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joseph kennedy iii
'Gross': Critics Recoil After Trump-Appointed Board Adds His Name to Kennedy Center
"Some things leave you speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief," said journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late President John F. Kennedy.
Dec 18, 2025
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday drew an outraged reaction after she announced that members of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board, who were appointed by President Donald Trump, had voted to add his name to the building.
In a post on X, Leavitt announced that the building would henceforth be known as the "Trump-Kennedy Center," despite the fact that the building was originally named by the US Congress in the wake of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
"I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center... have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center," Leavitt wrote on X, "because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation."
Despite Leavitt's claim, it does not appear that the vote in favor of renaming the building was unanimous. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio Kennedy Center board member, said after the vote that she had been muted during a call where other board members had voted to add Trump's name to the building, and was thus "not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move."
Journalist Terry Moran noted that the Kennedy Center board does not have the power to rename the building without prior approval of US Congress.
"Congress establishes these institutions through law, and only a new law can rename them," Moran wrote, and then commented, "also—gross."
Members of the Kennedy family also expressed anger at the move to rename the center.
Former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) wrote on Bluesky that "the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law," and "can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says."
Journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late president, could barely express her anger at the decision.
"Some things leave you speechless, and enraged, and in a state of disbelief," she wrote. "At times such as that, it’s better to be quiet. For how long, I can’t say."
Shortly afterward, Shriver wrote another post in which she attacked Trump for being "downright weird" with his obsession with having things named after himself.
"It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy," she said. "It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on."
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Massachusetts Progressive Candidates Outraise Centrist Opponents in Last Days of Primary Campaign
Both Sen. Ed Markey and Alex Morse outraised their opponents in recent days, even after an endorsement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Markey's challenger and a smear campaign directed at Morse.
Aug 21, 2020
Progressives running in two high-profile Democratic primary elections in Massachusetts reported Friday that they outraised their centrist opponents in a recent fundraising push, raising hopes for the outcome of the September 1 primary in the state.
Sydney Levin-Epstein, special projects manager for Sen. Ed Markey, who is running to retain his seat, tweeted that the campaign raised triple the amount amassed by Rep. Joe Kennedy III's campaign since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed Kennedy on Thursday.
Kennedy, who Markey has denounced as a "progressive in name only," raised over $100,000 while Markey's campaign raised more than $300,000 via 9,000 individual contributions.
Markey, who co-authored the Green New Deal with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), has rejected Kennedy's attempt to cast himself as a youthful candidate who will bring bold reforms to Massachusetts voters' lives. The senator condemned Kennedy in a recent debate for spending time working for a right-wing prosecutor, neglecting to prioritize action, and failing to back Medicare for All until 2019.
Pelosi's endorsement angered progressives this week, with the Sunrise Movement saying it revealed a "ridiculous double standard," considering the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC) blacklisting of vendors who work with candidates who challenge incumbent Democrats.
"In less than 24 hours, Ed raised $300,000 after Nancy Pelosi endorsed our opponent," tweeted Sam Delgado, a fellow with Markey's campaign. "The progressive movement is real, it's alive, and it's sticking with Ed."
Also on Friday, Holyoke, Massachusetts Mayor Alex Morse announced that his U.S. House campaign against longtime Rep. Richard Neal raised more than his opponent in the pre-primary filing period.
Morse amassed $475,000 in donations in recent weeks while Neal received about $367,400.
The vast majority of Morse's funds in recent weeks came in the form of small donations under $200, while just 1% of Neal's contributions were under $200.
The news out of Morse's campaign follows a controversy over the mayor's consensual relationships, which the Massachusetts Democratic Party reportedly helped a College Democrats chapter to orchestrate.
"Alex Morse looks very likely to join the ranks of new progressive millennials in Congress," tweeted TIME magazine correspondent Charlotte Alter.
Medicare for All advocate and infectious disease physician Robbie Goldstein, who is running to unseat Rep. Stephen Lynch, also outraised his opponent. Goldstein amassed $174,000 through 1,646 donations in the final FEC filing period while Lynch raised less than 10,000.
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Nancy Pelosi Endorsing Joe Kennedy Over Ed Markey, Critics Charge, 'Reveals a Ridiculous Double Standard'
Progressives accused the House speaker of "proving she's not, in fact, against Dems primarying Dems, as long as it's to remove anyone who advances halfway progressive ideas."
