, do some searching! There's lots of options out there.

---

Name of Podcast: Crimetown

Creators of Podcast: Gimlet Media

Genre(s): Non-Fiction, True Crime, Mafia

Start and End Date of Podcast: November 20th, 2016 - May 8th, 2017 (On Hiatus, Season 2 coming November 2018)

Number of Episodes: 18 (plus 7 bonus episodes)

Release Schedule: On Hiatus, Season 2 coming November 2018

Where Can I Find It: http://www.crimetownshow.com/

Donation/Patreon?: None (If anyone can find one I missed, please DM me)

Age Rating: This podcast is heavily focused around the mafia, so there is a lot of violence and profanity involved. PG-13.

Where I Am Now: Caught Up

Official Summary: Welcome to Crimetown, a new series from Gimlet Media and the creators of HBO’s The Jinx. Every season, we’ll investigate the culture of crime in a different American city. First up: Providence, Rhode Island, where organized crime and corruption infected every aspect of public life. This is a story of alliances and betrayals, of heists and stings, of crooked cops and honest mobsters—a story where it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Hosted by Marc Smerling and Zac Stuart-Pontier.

Representation?: N/A as this is a non-fiction podcast

Transcripts?: Official transcripts are available for every episode on the website!

Trigger Warnings?: Violence, Child Abuse, Prison Life, Drugs, Murder

How Long To Listen Before Giving Up?: I was hooked on this show from the very first episode, it plays out like a Hollywood movie. If you must have a bail-out point, listen until episode 10.

Anything Else I Should Know?: Season 2 has been confirmed to begin in November, based in a different city, but creators are keeping it under wraps until the premiere. In the meantime, they have premiered a new podcast called the RFK Tapes, exploring the conspiracy that RFK’s shooter was not the real culprit. I listened to the pilot and thought it was promising, but ultimately didn’t have much interest in the subject matter. If that’s your kind of thing, though, I’d say go for it.

If You Like This, You Might Also Like: Heaven’s Gate, Limetown, The RFK Tapes, Serial

Pros

If you love non-fiction podcasts, this one is going to blow you away. The podcast is 100% real people and real events, but it plays out like a Hollywood mobster movie. It’s insane to realize that as little as 30-40 years ago entire cities were under mob rule, and most of those mobsters were right there in city hall. If you have any interest in the subject at all, you have hit the jackpot with this podcast.

The subject of Season 1 is the city of Providence, Rhode Island, focusing on the mayoral career of Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. Most people remember Buddy Cianci for his various scandals, the least of which being his barely-concealed ties to organized crime, yet he was somehow re-elected after being forced to resign office. At first you listen and wonder how in hell he could have been re-elected, but as you get further and further and get to know the man in question, you think “damn, no wonder he got re-elected.” Buddy Cianci had charisma for days and did many amazing things for the city, things that people in Providence still have not forgotten.

You don’t just get to hear from Buddy Cianci, however, you also get exclusive interviews with former mafia members, detailing how they got into La Cosa Nostra in the first place, what their jobs and duties were, and explaining how the Raymond Patriarca crime family managed to infiltrate the mayor’s office. Every mobster we hear speak is startlingly human, and you honestly really start to get to know them and sympathize with their reasons for why they joined and why they did the things they did. Some of them hold regrets, others say they did what they had to and looking back isn’t going to help matters. The families of these mobsters were also interviewed, although many declined. But it’s not just the ex-wise guys you hear from, you also get to hear interviews from former FBI agents who managed to bring down the Patriarca crime family, and exposed the city hall corruption. The most startling and amazing part of the podcast, for me, was learning that the ex-mobsters and ex-law enforcers are actually good friends these days, having grown a liking and a respect for each other after playing cat-and-mouse all those years ago. They talk and laugh and get along swimmingly, even joking about old arrests and convictions with no ill will. It’s honestly quite heartwarming.

If you like hearing about exciting things like bank heists, armored car robberies, drug smuggling, and other such events, you are going to have a very good time with this podcast. The episodes where they detail how the Patriarca crime family pulled off some of the biggest heists of the century were among the most enjoyable episodes, and they plug multiple books written about the subject if that wasn’t enough for you.

One of the ex-mobsters converted to Paganism and is now a Dungeon Master in D&D, and he spends some of the podcast talking about his various RP characters in a stereotypical New York Italian accent. It is exactly as hilarious as it sounds. I think that guy was my favorite.

It’s a small thing, but I reeeeeally like the theme song for this podcast. It’s kind of perfect at setting the tone for the theme of the show.

Cons

There are numerous ex-cons on this podcast! Just kidding. In all seriousness, there wasn’t too much not to like considering that it’s non-fiction. It keeps you interested, there’s tons of content, and the only way this wouldn’t be enjoyable is if the topic doesn’t interest you.

MY RATING: 9.5/10 GOLD BARS - This podcast was a delight to listen to, and I remember being very disappointed when the first season ended because all I wanted was more. Buddy Cianci’s charisma just pours off the audio and it is almost unfathomable to realize that he was dead shortly before this podcast even started. When I finished the podcast, I immediately bought his autobiography just so I could learn more about such a complex and morally grey character. I can’t wait for season 2 and I hope you guys enjoy this season while you wait.

