I wonder what the Kennedy clan think now. I wonder what people in his father’s generation would think of a Kennedy actively working to hide information from American citizens. I can’t say. I can say this is not the type of act I think of when I admire the Kennedy family. Not even close.
Robert Kennedy promised to be a good guy. An outsider who wasn’t tainted by Washington. Someone who fought for the little guy and wouldn’t let big government get away with things like making decisions in secret without any transparency.
Big surprise: it was a lie.
His catchphrase was “radical transparency” Sounds really cool, don’t it? This will be a new era when Government works for the people! Like this press release:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are committed to promoting radical transparency to make sure all Americans know what is in their food.
One could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Kennedy planned to be radically transparent. That the government would be radically transparent. Let’s be clear Radical transparency is for other people. Not Mr. Kennedy. Who is now consolidating his position as a DC power broker.
One of the backbones of transparency in the U.S. government is the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA. This allows people outside the government, people like Mr. Kennedy only a few months ago, to ask the government to provide information on what it is doing. It’s based on the idea that we the people are the government and the information they generate belongs to us.
That was when FOIA served Mr. Kennedy’s purpose. Those days are now gone. FOIA will stand in the way of Mr. Kennedy, so it’s being gutted. Per Rolling Stone (Health Secretary RFK Jr. Promised Radical Transparency. Now He’s Closing FOIA Offices)
Or they did until Tuesday, anyway. Officials at the FDA and NIH have confirmed that many civil servants who work on FOIA in those offices have been let go, while the CDC’s FOIA desk has been completely eradicated, according to the agency’s chief operating officer. An email from Rolling Stone to foiarequests@cdc.gov returned an auto-reply that read, “Hello, the FOIA office has been placed on admin leave and is unable to respond to any emails.” Emails to several other addresses for FOIA requests at HHS agencies – to check whether they are still active – did not receive immediate replies.
For those of us who have followed Mr. Kennedy and his anti-vaccine community for decades, his dishonesty comes as no surprise. I didn’t expect his hypocrisy to be so blatant so early.
We’ve already seen the Kennedy family distance themselves from Robert Kennedy on numerous occasions. Here’s a recent quote on that:
No prominent Kennedy has publicly endorsed RFK Jr., and the list of those who have shunned him politically is a Who’s Who of the Kennedy family: Caroline Kennedy, Joe Kennedy III, Victoria Ann Kennedy, Patrick J. Kennedy, Rory Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg, the son of Caroline Kennedy.
I wonder what the Kennedy clan think now. I wonder what people in his father’s generation would think of a Kennedy actively working to hide information from American citizens. I can’t say. I can say this is not the type of act I think of when I admire the Kennedy family. Not even close.
I wonder about the hypocrisy of his supporters. People who decried the lack of transparency in the government. Will they stand against this move by their hero? Smart money says no.
By Matt Carey
Left Brain Right Brain 
Recent Comments