Aug 20, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under fire from progressive activists and advocacy groups in Massachusetts and nationwide on Thursday for endorsing Rep. Joe Kennedy III in his bid to unseat Sen. Ed Markey--a move that critics said suggests the Democratic establishment's threat to blacklist firms and strategists that help primary challengers to incumbents was always about blocking candidates from running to the left of the party's current members of Congress.
"Never before have the times demanded we elect courageous leaders as today, and that is why I am proud to endorse Joe Kennedy for Senate," Pelosi said in a video Thursday, citing Kennedy's record of campaigning and fundraising across the country during the 2018 midterm cycle, when he served as a mid-Atlantic and New England regional vice chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
"Pelosi's endorsement is both a boon to Kennedy and a snub of Markey, who was an ally of the California Democrat during his long tenure in the House," reported the Boston Globe. "In 2007, during her first turn as speaker, Pelosi chose Markey over several other prominent lawmakers to head a select committee dedicated to energy and global warming issues, and then supported the 2009 climate legislation he co-wrote, bringing it to a vote on the House floor."
In response to the endorsement, Markey--who represented Massachusetts' 7th Congressional District from 1976 to 2013 before being elected to the Senate--tweeted: "Speaker Pelosi is an effective leader who has shattered glass ceilings throughout her career. I had the privilege to work alongside Nancy in the House for decades and any candidate would be proud to have her endorsement. I congratulate Joe Kennedy on securing her support."
However, some of Markey's supporters and groups that have worked to elect progressives expressed frustration with Pelosi's decision to get involved in the high-profile, tight race ahead of the September 1 primary election--particularly given the DCCC's incumbent-favoring blacklist policy, which Pelosi and other party leaders have stood behind despite criticism that it blocks progressives from replicating primary victories like that of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in 2018.
Justice Democrats, which backed Ocasio-Cortez's 2018 challenge to a longtime Democratic congressman, called Pelosi's decision to endorse Kennedy "outrageous" in an email Thursday, declaring that "this move reeks of hypocrisy: the party is setting one standard for progressives and one entirely different standard for the establishment."
The group's email also highlighted that Ocasio-Cortez--who is a lead sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution with Markey and has endorsed him in this race--responded to Pelosi's move in a pair of tweets noting the DCCC's blacklist policy:
The New York congresswoman was far from alone in mentioning the policy. The youth-led Sunrise Movement, which advocates for a Green New Deal and is among the activists and groups backing Markey, pointed to it in a statement Thursday.
"This endorsement is an embarrassment for Speaker Pelosi, and we're honestly shocked she had the gall to invoke social movements in endorsing Joe Kennedy," Sunrise said. "Despite millions of dollars from Joe Kennedy's family, Ed Markey is surging because his movement-connected campaign has inspired genuine grassroots support and because voters have seen him show throughout the years that he's willing to stand up for working people and movements when it counts."
"This endorsement is embarrassing because it plainly reveals a ridiculous double standard," the group continued. "When progressives challenge incumbent Democratic lawmakers who vote with Trump two-thirds of the time, Nancy Pelosi cries foul and works with the DCCC to make a blacklist for anyone helping the challenger. But with today's announcement, Speaker Pelosi is saying that when she likes the challenger, or the challenger has a rich and wealthy family, helping challengers is okay."
Sunrise--which has a record of pushing Pelosi to be better on climate policy--added of the DCCC's blacklist policy that "this has never been about protecting incumbents, it's been about protecting big Democratic donors profiting off the status quo."
Journalists and progressives piled on, with Zach Carter of HuffPost tweeting that "this endorsement makes pretty clear that Pelosi's leadership is not about protecting incumbents or maximizing majorities, but realizing a particular vision for the party."
ABC political reporter Johnny Verhovek tweeted Thursday that a Pelosi aide told one of his colleagues the speaker took issue with Markey's twist on a famous line of former President John F. Kennedy, his challenger's great-uncle, in a recent campaign ad.
As Common Dreams reported after Markey's campaign released the ad last week, the three-minute video won high praise from supporters and political commentators, who said that it "has the exact right message: we live in a society, it has a contract, the government can't just let people die."
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'The Clear Progressive Choices': Working Families Party Endorses Markey and Morse in Primary Contests
"The progressive cavalry is headed to Massachusetts."
