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.

  • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    So help me understand. When Obama faced the exact same pushback and bias against him was he also cheated? Because he got the exact same treatment. The exact same treatment as most other people who ran in a Democratic primary for the last 50 years. I absolutely agree that the Democrats primary rules were ironically not very democratic. But no one got cheated. They all signed up knowing the rules. Better yet unlike all the ones before him. Sanders despite losing one concessions to make the primaries more democratic.

    So why was it only cheating or shenanigans when Sanders was involved?

    • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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      19 hours ago

      Obama was cheated, but he caught the DNC off guard. They learned their lesson from that and prepared more for Hillary’s coronation that Obama disrupted.

      Obama was also an insider, so they didn’t fight back quite as hard. But they used a lot of the same dirty tricks, stoking racism against him and accusing the opposition of sexism.

      You’re arguing on a very narrow definition of “cheated.” If you agree that the Democratic primaries were not democratic, then it’s just a matter of semantics. The DNC had rules on their charter to conduct primaries impartially. They did not abide by those rules, and flat out said they didn’t have to. That’s conducting a supposedly impartial primary fraudulently in order to give advantage to their preferred candidate. It’s not criminal fraud, but it is the definition of rigging. They did do it to Obama and he overcame it, they did it to Bernie learning from their mistakes and Bernie couldn’t overcome it.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        The primary process was absolutely far too weighed towards national leadership. But it wasn’t “rigged”. Obama winning proved that. No matter how many excuses you make. Hillary and many in the national party were sure pissed about it. And yet they didn’t change the rules.

        Yes national leadership had their pick. They always have. But even the courts didn’t find that the party had rigged anything or done anything in violation of the rules. Tropicaldingdong’s own links elsewhere in the threads prove it an disprove his claims. Leaving them just quoting Donald Trump to support their claims. And if Donald Trump is your source of truth you have problems.

        • megalow@lemmy.today
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          16 hours ago

          It’s like you didn’t even read the post you’re replying to. Not sure what axe you have to grind, but it’s clear that you have a lot of presumptions about what everyone here thinks and some unnecessary hostility to people who are engaging with you in a civil manner.

          You seem to basically agree with what others are saying about unequal influence and control, which is precisely the point. It might be legal but I don’t think it’s a controversial view to acknowledge that our laws are rigged in favor of the wealthy against working people.

          If Obama had actually meant what he said in his campaign speeches, I think they would have stopped him. But that’s obviously total conjecture on my part. His policies certainly showed he was fine playing playing along with the establishment though.

        • doctordevice@lemmy.ca
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          16 hours ago

          I tried to point it out in the reply you ignored, but you need to look up what “rigged” means. It doesn’t necessarily mean a guaranteed outcome, it means conducting something fraudulently to give one particular outcome or person an advantage. That’s quite literally what the DNC does, by their own admission, and from your own comments it doesn’t sound like you disagree. You just can’t accept that those actions equate to “rigged.”

          The courts didn’t say the DNC hadn’t rigged it. The courts said the DNC hadn’t broken the law, based on the DNC’s argument that it was within their rights to – you guessed it – rig the whole thing.