RFK Jr. Announces Presidential Bid 2024 & his Enviromental Fight for Fairness
On April 19, 2023, Robert Kennedy gave his speech announcing his run for the Presidential 2024 Bid. In it, he highlights his passion for his environmental advocacy work. His environmental advocacy took him into the trenches and allowed him to see firsthand the corruption and unfairness of the system. He was especially concerned about the inequities surrounding higher levels of pollution and black communities. HIs advocacy represents his passion to help the underdog fight against inequities and the abuse of power.
Key Talking Points:
- Kennedy spent 35 years as an environmental lawyer.
- In 1994 his mentor offered him a job doing high-level environmental policy work in Washington.
- He decided not to do this. He wanted to go in hand-to-hand combat against the big polluters and work directly with people who are negatively affected by it.
- He was involved in a lawsuit where they were trying to put a transfer station in one of the oldest black neighborhoods in the Hudson River area.
- He learned that toxic waste was usually stored four out of five times in black neighborhoods and that 48% of black youth had dangerous levels of lead in their blood which can cause severe behavioural problems, and reduce IQ levels.
- He spent his 30 years fighting against this abuse of power and even spent a summer in a Puerto Rican jail as part of his advocacy work.
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Key Data and Evidence Points:
- Kennedy’s early work with Hudson Riverkeeper set lasting standards for environmental law and inspired the creation of hundreds of similar organizations throughout the United States and abroad, especially the WaterKeeper Alliance, helping to fuel the keeper movement.
- His first great success there was cleaning up the Quassaick Creek, a Hudson River tributary that flowed through several towns that were polluting the water.
- Other litigation includes his win of $290M from Monsanto as a result of their product Roundup, claiming that the chemical caused cancer in his client.
- Robery Kennedy Jr. has also initiated a lawsuit against Biden and other federal defendants asserting that since early 2020 the federal government had violated the First Amendment by inducing social-media companies to censor others’ protected speech. Defendants included Gina McCarthy, in her official capacity as White House National Climate Advisor. The complaint alleged that McCarthy “publicly demanded that social-media platforms engage in censorship and suppression of speech that contradicts federal officials’ preferred narratives on climate change”.
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