Aug 06, 2020
The Working Families Party on Thursday endorsed Sen. Ed Markey for re-election and Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse for Congress, calling the two Democrats the "two clear progressive choices" in their respective contests in the upcoming September 1 primary.
"Sen. Markey and Alex Morse are the clear progressive choices in this race," said WFP national director Maurice Mitchell said in a statement. "They're leaders on a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, they have the political will to shift the balance of power in Washington, and they're committed to building a Massachusetts that works for the many, not the few."
Markey, facing a challenge from Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), earned the group's endorsement for his longtime advocacy of progressive causes and his work to advance those goals through legislation in the Senate, including the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
In a statement welcoming the endorsement, Markey noted his record and tied it to the priorities of WFP.
"I'm grateful they've chosen to endorse me in this race," said Markey. "Throughout my career, I have worked to challenge the wealthy and powerful, from big oil to the NRA, and fight for the needs of working families. I'm thrilled that working families across the country support my campaign to carry on that fight."
Morse, who is running in Massachusetts' 1st District against longtime incumbent Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), said that "as someone who comes from a working family in a working class town, I am proud to be a Working Families Democrat."
"The Working Families Party has a track record of helping grassroots campaigns like ours unseat corporate-backed incumbents like Neal, and I'm excited to have their support," said Morse. "I'm ready to go to Washington to join the WFP to fight for policies that help people, not corporations and wealthy donors."
The endorsements come in the wake of progressive wins in Tuesday's primaries. In Missouri, Cori Bush charged to an upset victory over 10-term incumbent Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.); in Michigan, progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) steamrolled a challenge from Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones.
"The progressive cavalry is headed to Massachusetts," tweeted CNN reporter Greg Krieg.
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'We Have Never Endorsed You,' Sunrise Movement--Which Backs Ed Markey--Reminds Joe Kennedy III
"It is now day 309 of trying to figure out why Kennedy decided to run for Senate. He obviously doesn't even know either."
Jul 27, 2020
The youth-led Sunrise Movement reiterated the climate advocacy group's support for Sen. Ed Markey on Sunday night after the Massachusetts Democrat compared endorsements with his primary challenger, Congressman Joe Kennedy III, during a livestreamed debate.
Markey, the lead Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution, said that "the Sunrise Movement, which is the heart of the Green New Deal, they have rallied to my side. They're young people in college and high school and middle schools--just rallied all across the state, all across the country."
After listing a number of other supporters of his run--including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood--Markey added that "this is a movement built around the progressive groups in our country but led by young people who are rallied because of this climate crisis."
"Senator, of course those organizations have endorsed you," Kennedy, responded. "They endorse incumbents. Almost all of them have endorsed me in every race that I've had, too."
The Sunrise Movement tweeted a video of the exchange with a clear message for Kennedy: "We have never endorsed you."
The group also said that young people want Markey re-elected and pointed out that most of the candidates that Sunrise has endorsed are challengers not incumbents.
Progressive activist Jordan Uhl also noted the exchange in a series of tweets, calling it a "weird moment for Joe Kennedy" and sharing a screenshot of Sunrise's 2018 endorsements.
Sunrise endorsed Markey in August 2019, about a month before Kennedy formally announced his challenge to the incumbent, and the group has stood by the senator, who spent nearly four decades representing Massachusetts in the U.S. House before being elected to the upper chamber in 2013.
In a statement announcing Sunrise's endorsement last year, movement co-founder and executive director Varshini Prakash explained that "six years ago, Markey first earned my vote by standing with indigenous communities, farmers, and young people across North America as one of the first national politicians to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline in his first run for United States Senate."
"Senator Markey knows that to achieve the unprecedented scale of transformation that the Green New Deal calls for and the climate crisis requires, we will need an unprecedented coalition of workers, young people, and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis and our broken economy--and that the policies must be designed with those communities at the tables shaping them," she added.
On Sunday, in addition to reiterating Sunrise's support for Markey, the group took to Twitter to highlight another moment from the debate, when Kennedy says of his competitor, "I think the senator has worked very hard for his constituents."
Markey and Kennedy's primary is still officially scheduled for September 1, but because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, some voters may be casting ballots by mail as early as this week.
As the Boston Globe put it: "September 1 is no longer primary day, now it's just the last day state residents can vote in the primary. So for some chunk of voters, Sunday night wasn't the first in a final stretch of three debates, but possibly the final debate they watch before they cast a ballot in their mailbox."