[newyorktheater]

Jeremy Konopka, Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan, Joe Joseph, Jonathan Spivey. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

Before the musical “’68” begins, newspaper headlines are projected on the stage a, marking some of the tumultuous events in the year 1968 — the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, campus protests and city riots across the United States….and the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But, despite the title of their musical,  which is an entry in the New York Musical Theater festival, librettist/lyricist Jamie Leo and composer Paul Leschen focus on just one of those events; the NYMF program bills “’68” as “inspired by the volatile events of the 1968 Democratic Convention and their place in history and our future.”

It’s a smart choice and in itself an ambitious undertaking. What happened in Chicago, from the contentious politicking inside the International Amphitheatre tothe demonstrations and police violence in the parks and streets outside, is in many ways emblematic of that chaotic era.

68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jonathan Spivey, Delphi Borich, Jeremy Konopka, Bob Gaynor, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Jalynn Steele. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan

Joe Joseph, in 68 A New Musical

‘68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Jonathan Spivey, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Joe Joseph, Jeremy Konopka, Delphi Borich, Mary Callanan, Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jalynn Steele, Bob Gaynor, Maggie Hollinbeck. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

‘68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jonathan Spivey, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan, Jeremy Konopka, Jalynn Steele, Maggie Hollinbeck, Delphi Borich, Joe Joseph. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

There are moments in “’68” that get at the era in a winning way. One of the most memorable is the song “Power-less” in which Lonnie (portrayed by Uton Onyejekwe), a black man dressed in the black militant uniform of the day – black leather jacket and black beret – explains why he is supporting Hubert Humphrey for president. Even those who don’t get the humor in the incongruity will appreciate the stirring Soul sound of the song. Indeed, Paul Leschen’s score is largely a pleasing pastiche of a range of 60’s era music, especially some mighty pretty folk songs.

There is much to like in “’68,” thanks in part to a production directed by Joey Murray that is competently staged, well-acted and well-sung.  But as in 1968, so in “’68” (to paraphrase Joan Didion’s quote from a Yeats poem): The center does not hold.

The musical is framed as an oral history project conducted by a librarian named Charlene (portrayed by Broadway veteran Mary Callanan) who has hired an assistant named Gary (Jeremy Konapka) to help her conduct interviews with the various participants. So we see an extended scene from The Festival of Light, a vaudevillian-like demonstration that was held in Chicago’s Grant Park by the Yippies, who nominated a pig named Pigasus for president; we also see “Hippie Sunny” (Delphi Borich) speaking into Charlene’s tape recorder commenting on the event. We see a scene of a police superintendent talking about crowd control with a group of officers, and later, Charlene and Gary’s interviews with Lt. Stubig (Bob Gaynor), a police officer who cracked heads at the festival.  We see Rebeca (Nicole Paloma Sarro), working the phones as a Humphrey campaign aide and talking (and singing) with her colleague Sandy (Maggie Hollinbeck), and then watch while she explains to Charlene how her mother was a political organizer in Mexico who’s become a maid in the Chicago Hilton, and, later, what impact the convention has had on her life. (“It made me sad.”)

Charlene and Gary occasionally debate what they should include and what they should leave out, which fits in with a main theme of the musical – “The Trouble with History” (which is the title of the first song.)  The working philosophy behind the musical is that the everyday people who participated were just as important as the “big name authors and party bosses….

You can bet they’ll have their word

But what about the rest of us?

What’s the chances we’ll get heard?

  This is hard to argue with in theory, but “’68” spends too much time on what feel like extraneous matters. There’s a song about how run-down the hotel where the conventioneers stayed; a song by Gary and Lt. Stubig about the police officer’s daughter, who is also Gary’s ex-girlfriend, leaving them both to live in a commune in Wisconsin; and an out-of-left field scene and song from Charlene recalling Chicago in 1948 and how her father was punished for his activism. The latter two songs seem part of an effort to flesh out Gary and Charlene as characters; the 40’s song, “Price Tag,” has a wonderful Andrews Sister vibe.   Meanwhile, though,  there’s little about what happened at the convention itself, as if that were irrelevant. There’s no effort to dramatize or even mention, for example, the battle for Kennedy delegates between Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator George McGovern in the wake of RFK’s assassination. There’s little (except for Lonnie’s song) about the moving irony of the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, who was an outspoken liberal during his entire Senatorial career, yet as Johnson’s vice president, was now viewed as LBJ’s puppet and the war monger candidate. There is nothing about the fight by civil rights activists to seat a more integrated slate of delegates from five states of the South. There is nothing about the impact on the Democratic Party of the political conflicts. Nobody would want gavel-to-gavel coverage – and you can’t include everything in a 95-minute musical — but if we’re promised a musical “inspired by” the Chicago convention, shouldn’t we get some orienting sense of the convention itself, rather than just the disorienting turmoil that surrounded it?

The creative team might even have gotten away with this odd omission, if “’68” were less diffuse. It’s as if, like the oral historians Charlene and Gary, they argued with one another about what mattered, and then couldn’t decide.

https://soundcloud.com/jamie-leo-988074172/sets/songs-from-68-lyrics-by-jamie-leo-music-by-paul-leschen

  ’68 is on stage at Theatre Row as part of the New York Musical Festival. Remaining performances, todat at 5 and 9, tomorrow (Sunday, July 29) at 5.

NYMF Review ’68: A Musical about the 1968 Chicago Convention and the Limits of History Before the musical “’68” begins, newspaper headlines are projected on the stage a, marking some of the tumultuous events in the year 1968 -- the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, campus protests and city riots across the United States….and the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.