Although polls in September showed Kennedy 14 point ahead, his lead dropped to six points in February and "there hasn't been reliable public polling on this race in months," the newspaper noted. "Both campaigns seem to acknowledge that Kennedy is winning and that the campaign is tightening--it's just where in single digits the campaign is that is in question."
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Progressives Slam Oil-Soaked Steny Hoyer for Backing Joe Kennedy III Over Green New Deal Champion Ed Markey
"Hoyer does not actually have a problem with primary challengers, he has a problem with progressives."
May 19, 2020
Progressives and climate activists expressed frustration with Democratic Party leadership after Politico reported Tuesday that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would be holding a virtual fundraiser for Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Ed Markey in the 2020 Massachusetts Democratic primary.
Markey, who cosponsored the Green New Deal with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), has the support of youth climate group the Sunrise Movement, which cited Hoyer's affiliation with Big Oil in a scathing statement on the fundraiser to Common Dreams.
"Steny Hoyer has received millions from oil and gas PACs and bundlers over his career, he's the number two highest recipient of fossil fueled electric utilities this cycle, and he recently tried to jam a Big Oil handout into the coronavirus relief packaged passed by Democrats in the House," said Sunrise's political director Evan Weber. "Given all that, it's no wonder that he'd prefer that the co-author of the Green New Deal doesn't win his re-election campaign."
As Common Dreams reported, Hoyer's ultimately unsuccessful advocacy for a fossil fuel bailout in the HEROES Act passed by Congress on May 15 earned the Maryland Democrat harsh criticism from his primary challenger, progressive Mckayla Wilkes.
"This is just one example of Congressman Hoyer's failure to approach the climate crisis with the urgency it requires," Wilkes said.
Journalist Kate Aronoff said on Twitter that while the move by Hoyer could be about political spats and party discipline, Hoyer's reliance on fossil fuel and utility industry donors can't be ignored as he raises money for the candidate trying to oust one of the Senate's biggest champions of the Green New Deal.
"I think generally this kind of stuff comes down to dumb turf wars and trying to discipline anyone who steps out of line," said Aronoff, "but it's also worth noting that electric utilities are some of Steny Hoyer's biggest donors."
On Tuesday, Wilkes told Common Dreams that Hoyer hosting a fundraiser for Kennedy flies in the face of over a year's worth of threats and blacklists by Democratic leadership against progressive challengers to incumbents in both the House and the Senate.
"House Democratic Leadership has worked for over a year to disadvantage progressive primary challengers through the DCCC Blacklist," said Wilkes. "Now, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is fundraising for a primary challenge against sitting U.S. Senator Ed Markey, the co-sponsor of the Green New Deal."
"The hypocrisy makes it crystal-clear," she continued. "Hoyer does not actually have a problem with primary challengers, he has a problem with progressives."
Sunrise Movement's Weber echoed those remarks, referring to House Democratic leadership's backing of "Trump's favorite Democrat" Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) against primary challenger attorney Jessica Cisneros in the Lone Star State's primary on March 3.
"It's pretty hypocritical for House leadership to make such a fuss about challenging incumbents in their chamber, and to go as far as to handicapping someone like Jessica Cisneros challenging pro-oil Democrat Henry Cuellar, but then go out of their way to back someone trying to oust the Democrats' most senior leader on climate in the Senate," said Weber. "What gives?"
Hoyer is being joined at the event with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a Congressional Progressive Caucus vice chair, and Reps. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and David Trone (D-Md.). The presence of Raskin irked healthcare advocate Timothy Faust, who tweeted it was a sign that "members of the CPC are throwing Ed Markey under the bus."
"This isn't like kneecapping Sanders--Markey is hardly a socialist; a senator who typifies the 'acceptable' kind of progressive to the Dem Party," said Faust. "They just are willing to take any opportunity to squish anyone left of center."
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Ocasio-Cortez Takes Aim at Crowley and Kennedy For Challenge to Green New Deal Co-Champion Ed Markey
"Joe Kennedy thinks that with the backing of the establishment and the old guard of the Democratic Party that he can beat a progressive champion for justice. Let's show Kennedy that he's wrong."
Oct 08, 2019
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday took aim at her former rival, Joe Crowley, in an email to supporters that presented the Democratic Senate primary in Massachusetts between incumbent Ed Markey and challenger Rep. Joe Kennedy III as an unlikely battle between their party's progressive and establishment wings.
"It's not about primaries for the sake of primaries. It's about the *policy.*"
--Emma Vigeland, The Young Turks
"While Ed Markey is fighting for the Green New Deal in the Senate, Joe Kennedy is getting campaign support from Crowley hosting a high-dollar fundraiser on October 15th," Ocasio-Cortez's team wrote in an appeal for donations that would be split between her and Markey.
"Joe Kennedy thinks that with the backing of the establishment and the old guard of the Democratic Party that he can beat a progressive champion for justice," Ocasio-Cortez added. "Let's show Kennedy that he's wrong."
Crowley, the New York Democrat who lost a primary election to Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, is listed as a "host" for an October 15 fundraiser for Kennedy hosted by lobbyist Tracey Spicer.
The event, according to reporting from The Boston Globe, asks attendees from different tiers to donate to the the Kennedy effort to depose Markey:
According to the invitation, hosts for the fund-raiser are asked to give $5,600 to Kennedy's campaign--the maximum amount an individual can give for the primary and general election, combined. The invitation asks "co-hosts" to pony up $2,800, "supporters" to give $1,000; and "friends" to contribute $500.
The timing of Crowley's insertion into the race comes weeks after Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Markey, her Senate co-sponsor for the Green New Deal.
A Kennedy campaign official, speaking on background, told Common Dreams that Crowley and Kennedy's friendship is longstanding and that Crowley's presence in the race has nothing to do with Ocasio-Cortez.
"They are genuinely close friends and have been for a long time," said the campaign official.
As Sludge pointed out on October 4, Crowley's post-Congress career has set him up nicely to raise cash and wield influence:
Crowley is not just the guy whom AOC beat; he is now senior policy advisor at Squire Patton Boggs, a powerful D.C. lobbying firm that represents large corporations such as oil company Royal Dutch Shell, Management and Training Corp.--the third largest private prison company in the U.S.--and insurer UnitedHealth Group.
The juxtaposition of Ocasio-Cortez, the political upstart whose primary challenge upset the national political order, endorsing the incumbent Markey with her establishment opponent backing Kennedy, who is running on a message of change, was not lost on Boston-based political activist Jonathan Cohn.
"Some pundits have drawn comparisons to Ayanna Pressley's challenge to Mike Capuano last year, with Kennedy invoking rhetoric akin to Pressley's 'Change can't wait,'" said Cohn. "But the dynamics of the race are very different."
The Globe's reporting appears to bear out that perception of the race's dynamics.
The paper gave a rundown of a who's who expected at the October 15 fundraiser:
Former (Ted) Kennedy staffers listed on the invitation include Stephanie Cutter, who went on to serve in the Obama administration and as deputy campaign manager for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, among other roles; David Bowen, who served as staff director for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions when the elder Kennedy was its chairman, and played a major role in drafting and steering the Affordable Care Act through the Senate; and Tom Lopach, a former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee who is currently working on Montana Governor Steve Bullock's presidential campaign.
In her email to supporters, Ocasio-Cortez said that the stakes for the Massachusetts primary are clear.
"We need to help keep Markey in the Senate where he has a proven record of fighting for transformative change," said Ocasio-Cortez.
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'Most Important Climate Leader in the Senate': Green Groups Back Sen. Ed Markey in Primary Fight With Joe Kennedy
"I like Joe Kennedy," said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). "I just don't know why he would choose to run against the climate change movement."
Oct 01, 2019
A Democratic Senate primary battle in Massachusetts is raising the hackles of climate activists, who feel that Rep. Joe Kennedy's challenge to Sen. Edward Markey is putting a target on one of the lawmakers most in touch with the danger of the climate crisis.
"Running against Ed Markey is running against the climate change movement," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told The Boston Globe in a story on the contest published Monday evening.
"I like Joe Kennedy," said Khanna. "I just don't know why he would choose to run against the climate change movement."
"Sen. Markey has been a leader who stood with our movement in the fight for the Green New Deal."
--Evan Weber, Sunrise Movement
The Sierra Club also expressed admiration for Kennedy to The Hill, but stressed the group is sticking with Markey for the primary.
"Joe Kennedy is a climate fighter, Joe Kennedy already co-sponsored the Green New Deal, so Joe Kennedy is someone we very much believe in and have endorsed in the past," the group's Massachusetts branch director Deb Pasternak said.
But, Patersnak said, Markey's leadership on the climate crisis "makes him such an important leader to the climate movement at this time" and thus the group's pick.
"This is really just about Sen. Markey being the climate champion," said Pasternak. "He's the most important climate leader in the U.S. Senate."
Markey is the lead Senate sponsor on the Green New Deal, the legislation he developed alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that has changed the national conversation on the climate crisis. That work, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters after endorsing Markey, is indispensable for the planet's future.
"We do not have time to go through the learning curve," said Ocasio-Cortez.
Sunrise Movement is also backing Markey.
"We wanted to make it clear that Sen. Markey has been a leader who stood with our movement in the fight for the Green New Deal," the group's national political director Evan Weber told the Hill. "He has had our backs and we wanted to make sure we had his too."
"We do not have time to go through the learning curve."
--Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Kennedy announced his challenge to Markey, a first-term Senator who previously served as a Boston-area Congressional representative from 1976 to 2013, on September 21. Kennedy, who has been a Congressman from southeastern Massachusetts since 2013, said in a campaign announcement video that he would fight for "a collective will to tackle the climate crisis so that we will have a planet that will survive for our kids and grandkids."
Reporting on Kennedy's investments, however, has led to skepticism about the challenger's commitment to solving the climate crisis. Finance watchdog Sludge on September 16 revealed Kennedy's stock portfolio has $1.75 million in fossil fuel investments.
Kennedy's holdings, which are contained in inherited family trusts, include Chevron stock worth between $100,001 and $250,000, ExxonMobil stock worth between $500,002 and $1,000,000, and $15,001 to $50,000 worth of stock in Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield services provider. Kennedy also owns $180,004 to $450,000 worth of stock in NextEra Energy, a utility company that owns a coal- and natural gas-burning Florida power company.
"It just confounds explanation to me, if he actually cares about the future of this planet, that he feels like it would be a good idea to launch a primary challenge against the guy who's leading on this issue," 350 Mass Action executive director Craig S. Altemose told the Globe.
"Seems like it's just a move that is primarily driven by ego and ambition instead of a thirst for justice," Altemose added.
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Joe Kennedy and the Precarious Promise of "Moral Capitalism"
Kennedy may not be the messiah Democrats seek for 2020. But he could make a good John the Baptist
Dec 09, 2018
We are a nation that was founded in opposition to hereditary rule. The founders rejected the notion of a king and embraced the principle that there were to be no royal families who generation after generation governed on the assumption of divine right.
In recent decades, we have made two notable exceptions to this democratic disdain of dynasties. And no, the Kardashians don't count.
True, members of these two American dynastic families didn't officially inherit office like kings and queens. They were elected, and to their credit, usually have embraced the concept of public service--albeit often in the tradition of a patrician noblesse oblige, which can translate as making lofty decrees from a pedestal while letting other "lesser" people do the dirty work.
And like so many crowned heads, money has been involved. Lots of it, and much of it ill gotten, the profits of war, resource depletion, and the exploitation of humankind's pleasures and sins. One of the sons of privilege joked after a primary victory that his father sent a telegram: "Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."
This past few days we've been reminded of one of the two families with the death of ex-President George Herbert Walker Bush: blue-blooded son of a U.S. senator; father of one son who served as president and governor of Texas, another who served as governor of Florida and unsuccessfully ran for the White House; and grandfather of the Texas land commissioner--which may not sound like a big deal, but if you live there, is.
The other political dynasty is, of course, the Kennedys. Start with "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, congressman, mayor of Boston, and maternal grandfather of President John F. Kennedy and Sens. Bobby and Ted. He was a champion politician, master, according to one historian, of the so-called "Irish switch"--which involved "chatting amiably with one person while pumping another's hand and gazing fondly at a third."
Honey Fitz passed along his DNA for deft political machinations. We all know the legends of Jack, Bobby, and Ted. Some of the current Kennedy generations--children and grandkids, etc.--have held office, too, although more of them have worked diligently for a variety of non-profits, some of them bankrolled by the family.
Prime among the Kennedy cousins and siblings these days--and touted as a potential White House candidate--is Congressman Joseph Kennedy III, 38, grandson of Bobby, representing the Massachusetts Fourth District and just elected to his fourth term in the House.
He says he's not a candidate for the presidency in 2020, but he's sure talking like one. On the Monday after Thanksgiving, Joe Kennedy spoke to the New England Council, which describes itself as "the nation's oldest regional business organization."
Kennedy echoed the words of his grandfather Bobby, who spoke out against "the other America" of poverty and despair, and even those of highborn President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the so-called "class traitor" who famously declared that he welcomed the hatred of the business and financial cabals, and warned that "government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob." FDR knew that without capitalist reforms, revolution might be inevitable.
Joe Kennedy's speech was about what he called "moral capitalism," and while he may not quite have reached the height of FDR's or his Kennedy forebears' rhetoric, it was an impressive and eloquent shout out against the vast income inequality and greed that threaten the republic, "this deep sense of unease that Americans are working harder and harder for less and less."
...They live in cities and towns more likely to be medically underserved, educationally ostracized from today's job market, plagued by inadequate infrastructure, burdened by crumbling housing or homes no one can afford.
They disproportionately shoulder the hard words that make life hurt--eviction, addiction, bankruptcy, violence.
They hail from the places where polling locations suddenly disappear; where the biggest economic engine is a payday lender; where lead poisons children's water; where injustice and insufficiency fester for generations before government thinks to step in.
Kennedy said he believed that in recent years the left had failed to come up with a viable economic alternative and so "a brutal force stepped into that void. Donald Trump picked up our economic story and gave it a bold, new re-write for modern times. His version doesn't just lean on that age-old conservative theme that success is a treasure some haven't figured out how to find. He takes it a step further and says success is a privilege some don't even deserve."
His is a country of bitter rivalry between fellow citizens, forced to endlessly spar over the scraps of our system. My wages can't grow unless your food stamps go. Your medical bills can't fall unless my insurance gets taken way. So Americans spend their days fighting each other over economic crumbs--while our system quietly hand-delivers the entire pie to those at the top.
The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of our country's wealth, Kennedy noted. "The average CEO makes 361 times what their average worker makes. Payouts to shareholders after the GOP tax bill will hit $1.3 trillion this year while wages still hover at the lowest they've been in over half a century."
Kennedy told the assembled businessmen and businesswomen of the New England Council that unlike many, he still believes in capitalism but that it needs to be rebuilt, the current system stripped "to the studs." And he called for bipartisanship.
Good luck, Joe, with both those capitalist and bipartisan things. God help us if the gulf between the super rich and the rest of us gets any wider. Unless big business and the wealthy follow Kennedy's lead and start to rethink their covetousness, any promise of "moral capitalism" could prove as empty and oxymoronic as George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism." To his credit, Kennedy is working to make it otherwise.
What's more, the Republican Party still doesn't seem to have perceived the lessons of the midterms. You've read about the attempts to further voter suppression and strip the powers of incoming Democratic governors in Wisconsin and Michigan, but in addition, the GOP-dominated Michigan state legislature has taken advantage of a lame duck session to gut new minimum wage and paid sick leave laws. (They had passed the bills earlier to avoid ballot initiatives that would have been harder to reverse, then stuck in the shiv after the election. Classy.)
Same goes for Congress. While Democrats have a big, new hard-won majority in the next House for at least the next two years, the GOP-held Senate will block any legislation that tries to establish economic equity.
But as Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation and others have noted, House Democrats can take advantage of their oversight and investigative powers to expose corruption and greed, teeing up strong legislation down the road.
Vanden Heuvel writes:
A systematic review of the efforts by former corporate lobbyists who are now in the executive branch, busily rigging the rules against working people, would provide the basis for comprehensive legislation to empower workers and protect their rights; raise the minimum wage; crack down on wage theft; use government procurement contracts to reward companies that treat their employees decently; and begin to allow workers to share in the rewards of the recovery. It would also supercharge movements like the Fight for $15 and the teachers' strikes, which are already making progress at the state and local levels.
The House incoming freshman class is young, exciting, and diverse, a well-deserved jolt to the system. Still, they would do well to honor and learn from such incumbent progressives as Joe Kennedy who over the past years in the wilderness managed to hold out against daunting and extreme Republican opposition.
It's a delicate balance. Kennedy may not be the messiah Democrats seek for 2020. But he could make a good John the Baptist, laying the groundwork, spreading the word, and preaching the gospel of change, yet all the while, in Kennedy's case, keeping his head.
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